<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oory_uA8CUE8VmVQTto0Q1RPuFxOkuZZ/preview" width="100%" height="80" allow="autoplay"></iframe> Let me make sure I'm on that fast enough. Yeah, okay. And we'll be muted, right? Oh, and I'll mute us. This one she's on the other side. Yeah, because she tends to make noises. Really? Okay, you guys ready? All right, this is, we're continuing with the second half of, what do you call it, part number six. And I'm recording this, to be honest, because I have to go with Veronica's mom. Go see Veronica's mom with her tomorrow in Phoenix. And they let us talk to her through the window. We haven't seen her in person since the virus started, which is really hard for both of them. But anyway, I enjoy going because that's my mother-in-law supposed to be if we can ever get married. So here we go. And we've been close for 50 years. So that's pretty cool. All right. So we're picking up at question four. We split this part into two because the part about the qualifications of an authentic teacher was so long. There were so many qualifications, especially the 10 qualifications. And really the theme of this section here in the Yoga Sutra is, you know, what makes a good teacher and then what kind of relationship should you have with them. And by the way, I have Nick, Aaron, and Adam on the call so Nick can do all the work of recording it. But also it's relevant to something else we were studying together before the virus hit. So, okay, we're up to this question for how does Master Patanjali characterize as successful? Oh, I should share my screen. Okay. You have to undisable screen sharing. Don't ask me how. Thank you. Did you get it, Nick? Okay, it's good. You good? You good, Nick? Yeah? We can see it. It looks good. Okay, good. Here we go. How does Master Patanjali characterize a successful relationship with a truly qualified teacher? And by the way, Nick and Aaron, Adam, we'll go for an hour and a half because I don't want to. So we'll stop at 4, what do you think? 4.35, something like that? Okay. Sounds good. Yeah, sounds good. Okay. Okay. And the verse that's relevant here is, Herein lies in the most excellent way of all, the seed for knowing all things. Please repeat. Tatra. Tatra. Niratishayam. Niratishayam. Savasnya. Savasnya. Ijam. Ijam. Okay. And, you know, so they're characterizing a success. If the relationship with your teacher works out, you could plant the seed for knowing all things. And, you know, we've been trying to avoid it, but pretty soon this book is going to get pretty deep. And, you know, it's hard to keep this book. This book wants to jump out of a box called what we usually talk about in a yoga studio. This book is dying to jump out of that box. It's like trying to keep an elephant in a shoebox. And I'm afraid I can't think of any way to stop it from jumping out around now. So we're going to go deeper. And whoever does this part, you know, I think you've got to say something like that. Like this book was meant for bigger things. And so far we've kept it pretty much to yoga studio stuff. But it's jumping, it's breaking out of the box now, especially with this idea that Sarva is Nya. Okay, Sarva means like, what's that headstand thing? Sarva and Ghasan. Yeah, well, you use all your limbs, supposedly. I can think of limbs you don't use. But anyway, and then the Ijama is a steed, right? So, you know, we have to talk about Sarvasnya and what does Sarvasnya mean? And I think it's the sweetest to talk about it in the context of what we call the Jampa principle, which refers to a person that some of us used to know, a Tibetan monk, who was a young monk. And he was a very unusual because when you went to his house, and as soon as you sat down, he would serve you your favorite beverage or your favorite snack. And he seemed to have been trained to make it a habit or a common thing. to observe people carefully and see what they might want or what they might need. And he would memorize it. And I don't know, I believe he had more than 100 people memorize. And as soon as you walked in, he would put ice in your drink or not, or he would put sugar in your drink or not. And so the idea of Sarmus Nya, of knowing all things, is a tool, right? It's a tool. Like, could we become more like Jampa? Could we become more sensitive to other people's needs and to think about what other people need? And then, you know, he had a hundred people memorized in his head, but what if you could do a thousand? Or what if you could do 10,000 people? You know, like, what if you could somehow look into people's hearts and see what they really want, what they really need. And, you know, is that even possible? You know, and is it something we would want to do? And I think we can all say happily and quickly, yeah, it would be nice to be able to look into another person's heart and see what they really want or need and give it to them or do our best to give it to them, because that would make us so much more able to serve other people and to help other people. And that's a joy. That's the biggest joy in life. So if somehow you could develop the mental capacity to see into other people's hearts what their deepest wishes are, you know, healthy wishes, then you'd be better equipped to give it to them. So this is why the Yoga Sutra gets into the idea of Sarasya. And the idea is that the relationship with a qualified teacher that we've spent a lot of