Raja-Yoga

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CHAPTER VI.
PRATYAHARA AND DHARANA.
THE next step is called Pratydhdra. What is this?
You know how perceptions come. First of all there are
the external instruments, then the internal organs,
acting in the body through the brain centres, and there
is the mind. When these come together, and attach
themselves to some external thing, then we perceive
that thing. At the same time it is a very difficult thing
to concentrate the mind and attach it to one organ
only; the mind is a slave.
We hear
and
be good"
be good"
and
be good"
taught all over the world. There is hardly a child,
born in any country in the world, who has not been told
do not steal,"
do not tell a but lie," nobody tells
the child how he can help
it.
Talking will never do it.
Whv should he not become a thief? We do not teach
him how not to steal; we simply tell him "do not
when we teach him to control his mind
steal."
Only
do we really help him. All actions, internal and
external, occur when the mind joins itself to certain
centres, which centres are called the organs.
Willingly
or unwillingly it is drawn to join itself to the centres,
and that is
why people do foolish deeds and feel misery,
which^ if the mind were under control, they would not
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