So is the case with these sutras. The Kaivalya Pada is a metaphysical disquisition of
Patanjali, where we find his philosophical peculiarities as distinct from other schools
of thought, which of course have great relevance to the practice which he has
described in the earlier sutras.
Chapter 98THE TRANSFORMATION FROM HUMAN TO DIVINEThat one has to pass through various stages of self-communion before the great aim
of yoga is reached is a point which has been emphasised, again and again, in various
ways and at different places in the system of Patanjali. We do not suddenly jump to
the skies in one stroke. There is a very slow process of growth inwardly, like the
maturing of a large tree, stage by stage. And, every stage is supposed to be an
occasion for a novel experience every time new experiences present themselves,
inasmuch as every experience is one of communion. It is very important to remember
that yoga is not a process of thinking through the mind, understanding through the
intellect, or ratiocinating. Yoga is communion. This is the main feature of yoga which
can miss one’s attention, and one can be under the complacent mood that there is a
progress gradually taking place while one is merely thinking—as one thinks of a cow,
or a tree—an object which is totally outside oneself.
Every progress is a progress in communion. It is not a progress merely in thought
and clarity of understanding—which are all very great things, no doubt, in the world,
but they are nothing before yoga. We are not here for intensifying our analytic
understanding or logical deductive knowledge of things, or for any kind of worldly
genius. All that we regard as great in this world becomes nothing before this master
technique of yoga, which is the precise reason why some cannot grasp even the first
stage of yoga properly, because the very first step itself is a complete turning upside-
down of the way of thinking. It is not continuing our present way of thinking that is
called yoga. It is a complete transformation, a right-about turn of the entire attitude.
This has to be grasped at the very outset. We are not becoming better and better
human beings in yoga; we are becoming transformed and transfigured into a newer
quality of being. It is not that the human nature continues, the human valuation
continues and the human assessment of things continues—nothing of the kind. There
is a transfiguration of the human character altogether into a newer type of perception
and experience. This is what is effected by communion.
Hence, the usual mistaken idea people may carry with them into the field of yoga—
that what they achieve in the higher stages of yoga is only an expanded, or perhaps a
more intensified form of worldly happiness, worldly authority, worldly power or
worldly acquisition—is a great mistake, and nothing can be worse than that. We are
not going to have enjoyments of a worldly kind in the progress of yoga, nor are we
going to exercise power as we exercise it in the world of sense and ego. There is such
a change as can be compared with the change from an animal to a human being,
which cannot be regarded as merely a continuation of the animal species. When we
rise from the animal kingdom of consciousness to the human level, we have not
simply become better animals; that is not what has happened to us. We have become
something quite different from animals. Are we only advanced animals just because