Who are you when the mind becomes quiet?
Not who you think you are.
Not the story you tell about yourself.
Not the roles you play.
Not the memories you carry,
Not the fears you are trying to overcome.
Who are you beneath all of that?
This is the question that Yoga Sutra 1.
3 begins to answer.
Patanjali defined yoga as Yogas citta vritti nirodha.
Yoga is the stilling of the movements of the body.
And now in Yoga Sutra 1.
3 He tells us what happens when these movements settle.
The Sutra is Ta-da!
Trust to swallow pay our stun.
Let us say it slowly.
Ta-da!
Glass 2.
Swadoopie.
I was done.
A Simple Translational then the seal.
That's in its own true nature.
Swami Sachidananda translates this as Tennessee abides in his own nature.
Swami Vivekananda.
At that time,
The seer rests in his own unmodified state.
This sutra is brief.
But it points towards one of the deepest insights in yoga.
You are not merely the contents of your mind.
You are also the awareness that knows the mind.
And that statement is important.
You are also the awareness that knows the mind.
The first word is Tara.
Tara means 10.
And this word connects Sutra 1.
3 directly with Sutra 1.
2.
When the movements of the mind become still,
Than the seeress in its own true nature.
This does not necessarily mean that every thought must disappear permanently before we can know ourselves.
It means that when the mind is no longer dominating perception,
Something deeper becomes visible.
Imagine a lake again.
Imagine a lake again.
When the surface is restless.
The water reflects distorted shape.
You cannot see clearly into the depth.
But when the surface becomes still,
The depth is revealed.
The depth.
Was not created by stillness.
It was always there.
The stillness simply allowed it to be seen.
In the same way.
Yoga does not create your true nature.
Yoga does not create your true nature.
It reveals what was present.
Beneath.
The movements of thought,
Of memory,
Of emotion,
Of identification.
The next word is drastu.
Drashtu comes from a dhoot,
Meaning to see.
And it may be translated as the seer,
The witness,
Or the one who knows the experience.
This is not the physical eye.
The eyes can see color and form.
The ears can hear sound.
The mind can interpret what is being seen,
What is being heard,
What is being felt.
But yoga,
It asks.
What is aware that seeing is happening.
What knows that a thought has appeared?
What recognizes that an emotion is present.
And what notices that the body is tired.
What is aware of memory,
Of sensation,
Of fear,
Of desire?
That knowing presence is what Patanjali refers to as the seal.
Let us explore this very simply.
You may notice a thought.
But the thought is,
I am tired.
If you can notice the thought.
Then the thought is something known.
You may feel sadness.
If you can recognize sadness as present,
Then sadness is also something known.
You may remember something that happened many years ago.
The memory appears.
And you are aware that this memory has appeared.
Thoughts change,
Emotions change.
Memories come and go,
The body changes,
Roles change,
Circumstances change.
But throughout all these changing experiences.
There's a capacity to know that.
Experience is happening.
Yoga It turns our attention toward that knowing presence.
The Seal The Witness.
Is not indifference because sometimes the idea of the witness can be misunderstood.
People may imagine that becoming the witness,
Living my life as being a witness means becoming emotionally distant.
Becoming detached in a cold way,
Being uncaring or passive.
But witnessing does not mean refusing to participate in life.
It means participating.
Without being completely lost in every experience.
For example,
Imagine that angle arises.
Without awareness,
Anger immediately becomes,
I am angry.
And then it moves to,
I am right,
They are wrong.
And then the emotion that we are feeling,
It shapes our words,
Our tone and our behavior.
But when witnessing is present,
Something else becomes possible.
We may recognize.
Angers of Isaac Anger is surviving I can feel heat in the body.
My thoughts are becoming defensive.
I want to react.
The anger is not denied,
The anger is felt.
But awareness is no longer completely sallowed by the act.
The Witness.
The witness has created space.
And within that space there becomes that greater possibility of joy.
The next word,
The next word is Swaroopi.
And this is made up of two words.
The First Part For that,
This is made up of two parts.
The first part is swath.
Swa means one soul.
And then there's Rupa.
Rupa means form or nature or essential character.
So Swaroopa may therefore be understood as one's own true nature.
This does not refer to personality.
It does not mean that my true nature is that I'm introverted or my true nature is that I'm ambitious or my true nature is that I'm emotional.
These are tendencies within the personality.
But personality itself is still part of a changing field.
Swadoopa.
Patanjali is pointing to something deeper.
The true nature of the seer is pure awareness,
The capacity to know.
The silent presence in which thoughts,
Feelings,
Sensations and experiences arise.
My favorite example,
Imagine a cinema screen or your television screen.
Many images appear,
A battle,
A celebration,
A storm,
A fire,
A peaceful landscape,
And these images are changing constantly.
But the screen itself.
It's not burned by the fire in the film.
It's not made wet by the rain.
It does not become violent during the battle.
The screen it simply allows every image to appear without becoming the image.
Awesomeness.
Is like that screen.
Experiences arise within it.
But awareness itself is much more deeper than any single experience.
The final word.
Awasthana.
Avasthanam can mean abiding or resting or remaining or being established.
Avasthana.
This word is important.
This word is in fact very important.
Because the seer,
The witness,
Does not need to become something new.
The Sea of Rest.
In what it already is.
