Sutra 2.24 - 2.25: Really Get It

 

Sadhana Pada: Yoga in Action (Experience the Now)

2.24 Tasya hetur avidya

2.25 Tad abhavat samyogah abhava hanam tad drseh kaivalyam

• tasya = that
• hetur  = reason / purpose
• avidya = misperception / ignorance / confusion

• tad = that / these
• abhavat = lack / from absence
• samyogah = union / conjunction
• abhava = removal / disappearance / elimination / absence
• hanam = cessation / removes
• tad = that / these
• drseh = of the knower 
• kaivalyam = liberation / absolute freedom / emancipation

"Repetition is the mother of learning" - Zig Ziglar

The various sutras in The Yoga Sutras says the same thing several times. So, for you in the back that haven't taken this in yet, . . . . . "YOUR TRUE NATURE IS MAGNIFICENCE!" 

The sutras today are supporting this statement once again. The last sutra (2.23) states that the seer (you), and the seen (the external world) are separated by thoughts, beliefs, interpretations, etc. BUT, because life and the external world reflects you, it is easy to get sucked into believing the external world IS you.

This happens because the klesha (or obstacle) of misperception, which is the root of all other obstacles, prevent you from seeing and knowing your true self.

Yoga means 'union,' but this union isn't achieved by adding anything. It comes about as a result of removing or releasing things. Sutra 1.2 defines yoga as "the stillness of the fluctuations of the mind" We're not meant to add more thoughts. We're meant to take more away. Yoga is the stripping away and the releasing of the various layers that have been added to us consciously or unconsciously until the only thing that is left is us as the seer void and unaffected by what is seen and the mirror that shows the reflection. 

THIS is the goal of yoga which this sutra refers to as kaivalya meaning liberation or freedom. True yoga isn't about only doing poses. True yoga is about stripping away all of the shit and bullshit until all that is left is you in your magnificence connected to your divinity regardless of what is happening in the external world and who the external world says you should be.

Your challenge this week, friends, is to strip away. This work, though quite simple, is often really difficult for our ego to take. So, what can you release? What things, situations, relationships, external situations, etc. are you choosing to let affect you? How many of these things actually pertain to you and (as difficult and embedded as some of these things are) can you let them go? 

Good luck and happy purging!        

Sutra 2.24 Our reason for doing that (not believing in/knowing 

our true nature) is because of misperception.

Sutra 2.25 Lack of that union (between seer & seen) creates  a removal of the knower and causes a cessation (of the misperception) that results in liberation.