The Seer Abides
Sutra 3: Tadā Draṣṭuḥ Svarūpe 'Vasthānam — Then The Seer Abides in Their True Nature.
…to understand that eternal peaceful You, the mind must be quiet; otherwise, it seems to distort the truth.
This, the third sutra, is probably best read as if a second part of Sutra 2. Let’s think of them as a full sentence:
Sutra 2: योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोध — Yogaś Citta Vṛtti Nirodhaḥ
The restraint of the modification of the mind-stuff is yoga.
Sutra 3: तदा द्रष्टुः स्वरूपेऽवस्थानम्। — Tadā Draṣṭuḥ Svarūpe 'Vasthānam
Then the Seer abides in their true nature.
The restraint of the modification of the mind-stuff is yoga >>> then the seer abides in their true nature.
Yoga is the discipline of learning to quiet the fluctuations of the mind, and when that happens, the seer is found to be abiding in its own nature.
It’s remarkably straightforward, and deeply informative.
Think of it from a first person perspective.
Imagine that you’ve spent years practicing yoga (not only asana, but all 8 limbs). Through your work, gradually you’ve become more and more peaceful and your mind is distracted, easily able to focus on one thing. One day you sit down to meditate and notice that the mind is very still, so still that there’s really nothing from that mental space filling your attention (thoughts, emotions, etc.) and it is totally free to be present with the moment.
You can hear the sound of your breath, feel the sensation of sitting, maybe sense a slight draft in the room — but they aren’t sufficiently intense to pull your attention completely into those experiences, and they melt into the background of your awareness.
What is it that you’re seeing in that moment?
What does the awareness that seems to emanate from your particular corner of the universe necessarily become conscious of, when all the things that typically fill it have fallen away?
The restraint of the modification of the mind-stuff is yoga, then the Seer abides in their true nature.
We’ve already covered the meaning of “yoga” as “a state of union” or “the discipline/practice that occasions that ‘unified’ state of being”.
So the word in there that probably deserves a deeper dive is “seer”.
In my opinion, it from this point in the defining of this word “seer” that the various factions of religious thought tend to begin their divergence.
Deciding what exactly it is that actually composes the self usually ends up creating some rather heavy assumptions around the ultimate reasons that one might choose to practice yoga (or any other spiritual discipline).
If it’s X, then where did it come from? How did it become that way? In what way ought it evolve?
I think those ideas generally do more to pull us away from the core intention of a yoga practice, than so improve it in any measurable sense.
If all we’re trying to do is show up and be present, and get better at being present despite the various challenges that arise (on and off the mat), then carrying presumptions into that practice about the minutiae of any supposed metaphysical underpinning/consequences to our actions seems more likely to obscure that space of arrival than anything else.
Of course, there’s really no clean cut to be made between yoga and religiosity.
Taken as a path to moksha (liberation), yoga is ultimately subject to some questioning:
liberation from what?
what is being liberated?
and what exactly is liberation like?
Seeking answers to those questions (before experiencing them for yourself, at least) is pretty much always going to land you in one or another religious or philosophical camp. The opportunity for distortion naturally occurs when someone who has supposedly experienced those things attempts to describe the way that it all works to those who feel they have not experienced them, (and wish to).
In a way, it’s a symptom from the unavoidable deficit of language to fully capture the core meaning of our thoughts. Can anyone really fully comprehend what another person says when they describe the taste of chocolate?
In other ways it’s obvious exploitation.
When one is outwardly seeking something like “spiritual enlightenment” they make themselves a target for charlatans because the underlying motivation towards such ends:
knows no boundaries.
How can you compare the cost of cutting off a leg with the purchase of liberation and eternal salvation, should that be what you’re asked to do?
by nature cannot include oversight or peer review.
When dealing with felt experiences, nobody else but you can truly determine the origins, purpose, or meaning of a given aspect.
This is not to say that it’s intrinsically impossible for someone to act as an ethical spiritual leader or to give useful instructions for someone else seeking whatever form of spiritual attainment they find most appealing.
For example, if you’re trying to meditate but your spine is rounded and is obstructing your breathing, and thus impeding your ability to sit for periods of time, it’s quite useful for someone to point that out to you and explain how to sit differently.
In fact, I would posit that all forms of ethical spiritual instruction follow that same format. If it serves to uplift a person in their own pursuit of such things, it comes from a place of empowerment vs. extraction.
**The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are a great example of grounded spiritual instruction.** At points I’d say it’s necessary to read them slightly decoupled from the linguistic implications/assertions they seem to make about the grander order of the universe.
But generally, they are laser focused on delineating the practical actions an individual can take to:
move freely
think clearly
cultivate and maintain peace in oneself
No matter what flavor of “enlightenment” or “spirituality” you subscribe to, being able to do those three things is inarguably useful.
…unless enlightenment is achieved by wrapping oneself in chains, perpetually distracting the mind, and being constantly upset and angry.
Oof.
I don’t know about you, but I felt that little aside.
The next time I bring my phone to the toilet to occupy my mind with outrageous social media posts as I pay my dues to the porcelain god that rules us all, I’ll remember this reflection.
