Yoga Sutras Week 5 *Bonus Blog* - Satsang, Sharanam and Sutras

 What actually is Satsang?

We fill ourselves up with some truths and we take that into the next day. Talking about meaningful shit. Talking about things that actually change something - that matter - that speak to the heart and soul of us.

That’s Satsang.
It gets us back into alignment with reality itself.

It gets us out of our heads and back into intelligence — a kind of innate wisdom we all carry. To gather in truth. And we know this truth isn’t alien to us. It’s not something we’re putting into ourselves from outside. It’s not something we have to learn. It’s something that’s already here — it just needs to be heard.

It needs to be tapped.
Reawakened.
Re-cognized.
Re-membered.

That’s what we’re doing here. Even when it’s tough to hear, it’s beautiful, because truth is endless. It’s bottomless. Like the sharanam meditation — it’s wise to look for the infinite and eternal, the temporal and limited. Look for something with depth. Look for the source. And again... that’s Satsang.

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Sharanam

because this will link in to the Sutra. 

Can you handle it?

This isn’t your life.

That’s the first thing.
This is not your life.

You’re imagining it’s your life. You’re pretending it’s your life. But who’s “you”? Have you ever actually looked for that “you”?

It’s so important.
This body isn’t your body.
This mind isn’t your mind.

All this trouble — that’s nice, right? It’s not your mind! It’s not your body. None of it is yours. You didn’t create any of it.

It’s all just flowing through. And you have some awareness of it. Amazingly. Isn’t that something?

But this “me”, my life, my possessions, my future, my meaning, my purpose...
Can you feel what all these “my’s” are doing to your experience?

What are they adding?
Pressure?
Strain?
Contraction?

Yeah — contraction.
Because it’s a tense affair to try and run your own life. Incredibly tense.

That’s why everyone is haemorrhaging with tension. Everywhere. Because they think it’s their life that they’re living.

Stress?
Anxiety?
Fear?

Yes — now we’re talking.
Because when it’s “yours”, you’ve got something to lose. So you have to protect it. You have to defend it.

And your “me” doesn’t stop with the body — it adds all kinds of identity. Likes, dislikes. All these layers get bound onto the “me”. But that “me” doesn’t really exist. It’s not an entity — it’s an activity.

You have to go look for it. It’s just an activity. An idea.
Constantly shifting and fluxing.

So what if you drop that?

What do you get when you release that weight?
Anxiety? Stress? Burden?
Are you going to lose something?

No. You’re going to gain something.
You let go of the wave and you get the ocean.
And does the wave complain?
No.

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This “me” is on a trip — in everyone.

And if we think it’s “my life, with my desires, and I want my life to go this way,” then you’re going to need to do something special. More special than all the other lives. That’s the game.

From my heart, I beg us all to drop it.

You're going to try to find purpose, meaning — things Life doesn’t actually require in order to live brilliantly through you.

Life doesn’t need any of that. You don’t need to believe it. You don’t need to control it.

This is the message of yoga.
Yoga means union.
Union with life.
Not your little sliver of life — the whole thing.

You can have your little piece. Or you can have all of it.
You can be a beggar or a king.

But there’s a price for the whole thing.
And that price is your idea of how to live.

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So what we’re really doing — this whole thing — is meditation.
Meditation is the art of forgetting the “me.”

Starting to observe the activity of this tiny “me” — so small, but causing immense trouble.
Behind what? From what?

Life is taking you forward.
Didn’t you know that?

Life is showing up and offering you movement.
But you’re not appreciating it because of some imagination — some idea of where you should be or how things should go.

You’re not appreciating it. But it’s amazing.
Today was amazing.

When we’re here, we laugh at ourselves again. Hopefully.

I try and keep Satsang as entertaining as possible. I laugh a lot — because it is funny.
It’s really great when we get to the humour, instead of the depression of satsang.

You know — “You’ve told me I don’t exist. I’m an illusion. I’m just making myself up.”
Yeah — and there’s a little bit of a hurt in that. A tinge of sorrow.

