Yogaśāstra 4.12–14: Past and Future

Present properties are manifest, whereas past and future properties are subtle and take the form of the six aviśeṣa; all are particular arrangements of the guṇa. A cited teaching says that the highest form of the guṇas does not enter the range of sight and that what is visible is “like māyā” and exceedingly slight. The passage therefore asserts neither an object-substance independent of the configuration of guṇas nor the mere unreality of that configuration.

The reality of an object (vastu-tattva) rests on a single transformation of the many guṇas: as instruments of cognition they form, for example, one sense organ, as objects of cognition one sound, and in further configurations a physical thing. The Bhāṣya rejects the inference that the concurrence of object and cognition, or objectless cognition in dreams, makes the object merely a construction of cognition. Rather, the object presents itself by its own efficacy and cannot be discarded by unsupported conceptual thought.