The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali | Prof. Edwin Bryant

Transcript

[Music] this year we're observing the hundred and fiftieth birth anniversary of swami baden under a direct disciple and the third spiritual leader of this Center the Swami came to New York at the specific request of Swami Vivekananda in August 1897 and for the next twenty three years very successfully expounded on Vedanta and Hindu thought and culture throughout the united states until his return to India in 1921 in commemoration of this hundred and fiftieth anniversary we're holding the swami Obeid ananda lecture series in religion and philosophy this morning we are honoured to welcome as the fourth speaker in this series professor Edwin Bryant professor of religions of India at Rutgers University professor Bryant received his PhD in the Indic languages and cultures from Columbia University and taught Hinduism at Harvard University for three years he has published eight books and authored a number of articles on Vedic history yoga and the Krishna tradition his highly regarded translation of and commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali have been followed by his most recent work entitled bhakti yoga tales and teachings from the Bhagavata Purana in addition to his academic course load professor Bryant currently teaches workshops on the Yoga Sutras bhagavad-gita and Hindu philosophy at yoga studios and teacher training courses throughout the country at the end of his talk he will open it up for a Q&A when you you can ask questions so it's a great pleasure to be here in this very August place a very special place actually in terms of the transplantation of Hinduism to America perhaps the most venerable site right it is not is this not the first they done to a center so it has a whole history and and we see that a little bit reflected here the way it's set up with the organ and a little bit like a Protestant church because bearing in mind 100 years ago you know now Hinduism is cool right people have tattoos of Ganesh on their back and but a hundred years ago as someone like Swami ji who was really a communicator it wasn't a Patanjali and yogi sitting in a cage in the cave chitta vritti nirodha Inge so his intention was to spread the the teachings of Hinduism and gives some dignity actually to Hinduism and so we had to find ways of creating a space where which which as much as possible resonated with existing Western culture so and so therefore the organ music and I've been to the center in in Boston which is much more like a church actually a pews so to you know sort of to create a sense that which of course the teachings of Advaita Vedanta which is that they know that there is a truth that underpins all religions and just kind of stress that a little bit by minimizing the cultural differences even in in terms of the the space so I hope you keep it that way because it's really a reflection of a very important moment in in in historical time in terms of Hinduism's Journey to the West so so I'm I'm here to speak a little bit about the Patanjali yoga sutras that's what happens when you write a book you get associated with that book and then invited to speak on the book so yoga sutras is one of a number of Sutra texts that emerge from the late apologetic period so we have Upanishads which is which are the kind of oldest texts where we find philosophical the beginnings of philosophical discourse the beginnings of spirituality the earlier texts are more ritualistic texts the earlier Imams attacks but they're not systematized they're not systematic texts they're poetic expressions you get a sense of practitioners in the forests engaging in practice coming out of meditative States and saying something right and trying to express their experiences through metaphors different Rishi's are they're expressing different sorts of things in some places Brockman is depicted as a personal being in other places in Upanishad impersonal being in some places the Punishers seem to suggest that the world is an illusion in other places it's real and some places Atman is somehow merges into brockman right the tat farmers see the famous verses other places seem to suggest a distinction and as a result of that non systematic nature of the Upanishads in the in the later Panasonic period you get this sense that there is a need amongst Indian intellectuals to systematize the ancient teachings now maybe because of the threat of Buddhism that's challenging certain long-held Vedanta views on the nation or the notion of the Atman maybe it's the sense of the Kali Yuga if you read the beginning of the Puranas many of the Puranas start off by saying it's the Kali Yuga and the effects of this age are detrimental to the preservation of knowledge knowledge is getting lost and all may be falling into the wrong hands and can be misrepresented so you get this sense to sort of preserve fossilized and systematize which I think is reflected in the whole Sutra genre of writing so at this point you get a number of Sutra texts that are written vedanta-sutra of course the Vedanta society is obviously anchored in the vedanta-sutra saying the same thing say butter iana comes along a sage called called butter Reiner comes along and tries to systematize these heterogeneous teachings of the Upanishads tries to codify them put them in a systematic format of course does that work the sutras are so cryptic they're so incomprehensible that you can't actually read sutras so then you have to have read the commentaries on the sutras and of course then you read the commentaries and then pretty soon you have major divergent divergences in the commentarial tradition ongoing so at the same time you have in the Upanishads you have a few references to this thing called yoga not very many there's a passage in the shredder Vitara there's a passage in the kata a few lines here and there referring to this thing called yoga and so mostly the Upanishads are are presenting in from descriptive they're describing they're saying there is this thing called Brahman and that an ottoman and that we are at man we are broke man in some sort of way but there's not that much of a discussion in the Upanishads about a fine so we're but men wear bra c'mon well what do we do about that all right let's say we accept that information what do we do just the fact that we know okay I'm at man fine I'll sign off on that I'll to that now what money lightens right so what's the next step so so in the Upanishads you get these early a few references to this thing called yoga which at which is actually a practice by which one can but experienced attained that thing which is being described in the Upanishads experience Atman and when Brockman but not just a few verses me Yogi's described the sitting you know as living in a cave next to a body of water and he has to create a seat not too high not too low just a few references here and there so so just as sage by Dharana is in intellectual intellectual yogi we can say there's no we have no reason and the great intellectuals of ancient india or often serious practitioners they weren't just intellectuals so just as Barbarino writes the vedanta-sutra to try to give some consistency to the disparate teachings of the Upanishads another sage called Patanjali emerges at some point and of course scholars tried to date to date these personalities and we don't need to get involved in that as always differences of opinion how you date someone like Patanjali so someone called Patanjali comes along and he writes a the yoga Sutra well and you know establishes right in the beginning utter yoga no sharanam that he is going to now continue on oh shah sonim can't in you the teachings of yoga which as I say I mentioned in the Upanishads mentioned in the Mahabharata epic we feel oh if you read the Mahabharata when the Pandavas are exiled to the forest the 12-year years in the forest so scattered through the forest you see these characters these these proto Yogi's with the dreadlocks right in there they are not obviously the protagonists of the story but they're there and they're always associated the term yoga is always associated with intense austerity tapas with some some form of dianna some form of concentrative exercise and frequently ours that with this intense control of the mind comes power so the Yogi's are often scary slightly scary characters especially say you actually you know Paul of the great asuras the great Arthur as avenge in India how did they get their palace you know Ravana and here Anya Cassie poo they did eka pada hasta sana they did these incredible yogic feats and concentrated their minds and and as a result of that it aimed their cities their powers so that's that's actually if you that's actually probably why Patanjali in the yoga Sutra he has a whole of third chapter on mystic powers and then he says but these are of no interest to real Yogi's but why does he say that I spend a lot of core of the text talking about mystic powers and then just say well they're of no interest or because they were characters in ancient India that were doing something they look very much like yoga from the outside engaging in intense tapas concentrating their minds and they had no interest in in the real goal of yoga which we'll discuss in a minute as a matter of fact they weren't even benevolent some of them they were malevolent beings they were they were acerous so therefore as a matter of fact Patanjali in the fourth chapter the first verse he says these cities these cities you can't you can get them from Samadhi but then he says it's for other ways you can get them you can get them from mantra you can get them from old shity some kind of plants right they like that on the lower Eastside this but it's the only verse they they remember remember so hi professor prime what's the OL shitty enough chapter 4 and you can get it from tapas you can get these cities from from tapas so so they're these practices are there we see the most in the Ramayana also when Rama is in the forest in the background the Yogi's are there he ran a scouted so sort of common denominator of them all is ascetics ASC ascetics performing intensive forms of austerity involving some kind of pranayama some kind of breath control and some kind of odd and odd jana will mind control and and some of the sex talk about five limbs of yoga or other text talk about you know Buddhists talk about eight harden Oz so there's all these different schemas of yoga floating about in the pre pattern Chalian yogic world which is mostly a forest situated one so along comes Patanjali and for whatever reasons takes it upon himself to systematize all this put it once and for all into a nice clear systematic format which would be preserved now whether that's because of this idea that Kali Yuga is you know as I mentioned that Kali Yuga is sort of ravishing the old knowledge systems also people's memories are declining prior right writing is considered a sign of degeneracy we think of it as a big sort of milestone in human civilization right invention of you know fire the wheel writing these are big sort of signposts of we're progressing but in ancient India was a sign of decline because you you were supposed