## Final Exam Answer Key ### Class 1 **1) List a few of the important subjects found in each of the four chapters of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.  How do the chapters reflect the flow of our yoga practice?** (a) Chapter One: Lineage of the tradition; the proper place for practice; the need for goodness; the postures, or asanas; proper diet. (b) Chapter Two: Breathing practices, or pranayama; the six treatments, or kriyas; the eight capsules, or khumbaka. (c) Chapter Three: The ten seals, or mudra. (d) Chapter Four: Deep meditation, or samadhi; royal (raja) yoga; voidness; prana, the inner channels, and death; dissolution, or laya; the seal of the sky dancer, or khechari; the practice of inner sound, or nada. The subject matter of the chapters reflects the flow of our practice: In Chapter One, we learn from an authentic Master of the lineage; we find a proper place for practice; we collect the seeds to succeed in our practice, and we undertake physical practices—asanas and eating well—to prepare our winds from the outside. Only when we have a strong foundation in the physical poses, ethical behavior, and good eating can we undertake the demanding breathing practices of Chapter Two.  If we have any preexisting problems, we will need to do the kriyas or cleansing practices to balance our humors.  Only when we are strengthened and cleansed in this way should we attempt capsules within the body, retaining wind and prana. In Chapter Three we learn the ten seals or mudras: advanced physical practices which bring the inner winds up to the very edge of seeing emptiness itself.  These again can only be performed on the foundation of the previous two chapters, with their poses; ethical lifestyle; good eating; cleansing of the channels; and capsule practices. The fourth chapter then represents the culmination of all these physical methods in the direct perception of emptiness through advanced meditation techniques such as those based on the practice of sacred sounds.  These lead us to a different type of dissolution, and the victory over death. **2) What is the metaphor that Master Svatmarama uses to describe the contents of the third chapter of his classic, Light on the Yoga of the Sun and Moon?  And how does the metaphor hold true in actual practice?** In the opening verse of the third chapter of his famous work, Master Svatmarama compares the inner fire of kundalini—the coiled serpent within us—to a mythical serpent named Nayaka, who is said to lie beneath the earth and support it and all its mountains and forests. In the traditional practice of hatha yoga, we use physical methods to awaken this inner fire, which then heats up the length of the central channel and triggers the meltdown of a special inner substance contained in the chakra at the very tip of the head.  The meeting of this fire and the substance at the heart create very conducive circumstances for the direct perception of emptiness.  This perception of emptiness is the real foundation for all high spiritual attainments. ### Class 2 **3) The third chapter of the Yoga of the Sun and Moon describes the ten seals.  Give the Sanskrit and Tibetan words for “seal,” along with the Sanskrit root and cognates.  Then explain the two general senses of the word in spiritual practice.** The Sanskrit word for seal here is mudra.  This is related to an Indo-European root √mei,  meaning to fix or to fortify.  The –dra suffix gives the meaning of the one that does the action: thus mudra means that which fixes, which is a reference to mudra as a seal that is used to affix a wax seal to a document or envelope. The Tibetan word here is chakgya, which also has the basic meaning of the same seal. There are several implications of the word here in the text.  The first and most obvious is that we'll be dealing with yogic practices which involve some kind of sealing of the body or breath to induce movements of the inner wind. The Tibetan word for mudra here has the added connotation of a partner in yogic practice.  There are two forms of this partner: the yeshe kyi chakgya, or imagined partner; and the le kyi chakgya, or actual physical partner.  The traditional explanation then is that a yogi or yogini should never be separated from his or her partner; just as a king should never be separated from the sign of their authority—the seal with which they verify a document as their own. The words mudra in Sanskrit and chakgya in Tibetan can also refer to a sacred gesture or a sacred instrument—such as a diamond bolt or yogi's staff—typically carried by a particular Angel. One of the most important Tibetan texts on the subject of the Great Seal or Mahamudra (which we'll be studying later on in the chapter) is Highway of the Victors: The Root Text on the Great Seal.  Here the word mudra is explained in an additional way, in relation to the mind. It says: “that which acts to place a seal onto every practice, from the very foundation of the teaching (our vows not to harm anyone) all the way up to the highest stage of secret practice.”  And this of course is the wisdom of emptiness—the true nature of all existing things.  The first half of the word, chak, refers to the wisdom of emptiness; while the second half, gya, refers to freeing things from the cycle of pain.  