Raja-Yoga

144 RJA YOGA.
by the external senses. I cannot see God with my
eyes, nor can I touch Him with my hands, and we also
know that neither can we reason beyond the senses.
Reason leaves us at a point quite indecisive; we may
reason all our lives, as the world has been doing for
thousands of years, and the result is that we find we
are incompetent to prove or disprove the facts of
religion. What we perceive directly we take as the
basis, and upon that basis we reason. So it is obvious
that reasoning has to run within these bounds of per
ception. It can never go beyond; the whole scope of
realisation, therefore, is beyond sense perception. The
Yogis say that man can go beyond his direct sense per
ception, and beyond his reason also. Man has in him
the faculty, the power, of transcending his intellect
even, and that power is in every being, every creature.
By the practice of Yoga that power is aroused, and
then man transcends the ordinary limits of reason, and
directly perceives things which are beyond all reason.
50. The resulting impression from this Samadhi ob
structs all other impressions.
We have seen in the foregoing aphorism that the only
way of attaining to that super-consciousness is by con
centration, and we have also seen that what hinder the
mind from concentration are the past Samskdras,
impressions. All of you have observed that when you
are trying to concentrate your mind, your thoughts
wander. When you are trying to think of God, that is
the very time which all these Samskdras take to appear.