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under control, until it will just beat at will, slowly, or
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RAJA YOGA
quickly, or almost stop. Nearly every part of the body can
be brought under control. What does this show? That these
things which are beneath consciousness are also worked by
us, only we are doing it unconsciously. We have, then, two
planes in which the human mind is working. First is the
conscious plane; that is to say that sort of work which is
always accompanied with the feeling of egoism. That part of
mind-work which is unaccompanied with feeling of egoism
is unconscious work, and that part which is accompanied
with the feeling of egoism is conscious work. In the lower
animals this unconscious work is called instinct. In higher
animals, and in the highest of animals, man, the second part,
that which is accompanied with the feeling of egoism,
prevails, and is called conscious work.
But it does not end here. There is a still higher plane
upon which the mind can work. It can go beyond
consciousness. Just as unconscious work is beneath
consciousness, so there is another work which is above
consciousness, and which, also, is not accompanied with the
feeling of egoism. The feeling of egoism is only on the
middle plane. When the mind is above or below that line
there is no feeling of  I, and yet the mind works. When the
mind goes beyond this line of self-consciousness it is called
Samadhi, or super-consciousness. It is above consciousness.
How, for instance, do we know that a man in Samadhi has
not gone below his consciousness, has not degenerated,
instead of going higher? In both cases the works are
unaccompanied by egoism? The answer is, by the effects,
by the results of the work, we know that which is below, and
that which is above. When a man goes into deep sleep he
enters a plane beneath consciousness. He works the body all
the time, he breathes, he moves the body, perhaps, in his
sleep, without any accompanying feeling of ego; he is
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DHYANA AND SAMADHI
unconscious, and when he returns from his sleep he is the
same man who went into it. The sum-total of the knowledge
which he hap before he went into the sleep remains the
same; it has not increased at all. No enlightenment has
come. But if a man goes into Samadhi, if he goes into it a
fool, he comes out a sage.
What makes the difference? From one state a man comes
out the very same man that went in, and out of another state
the man becomes enlightened, a sage, a prophet, a saint, his
whole character changed, his life changed, illumined. These
are the two effects. Now the effects being different, the
causes must be different. As this illumination, with which a
man comes back from Samadhi, is much higher than can be
got from unconsciousness, or much higher than can be got
by reasoning in a conscious state, it must therefore be super-
consciousness, and Samadhi is called the super-conscious
state.
This, in short, is the idea of Samadhi. What is its
application? The application is here. The field of reason, or
of the conscious workings of the mind, is narrow and
limited. There is a little circle within which human reason
will have to move. It cannot go beyond it. Every attempt to
go beyond is impossible, yet it is beyond this circle of reason
that lies all that humanity holds most dear. All these
questions, whether there is an immortal soul, whether there
is a God, whether there is any supreme intelligence guiding
this universe, are beyond the field of reason. Reason can
never answer these questions. What does reason say? It
says,  I am agnostic; I do not know either yea or nay. Yet
these questions are important to us. Without a proper answer
to them, human life will be impossible. All our ethical
theories, all our moral attitudes, all that is good and great in
human nature, has been moulded upon answers that have
64
RAJA YOGA
come from beyond that circle. It is very important,
therefore, that we should have answers to these questions;
without such answers human life will be impossible. If life
is only a little five minutes thing, if the universe is only a
 fortuitous combination of atoms, then why should I do
good to another? Why should there be mercy, justice, or
fellow feeling? The best thing for this world would be to
make hay while the sun shines, each man for himself. If
there is no hope, why should I love my brother, and not cut
his throat? If there is nothing beyond, if there is no freedom,
but only rigorous dead laws, I should only try to make
myself happy here. You will find people saying, now-a-
days, that they have utilitarian grounds as the basis of all
morality. What is this basis? Procuring the greatest amount
of happiness to the greatest number. Why should I do this?
Why should I not produce the greatest unhappiness to the
greatest number, if that serves my purpose? How will
utilitarians answer this question? How do you know what is
right, or what is wrong? I am impelled by my desire for
happiness and I fulfil it, and it is in my nature; I know
nothing beyond. I have these desires, and must fulfil them;
why should you complain? Whence come all these truths
about human life, about morality, about the immortal soul,
about God, about love and sympathy, about being good, and,
above all, about being unselfish?
All ethics, all human action, and all human thought, hang
upon this one idea of unselfishness; the whole idea of human
life can be put in that one word, unselfishness. Why should
we be unselfish? Where is the necessity, the force, the
power, of my being unselfish? Why should I be? You call
yourself a rational man, a utilitarian, but, if you do not show
me a reason, I say you are irrational. Show me the reason
why I should not be selfish, why I should not be like a brute,
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DHYANA AND SAMADHI
acting without reason? It may be good as poetry, but poetry
is not reason. Show me a reason. Why shall I be unselfish,
and why be good? Because Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so says so
does not weigh with me. Where is the utility of my being
unselfish? My utility is to be selfish, if utility means the
greatest amount of happiness. I may get the greatest amount
of happiness by cheating and robbing others. What is the
answer? The utilitarian can never give it. The answer is that
this world is only one drop in an infinite ocean, one link in
an infinite chain. Where did those that preached
unselfishness, and taught it to the human race, get this idea?
We know it is not instinctive; the animals, which have
instinct, do not know it. Neither is it reason; reason does not
know anything about these ideas? Whence did they come?
We find, in studying history, one fact held in common by
all the great teachers of religion the world ever had; they all
claim to have got these truths from beyond, only many of
them did not know what they were getting. For instance, one
would say that an angel came down in the form of a human
being, with wings, and said to him,  Hear, oh man, this is the
message. Another says that a Deva, a bright being,
appeared to him. Another says he dreamed that his ancestor [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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