There is a partial experience of the soul in ordinary subjectivity. The soul is not
located in our body alone. It is all-pervading Universal Being. That is the soul of
things. And so when we wrongly locate that soul inside our limited body, we have
only a fraction of the experience of the soul; therefore, in its reality, the soul does not
rise to the surface of our consciousness in any of our actions or experiences. Hence,
we cannot be really happy at any time, because real happiness is the rousing of the
soul to the surface of consciousness. The being of the soul should become one with
the consciousness that is experiencing any kind of event, for the matter of that. But
the being of the soul gets submerged in the activity of the ego, or the asmita;
therefore, there is the feeling of limitedness on the part of the mind, which is the
centre of the subject. In samyama, or the deep absorption of the subject-
consciousness in the object, there is an occasion provided for the manifestation of the
soul in its totality.
The impossibility of experiencing this soul arises on account of the perception of an
object outside. This externality of perception has to be completely overcome by a
technique of coming in union with the object. We have created a bifurcated
experience in ourselves, on account of which there is a segment of the soul on the
subject side, and another segment on the object side. The object side drags the soul
from the subject; and the soul from the other side, which is also the subject, drags the
object from its own point of view. So there is a mutual pull and push of the subject
and the object. It is the Infinite that is actually the cause of the mutation of
properties, or the transmutation of qualities—the changes in prakriti. The
experiences, which are the bhoga mentioned in the sutra of Patanjali, are nothing
but the processes of prakriti through which the soul passes for the sake of awakening
itself to its total consciousness, which it is unable to experience on account of its
limitation to a particular guna of prakriti—sattva, or rajas, or tamas. It is only in a
condition which is above the three gunas that there can be an experience of the soul.
When this fact is grasped properly, which is the lesson that the sutras mentioned
provide us with, there is an easy access into the process of samyama. We can fix
ourselves on the object, not regarding it as an object any more but as a part of our
own selves. This is exactly what is intended in the meaning of the sutra which we
have already studied in connection with what is known as ekagrata parinama. Tulya
pratyayau was the phrase used in that particular sutra. There is a tulya pratyayau,
or an equanimity of experience in respect of the subject as well as the object, at a
stage when the total being is about to rise to the surface of consciousness.
In the beginning there is a tussle, and that is the experience known as nirodha
parinama. Then, gradually, there is a rise to a more controlled condition of the mind,
which is samadhi parinama. And, finally, we come to ekagrata parinama, where the
object ceases to be an object and it assumes a character which is similar to the
subject. That situation is called tulya pratyayau. There will then be no kind of
friction between the subject and the object. There will be a flow of the current of
thought from the subject to the object, and in this particular state we will not know
which is the subject and which is the object. We will be placed in the position of the
object—such is the intensity of concentration. As this is a difficult thing to conceive
and practise, Patanjali gives us an analysis of the relationship of the mind with the
objects by saying etena bhūtendriyeṣu dharma lakṣaṇa avasthā pariṇāmāḥ vyākhyātāḥ
(III.13) and śānta udita avyapadeśya dharma anupātī dharmī (III.14).