Patanjali Yoga Sutras
CHAPTER II - SADHANA PADA
CONCENTRATION - ITS PRACTICE
॥ द्वितीयः साधनपादः ॥

1. तपःस्वाध्यायेश्वरप्रणिधानानि क्रियायोगः ॥ १॥
   tapahsvadhyayeshvarapranidhanani kriyayogah
   Mortification, study, and surrendering fruits of work
   to God are called Kriya Yoga.
   Those Samadhis with which we ended our last chapter are
   very difficult to attain; so we must take them up slowly. The
   first step, the preliminary step, is called Kriya Yoga. Literally
   this means work, working towards Yoga. The organs are the
   horses, the mind is the reins, the intellect is the charioteer, the
   soul is the rider, and this body is the chariot. The master of the
   household, the King, the Self of man, is sitting in this chariot.
   If the horses are very strong, and do not obey the reins, if the
   charioteer, the intellect, does not know how to control the
   horses, then this chariot will come to grief. But if the organs,
   the horses, are well controlled, and if the reins, the mind, are
   well held in the hands of the charioteer, the intellect, the
   chariot, reaches the goal. What is meant, therefore, by
   mortification? Holding the reins firmly while guiding this
   body and mind: not letting the body do anything it likes, but
   keeping them both in proper control. Study. What is meant by
   study in this case? Not study of novels, or fiction, or story
   books, but study of those books which teach the liberation of
   the soul. Then again this study does not mean controversial
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studies at all. The Yogi is supposed to have finished his period
of controversy. He has had enough of all that, and has become
satisfied. He only studies to intensify his convictions. Vada
and Siddhanta. These are the two sorts of Scriptural
knowledge, Vada (the argumentative) and Siddhanta (the
decisive). When a man is entirely ignorant he takes up the first
part of this, the argumentative fighting, and reasoning, pro
and con.; and when he has finished that he takes up the
Siddhanta, the decisive, arriving at a conclusion. Simply
arriving at this conclusion will not do. It must be intensified.
Books are infinite in number, and time is short; therefre this
is the secret of knowledge, to take that which is essential.
Take that out, and then try to live up to it. There is an old
simile in India that if you place a cup of milk before a Raja
Hamsa (swan) with plenty of water in it, he will take all the
milk and leave the water. In that way we should take what is
of value in knowledge, and leave the dross. All these
intellectual gymnastics are necessary at first. We must not go
blindly into anything. The Yogi has passed the argumentative
stage, and has come to a conclusion, which is like the rocks,
immovable. The only thing he now seeks to do is to intensify
that conclusion. Do not argue, he say; if one forces
arguments upon you, be silent. Do not answer any argument,
but go away free, because arguments only disturb the mind.
The only thing is to train the intellect, so what is the use of
disturbing it any more. The intellect is but a weak
instrument, and can give only knowledge limited by the
senses; the Yogi wants to go beyond the senses; therefore the
intellect is of no use to him. He is certain of this, and therefore
is silent, and does not argue. Every argument throws his mind
out of balance, creates a disturbance in the Chitta, and this
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disturbance is a drawback. These argumentations and
searchings of the reason are only on the way. There are much
higher things behind them. The whole of life is not for
schoolboy fights and debating societies. By “surrendering
the fruits of work to God” is to take to ourselves neither credit
nor blame, but to give both up to the Lord, and be at peace.
2. समाधिभावनार्थः क्लेशतनूकरणार्थश्च ॥ २॥
samadhibhavanarthah kleshatanookaranarthashch
(They are for) the practice of Samadhi and
minimising the pain-bearing obstructions.
Most of us make our minds like spoiled children, allowing
them to do whatever they want. Therefore it is necessary that
there should be constant practice of the previous
mortifications, in order to gain control of the mind, and bring
it into subjection. The obstructions to Yoga arise from lack of
this control, and cause us pain. They can only be removed by
denything the mind, and holding it in check, through these
various means.
