C. G.
Jung, the famous Swiss psychologist.
"When a religious method recommends itself as 'scientific,' it can
be certain of its public in the West. Yoga fulfills this expectation,"
Dr. Jung writes. {FN24-7} "Quite apart from the charm of the new,
and the fascination of the half-understood, there is good cause
for Yoga to have many adherents. It offers the possibility of
controllable experience, and thus satisfies the scientific need
of 'facts,' and besides this, by reason of its breadth and depth,
its venerable age, its doctrine and method, which include every
phase of life, it promises undreamed-of possibilities.
"Every religious or philosophical practice means a psychological
discipline, that is, a method of mental hygiene. The manifold,
purely bodily procedures of Yoga {FN24-8} also mean a physiological
hygiene which is superior to ordinary gymnastics and breathing
exercises, inasmuch as it is not merely mechanistic and scientific,
but also philosophical; in its training of the parts of the body,
it unites them with the whole of the spirit, as is quite clear,
for instance, in the PRANAYAMA exercises where PRANA is both the
breath and the universal dynamics of the cosmos.
"When the thing which the individual is doing is also a cosmic event,
the effect experienced in the body (the innervation), unites with
the emotion of the spirit (the universal idea), and out of this there
develops a lively unity which no technique, however scientific, can
produce.
Pages:
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312