Yoga Sutras Week 9 *Bonus Blog* - The Niyamas and the Process of Purification

 So the ninth sutra — Patanjali is introducing the niyamas, the inner disciplines.

Sometimes we fall short of our aspirations.
But that doesn’t mean you let yourself down, or you fail.
It just means… you’re aspiring.

Now imagine a life without aspiring.
Is that alright?
Without aspiring.

Aspiration is the thing.
Whether you make it or not — because you’re going to continue to lift your bar no matter what, aren’t you?
You’re going to continue to aspire beyond yourself.
Always.
Beyond your limitations.
Beyond your confinement.

Isn’t that the very impulse of Life itself?
Growing out of itself, continuously..

Do you think Life’s saying,
“Oh, I let myself down today.
I fell short of the mark.”
It has no interest.
It’s has already moved on.

We welcome each other, we invite each other into different ways of feeling.
The whole Sharanam meditation is a different way to live.
And each time we go into it, some part of us becomes more it.

Some part of us surrenders into it a little bit more — even if we don’t know we have.

A surrendered life starts to feel sweeter.
It starts to feel more inviting.
As we go.

It makes less and less sense to stand in front of the tidal wave and feel like we can beat it.
It feels like much more sense to start to free-flow with it.
Start to tap in and find out what it is in us that’s resisting the flow,
the movement,
the awakening —
and put that in the light of awareness.

And go,
“Alright. Shall I keep you?
Or shall I dissolve you — with all blessings — back into the Great Spirit?”

The whole process.

---

So, Patanjali gives the niyamas like this:

He says, this whole process of surrendering to the flow of existence,
surrendering the programme of the mind into the current from the soul,
is called Shaucha - purification.

You’re cleansed of yourself.
You’re cleansed of your “I,” your “me,” your ‘mine’.
We’re cleansed of our self-contraction as an individual,
and we’re pulled back into the Universal Flow.

The mirror of our mind gets cleaned.
Our judgments start to get erased.
Our resistances start to be shown up as vanity.

We’re called, more and more, into the Flow.

So this is the process of the purification of the psychophysiology,
so that it can be reintegrated with the soul —
and reintegrated with the Great Intelligence of Life.

So this very body, and this very mind,
become instruments again in service of the Light,
rather than a closed unit that’s resisting and trying to do its own thing —
which it cannot do.
It only imagines it can.

This is Shaucha.

Like standing in a fast-flowing river
that isn’t so fast it takes you off your feet,
but feels like it moves through your body.
Makes your cells tingle.

The purification process.

He said, here’s how it works:

Santosh - To rest content in the centre of your own heart.
Surrender to whatever it is.
Resting in the centre of your heart.
Easy with whatever it is.

Because — it is.
Whether you want it to be or not.

Check that one out.

It is as it is, is it not?

Is there anything you can do about it?

It just is… as it is.

Being able to rest in Reality gives you freedom
to operate outside of your own programme.

This is Santosh.

But you will be challenged.

In your capacity to stay in your heart,
to stay in what you know to be true in yourself,
to remain as Love.

And this challenge will create friction.

The programme of our own thinking,
our own insecurities,
our own fears that we’ve adopted —
not native, adopted.

They will create friction
with where we wish to sit in contentment.

And that friction creates heat.

That’s a positive heat.

That heat burns out the stuff
that’s precluding the Light from flowing. 

---

And that is called Tapas.

Life challenging your conviction —
that you are One,
that you are Love,
that you are the truth of it all.

That you can rest in your own being.
That you don’t need to move into worry.
That you don’t need to move into fear.

Whether it’s the sauna,
whether it’s the ice bath,
whether it’s at work,
whether it’s in relationship...

Friction.

That friction is the magic.
That’s the stuff.

So the yogi decides to rise
and open to the challenge.

Because the yogi wishes to be purified of anything but the Truth.

So we complain a lot, do we not?

About the rubs.
We wish for a rub-less life.
A frictionless life.

But that will require everything in you to be rubbed out.

The world won’t change a bit
it will carry on doing whatever it’s doing.

But what’s in you that’s rubbable?
What’s in you that creates friction?

This is the question the yogis asked.

They got over themselves.
They ceased to complain externally.

And they started to work internally.

They realised that was the only way
to bring Light into the world.

 They felt they had a divine duty
to clear away this stuff
so that only Light was left
to come into the world and bless it.

So what have we got?

• Shaucha – Purification
  
  

• Santosh – Remaining in equilibrium in your heart
  
  

• Tapas – The fire and the friction, the battle
  
  

then…

Swadhyaya – The great learning, the self-study, the great education

The education is from Life itself — direct — inside your own system.

