called desire. This desire is nothing but the urge of one individual to unite with
another individual. This urge is what is referred to in this description of prasupta tanu
vicchinna udārāṇām. The urge for contact with other individuals is called desire, which
has arisen on account of the perception of diversity born of the ignorance of the
universality of things. This desire can be completely dormant in childhood, or when
we are in the mother’s womb, or when the body is dead, or when there is a comatose
condition, or in the state of anaesthesia. In these conditions, the desire is dormant,
but it is not destroyed. It is present, but not visible—not manifest, not active. When it
is impossible to fulfil the desire, then also it is dormant. We know that the desire
cannot be manifest—the conditions are not favourable at all—and therefore, we push
these desires inside and keep them inside as if they are not there. But, this is not the
absence of desires; they remain in latent forms. This summarises the prasupta
condition of a desire.
Tanu, or the attenuated condition, or what they call the thinned-out condition of the
desire, is that state of mind which we can see in some of the sadhakas or seekers—
the students of yoga—where, due to continued affirmation in a different direction
altogether, the desires which are inside as dormant get manifest no doubt, yet remain
in a very thin form because the activity of the mind in the student of yoga is in a
different direction altogether. There is a constant rotation of japa, chanting of
mantra; or study, svadhyaya; or meditation, or satsanga. All these things attenuate
the mind. They keep it in a very fine, thin form, and desire cannot work with the
force that is necessary to fulfil itself. Thus, in students of yoga, in sadhakas in
general, the desires look absent. They are not absent; they are present there, but they
look as if they are not there due to the pressure exerted upon the mind by other types
of activity, such as what we call the practice of sadhana.
Or, they can be in this attenuated condition when we are in places like Gangotri or
Badrinath, where these desires cannot be fulfilled normally because the conditions
are not favourable. Either we cannot get the objects of desire, or there are other
reasons for which the desires cannot be fulfilled. There are various causes behind the
inability of the mind to fulfil the desire, though it is trying to find an avenue of
escape. It is trying its best, but it cannot get an outlet. In this condition, it is
attenuated in a very thin form.
Vicchinna, the third condition mentioned, is an interrupted condition where, if we
have great affection for a person—a member of our own family, for instance—this
affection may suddenly be interrupted by an anger that is manifest occasionally. We
may be very angry with a member of our own family. Suppose you are the head of a
family. You have, naturally, a tremendous love for all the members; you regard them
as your own self. But it is well known that there are frictions in the family, and one
member of the family may get so angry with another that he may threaten them with
dire consequences. In this condition of anger, the affection gets interrupted. It is not
absent, as it will come back afterwards. The interrupted condition is the temporary
suppression of a particular mode of thinking—a mood or an emotion—due to the
presence of another mode which has arisen for some other reason. When there is a
temporary anger or a hatred manifest superficially, the affection that is there gets
interrupted, and conversely, when the affection rises, the anger gets interrupted. We
can manifest love or hatred—either way—in respect of the same person or the same
thing under different conditions. It all depends upon what mood is evoked at a
particular time.