3.15 Perception of changes

3.15 Awareness of the sequence of manifestation of these states causes the perception of change.

The process of attuning to the subtler aspects of you through the practice of the eight limbs of yoga results in increasing clarity. As a result, you become aware of the interpretive filters you use to make sense of the world. You also recognize that you acquired those ways of being, thinking, and feeling through your upbringing, education, interactions, and overall participation in society. You become better able to discern (viveka in 2.26) between your essence and the aspects of you that change. Once you choose not to entertain yourself with the stories and opinions vying for your attention, you create the possibility of witnessing reality unencumbered by your assumptions and expectations. Then, instead of taking everything personally, you can see how the characteristics of any perception shift between the three states mentioned in the previous aphorism. Whatever was active but is now dormant becomes something you label as past. Whatever is currently active is perceived as present. And whatever has not yet manifested is thought of as future.

Noticing variations in the sequence of manifestation of these characteristics registers in your awareness as change. For instance, your presence is always at the core of every one of the experiences you have. As a result, when you act centered on your presence, like when you are having a genuine interaction with somebody else or when you are laughing wholeheartedly, time seems to dissolve. Similarly, when you truly look at yourself in the mirror focusing in on your eyes, you may be able to see yourself in timelessness. However, when you focus on the characteristics of your physical form, or on the evolution of your beliefs or on the changes in your emotions, those changes create the notion of time. That may be one way of explaining what happens when somebody shows you a picture of yourself from a decade ago and you go from the feeling of presence, just being you, to focusing on the noticeable differences in the observable characteristics of your body. As a result, you think in terms of time with some characteristics associated with your past, others to the present, and some other changes not manifesting yet.

What happens when you choose to focus on the perceptual characteristics of whatever is around and within you?
At what levels in your being (physical, physiological, conceptual and emotional) are there discernible changes?
Are there sequences in the manifestation of these changes?
How do those changes influence the ways you think and the stories you create about you, about life and about the world?

As usual, one more way of exploring the meaning of this sutra is by chanting it.
You can choose to chant it in its traditional form with some of the words coming together:

3.15 kramānyatvaṃ pariṇāmānyateve hetuḥ
क्रमान्यत्वं परिणामान्यतेवे हेतुः ॥१५॥

Another option is to chant each word in the sutra individually:

• krama
• ānyatvaṃ
• pariṇāmā
• anyateve
• hetuḥ

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