 Hello everybody, welcome to Esoteric Atlanta. Of course, this is Wednesday, so on Wednesdays we typically recap what we discussed on the Dark Outpost the day before. So if you're new to this channel, first of all, welcome. Second of all, we're in the middle of going through the Yoga Sutras of Patanjalin. This was requested by David Zublik of the Dark Outpost in order to debunk some of the misinformation out there regarding the practice of yoga, especially the idea that yoga is demonic because frankly it is nothing of the sort. If you are new, and this is your first time on the channel, we are going to be starting today with the second Pada Book 2 which is the Sadhana Pada or the portion on the practice. Now as I've said many, many, many times, traditionally when you study the Yoga Sutras, you do start with the second Pada, but because this is YouTube, I read through the first Pada before this second Pada. So if you missed that, you're welcome to go into the Dark Outpost playlist that is listed in the description box below to listen to our readings on the first Pada before starting this Pada, but it's not actually necessary. You can start here with us on the second Pada. Now as always I am reading from Sri Swami Sathitananda's commentary on the Yoga Sutras. I will have a link to that commentary again down in the description box below. This is one of the most popular commentaries to read. I believe this commentary was written in the 1940s by Sri Swami Sathitananda. There are many, many, many commentaries on the Yoga Sutras. And if you joined us last week for my episode with Cindy from Sacred Garden Yoga, we discussed a couple of the other big commentaries as well like Desikachar and Ram Das. There is also BKS Aingar's Light on Yoga which is another very famous commentary on the Yoga Sutras. Once again there are only about 200 Sutras in the full Yoga Sutras that includes all four of the Padas. But each Sutra is packed with so much information that commentary is often needed. As Cindy and I were speaking about last week, I read through the Yoga Sutras at least once a year. Usually when I'm in India I take classes on them over and over and over again because like any old and sacred text, you oftentimes notice things in the text that you didn't notice before. Especially the more maturity that you gain in the practice, the more wisdom and understanding you gain in the practice, the more you're going to understand these Sutras and really have more of a focused understanding of what Patanjalin is saying here. Again we're going to see in the Yoga Sutras that Sri Swami Sathitananda does refer to Patanjalin, the writer of the Sutras as a scientist. I actually do prefer referring to Patanjalin as a scientist back in ancient times. Scientists and priests were pretty much the same thing and we know that the Yoga Sutras are about 5,000 years old. So here we go. We're going to start with book two, the Sadhana Pada. This is the portion on practice and we're going to read the opening commentary before we even get into the Sutras again by Sri Swami Sathitananda. This second chapter is concerned with the practice of yoga. Patanjalin begins with the instructions in Kriya Yoga. You might have heard the term Kriya Yoga as propagated by Sri Swami Yogananda but that should not be confused with Patanjalin's Kriya Yoga. Yogananda speaks of it as a special combination of breathing and mantras. Patanjalin refers to certain practical hints to be followed in our daily lives to prepare us for the more subtle practices to follow. So Yogananda, I believe I've spoken about Yogananda a few times on this channel just in passing conversation. Madina and I have spoken about Yogananda. He wrote the book The Life of a Yogi which I will place in the description box below. That's a very magical book to read. A lot of times when people read that book they have certain visions of Yogananda. It's very special indeed so I will put a link to that book as well down in the description box below. In the Samadhi Pada which was the Pada we read before this, Patanjalin gives us the aim of yoga in a theoretical way. Explaining it as control of the chitta vritti or thought forms. So again that goes back to the second sutra which is yoga chitta vritti narodaha which is controlling the mind basically. Then the rest of the sutras in book one could be classified into several groups. The different kinds of thought forms, the practices to control them and the different kinds of super conscious experiences, cultivating and the highest experience or seedless contemplation. But it is not that easy to get into Samadhi. So Samadhi again for those who are not familiar with the Sanskrit word, Samadhi is basically just total union with God and oftentimes in my practice with my teachers we've often referred to Samadhi in two different forms although in the first book he does go through many many many different forms. But the two forms we often talk about are Samadhi with a lowercase s and Samadhi with an uppercase s. Samadhi with a lowercase s is just your basic union when you start to kind of understand things more and you have kind of that prativa moment and prativa is Sanskrit for a flash of illumination. So that kind of instant understanding that comes and goes but the Samadhi with a capital s is like full enlightenment which I don't know anyone who has achieved Samadhi with a capital s. But it is not easy to get into Samadhi so in this chapter he tells the student not to get frightened but to prepare himself or herself by laying the proper foundation then gradually build until that level is reached. For this Patanjali gives a number of simple directions. So this brings us to the first sutra. So again as we read the second pada of this yoga sutras is now going to get us into the physical practice of yoga what people think of when they think of yoga which is kind of like the posture practice. This is when we're going to get into the eight limbs, the ashtanga system. So this is why we often start with the second book the second pada when we are beginner students in yoga is because this deals with something that's very easy for us to understand because it's dealing with our physical body. When you're in practice when you're