time describing, that that relationship somehow can give you that capacity to look into other people's hearts and see what they need. So, and we're just going to discuss briefly the possibility of that capacity. Is it even possible to develop our own mind enough to look into another person's heart and see what they need? And then maybe we could even look into the future slightly and see the best way to deliver them what they need. And that would be awesome. So, you know, it'd be one thing to be able to read their deepest hopes and goals. and it'd be another thing to look into the future and see the best way to serve them those things. And the, what do you call it? The position of the Yoga Sutra at this point is that it is possible to do that. And that goes back to the pen thing. I don't have a pen with me right now, but that goes back to the, Nick, you want to wave a pen? I don't think I have one. Okay. we chose the pen because there'd be a pen in everybody's on everybody's desk and now people don't use pens um yeah so in theory uh if the pen is coming from me for the simple reason that what that a dog sees it differently yeah that's all the fact that a dog sees the same object differently proves that the pen is coming from me. If the pen is coming from me, then all things are coming from me, including my own thoughts. Okay. So that's the principle behind Sarvasnya. Is it possible to look into people's hearts, many, many people's hearts at the same time? And in theory, it is possible because my own thoughts, when I hear a thought in my mind, what's really happening is the same thing with the pen. And a seed in my own mind is cracking open and an image is coming out of the seed. So when you listen to your own thoughts all day, you're actually listening to seeds, karmic seeds opening in your mind. And we can even go so far as to say, you're not thinking your thoughts. The seeds are thinking your thoughts and you're just listening to them. It's a popular yoga school topic. I don't know if it happens at your yoga center, but it's a popular topic to discuss whether or not this witness state of mind, the witness state of mind, who am I? Am I the person who listens to my thoughts in my head? And I think the yoga sutra would say, yeah, you are. But then the question comes up, who talks the thoughts that I hear? And, and Patanjali, Master Patanjali would say, well, that's the seeds in your mind. Okay. Which means that you are forced to think the thoughts that come out of your seeds, which means if you want to think nicer things, you have to be nice to other people, because that's what plants seed in your mind. And we'll talk more about that in the first chapter, that will come in the first chapter, how the seeds are planted in the mind. So you kind of have to, if you want to hear sweet thoughts in your mind, you have to, again, you have to be nice to other people. And then those thoughts will open and you will hear them and that will be you. And so that's a clue to why it's possible to put a seed in your mind that opens up into being able to read another person's mind. and their future and what they need, you know. And I think there's a fail safe on this capacity, Sarva Sinyad, there's a fail safe that if you want to do it for the wrong reason, it doesn't work. You know, I would say that, you know, and I think that's a cute thing to say. I think it's an important thing to say, you know, if you have a relationship with a qualified teacher, that doesn't mean that you're going to be able to read somebody else's mind about what's the lottery number for next week or something like that you know so so anyway because of the pen then everything in the world is coming from seeds therefore because my thoughts are something in the world are one of the things in the world they also come from seeds therefore it is possible to read another person's heart and supply all their wishes. And if the ability to read one person's heart is coming from seeds, then it's, at least in theory, it's possible to read the hearts of everyone there is. Okay? And that's Sarvas Nyan, knowing all things. Okay? And those are the ideas that I think would be nice to cover if you're going to teach this question. You can ignore the 2003 homework answer. It was made for a different audience. Okay. You will achieve the state of enlightened angel who can serve all beings on all planets. That's true. That's what we just said, but I didn't say it that way. And the image that I would use is a person listening to their own thoughts. Okay. And she's actually listening to seeds opening up in her mind. Okay. All right. and then I had a small thing about in an excellent way which is near at the show the seed is there in a very sweet way because it's planted by how nice you are to other people okay all right we finished that homework question we're on to the next one and this is a heavier one okay this is even a heavier one so these homework questions are are going to be difficult to teach. And again, the sutra is going into territory, which is much different from where we've been. And I don't see any way to pretend that it's smaller than it is. Okay. All right. It says, give the two ways of describing the Sanskrit word kala, or time, as it pertains to our relationship with a spiritual teacher. And the root text says, please repeat, okay? Okay. Okay. Okay, cool. By the way, Sa means this teacher, okay? it's a guru