You Don't Say... (Yoga Sutras 3.17-20)

When last we met, we were starting to get meta-physical with the Siddhis, or what I will call at this point, "powerful skills" rather than "mystical powers," as they are obtained, not magically gifted, which is an extremely important distinction to make here because as we shall see, these can become major pitfalls for the Yogi/ni...

In the previous sutras, we saw that performing intensive meditations, or the samyama of Dhãranã-Dhyãna-Samãdhi, upon the evolutions (parinãma) of things, we can gain knowledge of the Past and the Future (things not yet manifest, so to be more precise, the possible Future) of these things. In other words, intensive observations can lead to informed ideas about where things came from and where they may go to...Not quite the hocus-pocus that the Siddhis are often collectively taken as, but rather, right in line with Probability and Quantum Mechanics...

Likewise, 3.17 is just a treasure trove of possibilities and one that touches upon many questions we are still asking about language, meaning and understanding. As this one sutra pretty much involves all of my favorite things to think about: Yoga, language, communication, interpretation, and so forth, I am ready to Geek out on it. So, let's begin:

shabda-artha-pratyayãnãm-itaretara-adhyãsãt-samkaras-tat-pravibhãga-samyamãt-sarva-bhUta-ruta-jñãnam 3.17

Or,

Because of mutual layerings of sounds, meaning and objects, confusion arises and by intensive meditation upon their separation, knowledge of the sounds of all creatures is gained.

So, what to do, what to do. Essentially, this is the unravelling of the Tower of Babel and beyond. It suggests that the Yogi/ni can not only gain knowledge or understanding of humans, but of ALL creatures great and small! No small feat, no menial skill to have, to be sure.

How?

By performing samyama on the distinctions between sounds, meanings and objects. Essentially, this is a classical definition of hermeneutics (will explain shortly) and is the biggest question in modern language studies, namely: can we ever understand one another?

I have spent the better portion of my entire life contemplating this question, so, I think it is time to pause here and reflect on this sutra if you can indulge my digressions for a moment for the sake of clarity.

Hermeneutics is the study within Philology (study of languages as languages) as the process of trying to fully understand a text, usually in an ancient language, by studying this exact composition of factors: sounds/words, meaning/semantics and objects. The challenge is to know what exactly a word "means" by figuring out what it truly "refers" to. This becomes tricky with the big words such as "Truth" "Love" and "Understanding" in various language, inter alia. Hermeneutics is then a method to try and re-create the word in its context and Time as well as original language in order to come closer to its meaning. The word comes from Hermes, who is the messenger God between Humans and Deities and the sense here is whether or not we as humans can ever de-code the message of the Universe, whether it be at the hand of a god or goddess or Science...Science, Religion, Translation and Art are all seeking to find the answer to the question of "Why?"

Do we have the language to answer that at all? While I was in Graduate School, part of my training was in Literary Theory. At the time (early 90's) Semantics was all the rage, and the big questions were whether we could know the true relationship between the signifier and the signified. In other words, could we ever understand what another person says/writes/sings... Or, is the a perennial disjunct in the delivery of the message, even if it is a nanosecond of Time? Has there been corruption in the delivery of the package? Does the message ever arrive? De Saussure, Derrida, Foucault and Kristeva were a few of the names on everyone's lips, and although I enjoy reading each one of them in their own right, this was not a new thing.

One day for an on-line forum with other Grad Students in the program, I posted an "anonymous" Literary Theory text about the quest for finding the true meaning of words and whether names and words themselves are arbitrary, or do they have an intrinsic connection with the object they describe?

Everyone was all a-flutter with this "new" theorist...which, of course, I revealed to be Socrates in Plato's dialogue "Cratylus," which is about the origin of language and the relationship of words to their objects...Had I been studying the Yoga Sutras as intently as I am now, I would have posted Patañjali 3.17 for even greater shock value because he says it is possible to gain this incredibly powerful skill of understanding not only each other, but all creatures.

As Scooby-Doo would say, "Zikes!" or Robin might exclaim "Holy Deflated Deconstructionism, BatMan!" Yeah, or something like that. Told you I was going to Geek out.