The text goes on to describe how this is a particular kind of emptiness, one joined inseparably with bliss, that happens spontaneously when we get the winds to enter, stay, and dissolve into the central channel. **4) As we will see, many of the seals that are covered in the third chapter of the Yoga of the Sun and Moon—which as hatha yoga practices are founded upon the physical body—also contain a component of mental focus.  Describe this component briefly, stating the principle behind it.  And then go on to give some Sanskrit and Tibetan terms for this same component.** As we will see during our study of the ten seals, which are all physically-based practices, there is in many cases directly stated (and always implied) a component of a certain mental focus.  This is where we put the body into a certain asana posture in order to open selected channels, but then go further to focus the mind at a specific location—typically inside a certain chakra of the body. This additional component is based upon the idea of "piercing" or "working" at a critical point of the body.  The idea is that—when we focus the mind on a selected point—the winds will also gather there, due to the principle that our thoughts and our inner winds always move in tandem.  The physical pose helps open up the pathways to allow the winds to flow more freely, and then the focus of the mind on a selected chakra "tells" the winds the destination where we would like them to gather. Remember that the point behind this is, as we will see in our text itself, to induce all the inner winds to enter the central channel, to trigger the direct perception of the clear light, and to help transform into a body that can serve all beings. This technique is described at length in the Tibetan yogic literature, where it is called piercing a crucial point or working at a crucial point.  The Tibetan term here is ne du nunpa, where ne means crucial point and nunpa means to pierce or to work at.  This is in fact sometimes the Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit word vedha in the name of the third of the seals, the Great Spear (Mahavedha). ### Class 3 **5) Speculate on what is happening with the inner body during the Great Seal that might help bring on the direct experience of emptiness.** It seems that keeping one foot extended during the practice of the asana of the Great Seal would keep the central channel itself extended and more open to the entry of the inner wind, particularly if we are careful to keep our back straight and not rounded.  Remember that the central channel continues down to the perineum and splits, extending down either leg.  In this asana physically we are stretching the whole muscular complex running from the shoulders and neck all the way down to the heels, and the central channel is being equally stretched. Having the opposite leg up in a half-lotus position, with the heel pressed into the abdominal region, is working on the area (ne du nunpa, as we spoke about in the last class) where the side channels run into the lower opening of the central channel, just below the navel.  We are stimulating the area of inner fire. Doing the two legs individually rather than doing both at once, as we do for example in Paschimottana asana (Western Stretch), has the additional effect of isolating one of the side channels, forcing it straighter, allowing the wind of that side channel to flow more freely towards the middle channel. Retaining the breath has two effects.  Given the connection between the breath and the inner winds, stopping the breath even for just a short time would have the initial effect of suppressing our gross distracted thoughts. On a deeper level, it would slow down the circulation of the inner winds which carry our inborn mental tendency to see things as coming from their own side.  This then would make it more likely that we would go into the direct perception of emptiness.  The throat lock forces this effect to a higher level, pushing the upward-moving wind and downward-clearing winds towards each other to increase the inner fire. Add to all this the mental focus that we'll describe later on in this reading, and we're really ready to see emptiness with this particular asana. **6) What are three benefits that Master Svatmarama mentions as resulting from the practice of the Great Seal?  Expand especially on the first of these.** We hear first that the practice of the Great Seal "destroys the great negative thoughts."  This refers to three broad categories of negative emotions that are easily remembered in their traditional representation as a snake, a rooster, and a pig. The snake represents our tendency to get angry or dislike an experience or person in an ignorant way.  That is, for example, we get angry at someone who says something unkind to us because we forget that they are actually coming from our own past anger.  This mental tendency flows in the right one of the two side channels. The tendency of ignorant desire then flows in the left-hand channel.  We want something and we forget the fact that we get things from sharing them—and so we take it away from someone else instead.  This tendency is represented by the rooster, or cock, a traditionally lustful creature. Ignorance itself, represented by the pig, infects both of these channels and attitudes.  