Hence, these two sutras tell essentially this much: that the artificial minds created by
the yogin, known as nirmana cittas, are projections of the asmita tattva of the
yogin, and they can appear in many forms, yet they are controlled by a single
experiencing principle. They are not different persons; it is one person only, though
they appear manifold. This manifoldness of the mind is merely for the sake of the
exhibition of the functions, and not to give the impression that they are individual
personalities, one different from the other. One thousand Krishnas, or sixteen
thousand; they are not really sixteen thousand Krishnas. It is only one person who
appeared in various forms—a single consciousness operating behind all. A single
experience was there behind all the Krishnas; a single power was controlling the
operations of all these personalities.
To give a crude example, the five fingers are operated by a single hand. The fingers
are not five different persons. One finger can be folded, another can be stretched, but
it does not mean that they are two different things. The same force which is the arm
can operate in five different ways, through the five fingers, on account of its capacity
to project various aspects of its strength through the digits. Likewise is the yogin’s
function. It is a great mystery, as I mentioned; we cannot understand what it is. But
the sutra tells us that it is possible to take various forms by samyama on the mahat,
through which one has to establish contact first. We cannot multiply ourselves like
that unless we are associated vitally with the mahat, or the cosmic principle. This is a
very advanced stage of yoga, inconceivable to human minds, and yet possible, as we
hear of in scriptures of yoga.
The mind which is cleansed of all vrittis by dhyana, or meditation, has not to take
rebirth. This is made out by another sutra: tatra dhyānajam anāśayam (IV.6). Ashaya
is an impression, or a vasana—a desire tendency which is the cause of a future birth.
This is absent in the case of a clean mind which is rid of the rajasic and the tamasic
elements which cause this rebirth. Even in a high state of meditation the mind exists,
as it is well known. But it can exist in such a transparent form that it would be the
vestige, or the last shape it takes, until it exhausts itself in this high state of
samyama. All the forms which the mind may take in the various practices mentioned
in the first sutra of the Kaivalya Pada may become the causes of rebirth—but not the
mind which is cleansed by samadhi.
Different commentators give different meanings for this sutra regarding what
Patanjali actually intended to convey through this particular maxim to which he
made reference. Some think it is a reference made to the minds of people whose
powers are recounted in the first sutra, janma auṣadhi mantra tapaḥ samādhijāḥ
siddhayaḥ (IV.1). But others think that the manufacture of artificial minds by yogins—
nirmana citta—has reference to the immediately preceding sutra, namely, the mind
that has been thus completely rid of all the dross in the form of rajas and tamas will
not have any residuum of vasanas to take another birth. When the karmas are
exhausted by this simultaneous experience through the various bodies which the
yogin creates for himself, there is an end of phenomenal experience. Karmas cease
by experience, and they can cease only by experience; by no other method can they
be put an end to.
These karmas, when they are explained in terms of a yogin’s experience, should be
distinguished from the karmas of ordinary people. There is no such thing as good
action or bad action for a yogin: karma aśukla akṛṣṇam yoginaḥ (IV.7). Asukla means