Sat-darshana Bhashya (translation)

Verse 22.

यदीशितुर्वीक्षणमीक्षितार-
मवीक्ष्य तन्मानसिकेक्षणं स्यात् ।
न द्रष्टुरन्यः परमो हि तस्य
वीक्षा स्वमूले प्रविलीय निष्ठा।II

To see the Lord without seeing the seer, That is but seeing with the mind. Separate from the seer, the Supreme is not. Real sight is the poise supreme of the Self in the deep.

If one sees the Lord without perception of one’s own Self which sees things other than itself, then this seeing of the Lord is but a mental seeing, a mental figure which however true in its own kind is only a mental image of the Lord, and not the highest and truest perception of Him. For real perception of the Lord is impossible without realisation of the self that sees. Thus Self-realisation is a condition precedent to God realisation. In order to impress the truth that Self-realisation consists of an intimate experience of God as one’s own deepest being, the Self, ever luminous as the supreme I-consciousness in the mystic centre called the Heart, it is suggested that the seeing self must first be realised before one can perceive the Lord. And in the realisation of one’s own self, the root of one’s existence is experienced as the source of all existences, the Lord, and nothing is there which is different from Him or which is not Himself, ’All are He’; and this is the true perception of the Lord. But the subjective self the visayi, the mental being manomaya can have a vision of the Lord and that is naturally a mental vision of God.

But the Self behind the mental being does not perceive the Lord by means of the mind, but sees Him by itself without any means other than itself, and this is direct perception.

There is a natural and supreme poise of the self, which is the source of mind and there the Lord is realised as one’s own deepest being, the Real Self. That is why it is stated ’separate from the seer is not the supreme.’ It is a fact that the jiva or the soul is identical with parama the supreme being in the sense that both are of the same consciousness. But this knowledge by identity presupposes or involves a consciousness which is not mental in its character, a consciousness which is the basis not only of one’s own being but of all-being as well as of God-being. This consciousness then is a settled natural state of the Self, a sublime and unshakable poise, and this is attained by the ego-mind or the mental being withdrawing itself from the outer and going deeper into its origin in the deepest being, the Self where the individual soul and the universal Lord are one and known by identity.

Then we have a description of Self-perception atmadarsan.