Latest / Philosophy and Faith / 03 - Book One, Sutras 30-51 - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

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03 - Book One, Sutras 30-51 - The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Book one Sutras thirty to fifty one. Sutra thirty. The
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  Speaker 1: barriers to interior consciousness which drive the psychic nature this
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  Speaker 1: way and that are these sickness, inertia, doubt, light mindedness, laziness, intemperance,
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  Speaker 1: false notions, inability to reach a stage of meditation or
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  Speaker 1: to hold it when reached. We must remember that we
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  Speaker 1: are considering the spiritual man is enwrapped and enmeshed by
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  Speaker 1: the psychic nature, the emotional and mental powers, and is
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  Speaker 1: unable to come to clear consciousness, unable to stand and
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  Speaker 1: see clearly because of the psychic veils of the personality.
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  Speaker 1: Nine of these are enumerated, and they go pretty thoroughly
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  Speaker 1: into the brute toughness of the psychic nature. Sickness is
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  Speaker 1: included rather for its effect on the emotions and mind,
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  Speaker 1: since bodily infirmity such as blindness or deafness, is no
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  Speaker 1: insuperable barrier to spiritual life, and may sometimes be a
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  Speaker 1: help as cutting off distractions. It will be well for
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  Speaker 1: us to ponder over each of these nine activities, thinking
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  Speaker 1: of each as a psychic state, a barrier to the
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  Speaker 1: interior consciousness of the spiritual man. Sutra thirty one grieving, despondency,
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  Speaker 1: bodily restlessness. The drawing in and sending forth of a
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  Speaker 1: life breath also contribute to drive the psychic nature to
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  Speaker 1: and fro. The first two moods are easily understood. We
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  Speaker 1: can well see how a sudden psychic condition flagrantly opposed
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  Speaker 1: to the pure and positive joy of spiritual life would
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  Speaker 1: be a barrier. The next, bodily restlessness, is, in a
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  Speaker 1: special way the fault of our day and generation. When
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  Speaker 1: it is conquered, mental restlessness will be half conquered too.
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  Speaker 1: The next two terms concerning the life breath offer some difficulty.
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  Speaker 1: The surface meaning is harsh and irregular breathing. The deeper
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  Speaker 1: meaning is a life of harsh and irregular impulses. Sutra
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  Speaker 1: thirty two. Steady application to a principle is the way
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  Speaker 1: to put a stop to these. The will, which in
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  Speaker 1: its pristine state was full of vigor, has been steadily
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  Speaker 1: corrupted by self indulgence, the seeking of moods and sensations
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  Speaker 1: for sensation's sake. Hence come all the morbid and sickly
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  Speaker 1: moods of the mind. The remedy is a return to
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  Speaker 1: the pristine state of the will by vigorous positive effort, or,
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  Speaker 1: as we are here told, by steady application to a principle.
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  Speaker 1: The principle to which we should thus steadily apply ourselves
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  Speaker 1: should be one arising from the reality of spiritual life,
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  Speaker 1: valorous work for the soul in others as in ours
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  Speaker 1: ourselves Sutra thirty three. By sympathy with the happy, compassion
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  Speaker 1: for the sorrowful, delight in the holy, disregard of the unholy,
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  Speaker 1: the psychic nature moves to gracious peace. When we are
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  Speaker 1: wrapped up in ourselves, shrouded with the cloak of our egotism,
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  Speaker 1: absorbed in our pains and bitter thoughts. We are not
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  Speaker 1: willing to disturb our, strain our own sickly mood by
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  Speaker 1: giving kindly sympathy to the happy, thus doubling their joy,
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  Speaker 1: or by showing compassion for the sad, thus having their sorrow.
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  Speaker 1: We refuse to find delight in holy things, and let
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  Speaker 1: the mind brood in sad pessimism on unholy things. All
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  Speaker 1: these evil psychic moods must be conquered by strong effort
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  Speaker 1: of will. This rending of the veils will reveal to
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  Speaker 1: us something of the grace and peace which are of
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  Speaker 1: the interior consciousness of the spiritual man. Four or peace
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  Speaker 1: may be reached by the even sending forth and control
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  Speaker 1: of the life breath. Here again we may look for
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  Speaker 1: a double meaning, first that even and quiet breathing, which
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  Speaker 1: is a part of the victory over bodily restlessness. Then
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  Speaker 1: the even and quiet tenor of life without harsh or
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  Speaker 1: dissonance impulses, which brings stillness to the heart. Suitra thirty five.
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  Speaker 1: Faithful persistent application to any object, if completely attained, will
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  Speaker 1: bind the mind to steadiness. We are still considering how
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  Speaker 1: to overcome the wavering and perturbation of the psychic nature,
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  Speaker 1: which make it quite unfit to transmit the inward consciousness
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  Speaker 1: and stillness. We are once more told to use the
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  Speaker 1: will and to train it by steady and persistent work,
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  Speaker 1: by sitting close to our work. In the phrase of
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  Speaker 1: the original thirty six, as also will a joyful, radiant spirit.
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  Speaker 1: There is no such allusion as gloomy pessimism, and it
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  Speaker 1: has been truly said that a man's cheerfulness is the
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  Speaker 1: measure of his faith. Gloom, despondency, the pale cast of
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  Speaker 1: thought are very amenable to the will. Sturdy and courageous
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  Speaker 1: effort will bring a clear and valorous mind. But it
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  Speaker 1: must always be remembered that this is not for solace
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  Speaker 1: to the personal man, but is rather an offering to
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  Speaker 1: the ideal of spiritual life, a contribution to the universal
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  Speaker 1: and universally shared treasure in heaven Sutra thirty seven, or
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  Speaker 1: the purging of self indulgence from the psychic nature. We
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  Speaker 1: must recognize that the fall of man is a reality
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  Speaker 1: exemplified in our own persons. We have quite other sins
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  Speaker 1: than the animals, and far more deleterious, and they have
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  Speaker 1: all come through self indulgence, with which our psychic natures
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  Speaker 1: are soaked through and through. As we climbed downhill for
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  Speaker 1: our pleasure, so must we climb up again for our
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  Speaker 1: purification and restoration to our former high estate. The process
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  Speaker 1: is painful, perhaps yet indispensable. Sutra thirty eight, or a
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  Speaker 1: pondering on the perceptions gained in dreams and dreamless sleep
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  Speaker 1: for the Eastern stages. Dreams are, it is true, made
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  Speaker 1: up of images of waking life, reflections of what the
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  Speaker 1: eyes have seen and the ears heard. But dreams are
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  Speaker 1: something more, for the images are in a sense real,
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  Speaker 1: objective on their own plane, and the knowledge that there
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  Speaker 1: is another world, even a dream world lightens the tyranny
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  Speaker 1: of material life. Much of poetry and art is such
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  Speaker 1: a solace from dream lands. But there is more in
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  Speaker 1: dream for it may image what is above as well
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  Speaker 1: as what is below. Not only the children of men,
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  Speaker 1: but also the children by the shore of the immortal
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  Speaker 1: sea that brought us hither, may throw their images on
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  Speaker 1: this magic mirror. So too, of the secrets of dreamless sleep,
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  Speaker 1: with its pure vision an even greater degree Suitra thirty nine,
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  Speaker 1: or meditative brooding on what is dearest to the heart.
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  Speaker 1: Here is a thought which our own day is beginning
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  Speaker 1: to grasp, that love is a form of knowledge, that
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  Speaker 1: we truly know any thing or any person by becoming
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  Speaker 1: one therewith in love. Thus love has a wisdom that
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  Speaker 1: the minds cannot claim. And by this hearty love, this
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  Speaker 1: becoming one with what is beyond our personal borders, we
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  Speaker 1: may take a long step toward freedom. Two directions for
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  Speaker 1: this may be suggested, the pure love of the artist
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  Speaker 1: for his work, and the earnest, compassionate search into the
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  Speaker 1: hearts of others Sutra forty. Thus he masters all from
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  Speaker 1: the atom to the infinite. Newton was asked how he
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  Speaker 1: made his discoveries by intending my mind on them. He replied,
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  Speaker 1: this steady pressure, this becoming one with what we seek
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  Speaker 1: to understand, whether it be atom or soul, is the
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  Speaker 1: one means to know. When we become a thing, we
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  Speaker 1: really know it, not otherwise, therefore live the life to
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  Speaker 1: know the doctrine, do the will of the Father if
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  Speaker 1: he would know the Father Sutra forty one. When the
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  Speaker 1: perturbations of the psychic nature have all been stilled, then
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  Speaker 1: the consciousness, like a pure crystal, takes the color of
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  Speaker 1: what it rests on, whether that be the perceiver, perceiving,
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  Speaker 1: or thing perceived. This is a fuller expression of the
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  Speaker 1: last sutra, and is so lucid that comment can hardly
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  Speaker 1: add to it. Everything is either perceiver, perceiving, or the
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  Speaker 1: thing perceived, or as we might say, consciousness, force or matter.
