We continued talking about the meaning of vairāgya in sutras 1.15 and 1.16. I brought to our attention the distinction between "detachment" and "renunciation". Although Iyengar translates it as "renunciation", the meaning of vairāgya is closer to terms like "detachment" or "dispassion", as it comes from the root "vi-rāga" where "vi" has the sense of separation from, or distinction, and "rāga", the sense of pleasure or desire. The word "renunciation" would better correspond to the Sanskrit "tyaj" which has the sense "to go away from", "to set aside", "to leave", or "to abandon". But leaving aside etymologies, as I heard one teacher at the university tell the students in a class about the same topic: "If you really want to know what the meaning of "renunciation" is, renounce something." He was inviting us to make an action that involved giving up something, even if it was as simple as not eating sugar for some time, or not eating for one day. Although renunciation, as we saw in the previous class, is a way to transcend certain patterns of thought or action in order to gain a state of freedom, it does not guarantee success in and of itself. Even though we can stop doing something, the desire can still linger in our minds. And even if we manage to renounce the desire itself and have no more conscious thoughts about it, what we thought well extinguished, may not be at all. Instead it may remain latent in the subconscious, manifesting itself unexpectedly. The act of renunciation is more of an external action, whereas the real act of freedom and detachment comes from an internal attitude of letting go, of being able to live with or without something and not suffer for it. This accomplishment, as Iyengar (Light on the Yoga Sutras, 66-67) and other traditional commentators point out, has different levels.
The first level of detachment consists in being able to remain in peace among things that we perceive through the five senses or interact with physically. For example, particular objects (viśeṣa) and things that we like or do not like (certain food, temperature, places, sounds, etc.). Imagine that you want to detach from drinking coffee (because you know that it would be better for you to quit, for whatever reason). Your first step is the physical action, no more contact with coffee. You may still desire or crave coffee every morning, even if you serve yourself a cup of orange juice instead. Detaching from subtle and more abstract objects (aviśeṣa) like the desire, emotions, thoughts and feelings towards something, is the second level of vairāgya. In this state, your mind would not think of coffee in the morning anymore. You are just fine with orange juice. But perhaps one day, you go by a restaurant and smell the aroma of coffee or look at someone enjoying a cup. You suddenly feel this craving for coffee that you thought was gone. The third level of detachment involves those subconscious thoughts and feelings stored deep in the psyche, requiring an even more intense and ardent attitude of dispassion. Finally, you are completely over it; there is no craving, no thought, no intention of drinking coffee. On the contrary, you do not even want to hear the word, and every time you are exposed to it, your mind immediately goes to the thought "I do not need it, I am detached from it". In a sense, you have become "attached" to your non-attachment (just as Puppetji graciously explains).[1] The third level of vairāgya is to go beyond your thought of being attached and not being attached. Achieving the fourth level of supreme detachment entails a detachment from all thought and judgment. Following our example (which is an elaboration on the one given by Iyengar on page 67), authentic attachment to coffee would be to not even think about your attachment or non-attachment towards coffee. You drink it or not, without aversion or passion. Your mental state goes beyond the effects that coffee's nature (guṇas)[2] causes on you. You are happy with or without it; and the decision of drinking it or not comes from a place in your mind that is not conditioned by a pattern, a habit, a belief, or an entrenched desire. Your decision of taking it or not comes authentically and freely.
Perhaps the best examples of this supreme detachment or paravairāgya are found in the mystics of different traditions (Teresa de Avila, John of the Cross, Al Hallaj, Tulsidas, etc), who, in search of the real meaning of life and the experience of divine union, renounced either their possessions, or their families and/or all comfort, as well as traditional beliefs and cultural norms. Some of them even renounced food and what we would consider essential for good health. A fair question arises here: Did they really achieve detachment or did they remain attached to their "higher state of mind", to their love for God, to their supreme level of detachment? How to know if someone is really detached or not? How do we know if we, ourselves, are fully detached from something, and not deluded, unaware of the desire, ego or complacency that is still lying dormant at the bottom of our subconscious mind? There is no definitive answer from the outside. But the fact is that when supreme and authentic detachment arises, there is no more thought about it, not even the question of being detached or not. At this point, the meaning of s. 1-16 gains more light if we attend to its literal translation: tatparaṁ- the highest, ultimate; puruṣakhyāteḥ-vision or remembrance of the self, soul, spirit, consciousness; guṇavaiṭṛṣnyam- cessation of craving for the "guṇas", qualities of nature (objects of the world). The ultimate vairāgya, which means the cessation of the craving for the objects of the world and nature (prakṛti), arises from the vision or remembrance of who we really are (puruṣa). How authentically we express the freedom of our selves, only we know. Thus, only we can know and feel if we are still attached or not. The question towards others is pointless, because there is no way to answer it from the outside.
