Patanjali Yoga Sutras The concentration “without reasoning” being purified, the Chitta becomes firmly fixed. 48. ऋतंभरा तत्र प्रज्ञा ॥ ४८॥ rtanbhara tatr prajna The knowledge in that is called “filled with Truth.” The next aphorism will explain this. 49. श्रुतानुमानप्रज्ञाभ्याम् अन्यविषया विशेषार्थत्वात् ॥ ४९॥ shrutanumanaprajnabhyam anyavishayaa vishesharthatvat The knowledge that is gained from testimony and inference is about common objects. That from the Samadhi just mentioned is of a much higher order, being able to penetrate where inference and testimony cannot go. The idea is that we have to get our knowledge of ordinary objects by direct perception, and by inference therefrom, and from testimony of people who are competent. By “people who are competent,” the Yogis always mean the Rishis, or the Seers of the thoughts recorded in the Scriptures—the Vedas. According to them, the only proof of the Scriptures is that they were the testimony of competent persons, yet they say the Scriptures cannot take us to realisation. We can read all the Vedas, and yet will not realise anything, but when we practise their teachings, then we attain to that state which realises what the Scriptures say, which penetrates where 49

Patanjali Yoga Sutras reason cannot go, and where the testimony of others cannot avail. This is what is meant by this aphorism, that realisation is real religion, and all the rest is only preparation—hearing lectures, or reading books, or reasoning, is merely preparing the ground; it is not religion. Intellectual assent, and intellectual dissent are not religion. The central idea of the Yogis is that just as we come in direct contact with the objects of the senses, so religion can be directly perceived in a far more intense sense. The truths of religion, as God and Soul, cannot be perceived by the external senses. I cannot see God with my eyes, nor can I touch Him with my hands, and we also know that neither can we reason beyond the senses. Reason leaves us at a point quite indecisive; we may reason all our lives, as the world has been doing for thousands of years, and the result is that we find we are incompetent to prove or disprove the facts of religion. What we perceive directly we take as the basis, and upon that basis we reason. So it is obvious that reasoning has to run within these bounds of perception. It can never go beyond: the whole scope of realisation, therefore, is beyond sense perception. The Yogis say that man can go beyond his direct sense perception, and beyond his reason also. Man has in him the faculty, the power, of transcending his intellect even, and that power is in every being, every creature. By the practice of Yoga that power is aroused, and then man transcends the ordinary limits of reason, and directly perceives things which are beyond all reason. 50

Patanjali Yoga Sutras 50. तज्जः संस्कारो न्यसंस्कारप्रतिबन्धी ॥ ५०॥ tajjah sanskaro nyasanskarapratibandhi The resulting impression from this Samadhi obstructs all other impressions. We have seen in the foregoing aphorism that the only way of attaining to that super-consciousness is by concentration, and we have also seen that what hinder the mind from concentration are the past Samskaras, impressions. All of you have observed that when you are trying to concentrate your mind, your thoughts wander. When you are trying to think of God, that is the very time which all these Samskaras take to appear. At other times they are not so active, but when you want them not to be they are sure to be there, trying their best to crowd inside your mind. Why should that be so? Why should they be much more potent at the time of concentration? It is because you are repressing them and they react with all their force. At other times they do not react. How countless these old past impressions must be, all lodge somewhere in the Chitta, ready, waiting like tigers to jump up. These have to be suppressed that the one idea which we like may arise, to the exclusion of the others. Instead, they are all struggling to come up at the same time. These are the various powers of the Samskaras in hindering concentration of the mind, so this Samadhi which has just been given is the best to be practised, on account of its power of suppressing the Samskaras. The Samskara which will be raised by this sort of concentration will be so powerful that it will hinder the action of the others, and hold them in check. 51

