The Religion of the Vedanta and Yoga stands forth as a brilliant guiding star to the student of Yoga Philosophy and Occultism, inviting him to the mysterious unknown world, which he would gladly explore, and encouraging him to march onward until he reaches a stage, when all powers dear to every human heart lie at his command, and all earthly attractions cease to influence him any more. It is a truism that it is in the nature of every human being to strive for happiness, but the happiness he gains by his actions, he finds to his utter dissatisfaction and sorrow, is only of a limited duration. The enjoyments of the senses are transient, and the senses themselves are worn out by excessive enjoyment. Further sin generally accompanies these enjoyments and makes him unhappy beyond comparison. Even if the pleasures of the world are enjoyed as much as their nature would permit, even if they are as intense, as various, as uninterrupted as possible, yet old age in all its hideous shape threatens him with death and destruction. It should be remembered that the enjoyments of heaven itself are not in reality more enviable than these pleasures of the senses; they are of the same nature though more unmixed and durable. Moreover they also come to an end as they are gained by actions; and as actions are finite their effect must also be finite. In a word, there is necessarily an end to all these enjoyments.
O little man of little faith! Why do you vainly strive for pleasures, which you know cannot satisfy you beyond the moment of enjoyment? Look out for an unchangeable, infinite and supreme happiness which must come from a Being in whom there is no change. Search and find out such a Being, and if you could only succeed in your quest, then you can get that unaltered happiness from Him.
All the great religions of the world proclaim in one unanimous voice that there is One Being as mentioned above. This Being, believe me, is not very far from you. He is quite close to you. He resides in the body-temple of yours, in the innermost recesses of your heart. He is the silent Witness of your mind, the Watcher of all the activities of your intellect. He is the Supreme Being of the Scriptures so highly eulogised by Saints, Sages, Yogins, Philosophers and Prophets. This Being can be realised by all through the practice of Yoga.
It is a well-known fact that any number of zeros have no intrinsic value unless the No. 1 is placed before them. Even so the wealth of all the three worlds is nothing, if you do not lead a spiritual life, if you do not try to acquire the Spiritual Wealth, if you do not strive for Self-realisation. You will have to live in the Soul or the Self within. You will have to add Atman to the life here. That is the reason why Lord Jesus says: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Every one of you is a power in yourself. You can influence others. You can radiate Joy and Peace to millions upon millions of people far and near. You can elevate others even from a long distance. You can transmit your powerful, soul-stirring, beneficial thoughts to others, because you are an image of God, nay, you are God Himself the moment the veil of ignorance enshrouding you is rent asunder.
This world is a great school. This world is for your education. You learn several valuable lessons daily. If you are wise enough to utilise all opportunities to the best possible advantage in theviii
spirit of Yoga, your capacities and will-power will develop to an astonishing degree. You will grow. You will evolve. You will expand. There will be integral development. You will march forward towards the goal. All veils will drop down one by one. All limitations or barriers will be annihilated. All shackles or fetters will be torn asunder. You will receive more and more Divine Light Knowledge, Purity, Peace and Spiritual Strength.
You are the author of your own fate. You yourself have created this. You yourself are entirely responsible for this. You are the architect of your joys and sorrows. Just as the spider or the silkworm creates a web or cocoon for its own destruction, so also you have created this cage of flesh by your own actions, attractions, repulsions and false egoism. You have become the slave of the flesh, slave of your body and mind, slave of countless desires. You are sunk in the quagmire of deepest ignorance.
Weep not, my child! Sorrow not! A glorious brilliant future is awaiting you! Strive to come out of this false cage of illusion right now, this very second. If your attempt is true and sincere, if you endeavour with all your might and main to achieve this end, then by the ready Grace of the Lord thou shalt drive away these dark clouds of ignorance and shine in your true divine colours, in your native, pristine glory.
Cast aside the erroneous idea: “I am the body.” Develop the consciousness and realisation of the real “I” within you. This real “I” is Sat-Chit-Ananda or Atman or the Self, the one common Consciousness, the spiritual thread that links all hearts.
Awaken yourself to the conscious realisation of your actual oneness with the Supreme Self. Think of the Self continuously. As Tennyson says: “Let thy voice rise like a fountain for me night and day.” This is the real spiritual practice (Brahma-abhyasa). This will eventually lead to Self-realisation. Let the struggle be keen. Let your endeavour be sincere. Let your motive be pure. There must be iron discipline, iron determination, iron will and iron Sadhana (spiritual practice). Then there will be no difficulty in the attainment of the final beatitude of life—a life sublime in its nature, resplendent with spiritual light, radiant with splendour, vibrant with ecstasy and replete with Peace.
Mere intellectual conception of this identity or oneness will not serve your purpose. You must actually feel and experience the truth of the same through intuition. You must become fully aware of the Real Self, the basis or substratum or bed-rock of this world, body, mind, Prana and the senses. You must enter into a consciousness in which the realisation becomes part and parcel of your daily life. You must live this ideal spiritual life daily. Let your neighbours actually feel how entirely a changed being you are—a superman. Let them smell the Divine Fragrance from you. A full-blown Yogi can never be concealed. Just as fragrant fumes emanate from scented sticks so also sweet spiritual fragrance will emanate from your body, the moment you attain perfection in Yoga, even though you may shut yourself up in a cave of the far-off Himalayas.
