Raja Yoga or Mental Development

About this book

Try holding one thought steady. It slips away almost at once, replaced by a worry, a memory or the next task waiting to be done. Yogi Ramacharaka makes that ordinary difficulty the starting point for a course in mental discipline.

Written under William Walker Atkinson's adopted name, Raja Yoga offers exercises in concentration, observation and the control of habits. Its ideas about consciousness combine selected Indian concepts with American New Thought. The tone is practical and encouraging, though the historical claims should be understood as Atkinson's interpretation of yoga. The exercises also reveal how widely occult writers were beginning to think about attention.