Sutras 2.6 - 2.9

So sutra number six potentially now moves to the next of the kleshas, which is asmita. So he's already told us that avidya is basically the source of all of the kleshas, it is the ground in which they operate. So he told us that avidya is the kshitra, the field, in which all of the kleshas have their effects, whether they're in full flow, whether they're tenuous, whether they're as if dormant or whether they're coming and going, whether they're acting singly or they're working as a team. And potentially has given his quite famous definition of avidya as a nitya-shuchi-duhkana-tmasu-nitya-shuchi-sokatma-kyatira-vidya. So avidya is when we take the unreal to be the real.

We take the impure to be the pure. We take that which is not ourself to be the self and so on. The next kleshas, we could consider them as, let's say, distinct flavours or varieties of klesha. They are still avidya, but they're particular types of avidya. And these are mentioned because it's helpful to be aware of these particular types of avidya because they are so potent.

They are so intrinsic to our human experience. And when we're aware of each of these additional four types of avidya, so we've got avidya, then we've also got asmita, raga, dvesha and aminevesha. So now comes asmita. Now this word asmita, we've already come across it one time in chapter one. Asmi is basically I am.

So aham, I, asmi, am. So ta means having the quality of. So asmita is the quality of I am-ness. So asmita is the sense of who I am. So in chapter one, we encountered this word in the context of how through meditative practice, how through samadhi, as our experience of samadhi deepens and becomes sotla, that can help refine or reframe or recalibrate our sense of who I am because when we experience this inner effulgence, this brightness and this fullness and wholeness, independent of what is going on outside, but just as we turn the powers of our awareness inside, this can start to reshape, reform our understanding of who I am because we become a little bit perhaps less identified with these external ideas of, oh, I'm this, I have this name, I do this job, I can do this, I can't do that, I must do this, I mustn't do that.

And we become a little bit more attuned to this sense of, no, I am something beyond all these comings and goings. But here, as a cliche, asmita is being used in the sense of this false sense of self. This sense of I am something much less than what I really am, much more limited than what I really am. As usual, Patanjata's definition is very succinct and quite brilliant, very instructive as well. So he says, drigdarshanashaktyore ekadmati vasmita.

So if we take, for example, the idea that who am I really, some of the great rishis of the Indian tradition, the yoga tradition, have described our ultimate essence in such terms as we are sat-chit-ananda, or we are satyarita-brihat. So sat means that which is, it's from the Sanskrit verb root us, the verb to be. Chit means conscious, and ananda means blissful, always and only everful. It's the idea that our essential nature, who we really are, is existence, we're existing, and we are conscious, and we are of the nature of wholeness. Now I don't know about you, but when I first consider this definition, I look at it and I think, okay, sat, existing, being, real, true in the sense that it exists, well, I can validate this through my own experience.

Here I am, okay. So sat, I'll tick that off, yes, this Upanishadic, this is from the Upanishads, this Upanishadic definition of ultimate reality, first part of its threefold definition is checking out. Very good. What's the next part? Chit.

Chit means conscious. Okay, well, yes, that also checks out, because if I'm having the experience, I am, I can only have this experience because I'm conscious, okay, very good. So sat, chit, yes, oh, these rishes were onto something. What about the third part, ananda? Now ananda is a very interesting and beautiful Sanskrit word, nanda, maybe say this word with me, nanda means child, it also means joy.

So those of you who are parents, maybe you can relate to this idea that many parents do relate to that when one has a child, it is one's joy, it's a joy beyond the joys we've known before. So nanda means joy, also means child. Ananda means joyless, less than joy, other than joy, not quite joy, or childless, without child, other than a child. But when we put the prefix r, the Sanskrit sound r, it's important to just lower the jaw, r, so we create more space for this vibration, r. Ananda, ananda is beyond joy and less than joy, it is only and always ever joyful.

Oh, wait a minute, the definition was going so well, sat, yes, here I am, chit, yes, I only know I am here because I am conscious, a blissfulness that is always and only ever full. Now I don't know about you, but that doesn't quite check out for me in my day to day experience. Some days I do feel quite blissful, other days I do not. I experience comings and goings, whirlings, I experience pulsations, I experience ups and downs, and that definition was going so well of who I really am. When I encountered this idea, sat, real, existing, yes, chit, conscious, yes, ananda, only and always really bliss and full and whole.

Do I reject this definition outright? Something stays my rejecting hand and says, no, no, no, do not throw this definition out the window, James, because think about it for a moment. Even faster, more immediate than the thought, there's something about this description of my ultimate self or ultimate reality that resonates, that rings true and this is because what happens if I honestly ask myself what do I experience when I bring myself fully into the present moment as best as I can, when my thought, my word and my deed all line up, when there is no incongruence through the different parts of myself, what does that feel like? That feels good, yeah, perhaps good is too mild an adjective, it feels fantastic, it feels blissful, but not just blissful. If I bring myself into a state of congruence, then maybe I recognise, yes, I am, I exist, I am conscious, but has this lost this lovely feeling of coherence and oneness and togetherness.

And when I have that lovely, fantastic feeling of oneness and togetherness and congruence, what also happens then? Is this lovely, coherent experience accompanied by a thought along the lines, whoa, what's going on here? What is this strange feeling of wellbeing? What is wrong? No, not at all.

But it's like, ah, it feels like home. So the idea of yoga practice is for us to come home, to remember all of who we really are. Another Upanishadic definition, which we'll also refer to a little bit more as the chapter continues, is Satya Ritta Brihat. So Satya, just like Sat, it means true, existing, real. Ritta is this beautiful Sanskrit word, hard to translate, but the English word rhythm is derived from the Sanskrit root, and so is the word right.

