- On the clarification of memory, when the mind loses its essential nature
(subjectivity), as it were, and the real knowledge of the object alone shines (through
the mind) Nirvitarka Samadhi is attained.
The Savitarka stage of Samadhi which has been dealt with in the previous Sutra
prepares the ground for the Nirvitarka stage. The confused state of the mind in which
different kinds of knowledge were mixed up has been gradually replaced by a clarified
state in which the three kinds of knowledge are seen separate and clearly distinguish-
able. This clarification is called Smrti-parisuddhi in the present Sutra. Why is this
resolution of knowledge present in the mind of the Yogi called ‘clearing up of mem-
ory’? To understand the reason for the use of the word Smrti in this connection the
student should recall I-6 in which the Vrttis or modifications of the mind are classified
under five heads and Smrti or memory is one of these. If he has understood the basis of
this classification he will see at once that the modification of the mind in Savitarka
Samadhi comes under Smrti or memory. As the Yogi’s mind is cut off completely from
the external world, the modification cannot come under ‘right knowledge’ or ‘wrong
knowledge’. As he is not asleep but fully conscious it cannot come under ‘sleep’. As
he is performing Samyama not on any imaginary thing but on a definite thing of which
the reality is to be known, the modification cannot come under ‘imagination’. The
modification is really of the nature of memory because it is a reproduction in the mind
of a thing which has been experienced before. That is why Patanjali calls the process
of clearing up as ‘clarification of memory’.
When the memory has become clarified the mind is ready for the next step, viz.
reducing the self-awareness to the utmost limit. This mental process which is called