What a Tangled Web We Weave, Translations and Commentaries Books I-III of the Yoga Sutras

Want Samãdhi to Love, Book I

Stairway to Heaven, Book II

Be Careful What You Ask For, Book III 

Divide and Conquer, Unite and Transcend (Yoga Sutras 3.49-55)

The time has come. The pathway has been laid out before us, the pitfalls and obstacles identified, we have been given the key to release the shackles of ignorance, the maps have been drawn and the warnings given. There is only one choice to be made at this juncture.

Continue with this challenge, or return to status quo, the familiar.

We now close in on Book 3 with this daunting, and it is daunting, challenge when we arrive at the following sutras. The well has been fully primed, and it should be no surprise what lies behind the veil, and yet, it is...so let us continue.

3.49-50 then reveal:

sattva-purusha-anyatã-khyãti-mãtrasya sarvabhãva-adhishthãnritvam sarva-jñãtritvam 3.49

tad-vairãgyãd-api dosha-bîja-kshaye kaivalyam  3.50

Giving us:

Only for the one who recognizes the difference between sattva (reason/Mind) and purusha (consciousness/true awareness/Soul) is there the intelligence of all and supremacy over all beings. 3.49

However, even from vairãgyam (detachment) from that state comes kaivalyam (absolute singularity) in the destruction of the affliction of the seed concept (for samãdhi). 3.50

Bam. The sutra heard around the Yoga world...duality is only apparently the final step...non-duality is the ultimate one.

I cannot stress how influential it has been for centuries that this turn at 3.50 has been ignored or simply denied.

The message here is quite clear: Duality brings us omniscience and omnipotence; Non-Duality brings us freedom, because the former is the highest form of bondage ever.

To restate.

What we have been building up for the entire Yoga Sutras thus far are the tools to refine our sense of discretion, or viveka, in order to recognize the difference between sattva (pure reason) and purusha (pure intelligence) through the 8-limb path of Yoga and through diligent, long-lasting practice (abhyãsa) and ultimate detachment (vairãgyam) from the fruits of our actions. It is what we do when the Bee stings.

That is to stand at the  abyss. 3.50 dares us to jump. And, this is when we falter, we hesitate, we freeze, or we turn around.

We fear Kaivalyam above all else. It is the most primal fear of all. It drives us to act when we should not or not to act when we should. It paralyzes and it enervates us to even think about it. It is the monster in the closet, the fear of turning off the lights.

Krishnamurti often spoke about the difference between being lonely and being alone. Being lonely gives us a perverse comfort because we can feel sorry for ourselves, we can play the victim to an audience of one, thus creating two. From the singularity comes duality. To be alone is the opposite, it is to extract yourself from the continuum of the flow, and to still the thoughts, the vrittis in the mind, because at that moment, you are no longer distracted by the buzzing of technology, the chatter of inane conversations around you, the to-do lists in your head, the frets and anxieties of what "might" happen, the text messages that barrage you on your Smart phone...and the list goes on. To be alone is to detach from all of that. To un-plug, unconditionally. To actually see and to listen to your own heartbeat and breath. To be as primal as the original, first element of the Universe. And, it is terrifying. But, it is the ultimate liberation.

Kaivalyam is: To be utterly alone.

And, we balk. We hesitate. We turn back to the familiar.

Or, we go forward.

3.51-53 give us some final tools of advice before we leap. One final samyama to perform...

sthãnyupanimantrane sangasmayãkaranam punar-anisththaprasangãt 3.51

ksana-tat-kramayoh samyamãd-vivekajam jñãnam 3.52
jãti-lakshana-deshair-anyatãnavacchedãt-tulyayos-tatah pratipattih 3.53

Upon the enticement of divine beings, one should shun being/acting in awe, lest falling prey to attachment/desire again. 3.51

By performing samyama on the absolute present and its progression, knowledge born from discretion (viveka) occurs. 3.52
At that time, the discernment of two identical essences can be determined, though they are not distinct in species/type, quality or location. 3.53

3.51 gives us the final warning...the warning of the Midas Touch. The Temptation of Christ. The apple to Adam and Eve.

If the Yogi/ni has reached such a level of progression upon his or her 8-limb path that the deities themselves are enticing them, beware because that is merely seduction. When Buddha was nearing his ultimate Enlightenment, to become the Buddha, the Awakened One, he was first seduced by Mara (the agent of Death), the demon who tries to seduce Guatama with the most prevalent human temptation of all: sex and power...

The Buddha saw that this too was seduction for attachment and was not to be his path. He touched the Earth as his witness as testimony that even the divine and demonic could not sway him and that he was grounded in being alone. Kaivalyam.

3.52 and 3.53 then return to the concept of setting up discretion (viveka) as the ultimate tool, one that soon too will be discarded. However, like Picasso learning the rules of Realism first, he could then break the rules to create Cubism. John Cage had to know the meaning of sound before presenting silence. The Yogi/ni has to refine discretion/discernment before abandoning even that. For, if we have not truly looked, truly seen and experienced, then it is false. It becomes bumper-sticker slogans: "All is One" "Be One with the Universe" "Love and Light" that eventually mean No-thing if one has not truly experienced them.

In 12-step programs, one saying is "One day at a Time." A bumper sticker. A wall poster. If you have not lived it. 3.52 calls upon us to live it. To perform samyama on the immediate NOW. It is very trendy for people to spout out "Live in the Moment" and some people have made millions of dollars saying what Patañjali and others have said for thousands of years. Nothing new under the sun. It is mere psycho-babble, a palliative for the masses, and it sells.

