Beginning to See the Light(ness) of Being (YS 2.18-22)

Our last post left us with YS 2.16 in the middle, which I argued is in fact The Middle Way of Yoga, in line with The Middle Way of Buddhism, which is to avoid suffering that has not yet happened. This raises the ultimate question of Pessimism (and it has been raised often) with Yoga, Buddhism and Zen, namely: If suffering is inevitable, why bother? And, is the answer to "check out" of Life? Yes, if you want to take the easy way...

However, No-thing could be more wrong if we listen to what these paths are suggesting. They are all saying to meet Life head-on, but with one simple (simple, yet very hard to do) observation: to be aware of Suffering, and how to mitigate it. Suffering, or Duhkha is indeed inevitable, but it does not mean to give up, to fully surrender oneself, or better, One's Self, to suffering. Quite the contrary.

What Patañjali, inter alia, is prescribing is a reality check. Okay, yes, we will have to deal with obstacles in life, we shall encounter suffering, and at times we shall be weak. In other words, we shall be human with all its splendor, and its frailty. Now, what do we do with that knowledge that we are beginning to acquire? For, before knowing, we are in a state of Avidyã, but, once we see the proverbial "Light", we cannot un-see it. It is there before us, and we can choose to either live with that knowledge, or turn our backs on it. The former involves the three aspects of Kriya Yoga as seen in YS 2.1: diligent work and effort (abhyãsa/tapas), self-study (svãdhyãya) and devotion to something greater than ourselves (Ishvara-pranidhãna), while the latter means merely turning back towards ignorance and to take the easy way out. But, this is hard work! Yes, and as the Buddha said, "You may leave if you wish...".

So, if you chose to stay on, let's continue.

First and foremost, we live in the world. Now, whether that world is in fact illusion and not "real" does not matter, because, we still have to function within this illusion as we are part of society and the race of human beings. So, again, we can navel gaze all we want, but at the end of the day, we need to live in the world. Book II is telling us How we can do that, and we are almost there.

However, with 2.18, Patañjali describes the "nature of things that are known" or drishyam. So, let's take a look...

prakãshakriyãsthitishilam bhuteindriyãtmakam bhogãpavargãrtham drishyam 2.18

Which gives us, rather straightforwardly from the Sanskrit:

The thing to be seen/known has the nature of illumination, action and inertia and is comprised of the elements and the senses and has the goal of liberation from worldly experience. 

Being a sutra, this is highly compacted, so let's do some unpacking.

Although I have deviated at times from traditional/accepted translations and interpretations, I agree with how the first three words of this sutra have been taken, namely as the three gunas as we see below.

Prakãsha--> illumination (the driving force behind our quest for liberation), that is: Sattva

Kriyã--> action (the root of a physical Yoga practice at hand), that is: Rajas

Sthiti--> inertia (in the sense of stagnation), that is: Tamas

In other words, what is known, or seen in the world is a combination of the three gunas and exists in varying permutations. As we also saw in Book I, one of the goals in Yoga is to actually transcend the effects of the gunas via the experience of Samãdhi, which is also echoed here in 2.18 with bhoga-apavarga-artham, or "the goal of liberation from worldly experience".  And, the intermediate cause of this disjunct between the "nature of things" and the "goal" is the composition of reality as we know it, which is bhuta-indriya-ãtmakam, or being "comprised of the elements and the senses". In essence, then, this sutra lays out the whole scenario for us then.

In a nutshell:

Being is an admixture of qualities, experienced through the senses, and is ultimately able to be transcended by eradicating avidyã, as described up until this point in the Sutras.

YS 2.19 goes into further detail about the gunas, in case we weren't sure that they were in fact being referred to in 2.18 (again, what is the text telling us, not what we THINK it is...?).

visheshãvishesha-linga-mãtra-alingãni gunaparvãni 2.19

Giving us:

The stages of the gunas are specific, non-specific, characterized and non-characterized.

Much like Kant's predilection for categories, Patañjali here is given us a mere listing of how the gunas appear. They can be specific or general (individual or group-based) or distinguishing or non-distinguishing. In other words, they can be individual characteristics (adjectives) of a person, place or thing (a noun, such as you or I) or they can be generalized to a group of nouns (such as humans in general). Again, Freud and Jung now garner the credit for something said many, many, many years ago...

Moving on, we arrive at 2.20-22.

drashtã drishi-mãtrah shuddho'pi pratyayãnupashyah 2.20

tad-artha eva drishyasyãtmã   2.21

kritãrtham prati nashtam-apyanashtam tad-anya-sãdhãranatvãt  2.22

Or,

Although pure, the Seer is merely the instrument of See-ing, and witnesses images (of the mind). 2.20

The purpose of that (See-ing) alone is the essence of the thing to be seen/known. 2.21

Although the Seen (reality as we perceive it) is destroyed for one who has accomplished this goal (a Buddha, for example), it is not destroyed as it is still common (experience) for others. 2.22

Hmmm...time for breaking a few things down into normal language.

For 2.20, it is pretty clear. No matter how "pure" the Seer is, he or she is still only the instrument of witnessing the world as we know it through the senses and the elements as described in 2.18. So, this is better than not knowing, but is still limiting for the path of the Yogi, that is, being bogged down by the senses. If the Seer and the Seen are still viewed as separate, we still have suffering.

In YS 2.21, we are then told that ultimately these two are essentially and inextricably connected. We only have one because of the other, and even that is not quite the story as we move closer and closer to the dissolution of the distinction between the Seer and the Seen in the forthcoming sutras to be discussed in the next post...

Finally, with 2.22, we answer the question that can be begged, "okay, if the world is illusion, than why do we still "see" it?" Good question.

2.22 could slightly be seen as a cop-out, so the jury may need to take a break for a moment before arriving at a verdict because it tells us that, "well, if Buddha or some other enlightened Being transcends the division and obtains the goal of Yoga, the visible/illusory world still exists because, for all intents and purposes, it is a communal hallucination/delusion."

As expected, some people may take issue with that. And, it does in fact put us in a rather uncomfortable Catch-22 that becomes the basis of Zen and is the core of Taoism, which is: If you know it, you can't say it. If you say it, you don't know it...

And, with that, we are at a critical crisis, or decision, to go on, or to give into the illusion....

To be continued.

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...