The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

That is called a jivamuktan or Mukta. Those Muktas, who through their supramundane, divine, or liberated bodies (the brahmic or atmic bodies) constantly desire to carry out the will (sankalpa) of the Supreme Brahman, expressed in their acts of the Cit-Sakti of Brahman. With that cit-shakti they operate simultaneously in diverse places without limit. The Muktas always possess this Cit-Shakti, and always are in harmony with its momentum.

This idea is more explicitly expressed in the Sruti of the Madhyandin-Ayanas which is to the following effect:

"That Brahmanistha putting off this mortal body, and having reached Brahman, sees through Brahman, hears through Brahman, yea perceives everything through Brahman." The smrti also says the same:- "where dwell these spirits all of them having celestial bodies." This Sankalpa, or will, which blooms out in the Mukta, is to be cultivated from the very time of his earliest practice, and must be understood to be the same will, which he was cultivating during his period of sadhana.

The atmic body is configured as energy patterns that connect the physical body with the brahmic body (formless body). In Buddhist yoga the same is stated that the sambhogakaya connects the physical emanation body (nirmanakaya) with the formless buddhic body (dharmakaya). All three bodies are thus united... Form and formless for an undivided whole.

The true nature is always as-it-is, but the mental obscurations have been removed.

Atma prakaranat IV.4.3 " The light into which the individual soul enters is the Supreme Self." Brahma Sutras

The jiva (isolated soul) is a manifestation of Brahman if one realizes it or not. When the Jiva realizes it, it has realized jivamukti or as a non-dual atman, who is at one with Brahman . Brahman is not a manifest ion of the self (jiva), nor should an ego worship itself as is the error of narcissism.

Brahmadrishtih: the view of Brahman, the view in the light of Brahman;

Utkarshat: on account of superiority, because of super-eminence.

Literally, when viewed with the light of Brahma (Brahma-dristhi), one views Brahma's unified reflection in all things.

One may assert that everything is a manifestation of Brahman, as they reflect or clothe Brahman. But Brahman is not a reflection of the objects. This is stated so one will not worship symbols or entities. A symbol, object, or representation is at best a reflection, and at worse perceived as an isolated/independent and disconnected object apart from everything else. This is because when there is a supposed meditator/observer, there is egoic isolation/separation, which is a dualistic error. However, through Brahma-dristhi, the view in the light of Brahman, one enters into Brahmaloka, which is a sublime non-dual vantage point where Brahma is all pervasive and all things/beings have no substantial boundaries. Everything is viewed as interconnected limitlessly, and thus an independent meditator is not possible when illumined by the supramundane non-dual light. It is a conflation to say that objects, phenomena, the mind are the same as Brahman; rather they are interconnected parts of the whole, which is Brahman. Brahma or Brahman is inside all things/phenomena, but the thing/phenomena are not Brahman (the whole), per se. They are perhaps gateways to Brahma when perceived through Brahma-dristhi/ Brahma-vidya, Brahmaloka.

From the Madhyandin-Ayanas: "That Brahmanistha putting off this mortal body, and having reached Brahman, sees through Brahman, hears through Brahman, yea perceives everything through Brahman. ... where dwell these spirits all of them having celestial bodies."

This promise of Brahma's intent and union (yoga) with its purpose and meaning ( sankalpa), which blooms in the Mukta, is to be cultivated from the very beginning a yogis practice. It must be understood to be the same will, which he was cultivating during his period of sadhana.

To recount, pratyaya refers to the contents of the ordinary conditioned mind-set as opposed to the boundless mind, which is denoted as the all container. We could just as well say that boundless all-mind is an awareness that recognizes primordial wisdom in All Our Relations as All Our Relations. Pratyaya thus, on the other hand is the result of the mind's habituated tendency to fragmentize the natural unconditioned boundless Mind of pure awareness, into isolated pieces. The conditioned contents of the mind (as in pratyaya) is a result of programmed reductionist thinking, wherein "the thinker" has forgotten their innate and direct way of gnosis and being.

