Think of the enlightened then consciousness becomes more and more alive and filled with light

Chapter 5 - Overcoming Obstacles 

Day 38

Keep your mind engaged in the thoughts of the Enlightened. Your mind is like water. Your mind like water because, just as water assumes the shape of its container, your mind becomes like the thought you engage in. It develops all the qualities of whatever you put into it, namely, your thoughts. 

If you think of a calm person, then your mind also begins to assume his qualities. It starts feeling that peace and that quietness. This is because mind is like air. It is energy and is all pervading. Air does not have a location. It is not just fixed anywhere. Veetraaga Chitta - Mind is all permeating. 

So it enters your system because it is also like ether. Your consciousness is ether and is all pervading. But then you apply raaga and dwesha even here. That is why it is said that a Guru, or an enlightened person doesn't see one who is liberated from and is beyond cravings as a human being, as a person with likes and dislikes. 

Instead, they are seen as pure consciousness, peace, as joy. Then, these radiances start. But, even if any thoughts come or likes and dislikes arise, we should not struggle with them, thinking that we should not have such thoughts. We should just let go and relax. When you do this, then immediately you will draw on that energy and will assume that form. You should try this on your own, you should experiment. 

Just think of somebody who is very nasty and you will begin to feel nasty emotions inside. If you think of somebody who is very jealous of you, then you will feel uncomfortable sensations. If you think of somebody who is into drugs and alcohol and who is very miserable, then you will feel all these knots coming up in your body and in your system. Think of somebody whom you love very much, and you will have nice feelings and sensations arise in you. 

So if you think of the enlightened, your consciousness becomes more and more alive and filled with light. That is why Jesus had said that if anybody had to go to His father, he had to go through Him, that there was no other way. You have to be enlightened through the Master, because the Master is liberated. 

To be enlightened, you have to pass through your mind, go through your mind. And what can help your mind? The doorway with those vibrations and sensations. And these vibrations and sensations manifest in that body where the chitta is veetaraaga - is blossoming fully or is fully blossomed, without any hindrances.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS 

Your mind is energy, You are energy.

Chapter 5 - Overcoming Obstacles 

Day 37 

Consider your mind as a light, as a flame. Your consciousness is a flame. Your mind is a flame. You may forget this. Your entire body is functioning because of the presence of the mind as a flame in you. Otherwise, you will be like an unlit candle. What is a flame? How does a flame work? A flame burns because of oxygen. 

There is a combination of matter and oxygen and a flame comes into being. What is life? Life is also the same. It uses oxygen and lives on some matter. Just as a flame lives on the wax, the wick and oxygen, your life and the mind uses the body and the food in the body as wax. The air is like the oxygen and exhibits its activities in the body just as the flame exhibits its activity. 

The consciousness exhibits life. Life and light are very similar. If you put a bottle over a burning candle, it will be extinguished in a few moments. Similarly, if you are shut in a room, without any windows, you can live only for a few hours because you will not get enough oxygen. It is very similar. If you do whatever you do to the candle to your body, too, there will be burn for longer period. 

If you put more wax into the candle, it will burn for a longer period. Similarly, if you out food into your body, then it will live longer. If the wick is burnt out, no amount of wax will make the candle burn. The wick has its own limitation. Similarly, no amount of food will sustain the body after some years of life. 

The body functions just like a wick. This body is holding on to the jyotishmati pragya. It’s a way to get rid of unhappiness and be happy. At the same time know that your mind is made up of light. It is not matter. Your mind is energy, you are energy.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS 

Start feeling joyful

Chapter 5 - Overcoming Obstacles 

Day 36 

If you are, even for a few moments, with a person who is very unhappy and sad then you also start feeling depressed. And if you are with someone who is very joyful and is bubbling with joy and enthusiasm, then you start feeling joyful, too. You have trained your mind to be happy or unhappy. If you have acquired the habit of being unhappy, then it becomes your second nature. 

You feel at home having a long face all the time. You would see this in the senior citizens homes. The very old people there have the habit of complaining. They just go on complaining, even when there is nothing to complain about. And they keep a long face and ever remain sad. You may have wondered why a person who is aged cannot be happy. 

They have done everything that they needed to do and they have everything that they need. But, they continue to be sad and depressed. Many people are unhappy because they are unable to work. Well, that is the body's nature. When one is eighty years old, and if he is unhappy because he cannot run as long as he could do when he was a 30 years old, then it is ignorance and foolishness. 

The other day, an elderly person, a senior citizen came to see me. I asked him how he was doing and if he was happy. He said that he had been able to run so many kilometers a day when he was younger and could do so much work. 

He could work 16 hours a day. He said that, currently, he was unhappy because he could not work so much. He had begun to get tired after walking just 1 km. Then, he asked me how he could regain his strength so that he could walk 4 miles a day. I asked him why he needed to walk 4 kms a day. 

This happens because a person feels that he needs to be fit but his body will not obey. The mind thinks that he should be working because he had been working earlier. It wonders how come the person is not working, that he is growing old. This idea of growing old makes a person very unhappy. Nobody can get rid of this unhappiness for them because it is self-imposed. And with that unhappiness the person gets jittery, angry and tensed. 

They get all the other negativities. They get soaked in them and die in that condition. Patanjali gives this, vishokaa. Vishokaa means getting rid of the unhappiness. Feeling sad is just your habit. If you look into your mind and see that the sadness is simply unfounded and self generated, it will disappear and you will become free from it. It is just a concept like the concept that people do not respect you. It is baseless. 

You may feel that you are not smart enough, that nobody cares for you. Why should you think so? Then, again you may feel that you are stupid. You are not so. Stupidity is only a comparative term. You may be considered wise by somebody who stupider than you. There is a scale for stupidity. There will certainly be people who are stupider than you. All these self imposed ideas make you very unhappy. 

Look down the scale and you will feel that you are wise. Your comparisons can disturb you and make you sad. Do not compare yourself with anybody. You should feel that you can be happier. Vishoka - make your mind free of sadness which comes out of your concepts.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS 

Have feelings of friendliness, compassion, joy, happiness

Chapter 5 - Overcoming Obstacles 

Day 35

Patanjali knew the human mind very well. And he knew all the crooks and bumps in it. He knew that it could not have the same feeling towards everybody all the time. Feelings can be developed and they keep changing, too. So he said that we should have feelings of friendliness, compassion, joy, happiness, etc. 

And ignore or have upeksha - indifference for the sinful things. If this is done, our chitta, our mind would be pleasant. It will become graceful, gracious. In that gracious and grateful mind, one pointedness becomes easy. We should practice devotion to one thing or one aspect.

Then, Patanjali said that if all this was difficult, then he would give one more sutra. Breaking the natural rhythm of the breath, holding it and sustaining it in different rhythms. Patanjali has not mentioned Sudarshana Kriya directly. But in this sentence, there is a clue. You can trace your practice to that one sutra because we are doing the same thing here. 

We are not just breathing anyway we like. We are consciously breathing in a definite rhythm. We are splitting the breath, dividing them and holding them with different rhythms. This also makes our mind focused. Suppose, it does not work and you feel it is not complete. This means that the mind can be stilled through any one object of senses. 

What happens in eye gazing? You are looking at somebody for a few minutes. You gaze at that person from the bottom of your heart. At that time, your mind is not running here and there. You sit with your eyes closed. The mind is completely settled. We may sit for a meditation after singing bhajans. The mind has come to a standstill.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS