Theresa or St Ignatius in which such mysteries as the Trinity became
clear, as well as the raptures in which various Christian mystics[677]
experienced the feeling of levitation and thought that they were being
literally carried off their feet.

The practices and theories which are systematized in the Yoga Sutras are
known to the Upanishads, particularly those of the Atharva Veda. But
even the earlier Upanishads allude to the special physical and mental
discipline necessary to produce concentration of mind. The Maitrayana
Upanishad says that the sixfold Yoga consists of restraint of the
breath, restraint of the senses, meditation, fixed attention,
investigation, absorption. The Svetasvatara Upanishad speaks of the
proper places and postures for meditation, and the Chandogya[678] of
concentrating all the senses on the self, a process which is much the
same as the pratyahara of the Yoga.

A later and mysterious but most important method of Yoga is known to the
Tantras[679] as Shatcakrabheda or piercing of the six cakras. These are
dynamic or nervous centres distributed through the human body from the
base of the spinal cord to the eyebrows. In the lowest of them resides
the Devi Kundalini, a force identical with Sakti, who is the motive
power of the universe. In ordinary conditions this Kundalini is pictured
as lying asleep and coiled like a serpent. But appropriate exercises
cause her to awake and ascend until she reaches the highest cakra when
she unites with Siva and ineffable bliss and emancipation are attained.
The process, which is said to be painful and even dangerous to health,
is admittedly unintelligible without oral instruction from a Guru and,
as I have not had this advantage, I will say no more on the topic except
this, that strange and fanciful as the descriptions of Shatcakrabheda
may seem, they can hardly be pure inventions but must have a real
counterpart in nervous phenomena which apparently have not been studied
by European physiologists or psychologists[680].

2

When we turn to the treatment of meditation and ecstasy in the earlier
Buddhist writings we are struck by its general resemblance to the
programme laid down in the Yoga Sutras, and by many coincidences of
detail. The exercises, rules of conduct, and the powers to be
incidentally obtained are all similar. The final goal of both systems
also seems similar to the outsider, although a Buddhist and a Yogi might
have much to say about the diff