You will learn, according to the yogis,
everything there is to know about Life,
within yourself,
in this process of awakening.

In this rub,
in this endeavour to stay centred in your own heart,
you will learn everything
there is to know about how Life operates.

Because it will all operate in you

It will all challenge the Light,
until you understand everything about the darkness.

We are servants of the Light but we are students of the darkness.

This inner study,
of watching your own programme at work,
and asking,

“Is this serving me?”

“Is this still working?”

Fine if it is — no problem.
But keep questioning the legitimacy of your programme,
and whether it matches up with your aspiration.

And if it’s not matching up with your aspiration —
what are you going to do?

Change the programme, no?

Loosen that programme up.
You re-write it, no?

Okay — that’s Swadhyaya.
Self-study.

You can also study the lives of those who have done exactly what your aspiration is.
Study the lives of the Masters.
Read the scriptures. All this stuff.

Look at the Yoga Sutras like we’ve been doing —
in order to inspire our own aspiration.

---

Ishvara Pranidhana

Patanjali saves the best till last.

He saves the ultimate ‘sweep clean’ of purification till last.

He said:

If you’re going to do this,
and you think you can do it within yourself —
as an ego —
you’ve got no hope.

If you think you can do this through your own willpower…

Go ahead and try —
until you find you cannot.

Because you will. Definitely. Find you cannot.

You cannot do it with the same mechanism that’s caused it.
You cannot heal with the same mechanism that’s wounding you.

You cannot do this through your intellect.
You cannot do it through your mind.

This is what he’s saying.

You will have to find out for yourself.

Will power can only take you so far.

And gradually, we’re discovering a whole new way.

The only way I can fully heal…
the only way I can become fully integrated…
is to surrender myself into something Bigger.

Something Greater.
Something other than my own individuality.

And it doesn’t matter how you do it or what you call it.

The thing is —
it has to allow ‘you’
to give way and relax,
in order to be reintegrated.

Whether you call it Billy, Bob, or God…

Whatever you call that which you’re surrendering into —
is quite irrelevant.

What matters is the surrender of oneself.

He’s saying —
that is key.

And if you understand that fully,
you don’t really need to worry about too much else.

Relinquishing our own desire-based existence
And coming into service of a Bigger Energy.

---

So those are the niyamas.

 I didn’t do this deliberately, but it is how it is…

 We took the yamas and the niyamas, essentially —
and we distilled them into four very functional, doable principles.

The Four Principles.

So you've been practising the yamas and niyamas
as would classically be asked,
since the beginning of your training.

All of these have been there.

So today is just a celebration.

“Oh yeah — this is just like an integrated part of the practice.
I hardly knew I was doing the yamas and niyamas!”

the purification is going to take care of itself.

Don't you worry about that.

Just open up to it.
Put your Santosh on your breath —
your willingness to keep an easy breath,
and to keep letting go of the need to get somewhere,
the need to compete,
the need to be something,
the need to have your agenda…

And just let Life take you.

That’s Santosh.

There will be burn in this.
You’ll get pulled out on the programme a little bit.

And then you’ll go,
“What am I doing?
I was in a space of blissful fluidity,
flowing with Life…
and I’ve just put myself in a prison.”

Programme.
Insulate.
Cellular.
Box.

Ah — I surrender back into the flow.

Tapas.

And you will learn everything that’s pulling you away from the Light.

You will know it.

Within your own asana practice —
This will be going on.

And there’s more and more this sense of —
“Ah, you know what? I give myself up.”

In this posture,
I give myself up.

In this breath,
I give myself up.

Ishvara Pranidhana.

Is it cool?

Go to work, yogis.
There’s no time to waste.

Tomorrow may not come.
Make a surrender now.

What do you think — you’re guaranteed tomorrow?

Ah — overcome this delusion.

You're guaranteed absolutely nothing.

But — you're likely to get the next moment.

Oh — we're still here!
Alright.

---

Tivra Samveganam Asanah

“What you want more than anything else, you will become”

“That which occupies your attention most, you will shape around”

You become the embodiment of your greatest aspiration.

What you desire the most — your whole being starts shaping around it.
What you're thinking about all the time — that's what you're becoming.

So — decide.

What do you wish to shape around?
Because that will be your life.

What you want — with your whole heart and your whole soul —
is already here.

By the time you are 100% in it,
It is 100% here.

In between that,
there’s a journey of conviction,
of becoming clear about what your life is about.

And that is a good and necessary process.

And gradually, for all beings it is moving toward that which can actually fulfil us.
The thing that satisfies us down to our soul.

