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natter of regret that he should be kept awal night fiom anxiety as to the issue of a lawsuit on the morrow, but that he should have the power of determining whether he be kept awake or not seems an extravagant demand. The image of an impending calamity is no doubt odious, but its very odiousness (we say) makes it haunt the mind all the more pertinaciously and it is useless to try to expel it. Yet this is an absurd position—for man, the heir of all the ages: hag-ridden by the flimsy creatures of his own brain. If a pebble in our boot torments us, we expel it. We take off the boot and shake it out. And once the matter is fairly understood it is just as easy to expel an intruding and obnoxious thought from the mind. About tuis there ought to be no mistake, no two opinions. The thing is obvious, clear, and unmistakable. It should be as easy to expel an obnoxious thought from your mind as it is to shake a stone out of your shoe; and till a man can do that it is just nonsense to talk about his ascendancy- over Nature, and all the rest of it. He is a mere slave, and prey to the bat-winged phantoms that flit tlirough the corridors of his own brain. Yet the weary and careworn faces that we meet by thousands, even among the affluent classes of civilization, testify only too clearly how seldom this mastery is obtained. How rare, indeed, to meet a man ! How com¬ mon rather to discover a creature hounded on by tyrant thoughts (or cares 'Pr desires), cowering, wincing under the lash—or perchance priding himself to run merrily in obedience to a driver that rattles the reins and persuades him that he is free—whom we cannot converse with in careless tete-a-tete because that alien presence is always there, on the watch. Ii is one of the most prominent doctrines of Raja RAJA YOGA that the power of expelling thoughts, or, it ling them dead on the spot, must be attai irally, the art requires practice, but, like other arts, when once acquired, there is no mystery or difficulty about it. And it is worth practice. It may indeed fairly be said that life only begins when this art has been acquired. For obviously when, instead of being ruled by individual thoughts, the whole flock of them in their immense multitude and variety and capacity is ours to direct and dispatch and employ where we list (‘ for He maketh the winds His messengers and the flaming fire His minister ’), life becomes a thing so vast and grand com¬ pared with what it was before, that its former condition may well appear almost antenatal. “ If you can kill a thought dead, for the time being, you can do anything else with it that you please. And therefore it is that this power is so valuable. And it not only frees a man from mental torment (which is nine-tenths at least of the torment of life), but it gives him a concentrated power of handling mental work absolutely unknown to him before. The two things are co-relative to each other. As already said, this is one of the principles of Raja Yoga. “ While at work your thought is to be absolutely con¬ centrated in it, undistracted by anything whatever irrele¬ vant to the matter in hand—pounding away like a great engine, with giant power and perfect economy —no wear and tear of friction, or dislocation of parts owing to the working of different forces at the same time. Then when the work is finished, if there is no more occasion for the use of the machine, it must stop equally, absolutely- stop entirely—no worrying (as if a parcel of boys were allowed to play their devilments with a locomotive as soon as it was in the shed)—and the man must retire into that region of his consciousness where his true self dwells. “ I say the power of the thought-machine itself is WNtSTQy THE EGO’S MENTAL TOOLS irmously increased by this faculty of letting , d ie one hand, and of using it singly and with ation on the other. It becomes a true tool which a master-workman lays down when done with, but which only a bungler carries about with him all the tune to show that he is the possessor of it.” We ask the students to read carefully the above quotations from Mr. Carpenter’s book, for they are full of suggestions that may be taken up to advantage by those who are emancipating themselves from their slavery t0 the unmastered mind, and who are now bringing the mind under control of the Ego, by means of the Will. Our next lesson will take up the subject of the relation¬ ship of the “ I ” to the Universal “ I,” and will be called the “ Expansion of the Self.” It will deal with the sub¬ ject, not from a theoretical standpoint, but from the position of the teacher who is endeavouring to make his students actually aware in their consciousness of the truth of the proposition. In this course we are not trying to make our students past-masters of theory, but arc endeavouring to place them