Интенсив по «Йога-сутре» (2011, Гонконг), занятие 1

[Speaker 2]
This is so fun. This is like always in class. You can have it anywhere.

I sent it in the morning.

[Speaker 1]
Those are the words, okay? Yes.

[Speaker 2]
Anyone who wasn't here yesterday, it doesn't matter what you sound like. Just sing out and just warm up your heart and resonate. It really, really doesn't matter what you sound like.

It's just about warming up your heart. And then the words we learned on the first night, right? The four kinds of love.

[Speaker 1]
So you sing when I sing, but you don't sing when she sings. Okay, here we go. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Say Ishvara.

[Speaker 2]
Ishvara.

[Speaker 1]
Hanidana. Hanidana. Wow.

Wow. Do you have a translator? Do you speak Chinese?

[Speaker 2]
No, today no. Can somebody speak?

[Speaker 1]
Yes, Anita. Okay. Yeah.

Okay, thank you. So this is the first verse we're going to talk about tonight. And, let me try this.

Let's try that. Yeah? Okay.

So there was a long list, if you remember, there was a long list of problems. Shvasa prashmasaya. Your breathing gets out of whack.

You have trouble in your mind. You feel unhappy. You can't concentrate.

You get sick. Or any other kind of problem. They made a, they made a long list of problems.

And then, they said, maitri karuna murito bheksa, you could use, you could use these different antidotes. Okay, maitri was giving things to other people. Okay?

Giving them happiness. Karuna was taking away their trouble. Then, murito was making them very happy.

Okay? Like, happy not have to die, and happy not have to get old. That kind of happiness.

Okay? And then, bheksa, we talked about, it meant, you don't treat some people nice, and you treat other people bad. You treat everybody equally.

[Speaker 2]
Right?

[Speaker 1]
Especially when you're doing the first three. Okay? So, when you love people, you love everybody equally.

When you try to help people, you help everybody equally. When you try to stop death, you try to stop death in the world. Not just for your friends, or your family, or your own country.

Okay? So, these are the four infinite thoughts. Beautiful thoughts.

And we talked about them already. If you use that meditation, it can overcome all of the problems in your life. Then he says a strange thing.

He says, Ishvara pranidhanad vat. Say, Ishvara.

[Speaker 2]
Ishvara.

[Speaker 1]
Pranidhanad.

[Speaker 2]
Pranidhanad. Vat.

[Speaker 1]
Vat. The important thing is the Vat. Okay?

In India, they don't have a V. They don't have a Vat. They don't have Vat, and they don't have Vat.

They have Vat. Vat. Ishvara pranidhanad vat.

Means... Vat means or. Okay?

O-R. Or. Okay?

Or, you can Ishvara pranidhanad, and you get all of the results of everything I taught you in the whole book. Okay? Like, all the good things I taught you in the book, you don't need.

210 verses, you don't... 209 verses, you don't need just one. Ishvara pranidhanad.

Okay? So, Ishvara means the Lord. Okay?

It means like the... the Lord of the Universe. Okay?

Whoever you believe, it doesn't matter. Ishvara. Then, pranidhanad means...

ask for blessings. Okay? Pray to them.

And ask them for their blessing. Ask the Lord for their blessing. Okay?

And that's enough. So, Vat means... Vat means or, you can just Ishvara pranidhanad, you don't have to read the rest of the book.

Probably you don't have to do the rest of your homework.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
If you just Ishvara pranidhanad, everything is alright. Okay? So, who is Ishvara?

In this case, in this book, who is Ishvara? Ishvara means your... your heart teacher.

Your own personal teacher. Okay? The one that you feel close to.

So, you know, we have many relationships in our life, right? We have relationship with our parents, mother and father. And we have relationship with children.

You have relationship with your... in your school, in your job. You have many relationships.

You have relationship with your husband or your wife, partner. These are all the relationships that you have in your life. And they all make you happy, right?

To have a close friend at work is... it's very nice. To have a partner that you really love, this is one of the most beautiful things in the world.

To... to honor your parents and, you know, as they get old, to take care of them, serve them like they serve you. It's funny, right?

