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The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book 1 - The Problem of Union
24. This Ishvara is the Soul, untouched by limitation, free from karma and desire. Here we have the picture of the spiritual man as he is in reality. His relation to the three worlds is shown. This is the state of the master or the adept, of the soul who has come into its birthright, and is no longer under control of the forces and energies of the lower nature. There is given in this and the following three sutras, a picture of the liberated man who has passed through the cycle of incarnation and through [48] struggle and experience has found the true self. Here is depicted the nature of the solar angel, the son of God, the ego or the higher self. He is stated to be Untouched by limitation. He is no longer "cribbed, cabined and confined" by the lower quaternary. He is no longer crucified upon the cross of matter. The four lower sheaths - dense, etheric, emotional and mental - are no longer his prison. They are but instruments which he can use or vacate at will. His will functions freely and if he stays within the realm of the three worlds, it is of his own choice, and his self-imposed limitation can be terminated at will. He is master in the three worlds, a son of God dominating and controlling the lower creations. Free from Karma. Through knowledge of the law he has adjusted all his karma, paid all his debts, cancelled all his obligations, settled all claims against him, and through his subjective realization has entered consciously into the world of causes. The world of effects is left behind, in so far as the three worlds are concerned. Thus he no longer (blindly and through ignorance) sets in motion conditions which must produce evil effects. He works ever with the law and every demonstration of energy (the spoken word and the initiated action) is undertaken with a full knowledge of the result to be attained. Thus nothing he does produces evil results and no karma is thereby entailed. Average men deal with effects and blindly work their way through them. The Master deals with causes, and the effects He [49] produces, through the wielding of the law, do not limit or hold him. Free from desire. No longer do the things of sensuous perception on any of the three planes attract or allure Him. His consciousness is inward and upward. It is no longer downward and outgoing. He is at the center and the periphery no longer attracts him. The longing for experience, the craving for physical plane existence, and the desire for the form aspect in its many variations has for him no appeal. He has experienced, He knows, He has suffered, and He has been forced into incarnation through His longing for the not-self. Now all that is ended and He is the freed soul.
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