<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ggaiTUCg9MsFx2T1R-LaTdhLKySYum29/preview" width="100%" height="80" allow="autoplay"></iframe> Hi, welcome back you guys, and I managed to wake up after two days of sleep. No, not really. We're working hard here. I have a few things to finish up from homework number five. And I'm doing question five in case you are trying to follow the homeworks. And they talk about a method of destroying your avidya, your misunderstanding. And let's say hanaupaya. You guys ready? It's similar to papaya. Hanaupaya. Okay. Hanaupaya, right? Yeah. Hana means to smite, as Dwight Whitney would say. And it's in Narhat, for example, to kill the enemy. And it came into the English word gun famously. And then Upaya, what's that mean, you guys? You can say skillful means. Nowadays, I like to translate it as an unexpected spiritual strategy. And I think that's a really nice way to say it. Unexpected spiritual strategy. So Upaya, I don't know. What's an example of Upaya? Like you're getting Lumi and your teacher sends you out to dig a septic system by hand. And it takes like three weeks. And like last week, they shut that septic system down. I dug it 35 years ago, 40 years ago. And they finally put sewers in Howell, New Jersey. I know because I got a request for $10,000. Okay. So anyway, Hanopaya means through a method of killing our misunderstanding. So Master Patanjali says, hey, now we have a Hanopaya. We have a way of killing our misunderstanding. And the homework question says, try to take this to the Tim Hortons, right? Take it to the donut shop. And if you apply the hanopaya, what will you do in the donut shop with the last donut? Yeah, you'll hand it to the old lady, which is proof that you like donuts, okay? And you've got to get used to that, okay? Being generous is not a sacrifice. being generous for a person who understands yoga is evidence that you enjoy donuts, okay? If you really enjoy donuts, then you would be sharing them all the time, like Christina Casica. You must enjoy them, I don't know. Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay, good. So that's all. That finishes that part. Then he gets, there's a small question about the idea of total purity. which is Kaivalya, okay? And it happens to be the name of the last chapter, the fourth chapter, which I always think of as kind of a question and answer chapter. They kind of resolve some sticky points, especially about the Karmashaya. What's that? Yeah, the storehouse. Yeah, good. But here's the first time that we see the word Kaivalya. and I thought I would talk about it a little bit because it's important for the whole Yoga Sutra. It's the name of the last chapter, which is Kaivalya Pada. And where it comes from is kind of cool. It's Eka Iva. Okay, say Eka. Iva. Iva, yeah. So Eka means one. Yeah, like ek dotin jar, if you did a shtanga, right? Right? I did a famous class when Sri Pattabhi Jyoth came to New York City. There was some called the Iron Handle Building or something. Puck Building. What? Puck Building. Puck Building. Oh, that was wild. Okay, so Eka means one. And here it means, it comes out as Ka, okay? Just the Ka without the E, Eka. And then Iva means just that. So it's like eka, eva, and then a L-Y-A, kind of a condition or an ending, like laya, like condition. So kaivalya means, the Tibetans gave it a very interesting translation, which is bashipa, bashipa, which means the one and only, okay? Eka, eka eva, the one and only, just that, just thatness. So it's a synonym for the true nature of things, just that. Bāśik usually means just that. Gāśik means some, so don't confuse it with gāśik. Okay, all right. And then we covered the question about, he mentions the seventh level of our progress. And that's a reference to the 10 Bodhisattva levels. And this is dear to my heart, 'cause this was one of my, I guess it was my Geshe topic. So I had to defend this point for like three weeks. So I don't forgot it. I haven't forgotten it so far. So it means if you talk about Nirvana as a Bodhisattva, then that comes before you reach enlightenment. So, and it's the permanent ending of your deep tendencies to see things as coming from their own side. So you can, early on, you know, you can, imagine that your husband is coming from you someone teaches you the pen and you go home that night invariably you're getting a in an altercation with your partner and they start yelling at you and then you apply your your very weak initial knowledge and you say oh that's coming from me and then it stops you're getting upset for about two minutes and then you see emptiness directly and then after that do you still see the husband is coming from his own side? After you see emptiness directly you still see, yeah but you know you're wrong, it's like Jason tied to the mask, you know you're wrong it's a weird state and that's the real meaning of the word maya that that's the real gymatabu illusion that's the illusion because you know you're wrong you know it looks like he's coming from himself but he's not coming from himself then much later if you keep practicing and you go through the six perfections right and you master them and then at the seventh at the end of the seventh bodhisattva level you remove even the deep tendencies to see things coming this way that's all you remove the deep tendency and that's synonymous with nirvana that's equal to nirvana okay because it's the total elimination of your last klesha yay negative emotions okay so what is your biggest klesha misunderstanding your husband okay and so if you get rid of that one you reach nirvana okay the other ones are easier you know that one's the hardest one and there's many degrees of that by the way and you can study that sometime i think 21 degrees of that that's a long story okay we won't go into that and we were saying here's a picture tim that oftentimes people will build stupas especially in china and they will have 10 uh 10 stories uh to the stupa and this represents the 10 bodhisattva novels okay there's a little bit of debate about the 10th one and we won't talk about it okay uh say bhumi yeah bhumi bhumi means to be the root bhu means to be and then bhumi means the soil or the earth uh like in the mandala offering we say on vajra bhumi ahum right so that means the diamond ground and uh but in the bodhisattva levels it means dasha bhumi the 10 levels okay why are we talking about that because master patanjali uh he picked out the seventh level and said something cool happens at the end of the seventh level which is the end of your seas for thinking the husband's coming this way that's all and that's equivalent to nirvana okay nirvana so what happens at eight nine and ten Aren't you finished? What happens at 8, 9, and 10? Residue. You can say that. That's called, what is that called? Vesha or Shesha? Yeah. Yeah, but there's another word. Vestigil traces. Yeah, it is that. But in Tibetan, it's called, what's that? It has a funny name. the example is for an arhap to skip in a playful way to do something tiny bit mind unmindful okay name my imba okay anyway like that slightly improper okay but actually at eight nine and ten which are called the pure levels, taksa, sum, you eliminate your obstacles to omniscience, okay, so that's different from getting rid of your questions, okay, all right, so that's the reason Master Patanjali mentions the seventh level at this point, he's talking about the final destruction of thinking that your husband is coming from his side okay any kinds of