Balance comes from understanding the effect of the emotional body upon the physical, and the physical body upon the emotional.§
Balance as described here is related to the conscious and subconscious mind. It is a subsuperconscious feeling–which is true understanding bred of qualified thinking, seasoned with intuition–of balance between the physical body and the emotions. This only comes when the mind is tempered with enough creative power so that the will can dominate the emotions long enough to produce a subconscious knowing, which comes when the creative forces have been utilized in their higher forms by the will. §
The conscious release of the creative forces through lower channels tends to slow down the physical and mental bodies, leading to a conscious sleep. When carried to excess, this leads to their ultimate destruction.§
All of the energy of the body becomes directed in the channel of sex when the consciousness coupled with the will to release or dissipate this energy is coordinated. The mentality then becomes slow and sluggish, as does the body, if carried to excess. A remedy to this is the reverse, and the mind will then become more awake than ever, as does the body. §
Transmutation must be attained and maintained to build up a so-called bank account in the subconscious of the conscious mind, so that the desires, feelings and tendencies of the subsubconscious can be automatically handled in the purification process.§
The meaning of transmutation as used in this treatise is to transform, to change from a so-called gross form to a subtle form. This force that you possess is of the greatest value, and in its qualified, conscious control, without suppression, you can build a great reserve of power within your subconscious mind and the subtle forces of the body, so that when you begin the deeper studies of your consciousness, consciously cognizing your mind, this reserve force will lend itself in giving you stability, concentration and power to break through the thin veil that leads us to identify ourselves with that which we have created.§
Sublimation is the working of the sex energies either mentally (on the conscious/intellectual plane) or through physical exercise. Transmutation is the permanent change of one form to another.§
To sublimate the sexual energies, regular habit patterns, physical exercise, intellectual development and the deliberate control over the lower emotions must happen before true transmutation, which is changing the form of gross energies into refined energies, or lifting the gross prāṇas from the lower chakras into the higher chakras. A moment of anger, misunderstanding (nonacceptance of the law of karma, a moment of forgetfulness), could plummet the higher energies into the lower chakras below the mūlādhāra, stopping the transmutation process. The sublimation of the vital forces is called sādhana in the Hindu vernacular.§
To consciously understand the functions of the physical body as against an educated subconscious knowing of the emotional unit, coupled with a subsuperconscious cognition of the mind as an object, is the secret of transmutation, the essence of rāja yoga.§
The aphorism explains itself in the clearest terms. It may have to be thought over to become fully qualified in your subconscious. The word yoga mentioned herein is the Hindu word meaning “to yoke,” to join two objects together, namely the conscious and the superconscious mind, creating a vacuum so that the consciousness can expand beyond the mind. This is attained through transmutation.§
The creative or sex energy, with its desires resulting in passions, must first be regulated, then consciously totally suppressed. The faculties of thinking will then be stimulated enough to consciously understand its causes and effects. This develops willpower, leading the Ego from concentration into meditation, then to contemplation. After this, the passionate nature can be controlled and will be depolarized. The mind and physique will have undergone a change. Then, only then, will transmutation commence. §
Here again we have an aphorism that is self-explanatory, but for the fact that when you begin to transmute your energies, you will have to begin by putting your mind at ease, so that the mind will not be at cross purposes with itself, torn between the desire to disagree out of habit and the desire to transmute born from unqualified intellect. ¶Before transmutation really gets under way, we must suppress the sexual nature enough so that the “old habit mind” lets us freely begin to understand all our repressions, desires and feelings in regard to sex. After thus suppressing, understanding takes the place of repression. The vibrations of the body become refined, the subsuperconscious mind consciously works through the subconscious, and it becomes easy to transmute the creative forces without suppression and use them through higher channels. Those who practice transmutation awaken many latent talents from within, artistically and otherwise. It becomes easy for them to create and express themselves, as they are automatically in tune with the essence of creative energy.§