Patanjali's Eightfold Path to Samadhi – The Psychology of Samadhi: 2

Patanjali's extraordinary eight-step (ashtanga) method of meditation can lead you to the state of samadhi. His ancient teachings become much more accessible with the help of modern psychology and personal insights gained through decades of practice.

0:00 Four Kinds of Vrittis
5:54 Yama and Niyama, Prohibitions and Injunctions
16:09 Asana and Pranayama, Postures and Breath Control

In his famous Yoga Sutras, the great rishi, Patanjali, defines the fundamental practice of yoga as citta vritti nirodhah, the complete restraint of all vrittis, all activities of your mind. In addition to the thoughts, emotions, and sensations, produced by your mind, there's a fourth kind of vritti, your ego. Not ego as pride or arrogance, but rather, as the sense of I-ness, your feeling of being an individual person. Psychologists call it reflective awareness or self-consciousness. In Sanskrit, it's called ahankara, literally, the I-maker or I-thought.

To attain samadhi, you have to restrain all four kinds of vrittis produced by your mind, thoughts, emotions, sensations, and ego. To enable you to do this, Patanjali precribes a powerful sequence of practices in his eight angas or limbs of yoga. These eight angas are series of steps, like rungs on a ladder or limbs on a tree. Those steps lead from introductory practices all the way to the ultimate goal of samadhi. The eight angas, as you may already know, are yama, prohibitions; niyama, injunctions; asana, postures; pranayama, breath control; pratyahara, sense withdrawal; dharana, concentration; dhyana, meditation; and samadhi, absorption.
Yama is a set of five prohibitions prescribed by Patanjali. Ahimsa prohibits harming living beings. Satya prohibits lying. Asteya prohibits stealing. Brahmacharya prohibits immoral sexual activities. And aparighraha prohibits possessiveness. Practicing these five yamas is meant to help you establish a dharmic lifestyle that's conducive to meditation.

The first niyama is shauca, purity, having a pure mind, a mind that's free from anger, hurt, envy, resentment, and so on. the second is santosha, patience or forbearance. This virtue can help you gracefully accept difficulties and discomforts that can't be avoided without getting irritated and distracted from your practice. Next is tapas, religious disciplines like fasting, waking up early to meditate, and living simply, without unnecessary luxuries. Such disciplines help you remain firmly focused on your spiritual practice. The next niyama is svadhyaya, regular spiritual study. Today, many resources are freely available online, which can be a great help as long as you're highly selective about what you choose. The final niyama is ishwara-pranidhana, devotion to Ishvara, God. Any kind of prayer or worship connects you emotionally to a reality that's infinitely greater than yourself. That connection can help you feel more secure and remain calm even in the midst of difficult situations.

The third of Patanjali's eight angas is asana, posture. He defines it in a single sutra , sthira-sukham asanam, your posture for seated meditation should be sthira, firm or stable, and sukha, comfortable, pain-free. That means, you can sit on the floor or in a chair, with or without a cushion and back support, as long as your back is erect, your head, neck, and shoulders are properly aligned, and you're comfortable.

The fourth of Patanjali's eight angas is pranayama, breath control. The rishis discovered that by breathing very slowly and deeply, the sympathetic nervous system is calmed, and the fight or flight response is reduced, which results in physical and mental relaxation.

[innerfire]

I'm glad that you emphasized the relationship between lifestyle and samadhi. The hectic Modern, greedy life is not condusive to a healthy spiritual life, much less Samadhi.

[digital_bodhi]

The part about losing your self in the music in relation to the ego utterly blew my mind.

[balajicanabady]

12:59 "Emotional problems require emotional solutions not spiritual solutions"
Thanks Swamiji for Great wisdom 🙏

[ringingthebells]

It is said that 72000 Nadis are the energy airways just like airways for airlines without any physical existence. These can be thought of as paths where Prana energy radiates into the body despite there r no anatomical existence i.e. radiation path of energy waves. I can be wrong as I have little knowledge abt this.

Swami ji, looking forward for next episode and I m grateful to u for such excellent discourses . I can not express how much greatly I have been benifitted from ur discourses.

