Microsoft Word - Taimni - The Science of Yoga.doc

and fill up the gaps by a careful and comprehensive study of other Eastern philosophi-
cal systems. He will then see that the philosophy and psychology upon which Yogic
Science is based is the only one which is comprehensive enough to provide a suffi-
ciently broad base for this Science. He will also realize that modern psychology which
confines its investigations to the expressions of mind and consciousness through the
imperfect and limited physical vehicle and is afraid of losing contact with the physical
world in its investigations, is utterly inadequate for this purpose. Those who refuse to
leave the shores of the physical world must content themselves with the limited
knowledge and resources which they have got and should not sit in judgment on the
experiences of those who have ventured on the high seas and found limitless lands of
unimaginable splendour.
The best way of getting an insight into the modus operandi of Siddhis is to con-
sider knowledge and power as two aspects of the same reality so that anyone who has
the knowledge with regard to the inner working of any set of phenomena has also the
power to manipulate those phenomena. There is nothing irrational in this assumption
because the control and manipulation of physical forces by modern science follows the
discovery of the physical laws underlying those forces. But Science has knowledge of
only physical forces and can therefore control only physical phenomena. The Yogi ac-
quires knowledge of the far subtler and powerful forces of mind and consciousness and
can, therefore, exercise powers connected with those inner forces. And since mental
forces lie also at the basis of physical forces he can manipulate even physical phenom-
ena without using any physical aids.
It has been pointed out already in the previous Sutra that according to the Yogic
philosophy the whole of the manifested Universe, seen and unseen, is governed by
natural laws and therefore there is no place for ‘miracles’ in this philosophy. When
things are made to take place in a way which appears miraculous to the ordinary ob-
server this is done by using forces which are still under the domain of natural law,
though yet unknown to modern Science. There is, and can be, no violation of natural
law, but it is possible to do things which seem to violate physical laws by employing
laws of the superphysical realms. No one imagines that the law of gravitation is vio-
lated when a rocket soars into the sky. Why should it be necessary to assume that a
miracle has happened when a man rises in the air by the practice of Pranayama or dis-
appears from our sight as indicated in III-21?