mind. These two reactions cease, and something new altogether arises and comes
into play when we become as natural as prakriti itself. Yoga practice is a process of
becoming more and more natural in one’s being, and eliminating those causes which
have made us unnatural. What is it that is natural, and what is unnatural? Anything
that cannot harmonise with the laws of prakriti should be regarded as unnatural;
and anything that is in harmony with the laws of prakriti is natural. What are these
laws of prakriti?
We have been told much about it in earlier sutras. But essentially, the law of prakriti
is such that it has no internal distinction within itself. To create internal distinctions
or differences of bodies, personalities, individualities, etc., would be a result of
disharmony of some kind or the other. In the totality of nature, internal differences
are unknown, just as the body, our individual bodily organism, has no feeling of
internal differences. There is a principle which brings all these forces together and
creates in us a sense of oneness. Likewise in nature, there is a principle which brings
all the forces together. The more we approach this centre of unification of nature, the
more are we natural, and the more we depart from it, the more are we unnatural.
This is the meaning of this particular sutra, nimmitaṁ aprayojakaṁ prakṛtīnāṁ
varaṇabhedaḥ tu tataḥ kṣetrikavat (IV.3): The instrumental cause, which is the practice
of yoga, is not actually the creator of the powers or siddhis, but only an agent which
allows the operation of natural forces, in the same way as the farmer operates as an
instrumental cause in the movements of waters in the fields. This is the literal
meaning of this sutra.
To sum up the teaching of these two sutras cited just now, the present state of
existence of a human individual is unnatural, and we should not make the mistake of
thinking that we are living a normal life. Our present way of life is abnormal in the
sense that it does not harmonise with what eternally exists. The temporal features
that we are manifesting in our personal lives are the opposites of the eternal features
of prakriti. Hence, yoga is an instrumental agent in bringing about conditions by
which there is a spontaneity of entry of eternal laws into our personality. And in this
process of the entry of the eternal characters of prakriti into us, we develop various
powers. Thus, the powers, or siddhis, are nothing but experiences which are
incumbent upon our gradual proximity to the ultimate nature of prakriti. This is
what the sutra tells us.
Chapter 100THE EXHAUSTION OF ALL KARMASThe subjects which are dealt with in the sutras of Patanjali that we are following are
very peculiar, and cannot be understood by a theoretical student because they are not
themes connected with anything that happens in this world. They are something
quite supernormal, and therefore, they are different, in kind and nature, from any
subject that we can think of in this world. Those items of reference Patanjali makes in
the Kaivalya Pada are especially abstract, very theoretical from the point of view of a
beginner in yoga, and highly metaphysical. Therefore they have no practical
significance as far as a beginner in yoga is concerned. They have only, we may say, a
curiosity value for a beginner who can understand nothing, neither head nor tail of