to memorize these things not so therefore writing is a prop it's a prop for a weak mind I personally met in South India a brahmana who knew the entire 100 thousand verses Mahabharata by heart and solidly you could give him one line not even the first line third line try to catch him out give him the third line boom you give it a whole whole verse so this wasn't it's not him this is not a myth the and not just in India other indo-european cultures as well this sort of this men oral recitation so whether it's because the sense that the memories declining Kali Yuga is is making itself felt and in knowledge systems need to be preserved fossilized once you put it in a sutra that's it you may have all different commentaries for centuries and still producing commentaries we know we have a new I mean Ryan is a you know ten years ago now we have the salmon Orion commentary in the vedanta-sutra it's an ongoing these are ongoing traditions and new not just so not just a rendition of the old commentary the surah me Narayan tradition is a new commentary braced based on the Siddhanta on the philosophical viewpoint of swami narayan so it's not just a recycling of old commentaries which mine is is just a recycling of all commentaries but so this these are ongoing additions these are living traditions Dante is a living tradition so as Yoga you can say that as well I mean after all you know guru ji anger has a commentary on the Yoga Sutras which is you know introducing many things that you don't find in the traditional commentaries so you could either say well that's not legitimate it's not you know part of the tradition or you could say this is a sign that the tradition is living and adapting and engaging with its environment which it always has there's always differences between commentaries think of the difference between Shankar's commentary and mudfest so for whatever reason whether it's the sense that kali yuga is you know that is the age the the detrimental effects of kali yuga requires that the brahmanas can no longer assume that memory the knowledge is going to be preserved by memory number one and number two you know thomas you know that there's more thomas in the kali yuga so maybe there is more a risk of knowledge knowledge systems being abused whatever the reason okay and we get some sense of that if you read the opening verses of some of the Puranas the sense of the sort of fear of the Kali Yuga or whether it's the threat of Buddhism that's coming along and saying well you know there's no art one isn't there is no Rupa Avastin which Patanjali is going to define the goal of yoga as being that the seer abides in its own nature the Buddhism is going to say there is no own nature no no swarupa everything is interdependent everything is momentary nothing lasts for more of them so these are these are serious challenges to the Vedanta the pedantic point of view so for whatever reason scholars would say around the third century we won't have to occupy us and we will leave dating to the scholars we don't have to we're more interested in the con tenth of the sutras rather than academic scholarship typically is more interested in context and his historicity the so that's what really one of the main differences between an academic study of a tradition and a practitioner study is the practitioners typically and while we can't generalize too much is more interested in content and academia is more interested in the context you know what were the formative influences well what is the political milieu what is the you know what are the agendas right postmodern modernism what are the agendas people writing this and Brahmins trying to control everybody what what's going on so in a place like this I assume in we're more interested in content so someone calls Patanjali we know nothing about him much later on we have a verse composed about him that surfaces in the commentary of a King King Bulger King I think Mel wah I can't remember the date maybe 11th century or ninth century I remember who composed the verse that is recited now nyunga Studios right yogi Nietzsche Tosca pas de Navarre Tom mallams sharira search of Adi Cana you uppercu wrote Tom Provera moon enum but Anjali - Anjali Anatole Smith so that it potentially gets associated with three things it gets associated yogi Nietzsche Tasha for the mind yoga yoga natasha pas de Navarre chum with grammar and is a fact that there is a grammar written on the famous great panini grammar greatest grammar of all time ever I'm this amazing over 4000 verse grabber by panini well someone called Patanjali writes a commentary on that now is it the same is it the same Patanjali obviously that's the kind of thing that scholars are gonna quibble about we don't need to concern ourselves with that the verse also said he brought something for Ayurveda we don't have any text that surfaced under the name of Patanjali not that it could be something now sitting in some temple basement the text says three things so we have this centuries later we have this verse and I don't think Bo garage composes it I think he's quoting it so it pre-existed Boccia Raj so we have this so in terms of the historical Patanjali we know very little there's the point and then in that that verse the second verse associates Patanjali with Vishnu in the form of shisha our baahubali shocker I'm Shana chakra Setar enum Sahasra sheersha Shui thumb so the I said by that time then it seems that but Patanjali has been associated with shisha the chaser is the visionary clients of the when it creates the universes reclining on shisha so other than that we know nothing about Patanjali so again we'll leave that the historians and he writes this very short little text it's tiny it's 198 sutras average length of a sutras six words so if you put that all together it's like two pages of 12 you know double spaced 12 fun right if you had an assignment at Rutgers two pages to all font that's a freebie right so it's a tiny tiny little little text but it's extraordinarily profound and and of course the when you create a Sutra the the idea is to make it minimalistic a succinct as possible because you have to memorize them so before you memorize any suture you have to know know Sanskrit and to know Sanskrit you have to know Ponte need to know pollinators but over 4,000 sutras that's before you get out of bed in the morning if your little Brahmin boy in the Guru Kula right before you do anything you have to know sunscreen as four thousand sutras so when it comes to Patanjali class that's a breeze two hundred one hundred ninety-eight so they have to be the definition of a Sutra is well literally we know it means thread a Sutra is a threat but the characteristic of a Sutra is minimalism and so you have that witty saying that a Sutra Cara takes greater pleasure if you sir if you save one phoneme one syllable then a birth of a child so that's how strict that's the standard so that's why Sutra Cara's would never never married nobody what it's a married of never wrong attitude for a family life so very very minimalistic now the price of that is that you cannot understand the sutra they don't a sutra worse worst of all I mean you have Vedanta set I think in the whole of Patanjali is only two verbs in 100 198 sutras vedanta-sutra is even worse we have sutras like and then this and then what we're how so the vedanta-sutra is even worse him but but Patanjali is a few sutras you can understand it's not like the Gita you can read the Gita I mean you know it pretty much anyone even knowing nothing about Hinduism you can read the Gita and 70% of it perhaps you can get a good sense of what's going on not with the Sutra so there are even words in even within the sutras there's a word like vitarka that's used completely differently in two different chapters so therefore you're dependent on the commentaries it cannot read a sutra by itself you would never to this day if you see a translation of the yoga sutra with no commentary pay attention you'll see there's a bunch of words injected into it that are not in the original if you translate a Sutra literally there's no way you could construe meaning for mostly for most of them you have to read them with the commentary and traditionally they were always read and so there's some time shortly after Patanjali someone the tradition says is called sage Vyasa writes the Barcia first commentary now of course vyasa's famous is probably very unlikely it's the same yeah we don't have to worry about that and so where Patanjali has six words VRS will write 12 lines and he'll tell us what the Sutra means you would never in traditional India study to this day study the sutras without the Vyasa and then after that over the centuries you have other commentaries that build on biast nobody messes with Yas nobody disagrees with the ass vyas becomes canonical he becomes almost a beacon extension as a matter of fact there's even the position that that Patanjali is vyas writing his own commentary I'm not sure I'm convinced by that but the point is there that they're so closely connected you could never you can't separate the two you can't read the sutras without eos and vyasa's is commentaries and canonical and after VR stained other sutra writers write their comment terrorism what's what's the right word I know about refreshing but what's you know one thing about the yoga Sutra commentarial tradition is that the commentaries all sort of agree with each other there's no major disagreements at least on the basic metaphysics there's proof sure this property yoga is just a witty nirodh aha' still in the mind there's no basic disagreements little later commentaries will add stuff maybe Vedanta sighs it a little bit but not to the point of changing the metaphysics so therefore you can talk about a tradition a tradition a yoga tradition you can't do that with Vedanta you can't talk about up in fact people use the vedanta much too loosely and they tend to use it just for a greater Vedanta but in Vedanta you have multiple traditions and they are they disagree on the most fundamental of issues not just trivial little things the fundamental what is more fundamental and that is the world real is it false is God personal is gard impersonal is the Atman one with broth mana or is it is it individualized eternally there are no more fundamental questions imaginable philosophically and we're done to disagree disagree on those issues so you cannot we cannot talk about a Vedanta tradition if we if we have any knowledge of Atlanta we have to talk about add weights of Vedanta or we should add weight to Vedanta and so forth you know bata bata but we don't have that if you want to call it a problem we don't have that challenge as a nice word we don't have that challenge with yoga because the commentaries build on previous commentaries so we can talk about a yoga tradition that is handed down seems to disappear at a certain point it's no longer a really living tradition it's it's fossilized as a text when the British go to India they cannot find any living yoga teachers yoga sutra teachers the plenty of Nia Ania cos there's plenty of edom teens obviously they can find Vedic schools they can they can maybe think of one or two sungkyu people still around