3.17 brings to mind Saint Francis as well, who when no one else would listen to his "crazy wisdom," he went and preached to the forest critters as they could understand the message of Divine Love better than humans and their preoccupation with commercial materialism and Spiritual Materialism (as we saw last time with Chögyam Trungpa's concept of this).

So, how far-fetched then is Patañjali's 3.17 in this context? Not so much actually. What 3.17 is suggesting is that by dis-entangling the "noise" and "chatter" of things, we can finally start to listen rather than merely hear the sounds, and from that profound state of listening...we gain understanding...Hmmm...give it a thought and let that sink in for a moment. Stop the noise, and it creates space for true understanding...

Moving along to 3.18, we read:

samskãra-sãkshãt-karanãt pUrvajãti-jñãnam 3.18

Giving us,

By making (samyama) manifest by being directly aware of samskãras/mental filters, we can gain knowledge of previous births. 3.18

In other words, if we perform samyama on the samskãras (which along with parinãmas is proving to be one of the most important words in Sanskrit...), we can gain knowledge of previous lives.

We can take this literally, as I am confident it was in Patañjali's time with the belief of reincarnation, or we can also take this literarily, so to speak, in that we live multiple lives within one lifetime, something I am a major advocate/believer of, ...using my experience of Grad School for one, as that was truly another lifetime, and one that yielded a book on the hermeneutics of Death and Memory in the works of James Joyce...meaning, that was ME, but it was a "different" ME...and if I meditate upon the samskãras of that "other" ME, then I can know about that past life. What were some? Interests in language, meaning and communication to name a few, but with a focus on James Joyce.

Similar, but different.

Pirandello has a great book called Uno, nessuno e centomile/One, No one and One Hundred Thousand, in which he posits we are multitudes unto ourselves and to others and those different "lives" never really mesh with others, but are tangential at best. But, by self-analysis, as the protagonist does in the book, we can approximate those "other" lives, even if they are our own. In other words, how do other people see us? Even a perfect reflection in the mirror is not enough, it is still reversed. I have a major scar on the left side of my forehead that I will NEVER see as everyone else in my life will see it...I will always see it on the right side in the mirror...

[Side thought to all of this: what a different world it would be if we would actually hold ourselves up to the standards that we impose upon others...]

So, with 3.18, we can gain knowledge of those past lives...and, is it such as stretch that if reincarnation is true, that samayama on the samskãras that carry over would yield the same effect? However, we have to then ask whether jñãnam means knowledge, or does it also mean "understanding," which is completely different question, and one which Patañjali already anticipates with 3.19-20:

pratyayasya para-citta-jñãnam 3.19
na ca tat-sãlambanam-tasya-avishayI-bhUta-tvãt 3.20

[I put these together as I have a hunch they were originally considered to be one Sutra.]

Or,
Knowledge of the minds of others comes from samyama of an idea, but not the essence of it because the state of being is not accessible...

This is tricky because it does imply that knowledge and true understanding are mutually exclusive, something I tend to agree with, and which Kant made a distinction with between Vernunft and Verstand, or mental capability versus true understanding. Reason, words and knowledge can only get us so far. We can only read so many books, have so many words, and espouse so many theories, but do we truly "know" the object of inquiry, whether it be a flower, a person or a poem...?

On that note...

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.

Six Not-So-Easy Pieces (YS 1.40-45)

Having taken some time to apply some of the Sutras to my own Vritti's as well as allowing readers to come up for air, time to take another serious plunge into the deep waters of Patañjali, though when we resurface, we will be very close to the other shore towards which he guides us. In Hermann Hesse's novel, Siddhartha, there is a ferryman, Vasudeva, who has lived a full life and ultimately becomes content, with Santosha, to be a simple ferryman, fulfilling his Dharma then by fording the waters of the river that speaks the sacred syllable "OM" for travelers of near and far, with grand and modest journeys ahead of them. Hopefully, through these posts I may humbly serve as your Vasudeva across these flowing sutras...

So, let's us return to the river of words, and remembering the words of Heraclitus, one can never step in the same river twice, lending us to new and uncharted readings each time.

In the previous few Sutras, we found out a variety of ways in which to hone our focus in upon a singularity, and in doing so, bringing the mind into a more luminous state of consciousness as we then further refine our diligent practice (abhyãsa) via profound concentration, or Dhyãna, a term that is going to soon receive a great deal more importance and attention on our path through the Sutras.

