r reason can ever know." He learns--

"That the mind itself has a higher state of existence, beyond reason, a
superconscious state, and that when the mind gets to that higher state,
then this knowledge beyond reasoning comes.... All the different steps
in yoga are intended to bring us scientifically to the superconscious
state or Samadhi.... Just as unconscious work is beneath
consciousness, so there is another work which is above consciousness,
and which, also, is not accompanied with the feeling of egoism ....
There is no feeling of I, and yet the mind works, desireless, free from
restlessness, objectless, bodiless. Then the Truth shines in its full
effulgence, and we know ourselves--for Samadhi lies potential in us
all--for what we truly are, free, immortal, omnipotent, loosed from the
finite, and its contrasts of good and evil altogether, and identical
with the Atman or Universal Soul."[245]

[245] My quotations are from Vivekananda, Raja Yoga, London, 1896. The
completest source of information on Yoga is the work translated by
Vihari Lala Mtra: Yoga Vasishta Maha Ramayana. 4 vols. Calcutta,
1891-99.

The Vedantists say that one may stumble into superconsciousness
sporadically, without the previous discipline, but it is then impure.
Their test of its purity, like our test of religion's value, is
empirical: its fruits must be good for life. When a man comes out of
Samadhi, they assure us that he remains "enlightened, a sage, a
prophet, a saint, his whole character changed, his life changed,
illumined."[246]

[246] A European witness, after carefully comparing the results of Yoga
with those of the hypnotic or dreamy states artificially producible by
us, says: "It makes of its true disciples good, healthy, and happy
men.... Through the mastery which the yogi attains over his thoughts
and his body, he grows into a 'character.' By the subjection of his
impulses and propensities to his will, and the fixing of the latter
upon the ideal of goodness, he becomes a 'personality' hard to
influence by others, and thus almost the opposite of what we usually
imagine a medium so-called, or psychic subject to be. Karl Kellner:
Yoga: Eine Skizze, Munchen, 1896, p. 21.

The Buddhists used the word "samadhi" as well as the Hindus; but
"dhyana" is their special word for higher states of contemplation.
There seem to be four stages recognized in dhyana. The first stage
comes through concentration of the mind upon