Raja-Yoga

Il8
RAjA YOGA.
scientist, Patanjali is bound to point out the possi
bilities of this science, he never misses an opportunity
to warn us against these powers. Knowledge is power,
and as soon as we begin to know a thing we get power
over it; so also, when the mind begins to meditate on
the different elements it
gains power over them. That
sort of meditation where the external gross elements
are the objects
is called Savitarka. Tarka means ques
tion, Savitarka with-question. Questioning the ele
ments, as it were, that they may give up their truths
and their powers to the man who meditates upon
them. Again, in the very same meditation, when one
struggles to take the elements out of time and space,
and think of them as they are, it is called Nirvitarka,
without-question. When the meditation goes a step
higher, and takes the Tanmdtras as its object, and
thinks of them as in time and space, it is called Saviehdra,
with-discrimination, and when the same medita
tion gets beyond time and space, and thinks of the
fine elements as they are, it is called Nirvichdra, without-discrimination.
The next step is when the ele
ments are given up, either as gross or as fine, and the
object of meditation is the interior organ, the thinking
organ, and when the thinking organ is thought of as
bereft of the qualities of activity, and of dulness, it is
then called Sdnandam, the blissful Samddhi. In that
Samddhi, when we are thinking of the mind as the
object of meditation, before we have reached the state
which takes us beyond the mind even, when it has
become very ripe and concentrated, when all ideas of