in physical practice of yoga when you do these shapes with your body you feel the sensations you feel that friction and that personal experience is what's going to then open you up to understanding more subtle body sensation which is where we get into the deeper refining of the yoga practice. So the first sutra of the second pada says accepting pain as help for purification, study of spiritual books and surrender to the supreme being constitutes yoga in practice. And once again I'm going to remind you guys that if you do get a copy of the yoga sutras you are going to see the sanskrit as well as the english if you're an english speaker obviously and the sanskrit is of the utmost importance when you are studying yoga one-on-one with a teacher but because this is a youtube I am going to be only using a little bit of the sanskrit and not a lot of it because this is a basic overview. If you are again interested in having a teacher they will absolutely go over the sanskrit with you as I do with my students one-on-one in our shala. Using the sanskrit terms kriya yoga comprises tapas which is heat we're going to get into that the study of spiritual books and the total surrender to god or the supreme being. We saw that a lot in the first pada where shri swami satchitananda spoke a lot about surrendering to god so tapas is often misunderstood because it gets translated as mortification or austerity when it actually stands for something different here tapas means to burn or create heat anything burned out will be purified the more you fire gold for example the more pure it becomes each time it goes into the fire more impurities are removed but how can this burning process be affected with our own mental impurities by accepting all the pain that comes to us even though the nature of the mind is to run after pleasure we will actually be happy to receive pain if we keep in mind it's purifying effects such acceptance makes the mind steady and strong because although it is easy to give pain to others it is hard to accept without returning it such self-discipline obviously cannot be practiced in our meditation rooms but only in our daily lives as we relate with other people tapas also refers to self-discipline normally the mind is like a wild horse trying to chariot imagine the body is the chariot the intelligence is the driver the mind is the reins and the horses are the senses the self or true you is the passenger if the horses are allowed to gallop without the reins and the driver the journey will not be safe for the passenger although control of the senses and organs often seems to bring pain in the beginning it eventually ends in happiness if tapas is understood in this light we will look forward to pain we will even thank people who calls it since they are giving us the opportunity to steady our minds and burn out our impurities so this is something that's super super super important especially in traditional yoga and something that seems to be very much misunderstood in the west and us people in the west I mean I love being a westerner I'm not I'm not downplaying westerners I very much love being from the west but we seem to have this delusion about pain we we are constantly looking for comfort if something is slightly uncomfortable we think it's wrong but being uncomfortable is when change happens I tell my students all the time in yoga class that Patanjali never tells us that yoga is about light and love and comfort and bliss yoga is not about being comfortable in fact it's the exact opposite in the practice of yoga you are putting yourself into a controlled demolition you are controlling your discomfort and this happens both in the body and in the mind so for example in the actual physical practice of the postures you're making shapes with your body that are uncomfortable they're very uncomfortable but what is happening is not only are you purifying your body by creating that sweat that sweat is that tapas that can then detox you but it's also allowing your mind to react to that pain so that you can slowly start to control it it also observe it for what it is that it's just a reaction and anything you're attached to any type of a reaction you are attached to as a human being is what is blocking your connection to the divine to God and so that is why pain and sweat are so important if you're not sweating in your yoga practice then you're not doing a yoga practice if you're not experiencing a certain amount of discomfort or pain then you're not doing a yoga practice that's completely defeats the point of yoga if you're going to yoga to be blissed out or to be comfortable or to relax then you're not actually practicing yoga according to traditional yoga so he goes on to say in the 17th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna talks about tapas he says those who practice severe austerities not enjoyed by the scriptures who are given to hypocrisy and egoism impaled by the forces of lust and attachment who are senseless who torture all the elements in the body and me also who dwells in the body know thou these to be of demonical resolve in the name of tapas people sometimes practice all sorts of self-torture so this is a good thing too and Sidney and I talked about this there is a difference between torturing yourself and having controlled pain which is what we want in the yoga practices controlled pain in the east there are sadhus who lie on beds of nail or keep one arm raised in the air so the arm gets thinner and thinner and finally decays these are just forms of self-torture Lord Krishna himself says that these people are demons because they disturb the pure self who dwells within their body self-discipline is an aid to spiritual practice whereas self-torture is an obstacle I'm actually going to try to find a picture there's one guy in India who's like famous for having his arm up in the air and it's been up for many many many many decades now and it has it has changed it kind of deformed itself I'm going to see if I can find that picture and put it at the end credits for you guys Lord Krishna divides the true austerities into three groups physical verbal and mental he classifies worship purity straightforwardness celibacy and non-injury as the