So when something is right, when something is in rhythm, when something is in cosmic harmony, then it is Ritta, it is this truth that is truth with a capital T, perennially true, and it is like hitting the true note that knows how to be in harmony through all the comings and goings of the whirling wonder of manifest existence. So there's encoded here the idea that everything that is Satya is Ritta, but when it is as part of reality, this reality is a field of change. And so it has this rhythm, it has this movement, it has this dynamism. And yoga practice is about bringing ourselves into this rhythm so we can be at one, so we can come to a state of at-one-ment, even in the middle of all the whirling wonder of life and its constant changes. If we can do that, then we then experience Brihat, which means vastness.

So I don't know about you, but sometimes I notice in my own perspective, I get quite caught up in what I'm experiencing in my own immediate material reality. And the idea in yoga is when I cultivate the experience of Samadhi, I can attune to a conscious experience which is much more, you could say cosmic, much vaster, much more inclusive that gives me a perspective that is greater than I might be able to see with my ordinary human two eyes, which will see duality and with which there will always be more that I cannot see than I can. So there is in the yoga Shastra, in the yoga system, the idea that the real Asmita, the accurate Asmita, is to recognize ourselves as infinite pure consciousness without limit that is always in harmony with the whole cosmos, that is satchit-ananda, that is, that is conscious and is full, is whole, is not fragmented, distorted, limited, localized, but is this whole collective oneness. So potentially says here in the sixth sutra, our Asmita, our sense of self when we're experiencing Avidya, as long as Avidya is present, as long as there is partiality, as long as there is distortion, as long as there is fragmentation, as long as our perception is a limited point of view, then our Asmita, our sense of who we are, is going to be not quite accurate. How does this happen?

So we take for one the Dric and the Darshana, the SÄ«ya, the conscious seeing principle, the underlying consciousness, and that which is seen, or rather the instrumental powers of seeing, that's much more accurate, Dric and Darshana, Dric, the SÄ«ya and Darshana, the instrumental powers with which we see. So in other words, we think, or we have the misplaced sense of identity, that I am this bodily vehicle and the instrumental powers through which, with which, in which I see and experience. So we confuse the instrument for the underlying power source. So I think I am the bodily vehicle and it's instrumental powers of seeing. So my sense powers, my internal mental cognizing powers and all the rest of them, I start to think that my ideas, my mind, my senses, this is who I am.

And of recognizing that actually my true self is the underlying conscious essence without which these instruments would be devoid of power. Just like, for example, if one has a torch, a battery powered torch without batteries, I can turn the torch on, but it doesn't give any light. There is the shell of the torch, all of the circuits and different component parts of the instrument that would allow it to illumine and to shed light on some part of reality. They're all there except for the power source and then it doesn't light up anything at all. But if the battery is there or the current, then the torch, the instrument can perform this task, can enable this experience of seeing, of illuminating.

So the idea of us, Mitaar, as a clercian is that we get confused about who we really are. Now maybe you have heard the saying that is from Descartes, this French philosopher, that he said, Je pense dans je suis, I think therefore I am. Now I've not read the original work in which Descartes said this. I do know the French language to some degree though, and my perception is that the way that this term has echoed down the centuries is perhaps not truly accurate of what Descartes says. I do not know.

I did not read that text. I did not meet Descartes. However, I think therefore I am, what about I am therefore I am? It's not just my thoughts that prove to me that I am a conscious entity. What about my sense experiences?

What about the way I can propriocept and balance and respond to my environment to maintain homeostasis? Is this also not a proof of my I am-ness, of my being-ness, and of the subtle intelligence that illumines my bodily vehicle and is part and parcel of life? It's not just the brain thinking, cognising, reflecting. There are all sorts of other ways that this bodily vehicle is imbued with and demonstrates its underlying conscious power. Without the underlying consciousness, how would all the cells do the amazing things they do of cohearing and facilitating and allowing all of this diverse type of experience and the confounding miracles of the way that this conglomeration of cells knows how to maintain homeostasis and work to recalibrate and bring itself back into balance in the face of a constantly changing environment?

It is an absolutely miraculous thing. The idea in yoga is it's not just the brain, not just the mind, but we have all of these instrumental powers, but as long as we think I am my mind, I am my body, I am my ideas, my sense of what is wrong or right, my sense of identity, my name, my job, whatever it is, I am my likes, my dislikes, I am this body, it potentially says no, we're getting confused then, because actually, at the deepest, subtlest level of who we are, we are the underlying consciousness. And yoga practice is about attuning more to that part of ourselves that never dies, that part of ourselves that nonetheless, this bodily vehicle is giving us this amazing opportunity to recognise, to remember and experience. However, the closure, the affliction that blocks that recognition, that remembering is that we get identified with this bodily vehicle and it's not surprising, because we rely on it so much and consequently, we get identified with change and limitation because we look out and what do we experience in the external world, we experience change and limitation, we experience birth, death, change all the time and this vehicle itself is also made of the changing stuff of nature and so it's altogether quite normal, quite natural to be expected that we start to think we are also just like that, we have this transient thing that comes and goes and so the idea in yoga is, let me use this vehicle to access its underlying power source, its underlying conscious essence. One more thing I'd like to say about asmita, when we encounter a definition like this, nirigdarshana shaktyore karmativ asmita, it's like we confuse these two different powers for one and the same thing, potentially is doing something that we find so often in his text and throughout the yoga shastra, is we get this lovely combination of description that also has prescriptive value, so Britannica says the affliction is that we confuse nirigdarshana and nirigdarshana, shaktyore, their two powers, we mix them up, so we confuse the underlying seeing power with the instrumental powers that allow us to have the intermediary, excuse me, the intermediary instrumental powers.

