Double Touch

Okay friends, welcome back again. So we had an experience in the last session to see how a consonant which has a single point touch combine with its neighbor. It always has to be a harmonious combination you know. Now what we will look at next is when a letter has a double point of touch with a line overhead. Like we can see here, we have the k, the g which are both guttural sounds.

Then we have the j which is a palatal. We have the dental sounds which are th and d and three labials, per, b, m, sebi vowel yer and then the sibilance which are sh or rather the sh. Remember the tongue has to go up whenever there is a dot below, s, the dental and a conjunct consonant the ksh, we will see these other two, other four letters later on. But for now, let us see how the sound s combines with its neighbor. We have the s and when you add this to let us say the th, what we get is the st.

Can you guess what would happen to it? I think you did. So whenever there is a stick, you just drop the stick and come along with your neighbor. So that's what happens here. Th, it's a great thing if you can start guessing what would happen to the letters as they combine with the neighbors, that's fun yeah.

So here we are, th, now let us put it in a word and see what happens. One of the important yamas that we know is asteya which means non-stealing, asteya. We have a half s in there and this is what it would look like. And then we have the st, so s and then the th and we have the vowel a. Remember the a as a symbol comes on top of the head like an antenna and then we have the yer, asteyer.

I'll write that for you in transliteration. So we have the s, I should have done that in green, here we go, okay, s plus the th which gives us the s, th and in the word we get the a which is the a and the s, th, there we are, asteyer, the half th with no stick. We have another important word again part of the yoga sutras which is the swadhyaya, it is one of the niyamas. If you listen carefully we have the swadhyaya, so this time I will write it out for you in the transliteration and then we'll write it in the devanagari to see if you can figure it out by yourself. Here we go, so we have the swa, so there is a half s in there, so we put that there, swa, then there is a v, swa, so it's a long vowel and then you have a dhir which means that again we have a half d, dhir sound, so we put that in there, d, swadhyaya, so there is a y, yir sound, swadhyaya, yir, correct?

So now let's try and find the letters up here, s, we already know, so let's make that half without the stick, s, we know the letter v already, you've been practicing hard, sva, now we have the letter dhir which is here and again it has a stick, so drop the stick and we get the dhir, then we have the yaa, you already know that as well, we also have it here but it's a full sound, so we write it completely, it has a long vowel with it so it gets an extra stick and then there's another yir, so there we go, swadhyaya, practice makes perfect, the more you practice writing, the more beautiful it will come in all angles as well, so there we have swadhyaya, two letters with a double touch, drop the stick, combine it with the next letter, so I hope that is clear for you, let's move on to two other letters which have a double point touch but which have a little independent character as well, the n has a three point touch actually, so in the case where there is no connection between the first point of touch and the second one, you drop the stick off completely and it's a standalone first part in the letter, in the word, I'll explain, so if we take the letter n becomes just that, so the stick is shed away completely, you get the n. Now to give you an example, we have the word hiranyagarbha, hiranyagarbha is gold and that's the source of everything, they say it's the golden egg, so let's see what it looks like, the golden egg and here we are, so the sounds are he, r, n, so there is a combination of n with the year and this is how it would look, just that we have already seen the year in the previous section, so we get the hiranyagarbha and then you have the garbha, I'll just write that out for you now, hiranyagarbha, there is another sound garbha which is half but we'll come to that, so stay on with the lessons, alright so hiranyagarbha and to see what that looks like in transliteration, this is part of the cerebrals, you know that by the dot that is below it, so that is the n and the symbol is in green let's say, it stays the same in transliteration and then we have he, r, n, nya, garbha, hiranyagarbha, say that hiranyagarbha, fantastic, Sanskrit is really about savouring the sound, it's about allowing oneself to be in the moment of the drawing, enjoy that as fully as you can, you're going to love it, fine we move on to another letter which has a double touch which is the sh, it is the palatal sh, now this letter is written in two ways, you can either write it like a 21 or it is also sometimes written in this manner which has a sh like that, so I'll show you how both letters combine with other consonants, here we go, so when the sh becomes a half, so the same logic holds where you drop the stick and it just is like that, now we have another very important word which is ishvara, the Lord, let's see what the Lord looks like when you write him out, so here it is, we have the ishvara, it's very beautiful to write it out but the Lord is much mightier than any writing that we could represent it with, so here we are, ishvara, now I'll show you with the second sh, as you can imagine what would happen is that it drops, let's make that, it drops the stick and just keeps that symbol in place and when we put it into the word ishvara, i, so now you can see that it can get very cosy with the v, ishvara, you can also put the two dots there which just indicates that it's a masculine word, so that's ishvara, say that, so just close your eyes and say ishvara, now close your eyes and imagine what it looks like, that's more important, see if you can draw it out for yourself, ishvara, fantastic, alright, now the very important definition of yoga as Patanjali gives it to us is yoga shchitta vritti niro dhaha, fortunately he gave us that definition because it gives us a good opportunity to see how all these sounds combine with each other, it has lots of combinations in it, so stay with me as we do this together, maybe you take a pen and pencil and as I say it, you try and write it out as well, we go, I'll write it out in English first, so it gives you a little time, yo gosh, so we have a half sound in there, I'll write it here in green so that we know it's a half sound, then we have shchitta, we hear a double t there, so we put a half t, shchitta, vritti, we hear the double t again and we've done vritti together, so it's a good revision, vritti niro dhaha, so now let's put that together in the devanagari and see what we get, so yo gosh, we have an e in there, the short e, so we have to prepare for that by putting a line before e and then we have the half shch, so we could write it that way and with the sound ch, in the e, so yo gosh chi, then we have a double t in there, chitta, so that would be, we first put the turn, full one and then we put the half in there, remember that was the exception, so chitta and then we have vritti, again we have the e, we put the t, we have the line in there and we do the e, vritti, then niro dhaha, oh that was close there, so yo gosh chi, chitta, vritti, niro dhaha, so what I suggest you do is once you have written out the word and you're putting the line overhead to connect that word together, make sure that you're saying it aloud, so the more you reinforce the sounds along with what they look like, the sooner will it be absorbed by your system, so yo gosh chi, chitta, vritti, niro dhaha, so there we go friends, this is the second part where we have combined consonants which have a double point touch with the overhead line, practice the writing but more importantly practice the stopping of the mind, everything will follow very smoothly after that, thank you.