purvesham is people of days gone by also as well api kala means time as you know kala chakra or things like that and kalaena ena is the ending for the instrumental so by time ava cheda cheda as you know comes like bhajuchedaka which is what cut yeah to cut so they are not separated an avacedhat an avacedhat they are not ever separated from their teacher okay so uh this teacher is a person who those wise people of days gone by which is purresham uh never allowed themselves to be separated from. An-avachetat. I'm sorry. Yeah, an-avachetat. By the way, it's kalena an-avachetat. So it's two different words and it becomes a long A. Okay, kalena by time. An-avachetat. Not separated. Which is why the long A is so useful. Because it's a long A, you know there used to be two A's. Otherwise it would be kalena Avachetat, which means separated by time. So that long A is important. Okay. They never, the great students of the past would never allow themselves to be separated from their teacher for any length of time. Okay. Avachetat. Kalena. Kalena. Okay. All right. And the question is, what's the meaning of Kala here? Okay. What's the meaning of Kala? Hi. I have Nick and Erin. You want to say hi? Oh, just me. And Adam. Just those three. Hi. Hey. Hi. Hi. There's also a couple of worms. There's a little. Two worms. Two babies. Two babies. Yeah. These, these, these. Oh, she's. Oh, I'm a movie. it's calling calling say hi loud wait where's where's Adam's baby he's just showing his his phone he's probably in the toilet Amelie Amelie hi Adam hi hi hi is that your baby oh I bet Eva Eva there's Eva Amelie I think she's sleepy yeah she's a little bit sleepy she didn't have her eyes Eva was giving us some good highs. All right. So Kala here has two meanings. Time here has two meanings. And these are classic meanings of time in Sanskrit. Okay. Are you okay? I'm stuck for another hour. Okay. One way to interpret time is, you know, the normal way, which is that once you have a good teacher, even an asana teacher, If you have a really good asana teacher, we were talking yesterday, me and Vy, about a Kung Fu TV show. And all those Kung Fu guys, the great ones, they hung out with their teacher for many years. Or I can think of Dharma Mitra or other great teachers. Pretty much you have to hang out in the studio for years to get really good at the physical asanas. And you can't leave for very long periods of time. If you leave for more than a few weeks, you start to lose that edge that you get from being close to a really great teacher. So that's the first meaning of kala. You know, if you're going to be a serious mind untwister, right? If you're going to devote yourself to mind untwisting, then you've got to be, you've got to find someone who knows how to do it. And then you have to try to stick near them. And of course you can take breaks and everybody has to take a break, but in general, it's good to be around that person and stay close to them. and not be separated for long periods of time. Now, the other meaning of kala is kind of the heart of what we were going to talk about today, which is why I invited these august bodies, which is death. Okay, kala can also mean death in Sanskrit. So time can mean the time of your death. And it came to mean time. There's also connotations of kala meaning black. And that's again related to death. So, hey, no crying. And I had this cool idea that, you know, when we present this particular verse, I would like to jump to the Hatha Yoga Padipika, okay? and this YSI series of online courses we're going to cover the Yoga Sutra of course and that will take us many months as you can guess we're still in the first chapter of the four chapters now we're going to be there for a while but the overall course was designed to cover three classics the first is the yoga sutra the second is the hatha yoga pradipika and the third is the bhagavad gita important parts of the bhagavad gita and so uh i i think this is a this question on this homework is a good place to advertise our second online course okay so i think it's a good place to say hey you know you're not just going to learn the yoga sutra you're going to learn these other two unbelievably beautiful yoga classics which is the hatha yoga pradipika and the bhagavad gita you know you're going to study all three in this ysi online course so don't forget to sign up for the hatha yoga pradipika happening in about five years from now okay just kidding so I thought it'd be nice to plug the Hatha Yoga Padipika at this point and just get people hungry for that text so I'd like to say a little bit about the Hatha Yoga Padipika I'd like to introduce the text and then I'd like to tie it into this verse from the Yoga Sutra because the opening page of that great which is probably the greatest asana text ever written. