viparyayo mithyā-jñānam-atad-rūpa-pratiṣṭham Incorrect knowledge formed
about something, which is not based on its true nature, is called false
understanding or misconception. So once again, I'll just put up the English
synonyms to the word and we won't necessarily speak about them in any
sort of detail. So this incorrect knowledge that's been spoken about here;
this erroneous understanding ...one example that is commonly used in the
Vedas, and it's also used I think by Vyāsa, is a very classical example
in Vedic texts, and it's the idea of mistaking something for something else.
And a common example that is used is a rope and a snake, and if one comes across
a rope on the path home at night and it is nearing dusk - so it's kind of quite
difficult to make things out - and I see that and imagine it to be a snake... this
piece of rope. What I'm doing is superimposing the form of a snake onto
something that is not a snake, so even though a snake is a real thing and rope
is also a real thing, the superimposition itself affects the mind causing a vrtti,
and this vṛtti is in reality, an error. So there are
unlimited ways in which this vṛtti can be manifest or be experienced. And once
again we won't go into much detail here, but these things will
become unfolded or we'll unpack them as we work our way through the sutras. So
Vyāsa, he considers error to be essentially the five 'kleśas'. So this is
something that's going to be newly...that I'm newly raising here, but it's something that
we'll be covering quite soon as we progress.
śabda-jñānānupātī vastu-śūnyo-vikalpaḥ
'Vikalpaḥ' is the conceptualization of something which arises after having
heard about it, though it has no perceptible existence beyond the words
used. So this term vikalpaḥ, it is often translated by
commentators as being 'imagination', but if we look at things a little bit more
closely, we'll see that imagination is not necessarily the most accurate term
to use to describe what it is that Patañjali is speaking about. So this is
the third of the vṛttis or the mental states, so what is being used here
...You know in our usage of English for instance I may say to somebody who's
asking me, can I help them with something or whatever, "Hang on a
minute", and it's like, what does that actually mean if we unpack it? Of course
we have a some sort of understanding of what we think that that means, but
we know that it's possible to hang on something, but can you actually take a
minute... this period of time, and hang on to it, and hang from it, or hang it on
anything? So what we're seeing here is there are some words that have some reality
that we can relate with, but when we are looking at it we're talking about a
concept that doesn't actually exist as a real thing. But what it does, is it
helps us with some understanding; it is a form of knowledge or jñāna.
Another type of saying is you know... somebody's asking you again to do
something... "I'll find time later." You know this consideration of this term, 'to find
time'? Or sometimes when somebody's asking someone to make room for them... you know...
"Can you make a space for me?". You know we we don't have the ability to 'find time'.
It doesn't exist as something like that; like a hat or an umbrella, or a
shoe that I can actually find and grasp, and bring it to somebody
else. And so when I use this type of terminology, I'm speaking about
something that has some reality, or some real existence that I can sort of
connect with, but it does not have any reality beyond the use of the words
itself. So the commentator Vyāsa, he used an interesting example. He says... and
and we'll use the term here... the word 'puruṣa'; this puruṣa meaning the seer or
the living being - the ātmā. He says, "If I say puruṣa has the character of not
being created, no positive quality relating to puruṣa
is actually being indicated. I'm just stating that purusha has a character
of not being created, but by the mere lack of a property of being created, this is
something that is implied." You know, I'm implying that the puruṣa
has this quality - 'Not being created'. But then he says that is why that
characteristic is regarded as 'vikalpa', and the term is used to indicate an idea
which has no existence beyond the word. So no existence beyond the word meaning, "Can
you point to something that is not created? If it is not created it has no
existence, and giving that character or quality to something... it's not
something I can reach out to and touch or you know... pick up, or define
beyond just that concept. And if we can... I mean it's quite... a lot of
people get really amazed when they actually think about it. We find that
mostly we think and communicate in very imprecise terms, and what we are seeing
here is the precision with which Patañjali... the very meticulous way that
he is analysing and speaking about things, and he's detailing the
vrttis in this way to help us understand what
puruṣa is. And we partially are able to do that by understanding what it is not.
So when he speaks of these five vrttis, he states of consciousness
that the mind can exist in and the nature of the fluctuations of these vrttis
and everything associated with them. When we can clearly identify those
things, we know "Okay, that is not the puruṣa, this is not the ātmā; this is
something of the material nature something which is external.
So Patañjali is therefore directing very careful attention to what the mind is,
so that yogi's can be very clear about what the puruṣa should not be
identified with. So as we again progress further I'm not spending very
much time going into laborious detail, but there is a tremendous amount of
knowledge attached to these different things, that I'm only giving you in
small bits, not wanting you to become overwhelmed and perhaps disheartened.
The search for the puruṣa - for self-realization - is a very noble and the
most important of all undertakings, and one does not have to be excessively
qualified intellectually, in the way people think of intellectualism, in
order to be able to have these perceptions and deep understandings.
So I am just going to deal with them
with some brevity, but as we go through these sutras, then I'll try
to weave a good understanding, to make it so that the
sincere practitioner can benefit from these directions. So literally what we're
seeing here, and I think in summary for this example of vikalpaḥ, we're
learning that the mind can be recognized by what it does; that the vṛttis - the
different vṛttis - are activities of the mind and
manifesting states of consciousness, and
by understanding these, we can therefore understand what is spiritual in nature
and that which is material.