Latest / Sutra Squad / Ep. 14 - Sutra 1.3 On the True Self Shining Forth

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Ep. 14 - Sutra 1.3 On the True Self Shining Forth · Sutra Squad

• Seth Barron: What did you say when you knew that poem perfectly? I know it by heart, not by head or mind or brain, but I know it by heart. The heart implies the totality of the mind, something deeper and more stable than the usual thinking apparatus. To have a pure heart is to have a clean, steady mind, the state of neurotahood. Welcome to the Sutra Squad podcast brought to you by One Deep Breath. My name is Seth Barron. I am here with a superstar Sutra Squad. I got it out. I did it. Superstar Sutra Squad. was waiting for it. And Sarah Page Hall. Hey there. And it is just an absolute privilege to be with both of you and to be with all of you listening or watching. ⁓ We've been in a phase of the sutra study that is just so rich, and I keep just like, yum, yum, yum, on it because it's so... Like, every time we've done this, and every time we come back to the beginning, every time we come back to this trilogy, this is one of my favorite ⁓ sections of the Yoga Sutra because it's just like, it all... ⁓ Joyful. It just popped up, so I'm going to go with it. Joyful. Beautiful. Sally. Determined. I heard you make that sound before. I never heard you growl. I growl like those grandkids all the time. I feel ⁓ Yeah, like full. Like my heart feels full in such a beautiful way. I'm gonna make a special shout out because it's my God baby mama's birthday. so she's a woman who's the mother of my two godchildren. And she's my oldest friend. We grew up together. Like she lives around the corner. And... She has literally seen my life in pretty much every single phase of my expression. I'm talking like since we were three and I was three and she was five. And I'm ⁓ gonna say that because like I sent her a text this morning and I just said like how much I've said I love you with my whole heart and body and soul and she's my sister in every way that is not like biological, but every way that is psychological. And, ⁓ but what I called her today because I was thinking about her kids who might, my just incredible godchildren who are the oldest, my, ⁓ my godson is 15. And it's really wild when you have kids in your life who are like ages that you remember. Like I remember being 15, like clearly. He's a freshman in high school. It's like, he's also like such a sweet and thoughtful. kid and her and my niece, my niece, my goddaughter Ariana, who is 11 and like, I am what I said to, I said earlier in the day that I was like, it's got it's just like, I'm so glad I'm not a child in this world today. Like social media and like, I don't know how handle it. But like, I'm so blessed. have these kids in my life who like are not phone addicts. are really engaged with people and it's such a blessing to have children in your life who you have a relationship with that's not totally mitigated by technology. And they're not in the devices all the time. And they're not perfect kids and my friends aren't perfect parents, but they're doing a really good job. And it's the hardest job and it's not any easier in today's world. so I just, don't know, that's part of What's her name? Aurora. Happy birthday, Aurora. Happy birthday, Aurora. Oh my God, she's Aurora, the prince. I was going to say Princess Aurora. deep in princesses at my house. Oh, okay. I mean, I always think of her as the bringer of the dawn. Oh, no. That's way, way more poetic than what I know. And I'll just say that, like, I don't want to dox her or give her a last name, but it's just like she married a man and she took his last name. And her husband, Sam, who I just... like could not possibly love more. She like and his and is they're just they're just exceptional human beings. So shout out to you guys. Love you. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. So yeah, my heart is just like full, full, full, full. Okay. Let's talk about Yoga Sutra 1.3 as a quick reminder. We begin at the beginning of the beginning of the beginning at now. And it's now, it's always now. What time is it? Now. Now, it's now now. ⁓ Can't be done. Ever. It's always now. And that's literally like the beginning of the text. Ata Yoga Nishasanam in 1.1. Now this is yoga. Yoga is in this auspicious, eternal and ephemeral now. And then we get to the juicy definition, yoga is when we bring to stillness the swirls of our mind. And we talked last week and had such a beautiful conversation about how, when I think of, we're all prisoners of our native tongue, so to say, and English restraint. has this like, as if it's like you're pressing it down, like I have to restrain. It's almost like oppressive sort of connotation, like the subtext of that word, right? As opposed to like the restraint of a hug, like the restraint of like swaddling a baby. My godson Elliot, who now I'm gonna talk about Elliot, he's the first baby I ever swaddled. And I remember I was like so afraid to like do it wrong and... And like I had never, he was like the first like infant I really like spent time with. And even though they were in San Francisco, I was out there like almost like once a month. I spent a lot of time with him as an infant. There's just like a adorable picture of the two of us passed out on the couch and he's like, he's sleeping on me. And I remember like my friend saying like, no, the nurse told us we gotta do it tighter. And like, you got a burrito that baby and like, and they like, you know, like you like roll them on and then you roll them back and, and like, that's the Nero de Hac. Like, and that's just like, I'm still like, it's taken me five plus years of this, I'm focused study, right? To like, even start to grock that it's not like this, like, I have to stop my thoughts. It's like, I have to like, bring them in to love them enough to allow them to be still. So that's the 1.2, that's yoga, the bringing in, the bringing together. ⁓ And then we get to this verse in Sutra 1.3, which I will chant and then we'll talk about. So if you'd like, you can just take a moment if it is safe for you to do so. Find a little length in your seat, find a little intention in the organization of your body. And if you wanna close your eyes, you could just turn that attention in and just shift out of the being, out of the doing. and step back into the observing. Notice what you see or hear or taste or smell or touch. without having it to be any different than exactly as it is. and maybe notice if there's an emotional state. or if there's a thought sort of rattling around up there. And you don't have to change it. You don't even have to label it