Yoga has three facets to it. A tripod, in which even if one limb is removed, it creates an imbalance ultimately leading to a fall. These three faces are presented by Sri Krishna in three chapters of the Bhagavad Gita as Karma Mārga (the path of purification of action), Jñāna Mārga (the path of purification of the instrument of Knowing) and Bhakti Marga (the path to purify the understanding of Love). A lot of times traditional translators and teachers, pandits, have taught these three paths of Karma, Jñāna and Bhakti as three different paths, separate and distinct from each other. There is somewhat a sectarian identity involved. They identify with being a Karma Yogi, Bhakti Yogi or a Jñāna Yogi.

If Karma Mārga implies purification of one’s action, can such an action be deprived of Knowledge and Love? If Jñāna Mārga means purification of the instrument of Knowing (the mind) through inquiry, can such purification happen without engaging into action (relationship) and surrendering into the love and humility that it demands to do so? And if Bhakti Marga means to purify the understanding of Love, then can such a purification take place without service to others (karma marga) and knowledge of oneself and one’s ego (Jñāna Mārga).

So this is what Patañjali presents as Yoga in the second chapter of the Yoga Sutras. He says Tapas (self-discipline which is purification of action), Svādhyāya (which is self-knowledge) and Ishvarapranidhāna (which is bhakti, love, surrender – here and now). Yoga is all of these three put together. There can be no sectarianism when one’s heart and mind are touched by Yoga. Because Yoga means all inclusiveness. Yoga means shining forth the benevolence of the spirit. Benevolence can never be sectarian. It is like the Sun that doesn’t choose on whom it wants to shine. It does not take sides. It shines for everybody, whether you choose to be under its light or not. This light shines whether you choose to identify yourself as a theist, an atheist, a scientist, a religious man, a politician woman, or whatever that may be. If you leave the confines of your four psychological walls and step out, the light is shining.

Once a woman came to Gautama Buddha and told him that she had just lost her husband and that she needed help from him to get rid of the pain she felt within her. Buddha said to her: “First bring me some sesame from a home in which there is at least one person not experiencing any pain”.

So began the woman’s search. She went from home to home asking, finding out. Every person that the woman met had pain. This made her realise that she is not alone in pain. She came weeks later and said to the Buddha without any surprise that the expedition was unfruitful. She couldn’t find a single person that was free from pain.

“And so I cannot remove your pain. There is a way out of suffering however, and that is a choice.”

So the real question is why do I suffer? And without giving a ready-made answer from the recesses of my memory, if I just stay quietly with myself, what happens?

We usually consider success to be the fulfilment of our desires. Yet when a desire is fulfilled there are more desires. We construe this self-satisfaction to be success and we think there is happiness in it. It is why we pursue it. Will-power as it is understood in this context by a lot of people is the ability of a person to overcome all obstacles to meeting one’s goal, this “goal” usually being sensual satisfaction or an ego-inflating end. So the idea of will-power is based on this success.

 

Will-power is the strength of the mind (Citta shakti) that makes it capable to meet success or failure with equanimity, composure and clarity. This itself is success because all endeavours of life are uncertain. And we are seeking security and insurance in everything we do, which is why there is no peace in anything we do.

Furthermore, success, understood in the former sense of self-gratification develops arrogance. Failure on the other hand teaches us to be humble and have a clear look at our limitations and helps us to proceed without negligence. This makes us skillful in action, here and now. This helps us to surrender, here and now. This self-surrender and humility are symptoms of happiness. 

Each thought uses energy. It is said that 70 percent of the thoughts that we have during the day are about things that we cannot control or change. It is also said that these thoughts are not only futile, but also negative which directly affects our vitality and vibration. What would it be like to free up this 70 percent of space in our brains? 

It is not by thinking about thinking that we can create space. Thinking about reducing the thoughts is adding another thought. When the mind pays attention to something other than its own works of imagination, something happens. What happens when you see a charismatic deer in the woods with a barrel chest standing tall with its antlers? What happens when you stand in front of the orange sun? What happens when you hear a solo flute being played somewhere far away? The kala chakra, the wheel of time, comes to a still. 

Where there is attention, there is love. This experience is not an emotion. There is a state of “non-me-ness”. To come to this state, there can be no effort from the mind. If there is, it gets caught in its own wheel. The wheel then keeps turning. This is why yoga is not an expression of emotion. It is the purging of emotions. The mind is made to let go of its own creations. We cannot see the earth rotating, being on the earth. We need to fly to outer space. Similarly we cannot see the rotations of the mind, the vrttis, being caught up in the movement of the mind. We need to fly into “inner space”. This is not an escape as many people think it to be. The reason they think it to be an escape is because they are still thinking about it. If they experience it, they won’t have a thought about it. One then tastes what it means to be light, free and alive.

When the mind has come to this state of stillness, it realises that it is still, and begins to make effort to keep the quietness. Stillness cannot be held by the mind. It has to become aware, again and again of its futile efforts to hold stillness. Then it makes no effort, when it has understood.

