Yoga Sutras Week 9 - The Niyamas
We did the Yamas last week, did we not?
We looked into the Yamas.
So overall, yeah—
The Yamas are really a continuation,
they’re a little bit different,
they’re kind of inner observances that really lead to our liberation
from our own programming —
The feeling that they use to describe the whole process
is setting yourself free from yourself.
And again, falling back into the flow of life,
falling back into the heart.
Shaucha – Purification
So, this first word is Shaucha.
And Shaucha means purity or purification.
Of course, I don’t know what you’ve read about this —
I don’t know, “bathe regularly”?
That’s something, yeah?
Lovely.
It’s really nice.
But in any case — bathing is good.
But then there’s internal purification in there too.
Like your asana practice —
that could also be seen as internal purification.
You’re dealing with your inner body —
not just the surface,
but you massage your organs,
you rebalance,
you flush things through with your blood flowing,
you purify your brain.
You do all this stuff.
Asana’s awesome, right?
Just on that level, just on a basic level.
And there’s a lot more than that too, but we won’t go into that here.
You purify your energy body through your breathing.
Your energy gets stimulated and it moves again —
so it’s not stagnant.
Because when prana goes stagnant in the body,
it goes tamasic —
lethargic, dull.
It starts to fester.
It’s just not healthy.
You turn yourself upside down,
you do this kind of stuff,
you flush yourself through with your breathing.
So that’s all good.
But there’s a bit more to Shaucha.
Mental purification is really the name of the game.
So what do we mean by this?
Alright —
As long as we are reacting,
as long as we are in a state of reactivity
to our own living experience —
we are being controlled by it.
As long as we’re reacting to sensations in our body —
with either “Yes” or “I don’t want that,”
you see?
As long as we’re playing any kind of personal games
with the sensations in the body —
then the sensations are in control of us.
They determine our actions.
This idea of,
“Well, I’m making the decisions in my life”—
If you have a good look,
you’ll see you’re not making any decisions at all.
The sensations in your body
are largely determining
how you feel about yourself,
what kind of day you’re going to have.
The reason I ask you to go still
in the Shava Kriya at the end —
is to break this.
To break this reactivity to sensation.
Because we’re all like that, aren’t we?
“Oh, I’m feeling restless.
I’ll tell you what — I’ll put the kettle on.”
And we’re actually just being moved
from point to point in our life-map
by sensations in our body.
Thinking,
“I made the decision to go and put the kettle on.”
Or…
could you simply not sit still?
Learning to sit still —
learning to lie still —
can be very powerful.
Super powerful.
But that’s not all we’re reacting to.
We’re also reacting to emotional content,
and all this stuff.
But as long as this reactivity is there —
then it is controlling us.
So if we can train ourselves
to slip into less and less reactivity...
If we can learn to be with the sensations in the body —
coexistence —
let them swim.
If we can coexist and be with emotional movements —
which can be very powerful,
some very, very difficult to deal with...
Then this is the work.
Gradual training.
Patient training.
Loving training.
You’re tending to yourself.
Not trying to go too big, too soon —
but just:
“All right…
Can I be with it?
Can I relax?
Can I fall away from it?
Let me take a breath…
and fall away.”
This is Shaucha.
This is the beginning of a very deep process
of purification —
in this case, Shaucha —
but also liberation.
You start to get free.
No longer reacting
in a programmed, conditioned, pre-designed way —
but because you’ve got space.
You have time and space to respond.
To choose whether or not
you are moved by that thing moving through you—
or whether you can simply
allow it to move through you.
And as it moves through you,
it’s reintegrated into you.
You’re learning to turn tension in your body
into pure energy flow.
This energy is now available to you
in your deeper position of the soul.
From here, you begin to use the great power
that has always been here.
You see what I mean?
Hopefully, for the service of all beings.
Santosha – Equanimity of the Heart
So now he gives a basic guideline on how it’s done.
