An Introduction to Yoga

...aside and say: “This is not I, but mine.” We find we have a whole series of terms in Yoga Sanskrit for "union"; a system of philosophy and practice designed to still the mind and unite the individual soul with the universal consciousness. which may be repeated over and over again. All the states of mind exist on every plane, says Vyāsa The traditional name of the sage who authored the Yoga Bhashya, the essential commentary that explains the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali., and this way of dealing with man enables the same significant words, as we shall see in a moment, to be used over and over again, with an ever-subtler connotation; they all become relative, and are equally true at each stage of evolution.

Now it is quite clear that, so far as many of us are concerned, the physical body is the only thing of which we can say: “It is not myself”; so that, in the practice of Yoga at first, for you, all the words that would be used in it to describe the states of consciousness, the states of mind, would deal with the waking consciousness in the body as the lowest state, and, rising up from that, all the words would be relative terms, implying a distinct and recognisable state of the mind in relation to that which is the lowest. In order to know how you shall begin to apply to yourselves the various terms used to describe the states of mind, you must carefully analyse your own consciousness, and find out how much of it is really consciousness, and how much is matter so closely appropriated Meaning matter that the self has taken on and identified with so strongly that it is difficult to distinguish from one's true essence. that you cannot separate it from yourself.

STATES OF MIND.

Let us take it in detail. Four states of consciousness are spoken of amongst us. Waking, or