Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Book I
The psychic activities are five; they are either subject or not subject to the five hindrances (Book II, 3).
The elements of sound intellection are: direct observation, inductive reason, and trustworthy testimony.
Unsound intellection is false understanding, not resting on a perception of the true nature of things.
The control of these psychic activities comes through the right use of the will, and through ceasing from self-indulgence.
Ceasing from self-indulgence is conscious mastery over the thirst for sensuous pleasure here or hereafter.
The consummation of this is freedom from thirst for any mode of psychical activity, through the establishment of the spiritual man.
Meditation with an object follows these stages: first, exterior examining, then interior judicial action, then joy, then realization of individual being.
After the exercise of the will has stilled the psychic activities, meditation rests only on the fruit of former meditations.
Subjective consciousness arising from a natural cause is possessed by those who have laid aside their bodies and been absorbed into subjective nature.
For the others, there is spiritual consciousness, led up to by faith, valour, right mindfulness, one-pointedness, perception.
The Master is the spiritual man, who is free from hindrances, bondage to works, and the fruition and seed of works.
The barriers to interior consciousness, which drive the psychic nature this way and that, are these: sickness, inertia, doubt, lightmindedness, laziness, intemperance, false notions, inability to reach a stage of meditation, or to hold it when reached.
Grieving, despondency, bodily restlessness, the drawing in and sending forth of the life-breath also contribute to drive the psychic nature to and fro.
By sympathy with the happy, compassion for the sorrowful, delight in the holy, disregard of the unholy, the psychic nature moves to gracious peace.
Faithful, persistent application to any object, if completely attained, will bind the mind to steadiness.
When the perturbations of the psychic nature have all been stilled, then the consciousness, like a pure crystal, takes the colour of what it rests on, whether that be the perceiver, perceiving, or the thing perceived.
When the consciousness, poised in perceiving, blends together the name, the object dwelt on and the idea, this is perception with exterior consideration.
When the object dwells in the mind, clear of memory-pictures, uncoloured by the mind, as a pure luminous idea, this is perception without exterior or consideration.
The same two steps, when referring to things of finer substance, are said to be with, or without, judicial action of the mind.
Subtle substance rises in ascending degrees, to that pure nature which has no distinguishing mark.
The above are the degrees of limited and conditioned spiritual consciousness, still containing the seed of separateness.
When pure perception without judicial action of the mind is reached, there follows the gracious peace of the inner self.
The object of this perception is other than what is learned from the sacred books, or by sound inference, since this perception is particular.
The impress on the consciousness springing from this perception supersedes all previous impressions.