there is an abolition of all duration and time-consciousness. There is an extinction of
the difference created by the time process, as well as the difference created by the
interference of space between objects. The mind cannot comprehend everything at
one stroke.
For the mind there is successive perception but not simultaneous perception,
whereas in the purusha there is simultaneous perception—an awareness which is the
grasping of everything at one stroke. Therefore, the purusha and the mind are
different. Sattva puruṣayoḥ atyantāsamkīrṇayoḥ pratyaya aviśeṣaḥ bhogaḥ (III.36). The
inability to grasp the difference between these two is called bhoga—enjoyment,
experience. All the processes which the mind undergoes are called bhoga. And we are
all fond of bhoga only. That is why we cling to the world so much. There is a fear that
when the mind is freed from conditions which bring about bhoga, there will be no
joy. We identify contactual experience with pleasure; this is a habit of the mind.
Therefore, it is not easy to wean the mind from this habit. It is difficult for the mind
to believe that there can be pleasure in the purusha, because what pleasure can be
there in a condition in which we are severed from all contacts?
This is what the mind will think, and what it does think. With great effort of
intellectual understanding, sometimes we are convinced of the possibility of bliss
even in the purusha. But the feelings revolt against such a kind of intellectual
conviction, and when we actually come to the forefront of the task of this practice,
the mind resents the practice because the very first thing that is required in this
meditation is not to think of an object. And if we don’t think of an object, what
remains? There remains a blank, and a night of darkness. This is what the mind feels,
and it does not get the purusha. The purusha is not an object of awareness to the
mind when it is free from contact with objects. It is in a complete oblivion, a wiping
out of all awareness.
Well, this may be one of the conditions through which the mind passes, or has to
pass. As mystical language tells us, it is the dark night of the soul. When we cut off all
connections with everything in the world, we have to pass through darkness; we will
not enter into light immediately. There will be an interim period of darkness,
oblivion and unawareness of everything, which is the frightened condition, a state of
affairs where the mind is in fear as to what is happening. There, higher guidance is
necessary—from a Guru, a spiritual master—because we will be cast into the winds of
unawareness. The mind is afraid of this condition. The moment we withdraw the
mind from objects, there is unhappiness because happiness is nothing but
contemplation of objects, and the requisition of this meditation is the opposite of it.
So it will mean, impliedly, that we are trying to cut at the roots of all the pleasures of
the mind by attempting this meditation. Therefore, the mind will not agree.
This sort of bhoga, or pleasurable experience, is the opposite of the requisite of
spiritual salvation. Hence, yoga becomes difficult. The most difficult thing to
undergo, and even conceive in the mind, is the abolition of all possible joys in this
world. The mind is used to the joy of contact with objects, which is called bhoga. But,
the sutra tells us that is an error, that it is a great mistake which has been committed
due to an imaginary experience of happiness. It is not happiness at all. It is a kind of
stirring of the organism by certain reactionary processes brought about by the
contact—a fact which the mind cannot understand. It is a trick of nature by which it
keeps the mind tied to ordinary experience. This pratyaya avishesa is bhoga. An