The Yoga Sutras (Part 1) ~ The Big Idea: Learn Yoga Philosophy with Rachel

Transcript

[Music] so the yoga sutra what are they all about what is the chief idea what do they mean and what do you need to know out of the starting gate as a primer in this video we're going to talk a little bit about one of my favorite yoga texts which is called the yoga sutras and uh a patanjali and look at the key heart of this text and what you need to know so the yoga sutras of patanjali were composed we might say uh nearly 2000 years ago so one date we could throw out there is like 200 common era and the yoga sutra was part of a whole kind of slew of schools that were rising up so this was kind of the kind of like the text for the what we might call classical yoga school which was the school of meditation and at this time in history other schools were kind of also emerging and developing their philosophies it was very sophisticated but this is the one we're interested in because it has to do with yoga and the practical act of meditation as a pathway to self-understanding and self-realization so what's this text all about so when we hear about the yoga sutras often many of you will think of rightfully so something called the eight limbs now the eight limbs occurs kind of later in the book and really we don't want to start with the eight limbs that's kind of like another tool set he gives us really what we want to start with is right at the beginning and the first few sutras of the text so that's what we are going to take a look at today so the yoga sutures i should also mention is called of patanjali but we don't really know who that was was battanjali a real person was he a group of people was he just representative of this philosophical school who knows but it's the wisdom tradition of the time and even though we talk about texts and things being written what we also want to keep in mind is that at this time things were not written down most of the population wasn't literate wisdom was transmitted orally so that's why the yoga sutra sutra meaning thread are these little aphorisms these little tiny phrases that you can memorize right and but that thread pointed to a bigger idea you know um so over the years there's been many interpretations of the yoga sutras and what these little aphorisms mean so i mentioned that because we'll talk about text in a little bit but when you're um reading the yoga sutras it's good to know obviously i don't speak sanskrit maybe you do probably not just for us to be aware that there is a translation process going on so if you pick up your you know yoga sutra text and you're reading it um it's it's good actually to look at a couple different translations because then you get an idea of like oh how is this translator interpreting this what lens are they putting on this because sometimes you can really see there's a big filter there for example in the bks iengar text a lot of the yoga sutras is filtered through this idea of the physical practice right because that's of course his interest and that's how he's experiencing it so that's useful but it's good for us to remember that all of these if we're reading it in english friends it's an interpretation so it's a translation and also there's necessarily some interpretation going on so that said let's dive in so the first sutra atta yoga new shasinam um and guys i'm not a sanskrit scholar so my pronunciation may not be perfection but that's the general gist atta yoga nusasana now the exposition of yoga is being made now the exposition of yoga and this is kind of how these ticks would start it's like now we're talking about yoga now here it is in this moment this is and there's a kind of a an idea of hey this is the real deal because if you remember back there's all those different schools right with all their ideas of what like you know how do you find enlightenment or what's the path to truth well hey they're going the yoga people are going like now this we're talking about yoga you'll notice i'm flashing this text around a lot this is um just kind of my standard go-to i find that it's like super straightforward clear easy to understand without a lot of that kind of interpretive stuff that we might see beautiful as it may be in some of the other texts all right so there we go now we're going to talk about yoga is basically how it starts now and don't you love how that just really brings you into the present moment too the word now now we're going to talk about yoga we're going to explain what yoga is okay now at the beginning of this this you can almost think of this as a thesis paper right so the second sutra my marked up book the second sutra yogas chitta vritti nirodaha so that that's like the summation of this book and that means that yoga is the restraint of the fluctuations of the mind stuff let's break that down yoga is the restraint of the fluctuations of the mind stuff so this one and basically if we could just walk away from the text at this point and be like oh yoga is the restraint of the fluctuations of the mind stuff so my mind stuff the chitta right mm-hmm all of that the chit to the thoughts the emotions all that habitual i call them hamsters right all the little hamsters you know like running around in your head like on those little wheels right here like what happened yesterday with susan at the water cooler right like those are all the hamsters right so that's the mind stuff it's also those feelings that kind of habitually come up in us so he calls them you know the the chitta the consciousness the vritti the rolling of the mind stuff we'll call them hamsters okay friendly little hamsters mean little hamsters little hamsters running around all over the place so yoga is the restraint of all of those hamster noises now some of these texts will translate it as yoga is the cessation of all that stuff this is why i like this text yoga is the restraint of the modifications he calls them not fluctuations but you get the idea of the mind stuff i like restraint because honestly folks the mind is is its own little