4.3 · The Farmer's Channel

The instrumental cause does not set the natures of things in motion; but from it comes the breaking of the barrier, as with a farmer.

Word by word

nimittam

the instrumental cause, the occasion

aprayojakam

not what sets it moving

prakṛtīnām

of the natures, the material causes

varaṇa-bhedaḥ

breaking of the barrier

tu

but, only

tataḥ

from that

kṣetrikavat

like a farmer

Where it fits

Having said that nature does the filling in (4.2), Patañjali limits the instrumental cause. Merit sets nothing in motion; it only removes a barrier, as a farmer breaks the wall between fields. Vyāsa adds that demerit can block merit in the same way. With change explained, 4.4 turns to the minds a yogi makes.

Reading

Patañjali's simile is the farmer, and Vyāsa fills it in. A farmer who wants to water a lower field does not carry the water across in his hands. He breaks the turf wall between the plots, and the water floods through by itself. Vyāsa adds a second picture: the same farmer pulls up the weeds so the water can reach the roots of the grain. Merit works like this. It removes what blocks nature, and nature does the rest. On this reading, much of practice is clearing.

Vyāsa

“Think of a farmer who wants to flood one field from another that is full of water. … He does not drag the water across with his hand. He breaks the barrier that holds it in, and once that is broken the water floods the other field by itself.”

Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 301.

Practice

Choose one thing you keep trying to make happen: sleep, focus, a kinder conversation. Instead of adding effort, find one obstruction and remove it today, such as the phone by the bed or the rushed meeting before the talk. Then watch what flows.

A question to sit with

What small wall could you cut today?

Where commentators disagree

When merit clears the way for nature, is Īśvara involved, or does nature simply flow?

Vyāsa

Merit does not drive nature. It cuts through demerit, the barrier, as a farmer breaks the turf wall between two plots and the water flows on by itself. He does not mention Īśvara here. (Woods 1914, pp. 301–302)

Vācaspati Miśra

Brings in Īśvara. The self's purpose does not by itself set everything in motion; Īśvara does, and his activity is limited to removing obstructions so that merit has a basis to work. (Woods 1914, pp. 302–303)

Bhoja

Close to Vyāsa: merit and the like only remove the obstacle, and then the natures themselves bring about the effect, as water flows once the farmer has cleared the way. He brings in no Īśvara. (Tatya 1885, pp. 142–143)

Surendranath Dasgupta

Says he does not remember the sūtras or the bhāṣya ever giving Īśvara a part in removing nature's barriers, while the later commentators (Vācaspati, Vijñānabhikṣu, Nāgeśa) all make him responsible for it. (Dasgupta 1924, p. 87)

Key ideas

prakṛti (nature, the seen), karma (action and its residue)