Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Литагент HarperCollins USD
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and sattvic to more agreeable ones. Depending on their provenance, the fruits of action may either tie us to lust, anger and greed, or turn us towards the spiritual quest. These residual impressions are called samskaras: they build the cycles of our existence and decide the station, time and place of our birth. The yogi’s actions, being pure, leave no impressions and excite no reactions, and are therefore free from residual impressions.
Desires and impressions
Desires, and knowledge derived from memory or residual impressions, exist eternally. They are as much a part of our being as is the will to cling to life. In a perfect yogi’s life, desires and impressions have an end; when the mechanism of cause and effect is disconnected by pure, motiveless action, the yogi transcends the world of duality and desires and attachment wither and fall away.
Time
Yogic discipline eradicates ignorance, avidya. When illusion is banished, time becomes timeless. Though time is a continuum, it has three movements: past, present and future. Past and future are woven into the present and the present is timeless and eternal. Like the potter’s wheel, the present – the moment – rolls into movement as day and night, creating the impression that time is moving. The mind, observing the movement of time, differentiates it as past, present and future. Because of this, the perception of objects varies at different times.
Though the permanent characters of time, the object and the subject remain in their own entities, the mind sees them differently according to the development of its intelligence, and creates disparity between observation and reflection. Hence, actions and fulfilments differ. An illustration of this would be that we recognize the difference between what is involved when a murderer kills for money, a soldier kills for his country and a man kills defending his family against bandits. It is all killing, but the implications are radically different in each case, according to the development of the individual.
The yogi is alert to, and aware of, the present, and lives in the present, using past experience only as a platform for the present. This brings changelessness in the attitude of the mind towards the object seen.
Subject and object
Earlier chapters point out that whereas nature is eternal, its qualities or gunas, are ever-changing. This blending of the gunas creates diversity in the mind so that it sees objects in different ways. The object is the same and the mind, too, is the same. But the same mind has many qualities of mood and behaviour. This fragmentation is the cause of avidya. The mind divided by the gunas moulds and remoulds man. As the gunas move in rhythmic unity, intellectual development differs qualitatively in each person and each one sees objects differently, though their essence does not change.
The yogi studies the uniqueness of that rhythmic mutation, keeps aloof from it, and rests in his own essence, his soul. This essence, and the essence of the perceived object, are the same for him. Through self-examination, he realizes that objects do not change, but that he himself fabricates their apparent changes. He learns to perceive without prejudice, aware that objects exist independently, irrespective of his cognition of them. His clear, unpolluted mind sees objects as they are, separate from him and therefore unable to leave an impression on him. Being free from bias, he is free from karma.
Cit and citta (universal and individual consciousness)
The unalterable seer (cit) is the Lord of the consciousness. He is ever-present, changeless, constant, ever-luminous. The seer can be both subject and object at the same time. He is aware of all mutations taking place in his mind, intelligence and consciousness. He knows that they are his products and that they may taint him as long as avidya and asmita survive.
The seer is the seed, and consciousness the seedling. Mind is the stem, and vrittis, the fluctuations or thought-waves, are the leaves, relayed via mind through the single consciousness, the stem, back to the seed.
Consciousness and its branches, intelligence, mind and thought, become objects of the seer. The branches have no existence of their own without consciousness, and consciousness has none without the seer. It borrows light from the seer and extends towards intelligence, mind and thought. As it is not self-illumined it cannot be at once subject and object. It is a knowable object to the seer just as the objects of the world are knowable to it.
The cit (seer, soul, cosmic consciousness) is a passive, omniscient witness, whereas the citta (created or ‘sprouted’ consciousness) is active, impressionable and engaged, because it is involved in a direct relationship with the outside world. But when that involvement is analysed, controlled and brought to stillness, the citta gravitates towards its source, the cit, and takes on its characteristics, so that for the realized being cit and citta become one. The problem is that for the average person, the sprouted consciousness appears to be the seer, while in reality it merely masks the seer. Studying citta, we come to understand that it has no light of its own, but is dependent on its progenitor, the seer. Until this realization dawns, consciousness acts as a prism, distorting vision. Once it merges with the seer it becomes a perfect reflector, as well as a reflection, mirroring its own pure image, the soul reflecting on the soul.
So we see that citta can be pulled in two directions: outwards towards its mother, nature, prakrti, or inwards towards its father, spirit, purusa. The role of yoga is to show us that the ultimate goal of citta is to take the second path, away from the world to the bliss of the soul. Yoga both offers the goal and supplies the means to reach it. He who finds his soul is Yogesvara, Lord or God of yoga, or Yogiraja, a King among yogis.
Now, nothing is left to be known or acquired by him.
Caution
Patañjali warns that even such exalted yogis are not beyond all danger of relapse. Even when oneness between cit and citta is achieved, inattention, carelessness, or pride in one’s achievement await opportunity to return, and fissure the consciousness. In this loss of concentration, old thoughts and habits may re-emerge to disturb the harmony of kaivalya.
If this takes place, the yogi has no alternative but to resume his purificatory struggle in the same way as less evolved people combat their own grosser afflictions.
The dawn of spiritual and sorrowless light
If the Yogesvara’s indivisible state is unwaveringly sustained, a stream of virtue pours from his heart like torrential rain: dharma megha samadhi, or rain-cloud of virtue or justice. The expression has two complementary overtones. Dharma means duty; megha means cloud. Clouds may either obscure the sun’s light or clear the sky by sending down rain to reveal it. If citta’s union with the seer is fissured it drags its master towards worldly pleasures (bhoga). If union is maintained it leads the aspirant towards kaivalya. Through yogic discipline, consciousness is made virtuous so that its possessor can become, and be, a yogi, a jñanin, a bhaktan and a paravairagin.
All actions and reactions cease in that person who is now a Yogesvara. He is free from the clutches of nature and karma. From now on, there is no room in his citta for the production of effects; he never speaks or acts in a way that binds him to nature. When the supply of oil to a lamp is stopped, the lamp is extinguished. In this yogi, when the fuel of desires dries out, the lamp of the mind cannot burn, and begins to fade on its own. Then infinite wisdom issues forth spontaneously.
The knowledge that is acquired through senses, mind and intellect is insignificant beside that emanating from the vision of the seer. This is the real intuitive knowledge.
When the clouds disappear, the sky clears and the sun shines brilliantly. When the sun shines, does one need artificial light to see? When the light of the soul blazes, the light of consciousness is needed no longer.
Nature and its qualities cease to affect the fulfilled yogi. From now on they