To buy it is one thing, to live it another.

3.52 challenges us to live in the ever-present now, that kshana (which like the original Greek meaning of a-tom, means that which cannot be divided/cut further) is the smallest, infinitesimal description of Time, meaning, no Time. And yet, things change. There is a krama, a progression form one kshana to the next, that is imperceptible to one who is casually living, but for the Yogi/ni who is aware and hyper-observant, there is discretion, but that too, is not the bigger picture. It is the forest for the trees once again.

3.53 is resonant with a concept in Physics that has fascinated me for some time now. Entanglement. It is the process in which two essences become entangled at the quantum level, the absolute fundamental level in such a way that they can be on opposite sides of the Universe and still be linked by communication that supersedes even the speed of Light. They are linked identically and simultaneously, irrespective of Time and Place, and once entangled, it is permanent.

3.53 says then that even the Yogi/ni can discern between the Entanglement, despite to all other observers, there is no difference.

And, yet, that again, is just parlor tricks. 3.54-55 lead us beyond that Rabbit Hole that we entered at the beginning of Book 3. We are on the other side of the Black Hole now.

tãrakam sarvavishayam sarvathã-vishayam akramam ceti vivekajam jñãnam 3.54
sattva-purushayoh shuddhi-sãmye kaivalyam iti 3.55

Leaving us to conclude Book 3 with:

Knowledge born of discretion is the liberator of all objects, everywhere and is a singularity in Time. 3.54
Kavilayam occurs then in the absolute equality of the pureness of sattva (reason) and purusha (consciousness). 3.55

We divide by discretion. We recognize the difference between pure reason and pure consciousness, only to then see that they are merely two sides of the same coin, Kaivalyam, so we then unite, and transcend.

And, so, the curtain has been pulled back, the veil removed, the apo-calpyse begins, and what do we find behind?

A mirror.

With the reflection of ourselves, ... alone.

Book 4 awaits.

Stop It! Stop It! Stop It! (YS 2.15-17)

And here, the Yoga Sutras meet Buddhism head-on, as well as Bob Newhart. Hopefully that got your attention because it is no exaggeration to say that Sutras 2.15-17 are easily the most important 3 sutras in Patañjali's entire work. It is why I originally began this journey with 2.16 some time ago, because that is the absolute turning point for the text as a coherent, integrative whole. Why? Exactly, why? As we shall see, YS 2.16 definitively gives us the "why?" of the "why?" that we saw in Book 1 with Samãdhi, but this is even more important. A meta-why? if you will.

So, with that tall claim (I am currently in Texas, so why not a Pecos Bill-type boast for good measure?), I will tackle these 3 seemingly innocent, but highly charged sutras with you. Buckle up, and take off the parking brake because it's time to move. 

In our last post, we discovered that the kleshas, or afflictions of the mind, can be modified and even eliminated by one important aspect, karma, or action. We also learned that the kleshas are the root of our discontent in life. Dis-content, for all intents and purposes, can serve as our best translation of Duhkha here. However, suffering and dis-ease (un-easiness and disease are folded into this) are also important synonyms as I have already used both as well. 

NB: I am hyphenating the prefix dis- here, because it comes to use directly from the Sanskrit duh- into Greek as dys- and Latin as dis-, all meaning something negative or often harmful. The Sanskrit element su, which means good, well or comfortable, comes into Greek as eu- such as eu-phoric or eu-thanasia; so we have duh-kha and su-kha, which become the antonyms of dis-content and well-being, with "kha" being a state or condition of being. 

Okay, with this in mind, let us then return to the text itself with 2.15:

parinãma-tãpa-samskãra-duhkhair guna-vrittti-virodhãc ca duhkham eva sarvam vivekinah 2.17

Or, in English,

For the person of discrimination/discretion, all is dis-content/suffering due to the sufferings/dis-ease of change/evolution, strain and mental impressions/memory and because of the turmoil of the fluctuations/interactions of the gunas. 

This is a Yoga Sutra bomb, loaded with every possible angle that we encounter in our Yoga practice, masterfully condensed into a dozen words. I will now diffuse this bomb, but will not get bogged down so as to lose the elegance of its economy. Remember the KISS motto: Keep It Simple, Stupid...

Here we go.

For the person of discrimination/discretion, the vivekinah... This word is extremely loaded as it not only implies one who has integrity and discretion, but it directly links us to Advaita Vedanta, or Non-Duality as championed by Shankara, as the highest form of cognition is discrimination, or viveka. But, this is immanently transcended to non-Duality as even the duality perceived is found to be illusion, as we shall "see" (pun will make sense in a minute) in YS 2.17. 

Here, the person of viveka is our dear Yogi/ni on the path of Sadhana, seeking moksha or release from duhkha...which is caused by our karma, or actions. Sound familiar? For all of you Buddhists out there, it should. And, with the next three  words, your Buddhist alarm bells should be going off on full tilt:

duhkham eva sarvam...meaning, all is dis-content/suffering. 

This is verbatim the First Noble Truth of Buddhism for those new to the concept. This is the core of all Buddhist thought. Unfortunately, many people get stuck on this and then say that Buddhism is Pessimistic, and a certain Schopenhauer did not make that case any better, nor do certain mortification of the flesh strains of Buddhism today. But, continuing with the Four Noble Truths, as well as with Patañjali momentarily, we learn that there is a solution, a release: moksha and/or nirvana, which is brought about by ending suffering by tempering our desires. Oh, and how does Buddhism solve this? The 8-fold path, or the Middle Way. Patañjali? Ashtanga, or the 8 limbs of Yoga...hang on! 

