Week 25: Check-In | Finding And Creating Inner Peace (Even Through Pain)

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Even in times of tremendous pain, or while facing unpleasant and uncomfortable truths about the realities of the world, life, society, and so forth, you will only suffer when you are disconnected from the truth of the Source and your True Self (a truth that, in Yoga, has been beautifully, and succinctly, summed up in the symbol, word, and sound OM/AUM and reinforced through the ritualized recitation of Mantras through Japa Practice).

I was able to first start fully acknowledging this truth after a year of persistent migraine headaches following a traumatic car accident. And, every day, as I look out into the insanity of the world and at certain collective and individual behaviors and ideologies (sometimes with a feeling of indignation), I realize that preserving my inner peace is possible no matter what is happening around me, and even despite how I am feeling in any given moment.

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Week 25: The Trauma And Suffering Caused By Separation From The Source And The True Self (Sutras 31-32)

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“Accompaniments to the mental distractions include distress, despair, trembling of the body and disturbed breathing. [Sutra 31]

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The practice of concentration on a single subject [or the use of one technique] is the best way to prevent obstacles and their accompaniments. [Sutra 32]”

–The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Duhkha Daurmanasyangamejayatva Svasa Prasvasa Viksepa Sahabhuvah [Sutra 31]

Duhkha: distress | Daurmanasya: despair | Angam: the body | Ejayatva: trembling of | Svasa: disturbed inhalation | Prasvasa: disturbed exhalation | Viksepa: distraction, confusion | Saha: accompany | Bhuvah: arising, existing

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Tat Pratisedharthamekatattvabhyasah [Sutra 32]

Tat: their | Pratisedha: prevention | Artham: for the sake of | Eka: one, single | Tattva: subject, true principle, reality | Abhyasah: practice

Although my perspective on Sutras 31 and 32 differs from Sri Swami Sachidananda’s in some ways (as it often does since we are both unique individual expressions of the Source with different perspectives and experiences even as we are focused on the same goal/path–and I can inevitably understand completely that his views are valid), I feel that there is one point upon which we most certainly align and resonate, and this is in his view that “[t]here’s no value in digging shallow wells in a hundred places. [You must] decide on one place and dig deep.”

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