Yoga Philosophy

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi, Bhagu F Karbhari
Publisher: Devchand Lalbhai Pustakoddhar Fund

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MYSTICISM IN INDIA
individual ; Ahankāra, Egoism, the persuation which connects the individual with the self, and Buddhi, reason, the light that determines one way or the other. Knowledge or perception is a kind of transformation, Parinäma of the thinking principle into anything which is the subject of external or internal presentation through one or other of these four. All knowledge is of the kind of transformations of the thinking principle. Even the will which is the very first essential of Yoga is a kind of such transformation. Yoga is a coinplete suppression of the thinking principle to transform itself into objects, thoughts, etc. It is possible that there should be degrees among these transformations and the higher ones may assist to check the lower ones but Yoga is acquired only when there is complete cessation of the one or the other. It should distinctly be borne in mind that the thinking principle in this philosophy is not the soul who is the source of all consciousness and knowledge. The suppression of the transformations of the thinking principle does not therefore mean that the Yogi-the practitioner of the Yoga is enjoined to become nil which is certainly impossible. The thinking principle has three qualitiespassivity, activity and grossness. When the action of the last two is checked, the mind stands steally like the jet of a lamp protected from the least breeze. When all the transformations of the thinking principle are suppressed there remains only the never changing eternal soul, the Purusha in perfect Sattva, passivity. Otherwise when the thinking principle transforms