# Class Ten **1) Master Swatmarama says that “when the thoughts are steady, the winds are steady,” and that this makes “the drops” steady. And where the drops are steady, we have a “steady gathering of our power.” Explain what is meant by “drops” here.** “Drops” in this context, again the Sanskrit word bindu, refers to the force which lies behind our sexual energy. This is a very pure force which can be used for all of our projects to help other people. When we are able to calm the mind and create a smooth flow of the inner winds, then this higher sexual energy is available to us, a steady gathering of power, for performing acts of higher good. **2) Explain what it means when we say that “our thoughts are the lord of the powers of sense.” Give the Sanskrit word for “lord” here; its Sanskrit root; and related English words.** Quite simply, we must with practice become aware of how much we are living in our senses: caught in the shallow level of food, music, and sex. We must consciously decide then to seek deeper states of consciousness— through the practice of yoga and meditation—which will allow us to overcome the more dangerous and pressing questions of death and pain, both our own and others’ The Sanskrit word for “lord” here is natha naw, which derives from a root √ nath naw! , meaning to seek aid. Related English words are need (originally from an Indo-European root √nau, meaning exhausted), and nudnik, from the Polish, meaning someone who exhausts us. A famed group of hatha yogins in India were known as the nath yogis. **3) What does it mean when Master Swatmarama says that “dissolution is something that rests upon the sacred sound”?** We utilize our concentration on both gross and subtle sacred sounds—the sound of a bell as it slowly dies out, or the sound of a Sanskrit bija syllable within our channels—to reach a deep state of meditation, in which we then try to see emptiness directly. This experience then inexorably leads us into the dissolution of the two side channels, and the body and mind of an enlightened being. **4) What does Master Swatmarama mean when he says that “this in itself we could call ‘freedom,’ while others might not see that at all”?** He is referring with the word “this” to the entire process described in the previous verse: our thoughts controlling our senses; our winds controlling our thoughts; the dissolution of the side channels controlling our winds; and the dissolution coming about through the direct perception of emptiness, itself resulting from a deep state of concentration on the sacred sound. When he says that we “can call this freedom,” what Master Swatmarama is pointing out is that even the final goal of our yoga—freedom, or enlightenment, to become an Angel of light who can help all beings—is something which is projected by our mind, forced to do so by the karma we have collected through taking care of others. Those who have not served others will, just as validly, not perceive the practice of hatha and raja yoga as freedom at all.