Because we’re creating immense suffering — for ourselves and everyone around us. 

Are you ready for another ‘bomb’? Your “me” has never created anything good for anyone. It won’t create anything good for you either.

If it’s coming from a self-contracted, individualistic place, it’s not doing any good.
Only when we release ourselves, does goodness naturally flow.

Splendour just radiates.
Love is a natural emanation of your inner state.

Everything else?
Just a game.

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Recapping the first Yoga Sutras quickly-

atha yogānuśāsanam

Now begins yoga.
This is yoga. What we are talking about is here is yoga.

 Falling back into the stillness of your being — away from your “me.”

yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ

 Getting space between your essential nature and the “me” story.
Falling back into what you really are. Your naked, raw, primal brilliance. 

tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe’asthānam

Ta-da! There you are.
Splendour. Magnificence. Shine, baby, shine.

Your lamp is already lit.
It was never not lit.
Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t exist.

Life wants to express its magnificence through you.

So get the fuck out of the way.
Pray every morning:

“Use me to love. Let me be an instrument. Let me shine some light today. Let me be kind. Let me stop thinking so much about myself and just serve.”

That’s reasonable, right?

You can take me to Ashford, Timbuktu, anywhere in the world — I’ll still be doing the same job.

Either I’ll be making a mess with my “me,” or I’ll be in service.
Take me wherever. It’s awesome.

I don’t care — let me serve.
That’s a brilliant attitude, no?

ṛtambharā tatra prajñā

Don’t worry about anything. Wisdom is innate in your being.
It’s implanted. It arises in every moment you need it.
You’ll never fall short of what you need.

Life provides for Life.
You don’t need to stress or plan so hard.

(Okay, don’t walk into your next meeting and say, “Steve said I don’t need notes…”)

Notes can be useful. But they’re not it.
If they’re the whole thing, you’re back in contraction.

Use the notes to prompt you, but act from a relaxed, super space. Life will take care of the meeting.

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Now we get to the Sutra.
We imagine the yogis asking: “Okay, how do I live like this moment to moment, at work, at home, everywhere?”

Patanjali gives something extraordinary.
It’s actually the twelfth Sutra, but it’s the fifth one for us.

If you want to live from the totality — not from your little eggcup called “me” — there are two requirements.
They balance each other like heads and tails of a coin:
Abhyāsa and Vairāgya.

Abhyāsa: Give yourself completely to what you're doing.

You don’t have to do everything. If your job doesn’t allow it, get a different job. But whatever you’re doing — commit. Engage.

When you pour yourself into something, the “me” cannot survive. Because “me” is a deal — always wanting something in return. But full engagement is selfless. 100%. And in that, you forget yourself.

So study the moments when you don’t.
The holding back.
The excuse.
The psychological story.

All that is resistance.
And it’s holding you back from totality — from God — from intelligence.

Study it. Feel it. Relax it. Then give yourself.

That’s Abhyāsa.

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Vairāgya is its twin.

It means letting go. Renunciation. Detachment.

Let go of the idea of where it’s going.
The result you think you’re supposed to get.

The “me” lives in resistance and demand.
Abhyāsa and Vairāgya — when practiced together — dissolve the “me.”

They are the sacred art of releasing the worry, the doubt, the storyline.
Put it down, so your life can fly.

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And on the other side of all that?

You’ve been given an ashram.
A chance to become someone who can truly carry the light in the world.
If not you… who?

That’s the highest aspiration I know of.
Why not put your life behind it?

And remember: this work can be done anywhere.
It’s not about race, education, or location.
It’s about choosing to be an instrument of the light.

But stay humble — ego can creep in.
This work humbles everyone, fast.

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We forget ourselves more often than we realize.
There are so many moments of merging with life — we just don’t always notice them.

So practice appreciation.
Feel your body.
Feel your breath.
Feel the sweetness of now.

Then you’ll realize — you’re totally fine without your ego.

Thank you.
For not being your “best self.”
For not being your “worst self.”
For just… not being yourself