This psychological method of liberation is called raja or royal yoga or the yoga of the eight steps, which may be listed as follows:

1. Restraint: nonviolence, not lying, not stealing, not lusting, and not possessing;
2. Observances: cleanliness, contentment, discipline, self-study, and surrender to the Lord;
3. Posture or physical exercises;
4. Breath control;
5. Sublimation or withdrawal from the senses;
6. Attention;
7. Concentration;
8. Meditation.

---

1. Meditation

Modifications are of five kinds, painful and not painful:
knowledge, error, imagination, sleep, memory.
Perception, inference, and testimony are knowledge.
Error is false knowledge that is not formed from reality.
Sound knowledge following no object is imagination.
The absence of wakefulness is the modifying object of sleep.
The experienced object presented is memory.

By practice and detachment they are controlled.
Standing there with effort is practice.
For that, a long time of constant attention
firmly establishes it.

Getting free of the desire
for experiences heard and material objects
is by the mastery of detachment.
That is highest
when the power of the Spirit overcomes the qualities.(i.e.: the Gunas -A.T.)

Reasoning, discriminating, joyful awareness
of the unity of the universe and self
is supreme meditation.
Cessation by renunciation
and constant practice in dissolving impressions
is the other,
which is undifferentiated existence,
bodilessness, absorption in supreme nature,
in others faith, enthusiasm, memory, meditation, wisdom.

To those of intense energy it comes soon.
From mild to moderate to intense practice
brings the best results;
or it is achieved by surrendering oneself to the Lord.

Untouched by afflictions, actions, and their results,
is the perfect Spirit of the Lord.
There is infinite the seed of omniscience.
That one is even the ancients' teacher,
beyond the limits of time.
Its manifest symbol is the sound current.
Constant practice of that with feeling brings success.
From that comes cosmic consciousness
and also the absence of obstacles.

Disease, laziness, indecision, apathy, lethargy,
craving sense-pleasure, erroneous perception,
lack of concentration, unstable attention,
these are the obstacles that distract consciousness.
Sorrow, worry, restlessness, and irregular breathing
accompany the distractions.
To overcome them practice that oneness.

Cultivating the feelings of
friendship, compassion, joy, and equanimity
toward those who are happy, suffering, worthy, and unworthy,
purifies consciousness,
as does the expelling and retaining of the breath.

Also subtle vision produces
the best modification of the higher consciousness
bringing the mind into stability,
as does the transcendent inner Light,
and the consciousness that controls all passions,
and the analytical knowledge of dreams and sleep,
and concentration according to choice;
from the atom to the infinite is this mastery.

Lessened modifications become transparent
like a crystal receiver receiving knowable objects
transforming itself to the appearance of the objects.
There sound knowledge arranged meaningfully
simultaneously is thought transformation.

Memory purified so that it is empty of its own form,
the object shining alone is transformation without thought.
By this process also
with discrimination and without discrimination
subtle elements are explained.
The realm of the subtle elements
ends with undefinable nature.
These are only meditation with seed.

Without discrimination
the undisturbed flow of the oversoul is blessed.
There wisdom is identical with direct truth.
Verbal inferences are different in essence
from these specific objects of truth.
The impression arising from this
prevents all other impressions.
Control of even that
controls everything in seedless meditation.