#41. Rules For Higher Consciousness | Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali

Namaste.

For the next 30 minutes,

Tune into a place within yourself which is not concerned with the world,

Not concerned with others,

Not concerned with what you want to achieve,

What you don't want in life,

But very much about you.

These moments,

These 30 minutes,

Are so much about you,

Your truth,

Your inner experience of life,

Of what really matters.

Everything else around is just to enable you to have this experience of this wonderful thing called life.

And these 30 minutes of the meditation session are all about you and you tuning back into this inner space of peace,

Of bliss,

Of happiness,

Of love,

Compassion,

Of you being yourself,

Of you knowing yourself.

We are currently going through Yoga Sutras of Patanjali where we began the Ashtanga Yoga,

The eight limbs of yoga.

And right now we are talking about the Yama and the Niyama,

The self restraints and the Niyama,

The rules.

Before I go into the rules of the yoga as laid down by Patanjali,

I would like to say that there are two kinds of rules.

The rules of this world that we are living in,

They are all on the horizontal.

These rules are always keeping you on the horizontal plane.

They are made for you,

Me,

Us to function on this horizontal plane called the world.

If you see for thousands of years,

Man,

Human being has been the same,

Absolutely the same.

It does not matter how we organize ourselves as society.

It does not matter how we lived as culture,

What food we ate,

What things we did,

What work we did,

What people were around us,

What all technological progress that we made,

It did not matter.

The experience of life on this horizontal plane within the rules that we have set for ourselves were almost the same.

The experience was always the same,

The same pain,

The same pleasure.

And we must move above this horizontal plane.

And in order to move from this horizontal plane,

There is another set of rules.

The rules and conditions and values and a system in place which takes you above this horizontal plane.

And then these rules,

The second type of rules are the rules which are of the vertical.

These rules,

Laws,

Whatever you want to call them,

These are what enable you to lift from the horizontal,

To come out of this horizontal which you have been in for thousands of years and move towards the vertical.

What is that vertical?

This vertical is the spiritual growth,

Is the growth of consciousness,

Is the expansion of consciousness,

The unfoldment of consciousness,

Which leads to an experience of life which is more true,

Which is closer to bliss,

Which is closer to the authenticity of life.

And Patanjali in the Ashtanga yoga is establishing these rules,

These self-constraints,

These vows early enough so that you are first of all disciplined.

Then you can think about meditation,

Then you can think about spirituality,

Then you can think about anything else but first the rules,

First the self-restraining vows.

Yesterday we talked about the five vows and today we are going to go into the rules of the Ashtanga yoga.

See that these rules are not of the horizontal,

They are not made to keep you bounded.

These are not rules for limiting you,

These are the rules to make you limitless,

These are the rules to take you from the bounded to the unbounded.

And while giving these vows and rules,

Patanjali says these great vows are universal,

Not limited by class,

Place,

Time or circumstance.

Imagine the consciousness of Patanjali thinking through not for only the man that was in front of him,

Not only the man that was coming from a certain class,

From a certain place,

From a certain time.

He is thinking,

He is laying down these vows,

These rules for the entire spectrum,

For on the spectrum of time it does not matter on this horizontal plane when you are born,

When you are living,

In which place you are born,

Whether you are born in a privileged place or in an unprivileged place,

Whether you are born in good times or in bad times,

Whether it does not matter,

Your class,

Your place,

Your time,

Even your circumstance,

Whether you are doing great in life or you are not doing so well in life,

It does not matter.

He says these vows are universal.

And yesterday we went through these vows,

These vows were Ahimsa,

Non-violence,

Satya,

Truthfulness,

Asteya,

Non-stealing,

Brahmacharya,

Continents or celibacy in very loosely put,

But it is not celibacy,

And Aprigraha,

Non-greed.

These were the five vows that we discussed yesterday.

Today let's look at what are the rules of the game,

What are the laws that take you from the horizontal to the vertical.

Here Patanjali says,

Niyama consists of purity,

Contentment,

Austerity,

Study of self and surrender to God.

So here he gives five rules again,

Which are independent of time,

Independent of place,

Independent of your condition,

Of your class,

It does not matter who you are,

It does not matter where you are,

It does not matter when you are born,

You follow these five rules,

It takes you out of the horizontal where you have been stuck for thousands of years and puts you on the vertical.

The first is purity.

What is this purity that Patanjali is talking about?

We in this body,

In this mind,

As consciousness,

We are in a system,

We are the body and the mind is system.

Consciousness is not system.

Body and mind are bounded,

They are a part of the horizontal,

Consciousness is unbounded,

Is a part of the vertical.

So the first Niyama,

The first rule is purity.

Purity of what?

Purity of body,

Purity of mind,

So that you can come out of the body,

Come out of the mind.

Your consciousness is not always entangled with the problems of the body,

With the pleasures of the body,

With the needs and wantings and desires of the body and also of the mind,

Keeping you occupied all throughout your life.

If you just see from the moment you are born until the moment you will end this life,

How much time are you just engaged in the body and mind?

You may even be surprised of this question.

You may think what else is there if not being engaged with the body,

Engaged with the mind.

Such is the state that we are so much engaged with the body,

So much engaged with the mind that we cannot even imagine to detangle ourselves from the body and from the needs of the mind for even a moment.

Purity of body and mind requires that process of detoxification.

