ods is through the air and afterwards in
the ether. This means that we must evolve from the physical to the psychic,
and thence to the etheric or spiritual body. This is the way of the many.
It is only the few who attain to perfect spiritual consciousness while
manifesting in the physical, but these do not have to undergo "the second
death" which is the dropping off of the psychic body, and assuming the
spiritual body. They attain to immortality _in the flesh_, (i.e., in the
present personality).

"Thereupon will come the manifestation of the atomic and other powers,
which are the endowment of the body, together with its unassailable force."

The body here referred to, it must be borne in mind, is the etheric or
spiritual body, which possesses the power to disintegrate matter; the power
to annihilate time and space; so that he may look backward into remote
antiquity and forward into boundless futurity; or as the commentator says,
"he can touch the moon with the tip of his finger"; the power of levitation
and limitless extension; the power of command; the power of creative will.

These are the endowments of the spiritual body with which the disciple is
seeking to establish his identity--that he may overcome the second death
and become immortal _in consciousness_, here and now.

Of this spiritual, or etheric body it is said, "Fire burns it not; water
wets it not; the sword cleaves it not; dry winds parch it not. It is
unassailable."

_Meditate upon this sutra._

"For him who discerns between the mind and the spiritual man (the Self)
there comes perfect fruition of the longing after the real being."

When the disciple has once grasped the fact that he _is_ a soul, and
_possesses_ a mind and a physical covering, he has entered on the way of
Illumination, and must inevitably reach the goal; then shall he find
"perfect fruition of the longing" after the perfect Self, and its
completement in union with the love that he craves. "Have you, in lonely
darkness longed for companionship and consolation? You shall have angels
and archangels for your friends and all the immortal hosts of the Dawn."

Such are the Yoga sutras, or aphorisms, as enunciated by Patanjali.

If the aspiring one were to give up a whole lifetime to their practice,
gaining at last the consciousness of immortal life and love, what a small
price to pay.

_Raja Yoga_ with its methods and exercises, is the path of knowledge,
through application; concentrat