第三部分 處理心靈 頭腦清理 Part N

 

第三部分 處理心靈 頭腦清理

第三部分 處理心智 頭腦清理



5
為什麼我們必須對心做點什麼 要
處理心




，我們必須直接解決原來的問題，否則它仍然存在，我們仍然會使用異常的想法和行為來解決它。因此，努力拆除心靈的大廈是通過緩解我們的關係問題來實現的。我們不是通過某種移除過程來攻擊頭腦或試圖克服其影響來達到這一目標的。這種方法只會增加思想。心靈清淨的美妙之處在於，我們根本不打算對心做任何事情，除了稍微整理一下，以便我們可以參與一個過程。我們所做的是加強個人，讓他們更好地溝通。當一個人更能夠向另一個活生生的人傳達事情對他們來說是什麼時，他們的思想就會消解到他們這樣做所改善的程度。


意志

...有原則地行使意志，旨在獲得解放......因為帕坦伽利是在我們能夠安住於我們真正的本性時產生的。

1 我們每個人都是獨一無二的，這取決於每個人的不同意志，而不是個性或頭腦。阿拉伯數位 這種對意志的定義不像我們可能認為是關於想要和得到我們想要的東西的自負的任性。3 這裡所指的意志是真實個體的一個決定性特徵。這不是我們可能擁有或可能沒有的能力。它是個人的本質。

帕坦伽利認為，是每個人的意志把我們引向困境。這是因為由於擁有自由意志，我們



個人才有選擇。正是在行使這種選擇時，我們發現自己有思想。因此，只有每個人對自己的困境負責。四 我們分別做出了導致思想形成的選擇，並使我們遠離與他人的直接接觸。因為我們每個人都做出了這樣的選擇，所以我們每個人都有責任再次發現真實的自我。5 此外，只有我們作為個人才能改變自己。

雷來參加會議是因為他有他所說的“崩潰”。他已經六十出頭了，正處於職業生涯即將結束的人生階段，主要圍繞與同樣富有的朋友聚會和度假的社交生活也比以往任何時候都安靜，因為他的朋友年紀大了，越來越期待與家人安靜地退休。一段不愉快的戀情以及這給他留下的羞恥感和傷害使他對自己產生了巨大的懷疑。雷顯然是一個自信，甚至樂觀的人物，在當地城鎮，在眾多委員會中廣為人知，並被認為是任何公司的一個有點浮誇但令人愉快的補充，雷發現自己的信心破碎了，不知道如何朝著他生活中的任何方向前進。所有舊的個性、工作和社交結構，他一直覺得這些結構是被定義的。我顯然，似乎已經消失了。他的反應是退出這個世界，他的行為變得如此古怪和弄巧成拙，以至於那些堅持與他接觸的朋友，儘管他固執己見，還是在他的醫生的説明下說服他進入精神病院接受治療。

但雷是一個難纏的病人。他似乎在呼救，有時是字面意思，並宣佈非常害怕獨自一人，但仍然決心拒絕所提供的大部分説明，特別是當它涉及至少向自己尋求一些導致他自己痛苦的原因時。然而，他仍然堅持認為他需要説明，以至於醫生，朋友和家人都無所適從，試圖弄清楚如何處理他。



最後，當他的母親，一個健康但年邁的女人，自己病重時，發生了變化。在那之前，她已經盡其所能支援和同情雷，定期去看望他，並在他無法這樣做的時候説明管理他的事務。但是壓力對她來說太大了，她最終患上了肺炎，這使她住在離雷幾英里遠的醫院。

直到那時，當他支援的主要支柱不再存在時，雷才達到了他感到被迫做出選擇的地步。當他聽到關於他母親的消息時，他坐在醫院的床上，感到非常沮喪。他感到如此低落和孤獨，以至於他甚至無法想像抬起手去拍打一隻擱在他腿上的蒼蠅。他以前感到憤怒和沮喪，但現在孤獨的感覺是如此巨大，如此超出他的理解範圍，以至於他突然屈服了。起初，在他看來，他似乎屈服於它只是他陷入黑暗的又一步，反映了他無法找到擺脫痛苦的方法。但是，一旦他清楚地想到他會屈服於徹底的痛苦，情況就改變了。當他向蕭條投降時，他體驗到一種解脫。他第一次真正意識到自己胸口的疼痛，以及他長期以來一直怨恨和抗拒的悲傷。此外，自從他還是個孩子以來，他第一次感到清晰和專注，他稱之為“完全正常”。當他坐在那裡，任由他所想或感受到的任何東西簡單地沖刷他時，悲傷最初是關於他失敗的戀情，但不再堅持下去，這發展成對他一生中各種事情的更廣泛的悲傷，以及他所描述的他極大的痛苦和謙卑， 他意識到他可以做出選擇。選擇是，他可以繼續將自己的生活歸咎於其他人，並欺負他們尋求他永遠不會接受的説明，或者他可以選擇主動採取行動，至少為正在發生的事情承擔一些責任。那一刻，選擇歸結為收拾行李，出院去看望母親，看看他能為她提供什麼説明，或者



