The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali | Page 9

that be the perceiver, perceiving, or the thing
perceived.
This is a fuller expression of the last Sutra, and is so lucid that
comment can hardly add to it. Everything is either perceiver, perceiving,
or the thing perceived; or, as we might say, consciousness, force, or
matter. The sage tells us that the one key will unlock the secrets of all
three, the secrets of consciousness, force and matter alike. The thought
is, that the cordial sympathy of a gentle heart, intuitively understanding
the hearts of others, is really a manifestation of the same power as that
penetrating perception whereby one divines the secrets of planetary
motions or atomic structure.
42. When the consciousness, poised in perceiving, blends together the
name, the object dwelt on and the idea, this is perception with exterior
consideration.

In the first stage of the consideration of an external object, the
perceiving mind comes to it, preoccupied by the name and idea
conventionally associated with that object. For example, in coming to
the study of a book, we think of the author, his period, the school to
which he belongs. The second stage, set forth in the next Sutra, goes
directly to the spiritual meaning of the book, setting its traditional
trappings aside and finding its application to our own experience and
problems.
The commentator takes a very simple illustration: a cow, where one
considers, in the first stage, the name of the cow, the animal itself and
the idea of a cow in the mind. In the second stage, one pushes these
trappings aside and, entering into the inmost being of the cow, shares
its consciousness, as do some of the artists who paint cows. They get at
the very life of what they study and paint.
43. When the object dwells in the mind, clear of memory-pictures,
uncoloured by the mind, as a pure luminous idea, this is perception
without exterior or consideration.
We are still considering external, visible objects. Such perception as is
here described is of the nature of that penetrating vision whereby
Newton, intending his mind on things, made his discoveries, or that
whereby a really great portrait painter pierces to the soul of him whom
he paints, and makes that soul live on canvas. These stages of
perception are described in this way, to lead the mind up to an
understanding of the piercing soul-vision of the spiritual man, the
immortal.
44. The same two steps, when referring to things of finer substance, are
said to be with, or without, judicial action of the mind.
We now come to mental or psychical objects: to images in the mind. It
is precisely by comparing, arranging and superposing these
mind-images that we get our general notions or concepts. This process
of analysis and synthesis, whereby we select certain qualities in a group
of mind-images, and then range together those of like quality, is the
judicial action of the mind spoken of. But when we exercise swift
divination upon the mind images, as does a poet or a man of genius.,
then we use a power higher than the judicial, and one nearer to the keen
vision of the spiritual man.
45. Subtle substance rises in ascending degrees, to that pure nature

which has no distinguishing mark.
As we ascend from outer material things which are permeated by
separateness, and whose chief characteristic is to be separate, just as so
many pebbles are separate from each other; as we ascend, first, to
mind-images, which overlap and coalesce in both space and time, and
then to ideas and principles, we finally come to purer essences, drawing
ever nearer and nearer to unity.
Or we may illustrate this principle thus. Our bodily, external selves are
quite distinct and separate, in form, name, place, substance; our mental
selves, of finer substance, meet and part, meet and part again, in
perpetual concussion and interchange; our spiritual selves attain true
consciousness through unity, where the partition wall between us and
the Highest, between us and others, is broken down and we are all
made perfect in the One. The highest riches are possessed by all pure
souls, only when united. Thus we rise from separation to true
individuality in unity.
46. The above are the degrees of limited and conditioned spiritual
consciousness, still containing the seed of separateness.
In the four stages of perception above described, the spiritual vision is
still working through the mental and psychical, the inner genius is still
expressed through the outer, personal man. The spiritual man has yet to
come completely to consciousness as himself, in his own realm, the
psychical veils laid aside.
47. When pure perception without judicial action of the mind is reached,
there follows the gracious peace of the inner self.
We have instanced certain types of this pure perception: