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SANKHYA AND YOGA store, and when, furthermore, the virtuous fulfillment of the tasks of a deceni, normal, human career (dharma) begins to pall, having become a stale routine, there remains, still, the lure of the spiritual adventure-the quest for whatever may lie within (beneath the inask of the conscious personality) and without (behind the visible panorama of the exterior world). What is the secret of this ego, this “I," with whom we have been on such intimate terms all these worn-out years, and who is yet a stranger, full of curious quirks, odd whiins, and puzzling impulses of aggression and relapse? And what has been lurking, meanwhile, behind these external phenomena that no longer intrigue us, producing all these surprises that are not surprises any morci The possibility of discovering the secret of the workings of the cosmic theater itself, after its effects have become only an intolerable bore, remains as the final fascination, challenge, and adventure of the human mind.
We read at the opening of the Yoga-sūtras:
Yogaś cittavștti-nirodhyaḥ. “Yoga consists in the intentional) stopping of the spontaneous activities of the mind-stuff.”
The mind, by nature, is in constant agitation. According to the Hindu theory, it is continually transforming itself into the shapes of the objects of which it becomes aware. Its subtlc substance assumes the forms and colors of everything offered to it by the senses, imagination, memory, and emotions. It is endowed, in other words, with a power of transformation, or metamorphosis, which is boundless and never put at rest.
Pantañjali, Yoga-sutras 1. 1-2. 6 The protean, ever-moving character of the mind, as described both in Sankhya and in Yoga, is comparable to Swedenborg's idea that "recipients are images," i.e., that the receptive organs assume on the spiritual plane the form and nature of whatever objects they receive and contain. (Cf. Swedenborg, Divine Love and Wisdom, § 288.)
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| SR No. | 007309 |
| Book Title | Philosophies of India |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell |
| Publisher | Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd |
| Publication Year | 1953 |
| Total Pages | 709 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 34 MB |