#23 There Is No Enemy Inside Or Outside | Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali

Put yourself in your most comfortable position as we begin the lesson and practice. Today we begin the Sadhana Pada, the path of the discipline of Yoga. Patanjali says, there are 3 things you can do to begin the process:

1. Tapa: Raise the energies for change, requiring an open mindset, allowing the old to go and the new to arrive.
2. Self-study: Remaining aware of oneself in every moment.
3. Surrender to God: Being in deep harmony with existence.

Join me in a 30 min meditation session every day at 7 AM CET on my website.

Transcript

Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily morning live meditation session with me the answer we're going through yoga sutras of Patanjali so my salutations to the knowledge of yoga to Patanjali for bringing this knowledge to us and for this opportunity for us to come together and make use of this knowledge bring this to our life today we open the gates to the second pillar of yoga sutras of Patanjali the sadhana pad the first pillar the first phase the first milestone that we had established for ourselves were a set of 50 nearly 50 sutras on samadhi padha in understanding what is samadhi what is right perception how do we really see the truth and not get caught up with the mind how do we actually go about managing the mind what are the different types of concentrations and what one can have from the very minimum to the highest and now is the second pillar the sadhana pad which is the practice of yoga which is for everyone so it allows from the very beginners to the very advanced practitioners everyone to take off their practice from where they had left somewhere at some point of time or their beginning yoga for the very first time so they can start with the sadhana padha and bring this this science of yoga step by step in their life when we say sadhana sadhana padha what does that mean this means that you are aligning all your energies and you're aiming at something sadhana means to align and to aim this is not done just for the sake of doing it this is done when you have a goal in mind when you have seen that your life has been all over the place and now it's time to align your life now it's time to align your energies now it's time to put some structure some aim some goal some purpose in front of you so that you can work towards it in a more structured step by step way that is sadhana padha so you can very much relate to the concept of sadhana padha because in our life we also go by the logical structure step by step having a goal in mind and that's where yoga is such a big success in the current mindset that we have simply because it somehow it gels with how we think about things it knows that we have we it is best when we work towards a goal and we are orienting aligning all our aspects of life towards that goal towards that one aim that we have set for ourselves so that is what sadhana padha offers the goal of yoga is liberation the goal of yoga is the very ultimate but along the way if for some reason you have had put yourself a goal in life which you were unable to succeed and you want now to work towards that goal you want to have something manifested in your life which has been long pending for you now is the time to pick that up again and put that alongside this journey of yoga of sadhana padha and as we go through this these sutras of sadhana padha and this these upcoming sessions you can also relate this and map this out and move towards the goal that you have established for yourself in life it could be a goal for better health it could be a goal for better relationships it could be a goal for anything that you want to achieve in life you put that as a goal alongside the sadhana padha of yoga and not only work towards your spiritual liberation but also towards the practicalities of your life and see whether all your energies are helping you finally achieving that goal or is it still something that is all over the place let us begin this sadhana padha by by a couple of sutras that Patanjali opens up this chapter this pillar for us he says tapa ha swadhyaya isvara paripradindhan nani kriya yoga what that means is kriya yoga is a practical preliminary yoga and it comprises of three things the first is self-discipline tapa ha now this word tapa ha is being explained in many different ways some call it austerity some call it self-discipline but the way I understand this word tapa ha it means to raise your energies to to a point where change starts to happen you see when you have to change the form of metal you have to purify gold then you heat it up and you heat it up to a point to when it starts losing its earlier shape it starts purifying and then you have this pure metal the pure material which then can be remolded into whichever shape you like so tapa ha is that process of raising your energies heating your system up to that point where you lose the past you can lose the form and the past and are finally ready for that change for that mold to happen towards what you want towards the new that you desire so tapa ha is is needed it's a state of heightened energies it comprises a lot of things but for simplicity sake think of it as the mindset that now you have to have that mindset that in order to bring change you have to be you have to be ready to let go of the past if you're not yet ready to let go of the past how can you mold yourself and bring the new in life and also to be in that state to be in that flexibility of mind to be in that openness of mind so that the new can penetrate so that the new can happen so that the change can actually come to your life the second component of this is of this path of kriya yoga which is something that you can do so far yoga was all about what is yoga what are all these some are these but now it's about time to do things so Patanjali give these steps as kriya yoga meaning something that you can do the second thing he says what you can do is self-study self study does not mean that you now go through thousands of books there are people who have for themselves set a goal of reading one book every week and thinking that the more knowledge that they that they acquire the more intelligent they will become the more successful they will become partly it is true but partly it is also not understanding the nature of life you cannot get the knowledge always from the outside no matter what you read in a lifetime if you see your life is so short how many books can you read a thousand two thousand five thousand ten thousand that doesn't make you rich in knowledge of oneself so at some point of time you have to turn your awareness towards yourself and that is the self-study which Patanjali here is referring that is something you can do which is to become aware of yourself in every moment in every moment of your daily life study yourself have awareness of yourself be aware of your actions be aware of your movements be aware of your thoughts be aware of your emotions and constantly see constantly observe yourself how you are not to become self-conscious not to start then restricting yourself in behaving in a certain way but simply remaining as an observer as a watcher of your entire system of your entire organism of your entire conduct and then you don't need any morality then you don't need any rules from anybody because this process of observation is self-correcting the more you see how you are the more your energies start to align because you start to become more and more disciplined and this reveals so many things about your body about your mind about everything that you call me myself that is real knowledge that is the knowledge that you need to bring the change that you want in your life and the third component of Kriya yoga is surrender to God that's what is proposed by Patanjali now this this aspect surrender to God is multifaceted and we can start with very simple understanding of of this facet and of this this aspect of Kriya yoga that we can practice that we can bring into our life if you see if you think of the word surrender we are immediately turned off by the word because somehow we have associated surrender with putting our effort down putting our will down and somehow losing surrender is somehow we have associated in our minds with losing and secondly see that surrender is always used in the context of if there is some other if there is an enemy that you surrender to an enemy but in this case there is no enemy in life we have had we have been made to conceive that there is some other there is some enemy out there and we're constantly trying to fight that enemy if you see observe your life the deepest motivation of all your actions is somehow arising out of you fighting with an invisible enemy and you're constantly fighting you're constantly in stress sometimes you think that you have won sometimes you think that you are losing and all this is just a projection of your own mind so when the the topic when the need to surrender arise you have to first of all understand that there is no enemy in life when you understand that there is no enemy surrender becomes very easy the first step to surrender the biggest hurdle to surrender is already overcome because you see there is nobody there's no enemy on the other side there's nobody that you're surrendering to when we say surrender to God according to this sutras of Patanjali it simply means to be in the highest surrender it means to be in a surrender where you have let go of yourself to complete rhythm harmony of this existence it doesn't mean that you stop willing things it doesn't mean that your own wish own desires are somehow not playing in the equation that you would like to play it simply means that you that every moment you are constantly in deep harmony with existence in deep alignment with existence and you're flowing along with the existence your actions your flow of life is not different any degree different than the flow of existence your entire flow is hundred percent in line with the flow of existence and how do you recognize the flow of existence by being aware of yourself by being aware of this existence so it all comes down to you training your awareness you you raising your energies the energies of awareness to become aware of yourself and to become aware of this existence and in that awareness letting go in that awareness becoming silent for few moments leaning back and just being a witness of what's happening all around you all inside of you with that let us practice this witnessing let us practice this awareness let us go into this surrender with existence and move towards silence for the next minutes please close your eyes make sure your posture is comfortable your back upright your body relaxed face relaxed take a nice deep breath inhale from the nose and also exhale from the nose and with every breath let your body rest let your mind settle in this moment become aware of whatever your senses are bringing to your awareness the noises the sounds the smell the feeling on your skin light in front of your closed eyes don't be in any conflict with what your senses perceive be in harmony with it be in a surrender in deep harmony with whatever your senses perceive in this moment in this awareness of your sense perceptions remind yourself there is no enemy from the outside disturbing you in this moment hurting you in this moment and everything is in harmony with each other in harmony with existence you you allowing your energies to open allowing your awareness to gently move inwards from your sense perceptions to yourself,

