Patanjali’s Wisdom: The Essence of Yoga Sutras with Akshay Bhat

0:00 Hey there, before we get started on this week's episode, I would love to ask for your support by reviewing this podcast. We want to share yoga with as many people as possible and this free resource, this podcast is one of the ways that we can do that. And the best way that you can help support us is by giving us a review.

0:16 So if you go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever podcast platform you use, Scroll down until you find that star review and then give us some love. Thank you so much, and let's get started with this week's episode. It should be studied when somebody said the age of I think 1314, because they start to think logically there and then very logical psychological text is this Yoga Sutras and it's very hard to blend in life. It's because it appears like,

0:52 you know, I had to get detached from the life. But no, it is just teaching us how to not to be the slave of the mind. Welcome to the Going Pro Yoga podcast. If you love yoga as much as I do, then this podcast is for you.

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1:31 Whether you want to share yoga or teach yoga or just practice yoga. This podcast is talking all things yoga related and we're trying to talk from the teacher's perspective and also the students perspective to make sure we get a full 360° angle on what yoga is all about and how it's evolved in the modern world.

1:47 Welcome to our podcast. This is Patanjali prayer invoking this quality of Guru Sri Guru Bihonamahari. Thank you. Welcome. Welcome indeed. Welcome to welcome back to the podcast actually, and welcome all of you listeners tuning in.

3:16 Thank you. Yeah, so Akshay is with us again, of course. And Akshay was with us last week where he shared his story, which was very beautiful actually. I love that. So if you haven't listened to that episode, I would definitely suggest going back and having a listen to learn a little bit more about Akshay and yeah, his his yoga journey, which was such a fascinating story.

3:41 But for this episode, we're actually going to be diving deeper into what do you even call it, the philosophy, a little bit of yoga. Yeah. Yes, this is the philosophy of yoga. Yoga Sutra. The Yoga Sutras. OK, great. So unlike a lot of you who've probably done a training and learned about the sutras, you probably also don't remember a lot of the sutras, right?

4:04 A lot of information and you know, only so much actually sticks in. So I'm actually happy to have you to, you know, re explain and hopefully make it a little bit more accessible for me to understand and also the listeners as well. I'm excited, yeah.

4:19 Yeah, me as well. So first of all, Patanjali, who is he? Explain. Like I think we need to understand that what type of knowledge that Patanjali is giving. According to that we can guess who is Patanjali. So if we say, let's say about 3000 years ago in India after the Mahabharata war, people were serious into this yogic practice and there were a lot of lot of types of yoga.

5:06 Like, you know, when Buddha himself left the palace and he he wanted to become Yogi and he started wondering he might have found maybe more than thousand schools. Like if we go to Rishikesh these days, you can see every door is like a yoga school like that. And the students, yoga students are getting confused. What is what is yoga?

5:35 What is not yoga? Some people are on the ropes, some people are on the, you know, blocks. Some people are doing vinyasa, some are doing yin. So what is actually yoga? Somebody had to intellectually define these these things. So that's how the Yoga Sutra came to existence. And Patanjali was a sage.

6:01 We just chanted mantra for him. They believe that Patanjali belongs to the not a tribe. So these people are highly intellectual people and more Tantra way of practicing to live a simple life with extraordinary awareness.

6:24 And Patanjali has given three important texts to US. One is Yoga Sutras. This Yoga is to cleanse the mind where he also has given Sanskrit grammar which is Mahabhasham for cleansing the speech for communication. For whatever the reason, the cleansing speech was also given by Patanjali and one more important text on Ayurveda to cleanse the body. So these are the three important texts for anyone who is living a healthy holistic life.

7:09 So Ayurveda for body and Yoga for the mind and Sanskrit grammar for the speech. So this is Patanjali. We can briefly say a monk and historically if we search who is Patanjali, we will get this image of Patanjali. You know there is a serpent, there is no legs, the serpent kind of legs and half body man. And in India, we believe he is an avatar of Vishnu, a Lord Vishnu.

7:47 So that's all we know about Patanjali and the rest of the things. Maybe you know some stories people talk. So is Patanjali like the era of Patanjali you said thousands of years ago? Is that how far back it goes? Yeah, like about 2500 to 3000 years ago. OK, I didn't realize it was that. I mean, I knew yoga was quite old, let's say, but I didn't realize Patanjali was part of that. Yeah, that timeline as well.

8:17 OK, so three books or three texts. Let's say three texts, one for the mind, one for the body, one for speech. Speech, Yes. OK. Cool. And then the sutras is the yoga all. Right, So what is actually the sutras? Yeah, what is the? Sutras.

