Asmitā
The root of asmitā is as: in the dhātu pātha, the meaning of as is bhuvi = ‘in being’
Asmitā is a joining of the verbal form ‘asmi’ and the suffix ‘tā’. Asmi means ‘I am’ and the suffix ‘tā’ means ‘the quality of’ which in total gives ‘the quality of I am’. This quality creates the feeling we have of being a separate individual and is most often referred to by the word ‘ego’ in English. Patañjali defines this further in Yoga Sūtra 2.6:
dṛg darśana śaktyoḥ ekātmatā iva asmitā ।
This sūtra tells us that the feeling of being a separate self is created by identifying the energy of our true limitless Self with a limited part of creation. Interestingly the words he uses for both the limitless and limited self, respectively dṛg and darśana, both have the same root, dṛś. Dṛś means ‘in seeing’, and by using words that share the same root to describe these opposing forces, Patañjali highlights their fundamental unity; the pair of apparent opposites grow from using the same root. Here, as so often in the sūtras, Patańjali makes an apparent distinction between aspects of creation in order to help clarify a subtle function of the mind, but the underlying unity of these aspects is also easily visible to those who know what to look for.
Patañjali uses the word dṛg, which means ‘the one that sees’, to refer to the limitless Self in order to highlight the quality that the limitless Self has of insight and perception. He uses the word darśana which means ‘that which is seen’ to refer to the limited self which is a concise way of saying that anything that we can see or have a cognisant capacity of is not who we truly are. Our thoughts, emotions and feelings are all things that we can see, and if we believe them to have an independent, inherent truth then we will generate a sense of separateness which Patañjali tells us later is the source of all our misery in this life.
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Citta
In order to know what citta refers to, we must first turn to the word cit. The root of the word cit is cit itself which has 3 meanings:
sañjñāne = in knowing
sañcetane = in being aware
smṛtyām = in remembering
The meaning of smṛtyām, ‘in remembering’, does not refer to the capacity of being able to remember lots of things at once, but to the ultimate function of memory which is to remember who we truly are. Likewise the sense of ‘in knowing’ and ‘in being aware’ is of the Self. So cit is the energy of Self-awareness, Self-remembrance and Self-knowing. It is a universal energy which has its own light and is most often translated by the word ‘consciousness’ in English. In the statement “sat-cit-ānanda” made in the Tejobindu Upaniṣad, cit is proclaimed to be a part of our true nature which is usually translated as “truth, consciousness, bliss”.
Citta is cit with the suffix ‘ta’ added to it. If we look at the energetic quality of the suffix ‘ta’ as explained in the Maheśvara Sūtras the ‘ta’ refers to the active force or energy that creates a sense of self. So the citta is the Self cognisant universal energy of the cit brought into an individual form. It has a luminous quality that allows us to be aware of our buddhi, asmitā and manas and which creates the mirage of their inherent independent reality. So we tend to identify with these aspects of our mind, believing ourselves to be them, rather than turning toward the light which allows us to see these aspects of our mind.
By using the word citta in this sūtra, Patañjali points us toward the mechanism behind the thoughts, and not the thoughts themselves; whether they are busy or still is irrelevant as this is something that always changes. Patañjali is instead pointing to the space which allows the feeling of the buddhi and asmitā to function, the thoughts of the manas to arise, and to what it is that creates the illusion of their inherent truth and validity.
Patañjali’s interest in this domain of knowledge rather than in the actual thoughts themselves is emphasised by his use of the word citta twenty-one times throughout the Yoga Sūtras and manas only three. If we do not make the distinction between these two very different aspects of mind we will miss the depth and subtlety of Patañjali’s work.