Do whatever you may need to do to purify your body,

To purify your mind.

It can be very simple things to abstain from all these stimulants like caffeine or nicotine or anything else,

It does not matter.

You have to establish a certain purity in your body,

In your mind,

Which means not being constantly engaged,

Not being constantly having to have a stimulus to feel something and reach to a purified state where without the stimulus,

Without all these compulsions of the body and mind,

You feel at rest.

Only then your original thought would start to come.

Only then really your mind will function.

Only then your body will really function out of compulsions and allowing your consciousness to slowly become the master,

Rise above the body,

Rise above the mind.

Otherwise,

It will remain entangled,

Trapped like a slave of the body,

Slave of the mind and there is no moving anywhere on the vertical.

You remain on the horizontal,

You are born,

You die every day,

Every life and the whole thing continues until eternity.

Second,

Contentment.

Contentment?

What is contentment?

Sounds very simple,

That you are satisfied with what you have,

You are satisfied with the way you are,

But this can also be misunderstood.

Contentment could also mean that you don't move any further on the path of progress,

On the path of spiritual growth,

On the journey towards the vertical.

Contentment is also not consolation.

It is not something that you do not achieve something and then you say what you could not achieve is what you never wanted to achieve.

There are these stories that we learn in the childhood of the fox which saw the grapes and she jumped for the grapes and after several jumps she could not reach the grapes.

She said the grapes are sore and moved on.

So contentment is not consolation,

Is not this false sense that you don't want anything anymore.

Contentment simply means that you are rested in what you have and what is about to come.

You are open for that,

You are working towards that,

But you are not dissatisfied with what you currently have.

Third is austerity.

Living a simple life.

This is all very subjective.

How do you live a simple life?

How do you define a simple life?

Again,

The criteria is that you are not entangled with things,

That you are not entangled on the horizontal with the world.

You are open for the vertical.

So austerity,

How you live an austere life depends on you.

The simplicity that you bring into your life,

It depends on you.

You figure that out,

But keep in mind the goal is that you are not entangled.

Self-study.

This is self-awareness,

Reflecting on oneself,

Understanding more and more of this construct that we are,

That we call a self.

We pay very little attention to oneself.

The whole life we call ourselves as this is me,

This is myself,

This is my self,

But we never know what this self is because the only education that we get about our self is through the external sources,

Through books,

Through education,

Through somebody saying something about it,

Even maybe through the feedback of others.

But here Patanjali is talking about self-study by self-awareness,

Reflecting on your own self,

Really understanding your own self by your own self-awareness.

There is no external involved in that process.

The awareness is reflecting on your own self and is allowing you to learn about yourself.

And the last,

Surrender to God.

Here the concept of God is not important.

What is important is to have this sense of surrender,

Sense of being in alignment with the existence,

With the greater.

There is always something greater than who we are,

How we are.

This is God.

This is the law of God that there is always something greater.

There is always something bigger because this universe,

This cosmos is undefined,

Is infinite.

We are defined,

We are finite in the form that we are.

So always the formless is greater than the form.

Always the form arrives out of the formless and unless the form surrenders to the formless,

There is no peace,

There is no vertical movement.

Enough said.

Let us move into silence for the next 10 to 15 minutes.

Please close your eyes.

For today's meditation,

We will use a visualization as if our energies are moving upwards,

Like a flame gathering itself from the horizontal and rising towards the vertical,

Leaving behind the body and the mind.

Letting the body and the mind on the horizontal,

On the ground,

But your energies,

Your consciousness,

Your awareness rising above.

Let your body be at rest with every breath,

Settling in the horizontal,

By its own weight,

Grounded,

Stable,

Still.

And your energies,

Your awareness,

Rising like a flame.

Like a flame in still air,

With no flickering,

Absolute stillness,

Alertness.

Let your body be at rest with every breath,

Allowing the body to be at rest.

Moving towards purity,

The purity of the body,

Meaning stillness,

Ease,

Purity of the mind,

Not getting entangled with thoughts,

Ideas,

And allowing your awareness to rise like a flame.

In this flame of awareness,

Knowing oneself,

Remaining aware of oneself in self-reflection.

In this stillness of body and mind,

In rising of consciousness like a flame,

Surrender to the formless,

To this existence,

Not in defeat,

But in gratitude,

In knowing,

In oneness.

Let your body be at rest with every breath,

And let your body be at rest with every breath,

And let your body be at rest with every breath,

And let the flame of your consciousness rise above your body,

Above your mind.

Let your body be at rest with every breath,

And let your body be at rest with every breath,

And let your body be at rest with every breath,

And let your body be at rest with every breath,

And let your body be at rest with every breath,

And let your body be at rest with every breath,

Silent,

Still,

Yet awake.

Let your body be at rest with every breath,

And let your body be at rest with every breath,

And let your body be at rest with every breath,

And let your body be at rest with every breath,

And let your body be at rest with every breath,

And let your body be at rest with every breath,

And let your body be at rest with every breath,

While maintaining this afflamed consciousness.

Awareness,

Alertness,

Very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes.

Reflect on the teachings of yoga from today,

Your experience of the meditative silence,

And share this with your friends,

With your family,

And allow them also to rise above the horizontal.

Take them to the vertical,

Towards the vertical with you as you move along.

Namaste.