Yoga Sutra - || Isvara-pranidhanat-va ||-1.23 This is a very short sutra, only one word - Yoga Sutra 1.23, “Isvara-pranidhanat-va.” Yoga Sutra talks about the different paths that are there for different types of students to reach the Highest State of Consciousness. For the most sincere...
"So we come to the next important sutra and that has to tell us about the various tips of yoga and how they work. They work at reducing the various hindrances, impurities and make it easier for subsequent yoga. Basically what we have to understand is that yoga would mean overcoming of the Kleshas - overcoming of those defects which we keep on talking about - Avidhya, Asmita, Raga, Dvesha, these have to be overcome and this overcoming work is carried out by the various techniques. So that's what the sutra is telling us, that when we follow yoga, we are actually working at overcoming these kinds of hindrances. We can't just forget that. We can't just talk of yoga and believe that we will land into the yogic land. Things like untruth, these have to be overcome.
"This is the final culmination of the state of a person. Now the point is that the person has reached the Rutumbara state where only pure knowledge exists. Everything else is gone. Then there is Vivek Khyati, he is remaining in Aviplava state, in the state throughout. Nothing can disturb that state. And now his Chitta is going to uplift. And these are the seven stages in which a person, step-by-step is releasing or uplifting himself.
"In this sutra, they make it very clear that a person has to come to a level where only pure knowledge flows from his system. Nothing else. Nothing can make that knowledge vitiated or tinted. Knowledge has to be pure and clear. And the knowledge they are talking about is the clarity in what is Purusha and Prakriti.
Purusha is pure consciousness, permanent, which can't be destroyed. It's there, it's going to be there. Sattvik state is very close to Purusha. And Prakriti is ever changing with all colours, flavours, varieties, all creations. Both of these things are totally separate.
“We are using this word ‘Prakriti’, which means – ‘the creator’- matter. The matter out of which this whole universe is made. And spirit- consciousness, which has nothing to do with all this; just awareness. These are important terms which if you are learning ‘Samkhya’, you have to understand- matter and spirit. Matter is the external world. Spirit is the awareness. When the two are mixed, that is where the problem is. We are unable to understand matter as separate from spirit. So the entire exercise in Yoga is to separate the two, till a stage is reached where spirit is by itself. So this is the way the whole thing goes- learning to separate the spirit from matter.”
"The cause if suffering is Avidhya - Ignorance. We are ignorant. We don't know and as a result we make mistakes. That is the cause. So as a correction, we should be knowing that. But we don't do that. We take it that we're clever and we go on. A wise person understands and then says, "Correct, I'm unable to understand and he has accepted. This is a point worth remembering. When we see any ordinary conversation, you will keep on bothering and go on making mistakes. That is a point worth considering.
This is a point that is very important because all problems in life are a result of this. Do consider."
"There are two things - Sva Shakti is Prakriti and Swami Shakti is Purusha. Basically Purusha has lost his identity. He is entangled with Prakriti and so now he doesn't know what he is. Now, to understand 'Who Am I?' I should go through some process. So Prakriti is showing the world and Purusha is watching (Drashta) and while watching, some wisdom comes. His attention suddenly goes to himself and then he realizes that he is different from Prakriti. And slowly that realization dawns, that knowledge comes. Right now all these things are there because of ignorance, then once knowledge comes, the Purusha is freed from Prakriti.
"Today's sutra makes one point very clear that every individual has to work on himself, he has to uplift himself, realize himself and release from the bondage of work and death. It means he has to develop pure, clear wisdom. This itself shows that it's self evolution and self-realization and reaching to the highest knowledge, i.e. releasing from bondage of birth and death and pain and diseases.
"They say that the knowable material world is only for the experience of the spirit. The point is that this whole world is for experience. The spirit within is Purusha or consciousness and Prakriti is the material world. The nature of Prakriti is explained in the two earlier Sutras viz. it has its own character and is made of 3 Gunas which are continuously active. Now what we have to do is experience, learn from our experience and go above the experience.
“They talk of the seer that is consciousness, and the seen that is external world. The external world is just for seeing, it's pure, it doesn’t have any particular picture on it, but what we see is all coloured, it’s not pure. These are where the problem comes. We get mixed up. We have the capacity to see the external world as it is. But we just can’t see. We see it in some colours, some form, some shapes. This is what the Sutra is saying.”
