I cannot think of a more contradictory statement to Descartes’ Cogito Ergo Sum than Patañjali’s Yogaś Citta-Vṛtti-Nirodhaḥ. The former statement is from Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy (1644); the latter from Patañjali’s second or third century Yogasūtra (YS).Footnote 1 Descartes, along the same lines with Aristotle’s vision of man as a “rational animal,” perceives the thinking faculty, the cogito, as the essence of the human person. Patañjali’s position is altogether different. For him, the citta-vṛttis, or “movements of consciousness,” are not merely an external layer of one’s self and identity but in fact an obstacle on the way to realizing one’s svarūpa or “real essence.”Footnote 2 Contrary to the implications of Descartes’ mahāvākya,Footnote 3 according to the author of the Yogasūtra, the “I am-ness” of each and every one of us can only be revealed when the mental faculty is “switched off.” But, Descartes works not just as a pūrvapakṣa to Pātañjala Yoga. There is a deep common denominator between the French philosopher and the Yogasūtra-kāra. “I shall now close my eyes,” Descartes writes in his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641),

I shall stop my ears, I shall call away all my senses, I shall efface even from my thoughts all the images of corporeal things, or at least (for that is hardly possible) I shall esteem them as vain and false; and thus holding converse only with myself and considering my own nature, I shall try little by little to reach a better knowledge of and a more familiar acquaintanceship with myself.Footnote 4

This is to say that Descartes does not merely raise the question of self-identity (who am I?) but searches for an answer, just like Patañjali of the Yogasūtra, “within” (“I shall stop, call away, efface” every instance of “externality”). As far as their initial question, and their direction of investigation, namely introversive investigation of the mind by the mind itself, Descartes and Patañjali share a similar path, or method, even if each of them reaches an entirely different conclusion about the (dis)connection between the “I think” and the “I am.”

Patañjali opens his treatise, with a detailed citta-vṛtti, or mental activity “map,” consisting of pramāṇa, viparyaya, vikalpa, nidrā, and smṛti (valid knowledge, invalid knowledge, verbal construction, sleep, and memory). The blurred line between pramāṇa and viparyaya, in Patañjali’s scheme, is intriguing. Both notions refer to phenomenal knowledge, valid and invalid respectively, and implied is a sense of reversibility between the two: what is considered as “valid knowledge” today can become “invalid” tomorrow, and vice versa. Since both pramāṇa and viparyaya refer merely to the phenomenal realm, for a metaphysician like Patañjali, there is no essential difference between the two. Another interesting feature of the scheme is the independent status of vikalpa. Swami Hariharananda Aranya (in P.N. Mukerji’s translation) explains that,

Vikalpa is a kind of useful knowledge arising out of the meaning of a word, but having no corresponding reality.Footnote 5

This is to say that vikalpa, or verbal construction, refers to that which “exists” only in language. As against śabda (or āgama, as Patañjali puts it in YS 1.7), i.e., reliable testimony, which is one of the constituents of pramāṇa (together with pratyakṣa and anumāna, i.e., sense-perception and inference), vikapla is vastu-śūnya, namely objectless or referenceless. “You can call it pure abstraction,” Mukund Lath told me.Footnote 6 On vikalpa as a category of its own in Patañjali’s scheme, Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya (henceforth KCB) writes that,

Vikalpa is the presentation of an unreal not as real (which would be viparyaya), nor as unreal (which would be pramāṇa), but as though it were real, i.e., as appearing as real. The appearance of a content is itself a content, and the vṛtti referring to this secondary content is vikalpa.Footnote 7

Patañjali’s subtle analysis of the cognitive terrain is revealed here, as he notices language uses which fall out of the inverted categories of pramāṇa and viparyaya and creates the separate category of vikalpa for them.Footnote 8

