"
"We will waive your admiration. Let me say that I can exchange my
personality. The Jews used to say that men of certain mentality were
possessed of a devil. I only say that I was a student in India. One
phrase is good as another. The Swami Hamadata was my teacher."
"It would have been far better for you had you never known him, and
better for many others," was my answer to his astonishing discourse.
"Perhaps; but I am only explaining as you have requested. I am a Raja
Yogi. I have taken the eight mystic steps. For years, even here in this
country, I have kept up the sacred exercises of breath, of posture, of
thought."
"All that means nothing to me," I admitted simply.
"No, it means nothing for me to tell you that I have learned Yama,
Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dyhana and Samadhi! Yes,
I was something of an adept once. I learned calm, meditation,
contemplation, introspection, super-conscious reasoning--how to cast my
own mind to a distance, how to bring other minds close up to me.
But,"--he smiled with all his old mockery--"mostly I failed on
Pratyahara, which says the senses must be quelled, subdued and set
aside! All religions are alike to me, but they must not intrude on my
own religion.
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