3. अविद्यास्मितारागद्वेषाभिनिवेशाः क्लेशाः ॥ ३॥
avidyasmitaragadveshabhiniveshah kleshaah
The pain-bearing obstructions are - ignorance,
egoism, attachment, aversion, and clinging to life.
These are the five pains, the fivefold tie that binds us down.
Of course ignorance is the mother of all the rest. She is the
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only cause of all our misery. What else can make us
miserable? The nature of the Soul is eternal bliss. What can
make it sorrowful except ignorance, hallucination, delusion;
all this pain of the soul is simply delusion.
4. अविद्या क्षेत्रम् उत्तरेषां प्रसुप्ततनुविच्छिन्नोदाराणाम् ॥ ४॥
avidya kshetram uttareshan
prasuptatanuvichchhinnodaranam
Ignorance is the productive field of all them that
follow, whether they are dormant, attenuated,
overpowered, or expanded.
Impressions are the cause of these, and these impressions
exist in different degrees. There are the dormant. You often
hear the expression “innocent as a baby,” yet in the baby may
be the state of a demon or of a god which will come out by and
by. In the Yogi these impressions, the Samskaras left by past
actions, are attenuated; that is, in a very fine state, and he can
control them, and not allow them to become manifest.
Overpowered means that sometimes one set of impressions is
held down for a while by those that are stronger, but they will
come out when that repressing cause is removed. The last
state is the expanded, when the Samskaras, having helpful
surroundings, have attained to great activity, either as good or
evil.
5. अनित्याशुचिदुःखानात्मसु नित्यशुचिसुखात्मख्यातिरविद्या ॥ ५॥
anityashuchiduhkanatmasu
nityashuchisukhatmakhyatiravidya
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Ignorance is taking that which is non-eternal, impure,
painful, and non-Self, for the eternal, pure, happy,
Atman (Self).
All these various sorts of impression have one source:
ignorance. We have first to learn what ignorance is. All of us
think that “I am the body,” and not the Self, the pure, the
effulgent, the ever blissful, and that is ignorance. We think of
man, and see man as body. This is the great delusion.
6. दृग्दर्शनशक्त्योरेकात्मतेवास्मिता ॥ ६॥
drigdarshanashaktyorekatmatevasmita
Egoism is the identification of the seer with the
instrument of seeing.
The seer is really the Self, the pure one, the ever holy, the
infinite, the immortal. That is the Self of man. And what are
the instruments? The Chitta, or mind-stuff, the Buddhi,
determinative faculty, the Manas, or mind, and the Indriyani,
or sense organs. These are the instruments for him to see the
external world, and the identification of the Self with the
instruments is what is called the ignorance of egoism. We say
“I am the mind, I am thought; I am angry, or I am happy.”
How can we be angry, and how can we hate? We should
identify ourselves with the Self; that cannot change. If it is
unchangeable, how can it be one moment happy, and one
moment unhappy? It is formless, infinite, omnipresent. What
can change it? Beyond all law. What can affect it? Nothing in
the universe can produce an effect on it, yet, through
ignorance, we identify ourselves with the mind-stuff, and
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think we feel pleasure or pain.
7. सुखानुशयी रागः ॥ ७॥
sukhanushayi raagah
Attachment is that which dwells on pleasure.
We find pleasure in certain things, and the mind, like a
current, flows towards them, and that, following the pleasure
centre, as it were, is attachment. We are never attached to
anyone in whom we do not find pleasure. We find pleasure in
very queer things sometimes, but the definition is just the
same; wherever we find pleasure, there we are attached.
8. दुःखानुशयी द्वेषः ॥ ८॥
duhkhanushayi dveshah
Aversion is that which dwells on pain.
That, which gives us pain we immediately seek to get away
from.
9. स्वरसवाही विदुषोऽपि तथारूढोऽभिनिवेशः ॥ ९॥
svarasavahi vidushopi tatharoodho bhiniveshah
Flowing through its own nature, and established even
in the learned, is the clinging to life.
