Sunday, February 27th, 1983

WISDOM'S GOLDENROD, ALAN BERKOWITZ CLASS NOTES

(TYPED)

FEBRUARY 27, 1983

HINDUISM: PATANJALI (YOGA SUTRAS)

TOPIC: Hinduism

SUBJECT: Patanjali (Yoga Sutras)

SUBSUBJECTS: Concentration, Meditation, Glimpse

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• I.K. Taimni, The Science of Yoga

TYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2022

NOTES:

• RETYPED HANDWRITTEN NOTES (hence V08). From Classnotes AB 1983 0206 to 1983 0228.PDF.

• All spelling, capitalization, and punctuation corrected, all abbreviations and one number spelled out.

1983 02/27 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Hinduism: Patanjali (Yoga Sutras)

[Classnotes AB 1983 0227 Begin]

2/27/83 Patanjali Yoga Sutras

Patanjali's Yoga is the lower form of philosophy and a prerequisite for it.

Doing an exercise can help you understand the philosophy.

You have to make the effort yourself in meditation.

Dharana -- Sloka 3.1 [Note: I.K. Taimni, The Science of Yoga.] -- Five limbs of yoga are prerequisites for dharana and dhyana. Must have ethical qualification(s) and control over desires. Hatha yoga not important -- any comfortable position is ok.

p. 276ff Taimni - 278 (3.1)

Napoleon and other great men had developed this faculty of concentration.

Dhyana -- Sloka 3.2 -- Concentration becomes less interrupted, more even.

p. 278ff → 280

If you watch your distractions, you'll get some insights into what dominates your ego and how that interferes with your meditation. Uncompleted thoughts and emotions return. You have to do things fully during the day so there are no 'leftovers' to disturb your sleep and meditation.

It is not necessary to break off contact with the world (as I.K. Taimni says) to do this. Concentration feels like oil -- smooth flowing continuity.

The mind doesn't really stop -- it keeps repeating the same thought so incessantly it seems fixed. Your effort is a 'doing' -- the doing is a thought -- it's not intellectual. The technique is the thought you're using.

pp. 281-3 middle, Sloka 3.3 -- samadhi

Diagram p. 284

When you're really involved you lose awareness of what you're doing -- your self-consciousness lapses. Self-consciousness = the mind's consciousness of its own activity.

If there's any anxiety it will interfere.

Very often there's a thought hidden-disguised in your attention and it unfolds and you experience it as a vision -- this is a distraction.

You have to reduce the personal mind to its limit but the mind isn't a blank.

As you become concentrated the image/object becomes more vivid and bright, not dimmer.

The quickest way to a glimpse is to use the name of a master or god.

For self-awareness read 'egotistical self-awareness'.

At the instant of fusion of the subject and object you won't even realize it -- the feeling is that only the object is there -- not you -- you have been subtracted. It's not a fusion really.

[Classnotes AB 1983 0227 End]