There is no need to manufacture awareness.
There is no need to improve awareness.
Awareness is already present.
The practice is to recognize it.
And this is very different from the way we usually approach self development.
Much of modern life tells us Become more.
Achieve more.
Improve more.
Fix yourself.
Disappear for 21 days and come back as a new person.
Create a better identity.
But yoga.
Yoga asks a different question.
What if your deepest nature.
Is not something you have to build.
What if it is something you have to stop overlooking?
What if beneath?
The constant activity of becoming.
There is a presence that is already home.
One of the most practical ways to understand this sutra is to notice the difference between an experience and an identity.
The difference between an experience and an identity.
There is a difference between saying I feel anxious.
And saying,
I am an anxious person.
There is a difference between A thought of failure is present and I am a failure.
There is a difference between I made a mistake and I am a mistake.
The First Statement It recognizes an experience.
The second one.
It turns the experience into identity.
And this is how we become trapped in the movements of the mind.
A temporary emotion,
It becomes a definition.
A past event.
It becomes a permanent self-image.
A field becomes a description of who we are.
Yoga Sutra 1.
3 It reminds us that the seer is not reduced to any of these passing forms.
You may experience fear.
But awareness is not pure.
You may experience grief.
But awareness is not grief.
You may experience confusion.
But awareness is not confused.
Whatever you are experiencing,
The experience is real,
No doubt the experience is real,
But it is not the whole of you.
Let's take a let's take a very relevant example.
Imagine you receive criticism.
Someone tells you that your work is not good enough.
And what happened?
Immediately the mind begins to move.
You always feel you're not talented.
They do not respect you.
You should give up and within moments.
A single piece of feedback.
Has become an identity.
The mind has taken one event.
And created a complete story about the cell.
But what happens if you pause?
You pause.
You notice tightness in the chest.
You notice disappointment.
You notice the thought.
I am not good enough.
And then you recognize.
This thought is present.
This thought is passive.
That small shift.
It does not remove the discomfort.
But it prevents the thought from becoming absolute truth.
You are now aware of the story rather than completely inside it.
And that,
That is a glimpse of the seal.
It is very tempting to imagine that the seer appears only in deep meditation.
It's very tempting.
But awareness is present in the ordinary moment.
It is present when you notice that the mind is distracted.
It is present when you recognize that you are reacting.
It is present when you say I've been lost in thought.
The very fact that you can recognize distraction means that something in you is aware of the distraction.
Something in you is aware of the distraction.
You may lose contact with the witnessing presence.
But Awareness itself has not disappeared.
It is similar to the sun that's hidden behind clouds.
The clouds may become thick.
The sky may become dark.
For the sun has not stopped shining.
In the same way.
In the same way.
Awareness can be obscured by thought,
By emotion,
By identification.
But awareness is not destroyed by them.
And what does it mean to rest as the CEO?
What does it mean to rest as the CEO?
It does not mean repeating I am pure awareness while avoiding real life.
It means learning.
To remain connected to the knowing presence within.
You can speak.
While they're waning away.
You can work while remaining aware.
You can feel emotion while remaining aware.
You can disagree with someone while remaining awake.
You can make decisions while remaining away.
The goal is not to escape the human experience.
It is to stop.
Being completely unconscious within it.
When awareness is present,
Thought becomes an instrument rather than a master.
Emotion becomes information rather than identity.
And experience it becomes something we can meet.
Rather than something that automatically controls us.
Here's a simple practice inspired by Sutra 1.
3.
Sub little times for me.
Just pause and notice one experience.
Maybe a thought,
Maybe a sensation,
Maybe an emotion,
Maybe a sound.
Just pause and notice one experience.
And silently say to yourself,
This is known.
This is known.
If a thought appears,
This thought is known.
If tension appears,
This tension is known.
If sadness appears,
This sadness is known.
And then gently ask.
What is aware of this experience?
What is a way of this experience?
And don't try to answer intellectually.
Simply pause.
And notice the quiet presence in which the experience is appearing.
You may only glimpse it for the moment,
And that is more than enough.
The aim is not to create a special state.
It is simply to recognize.
What is already here?
So sometime today or maybe during this week you may want to sit with these questions.
Which passing experience have I turned into an identity?
Maybe fear,
Maybe failure,
Maybe rejection,
Maybe a rule,
A mistake,
A relationship.
Which passing experience have I turned into an identity?
Who am I?
When I stop defining myself only through that experience.
Who am I when I stop defining myself?
Only through that experience.
And the second question,
It's not a question to answer quickly.
It's a question to live to.
Who am I when I stop defining myself only through that experience?
Patanjali is not offering us another belief about who we are.
He is inviting us.
He's simply inviting us to discover the seer directly.
TADA DRASTHU SWADHUPYAVASTANAM than the seer rests in its own true nature.
You are not only the thoughts moving through the mind.
You are also the awareness that knows these thoughts.
You are not only the emotions passing through the body,
You are also the presence that recognizes them.
As you move through your day.
Notice one experience and silently say,
This is normal.
And then pause.
And sense the awareness in which it appears.
In the next episode,
In the next video.
We will explore Yoga Sutra 1.
4.
Where Patanjali explains what happens.
When we lose sight of the seer,
And become identified with the movements of the mind.
Thank you for listening.
Namaste.
