the subtle aspect of consciousness? We may surmise that intellectual standards and spiritual knowledge were then of a higher and more refined level than they are now, and that the inner quest was more accessible to his contemporaries than it is to us.
Today, the inner quest and the spiritual heights are difficult to attain through following Patañjali’s earlier expositions. We turn, therefore, to this chapter, in which he introduces kriyayoga, the yoga of action. Kriyayoga gives us the practical disciplines needed to scale the spiritual heights.
My own feeling is that the four padas of the Yoga Sutras describe different disciplines of practice, the qualities or aspects of which vary according to the development of intelligence and refinement of consciousness of each Sadhaka.
Sadhana is a discipline undertaken in the pursuit of a goal. Abhyasa is repeated practice performed with observation and reflection. Kriya, or action, also implies perfect execution with study and investigation. Therefore, sadhana, abhyasa, and kriya all mean one and the same thing. A sadhaka, or practitioner, is one who skilfully applies his mind and intelligence in practice towards a spiritual goal.
Whether out of compassion for the more intellectually backward people of his time, or else foreseeing the spiritual limitations of our time, Patañjali offers in this chapter a method of practice which begins with the organs of action and the senses of perception. Here, he gives those of average intellect the practical means to strive for knowledge, and to gather hope and confidence to begin yoga: the quest for Self-Realization. This chapter involves the sadhaka in the art of refining the body and senses, the visible layers of the soul, working inwards from the gross towards the subtle level.
Although Patañjali is held to have been a self-incarnated, immortal being, he must have voluntarily descended to the human level, submitted himself to the joys and sufferings, attachments and aversions, emotional imbalances and intellectual weaknesses of average individuals, and studied human nature from its nadir to its zenith. He guides us from our shortcomings towards emancipation through the devoted practice of yoga. This chapter, which may be happily followed for spiritual benefit by anyone, is his gift to humanity.
Kriyayoga, the yoga of action, has three tiers: tapas, svadhyaya and Isvara pranidhana. Tapas means burning desire to practise yoga and intense effort applied to practice. Svadhyaya has two aspects: the study of scriptures to gain sacred wisdom and knowledge of moral and spiritual values; and the study of one’s own self, from the body to the inner self. Isvara pranidhana is faith in God and surrender to God. This act of surrender teaches humility. When these three aspects of kriyayoga are followed with zeal and earnestness, life’s sufferings are overcome, and samadhi is experienced.
Sufferings or afflictions (Klesas)
Klesas (sufferings or afflictions) have five causes: ignorance, or lack of wisdom and understanding (avidya), pride or egoism (asmita), attachment (raga), aversion (dvesa), and fear of death and clinging to life (abhinivessa). The first two are intellectual defects, the next two emotional, and the last instinctual. They may be hidden, latent, attenuated or highly active.
Avidya, ignorance, or lack of wisdom, is a fertile ground in which afflications can grow, making one’s life a hell. Mistaking the transient for the eternal, the impure for the pure, pain for pleasure, and the pleasures of the world for the bliss of the spirit constitutes avidya.
Identifying the individual ego (the ‘I’) with the real soul is asmita. It is the false identification of the ego with the seer.
Encouraging and gratifying desires is raga. When desires are not gratified, frustration and sorrow give rise to alienation or hate. This is dvesa, aversion.
The desire to live forever and to preserve one’s individual self is abhinivesa. Freedom from such attachment to life is very difficult for even a wise, erudite and scholarly person to achieve. If avidya is the mother of afflictions, abhinivesa is its offspring.
All our past actions exert their influence and mould our present and future lives: as you sow, so shall you reap. This is the law of karma, the universal law of cause and effect. If our actions are good and virtuous, afflictions will be minimized; wrong actions will bring sorrow and pain. Actions may bear fruit immediately, later in life or in lives to come. They determine one’s birth, span of life and the types of experiences to be undergone. When spiritual wisdom dawns, one perceives the tinge of sorrow attached even to pleasure, and from then on shuns both pleasure and pain. However, the fruits of actions continue to entrap ordinary beings.
How to minimize afflictions
Patañjali counsels dispassion towards pleasures and pains and recommends the practice of meditation to attain freedom and beatitude. First he describes in detail the eightfold path of yoga. Following this path helps one to avoid the dormant, hidden sufferings which may surface when physical health, energy and mental poise are disturbed. This suggests that the eightfold path of yoga is suitable for the unhealthy as well as for the healthy, enabling all to develop the power to combat physical and mental diseases.
Cause of afflictions
The prime cause of afflictions is avidya: the failure to understand the conjunction between the seer and the seen: purusa and prakrti. The external world lures the seer towards its pleasures, creating desire. The inevitable non-fulfilment of desires in turn creates pain, which suffocates the inner being. Nature and her beauties are there for enjoyment and pleasure (bhoga) and also for freedom and emancipation (yoga). If we use them indiscriminately, we are bound by the chains of pleasure and pain. A judicious use of them leads to the bliss which is free from pleasure mixed with pain. The twin paths to this goal are practice (abhyasa), the path of evolution, of going forward; and detachment or renunciation (vairagya), the path of involution, abstaining from the fruits of action and from worldly concerns and engagements.
Cosmology of nature
In samkhya philosophy, the process of evolution and the interaction of spirit and matter, essence and form, are carefully explained.
To follow nature’s evolution from its subtlest concept to its grossest or most dense manifestation, we must start with root nature, mula-prakrti. At this phase of its development, nature is infinite, attributeless and undifferentiated. We may call this phase ‘noumenal’ or alinga (without mark): it can be apprehended only by intuition. It is postulated that the qualities of nature, or gunas, exist in mula-prakrti in perfect equilibrium; one third sattva, one third rajas and one third tamas.
Root nature evolves into the phenomenal stage, called linga (with mark). At this point a disturbance or redistribution takes place in the gunas, giving nature its turbulent characteristic, which is to say that one quality will always predominate over the other two (though never to their entire exclusion; for example, the proportion might be 7/10 tamas, 2/10 rajas, 1/10 sattva, or any other disproportionate rate). The first and most subtle stage of the phenomenal universe is mahat, cosmic intelligence. Mahat is the ‘great principle’, embodying a spontaneous motivating force in nature, without subject or object, acting in both creation and dissolution.
Nature further evolves into the stage called avisesa (universal or non-specific) which can be understood by the intellect but not directly perceived by the senses. To this phase belong the subtle characteristics of the five elements, which may be equated with the infra-atomic structure of elements. These may be explained at a basic level as the inherent