seeds okay all right then the last homework question for homework five is easy it's uh give the sanskrit word for wisdom which is? Prasnya. Yeah. So if you want to be precise, the J in Sanskrit is a ZA. Okay? It's not a J. We use a J because it's convenient. But it's not Prasnya. It's Prasnya. And like King is in Sanskrit. King. Radza. and that's where you get the Russians and it's more correct than it's most correct the Russian is most correct and interestingly if you know Sanskrit the Tibetans had a choice to transliterate that sound they had a choice between ja and za and they chose za and my sanskrit teacher was so happy he's like 80 something he spent his whole life trying to prove that it was za from the poetry from the what it had to be in poetry and then he was so happy to find out the tibetans chose they chose za so it's prajnia okay it's not prajnia or something like that okay and the Russian reflects it. What is the za in English? It's the k in no, I know, I can know, right? All right, anyway, praznya, pra means super, super comes from pra. What are some other cognates? Proud, upfront, prow of a boat, upfront, okay? Four words, the F-O-R is pra. So it means super, super comes from that, supra. And then snya means to know. So prajna means super knowing, or the sixth perfection, wisdom. Understanding emptiness. We're trying to get to prajna. If you seek to perfect it, it's called Prajnaparamita. Okay, good. Yeah. Okay. Which is confusing because paramita means trying to perfect. But it's the word is perfection. So you got to be careful there. It's not the perfection of wisdom. It's to seek the perfection of wisdom. It's not perfect wisdom. Okay. That's the long story. Okay, we finished that homework. Let's go to the next one's probably the most exciting homework of this class. And this whole course. And we are about to embark on the famous Ashtanga. Okay, the eight, you could call it limbs, but it's not really limbs. It's more like components. Ashtanga. Okay, and we talked about the literal meaning of the Ashta. and the sh is the gh in english in the letter in the word eight so it used and in octopus it's the it's the ka sound okay so ashta came into akta and then that became that the gh in eight okay okay act uh in uh in german okay so and then anga means uh limb or a component anga can mean a branch like a bank branch or a branch of a tree but it can also mean just one of a one part of a whole okay and that's what it means here uh it's always translated as the eight limbs but uh that's a little bit incorrect i think okay all right So we're going to go through the Ashtanga. Dr. Campbell, you should do it. Yama ni yama. Yama ni yamasana. Pranayama pratyahara. Dharana, dhyana, samadhi. Those are the eight. And let's go through them. The goal of this class is just to introduce ourselves to the ideas of the eight like what are they generally and then the next chapter and a half is about you know what do they really mean what how to practice them okay so let's do the first one i like the word yama and i think you have to ask yourself why is the first component of yoga is yama and the second one is niyama and what's the difference okay if if they are both connected to an ethical code right if both yama and niyama have to do with ethics what's the difference why why are there two different limbs okay and let's talk about that okay i love the word yama uh it's a very cool word um the ancient root means to reach for something and uh and it was the two uh and we have a picture here it was the two reins of a of a horse's bridle okay you got it uh yeah so she's holding the yama okay so yama means a pair of reins that you use to control the horse. So Yama is the ancient word for self-control, okay, because you're holding the two reins, the Yama, okay. And then there's some other meanings. There was a, we call Devaputra, right, there was a young god, young worldly god named Yama, and his wife or partner was named Yami, not Yami, Yami, and she might have been Yami, we don't know for sure, and then he died, they were like twins, they were like very close, And he died. And she grieved all the time. And to give her a break, that gods invented nighttime. So that came to be called Yami. And so Yama and Yami became the night and day. And then Yama became associated with destruction. And then Yama became the word for the Lord of death. And the pair of them called Yama came into the Greek word Gemini. The G-E-M is Y-A-M. And it means the twins. Okay. So all these meanings of dual, two things. Okay. And then it means self-control. Okay. It means self-control. So Yama means self-control. And normally when you say self-control, this is a viewpoint, I'm trying to slow down, I'm sorry, of ethics. And all ethics in these ancient traditions begin with restraint, self-restraint. Don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. No killings, stealings, sexual misconduct, lying, slander, harsh words, idolatry, craving, ill will, wrong view. Try to control yourself from those 10. Try to yama. Try to rein yourself in. So those are called self-control. Now for $100, Tim, knowing that yama means a pair or Gemini, right? The twins. Or Ellie, what do you think it might be in Tibetan? That word, yamaka, specifically. It's a very important word for us. Extremely important word for us. Cancel the bet. Sung. Say sung. Sungjuk. Sungjuk. The combination of the two. Okay. So Soong means the two. Who's the most famous two? Malgalayana and who's the other one? Narananda. Who hangs out with Malgalayana? I think it's Shariputra. Yeah, they're called the Soong. It means the big two. Normally they're called the Soong. The big two. okay why are we talking about soong what's the soong what's soongjuk mean what's the combination of the two mean it means enlightenment in the diamond way vajrayana okay we don't call it buddhahood we don't call it buddhahood we call it the combination of the two okay when you get to the diamond way you don't talk about reaching buddhahood you say hey he got to he got to soong He got Yama. So I'm trying to give you all the senses of Yama. Here Yama means the twins. The twins of what for $100? Yeah, say it again. Yeah, the illusory body. And the clear light. yay $100 for Dr. Kimball don't forget Jimmy yay $50 per person okay yeah clear light and the uh you can call rainbow body or illusory body okay that's enlightenment so that's yama the first of the eight components of yoga, the word means the pair. It comes from the reins of a horse. It went into that brother and sister or wife and husband, and then by extension became the word for the Lord of death, Yama, okay? And night was created so that she could take a break from her grieving, okay? Got it? Those are all Yama, all the meanings of Yama. In the Ashtanga, I want you to think of yama as self-control. Okay, self-control. In Tibetan, what? - Duma. - Nice, Duma or Domba, okay, Domba. So Domba means vow or combination of two things, Kholodomba, Chakrasambara, Sambara, okay. But in the ancient ethics tradition, you start with yama, which means don't kill, don't steal, no sexual misconduct, no lying, no use of intoxicants, chemical or grain. And it always says that. It says killing a human or a human fetus, that always says that. And then when it gets to intoxicants, it always says made from natural fruits and grains or derived from chemicals. So it's very clear. Okay, that's yama. Those are the yama. So self-control and mainly from doing those 10, right? Che long. $300. Is word on the call? Yes, I'm waiting. He won't get it. I'll bet you $300 he doesn't get it. I'm risking six. Che long. Yay. Che long is the Abhidharma term for the group of 10 bad deeds. Yama, okay? Avoiding the 10 bad deeds is called Che Long. And it means the grossest abbreviation. Che Long means the grossest abbreviation of how many bad deeds? 