What follows in the subsequent 6 Sutras falls more into what might be considered the meta-physical aspect of our Abhyãsa, which merely means that things become a bit more abstract for the moment before we arrive at the highly practical ashtanga of Yoga, or the eight-fold method revealed in the second book/chapter.

For the Time Being, then, let's see what we can tease out of Sutras 1.40-45, and no Time like the Present to dive back in:

Sutra 1.40 reads:

paramãnuparamamahattvãntho'sya vashikãrah  1.40

giving us:

Mastery of this (Dhyãna) extends from the smallest atom to the greatest entity. 1.40

The "asya" in this Sutra is ambiguous as it could be either the one practicing Dhyãna (the Yogi adept) or the Mastery itself. Most translations take it to be the former, but again, grammar does not support this reading very strongly. Sutras connect to one another, and there is no mention of the Yogi at all before this, so to me it is dubious to take it as such. Instead I prefer going back to 1.39, where Dhyãna is the subject, and now the Mastery, or skill in this practice can lead to the experiencing of the very small to the Infinite. This is not too far-fetched for when one is in deep concentration, the physical body can be negligible and the "mind" may indeed "feel" quite small, or on the contrary, Infinite, moving from the physical to the meta-physical, which merely means "next to" or "beyond" the physical.

Having then made that initial step into the meta-physical, we arrive at 1.41:

kshina-vritter-abhijñãtasyeva maner-grahitri-grahana-grãhyesu tat-stha-tad-añjantã samãpattih  1.41

Coming to us as:

Samãpattih, or total absorption of the mind, when the vritti (noise in the mind) is weakened, is like that of a rarefied jewel that is affected by that which placed next to it, whether it be in objects of comprehension, the means to comprehend or the one comprehending an object. 

Boiled down a bit to give us:

Samãpattih, or profound reflection, is like an exquisite jewel that perfectly reflects all that is placed before it, without distinction of being the object of comprehension or the comprehension itself.

And a bit more,

The experience of deep meditation brings undivided clarity to the mind. 

This image of the perfectly reflecting jewel brings something dear to me to mind, that being the concept of Indra's Net, the name of my meta-blog, of which Sanskrit Street is merely a nodal point of. Indra's Net is the meta-physical concept of the Universe being an infinite net, in which at every juncture of the threads, there is a perfect jewel that reflects every other jewel in the Net ad infinitum. In other words, every atom reflects the entire Universe in a cosmic hall of never-ending mirrors. Here, in the Sutras, the mind then is able to reflect the nature of the minutest Quantum of the atomic scale to the Infinity of the Cosmos, leading to a state of Samãdhi,  the ultimate goal of Yoga according to Patañjali.

And, what happens then when this is achieved?

Sutra 1.42 goes further:

tatra shabdãrthajñãnavikalpaih samkirnã savitarkã samãpattih 1.42

Leading to:

At this moment/then, Savitarka Samãpattih (profound meditative state based upon conjecture) is mixed with concepts of the knowledge of the meaning of words. 

Or,

Then, there is a form of profound meditation that is based upon conjecture, which is a result language. 

We've seen vitarka before in 1.17, and sa-vitarka merely means with vitarka, or conjecture. In that Sutra I argued that there are two types of meditation discussed there, vitarka and vicara, which is borne out here as Asmitã and Ãnanada are no longer mentioned, but rather vitarka and vicara are broken down further.

So, listening to the language itself, namely the words of the Sutras, we see that our verbal storehouse of ideas can influence our meditation practice, and our Yogic Abhyãsa. This is when we put names to things, but that is arbitrary and artificial as words are merely placeholders for the objects themselves. What we call a "rose" is only a "rose" because we call it that and remember that from learning the word and its meaning, and then if we meditate upon a "rose" the meaning of the word will influence our experience, but we shall be stuck in the language of humans. However, while that is all well and good, to go beyond the words shall render an even more powerful experience as seen in 1.43, which reads:

smriti-parishuddhau svarupa-shunyevãrtha-mãtra-nirbhãsã nivitarkã 1.43

Giving us,

Nivitarka, (thought devoid of concepts) shines forth when the memory is purged, as if the object is without form, and only meaning remains. 

