He who Knows Himself is Intelligent

Chapter/Verse 33   

 

He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent.  He who overcomes others is strong; he who overcomes himself is mighty.  He who is satisfied with his lot is rich; he who goes on acting with energy has a(firm)will.

 

He who does not fail in the requirements of his position, continues long; he who dies and yet does not perish, has longevity.

-LaoTzu; Tao Te Ching, as translated by J. Legge

 

 

I am breezing through the Yoga Sutras again as a bit of a refresher and was impressed how the description of Yoga that Patanjali provides through Satchidananda applies to this chapter of the Tao Te Ching. Sri Swami Satchidananda was committed to teaching the connection and Oneness between all faith traditions.  "One truth, many paths",  was his motto. What is that connection?  "Man, know thyself."

 

Knowing the Self

 

Yoga is all about knowing yourself again.  It is about reconnecting to the true Self beneath this idea we have of Self composed by the mind and ego. Yoga, as does many practises: eastern or western, teaches that if we learn to control the mind, rather than continue to allow it to control us, we will naturally fall into the true self.  The nature of that true Self is peace. The practice of yoga involves learning to work with the mind to reunite with that state of peace. Patanjali's famous description of yoga practice exemplifies this: "If you can control the rising of  mind into ripples, you will experience yoga.

 

Yoga, like the teachings of the Tao,  is not about controlling, fixing, manipulating demanding of  the outside world.  It is not about knowing others or overcoming others or things out there. It is not about fighting, struggling or just getting by.  It is not about wanting, desiring or preferring. Nor is it about just doing our life job satisfactorily  and being merely satisfied with life. Spirituality, in whatever form it takes, is not about  outside world focus at all.

 

Inward, not outward

 

We focus inward, not outward if we truly want peace.  (I must stress here that in and out are just mental concepts and there really is no in or no out). We do not fall into our natural state of peace when we focus on worldly things.  That is mind stuff that actually distracts us from knowing Self and the peace that knowing provides. If we truly want to return to our natural state of Being...we go inward.  We only can get there ( if there was truly a there) by getting beyond all the mind stuff that prevents us from seeing Self, truth, God. We work with the mind. The mind is the source of our peace-less states, our egoic neurosis, our 'suffering' and the mind is the solution.  We learn to witness it, understand it a bit and then eventually transcend it.

 

Peace, the natural state of being

 

According to Patanjali we are normally in a peaceful state.  Peace is our natural state of Being. The mind, however, is not comfortable with that state .  It wants more.  It looks out onto the external world of form and it begins to desire and prefer certain things, people and experiences as well as certain thoughts, images and emotions. Want is created and then the effort to chase after, get and cling to what is wanted is spent.  Once we get what we went after, mind is satisfied for a bit.  It quiets down.  It stops chattering away.  It is only when the mind is still that we experience that peace, that sense of satisfaction. 

 

It is not so much that the mind got what it wanted...that we feel satisfied...it is that we stopped thinking for a bit, the mind-stuff was restrained, we controlled the rising of the mind into ripples and fell into our natural state of Self.  We reunited and connected with that Self ( which was always there anyway ) and this is Yoga. So yoga then is pretty simple ...it simply means being who we are.

 

Mental modifications

 

But the mind has other ideas for us.  It keeps telling us that we are 'satisfied' because of what we get from the outer world, not because of any connection to Self. The mental modifications keep pulling us away from this Self, this natural state of peace by filling or heads with more preferences to desire, more dislikes to avoid and more wants to chase after. So we may feel "good" when we get the thing we chased after or got rid of the thing we didn't want...but it won't last.  The mind will just go onto the next want, the next preference taking us away  from peace, again and again.

 

Transcending the Mind

 

 The trick is getting beyond the thinking mind.  It is not an easy process, Patanjali warns.  we cannot get rid of all thinking just like that.  We learn to simply witness the mind, understand it a bit without believing everything it tells us, and  we learn to work with it to help it select the thoughts and feelings and actions that will benefit the greater Self, rather than the little self. Then we will gradually get beyond it. So instead of focusing out there let's focus on in here.  Instead of trying to know and overcome others...let's work on knowing and overcoming Self.  Let's practice  controlling the mind into ripples.

 

All is well in my world.