蜷縮在床上繼續戲劇化自己的傷害和痛苦。

雷在這之後的一段時間里來參加會議，並且已經獲得了比以往任何時候都更深入的洞察力。他報告說，坐在床上，看到他曾經做出過這樣的選擇，以及他現在可以做出的選擇，他突然覺得自己比多年來更像自己了。他仍然感到痛苦和孤獨，完全不確定自己能否繼續這樣生活，但他也感到特別成熟，並且更加清楚地瞭解他幾個月來一直困擾的循環思維。當他看到選擇時，他說他意識到根本沒有選擇，他知道他要做的就是去説明他的母親。




選擇自由意志，選擇

和行動能力使我們成為個體。選擇本身就是一種有後果的行動。擁有選擇的自由是我們有心靈問題的原因，也是解決方案的可能性。沒有人可以改變;未經您的同意，不能對您做任何事情來改變您的思想或心理。



6 智慧、智慧和知識 智慧和知識是真正個人的特徵。它們不是思想的一部分。我們可以說，擁有“好頭腦”意味著一個人是聰明的。事實上，如果有善良的頭腦，那麼它將是一個靈活的，不會被想法堵塞的東西。有了這樣的頭腦，一個人會更清楚地區分想法。

然而，這裡所說的智慧實際上是智慧。智慧不是頭腦的特徵。頭腦不可能是智慧的，只有個人才能有智慧。智慧是對事物真實情況的感知。當一個人看到事物的真實情況時，錯誤的知識就會消失。這不是一個思考過程，而是一個清晰的願景。智慧的獲得是在一個過程中實現的，這個過程始於個人有意操練心靈。

7
是什麼讓改變成為道德上的當務之急？

沒有道德行為，沒有某種標準，那麼無論你使用什麼技術或方法，無論其中有多少真理，它都是行不通的。它不會有任何好處。當你把一些權力釋放到某人手中時，他必須有道德行為、標準和道德原則來配合它。古往今來，每個智者都教導了同樣的事情：人們必須彼此友善。沒有它，你將永遠停留在無知的泥潭中，只是在生命的效果下，因為你不會讓自己擁有力量。
8 在帕坦伽利和伯納所宣導的世界觀
中，無論我們做什麼，我們都在無情地走向意識。我們對此無能為力。印度教和佛教的聖賢如是說。其他宗教通常也有一些終局，一種說我們正在走向與神或某種天堂的團聚，理解或啟蒙。但是，如果人們同意這個殘局的一個或另一個版本，那麼這就引出了一個問題，即我們是否應該，甚至能夠，用我們的個人努力來影響這一進程;這是新教改革的一個關鍵問題。9 作為個人，我們所能取得的成就是如此之小，以至於嘗試可以說毫無意義。為什麼不坐下來順其自然，而不是費心檢查自己，如果我們都要到達同一個地方。最終還是？根據定義，無論我們做什麼，我們在任何情況下都遵循流程。

一些瑜伽流派認為，既然我們自己也是這個過程的一部分，我們就無能為力來説明它，嘗試也沒有意義。對於這些印度哲學流派來說，倫理學是空洞的，因為他們不認為個人具有與自然分離的意志和意志。例如，桑卡拉和阿德瓦塔吠檀多哲學學派就是如此。他們還教導說，道德只是達到目的的手段。我們只選擇做正確的事，換句話說，為了讓自己在個人啟蒙的道路上走得更遠。做正確的事本身並不是目的。更進一步，他們認為



