RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27303, 20 March 1954, Page 3

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

(Reviewed by LXS.WJ How To Know God. By Swami Prabhavanada and Christopher Isherwood. Allen and Unwin. 143 pp. This book contains the Yoga aphorisms of Patanjali and a commentary, both in English. This is the oldest text-book Of the Yoga school and is dated by some authorities in the second century 8.C., by others as late as the fourth century A.D. Of the author nothing is known, though it is possible that he may be identical with the grammarian Patanjali who lived about 150 B.C. The word “yoga” is the Sanskrit ancestor of the English word “yoke,” and is a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the physical and psychical elements of human nature. No mere reading will con'iey to the student the potentialities of yoga practices. He: will have to put them into action. The’ theoretical interest of this commentary lies largely in the way in which it contrasts Indian ways of thought with those of the West. Hellenism and the Modern World. By Gilbert Murray. Allen and Unwin. 60 pp.

The six talks in this book were broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation and Radio-diffusion S’rancaise. Professor Murray shows how European civilisation has its origins in the Christian tradition and in Hellenism. He explains how the “high, freeminded, liberal civilisation of Athens” was wrecked by war,and yet by the agency of Rome and Christianity, Europe was the heir to a grand inheritance. Again war has devastated the wonderful achievements’ which the modern world has added to the treasures received from Athens, Jerusalem and Rome. In spite of complaints that this is an irreligious age, the author thinks that there is yet a religion, which seems “to be stealing half-consciously through the minus of men.” It is the conviction that man should help his fellow-man i» man’s nearest approach to God. Heaven and You. By William J. MacMillan. Hodder and Stoughton. 96 pp. As the author of a book called the "Reluctant Healer,” Mr MacMillan is well known to those interested in spiritual healing. He is no fanatical advocate of his oy/n methods and in this book he - gives an outline of various methods of treatment used by Anglicans, Methodists, Roman Catholics, Spiritualists and others. Of his own experience as. a healer he frankly says: “I know little more about the actual healing force itself than I did after my first few months of full-scale training.” He is no enemy of ordinary medical practice, and has never had to complain of the hostility of doctors. His own work is done on a religious basis. He admits that at times he has failed. “Most of the time I am toiling painfully up the mountain with plenty of time between panting gasps for air to wonder why I do believe in God.” On the human side, he bases his practice in the doctrine that he has to deal not merely with sickness but with the “whole man.” The account in chapters 4 and 5. of his relations with a patient gives a good idea of his method of treatment. The sympathetic reader will be attracted by the confessions of a healer who is both sincere and candid.