CHAPTER - 3
~ Samadhi ~
DAY - 20
This is the most vital sutra.
Shraddha means faith.
Faith creates such good qualities in your consciousness. It is made
stable, steady and solid.
Doubt in consciousness makes you very vulnerable, fearful, uncertain -
fluid. But faith makes you solid.
Faith brings totality in you. It pulls together all the loose ends of
your consciousness. It integrates your whole personality.
Doubt scatters and destroys you. It
disseminates you and your energy.
It pulls you apart.
Dissemination of energy is doubt.
Consolidation of your energy is faith.
The feeling when you have faith is a form of consolidation;
a strength. That is why Jesus also said faith is your strength.
They are synonymous - faith and
strength.
When you are strong and bold, you have faith.
When you are weak and feeble, you have
doubts.
Doubt and uncertainty are signs of weakness.
Faith is strength, then samadhi is also
achieved. And there is equanimity.
Meditation takes place just out of faith.
And then there is veerya.
Veerya is one hundred percent vigour or force, courage and vitality.
It is
totally courage and valour; the valour with which a country is defended by its army.
What
happens here is that all the energy in the system comes together.
We fight for our country when
it is in danger; when the religion is in danger.
This is how the valour rises in people. It is not done
without any joy.
In that moment of valour and extreme sense of patriotism, there is tremendous
joy.
That's why this world has wars again and again.
If people completely condemn wars and if
nobody likes them, then they cannot take place.
Though the after-effects of war are very
unpleasant,
it's course is very thrilling.
People enjoy thrilling movies for the same reason.
A thrill
is a sense of veerya, valour.
Every cell in our body becomes united and the whole consciousness becomes one.
The defence
system gets awakened in you.
This is strength.
When the defence system peaks, it is very joyful
because there is equanimity, too.
There is a sense of patriotism, devotion and gratitude.
That
sense of patriotism, or valour, or vigour also takes you into a state of meditation.
ा वीयॅमृत । Smriti means memory.
Once you have had a very peaceful and beautiful state of
mind, the very memory of an experience will make you re-live that experience.
Memory of
samadhi reproduces memory of one's being;of the Self, freedom, devotion, surrender, love and
joy.
This takes you back to your Self. Often, we do not remember nice things.
What we keep
remembering are negative things.
We do not remember compliments but we remember insults.
Yoga is turning the wheel around to remember those wonderful moments you have had. Sit and
be with it, and with that very memory your entire being gets back to that wonderful state.
मृत समाध ापूवॅक ।
Then awareness
is gained through samadhi, deep meditation, equanimous
mind, and the result is samadhi, prajna. Equanimous mind gives rise to a heightened awareness.
So, there are the avenues and ways by which you can blossom in life.
These are the ways of being aware of the Self,
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji
PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS
