the astronomer. But the sun also means the Soul, and through
knowledge of the Soul comes a knowledge of the realms of life.
27. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the moon comes a
knowledge of the lunar mansions.
Here again are different meanings. The moon is, first, the companion
planet, which, each day, passes backward through one mansion of the
stars. By watching the moon, the boundaries of the mansion are
learned, with their succession in the great time-dial of the sky. But the
moon also symbolizes the analytic mind, with its divided realms; and
these, too, may be understood through perfectly concentrated
Meditation.
28. By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the fixed pole-star comes
a knowledge of the motions of the stars.
Addressing Duty, stern daughter of the Voice of God, Wordsworth
finely said:
Thou cost preserve the stars from wrong,
And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong--
thus suggesting a profound relation between the moral powers and the
powers that rule the worlds. So in this Sutra the fixed polestar is the
eternal spirit about which all things move, as well as the star toward
which points the axis of the earth. Deep mysteries attend both, and the
veil of mystery is only to be raised by Meditation, by open-eyed vision
of the awakened spiritual man.
29. Perfectly concentrated Meditation on the centre of force in the
lower trunk brings an understanding of the order of the bodily powers.
We are coming to a vitally important part of the teaching of Yoga:
namely, the spiritual man's attainment of full self-consciousness, the
awakening of the spiritual man as a self-conscious individual, behind
and above the natural man. In this awakening, and in the process of
gestation which precedes it, there is a close relation with the powers
of the natural man, which are, in a certain sense, the projection,
outward and downward, of the powers of the spiritual man. This is
notably true of that creative power of the spiritual man which, when
embodied in the natural man, becomes the power of generation. Not
only is this power the cause of the continuance of the bodily race of
mankind, but further, in the individual, it is the key to the dominance
of the personal life. Rising, as it were, through the life-channels of the
body, it flushes the personality with physical force, and maintains and
colours the illusion that the physical life is the dominant and
all-important e
|