### Answer Key **1) ==We're on to the fourth chapter!  Master Svatmarama speaks about the image of a bottle which is empty, and a bottle which is full.  First explain the image of the empty bottle, standing in empty space; and say a bit about the context in the section of the fourth chapter we're in.==** **The fourth chapter of our _Yoga of the Sun and Moon,_ to put it generally, is _raja yoga:_ the wisdom culmination of all our efforts in hatha or physical yoga.  Master Svatmarama, so far in this fourth chapter, has been on the subject of the direct perception of emptiness, arrived at in fact by performing the practice of the Skydancer, in its various forms.  Here he is comparing our mind to a bottle.  A bottle can be empty, or a bottle can be full.** **He expands the image to an empty bottle standing in empty space: the inside of the bottle is empty, and then out beyond the glass too there is only emptiness.  The idea is that our mind has its own emptiness, and that it is also perceiving emptiness.** **The way in which our mind perceives emptiness is clear.  We've talked about it with the example of a person who is angry with us.  We realize that the person in themselves is like a white, blank movie screen, and that the way in which we perceive them is coming from us.  This means that they don't exist out there from their own side in the way we always assumed they did; and when we can really grasp this in a moment of possible anger then we are perceiving the emptiness of the person, in an intellectual way.** **The way in which our mind is itself empty is clear when we undertake Mahamudra meditation.  We are focusing on the mind or the thoughts themselves, analyzing how even these do not come from their own side.  The content of our very thoughts is determined by the degree of kindness which we have shown to others around us.  We are not deciding which thoughts come up in our mind: we are listening to them.** **In these two ways then the mind is like an empty bottle in empty space.** **2) ==Now relate the point of the metaphor of a full bottle placed in the ocean.==** **Just as the mind itself is empty, it is also full, and stands in the surrounding of a full world.** **This is a reference to the nominal or projected reality around us.  Outside of the mind, the world is indeed really there, even though everything is at the very same time empty.** **What this means on the outside is that things actually do really exist outside of us, because they are _projected_ by our mind as being outside of us.  The bumper on a taxi may indeed be a projection emanating from our mind, but it can nonetheless—or should we say "_and_ it can therefore"—break our legs just as surely.** **Saying that the outside world is a projection of our mind is not in any way saying that the outside is unreal; rather it is identifying _how_ the outside world is real: it is real in a way that we can change, through our own efforts.** **On the inside too the mind is full.  We do hear our thoughts, we do have emotions: and they are real.  Again they are real because they are projected by the mind; and this kind of reality is lucky for us, because it means that we can affect what we hear within our own mind.  If we take care to do what we can to assure the happiness of others, then our own mind will be full of good and clean thoughts.** **And so we reach the state of a full bottle in a full ocean, even as we are—at the very same time—an empty bottle in empty space.** *3) ==Master Svatmarama says that we should "stop thinking about anything."  How have statements like this been interpreted wrongly in the past?  And how is this one correctly interpreted?== **In many countries and traditions around the world, throughout history, statements like this have been interpreted to mean that we should simply try to reach a place where we're not thinking about _anything at all._** **This point is a little delicate.  Of course it's important for us not to be distracted by a great many miscellaneous thoughts, and in this sense we should learn to quiet the noise in the mind.  It is not though the case that we are trying to reach a state where we don't think about anything at all.** **Rather, in the initial stages, what it means when we want to "stop thinking about anything" is that we gradually seek to train ourselves to stop thinking that things are coming from their own side.  We try to develop two states of mind that are referred to as "awareness" and "recollection."** **The awareness in this case is a corner of our own mind which is sitting in the background and watching the main mind, trying to catch it whenever it starts to think of things as coming from their own side.** **The alarm that should set off this state of mind's attention is whenever we start to feel _unhappy._  Unhappiness is necessarily triggered by a misperception of what we are unhappy about: we get in a traffic jam, and start to get upset.  This can only happen if we are misunderstanding where the traffic jam has come from: we ourselves in the past have hindered someone from getting somewhere that they really should be going to, and this seed is now flowering as the perception of our own progress down the highway being blocked.** **When we start to get unhappy in the traffic, the "awareness" state of mind rings the alarm.  And then the "recollection" state of mind brings our mind back to correct view about the situation: I obstructed someone in the past, and now I should sit in the traffic jam and consider ways in which I might be obstructing others even now—and how I could stop doing that.  