Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali

Author(s): Prabhavnanda Swami, Christopher Isherwood
Publisher: Ramkrishna Math Madras

Page 69

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PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS
grim, negative aspect of this self-discipline instead o positive aspect; the supreme achievement which the makes possible.
To stress the negative aspect of self-discipline is to to the vast amount of indirect propaganda which i our society, against the spiritual life. Most people, speak of a monk's discipline and austerities, do so and a certain horror; they find such a way of life And yet these same people think it neither unn awe-inspiring if a young man subjects himself to equ austerities in order to train for a boxing match or ar because everybody can understand why one shou win a boxing match. Why one should want to find less apparent.
Austerity for austerity's sake easily degenerates verse cult of self-torture, and this is another danger end should be forgotten in an exaggerated cultiva means. In the Orient and the Occident alike, we exponents of such practices, with their hair shirt scourges, and beds of nails. In the Bhagavad-Gita, explicitly condemns them: “You may know thosem demonic nature who mortify the body excessively, i prescribed by the scriptures. They do this becaus and attachment to sense-objects has filled them w and vanity. In their foolishness, they weaken all t organs, and outrage me, the dweller within the bod
Like the Buddha, Sri Krishna counsels moderatio not for the man who over-eats, or for him who f sively. It is not for him who sleeps too much, or for of exaggerated vigils. Let a man be moderate in his his recreation, moderately active, moderate in sl wakefulness.”
And, in another part of the Gita, the three kir