Patanjali Yoga Sutra - 12

Ready, Steady Go...

Drashtanushravika Vishaya Vithrushnashya Vasheekara Samgnya Vairagyam

*****

The practice needs to be done for a long period of time. As a result of the practice of Yoga, what happens? This is the subject of the 15th Sutra. The practitioner has lesser and lesser attachment to temporal objects that are perceived by the senses. The objects outside that were all along holding a sway on the individual, ceases to control the person who is practising Yoga. He acquires a quality of mind called Vairagyam when he remains unmoved by pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow and is not attached to one particular thing, person or situation. A person with vairagya lives in the present moment and is no longer tussled by the whims and fancies of others. He is established firm as a rock in his own self.

What is the use of Vairagya - Dispassion and non-attachment? In the event of a calamity, say a flood situation, people are running helter skelter, confused and not knowing what to do. There are people who escape and run back into their homes, to pick up jewels and other property they think are valuable, but lose their life in the process. A person with Vairagya will not lose his mind in transcient objects or treasures, but will instead be totally in the present moment, save himself and many others too, because he has learnt to keep his mind steady and is unmoved by fear, anxiety, worry or any kind of fleeting emotions.

(Picture: I still have many pictures above the clouds and of the earth below from the skies. Yet to heed to Nature Nut JJ Loch's request to send some rays her way, I have posted a picture of warm sunshine over a banana tree in Chennai!)- Swahilya Shambhavi. (Bhagavad Gita, Vignana Bhairava Tantra, Tirumandiram, swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com)

Patanjali Yoga Sutra - 11

Effort with Patience

Sa tu deerghakala Nairantarya Satkara Aadara Aasevito Dridha Bhoomihi

The effort of Yoga is to watch events, people and places from the Consciousness and not through the mind. Consciousness can be likened to the space inside the home. The window with the screen are the eyes and other sense organs. To function through the mind is like viewing and interpreting the events happening outside or the actions of people moving about with the screen covering the window. The viewing happens with only that much clarity that the screen allows.

But the practice of Yoga helps us to draw the screen over the window when we need it and pull it to a corner when we want to see clearly. Yoga helps in clearing up this screen, yet retain it transparent and clean for use when needed.

This line of the Yoga Sutra says that to achieve this clarity of the mind, the practice or Sadhana should be done with attention, care and reverence, uninterrupted over a long period of time, nurturing the thought with care, practicing it repeatedly with zeal. This will help to firmly root the understanding of yoga at the physical and mental level with success.

(Picture: Wet snow over the earth through the window screen.) - Swahilya Shambhavi. (Bhagavad Gita, Vignana Bhairava Tantra, Tirumandiram, I Am That, swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com)

Patanjali Yoga Sutra - 10

Practice to stay there


Tatra Sthithau Yathnobhyasaha:
Practice leads to perfection. This line says that once the mind is disciplined, with the aid of constant practice, sufficient effort has to be taken to sustain the mind steadily on an object of concentration, focus or study. The Patanjali Yoga Sutra is a text of universal applicability. For a school child, quietening the mind will help her to focus on studies and play well. For a lover, a quiet and tranquil mind can help to focus on the beloved. For a scientist, a still mind will help him slice through her slide and land on a scientific truth with clarity. For a meditator, a serene mind can help to pick pearls of wisdom with insight into consciousness.
The Yoga Sadhana (practice) that is prescribed are ways to quieten the flow of thoughts and raise the mind to serene heights or tranquil depths. Practice is still required to sustain the mind in such tranquility when required. Sadhana or effort is required up to a point when such a calm texture of the mind, becomes a way of life. - Swahilya Shambhavi.
(Picture: The plain branches reach out to the sky in New York's Central Park. The tree is like the mind in sadhana, trying its best to expand and grow and reach the greatest heights possible.)
(Bhagavad Gita, Vignana Bhairava Tantra, Tirumandiram, Maha Shivaratri, Chicago Satsang, Himalayas, swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com)

Patanjali Yoga Sutra - IX

Practice Dispassion

Abhyasa Vairagabhyam Tannirodhaha:

The mind has the five capabilities of cognition, misapprehension, imagination, deep sleep and memory. The nature of the mind is constant activity in trying to put its faculties to use. It always keeps trying to understand, interpret and report its feedback on the happenings in the world outside.