，如果我們希望進步，那麼我們最終必須努力完全超越道德。這是因為道德只是另一個想法，所以最終它會像任何其他想法一樣支撐我們。

帕坦伽利的哲學家和評論家希亞姆·蘭迦納坦（Shyam Ranganathan）認為，從十八世紀末開始，印度哲學中強調這種非道德性的一個原因至少部分是殖民主義。英國統治當局提倡這種印度宗教觀點，以幫助通過聲稱沒有土著道德來使他們的統治合法化。殖民主義可以方便地偽裝成基督教的道德和救贖禮物。但Ranganathan接著說，在他看來，未能強調印度哲學的道德基礎——特別是帕坦伽利的
哲學——實際上是未能認識到這種
哲學已經脫離了其原始背景。最初的背景是道德哲學。在道德哲學中，中心辯論是關於如何過上美好或道德的生活。在印度實踐哲學的一些學派中可以找到不道德，這是真的，但Ranganathan認為，它並不像過去200年所認為的那樣佔很大比例。

帕坦伽利屬於道德哲學的國際背景。聖人的計劃完全關注道德行為，而不是許多評論家和翻譯者聲稱的非道德行為。伯納對這部作品的理解是通過帕坦伽利傳統的印度大師克里帕盧（Kripalu）的理解來解讀的，並支援這種將進步視為道德進步的觀點。

帕坦伽利比殖民列強早了幾百年，可以看作是明確反對印度哲學的非道德派系。對他來說，我們如何對待他人的具體生活現實是我們是誰和我們是什麼不可或缺的一部分。道德行動不僅僅是一種美好，而是解放的關鍵。它不僅僅是一個階梯，讓我們達到另一個意識層次，而是反映我們自己的真實自我。在某種程度上，它是在練習成為我們真正的自己，然後我們才能自然地通過偏好成為我們自己。

伯納在這一點上追隨帕坦伽利，雙方都很清楚，我們不僅能夠，而且有義務以合乎道德的方式行事。一旦我們意識到我們可以通過行使我們的



自由意志來改善我們對待他人的方式，那麼我們同時有義務這樣做。通過善待他人，我們也許可以加快我們走向有意識的進程。s，但個人解放並不是道德行為的主要原因。我們這樣做的原因是，一旦我們知道我們選擇保持無知而傷害了他人，繼續這樣做會進一步陷入思想/自我。

與心靈打交道不是一種中立的偏好，而是一種道德上的當務之急。同樣，這不僅僅是為了幫助我們自己的解放;相反，對他人的同情反映了我們的真實本性。但是，在我們越來越接近真實自我時，這成為我們的個人偏好之前，道德行為必須首先通過意志行為來實現，我們必須發誓不傷害。

在帕坦伽利看來，有一個道德原則，根據這個原則，萬物在處於其真實本質時運作。作為安息於我們真實本性的個體，我們不會互相傷害。然而，當我們把自己誤認為是我們的思想時，我們就會把對方當作達到自己目的的手段。其他人只是作為我們生活敘事中的棋子或演員而存在。我們並沒有真正體驗到它們是真實的。在無意識的層面上，我們也將我們的痛苦歸咎於他們，因此免除了善待他們的責任。10 但是，當我們不把別人當成人來對待時，我們實際上就無法理解自己的真實本性。11

做人的狀態是被我們的身體和思想束縛的狀態，與我們的真實本性不一致。但帕坦伽利認為，雖然這種狀態沒有開始，但肯定有一個我們必須參與的結束。

心的真正目的是幫助我們成為真正的自我。因此，我們有頭腦的事實本身就意味著一種道德上的命令來處理它，因為這樣做會阻止我們對待他人不好。思想實際上是我們的良心。在我們恢復真實本性之前，建議我們採取道德準則，以減少我們在此期間造成的傷害。

帕坦伽利認為他的哲學是普遍真理;它不是一套私人規則，但對所有人的保護和解放都有效。道德戒律必須有意識地選擇並作為個人誓言。由於基本道德植根於我們的真實本性，因此甚至在我們找到回歸真實本性的道路之前就採用它符合我們的最佳利益


。在他的《瑜伽經》第二卷中，帕坦伽利給出了具體的指導方針，說明做出這樣的承諾在實踐中意味著什麼，例如“避免傷害、誠實、禁慾、性克制和不貪婪”。12 人們可能認為這些事情對我們普通人來說是不可能實現的，但有人建議，在承諾以合乎道德的方式生活時，我們致力於提高我們按照這些規則生活的能力，並在此過程中更接近我們真正的自我。13 我們不能指望一開始就完美無缺;這是一條通向目標的道路。在旅途中的含義是，大多數時候我們走在路上，我們並不是我們希望結束的地方。但一步一個腳印，我們逐漸接近。