The last two categories in Patañjali’s citta-vṛtti scheme are nidrā and smṛti, sleep and memory. Memory is the basis of the “phenomenal I.” Self identity, in the worldly sense, is based on continuity which is maintained by memory. Nevertheless, paradoxically, memory cannot “remember” the essence, the svarūpa, that which Patañjali—following the Sāṃkhya tradition—refers to tentatively (since language for him is always, necessarily, tentative) as puruṣa.Footnote 9 To “remember” puruṣa, or more precisely oneself as puruṣa, memory (in the conventional sense of the word) has to be suspended. Patañjali defines memory as,

conservation [or non-destruction, asaṃpramoṣa] of an object experienced in the past (YS 1.11)Footnote 10

And, B.K. Matilal explains that,

Memory is nothing but a reproduction of some previous experience [… but] the causal conditions which produced the previous experience are not necessary for this reproduction.Footnote 11

The fact that it is “nothing but a reproduction,” or the “pastness” inherent in memory, as G.J. Larson puts it,Footnote 12 is the reason that except for the Jainas (and their position, as Matilal shows, is hard to defend), no other Indian school of philosophy accepts memory as a pramāṇa, which explains why memory too is given an independent rubric by the Sūtra-kāra. Vyāsa, Patañjali’s bhāṣya-kāra,Footnote 13 distinguishes (in Yogasūtra-bhāṣya [YSb] 1.11) between two types of memory: bhāvita and abhāvita, imagined and actual. The former category, in his formulation, refers to dreaming, the latter to the waking state. Since dreaming is included in smṛti, or memory, nidrā stands for dreamless sleep.

In YS 1.10, Patañjali writes that,

Sleep is mental activity based on the experience of something that does not exist (abhāva-pratyaya-ālambanā vṛttir nidrā).

Aranya and T.S. RukmaniFootnote 14 explain that the notion abhāva (which I translated as “something that does not exist”) projects nidrā as negation (abhāva) of both waking and dreaming, or in other words, as dreamless sleep. Vyāsa writes that upon waking up even from nidrā, i.e., dreamless sleep, one reports “I slept well, my mind is calm, my awareness is clear,” or “I slept poorly, my mind is dull, being unsteady it wanders,” or “I slept in deep stupor, my limbs are heavy, my mind is tired and lazy as if it was stolen.”Footnote 15 What Patañjali’s foremost commentator tries to tell us is that even though it seems that “nothing happens” in dreamless sleep, the fact is that “something” does happen. If one reports that he slept well, or slept poorly, it is an indication that subterranean cognitive processes, psychological, or saṃskāric (from saṃskāra), continue to buzz underneath the mute surface. It is therefore not yet the yogic silence (nirodha) aspired for, which covers both vṛtti and saṃskāra, mental content and psychological undercurrents. Another feature, which prevents dreamless sleep from being considered as the yogin’s “ultimate destination,” is the fact that it is not volitional. Dreamless sleep “happens to you.” One goes to sleep without knowing if and when he will “fall into” dreamless sleep. “Like the dream state,” KCB brings the point home,

dreamless sleep is a state in which the self has no control over itself, not a state to which the self rises by a continuous effort.Footnote 16

Based on the short synopsis of the citta-vṛtti scheme provided here, I want to argue that Patañjali’s consciousness map is knowledge-oriented. Each of the rubrics expounded by him and discussed here provides a certain type of knowledge, whether valid, invalid, merely lingual, or reproduced by memory. The karmic-saṃskāric residue which gurgles under the surface in dreamless sleep amounts to depth memory, consisting of “primordial” consciousness materials and transgressing the otherwise knowledge centricity of the vṛtti-scheme. Patañjali’s “grand project,” in my reading, is about going beyond the scope of knowledge, which is the scope of the “I think”; the very I think, that for him excludes any sense of I am-ness. Patañjali’s “going beyond knowledge” project culminates in YS 4.29. It is implied here that in the last few yards before kaivalya as his “finishing line,” the yogin needs to renounce (or to become uninterested, akusīdaḥ, in) prasaṃkhyāna or—as Aranya explains—omniscience. This is “the last temptation of the yogin.” The yogin is required to sacrifice his knowledge or in a treatise which opens with a phrase such as yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ, knowledge as such. Knowledge is a powerful temptation, as the biblical myth about “the tree of knowledge” (ets hada’at, in Genesis, chapter 2) also indicates.

