With this attitude of the mind, with this knowledge that is gained about the nature of
the object in its essentiality, one should detach oneself from judging things
individually and hanging one’s life on the form of that particular object. Also, there is
a need for the reformation of the mind because that is another factor which is the
cause of the production of karma. The vrittis of the mind should be checked.
Otherwise, they will modify themselves repeatedly into any number of shapes, and
the result would be that they would go on establishing relationships with varieties of
objects. As there are infinite objects in the world, there would be no end for the
objects for the mind. When the citta vrittis—the modifications of the mind, the
vrittis of the mind—change themselves in the process of evolution, so also they will
find different types of objects suiting them. What we liked in the last birth will not be
what we like in this birth. They are different things altogether, notwithstanding the
fact that all these things that we like or dislike are products of the same gunas of
prakriti. The like and dislike arise because of the inability of the mind to grasp the
truth behind these formations of the gunas. Therefore, the checking of the vrittis in
respect of objects is necessary, in the same way as it is necessary to understand the
nature of the object.
The third factor is phala, which is the experiences that we undergo in this life—which
are called jati, ayuh, bhoga. This can be worked out only by the exhaustion of karma.
We cannot do anything about it. When we have been born, naturally we have been
bound to the circumstances of the birth. So until the karmas which have brought
about the birth of this body are exhausted by experience, nothing can be done. The
prarabdha cannot be overcome; it has to be worked out. By working out the karma
in a particular life, it is exhausted. But we must see that we are not reborn by the
operation of the other karmas which are there unfructified, lying in a latent form.
The very purpose of the practice of yoga is to see that there is no rebirth. And rebirth
cannot be stopped as long as we allow the unfructified karmas to manifest
themselves of their own accord. But we have no control over them merely because we
have no knowledge about them. Also, there is no understanding of the mind; it is
caught up in a whirl of circumstances which have been created by these visible as
well as invisible forms of karma. Ultimately, the greatest cause of bondage is avidya
itself—hetu. That is the original source. That is the mother of all problems: the
ignorance of the Ultimate Reality, which is the cause for all this dramatic activity of
the mind in this world of phenomena. What is the ultimate nature of Truth? It is
indivisible consciousness, purusha tattva, which is the aim of yoga. The realisation
of the purusha is kaivalya moksha, for which so much struggle is there in all forms
of life. Therefore the purusha should be awakened to consciousness. There should be
resting of the consciousness in itself. Tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe avasthānaṃ (I.3), says the
sutra. For this purpose it is that we practise yoga. This sutra is only a small symbolic
presentation of the problem of karma and the way in which it can be stopped for the
purpose of the liberation of the spirit: hetu phala āśraya ālambanaiḥ samgrhītavād eṣām
abhāve tad abhāvaḥ (IV.11).
Pariṇāma ekatvāt vastutattvam (IV.14). This reaction of the mind in respect of objects,
producing the potency of karma, has a past, a present and a future, as we observed
previously in connection with the sutra: atīta anāgataṁ svarūpataḥ asti adhvabhedād
dharmāṇām (IV.12). The past, the present and the future also are illusions, just as the
form of an object is an illusion. It is the inability of the mind to comprehend every
circumstance at one stroke that is the reason for the belief in past, present and