瑜伽的真正任務是個人努力逐漸控制自己的生活。這是第一個也是最重要的道德選擇。沒有先做就不可能解脫是這樣。

正如Ranganathan所說，Patanjali的觀點是平衡的：

Patanjali向我們展示了一個平衡的道德責任觀，應該認真考慮。他認識到實際的物質條件在一個人的改善中的作用，我們需要那些更有能力提供説明的人的説明，以及一個努力實現其內在美德的人的自然有益本性，但他也認識到，對我們困境的責任最終在於我們自己。因此，帕坦伽利避免了家長式作風的過度行為，左翼責任觀的特徵，以及冷漠或右翼的責任觀特徵。14

個
要點

◉我們可以溶解思想。

這是因為我們有自由意志、選擇和智慧。

◉ 消解思想是道德上的當務之急。

Part III
DEALING WITH THE MIND
Mind Clearing



5
WHY WE MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE MIND



To deal with the mind we have to directly address the original problem, or it will still be there and we will still use aberrant ideas and behaviours to address it. So working towards dismantling the edifice of the mind is achieved through relieving our problems with relationship. We do not achieve this by attacking the mind through some process of removal or by trying to overcome its effects. That approach would only serve to add to the mind. The beauty of Mind Clearing is that we do not set out to do anything at all to the mind, beyond tidying it up a bit so that we can engage in a process. What we do is strengthen the individual and get them communicating better. When an individual is more able to get across how things are for them to another live person, then their mind simply dissolves to the degree they have improved in doing so.


The will

…the principled exercise of the will, geared to procuring liberation…for Patanjali comes about when we can abide in our true nature.1

The fact that each of us is unique is down to the different will of each individual, not the personality or the mind.2 This definition of the will is not like egotistical wilfulness that we may think of as being about wanting and getting what we want.3 The will referred to here is a defining feature of the true individual. It is not a capacity we may or may not have. It is the essence of what an individual is.

Patanjali argues that it is the will of each person which leads us into difficulties. This is because it is due to having free will that we



individuals have choice. It is in exercising that choice that we find ourselves with minds. Consequently, it is each individual alone who is responsible for their own plight.4 We, separately, made choices that led to the mind coming into being and took us away from direct contact with others. Because each one of us made that choice, so each one of us is responsible for uncovering our true self again.5 Moreover, it is only we as individuals who can bring about change in ourselves.

Ray came for sessions because he had had what he described as a ‘breakdown’. He was in his early sixties and at a stage in life when his career was winding down and the social life that had revolved largely around parties and holidays with similarly wealthy friends was also quieter than it ever had been, as his friends were older and increasingly looked forward to a quiet retirement with their families. An unhappy love affair and the feelings of shame and hurt this had left him with had thrown him into huge doubts about himself. Having been an apparently confident, even bullish character, well known in his local town, on numerous committees and thought of as a somewhat pompous though pleasant addition to any company, Ray found his confidence shattered and had no idea how to proceed in any direction in his life. All the old structures of personality, work and socialising, which he had always felt defined him clearly, seemed to have fallen away. His response was to retreat from the world, and his behaviour became so erratic and self-defeating that the friends who persisted in making contact with him, despite his obstinacy, had persuaded him, with the help of his doctor, to enter a psychiatric institution for treatment.

But Ray was a difficult patient. He seemed to be crying out for help, sometimes literally, and declared a great fear of being left alone, but was nevertheless determined to refuse much of the help that was offered, especially where it involved looking to himself for at least some of the causes of his own distress. Yet he continued to insist that he needed help to the point where doctors, friends and family were at their wits’ end, trying to work out what to do with him.



Finally, a change came when his mother, a fit but elderly woman, became seriously ill herself. She had, up to that point, done all in her power to support and sympathise with Ray, travelling regularly to visit him and helping to manage his affairs while he was unable to do so. But the strain became too much for her and she finally came down with pneumonia, which put her in hospital some miles away from Ray.

