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functioning. It is the path of feeling and emotion, using the astral body. Its
use was credited to the Atlanteans, or Fourth Race folk, as their most
appropriate type of evolutionary expression, and is no longer our task.
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Raja ("King") Yoga, type three, is the specific discipline for our Fifth Race,
the Aryan. It is designed to awaken the centers in the head (the pineal gland
and the pituitary body) crowning the work of the two earlier Yogas in the
development of the functions of the etheric body. It is consequently the path of
mentality, which is the Fifth principle in man; and hence it becomes the
appointed task of the Fifth or Aryan Race to unfold it. As the work of Yoga is
to unify the various principles in man into harmonious accord, it will be seen
that, as Karma Yoga arouses the four lower centers, and Bhakti Yoga unites them
with the two middle centers (the heart and throat), so it is the purpose of Raja
Yoga to link the ascending forces with the centers in the head (the brain and
the two glands mentioned above), and to use this uppermost station as the
controlling and distributing center for all the energies of the unified
personality.8 There are many stages in the long process of Yoga development.
First the physical must be brought under control. Then the etheric centers must
be quickened and linked with the head centers. Then the mind must be linked with
the true soul, and eventually the latter with the common Soul of all things.
According to Mrs. Bailey, Raja Yoga is a system giving the rules and means
whereby,
1. Conscious contact can be made with the soul, the second aspect of the Christ
within.
2. Knowledge of the Self can be achieved and its control over the Not-Self
maintained.
3. The power of the Ego or Soul can be felt in daily life, and the soul powers
manifested.
4. The lower psychic nature can be subdued and the higher psychic faculties
developed.
5. The brain can be brought en rapport with the soul and the messages from the
latter received.
6. The "light in the head" can be increased so that a man becomes a living
Flame.
7. The Path can be found, and man himself becomes that Path.
The initial work of Raja Yoga is the recognition of the true nature of the Self
as distinct from the illusory character of man's life in the three lower worlds-
the difference between the Man himself and his lower vestures. This is achieved
by a long course of meditation, with thought turned inward, until one
empirically learns that he is not either his body, or his feelings, or his
sensations, or even his thoughts; that all these belong to the world of
evanescent things, and that he himself is the entity, the point of conscious
being, which abides in unaffected permanence at the center of this changing
world of experience. This is his first task-to learn to distinguish that which
comes into being and goes out from that which abides. And the work involves more
than a merely mental grasp of the fact; it requires that one should act, feel,
and think, and at the same time learn to stand aside from the act, the feeling,
the thought, and remain unaffected by them. For ages during his preceding
evolution, before the scales of illusion were torn from his eyes, the man was
under the delusion that he was the lower objective self, as reported by his
senses. This identification of himself with what is in reality but his outer
clothing, is the cause of all the pain that besets his path. For this thinking
himself to be the vestures which he wears subjects him to the vicissitudes which
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they themselves must undergo. He thus prescribes physical and sensuous limits to
his destiny. He puts himself at the mercy of the fate which befalls his outward
life. Before serenity can be achieved he must learn to detach himself from his
vehicles, so that he can sit unaffected in the midst of changing fortunes. Ere
long he must realize himself as part of the whole of being, yet as detached from
it, free from the dominance of the world of form and the impressions of the
senses. He must learn to use them, and no longer let them use him. His dominance
over matter is achieved by a mastery of the subtle forces resident in the atom.
This is done by developing a conscious control over what are called the Gunas,
the three qualities of matter, which are Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas; or rhythm,
action or mobility, and inertia. In Indian philosophy, however, these three
terms mean, rather, "goodness, passion, and darkness," or "virtue, foulness, and
ignorance." Therefore it is necessary to understand the theosophic
interpretation of Gunas. Eventually the disciple must be able to command the
wind and the waves by instituting the proper balance between the rhythmic and
the inert qualities of matter. Thus he learns to know of a surety that he is not
those forms but a dynamic entity immeasurably greater than them. The acquirement
of this knowledge is a part of the process necessary to the realization of his
true character as a living spirit, and to the gradual withdrawing of himself
from his entanglement in the world of matter. The five elements, earth, water,
fire, air, and ether, and the five senses, as well as the distinctive forms of
mental action, are the specific results of the interplay of the three Gunas in
the world of material forces. But back of these external manifestations there
are the "unspecific" or subjective forms of ethereal force; and eventually the
disciple has to touch these unseen elements and control them.
To help detach himself from the influence of visible forms, the seeker must aim
to actualize the unseen force which operates behind every form, and thus look
through and beyond the form, which is but the effect of some cause, to that
cause itself. The crucial operation in every Yoga practice is to work back from
effects, which are material and secondary, to causes, which are spiritual and
primary; from the material periphery of life in to its spiritual core. This he
believes possible by virtue of the theory that "the whole world of forms is the
result of the thought activity of some life; the whole universe of matter is the
field for the experience of some existence."9
All objective forms are frozen thoughts of some mind, which gives its own
coloring to both the objective and the subjective worlds presented to it. Hence,
one of the first things the Ego has to do in seeking Yoga is to take the mind in
charge and render it a perfect instrument for the Soul's higher vision. The
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