#29. From Gross To Subtle | Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali

Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily life meditation session with me,

Dehansi.

Those who understand waves,

They understand mind,

They understand life,

And they know the deepest secrets of life.

If you go to the shore of the ocean and you see waves coming in,

Breaking,

Some people enjoying the waves,

Some people getting crushed by the waves,

The waves that are on the shore,

That we see creating all the unrest,

All the unrest that we enjoy and that also we see as misery,

Where are these waves coming from?

If you understand the waves of the ocean,

You understand the waves of the mind,

The waves of our life.

When you stand on the shore and you look at the wave,

You think that it's coming from 50 meters,

100 meters.

Somewhere you see far off that the wave is forming and it is coming towards you.

But this wave is formed in hundreds of kilometers away in hundreds of meters of depth of the ocean.

The source of the wave which looks huge when it reaches you,

It starts in the heart of the ocean,

In the depth of the ocean,

Far far away.

And it travels all along this way,

All along this journey it takes to reach to the shore,

And the one on the shore,

The one who is enjoying the wave,

And the one who is crushed under the wave,

Has no clue where all this is coming from.

He may assume that it is just the current surroundings,

It is current situation,

It is the current space and time in which whatever is happening,

Is manifesting,

Is out of this time and space which he can perceive,

Which he can think of.

But the source of all this is far far away.

Why am I telling you this is exactly the same happens in our life,

Exactly the same functioning is happening in our mind,

In our consciousness,

In our life.

Good things,

Bad things,

Whatever is happening,

If you go to the source of it,

The source of it is far far away from the manifestation itself.

The manifestation is in front of us,

And right now we are discussing in this Yoga Sutras of Patanjali we are at a step where Patanjali is wanting us to focus on the miseries that we are going through.

He is saying don't ignore them,

See the source of these miseries,

Understand what these miseries are,

Otherwise you will keep on experiencing them throughout your life and you will never be really able to overcome them,

Abolish them and really take them out from the root.

So he is taking this moment,

Taking this opportunity while going through the sadhana path,

While going through the discipline of yoga,

While establishing yoga in our life so that we don't do only yoga,

We also live yoga.

Our life becomes yoga,

Our energies become yoga,

For that he says understand the source of misery,

Understand in your depths where is this misery coming from,

And it may not come just from where you see,

Not from the shore,

You may only be able to see a 100 meters,

200 meters,

But that's not where the source of the misery is.

He says really go far,

Deep in yourself.

In the previous sutras he classified for us these miseries in five different categories.

He said the first category is lack of awareness,

Second is ego,

Third is attraction,

Fourth is repulsion and fifth is clinging to life.

If you take any misery that you are going through in life,

Physical,

Psychological,

On any level,

Any misery that you are facing,

Can be classified in one of these five categories and you can from there on go to the root,

Go to the source of all these miseries,

All these misery creators.

And while going to the source,

How to go is what now Patanjali says in the next couple of sutras,

Which I will read out to you,

And we will meditate over these to let them unfold in our own consciousness.

Patanjali says,

The source of the five afflictions can be abolished by resolving them backwards to their origin.

The outward expression of the five afflictions disappear through meditation.

Only these two sutras are enough to set a framework how you would address the misery.

There are two levels,

One is the outer,

One is the surface,

When misery happens you have to address that as well.

When anger happens,

When any sort of sadness happens,

When depression happens,

When any kind of madness happens,

You have to address that also in the outer expression by becoming calmer,

By reflecting,

By being in the present moment.

But you have to go down to the source,

Unless you go down to the source,

You will not really eliminate the cause,

Eliminate the issue.

And going down to the source,

Here Patanjali gives a very important clue.

He says,

Go backwards.

Going backwards is something which allows us to navigate through and towards the source.

And this going backwards,

This pratiprasarva,

Is a very significant mechanism that is also utilized in several psychotherapies.

If you see all the psychotherapies that are based on going backwards into events of life,

Where sometimes you are put into hypnosis to be able to do that,

Or it is simply conversational,

Where you ask yourself questions and you go backwards.

So there are lots of ways in which you can go backwards.

While exploring the cause of the misery and while uprooting the cause of the misery,

You can go backwards in time.

No matter at what age you are,

Whatever expression,

Whatever manifestation of the misery that you are living,

There is some cause in the time,

In the timeline of your life.

Somewhere something happened,

It could be in your childhood where maybe you did not get enough love,

Maybe you had a conflict with some family member,

Maybe you got struck on something where it never got resolved afterwards.

And now all what you are doing in life,

Every action that you make,

Or your entire vision of life,

Your goal of life is somewhat defined by that one thorn that was stuck in your feet,

And it is still stuck in your feet,

And you are constantly trying to do everything in the moment to resolve,

To explain to yourself,

But you are never looking at that.