Which more or less means,

When we let go of names/words, we can experience something as it truly is.

This concept is central to Taoism and Zen Buddhism in that as soon as we name something, or explain it, we have lost it, and those who understand it, cannot explain it, and those who explain it, cannot understand it, providing a very nasty paradox indeed! This is the basis of many koans, such as the one about what is the "sound of one hand clapping"? To explain it, loses it.

Patañjali here presents this very conundrum with our attachment and memory of words for things, which we then confuse with their meaning, or very essence (svarupa). When we TRY to focus our attention with profound concentration, we are encumbered by our memory of words, concepts and ideas that bombard us constantly throughout the day and our life. The temperance of the mind, the nirodhah of the vritti's then again is the attempt to clear the noise from the mind.

And, furthermore, the aspect of rational deliberation, or vicara is a great tool, up to a point. But, at a certain point, THINKING about something won't get you there, but rather becomes a hinderance as well.

1.44 merely implies that sa-vicara is good, but ni-vicara is better, though without further analysis, perhaps even a cheeky example of Patañjali not explaining something because to do so would to limit the meaning! Perhaps.

So, we read:

etayaiva savicãrã nivicãrã ca sukshmavishayã vyãkhyãtã 1.44

Or,

In this same way, sa-vicãrã and ni-vicãrã, whose objects are of a subtle nature, are explained. 

In other words, rational thought about abstract ideas is surpassed by the koan way of thinking, namely beyond reason. We can only think so far before we paint ourselves into a corner. There is an acronym for this in English: KISS, or Keep It Simple Stupid. We can overthink things, and this is Patañjali's caveat for that.

So, having refined our diligent practice of profound concentration, and if we are successful in letting go of our attachment to words and their meanings (1.40-42) and then furthermore realize, in the lines of Kant, we can only know an approximation of the mystery of the Universe through rational thought, and we can let go of overthinking it (1.44), then we arrive at 1.45, which reads:

sukshma-vishatvam cãlinga-paryavasãnm 1.45

Or,

The Subtleness of reality (mystery?) results in the absence of definition. 1.45

Simply put,

The nature of reality is beyond our mortal comprehension.

This leaves us at a meta-physical crossroads then. With some, such as Heinrich Von Kleist, who is said to have suffered a Kant-krisis (a crisis having read Kant) when he realized that one can never TRULY know anything, leads to paralysis of action and thought, while with others, this is the ultimate act of Surrender to Ishvara, the Higher Power of the Universe, which can only be approximated by the intonation of the sacred syllable "A-U-M", and that surrender provides a profound sense of freedom, or release (moksha), which in short, is what we are after!

And, now, we are on the doorstep of what Yoga is for Patañjali.

Stay Tuned...

The Bee in the Rose (YS 1.12-16)

A bit of a handful, but bear with me, the Bee and the Rose shall make it clear enough, soon enough.

Once we begin to see the logic and the method behind the Yoga Sutras, things begin to become a bit clearer (though not always...as we shall see). When I talk about the Sutras, I stress one thing, they are in line with the Bhagavad Gita and Buddhism in one very important distinction to all that has come before in Indian thought, that is, Samsara, the cycle of birth and re-birth, influenced by one's storehouse of Karma, and characterized by duhkham, or suffering, can be broken within this lifetime. Previously, the duhkham, suffering, of life was unavoidable and eternal. There was no release, no true moksha, only pacification of the gods by sacrifice and mitigation of suffering by noble birth as a male, brahmin priest, steeped in the knowledge of the Vedas, the definitive texts on the nature of the Universe.

We were merely the Who's such as those living on the dust speck, at the mercy of an uncaring, impersonal Cosmos.

And, along came our Horton, Siddhartha Guatama, the Buddha. The Buddha came from the warrior caste, the kshatriya, not the priestly caste of the brahmins. This could not be more important. Since time immemorial, the brahmin priests had sole authority over the welfare of our Souls...we were doomed to rebirth based upon our lack of full reconciliation of our karma storehouse.

The Buddha, however, more in line with the Upanishads, which moved from the general cosmology to the specific person, set out one day and stumbled upon the harsh facts of life. We suffer. We get sick. We get old. We die.

