Having provided some hints on Practice, Yoga now explains in detail how one can develop a firm determination in the effort to practice Yoga.
Practice can be intensified, followed rigorously if we develop a firm Determination.
We take many Resolutions on every New Year.
But they are followed very rarely.
Why?
The things we get attached to our Consciousness that it is difficult to shake them.
We look at sense objects.
We feel them, either by curiosity , Peer pressure or by what others tell us.
Before experiencing the objects of the senses, these objects were there , they would be even after we leave them.
It is only when we attach our selves to them we experience them.
Like Liquor.
We take to Drinking, out of curiosity,peer pressure or we hear of it often.
Before that it was there and it would be if we leave them alone.
So the experiencing and the subsequent enjoyment is because of our attachments to these objects of senses.
The operative Principle here is the ‘Attachment‘
Our seeking objects of enjoyment is of two kinds.
One, that we attend to because we want to ‘satisfy’ a need, more specifically an ‘urge’
This demand of ours originates from our Instincts.
There are these primary instincts.
Survival,
Thirst,
Hunger,
Sex, and
Gregariousness(to be with others).
Satisfaction of these instincts provides us ‘Relief’ more than pleasure.
Pleasure comes later when we get used to these objects when we start accessing them more than we need and start getting pleasure, the next stage of Satisfaction.
Then this pleasure seeking becomes a Habit and you are hooked.
One becomes miserable if one does not get these objects.
had we remained at the ‘Satisfaction Level, this would not have happened.
In Sanskrit these needs to relieve one’s urges are called ‘Upadhi‘( not the Philosophical term Upadhi)
You need to relieve yourself, you do it;but you do not persist or crave for it, unless you have a Constipation problem!
This is applicable to all the sense enjoyment.
If we can restrict ourselves at the level of satisfaction without graduating into enjoyment,we will have no worries.
Human nature being what it is, we can not help this without conscious effort.
How do we go about it?
Yoga Sutra 1.15 explains.
dṛśṭa – visible, perceptible, something you can see with your eyes
ānuśravika – extra dimensional experiences [lit. to hear (or read) Vedic descriptions]
viśaya – sense objects
vitṛśṇarya – from one who is freed from material desires
vaśīkāra – held under control, subjugated
saṁjñā – consciousness
vairāgyam – detachment, renunciation, dispassion, disinterested
To be a detached yogi, you must take back control of your consciousness, so that it is free from desire for any material object in this world, or any of the subtler dimensions.”
When we look at an object we develop impressions of them whether we enjoy them or not.
If we enjoy them we are stuck with them.
If not, we remain curious about it.
But if we remain indifferent to them?
Explanation of this continues in a separate post.
Related articles
- Perfecting Practice Yoga Sutra 1.14 (ramanan50.wordpress.com)
- Directing The Mind, Yoga Sutra 1.12 (ramanan50.wordpress.com)