was not prepared to lie. Apparently my truthfulness presented a secu
rity risk, and the lessons never took place.
However, I did visit the Sistine Chapel and saw Michelangelo's
great ceiling painting of God, reaching from a cloud, extending his
finger to Adam, who in return, also extends his hand toward God.
Their fingers almost touch. This is what I mean by the relationship of
soul to conscience. They almost touch, and at times a divine spark
passes from the heavenly outstretched hand to man's.
Dharan a-Concen tra tionI jumped over the yogic technique for purifying intelligence and will
present it here as it leads directly to meditation, which is the technique
for purifying ego. The journey's end is really not far now, which is why
yoga insists, go on, go on, redouble your efforts, renounce the fruits of
your progress, the powers and honors you have accumulated. Don't
fail now when you are so near. Yoga expresses this sense of both ur
gency and danger by saying that those who are on the verge of en
lightenment will be tempted from the path even by angels. This exists
in Christian tradition too. Remember when Jesus was very near to his
goal that the dark angel took him into a high place and showed him all
the lands of the earth and offered him power and dominion over them.
He too was a supreme renunciate, a bhaktan.
As I said in chapter 1 Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (medita
tion), and Samadhi (total absorption or bliss) are a crescendo,
samyama yoga-the yoga of final integration. Because Dharana is so
easy to translate, we often overlook or dismiss its importance. Paying
attention in yogic terms is not concentration. True concentration is an
unbroken thread of awareness. Yoga is about how the Will, working
with intelligence and the self-reflexive consciousness, can free us from
the inevitability of the wavering mind and outwardly directed senses.
We said earlier that a chattering mind is a lot of little, distracting
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