A bit more light on yoga

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~
namasté

Over time and practice one is getting to the notion of distinguishing between Self and non-Self. One hears ‘you are not the body’ , not the arm, the legs the head, etc.' from others or from books. Sure we get that ( I hope). But then one needs to go further in ( the march inward – pratiprasava¹) and discriminate that the essential 'you' is also not the mind, ego and intellect.

(This is extending the conversation found in posts 29 & 30 )
Why is the razor sharp discrimination required? We get a hint here in the 4^th chapter 22nd sūtra :

citerapratisaṅkramāyāstadākārāpattau svabuddhisaṁvedanam||22
In a nutshell this says,
When consciousness (citeḥ) takes the form of buddhi (intellect), that ( buddhi) becomes intelligence.

That is, this pure awareness ( code here for Puruṣa, Being,) takes on the role of intellect and makes it intelligence. It is like saying buddhi is inert and pure awareness invigorates it to become intelligence. From our point of experience the intellect seems to be awareness in-and-of- itself ( self sufficient) , yet this is made possible by another ( that is how the wise say it); this other is Puruṣa, Being.

So, the human condition thinks buddhi is the real Self and goes on to say I am joe, I am mary, I am happy, sad, big small. Yet in every case this ‘I am’ belongs to another. It just so happens to think it is joe, mary, happy, sad , and this is the confusion the ignorance of not knowing who is behind this intellect that powers it to be intelligence.

Many of us do not get this ( it took me some time for this to soak in); so if you do not get it, no worries. But if you do nothing about it ( that is, not ponder it , look to understand and experience the difference) , then one will stay stuck in the everyday understanding of identifying your Self (Being, pure awareness) with what you do ( a student, homemaker, father, brick layer, good, bad, happy , unhappy, etc) to your original status of awareness itself, playing a role , or being engaged in, being human identifying with his/her actions.

Now one can see ( I hope) on how delicate yet how razor sharp one’s discrimination needs to be to look ‘under the hood’ and see this difference.

इतिशिवं
iti śivaṁ