Re: [FairfieldLife] Do Purusha(s) Have Agency (the capacity to "act")

[emptyb...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]]

SoundofStillness,
  
 Strictly speaking Purusha, for Patanjali, is not an observer but rather is a 
witness (sakshin) to the activities of consciousness (chitta). 
 
 The concept "observer" is a relational term defining the function of 
self-reflexivity by the chitta. Self-reflectivity means the active functioning 
of the ahamkara (the foundational idea 'I, I') that seeds cognitive activity 
and along with our various forms of self-identity. 
 
 If you ask TM teachers, you get recollections about MMY's descriptions of 
wakefulness "inside" during meditation and its carry-over into ordinary waking, 
dreaming, sleeping (resulting from gradual purification).
 
 Perhaps you have never examined the way Patanjali used the word "Purusha" in 
the Yoga Sutras. This concept has a significant history in the history of Vedic 
texts. The various ideas described by the term "Purusha" and its correlates are 
detailed in Georg Feuerstein's book, The Philosophy of Classical Yoga, Chapter 
II The Self, starting on page 15. (You can view this chapter on Google 
Scholar). 
  
 Particularly interesting is his diagram of the various metaphors that 
Patañjali used for the term “purusha” in the Yoga Sutras:
  
 Metaphor of Otherness: para
 Metaphor of Seeing: drashtri, drg-shakti, drishi, drishi-mâtra
 Metaphor of Owning: svâmin, prabhu, grahîtri          
 Metaphor of Cognizing: chiti, chiti-shakti
  
 He continues:
  
 “Nowhere in the Yoga-Sutra is there a full-fledged definition of the concept 
of purusha, and the most probable reason for this is that by the time of the 
composition of Patañjali’s vade mecum (guidebook) its precise meaning was 
perfectly evident. The opposite must have been true of the concept of išvara 
which Patañjali carefully demarcates from its popular usage in the sense of 
‘creator’. From the few references in the Yoga-Sutra it is clear beyond doubt 
that the concept of puruša is remarkably akin to certain conceptions delineated 
in the epic (mahabharata) and other pre-classical Sanskrit works. It expresses 
the notion of man’s ‘transcendental identity’, here rendered with ‘Self’ or 
‘transintelligible subject’, as distinct from the world-ground (prakrti) both 
in its noumenal form as pradhâna and in its manifest forms as the objective 
universe (drshya). The Self is an aspatial and atemporal reality which stands 
in no conceivable relation to the composite world of phenomena nor to their 
transcendental source. It is sheer awareness as opposed to consciousness-of and 
in this respect is the exact antithesis of the world-ground which is by 
definition insentient. This Self is considered the authentic being of man.” 
(pg. 19)
  
 Consider giving it a look so you can compare.