Mircea Eliade YOGA IMMORTALITY AND ... - Brihaspati.net

elief that man can cooperate in the work of Nature: "What Nature made at the
beginning, we can also do it ourselves, improving the procedure used-do for her. What
she can do still using the centuries, we can make him end up in an instant, help-dola and
placing it in appropriate circumstances. As we make bread, we also do
The relationship between Yoga and Alchemy is understandable
if one considers the soteriological character of these two techniques:
Both of those experiencing the "soul" by using the leather -
human po as a laboratory pursuing the "purification", the
"perfection", the final transmutation. This solidarity between the two
experimental method in alchemy and be -
also it finds elsewhere. We know the close relationship
that existed between the symbolism of / ascetic purification of the soul
and the symbolism of the alchemical search among the most anti-Sufi
four commands the sense of "haves and experimenters of the procedure
tion of the secret and mysterious transmutation ", meaning that it is very
old) as Jabir ibn-Hayyan, and Dhou'l Noun Sa'ih'Alawi Misri.
In the words "literary affinity is imposed on
between these two legendary dramas human experimentation, the science and the mystic,
between the alchemist in search of an elixir, a water of Youth, an agent of transmutation
uni -
16 F. Sherwood Taylor, A Survey of Greek Alchemy (The Journal of Helle -
nic Studies, 1930, vol. 50, ps. 109-139), p. 110.
17 Jean Reynaud, Etudes Encyclopedique t. IV, p. 487, quoted by A. Dau -
bree, La generation des mineraux METALLIQUES aux mineurs dans la pratique des
du Strongly Age, d'apres le Bergbiichlein (Journaldes Savants, 1890, ps. 379-392,
441-452), p. 383.
versal, and the ascetic in search of a Spirit, sanctified minister caci6n "18
In India, the trend of yoga to assimilate all coneretas techniques could not set aside a
experimentation as accurate as that of alchemy. At certain times, the osmosis between
these two spiritual science is perfect: both oppose the procedure purely theoretical, purely
metaphysical knowledge: the two work on "living matter" to transmute it, ie to change its
regime ontological : both seek the release of the laws of time, ie the "deconditioning" of
existence, the conquest of freedom and beatitude, in a word, the "immortality".