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika is probably the greatest asana text ever written. How it ties into the Yoga Sutra at this point. So we're going to take a detour to the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, to the opening lines of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. And then I would give some background on the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Okay. This is, hatha means sun and moon, ha means sun, ta means moon, and it refers to two of the main channels that carry prana through the body. And the process of opening up your mind, opening up your heart, is closely connected to these two channels in your body, which are called the sun channel and the moon channel. so the word that most people in america know as hatha is actually hatha and which means the sun and the moon and this is a reference to two of the channels in the body that carry prana and if those channels can be opened up successfully it will help untwist the mind so there's a big connection between prana and physical exercises and untwisting the mind it's a beautiful connection between the three. Light means, and it means let me shed light on this subject. So maybe you have channels in your body. Maybe those channels are connected to your mind. Maybe the conditions of your channels affects how your mind turns, twists things around. And let me shed light on this topic for you. So that's a common idea in ancient Asia. I have friends who have just finished two books called Sunlight and ancient translations of other sutras. And that's very common to call the book Life. And those of you who are interested in the asanas historically, or if you're interested in in truly going deeper into asana, there's a very interesting three-year asana program in a book called Light on Yoga, which is by Master Yengar. And he stole the name from, from this book's name. Okay. So let's talk about this book. And I think it's cute that he did. And actually I did a three-year retreat and I tried to do his three-year program and it's quite difficult. and I memorized the asanas which is also quite difficult so this book Hatha Yoga Pradipika was written by Master Swat Marama say Swat Swat Marama and we don't know when he lived exactly people in ancient times didn't care actually the Chinese did care and they have dates going back 3,000 years, which are accurate. But the Indians didn't much care about this because the king would change and they would start over again. And so we believe he lived around 1500 AD. And he wrote this text. I like to think of Swat Marama looking like this, okay? I like to think of him like this, you know? I wanted to find an image of him. And I started out with the, I was going to license all these pictures of Indian yogis sitting on the banks of the Ganges nowadays. But it struck me that they all look a little bit drugged out. And of course, I'm not saying they are drugged out. Some of them are extremely, many of them are extremely holy people. But I just felt like this guy looks more like Swatmarama to me and he's aware and he's healthy and he's funny and he's not too serious and he's got a baseball bat which is important we're gonna talk about that okay so if it's me teaching this question I will show Swatmarama this picture okay uh now about the this book, we're going to study it on the online courses. We're going to have four online courses and each one is going to a chapter and you can say roughly that the Hatha Yoga Pradipika is twice as long as the Yoga Sutra. And in fact, it's more because the verses in the Yoga Sutra are much shorter than the verses in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. So maybe it's three times or four times longer. and I memorized a couple chapters during my three-year retreat and I didn't find that I gave up I couldn't finish but it treats the poses in quite quite detail pranayama pranayama pranayama good diet meditation how to do a retreat prana chakras and a whole chapter devoted to the idea of the pen okay so so it's an amazing book and i just want to do a little plug for it you know those of you doing this online course uh you know we're going to have a lot of fun when we get to that book it's an amazing book and whereas the yoga sutras is mostly theoretical uh the hatha yuapadipi god you know i took it into a three-year retreat and i followed it and it was very amazing The opening verses are how to go into a retreat. And they are very wise prescriptions for the retreat cabin. And I thought I read them. And then I had to live in that cabin. And I realized he really did it. He must have done long retreats because he said all the right things, especially about bugs and good water and not being too hot. I think he did retreats. He's not just talking theory. Patanjali, he doesn't get into these specifics, but Hattugam Patipiki does. Now, this is the verse that I would like to connect to what we're studying in the Yoga Sutra. We've been talking about kala, the idea of time. And we were saying that you shouldn't be divorced from your teacher for a long period of time, but that teacher is also not constrained by time. You can read the verse that way. That teacher should not be constrained by time, which means what? That they're infinite, that their mind is infinite. yeah or their physical life should be not constrained by death you know and yet again the elephant is jumping out of the shoebox here you know we were supposed to have a nice little book about uh you know how to make your yoga exercises more more interesting uh but the author i'm afraid is going into new territory and swat marama goes there immediately in his text he goes through a minute. He gives the lineage. He bows down to his lineage, which includes Luripa, for example. And then by extension, Naropa. And so here we go. Please repeat. Ityadayo. Mahasiddha. Mahasiddha. Now, turn your tongue back. Hatha. Yoga. yoga prabhavata khanda yidva khanda yidva kala dandam krahmanade vicharantite vicharantite okay it's one of the most stunning