Sanskrit: The Life Pulse of Yoga (Part 2)
by Katyayani Poole, Ph.D.
In the last issue of Spanda, we learned that Yoga’s scriptures are alive because they are composed of potent Sanskrit syllables that resonate deeply within our core nervous system. In fact, each type of “text” (Yoga Sutras, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, etc.) is a form of Sanskrit technology that vibrates our consciousness (or “stirs the soul”) in specific ways. 
Conventionally when we read a book, we open the covers and start from the beginning. (Or if you’re like me, you flip to the end and read the last page first!)
But when we “read” the Yoga Sutras, for example, this approach doesn’t allow us to sip the nectarine juice that’s contained in each verse.
Usually we forget what we read. Because sutras are not ordinary writings, but Sanskrit technologies, we have to approach them in a Yogic way. When “read” correctly, the sutra resonates on the cellular level of our being and remains there permanently like a scar.
If you’ve ever had stitches, you have to live with them for a while. They itch. Sometimes they irritate. But they always grow new skin – a soft and sensitive channel of flesh between two parts now connected.
Likewise sutras form new connections in our mind/body/spirit complex. (Remember sutra means “little thread” as in the stitches we receive when we cut ourselves.) They have the power to suture our fragmented mind and body together to create a new, whole, and integrated Self.
Sutras possess this Yogic power in two ways specifically.
First, they are concise.
With too many words, it is difficult to pin down the essential meaning, just like if you throw a handful of stones into a clear pond at once you create a mass of waves. It’s the same thing if you try to explain something important with too many words. Waves of confusion arise in the mind.
But if you drop one stone in the water, it sinks directly to the bottom. Similarly, one profound sound of truth reaches the Source directly.
So with sutras one word (even one letter) properly felt and understood is enough to comprehend the meaning of the Whole.
The second way sutras express Yogic power is through the arrangement of their syllables. Each word is a mantra, a potent sound byte, which conveys the direct experience of what is being said in the sutra.
For example, the first verse of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is: atha yoga-anushasanam. Of this arrangement of syllables, the first word, atha, is most important. And because it comes at the beginning of the whole treatise, it embodies the meaning of the whole. (In other words, if you want to savor the meaning and experience of the entire Yoga Sutras, all you need to understand is this one word – atha.)
First, you feel the resonance in your body as you pronounce the two syllables “a” + “tha.” (tha as in boaTHouse, not as in THank you). Breathe in and say – a. Breathe out – tha. If you practice this way long enough, you may start to feel a vibration in the center of your forehead. This is the effect of the “tha” sound. It stimulates the opening of the eye of knowledge, the seat of meditation, and the doorway leading to the bliss of silent awareness.
Next, you contemplate the meaning of the syllables as you notice their effects on your subtle body. (This process, called sanyama, connects the mind with the body.) As you breathe in, you can feel and know a to mean “negation; not; absence.” As you breathe out, you feel and know tha to mean “gravity; bounded; earth.” Together atha conveys the experience of being “unbounded;" "without gravity or weightless;" “totally free;" and "spontaneous." Most translators render it as “Now.”
“Now is the discipline of Yoga,” is both the translation and the experience of the first sutra. Not only does Patanjali tell you that by bringing yourself to the present moment, you are practicing true Yoga, but he gives you the direct experience of it through the Sanskrit syllables of the words themselves.
In this way, each Sanskrit letter beats with the life pulse of Pure Consciousness.
|
