Knowing the self

What this passage does

The centre of the pāda. Saṃyama turns on the difference between mind and self, the two whose joining as seer and seen 2.17 named as the cause of suffering still to come. Knowledge of the self (3.35) brings intuition and refined senses (3.36), and Patañjali at once calls them obstacles to absorption, powers only to the outward-turned mind (3.37). The powers before and after are read in that light.

Learning goals

• Explain why Patañjali calls ordinary experience a failure to tell mind from self (3.35), and how this restates 2.6 and 2.17.
• Explain Vyāsa's point that the self is never seen as an object.
• Explain why the gifts of 3.36 are called obstacles in 3.37, and the narrow and broad readings of 'these'.

The argument, step by step

1. Experience is an idea that fails to tell apart the mind and the self, which are utterly distinct.
2. Since that experience exists for another, saṃyama on what exists for its own sake gives knowledge of the self.
3. From that arise intuition and divine hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell.
4. These are obstacles to absorption, though powers to the outward-turned mind.

The sūtras

1. 3.35 sattvapuruṣayor atyantāsaṃkīrṇayoḥ pratyayāviśeṣo bhogaḥ parārthāt svārthasaṃyamāt puruṣajñānam
   Experience is an idea that fails to tell apart the mind and the self, which are utterly distinct. Since that experience exists for another, saṃyama on what exists for its own sake gives knowledge of the self.
2. 3.36 tataḥ prātibhaśrāvaṇavedanādarśāsvādavārtā jāyante
   From that arise intuition, and divine hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell.
3. 3.37 te samādhāv upasargā vyutthāne siddhayaḥ
   These are obstacles to absorption, though powers to the outward-turned mind.

Study

This short passage is the centre of the pāda. Everything before it has turned saṃyama on objects. Here it turns on the difference between the mind and the self, the confusion that 2.17 named as the cause of suffering still to come.

The claim of 3.35 is dense, so take it in two parts. First a diagnosis: 'Experience is an idea that fails to tell apart the mind and the self, which are utterly distinct.' Sattva here is the mind at its clearest, and even that is utterly distinct from puruṣa. Ordinary experience (bhoga) is the two taken as one, which is how 2.6 defined I-am-ness: 'the seeming oneness of the power that sees and the instrument of seeing'. Second a method: 'Since that experience exists for another, saṃyama on what exists for its own sake gives knowledge of the self.' The mind exists for another, as 2.21 and 4.24 say; the self exists for itself. Vyāsa reads parārthāt as a reason, 'since it exists for another'. Some editions read the compound differently, which gives 'apart from what exists for another'. The translation here follows Vyāsa.

Vyāsa then adds a qualification that keeps the sūtra from being misread. The self is not seen by an idea of the self made of the intellect's sattva. It is the self that sees that idea. He quotes the Upaniṣad: 'By what, my dear, could one know the knower?' (Woods p. 263). Knowledge of the self is not one more object added to the list.

The consequence follows at once. 'From that arise intuition, and divine hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell' (3.36). Vyāsa says these arise all the time (p. 265). They come unasked, on the way to self-knowledge. Then the warning: 'These are obstacles to absorption, though powers to the outward-turned mind' (3.37). Vyāsa explains that when they arise in a mind in absorption they work against its seeing (pp. 265–266).

Readings differ on the reach of 'these'. Vyāsa applies the sūtra to the gifts of 3.36. Many later readers extend it to every power in the book, and the placement supports that wider reading in spirit: the warning sits at the centre of a pāda full of powers, and 3.51 sounds it again. A careful teacher can say both things. Vyāsa's reading is narrow; the lesson is commonly taken widely.

Why does this matter for practice? Because the passage names a real hazard of any serious discipline. As attention refines, experience becomes finer: subtler sounds, colours, a sense of knowing. To the outward-turned mind these look like progress and invite pursuit. Patañjali says they are the same experiences seen from two sides, and that from the side of absorption they are distractions. The self that 3.35 points to is what sees them, and it is not found among them.

For discussion

1. In your own words, what is 'experience' (bhoga) according to 3.35? How does it connect with 2.6 and 2.17?
2. What does Vyāsa mean when he says the self is never seen by an idea of the self, but sees that idea?
3. How can the same experiences be powers and obstacles at once (3.37)?
4. Should 'these' in 3.37 be read narrowly, as Vyāsa does, or widely? What changes for someone who practises?

A common misreading

That the refined experiences of 3.36 are signs of success to be sought. Patañjali places them directly under the warning of 3.37: in absorption they are obstacles, and only the outward-turned mind calls them powers.

A practice for the room

Sit with eyes closed or lowered for six minutes. For the first three, let sounds, sensations and thoughts come and go, and after each one note silently 'seen'. For the next three, turn gently toward whatever is doing the seeing, without looking for any special experience. If something striking appears, a light, a feeling, a thought that seems important, note it as 'seen' too and let it pass, as 3.37 advises. Close with three ordinary breaths.