verses ever written in Sanskrit in my opinion okay Mahama is opening his book. He bows down to his lineage. He bows down to the great teachers of his lineage, which helps us date him, by the way, because we do know the dates of a couple of those people. And most lineages are about 30 years apart, or most generations in a lineage, okay? And we know that from many other lineages. But here's the translation. So he says, where are those guys now you know if they were successful yogis if they followed their own teaching then they are also khalen an avachadak khalen an avachadak okay they are free of time they have gone beyond time okay which means they have gone beyond yeah yeah and what do they do now i mean that you know if you think being quarantined for three months is something. How about having to hang around forever? What are you going to do? And Svatmarama says, these and other mighty accomplished beings, born into power by the yoga of the sun and moon, they roam the universe, the egg of the pure one, mingling among the crowds of humankind in disguise okay for they have murdered death itself okay they have murdered death itself okay and you know now the elephant's jumping out of the shoebox uh is it possible that through your practice of yoga you could not just untwist your mind but is it possible that untwisting your mind could have profound effects on your physical body that go on indefinitely, you see. And most of the people who are going to sign up for our course, you know, they are, I'd say they're in their 30s, maybe 40s. The people who hang out at yoga studios, I feel lonely in a yoga studio because I'm 20 years older than everybody else in the studio, usually, unless it's in Village of Oak Creek. Not at our studio. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, where the average age is 58. But, you know, normally in a yoga class, say in Flagstaff, I'm at least 20 years older than almost any other student in the class. And when you're 30 years old, you're not worried about murdering death, you know. It's not a topic on your plate, you know. You know people die, but you're not really worried about it. but what I'd say is that the people who listen to these classes to these courses in time they will worry about this topic I mean death will become relevant to them so I I think we could present it in a tasteful way as something that you could keep for later or something okay the possibility of murdering death now I love the word for murdering death, which I want you guys to repeat. Okay, you ready? Kala. Kala. Kala. Dunda. Dunda. Kala Dunda. Kala Dunda. Dunda means a club that you use for fighting. A club was a popular weapon in countries where steel was too expensive in ancient times. And so it means you take a club to to the head of Kala. You kill death. There's other words for that like Yamantaka, but the idea of killing death. So now you know why the image for this question was? The guy with the baseball bat. Yeah, here's my impression of Kala Dhamma. Svatma. Yeah, Svatma Rama. Which by the way, Svatma means Sva Atman, meaning himself. And Arama means completely happy or something. My joyful self. His name is Mr. Joyful Self. Svatma Arama. So anyway, he's taking a bat. Okay, I couldn't find anybody holding a club. And maybe a baseball bat is better, but he's going to club death on the head. Maybe cricket if it's an Indian guy. Yeah, actually, it does look like a cricket bat, doesn't it? He's going to make a bad joke if he's a police officer. He looks like what? He looks a little bit like an Indian guy. He does. That's why I showed him. Well, he just showed up. This tends to happen. All right. So this is one of my favorite verses. And that's the second meaning of this verse in the Yoga Sutra. Okay. Kalena. anavacheta. We are not constrained by death. And if your teacher is one of these mythical superheroes, it's possible that he or she has been walking around the planet for thousands of years, mingling among normal people and pretending to be a normal person. You see what I mean? and that's very much a big theme in the yoga tradition okay like you never know if the person on the mat next year you never really know who they are and they could be one of these guys okay by the way egg of the pure one brahmanda okay say brahmanda yeah brahma means uh like uh powerful being and anda means egg and brahmanda is the one of the ancient hindu words for the planet for this planet it's called the egg which is owned by brahma you know so uh that's an old hindu expression for for the planet this planet so you get the you get the image of these guys wandering around the planet mixing in with normal people pretending to be your yoga student or your yoga teacher who used yoga in the past and they they smashed death long ago and it's a sweet image you know you can say I don't believe it or you can say I believe it but in either case it's a sweet idea that the person sitting next to you in yoga class you know this older lady with white hair who's, you know, simplifying all the poses, she could be a deathless being. You know, I like the image. I like the idea. Okay. And I would say the defeat of death is not something that we signed up for when we started yoga. But it is in theory possible if the pen is correct. If the pen is correct, then it is in theory possible. And if you're not interested in this topic now, just keep this homework with you because you'll