Saturday, November 17, 2007

Yoga Sutras 2.18

2.18:Prakasa kriya sthiti silam bhuta indriya atmakam bhoga apavarga artham drisyam, The seen is of the nature of the gunas: illumination, activity, and inertia. It consists of the elements and sense organs, whose purpose is to povide both experiences and liberation to the Purusha.

Previously in sutra 2.17 we are told that our avoidable pain is caused by the projection of the Seer onto the Seen. Now Patanjali explains the nature of the Seen and what its purpose is. Why this whole divine comedy of God playing hide and seek with himself? First of all the Seen is prakriti and of the nature of the three gunas, sattva (illumination), rajas (activity) and tamas (inertia). The scope of the Seen includes everything from consciousness of the mind and the sense organs to the physical elements-the objective world. But more importantly the purpose of Prakriti is for the experiences and the liberation of the Self. This brings up some classical philosophical questions that are difficult to answer but here Patanjali gives us a positive view of this divine comedy. Is the state of the Self after contact with Prakriti, identifying with Prakriti, suffering and then from these experiences achieving liberation different from the original state of the Self? Taimini in his commentary says, "The mighty adepts of Yoga who emerge as Jivanmuktas (liberated souls) from the evolutionary cycle do not merge into God and become indistingishable from Him by losing their identity for ever. They become free from the domination of the Gunas and illusion of Prakriti and yet retain all the knowledge and powers which they have acquired though evolution." So Patanjali tells us that this wonderful and misterious universe has purpose-the perfection and liberation of individual.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Yoga Sutras, 2.16 and 2.17

2.16:Heyam duhkham anagatam, Pain that has not yet come is avoidable.

As Patanjali says in the previous sutra, for the spiritual aspirant, finding fulfillment in the external leads to pain. Here we have the hope that pain that has not yet come (because indeed it will if we don't wake up spiritually) is avoidable. This is very similar indeed to Buddha's third noble truth. (3. The cessation of pain is attainable.)

2.17:Drashtri drisyayoh samyogah heya hetuh, The cause of the avoidable pain is the union of the Seer (Purusha) with the Seen (Prakriti).

This can be a bit confusing because isn't what we're seeking union (yoga)? Samyoga-literally true union-is explaining a misidentification of the divine spark (purusha) with creation (prakriti). Remember back to the very beginning of the yoga sutras in sutra 1.2 Patanjali tells us yoga is the quieting of the mind and in 1.3 he continues, then the Seer abides in its own nature, because 1.4: At other times the Seer appears to assume the forms of the vrittis (thoughts, fluctuations of the mind).
In my discussion of this last sutra I told the metaphor of the movie theater. If when watching a movie we lose our awareness that we are separate from the movie then we identify with the drama of the actors and suffer when they suffer and rejoice when they rejoice. When we remember our autonomy from the screen we are released from the suffering of the movie. Likewise with an unquieted mind we lose awareness of the Seer as separate from the Seen, which leads to suffering. This sutra is telling us in another way that avidya (spiritual ignorance) is the main cause of suffering (see sutra 2.4). In the next few sutras Patanjali explains why this whole drama takes place-being born as a human and having loss of memory of our true nature.