Yoga Sutra 4.24 it must exist for the purposes of another, because it is a construct

Sūtra IV.24

Though it is a mélange of countless saṃskāra-groups, it must exist for the purposes of another, because it is a construct

Though it is a mélange of countless saṃskāra-groups (vāsanā), it must exist for the purposes of another, because it is a construct. Even though that very mind is a mélange, implying that it causes delusion, of countless saṃskāra-groups laid down from time without beginning, still it recognizably exists for another, only for the purposes of experience and release of that other, because it is a construct, all construction being directed towards a purpose through the manipulation of effects, instruments, and objects. So because it is a construct, like a house, which is an illustration of how a construct like the mind exists only for another. For no construct is ever seen to exist as an end in itself.

Therefore the mind, being a construct – (what it effects) is done not for itself. For a happy mind is not for the purpose of happiness itself, nor for the purpose of a happy mind itself, nor is a mind with knowledge simply for the purpose of knowledge or for the sake of being a mind with knowledge. What are they for, then? The happy mind, or mind with knowledge, Both are for the purposes of another.

That other, which has as its purposes experience by a happy mind or a mind with knowledge, and release, is Puruṣa alone, not simply something else in a general sense (as the Vaināśika may propose) such as body or senses or objects. For the Vaināśika does not accept that a happy mind is for the sake of body or senses or objects – if he did, he would contradict his own position, for he accepts only vijñāna-consciousness as having the purpose of happiness and release. So he ought to accept that Puruṣa, apart from body, senses and objects, is the Other beyond vijñāna-consciousness, that has the purposes of experience and release.

If the Vaināśika propose that it is something else in general terms – if the Vaināśika in his delusion thinks that after all the purposefulness of constructs like houses is for some builder such as Devadatta, so that he does not need any particular Other, in that case he must answer this: Which other is to be taken in a general sense from among the ideas of body, senses, or objects? Is it all of them, or is it some one of them, or is it something of different class?

It is not to be taken in a general sense, for the Vaināśika himself does not accept that a generality could have a purpose directed towards experience or release. That would go against his own position. Neither does he maintain that aggregates like the body have purposes such as experience and release, because he supposes that such purposes must belong to a vijñāna (-consciousness) series.

Nor is what he calls the jñāna-knowledge series a unity, because it consists of instants; nor can the series have purposes of experience, because it is unreal, little more than a hare’s horn. Nor again can he accept that it is someone out of the body and senses and so on, because he does not recognize purposefulness for experience or release in anything apart from the vijñāna-consciousness of his own system.

Nor is the body-senses ‘aggregate’ a reality for Vaināsika-s to which they could have recourse for providing a constructor’s purpose for the mind. For how could something unreal have a purpose? Nor can you assert some construct of another kind, different from body and senses, etc.; for if you suppose some unseen one of a different kind with purposes of experience and release, that is just the Other we speak of. And this which is the Other in the construct situation cannot properly be something seen which is not the Self. Consequently the Other, having the purposes of experience and release, is not a construct.

What further? When it is said that mind is for the purpose of some constructor, it comes to saying that in the case of one who had attained his purpose, the mind would be for its own sake alone, since there would be no other as constructor. And if that were so, the absence of any example of self-sufficiency would refute your own position. He who thinks thus ends up saying the one thing, but in his heart the other one is making a disturbance, arguing that the position is refuted by the fact that senses like the eye exist only for the sake of some other.

(Opponent) They are for the sake of the vijñāna-consciousness.

(Answer) Vijñāna itself is a construct, so it too must exist for some other.

(Opponent) Vijñāna-consciousness consists of instants, so it is not a construct.

(Answer) It is; because something is seen apart from it, and you do not admit that that can be a thing-in-itself also consisting of instants. So that point too we refute.

So he explains: whatever the Vaināśika may propose as itself the other in a general sense, that too being a construct would exist only for the sake of yet another. Someone like Devadatta does not have a constructive purpose, because that would be acceptable to neither of us: for you do not accept anything apart from vijñāna-consciousness, and we do not look for any purposefulness apart from Puruṣa. Therefore, admitting that mere vijñāna-consciousness does not meet the case, it follows that This Other, however, is Puruṣa, not a construct but a particular, which has been established as self-sufficient.

The conclusion is, that the experiencer (bhoktṛ) is a conjunction (of the guṇa-s) with that self-sufficient One, caused by its own seen object, which is for the sake of that Other. Their disjunction is tantamount to release.

It has been said that the cause of the conjunction of the guṇa-s and Puruṣa is Ignorance, and that this ceases for the one who, seeking to know the Self, sees that One apart.