Obstacles to knowledge

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras: Samadhi pada
Sutra 30: ' Vyadhi - sthyana - samshaya- pramada- aalasya virathi- bhranthi darshanalabdha bhoomikatvanavasthithatvani chitta vikshepa asthe antharayah'
Sickness, mental laziness, doubt, lack of enthusiasm, sloth, craving for sense-pleasure, false perception, despair caused by failure to concentrate and unsteadiness in concentration: these are the obstacles to knowledge.
Sutra 31: 'Dhukha - dhourmanasyaanga mejayatva - swashapraswasaa vikshepa sahabhuvah'
These distractions are accompanied by grief, despondency, trembling of the body and irregular breathing.
Explanation:
It will be noticed that nearly all distractions listed by Pathanjali come under the general heading of tamas. Sloth is the great enemy -- the inspirer of cowardice, irresolution, self-pitying grief, and trivial, hair-splitting doubts. Sloth may also be psychological cause of sickness. It is tempting to relax from our duties, take refuge in ill-health and hide under a nice warm blanket. The body resists all unaccustomed disciplines, and will perhaps try to sabotage them by alarming, hysterical displays of weakness, fainting spells, violent headaches, palpitations, and so forth. This resistance is subconscious. The symptoms it produces are genuine enough. It is no good trying to fight by sheer force -- dragging yourself out of bed and staggering around in a fever. But you can attack you sloth on the subconscious level by quiet persistence in making japam. You are never too weak or too sick for that. And sloth will relax its hold upon you, little by little, when it understands that you really mean business.
When an aspirant enters upon the spiritual life, he naturally does so with great enthusiasm. The first steps he takes are almost always accompanied by feelings of peace and delight. Everything seems so easy, so inspiring. It is therefore very important that he should realize, right from the start, that this mood will not continue, uninterrupted, throughout the rest of his course. Religion is not simply a state of euphoria. There will be relapses; phases of struggle, dryness and doubt. But these ought not to distress him unduly. Conscious feelings, however exalted, are not the only indications of spiritual progress. We may be growing most strongly at a time when our minds seem dark and dull. So we should never listen to the promptings of sloth, which will try to persuade us that this dullness is a sign of failure. There is no failure as we continue to make an effort.

Significance of OM

Pathanjali's Yoga Sutras: Samadhi pada

Sutra 27: 'Tasya vaachakah pranavah'

The word which express Him is Om.

Sutra 28: 'Tath japah tath artha bhavanam'

This word must be repeated with meditation upon its meaning.

Sutra 29: ' Tathah pratyaka chethana adhigamo api antharayabhavah cha'

Hence comes the knowledge of the Atman and destruction of the obstacles to that knowledge.

Explanation:

A verse from Rig Veda states: "In the beginning was Brahman, with who was the Word; and the Word was truly the supreme Brahman." The philosophy of the Word may be traced, in its various forms and modifications, down from the ancient Hindu scriptures through the teachings of Plato and the author of Fourth Gospel. Truth may be rediscovered independently, in many epochs and places. The power of the Word, for good and for evil, has been recognized by mankind since the dawn of history.

Words and ideas are inseparable.You cannot have the idea of God without the word which expresses God. But why necessarily, use the word OM? The Hindus reply that, because God is the basic fact of the universe, he must be represented by the most basic, the most natural, the most comprehensive of all sounds. And they claim that this sound is OM (or AUM as it should be properly pronounced). To quote Swami Vivekananda: "The first letter A, is the root sound, the key pronounced without touching any part of the tongue or palate; M represents the last sound in the series, being produced by the closed lip, and the U rolls from the very root to the end of the sounding-board of the mouth. Thus OM represents the whole phenomena of sound-producing." It has been used by countless millions of worshipers-- always in the most universal sense; implying no special attribute, referring to no one particular deity. If such use can confer sanctity, the OM is the most sacred word of all.

But what really matters is that we should appreciate the power of Word in our spiritual life; and this appreciation comes only through practical experience. People who have never tried the practice of repeating the name of God are apt to scoff at it: it seems to them so empty, so mechanical. The truth is that we are all inclined to flatter ourselves that we spend our time thinking logical, consecutive thoughts. More usually, we are in the state of reverie -- a mental fog of disconnected sense-impressions, irrelevant memories, nonsensical scraps of sentences from books and newspapers, little darting fears and resentments, physical sensations of discomfort, excitement or ease. Because we do nothing to control this reverie, it is largely conditioned by external circumstances. The weather is cloudy, so our mood is sad. The sun comes out our mood brightens. Insects begin to buzz around us, and we turn irritable and nervous. Often, it is as simple as that.

But now, if we introduce into this reverie the repetition of the name of the God, we shall find that we can change our moods, despite the interference of the outside world. We are always; anyhow repeating words in our minds-- the name of a friend or an enemy, the name of an anxiety, the name of the desired object -- and each of these words is surrounded by its own mental climate. Try saying "war" or "money" ten thousands times, and you will find that your whole mood has been changed and colored by the associations connected with that word. Similarly, the name of God will change the climate of your mind. It cannot do otherwise.