8:34 So the sutra in in Sanskrit sutra means a threat. So trait a threat, threat. A. Thread a thread. OK, so actually what is sutra means? It's like a formulae. Suppose for example sutra is E is equal to MC square. So this is sutra. For a normal person like me, I would never understand what E is equal to MC square.

9:03 There should be the context of what is E energy molecule. All of that should be explained a basic preliminary things. Physics, chemistry is needed to understand the sutras exactly Similarly to understand Yoga Sutras we have a preliminary knowledge that is first we have to understand the Sanskrit grammar. So before Yoga Sutra, one has to study at least a few years of basic Sanskrit to know like what context Patanjali is talking and what is this text before this

9:47 actually there is a Sutra of Lord Shiva which is which is the first sutras. They teach us in the tradition where when Lord Shiva first started playing that dhamaru, the Dhamaru sound, the drums, from there the the sound came to existence like Ayun Rudrick, Ayung Ayauch Hayavarat LAN yamagana Nam jabhai. Can you hear the Damaru sound?

10:22 Yeah, that that is the the first sutras. Then one has to study the grammar and then come to the Patanjali Yoga Sutra to understand what context he's talking. OK, so then the one text comes before yes, what you studied. Yeah, just a little bit, yeah.

10:44 It's a lot, isn't it? Yeah, it's a lot. So if we categorize this knowledge of Vedanta, what we are studying is actually end of knowledge where we don't need to study any more books after studying Vedanta. So there are three important texts, three important categorization of knowledge. One is Smriti.

11:11 Smriti means these are the knowledge which is not man made, which is just as it is received and the knowledge is passed. Like mantras. OK, the Upanishad mantras. So would this be like the equivalent of like some people use the word like channeling? Yeah.

11:31 Or receiving or downloads, Yeah. Or some higher power that's speaking to them. Absolutely, absolutely, exactly like that. So if we say I'm channeled and then I say Aham Brahm has me one of the famous quote from Upanishad. So if somebody has achieved Samadhi for very, very long time and the if he had to speak something that is like it's impossible because he has gone through a big experience but he has to put it in words so we will understand. So then he will say Aham

12:11 Brahmasmi. So I am that Brahman. So that is Shruti means he is not speaking but his experience is speaking there. I'm not sure I understand. So like what he the information that he's receiving, call it a channel download, whatever the words in which he's expressing are not words of English, of course, or there would that be Sanskrit? Yeah, it and.

12:43 Then it needs to be, and it needs to be interpreted to in order to be received beyond just his body. Is that right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Example is he's being an instrument, right? Like a radio signal if he had to channel OK 108 is that's where today is my frequency should be. So he takes the mind in deep meditation there then he receives the transcendental bliss. Ultimately it's there are everybody's doing the same thing that we all want to have a

13:19 blissful experience in life. So we are doing all of this these yogis have found with themselves. That is the first one is the Shruti which the knowledge they just hear they receive and pass it on. Right. I remember you mentioned this in the last podcast about like a teacher who's receiving or channeling the information. They're actually they're not.

13:45 You said you that they weren't quite the teacher. They're like the almost the student and then they're sharing that and then the people listening are almost like the teacher to some degree that can then take that and share it with the world. Absolutely the lineage of yoga.

14:00 The yogic text also received like that. If you know the the famous Baba Baba Ramdevji and he was telling once how many days are you taking this to mug up the sutras? There are 196 sutras are there in yoga sutras 4 chapters and I thought maybe I need at least two weeks but he mugged up in just one day.

14:28 So if you can ask him second chapter tell me the 15 sutra, he will tell you right? So that is his memory power, so. So how many do you remember? I think I know the two chapters, yeah, first two chapters, the third chapter and 4th chapter is complicated, so I just like I can read but I I don't understand them also. Right.

14:54 It's harder to get to that. Maybe eventually. Eventually. Yeah, yeah. OK, cool. So this is helpful. The second type of knowledge is Smriti. Smriti means somebody has understood this, the experiences and they have written the text like Veda Vyasya has written Bhagavad Gita. That is like if you can understand, you can also write you are quotes Smriti and like there are so many different we can talk about Rumi.

15:30 He's also his wisdom is like Smriti and you can see a lot of people from all over the world. I think Ekra Trolle. So Smriti is like the understanding of the information being received and then translating that into whether it be text or another language so that it can be received by others. Absolutely right.