The next term he uses, the next Niyama, is Santosha.
Santosha means:
equilibrium,
equanimity,
equipoise,
evenness of mind,
ease,
contentment.
Are you getting a feel for it?
To essentially rest in the centre of your heart.
To be at peace in your Self.
So that all this stuff that goes on in you on a daily level —
can just go on.
But if it’s got nothing energising it,
nothing identifying with it,
nothing doing anything with it at all —
It runs out of battery life.
And then it surrenders itself
back into the bigger energy field of you.
And your soul can use it.
This is the power of equanimity.
But it’s not suppression.
It’s not denial.
It’s not escape.
It’s not thinking about something else.
It’s being with what is.
You can say all kinds of wonderful things,
like:
“This is temporary.”
Because your mind is absolutely convinced, is it not?
My mind gets very convinced
that whatever I’m experiencing —
is forever.
Do you get that?
“Oh god, that’s it now.
I think that’s it for the rest of my life.”
Which is… inaccurate, to say the least.
Is it not?
Have you ever had an experience
that actually lasted very long at all?
And it’s only lasted as long as it did
because you made it last —
by energising it unnecessarily.
Perhaps.
(Or necessarily. It’s not good or bad.)
“Let’s see.”
“Maybe.”
These great mantras of Santosha
essentially help us not to jump in
and become fully locked into some idea
or doomsday kind of scenario.
Tapas – The Fire of Transformation
In order to become completely convinced in your true nature,
We’re all going to have to get unconvinced
about all the things outside of ourselves.
Unconvinced of their permanence.
That’s what patanjali is saying.
This is why the Buddha emphasised Anitya.
You must realise that this this is all impermanent.
If you do that, you will fall back into that which is permanent.
So Santosh is one thing…
But then he said:
Tapas.
Tapas means fire.
It means heat.
It means life will naturally provide us
with challenges to our Santosh.
A person cuts you up on the road —
that’s Tapas.
That’s an opportunity.
It creates reactivity in the system.
Somebody’s just come in —
they’ve been very rude,
they’ve almost caused you to crash.
Now, it may be necessary to honk them.
Because they may not have realised
But —
Am I honking from Santosha?
Or am I honking from my reactivity?
Absolutely anything becomes available to us
in Santosha —
because Santosha is essentially love.
And you can honk with love.
But you’ve got to be honest
about where you’re honking from.
you have to ask yourself:
“Where did that stem from?
Did it stem from a contraction in me?”
We’re tested,
tested,
tested,
tested,
tested,
tested.
And we will be tested to infinity.
You will be tested to the very core
of your reactivity.
Now —
you can consider Life to be against you because of this…
Or —
you can take it and say:
This is Tapas.
Because if you manage to bring your Santosha
to that challenge —
to that heat,
that reactivity —
and you manage to soften around it…
You are undergoing Shaucha
Purification
Sometimes, when we feel strong enough —
we can actually go looking for Tapas.
The yogis went looking:
“Alright, how can I actually create reactivity in my system,
ahead of time,
so I can train myself
to relax into these extreme conditions?”
But I think with Tapas now,
for us,
is pretty much everywhere.
There’s no short supply.
So Life will tend to give you everything you need
to challenge you
to the depth of your non-reactivity in order to set you free.
So now, is Life against us or our well-wisher?
We just have to decide our relationship with it.
Because, you know —
we can spend a lifetime complaining about it...
Or we can use it as Tapas.
When do you feel that somebody is most empowered in themselves?
When they are complaining about their Life situation
Or when they decide to step up to meet it, even though it is difficult.
Would you rather keep them in their self-pity by pitying them?
Or would you love to be a force
that believes in their strength to overcome this reactivity,
and actually, you know —
do the alchemy and rise up?
So as much as we do this Santosha-Tapas in ourselves,
we become an encourager of others —
because we know
that on the other side
there’s greater freedom.
