I’ and Ishvara

A dialogue based on Patanjali Yoga Sutras

In keeping with the Guru Shishya/ Upanishad tradition the concept of Ishvara under the Patanjali Yoga Sutras; or PYS,  is being explained through a dialogue between a student and his Master.

The setting whether under a banyan tree, or in a modern conference hall is left to the imagination of the reader…..

Master-  Let us begin by the invocation of a shanti mantra from the Brhadanyaka Upanishad, and then you may ask any question on one topic.  

Asatoma Sad-Gamaya (Lead me from the untruth to the truth)

Tamaso Maa Jyotir-Gamaya (Lead me from darkness to light)

Mrytyor-Maa Amritam Gamaya (Lead me from death to immortality)

Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantihi (Om Peace Peace Peace)

Student- Oh master who is Ishvara under the Patanjali Yoga Sutra?

Master- My dear student the word Ishvara has been used by Patanjali fleetingly in the entire 196 Yoga Sutras- but where used, sums up the essence of the entire sutras. He describes Ishvara as follows -  Klesha karma vipaaka aashaya aparamrishtah purusha vishesha eeshwarah.[1] It means that special consciousness (vishesha purusha) who is free from suffering, free from karma, one is who is not attached to the consequences or fruits of action, free from latent desires or impressions, then that being or consciousness is Ishvara.  

Remember we learnt about the 6 Indian schools of philosophies[2], and their acknowledgement of the Vedas as the Supreme Knowledge. Two of the schools of philosophies are the Sankhya and Yoga.

Sankhya philosophy is strongly dualist and believes that everything in the universe consists of two independent realities – Purusha and Prakriti. Purusha is pure consciousness, is not evolved and is not created from anything- it is non creative and non regenerative [3] and Prakriti is principle of matter[4] or nature, and its primordial state is the root cause of phenomena- it is not created , but it forms the causal, creative, generative or propagative principles and it contains the potential of further evolution.[5]. It is said that Purusha and Prakriti exist at every level from the universal to an individual level, and there is a multiplicity of Purushas.[6]

Now you must be wondering what is this consciousness that all yogis and philosophers keep referring to. Think of it like a life force – that life force that makes the sun shine, the planets rotate and revolve, trees to grow, water to rain and evaporate and flowers to bloom, and animals that procreate. That life force that can create a human body from a tiny cell. That is pure consciousness- that limitless, undefinable and constant life force is Purusha. It is  the latent, formless, qualityless, unmanifest spirit that encompasses and pervades everything that exists, while Prakriti describes the manifested elements of creation- matter, in scientific words.

Born from the collision of consciousness and the world of matter, i.e.; Purusha and Prakriti is our human body, our Antahakarana (manas (mind), buddhi (intellect), citta (memory), ahamkara (ego)) and vritti (thoughts). The goal of human existence according to Sankhya Philosophy is to attain salvation, when the mind can free itself from the effects of Prakriti and go back to its truest form of consciousness, or to put it differently reverse effects of the collision of the Purusha and Prakriti.

The goal of Yoga is samadhi (bliss) and ultimately kaivalya (liberation) –  an equanimous state in which the Seer resides in himself. As Patanjali says ‘Tada Drushthu Swaroopayam Avashtanam [7] or abiding in the Seers own form. When the vrittis of the mind cease[8] with dedicated practise and non-attachment[9] one learns that one is the Seer and not the seen or scene which is only a part of life’s drama.  A state where the yogi realises that he doesn’t possess consciousness but is the consciousness itself.[10]

Patanjali elaborates that the seed of all knowledge is in such a consciousness who he describes as Ishvara[11].  And this consciousness is the Master of even those who lived in the world earlier[12] and can be simply be represented by the sacred symbol AUM[13]. AUM is the sound that humans can make which is closest in vibration that of the universe or that could be used to address the totality of consciousness.[14]

It is this special consciousness that Patanjali describes as Ishvara.

Student- But Master you said that Ishvara is a vishesha Purusha, and Purusha is consciousness, therefore does that mean Ishvara is consciousness?

Master- Good question my child.

As per the Sankhya/ Yoga philosophy Prakriti consists of cosmic intelligence or mahat which has three qualities – sattva or luminosity, rajas or activity, tamas or inertia. It is the changing influence of the these qualities that gives form to the nature and cycle of births and shapes our attributes based on the nature of our past actions and experiences.[15]

Prakriti also manifests itself as the five elements prithvi (earth), vayu (wind), jala (water), agni (fire) and aakash (space) and its five subtle manifestations of smell, taste, shape, touch and sound. In humans Prakriti manifests itself in the physical tangible form as the five elements in the human body, the jnanendriyas (sense of touch, smell, sight, hearing, taste) and the five karmendriyas (legs, arms, speech, genitals and excretory organs), and in the intangible energy form as the subtle manifestations of Prakriti and our Antahakarana.[16]

The goal of Yoga is realising that all the vrittis of the mind- thoughts, attractions, repulsions are all linked to the sensory world. We perceive external stimuli through the Jnanendriyas, which triggers the Antahakarana, and any resultant action we take is through the Karmendriyas. We cannot fully stop our senses from perceiving – that action is involuntary, but we can curb the activities of our brain. We can be aware of our thoughts (citta), we can use our buddhi (intellect) to discriminate good thoughts from bad thoughts, karmic thoughts from non- karmic thoughts, we can use our memory (smriti) to discern from our past experiences, and we can temper our ego (ahamkara) from acting on our impulses to quieten and silence our brain. It is through the practise of yoga the vrittis can be curbed and wisdom realised. Free of this burden of our vrittis, our brain turns inwards and realising its full potential can access all the knowledge in the world.

