Sutra 1.2: State of the Knower

1.2. Union is restraining the thought-streams natural to the mind.

Ray Parker Jr.

I woke up a couple of days ago with the Ghostbusters theme song running through my head. As I laid there in bed and tried to fall asleep, the song got louder and louder. After about an hour of this "who ya gonna call!" My answer was a lobotomist. This song was an example of a thought stream. It does not have to be a song however, it can just be a line of thinking set off by some sort of random stimulus. Have you ever driven by a restaurant you liked, then though, boy I really want to stop there? Then you thought about the last time you stopped there, the good or bad time you had, how dirty the bathrooms were. Now you remember that you need to clean your bathroom. Oh crap, I need to stop by the store to get some more cleaner!

These are both examples of thought streams and they are natural to the mind. One clear distinction, as Patanjali would refer to it, is "The Mind" not "Your Mind". Many think that identity is the thoughts put together in the mind. In Yoga, your mind is not you. You are the consciousness behind the mind and all its functions. This includes anything you identify yourself with: your memories, hopes, dreams, fears and awesome movie soundtracks. The mind in its natural state is nothing more than a lens though which we perceive thoughts.

The tradition of Sankya Yoga, in which Kriya Yoga is a part of, states that the world is a very real place and as entities of consciousness, we identify ourselves with this materiality. Matter therefore consists of anything that is not awareness.. Thoughts are nothing more than objects that the mind naturally attaches itself to during its entanglement in matter. The Atman, or the soel, is free from entanglements. It's ultimately the goal of Yoga to free our-self from these entanglements, uniting with the true self.

Sutra 1.1: What is Yoga

1.1 Now, instruction in Union

This is it, this is the very first sutra, but it's one of the most important.  One of the meanings of Yoga in Sanskrit is union.  It also means "Yoking", or the attaching of a plow harness to an animal. Specifically in this context, it means the complete realization of the Atman.  As I explained in my previous post about the connection between Vedic Astrology and Yoga, I spoke of the Atman as analogous to the soul.  This is about as close to an English definition that can be found.  A closer definition is that part of pure consciousness that lies at the heart of every separate entity that makes up part of the universal whole.  Yoga is the process of removing all the layers of being placed between our material awareness and the awareness of this pure, untainted part of the higher consciousness.

This sutra is so important because it does one thing that carries out through the entirety of Yogic practice: The intent to DO.  Simply by reading this, you are declaring a conscious intent to practice Yoga, weather or not you even read beyond this point.  "Now" is very important.  So important that Patanjali made it the first word.  "To declare the intent to seek instruction on living in nowness" is how I see it.  In later sutras, we will study how consciousness only exists in a state of the moment and how thoughts of past and future are not part of awareness itself.  

When the guru would teach his students, they would sit at his feet listening to each set of instruction. A general session would consist of a scriptural reading, then the guru's explanation of that reading. This is called Satsang in Sanskrit, and continues to this day in most major religions.

Into to Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Around the year 250AD an author name Pantanjali took it upon himself to write down a list of verses into a grouping know as the Yoga Sutras.  In Sanskrit, sutra means thread, so think of these groupings of verses like threads woven into a tapestry to create a greater whole.  The whole text has less than 200 verses, making it very short from a reading perspective.  Each verse is shortened to deliver the most information with the least amount of wording possible.  Before the Yoga Sutras were written, they were passed down from teacher to student via the oral tradition.  This way, each guru would be able to teach the student their own perception of the sutras, being conveyed from their understanding and experience.

I my opinion, something is lost when a spiritual teacher dies and their thoughts are put into written format.  We lose a lot of the context of the delivery when this happens.  What was the teacher thinking at the time?  What sort of verbal inflections were being used as the words were spoken? Think about the United States Constitution and how much it has been amended by jurice prudence over the last 200 years.  What was the intent of the founders?  The one thing that the Yoga Sutras has is that the text, taken as a whole, was not meant as a one size fits all for the masses.  I like to call it a guidebook on the science of conciseness.

