# A Diamond that Stops the Turning **1) Master Patanjali is traditionally recognized as being the father of yoga and the father of classical dance in India; a great philosopher; Sanskrit grammarian; and an accomplished physician, author of medical classics. Explain how these five seeming very different interests in fact tie together closely.** Yoga is, in essence, an attempt to turn ourselves into a perfect being—consisting of the combination of a body of light and an ultimately compassionate, omniscient mind. This occurs only when our central channel has been completely opened, through a combination of the “outer” and “inner” methods. The physical poses of yoga are a primary “outer” method for affecting the channels. The art of dance, and in particular alignment, is also an important “outer” method; whereas the skill of assuming the nature of a divine being during dance is a crucial “inner” method. A study of philosophy is necessary to understand clearly how seeds, emptiness, and compassion are necessary components to effect all inner and outer ultimate change. Sanskrit comes from the sounds and shapes of the inner channels, and through its study we affect these channels. Traditional medicine depends upon a deep appreciation of the workings of the inner body, and the desire to practice medicine reflects the deepest seeds required to achieve yoga’s ultimate goal: actually becoming a perfected being who can travel to all worlds, and help all other living beings. **2) Give four reasons why the study of the mother tongue, Sanskrit, is important.** (a) A basic knowledge of Sanskrit, and the important texts written in it, allows us to speak more accurately and authentically about the short-term and long-term goals of yoga. (b) The English language—and in fact a broad range of languages throughout a large part of the world, from Iran all the way to Iceland and then North and South America—all derive from Sanskrit. (c) It is said that all people who become perfect speak in the Sanskrit language; and then their words are understood by all peoples in their own languages. Learning Sanskrit plants a seed for this ability. (d) The Sanskrit language itself is derived from the shapes and sounds of the inner channels and inner winds; it is the sound of our own inner bodies, singing within us. **3) Give the root, and five different flavors of the Sanskrit word sutra.** (a) The Sanskrit word sutra comes from the root √siv sIv! or √syu SyU, which means “to sew,” and English cognates are both “sew” and “suture.” The sacred cord that Brahmins wear over their shoulders is also called a sutra. In this sense, a sutra is often a book which ties many pithy statements together, like beads on a string. (b) The “thread” is also sometimes literal: when sutras were written on palm leaves, and even later on paper, the loose pages were often connected with a thread run through holes punched through the middle of the long pages.  (c) The Tibetan translation of the word sutra is do  1+}k. The first meaning of this word is “brief,” or “short,” indicating that a sutra is often a very brief, pithy, powerful work. (d) The second meaning of the Tibetan word do is “crossroads,” or “crux,” a place where two or more important paths intersect. A sutra expresses the crux of some spiritual matter, where important ideas intersect. (e) A third meaning of do is the main beam running through the roof of a house—meaning that a sutra conveys the very most central meaning of our lives. **4) Discuss six different senses of the literal meaning of the word “yoga”; be sure to include the Sanskrit root, and a number of English cognates.** (a) The word comes from the Sanskrit root √yuj yuj!, meaning “to join.” English cognates are “yoke,” “jugular,” and “join.” The word “yoga” indicates a “joining” in many different senses. When we achieve the ultimate goal of yoga, we have reached the union of a body of light and an ultimately compassionate, omniscient mind. (b) In a physical sense—with reference to the inner body—we have achieved ha-tha, or the joining of the sun and moon channels within the central channel, which triggers the occurrence of the body of light, which can travel to all worlds to serve all people. (c) This sense has also been applied traditionally to the yogic method of kumbhaka, or the “capsule,” where in advanced stages of practice we achieve a union of the two forces of the rising wind and the descending wind. (d) Especially in tantra—the higher teachings—we seek to achieve a joining or combination of inner and outer methods for attaining spiritual perfection. An example of an outer method would be the yoga asanas or postures. An example of an inner method would be developing the Infinite Four attitudes described later in the first chapter of the Yoga Sutra. (e) Even as we practice yoga, we must attain a “joining” in the sense of applying ourselves to our practice in the proper way. This sense is reflected in the Tibetan word for yoga, which is nel-jor. Jor here is explained as meaning “to apply oneself,” to ones spiritual practice. Nel is an abbreviation of nelmar, which in one sense can mean “with complete accuracy” or following the traditional instructions perfectly. (f) The Tibetan word nelma can also refer to primordial reality—ultimate reality. In this sense, our practice of yoga must involve reaching the direct perception of ultimate reality and beings who consist of this reality, so necessary for bringing the “turnings” of the mind to a permanent stop. This sense of the word “yoga” is of course conveyed in the third verse of the Yoga Sutra, which speaks of “the seer” who “dwells in his or her own real nature.” **5) Master Patanjali defines yoga as “stopping how the mind turns things around.” Explain what it means when we say that the mind “turns things around.” Use the example of looking at a pen in two different ways.