The key of yoga is to reign in the mind, which will then become obedient to the command of the intellect. The obedience in this case will be more like a friend or a lover, rather than as a servant to an overbearing and fearsome master.

By constant practice, the mind can be trained to listen to the intellect rather than acting on its own.

An example of the relationship between the intellect and the mind can be understood this way - the relationship between the CEO of a company and his personal secretary. The personal secretary of the mind has got all the five capabilities. But if he begins to use them on his own, it will be like the secretary receiving all office correspondences and issuing orders himself. A secretary is just supposed to receive the mails and the information and pass it on to the CEO who will take decisions and issue directions. The CEO may chose to ask the secretary for advice now and then, but the final decision is left to himself.

Patanjali says that by constant practice of Yoga - the different methods of practice are mentioned in the other Sutras, the energies of the restless, clueless mind can be harnessed and channelised to thoughts and activities that enrich and enhance the individual.

The purpose of keeping the mind trim and fit with Yoga also prevents the six types of aberrations that cause distortion - Kama - lust, Krodha - anger, Lobha - greed, Moha, Delusion, Mada - arrogance and Matsarya - jealousy.

By sustained practice of Yoga, the mind is not following in the direction of thoughts uncontrollably like a rudderless ship caught in a storm, but is held in charge by the intellect for what it choses to do.

(Photo: Sunset in Naperville, Illinois. A tranquil mind is a friend in need for any work at all times.) - Swahilya Shambhavi.

(Maha Shivaratri, Bhagavad Gita, Vignana Bhairava Tantra, Satsang in Chicago, Tirumandiram, Himalayas, swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com)

Patanjali Yoga Sutra - VIII

Remembering

Anubhuta Vishaya Asampramoshaha Smritihi

To remember is the fifth quality of the mind. An incident that happened, a song or speech that one heard, the names and faces of people, emotional feelings, concepts and ideas one has read or recollection of any experience through the five sense organs is called Smriti or Memory.

To re-member (hyphen used deliberately to signify that the word means to connect again) means to attach the mind from the present moment, to some name, object, situation, concept or experience. I travel to the Himalayas, see the mountains, rivers, temples, sights, scenes and people. Now sitting in Chicago, I re-member my experience in the Himalayas and connect my mind to it. Depending on the , understanding and my response to the experience, the memory can be good or bad, comfortable or uncomfortable, joyous or sad.

Yoga, the technique of connecting the individual mind with the cosmic mind, uses smriti or memory to re-member the biggest, infinite existence and become that in the present moment.

Every moment spent at the altar in prayer is an exercise in Smriti of Jesus Christ, Allah, Shiva or the Para Brahman - connecting our mind to that person or thing that we are thinking about. Every act of chanting a mantra or repeating an affirmation is to use this faculty of Smriti to re-member oneself with the name and form we think about.

(Photo: Our actions are the results of Smriti or memory. One who thinks of Consciousness has written 'Om' on snow while another who has thought of a greeting has written 'Hi' in the same snow.) - Swahilya Shambhavi.

(Maha Shivaratri, Bhagavad Gita, Vignana Bhairava Tantra, Himalayas, Satsang in Chicago, swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com)

Patanjali Yoga Sutra - VII

Sleep

Abhavapratyayalambana Tamovrittir Nidra: The mind has the faculties of cognition - Pramana, misapprehension - Viparyaya and imagination - Vikalpa. It has a fourth capability too, which happens to all at the end of day time - sleep.

Sleep happens daily at night and sometimes during the day too, when there is an absence of any thoughts, notions or ideas. The mind holds on to this attitude of a state of no thoughts when it takes rest, along with the body.

