Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily live meditation session with me,
Dhyansa.
My salutations to Patanjali for the knowledge of yoga bringing this to our lives and taking us out of our miseries.
Whenever you are off course,
Whenever you are on a journey and you realize you are off course,
You put in all your energy,
All your efforts to change directions,
To orient yourself to your goal,
To change your course.
These 30 minutes that we spend every day in the spiritual journey,
We realize that no matter which course we have taken,
It is off course.
It is going astray because there is no goal,
There is no destination.
The only way to go is to go back home.
These discourses are a way to go back home from where we began,
From where we belong into our own being,
Into our true self.
Currently in this series,
We are exploring yoga sutras of Patanjali and the first milestone on this discourse,
On this journey back home is to have clarity in perception.
Patanjali establishes that as the first milestone because unless you have clarity in your perception,
Unless you have clarity in your mind,
You will not be able to judge which way to go,
What to do and how to go by yourself in this life.
Let us go through the sutras which are related all to how to bring silence in the mind,
How to bring mind to a state which is free of all modifications because without those freedom from modification,
There is no silent mind,
There is no clarity of mind.
So Patanjali establishes this very much in the beginning of the journey as a requirement,
As something that has to happen before we proceed anywhere further,
Before we are anywhere close to going back home.
The sutras for today,
I will read also the Sanskrit because the vibration of Sanskrit,
The shlokas,
The sutras is somewhat different for me,
It energizes the entire session,
It reveals,
Opens up the meaning of these sutras as well and then I will explain them in English.
Abhyasa vairagyabhayam tan nirodha.
Their cessation is bought about persistent inner effort and non-attachment.
Patanjali here is talking about there is those five modifications that we talked about in the previous session.
He is saying that the cessation of these five modifications happens with two things.
One is persistent inner effort,
The practice and second non-attachment,
Vairagya.
Tatra sthitao yatno abhyasa.
Abhyasa,
The practice,
The inner practice is the effort for being firmly established in oneself.
Satu dhirga kala nirantarya satkar sevito dridha bhumi.
The practice becomes firmly grounded on being continued for a long time without interruption and with reverent devotion.
Drishta nusar vika vishaya vitri shantsya vashikara samyana vairagyam.
The first state of vairagya,
Non-attachment.
Cessation from self-indulgence in the thirst for sensuous pleasures with conscious effort.
Tatparan purusha kyathir guna vitrishnyam.
The highest state of vairagya,
Non-attachment.
Cessation of all desiring by knowing the innermost nature of purusha,
The supreme self.
In these five sutras,
What Patanjali is emphasizing are two.
If you boil down these five sutras,
There are two key elements that would come out.
One is the practice and the other one is vairagya,
Non-attachment.
You see the way we have now presented yoga,
Presented meditation into the world is as if that you spend few minutes once in a while and you reach to where you should be reaching with yoga and meditation.
But it does not work like that.
Why?
Because it is undoing what you have done all throughout your life to yourself.
It is unlearning what you have learned throughout your life in all the various forms.
Unless that undoing,
Unless that unlearning happens,
The mind cannot be silent.
And for this unlearning,
Undoing of all you have done to yourself,
Just imagine the amount of time and effort that is needed.
It cannot happen in few minutes here and there,
Once in a while,
It requires a consistent inner practice.
Please remember,
Meditation is not a Sunday afternoon quickie.
Mr.
And Mrs.
Mooli on a Sunday afternoon decided to have a quickie but they had their 8 year old son so they had to do something about that.
They told the son to go outside in the balcony,
Stay there,
Report everything that is happening in the balcony while Mr.
And Mrs.
Smith would have their quickie.
So the son went out,
They gave him an ice cream and the son started reporting.
He said,
The sky is blue,
I see lots of cars on the street,
Few minutes later he said,
I see a postman at the entrance of the building,
Few minutes later he said,
Now I see an ambulance coming and parking itself in the parking lot.
Then the son said,
You know,
Mr.
And Mrs.
Mooli,
Who are our neighbours,
They are also having a quickie.
Mr.
And Mrs.
Mooli,
They immediately got shocked,
They said,
How do you know?
Then the son said,
Their son is also outside in the balcony eating an ice cream.
Meditation,
Yoga is not a Sunday afternoon quickie.
