The reason is the comparative or relative similarity of a set of forces working within our bodies and without in the objects outside—with both forces moving in a single-pointed direction. For example, when two trains move parallel to one another with a similar speed, a passenger on one can see two trains at the same time—his own train and the one running parallel. It is similar to the way we can see an object. If, so to speak, the observer and the object are travelling at the same speed, the observer can come into contact with the object. But to continue the example, the moment one train increases its speed, or moves back or moves in a different direction, the passenger will not see the other train. Now, this happens in the world with objects. When somebody dies we call it bereavement. “Our friend has gone, and we have lost him.” These things we say when the other train moves in a different direction. The velocity of the other train in which we are not sitting, the direction of the train, and many other things of which the train is made can change. The changes can be so very instantaneous that we may not see the train at all. The discontinuity of the perception of an object by a subject can be traced back to various factors—one of them being the difference in the motion of the constitution of the object, the other thing being the complete dissolution of the constituents of the object.

In a cinema for example, we enjoy a picture only when the picture moves in a particular speed. If the speed is increased, we will not see clearly, and if we see a film where the speed is tremendously increased, we will not see any picture at all. If the speed is slowed down terribly, then also we will not know what is happening, and we will not be able to see the picture properly. We will get up and leave the theatre. The beauty comes in only when the speed is equivalent to that which is appreciable to our eyes—not more, not less. This is the case with everything in the world and in every type of satisfaction. If it is more, we do not like it, and if it is less, also it is not good.

The speed of things is something which the senses cannot see. Just as our eyes cannot see the speed of a film, the eyes cannot see the speed of the constituents of objects. This is because of the dissimilarity in the constitution of the senses and the way the objects are constituted at any given moment of time. The time factor also comes into play. At any given moment of time, when there is a conformity between the senses and their corresponding objects in the velocity of their constitution, there is perception of a so-called solidity, stability or reality of a thing. However, when the speed of things changes—it can take place without our knowledge for reasons we cannot know—then we cannot see the objects. There is a dissolution of a thing, called pralaya in Sanskrit. There can be a destruction of solar systems and stars in space and a colliding of objects into disintegration. Many other unbelievable and undesirable occurrences can take place in the world, as they often do to our surprise.

“What is happening in the world? We cannot believe it,” we say many times. Today a man is a high official; tomorrow he is a pauper. Today he is a pauper; tomorrow he is a high official. Today it is an ocean; tomorrow it is a desert. What is this wonder? We are surprised. “What is this world?” A time comes for us, for every one of us, when we exclaim with a sigh, “What sort of world is this? I cannot understand it.” Well, the world will tell us one day what it is, and this day has to come for everyone. Then it is that true vairagya (dispassion) comes. “Oh, I’m sorry. I never thought that the world is like this. I thought it to be something else.” Sometimes we tell people, “I never knew you were like this,” and now we will have to say to the whole world, “I never knew you were like this.” As I said, a day for this comes to everyone in his life. Everyone—you and I included. This time comes when we truly see the world as it is, and only then do we become a Buddha, a Christ, a Sankara or a sage—and not before. Otherwise, without this realisation, we are Mr. So-and-so, this and that, and so on. A time has to come for us to become a Buddha and see things as he saw; then we will also exclaim as the Buddha exclaimed, “Oh, fire is everywhere!” The eyes are on fire, said Buddha, the ears are on fire, the sensations are on fire, and the world is on fire, which means to say that they are all vehemently throbbing, pulsating and moving in a direction which they themselves cannot know. There is at the same time a mutual reactionary movement of one thing moving towards another. This is why many people say the world is an organism, where one thing moves into another thing like the cellular action of our own physical body.

Such is this world, says yoga psychology and philosophy. Do we understand where we stand, and do we know now what we are asking for? We are asking for death and destruction when we are asking for objects of sense. We are asking for our own doom when we say, “I want satisfaction through the senses.” Do we want our own doom? Withdraw the senses, says yoga. Pratyahara is a necessary condition of our knowing our true nature—knowing the true nature of things, knowing the Absolute, and knowing the Atma. It is the senses that drag the mind to the reactionary centres called objects, which entangle the mind and make the mind believe in their reality. The mind then goes for these objects to achieve a so-called satisfaction, then gets reactions of various unpleasant types, and then repents later on—not knowing what has happened.

