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The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book 3 - Union achieved and its Results
8. Even these three, however, are external to the true seedless meditation (or samadhi) which is not based on an object. It is free from the effects of the discriminative nature of the chitta (or mind stuff). In all the previous stages the thinker has been aware of both himself, the knower, and of the field of knowledge. In the earliest stages he was aware of triplicity, for the instrument of knowledge was likewise recognized, later to be transcended and forgotten. Now comes the final stage, the object of all yoga practices, where unity is known and even duality is seen to be a limitation. Naught remains but awareness of the self, of that omniscient, omnipotent knower who is one with the All, and whose very nature is awareness and energy. As has been well said: "There are therefore these two types of perception: That of living things and that of the Life; that of the soul's works and that of the soul itself." The expounder of yoga is now desirous of describing the results of meditation (some along the line of the higher psychism and some along the line of the lower); the next seven sutras therefore, [258] deal with the nature of the objects seen and the control of the mind as the real man seeks to focus the illuminating ray of his mind upon them. In studying these results of meditation in the psychic realm, it should be borne in mind that the eight means of yoga do produce definite effects in the lower nature and that this causes certain unfoldments and experiences to take place; these put the aspirant more consciously en rapport with the interior planes in the three worlds. This is a safe and necessary process provided it is the outcome of the awakening of the man on his own plane, and the turning of the eye of the soul, via the mind and the third eye, upon these planes. The presence of the lower psychic power may, however, mean that the soul is (from the physical plane standpoint) asleep and unable to use its instrument, and that these experiences are therefore only the result of the activity of the solar plexus producing awareness of the astral plane. This type of psychism is a reversion to the animal state and to the child stage of the human race. It is undesirable and dangerous.
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