15:57 The poets are writing in poems, right? The artists are just painting in Bali. We can see they're they're also having the divine experiences, but they are manifesting in arts, music. It can be anything that is Smriti, but this Yoga Sutra is actually the logical. That's why they call it as Nyaya. So the logical way of understanding the reality, that's what is the Yoga Sutra is about. And the Yoga Sutra is the 196 sutras that's it's almost like the the original science, if you

16:37 will. Would you kind of describe it like that without it being science? And then, you know, there's a common thing that says that science is eventually or slowly catching up to the yoga because the yoga's been around for so long.

16:49 And you know, these call them downloads, the information, the channeling that some of these people who have experienced that information and you know, then they had someone who would be able to take that information and put it into form.

17:05 Text, language, books, art, whatever it is to be received elsewhere was kind of like the original way of learning about what I'm understanding to be is just life. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right. OK, just understanding our user manual, you know, right, Like in the mobile phone, then we get the new phone which comes with the manual. So these are the text which is actually talking about the most fundamental things in life.

17:34 You know what's interesting about that? I bet you nobody actually looks at the manual for their phone. They probably throw it away, probably like the manual for life. A lot of people probably don't even consider that. And that's kind of what we're we're going to dive into a little bit.

17:49 Yeah, the sutras. OK, cool. So this is really helpful. I'm actually feeling like I'm understanding a little bit more about where this all comes from, why it exists, how it was received, and then what it actually means. Even without actually knowing what it means individually, like specifically, but its purpose, which is to inform us of what all of this is around us, the existence. Absolutely, absolutely.

18:18 Just to understand that like Patanjali says Swaroopayavastanam to make the life easier to be in ease in all type of situation. You know that that's what is the the all the text is telling the same thing that if you are in very blissful state, you stay there.

18:45 Don't come out of that state. If you if that is really blissful, you should enjoy more and more. And in Hindi they say raspana hai. We had to drink that experience. So wherever there is happiness is coming from, the East is coming from.

19:05 If you enjoy the breeze, don't think whether it's feminine or masculine, just enjoy the breeze. Right. Try not to make sense of it, just be with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, cool. So this is going to be a side question the the 8 limbs of yoga, how does that blend in with this? So the it's very funny, like these days I just, I was just observing who is studying the yoga text, Yoga Sutras in India, only people who are studying this is people who are studying in the gurukulas.

19:49 Maybe it's less than 2% of the population. Right. And the gurukulas is what you you told me you were in when you were from 11 to like 15 or so. Yeah, yeah, right. Which to me was like yoga boot camp. Yoga boot camp. That's the way I I understood it, which we talked about in the previous episode, yeah. Absolutely.

20:07 And the in even in the gurukula, I, I have not got no chance to study Yoga Sutras only because I was interested in yoga. And when I was in even in in my school, I was asking all these questions which is logical and people would be like, what is this? This question has, you know, no ends. So then when I went to one Swamiji in the gurukula, Swami Brahmadevji and he gave me this text. He said you read this you have more logical way of looking at life.

20:49 Then these are the texts which will help you to think. And that's the sutras. That's the sutras. So this text has it should be studied when somebody said the age of I think 1314 because they start to think logically there.

21:09 And then the the very logical psychological text is this Yoga Sutras. And it's very hard to blend in life. It's because it appears like, you know, I had to get detached from the life. But no, it is just teaching us how to not to be the slave of the mind. That's all it's it's teaching.

21:36 So did the 8 limbs of yoga come from that? So the 8 limbs of yoga is the second chapter. So it this text has the 4th chapter right? So 4 chapters of freedom we can call like that. So the first chapter is Patanjali talking about samadhi.

21:57 Pada means if somebody has a higher yogic experiences, how his mind will be. If somebody is doing yoga for maybe 20 years or from the young age or something like that, after 20 years your mind goes to certain state of awareness.

22:20 So he says that the samadhi is the beginning of yoga. So he explains various different kinds of samadhis, sabija samadhi, nirbija samadhi, all of that Savitarka samaji samadhi, nirvitarka samadhi, the reasoning, all of that.

22:39 So the the 1st chapter is actually the Patanjali is telling us, look at this, this is what happens to a Yogi and yogi's mind is this what is yoga? He's all explaining the theory there. But the second chapter Sadanapada, he's giving the tool and in in that the main tool of Patanjali that all the 200 of our student know the 8 limbs of yoga.

23:10 Right. OK. It's coming from there. I see. OK, yeah, I'm starting to connect it all together a little bit. So different types of samadhi, I maybe just explain, I think I understand Samadhi to me is one of the 8 limbs to some degree. Is that right as well?