When the mind is so violently disturbed by pain or fear or the necessities of some physical emergency that it cannot possibly be used for meditation or even rational thought, there is still one thing that you can always do; you can repeat His name, over and over. Once you have really tested and proved the power of the holy Word, you will rely upon it increasingly. Through the constant practice, the repetition becomes automatic.

Mere repetition of God's name is, of course, insufficient -- as Patanjali points out. We must also meditate upon its meaning. But one process follows naturally upon the other, if we really understood the meaning under guidance of Sadguru. If we preserve in our repetition, it will lead us inevitably into meditation. Gradually, our confused reverie will give way to concentrated thought. We cannot long continue to repeat any word without beginning to think about the reality which it represents.

This frequent service of the lips imperceptibly becomes a genuine appeal of heart, sinks down into the inward life, becomes a delight, becomes as it were, natural to the soul, bringing it light and nourishment and leading it on to union with God.

The first teacher

Pathanjali's Yoga Sutras : Samadhi pada

Sutra 25: 'Tatra nirathishaya sarvajnatva beejam'

In Him, knowledge is infinite; in others it is only a germ.

Sutra 26: 'Sa poorvesham api guruh kaalenaanavachchedaath'

He was the teacher even of the earliest teachers, since He is not limited by time.'

Explanation:

These two sutras deal with Ishwara's attribute of omniscience. If we admit the existence of knowledge -- no matter how limited -- in man, we must deduce from it the existence of infinite knowledge in God. Further, granted that everybody must have a teacher, Pathanjali reasons that the teacher of the first teacher can only have been God, since He alone, being timeless, was present before teachers began.

Ishwara and Brahman

Pathanjali Yoga Sutras: Samadhi pada

Sutra 23: 'Ishvara pranidhanaadva'

Concentration may also be attained through devotion to Ishwara.

Sutra 24: 'Klesha karma vipaakaashayai paramrushtah purushavishesha Ishwarah'

Ishwara is a special kind of Being, untouched by ignorance and the products of ignorance, not subject to karmas or samskaras or the result of action.

Explanation:

Here for the first time, Pathanjali introduces the idea of God. According to Vedanta philosophy Ishwara is the supreme Ruler of the universe - its Creator, Sustainer and Dissolver. Brahman, the ultimate Reality, cannot properly be said to create, sustain or dissolve, since Brahman is, by definition, without attributes. Ishwara is Brahman seen within Prakruti.

What is important is the concept of devotion. Liberation as we have already seen in previous two sutras, can be reached without devotion to God. But this is a subtle and dangerous path, threading its way through the pitfalls of ambition and pride. Devotion to a personal ideal of God brings with it a natural inclination to humility and service. It sweetens the dryness of intellectual discrimination and calls forth the highest kind of love of which man is capable. We cannot even imagine Brahman until the moment of our liberation, but we can all imagine Ishwara, according to our different natures -- for Ishwara has attributes which our minds can recognize. Ishwara is all that we can know of the Reality until we pass beyond Prakruti.

If we set ourselves to serve Ishwara, if we dedicate our actions and surrender our wills to Him, we shall find that He draws us to Himself. This is the grace of God, which Sri Ramakrishna compared to an ever-blowing breeze; you have only to raise your sail in order to catch it. And in the Gita, we read:

"Whatever your action, food or worship;

Whatever the gift that you give to another;

Whatever you vow to the work of the spirit;

Lay these also as offerings before me."

This kind of devotion requires, perhaps, a special temperament. It is to be able to feel it is great blessing, for it is the safest and happiest way to liberation. Ishwara, it has been said, is God as He appears within Prakruti. But it must be remembered that Ishwara is Prakruti's ruler, not its servant.That is why Pathanjali describes Him as "a special kind of Being". A man is the servant of Prakruti. He is subject to ignorance of his real Self (the Atman) and to products of this ignorance -- egotism, attachment to sense-objects, aversion from them (which is merely attachment in reverse) and a blind clinging to his present life: the various forms of bondage which constitute misery. Ishwara is not subject to ehis ignorance, or to its products.

Man is subject to the laws of birth and death, the laws of karma. Ishwara is unborn, undying. Man is subject to his samskaras -- the deeply rooted tendencies which drive him or to further actions and desires. Ishwara is free from samskaras and desires. He is not involved in the results of action.

Man, it is true, may become liberated. But even in this he differs from Ishwara -- for Ishwara was never in bondage. After liberation , man is one with Brahman, But he can never become one with Ishwara (Indeed the desire to become Ishwara, the Ruler of universe, would be the most insane of all egotistical desires). In the state of union with Brahman, both Ishwara and His universe are transcended, since both are merely projections of Brahman.