but no living to in living tradition I mean there's Brahmins who know that we can read the text with you but they're not part of a living tradition which is Sanskrit is who can tell you what it means so when the British came it was no longer a living tradition had its heyday probably around the 15th century then it seems to have for whatever reasons morphed into Vedanta or whatever Parana the Puranas really take over yoga and and the issue for a planet on an element becomes highly developed in the Puranas and even dine under sutter's what the great Arya Samaj founder he couldn't find a teacher so it wasn't just a British it wasn't just the people didn't want to teach the British Miletus not going to teach them Atlantis but even Dian under couldn't find a teacher so so and then due to the quirks of Hindu nationalism and Hindu resurgence and as a fabulous book on this by Marc singleton and various others and so you know now Yoga is so widespread it's attracted a lot of academic attention then it gets plucked out of obscurity almost by Krishnamacharya and to some extent in the great Shiva Nanda Arushi cash and of course by Vivekananda and was by Vivekananda who writes Raja yoga and because you know because well in Krishnamacharya for whatever reasons in krishnamacharya is case of course in massive focus and asana on posture and so that needs some kind of a justification you can't just invent stuff if you're a traditional brahmin you can't just make stuff up you have to have a you have to connect it with the old traditions if to find something in the Vedas or you punish at the Schmidty or the Sutra although the Shruti or the Smitty you have to find something so for whatever reason the Yoga Sutras then because it has three verses on our sauna gets plucked out of a period of decline and and then as arsenic comes to the west the practice postural yoga comes to the west along comes the Yoga Sutras as the canonical text so now in the West the two canonical texts for I'm not talking about Hindu diaspora talking about non-hindus Westerners who are whether they know it or not they're practicing their sort of adopting forms of what we would I suppose we call Hinduism the two texts that have become canonical for the yoga community is the Yoga Sutras people are reading if you do a teacher training course now you do 200 hours or whatever it is you have to do 20 hours of sutra study so it's now become there's more people I always joke there's more people reading the Yoga Sutras and the Western in India people don't read the Yoga Sutras in who leaves who reads our Yoga Sutras in India nobody you have to go you maybe go to Varanasi you find some pundit in Sanskrit Department it'll read it with you but it you know so so due to the quirks of time and Karma who knows what else here we are in the West and the yoga Sutra now you go to many any Barnes and Nobles any bookstore and you'll find multiple copies of the yoga sutras now become a canonical text of world spiritual for whatever reasons we don't need to worry about that because it's a fun it's a fabulous text and and then and also the Gita the kita of course with its emphasis on and Dharma or and action was more of more interesting Hindu nationalists and the great figure heads of Gandhiji and Tillich and so forth and Swamiji as well so the Gita then gets also becomes appropriated it also is a it also was actually not quite it what not like the Yoga Sutras which became obscured but even the Gita was a Scholastic text it was studied by living under tradition it was plucked able to at some point it's taken out the Mahabharata who knows when but certainly by Shankar's time it's been taken out of the Mahabharata and it's one of the pressure on a Trier of Vedanta we done to Sutra poly shots and Nikita are now become canonical for Vedanta but Vedanta is an elite activity in pre-modern times you have to be a male brahmana to study Vedanta so so even the Gita was kind of an elite text until it became popularized and so forth in in in the sort of national in the 19th century and 20th century and then exported to the West and then so these texts have their histories and of course scholars are interested in that but as practitioners we're less interested in how things came to be where they are because religion and spirituality is never static so it's flowing so it's cross fertilizing there's no pristine Vedic anything you read the Rig Veda it's got nothing to do with modern-day Hinduism Rig Veda at hymns to Indra and Agni so things are always religion is always flowing and adjusting and according to time and place so here we are in the West in New York City 21st century and our two canonical texts that that I are most visible in terms of what represents Hinduism in the West to Westerners the two texts that have come to define it's not the Bhagavata Purana it's not the Vishnu Purana or the ship the arguments of the Tantra cos of course there's communities right Mactan under brought Siddha yoga I mean as expressions of it but that's not not on a popular level and a popular level the texts that have come to represent Hinduism in to Westerners to non-hindus the is our the bhagavad-gita and the Yoga Sutras if you want to be a sort of educated citizen of the world then you have at least have had read the Gita at least and if your practice practitioner of of yoga which of course this thing called would people call yoga and you know you with any degree of sophistication you at least you'll have a copy of the Yoga Sutras on your bookshelf but it's there it's there so these are the two tanks and so I've been invited to to speak to you on the Yoga Sutras but time is up well this is all chitta vritti I gave you all my chitta vritti we didn't get to the so loop of a sternum so Patanjali then kicks off utter yoga a new sha sanam that he's going to a new Shasta and continue the teachings he's not claiming to invent anything a new means to continue doing something so at a yoke utter now okay and then then you have these whole discussions what is now mean right what does it mean just like a total brahma jijnasa what is up now mean the city now we have the human form now we can practice yoga and because we have now this capability of seeking spirituality which animals don't have so it is utter mean now in that sort of way that we're now we shouldn't waste a human form of life with just behaving like animals in the sense of just seeking sensual indulgences and shelter and food and progeny where animals do that so this utter mean now we're the humans we have that we're different in that in only in that way otherwise how are we different humans can seek truth they can seek higher truth otherwise we pada Pashu the text say would you like it animals then if you don't we don't seek truth attitude science or philosophy or theology in some sort of way so this utter mean that or to such a mean as and and here you the commentators and the commentators can say anything they want provided it doesn't interfere with the Siddhanta of that school so you can interpret words and add meaning and contribute meanings provided to what your contribution does not conflict with the the Siddhanta it's called in sanskrit which means the philosophical conditions of that school it's in Advaita Vedanta there's a Siddhanta right the world is false ultimately Atman and Brockman of one and provided you so but you can add any any sort of exegesis or any kind of explanation you want as long as it stays within the the the metaphysical parameters of the your lineage so so Arthur can also mean ok now we finish studying now what they see whether you polish it ok so you know there's an Optima now what you're not enlightened just because you knew it so then maybe now mean well now are you ready for practice are you ready to do something about realizing that Atman so utter one word you know can take you if you study with a traditional pundit in India you know you better leave your watch behind at home don't be looking at your watch in sync but but but Swamiji we've been an hour it's just one word so utter can also mean you know have you finished with the books now you've got all the gana you need you want to keep a on of reaching you want to keep booty bitching don't just keep reading more and more and more and more and more and then what we're gonna die then what then what are you gonna do them auntie Kali at the moment of death just keep thinking about what and you're dying what's the point of that so Arthur can also mean now you now you've done all of that put your money on a horse whatever your horse is gonna be whatever makes more sense to your son's gaara's you think that weight of it on to makes more sense of issues deadweight who's making that decision it's not the Atman it's the some scholars in your mind that who knows come from past life practices come from whatever grace Ishwara divert you can frame in anywhere you want but certain something your son Sora's are going to resonate with okay it way to Vedanta or somebody else is gonna say no hang on Maya we can admire it and they're going to resonate with registered waiter so whatever it is put your money on a horse and okay utter now you've done that yoga - awesome now maybe are you ready to engage in yoga so for Patanjali that yoga and and and yoga is defined very differently in the Gita by the way very differently Patanjali definition is yogas chitta vritti nirodh aha' the yoga is the nirodh aha' the stilling which means can and everything to complete an utter stilling of all chitta vritti all of all chitter the mind writ is all expressions of thought all permutations of thought completely stilled normal study not born at that point when you're doing the meditation all of that you should that that's your groundwork you should have done that like your arson I should have done that you do your arsenal you do it so now you're ready you sit you're sitting right you've done your guiana done your study now okay you have you whatever your student is and now you're gonna fix your mind and that's what yoga is Yoga it's chitta vritti nirodh aha' it's stealing it's a radical proposition completely nutley stealing the mind tada then what happens to dark Kimbo Bertie tada then what happens rush to Swarup a of astana then literally there is the situatedness of the seer of consciousness sois Rupa in its word rupee in its own nature verse number four pretty sorry come interact otherwise pretty sorry of is absorbed in the mind so yoga then so right there you have the whole metaphysics of yoga first of all it's dualistic there is consciousness and there's everything else this property is the mind which is property okay and consciousness then has two options either it can be so loop of us I'm situated in its own nature or it is absorbed in other the world but through the mind Britta's are Verity sarupya it's absorbed in the mind and then through the mind and through the senses it's absorbed externally and Patanjali yoga Sutra then and then Patanjali Yoga for Patanjali then is to but to attain a state whereby consciousness can be absorbed in its own nature rather than absorbed in anything else now why a yogi would want to have that experience is discussed in in chapter 2 because when