as good or bad or right or wrong. See if you can just step back and watch it with curiosity. Sometimes I think of myself like the cartoon anthropologists that are in the bushes watching the natives. Like I'm watching my own mind. Like, whoa, look at that thought go. Mmm, ⁓ there's another one spinning up. And then I'm gonna make one vibration of om, and you're more than welcome to join me. Let's take a deep breath in together. and a deep breath out together. And for our one vibration of om, inhale. Shanting Yoga Sutra 1.3. Pada drastu svarupe vastanam Adatrastu svarupe vastanam Okay, another short verse. So we've got some time and space to be very curious about how these words function. So one of them, is another moment where there's the Santi of ⁓ Sanskrit grammar. The four words are tada, tada, actually there's a long a in the other one, drastu, svarupe, avastana. When it's chanted, the first two words sound just like they are, tada, drastu. And then there's this thing that happens, svarupe and avastanam. And to avoid that stoppage of airflow, the pronunciation is, at least to the best of my admittedly limited study, is svarupevastanam. So even if you're out there in the world, you can say it to yourself, right? Instead of saying svarupevastanam, you can hear there's a glottal ⁓ to stop the flow there, as opposed to that, like, svarupi vasthanam. Just interesting to notice. Okay. So, tada. I love this one. Because tada is like, tada. ⁓ Like then, at that time in that case. Like, like tada. Like tada, there it is. Right? And then we get into some fascinating words. Drastu. So the root of drastu, if it sounds familiar and you have an asana practice, you might have heard the word drishti. And it's the same root, is drš, dr, like a br sound, and a š sound, drš, which is to see, perceive, or understand. And so then this is an interesting conjugation of that verb, drštú. And it's usually translated as seer, S-E-E-R in English. And that's not seer as in an oracle or a fortune teller. Sometimes that's the connotation of this word. In this case, it's more like the observer, the one who sees, right? Like the first person in action of the sight. And then svarupe is usually translated as something along the lines of true self. So sva is like a prefix that is like self-reflexive. So sva-dhyaya. in the Niyamas, the study of the self. So here svarupi is like ⁓ the essential nature of self. And then avastha. is translated usually as like, free. So there's another root word that you might've heard before, sta, as T-H-A, but it's not sta, like Seth, it's ⁓ the T-H is a little bit subtly, it's pronounced differently, you pronounce the H. So it's sta. And in this case, it's also found in like, ervastasana, or lokasamastah. There's that same root and it effectively means to stand. And then avastanam, ava, away, off or down. So to stand away from, or to stand free from. And I'm referencing a lot of these translations from the outstanding work of Reverend Jagannath Kareera in ⁓ Inside Patanjali's Words. I absolutely love it. But the specific translation I'll share is from Sri Swami Satchidananda, another classic, iconic translation of the Yoga Sutra. And his translation is just very simply, then the seer, parens capital S, abides in its own nature. Then the seer, the self, abides in its own nature. And one way to start thinking about this is a prompt of thinking that I'll summarize very briefly, is that every single one of us has a physical form, right? You're occupying this rental car meat sack of a body. And so, It informs our experience in the material world, but we're also capable of observing it, and it changes. And the body you have at the age that you are encountering the sound of my voice is not the body you had 10 years ago. And it's not the body you will have in 10 years. The body is changing and changes all the time, and you can observe the body. if... If the body can, the body informs your experience, but the body is not your experience. So you are not your body. Okay. So now you have like sensations. You have things like the site, the five or some, there's models that talk about like 33 different senses, right? Sense of touch, sight, sound, smell, all those things. Like, so you have these senses and you can observe them. So you're not your sensations, right? And then your sensations trigger thoughts and feelings. And with some practice, you can observe your own emotions and your emotions change very quickly. Sometimes as little as 20 seconds is the actual duration of one emotional state, according to some research. I wish I had a citation for that, but I don't. ⁓ But like, you know it from your own lived experience. You can literally go from elated to deflated in like one second. One word from that one person that just pierces you can change your whole emotional state, like in a nanosecond. So you can observe that though. then like, so you have feelings and your feelings are real. They're not the truth because they change so fast. They're not like capital T truth. And so then you have feelings, you're not your feelings. And you have thoughts, because if you actually really take that mental step back and you practice that, you start to become capable of observing your thoughts. ⁓ there's that thought, Seth. ⁓ wow. Who's thinking that? Like, who's that crazy guy? Right? Who's that crazy guy? So you have these thoughts, but you can observe your thoughts. So who is observing your thoughts, your feelings, your body? Who is that? Right, that's the idea of the seer, since there's nothing to chew on there. But let's keep chewing on it. Sarah Page, is there a translation of this verse that particularly calls to you? Yes, actually, ⁓ you got it the first time. You got the one that I was looking at. But I also really love the Light on the Yoga Sutras of Potentially by Ingark. And what he's... Most of the translations that I looked at pretty much verbatim say the same thing. He goes a little differently. Then he says, then the seer dwells in his own true splendor. I just love the word splendor. ⁓ I don't know what sparkly, it's lovely. ⁓ It sees the self beautiful. I love that he uses the word splendor too. Yeah. I just, and everything else I looked at, pretty much it all says true nature, true this. And I think how often do we really see each other as splendor? You know, it's a beautiful word. Not often enough. Lord, no. So I just love that. I love that. Love that. Sally, how about you? So when I was looking through all my books, I actually, I down three. don't usually, that's usually how I do things later. But right now, if you just give me a moment, I'd love to share this. So the first one I go to her all the time, it's