1The practices which make for union with the Soul are: fervent aspiration, spiritual reading, and complete obedience to the Master.

2Their aim is, to bring soul-vision, and to wear away hindrances.

3These are the hindrances: the darkness of unwisdom, self-assertion, lust hate, attachment.

4The darkness of unwisdom is the field of the others. These hindrances may be dormant, or worn thin, or suspended, or expanded.

5The darkness of ignorance is: holding that which is unenduring, impure, full of pain, not the Soul, to be eternal, pure, full of joy, the Soul.

6Self-assertion comes from thinking of the Seer and the instrument of vision as forming one self.

7Lust is the resting in the sense of enjoyment.

8Hate is the resting in the sense of pain.

9Attachment is the desire toward life, even in the wise, carried forward by its own energy.

10These hindrances, when they have become subtle, are to be removed by a countercurrent.

11Their active turnings are to be removed by meditation.

12The burden of bondage to sorrow has its root in these hindrances. It will be felt in this life, or in a life not yet manifested.

13From this root there grow and ripen the fruits of birth, of the life-span, of all that is tasted in life.

14These bear fruits of rejoicing, or of affliction, as they are sprung from holy or unholy works.

15To him who possesses discernment, all personal life is misery, because it ever waxes and wanes, is ever afflicted with restlessness, makes ever new dynamic impresses in the mind; and because all its activities war with each other.

16This pain is to be warded off, before it has come.

17The cause of what is to be warded off, is the absorption of the Seer in things seen.

18Things seen have as their property manifestation, action, inertia. They form the basis of the elements and the sense-powers. They make for experience and for liberation.

19The grades or layers of the Three Potencies are the defined, the undefined, that with distinctive mark, that without distinctive mark.

20The Seer is pure vision. Though pure, he looks out through the vesture of the mind.

21The very essence of things seen is, that they exist for the Seer.

22Though fallen away from him who has reached the goal, things seen have not alto fallen away, since they still exist for others.

23The association of the Seer with things seen is the cause of the realizing of the nature of things seen, and also of the realizing of the nature of the Seer.

24The cause of this association is the darkness of unwisdom.

25The bringing of this association to an end, by bringing the darkness of unwisdom to an end, is the great liberation; this is the Seer’s attainment of his own pure being.

26A discerning which is carried on without wavering is the means of liberation.

27His illuminations is sevenfold, rising In successive stages.

28From steadfastly following after the means of Yoga, until impurity is worn away, there comes the illumination of thought up to full discernment.

29The eight means of Yoga are: the Commandments, the Rules, right Poise, right Control of the life-force, Withdrawal, Attention, Meditation, Contemplation.

30The Commandments are these: nom injury, truthfulness, abstaining from stealing, from impurity, from covetousness.

31The Commandments, not limited to any race, place, time or occasion, universal, are the great obligation.

32The Rules are these: purity, serenity fervent aspiration, spiritual reading, and per feet obedience to the Master.

33When transgressions hinder, the weight of the imagination should be thrown’ on the opposite side.

34Transgressions are injury, falsehood, theft, incontinence, envy; whether committed, or caused, or assented to, through greed, wrath, or infatuation; whether faint, or middling, or excessive; bearing endless, fruit of ignorance and pain. Therefore must the weight be cast on the other side.

35Where non-injury is perfected, all enmity ceases in the presence of him who possesses it.

36When he is perfected in truth, all acts and their fruits depend on him.

37Where cessation from theft is perfected, all treasures present themselves to him who possesses it.

38For him who is perfect in continence, the reward is valour and virility.

39Where there is firm conquest of covetousness, he who has conquered it awakes to the how and why of life.

40Through purity a withdrawal from one’s own bodily life, a ceasing from infatuation with the bodily life of others.

41To the pure of heart come also a quiet spirit, one-pointed thought, the victory over sensuality, and fitness to behold the Soul.

42From acceptance, the disciple gains happiness supreme.

43The perfection of the powers of the bodily vesture comes through the wearing away of impurities, and through fervent aspiration.

44Through spiritual reading, the disciple gains communion with the divine Power on which his heart is set.

45Soul-vision is perfected through perfect obedience to the Master.

46Right poise must be firm and without strain.

47Right poise is to be gained by steady and temperate effort, and by setting the heart upon the everlasting.

48The fruit of right poise is the strength to resist the shocks of infatuation or sorrow.

49When this is gained, there follows the right guidance of the life-currents, the control of the incoming and outgoing breath.

50The life-current is either outward, or inward, or balanced; it is regulated according to place, time, number; it is prolonged and subtle.

51The fourth degree transcends external and internal objects.

52Thereby is worn away the veil which covers up the light.

53Thence comes the mind’s power to hold itself in the light.

54The right Withdrawal is the disengaging of the powers from entanglement in outer things, as the psychic nature has been withdrawn and stilled.

55Thereupon follows perfect mastery over the powers.