PATANJALI - YOGASUTRAS - CH-3.Vs.50, 51 - bondage & Liberation - VIBHUTI PAADHA

PATANJALI

YOGASUTRAS

CHAPTER-3

VIBHUTI PAADHA

Samyama is the process of seeing your multi faceted self, from different angles – and ultimately realizing all of them. In Samyama, we start with Dharana on a particular Goal – and therefore, all wisdom pertaining to that Goal and it extensions -  comes to the Sadhaka in Samyama. We have seen that process in earlier sutras upto 3.49 – and we are continuing with the same further here.

Vs.3.50

sattva purusha anyata khyaati maatrasya

sarva-bhaava adhisthaatrittvam

sarvajnaatritvam cha

 

 

Ø  sattva = sattvaguna; pure positive mind set

Ø  purusha = pure consciousness

Ø  anyata = How one is different from other

Ø  khyati =  process of understanding, discerning

Ø  maatrasya = only

Ø  sarva-bhava = over all states or forms of existence, omnipotence

Ø  adhisthatrittvam = supremacy

Ø  sarva-jnatritvam = omniscience

Ø  cha = and

Sathva Guna represents the purest aspect of mind that seems to us to be the knower of the external world in us. In fact, it is also not the knower of the world. It is only a repository of all information received from the senses through the tanmatras or the sensory powers.

The sensory powers receive inputs from external world and present them as knowledge to the mind. Mind stores this information as a knowledge Bank. But, our senses are very, very imperfect instruments and the inputs they receive and give us are neither total nor perfect.

Your eyes always receive information according to the sensory capability of the physical eye, and not according to what is actual, in the external world. Then also, while its reach is vast, its focus is very limited. What we see also, we are unable to receive fully, analyze, cognize and store. Hardly a small fraction of what the eye sees is actually seen by the mind. The same thing is true of other sensory powers. But, we begin to feel, we know. We don’t. Our knowledge is subject to too many limitations that our senses suffer from.

There is just no way that we can transcend even these physical limitations. When we see everything, there is no focus. When we focus, we don’t see much at all. Either way, our knowing remains incomplete.

Therefore, mind, which receives information is not a great knower. Again, the power that mind gets in analyzing, and knowing is not its own. 

It gets it from the Buddhi and Buddhi gets it from the reflected consciousness which resides in it. The consciousness itself, which is the real knower is external to all these – the body, the senses, the mind and the Buddhi.

The pure consciousness is the real knower, the real self. But, superficially, the intelligence in us, which we may call as the Sathva, looks like our SELF. Our intelligence is what we use, and it is external to us. It is a tool for us. The consciousness, the Purusha, is the real self, the subject, the one which is the real knower.

All states of existence and all levels of knowing are thus tools for the one who is very clearly established in the knowledge of this distinction between the purest aspect of mind called Satva and the purest consciousness, namely, the Purusha.

He will have command and supremacy over both existence and Intelligence. 

Effectively, what it means is, one must always remain as the awareness of all that is happening rather than identify with all that is happening which is nothing but knowledge and information that is flowing through the senses.

Vs. 3.51

thath vairagyaath api

dosha beeja kshaye kaivalyam

Ø  thath = that

Ø  vairagyaath = desire-less state

Ø  api = and

Ø  dosha =  defect

Ø  beeja = seed

Ø  kshaye = by elimination

Ø  kaivalyam = total liberation

All bondages arise from  identification. Some identify with the body; Some with the mental states; Some with the intellect; Some, with feelings; Some, even with the people around, objects around and so on.

But, all these identifications create bondages; You tend to become what you identify with, for all worldly purposes. The identifications with any or many of these things create and promote many desires in us. They create excitement at times and hopelessness and disappointments at other times in us. We are tossed  from one state of feelings to another states all the times. The mood swings virtually look like us, when they possess us.

But, once a sadhaka ceases his identification with all these states, and even with the intelligence in him, then the identifications drop completely and he begins to resides in his own self, as an observer, as the real knower. This delinking with all bondages creates a new freedom, a new liberation which is total. In effect, desire is bondage. Desire-less-ness is freedom or liberation.

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