the secret power of yoga by Nishala Joydevi. And she says, united in the heart, consciousness is steady, then we abide in our true nature, joy. So I feel like she gave the little sequence of events, but then Ruben Vazquez, has unraveled the thread is his website, his book. And his says as a result embodied presence. But he goes on to say that this Sutra tells us what happens when we successfully regulate our ways of being or our internal activities. So once again, I think they're tying all these three, you know, bringing us here with the one. But then the third one, Reverend Jagannath Carrera, this is inside the Yoga Sutras, he says, then the seer or the self abides in its own nature. But in the commentary, I saw something, really what I considered a very powerful example. And he said, at some point in your grade school years, you were probably asked to memorize a poem to recite the next day. Fear. ⁓ What did you say when you knew that poem perfectly? I know it by heart, not by head or mind or brain, but I know it by heart. The heart implies the totality of the mind, something deeper and more stable than the usual thinking apparatus. To have a pure heart is to have a clean, steady mind, the state of neurotahide. And I was like, Are we hearing all of the beautiful words, splendor, joy, heart? like that just rocks me back a minute. Well, I just think we do say, I know it by heart. I know by heart. Yeah, I it by heart. embodies something. Yeah, when you like know it. You know it by heart. to me, the seer, that's where United in the heart. You gotta bring that heart. I don't know. Maybe the seer resides in the heart. don't know. But it just that these see, because I was looking at them and same thing. A lot of them are going straight to Sutra 1.3, you know, the result. the result. Right, right. Like, how weird? Why is it that we say, ⁓ yeah, I got it. I learned that by heart. Like, you never hear someone I learned that by brain. I'm going to look that up actually. I'm going to look that up. Where did that come from? Mind blown. All right. Good night everybody. I mean, seriously, Sally dropped the mic because like. But seriously, you all, this is the brilliance. We can study this over and over and over again. And this is the amazing thing. Like we said, this, I love what we're doing because to me we're bringing it back to an oral tradition where we're discussing it. because it's really hard to write this down. And then I do think, wow, this was a great example about knowing things. I was talking today, I saw this Ram Dass quote on Instagram and I try to spend very little time on Instagram. I know we should like be doing more to promote the podcast on Instagram and we'll try to, we're gonna try to find somebody actually I have from Walmart. We need to reach out to her. It's not 100 % not me. It's like, just, doesn't draw, like I don't find it attractive to my mind and I have thoughts about, I also have a career in technology and so I sort of feel like I also know a little bit too much. Anyway. And sometimes you catch something really beautiful and really brilliant. And Ram Dass, who's a spiritual teacher who I just, I've always found very like, I just have always found his words and his approach and his like just humanness like so attractive in the sense of like, I find my mind feels very comforted and soothed when I listen to him. as a huge shout out, the... The Live Server Member Foundation has just an unbelievable resource. Excuse me. ⁓ And let me get the name right because I want to cite it accurately. It's, where's my, on Spotify, you can find, there it is, ⁓ Ram Dass Here and Now. And it's from the Ram Dass Love Server Member Foundation, which is his foundation. And there are, 297 episodes of Ram Dass goodness that they just give back to the world. Anyway, so I was listening to this quote on Instagram and it was Ram Dass and he was talking about how like there's a story, a parable of a man who was like unfairly imprisoned. And so his wife tied a piece of silk, like a strand, a single strand of silk to a beetle. And she sent the beetle up to the tower to her husband. And at the end of the line of silk, she tied a thread. And at the end of the thread, she tied a string. And at the end of the string, she tied a rope. And finally, when he kept pulling, he got the rope. And eventually that's how he was able to then like free, find freedom from his imprisonment. And the teaching is that like, if you have ever been lucky enough to start to encounter spiritual truth, Your first experience of it might've just been the tiny strand of silk. And if you kept going, like someone, hopefully a teacher, maybe if you're lucky, or maybe just by your own, again, the attraction of your mind, know, something stimulated you to like tie a thread to the strand of silk and to find a little bit more. And then you kept pulling that thread and you got to a string and you kept pulling the string and you got to a rope. and then you eventually like tied enough of that rope and how every single one of those phases of progression of spiritual practice is for that sense of like liberation. there's something about that, knowing it in the heart that like you just don't, you don't need to rationalize, don't need to like, like knowing it by heart means like you don't even have to think about it, you just know it. Like when you go back to that reference of like memorizing it by heart. And it's like, think part of what's so amazing about this study, think it's something that has attracted all three of us and maybe a couple of you out there too. Like the deeper we explore these ideas and how every time we come back to them, like there's something like fresh and deeper to explore. It's like we're tying on another string at the end of the last one and we're pulling it to go further. Right? And it's a knowing, it doesn't even feel like a knowing from without. It feels like a knowing from within. Right? It feels like something that arises from within you, as opposed to something that's been granted or conferred upon you. did look up where this came from. ⁓ please. Know it by heart. it's fascinating because it's all related. Of course it is. It comes from ancient beliefs that the heart was the seat of memory, emotions, and intellect rather than the brain. But then it goes down, like it cites some more And it goes into, and I love this, while not scientifically accurate today, the phrase implies knowing something so deeply that it's internal rather than just memorized. something. And so if you take it back to the Sutra, knowing yourself so deeply, knowing ourselves so deeply that it is internal. It's not just something that we spout out. We know it. I