If we believe in the efficacy of Yoga or other systems of discipline designed to lead to transcendent conditions of consciousness and psychic insights, we will have to accept the existence of a responsive element in the body which is affected by these exercises in such a way as to lead to the development or emergence of new faculties and extraordinary mental states in the organism. This element can take the form either of a general tendency in the body, a predisposition present in the cerebro-spinal system or of a regular mechanism designed by nature to lead the human mind to higher states of consciousness by its own normal activity or by stimulation through some kind of mental and physical exercise. Neither the religious impulse nor the phenomenon of transcendence to which it leads in rare cases can be purely psychic in origin, for in that case, apart from the fact that there can be no uniformity in its manifestation, there would arise no need for somatic disciplines to develop it. There can be no rational explanation of religious and supernormal psychic phenomena other than that there does exist an agency in the mind-body combination which is at the back of the religious impulses and all the consequences that flow out from it. There is no other way to account for the extraordinary happenings of history caused by the impact of illumined men and women, who time after time changed the course of the lives and thoughts of millions of men, and even now continue to exert a tremendous influence in shaping the history of the modern world. The Secret of Yoga, 1972.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:17:16 +0000