austerities of the body many people immediately come to the conclusion that physical tapas is not suitable for them the moment they hear the word celibacy they become dismay but brahmacharya or celibacy means control not suppression of the sex desire or sex force if the mind can be filled with sublime thoughts by meditation mantra repetition prayer study of scriptures in contemplation of the sexless pure self the sex desire will become devitalized by the withdrawal of the mind on the other hand suppression of sexual desire will attach you to it again and again producing irritability and mental restlessness so the mind should be purified first then it easy to control the senses strict control over the senses alone will lead to difficulties instead of spiritual progress so i'm going to touch on brahmacharya for a little bit here we might get it deeper into the commentary with it more so brahmacharya is one of the neamas which did at one point mean celibacy so if you read the the hatha predikapa the yoga hot hatha predikapa you're going to see that's another scripture it's a manual for the physical practice of yoga it's about two thousand years old and um they talk a lot about being celibate if you are going to be a yoga practitioner they talk a lot about going up into like the mountains the himalayas and kind of being ostracized from society and really using your your body as that temple to find total connection to god almost like the way a monk would live and for many many years that's how yoga students lived but with krishamacharya who was my teacher's teacher he is the one who brought yoga out into the mainstream of india he became what we call as a householder now unless you were born in the brahman caste of india you're always going to be a householder regardless of whether you're celibate or not but since we are householders that means that most people who are yoga students are partnered up with a person whether that be a marriage or whatever they have a person that they have intimacy with and so basically the definition of brahmacharya then changed it just it changed to appropriate use of energy so that means like to practice in yoga don't sleep around basically you have to be very careful with who you give that to we know that that intimacy is is an energy exchange and so you are taking on the other person's karma when you allow that relationship to form and so basically if you are going into a very disciplined yoga practice you have to be very very careful with who you share that with not meaning you can't share it obviously most people have a partner but you just don't want to be sleeping around with everyone because it's going to cause you issues if that makes sense the next topic is austerity of speech speech should bring tranquility and be truthful pleasant and beneficial as the Vedic teaching goes speak what is true speak what is pleasant and one should not speak what is true if that is not pleasant nor what is pleasant if it is false if something is true and unpleasant we should make it more pleasant by presenting it in a proper way and mental austerity is described by Sri Krishna as serenity of mind good-heartedness self-control and purity of nature next comes the study this means study that concerns the true self not merely analyzing the emotions in the mind as the psychologists and psychiatrists do anything they'll elevate your mind and remind you of your true self should be studied the Bhagavad Gita the Bible the Koran these yoga sutras are any uplifting scripture study does not mean just passing over the pages it means trying to understand every word studying it with heart the more often you read them the more you understand for thousands of years so many people have been studying the Bible every day thousands of people read this same book on the other hand we have millions and millions of books that after we read them once we throw away as trash we don't exhaust the Bible even after reading it hundreds of times each time we read it we see it in a new light that is the greatness of the holy scriptures they are that way because they are created by holy prophets who experienced the truth each time we read these words we we elevate ourselves to see a little bit more and that's completely true that's why on this channel we're reading through the missing books of the Bible and I know that a lot of people who are biblical scholars as far as the canonized Bible are starting to read the Bible in different lights as our understanding of what is happening has grown and matured it's something like going to the empire state building when you look out on the first floor window you see something from the second floor you see a little more from the third floor still more but when you finally reach the hundred and first floor and look over the balcony you see something completely different similarly and reading the scriptures we slowly rise up expanding and enlarging the mind the more we elevate the mind the better our understanding is but only when we come prophets ourselves will we fully understand the scriptures that is nature's law if you want to understand me fully you must become me otherwise you can understand me only according to your own capacity in the same way God cannot be understood by books alone he can only be understood when you become one with him as a tamil provert says only a saint knows a saint only a snake knows the leg of another snake you cannot exactly understand how a snake crawls unless you become a snake we can hear things study form our own opinions use our imagination but nothing can experience many people simply become walking libraries they have thousands of books recorded in their brains like computers but that doesn't mean they've actually experienced the self the self cannot be known by theory alone by merely thinking no one has ever understood the one that is beyond the mind only when you transcend the mind can you understand it this is where yoga differs from most other psychological approaches they usually believe you have to understand everything with the mind and that beyond it you cannot understand anything they stop there but yoga claims there is knowledge possible without the mind all that you know through the mind