So what's the prescription here? When I'm having an experience, let's say for example I am seeing something with my eyes or I'm feeling something, touching something with my hand, or tasting something with my tongue, whatever it might be, when I'm having the experience can I take it back, can I turn that experience back to the underlying enabling consciousness and as I practice that I can start to tune into that and support that recognition that little bit more. Asmita, this sense of I am-ness, it gets its own special category of klesha because obviously the sense of who I am plays such a significant role in the way we relate to ourselves and to our environments. Another of the really let's say significant and sometimes afflicting way that we can relate to our environment is through the things we get attached to, through our likes and dislikes, our preferences and so sutras seven and eight describe the attachment that ensues pleasurable or displeasureable experiences. So in sutra number seven sukhanu shayi raga ha and in eight dohkhanu shayi dvesha ha.

So raga and dvesha, raga is basically attachment to things we like and dvesha is the attachment to things we do not like. So this brings craving for the things we like and aversion, the wanting to stay away or keep distant from things we don't like. And why are these afflictions? People say well this is important, no, sometimes my sense of what I like and don't like keeps me safe, I need to stay alive, certainly. But sukhanu shayi raga ha, raga ha, the root of this word really kind of elucidates what's the difference between a preference that may be helpful, healthy, no problem at all and a preference that can be a cliche, that can be an affliction because it can stop us seeing clearly, it contributes to a vidya because it stops us seeing vid, it stops us seeing as it really is, it creates a veil.

So the root of the word raga is runge and runge in Sanskrit is the verb to die, d-y-e, to colour, to tint. Sukhanu shayi raga ha. So in English we have this expression, sometimes people say oh you are looking at the past through rose-tinted spectacles, we are looking into the past as if it was this golden age when actually it was also not perfect. But sometimes we had a lovely experience back then and it causes us to see the whole past in a particularly favourable light. We see it through a tint, we see it through a veil, we see it through a filter, we see it through a very particular and let's be honest about it, not entirely accurate lens.

So Sukhanu shayi raga ha is that veiling, that tinting, that colouring, that distortion that is consequent upon pleasant, agreeable, pleasurable experiences. Let's give a couple of examples here. So one example that I've experienced myself, I studied in Italy for some time when I was a student at university and I had a very lovely time when I was in Italy and one of the many many things that was very wonderful during the time I spent studying in Italy, I was in the city of Parma. Now Italy is a country that has a very very rich culinary heritage but Parma is one of the places that is very very proud of its culinary heritage and for good reason and I was staying in this city while I was studying there. So I experienced all sorts of wonderful culinary experiences when I was studying in Italy.

Consequently, in subsequent years, if I am not in Italy but I am in another country where there is an Italian restaurant that is very very authentic, it can transport me to this place that I associate with such pleasant, warm, beautiful memories, a time when life was simpler and I could really relish the simple joys of, for example, home cooked food straight from the garden or the uncle's farm by my friend's mother who is just an absolute maestro in the kitchen or I go to one of those restaurants in Italy where there is no menu. The hostess comes in and says yeah today we have this or this and it is all fresh, just ecstatic experience. So it so happened, more recently, maybe less than ten years ago, I was in the United Kingdom and I had been teaching a yoga workshop in person with a group of people and I had a lovely weekend and at the end of this weekend, presenting all weekend long, I was very hungry and my grandma was still alive at the time and the area of town where she lived, I was teaching the same town where she lives, it used to be very rough like way way way back but now it has become full of all these restaurants including an Italian restaurant called, I think I can get away with saying this on camera, Il Para Liso del Cibo, food paradise. And I went with some family members and friends and all the staff were Italian, they were from Sardinia actually, very authentic atmosphere, very little space in between the tables, everybody is packed in, there is football on a TV screen in one part of the restaurant, we weren't out there and then Gianni who was the let's say senior waiter, he was very very charming and he looked after my grandmother in a beautiful way and they had on the menu one of my all time favourite dishes, I ordered it, it was spot on. All in all, my first experience of this restaurant called food paradise was worthy of that name, it was a rapturous evening and my sister was, she was like, I so love going to a good at town restaurant with you James because the way you enjoy it is a feast for me to behold, I was just, it was a really wonderful experience.

So what then happened, raga, how do I see that restaurant, I see it through a very favourable filter, it was such a lovely impression that now I see that restaurant through a veil, a veil, oh it's fantastic, I have returned to this restaurant many times, sometimes it hits the heights, sometimes it doesn't quite hit the heights, I think it depends who is in the kitchen. But I have a partiality for this restaurant, along the same stretch of road there are some other very nice eating establishments, including one that I really like, but Paraiso el Chibo, I had this lovely time there with my grandmother who is now deceased, who I was very close to and she had a lovely time being spoiled by Janli and with my sister, with all these people who were very dear to me I had several lovely experiences, so I don't see that restaurant as it is, I see it through my own partiality, I am favourably disposed towards it. Somebody else might go there and have a not pleasant experience, everything could be absolutely fantastic but maybe something else is going on in that person's life and they have a stomach kick that night and they don't want to go back ever again, even though everybody else sat at the table, had a fantastic evening and loved the food. They also do not see it as it is, but because they had a negative experience there, they are not able to see it as it is, they see it through that negative dissuading filter. So I mentioned that the root rang which means to die is also very illustrative, so when we feel raga, when we feel this desire, this wanting more of something, it can have this distorting, tinting, colouring influence on our awareness.