First your parents serve you. Then later they get old like a baby and then you have to serve them. Same, right?

Right? We are... we are doing this last month.

So... then they become like a baby. They forget everything.

They can't feed themselves. They can't walk. And then you serve them.

And these are all make you happy. To have relationship with other people, all of them are the happiness of life. These are the happiness of life.

But to have a relationship with a good teacher, heart teacher, your own special teacher, right? And everybody has to find their own, okay? Not the...

It's a personal thing, okay? And you have to find the one who is your... It's like you fall in love with them and then forever you are their heart student.

So there's heart teacher and there's heart student. And then out of all the relationships in your life and all the happiness you get out of all the relationships in your life, this is the sweetest, okay? This is the most beautiful and it will make you the most happy, okay?

This is the ultimate girlfriend or boyfriend, okay? To have a real teacher, your own teacher, your own personal teacher. It's called Ishvara.

Your Lord, okay? Could be a boy, could be a girl, could be old, could be young, could be monk, could be your friend, could be your girlfriend in high school, okay? It doesn't matter, but sometime in your life you will find one.

And then that relationship is very, very... It is the greatest happiness in the world, in the life, okay? So if you haven't met them yet, you have to try to find them, okay?

And that's... I was lucky. I met mine when I was 17 or something like that, okay?

I met my heart teacher when I was 17. And it's the happiest thing in my life. And it sustains my life.

And my whole life is sustained by my teacher. And so it's nothing like that. So you have to try to find them, okay?

You have to try to find your heart teacher. And there's many books about how to find your heart teacher. But now you know you don't need all those books, right?

You just plant them, okay? You just plant them. And you have to plant the seed for them.

And you don't have to go to India or China or... You know, you don't have to go to some other place. If you plant them, they will come.

They have to come. It's like someone put $100,000 in your backpack. The teacher will come to your house.

The teacher will come to where you are. And then... So how do you plant the teacher, right?

What's the way to plant the teacher?

[Speaker 2]
You help someone to find the teacher.

[Speaker 1]
You can help someone to find the teacher. Or you can teach somebody what you know, okay? In the book they always say, teach other people as much as you understand.

It means could be little, could be a lot, okay? But what you understand, especially about the seeds, then share it with other people. Just...

how do you say? Not like a fundamentalist yoga sutra, you know? You must accept, I learned in the class.

Now I know everything. You don't know anything. I'm going to help you.

Not like that. Just gently, happily, like a friend. Somebody is having trouble.

Their husband is not being, what do you call? Loyal to them. The husband is not being loyal.

And then the wife, it hurts very, very much. And then... And then you can say, if you want your husband to be more loyal, then in...

I heard some guy. He said, you be more loyal to your other friends or your mother or your father or your... You know, you be more loyal to people.

And then that puts a seed in your mind. And then the husband will change. The husband will come back and be strong.

Be a strong husband, okay? So, when you give that advice to somebody in the tea shop, you are a teacher. You are a guru.

You are a lama, okay? When you give that talk, you don't have to wear red clothes or you don't have to wear the, you know. When you give somebody that good advice, then you are a real teacher, okay?

And then... That puts a seed in your mind. And then you will meet your heart teacher.

You see? So, you have to teach or share as much as you can in a loving way, gentle way, not like, you know. We are this party, not like that.

And then you will put the seeds in your mind to meet your teacher, okay? If you don't share what you learned, you won't meet your teacher. You see?

If you hold back what you learned, you won't meet your teacher. Everybody in this room should become a teacher of Yoga Sutra, okay? You know everything now, after today, okay?

You will go through the important parts of the Yoga Sutra. Then, you are welcome to copy the papers. You are welcome to steal them, okay?

You are welcome to take them, use them, copy them, translate them, I had one student, they took all my lectures, put it in a book, and they sold it and they made a lot of money. I was, okay, I don't mind, okay? I like it, okay?

So, if you need the file, talk to Darcy or Christina. Really, you know, they can give you the file and you can take off the header and you can put your own. I don't care.

I really don't care. It's just a good thing. It's a good thing.

