PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS
Sanskrit text with Translation and Commentary By
Swami Vivekananda
Contents
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I - SAMADHI PADA
CHAPTER II - SADHANA PADA
CHAPTER III – VIBHOOTI PADA
Kaivalya Pada
Sutra
21. chittantaradrishye buddhibuddheratiprasanggah smritisankarashcha
Another cognising mind being assumed there will be no end to such assumptions and confusion of memory.
Let us suppose that there is another mind which cognises the first, there will have to be something which cognises that, and so there will be no end to it. It will result in confusion of memory, there will be no storehouse of memory.
22.chiterapratisankramayastadakarapattau svabuddhisanvedanam The essence of knowledge (the Purusa) being un-changeable, when the mind takes its form, it becomes conscious.
Patanjali says this to make it more clear that knowledge is not a quality of the Purusa. When the mind comes near the Purusa it is reflected, as it were, upon the mind, and the mind, for the time being, becomes knowing and seems as if it were itself the Purusa.
23. drashtridrishyoparaktan chittan sarvartham
Coloured by the seer and the seen the mind is able to understand everything.
On the one side the external world, the seen, is being reflected, and on the other, the seer is being reflected; thus comes the power of all knowledge to the mind.
24. tadasankhyeyavasanachitram api pararthan sanhatyakaritvat The mind through its innumerable desires acts for another (the Purusa), being combinations.
The mind is a compound of various things, and therefore it cannot work for itself. Everything that is a combination in this world has some object for that combination, some third thing for which this combination is going on. So this combination of the mind is for the Purusa.
25. visheshadarshin aatmabhavabhavanavinivrittih For the discriminating the perception of the mind as Atman ceases.
Through discrimination the Yogi knows that the Purusa is not mind.
26. tada vivekanimnan kaivalyapragbharan chittam Then bent on discriminating the mind attains the previous state of Kaivalya (isolation).
Thus the practice of Yoga leads to discriminating power, to clearness of vision. The veil drops from the eyes, and we see things as they are. We find that this nature is a compound, and is showing the panorama for the Purusa, who is the witness; that this nature is not the Lord, that the whole of these combinations of nature are simply for the sake of showing these phenomena to the Purusa, the enthroned king within. When discrimination comes by long practice fear ceases, and the mind attains isolation.
27. tachchhidreshu pratyayantarani sanskarebhyah
The thoughts that arise as obstructions to that are from impressions.
All the various ideas that arise making us belive that we require something external to make us happy are obstructions to that perfection. The Purusa is happiness and blessedness by its own nature. But that knowledge is covered over by past impressions. These impressions have to work themselves out.
28. hanam esham kleshavaduktam
Their destruction is in the same manner as of ignorance, etc., as said before.
29. prasankhyanepyakusidasy sarvathavivekakhyater dharmameghah samadhih
Even when arriving at the right discriminating knowledge of the senses, he who gives up the fruits, unto him comes as the result of perfect discrimination, the Samadhi called the cloud of virtue.
When the Yogi has attained to this discrimination, all these powers will come that were mentioned in the last chapter, but the true Yogi rejects them all. Unto him comes a peculiar knowledge, a particular light called the Dharma Megha, the cloud of virtue. All the great prophets of the world whom history has recorded had this. They had found the whole foundation of knowledge within themselves. Truth to them had become real. Peace and calmness, and perfect purity became their own nature, after they had given up all these vanities of powers.
30.tatah kleshakarmanivrittih From that comes cessation of pains and works.
When that cloud of virtue has come, then no more is there fear of falling, nothing can drag the Yogi down. No more will there be evils for him. No more pains.
31. tada sarvavarannamalapetasy jnanasyaanantyajgyeyam alpam Then knowledge, bereft of covering and impurities, becoming infinite, the knowable becomes small.
Knowledge itself is there; its covering is gone. One of the Buddhistic scriptures sums up what is meant by the Buddha (which is the name of a state). It defines it as infinite knowledge, infinite as the sky. Jesus attained to that state and became the Christ. All of you will attain to that state, and knowledge becoming infinite, the knowable becomes small. This whole universe, with all its knowable, becomes as nothing before the Purusa. the ordinary man thinks himself very small, because to him the knowable seems to be so infinite.
32. tatah kritarthanan parinamakramapari samaptirgunanam
Then are finished the successive transformations of the qualities, they having attained the end.
Then all these various transformations of the qualities, which change from species to species, cease forever.
33. kshannapratiyogi parinamaparantanigrarhyah kramah
The changes that exist in relation to moments, and which are perceived at the other end (at the end of a series) are succession.
Patanjali here defines the word succession, the changes that exist in relation to moments. While I am thinking, many moments pass, and with each moment there is a change of idea, but we only perceive these changes at the end of a series. So, perception of time is always in the memory. This is called succession, but for the mind that has realised omnipresence all these have finished. Everything has become present for it; the present alone exists, the past and future are lost. This stands controlled, and all knowledge is there in one second. Everything is known like a flash.
34. purusharthashoonyanan gunanan pratiprasavah kaivalyan, svaroopapratishtha va chitishaktireti
The resolution in the inverse order of the qualities, berfect of any motive of action for the Purusa, is Kaivalya, or it is the establishment of the power of knowledge in its own nature.
Nature’s task is done, this unselfish task which our sweet nurse Nature had imposed upon herself. As it were, she gently took the self-forgetting soul by the hand, and showed him all the experiences in the universe, all manifestations, bringing him higher and higher through various bodies, till his glory came back, and he remembered his own nature. Then the kind mother went back the way she came, for others who have also lost their way in the trackless desert of life. And thus she is working, without beginning and without end. And thus through pleasure and pain, through good and evil, the infinite river of souls is flowing into the ocean of perfection, of self-realisation.
Glory unto those who have realised their own nature! May their blessings be on us all!
Comments
Post a Comment