# How We Hear Ourselves Think **1) We have seen how we can catch the Great Mistake our mind is making, even without a little, separate part of our mind that watches our mind. How though can we explain our self-awareness, my awareness of “me,” without the same idea of a corner of our mind watching the rest of it?** The mind is like a mirror, and reflects the objects which are presented to it. When we see an apple, for example, our physical visual power first detects the colors and shapes of an object. It presents this information to our visual consciousness. A millisecond later, this awareness of colors and shapes is presented to our mental consciousness: we are aware of ourselves seeing something, which we interpret as an apple. We might think then something like “I am seeing an apple.” This mental sound is presented again to our mental consciousness, which becomes aware of the thought. And so it’s not really that one part of our mind is watching another part of our mind in the moment. Rather, “I” is always a millisecond behind my perceptions, aware of things only the split second after they happen. **2) Give and explain the Sanskrit and Tibetan words for that idea of a corner of the mind that watches the mind; and add some related English words.** The Tibetan word for this (wrong) idea of self-awareness is rang-rik :$-:m#. Rang means self, and rig means perception. The corresponding Sanskrit is svabuddhi SvbuiÏ. Sva means self, and is found in the English words suicide, self, and secret. Buddhi means knowing or perception or awakened. This comes from a Sanskrit root √budh bux!, meaning to know or to wake or to be aware. This root appears in the English words bid, bode, and forbid, all based on an old word meaning to proclaim, to make aware. This root is obviously also related to the root √vid ivdœ, meaning to see or to know, and found in the English words wise, wit, and video. **3) Why are the objects of perception sometimes called “the basis” in Sanskrit?** Objects depend on subjects, and subjects rest upon objects. Objects are called a “basis” because they support a perception of them. Without an apple, we cannot have a perception of an apple. **4) Explain why a subject state of mind can never just “melt into” the object—explain why subjects and objects are necessarily different, and separate, using a common household object as an example.** On this question of subjects and objects, the ancient scriptures say that “a knife cannot cut itself; a man cannot ride on his own back.” If the mind could see itself in a single moment, it couldn’t be what was being seen, or what saw it. **5) In the fourth chapter, Master Patanjali says that subjects and objects must be separate from each other. In the second chapter, he said that our belief that subjects and objects are separate is the source of all our problems. What’s up?** When he says in the fourth chapter that subjects and objects are separate, what Master Patanjali means is that the mind cannot, in a single moment, perceive itself—and this is not how we catch ourselves making the Great Mistake. When he says in the second chapter that our belief that subjects and objects are separate causes all our problems, what the Master means is referring to is our lack of understanding that both subjects and objects are coming from the same seeds: if someone is giving me a problem today, I must understand that my own past actions have brought me to this place to meet this person; and brought the person here to be seen by me. **6) If it’s true that our minds are projecting or creating all the things around us, then doesn’t that mean that we are all alone in the universe, simply living within our minds?** Outer objects and other people may be a result of images that I am creating, but that doesn’t mean they’re not real, that they don’t exist “out there.” The seeds create them as out there. If you don’t think so, go out and stand in front of a moving car. Its steel bumper which your seeds are projecting, will strike your leg—which you are also projecting—and you’ll go to a projected hospital and get a very real projected hospital bill. **7) What question naturally comes up in our mind when we think about how we hear ourselves think?** Are we the person who is saying what we hear in our minds, or are we the one who is listening to what we hear in our minds? **8) How is it then that we hear ourselves think?** We are indeed undeniably hearing ourselves think. What’s actually happening is that seeds from how we have treated others are going off in our mind, and presenting thoughts to the mirror of our mind. We are not thinking our thoughts—the seeds are. **9) Suppose that it’s true that even the thoughts that we hear in our own minds are coming from mental seeds. If that’s the case, are we forever to be simply helpless witnesses of what the seeds present to us—whether it’s the outside world or our own thoughts?  What happened to free will?** We’ve been talking about this point throughout the whole Yoga Sutra so far. The fact is that we can’t control the present moment. It’s happening to us. It’s like dry cement. But we have every power and right—and we must use this power and right—to select what new seeds we plant in the garden of our mind.