This clinging to life you see manifested in every animal, and
upon it many attempts have been made to build the theory of a
future life, because men like their lives so much that they
desire a future life also. Of course it goes without saying that
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this argument is without much value, but the most curious part
of it is that, in Western Countries, the idea that this clinging to
life indicates a possibility of a future life applies only to men,
but does not include animals. In India this clinging to life has
been one of the arguments to prove past experience and
existence. For instance, if it be true that all our knowledge has
come from experience, then it is sure that that which we never
experienced we cannot imagine, or understand. As soon as
chickens are hatched they begin to pick up food. Many times
it has been seen where ducks have been hatched by hens, that,
as soon as they come out of the eggs, they flew to water, and
the mother thought they would be drowned. If experience be
the only source of knowledge, where did these chickens learn
to pick up food, or the ducklings that the water was their
natural element? If you say it is instinct, it means nothing—it
is simply giving it a word, but is no explanation. What is this
instinct? We have many instincts in ourselves. For instance,
most of you ladies play the piano, and remember, when you
first learned, how carefully you had to put your fingers on the
black and the white keys, one after the other, but now, after
long years of practice, you can talk with your friends, and
your hand goes on just the same. It has become instinct, it
becomes automatic, but so far as we know, all the cases which
we now regard as automatic are degenerated reason. In the
language of the Yogi, instinct is involved reason.
Discrimination becomes involved, and gets to be automatic
Samskaras. Therefore it is perfectly logical to think that all
we call instinct in this world is simply involved reason. As
reason cannot come without experience, all instinct is,
therefore, the result of past experience. Chickens fear the
hawk, and ducklings love the water, and these are both the
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result of past experience, and these are both the result of past
experience. Then the question is whether that experience
belongs to a particular soul, or to the body simply, whether
this experience which comes to the duck is the duck's
forefather's experience, or the duck's own experience.
Modern scientific menhold that it belongs to the body, but the
Yogis hold that it is the experience of the soul, transmitted
through the body. This is called the theory of reincarnation.
We have seen that all of our knowledge, whether we call it
perception or reason, or instinct, must come through that one
channel called experience, and all that we know call instinct is
the result of past experience, degenerated into instinct, and
that instinct regenerates into reason again. So on throughout
the universe, and upon this has been built one of the chief
arguments for reincarnation, in India. The recurring
experiences of various fears, in course of time, produce this
clinging to life. That is why the child is instinctively afraid,
because the past experience of pain is there. Even in the most
learned men, who know that this body will go, and who say
“never mind: we have hundreds of bodies; the soul cannot
die”—even in them, with all their intellectual conviction, we
still find this clinging to life. What is this clinging to life? We
have seen that it has become instinctive. In the psychological
language of Yoga if has become Samskaras. The Samskaras,
fine and hidden, are sleeping in the Chitta. All these past
experiences of death, all that which we call instinct, is
experience become sub-conscious. It lives in the Chitta, and
is not inactive, but is working underneath. These Chitta Vrttis,
these mind-waves, which are gross, we can appreciate and
feel; they can be more easily controlled, but what about these
finer instincts? How can they be controlled? When I am angry
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my whole mind has become a huge wave of anger. feel it, see
it, handle it, can easily manipulate it, can fight with it, but I
shall not succeed perfectly in the fight until I can get down
below. A man says something very harsh to me, and I begin to
feel that I am getting heated, and he goes on until I am
perfectly angry, and forget myself, identify myself with
anger. When he first began to abuse me I still thought “I am
going to be angry.” Anger was one thing and I was another,
but when I became angry, I was anger. These feelings have to
be controlled in the germ, the root, in their fine forms, before
even we have become conscious that they are acting on us.