love that. I love that. Thank you, Sally. Seriously. Seriously. And because that's how this truth unfolds. We keep pulling the thread. And again, it starts with both that sense of observation. If you think about what it takes, and I'm gonna keep riffing on this, the first time you encounter that poem you wanted to memorize, something about it resonated to you, to me. I remember actually, For me, one of them that I memorized when I was in, I first read it in junior high school and then I memorized it in high school, the full love song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. And I used to be able to recite the whole thing, shall we go then you and I, like the evening danced upon the sky like a patient etherized upon a table. I don't even know why I just pulled that out of it, because I know it by heart. Right? ⁓ I hadn't thought about those opening lines in a minute and I just summoned them. I don't know if it was totally accurate, but it pretty close. But something about that poem and something about how this character who was unrequited and uncertain, he has to dare. Do I dare disturb the universe? In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. There's another line from that poem. Do I dare disturb the universe? In a minute, there is time for decisions and revisions, which a minute will reverse. Like something about that just like, even as like an eighth grader, just like rocked me. But I like what the, which a minute will reverse. It goes back to what you were talking, what we were talking about, what they, the sages are talking about, which is nothing is permanent. How we feel now is completely different than how we feel. It's a vritti, right? Like it's just going to spin you right round and round and round, round, round and round. They knew it in the ancients, T.S. Eliot knew it. Like we're all just dancing around the same truth. Like moment to moment, the mind will just spin and spin and spin. And that is partially, in many ways, like it is the nature of the mind to spin. Just gonna keep on spinning. And then there's this question of like, we start to, can we even just start by like watching it spin? Like, you know how there's this, like, I don't know about you guys, yoga was a huge source of this stimulus. How like, when you think about like where you started, when you started your practice, you started your asana practice and you'd go to a mat and you'd get on the mat and then there's poses that would frustrate you. And then you started being like, huh, there's that pose that frustrates me again. Like, the tiny frustration, that's familiar. And instead of like feeling like it's like the thing that you are, it's a thing that you feel. And you can start to observe it. the same way you start to develop a sense of proprioception. Proprioception is like the ability to discern the physical placement of your body in space. To know like my hand is about even with my head, I'm not looking at that right now, right? This is in front of my face, this is behind my face. And like you start, like this is a yogic siddhi, you could say, like a yogic power. Because if you're practicing without mirrors, you have to just like feel. where your body is, right? Look with your feeling eyes, is what one of my teachers says. Like as in you don't need to look down at your feet, you can just feel where they are. It takes a minute, but like that's what you practice. You practice that like observation and then you start to like practice that in your mind and you start to say, ⁓ like there's that poem that like I just, loved. There's that idea that it's just like every time I stumble onto it, it just like, it feels like something that's like. Like I'm remembering it and I'm remembering it again and I'm remembering it again. And these ideas that we come back to again, it's like I'm just remembering it again. Like the way I just rattled off a line of that poem that I hadn't thought about in a minute. But I'm remembering it again. And so you start and you start to say like, wow, look at that as thoughts go. them go. And then you start to like, trace the pattern of them. Like, oh, when that poke, when I get poked like that, when that thing gets touched, this particular sort of flavor of the thoughts or this like tone of those thoughts gets like, you know, like, I love that saying that like, you know, it's like when I'm with my family. There's a whole lot of those buttons, right? And you know, there's this thing, like, I love this one, that your family, your family knows how to push your buttons because they installed them. ⁓ Laughing just a little too hard. Right? Like no one knows how to push your buttons like your family because they literally installed them. So so like, right, there's like. Like, but you start again, then you start to say like. Wait a minute. I know that button. I know that. I know that. Viti. I don't wanna be the guy that's just spun off into the chaos of my own mind because that person is doing the thing that is the thing that they do. So now I can say, ⁓ wait, there's that sequencing, there's that series of thoughts. And that's when you start to find and feel into this sense of the observer, like this true self. You know, it's crazy. I am really stuck on this heart thing. Like, just from the minute I saw that description, I got really stuck on it. And what I think I have realized for myself is I always think of like my learning style. You know, we have different learning styles and I'm a person that likes to touch it, feel it. Like, I don't do very well reading a book and regurgitating, but I feel like My whole life at school, what I heard them say is like, you're not smart. You can't memorize. Why can't you just read this and do well on the exam? Like exams were really hard for me if it was just memorize it today and regurgitate it tomorrow. But what I realized is, so what I think I learned and finally yippee, I'm seeing something differently is I learned to try to be the person people wanted me to be. wasn't my true self. was trying to like, got to be the person that can get an A on the exam so they're going to like you. You got to be the person that can memorize everything so they're going to like you. I think that I had got this habit as a little girl to quiet the seer, my true self. And I think I kept her quiet. because I was so busy trying to show up the way I thought the world wanted me to show up. And I'm realizing like, wow, what a deep, deep habit that is. And I'm curious now, like really, can I welcome this seer who has stepped every single step of my life she's been with me, every step. And I think sometimes still that little bit of flutter I tend to get in my chest or