It is needless to add that not all formally titled
swamis are equally successful in reaching their high goal.
Sri Yukteswar was both a swami and a yogi. A swami, formally a monk
by virtue of his connection with the ancient order, is not always
a yogi. Anyone who practices a scientific technique of God-contact
is a yogi; he may be either married or unmarried, either a worldly
man or one of formal religious ties. A swami may conceivably follow
only the path of dry reasoning, of cold renunciation; but a yogi
engages himself in a definite, step-by-step procedure by which
the body and mind are disciplined, and the soul liberated. Taking
nothing for granted on emotional grounds, or by faith, a yogi
practices a thoroughly tested series of exercises which were first
mapped out by the early rishis. Yoga has produced, in every age
of India, men who became truly free, truly Yogi-Christs.
Like any other science, yoga is applicable to people of every clime
and time. The theory advanced by certain ignorant writers that yoga
is "unsuitable for Westerners" is wholly false, and has lamentably
prevented many sincere students from seeking its manifold blessings.
Yoga is a method for restraining the natural turbulence of thoughts,
which otherwise impartially prevent all men, of all lands, from
glimpsing their true nature of Spirit. Yoga cannot know a barrier
of East and West any more than does the healing and equitable
light of the sun.
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