consciousness is externalized and and flows through the body mind and attempts to seek happiness in the world of sense objects through the desires of the imprints of the mind it suffers so ultimately the ultimate goal of yoga is to transcend suffering the key to even defines that is Geeta has three different definitions of yoga and one is just to transcend suffering ayah same thing I a suit that I other school to transcend suffering so ultimately the whole point of it is why we should we want to practice yoga because it's the only way of sort of of not of stop of stopping suffering and a deep level not on a surface level all the service level ways indulging the mind and senses they're temporary the fleeting and they don't fulfill in a deep level sort of way so therefore so therefore Yoga is you know people say well you know how's that relevant to the real world it's yoga would see itself as being the profoundly relevant and the only thing that's truly permanently relevant insofar as it takes people to a state of deep level state of consciousness swarupa which of course Vedanta is going to say is such a down on design on this blissful that that's ultimately happiness and everything else is illusory and you know if we had more time of course we could discuss that so therefore your what is yoga so what is Yoga Yoga is chitta vritti nirodha her it's of the minds tada what happens then what happens if you still the mind is at the end is that like existential death or something no tada rush to swarupa vast annum then the seer abides in its own nature so therefore the nature the real nature of the sea is not the mind it's different from the mind now whether the mind is real or false that that's a discussion for Vedanta so and but what does it matter because experientially it's the same if you attain whether the world is real or false and whether the Atman is an individual or one with Brockman is a Scholastic issue because when you're in that state it's an infinite eternal State and you're not aware of anything else so what does it matter whether there is something else or there isn't number one and whether you're an individual and other individuals may be having the same experience or whether there's no other individuals it's just sort of a madam Kalu Brockman what does it matter in that state it's an infinite eternal State so therefore it's really a the issue becomes important for the the theists for the theists the big debates between the Vedanta you know the vitamins I don't care okay why should others would say okay you want to whether you're you know want to merge into Brock Mont do it world is false fine I such does that mean it's false town but don't try to tell the version of us that issuers also Miya Miya be made of maya that's what they're gonna fight you with that's where the line in the sand is drawn the rest isn't important but if you try to if you try to say then well if the world is false the Kreayshawn is false so they create or is also false then you're going to be then you need to get ready roll up your sleeves for a 2000 year debate which will never end so that's the line in the sand is fine if I should novice don't deny that you can have an infinite eternal experience where you're not aware of anything else so whether that there is anything else so there isn't is irrelevant whether there's anybody other individuals experiencing that or not is irrelevant that's all fine but when you then say well but then each fur is also Maya then then this fireworks so then you read Roman who just the first verse of the vedanta-sutra 200 pages he gets it all off his chest right but one one one ram anujan the twelve say no the he calls he calls chancroid via the Maha Maha pull departure the great the great opposing point of view anyway so Patanjali is not dealing with any of that he assumes that we've spent a few lifetimes doing that and finally are exhausted with all forms of Ricci because if even intellectual abilities at some point now exasperating you know you reach Ankara in its brilliant and you eat ramen a tune it's brilliant and at some point you just like okay and then Madhava comes along and he saw all the other thing another brilliant brilliant intellectual radical so at some point that gets exhausting - so then returns it says okay if you really want to have it do you want to just think about these things Ricci away you know of course you have to do that in the second chapter tons is going to say Cydia studies is a fundamental part of yoga but at some point one either puts the the whatever you know whatever sit down to one subscribing to we're not one when at some point one has to practice and so Patanjali then has given us the mode of practice which is vent tailored and tinkered in all different traditions so the basic you know eight limb path of yoga the process of Dharan Tatiana you know in bhakti it's there of course you fix the mind on on japa I mean patterns he talks about chopper he fixed the mind on mantra that's the most common form of meditation in which has been and still is so you know the shy the Kundalini you know traditions will tweak it with Kundalini physiology and you know so everyone's got a tweak it this way in that way but the basic practice and early Buddhism to was Deanna mindfulness is a different stream of buddhism and jainism absolutely so if so if we're looking for some kind of common denominator tying together we have to be careful about this when I want to centralize we get in trouble with the academics but if we're looking for some kind of a fairly common denominator amongst the spiritual deep spiritual traditions not the cultural traditions not just not the poojas and and but the deep level practitioner traditions probably the closest you're going to find is Gianna some form of sitting and fixing the mind and typically on a mantra so in fact there's somebody I'm hoping ought to be doing a PhD dissertation on that challenging the notion that there's no unity whatsoever to Hinduism and showing well actually there are you know there's at least this one thing that's that's pretty much at the courts idealized not everyone's doing it obviously maybe only not point not one percent but nonetheless it's idealized as this sort of grand finale of many most of the different traditions that go under the rubric of Hinduism oh are we going what much too long we've written away here is it time to narrow to her it's time to chit vide nirodha 50 minutes so so that's it so the first full verse is there and that's basically the whole of yoga the rest is just embellishment on that so three verses yogas chitta vritti nirodh aha' that Yoga is the stilling of the mind tada rush to Swarup a vast annum then the seer but see another in eyeball sense but in consciousness then consciousness svarupa in its own nature so loop Avastin i'm and this distinguishes then yoga from Buddhism tada - to Zerubbabel sternum and if it's not doing that if consciousness is not so loopy of a sternum it's not situated in its own nature what's consciousness doing Ricci sorrow p.m. absorbed in the mind so the rest of everything else is just and then unpacking that the rest of the first chapter is talks about the different stages of chitta vritti nirodh aha' called samadhi and then chapter 2 is Kriya or what do you do about how do you do it how do you actually get read prepare your mind so that it can actually be in a role to hurt if to make it sattvic if it's rajasic and tamasic well you may understand what it's supposed to be but you admit you sit down your mind is not to check email so right now me I'm wrong so and then the third chapter is this mystic power again in my opinion the commentators don't say very much about this but I always used to think the third chapter when I wrote the book I thought it was well Patanjali is put in these mystic powers because maybe these things happen inadvertently when you're in deep states all of a sudden you start whatever levitating or something and of course you have it's the gospel of ramakrishna if you want to read something about the expression of mystic powers in a modern modern meaning you know modern not living but modern saint of paramahamsa you around the Krishna his gospel is full of accounts of mystic of some of these cities so I used to think well potentially has this whole chair and then he dismisses them he says they're only of interest with people whose minds are out going Donna not to those who whose minds are in going trying to realize think so I put it in that and why you know it's like a quarter of the text and I used to think it was just because he's warning us well it's weird things start happening don't be alarmed but now I think differently it's too late put it in the book but now I think it's because there were many characters in ancient India that were doing these kinds of practice intense meted concentrative practices and they were not even and they were asuras in the great tradition as a matter of fact when the British went to India the word yogi they called it jokey jokey the British say was a dirty word villagers were scared you don't want the Jogi come into your village he might you do my curse you so Joe keys are not you know I mean read the stories and the Puranas even the vashisht a great great Brahmans you know you don't want to upset them that curse you so there's this association of yoga which survived right into the colonial period with power and scary kind of power so perhaps that's now I think that may be the case why Patanjali has this whole chapter on the cities because he wants to make it clear that you you know you that's not what real Yogi's do they're not looking for power and they don't want to show some cheap some cheap exhibition of some trivial powers and then the fourth chapter is most is response to Buddhism because Buddhism is a polite response it's a very gentlemanly response so we're not that the Vedanta tradition can get a little bit more polemical but the yogurt response to Buddhism is very polite and its philosophical it's not it's not ad hominem so so that's the fourth chapter so there you have it I don't know if you've read the Yoga Sutras but I you know so it's a fabulous text it's it's a it and it will you know if you're interested in a in a meditative practice and never quite got around to it or you know you need a little a little bit of a at a little bit of a kick to your practice you know reading that the text really does I think if amazing insight into the nature of mind and consciousness and I suppose it's it's the go-to book for also Hindu psychology how the mind works in samskaras I found it profoundly profoundly affected my own practice when I studied it so do we have any questions I'm sorry if I rambled on yes okay so yes sir thank you for your nice presentation my name is Ranjit Mitra my question is that you beautiful x-men many aspects of Hindu philosophy but is it a is it a practice is it a philosophy is it a knowledge or intellect it is just control of mind and action or action but what does the other dimension calling that in a very in Indian traditions this mysticism what the grace of God comes in where do we get it in the passenger shuttle or is it something some things sure there's not you