The Sun's Light, When He Unfolds It

Patanjali's aphorism 1.3, in one translation, speaks of a "seer" which an effective yoga practice will establish (or reveal) "in our own true nature," thus enabling the practitioner "to see clearly." Another translator (Desikachar) speaks only of "the ability to understand...fully and correctly," without specifying who or what is doing the understanding.

What is this "seer" which the first translator says is the understander of that which is to be understood? The Upanishads identify it as the Atman, or self, which, as one anonymous commentator explains it, is "hidden in every object of creation," being "the very Self which descends down...through self-projection and participates." According to this view, then, the center of the human being (or any being, for that matter), and the core of each person's anandamaya, is the supreme being itself, apart from, but incorporating itself into, the individual.

This sounds awfully much like the "collective unconscious" theory of Dr. Carl Gustav Jung, who wrote that "A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious (i.e., subconscious mind) is undoubtedly personal. I call it the 'personal unconscious.' But this personal layer rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn. This deeper layer I call the 'collective unconscious.' I have chosen the term 'collective' because this part of the unconscious is not individual but universal..." (S.V. Wikiquote: Carl Jung, http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Jung)

It's worth noting that Prince Siddhatha the Buddha did not believe in a Self separate from and independent of the individual being, and taught that "Self is but a heap of composite qualities." He believed that what some call the Self or Seer is simply another component in and of the individual. He added his opinion that "the restless, busy nature of this world...is at the root of pain," although he seems also to have been in agreement with Patanjali about the role of misperception in causing suffering. ("Teachings of the Buddha;" compiler Paul Carus, St. Martin's, 1998).

But for our purposes, defining this deep-seated organ of apprehension as God or not-God is not particularly important. What's at issue is the possibility of seeing "clearly," which my primary translation of aphorism 1.4 says is only possible by overcoming "conditioning." Desikachar's translation doesn't use the word "conditioning," but says instead that in the absence of the state of mind Patanjali called "yoga," that the mind's understanding of "the object" is blocked or covered up by "the mind's conception of that object," or by utter incomprehension. As the English poet William Blake famously wrote, "The sun's light, when he unfolds it / Depends on the organ that beholds it."

This is all very deep stuff, and confusing to one not used to thinking in terms which can only seem abstract until experience has made them concrete. I find myself referring back to something I heard Gary Kraftsow say about the G-word several times, when he expressed his preference for simply lumping all notions of Atman, Self, God, etc. under the phrase "that which never changes." I find it easiest to think of this as simply the mind's attention, as distinct from that upon which the attention is directed.

The metaphorical analogy I use is a goldfish bowl, which holds fish, water, plants, pebbles, and dirt. The contents of the bowl are the objects of attention, and the bowl is the attention itself. Jumping ahead slightly to Aphorism 1.6, if I, the practitioner perceive goldfish in the bowl, I'm perceiving accurately; if I see piranhas, I'm misperceiving; if I see miniature sea monsters, I'm imagining; if I see not the goldfish swimming in the bowl but the ones who used to swim there and are now departed, I'm remembering; and if I see nothing, I'm asleep.

But if I empty all the contents of the bowl, and wipe it clean, and allow it to remain empty, avoiding both the temptation and the tendency to fill it with this or that, then there will be nothing to occupy the attention but the attention itself, which unlike its constantly-changing contents, never changes. It's always completely transparent, spotless, and reflects accurately, like a clean mirror.

I must add that since starting this practice and study, as I've attempted to empty my mind's attention of its contents, changes in the mind have occurred. I sometimes see things in my mind's eye that I don't understand. Also, life, and even the most mundane daily events, frequently seem extremely strange and unfamiliar. I'm sure this is some sort of manifestation of the practice. I guess there's nothing to do but go forward with it.