We are likely to complain in regard to causes whose nature we cannot know. Something is happening, and we complain of something else. This is what the senses tell us, and the mind believes the senses. Hence, in pratyahara there is not merely an exercise of will, by the force of which we try to block the avenues of the senses, but also an intelligent blossoming of our understanding. The understanding helps us in knowing where to exercise the will and why it should be exercised. The will is nothing but the determination of the understanding, and when the understanding becomes firm, it takes the form of what we call volitional activity or will. When the understanding decides something, it is supposed to be the will working. It is understanding alone taking a decisive step when there is an action of what we call will or volition.

There is no such thing as will apart from understanding. “I am determined to do this,” may be the intent of the will, but this is nothing but an expression of a type of understanding gained through either the sensory activities or by a natural process. In pratyahara, understanding and will come together. We cannot make a determination unless we understand a thing properly. We should not have misconceptions about things. A good student of yoga who is in this stage of pratyahara should be a good philosopher having insight into the structure of things in their essence, along with a deep conviction as to the veracity of this insight. After a very subtle and acute penetrating analysis into the nature of things through understanding, the understanding has to settle itself. “Well, now I have seen that this is so. I understand, and now the mind will not go to objects again.”

Here comes what yoga calls vairagya or dispassion for things. “Ah yes, poison has been mixed in my meal today. I have seen it. I am not going to take my food.” When we have seen poison being mixed in our meal, will we eat it? Only without knowing about the poison would we eat the food. The senses swallow things without knowing what is truly happening. A child may touch a cobra coiled up in the corner of the room, not knowing what it is. But knowingly will we touch a coiled-up serpent? The objects are comparable to the cobra, and when we apprehend their true nature, we will not go to them. “Oh yes, this is so, I am sorry, I will not go to them again.”

Vairagya or dispassion automatically comes upon us when understanding dawns. Philosophical dispassion is a general spontaneous outcome of a philosophical wisdom that arises in us. We can only then call ourselves true philosophers, and not before. We do not become philosophers by reading a few books on metaphysics. A philosopher is one who has woken up to the wisdom of life and has understood the nature of things. Here one becomes a true philosopher, and then dispassion should arise automatically. Vairagya is not something that comes merely by being taught about it or by a mandate from someone else. It is an understanding of what the world is in itself, and the senses will not go to the objects after that. We need not tell them, “Don’t go.” We will not go and fall into a pit once we have clearly seen a pit in front of us; we will not deliberately drown in a river; we will not fall into burning flames, and we will not drink poison wantonly. So also the senses will not go to objects deliberately for their own destruction.

They do not understand, because they are stupid children. They are to be educated and taught the lessons of life by psychological means, which is a better and easier way than being taught by nature’s whip or by way of repentance. When we do not honourably learn the lesson of life, we are taught by the kicks that nature gives and the blows that we receive from the world some time or the other. Yoga psychology does not want us to receive kicks from nature. It is better we do not go near a violent man, and it is wisdom for us to keep him at arm’s length or to try to handle him with courage and strength. Either we do not go at all near him, or we know how to handle him.

Such should be our lives in the world. Vairagya in the beginning is therefore a tendency to not at all go near things which will harm us. The higher stage of vairagya is to handle them properly, even if they are boisterous and kicking. These are the two stages of dispassion. In the beginning one should not try to control things, because they will give us such a kick that we will not go near them again. The wisdom would be not to go near until we gain sufficient strength. Weak persons should not try to handle powerful forces. The earlier stage of vairagya should not be one of a headstrong attitude of living in the midst of things. “Oh, I am a mental sannyasin. I can live in New York.” But we cannot be a mental sannyasin so easily, though there can be a possibility later on. In the beginning we should be away from it. We should not jump into fire unless we are properly clothed in protection which can shield us against the burning flames.

I am again reminded of the famous saying of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa: “It is true that fire can burn up ghee (clarified butter). Any amount of ghee can be burnt by flames, but if the flame is only a small spark, and one pours tons of ghee over it, the fire cannot burn the ghee.” It is our duty therefore to build up the spark into a huge conflagration, and then one can pour ghee into it, and the ghee will be easily consumed. The seeker must become a conflagration of power, and only then can he hope to try to swallow up the world of attractions. We are now only small beginners in the study of yoga, and we cannot say, “I can stand the world. I’m a mental sannyasin.” We cannot be. We cannot encircle ourselves with tempting objects and then take liberties with objects of sense. It is very important to remember: never take liberties with the objects of sense, and never say, “I have a strong mind, I can withstand all these.” Many people have said it, and then they found that they were in fact not wise.

