 Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to our Wednesday recap of our episode from the dark outpost on Tuesdays from 1 to 3 p.m. Of course, we are now going to be entering into reading the Yoga Sutras of Patanjalin. This was David's idea because of course as I spoke about last week in our introduction to yoga a lot of people in the Christian community believe that yoga is demonic and the sad thing is is they don't actually know anything about yoga to have that judgment. That's just propaganda that has been taught to them by the controllers of the world. You guys know who I am talking about when I say the controllers of the world. And so we're going to go ahead and just dive into reading the Yoga Sutras of Patanjalin. Now if you missed the video from last Wednesday where I did a brief introduction to yoga, especially the yoga that I practice, that link will be down in the description box below. So of course the translation and commentary that we're reading from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjalin is by Sri Swami Sashit Dhananda. And so with that being said, if you have the book and are reading along with us, we're going to start with the introduction. When the word yoga is mentioned, most people immediately think of some physical posture for relaxing and limbering up the body. This is one aspect of the yoga science, but actually only a very small part in relatively recent in development. The physical yoga or hatha yoga was primarily designed to facilitate the real practice of yoga, namely the understanding and complete mastery over the mind. So the actual meaning of yoga is the science of the mind. And we did speak about that last week in my introductory video over yoga. The practice, the physical practice, the posture practice is literally facilitating an environment for you to study your own mind. And as the video I shared last week of Sri K. Patapai Joyce, our guru and our practice, he said, you know, yoga is your mind-controlling capacity. So you being able to control your own mind, your own emotions, not your mind controlling you. And so that's kind of sums up what we're entering into in this new age. You know, we're leaving behind the mind control of other people, the MKUltra, the, you know, whatever you want to call it, the programming, everything that we've been taught is real, that we know is not real. That's all a form of mind control from the dark powers that be. And so yoga is the first step in breaking free of that because you start to control your own mind. Your mind is not controlling you. All right. And again, hatha yoga, we spoke about this last week, hatha in America, people say hatha yoga, but it's hatha yoga, H-A-T-H-A, hatha, this is Sanskrit, this is not English, so the T-H do not make the thah sound. In Sanskrit, it's hatha yoga. We all want to know more about our minds, how they work, how we can work with them. This field is closer to us than anything else in life. It may be interesting and useful to know how to fix a car, or cook a meal, or how atoms are split, but something that holds a more immediate and vital interest for thoughtful people is their own mind. What is the mind? Does it determine our behavior and experience, or do we create and sustain its activity? What is consciousness? Can we turn into ourselves to study and understand perhaps even control the mind? This is the subject matter of the ancient science of raja, yoga, and raja is basically the form of yoga that involves heat and fire, like the hatha yoga would be raja yoga. Traditionally, the word yoga by itself refers to raja yoga, the mental science, with the current interest in expanding consciousness and mental science in general. It is natural that we turn to the ancient science of raja yoga. There are, of course, many Western approaches to the study and control the mind, each advancing of various different concepts and techniques. But compared to these, the ancient yogic science is a great grand sire. For thousands of years, the yogis have probed the mysteries of the mind and consciousness, and we may well discover that some of their findings are applicable to our own search as well. The primary text of raja yoga is called the yoga sutras of Patanjali. Sutra literally means thread, each sutra being the barest thread of meaning upon which a teacher might expand by adding his or her own bead of experience, example, etc., for the stake of the students. There are almost 200 sutras traditionally divided into four sections. The first is the portion on contemplation, samadhi-pada, which gives the theory of yoga and a description of the most advanced stages of the practices of samadhi or contemplation. This was probably given first as an inspiration to the students to begin the practice. The second is the portion on practice, sadhana-pada. There is philosophy in this section also, but of a more practical nature, and the first five basic steps out of the traditional eight limbs of raja yoga are expounded. Along with their benefits, obstacles to their accomplishment and ways to overcome the obstacles. The third is called the portion on accomplishments and discusses the final three inner steps of raja yoga plus all the powers and accomplishments which could come to the faithful practitioner. The final section is called the portion on the absoluteness and discusses yoga from more of a cosmic philosophical viewpoint. It is not known exactly where Patanjali lived, or even if he was indeed a single person rather than several persons using the same title. Estimates of the dates of the sutras range from 5000 BC to 300 AD, and I was taught by my teachers that were looking more at the 5000 BC mark instead of the 300 AD mark. In any case, he did not in any sense invent raja yoga, but rather systematized it and compiled the already existing ideas and practices. Since that time, he has been considered the father of yoga, and his sutras are the basis for all the various types of meditation and yoga which flourish today in their myriad of forms. Sri Swami Sashitinanda is one of the most widely known and well-rounded contemporary exponents of yoga. He terms his entire approach to yoga, integral yoga, or the yoga of synthesis, as it takes into consideration all the aspects of an individual, physical, emotional, mental, intellectual, and social. But he often states, integral yoga is not in any way different from raja yoga. Raja yoga itself is an integral approach. It does not simply advocate meditation, but takes into consideration the entire life of a person, its philosophy is scientific. It welcomes and in fact demands experimental verification by the student. Its ultimate aim is to bring about a thorough transformation of the individual who practices it sincerely. Its goal is nothing less than the total transformation of a seemingly limited physical, mental, and emotional person into a fully illuminated, thoroughly