Practice and letting go

What this passage does

The method in brief: practice and non-attachment (1.12). Practice is effort toward steadiness, made firm by time, continuity and care (1.13–1.14). Non-attachment is mastery over thirst (1.15), and at its highest, born of knowing the self, extends even to the guṇas (1.16). These two means underlie the rest of the pāda, down to the remedy at 1.32.

Learning goals

• Name the two means of 1.12 and explain, with Vyāsa's river image, why each needs the other.
• Give the three conditions that make practice firm (1.14) and say what firm practice withstands.
• Distinguish ordinary non-attachment (1.15) from the highest kind (1.16).

The argument, step by step

1. The movements are stilled by two means together, practice and non-attachment.
2. Practice is defined by its aim: it is the effort toward steadiness.
3. Practice becomes firm ground only when kept up for a long time, without a break and with care.
4. Non-attachment is the awareness of mastery in one who no longer thirsts for objects, whether seen or only heard of.
5. Its highest form, born of knowing the self, is freedom from thirst for the guṇas themselves.
6. These two means carry the rest of the pāda: Vyāsa sends the obstacles back to them at 1.32.

The sūtras

1. 1.12 abhyāsavairāgyābhyāṃ tannirodhaḥ
   They are stilled by practice and non-attachment.
2. 1.13 tatra sthitau yatno 'bhyāsaḥ
   Of these, practice is the effort toward steadiness.
3. 1.14 sa tu dīrghakālanairantaryasatkārāsevito dṛḍhabhūmiḥ
   And practice becomes firmly grounded when kept up for a long time, without a break, and with care.
4. 1.15 dṛṣṭānuśravikaviṣayavitṛṣṇasya vaśīkārasaṃjñā vairāgyam
   Non-attachment is the awareness of mastery in one who no longer thirsts for objects, whether seen or only heard of.
5. 1.16 tat paraṃ puruṣakhyāter guṇavaitṛṣṇyam
   The highest non-attachment comes from knowing the self: it is freedom from thirst for the guṇas themselves.

Study

Vyāsa ended 1.11 by saying that all the movements must be stilled. 1.12 answers the obvious question, by what means: 'They are stilled by practice and non-attachment.' The Sanskrit ending (vairāgyābhyām, 'by the two') keeps them together, and the next four sūtras define each.

Vyāsa's image shows why there are two. The mind is a river that flows both ways, toward good and toward harm. Non-attachment dams the stream that runs toward objects, and practice in discernment opens the stream toward discernment (Woods p. 34). One closes a channel and the other opens one. Neither alone turns the river.

Practice is defined by its aim, steadiness (1.13). Vyāsa calls steadiness the calm flow of a mind without movements, and practice the energy and zeal directed toward it (Woods pp. 34–35). 1.14 adds time, continuity and care. Vyāsa fills out care as austerity, continence, knowledge and faith, and gives the reason for all three conditions: firm practice is not suddenly overpowered by the impressions of the outward-turned mind (Woods p. 35). The contest between impressions is real, and 1.50 returns to it.

Non-attachment in 1.15 is quieter than renunciation. It is an awareness of mastery (vaśīkāra-saṃjñā) in someone no longer thirsty. The objects include things only heard of as well as things seen, and Vyāsa's list of the heard-of includes heaven and the states of the bodiless and of those dissolved in nature (Woods p. 36). Spiritual rewards fall inside the circle, a point 1.19 makes concrete.

1.16 gives a higher kind. It comes from puruṣa-khyāti, knowing the self, and is free of thirst even for the guṇas, the constituents of everything seen, the mind included. Vyāsa says the yogi in whom it dawns thinks: what was to be reached is reached, the afflictions are worn away, the chain of births is cut. He calls this non-attachment the furthest limit of knowledge (Woods p. 38), and under 1.18 names it as the means to absorption without an object (Woods p. 42).

Readings differ on whether the two means are stages, practice first and letting go as its fruit, or partners at every stage; the sūtra names them together, and Vyāsa's river needs both at once. Vairāgya is rendered dispassion, detachment or non-attachment. The word comes from virāga, being free of rāga, passion, and the sūtra defines it by the end of thirst, not by coldness.

For practice the passage gives a simple test. Is this effort aimed at steadiness? Is it long, unbroken and done with care? And is something being let go at the same time?

For discussion

1. Vyāsa's river flows two ways. What would practice without non-attachment look like, and non-attachment without practice?
2. 1.13 defines practice by its aim, not its technique. Could the same activity be practice for one person and not for another?
3. Which of the three conditions in 1.14 is hardest to keep, and why might care be on the list at all?
4. Why does 1.15 include things 'only heard of', such as heaven? What does that say about spiritual ambition?
5. How does knowing the self (1.16) make a higher non-attachment possible?

A common misreading

That non-attachment means suppressing desire or withdrawing from life. 1.15 defines it as an awareness of mastery in one who is no longer thirsty, and Vyāsa pairs it with practice as two channels of one river (Woods p. 34).

A practice for the room

Two halves of four minutes. First, practise: sit upright and rest attention on the breath at the nostrils, coming back each time the mind wanders and silently counting the returns. Then let go: drop the counting and the object, and each time you notice reaching for something, a plan, an urge to move, the wish for a good sitting, note it silently and let it pass. End with one minute of plain sitting before the bell.