In March I taught a ten day fifty hour program on Bhagavat Gita for a compact nice group of participants. It was in New Delhi organized by Mini Shastri of Om Yoga. It was very satisfying experience
I am planning to return to USA end of April. In May I have a short extended weekend program scheduled in Germany. It is organized by BDY the German Yoga Association. Here is the link for the program
I am planning to return to USA end of April. In May I have a short extended weekend program scheduled in Germany. It is organized by BDY the German Yoga Association. Here is the link for the program
It is from May 25th to 27th 2018 and near Frankfurt Germany.
In June I will be teaching for a week at East Side Yoga Center in Austin Texas and then a 15 day 100 hr Vinyasakrama Yoga program at Victoria in Canada, sponsored by One Yoga. For more details please refer to the Events page of myweb sitewww.vinyasakramayoga.com/Events. You may be able to find details about other programs scheduled for the rest of the year in this link.
अक्लिष्ट akliṣṭa
In this article I would like to discuss the use of the terms अक्लिष्ट
akliṣṭa and kliṣṭa used by Maharshi Patanjali early in the work of Rajayoga. or yogadarsana. He refers to vrittis and groups all vrittis into five. Vritti is activity (vritti jivane). Here it refers to the activity of the brain or citta or more specifically the visesha vrittis or the activities of the citta that manifests to the individual and to the individual only. The five vrittis are pramana or activity of the brain in ascertaining the truth. The second set of vrittis are activities of the citta where it comes to a wrong conclusion, then we have activities of the brain which are purely imaginary. The fourth will be deep sleep and finally we have smriti vritties or remembering or recalling information from memory.
What is equally intersting is that Patanjali also classifies differently the vritties as klishta or leading to pain and akslishta or not leading to pain. Klishta comes from the root 'klis' to cause pain as in klesa. Klishta vrittis are those vrittis or activities of citta that lead to pain and sorrow whereas aklishta vrittis are those that help lead the yogi to the favourable state of flowing peace. The vedas also refer to anukula and pratilula or activities that are favourable and activities that are unfavourable.
Then what citta vritties or activities are favourable or aklishta and what are unfavourable or klishta? The answer is simple All activities that lead one to the desired goal is aklishta vrittis and those that divert away from one's goal is klishta. So it is clear one sholuld know what is favourable or aklishta and what is unfavourable or klishta to reach one's goal. Since Patanjali used the terms klishta and aklishta we have to know what is the goal of yoga. The goal of Patanjali's yoga as all of us know is citta vritti nirodha or ultimately a complete cessation of all cittavrittis. Then the question is if all cittavrittis should cease then no vritti is favourable.
But then the citta vritti nirodha can not be achieved by all nor at once. One has to train the citta to shed more and more vrittis before the cittavritti nirodha can be achieved. How can it be done. Using the cittavrittis appropriately. Find out those vrittis that are helpful to overcome all the vrittis in the end. These Patanjali would call as aklishta vritti and anything that does not lead to the goal will be klishta vritti.
What are the vrittis then that can be termed aklishta vrittis. They are the yogic activities.Yogic activities are said to be nonbinding while all other good and bad activities give good or bad results but still keep the individual under bondage. Distinctly different are the yogic activities which give neither good results like wealth fame and heaven nor bad results like ill health poverty or a place far away from heaven . What do yogic activities do? They reduce, step by step, the multitude of distracting vrittis and ultimately help the citta transcend all the vrittis - good, bad and yogic- in a stae of kaivalya.
Patanali succinctly puts all activities or karma as of four types. White or good karma, black of bad karma, mixed or karmas that are part good and part bad and fourthly yogic activities that are none of the three. They, the yogic vrittis only lead to cittavritti nirodha. So the yogi picks and chooses the appropriate vrittis like kriya yoga, ashtanga yoga, samadhi yoga dependig on the stage the yogi is in. In the Bhagavatgita after listening to Lord Krishn's discourse on Samkhya where the individual self is explained as non changing pur awareness, and then His advise to do appropriate activities, Arjuna asks why should he do activity why not become a sthitapragna or one who is established in the true nature of the self. The Lord implies that one has to still act appropriately. He says that wise people give up both dharma or good karmas (sukrit) and also bad karmas dushkrit). Among all activiteis yoga is the one that will give salvation (kausala) Therefore the Lord urges Arjuna to become yogi and do the appropriate yogic activites.
