Pushkarmuni Abhinandan Granth

Author(s): Devendramuni, A D Batra, Shreechand Surana
Publisher: Rajasthankesari Adhyatmayogi Upadhyay Shree Pushkar Muni Abhinandan Granth Prakashan Samiti

Page 958

Yoga : Personality, Mind and Vairagya
XX
buddhi, ahankara and manas. At times the word manas is also used in the sense of the antahkarana. But "chitta' is a more common word with Patanjali, although he also uses word such as sattva, buddhi, mana and so on. Buddhi is the first product out of Prakriti. It has a preponderance of sattvaguna. It is the most important segment of the mind, as in it there are stored all the traces of past experiences in the form of sanskaras. It is the decisionmaking part of the mind. Understanding or lack of it, memorizing, and arriving at conclusions and decisions, are all its functions. From the buddhi ahamkāra or asmitā arises. It supplies the ego-feeling, or feeling of one's existence, or self-consciousness. Words like 'T', 'me', 'to me', 'for me', 'mine', etc., are due to this segment. Manas is the segment which establishes a relation between the buddhi and the external world through the Jñanendriyas. Hence it is called ubhayatmaka. Its function is sankalpa and vikalpa. It is this part of the mind that needs to be silenced in dhäraņā and samadhi.
Chitta is the instrument of knowledge. Being a product of the insentient prakriti, the chitta also is completely insentient (jada). Then how can it be an instrument of knowledge ? This difficulty is solved by yoga by supposing that the chitta, due to the preponderance of sattvaguna in it, has a special capacity of reflecting the puruşa, which is the sentiment principle, and thus getting 'energized', so to say. Thus the chitta, which has formed a reflection of the purusa in itself, behaves itself like being sentient. This is made possible because of the togetherness (saryoga) of the puruşa and chitta, which is a fundamental presupposition of Yoga. The cause of this saiyoga is avidyā. As long as this cause is there, saryoga also continues, and with it, the experiences gathered by the chitta go on accumulating in the form of saṁskāras. Yoga aims at putting an end to the accumulation of samskāras by the chitta, and seeks to achieve this by putting an end to avidyā. When avidyā is removed, the samyoga based on it also ceases to exist. That is called Hana, or kaivalya. All the eight parts of Yoga are prescribed in order to achieve kaivalya.
Chitta is supposed to go out through any one of the five doors of the cognitive senses. It grasps the object and becomes one with it. This communion with an object of experience gives rise to a modification in the chitta, which is called a 'vrtti'. Vrtti may be a thought, or memory, correct or incorrect understanding, imagination, fantasy, etc. In Yoga, sleep is also called a vrtti, as it is also a modification of the mind.
The chitta is compared to a crystal, which, although colourless in itself, shows completely the colour of any object in its vicinity, as if that colour belongs to itself. Thus a crystal placed near a blue flower appears blue, and one placed near a red flower shows the red colour in itself. Similarly the chitta when it reaches any object of experience, becomes 'tadākara' or 'tadrūpa' with the object and assumes its form. This is called 'uparāga' which gives rise to a modification in the chitta, which is its yrtti. But the chitta is full of all the sarskāras of past experience, and these sar.skaras interfere with the process of 'uparāga', and the resulting vrtti is more or less confused. When the chitta is purified by dhyāna, and the impurities of the saṁskaras are removed, the 'uparaga' with any object becomes complete. This gives rise to a complete knowledge about that object. This is what happens in 'samyama', and Patanjali has described many siddhis which arise due to samyama. The chitta, actually, has a capacity to know anything past, present, and future, without any limits. But in actual experience this limitless capacity is very much restricted, because of the impurities called "chittamalas', which are the klesas and the saṁskcras gathered over countless past lives due to the presence of the klešas in the chitta. Yoga aims at complete removal of the klešas and sarskāras from the chitta through the practice of the eight angas of Yoga.
Experiences of the chitta are superimposed on the puruşa reflected in it. Actually, the puruşa being devoid of the trigunas, does not really get affected by anything happening in the chitta. An example is given to explain this. The moon in the sky is reflected on the surface of a pond. When the water moves due to wind, the reflection of the moon also moves, and it may
Satya