Given that Buddhism precedes the Yoga Sutras by at least 200 years and possibly as much as 700,it is a pretty good gamble to say that Patañjali was quite familiar with its precepts and influences in India. So, is Patañjali then a grand fakir and plagiarist? Well,...not completely, however, a Buddhist footnote is very appropriate here. 

Buddha said that all duhkha was caused by thirst or desire. For Patañjali he does elaborate a bit more, but it does boil down to the same thing as we shall see.

Taking up the rest of the Sutra, then, we have a two-fold reason that all is dis-content for the enlightened Yogi/ni, namely:

1) parinãma-tãpa-samskãra-duhkhair

[This is a compound in the instrumental case, with duhkha acting as the agent for you linguistically minded.]

The three things that suffering is the agent of are:

a) Parinãma: A very powerful word that means "evolution" "transformation" or "change". Although some like change, it can often be a source of high anxiety for many, and it is ultimately an act of violence.

b) Tãpa: an intensified form of austerities or effort, it becomes more akin to "strain" here. In our lives and our practice, when effort transforms (parinãma) into strain, we encounter suffering. Much as when in ãsana practice when discomfort evolves into pain...Discretion, or viveka is then necessary to avoid this dis-comfort.

c) Samskãras, which as we have seen, are the mental impressions and memories that we carry about with us in our mind. These can lead to both passion (rãga) or aversion (dvesha), which both lead to duhkha in excess. How can passion? Passion, or craving/desire leads to duhkha very quickly and is the root of addiction. Looking for the next fix, be it love, pleasure or a chemically-induced high, only leads to a temporary parinãma, and the cycle continues and intensifies, heightening duhkha.

And, (ca)

2) guna-vrittti-virodhãc

Which gives us:

Because of turmoil of the fluctuations/interactions of the gunas.

Here, it is because of the perpetual interchanging relationships of the three gunas: rajas, tamas and sattva that causes us further duhkha. In other words, our moods, energy and emotions...sounds pretty true to me, eh? The gunas play a big part in both the Bhagavad Gita and Ayurvedic studies, so again, this one Sutra has compacted no less than: Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, Ayurveda, the Gita (itself an Upanishad) as well as Yoga in a dozen words. 

Let that sink in for a moment.

And then, the zinger, YS 2.16:

heyam duhkham anãgatam  2.16

Or,

Suffering (that has yet to manifest) ought to be avoided. 

I have dealt with this at the onset as I have mentioned, so I will not rehash it, but in short, this is the REASON to do Yoga! The form of heya/m here is an injunction, something ought to be done... 

There is an unfortunate trend in Yoga these days that there is "no right or wrong" and "all is okay..." well, yes and no. Nice enough for bumper stickers and coffee mugs, but why the hell bother? Really. Why bother if this is the case?

There is suffering in the world, some of it physical, some emotional/mental and some a poignant combination of both the Mind and the Body. Patañjali does not stick his head in the sand, nor did the Buddha, but both say, "C'mon, there is suffering, but you can do something about it!" Now that is something I'll throw my hat into the ring on.

Bob Newhart says it quite plainly as well:

Stop It! Stop It! Stop It!

Whew, I feel better now.

And, finally we come to 2.17:

drashthr-drishyahoh samyoge heya-hetuh  2.17

Giving us,

The cause of this injunction to Stop It! is in the union of the Seer and the Seen. 2.17

Here again, our friendly Seer and Seen combination, this time grammatically in the dual form, pop up. We "see" (now you get it?) this at the beginning the Sutras in 1.3 and 1.4 again shall see it again in Book IV when we wrap things up.

In short, when we confuse/conjoin the Seer and the Seen, realizing that they are the Same, not Different, then our Suffering shall fall away. 

And how do we do this? How do we Stop It!?

We are knocking on the door of the 8 limbs of Yoga to find out...

Is Ignorance (truly) Bliss? (YS 2.3-2.9)

We are in new territory, and that much is clear with the first two Sutras of Book Two on Sãdhana, or Practice. We've moved away from the castles in the sky to feet on the ground. The rest of Book Two, as already mentioned, then focuses upon the practical aspect of Yoga, namely, how to get things done. It is the Method that Patañjali is giving us to deal with the actual vicissitudes in life such as we caught a glimpse of in 1.30 with respect to 9 distractions of the mind. Now, atha, is the time to define our terms and make a plan as to how we shall proceed then to deal with the distractions, obstacles, fluctuations and so forth that plague our mind and body on a daily basis, and thus challenging our Yogic Practice.

At this point, then, Patañjali introduces the five Klesha's, or afflictions that we shall inevitably face.

With 2.3, we find a listing of them, and in 2.4, we find out which of them is the root of all the rest.

avidyã-asmitã-rãga-dvesha-abhiniveshãh kleshãh 2.3
avidyã kshetram uttareshãm prasupta-tanu-vicchinna/udãrãnãm  2.4

Giving us:

Avidyã (ignorance), Asmitã (Ego-ness), Rãga (attachment/passion), Dvesha (aversion/repulsion) and Abhinivesha (we shall deal with this more later...) [are the five] klesha's.   2.3

Avidyã (ignorance) is the field of all the rest, whether they be dormant, attenuated, intermittent or fully expressed.  2.4

As will be the case with Book Two, these are more or less pretty straightforward sutras. We have a list in 2.3 that will be followed by 5 definitions and 1 qualification in 2.4-9. The lone qualification being that of Avidyã is the bedrock of all of the other klesha's. In other words, ignorance, and here it is literally a lack of knowledge a-Vidyã (the "a" in front denotes an absence of what follows and is therefore slightly more loaded the merely the negation. As such a+Vidyã is the lack of knowledge, or Vidyã, that is ignorance, by the absence of knowledge) is what causes all of the other 4 afflictions we must face. Arguably, it is a-Vidyã that is the root cause of our suffering then, our duhkha as we shall see later.