tightness. is probably the seer wanting to stand forward and me going, hold on, is it safe? and I'm just having this like moment of, wow, can I hold space and see her this afternoon? I was putting my grandson to sleep and it's my fate rocking him. And when his little eyes like, kind of looked like Seth when he was jet lagging. But I'm looking into this baby's eyes and they're kind of looking at me and then rolling back in his head. And I just was thinking while I was looking at him that just I saw just beautiful and I didn't necessarily physically see him. just saw a baby trust me so much that they could let their eyes close down and just melt. And it was funny because that entire experience I was like, what that is, think, seeing something through your heart. And I am wondering what my life would look like if I could steady myself and see the beautiful, powerful parts of me that are brave and courageous versus criticizing. It was also the hundredth day of kindergarten last week and my grandson said, can you just dress me up so I look like her, me, E? You know, with that I would do that. I would go to kindergarten dressed like Sally. I'm just like laughing because I'm, can I be sweet and kind to my gray hair self? Well, you know, this is what we always say, isn't it? This is what we always say, right? We would never talk to our best friends or our grandchildren the way that we speak to ourselves. I want to speak to this because what you're speaking to a lot, in my mind is samskara, the samskaras that we carry with us or when we're small and the wound. And ⁓ Satchitananda has all of these beautiful analogies in ⁓ Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, all these beautiful analogies, and I've got them all underlined and all of a sudden I see this paragraph that isn't underlined. And I'm like, why didn't I underline this? Because now it speaks to me. The seer, Sally, Sarah Page, Seth, can never misunderstand nor forget itself. But we are talking about a level of reflection. The reflection, that chitta, whatever it is that's swirling, the vritti, is distorted. So you appear to be distorted. The true you, the true you, the baby that's being rocked, That is the true you is always the same, but you appear to be distorted or mixed up with the mind by making the mind clean and pure like a baby. You feel that you have gone back or you appear to have gone back to your original state. So finding that that somebody to find that that moment of purity because we still have it. And that's what we think. I forget. I'll speak from I, I forget. I'm still there, you know, I'm still there and I'm not going to, it's something that I've been working on and I am making, you know, baby steps towards really not letting the outside noise affect me because I know who I am. I really do. I know who I am. And so the outside people who don't, you know, whatever, don't align with my thoughts, my beliefs. That's fine. That's on, that's totally fine, but I'm not going to make it about me. It's not about me. And I think it's interesting too, I was talking with some people about this this morning actually, how at the bottom of all of this, getting up in front of people, I'm dyslexic. So Sally, when you talk about, you know, getting up and exams were just, you know, makes, I'm literally, my palms are sweating now. But I wonder how much of all of this is fear, the distortion, the dissonance, all of that at the underlying level of this is just, flat out fear. People are angry because of fear. People are jealous, paranoid, ⁓ neurotic because of fear. And what are we afraid of? Probably finding our true self. Well, that is, I mean, that is the fear, right? Because it's like, because the fear is of the unknown, of the unknowable, that, that like, well, if I, if I'm not my bank account, if I'm not the designer clothes, the car if I'm not, my perceived status, then like, what am I? But Sarah Page, you're right on it. Because right in inside Patanjali's words, something I, by Reverend Jagamath Kare, something I underlined right before we came on was, when we say that the seer stands apart, we mean the seer experienced as it is, free of the overlay and correlations of our biases. hopes, fears, and concept, conceptions. And then can I just add one more thing in the next chapter, in the next paragraph that he says that I also underlined, the seer doesn't fully express in an individual until the confusion between the pure eternal consciousness that is the seer and the seen as the body mind. is removed. Removing this confusion is the goal, end goal of all yoga practice and theory. You know, when we talk about the Sairan, I love when you talked about your grandson, Sally, I could listen to you talk about your grandchildren like all day. But one of the things and I don't know that people know this, the root chakra, the Muladhara chakra, the element is earth. And it comes, it is you come with that formed fully formed. It is spinning. It is not stuck. The other chakras develop along the way, but the root chakra is developed when you're born. And think about it. Of course it is. You've been fed, you're warm, you're well taken care of, you're loved, you're wanted. There is no fear in your mother's womb, I guess. I mean, I don't remember personally, but I would assume that there is no My mom's womb was kind of scary personally. But you didn't know that. Yeah, you didn't know what fear was or any of that. So anyway, I mean, my mom's was good. I just know that it was like, I know that so then when you're born, you're born secure. And I mean, you come out screaming because who wants to leave, but it's like, everything is good. Everything is good. And then you're fed and you're held and you're swaddled and you're asleep on your grandma's chest or You know that she's going to rock you to sleep and you're secure. And it's when that first thing happens, the first sim scar, the first moment of realizing, you know, hurt, pain, whatever it is, that's when the root chakra stops. And, and that's, I just think that's, I mean, can we just love each other a little bit more and see each other a little bit more purely? That's something that's a word. I don't know if y'all have noticed that I'm a word freak. It keeps coming up pure, pure, pure. This era is pure. Yeah. Yeah. And like there is this, and there's this sense that like, You know, like this abode of the heart, like to know by heart. You know, one of the things, there's a, love the... ⁓ It's usually attributed to, I think it's Socrates, that all learning is remembering. Right, like all learning is remembering. Like we're just remembering this. We're remembering that there was a time when we didn't tell