Yoga

Dying While Living The history of philosophy and religion abounds with descriptions from romantics and visionaries who vehemently proclaim that "man's common consciousness is only a shadow of reality": witness Plato's Cave, Dostoevsky's Underground, and Plotinus, who said, "Insofar as the soul is in the body it rests in deep sleep" ( Plotinus III, V.6.). What does Plotinus mean by this statement? Does he echo Euripides, who would have us consider physical death and thereafter as "…

…as the reins. The wise say that the senses are the horses and the objects their roads; they also say that the Atma, joined with the senses and the mind (only, but devoid of Buddhi) is the sufferer. But he who discriminates, and has Manas always harmonised, his senses are controlled, like the good horses of the driver. [*NOTE: "The Katha Upanishad," in The Sacred Books of the Hindus (Volume One, Second Edition, 1974), pages 166-167. *]