The Study And Practice Of YogaAn Exposition of the Yoga Sutras of PatanjaliVolumeII

of the succession of events, and was always subjected to the modifications of its own
vrittis and was shifting its attention from one to another—that mind will now be
habituated to thinking in a constant fashion. That means to say, to allow it to think
only of one vritti is samyama.

What is samyama? Samyama is nothing but the attention of consciousness on a
single modification of the mind, and not allowing the mind to undergo another
modification. When this succeeds—that means to say, if we can concentrate our
attention on a single modification of the mind, which is another way of concentrating
on a single form of object—there would be a prevention of the mind from getting into
the succession of the time process and the modifications of the gunas. And this will,
again, work a miracle—the miracle being the bursting of the bubble of the mind—and
time will enter into eternity. This is a sort of condition that the sutra lays before us
prior to the description of the final absorption of the mind into the cosmic purusha.

Chapter 110

RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION

Now we conclude our study of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which has taken a long
course of circuitous movements through various processes of description and
practice, right from the enunciation that the principle of yoga is the inhibition of the
modifications of the stuff of the mind.

Samadhi Pada

The Samadhi Pada, which we covered in Volume One of this book, was how the
sutras begin their long statement of the whole practice. At the very beginning itself,
in two succinct sutras, we are given the essence of the whole matter: yogaḥ cittavṛtti
nirodhaḥ (I.2) and tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe avasthānam (I.3). These two sutras are the
whole of yoga, really speaking: what is to be done, and what happens if it is done.
These two things are mentioned in these two short statements: yoga is the control of
the mind, and then there is the establishment of the purusha in his own nature. This
is yoga. But though it is such a short statement of a great problem, the methods to be
adopted in the achievement of this purpose have to be explained in greater detail.

Therefore, the analysis of the mind has to be made in order that we may know how
the mind can be controlled. We say that the control of the mind is yoga; but, what is
‘mind’? How does it function, and what are the modifications which we are trying to
control through the process of yoga? The nomenclature of the various vrittis, or the
modifications of the mind, is given subsequently so that we may have an idea as to
what are those vrittis which we have to tackle or grapple with—the klishta klesas and
the aklishta klesas, as Patanjali puts it—that is, the transformation of the mind in
respect of an object, which causes pain and sometimes does not cause pain. Both
these are vrittis; both these are modifications which have to be stopped in order that
there can be a reflection of the purusha-consciousness in the mind. How can this be
achieved? How are we going to tackle the mind? How do we subdue the
modifications?