Patañjali’s prescribed remedy for a consciousness afflicted with “thinking” and “knowledge” is made of two ingredients: abhyāsa and vairāgya, “repetitive practice” and “dispassion.”Footnote 17 In the remaining of the paper, I will look into this remedy and attempt to unpack the concepts of abhyāsa and vairāgya, the cornerstones of Pātañjala-yoga as a therapeutic procedure.

Abhyāsa—literally: repetition, repetitive practice or exercise, discipline, use, habit, custom—is the mechanism which creates the phenomenal aspects of human existence, or the “day in, day out.” Like the citta-vṛttis, or “movements of consciousness,” abhyāsa can be kliṣṭa or akliṣṭa: outgoing, object-centered, worldly, or on the other hand ingoing, objectless, trans-phenomenal, meditative. Patañjali focuses on the latter, i.e., on introversive abhyāsa. According to him,

abhyāsa is the effort to achieve stability [of “empty,” motionless mind]. (YS 1.13)Footnote 18

He further writes that,

it is firmly grounded if performed attentively and ceaselessly for a long period of time. (YS 1.14)Footnote 19

In YSb 2.15, Vyāsa speaks of bhogābhyāsa, or “worldly abhyāsa,” as the (fatal from a yogic point of view) procedure which “grounds” the human person in the phenomenal realm through avidyā, which he originally defines as viṣaya-sukham, or “enjoyment of objects.” That which seems in the short, “phenomenal-run,” as enjoyment, Vyāsa identifies as a long, “yoga-run,” duḥkha, or suffering. If worldly repetitiveness, through which the saṃsāra-web is constantly weaved and re-weaved, is referred to by the famous commentator as bhogābhyāsa; then the yogic alternative, repetitive as much as its worldly counterpart is, but directed inwards, can be referred to as yogābhyāsa. This is to say that as far as his abhyāsa, or the effort that he puts into his practice is concerned, the yogin walks on familiar grounds. He is a “doer,” devoted to his “doing” as much as any other doer is, even if the purpose of his repetitive practice is trans-phenomenal, or more than worldly. Through abhyāsa, the yogin endeavors to uproot inveterate patterns, by repeatedly practicing their opposite. His challenge is to “change direction,” to introvert the outgoing movement of the mind, to overcome the solid habit of turning toward objects. The problem that Patañjali seems to be dealing with is that the human person is totally unacquainted with an objectless mode of consciousness. One “meets” and “creates” his world through repeated acts of objectification. De-objectification is Patañjali’s prescription for the “duḥkha patient,” and the challenge he sets up for the yogin. The question is how to metamorphose a “consciousness-default,” which one is not just thoroughly used to, but which enables him “to participate” in the world. Patañjali suggests practicing “the opposite” of that which has become the default. Yogābhyāsa as “the opposite” of bhogābhyāsa loosens the “hermetic grasp” of the latter. It is a counter-force, so to say, intended to “neutralize” the power of the extroversive force. In YS 2.33 Patañjali gives us a glimpse of his method of “cultivating the opposite” (pratipakṣa-bhāvana):

To stop thoughts which contradict the yamas, one should cultivate their opposite.Footnote 20

The immediate context of the present sūtra is Patañjali’s discussion of the yamas, his list of primary ethical precepts, from ahiṃsā (non-violence) to aparigraha (non-possessiveness). When a thought contradicting any of these precepts arises, the yogin is advised to cultivate its opposite. But cultivating the opposite of a thought such as “I want to kill him,” does not mean to produce a counter-thought in the form of “I do not want to kill him” or “I want to befriend him.” Instead, “the opposite” according to Patañjali, is to reflect upon the consequences of “contrary thoughts,” namely thoughts about violation of the ethical precepts. Or in Patañjali’s own words (in YS 2.34),

