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In men's inheritance, the most famous of the techniques which set free spiritual energy and lead us beyond the limits where we commonly vegetate is clearly yoga. The word indicates a whole world of practices and doctrines in which it is necessary from every point of view to distinguish very diverse tendencies.’ It may even happen that these tendencies are contradictory. The complete ensemble is in fact the heritage of the past five thousand years in an abundant civilization, where some go as far as treaties opposites as the same.
We have now good guides to clear our way in this astonishing complexity. They lead us to recognize as an axis in it, classical yoga, as codified by Patanjali in the fourth or fifth century A.D., unshaken in spite of the diverse interpretations of it and in spite of, the fact that its very nature as a spiritual technique allows it to be adapted to differing persons and differing groups. Yoga is 'mad with innovation'.
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- Copyright © 1956 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 The ancient civilization of India, discovered recently enough, seems to have known yoga. This civilization stretches as far back as the third millenium B.C., according to Masson-Oursel as far as the fourth (Le Yoga, p. 18).
2 See the bibliographical note which will conclude this article.
3 Masson-Oursel, in the work mentioned, p. 13.
4 Masson-Oursel, In the collection Yoga (Cahiers du Sud). p.6.
5 Dr Therese Brosse, ibid., p. 119.
6 J. Masuy, ibid., p ix..
7 Eliade, p. 18.
8 Ibid., p. 336
9 Quotetd by Gradet, Revue Thomiste, 1954, p. 310, n. I.
10 Gardet, Recherches de l'absolu, Les Mardis de Dar-cl-Salam, Cairo, 1951
11 Gardet, Revue Thomiste, 1954, p. 309.
12 J. Maritain, Quatre essais sur I'esprit dans sa condition charnelle, ch.III, 1939; O. Lacombe, '’On Indian Yoga’ in Etudes carmilitaines, October 1937; ‘An Example Natural Mysticism, India', in Etudes carmtlitaines, October, 1938; ‘Natural Mysticism in india‘ in Revue Thomiste, January, 1951; L. Gardet, ‘Some Research on Natural Mysticism‘ in Revue Thomiste, 1948, pp. 76-111; ‘Natural Mysticism and Supernatural Mysticism in Islam', in Recherches de Sciences religieuses, 1950, pp. 321-365; Recherches de l'absolu,, Les Mardis de Dar-el-Salam, Cairo, 1951; Experiences mystiques en terres non chretiennes I vol., Alsatia, 1953; ‘True and False Mysticism’ in Revue Thomiste, 1954, pp.208-334. (This last article is of capital importance, as are also pages 322-326 of the article in Rech. de Sc. Rel.). M. Lacombe and M. Gardet are preparing a book on The Experience of the Self.
13 Gardet, Les Mardis de Dar-el-Salam, Cairo, 1951, p. 66.
14 Luke 9, 24; 17, 23; John 12, 25.
15 I have discussed this question of principle in my article, ‘The Deification of Man', in La Vie Spirituelle, November, 1949.
16 Dr Brosse's expressions in Approches de l'lnde, volume edited by Cahiers du Sud in 1949, p. 312.
17 Eliade, Le Yoga, p.23.
18 Gen, 1, 10, 12, 18, 21 25, 31
19 Gal, 4, 3.
20 Eliade, Le Yoga, p. 88. (The author writes Yogitt, according to the international usage of Scholers.)
21 Le Yoga, pp.44, 70.
22 O. Lacombe and L. Gardet, Revue Thomiste, 1954, p. 313, n. 2. It is the well-kno*° identity of dtman and brahman.
23 To tell the truth such ‘materialist’ statenfents demand closer consideration. M.Oliver Lacombbe is kind enoughh to point out to me that in this respect there have existed throughout the centuries two sorts of yoga. One is completely biological, but if the other appears to us ‘materialist’ it is because it considers as being of the order of matter’ all that is on this side of pure Spirit. One must no more make a mistake over this conception or this vocabulary therefore than over that of St Paul, when the Apostle talks about ‘the flesh'. Yet even in this second variety there is at least a distinct materialist tendency and practically a whole mentality involved.
24 Eliade, Le Yoga, p.37.
25 L. Gardet, Les mardie de Dar-el-salam, Cairo, 1951, p. 39.
26 Gardet, Revue Thomiste, 1954, p. 318.
27 Eliade, Le Yoga, pp. 100-101.
28 It is apparent that esotericism must not necessarily be conceived as hidden doctrine reserved for initiates, so that access to the realities about which it teaches is forbidden . to others. Etymology should help us to correct this conception: esoterikos means inner. Normally esotericism must be intuition (of which everyone is, in principle, capable if he purifies himself) of those realities which we usually content ourselves with apprehending in a too material, too practical, too notional way. About that, see Sch de Lubicz, Du symbote et ie la symbolique, Cairo, 1951.
29 So Alain Danielou, in the collection Yoga, p. 130.