ourselves how awful we were because we didn't know how, we just didn't. And like, and something that's And we weren't conceited. No, no, no, no, no, no, it's like- It's pure. It's the joy of watching children play, just play. for the purest sake of play, without knowing the rules of that play. The imagination of children is just incredible to bear witness to and to see and to then remember that there's, again, it's like a purity of heart with little kids ⁓ because they don't know how to be, they learn how to be mean to themselves. Right? Yes. Like we learn how to be mean to ourselves. Or to each other. Or to each other. And to each other, right? We learn that. We learn it by our cultural entrainment. We learn it by what we see at home. We learn it by what we see among other ones or our friends. Like children have a much easier time being kind to each other because it seems like it's much closer to their true nature. At least in a lot of circumstances. I don't want to say all, but since I'm the only one here who's not a parent. By and large, they have to learn. Really, by and large, it's easy for kids to learn how to be kind because it comes naturally. As I think about, ⁓ what does it mean to dwell in our own true splendor? What does it mean to abide in our true self? What does it mean like, There's a sense of like how I think when we find the right path, for each, you know, it's a deeply personal journey, but it feels like coming home, right? It doesn't feel like going away. It feels like coming home. And ⁓ I was saying today how, you know, part of like what was so special for my experience recently in India was like, it didn't feel Like I went there to discover something about myself. It feels like I just remembered, like that place helped me remember like something that was just right there and it was from within. wasn't, I didn't have a moment that was like revelatory in the sense of like from without to within, right? As if I was told or given something. It didn't feel that way. And maybe it would in another context. I don't know, maybe it will next time, I don't know. But this time, what it felt like was like letting go of what was in the way of what I just knew to be true. Like ⁓ a, a, like that, and again, it was like, there was a sense of like an observation that like, this doesn't feel new or like foreign to me. There's the seer, like just sort of watching my own experience. and a sense of self that it wasn't like for anyone else. It's not for anyone else. It was like a, just a deep knowing from, from within. was like, it's just been there and I've just, I just got some really great stimulus to remind me of it. I have to say that being in India with you is one of the most beautiful moments of my life, to be honest, to see you receive. It is a chaotic country. it is life. It is life. is yin and yang. It's all of the things. And I love India. But to watch you at one point, I have to just put this in there, Seth was in the middle of the marketplace in Udaipur. And he just stopped and thus... The toks, cows, everything. Right by the big Jagannath temple. And it's like, he just stopped. And I'm thinking, okay, he's stopping and we're, this is, this is the end of my life right now. And I'm looking at him and he just goes arms out because I love this country. And I just, for me personally, Seth, to see you, but that was like pure. It was pure and I was looking up Splendor. It was Splendor. was just a reception. was like, it was, was like, there's like all this chaos. We're right by this like 500 year old temple and there's like, there's like, you know, it's, it's like beautiful and it's filthy and it's like so spiritual and it's like loud and chaotic. And, and there's this like, there's this just like, person selling flower, like the most beautiful flower garlands to make his offering to the deities inside. And then, other just like super base, like capitalistic commercialism going on all at the same time. And I did have that moment of just like, just, it just was like all, I just felt like in the flow of that moment. It is a snapshot in my brain for the rest of my life. And I just loved it. But even that, was like... ⁓ It just felt... Again, it didn't feel like it was coming from out to within. It just felt like... Organic. It's what's always been there, and I just got out of my own way. That's I'm thinking about this study. I just got out of my own way. Exactly. I feel like so often in the world out there, we're don't do that or my dear. And the teacher was great. She was like, look, you're in charge of your body. You're in charge of all this, but when it's time to put the toys away to have lunch, like this is what we're going to do. So we're talking, but I just was tying this back to it because all this kind of just happened in my head. I'm wondering if so much of how we learn as we move through the world is outside, like outside, outside. How do you show up outside? But how much training or teaching has someone given you to pause and trust from inside out? And so when you describe this situation, I'm seeing inside out because I've been trying really hard to talk to both my grandkids getting trouble at school. I'm trying to talk to them a little bit about how did it feel? You know, you're not, when you're not disrespecting the teach you you're actually disrespecting yourself. Like I want, and how does it feel when you stand up for yourself and each other? Like how, I don't know. Maybe I just grew up in a different family, but I don't feel like I learned much about the inside out. just learned like, ⁓ you made a mistake. You're bad. What did you do? My mother used to say, what did you do? Like if I would say, and this, like if I would say the teacher is mean to me or whatever, you know, or this person was mean to me. I used to think that it was really pretty good, now that you're mentioning it, Sally, she would make me take responsibility for myself, but I took all the responsibility, which has- That's the fine line. That's what we're learning here. Yeah. Yeah. put, can we take care, take full responsibility for our lives? I believe in taking responsibility. Yes. But take the responsibility to be kind. to yourself and teach, don't push the little wisdom, the seer, down, down, down, because the seer allows you to like say, ⁓ my God, in the middle of all this chaos, I can like, everyone throw your arms out and really take it in, you know? That's the wisdom from inside. And sometimes the wisdom's like, no, look, there's a snake and a cow and this, and this is not the time to do that. know? Totally. Totally. And, I think about, like, I had a different manifestation of the same idea where, like, in my case, it