Sutra 3.05

तज्जयात्प्रज्ञालोकः॥५॥

tajjayāt prajñālokaḥ ॥5॥

tat = that; jayāt = from mastery; prajñā = wisdom; ālokaḥ = vision, light;

Sw. Satchidananda

"By mastery of samyama comes the light of knowledge."

Bryant

"From samyama comes insight."

Taimni

"By mastering it (Samyama) the light of higher consciousness."

The word “samyama” was defined in the previous sutra as the combined practice of dharana, dhyana and samadhi. This sutra states that by attaining complete mastery over the practice of samyama, the true intuitive wisdom will shine through. As we know, chapter 3 discusses all the supernormal powers (siddhis) that one can attain by practicing samyama on a variety of objects. However, Patanjali warns us that these powers can be an obstruction to the attainment of Kaivalya or liberation.

The current sutra talks about attaining the true light of intuitive wisdom which transcends any attachment to these powers. The state of samadhi attained as a result of this level of samyama is pure and is a step in the direction of final liberation.

However, their purpose is to eventually gain mastery/victory over the practice of samyama. Having gained this mastery, you can now use it to attain the light of prajna – pure wisdom. As we saw in sutra 1.48, prajna is attained after the final stage of nirvichara samapatti. This leads to the highest stage of samprajnata samadhi. On suppressing the seed/impression of even this prajna, one can attain nirbija samadhi (sutra 1.51)

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