Our five klesha's then are ignorance, Ego, attachment, aversion and abhiniveshah, all of which shall be defined in turn. Avidyã is the kingpin kleshah and they can either be dormant, or latent, attenuated/weak, intermittent/fractured or fully expressed. Nevertheless, avidyã is present as the driving force behind them.

So, let us see what this Avidyã is in 2.5, which reads:

anitya-asuchi-duhkha-anãtmasu nitya-suchi-sukha-ãtma-khyãtir-iva-avidyã  2.5

Or,

Avidyã is the concept of mistaking something temporary as eternal, impure as pure, suffering as comfort and the non-Self for the true Self.

Again, pretty straightforward.

The main point that is often pointed out here is the usage of "ãtman" for the "true Self" or Soul. Traditionally this term is used in the Upanishads and other Vedanta-type texts, which for us does not seem like such a big deal. However, for someone who is supposedly an adherent of Dualism with the Samhkhya tradition, to use the non-Dualistic term "ãtman" over "purusha" would indeed have raised some eyebrows, and it has over the years. Personally, I feel it furthers he case that we should be very cautious to label the Yoga Sutras as an exclusively Dualistic. (In fact, as we shall eventually see in Book 4, it is tenuous at best to even suggest that, but I digress as that is for later.) Take-home message here is that avidyã is deception about the true nature of things and it leads us to further kleshas as we shall see in the following sutras.

Beginning with 2.6 and the concept of Asmitã:

drig-darshana-shakhyor-eka-ãtmatã-iva-asmitã  2.6

Or,

Asmitã (Ego-ness) is mistaking the Seer and the action of See-ing as being of one and the same nature.

In other words, back to the beginning with the Seer and the Seen we saw in Book 1 at 1.3-4. This is again something that will be solved (in a non-Dualist manner) in Book 4 where we understand the mistake being made with relating the Seer (the Ego) with the act of See-ing and/or the object that is seen. Meaning, it is an illusion that there is a separation at all, and it is from the power of the concept of the Ego that promotes this illusion, something along the lines of "I am, therefor I see" which gives too much power to the Ego according to the Yoga Sutras. If we take credit for the very act of See-ing, then our Ego has outstretched its boundaries. This is akin to the concept that there is no possession, in that to say "I" or "Mine" is hubris on a universal scale. There is only "Atman" and we are all part of that. Again, a very slippery non-Dualist/Advaita slope we are on here.

We continue then with 2.7:

sukha-anushayi rãgah  2.7

Which seems very simple, but we have two very different possibilites:

1) The consequence of sukha (happiness/eudaimonia) is rãgah, or attachment/desire.

or

2) Rãgah is the result of sukha. (!)

Very different translations, and the grammar does not help us. We ultimately have to chose between 1) which is cause and effect, or a definition 2) of Rãgah. The import of this is whether sukha or rãgah is to be taken as the subject. Semantically this would mean that rãgah could be "a" consequence of sukha, or "the" consequence/result of sukha. In other words, either desire could come from happiness, or more strongly, desire is the result of happiness.

The following sutra provides the same conundrum for duhkha (suffering) and dvesha (aversion):

duhkha-anushayi dveshah  2.8

Giving us again two choices:

1) The consequence of duhkha (suffering) is aversion.

Or,

2) Aversion is the result of suffering.

This may seem like splitting hairs, but when you are looking for precise definitions, this ambiguity is large enough to drive a Yoga Truck through (Bekir, my dearly departed Yoga mentor from Austin, Texas used to say after a challenging class, "you haven't done Yoga if you didn't feel like a truck ran over you, the Yoga Truck"). We shall pick up on this discrepancy in a forthcoming post. For the time being, it is more important to realize that BOTH attachment/desire and aversion are considered kleshas. Why? Simply because they are both a form of attachment. It is the same as if someone quits smoking, drinking or whatnot but is just as consumed by NOT smoking, drinking or whatnot as he or she was by the habit/action in question. The opposite can be the same. That is Patañjali's warning to us here. Don't be fooled by thinking we are doing one thing when we may be doing another.

And, finally for the kleshas, we reach 2.9 with:

svarasa-vãhi vidusho'pi tathãrudho'bhiniveshah 2.9

Or,

Abhiniveshah affects even the wise as it is inherent to ourselves.

Abhiniveshah is usually translated as "clinging to life" and it is normally seen as a weakness amongst the ascetic scene as it is giving priority to the physical body, or life, over the immortal aspect, the Soul. Currently I am not 100% convinced by this standard translation, so I am going to leave this in the original Sanskrit as I ponder on it a bit more...so, there shall be an update on 2.9 in the near future as a result.

In summary, from these sutras 2.3-9, we have been introduced to the kinds of afflictions and given their definitions and/or qualifications. As with the vritti's, or mental disturbances, the kleshas need to be dealt with, and how we go about doing so will be the topic of the next post...

Stay tuned.

