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A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga662
He does not realize that he himself is really the maker of himself, from the
raw and crude material given him at his birth. He makes himself negatively
or positively. Negatively, if he allows himself to be moulded by the thoughts
and ideals of others, and positively, if he moulds himself. Everyone is doing
one or the other—perhaps both. The weak man is the one who allows
himself to be made by others, and the strong man is the one who takes the
building process in his own hands.
The process of Character-building is so delightfully simple that its
importance is apt to be overlooked by the majority of persons who are
made acquainted with it. It is only by actual practice and the experiencing
of results that its wonderful possibilities are borne home to one.
The Yogi student is early taught the lesson of the power and importance
of character building by some strong practical example. For instance, the
student is found to have certain tastes of appetite, such as a like for certain
things, and a corresponding dislike for others. The Yogi teacher instructs
the student in the direction of cultivating a desire and taste for the disliked
thing, and a dislike for the liked thing. He teaches the student to fix his mind
on the two things, but in the direction of imagining that he likes the one
thing and dislikes the other. The student is taught to make a mental picture
of the desired conditions, and to say, for instance, “I loathe candy—I dislike
even the sight of it,” and, on the other hand, “I crave tart things—I revel
in the taste of them,” etc., etc., at the same time trying to reproduce the
taste of sweet things accompanied with a loathing, and a taste of tart things,
accompanied with a feeling of delight. After a bit the student finds that his
tastes are actually changing in accordance with his thoughts, and in the end
they have completely changed places. The truth of the theory is then borne
home to the student, and he never forgets the lesson.
In order to reassure readers who might object to having the student
left in this condition of reversed tastes, we may add that the Yogi teachers
then teach him to get rid of the idea of the disliked thing, and teach him
to cultivate a liking for all wholesome things, their theory being that the