Anyways…
If you think of the “seer” as simply the “you factor” (just whatever “it” is that defines “what it’s like to be you” as a being experiencing life — whether as a locus of conscious awareness, as a soul having a human experience, or as a set of code plugged into the matrix) this Sutra remains as easy as it is, and doesn’t have to be as complicated as I may have made it up there ^
Stemming from classical Aristotelean logic, really these two sutras can be taken as the if/then statement of yoga ↘️
If you quiet the mind, then you can see your true nature.
We are the “seer”. That which experiences, and “sees”. Perception occurs from here.
When the mind is clear and free, Patanjali is saying that what it then experiences is its own nature.
Simple right?
That’s saying that the nature of consciousness is not different than the nature of reality, they are more so one and the same.
The Seer is the Seen (provided that the Seer is not distracted by 100 Instagram notifications).
It’s sort of a radical idea that might sound like merely a more articulate version of the vagaries the hippies were working with in their “all is one” tree-hugging attitude, but it’s much more logical than it seems. Insights from modern neuroscience alongside spiritual practices much more ancient than yoga support this simple yet impactful assertion. We’ll dive into those at some point, no doubt.
As always, the most important part for me personally with the yogic path is that the “assertion” can become an empirical observation over time.
That is to say, you need not take anyone’s word for it. You can see it for yourself with some practice.
It’s definitely not easy though.
Our day to day experience doesn’t usually feel like the state of clarity that yogic philosophy describes.
We have the commonly held and felt sense that we are meatbags walking around with little voices inside our heads. Like a pilot flying a plane, our brain sits in the cockpit of our skull, dictating how it should move around to engage in the grand game of “repeat pleasure, avoid pain”.
Even if by chance we happen to experience moments of pure clarity with still mind and open awareness, couldn’t that be just the result of yet another projection of the mind?
Sometimes, it is. Unless you’re Gautama himself sitting under a tree, laughing away, chances are high that the statement: “I haven’t had any thoughts today” is either a bald-faced lie or a deeply ingrained delusion.
Here’s a potentially more productive way to approach this concept—
Once your mind is clear and you are, let’s say, experiencing things as the seer embodied in its own substrate (consciousness experiencing consciousness)…then what?
Also…so what?
When you’ve “arrived” — then what? What’s the difference? Are you just basking in eternal bliss forever? When you get up to take a piss do you leave that state or stay in it?
Enlightened experience aside, there’s still the fact of life to navigate.
We too often present this state of “arrival” as the end goal, without much thought to what comes after we arrive.
You’ve made it to a blissful savasana after a heavy vinyasa flow. If it’s my class, Metallica and TOOL has given way to spacious soundscapes and beautiful sound bowls. You’re truly feeling great, the mind is very clear, and you aren’t thinking about anything other than simply being where you are.
Then it’s over.
Unless you’re ready to die there, you have to eventually get up, roll up your mat, and walk out of the room to drive home (or where ever else may accept your sweaty, smelly body).
The idea is to take a little more of that calm-on-the-other-side-of-effort with you as you go, of course.
So again, what happens after you “arrive”?
I think the answer to what comes after arriving is, in short, everything. Duh. But “everything” definitely won’t be the same if we are perpetually concerned with maintaining that state of being. Even condors have to land every so often.
That’s why yoga is designed as a practice to gradually develop the capacity to sustain that state for longer and longer.
Many texts on the subject seem to imply that once it’s achieved, appears to stay forever. Maybe that’s true for those who achieve “total” enlightenment, but it for sure makes things a little muddy for the rest of us who might catch a glimpse now and then in moments of clarity, but not have had the training and discipline (i.e. lived in monasteries since we were 5) to integrate that experience…or to stay for the rest of lives sitting under a fig tree meditating and teaching passerby, for that matter.
Thinking of yoga as a process with results that are experienced by degree instead sets us on a more realistic timeline with an approachable ascent.
One area I think it clearly helps us with is in the idea/act of receiving from life.
I’m cutting outside the normal sense of the word which has been tainted by modern self-help discourse, casting “receiving” as some act of letting life give you stuff that you want, or of breaking the pattern of being too much of a giver. Both are somewhat valid in their own right.
I’m talking about receiving whatever life throws at you.
It’s incredibly valuable to be able to accurately perceive the things that life presents us. The proportion, the texture, the temperature, the fitment in our existing kaleidoscope of consciousness are available in the information a given thing provides to us, so long as we are able to witness it accurately and receive it as it is.
When that mirror of mind isn’t muddied and distorted, you can make accurate decisions about what, who, when, and how you receive new energies and things into your life. If you try on a dress in a store with a slimming mirror, you buy it and think it makes you look great. You go home to a more familiar context, and quickly realize the truth was distorted. You made the wrong call as a result.
Abiding as the Seer in itself, you aren’t so easily deceived. You see the dress as it is. You see the distortion of the mirror too.
Consciousness experiencing consciousness.
Subjectivity experiencing objectivity.
However you want to phrase it, remember that’s what we’re called to do each time we step on the mat for practice.
You don’t have to think about it at all, though.
The point is to do it.
Quiet the mind.
Witness the true, undistorted nature of existence.
Then the seer abides!