That life is actually better
on the other side of any difficulty and challenge.
You must be able to think of so many examples
where at the time you were cursing your situation
But you went through it —
(because eventually, you have to go through it anyway. Whether you’re doing this work or not.)
And on the other side of it —
you had grown.
You had deepened.
You were wiser.
And you probably wouldn’t, on the other side, say:
“You know what?
I wish I could not have gone through that.”
Swadhyaya – Self-Study & Inner Honesty
Alright.
So Shaucha: purification
Is Santosha: remaining in your heart and in your equilibrium.
Under Tapas: Pressure.
And then he said, Swadhyaya: While studying yourself.
You’re going to need to impersonalise things a little bit,
and become a witness to your inner activity.
You can actually learn about yourself —
and about Life —
by observing your own inner engagement
in your Tapas,
in your Santosha,
in this.
You will learn everything that you need to know.
And you will come into great compassion.
Because once you’ve been through something,
you don’t judge others
who are going through the same thing.
If you haven’t been through it yourself —
you’ll judge it.
But if you’ve been through the hardship of it,
if you know what that feels like,
to have gone through that —
and you’re honest about it —
you’ll always have compassion
for people going through their shit.
You won’t pity them —
because you know there’s something greater on the other side.
But the compassion is automatic.
It’s interesting, isn’t it?
The more you go through your own inner processes,
the more compassionate you become.
When you’ve been through some real shit in your life —
it will have endowed you with this:
And it’s a blessing, is it not?
Sometimes you know somebody’s going through something,
and you really haven’t been through that yourself.
Have you ever tried
just putting yourself in the feeling of it?
So that you can empathise,
and feel what they’re feeling?
Instead of judging them in that process?
“Oh, just get over it mate.”
Instead:
“All right —
Let me get myself in their boots.
Feel how that would feel.”
And as you get good
at doing the work inside yourself,
you’ll be able to do this really well.
Shaucha, Self-purification is
Santosha. Maintaining equilibrium.Non-reactivity.
Tapas. Under pressure.
Swadhyaya While observing yourself,
and not fooling yourself
that you’re non-reactive
when actually — you are.
And then —
his final gift.
In some ways, he could have given this alone.
But it’s good that he gave the precursors.
So now the fifth Niyama…
Ishvara Pranidhana – Surrender to the Greater Intelligence
Ishvara Pranidhana.
Patanjali is saying you will need
if you’re to do this
You will need to surrender
to something bigger than yourself.
This process can’t be done
just inside yourself.
Because your ego will always run it.
It will deceive you,
all of the time.
Because it will be self-centred,
Like,
“Okay, I really want to purify my mind…”
But if it’s for me that I’m doing this work —
it will limit it to me.
Which is an individual contraction.
So if we make it about something bigger than ourselves —
If we make our yoga, our practice, our life
about being in service of a higher power,
a greater intelligence...
And wishing for the well-being of all beings,
and the freedom of all beings...
Then this takes it out of our self-identity.
And this…
unlocks us..
So let’s recap
Shaucha, purification —
Happens through Santosha —
training oneself in equilibrium
under pressure — Tapas.
With self-awareness.
Self-watching. Swadhyaya
And all of this —
whilst offering it all up
to a bigger power. Ishvara Pranidhana
Recognising that it’s not you that’s getting wise.
Life is doing the whole shebang.
And you’re doing the allowing.
Closing Sutra: Tivrasamveganam
Tivrasamveganam Asanaha.
Tivrasamveganam means an intense desire
a whole souled wish.
What you want, you draw towards yourself
What you wish for from the core of your being is magnetically pulled towards you.
You pull it toward you with that wish.
The more you move into it,
The more it moves into you.
It’s reciprocal.
You make a step toward it
and you declare,
“This is what I want.”
It takes a step toward you.
The more unequivocal our wish from the heart becomes,
the more committed Life becomes to us.