Patanjali Yoga Sutras 51. तस्यापि निरोधे सर्वनिरोधान्निर्बीजः समाधिः ॥ ५१ ॥ tasyapi nirodhe sarvanirodhannirbijah samadhih By the restraint of even this (impression, which obstructs all other impressions), all being restrained, comes the “seedless” Samadhi. You remember that our goal is to perceive the Soul iself. We cannot perceive the Soul because it has got mingled up with nature, with the mind, with the body. The most ignorant man thinks his body is the Soul. The more learned man thinks his mind is the Soul, but both of these are mistaken. What makes the Soul get mingled up with all this, these different waves in the Chitta rise and cover the Soul, and we only are a little reflection of the Soul through these waves, so, if the wave be one of anger, we see the Soul as angry: “I am angry,” we say. If the wave is a wave of love we see ourselves reflected in that wave, and say we are loving. If that wave is one of weakness, and the Soul is reflected in it, we think we are weak. These various ideas come from these impressions, these Samskaras covering the Soul. The real nature of the Soul is not perceived until all the waves have subsided; so, first, Patanjali teaches us the meaning of these waves; secondly, the best way to repress them; and thirdly, how to make one wave so strong as to suppress all other waves, fire eating fire as it were. When only one remains, it will be easy to suppress that also, and when that is gone, this Samadhi of concentration is called seedless; it leaves nothing, and the Soul is manifested just as It is, in Its own glory. Then alone we know that the Soul is not a compound, It is the only eternal simple in the universe, and, 52

Patanjali Yoga Sutras as such, It cannot be born, It cannot die, It is immortal, indestructible, the Ever-living Essence of intelligence. 53

Patanjali Yoga Sutras CHAPTER II - SADHANA PADA CONCENTRATION - ITS PRACTICE ॥ द्वितीयः साधनपादः ॥

1. तपःस्वाध्यायेश्वरप्रणिधानानि क्रियायोगः ॥ १॥ tapahsvadhyayeshvarapranidhanani kriyayogah Mortification, study, and surrendering fruits of work to God are called Kriya Yoga. Those Samadhis with which we ended our last chapter are very difficult to attain; so we must take them up slowly. The first step, the preliminary step, is called Kriya Yoga. Literally this means work, working towards Yoga. The organs are the horses, the mind is the reins, the intellect is the charioteer, the soul is the rider, and this body is the chariot. The master of the household, the King, the Self of man, is sitting in this chariot. If the horses are very strong, and do not obey the reins, if the charioteer, the intellect, does not know how to control the horses, then this chariot will come to grief. But if the organs, the horses, are well controlled, and if the reins, the mind, are well held in the hands of the charioteer, the intellect, the chariot, reaches the goal. What is meant, therefore, by mortification? Holding the reins firmly while guiding this body and mind: not letting the body do anything it likes, but keeping them both in proper control. Study. What is meant by study in this case? Not study of novels, or fiction, or story books, but study of those books which teach the liberation of the soul. Then again this study does not mean controversial 54

Patanjali Yoga Sutras studies at all. The Yogi is supposed to have finished his period of controversy. He has had enough of all that, and has become satisfied. He only studies to intensify his convictions. Vada and Siddhanta. These are the two sorts of Scriptural knowledge, Vada (the argumentative) and Siddhanta (the decisive). When a man is entirely ignorant he takes up the first part of this, the argumentative fighting, and reasoning, pro and con.; and when he has finished that he takes up the Siddhanta, the decisive, arriving at a conclusion. Simply arriving at this conclusion will not do. It must be intensified. Books are infinite in number, and time is short; therefre this is the secret of knowledge, to take that which is essential. Take that out, and then try to live up to it. There is an old simile in India that if you place a cup of milk before a Raja Hamsa (swan) with plenty of water in it, he will take all the milk and leave the water. In that way we should take what is of value in knowledge, and leave the dross. All these intellectual gymnastics are necessary at first. We must not go blindly into anything. The Yogi has passed the argumentative stage, and has come to a conclusion, which is like the rocks, immovable. The only thing he now seeks to do is to intensify that conclusion. Do not argue, he say; if one forces arguments upon you, be silent. Do not answer any argument, but go away free, because arguments only disturb the mind. The only thing is to train the intellect, so what is the use of disturbing it any more. The intellect is but a weak instrument, and can give only knowledge limited by the senses; the Yogi wants to go beyond the senses; therefore the intellect is of no use to him. He is certain of this, and therefore is silent, and does not argue. Every argument throws his mind out of balance, creates a disturbance in the Chitta, and this 55