If we utilize inquiry as a support for the path, another question comes up,which, "is yoga about isolation or integration"? A common non-answer is that a bodiless soul takes form in a body, and after a certain amount of temporal space (perceived sequential events over time), the soul leaves the body, the earth, and existence. But has this soul ever really been born and died in the greater continuum of things? How did that soul become created? Is a soul separate from the body? Was the body merely imputed with a soul? Was what one called the soul a continuation of past unfinished karma, kleshas, and consciousness containing an intent for its completion/resolution? What is the purpose of life in a body on the planet? Is physical death an event where a body simply changed its form? All sorts of inquiries may be utilized, but none can successfully supplant direct yogic experience. Ultimately, purusa is always here (omnipresent as ever-presence) and continuous, but the problem is that we have become distracted and do not recognize it as our true self nature (swarupa) in the transpersonal and non-dual sense as our NOW awareness and existence in Sat-Chit-Ananda.

The eternal formless "Self" void of characteristics, as Mahadeva, takes on myriad forms/clothing, but it is up to the true seeker to recognize it in its essential true form. Videha can mean bodiless, formless, independent from a physical body, free from sense object limitations, and free from attachment/aversion, but in its capability to reside outside the dualistically perceived physical body, such does not preclude that isvara does not reside inside all bodies. That recognition allows us to see phenomena as it truly is. As stated in the samkhya philosophic school, videha is most often interpreted as disincarnate, disembodied, or a state of separation/isolation within a static universe with separate objects and observers. Asamprajnata does not agree with that interpretation, as it does not fit after I.18 nor does I.20 follow it. Rather such an interpretation misses the yogic integrity of pada one.

A common tendency within certain "other worldly" religious and academic schools to attempt to solve the human problem of existence (bhava) is to simply refute existence, to call it an illusion, or to nihilistically separate oneself from it as an undesirable object in terms of avoidance, isolation, dissociation, or disembodiment. For them the problem becomes solved through escape, negation, or aversion (dvesa) or a neutral existential unfeeling zombie-like catatonia. That approach could be likened to throwing the baby out with the bath water. It leads to disempowerment, while creating grounds for apathy, complacency, and lethargy, not being capable of inspiring meaningful and creative life.and This particular sutra is one of the most controversial and most widely interpreted sutras. Different schools have varying interpretations and definitions for both bhava and videha.

To recount, pratyaya refers to the mind's habitual tendency to fragmentize the natural unconditioned Boundless Mind of pure awareness. this all-mind can just as well be called recognition or acknowledgment of primordial essence, isvara, divine purusa, heart-mind, or the bodhi-citta. These terms often can be used interchangeably. In ordinary dualistic perception then, pratyaya refers to the context of the small mind, with its bits and pieces (hints of the hologram, if you will). Such apparently perceived content are the result of citta-vrtti (mental distortions). In non-dual realization, pratyaya does not operate, because the operations of citta-vrtti have ceased (nirodha).

Regarding bhava, some schools merely translate bhava as existence, coming into existence, or the birth process. Other schools define bhava as sentiment, a transcendental or spiritual feeling, or beingness. Here bhava does not mean mere presence, but bhava-pratyayo as the power of pure intention and focus upon the pure presence underlying all of creation and non-existence. It can be recognized as being beyond a vrtti -- beyond cognitive thought upon any separate object, but rather as a result of prakrti-layanam. Such a transcognitive bhava thus the dominate mood of pure spiritual motivation.

In yoga, if the yogi's intention is truly pure, it is pure not only in the technical sense, but more so in the spiritual sense. It shows up in one's demeanor and attitudes reflecting something larger than the body, the ego, the buddhi (intellect), willpower, mahat or the gunas. Thus it is clear that Patanjali, by utilizing the word, bhava, is aware of and is addressing the great power of pure non-dual spiritual intention/motivation which clears the mind out of self limiting fixations. In this way bhava is intent, demeanor, attitude, purpose, reflection, and spiritual experience all taken together.

Here spirit shines through the yogi as divine intention -- as its active channel. Generating bhava or the idea of divine union is both, on one hand a well known yogic technique to clear the mind and set the mood, and on the other hand, for the more advanced practitioner, it is a spontaneous and natural expression when coming from prakrti-layanam. Likewise spontaneous and natural self realization is possible simply through spiritual reflection (bhava) into our intrinsic "re-memberance" of our part in the unconditioned formless aspect of nature (as bhava-pratyaya). Are we apart from it or a part of it? Does such a bhava asamprajnata samadhi not act the same way as divine rapture breaking up the extrinsic tendency to over-objectify and hence lead us out of samprajnata (object relations) into an asamprajnata (transcognitive state)?

