A Yogin also who has attained absolute independence may similarly accept one or more pure sattvamaya nirmāṇa cittas from asmitāmātra and may produce one citta as the superintendent of all these. Such a citta adopted by a true Yogin by the force of his meditation is not under the control of the vehicles of action as is the case with the other four kinds of citta from birth, oshadhi, mantra and tapas.
The praṇava or oṃkāra is his name; though at the time of dissolution, the word of praṇava together with its denotative power becomes submerged in the prakṛti, to reappear with the new creation, just as roots shoot forth from the ground in the rainy season. This praṇava is also called svādhyāya. By concentration of this svādhyāya or praṇava, the mind becomes one-pointed and fit for Yoga.
Now one of the means of attaining Yoga is Īśvarapraṇidhāna, or worship of God. This word, according to the commentators, is used in two senses in the first and the second books of the Pātañjala Yoga aphorisms. In the first book it means love or devotion to God as the one centre of meditation, in the second it is used to mean the abnegation of all desires of the fruits of action to Īśvara, and thus Īśvarapraṇidhāna in this sense is included under kriyāyoga. This dedication of all fruits of action to Īśvara, purifies the mind and makes it fit for Yoga and is distinguished from the Īśvarapraṇidhāna of the first book as the bhāvanā of praṇava and Īśvara in this that it is connected with actions and the abnegation of their fruits, whereas the latter consists only in keeping the mind in a worshipful state towards Īśvara and his word or name praṇava.
By devotion (bhakti) Īśvara is drawn towards the devotee through his nirmāṇa citta of pure sattva and by his grace he removes all obstructions of illness, etc., described in I. 30, 31, and at once prepares his mind for the highest realisation of his own absolute independence. So for a person who can love and adore Īśvara, this is the easiest course of attaining samādhi. We can make our minds pure most easily by abandoning all our actions to Īśvara and attaining salvation by firm and steady devotion to Him. This is the sphere of bhaktiyoga by which the tedious complexity of the Yoga process may be avoided and salvation speedily acquired by the supreme grace of Īśvara.
This means is not, however, distinct from the general means of Yoga, viz. abhyāsa and vairāgya, which applies to all stages. For here also abhyāsa applies to the devotion of Īśvara as one supreme truth and vairāgya is necessarily associated with all true devotion and adoration of Īśvara.
This conception of Īśvara differs from the conception of Īśvara in the Rāmānuja system in this that there prakṛti and purusha, acit and cit, form the body of Īśvara, whereas here Īśvara is considered as being only a special purusha with the aforesaid powers.
In this system Īśvara is not the superintendent of prakṛti in the sense of the latter’s remaining in him in an undifferentiated way, but is regarded as the superintendent of dharma and adharma, and his agency is active only in the removal of obstacles, thereby helping the evolutionary process of prakṛti.
Thus Īśvara is distinguished from the Īśvara of Saṅkara Vedānta in this that there true existence is ascribed only to Īśvara, whereas all other forms and modes of Being are only regarded as illusory.
From what we have seen above it is clear that the main stress of the Yoga philosophy is on the method of samādhi. The knowledge that can be acquired by it differs from all other kinds of knowledge, ordinary perception, inference, etc., in this that it alone can bring objects before our mental eye with the clearest and most unerring light of comprehensibility in which the true nature of the thing is at once observed. Inferences and the words of scriptures are based on concepts or general notions of things. For the teaching of the Vedas is manifested in words; and words are but names, terms or concepts formed by noting the general similarities of certain things and binding them down by a symbol. All deductive inferences are also based upon major propositions arrived at by inductive generalisations; so it is easy to see that all knowledge that can be acquired by them is only generalised conceptions. Their process only represents the method by which the mind can pass from one generalised conception to another; so the mind can in no way attain the knowledge of real things, absolute species, which are not the genus of any other thing; so inference and scripture can only communicate to us the nature of the agreement or similarity of things and not the real things as they are. Ordinary perception also is not of much avail here, since it cannot bring within its scope subtle and fine things and things that are obstructed from the view of the senses. But samādhi has no such limitations and the knowledge that can be attained by it is absolutely unobstructed, true and real in the strictest sense of the terms.
Of all the points of difference between Yoga and Sāṃkhya the admission of Īśvara by the former and the emphasis given by it to the Yoga practice are the most important in distinguishing it from the latter. It seems probable that Īśvara was traditionally believed in the Yoga school to be a protector of the Yogins proceeding in their arduous course of complete self-control and absorptive concentration. The chances of a person adopting the course of Yoga practice for the attainment of success in this field does not depend only on the exertions of the Yogin, but upon the concurrence of many convenient circumstances such as physical fitness, freedom from illnesses and other obstacles. Faith in the patronage of God in favour of honest workers and believers served to pacify their minds and fill them with the cheerful hope and confidence which were so necessary for the success of Yoga practice. The metaphysical functions which are ascribed to Īśvara seem to be later additions for the sake of rendering his position more in harmony with the system. Mere faith in Īśvara for the practical benefit of the Yogins is thus interpreted by a reference to his superintendence of the development of cosmic evolution. Sāṃkhya relied largely on philosophical thinking leading to proper discrimination as to the difference between prakrti and purusha which is the stage immediately antecedent to emancipation. There being thus no practical need for the admission of Īśvara, the theoretical need was also ignored and it was held that the inherent teleological purpose (purushārthatā) of prakṛti was sufficient to explain all the stages of cosmic evolution as well as its final separation from the purushas.