4.34 · The Return

Liberation is the return of the guṇas to their source, now that they have no purpose left for the self; or it is the power of awareness established in its own nature. Thus it ends.

Word by word

puruṣa-artha-śūnyānām

empty of purpose for the self

guṇānām

of the guṇas, the three strands of nature

pratiprasavaḥ

return to the source, involution

kaivalyam

liberation; literally, aloneness, wholeness

svarūpa-pratiṣṭhā

established in its own form

vā

or

citi-śaktiḥ

the power of awareness

iti

thus; the end

Where it fits

Vyāsa: freedom has been said to follow the end of the guṇas' sequence (4.32); now its nature is defined. The sūtra gives it from both sides: the guṇas return to their source (as in 2.10), and the power of awareness rests in its own nature. The text ends where 1.3 began.

Reading

This is the last sūtra, and it describes liberation in two ways. From nature's side, the three guṇas, sattva, rajas and tamas (lightness or clarity, activity, inertia), have finished their work. According to 2.18 they exist for experience and for freedom, and once both are served they fold back into their source. From awareness's side, the seer is simply itself, as 1.3 promised at the start. The text closes with iti, 'thus'. There is nothing more to say.

Vyāsa

“When the guṇas, made of causes and effects, flow back into their source … that is liberation. Or, established in its own nature, the self's power of awareness stands alone, no longer joined to the sattva of the intellect. Its remaining like that for ever is liberation.”

Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 347.

Practice

At the end of your practice, stop doing anything for two minutes. Don't meditate, don't watch the breath. Let the senses fold inward like the end of a day, and notice what remains when nothing is being asked of it.

A question to sit with

What has finished its work and can be allowed to return?

Where commentators disagree

Is liberation something that happens to nature, to the self, or both?

Vyāsa

Gives both: the guṇas fold back once experience and liberation are achieved; and the self's power of awareness, resting in itself and never again joined to the mind, stays so for ever. (Woods 1914, p. 347)

Vācaspati Miśra

The first is the release of a particular self from nature, as the mind dissolves stage by stage into its source. The second needs Vyāsa's word 'again', because awareness also rests in itself during a cosmic dissolution, and that is not release. (Woods 1914, pp. 347–348)

Rāmānanda Sarasvatī

The return of the guṇas is a dissolution in nature, and this isolation of nature is only 'transferred' to a particular self. Or else liberation is awareness abiding in itself and nothing else. (Woods 1915, JAOS 34, p. 113)

Bhoja

Treats the two as one fact: when the guṇas have withdrawn there is no further change, 'in other words' awareness abides in its own nature. (Tatya 1885, p. 171)

Key ideas

kaivalya (liberation, aloneness), puruṣa (the seer, the self), guṇa (strands of nature)