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Ep. 13 - Sutra 1.2 On the Definition of Yoga · Sutra Squad

• Seth Barron: Who owns your heart? Is it the world with its emphasis on material success, status, and acknowledgement? Or the experience of the highest truth, spirit, what we call God? Hello and welcome to the Sutra Squad podcast brought to you by One Deep Breath. My name is Seth Baron and I couldn't be happier to be joined by the Sutra Squad superstars, Sally Moore. Hello. And Sarah Page Hall. Hey there. We are in full transparency. This is a Redux episode from last week when we were going to record after Sarah Page and I got home from India and... I was so jet lagged that with no actual intoxicants, I was wasted. And I gave Sarah, Paige and Sally a lifetime of memories of my drifting in and out. And so we're going to be more present and a little bit more awake for a conversation about the second verse of the first chapter, Yoga Sutra 1.0. too. But first, let's just check in. What is a word that describes how you feel right now? Just keep using gratitude, grateful. I just when I get on here, whatever happened, happened and I'm grateful right now. Delicious. Sarah Pitch. Very happy. ⁓ I'm going to go with ⁓ like, like deeply contented, ⁓ like And we'll get to talking about Santosh. The look on Sarah Page's face, I think, is because I've always said it's something I really struggle. It's a term I've struggled with a lot. And that's something that I feel like in the integration of our experience in India, that it really is ⁓ arising for me as a really powerful and personally quiet sense of contentment. I'm just really so so full, like my heart feels so full with where my life is right now, where I am right this very moment. I don't want to be doing anything else. I couldn't imagine doing it with anybody else. And there's just a real contentedness, contentment? There it is. So this week, we are in the second chapter of the second verse of this first chapter. like, The first three verses I always feel like are this really powerful trilogy. And trilogies show up, or threes are a mystically significant number. It shows up in the Christian faith of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It shows up in the Trinity of the Trimurti of Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu. It shows up over and over again. And it shows up here in the Yoga Sutra as these first three powerful verses. ⁓ And so we're in the second one and it's the definition of yoga. So as we begin, take a moment and maybe just notice where you are, how you are. And if it would feel good to sit up, you could do that. And just notice like the length of your spine, notice. how you're taking space in the world right now. And if you're driving or doing something else that requires your eyes to stay open, please keep them open. Or if you can, you could bring your hands together in front of your heart. and you can join me for the vibration of om. Take a deep breath in. Let it go. Inhale for all. you Yoga Sutra 1.2, I'll chant it and then we'll talk about the meanings. Yogas Chitta Vritti Nirodha Yoga Shchitta Vritti Nirodha Yoga Shchitta Vritti Nirodha There's a fun Sanskrit grammatical rule that applies when we chant these words. So individually, the words are yoga, chitta, vritti, niro, dha. And the grammar rules are called sandhi, one group of them. And they have to do with how sounds connect and how sounds change when certain sounds are placed in immediate proximity together. So in this case, if you were to just say yoga chitta, it's a little clumsy in the mouth and the ch has to, ⁓ it like stops the air. Whereas when you say yoga chitta, it has a different sense of flow. You could even just try it like out there on your own, say yoga chitta vritti and then say yoga chitta vritti. You can notice like the air moves with a little bit more ease and consistency. Because Sanskrit was a language to be sung, to be chanted. ⁓ And so this will show up in our study, and I'll try to sort call it out. Because it's not a different word. The word is yoga. And in this case, now we're literally getting a definition of yoga. And that's a big thing, because we throw around the word yoga so much. ⁓ It's one of many words of Eastern practices that I think get thrown around a lot without giving a lot of context or a real like contemplation on their meaning. I think the same is true of the word Zen, right? Like Zen is a very rigorous lineage of practice and a very specific line of disciplic succession. like, it's not like a moment of Zen. I mean, maybe it is, but like if that, that comes from a certain place. anyway, sort of like the word guru, which we'll also talk about, like that word is a big word ⁓ and not one that any of us on this podcast claims for ourselves. I am not a guru. I would not claim that space as like a capital G guru as in like a true spiritual master, holder of a lineage of again, of parampara, of disciplic succession, as in a disciple of a guru to the next like ascension to that title. We're students and we're inviting you into our studentship. We're here to teach from the best of our experience into the best of our knowledge, knowing it's imperfect and inviting