harmonized, and perfect being. From an individual with likes and dislikes, pains and pleasures, successes and failures, to a sage of a permanent peace, joy, and selfless dedication to the entire creation. We see the fruition of this science in Sri Swami Sashitananda. He lived a conventional life until the age of 28. Brought up in a small village in South India, he later studied agriculture science and technology and worked in various technical and commercial fields. Not satisfied with any of these things, he made the pursuit of yoga, his full-time occupation. Practicing first with the help of books and later at the feet of many of India's greatest sages and saints. In 1949 he came to the ashram, Sri Swami Sivananda. In master Sivanandi, he found his guru, his spiritual guide. He took monastic initiation from master Sivananda in 1949 and lived, worked, and practiced at Sivananda ashram for a number of years until he had fully mastered raja yoga or integral yoga as Swami Sivananda and later he himself came to call it. Since then he has been recognized and appreciated as a universal teacher, serving and guiding thousands of individuals in various groups, such as the Integral Yoga Institute, Satchitinanda ashrams, various branches of the Divine Life Society and others. He is also active in movements where he takes every opportunity to bring together spiritual people of various traditions to see the oneness in all spiritual endeavors. His very life, his every word in action demonstrates his attunement with nature and his transcendence of petty limitations. He is a beautiful instrument to guide us through the study of raja yoga. So something I don't know if I brought up last week when we started talking about yoga is that there are really only three traditional yogas left in the world. That's the ashtanga lineage that I practice, the ayingar lineage and the Sivananda lineage, which as I just read is the lineage of Sri Swami Satchitinanda followed and that's the translation and commentary we're reading from today. So that you guys know that this is actually coming from a legitimate lineage of yoga. So moving on with the introduction, Patanjaleen was the epitome of tolerance for all methods of liberality and broad mindedness of approach. He did not limit his instruct into one particular technique to members of any particular religion or philosophy or in any other way. He gave general principles to use specific only as examples. For instance, in eliminating objects for meditation rather than say Jesus is the only way or Krishna is the highest Godhead meditate on Krishna or only meditation on a sound vibration or mantra will bring the yogic result. He simply gave various possibilities to choose from and then concluded or by meditating on anything one chooses which is elevating. It is probably this broad mindedness that endeared Patanjaleen's yoga sutras to Sri Swami Satchitinanda. Swamiji's ideals and methods are like Patanjaleen's universal all-encompassing. He denies no one converts no one yet recommends techniques of understanding that can expand anyone's present experience of his philosophy, religion and most importantly daily life. Although ancient, Patanjaleen and Raja Yoga are contemporary, experimental and scientific. They invite independent questioning and sincere study analysis and application. This book is unique among the books of the yoga sutras in that it is based on Sri Swamiji's informal exposition of the sutras at lectures and yoga retreats. It was not written for publication or for any scholarly or intellectual purpose, but it is the recorded conversation of a yoga master to his students in the true sutra exposition tradition. It is a dynamic teaching based on the needs of the modern student expounded by one who lives those teachings. Even the translations are new coming from the direct experience of Sri Swamiji. It is our hope in bringing out this book to enable seekers after truth and yoga practitioners in particular to have the great inspiration and practical guidance of Patanjaleen through the illuminating vision of the modern master Sri Swami Satchitinanda. Sri Swamiji recommends that readers take note of those sutras that seem particularly meaningful to their individual lives and memorize them. The words will often come back to the mind throughout one's daily activities and serve as an aid in maintaining peace of mind under all circumstances. Each time you pick up the book, you might find another one or two sutras that you would like to add to your memory bank. For those who would also like to hear the sutras as they were given by Sri Swami Satchitinanda, the talks from this commentary was taken, have been edited to an audio cassette program entitled Integral Yoga, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjaleen. The two tape program, which focuses on both one and two, is available through integral yoga institutions or from integral yoga distributions. May the grace of all the realized yogis of this every tradition be upon us that we may succeed in realizing the peace and joy, which is the divine truth within us. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti. So Shanti means peace. You hear that a lot in yoga Om Shanti Shanti Shanti. And this brought up a good point. So obviously, if you want to get the recording of him discussing the first and second Pada, that is available. And I will put a link to that website down below. Now, this is something that I'm still haven't decided if I'm going to do on this reading or not. You know, part of me wants to read through the whole sutras so people have a broader idea of what yoga is versus the lies that have been taught to you from the church, basically. But there's also certain rules when it comes to studying the yoga sutras. As we talked about last week on David's show, we usually start studying the yoga sutras by starting with the second Pada because it's where the practice is given to you. And then you go back and read the first Pada. And for about 10 or 15 years of your yoga journey, that is what you study, is the first and second Pada only. And then after about that 15 year mark into the 20 year mark, that's when you start going into the third and fourth Pada. The third and fourth Pada of the yoga sutras are way more psychedelic. They're way more metaphysical and spiritual in nature. There is fear for teachers. They don't want students going that far into the third and fourth Pada because of ego. They don't want all the spiritual stuff to actually trigger the ego into wanting to aggressively get to that place. You need to be at a place of humility in order to really understand the third and the fourth Pada. So I'm still debating on whether I'm going to cover the third and fourth Pada on this reading. I'm just going to give it a week or so and see how I feel. But I do want people to understand that that is part of the etiquette of studying the yoga