Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Book IV · 20 of 34 · tr. Charles Johnston

Sutra 20

Nor could the Mind at the same time know itself and things external to it. The truth is that the 'mind' knows neither external things nor itself. Its measuring and analyzing, its hoping and fearing, hating and desiring, never give it a true measure of life, nor any sense of real values. Ceaselessly active, it never really attains to knowledge; or, if we admit its knowledge, it ever falls short of wisdom, which comes only through intuition, the vision of the Spiritual Man. Life cannot be known by the 'mind,' its secrets cannot be learned through the 'mind.' The proof is, the ceaseless strife and contradiction of opinion among those who trust in the mind. Much less can the 'mind' know itself, the more so, because it is pervaded by the illusion that it truly knows, truly is. True knowledge of the 'mind' comes, first, when the Spiritual Man, arising, stands detached, regarding the 'mind' from above, with quiet eyes, and seeing it for the tangled web of psychic forces that it truly is. But the truth is divined long before it is clearly seen, and then begins the long battle of the 'mind,' against the Real, the 'mind' fighting doggedly, craftily, for its supremacy.

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Themes

Detachment Gelassenheitpraxis

Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.

True knowledge comes when the Spiritual Man stands detached and regards the mind from above.

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Gnosis Direct Knowledgesoteriology

Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.

The passage explicitly contrasts the 'mind's' fallible knowledge with wisdom that comes only through intuition and vision.

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