Namaste.
Have you ever started something that genuinely mattered to you and then stopped?
Maybe you decided to meditate every morning.
For the first few days,
You did it.
You woke up,
You sat down,
You followed the breath,
You felt committed.
And perhaps you even thought This time,
This time,
I'm going to stay consistent.
Then one morning,
You woke up late.
The next day you were busy.
Then you missed another day.
And before long,
The practice quietly disappeared.
And often,
What comes next is not simply that we stop practicing.
What comes next is judgment.
I have no discipline.
I never stick with anything.
Why do I always fall back in the same patterns?
I was doing so well.
Now I have ruined it.
And this is where Yoga Sutra 1.
13 gives us a very practical way to understand practice.
Because Patanjali does not define practice as perfection.
He does not define it as never wandering.
He does not define it as always feeling motivated.
Practice is something much similar.
It is the willingness to keep returning.
The Sutra is TATRA STHITAU YATNO ABHYASA Let's say it slowly.
TATTVARA The doll?
YATNA ABHYASAM A simple translation.
Practice.
Is the effort to remain steadily established there.
Or we could say Abhyasa is the sincere effort toward steadiness.
This Sutra follows directly from Yoga Sutra 1.
12.
In the previous sutra,
Patanjali told us that the movements of the mind become steady to two things.
Abhyasa which is practice and Vaidhagya which is non-attachment.
Practice and letting go,
The turn and release.
Now in Yoga Sutra 1.
13 Patanjali takes us to the first of those two.
Abyasa.
And explains what he means by practice.
And even if you've not explored the previous sutras,
The teaching here is very simple and very relevant.
Because all of us are practicing something.
The question is,
What are we practicing?
Let's look briefly at the Sanskrit word.
That's love means death.
Step down means remaining in place.
Or staying or abiding or becoming established,
Steadiness.
Jatna means effort.
Sincere endeavour.
Intentional application.
And Abhyasa means blackness.
So Tatra stood out yet no Abhyasa.
Means practice is the sincere effort to remain established there.
But immediately there is an interesting question.
What does Patanjali mean by THEI?
Where is that?
It is easy to imagine that yoga is pointing us towards some extraordinary spiritual state,
Some distant place of perfect peace.
A state where the mind never wanders.
Where nothing bothers us,
Where we are permanently calm.
But that is probably not the most useful way to understand this.
Patanjali has been speaking about the movements of the mind.
Thought,
Memory,
Imagination,
Misperception,
Reaction and earlier he told us that yoga involves the settling or the stilling of those movements.
When the movements settle.
Awareness is no longer completely absorbed in them.
There is space.
There is gladness.
There is the possibility of seeing.
So dead.
Can be understood as this movement.
Toward steadiness,
Presence and awareness.
And Abhyasa is simply the effort to remain there.
Or perhaps more realistically for most of us.
The effort to keep returning them.
The effort to keep returning them.
Practice is not perfection.
This distinction is important.
Because many of us,
We confuse practice with successful performance.
We meditate and the mind wanders and so we say,
I am not good at meditation.
We try to change an emotional reaction.
And then one day we react exactly as we used to.
And we say nothing has changed.
We establish a healthy routine.
And then miss a few days and we say I failed again.
But notice what happens when we define practice differently.
Imagine sitting for meditation.
You bring attention to the breath.
10 seconds later,
You're thinking about work.
You notice,
You are the driver.
A minute later you remember a conversation.
You notice,
You're the dog.
Then you begin planning something.
You notice,
You return.
Then you become annoyed that your mind keeps wandering.
And eventually you notice that too.
And you that don't.
You might finish the meditation thinking,
My mind was everywhere.
But another way of seeing it.
You practiced returning again and again.
And that return,
Every return.
Was a biasa.
The wandering was not necessarily the failure of the practice.
They're the dummy!
Was the practice.
This is a very different relationship with discipline.
Think about it.
Learning any skill.
If you learn to play an instrument,
Here the beats are to move.
At first,
They feel awkward.
You have to think about where your fingers go.
You make mistake.
You begin again,
You repeat.
And after enough repetition.
What once required tremendous concentration it becomes more natural.
The body learns.
The nervous system learns,
The mind learns.
And this is happening in us all the time.
Not only when we intentionally practice something.
This is important.
If we repeatedly worry,
Vadi becomes familiar.
If we repeatedly criticize ourselves.
Self-criticism becomes familiar.
If we repeatedly reach for our phone,
Every time there's silence.
Distraction becomes familiar.
If we repeatedly avoid uncomfortable conversations,
Avoidance becomes familiar.
The mind becomes practiced in whatever we repeatedly do.
So one of the most useful questions from this sutra is What am I practicing?
Not what do I say I want,
But what am I actually rehearsing every day?
Perhaps I say,
I want peace.
But am I practicing peace or am I practicing worry?
Perhaps I say I want confidence.
But am I practicing confidence or am I rehearsing every reason I might fail?