sutras. The first and second Pada are the only ones really necessary in the beginning. All right, so book one, we're going to start with the first Pada, Samadhi Pada, portion on contemplation. This begins our study of Raja Yoga. So this is just the introduction to book one. I'm not even in the sutras yet. So this begins our study of Raja Yoga or Ashtanga, eight-limbed yoga. Again, that's, I practice Ashtanga yoga as it's sometimes called. The yoga sutras was expounded by the sage Patanjalin. Maharishi comprised the first and foremost scripture of yoga. It was Patanjalin who carefully coordinated yoga thought and explained it to his students. As he expounded these thoughts, his students jotted them down in a sort of shorthand using just a few words which came to be called the sutra. The literal meaning of the word sutra is thread. And these sutras are just combinations of words threaded together, sometimes not even well-formed sentences with subjects, predicates, and so on. Within the space of these 200 short sutras, the entire science of yoga is clearly delineated. It's aim, the necessary practices, the obstacles you may meet along the path, their removal and precise description of the results that will be obtained from such practices. Now, I'm also not going to be reading the Sanskrit to you guys. Now, I as a yoga student and teacher myself do classes where we chant the yoga sutras in their Sanskrit form. However, because this is on YouTube and this is not a formal class, I'm not going to go through a lot of the Sanskrit. I'm just going to read their English translations. However, if you want to do a deeper, deeper dive into the yoga sutras and you desperately want to find a yoga sutra teacher, the Sanskrit is going to become of the utmost importance when you are studying the yoga sutras, if that makes sense. So the first sutra is now the exposition of yoga is being made. Or now the study of yoga begins. That's another translation. And the now and this is super, super, super important because we don't live in the past or the present. Our mind often lives in the past or the present. But now we begin now, everything is happening now. So even though you might read that first sutra and think now, OK, now I'm beginning yoga. No, that's every single day when you get up, even for me, 15 years later. Now I begin my practice of yoga every single day because yesterday is gone. It's not coming back again and tomorrow never comes. And so now the study of yoga starts every day. It's now, now it begins. This means the exposition or instruction because this is not mere philosophy that Patanjaleen is about to expound, but rather direct instruction on how to practice yoga. Mere philosophy will not satisfy us. We cannot reach the goal by mere words alone. Without practice, nothing can be achieved. And so my teacher's teacher used to say this, 99% practice, 1% theory. We can sit around and talk about the theory all day. The theory is my favorite part. The philosophy is my favorite part. But if we sit around and talk about the theory all day, then we're not actually practicing that theory. And that's where the asana, the posture practice comes into play too, because the posture has then become a tool to help us observe the limitations of the mind, the boundaries and obstacles of the mind, the self-deprecating thoughts of the mind. And once we're able to see those limitations, we're able to see those boundaries, then we can start to control them and we can start to release them, which we spoke about a lot last week's video too. So Sutra 2, even though I said I'm not going to do the Sanskrit in this video, I will say this one in Sanskrit because this is one of the most important sutras, Yoga Chitra Pratina Rodhaha. The restraint, and that means the restraint of the modification of the mind stuff is yoga. So as Patabi Joy said, yoga is you controlling your mind. It's not your mind controlling you. It's you controlling your mind. In this sutra, Patanjali gives the goal of yoga. For a keen student, this one sutra should be enough because the rest of them only explained this one exactly. That's just what I just said. This is one of the most important sutras, Yoga Chitra Pratina Rodhaha. If the restraints of the mental modification is achieved, one has reached the goal of yoga. The entire science of yoga is based on this. Patanjali has given the definition of yoga. And at the same time, the practice, if you can control the rising of the mind into ripples, you will experience yoga. And we talked about that last week, the vrittis. So it's like if you drop a pebble in a pond and it makes waves. Those waves are your thoughts. Those are vrittis. And most of what is, I think they say something like 90 percent of our thoughts are subconscious. Like we didn't even know we're making these thoughts and they're repetitive over and over and over again. And so if we can start to control those, that's when we're beginning the practice of yoga. Now we will discuss the meaning of each word of the sutra. Normally the word yoga is translated as union. But for a union, there should be two things to unite. In this case, what is to unite with what? So here we take yoga to mean the yogic experience. The extraordinary experience gained by controlling the modifications of the mind itself called yoga. Chittam is the sum total of the mind to have the full picture of what Patanjali means by mind. You should know that within a chittam are different levels. The basic mind is the ego, the eye feelings. This give rise to intellect or discriminatory faculties, which is called puti. Another stage is the desiring part of the mind, which gets attracted to the outside things through the senses. For example, say you are quietly sitting enjoying the solitude when a nice smell comes from the kitchen. The moment you recognize I'm getting a fine smell from somewhere, the puti discriminates. What is that smell? I think it's cheese. How nice. What kind? Swiss. Yes, it's Swiss cheese. Then once the puti decides, yes, it's a nice piece of Swiss cheese like you enjoyed in Switzerland last year, the mind then says, oh, is it so? Then I should have some now. These three things happen at one time, but so quickly that we seldom distinguish between them. These modifications give rise to the effort to get the cheese. The want was created. And unless you fulfill it by peeping into the kitchen and eating the cheese, your mind won't go back to its original peaceful condition. The want is created. Then the effort to fulfill the want and once you fulfill it, you are back to your original peaceful position. So normally you are in the peaceful state. That is the natural condition of the mind. But these chitavritis are the modification of the mindful, disturbed, that peace. All the differences in the outside world are the outcome of your mental modification. For example, imagine you have not seen your father since