“Yoga is the inhibition of the functions of the mind,” says Patanjali.
The functions of the mind must be suppressed, and in order that we may
be able to follow out really what this means, we must go more closely
into what the Indian philosopher means by the word “mind”.
Mind, in the wide sense of the term, has three great properties or
qualities: cognition, desire or will, activity. Now Yoga is not
immediately concerned with all these three, but only with one,
cognition, the Samkhyan subject. But you cannot separate cognition, as
we have seen, completely from the others, because consciousness is a
unit, and although we are only concerned with that part of
consciousness which we specifically call cognition, we cannot get
cognition all by itself. Hence the Indian psychologist investigating
this property, cognition, divides it up into three or, as the Vedanta
says, into four (with all submission, the Vedantin here makes a
mistake). If you take up any Vedantic book and read about mind, you
will find a particular word used for it which. translated, means
“internal organ”. This antah-karana is the word always used where in
English we use “mind”; but it is only used in relation to cognition,
not in relation to activity and desire. It is said to be fourfold,
being made up of Manas, Buddhi, Ahamkara, and Chitta; but this fourfold
division is a very curious division. We know what Manas is, what Buddhi
is, what Ahamkara is, but what is this Chitta? What is Chitta, outside
Manas, Buddhi and Ahamkara? Ask anyone you like. and record his answer;
you will find that it is of the vaguest kind. Let us try to analyse it
for ourselves, and see whether light will come upon it by using the
Theosophic idea of a triplet summed up in a fourth, that is not really
a fourth, but the summation of the three. Manas, Buddhi and Ahamkara
are the three different sides of a triangle, which triangle is called
Chitta. The Chitta is not a fourth, but the sum of the three: Manas,
Buddhi and Ahamkara. This is the old idea of a trinity in unity. Over
and over again H. P. Blavatsky uses this summation as a fourth to her
triplets, for she follows the old methods. The fourth, which sums up
the three but is not other than they, makes a unity out of their
apparent diversity. Let us apply that to Antahkarana.
Take cognition. Though in cognition that aspect of the Self is
predominant, yet it cannot exist absolutely alone, The whole Self is
there in every act of cognition. Similarly with the other two. One
cannot exist separate from the others. Where there is cognition the
other two are present, though subordinate to it. The activity is there,
the will is there. Let us think of cognition as pure as it can be,
turned on itself, reflected in itself, and we have Buddhi, the pure
reason, the very essence of cognition; this in the universe is
represented by Vishnu, the sustaining wisdom of the universe. Now let
us think of cognition looking outwards, and as reflecting itself in
activity, its brother quality, and we have a mixture of cognition and
activity which is called Manas, the active mind; cognition reflected in
activity is Manas in man or Brahma, the creative mind, in the universe.
When cognition similarly reflects itself in will, then it becomes
Ahamkara, the “I am I” in man, represented by Mahadeva in the universe.
Thus wee have found within the limits of this cognition a triple
division, making up the internal organ or Antahkarana—Manas, plus
Buddhi, plus Ahamkara—and we can find no fourth. What is then Chitta?
It is the summation of the three, the three taken together, the
totality of the three. Because of the old way of counting these things,
you get this division of Antahkarana into four.