Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali

Author(s): Prabhavnanda Swami, Christopher Isherwood
Publisher: Ramkrishna Math Madras

Page 22

14
PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS
First let us consider the basic Reality. The Reality considered as the innermost Self of any particular creature or object, is called the Atman-as we have already seen. When the Reality is spoken of in its universal aspect, it is called Brahman Thi may sound confusing, at first, to Western students, but the concept should not be strange to them. Christian terminology employs two phrases God immanent and God transcendent which make a similar distinction. Again and again, in Hindu and Christian literature, we find this great paradox restatedthat God is both within and without, instantly present and infinitely elsewhere, the dweller in the atom and the abode of all things. But this is the same Reality, the same Godhead, seen in its two relations to the cosmos. These relations are described by two different words simply in order to help us think about them. They imply no kind of duality. Atman and Brahman are one.
What is this cosmos? What is it made of? Vedanta teaches that the cosmos is made of Prakriti, the elemental, undifferentiated stuff of mind and matter. Prakriti is defined as the power or effect of Brahman—in the sense that heat is a power or effect of fire. Just as heat cannot exist apart from the fire which causes it, so Prakriti could not exist apart from Brahman. The two are eternally inseparable. The latter puts forth and causes the former.
Patanjali differed from Vedanta on this point, believing that the Purusha (or Atman) and Prakriti were two separate entities, both equally real and eternal. Since, however, Patanjali also believed that the individual Purusha could be entirely liberated and isolated from Prakriti, he was, in fact, in complete agreement with Vedanta as to the aim and goal of spiritual life.
Why does Brahman cause Prakriti? This is a question which cannot possibly be answered in the terms of any man-made