** I can look at a pen, and in one sense my perception is correct: it is a cylindrical object which I can use to write something with. But in another sense my perception is incorrect. Even as I look at the pen, I make certain assumptions about where it comes from, and how it works: that is, I automatically believe that it has been produced in a factory, and sold from a store, and that it writes because of the ink inside of it. All of these assumptions are simply, and totally, mistaken: this is what it means when we say that “The mind is turning things around” backwards. In fact, the pen has come to me—the pen can only come to me—because I have taken care of someone else. It continues to write or produce an effect only because I have taken care of someone else. The very forces which hold the pen together—the “atomic glue” which actually binds all atoms, molecules, and events themselves together—is the degree to which I have taken care of others. When I can see this automatically and naturally about the pen and all other objects, then I have achieved yoga, and stopped how the mind turns things around. **6) After outlining the five powers—five extraordinary spiritual techniques that we can use to advance ourselves along our spiritual journey—Master Patanjali gives us what he calls “another way” to speed up the trip, even faster.  Explain this way.** It is what the Master calls “asking the Master for their blessing”—meaning to take oneself to a spiritual teacher. Reaching high spiritual goals is a difficult process, requiring more training than, for example, mastering piano or a foreign language. If an expert teacher is required even in these worldly pursuits, then there’s no need to say we need one in this life-or-death quest. The job then becomes finding a true teacher, and then respecting them in the proper way—without which no real progress is possible. **7) Name and briefly describe the Four Infinite Practices which remove all obstacles and take us to the highest form of love: the wish to become a perfect being, standing on a billion planets, helping all the beings there.** (a) Infinite compassion: The wish that all beings be freed from all forms of pain. (b) Infinite love: The wish that all beings attain every form of happiness. (c) Infinite joy: The wish that all beings attain the highest forms of happiness: the permanent end of all negative emotions; and perfection—becoming a perfected being who can help all beings. (d) Infinite equanimity: The wish that all beings be freed from bias in the way that they help and serve others. **8) In the first chapter of his Yoga Sutra, Master Patanjali speaks of “extraordinary people who shatter the way the mind turns things around.” Speak a bit about these people; give the Sanskrit word for them, its root, and English cognates.** With this particular verse we enter the third of the five paths: the Path of Seeing, where a person perceives ultimate reality directly for the first time—and thus stops, for a short period of time at least, how the mind twists things around. Anyone who has undergone this experience is extremely close to becoming a perfect being with a body of light and an all-knowing and compassionate mind; they even see ahead into the future and know when this transformation will take place with them. By tradition then these people are considered a completely different and higher being in the evolutionary scale: all living creatures in the universe can be divided into two types, those who have had this experience and those who have not, and by reaching the Path of Seeing these people are now “realized beings” (although not yet perfected). The Sanskrit word for them is arya AayR, which comes from a root √ir \ meaning “to go.” The word thus means “one who has gone higher, or far beyond.” English cognates are “rise,” “art,” “origin,” and “orient” (place of rising of the sun). There is also the unfortunate misuse of the word “Aryan” in recent history to convey a sense of ethnic superiority. **9) Give three reasons why Master Patanjali compares the direct experience of ultimate reality to a crystal, and more specifically to a diamond.