Yogi Sri S. N.

Tavariaji- English Lectures

21. 32A

Yogasutra my dear friend !

You'll understand nothing !
The other fellow says,
I've read the Geeta.
I've done this.
I've read the Upanishads.
I've been through asanas and pranayama,
but I'm where I'm.
So, in reply he says,
Unless my friend you go to yoga sutra and understand.
It's exposition and its practices, nothing can happen.
You see.
So, we are on such important ground.
Be very serious, come here very seriously.
As I repeat again,
Not with your hands and feet.
Come.
So that as I read,
as I talk to you, you see.
You make your remark. Understand.
Once you go home,
75% on the road is erased,
25% you may try it and remember.
So it's better if you bring everything here, make your remarks at the proper place so that
you guide yourself proper.
I'm not the loser.
Since it is such a serious thing we are after, be very serious. Thank you.
If there are any questions?
Best question possible,
When do we meet again ?
(In this life.)
[1:35 to 2:40 minutes discussion]

Today we will take up the sutras one by one.

Before we begin let us once again understand what the sutras mean.
This is wood,
this is stone,
that is glass,
this is cloth, so are chemicals, so are liquids and all the materials found in the universe that
we know of and some we don't know about.
Each one has a structure.
They can't do something and they can do something,
that's their structure.
Steel will not burn.
You can't make a sword out of wood and so forth.
Each has a structure.
Each can do something, cannot do something.
In the animal world we have the fox, we have the wolf, we have the tiger, we have the lion,
we have the cobra, we have the
viper, we have the dolphin, we have the alligator.
A nature, each has a structure.
And in the world of man some are fox, some are lion, some are
alligator, some are dolphin,
that is their structure.
They can't do less, they can't do more, that is their structure.
You must have seen many cars old rotten rattling Fiats with a sticker on door, Mercedes,
Turbo.
Does that sticker change that rattling Fiat into a Turbo, into a Mercedes?
And so that rattling human being, if you put a sticker (here), morality, religion, philosophy,
you can't change that rattling human being into a Turbo, into a Mercedes.
You can't !
You have to change the structure of that individual.
You get my point.
Sit before that rattling Fiat and pray as long as you like to make it a Mercedes.
It can't be done.
By going to the temple,
to the mosque or the church, the rattling Fiat will not become a Mercedes.
You get my point.
This was known to ancient India, what are translated, the word in ancient shastras as
structure for acceptance, the shastras say sanskar.
Sanskar is structure.
The structure of a rattling Fiat.
And by going to church,
to the mosque, to the temple. you can't become a Mercedes.
No amount of philosophy can make you a Mercedes, No!
The structure has to be changed.
If the Fiat has to become a Honda,
the machine is to be thrown away,
the suspenders have to be changed,
the tyres have to be changed,
the body is to be changed.
It is a total transformation,
a change in structure.
A rattling Fiat cannot become a Honda.
This was known to ancient India that the structure of an individual is important.
And they called it sanskar.
They called it in one word what I put as structure of acceptance, within the spectrum.
In each species there is a maximum and a minimum,
so we are within a certain spectrum.
We can't expect miracle,
we can't do anything beyond what you are born with as a structure.
And this structure is stronger than granite.
And the shastras said there is only way to change a human being is to change his structure.
In modern language I've given you structure of acceptance.
It also means of rejection.
You'll reject certain things,
you'll accept certain things.
I don't know whether you have observed but in the last 2-3 weeks in the Mahabharata only
the Geeta is being continued and I'm told 50% of the audience have become lukewarm.
They are not interested in philosophy.
Even the great Mahabharata has no more that pull for the last few Sundays.
Otherwise, the roads were empty, there was no traffic, between 9 and 10.
But the last two Sundays
and the coming Sunday, philosophy does not interest. Because the structure is not there.
It rejects, whatever it cannot accept it rejects.
You get my point.
This is what we have to understand: in sutra there is a possibility of changing the structure.
If you have read the introduction there you have gotten words like gene, mutation.
You see.
It is to break and reform the structure.
Unless the structure is changed, the old rattling Fiat will remain an old rattling Fiat.
No chance ever of becoming a Honda or a Mercedes.
You get my point clearly !
You'll say why do I impress upon you so much about the sutra when.

W.Q Judge, he was one of the most noted and renowned of theosophists, perhaps next to
Madame Blavatsky and
Mrs. Annic Besant.
Somebody wrote to him and what that man wrote to him I'll read out to you,

--------------------------------------------------[10 Minutes] -------------------------------------------------------

A most perplexed individual is writing to you.

