Patanjali Yogasutra Introduction
Part 1 – Samādhi-pāda – Yoga and its Aims
1.1
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Part 2 – Sādhana-pāda – Yoga and its Practice
2.1
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Part 3 – Vibhūti-Pāda – Powers
3.1
3.2
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Part 4 – Kaivalya-pāda – Liberation
4.1
4.2
4.3
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4.34
Commentary on Sri Patanjali Yogasutra by Swami Vivekananda
It is true that all knowledge is within ourselves, but this has to be called forth by another knowledge. Although the capacity to know is inside us, it must be called out, and that calling out of knowledge can only be done, a Yogi maintains, through another knowledge. Dead, insentient matter never calls out knowledge, it is the action of knowledge that brings out knowledge. Knowing beings must be with us to call forth what is in us, so these teachers were always necessary. The world was never without them, and no knowledge can come without them. God is the Teacher of all teachers, because these teachers, however great they may have been — gods or angels — were all bound and limited by time, while God is not. There are two peculiar deductions of the Yogis. The first is that in thinking of the limited, the mind must think of the unlimited; and that if one part of that perception is true, so also must the other be, for the reason that their value as perceptions of the mind is equal. The very fact that man has a little knowledge shows that God has unlimited knowledge. If I am to take one, why not the other? Reason forces me to take both or reject both. If I believe that there is a man with a little knowledge, I must also admit that there is someone behind him with unlimited knowledge. The second deduction is that no knowledge can come without a teacher. It is true, as the modern philosophers say, that there is something in man which evolves out of him; all knowledge is in man, but certain environments are necessary to call it out. We cannot find any knowledge without teachers. If there are men teachers, god teachers, or angel teachers, they are all limited; who was the teacher before them. We are forced to admit, as a last conclusion, one teacher who is not limited by time; and that One Teacher of infinite knowledge, without beginning or end, is called God.
Yogasutra – Verse 1.26 – Yogasutra-1.26-sa pūrveṣāmapi – In Sanskrit with English Transliteration, Translation, Meaning and Commentary by Swami Vivekananda – Yogasutra-1-26