The spaciousness of self-awareness: A phenomenological account of self-reflexivity in Patanjali′s Yoga philosophy

Like many other discussions regarding the nature of self-awareness in Classical Indian philosophical traditions, the commentators of Patanjali's Yogasastra deployed the metaphor of light or luminosity to defend the position that consciousness is self-reflexive. In this paper I discuss the way the commentarial tradition of Classical Yoga misinterpreted Patanjali's notion of self-reflexivity and articulate his account of self-awareness based on Vyasa's preferred metaphor of space (akasa). I also show how Patanjali ' s notion of self-awareness could be understood in terms of "spaciousness" by using Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception and Dan Zahavi's studies on the first-person perspective.