anything but a psychic counterfeit, a dangerous delusion.

Therefore Patanjali, like every great spiritual teacher, meets the
question: What must I do to be saved? with the age- old answer: Keep
the Commandments. Only after the disciple can say, These have I
kept, can there be the further and finer teaching of the spiritual Rules.

It is, therefore, vital for us to realize that the Yoga system, like every
true system of spiritual teaching, rests on this broad and firm
foundation of honesty, truth, cleanness, obedience. Without these,
there is no salvation; and he who practices these, even though
ignorant of spiritual things, is laying up treas- against the time to
come.

BOOK II

1. The practices which make for union with the Soul are: fervent
aspiration, spiritual reading, and complete obedience to the Master.

The word which I have rendered "fervent aspiration' means primarily
"fire"; and, in the Eastern teaching, it means the fire which gives life
and light, and at the same time the fire which purifies. We have,
therefore, as our first practice, as the first of the means of spiritual
growth, that fiery quality of the will which enkindles and illumines,
and, at the same time, the steady practice of purification, the burning
away of all known impurities. Spiritual reading is so universally
accepted and understood, that it needs no comment. The very study
of Patanjali's Sutras is an exercise in spiritual reading, and a very
effective one. And so with all other books of the Soul. Obedience to
the Master means, that we shall make the will of the Master our will,