you into all of the fun that's possible when we take that study from that place. then, okay, what is yoga? Well, Master Patanjali tells us, like, last verse was, atta yoga nushasanam. So like, when is yoga or like, when is it possible? It's now. It's always now. Yoga's citta vritti nirodhaha, then is the definition. And it's often just sort of thrown off as like the restraint of your thoughts, right? So citta is the content of your mind. And again, like we're gonna go into all of these words, but it's just, what I'll just say is like your citta in the Sankhya philosophical and scientific system of yoga. is prakriti. It is of the material energy and of the material world, right? So you could now with like the ancients knew that and used one frame of reference to describe it. I'll use a modern little kind of scientific frame to describe it, which is that your brain is a computer, right? Is a series of circuits, is a series of electrical connections. And there's a specific pattern of electricity that moves through your brain and different parts of your brain in a way that we don't fully understand, but it creates thoughts. And those thoughts are real. As in like, is, there is something firing in the lump of computer in the flesh sack of my body that is, that is like, that is real. Like that is a, like you can study it. You can view it. It's observable. You could put me in an MRI and see what parts of my brain light up. You can put all the, the, the electrodes on my head and see all the electrical things firing. So your thoughts are real. So that's chitta. Then vritti. ⁓ I love words that mean what they sound like. And vritti is like, if you say vritti, it means like swirl. I think of it as like, if you watch the fast moving water and you see on the sides of the water, like in a river, it like spins on the edges, right? That spin is the vritti. It's like the fluctuations, the active course, the modes of action. Chitta Vritti is like the swirl of your mind, right? ⁓ It's this Bruce Springsteen lyric, like a freight train running through your mind. Sometimes that's how I think, it's on a loop, right? It's just like, wow. Sometimes I think of Chitta Vritti as like the experience of the Wizard of Oz inside the tornado. Like, that's the Chitta Vritti. And then, Nirodha is... It's like to restrain, control, cease to identify with, ⁓ stoppage. So there's this sense then of like yoga is the state in which the chitta vritti are brought to stillness. like another ⁓ is like the cessation, this is BKSA Yangars translation, Master Yangar. Yoga is the cessation of movements in the consciousness. And there's so many ways to understand this. So what is a translation from either of you, whoever wants to go first, that really like resonates for you? I have two I wrote down, but one other thing is I did look up the words one at a time. This has been a little practice of mine recently that's been helpful. And I did the Chitta Mind, for Ritthi I read, I think it was from Jagannath Kareera, Whirling Excursions. And I kind of really like that hit it for me. And then for Narodaha, it was like life focus or end, like the end of the excursion to here. But anyway, my favorite translations, I'm still going with, yoga is the uniting of consciousness in the heart from the secret power of yoga with Nichola Joydevi. Nichola. Say it again, please, Yoga is the uniting of consciousness in the heart. And then the other one I really am enjoying from Unravel the Thread by Ruben Vasquez is yoga regulating ways of being. So that kind of got to the world. I was like, ⁓ here's a whirling excursion and then stop and look. And so Those are the ones that were really jumping out for me right now. So much to chew on there. Sarah Page, is there one that really calls to you? Yes. I'm trying to keep my cat from coming in. ⁓ There's a couple. I like the one from the Jiva Mukti chant book, Sharon Gannon says, Yogas Chit-Chit-Fritin Narodaha, when you stop identifying with your thoughts, fluctuations of the mind, then there is yoga and I like this. Identity with self, which is samadhi, bliss, happiness, bliss and ecstasy. also wanted to, going back to Jagannath Kareya, something that he says that I love, that I hadn't really seen before. He said vritti is a term that graphically describes, and I like the word graphically describes because it is so ⁓ active, right? Describes the nature of the mind's fundamental functioning. A constant whirl of activity meant to help us make sense of the life and the world around us. Helps us make sense of the life and the world around us. And it's so true because we were talking about this, right? We were talking about it before, Sally, you were, about how we go down the bunny hole of riting, usually in meditation, when we're like, ⁓ I wonder if for me personally, this is mine. I'm sitting down, our studio in Metuchen is next to a Whole Foods and I'm wondering, okay, are they still open? Cause I need to get some seltzer. Boy, I wonder if the sushi's any good. It's kind of late for sushi. It's probably not good right now, but maybe they still have pizza. No, maybe I shouldn't eat because you know, I got to weigh in tomorrow morning and if I weigh, ⁓ you know, and that's, that's