So one example I like to give is imagine going back to your school days and there is a school trip and let's just say for example you go to a school where only boys go to this school and there is a school across the road where only girls go and all of these 11 and 12-year-olds from the two schools, the boys and the girls, they are going to go on a joint school trip. All the children get onto the bus, now it so happens there is one boy who every morning he sees across the road a girl and every morning when he sees her, he does not see her like he sees other people, he sees her with raga, with desire. He always looks forward to seeing her and now this day of the school trip the teacher says okay, ladies first and all the girls get on the bus. Now it so happens that unusually, because I think there are slightly more, a slightly high number of female people in the world than male people but the boy students and the girl students, all the girls have got on and they are all on one side of the bus and then on the other side of the bus all the boys get on but there is one more boy or two more boys or three more boys that I am not very good at maths than there are girls. So the girls side of the bus is all full except for one seat and all the boys get on and it so happens that the last seat remaining, the boy waited because maybe today I will have the chance to actually speak to her and sure enough who is sat in the chair on the bus with an empty seat next to it, it is she and now the boy sits next to her, his dream has come true, his 11 year old, 12 year old dream, he has sat next to her, what happens to his face? It becomes arranged, it becomes arachta, it becomes flushed because the blood starts to flow, more excitedly he blushes, yes? So he becomes arachta which is the past participle of the root, arange and then how does he speak to her? Does he speak to her neutrally, easily?

No, this raga, this desire affects the way he feels, affects his heart rate, affects how he speaks to her because he is not interacting with her neutrally, he is interacting with her with a desire and that desire colours, influences, tints the way he interacts. So this is raga, when we want something from something, we don't interact with it neutrally as it is, our expectations, our desires, they start to cloud things and when we have expectations, what are we setting ourselves up for if we allow ourselves to have expectations? Usually if we have expectations, it's not very long before we will encounter disappointment or we will encounter something that feels jarring. So there is the raga, yes we can have pleasant experiences and we can learn from them but we can also have pleasant experiences that leave this residual impression that actually then impedes us seeing something as it really is if we see the same thing again, we see it through this distorting lens. Same with dvesha or aversion. So dukha nusayi dvesha ha. So you can hear that on a matter of quality of Sanskrit here we've got sukha nusayi raga ha. So raga is the attachment that is consequent upon pleasing things, sukha, agreeable situations and then dukha nusayi dvesha ha. So you can hear dukha, the word dukha has this sezura in the middle, it's a word that speaks about the pain of separation and fragmentation but the word itself has this split in it, dukha. Dukha nusayi dvesha ha. So dvesha is when there is this desire to avoid, this desire to not be close to, this no thank you very much. And this has inherent within it this feeling of separation, I am not that, I don't want it. And this illustrates why it can be so afflicting in the context of yoga because when I am feeling a rejection of something that is part of my experience, I am perpetuating a feeling of division and fragmentation and separation. And ultimately yoga is about bringing everything into a state of inclusion and adornment. So as long as I feel this disturbing, consternating disinclination, this also impedes my capacity to actually be able to experience this moment as it is down to its essential quality. And just like with the agreeable variations, so with the disagreeable variations. I mentioned somebody else who would go to another restaurant that is a wonderful place and then serving beautiful food. It's all grown in the garden, it's all expertly prepared. Everybody is super happy but one person goes there and has a terrible stomach upset. It wasn't to do with the food, it was to do with something else. But how will that person feel about that restaurant? They're very unlikely to want to return despite the evidence of everybody else having such a great time. Even if we think, yeah well actually there was all this other stuff going on which could have caused my stomach upset, we may be not able to see that restaurant as it is. We see it through the lens of the impression, the disfavourable negative impression that that previous not so pleasant experience left us with. This is Raga and Visha. Everything we do leaves an impression and what tends to happen is that when we have agreeable impressions what do we want? More. And when we have disagreeable impressions we tend to want to avoid repeating that type of thing. And so this is basically what's known in Sanskrit as Karamanbandhana, the binding influence of action. I do something, I make an action. That action leaves an impression. If the impression is favourable it means I want more. If the impression is unfavourable it means I want to avoid repeating that. So we have this cycle of desire, action, impression.

