And, if we can remember a sutra that we studied earlier, we have already been told
that everything is a modification of prakriti in some way or the other. Te vyakta
sūkṣmāḥ guṇātmānaḥ (IV.13). Whether an object is visible or invisible, manifest or
unmanifest, it is a product of the gunas—sattva, rajas and tamas. These gunas, by
various mixtures of their own permutation and combination, present themselves as
forms or shapes before the mind and the senses: pariṇāma ekatvāt vastutattvam
(IV.14). The substantiality of an object is an illusion, ultimately speaking. It is not
substance that we are cognising or contacting through the senses. It is a kind of
reaction that is produced by the gunas subjectively through the mind and objectively
in the form that they have taken as the object that is cognised. It is mentioned in this
sutra that the reason why there is cognition of substantiality in the object is due to
the uniqueness of the transformation of the gunas.
There is a peculiar uniqueness, novelty, in every formation of the gunas, and when
they tally in some respect with the vibrations of the mind, or the vrittis of the mind,
then there is a correspondence between the mind and that particular shape which the
gunas have taken. If there is no such correspondence, there would be no cognition.
We do not perceive things which are in the heavens, for instance. The things which
are subatomic also cannot be cognised by the mind. We cannot also see things which
are constituted of vibrations which are superior or inferior to the level of mental
vibrations.
The vrittis of the mind are vibrations of the mind, really speaking. They must
correspond in the rate of their motion to the rate of the motion of the gunas in a
particular form, which the mind calls the object. Thus, it is only a certain set of
formations which tally with the vibration of the mind that can be cognised by the
mind, and not all. It does not mean that the mind is able to cognise everything
everywhere. There are many more things which the senses cannot grasp and the
mind cannot understand. The reason is that there is no correspondence between the
vibration of the mind—the vrittis of the mind—and the velocity with which the gunas
move in respect of other formations.
Thus, there is a great mistake on the part of the mind in imagining that any
particular object is a substance by itself, and in passing a judgement in respect of that
object as a desirable thing or an undesirable thing. Also, when there is thus a
correspondence established between the mind and the object, there is a further
process which takes the mind deeper and deeper into bondage. The mere perception
of an object is not the end of the matter; it is only the beginning of the trouble. When
there is this correspondence of the mind with the object, for the reason mentioned,
the mind begins to act upon the object; consequently, the object begins to influence
the mind. Then there is the readiness of the mind to exploit the object, to utilise it for
its purposes, to fulfil its desires, because it regards the object as desirable. Then there
is action projected by the mind in respect of that fulfilment which it wants; then
there is experience, and the experience produces, once again, an impression in the
mind for a repetition of that experience, inasmuch as there has been a false notion in
the mind that this is the object which is required.
The gunas are never stable in their nature; they vary. The very essence of the gunas
is mutation, and there is a transformation perpetually going on throughout prakriti,
on account of which the objects also change their nature. When the object changes its
nature, it ceases to be that object which it was earlier. Then the mind does not see the