To cultivate the opposite is [to reflect upon the fact] that thoughts which contradict the yamas, such as violent thoughts etc., whether executed, planned to be executed or even approved, whether driven by greed, anger or delusion, whether mild, moderate or intense, result in endless suffering (duḥkha) and ignorance (ajñāna).Footnote 21

When a “contrary thought” (as the paradigm of every kliṣṭa-vṛtti, i.e., intentional, or outward-facing “consciousness movement,” which for Patañjali is inherently “afflictive”) arises in him, the yogin should “confront it” with sober reflection upon its inevitable consequences. Vyāsa comments (in YSb 2.33) that the human tendency to reproduce “contrary thoughts,” even after reflecting upon their painful implications, is like the dog’s impulse to lick his own vomit. His stunning remark means that yogic reflection has to be repeatedly “produced” against “contrary thoughts” as long as they arise. But it is also a pessimistic observation about the deeply-rooted human obsession with “externality,” and the inclination to always return to the familiar, to replicate the default, “disgusting” and infected with duḥkha as it may be.

At this point, I am reminded of Ramana Maharshi, the famous mystic, or for our sake yogin, who in one of his numerous question-answer sessions clarifies the concept of abhyāsa or more precisely yogābhyāsa. Ramana suggests that,

The passage from pravṛtti to nivṛtti [from object centricity to objectlessness at the level of consciousness] is possible through abhyāsa and vairāgya, and it works, but takes time. Footnote 22

Using the yogic notions of abhyāsa and vairāgya, the renowned Advaitin, famous for his sādhanā-less teaching, seems to encourage his present interlocutor to follow a prescribed yoga path (“it works,” he says), of which he speaks in terms of a process (“it takes time”). Patañjali too emphasizes the processual dimension of abhyāsa, measuring it (in YS 1.13-14) in terms of time and effort (kāla and yatna).

Maharshi further tells his interlocutor that,

The mind so used to turning outwards cannot be introverted so easily. It is difficult to restrict a cow used to feed on grass in open meadows to its own cowshed. Even if the owner seduces the cow with delicious grass and fabulous fodder, she will first refuse, then eat a little, but her tendency to look for food elsewhere will not be uprooted so easily. If the owner repeatedly seduces the cow, she will slowly become habitual to the cowshed. Thereafter, even when unleashed, she will no longer wander. Such is also the case with the human mind.Footnote 23

The “owner of the cow,” if I may read Ramana Maharshi’s illustration through the Yogasūtra, is puruṣa. Patañjali himself refers to puruṣa, the “selfhood beyond,” as the “owner” (svāmin in YS 2.23, prabhu in YS 4.18) of prakṛti in the first instance, of the citta-vṛttis in the second. However puruṣa is inactive by definition.Footnote 24 Therefore “he” cannot “seduce the cow,” or introvert the mind. The mind itself, through its own effort, needs to become free (i.e., empty) of any outer, objective content, in order to “isolate” puruṣa.Footnote 25

What would motivate a cow to stay in the cowshed if her owner is absolutely passive? The answer is that something in the superficiality of phenomenal existence is supposed to hint at the possibility of transcending it. This superficiality resonates in the notion of duḥkha, or “suffering,” which pervades, according to “mokṣa thinkers” such as Patañjali, every aspect of phenomenal existence. The physical (or biological), mental, psychological, social and cultural aspects are all prone to suffering. The world and the worldly are inherently mixed with suffering. But if duḥkha is identified as such, i.e., as a dance (I draw on Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s simile in Sāṃkhyakārikā 59),Footnote 26 repeating itself again and again, birth after birth, limited, monotonous, incapable of touching “the essence”; then, the mind—rooted as it is in duḥkha—can and should develop the urge “to switch itself off,” as to allow something else, unknown, unknowable (at least through the mind) to be de-concealed; de-concealed rather than revealed, since it is always there, unnoticeable as long as the mind constantly “moves.” The movement (vṛtti) of the mind excludes the stillness of puruṣa or the stillness which is puruṣa.

It is therefore up to the mind itself “to stop.” This is the “stoppage” (nirodha) of which Patañjali speaks at the very beginning of his treatise.

