#86. The Truth Of Emptiness | Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali

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

Dhyansa.

We are meditating on Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Mind cannot see the truth.

Mind cannot know the truth.

Mind cannot feel the truth,

Hold the truth.

Your heart cannot also see the truth.

But it can feel the truth,

It can hold the truth.

Only your spirit can see the truth,

Feel the truth,

Hold the truth.

On this path of kevalyam,

Nothingness,

Emptiness,

It is important that you come to terms with truth.

Because in emptiness,

In nothingness,

There is only truth.

There is nothing else,

Everything is empty.

There is only truth.

So if you only visit the truth,

Visit the emptiness,

Only with the mind,

You will come back.

You will not be able to feel it,

You will not be able to see it,

You will not be able to hold it.

And you will come back from emptiness saying it does not mean anything.

There is nothing in nothingness,

But there is something in this nothingness,

In this emptiness,

In this kevalya,

Which has to be tasted,

Which has to be felt,

Which is worth all this effort,

Which is worth all this journey,

Which is worth all this yoga,

All this meditation.

So if you only stay with the mind,

You will miss the truth.

You will miss the truth of kevalyam,

Of emptiness,

Of nothingness.

In this nothingness,

You will return unsatisfied.

When you approach it with the heart,

You will at least feel it.

You will not see it,

You will not know it,

What the truth is,

But from your heart,

You will feel that there is something in this nothingness,

In this emptiness.

You will want to stay in it,

But your mind will want to pull you out of it.

So you can never be in the emptiness if you are only also with the heart,

Because there will be a divide.

Your mind and heart will be at a conflict.

Your mind will come out of the emptiness,

Of the nothingness.

Your heart will want to stay.

It is blind,

But it is in love,

So it will want to stay,

And there will be this divide.

What to do?

You will have to go down to your spirit.

You will have to connect back to your spirit to be in emptiness,

To see the emptiness,

To feel the emptiness,

To see the truth of it.

Only then your experience of kevalim,

Your experience of yoga,

Your experience of meditation is complete.

Let us hear about this facet of truth,

What Patanjali has to say,

What truth is,

How do we be with this truth in kevalim,

In emptiness?

Patanjali says,

Vastu samye chitta bhedat tayo vibhakta panta,

Due to differences in various minds,

Perception of even the same object may vary.

So here Patanjali is saying,

He is taking a step back.

He wants to take you from where you are.

What he is saying is,

Due to the differences in various minds,

The perception of even the same object may vary.

We all have different minds,

8 billion people we are,

We have 8 billion different minds,

And that is why we have 8 billion different perceptions,

Different opinions,

And this and that about one single object,

About one single thing.

You can see it in the very practicality of life,

Of what we are living right now.

So many different minds having so many different perceptions,

So many different opinions about what is going on right now,

What is the truth?

Nobody knows what the truth is.

Truth is not either this,

Truth is not either that,

Truth is completely something else.

All what we hear is just the loudest minds,

All what we hear is just the loudest perceptions,

Because all what is being shared through the mind is a result of perception.

And this perception,

What Patanjali is saying,

Due to differences in various minds,

Perception of even the same object may vary,

Perception of the truth may vary because of the differences that we have in our mind.

So in order to reach to the truth,

You will have to drop the mind,

Otherwise you will keep on making interpretations about the truth on your own,

And you will never reach to the truth.

Three young men,

They went to the interview for being a detective.

They saw a position of being a detective,

And those three men,

They applied,

They went for the interview.

The chief detective who was interviewing these three candidates,

He lined them up outside in the room,

And he called the first candidate,

He showed this first candidate a picture of a criminal,

The criminal had scars on his face,

He had tattoos on his face,

And he said look at this picture,

You have one minute,

Recognize whatever you can,

As distinct things about this face as you can,

To identify this face in the crowd.

So when you go out and you have to find and identify this face in the crowd,

What you will use to identify,

Take a look at this picture,

And in 60 seconds learn everything about the picture.

So the first candidate looked at the picture for a few seconds,

He was very confident,

He put the picture away,

The detective was very impressed,

Wow,

In 30 seconds he put the picture away,

So he asked,

Okay,

So now tell me,

If you were to identify this criminal in the crowd,

What will you do?

The person said,

Well,

It should not be so difficult to identify this person without one ear,

So it will be so easy for me to identify this person in the crowd who has just one ear.

The detective looked at the picture again and said,

You fool,

This picture is sideways.

And he threw that first candidate out,

He brought in the second candidate,

He again gave the same picture to that second candidate,

Gave him 60 seconds to look at the picture to identify distinct things about that face which would help the person to identify this criminal in the crowd.

The person,

The second candidate,

He took his time,

He took 45 seconds and then put the picture aside.

The chief detective,

He once again asked,

So,

How will you detect this person in the crowd?

If you have many people in the crowd,

How will you identify this person?

The second candidate said,

Well,

It would not be difficult to identify a person with one eye in the crowd.

The detective,

The senior detective,

He put a hand on his face and said,

You are also a fool,

Please go,

This picture is sideways,

It is the side face of the person.

Then the only last candidate that was left,

He was called in as well.

By this time,

The senior detective,

He was a bit frustrated,

But he wanted to still give it a try.

He gave the same picture to the third guy,

He said,

Look,

You have 60 seconds,

You identify this person,

Its characteristics and let me know how will you identify this person in the crowd.

The person looked at the picture very calmly for 60 seconds.

After that,

He put the picture away.

