---
type: Concept
bundle: yoga-darshana
bundle_version: "0.2.0"
id: viveka-khyati
title: "Viveka-Khyāti"
iast: "Viveka-Khyāti"
devanagari: "विवेकख्याति"
description: "Sustained discriminative awareness of Puruṣa's difference from Prakṛti — not a flash of insight, not generic wisdom."
darshana:
  - Pātañjala Yoga
  - Sāṃkhya
text_source: "YS 2.26-2.28, 3.55"
tags:
  - Yoga
  - Patanjali
  - viveka
  - khyati
  - discrimination
  - liberation
  - avidya
  - purusha
  - prakriti
not:
  - term: "insight"
    why: "insight in English is a sudden cognitive event; viveka-khyāti in Yoga Darśana is the sustained, unbroken *discriminative awareness* of Puruṣa's difference from Prakṛti — not a moment of realization but a cultivated perceptual capacity that must be maintained and deepened until it becomes permanent"
    instead: "Keep Viveka-Khyāti untranslated; do not substitute the English term."
  - term: "wisdom"
    why: "wisdom captures the positive valence but loses the technical precision: viveka is specifically *discriminative* knowing — the knowing-that-distinguishes; khyāti is recognition or appearance; together the compound refers to the ongoing cognitive recognition of the Puruṣa/Prakṛti distinction"
  - term: "enlightenment"
    why: "enlightenment in English typically refers to the final liberation; viveka-khyāti is the immediate *means* to liberation (kaivalya), not liberation itself; the distinction is important: viveka-khyāti is still a Sattvic vṛtti, and must ultimately be transcended"
  - term: "self-realization"
    why: "self-realization carries Vedāntic associations (realization of the self as Brahman); in Yoga Darśana, viveka-khyāti is the recognition of Puruṣa as *distinct from* citta, not as identical with anything; the Yoga framework is structurally different from the Vedāntic self-realization framework"
  - term: "discrimination alone"
    why: "discrimination in ordinary English often refers to distinguishing between objects in the external world; viveka-khyāti is the specific discriminative wisdom that distinguishes Puruṣa from Prakṛti — the most fundamental distinction in the Sāṃkhya-Yoga system"
related:
  - /concepts/avidya-yoga.md
  - /concepts/purusha.md
  - /concepts/prakriti-yoga.md
  - /concepts/kaivalya.md
  - /concepts/sattva.md
  - /concepts/samprajnata-samadhi.md
  - /concepts/asamprajnata-samadhi.md
  - /concepts/klesha.md
timestamp: "2026-06-20"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Viveka-Khyāti — विवेकख्याति

**Not:** insight, wisdom, enlightenment, self-realization, discrimination alone

The sustained discriminative recognition of Puruṣa as permanently distinct from Prakṛti — the direct perceptual seeing that the witness is not the witnessed. Viveka-khyāti is the specific cognitive remedy for avidyā (the root misidentification of Puruṣa with Prakṛti) and is the proximate cause of kaivalya. It arises from the eight-limb path, matures in nirvicāra samādhi, and must be sustained until even itself is transcended.

## Etymology

- *viveka* — from √*vic* (to sift, to separate, to discriminate); the act of discriminating, separating, distinguishing
- *khyāti* — from √*khyā* (to be known, to appear, to be famous); recognition, appearance, disclosure
- *viveka-khyāti* — "the appearance/recognition of discrimination"; the dawning of discriminative awareness; the cognitive event in which the distinction between Puruṣa and Prakṛti becomes perceptually present

## YS 2.26 — Viveka-Khyāti as the Remedy

*vivekakhyātiraviplavā hānopāyaḥ*

"The unbroken (*aviplavā*) discriminative recognition (*viveka-khyāti*) is the means of cessation (of suffering)."

The word *aviplavā* — "unbroken, unfluctuating, not wavering" — is the key qualifier. Any practitioner can experience a moment of viveka. The *practice* is making that recognition sustained, unfluctuating, progressively deepening until it cannot be reversed.

## YS 2.28 — How It Arises

*yogāṅgānuṣṭhānādaśuddhikṣaye jñānadīptirāvivekakhyāteḥ*

"From the practice of the limbs of yoga comes the destruction of impurity; then the light of knowledge (*jñāna-dīpti*) shines up to discriminative recognition (*āviveka-khyāti*)."

The path is explicit: the eight limbs (*yogāṅga*) reduce impurity (*aśuddhi*) — which in this context means the Tamas and Rajas that obscure Sattvic citta. As impurity is removed, the *jñāna-dīpti* (light of knowledge — a Sattvic function of purified buddhi) shines progressively, up to and culminating in viveka-khyāti.