A student of the yoga sutras will find that the most common interpretations of this sutra conforms to the standard samkhya predilection, interpreting it intellectually and philosophically. Rather, it seems highly inconsistent to assume Sri Patanjali interjecting a philosophic concept in the middle of his presentation between vairagya (I.12-I.18) and isvara pranidhana (I.20-I.29). It is well known that the tendency in orthodox academic religious traditions is to consider Patanjali as a philosopher, rather than as a yogi, and also to interpret him in terms of samkhya philosophical assumptions/context versus the yogic context that is integral with the mountain yogi tradition. In the former (and especially so in samkhya) it is common to see a preference for reductionist thought, which in my opinion can dangerously lead to fragmentation, isolation, nihilism, and disintegration, rather than integration (yoga). On top of that widespread belief, the former groups tend toward duality, where liberation is seen as a separation "from", isolation, and hence a negation and renunciation of existence, life, one's feelings, and the body, and this preference tends to color the more orthodox translations.

Thus recognizing this philosophical preference/prejudice, this author has chosen to translate bhava as a transcognitive or acognitive (asamprajnata) heart-felt presence (not colored by the gunas, vrtti, klesha, karma, or sense organs) but informed even beyond mahat (universal intelligence); i.e., by the primordial most pure, indwelling seed (bija) and beginningless origin (nir-atishayam) of ultimate and unsurpassed omniscience (sarvajna). That bhava is a spiritual onepointed interconnected attitude or mood, which in this situation arises from the total absorption with nature (not as dead matter, but as mater/mother), which in turn is not separate from purusa, but is at the same time not identical with purusa (avoiding the error of absolute monism) as an isolated/separate divine being or entity. Bhava is the seat and its expression of the spiritual feelings that supersede touch and fragmented emotions, as in spiritual affections, spiritual love, the heart and soul of all/awe.

As such. bhava is transverbal communication and *heart advice* from the cosmic mother as the divine creatrix clothing and revealing the purusa which is beginningless and and self luminous. Here one could say that this bhava is the countenance of purusa. I do not at all suggest that this is a statement of a wanton sport of Maya or the divine Lila of shakti, but rather this realization provides great meaning to our lives, courage, and strength supplanting all the kleshas due to lack of order and self esteem, self doubt, craving, repulsion, confusion, or fear of death (the latter klesha being very strong), we are then allowed to understand the true purport of videha. As such bhava is spiritual purport -- a reflection of purusa/isvara, the uninterrupted continuum of transverbal transconceptual "heart-sense" due to arriving home to the seat of pure being, swarupa. Here we abide in our true original unconditioned place (svasthanam) or true beingness as Sat -- as in Sat-Chit-Ananda (chit here representing purusa). Here the divine mood (bhava) permeates our own mind and our sense of being is filled with nectar. In this larger sense, as if you were walking through a pristine valley in the Himalayas on a cool evening at the full moon with nature informing our every step in love, a very intelligent transcognitive (asamprajnata) purport can come through directly that We are it; we all belong perfectly at this moment here and now together -- sublime, seamless, and complete. Tat Tvam Asi. That deep feeling sublime sense of seamless wholeness and completeness is spiritual bhava. It is transverbal, transconceptual (nirvikalpa), transcognitive (asamprajnata), trans-species, beyond mahat, and comes from an untarnished source.

Again, we acknowledge that dualists would say that physical existence is an illusion, has to be renounced; feelings must be conquered, while imputing that embodied existence is flawed and/or inferior. However, what is flawed is the dualistic view or framework, where such a limited and dead concept of "existence" is perceived and imputed to be dead, solid, or separate from the implicate integrative process of the evolutionary energy as a natural expression of pure primordial wisdom. Thus, if one adds a qualifier to dualistic frameworks, then a natural bridge can be gleaned so the apparently dualistic statement may be more accurately understood as saying that matter (things) understood out of context by imputing a separate purusa (observer); that phenomena perceived as independent or devoid of purusa; deadened from contact with the underlying continuum which links prakrti and purusa; out of touch with that great ecstatic direct feeling experience of divine union and the reality of that love, then indeed a somber loneliness and discomfort overcomes the countenance of such a dualistic view, so abandon it. Disembodied and separated from the fount of all being, a neurotic craving arises for some thing else -- somewhere else, for disembodiment, escape, and non-being; hence, the mechanisms for dissociation, death and disintegration is set into motion. Human beings and the planet has suffered from this sort of escapism, nihilism, self rationalization, delusion, denial, and dysfunctional escapism enough.