be interested later, okay, as you grow older. All right. Yeah, those are notes for whoever presents this question, okay? All right, we're going to go on to the next question. We are going to finish this maybe even early, right? I have till 4.30, right? Something like that, okay. the next verse says calling upon them is the first of all prayers okay so what does master Patanjali call pranava let me make sure of it yeah pranava or the first of all prayers give the other meaning of this word as well and describe its three elements okay so master Patanjali says calling on your teacher, asking for your teacher's help, is the first of all prayers. There is no higher prayer. So pra means first, and nava means prayer. And it comes from, by the way, Nick, it's raptu ngakpa, or Adam. Raptu means super, right? And ngakpa means to praise somebody. Okay. So pranu means to sing the praises of your teacher, which came to mean a prayer to your teacher. Okay. Pranava. Okay. Please repeat. Okay. You ready? Tasya. Tasya. Vachaka. Vachaka. Pranava. Pranava. Okay, cool. Calling on your teacher is the first of all prayers. Now the homework question is, what is the first of all prayers? Okay. Well, it's calling on your teacher. All right. And I was trying to find a nice image of a lady praying without making it. I started out with a bunch of images like this, but it's too charged religiously. We don't want to get into Christian or Hindu or Muslim. So I tried to pick a yoga studio owner who's doing a little prayer over a candle before the class or something. You know, something modest and something that didn't seem too organized religion-y. So she's making a prayer. Maybe she's going to teach a class and she's doing a little universal prayer that nobody in the studio is going to get upset about. okay uh and you know generally a prayer can be you can repeat any meaningful words that are important to you to remember throughout the day and you can repeat them you know in your head you could say your mom's name you know you could you could pray to your mom to your dad you could uh you could repeat something that your school teachers taught you you could repeat something that your church teachers taught you you could say your wife's name i don't know nick if you're ever in a plane falling down or they're talking about it falling down if the aaron's name is going to come in your head uh i predict because it happens to me and uh you know what's the last thing you want on your mind if you're going to die or something or you could or you could have a historical teacher's name on your lips you want something sacred to you on your lips when you're having trouble right okay okay uh then i wanted to talk whoever presents this part uh this is one of the use of traditional prayer beads is to repeat a prayer and and in ancient times you might repeat the name of your teachers of your teacher okay or the name of the historical teacher like jesus or or swatmarama or patanjali or something like that it's a tradition to let your mantra be uh your teacher's name and that's the case here okay then i thought to go off onto uh this idea of people wearing prayer beads on in yoga studios which has become very popular now it could it'd be very easy to criticize it and say you know you guys don't know what you're doing that's like uh i don't know that's like i don't know it's like having a full-size crucifix in your yoga studio or something you know i mean you have no idea what what the connotation of beads is but i i think we should avoid going there i don't think we should be righteous like i have done in other studios you know why are you idiots wearing prayer beads you have no idea what they mean. And it's kind of just an ornament. It's something that people put on like a bracelet or a necklace or something. So I thought just to tell people, traditionally, one of the connotations, if you have beads on your wrist, it's very similar to wearing a six gun in the wild west it means i'm willing to get into a fight with you i'm willing to outdraw you you see because the purpose of prayer beads in ancient india was double was dual there was a it was used for repeating your mantras which might be your teacher's name but it was also used about half the time to wave around during a philosophical debate you know and so actually in Asia in certain parts of Asia if you have beads on your wrist you're advertising that you would like to get into a philosophical argument with somebody and you're willing and you're ready and so I just want you guys to know in case you're wearing beads and you go to some countries in Asia, that's the meaning of the beads. It's like, I would like to, what do you call that? Have a gunfight with you. And those are not easy gunfights. Those are idea gunfights. So, you know, to thresh out what's the real meaning of untwisting the mind. It's a very, very much a part of this tradition of the Yoga Sutra, okay? So anyway, be careful when you wear beads in certain countries. All right. And it's kind of silly to use them for ornamentation, but if you want to, why not? Okay. The Essential Yoga Sutra now gets into the definition of a mantra. And I thought maybe this section could be done by a couple, by two people, because it's a lot. It's about mantras, really. And pranava is the name of the Om Mantra. In India, pranava is Om. The first of all prayers is Om. It's the mantra Om. It's name. In India, they