4.8 · The Answering Note

From that, only the latent tendencies that match its ripening come forth.

Word by word

tataḥ

from that

tat-vipāka-anuguṇānām

of those that match its ripening

eva

only

abhivyaktiḥ

coming forth, manifestation

vāsanānām

of the latent tendencies

Where it fits

Vyāsa glosses 'from that' as the three kinds of karma just named in 4.7. When one of them ripens, only the tendencies that fit its ripening come forth. This joins karma (2.12–2.13) to vāsanā, latent tendency, the subject of 4.8–4.11, and leaves a puzzle for 4.9: what of tendencies laid down long ago?

Reading

Vāsanās are latent tendencies, the lingering scent past experience leaves in the mind; the word is related to perfuming. When a store of karma ripens, Patañjali says, it wakes only the tendencies that match it. Vyāsa's example: a life among the gods does not call up the habits of an animal or a human life. In ordinary terms, a situation wakes the patterns built for situations like it. Put an adult back in their childhood home and old habits rise.

Vyāsa

“When karma that leads to a divine life is ripening, it cannot be what brings out the latent tendencies of hell-beings, animals or humans. Only the tendencies that match the divine life come forth from it.”

Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 306.

Practice

Notice one place or person that reliably wakes an old pattern in you: a tone of voice, a room, a family meal. Next time, name the pattern quietly as it rises: 'this is the old one.'

A question to sit with

What situation wakes the old version of you?

Key ideas

karma (action and its residue), saṃskāra (latent impressions)