Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali

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

Page 89

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PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS
परिणामताप-संस्कारदुःखैर्गुणवृत्तिविरोधाच्च
cha Hai faalfaat: 118811 15. But the man of spiritual discrimination regards al
these experiences as painful. For even the enjoyment o present pleasure is painful, since we already fear it: loss. Past pleasure is painful because renewed craving: arise from the impressions it has left upon the mind, And how can any happiness be lasting if it depends only upon our moods? For these moods are constantly changing, as one or another of the ever-warring gunas
seizes control of the mind. The operations of the Law of Karma (see chapter 1, aphorism 2, 18-19) and the nature and functions of the gunas (see chapter I, aphorism 17) have already been fully descibed. Patanjali warns us here against imagining that some of our thoughts and acts have had, and will have no consequences, just because these consequences are not apparent. Our acts have created latent tendencies which will bear fruit in due season-perhaps conditioning the span and circumstances of future lives. Acts of merit will, it is true, produce results which can be described as "pleasant”: but pleasant" and "painful” are only relative terms. Like “good”and "bad,” “hot” and "cold," "happy” and “unhappy," they are one of the "pairs of opposites” which, in the phraseology of the Gita, form the seeming contradictions of our experience of the external world. From the standpoint of the man of spiritual discrimination, all experience is painful, insofar as it binds us to this world and renews our sense-cravings. The only true happiness is in union with the Atman. All other “happiness" is relative, temporary, and therefore false.
Reg.CHAMIAH 118811 16. The pain which is yet to come may be avoided.