Action, impression, desire. Impression, desire, action. And around and around it goes. And what also do we know about Raga and Visha? These things compound. So it's not that oh there's a couple of things in my life that I see through a filter. Everything that we experience leaves an impression. And then all of these different veils, all of these different filters, all these different tints work together, come together, overlap, interfere with each other, gang up with each other to create this situation in which we're not really seeing reality as it is. We're seeing the accumulation of all our conditioned impressions. So Raga and Visha, significant cliches. Lots of work to do or let's say yeah no that's not inaccurate. There's lots of work to do to clear those filters so we can actually see things as they are. So Raga, even those things that we feel a great inclination towards, they can be a bit of a problem sometimes. However, one thing to say about Raga and Visha, it doesn't mean that having preferences is wrong or it's bad. Preferences are a natural part of life. And as you mentioned at the beginning with these sutras, preferences can have a utility. They can have a positive side. We can learn oh no those types of things that don't really help me. Those types of things they do. What's the difference between Raga, this kind of craving or this distorting desire and just a genuine preference? Well the idea is if for example I enjoy the Italian food in a particular type of atmosphere to go out and eat, can I enjoy that as it is free from that filter? So I can actually really savour the gift of this moment. So sometimes let's say somebody has a very very positive experience of a certain place or a certain person or a certain institution, something they interact with. If we get too attached to that being that way, it can sometimes get in the way of us realising this isn't serving me anymore. It used to be fantastic but now it doesn't reach the same standard or now it's no longer nourishing me in the way that it used to. So preferences, it's not that we're going to get rid of them. We can still enjoy our favourite foods, we can still enjoy our favourite topics of conversation, we can still enjoy our favourite music but the idea is can I enjoy it as it is? Can I enjoy it free from expectation? So let's say for example I am a particular fan of a particular fruit. Let's say for argument's sake that you like oranges and you have been invited to the home of Gennaro in Sicilia in Sicily and on Gennaro's land they have been cultivating oranges for who knows how many centuries and you arrive at harvest time and you're walking amidst the citrus groves and there's this intoxicating beautiful fragrance and then Gennaro he goes and plucks an orange. When he goes to the tree it's like you see him pause, it's like he seems to talk to the tree as if he's asking which orange is the perfect one to give to this visitor for their first taste of a Sicilian blood orange straight from the tree at the perfect moment of ripeness and then it seems like the tree speaks to him and then Gennaro is a reverence, plucks the orange and then with great expertise he peels it and presents it to you and each segment is this perfect plump ripeness and it's this deep dark red from the volcanic soil and Gennaro tells you this is the tree under which my grandfather taught me the secret of karma yoga and how to eat. How will you eat the orange? Will we eat it casually? Will we eat it absentmindedly? No. We will say well what does that mean and Gennaro will say eat it like it's the first time you're ever tasting an orange and eat it like it is the last chance you will ever have to taste an orange. How will we eat it then? We will be fully there and how will the orange be? It will be a blissful experience of orangeness and it will leave this impression then that potentially it could create a lot of raga. However, what type of impression will it leave if we are fully there and we really are eating it like it was our very first orange or our last chance to experience anything? Perhaps then we can eat it with this quality of samadhi, full integrated presence and then we can access the particular beauty of that orange. Then we leave and let's say we've gone to another country where oranges do not grow and the oranges are imported but we feel like an orange. We pick the orange up and it doesn't quite have that same zestfulness as the one from Gennaro's tree. If I then eat the orange, expecting it to live up to that same particular quality that I experienced on Gennaro's land, I'm going to be disappointed. I'm going to create this kind of tension, this distortion. If, however, I put into practice the knowledge or wisdom I gained from sharing an orange with Gennaro on his ancestral land where they've been cultivating oranges to perfection for maybe millennia, what did I really learn from that? I need to experience the fruit as it is. I need to leave aside my expectations of what it should be so I can actually uncover what it really is. This is the kind of secret of karma yoga with relation to raga and dvisha. Yes, I may have my preferences but in spite of them, can I invite myself to the kind of virgin experience? Can I taste, relish, savour, engage with whatever I'm engaging or savouring or relishing as if it was the first time, as if it could be the last time? And as I do that, can I kind of shake off the distorting, shackling, imprisoning influence of my expectations and the valings of those previous experiences? Can I give this moment its own opportunity to bring me deep nourishment? So preferences, we will have them. But can we be guided by them without being trapped by them? Yoga is always about the middle ground. So preferences, yes, they will persist. They can be helpful. But can I avoid being tyrannised or blinded or blinkered or have my view distorted by them? Potentially lays these two out as cliches. They have significant afflictive distorting potential. So let's be aware of them and let us work with them as skilfully as we can by inviting ourselves into the present moment as we partake of the gifts of life. Sutra 9, in the second chapter, svara-sava-hi-viru-shopi-ta-tarut-ho-pi-ni-veisha. So the fifth of the cliches is abhi-ni-veisha. Usually, often in Sanskrit, when there is a group, the first and last members of the group are of particular importance or particularly powerful. And certainly this is the case with the cliches. So the first was avidya. Avidya, the field in which all of these others exist. And the last is abhi-ni-veisha. And how does potentially define it? Svara-sava-hi carried along with its own juice, its own fuel, its own potency. Abhi-ni-veisha. It has its own power supply somehow. Svara-sava-hi-viru-shopi- vidu-shaha means vidvans, people who are full of clear-sighted awareness, people who are very wise. Api, even in the wise. Svara-sava-hi-viru-shopi-ta-tarut-ho-pi-ni-veisha. It's a-ruda-ha or it's ruda-ha. It is established. It is firmly established. It is tenaciously established.