To your inner space.

And as you become aware of your inner space,

Remind yourself there is no enemy inside of you.

So there is no reason to have any conflict.

Everything inside of you is in deep harmony.

Rest in that realization.

Rest in that realization.

Rest in that realization.

Just the way it is,

Your inner space,

It's in harmony with existence.

Let it happen.

Allow it to be just the way it is.

Simply remain aware and witness your inner space.

Rest in that realization.

Everything happening on its own accord.

You are simply the observer in complete surrender,

In complete harmony.

Rest in that realization.

Rest in that realization.

Let these glimpses of inner harmony become trust in you.

And in that trust,

Let go more and more and more.

Let it happen.

Let it happen.

In these moments,

Be thankful that you can witness the flow of life inside of you,

Outside,

And you have this chance to be with the flow of life in complete harmony,

Without any struggle,

Without trying to impose anything on top of it.

If you wish,

You may continue to sit in silence,

To sit in this meditative surrender for the next minutes,

Or very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes,

Maintaining the sense of surrender,

Yet centeredness,

Silence and awareness.

I will see you tomorrow at 7 am Central European Time.

Reviews

🙏 Still I wonder how we should be and therefore act with respect to body-minds who inflict harm and suffering on other bidy-minds through ignorance.

I am deeply grateful that I found you this morning as the message you brought was exactly what I needed. I will continue with you. Many thanks.

Very insipiring...Thank you;)