Yogaśāstra 4.18–21: Citta Is Not Self-Luminous

Because citta is seen or apprehended (dṛśya), it is not self-luminous (svābhāsa), any more than the sense faculties and sense objects are. Fire is no counterexample: illumination requires the conjunction of an illuminator with something illuminated, not a thing’s conjunction with itself. The fact that beings apprehend their own buddhi movements as “I am angry” or “I am afraid” confirms precisely that citta is apprehensible.

In a single moment, citta cannot determine both its own form and another form. The Bhāṣya thereby rejects the momentarist assumption that one and the same arising is both the event and its operative factor, and excludes citta’s simultaneous self-illumination and cognition of an object.

If one citta were apprehended by another, the latter would in turn have to be apprehended by another; an infinite regress and a confusion of the memories corresponding to the many cognitive acts would follow. Against such Buddhist models, Sāṃkhya and Yoga posit puruṣa as the master and experiencer of citta.