It was mandatory in many ancient Indian scriptures or philosophic texts to spell out the ultimate purpose of whatever was going to be espoused in the text before starting the discussion
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So, does Yoga have any practical utility? Well, I am not talking about byproducts of Yoga such as health benefits, stress reduction and so on. I am talking about the utility of reaching the ultimate state of Yoga namely the Samadhi. Does it have any utility?
Many people point to bliss that is experienced in Samadhi as the real utility. But is it the real purpose of attaining Samadhi?
Most ancient Indian schools whether it is the Upanishads, or the Samkhya, or even the Yoga consider an individual as basically a soul encased in a material body. And this soul is inherently blissful.
That being the case, we need not have to do anything extra to attain a blissful state. We are supposed to be ever blissful. Why then go through the arduous process of Yoga and attain the Samadhi?
The Upanishads say that we have mistaken ourselves to be something other than the soul. This mistaken identity makes us forget about our real blissful nature.
The moment we realize who we really are, we become blissful all over again. It is just that we need to come out of our false identity. And the Samadhi just does that. It removes the shroud of ignorance that envelops us and shows us our real self.
Once we know who we really are, we are no longer miserable – at least as long as we are in the state of Samadhi.
Yoga also says the same thing.
Patanjali says that we normally assume an identity about ourselves which is not the real one. And this identity is imposed on us by the external inputs that we get through our senses. Using these sense inputs, our Mind creates a false image of ourselves. We attach ourselves to this false identity and become miserable.
In our ‘normal’ lives we visualize ourselves as a student, doctor, politician, husband, wife, son, friend, enemy, rich, poor, week, strong... and so on. This is what our interactions with the external world has imposed on us. But what are we really? Do we have any real identity apart from these externally imposed identities?
It is not actually the external objects or situations that have imposed these identities. It is our mind that interprets these external objects and situations and weaves a web of false identities. And as long as our mind is busily involved in this web weaving, we are trapped in these web of identities 😉
But when the Mind stops working in the state of Samadhi, it is no longer able to trick us into believing what we are not. We once again ‘see’ our true self.
That is what Patanjali means when he says
“in Samadhi the ‘one who sees’ sees his true self.
thadaa draShThuh svaroopEvasthaanam”
This is the so-called ‘self-realization’ - the realization that we are blissful souls and not the body or mind or any one of the myriad identities we take on.
Upanishads declare that that state is the ultimate state giving us eternal peace.
So, Samadhi takes us back to our real blissful state.
So, somehow get into Samadhi and you are through?
Not really!
The problem is that when we come out of Samadhi, we are back to square one 😉 Our mind starts functioning once again. We once again get trapped into false identities imposed on us by the activities of the Mind. We once again start assuming that we are someone’s father, mother, spouse, lover, master, servant, friend, foe, and so on.
All these identities have their own baggage of causes for misery. We keep oscillating between blissful and miserable phases. But the ultimate bliss attained in Samadhi would elude us.
Why is it that we cannot remain in the ‘realized state’ forever? What is it that keeps dragging us back to our miserable states?
Patanjali says that our pre-accumulated mental impressions keep pushing us again and again into a confused state. As long as we are in the clutches of these impressions, there is no way we can remain forever in a blissful state.
What are these mental impressions that Patanjali talks about?
We will discuss that in the next episode.
A series revolving around Mind – Science of Mind, Philosophy of Mind, Notions of reality, Mind modulation, Domains beyond Mind, and so on. © Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2019-2020
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