Chapter (অধ্যায়): CONCENTRATION: ITS SPIRITUAL USES PAGE-204Page: 204 of 521
For instance, someone blames me; this produces a modification, Vritti, in my mind, and I identify myself with it, and the result is misery.
वृत्तयः पंचतय्यः क्लिष्टा अक्लिष्टाः ॥५॥
5. There are five classes of modifications, (some) painful and (others) not painful.
प्रमाण-विपर्यय-विकल्प-निद्रा-स्मृतयः ॥६॥
6. (These are) right knowledge, indiscrimination, verbal delusion, sleep, and memory.
प्रत्यक्षानुमानागमाः प्रमाणानि ॥७॥
7. Direct perception, inference, and competent evidence are proofs.
When two of our perceptions do not contradict each other, we call it proof. I hear something, and if it contradicts something already perceived, I begin to fight it out, and do not believe it. There are also three kinds of proof. Pratyaksha, direct perception; whatever we see and feel, is proof, if there has been nothing to delude the senses. I see the world; that is sufficient proof that it exists. Secondly, Anumana, inference; you see a sign, and from the sign you come to the thing signified. Thirdly, Aptavakya, the direct evidence of the Yogis, of those who have seen the truth. We are all of us struggling towards knowledge. But you and I have to struggle hard, and come to knowledge through a long tedious process of reasoning, but the Yogi, the pure one, has gone beyond all this. Before his mind, the past, the present, and the future are alike, one book for him to read; he does not require to go through the tedious processes for knowledge we have to; his words are proof, because he sees knowledge in himself. These, for instance, are the authors of the sacred scriptures; therefore the scriptures are proof. If any such persons are living now their words will be proof.