e liberation. In order for the turnings of thought to cease, we have to erase all traces of these conditioned thought patterns. They are tangled in with our memory, reasoning, and even intuition as what the text refers to as “subliminal impressions.” They must be eliminated. Only then will a state of seedless contemplation ensue (Miller 43). Contemplation that neither springs from or bears seeds corresponds to what Forman calls “objectless consciousness”, and is what meditation is all about. In fact, it is the final, end result of proper meditation. The text directs us to control our breath, control our posture, and focus on a single, suitable object. The object of meditation will eventually disappear and we will be left with a contemplative state with no seeds. In this state, we can discern the true nature of an object, without the improper subliminal impressions that distort our perceptions.The debate that Stephen Katz and Robert Forman present to us on the nature of mystical experience is a valid one, and not as one-sided as this analysis makes it out to be. But when we filter this debate through subliminal impressions, pure/seedless contemplation, meditation and other key elements of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, we see that Forman’s arguments are more valid and have the needed textual support. If, however, we were to view these arguments without this filter, we’d see that they are equally match points with a significant amount of clash, and objectively, there is no way to distinguish which is more legitimate....