in a position whereby they may know for themselves, and actually experience the things of which we teach. Therefore we urge upon you not to merely rest content with reading this lesson, but, instead, to study and medi¬ tate upon the teachings mentioned under the head of “ Mental Drill,” until the distinctions stand out clearly in your mind, and until you not only believe them to be true, but actually are conscious of the “ I ” and its Mental , ° ,. s ' ^ Iav ' e Patience and perseverance. The task may e ifficult, out the reward is great. To become conscious of the greatness, majesty, strength and power of your real being is worth years of hard study. Do you not think so? Then study and practise hopefully, diligently and earnestly. Peace be with you. RAJA YOGA RAMS (AFFIRMATIONS) FOR THE SECOND LESSON Sl “ I ” am an entity—my mind is my instrument of expression. “ I ” exist independent of my mind, and am not depen¬ dent upon it for existence or being. “ I ” am Master of my mind, not its slave. “ I ” can set aside my sensations, emotions, passions, desires, intellectual faculties, and all the rest of my mental collection of tools, as “ not I ” things—and still there remains something—and that something is “ I,” which cannot be set aside by me, for it is my very self; my only self; my real self—“ I.” That which remains after all that may be set aside is set aside is the “ I ”—Myself— eternal, constant, unchangeable. MIN IST/fy THE THIRD LESSON THE EXPANSION OF THE SELF In the first two lessons of this course we have endeavoured ^ i Candidate a realization in consciousness of the reality of the “ I,” and to enable him to distinguish between the Self and its sheaths, physical and mental. In the present lesson we will call his attention to the rela¬ tionship of the "I” to the Universal “ I,” and will endeavour to give him an idea of a greater, grander Self, transcending personality and the little self that we are so apt to regard as the “ I.” rhe keynote of this lesson will be “ The Oneness of An, and all of its teachings will be directed to awaken¬ ing a realization in consciousness of that great truth. But we wish t0 impress upon the mind of the Candidate that we are not teaching him that he is the Absolute. We arc not teaching the “ I Am God ” belief, which we consider to be erroneous and misleading, and a perversion of the original Yogi teachings. This false teaching has taken possession of many of the Hindu teachers and people, and with its accompanying teaching of “ Maya ” or the complete illusion or non-existence of the Universe, has reduced millions of people to a passive, negative mental condition which undoubtedly is retarding their progress. Not only in India is this true, but the same facts may be observed among the pupils of the Western teachers who nave embraced this negative side of the Oriental Philo¬ sophy. Such people confound the “ Absolute ” and Relative ^ aspects of the One, and, being unable to reconcile the facts of Life and the Universe with their 49 misT#,, RAJA YOGA bf “ I Am God,” they are driven to the despei it of boldly denying the Universe, and declari _all “ an illusion ” or “ Maya.” You will have no trouble in distinguishing the pupils of the teachers holding this view. They will be found to exhibit the most negative mental condition—a natural result of absorbing the constant suggestion of “ nothing¬ ness ” —the gospel of negation. In marked contrast to the mental condition of the students, however, will be observed the mental attitude of the teachers, who are almost uniformly examples of vital, positive mental force, capable of hurling their teaching into the minds of the pupils—of driving in their statements by the force of an awakened Will. The teacher, as a rule, has awakened to a sense of the “ 1 ” consciousness, and really develops the same by his “ I Am God ” attitude, because by holding this mental attitude he is enabled to throw off the influence of the sheaths of the lower mental principles, and the light of the Self shows forth fiercely and strongly, sometimes to such an extent that it fairly scorches the mentality of the less advanced pupil. But notwithstanding this awakened “ I ” consciousness, the teacher is handicapped by his intellectual misconception and befogging metaphysics, and is unable to impart the “ I ” consciousness to his pupils, and, instead of raising them up to shine with equal splendour with himself he really forces them into a shadow by reason of his teachings. Our students, of course, will understand that the above is not written in the spirit of carping criticism or fault¬ finding We hold no such mental attitude, and indeed could not if we remain true to our conception of Truth. We are mentioning these matters simply that the student may avoid this “ I Am God ” pitfall which awaits the Candidate just as he has well started on the Path.