Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Book II · 20 of 55 · tr. Charles Johnston
Sutra 20
The Seer is pure vision. Though pure, he looks out through the vesture of the mind. The Seer, as always, is the spiritual man whose deepest consciousness is pure vision, the pure life of the eternal. But the spiritual man, as yet unseeing in his proper person, looks out on the world through the eyes of the psychical man, by whom he is enfolded and enmeshed. The task is, to set this prisoner free, to clear the dust of ages from this buried temple.
§ Ask Guru about this passage →Themes
Inner Lightanthropology
The divine spark or luminous quality residing within the human person, potentially recognisable through introspection.
The passage explicitly identifies the Seer as 'pure vision' residing within the spiritual man whose deepest consciousness is pure.
All passages →Self Knowledgesoteriology
The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology.
The text centers on the spiritual man's task to see himself in his proper person and recognize his true nature as the Seer.
All passages →Related passages · 6 parallels
christian_mysticism|The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme|Chapter 1 (part 4)
“Let them, therefore, again go out with their will from their wilful ignorance or malignity and enter again into the will of God." ( Menschwerdung , 3, 5.) All this goes to show that it is useless and vain to seek for divine wisdom, meaning…”
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|Iamblichus: On the Mysteries|Chapter VIII-ai
“with evil dæmons], which are hurled forth before the Gods, but on entering the interior parts of the temple, unmoved, and guarded by the mystic rites, they genuinely receive in their bosom divine illumination, and divested of their garments…”
Shared concept: Self Knowledge — The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology. (derived)
western_esoteric|The Book of Ceremonial Magic (A.E. Waite)|Page 5 (part 2)
“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)
western_esoteric|Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky)|Chapter XXII (part 4)
“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)
neoplatonism|Iamblichus: On the Mysteries|Chapter XXI
“Is, therefore, what you add in the third place more true; viz. “ that there is a certain mixed form of hypostasis, consisting of our soul and divine inspiration externally derived ?” Consider this then more accurately, lest we should be dec…”
Shared concept: Inner Light — The divine spark or luminous quality residing within the human person, potentially recognisable through introspection. (derived)
christian_mysticism|The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme|Chapter 10 (part 3)
“It was she in whom the voice of God promised again to introduce the living, holy substance from heaven, and to generate anew and in divine power the faded image of God that was contained therein." 1 ( Grace , vii.
18.) This, however, did n…”
Shared concept: Inner Light — The divine spark or luminous quality residing within the human person, potentially recognisable through introspection. (derived)