This is the best thing we can do to get the traffic moving.** **We are trying to stop all our thoughts, but only all our thoughts of things coming from their own side.** *4) Master Svatmarama says in this section that "the entire world is nothing but a fabrication of our thoughts."  It's tempting to think that, if the world is indeed just a fabrication of our thoughts, then we could improve the world simply by wishing it: by trying to think in a more positive way.  Explain why or why not this is in actuality true. **The world is indeed a fabrication of our thoughts, but not in the sense that we can wish the world to be one way or the other and see it actually change.  This is the sense of prayer as many of us may have been taught it as children: we strongly wish for something to happen, which is supposed to make it so.  Another version of this is where we are taught to think positively and then things will change.  Actual experience tells us, in each case, that this is not the way things work.** **But it's equally untrue that things are therefore _not_ simply a fabrication of our thoughts.  This is because there's another possibility here.  Our mind is projecting the world around us—and ourselves and the mind itself—but it is compelled to do so because of seeds ripening in the mind which we ourselves planted in the past.** **For example, it's true that any success that we may encounter during our life is actually a ripening of some past efforts that we put forth to help someone else achieve their goals.  And this means that we can't simply be successful at any given moment by _wishing_ we were successful, or _making plans_ to be successful (unless they involve helping others to get successful).** **In sum, we are projecting the world but we have no choice in the current moment but to project what we are projecting.  If we want a _better_ projection, then we'll have to be more helpful to others: we have to _garden_ our future.** **5) The Master in this section presents a section where he describes how the world, and the mind itself, are "nothing but a fabrication of our thoughts."  Describe where this statement comes from, and the clue we're given as to the source.  Say a bit about the source, and finally give the Sanskrit and Tibetan for "just a fabrication," including root and cognates.** **At the end of this statement about things being a fabrication of our thoughts, we see the phrase "O Ram."  This alerts us to the fact that Master Svatmarama is actually excerpting from another book—which is not very common in our text.  The text being quoted is said to be the _Yoga Vashishta,_ or the _Yoga of the Sage Vashishta._** **It's not clear when this particular text was composed, but it seems to be very old, perhaps more than three or four thousand years; the speaker of the text, the sage Vashishta, is even credited with having composed a section of the Rig Veda.  The setting of the work is the palace of King Dasaratha, whose eldest son is Lord Rama.** **Lord Rama goes on a pilgrimage of holy sites in India, and upon his return is cast into a state of depression over the suffering nature of life.  His father calls upon wise men to come and help his son in his understanding.  Master Vashishta comes and gives a teaching to Rama which clarifies for him the spiritual path.  This teaching (which comes in many versions and lengths) has six traditional parts, covering (1) the need for renunciation; (2) the desire for liberation; (3) a discussion of the origin of things; (4) the staying of things; (5) the dissolution of things; and (6) liberation itself.  What we see in our verse here is the sage addressing the prince.** **The Sanskrit here for _fabrication_ is _sankalpa,_ which is made up of _sam,_ meaning _very much_ or—here—_completely,_ and _kalpa._  The latter comes from a root √_kilp,_ which means _to be adapted._  This may ultimately be related to the root √_kir,_ meaning _to make,_ and _rupa (form_ or _body),_ in the sense of _to form—_here to form a thought.** **The corresponding Tibetan is _kuntu tokpa,_ meaning _a complete fabrication of the mind._  Ultimately this is related to verb forms such as _takpa_ meaning _simply labeled,_ or _made up_ or _projected._** **The word for _just_ here is _matra_ in the Sanskrit and _tsam_ in the Tibetan.  The point of the word in this case is _simply projected,_ _and nothing else._** *6) Master Svatmarama advises us to "learn to depend upon that which is beyond all thoughts," because "then surely we will attain peace."  Explain how one leads to the other, by giving the definition of "peace" and describing four famous components of the experience which leads to it. **"That which is beyond all thoughts" is of course emptiness here, or more precisely the direct perception of emptiness.  And the "peace" mentioned here is a synonym for peace—which itself as defined as "the permanent ending of all the obstacles of the negative emotions, brought about through our direct experience of emptiness and the four truths which this perception entails."** **This is a reference to what are called the "Four Arya Truths," more popularly misnamed the "Four Noble Truths."  Here _arya_ is a term which is used for someone who has managed to see emptiness directly—in our case through their practice of the methods of hatha and raja yoga.** **Just after the direct perception of emptiness, a person goes through a series of four deep realizations about the nature of life.  