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  Speaker 1: The stage tells us that the one key will unlock
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  Speaker 1: the secrets of all three, the secrets of consciousness, force,
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  Speaker 1: and matter alike. The thought is that the cordial sympathy
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  Speaker 1: of a gentle heart intuitively understanding the hearts of others
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  Speaker 1: is really a manifestation of the same power as that
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  Speaker 1: penetrating perception, whereby one divines the secrets of planetary motions
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  Speaker 1: or atomic structure Sutra forty two. When the consciousness poised
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  Speaker 1: and perceiving blends together the name, the object dwelt on,
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  Speaker 1: and the idea. This is perception with exterior consideration. In
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  Speaker 1: the first stage of the consideration of an external object,
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  Speaker 1: the perceiving mind comes to it preoccupied by the name
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  Speaker 1: and idea conventionally associated with that object. For example, in
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  Speaker 1: coming to the study of a book, we think of
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  Speaker 1: the author, his period, the school to which he belongs.
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  Speaker 1: The second stage, set forth in the next sutra, goes
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  Speaker 1: directly to the spiritual meaning of the book, setting its
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  Speaker 1: traditional trappings aside, and finding its application to our own
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  Speaker 1: experience and problems. The commentator takes a very simple illustration
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  Speaker 1: a cow, where one considers in the first stage the
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  Speaker 1: name of the cow, the animal itself, and the idea
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  Speaker 1: of a cow in the mind. In the second stage,
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  Speaker 1: one pushes these trappings aside, and, entering into the inmost
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  Speaker 1: being of the cow, shares its consciousness, as do some
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  Speaker 1: of the artists who paint cows. They get at the
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  Speaker 1: very life of what they study in paints Sutra forty three,
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  Speaker 1: when the object dwells in the mind, clear of memory,
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  Speaker 1: pictures uncolored by the mind, as a pure luminous idea.
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  Speaker 1: This is perception without exterior consideration. We are still considering
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  Speaker 1: external visible objects. Such perception, as is here described, is
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  Speaker 1: of the nature of that penetrating vision whereby Newton intending
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  Speaker 1: his mind on things made his discoveries, or that whereby
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  Speaker 1: a really great portrait painter pierces to the soul of
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  Speaker 1: him whom he paints and makes that soul live on canvas.
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  Speaker 1: These stages of perception are described in this way to
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  Speaker 1: lead the mind up to an understanding of the piercing
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  Speaker 1: soul vision of the spiritual man the Immortal Sutra forty four.
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  Speaker 1: The same two steps, when referring to things of finer substance,
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  Speaker 1: are said to be with or without judicial action of
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  Speaker 1: the mind. We now come to mental or psychical objects,
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  Speaker 1: to objects in the mind. It is precisely by comparing, arranging,
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  Speaker 1: and superposing these mind images that we get our general
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  Speaker 1: notions or concepts. This process of analysis and synthesis, whereby
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  Speaker 1: we select certain qualities in a group of mind images
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  Speaker 1: and then range together those of like quality, is the
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  Speaker 1: judicial action of the mind spoken of. But when we
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  Speaker 1: exercise swift divination upon the mind images, as does a
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  Speaker 1: poet or a man of genius, then we use a
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  Speaker 1: power higher than the judicial, and one nearer to the
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  Speaker 1: keen vision of the spiritual man Sutra forty five. Subtle
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  Speaker 1: substance rises in ascending degrees to that pure nature which
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  Speaker 1: has no distinguishing mark. As we ascend from outer material things,
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  Speaker 1: which are permeated by separateness, and whose chief characteristic is
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  Speaker 1: to be separate, just as so many pebbles are separate
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  Speaker 1: from each other. As we ascend first to mind images,
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  Speaker 1: which overlap and coalesce in both space and time, and
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  Speaker 1: then to ideas and principles, we finally come to purer essences,
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  Speaker 1: drawing ever nearer and nearer to unity. Or we may
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  Speaker 1: illustrate this principle. Thus, our bodily external selves are quite
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  Speaker 1: distinct and separate in form, name, place, substance. Our mental
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  Speaker 1: selves of finer substance meet and part meet and part
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  Speaker 1: again in perpetual concussion and interchange. Our spiritual cells attain
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  Speaker 1: true consciousness through unity, where the partition well between us
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  Speaker 1: and the highest, between us and others is broken down,
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  Speaker 1: and we are all made perfect in the one. The
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  Speaker 1: highest riches are possessed by all pure souls only when united.
