2.20 dastra drsimatrah suddhah api pratyayanupasyah

Iyengar:  The seer is pure consciousness.  He witnesses nature without being reliant on it. 

Iyengar says that this sutras moves from nature to the soul and that the soul “tends to see through its agent, the intelligence (buddhi) and beign carried away by the influence of nature, loses its identity”. BKS Iyengar goes on to say that intelligence clouds consciousness and if intelligence can keep its discernment, “consciousness can remain clear, the seer is unobscured”. 

Bryant: The seer is merely the power of seeing;  [however] although pure, he witnesses the images of the mind. 

Edwin expands on Iyengar’s commentary but pointing out that intellengence is “inert, unconscious, and compoes of the three gunas, whereas purusa (the seer, the soul), is the active spectator, the source of consciousness, and beyond the three gunas”. 

In my personal experience, you can begin to “see” the seer if you meditate and notice that you can meditate with the mind of the unattached observer and the mind of thoughts strolling in and out like clouds.  I believe the seer is the unattached observer.  Edwin also uses this Vedic analogy of water in a lake with the moon reflecting the lake.  If the lake becomes rippled, the reflection of the moon becomes rippled and whoever looks at that reflection might believe the moon is rippled.  Think of purusa (the seer) as the moon and buddhi (intelligence) as the lake. 

Taimni:  The seer is pure consciousness but though pure, appears to see through the mind. 

Taimni uses an analogy that Patricia Walden often uses in class.  “If we take a powerful electric light and cover it up with a number of concentric semi-transparent and coloured globes, one within the other, the outermost globe will be illuminated with some measure by the light of the electric lamp.  But though this illumination will be derived from the light of the electric lamp we will not be able to see the light of the electric lamp as it is, but only as it comes out after being filter and dimmed by all the intervening globes.”  He goes onto to say that each filter that is removed the lamp becomes brighter but we don’t know if that is the full pure light.  He goes on to discuss the contact of Purusa with Prakrti is how the mind is capable of abstract thinking. 

Carrera:  The Seer is nothing but the power of seeing which, although pure, appears to see through the mind. 

Carrera says that the mind borrows its awareness from the Seer.  He uses the analogy of the sun’s reflection in a mirror.  The sun is the Purusa and the mirror is the mind.  The sun is not altered by the reflection although the reflection may be altered if the mirror has a crack.  The Sun remains pure. 

Comments

[sophie]

it's great seeing you back with these, Chris! I enjoy your comparisons as well as your own personal take.

[Chris]

Thanks Sophie - I think I will try to add my own personal take to my entries. I've been studying these a while now and have applied them to my own life in many ways.