Between Ignorance - YS II - 5

Yoga Sutra II-5 - ANITYASUCI DUHKHANATMASU NITYA SUCI SUKHATMAKHYATIR AVIDYA - Ignorance is regarding the impermanent as permanent, the impure as pure, the painful as pleasant, and the non-Self as the Self.

Swami Satchidananda says of this sutra that Patanjali is explaining what ignorance is. (The previous sutra broke down the categories of ignorance.) He is not speaking about not knowing an object, like a piece of fruit, if one had never seen it before. Swami Satchidananda is referring to last part of the sutra the basic ignorance: "regarding the non-Self as the Self." He questions what is Self and non-Self? He says that the Self is what is eternal, never changing and always everywhere as the very basic substance. In other words, whatever exists is the Self. But because of our ignorance we see the Self as different objects.

We as human beings basically regard our body as to who we are and we identify with being a man, woman, black, white, being hungry or lame. Satchidananda says that all these are conditions and qualities of the body. Like if we say we are sick, he asks who is sick? It's the body, not who we really are - the Self. And whenever we make that type of identification, it is when we identify with the non-Self (the part that changes). Any type of feelings of the mind are modifications (vrittis). Once we have understood this then nothing can disturb us in this world. Things will come and go, it is not who we really are.

He ends the commentary with asking who is practicing Yoga. The answer is the mind along with the body. Basically our true nature, the eternal Self does not need any practice. "So, Yoga is neither for a person who has gained the light nor for the totally ignorant person who doesn't bother to know anything." Swami Satchidananda is saying that yoga is for the person in between and to dispel this ignorance(in between) that Yoga is practiced.