Just like our modern-day computers, our minds too have EPROMS with pre-stored instructions that enables us to boot strap, and go on with our lives. These instructions are essential for living. But they become a problem when they somehow get corrupted. Imagine how a computer would behave if its EPROM is corrupted. It just crashes 😉 That would also be our state, if we have a faulty mental EPROM. Before we talk about how the practice of Yoga helps in setting right a corrupted mental EPROM, let us face the fundamental question namely -
" Is your mental EPROM corrupted?"
Giving an analogy to our computers, I was talking about an EPROM that
resides in our mind.
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Like the EPROM in a computer, this mental EPROM
is also essential for the ‘normal’ functioning of a living being.
It contains instructions that are needed for our day-to-day
functioning. What are those instructions?
What do we need to maintain a normal life? Most basically, we need to
eat good food. Every animal instinctively knows what to eat and how
much to eat. Food that provides nutrition to our body is what we
should be eating. Also, we should eat just sufficient to satiate our
hunger. Any instinct driven animal, does just that.
Just eating is not enough. We need to maintain a family, have a mate,
have children and so on, so that we continue to propagate our likes.
If you are a male, you need to have a female who is capable of
producing children, and bring them up with all the care. If you are a
female, you should look for a male who is capable of fathering your
children, and also providing protection to you as well as your
progeny. These are the most basic instructions in the metal EPROM of
any being.
Just living and reproducing are not enough. You need to continue to
live. For that, you need to have a desire to live. That is also
another instruction in the mental EPROM. All these instructions are
essential for us to exist.
But what happens if these instructions get corrupted or are masked by
faulty ones?
Instead of eating good nutritious food to nourish our body, we become
slaves to our taste buds, and eat all kinds of junk food. The result
is well known – health problems. Similarly, instead of having
control over our eating habits, we consume a bit too much and fall
prey to many diseases – obesity, diabetes, and what not!
When we choose a mate, we look for superficial features like beauty
and not the features that are conducive to procreation and upkeep of
the progeny. Broad hips, big bosoms, tender body, and so on, which
are supposed to be an indication of a right candidate for mothering
our children, they become false notions of beauty. Similarly,
muscular body, tall, hairy figure which are otherwise needed for a
good fatherly candidate, become notions of beauty in a male. The real
purpose of these are over shadowed by superficial and misleading
notions. These are the ‘bugs’ that make our mental EPROM faulty.
Not that eating some tasty food occasionally is completely bad. Nor
falling in love with someone. As long as we are mindful of the real
purpose behind the instructions in our built in EPROM, and we are at
control, things are fine. But, more often than not, many of us
totally forget the basic purpose. That is when the mental EPROM leads
us astray.
Patanjali calls such a condition as false knowledge or Avidya.
Avidya is about mistaking wrong as right, bad as good and so
on. Patanjali says that this Avidya is the mother of all our
problems. What are these problems?
When we forget about the purpose of eating and go totally astray by
indulging in bad food habits, we get into health problems. Similarly,
when physical attraction is the only thing that draws us towards
opposite sex, we get trapped into what Patanjali calls as Raga
or over attachment to someone. Over attachment leads to
possessiveness. And we shudder to even think of anyone snatching our
beloved from us. That leads to Dwesha or hatred to the other
person who attempts any such thing. Both these Raga as well as
Dwesha make our lives miserable.
It is not just possessiveness about opposite sex. But almost about
anything in our lives – money, wealth, and so on.
Why does all these things happen? That is because, we identify
ourselves with the body. It is the body, for whose sake we get into
raga, dwesha and so on. And these raga, dwesha,
are once again generated due to false notions of taste, beauty etc.
Patanjali calls this wrong identification with the body as Asmita.
We should have known that we are not the body, but the souls. But we
fall for the wrong association due to Avidya. We think that
our body is permanent. But it is not. Sooner or later it is going to
perish, and whatever we amassed for its sake, is not going to help us
in any way. That is also part of Avidya.
Wrong association with the body, makes us want to live forever, so
that we can continue to enjoy the pleasures provided by the body.
Patanjali calls it as Abhinivesha. Even this has Avidya
as the root.
So Avidya is the mother of all problems. Since we cannot live
forever, we desire to take rebirth again and again, and enter an
endless trap of pleasure and pain. That is not going to help us in
the long run. But that is what we are forced to, because of our
faulty EPROM!
The ultimate aim of Yoga as per Patanjali, is to set right this
faulty EPROM. That would make us live peacefully when we are alive.
And escape from the endless cycle of births and deaths, when we
finally die.
Patanjali calls Avidya, Raga, Dwesha, Asmita
and Abhinivesha as five troublesome activities of the mind or
Pancha Kleshas. If you recall, in the very beginning,
Patanjali defines Yoga as restrainment of the activities of the mind
– “Yogah Chitta Vritti Nirodha”.
In these Chitta vrittis, Patanjali talks about five ‘normal’ and
five ‘difficult’ – Pancha aklishta and pancha
klishta.
Yoga steps from 1 to 7 are meant to restrain the normal activities.
And later stages of step 8, that is, Asamprajnyata Samadhi are
meant to neutralize even the Klishta activities
of the mind. That is when you set right your mental EPROM 😉.
Patanjali says that repeatedly going
through Asamprajnyata Samadhi, rectifies some of the ‘bugs’
that have crept into our mental EPROM over a period of time. This
‘over a period of time’ could mean several past births. That
can’t be rectified in one go. It has to be done with repeated and
purposeful efforts. Each time you enter Asamprajnyata Samadhi,
some of the bugs get eliminated.
And when all the bugs are eliminated,
you are left with a clean EPROM. A clean EPROM also means giving up
of clinging onto the body and the pleasures provided by it. As I said
earlier, great masters with no desire to cling on to the body, may
still keep taking birth, since they desire to help others who are
suffering because of ‘faulty EPROM syndrome’😉
What will happen if someone has no
such desire to help others? Patanjali says that such a soul attains
Kaivalya. Kaivalya is a state where the soul is completely
free, and all to itself, without any entanglements which could
disturb its ever-blissful state.
Patanjali believes in the Samkhya
model of the world of duality. In that model, there is nature, and
the souls. Coming together of them is bondage, and separation is
freedom. The purpose of Yoga is to attain this state of eternal
freedom.
But Upanishads go even beyond this
Samkhya model of the world. Upanishads talk of realities beyond this
‘matter-soul duality’. How do Upanishads view ultimate reality?
We will see that in the next episode.
© Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2024
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