4.12 · The Three Times

Past and future exist in their own form, since the qualities of things differ only in which time-path they are on.

Word by word

atīta-anāgatam

past and future

svarūpataḥ

in their own form

asti

exist

adhva-bhedāt

because of the difference of time-paths (past, present, future)

dharmāṇām

of the qualities, the forms of things

Where it fits

This answers Vyāsa's objection to 4.11. Past and future exist in their own form; things differ only in which time-path they are on. So when tendencies cease, they are not annihilated; they change time-path. Vyāsa adds that otherwise knowledge of past and future would have no object (compare 3.14, 3.16).

Reading

Past and future really exist, Patañjali says, each in its own form. What differs is the time-path (adhvan) a thing's qualities are on: past, present or future. Vyāsa defines them: the future is what has yet to show itself, the past is what has shown itself already, and the present is what is active now. Nothing comes from nothing, and nothing simply vanishes. The future already exists, latent and not yet shown, which is why what you tend now matters.

Vyāsa

“The future is what has yet to become manifest. The past is what has already been experienced as manifest. The present is what has taken up its own activity.”

Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 315.

Practice

Hold an object you use every day. Spend a minute on its past: the materials, the hands that made it. Spend a minute on its future: how it will wear, where it will end up. Then put it down and use it.

A question to sit with

What future is already present in what you do today?

Key ideas

saṃskāra (latent impressions), prakṛti (nature, the seen), guṇa (strands of nature)