Want Samãdhi to Love...Translation of Book 1 of Patañjali's Yoga Sutras w/commentary

How Soon is Now?  (YS 1.1)

The Anatomy of a Sutra (YS 1.2)

The Eyes Have It (YS 1.3-4)

Splinters in the Mind's "I" (YS 1.5-11)

The Bee in the Rose (YS 1.12-16)

Pr(act)ice Makes Perfect? (YS 1.12-16, redux)

Knowing our ãsmita from our Elbows (YS 1.17-22)

OMG: OM, My God! (YS 1.23-29)

Detours of the Mind's Eye (YS 1.30-32)

Methods to [End] the Madness (YS 1.33-39)

Six Not-So-Easy Pieces (YS 1.40-1.45)

To Seed or Not to Seed (YS 1.46-51)

iti Patañjali-viracite yogasutre prathamah samãdhi-pãdah

Thus ends the first chapter of Patañjali's Yoga Sutras on Samãdhi

To Seed or not to Seed (YS 1.46-51)

In the last post, we had to do some rather fancy footwork to make sense of a few things, and even then, there are still some lingering questions. In short, we did discover that there are four types of Samãdhi, or meditative synthesis, at this point: sa-vitarka, nir-vitarka, sa-vicãra and nir-vicãra, and they are a succession towards an ever-more subtle, singularity of awareness for the mind. In other words, a gradation of stages towards profound awareness through Samãdhi. As such, the emphasis on the diligent praxis of the abhyãsa is what is ultimately going to make the theory of the Sutras a reality for the Yogic adept.

When we turn the corner into the homestretch of Book I, however, the sutras become pretty clear and straightforward again, especially in 1.46, which reads:

tã eva sabijah samãdhih  1.46

Or,

Those/they (four types of Samãdhi from above) are the Samãdhi "with seed".  1.46

tãh, or the plural of tah, which means "they/those" (with the possible exception of being singular, feminine "it")...and it refers then to sa-vitarka, nir-vitarka, sa-vicãra and nir-vicãra Samãdhih, and these are given the designation being sa-bija, or with seed. (If you have been following the logic of Patañjali, you will be anticipating that there should be a nir-bijah Samãdhih lurking around the corner, which we will see there in fact is!)

Now, the fun thing about innovative thinkers is that they innovate. The frustrating about innovative thinkers is also that they innovate...and they use words in their own special way, such as sa-bija...

It is not entirely clear what Patañjali means by "with seed" and later with nir-bijah "without seed" and as a result, there has been quite a bit of speculation on this seemingly innocuous term.

The general consensus is that sa-bijah Samãdhih is inferior, or tainted as compared with nir-bijah Samãdhi, which has led to the further consensus that sa-bija must mean that "with seed" will ultimately flourish into fruit, which shall then cause desire or aversion to the fruits of an action or process, in this case, Samãdhi. In other words, if there is a result, a fruition of our Samãdhi, it still means that we are doing it for a purpose, or have some residual attachment, which as we saw in the beginning, leads to suffering...So, we may be close to a release, or moksha, from this suffering, but not quite.

Let's go on a bit further with 1.47-50, which all deal with the nature of the four types of sa-bijah Samãdhi.

They read:

nirvicãra-vaishãradye 'dhyãtma-prasãdah  1.47
ritam-bharã tatra prajñã  1.48
shrutãnumãna-prajñãbhyãm anya-vishayã visheshãrthatvãt  1.49
taj-jah samskãro 'nya-samskãra-pratibandhi  1.50

Giving us:

Upon mastery of nirvicãra (Samãdhi), there is profound clarity in the Soul. 1.47

At that point, understanding bears the Truth. 1.48

Because of its specific objectivity, it is different from other objects known through sacred scriptures, inference and learning. 1.49

Cognitive filters born from that (sa-bijah Samãdhi) are further obstructing of other cognitive filters. 1.50

Okay, we need to do some gentle massaging to extract the meaning into clear language here from the literal translations.

With 1.47 and 1.48, it is already pretty clear. Nirvicãra, the fourth degree of sa-bijah Samãdhih, being the highest, brings with it clarity for the Soul and truthful insight.

With 1.49, we see that within nirvicãra, or cognition beyond rational thought (the Koan of the sound of one hand clapping...), it still has objectivity, the one hand clapping, but because it is a singularity (that is, super-focused upon ONE object), it is still objectivity, no matter how superior it is to all other rational cognition or thinking.

Why?

Samskãrah happens....

When we process information, whether it be through reading books (or Patañjali's Yoga Sutras...meaning he would even say they are not the ultimate source of understanding...), or through inference or even higher education, we create cognitive filters, or samskãrah. Simply put, when we see a flower for the first time, we may have no "flower" samskãrah. But, over time and with experience and repetition, we build up layers of such filters as "red, rose, smell, thorns, bees, love, Spring, beauty..." and so forth that we then apply to the "rose" when we see another one. This is an example of "with seed". In other words, we plant the seed of the concept in our mind's eye, and the fruition, or the flowering of it is when we "see" something that we can relate to those filters, namely, another rose. And, so it goes for everything in our lives. Otherwise, we could not get up in the morning because we would have no cognition of any-THING in our lives.

However, there is still an object and a subject, the See-er and the Seen (and those 2 shall make another important appearance later in Book 4) still rule supreme here in the land of sa-bijah. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed is king. And, for all intents and purposes for Patañjali, sa-bijah Samãdhih is still in the realm of the blind. So, although this is great, and vastly further than 99% of 99% of people could ever hope to obtain through Yoga, Patañjali has one last Ace of his sleeve...nirbijah Samãdhih, the ultimate goal of Yoga, which we saw already in 1.2...It is so ultimate that it transcends itself in words and thoughts...(starting to sound suspiciously like Advaita Vedanta if you ask me...not the dualism that is so rampant when speaking about Yoga...)