Patanjali Yoga Sutras disturbance is a drawback. These argumentations and searchings of the reason are only on the way. There are much higher things behind them. The whole of life is not for schoolboy fights and debating societies. By “surrendering the fruits of work to God” is to take to ourselves neither credit nor blame, but to give both up to the Lord, and be at peace. 2. समाधिभावनार्थः क्लेशतनूकरणार्थश्च ॥ २॥ samadhibhavanarthah kleshatanookaranarthashch (They are for) the practice of Samadhi and minimising the pain-bearing obstructions. Most of us make our minds like spoiled children, allowing them to do whatever they want. Therefore it is necessary that there should be constant practice of the previous mortifications, in order to gain control of the mind, and bring it into subjection. The obstructions to Yoga arise from lack of this control, and cause us pain. They can only be removed by denything the mind, and holding it in check, through these various means. 3. अविद्यास्मितारागद्वेषाभिनिवेशाः क्लेशाः ॥ ३॥ avidyasmitaragadveshabhiniveshah kleshaah The pain-bearing obstructions are - ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion, and clinging to life. These are the five pains, the fivefold tie that binds us down. Of course ignorance is the mother of all the rest. She is the 56

Patanjali Yoga Sutras only cause of all our misery. What else can make us miserable? The nature of the Soul is eternal bliss. What can make it sorrowful except ignorance, hallucination, delusion; all this pain of the soul is simply delusion. 4. अविद्या क्षेत्रम् उत्तरेषां प्रसुप्ततनुविच्छिन्नोदाराणाम् ॥ ४॥ avidya kshetram uttareshan prasuptatanuvichchhinnodaranam Ignorance is the productive field of all them that follow, whether they are dormant, attenuated, overpowered, or expanded. Impressions are the cause of these, and these impressions exist in different degrees. There are the dormant. You often hear the expression “innocent as a baby,” yet in the baby may be the state of a demon or of a god which will come out by and by. In the Yogi these impressions, the Samskaras left by past actions, are attenuated; that is, in a very fine state, and he can control them, and not allow them to become manifest. Overpowered means that sometimes one set of impressions is held down for a while by those that are stronger, but they will come out when that repressing cause is removed. The last state is the expanded, when the Samskaras, having helpful surroundings, have attained to great activity, either as good or evil. 5. अनित्याशुचिदुःखानात्मसु नित्यशुचिसुखात्मख्यातिरविद्या ॥ ५॥ anityashuchiduhkanatmasu nityashuchisukhatmakhyatiravidya 57

Patanjali Yoga Sutras Ignorance is taking that which is non-eternal, impure, painful, and non-Self, for the eternal, pure, happy, Atman (Self). All these various sorts of impression have one source: ignorance. We have first to learn what ignorance is. All of us think that “I am the body,” and not the Self, the pure, the effulgent, the ever blissful, and that is ignorance. We think of man, and see man as body. This is the great delusion. 6. दृग्दर्शनशक्त्योरेकात्मतेवास्मिता ॥ ६॥ drigdarshanashaktyorekatmatevasmita Egoism is the identification of the seer with the instrument of seeing. The seer is really the Self, the pure one, the ever holy, the infinite, the immortal. That is the Self of man. And what are the instruments? The Chitta, or mind-stuff, the Buddhi, determinative faculty, the Manas, or mind, and the Indriyani, or sense organs. These are the instruments for him to see the external world, and the identification of the Self with the instruments is what is called the ignorance of egoism. We say “I am the mind, I am thought; I am angry, or I am happy.” How can we be angry, and how can we hate? We should identify ourselves with the Self; that cannot change. If it is unchangeable, how can it be one moment happy, and one moment unhappy? It is formless, infinite, omnipresent. What can change it? Beyond all law. What can affect it? Nothing in the universe can produce an effect on it, yet, through ignorance, we identify ourselves with the mind-stuff, and 58

Patanjali Yoga Sutras think we feel pleasure or pain. 7. सुखानुशयी रागः ॥ ७॥ sukhanushayi raagah Attachment is that which dwells on pleasure. We find pleasure in certain things, and the mind, like a current, flows towards them, and that, following the pleasure centre, as it were, is attachment. We are never attached to anyone in whom we do not find pleasure. We find pleasure in very queer things sometimes, but the definition is just the same; wherever we find pleasure, there we are attached. 8. दुःखानुशयी द्वेषः ॥ ८॥ duhkhanushayi dveshah Aversion is that which dwells on pain. That, which gives us pain we immediately seek to get away from. 9. स्वरसवाही विदुषोऽपि तथारूढोऽभिनिवेशः ॥ ९॥ svarasavahi vidushopi tatharoodho bhiniveshah Flowing through its own nature, and established even in the learned, is the clinging to life. This clinging to life you see manifested in every animal, and upon it many attempts have been made to build the theory of a future life, because men like their lives so much that they desire a future life also. Of course it goes without saying that 59

