Capacities of Yoga

Capacities of Yoga

Can everybody practise Yoga? No. But every well-educated person

can prepare for its future practice. For rapid progress you must

have special capacities, as for anything else. In any of the

sciences a man may study without being the possessor of very

special capacity, although he cannot attain eminence therein; and

so it is with Yoga. Anybody with a fair intelligence may learn

something from Yoga which he may advantageously practice, but he

cannot hope unless he starts with certain capacities, to be a

success in Yoga in this life. It is only right to say that; for

if any special science needs particular capacities in order to

attain eminence therein, the science of sciences certainly cannot

fall behind the ordinary sciences in the demands that it makes on

its students.

Suppose I am asked: "Can I become a great mathematician?" What

must be my answer? "You must have a natural aptitude and capacity

for mathematics to be a great mathematician. If you have not that

capacity, you cannot be a great mathematician in this life." But

this does not mean that you cannot learn any mathematics. To be a

great mathematician you must be born with a special capacity for

mathematics. To be born with such a special capacity means that

you have practiced it in very many lives and now you are born

with it ready-made. It is the same with Yoga. Every man can learn

a little of it. But to be a great Yogi means lives of practice.

If these are behind you, you will have been born with the

necessary faculties in the present birth.

There are three faculties which one must have to obtain success

in Yoga. The first is a strong desire. "Desire ardently." Such a

desire is needed to break the strong links of desire which knit

you to the outer world. Moreover, without that strong desire you

will never go through all the difficulties that bat your way. You

must have the conviction that you will ultimately succeed, and

the resolution to go on until you do succeed. It must be a desire

so ardent and so firmly rooted, that obstacles only make it more

keen. To such a man an obstacle is like fuel that you throw on a

fire. It burns but the more strongly as it catches hold of it and

finds it fuel for the burning. So difficulties and obstacles are

but fuel to feed the fire of the yogi's resolute desire. He only

becomes the more firmly fixed, because he finds the difficulties.

If you have not this strong desire, its absence shows that you

are new to the work, but you can begin to prepare for it in this

life. You can create desire by thought; you cannot create desire

by desire. Out of the desire nature, the training of the desire

nature cannot come.

What is it in us that calls out desire? Look into your own mind,

and you will find that memory and imagination are the two things

that evoke desire most strongly. Hence thought is the means

whereby all the changes in desire can be brought about. Thought,

imagination, is the only creative power in you, and by

imagination your powers are to be unfolded. The more you think of

a desirable object, the stronger becomes the desire for it. Then

think of Yoga as desirable, if you want to desire Yoga. Think

about the results of Yoga and what it means for the world when

you have become a yogi, and you will find your desire becoming

stronger and stronger. For it is only by thought that you can

manage desire. You can do nothing with it by itself. You want the

thing, or you do not want it, and within the limits of the desire

nature you are helpless in its grasp. As just said, you cannot

change desire by desire. You must go into another region of your

being, the region of thought, and by thought you can make

yourself desire or not desire, exactly as you like, if only you

will use the right means, and those means, after all, are fairly

simple. Why is it you desire to possess a thing? Because you

think it will make you happier. But suppose you know by past

experience that in the long run it does not make you happier, but

brings you sorrow, trouble, distress. You have at once, ready to

your hands, the way to get rid of that desire. Think of the

ultimate results. Let your mind dwell carefully on all the

painful things. Jump over the momentary pleasure, and fix your

thought steadily on the pain which follows the gratification of

that desire. And when you have done that for a month or so, the

very sight of those objects of desire will repel you. You will

have associated it in your mind with suffering, and will recoil

from it instinctively. You will not want it. You have changed the

want, and have changed it by your power of imagination. There is

no more effective way of destroying a vice than by deliberately

picturing the ultimate results of its indulgence. Persuade a

young man who is inclined to be profligate to keep in his mind

the image of an old profligate; show him the profligate worn out,

desiring without the power to gratify; and if you can get him to

think in that way, unconsciously he will begin to shrink from

that which before attracted him; the very hideousness of the

results frightens away the man from clinging to the object of

desire. And the would-be yogi has to use his thought to mark out

the desires he will permit, and the desires that he is determined

to slay.

The next thing after a strong desire is a strong will. Will is

desire. transmuted, its directing is changed from without to

within. If your will is weak, you must strengthen it. Deal with

it as you do with other weak things: strengthen it by practice.

If a boy knows that he has weak arms, he says: "My arms are weak,

but I shall practice gymnastics, work on the parallel bars: thus

my arms. will grow strong." It is the same with the will.

Practice will make strong the little, weak will that you have at

present.

Resolve, for example, saying: "I will do such and such thing

every morning," and do it. One thing at a time is enough for a

feeble will. Make yourself a promise to do such and such a thing

at such a time, and you will soon find that you will be ashamed

to break your promise. When you have kept such a promise to

yourself for a day, make it for a week, then for a fortnight.

Having succeeded, you can choose a harder thing to do, and so on.

By this forcing of action, you strengthen the will. Day after day

it grows greater in power, and you find your inner strength

increases. First have a strong desire. Then transmute it into a

strong will.

The third requisite for Yoga is a keen and broad intelligence.

You cannot control your mind, unless you have a mind to control.

Therefore you must develop your mind. You must study. By study, I

do not mean the reading of books. I mean thinking. You may read a

dozen books and your mind may be as feeble as in the beginning.

But if you have read one serious book properly, then, by slow

reading and much thinking, your intelligence will be nurtured and

your; mind grow strong.

These are the things you want--a strong desire, an indomitable

will, a keen. intelligence. Those are the capacities that you

must unfold in order that the practice of Yoga may be possible to

you. If your mind is very unsteady, if it is a butterfly mind

like a child's, you must make it steady. That comes by close

study and thinking. You must unfold the mind by which you are to

work.