We concluded our previous episode by wondering why we cannot remain in an ever-blissful state even after we attain the ‘self-realization’ through the practice of Yoga.
The ultimate state of Yoga namely the ‘Samadhi’ is supposed to take us back to our real state – namely a blissful state. But when we come out of this Samadhi, we once again get trapped into a mix of happy and sad states of mind. Why?
Patanjali says that this is because of deep rooted impressions in our minds. These impressions imprison us in an elusive state of pleasure and pain.
If you are a computer savvy person, you would have heard of something called ‘firmware’. These are a set of prestored instructions in a computer using which the computer ‘boots itself up’. This firmware is normally etched hard in the computer’s memory and if this ‘firmware’ is not Ok, the computer can malfunction!
The deep-rooted impressions that Patanjali is talking about are like this firmware. Our lives get ‘boot strapped’ based on these deep-rooted impressions that we carry with us all the time – right from our birth and may be even before! One stint in Samadhi cannot erase this firmware once for all!
That is why we keep reverting back to status quo once we come out of Samadhi.
Does it mean that this ‘firmware of ours’ is faulty?
Not really. The basic firmware is perfectly fine and serves its purpose namely that of making us livable in this world. It is just that we have accumulated lot of things around this basic firmware that makes us falter. In the computer lingo, we have faulty layers built around this basic firmware, that submerges our true identity. How? Let me explain.
If you are a male listener, how do you describe a beautiful woman? Probably you would say that such a person has an hourglass shaped body, with big bosoms, wide hips. You also may like to add soft, smooth, slender body, a sweet voice and so on. And you get fascinated by this beauty.
Have you observed two sets of things here? There is one set of things that make us survive and enable us to carry on, and another set that is merely a layer over these basic things. This layer does not have much role in either survival nor continuation. They are more of ‘baits’ to aid in survival and continuation.
Wide hips are an indication of the female body’s capability to give safe and easy childbirth. The big bosoms are meant for bringing up the child by means of breast feeding. The smooth, soft, slender body, sweet voice and so on, are indicative of the body having the right balance of female hormones conducive to carry on the reproduction.
But we miss the real purpose of all these that are built into us to facilitate survival and continuation as a species. We overlook these and focus more on the external appearances, and fall into the bait. The real firmware gets masked by these artificial layers that are built around it.
Similarly, if you are a female person, your idea of beauty in your male companion can be just the opposite – broad chested, strong, muscular, hairy and so on. These are the indicators of a male body that has male hormones in right proportions. Such a person is a better candidate not only to father the progeny, but also to protect the progeny as well as the female. But again, we go for the external appearances without seeing the real purpose.
Clearly, one is prewired ‘firmware’ that aids existence, and the other is merely a layer which is a set of ‘baits’. These baits are so attractive that one tends to lose sight of the purpose of the basic firmware. This is an accumulated layer that is hard to erase.
A male gets attracted to female and vice versa, due to these deep-rooted layers of ‘baits’. Not that we consciously fall into this trap, nor we ever set these notions. These are built into our minds – as if pre-programmed.
Now, do these attributes really define beauty? Just cut open the parts of the body that you consider to be beautiful. You probably would shudder to even look at such a body! So, the so-called beauty is just ‘skin deep’? We think that something is beautiful just by looking at the surface.
Patanjali says that this kind of wrong way of seeing things is the root cause of our problems. It is not just about beauty. There are many things which delude our vision. Patanjali calls it Avidya – or wrong knowledge. He even terms this Avidya as the mother of all problems!
All the same, this Avidya is so strong that we cannot shrug it off so easily. It is deep rooted.
How does this Avidya cause our problems? Let us see 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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