From his wanderings in the city as a pampered and sheltered prince, and against his father's wishes, the young warrior (heir to the throne), devised what has become known as The Four Noble Truths, which is important for our following Sutras, and the Sutras' ultimate method for moksha, or release in this lifetime.

They are in shorthand form:  (Pali/Sanskrit)

1. All is suffering (dukkha/duhkham).
2. Suffering is caused by craving, or thirst (tanhã/trshna)
3. There is cessation (nirodhah) (hmmm...sounds familiar) of suffering.
4. The way is the 8-fold path (patipada/ashtanga...let's put a pin in that one shall we...)

As such, the Buddha basically levels the entire teachings of the brahmins within fewer than 50 words...quite the accomplishment. As you can imagine, the Priests were none too happy about this. (Rush's classic LP 2112 comes to mind when our protagonist rediscovers music, much to the distress of the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx.)

So, how can we map this onto our Sutras at hand? Let's take a look. Patañjali has given us the definition of Yoga, that being the cessation/temperance of the vritti's, which he then lists and defines, and now, we get the first part of the Method to bring this change about in our lives with 1.12.

abhyãsavairãgyãm tannirodhah  1.12

Or,

The cessation/restraint/temperance of these (tan=vritti's here as a collective pronoun) by way of (the dual compound, meaning both are necessary) abhyãsa (diligent practice) and vairãgyam (disinterest in worldly objects).

Or, in plain words,

We can calm the mind with diligent practice and relinquishing the desire to possess.

As such, we have a two-fold preparatory approach to dealing with the vritti's, which will later be complemented by Patañjali's own 8-fold path (I seriously doubt that 8 is a coincidence here, which we will discuss later in chapter II...).  We have diligent practice/effort and a disinterest in material goods. Let's go further with this as there can be some confusion, especially concerning vairãgyam.

First, we take on abhyãsa in the following two Sutras:

tatra sthitau yatno'byãsah  1.13

sa tu dirghakãlanairantaryasakãrãsevito dridhabhumih  1.14

Or,

When firmly established (locative absolute for you linguists), diligent practice is an effort.  1.13

Moreover, it is a firm foundation, attended by a reverence for uninterrupted (effort) over a long period of Time. 1.14

The first comment I would like to make is on the word yatnah, or effort. When I am teaching an ãsana-based class, whether it be Yin, Hatha or Vinyasa, I stress the difference between "effort" and "strain". There is a fine line between the two, and part of one's Yogic practice (abhyãsa) should be attention to that difference. When we cross the threshold from effort to strain, we often cross many other boundaries as well including: discomfort to pain, dedication to obsession or humility to arrogance. These are all pitfalls in life that we may encounter, and the insidiousness of the subtlety between one and the other is often what lands us in unsavory situations. Again, I speak from experience, having transcended each of these thresholds at various times in my life, whether it be in relationships, sports, Yoga, studies, work or you name it. This is real. It can happen to you.

So, we must be vigilant not to cross the line. But, oh, the places you'll go...sometimes you will cross the line. Then what? Then, you re-set. More often than not, these transgressions shall cause you and others pain. Do you give up and throw in the proverbial towel? No, you re-set. Re-set the humility. Re-set the dedication. Re-set the mind.

In 1.14, Patañjali goes a step further, telling us that this diligent effort of abhyãsa must be done over a long period of Time, with a sense of reverence. My excuses to the late Mr. Lennon, but this is not Instant Karma.

Reverence, or here in Sanskrit ãsevitah, is one of my favorite words in English. One of my old colleagues (though I was vastly junior in every way) at The University of Texas, Prof. Paul Woodruff, wrote an excellent book on this word, entitled (you guessed it!) Reverence. Reverence is not religious as it might seem on first blush, but it is a heightened respect for something greater than ourselves. I recently attended a workshop with Mati Guerra at Antwerp Yoga about the Yamas and the Niyamas of the Sutras, and he pointed out that words can lose meaning. I could not agree more. "Love" has lost nearly all of its meaning in modern times, especially in America.

