#68. The Distinction Between Intelligence & Consciousness | Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali

Are you conscious? How do you validate that? If you say you are conscious because you can see, hear, smell, taste, touch and think, then Patanjali is going to challenge you to meditate deeper. He creates a distinction between the intelligence of the bodily senses, mind, and consciousness.

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Transcript

Namaste.

Welcome to this meditation session with me,

Dhyansay,

Your path to inner peace,

Wisdom and awareness.

Are you conscious?

Are you conscious?

If you ask yourself this question,

Your mind,

Your thought may immediately say,

Yes,

Of course.

What an absurd question!

How do you make sure that you are conscious?

How do you validate that this answer,

Yes,

I am conscious,

Is the truth?

What is the proof?

How do you judge that you are actually conscious?

If you meditate on just this much to understand whether you are conscious or not conscious,

A breakthrough happens where you move from wherever you are,

You transcend from wherever you are towards consciousness.

How does that happen?

As an example,

You say,

I am hungry.

This looks like a simple sentence where you understand what this means,

But there is lots and lots of deception in this sentence when you say,

I am hungry.

There is hunger,

That is the truth,

Because there is a signal from the body that there is hunger,

But who is this I which says I am hungry?

Is this I hungry?

Or there is hunger and there is something else,

There is some process,

There is some identification,

Where this I cannot separate from the hunger,

It just thinks that it is the hunger.

The difference between this phenomena that is happening,

This experience that is happening when you say,

I am hungry,

The experience,

The phenomena of hunger,

If you can separate this from the one who is experiencing,

From the consciousness who is experiencing,

Then you are moving away from the identification of the experience,

You are moving away even from this sense of I and you are moving towards consciousness.

This topic of consciousness,

What is consciousness?

Whether when I say,

I am conscious,

What truth does this sentence carry?

This is something that cannot be just intellectually understood.

This has to be meditated upon.

This has to be broken down into its fundamental parts,

Into seeing what is consciousness,

What is an experience,

What is it that we call as I.

In today's session,

Patanjali is breaking this down for us.

Let us hear what he has to say.

Let us take the wisdom of Patanjali in understanding what is consciousness.

What Anjali says,

Sattva Purushaayo atyanta asamkirnayo pratyaya aviseesh bhoga para arthasva artha samyamat purusha jnanam.

This means the intellect and the purusha,

The atman,

The self,

Are totally different.

The intellect existing for the sake of purusha,

While the purusha exists for its own sake.

Not distinguishing this is the cause of experience.

And by samyama,

On the distinction,

Knowledge of purusha is gained.

It is a very significant sutra.

It requires more time.

It requires to move very,

Very slowly,

Carefully towards what Patanjali is pointing at.

He is splitting even what you call as an experience.

When you say,

I am hungry,

This experience,

He is splitting that experience into two.

He is saying there is something that you can call as intelligence and then there is something that you can call as consciousness,

The purusha,

The self.

So,

So far,

If you see our modern understanding,

The language that we use in science,

We mix these two.

We say consciousness and intelligence as one and the same thing.

But here,

Patanjali is going one level deeper.

He is splitting between intelligence and consciousness.

So what is this intelligence?

This intelligence is what is captured in the body,

What is captured in the mind,

That program which when the time is right,

It says,

I am hungry.

It is what gives the signal of this hunger,

Is the intelligence.

Is the intelligence of the body,

Is the intelligence of the mind.

This is not consciousness.

And Patanjali's whole effort in this sutra is to make that distinction to say,

Just because you can experience,

Just because you have a sensation,

The sensation of hunger,

The sensation of seeing,

The sensation of hearing,

Just because you have the sensation does not mean that this is consciousness.

This is intelligence.

So he is putting all this phenomena of sensation,

Of all what you can see,

Hear,

Touch,

Smell,

Taste and experience.

He is putting them all together as intelligence.

He is saying,

This is not consciousness.

This is experience and this is what is intelligence.

When we cannot differentiate between consciousness and this intelligence,

We think that this,

We take this intelligence as the experience.

This secondary phenomena,

Which is the intelligence,

We are limited to this as our experience.

But he goes on clarifying,

He is saying,

You must separate this intelligence from consciousness,

From Atman,

From self,

From this very pure consciousness,

The awareness that has no identification to this intelligence,

That is separate from the body,

That is separate from the mind,

That is separate from all sensations.

So he is breaking down,

He is saying all what you call as experience is happening because of two things,

The intelligence and the consciousness.

And you are mistaken when you say just the sensation,

Just this intelligence is what consciousness is.

If you see the entire effort of science and technology at the moment where we are developing artificial intelligence,

Where the ambition is to develop an intelligence that is superior than human,

That community,

Those people who are developing this,

They are even talking about this as consciousness.

They are saying that the intelligence that they are developing,

Which can now sense,

Which can now experience,

Which can now judge whether there is hunger or no hunger,

Is consciousness.

So they are switching their misunderstanding intelligence with consciousness.

For them,

Patanjali is very helpful to show them,

To guide them that there is a clear distinction between intelligence and consciousness.

And the whole focus is to not worry about the intelligence here in the spiritual path,

In the spiritual awakening,

In moving more towards your true nature.

The focus is on consciousness,

Is not on the body,

Not on the mind,

Not on the phenomena of the experience,

But something that is beyond what we call as the normal physical experience towards consciousness.

That much effort Patanjali has made to point you towards consciousness,

If you do not fully grasp what this intellectually,

What this means in the intellectual sense,

It is okay.

The message here is to focus all your energies to consciousness,

To understanding your true nature.

Then he goes on saying one more sutra related to that.

He says,

Tat Pratibha Sravana Vedana Adarsha Asvada Varta Janate From this knowledge arises super physical hearing,

Touching,

Seeing,

Tasting,

Smelling through spontaneous intuition.

So here he says,

Once you can create this distinction between intelligence and consciousness,

You know more about your true nature,

About you being the consciousness,

And by being established in this consciousness,

While you operate this intelligence,

You can have far superior abilities of operating this intelligence of these five senses and your entire mechanism.

So the emphasis is once again on being more conscious and moving towards this truth in your meditation,

In your silence.

Let us close our eyes,

Let us move within,

Let us separate this intelligence to consciousness and move towards pure consciousness.

Please close your eyes.

Take a posture that is comfortable with your head,

Neck and spine aligned,

Alert yet relaxed.

Let us close our eyes.

Take a deep breath.

Nice deep breath,

Inhale from the nose and exhale from the nose.

With that exhalation,

Letting your body settle,

Resting on its own weight.

Allowing the awareness to move inwards.

In this moment,

Noticing the experience of this moment,

What you hear,

What you see in front of your closed eyes,

What you smell,

What you taste,

And what you feel on your skin.

Give yourself these moments to become aware of this experience.

If there are thoughts,

Include them in this awareness.

Let us close our eyes and let us take a deep breath.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us take a deep breath.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

And slowly shifting the awareness from the experience to the experiencer.

Who is experiencing?

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Awareness turning away from the experience towards the experiencer.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Awareness pointing at itself.

Awareness of awareness.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Away from the experience in all the energy,

Awareness on the experiencer.

Let us close our eyes.

Awareness of awareness.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Away from experience towards consciousness.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let go of all focus,

Effort and allow this awareness of awareness to settle.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

You may continue sitting in this meditative silence.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

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