With the vast majority of mankind the fine states of these
passions are not even known, the state when they are slowly
coming from beneath consciousness. When a bubble is rising
from the bottom of the lake we do not see it, or even when it is
nearly come to the surface; it is only when it bursts and makes
a ripple that we know it is there. We shall only be successful
in grappling with the waves when we can get hold of them in
their fine casues, and until you can get hold of them, and
subdue them before any become gross, there is no hope of
conquering any passion perfectly. To control our passions we
have to control them at their very roots; then alone shall we be
able to burn out their very seed. As fried seeds thrown into the
ground will never come up, so these passions will never arise.
10. ते प्रतिप्रसवहेयाः सूक्ष्माः ॥ १०॥
te pratiprasavaheyah sookshmah
They, to-be-rejected-by-opposite-modifications, are
fine.
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How are these fine Samskaras to be controlled? We have to
begin with the big waves, and come down and down. For
instance, when a big wave of anger has come into the mind,
how are we to control that? Just by raising a big opposing
wave. Think of love. Sometimes a mother is very angry with
her husband, and while in that state the baby comes in, and
she kisses the baby; the old wave dies out, and a new wave
arises, love for the child. That suppresses the other one. Love
is opposite to anger. So we find that by raising the opposite
waves we can conquer those which we want to reject. Then, if
we can raise in our fine nature those fine opposing waves,
they will check the fine workings of anger beneath the
conscious surface. We have seen now that all these instinctive
actions first began as conscious actions, and became finer and
finer. So, if good waves in the conscious Chitta be constantly
raised, they will go down, become subtle, and oppose the
Samskara forms of evil thoughts.
11. ध्यानहेयास्तद्वृत्तयः ॥ ११ ॥
dhyanaheyastadvrittayah
By meditation, their modifications are to be rejected.
Meditation is one of the great means of controlling the rising
of these big waves. By meditation you can make the mind
subdue these waves, and, if you go on practising meditation
for days, and months, and years, until it has become a habit,
until it will come in spite of yourself, anger and hatred will be
controlled and checked.
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12. क्लेशमूलः कर्माशयो दृष्टादृष्टजन्मवेदनीयः ॥ १२॥
kleshamoolah karmashayo
drishtadrishtajanmavedaniyah
The receptacle of works has its root in these
pain-bearing obstructions, and their experience in this
visible life, or in the unseen life.
By the receptacle of works is meant the sum-total of these
Samskaras. Whatever work we do, the mind is thrown into a
wave, and, after the work is finished, we think the wave is
gone. No. It has only become fine, but it is still there. When
we try to remember the thing, it comes up again and becomes
a wave. So it was there; if it had not been there, there would
not have been memory. So, every action, every thought, good
or bad, just goes down and becomes fine, and is there stored
up. They are called pain-bearing obstructions, both happy and
unhappy thoughts, because according to the Yogis, both, in the
long run, bring pain. All happiness which comes from the
senses will, eventually, bring pain. All enjoyment will make
us thirst for more, and that brings pain as its result. There is no
limit to man’s desires; he goes on desring, and when he comes
to a point where desire cannot be fulfilled, the result is pain.
Therefore the Yogis regard the sum-total of the impressions,
good or evil, as pain-bearing obstructions; they obstruct the
way to freedom of the Soul. It is the same with the Samskaras,
the fine roots of all our works: they are the causes which will
again bring effects, either in this life, or in the lives to come.
In exceptional cases, when these Samskaras are very strong,
they bear fruit quickly; exceptional acts of wickedness, or of
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goodness, bring their fruits in this life. The Yogis even hold
that men who are able to acquire a tremendous power of good
Samskaras do not have to die, but, even in this life, can
change their bodies into god-bodies. There are several cases
mentioned by the Yogis in their books. These men change the
very material of their bodies; they re-arrange the molecules in
such fashion that they have no more sickness, and what we
call death does not come to them. Why should not this be?
