Sutras 1.21-1.22

So now in the 21st and 22nd sutra, having told us in the 19th that some people are just born into yoga, in the 20th that the rest of us, that experience of deep integration will be preceded by a path that requires certain qualities, faithfulness, conviction, self-trust and confidence, heroic valor, memory, and the practice of samadhi. Then in the 21st, Patanjali says, tivra samvigana ama sannaha. And what this means is basically says, if you're really tivra, if you're really keen, if you're really intent on it, then that state of deep integration sits very close. And then in the 22nd, meridhu mantya rima tatva tathupi vishya shaha. So he says then, he says, mention the 21st, if you're really intent, if you're really keen.

So you might think, well, I'm pretty keen. I'm watching yoga any time after all, so I have some intent, I have some interest. So what does he mean if I'm really keen? So in the 22nd, he says, practitioners can be classified or can be distinguished as to whether they are meridhu, meaning mild, mantya, middling, or adimatra, meaning hardcore, intense. And then it's interesting for this sutra, the traditional commentator, Vyasa, he says that these three classifications, they can also be broken down again into a three-fold classification.

So you can have the mild mild, the medium as far as the mild goes, and really rather intense for a mild one. And then the middling, but really rather mild for a middling, the middle of the middle, and the pretty intense as far as the medium ones go. And then the more mild intense, medium intense and super intense. So what's it about? Basically, you are consciousness.

We're only having experience because we're conscious. So the state of integration, it is close. I understand in the Quran, it said that God or the Supreme is closer to a human being than the arteries in his neck. Similar idea here, that that experience of ultimate reality, that experience of who we really are, well, it's what we really are. So it's right here.

It's very close. And yet it's so easy in this world, nature's so beguiling. It's so easy to get spun out and stretched thin and distracted. Maybe you've experienced this. I certainly have.

But if we can gather ourselves, it's all right here. And it's as close as we are close to it. So if we get really intent on it, it gets closer. And I think we can validate this and our own experience. Anything that we kind of get really keen or interested in, it starts to show up more and more fully.

So the idea being, if we have that courage to harness our resources, it's right here for us to experience.