The central channel though is one of wisdom, and so when we kill the two side channels and bring the winds into the center we automatically kill all our "great negative emotions." The second advantage of the Great Seal is to bring a balance to the bodily humors, meaning that physically we are no longer subject to disease.  In practical terms, we almost never catch colds or have problems like indigestion—much less any more serious problems. Finally, we overcome death itself: which is a statement on the role of our negative emotions in creating even the condition of death. **7) We often see in Indian spiritual literature the term eka rasa, which can be translated as "one taste"; and Master Svatmarama lists it as one of the benefits of performing the Great Seal.  Comment upon four different meanings of this term, and continue to explain the other parts of the metaphor of the verse.** (1) In one sense, "one taste" can mean—as it might seem to in our verse here—that a yogi who has truly mastered the Great Seal experiences all foods as being equally delicious.  This is in fact a quality of a person who has collected enough good seeds to do so, and is reflected in the Tibetan expression ro chok nang: all things taste equally delicious to a perfected being. (2) In a broader sense, a high yogi is already experiencing all the things of their life as being a "single taste": they have gotten enough wind into the central channel to be seeing all their experiences and meetings with a kind of equanimity.  (3) And then they go further to see them all as equally blissful. (4) In the highest sense, the yogi who truly masters the Great Seal sees that all things are equal in the sense of being equally empty of any self-existence, and therefore of "one taste" or a "single song." Following this metaphor to Master Svatamarama's mention of poison, a yogi who has developed equanimity can undergo very difficult or "poisonous" experiences without feeling any ignorant dislike or liking.  They are able to do so because they have overcome the more serious poison of seeing things as coming from somewhere other than themselves: they see all things as equally empty. What results from this is our experience of the "milk of the gods": of the state of deathless nectar, the body of the Angel. **8) Give a general description of the traditional mental practice of the Great Seal, or Mahamudra.  Include a statement of some of the advantages of this approach.  Then list two dangers to watch out for when focusing on your own mind.** The mental or meditative practice of Mahamudra is an attempt to see emptiness directly by focusing upon a very special object: our own mind, and the thoughts moving within it.  This is very powerful in dealing with thoughts that would interrupt our meditation since we are actually using these thoughts as our object: a little like riding a tiger. This has a number of advantages, according to the traditional sources.  First of all, it is very easy even for beginners to get the object of the meditation to appear in their own mind: after all, we are hearing our own thoughts all day long. For this very fact, it is easier to avoid one of the single greatest obstacles to meditation: subtle dullness.  This is a dullness of mind unlike gross mental dullness, where we may for example be in danger of getting very drowsy or even nodding off because we are meditating after too much food or not enough sleep. Subtle dullness is more pernicious; it is a subtle "spacing out" during meditation where we have not lost the object but we are not really bright and attentive.  Using our own thoughts as the object of our meditation automatically prevents this kind of spacing out and being misled into thinking that we are in some kind of deep meditation. A traditional distinction is made between distraction (actually thinking of something else) and agitation (the tendency below this of a restlessness of the mind).  The agitation in this case is prevented automatically, since we are focused so clearly on stopping distraction in our minds. Finally, the more general form of the Great Seal where we are focusing on the emptiness of our mind serves, it is said, as a powerful factor in ripening our mind for the more secret practices of this seal. There are two dangers that we must watch out for, however.  The first one has to do with keeping our focus.  As we watch our thoughts, there could be a temptation to “follow” the thought—to immerse ourselves in a tangent, in which case we would be no longer watching, but simply wandering off.  The second great danger is to do this meditation without applying an understanding of emptiness, in which case it is not a meditation that acts to liberate you, but rather just an exercise to get to meditative stillness.  We must actively watch out for both of these in our practice of Mahamudra. **9) Summarize in a very brief and uncomplicated way the six flavors of emptiness used in the mental practice of the Great Seal, and how we might apply them for example in preventing anger towards a person who has said something negative to us.  After that say a bit about combining the physical and mental practices of Mahamudra.