So you can go back in time,

You can reflect,

You must take out moments of your life where you just simply sit down.

And go backwards in time,

Year by year,

Going backwards until the very first moment of your life,

Until the moment you were born,

And when you go backwards,

You will start to feel when you will reach to a point where you will feel the unease in you.

It could be at any age,

It could be at any event,

So you will feel the unease and you will know that is the cause of your misery.

See that,

Reflect on that,

And take it out of your life so that the rest of your life does not suffer out of that.

Going backwards can be going backwards in thought,

In rationals,

In events where you see people explaining everything with a because,

With a rational.

Whatever is happening in their life is happening because of another rational,

Because of another event,

And then they explore the cause of their misery in events.

That is one way also of going backwards,

And when you go backwards this way,

You may find an event which happened in your life,

Which created the source of your misery.

But what I would like you to bring into your life through yoga is to go backwards from the gross to the subtle,

From the waves on the shore to the source of the waves in the depths of the ocean,

Because we are not just physical,

We are not just psychological,

We are not just in space and time,

So the cause of our misery is not just in the timeline of our life,

The events of our life,

Or our thinking process,

The cause of our misery is much more deeper,

Is much more subtler,

So we must go down that path,

That hole,

That rabbit hole which takes us from the gross to the very subtle,

The very depths of our own life.

The way to do it is to start with the mind,

Because that is what creates the whole physical for us,

The whole physical space and time that we live is created by the mind,

And we step down from the mind to the heart,

Because in the heart we feel,

Even before an event is happening,

Even before some experience is about to manifest,

We feel in the heart,

We feel in the heart,

Maybe we are not able to rationalize it,

Maybe we are unable to yet explain why something is happening,

But in the heart we feel it,

And we step down from the heart to our being where we are in pure intuition,

Where we are in pure consciousness,

Where we are in pure awareness,

That's where we have the ability to really come face to face with the very source of the very birth of the wave of misery,

And we can stop it right there before it even starts.

In the heart we can feel it before it is coming,

As if you are hearing it from a distance,

The train is coming,

And once you start to see it,

It comes to the level of thought,

But on the level of your being,

On the level of your intuition,

You see things happening before they are born,

And that's where you can stop them right there.

All what I have explained applies to every form of misery in your life,

And you can come out of it,

You can stop the source of misery in your life,

So that your life once again falls back to its default,

Falls back to its nature,

Which is bliss,

Which is happiness,

Which is pure awareness,

Silence,

Consciousness.

With that,

Let us sit in silence,

Let us reflect on this journey backwards from the mind to the heart to the being.

Please close your eyes,

Take a posture that is comfortable for you,

Take a deep breath,

Inhale from the nose,

And exhale from the nose,

Allowing your body to rest,

Your mind to be in this moment,

Your awareness turning inwards,

Taking a stop in this moment,

Acknowledging your body,

Your posture,

In this very moment,

Becoming aware,

As the awareness settles,

Shift your awareness to your mind,

And observe your mind quietly,

Silently,

Simply observing your thoughts,

Your inner conversation,

Anything that arises in your mind.

Don't try to change anything,

Simply observe your mind.

If there are many thoughts,

If there are less thoughts,

If there is no thought,

Simply observe your mind.

All what you observe is gross,

Is the manifestation,

Is the waves at the shore,

Is not the cause of the experience of your life.

From here on,

We'll move towards the subtle,

Towards your depths,

For everything that is happening in your mind,

Notice the feeling in your heart,

Of the expression in your body.

Notice your mind and heart are connected.

What you feel in your heart arises to your mind,

Becomes the thought,

Becomes the movement of your mind.

Let go of the mind.

All your attention on your heart,

On the feeling,

On the movement in your heart.

With every breath,

Awareness on your heart,

On your feeling.

All your attention on your heart,

On your feeling.

As you become aware,

Your heart settles,

The feeling becomes lighter.

The waves settle.

Notice you can go deeper,

Towards your navel,

Towards your being,

Your very core.

Notice you can go deeper,

Towards your being,

Your very core.

Shift your awareness further down,

Further deeper from your heart to your core.

Below the feelings,

The very subtle sensations,

Movements,

Waves in your inner space.

All your attention on your heart,

On your feeling,

On your feeling.

As your awareness settles at your core,

At your being,

Notice everything is still.

There is stillness.

You can choose to stay in the stillness,

In the silence.

All your attention on your heart,

On your feeling,

On your feeling,

On your feeling.

Stay in these depths,

In the deepest core of yourself.

Remaining still,

Centered and silent.

Maintain this meditative state as long as you like,

Before you open your eyes at your own pace.

I will see you tomorrow,

7am Central European Time.

Namaste.