is limited and conditioned how is the limited mind to understand the unlimited one capital O on that one like God only by transcending it and getting into the unlimited study is all right but not for mere logic quoting or fighting actually it is only when you quote from your own experience that your words have weight tree Ramakrishna used to say forget all you have learned become a child again then it'll be easy to realize that wisdom I mean Jesus said that himself right bring all the little children unto me sometimes learning becomes an obstacle if you don't know what and how much to learn so limit your reading and put into practice what you read just select one or two books anything that will remind you of your goal the last part of kriya yoga is simple but great it's surrendering to the supreme being I understand this to mean dedicating the fruits of your action to God or to humanity God in manifestation dedicate everything your study your job by your practices to the Lord when you give such things to him he accepts them but then gives them back many times magnified you never lose what you have given even virtuous deeds will bind you in some form or other if you do them for an egotistical feeling every time you do something feel may this be dedicated to the Lord if you constantly remember to do this the mind will become free and tranquil try not to possess anything for yourself temporarily keep things but feel you are just a trustee not an owner be like the mother who receives a soul nourishes it for nine months and then lets it come out to the world if the mother were to always keep the baby in her womb what would happen there would be great pain once something has ripened it should be passed on so dedication is true yoga say I am thine all is thine thine will be done mind binds thine liberates if you drop minds all over they will undermine your life or blow up in your face but if you change the minds to thine you will always feel safe let us dedicate our lives to the sake of the entire humanity with every minute every breath every atom of our bodies we should repeat this mantra dedication dedication giving giving loving loving that is the best japa the best yoga will bring us all the permanent peace and joy and keep the mind free from the disturbances of the chitta vrittis and again he spoke deeply about this in the first pada as well yoga is all about surrendering to god it's about releasing your own expectations your own attachments to the mind and allowing god it's letting go and letting god and we know that when we have full trust in god if we truly had full trust in god then things like anxiety and fear would not exist because we would have full trust in god how many of us still struggle with anxiety and fear i know for sure i do and that's why i every morning get up and do my yoga practice to try to fully surrender more to god and to god's will and so this whole idea that yoga is demonic is simply not true this brings us to sutra number two of the second pada they help us minimize obstacles and attain samadhi here patan jaleen explains why kriya yoga should be practiced to minimize obstacles and to get into samadhi he puts everything in very simple terms but we should know and remember the vital importance of kriya yoga without it we can never overcome the obstacles and reach samadhi mainly all we do in the name of hatha yoga japa yoga living in yoga institutions and ashrams is all a part of our kriya yoga our preparation for meditation and samadhi sutra number three ignorance egoism attachment hatred and clinging to bodily life are the five obstacles here he gives us the obstacles are kleshas which will then be explained one by one in the following sutras the order is often significance because of ignorance of the self egoism comes because of egoism there is attachment to things for the ego's selfish pleasure because sometimes the things we are attached to do not come from or are taken away hatred for those who got into our way comes with it and finally because we are attached to things and afraid of death there is clinging to life in the body sutra number four ignorance is the field for others mentioned after it whether they be dormant feeble intercepted or sustained in a baby we see an example of the first category so the first kleshas the first obstacle the babies obstacles are completely dormant when you see a baby you feel how innocent she is that seems to be so but as the baby matures her inborn disposition will emerge she will not remain innocent ignorance and the other obstacles dormant in her mind will come to the surface at the proper time the mind of an advanced yoga practitioner is the example of the second type the feeble such a person is not completely free of kleshas but they are there in his or her mind in a very subtle trace form they have sunk to the bottom of the mental lake and out of the disuse have become very weak the third state of intercepted development is seen in the mind of a beginning practitioner the obstacles are temporarily pushed down by the constant practice of virtuous quality such as love thankfulness discipline cheerfulness etc if such a seeker is not careful to cultivate these qualities even for a few days the obstacles will immediately come to the surface the fourth type is seen in the case of average people the kleshas constantly manifested every minute their minds are affected by the obstructions they have no say over them because they are not experiencing any form to control them by analyzing our minds we can probably see do i have a complete dormant kleshas do traces remained but buried am i controlling them by the cultivation of good qualities or am i completely ruled by them here is an example of the different stages in operation imagine there is a nice performance at a nightclub a friend is going and he invites you to come let's say you feel drawn to go but finally you decide i have seen hundreds of shows like that what can i gain by another one no i'm going to a raja yoga lecture instead the obstacle is there but you overpowered it this is the interception stage if you continue with such discipline the obstacles will sink to the bottom but since a trace will still be there occasionally you'll be