don't say, I'm going to go do Om. They say, I'm going to do pranava. And everybody understands you're going to go recite Om. You're going to do 10,000 Om or something. So one of the meanings of pranava in India ancient india is the mantra om so then i thought it'd be cool to get into the meaning of mantra what is a mantra you know and everybody knows and mantra is a word which has come into the english language even in the business magazine that i read every day they'll say oh it's a mantra among shale oil drillers that there's no capital flow right now. They'll use the word mantra for something which is repeated frequently. So I thought it'd be nice to get into the meaning of a mantra. And traditions, I'm going to go here first, okay? I went and got Tsongkhapa's version of what is a mantra, and you guys have heard it before. and I'm going to read it okay the Sanskrit word for the higher teachings is mantra and it has two parts man and tra man means ye what's that name your mind yeah and tra says Sankarpa you should split it out into the full form which is Tara. So mantra means mantra and Tara means to protect somebody. That lady Buddha name Tara means the one who protects people. Okay and so mantra means something which protects your mind. Okay or something of the mind which protects you. And then he says so where's the protection here. What is the one thing which is supreme in this world for protecting your heart or your mind from all the fears of this life, whether they be obvious fears or subtle fears? It's a shirabdini. What's that mean, Adam? Wisdom of bliss. Yeah. Well, this is D-E-Ni means just that very wisdom. And it's an oblique reference to emptiness, which in Patanjali terms is called what? The wisdom of emptiness in Patanjali terms. Go to the first verse. Go to the second verse. stopping the mind from turning give it to me in sanskrit yeah oh my yeah so really the word mantra boils down to chitta vrti niroda okay according to the great thinkers I think that's cute. Now, what makes a mantra authentic? And that's why this question is getting so long, and it might be good to have a team do it, is that a mantra is considered authentic. If two requirements are fulfilled, it must have come from a holy source, and the person saying it must be nice to other people. Then the mantra works. Okay, so you can sit there all day with your Gucci yoga bead bracelet and do mantras, but these two things have to be there for it to protect your mind. It must have come from an authentic source, A. B, it will only work for if you're nice to other people. So I thought that'd be cool if the people, like two people, who did this question would get into the traditional explanation of what is mantra and how do you get it to work for you. And then we can go, we're going to go to Pranava, okay? By the way, I put a second quotation from Tsongkhapa, where he says pretty much the same thing, but let me read it to you. Okay, maybe the person, maybe one of the people who does this question has to be able to read Tibetan. Mantra in manni, the man of mantra, okay, the man in mantra refers to your mind, and the cha in mantra refers to protection. and wisdom and compassion wisdom and compassion in the form of understanding emptiness is what will allow you to protect other people and help other people okay it's very beautiful and so much so that instrumental it's a it's a synonym for tantra okay mantra so much embodies passion and wisdom because it means to protect the mind that we even take it as a synonym for tantra okay now i don't know if you want to go there because tantra has such a bad wrap but okay uh and because these two qualities of compassion and untwisting mind yoga uh are the basis of nam ken knowing everything sarvasnya which we just had all knowing okay because they are the basis of Sarasnya, we can say, Chao, we can also say that they are the foundation of all secret practice. Mantra is the foundation of all secret practice because it involves these two things, compassion and mantra. Now the last job of these people who do this question is to explain the three parts of the mantra om because pranava is the name of om in ancient India. The first of all prayers. And then you'd have to get into ah and ooh and ma as being kind to others in what you do, in what you say and what you think. Okay, cool, Ma? Somebody's going to have to cover that. Thought is action, ooh is speech, and mm is thought. Yeah, and if you're in the mood, you can connect it to three parts of the body. Okay, ah is action in the body, ooh is what you say, and mm is what you think. And that tigle, that bindu for ma represents the mind. Okay, the only uncomfortable one for us is putting the body here. and by the way they have three associated colors you want to go there right yeah white white red red and blue okay white red and blue right white white red and blue blue white and red sorry America goes this way white anyway okay good white red blue okay good alright and by the way as a cause of a karma of activity it's what you do what you say and what you think but they also represent the three results which are what a Buddha does and things. Okay. So I don't know if you want to go there. All right. We're on the last question. Have we decided on a term that we're using for a Buddha in this course? No. Fully developed yogi. I don't know. By the way, Adam, if you're not in the Yoga Sutra course, you're