your birth and he returns when you are 10 years old. He knocks at your door, opening it. You see a strange face. You turn to your mama and say, mama, there's a stranger at the door. Your mom comes and sees her long lost husband. With all joy, she receives a minute introduces him as your father. You say, oh, my daddy, a few minutes before he was a stranger, now he has become your daddy. Did he change into your daddy? No, he is the same person. You created the idea of the stranger and then you changed it to daddy. That's all. The entire outside world is based on your thoughts and your mental attitude. The entire world is your own projection. That's something big that many truthers talk about in this great awakening. The entire world is your own projection. Your values may change within a fraction of a second. Today, you may not even want to see the one who was your sweet honey yesterday. If we remember that, we won't put so much stress on outward things. This is why yoga does not bother much about changing the outside world. There is a Sanskrit saying, as the mind, so the man, bondage or liberation are in your mind. If you feel bound, you are bound. If you feel liberated, you are liberated. Things outside either bind or liberate you. Only your attitude towards them does that. This is why whenever I speak to prison inmates, I say, you all feel you are in prison and anxiously await to get outside these walls. But look at the guards. Are they not like you? They are also within the same wall. Even though they are let out at night every morning, you see them back here. They love to come. You love to get out. The enclosure is the same. To them, it is not a prison. To you, it is. Why? Is there any change in the walls? No, you feel it is a prison. They feel that it is a place to work and earn. It is a mental attitude. If instead of imprisonment, you think of this as a place for your reformation, where an opportunity has been given you to change your attitude in life, to reform and purify yourself. You will love to be here until you feel purified. Even if they say your time is over, you can go. You may say, I am still not purified, sir. I want to be here for some more time. In fact, many such prisoners continue to lead a yogic life even after they've left prison. And they were even thankful for their prison life. That means they took it the right way. And I've seen that before. There was a great documentary a long time ago about a man who here in America, I believe in Texas, was falsely in prison for the passing of his wife, self-induced, or induced passing of his wife by another human being. You guys know we have to watch what we say. We can't say the M word. And anyway, he was in prison for many, many, many years, like decades, until they realized that he was innocent and they released him. And in the interviews, it's like something had shifted inside of him when he was in prison, where he had found some sense of enlightenment. And he was very peaceful about his experience there because instead of being mad about the situation, he obviously used it, whether he was conscious of it or not, as an opportunity to find the peace within himself. So if you have control over the thought, forms and changes, then as you want, you are not bound by the outside world. There's nothing wrong with the world. You can make it a heaven or a hell according to your approach. And that's exactly what Jesus said. Jesus said exactly that in the Bible. Heaven is inside of you. Hell is inside of you. And this is what the yoga sutras are saying too. You can make it a heaven or a hell according to your approach. This is why the entire yoga is based on it. Chitta vritti narodaha. If you control your mind, you have controlled everything. Then there is nothing in this world to bind you. Sutra number three. The seer self abides in his own nature. You are the true seer. So we kind of spoke about this last week of property, Purusha and Ishvara property being nature. Anything that has a birth, a life and a death is property. And Purusha is the eternal, the seer or the watcher. So Purusha is that part of you that's watching the world around you, but is not affected by the world around you. The part of you that is affected by the world around you. Again, the thoughts of the mind, the brain, that's part of property or nature. Your seer, your Purusha is not a part of any of that. It's just observing it. So you are the true seer. You are not the body or the mind. You are the knower or the seer. You always see your mind and body acting in front of you. You know that the mind creates thoughts in its distinguished and desires. The seer knows that, but is not involved in it. But to understand that eternal, peaceful you, the mind must be quiet. Otherwise, it seems to distort the truth. If I explain this through analogy, it will probably be easier to understand. You are the seer who wants to see itself. How? Even in the case of your physical face, if I asked you if you've ever seen your face, you have to say no, because it is the face that sees. The face itself is the seer or the subject. What it sees in the mirror is its image, the scene or the object. The mirror is the image you will be able to see your true face. No. It will appear to be awful, too big or too small, full of waves. You will be worried seeing this. No. You will immediately know something is wrong with the mirror. So you know what he's referring to, right? Those mirrors that make your body look a little disordered. But you know when you look in those mirror that that's not truly your body, because the mirror itself is disordered. So that's what he's saying. You can't see your own face. You've never actually seen your own face. You've only seen the reflection of your own face that can very easily be disordered. You are seeing a disordered reflection. Only if the mirror is perfectly smooth and clean will it give you the true reflection. Only then can you see your face as it is in the same way the seer or the true you reflects in the mind, which is your mirror. Normally you can't see the true self because your mind is colored. If the mind is dirty, you say I am dirty. If it is all polished and shining, I am beautiful. That means that you think you are your reflection in the mirror. If the mind has a lot of waves, like the surface of a lake, you will be seeing a disordered reflection. If the water of the mental lake is muddy or colored, you see yourself as muddy or colored. To see the true reflection, see the water is clean and calm and without any ripples. When the mind ceases to create thought, forms, or when the chitam is completely free of vrittis, it becomes as clear as a still lake. And you see your true self, that narodaha, that nothingness, that clear, calm lake. Hearing this analogy, you might turn around and ask me, does that mean the seer misunderstands itself or has forgotten itself? No. The seer can never