I've been for three years endeavouring to study theosophy.
I've heard lectures.
I've read an immense amount of literature devoted to theosophy
from the sages of old down to Sinnett, Olcott Blavatsky of the present day.
I've studied the yoga philosophy and I've read the path.
Light on the path aids me not nor does Bhagwat Geeta.
And why ?
Because I'm yet without the first step towards practice, Practice.
Remember the word practice. Guide me with your friendly hints, imagine me alone in a
room,
How to commence ?
Show me the first steps upon the practical ladder,
Practical ladder.
All I've heard and read seem as to me so elaborately unintelligible that (I have) I lay it aside.
And beg you to instruct me in my theosophical and yoga abc.
A shining object is advised to stare at, Poor fellow!
A mirror is a shining object but the more I avail to stare at the mirror and see reflected my
ugliness.
To that W. Judge replies,
You say you have studied yoga philosophy, that is not enough.
It is in fact the most practical system if you refer to that of Patanjali Yoga Sutra,
and one that would meet all requirements you may have in the way of difficulty,
for it is one of the most difficult.
It is not possible for you to judge its merits without practice,
and it gives full directions.
If for 3 years you study and practise it you'll find that you need no other.
You get, you get some idea about it now.
That is what it is.
That is why we have to study
yoga sutra from various angles, not only exposition but practices. Practices are very
important.
There are hundreds of books, hundreds of translations and expositions on yoga sutra,
there is not one book which gives practices.
Because unless a man himself has practised and written it's not possible.
I came across some very interesting line,
for your interest I've brought them here.
I'll read out to you, the first stanza describes the average man,
His mass is buried in the animal mire.
I've told you last time also that in the human body system there is a majority of cells that are
animal.
You see.
And the poet puts it very nicely, he says,
His mass is buried in the animal mire.
A riddle of opposites is made his field (his mind).
His mind is what?
He goes into the past,
he goes into the future,
he is a riddle of opposites. Freedom, he asks but needs to live in bonds.
Many of you come here so often, often, so often.
You go home you are slaves again to your brooding,
to your this to your that.
So, the poet says,
Freedom, he asks but needs to live in bonds,
He has need of darkness to perceive some Light.
It is strange that nature has to
give some very hard days to wake you up.
Then only you cry and wake up, without that you don't.
So, the poet says,
He had need of darkness to perceive some Light.
Then he says,
How long will you tread the circling tracks of mind.
Around your little self and petty things ?
Me, mine, my family, my son, my daughter, my house, my this, my that.
We have no time to come out of that, Isn't it ?
And yet we want to be free!
We love our bondage.
Not for vain repetition were you built,
You are born again and again and again in vain.
Every time we are the same.
Every time we are carbon copy. The way we come, the way we go.
Out of immortal substance you were made,
Out of Divine Wholeness,
you are Divine Fragments.
You forget all that.
You read now, you go and forget this.
Heaven is too high for outstretched hands to seize.
This light comes not by struggle or by thought,
In the mind's silence the Transcendent acts.
And the hushed heart hears the unuttered Word.
The very first sutra,
the very first sutra is so beautiful.
See the very first sutra.
Let us read it.
What does it say?
The very first sutra says,
Yoga is achieved through the subjugation (healing of the psychic nature) and restraint
(calming of the thinking instrument).
The healing of the psychic nature and the calming of the thinking instrument.
And the poet says so beautifully, In the mind's silence the Transcendent acts.
And the hushed heart hears the unuttered Word.
A vast surrender is the only strength.
Go to the 12th chapter of the Geeta and there, what does
Shri Krishna tell Arjun,
Do this and you'll come to me.
If you are too weak do this and you'll come to me.
And even if you are too weak for that, do that and come to me.
And if you are too weak for anything you come to me and say, O Krishna!
See what the poet says,
A vast surrender is the only
strength.
Now we come to a stanza perhaps uttered by a prophet, How shall I rest content with mortal
days,
And the dull measure of terrestrial things.
I who have seen behind the cosmic mask,
The glory and beauty of thy face?
So, what does the voice reply to? O Singer of the ultimate ecstasy, Lend not a dangerous
vision to the blind,
Because by native right thou hast seen clear.
Impose not on the mortal's tremulous breast,
The dire ordeal that foreknowledge brings
(foreknowledge means all psychic powers).
Again, the prophet pleads and then the voice replies finally,
O strong forerunner, I have heard thy cry.
A seed shall be sown in death's tremendous hour,
in deaths tremendous hour
(if you can come to that tremendous hour of conscious death)
A branch of heaven transplant to human soil.
You See.
A total change in structure must come.
A branch of heaven transplant to human soil.
The Honda must be transplanted into the Fiat, the rattling Fiat.
Nature shall overleap her mortal step.
Fate shall be changed
(the unchanging fate),
Fate shall be changed by an unchanging will.
Beautiful !
So, from all angle we come to know that the only way out is change of structure.
And only philosophy will not do. Only exposition will not do.
Only coming here and hearing me will not do.
But go home and
practice! practice! practice!
Now we shall begin the sutra. Okay.

