Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

This Wednesday, November 2, I begin a four-week course on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. It's nothing less than both intimidating and inspiring. I don't know of any other work that penetrates the veil of the mind and traces the trajectory of soul-awakening with such (almost brutal) clarity, power, and wisdom. 

The array of available books and literature on the YS is bewildering. True, it's nothing like the quantity written on the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita, but it's prodigious nonetheless. No one really knows (or agrees) when the YS were written, or even by whom, exactly. Evidently there is more than one "Patanjali." But this much is certain: whoever wrote it and whenever it was written, it didn't just appear out of nowhere. It is the distillation of a long history of exploration by the scientists of consciousness (the rishis of India). You might say it's as if after centuries (millennia, probably) of experimentation, someone wrote a concluding and summarizing "paper" on their accumulated findings!

The YS are a roadmap to enlightenment. The highway to the infinite portrayed in the YS is also called the 8-Fold (or Limbed) Path. Other synonyms include Raja Yoga and Ashtanga Yoga. These all refer to the description of the path of enlightenment given in the YS. (As I cannot be sure of the knowledge of all of my readers, let me say that the true meaning of the term "yoga" is "union." It refers to achievement of Self-realization by uniting one's individual soul with the oversoul of Spirit. By contrast, the more common man-on-the-street uses the term "yoga" to describe the physical postures, positions, or asanas that were developed in more recent centuries and which have the purpose of developing one's health and inner awareness as a foundation for the spiritual discipline of meditation and the spiritual path generally.)

Over the centuries many forms of yoga discipline have emerged with different names and different emphases. All too often they attempt (or appear) to compete or to be distinctly unique. Just as science has enlightened us in the understanding that energy, contrary to the report of our five senses, is the essential and unifying reality of matter, so too the different "yogas" are but different approaches to the same central truth: we are One!

Bhakti yoga is the way of the heart: approaching the Oneness of Spirit through devotion (pure feeling). Gyana yoga is the way of the mind: approaching the Oneness of Spirit through the power of concentration (pure consciousness). Karma yoga is the way of service: approaching the Oneness of Spirit through self-giving and acting as a pure instrument of Spirit. Laya yoga is the way of dissolution of the ego. Mantra yoga is expansion of consciousness through Oneness with the primordial vibration of Spirit (known as Aum). Uniting them all, however, is Raja yoga: the science of meditation which arises when, in combination with one or more of the aforementioned disciplines, we seek "to be still and know (that I AM God)." Raja means royal, or that which rules (or unites) the others. (Ashtanga means, simply, 8-Fold or 8-Limbed.)

As must be obvious to the reader, even the practice of calling these "paths" by their yogic names suggests they come from and are only accessible to devotees attracted to all things Indian. Of course not: devotion, concentration, selfless service, egolessness, and silent inner, prayerful communion are universally manifest in all spiritual traditions.

The YS are aphorisms but unlike stand-alone platitudes there are linked, like threads, creating a chain or path from delusion to enlightenment. The word "sutra" means "thread" (think suture). There are less than 200 hundred sutras. They are divided into four books ("pada"): samadhi pada; sadhana pada; vibhuti pada; and kaivalya pada. Whew! What the heck?

For those of you who stayed the course with me on Swami Sri Yukteswar's book, THE HOLY SCIENCE, you will recognize a pattern. I suppose the ancients must have developed their themes along these lines: describing the process and benefits; outlining the methods; describing the consequences (fruits) ("powers attained"), and giving a glimpse at the goal (Oneness).

At the same time, the unfolding sutras are not linear or strictly a logical progression, either. There is some repetition, some further development, and some detours or tangents along the way. This patterns the simple fact that the path to enlightenment is, itself, NOT a straight-line. Reality and consciousness is more a hologram: each aspect containing something of the whole within itself. God is not in some distant corner of space. Enlightenment is ours right now if . . . . . .  It is, and it isn't! Lifetimes accumulation of error and ignorance can be swept away instantly in a flood of grace but that grace does not come upon the command or will of the ego. And yet, we start where we are: in ego consciousness. A conundrum certainly.

This Wednesday night we will begin our journey. Like the sutras themselves and like our own path to enlightenment, I am not planning with any strictness what we will cover, what we will skip, and how we will develop our themes. This class is based upon Paramhansa Yogananda's teachings of the YS. He studied with his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar. Yogananda explained that after about only 12 sutras his guru said, :"That's enough. You now have the key." (Yogananda never said exactly WHICH twelve!!!!) So neither are we compelled to read and study all nearly 200 sutras, either!

Yogananda never wrote a summary (a book) on the Yoga Sutras. That's too bad and there must be some overarching reason. Swami Kriyananda did, however and it is a renowned classic in its own right: THE ART AND SCIENCE OF RAJA YOGA (Crystal Clarity, Publishers, Nevada City, CA USA). (Swami Kriyananda is a direct disciple of Yogananda and one of the very few still living and teaching today.) This book does not, however, discuss or analyze the sutras directly. There are unpublished transcriptions of Yogananda's lectures on Patanjali however.

This series will be our second experiment with internet streaming. You can go online and sign up and pay for this class and attend it in real time (7:30 to 9 p.m. PST). Be sure to do this before about 3 p.m. this Wednesday. If we or you encounter technical difficulties we will provide a link to the audio recording as a substitute. I prefer students come in person, of course, but if you are reading this from India or Russia or New York, we at least have something to offer to you.

More blog articles will flow as they, well, flow!

Blessings,

Nayaswami Hriman

The Power of Now!

"The Power of Now" written by Eckhart Tolle

I would imagine many of you have read this book. It's not new (1997) and it's quite famous and rightly so. A friend lent it to me quite some time ago and as I have large stack of reading-in-process I didn't get to it until our annual trip to Frankfurt, Germany. (I go each year with Padma to display sample reading copies of books published (mostly) by Crystal Clarity Publishers to publishers from other countries.) Fact is I was reading a fascinating book, "Parting the Waters," by Taylor Branch (about Martin Luther King, Jr.) but I left my Kindle in the hotel in Frankfurt. So on the flight home I switched to the POWER OF NOW in actual paper copy which I had brought as a backup!

With minor exceptions I found nothing in Tolle's inspired and wisdom-filled book that didn't resonate with my own understanding and experience of meditation and introspection, and with the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda and his disciple Swami Kriyananda (which are my life's work to share). I recommend it therefore without reservation. While nothing in it can't also be found in what we practice and share at Ananda, its language and approach may in fact be helpful to anyone.

The Power of Now expresses what is called, in the teachings of yoga, the "path of gyana yoga." Gyana Yoga is frequently associated with philosophy, theology, and cosmology and consequent hair-splitting intellectual analysis and debates. That association is understandable as gyana yoga represents the refraction of our powers of perception onto the goal of ultimate wisdom.

The drawback with traditional scriptural or philosophical studies, comparisons, and debate lies with the inherent limits of the intellect itself. For true gyana yoga has for its focus the dissolution of the ego itself. The intellect, by itself, cannot accomplish this herculean task (though it is proud to try and proudly imagines that by thinking about it, it has succeeded!).

And this is what makes Tolle's book both useful and wise: while necessarily using words as symbols and employing intellectual (philosophical and psychological) concepts, he makes it clear that the fulfillment and happiness we seek as humans lies in a realm beyond and above mere thought. It is the identification of ourselves with our mind (and our emotional reactions to thoughts and sense inputs) that creates a veil between us and "reality."

His suggested meditation exercises are simple and are all but identical to similar meditation exercises taught by Paramhansa Yogananda. He uses terms that are generally not used in the yoga teachings but are clearly recognizable. For example he speaks of the "inner body" or "energy body" when, in yoga, we speak of the astral body or prana. He does reference the term "chi" from the Chinese tradition but he doesn't rely upon it in his explanations. 

Tolle speaks of two basic stages of withdrawal from the domination of the ego-mind: awareness and identity with the inner (astral) body and, then, going beyond that, into perfect stillness or the state which he calls, alternatingly, the Unmanifest or Being. In yoga we would speak of the astral (energy) body and the causal (consciousness or idea) body.

I don't want this article to be a book report so I won't continue further lest I be tempted to cover its key points (which are many and which are excellent). For my purpose is to acknowledge this wonderful spiritual handbook and its practical wisdom.

I would like to share a few statements I found inspiring and helpful, however: 

1. Time and mind are inseparable. 
2. The present moment is all you have. 
3. Unconsciousness is the absence of the observer. 
4. Time is not precious because it is an illusion. 
5. The past cannot survive in Your Presence. 
6. The second coming (of Christ) is the transformation of human consciousness from time to eternity, not the arrival of a person on earth.
7. Egos are drawn to bigger egos (explaining why enlightened persons are often ignored or unseen)
8. If only the avatar is an incarnation of God, then who are you?
9. The (astral) body is an access point into Being.
10. Would a fish ask, "What is water?"
11. To be conscious of Being you need to reclaim the consciousness from the mind.
12. Portals into Being, in addition to the (astral) body include space, silence, cessation of thought, and surrender to what is.

Blessings to you!

Nayaswami Hriman