The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c8.2

c8.2

On the other hand, it is perfectly clear that the introduction of Yoga into the practice of high philosophy was natural and proper in the case of a philosophy, which, like the Ātman doctrine, denied the possibility of knowledge of the self as subject. As the Kena Upaniṣad (ii) has it, the self cannot be known by him who has knowledge, but only by him who has no knowledge. Hence comes the effort to subdue all the activity of senses and of mind, to empty the intellect and thus to make it ready for a new apprehension, the normal aim of the mystic of all lands and places. It is to this theoretic aim that Deussen* ascribes the origin of the practice, but it is clear that in adopting the Yoga practices for this purpose the holders of the Ātman faith were not innovators, but were turning existing material to a more refined and speculative use.