mind?” Sometimes we are more judicious in our judgement over ourselves, whereas
at other times we are stimulated to give a long rope to our feelings.
As we do in life on the outside, the same thing happens inside. Generally, the
inclination of the mind is towards pleasure. It does not want pain of any kind. This is
the simple truth of the whole matter. Inasmuch as there is a peculiar notion that
contact of any kind with the desirable objects brings pleasure, one naturally tries
one’s best to find some chance for coming in such contact. And, the withdrawal of
that activity is painful. Anything that contravenes one’s attempt at the pursuit of
pleasure is pain. Hence, even this yoga practice becomes a pain if it obstructs the
natural tendency of the mind towards objects of sense, contact with which it has
always regarded as a source of pleasure. But if we can remember the conclusion of all
our studies of the earlier sutras, we can very well recollect that it is a foolish idea of
the mind. There is great blunder involved in the notion that pleasures come by
contact. There is great error of judgement which has to be set right by more
intelligent ways of mental analysis. This, therefore, is the meaning of this sutra,
sarvārthatā ekāgratayoḥ kṣaya udayau cittasya samādhipariṇāmaḥ (III.11), which tells us
that the peculiar mental transformation called samadhi parinama is nothing but the
rising and the falling, alternately or successively, of the tendencies of the mind
towards various objects outside, and the tendency of the mind towards self-
integration.
Tatāḥ punaḥ śānta uditau tulya pratyayau cittasya ekāgratāpariṇāmaḥ (III.12). This is a
very advanced stage. Most people cannot reach this stage. Even the so-called
advanced ones are only in the first stage, called nirodha parinama, where there is
simply a struggle between two tendencies of the mind—namely, the tendency to go
out and the tendency to concentrate. That is all. We cannot think of anything more
than that. But this sutra tells us that we have to rise to a higher state. That particular
state which is indicated in this third sutra, in connection with the parinamas, tells us
that when we go higher, something strange takes place. We will see something very
uncommon—most unexpected, we may say.
We have always been under the impression that there is an intrinsic difference
between ourselves and the objects of sense. Or rather, to put it more plainly, there is
a difference between you and me. It is this difference that makes you a ‘you’ and me a
‘me’; otherwise, there is no such thing as ‘you’ and ‘me’. There is a peculiar feature
which characterises things and persons, due to which they stand apart from one
another. To pinpoint the subject on hand, there is a gulf between the subject and the
object. They cannot be identical. The ‘you’ cannot be the ‘I’—that is the simple
essence of the matter. The ‘I’ is the meditator; the ‘you’ is the object. And the ‘you’ is
always a ‘you’; the ‘I’ is always the ‘I’. How can the two come together? They cannot
come together because of the disparity of character. But, though this is the usual idea
that we have about ourselves and of things outside us, this is not the truth about
things.
It is not true that there are such distinguishing and separating features in objects as
to isolate them completely, forever, from other things. It is not true that the inherent
characters or structural features of an object are so vehement that they cannot unite
themselves with the nature of the subject. The reason why there has been so much of
struggle in the mind inside, in the form of nirodha parinama, samadhi parinama,
etc., is that the mind is unable to get out of this prejudice that the object is the object