Until Life is fully committed —
because we are fully committed.
And then…
there’s a union.
He’s saying —
when your desire for liberation,
your desire for freedom
from this slavery to the programme becomes intense —
you draw freedom to yourself.
This is a very powerful sutra —
because it gets to the hub of things.
Like, what it’s all going to boil down to is:
What do you want… more than anything else?
We talk about this in the context of Adhidharma, don’t we?
To be able to understand in oneself
what one’s highest purpose in life is.
What one’s highest duty is to oneself.
What will be ultimately fulfilling.
What’s the number one thing,
that if you take it out of the equation —
everything else goes.
Find out what that is,
and start to commit to it.
Above all else.
Not instead of all else —
because you can still do everything in your life as long as it doesn't conflict with the one thing.
So it could be truth.
“I wish beyond all else to live in accordance
with the truth I’ve discovered within myself.
I wish to live legitimate with myself.”
You know what I say?
That’s a very powerful…
If that becomes your number one,
every other aspect of your life
will just start to rotate around it.
And therefore,
everything in your life
will become impregnated with truth.
If your desire is to be the love that you are,
then love will become the centre
of your aspirational existence.
Everything else will rotate around it.
If your aspiration is to live as the love that you are
then you will draw love to yourself.
And you will unify with Life and love.
Truth. Love. Adhidharma.
Just different flavours.
What most human beings
never actually do,
is find the one thing
that if you take it out of your life,
your life becomes immediately diminished
in every single aspect of itself.
If you take love out of your life —
what’s your life going to be like?
If you take truth out of it —
like listening to your inner prompting of your heart —
How does life look?
If you want to be free, more than anything else —
Free means spacious and present enough
to meet everything without resistance or grasping —
so that you can be with everything,
and shine your light into it…
This will become your reality. For sure.
But only when it’s 100%.
You know, by degrees —
Degrees are fine.
But moving toward this —
knowing,
“This is actually what Life is like.”
If I decide today, unequivocally,
that my life is to live
in service to greater intelligence —
which means, basically,
putting my self-will aside,
putting my personal demands and desires aside…
And I’m only going to live for truth.
I’m only going to live in the core of my heart,
from this point on, and I absolutely mean it…
Then that is instantly my reality.
There is no time,
There is no distance between you and your Aspiration.
The distance is only created, seemingly,
by how much we mean it.
If you’re 100% in whatever you’re doing,
there’s no distance.
And there’s no time.
They cease to exist.
Is it true?
When you’re completely absorbed in anything —
do you know time?
No.
Do you know separation?
Do you know division?
You know none of this stuff —
because it’s not real.
It’s not real in that it’s not actually there —
unless we create it.
So this sutra is very powerful.
We’re short of what we want —
because we don’t want it enough.
And that is fine.
Absolutely fine.
But gradually, gradually,
it’s going to become clear what it is.
And the importance of it is going to expand
and consume everything else.
And then you’ll walk around knowing —
There will be no problem,
no worry,
no concern.
You will walk as a Jivanmukta, —
a free being while still in the body.
A liberated soul within a body.
The only reason we’re in a confused state
is because we haven’t got clear yet
about what our life is actually about.
You feel it, don’t you?
It’s a process.
So it’s like—
“Ah, now I can taste it.”
Getting clearer.
That is Tivrasamveganam
Once these aspirations come into the sangha
Then it becomes alive
Grace starts to draw us up.
That's what is happening in the sangha.
That is how it is now.
The sessions are so amazing because you are getting clearer and clearer,
And drawing that clarity out through these satsangs.
It is getting clearer for me also…
I leave these sessions and I want God more than I did at the start
Thank you.
I want to surrender to LIfe more at the end of each session.
Cheers.
You are inspiring company because you bring this forth.
If no one was drawing then nothing would come.
But you are and that is very powerful.
Thank you for that, and thank you for an amazing season, it has truly been a blessing.
Namaste.
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