should be also positivity, which means to say there should be affection. Even if we do
not do harm, we may not be doing any good. This ‘not doing any good’ may produce,
one day or the other, a tendency to do harm, because we cannot keep the mind
blank.
A vacuous personality is a dangerous one; it should be always filled with something
positive. In the beginning, the pratipaksa bhavana, which is initially a negative
check, is a necessary prescription for the purpose of enabling us to develop the higher
qualities of affection, love, and a total positivity of approach in everything. As a
positive approach is more difficult than a negative one, the pratipaksa bhavana
method is prescribed first. The method of substitution is not always successful, as
psychologists know very well. Sometimes we have no other alternative; we have to
adopt it, because the intention of this substitution is ultimately sublimation, not
opposition. The pratipaksa bhavana is sometimes akin to opposition. We are
counterposing the vritti by another vritti which is just the opposite of it. When it is
channelised along some other activity or some other type of feeling, it becomes a
substitution, but all these are preparations for sublimation of the vritti in a higher
mood.
Unless the instincts are completely boiled and melted into the menstruum of a
cosmic vritti which is love of God and the ultimate goal of life, they cannot be
controlled, because a snake is a snake, whether it is inside a box or moving and
wriggling outside. Whatever it be, it is the same snake. An inactive snake does not
cease to be a snake; it is still only that. If we touch it, it will raise its hood.
Therefore, the instinct should not be allowed to remain even by checking because
while in the beginning the check is necessary in the form of an implementation of a
law since there is no other alternative at that moment, it should not be the end of it.
Afterwards more positive, educative methods have to be adopted in respect of that
instinct because the instinct, or the impulse, is nothing but we ourselves moving in a
wrong direction. We are not contemplating or looking at something which is other
than us. What we call the instinct is nothing but we ourselves moving through space
and time towards an object of sense, either in love or hatred. Who can control
oneself? One can control anything, but not oneself. Hence, we can imagine how hard
this effort is. Therefore we are asked to contemplate—unremittingly—the virtues, or
the aspects of righteousness, which are necessary to divert these undesirable vrittis
along the channels of those contemplative features which are the characteristics of
the ultimate goal of life.
Chapter 74THE PRINCIPLES OF YAMA AND NIYAMAThe indications which are given that the practice of the yamas and niyamas is
successful are mentioned in the sutra that follows, which give one an idea of the
extent of one’s success and a consolation that the direction that has been chosen is
the right one. In intense practice of ahimsa, which is a most comprehensive term,
there is a natural reorientation of one’s environment, and a change in the