Key idea of the Yoga Sūtras
samāpatti · coalescence
The still mind taking the form of its object, like a clear jewel.
Samāpatti, coalescence, is what happens when the mind's movements have faded: like a clear jewel, it takes on the colour of whatever it rests on, whether knower, knowing or known (1.41). Patañjali sorts it by object and by refinement. On gross objects, coalescence mixed with the verbal construction of word, meaning and idea is 'with coarse thought' (1.42). When memory is purified and only the object shines, it is 'beyond coarse thought' (1.43). On subtle objects the same pair is 'with subtle thought' and 'beyond subtle thought' (1.44), and subtlety reaches as far as the unmanifest (1.45). All of these are absorption with a seed (1.46). From the clarity of 'beyond subtle thought' comes inner serenity (1.47) and truth-bearing wisdom (1.48). The word returns in 2.47 and 3.42, for the mind meeting the boundless or lightness. Coalescence shows how knowing becomes direct: the object itself, not our ideas about it, fills the mind.
Vyāsa
“Thus it is that the mind, which is like a precious gem, in the state of resting upon [one] of these, … changes into their form — this [mind] is said to be in the balanced-state.”
Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya in J. H. Woods' translation (1914), p. 78–79.
How it has been read
Woods calls samāpatti the 'balanced-state'. Readers differ on whether it is another name for absorption with an object or the inner working of it; the text calls all four kinds 'absorption with a seed' (1.46).
A common misreading
Coalescence is sometimes described as merging with everything. In the text it is a precise clarity in which the mind reflects one object, the act of knowing, or the knower (1.41).
Where the text defines it
- 1.41 When its movements have faded, the mind is like a clear jewel, taking on the colour of whatever it rests on: knower, knowing or known. This is coalescence.
- 1.42 Of these, coalescence mixed with the verbal construction (vikalpa) of word, meaning and idea is called 'with coarse thought'.
- 1.43 When memory is purified, the coalescence seems empty of its own form and only the object shines: this is 'beyond coarse thought'.
- 1.44 In the same way, coalescence 'with subtle thought' and 'beyond subtle thought', on subtle objects, is explained.
- 1.46 These indeed are absorption with a seed.
- 1.47 In the clarity of 'beyond subtle thought', inner serenity arises.