#76. Time After Time After Time | Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali

Time is the elephant in the room. It is that which keeps us in illusion. In meditative silence, when the awareness becomes highly sensitive, it peels off the layers of time. Three following things become clear:

1. This intrinsic sense of movement which creates the need to define it.
2. The definition of chronological time
3. The Past-Present-Future of Psychological time.

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Transcript

Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily live meditation session with me,

The Anse.

We are meditating on Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

These sutras are not just information.

Just like any other information where you go on the internet and read about it and know the same process cannot apply to these sutras.

These 196 sutras are very short like formulas,

One sentence each or maximum two sentences each and they are all available on internet.

They have been available across time in various forms as information.

When you read through these sutras you can just be very much on the surface.

You can just know what the sutras contain as information.

But that information is meaningless.

That information is practically useless.

The only way to really make use of these sutras is to meditate over them,

Is to take them in your silence,

Take them in your awareness.

Only when you open up your mind and pour all your energy from the mind,

Open up your heart and pour all your energy of the heart,

Open up your spirit and pour all the energy of your spirit into these sutras.

Only then they become alive.

In silence,

In awareness,

When you bring your mind,

Your heart and your spirit all together on these sutras,

Then suddenly what was just a piece of information,

A dead piece of information becomes alive.

That sentence just had some words put together which in the ordinary mundane sense did not mean much.

Suddenly it becomes a wisdom for our entire life.

And when this happens,

When these sutras become alive for you,

They become a guide to you.

They become a journey for you where your intelligence grows,

Where your consciousness unfolds,

Where your wisdom rises.

Other than inner peace,

Love,

Compassion,

Joy,

All these things that are a byproduct of this process that are innate to your nature and as you move closer to your nature,

You by default have all of these things.

But the journey is of intelligence,

The journey is of consciousness,

The journey is of wisdom.

And these sutras are very helpful.

They become a guide only when you bring all your awareness of the mind,

Of the heart,

Of the spirit together in silence and meditate over them.

Therefore,

We are doing these sessions where right now we are meditating on Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

We are on Vibhuti Pada,

Almost about to close this chapter as well.

Let us hear what Patanjali has to say today.

Patanjali says,

Kshana Kramayo Samyamat Viveka Jam Gyanam.

By Samyama on single moments in sequence comes discriminative knowledge.

Let me repeat,

By meditating on single moments in sequence comes discriminative knowledge.

Very potent sutra just like any other sutra from Patanjali.

Few things have to be understood because here Patanjali wants you to meditate on time.

And he says by meditating on time,

And we will go into detail what he really means by this,

He says comes discriminative knowledge,

Comes the wisdom.

Your,

Not only your intelligence expands,

Your consciousness expands,

Your wisdom expands and comes the discriminative knowledge which you can use in your daily life.

I am reminded of a person,

He was taken to a psychiatrist,

He was bounded,

He was put in a chair and he said to the psychiatrist,

Look doc,

I am not mad.

The doctor said,

Yes,

I have heard that every mad person says so.

Then this person says,

Hmm,

What if I am mad?

Doctor says,

Then I will believe your judgment.

And this person is completely confused,

Then he says,

Then what do all these sane people say to you?

The doctor says,

Well that question is not covered by your insurance.

This is the world we are living in where our judgment is always turned against us as madness.

And we see madness in us,

We see madness all around us,

So therefore we need wisdom,

We need this judgment to be able to differentiate between what is good for us and what is not good for us.

What is right,

What is wrong,

Not the philosophical right or wrong,

But what is practically good for us in life,

What brings us closer to who we really are.

That discrimination is something which is a very finer awareness,

That is not just a gross awareness required to move in the mundane life,

That finer awareness which leads to wisdom.

Here,

Patanjali,

At this stage where we are almost close to the peak of where he wants to take us,

He says,

Even that finer awareness,

Even that finer intelligence,

This discrimination,

This judgment between what is good for me,

What is not good for me,

This is something you can grasp,

This is something you can improve by meditating on time.

And again,

By meditating on time,

Here he elaborates this also in very finer detail,

So please pay attention with your mind,

With your heart,

With your spirit,

To understand,

To appreciate what Patanjali means by meditating on time.

He says,

By Samyama or by meditation,

On single moments in sequence comes discriminative knowledge.

Single moments in sequence.

In order to unfold this,

In order to understand this,

We have to see that deep down,

We have this sense of movement,

That there is somewhere this life is moving,

There is this sense of movement,

And we validate this sense by looking at all our cosmos,

We say,

Look,

This earth is rotating,

This earth is also revolving around the sun,

So there is some movement,

There is some movement that is happening,

And based on this movement,

We start giving this,

We start putting this sense of movement in something that we call as time,

In something that we call as chronological time,

And then this chronological time,

Out of this chronological time,

Arises the psychological time,

The sense of past,

The sense of future.