It is this process of shedding our impurities and dissolving into ourselves and revealing our true sattvic nature through the practices set out in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras and other seminal texts, that we can overcome our individual Prakriti and realise our true Purusha, and eventually beyond to the state of kaivalya (liberation) to free the vishesha purusha within us.

Student (confused)- Master are you saying that the I dissolves into itself. Who is the ‘I’  and what is it that has to be revealed?

Master- We often say I am thinking, I am watching a movie, I am awake, I am angry, I am happy. It is obvious in each of the foregoing affirmations that the I is different from the person who is thinking, or watching a movie, or awake or angry or happy.  The I is clearly perceiving what is being experienced. The I cannot, therefore, be the experience[17], and by corollary cannot be experienced as well, nor can it be the experience. The I is therefore distinct and independent. The I therefore is also not the I reflected in a mirror.   

Patanjali says that there are 5 afflictions that disturb the equilibrium of the consciousness- ignorance, ego, desire, hate, fear and attachment.[18] Asmita or Ego is also referred to as the I- the singular manifested entity who we believe is the Seer. Asmita is the inability to see the yourself and the  buddhi[19] or the Jnanendriyas or Karmendriyas, as separate entities. But if the buddhi could be conditioned to control the Jnanendriyas and Karmendriyas and see the Seer as a distinct manifested entity, the true I within you will be revealed - that is the goal of Yoga- liberating or revealing your true Self which is nothing but pure consciousness.

Do we ever say I am sleeping, or I am dreaming? No because at that moment when we are sleeping or dreaming our senses of perception are switched off. We say I was sleeping or I had a dream, in the past tense. This also indicates that the sense of perception can be switched off at times. This I is in one sense our consciousness, our Purusha. Purusha is that which is revealed after you remove feelings, emotions, inclinations, modifications , impulses, thoughts etc.

Student- So that means Ishvara is within me ?

Purusha is pure consciousness – there is no sense of ‘I’ or ‘me’. The qualities of godliness – of intelligence, of all knowledge, of being beyond the koshas and gunas, of having shed the influences and impurities of Prakriti, are all within each person. Patanjali Yoga Sutras say that if you follow the path of Ashtanga Yoga (eight fold path of yoga), you will go back to your source, and that source is the divine entanglement of Purusha and Prakriti. Why do devotees and yogis brave the elements and want to see the source of the river Ganges? They want to get to the source of the holiness, where are there no impurities cast by nature or by man. They want to be close to purity and divinity.

It  is for this reason that Patanjali says, samadhi siddhir Ishvara pranidhanat [20] or perfection in samadhi comes from a singular dedication to Ishvara. When you have a single pointed devotion to a goal or one object, ek tatva abhyasa[21] all thoughts and actions are automatically judged on the basis of that goal or object and all the distractions external and internal, manifested and unmanifested drop. You develop viveka (discrimination). When a yogi is consumed in the yogic and karmic way of discovering the true nature of their consciousness, and surrenders completely to the Ishvara, the Ishvara in the yogi will undoubtedly blossom.  

Student- Master, so I think that the goal of Yoga is shedding ‘I’ and disentangling our Purusha and finding Ishvara?

In English there is a famous phrase which says, ‘I think therefore I am’. This is far from being true. I think is distinct from I am. Thought is a function of the brain – of the buddhi, citta and manas. But you are. That is Purusha. That is the true I.

Similarly, the goal of yoga is not the shedding of the I, but the liberation of the I from the thinking of the brain and its mental fluctuations and distractions and trigunas, to go even beyond the I- so that the Seer can abide in its true divine form.  

Student- Thank you Master. I now understand the meaning of the shanti mantra you recited at the beginning of the class. 

March 28, 2021

[1] Sutra 1.23

[2] The other schools of philosophies being Nyaya, Visheshika, Vedanta and Mimansa 

[3] Karika 4 of the Samkhya Karikas as cited from Damini Dalal, The Essence of Samkhya Karikas- The Foundation of Yoga Philosophy, Zen Publication in collaboration with the Yoga Institute, Reprint 2019, page 66-67.

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] Karika 18 of the Samkhya Karikas

[7] Sutra 1.3

[8] Sutra 1.2- yogah  citta vritti nirodah. This is also the most significant definition of Yoga in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras.  

[9] Sutra 1.10- abhyasa vairagyabhvam tannirodah (practice and detachment are means to still the consciousness)

[10] Sri M, Yoga Also for the Godless, Westland Publications Private Limited, 2020,  page 27

[11] Sutra 1.25 – tatra niratisayam sarvnabhijam 

[12] Sutra 1.26 – sa esa poorvesam api guruhu kaalena anavacchedaat 

[13] Sutra 1.27 – tasya vaachaka pranavah 

[14] HH Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Patanjali Yoga Sutras, Sri Sri Publications Trust, September 2010, page 66

[15] BKS Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, HarperCollins Publication Limited, 2019 Impression, page 128

[16] See also, Commentary by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Upanishad Vol -1, Sri Sri Publications Trusts, Westland Publications Private Limited, 2018, page 290.

[17] Supported by Sutra 1.4- vritti swarupayam itarata (consciousness assumes the form of the mental modification). Therefore the consciousness is distinct from the thought or experience or mental modification

[18] Sutra 2.3- avidya asmita raga dvesha abhiniveshah kleshah

[19] Supra Note 13, page 142

[20] Sutra 2.45

[21] Sutra 1.32- tatpratisedhartham ek tattva abhyasa (adherence to single minded effort prevents impediments)