misunderstand nor forget itself. But we are talking on the level of the reflection. The reflection is disordered, so the seer appears to be disordered. The true you is always the same, but you appear to be disordered or mixed up with the mind. By making the mind clean and pure, you feel you have gone back or you appear to have gone back to your original state. Sutra number four. At other times, the self appears to assume the form of the mental modifications. You seem to have lost your original identity and have identified with your thoughts and body. Suppose I ask you who you are if you don't identify with anything whatsoever. If you say I am a man, you have identified yourself with a masculine body. If you say I am a professor, you have, you are identifying with the ideas gathered in your brain. If you say I am a millionaire, you are identifying with your bank account. If a mother with a child, a husband with a wife, I am tall, I am short, I am black or white, shows your identification with the color and shape of your body. But without any identification, who are you? Have you thought about that? When you really understand that, you will see we are all the same. If you detach yourself completely from all things you have identified yourself with, you realize yourself as the pure I. In the pure I, there is no difference between you and me. And again, we spoke about this a lot last week. We kind of went over the philosophy of yoga. Who you think you are is not who you are because everything you think you are has to do with property or nature. You know, who I think I am is Bryce, a 38-year-old white girl from Georgia. But that's not actually who I am. That's just an identification marker of nature. Who I am is none of those things. Who you are is none of those things. We are pure consciousness. And so that also is part of the deeper aspects of yoga is understanding that. This is true not only with human beings, but with everything. You call something a dog because it has a dog's body. The spirit and the dog and the human is the same. The same is true even with the intimate objects. There is the same spirit in a stone or wall. If I use the term spirit or self, you might hesitate to believe me. But if the physicist says the wall is nothing but energy, you will believe that. So using the scientist language, there is nothing but energy everywhere. Even the atom is a form of energy. The same energy appears in different forms to which we also give different names. So the form and name are just different versions of the same energy. And according to the yogic scientist like Patanjalin and even many modern scientists behind the different forms of energy is the one unchanging consciousness of spirit or self. That is why if we could calm our minds and get to the basis of all these modifications, we would find the unity among everything. That is the real yogic life. That does not mean that we are indifferent to the changes and become useless to the world. Instead, with the experience of universal unity, we function better. We will have a happy and harmonious lives. Only then can we love our neighbors as our own self. Otherwise, how is it possible? If I identify myself with my body, I will also see another person as a body. And the two bodies cannot be one. They are always different. If I identify myself with my mind, nobody can have a mind exactly like mine. No two individuals have the same body or mind, even twins. Even to the extent of the half inch square thumb, we are not the same. As the fingerprint experts, they will tell you no two fingerprints aren't the same. But behind all these differences in the self, we never differ. That means behind all these ever-changing phenomenons is a never-changing one. One with a capital O. That one appears to change due to our mental modifications. So by changing your mind, you change everything. If only we could understand this point. We could see that there is nothing wrong outside. It is all in the mind. But correcting our vision, we correct things outside. If we can cure our jaundice eyes, nothing will look yellow. But without correcting the jaundice, however much we scrub the outside things, we are not going to make them white or blue or green. They will always be yellow. That is why yoga is based on self reformation or self control or self adjustment. When this reformation is accomplished, we will see a new world, a harmonious and happy world. That's why we should always keep ourselves free from these wrong identifications. Sutra number five. There are five kinds of mental modifications, which are either painful or pain less. Patanjaleen says there are five kinds of vrittis. And again, these are grouped into two major categories. One variety brings us pain, the other does not. Notice that he does not divide the thoughts into painful or pleasurable. Why? Because even so-called pleasurable thought might ultimately bring us pain. And again, we cannot easily know in the beginning whether particular thought will bring pain or not. Some thoughts begin with pain, but in leaving us at peace. Others appear to be pleasurable, but bring pain. For example, our pity at another suffering certainly causes us pain. But ultimately it expands our hearts and minds and gives us more understanding and leaves us in peace. Instead of these terms, painful and pain less, we might be able to understand this point better if we use two other words. We call them selfish thoughts and self less thoughts. The selfish thoughts ultimately bring pain. For example, to love something or somebody is pleasurable. But many of you have experienced how the very same love brought you a lot of unhappiness, pain, hatred, jealousy, and so on. Why? Because that love was not pure love, but was based on some expectation in return. There was selfishness in it. That expectation may be anything, a little financial comfort, some publicity or a little physical pleasure. With this expectation, love seldom lasts long. So love, though it appears to be painless thought ultimately ends in pain if it is based on selfishness. On the other hand, a thought like anger might bring pain in the beginning, but the anger of a self less person has no personal personal motive behind it. Although that anger may cause somebody to feel bad in the beginning ultimately helps that person to correct himself or herself and to lead a better life. For example, a little strictness on the part of a classroom teacher is needed to reform a child and make her understand her responsibility. Whatever the thought is, if there is no selfishness behind it, it can never really bring pain to the person considered. The result is neither pain nor pleasure, but peace. Seeing this truth, we should analyze all of our motives and try to cultivate selfless thoughts. This is our first and foremost duty. That's interesting because you know the Gospel of Mary when Cindy was on the show last, we