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The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book 4 - Illumination
11. These forms, being created and held together through desire, the basic cause, personality, the effective result, mental vitality or the will to live, and the support of the outward-going life or object, when these cease to attract, then the forms cease likewise to be. This sutra expresses a law of nature, and is so clear that but little explanation is needed. It [397] might be of value, however, if we analyzed briefly the teaching given here. We learn that four factors contribute to the existence of mind-images, or the forms which come into being as the result of the desire nature.
1. The basic cause | desire.
2. The effect or result | personality.
3. The will to live | mental vitality.
4. The outward going life | the object.
When the cause, desire, has produced its effect, the personality or form aspect of man, then as long as the will to live exists, so long will the form persist. It is kept in manifestation through mental vitality. This has been demonstrated time and again in the annals of medicine, for it has been proven that as long as the determination to live persists so will be the probable duration of the physical plane life, but that the moment that will is withdrawn, or the interest of the dweller in the body is no longer centered upon personality manifestation, death ensues and the disintegration of that mind-image, the body, takes place. It is interesting to note the occult meaning conveyed in the words "the support of the outward going life, or object" for it substantiates the occult teaching that the life stream passes downward from the originating cause and finds its object or final manifestation in the vital or etheric body which is the true substance of every form, and which constitutes the support or scaffold of the dense physical vehicle. These four factors can be well divided into [398] two groups or pairs of opposites, the cause and the effect, the will to be and the true form or object. For a long period in the evolutionary process the object or form-existence is the sole interest of the indweller, and the outward going life becomes the sole center of attraction. But as the wheel turns and experience after experience is entered into, the desire nature reaches satiety and is satisfied, and little by little the formulating of mind images and the production of their effects come to an end. Form consequently ceases, objective manifestation is no longer sought after, and liberation from maya or illusion takes place.
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