Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book 2 - Sutra 17







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The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book 2
- The Steps to Union





17. The illusion that the Perceiver and
that which is perceived are one and the same, is the cause (of the pain-producing effects)
which must be warded off.This sutra brings us right back to the great basic duality of
manifestation, the union of spirit and matter. It is their interplay which produces all
the form-producing modifications or activities on the various planes and which is the
cause of the limitations which pure consciousness has imposed upon itself. In a small
commentary such as this it is impossible to enter with any fullness into this subject. All
that it is possible to do is to touch upon the subject as it affects man himself.
It might be summed up as follows: All pain and [152] sorrow is caused by the spiritual
man identifying himself with his objective forms in the three worlds and with the realm of
phenomena in which those forms have their activities. When he can detach himself from the
kingdom of the senses and know himself as the "one who is not that which is seen and
touched and heard" then he can free himself from all form-limitations and stand apart
as the divine perceiver and actor. He will use forms as he desires in order to attain
certain specific ends but is not deluded into regarding them as himself. Students would do
well to learn to hold the consciousness that in the three worlds (which is all that
concerns the aspirant at this stage) he is the highest factor in the well-known
triplicities:


 


The Perceiver
Perception
That which is perceived,


The Thinker
Thought
Thought forms,


The Knower
Knowledge
The field of knowledge,


The Seer
Sight
That which is seen,


The Observer
Observation
That which is observed,


The Spectator
Vision
The Spectacle,


 


and many others
equally well known.The great objective of Raja Yoga is to free the thinker from the
modifications of the thinking principle so that he no longer merges himself in the great
world of thought illusions nor identifies himself with that which is purely phenomenal. He
stands free and detached and uses the world of the senses as the field of his intelligent
activities and no longer as the field of his experiments and experience-gaining
endeavors. [153]
It must be remembered that the means of perception are the six senses; i.e. hearing,
touch, sight, taste, smell and the mind, and that these six must be transcended and known
for what they are. The means of perception reveal the great maya or world of illusion
which is composed of forms of every kind, built of substance which must be studied as to
its atomic and molecular construction and as to the basic elements which give to that
substance its specific differentiations and qualities. For purposes of study the student
will do well to remember that he must investigate the nature of the following factors in
the polar opposite to spirit which we call matter:
Atoms,
Molecular matter,
The elements,
The three gunas or qualities,
The tattvas or force differentiations in their seven forms.

Through an understanding of the nature and distinctions of matter he will come to a
comprehension of the world of form which has held his spirit a prisoner for so long. This
Patanjali points out in the next sutra.





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