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The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book 3 - Union achieved and its Results |
43. When that which veils the light is done away
with, then comes the state of being called discarnate (or disembodied), freed from the
modification of the thinking principle. This is the state of illumination. Again, we have a free, rather than a literal translation, and in this the true sense of the archaic terms used is preserved instead of academic correctness. The reason for this will be apparent if certain well-known translations are given. They are correct translations but demonstrate [340] the ambiguity which is inevitable when a literal translation of the Sanskrit terms is used.
Vivekananda expresses the sutra in the following terms:
The great difficulties under which all translators labor is apparent from this and hence the frank paraphrasing of this passage. There are two thoughts seeking expression in this sutra. One refers to the veil or covering which prevents the illumination of the mind, and the other to the state of realization which is achieved when a man has freed himself from this veil. That which covers up the light (the "bushel" referred to by the Christ in the New Testament) is the changing, fluctuating sheaths or bodies. When they are transmuted and transcended the light of God (the second divine aspect) can flood the lower man and he knows himself as he is. Illumination pours in and he knows himself as something different to the forms through which he is functioning. He is no longer centered, no [341] longer polarized in his forms, but is actually in a condition of disembodiedness. His consciousness is that of the man out of incarnation, of the true man on his own plane, the real discarnate thinker. St. Paul, as has been pointed out by several thinkers, had a touch of this state of being. He referred to it in these words:
This "third heaven" can be understood in two ways: first, as standing for the mental plane on which is the true home of the spiritual man, the thinker, or a more specific state to be understood as that found on the third or highest of the three abstract levels of the mental plane. |
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