Page 15 - All India Magazine May-2022

Rajayogic concentration
Rajayogic concentration is divided into four stages; it com-
mences with the drawing both of the mind and senses from outward
things, proceeds to the holding of the one object of concentration
to the exclusion of all other ideas and mental activities, then to the

prolonged absorption of the mind in this object, finally, to the com-
plete ingoing of the consciousness by which it is lost to all outward
mental activity in the oneness of Samadhi. The real object of this
mental discipline is to draw away the mind from the outward and the

mental world into union with the divine Being. Therefore in the first
three stages use has to be made of some mental means or support by
which the mind, accustomed to run about from object to object, shall

fix on one alone, and that one must be something which represents
the idea of the Divine. It is usually a name or a form or a mantra by
which the thought can be fixed in the sole knowledge or adoration of

the Lord. By this concentration on the idea the mind enters from the

idea into its reality, into which it sinks silent, absorbed, unified. This is
the traditional method. There are, however, others which are equally
of a Rajayogic character, since they use the mental and psychical be-
ing as key. Some of them are directed rather to the quiescence of the
mind than to its immediate absorption, as the discipline by which the
mind is simply watched and allowed to exhaust its habit of vagrant
thought in a purposeless running from which it feels all sanction,
purpose and interest withdrawn, and that, more strenuous and
rapidly effective, by which all outward-going thought is excluded and

the mind forced to sink into itself where in its absolute quietude it

can only reflect the pure Being or pass away into its superconscient

existence. The method differs, the object and the result are the same.
CWSA 23: 540-41
The Patanjali’s system of Rajayoga
Rajayoga is of three kinds, sachesta, salpachesta and nischesta,

with effort, with little effort, and without effort. Patanjali’s, the only
systematised kind, though each is quite methodical, is sachesta, involving
great strain and effort throughout… The first step is the preparation

of the moral nature, the discipline of the heart, its perfection in the
All India Magazine, May 2022