We can either live in service of ourselves —
And we won’t be alone in that.

Many are walking that path.

Or...

You can choose, within yourself,
to live for something bigger.
Something greater.

That choice — it requires inquiry.

“Will I ever truly be satisfied living for myself?”

No matter how great I make this “self”—
have I yet found total fulfilment?

Have you?

You’ve been trying a long time.
I’ve been trying a long time.

 If I have this...
If I’m seen like this...
If I’m appreciated like this...
If I’m honoured like this...

Then maybe I’ll feel the great satisfaction I’m seeking.

But...

It can’t.
It’s just not designed to work that way —
We cannot be satisfied outside of ourselves,
on something that’s totally insecure and can be taken away.

---

So the yogis suggested:

“Seeking outwardly is not it.”
“Seek inwardly.”
“Come back to your original essence.”

And maybe — just maybe —
your highest purpose in this life,
the only thing that will ultimately satisfy you,
is to live for the Whole.

To be a sacrifice unto the world.

To be an agent and a conduit
of the great Light of Life.

Maybe...
you’ll only be satisfied in yourself
when you’ve forgotten yourself.

When you’ve forgotten every last shred of yourself —
forgotten to worry about yourself,
to care about yourself —
because you’re too engaged
in being in service
to something Greater.

To this greater energy,
which only requires us to relax away from ourselves
and say:

“I am here.
This is my desire.”

And if that desire becomes even 1% of your being —
then that 1% of light pours through your being.

Because Life can only give
what is available to receive.

So according to your receptivity,
Life will give.

When we get more and more clear —
we begin to realise:

“Oh… my life is for this.”

And when you start uttering this in your meditation…

“You know what?
My life is not about me anymore.
It is in service of the whole.”

Not because I want to be a saint or a martyr —
but because that’s the only thing that brings me true satisfaction.

It’s when I forget myself
in the Love of it all.

So please, please, please —
make me more of an instrument.

Keep clearing out my crap.
Just by pouring more Light in.

Because if I try to clear out all my own crap...
I’m going to be here forever 

And while I’m trying to do that —
I’m just creating more crap!

So I say:
Come in. Sweep me.
You are the great house cleaner.

You do this.
I can’t.

---

That wish...
That desire...
That growing aspiration...

It’s absolutely guaranteed.

All that’s needed is for us to get clear
about what we’re actually about.

That’s the crux of the spiritual path:
To get clear about what our existence is for.

And that doesn’t have to look any particular way at all.

But do you see —
when you ask that question to the Ahamkara —
the “I-maker,” the ego —
it comes up with all kinds of ideas about how it should look, doesn’t it?

“Hi! I’m the Light-giver!”
“Look at me!” 

It always wants to be something.

But it is the very block itself.

Instead…

Quiet.
Humble.
Innocent.
Unassuming.

Just simply resting back in the Self,
and letting the Light flow.

Not looking for an outcome.

“Did it work?
Were they all filled with Light?”

You don’t know anything.
You didn’t see the Light getting in there.
You have no idea what it just did.

---

The more whole hearted you are in your aspiration.

The more clear you become in your life purpose.

The more it will become your actuality.

It’s only in the uncertainty that we are fragmented.

You can still do absolutely anything in your life that you want to do.
It hardly matters.

But it becomes fun.

It becomes a dance,
a play of the Light.

What matters is —
what’s happening within that doing.

You see what I mean?

You’re a milkman —
spreading the Light.
Being milked! 

You’re a postman.
You’re a scientist.
You’re an accountant.
Whatever!

But what are you doing within that?

Because that role isn’t going to satisfy you.
Never.

It’s never going to fulfil your soul.

Even if it’s exactly what you’re meant to be doing —
it still won’t do it.

Everyones looking for their purpose

But which part of us is looking for that?
The problem itself is looking for that!

---

So relax.
Find the thing — the essence.
And then, do whatever you like.

It’ll move you exactly where you need to be,
in order to give the Light
for a specific thing.

You won’t even believe it.

You’ll be amazed.
We’ll all be amazed.

“Wow — I’m here.
Life put me here.”

You found yourself here.

So then the question becomes:

“What’s my job?”
“Oh yeah — I remember.”

Relax, rest in the heart, let the light flow.

---

So hold that in your heart, if you will.

And I just want to say a massive thank you,
and to let you know — again —
what a blessing it is to be with you.

And how inspired I am by your company

I love you a lot.

I love what you're doing.

And I love that this is happening. 

I don’t know by what grace it is happening but there is a lot of grace flowing.

It is amazing to be a part of. 

Thank you.