Yoga Philosophy

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

Page 41

22
MYSTICISM IN INDIA
contemplation, for the thing thought upon, the thinker and the instrument (together with other things which are attempted to be excluded, are all present in the first, i.e., contemplation, all except the last are present in the second and nothing but the thing is present in the third. This trance-Samādhi however is not complete Yoga, for it is only conscious Samādhi having something to rest upon. As compared with the highest or unconscious Samādhi, conscious Samādhi is a distraction no doubt, for there is yet something which the mind entirely transforms itself into. When the mind ceases to transform itself, the highest Samadhi is reached.
In the intermediate stages between contemplation, absorption and Samādhi, the student of Yoga can if he likes so fix his mind as to put it into direct communion with nature and in this state it obtains all the occult powers that are ascribed to the Yogis of India. As our time this evening is limited and as the author of the Yoga Sutras himself says that these occult powers are after all positive obstacles in the way of highest Samādhi whose proper nature and import is that state in which the soul sees itself, I shall at once pass to the summum bonum, the end and aim of Yoga-tho Kaivalya. One who has the desire to know what the soul is and what relation his mind and the universe bear to it is said to be desirous of Kaivalya. When such a person clearly experiences the distinction between mind and soul and understands the powers and nature of either, that desire is extinguished within him,