** Here are six ways to do a Mahamudra meditation on a person who is bothering us— (1) At the moment it looks like this situation will last forever, but it won't: this too will pass. (2) I want to say or do something to convince them to stop, but this is a ripening which is out of my current control.  Not to get upset. (3) It looks like they have just walked up to me, but in actuality, I have set in motion this event through my own actions: I have created them to come up to me, and I have created me to have them come up to, and I have created the coming itself. (4) This person certainly looks unpleasant to me now, but I'm sure they have a loved one who thinks they are wonderful. (5) This incident looks like a pure disaster, but I'm sure if I were a really good person I could see something of benefit going on here, for myself and others. (6) It looks like this person is coming from their own side, but I know they are 100% coming from myself getting angry at someone else in the past.  Therefore I won't get angry at them.  This sixth one is the real Great Seal, the one that opens the central channel and removes all negative thoughts forever.  I have no wish to repeat the pain I am experiencing now: I will not get angry. We saw earlier how the physical practices of Mahamudra might open up the central channel and prepare it for the direct perception of emptiness.  If we add to this the mental focus of trying to see the emptiness of our own mind, then we are truly working from the inside and the outside, as expressed in the Tibetan injunction, Chi nang tabla tsowor be: A yogi must learn to work from both the inside and the outside at the same time. ### Class 4 **10) Describe the physical method of performing the mudra known as Mahabandha, or the Great Lock.  Then speculate about what effect each of the elements of the practice has upon the inner body.  Finally, comment on some unique wording of several verses here which—as we have seen before—is significant for our goal of attaining inner fire.** To perform the Great Lock, we set the heel of our left foot at the perineum and then take a half-lotus with the right foot atop the left thigh.  We then take a full inhalation (in our tradition, an exhalation retention), perform a chin-lock, and contract the perineal area.  Finally, we direct our thoughts to the "center of our mind." We hold the retention for as long as our capacity allows, and then exhale slowly.  We then repeat the process with the leg on the opposite side. Setting one foot at the perineum has the effect of stimulating the muladhara chakra there, and thereby also the area of the triple connection of the three main channels: the breeding ground of inner fire. When we place our foot up on our leg, in either a full or half lotus, we are sending the prana that usually lies stagnant and dormant in our leg(s) up to our torso region.  We are also stretching out the area between our legs where the central channel splits to travel down to the legs, stimulating the muladhara chakra and increasing the flow of inner wind in both the central and side channel(s). The chin lock functions to force the life wind down, and the perineal contraction sends the downward-clearing wind upwards, creating a pressing of the two together which feeds the inner fire.  This brings the winds, and thus the thoughts, to the area of the triple connection at the back below the level of the navel—a "working at the crucial point" which increases the effect of the retention. The retention itself has again slowed our flow of distracting thoughts, and also thereby affected our tendency to see things as coming from their own side.  All in all, another powerful way of inciting the direct perception of emptiness. As we have seen before, unique wording is used in this area of the text to refer to the perineal area in a female context.  Again, this is meant to remind us of the advantages of working towards a balance in our male and female energies. **11) Describe the physical method of the seal of the Great Spear, then speculate upon how it works on the inner body.  Name a related practice from the Lady Niguma Series.** We place our body in the Great Lock and take a full inhalation.  We set our mind single-pointedly and perform a chin lock.  Then we place our two palms flat down on the ground and beat our buttocks slowly against the floor.  Finally, we release the retention and exhale. The physical posture of the Great Lock first has a heel at the perineum, stimulating the area of the muladhara chakra: the lower end of the central channel, which transmits stimulation to the triveni or juncture of the three major channels, just below the navel.  The opposite foot is up on our thigh, opening the area of this same chakra and pressing in on the area of inner fire.  (It is even more desirable if we can take a full lotus for this practice.) The breath retention again has the effect of slowing down the inner winds, and therefore our distracting thoughts—which goes further and puts a dent in our tendency to see things as coming from their own side.  The chin lock further freezes these winds, and forces the upward-moving winds and downward-clearing winds into conflict with each other, stirring the inner fire. Striking the perineal area down on the floor loosens the knots of all the lower chakras, thus enabling the wind to break through from the side channels into the central channel, especially at their juncture. We can focus our minds at this same juncture during this time—as we did with the Great Lock originally—and thus induce more of the conjoined wind into the middle channel.  