If I am lost in a new place (every birth, one is born in a new place) and lost my way to go back home I keep searching until I get the right direction to go home. But the journey has one more leg that is travelling back home. Here home is one's own real self. Yoga is the activity that delivers one to one's home one's self. These activities of the citta are the aklishta vrittis. Aklishta vrittis are yogic vritties or yogic activities that lead to kaivalya or cittavrittinirodha.
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akliṣṭa and kliṣṭa used by Maharshi Patanjali early in the work of Rajayoga. or yogadarsana. He refers to vrittis and groups all vrittis into five. Vritti is activity (vritti jivane). Here it refers to the activity of the brain or citta or more specifically the visesha vrittis or the activities of the citta that manifests to the individual and to the individual only. The five vrittis are pramana or activity of the brain in ascertaining the truth. The second set of vrittis are activities of the citta where it comes to a wrong conclusion, then we have activities of the brain which are purely imaginary. The fourth will be deep sleep and finally we have smriti vritties or remembering or recalling information from memory.
What is equally intersting is that Patanjali also classifies differently the vritties as klishta or leading to pain and akslishta or not leading to pain. Klishta comes from the root 'klis' to cause pain as in klesa. Klishta vrittis are those vrittis or activities of citta that lead to pain and sorrow whereas aklishta vrittis are those that help lead the yogi to the favourable state of flowing peace. The vedas also refer to anukula and pratilula or activities that are favourable and activities that are unfavourable.
Then what citta vritties or activities are favourable or aklishta and what are unfavourable or klishta? The answer is simple All activities that lead one to the desired goal is aklishta vrittis and those that divert away from one's goal is klishta. So it is clear one sholuld know what is favourable or aklishta and what is unfavourable or klishta to reach one's goal. Since Patanjali used the terms klishta and aklishta we have to know what is the goal of yoga. The goal of Patanjali's yoga as all of us know is citta vritti nirodha or ultimately a complete cessation of all cittavrittis. Then the question is if all cittavrittis should cease then no vritti is favourable.
But then the citta vritti nirodha can not be achieved by all nor at once. One has to train the citta to shed more and more vrittis before the cittavritti nirodha can be achieved. How can it be done. Using the cittavrittis appropriately. Find out those vrittis that are helpful to overcome all the vrittis in the end. These Patanjali would call as aklishta vritti and anything that does not lead to the goal will be klishta vritti.
What are the vrittis then that can be termed aklishta vrittis. They are the yogic activities.Yogic activities are said to be nonbinding while all other good and bad activities give good or bad results but still keep the individual under bondage. Distinctly different are the yogic activities which give neither good results like wealth fame and heaven nor bad results like ill health poverty or a place far away from heaven . What do yogic activities do? They reduce, step by step, the multitude of distracting vrittis and ultimately help the citta transcend all the vrittis - good, bad and yogic- in a stae of kaivalya.
Patanali succinctly puts all activities or karma as of four types. White or good karma, black of bad karma, mixed or karmas that are part good and part bad and fourthly yogic activities that are none of the three. They, the yogic vrittis only lead to cittavritti nirodha. So the yogi picks and chooses the appropriate vrittis like kriya yoga, ashtanga yoga, samadhi yoga dependig on the stage the yogi is in. In the Bhagavatgita after listening to Lord Krishn's discourse on Samkhya where the individual self is explained as non changing pur awareness, and then His advise to do appropriate activities, Arjuna asks why should he do activity why not become a sthitapragna or one who is established in the true nature of the self. The Lord implies that one has to still act appropriately. He says that wise people give up both dharma or good karmas (sukrit) and also bad karmas dushkrit). Among all activiteis yoga is the one that will give salvation (kausala) Therefore the Lord urges Arjuna to become yogi and do the appropriate yogic activites.
If I am lost in a new place (every birth, one is born in a new place) and lost my way to go back home I keep searching until I get the right direction to go home. But the journey has one more leg that is travelling back home. Here home is one's own real self. Yoga is the activity that delivers one to one's home one's self. These activities of the citta are the aklishta vrittis. Aklishta vrittis are yogic vritties or yogic activities that lead to kaivalya or cittavrittinirodha.
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see also perhaps...
My Ramaswami resource