The content of the Yoga Sutras is divided into four chapters and lays out the Vedic perception of how consciousness interrelates with matter, how the atman or soul can become one with the whole and what the results of this are.  There are no direct instructions on what meditation technique to use, what positions to preform or instructions on how to still the mind and breath.  That is up to each individual to develop as they move down the path toward enlightenment.  I have been trained in the Kriya tradition of Yoga, which has it's own techniques which I will share as I do more commentary.  I will also share my experience on the path and what has worked and not worked for me.  Take what you find useful and throw the rest out.  The journey is for you and you alone to experience as you see fit, and no one can tell you otherwise.  What worked for me may not work for you and therefore keeps the tradition of self exploration intact.

The Unknown Bible

Growing up in the Catholic Church, I had a hard time understanding the format of the Bible.  We were never taught much of the history of the Catholic Church beyond what IN the bible.  Think about that...  the church is about 2000 years old, but I could not tell you much of the history between the time of Jesus's death and the say Pope John Paul the 2nd.  Even going to mass was difficult for me. Week in and week out it was the same thing.  I had a potty break perfectly timed so I could get through the more boring parts of the mass.  At least at the end I got a shot of wine and a cracker as a consolation prize.

I tried going back to the Catholic Church right about the time I began my studies in Kriya Yoga and Vedic Astrology.  Yoga itself was never meant to be a religious practice, so I do not see any conflict with one going to church and being an active meditator.  Well, I found out about these formerly hidden books called the Gnostic Gospels and that got me interested.

The story goes like this:  The church was a very different entity just after Jesus's death.  Many of his disciples were woman, and were given equal standing in the church, something that was considered heresy to other jewish sects.  Also, the Conical Bible does not mention anything about the life of Jesus between the ages of thirteen and the time he started his ministry in Isreal.  As Christianity started to flourish in the Roman Empire, so did the culture of the Roman Empire flourish in Christianity.  Along came the first Roman Emperor to embrace Christianity: Constantine the First. He called the First Counsel of Nicaea to standardize what was going to be in the Bible.  This was a literal death blow to the mystical study of Christianity know as Gnosticism.  Hunted down like witches, the Gnostics were put to death, their teachings now considered heresy.  

Flash forward to Egypt in 1945.  In the city of Nag Hammadi, a vase if found to contain several books of early Christian origin.  What they found is still being debated and analysed.  Gospels apparently written by the disciple Thomas and Phillip were found, with many other pieces of literature.   

Out of all these, my favorite is the Gospel of Thomas.  It is broken up into a number of "Sayings" instead of a pros format.  This is interesting to me because Vedic literature such as the Yoga Sutras has the same format.  A Sutra is a line of text broken down to convey the most amount of meaning with the least amount of words.  For centuries, these teachings were conveyed orally from teacher to student before they were written down around 250 AD, so it only prudent for brevity's sake.  

I intend to do further blog posts on the sayings contained in the Gospel of Thomas and how it relates to the Yoga Sutras and esoteric studies in general.  In the meantime, I invite you to check it out online for yourself.

  http://gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html

The connection between Vedic Astrology and Yoga

It's not know by many that the Vedic system is completely interconnected.  There are many branches of study, such as Yoga, Jyotish, and Ayurveda as examples.  Jyotish is the Sansrkit word for Vedic Astrology and it roughly translates to "the study of light".  How is this so?  The Vedic theory of evolution states that our soul is part of a greater whole, that greater whole being called God, the Universe or the Absolute.

Everything in existence from though, matter and energy is imbued with a small part of this greater whole, with each part trying to work itself back to the whole as it's sole purpose of existence.  For example, I like to use the analogy of the cells in our bodies.  There are many of them, all performing their different functions to make up the larger part of the whole know as our bodies.  Cells are born, reproduce and die.  Over the course of the full lifetime of a human, each cell is replaced at least once.  Now lets apply this to humanity as a whole.  Each of us goes about our business in life the best we know how at the time we know how to.  Like the cells in our body, we believe we have our function to perform and carry that out.  How does a cell know what it's function is?  Is a cell self aware?

