Patanjali Yoga Sutra - 40

From the atom to the cosmos

Paramanuparama mahathwanthaha asya vasheekaraha

By the several practices of keeping the mind to stay as one whole without shattering into as many pieces of thoughts that it encounters, moment by moment, it gains the infinite capacity to penetrate into the subtle truth of the tiniest atom and is also able to easily comprehend the complex unfolding of the cosmos. From the microcosm to the macrocosm, such a mind is able to comprehend anything. - Swahilya Shambhavi (swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com) Fitness, Satori

Patanjali Yoga Sutra - 39

Form or place that you love

Yathabhimata Dhyanat Va

Or by meditating on a chosen object, place, person that one feels good within.

This sutra gives the ultimate freedom for meditation. The last of the several means of meditation to prevent the mind from breaking into pieces of mind and remain rather in peace and in one whole.

The last method suggested is that one can take up anything that they love to do or see and meditate upon that. The subject of meditation goes without saying that it should be an uplifting topic, music, personality, object or place. When one contemplates in this manner, the vibrations of the mind is at once connected to the subtle vibration of the topic, person, place or thing that it ponders about and becomes one with it. - Swahilya Shambhavi.

Patanjali Yoga Sutra - 38

Contemplations of visions in dream and sleep

Swapna Nidra Gnanalambanam Va





There is yet another way of bringing the mind to a state of tranquility. That is by recalling and meditating upon any clear vision of truth that we may have had during the dream state and the deep sleep state.


Though we might not be aware, dreams happen during the time just after we go to bed and even while we are fast asleep. Nidra or sleep as we saw in one of the first few Sutras is among the five activities of the mind. Not all dreas should be meditated upon. Most of them can revolve around the undigested thoughts of fear, anger, jealousy, hatred or fundamentally an unnecessary emotion.
Some dreams can be visions of truth too. Recently I experienced such a dream - of myself being a blob of liquid floating in a vast ocean in a subtle human form nevertheless. I am looking up to another similar blob of liquid - another human being for love, grace and benediction.
For a moment, I pause and look beneath my watery feet and it is a deep ocean with unfathomable, yet crystal clear water. The bed of the ocean is no sand, but an orb of light like a moon almost glimmering and from the bottom there are bubbles of love that rise to the surface. In the same dream, I contemplate and realise that the same love, grace, blessings and energy that I look forward to receiving from another person is available all around. And even the other person who will give us also takes from this same ocean to do so. This was not surprisingly a vision of the conscious mind while meditating, but something that I recall happening in deep sleep!
- Swahilya Shambhavi (Fitness, Satori)

Patanjali Yoga Sutra - 37

Focus on the one

devoid of passion

Veetaraga Vishayam Va Chittam

Another method of bringing the mind to lovingly rest with consciousness is to set it upon a self-realised individual who has renounced all passions. What the mind sees, that it becomes. It can be the image of a deity or the form of the Guru or the Master. As the mind focusses on the form

in the picture or an idol in a temple or a living personality in front of him or her, reading about such a person, meditating upon him or her who is not swayed by passion - a Vairagi or desireless person, the mind also becomes so and rests quietly at the altar of consciousness instead of being swayed like the waves of an ocean caught up in a storm.

Swahilya Shambhavi (swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com) Fitness, Satori