time, and we will be thinking that we are another person—this person has gone. We
were another person in the past, we are one thing now in the present, and we will be
some third thing in the future. So, to which form are we going to be attached? Or, to
put it more concretely, do we know what we were in our previous birth? Man,
woman, king or beggar, rich or poor, tall or short, from the West or the East—what
were we? Nobody can say anything. We were something quite different from what we
are today. We have completely ignored that which we were in the past, and now we
are clinging to that which we are at present. How is it that we have completely
ignored what we were in the past? We were clinging to that, once upon a time, as our
real personality. How is it that we have completely forgotten that and now we are
fixing our attention on something which is present? And do we know what we will be
in our future? Nobody knows. We will be something else, and afterwards we will cling
to that, forgetting the present.
No one can be in a uniform condition always. There is no such thing as a fixed
personality or eternal individuality. Such things do not exist. So it is really very
surprising that the consciousness should be tied up, like a victim to a post, in the
form of a given condition at a particular moment of time. The consciousness is aware
only of the present; it is not aware of the past, and also it is not aware of the future.
But that which modifies itself into these features—in the past, in the present and in
the future—is uniformly present always. That is our basic nature. It is the nature of
everything—inanimate, animate, etc. In all the realms of existence there is only one
basic dharmi, or substance, which has cast itself into the moulds of various dharmas
of forms and shapes, etc., and it can manifest itself so forcefully in the time-form that
it can create the impression of that particular time-form as the only reality for the
time being, as if the other features are not existent at all.
We are, for instance, not conscious of the existence of worlds other than this earth, or
the physical plane. But scriptures tell us, and even science corroborates, that there
can be many kinds of beings—perhaps infinite in number—all differing, one from the
other. Also, the contents of the realms will not be similar, because they belong to
different space-times. This is also a great revelation of the modern theory of
relativity. There are infinite space-times, and each space-time has a peculiar
conditioning feature which manifests itself as a particular world of perception or
experience. This particular space-time is only one possibility among the many
possibilities in the form of many other space-times—infinite in number. This is also
mentioned to us in the stories of the Yoga Vasishtha. Infinite space-times, infinite
worlds are there, and one can be penetrating through the other, one not being aware
of the existence of the other. Worlds interpenetrate one another at a given cross-
section of time and space, and yet one will not be aware of the other on account of the
difference of the frequency of consciousness which is connected to that particular
order of space-time.
This present condition of experience, which is called udita in this particular sutra, is
only one time-form taken by prakriti, and it has potentialities which were in the past
that can manifest themselves once again in the future. There will be an occasion for
us to study this in future, when Patanjali will tell us that there is no identical
substance called ‘individual’ at all. There is no self-identical being. They are only
different phases of the manifestation of prakriti, which is mistaken for a self-
identical individuality, so that what is intended here is that the so-called asmita,
which plays such havoc, is a phantasmagoria. It is not there at all!