A Yoga-Bhrashta (one who had fallen from Yogic practices), who did rigorous spiritual Sadhana in his previous birth, but was unable to get Self-realisation on account of some cause or other, gets Self-realisation in this birth like a flash of lightning in the twinkling of an eye. He is a born adept. He does no spiritual practice. He has no spiritual preceptor (Guru). He had his initiation in his previous birth. Ashtavakra and Rishi Vamadeva, the two Yoga-Bhrashtas of yore, attained Knowledge of the Self even while they were in the wombs of their mothers. Jnanadeva of Alandi (a place near Poona, India), author of Jnanesvari-Gita, was a born adept. He exhibited several Siddhis (psychic powers) even when he was a small boy. He touched a buffalo and the buffalo repeated the Vedas. He created fire on his own back and his sister baked bread over it. But such instances are very rare. The vast majority of people should do intense Sadhana before they attain Self-realisation.
The Hindu Sastras assert with astonishing emphasis: “This world of names and forms is unreal; God alone is Real.” The objects a man of the world considers precious a Yogi shuns as worthless. This world with all its variegated pleasures, its pains, its joys, its sorrows, its rivers, mountains, sky, sun, moon, and the stars; with its dukes and beggars exists only in order that the fragments of the one Self embodied in so many forms may regain their lost Divine Consciousness and realise the true pristine glory and manifest the powers of the Self through the matter that envelops them.
There is no such thing as inanimate matter. There is life in every thing. Life is involved in a piece of stone. Matter is vibrant with life. This has been conclusively proved by modern science. Smile with the flowers and the green grass. Play with the butterflies and the cobras. Shake hands with the shrubs, ferns and twigs. Talk to the rainbow, wind, stars and sun. Converse with the running brooks and the turbulent waves of the sea. Keep company with your walking stick and enjoy its sweet company. Develop friendship with all your neighbours, dogs, cats, cows, human beings, trees, in fact, with all nature’s creation. Then you will have a wide, perfect, rich, full life. Then you will realise God. Then you will achieve success in Yoga. This state can hardly be described in finite words. It should be felt and experienced by you by unfolding the divinity within.
This remarkable unfolding from the stone to the God goes on through millions of years, through aeons of time. But in the individual this unfolding takes place more rapidly and quickly with all the force of its past behind it. These forces that manifest and unveil themselves in evolution are cumulative in their power. Embodied in the stone, in the mineral world, they grow and put out a little more strength, and in the mineral world accomplish their unfolding. Then they become too strong for the mineral and press on into the vegetable world. There they unfold more and more of their divinity, until they become too mighty for the vegetable, and become animal. Expanding within and gaining experiences from the animal, they again overflow the limits of the animal and appear as the human. In the human being they still grow and accumulate with ever-increasing force, and exert greater pressure against the barrier, and then out of the human, they press into the superhuman. This last process of evolution is called Yoga.” Therefore Yoga, when it is definitely begun, is not something new, as is often imagined.
If you begin to view Yoga in this light, then this Yoga which looked so foreign and so strange, will appear to wear a familiar face, and come to you in a garb not altogether strange. It will not look so strange that from the man you should pass on to superman, from mortality to immortality, and enter a region where divinity becomes more manifest.
When you begin to learn that there is one Self in all these names and forms, that He is the same in a king or a peasant, in a bird or a beast, in a man or a woman, in a stone or a piece of wood, that all powers seen throughout the world are latent in “inorganic” substances also, that this Self is
xthe same at all times, and that there is no increase or diminution in the Self, then Yoga will become possible of achievement.
In fact you have practised Yoga, consciously or unconsciously, in your previous births, and this is a vital point that should not be lost sight of. All that you have now to do is to give a powerful momentum to quicken the process of unfolding the divinity and attain the Highest Goal of Life—Perfection, Peace, Joy, Immortality and Happiness.
In this book I have given definite lines for attaining true success in Yoga. You can also attain happiness, popularity, name, fame, power, wealth, social distinction and all-round smashing success in all your undertakings to an extent that would surprise not only your own self but all others with whom you come in contact. This volume contains the boiled down essence of years of extensive research and personal experience. I assure you that you will be able to fully realise the benefits of Yogic practices by the help of this one book alone. Not a moment should be delayed. You are growing older and older hour by hour. Three things rare indeed and due to the Grace of God are: a human birth, the longing for Liberation and the protecting care of a perfected Sage. The man who, having by some means obtained a human birth, with a male body and mastery of the scriptures to boot, is foolish enough not to exert for Self-realisation verily commits suicide, for he kills himself by clinging to things unreal. Let me sound a note of warning here: You may not get again this rare human birth. Make hay while the sun shines. Go to the Fountain-head of God and drink deep the Nectar of Immortality. May the Lord Krishna, the Lord of the Yogins, the Great Master, shower His choicest blessings upon you all and give you a nice push in the Path of Spirituality is my fervent prayer!