Bhagavadgita -Radhakrishnan 43

The Bhagavadgita -S. Radhakrishnan

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 10. The Way of Knowledge: Jnana-marga The systematic cultivation of yoga results incidentally in the development of supernatural powers but to practise yoga for the sake of obtaining these powers is vain and futile. Often it results in neurosis and failure. The aspirant for spiritual life is warned about the attraction of the supernatural powers. They may lead us to worldly advancement but are not directed to saintliness. They are spiritually meaningless and irrelevant. The occultist, who is able to see hyper-physical spheres, has developed certain potentialities which put him above the ordinary human beings even as those who are familiar with modern technology are better equipped than the primitive peasants. But the advance is in the external direction and not in the interiorization of the soul. Yoga is to be practised for the sake of attaining truth, of gaining contact with Reality. Krsna is the lord of yoga (yogevara) who helps us in our life to save ourselves. He is the supreme lord of spiritual experience who conveys those moments of celestial glory when man gets beyond the veil of the flesh and also indicates their true relation to the problems of daily existence.