Purusha and Prakriti — The Two Poles of Existence
The Samkhya-Yoga cosmology of two irreducible principles — Purusha (pure consciousness, the Seer) and Prakriti (primal matter-energy, the seen) — provides the metaphysical framework for understanding both bondage and liberation.
Samkhya philosophy (upon which Patanjali's yoga system is built) posits two eternal, irreducible principles: Purusha (pure consciousness — unchanging, silent, unmanifest, the witness of all) and Prakriti (primal matter-energy — unconscious, constantly changing, the substrate of all manifest phenomena including the mind). Purusha is what observes; Prakriti is what is observed. The problem (samsara, bondage) arises from the confusion of these two: Purusha mistakenly identifies with Prakriti (the mind, body, and their experiences), producing the false sense of personal selfhood that drives all suffering. Liberation (Kaivalya) is the permanent recognition of the distinction between them: the Seer seeing only itself, free from identification with the seen. What makes this metaphysics practically important is its direct application: every moment of genuine meditation is a moment of distinguishing Purusha from Prakriti — stepping back from identification with thoughts and experiences to rest in the witness awareness that is their unchanging ground.
The conjunction of the Seer and the seen is the cause of experience; the dissolution of this conjunction is the cause of liberation.
Philosopher David Chalmers' distinction between the 'easy problems' of consciousness (explaining cognitive functions) and the 'hard problem' (explaining why there is subjective experience) maps onto the Samkhya Purusha-Prakriti distinction: Prakriti can explain all cognitive functions, but Purusha — the fact of subjective experience itself — remains irreducible.
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali