A great structure and path: The Yoga Sutras

Continuing from my post on what is yoga and mind liberation...this is the "now what"


Light on the Yoga Sutra by BKS Iyengar breaks down the sutras, in a great way but I don't think its so "light". I mean its a complex thing (understanding ourselves from start to the purpose of life) right, so I reckon its broke down as easy as anyone could...


Yoga Sutras by Patanajali is one path, 500 BC, which is 196 aphorisms or short statements that flows together - covering all aspects of life; from the code of conduct to the transcendence of man's physical self.


Like anything with life, there are lots of options and paths for each of us to choose from. Things resonate with each of us differently, so its about finding our own path; what makes sense to you, what makes you happy?


So where do we start with this whole find peace, mind, liberation thing?
We do this first by understanding the functions of the mind - what are we dealing with, why are we the way we are and then what can we do about it....

 Imprints (samskaras) and desires (vasanas): shapes moods, behaviors, making or marrying the individuals intellectual, cultural, and spiritual evolution. Gathered through 5 ways:

1 and 2 - Direct Perception: right and wrong knowledge gained through experiences

3- Imagination: fantasy

4- Sleep - state of inactivity

5- Memory - retaining and reviving impressions and experiences of 1-4 

 

Kind of the glasses or your filter of life - how you take in and look out to life, and these things make impressions that stick with you...."these are the field in which the mind operates, and through which experience is gathered and stored." 

The "wheel" of emotions and actions that keeps us tied for our imprints: desire, anger, greed, infatuation, pride and malice. Since it is a world of opposites you can learn to recognize these things within you and counter them (balance, poise, peace, etc). Fix that flat.

 

 

 

"The soul is pure, but through misalignment of consciousness, it gets caught up in the spokes of joys and sorrows and becomes part of the suffering. Like a spider ensnared in its own web."

Obstacles: disease, indolence of body or mind, doubt, carelessness, indulgence in desire, laziness, delusion, missing the the point, no concentration. Other emotional aggravation like sorrow, anxiety, frustration, unsteadiness, irregular breathing.

Defusing the mind: friendliness, goodwill, compassion, joy, single minded efforts, non attachment or pleasure/pain, virtues/vice, indifference, breathing exercises.

There are 5 fundamental mind afflictions/pain (Klesas): self-inflicted, hereditary or caused through body imbalances.

1. Ignorance (root of all others): lack of wisdom, confusing impure for pure, pain and pleasure, etc. 

2. Ego: falsely identity yourself with ego

3. Attachment: between man and matter (inherited or acquired)

4. Aversion: avoiding

5. Fear: of all things but mostly clinging to life
         
*first 2 are intellectual defeats, next 2 are emotional, and last instinctual

These affliction create perception, instincts and hidden impressions.


Prime cause of Ignorance (avidya) is the failure to understand the conjunction between the seer and the seen: purusa (spirit) and prakrti (matter).

Cosmology of Nature - understand the matter and how we interact with it.
Qualities of nature or fundamental operating principles are always in perfect equilibrium - in indian culture and within the Sutra these are defined as the Gunas. sattva (luminosity, balance, peaceful/pure/white, preservation), rajas (dim, vibrancy, movement, creation) and tamas (dull, lethargic, obscurity, darkness, destruction).

Guna is the tendency not the action itself - rajas guṇa is that force which tends to create action but is not action itself.
Everything has each quality - creation, behavior, objects, etc.

Examples:
- The wall is mostly tamastic, but can shift which is the rajasic quality and a small bit of sattva or the qualities within to preserve and stick together.
 - You can change - be more lazy or tamasic, or peaceful in a park reading (more sattva).
- Different times of the days impact peoples gunas. Inside the body - functions are all guna: digestion or fire is more rajastic.

The Guna tie into the principles of Ayurvedic Medicine which is an ancient medicine still practiced today (4000 years ago first known).  This is a natural plant based approach to healing, diagnoise is done using and understanding the 5 elements and 5 senses.

24 principles of nature with the 25th as the soul

3 Gunas

5 elements: Earth, Water, fire, air and ether.

5 sense of perception, ear, eyes, nose, tongue and skin

5 organs of action arms legs, mouth, generative and excretory organs

mind as the 11th sense

6 (more confusing) inherit quality understand in mind not by senses - smell in earth, taste in water, sight or shape in fire, of touch in air, and sound in ether and the I or ego.

Interaction of the principles shape our destiny according to our actions. "God has provided the principles of nature - so that the seer can commune with them and make the fullest use of them of his intellectual and spiritual growth." Nature is here to serve, but becomes an obstacle when used for sensual pleasure.

Karma is a biatch this we know!!
All action/inaction cause current and future Karmas. How easy or hard we make this life and future life's for ourselves. This can be a separate post sometime.


OK so now we understand the mind structure and how we fit into the physical world. now what?? what do we do now, this yoga path?!

The twin pillars of yoga which are practice (abhyasa) and detachment (vairagya).

Practice - disciplined conduct, dedicated, constant, vigilant search into a chosen subject

Renunciation/Detachment - dispassion, an art of learning to be free from craving by training the mind to be unmotivated by desire and passion (actively turning down things that disturb from practice of yoga).

The fluctuating mind lures the seer (a person) outwards towards pastures of pleasure and valleys of pain, where enticement inevitable gives rise to attachment.  When mind start to drag the seer, as it by a rope, from the seat of "being" toward the gratification of appetite, only renunciation can intervene and save the seer by cutting the rope.

They are like the wings of a bird or the legs of man moving forward on the yogic path.

Temptations neither daunt or haunt - without practice the search for liberation is clogged in the wheels of time. 

And finally the 8 Fold Path (asthanga): another post dedicated to this to come otherwise this post will be be out of control in length!

 *not necessary steps in order, like a body with important systems and structures to all be working at once

Yama: Restraint
Niyama: Practice or observance
Asana: Posture (physical body control)
Pranayama: Breath (control of energy through restraint of breath)
Pratyahara: Sense (withdrawal of the sense)
Dharana: Concentration
Dhyana: Meditation
Samadhi: Enlightenment (total absorption)


"The nature and her beauties are here for there enjoyment and pleasure (bhoga) and also for freedom and emancipation (yoga)."

Life is like a big jigsaw puzzle - there's no instruction how to make the piece fit, or even what picture is going to end up being. Imagine putting together a puzzle without that picture on the box to work from. Well thats life right!

Your imprint and desire are the glasses used to put the puzzle together - see

Your afflictions are how to put it together - with brains, emotions, intrinsically - do
Your karma effects the pieces - some come pre-cut, pre-colored, easy hard - get


 Yoga's like pealing an onion: understanding and shedding sheaths or layers:

- anatomical

- skeletal or structural

- physiological

- Mental or emotional

- intellectual

- Pure or blissful self

My stick person to try to help my understanding of this complex foundation. This little person (you) is watering the flower (below) of the yoga path or is the dirt from which is grows....







THIS PICTURE IS BRILLIANT!! Great picture encapsulating this post.

Under the dirt is many ways to explain yoga:

"If dharma (duty) is the seed of yoga, kaivalya (emancipation) is its fruit."