I. Samādhi Pāda · What yoga is (1.1–1.4)
1.4 · The Lodestone
Otherwise, the seer takes on the form of the mind's movements.
Word by word
- vṛtti
- movement of the mind
- sārūpyam
- sameness of form, conformity
- itaratra
- otherwise, at other times
Where it fits
If the seer rests in itself only when the mind is still (1.3), what happens the rest of the time? Vyāsa answers that objects are shown to it (Woods p. 14). This seeming to take the mind's shape is the ordinary human condition, and it is why the movements themselves must now be examined (1.5–1.11).
Reading
At all other times the seer seems to take the shape of whatever the mind is doing. An angry thought, and you are angry; a worried one, and you are worried. Vyāsa compares the mind to a magnet: it serves the seer simply by being near, and so the two seem to be one, though the seer itself never changes. The connection between them, he says, has no beginning, and it is the ordinary condition of life. 4.22 returns to this meeting, asking how awareness comes to know the mind when the two seem to share one form.
Vyāsa
“When the mind is outward-turned, the self has movements no different from the mind's movements. … The mind is like a magnet: as something to be seen, it serves [the self] simply by being near.”
Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 14.
Practice
Three times today, when a strong mood arrives, change the sentence you use for it. Instead of 'I am angry' or 'I am tired', say inwardly 'anger is here' or 'tiredness is here'. Notice whether anything loosens when you stop becoming the movement.
A question to sit with
What shape have you taken on today?
Key ideas
puruṣa (the seer, the self), vṛtti (movement of the mind), citta (the mind-field)