Summarized by Shailesh Vyas
Started with meditation, anulom vilom.
Recap & Initial Q&A
- We talked about the support needed for the upcoming skit.
- Recap
- Recapped conversation around Ashtanga Yoga
- Talked about food
- Eat only half a full stomach.
- Sleep - 6.5 to 7.5 hours
- Too much sleep is Tamasic
- Too less sleep doesn’t bring 100% out
- Ahara
- Vihara
- Yukta - One whose mind is restrained.
- We chanted 19, 20, 21 again
- Revisited Translation of Verse 19, 20, 21
Verse 22, 23, 24, 25
- Verse 22
- Translation - Having gained that state one doesn’t consider any attainment to be greater, Being thus established, one is not shaken even in the midst of the greatest calamity.
- Verse 23
- Translation - That state of severance from union with misery is known as Yog. This Yog should be resolutely practiced with determination free from pessimism.
- Verse 24
- Translation - Completely renouncing all desires arising from thoughts of the world, one should restrain the senses from all sides with the mind. Slowly and steadily, with conviction in the intellect, the mind will become fixed in God alone, and will think of nothing else.
Theme
- Like a flickering flame impacted by wind cannot provide light for long; a mind agitated with desires cannot focus for long.
- We need to have spiritual discipline to protect the mind, like our own Lakshman Rekha
- Steady mind destroys Vasanas and connects to the higher like a steady flame moves upwards.
- Karma yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Jnana yoga will help "still" the mind.
- We need to be unaffected by sorrow or sufferings
- We are creating our own prison cell, locking ourselves in it; and throwing away the key!
Discussion
- When there is no wind, fire will rise up.
- Tools that we have learned to make our mind steady.
- Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Jnana Yoga.
- We bind ourselves to sorrow and suffering. Folks think they can manage happiness but are not sure of suffering.
- It's like we are creating our own prison cell and throwing away the key.
- For e.g.
- Example 1
- A 5-year-old kid, who is terminally ill. If you see the kid will cry only when he/she is in pain. If the pain goes away, he/she will be playing. Suffering is limited to the pain.
- However, when an adult realizes they are terminally ill. They will always be sad/crying (relatively more than kids). This is due to the fact that you are thinking you are terminally ill. Kid is limiting its suffering to the pain.
- Folks end up living more than what doctors suggest, however we define our own misery.
- Ramakrishna Paramahansa always referenced that the body is suffering.
- Example 2 - Players often think playing Cricket on home turf, they will have the upper hand. This is also a mindset.
- Verse 20 -23
- Verse 20 -
- Talks about Chitupramana - Total tranquility and relaxation of mind. When you start focusing on the inner, all other thoughts go away. When you realize ataman all other noise goes away.
- Focusing on just ataman is not a thoughtless state, there is focus on one thought that is ataman. You are able to feel one with ataman. Technical definition of paramatma and Jivatama
- Verse 21 -
- Ultimate happiness you can ever get.
- Let’s say you meditate and get a glimpse of ataman, the second time you had the same experience .. if you continue to have that experience you will dissociate your identity with gross.
- Nothing is aging in self, it’s just the body.
- The Self that was experienced as a child, it’s the same self that is experiencing old age.
- Why are we able to solve other problems - For our own situation our emotions take over? However, if you dissociate your grossness with subtleness, you will be more efficient.
- Verse 22 -
- There is no achievement in this world that is greater than atma. There is nothing in the transactional world that can make you sad.
- Transition from “What" to "So what” becomes relatively easy.
- Verse 23 -
- Yoga is to unite two things. You are not uniting with atma. Atma is the only reality. Also Atma is not something that is material .. its omni present and beyond time. When you establish in witness principle, this delusion that Samsara is subsiding atma will go away.
- When this ignorance goes away, you realize Atma and Paramatma are the same.
- Once you objectify the body, you realize this is the body and I am not the body.
- Witness while breathing your body (as an object) rising.
- This is Annmaya kosha, next is pranmaya kosha. Next stage is You focus on breath, however you are not "breath" either.
- Then Manomaya and Vigyamaya kosha. Next stage is you focus on thoughts. Watch the thought without being judgemental. You separate yourself from your mind.
- As you watch thoughts start slowing down. There will be gaps between thoughts. Focus on that gap (that silence).
- Now realize that you are not that silence. Put the thought that I am the ataman.
- It's hard to explain the unexplainable. Don’t think of that and get demotivated.
- For e.g.
- We all know magnets attract iron, it doesn’t attract wood. Let’s say wood is tied to iron, iron is going to force the wood towards the magnet. Because of bondaze to the iron, it's getting pulled. If you remove iron, wood will not be attracted to the magnet.
- We are like wood. Vasnas are like iron, and the world is like a magnet. You need to be unaffected by worldly force. More you attach to Vasana you get attracted to worldly affairs.
- Bhakti Yoga is like expanding your love.
- For e.g. Britishers asked Nelson Mandela what he wanted for your family, he said my family is 40 million people.
- Gnana Yoga - What is permanent and what is impermanent. Once the iron piece is gone, none of the worldly affairs will be important.
- Another example - Lokmanya Tilak and a girl
- A girl challenges her mom why she should do a certain ritual when Tilak doesn’t do it. Hearing this Lokmanya Tilak shows takes her out and shows the crowd that this is my devotion.
Swamiji’s Video -
- Video 1 -
- Like the flame of the candle remaining in the corner of the room without a cross bridge, it doesn’t flutter, rather it steadily goes up. In the same way your thoughts are steadily going upward to higher reality if the wind of desire doesn’t flutter.
- “stha" means remaining on.
- Video 2 (127) - Verse 20 - Beyond Intellect - Torch and Battery
- True intellect can illuminate everything.
- Suppose you enter the dark room with a flashlight, you can see everything that you can illuminate.
- Can you see the name of the battery in the dark room? You cannot, because if you take out the battery, the torch stops.
- The intellect has intelligence only when life is functioning. In the light of intelligence there is nothing in this world (OET) you cannot perceive. Intelligence itself is powered by consciousness.
- Once Einstein is dead, his same grey matter is not holding intelligence.
- Video 3 - (128) It cannot be explained
- What is that state which is beyond that intelligence. Even in a dark room you know who you are. It is the self in you that you are searching. It cannot be felt or thought of.
- Krishna said, never mind, Yoga is divorce from sorrow. You are currently wedded to sorrow.
- Video 4 - (129) - Borrowed desires
- Swamiji if there is no desire what is the purpose of the body.
- Krishna particularly used adjectives and qualified desires that you should get rid of. Some desires will always come because they are impressions of your vasanas.
- Krishna says - A desire that arose in you because of your fancy. How would you know which one is yours and which one is borrowed?
- Whatever desires arising in your mind are borrowed. Someone is naturally good at writing and now wants to sing like his wife, it will not be ideal.
- All desires that are spinning in your mind nearly for imitation are borrowed.
Subjective analysis
- Go beyond yourself and focus on the welfare of the world.
Ended class with Meditation.
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