reminded of it why shouldn't i go to the club a gentle trace will arise which you can easily overpower no i'm not going to go it just comes up to remind you i'm still there that's the feeble stage in the case of the average people the moment a nightclub is spot of both legs immediately go towards it and the people simply follow from here they probably go on to an adjoining bar and so on in their case the obstacles are sustained so that kind of goes back into discipline as well like i am there myself i'm very disciplined with my practice very very disciplined and it doesn't mean it's easy i've just been doing this for a very very long time and the more and more and more i do it the easier it gets even though there's still that urge not to do it for example when my alarm goes off at like three thirty four o'clock in the morning most mornings i don't want to get up and go practice but i force myself to do it i don't force myself in a in an aggressive way i just forced myself to get up at practice i remind myself what my goal is and that i am using my practice to connect to god and i get up and i do it and so the obstacle of sleeping in of left of being lethargic falls to the wayside sutra number five ignorance is regarding the impertinence as pertinent and the impure as pure the painful as pleasant and the non-self as the self now patanjaleen explains what ignorance is if i show you a nice piece of fruit that you have never seen before you will say i am completely ignorant of this i don't know what it is that is just normal ignorance not knowing something what patanjaleen speaks of in this sutra is something different he mentions last the basic ignorance regarding the non-self as the self so this is kind of one of the cruxes of yoga that who you think you are is not actually who you are because you are confused you think that who you are in your physical form is who you are when that's just a temporary avatar who you are is something different what is self and what is non-self the self is the eternal never changing one it is always everywhere as the very basic substance all things are actually nothing but the self but in our ignorance we see them as different objects thus we take the changing appearances to be the unchanging truth when something changes it can't be self for example our own bodies are changing every second yet we take the body to be ourself and speaking in terms of it we say i am hungry or i am lame i am black or i am white these are all just the conditions and qualities of the body we touch the truth when we say my body aches implying that the body belongs to us and that therefore we are not that so we are not our bodies unfortunately we often add i am very very sick who is actually sick if the body aches then the body is sick not you whenever we forget this truth we are involved in the non-self the basic ignorance we make the same ignorant mistake in regarding to the mind saying i am happy or i am ignorant feeling happy fearful or angry or knowing a lot or knowing nothing are all the modifications of feelings of the mind once that is understood there is nothing that can disturb us in the world things will come near us or go away from us but we will know we are not connected with them we will know we are not that under all conditions we can sing knowledge is bliss knowledge bliss bliss is absolute and all conditions i am knowledge bliss is absolute well who is practicing yoga then who does japa who meditates it is the mind along with the body you in quotation marks need not do any practice when you fully realize this even japa will become an ignorant business but for now we can get rid of the ignorance with ignorance take a better ignorant to get rid of a worse one in the final analysis only the light of understanding will remove the darkness of ignorance there is a story given in the scripture that illustrates this once a man walked into the backyard of a house during twilight all of a sudden a dark corner he saw a coiled snake frightened he yelled snake snake his voice roused a number of people who came running with sticks they advanced slowly towards the corner and one bold fellow with a particularly long pointed stick gave the snake a hard blow nothing happened suddenly an old man arrived with a lantern he brought the lantern near the corner where the snake was the light revealed nothing but a coiled rope the old man laughed look at all of you blind people groping in darkness there's nothing but a rope there and you took it for a snake in order to understand the rope as a rope the light was necessary we too need a light the light of wisdom with such a light the world is no longer a world in all of the qualities we call the non-self appear in their true nature we can use this analogy to understand another point also twilight is the most dangerous time why because in total darkness neither a rope nor a snake can be seen in broad daylight the rope would obviously be a rope only an adult light could demand mistake the rope for a snake if you are completely ignorant groping in the darkness you will not even see the rope the pains of this world and want to understand the truth so yoga is neither for a person who has gained the light nor for the totally ignorant person who doesn't bother to know anything it is for the person in between it is to dispel the ignorance that yoga is practice and i think for today we're going to leave it there so we covered a few of the glaciers which next week we'll pick up with sutra number six going deeper into the glaciers or the obstacles again i do highly suggest that you get your own copy of the yoga sutras and that so that you were able to reread these passages over and over and over and over again as always if you want to join us on david's platform on tuesdays there is a link down in the description box below as always this is a live show from 12 to 2 p.m. eastern time 12 to 1 we go through yoga and 1 to 2 we talk about very toxic and problematic fundamentalist groups organizations after we get through the yoga sutras we will be returning back to the missing books of the bible we're going to pick up with the book of enok all right you guys i hope you're all having a fantastic day and i will talk to you soon