was more like, I was generally, like, was, you know, generally a very good kid. Now, in my case, though, it was because there was something else about me that was so terrifyingly bad. that I could be and endear myself to adults especially, it was safe because then when the other kids made fun of me, I had someplace to go. in that, I could be good because school did come very easily for me. know, Seth, always a pleasure to have in class. And ⁓ I ingratiated myself to teachers. I learned the way institutions work and I used that to create a sense of safety. Because in my case, was like, there was that little voice that was like, you're not like all these other kids who when they're starting to talk about girls, like you don't wanna talk about girls. And I didn't even have the words to. describe it except that I just knew it wasn't good. Right? Like I just knew it was bad and it was different. And that like those, those are scary things for little kids to try to vocalize. So I just, like I took it, I like that, was how I pushed that down. Like that was how like I survived it. Yeah. And And you know, it's amazing to think about like, what if we reminded kids that they already know? You know, you just have to pause and listen. Right, you just have to pause and then like, yes, there's times when you just have to do what adults say. That's part of what it is to be a kid, right? But there's also like, but like there's autonomy that you have as a kid too, like over your body, right? Over a certain, like there's a What doesn't make you comfortable, yeah. Right, right. And like, what would be, what would happen if we just told, if we actually conferred that kind of empowerment? for children and what kind of world would we be living in? And what if we just do that for ourselves right now? Like right now. Sorry, Sarah Pitch, you have one thing to say. We gotta start wrapping it up. And then I know, I know. And so I'm make this quick. I think I've mentioned on here before that my daughter has Down syndrome. And I've often said, if we, so many times people would come up to me and go, oh, she's so loving. I'm like, no, she's really, no. She's got a side to her. She's not, she is my child after all. And she's human. However, what I noticed was, and this is what I would say to people when they'd say, ⁓ you know, first of all, it was that these kids, but ⁓ or they, you know, they're so sweet. And I said, you know, the reason that my daughter is so kind is that people have been nothing but kind to her because she had special needs. And I said, if we treated all kids, all kids, smartest ones in the class, the ones who struggle and are shy, the ones who just seem a little spectrumy, whatever, if we treated all kids with the same amount of love and just, you know, respect that my daughter was treated with by everybody that she came in contact with, they could, they fell over themselves to be nice to her because she had Down syndrome. Kids would be in a much better place, I think. Now that's not all kids with special needs, obviously. But she was not bullied. She was not, ⁓ she was just loved. And so as a result, she really loves people. If we treated all kids that way, instead of, instead of with impossible expectations, you know, well, you're not potty trained by this time. What's wrong with you? You know, you're not speaking by this time. What's wrong with you? Well, we didn't have that. All of her milestones were met with extreme. pride and joy and happiness. And why don't we just do that now instead of expectation? What if we just treated each other that way? That's what I mean. And then we just grow up that way. no, but I mean, even now, like, yes, I think, you know, like, if as we start to think about how we wrap this up and like, because obviously, you know, there's like, there's fewer bigger subjects that we could talk about than what it is to like, be our most authentic selves. What is that self and how do we even observe and start to discern the differences? Just like a true lifelong journey of practice and study. I don't know what inquiry does that inspire for you Sally? Cause I know you always, especially like you're the one who really brought us this idea of the knowing by heart. Yeah, it's funny. I keep changing what I think my inquiry for this week's gonna be, but what I'm with right now is do you greet yourself and each other through your heart? Do you listen to a reoccurring thought that is stopping you from living from your heart? That's a powerful and very challenging observation, but there's no better. There's no like, there's no better. Yeah. Sarah Page, what's an inquiry that like, that really, that, starts sitting, that you'll be sitting with this week? Remember, can you remember when you were not hurt? Can you remember back to when you were a true seer? can you remember back? And then sit down with it, meditate on it, write it down, really bring it back into your bones and into your memory, even if for a second, so that you get that moment of magnificence and splendor and abundance. It's beautiful. Yeah, I think I'm just sitting with, do I know by heart? Like, what do I really know by heart? Like, what do I know in my bones? Like what do I know in my heart that like no one has ever had to teach me? that no one can ever take from me, that I don't have to validate with anybody or explain, like what do I really know by heart? ⁓ I was saying too how like I had this experience of... I went to summer camp, I was very privileged to be able to do that. And I went two summers to a camp in the second summer, the boys were very mean to me. And so I didn't go back. And that had a whole set of other samskaras. But I went to another camp in Colorado. ⁓ And every Sunday at this camp, was run by a couple of hippies and it was not like sportsy. was much more about discovery and the outdoors and like. 100 acres of land surrounded on three sides by national forest and preserves. You can go hike in the back country for days. To this day, I can still walk up to and address a horse and get on a horse and ride Western style. It shocks people. It does, but I know how to ride a horse. So I did it when I was a kid. Anyway, and so every Sunday night at this camp, we would have a little cookout. like behind the camp with your tent. Because all week you'd go off and do different stuff and then you'd come back together. And then we'd hike up to this little mountain. And the camp is at like 8,000 feet elevation. And so we hike up another thousand feet or so. And it opened up, I remember this so clearly, onto this pristine mountaintop valley. And there were these rolling hills of undisturbed meadows. ⁓ And we would sit and sing ⁓ John Denver songs, and they would read John Muir quotes, and they would time it to be over at sunset. And there was always silence. And then there would be a silent hike down. And I remember I was probably 11 or 12. the stillness of those sunsets. Like the transcendence, I didn't have that word. Right now I would say I felt real like transcendence. I felt like a truly embodied, full, unencumbered. pure connection to something bigger, like to some force of creation, like nature, God, I don't know. None of those words were enough to describe what that felt like. Like that's something I know by heart. I got something I know by heart. think that some of that informs my spiritual practice to this day. Like I have a, because I have a touchstone to that. Like, right? Like that's something I know by heart. And I also knew it was different than what I was told, like how to find God. And that was tricky to reconcile, but that's another conversation. All right, so we're gonna give one quick teaching tip. Let's give a quick teaching tip. ⁓ You know, whether you teach Asana classes, all three of us do, or you're just, you know, a teacher to someone in your life, because you are, if you're listening to this podcast, like welcome. ⁓ But you get to give something to somebody. So Sarah Page, what's a teaching tip for you this week? That's an interesting thought. Even if you don't teach. I was going to say, and this goes a little deeper, introduce something different into the class like a strap. I did a strap practice this week, and you would have thought I was asking them to be in barbed wire. But what it did was it just, you know, I mean, at the end of it, they their straps. people up. It does. And they took their straps and like, throw them down. And I, and, but the point of it is, and even if you don't teach asana, introduce something different into your life. If you teach the asana, notice what it is that it's, it is triggering. I don't love that word that is inspiring that it's bringing forth in people and why, why just when you introduce something different, when you, when you're used to doing things the same way, and then all of a sudden, you know, let's throw a strap in there and Yeah. No, no. So it goes deeper. can't go on your mat without it correlating to your life. That's for sure. Sally, what's the teaching tip for you this week? So I'm going to speak to the foundation, I think. Building your life and your practice through your foundation. Like really engaging from where your feet are, not... where your mind might be, where your feet are. And I'm just gonna offer to, if you notice self doubt, run it through your heart. Yeah, I think my teaching tip this week is gonna be, ⁓ Nike. What if it's all, like what if for this one hour that you're in here stuck in here with me and you're stuck with me now? ⁓ What if for this one hour it's all. Like you let it all be exactly just as it is. You. Imperfect, out of balance, stumbling, fumbling, breathing, focused, distracted. What if you just let that all be? And let it be okay. Just, yeah, let it all be okay. Thank you. That it's all okay. It's all okay. It's all just what's happening. All you gotta do is observe it. Like what if you just watch it? What if you just watch it all go by? You're the one standing, you are in the stream and you are standing on the bank of the stream. So just watch and literally try to change none of it. None of it. You came to class, show up to class and let it all just be as it is and don't try to change anything. And when you notice the resistance, go toward it. Breathe into it. Curious about it? whether or not you have a moment of then sort of falling into it and then, ⁓ okay, I fell into it. Cool. Then I step back out of it. And let, like, just dance in that. Like, let that be the dance of your practice. It's all okay. You're okay. You're okay when you're in a gorgeous, beautifully integrated expression of a pose. And you're okay when you're fumbling or falling flat on your face. You're okay when it's messy. You're okay when it's beautiful. You're okay. You're okay when you're distracted. And you're really okay when you're present. I'm like, it's okay. Like, what if it's just okay? What if it's all okay? Like, how would that class go for you? Okay. Okay. Maybe. I don't know. We'll find out. I try to tell myself that as a teacher all the time. Like Seth, just like, it's okay. You're okay. Just give a class. Just give a class. That's it. Don't have to make it any more than it is. You're just here to give a class. Anyway. Wow. Not what I expected. No, it's not. Once again, left turn, right turn. up, down. Turn to the heart. like, and but like so deeply within. love this. God, I will never think about this the same way ever again. I will never think about like what that means to know by heart ever again. I'm just ever. Wow. Thank you, Reverend Jaganath Carrera. Wow. I'm going to try and take some classes. No, actually, I'm going to say, Sally, thank you. And thank you, Sarah Page. Thank you, sir. And thank you if you are so generous with your time as to listen, if you find some benefit from your experience of our words. We truly do this to be of service. Like we're not monetizing this podcast. You'll hear there's no commercials. We don't even have a funding mechanism. Like maybe if you really love it and you wanna help us with it, reach out to me. Leave a comment or something. I don't know, figure it out. You can check us out at sutrasquad.com. ⁓ And I think there's a contact us maybe. I should fix that, make sure it's there. ⁓ One day, hopefully enough people will want to do that. But right now really, we're doing this to be of service. And so the most powerful way you could be of service in this immediate moment to the community we're building around this study is just subscribe, like, leave a comment, leave a review, and send it to someone who you think might benefit as well. Again, please share it. Thank God all of us are privileged enough that we get to do this. We were talking before about how this is seva, this is a service for us. I just am so overwhelmed with gratitude for the both of you, for your friendship, for your co-studentship. your inspiration, your challenge, and just your generosity of heart in every possible way. Like, I know that by heart. I know that by heart. I'm so grateful. Life-changing. Thank you. Yeah, life-changing. Always. Always. right. Wow! Okay, so I gotta wrap this up. So with so much love, we are so deeply grateful for every single one of you who has heard the sound of our voices, and stay with us. We'll be back with you again soon with another episode of Sutra Squad. For now, namaste and goodbye. Namaste.