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The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book 4 - Illumination
21. If knowledge of the mind (chitta) by a remoter mind is postulated, an infinite number of knowers must be inferred, and the sequence of memory reactions would tend to infinite confusion. One of the explanations of the functions of the mind is to predicate its capacity to detach itself from itself and view itself as a thing apart. In this way, it becomes a confusion of detached parts, remote from each other and leading (as the idea is carried forward to a logical conclusion) to a chaotic condition. All this has risen from the refusal of orthodox thinkers along philosophical and [415] mental lines to admit the possibility of there being an entity, detached and apart from the mind who simply seeks to use it as a means to knowledge. The problem has arisen very largely from the fact that this thinker cannot be known until the mind is developed; he can be sensed and felt by the mystic and the devotee but knowledge of him (in the usual significance of the term) is not available until the instrument of knowledge, the mind, has been developed. Here is where Eastern knowledge comes in and clarifies the work so marvellously done by the mental and Christian scientists. They have emphasized the fact of mind, individual and universal, and our debt to them is great. The nature of mind, its purpose, control, its problems and processes are subjects of common discussion today whereas one hundred years ago this was not the case. But with it all, much confusion remains as the result of our modern tendency to deify the mind and to regard it as the one important factor. Eastern science comes to our rescue and says to us that back of the mind is the thinker, back of perception, the perceiver is to be found, and behind the object of observation lies the one who observes. This perceiver, thinker and observer is the immortal imperishable ego, the soul in contemplation.
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