Lately, I have been reading the Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramhansa Yogananda. This quotation is from one of the early chapters, relating one of the author’s interactions with a saint outside a temple, where he discusses understanding the eternal soul.
Man can understand no eternal verity until he has freed himself from pretensions. The human mind, bared to a centuried slime, is teeming with repulsive life of countless world-delusions. Struggles of the battlefields pale into insignificance here, when man first contends with inward enemies! No mortal foes these, to be overcome by harrowing array of might! Omnipresent, unresting, pursuing man even in sleep, subtly equipped with a miasmic weapon, these soldiers of ignorant lusts seek to slay us all. Thoughtless is a man who buries his ideals surrendering to the common fate. Can he seem other than impotent, wooden, ignominious? (p. 77)
I enjoyed reading this quotation because of the intricate use of vocabulary to deliver the message of conquering one’s “inner foes.” For example, the saint says the human mind is covered by a “slime” “teeming with repulsive life of countless world-delusions,” meaning, the human mind gets deluded over time, and this delusion covers the eternal truth of the soul. Then, he relates stray thoughts occurring in one’s mind to “inward enemies” and “soldiers of ignorant lusts seeking to slay us all.” meaning that we must analyse and face our thoughts to truly conquer them, similar to a soldier fighting against another soldier during battle.