For example, what does it mean any more to love someone or something? If you have no reverence for the word, it basically means no-thing. Only a reverence for the word, for the emotion, for the experience can retain its meaning, and only you, the bearer of the reverence can ever really know. For me, that word, Love, still retains a great deal of reverence, and I do not use it lightly with people or things, but, it does require vigilance not to abuse those big words that make us so afraid, as Stephen Dedalus says in James Joyce's Ulysses. Abhyãsa then requires a sense of reverence. It is not merely showing up on the mat in the shala, or at the dojo for zazen, or the pool to swim laps, or whatever one's diligent practice is. It requires attention and samkalpa, or intention as well, buoyed by a sense of reverence.

Furthermore, this diligent practice must be executed uninterruptedly and over a long period of time. Easier said than done. With work, kids, relationships, bills to pay and mouths to feed, our abhyãsa can suffer. And, something I find rather hypocritical in the Yoga world is a lack of empathy for when this happens. There is a lot of head shaking and tsk-tsking whether verbally or silently judging, despite the shellac of "non-judgement" espoused in studios across the globe. Sometimes, life simply gets in the way. Again, do we roll over and call it quits? No, when you can regain your center, when you can gain control again, you can re-set, re-implement and resume. This is a lifetime's process, not merely a Summer fling for your body and Soul. Yoga becomes a way of life, but, over a long period of time.

The second prong on this initial Method to tackle the vritti's is a bit trickier and easily misunderstood. One of the leveling criticisms of Buddhism (and Yoga as we shall see) over the ages has been: it is an escape from feeling/emotion, and therefore not really living, but a pessimistic checking out of life's course. Not necessarily. However, vairãgyam is the culprit for this sentiment with respect to Yoga. Literally taken, it means "a total absence of 'taste/craving/desire, that is rãga'" and "for material goods" is implied for good measure. On the surface then, it seems like it means, you don't care. Let's see.


dristhãnushravikavishayavitrishnasya vashikãrasamjñã vairãgyam   1.15

Or,

Vairãgyam is the conscious/volitional control of one who is devoid of thirst for material objects, whether seen firsthand or learned from scripture. 1.15

And,

tatparam purushakhyatergunavaitrishnyam   1.16

The highest form of that (vairãgyam) is the absence of desire/thirst of the gunas for the perception of the Soul.

Right. What do we do with that mouthful?

In 1.15, we see that this is volitional, a choice. So, if someone is immersed in vairãgyam, you could say that he or she chooses to check out of life. You could, but that is missing the point. In Western philosophy, we have correlation in Kant's Third Critique, that of Judgement. Kant speaks about the disinterested observer as being the true observer, because no filters or categories are used. In other words, there is no pre-judgement or pre-judice. We just simply experience it. Kant further tells us that the only two things we can truly experience in this way are: the Beautiful (Schönheit) and the Sublime (Erhabenen). When we encounter Beauty or the Sublime, we experience, according to Kant im-medi-ately. In other words, there is no "I" thinking that "oh, that is a beautiful flower" or "that mountain range is sublime". It just happens. There is literally an absence of taste or Geschmack, which is an exact translation of vairãgyam. That, for Kant, is dis-interested observation. Vairãgyam is similar in that it is not a lack of "care" it simply precedes that.

So, a rose is a rose is a rose...right?

Maybe; imagine we experience a beautiful rose. In the moment before we even classify it as a rose, or that it smells nice, or we like its color, or that we say that it is beautiful, at THAT MOMENT, we experience Beauty, without taste, without pre-judice. The moment, we then say, "that's a rose" perhaps because a Bee stings us as we smell the flower and are jolted into "reality", then we are judging the Beauty, not experiencing it. As soon as we judge it as rose and as beautiful, something sinister happens, we desire it. Why is this sinister? Because, the result of desire of something is the will to possess it. The Ego then steps in and says, "I want this beautiful thing to be mine." And, that is the beginning of our duhkham, or suffering. The desire which leads to the will to possess.

Vairãgyam, then, is not a distancing ourselves from the material world, nor for tuning out, but rather, for willfully putting that desire to possess into check, because, we can never truly possess another thing, nor person.

When we can see the rose, experience the immediacy of its Beauty, and then not have the desire to possess it, but to let it be, then we are one step closer to vairãgyam...