Theories Of Parinama

Author(s): Indukala H Jhaveri
Publisher: Gujarat University

Page 75

Development of Pariņāma in Yogasūtras
plished, is only a step in the evolutionary series, which adds a specific stimulus, and renders determinate that which was previously indeterminate. When the effectuating condition is added to the sum of material conditions in a given collocation, all that happens is that a stimulus is imparted which removes the arrest, disturbs the relatively stable equilibrium, and brings on a liberation of Energy together with a fresh collocation.
Describing the production of bodies (organic vehicles') for individual souls out of matter of Praksti, under the influence of their merit and demerit, as concomitant conditions, Patañjali points out that non-material concomitant like merit and demerit do not supply any moving force or Engery to the sum of material condi... tions, but only remove the arrest (the state of relatively stable equilibrium) in a given collocation, even as the owner of a field removes the barrier in flooding his field from a reservoir of water. This description is intended to represent the super-physical influence of non-material concomitants (or causes) like volition, merit. and demerit, etc., but the causal operation of a material concomitant condition is essentially the same; there is the same reservoir of stored-up Energy in a given collocation, the same condition of arrest or relatively stable equilibrium, the same liberation of the stored-up potential Energy which flows along the line of least resistance, the only difference being that in the case of material concomitants the stimulus which removes the arrest is physical, instead of being transcendental as in the case of non-meterial causes like will, merit and demerit, etc.
The Vyasa-Bliāșya helps us to a clear mental representation of the details of this process : As-the owner of many fields can irrigate, from a field which is already flooded, others of the same or a lower level, without forcing the waters thereto with his hands, and merely by making an opening in the barrier or dyke, on which waters rush in by their own force; or, further, as the same person cannot force these waters, of the earthly matters held in solution therein, into the roots of the rice plants, but only removes : the obstructive grasses and weeds, on which the fluids of their