And I like to see it in the world. Sometimes I go to, I went to Israel and one lady came up to me. She was Russian and she asked me to sign a book and it was in Russian.

And I said, I said, this is a diamond cutter. This is my book. She said, yes.

I said, but it's in Russian. She said, yes, yes. They published it like 10 years ago in Russia.

I said, nobody told me that. Somebody is getting some good money. Even the one in mainland China is millions of copies.

I don't know who's printing it. Maybe someday I'll meet them. But just share, share with other people, okay?

I'm happy if you share something. Have a little class somewhere. Say yoga sutra class.

Go to some yoga studio. Prepare. Do it with one of your new friends.

It's really fun. Do it with two people teaching. It's very fun.

And then give a little class. My first class, the postman came. I was living in a monastery.

Then that postman came. He knocked on the door. One day he knocked on the door.

Then I was a little bit upset because the postman only comes in America, they only come once a year. At Christmas they collect tip. You're supposed to give them like $50 or something.

If you don't give them, then the mail doesn't come on time. So I thought, why is he knocking on the door? I gave him $50.

Then he said, I'm just curious, what do you guys do here? And I said, we learn beautiful things. Then he said, can you teach me something?

Then I asked my teacher, can I teach him? He said, okay, you can teach. I said, where's a good place?

He said, in the car. You go out in the car. He sit in the car, you sit in the car, you can teach him.

We have a Volkswagen, small car. My first class was in the Volkswagen. So, to the postman.

So, it doesn't have to be 100 people, okay? It can be your friend. You go to Starbucks and you just talk.

And please share it with other people. Then that will make a cause to find your heart teacher. And there's nothing more beautiful than that.

There's nothing more... It's the happiest thing in the world. Okay?

You can. You should find. You should make one.

Okay? All right. Okay.

[Speaker 2]
I have a quick question. You keep teaching and teaching and teaching, so then, is this making your relationships so much more beautiful? Or what kind of tea is that from?

[Speaker 1]
The tea tea.

[Speaker 2]
I mean, you've already found your teacher.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, me? But you keep teaching and teaching. I want to keep that.

You see? If you help an old person who is lonely, then your partner will make you happy. But if you stop helping the old person, the partner will go away.

You see? Because you're not making new seeds. The seed...

Every day you spend the seed. It's like a debit card. You know?

When you help the old person, you get money on your debit card. Then when your partner comes and you go to dinner together, you're using up part of your debit card, and you have to recharge it. You can't stop.

Okay? You can't stop. If I want to have more...

If I want my lovely teacher to teach beautiful, holy teacher to teach me more, I have to keep teaching. Okay? You don't have a choice.

Same with money. When you give money and you get money, then you have to give more with that money. You can't stop.

Otherwise, the money will stop.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
Then the second page. It says... It says...

What's Vajracchedaka? Diamond cutter. Ching gang ting.

Vajra means diamond, chedaka means to cut. This verse says... Guru, an'ava chedaka.

Don't be cut off from your teacher. Never be cut off from your teacher. Once you find your teacher, stay close to them.

When I met my Tibetan teacher later, then I was asking some high teachers, where can I find a good teacher in America? They said, there's only one. Then I said, I was living in California.

I was surfing. Then I said, where's the teacher? They said, New Jersey.

Then, New Jersey is the dirtiest place in America. They call it the armpit of America. It smells bad.

All the gasoline is made there. And it's the last place, worst place. I don't want to go there.

But the teacher is there. So I moved there. I spent 30 years there.

I hate New Jersey. But I stayed there because the teacher is there. So anavaceta means, if you find them, just move.

Stay near them. That's all. Yeah?

[Speaker 2]
I just wanted to say, first of all, this question I keep getting asked. My question is, is it possible to have one more than one teacher?

[Speaker 1]
And the second part of my question is, what happens if they meet? First of all, he said, is it possible to have more than one teacher? Teacher, it is possible.

In our system, we believe if more than one appears, they are the same person in different bodies. Domination. Not kidding.

Yeah. So they are the same person in different bodies. What's very difficult is if those two teachers tell you different things.

Then an older student or more mature student, they learn how to cope with that. One teacher will test them. One teacher will tell them to do this thing.