Vidusho-api, even in the wise ones. So the vidushaha is the plural of the word vidvan. And vidvan means having, so vid, video, seeing. So remember avidya means not seeing clearly. Vidvan means somebody who's got a lot of clear sight. And here potentially says even for somebody who's very very wise, even for somebody who sees clearly, abhi-ni-veisha can still be a tremendous affliction because it's like it has its own force. So what is abhi-ni-veisha? The word's very interesting. So abhi-ni and vish. Vish is the verbal root and vish means to enter. So abhi-ni-veish, abhi-ni-veisha, it means to basically be fully entered into, to be well settled into. Abhi-ni-veisha usually gets translated along the lines of the clinging to life or the fear of death. And this is one thing that the canonical commentators emphasize. Abhi-ni-veisha, one of the reasons why this clinging to life, this fear of death is so tenacious even in the wise, Vyasa, the principal canonical commentator says, it's because we've all been born and died many times before. So we know what an upheaval it can be. And also there is the idea. There is no such thing in the whole of existence as a defenseless creature because everything that exists wants to stay alive and has certain qualities, capacities that facilitate or support that end. So it's the idea that we cling to life. And one thing I'd like to add here is it's not just abhi-ni-veisha. It doesn't just mean the fear of death or the clinging to life. It also means the fear of change. Abhi-ni-veisha, things we get fully entered into, things that we settle into. So we get fully into, we settle into ideas, identifications, senses of I am this, I like this, I don't like this. So what do we see already? We see the avidya, asmita, raga-dvesha, abhi-ni-veisha, they all work together. They're a fiendish team, if you like. The kleshas, these afflictions, it's like we could liken them to this really hard to penetrate defensive lineup. They get in the way, they block us accessing the goal or the end zone, whatever you want to call or the finish line in the game of remembering and recognizing all of who we are. So I have some partiality, I'm not seeing clearly, so I get a false sense of who I am. That false sense of who I am gets re-emphasized, gets reinforced by my sense of what I like and what I don't like, what I agree with, what I don't agree with. And then that corroborates this limiting, false, imprisoning sense of identity. But that sense of identity is what I think I am. And so what I think I am has a kind of life of its own. And because that sense of identity has a life of its own, what does it do when it feels threatened? It grips all the harder. And this is one of the reasons why, as human beings, we tend to be, or we tend to demonstrate significant resistance to change. So Abhinavisha is potent, persistent, and it flows on as if with its own vitality, even in the most discerning, the most discriminating, the wisest of human beings, the clinging to what is, the clinging to life, the fear of death, and the clinging to what is, and the fear of change. So when we consider Abhinavisha and its tenacity, there's several useful illustrative ideas I'd like to share here. So one is that we're going to speak more shortly about these three intrinsic qualities of life called the Gunas. And we'll come to this in more detail soon, but briefly, there is the idea in yoga and the Sankhya philosophy, which yoga works with and assumes a familiarity with. It's recognised that everything in existence has three essential qualities. First, Satva. So Sat we've mentioned already, it goes back to the verb root us, the verb to be. So Satva means the beingness of something. So everything that exists has its pure existence. But when something exists in the realm of nature, it also has Rajoguna or Rajas, which means it's dynamism. Everything in existence is changing, it's subject to change. However, the fact that it's being subject to change and constant change notwithstanding, everything in existence, once it has come into existence, it also has Tamoguna or Tamas, inertia. Once something has taken on a certain form or configuration, it is more likely to continue in that form or configuration. So I go to bed more or less in this form and so far in my 43 years, usually the next morning I wake up more or less in a similar form. Some things have changed, but there is an inertia that keeps things cohering more or less in a pattern of configuration that's similar to how it was before. And this means if I want to bring about change, what am I going to have to deal with? I'm going to have to deal with resistance. For every force there is an equal and opposing counterforce. So things have been a certain way for some time. If I then want to break through to a vaster way of perceiving reality on myself, I'm going to encounter resistance. So one of the ways that this manifests is Abhinavisha because Abhinavisha is the resistance to change. So when I start practising yoga, I'm basically calling on the adversaries of the glaciers, of the afflictions. I'm asking to see what I am clinging to and how I can, skillfully perhaps, reduce my attachment to these limiting ideas, these false beliefs, these conditionings that are actually shackling and imprisoning me. So Abhinavisha, the fear of death and the fear of change. And when I start to invite change, I'm going to experience this. It's going to manifest. I can predict it. So one thing Patanjali has done here when he lays out these five cliches is it makes it clear. When we start practising Kriya Yoga, we start practising Tapa Svadhyaya Ishwaripranidhana.

