Eighteenth Sutra of the Vibhuti Pada describing another Vibhuti.
The Sutra is
सं॒स्कारसा॒क्षात्क॒र॒णात्पूर्वजा॑तिज्ञा॒नम् ॥ ३.१८॥
Saṁskāra sākṣāt karaṇāt pūrva jāti jñānam
That is the Sutra. Saṁskāra - hidden latent tendencies -saṁskāras. Sākṣāt karaṇāt - sa akṣa karaṇāt it is, sākṣāt karaṇāt
sa akṣa karaṇāt actually it means bringing in front of the eyes. But sākṣāt karaṇāt means bringing into the consciousness. The hidden latent tendencies are brought back into consciousness. What happens? Pūrva jāti jñānam, pūrva is previous, earlier, jāti is the life, birth, status, jñānam, knowledge. So what is the Vibhuti in this? The Vibhuti in this is by bringing back the saṁskāras we get the knowledge of the previous births or previous lives. By bringing into consciousness the latent hidden saṁskāras the knowledge of the previous lives or births. Saṁskāra itself means packed up experiences of the past. What is present now becomes past in future. The experiences which undergo now in their most smallest residual last residual tendencies become and termed as saṁskāras. And this last residual packed up hidden latent experiences which are the saṁskāras as if they are retained or recorded. We have a number of experiences. Memory is one part of it. So once it is recorded, it is retained, it was in the memory means there was somewhere within us within the citta this recording, retention of the residual experiences were there. They are the saṁskāras. And if these saṁskāras are brought up by the samyama as they are packed up with the experiences those packing up becomes unpacked, it will be unzipped and that unzipping process which contains the previous lives - pūrva jāti - and the knowledge comes into expression. It is like the smallest seed of a banyan tree, the smallest seed of a peepal tree contains entire banyan tree in that, it contains entire peepal tree in that. What is going to be the huge, vast, expansive banyan tree in future maybe after 50 years, maybe after 100 years that entire banyan tree is packed, zipped in the smallest seed of the banyan, smallest seed of the peepal tree. And if you perform the samyama on that and if you unzip it the previous, the past is expressed in front of us. And the present sutra tells the method of reviving, remembering the past lives pūrva jāti it is called. And the process is almost the same for the revival of the memories. If we can remember what happened yesterday we can also remember what happened one year back and we remember. What happened in our childhood we remember even after the later age that means those saṁskāras are there. Similarly if we can go beyond still further and that science is the samyama. And usually some outside stimulus causes the reactivation and the revival of the saṁskāras and thus comes up the remembrance of the past happenings. Many a times such external stimulus is not perceivable, not remembered. But then it happens. And if a systematic sequential order or the transformation is performed we can definitely, the Vibhuti comes into our hand. That's what Maharishi Patanjali tells in this particular sutra that the samyama by which sākṣāt karaṇāt you have made those saṁskāras sākṣāt karaṇāt made it to happen, made it to be seen. And the behind the hidden, the latent in those saṁskāras you get the knowledge out of it. This is the penetrating and searching process of the samyama. As we have seen earlier sutras in the first chapter especially the 17th sutra 42nd sutra, 43rd sutra of the first chapter which spoke about the samāpatis and the karmāśayas and unravelling them revoking them brings back the previous births knowledge knowledge of the previous births.
Swami Vivekananda again beautifully summarizes this particular sutra, the 18th sutra which we have just said that the saṁskāra sākṣāt karaṇāt pūrva jāti jñānam. Swami Vivekananda says, “ Each experience that we have comes in the form of a wave in the citta and this subsides and becomes finer and finer but is never lost. It remains there in minutest form and if we can bring this wave up again, it becomes a memory so if the yogi can make a samyama on these past impressions in the mind he will begin to remember all his past lives.” How wonderfully Swami Vivekananda presents, concludes his commentary on this particular sutra. So it is possible even for all of us to understand to know our past lives if we perform samyama on our own hidden saṁskāras. And that is the sutra presented by Maharshi Patanjali and let us see the further Vibhuties.
To Be Continued.. ---------------------------------------
These are transcription of session delivered by Vice-President of Vivekananda Rock Memorial & Vivekananda Kendra, Sri M. Hanumantha Rao Ji.
Audio Link - https://youtu.be/ljydaeVSaWc?si=NpOu5DOo74Y3MBzT
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मुक्तसंग्ङोऽनहंवादी धृत्युत्साहसमन्वित:।
सिद्धयसिद्धयोर्निर्विकार: कर्ता सात्त्विक उच्यते ॥१८.२६॥
Freed from attachment, non-egoistic, endowed with courage and enthusiasm and unperturbed by success or failure, the worker is known as a pure (Sattvika) one. Four outstanding and essential qualities of a worker. - Bhagwad Gita : XVIII-26
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