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The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book 1 - The Problem of Union
42. When the perceiver blends the words, the idea (or meaning) and the object, this is called the mental condition of judicial reasoning.

In this sutra and the following one, Patanjali is enlarging upon an earlier formulation of the truth. (See Sutra 7.) He teaches that meditation is of two kinds:

  1. With an object or seed, and therefore employing the rationalizing judicial mind, the mental body with its concretizing faculty, and its ability to create thought forms,
  2. Without an object or seedless, and therefore employing a different faculty, and one which is only possible when the concrete mind is understood, and utilized with correctness. This correct [95] use involves the ability to "still the modifications of the mind," reduce the "chitta" or mind stuff to quietude so that it can take on the coloring of the higher knowledge and reflect the higher realities.

The perceiver has to arrive at a knowledge of subliminal things by the process, first of all, of awareness of the external form, then a passing beyond the external form to the internal state of that form, to that which produces externality (being force of some kind), until he arrives at that which is the cause of both. These three are called in this sutra:
 
The idea The cause of the objective form.
The word The sound which produces form.
The object The form produced by the sound to express the idea.
 
Students should realize that this covers the earlier meditative state and, because the lower mind is utilized in the process, is the separative method. Things become separated into their component parts and are found to be - as all else in nature - triple. Once this is grasped the occult significance and importance of all meditation becomes apparent and the method whereby occultists are made becomes clear. Always in the process of arriving at an understanding of nature, the occultist works inwards from the external form in order to discover the sound which created it, or the aggregate of forces which produced the external shape; every aggregate of forces has [96] its own sound, produced by their interplay. Having discovered that, he penetrates still further inwards till he touches the cause, idea or divine thought (emanating from the Logos, planetary or solar), which gave rise to the sound, thus producing the form.

In creative work, the adept starts on the inside and - knowing the idea which he seeks to embody in form - he utters certain words or sounds and thus calls in certain forces which produce (through their interplay) a form of some kind. The higher the level on which the adept works the more elevated the ideas touched and the simpler or more synthetic the sounds uttered.

Students of Raja Yoga have, however, to grasp the elementary facts concerning all forms and to familiarize themselves in their meditation with the work of separating the triplicities, so as to be able eventually to contact any of the component aspects as they will. In this way the nature of consciousness is understood, for the perceiver (who is trained in these differentiations) can enter into the consciousness of the atoms composing any tangible form, and can advance further and enter into the consciousness of the energies who produce the objective body. These are literally what has been called the "Army of the Voice." He can also contact eventually the consciousness of that Great Life who is responsible for the initial word. These are the great landmarks, but in between are many grades of lives responsible for the intermediate sounds and these can therefore be contacted and known. [97]
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