The other teacher will tell them to do different things. And then a student who is mature has to learn what to do. Otherwise, they have breakdowns.

Also, you can have breakdowns. My second question, oh, what if they go away? So it means, what if they pass away?

Or what if they move away? Yeah, what if they move away? You move.

I'm just telling you the truth. I could tell you something less radical. But I would move.

[Speaker 2]
The teacher moves, and the student follows the teacher. And the teacher's, maybe I don't want them following me everywhere.

[Speaker 1]
You have to say, you have to make something up. Like, I think you should be free now. You know enough.

Oh, you mean if you have a student who follows you everywhere? I follow my teacher. I go wherever my teacher goes, I go.

I wait. I wait for them. They tell me, I don't need you for six weeks.

I say, OK, here's my cell phone number. I'm waiting. I get as close as I can.

And then I say, OK, I'm waiting. Then sometimes they call me. I need some groceries.

Then I run. So what I do, if they won't let me stay with them, I stay as close as possible, physically, seriously. Then if someone wants to do that with me, I don't have the heart to say no.

And I don't want to make the seed to say no. I don't want my teacher to tell me no. So I'm very careful.

I have many students, and sometimes I feel like, whoa. I do take vacation, you know. No one has ever been to my house.

No student ever came to my house. I said, I need a place like that. So you need your space.

But you let them come close by, because that's what we want from our teacher. So you can't refuse a student, because the teacher will refuse you. It's a bad seed.

So I'm kidnapped. I have to do it, because I don't want my teacher to say, I'm not available today. I don't want to see you today, or something like that.

That would be the worst thing for me.

[Speaker 2]
You know, like, I have family. So I can't leave my family. And it would hurt them to go to follow the teacher.

[Speaker 1]
A good teacher wants you to make your family happy, also. A good teacher wants you to be responsible. A good teacher wants you to keep your other responsibilities.

So then you negotiate with the family. You do the best you can. But a good teacher will not ask you to hurt other people.

So, but then you compromise. You keep trying, and then it will come. I have a student in Ireland.

He's from Lebanon, which is very strange. But he wanted to follow me, but his family wasn't so interested in it. But the way he got the family to agree was that he decided that his biggest problem was anger.

And he meditated every day to change his anger. And then he became a person who has no anger. I met his daughter.

She's 10 years old. She said, I don't know what you did, but my daddy didn't get angry for three years. Never, not once.

And then the family will, if they see you, if you make a good example, then the family will say, OK, go. Whatever he's doing, let him do it. I like it.

Your husband will say, go, go. Go for a week. Go for two.

Because you are becoming a better and better person. That's the best way to convince the family. It's not fighting with them or, you know, like that.

And it will happen. I have a student. He's running the Phoenix, Jeff Alexander.

So he didn't like me. His wife liked me a lot. Then he lived in Detroit.

Then he came to one. He never came to a talk. Then he came to a talk.

Then he told the wife, we're moving. They left Detroit. They came to Phoenix.

Now he runs his center. The wife is like, sometimes comes. All right, so stay close to them.

Stay close to them. This life will end with death. You will lose.

Whatever job you have, you will lose the money. Whatever family you have, you will lose the family. Whatever house you have worked for, you will also lose time.

But you will not lose your teacher. Teacher stays when? Teacher stays after that.

So really, that's the best, most important thing to do. The other things won't stay. All right, next page.

Wait, wait, wait. We finished how many Angas?

[Speaker 2]
Four.

[Speaker 1]
Good. What are they? First one?

Yama. Second one? Niyama.

Third one? Asa. Third one?

Fourth one? Parana. OK, now we reach Pratyahara.

Say Pratyahara.

[Speaker 2]
Pratyahara.

[Speaker 1]
Pratyahara means to bring the mind in away from all the objects of the senses, is Pratyahara. So what are objects of the senses? iTunes, Starbucks are the main two.

I think so. Maybe email also. Maybe Gmail.

Gmail. These are objects that your mind wants to spend time with coffee or wants to spend time with food or sex. Sex is a big one.

Or wants music. The body wants things. Body wants sex.

