Place: Iyengar Institute-Simply Yoga, in New York (USA)
Year: July 2011
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Satyanarayana Dasa
Subject of this seminar: Samadhi and Sadhana Pada - Klesas
Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras are the classical work of the Yoga School of thought, one of the Six Darśanas studied in the Bhakti Tirtha course. They focus on how to attain direct experience and realization of the puruṣa, or the individual self. As the classical treatise on the Vedic understanding of the mind and consciousness and on techniques of meditation and self-realization, it has exerted immense influence over the religious practices of Hinduism in India and, more recently, in the West. For Vaiṣṇavas, the Yoga Sūtras are especially helpful in understanding the first two chapters of Bhakti-rasāmṛita-sindhu.
Our mind is very tricky. It has a way of rationalizing. That is why everybody thinks they are right. And because of the human minds tricks, you are stuck here in the material world. You give the mind something spiritual, and it makes it material. The mind is material, so it naturally runs for material. Give mind God, and he uses God for his dog. You are trying to use God for small things. Don’t use God to make your dog better. God also knows your dog is sick, so why pray to God about your dog?