beast right it's like a little wild again animal kingdom in there with all these little creatures running around and we can't always just make them stop so i like this interpretation of restraint of the crazy hamsters so when we start to restrain those crazy-ass hamsters that's yoga right so it's a process and it's also the result it's the process of restraining the mind stuff and it's also hey the state of being that happens when those hamsters are quiet right so let's keep reading because the first couple of sutures here really lay it all out but again like if i could get it oh yoga is the restraint of the fluctuations of the mind stop oh great i would read no further got it patanjali thanks but i need to read further because i don't quite get it yeah okay so he says tada drastic number three then the seer abides in his own nature so he's saying yoga is the restraint of the fluctuations of the mind stuff then the seer the witness the seer that's your internal state not some you know like prophet on a mountain side but your own witness then your presence abides in its own nature in its true self right and then suture number four otherwise the self appears to assume the forms of the mental modifications so let's just break that down yoga is when we restrain the fluctuations of the mind stuff then you experience who you really are otherwise you think you're all your crazy hamsters right and don't we do this like we walk around during the day going like like think about some of the hamsters the common thought patterns that come up in your mind you know um like oh my gosh i should have done this i am a bad person oh my gosh i did this i'm a good person um you know oh i want this in the future oh i regret this in the past these are all those mental modifications or the emotions that come up you know that we might feel whether it's i feel anxious i tend to feel sad i feel depressed i feel excited i feel nervous all of these churnings are part of the hamster mind right and patanjali says when we're able to restrain those when those can get quiet then we experience our true nature because otherwise we think we're just all of those stories we think we're all of those narratives that we tell ourselves about ourselves and our world we mistake our true self with that and don't we do that all the time so just think about it for a sec like you know we have these things we say like i am a good worker i am a good mom i am a good dad i am patient i am loving i am kind i am impatient all of those patanjali would say all of that is just kind of like identifications with the wrong stuff so when you sit and you let the hamsters take a nap right they go right and we can feel like with clarity that stillness that beingness not distracted by all the vritti's the modifications the churning the hamsters and that's who we really are so we are in a case of mistaken identity all the time most of us where we're like attaching our sense of self and our identity to all of this nonsense rather than to that still place that exists behind all the fluctuations of the mind so take a moment come and sit for just a moment and this is why meditation as a practice in the yoga sutras i mean he gives us lots of tools for how to do this but this kind of explains why that's so important because when we can sit and still ourselves then we're like oh we're right there and you guys and this isn't like some elusive far off state like oh i have to reach this transcendental meditation state no no it's just like hey can you just let the mind stuff settle a little bit and then you'll be in yoga and that's it and it's actually it's not far away from us all right so come and sit take a nice tall seat you can sit in a chair you can sit on blankets whatever if it's hard to sit feel free to lay down we're just giving ourselves a couple of moments here of repose so go ahead and like roll your shoulders back or make whatever movements you need to do so that you can start to settle into the space of your body and then let your eyes close if that's comfortable for you just so we can begin to bring our awareness more inside begin to transition from thinking to being and become like an observer a witness to your thoughts so so step back so you can begin to watch sensations thoughts feelings kind of arise into your awareness but rather than following or chasing or attaching to those thoughts let yourself kind of settle back into the space of watching eckhart tolle says you know be like a little cat sitting outside of a little mouse hole waiting curious about what mouse is going to pop out where the mouse is the thought so wait and watch allow yourself to relax into the warm open space of your own presence take a deep breath in and let it go and let your eyes open and so how was that for you so some days our mind our hamsters are really freaking busy right they're like building a civilization or something like that and it's really hard to make that transition to settling into being and then other days it's kind of like oh my thoughts are naturally a little passive a little bit more subtle and it's easy to set into that state but that's it you guys that's yoga so yoga chitta verti na roda yoga is the restraint of those crazy modifications fluctuations of the mind the hamsters because when we restrain them or when we let them kind of be then we can connect to our our true nature and potentially say that that beingness that sense of the witness the experiencer behind the experience that's who you really are and all that other stuff is changeable right so our identities change we're a mom you know first we're not a mom and then we have a kid and we're a mom or same thing with being a parent or we have a job and we let go of a job or we identify with certain things those are all changeable and potentially says that changeable stuff that's not really where it's at your true self your the deep true whole self is actually the witness of those things right another way that we can think of this is uh you can think about a common way to describe this