The first level of detachment consists in being able to remain in peace among things that we perceive through the five senses or interact with physically. For example, particular objects (viśeṣa) and things that we like or do not like (certain food, temperature, places, sounds, etc.). Imagine that you want to detach from drinking coffee (because you know that it would be better for you to quit, for whatever reason). Your first step is the physical action, no more contact with coffee. You may still desire or crave coffee every morning, even if you serve yourself a cup of orange juice instead. Detaching from subtle and more abstract objects (aviśeṣa) like the desire, emotions, thoughts and feelings towards something, is the second level of vairāgya. In this state, your mind would not think of coffee in the morning anymore. You are just fine with orange juice. But perhaps one day, you go by a restaurant and smell the aroma of coffee or look at someone enjoying a cup. You suddenly feel this craving for coffee that you thought was gone. The third level of detachment involves those subconscious thoughts and feelings stored deep in the psyche, requiring an even more intense and ardent attitude of dispassion. Finally, you are completely over it; there is no craving, no thought, no intention of drinking coffee. On the contrary, you do not even want to hear the word, and every time you are exposed to it, your mind immediately goes to the thought "I do not need it, I am detached from it". In a sense, you have become "attached" to your non-attachment (just as Puppetji graciously explains).[1] The third level of vairāgya is to go beyond your thought of being attached and not being attached. Achieving the fourth level of supreme detachment entails a detachment from all thought and judgment. Following our example (which is an elaboration on the one given by Iyengar on page 67), authentic attachment to coffee would be to not even think about your attachment or non-attachment towards coffee. You drink it or not, without aversion or passion. Your mental state goes beyond the effects that coffee's nature (guṇas)[2] causes on you. You are happy with or without it; and the decision of drinking it or not comes from a place in your mind that is not conditioned by a pattern, a habit, a belief, or an entrenched desire. Your decision of taking it or not comes authentically and freely.
Perhaps the best examples of this supreme detachment or paravairāgya are found in the mystics of different traditions (Teresa de Avila, John of the Cross, Al Hallaj, Tulsidas, etc), who, in search of the real meaning of life and the experience of divine union, renounced either their possessions, or their families and/or all comfort, as well as traditional beliefs and cultural norms. Some of them even renounced food and what we would consider essential for good health. A fair question arises here: Did they really achieve detachment or did they remain attached to their "higher state of mind", to their love for God, to their supreme level of detachment? How to know if someone is really detached or not? How do we know if we, ourselves, are fully detached from something, and not deluded, unaware of the desire, ego or complacency that is still lying dormant at the bottom of our subconscious mind? There is no definitive answer from the outside. But the fact is that when supreme and authentic detachment arises, there is no more thought about it, not even the question of being detached or not. At this point, the meaning of s. 1-16 gains more light if we attend to its literal translation: tatparaṁ- the highest, ultimate; puruṣakhyāteḥ-vision or remembrance of the self, soul, spirit, consciousness; guṇavaiṭṛṣnyam- cessation of craving for the "guṇas", qualities of nature (objects of the world). The ultimate vairāgya, which means the cessation of the craving for the objects of the world and nature (prakṛti), arises from the vision or remembrance of who we really are (puruṣa). How authentically we express the freedom of our selves, only we know. Thus, only we can know and feel if we are still attached or not. The question towards others is pointless, because there is no way to answer it from the outside.
Parallel to the process of detachment-- understood as a process of remembering and re-envisioning our selves as the infinite and free consciousness that we are (puruṣa)-- there is a process of deepening of awareness (See Table 1). Sutra 1.17 refers to the different layers of awareness that give us access to the world and nature (prakṛti). According to the Yoga philosophy, each type of awareness reveals a different type of object. So if our awareness is only focused in the physical (vitarka), external objects, and on the field we experience through our five senses of perception (sight, touch, taste, smell and sound) and five senses of action (grasping, moving, reproducing, excreting, and speaking), then that is as far as our experience will go. If our awareness focuses in subtler objects through deeper reflection and thought (vicāra), then we are able to perceive the objects of that realm, such as feelings, emotions, abstract ideas, deeper layers of the body, and subtle energy fields. If our awareness goes deeper, we start noticing more profound and internal layers of the world of experience, such as the pure state of bliss (ānanda). And going even deeper, awareness will reveal the experience of the pure "I-ness"; the experience of "I am" (asmitā). I think we can now see how sutra 1.17 is talking about the possibilities of experience and how those are accessed through our awareness.
Table 1. Stages of vairāgya and parallel processes.
