Microsoft Word - Taimni - The Science of Yoga.doc

to a high degree of perfection. The essence of the personality is the ‘I’ consciousness
which in its turn is the result of the identification by consciousness with the things in
our environment and with our lower vehicles including the physical body. The devel-
opment of non-possessiveness frees us to a very great extent from this habit of identi-
fying ourselves with our bodies and the things with which they are surrounded and
thus loosens the bonds of the personality. The natural result of this loosening is that
the centre of consciousness gradually shifts into the higher vehicles of the Jivatma and
the knowledge present in those vehicles is reflected more and more into the lower ve-
hicles. So, although the lower vehicles have not gone through the experiences of the
previous lives, this gradual fusion of the personality and the individuality results in the
filtering down of some of this knowledge into the lower vehicles and thus enables the
personality to share all this knowledge. This is how the practice of Aparigraha enables
the Yogi to have knowledge of previous births.
The development of such an extraordinary power from the intensive practice of
Aparigraha shows the importance of doing things with intensity. The secret of discov-
ering the hidden and mysterious facts of life seems to lie in intensity of effort. We
meet the phenomena of life superficially and so naturally do not get from them any-
thing more than ordinary experiences. But the moment we do anything with great in-
tensity and try to penetrate into the deeper recesses of life we come across the most
extraordinary results and experiences. The extraordinary results achieved by Science
in the field of atomic research should have brought home to us this great truth but we
believe only in matter and consider the phenomena connected with the mind and con-
sciousness as something intangible and therefore unreal. The truth of the matter, how-
ever, is that the mysteries, which are hidden in the realm of matter, are as nothing
compared to the mysteries which are related to mind and consciousness. This is what
the Science of Yoga has proved. To the Yogi who has obtained even a faint glimpse of
these mysteries the remarkable achievements of Science in the realm of matter and
force pale into insignificance and seem hardly worth bothering about.