“119th Patanjali Yoga Sutras, 3rd chapter 13th verse -”

Prayer. Welcome. Today’s subject is Altered states of awareness!

119th Patanjali Yoga Sutras, 3rd chapter 13th verse -

Etana bhoota indriyeshu.. avastha parinaamaha vyakhyanaha

Vivekananda: in this way by the 3 modifications mentioned above is explained the 3 fold transformation has to form, time and state…

Prabhavananda: in this state it passes beyond the 3 kinds of changes which take place in the subtle or gross matter and in the organs change of time, change of matter….

Satchitananda; …time factors and conditions of elements and senses..

Osho: by what has been said the property, character and conditions transformations in the elements or sense organs are also explained.

The technical term in this sutra is avastha parinaamaha. Please understand this sutra is basically sutra to give you the strategy for the whole life’s planning. Man who thinks the 100 years he is going to live in the body is his life & plans for it is materialist – atheist. Man who thinks all the lives happened and all the lives yet to happen and the life happening in a broad sense & plans his strategies is a spiritualist, a seeker. Understanding about life, what you are, is going to decide what you do and what you want in your life. When you think you are a child and particular toy is going to give you joy & the toy is going to be adding life to you or it is going to be your eternal companion, you feel so strongly attached to that toy. Even if your mother takes the toy and asks you to eat, you shout at your mother. Because at that moment you think that the toy is your eternal companion so naturally you feel that toy is much more important than anything else. After some time, your understanding about yourself changes and with your understanding about yourself evolves, your needs change. Having ultimate understanding of your life and having right understanding about your need is what I call as renunciation – vairagya. Raga means attacfhment, virago means detachment. Viraaga means beyond attachment and detachment. Viraaga is neither attachment nor detachment. It is having the right understanding about your need.

A common man can never understand that an evolved person does not have any attachment & his needs are totally different which you can never comprehend and cannot disturb the world. because I don’t disturb the world nor can the world disturb me! I am always full. If somebody wants fulfillment, let them come around me. if they have something as first priority in their life. Please carry on. No problem. When you have a clear understanding & strategy about the whole life, your needs become different, your desires become different, your greed becomes diff, the transformed desire, greed, fear does not bind you! Ramakrishna says if a rope is burnt, it will look just like a rope but it canot be used to tie or bind you. all you need to do is to put a fire of an extraordinary understanding. Now your desire binds you like a rope. If you try to cut the rope or destroy the rope, it may take years & years & years. But just try to put fire to the rope, you will see not only it cannot bind you but it cannot bind anyone. Putting fire to the rope is what I call extraord understanding & awareness. First understand that as on now all your greed, suffereings, pains, pleasures whatever you call as life – guilt, engrams anything is look with a very sharp view of few hours of your awareness. You don’t plan looking at your whole life. You don’t consider looking at 2/3rds of your life. Your dream and deep sleep state, you don’t consider as part of your life at all. When you plan the strategy for yoru life, you consider only your waking state as your life. All the countries which think waking state is the only life is suffering with insomnia. They go on selling all kinds of beds. US is the only country I have seen at least 2000 kinds of beds they sell! They fix a number which you can adjust accordingly when you sleep on it. On other side another number on same bed for your spouse. An Bharatn villager cannot even understand this – why do you need bed? Just stretch your leg you will have sleep! In west food is cheap, in east sleep is cheap. But unfortunately in some parts of the east food is costly because they did not put enough importance in the waking state. In eastern countries if you stretch your hand you will not have food – becos we do not have enough imp on deep sleep state. In west too much focus on it so no sleep. Now is the time to create a new civilization which understand all states of life, looks at all space and all time.

If you think life is only waking state you will have intense stress. It is almost like choosing too many things with your ignorance. It is to choose too many small things for your life. Understand it is not like after growing you don’t just have toys or hate toys. No. it will be there in one corner of your house. It will not be given undue importance. But when you think your whole life is going to be childhood and the toy is great joy, undue imp is given to the toy. All suffereings in uor life are becos of undue imp given to our greed & fear. If you und by falling asleep you are not going to go but come back, you will not suffer from insomnia. All western countries are spending billions of dollars just for sleeping. The money we spend for food in Bharat, at least two times they spend for sleeping! Becos they don’t have right understanig about life. Their strategy p lanning does not include sleep and dreams also as part of life. They do not get life is just not the waking state but it is deep sleep & dream states also. Otherwise the country which has created so many varieties of cots and beds, insomnia is not only leading to many physical & mental disorders, it is leading to poor state of consciousness & in many cases it is leading to fatal diseases.

Life not understood as it is creates millions of complications & confusion! I can understand the struggle people are going through. Millions of people struggle with the things struggle with many pains & sufferings just because of not having a complete understanding about life. Life is larger than what you think. You need to understand avastha parinaamaha – means altered states of awareness. When your body is filled with harmones, when the hormonal pressure is high you are ready to do anything for the other person whom you think will give you pleasure of fulfill you. the moment the pressure is over, the whole understanding is different. That moment the awareness makes you feel something is very imp. But the moment the awareness is changed, suddenly you feel something else is important! Having broad complete understanding about life takes away practically all your sufferings and sufferings around you. first thing you need to do in yoru life is have the vaccination for suffering! Make yourself immune to the suffering! Western countries is giving 100s of vaccinations. The child is filled with so many vaccines in different timings. I want our Gurukul system NBSC to develop on pain vaccination method! Let them be immune to the pain, immune to the ignorance. Teach them the larger understanding of life. Still kids have not forgotten the importance of dream state and deep sleep state in their life. When you put too much of verbalization & visualization of waking state, they slowly put too much of imp on waking state & slowly the other two states are forgotten.

