Key idea of the Yoga Sūtras
viveka · discernment
Clear, unwavering seeing of the difference between seer and seen.
Viveka means telling apart, and vivekakhyāti is the clear seeing of the difference between the seer and the seen, the self and the mind. It is the remedy at the centre of Book II: unwavering discernment is the means of release (2.26). The eight limbs serve it: practising them, impurity wears away and the light of knowledge shines, up to discernment (2.28). It must be unwavering, because discernment that comes and goes leaves error free to return. Book III approaches it through saṃyama on the moment and its succession, which gives the knowledge born of discernment (3.52). That knowledge carries one across: it takes all things as its object, in every way, and all at once (3.54). In Book IV the discerning mind bends toward discernment and leans toward liberation (4.26). Even here non-attachment is needed: for one who seeks no return even from the highest insight, discernment is constant, and the cloud of dharma follows (4.29).
Vyāsa
“Discriminative discernment of the presented-idea of the difference between sattva and the Self. But this discernment wavers when erroneous perception is not repressed.”
Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya in J. H. Woods' translation (1914), p. 169.
How it has been read
Vyāsa stresses that discernment is itself a movement of the mind's sattva, and so is finally set aside: the mind 'restricts even this Insight' (on 1.2; compare 3.50).
A common misreading
Discernment is sometimes heard as good judgement in daily choices. In the text it is the specific seeing that mind and self are distinct (2.26, 3.49).
Where the text defines it
- 2.26 Unwavering discernment is the means of release.
- 2.28 By practising the limbs of yoga, impurity wears away and the light of knowledge shines, up to discernment.
- 3.49 Only for one who sees the difference between mind and self is there sovereignty over all states and knowledge of all.
- 3.52 Saṃyama on the moment and its succession gives the knowledge born of discernment.
- 4.26 Then the mind bends toward discernment and leans toward liberation.
- 4.29 For one who seeks no return even from the highest insight, discernment is constant, and from it comes the absorption called the cloud of dharma.