Yoga Sutra Reflections Session 38: Purusha

Integrating Ancient Wisdom in Modern Life: Choice and Choicelessness

1. Purusha is naturally pure. It just reveals what it is without any judgement or interference. Prakriti is the medium by which we experiment and experience the purpose of human life, pure form.
2. Prakriti gives us many choices which will create confusion. Which is just a device to see what commitment we have for ourselves. Choices are attractive and lucrative. So that we get confused. Choice is always temporary, creating duality and choicelessness means moving towards the permanent, becoming one with consciousness.
3. One with a Discriminate mind will see the fact as it is and he doesn’t choose. Life is not an either/or question, there is nothing to choose. It is all together. Unidentified One is free. Identified, one is encaged. Identification leads us towards choice, because it enhances your ego.
4. Don’t identify with anything. Understand the difference between choice and choicelessness. Choice is bondage, choicelessness is freedom. The moment you choose something, you get caught in the net of the world, duality. Choicelessness is the alchemy of transformation, of inner mutation. A new being is born who has nothing to do with the past, who is absolutely discontinuous with the past. He has no desire. When there is no desire, then for the first time you live, understanding, Enough. I understand now. And then naturally transcendence happens. In that choicelessness a pillar of awareness arises in you, a flame. You are transformed. You realise your pure form and will be free of all the bondage of life while living.
5. Purusha is pure, gives life to the creation of Prikriti, a fluctuating mind creates an opaque screen. This opaque screen will not allow the Creation of Prikriti to see the life, Purusha, which is a pure form of self. It will get identified with a fluctuating mind and fascinated by it.
6. That which is in waking, in deep sleep, in dreams, beyond your Pancha Kosha, the one who has to keep your body awake, the one who keeps the five senses alive, that is you, your pure form.
7. Prikriti creates circumstances and challenges so that creation will realise life within is pure self and not the creation. For seekers, what is destroyed in Prikriti also does not get destroyed. Because they can see transient nature in Prikriti. Ordinary people will see permanence in Prikriti, which is temporary.
8. The union of Prakriti, the experience, and Purusha, the experiencer, is the cause of the realisation of the nature of both. In unity you become one, you dissolve yourself completely, you are no more separate. In union you remain separate, but you are together for a certain purpose. With that Experience, Experiencer, Prakriti – all have been left behind. You are part of the tremendous nothingness that is Purusha.