** (a) The diamond is the one most important metaphor for ultimate reality. The first reason for this is that, after coming down out of the direct experience of this ultimate reality, the new arya or realized being automatically struggles to find some object in our normal, deceptive reality to which they can compare the ultimate reality which they have just experienced. And each arya always arrives at the same metaphor: that of a diamond. This is because—in a world where there are no ultimates, no longest or shortest or biggest or smallest or “-est” of anything—the diamond does remain the single hardest physical object in the universe: there is nothing in the universe that can cut a diamond. It is extremely important for us to be thinking about this idea of an ultimate, and the diamond is thus an important object of contemplation. (b) A diamond is also completely clear and invisible; if there were a wall of diamond between the two of us right now, we could not even see it.  Just so, every single object around us all day has its own ultimate reality, but we can’t perceive any of them at all, and this is the source of all our pain, and death. (c) A diamond is composed of pure carbon, with the atoms arranged in absolutely perfect symmetry—which is what makes diamonds so hard (a pencil lead is also pure carbon, but without this perfect symmetry—and so pieces of the lead shave off as we press it across a piece of paper, and the pencil writes).  Although diamonds cannot be scratched by anything, they can be broken or shattered. When they are, each tiny piece or sliver of diamond is exactly the same—composed of exactly the same material. Just so, every example of ultimate reality—the ultimate reality of every single object around us—is 100% and totally the same. That is, it is completely absent of existing from its own side; completely and totally so. **10) Master Patanjali then says that we should “stay in that one pure thought, and never forget it.” Describe how this applies to the two stages of the Path of Seeing, and review some of the events that occur on the second stage. ** The first stage of the Path of Seeing is the direct perception of ultimate reality within a deep state of meditation; this is the result of countless lifetimes of effort, and typically takes less than half an hour.  One then comes down and returns to deceptive reality: the mind has started twisting things around again. You stay sitting in your meditation area, and because of the influence of seeing ultimate reality directly, you go through an entire series of very deep realizations. These realizations all together are what are known as the “Four Noble Truths,” or more properly the “Four Arya Truths” (real or true spiritual realizations that are only seen directly by someone who has just perceived ultimate reality). They include seeing directly the day of ones own perfection; seeing how one will live in the time before that; the knowledge that one has actually seen a perfected being (and thus confirmed it for the first time); the knowledge that the ancient scriptures are absolutely accurate, and must be preserved in the world; and the fact that before this direct perception of ultimate reality you had never had a single correct perception, ever. In fact, now that you have come down out of this direct perception, you are beginning to see things wrong again—but now you know that you’re doing it, even if you can’t help yourself.  And so “staying in that one pure thought,” of how ultimate reality really was, and “never forgetting it” become extremely important.   Staying mindful of this ultimate reality, and of the truths one has seen in the immediate aftermath of this experience, becomes crucial for the final effort to reach perfection. This effort begins within the following 24 hours, and this is the beginning of the fourth path. **11) A person with the proper training has another extremely important spiritual realization in these hours just after the direct perception of ultimate reality. Name and describe this realization, remembering to mention the relation of this realization to the inner body. And add as well please a note about how the direct perception of ultimate reality itself relates to our inner body, and what this has to do with the practice of yoga as we normally think of it.** A person with proper training also goes through the direct realization of ultimate love, the wish to become a perfect being—in these hours following the direct perception of ultimate reality. You perceive, directly, every single living creature in the entire universe. You know too that you will spend every single hour of the rest of your life—or lifetimes—working to serve these beings, and bring them to perfection. This ultimate love in these moments is experienced as a torrent of something like an invisible, crystal light pouring out of ones heart and out to each of these beings: the inner knot that constricts the heart chakra is broken open completely for the first time. The direct perception of ultimate reality itself represents a major (although brief) opening of the central channel of the body. The goal of yoga as we normally think of it—as being mainly the physical asanas or exercises—has always been to aid (through external means, or “banging on the pipes”) the process of this opening, so that ultimate reality can be seen. When we continue to practice the inner and outer methods and then finally manage to open this channel permanently, our body and mind transform into an all-knowing, infinitely compassionate being of light, who can travel to countless worlds to help countless beings, all at the same time.