In asanas, the mind’s attention falls into embodiment. Then the mind is yoked to the body. This yoking happens with the help of breath. The actions become the mind’s anchor. The body demands the mind’s attention like a child demands its parent.

A human being goes through suffering because she is not able to see beyond herself. When the kala chakra, the flow of time, comes to a still for the first time, and the mind realises the beauty of silence, the ultimate of human suffering begins. The search to unite with the infinite. The search to come back to Ananda (joy, bliss) that we already knew as a child, but had forgotten. Yet if this beauty does not come about, the mind consumes itself and the vitality of the body and all of life’s energies go to waste. If this stillness does not come about, life becomes dry and painful. This stillness is the source of life.

Freedom without discipline is no freedom at all because the mind pulls us in a thousand directions. Without an anchor, the mind wanders. A human being has an average of 6000 thoughts a day, most of which are the same as the day before. To be disciplined means to be a disciple. Which means keeping the mind free from its own inherent ability to remain in ignorance and to be free from its ability to suffer. This means to live in observation, sensitivity and quietness. This makes us open to learning. Not learning this or that, but learning about the self and all its myriad forms.

Like so many things in this world, discipline is highly misunderstood. Discipline is not mindless repetition. Repetition means habit, and discipline is not the cultivation of a habit. At the moment when the inner eye (or what we usually call awareness) is awake, habit is not present, at least at that very moment of awareness and attention. Where there is awareness, there is no place for habit. And if there is awareness, even if the mind is wandering, there is no attachment to this inner impulsive movement. That is, the movement creates no cyclic ripples in the surface of the consciousness, and so, the contents of the “lake” can still be seen. In the asanas, there are actions to be attended to. Actions involve drawing of the senses, to use them for inner work. And with each action is a sensation, which leads to perception. All this can be expressed in words, but real understanding comes only through practice, and no amount of verbal logical discussion can really bring about this inner experience. And what is more important is that, it is not that once such an experience has been had, the journey ends. To the contrary, the inner sensations and perceptions keep expanding the understanding of consciousness, only leading towards “no end”. Just as the outer space keeps on expanding, inner space too is limitless and goes on giving. Action is linked to respiration and sensation to circulation of blood and oxygen. When respiration and circulation function harmoniously, the inner eye then begins to perceive. We exhale and act with a surrender, then the experience follows. We don’t know what that experience is going to be, but it is always new, always fresh and vibrant. There is an experience of lightness and compactness at the same time. The mind does not wander at all. This non-wandering stable mind, Patanjali calls Samadhi.

In the yoga sutras Patanjali uses the word Abhyasa defining it as the effort made to bring steadiness in the consciousness. The effort towards inner stability is the first step. 

तत्र स्थितौ यत्नोऽभ्यासः ॥१३॥

tatra sthithau yatnaḥ abhyāsaḥ ||1.13||

Practice is the effort to stabilise the mind.

Sages and seers have often used the metaphor of a lake. When there are no ripples on the surface of the lake, the lake reflects both its contents and its surroundings. In fact when the yogini or yogi has reached the state of Nishpatti Avastha (which means to say a person who is in a highly aware state, with an unbroken stillness) even though they are in that quietness they are able to think without creating ripples on the water “like a goose gliding above the water without touching the surface, hence creating no ripples”. The goose here represents thought and water the consciousness.

Maharishi Patanjali, after the word Abhyasa uses the word vairagya. Vairagya is having an unattached attitude to what has been already experienced. So abhyasa means to live in the experiencing, and vairagya means to let go of what has been experienced, so that the mind is always open to the new and not stuck in the past.  To understand Patanjali, we can also use the words of Sri Krishna from the Bhagavad Gita. He says that the intention behind our actions is much more important than the result of the action itself. Why do we do what we do? Then he guides us by saying, “act without fear and selfish desire”. But then he goes on to say, “You have the right to act, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Let go of the expectations. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your acts, nor be attached to inaction.”  

9.30 api chet su-duracharo bhajate mam ananya-bhak

sadhur eva sa mantavyah samyag vyavasito hi sah

2.47 Karmani eva adhikaras te ma phaleshu kadachana

ma karma phala hetur bhur ma te sango’stva akarmani

If we can first take a good look at our true motivations, we may begin the process of transformation and maybe, move towards freedom, which we don’t know the meaning of. But to look at ourselves, we need inner eyes. Eyes that don’t cheat us. Eyes that are not clouded by fear and desire. As long as our eyes are blinded by the six enemies of the mind, kama (lust or objectification of men and women), krodha (rage), lobha (greed), mada (arrogance), moha (delusion), and matsarya (jealousy), we have not even begun to move in the direction of true freedom. We are the slaves of these natural tendencies in the surface level of human consciousness. All of these six inherent qualities of the human mind stem from Fear and Desire. They keep the mind in bondage to the material existence, hence not allowing the action to come from the core of one’s existence. Do we really know our motivations?