Only then, when the main pillar of his support was no longer there, did Ray reach a point where he felt forced to choose. When he heard the news about his mother, he sat on his bed in hospital feeling completely abject. He felt so low and alone that he could not even conceive of raising his hand to swat at a fly that rested on his leg. He had felt angry and depressed before, but now the sense of being alone was so enormous and so beyond his understanding that he suddenly gave in to it. Initially it seemed to him as though he had given in to it as just another step in his spiral into darkness and reflective of his inability to find a way out of his misery. But as soon as he had the clear thought that he would give in to the utter misery, it changed. As he surrendered to the depression he experienced a kind of relief. For the first time he became properly aware of the pain in his chest and the grief he had been resenting and resisting for so long. Also, for the first time since he was a child, he felt clear and focused and what he described as ‘utterly normal’. As he sat there, allowing anything he thought or felt simply to wash through him, the grief was initially about his failed love affair but, no longer holding it all out, this blossomed into a wider sadness about all sorts of things throughout his life, and to his great distress and humility, as he described it, he realised that he could make a choice. The choice was that he could continue to blame everyone else for the way his life had turned out and to bully them for help which he would never accept, or he could choose to act on his own initiative and shoulder at least some of the responsibility for what was happening. At that moment, the choice came down to packing his bags, discharging himself from hospital and going to see his mother and see what help he could offer her, or



curling up on the bed and continuing with dramatising his own hurt and misery.

Ray had come for sessions some time after this and had already gained greater insight than ever before. He reported that, sitting on the bed there, seeing the choices he had made and the choice he could now make, he suddenly felt more like himself than he had for many years. He still felt miserable and lonely and not at all sure he could continue with his life as it was, but he also felt peculiarly adult and clearer of the circular thinking he had been plagued by for months. When he saw the choices, he said he realised there wasn’t a choice at all, and he knew that what he had to do was go and help his mother.




Choice

Free will, choice and the ability to act are what make us individuals. Choice is in itself an action with consequences. Having freedom of choice is why we have the problem of the mind and is also the possibility of a solution. No one can be made to change; nothing can be done to you that will change your mind or psyche without your consent.6



Wisdom, intelligence and knowledge Intelligence and knowledge are features of the true individual. They are not part of the mind. We may talk in terms of having a ‘good mind’ as meaning that a person is intelligent. Indeed, if there is such a thing as a good mind, then it would be one that is flexible and not much clogged up with ideas. With such a mind, a person would more clearly differentiate between ideas.

However, intelligence as it is meant here is actually wisdom. Wisdom is not a feature of the mind. The mind cannot be wise, only the individual can be wise. Wisdom is the perception of how things really are. When a person sees how things truly are, false knowledge drops away. This is not a thought process but clear vision. The gaining of wisdom is achieved in a process that begins with wilful disciplining of the mind by the individual.7


What makes change a moral imperative?

Without ethical behavior, without some kind of standards, then no matter what technique or approach you use, no matter how much truth is in it, it just won’t work. It won’t do any good. When you release some power into someone’s hands, he has to have the ethical behavior, the standards and moral principles to go with it. Every wise person throughout the ages has taught the same thing: that people have got to be good to each other. Without that you will stay forever in the quagmire of ignorance and just being at the effect of life, because you won’t let yourself have the power.8

In the worldview which Patanjali, and to a lesser extent, Berner, advocated, regardless of what we do, we are all moving inexorably towards consciousness. We can do nothing about it. So say the sages of Hinduism and Buddhism. Other religions generally have some endgame too, one that says we are moving towards reunion with the divine, or some kind of heaven, understanding or enlightenment. But if one agrees with one or other version of this endgame, this then begs the question as to whether we should, or even could, influence this process with our personal efforts; this was a key question of the Protestant Reformation.9 What we, as individuals, might be able to achieve is so infinitesimally small that it is arguably pointless to try. Why not just sit back and go with the flow rather than go to all the bother of examining ourselves if we are all going to arrive at the same place eventually anyway? Whatever we do, we are following the flow in any case, by definition.

Some schools of yoga take the line that, since we are part of the process ourselves, there is nothing we can do to help it and no point trying. For these schools of Indian philosophy, ethics is empty because they do not see the individual as having will and volition separate from nature. This is true of the Sankara and Advaita Vedanta schools of philosophy, for example. They also teach that ethics is merely a means to an end. We only choose to do the right thing, in other words, in order to get ourselves further along the path to personal enlightenment. Doing the right thing is not an end in itself. Even further than this, they



argue that, if we wish to progress, then we must finally work towards transcending morality completely. This is because morality is just another idea, so in the end it will hold us up, like any other idea.

Shyam Ranganathan, a philosopher and commentator on Patanjali, suggests that one reason why this kind of amorality was emphasised in Indian philosophy from the late eighteenth century was, at least in part, colonialism. It suited the British governing authorities to promote this view of Indian religion in order to help legitimise their rule by claiming that there was no indigenous morality. Colonialism could be disguised, conveniently, as the Christian gift of morality and salvation. But Ranganathan goes on to say that the failure, as he sees it, to emphasise the moral foundation of Indian – and specifically Patanjali’s

– philosophy is in fact a failure to appreciate that this philosophy has been taken out of its original context. The original context was Moral Philosophy. In Moral Philosophy the central debate is about how to live a good or ethical life. Amorality can be found in some schools of Indian practical philosophies, that is true, but Ranganathan argues that it was not such a large part of it as has been thought in the past 200 years.