know the Yoga Sutras presupposes already presupposes knowledge it's not a knowledge text it's not a gana text it presupposes knowledge of Sankhya as a matter of fact it comes out of Sanka there was no difference between sunken yoga before the sutras when Vyasa writes his commentary says this is a commentary on Sanka so it presupposes you already have knowledge so it's a practice text it's dedicated to teaching us how to practice so he tells us Kayle right in the right in the beginning chitta vritti nirodha is what you do chitta vritti nirodh and then he discusses the different states but not in a sense of knowledge mora signposts to practice so the knowledge texts of the vedanta-sutra x' and Sankhya and the knowledge traditions and the ayah and by Shekar those are knowledge traditions by the time you get to yoga yoga is coming out of the knowledge traditions it's coming out of Sankhya it was also coming out of the Upanishads but the Patanjali is the goal of it is not present a metaphysics the goal is to present a practice how to practice in terms of issue is there in the Yoga Sutras but very understated so but when if you're going to fix the mind you have to fix it on something in the alum burner if you're going to nirodha her mind you know you need to fix something if to fix it on something the mind is no different has to be fixed on something and so Patanjali a list of things to fix it on but he starts off with issue and he has like five or six verses on issue so he's clearly presenting that as the best option and how do you fix the mind on each for a while dusty of our chica Pranava each becomes as Pronovias ohm well what do you know what do you do with that well touch upper tied jumper do chopper of the arm so the issue is there in the form of chopper and then later on in chapter you asked about grace later on in chapter 2 Patanjali says Samadhi Samadhi sit here each for a prana down at each fur can give you Samadhi same as Krishna says in the Gita several times he says like it's very easy it's easy I will give you I will give you I will give you so there is an itch for element there but it's very understated so if you're looking for a Patanjali and practice which is with a more richer each for a devotional element in many we have to go to the Puranas for yoga's the Karma Yoga the fact teacher goes at hand you get the Raja Yoga so I think potentially is more like more like what you call Hannah yoga or Raja yoga exactly like Karma Yoga he's not advising you to do reactive in he's advising to do in action yes in the Gita Krishna talks about two paths yes so he's very like a conflict it's just a different way Krishna says there were two paths and one got lost the past of action in chapter 4 and Krishna says and I'm coming back to establish the action path and you can Bach Dossey your you're my doctor so I'm teaching it to you but the other path is the in action path which is a Patanjali and type of path where you you know if it's true that you're the Atman move there and it's true that you're not the body mind then why waste time flapping about in the world we go to the forest why the forest because you want to go to a place where you won't be distracted alright in Christianity is the desert you go to the desert but in Hinduism you go to the forest and a nirodh aha' the world pratyahara would at the fifth level yoga prahara close out the world but that is but in Indian must have Indian philosophy religious strategies they don't deny the world they said there are different astronomers in a person's life like God has too so I do not know if it is there's the idea it's a different option it's a different option krishna is to saying about how to do yoga with the varnish rom and do your duty that's the teachings of bhagavad-gita Patanjali is giving a different set of options they're both valid we don't have to have either or not from my Rutgers students you know you guys getting up we've had your you had five years of questions you still got questions I failed I failed in my Dharma professor do you know these gentlemen so as practitioners are striving practitioners Dietetics is something that always comes up you know what is that diet like diet like what you wiii iose all right so like vegetarian non-vegetarian veganism is quite popular these days so what do what would the would the Yoga Sutras speak about this and actually Swami ji you have also mentioned that you know sometimes that because strictness and Dietetics also could become a hindrance and also you brought up a good point earlier that sometimes that can someone who can someone not be self-realized if they eat animals right like Swami probably you can had fish right so I'm not gonna respond to that last part but clearly the or him so tradition is vegetarian and that's that's in if you're asking about Patanjali and yoga tradition is clearly vegetarian so that's just a given so in other words why would you depart from the dietary aspect of it if you're really able to see the the Artman in all beings and you're able to see the suffering and all beings and you know the chains are particularly powerful here and in the end they're saying don't can't you see the animals suffer can't you see that just like you flee when your life is threatened they flee when their life is threatened very powerful so the reason for our hips are is compassion you know in our modern day the reason for a vegetarian diet tends to be selfish right the environment a health the economy right if we don't eat you know if we don't feed cows we could all that green good we could solve world hunger so they tend to be in a sense self selfish whereas the the arguments in ancient India were compassion based why would you call it if you're an enlightened being and you see the Atman as Krishna says in the Gita right Vidya Vinaya sump'n a Brahmin a Govi has teeny you see the Atman in all beings why on earth would you contribute to an activity that causes suffering so it's a given that it's certainly in the yogic tradition that him--so means vegetarianism now you'll find ways of wriggling out of that fine you'll find stories and the Puranas of chay you know fish they ate meat and you know you'll find if you're looking if that's some scara's and your desires and your raga you know I really need that you'll find some pramana you'll find some textual authority that will say oh well he did it so if that's what you're looking for you'll find it but let's be clear that the are hints a tradition is a vegetarian tradition and not just in in Hinduism but in Jainism and in early Buddhism I would say although then that that's another story so so then can one be a yogi and the other thing about meat apart from the compassion aspect from a selfish point of view it creates Thomas in the mind it's dead it's rotting if you read the Bhagavad Gita talks about sattvic food that's a good place to look so there are anything that's rotting is Thomas ending it's dead and rotting so therefore when you eat me - dead meat is dead I mean you buy in its in you know they pump it full of preservatives and color to make it not look dead but it's disgusting so if you eat it it's rotting flesh all you're supposed to call it something else it's rotting flesh so if you eat that apart from me let's see don't give a damn about the animal of compassion throw that out the window but meat has a Tama a tamasa sizing effect it will create Thomas in the mind so even from the point selfish point of view I want to be a practitioner I want to know from a Pathan Jolyon point of view I want in the road around my mind it's in a road or how the mind the mind has to be completely sattvic 100% cyclic and so therefore any anything that's tamasic is an is an obstacle is it classically is an obstacle to that goal so for that reason as well meet both from the point of view of compassion and that's a higher reason but from a firmer sort of also from the point of view of attaining the goal of chitta vritti nirodha of a Sharada you have to be full clarity you can't be have meat in your system because that will produce Thomas thank you tell me how you really feel right hi my name is Namita gupta I had a question about how Yoga Sutras of Patanjali relate to Christian mysticism there is a concept of dark night of the soul in Christian mysticism I was wondering do the Patanjali sutras talk about ego death and what would be your take is that any more unavoidable situation when someone is going into Samadhi or not I mean it's been a very long time since I read Dartmouth but as I remember it the idea there is that you go in the beginning of your practice you get results and you get in your enthusiastic but then you go through this period where it seems like a stagnating and especially also in the bhakti traditions and you feel like your initial enthusiasm and experiences all of a sudden start to get less and it feels like you're making no progress at all and so then you go through this dark night of the soul where you have doubts and then you have to go right back to the beginning and thinking okay why am I doing this and you know why did I start this whole thing so that's my understanding of what that the dark night of the soul is and then you have to go through that that period of where it doesn't seem if it seems like God is distance himself or herself and and and you're struggling and getting nowhere and we have to go through that period and then eventually then success comes but in terms of ego death of course the ego is a shemitah in Patanjali and that is one of the glaciers the obstacles so you have to go you have to go past any form of of ego which is yeah why double ours everyone has to go through that process everyone has to go through the ego the ego is what is consciousness is external ego means I am this body in mind alright so if we think with this body mind and consciousness is absorbed in the body mind and therefore thinking I am this I am this body I'm male and white and I'm happy I'm sad that means consciousness is externalized and pervading the coverings around it so if it's external eyes it's not solo favor sternum it's not absorbed in us of nature so therefore any type of Patanjali in practice and you can look for parallels in Christianity if you look in the gnostic traditions yes if you have to go past ego ego is a false covering yes thank you Gary because the Atman is the same in all beings thank you I'm very humbled to ask the question first of all I am a devotee of sri ramakrishna Haku and as as much as I learned from him that he didn't teach me to lean towards mysticism he told me that I learned that you float like a lotus and you will never drown then Patanjali helps is a valid point to control external mind to internalize to realize reality that reality to discover myself that Haku taught me and in that case if not that blindly I accept that Haku is Tucker told the truth how to know yourself what is reality and number two question follow that to me I learned from cocoon that cocoon taught me to go about mysticism don't use Patanjali as to acquire power to abuse power to gain power being a assure that I learned from him number two that it's me okay what's the second question second question in Dharma food that if I