84,000. Okay. Out of 84,000, Che Long. You know, the absolute shortest list you could make, according to the Buddha, according to an omniscient being, is ten. Okay, that's called chelong. Yay, I found a word that that word didn't know. Now he changed his name to non-word or something. Okay. All right. Let's go to this. So think of yama as self-control. And why would that be the first of the Ashtanga? Why would you start with yama? Why would you start with self-control in the process of enlightenment? If you're trying to make a being enlightened, deathless. It's the kindest thing you could do forever to control yourself. Yeah, stop your bad seeds. I mean, if you want to know where to start, try to control yourself from collecting bans. That's a good place to start. And that's why it's the first one. Okay. Now let's go to niyama. That's simple. It's just yama with a ni and niyama. But the Tibetan, by the way, for yama is mainly domba, which means self-control. By the way, domba means to tie yourself up, to tie somebody up with a rope. You see what I mean? So domba and domba, these are words for self-control. Tie yourself up from killing animals and eating them and stuff like that. That's domba. And then Niyama is more like ke-lang. What's that, Dr. Kelam? Kelam. It means to agree to do something. It means to take it up with the mouth. Ke-ka-sa-ke-lang. So you feel the difference between Yama and Niyama? Yama means I agree to control myself and don't kill. it's always negative don't kill don't steal you know blah blah blah okay then when they get to niyama it's positive commitments positive commitments and in the ancient tradition that starts to shade into bodhisattva vows okay so you have vinaya vows which are always negative and mainly physical. There are very few mental benayabas. And then you shade into, you shade from self-control into what? Commitments. Commitments. And that's like What is that? 18 Rudvath, Bodhisattva Vath. Okay. So you, those are commitments. Okay. Those are commitments to do certain things. So the emphasis is more on doing something rather than avoiding something. Got it? So that's, you graduate from yama to Niyama. So, okay, I'm not killing anymore. Now I make a commitment to protect life. Got the feeling? You feel it? Yama is, I won't kill. Niyama, I will actively try to preserve life. I will try to save life. Every chance I get, I will try to save life. Okay. You feel the difference? So Niyama is probably going to be stated as, I promise not to, I will control myself from and then niyama is i will go out and find ways to protect the lives of animals and and make sure they have homes and not destroy their environment like that so that's the difference between yama and niyama in tibetan it's domba which means to tie as opposed to keilang which means to make a commitment. Kei Lang is normally found in Kei Lemba, which means in debate. It's the position of the other guy. What's his Kei Lang? Okay. What did you agree to? What did you agree to? Okay, so that's Niyama. Got it? You guys good? All right, we finished Yama and Yama, basically. Okay, guess what the third of the Ashtanga is? Asana. I love this word. As you may have guessed, I enjoy words, except for the one who takes all my money. And yeah, there's the root text, by the way. Asana. So ana means what? You guys have had it a lot. Someone who does something. Okay, yeah, to do. to do something, Ana, politician, magician. Okay, that's C-I-A-N, the I-A-N comes from Ana. So Ana means doer, something that does something. And then as means to sit down, okay? The root as, long A, as, say as, put your as on the meditation seat, it's called as, okay? if you make it short. So that as is kind of superlative, you know, to sit a lot. And then as, shorte, means to be. And we saw it in I am-ness. - Asmita. - Asmita. Yeah, asmita, asmita, I am-ness. The ta means nes, right? Asmi is first person singular, I am, okay? So as means to be, and it came into the English, obviously. Is. Okay. And then us, which means to be over a period of time, to be very much is us, to sit down. Okay. And us obviously does come from that. You know, I actually checked with my Sanskrit professor. I said, I mean, I don't want to claim that it comes from us unless it really does. He said, you're safe. It comes from us. You know, sit your ass down. So asana, it's very interesting, was they were exercises designed to help you stay for long periods in meditation. And if you refer to the early yoga texts, the only asanas, there are some basic exercises to improve your sitting. They have nothing to do with all the other stuff that has developed since then. The first asanas recorded are all to help you sit in meditation longer. And that's all. That's all it was meant for. And then it became a whole system of exercise, which I think is a good development. I think it's a wonderful development. It isn't just stretching your legs that's going to help you sit for hour after hour in a three-year retreat or so. You need a full body exercise to really sit well for many hours a day. And by the way, those of you who have not done a three-year retreat, I don't know if Earl can tell you, you cannot meditate eight hours a day. I don't think it's possible. Even after two and a half years, I don't think it's possible. I'd say maximum is, Connie, I don't know. I'd say three to four hours of good meditation. It's not like after two years, you can sit for 10 hours. It's not like that. There's just a limit of how much your asana. So anyway, that's the word. So asana means something which helps you to sit. Exercises which help you to sit, to put your ass on the cushion. And I think it's important here to point out the calligraphy we did. Did you have it here? I don't know. You want me to advertise it? It's very relevant at this moment. We did some calligraphy for what? For fundraising? Oh, there's a video of doing the calligraphy. This is Tibetan calligraphy. Some people say it may have come from Arabic. I don't know. Through Kashmir. And the Tibetan word for Kashmir is the Tibetan word for Islam and Muslims. So, kache. So anyway, this says, I forget we're giving this away or we're selling it. We're raffling it. Okay. Anyway, this is one of my favorite things to calligraph. And I learned many years ago calligraphy. And it says, say lung. Sem. Jupa. Cheek. Okay. So lung means in Sanskrit. Prana. Prana, okay. Sam is chitta. Chupa chig means they ride in tandem, right? They ride in tandem. So this is a really famous statement about yoga. Mind and body ride in tandem. If you keep your body well exercised, your mind will be clearer. And if your mind is clearer, more willing to exercise. So they ride on each other. And we'll talk about that. But the main purpose of asana is to get the prana to flow properly. And if the prana flows properly, you automatically get pradzña, which is what? Wisdom. Okay. So whether or not you will be able to not get upset at your husband or wife in the kitchen has a lot to do with, have you done your yoga today? And by the way, I know a lot of you are teaching. I was watching the meditation teacher. It was cool. And I'll give you a teaching tip, you know, from an old