- The modifications of the mind are always known to its lord on account of
the changelessness of the Purusa.
As soon as an object colours the mind the modification is at once witnessed by
the Purusa and it is this witnessing by the Purusa which brings about the ‘knowing’ of
the object. The use of the word ‘witness’ for the reaction of the Purusa to the modifi-
cations taking place in the mind is not appropriate but is resorted to in order to distin-
guish it from the simultaneous mental process which is generally called perception.
All our words such as ‘knowing’, ‘perceiving’ are so closely identified with the activi-
ties of the mind that a new word is really needed to indicate this peculiar ultimate re-
action of the Purusa to all mental processes. But, in the absence of such a word in the
English language ‘witnessing’ will perhaps do for the present, provided we keep in
mind its special significance. This ‘witnessing’ by the Purusa of the modification pro-
duced in the mind is the second indispensable condition of ‘knowing’ any object by
the mind, the first being its ‘colouring’ by the object. Researches in psychology have
shown that the mind is frequently modified by external objects even though it is not
aware of them at the time, the proof of such modifications having taken place lying in
the fact that such impressions can be recovered later from the mind by hypnotizing the
person. So that, the ‘witnessing’ by the Purusa of the modifications produced in the
mind is independent of the conscious activity of the mind. This is the significance of
the word Sada which means literally ‘always’ or ‘ever’. What is meant to be conveyed
in the Sutra is that the Purusa is aware, in an unbroken manner, of all the changes
which are taking place in the mind and it is not possible for any change to escape his
notice. This is so because he is eternal. It is only a changeless, eternal consciousness
which can provide such a constant and perfect background for the continuous and
complex changes which are taking place in the mind. If the background itself is