In order for you to experience this, think of any asana, like "trikonasa". Next time you practice it, try going through the different types of awareness. Your mind first goes to the physical aspect of it, focusing in the alignment of the feet, legs, hips, etc. Next, if you go deeper, your awareness starts to understand the pose in a more subtle way, such as how the stretching of the arms allows your chest to open and with that, your breath deepens, bringing a sensation of stability and clarity in your mind. Once you have adjusted, understood the details, and found that steady place in the pose, you start experiencing a sense of beauty; a personal, blissful sensation of executing your pose, as it is, with your own body and with its own possibilities. You experience, then, the so called asmitāmātra or the individual aspect of your being through that pose that now feels so personal. Going even deeper, bringing yourself to that state where you, your body, and your mind are all one in the pose; the "all" of you becomes "trikonasana". Then you can go beyond the individuality of the pose and start experiencing it as the cosmic paradigm. Now you can realize that you, everyone in the classroom, and every other practitioner in the rest of the world are doing that pose which is not yours, nor theirs, but just "trikonasa" in such a way that we, by practicing it, partake of the deeper, cosmic and universal meaning (with its physical and mental benefits). Finally, if possible, you can achieve that place of silence, where even the feeling of doing a particular pose, "trikonasana", disappears; and everything is just…yoga, nirodha, stillness, consciousness, silence, being, heart. The deepening of awareness can be applied to anything in our lives. The transformative power of the yogic physical poses (āsanas) lies precisely in that they, as Iyengar says in the introduction to Book I , p.12, "offer a controlled battleground for the process of conflict and creation. The aim is to recreate the process of human evolution in our own internal environment."[3]
Sutras 1.18 and 1.19 talk about other states of mind experienced within this process of detachment and deepening of awareness. They are difficult to grasp because the commentaries vary in interpretation. The main idea in s.1.18 is that the state of virāmapratyaya is one where we lose the feeling of the "I". The physical body feels as if it were almost not there. The mind is absorbed in subtle, inward sensations, although the awareness is not deep enough to reach the subconscious aspects of the mind (saṁskāras). Sutra 1.19 talks about the state of consciousness where our being experiences "bodylessness" (videha) and the state of being totally merged in nature (prakṛtilayānām). The tradition understands this sutra as referring to beings that have transcended the physical level and continue having experiences in subtler dimensions. We would have to go more into hindu mythology in order to get what is meant by "subtle realms" and "unembodied beings". But because we do not have space here (nor had time in class to talk about it), I will just say that the idea of this sutra is that there is a state of mind that gives us the experience of being merged in prakṛti, where we are aware of the myriad of possibilities of creation and the infinite potentiality of manifestation in space and time.
Of course, without having ever experienced something like the "subtle realm", all these layers of experience and awareness may sound unintelligible and hard to believe in. We could question (as it was done in class) the whole model of levels of detachment and awareness, as well as the account of experiences that supposedly come from deep meditative and yogic states. How could we know that this is not a product of imagination, a fantasy and delusion of certain people? What Yoga philosophy takes as the starting point of evolution, i.e. consciousness is, for science, just a product of the brain and the organic body. From a scientific point of view, what this philosophy takes to be an access to different levels of reality through awareness, is just an effect of the workings of different areas in our brain. In the end, when talking, reflecting and discussing about "consciousness" in the yogic sense, we are left with a feeling of not fully grasping what it is, because we, as westerners, come from a paradigm that cannot give account for something like the yogic description.[4] And yet, if we consider a comparative approach to the first person accounts of people who have been in those deep meditative states, we find a similar structure; parallelisms in the process of interiorization, as well as converging metaphors (although perhaps in a different language).[5]
It is interesting to notice how, after having just described the "map" of awareness, introspection and possibilities of experience, sutra 1.20 presents the elements of faith (sraddha), vigor (virya), constant remembrance (smriti), absorption (samadhi), and discernment (prajña) as part of the practice for those who may have not yet experienced those levels. Sutras 1.21 and 1.22 remind us of the direct relation between practice, dedication, detachment and awareness. Through the intensity of our practice, devotion and intention (which can be mild, medium or supreme) we allow the consciousness of our authentic self to emerge more easily.
I know this is a long summary, but the topic deserves it. So many other things were discussed in class that it is impossible for me to even touch upon them here. This only confirms the beauty and enriching aspects of our classroom meetings. Thank you all for your interest and motivation. And many special thanks to Koa for her amazing help in editing these posts.
[1] See video on the right of this blog.
[2] Guṇas refer to the three qualities of nature: sattva (harmony, delight, clarity), rajas (dynamism, motion, restlessness), and tamas (obscurity, lethargy, density). You can find a detailed and traditional explanation of these qualities in chapter fourteenth of the Bhagavad Gita.
[3] Think of what it would be like to perform a pose with complete detachment.
[4] Not until recently, some scientists with interest in Eastern thought have tried to approach it with a different paradigm such as the one emerging from quantum physics. See any of Amit Goswami’s articles on the topic of consciousness for an example of this.
[5] If you are interested in these kinds of parallelisms between spiritual traditions, I recommend you reading “The Ascent of Mount Carmel” by St. John of the Cross and compare it with the process of detachment, awareness and steps to achieve the state of nirodha or kaivalya described in the Yoga Sutras. This is one of the most astonishing parallelisms I have encountered in comparative mysticism; considering that the Catholic church does not see with good eyes yogic meditation.