In his pedagogic handbook Upadeśa-Sāhasrī (“A Thousand Teachings,” Up-Sā), Śaṅkara writes an imaginary dialogue between guru and śiṣya, teacher and student. Here, the teacher is the ātman, or for our sake puruṣa,Footnote 27 and the student who aspires “to reach” the ātman, the “selfhood beyond,” is the manas, the mind, equivalent for the sake of our discussion to Patañjali’s citta. In the course of this fictional (and full of humor) dialogue, the ātman tells the manas:

O mind, it is appropriate for you to be silent (calm, tranquil)! (Up-Sā 19.2)Footnote 28

The idea is that the “noisy mind” rules out the silence of the ātman or, again, the silence which is the ātman. Only when the mind ceases, the ātman can shine forth. Indeed, the word śama (in Śaṅkara’s formulation), pertaining to “silence,” “calmness,” and “tranquility,” also means “cessation.” At this junction, Śaṅkara and Patañjali meet.

In Yogasūtra-bhāṣya 1.14, Vyāsa suggests that if performed attentively (sat-kāra), abhyāsa has the capacity of restraining vyutthāna-saṃskāras, namely karmic impressions, or psychological dispositions, which activate the consciousness in an external, object-centered mode. The phrase sat-kāra, Vyāsa explains, refers to abhyāsa performed through tapas, brahmacarya, vidyā, and śraddhā (heating practices, celibacy, knowledge, and certainty that citta-vṛtti-nirodha is attainable). Of these four components, tapas, brahmacarya, and śraddhā are mentioned by PatañjaliFootnote 29; the notion of vidyā (knowledge) does not occur in the Yogasūtra text. I stick to my position that Patañjali aims at an “act of will” in which the consciousness “turns itself off,” knowledge of whatever kind included. However, this act of will is based on a certain understanding. It is a logical conclusion of a rational analysis. In this respect, knowledge that will be finally “burned” in “the great fire of yoga” (and terms such as tapas and brahmacarya evoke a sense of cleansing by fire, or “inner fire”) is employed in the process of yoga, like a piece of wood used to push every other wooden piece into the fire, that is also thrown at the very end into the flames. Vijñānabhikṣu, in tune with YS 1.20, suggests that śraddhā, vīrya, smṛti, samādhi, and prajñā—namely certainty, power, mindfulness,Footnote 30 (saṃprajñāta or “cognitive”) samādhi and “yogic insight” (born of meditation)—are the preconditions of sat-kāra, or attentive yoga practice. Prajñā, or “yogic insight,” can be seen as replacing and as conveying Vijñānabhikṣu’s understanding of Vyāsa’s vidyā or “knowledge.” Prajñā stands in sheer contrast to avidyā, namely to “phenomenal knowledge” that cannot distinguish between the altogether different from one another puruṣa and prakṛti.Footnote 31 The author of the Yogasūtra-bhāṣya-vivaraṇa (the Vivaraṇa) writes that,

abhyāsa is the practice of means of yoga such as yama and niyama [primary and secondary ethical precepts], etc.Footnote 32

All three commentators—Vyāsa, Vijñānabhikṣu, and the author of the Vivaraṇa—focus on preparative procedures, which are intended to support and maintain samādhi, i.e., yogic meditation. These procedures include initial meditative practices (such as smṛti in the sense of dhyāna, and saṃprajñāta samādhi) and prerequisite ethical conduct. The latter category includes the “cleansing procedures” of tapas and brahmacarya. For the author of the Vivaraṇa, abhyāsa is yama-niyamādi (“ethical precepts etc.”). The phrase “etc.” implies that for him, abhyāsa refers to Patañjali’s aṣṭāṅga-yoga, of which yama and niyama are the first two aṅgas, or limbs. In my reading, the precepts listed here, from ahiṃsā (non-violence, the first particle of the yama list) to īśvara-praṇidhāna (“surrender to īśvara,” or “to god,” the last particle of the niyama list), are aides of meditative introversion, intended to unravel the yogin’s involvement in the world. In this context, non-violence, for example, is not practiced for the sake of creating a better society but to facilitate an uninvolved, monadic, “yogic isolation.”

