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As for the means employed by classical yoga there can be no question of reviewing them here. We must, to begin with, insist on their extreme seriousness, which gives food for thought.
At their basis are ‘curbs’ and ‘disciplines’ such as non-violence (ahimsa) and chastity. In the logical scheme of yoga these are only the preliminary dispositions for entry upon the Royal Way itself. It is generally said of them that they are not peculiar to yoga but common to all spiritual codes of conduct, that the equivalent is to be found in Christian asceticism. This is certainly true in principle. But why is it that, except for rare exceptions, they can scarcely be said to transform man in our Christian West, whereas they seem in general much more effective among the Indian adepts of yoga? It is to these simple ‘curbs’ and ‘disciplines that classical doctrine attributes the most extraordinary ‘powers ‘. For instance the normal effect, perhaps topical enough, of ahimsa is to make a man so peaceful that animals, instead of running away from him or attacking him, feel the radiance of his goodwill and gentleness and come to him; the true practitioner of non-violence meditates quietly in the jungle.
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- Copyright © 1956 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
Footnotes
*
Translated from La Vie Spiriluelk. Cf. The Lira, February, 1956, pp. 356-64.
References
1 Eliade, Le Yoga, pp. 61-65; Yoga (Cahiers du Sud), pp. 33-35.
2 Yogas et psychoanalyse, p. 12.
3 'Yoga and the West', in Approches it l'Inde, edited by Cahiers du Sud, 1949, PP- 324“3 I am surprised that these vital pages are quoted so rarely.
4 cf. Aurobindo's book, La Synthe'se des Yogas, Maisonneuve, 1939.
5 The French translation has: ‘Dans la nature humaine de l'homme (into the human nature of man).'
6 Having, particularly, submitted to a serious ‘analysis'.
7 As, inversely and on a cultural plane, those Asiatics and Africans who have not Kept intact their own cultural values and have become mere reflections of the West ft retarded and distorted Western culture. There again the arts cry out what would be less strikingly evident without them: ‘mission art’ has everywhere tended to compromise and to sugariness, and that has spoilt everything, irremediably. Cf. the 1951 number L'Art Sacri: ‘ 'The grievous problem of missionary art'.
8 ‘Catholic India', four articles in La France Catholique, January-February, 1953.
9 Le Yoga ImmortaliU et Liberti, Payot, 1954, 427 pp.
10 Le Yoga, Presses Universitaires de France, 128 pp.
11 Yoga, science de Vhomme integral, texts and studies edited by Jacques Masuy, Cahiers du Sud, 366 pp.
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