Yoga Sutra Reflections Session 88: Satyam

Integrating Ancient Wisdom in Modern Life: You are Alone

1. By thinking that our life is due to the desire or destiny of our previous lives, is procrastination, escape. Because if there is a destiny, if there is a God, then someone else is responsible and I am forced to be as I am. This is an escape. No one is there! You are alone.
2. Seed of the present is in the past and the seed of the future is in the present. If the present is the result of the past then the result of the future is in the present.
3. Our desires, mind and attitudes of mind are Inherent properties. These inherent properties of past and future are present in the present moment.
4. You cannot undo or change your past, but you can learn from the past. Past is a burden if you don’t learn. Past can be a teacher if you learn not to repeat the same mistake again. When we are victims of the past we cannot think differently.
5. Yoga Sutra says that we have only this moment to change our Inherent Properties. Our present moment act with austerity and awareness has the power to change our future by freeing ourselves from Inherent Properties of the past.
6. Until now Patanjali has explained that as human beings we can grow in consciousness, now he is saying similarly only Human Beings can create their future by austerity and awareness of the present moment’s act.
7. Mind is like a pendulum. If you come out of the past it will stick for the future desires and dreams. Mind can survive only in the past and future.
8. Growth of consciousness is possible only in the present act where mind is not required, self-awareness is basic requirements. Because one cannot control the circumstances but one can and choose to respond. Respond means focusing on solutions and not on problems.
9. When we act with austerity and awareness our seeds of the past will become infertile and new seeds of inherent properties of the present act will be sown. If it is in alignment with the Universal Will we will move towards self-realisation.
10. FDMC – Form, Deep Impressions, Memories and Characteristics. This is our astral blueprint. Whole existence is made up of three gunas. DNA is the blueprint of our gross body. Every human being is unique because of permutations and combinations of all these. Yoga Sutra says human beings can change these permutations and combinations with austerity and self-awareness.
11. The essence of any object exists in the uniqueness of mutation.