Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily life meditation session with me,
Dhyansai.
Since we are going through the journey of yoga with Patanjali,
My salutations to the knowledge of yoga to Patanjali for bringing this knowledge to us and also for this opportunity for us to go through this knowledge and bring this to our daily lives.
The sutras that I want to move into today and for the next couple of sessions,
They are somewhat,
They could be understood when they are put together.
Individually they may not mean much and they may not be understandable.
And there is somewhat of a prerequisite to going into those sutras.
So we will go through very slowly,
We may repeat ourselves to ensure that we are understanding each of these sutras and how they are connected together to bring the meaning of these sutras to our life.
Otherwise these are just information,
They have been printed in books,
They have been written and commented on by many many people in the past.
They have not much meaning unless you take time,
Unless you reflect and see what this means to your life.
See that the movement of yoga is a very specific movement and you have to have that movement in your mind,
In your understanding,
Where are we moving with yoga.
The movement of yoga is that right now you are all over the place.
The mind is with one thousand things,
Is in all different directions.
So what Patanjali has done in the sutras that we have discussed so far and if you haven't watched or meditated,
Listened to those,
Take time to go through them whenever you can.
But what we have done so far is to take the mind from all these different directions to bring them into one pointedness,
To bring them into one focus,
To bring stability into mind,
To bring steadiness into the mind,
Because if the mind is unsteady,
Unstable,
Not focused,
Then there is no movement of yoga,
There is no movement in meditation,
There is no movement of any knowledge,
There is no understanding,
Then you are just hanging in there and you are facing all sorts of problems of life which are thrown at you and everything remains accidental in life.
So to take control back of your life,
To take control back of what's happening,
What is your experience and how you can improve that,
Patanjali gives this way where he says take care of the mind first,
Your mental health,
Your mind and bring that mind from all of these different directions to one pointedness.
And this one pointedness is achieved also not necessarily just with meditation.
This journey can happen when you are learning something new,
You are very much interested in learning a sport or an art or anything and you are very much concentrated and you realize that you feel good,
You realize finally you are very much in the present moment while you are learning something new.
Why?
Because your mind which was all over the place doing multitasking is now focused on one thing that happens out of interest,
That happens because you want to learn,
You want to achieve that.
Same type of inner wish has to happen to concentrate the mind to one pointedness when you are also sitting in meditation.
If you are just sitting in meditation hoping that something will happen on its own,
That's not how yoga is unfolded,
That's not how the mysteries of life are unfolded,
That's not how the truth of life is unfolded.
You have to be also putting in effort,
You also have to be similarly excited as you are excited when you are learning something new and you are sincerely pulling yourself together in becoming one pointed.
So all the sutras,
The preceding sutras have been how to stabilize the mind,
What does it mean to still the mind,
What does it mean to calm the mind and bring to one pointedness.
But this movement as I said can be achieved also in other situations without meditation.
Why do we need meditation?
Why do we need yoga?
We need yoga meditation because it doesn't stop there.
That's where the journey begins once the mind is one pointed.
Then what you can go,
Where you can go with meditation,
With yoga,
You cannot go with any other form of art,
Any other form of science,
Any other form of movement,
Sport.
So that this second movement of the consciousness which is from one pointedness to going somewhere very special place that cannot happen with anything else,
For that you need yoga and meditation.
What is that movement?
What is that place?
See that if you want to use two words to remember what is this movement,
This one pointedness movement gives you one pointedness towards something.
So you have an object,
Be it the object of the sport that you are learning,
Be the object is the art that you are learning,
Be even the meditation that you are learning,
The concentration technique that you are doing while you are meditating,
So you are having the concentration on your breath.
All these are with the object,
With the object.
Remember earlier the mind was with 1000 objects and now it is with one object.
So there is still your with something.
From here on there is a movement which is without.
So you from many things come to one and from one you even lose that one.
From with you become without.
And you move directly from 1000 things to nothingness to having nothing into the without,
That was not possible.
Or even if it would be possible,
It would be very difficult to achieve because that is not how our mind is conquered.
Yoga's way of conquering the mind is to concentrate it and then even take that one particular object that the mind is constantly focused on and let that go as well.
So remember the movement from all different places concentrating into one and from that one pointedness even letting go of the object of that concentration and moving into the without.