Body wants food. Body wants music. OK, and then Pratyahara.

It's not bad, OK? It's not bad. Enjoying music is a good thing.

That's a good karma. How do you get good music on iTunes?

[Speaker 2]
Be nice to people.

[Speaker 1]
Speak sweetly to other people. That's the seed that makes good songs come on iTunes. And sex is a beautiful thing.

And it's a high thing. There can be some very high experiences during sex. It's not a bad thing.

If you don't do it with someone else's partner. If everything is good, then that's OK. Enjoy it, and that's a nice thing.

That's a beautiful thing. It's one of the most beautiful things in life. And food, I love this restaurant, Phoenix.

Someone took me there. It was wonderful. The food was wonderful.

The place was wonderful. That's not a problem. Those are beautiful things.

Those are good. Those are good things. But in Ashtanga, when you want to meditate, then you have to learn to withdraw the mind from the senses.

Enjoy iTunes. Enjoy Phoenix. Enjoy your lover.

And then when the time comes to meditate, go by yourself, cut off those experiences, and go inside. So you have to learn to go inside. You should enjoy those things.

But when it's time to meditate, you must learn how to come inside. Then meditate for a few hours. Then go have another dinner and whatever you do after dinner.

That's OK. Pratyaharas, you just do it while you meditate. So sometimes we do retreats.

You can start out one-day retreat, stay silent, two-day retreat, one-month retreat. I have 40 students now in Arizona. They are doing 1,000 days of silence.

And then later you can do that. They are doing 1,000 days of pratyahara. And after that, I know they are going to McDonald's directly.

So that's OK. I also did. The day I left my retreat, John, what's his name?

Stillwell. He made me go to McDonald's. It was terrible.

So anyway, it means you must have the ability, when you want to, to bring the mind inside. You must have control. You should be the boss, OK?

The food is not your boss. The stuff is not your boss. The music is not your boss.

You are the boss. You enjoy them. And then when it's time to go inside, you go inside.

And you have the inner peace also. And then when you want to go dancing, you go dancing. It's OK.

But you have to be able to control when to make the mind quiet. Pratyahara means that. Withdraw the mind from the objects.

In this verse, I'm not going to talk too much about it. But he says something else. He says, tatha paramah vasyatendriyanam.

I can teach you the higher pratyahara. He says, if you get the pratyahara from McDonald's or from the movies, you have control. Somebody says, let's go to the movies tonight.

You say, I can't. I'm meditating. I'll go next week.

And I will enjoy the Adjustment Bureau, which is the greatest movie. You have to go. You have to go.

Next week. But I have power. Tonight, I'm going to keep my mind inside.

So when you want to enjoy, you enjoy. You send the mind out. You have power over the mind.

And when you want to be quiet, you can say, I don't need French fries today. I don't need a movie today. You have control.

That's the main thing. Higher control means what? What is this thing?

[Speaker 2]
Pen.

[Speaker 1]
Pen. Is it an object?

[Speaker 2]
See, see.

[Speaker 1]
Is there a pen here?

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Be careful. Is there a pen here? If all the people go out of the room and I put it here, is there a pen here?

[Speaker 2]
No.

[Speaker 1]
We have to say no. Why? A dog sees this thing as something to chew.

Human sees it as a pen. Which one is right? Pen.

Both are right. If the dog goes out of the room and the human goes out of the room, then what is this thing? Nothing.

You can say nothing. Because at that time, it's not a pen. And at that time, it's not chewing.

At that time, it's nothing. Now I have another question for you. How many things are around you right now?

[Speaker 2]
A lot.

[Speaker 1]
How many things are around you right now? Now, next question. Are those things around you coming this way, or are they coming from themselves?

Yeah, OK? Learn to do this, OK? If your boyfriend is bad, you can do this.

[Speaker 2]
OK?

[Speaker 1]
But also, if someone asks you, is it coming from you, you can say, OK, it's coming from me. Now I'm going to ask you a very subtle question. Ready?

How many things in this room are not coming from you?

[Speaker 2]
Nothing.

[Speaker 1]
Try to feel what that feels like. Now, I'm going to look in this room to find something that is not coming from me. Ready?