Perhaps I say I want presents.
But am I practicing presence or am I repeatedly leaving the present moment through distraction?
These are not questions for self-judgment.
These are questions for awareness.
Because whatever has been practiced,
Can also be practiced differently.
Every return,
Every return,
It creates a new familiarity.
Suppose something happens and you become anxious.
The mind immediately begins predicting.
What if this goes wrong?
What if they are upset?
What if I made a mistake?
Normally,
You might follow those thoughts for 20 minutes.
But this type.
After 2 minutes,
You notice.
My mind is wandering.
You take one breath,
You put your feet on the floor and you say.
This is the mind imagining.
And then you return to what is actually happening.
That may seem like a very small thing.
But it matters.
Why does it matter?
Simply because you are practicing something new.
The next time,
Perhaps you notice after one minute.
And later,
Perhaps after 30 seconds,
Eventually,
Eventually,
You notice the moment the story begins.
And this is how practice shapes us.
Not always through dramatic transformation,
But through small,
Repeated returns.
Every return teaches the mind.
There's another possibility.
Every pause teaches the nervous system.
I do not have to react immediately.
Every moment of awareness.
Makes awareness a little more familiar.
There is another important word in this sutra.
YATNU YATNA yet not once least to effort.
And we need to understand this carefully.
Because when many of us hear the word effort,
We think.
Push harder.
Force yourself.
Try more.
Be stricter.
Control the mind.
But Patanjali is not necessarily talking about aggression.
There's a difference.
Between effort and tension.
Between discipline and punishment,
Between commitment and force.
Imagine holding something delicate in your hand.
If the hand is completely loose,
You drop it.
If your hand grips too tightly,
You damage it.
There is a middle way.
Steady enough to hold.
Soft enough not to crush.
And that is a useful image for practice.
Yajna does not have to sound like,
I must control my mind.
But it can sound like.
I am willing to the top.
It does not need to sound like.
I must never feel anxious again.
When anxiety appears.
I can practice awareness.
It should not sound like I should never become angry.
But it should sound more like.
When anger arises,
I can notice it before it completely takes over.
This is sincere effort.
Steady.
Patient.
Intention.
Motivation and Practice.
Motivation and practice.
Sometimes we can confuse the two.
But they are not the same thing.
Motivation is wonderful.
But motivation changes.
Some days you feel inspired to meditate.
Some days you do not.
Some days you want to exercise.
Other days,
You would rather stay in bed.
Some days your spiritual practice feels meaningful and alive.
Other days it feels ordinary,
Sometimes dry,
Sometimes difficult.
If practice depends entirely on motivation.
Practice becomes unstable.
Because motivation is a feeling.
And feelings move.
Abyasa.
Is deeper than mood.
Abhiyansas say.
I can return even when I do not feel particularly inspired.
That does not mean forcing ourselves through genuine exhaustion.
It does not mean ignoring the body.
It does not mean becoming rigid.
It means,
We stop making motivation a requirement for every meaningful action.
Perhaps you plan to meditate for 20 minutes.
But today.
.
.
You genuinely have the time only for five minutes.
Sit for five.
Sit for five.
Perhaps you plan to write for the novel.
But today,
You can only write one paragraph.
Night One Paragraph.
Perhaps you lost your routine for the week.
The Don.
The Don today.
The mind may say,
What's the point?
I've already broken the streak.
Abhyasa says the point.
Is the return.
An abbey also.
All of the other yoga philosophy,
It's not limited to what happens on a meditation cushion.
Abhyasa happens in relationships.
Imagine someone says something that feels critical.
Your body tightens immediately.
Your mind wants to defend itself.
The old pattern begins.
For the actors.
Abhyasa practice may be the two seconds in which you notice I'm becoming defensive.
And you breathe.
You listen.
You are the spawn.
Rather than react.
This is aviasa.
Or maybe someone takes longer than usual to reply to your message.
And the mind starts creating a story.
They are upset,
They are pulling away.
I have done something wrong.
Practice may be simply noticing.
This is a story.
Returning to the fact.
There is no reply yet.
That is what is known.
This is Ambiasa.
Or perhaps you're working toward an important goal.
You wake up one morning and you feel no motivation.
The mind says,
Do it tomorrow.
Abhyasa.
Does not necessarily demand three hours of intense work.
Abhyasa might simply say,
Take the next step.
Open the document.
Send the mail.
Make the call.
Do that one next thing that you need to do.
Practice is often much smaller than the mind imagines.
But there's something we need to be careful about.
Not every repetition is conscious practice.
It is possible to meditate every day mechanically.
It is possible to repeat a month without listening.
It is possible to perform yoga postures while being completely distracted.
It is possible to follow a spiritual routine and still become more rigid,
More judgmental or more identified with the idea of being spiritual.
Abhyasa is not simply repetition.
Remember.
Tatra sthitao yathna There is a direction to the practice.
