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.

"It is one of the most prominent doctrines of Raja Yoga that the power of
expelling thoughts, or if need be, killing them dead on the spot, _must_
be attained. Naturally 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 compared 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 concentrated in it,
undistracted by anything whatever irrelevant 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