I’ve not been well today. A stomach complaint – severe cramping and slight nausea. Perhaps a dose of gastro or food poisoning? It could have been to do cleaning out a big mucky garden pot. Maybe something that is meant to live outside got inside me.
So here I am, all alone at home, while everyone in our household has gone to choir practice. I truly can’t remember having an evening alone for yonks. It’s exceptionally nice.
And, this is a special night too… the night when I present to you Patanjali’s last Sutra… the one that describes the final state of yoga.
What is it? T.K.V. Desikachar says it is:
‘…serenity in action as well as inaction. There is no sense of obligation, whether to take responsibility or to reject it. [The individual] is fully conscious of his own state of pure clarity and it remains at the highest level throughout his lifetime. The mind is a faithful servant to the master, the Perceiver.’
I’ll have a summing up in tomorrow’s post about my experience of trying to understand Patanjali, and hopefully a little surprise for you, too.
Purusarthasunyanam gunanam pratiprasavah kaivalyam svarupapratistha va citisaktirita
Freedom is at hand when the fundamental qualities of nature, each of their transformations witnessed at the moment of its inception, are recognised as irrelevant to pure awareness; it stands alone, grounded in its very nature, the empower of pure seeing.*
*The Yoga-Sutra of Patanjali, translation and commentary by Chip Hartranft.
Perfect, Peter! I confess, without embarrassment, to be enamoured of Mitchells Island sunsets. I have a long way to go, or, perhaps, it’s just around the next corner…..
Perfect, Peter! I confess, without embarrassment, to be enamoured of Mitchells Island sunsets. I have a long way to go, or, perhaps, it’s just around the next corner…..