You can look also, all right? Let's start.

[Speaker 2]
OK?

[Speaker 1]
That's a higher pratyahara. That's the highest. That's what he's talking about.

That's the real bringing the mind in. What do they call it in yoga? Laya.

That's laya. You heard that word. It means, in that moment, the world disappears.

And there's no McDonald's, and there's no French fries, and there's no meditation either. You see? It's all gone.

If you look for something which is not coming from you, then you cannot find anything. And that will cause your mind to go in, in a very deep way. Does it mean there's no pen?

One sec. Does it mean there's no pen? Anybody who believes that, come up here.

I'll give you a mustache. OK? One guy in Florida, he came and got a mustache.

In 24 years, one guy came and got a mustache. The pen works. The pen is there, OK?

Your house is there. Your husband is there. Your life is there.

Your mind is there. They're all real, OK? It's OK.

Those things exist. But if you try to find something that's not coming from you, you will get zero. And that's a kind of pratyahara, higher kind of pratyahara.

It's an experiment. It's an exercise. You can do it.

Then you have to stop it, and eat, and sleep, and do your diet, OK? All right? You're not supposed to stay there.

Just check. Sometimes check if there's anything that's not coming from you. It's a good exercise.

That's a higher pratyahara. All right, next verse. Now he's going to talk about the last three angas.

OK, you guys are close to the end of the book, all right? Say dhyana, dhyana, dharana, dharana, samadhi, samadhi. Dhyana, dhyana, dharana, dharana, dharana, dhyana.

Yeah, I'm sorry. Say dharana, dharana, dhyana, dhyana, samadhi, samadhi. These are just three kinds of meditation, all right?

They are the end of the ashtanga. They are the end of the eight hymns. And he gives you the definition on this page, OK?

He says, locking the mind of an object is focus, OK? So when you meditate, and you put your mind on the object, and you hold that object, that's dharana, OK? That's dharana.

OK, I want you to, you don't have to close, you don't have to do all this meditation stuff. Think about your house right now. Go to the kitchen.

Go in the refrigerator with your mic. Is there anything there good to eat tonight? It's an easy meditation.

Read a little bit. It's not good. It's all old leftovers.

You have to clean them up. OK. He, he, he.

Yeah, so that's dharana, OK? That's enough. Your mind goes to an object and holds it.

Just touches the object. We can say you tie your mind to the object for just a second. That's dharana.

You find the object. And that's the most important start of the meditation. You have to pick what object you're going to meditate about.

And it should be something powerful. It should be something which is so powerful that when you put your mind on it, it will leak into you. The power will leak into you.

So you can put your mind on your breath, but that doesn't, it's not very powerful. You can put your mind on nothing or something like that, but then you will get nothing also. My teacher used to say, if you want to meditate on nothing, just have a couple of beers.

It's the same. You, you, you put your mind on a beautiful, sacred, powerful thing, and then the power of that beauty comes into you, OK? It's like an electrical plug.

You put the plug in the wall, and the electricity comes into your computer or something. If you meditate on a very beautiful, elegant thing, then your mind will become elegant and beautiful, you see? So you can meditate on your breath, but it's not such a big thing, you see?

What would be the best meditation object?

[Speaker 2]
Your own heart teacher.

[Speaker 1]
Your own heart teacher, OK? If you find a good one, you're going to daydream about them all day, you know? Sometimes I don't see the red lights.

Like, sometimes I almost die, because I'm thinking about my teacher, you know? Then I run the red light, you know? It's a problem.

I got stopped by the police a couple of weeks ago, because I was thinking about my teacher, and the car was going like this, and he stopped me. And he really, you know, yelled at me, and he checked me with everything. He said, you're drunk.

I said, I'm not drunk. He said, nobody drives like that who didn't have a beer. I said, I didn't have a beer.

And he said, what did you have? I said, I'm thinking about my teacher. He says, come over here.

He checked my eyes with a flashlight. It was at night. It was very frightening, actually.

And he checked my eyes, and he yelled at me, and he made me walk on the line. And then he checked me for drugs, and checked my car. And then he said, OK, go.

