Yoga is control of thoughts.
Then man abides in his real nature.
Otherwise, he remains identified with thoughts.
They are controlled by practice and non-attachment.
For Patanjali, "real nature" was a soul but there are other understandings.
In CS Lewis' The Great Divorce, "Ghosts" can travel by bus from the gray town that is Hell to the foothills of Heaven but often opt to return. One Ghost carries on his shoulder a lizard whispering pleasurable dreams that will require him to return to the town. However, when, with the Ghost's permission, an angel kills the lizard, the Ghost becomes a man and the lizard becomes a horse which the man rides into the mountains.
Lewis' gray town and mountains correspond to Patanjali's thoughts and real nature.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteSo the man with the lizard was identifying himself with those whispers? And only after he consented to the lizard being killed was that man able to achieve "yoga" and be in controls of his thoughts. Because he was no longer "attached" to those whispers. Yes, I can see the structural similarity.
Sean