becomes primary; all that we do throughout our life, throughout the day, from
morning to evening, becomes a contributory factor to bring about this mood of yoga
so that there is nothing impeding our progress. We can adjust and arrange our
activities and the vocational habits of the day in such a manner that they will not
seriously obstruct the mood of yoga that we are trying to generate, which is nirodha
parinama. This is one of the important transformations that the mind deliberately
undergoes in the practice of samyama. There are many others. We shall look to it
later.
Chapter 91THE INTEGRATING FORCEPreviously we were considering the three processes of mental transformation at the
time of samyama, or absorption in the given object, to which Patanjali refers in his
analysis of the mind. The three transformations, called parinamas, are discussed
very precisely in three sutras. Vyutthāna nirodha saṁskārayoḥ (III.9) is how the sutra
starts. We have studied something about it earlier. When the impressions, or the
vrittis, connected with the objects of sense are put down by the power of
concentration, there is an alternate activity taking place in the mind whereby there is
a succession of incoming and outgoing vrittis—a group entering, and a group trying
to get out. To give a gross example, an activity of this kind can be found in a beehive.
Many bees come in and many bees go out for some purpose of their own. Likewise,
bundles and bundles of mental impressions enter the mind, and others try to get out.
This also happens in the biological activity which takes place in the body when toxic
matter enters the system. The moment there is something in the body which is
unwanted, a war takes place, and as the anatomists and biologists will tell us, the
white corpuscles of the blood start fighting the bacteria or germ and in that war many
soldiers die. If there is a pinprick or a kind of thorn prick, or some kind of injury to
the foot, we find that the body immediately attempts to reconstruct itself, and
prepares itself for the occasion. In that process of the tussle between the two types of
corpuscles of the blood, many cells around also get destroyed, resulting in pus
coming out. The pus is nothing but the killed soldiers who have been trying to protect
the body against the onslaught of this toxic element. Likewise, in the psychological
warfare that takes place at the time of concentration, many features are to be
observed. Patanjali purposely and very pithily mentions three types of struggle that
go on inside the mind at the time of its attempt to enter into the nature of the object
in samyama.
There are various factors which will obstruct this attempt. These obstructing factors
are the impressions of the mind, or rather impressions present in the mind in respect
of those objects to which the mind was habituated earlier, to which it was
accustomed, and to come in contact with which it was struggling hard throughout its
life. In yoga, those vrittis are to be put down by the force of another type of vritti
which arises in the mind. That impression produced in the mind by repeated
concentration is called nirodha samskara. This is what we observed previously in the
sutra: vyutthāna nirodha saṁskārayoḥ abhibhava prādurbhāvau nirodhakṣaṇa cittānvayaḥ
nirodhapariṇāmaḥ (III.9).