Microsoft Word - Taimni - The Science of Yoga.doc

from the association of Citta it automatically turns upon itself and illuminates its own
nature, i.e. consciousness. It is because the power of illumination is inherent in it that
it illuminates Citta when it functions through Citta. If a light is enclosed within a
translucent globe it reveals the globe. If the globe is removed the light reveals itself.
From the meanings and explanations of the different phrases given above the inner
significance of the Sutra should now be quite clear. Buddhi, as has been pointed out
before, is that faculty which enables the mind to perceive and understand objects in the
phenomenal worlds, the mind being inert and incapable of performing this function. As
long as Buddhi is functioning through the medium of the mind it is not possible to
know pure consciousness. It is only when it assumes that form in which all movement
from one level of Citta to another has been eliminated that it reveals its real nature. As
has been pointed out before, Citta or the mind has many levels corresponding to the
different vehicles of consciousness and in Samadhi consciousness moves up and down
from one level to another between the centre and periphery. In this kind of movement
of consciousness there is no movement in space but only movement in different di-
mensions, the centre from which consciousness functions always remaining the same.
When consciousness, in the state of Samadhi, has penetrated into the deepest level of
Citta and then finally transcended even this level it is quite free from the limiting and
obscuring action of Citta and it is only then that its true nature is realized. In this state
the perceiver, perceived and perception all merge into one Self-illuminated Reality. So
the answer to the question ‘How are we to know consciousness itself?’ is ‘By diving in
Samadhi into our consciousness until the mind in its subtlest form is transcended and
the Reality hidden beneath it is revealed’.
From what has been said above it is apparent that we cannot understand the real
nature of consciousness by applying the ordinary methods of modern psychology.
What is known as consciousness in terms of modern psychology is only consciousness
veiled by many layers of the mind, each of which increasingly obscures and modifies
its nature as it infiltrates into the outermost physical mechanism, namely, the human
brain. We thus observe consciousness in its ordinary manifestations through the physi-
cal brain under the greatest possible limitations and it is not possible to form any idea
with regard to its true nature from these extremely partial and distorted manifestations.
As well might a person who had always lived in a dungeon situated in a land where it
was perpetually cloudy, tiy to form an idea regarding the light of the Sun from the
gloom in which he lived. It will be seen, therefore, that not only is it impossible to