This is a book about yogis by a
yogi. India has been materially poor for the last two and a half centuries, but has a vast fund of spiritual wealth.
The initiation into swamiship includes a fire ceremony, during which symbolic funeral rites are performed. The physical
body of the
swami is represented as dead, cremated in the flame of wisdom. The new swami is then given a new name. No man can give himself the title of swami – he rightfully receives it only from another swami.
“You must not get drunk with ecstasy” his
master tells him, for much work remains for you in this world, and the body must perform its daily duties. “It is only when a traveller has reached his goal” his master tells him, that he is justified in discarding his maps.
“The laws of gravitation worked as efficiently before Newton as after him” his master tells him, the cosmos would be chaotic if its laws could not operate without the sanction of human belief.
These sayings have a common thread that bind them together – man must work in harmony with the divine plan, and play his part as a willing instrument of God. Yet it is up to every individual to withold or to bestow his love, and men seek Him only through their own
free will.
The rejuvenating effects of sleep are due to man’s unawareness of body and
breathing. The sleeping man, in effect, becomes a yogi. The yogi arrests bodily decay by the release of the life force. And by quieting the heart, the yogi learns self-control. Yoga is a technique of spiritual enquiry. It has nothing in common with the breathing exercises taught by a number of persons under the guise of yoga.
In his ordinary life, man is naught but a puppet of past actions (karma); the yogi is free from the desires of the past. All attachment disappears for the yogi, for the yogi is one who has cast aside the world and renounced worldly ties.