In the upcoming sutras which I will not go very much into detail,
I want us to practice first of all this movement from with the object to without the object and then we will see what Patanjali is encouraging us to first of all hold in our awareness and let go of that inner awareness.
I will give you a slight clue about it today.
He is going to challenge our logic,
He is going to challenge our reasoning,
He is going to challenge our thought.
So at one point of time we may even be asked by Patanjali to let go of all our reasoning,
To let go of all our thoughts by having one single thought and letting go of that thought,
By having one single reasoning and seeing our reasoning and letting go of that reasoning.
There are different forms of these concentrations,
These samadhis,
Sarvitarka,
Nirvitarka,
Sarvichara,
Nirvichara,
This we will discuss more in detail tomorrow.
The basic framework has to be understood first which we just discussed and we will practice that with the breath today.
So we will take the next 15-20 minutes to bring our awareness from all different directions to one object and that object would be our breath.
Let that settle so much on the breath that there is nothing else,
That there is only breath in our focus in our meditation.
As long as there is other things as well,
As long as you are still occupied with everything else there is no moving any further.
So we will in meditation make sure and see and give enough time for awareness to come and settle on the flow of breath.
It flows,
The awareness has to flow always along the breath.
If the breath is inhalation,
It is with inhalation.
If it is with exhalation,
You keep it with exhalation,
Nothing else.
For these minutes let go of everything else.
Be one pointed with the breath.
Don't stress yourself,
Stay relaxed,
Stay alert,
Stay calm,
Silent but one pointed on your breath only.
For these moments please try to put everything else aside and only your breath in focus.
So much so that you forget about your body,
You forget about your mind and the only thing that remains in your awareness is the breath.
As if there is nothing else in this world for you except for the breath,
Except for inhalation and exhalation.
There is nothing else left for you in the world.
You become the breath and then from there on the movement,
The jump will be somewhat illogical,
Somewhat that cannot be reasoned.
The jump will be more courageous as if you are jumping from the edge of the cliff.
So from wherever you were,
You came to the point where you are at the cliff now and from the cliff the jump has to happen which is to leave the breath as well and move into silence with awareness of nothing in particular,
Just this infinite space of awareness.
Let us close our eyes and practice this meditation,
This meditative movement of one pointedness of moving from with to without.
Make sure your posture is comfortable with your hands in your lap or on your thighs.
Your back is straight,
Shoulders are down,
Head is straight.
Place relaxed and for the next minutes,
Awareness turn inwards on your breath.
To begin,
Take a nice deep breath,
Inhale from the nose and as you exhale from the nose,
Let go of your body,
Let go of your mind and awareness on your breath.
It is important that you don't modify your breath,
You don't try to change anything about anything,
Any stress that you create will work against you.
So remain easy on yourself,
Remain natural,
The focus,
The concentration,
It happens as you allow it to happen gradually,
Easily as you go deep within yourself.
Let the breath find its natural pace,
Become restful,
Become rhythmic,
Flowing in and out with ease.
As the breath flows,
You flow along with your breath.
Which means your awareness accompanies the breath.
Let the breath find its natural pace.
As you get distracted,
Bring it back,
Bring your awareness back to your breath.
Give yourself these moments for this process to settle,
For your awareness to be more and more on your breath.
Have no guilt,
No worry if there are distractions.
Let the breath find its natural pace.
With every breath,
Let go of everything else that you are holding and only your breath in focus,
In awareness.
If you are holding your body,
Let it go.
If you are holding ideas,
Plans,
Put them aside and awareness,
All your awareness on the flow of your breath,
Flowing along with every inhalation and every exhalation.
Let the breath find its natural pace.
Stay with every inhalation and every exhalation.
Which means at any point,
See where you are on inhalation or exhalation and stay with it.
Thank you.
Loosen your grip on everything else.
And only breath remains in your awareness.
All words fall down,
Fall apart,
Move in the background.
And only your breath remains in your awareness.
All words fall down,
Fall apart,
Move in the background.
Nothing else,
Just the breath.
You are just the breath.
Flowing in,
Flowing out.
Now,
Let go of this breath.
No object in the awareness.
Free floating in the awareness.
Weightless in this awareness.
Remain in this awareness.
Remain in this transcendence.
In this pure awareness.
You are just the breath.
Maintain this state of pure awareness.
Free from all objects.
As long as you like.
And later,
To come back,
You may bring your awareness back to your breath before you would open your eyes.
Leave you here to continue on your own.
Namaste.