Or we can consciously focus on the Six Flavors of Emptiness, which will have the same effect of bringing the winds to the middle.  We are working from the inside and the outside simultaneously. This practice of striking the buttocks came into Tibet as an asana known as bepchung sum: the Three Small Drops.  This is the same as the mudra here except repeated three times, again ideally in a full lotus position. ### Class 5 **12) Master Svatmarama says, with regard to preparing the body for the physical version of the Skydancer practice, that we should "always be careful to proceed in a way that fits the circumstances."  Explain what this phrase refers to here in this section and with our yoga practice in general, also giving the primary Sanskrit term here, along with its root and cognates.** The relevant Sanskrit word here is yukta, which comes from the same root as yoga, which is √yuj, meaning to join.  The "join" here means apply, in the sense of fit the circumstances. This again means first of all that we should only undertake any practice of hatha yoga if our immediate Teacher has specifically told us to do so.  This is especially true in the case of an extreme practice such as cutting the frenum of the tongue.  In other words, it is our Teacher who will know how we are to proceed in any given circumstance. This also applies to our own daily practice, whether it be in meditation, yoga asanas, or the service of others.  A student by definition might easily overdo a practice and hurt themselves, or not push themselves far enough in a practice and thus hurt themselves in an even greater way. We see constantly throughout the Yoga of the Sun and Moon that we are to proceed in a sensible, middle way: steady modest effort is always preferable to extreme gestures, and one of the greatest goals of a spiritual practitioner is to learn to pace themselves properly (yukta) over the long run. **13) Master Svatmarama says that "if we are able to embrace the intersection of the three," then we will reach "the real Skydancer, which is also known as the Wheel in the Sky."  Explain both this intersection and the meaning of the Wheel, giving also the Sanskrit for both.** In our mudra practice up to this point, we've been working on the lower end of the central channel: at the triple junction of the three principal channels just below the navel—the area where the inner fire is triggered.  Here in the physical practice of the Skydancer we are instead working on the opposite end of the central channel: the place between the eyebrows where the upper end of the central channel is circled by the two side channels, which themselves continue down to either side of the nose. In this mudra, we fix the vision on the ajnya chakra and bring up the mental component of the Mahamudra: a meditation on emptiness while we work at a crucial point.  We see this Mahamudra connotation later on in this section, where the Master says that "when the tongue has gone to dance in that space, the mind then dances in its own space." This emptiness meditation is the "real Skydancer" mentioned in the verse.  The "wheel" here is our wisdom, or our knowledge.  The sky is a common metaphor for emptiness, since the very definition of the sky is "that which is empty of obstruction."  The wheel moving through the sky is our wisdom moving through the object of emptiness, freely. The Sanskrit for intersection of the three is tripatha, where tri means three and patha means path (the corresponding cognates are obvious).  The Sanskrit for "Wheel in the Sky" here is vyoma chakra.  Vyoma means sky, and chakra means wheel. ### Class 6 **14) The Master mentions a "stream" that trickles down from the "sixteen-petalled lotus."  Describe this stream and this lotus in more detail, including the Tibetan name for the stream and the Sanskrit and Tibetan names for the lotus.  Then speak about the idea that the stream should be restrained from reaching the inner fire.** The stream that is mentioned here is known in the Tibetan sources as the white element or the white mind of enlightenment.  The Tibetan for the first of these two is kam karpo, where kam means an element and karpo means white.  The Tibetan for the second is jangsem karpo, where jang means enlightenment and sem means mind; with karpo again as white. This element starts in the heart during the formation of our body, along with a corresponding red element.  As the child develops, much of the white element migrates to the chakra at the top of the head, while the corresponding quantity of red element descends to the navel chakra. The chakra at the top of the head is known in Sanskrit as the Sahasrara Chakra, meaning the Chakra of a Thousand Petals, or spokes.  In our immediate tradition, this chakra of the head is said to have 32 petals rather than 16; the one which has 16 is said to be the throat chakra.  Remember though again that the inner body can be experienced in vastly different ways by different people. In our immediate tradition too the chakra at the tip of the head is known as the Chakra of Great Bliss.  