The detective asked,

So,

Tell me,

Describe to me what you saw,

What you identified about this person.

This third candidate,

Very confidently,

He said,

I know that this person wear contact lenses.

The chief detective was stunned for a second,

He was quite impressed,

How did this person guess that?

He went out of the room,

He went to his computer,

Looked at the profile of this criminal,

Indeed this criminal was wearing contact lenses.

So he came back to this candidate,

He said,

Well done,

Wow,

I had never thought of in my 20 years of my career to spot that much detail through the picture in 60 seconds,

But how did you do that?

The person said,

Someone who has only one ear and one eye cannot wear glasses,

So he must be wearing contact lenses.

This is how we make our inferences,

Different perceptions,

Different minds,

Given the same object,

We see them differently,

We perceive them differently,

And therefore we cannot see the truth,

Therefore we cannot be in emptiness.

So it is important to come to terms with truth,

To come out of the mind,

To step down to the heart,

To step down to your spirit,

To be in kevaldom.

Patanjali goes on saying,

He says,

Nircha eka chitta tantram vasthutar aapram manakam tadakim syat,

Nor does an object's existence depend upon a single mind,

For if it did,

What would become of that object when that mind did not perceive it?

Truth exists whether the mind wants to accept it or not,

Whether the mind sees it or not,

Mind cannot see it,

So it always denies the truth,

It always gives you a substitute to the truth.

Here,

Patanjali is clearly saying,

Nor does an object's existence depend upon a single mind,

He is here saying,

The existence of truth does not depend on the mind,

So don't ask your mind about the truth,

If you are asking your mind to validate what the truth is,

It can never do that job,

It can never take you to the truth,

It will only deny the truth or it will give you a substitute,

An illusion which it will call as the truth and will keep on convincing you of that truth,

So you have to drop the mind,

You have to feel it with the heart,

The truth with the heart and see and be in the truth with your spirit.

Lastly he says,

An object is known or unknown depend on whether or not the mind gets coloured by it.

He says,

Once again let me repeat,

An object is known or unknown depend on whether or not the mind gets coloured by it.

So here he re-emphasizes that the object or in this case,

In the deeper sense of it,

The truth is known when the mind cannot give it any colour.

Mind is constantly giving colour to the perception that you have,

The colour through the perception and through the sense perception and through the ego,

Through the identifications,

To whatever you come across,

Mind brings in the perception and mind brings in the ego,

The identifications and through this it gives the colour and therefore for the same thing,

For something that is bad for somebody else,

It will be good for you or you will find it good and the other way round.

So mind gives everything its own colour.

For truth is only known when mind is not giving it any colour and mind cannot give it any colour.

When the mind becomes colourless,

Means it becomes transparent,

You see through the mind,

Mind no longer is in your way,

Then the way to the heart and to the spirit opens up.

So in all these sutras,

What Patanjali is constantly trying to emphasize is,

Drop the mind,

See,

Feel through the heart the truth and be in this truth with your spirit and be in kevalim and be in truth of this kevalim,

Of this emptiness,

Not just for a few seconds,

Not just going there in emptiness and coming back out of emptiness.

Let us take this wisdom into our experience,

Into our meditation,

Into our silence.

We will chant Om to create the vibrations of emptiness,

To create the vibrations of nothingness.

The sound of Om is dissolving the mind,

Is dissolving the perception,

Is allowing you to step out of the mind,

Be in your heart,

Be in the resonance of your spirit and after the sound of Om,

The silence that is created is the emptiness,

Is the nothingness that you must be in.

When you are in that nothingness,

When you are in that silence,

Don't come out of it,

Stay in it,

Be in it,

Enjoy the truth of it,

Not with your mind but with your heart and your spirit.

Let us close our eyes on that note and if you cannot chant Om if you are in a situation in a room with others and you prefer to just keep quiet,

Simply listen to the vibrations of Om and move into silence from there on.

Although I would prefer if you chant Om along,

If you cannot chant Om along as long as I am doing it,

Do it at your own pace,

Try to match the frequency,

The vibrations that I bring in,

Not the length of the Om.

Please close your eyes.

Take a posture which is comfortable for you with your head,

Neck,

Spine aligned,

Straight,

Relaxed.

To move in Kevalyam,

Body must be at rest.

Let the body be at rest.

Let the body be on its own.

You move away from your body,

Meaning your attention will be on emptiness,

On your inner space,

Less on your body,

Less on your hands,

On your legs,

On your face etc.

To chant Om,

Take a nice deep breath in.

Let go of your mind.

Move your mind,

The vibrations of Om.

Om.

Feel the sound,

The vibrations of Om in your heart.

Om.

Allow your spirit to awaken and be guided by the sound,

By the vibrations of Aum Aum from sound to soundless travel with the vibrations of Aum into silence Aum Aum Let go of everything in these vibrations of Aum and move in silence,

In careful limb,

In nothingness,

In emptiness Aum Aum and stay in the silence Aum with your heart and your spirit,

Stay in this emptiness See it,

Feel it,

Be in this emptiness Aum Aum Aum Aum Drop all searching,

All movements and stay in emptiness,

In nothingness,

With your heart and your spirit Aum Aum Aum and very gently and slowly come back to your body feeling the body,

Come back to your mind back into the perception of this world and you may open your eyes remembering the taste of kevalim,

Of emptiness,

Of nothingness of the awareness and silence that is present as truth in kevalim Thank you very much,

Namaste