Vedic Astrology treats humanity like one gigantic organism with each of it's component pieces controlled by karma.  Karma is much more complicated then tit for tat, according to Vedic Tradition, it is the law of causality that propels individual and soul evolution forward to it's inevitable reunification to the greater whole. over the course of multiple lifetimes.  At the time of your birth, your soul is considered connected to the material plane at the time of your first breath.  This sets the karmic law in motion, and this law is played out in the expression of light reflecting off the planets and their position at the time of birth.  Simply put, your birthchart is simply a map of your karma of this lifetime.

Now, Yoga is simply the study of how to shortcut the system of Karma.  There is much more to it then just doing poses, but unfortunately in America, it has been reduced to a set of exercises and stretching.  I will start a series on the Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali in future blog posts to better explain the depth of Yoga.

Most people who have practices Yoga have heard of Chakras.  Each of the seven chakras is associated with a planet and sign in the zodiac.  As each planet makes it's trip around the zodiac, it will trigger a chakra or combination of chakras in which your karma is stored.  In a way, each chakra is associated with an gland in the endocrine system.  Karma manifests itself in the biological or psychological urge to do something.  To paint a picture, imagine that karma are seeds stored in each chakra.  The planets associated with that chakra will release that seed into nervous system where it will take hold an sprout into the fruition.  One of the goals of Yoga is the "burn" these seeds before they are released, thus mitigating karma from manifesting in certain ways.  Jyotish by itself simply predicts the type and timing of the seeds release.

Life as a Yogi Part: One

The never ending process to figure out what is wrong with yourself, some sort of psychological hypochondria.  That is how I lived most of my adult life, skipping from therapist to psychiatrist, counselor to psychologist, mainly in a viene attempt to find sleep of all things.  At that time, all I really wanted out of life was a good nights sleep and just a little of not having to deal with any shit that came my way.  One of the hardest things I had to come to grips with was my obvious alcoholism.  By obvious, I mean subtle, but really I mean obvious. 

The first time I ever got intoxicated was, ironically, behind a liquor store when I was 15.  I had tried some alcohol before, but it was nothing more then a couple of sips of hard liquor and maybe some malt liquor here and there.  This time it was going to be Mission Accomplished.  I did not have to walk out on to the deck of an aircraft carrier in a some sort of PR stunt in a flight-suit to get this done.  Just plug my nose and guzzle it.  The mission was accomplished and I loved it all the way up to the puking part.

The next day I laided on this wicker sofa in the back room of my house watching my mother iron some cloths, just complaining how sick I was.  I hated the stuff at the time.  Why the hell would anyone want to pay this price for something that tasted so shitty?  That, at least for the moment, kept me off the hooch for a couple of years.  It was not until much later in life I discovered this was part of the issue

Now, as time went on, I just could not put things together.  I could tell that there was something different about myself.  I never fit in with anybody.  I had at least two groups of friends, one of them was the group that would deal with my drinking, at least until I turned into a cocky mofo, then the other group was where I went when I wanted a break from the daily grind of drug use.  To me, I figured if I could cobble together a couple of days of sobriety between benders, I was ok.

I met Dr. Holloway in 2004.  He was an older psychologist, but he also was not indoctrinated into the failed cabal that is modern psychiatry.  If anything, he was a hippie that traded his hair for a suit and tie, plus a fancy degree on the wall.  There was one difference between him and the others I had been to see up until that point.  He had done a lot of Yoga, not just the stretchy Yoga that people claim men to do get at their junk*, but honest meditative Yoga.  He gave me a book to read "Autobiography of a Yogi".  That set me off on a long a complicated path of self discovery and awareness that continues to this day.

*By junk I mean penis.