History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c94.202

v7.c94.202

Pāda II. The first pāda ends on the note of samādhi and liberation i. e. describes the Yoga for him who has succeeded in concentration. The 2nd pāda deals with the procedure for a person whose mind is not used to concentration but is restless, infatuated or distracted (vyutthita)²³²¹ and who is desirous of learning the technique. This pāda is the most important of all the four pādas for modern students, either Indian or Western, and has exerted great influence on Dharmaśāstra works The fundamental idea of Yoga is that the individual self is real, eternal and pure, but it is immersed in the objective world and, though eternal, pursues transient objects. Patañjali is a master psychologist. The goal being set (viz how to secure the isolation of the soul from *avidyā* and the *guṇas* and its attainment of its own pure nature) Y. S. prescribes a rigorous discipline for the attainment of the goal. Patañjali differs from many modern Western psychologists (like Freud)²³²² in two very fundamental matters The first is that Patañjali puts all emphasis at his command on the freedom and liberation of the soul from bondage, prescribes restraint of the activities of the mind as the means and several preliminary steps of the training of ordinary emotions and will, while several modern psychologists condemn repression of the mind. In the 2nd place Patañjali is a firm believer in the doctrine of *karma* and rebirth and (in II. 12–15) holds that even good actions that give rise to a future life of pleasure and happiness are a misery to the enlightened, while modern psychologists speak of several innate instincts and are not at all agreed on what these are, they do not tackle the problem of *karma* and rebirth and their relation to what they call instincts If there is no pre-existince of the soul as Christians and many others believe, how do the human *instincts* arise? There is hardly any convincing or satisfactory explanation of this.