tain and nebulous happiness in the life after death. They say in effect ‘Lead a good life
to ensure happiness after death, put your faith in God and hope for the best’. Accord-
ing to Yogic philosophy death no more solves your spiritual problem than night solves
your economic problem. If you are poor you do not expect on going to bed that your
economic problem will be automatically solved next day. You will have to get up next
day and begin where you left off the previous night. If you are poor economically you
do not expect to get rich overnight and if you are poor spiritually, bound by illusions
and limitations of all kinds, you cannot expect to become Enlightened in your next
life, or if you do not believe in reincarnation, in the vague and unending life which is
supposed to follow death.
According to the Yogic philosophy it is possible to rise completely above the il-
lusions and miseries of life and to gain infinite knowledge, bliss and power through
Enlightenment here and now while we are still living in the physical body. And if we
do not attain this Enlightenment while we are still alive we will have to come back
again and again into this world until we have accomplished this appointed task. So it is
not a question of choosing the path of Yoga or rejecting it. It is a question of choosing
it now or in some future life. It is a question of gaining Enlightenment as soon as pos-
sible and avoiding the suffering in the future or postponing the effort and going
through further suffering which is unnecessary and avoidable. This is the meaning of
II-16. No vague promise of an uncertain post-mortem happiness is this, but a definite
scientific assertion of a fact verified by the experience of innumerable Yogis, saints
and sages who have trodden the path of Yoga throughout the ages.
- The cause of that which is to be avoided is the union of the Seer and the
Seen.
Now we come to the question of means, not the actual technique of Yoga which
has to be employed but the general principle on which the freedom from the Klesas has