Some Definitions

Some  Definitions

There are a few words, constantly recurring, which need brief

definitions, in order to avoid confusion; they are: Unfolding,

Evolution, Spirituality, Psychism, Yoga and Mysticism.

"Unfolding" always refers to consciousness, "evolution" to forms.

Evolution is the homogeneous becoming the heterogeneous, the

simple becoming complex. But there is no growth and no

perfectioning for Spirit, for consciousness; it is all there and

always, and all that can happen to it is to turn itself outwards

instead of remaining turned inwards. The God in you cannot

evolve, but He may show forth His powers through matter that He

has appropriated for the purpose, and the matter evolves to serve

Him. He Himself only manifests what He is. And on that, many a

saying of the great mystics may come to your mind: "Become," says

St. Ambrose, "what you are"--a paradoxical phrase; but one that

sums up a great truth: become in outer manifestation that which

you are in inner reality. That is the object of the whole process

of Yoga.

"Spirituality" is the realisation of the One. "Psychism" is the

manifestation of intelligence through any material vehicle.[FN#5:

See London Lectures of 1907, "Spirituality and Psychism".]

"Yoga" is the seeking of union by the intellect, a science;

"Mysticism" is the seeking of the same union by emotion.[FN#6:

The word yoga may, of course, be rightly used of all union with

the self, whatever the road taken. I am using it here in the

narrower sense, as peculiarly connected with the intelligence, as

a Science, herein following Patanjali.]

See the mystic. He fixes his mind on the object of devotion; he

loses self-consciousness, and passes into a rapture of love and

adoration, leaving all external ideas, wrapped in the object of

his love, and a great surge of emotion sweeps him up to God. He

does not know how he has reached that lofty state. He is

conscious only of God and his love for Him. Here is the rapture

of the mystic, the triumph of the saint.

The yogi does not work like that. Step after step, he realises

what he is doing. He works by science and not by emotion, so that

any who do not care for science, finding it dull and dry, are not

at present unfolding that part of their nature which will find

its best help in the practice of Yoga. The yogi may use devotion

as a means. This comes out very plainly in Patanjali. He has

given many means whereby Yoga may be followed, and curiously,

"devotion to Isvara'' is one of several means. There comes out

the spirit of the scientific thinker. Devotion to Isvara is not

for him an end in itself, but means to an endÄthe concentration

of the mind. You see there at once the difference of spirit.

Devotion to Isvara is the path of the mystic. He attains

communion by that. Devotion to Isvara as a means of concentrating

the mind is the scientific way in which the yogi regards

devotion. No number of words would have brought out the

difference of spirit between Yoga and Mysticism as well as this.

The one looks upon devotion to Isvara as a way of reaching the

Beloved; the other looks upon it as a means of reaching

concentration. To the mystic, God, in Himself is the object of

search, delight in Him is the reason for approaching Him, union

with Him in consciousness is his goal; but to the yogi, fixing

the attention on God is merely an effective way of concentrating

the mind. In the one, devotion is used to obtain an end; in the

other, God is seen as the end and is reached directly by rapture.