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Sutra number 10 of the Kaivalya Pāda of Maharṣi Patañjali's Yoga Sūtra is
तासामनादित्वं चाशिषो नित्यत्वात् ॥ ४.१०॥
Tāsām anāditvaṃ cāśiṣo nityatvāt
That is the sutra. Tāsām means of those, of them Anāditvaṃ, ādi, anādi, anāditvam, Anāditvaṃ is beginningless, Ca is and Āśiṣo, āś is to exist, iṣ is to desire, Āśiṣo is to desire to live, Nityatvam, nityatvam means permanency, eternity. So, tāsām anāditvaṃ cāśiṣo nityatvāt The meaning is, there is no beginning of them because the desire to live is eternal. There is no beginning of them, of them, Anāditvaṃ means of those memories, what was told earlier, there is no end to them, Tāsām, there is no end to the saṃskāras, to the desires which we have seen in the previous sutras, there is no end to them. Why there is no end to them? Because the desire for permanency, the desire for eternity, the desire for nityatvam and the desire to live, āśiṣo, this is something beautifully Maharṣi Patañjali is presenting the saṃskāras have no end, they are beginningless that means they exist continuously and the cause for their continuous existence, continuous presence of the saṃskāras is the will to live, is permanent, the desire to live, the desire to exist is nityam, it is permanent. So the beginninglessness of the smṛtis and the saṃskāras, continuity of the memory and the continuity of the tendencies, there is no end to them. Memory is continuous, inexhaustible memory. It cannot be exhausted. Similarly saṃskāras, the tendencies also cannot be exhausted because the will to live, the desire to live, the will to continue, the desire to continue and that desire to continue and that will to continue, that means the will to live, the desire to live, āśiṣo is permanent, nityatvam. As long as there is a will to live, as long as there is a desire to live, there is no end to saṃskāras and the smṛti. This is a beautiful suggestion, a beautiful hint from Maharṣi Patañjali. There cannot be an end to saṃskāras. Saṃskāra rāhitya, smṛti rāhityam is not possible as long as one desires to live, one continues to have a desire to live, Nityatvam of the āśiṣatvam, as long as it is there, yes, it is not possible. That is the main question which will be always asked. Is there an end for saṃskāras? Is there an end for smṛti? There is no end to it because the desire to preserve the life, āśiṣo nityatvam, that is there. So as long as it is there, there cannot be an exhaustion, emptying of the saṃskāras. So Patañjali, that is why Maharṣi has used two beautiful words here. One is the āśiṣa and of course the anāditvam and nityatvam. But this desire to live is another word which was used in the second chapter, sutra number 3 and 9 if you remember, where Maharṣi uses the word and when he describes about the kleśas, abhiniveśa he calls it, Avidyā and the other four, the last one being the abhiniveśa. Avidyā, asmitā, rāga, dveṣa, abhiniveśa There the abhiniveśa is an outcome of the avidyā and the asmitā and it was clinging to the life. But here āśiṣa is a more positive dimension. Here it is a desire to continue the life, to preserve the life and there it was out of the troubles and it was put under the kleśas. But here āśiṣa is a benign force, an essential for the maintenance of life activities. Of course even to continue the yoga sādhana. But there abhiniveśa is a kleśa it is, which is a troubling factor and it was associated with egoism, asmitā. So clinging to the life out of fear and a desire to continue, a slight subtle difference has been expressed between these beautiful two words āśiṣa and the abhiniveśa. And then of course all our activities, all our decisions, all our transactions is goaded, driven by the force to live, to continue and to preserve. That is why this entire rolling of the life, continuity of the life is moving on because the hope is eternal, Āśiṣa is nityatvam, the hope is eternal and because the hope is eternal, the saṃskāras continue to be there, Smṛti continues to be there.
Now Patañjali is slightly hinting the fueling factor for the saṃskāras, fueling factor for the memory or the base and the foundation of the memory and the saṃskāras is the factor of will to live, will to continue and that is how Maharṣi Patañjali uses this beautiful word āśiṣo nityatvāt. And this driving force for the preservation of the life is the foundation and watering, fueling the saṃskāras and the smṛtis, even a disease is a protective mechanism. Is it not? It serves as a forewarning of a possible and more dangerous situation and of death and its purpose is that the organism the entire body can be saved from this by adopting proper measures. So even the fear of death, even that is out of the nityatvam of the āśiṣa, āśā and that is the driving force. Āśā is not a desire, it is a fueling force and that is the important dimension. And the entire entity has been the force behind the complete entity is the āśiṣa. This force is eternal and it is beginningless, it is anāditvam and it is nityatvam and the saṃskāras need also be supposed to be beginningless since they are produced, preserved as we have seen in the karmāśaya by this force of āśiṣa and through which the cycle of life after life is perpetuated.