[bhatakthirooh]

Guruji, you are a priceless gift of this era! This era is ruthlessly promoting greed, materialism and power in the name of technology. The way of life that you share is the only way to avoid suffering and diseases. Thank you 🙏

[leematthews]

Only two episodes in, and this is already one of my favourite series. Although I'm familiar with the concepts, Swami Tadatmananda provides a really interesting perspective on them. Hopefully there will be further episodes in future....

[witharvind]

Pujya swami ji pranam
I was eagerly waiting for this wonderful program.

[AshokPatil-rmnu]

Swamiji, we feel it easy to understand or listen but it's somewhat challenging to implement
Or take it into practice. A lots of attentiveness, awareness is needed.
Your guidance will be very helpful.

[haribol]

Thank you Swamiji for another insightful video. You continue to hold our hands and show us the path laid down by our ancient Rishi’s. Forever indebted to them and your guidance. Pranam.🙏🏼

[mathewjose]

The music on these last few videos has been really nice!

[prakashvakil]

Aatmiya DIVINITY
AUM TAT SAT AUM
HARE KRSNA

Experiencing amazing 'Contentment' receiving this presentation.
Difficult topic explained in an easy and practical way.

I Am OK NO Matter What 😊❤

[constantkiffer]

Thank you once more very much for your precious lesson !🙏🏻

[gridcoregilry]

super nice graph at 22:29 !!! thank you for the clarity

[jasminka-kt]

Thank You Swamiji for this interesting program. Even that I went quite deep in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras it is very helpful. I really like the music you've chosen and the image with computer circuit in the background. Om Shanti! Peace, peace, peace! 🙏

[shivashekki]

🙏 TQ foryour simplified explanation of ashtanga yoga .

[shourjosarkar]

So much insight...eagerly waiting for further episodes of this series..🙏🙏

[richparker]

Great series! Wonderfully explained! Looking forward to the next one! ❤️❤️❤️

[deepakv]

Swamiji, is it possible for your team to upload the audio for the background music used in this video? I can use it for my meditation as sometimes I like meditating to music when my mind wont just become quiet. Whoever created the background music, did a great job !!

[AshokPatil-rmnu]

Thanks for this invaluable information. Unfortunately the entire
Mankind is running behind worldly things. Their journey of life is towards downwards. And very rare people are accepting the truth of life. The proof of this fact is that, this video is getting very less likes.

[gurugeorge]

Very nice. I've come to appreciate the good Swami's videos as a treasure and resource, and this is another in a growing list of precise, informative videos.

I'd just add a couple of minor things to potentially clarify some little corners for some. Basic calming meditation isn't just "the calming of the sympathetic nervous system, " it's actually _the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, _ which is what's active when you're asleep and your body is regenerating (to some extent also when you're relaxed and digesting food). The important thing is that if you activate the parasympathetic nervous system _while the spine is upright, _ you remain awake mentally, while your body is in the same relaxed, regenerating state as when you're asleep. After a while, it is in fact possible to get a complete "body off" sensation, where you're no longer aware of the body at all, which knocks out a huge source of potential distractions in one fell swoop. There is a distinct sensation of "dropping" or "settling, " a slightly unusual experience that a beginner will probably never have had before (although it's somewhat reminiscent of the sensation of sinking into a nice, hot bath), that denotes parasympathetic activation. This is the only real "trick" to meditation (the rest being more about insight - into the truth of the teachings, into reality, etc. - time and practice, and getting-used-to).

I would say that parasympathetic activation (that "drop" while awake and alert) plus "body off" (which comes a bit later with more practice) together are the real "foot in the door" to all this. I think for most people it shouldn't take more than about 3 months regular, focused practice (at least a half hour a day) to get to this point.

Re. "anga" - it might be helpful to think of them as the spokes of a wheel that enable it to _go, _ rather than as limbs. (I'd venture to say that the correct mental image is probably an 8-limbed swastika, which unites the connotations of "limb" and "spoke".) IOW, they all "run" concurrently. So for example, some preliminary breathing with counting can be very useful to get the above-mentioned parasympathetic activation - which then forms the basis for deeper and more extended exploration of pranayama, which feeds back into self-control and the cultivation of virtues, on the one hand, and meditation on the other, and so on and so forth. It's a gradual process of iteration on all fronts, one helping another, one bearing the weight temporarily, then giving way to another, like the spokes of a wheel changing place in relation to point of contact.