Educated and thoughtful men and women you already are; already you have
climbed up that long ladder which separates the present outer form of
the Deity in you from His form in the dust. The manifest Deity sleeps
in the mineral and the stone. He becomes more and more unfolded in
vegetables and animals, and lastly in man He has reached what appears
as His culmination to ordinary men. Having done so much, shall you not
do more ? With the consciousness so far unfolded, does it seem
impossible that it should unfold in the future into the Divine?
As you realize that the laws of the evolution of form and of the
unfolding of consciousness in the universe and man are the same, and
that it is through these laws that the yogi brings out his hidden
powers, then you will understand also that it is not necessary to go
into the mountain or into the desert, to hide yourself in a cave or a
forest, in order that the union with the Self may be obtained—He who is
within you and without you. Sometimes for a special purpose seclusion
may be useful. It may be well at times to retire temporarily from the
busy haunts of men. But in the universe planned by Isvara, in order
that the powers of the Self may be brought out—there is your best field
for Yoga, planned with Divine wisdom and sagacity. The world is meant
for the unfolding of the Self: why should you then seek to run away
from it? Look at Shri Krishna Himself in that great Upanishad of yoga,
the Bhagavad-Gita. He spoke it out on a battle-field, and not on a
mountain peak. He spoke it to a Kshattriya ready to fight, and not to a
Brahmana quietly retired from the world. The Kurukshetra of the world
is the field of Yoga. They who cannot face the world have not the
strength to face the difficulties of Yoga practice. If the outer world
out-wearies your powers, how do you expect to conquer the difficulties
of the inner life? If you cannot climb over the little troubles of the
world, how can you hope to climb over the difficulties that a yogi has
to scale? Those men blunder, who think that running away from the world
is the road to victory, and that peace can be found only in certain
localities.
As a matter of fact, you have practised Yoga unconsciously in the past,
even before your self- consciousness had separated itself, was aware of
itself. Sand knew itself to be different, in temporary matter at least,
from all the others that surround it. And that is the first idea that
you should take up and hold firmly: Yoga is only a quickened process of
the ordinary unfolding of consciousness.
Yoga may then be defined as the “rational application of the laws of
the unfolding of consciousness in an individual case”. That is what is
meant by the methods of Yoga. You study the laws’ of the unfolding of
consciousness in the universe, you then apply them to a special
case—and that case is your own. You cannot apply them to another. They
must be self-applied. That is the definite principle to grasp. So we
must add one more word to our definition: “Yoga is the rational
application of the laws of the unfolding of consciousness, self-applied
in an individual case.”