Raja-Yoga

154 RJA YOGA.
hold that it belongs to the body, but the Yogts hold
that it is the experience of the mind, transmitted
through the body. This is called the theory of rein
carnation. We have seen that all our knowledge,
whether we call it
perception or reason, or instinct,
must come through that one channel called experience,
and all that we now call instinct is the result of past
experience, degenerated into instinct, and that instinct
regenerates into reason again. So on throughout the
universe, and upon this has been built one of the chief
arguments for reincarnation, in India. The recurring
experiences of various fears, in course of time, produce
this clinging to life. That is why the child is instinc
tively afraid, because the past experience of pain is
there. Even in the most learned men, who know that
this body will go, and who say "never mind; we have
hundreds of bodies; the soul cannot die" even in
them, with all their intellectual convictions, we still
find this clinging on to life. What is this clinging to
life? We have seen that it has become instinctive.
In the psychological language of the Yogis it has
become Samskdras. The SamsMr as, fine and hidden,
are sleeping in the Chitta. All these past experiences
of death, all that which we call instinct, is experience
become sub-conscious. It lives in the Chitta, and is
not inactive, but is
working underneath. These Chitta
Vrittis, these mind- waves, which are gross, we can
appreciate and feel ; they can be more easily controlled,
but what about these finer instincts? How can they
be controlled? When I am angry my whole mind has