संस्कारसाक्षात्करणात्

Patanjal Yoga-Sutra : vibhUtipad 18

पातञ्जल योग-सूत्र : विभूतिपाद १८

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संस्कारसाक्षात्करणात् पूर्वजातिज्ञानम्।।१८।।

(संस्कार-साक्षात्करणात् पूर्व-जाति-ज्ञानम्।)

This is really interesting that this योग-सूत्र १८ - Aphorism 18 has several implications! The first and the direct is the knowledge of the past incarnations.

How so many past reincarnations may have been, this present incarnation / birth is the one only, the authentic one, every-one is aware of, beyond doubt. Now, what is the meaning of this birth? Either the I-sense appeared only after coming into existence of this body, or there was an earlier birth and a body where the I-sense was, and the same I-sense discarded that body and acquired this present one. In any case, this I-sense always is there, and the same keeps going through various changes that is precisely the  संस्कार / samskAra. Whatever be the cause of this birth of the body or the organism, it could be attributed either to the appearance of the  consciousness / sentience into this body, or because of the manifestation of the I-sense in it. Once this body is possessed by the I-sense, or the consciousness gets identified with this I-sense, this I-sense assumes its existence as an independent entity in a world relative to itself. This comes across the world and many external influences upon it keep it changing all the time. This is संस्कार /  samskAra. This  संस्कार / samskAra is the very first memory of this I-sense. Then further impressions keep on accumulating upon this I-sense. One can see this fact oneself directly, every moment.  Why / How this I-sense comes into existence? That is the core-question. It is because of the In-attention only. In-attention to the fact that the sense of I, and (the sense of) the world  exist together and none of them exists in the absence of the other. With the appearance of an organism / the body,  the consciousness associated with it gives rise to the idea "I am this body and its form". This idea of oneself of being "I am" too is no more as soon as one goes to sleep. Alongwith, the world relative to itself too disappears for a while. Only after getting up one finds oneself in a world.

The above योग-सूत्र १८ / Aphorism 18 helps one immensely in understanding : Why / How I or the individual comes into life. Even if we do not know anything about if there was or was not any past birth, we can start the self-enquiry from this point onwards.

There is yet another classical way where one believes without adequate enquiry that one had one or more past births, deaths and the subsequent births, rebirths, the incarnations and reincarnations, and one can focus the attention on the memory, can enter it, trace it back to remember what one had done, one was, and then may realize what were the  संस्कार / that resulted into all these births and  rebirths.

This is called "जाति-स्मरण" /  "jAti-smaraNa".

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