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Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Book II · 6 of 55 · tr. Charles Johnston

Sutra 6

Self-assertion comes from thinking of the Seer and the instrument of vision as forming one self. This is the fundamental idea of the Sankhya philosophy, of which the Yoga is avowedly the practical side. To translate this into our terms, we may say that the Seer is the spiritual man; the instrument of vision is the psychical man, through which the spiritual man gains experience of the outer world. But we turn the servant into the master. We attribute to the psychical man, the personal self, a reality which really belongs to the spiritual man alone; and so, thinking of the quality of the spiritual man as belonging to the psychical, we merge the spiritual man in the psychical; or, as the text says, we think of the two as forming one self.
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Themes
Cosmic Dualismtheology

Ontological opposition between two primal principles (light/darkness, truth/lie, spirit/matter) as the fundamental structure of reality.

The passage distinguishes between the spiritual man (Seer) and the psychical man (instrument of vision) as separate levels of being.

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Self Knowledgesoteriology

The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology.

The passage explicitly states that self-assertion comes from thinking of the Seer and instrument of vision as forming one self.

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Related passages · 8 parallels
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188 So writes Schopenhauer in his Counsels and Maxims , and indeed it is very effectively expressed, but we have no foundation whatsoever for regarding man as the summit of that which nature has created. This is only THE HIGHEST THAT WE KN…”
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Shared concept: Self Knowledge — The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology. (derived)
neoplatonism|Select Works of Plotinus|Select Works, Section 119 (part 2)
The better elements are compelled into existence and moulded to their function by the Reason-Principle directly; the less good are potentially present in the Reason-Principles, actually present in the phenomena themselves; the Soul's power…”
Shared concept: Cosmic Dualism — Ontological opposition between two primal principles (light/darkness, truth/lie, spirit/matter) as the fundamental structure of reality. (derived)
neoplatonism|Iamblichus: On the Mysteries|Chapter VIII-ai
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Shared concept: Self Knowledge — The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology. (derived)
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The anonymous Cloud of Unknowing belongs, I believe, to the early part of the fifteenth century, and it is to be classed among the most signal presentations of the conditions and mode of the Union which I have met with in Christian literatu…”
Shared concept: Self Knowledge — The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology. (derived)
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Both philosophies, that of the East and that of the West [says Müller] start from a common point, namely from the conviction that our ordinary knowledge is uncertain, if not altogether wrong. This revolt of the human mind against itself is…”
Shared concept: Self Knowledge — The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology. (derived)