very perception of an object is erroneous, basically rooted in some mistake, the
experiences that follow from that perception cannot be other than the cause of the
perception. The reactions set up by these perceptions also are equally false, and they
are involved in the same error as the perception is. What Patanjali wants to drive into
our minds is that the pleasures of sense are not really pleasures; they are errors of
perception that have passed for normal perceptions on account of the identification
of consciousness with these processes. And so, there is a necessity for the
retrogression of the effects into the cause—a withdrawal of the process from the
external to the internal, so that gradually there is, first of all, a disentanglement of
the mind from the objects of sense, and later on, a disentanglement of consciousness
from the mind itself.
This final disentanglement is equal to the resting of consciousness in its own Self,
free from identification with this distracting medium called the mind, and free from
also the subsequent identification of itself with the objects of sense. Such Self-
establishment is called kaivalya, or moksha, or liberation.
Chapter 65KARMA, PRAKRITI AND THE GUNASPrakāśa kriyā sthiti śīlaṁ bhūtendriyātmakaṁ bhogāpavargārtham dṛśyam (II.18) is a very
complicated aphorism which describes the nature of the object of knowledge. It was
pointed out in an earlier sutra that the subject of knowledge is a characteristic that is
brought about by a mixture of consciousness and externality—or, to put it plainly, the
purusha and the manas, the atman and the mind. The principle of externalisation
gets identified with the indivisible essence of consciousness, and there is then a
sudden rise of individuality-consciousness which is the subject of perception and
knowledge. The individuality aspect belongs to the externalising feature of the mind,
whereas the consciousness aspect belongs to the purusha, or the atman. Therefore
we have two things combined in us: we have consciousness, and also the awareness
of being individuals, of being separate entities. This separateness that we feel, the
affirmation of isolated existence that is a part of our nature, is due to a factor that is
different from consciousness but has got identified with consciousness, and vice
versa.
Hence, there is consciousness of individual being. This was referred to earlier as
asmita. This asmita is the cause of all phenomenal experience in this world. The
phenomenal experience is nothing but a series of processes which affirm
consciousness as well as externality—continuously, without break—and cause a
peculiar kind of experience in the individual which is mixed up with consciousness as
well as externality. It is the principle of consciousness in the individual that brings
about happiness, and it is the principle of externality that creates desire. Desire in the
individual is due to the urge for externalisation of oneself, and happiness is due to
the presence of consciousness in oneself. When consciousness gets identified with
the movement of desire, there is unhappiness. There is a tendency of consciousness
to move away from itself when it is mixed up with the force of desire, whose very
essence is rushing towards external objects. When consciousness stabilises itself and