When I turn on the light, Tapa, the fire of steady yogic discipline, I'm going to see things about myself that I didn't see before. Svadhyaya. When I honestly start placing my concentrated meditative awareness on myself, I might start to notice all sorts of things that I didn't even know were getting in my own way. I might start to notice how I've been complicit and to a significant degree responsible for my own limitations. How does that feel to witness and recognise that, oh no, I've been getting in my way for all this time? How does the ego take it? It's not so pleasant. And this is one of the reasons why Ishwaripranidhana can be so helpful. As I have that experience, let me just offer it to something vaster than myself. So when I have that perspective that, yes, I'm inviting change, I'm inviting new perspectives, I'm inviting vaster perspectives and I'm not really in charge, it makes it much easier to let those things go. And I want to say I'm not really in charge. That does not mean abdicating responsibility. So it's this classic yogic paradox. I have to claim sovereignty in order to give something away. I cannot give something away that I have not first claimed ownership of, otherwise not mine to give. So I do the work of inviting something, but I'm not attached or expectant of particular outcomes. So I'm inviting a consciousness or an awareness, vaster than that which I'm currently recognisant of, to illumine things so I can see in a vaster, less filtered, less tinted, less blinkered way. There's a classic image, I've seen it many times over the years, that really highlights the importance of our point of view. And yoga is a darshana. This is one of the words for a system of philosophy in the Indian method or Indian system. Darshana, a way of seeing and yoga is a way of seeing. And yoga reminds us, I've already mentioned it just a few sutras back, when we've got two eyes, there's always more we can't see than we can. We can test this, you know, how much of myself can I see at any one time? Not the whole picture, never mind ultimate reality. So maybe you've seen this image, there is a two people, sometimes it's depicted as a man and a woman and the most recent depiction of it that I saw, there's a man and he's on a cliff top. And he's dangling over the edge with one arm reaching down. The rest of his body is trapped underneath a huge boulder. And there is another person in the illustration I saw recently, it was a woman and she's reaching up and she's grabbed his hand and she's hanging over the edge of the cliff. And on the edge of the cliff, there's a little snake hole and a snake has bitten her arm. Now the man, he's trapped underneath a massive boulder that weighs, you know, four times as much as him and it's crushing him almost to death. And his other arm is immobile. He can't breathe properly with this huge boulder crushing him. The woman can't grip properly with this snake bite weakening her arm at every moment. And she is there thinking, can't you pull a bit more strongly? And he is there thinking, can't you climb a bit more strongly? And he cannot see that her arm is wounded and she cannot see that his other arm is incapacitated because of where their perspective is. And this is the reality of the human perspective. We cannot see the whole picture. And this to me is the tragedy of human hubris. Sometimes we hear statements like, oh, we know the science. This itself is a, the statement is so flawed, it turns my stomach and almost makes me physically sick when I hear somebody say something like the science is in or we know the science. The whole project of science is ongoing inquiry. An honest scientist will tell us first of all, that we do not really know what science took as read a hundred years ago. Now people laugh about, and this has been the story of science. It's a constant exploration because it's building on these instruments that we have. We can only see tiny slivers of ultimate reality. So as long as we feel that our perspective is the whole picture, as long as we are attached to things being a certain way and fitting in just so with our perspective, we're not really being realistic. So when we start to invite a vaster perspective, we're basically going to challenge this tendency, this in-built human tendency to want to fit reality into a box that is conveniently small enough for the breadth of vision that we have become accustomed to, to digest it. And this is a fool's game. We cannot digest the whole reality through our external senses because they have evolved to help us navigate this reality safely and survive and propagate. They do not have the capacity to see the whole picture. So yoga reminds us, when we have these senses that have the principle evolved purpose of keeping us alive, they will have certain biases. That's part of the game. Our senses, our minds, our bodies, their amazing instrumental powers, their superpower power tools. What do we know about any power tool? I don't know if you use power tools. I have a friend who is an amazing, amazing craftsman and carpenter and on his top 10 list of tools is a Makita power handsaw. So portable rotating saw. He works with wood a lot. This saves him a lot of time. One of my cousins does a lot of plumber, joiner and electrician. He helped me do a job and he brought his bandsaw to the house. And the job that we did, we did in one day, if we'd done all the cutting by hand, it would have taken at least two or three days. But my cousin, who's the tradesman and my friend who's the amazing craftsman, if I'm apprenticing them and helping them, they don't give me the power tool to use without making sure that I know how to use it safely. The chainsaw, for example, I know some people who work felling big trees. They all want a chainsaw because it saves so much labor, but they don't give the chainsaw to the person who is approaching the tree for the very first time. They'll just like, let's say, for example, you've got a friend and they're cutting some limbs off the tree for firewood. They'll leave you to split the wood with the axe. They'll do the chainsawing themselves. Chainsaw can save you a lot of time, but what else could happen if we misuse the chainsaw? We may create a situation in which we won't be able to saw anything ever again or even worse. Power tools need to be used with skill and discernment. So with the cliches we see encoded the idea that when we're a human being with these instrumental powers that help us perceive external reality, we can get attached to external reality being a certain way that accords with our sense of I am this and I like this and I don't like that. And we can become very resistant and shut down and blinkered when things don't accord to our worldview. And this is tremendously perilous. The hubris is not just when a human being does something crazy, like there are these people who think that, oh, let's maybe try and block out the sun to reduce global warming. It just makes me shudder. This is classic human hubris and arrogance on a scale that really just troubles me down to the depths of my soul. But hubris also affects us much more local individual scale by the way that we get really attached to the way we see the world. And this is a normal thing. Everything we experience will leave an impression. But can we become aware of how our accrued impressions start to interfere with or influence how we're able to see reality clearly or not? So these five cliches, they are very tenacious. They're a formidable team. Because they are so formidable, we need to be tenacious. We need to be consistent. And so we come back to those principles that have been laid out in chapter one. What is yoga practice? That constant steady wholehearted, diligent, dedicated effort to foster steadiness.

And at the beginning of chapter two, three ingredients. That fire of illuminating warming yogic discipline, that willingness to keep inquiring, to keep uncovering. And the willingness to consecrate our actions, to offer them to something greater than we recognize we are up to now. So we can actually keep inviting a vaster understanding or a broader recognition. So we've seen that these cliches potentially has laid them out as these five afflicting potentials, these five powers that can get in the way of yoga. And they all are very relatable I feel like, I don't know about you, but I can certainly see in my own life how I like certain things to stay as I'm familiar with them. There is this clinging to things being a certain way or according with a certain worldview or a certain idea. And yeah, I've been doing my best to prepare to be ready to die any day. But still, I don't want to die just yet. I have my preferences. I have my likes and dislikes. And I do see things through filters. My sense of who I am is certainly influenced by my ideas and my conditionings and my life experiences. And I recognize that my perception is very, very limited, very, very partial. So the cliches, it's like they work as a team. So I prepared a diagram. And we're going to look at this diagram now to help kind of illustrate how they work together. So in this diagram at the top, we have Satya-Rita-Brahat, we mentioned earlier, that state of wholeness, that which is true, which is reality, which is right, which is in rhythm and which is vast. When we're in that state, it's connected, it's open. Yukta is the past participle of the word that gives us yoga. And when I'm yukta, when I'm connected, when I'm integrated, balanced, then I can act with greater skillfulness and I've got greater access to my conscience and the pilot light of conscience. But what happens? And so this diagram I've attempted to show how these different cliches kind of work as a team. So avidya, as long as there is some partiality of vision, as long as we're not seeing the full picture, then we are, as it were, ignorant. There are some parts of reality that we are ignorant to, that we're oblivious to, that we're blinkered to, that we're not seeing. And as long as we're seeing things in this partial, less than the whole way, then what happens? We have asmita in the sense of a false sense of who I am, a limited, not fully real sense of identity, not fully formed, but distorted, limited. And then when I have this sense of limited who I am, this false sense of I am-ness, what then happens when I look out into the world? Because I feel I am not whole, what is happening inside me? I feel a sense of lack. I do not feel complete contentment. So what do I do? I look to the external world to try to bring me satisfaction. And then this brings me these things I like and these things I don't like. And I try to avoid the things I don't like. And I run towards the things I do like. But what happens? Does it bring me that deep lasting peace?

