We must now deal with the mental body, which is taken as equivalent to
mind for practical purposes. The first thing for a man to do in
practical Yoga is to separate himself from the mental body, to draw
away from that into the sheath next above it. And here remember what I
said previously, that in Yoga the Self is always the consciousness plus
the vehicle from which the consciousness is unable to separate itself.
All that is above the body you cannot leave is the Self for practical
purposes, and your first attempt must be to draw away from your mental
body. Under these conditions, Manas must be identified with the Self,
and the spiritual Triad, the Atma-buddhi-manas, is to be realised as
separate from the mental body. That is the first step. You must be able
to take up and lay down your mind as you do a tool, before it is of any
use to consider the further progress of the Self in getting rid of its
envelopes. Hence the mental body is taken as the starting point.
Suppress thought. Quiet it. Still it. Now what is the ordinary
condition of the mental body? As you look upon that body from a higher
plane, you see constant changes of colours playing in it. You find that
they are sometimes initiated from within, sometimes from without.
Sometimes a vibration from without has caused a change in
consciousness, and a corresponding change in the colours in the mental
body. If there is a change of consciousness, that causes vibration in
the matter in which that consciousness is functioning. The mental body
is a body of ever-changing hues and colours, never still, changing
colour with swift rapidity throughout the whole of it. Yoga is the
stopping of all these, the inhibition of vibrations and changes alike.
Inhibition of the change of consciousness stops the vibration of the
mental body; the checking of the vibration of the mental body checks
the change in consciousness. In the mental body of a Master there is no
change of colour save as initiated from within; no outward stimulus can
produce any answer, any vibration,ùin that perfectly controlled mental
body. The colour of the mental body of a Master is as moonlight on the
rippling ocean. Within that whiteness of moon-like refulgence lie all
possibilities of colour, but nothing in the outer world can make the
faintest change of hue sweep over its steady radiance. If a change of
consciousness occurs within, then the change will send a wave of
delicate hues over the mental body which responds only in colour to
changes initiated from within and never to changes stimulated from
without. His mental body is never His Self, but only His tool or
instrument, which He can take up or lay down at His will. It is only an
outer sheath that He uses when He needs to communicate with the lower
world.
By that idea of the stopping of all changes of colour in the mental
body you can realise what is meant by inhibition. The functions of mind
are stopped in Yoga. You have to begin with your mental body. You have
to learn how to stop the whole of those vibrations, how to make the
mental body colourless, still and quiet, responsive only to the
impulses that you choose to put upon it. How will you be able to tell
when the mind is really coming under control, when it is no longer a
part of your Self? You will begin to realise this when you find that,
by the action of your will, you can check the current of thought and
hold the mind in perfect stillness. Sheath after sheath has to be
transcended, and the proof of transcending is that it can no longer
affect you. You can affect it, but it cannot affect you. The moment
that nothing outside you can harass you, can stir the mind, the moment
that the mind does not respond to the outer, save under your own
impulse, then can you say of it: “This is not my Self.” It has become
part of the outer, it can no longer be identified with the Self.
From this you pass on to the conquest of the causal body in a similar
way. When the conquering of the causal body is complete then you go to
the conquering of the Buddhic body. When mastery over the Buddhic body
is complete, you pass on to the~conquest of the Atmic body.