Vyāsa suggested (as we saw above) that attentive performance of abhyāsa, or “yogic practice,” has the capacity of subduing vyutthāna-saṃskāras. We examined (at least some of) the implications of this prescribed attentiveness (comprised in the phrase sat-kāra). Now, I want to focus on abhyāsa as signifying “yogic work” at the level of the saṃskāras. In YS 3.9, Patañjali writes that,

When vyutthāna-saṃskāras [that activate the consciousness in external, object-centered mode] are overpowered, and nirodha-saṃskāras [enabling the consciousness to turn inwards and to abandon “externality” of any kind] emerge, this is nirodha-pariṇāma [nirodha-transformation], characterized by [increasing] moments of cessation [i.e., of “no-mind”].Footnote 33

The notion of nirodha, “yogic cessation,” which refers in YS 1.2 to the citta-vṛttis, is extended here as to apply to the sub-vṛtti saṃskāra level. The term pariṇāma pertains to the transformative process (described in YS 3.9-12), which takes place at this subterranean consciousness level in the course of meditation. It is implied that in the meditative state called nirodha-pariṇāma, vyutthāna-saṃskāras are “overpowered” (abhibhava), to the extent that nirodha-saṃskāras can emerge. The task of the yogin is to “weed” the “seeds of externality” and to “nourish” the “seeds of introversion.” Following Vyāsa’s hint in YSb 1.14, I want to read the “inner yogic work” at the saṃskāra-level as abhyāsa, even if none of the commentators (Vyāsa, Vācaspatimiśra, the author of the Vivaraṇa, Bhojarāja,Footnote 34 and Vijñānabhikṣu) uses this term explicitly. Among these, Vijñānabhikṣu suggests that the overpowering and nourishment of vyutthāna and nirodha saṃskāras, respectively, take place gradually (krameṇa). I see resemblance between Vijñānabhikṣu’s “krameṇa” and Patañjali’s “dīrgha-kāla-nairantarya” or “persistency for a long period of time,” the phrase which he uses to convey the meaning of abhyāsa (in YS 1.14).

Having touched on abhyāsa, and having introduced the method of “cultivating the opposite” as the crux of yogābhyāsa, yogic abhyāsa, I want to move on and unpack the complementary notion of vairāgya. Patañjali works with vairāgya as concept and ideal in two stages. First he writes (in YS 1.15) that,

Vairāgya is thirstlessness with regard to objects seen and heard, arising from vaśīkāra-saṃjñā [conscious control of one’s inclination to objects].Footnote 35

And second, he adds (in YS 1.16) that, Ultimate vairāgya is thirstlessness toward the guṇas, arising from the vision of puruṣa [puruṣa-khyāti, or in fact from the vision of oneself as puruṣa].Footnote 36

In the first stage, with reference to “lower vairāgya” (apara-vairāgya, as against para-vairāgya or “ultimate dispassion”),Footnote 37 the key-term is saṃjñā. This is to say that the notion of vairāgya conveys a sense of reflection about one’s inclination to the objective world, reflection which enables the yogin (as in the case of “contrary thoughts”) to move in the “opposite direction,” in this case, away from objects and objectification. In this respect, the commentators from Vyāsa onwards speak of worldly (“seen,” namely grasped by the senses) and other worldly (“heard,” namely explicated in the scriptures) objective temptations. In the latter category, Vyāsa mentions svarga (“heaven”), as well as yogic states such as “bodilessness” (videha) and “merging into prakṛti” (prakṛti-laya).Footnote 38 KCB reads the notion of vaśīkāra (in his “Studies in Yoga Philosophy”Footnote 39) as implying “free conquest of desire.” He is thus in one mind with the classic commentators that “vairāgya is not mere desirelessness.”Footnote 40 The freedom of disengagement, for him, is the heart of the matter. It is an act of will, a conscious resolution. Yoga, according to him, is all about “willing,” as he puts it. It is about freedom in the realm of action (action and will are two sides of the same coin), parallel to freedom in the complementary realms of knowledge and emotion.Footnote 41 In (the non-Euclidean) geometry of freedom, parallels do meet.