No. And so what happens? It's like my avidya gets compounded. I keep looking in the wrong place. And as I keep looking in the wrong place, I make more and more impressions that, let's say, corroborate or reinforce this partiality. And because I do not find lasting satisfaction or deep peacefulness, I don't quite find what I'm really longing for deep inside as I chase things in the external realm of comings and goings. What happens to my clinging to life? I try to grip harder because I'm scared of dying, because I've not come to a place where I feel peaceful. I haven't managed to resolve all my desires. I feel some type of frustration. And so that makes me feel more insecure. And so my abhinavishya becomes more tenacious. And so we see they work kind of as a, like, it's a vicious cycle, you might say. All these things, they reinforce each other. And as they reinforce each other, I become more fragmented. My view becomes less whole. What a situation. So Patanjali said, avidya is the kshitra, it is the field. We could say, imagine your field is your land, your garden. And in your garden, you would like it to be a place where you can experience wholeness and the bountiful gifts of existence. But as long as the bed in my garden is full of weeds, if I ignore them and leave them, these clashers, if I leave them to run amok, what will happen? Then the land will become choked with weed. And all of that beautiful abundance that I would like to enjoy in the garden will be stifled. I won't be able to access the nourishing power of the earth to bring into bloom all those foods that can nourish me, all those flowers that can fill my senses with joy and beauty, because the vicious suffocating bindweed network is running amok and taking over that land. So what do I need to do? I need to get in the game. I need to get in the game of clearing the field, cleansing the field, harmonizing the field. If I just cut the weeds back, what's going to happen? They're going to grow more tenacious. They'll get even more intricate. So what do I need to do? I need to get down into the earth, get my hands dirty and go down to the root of the issue. So with the clashers, there's the idea, when I observe them, when I encounter them and I actually trace them as best as I can down to their roots, then these can be the things that teach me. When I voluntarily go out, I ride out to meet the adversary, I get in the game. I say, okay, let's play. You are blocking my path. Let me see how you are blocking. Let's dance. And as we dance together, as we move together, I can start to learn from these blocks. They can teach me about how I've been getting in my own way. So when I acknowledge the completely natural normal to be expected veiling influence of the clashers, rather than being afflicted by them, rather than being trapped by them, I can be stimulated into this playful sense of inquiry on an ongoing day-to-day level. I look into my preferences. Why is it that I like that so much? Why am I so resistant to that? And when I make that honest inquiry and really look into it, then I can start to get more understanding of what's really going on in this field of my conscious awareness and I can start to clear some of the weeds. Now, when I start to clear some of the weeds, what might I then discover? Oh, wow, they're really deep-rooted. I need to get the heavy duty equipment now. I need to dig deeper. But as long as I maintain that inquiry, I can start to gain more access to the true potential of this field to allow me to experience the underlying consciousness I really am. So the clashers, they can seem like these tremendous adversaries, these great foes, these great enemies. And in many yoga teachings, the teachings are given in dramatic battlefield scenarios. And the job of the yoga practitioner is to seek victory. But what does this mean? It doesn't mean to destroy our enemies. It means to become enemy-less, not by trying to cut our enemies down, but by transforming them into our allies. So transforming the fight into a game, into a dance. So when I feel afflicted, never mind being afflicted, get in the game. Let me transform this into a dance. How can I work with this thing that feels like an affliction to actually bring forth more of my innate capacity to stand steady in my centre and see a little bit more clearly, a little bit more vastly? Always in yoga, it's about the centre. So when I feel these afflictions, they may leave me feeling a little bit off-kilter, imbalanced, out-of-whack. When I feel out-of-whack, can I use the out-of-whackness to inform me what would actually be more centred? So the afflictions, we can expect to encounter them. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna, the great teacher who delivers this teaching, says, when something is inevitable, don't let it get you down. Rather, meet it as skilfully as you can. So potentially, in the Yoga Sutra, he's already taught us the basic method, steadiness. Steadily cultivate steadiness.

So when I notice and experience the afflictions, as best as I can, let me not be afflicted by them. When I notice something is in my way, let me transform it into an opportunity to learn to continue on my way more skilfully than I was able to before. As we walk along the path of life, it's altogether completely natural and normal that we will stumble, that we may fall. Yoga recognises this is a normal part of learning to balance. Now when we were children, when we were small babies, toddlers, and we were learning to walk, how many times did we fall? How many times did we stumble? Probably more than we could count. But when we were that little child, we had not yet been infected with the idea that we should have it all worked out. So we were not yet afflicted by this idea that we should be the perfect finished article. And so every time we stumbled, we were able to learn from that experience about what it actually means to put one foot in front of the other and keep walking. So same idea in yoga, mentioned earlier, tasting the fruit like it's the first time we're tasting it. Svaadhyaya, going back to the first sutra, the principle of inquiry means can I practice with that childlike wonder? There's an asana teacher who I have great esteem for, he's called Master Chumpalik, he's in the Czech Republic. And when I met him, he'd been teaching for certainly more than 40 years. And in the first class I went to, he said this, it's like when you're doing asana, and he does, he actually works with a lot of movement patterns that relate back to our moving from being in the womb to being able to crawl and walk. But he says when you're doing asana, you have to practice with that spirit of the curious joy-filled toddler who is not weighed down by the expectation that I should have it all perfectly figured out already, and instead is open to be taught and gifted by the unexpected stumble. So the trick in yoga is can I avoid repeatedly stumbling in the same old way and actually move forwards? So when I encounter a barrier and affliction, can I find the steady presence to meet it and honestly, openly, steadily look into it, inquire into it and ask myself what benefit, what lesson, what insight, what unveiling, what cleansing can I bring about by navigating this and transforming this obstacle into an opportunity for onwards growth?