Change Your Perception, Change Your Reality

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

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As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope.
- Ursula K. Le Guin

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This blog post is part of our Yoga Sutras series.  
​Want to start at the beginning?
Yoga Sutra 4.9
जातिदेशकालव्यवहितानामप्यानन्तर्यं स्मृतिसंस्कारयोरेकरूपत्वात्
Jāti deśa kāla vyavahitānām apy ānantaryaṃ smṛti saṃskārayor ekarūpatvāt
Even though birth, place and time separate us, the continuity between memory and subliminal impressions (samskaras) gives us a common identity.

Continuing on from the discussion of sattvic, rajasic and tamasic actions in Sutra 4.7, Patanjali delves deeper into karmic philosophy.

​In Yoga Sutra 4.8, he says that the residual impressions created by former actions will only manifest in a particular birth according to the “ripening” (Stiles, 114) of the soul.  The soul must have the maturation needed to at least attempt to overcome this karma.

Way back in Yoga Sutra 1.6, Patanjali lists the five types of thoughts, or mental modifications (vritti).  One of these is memory.  Here in Yoga Sutra 4.9, Patanjali explicitly links memory to our subliminal impressions or samskaras.

In other words, we remember something we like or don’t like and this activates a subconscious drive to either try to achieve/retain the good things or to get rid of/prevent the bad things.  This is instinctual behavior we see across all life and is also basic operant conditioning.
Despite our various conditions at birth, we are united in that our memories are linked to our samskaras and trigger our survival instincts.  The body keeps the score, no?  

In fact, Patanjali implies this relationship between our memory, samskaras and instinct in Yoga Sutra 4.10.  “Since the desire to live is eternal, impressions are also beginningless.” (Satchidananda, 258)
But before our spirits are too dampened, he also gives us the remedy in the very next sutra (4.11).  He tells us that “cause and effect form an endless cycle” (Shoshoni, 47) between the basis and support of these samskaras.  

It is a feedback loop.  In the absence of that basis and support, the feedback loop dissolves and the samskaras disappear.
An analogy I resonate with from the Bhagavad Gita describes karma like the bow and arrow.  

There is the arrow in the hand, which we are getting ready to let loose.  That is our present action.  There are the arrows we have already shot.  Those are our past actions.  And there are the arrows in our quiver, which we’ve yet to aim and represent our future actions.

Patanjali describes time as continuous - existing across past, present and future.  Because of this, “the past and the future are as real as the present.” (Iyengar, 259)  They just appear to be different “due to the play of the gunas…Conditions change, producing the illusion that time has changed.” (Iyengar, 160)  

Understanding the nature of time frees us from the feedback loop of cause and effect.  We understand that the previous moment when we didn’t have the object of our desire is ultimately the same as the next moment, when we did.  Nature may have shifted but really, it’s all the same.

The effects of time, whether manifest or latent, are part of the three gunas (sattva, rajas and tamas), which make up all of nature. (Yoga Sutra 4.13)

I would like to end this post by putting Swami Satchidananda’s translation of Yoga Sutras 4.14-4.17 together and then commenting on it, as together they form a complete thought.

The reality of things is due to the uniformity of the gunas’ transformations. (Yoga Sutra 4.14)

Due to differences in various minds, perception of even the same object may vary. (Yoga Sutra 4.15)

Nor does an object’s existence depend upon a single mind, for if it did, what would become of that object when that mind did not perceive it? (Yoga Sutra 4.16)

An object is known or unknown dependent on whether or not the mind gets colored by it. (Yoga Sutra 4.17)

So the gunas dance, creating existence as we know it: past, present and future.  Based on our own circumstances, our minds perceive this dance subjectively.  What things appear to be to one person are not the same as for another.  

And yet, there is an objective reality.  If not, objects would cease to exist whenever consciousness does not perceive it.  

Finally, whether an individual knows about a specific object depends on whether their consciousness has been colored by it.  “An object is understood and known according to the expectation of the mind, or remains unrecognized owing to the absence of reflection.” (Iyengar, 265)

This last point seems particularly salient in recent times, when we all observe the same basic facts and yet come to wildly, sometimes virulently different conclusions.  

There is reality and there is our perception of it.  Our perceptions are clouded by our own expectations and we may even fail to register some facet of reality due to the experiences we’ve had so far.

From here on, Patanjali will turn from nature (or prakriti), its qualities (the gunas) and their effect on the mind and therefore, our karma.  The remaining sutras in pada four of The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali will have us reflecting on the Purusha, or the universal consciousness from which all of our individual consciousnesses spring.

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How have your own lived experiences colored your perception of objective reality?  Has your spiritual practice helped you identify these distortions?  Or even helped to clarify some of them?