man. do some yoga before you teach even just 15 minutes okay but if possible do a whole yoga set do at least an hour and if you don't have time just do a headstand and a couple stretches and supta what do you call it dr camel laying down stretch not shavasana you don't get credit twist parivranta supta parivranta I guess anyway do a couple of those twist your spine and then do some headstand and then go give your keynote when you're driving your airplane and uh okay and you'll be much much clearer you'll be much much clearer okay so that's just a clue so the whole purpose of yoga is to use the physical poses to move prana which moves the mind and specifically the spiritual parts of the mind okay and then if you want to enhance the movement of prana then try to understand emptiness which is mental yoga mental asana okay and those two go together all right cool all right so so really uh the current emphasis on asana i think there's only one and a have verses in the 200 and how many John 10, 203? No, the verses of the Yoga Sutra. - I think it's 190. - Something like that, 190, call it 200-ish. There's only two, there's only one real sutra or verse on an asana, on the physical poses. There's only one verse out of 200. Okay, maybe you can say one and a half. But it is a good thing to emphasize. It is a good thing that modern practitioners are focusing on the physical poses. That's an appropriate place to hit the spiritual and the physical together. It's a great idea. It's not a bad thing. And this is where my yoga teacher in the monastery he he was convinced that the age of aquarius is upon us if yoga studios are opening everywhere you know he says we're on the cusp of of global enlightenment if yoga studios are opening up in small towns there was some statistic i don't know if it's true somebody said that there's now more yoga studios than mcdonald's which is seems frightening but that's really cool and that that means that many people are using this crossover from the physical prana to the spiritual side of dhyana the samyama dhyana tarana samadhi yeah okay all right fourth of the eight limbs is uh pranayama let's say pranayama it's all it's a whole string of long a's okay so don't say pranayama english uh accents the penultimate syllable the next to last syllable is accented in english normally so everybody who speaks english pronounces sanskrit the same way, the same wrong way. So pranayama, it's all long A's, pranayama. And you can break it down really far. You can say breathing practice, okay? Lungro, you can call it breathing practice. And this is where we are taking advantage of the connection between two pranas. What's that mean? We are taking advantage of the connection between two pranas. Your physical breath and your inner winds. Okay? So unfortunately, in many cases, the word is the same. The word for the physical breath going in and out of the body and the word for the inner winds moving throughout the body inside the body are the same so it has become confused okay so if you call pranayama breathing practice it kind of takes attention away from the inner prana the inner winds right so they are deeply connected they are deeply related as the inner prana goes so goes the breath the breath is always an indicator of how your inner prana is flowing okay and i'll tell you something interesting okay and this is a pet peeve of mine you may have noticed a few uh kevala kumbhaka the the suspension of the breath okay You can call it the suspension of the breath. And I've been to yoga classes. In fact, I had a yoga teacher for years who emphasized taking a couple of big, deep breaths and then your face is all red and you try to hold it. And then this person felt it was desirable to try to hold it longer and longer and longer. And then you could count your heartbeats, for example, and see how many heartbeats you could hold your breath. And everybody in the class was like this and all red. And then afterwards, everybody got loom, which means a disorder of the prana because they had tried to hold their breath too long. And that has nothing to do with Kevala Kumaka. That is not the suspension of breath. That's like forcing your breath to do something it doesn't want to do. And it doesn't help your yoga, in my opinion. It's useless. if you do your asanas well and if you meditate well you will have the spontaneous kevala suspension of the breath your breath will stop and it i'll tell you what it will be like okay you go to a library to read a book and you're sitting there at a table in the library quiet library and you've been doing your asana and you've been doing you've been trying to understand emptiness and then you realize you haven't breathed for 10 minutes and you're like shocked it's not something you tried to do you see i mean nobody told you hey try to hold your breath for 10 minutes it doesn't work like that and i don't think it helps if you truly do your asana well and if you do your meditation well the kumbhaka which means the pot or the it means a clay pot with a lid that they used to keep water in because there was no plumbing okay and you know the first thing you did in the morning in a village in india still is you take your kumbhaka to the well and you stand in line and you gossip and that's how that's the newspaper you don't need an internet and you gossip at the well in the morning and and then you come home with the kumbhaka on your head full of water and that's your water for the day for washing for drinking for cooking for pooping it's your toilet paper also and that's kumbhaka okay kevala means uh it's similar to kaivalya it's just the unverdied form uh okay it hasn't been strengthened the verb the the vowel hasn't been strengthened so kevala turns into kaivalya okay all right so that let's talk about pranayama okay so So let's start with prana. So an means to breathe. An, a-n, means to breathe. And then pra means, we had it before, forward, front, or supra. So pra-an means to breathe very much. Breathe a lot, pran. So it's pra. with an is prana okay to breathe very much okay prana big breath basic breath inner breath prana okay then the ayama is very interesting okay when two a's meet each other in sanskrit they become a long a when two a's meet each other in Sanskrit. It's important here. They become a long A. A long A could be a result of two short A's, or it could be a result of one short A and one long A. Okay, so I'll say it again. If a word ends in a short a uh and the next one starts with a uh and they join it becomes ah like okay uh the quality of the sound changes and the length changes the the length the physical length of the sound changes doubles okay so when you get two words connected in sanskrit and there's a long a that results because one started with an A and one ended with an A. You never know what. Yeah, if it's two shorts or two longs or one short and one long or one long and one short. In other words, in this case, you don't know if it's prana, ayama, which means total control of breath or it's prana ayama which means inability to control your breath guess which one okay ayama okay so it's prana ayama okay it's a big difference it's a big so now you can show off your sanskrit and it's important it's not stupid and it's not the geshe michael's trying impress you although he does enjoy impressing you uh so it's prana uh your inner breath ayama and then there we got the yama again that we had in yama which means to control to reign to to to control the horse okay so ayama means total control ayama