By that idea of the stopping of all changes of colour in the mental body you can realise what is meant by inhibition.  The functions of mind are stopped in Yoga.  You have to begin with your mental body.  You have to learn how to stop the whole of those vibrations, how to make the mental body colourless, still and quiet, responsive only to the impulses that you choose to put upon it.  How will you be able to tell when the mind is really coming under control, when it is no longer a part of your Self?  You will begin to realise this when you find that, by the action of your will, you can check the current of thought and hold the mind in perfect stillness.  Sheath after sheath has to be transcended, and the proof of transcending is that it can no longer affect you.  You can affect it, but it cannot affect you.  The moment that nothing outside you can harass you, can stir the mind, the moment that the mind does not respond to the outer, save under your own impulse, then can you say of it:  “This is not my Self.”  It has become part of the outer, it can no longer be identified with the Self.

From this you pass on to the conquest of the causal body in a similar way.  When the conquering of the causal body is complete then you go to the conquering of the Buddhic body.  When mastery over the Buddhic body is complete, you pass on to the~conquest of the Atmic body.

Mind and Self

You cannot be surprised that under these conditions of continued disappearance of functions, the unfortunate student asks:  " What becomes of the mind itself?  If you suppress all the functions, what is left?” In the Indian way of teaching, when you come to a difficulty, someone jumps up and asks a question.  And in the commentaries, the question which raises the difficulty is always put.  The answer of Patanjali is:  “Then the spectator remains in his own form.”  Theosophy answers:  “The Monad remains.”  It is the end of the human pilgrimage.  That is the highest point to which humanity may climb:  to suppress all the reflections in the fivefold universe through which the Monad has manifested his powers, and then for the Monad to realise himself, enriched by the experiences through which his manifested aspects have passed.  But to the Samkhyan the difficulty is very great, for when he has only his spectator left, when spectacle ceases, the spectator himself almost vanishes.  His only function was to look on at the play of mind.  When the play of mind is gone, what is left?  He can no longer be a spectator, since there is nothing to see.  The only answer is:  " He remains in his own form.”  He is now out of manifestation, the duality is transcended, and so the Spirit sinks back into latency, no longer capable of manifestation.  There you come to a very serious difference with the Theosophical view of the universe, for according to that view of the universe, when all these functions have been suppressed, then the Monad is ruler over matter and is prepared for a new cycle of activity, no longer slave but master.