This is because the white element located here—which is also known as the "element that resembles the kunda," or semen—is the foundation of the experience of spiritual bliss. In the modern Indian yogic tradition, it is sometimes said that we should restrain this white element in the upper part of the body, in order to keep it from falling into the inner fire at the navel.  This appears to refer to the idea of retaining the semen and the more profound and subtle white element that lies at its basis: holding back the downward-moving wind that would carry it out of the body. In our immediate yogic tradition, as we see later in the Yoga of the Sun and Moon, we seek to release the white element to flow downwards towards the power of the red element, and thus stimulate inner fire and the perception of the clear light. **15) What does Master Svatmarama mean when he refers to the "moon-snow found at the top of the central mountain"?  Why do you think that it would be called "thusness" when it melts and moves?  Give also the Sanskrit word for "thusness," and where this name might come from.** The "moon snow" here is a reference, again, to the white element found in the chakra at the top of the head.  The "central mountain" is a reference to Mount Meru, the central mountain or axis of the universe: an allusion to the central channel. When we achieve inner fire through the practice of the various mudras mentioned in our chapter, this inner heat rises up through the central channel and melts down the white element.  This element then oozes down through the central channel, triggering four different stages of bliss, accompanied by four different perceptions of emptiness.  That then is why this event would be referred to as "thusness," which is a synonym for emptiness itself. When this flow does begin, says our next verse, then a person has truly become a seer, and "dwells as well within the immaculate brilliance of the full moon, emptiness." The Sanskrit word for thusness here is tattva, where tat means that and is obviously a cognate for it; the tva gives the meaning of -ness.  The idea is that emptiness cannot be described by a person who has seen it directly to a person who has not, at least in a way that would enable them to see it themselves right away.  A person who has seen it might then say "It's just that." **16) Master Svatmarama says that "there is only one place to be, and that is the state of mind beyond the mind."  Explain what this term means, giving its Sanskrit, root, and cognates.** The Sanskrit term here is manonmani, which is a combination of the word manas, meaning mind, and unmanas, meaning beyond the mind.  So in a way, we are both in the mind and beyond the mind. The root here is √man, which means to think, and has the English cognates of mind, mental, and man (the thinking animal).  The un comes from ut, which here means beyond. The point here is best explained through an understanding of the two realities.  Our mind belongs to what is known as "deceptive" reality, meaning all the objects around us appear to us to come from their own side, even though they are products of images in our own minds created by how we've treated others in the past.  When we are aware or watching our own mind then, we normally misunderstand it: the mind fools us and is thus a part of deceptive reality. Emptiness though is the one object that anyone who sees it directly sees as ultimate reality: it is exactly the way it appears, and it is the very highest of all objects in the universe: on a completely different level of reality.  In this sense then it is beyond the mind. What this boils down to is that we are seeing, with our mind, a thing that is entirely beyond our mind.  We could then call this mind/beyond the mind, and this is exactly what has happened in the Sanskrit. ### Class 7 **17) We're on to the fourth chapter!  Master Svatmarama speaks about the image of a bottle that is empty and a bottle that 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 that 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. **18) 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 surroundings 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. **19)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 of 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. **20) 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 that 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. ### Class 8 **21) What, according to Master Svatmarama, is the "highest practice of all" for reaching the dissolution into the clear light?  What is the full Sanskrit for this practice; how does the term break down into two parts; and what are two ways of its practice?** The Master says that the First of All Lords—the primal form of our own Teacher—has taught countless practices for attaining the dissolution.  But the one which stands above all others is that of following after the sacred sound. The Sanskrit term for this practice is nada anusandhana.  The word nada here means sacred sound, or inner sound, and may be related to the English note, in the sense of a musical note.  Anusandhana means to follow after.  The idea is of closing our eyes and listening for the inner sound.  We can begin preparing for this practice though by closing our eyes in a comfortable meditative posture and trying to follow soft outer sounds closely.