Patanjali Yoga Sutras this argument is without much value, but the most curious part of it is that, in Western Countries, the idea that this clinging to life indicates a possibility of a future life applies only to men, but does not include animals. In India this clinging to life has been one of the arguments to prove past experience and existence. For instance, if it be true that all our knowledge has come from experience, then it is sure that that which we never experienced we cannot imagine, or understand. As soon as chickens are hatched they begin to pick up food. Many times it has been seen where ducks have been hatched by hens, that, as soon as they come out of the eggs, they flew to water, and the mother thought they would be drowned. If experience be the only source of knowledge, where did these chickens learn to pick up food, or the ducklings that the water was their natural element? If you say it is instinct, it means nothing—it is simply giving it a word, but is no explanation. What is this instinct? We have many instincts in ourselves. For instance, most of you ladies play the piano, and remember, when you first learned, how carefully you had to put your fingers on the black and the white keys, one after the other, but now, after long years of practice, you can talk with your friends, and your hand goes on just the same. It has become instinct, it becomes automatic, but so far as we know, all the cases which we now regard as automatic are degenerated reason. In the language of the Yogi, instinct is involved reason. Discrimination becomes involved, and gets to be automatic Samskaras. Therefore it is perfectly logical to think that all we call instinct in this world is simply involved reason. As reason cannot come without experience, all instinct is, therefore, the result of past experience. Chickens fear the hawk, and ducklings love the water, and these are both the 60

Patanjali Yoga Sutras result of past experience, and these are both the result of past experience. Then the question is whether that experience belongs to a particular soul, or to the body simply, whether this experience which comes to the duck is the duck's forefather's experience, or the duck's own experience. Modern scientific menhold that it belongs to the body, but the Yogis hold that it is the experience of the soul, transmitted through the body. This is called the theory of reincarnation. We have seen that all of our knowledge, whether we call it perception or reason, or instinct, must come through that one channel called experience, and all that we know call instinct is the result of past experience, degenerated into instinct, and that instinct regenerates into reason again. So on throughout the universe, and upon this has been built one of the chief arguments for reincarnation, in India. The recurring experiences of various fears, in course of time, produce this clinging to life. That is why the child is instinctively afraid, because the past experience of pain is there. Even in the most learned men, who know that this body will go, and who say “never mind: we have hundreds of bodies; the soul cannot die”—even in them, with all their intellectual conviction, we still find this clinging to life. What is this clinging to life? We have seen that it has become instinctive. In the psychological language of Yoga if has become Samskaras. The Samskaras, fine and hidden, are sleeping in the Chitta. All these past experiences of death, all that which we call instinct, is experience become sub-conscious. It lives in the Chitta, and is not inactive, but is working underneath. These Chitta Vrttis, these mind-waves, which are gross, we can appreciate and feel; they can be more easily controlled, but what about these finer instincts? How can they be controlled? When I am angry 61

Patanjali Yoga Sutras my whole mind has become a huge wave of anger. feel it, see it, handle it, can easily manipulate it, can fight with it, but I shall not succeed perfectly in the fight until I can get down below. A man says something very harsh to me, and I begin to feel that I am getting heated, and he goes on until I am perfectly angry, and forget myself, identify myself with anger. When he first began to abuse me I still thought “I am going to be angry.” Anger was one thing and I was another, but when I became angry, I was anger. These feelings have to be controlled in the germ, the root, in their fine forms, before even we have become conscious that they are acting on us. With the vast majority of mankind the fine states of these passions are not even known, the state when they are slowly coming from beneath consciousness. When a bubble is rising from the bottom of the lake we do not see it, or even when it is nearly come to the surface; it is only when it bursts and makes a ripple that we know it is there. We shall only be successful in grappling with the waves when we can get hold of them in their fine casues, and until you can get hold of them, and subdue them before any become gross, there is no hope of conquering any passion perfectly. To control our passions we have to control them at their very roots; then alone shall we be able to burn out their very seed. As fried seeds thrown into the ground will never come up, so these passions will never arise. 10. ते प्रतिप्रसवहेयाः सूक्ष्माः ॥ १०॥ te pratiprasavaheyah sookshmah They, to-be-rejected-by-opposite-modifications, are fine. 62

