Stopping the mind, a stage of yoga

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When the mind is restrained, Patanjali promises, the seer will shine in his/her own splendor. But what is that thing that requires to be stopped...what is its nature. Patanjali goes on to express that it is the "mind waves" which are five-fold. And of these,even right knowledge is a movement of the mind.,

Right knowledge.
Wrong knowledge.
Delusion.
Sleep.
Memory.

It is exciting because, the mind slips in and out of these modifications,creating the illusion of the I and it becomes attached to these modifications, and stops being its true self.

And this stopping of the mind, could be a life-long work in progress.

Here, his other words that explain first what must be done, and why. And then, going on to break up the thing that needs to be stopped. And if it were not stopped, what happens to the mind.. it loops back into itself and becomes a limited ego, where it is invited to become the cosmos.

CHAPTER I, VERSE FOUR

Vritti Swarupayam Itaratra


Chapter 1, VERSE SIX
Pramana Viparyaya Vikalpa Nidra Smrtyaya

 

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Patanjali revisted: the exhilaration of yoga

 

Patanjali is surely the most ancient and precise of ancient psychotherapist, neuroscientist and psychologist rolled into one. He is, and I say that without intending any hyperbole, far ahead of those in these field today.

 

Whenever I read his terse verses and with whatever interpretation, I always experience goosebumps.

I want to spend the next year trying to reconstruct his verses into my practice as an everyday, every moment experience.

 

Here, in just two verses, right the beginning of his treatise, he throws the gauntlet at you (Chapter 1: verse 2/3)

 

Yogsch citta vritti nirodah

Tada drastuh svarupe avastanam

 

 

So much meaning in so few words: Yoga means stopping the mind's oscillations.

Then (then) the witness shines in his own splendor.

 

The first part appears easy enough. By the time you swoop into trying to understand the following part, already the mind's oscillations set in..

 

And what is now, at this phase of my yoga practice is so exhilarating, is the clarity towards the desire to reach that stillness .. mumukshutva..no fake silence, the real thing!

 

 

 

 

 

Vi-yoga: the split personality

Vi-yoga means the split, the yoga between two different awareness. It has been variously examined by our texts. 

A distinct split happens, at a particular stage of your sadhana.  U split between the soul and the wannabe:)
The soul may do anything and does nothing. It is constantly centered, watchful and peaceful. It gives in the sense of that peculiar love state described in Indian rasas as santa: being with one, loving silently.  Oozing love gently, without asking anything in return.
If you can touch base with this core, that is yoga. The jiva slips and twirls and slithers and struggles. In that struggle, it loses sight of That. If you can remember that there is a struggle happening, already you have progressed to some state of subtle awareness.  However, for a meditator the difficult hurdle comes here.  because the meditator believes that calmness must come without the awareness of the struggle around: however, when u realise being calm invariably also bring a very heightened state of awareness, your sense of struggle vanishes.

The most difficult hurdle, to repeat, is where the calmness is felt, surrounded by the struggle. The difficult thing for the meditator is to accept the awareness of these two states.  Then every struggle that is sense about the core of calmness only serves to highlight the peace. Then, bliss!