#8 What Is God? | Yoga Sutras Of Patanjali

What is God? Is it a thought? Is it a concept? Is it rational or irrational? Can it be felt? Can it be defined? Is it graspable? What is God? Everyone must meditative over God to re-energize this dead word, God.

Each of these sessions is unique, starts with a 10-minute discourse, followed by 20-minute Guided Meditation.

Transcript

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

Dehansa.

My salutations to Patanjali for the knowledge of yoga,

For bringing this knowledge to us,

For opening the doors to this knowledge and also giving us this chance once again to bring this into our life,

This knowledge which is thousands of years old and we're talking about this now in 2020.

What is God?

This question has to be brought in to the discussion no matter we try to avoid it,

No matter we try not to look at this question,

It has to be meditated upon.

What is God?

I'm not talking about the God of the religion,

The personified God of the religion,

The Jesus,

The Krishna,

The Buddha,

Any kind of personification of the God,

The Rama of the Hindus,

It does not matter what name we give to that God.

I'm not talking about the God of the religion.

Then what is God?

Is it a belief?

Are we talking about the theists who believe that there is something which is creating everything that there is God or taking the position of the atheist saying there is no God.

Before we take that position,

What is God?

Who will tell us what God is if not we meditate upon?

What is this entity?

Is this an entity?

Is this a thought?

Is this a concept?

Is this a madness?

Is this a belief?

What is God?

If you try to approach God with mind,

You will see God cannot be captured with rationality.

So God can be the irrational.

God can be the door to irrational.

If you try to feel God,

You will see that you cannot also feel God with the emotion.

So what is God?

Is it that deepest love of the heart for the entire universe or even something more?

What is God?

When you meditate more,

When you open yourself up to this dead word God and make it a life for you,

Energize this word for you without giving it any meaning,

Without giving it any definition,

Keeping it undefinable,

Keeping it boundaryless,

Keeping it irrational.

Keeping it ungraspable but still holding to it without grasping,

Holding it,

Meaning its presence in your consciousness coming in slowly becoming more and more in your consciousness.

This simply space,

This presence which cannot be grasped with the hand,

Cannot be grasped with the mind,

Cannot be grasped with the heart,

What to do?

Be aware,

Be aware silently,

Be aware of what is God.

It's important to have this consciousness of what God is,

Not whether it exists or not exists but what God is because that allows us to come out of ourselves,

To come out of our mind,

To come out of our limitations,

To come out of the boundaries that we have created for ourselves,

To move into space,

To move into the infinity,

To move into the emptiness one needs this undefined variable in the equation.

Today's sutras of Patanjali are somewhat related to God that is why we meditate on the topic first and then we go into the sutras.

What Patanjali says,

Please remember we are discussing here Samadhi,

Patanjali had described to us the goal,

Patanjali had described to us the way to reach that goal,

The several steps of Samadhi,

The several different levels of attainment and experiences that you'll go through while you go in your inner world,

While you meditate and sink deeper in your inner being.

Now what Patanjali is describing is the commitment that is needed from you is the path that you could choose to go through this journey towards your own self.

Patanjali says,

Tivra samveganam asana,

Samadhi is nearest to those whose desire is intensely strong.

So he's saying you have to have a very strong intense desire to go into Samadhi,

To go and be in your own being and have that strength of desire that will take you with the escape velocity outside your realms,

Outside your boundaries to reach to your own being.

Then he says,

Mridu madhya dhimat travat tato p vishesha,

A further differentiation arises by reason of the mild,

Medium and intense.

Here he is talking about the effort that unless you give full effort,

There is no success.

So one thing he's saying,

You have to have the intense desire,

The desire has to have that intensity,

That level which is extreme.

And then he says,

The effort has to be total,

Without the totality of the effort,

Without going all in,

Without putting all your effort,

There is no reaching to Samadhi.

Then he says,

Ishvara pranidhana va,

All by self surrendering to God.

And here he brings in the idea,

The thought,

The concept of God.

Klesha karma vipakshair,

Aparam amritcha purusha vishesha Ishvara.

