Notes

Mar 17: Yoga/Samkya Wisdom 3

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras

Part 1: The Aim of Yoga

"The aim of yoga is to eliminate the control that material nature exerts over the human spirit, to rediscover through introspective practice what the poet T. S. Eliot called the "still point of the turning world." " This is a state of perfect equilibrium and absolute spiritual calm, an interior refuge in the chaos of worldly existence. In the view of Patanjali, yogic practice can break habitual ways of thinking and acting that bind one to the corruptions of everyday life." (Miller, p. 1)

Concise summary of Yoga method:

Use the 8-limbed approach to still the mind. Achieve contemplative poise and the observer standpoint. This standpoint allows you to perceive the true self, liberated from it's obstacles. The rationale for this goal is found in the analysis of the current obstacles to self-knowledge. Implicit in this is a claim that we are in a state of self-alienation.

5 kinds of "turnings" that are either immune or corruptable:

1) valid judgement

2) error

3) conceptualization,

4) inference, and

5) verbal testimony

Doctrine of memory traces - nothing is lost (Later, connected to idea of "seedless Contemplation" and action.

YS12-16: Mastery of desire, absence of craving. (Connection to Stoic/Epicurean thought)

[Note relationship between cessation of thought and wisdom. Wisdom promotes cessation of thought. (Consider dynamics. How would that work?] But then at YS2.27, Miller p. 50, wisdom is outcome.

Sources of cessation of thought: YS17-22.

Obstacles: disease, apathy, doubt, carelessness, indolence, dissipation, false vision, failure to attain a firm basis in yoga, and restlessness.

[Small group topic] Tranquility of thought

Part 2: Practice of Yoga

• Forces of corruption - involution and Samkhya metaphysics. (Feuerstein, p. 76)
• Practical examples of involution. - in physical and mental awareness
• Purification of body and detachment from it.
• Withdrawl as "transitional phase" moving toward deeper contemplation.

Major Issues for Critical Discussion:

1. Is sense withdrawal and the quieting of the mind compatible with active commitment to others and engagement in the world?
2. Are we really in a state of self-alienation and corruption?
3. Does Yoga turn nature on it's head?
4. How the 3 Gunas help you figure out how to move toward the observer standpoint.
5. How are the Yamas and Niyamas related to the 3 gunas and involtion?