Yogas'citta-vritti-nirodhah... 

Circle becomes complete with 1.51, which reads:

tasyãpi nirodhe sarva-nirodhãn-nirbijah samãdhih 1.51

Slam dunk for Patañjali, when we compare 1.2 with the translation of 1.51, which is:

Even in the cessation/temperance of that (sa-bijah Samãdhi/nir-vicãra), due to the cessation/temperance of everything, [there is] nir-bijah Samãdhih.

In other words, from 1.3 up to and including 1.50, we have been making baby steps at first, and then grander steps at the end, learning to deal with the vritti's, or challenges that we face in our daily lives, and then ultimately having taken care of business, arrive at the cusp of a syn-thesis (literal translation of Sam-ã-dhi) of Enlightenment and clarity of the Soul by doing what?

By letting go of even that entire process once we've reached the peak of the mountain...in other words, go beyond even thinking...which ultimately we see in Zen as well...the heir apparent of "dhyãna" as we have seen.

Everything's Zen...

Mic drop...

The Moving Mind

A classic Zen story begins like a bad joke…Two Monks are staring at a flag waving in the wind…

But, as it continues, it turns out the two monks are arguing about the nature of the flag and the wind.

One asserts, “The flag is moving,” while the other insists, “The wind is moving.”

Upon hearing this, an enlightened Master interjects, “Not the wind, not the flag; Mind is moving.”

The concept of the endless chatter of the mind that clouds our thinking is also common to Advaita Vedanta as well as Yoga.  In those moments, we are deluded into a trick of perception and perspective. As when we are sitting in a train that is stopped in the station, and suddenly the train next to us begins to move, it is almost impossible NOT to feel like our train is moving. Though our body does not feel it, our mind literally tricks our neural pathways into “feeling” our train move…

In Shankara’s Aparokshanubhuti, he has a series of such deceptions borne out in a string of similes, though all repeating the same concept. Namely, we are often our own best deceivers.

Abhreshu satsu dhãvatsu somo dhãvati bhãti/

Tadvadãtmani dehatvam pashyajñãnayogatah//

Just as when the clouds pass over the moon, it too appears to move, so too on account of ignorance does one see the Ãtman to be the mortal body.

A Crown Jewel

One of the seminal texts of Advaita Vedanta is undeniably Sri Shankarãcãrya’s Vivekaçudãmani, or “The Crown Jewel of Discretion,” in which he outlines the progression of the path a devotee needs to follow in order to rid oneself of false ideas because of our mental prejudices.

Much less accessible than Shankara’s Aparokshãnubhuti, it is, however, much more explicit in its program. It is as Plato’s Republic to his Phaedo. Ultimately the same message comes out, it is a difference of degree rather than kind.

The goal (a dubious term, for like Zen, or the Tao, to define it is to destroy it, or worse, to show that one does not understand it), being a paradox in itself, is the cessation of erroneous judgment, caused by delimiting our experiences into pigeonholes, all the while missing the interconnectedness of everything. The Mãyã, or illusion that we “perceive” is that we distinguish and create boundaries and borders, rather than finding the underlying comparison.

P.D. Ouspensky, in his A New Model of the Universe, describes this spurious activity as being within the visible, or exoteric world, while we meanwhile have forgotten the underlying truths within the esoteric, or invisible world. One is reminded of the recent Nobel Prize in Physics, celebrating the discovery of the “God Particle,” or the Higgs Boson, “invisible” to us, but "found" all the same borne out of theory, and perhaps is a building block of the Universe. However, the mystery of the vast majority of the Universe still eludes us, namely, the yet “invisible” Dark Matter.

So, with all of this confusion buzzing around us, what is one to do?

For me, various types of meditation have emerged as the most effective means of calming the storms of thought, or the fluctuations of the mind, the first step in the practice of Yoga. Over the years, swimming has been my meditation of choice, but I have recently added the practice of zazen, which is proving to be a perfect complement to “losing myself” in the water. As such, this passage struck me as appropriate for this stage of my journey.

Virajya vishayavrãtãddoshadrshtyã muhurmuhuh/

Svalakshaye niyatãvathã manasah shama ucyate//  22

After having detached (itself) from the multiplicity of sensory perception, again and again contemplating their defects, the continuous resting of the mind upon its aim, is called Shama, or serenity.

Be-ing or Non-Be-ing, is that the Question?

Recently I finished a translation of the Aparokshãnubhuti, attributed to Sri Shankaracharya, under the title of Immanent Awareness. Here is the introduction for those of you interested in reading more about it. I will be putting out a more comprehensive examination of the text within the year, but the current edition is available now on Blurb as you can see on the left side of this page.

Namaste,

Robert

Introduction: Indra’s Net as a state of Be-ing and non-Be-ing

The relatively short text of the Aparokshãnubhuti, here translated as Immanent Awareness, attributed to Sri Shankaracharya, is remarkable for that which it is not as much as for that which it is. Perhaps taking the advice of the text itself from verse 138, it is beneficial for us to assert what it is from the negation method as well as from the positive method.

The question concerning authenticity of authorship is then an appropriate point of departure for our investigation. Whether Sri Shankaracharya composed this text is a question that will most likely never be answered, and for all intents and purposes, it is not a very interesting question, rendering either a positive or negative response neutral, like the noun Brahman itself. As such, I have no intention of either spilling any more ink or splitting any more hairs about the question than has already been done in previous studies on Shankara and/or Advaita Vedanta, or Indian Philosophy in general. However, I will maintain that it is important to realize that it could be a text by Sri Shankaracharya, and that remains a valuable point worth pausing upon for a moment.

