🧘‍♀️ Svadhyaya · The Fourth Niyama Explained · Self-Study & Spiritual Texts in Yoga Philosophy 🕉️

Hello friends, welcome back to my channel, and 
welcome to this series on the eight limbs of yoga.   My name is Michelle Fondin, and I'm the author of 
12 published books, including the eight limbs of   yoga for modern times a practical guide to the 
yoga sutras of Patanjali. You can find all of   my published books on Amazon. If you're new to 
my channel, welcome. Thank you for subscribing   below. Click on the bell. Scroll up to all for 
all notifications. And thank you for giving the   video a thumbs up. I teach meditation online on 
demand. You'll get your personalized mantra from   me. You can register and start on demand today 
at the link below. Today we are talking about   the fourth niyama or personal observances and that 
is svadhyaya. I kind of like that word svadhyaya   It means self-study or spiritual study. In fact 
when I learned about svadhyaya it was translated   to mean study of the spiritual texts. We're 
going to talk a little bit about both things,   self-study and study of spiritual texts. So, if 
you're a yoga teacher, a yogi, a yoga teacher   in training, or you run a yoga teacher training 
program, make sure to stay tuned and check out   my playlist here on all of the eight limbs of 
yoga study and the yoga sutras of Patanjali.   Let's start with the yoga sutra pertaining to 
svadhyaya Self-study and introspection deepen   communion with the divine. Yoga sutra chapter 2 
verse 44. What is self-study? We are in a time   that I refer to as deep psychology. What does this 
mean? It means that now more than ever before,   people are looking into themselves deeply through 
astrology, psychology, personality assessments   and tests, and all other forms of self-healing. 
It's incredible. There's been an explosion of   information about the study of the self which is 
super interesting. However, in the yoga sutras of   the Tanjuli, I believe that self-study while it's 
perfect to study the mind, the intellect, the ego,   the personality and of course that can lead you 
to union with your higher self. I believe that   Patanjali was really referring to the self-study 
of the higher self, the spiritual self and getting   to know your spiritual self intimately. So there 
are many ways in which you can do this. Now of   course self-study through psychology, personality 
tests can give you a segue to reaching your higher   spiritual self. But of course so can meditation. 
Now I truly believe that if you are meditating   and you've learned to meditate and you've 
been meditating maybe for a shorter duration   of time that if you don't study yourself on a 
psychological level, emotional level, your ego,   your past wounds and all of that that it can be 
really difficult to attain enlightenment, that   enlightened state of transcending into your higher 
spiritual self because the wounding is still there   that you're still looking at things through the 
lens of the ego. And I speak a lot about this in   my book, Heal Yourself, a return to wholeness. 
So my teacher, Dr. David Simon, one of my great   teachers who is now deceased and on the other 
side of the veil and I'm sure helping me now.   He used to say that if you do all the meditation 
in the world, but you don't heal yourself at a   core level, meaning you don't study yourself, heal 
your inner wounds, transcend your ego, and so on   and so forth. That you could do all the meditation 
in the world, but it's not going to help you reach   enlightenment because you're still stuck. You're 
stuck in your past wounds, your past impressions,   you're still stuck in your relationships. And so 
you really need to do both in order to transcend.   Another thing that Patanjali was talking 
about was the study of the spiritual texts,   the study of spiritual literature. So ancient 
yogis used to study the Upanishads, the dhamapada,   the words of the Buddha, and the Bhagavad Gita. 
Of course the seat of yoga and meditation was   ancient India. And so they were studying these 
as students. They were studying these ancient   texts. Now in the olden days these stories were 
oral tradition that were passed down from teacher   to student orally. they had to memorize them 
perfectly and that's why a lot of the ancient   texts sounded like poetic verses and it's because 
it made it for easier memorization even though I   find that a lot of spiritual texts are inherently 
flawed and the reason why I find them flawed   and many people do as well is because they were 
transmitted through humans that were unhealed for   the most part but In that there are many verses in 
spiritual texts whether you're talking about the   Hindu texts or ancient Vic texts or Christian or 
Jewish or Islamic texts whatever you're referring   to there is a resonance of God consciousness. You 
might have to dig deep to find it but there is a   resonance of God consciousness. So even though 
I believe that many of the spiritual texts are   flawed because I find that many of them focus 
more around the rules and regulations surrounding   religion but they are still inspired. So when 
you read a spiritual text and I found that the   upanes was extremely enlightening for me when 
I first read it cover to cover. I found that   the experience of reading it by itself was a 
transcendent experience. And a lot of people   find this when reading other spiritual texts 
such as the Bible. And so when you dive deep   into a spiritual text and really look for the God 
consciousness in it. So again, not paying so much   attention to like the harsh rules and regulations 
that may be outlined in that specific text,   but really feeling it. You're feeling the God 
consciousness that comes through it. Then you   can gain the inspiration. Why? because the person 
that wrote the spiritual literature, the spiritual   text had a glimpse into God consciousness. And so 
in a way reading the spiritual text can fasttrack   you into feeling unity consciousness. Does that 
make sense? So, we don't read it to follow every   word to the tea or to memorize every single word 
and blurt it out and say, "I'm a great student.   I've memorized everything in this text." That's 
really not the point and purpose. The point and   purpose is deep communion with the divine, which 
is what the yoga sutra outlines. The yoga sutra   outlines that the point and purpose of self-study 
or spiritual study, the study of spiritual texts   is to gain deeper clarity, is to gain deeper 
communion with the divine and really bridge the   gap between you and your higher self. And so by 
doing this, you're merging. Now a lot of people   are afraid of reading spiritual texts because of 
the aforementioned reasons the reasons I already   mentioned and I would say if you can keep it 
light if you can take it with a grain of salt and   really take it for the deeper meaning rather than 
certain rules and regulations of what you must or   must not do. And if you can gain the inspiration 
through the texts then that is absolutely perfect.   And that is also why we do self-study. We do 
self-study to drop the judgments of ourselves   to drop the shame blame game of ourselves and 
others and to get to the core of our essence   which is divine light divine love unconditional 
love. So as we do that we are also gaining deeper   communion with the divine with the divinity within 
ourselves. So each step you take brings you closer   closer and closer to that unity consciousness. 
And that is why spadyya and all the yamas and   nyamas are so essential as we move through the 
eight limbs of yoga. I hope this was helpful yogi   on your path to understanding the eight limbs of 
yoga and the yoga sutras of Patanjali. I want to   thank you so much for joining me here today. Thank 
you for subscribing to my channel below. Click on   the bell, scroll up to all for all notifications 
and thank you for giving the video a thumbs up.   Thank you for sharing this with your yoga friends, 
your yoga teacher friends, and if you're running   a yoga teacher training program to share this 
with your students. I want to thank you for your   support of my YouTube channel. You can purchase 
one of my 12 published books. You can join one   of my courses. Everything is on my website. 
And I will see you in the next video. [Music] [Music]