the vritti for me. That's a vritti and it's like so real. It's so Exactly. But that is making sense. I understand that in a different way because it's helping me make sense of what's going on in my life. So anyway, that's what I like. I was rereading some of the commentary from Jagannath Krivera as well. And one of the things he does so beautifully inside Patanjali's words, he breaks down the root components of the Sanskrit. And so when he talks about, and he writes a lot about Nirodha and Like, ni, nir, and rodha. So ni, leading or guiding, down, into, inward, back, or within. Right, so it's the niyama, like right, the inward observances or restraints. Or pranidhanana, right, like when we talk about devotion to what is before and within. Or it shows up in asana names. So, knee down into inward within, rodha, sprouting, growing, moving upwards and ascending. And then from rudha, desiring, covering, obstruct, arrest, avert. From these roots, we can discern a translation of this word, which can read something like, to lead or guide within, in order to grow and ascend to spiritual heights. And this is blowing my mind, because this is like, we've done this, I don't know how many times, and we've thought and talked about this idea of yoga, this definition of yoga, and it's like never clicked for me this way before. to lead or guide within in order to grow and ascend to the spiritual heights. And a couple of pages later, Here is, I'm just gonna read directly from this text. It's just so fascinating. For the sincere seeker, the development of nirodha is not just about getting better at meditation. Nirodha is also a turning point in life. It is adopting a fresh, vibrant way of life that is grounded in timeless wisdom while adopting to today's needs. This turning point to be authentic is preceded by clear, honest self-examination and a reassessment of goals and priorities. This deep introspection could follow a time of stress or challenge or by an experience or experiences of great upliftment of mind and heart. Usually it is only great suffering or great joy that provokes the kind of fundamental changes we have to accomplish to truly grow in spirit. The main question boils down to this. Who owns your heart? Is it the world with its emphasis on material success, status, and acknowledgement, or the experience of the highest truth, spirit, what we call God? You know, and so when you gave that definition of the uniting of the mind in the heart, like the mind in the heart, and we read this fascinating, like, examination of this word that again, usually it's translated as restraint. And I feel like in our like context of that word, it feels like oppressive. Like I have to, I have to restrain my thoughts is sort of the inner monologue of it sometimes. And it's, and, like, it can feel ⁓ like you have to like wrestle something to the ground. ⁓ Sometimes in some ancient commentaries, the five senses are referred to as wild horses that without any control, they'll just run wild. And that only when they're yoked together and directed with purpose can they truly harness their strength and power. And that's sometimes talked about in the context of practices like pratyahara or sensory withdrawal. ⁓ We'll get there. ⁓ But like... Like, I think for a long time I had this sort of sense that like, Nirodha was like, like this like wrestling to the ground, right? And what, what ever since we've, I jet laggily heard last week and now we're really digging into with a little more clarity this week is that like, the restraint isn't like a suppression. It's not a pressing down. It's, It's like a swaddle of a baby, right? So I'm not a parent, both of you are, but I have swaddled babies. And I've swaddled both of my godchildren, my nephew and my niece. And the first time you do it, or a nurse shows you to do it, or a friend in my case, it's so much tighter than you think it's supposed to be, initially. I was like, what are you? Can you do that to the baby? Like, you gotta burrito him in there when they're little infants. And the answer is yeah, you gotta really burrito him in there. So there's a tightness to the restraint for sure. But it's also done gently from a place of real loving, care, and attention. And I've been thinking to myself, what if instead of thinking I'm supposed to like, beat my own mind into submission and stillness, what if it's like that drawing in as if I'm swaddling all those crazy thoughts, swaddling them in, and that's what allows them to then actually start to calm down and rest, just like the way a really well-swaddled baby usually sleeps better. Well, think about hugs. How horrible is a wimpy limpy hug? mean, you know, when somebody doesn't hug is the worst. It's the worst. It's so weird. it's the same sort of thing. I know that somebody truly cares loves about me when they give me that kind of really firm hug. It's the same thing. But I love this. I know I know it's just all of it. I was looking at Jaganath Kare at the same. same interpretation, nirodhaha, a state, a process, and then it says a way of life. And I think that in this particular sutra, I've gotten way, way too fixated on vritti. You know? You've vritti and in the vritti? I've been vritti