means out of control. If I just imagine commander fully driving his airplane, either he's ayama or he's ayama. Hopefully ayama. So that gives you a good example of the difference. Ayama means I'm doing crazy stuff, but I'm in control. And then ayama means I'm doing crazy stuff and I'm not in control. So here it's prana. ayam okay then stick it together it's pranayama okay pranayama okay got it and if you speak english as your mother language accent the last to the next to the last syllable pranayama and it sounds normal because you come from an english-speaking background okay anyway All right. So, so, uh, so, uh, yam means to, again, to control and ah means very much. Okay. I am very much control. Okay, cool. Like asana is very much to sit. Okay. Okay. Asana is a lot of us. Okay. Okay. All right. There we go. Now, you know, prana, yam, and it's a difficult word to break down. Every A except for the final A is long, if you pronounce it correctly. You want to go deeper? Yeah. R's, ra, right? Ra, ra. They normally change some of the letters after them in a word. So the N in pranayama is is retroflex. Retroflex means retro means back, like his clothes are very retro. And flex means to bend, right? Flex your muscles. So retroflex means you bend your tongue back. And what that means is you touch the tip of your tongue to your palate. Okay, try it. Touch the tip of your tongue to your palate and see how it affects how you are talking. And you will quickly understand why people in a certain country are talking like that. Because they are retroflexing everything. And if you want to sound like that, it's very easy. Why are we talking about? Pranayama. Okay, pranayama. Pranayama. Oh, Geshe-la, it doesn't Das ist all ein N. Es macht einen Sinn. Es macht einen Sinn. Okay? Don't tell me it's all N, Yeshla. Why are your bothering? Say ka. Ka. Ka. Ga. Ka. Ka. Ga. five K sounds, okay, in Sanskrit. Okay, and if you can't pronounce them correctly, you should talk about that. Okay, maybe they all sound the same to you. That's coming because you're an English speaker. Okay, and if you don't pronounce them differently, It's very, very confusing to a Sanskrit speaker or a Sanskrit person. And by the way, the Sanskrit speaker, of which there are still some, they cannot explain to you the difference. They just know something's wrong. They cannot teach the... A Sanskrit speaker can rarely teach the consonants correctly. They speak it, but they don't understand it. Okay, all right. Okay. By the way, you find an to breathe in animus and animal. Okay. The equanimity, animation. It means the life force or the breath of life. Okay. So an and in pranayama. Now you know, right? Say pranayama. And don't think it's silly. If you mispronounce it, it means something different. And if you keep mispronouncing things, you can't learn Sanskrit because five words that are different sound the same to you. Got it? If you don't pronounce it carefully, you cannot learn Sanskrit easily because five words that are supposed to be different sound the same to you. Like cheap and jeep, you Germans. Who's that? Uta. yeah cheap and jeep try to get a german speaker to to buy a cheap jeep cheap cheap you know they sound like a bird cheap cheap you know and every country has their own mispronunciations okay so it you it'll be much harder for you to learn sanskrit if you make mistakes much harder because 10 words sound the same and they're not. Okay, so it'll be much, much harder. It's easier from the beginning to learn to pronounce it correctly and much, much easier to learn Sanskrit. Okay, all right, here we go. The next question is very esoteric. Name the next of the Ashtanga. Pratyahara. Pratyahara. Okay. Pratyahara. And after these four courses of Yoga Sutra, four chapters, right, if we're all alive, let's study Hatha. Hatha. Not Hatha Yoga. Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Okay. Ha is the ancient word for the sun, which became solar and helium. Okay, ha. And then ta means the moon. So hata means the yoga of the sun and the moon. Hatha Yoga Pradipika is a very beautiful, practical yoga text that we should study after these four chapters. We should go into that one. And there is a YSI course for the four chapters of that. And it's a very beautiful course. And it's a complete course. And that's a longer and more, it even gets into diet and things like that, retreat advice. Connie, how do you know the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, the book is for real? How do you know the book is for real? The first thing he covers is doing long-term retreats. And the first thing he covers there is how to keep roaches out of your retreat, Shihat. That proves he was doing retreat. How to keep mice and roaches out of your retreat, Gavin. That proves he was doing retreat. That proves he's for real. Swatmarama, right? Swatmarama, the author of the Hathayopaditika. Okay? Now, in that text, they get in, what's it called? Shao cha? Methods for cleansing methods. Is it Shao or Shao? Shao cha. Physical ways of cleaning the body. One of them, which I tried in three-year retreat, I tried everything. Well, as many things as I knew about. You swallow a long piece of clean white muslin cloth, and then you pull it out. Okay, and it's supposed to clean the esophagus from, I don't know, old food particles that were stuck there and stuff like dust. And so you swallow the, by the way, don't do this without a teacher. Don't do this without a teacher. Don't do this without a teacher. I actually know someone who died doing something similar. They died from it. So don't do this without a teacher, okay? But pulling that, I don't know, a meter of cloth out of your esophagus after you swallow it, don't do that without a teacher. It's called Pratyahara. It says, pratyahara, the cloth. It's, okay, pull it out, okay? Withdraw the cloth from the gullet, okay? Pratyahara, prati, very much. Ah, again, very much. Har means to pull out. Bar, to carry or to pull. What's the word for a wife in Sanskrit? Bhartha. The load to be carried by the wage earner man. Sorry. But anyway, you won't forget it, right? To bear a load, it comes from birth. So her comes from birth. Pratyahara. Pratyahara. Pull it out. Carry it out. Okay. And what's it mean here? Withdraw what? Yeah. Withdraw your senses from the world. Okay. So I'm trying to give you the physical picture of pratyahara is to pull in the shauca, in the cleaning practice of yoga. It means to pull the cloth out of your throat. And you'll see it used that way in the Hatha-Yuva Padipika. The next book we'll do together. What's the last book we're going to do together? Bhagavad Gita, the Gita. okay so we'll do four four courses on yoga sutra then we'll do four courses on hatha yoga pradipika and then i don't know how we'll do three or four courses on the bhagavad-gita if we're still alive okay if we do our yoga right so pratyahara means withdraw your senses from the outside it's like you're pulling the clock this way and you take your eyes and your ears and your nose and you withdraw it from the physical world pull it back like pulling back troops from a war you know pulling back this way okay how do you know when you got it what's the modern test for pratyahara yeah put mcdonald's french fries in front of the person's nose while they're meditating If they smell anything, they don't have pratyahara. And there's a famous incident in Jetson Kappa's life story where he was meditating in the temple with like a thousand monks. And they finished and