When we are not tested, we look like strong persons, but then when we are tested, we fail. Tests will come from within as well as without. One of the difficulties of yoga is the period of test through which we have to pass. Sometimes it is nature’s test, and God too will test us. Various kinds of tribulations will come to us through which we have to pass. Yoga is a very hard job. In the Upanishad we are told it is like walking on the edge of a sharp-cutting razor, as it were. This is the yogic path. We cannot take it as a joy in the earlier stages, because it is a very tough thing. This dispassion which is necessary in the practice of yoga has to come to us, and we should not take it for granted. It has to be cultivated so carefully and so tenderly—like a harvest in a field, or like a plant in a garden, or like a mother cherishing a baby in her womb—then yoga becomes a powerful means of action in the world. In the beginning we have to tend it with caution. Our vairagya is a treasure, but it is not something that will just fall from above. It cannot come so easily, and no one should have the foolishness to imagine that one is detached from the world—no one can be. A day will surely come when we will discover that we were not wise in thinking that we were so detached.

We do not always find ourselves in trying circumstances, and as a result we imagine that everything is just fine. But again to quote a famous saying of Sri Ramakrishna, “We can know ourselves only when we are surrounded on all sides by tempting things, and we have every avenue to satisfy our desires.” When there is hundred percent freedom given to us, and nobody can check us in any manner whatsoever, and all the things that are necessary for us are also available to us—what will we do at that time? That is our nature. When nobody will allow us to do anything, then we might say, “I have vairagya and therefore don’t want anything,” but only because we cannot get it. When we can get a thing, when it is within our arm’s reach and when there is no obstacle whatsoever, what will we do? Will we say no? If we can say no at that time, then we can be said to have dispassion. When we cannot get a cup of milk on the top of Mount Everest, we may say, “I don’t want milk,” but only because there is no milk there. We can easily say then, “I don’t want it.” Many people also seem to be detached because they may have plenty of these things. When we have plenty of money, we can say, “I am detached from money,” but when we do not have one cent in our hands we will know whether we are attached to it or not. If we have access to things and we choose to not pursue them, and in that condition our minds are quiet, calm and poised—then it is that we have dispassion.

This example touches on two other varieties of vairagya. There is the vairagya of not having a thing and the vairagya of not wanting a thing. Not having it is not vairagya, but not wanting it is in fact vairagya. We should not have a taste for the object—the taste should go. The taste can go only if we can think as Buddha thought, as Patanjali thought, and behold things as the sages of yore and the masters and adepts of yoga beheld the things in the world. If we can see things as they saw them, then we will not have a taste for things. Vairagya is not a physical detachment merely, but an absence of the taste for things on account of our understanding the nature of things. This vairagya is the precursor to pratyahara.

An important and often-used term in yoga is vairagya. Various stages of vairagya are described in the yoga analysis. At least four stages are mentioned—the first one being the searching attitude of the mind. “Where lies the mistake? Something is wrong somewhere. Where is this wrong thing located, what is wrong, and what is the cause of my suffering?” This attitude of inquiry is the first stage of vairagya. The second stage is the detection that the objects of sense are the sources of trouble. “Oh, these are troubling me and annoying me every day. I should be away from the objects of sense.” The third stage of vairagya is, “Oh, I am sorry, there is something more involved in my difficulties. Sensations seem to be misleading me, but the objects themselves are neither good nor bad. The sensations which are erroneously reaching me are the causes of my trouble, and this erroneousness is to be tackled. When I understand them properly I will not have difficulties from objects.” This is the third stage of vairagya. Then comes the fourth stage when we are able to decide, “These sensations are controlled by a way of thinking. The mind is to be finally rectified. If I can change the attitude of thought itself, then the sensations will not react upon me as they do.”

Recognising that the mind itself is the source of trouble is the final stage of vairagya. Instead of complaining about things, when true vairagya dawns we will start inquiring into our own nature. This is called lower vairagya, according to Patanjali. The psychological detachment of the mind from the objects of sense is the lower vairagya, but the higher form is the vision of God. There we see God’s presence in all things—divinity, resplendence and smiling faces in the whole field of the cosmos—with beauty, plenty, abundance and joy throbbing and pulsating everywhere. God is then speaking through every nook and corner, and when this grandeur is beheld, we will not be attached to anything in the world. This is the higher state of vairagya. With an understanding of these processes, pratyahara is to be entered into.