Patanjali Yoga Sutras How are these fine Samskaras to be controlled? We have to begin with the big waves, and come down and down. For instance, when a big wave of anger has come into the mind, how are we to control that? Just by raising a big opposing wave. Think of love. Sometimes a mother is very angry with her husband, and while in that state the baby comes in, and she kisses the baby; the old wave dies out, and a new wave arises, love for the child. That suppresses the other one. Love is opposite to anger. So we find that by raising the opposite waves we can conquer those which we want to reject. Then, if we can raise in our fine nature those fine opposing waves, they will check the fine workings of anger beneath the conscious surface. We have seen now that all these instinctive actions first began as conscious actions, and became finer and finer. So, if good waves in the conscious Chitta be constantly raised, they will go down, become subtle, and oppose the Samskara forms of evil thoughts. 11. ध्यानहेयास्तद्वृत्तयः ॥ ११ ॥ dhyanaheyastadvrittayah By meditation, their modifications are to be rejected. Meditation is one of the great means of controlling the rising of these big waves. By meditation you can make the mind subdue these waves, and, if you go on practising meditation for days, and months, and years, until it has become a habit, until it will come in spite of yourself, anger and hatred will be controlled and checked. 63

Patanjali Yoga Sutras 12. क्लेशमूलः कर्माशयो दृष्टादृष्टजन्मवेदनीयः ॥ १२॥ kleshamoolah karmashayo drishtadrishtajanmavedaniyah The receptacle of works has its root in these pain-bearing obstructions, and their experience in this visible life, or in the unseen life. By the receptacle of works is meant the sum-total of these Samskaras. Whatever work we do, the mind is thrown into a wave, and, after the work is finished, we think the wave is gone. No. It has only become fine, but it is still there. When we try to remember the thing, it comes up again and becomes a wave. So it was there; if it had not been there, there would not have been memory. So, every action, every thought, good or bad, just goes down and becomes fine, and is there stored up. They are called pain-bearing obstructions, both happy and unhappy thoughts, because according to the Yogis, both, in the long run, bring pain. All happiness which comes from the senses will, eventually, bring pain. All enjoyment will make us thirst for more, and that brings pain as its result. There is no limit to man’s desires; he goes on desring, and when he comes to a point where desire cannot be fulfilled, the result is pain. Therefore the Yogis regard the sum-total of the impressions, good or evil, as pain-bearing obstructions; they obstruct the way to freedom of the Soul. It is the same with the Samskaras, the fine roots of all our works: they are the causes which will again bring effects, either in this life, or in the lives to come. In exceptional cases, when these Samskaras are very strong, they bear fruit quickly; exceptional acts of wickedness, or of 64

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goodness, bring their fruits in this life. The Yogis even hold that men who are able to acquire a tremendous power of good Samskaras do not have to die, but, even in this life, can change their bodies into god-bodies. There are several cases mentioned by the Yogis in their books. These men change the very material of their bodies; they re-arrange the molecules in such fashion that they have no more sickness, and what we call death does not come to them. Why should not this be? The physiological meaning of foot is assimilation of energy from the sun. This energy has reached the plant, the plant is eaten by an animal, and the animal by us. The science of it is that we take so much energy from the sun, and make it part of ourselves. That being the case, why should there be only one way of assimilating energy? The plant’s way is not the same as ours; the earth’s process of assimilating energy differs from our own. But all assimilate energy in some form or other. The Yogis say that they are able to assimilate energy by the power of the mind alone, that they can draw in as much as they desire without recourse to the orindary methods. As a spider makes his net out of his own substance, and becomes bound in his net, and cannot go anywhere except along the lines of that net, so we have projected out of our own substance this net-work called the nerves, and we cannot work except through the channels of those nerves. The Yogi says we need not be bound by that. Similary, we can send electricity to any part of the world, but we have to send it by means of wires. Nature can send a vast mass of electricity without any wires at all. Why cannot we do the same? We can send mental electricity. What we call mind is very much the same as electricity. It is clear that this nerve fluid has some amount of electricity, because it is polarised, and it answers all electrical directions. We can 65