For ex – we have 3 sabhas – raja sabha, chit sabha & ananda sabha – 3 states – waking, deep sleep & dream state. If all programs are conducted in only one sabha, and stop using other sabhas, you stop cleaning other sabhas. Same way in life when we start bringing up kids giving only imp to waking state, material state and the imp of other 2 states if forgotten.

Today’s sutra is pain vaccination, greed vaccindation, fear vaccination – vaccination against maya, immunity against maya. Patanjali is explaining how altered consciousness tells you what you think as life and what you live as life. The technical term is avastha parinaamaha means the space where the altered states of awareness disappears! You need to achieve a state where altered states of awareness disappears. In last 4 sutras he has explained – nirodha parinaama, Samadhi parinaama, ekagrata parinaama – different spaces. Now patanjali is entering into a very deep state – how the altered states of consciousness, awareness, pulls & pushes your life & creates intense suffering. I know one disciple of Raghupati Yogi – he was having deep depression – naturally first thing that happens is strong hatred towards the master. Unconsciously you take revenge on the master. This guy came with so much of anger to Raghupati yogi & said all your yoga, exercises, teachings are waste there is so much depression in me. He was married & had 14 kids! He said what kind of yogi you are, you don’t know anything about yoga. Even my own disciples have so much anger and criticism towards my actions. Raghupati yogi then just picked up a small root of a plant which was there & told that guy to bite that root. That guy did that and sucked the juice. Immediately all his anger and hatred disappeared! He went to a diff state of awareness. When the state of awareness gets altered, suddenly all your understanding about life changes. Suddenly everything looks green, bright alive! Never believe human beings :-0 that is the lesson I learn the hard way. When they fall, don’t think they will touch your feet. Be aware they may pull your legs any moment. Poor fellows because they are not under their control.

Unless you make human beings immune to pain & suffering by giving this maya vaccination, you cannot have an evolved civilization. See the barbaric acts, killings happening every day. The broad view about life is not there. The altered states of awareness is responsible for all the sufferings you had in your life, all the misunderstandings you have in your life. Understand the other states of awareness like dream & deep sleep is also part of you & expand your planning about life. If you are too oriented only on waking state, you will have heavy dreams & completely disturbed sleep. I will take you layer by layer in this sutra how Patanjali describes elements, sense organs, the natural characteristics, the cosmic flow, conditions, time, all these 5 makes your states of awareness different. Today the 1st lesson is just altered state of awareness. Even now, if you put your head down and sit, your state of awareness will be different. In an altered state of awareness your fear or greed is different. Now if you are really aware and interested in what I am saying, if you feel this understanding is directly going to alter your life, if you are sitting with me now by driving hours to sit with me you are fortunate. If you are in this campus and are here because you have no other way, you will just be dozing off here!

If you are sitting here with awareness your greed is let me understand this fully, your fear is oh he may end this soon. If you are just in a small altered state of consciousness – sleep, immd your fear & greed, your strategy of life is diff. a simple altered state of awareness can completely change many decisions you make in your life. So understand, alter your state of awareness just one step higher – how the toy car has become immaterial for you when you grow up, your real car will become immaterial when you consciously grow up! Understand, just altering yoru state one step higher just taking yourself to turiya – the 4th state, suddenly you will see many of your fears, greeds are not there. It is like you are in this country you are bothered too much about too many people, suddenly you are put in a diff country all yoru fears and greeds are no more relevant for you. if you are settled in the US, you will never bother about the old lady sitting in your village abusing you. If you are in that village, however, it matters a lot. Just like when your country and situations change, your understanding changes, same way, your strategy and understanding changes when your awareness about life changes!

I want you to carry just this one understanding – when you understand the importance of all other states of consciousness, when you understand your life is more than just waking state, your fear, greed, need, understanding about life changes. You are relieved from many sufferings. I want you to contemplate on this one truth today – whole day contemplate on this one truth and I want you to share this truth at least with 5 people before you come back to satsang tomorrow. When you try to talk to people about this, you will have many questions happening in you & happening in them. We will analyze these questions in tomorrow’s satsang.

When you broaden your understanding of your life as all inclusive, many of your sufferings disappear. First you contemplate on this & try to find examples of your own life. And share this with at least 5 people. Please understand the idea you carry about you is not completely given or created by you. If you are carrying 100 ideas about you, more than 70% of your identity is given to you by people around you. now share this truth with people and convince them of this. Then 70% of your identity will change because they will related to you in this new way. When you share enlightenment, you change the part of your identity which is given by others. Actually in you only 30% of you is your own ideas. When you live enlightenment, you are transforming 30% of you. 70% is given by others. Now go and share with people around you. Please understand, convince people living around you with this truth. Naturally when they start living in this new consciousness, naturally their idea about you, then 70% of your identity will transform. The real enlightenment happens only when you share it with others. So please do this exercise. Go & share this idea with at least 5 people. Discuss them, convince them and enroll them. Then you will be more convinced about this truth. Come back tomorrow with your questions or with your experiences.

When you do this job – you may have 3 things. 1. You may have questions which you don’t understand or you may have answers which you get by questions or you may have convinced person. Bring all 3 to tomorrow’s satsang. Blessings!