Shankara is believed to have composed several hundred texts in his brief, yet brilliant lifetime, dying at the early age of 32, sometime in the 8th Century BCE. Yet, as with many of the eminent Sanskrit authors and texts, the likelihood of ever correctly attributing a specific text to a specific author approaches zero rather swiftly. Again, that Shankara could have written the Aparokshãnubhuti, however, does not raise many eyebrows, and it is usually ascribed to at least his Advaita Vedanta school of thought, if not to the poet-sage himself. Shankara’s more well-known works include the Advaita Vedanta pièce de resistance of the Vivekashudamani as well as his commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, the Manduka Upanishad and the Brahmasutras, which are all considered to be the bulwark of his achievements.

The important thing being for our purposes here, however, is that the Aparokshãnubhuti does fall under the rubric of an Advaita Vedanta text and not necessarily commentary on any one particular textual tradition as in the case of his aforementioned texts, excluding the Vivekashudamani that is. Advaita Vedanta itself, which literally means “Non-Dualism of the End of the Vedas” is considered to be a reaction to the various competitions of Vedic Scriptures, most notably Buddhism, Yoga, sectarian Hinduism, and Jainism, which each and all threatened to overturn the supremacy of the Brahmin caste as the truly learned and traditionally revered. As such Advaita could easily be seen as being much like the New Testament to the Old Testament in which Jesus does not come to replace the old laws, but rather to complete them. By saying “the End of the Vedas,” one is to take it as such, a completion of the Vedic tradition, rather than its negation or replacement.

However, given the very nature of Advaita itself, meaning that it is Non-Dualism, it runs the risk of not only negating the division between what came before Vedanta, but also, per definition, must take into account what comes after the Vedas, and consequently, must account for all of the competition as being part of the Advaita. For, in order to fully become Advaita, there can be no competition, the dualism must be extinguished on every level. And, this is where the Aparokshãnubhuti shines.

The sheer economy of the text itself, merely a gross number of verses, is staggering in the scope of what it accomplishes. Within the text, entire philosophical systems and major religious tenets are encapsulated, and in some cases refuted, in a mere handful of verses, such as in verses 90-99 where the entire concept of Prãrabdha, the concept of regenerative Karma and culmination of the actions of past lives and the consequences thereof, is negated wholesale, written off as a veritable myth for the Ignorant, and even the scriptures themselves are put into question. So much for being slavishly Vedic, a critique that Shankara has had levied against him more than once by those who oppose his presumed associations with the ultra-Orthodox. In essence, Shankara’s message of Advaita both thwarts and proves the concept of Orthodoxy, becoming a most troublesome enigma and paradox for many. In order to refute Advaita, moreover, you must accept it fully.

Yet, this self-negation is a necessary product of Advaita and in turn is the solution to its own riddle as a perceived dilemma. It must negate itself in order to reach its goal, that being the union of Brahman with the Universal Ãtman, which in turn is the all-pervading Soul of Everything. No mean feat to be carried out in a mere 144 verses, yet, it happens within this text. The name ascribed to the text, namely Aparokshãnubhuti, literally means an “immediate or unmediated realization/awareness,” meaning that there is no mediation between Brahma and the Individual Ego, for how could there be if the goal of Advaita is to show that they are one and the same? The rub, however, is whether the One is the Same, and what relationship it has with the Many.

In philosophy, specifically what is loosely termed Western Philosophy, the concept of the One versus the Many has occupied the minds of many thinkers and has caused irreparable rifts amongst various fields of thought and inquiry, most notably with the infamous sparring of Plato and Aristotle, the classic case of the student taking a 180 degree turn from the Master resulting in the Platonic championing of the One as a grand Synthesis of the particulars into the Ideal, and the Aristotelian favoring of the Many by means of taxonomy and classification by Analysis. This perceived duality between the concepts of Synthesis and Analysis is highlighted in the Platonic dialogue known as the Parmenides by the discussion of the phrase hen to Pan, or what is usually translated as “All is One.” However, as I will show below, what the predicate actually is for Advaita will prove to be quite important in its distinction from this translation and its consequences in philosophy.

As a result of taking sides for the One or the Many, for millennia, western philosophers have quarreled over the teleological conundrum of, when it is all said and done, is the Universe One, or is it a composite of Many? Herein lies that rub, yet one that Advaita does not balk at. The answer for Advaita, however, is “simply”: both, and neither, because it’s the same answer. Let us consider a few other attempts to answer this question, however, before going further.

An illustration of the paradox of the One and the Many can also be seen in what is known as Zeno’s Paradox, regarding Time and Space. The situation is whether all is in flux, or if nothing changes. When an arrow is shot from a bow, at any given time, it should be half the way from some other point, and this division, theoretically, can go on ad infinitum, resulting in the arrow never reaching its target as it is always, half the way there, from some point. And, at each point, even at Infinity, as a result of Gödel’s Theorem, there can always be one more division, or Infinity plus one. Or, on the other hand, if Time is a continuum, then the arrow is both in the bow, and at the target, and every point in between, at ALL TIMES! In the former, we are dealing with Aristotelian Analysis and infinite regression between Cause and Effect, never reaching the source, nor the Prime Mover. In the latter, we are looking at the Platonic Ideal that the arrow is a mere shadow of the perfect, Ideal Arrow, that exists at all times, and is in a perpetual state of perfection, unmediated by Time or Space. Advaita, by default, has to say that both are correct, yet also that both are incorrect. In other words, we are at the stage of MU, a well-known concept within Zen, and which Advaita comes closest to encapsulating, specifically in the Aparokshãnubhuti.

