Let us pass again from that to another statement made by this great
teacher of Yoga: “Pentads are of two kinds, painful and non-painful.”
Why did he not say: “painful and pleasant”? Because he was an accurate
thinker, a logical thinker, and he uses the logical division that
includes the whole universe of discourse, A and Not-A, painful and
non-painful. There has been much controversy among psychologists as to
a third kind —indifferent. Some psychologists divide all feelings into
three: painful, pleasant and indifferent. Feelings cannot be divided
merely into pain and pleasure, there is a third class, called
indifference, which is neither painful nor pleasant. Other
psychologists say that indifference is merely pain or pleasure that is
not marked enough to be called the one or the other. Now this
controversy and tangle into which psychologists have fallen might be
avoided if the primary division of feelings were a logical division. A
and Not-A—that is the only true and logical division. Patanjali is
absolutely logical and right. In order to avoid the quicksand into
which the modern psychologists have fallen, he divides all vrittis,
modes of mind, into painful and nonpainful.
There is, however, a psychological reason why we should say “pleasure
and pain,” although it is not a logical division. The reason why there
should be that classification is that the word pleasure and the word
pain express two fundamental states of difference, not in the Self, but
in the vehicles in which that Self dwells. The Self, being by nature
unlimited, is ever pressing, so to say, against any boundaries which
seek to limit him. When these limitations give way a little before the
constant pressure of the Self, we feel “pleasure,” and when they resist
or contract, we feel “pain”. They are not states of the Self so much as
states of the vehicles, and states of certain changes in consciousness.
Pleasure and pain belong to the Self as a whole, and not to any aspect
of the Self separately taken. When pleasure and pain are marked off as
belonging only to the desire nature, the objection arises: “Well, but
in the exercise of the cognitive faculty there is an intense pleasure.
When you use the creative faculty of the mind you are conscious of a
profound joy in its exercise, and yet that creative faculty can by no
means be classed with desire.” The answer is: “Pleasure belongs to the
Self as a whole. Where the vehicles yield themselves to the Self, and
permit it to ‘expand’ as is its eternal nature, then what is called
pleasure is felt.” It has been rightly said: “Pleasure is a sense of
moreness.” Every time you feel pleasure, you will find the word
“moreness” covers the case. It will cover the lowest condition of
pleasure, the pleasure of eating. You are becoming more by
appropriating to yourself a part of the Not-Self, food. You will find
it true of the highest condition of bliss, union with the Supreme. You
become more by expanding yourself to His infinity. When you have a
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