everybody went home. And he didn't go home for 24 hours because he didn't hear anybody leave. And if you think about it, really perfect meditation is a little frightening. I mean, you'd have to have someone to come in and wake you up. If your meditation was seriously good, you might start to death or something. Because you would pratyahara. You would withdraw your senses completely. So I'm not suggesting you do that. But it's obviously a perfect way to meditate. if you can consciously withdraw your senses from the world. And if you do the lion's stance, it's helpful. Use that to withdraw your senses, the lion's stance. All right. When am I supposed to shut up for questions? Now? oh we start questions at 7.45 yay okay you have to put up with me some more I put the chapter 2 verse 24 of the if you're interested that's where you see patehara used as a verb sometimes when a word is used in a common way you get deep insight into what it means so pull pull back the clock okay all right we're just going to name the last three limbs we're not going to go into them that's the third chapter and it's a beautiful chapter it discusses the inner limbs the last three of the Ashtanga, okay? The last three of the eight. The Sanskrit words are dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. Okay, say dharana, dhyana, samadhi. Okay, good. And I'm not going to go into them now because we're going to go into them later. I translate them, dharana, as focus, preliminary focus. Then dhyana is more fixed focus, fixation. And then I would call it perfect meditation or balanced meditation, samadhi. And we'll get into those in the third chapter. In the third chapter, these three are used as a team. and it kind of correlates to going deeper into meditation. You start with dharana and then you work up the dhyana and then finally you reach samadhi. Something like that. That's all Tim. We could start question and answer early if you want. That's all I have for this. That's the eight Ashtanga. Any questions? Yes, we have lots of questions today. Let me just switch my screen. Okay, our first question is, well, first of all, thank you very much for the teachings, Keshama. Everyone is just very engaged. Lots of comments coming in. Thank you so much for your time. And, you know, it's it's it's there. There's a lot of chat that. Yes, please stay. Please stay. We want the teachings on the Bhagavad Gita. We want more. So thank you. First of all, thank you so much. And the first question that we have about today's class is in the story of Lady Naguma. Why is it so important to Lord Naropa that Lady Naguma has this quality of Saucha, this cleanliness? I thought Lady Naguma was more concerned about Naropa's cleanliness. Normally it's the lady. I think, I mean, just personally speaking, and, you know, I've been trying to do yoga for 20 something years, and you learn things over the long term, if you don't give up. It's not necessarily the case that I'm as flexible as Anatole or, you know, I'm not. But I've been persistent. Like I haven't stopped doing yoga. And I can't do exotic poses, but I have a nice, healthy, normal, daily practice. And if you keep up, and by the way, I think that's better for the long term. I think if you try to do unusual poses, you could get hurt. And then you actually end up not doing yoga for the rest of your life. So I've just had a policy, you know, since the beginning. And it came from one of my ballet teachers who said, you know, if the teacher asks you to do something that you feel is dangerous, don't do it. You know, just politely say, you know, I don't think I can do that. I don't want to break my bones or I don't want to have trouble when I get older that I need a knee operation or something. Okay. It doesn't mean that you should be lazy. but you should be wise. Okay. So if you keep doing yoga and meditation for year after year, and maybe Connie can speak to that, but, or Ellie, but I think you naturally become a neater person, a more neat person. I, we, me and Veronica watched Maria Konoko. Is her name Konoko? She's the tidiness lady from Japan. She wrote the book on tidiness. And there's a Netflix series, and you should watch it. She's a small Japanese lady who wrote a book on being tidy. And it became an international bestseller. And in this Netflix series, she comes to people's homes in America and helps them be tidy. And the episode I saw was with just a normal guy and his wife, and they have two kids. And it's very interesting. They're having trouble with their marriage. The house is a mess. Everything's messy. And they're having trouble with their marriage. And they're exhausted. They're just totally exhausted. And they're nice people. You can tell they are sensitive, kind people. And they're trying to have a good marriage. And they just, it's very difficult. And he has a good job. They have a good income. And they're just messy. And here comes this little Japanese lady, you know. And she comes in and she says, you know, she's like, show me the closet. You know, show me the real closet, you know. And then it's very funny because when they show her the closet, the wife trips over some of the toys in the room. She actually falls down during the show from the junk lying around. And so this beautiful Japanese woman, by the way, who says she was trying to be tidier herself. And she has two kids herself. And she tried to be tidy and she couldn't. She couldn't do it. and she was trying to identify things in her house that she could get rid of and she just couldn't do it she had all this and then one day she had a a spiritual experience and she heard a voice she blacked out and she fell down and she heard a voice that said don't look at what you want to throw out look at the things that are look at the things that you feel joy look at the things in your house which give you joy and keep them and get rid of the rest and she heard a voice and and she wrote a book and it was a billion dollar and and she's the real thing she's the real thing and in the course of half an hour she trains two American normal Americans to be tight and I'll tell you something it takes 30 days the whole process she visits like every four or five days and she gives them the next thing to do And I, I, and I, I, it's really true that by the end, they look completely different. They look like different people. It looks like you don't even recognize them. They are bright, they're shining, they're happy, they're getting along. It's weird. It's like supernatural. And it's just from folding things right and getting rid of stuff. And you touch your clothes one by one. You pile them all on the bed, all the things you all the clothes you own. And you pick them up one by one. And if it doesn't trigger joy immediately, you throw it. You throw it away. And there's an order. And then the fifth, the fifth level is what do you call it? Continental items, pictures of your mom, you know, and you hold it. And if it gives you joy, you keep it. And if it doesn't give you joy, you say, I love you. Thank you. And you throw your dog. And why am I talking about that? Geshe-la always comes back to the point. Sometimes it takes a while. If you want to be a real meditator and you want to be a real yoga practitioner, My ballet teacher refused to teach the class if there was one loose article in the room. You know, she would come and teach me a private class. Zeva Kohn from Princeton. She was the director, the first dance director there. And we had classes. And if there was one article of