Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily morning live meditation session with me,
Dhyansa.
We are going through Yoga Sutras of Patanjali on Vibhuti Padma,
The path towards gaining abilities that belong to us,
That we may call as something beyond normal,
But they very much belong to this organism,
This body,
This mind,
To this awareness that we all have.
But what is needed to achieve those powers or have those accomplishments is the training of awareness.
I am reminded of a story about this training of awareness where a master of archery,
He is taking his students to test on their skills.
He takes them to the bank of a lake in a very nice landscape where you have mountains,
Where you have that lake.
The scenery is very beautiful,
Very scenic.
There are lots of trees,
Birds on the trees and it is very lively out there.
So he points out to a bird and the goal of this test is to aim at the eye of the bird and bring the bird down with one arrow.
Very simple.
So he lines up his students.
He says,
But this time you will not look at the bird.
You will not look at the bird directly,
But you will look down.
You will look down in the lake and you will look at the reflection of the bird and with that reflection of the bird,
You will aim at the bird and try to hit the eye of the bird.
So he calls his first student and the first student,
He sits down,
He looks at the lake,
He takes his aim,
Before he shoots,
The master asks,
So what do you see?
The student says,
I see the bird in the lake.
The master says,
What else do you see?
He says,
I also see the mountain in the lake.
The master says,
Okay,
Stop right there,
Come back.
He sends the next student,
The next student sits down,
Takes his aim,
Looks at the lake,
The reflection,
The master again asks,
What do you see?
The student says,
I see the bird in the lake.
What else do you see?
I see the mountain,
I see the trees,
I see everything else also in the lake.
The master says,
Okay,
Stop right there,
Come back.
And one after the other,
All the students are brought in and they take their position,
They look at the reflections and they keep on describing what they see.
Some see the trees,
Some see other birds,
Some see mountains,
Some see all sorts of reflections in the lake along with the bird that was the aim.
After the battle came one student,
He took his position,
He sat down,
The master asks,
What do you see?
He says,
I see the eye of the bird.
The master asks,
What else do you see?
The student says,
I see the eye of the bird.
The master says,
What do you hear?
The student says,
The eye of the bird.
What do you smell?
The eye of the bird.
What do you feel on your skin?
The eye of the bird.
What is on your mind?
The eye of the bird.
And the master says,
Shoot.
And of course,
He meets his aim and without any flaw,
The bird is down with one arrow.
That much focus,
That much one-pointedness is needed for accomplishing anything significant in life.
If along with your aim,
Along with your goal,
If you see the mountains,
If you see the other trees,
If you see other birds,
If you see all sorts of things that become the distraction that do not allow you to focus,
You can never accomplish anything in the external world and definitely not in the internal world.
So meditation is not for those who are not ready to focus,
Who are not ready to commit to focus,
To be one-pointed.
And with that commitment,
With that focus,
With that practice of that focus starts to come accomplishments and all what treasure lies on this path of yoga,
On this path of meditation,
Other than inner peace,
Other than just the silence.
So towards liberation,
Towards the ultimate truth,
All along the journey there is much to gain.
There are many treasures for each individual,
For each path,
But in order to have those accomplishments,
In order to appreciate those accomplishments,
In order to recognize those accomplishments,
One-pointedness of the mind.
Complete distraction-free mind is needed.
It requires a certain willpower,
It requires a certain sincerity and most of all,
It requires practice.
Let us hear what Patanjali has to say in this context.
He says,
Tasyaprasanta vahita samskarat The flow of nirodha parinama becomes steady through practice.
In yesterday's sutra,
He introduced this term called nirodha parinama.
What that means is the ability to not get distracted,
To not get carried away with whatever is presented to you.
If you see the current lifestyle that we have,
Where there is information coming in from every source,
In every moment,
In every time and space,
You are constantly distracted.
How much distraction is there in all these distractions?
How are you going to understand the meaning of life?
How are you going to decide what is the right thing to do?
What is not to be done?
It can be done only when you are distraction-free.
When your mind is like a silent lake and in that silent lake,
You can see one,
You can see your focus,
The eye of the bird,
You can be 100% one-pointed distraction-free.
So for that,
You have to practice nirodha parinama,
Which is the ability to put all the distractions aside and to concentrate on one object.
In meditation,
As we have been saying over the past sessions,
You start with concentration where you have maybe one thought,
Maybe one object of concentration where you are focusing all your awareness,
All your energy towards and not get distracted and then eventually even that object,
Eventually even that your object of focus,
Even that thought which brings you from all the distractions to that one particular focus also has to be dropped and then there is meditation,
Then there is samadhi,
Then there are higher states of consciousness and the maneuvering of this awareness towards the higher states of consciousness.
Then Patanjali says,
Sarva artha ikagra tayu xya udaya chittasya samadhi parinama.
When there is a decline in distractedness and appearance of one-pointedness,
Then comes samadhi parinama.