--------------------------------------------------[20 Minutes] -------------------------------------------------------

One by one we shall take up; one by one we shall read.

Now we shall begin instruction in the science of yoga.
Patanjali must be also tired like me, talking, talking, talking before he began the sutra.
So, he says,
Now we shall begin,
Now we shall begin the science of yoga.
Mind you.
The science of yoga meaning,
if you practise in London,
New York, Moscow, Paris, Bombay you must get the same result, that is science,
the science of yoga.
Now begin.
Yoga is achieved through the healing of the psychic nature and the calming of the thinking
instrument.
You get it.
Yoga is achieved through the healing of the psychic nature and the calming of the thinking
instrument.
Now psychic nature.
We are a complex human structure, not so simple as the animal structure is or the
vegetation is.
We are a very complex structure,
the human body, the human brain, the psychic body, the psychic manas and within this sits
the Divine Fragment,
The Divine Fragment.
And we make use of the infinite mind as individual mind.
This complex structure is to be healed.
The physical body, the physical brain has been damaged enough, by misuse, disuse
whatever you might call it.
The psychic body, the psychic manas has been misused, disused.
And we do not know what that Divine Fragment means.
Out of this complex structure we know nothing.
We know we have a physical body; we have got something like a brain, a chatter box that's
all we have of that whole complex structure.
And we are on our way to heal the entire complex structure.
We want to heal what we don't
know anything about.
We want to heal what we don't know anything about.
Healing of the psychic nature and the calming of the thinking instrument.
This grey matter, from 4 million BC till today nobody knows, Nobody knows how it operates.
Nobody knows how to heal it.
Nobody knows how to put it straight.
We'll go further.
When this is accomplished, the man knows himself as he is in reality.
What is accomplished?
When the healing of the psychic nature takes place,
when the calming of the thinking instrument takes place,
when we have a vague idea of the Divine Fragment,
we are in a different world.
When we are there, we have some hint of what we are,
as we were created,
as we are expected to live as human specimen.
Not as fox, crocodile, lion, monkey, viper in the form of a human being.
No! Not that!
Uptill now the inner man has identified himself with these forms and with the active
modifications.
It is a complex structure:
the physical body and brain is the external man,
the psychic body and manas is the internal man.
And the Divine Fragment
is the spiritual man.
We don't know what to do with the external man.
We are here to heal the internal man.
And one day hope to see the spiritual man.
That is what we are about to do in yogasutra.
The thinking instrument states are five and are subject to pleasure or pain, they are painful
or not painful.
Okay. (Upto five)
These five states are painful or not painful.
The author doesn't say,
there is a state of happiness, there is a state of bliss.
At best it is painful or not painful.
What are the five states ?
The five states are correct knowledge, incorrect knowledge, fancy, passivity or sleep and
memory.
All five states are known as modifications.
The qualities in them are in a
state of turmoil.
We'll see again!
These modifications i.e these five states are correct knowledge, incorrect knowledge, fancy,
sleep and memory.
When thoughts take place, we call it modifications.
But the author says,
Even fancy is a kind of thought, imagination.
Sleep is also modification, there are dreams.
And memory,
Memory is the most mischievous part of the complex human system.
If I lose my memory, half the number of people I dislike I won't know.
At least that much of my brooding will be over.
He said this ! She said that !
It is this memory that is treacherous.
We want to be good,
we have heard somewhere that you're not to do this and you go home and want to be good
and suddenly somebody comes,
we know Oh! God where has he come now and he starts some mischief and you are out,
Bhupp!
Your temper goes, you say something because your memory is wedded to your past thinking
about that person.
So, you cannot expect anything good from that person,
so, you are ready to react.
Therefore, memory is the worst of the five modifications.
The basis of correct knowledge is correct perception, correct deduction, correct witness and
accurate evidence.
Okay!
Incorrect knowledge is based upon perception of the form and not upon the state of being.
When in Mahabharata, Abhimanyu is dead and Arjuna asked Krishna,
I want to see Abhimanyu.
Krishna says, If I show you, will you recognise him?
He said, my son, I can't recognise him.
He had a thousand bodies and a thousand names before, one of them was Abhimanyu.
Will you know him if I show you? So we seek Abhimanyu only ! What does it say,
Incorrect knowledge is based upon perception of the form and not upon the state of being.
Arjuna cries about Abhimanyu not knowing it's the name and a form of the thousands he
had.
But inside of Abhimanyu,
the essence, how will you know ?
All essences are same.
All Divine Fragments are same. All souls are same.