23:28 And you said there's different types of samadhi. Or would you be able to maybe explain a little bit what that is and then maybe just slight differentiations between the possibilities of different ones? Yeah. So one of the example that we can see is Buddha.

23:45 OK, so when Buddha was almost getting self realized during those duration, he was not eating food because he was following a certain rule that he's not going to ask for food S he will come out of the survival mode. Because naturally in the end we keep digging the mind and we go very deeper in the body, very deeper in the mind.

24:16 Only thing there will be left is survival, the animalistic instinctive mind. So that survival mind, once one overcomes, then the real yoga practice begins. So when Buddha was doing this, he, he was not eating. So once this happens, he was almost crossing the river.

24:42 He was very skinny and, you know, very weak boy. And then he had no strength to cross the river and he held on to the some branches there. And then he wanted to cross, but the energy was like somewhere stuck where he's kind of feeling if I step forward, I will die. So then that thought gave him the the realization that if I die, okay, like it's the same cycle. So from there, you know, he took a step forward and then he kind of started having realizations

25:24 with every step. And he sat under a Bodhi tree for many years and people say he got self realized. And after that, that is the state of Samadhi he has achieved. And if he's in samadhi, he should be staying in samadhi, right?

25:41 If he's enjoying, he should stay there. But what he did is when he opened the eyes, he had three disciples. And he said, he asked his disciple, let's have a food. That's the first thing he said. And the disciple thought, OK, what is this guy?

26:01 We are all fasting. After all the realization, he should have said Aham Brahmasmi or something. But he's talking about let's have food and they left him. OK. So one who goes to the samadhi, he goes to serve the humanity. He wants to give that experience to everyone. So that's when when Buddha got the realization, the first step of samadhi, he started spreading that through his teaching. So the samadhi is the beginning of yoga practice. So in Yoga Sutra they say

26:43 Vitarka Vichara, Ananda Asmita. These are the lower samadhis that they explain. Vitarka means there is some kind of a question arises most fundamental questions. What is ungraspability? What is? Ungraspability. What is that?

27:07 So something that we can't grasp it. Like, oh, ungrasp reality. Yeah, ungraspability like that. OK, So this this most fundamental question will start to rise up. Only if you give that space of samadhi vijara, then the beautiful ideas can come up.

27:28 Maybe business ideas or maybe studying or adopting some new lifestyle or learning something like maybe you want to go to Japan and become a Shaolin guy or a Zen guy, something like that. So it's like the generation of new ideas and creation. Ideas and the creation OK, like I would say it's in Japan tradition.

27:59 If we look at Japan, everything is very innovative and the people there follow certain yogic lifestyle that they they live very healthy and happy life, but still very innovative. So that's also a manifestation of yoga there, right?

28:20 Vitarka Vichara Ananda means ever bliss. Maybe if if you want to be, you know, always be in the ever blissful state, then we have this kirtans. Right, like your tongues in the bhakti yoga. Yeah, you can go to Vrindavan in India and you will see that that after you know you, you will sing so much.

28:49 After few days you don't want to sing. Right. So that kind of exploring the, the love, the divine love, Vitarka, Vichara Ananda and then Asmita. So Asmita, is that some kind of, you know, you're getting some kind of a knowledge In Sanskrit we say viveka. So some kind of discernment you have, I think it's called as discernment.

29:25 So you know what is right, what is wrong, what is real, what is unreal. So from there you start to act. That's why the Patanjali Yoga Sutra begins with the samadhi pada. He says don't stop there. This is where the yoga is starting.

29:44 Thank you for helping to explain this and thank you, Akshay, for today's episode. We're actually going to take a break and extend this episode into next week to allow a little bit of time of integration for some of this information to kind of sink in, register and digest. Because even for myself, it felt like a little bit of concentration to try to fully understand. So in fact, actually going back and listening to this episode again might actually help to

30:15 reinforce some of those teaching some of these lessons to help really understand at another level the sutras and how the yoga kind of has evolved into being able to start the practice. Once we kind of go through these processes, which allows us to give more of a depth of what yoga actually is beyond just not the awesome or beyond just meditation, but the essence of this history in this tradition of the yoga practice. And then for next week, we're

30:44 going to continue the conversation with Akshay. So please tune in next week and we'll speak to you then. Otherwise, thank you so much and have a great day. All right, before you go, let me just tell you about the Going proyoga.com platform. So right now you can go to goingproyoga.com and check it out for free for seven days where you can actually learn more about yoga in the ways of alignment, queuing, sequencing, yoga anatomy.

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