and in the vritti. And so, you know, thinking about that, thinking about the swirl, thinking about that, which is true. But I think that nirodhaha is really, for me, now looking at it the sixth, seventh, eighth time that I've gone through it is far more something I need to give a little bit more attention to because it's just not something I've ever really, it's sort of the throw out word for me. love, know, it's funny because Reverend Jagannath Carrera has really got some good stuff. mean, has been the same thing. I think same as Sarah Page was just saying. I've a little bit ignored the Narodaha part, but I want to just read two things. This is out of ⁓ Inside the Yoga Sutras by ⁓ still Reverend Jackamouth Carrera, but ⁓ Narodaha's ability to distill activities of vrittis is not due to brute repression, but a process of selective focusing, redirecting and holding attention on one object or idea. And I just thought, wow, it's like we gotta notice the swirl first, right? And then, because we gotta notice that the swirl distorts our perceptions of reality. And this is where I think people, I think, I know, like I know was one of the most like really mind blowing and difficult legs of this journey. not to say it's completed by any means, but in its early stages, there's this point, I said this in a session I gave, as Zareb Baj was there, to a teacher training group I had the privilege to share some instruction with, and I said, you are taking the first steps on a journey, a lifelong journey. And there's going to come a period early in this journey where you will realize that you are the agent of your own suffering. And it is very disturbing. It is very disturbing. And I highly recommend you get it. You call in some really good support to navigate this because like when you really, really get clear that like the crazy is yours, you've chosen it. It's mine. I choose it. Again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and and again and again again and again again. It is very, it rocks you. It rocks me. In a way that was like, wait a minute, I'm having, I am the genesis of those thoughts, like they come from within me. There's no external, nobody's telling, nobody has anywhere been as mean to me. I guess I'm very lucky to say this, but for the most part, I've had a lot of other points of my own stuff, but like, My Dharma, my path hasn't had somebody telling me I'm a piece of shit or like, you know, I've been the subject of that kind of verbal abuse. I don't mean to dismiss anybody else's experience by any means, but nobody's ever been as mean to me as I am to myself. Nobody's ever been as mean to me as I am to myself. And just being able to like, be flat and say that and be real and just be like, yeah, nobody's ever been mean to me like I'm mean to myself. And it's really upsetting and disturbing to acknowledge and admit that. Well, I guess for me, I'm thinking like, I've had... People say some pretty mean stuff to me over the course of my life, but I have jumped into the game. They might not see it, but it's like, you just gave me something to beat myself up. Let me use your words and really pound it in. So for me, that's the swirl, right? Like these things come from somewhere and I believe our mind is trying to protect us. I believe that yoga is a gentle practice that is asking us to be very though committed and disciplined and all that, but never really asking us to beat the crap out of ourselves, right? You always say that, Sally, you always say that. You're gentle. It's not punitive. Because I feel like if I get into the punitive thing, I'm going to stay in the swirl of routine because I'm going to just add on like I'm like, ⁓ you think you're going to call me fat? Well, just imagine what I'm going to start calling myself. Like you got nothing on me. And so I feel like that I fat and raise it 10 and raise it. But that's, think what a little bit we're being asked. to notice like, and the other thing I am slowly noticing, even though I feel like my thoughts are darting, I was reading something to these guys earlier, kind of similar to what Sarah Page was saying from like, ⁓ there's a grocery store across the street and then, ⁓ yeah, but then they don't really sell the, also need softener for my water softener, but then I need to pick my kids up and I probably don't have enough gas, but they don't have gas there. Like this is happening in my mind and I was so grateful to read it in one of these books, like, ⁓ Cool, I'm human. it's not that, but I want to add one thing about this. Narodaha that I really have liked that basically taking on that, you know, the mind and the whirling and then with Narodaha, basically, Jackenoff writes it with Narodaha, then the seer self abides in its own nature, a description of self realization. So that's like if you put the practice of Narodaha in, here's an outcome. And then he carries on without Narodaha. At other times, the self appears to assume the forms of the mental modifications, a description of spiritual ignorance. And that's like, go through both. Sometimes there's a little wisdom that pops in and things get a little clearer. And sometimes, the spiritual ignorance, I follow it. Because we are human. Because