#24 Ignorance Is Not Bliss | Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali

If there is no enemy outside or inside, why is there misery in life? Patanjali says, there are 5 causes of misery: Lack of awareness, ego, attachments, repulsions, and clinging to life. Lack of awareness results in all other causes. It leads to the rise of a substitute called ego, which then has attachments and repulsions and does everything to hold on to life in fear.

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Transcript

Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily live meditation session with me the answer my gratitude to this knowledge of yoga to Patanjali for bringing this knowledge to us and for us to go through this knowledge to have this opportunity to bring this knowledge to our life and take us out of the miseries yesterday in the session we established that there is no enemy outside there is no enemy inside then why are we experiencing misery if we are observant enough we won't be able to deny that there is misery all around us why there is misery all around us have you ever thought about that are we destined to be miserable are we destined to suffer or is this coming from a place where we are not paying attention if the misery is not coming from the outside if there is no cosmic celestial heavenly hellish cause for our misery if there is no inner cause of the misery if the body if the mind if the intrinsic nature of this organism that we are if that is not the cause of misery then what is the cause of misery why are we continually for thousands of years are living in this misery and not only for our own life but for everybody else we become the cause of misery and suffering not just for us but for everyone around us if you pay attention to the state of the world right now of the state of life right now of the experience of human beings right now we have tried everything we have turned every stone to call progress in life to call that we are moving towards happiness that we are moving towards a future which is bright but if you pay attention and if you are unbiased you will see that we are moving more and more towards misery and the extent of it is there are no boundaries we may continue to tumble down this downhill until until the end of things or we may stop or we may pay attention to what is the cause of this misery this cause of misery I'm repeating is not outside is not inside it's somewhere here right in front of us that cause of misery is ignorance that cause of misery is lack of awareness see that this freedom of human consciousness which is a blessing for us which is the reason why we human beings have this sense of freedom have this sense of expansion have this sense of limitlessness it becomes a curse on us simply because we lack awareness this awareness is that fundamental factor is that which differentiates which decides the experience of life for oneself and for everybody else that we are having a blissful experience of life or a miserable experience of life let us hear what Patanjali has to say about that and how he takes us out of these miseries what does he propose Patanjali says Samadhi Bhavanartha Klesha Atunukarna Arthashva what that means is the practice of Kriya Yoga reduces misery and leads towards Samadhi the Kriya Yoga that we started discussing yesterday we said there are three aspects three things which you can do in life and they become the foundation of Kriya Yoga and here Patanjali says that these three things when you do when you bring in your life they reduce the misery the three things I repeat from yesterday are self study that you are really aware of yourself you are gathering more and more understanding of yourself then tapa which is discipline to streamline your life to streamline your mindset to streamline your actions towards the goal which is the liberation and the third surrender to God which is to be in deep harmony with existence having the freedom to manifest but still being in complete harmony complete alignment with existence manifest with existence not against existence manifest for us not against us then Patanjali says Avidya Asmita Raga Dwesha Abhinivesha Kalesha here he is giving the causes of these miseries he's saying lack of awareness egoism attraction repulsions clinging to life and thereby fear of death these are all the reasons these are all the roots why we feel miserable what brings misery to us and please remember these are all self created thereby these causes are also self created except for the lack of awareness that is the primary cause of all other causes so remember that that that lack of awareness is the very root cause of all miseries and thereby arise because there is lack of awareness you don't know who you are that is why you need a substitute and egoism arises and ego arises in you which creates all your life problems for yourself problems for others and you don't know what to do with it but you just simply learn to live with this substitute of your true being of your true nature which is only possible to know and to live when there is awareness and with ego comes attraction and repulsion because ego is what tries to define oneself ego is what tries to define you you are undefined you are limitless you are you have no boundaries but you have to define yourself because ego makes you define and in that definition in that drawing a line there is something that you are attracted to there is something that you are repelled against and you're constantly in life trying to grab those things that you're attracted to and trying to move away from things that you are repelled by and this constant attraction repulsion and managing this attraction and repulsion is causing misery for oneself and for everybody else around and thereby the last which is clinging to life this ignorance this lack of awareness of what life is but of who you really are creates this clinging to life creates this fear of death it's one and more or less one and the same thing where you are holding on to life you're clinging to life not living life not letting it breathe and not letting it flow on its own but in fear of losing it you're constantly holding on to it in fear of death we don't understand what life is we don't understand what death is but somehow in our minds we are clinging to life and we are having fear of death if you uncover all these things you see they all all these these rivers in rivers they merge in the same place they origin at the same place which is ignorance yoga meditation spirituality is all about establishing this awareness first this basic awareness of what life is what death is who we are what is our true nature what is our true being this has been repeated thousands of years by people who tried to bring this knowledge to others those who understood got liberated those who understood stopped creating misery for themselves and for others and then shared this knowledge further so in that hope that you will make use of this knowledge you will introspect and see that your own ignorance that your own self not being aware of one one self is creating all the misery for yourself and thereby for rest of the world in that hope I bring these sutras of Patanjali to you as well and we meditate on these sutras together so let us take this moment here to move into our silence and first of all acknowledge be aware of that the source of all these miseries is our lack of awareness is our own ignorance and then make an effort to work towards being more aware having that authenticity towards one self in the awareness and trying to live our true nature our being and not always be substituted by ego getting carried away by repulsions or attractions and clinging to life and having that fear of death if you see all your miseries are mapped out on these few causes and the mother of all causes the lack of awareness reflect on it think about it meditate over it now with me and afterwards as well to make this your own experience to realize this on your own as well please close your eyes take a posture which is comfortable with your back straight shoulders relaxed take a nice deep breath inhale from the nose and exhale from the nose allowing your body to rest allowing your mind to settle your awareness to become reflective turning inwards giving you this contemplative space inside to reflect and see that whatever is bothering you in life whatever is creating misery for you in life is because of lack of awareness ignorance your ego somebody else's ego your attractions your repulsions someone else's attractions repulsions you clinging to life you having the fear of death or someone else's you to become aware of this lack of awareness of this fact of this reflection is the starting point to move towards light to move towards bliss with every breath allowing the body and mind to rest and the awareness of oneself to rise with every breath gathering oneself from here and there and bringing in this present moment sitting silently being aware being reflective allowing the awareness to become brighter filling your inner space grow all your attention on this awareness itself this awareness which allows you to see which allows you to sense feel experience all your attention on this awareness let this awareness expand become brighter settle whatever it wants to do you stay in touch you stay a silent observer of this awareness this awareness has no ego it is complete with its own presence this awareness is not attracted to anything or repelled by anything stay with this awareness with all your attention all your energy in this awareness there is no question of life there is no question of death you see the eternal nature of this awareness leave all effort and allow this awareness to stay effortlessly in your space becoming the light that guides you in life in the absence of this awareness awareness which you are experiencing right now is the cause of misery stay with this awareness stay in bliss it is the true nature if you wish to continue in this meditative silence keep your eyes closed let yourself go as long as you like or very gently and slowly you may open your eyes effortlessly maintaining this awareness that reflects on yourself and on your experience of this world take this to your daily routines I will see you tomorrow at 7am central European time namaste

Reviews

Thank you. 🙏

Thanks to Patanjali for sharing this knowledge and to Dhyanse for bringing it into context and spreading the word so clearly.

Thank you so much for this series!!!!