would be the sky and the clouds right or the ocean and the waves so if you imagine an ocean i imagine this beautiful kind of like lake actually let's say and imagine that there's tons of waves so the wind is kind of like all those vritti's those churning thoughts are hamsters right racing all over the place making a big mess and when the vritti's are really activated then you can't see into that lake right it's cloudy it's muddy it's all churned up but when the lake is calm right that's when we still the fluctuations of our mind then that lake becomes a reflection of the sky which is the big expansive self right so we as humans we're always in this dance of like crazy crazy crazy crazy hamster hamster hams and then going like oh no i'm a universal being of light and and wholeness and presence right so that's the dance that we play all right so those are just the first four yoga sutra and they kind of tell the whole story and then everything else in this book is is patanjali's way of helping us along the path right so he offers us more explanations right right after this he goes into hey let me tell you what the vritti's are and breaks them down and gives us tools for how to practice so the book is related to this first primary intent which is yoga of radina rodaha yoga is the mot the restraint of all the fluctuations of the mind so everything kind of points back to that key idea so if you take one thing away from our little chat today it's that yoga is the restraint of your hamsters right because when we do that we experience our true nature and we can start to discriminate between all the crazy stories we tell ourselves and our true selves which gives us more flexibility in our lives right but i don't have to be so attached to the stories that my mind churns up at a moment's notice i can start to be more centered and grounded and present in my life rather being carried away on all these narratives yoga can become part of the fabric of what i'm doing every day so before we close just a little bit of a note on translations this is not exhaustive this is just my pile of books um so this the yoga sutras of patanjali by sri swami sachitananda this was the one i got in my first teacher training i find him super practical and straightforward easy to understand so i i love this translation for the sutras swami prabhananda and christopher isherwood how to know god so this one is a nice little read it's been a while since i've read this one so there's a little so this one's pretty straightforward and i think very sweet um easy to understand as well um the yoga sutures are potentially by chip heart he kind of puts them together is a good one to check out a little bit more cerebral i think uh honorable mention edwin bryant for those of you academics out there edwin bryant has a very hefty tome uh which i just don't happen to have on my shelf uh which if you want to kind of go deep he's a little bit more complex so i would use that maybe as a second translation i think you should have more than one more than one translation because you want to kind of be able to look at it and say like how did this guy do it how did this guy do it um i mentioned dianger earlier he's got a version of the yoga sutras which is again it's more i found it to be a little bit more um you know filtered by the the physical asana practice but that's what i angered did that's what he's amazing for so that could be a useful one um the heart of yoga by desigchar he has uh translations in the back these are a little bit um they're a little bit translating in others there's a little bit of a filter to them but it's very beautiful and he was very esteemed um as a yogi and again it's and and what i love about this is like you know he has a he famously said like you know yoga the quality of your yoga practice is in your relationships i'm paraphrasing but rather than down dog and so lovely lovely teacher and this if you can find it this was a gift to me and it's a compilation of translations wow if you can find this it's wonderful because for each of the for each of the sutras you you get a different um interpretation and so this is like an all-in-one book which i love because you can see how different translators have approached the same text which when we're studying a different language by looking at a whole bunch of translations you can see like oh what's the consistent word that they use how is this person kind of bending this a little bit for their intention so i love this so this has tons of translations from viva kananda from sachitanda is in here fierstein york fierstein is in here a wonderful scholar and his translation is in here as well anyways there's tons of good there's good stuff in this book so if you can find this this one is also a great translation so there you have it a little primer on the yoga sutras of patanjali a really wonderful text certainly not the only yoga text and one thing we do want to keep in mind is that when patanjali was composing or compiling these sutras is that yoga was meditation so one thing to keep in mind is that a physical practice for yoga didn't emerge until like past the middle ages right hatha yoga which is far later development for much of its origin story yoga is about meditation and really about controlling or becoming familiar with our minds having being empowered over what's going on in our mind so we can connect to who we really are and the physical yoga practice and all of the you know breathing techniques and asana techniques that have come up for that we're so familiar with are really just tools for this intention right ultimately yoga is not a practice for your body the body is a tool is a vehicle in order to get to the state of beingness and self-realization that's yoga so this is a wonderful place to explore some of these origins of yoga and meditation and kind of the heart of yoga what's behind it so i encourage you to check it out all right you guys if this was helpful to you for more goodies and wonderful to share some space philosophically with you today [Music] you