--------------------------------------------------[30 Minutes] -------------------------------------------------------

Fancy rests upon images which have no real existence.
You see your neighbour he is rich and you plan of buying some
_______ and dream that I'll do this and I'll do that, that is fancy.
When we are not successful in
life,
When we are hurt, we take solace in fancy.
When you've failed you dream of success.
When you are down and under you think of money.
We dream, fancy.
During day we fancy.
During night we dream.
And all the time we think I must have Moksha.
From where ?
Sleep is based upon the quiescent state of the vrittis
(i.e upon the non-perception of the senses).
Sleep, at night, there is a junction box here, which puts off the switch and the five senses are
not supposed to disturb the grey matter, so that we can sleep soundly.

[S] But we get dreams?

[Mr. T] You get dreams.

Your (this) junction box is faulty. It's a rattling old Fiat and it wants to be a Honda.
So, we dream at night because this junction box is not properly disconnected and something
comes and we dream and there also is fancy.
The control of these modifications of the internal organ, the thinking instrument, is to be
brought about through tireless endeavour and through non-attachment.
Memory is holding on to that which has been known.
Holding on, you hold on.
Memory is harmless.
Memory is harmless.
It is necessary otherwise if you all come here and I say why have you come ?
I don't know you; you go home!
So, memory is necessary, I must know you.
But holding on to (that type), holding on to that type of memory is harmful,
that will lead to daydreaming, that will lead to brooding,
that will lead to so many other things.
This instigates us to actions, connected with past emotions, past events, that is memory.
So, the most important word is
holding on to.
If you do not hold on to memory!
Let it flow like the waters of the river, let it flow.
The control of these modifications of the internal organ, the thinking instrument is to be
brought about through tireless endeavour and through non-attachment.
Tireless endeavour.
That fellow Continental Tyres,
he gives a big advertisement and he says, the tireless tyres.
After 15,000 km it will be punctured.
That type of tireless endeavour is not required.
It is nonstop, forever nonstop.
You get my point.
Tireless endeavour!
Not the tireless tyre.
And the non-attachment, Non-attachment.
Holding onto memory is attachment.
Holding onto memory is attachment.
Son, mother, father, brother, house, money, this is all memory.
Holding onto memory. Non-attachment.
Have everything, be a millionaire billionaire but then let there be no attachment.
No holding on to,
If it comes well and good,
If it goes well and good.
ठीक है !
If that comes to me, I must be a brilliant man,
If it goes, I must be a fool.
Forget it!
Okay.
Now, Tireless endeavour is the constant effort to restrain the modifications of the thinking
instrument.
Get an idea.
Between peak hours the police have put up a board,
No stopping, No parking!
No stopping! parking is known.
No stopping!
So, tireless endeavour is the constant effort to restrain the modifications of the thinking
instrument.
The thinking, the breathing, circulation of the blood, these are non-stop things.
They don't stop for a moment,
if they take a holiday we are gone.
We must have a Sunday.
We must be getting so tired after six days.
The heart that beats.
The lung that breaths and the circulation they do not stop for a moment.
We must have an endeavour equally nonstop,
that will not stop for a moment.

[S] Here the meaning is effort to restrain the modifications, means to stop the modifications?

[Mr.T] Restrain is calming.