The physiological meaning of foot is assimilation of energy
from the sun. This energy has reached the plant, the plant is
eaten by an animal, and the animal by us. The science of it is
that we take so much energy from the sun, and make it part of
ourselves. That being the case, why should there be only one
way of assimilating energy? The plant’s way is not the same
as ours; the earth’s process of assimilating energy differs from
our own. But all assimilate energy in some form or other. The
Yogis say that they are able to assimilate energy by the power
of the mind alone, that they can draw in as much as they desire
without recourse to the orindary methods. As a spider makes
his net out of his own substance, and becomes bound in his
net, and cannot go anywhere except along the lines of that net,
so we have projected out of our own substance this net-work
called the nerves, and we cannot work except through the
channels of those nerves. The Yogi says we need not be bound
by that. Similary, we can send electricity to any part of the
world, but we have to send it by means of wires. Nature can
send a vast mass of electricity without any wires at all. Why
cannot we do the same? We can send mental electricity. What
we call mind is very much the same as electricity. It is clear
that this nerve fluid has some amount of electricity, because it
is polarised, and it answers all electrical directions. We can
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only send our electricity through these nerve channels. Why
not send the mental electricity without this aid? The Yogi
says it is perfectly possible and practicable, and that when you
can do that you will work all over the universe. You will be
able to work with anybody anywhere, without the help of any
nervous system. When the soul is acting through these
channels we say a man is living and when those channels die
the man is said to be said. But when a man is able to act either
with or without these channels, birth and death will have no
meaning for him. All the bodies in the universe are made up
of Tanmatras, and it is only in the arrangement of them that
there comes a difference. If you are the arranger you can
arrange that body in one way or another. Who makes up this
body but you? Who eats the food? If another ate the food for
you, you would not live long. Who makes the blood out of
it? You, certainly. Who assimilates the blood, and sends it
through the veins? You. Who creates the nerves, and makes
all the muscles? You are the manufacturer, out of your own
substance. You are the manufacturer of the body, and you live
in it. Only we have lost the knowledge of how to make it. We
have become automatic, degenerate. We have forgotten the
process of manufacture. So, what we do automatically has
again to be regulated. We are the creators and we have to
regulate that creation, and as soon as we can do that we shall
be able to manufacture just as we like, and then we shall have
neither birth nor death, disease, or anything.
13. सति मूले तद्विपाको जात्यायुर्भोगाः ॥ १३॥
sati moole tadvipako jatyayurbhogah
The root being there, the fruition comes (in the form
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of) species, life, and expression of pleasure and pain.
The roots, the causes, the Samskaras being there, they again
manifest, and form the effects. The cause dying down
becomes the effect, and the effect becomes more subtle, and
becomes the cause of the next effect. The tree bears a seed,
and becomes the cause of the next tree, and so on. All our
works now, are the effects of past Samskaras. Again, these
Samskaras become the cause of future actions, and thus we go
on. So this aphorism says that the cause being there, the fruit
must come, in the form of species; one will be a man, another
an angel, another an animal, another a demon. Then there are
different effects in life; one man lives fifty years, another a
hundred, and another dies in two years, and never attains
maturity; all these differences in life are regulated by these
past actions. One man is born, as it were, for pleasure; if he
buries himself in a forest pleasure will follow him there.
Another man, wherever he goes, pain follows him, everything
becomes painful. It is all the result of their own past.
According to the philosophy of the Yogis all virtuous actions
bring pleasure, and all vicious actions bring pain. Any man
who does wicked deeds is sure to reap the fruit of them in the
form of pain.
14. ते ह्लादपरितापफलाः पुण्यापुण्यहेतुत्वात् ॥ १४॥
te hladaparitapafalah punyapunyahetutvat
They bear fruit as pleasure or pain, caused by virtue
or vice.
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15. परिणामतापसंस्कारदुःखैर्गुणवृत्तिविरोधाच्च दुःखम् एव सर्वं
विवेकिनः ॥ १५॥
parinamatapasanskaraduhkhairgunnavritti -
virodhaccha duhkham eva sarvan vivekinah
To the discriminating, all is, as it were, painful on
account of everything bringing pain, either in the
consequences, or in apprehension, or in attitude
caused by impressions, also on account of the counter
action of qualities.
