If emptiness is the most important thing—the foundation allowing all other things to happen—why is it so difficult for us to grasp?

For the answer, we return to the Great Mistake. We've said all along that—on one level—every single perception we ever have is mistaken. But if our mind is making some fundamental error every moment of our lives, then how can we ever catch ourselves making this mistake? The very instrument we're using is itself defective.

Some people claim that we never can see the truth with this defective mind. Others say we can, if we work by way of our self-awareness: a little independent corner of our mind that listens to and watches it, even though the mind itself never sees anything correctly.

The great Masters of history say that both of these ideas are silly. As Master Patanjali himself mentioned in the opening verses, there are two other routes for approaching the foundation truth of emptiness. One is reasoning—like an actor in a movie who explains to the audience how the movie can't be real. This leads to a direct, correct experience of ultimate reality during meditation, triggered by the purest of seeds.