were talking about the Gospel of Mary, Mary Magdalene spoke about the wrath of the or the wisdom of the wrathful person, so the wisdom and controlled anger. When you get angry, but it's not selfish, you can use that anger to course correct yourself. So that makes a lot of sense, right? And we've all been in those relationships where we think we're in love with somebody and that love goes south and we end up broken hearted. But obviously, we're in that position because we had a selfish expectation of something that did not meet what we thought it should be. The reality didn't meet the expectation for our own needs because nobody else can fix us. We have to do that inside of ourselves. Some people say I thought that in the name of meditation and yoga, we were supposed to make the mind blank and without thought. But you can't make the mind thoughtless immediately. Many people try, but it is impossible. Once you make the mind thoughtless, you have attained the goal. But it is not that easy. Many people say I have made my mind vacant. How did they know that the mind was vacant? They were aware of it. It is not the type of awareness of thought. You have removed all of their thoughts and retained this one thought of having made the mind vacant. This is not the real thoughtlessness. As my original teacher, David Gehry, used to say, this is the unsolvable riddle. How to make the mind vacant? Because if you're aware the mind is vacant, then there is actually thought there. So the mind isn't vacant. This is why we use the trick of developing certain positive thoughts while removing negative ones. We say to the mind, all right, if you want to create some thought forms, go ahead. But if you create thoughts that will bring you pain, you are the one who will suffer. If you are selfish, you will suffer later on. I don't want to kill you. I am your friend. I'm interested in your welfare and peace. So please listen to me. Do not create thoughts that will rebound on you. Forget your selfishness. Make others happy and you will be the happiest person. By seeing others happy, you can't be unhappy. But by making everybody unhappy, you can never be happy yourself. So at least for your happiness, bring happiness to others. If you really want to be selfish, be selfish in the idea of retaining your peace. There is no harm in that selfishness because by that you are not going to harm anybody. Instead, you will be bringing the same peace to others also. If the mind says, I can't be selfless, I must be selfish, tell it, all right, go to the other extreme and be selfish and refusing to disturb your own peace. In our daily lives, we always work with these two categories of thoughts. Now we know what selfish thoughts will bring misery and selfless ones will leave us at peace. How are we to know whether our thoughts are selfless or not? We have to watch carefully the moment a thought former rises in the mind. We become analysts. It is it itself is yoga practice, watching our own thoughts and analyzing them. Sutra number six, they are right knowledge, misconception, verbal delusion, sleep and memory. Here, Patanjali names the five types of rites and explains them one after the other. Sutra seven, the sources of right knowledge are direct perception, interference and scriptural testimony. One example of what Patanjali calls valid knowledge is that you understand by seeing something yourself, direct perception. If you see something face to face, you don't have any doubt. That is one way to get valid knowledge. Another is by inference. Seeing smoke, you infer there is fire because without the fire, there can't be smoke. When you see a cow giving milk, you infer the cow gives milk. You have not seen them all, but you assume. And there is one more way. You may not have seen anything personally and you may not have anything from which to infer, but a reliable authority or person who has really understood something tells you. Here, we normally mean the Holy Scriptures, which we believe because these are the words of the sages, saints and prophets. They have seen the truth and have expounded it. So we believe them. That is why in the East, if anybody asks you to do some practice is expected that the Scriptures also recommend it. You should not do something just because I say so. Everyone who has gone to the same road should approve it. And the ancient scripture should also approve it because the truth is always the same. It is not something to be newly invented. All our present day inventions can easily go wrong. What is the best thing today will be the worst thing tomorrow. They are still not finalized. The words of the prophets given through the Holy Scriptures are finalized. They can't just be modified. But even in this, we have to understand the difference between the basic truth and the presentation. Truth can be presented only through some form or vehicle. We should always remember that the truth of the self is the same. But what but when presented to you through words and forms and modes, it may appear in different ways to suit the individual or the trend of age. That means rituals can be modified. Language can be modified. The truth can never be changed because the truth is always the same. The rites are just the skeletal structure that old uphold the outside building, but the foundation of all the rites should be the same. That is why whatever be the scripture, whether from the East, West, South or North, the basic truth should be an agreement. So that makes a lot of sense as to what we're looking at with the missing books of the Bible and rereading the canonized Bible because we know that the powers that be have modified, as they're using the word modified, the canonized Bible. And Prime Minister has said this. I have said this. David Zublik has said this just because the vehicle of the truth being the scripture has been modified and changed does not mean that the truth has changed and the truth is God. The truth is the light. So that definitely backs up everything, this understanding that we are finding reading through the missing scriptures of the Bible. If something like a person remaining the same while changing his clothes, they to suit the occasion. When he goes skiing, he doesn't wear his business suit. When he goes to the office, he doesn't come with ski boots on. Both these outfits are useless at a fancy wedding, and all three are ruled out if he goes to the beach. But the person wearing the clothes remains the same in the same way. The truth in all the scriptures is the same, but the presentation will vary if a teacher says concentrate and meditate or analyze your mind and develop virtuous qualities to your life. All the scriptures of the world should also say that. But if I say in the name of yoga, you can tell 10 lies every day. That is the modern yoga. Believe me, you can always ask, where is the proof? I should be able to give a scriptural authority