The Yogis say that the man who has discriminating powers,
the man of good sense, sees through all these various things,
which are called pleasure and pain, and knows that they are
always equally distributed, and that one follows the other, and
melts into the other; he sees that men are following an ignis
fatuus all their lives, and never succeed in fulfilling their
desires. There was never a love in this world which did not
know decay. The great king Yudisthira once said that the
most wonderful thing in life is that every moment we see
people dying around us, and yet we think we shall never die.
Surrounded by fools on every side, we think we are the only
exceptions, the only learned men. Surrounded by all sorts of
experiences of fickleness, we think our love is the only lasting
love. How can that be? Even love is selfish, and the Yogi says
that, in the end, we shall find that even the love of husbands
and wives, and children and friends, slowly decays.
Decadence seizes everything in this life. It is only when
everything, even love, fails, that, with a flash, man finds out
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how vain, how dream-like is this world. Then he catches a
glimpse of Vairagyam (renunciation), catches a glimpse of
the beyond. It is only by giving up this world that the other
comes; never through building on to this one. Never yet was
there a great soul who had not to reject sense pleasures and
enjoyments to become such. The cause of misery is the clash
between difference forces of nature, one dragging one way,
and another dragging another, rendering permanent happiness
impossible.
16. हेयं दुःखम् अनागतम् ॥ १६॥
heyan duhkham anagatam
The misery which is not yet come is to be avoided.
Some Karma we have worked out already, some we are
working out now in the present, and some is waiting to bear
fruit in the future. That which we have worked out already is
past and gone.
That which we are experiencing now we will have to work
out, and it is only that which is waiting to bear fruit in the
future that we can conquer and control, so all our forces
should be directed towards the control of that Karma which
has not yet borne fruit. That is meant in the previous
aphorism, when Patanjali says that these various Samskaras
are to be controlled by counteracting waves.
17. द्रष्टृदृश्ययोः संयोगो हेयहेतुः ॥ १७॥
drashtridrishyayoh sanyogo heyahetuh
The cause of that which is to be avoided is the
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junction of the seer and the seen.
Who is the seer? The Self of Man, the PuruSa. What is the
seen? The whole of nature, beginning with the mind, down to
gross matter. All this pleasure and pain arises from the
junction between this PuruSa and the mind. The PuruSa, you
must remember, according to this philosophy, is pure; it is
when it is joined to nature, and by reflection, that it appears to
feel either pleasure or pain.
18. प्रकाशक्रियास्थितिशीलं भूतेन्द्रियात्मकं भोगापवर्गार्थं दृश्यम् ॥ १८॥
prakashakriyasthitishilan bhootendriyatmakan
bhogapavargarthan drishyam
The experienced is composed of elements and organs,
is of the nature of illumination, action and intertia,
and is for the purpose of experience and release (of
the experiencer).
The experienced, that is nature, is composed of elements and
organs—the elements gross and fine which compose the
whole of nature, and the organs of the senses, mind, etc., and
is of the nature of illumination, action, and intertia. These are
what in Sanskrit are called Sattva (illumination), Rajas
(action), and Tamas (darkness); each is for the purpose of
experience and relase. What is the purpose of the whole of
nature? That the PuruSa may gain experience. The PuruSa
has, as it were, forgotten its mighty, godly, nature. There is a
story that the king of the gods, Indra, once became a pig,
wallowing in mire; he had a she pig, and a lot of baby pigs,
and was very happy. Then some other angels saw his plight,

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and came to him, and told him, “You are the king of the gods,
you have all the gods command. Why are you here?” But
Indra said, “Let me be; I am all right here; I do not care for the
heavens, while I have this sow and these little pigs.” The poor
gods were at their wits’ end what to do. After a time they
decided to slowly come and slay one of the little pigs, and
then another, until they had slain all the pigs, and the sow too.
