The Wisdom of the Upanishads

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1906. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... THE BHAGAVAD-tflTA Fourth Lecture. DISCRIMINATION AND SACRIFICE. Brothers: *E have to deal to-day, however imperfectly for lack of time, with the two other forms of preliminary yoga, belonging to the two aspects of consciousness which I left untouched yesterday. You will remember that, after sketching the aspects of the paths of forthgoing and return, 1 took up a special preliminary path suitable for the Ichchha aspect of consciousness, and we find that in that aspect which manifests in the lower world as desire, the desire for objects is changed into desire for the Supreme, devotion, and this leads a man to the perfection of yoga. To-day we have to consider the remaining two forms of preliminary yoga, the Yoga of Discrimination, connected with the jfianam aspect of consciousness, and the Yoga of Sacrifice, connected with the kriya aspect. I must ask you in following my hasty sketch of these, to take it simply as an outline into which the details must be fitted by your own study and by your own living, for especially, perhaps, is the first part of our subject, the Yoga of Discrimination, difficult for those who have not studied deeply the constitution and nature of man. And yet for those in whom the jfianam, the cognitive, or knowledge, or wisdom, aspect is predominant, this is the form which leads to the ultimate yoga, to union with the Supreme. Now with regard to this aspect, the aspect of wisdom, there is one great danger that assails the would-be Sage, for to him, above all others perhaps, the senses are the avenues of danger, and yet these senses have been hitherto his avenues of knowledge, and he must strive to thoroughly control these before anything of the nature of even the preliminary yoga becomes possible for him. And so we find Shrl Krishna declaring...