welcome to join. You don't have to do anything. You can just come up, show up whenever you want. Monday is the day when I teach this stuff. Yeah, totally. So remind me, if I forget, I'll ask Connie to put you on the list. Okay. Name the two benefits that Master Patanjali says will come if we call upon our teacher for their help. please repeat Taj Taj please repeat today Taj Jappas Tad Jappas Pahavanam you guys know Jappas I think Jappas means to repeat a mantra what is it in Tibetan uh yeah correct depa it has that word for moon in it right i tell you know from siddhartha achieve yeah and bhavana you know from bhavana marga uh yeah it's uh oh isn't it like uh gomlam oh yeah yeah yeah habituate yeah path of habituation so recite the mantra either your teacher's name or om and think about the meaning as you recite it and that's jappas that's real jappas so jappas is one of the practices of a yogi which is reciting mantras it's what the three-year retreat is based on and that's called jappas which means to repeat a mantra or japa you can shorten it to japa and but you it's no use to repeat the mantra if you don't think about what it means okay and that's the om ahum you know like i would like to act like a buddha i would like to talk like a buddha i would like to think like a buddha let's see how you go okay all right so again yeah i guess om ahum is kind of another take on home yeah exactly yeah that's a long story that's a long story uh yeah roughly the same you can say the same thing yeah yeah home right ng at the end yeah okay and along you and now what's going to happen to you if you repeat your teacher's name or if you think well upon the meaning of the mantra, what's going to happen to you. Patanjali gives you two benefits. Patanjali lists two benefits. And then we're done with today. We're done for today. Say Tata Pratyak Chetanadikhamo Chetanadikhamo Pyantaraya Bhavas Pyantaraya Cha means end and it always comes at the end. It's worse than Tibetan. Tibetan at least it comes between the two things. In Sanskrit you say the first thing, then you say the second thing, and then you say end. So the cha implies two benefits of the japa, of repeating the mantra. And here it is. You'll be able to focus your mind internally if you get into a practice of recitation, and it will help you avoid obstacles. I really like to tell the story, which I'm not allowed to tell much, of when I met the Dian Lama senior tutor in a train station, and he kept doing this, even though he didn't have a rosary. The whole conversation, he was going like this. you know it's really amazing anyway uh so this is i have a picture of an obstacle you know this is a i'm going to take it back to asanas i'm going to put the elephant back in the shoe box and take the conversation back to asanas you know so if you're practicing asanas if that's your main interest in yoga then how can you avoid you see so many people who come out of headstand or something and they start complaining about their neck what's that pose aaron where you fish pose yeah where you tilt your head back yeah i've had a lot of people say they hurt their neck this way veronica hurt her neck this way and uh so i mean if you learn to do mantra properly supposedly it will help you from getting obstacles and even in your asana practice okay awesome yeah uh so that's all question what's that was that uh verse still part of the mantra question yeah both of these verses belong to this question yeah in fact the first verse doesn't belong to this question. I threw it in there because it comes first. If you repeat the mantra and you think about its meaning, well then you'll be able to focus better your mind and you'll be able to avoid obstacles like hurting your neck in a fish pose. What's it called in Sanskrit, fish pose? Matsyasana. Matsyasana. Matsyasana. Because he was the fish listening to Matsya while he taught yoga one time is that why? you know he had his head up in the pond anyway two blocks supported yeah it'd be better yeah but I'll tell you something if you have the seeds if you have the karma it's extremely pleasant and you never hurt your neck you see what I mean yeah so anyway the mantra helps you focus your mind because you're thinking about a very powerful positive object and you will be able to avoid obstacles to practice which we will be talking about in the next part of chapter one of the yoga sutra goodbye thank you but i thought you might want to mention the categories of obstacles that are presented in the next verse even though we're not talking about the next verse yet it's a good segue to the next part okay which is the obstacle physical mental and emotional obstacles okay patanjali presents a list of obstacles but if you study the list they fall into physical mental and emotion she's like get out of here she's waving your by already okay illness foggy states of mind and laziness so you could say physical mental and emotional uh which hurts your ostener practice oh sorry ostener practice would be physically hurting yourself okay okay that's the whole class thank you for coming thank you for recording it she's clapping for you thank you for sending it to Connie and Jacqueline if I tried to send it from here would take about a week I could tie it to a jack rabbit okay cool man thank you so much very much a diamond way class Adam I'll tell Connie it's 2:00 p.m. on Monday so it goes for an hour and a half that sounds