He was angry. He couldn't find anything. And sometimes it happens.

I just don't remember what I'm doing. You know what I mean? So if you put your mind on your teacher, then all those beautiful things will leak into you like electricity.

It's very, very nice. Touch your teacher's hand, and all this thing comes into you. All this blessing comes into you.

It's very beautiful. It's like they are full, and you are empty. And then when you make contact, then it flows into you.

It's very beautiful. It's very nice. So don't meditate.

You can start with your breath. If you feel like, what do you call, nervous, or you're thinking too much about somebody today said something bad to you, then we say watch your breathing for two minutes, three minutes. It will bring your mind calm.

Then plug into some big object, and let the blessing come to you. That's all. That's dharana.

Dharana means you touch the object. Dhyana means you stay there. Dhyana means you stay there.

Dharana means you touch the object. And then dhyana means you can stay there for five minutes or 10 minutes. Don't try to meditate for an hour.

It doesn't work. You're going to think about dinner, and what the guy said to you at work, and forget it. If you can meditate for five minutes or 10 minutes, that's good.

With your mind locked on the object, no other thought. If somebody puts McDonald's French fries in front of your face, you won't smell it. That's good meditation.

If somebody plays rock and roll, you won't hear it. Because your just mind is on one thing. And you won't hear it.

You won't be aware of it. So try to just stay there for three minutes or stay there for five minutes. Stay only on the one thing.

In Tibet, they call Ting and Zen, or they call Sechik Dukche Ekagra. It means single point, single thing, no other thing. If you really have good meditation on your teachers, thinking about your teacher, you can't drive.

It's not possible. You should get stopped by the police. Or you should, you can't smell anything.

You can't hear anything. You can't remember what you're supposed to do. You come out, and you don't know where you are, who you are.

Like that, that's it. I would like your understanding of two kinds of meditation.

[Speaker 2]
One, people talk about dynamic meditation. I was meditating, I was doing this, I was doing that. I've often heard the story, well, actually, no, you have to be totally still.

And then you better sit down, or on a chair, or whatever. In fact, that's meditation, not the moving and the doing. And some people argue that meditating, doing absolutely anything, that's the first question.

[Speaker 1]
Let's start with that one. In ancient India, they developed three kinds of meditation. One is called Jogo.

Jogo means you are silent, you are sitting silently, your back is straight, your eyes are closed, you are focusing on a single thing. Like your teacher's face. You know, it's very helpful if you want to try it.

Just meditate on your teacher's eyes. You are looking into your teacher's eyes. It's very powerful, very beautiful.

You don't even have to see their face. You are just looking into their eyes. That's Jogo.

Silent, fixed meditation on a single object. Then there's Shargo. Shargo means to go through a list over and over again until it's burned inside your mind.

So for example, you could do Shargo, I want to learn what are the Ashtanga. I want to learn Yama, the Yama Asana. What's next?

Pratyaharana, Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi. OK? And then you say, in your mind, you say, OK, today I'm going to learn Ashtanga.

First one is Yama, second one is Niyama, third one is... You see, you won't remember. And then Shargo means you keep doing it over and over until it becomes habitual.

The word for meditation in India and in Tibet is Mingshang. Mingshang, no. It's Bhavana in Sanskrit, and it's Gom in Tibetan.

And it means to get used to something. The word means to get used to something. So you think over and over, you practice Ashtanga in your mind until it becomes a part of your mind.

And that's the second kind of meditation. It could be the five, sorry, seven steps of developing love. There are seven steps for developing love.

And you could learn those. It could be the four infinite thoughts which you learned already. You see, you burn a thing into your mind.

That's called Shargo. Jago is the third kind of meditation. It means problem-solving meditation.

So you say, my husband is criticizing me, whatever. Or my boss, OK? I don't want to pick on your husband.

My boss is always criticizing me. If I do a good job, my boss criticizes me. If I do a bad job, my boss criticizes me.

If I don't do any job, my boss criticizes me. They just criticize me all the time. And then you think, Jago means, why do they criticize me?

And then you think, oh, maybe I was criticizing somebody else. Then you think, who was I criticizing? Then you make a plan.

