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Cosmic Consciousness by Ali Nomad

XV METHODS OF ATTAINMENT: THE WAY OF ILLUMINATION

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These are the endowments of the spiritual body with which the disciple is seeking to establish his identity--that he may overcome the second death and become immortal _in consciousness_, here and now.

Of this spiritual, or etheric body it is said, "Fire burns it not; water wets it not; the sword cleaves it not; dry winds parch it not. It is unassailable."

_Meditate upon this sutra._

"For him who discerns between the mind and the spiritual man (the Self) there comes perfect fruition of the longing after the real being."

When the disciple has once grasped the fact that he _is_ a soul, and _possesses_ a mind and a physical covering, he has entered on the way of Illumination, and must inevitably reach the goal; then shall he find "perfect fruition of the longing" after the perfect Self, and its completement in union with the love that he craves. "Have you, in lonely darkness longed for companionship and consolation? You shall have angels and archangels for your friends and all the immortal hosts of the Dawn."

Such are the Yoga sutras, or aphorisms, as enunciated by Patanjali.

If the aspiring one were to give up a whole lifetime to their practice, gaining at last the consciousness of immortal life and love, what a small price to pay.

_Raja Yoga_ with its methods and exercises, is the path of knowledge, through application; concentration; meditation.

The practice of Raja Yoga will lead the student to the path of Gnani Yoga; and to the realization that Bhakti Yoga, the way of love and service will be included, not as an arduous task; not as a study, or as a means to an end, but because of the love of it.

_Gnani Yoga_ comes as complementary to practice of the sutras because knowledge applied for the purpose of spiritual attainment brings _wisdom_. _Gnani Yoga_, then, is the path of wisdom. The follower of Gnani Yoga seeks the occult or hidden wisdom, and always has before him the idea of whether this or that be of the Self, the _atman_, or of the self, the personal, gradually eliminating from his desires all that does not answer the test of its reality in spiritual consciousness; he welcomes experiences of all kinds, as so many lessons from which he extracts the fine grain of truth, and throws aside the husks; he accepts nothing blindly or in faith, but "proves all things holding fast to that which is good"; not that he lacks faith, but because the very nature of his inquiry is to discover the interior nature and its relation to God.

There are many in the world of to-day who feel the urge toward the path of Gnani Yoga, because of the conviction that is forcing itself upon every truly enlightened mind, that civilization with all its wonderful achievements, does not promise happiness, or solve the question of the soul's urge. In short, the educated, and the well conditioned, if he be a thinker, and not submerged in _maya_, lost in the personal self, inevitably finds himself searching for the _real_ in all this labyrinth of mind creations and sea of emotions, and then as a rule, he seeks the path of Gnani Yoga, because his intellect must be satisfied, even though his heart calls. The mystic, the teacher, and the philosopher are following the path of Gnani; so is the true occultist, but many who deal in so-called occultism are employing _knowledge_ only, entirely missing the higher quality--_wisdom_.

_Bhakti Yoga_, the path of self-surrender; the thorny way through the emotions; the "blood of the heart," is the short cut to Illumination, if such a thing could be. But there is no "short cut"; nor yet a long road.