Patañjali’s Yoga-Sūtras 1.3-4: the Alpha & Omega
Channel: Consciousness Research Centre
Date: 2020-06-21

This series is classified Vivartha-vāda | Rāja-yoga | Suśupti | Ājñā-cakra

तदा द्रष्टु: स्वरूपेऽवस्थानम्  ॥ ३ ॥
3. tadā dṛaṣṭuḥ svarūpe’vasthānam
“When in yoga, the Seer rests in his own state.” 
वृत्तिसारूप्यम् इतरत्र ॥ ४ ॥
4. vṛtti-sārūpyam itaratra 
“At other times, the Seer identifies with modifications.”

The Seer is the state of unmodified pure awareness-of-awareness: Brahman or Self. We have discussed the nature of the Seer elaborately in our series on Dṛg-dṛśya Vivekaḥ.

Aham and Aham-Vṛtti
D. How can any enquiry initiated by the ego reveal its own unreality?
M. The ego's phenomenal existence is transcended when you inquire into the Source wherefrom arises the aham-vṛtti.
D. But is not the aham-vṛtti only one of the three forms in which the ego manifests itself? Yoga Vasishta and other ancient texts describe the ego as having a threefold form.
M. It is so. The ego is described as having three bodies, the gross, the subtle and the casual, but that is only for the purposes of analytical exposition. If the method of enquiry were to depend on the ego's form, you may take it that any enquiry would become altogether impossible, because the forms the ego may assume are legion. Therefore, for purposes of jñāṇa-vichara, you have to proceed on the basis that the ego has but one form, namely that of aham-vṛtti.
D. But it may prove inadequate for realizing jñāṇa.
M. Self-enquiry by following the clue of aham-vṛtti is just like the dog tracing its master by his scent. The master may be at some distant, unknown place, but that does not at all stand in the way of the dog tracing him. The master's scent is an infallible clue for the animal, and nothing else, such as the dress he wears, or his build and stature etc., counts. To that scent the dog holds on undistractedly while searching for him, and finally it succeeds in tracing him.
Likewise in your quest for the Self, the one infallible clue is the aham-vṛtti, the ‘I-am’-ness which is the primary datum of your experience. No other clue can lead you direct to Self-realization.
D. The question still remains why the quest for the Source of aham-vṛtti, as distinguished from other vṛttis, should be considered the direct means to Self-realization.
M. The word aham is itself very suggestive. The two letters of the word, namely (A) and (HA), are the first and the last letters of the Sanskrit alphabet. The suggestion intended to be conveyed by the word is that it comprises all. How? Because aham signifies existence itself.
Jesus: “I AM the alpha and the omega.”
Although the concept of ‘I’-ness or ‘I-am’-ness is by usage known as aham-vṛtti, it is not really a vṛtti like the other vṛtti of the mind. Because unlike the other vṛttis which have no essential interrelation, the aham-vṛtti is equally and essentially related to each and every vṛtti of the mind. Without the aham-vṛtti there can be no other vṛtti, but the aham-vṛtti can subsist by itself without depending on any other vṛtti of the mind. The aham-vṛtti is therefore fundamentally different from other vṛtti.
So then, the search for the Source of the aham-vṛtti is not merely the search for the basis of one of the forms of the ego, but for the very Source itself, from which arises the ‘I-am’-ness. In other words, the quest for and the realization of the Source of the ego in the form of aham-vṛtti necessarily implies the transcendence of the ego in every one of its possible forms.
D. Conceding that the aham-vṛtti essentially comprises all the forms of the ego, why should that vṛtti alone be chosen as the means for Self-enquiry?
M. Because it is the one irreducible datum of your experience; because seeking its Source is the only practicable course you can adopt to realize the Self. The ego is said to have a casual body, but how can you make it the subject of your investigation? When the ego adopts that form, you are immersed in the darkness of sleep.
D. But is not the ego in its subtle and casual forms too intangible to be tackled through the enquiry into the Source of aham-vṛtti conducted while the mind is awake?
M. From the functional point of view the form, activity or whatever else you may call it (it is immaterial, since it is evanescent), the ego has one and only one characteristic. The ego functions as the knot between the Self, which is the pure Consciousness, and the physical body which is inert and insentient. The ego is therefore called the cit-jada granthi. In your investigation into the Source of aham-vṛtti, you take the essential cit aspect of the ego; and for this reason the enquiry must lead to the realization of the pure Consciousness of the Self.

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