We are moving towards steadiness,
Towards awareness,
Towards the capacity to see clearly.
So occasionally it is worth asking.
What is my practice actually cultivating?
Am I becoming more present?
More aware,
More capable of pausing,
More able to notice thoughts without immediately believing them.
More capable of staying with discomfort without reacting automatically.
More compassionate with myself and others.
Because the point of practice is not simply to become good at practicing.
The point for practice is to change how we meet Light.
To change how we meet life.
There is another way this teaching can help us.
Many people.
Abandon practice because they believe that once they have stopped,
Everything has been lost.
I haven't meditated for a month.
I lost my routine.
I went back to my old habits.
I'll have to start all over again.
But perhaps you are not starting from zero.
Imagine walking through a field of grass.
The first time you walk through it,
The path is difficult.
You push through the glass,
You barely see where you are going.
The next day you walk the same way again.
And then again,
And then again,
And slowly a path begins to appear.
If you stop walking for a while,
If you stop walking on it for a while,
Some grass may grow back.
But the path has not completely disappeared.
Something remains.
And when you return,
You recognize the way.
Practice can be like that.
Every moment of awareness leaves a trace.
Every time you pause rather than react,
Something is learned.
Every time you return to the breadth,
Something becomes familiar.
Every time you choose compassion instead of self-attack,
You deepen another pathway.
So if you have stopped practicing,
They're done.
Do not spend another week judging yourself for the three weeks you missed.
They don't today.
The breath is available.
This moment is available.
The path is still here.
Do not turn practice into another measure of worth.
And this connects beautifully with the previous sutra.
Yoga Sutra 1.
12 did not only give us avyasa,
It also gave us Vairagya.
Non-attachment.
This means we practice sincerely but we loosen our grip on what the practice should produce.
Because the ego can turn practice into another measuring system.
How long did I meditate?
How calm was I?
Did I have a deep experience?
Am I progressive?
Am I more spiritual than I was last year?
And suddenly the practice that was intended to create freedom.
Becomes another source of pressure.
So practice says the turn.
And non-attachment says do not obsess over the result.
Practice.
Notice.
Return.
And then let the practice unfold.
Very different from passivity.
We still make effort.
But we stop constantly asking the practice to prove our worth.
So here is a very simple way to practice Yoga Sutra 1.
13 in everyday life.
When you notice that you have been carried up.
By worry,
By irritation,
By memory,
By imagination,
By distraction,
By self-criticism.
First Notice.
I have wondered.
Don't add I shouldn't have wandered,
Just notice I have wandered.
Take one conscious breath.
Freely aboard.
Feel the contact with the cloud.
And silently say the turn.
Return to the breath.
They turn to the body,
They turn to the conversation,
They turn to the task.
They turn to what is actually happening.
They turn to a bed.
You may wander again 30 seconds later.
And then practice again.
That one word can become a beautiful expression of Abhyasa.
Not force.
Not punishment,
Not perfection.
They're done.
You may wish to reflect on a few questions which I'll also drop into the description.
What am I practicing every day without consciously choosing it?
Gumballison.
Avoidance,
Overthinking.
Or present.
And their nodes.
Where then my life would,
Steady returning,
Make the greatest difference.
Maybe in your meditation,
Or your health,
Or your relationships,
Or your creative work,
Or your sleep,
Or your emotional well-being.
Then ask,
What usually makes me abandon practice?
Do I lose motivation?
Do I expect quick results?
Do I become perfectionistic?
Do I miss one day or two days and then decide that I have failed?
And perhaps the most important question.
What would a kinder form of consistency look like?
Not perfect consistency,
Not rigid consistency.
But a relationship with practice in which you are always allowed to return.
Yoga Sutra 1.
13 says,
TAT RASTI TAO YAT NO APYASA Practice is the effort to remain steadily established there.
The mind wanders.
The dot.
And old pattern appears.
Return.
You react.
Notice the turn.
You lose your routine.
Return.
You stop practicing for the week.
Return.
You become discouraged.
Return.
Because perhaps consistency.
Is not the absence of interruption.
Perhaps consistency is the willingness to begin again.
And every time you return.
Awareness becomes a little more familiar.
The breath becomes easier to find.
The pause becomes easier to recognize.
The path becomes clearer beneath your feet.
Anyway,
Enjoy.
What once required great effort.
May begin to feel more natural.
Not because life stopped moving.
Not because the mind became perfect,
But because you learned the way back.
So perhaps today the question is not.
Can I do this perfectly?
Perhaps the question is very simple.
Can I return?
Can either turn one breath,
One pause,
One moment of awareness.
Return with patience,
Remain with awareness and begin again whenever necessary.
In Yoga Sutra 1.
14 Patanjali continues this teaching and asks an equally important question.
What allows practice to become truly established.
And his answer is that practice becomes firmly grounded.
When it is cultivated for the long time.
Without interruption and with sincere devotion.
And that is where we will go next.
Thank you for listening.
Namaste.
