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amount of naturally available psychic energy, augmented from
time to time in a few individuals by a trickle from the unused,
hidden reservoir. Known spiritual prodigies and outstanding men
of genius who, were they fashioned in a different way, could have
utilized more of this psychic energy. They constitute the well-
springs from which the first tiny rivulets of original thought, both
material and spiritual, flowed forth to mingle together and become
a gradually widening and swiftly flowing stream with the
subsequent small additions made by diligent men from the grateful
multitudes.
Our aim in extending the sphere of Yoga to include every
healthy and systematic aspect of religious endeavour is to focus
attention on this issue of paramount importance, from both the
physical and the spiritual points of view, that all the phenomena
associated with religion, Yoga and the occult, of every shade and
shape, spring from the possibility existing in the human organism,
to alter the output of psychic energy under certain conditions,
leading to a phenomenal transformation of the inner man. In its
more pronounced forms the transformation may lead to a state of
unimaginable glory, to the ascent of consciousness from the narrow
periphery of a gloomy basement to the breathtaking pinnacle of
universal Consciousness, for the first time made cognizant of its
own unbounded proportions and immortal nature. The first impact
of this stupendous vision on the seers is formidable, and it is no
wonder that, under the stress of the flood of emotion experienced at
the breathtaking spectacle, some of them at once faint away. This
glorious consummation of spiritual effort, though rare, has been
achieved time after time by earnest seekers of all epochs and
countries. The transformation can become a permanent possession
of an individual, resulting in a life of such fulfillment, peace, and
beatitude as one can only associate with the godlike denizens of a
glorious paradise.
38 THE SECRET OF YOGA
The tendency to divide mystical phenomena into several
arbitrary compartments and to extol this compartment or that
according to one s choice or inclination, springs from the fact that
a high degree of ignorance still prevails about the basic fact
responsible for them. Although, from the human point of view
there is no fundamental difference between Western mysticism,
Sufism, Taoism, or Yoga, there is a general tendency, sometimes
even among the intellectuals, to treat them as separate and distinct
from each other. The main reason responsible for this uncalled-for
discrimination probably lies in the fact that as, in the main,
mystical experience is associated with the various religions and
cults, the common strongly marked tendency that has persisted
unaltered from very ancient times to differentiate among creeds has
naturally been extended to the sphere of mystical phenomena also.
The wonder is that although no distinction is made in the
phenomenon of genius, and all talented men who had this heaven-
bestowed spark in them, belonging to any country and epoch, are
grouped under one category, irrespective of the faith or of the fact
that they were born in the East or the West, the gifted mystics, who
were equally the recipients of a heaven-granted extraordinary
faculty, and, in the same way, are the common asset of all
mankind, are nevertheless divided into groups and categories or
differentiated according to the faith which they profess.
The subject is too vast to be dealt with here and will be
discussed in detail elsewhere. It is enough to mention that all
human beings, belonging to any racial group or to any part of the
earth have similar psychic and physiological reactions, the same
emotions and passions, identical symptoms in bodily disease and
mental disorder and, above all, the same construction of the various
organs, the nervous system, and the brain. Yet some of the
prevalent ideas, especially among the religious-minded and the
credulous in respect to their approach to the Divine and the
Transcendent, men, belonging to different faiths and different
schools of spiritual discipline, are differentiated and regarded in
dissimilar
HOW THIS AIM IS ACHIEVED 39
ways and are, to say the least, infantile. They would have long
since been labelled as blatantly ridiculous, but for the fact that they
hold a large section of the believers still in their grip. If mystical
experience is rooted in reality and is not merely a dreamlike
condition of the mind, it must have a common basis, run a uniform
course and have a uniform symptomatology and climax for all
men, perhaps with slight modifications due to temperamental and
constitutional differences, as every other psychic manifestation in
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