Part 1
We must now deal with the mental body, which is taken asequivalent to mind for practical purposes. The first thing for aman to do in practical Yoga is to separate himself from themental body, to draw away from that into the sheath next aboveit. And here remember what I said previously, that in Yoga theSelf is always the consciousness plus the vehicle from which theconsciousness is unable to separate itself.
All that is above thebody you cannot leave is the Self for practical purposes, andyour first attempt must be to draw away from your mental body.Under these conditions, Manas must be identified with the Self,and the spiritual Triad, the Atma-buddhi-manas, is to be realisedas separate from the mental body.
That is the first step. Youmust be able to take up and lay down your mind as you do a tool,before it is of any use to consider the further progress of theSelf in getting rid of its envelopes. Hence the mental body istaken as the starting point. Suppress thought. Quiet it. Stillit. Now what is the ordinary condition of the mental body?
As youlook upon that body from a higher plane, you see constant changesof colours playing in it. You find that they are sometimesinitiated from within, sometimes from without. Sometimes avibration from without has caused a change in consciousness, anda corresponding change in the colours in the mental body.
If there is a change of consciousness, that causes vibration in thematter in which that consciousness is functioning. The mentalbody is a body of ever-changing hues and colours, never still,changing colour with swift rapidity throughout the whole of it.Yoga is the stopping of all these, the inhibition of vibrationsand changes alike. Inhibition of the change of consciousnessstops the vibration of the mental body; the checking of thevibration of the mental body checks the change in consciousness.
In the mental body of a Master there is no change of colour saveas initiated from within; no outward stimulus can produce anyanswer, any vibration,ùin that perfectly controlled mental body.The colour of the mental body of a Master is as moonlight on therippling ocean. Within that whiteness of moon-like refulgence lieall possibilities of colour, but nothing in the outer world canmake the faintest change of hue sweep over its steady radiance.If a change of consciousness occurs within, then the change willsend a wave of delicate hues over the mental body which respondsonly in colour to changes initiated from within and never tochanges stimulated from without.
His mental body is never HisSelf, but only His tool or instrument, which He can take up orlay down at His will. It is only an outer sheath that He useswhen He needs to communicate with the lower world.