In YSb 1.15, Vyāsa explains that “lower vairāgya,”rooted in vaśīkāra-saṃjñā, is anābhogātmika (of the nature of absence of phenomenal, or objective experience) and heyopādeya-śūnyā (free of attitude of abandoning or obtaining). Vairāgya is thus projected as an existential position of sheer detachment. Vācaspatimiśra suggests that the phrase anābhogātmika pertains to absence of experience even while in contact with objects.Footnote 42 This is to say that vairāgya, in his reading, is inner detachment “indifferent” to whatever takes place externally. It is hinted here that genuine detachment can only be “measured” or “tested” in contact with objects. Along the same lines, the author of the Vivaraṇa resembles consciousness in a state of vairāgya to a transparent crystal (sphaṭika), which is no longer “colored” by the objects around it.Footnote 43 The commentators further suggest that vairāgya as detachment is the natural result of the capacity of seeing the defects (doṣas) of an object. A sensitive yogic gaze cuts through appearances and weakens one’s attraction to objects.Footnote 44 KCB, synoptic as ever, therefore writes that if abhyāsa is the “positive exercise of freedom,” then vairāgya is the “negative annulment of unfreedom.”Footnote 45

The abhyāsa-vairāgya twosome occurs not just in the Yogasūtra but also in the Bhagavadgītā. In BG 6.35, Kṛṣṇa says to Arjuna (referred to here as Kaunteya, Kuntī’s son):

The mind is undoubtedly hard to control and restless, but it can be controlled by abhyāsa and vairāgya.Footnote 46

Śaṅkara, the famous commentator of the text, explains that vairāgya is thirstlessness (vaitṛṣṇya) to enjoyment (bhoga) of desirable objects, seen or unseen, which is a result of repetitive practice of seeing their faults (doṣa-darśanābhyāsāt). His analysis is in tune with Patañjali’s commentators. Śaṅkara adds that a “thread of pleasure” binds the human person to objects. Vairāgya he sees as signifying the termination of the human pattern of involvement in the world through so-called pleasant experiences. These experiences are “so-called” rather than “really” pleasant, since they create bondage. For Śankara, just like Vyāsa (in YSb 2.15), pleasure (sukha, bhoga) belongs to and in fact determines the phenomenal human existence as duḥkha. To seek pleasure (in the worldly sense of the word), Vyāsa suggests (still in YSb 2.15), is like running away from the sting of a scorpion just to be bitten by a snake. Vairāgya, for him, is the antidote for the poisonous inclination to the objective world.

With regard to para-vairāgya, Vyāsa explains (in YSb 1.16) that “ultimate dispassion” is not born of “seeing” the doṣas, the defects of an object, but rather puruṣa-darśanābhyāsāt, i.e., through the repetitive effort (abhyāsa) to “see” puruṣa, or oneself as puruṣa. In “lower vairāgya,” detachment is the “logical conclusion” of the superficiality or the “on-the-surfaceness” of the objective realm. It is therefore “negative” in essence. “Ultimate vairāgya,” on the other hand, is “positive” in the sense that—if I may use Isaiah Berlin’s famous distinctionFootnote 47—it is “freedom to” (puruṣa), rather than “freedom from” (the doṣas and the objects which “carry them”). Moreover, para-vairāgya is “deeper” than its “lower” counterpart in the sense that detachment, at this stage, is not toward objects but toward the guṇas or the “forces behind” each and every object. In this respect, the author of the Vivaraṇa reads the guṇas as the “cause” (kāraṇa) of the object. Vyāsa further speaks of “ultimate dispassion” in terms of “knowledge” or reflection, referring to it as jñāna-prasāda-mātram (“entirely purified awareness”). Vācaspatimiśra reads the term prasāda as referring to sattvic consciousness devoid of rajas and tamas, enabling the yogin to discriminate between the guṇas (as the core of prakṛti) and puruṣa.Footnote 48 The next level, he continues to suggest, is detachment toward knowledge itself, which is the prime characteristic of dharma-megha-samādhi, the final meditative stage before kaivalya.