When all were dead Indra began to weep and mourn. Then the
gods ripped his pig body open and he came out of it, and
began to laugh when he realised what a hideous dream he had
had; he, the king of the gods, to have become a pig, and to
think that the pig-life was the only life! Not only so, but to
have wanted the whole universe to come into the pig life! The
PuruSa, when it identifies itself with nature, forgets that it is
pure and infinite. The PuruSa does not live; it is life itself. It
does not exist; it is existence itself. The Soul does not know;
it is knowledge itself. It is an entire mistake to say that the
Soul lives, or knows, or loves. Love and existence are not the
qualities of the PuruSa, but its essence. When they get
reflected upon something you may call them the qualities of
that something. But they are not the qualities of the PuruSa,
but the essence of this great Atman, this Infinite Being,
without birth or death, Who is established in His own glory,
but appears as if become degenerate until if you approach to
tell Him, “You are not a pig,” he begins to squeal and bite.
Thus with us all in this Maya, this dream world, where it is all
misery, weeping, and crying, where a few golden balls are
rolled, and the world scrambles after them. You were never
bound by laws, Nature never had a bond for you. That is what
the Yogi tells you; have patience to learn it. And the Yogi
shows how, by junction with this nature, and identifying itself
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with the mind and the world, the Purusa thinks itself
miserable. Then the Yogi goes on to show that the way out is
through experience. You have to get all this experience, but
finish it quickly. We have placed ourselves in this net, and
will have to get out. We have got ourselves caught in the trap,
and we will have to work out our freedom. So get this
experience of husbands and wives, and friends, and little
loves, and you will get through them safely if you never forget
what you really are. Never forget this is only a momentary
state, and that we have to pass through it. Experience is the
one great teacher—experiences of pleasure and pain—but
know they are only experiences, and will all lead, step by step,
to that state when all these things will become small, and the
Purusa will be so great that this whole universe will be as a
drop in the ocean, and will fall off by its own nothingness. We
have to go through these experiences, but let us never forget
the ideal.
19. विशेषाविशेषलिङ्गमात्रालिङ्गानि गुणपर्वाणि ॥ १९॥
visheshavisheshalinggamatralinggani
gunnaparvani
The states of the qualities are the defined, the
undefined, the indicated only, and the signless.
The system of Yoga is built entirely on the philosophy of the
Sankhyas, as I told you in some of the previous lectures, and
here again I will remind you of the cosmology of the Sankhya
philosophy. According to the Sankhyas, nature is both the
material and efficient cause of this universe. In this nature
there are three sorts of materials, the Sattva, the Rajas, and the
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Tamas. The Tamas material is all that is dark, all that is
ignorant and heavy; and the Rajas is activity. The Sattvas is
calmness, light. When nature is in the state before creation, it
is called by them Avyaktam, undefined, or indiscrete; that is,
in which there is no distinction of form or name, a state in
which these three materials are held in perfect balance. Then
the balance is disturbed, these different materials begin to
mingle in various fashions, and the result is this universe. In
every man, also, these three materials exist. When the Sattva
material prevails knowledge comes. When the Rajas material
prevails activity comes, and when the Tamas material prevails
darkness comes and lassitude, idleness, ignorance. According
to the Sankhya theory, the highest manifestation of this
nature, consisting of these three materials, is what they call
Mahat, or intelligence, universal intelligence, and each
human mind is a part of that cosmic intelligence. Then out of
Mahat comes the mind. In the Sankhya Psychology there is a
sharp distinction between Manas, the mind function, and the
function of the Buddhi intellect. The mind function is simply
to collect and carry impressions and present them to the
Buddhi, the individual Mahat, and the Buddhi determined
upon it. So, out of Mahat comes mind, and out of mind comes
fine material, and this fine material combines and becomes
the gross material outside—the external universe. The claim
of the Sankhya philosophy is that beginning with the intellect,
and coming down to a block of stone, all has come out of the
same thing, only as finer or grosser states of existence. The
Buddhi is the finest state of existence of the materials, and
then comes Ahamkara, egoism, and next to the mind comes
fine material, which they call Tanmatras, which cannot be
seen, but which are inferred. These Tanmatras combine and
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