#48. Supreme Joy In Contentment | Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali

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

Dhyansa,

Where we are going through yoga sutras of Patanjali.

A wealthy businessman,

He was walking on the shore.

He saw a fisherman standing next to his boat playing with a child.

He was completely horrified by that scene.

So he went up to the fisherman.

He said,

Aren't you catching fish,

You fisherman?

The fisherman said,

I have already caught the fish for the day for myself,

The businessman said.

But why aren't you catching more fish?

Why aren't you going out and catching more fish?

The fisherman said,

Why would I need more fish?

The businessman said,

You can sell more fish.

With that money,

You can buy a bigger boat.

With that bigger boat,

You can go further out in the ocean and catch more fish.

With that more fish,

You can sell more fish.

You can have more money.

You can buy two boats and go further deeper into the ocean and catch even more fish and have even more money.

Then you will have the chance to buy the best equipment with which you can fish thousands of fishes in an hour and have even more money and have even more bigger fleets of boat all over the place.

And as he was expanding the business case for the fisherman,

The fisherman said,

And then what do I do with that?

The businessman said,

Then you will enjoy that.

And the fisherman smiled,

Laughed.

He said,

What am I doing right now?

I'm also enjoying right now.

Reflect on this as we enter into the yoga sutras of Patanjali on Ashtanga yoga,

Where Patanjali is setting the rules and the values and explaining why these rules and values are important.

He says,

Santosha anuttama sukhalaaba,

By contentment,

Supreme joy is gained.

Very simple sutra and it falls in Ashtanga yoga under the rules that one should be contented.

And by this contentment Patanjali is saying,

You will experience supreme joy.

Supreme joy is gained by contentment.

Very simple.

It doesn't need a Patanjali to tell us this.

You know it,

I know it,

But why don't we have contentment in life?

What is contentment?

We have to ask ourselves.

Couple of days ago in the previous session,

I was explaining that this sense of discontentment,

Dissatisfaction arises because the energies are caught up in the wrong place.

So let me very briefly touch upon that as well.

See that expansion is our nature.

Because it is the nature of awareness,

It is an intrinsic quality of awareness to expand.

And this life,

This form,

This manifestation is the contentment of the unmanifested,

Of the formless,

Of this awareness which is expansive,

Which has no limits.

This life form is the contentment of it.

The body,

The mind,

What is the body?

What is the mind?

It is nothing but the contentment,

The container.

The body is the contentment,

Even the mind as big and intelligent a mind you have,

It still has boundaries.

It still is a contentment.

That is why it is,

You can feel it.

That is why you can see that there are limitations and that is why you can call my mind or my body.

So because of this contentment,

We can experience and enjoy life.

See that on one hand,

The nature,

The inevitable nature,

The inevitability that we have built in ourselves,

In our awareness is to expand.

And this expansion is the same reason we are trying to express this through the body,

Through the mind,

Through all what we plan through the mind for our life,

For all what we express through our mind in our life.

All the goals,

All the achievements,

Everything that we have set for ourselves is actually us trying to expand our awareness.

Unknowingly,

Ignorantly,

We have translated this to the mind,

Translated this to the meaning that we give to the physical and the material things.

The same is with the body,

The same is with the mind.

So this sense of expansion,

This sense of awareness that is something that always expands,

This is the real place,

This is the dimension which you must let it expand as far reaching out as possible.

But the dimensions of the body and the mind are not to be constantly expanded because this is what creates then dissatisfaction.

There is a limit to that.

You can only expand the body-mind to only a certain limit.

Then what?

If you are the greatest bodybuilder in the world,

So for the physical body,

There is only a limit you can reach.

You can be the best in the world but still there is a limit.

You can next year cross that limit and have a little bit more but still there is a limit.

With the body there is always a limit of expansion.

With the mind,

No matter what you achieve,

No matter what perfections you achieve in any art,

In any skill,

In any achievement,

There is still a limit.

You cannot cross that.

So there can never be contentment if you are expressing this expansion through the body,

Through the mind.

So on one hand,

You have to respect the nature of yourself of expansion.

You have to learn the art of expansion through awareness and the second,

You also have to learn and see that this contentment is what also creates joy.

This contentment is also what creates pleasure,

Is what creates the supreme joy according to Patanjali.

He is even qualifying this as the supreme joy,

Not an ordinary joy.

And this contentment is another art where you know where the balance is,

Where you know when it's enough.

This contentment brings contentment,

Contentment brings joy.

So for the body and the mind,

Learn to find your contentment,

Find your contentment which leads to joy and for the expansion,

Look towards awareness.

Let that stretch beyond boundaries wherever it goes.

Then further on,

Patanjali says,

Kaya Indriya Siddhi Ashuddhi Kshatsap Tapas.

By austerity,

Impurities of body and senses are destroyed and occult powers are gained.

This is in continuation in line with what we have been discussing before,

By austerity,

By living the simple life of Tapas where you're focused on your spiritual journey,

Where you keep your life simple,

Where you keep your life pure.

And yesterday in the previous session,

We talked very detailed about purification,

How do we go about the elemental purification,

How do we go about the purification of the body,

The mind through the purification of the five elements in us.