Either, when it is the time to sleep at night, or when the body is tired with hard work and exhausted and also when the mind is bored, it slips from conscious activities of working, talking and thinking and settls down like a wave that rises high and falls back into the ocean. Every living creature is a similar wave of expression that falls back to a few hours of rest.

During this period of rest, the mind is submerged in the super-conscious self and wakes up in the morning or at any time, after sleep -refreshed and rejuvenated.

(Photo: Sunset near the Aurora temple in Chicago. Even when day slips into night, it rests a while and wakes up refreshed next morning.) - Swahilya Shambhavi.

(Bhagavad Gita, Vignana Bhairava Tantra, Himalayas, Indians in Chicago, swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com).

Patanjali Yoga Sutra - VI

Imagination-Visualisation

Shabdagnananupati Vastushunyo Vikalpaha

Following Pramana and Viparyaya, Vikalpa is the third faculty of the mind. The mind is just like a toggle switch. Each time the same mind can function with one faculty or the other. When it sees something and grasps it, it becomes the understanding mind. At another time, the same mind can have a distorted vision, leading to misunderstanding.

Vikalpa is imagining something which is not, following sounds and words one is hearing or has heard before. The misunderstanding in the case of Viparyaya is a distorted vision. In the case of Vikalpa it is a doubt, uncertainty, indecision, hesitation, suspicion, contrivance, artfulness or a dilemma, caused by what one has heard. Many a time, our first impression of a person may get distorted if we have heard something unpalatable told about him/her by another. The opinion may change when we get to know the person more and find that what we heard was not true!

This can be seen most with children. If the child has heard a fake roaring sound of a lion, in a dark room, where it cannot see anything, it will hear the roar of a lion and cry, imagining a lion to be there.

Vikalpa is a function of the mind, negative when it gets anxious, imagining situations which are not and perceiving people different from what they actually are. A wife who is anxiously waiting for her husband to return home from office imagines some mishap if he is a little late, for instance.

The other end of Vikalpa is Sankalpa or creating a positive affirmation. This is a commonly practised self-improvement technique to create an image of a desired situation or goal and work for it to happen. A student who wants to become a doctor can create the image of becoming one in his or her mind and work to make that ideal a reality.

Great revolutions, movements, achievements in life are usually the result of a Sankalpa of an individual or a group of inspired people who work with a strong vision or a dream for the future. Vikalpa denotes the imaginative and creative faculty of the mind.

Photo: A night skyline view of the Chicago Tribune building. A building such as this is the result of the sankalpa of the architect who visualised it in his mind before even laying the foundation. - Swahilya Shambhavi.

(Bhagavad Gita, Vignana Bhairava Tantra, Himalayas, swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com)

Patanjali Yoga Sutra - 5

Misapprehension

Viparyayo Mithyagnanam Atadroopa Prathistam

Out of the five capabilities of the mind, Viparyaya, or the ability to misunderstand or misapprehend a situation or a person is the second.

Few are the people who can see the world with plain eyes. There are many who need power glasses. Some others see the world through coloured lenses and there are many who see the world through cracked glasses.

The mind is like a glass. When the glass is polished and clean, we can see clearly. When there is a stain on the glass, the vision also contains that stain, which is not in truth there.

The texture of the mind is dependent on the experiences a person goes through in this lifetime, his or her social, economic and environmental conditioning. And the differences we see among humanbeings at birth is because of the different experiences each one has gone through in the previous lifetimes and their response to it.

A clear mind is one that is not having disturbing thoughts. It is just like a serene surface of a lake with clear water. We can see through the lake and even the pebbles on its bed.

A disturbed mind is one that has rushing flow of thoughts. Though the telecast from the station is clear, if there is a problem with the television set, the picture will not have clarity.

To quote an example for misapprehension, we can take a rose for instance. A rose is simply a rose. A botanist will call it with a botanical name and look at it as a specimen to study due to his academic conditioning. A poet will look at it with a poetic mind and sing that life is not a bed of roses, but has its thorns too. A lover will see the same rose as a possible gift for his beloved and plan how to pluck it. A priest might be wondering how to offer it at the altar of his deity while a bee will be sipping the honey from the flower without a thought!

