1.3 · The Moon Itself

Then the seer rests in its own nature.

Word by word

tadā

then

draṣṭuḥ

of the seer

svarūpe

in its own form, its own nature

avasthānam

abiding, resting, standing firm

Where it fits

Vyāsa asks the natural next question: when the mind is stilled and has no object, what is the self, whose nature is awareness? (Woods p. 12). The answer names the seer and states the goal. The text's last sūtra, 4.34, returns to it: awareness 'established in its own nature'.

Reading

This is what the stilling of 1.2 reveals, and nothing new is gained. The seer is puruṣa, pure awareness, which in Patañjali's Sāṃkhya-based picture is distinct from the mind it watches. What was always there is simply no longer hidden. Vyāsa says that in stillness awareness rests in its own nature, as it does in liberation (kaivalya), and that when the mind is outward-turned it is really the same, though it does not seem so. The whole text works toward this sentence, and its very last sūtra (4.34) returns to the same phrase, 'its own form'.

Vyāsa

“At that time the power of awareness rests in its own nature, as it does in liberation. But when the mind is outward-turned, it does not seem so, though it is the same.”

Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 13.

Practice

Sit for five minutes with the eyes resting on one still thing. Let thoughts come and go. Every so often, notice simply that you are aware. Don't look for awareness as an object. Notice that it was already here before you checked.

A question to sit with

What in you has never moved?

Key ideas

puruṣa (the seer, the self), nirodha (stilling), kaivalya (liberation, aloneness)