only send our electricity through these nerve channels. Why not send the mental electricity without this aid? The Yogi says it is perfectly possible and practicable, and that when you can do that you will work all over the universe. You will be able to work with anybody anywhere, without the help of any nervous system. When the soul is acting through these channels we say a man is living and when those channels die the man is said to be said. But when a man is able to act either with or without these channels, birth and death will have no meaning for him. All the bodies in the universe are made up of Tanmatras, and it is only in the arrangement of them that there comes a difference. If you are the arranger you can arrange that body in one way or another. Who makes up this body but you? Who eats the food? If another ate the food for you, you would not live long. Who makes the blood out of it? You, certainly. Who assimilates the blood, and sends it through the veins? You. Who creates the nerves, and makes all the muscles? You are the manufacturer, out of your own substance. You are the manufacturer of the body, and you live in it. Only we have lost the knowledge of how to make it. We have become automatic, degenerate. We have forgotten the process of manufacture. So, what we do automatically has again to be regulated. We are the creators and we have to regulate that creation, and as soon as we can do that we shall be able to manufacture just as we like, and then we shall have neither birth nor death, disease, or anything. 13. सति मूले तद्विपाको जात्यायुर्भोगाः ॥ १३॥ sati moole tadvipako jatyayurbhogah The root being there, the fruition comes (in the form 66

Patanjali Yoga Sutras of) species, life, and expression of pleasure and pain. The roots, the causes, the Samskaras being there, they again manifest, and form the effects. The cause dying down becomes the effect, and the effect becomes more subtle, and becomes the cause of the next effect. The tree bears a seed, and becomes the cause of the next tree, and so on. All our works now, are the effects of past Samskaras. Again, these Samskaras become the cause of future actions, and thus we go on. So this aphorism says that the cause being there, the fruit must come, in the form of species; one will be a man, another an angel, another an animal, another a demon. Then there are different effects in life; one man lives fifty years, another a hundred, and another dies in two years, and never attains maturity; all these differences in life are regulated by these past actions. One man is born, as it were, for pleasure; if he buries himself in a forest pleasure will follow him there. Another man, wherever he goes, pain follows him, everything becomes painful. It is all the result of their own past. According to the philosophy of the Yogis all virtuous actions bring pleasure, and all vicious actions bring pain. Any man who does wicked deeds is sure to reap the fruit of them in the form of pain. 14. ते ह्लादपरितापफलाः पुण्यापुण्यहेतुत्वात् ॥ १४॥ te hladaparitapafalah punyapunyahetutvat They bear fruit as pleasure or pain, caused by virtue or vice. 67

Patanjali Yoga Sutras 15. परिणामतापसंस्कारदुःखैर्गुणवृत्तिविरोधाच्च दुःखम् एव सर्वं विवेकिनः ॥ १५॥ parinamatapasanskaraduhkhairgunnavritti - virodhaccha duhkham eva sarvan vivekinah To the discriminating, all is, as it were, painful on account of everything bringing pain, either in the consequences, or in apprehension, or in attitude caused by impressions, also on account of the counter action of qualities. The Yogis say that the man who has discriminating powers, the man of good sense, sees through all these various things, which are called pleasure and pain, and knows that they are always equally distributed, and that one follows the other, and melts into the other; he sees that men are following an ignis fatuus all their lives, and never succeed in fulfilling their desires. There was never a love in this world which did not know decay. The great king Yudisthira once said that the most wonderful thing in life is that every moment we see people dying around us, and yet we think we shall never die. Surrounded by fools on every side, we think we are the only exceptions, the only learned men. Surrounded by all sorts of experiences of fickleness, we think our love is the only lasting love. How can that be? Even love is selfish, and the Yogi says that, in the end, we shall find that even the love of husbands and wives, and children and friends, slowly decays. Decadence seizes everything in this life. It is only when everything, even love, fails, that, with a flash, man finds out 68