years together, even towards the fag end of one’s life if the power of the will is strong
enough. But even Homer nods, as they say. The will, which has been exerting such a
pressure upon the vrittis of the mind, may have to take a little leisurely rest due to
the exhaustion caused by the effort which it has been putting forth for years together.
And a little chidra, as the sutra puts it, a little hole that has been made, is enough for
the vrittis to come up. A moment’s cessation of the vigilance of the will is enough for
the hornets of vrittis to come up, buzzing and violent, and they will dart upon the
very object from which they have been weaned by the force of the will.
This is something which cannot be avoided, because no man is omniscient; no man is
omnipotent; no man can be called God. And so, it is impossible to avoid these
encounters entirely. One day or the other they have to come, and they may come in
various forms, various degrees, at different times in one’s life. When such a thing
happens, what is to be done? When we face the enemy in front of us, what do we do?
That is the very same thing that we have to do with these vrittis. Hānam eṣāṁ kleśavat
uktam (IV.28) is the recipe for this problem. Just as we deal with the klesas which
were described in the earlier sutra, so we deal with these encounters. How do we deal
with them?
The process of recession of the effect into the cause is one of the methods prescribed
in the earlier sutras. It is a discriminative analysis of the causes of the activity of
these vrittis which have come to the surface of consciousness at the present moment,
and is a very difficult thing to practice because we cannot find out the causes when
they are actually operating. Nevertheless, this is one of the methods prescribed in the
sutra. When we are overwhelmed from all sides by the vrittis, we will not be allowed
even to think of the causes which have given rise to this circumstance. But this
overwhelming will not continue for a long time. There is an ebb and a flow of these
vrittis; they are not always in the same condition. The force of the samskaras, the
impressions of past experience which have been held in check for a long time by the
practice of yoga, gains entry into the realm of consciousness and acts in respect of its
own desired object.
The exhaustion of a karma is effected by various ways, and these samskaras or
vrittis that come up confronting the yogin are nothing but the powers of karma,
forces of karma—the potencies, or apurvas, of previous karmas which have not yet
been undergone by experience. Some of the karmas have to be undergone by direct
experience, as they cannot be opposed. It is not that everything must be opposed;
that cannot succeed. Certain things have to be undergone by direct experience,
whether they are pleasurable or miserable. They can be either way. When they are
very powerful there is no other go than to bear the brunt of the onslaught, and then
they diminish in their intensity. It is at that time that we have to practise this method
of the recession of the effect into the cause—not when the flood is upon the head.
Only when it subsides can we can try to exercise our discrimination as to what has
happened.
The bringing of the effect into the cause means the diverting of the mind from the
gross to the subtler phases of this situation that has arisen in the form of the vrittis
coming up to the consciousness. It is ultimately a lack of grasp of the idea of the goal
of yoga that brings about this unfortunate circumstance. One cannot keep this grasp
always, because who can be in a meditative mood all twenty-four hours? No human
being can. That which will save us at the times when we are not meditating is the