Ishvara is a special purusha who is untouched by the afflictions of life,

Actions and results and impressions produced by these actions.

And last,

Tatra nirat seyan sarvajjintva bhijam,

In him is the highest limit of omnisense.

If I were to summarize these five sutras,

What Patanjali is trying to give is two ways.

One way,

He says,

Put total effort,

Have that extreme desire to be within yourself,

To meet your own being.

And the other is surrender,

Surrender to God.

Here he's using surrender to God as a way to surrender.

What is less important is God.

What is more important is surrender.

The way is more important.

What you contain in yourself,

Either the intense desire,

The totality of the effort or the totality of surrender.

What is lesser important,

What he still uses as a way to surrender,

Is to surrender to God.

Because to whom else will you surrender?

You cannot surrender to another person.

If you have to surrender,

You surrender to that undefined,

You surrender to that all-pervading,

Omnipresent,

You surrender to that which is ungraspable,

Which is bigger than any rational,

Any logic,

Which is bigger than any definition.

So that is one way and the other way is to have that intense desire,

To have that intense total effort.

What you also see,

Interestingly,

The path to desirelessness,

Patanjali is proposing is through desire,

To have that intense desire.

And this is important to understand because something that is half-baked,

Something that is on a low flame,

Never reaches to a transformation.

So what you can take as a message from these sutras is that to have transformation in life,

To bring change in life,

You have to go a hundred percent.

You have to bring intensity which takes you out of your comfort zone,

Which takes you out of your mind and puts you into something that is completely new,

Puts you into something that is completely out of the boundaries.

So to have this intense desire,

This desire of Mumuksha,

This desire is not just a curiosity.

It is not just a curiosity to know what is this inner world.

It's not just once in a while you think about when you're feeling sad,

When you're feeling not so good,

Then you say,

Let me meditate,

Let me try to be with my being,

In my truth,

In myself.

It is not curiosity.

It is not even an intellectual inquiry.

It is something that is an intense desire called as Mumuksha,

Where you are ready to put everything for that desire until your own truth takes that highest value in your life.

There is no way to attain it.

There is no energy to attain it along with total effort.

So for your practice and for your journey moving forward,

You can take this as a tip either to go with total effort,

With total energy,

Or you go with total surrender.

And what that surrender is,

Trust in this entire cosmos,

Just the way it's functioning,

Out of the grasp of our mind,

Out of the grasp of our heart,

Out of the grasp of anything that we call as ourselves.

In today's meditation,

We will chant Aum.

I will chant,

If you like,

You can chant along,

Or you will just listen and be in the vibrations,

In the reverberations of Aum.

And in these vibrations of Aum,

You can build up that intense desire.

You can feel that intense desire.

You can give the total effort to silence and awareness,

And at the same time,

You can surrender to God.

So you can have both ways,

Both worlds together in today's meditation,

But as your path,

As you're moving forward,

Put some meditative thought into what is your path.

Is the path of surrender or is the path of total effort?

With that,

Let us close our eyes.

Taking a posture that is comfortable,

With back upright.

And as I chant Aum,

Raise your desire to go within.

Give your total effort and surrender everything into the reverberations,

Into the vibrations of Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Aum.

Awareness inwards.

Allowing your energies to reorganize,

To settle.

In this silence,

These vibrations meditate upon God.

The nameless.

The shapeless.

The boundless.

Beyond rational and irrational.

Beyond thought.

Beyond feeling.

Not an idea.

Not a concept.

A resonate with,

Personalize with God.

Remain aware of God.

You You In total surrender To the silence And awareness Of God You You If you wish Stay in this meditative silence In this meditative meeting with God Letting go,

Surrendering To these moments Oh,

Very gently and slowly you may open your eyes Maintaining this awareness,

Silence and sense of God Of something that is ungraspable Yet in awareness you cannot deny it Take that taste in your day to day And I will see you tomorrow at 7 am Central European Time Namaste

Reviews

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How do we know that our path is more surrender or desire and effort?

Thank you.