clothing on the floor, she would leave. She said, I'll come back when you're ready to dance. And so it's a very good practice for a yogi. And maybe if, I don't know if it was a neguma talking to Naropa or Naropa talking to neguma, but just this tidiness, cleanliness, in the sense of tidiness, has a big effect on your meditation and a big effect on your yoga. I always vacuum the floor before I do yoga. I can't do yoga if the floor, if the carpet has little pit spots on it, that's a Jewish, that's an Israel word. If the carpet has pit spots on it, I can't do yoga. So I think as you get older and you keep doing your practice, you'll find that tidiness. And by the way, it applies to your laptop also and your phone. If it's not tidy, you'll have trouble doing meditation. I told Veronica, you know, I did a course. I was out there with the tidiness message before this Japanese lady. And I was invited to Omega Institute. And they said, will you do a special course? And they said, yeah, I'm going to do a course about simple living and tidiness. And two people signed up. but one of them was the director of the Omega Institute. So it was a big honor. I taught it for four or five days to two people. And then I threw the course out, John, nobody wants it. But anyway, there's Xautja. That's for me, that's cleanliness in a physical sense. Okay, next question. Yay. - Thank you very much. You should see the Netflix thing. Yeah. Yes, everyone. It's called tidiness or something. Everyone in the chat asks for the title. We've given them the title, and I'm sure they're going to be watching it on Netflix very soon. Can you look it up for me? She's something that her name is Marie Kondo. Marie Kondo, K-O-N-D-O. Marie Kondo. And they just look up her name on Netflix, and there's a series, I think. Yes, it's Tidying Up with Maria Kondo from 2019. One season. We have all the details here. Hey, Maria, I want to, what do you call it? Extra payment. Okay, our next question is, recently when I finished yoga and I find my body swaying regularly with the external chanting or mantra, like a positive vibration or a good phenomenon. Is it okay to stop myself or how can I better channel this kind of energy to help with my spiritual practice? On the body, did she say trembling or something? Oh, swaying, I have this problem. I don't think it's a problem. I think it's fine. I don't know. I mean, I can't exactly describe what it is, but I've done it my whole adult life, I think. And I don't think it hurts you. I think if you're deep in meditation, you should stop swaying. You know, it's gonna disturb your meditation. So I think at some point it's like, what do you call a pendulum? And you should let it come to rest. But in general, I think it's some kind of, you're in tune with some energies in the world. and it feels very comfortable and it feels very it feels very natural so i i think if you're chanting for example in the monastery we do a lot of chanting uh everyone's going like this you know and uh so i think it's something to do with your heartbeat and the rhythm of your body uh and i think it's it's nice i i wouldn't try to do it i think it would come naturally it's like Kevala Kumbhaka, it'll come naturally. And I do think though, it could be a distraction. Like so many things, as you go deeper, things that were helpful become impediments. Okay, it's an interesting thing, you know, too much of something becomes an obstacle. So you have to it's like hey use of fruit who was talking about it we were talking about user fruit in alarm ram i guess or something the the willingness to try something new so it's a nice uh it's a japanese fruit and it makes a great ice cream and ellie found me some jam user jam and a little user jam is really good. And then too much user jam makes you dull and stupid. So as so many things are like that. Okay. So I don't, I think it's a nice thing when you're Swadhyaya. What's that? When you are reciting, when you're doing the reciting of the sutras or mantras, I think it's fine. But I think when you get deep into meditation, it can become an obstacle. then you just stop you go like this you go yeah really okay next question thank you very much our next question is where can you find wisdom or prajna in the eight limbs dang that's a trick question i'll say all eight yeah you can't have prajna for example if you're not doing asana if you if your body is dull and overweight and you know you haven't been exercising then i it's very hard to have wisdom, I think. So I'd say that-- I'd say the whole point is that prasana is spread throughout the eight. How's that? OK. Say it? Yama paramita, niyama paramita. Oh, yeah, you can say yama paramita, and niyama paramita. And yeah, I don't-- yeah. It's tempting to answer that question number eight, but I think it's a trick question. I think you need all eight. If you didn't need it to get prajna, there would only be seven. You know, they would have taken it out. Lydia. All right. Next question. This is great. We're catching up. I have a lot of, I have a backlog of questions. So our next question is, many people, especially in the West, are just interested in the physical asana practice of yoga. How can we get them more interested? What would be a skillful means to spark their interest in the other limbs of yoga? That's a great question. And I'll answer it from a negative viewpoint and from a positive viewpoint. So from a negative viewpoint, you know, I used to ask my teacher, you know, how can I, for example, if I'm having trouble with a particular yama, you know, I was 20 years old and I was stuck in a celibate monastery, okay, for many, many years, 30 years, okay. so I'm like having yama challenges you know I'm like no and I'll be frank about it if you say you didn't have you'd be I don't know you'd be some kind of a block of wood or something so I would say you know I'm having challenges Rinpoche can you help me and he'd say uh no he'd say no go ahead and break it you know he was very funny he said I'll just go ahead and break that one that's okay and then I'd come back after two days I'd say I feel terrible Rinpoche it made me feel terrible and he said okay so stop breaking it so what he meant was that Yama said these practices are self-regulating if you don't do them you'll feel worse so he said you're so lucky that when you don't do these eight practices, you start to feel crappy. And then the crappy feeling will bring you back to your yoga. I'm like, yay. Now, positive, you know, sort of like a positive thing that we teach in DCI is that the best way to teach. Okay, let's say we have a friend who's just interested in the physical poses, you know, and they go to the yoga class and they just do the physical poses. And you say, look, there's seven other limbs. And they say, I don't care. You know, it doesn't matter to me. I don't care about those other limbs, you know. I just like to be buff and, you know, I like that yoga classes are 75% ladies. And, you know, they get this kind of answer from somebody. And the way to convince people that something is good for them is to be a walking advertisement. Okay? The way to convince other people that the other seven limbs are important is to be a walking advertisement. And what that means is successful. Be successful, okay? Be financially successful. Have great relationships at home and at work. Be physically healthy. Have energy. Have a high degree of energy. Have a peaceful mind. Those four, right? And then be nice to other people. Serve other people. and then