Yoga a powerful mind is necessary
Chapter. 2
The candidate will learn that bodily greatness in the shape of uncommon muscular strength or skill in athletics will not help at all. The motto with reference to bodily strength
may be said to be ' Enough is enough', but definitely also 'Enough is necessary'. It may be thought by the enquirer or the novice that though a powerful body is not necessary for yoga a powerful mind is necessary-mind being defined as the totality of the fubctions of thinking, feeling, and willing. This too the student soon finds not to be the case. Once more 'Enough is enough', and once more ' Enough is necessary'. Great mental ability and special mental talent or genius are not required. On the other hand, stupidity, confusion, and dissipation can avert or destroy the ' enough'. What of the non-aspirants to yoga? In India, a land where the idea of yoga is familiar to the least educated, and in which there is hardly anybody who has not seen a yogi, what is the state of the average person, who is not seeking yoga? These numerous persons are most surprisingly free from any anxiety or self-reproach in the matter. They take themselves quite peacefully. They say : ' I am not ready for yoga yet; I do not really want it now'. It never occurs to them to think ' I ought to want it '.They do not feel that there is any occasion for self-discontent or self-reproach. They take themselves as they find themselves, and say ' I am fond of the pleasures of eating and talking and sex'-mild as these may be in most cases in india. Oh, yes, they do have the idea that some day they will 'become perfect'. But it is not for now, and thus there is no internal conflict in their minds between the ideal and the actual, which creates such havoc in Western minds. One has indeed sometimes to warn the Western novice not to make of yoga another craving. They also have no theory of ' now or never ' to trouble them, for the belief acquired in childhood, seeming as natural as the mother-tongue and the ways of village life, is that the infinite future will offer them all the opportunity they need whenever they feel ready for it. They lose nothing by postponement. On all these accounts they are not ridden by anxiety. there are ' future lives'. Aspirants to yoga are definitely classed in three divisions -beginners or those ' desiring to mount', those who have adopted some of the outlooks and practices of yoga, and the risen or 'mounted' ones ( yogarudhas ). The word used for the mounted ones ( arudha ) is the same as that used to describe a person mounted on a horse. Such persons are well established in yogic science and skills, and can maintain their yoga practice in the midst of many distractions which would be upsetting to the novice. The beginners are those in whom the desire to mount has somewhat arisen.
The end of chapter 2
Jon Maged
Jon Maged