Patanjali belongs within the international context of Moral Philosophy. The sage’s project is entirely concerned with moral, rather than amoral, behaviour as many commentators and translators have claimed. Berner’s understanding of the work was read through that of Kripalu, his Indian guru in Patanjali’s tradition, and supports this view of progress as moral progress.

Pre-dating the colonial powers by some hundreds of years, Patanjali can be seen to be explicitly opposed to the amoral strand of Indian philosophy. For him, the embodied, lived reality of how we treat others is integral to who and what we are. Moral action is not just a nicety, but key to liberation. It is not just a ladder to get us to another level of awareness, but reflective of our own true self. In a way, it is practising to be who we actually are before we can be who we are naturally and through preference.

Berner follows Patanjali in this and both are clear that we not only can, but are obliged to, act ethically. The instant we become conscious that we can improve the way we treat others through exercising our



free will, then we are simultaneously obliged to do so. By acting well towards others we can maybe speed up our progress towards consciousness, but personal liberation is not the main reason for acting ethically. The reason we do so is that, once we know we harm others by choosing to remain in ignorance, continuing to do so is to fall further into mind/ego.

Dealing with the mind is not a neutral preference but a moral imperative. Again, this is not solely to aid our own liberation; rather, compassion for others is reflective of our true nature. But until this becomes our personal preference as we align ourselves more and more closely with our true self, ethical behaviour must first be achieved through an act of will and we must make a personal vow to do no harm.

There is, in Patanjali’s view, a moral principle according to which all things operate when they are in their true nature. As individuals resting in our true nature, we do no harm to each other. However, when we mistake ourselves for our minds, we then treat each other as means to our own ends. Others are simply there for us as pawns or actors in the narratives of our lives. We do not really experience them as real. At an unconscious level we also blame them for our suffering and so absolve ourselves of the responsibility to treat them well.10 But when we do not treat others ethically as persons, we actually fail to understand our own true nature.11

The state of being a human is the state of bondage to our bodies and our minds, of not being aligned with our true nature. But Patanjali thinks that, although there is no beginning to this state, there is certainly an end to it with which we must engage.

The real purpose of the mind is to help us become our true self. So the very fact that we have a mind implies a moral injunction to deal with it, since doing so will stop us from treating others badly. The mind is actually our conscience. Until we recover our true nature, we are advised to take up a code of ethics in order to reduce the harm we do in the meantime.

Patanjali sees his philosophy as universal truth; it is not a private set of rules but valid for the protection and liberation of all. Moral precepts must be consciously chosen and taken on as personal vows. Since basic morality is rooted in our true nature, it is in our best interests


to adopt it even before we have found our way back to our true nature. In Book II of his Yoga Sutras, Patanjali gives specific guidelines about what making such a commitment means in practice, such as ‘abstaining from harm, truthfulness, abstinence from theft, sexual restraint and un-acquisitiveness’.12 It might be supposed that these things are impossible to achieve for us ordinary people, but it is suggested that, in committing to live ethically, we commit to improving our ability to live in accordance with these rules and, in so doing, come ever closer to our true self.13 We cannot expect to be perfect at the start; this is a path towards a goal. The implication of being on a journey is that most of the time we walk it, we are not where we hope to end up. But by taking one step at a time, we gradually get closer.

The real task of yoga is the effort of the individual to gradually take control of their life. This is the first and most important moral choice to make. Liberation is not possible without first doing so.

As Ranganathan says, Patanjali’s view is balanced:

Patanjali presents us with a balanced view of moral responsibility that ought to be seriously considered. He recognises the role of practical, material conditions in a person’s betterment, our need of help from those better placed to provide assistance, and the naturally benefic nature of a person who strives to live up to their inherent virtues, but he also recognises that responsibility for our plight rests ultimately with ourselves. Thus, Patanjali avoids the excesses of paternalism, characteristic of leftwing views of responsibility, and the cold indifference characteristic or rightwing views of responsibility.14


Key points

◉ We can dissolve the mind.

◉ This is because we have free will, choice and wisdom.

◉ It is a moral imperative to dissolve the mind.