MU, as Douglas Hofstadter celebrated in his monumental book, Gödel, Escher and Bach, is the concept of a state that is beyond either 1 or 0 in the binary system, or in other words, is neither Yes nor No, but both, and neither. Many Zen Koans, or thought experiments, (most famously with the question of “What is the sound of one handing clapping?”) are based upon this state of Mind, or Be-ing, in which there is No State of Mind, nor Be-ing. It is non-Duality par excellence because it is a non-entity state. It exists outside of both Time and Space. It transcends the transcendent.

Yet, we must not just turn to Zen or other Oriental thought for this concept, for within the Occidental tradition, there is Immanuel Kant. In Kant’s three critiques, when read together as a whole, we see this same concept being played out. Within his first Critique, that of Pure Reason, he establishes the two a priori concepts of Space and Time as the Transcendental Dialectic. Space and Time are Transcendental to the human experience, which is the subject of his second Critique of Practical Reason. In the first Critique, Time and Space, being a priori, are beyond our comprehension when taken together. They are the two aspects of the Law of Nature, or the realm of God, and human understanding cannot, because of its limitations bound by Time and Space, ever reach full awareness of the Time-Space Continuum that would later be the lynchpin for the emergence of Quantum Mechanics and the New Physics of the new millennium.

Kant’s philosophical concept of incomprehensibility was synthesized by the Physicist Werner Heisenberg and his “Principle of Uncertainty,” in that we cannot measure both the vectors of location and movement of an object at the same Time within Space. It is impossible with our limited, human a posteriori faculties of Reason, being Practical, not Transcendent. There are two realms of Law, the Natural Law of a priori Time and Space that transcends our capacities of understanding, and there is Human Law, which is fabricated upon experience and can only ever be an approximation to Nature.  Morality, as a consequence of being part of Human Law is merely a good approximation based upon a common consensus of what we ought to do. But, even Kant, in the end, will not say it is what we have to do. We can only guess, and make an approximation. There are limits of Reason. Only God, according to Kant has the capacity to know all Space and all Time. In Physics, this God would become GUT, or the Grand Unifying Theory, a search for the “Mind of God” as Stephen Hawking would phrase it.

What happens in between for Kant, however, is the subject of the third installment, that being the Critique of Judgment. In this Critique, the mediation between the realm of Nature and the world of Human Understanding is simply “play,” or Spiel. Herein lies our capacity to make judgments based upon experience and to witness the Beautiful and the Sublime of the Universe as a sense of perception. However, neither is based upon reason, but rather they are the result of an “Immanent Awareness,” which is likewise the focus of the Aparokshãnubhuti. The unmitigated experience and witness of Brahman as Be-ing is this immanent awareness, or unmediated consciousness. It is transcendent, and once someone has this awareness, the Universe can never be viewed in the same way as before having this awareness. The Laws have changed, forever, or rather, our perception of them has as a result of this awareness.

Hegel was the logical step following Kant in the development of this train of thought, and brings us one step closer to what we find within Shankara’s text, though predating Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit by at least a millennium. For Hegel, Bewußtsein, or consciousness/awareness was the goal of philosophy. Yet, this Bewußtsein, or consciousness did not stop at Selbstbewußtsein, or unmediated self-awareness, but something much more bizarre, yet very akin to Advaita. In the individual dialectic of Self-Consciousness, with each step of realization, a “new” Individual living for-Itself was manifest. Furhtermore, with each consequent sublimation of an awareness of the Self, the Individual became more and more Self-Conscious, like the accretions of nautilus shell building upon its own complexity in simple stages, only revealing the trajectory of the spiral in its completion, or Perfection. But, the ultimate goal was not merely for each Individual to reach Self-Consciousness, but rather for the entire Universe to do so.

Furthermore, the way that the Universe performed this amazing feat, for Hegel, was to suddenly become Self-Conscious of Itself being Self-Conscious of Itself, much like an infinity of mirror images reflecting upon themselves. In Indian thought this is similar to the concept of Indra’s Net, which is described as a net, infinite in all directions, containing a brilliant jewel at each intersection, of which each jewel reflects all other jewels in all Space for all Time. For Hegel, this reflexive self-awareness of the Universe was done when all individuals realized that they were Universal. In other words, in the words of Advaita, it was when the Individual Atman realized that they were No-Thing but rather were the Universal Atman, meaning they were all Brahman, and consequently not Individuals. At that moment, all distinctions are extinguished and the Universe becomes Self-Conscious, and consequently, Time and Space cease to exist. The state of the Universe becomes MU, a non-State of Be-ing.

As a result, the question that has plagued western philosophers about whether it is the One or the Many dissolves before our very eyes with this awareness. As the text of the Aparokshãnubhuti says at verses 138-39, that when the Effect dissipates, so too does the very Cause, saying that if the Universe becomes immanently self-conscious, then the effect of being a manifold of existence ceases to exist, and then likewise, so does the Cause of there being an existence at all. In other words, both Creation and Creator cease to exist with this awareness. Moreover, it is not a holistic awareness as Parmenides said that All is One, but rather, something much more in line with Advaita’s own paradox, namely, when the predicate is commutative with the subject, resulting in a much more descriptive solution, that is simply: The One IS the Many, in that Brahman as Atman is both the One and the Many. And, when the Many cease to be relevant, so too does the One.

MU.