It is not true that we have perpetual love for a thing, and it is also not true that we
have perpetual hatred. It depends upon how our feelings are evoked by that
particular person or thing. We can evoke the tiger or the devil in us; we can also
evoke that which is more peaceful and congenial. Both these factors are present in us.
We can attack even our dearest friend under given conditions—it is not impossible—
and, at the same time, he is our friend. We have great obligation and affection
towards that person. This state of going up and down in the mood of the mind is the
interrupted condition.
But if all the factors are favourable, then it is manifest: the war is actually taking
place. The soldiers are in the battlefield and there is actually a burst of attack. When
the mind is fully convinced that no obstacles are there—everything is clear, the road
is clean—then it will pounce upon the object at once, like a tiger jumping on a cow.
This is the udara aspect.
This ignorance, or avidya, is the breeding ground for all these states of mind which
undergo this fourfold stage of prasupta tanu vicchinna udārāṇām (II.4). Avidyā kṣetram
uttareṣāṁ—it is the kṣetram uttareṣāṁ. Uttareṣāṁ means anything that follows from
this; all things that are the outcome of this find this as their mother. Our ignorance is
the mother of all other distractions. It gives them its breast milk and supports them
for all time. The desires and the activities of the mind cannot succeed if ignorance is
absent, because that is the motive power behind the functions of the mind in
whatever form it may function.
The purpose of yoga is to cut at the root of this ignorance itself, so that its
ramifications in the form of these vikshepas, or distractions, may not have vitality in
them. They will be like a burnt seed or a burnt cloth, or a lifeless snake. It is a snake,
but it has no life. Likewise will be these functions, activities and enterprises of the
mind when it will look as if they are there in all their shape and form, but they will be
lifeless. That is the purpose of the practice of yoga.
So, this caution given to us here is that, in our practices, we should not ignore the
presence of the cause and get engaged too much merely in the effect, since whatever
be the intensity of the practice in respect of the control of the effect, it will not be
finally successful because the major-general is alive, and he will not keep quiet like
that. We are attacking the poor soldiers while the commander is still alive, and he has
other resources to attack us even if a regiment is destroyed by the effort of our
practice. The cause has to be tackled; unless that is overcome there is no use merely
confronting the effects. This is the advice given here.
Chapter 57THE FOUR MANIFESTATIONS
OF IGNORANCEThe cause of all the problems that have to be encountered in yoga was mentioned as
ignorance—avidya. This ignorance functions in many ways, and it can be detected
only by its ways of working. Patanjali mentions its principle projectiles, by which it