There will be misunderstanding and misapprehension as long as the thoughts agitate in the mindscreen in multiple, criss-crossing frequencies. When the mind is fine-tuned, with the practice of Yoga, then the screen is not agitated and helps the individual to perceive people, circumstances and situations with clarity. - Swahilya Shambhavi.

(Bhagavad Gita and Vignana Bhairava Tantra. (swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com)

Patanjali Yoga Sutra - 4

Three types of cognition

Prathyaksha Anumana Agamaha Pramanani:

Out of the five different activities of the mind, Pramana or its cognitive ability using its own yardstick is of three types.

The first is Pratyaksha. Through the five senses, the mind recognises an object directly and clearly. For instance, if there is a tree before you, your eyes see the form and the different colours of the tree. Your ears perceive the sounds of the rustling leaves and the birds on the tree. The tongue can taste its leaves and fruits and know about the tree. The nose can, by smell, understand the presence of a tree and the skin can touch, feel and know that the tree exists. This is the direct cognitive capacity of the mind through the five sense organs.

Anumana is the second tyle of understanding by the mind. For instance, you are standing on a ground where a tree existed before, but has been chopped of presently. From your previous exposure to a similar tree, your mind can understand how this tree would have been and recall its smell, sounds, texture, colour, taste and looks.

The third faculty of cognition by the mind is through the Agamas or a body of information compiled or written by reliable sources. This applies to understanding abstract ideas. For instance you wish to know about the world. It is too big for your five senses to grasp. So you look up a globe or an atlas compiled by sources you think are reliable.

It is the same with concepts such as Yoga. You refer to the yoga sutra, the Bhagavad Gita or the Upanishads or any sacred texts for that matter. For an understanding of abstract concepts and ideas, the cognitive faculty of the mind relies on Agama or texts that have been written down in the past. - Swahilya Shambhavi. (Bhagavad Gita and Vignana Bhairava Tantra. (swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com)

Patanjali Yoga Sutra - 3

Five functions of the mind

Vritti Sarupyam Itaratra

Vrittayah Panchatayyah Klishtaklishtaha

Pramana Viparyaya Vikalpa Nidra Smritayaha

*****

When the mind is tranquil, it can grasp the truth. But when the mind is distracted, there is a misunderstanding of the truth in terms of quality and depth. Just as the pure white light of the sun gets refracted into many colours, giving rise to illusionary patterns, a mind that is tossing about does not allow a clear perception of the truth.

There are five activities of the mind. They can be either of help in creating a feel-good factor, or can create a lot of misunderstanding and disturbance.

The five activities of the mind are Pramana - Cognition of, understanding and grasping an object or an idea. Viparyaya - Misapprehension or confusion. Interpreting what one sees in ways it is not actually, misunderstanding. Vikalpa - Imagination. One can imagine a positive situation, for instance - when caught in difficult circumstances, the mind can provide temporary relief by imagining a situation where there are no problems.

Vikalpa can be negative too. For instance, when a person approaches with a good intention, the mind can imagine the person approaching with an ulterior motive behind.

The fourth activity that the mind is capable of is called sleep. When all its faculties go to rest and does not work, the mind is at sleep. The mind is not on its office seat, minding its business of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching - but takes a holiday and shuts shop.

The last capability of the mind as described by Patanjali is memory. Whatever it has experienced through the five senses, is stored as memory in the unconscious and sub-conscious layers of the mind. When the situation requires, the conscious mind can remember and recall the object or situation. This quality of the mind helps us to identify objects and people and helps in calling a computer as a computer and a car as a car. If this faculty was absent, we would be calling the tree a tubelight or a chair as daddy!

(Photograph: Geese wading in a rainwater percolation pond off a Naperville road in Chicago.)

(On Bamboo Wisdom find a verse-by-verse explanation of the Bhagavad Gita and on the Vignana Bhairava Tantra in Cosmic Consciousness - Swahilya Shambhavi. (swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com)