This post is part of a series I am writing as I read the The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. All posts in this series can be found through the "Sutra Readings" category.
Chapter 2: Treading the Path (Sutras 15-17)
Lest we should think that a settled mind brings peace to those have attained that state, the Yoga sutras warn us that with greater understanding comes more suffering:
15. Life is uncertain, change causes fear, and latent impressions bring pain – all is indeed suffering to one who has developed discrimination.
The catch here is “discrimination,” which is, after all, an
activity of the mind. Quieting the mind with only the mind in focus, is bound
to lead to the problem of a mind in knots over itself. Jean, over at tasting
rhubarb, has an excellent post about this very same issue of suffering that
comes from the deep silence of a mind that is well on its way to settling with
eyes wide open and a clear vision.
She asks a poignant question, one that needs to be asked, even as mindfulness therapy currently is gaining currency as a panacea for a range of mental health issues:
I cannot but question, though, whether this way, right into the heart of the pain and through it, is the right one. Is it just masochism? Can choosing to be more self-aware, even more raw and unprotected, be a good thing for people who are already by temperament highly sensitive or exceptionally neurotic (choose your definition – which one I choose depends on my mood, though Elaine Aron’s work on the trait of high-sensitivity has certainly had a big impact on my thinking)? We should always question. The thing is, I haven’t found another way. Suppression, pretending I’m not here, certainly hasn’t worked. But will I ever be ‘perfectly willing to be there’?
Patanjali’s answer comes in the next sutra:
16. But the suffering yet to come should be averted.
Ah, indeed… but how do we avert the suffering that is yet to come? How do we make that “should” into “done.” The “how” of those steps is both incredibly (and I do mean incredibly) easy and difficult. Easy, because it is already within us, and difficult, because it is nothing that has to do with what we think is us. Here is Patanjali’s take on it:
17. The cause of suffering is that the unbounded Self is overshadowed by the world.
The answer, of course, is not a retreat from the world. Nor its rejection. A rush of radiant light is no guarantee of enlightenment. In fact, it’s likely to make you temporarily blind. Enlightenment comes when you can see beyond the light and beyond the shadows – or so it seems to me. The view from that place was good enough for Rilke, so let me quote him again:
I, 3 (Sonnets to Orpheus)
A god can do it. But will you tell me how
a man can penetrate through the lyre’s strings?
Our mind is split. And at the shadowed crossing
of heart-roads there is no temple for Apollo.
Song, as you have taught it, is not desire,
not wooing any grace that can be achieved;
song is reality. Simple, for a god.
But when can we be real? When does he pour
the earth, the stars, into us? Young man,
it is not your loving, even if your mouth
was forced wide open by your own voice – learn
to forget that passionate music. It will end.
True singing is a different breath, about
nothing. A gust inside the god. A wind.
(Rilke, 1989)
Works Cited
Patanjali. (1982). The
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. (A. Shearer, Trans.) New York: Bell Tower.
Rilke, R. M. (1989). The
Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. (S. Mitchell, Trans.) New York: Vintage
International.
stony path. (n.d.). Retrieved May 29, 2008, from tasting rhubarb: http://tastingrhubarb.blogspot.com/2008/05/stony-path.html
~ to be continued
