Microsoft Word - Taimni - The Science of Yoga.doc

through the prescribed practices which determines the fitness of the Sadhaka for taking
up the practice of Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi. These qualifications for the Yogic
life are the cumulative result of several lives of effort in this direction and one need
not go through every practice in a particular life. Some people are born, for example,
with a high degree of Vairagya and show even in their childhood a remarkable capac-
ity for controlling their vehicles. They have not to go through the long and tedious dis-
cipline which is essential for the ordinary man. Anyway, Patanjali has pointed out un-
ambiguously the necessity of going through the first five Angas of Yoga before taking
up the practice of Dharana, as for example in II-53.
Before dealing with the question of Dharana it is necessary to point out that
though the word concentration has to be used for translating there is a great deal of
difference between what an ordinary man means by concentration of mind and what
this phrase means in Yogic psychology. Without going into details it may be stated that
the main difference, and a very fundamental difference, is that according to modern
psychology the mind cannot be made to remain fixed on any object for any consider-
able time. It must remain moving even when concentration of the highest degree has
been attained. Concentration according to this view is the controlled movement of the
mind within a limited sphere and by keeping the mind confined in this manner all the
remarkable results of concentrated mental effort can be obtained. But according to
Eastern psychology upon which the Science of Yoga is based, though concentration
begins with the controlled movement of the mind it can reach a state in which all
movement or change stops. In this ultimate stage the mind becomes one with the es-
sential nature of the object concentrated upon and can thus move no further.
Eastern psychology recognizes the uses of the ordinary type of concentration
but it holds that there are two limitations in this kind of concentration. One is that the
mind can never fully realize the essential nature of the object concentrated upon. How-
ever deep it may penetrate, it still touches only the fringe or superficial aspects of its
nature and can never reach the core. The second limitation is that with this kind of
concentration consciousness always remains confined within the prison-house of the
intellect. It cannot be released from the limitations of the intellect to be able to func-
tion at the deeper levels through the subtler vehicles. For, to be able to jump from one
plane to another the mind must be brought first to that condition in which it is without
movement though ‘shining’ with the object which holds the field of consciousness.
This point has been elaborated elsewhere and we need not go further into it here.