## Avidyā and Viveka-Khyāti as Structural Opposites

| Avidyā | Viveka-Khyāti |
|--------|--------------|
| Misidentification of Puruṣa with Prakṛti | Recognition of Puruṣa as permanently distinct |
| The root kleśa | The root liberation-event |
| The condition of ordinary experience | The condition progressively cultivated in practice |
| Obscured by Tamas (āvaraṇa) | Revealed by purified Sattva |
| Generates rāga, dveṣa, abhiniveśa | Dissolves all kleśas progressively |

## The Stages of Viveka-Khyāti

The Yoga Bhāṣya describes viveka-khyāti as arising in degrees corresponding to the samprajñāta stages:

1. **Prārabdha viveka** — initial glimpse; the discrimination appears in higher dhāraṇā or lower samprajñāta stages; easily lost
2. **Nirvicāra viveka-khyāti** — the discriminative recognition that arises in nirvicāra samādhi; *prajñā* is now stable enough to sustain the distinction between Sattva (the finest Prakṛtic faculty) and Puruṣa
3. **Vivekajam jñānam** (YS 3.55) — the knowledge born of discrimination; described as *tāraka* (saving, crossing-over); this is the fully mature form

## YS 3.55 — Tāraka Jñāna

*tārakaṃ sarvaviṣayaṃ sarvathāviṣayam akramaṃ ceti vivekajam jñānam*

"Knowledge born of discrimination (*vivekajam jñānam*) is saving (*tāraka*), has all objects as its domain, operates in all conditions, and is non-sequential (simultaneous)."

The mature viveka-khyāti has three remarkable characteristics:
- **All objects** — it perceives the Guṇa-constitution of everything simultaneously
- **All conditions** — past, present, and future are equally transparent; the time-sequence perception of ordinary cognition is transcended
- **Non-sequential** — it does not arise through inference or step-by-step reasoning; it is direct, simultaneous, comprehensive

This *tāraka* (saving, crossing-over) knowledge is the cognitive event that "saves" Puruṣa from continued identification with Prakṛti — not through intellectual understanding but through direct discriminative perception.

## The Trap of Viveka-Khyāti

Patañjali warns (YS 3.51) that even viveka-khyāti can become an object of attachment — *sattva-ahaṃkāra*: identification with the spiritual clarity of the discriminating faculty. The practitioner who attaches to viveka-khyāti stalls at the threshold of kaivalya. The prescription: *tadvairāgyādapi* — "dispassion even toward *that*" — releases the final attachment.

Viveka-khyāti is itself a Sattvic vṛtti. However refined, it is still a modification of citta. Kaivalya requires that even this last, most refined vṛtti is released into nirodha.

## Cross-References

- [Avidyā (Yoga)](avidya-yoga.md) — the root misidentification that viveka-khyāti dissolves
- [Puruṣa](purusha.md) — the witness whose distinct nature viveka-khyāti recognizes
- [Prakṛti (Yoga)](prakriti-yoga.md) — the Prakṛtic domain from which Puruṣa is recognized as distinct
- [Sattva](sattva.md) — the Guṇa whose predominance makes buddhi refined enough to produce viveka-khyāti; also the Guṇic foundation of the Sattvic trap
- [Samprajñāta Samādhi](samprajnata-samadhi.md) — the absorption range in which viveka-khyāti matures, particularly nirvicāra
- [Asamprajñāta Samādhi](asamprajnata-samadhi.md) — the absorption in which even viveka-khyāti's Sattvic vṛtti is dissolved
- [Kaivalya](kaivalya.md) — liberation; what follows when viveka-khyāti matures and even itself is transcended

## Audience Metaphor

Viveka-khyāti is what happens when you've been looking at a magic-eye poster your whole life, unable to see the hidden image — and then you see it. But unlike a magic-eye moment (which is instantaneous), viveka-khyāti is more like slowly learning to keep your eyes at the right focus: at first the hidden image (Puruṣa distinct from Prakṛti) appears only for a moment, then slips away. Practice makes the right-focus easier to find, easier to hold, and eventually effortless to sustain. Kaivalya is when you can no longer see the flat 2D surface at all — only the depth.

## Citations

1. [Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali](/references/yoga-sutras.md) 2.26-2.28, 3.35, 3.55
2. [Yoga Bhāṣya of Vyāsa](/references/yoga-bhasya.md) on YS 2.26
3. [Tattvavaiśāradī](/references/tattvavaisharadi.md) of Vācaspatimiśra on YS 2.26
4. YS 3.55: vivekajam jñānam as tāraka