They understand for example that they have been misperceiving everything around them, all their life, and that this has led to all the suffering of their life.  This is known as (1) the "Arya Truth of the Source of Pain."** **They then see truly how they and all other beings will have to age and suffer and die, unless they are able to practice the path in an extraordinary way.  This is called (2) the "Arya Truth of Pain."** **Just after the direct experience of emptiness though a person also directly perceives, with a kind of perception known as "direct yogic perception," that they will—precisely because they have seen emptiness directly—one day soon achieve a state of enlightenment, becoming a perfect being who can help all living creatures.  They literally _see_ themselves as a coming Perfected Yogi.  Thus they have seen (3) the "Arya Truth of the End of Pain."** **They also see, directly, the general activities that they will need to undertake during this and their future lives to reach this great goal: for example, they see directly that they will be taken under the direct care of holy Teachers in their future lives; and they grasp that all the scriptures describing the path to Enlightenment are indeed all exactly true and priceless, and that these instructions _must_ be preserved in this world.  This then is called (4) the "Arya Truth of the Path to the End of Pain."** **This therefore is the process of how the direct perception of emptiness leads straight into Freedom from all negative emotions.** **7) Master Svatmarma says that "the mind dissolves into suchness in the way that camphor dissolves into fire."  Explain the importance of this example in Indian culture, and then discuss whether the mind actually dissolves at this point.  Mention also the Sanskrit and Tibetan words for _camphor._** **Camphor is a wax-like substance which plays an important role in traditional Indian ceremonies.  In Sanskrit the substance is called _karpura,_ and the Tibetan is a loan-word: _gapur._  Small pieces of camphor are typically lit and offered to deities in Hindu temples; for example, during the _arti_ ceremonial offering of light.  Members of the temple congregation will offer pieces to the priest during this ceremony.** **The camphor catches fire quickly and burns brightly and fiercely: the emotional feeling here for an Indian is the same as seeing a candle burn on a church altar or Christmas-tree lights glowing warmly on a pine tree.  The camphor gives off a sweet, distinctive scent, and it always burns away to absolutely nothing.** **The mind at the point of the direct perception of emptiness, or _suchness,_ as it is called here, does indeed feel as though it has dissolved.  This is because it is focused upon ultimate reality, which is a reality totally separate from our normal deceptive reality: the world that we live in every second of our normal existence.** **When a person who is not yet an enlightened being focuses upon ultimate reality, it is not possible for them at the same time to perceive something in deceptive reality: they are seeing, for the first time, what is truly there; and to see deceptive reality—a reality which is not as it seems—at the same time would be a contradiction.** **Our own mind is one of the things which exists within deceptive reality, and so we cannot be aware of it while we are in direct communion with ultimate reality.  This means that we cannot even be aware, while we are seeing emptiness, that we are indeed seeing it: this awareness comes only after the fact.  And so at the time it really does feel as though the mind has dissolved into emptiness, as the Tibetans say, like "water poured into water."** **In actual fact though the mind is still there, unperceived by us at the present moment, and has not dissolved.  We do confirm though its existence through logical means: we later think to ourselves, "I saw emptiness, which means I was aware, which means my mind must have been functioning, even if I was not aware of it at that moment."** **8) ==Master Svatmarama says that as we see emptiness directly we "become completely free of duality" when "all the things that are known and the thing that knows them are destroyed."  Explain what it means to be free of duality, and what it doesn't mean.  Then speak about how things are and aren't destroyed at this point.==** **Being "free of duality" during a direct perception of emptiness doesn't mean that we somehow become the things around us or even the emptiness which we are perceiving.  The universe is not "all one" in this sense: there is always a proper separation between the knower and the known, one of which is sentient and the other which is not.** **We do though reach a place beyond a certain kind of duality, in three senses.  We tend to think that the things which our mind is perceiving cannot be the mind itself.  Once we have reached even the step before seeing emptiness directly—a stage which is called the ”Highest Thing of the World"—then we see that outer objects are a projection of the mind.  And so although objects are projected objects, they are in some sense the mind, and there is from this viewpoint no separation of subject and object.** **As we've noted before, the mind during this direct perception can no longer be aware even of thought itself—and so (only) during this time there is in a sense a coming together of the mind and its object, a lack of duality.** **The third sense of non-duality is that both subject and object are one from the point of view that their ultimate nature is precisely the same: they are devoid of being anything which is not being projected from ourselves.