had meat my existence that I exist in that case food is secondary because I cannot eat anything you have to compassion trees when you cut the trees it seems that tree has life I should not eat anything in this world then how can I add me I exist sure you know the chains would say you minimize as much as possible violence so they Jaynes would not even eat any root vegetables and then Vaishnava would say that okay there's always violence there's always violence even if you cut of course when you take an apple you're not killing the tree and you're taking the Apple at the time when if you didn't take it it would fall anyway so a lot of vegetables there's no violence but there's some like the wheat that you're cutting so Vaishnav is with then you offer as you offer to Ishwara with devotion and then any little residue of karma that is even in the vegetarian diet by the offering with with bhakti bhakti then that gets removed and it goes back to the old me mumps you know the old Manu you know the minimum says where you have to you know the the householders they have the four kinds of anyway doesn't matter but that's one that's one thing that's one thing we can do is we offer the asthma shot only river I have to eat fish because I don't have a choice well not according to Patanjali wouldn't accept that no he would say jati Dasia carla samaya on of each in Naha there are no snare and there's no exceptions based on your jaw to your family they show your country geography where you're living collar the time and semi condition under which an aha Mahavira tom it's the great vowel so Patanjali would not accept that you should eat fish if there's water and fish then there's water there's vegetation if it's vegetation then plants are growing the plants are growing will stick some seeds in and eat vegetables thank you so much don't you still owe me a paper you owe me a paper young man not you so my question was that oh my name is Neil the question was is in in the practice of meditation is there a difference between mindfulness and the meditation of the Yoga Sutras yes and then just one more question the the witness that like that has talked about in Buddhist meditation is there a difference between the witness consciousness and then this year so Patanjali that would be yeah so in in in Buddhism they were two early Buddhism is Gianna you know chitta vritti nirodha practices and and there are differences of opinion among scholars as to where them how far back mindfulness goes because I've read some scholars it goes way back early days and others saying it's more recent it doesn't matter mindfulness you don't Nero to her mind you're not stealing the mind yo you're allowing it to do whatever it wants and you're just witnessing it and by witnessing it you see how foolish and fickle and silly it is and that in itself just the power of observation makes the foolishness evaporate a little bit you know so mindfulness is there's no attempt to still the mind now in terms of the witnessing consciousness I know you'd have to you know you know because of course Buddhism doesn't accept that there's an admin underpinning everything although they they to accept consciousness it's a consciousness is momentary interdependent but anyway that witness would be the Buddha in sunken not the art money I'm and it's not doing anything it's just conscious so to witness that actual witness of the mind is the body it's the higher mind and so you have in in you know the Upanishads you know the the the charioteer is the body and the mind is the reins but the Atman that is just a passenger is not doing anything so it's providing consciousness but not is there's no cerebral activity or processing all of that body so the higher awareness is body and and of course your any chitta vritti nirodha is body because who's near ordering the mind it's not the Atman who's nero during the mind it's pudding if you want to use a patanjali calls it the nirodha samskaara but what's the nirodha some scar it's booty so different traditions may use different phraseology but that's going on in the hats the higher mind so any type of yoga practice we have to it's not going on in the Atman it's going on in the mind the mind is eliminating itself actually in yoga the mind is realizing it that it is the cause of suffering that it is an impostor and through Yan or it can know that to gain or it realizes its own external nature so then it decides and and that it is the cause of suffering with its desires and illusion so essentially the mind is neuro during itself it sounds bizarre but that's what's happening right so when we say the seer is abiding in its own nature that's what we're saying yeah when the seer bison is no it's not aware of the mind the minute you're witnessing your mind you are externalized consciousness is external in svarupa vaster nam is no awareness of the mind it's for Rupa it's for its own Rupa of astana I'm situated in itself is no awareness of the mind you're not being mindful that's that's earlier stages but of course we can't skip those stages but ultimately that state of pure consciousness is just its content less there's no content so that's near guna it's near guna sarva via pakka it's infinite it's all pervading potentially and Vedanta will say it's Ananda otherwise who is gonna do it if you don't throw in an under if you just say such it where it is and it's conscious all right you know who's gonna sign off on that you know go to the forest for 50 years just for sat and I'll Beach son right here thank you very much so you have to throw in at someone under there otherwise who would seek it so yeah so consciousness and Atman the same thing yes in other words if we try to find the seer the best translation with Rashtra because that's the term that's used Rashtra and drish sure is but pure consciousness and it gets confusing because you often consciousness is used in Western philosophy to mean consciousness of something so it helps if you add pure consciousness and by pure we mean not mix with anything else not mixed with an object if there's an object and consciousness becomes conscious of the object is now mixing with the objects and that's aware of it so if you use the word pure it means it's not like pure milk it's not mixed with anything it's just pure milk so so it's so better to say pure consciousness to be very clear about how there's no word in in Western language because there's no there's no history of that notion and maybe in some mystical traditions but even then no player history of of that you know so there's no real vocabulary so then we have to sort of then we have to create terms like pure consciousness so then in that case you know and which is the by the which is near be just Samadhi are some pregnant a Samadhi Cavalia within the suit resist at svarupa vast unarmed these four phrases are all synonymous in the Yoga Sutras so in that case consciousness is not a byproduct of the brain no it's not an epiphenomenon of the brain in other words it is not a neuron Yoga would say you will never find the neurological correlate of consciousness and you and right now the neurological model of consciousness is dominant in is dominant and you study neurology no no but the neurological model of consciousness is dominant and there and that's the Holy Grail you have to find this sort of the neuron or the combination of neuron or the material brain conditions which you can demonstrate repeat event and repeat that this is the origin of consciousness Yoga will say keep going so we'll check back in fit we'll check back in we'll check back in 50 years if I could just say okay go on Swamiji and I make one other point no this is a very good way of a segue into what I wanted to ask right now the hard problem of consciousness is a big thing in not only the philosophy of mind but in AI in neuroscience show David Chalmers is right here in NYU whose proposed it the as you just in fact you initiated the discussion right now very beautifully saying that the dominant dogma is that somehow consciousness must be an epiphenomena a product of the biochemical processes in the brain and what David Chalmers and others have said is that the purely subjective nature of experience qualia that can in principle it cannot be explained by something objective like the brain no matter how complex you make it yeah at this point the question is the Sankhya yoga and advaita and maybe in some sense the yogacara madam Acharya idea of swap Prakash a chaitanya consciousness which is self affiliate do you think it can control do what would your reaction be to the whole problem at this stage and what can Sankhya yoga and advaitha contribute to the discussion on the heart well what the Indian the Sankar and Vedanta traditions can contribute is the proposal that Allah which is called substance dualism in Western philosophy substance dualism in which often associated with Descartes but but but later forms that consciousness is not in any way material yes and that therefore the course of you know philosophers religion can debate this but philosophers of religion know that you can't that there's problems with both arguments but but their problems I'm reading an article right now by a materialist philosophy religion who's saying I'm a materialist I don't accept it's a separate substance but I need to acknowledge in honesty that there's no good arguments being brought forth to disprove that whew so now so that's for the philosophers of religion now in terms of science I think nya has something to say here because Nia says okay identify it then if it's a material thing now I uses inference if it's a material thing well where is it produce it and therefore say that they didn't talk about neurons they talked about what their understanding of the self they say where is kinda in the leg is in the now and then by process of elimination when you realize that it cannot be found in any material substance then you make an inference that it must be something other so I think science can get to that point they can't start talking about Atman and Krishna with his flute in a peacock feather that's not science but they can get to the point maybe 10 years 15 20 years when when they fail to find the neurological correlate of consciousness that then they'll be forced to concede then it must be something other that's as far as you can go with science it must be something other at that point then the not the you know then the mystical traditions of India step in with their problem we've been saying this all along for two thousand years and here's what we have to say but science has to run its first David trauma rail it's got to fail to find those neurologic or neurological correlates and if it finds them you know we're in trouble my friends that's what I say we are open to the truth show us and you're convinced yes and I'm going to say goodbye to all religion and spirituality yes except maybe maybe a pragmatic use might remain over but I can't see on principle how the disappearance objective the qualia nature the first question is what philosophers religion will say right it's a quality that even by philosophy right quality colleges have to be grounded in substances there's no substances that can account