And when you do all this,

When you put all this together in an austere life,

In a life of Tapas,

Then impurities of bodies and senses are destroyed and occult powers are gained.

Then you gain powers,

What are occult powers?

Powers that are beyond the body,

Beyond the mind.

How is that possible?

For that,

You have to also understand your body in slightly a different way,

Your construct in slightly a different way.

Yesterday we talked about our construct in the five elements,

But for now,

For today,

To understand why these powers are available to us when there is a purity of the body,

When there is a purity of the senses,

See that your body,

Or you exist in five bodies,

Not in one body.

It's just a way to break down how far the awareness can expand,

How far the awareness is embodied.

Remember I said that the body and the mind is nothing but containment,

Embodiment of awareness.

So if the awareness is only on the body,

You never know that there is anything more than the body.

If the awareness likely expands in the mind,

In the thoughts,

Suddenly you have some more in which the awareness spreads.

So there is on five levels you can have this expansion in embodiment,

In containment.

The first is the Annamaya Kosha,

The physical body that you call as my body,

That you call as that matter body.

The second is Pranamaya Kosha,

Which is the prana body,

Or the energy body,

Meaning when your awareness,

It starts to expand,

Because you are pure,

Because you're living an austere life,

Slowly your sensitivities grow and you start to feel your prana,

Your energy,

And you know how your prana is behaving.

You know what charge you have on your body,

You know how to use that charge,

How to maneuver that energy.

When that awareness expands,

Then is the third body which is the mental body,

The Manomaya Kosha.

We have constructed our life,

Our training in such a way that we only feel the physical body and the mental body.

So these are the two bodies that we feel and our awareness is always contained in these two.

So in between the pranic body is what we also start to feel,

And with that feeling,

With that sensitivity of the prana,

Comes great power,

Because you can direct that energy in whatever activity that you do.

You get mastery over prana energy,

Which is the life force,

And learn how to direct that life force in whatever you do.

And as your energy even expands further,

Beyond the Manomaya Kosha,

You reach to the Vigyanamaya Kosha,

The psychic plane or the knowledge body.

This is where Patanjali is talking about,

You receive these occult powers.

What are these occult powers?

All the knowledge,

All the skills that you need for whatever you are meant to do,

Whatever you decide to do,

You start gathering and the world starts helping you.

The manifestation,

This entire cosmos starts working for you.

It starts giving you whatever tools,

Whatever knowledge,

Whatever psychic abilities that you need to proceed further towards your goal.

So as the awareness,

As the consciousness expands,

You come across this psychic plane and you see that you are so much more beyond the body,

You are so much more beyond the mind.

And the last containment,

Which is the fifth,

The Bliss body,

The Anandamaya Kosha.

This is where you feel extreme bliss in the containment of this manifestation called as life,

Beyond which there is all unmanifested,

Just pure awareness,

Consciousness,

Which has no form,

No shape.

So let us take these five bodies and the expansion in these five bodies into a meditative silence and learn to raise our awareness,

Raise our sensitivities to these five bodies and beyond.

Please close your eyes.

The posture that is comfortable with your back upright and shifting awareness to your body.

Your body is the center of this expansion from the physical to the energy to mental to the psychic to the bliss.

Awareness on your physical body,

Noticing how your body feels in this moment,

Balancing the weight of your body to sit effortlessly.

You feel if there is any pain,

Any restlessness,

Any restlessness,

Allowing that to settle and putting your body at ease.

To the next energy body,

The pranic body,

Pranamaya Kosha.

As you breathe in and out,

Feel the prana,

The energy of your breath throughout your body,

Slightly beyond your body.

As you inhale,

The energy comes in,

You feel a layer of energy throughout your body,

Around your body.

As you exhale,

The energy is put at rest.

Observe this process for a few more breaths.

Become the static physical,

The energy that is the dynamic part of your body.

Observe,

Become aware.

With every breath,

Feeling the prana,

The energy sensations in and around your body.

And moving further to your mental body,

Manomaya Kosha.

Shifting awareness to your mind,

Mental space,

Noticing thoughts,

Ideas,

Plans,

Images,

Everything that is rising and falling in your mental space.

Simply observe.

With a sense of expansion beyond the body,

Beyond the energies.

Awareness in your mental plane,

Mental space.

And from here on,

Allow your awareness to expand outwards on its own.

In the space beyond the thoughts.

A infinite Responsibile.

Images,

All these contents of the mind become smaller as your awareness expands.

And knowledge arises in your consciousness.

So whatever may arise in your consciousness in this moment,

Let that flow,

Let that be,

You expand as awareness,

As consciousness in all directions.

Notice,

Sense of bliss in the silence,

Sense of peace in the silence,

In this expansion,

The bliss body.

You may choose to stay with this sweet silence,

This bliss,

Or expand further into the emptiness,

Into nothingness,

Into infinite.

Beyond the physical body,

Beyond the prana,

Beyond the mind,

Awareness in endless expansion.

And very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes with me,

With awareness boundless,

And with a sense of contentment of the body,

Of the mind.

Please pass on this message of contentment,

Of expansion,

Of yoga,

Of meditation with your family and friends.

Thank you very much.

Namaste.