CHAPTER I. 

 SALAAM. 



The Western student is apt to be somewhat confused 

 in his ideas regarding the Yogis and their philosophy and 

 practice. Travelers to India have written great tales about 

 the hordes of fakirs, mendicants and mountebanks who 

 infest the great roads of India and the streets of its cities, 

 and who impudently claim the title "Yogi." The Western 

 student is scarcely to be blamed for thinking of the typical 

 Yogi as an emaciated, fanatical, dirty, ignorant Hindu, who 

 either sits in a fixed posture until his body becomes ossi- 

 fied, or else holds his arm up in the air until it becomes 

 stiff and withered ar.d forever after remains in that posi- 

 tion, or perhaps clenches his fist and holds it tight until 

 his fingernails grow through the palms of his hands. That 

 these people exist is true, but their claim to the title 

 "Yogi" seems as absurd to the true Yogi as does the claim 

 to the title "Doctor" on the part of the man who pares 

 one's corns seem to the eminent surgeon, or as does the 

 title of "Professor," as assumed by the street corner vendor 

 of worm medicine, seem to the President of Harvard or 

 Yale. 



There have been for ages past in India and other 

 Oriental countries men who devoted their time and atten- 

 tion to the development of Man, physically, mentally and 

 spiritually. The experience of generations of earnest seek- 

 ers has been handed down for centuries from teacher to 

 pupil, and gradually a definite Yogi science was built up. 

 To these investigations and teachings was finally applied 

 the term "Yogi," from the Sanscrit word "Yug," meaning 

 "to join." From the same source comes the English word 

 "yoke," with a similar meaning. Its use in connection 

 with these teachings is difficult to trace, different authori- 

 ties giving different explanations, but probably the most 

 ingenious is that which holds that it I* intended as the 

 Hindu equivalent for the idea conveyed by the English 

 phrase, "getting into harness," or "yoking up," as the Yogi 



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