Therefore, the individual sense, the asmita tattva, is a complex manufactured
product. It is not an indivisible unitary being, as we wrongly take it to be. It is like a
fabric constituted of various threads, and each thread is nothing but a proclivity, as I
mentioned. This tendency is, to put it precisely, a kind of desire which is the urge to
fulfil itself in a particular manner. Therefore, the thinking principle—the mind, the
antahkarana—is a medium which cannot be regarded as an external instrument of
the individual, but is itself what the individual constitutes. Here in this sutra I cited,
dṛk darśanaśaktyoḥ ekātmatā iva asmitā (II.6), Patanjali points out that the individual
sense, the sense of being separate, the consciousness of personality or bodily
individuality, is a product of the union of this distracting medium with the
background of the animating principle—namely, consciousness that is infinite. This
union is an inseparable union for all practical purposes, so that we can never be
aware, even for a moment, that this has taken place, because once we awaken to this
fact we will be frightened out of our wits. But it is not allowed to take place. The
manner in which this event has taken place is non-temporal, as I mentioned; so any
temporal effort will not even touch it. There is a ‘dark iron screen’, if we would like to
call it that, which separates this effort of the individual from knowing the cause, and
the real cause that is behind it.
So the asmita, or the principle of individuality, which is the cause of all our further
troubles in life, is brought about by a peculiar kind of internal, mutual
superimposition of aspects. And once this superimposition has taken place, we
cannot get out of it. Various kinds of examples are given to illustrate how this has
happened and what it actually means. A heated iron rod or iron ball becomes red-
hot, so that we are unable to distinguish between the iron and the fire. When we
touch the iron ball, it burns us. What is it that we are touching—fire, or the iron ball?
Well, either or neither, we may say. What burns us is the fire, but what we actually
touch as a tangible, physical, concrete, solid substance is the iron ball. They have
become one. There is a glow we see, that is all. It is only fire. The iron is not visible; it
has lost its presence. It has identified its being with the being of the fire, for the time
being. Likewise, we will find that this distracting medium called the mind completely
makes itself appear absent, as it were—though it is the thing that works there. It is
the wire-puller behind all activities in life; and yet, it has so dexterously got identified
with some other power, with the help of which it works, that we are wrongly aware of
the erroneous activity of that superior principle rather than of the cause of this error
that has taken place.
Sometimes, due to association brought about by mysterious circumstances, innocent
people can be in trouble as a result of the mischievous activity of wicked persons.
And, those wicked persons go scot-free; they run away, and these innocent ones are
caught. They are hauled up in the court, and anything is possible. They know
nothing; they have been simply caught by circumstances.
Likewise, there is a very mischievous imp called the mind, which very shrewdly
utilises the powers of consciousness for its own purposes. The force with which it
works, as well as the intelligence that it harnesses in its action, belong entirely to
something which is different from itself. But all the functions—which are purely
phenomenal—belong to the mind itself. So what happens is that when we are active,
we are unable to distinguish between the principle of activity and the principle of
intelligence that is behind the activity, just as we cannot distinguish between the heat
or the fire in the heated iron rod, and the rod itself. The distracting movement of the