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.
The Settled Mind – Chapter 1 (sutras 35-40):
If yoga is about the integration of consciousness, as the Vedic philosophers have said (Easwaran, 2007), then settling the mind becomes the key that opens the door to the path. It’s a key forged from ores that run the deeply veined stratum of what may be the geography of awareness:
35. Experience of the finest levels of the senses establishes the settled mind.
36. So does experience of the inner radiance that is free from sorrow.
37. So does being attuned to another mind that is itself unperturbed by desire.
38. So does witnessing the process of dreaming or dreamless sleep.
39. So does any meditation that is held in high esteem.
40. The sovereignty of the mind that is settled
extends from the smallest of the small to the greatest of the great.
(Patanjali, 1982)
The sutras of this section weave back and forth, from here to there, from inside to outside, from I to Thou, from sleep to awake, twisting these seeming dualities into a knotted rope, which is the meditation “that is held in high esteem” -- and which is bound to yoke mind to awareness.
As I write this, my mind is scattered and easily spooked. Contrary to the teachings, but in line with modern life, I am doing three things at once just now: writing this, thinking about new recipes for crackers and flat breads to make in my dehydrator, and catching snippets of the Nova show on PBS, which happens to be about the making of Samurai swords…
A Samurai swordsmith, as I learned just now, is a
magician of sorts, and perhaps also a yogi. Through the long arduous process of
creating and honing the sword, the master swordsmith changes the atomic
structure of the steel in parts of the blade.
Imagine that – changing the atomic structure of steel with nothing more than a slight, but constant and measured, touch of the finger – like a conductor lifting his baton to orchestrate the cacophony of flaws into a soaring symphony. Introducing flaws and weaknesses into the metal to make it, not harder, but tougher!
In this, the Samurai swordsmith knows something about that “sovereignty of the mind” and the way it extends from the smallest of the small, from the atomic structure of steel, to greatest of the great….
Works Cited
Patanjali. (1982). The
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. (A. Shearer, Trans.) New York: Bell Tower.
~ to be continued