we're human. You know, so the prompt for discussion that we were going to go toward was really like, you know, all of us teach asana, which we, know, part of our, part of this sadhana together, this practice of study and spiritual study, is that like, you know, yoga asana, which is how most of us have encountered yoga in the West, is like this one small piece of this whole system. It's the one that gets the most attention, the one that like people think of when you say like, I'm gonna go as if you're like, I'm gonna go do yoga. Right, what you're really meaning to say is you're probably going to a studio to practice yoga asana. And that's wonderful. And like we love asana. I love asana. I love asana practice. I love physical practice. The like the... The prompt was really around when you have a new student who comes to take your ass in a class and they say, what does yoga mean? What is yoga? How do you respond? What do you say? What do you say tomorrow when a student comes to your Sarah Page and says, yeah, I've been to your class a couple of times, I love it, I love your, I will say, love your music. I teach at a gym and I. teach to music I like, which is a lot of electronic kind of music. Perfect. And I love hearing that you love my music. That's great. I curate it very intentionally. I'm really particular about what I play and how, why, and what I do. And that's like this much. And if that's what you're capable of receiving, I love it. Or if that's what you're receptive to, if that's like, If that's, maybe I shouldn't say capable, that means like, that can sound a little condescending, which is not what I mean. If that is the point of connection that resonates, and quite literally resonates, especially when we're talking about sound, amazing. And then they say, what is yoga? Like, you keep using, you keep saying this word, they don't think it means what you think it means. Like, no, like, you use this word, so like, what does it mean? And like, right now, if that student comes to you tomorrow, Sarah Page, like, what do you say? Wow. mean, it does change, doesn't it? Because I think, you know, last week, a month ago or whatever, I would have said, ⁓ it's connection. And it's just not just connection. I mean, that's the literal yuge connection community. Sometimes I will ask class, what is yoga? What does yoga mean? And they're all like, I don't know. And I'm like, it's community. This is your community for one hour or 75 minutes or however long we're going to be there. And now after such a ⁓ seismic kind of week, month, where a lot of things have literally kind of crashing at me in all different directions. For me, yoga right now is just life. And I don't know any other way to put it. It is absolutely what I lean on. It is, and it's the eight limbs. And so if somebody came to me and I wanted to be really just sort of base, I'll say, you know, Technically, it means connection, community. And for me personally, it is my life. It is what I try to live by. The Yamas, the Niyamas, the Asana, the Pranayama, the Pratyahara, Dahrana, Tathayana, Samadhi. I try to live by all of the precepts and I check myself. Am I being kind? Am I being intentionally harmful? Those are the things that I do. And I was actually talking to a dear friend of mine today, ⁓ Christine, and she said something and I said, you know, Christine, I don't play at this. I try very hard to live it. This is something I believe in. It's not a fad. It is what I consider my life. So it's best of my ability. And I know that sounds heady and maybe a little bit presumptuous, but it is the truth. It's a beautiful aspiration. Yeah. Right, I don't mean that dismissively at all. ⁓ no, I know you don't. Like, if you're not up to the, I mean that's the big game. Right. My teacher Bethany says there is no in here out there. There's no difference or space between the person out in the world and the person on the yoga mat. Feels like that sometimes, but like that's actually my, that's the illusion of the physical realm. As if somehow, It's like a different Seth out there than it's a different Seth in the studio on my mat, a different Seth in the studio as I'm teaching or any of those things. It's also Seth. It's just different little nuances. Totally, different facets of the Seth diamond. Sally, a student comes to you and says, what do you mean yoga? What is yoga? And how do you answer? I go with this is yoga. Yoga is life and life is yoga. listened to a meditation a week or so ago and the mantra was, ⁓ this is yoga. This is yoga. This is yoga. And it's funny earlier today, I was lucky enough to play with my two year old Cinderella. And one year old and my granddaughter said, okay, I'm the mom and you're the baby. And my little brother is the daddy. And I kept saying to myself, this is yoga. It'd be easy to check out, right? Like, I don't want to be the mom. I don't want to be the baby. And I feel like I was just thinking, I'm just to some scar. But I mean, so for me, it's that the thing is, it's not about, it's about being present when you are agreeing to be the baby, or when you are agreeing, like, can I become aware of my thoughts not to close anything out, it's a lot about what's going on in my