The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali by Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī

Author:Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī [al-Bīrūnī, Abū Rayḥān]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary Collections, Middle Eastern, Philosophy, Eastern, Religion
ISBN: 9781479813216
Google: 3IBaEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2022-05-03T20:47:17+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

57.1QUESTION: You said earlier that the state of renunciation is only attained by the renunciant either through devotion carried out with a pure and immaculate mind, with sincere intention, and holiness in one’s praxis, or through withdrawal from the objects of sense perception and the control of the senses. Can this condition be attained in any other way?

57.2ANSWER: It may be attained in one of five ways: The first is for the individual to perform many good deeds in this world and to worship God for a long period. However, he will not attain this state of renunciation in the form he is currently in but only when he is transported through death and prepared for a form in which he can enjoy that state. The second is for him to perform many good deeds and augment his devotional practices, as a result of which God will grant him the grace of wisdom while he remains in his current form, as well as the splendor of this state of renunciation. The third is for him to attain it by ingesting rasāyana, which are drugs and medical treatments prescribed for this purpose. The fourth and fifth ways are those stated at the outset.

58.1QUESTION: Is it possible for the renunciant you have described to become a spiritual being?

58.2ANSWER: When he is in his bodily form he cannot transport himself to that level. But when he separates from his form, and if this state of separation persists and he opts to intensify one of the three primary forces, then he will be delivered to the class whose force he had intensified, becoming either an angelic being or a devil or a jinni.

59.1QUESTION: By intensifying one of these three forces, does he acquire a reward or commit a sin, warranting a bodily incarnation of the class he desires?

59.2ANSWER: This intensification is not to acquire anything but simply a love of change, so that if he intensifies the good force, he will remove evil from his soul and become an angelic being, and if he intensifies the evil force, he will remove good from his soul and become a devil. This is comparable to someone who irrigates his crop, leading to excess water gathering unintentionally in one part of it. He then proceeds to dig a channel to siphon it off, not in order to irrigate, but simply to remove this excess water from his crop.

60.1QUESTION: If this renunciant is able to magnify what is small, increase what is scant, and transform his body into many bodies, assisting each other in the pursuit of one aim, would these exist with many minds or with one or with none? The latter option would necessarily make them lifeless corpses; the middle option would necessitate action in only one of them, since the mind reflects at first, and then the body acts accordingly; and if they exist with many minds then disparate thoughts would arise, leading to divergent actions.

60.2ANSWER: Each of them has its own mind but

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