You have to put in some effort,
You have to build in a regular practice.
The second aspect,
Non-attachment,
Vairagya.
This is very important to understand because in the name of non-attachment,
Vairagya,
There is also misconception.
You see a spiritual person renouncing everything,
Renouncing the material pleasures,
Renouncing the sensory pleasures,
Renouncing everything and calling themselves spiritual,
Being proud of being spiritual,
Hoping that now something they will achieve in the spiritual world.
Vairagya,
Non-attachment,
Is not renunciation,
Is not that now you are so dull that you have no appreciation for pleasure in life,
No appreciation for beauty in life.
Vairagya,
Non-attachment,
Simply means that you are now not governed,
Ruled by that to which you were attached.
See that everything around us,
All throughout our lives,
Is designed so that we are attached,
So that we are identified.
Without that attachment,
Without that identification,
A lot of systems would fall apart.
We may not be even able to work together in an interdependent way,
So it is a necessary evil to create this attachment,
To create this identification with everything.
But in our true nature,
We can remain dis-identified,
Non-attached with everything around.
We can have all the materialism,
All the spiritualism,
As long as we remain non-attached,
Non-identified.
If your lifestyle does not allow non-attachment,
If it pushes you constantly into attachments,
Build an awareness.
That is the way to become non-attached,
To develop this non-attachment,
And coming out of the miseries that come along with the attachment,
Is to develop an awareness.
When you are aware,
When you are aware of your attachments,
When you are aware of the process of this sensation of attachment,
More and more and more,
You start becoming master of this process,
And you have the option to also remain non-attached from the object,
Whichever object of pleasure,
Of desire,
Of ambition,
Of anything that you have in your life.
In today's meditation session,
We will practice non-attachment.
The first biggest attachment that we have is our body.
So we will practice non-attachment to the body by putting ourselves in this realization,
In this state,
That we are not just the body.
We will remain dis-identified with the body,
And then we will move on to the next phase,
Which is the same we will do with the mind,
We will remain dis-identified,
Non-attached with the mind.
Whatever is going on in the mind,
Just let it be.
Remind yourself that you are not just the mind,
And remain dis-identified,
Non-attached in vairagya,
With everything that you feel,
Everything that you see,
With everything that comes to your consciousness.
With that,
Let us close our eyes,
And move into silence,
Into meditation.
Take a posture that is comfortable for you,
With your hands in your lap,
Or on your thighs.
Back upright,
Shoulders down,
Head straight,
Allowing your body to settle,
To rest,
As you bring your awareness inwards.
Bring in an affirmation that I am not just the body.
Keep this in your consciousness,
Repeat it,
If you may,
Or simply remain aware that I am not just the body.
With every breath,
Let this affirmation get stronger,
And not just the body.
I am inside the body,
I am outside the body,
But I am not just the body.
With every breath,
Let the body rest more and more,
While you remain in this awareness,
In this realization,
That you are not the body.
Let the body rest more and more,
While you remain in this realization,
That you are not the body.
The body rests at a distance.
You remain unattached,
Disidentified,
In the awareness,
In the realization,
I am not the body.
And shift your awareness to your mind.
Whatever is going on in your mind,
Thoughts,
Images,
Sensations,
Movements,
Become aware of your mind,
And realize that you are not even the mind.
The mind is there,
You are not the mind.
I am not the mind.
I am the body.
With every breath,
Take distance from the mind,
And repeat the affirmation,
I am not the mind.
I am not the mind.
Let your awareness settle in your inner space,
Into the realization that you are not the body,
You are not the mind.
With every breath,
Let go of the body,
Let go of the mind.
Let go of the mind.
Leave all effort.
And simply remain silent and aware.
Let go of the mind.
Allowing the energies to reorganize,
The silence to become deeper,
And the awareness to become stronger,
Seated in yourself.
If you wish to continue this meditative silence,
Please keep your eyes closed,
And let yourself go in this silent awareness.
All very gently and slowly,
You may open your eyes,
Maintaining this awareness,
This silence,
And a distance,
A sense of non-attachment that arises as you are centered in yourself,
In your own being.
Take this sense to your day,
As you do other activities to practice non-attachment,
To practice inner silence.
I will see you tomorrow at 7 am Central European Time.
Namaste.
