as a sign that we are on the right path and then should be ignored com
pletely. Otherwise, they can become traps that ensnare us in vanity and
arrogance.
The yogi is by definition beyond such self-intoxication. A yogi's ac
tions may each be very small, but if each is perfect in its time and place,
their cumulative effect is considerable. And because a yogi's actions are
grounded in example, not precept or preaching, there is a snowball ef
fect by which his actions are emulated by others and passed on with
compound interest. This snowball effect that arises from action that is
both genuine and disinterested is expressed in the biblical injunction,
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Each action
is a perfect and discrete module, free of unintended knock-on effects.
Even with good intentions, clever people never quite know where they
are going. The discovery of penicillin saved hundreds of thousands of
people from suffering or even death from, for example, sexual diseases.
But even today we all know that sexual license is not free from conse
quences. My point is not a moral one. It is that what we call "good"
in the world of normal causality can quickly change to what we call
"bad." The free man, on the other hand, although he still lives in a
world of cause and effect, has learned to tread very lightly and to act
with great precision.
Cleverness then, acting alone, can be seen as a centrifugal force,
likely to spin ever faster and to lose control of its original intention.
Yogic knowledge is, on the contrary, a centripetal force, forever dis
carding the irrelevant in order to invest in the search for the core of
being where enduring truth resides. For a yoga practitioner, intelli
gence is not self-aggrandizing, but it acts like a scalpel, cutting away
all that is unreal so that the real and permanent will be revealed. This
leads us directly to an examination of the most difficult asana and to
the dimension that mankind has not yet integrated in his consl·ious
ness: Time.
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