** **When the Master says that objects are "destroyed" during the direct perception of emptiness, he only means that during this time, again, it is impossible for us to perceive the normal objects of our life: deceptive reality—the things around us, and we ourselves here to perceive them.  These objects though are still present around us, which is confirmed by our deduction of their presence once we have come out of our emptiness experience.** *9) The Master makes in this section the statement that there "is no other way; there is no second path."  Explain what he's referring to, and why he is correct. **Master Svatmarama is not referring to the path of any one religious belief here; rather, he is saying that there is one pivotal experience in the spiritual evolution of every person, which is the direct perception of emptiness.** **This brief period within ultimate reality is the only thing which has the power to thrust us ahead into what is called "the stream," and we thereby become a "stream enterer."  What this means is that we have now entered an inexorable path which will without doubt lead to our total enlightenment within a relatively short amount of time—typically, within seven more lifetimes.** **Only if we enter this particular stream can we escape death, and hope to help all beings.  Regardless of the religious tradition we may follow, this experience must come first before we can "enter heaven."  There is a reason for this: we must understand from direct experience how the entire universe actually operates in order to work within its operations to transform ourselves into an enlightened angel, and the world into her paradise.  Without this direct knowledge of the way things really work we cannot make them work for this ultimate purpose.** *10) Master Svatmarama states that "when the withdrawal of the world, and the mind, are reached, then we come to total purity."  Explain the steps of the process of this withdrawal, and the particular form of purity to which it leads.  After that, give the usual Sanskrit word for this withdrawal, including its root and cognates.  Add then the Sanskrit and Tibetan words for "total purity" here, breaking the Sanskrit down into its components. **In our immediate tradition, the conscious withdrawal of the world and the mind itself follow the natural withdrawal which occurs at death.  This natural withdrawal, which we have been through literally countless times, involves first the domino breakdown of the four elements within us.** **These elements are not like chemicals, but rather are the basic forces (similar to gravity) which operate within all material form.  Their names and natures are Earth (the force of cohesion and support); Water (the force of fluidity and wetness); Fire (the force of heat and burning); and Wind (the force of mobility, and lightness).  Added to this is the element of Consciousness, which is our basic capacity for awareness.** **During the natural death process, each of these forces within us collapse one into the next: we can no longer support ourselves, no longer stay up; the fluids within our body dry and stop; the spark of life heat within us dwindles; our breath and the movement of all impulses within the body comes to a stop.  On a macrocosmic level, the objects of the world around us that we have experienced throughout life also collapse into us, as the elements do.  Everything is collapsing towards the center.** **Certain standard hallucinations or visions accompany this process.  When Earth collapses into Water, we have a vision of a mirage; when Water collapses into Fire, we have a perception of being surrounded by smoke.  As Fire collapses into Wind, we have a vision of sparks in a dark night, like fireflies.  As Wind in turn collapses into Consciousness, we see the motionless flame of a candle in the dark.** **Once the gross elements or forces of the body have collapsed, the mind itself begins its collapse, in another four stages.  As very subtle misperceptions of reality—and the subtle inner winds which they ride upon—begin to collapse, we have an experience of Light: a warm and embracing white light.  As this collapse continues, we go into what is called Spreading: a similar light, only red, in which we are completely immersed.  This blends into a stage called Nearly There, in which all the light blinks out and we drop into a state of pitch black and total unconsciousness.** **After all these, in the course of a "normal" death, comes an experience called the natural Clear Light.  This is a state very similar to the direct perception of emptiness, and a well-trained yogi or yogini can purposely transform this natural experience into the sublime, direct experience of emptiness.  This is in fact why we practice the withdrawal of the world and the mind, in order to reach "total purity."** **The usual Sanskrit word for the dissolution here is _laya,_ which comes from a root √_li,_ meaning _to melt down._  The Englsih words _lie_ and _lay_ are related.** **"Total purity" on one level can refer to emptiness itself.  On another level it is a phrase used to describe total enlightenment.  The Sanskrit term here is _kaivalya (kaivalya),_ which we saw as the name of the fourth and final chapter of the Yoga Sutra.  This is a combination of the words _ka_ and _eva,_ meaning _one and only,_ a reference to the matchless state of enlightenment.  The corresponding Tibetan is _bashikpa_, which again means _one and only._**