4.10 · Without Beginning

And they have no beginning, because the wish to be is permanent.

Word by word

tāsām

of them, the tendencies

anāditvam

having no beginning

ca

and

āśiṣaḥ

of the wish, the will to be

nityatvāt

because it is permanent

Where it fits

The tendencies have no beginning, because the wish to go on being is constant. Vyāsa points to the fear of death in a newborn creature, which has never met death: this is the clinging to life of 2.9. If they have no beginning, can they end at all? 4.11 says they can.

Reading

Where did the tendencies start? Patañjali says they have no beginning, because the wish to exist is permanent. Vyāsa points to the wish in every creature, 'May I never cease to be! May I go on being!', and asks how a newborn could fear death without having met it before. This is the clinging to life of 2.9, seen from the other end. The text doesn't ask us to find the first link. The next sūtra shows the chain can still end.

Vyāsa

“This wish for oneself, 'May I never cease to be! May I go on being!', is seen in everyone, and it does not arise of itself. Why not? How could a creature just born, which has never experienced death, feel the fear of death …?”

Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 309.

Practice

Sit for five minutes and watch for the quiet wish to continue: into the next breath, the next thought, the next plan. You won't find where it starts. Just notice how constant it is, and how kindly you can regard it.

A question to sit with

What in you simply wants to go on?

Where commentators disagree

Is the mind the size of the body it lives in, or all-pervading, with only its activity growing and shrinking?

Others, as reported by Vyāsa

Some hold that the mind takes the size of its body, like a lamp's light, small in a jar and spread out in a palace, and so needs an in-between state to pass from one body to the next. Woods identifies this as the Sāṃkhya view. (Woods 1914, p. 309; p. 311, n. 2)

Vyāsa

Gives 'the Master's' view as his own: the mind is all-pervading, and only its activity (vṛtti) contracts and expands. (Woods 1914, p. 309)

Vācaspati Miśra

Rejects a travelling subtle body. The mind comes from the I-maker (ahaṃkāra), which pervades the three worlds, so the mind pervades them too; the Purāṇa's thumb-sized man drawn out by Yama is a metaphor. (Woods 1914, pp. 312–313)

Vijñānabhikṣu

Takes 'the Master' (the Self-born) to be Patañjali himself, and, as Dasgupta reports, attributes the rival body-sized view to Sāṃkhya. (Woods 1914, p. 312, n. 5; Dasgupta 1924, p. 94)

Key ideas

saṃskāra (latent impressions), kleśa (afflictions)