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Eastern thought - an introduction in three parts [24]
I wrote these pieces last year to help my daughter appreciate this side of her background, when she started studying 'Theory of Knowledge' at school. I suggested she could make a presentation of this material to her class, but her teacher found it more religious than philosophical. I wonder if you feel so too.
But can we really see our lives through the system of the Yoga Sutras? They even point to the reasons that we have the experiences we do. It is a substantial jump from what we normally come across in our lives and one can be skeptical. We think our lives are unique, which they are, and we make them as we choose. But can something be determining our choices?
We must understand here, that it is not another person who would come to know more about us, but we ourselves, gain insights into our lives.
Patanjali begins explaining the practice of Yoga in Chapter 2 with
Yama and
Niyamas and then briefly about
Asana, Pranayama and
Pratyahara. To convey what our perceptions are, he explains that we take in the world around us in its three aspects, and to refine these perceptions the last three angas give the practice in Chapter 3.
Before introducing the practice of Yoga he explains the nature of those causes which bring us grief to begin with. We should understand and identify these in our lives, because all of Yoga is the process of slowly whittling away these causes, called
Kleshas.
In these sutras there is also something very significant and uniquely Indian, about Karma; the philosophical system of viewing how nature and humans interact. This concept is the foundation of Indian philosophy.
Our own mind is responsible for the world as we experience it. Not in the way, that, as somebody with a destructive mind does something destructive, and when people recognize his nature they limit his actions and punish him so he may recognize it as consequence of his attitude. This curbs his behavior and he may reason with himself that his actions were wrong and hopefully will become corrected. This is the way we deal with criminals and implies intervention is necessary else justice isn't carried out.
The Indian philosophical system says the mind begins in a state of darkness of knowledge, which breeds tendencies of passion, hate, a fear for ones existence, and an unquestioning attitude about our singularity, called Asmita. These are the five kleshas, and they do appear as primal and dark.
The purpose of all existence is the process, where it moves from this darkness into a reality, its opposite. The passage is not always straight, because Asmita more than others, leads us thinking of ourselves at cost to others.
To curb these, one approach is to make just the effort. This is what we are asked to do as children and may be upsetting now. Much better to be ourself and act out our true motives, atleast, we have a chance of learning from their results.
Karma is fascinating as it seems to go beyond our normal realm to our earlier lives, to explain things happening with us. Every action is driven by a motive, so kleshas lie at the root of all Karmas. People accept karma is necessary and for that reason they do their karmas. But if we try to see how our lives follow from our efforts exactly, we cannot do it with accuracy and have to take the system on belief.
tapas, svadhyaya and isvara-pranidhana are kriya-yoga.
for bringing about samadhi and minimizing the klesas. - reference below
Samadhi is a term denoting the state which is free of hassles. Kriya Yoga is the specific method to get there by getting rid of the kleshas, and tapa, svadhyaya and ishvar pranidhan are the three parts of this method.
These three which are also the last three Niyamas are mentioned here for those who aspire to reach fulfillment through Yoga and cannot be content with the regular pace of evolutionary progress.
It's natural that we wonder at the promised efficacy of these practices, for that's what they amount to, and wonder how they may change our lives.
There is a test of faith involved here, because we don't know how nature responds to our evolving mind-state. We are asked, and I am not sure how ready you may be to accept that, that what follows naturally and which people in general are most willing to accept, is the natural outcome of their actions. This is predictable with some uncertainty, as something may affect the outcome. We need to accept that the final outcome is the natural response to the experiencing person's mind-state. Patanjali explains that response of nature gets accumulated, and is projected as experience, bunching up with similar responses to actions the individual may have done earlier.
People turn to making wealth as a goal to this same hassle free existence, in the course of which, with a self-serving motive they only ensure more karmas, and to avail these, they need rebirth and experience.
Patanjali has instructed us the practice of kriya yoga, a method to reduce the effect of the kleshas, which like warps in our mental-states we are carrying through lifetimes. He says, the results of our past karmas are already in operation and our suffering is due to them. The fruits of our past actions take place as the opportunity presents itself to nature, like water flowing in the irrigation canals in fields. Whenever there is a breach, water can flow out. Nature behaves in that fashion. The pressure of our karmas lies waiting, our present experiences are already those which could become true for us, others lie in wait.
According to whether a person acted with an ulterior motive or a positive one, the karma is painful or pleasant. So even good intentioned motives bring a return of action.
He asks us, to step aside, go up a level, burn out the klesha inside you, the karma associated with it will never happen, like a seed which does not sprout when it has been burnt inside.
Reference:
YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI by Hariharananda.( Chapter II )
1.
Tapas, svadhyaya and
isvara-pranidhana are
kriya-yoga.
2. For bringing about samadhi and minimizing the klesas.
3.
Avidya, asmita, raga, dvesa and
abhinivesa are the five
klesas.
4. Avidya is the breeding ground for the others whether they be dormant, attenuated, interrupted or active.
5. Avidya consists in regarding a transient object as everlasting, an impure object as pure, misery as happiness and not-self as self.
6. Asmita is tantamount to the identification of purusa or pure consciousness with buddhi.
7. Attachment is that modification which follows rememberance of pleasure.
8. Aversion is that which results from misery.
9. As in the ignorant so in the learned the firmly established inborn fear of annihilation is the affliction called abhinivesa.
10. The subtle klesas are forsaken by the cessation of productivity of the mind.
11. Their means of subsistence or their gross states are avoidable by meditation.
12.
Karmasaya or latent impression of action based on afflictions, becomes active in this life or in a life to come.
13. As long as klesa remains at the root, karmasaya produces three consequences in the form of birth, span of life and experience.
14. Because of virtue and vice these produce pleasurable and painful experiences.
15. The discriminating persons apprehend all worldly objects as sorrowful because they cause suffering in consequence, in their afflictive experiences and in their latencies and also because of the contrary nature of the
Gunas.
16. Pain which is yet to come is to be discarded.
17. Uniting the seer or the subject with the seen or the object, the cause of which has to be avoided.
18. The object or knowable is by nature sentient, mutable and inert. It exists in the form of elements and the organs, and serves the purpose of experience and emancipation.
19. Diversified, undiversified, indicator only and that which is without any indication are the states of the gunas.
20. The seer is absolute knower. Although pure, modifications are witnessed by him as an onlooker.
21. To serve as the objective field to purusa is the essence or nature of the knowable.
22. Although ceasing to exist in relation to him whose purpose is fulfilled the knowable does not cease to exist on account of being of use to others.
23. Alliance is the means of realising the true nature of the object of the knower and of the owner, the knower.
24. Avidya, or nescience as its cause
25. The absence of alliance that arises from lack of it is the freedom and that is the state of liberation of the seer.
26. Clear and distinct discriminative knowledge is the means of liberation.
27. Seven kinds of ultimate insight come to him.
28. Through the practice of the different accessories to yoga when impurities are destroyed, there arises enlightenment culminating in discriminative enlightenment.
** we discussed 19, as the four levels, in the previous essay.