Punarapi jananaṃ punarapi maraṇaṃ Punarapi jananī jaṭhare śayanam iha saṃsāre bahudustāre kṛpayāpāre pāhi murāre
Beautifully Bhagavān Ādi Śaṅkara in his Bhaja Govindam tells it. Āśā is the driving force and this is the propeller, the memory of a child just born is due to the experience of the former lives because otherwise it would not be a memory. It acts just like our own memory. Even the budding and opening of a lotus is not inherent because that is inherent in anything. It does not stand in need of any other cause for its manifestation. Flowering of a lotus, flowering of any flower, there was a hidden desire in it to live and even fire stands in need of other cause for the manifestation of its heat. In the same way, the cause of the opening of a lotus flower is the contact from outside of the rays of the rising sun and the cause of the shutting up of the petals is a residual potency, that is the saṃskāras which maintains the inactivity. Similarly, the happiness of a baby which is inferred from smiles etc. is also considered to be as a proof of a previous life. Maharṣi Patañjali, from the presence, he draws deep into the past. From what is appearing, he takes us to what was not expressing. From the known, he takes us to the unknown. - तासामनादित्वं चाशिषो नित्यत्वात् ॥ ४.१०॥
That is the Vivekānanda beautifully, Svāmījī wonderfully presents it “This thirst for happiness, being eternal. Desires are without beginning, all experience is preceded by desire for becoming happy. There was no beginning of experience. As each fresh experience is built upon the tendency generated by past experience, therefore desire is without beginning. Desire after desire comes. Because the will to continue, Āśiṣa, is Nityatvam.” The real question which arouses is when and how does this process of accumulating saṃskāras begin? How it begins? Where it starts? The answer given by Maharṣi Patañjali in this particular sutra is brilliant, masterly, very deep, very subtle and it is a base. And the answer is it is a will to live or the desire to be, this desire to be and the will to live, that is the answer to the question for accumulating saṃskāras and the propelling of the saṃskāras. That is why in the Sanātana Dharma, in all the sādhanas, the will to live, let be fearless against the death. All such expressions come from there. In fact, the moment the saṃskāras begin to form, that means there was the will behind it. And that is of course avidyā and the kleśas begin to work in the abhiniveśa. Attractions, repulsions of various degrees and kinds which are present even in the earliest stages of evolution. Whether it is a stone, whether it is a mineral, whether it is a vegetable, whether it is an animal. The attractions and repulsions are based on this past memory and a will to live now. An individual who attains the human stage after passing through all the previous stages brings with him all the saṃskāras of the stages through which we have passed. Though most of the saṃskāras lie dormant in a latent condition. How wonderfully Maharṣi Patañjali is analysing, expressing, exposing at a most deep and subtlest content of ourself. What are we actually? And it can be seen that it is not possible to destroy the vāsanās and thus put an end to the life process by tackling them on their own plane, it is not that easy. Even the niṣkāma karma when practised perfectly cannot stop generating new personal karmas, new personal impressions and saṃskāras. It cannot destroy the root of the vāsanās which was inherent in the manifested life. As viveka and vairāgya develop, the active vāsanās become more and more clear but their saṃskāras remain and like seeds which can burst forth at any time. When a suitable environment and favourable conditions will come, they will come out. So the root, the base, the foundation is that will to live, the will to continue is permanent. And the entire sādhana has to be directed towards that particular direction, to that particular bindu, the point. So let us face the death fearlessly. Naciketā faced it. Let us not be afraid of our fear of death. And this is very very important. And this is a tremendous power, tremendous sādhana to develop not to be afraid of death. As we have seen earlier, a small disease comes, a little bit discomfort in the body, we rush to a doctor. That is also of course out of, one is the fear of death, abhiniveśa, another is the positive side of āśiṣa, but both fuel the saṃskāras and the memory.
With this wonderful exposition of Maharṣi Patañjali's beautiful description, let us continue the further sutras of the Kaivalya Pāda.
Om śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ.
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः||
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/nj0uQsK-1_o?si=2Z4rHrYscCDgNZs1
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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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