Thus, these limbs of yoga—the eight limbs especially mentioned in Patanjali—are the
eight degrees of mastery which consciousness gains over its environment by the
development of harmony with its atmosphere. We cannot have mastery over
anything unless we are harmonious with that thing. The moment we are
disharmonious, we become puppets in the hand of that thing with which we are
disharmonious. Harmony and power are identical. The more we are harmonious with
a thing, a person, an atmosphere or a condition, whatever it is, the more say we have
in the matter of that thing—which means control over that thing, power over that
thing.
We are coming to the conclusion that the highest power is identity of oneself with
that thing over which we want to have power. That is intuition. What is known as
intuition is the insight which one gains into the substance of that thing which is now
regarded as the object of perception, and which is then to become the very self of the
thing. So, as we approach nearer and nearer to the subjecthood of the object, we gain
greater mastery over it, and then it is that we have greater feeling for it, greater
sympathy for it. This is what is known as the harmony that one has to establish with
the object.
Hence, the harmony that we are speaking of is nothing but the development of the
consciousness of a selfhood in the object, in consonance with the selfhood of one’s
own self. The object ceases to be an object as the consciousness rises in its awareness
of itself, because what is called an object is nothing but an aspect of the self itself,
which has got separated by peculiar factors. That is called ignorance. It is this
separatist tendency that has become responsible for one aspect of the self recognising
another aspect of it as the object, so that there is a fight of oneself with oneself, as it
were. So, the world is nothing but a war of oneself with oneself.
This is to be obviated by the development of viveka khyati. The purpose of yoga is
the enhancement of enlightenment in regard to things by the adjustment of oneself
with the object atmosphere in greater and greater harmony—which is another way of
saying that we have to become more and more sympathetic with the selfhood of
things, rather than recognising their object nature. The equilibrium that is the
essence of these stages of practice is the essence of the enlightenment that one has to
attain, because the rise of enlightenment within is simultaneous with the
establishment of harmony outside. Hence, there is a simultaneous change taking
place internally, as well as externally.
When we change within ourselves, the world also changes for us. It is not that we
change only inside our house, and outside everything remains chaotic. This is not so.
There is a corresponding change in the outer atmosphere when there is an internal
transformation, because the internal is commensurate with the external. The one is
not really outside the other. There is a transformation of existence itself when there
is a transformation of consciousness. The attainment of the perfection of
consciousness becomes also, at the same time, the attainment of the perfection of all
existence, which is the goal of practising the eight limbs of yoga.