if I cannot. There is something wrong with me. That is why you need to not just believe and follow someone or something blindly. If there we go, do not just follow someone or something blindly. So by all these three ways we get valid knowledge. Of course, whether it is valid or invalid, ultimately you have to set it aside to find your peace. But before we push out all thoughts, we try to analyze them and eliminate one set after another. We can't just throw everything into the garbage pail. When I tried to do that once, the workers of the ashram asked me not to. They said you have to put the vegetables of one, the papers in another in the bottles, still in another one. Why? The papers can be burnt, but the vegetables go into the compost pile for the garden. So even in throwing out the garbage, you can't just throw it into one pail. You have to sort it so that the later on it will be easier to dispose of. It is the same way with the mind. You are going to dispose of all the thoughts as garbage. No doubt, whether they are good or bad, right or wrong, so that the mind will be free for modifications. But before we come to that, it makes it easier to dispose of them if we sort them first. Why? Because we still have a little clinging. We can't just throw everything away so easily. For example, when your wardrobe is too full, you may say I'll give these dresses to somebody, but by the time you take it to the door, you will say I think I should keep just this one. See, first it's I'll throw out everything. I don't want these things. Then when your friend comes to take them away, wait, wait, just leave this one for me. I can use it for another year. Let it be. So we have to make use of this attitude. Your mental wardrobe is also full. You want to throw something out, but you don't feel like dumping out everything, so you analyze. This is painful. It's not necessary, but these things seem to be nice. Let them be. For the satisfaction of the mind, we are trying to analyze how many kinds of thoughts there are. Oh, she is not going to empty me completely. At least she's giving something back to me. The mind has to be tricked like that. I still remember when I was a young boy. My mother used to feed me and I would make a fuss. No, I don't want it all. Oh, this is too much, son. All right, I won't give you all of it. She would form all the rice into a flat disk and then cut a line across and say, see, I'm taking away half. You only have to eat the other half. So the other half would be pushed aside on the plate and she would feed me and I would be satisfied. Well, but while I was eating, she would start telling me nice stories. And before long, the other half would also have vanished. If by any chance I looked down at the plate before the whole thing was empty and said, mother, you are feeding me more. I don't want it. She would say, all right, son, I'll take away this half. She said she would take away the half. No, she always took half from the remaining portion. That is the trick in feeding a child. The same trick can be used in emptying the mind of thoughts. Tell the mind, all right, you have that much and I'll take the rest away. After a while, this also seems to be unwanted. Let me take this away also. You remove them little by little. This is why Patanjaleen is so careful in forming the thoughts into different groups. Sutra number eight. Misconception occurs when knowledge of something is not based upon its true form. In the twilight, you see a coiled robe and mistake it for a snake. You get frightened. There is no snake there in reality. There is a false understanding, but still it created a terror in your mind. It is not only valid knowledge that creates thought waves, but Arrhenius impressions also. Sutra number nine. An image that arises on hearing mere words without any reality as its basis is verbal delusion. You hear something, but really there is nothing like that. In misconception, at least there is a rope to be mistaken for a snake. But in verbal delusion, there is nothing there, yet you still create some opinion about it. Suppose I say John took his car to the garage and on the way all the tires got punctured, so he had to remove the wheels and then give them to the mechanic to be repaired. He drove home very fast and got into an accident. You say, Oh, was it a terrible accident? You are only hearing my words. You haven't taken the time to think. If you thought about it, you would say if he gave all four wheels to be repaired, he couldn't drive it back. It didn't happen. But you take it seriously. A few more examples would be his mother was a bear and a woman, or I'm a dumb fellow. I can't talk to you. It's verbal delusion, but it may also still create an impression on your mind. Wow, we could talk a lot about that when it comes to the world we live in today, which I can't really get into because of regulations and restrictions on YouTube, but we will definitely or we did definitely refer back to this from the dark outpost. We'll go more into this there. OK, sutra number 10. This is going to be the last sutra we're going to cover for today and we'll pick up with sutra 11 next week. But sutra number 10 says the mental modification supported by cognition of nothingness is sleep. This is the fourth type. Normally we say we do not have any thought in the mind during sleep, but actually we have thought of having no thought. This is why when we wake up, we say I slept very well. I knew nothing. You knew nothing, but you know that you knew nothing. Don't think there is no thought in sleep. If there were no thought and you were completely unconscious, you would not even feel that you had slept. All their thoughts are temporarily suspended, except this one thought of emptiness in the mind, which leaves its impression upon waking. Actually, I said we were going to stop at 10, but let's go a little bit deeper into this so we keep this flow going. Sutra number 11, when mental modification of an object previously experienced and not forgotten comes back to consciousness, that is memory. Memories create impressions in the mind and at a later time come to the surface. Either when we want them or sometimes when we do not want them. Memories come in two ways. Dreams are memories that come to the surface when we sleep. Daydreams are memories that arise during the day. Both are impressions which when formed slowly descends the bottom of the mind and come to the surface when they are rekindled for some reason. So these are the five kinds of vrittis or thought forms that must shine through. Knowing this, our next question is how can we control these vrittis? So again, yoga, chitva, vritti, niruddha, this is going back to that second sutras. Of these five kind of vrittis or thought forms that must be controlled to make the mind void and allow the inner peace to shine through. Knowing this, it is easy to say control the mind, but in reality the