Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Book I · 12 of 51 · tr. Charles Johnston
Sutra 12
The control of these psychic activities comes through the right use of the will, and through ceasing from self-indulgence. If these psychical powers and energies, even such evil things as passion and hate and fear, are but spiritual powers fallen and perverted, how are we to bring about their release and restoration? Two means are presented to us: the awakening of the spiritual will, and the purification of mind and thought.
§ Ask Guru about this passage →Themes
Evil As Privationtheology
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
Passion and hate are described as spiritual powers that are 'fallen and perverted,' implying they lack their positive nature.
All passages →Return To Sourcesoteriology
The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.
The passage describes releasing fallen powers and restoring them to their original state.
All passages →Related passages · 6 parallels
neoplatonism|Select Works of Plotinus|Select Works, Section 85 (part 1)
“Section 10 10.
But if Matter is devoid of quality how can it be evil?
It is described as being devoid of quality in the sense only that it does not essentially possess any of the qualities which it admits and which enter into it as into a…”
Shared concept: Evil As Privation — Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness. (derived)
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 4, Section 1u
“For things of the same kind cannot 333 333 Exuberant vitality is per se a good thing and the more exuberant the better, though, like all good things, it is dangerous, and unless properly directed is disastrous.
be wholly contradictory to o…”
Shared concept: Evil As Privation — Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness. (derived)
neoplatonism|Select Works of Plotinus|Select Works, Section 80
“Section 5 5. But, it will be objected, if this seeing and frequenting of the darkness is due to the lack of good, the Soul's evil has its source in that very lack; the darkness will be merely a secondary cause- and at once the Principle of…”
Shared concept: Evil As Privation — Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness. (derived)
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Mystical Theology|Chapter I-b
“They are useful and necessary up to a point, but the Truth lies beyond them and is to be apprehended to a supernatural manner by what later writers call “infused” contemplation.
The sum of the whole matter is that God is incomprehensible.…”
Shared concept: Return To Source — The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination. (derived)
western_esoteric|The Book of Ceremonial Magic (A.E. Waite)|Page 5 (part 4)
“Blessed and Holy are those who receive the experience of God in the dilucid contemplation, but sanctity and benediction and all in all is that state wherein contemplation is ineffably unified, by a super-eminent leap over of love, with that…”
Shared concept: Return To Source — The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination. (derived)
theosophy|The Secret Doctrine|Page 15 (part 13)
“Thus proceed the cycles of the septenary evolution, in Septennial nature; the Spiritual or divine; the psychic or semi-divine; the intellectual, the passional, the instinctual, or cognitional; the semi-corporeal and the purely material or p…”
Shared concept: Return To Source — The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination. (derived)