English
More than this, they instruct their pupils to direct and order the sub-conscious men¬ tality to search out and report to them certain .informa¬ tion to be found only within the mind itself—some ques¬ tion of philosophy or metaphysics. And when such art has been acquired, the student or Yogi rests assured that the desired result will be forthcoming in due time, and consequently dismisses the matter from his conscious mind, and busies himself with other matters, knowing that day and night, incessantly, the sub-consciousing pro¬ cess is going on, and that the sub-conscious mind is actively at work collecting the information or working out the problem. You will see at once the greatest superiority of this method over the old “ hit-or-miss,” “ hope-it-will-work ” plan pursued by those who have stumbled upon bits of the truth. The Yogi teacher begins by impressing upon his students the fact that the mind is capable of extending outward toward an object, material or mental, and by examining it by methods inherent in itself, extracting knowledge regarding the object named. This is not a startling truth, because it is so common, everyone em¬ ploying it more or less every day. But the process by which the knowledge is extracted is most wonderful, and really is performed below the plane of consciousness, the work of the conscious mind being chiefly concerned in holding the Attention upon the object. We have spoken of the importance of Attention in previous lessons, which it will be well for you to re-read at this time. When the student is fully impressed with the details SUB-CONSCIOUSING process of Attention, and the subsequent u: of knowledge, the Yogi proceeds to inform him that there are other means of obtaining knowledge about an object, by the employment of which the Attention may be firmly directed toward the object, and then after¬ wards held there unconsciously —that is, a portion of the Attention, or a sub-conscious phase of mentation, which will hold the sub-conscious mind firmly upon the work until accomplished, leaving the conscious Attention and mentality free to employ itself with other things. The Yogis teach the students that this new form of Attention is far more intense and powerful than is the conscious Attention, for it cannot be disturbed or shaken, or distracted from its object, and that it will work away at its task for days, months, years, or a lifetime if neces¬ sary, according to the difficulty of the task, and, in fact, carries its work over from one life to another, unless recalled by the Will. They teach the student that in everyone’s life there is going on a greater or less degree of this sub-conscious work, carried on in obedience to a strong desire for knowledge manifested in some former life, and bearing fruit only in the present existence. Many important discoveries have been made in obedience to this law. But it is not of this phase of the matter that we wish to speak in this lesson. The Yogi theory is that the sub-conscious intellectual faculty may be set to work under the direction of orders given by the Will. All of you know how the sub-conscious mentality will take up an order of the Will, or a strong wish, that the person be awakened at a certain hour in order to catch a train. Or, in the same way, how the remembrance of a certain engagement at, say, four o’clock will flash into the mind when the hands of the clock approach the stated hour. Nearly everyone can recall instances of this sort in his own experience. RAJA YOGA L But the Yogis go much farther than this. They oaim J that any and all faculties of the mind may be “ set going,” or working on any problem, if ordered thereto by the Will. In fact, the Yogis and their advanced students have mastered this art to such a surprising extent that they find it unnecessary to do the drudgery of thinking in the conscious field, and prefer to relegate such mental work to the sub-conscious, reserving their conscious work for the consideration of digested information and thought presented to them by the sub-conscious mind. Their directions to their students cover a great deal of ground, and extend over a long period of time, and many of the directions are quite complicated and full of detail. But we think that we can give our students an abbreviated and condensed idea in a few pages of the lesson. And the remaining lessons of the course will also throw additional light on the subject of sub-conscious mental action, in connection with other subjects. The Yogi takes the student when the latter is much bothered by a consideration of some knotty and perplex¬ ing philosophical subject. He bids the student relax every muscle—take the tension from every nerve—throw aside all mental strain, and then wait a few moments. Then the student is instructed to grasp the subject which he has had before his mind, firmly and fixedly before his mental vision, by means of concentration. Then he is instructed to pass it on to the sub-conscious mentality by an effort of the Will, which effort is aided by forming a mental picture of the subject as a material substance, or bundle of thought, which is being bodily lifted up and dropped down a mental hatchway or trap-door, in which it sinks from sight. The student is then instructed to say to the sub-conscious mentality: “I wish this subject thoroughly analysed, arranged, classified (and whatever SUB-CONSCIOUSING desired), and then the results handed back' d to this.” he student is taught to speak to the sub-conscious mentality just as if it were a separate entity of being, which had been employed to do the work. He is also taught that confident expectation is an important part of the process, and that the degree of success depends upon the degree of this confident expectation. In obstinate cases the student is taught to use the Imagination freely, until he is able to make a mental image or picture of the sub-conscious mind doing what is required of it. This process clears away a mental path for the feet of the sub-conscious mind, which it will choose thereafter, as it prefers to follow the line of least resist¬ ance. Of course, much depends upon practice—practice makes perfect, you know, in everything else, and sub- consciousing is no exception to the rule. The student gradually acquires a proficiency in the art of sub-consciousing, and thereafter devotes his time to acquiring new facts for mental digestion, rather than bestowing it upon the mechanical act of thinking. But a very important point to be remembered is that the Will-power back of the transferred thought-material, which Will-power is the cause of the sub-conscious action, depends very greatly upon the attention arid interest given to the acquired material. This mass of thought-material which is to be digested and threshed out by the sub-con¬ scious mind, must be well saturated with interest and attention, in order to obtain the best results. In fact, interest and attention are such important aids to the Will, that any consideration of the development and acquirement of Will-power is practically a development and acquirement of attention and interest. The student is refereed to previous lessons in this course in which the RAJA YOGA <§L ice of interest and attention is explained' requiring the mass of thought-material which is to passed on to the sub-conscious digestion, one must concentrate a great degree of interest and attention upon each item of thought-material gathered up. The gathering of this thought-material is a matter of the greatest im¬ portance, and must not be lightly passed by. One cannot hastily gather together all sorts of thought-material, and then expect the sub-conscious mind to do its work pro¬ perly—it will not, in fact, and the student proceeding upon any such erroneous supposition is doomed to dis¬ appointment. The proper way to proceed is to take up each bit of thought-material in turn, and examine it with the great¬ est possible interest, and consequently the greatest attention, and then after having fairly saturated it with this interested attention, place it with the pile of material which, after a while, is to be passed on to the sub¬ conscious mentality. Then take up the next bit of material, and after giving it similar treatment, pass it along to the pile also. Then after a while, when you have gathered up the main facts of the case, proceed to consider the mass as a whole, with interest and attention, giving it as it were a “ general treatment.” Then drop it down the trap-door into the sub-conscious mind, with a strong command, “ Attend to this thought-material,” coupled with a strong expectant belief that your order will be obeyed. The idea underlying this treatment of the thought- material with interest and attention is that by so doing a strong “ Mental Image ” is created, which may be easily handled by the sub-conscious mind. Remember that you are passing on “ thoughts ” for the sub-conscious ness to act upon, and that the more tangible and real SUB-CONSCIOUSING thoughts are, the better can they be har efore any plan that will build these thoughts up into “ real ” things is the plan to pursue. And attention and interest produce just this result. If we may be pardoned for using a homely and com¬ monplace illustration we would say that the idea may be grasped by the illustration of boiling an egg, whereby the fluid “ white ” and “ yolk ” becomes solid and real. Also the use of a shaving brush by a man, by which the thin lather is gradually worked up into a rich, thick, creamy mass, is an illustration.