Looking Through a Wavy Mirror*

The Yoga Sutras provide us with a bag of tools to teach us how to use our minds to re-discover Truth/Freedom/Consciousness. If you are already Enlightened - no longer a Truth Seeker but a Truth Knower -you can stop reading now. You have no need for this book or blog because you are already established in Truth. Yogic practices are for purification of body-mind. Patanjali states:

I.3 Tada drashtuh svarupe 'vastanam
      Then [when thought waves are controlled] the seer (Truth, Consciousness) is established in his own
      true nature
 
An Enlightened Being has a clear, still mind that is not fooled by the body's sensory perceptions or states of mind. In sutra 1.4 Patanjali states that when we do NOT have control over our minds, our True Consciousness identifies with our thought waves:

I.4 Vritti sarupyam itaratra: In other states (of mind other than stillness), there is identification [of the Seer, Truth, Consciousness] with modifications of the mind.

This is tantamount to looking through one of those wavy mirrors in a House of Mirrors at a Fun Fair. Reflections may be distorted in some way: an elongated chin, long skinny arms, or a flat wide face that only looks a little bit like the real you. If we are upset about something, the world looks and feels dismal. But if we have had an exhilarating day, the same world looks and feels like an exciting place. The world hasn't changed; only our state of mind has. We are limited to the perception that our mind deduces from our senses, including our emotional state, until we begin to purify.