head and how that's altering Wait, let's double tap on that Moa not to close anything out. Yeah. Because like, this is this is where I think This is what gets perniciously toxic sometimes in mindful spaces, right? Around positivity and happiness, as if those are things that, as if you're supposed to be happy all the time. You're not. None of us are. If you were happy all the time, you wouldn't feel anything else, and you wouldn't have the contrast, and it wouldn't even be happy. We'd call it something else. And you can be hurt, and you can be angry, and you can be human. Yes, all of it. that like It's all just like rising sensation, rising phenomena, and then, and then it's like there's no wrong thought. How many of us have had thoughts that are so wild that you would like, would never do anything of the thought? And like, it's sort of shameful to admit, we have it as shameful. because those thoughts are the wrong thing, the bad thing, I know I'm not supposed to do that. But we don't give ourselves credit as much for that, know I'm not supposed to do that thought, as we tend to beat ourselves up for the thought that feels so wrong. And this was sort of what I was getting at too around this idea of nir-o-da-ha as like, it's not the restraint of like, I once used an analogy with my Zen Sensei therapist ⁓ around like, sometimes I feel like my worst self is like a demon that I try to keep locked in a cage in the corner. And I'm like so terrified of what would happen if he escapes. And it like, I think of like this little piece of my psyche sometimes is like cordoned off over there. And like, I try not to look at it and I try not to listen when he gets really loud and sometimes he gets really loud. Sometimes he's like banging on the crate and then like bars and he's like clanging on it and like, and, and lately I've sort of tried to examine him a little bit more and like actually listen. even when it's really uncomfortable to what he has to say. And like the nir-od-ha is like, what if I give him a hug? A hug and a voice without control, right? I was just thinking, I was having a conversation with someone about like, don't we all just, we really want to be heard and seen. And what if the parts of us that we think we need to, what if we give everyone, but they don't have... You know, I think of my daughter once shared with like having a board, a table and a board room. And then all the thoughts are sitting at the table and you know, you can choose like, Hey, hey, you've taken up more space than, is necessary or helpful in this moment, you know, but what I think it's that suppression. that things just get bigger. It's like oppression and repression. it's you know, it's the Carl Jung, like what we resist persists. Absolutely. Right? ⁓ Jung who studied Bhagavad Gita, studied Sanatana Dharma, yoga, like all of this. It's really blown, it's really like rocking my world a little bit. You know, that like, I think I would answer, well, one is like, know, yoga is the connection of all things. Like, yoga is the infinitely complex interconnectedness of ourself and our heart, our minds, our bodies, our spirit, our soul, our physical form, our mental form, our emotional form, our energetic form, our spirit. Like, all of it is yoga. And if we were to describe that, like, as a state, I would say it's sort of like the full. It's like, instead of yoga is the cessation of the fluctuation, like, you know what it reminds me of is the term involution, which shows up later in the text. But when Master Patanjali later on in chapter two talks about the kleshas, the obstacles to yoga, he says specifically even, these are to be brought. like to be conquered through a process of involution, meaning like a turning inward to like metabolize almost. And that's how we burn the seeds of that ignorance. And then you keep like sort of folding it in and folding it in and folding it in and like working it down. And there's this sense of nir-o-da-ha, like that like, it's not denying any of the thoughts, it's not repressing the thoughts, it's actually just embracing them all. Excuse me, and then not allowing ourselves to be ruled by them, not being in constant reaction to them, but in being in full embrace. Well, and also embracing and regulating, right? So because the loud... The loud ones sometimes take up more space than is necessary. So that's, I think, where the regulating comes in. Yes. Yes. But like regulating, I don't know about any of you guys, but like making those loud thoughts, like trying to make like, it's like when somebody shouts at you and you shout back, what happens? Nobody can hear. Nobody can hear. Nothing good. Yeah. When we counter the loudness with a quiet like, hmm. Okay. I hear that you're really like upset about that. Something shifts so often, sometimes not. When you take the air out of the fire, it ceases to flame. It's really about not meeting anger with anger. And this is something ⁓ that I've learned. It's not meeting anger with anger. It's not, ⁓ it's taking the air out of it. Right. What's that gorgeous quote from Dr. Martin Luther King? Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Love is the nirodha, right? The hate, the division, the fear, uncertainty, doubt, that's chitta vritti. But the nirodha is the loving embrace that can, like that's the stillness. We're gonna start to wrap. this episode because we could talk about this all day. It's so big. It's like blowing my mind. I'm sure we'll talk about it more next week when we talk about the sort of conclusion of like what what happens when we start to achieve that state of restraint or nir-o-da-ha. So, Sally, what's some inquiry that this has prompted for you this week? Like that we could offer for folks if they want a journal, if they just want to have something to think about as you know, from as a prompt from this episode. So I would just say, are you aware of the ways you might be distorting the truth in your mind? Do you take time to reflect? You gotta be out of pause and say that one again. That's really a big statement. Oh, I don't know. working on it. you aware of the ways you might be distorting the truth of your mind? do you take time? of the ways in which you might be distorting the truth of your mind? know it's Don't worry. Just keep practicing. I would say, then just how do you practice it? How do you practicing becoming aware of distortions that you might be creating and what might be, what would your life look like if you lived in the moment as it is and as it is not. Yeah, that's really powerful. Sarah page, do you want to inquiry for the week? Yeah. Where are you bypassing? Where are you bypassing and making it something that it isn't? Either one way or the other, where are you not allowing yourself in your mind, allowing yourself to feel? So good. I'm going to yes, yeah. I'm going to yes and both of you and I'll just offer, you this is actually a prompt from like a lot of like inner psychedelic work practices, but like it's like when you feel fear, can you go toward it and can you ask what it has to teach you? So like when you notice the chitta vritti, when you feel like without making yourself wrong for the thoughts that you're actually having, even if they're not true, and especially if they're unkind, could you instead go toward them and really ask yourself like, what is it that I need to learn or what is it that you need to see, or feel? And then we also offer a teaching tip because all three of us offer asana classes. Every one of us is a teacher. Whether or not you're a teacher in a formal sense or not, like if you've gained some benefit from this episode and maybe there's something you could pay it forward to teach somebody else. Sally, what's like a teaching tip for you this week? So I would say the invitation in the physical practice would be to create space for noticing and regulating your thoughts. Maybe let falling out or making boo-boos. Oops, I think we were calling them part of the practice. Allow your yoga, your life to be a practice of self-regulation. What I would say is that similarly, and where are you making yourself wrong? Where are you afraid to do, where are you allowing the fear to stop you from doing something because you feel like, ⁓ I can't, I shouldn't, that sort of thing. And find some laughter in the falling out. Just laugh. A felling crow, laugh. Who cares? Yeah, it's just crow. It's just crow. Yeah, I would say like, one of the practices that grounds me in this one always is Drishti. Like, because when your Drishti is all over the room, your thoughts are all over the room. When your Drishti is locked and really intentional, pose by pose, moment by moment, it has a very calming effect on the mind. And I find it does. And in fact, you know, it's something that I do, I even notice when I start to get upset or when I start to feel myself get a little like, intense and like that's a practice that I've actually taken out into the rest of my life way outside the studio. I'll just like lock in on something and usually try to have it something inconsequential to what's going on. And I just give myself like and say like Seth, just like like just take this Drishti for five breaths. And I find it almost always like is a really good practice of like self-soothing. So I would just say like, you know, really challenge a class to say like every pose set the Drishti and keep it. And when you shift it, that's like, first of all, notice when you shift it. I gotta call it, Mitch is calling it. So, I just like, my mind is blown, my heart is blown. This is just like the actual pastime. And I just love you both so much. I can't thank you enough for being with me in all this. And it's a true privilege. It's a blessing. you. It's a blessing. All right, and to every single one of you out there who hears the sound of our voices, thank you so much for your time, for your attention. It's very precious and we know that, and we're very grateful. And if you've received any benefit and you wanna give us a rating or a review or leave a comment, we love it, we love it, we love it, we love it. And it helps somebody, if you don't find somebody else, find the episode, or consider, like, if you know somebody who might enjoy, you know, sharing is caring. And ⁓ with that, I will say thank you so much and we will be with you again very soon on another episode of the Sutra Squad. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye, y'all.