Only then you move towards samadhi.
Two points he said,
One is decline in distractedness and appearance of one-pointedness.
They are one and the same thing but he still has broken them down into two parts.
One is the ability to put the distractions away.
Then the ability to become more and more one-pointed.
So while you are meditating,
Practice these two aspects.
Keep these two aspects in mind,
One is the ability to not get distracted all the time.
In the beginning,
While you are just beginning to meditate,
It is normal to get carried away with thoughts,
With ideas,
So much is going on in the mind but you know the direction.
The direction is to learn to not get distracted at every second,
At every moment and bring yourself back again to the object of your concentration,
To your meditation and let these distractions be aside for a while.
You may require an inner conversation,
You may require willpower,
You may require yourself to tell your mind that all that can wait.
All what is distracting you,
All the identifications you have with your plans,
With your ideas,
With your thoughts,
You have to put them aside.
That would be step number one.
And step number two is to become more and more one-pointed.
To learn to push more energy,
More awareness towards the object.
So this is the effort.
One is to not get distracted,
The other one is to push the energy towards one particular object of awareness.
This is the effort and then what must happen is this becomes slowly effortless.
That you don't have to make any effort to not get distracted,
You don't have to make any effort for your awareness to move towards one object,
Become more and more one-pointed.
When this becomes effortless,
What happens is known as Samadhi,
A state where you are spontaneously silent,
Fully aware,
You are merged with the object of awareness.
The subject and the object are one.
The awareness and the object are one and there is only pure awareness,
If you want to put it that way.
Then Patanjali goes on saying on this topic,
Santa uditthau thulia pratyayo chittasya ikagra parinama.
Then again,
When the subsiding past and rising present images are identical,
There is ikagra thar parinama.
Now he describes this one-pointedness.
What is this one-pointedness?
He's even describing further what is the state of one-pointedness.
How do you judge whether you are one-pointed or not?
He says the subsiding past and the rising present,
They both are identical.
Meaning there is no past,
There is no present,
There is no future.
You're not touched by the time.
That state where you are beyond time is when you are in perfect one-pointedness.
In meditation,
When you move from concentration to meditation to samadhi,
You are pulled out of time.
There is no past for you.
Because there are no identifications with the past,
There is no future for you because there are no identifications with the future.
You're only in a realm which is beyond time,
Which is even beyond the space where your senses are,
Where your physical is.
You are in pure consciousness,
In pure awareness.
In the last,
He says,
Itina bhuta indriyasu dharma lakshana avastha parinama vyakruyata.
By that,
The transformations of the visible characteristics,
Time factors and conditions of elements and senses are also described,
Are also revealed.
What this simply means is once you achieve that state of one-pointedness,
Once you learn how to have your awareness focused at one particular point,
There is an ability to know everything.
For today's meditation,
For today's practice,
We will focus on the third eye center.
We will learn to bring our awareness to the third eye center.
This is easy because the center allows your awareness to be absorbed,
Meaning you will be less and less distracted as compared to if you focus on any other aspect,
Any other object.
So,
We will bring our attention and awareness to the third eye center and practice to not get distracted,
If you get distracted,
Bringing awareness back to the third eye center.
And then one-pointedness,
Where you put all your awareness directing all the energy towards your third eye center,
Which is in the middle of your forehead in between your eyebrows.
Please close your eyes.
Take a posture that is comfortable for you with your spine erect,
Your head straight.
Take a nice deep breath.
Exhale from the nose and exhale from the nose,
Allowing your body to be at rest,
Allowing your mind to rest and shifting your awareness to the third eye center.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
As you do that,
Make sure that your face is relaxed.
There is no tension,
No strain on your face,
On your eyes,
On any part of your body.
And a gentle focus on the third eye center in between your eyebrows.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
Your thought also on your third eye center,
Your feeling on your third eye center,
Your awareness on the third eye center.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
Your inner conversation on the third eye center,
All your words on the third eye center.
Your overall energy from all directions on your third eye center.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
Every breath dedicated to this awareness of third eye center.
And with every breath,
Awareness becoming brighter,
Settling more and more on your third eye center.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
As if the energy from your whole body,
From all directions pointing a third eye center,
All what you see is third eye center.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
Everything converging in one pointedness,
Your thought energy,
Your emotions,
Your visualizations.
Seeing your awareness,
One pointedness.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
And let go of all effort.
Let go of all focus.
If it naturally remains,
Let it be.
If your awareness spreads,
Expands,
Let it be.
No more effort.
Notice the silence.
Let go of all focus.
Stay in this silence,
In this awareness.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
Relax in the region in between your eyebrows.
And gently and slowly you may open your eyes.
Notice the one pointedness in your energies,
In your mind,
In your awareness.
And take this one pointedness in your daily life,
In your work,
In whatever you are doing in your life.
Be one pointed,
All your awareness at one object.
I will see you tomorrow at 7 am Central European Time.
Namaste.
