which shines by its own light but like the moon which shines by the light of another
heavenly body. The fact that the mind is perceptible follows from our ordinary experi-
ence of being able to watch its activities and modifications whenever we want to do so.
It is true that when our attention is directed outwards we are not conscious of the
changes which are taking place in our mind, but we can at any moment direct our at-
tention inwards and observe these changes.
This fact of the mind being perceptible and performing its function of percep-
tion through the agency of some other power is brought home to the Yogi more vividly
in Samadhi when he transcends different levels of the mind one after another. At each
critical stage of this process of diving inwards towards the centre of his being, as he
leaves one level of the mind for another, the perceiver seems to become the perceived.
This continuous shifting of the boundary between the subjective and the objective
proves to the Yogi that not only the lower concrete mind but even its subtlest grades
are mere mechanisms of perception. The source of illuminating power of conscious-
ness is somewhere else—in the Purusa.
- Moreover, it is impossible for it to be of both ways (as perceiver and
perceived) at the same time.
The fact that the mind is perceptible is a matter of experience. Now, if the mind
is perceptible it cannot at the same time be the perceiver. The same thing cannot be the
perceiver and the perceived. If the mind is perceptible it follows that there must be a
power, of the nature of consciousness, which enables the mind to perform its functions
of perception. Since the mind seems to perform its function of perception through the
power of consciousness it cannot perceive consciousness itself, or to put it in other
words, consciousness cannot be the object of perception by the mind. That is why it is
impossible for us to know what consciousness is in itself as long as we are within the