Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras are the classical work of the Yoga School of thought, one of the Six Darśanas studied in the Bhakti Tirtha course. They focus on how to attain direct experience and realization of the puruṣa, or the individual self. As the classical treatise on the Vedic understanding of the mind and consciousness and on techniques of meditation and self-realization, it has exerted immense influence over the religious practices of Hinduism in India and, more recently, in the West. For Vaiṣṇavas, the Yoga Sūtras are especially helpful in understanding the first two chapters of Bhakti-rasāmṛita-sindhu.
This course completes the first two chapters – Samādhi Pada (Meditative Absorption) and Sādhana Pada (Practice).
We like to be naked because then we are free from the dress – the conditioning. That is why everyday we want to undress completely and experience dreamless sleep. Our clothes, our house, our possessions – these are all our dresses. Sometimes it is good to meditate on deep sleep. When we are in deep sleep, we are free from the dress. And when we wake up, we should deliberate that this is just my dress, so we don’t become too much attached to it. Deep sleep is an experience of our own inner self.