for the quality the quality or the quality of consciousness so we just need to let that run its course and we'll keep chanting our mantras yes thank you very well this is our contribution absent at the end of the day then people then you know having gone through that well then maybe look at these spiritual traditions with fresh eyes but right now there's there's a materialistic dogma it's like a faith actually it's a faith it's effective it's not based on any evidence so there's an actual faith which some people call the new you know scientism scientism yeah right one more point related to this the distinction between consciousness and mind when you apply the draft and regime in a Sankhya in yoga and in adwaita yeah in fact in all just about every indian philosophy they make a very clear distinction between Atman and yes yeah this is not clear in modern consciousness studies they keep swinging back and show in consciousness aligned and it is another contribution because the better the country when people want a critique Descartes yes they say he cannot account for how because he says mind is is spiritual yeah so they say he cannot account for how a spiritual thing can influence a material thing but sunk here and yoga and everybody except the AIA Wow and now I would say it's a quality of the Atman yeah but the Vedanta Sankhya yoga would say mind is material so that that avoids that particular problem Descartes as that that is associated with substance dualism which tends to get connected to a Descartes because Sankey says no mind is material Masek and effect matter right so therefore that eliminates that particular problem not saying there's not other problems leading to a consciousness matter duality yes so then I mean so therefore consciousness is not doing anything it's not a it's not affecting anything it's just animating everything right it's a different proposal Sankhya yoga stopped at a substance dualism yes but Advaita yes I think the closest term I found to it investing in modern philosophy is a neutral monism that you have one substance they don't have to call it spiritual or material because it's underlies both the spiritual and so-called spiritual and material well wouldn't you just call it idealism that's what you try to call it but idealism the way idealism is understood in the general trend in idealism is that everything is reduced to the mind yeah but when you make a distinction based on - no correlate why do you look for correlate right why do we look for correlates why can't we just establish why do we have to frame Eastern tradition in Western categories they're not do they don't do that no they don't do they're not framing their Western categories and Indian terms right so let's let's hold our hold our turf and say you need if you want to talk to us you need to learn a few Sanskrit terms man no and because there is no correlate right I I agree entirely but because the term substance dualism is brought up I thought maybe a easier way to eat for them to use into this idea you know neutral monism I don't know neutral monism I just found it recently I mean it's I mean the problem with that is nobody nobody knows where that is I mean it's not even Western philosophers so you know no matter you're better off with the Sun Square you dry it right all right it's very important encouraging any other questions yes sir hi hi my name is Rodrigo and I was just recently reading that Veda Vyasa is a title there is not an actual person that have been many better Vyasa would you mind to elaborate on that I don't have anything to say it's possible certainly you know I mean the tradition says he was a person yeah and that he's an unction in the Bhagavata Purana says Veda Vyasa is an unction tirana he's a real person so tradition has said that but it's true like for example if you sit to give it a talk in some ashrams it's called a Vyasa son the arson or Avia's so it also it's true has the status of a title so you could you could take it that way if you wanted Veda Vyasa but but that doesn't mean that the tradition is not saying he wasn't a historical person no no I didn't mean that so I if I don't recall bad I think that where I was reading it it said that the cooler and better biasa was somebody that went by the name of Krishna and vapor Jana do I pay enough for a pioneer but that is Veda Vyasa that's better look Veda Vyasa is a function Veda is the Veda Vyasa means to Vyasa to separate Sofi also means to divide the divider so the the one who divided the Veda the Veda the one who V asks at the Veda is Veda Vyasa so that was his function but his name is Krishna / Anna so the tradition I mean you know if you accept this any historical value at all to the tradition he was a person now maybe later on the term gets used as a title I die I don't know okay I haven't seen it used I mean if it is it's not used a big word to see as a title no but it could be used I wouldn't deny that yes thank you hi my name is San Johnny T so my question is on the historicity of Bengali here we open go all the Indian gentleman Bengali no okay sorry no problem yeah so my question is the historicity of the traditions so can you mentioned that with the during the 18th century the colonial British beard and also the door an uncertainty they didn't find an authentic yoga teacher of the traditions yes I recently came across to this not a tradition which is very common in the eastern part of Bengal Assam Nepal and they claim that they are neither Advaitic nor theistic and they are the trooper scepters and preservers of the yoga tradition which is very popular in later karate influenced the Bajoran a Tibetan Buddhism as well so the Moche narada and gorakshanath so what's what's your point of that listen very living tradition till - sure there's a lot of great work coming out of so as in London there was a scholar there whose name is Jim Allison Allison Malay Melissa James malison he's got a a very nice grant and then he's accessing all of the nightly the Tantra the naphtha the hotter texts although I don't know how far back they go and I would at this point resist the idea that yoga comes out of the not a tradition certainly it's it's absorbed into the nods of tradition but yeah the Natas are not at weight in that they are at weight in but in a different sort of way there's different types of it waiter there at waiter in the sense of the art man becomes one with the supreme but the world is real for them it's not Maya it's not a super imposition its Chitti Shakti its pulsating spun - is it Shakti so therefore there are there monists of a different type so they so there are theologians like I'll be never good to rejected weight of it out or at least they counter at way to Vedanta so then after that they're not are they whether you want to call it Tantra car or hata these cluster of traditions very strong in as you say in Bengal and Assam and the Himalayas and effects Tibetan Buddhism those traditions the world is real is real so in that sense it's different from Advaita Vedanta yes but you said part of the yoga tradition right it will it's an expression of the yoga tradition I mean Yoga is more yogas chitta vritti nirodha so that can get absorbed into so many different ways in Vaishnavism where bhagavan is real not you know what there's a surprise Vikon today's Saguna brockman this condensed consciousness that has nama and rupa they also use a chitta vritti nirodha practice so the chitta vritti nirodha is a practice it can be used in Jainism it can be used in Buddhism it can be used in in not and not can be used in Vaishnavism it could be used in advaita vedanta although most advaita vedanta is more focused on guiana rather than any action that can bring it about his action is ultimately unreal so the fate of a donor but there's no reason why you couldn't use chitta vritti nirodh aha' practice in hardcore equator so it's a practice you could use it in Christianity with the Mataji up ie yes so I Adam my name is super annoyed how could the string theory it goes to explain consciousness this gentleman behind you you know I am afraid I'm not an expert I'm trying to come up I'm trying to read more about it next semester I'm teaching a course called science and religion yes yeah but I don't know what enough right now but my friend Raghava behind you he get him afterwards and giving me nope I'm a chai and then he'll tell you everything about spring a string theory but anyway there is somebody called a miracle ultimate Goswami who I believe is written a couple of books so he'd be in a much better position you know I think his books will probably deal with that amita kosai Sami my name is Babu Bangaru have two questions one is you alluded to this earlier what is the essence essential difference in the metaphysics of Buddhism and Hinduism what's the difference between Nirvana and the the tradition of moksha as it is talked about by Patanjali specifically because when we say Hinduism remember there's many different I understanding she is okay so moksha is different you know in it way to Vedanta at least in terms of other scholastics presented and again as many schools of Buddhism it's the same thing you have you know we've already centuries and centuries and centuries ago we had 18 different schools of Buddhism but one but one difference is that from the point of view look at verse number three Patanjali what happens when you chitta vritti nirodha tada then then what happens brush to slow rupee of a sternum the sea consciousness abides in its own nature autonomous independent self-contained it's essential it has its essence and it can remain in its own essence separated from everything else and that essence never changes such it's always in a continuous state Buddhism as of the Philosopher's doesn't accept a that consciousness can be so Rupa vast situated in its own nature consciousness is always interdependent with objects so the one that perhaps the most important word in Mahayana Nagarjuna majolica Buddhism is interdependence pratityasamutpada so therefore consciousness can never be swarupa vaster nam it always is interdependent number one number two it's not such it's not continuous eternally it's not being in an in an ever-changing way it is momentary Shaniqua it lasted Sharna and then followed by another moment another moment not a moment so therefore that's the metaphysics all difference now turns in nirvana Buddhists don't talk about some state beyond like you know broth man or vaikunta for the valleys for Nagarjuna he would say samsara is Nirvana nirvana is samsara it's just an enlightened way of being in the world of being part of the flow of your particular we call it a flow of your particularly persona that momentary interdependent flow remains in reality doesn't go anywhere but in an enlightened sort of way it's very hard to get a good response to what is Nirvana from from Buddhism because it's it's just a tricky thing but but those at least metaphysically those are two differences the consciousness is momentary for for all each Indian schools it's eternal not momentary number one and number two the other schools Jainism included it can be a big adjustment it can be absorbed in its own true nature which is in essence Buddhism