By this same explanation, savicāra and nirvicāra samāpatti, which take subtle objects as their focus, are also accounted for.

Extending the Pattern to Subtle Objects

Sutra 1.44 is compact by design: Patanjali does not repeat the full analysis he gave for savitarka and nirvitarka, but says "by this same" (etayā eva) reasoning, a parallel pair applies when the object of absorption is sūkṣma, subtle, rather than sthūla, gross. Vyasa treats this as an economical instruction: whatever was said about the mixture of word, meaning, and knowledge in savitarka, and its purification in nirvitarka, should be understood to apply again, in the same structural pattern, to savicāra and nirvicāra, except that the objects contemplated are now subtle rather than gross.

What Counts as a Subtle Object

Vachaspati Mishra explains that subtle objects (sūkṣma-viṣaya) include the tanmātras (the subtle essences underlying the sense objects), the indriyas (the sense faculties themselves), and further into the strata of prakriti described in the Samkhya-based cosmology Patanjali draws upon, down toward the unmanifest. Vicāra, "reflection" or "subtle cognition," describes the mental activity involved in engaging these finer levels, distinguished from the coarser vitarka, "deliberation," used for gross objects. Just as vitarka names the deliberative grasping suited to concrete physical things, vicāra names the more refined cognitive movement suited to apprehending the subtle strata that underlie gross form.

Why Patanjali Compresses This Sutra

The brevity of this sutra is itself informative. Feuerstein observes that Patanjali is building a symmetrical, almost mathematical structure — gross-mixed, gross-pure, subtle-mixed, subtle-pure — and rather than spelling out the subtle pair in full, he trusts the reader to map the same logic onto a finer register of objects. I.K. Taimni reads this compression as evidence that Patanjali regarded the underlying principle, the progressive purification of cognition from a state saturated with verbal-conceptual admixture to one of direct contact with the object, as more important than a fresh explanation for every level of subtlety it might apply to. Bryant adds that this sutra quietly signals to the practitioner that yogic absorption is not confined to physical or sensory objects; the same discipline of concentration, once matured, can be redirected toward increasingly subtle levels of nature itself, setting up the further remark in the very next sutra about how far this subtlety extends. Hariharananda Aranya notes that Patanjali's compression in this sutra reflects a broader stylistic habit in the text, economically extending an already-established analysis rather than multiplying separate technical definitions for every possible gradation of object.

Moving From Gross to Subtle

Because savicāra and nirvicāra concern subtle rather than gross objects, this sutra points practitioners toward meditation on something less concrete than a candle flame or statue — for instance, the felt sense of a sensory quality itself, such as the bare experience of sound or of warmth, rather than any single sounding or warm object. The practice below is a gentle first approach to this shift, not a claim to have reached nirvicāra samāpatti itself.

A Short Practice

1. Sit in a quiet space and begin with a few minutes of steady attention on the breath to settle the mind, as in earlier sittings.
2. Instead of fixing on a physical object, bring attention to a single sensory quality as it is arising — for example, the bare quality of sound in the room, without identifying particular sources.
3. When the mind names a sound ("a car," "a voice"), notice the naming and return attention to the raw quality of hearing itself, prior to identification.
4. Continue for several minutes, letting the object of attention be the subtle sensory field rather than any specific labeled thing within it.
5. If concentration on such a subtle field feels elusive, return briefly to a gross object, stabilize, then attempt the subtle field again.
6. End by noting, without straining to conceptualize it, whether attention on the subtle quality felt different from attention on a concrete object.

Respecting the Gradation

Vyasa's sequencing implies that subtle-object absorption is properly attempted only once gross-object absorption is well established; Swami Satchidananda likewise counseled steady progression through concentration practices rather than skipping ahead to subtler objects before the mind has gained real stability on something concrete. Hariharananda Aranya observes that practitioners attempting subtle-object concentration too early often mistake vague, undefined attention for genuine savicāra absorption, and he recommends verifying continued stability on gross objects before spending extended time on subtler ones.

Treating Savicāra and Nirvicāra as Entirely New Techniques

Because sutra 1.44 is so brief, some commentators-in-passing treat savicāra and nirvicāra as unrelated new practices requiring separate instructions. The sutra itself insists on the opposite: it explicitly refers back to the analysis just given for savitarka and nirvitarka, indicating that the same purification of memory and the same shift from conceptually mixed to conceptually unmixed cognition applies here, merely at a subtler level of object.

Conflating Subtle Objects With Abstract Ideas

Another misreading assumes "subtle object" simply means an abstract idea or concept, such as contemplating "justice" or "love." Vachaspati Mishra's use of tanmātras and related Samkhya categories makes clear that sūkṣma-viṣaya refers to genuine subtle strata of nature within the yogic-cosmological framework Patanjali is using, not to abstract propositional content; the subtlety concerned here is ontological, describing finer layers of manifest nature, rather than merely a difference between concrete and abstract topics of thought.

Assuming Subtle Objects Are Interchangeable With Gross Ones

A further misreading assumes that any object, gross or subtle, can be substituted freely for another without consequence to the type of absorption produced. Vachaspati Mishra's ordering of tanmātras, indriyas, and deeper strata of prakriti shows that Patanjali intends a specific hierarchy of subtlety, so that moving from a gross to a subtle object is a genuine shift in the level of nature contemplated, not merely a change of focus within the same register.