people will will ask you what are you doing how do you do that you know and and that's that's the best way to get your friends interested in all eight lymph okay don't don't try to argue with them and say patanjali there's 198 million verses about something else it doesn't work trust me i've tried for many many years you know what really convinces people is you okay so if you're if you're practicing all eight and you're miserable if you're if you if you can't make money and your relationship's sunk and you're unhealthy and you're unhappy and if you're selfish then and you're doing the eight eight limbs you know it's a bad advertisement for the eight limbs so i i think the best way to convince people is to be so happy and so successful that they say what are you doing how do you do that and you say ah stanga the saptanga what's that mean do the other stuff okay okay Lydia next so be the best way to teach is to be successful and then people will ask you you don't have to ask the book I wrote the diamond cutter book they they called me they called me with a book offer They get 1,500 manuscripts a week, and they call me. So, okay, cool. Thank you very much. We have two questions on the direct perception of emptiness. So I'm going to, they're different, but I'm going to kind of put them together because it's the same topic. So in the direct perception of emptiness, one has Kevala Kumbhaka and Pratyahara. could you please elaborate on this? And the other question is, we often discuss in the yoga sutra that we're in the direct perception of emptiness. We do not recognize ourselves and we don't even recognize the experience itself as there is no recognition. What's the difference of such experience with one during the entering of the bardo for each living being as they don't recognize themselves or the experience but in that case they do not become an aria okay good question uh well if you think about it it's it's uh it's uh it's a it's a the argument that uh because you're not aware of yourself when you see emptiness directly that all states of not being aware of yourself should be perception of emptiness that's disproven by drinking a bottle of tequila quickly okay you will lose perception of yourself and okay i'm not saying i ever drank it but it's right okay aldo what i see uh super tequila uh you know you drink one bottle of that and uh you're gonna reach the, you will reach a non-awareness of yourself, but that doesn't mean you're seeing emptiness directly. So I, yeah, entering the Barna, that there is often the case that the person in the Barna isn't aware that they died. And they come to the breakfast table in the, They die in a heart attack at night in the bed. And there's spirit. You can call their spirit. I think it's the easy way. The bardo, bardoa, parsipa. It goes to breakfast. It goes to the kitchen like it did for the last 30 years. And it stands there. And everyone's crying. And they're all, what happened to Mike? You know? And it's like, I'm right here. And everyone's ignoring you, you know. And so it is true that for the first few hours, a lot of bardo spirit beings aren't aware that they died. And then they figure it out. Slowly they figure it out. They cannot touch or speak to a human being, but they can hear their family and they can see them. And they're blocked from contact that way. And it's a very frustrating thing. By the way, I get emails every day from people whose loved ones died. And, you know, again, the best thing you can do is talk to them because they can hear you even if you can't see them. And you want to activate. Tim, word, $100. Activate. you want to activate the seed but i want the verb he will know it sugang should know it but he forget it sun depa okay activate you want to activate the seed so you can help them activate their good seeds for when they finish their 49 days or whatever that they can have a good, you can talk to them about good things they did. So yeah, people going into the Bardo don't have an awareness of themselves, of where they are or what happened to them, but you can talk to them. And that's a very concrete way that you can help someone who died. Everyone would like to help someone in their family who died, and you can. that's the exciting thing you know you can help people who died just remind them of sweet things they did and and i don't care who it is you know everyone's done some good things you know and it's up to you to meditate and and remind them of the sweet things they've done and and talk to them i have a lady a friend of me and ellie her daughter died uh 25 years ago she's still doing it and it's made her so happy and it's she's become so in love with her daughter and so I would keep keep doing that okay the other part of the first part of the question Lydia was oh yeah yeah you are doing Patyahara in direct perception emptiness To get into the direct perception, you have to have shamatha. To get to shamatha, you have to be at the preliminary stage of the three stages of the first stage of the four stages of the formula. Your mind has to be on that platform to see emptiness directly. Your mind has to actually withdraw from the desire realm. Your mind cannot be in the desire realm. Your body is, by definition, it's sitting in the desire realm. But the mind goes to the form realm. And to do that, you need pratyahara from the the objects of the desired senses, okay? Taste, color, smells, you have to pratyahara from that. So you have to have pratyahara to have the platform from which to see emptiness directly. If you cannot reach Pratyahara, if you cannot reach Shamatha, you cannot see emptiness directly, it's impossible. You have to climb up to that tower and get to the top to see emptiness. And that involves Pratyahara. That implies always Pratyahara. If you can't get to Pratyahara, if you can't withdraw your senses, you will never see emptiness directly, impossible. completely impossible. These claims that you can see emptiness directly chopping wood or something like that, they are totally ridiculous. Not possible. You can have insights chopping wood, but you can't see emptiness directly. Not possible. Okay. Thank you so much for those beautiful answers. We do have one last thing that we want to share before we leave. Tim, do you have this screen share of our Klesha killer? Here is the winner, Alex, a wonderful representation here of how to kill your Kleshas. So we have a How Yoga Works book for you, Alex. We will talk to you about how we're going to get it to you. Hopefully, Pachi may be still in Arizona, but we can talk about that in another moment. For the rest of you, if you want to continue to participate with our Instagram challenges, our next challenge is going to be the Ashtanga challenge. So you can share a story on any of the limbs that we just covered. So if you want to show us your yamas, niyamas, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, you can go ahead and share your pictures on our Instagram. So you need to tag Yoga Studies Institute, and the hashtag is AshtangaChallenge. And always you can use YSI Yoga Sutra as a hashtag. So thank you so much, Geshe-la. We definitely appreciate all of your teachings. Again, the chat is just crazy telling you thank you so much for everything. Lots of fun emojis in here. I hope somebody does show you the chat so you can see it. Oh, we can't hear you. Nicole and Hasso, I have 40,000 unanswered emails. Someone pointed it out to me yesterday. But I am going to write you today or tomorrow. Yay! Okay. Okay.