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  Speaker 1: Thus we rise from separation to true individuality in Unity
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  Speaker 1: Sutra forty six. The above are the degrees of limited
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  Speaker 1: and conditioned spiritual consciousness, still containing the seed of separateness.
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  Speaker 1: In the four stages of perception above described, the spiritual
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  Speaker 1: vision is still working through the mental and psychical. The
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  Speaker 1: inner genius is still expressed through the outer personal man.
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  Speaker 1: The spiritual man has yet to come completely to consciousness
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  Speaker 1: as himself in his own realm, the psychical veils laid
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  Speaker 1: aside Sutra forty seven. When pure perception without judicial action
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  Speaker 1: of the mind is reached, there follows the gracious peace
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  Speaker 1: of the inner self. We have instanced certain types of
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  Speaker 1: this pure perception, the poet's divination, whereby he sees the
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  Speaker 1: spirit within the symbol, likeness in things unlike, and beauty
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  Speaker 1: in all things. The pure insight of the true philosopher,
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  Speaker 1: whose vision rests not on the appearances of life but
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  Speaker 1: on its realities, or the saint's firm perception of spiritual
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  Speaker 1: life and being. All these are far advanced on the way.
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  Speaker 1: They have drawn nearer to the secret dwelling of peace
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  Speaker 1: Sutra forty eight. In that piece perception is unfailingly true,
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  Speaker 1: the poet, the wise philosopher, and the saint not only
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  Speaker 1: reach a wide and luminous consciousness, but they gain certain
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of substantial reality. When we know, we know that
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  Speaker 1: we know, for we have come to the stage where
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  Speaker 1: we know things by being them, and nothing can be
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  Speaker 1: more true than being. We rest on the rock and
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  Speaker 1: know it to be rock rooted in the very heart
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  Speaker 1: of the world Sutra forty nine. The object of this
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  Speaker 1: perception is other than what is learned from the sacred
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  Speaker 1: books or by sound inference. Since this perception is particular,
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  Speaker 1: the distinction is a luminous and inspiring one. The scriptures
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  Speaker 1: teach general truths concerning universal spiritual life and broad laws,
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  Speaker 1: and inference from their teaching is not less general. But
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  Speaker 1: the spiritual perception of the awakened seer brings particular truth
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  Speaker 1: concerning his own particular life and needs, whether these be
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  Speaker 1: for himself or others. He receives defined, precise knowledge exactly
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  Speaker 1: applying to what he has at heart Sutra fifty. The
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  Speaker 1: impress on the consciousness springing from this perception supersedes all
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  Speaker 1: previous impressions. Each state or field of the mind, each
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  Speaker 1: field of knowledge, so to speak, which is reached by
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  Speaker 1: mental and emotional energies, is a psychical state. Just as
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  Speaker 1: a mind picture of a stage with the actors on
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  Speaker 1: it is a psychical state or field. When the pure vision,
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  Speaker 1: as of the poet, the philosopher, the saint, fills the
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  Speaker 1: whole field, all lesser views and visions are crowded out.
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  Speaker 1: This high consciousness displaces all lesser consciousness. Yet in a
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  Speaker 1: certain sense, that which is viewed as part, even by
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  Speaker 1: the vision of a stage, has still an element of illusion,
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  Speaker 1: a thin psychical veil. However pure and luminous that veil
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  Speaker 1: may be. It is the last and highest psychic state
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  Speaker 1: Sutra fifty one. When this impression ceases, then, since all
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  Speaker 1: impressions have ceased, there arises pure spiritual consciousness, with no
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  Speaker 1: seed of separateness left. The last psychic veil is drawn aside,
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  Speaker 1: and the spiritual man stands with unveiled vision, pure serene.
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  Speaker 1: End of Book one, Suitras thirty to fifty one.