there is no essence because if everything's momentary where's the essence essence is something that remains so there is no essence it's momentary and interdependent it doesn't exist on its own it's always existing and into like indras net if you think of a fishing net you know if you think of it the knot of a net then knot doesn't exist by itself it's actually a mixture of this string and this string and this string this string its interdependent its it doesn't have an essential nature of its own it's an interdependent its interdependent on four things feeding into its the good analogy indras net so that would be a difference but what would for the scholars for the Scholastic's but what would then be Nirvana that's an enlightened way of being in this interdependent momentary full of things you're not clinging on to the idea of an individual the very thing that Patanjali is proposing that you seek this autonomous individual Buddhist would say that's that very thing that the Yogi's seek is the cause of samsara so it's night and day the very thing that the Yogi's claim is the goal of life the Buddhist would say that clinging on to the idea that is an autonomous individual is that's the cause of samsara so that's why Patanjali has to spend a section of chapter 4 responding to that see the crux of the problem as we discussed today and as all along is the consciousness its consciousness I mean a consciousness in the Hindu god spirit yeah you know and of course some Hindu traditions would say there's also each row but but they have to debate that also with Jains and my monsters but yes but is consciousness a as a student of biology or as we all know it it's easy to understand evolution of life and therefore the illusion of life force by natural selection where does the consciousness fit in our oblem that modern Hindus have to figure that out ok this is one of the challenges of maternity that because there no Darwinism in the Puranas or the epics so this is a challenge as it has been for Christian theologians because the Christian theologian is the same thing you know that God made the forms how did the forms come to be before Darwin one of the arguments for God was how do you explain the existence of forms so Darwin not that one off plates legs well the Puranas say Rome are created the forms hmm Brahma with the long a and it's a problem because karma it's not that you start off with a single-cell organism and end up as a human if the karma theory requires you start as a human because the human makes karma ants and bugs and single-celled molecules don't make karma so a karma akarma but model Buddhist a Hindu and Jain the traditionally pre Darwin proposed that there has to be at some point a human birth now how do you get around it well you might there's all kinds of ways you could talk about other universes but you have to work at it you have to get on your thinking hat and think how are you going to sponsored and just like Christian theologians had to do so it essentially remains a subjective experience rather than there's no objective evidence of the postulate of all pervading all expanding consciousness right I mean at the end of the day but now we're changing so not bracketing Darwin at the end of the day pramana right how do we know something okay so we know it but Vedanta is gonna say okay we know it because the new punish let's talk about it but even Shankar will say that ultimately has to be experienced until you experience it you don't know it and that's where Patanjali makes his magnificent contribution that's what I'm sorry Patanjali makes his unique contribution because the Vedanta is about knowledge it's about Keanu it's about systematizing Upanishads about saying well really it's all about Brockman and this is you know the prana is really brought man and the Akash is so it's really knowledge the other Sutra tradition it's Patanjali says uh Turkey done all that that's not that's not gonna you won't know it that way Yoga no Shar sanam chitta vritti nirodha so then it's oh it's about experience and it makes it experiential which makes it in the sense scientific no scientific in a you know in a modern sense but it makes it it makes it something that based on experience that was not much at all so it so that's why it's powerful I think that's why it's very appealing also in the West the very word experience suppose this experience or yes so experience therefore the directional in the Drishti Shakti to use Patanjali language there's a trash truck there's the C R so that the power of seeing can either see Buddhist would say well Nagarjuna would say if you have a seer who's seeing well you have to have a scene you can't take out the scene it's meaningless to say the seer is seeing while seeing what it must be a scene so that's why I'll go Jun is gonna Monica's gonna say it's interdependent with this object Yogi's are gonna say well you know that may make logical sense if you frame it that way but the seer can see but but that seeing doesn't have to have an external object it can spawn Rupa it can be seeing its own nature so so that's experiential yes so the end of the day the Yogi's can say if you want proof of this if you want pramana then do it and that's kind of there's not much you can say to that is there we gonna answer that one thank you very much professor Bryant that was a wonderful talk and a very exciting Q&A session I'm particularly glad because this is actually the culminating talk in a series we started earlier this year the Swami Abaddon and the lectures in philosophy and religion we have had professor John SATA model from Union seminary the Union Theological Seminary coming and speaking here professor Janardan Granieri a professor Jack Stratton holly swami Chitina Angie gave a talk in the series and now we have professor Bryant my first introduction to him was through this book he's too modest to mention it and he speaks sort of self-deprecating Lee about it but this is a fantastic work I thoroughly recommend it you see what he has mentioned is the Yoga Sutras have commentaries we i remember bently the novices in bel-air but when we read the Patanjali yoga sutras we read it with biasa basha which he has mentioned but there are other commentaries also there is the commentary of Magana bhikshu there's the poverty which he also mentioned now the problem with these commentaries is they are little abstruse and other distant from us by a thousand years or more than that and when you translate them even even if you translate them into English it still remains very difficult to use for a practitioner what he has done is the beauty of this book is that he has used all those commentaries and then in very lucid presentation he has taken the important points which are very useful for clarifying concept and putting into practice so you have the benefit of the original Yoga Sutras a simple explanation of the Yoga Sutras and a commentarial tradition going back I don't know more than 2,000 years the benefit of all of that in a concentrated form so I cannot you know I cannot praise it too highly because this is really really wonderful it's a possibly the best book not possibly I'll drop the possibly it is the best book the best textbook on the Patanjali Yoga Sutras in the market the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and you just search with his name nowadays it's very easy Amazon Prime right here one day you have to wait two days at the most so very soon we'll have drones coming with this book and dropping it off at your doorstep Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Edwin F Bryant another reason why I'm very happy about today's talk and having professor Bryant here speaking about the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is Swami Vivekananda who founded the Vedanta Society of New York and all after all this is the first one of all the Vedanta societies it's older than balloon mutt itself his first work and maybe the best-known work is his own commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali this called Raja yoga so this book was published from the Vedanta Society of New York in fact he had more or less completed all his writing by 1895 it was the first book I remember someone like JD Salinger writing about it fifty years later he's writing that these two are classics these two little classics Raja yoga and karma yoga I think our American youth should carry them around in their pockets JD Salinger's writing that so Swamiji's work is a work of spiritual genius it's a standalone work this is a textbook which you can use to you know learn the entire tradition the other thing I wanted to say was professor Bryant is not just a professor he's a sadhaka he's a spiritual practitioner so I'm saying things which he will never say himself in public but he's a spiritual practitioner I know by that's that's important for this audience specially to know that and he is not a dry Gani he's not a introverted yogi actually it might surprise you - no he's actually a bhakta if you look at the list of his books half of his books are about Krishna literally if you counted half the books are about Krishna that's professor Brian the beautiful discussion here and so many questions which keep coming up in our classes here even the question about string theory at first it seems off-center but actually one of the most brilliant researchers right now ed Witten in Princeton and Institute of Advanced Studies I found a little clip on YouTube where ed Witten is asked about consciousness and he says that I think consciousness will always remain a mystery from a scientific point of view he says it will always remain a mystery we will certainly know learn more and more about the workings of the brain in the years ahead but why these workings should be associated with something like consciousness I don't think physics can explain he says that actually and the interviewer you'll see it's funny interview doesn't get it at all he the next question is so you wanted to him in a mystery he says no I what I say is that physics for physics it will remain a mystery and then he goes on to ask so do you think beauty produces consciousness he's completely off track the interviewer ed Witten gets the that gets the whole question about the first-person experience the subjective nature of consciousness the hard problem of consciousness and so on thank you very much for joining us thank you to Professor brand for making time you don't know how busy is we were trying to schedule this talk much earlier but it's easy to understand because all the yoga studios they want somebody like Professor Brian to come in and talk about the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali so the talk in Bahamas in the sea Shiva in the yoga ashram right so in many places and it's very difficult to get a date from him but we managed it and he is here with us today and we are very very thankful to him though he did get wet in the process coming from Penn Station I thought he would take the subway from Penn Station to here but he walked all the way from Penn Station you're an English man yes it's it's all matter yes thank you very much and do join us for Prashad downstairs thank you [Applause] [Music]