So you have to differentiate between these three as well.

This sutra works in both ways,

That when you meditate over time,

You are empowered on your sense of judgment,

And when you are having this final awareness,

This sense of judgment over time,

You also understand and unfold what this is.

So this time,

If you see in three different layers,

One is this sense of movement that is there in us,

Which gives us this sense of life.

Then this movement translated into a framework which we call as chronological time.

And then this chronological time,

Giving rise,

Giving birth to past,

Present,

Future,

All this psychology of time.

Another way of understanding this,

Imagine you are driving on a street,

And you see a violet building,

While you are driving on your right side,

You see a violet building.

You drive further,

You see an indigo colored building.

You look at it,

Then you move on,

You drive further,

You see a blue colored building on the side.

And so on,

You keep on driving and you start to see a building on your right side which has these colors,

The blue,

Then the green,

Then the yellow,

Then the orange,

Then the red.

So you start to see these colors of the building on the right side while you are driving.

And suddenly after the red,

You are driving further and you see violet building once again.

In this moment,

You ask yourself,

Whether is this the same building that you saw several moments ago,

Long back,

Or is this a new building?

When you drive further again,

You see an indigo colored building,

And you see a blue colored building.

So you keep on repeating these buildings,

What you see on your side,

But you don't know whether this is the same or this is something new.

How do you judge that?

While you are driving and you have this visualization,

That ability in your mind,

That ability in your intelligence which tells you that what you are seeing is something that is repeating,

Or something that is new,

That ability is Viveka.

This is the ability which Patanjali is saying,

This discrimination.

Once you empower that,

You start to see that you have been repeating these buildings all and all over again.

What that means,

What that example means in real life is once you are attentive enough,

Once you are aware enough,

Once you build that discrimination and you see and observe time,

You see that you are just repeating the same again and again and again.

This sense which gives you a sense of movement has its own place,

But on top of that,

This chronological time that we have built,

This is what we have called,

That we are moving to somewhere in a direction,

Is actually we are moving in circles.

So time is not linear,

Time is not a line,

Time is circular.

But all this is theory for you only when you bring your awareness,

Very careful attention to time and meditate,

You see that there is only repetition of everything in life.

And out of that repetition,

What psychological time that we experience as past and future are nothing but identifications.

Past is the identification to memories,

Future is the identification to desires.

And as Patanjali said in yesterday's sutra,

By non-identification,

You move into kevalya,

Into absolute nothingness.

When you can let go of the identifications with your desires,

You let go of future.

When you let go of the identifications of your memories,

You let go of the past and you are in the present moment.

This journey,

This meditation over time,

We will take it from the psychological time,

We will look at this past,

We will look at this future,

We will drop the past,

We will drop the future,

We will disidentify ourselves and be in the present moment first.

So that we come in the psychological time,

We come out of the psychological time,

We come into the very present moment,

The past and the future is disappearing for us,

We are disidentified by the past and the future.

Once we establish that,

Then in that awareness we will go very carefully into this sense of movement.

What is this sense of movement?

Is this leading to somewhere or is this just a repetition?

Too much to say here,

But let us bring this into our awareness,

Into our silence,

Into our own experience.

Please close your eyes,

Take a posture that is comfortable for you.

Bringing your awareness to your breath.

Awareness to inhalation,

Exhalation and the pauses in between inhalation and exhalation.

Your inhalation represents the future,

The desires,

Your exhalation represents the past,

The memories.

As you bring your awareness to your breath,

Try to focus on the pause in between your inhalation and exhalation without trying to change the flow of your breath.

From the awareness on inhalation and exhalation to the pause in between inhalation and exhalation.

There are two pauses,

One after exhalation and the second after inhalation.

Choose any pause and focus your awareness on the pause.

In the inhalation is future,

In the exhalation is the past.

Remain in the middle,

In the present.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Unattached from the future,

From the inhalation,

Unattached from the past,

From the exhalation.

Remain in the middle,

In the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

The inhalation,

The exhalation happening on its own around you.

You are in the center,

At the pause.

Focus on the pause.

In the center,

In this pause,

In this awareness,

There is no past,

No memories.

There is no future,

No desires.

There is no future,

No future.

Awareness.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

As you let go of the pause,

There is stillness,

Absolute stillness,

Silence,

And awareness.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

Focus on the pause.

In this stillness,

There is only consciousness.

Consciousness,

Free of time.

And in this silence,

There is liberation.

Very gently and slowly,

Open your eyes.

While maintaining the awareness,

The silence,

The stillness,

As you return back to time,

Back to movement,

But unidentified with the past,

With the future,

And seated,

Centered in the present,

In awareness.

Thank you very much.

Namaste.

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