In authentic yoga, the body, energy body, and mind, not only form a nexus of interpersonal non-dual two-way communications, but it forms a unity of the body/mind/energy body (the unity of the three kayas and five koshas). Recognizing that to be in resonance with primordially pure awareness as ever-presence. Sutra 24 reads, "Isvara is the untouched, unblemished, and most pure (apara-mrshta) aspect (visesa) of beginningless undifferentiated universal seed consciousness of pure being (purusa), which is unaffected by affliction (klesha), karmic residues or and the seed germs (asayair) that result (vipaka) from ordinary actions based on the kleshas (lack of vision, the egoic mindset, craving, antipathy, and attachment to solid fixations). The yogi's task is to keep these pathways (channels or nadis) open, connected, and energized through well known yogic practices (see pada II and III).

Through awareness, mankind is able to embark upon the self-intelligent journey of self-awareness, recognizing the mental tendencies and habits in their "normal/ordinary" formative processes, which create the conditioned content of normal distorted and limited mindfields (citta-vrtti) and releasing their hold (through vairagya). These citta-vrtta serve to habitually occupy/obscure the normal mind (pratyaya with fragmented subject/object duality/separation), thus limiting our awareness and experience. From increased self-awareness, arises awareness of the all permeating innate intelligence, lucidity, clear-vision, and vividness, which eventually becomes a continuous realization in nirbija samadhi when the last residues of past conditioning fall away. Through the sacred dance of yoga (sometimes called the dance of Nataraja), a profound, sacred, self-luminous being expresses itself as sacred ever-presence. The hitherto limited flat plane state of mind of dead fragmented gross existence, is now transformed and opened by the much greater and expansive contextual awareness provided by a liberated and unbound bhava-pratyaya of spiritual vision, shining forth within the innate integrity of All Our Relations.

Creation reveals the creatrix, the creative force, the act of creation, and its uncaused primordial original mind. In that context, revealed by prakrti and its relationship with purusa, then the awareness of how self imposed limiting dualistic thought processes occur, which chronically obfuscate the normal dualistic mentations are clearly revealed, let go of (vairagya), dissolve and cease (nirodha) naturally. What is left is the pure natural unconditioned intelligence itself (videha-prakrti-layanam) as the intelligence of siva/sakti,as an unbounded wholeness. This is our natural and unconditioned state that can be experienced beyond normal human cognition (in asamprajnata) where ordinary cognition again is preempted by a spiritual direction (bhava-pratyaya) where we are not fixated upon any one limited object. In this case we become absorbed in the nature of nature which some call the divine creatrix or mother. As creation comes HERE through the creative act of creation -- through the Divine formless beginningless spark of the creator, then it is natural that prakrti provides the ground that the true self is known.

As we have seen ordinary dualistic cognition (samprajnata) is dependent upon pratyaya, where the contents of the mind appear as limited, fragmented, egoic, and apparently isolated objects of a conditioned dualistic fragmented mindset. That is to say, that within the limited context of citta-vrtti, the perceived contents of that limited state is reduced depending on the reduction of the reductionist or narrow intent and direction of such negative programming operating upon the ordinary mind. Such supports the illusion of apparently isolated objects (physical and/or mental -- coarse or subtle); wherein an ideated, conceptualized, and fabricated limited form is thus formulated. Since spiritual bhava, meaning the power of spiritual intent, motivation, mood, spiritual focus is essentially an all embracing, compassionate, and boundless loving feeling, the divine passion and presence that twinkles in the eyes of a "turned-on" and accomplished yogi carries along with it its own intelligent powerful force and direction as it naturally reflects the integral wholeness of shiva/shakti. Then bhava-pratyaya becomes focused and aligned spiritual force permeating all the koshas, kayas, and channels (nadis) reinforcing and mirroring the primordial spiritual intent and motive power based on the communion/absorption (layanam) both into the formless nature of creativity and into the form body of manifest creativity as sacred presence in All Our Relations.

Manifesting purusa in the body;

~ Sri Aurobindo