I've told you.
Last month also I told you.
In place of restrain, read calming. I've told you last time also.
I've told you in the 2nd sutra also I've said in place of subjugation write healing and in place
of
restrain write calming.
I've told you, last month I've told you.
So, calming, that endeavour must be nonstop.
If you work for 23 hours and one hour if this mischief maker of a brain will have all the
mischief done.
For all 24 hours non-stop your endeavour must be there.
What type of endeavour?
Now comes.
No, first go to 15. Non-attachment is the freedom from longing of all the objects of desire
either earthly or traditional, either here or hereafter.
This non-attachment is what? Freedom from longing.
It's a state of mind, you may have millions, billions.
Freedom, freedom from
attachment.
You get the point here.
Freedom from longing for objects.
Got that!
It's good to work for it,
it's good to get it, use it, enjoy it
But! But what ?
Freedom from longing.
Don't hold on to anything. Understand.
That is non-attachment.
Let me go to the 14th.
When the object to be gained is sufficiently valued and the efforts towards its attainment are
persistently followed.
We stop here.
In science today the most important laws are thermodynamics.
The 1st law of thermodynamics, the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Now Sage Patanjali gives
you Iaw after law here.
The 1st law he states is,
When the object to be gained is sufficiently valued.
What will happen?
The efforts towards its attainment are persistently followed.
Whether it is a material object, non-material object, spiritual object, if the object to be gained
is sufficiently valued, you'll automatically put in efforts.
You get the point.
That is the 1st law of the sutra.
What does it say?
When the object to be gained is sufficiently valued, the efforts towards it's attainment are
persistently followed.
Immaterial what that object is. You may gain for a million-million dollars or you may gain for
spiritual upliftment,
you can gain anything.
But if you've aimed that,
That thing is really worth having. If the object to be gained is sufficiently valued.
You must value that object.
It's no use my talking to you here if sutra is not valued by you, then you'll not put in that
persistent effort.
--------------------------------------------------[40 Minutes] -------------------------------------------------------

If you value the sutras sufficiently then your efforts will become automatic and continuous.
What does the 1st law say,
When the object to be gained is sufficiently valued, efforts towards it's attainment are
persistently followed without intermission,
without intermission,
There's not a waiting for a moment.
Understand.
Now he takes up on the spiritual angle, he adds it.
What does he add now ?
When the steadiness of the thinking instrument and the calming of the vrittis is secured.
If this is what you value, if you value that the steadiness of the thinking instrument and the
restraint of the modifications is very necessary, if you value this then according to the 1st law
your efforts will be automatically nonstop.
But you must value what you want.
What are your priorities, what do you want first ?
Wife, Son, What do you want first?
The calming of the modifications, the calming of the thinking instrument,
If that is what you value most, then your efforts will be nonstop in that direction.
Understand.
I repeat again this beautiful sutra. When the object to be gained is sufficiently valued, the
efforts towards its attainment are persistently followed without intermission then the
steadiness of the thinking instrument
i.e. the restraint of the vrittis is secured.
The consummation of the non-attachment results in an exact knowledge of spiritual man
when liberated from the qualities or gunas.
The first word, consummation,
a marriage is consummated, perfected, fulfilled.
When the two separate the first question the judge asks is,
Is the marriage consummated?
If not, there is no question, divorce is clear.
But in spite of that, Why? Consummated.
When the non-attachment is consummated, it is fulfilled.
If you can live your life, worldly life beautifully but without attachment
i.e when non-attachment is perfected.
What happens, then?
Results in exact knowledge of the spiritual man.
You get some hazy idea about the spiritual man.
He says, exact idea, but he is saying something more.
When liberated from the qualities or gunas.
When liberated from the qualities or gunas.
Ask any man who is trying to go on the path of spirituality and the 1st thing he'll say is,
I want to get rid of tamas and rajas,
I want to accumulate sattva.
What will happen?
There is imbalance, he will be like this, when he will walk, he will walk like this because
sattva is bending him here, rajas and tamas is no more here.
He must walk this; he must balance both.
And in the sutra, this is not mentioned that you've to get rid of tamas and rajas.
He says,
When liberated from the qualities.
That means, Nothing! even sattva should not become an attachment.
Even the vision of God should not be an attachment.
One day Laxmi told Lord Vishnu, I've got millions of devotees,
I don't know how many you got,
I don't think you have five also. So, Vishnu said I'll find out so he came on earth and went
from
place to place to place, everybody was worshipping Laxmi, nobody cared for poor Vishnu, at
last he came across a man, one man who was a great devotee of Vishnu.
Ahh! He said, I've found you,
Ask anything from me.
That man had reached…..