If the concept of saṃjñā in Patañjali’s definition of “lower vairāgya” transforms in “ultimate vairāgya” into jñāna, then according to the commentators, even this “discerning knowledge” has to finally be abandoned. KCB summarizes the long commentarial tradition, and writes that,

[Ultimate-vairāgya is] detachment not only from the object of the mind, but also from the mind itself as object, from the mind even in its final actual state of viveka […] There is no knowledge except through vṛtti, and freedom though achieved through knowledge, is freedom from knowledge itself; freedom as the super-conscious activity of the mind to stand like the self, to be and not to know.Footnote 49

Patañjali sets up a strategy intended to “stop” or “suspend” mental activity. It includes, we saw above, an ethical base which supports meditation as the heart of yoga, meditation in which consciousness gradually becomes “empty” or “purified” of objective content. Yogābhyāsa, or yogic abhyāsa, pertains to a conscious, volitional inverted-operation at the consciousness-level, which “opposes” its conventional-intentional modus. For Patañjali, “emptiness” is the “natural” state of consciousness. In YS 2.54, which touches on pratyāhāra, “withdrawal of the senses” (the fifth limb of yoga in the aṣṭāṅga scheme), Patañjali writes that,

Pratyāhāra is a state in which the sense organs as if follow the “real nature” (svarūpa) of the mind by disconnecting themselves from their objects.Footnote 50

And in the consecutive sūtra (YS 2.55), he adds that,

(Pratyāhāra) results in absolute control over the senses.Footnote 51

The notions of pratyāhāra and vairāgya are interrelated. The former refers to disengagement at the level of the senses, the latter at the level of the mind. In both cases, Patañjali speaks of a sense of control (vaśyatā, vaśīkāra). Vairāgya, we have seen, is about development of aversion to the worldly and objective and allowing the “vision of puruṣa” (puruṣa-khyāti, in para-vairāgya) to shine forth. Abhyāsa and vairāgya alike are depicted by Patañjali as consisting of a reflective dimension (“cultivating the opposite” by way of reflection in yogābhyāsa, saṃjñā in Patañjali’s formulation of “lower vairāgya” and jñāna in Vyāsa’s gloss of “ultimate vairāgya”). This is to say that the act of “emptying” the consciousness of its objective content is in fact a rational choice of the mind as it reflects upon itself. The “twist,” as I tried to show through Ramana Maharshi, is that the consciousness has to empty itself. It is as much an act of will (as emphasized by KCB) as it is an act of self-sacrifice.

Verse 62 of the Sāṃkhya-Kārikā, the root-text of the Sāṃkhya tradition, the “sister tradition” of Pātañjala-yoga, suggests that,

No one is bound, no one released. Likewise, no one transmigrates [or “belongs” to the saṃsāric, worldly cycle]. Only prakṛti, in its various forms, transmigrates, is bound and is released.Footnote 52

This is to say that the whole process of yoga takes place in the realm of prakṛti, or more precisely, if we take our discussion of the Yogasūtra into account, in the consciousness. Bondage and release, malady and cure, are all “here” and do not affect puruṣa’s silence-within-silence realm beyond. Therefore, Vijñānabhikṣu (in his commentary of YS 4.34, the final verse of the Yogasūtra) speaks of two parallel kaivalyas, namely prakṛti’s and puruṣa’s. Prakṛti’s kaivalya, or “disengagement as freedom,” is a matter of accomplishment. It is the outcome of the procedure of yoga, discussed above through the correlating notions of abhyāsa and vairāgya. The other kaivalya, puruṣa’s kaivalya, is not a matter of accomplishment. It is always there, primordially there. It is not an end (in both senses of the word) like the kaivalya of prakṛti, of the consciousness, but more of a “source,” or an “origin,” finally unclouded.