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September 30, 2019
The essential purpose of yoga practice is to reduce avidyā so that understanding can gradually come to the surface.
When we see the truth, when we reach a level that is higher than our normal everyday understanding, something deep within us is very quiet and peaceful.
The center of this contentment is the puruṣa.
Yoga is both the movement toward and the arrival at a point. The yoga that we are practicing and in which, through practice, we can make progress is called kriyā yoga. The Yoga Sūtra defines kriyā yoga as being made up of three components: tapas, svādhyāya, and īśvarapraṇidhānā.
It is a process of inner cleansing:
Svādhyāya is the process of gradually finding out where we are, who we are, what we are, and so forth.
The meaning of īśvarapraṇidhānā in the context of kriyā yoga relates much more to a special kind of attention to action: we place value on the quality of the action, not on the fruits that can develop out of it.
Paying more attention to the spirit in which we act and looking less to the results our actions may bring us—this is the meaning of īśvarapraṇidhānā in kriyā yoga.
Avidyā changes according to whether it is manifested as asmitā, rāga, dveṣa, or abhiniveśa.
If we feel modest for a while it does not mean that we have overcome our self-seeking tendencies.
We should never sit back smugly when it seems as though we are free of avidyā.
A few days’ yoga practice and contemplation may help for a short time, but the benefits will not last forever.
The Yoga Sūtra makes a distinction between two kinds of action: action that reduces avidyā and brings true understanding, and action that increases avidyā.
Each of our actions shows its effects either immediately or after a period of time. Every action has a consequence.
What possibilities are there for preventing actions with negative consequences,
We all have the goal of eliminating duḥkha. That is what the Buddha taught. That is what Vedānta strives for. That is what yoga tries to achieve.
Every action that stems from avidyā always leads to one or another form of duḥkha.
Duḥkha can even arise out of our efforts to progress along the path of yoga.
Duḥkha begins to take hold when we cannot get what we want.
We also talk of duḥkha when we cannot make ourselves comfortable in a new situation.
Sometimes the process of leaving an old track that we realize is not good for us is painful and can cause duḥkha.
To understand duḥkha we must understand the three qualities of mind described by yoga. These three qualitites—tamas, rajas, and sattva—are collectively known as the guṇa.
Tamas describes the state of heaviness and slowness in feeling and decision.
This quality of mind would like action, would like to dance.This quality is called rajas, and also produces duḥkha.
The third quality of mind describes the absence of the other two. There is neither heaviness and lethargy nor raciness and restlessness, but only clarity. This is called sattva, and from this quality of mind alone can arise no duḥkha.
These three qualities are subject to their own cycles—sometimes one prevails, sometimes another. Only sattva, clarity, is totally positive in the sense of leading to a reduction of...
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Through our yoga practice we are attempting to become more aware of these movements within, to reduce the limitations that result from them and to avoid the occurrence of duḥkha in the future.
Finally, yoga claims that there is a state called kaivalya in which someone is free of the external concerns that cause such disturbances and generate duḥkha.
A little flexibility always reduces duḥkha.
I have already discussed how the incorrect knowledge of avidyā affects our actions.
The Yoga Sūtra states that although duḥkha can be found everywhere, we do not always perceive it, and indeed there are some people who never become aware of it at all. But it is precisely those who are searching for clarity who often experience duḥkha particularly strongly.
He or she develops a special insight, a particular kind of sensitivity.
We have already talked about how the movement of the three parts of the mind, the guṇa—rajas, tamas, and sattva—causes duḥkha to arise.
Recognition of duḥkha is a process that can be broken down into seven stages. The first is to understand that something is not right.
According to the Yoga Sūtra, our mind possesses five faculties which we call vṛtti, “movements” or “activities.”
These faculties work together;
These mental activities, alone or in any combination, do not necessarily conceal a form of duḥkha but can have an influence on how much duḥkha is present.
The Yoga Sūtra says that the puruṣa can only see by means of the mind.
Very often it is the mind that decides where our attention is directed. It does this because it has been conditioned to do so.
Saṃskāra is the sum total of all our actions that conditions us to behave in a certain way.
Through yoga we attempt to create new and positive saṃskāra rather than reinforcing the old saṃskāra that has been limiting us.
So we plan a sequence of exercises and as we execute them, the mind clears a little. We are no longer so bound by our habits.
This kind of reorientation is called parivṛtti.
Yoga follows the teachings of the Sāṃkhya, which divides the universe into two categories: puruṣa and prakṛti.
Everything that falls into the realm of prakṛti has a common source called pradhāna, a word that refers to the original matter from which all things are formed, the spring from which all life flows.
The world as we see it is a combination of these aspects constantly interacting with one another.
We can most easily understand what the puruṣa is if we think of what is absent from a corpse.
It is hard to imagine that puruṣa and prakṛti can exist independent of each other.
move toward clarity. Just because some of us look for solutions to problems, and in the process attain a certain degree of clarity, does not mean that the puruṣa of others will see more clearly.
While there are different puruṣa, there is only one prakṛti, one common universe for us all. It is the relationship between the individual puruṣa and the one praktri that is special.