mind seems to be controlling us. This brings us to sutra at number 12. These mental modifications are restrained by practice and non-attachment. On the positive side, you practice. On the other side, you detach yourself from the cause of these modifications. Patanjali gives both a positive and a negative approach to thought control, which he proceeds to eludicate in the following sutras. Sutra number 13. Of these two, effort toward stendiness of mind is practice. Here, patanjali means continuous practice, not just for one or two days. You have to always be at it, not just for a few minutes a day and then allowing the mind to have its own free time all the other hours. It means you became eternally watchful, scrutinizing every thought, every word and every action. How? Patanjali gives three qualifications. Sutra 14. Practice becomes firmly grounded when well attended for a long time without a break in all earnestness. So we saw that in the video of Patabi Joyce last week, where he said, you know, one month, two month, five years, no use. Whole lifetime. Whole lifetime is practice. The first follow vacation for practice is that it should be done for a long time. Unfortunately, we just want the results immediately. If I ask you to repeat a mantra and tell you that you will become more peaceful and realize beautiful things within, you will go back home and repeat it for three days and then call me and I've repeated it for three days, but nothing happened. Maybe this is not a suitable mantra for me. Can you give me a different one? See? So Patanjali says for a long time. He doesn't say how long. And then it should be without a break. I often hear, oh, I've been practicing yoga for the past ten years, but I'm still the same. How often? Oh, off and on. So it must be a continuous practice also. And the last qualification in all earnestness. That means with full attention, with the entire application of your mind and with full faith in your achievement. Even when you want something or somebody on a worldly level, you will be after a day and night. You don't sleep. You don't even eat. You are always at it. If this quality is necessary to achieve even worldly success, how much more so for success in yoga? So let us not be like little children who so was seen today and dig it up tomorrow to see how much the root went down. We need all these three for qualifications, practice, devotion and faith. This reminds me of a small story given in the Hindu scriptures. In the Deva Loka or the heavenly plane where the divine beings live, there is a great sage called Naranda. Just as there are great yogis here, so are there also amongst them. So Naranda travels all over and sometimes comes to earth to see how we are doing. One day he was passing through a forest and saw a yoga student who had been meditating for so long. The ants had built an ant hill around his body. The yogi looked at Naranda and said, Naranda sir, where are you going? To heaven, to Lord Shiva's place. Oh, could you please do something for me there? Sure, what can I do? Can you find out from the Lord how many more births I must meditate? I have been sitting here for quite a long time, so please find out. Sure. Then Naranda walked a few miles further and saw another man, but this one was jumping and dancing and singing with all joy. Harry, Rama, Harry, Rama, Rama, Rama, Harry, Rama, Harry, Krishna, Harry, Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Harry. And when he saw Naranda, he said, hi Naranda, where are you going? To heaven. Oh, that's great. Could you please find out for how long I have been here like this? When will I get final liberation? Sure, I will. So after many years, Naranda happened by the same route again and saw the first man. The yogi recognized Naranda. Naranda, I haven't had any answer from you. Did you go to heaven? What did the Lord say? I asked the Lord, said, you have to take another four births. Another four births? Haven't I waited long enough? He started shouting and laminating. Naranda walking further, saw the second man still singing and dancing. Hi, Naranda, what happened? Did you get some news from me? Yes. Well, do tell me. Don't you see the tree there? Sure. Can you count the leaves on it? Sure, I have the patient to do that. Do you want me to count them right away? No, no, no. You can take your time to count. But what has that got to do with my question? Well, Lord Shiva says you will have to take as many births as the number of leaves of that tree. Oh, is that all? So at least it's a limited number, then. Now I know where it ends. That's fine. I can quickly finish off. Thank God that he didn't say the leaves of the entire forest. Just then, a beautiful lake wind came down from the heaven and the driver said, come on, would you mind getting in? Lord Shiva has sent for you. I'm going to heaven now? Yes. But just now Naranda said I had to take so many more births first. Yeah, but it seems that you were ready and willing to do that. So why should you wait? Come on. And what about the other man? He is not even ready to wait for four more births. Let him wait and work more. This is not a mere story. You can easily see the truth behind it. If you are that patient, your mind is more settled. And what you do will be more perfect. If you are unsettled and anxious to get the results, you are all already disturbed. Nothing done with that disturbed mind will have quality. So it's not only how long you practice, but with what patients and what earnestness and what quality also. All right, guys. So let's leave it there. I think that's actually a better place to stop. So we'll pick up next week with sutra number 15. All right. So this is what the yoga sutra is like most spiritual texts. They're definitely something that you're probably going to want to read over and over and over again. So if you want to download this episode, do so again. I am going to put down the description box a link for you to purchase the same book that I'm reading from the same commentary of the yoga sutras that I'm reading from. If that's something you want to do, so you can go back and take some notes. Again, I'm skipping a lot of the Sanskrit just because this is not a traditional class. Once again, as I said in the beginning, if you do want to go into a traditional class, the Sanskrit will be of the utmost importance. All right, guys, I hope that you're having a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful week. Keep your chin up. Let that light shine brightly within you. You are all beautiful and gorgeous, gorgeous people. And the best is yet to come. Thank you to Josh McKay for doing our music. If you would like to purchase the opening song, there's a link down in the description box below. And thank you to Todd Roderick for helping me once again. As always, get this video out to you guys today. I hope you all are having a wonderful day and I'll talk to you soon.