I'm going to stop criticizing, OK? That's a Jago. It's like an analytical meditation, or a problem-solving meditation.

If you do any good meditation, you will become more mindful about everything. So you become a better businessman. You become a better artist.

You become a better singer. You become a better house cleaner. You can do everything with much more power if you learn to meditate.

Meditation is a tool. And it can make you the best businessman in New York. It can make you the best musician.

It can make you the best artist. It's a tool. So yeah, it can make you very mindful throughout the day on everything.

What was the other question? No other question. Good.

OK, go on. Go ahead. OK.

So the answer, can you do dynamic meditation?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Dynamic meditation.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
You could. Or running meditation. Oh, in the dishes.

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
The last one is, real quick, the focal point is often used between the eyebrows.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
This is the most powerful place, the awareness. Have you any experience of that? And is that worthwhile?

It is a very good place, OK? So if, for example, you were going to meditate about your teacher, if you do it at your heart, which is sometimes traditional, it's very delicate. The winds there, the prana there is very delicate.

It can be easily disturbed. So we usually don't start there. We start at the navel chakra, which will ground you.

So whatever you're picturing, you picture it inside the back of your navel. You can do that. And then you get kundalini.

This helps to get kundalini. But it is possible, and sometimes you can use the ajna chakra, which is here. And you go here, and then you go.

The important thing is to go in an inch, 10 millimeters. One centimeter, go in. Don't focus on the skin.

Focus inside the skull, an inch, and you'll get some nice results. Great, because there's a small chakra there. Because the ida and the pingala cross there.

So you can get some nice results with that. One cm or one inch? One cm.

I used to say an inch. Isn't it about the same?

[Speaker 2]
It's two and a half centimeters to one inch.

[Speaker 1]
One inch, so half a centimeter. Half an inch. About this much.

Two twos.

[Speaker 2]
One inch.

[Speaker 1]
Two twos. This much. And that's good.

You can just hold an image there too. Yeah, you can hold an image there. Your eyes will naturally move up like that.

And that's OK. That's good. Don't force it, but it's natural.

It will come. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
When I'm meditating, when an emotion arises, what should I do?

[Speaker 1]
Good emotion or bad emotion?

[Speaker 2]
I don't know. It doesn't matter. It is irrelevant whether it is positive or negative.

[Speaker 1]
It is irrelevant. If it's not what you want to meditate on, it's an optical. It's an optical.

If you are meditating on your teacher's eyes, and then suddenly you start to feel upset about somebody at work, this is an optical, because it's not your teacher's eyes. If you're meditating about your teacher's face, and suddenly you feel great devotion, then you can switch the object to the devotion. You see?

That's OK. But you have to just say, I'm switching objects. All right.

We're not going to finish there, is it? I'll take questions later. All right.

So dharana is to touch the object. Dhyana is to hold it over a period of time. By the way, the word dharana, the word dhyana, the word samadhi, they have 100 meanings.

In different books, they mean different things. So in the Yoga Sutra, this is the meaning. But in other books, it might be something else.

So now the last one, samadhi. Samadhi is the number eight, samadhi. Samadhi means you take an object, and then you examine whether it is coming from you or not.

And that's samadhi. You take an object, and you check whether it's coming from you or not. You are checking what is the true nature of this object.

It could be your teacher's face. It could be a McDonald's Whopper. It could be anything.

But you pick the object, and then you start to check where is this object coming from. Samadhi wants to know where do things come from. Why is this the last of the eight ashtanga?

Why is it the most important? You see, all the other seven limbs, the purpose of the other seven limbs is just to reach number eight. Why do you come to Pure Yoga and do yoga?

I want to reach number eight. By the way, you will get stronger and more flexible, and you will lose some weight. That's OK.

That's also good. But limb number eight is what you want. You want number eight.

Number eight means I can stay for an hour. Let's, for example, say I can hold for an hour an object in my mind, and I can understand that it is not, not, did you get that? It is not, not coming from me.

You check if it's not coming from you, and your mind says no. And then you found the real nature of that object. Why should that be the last of the ashtanga?

Why is that the goal? Because that's yoga. When you can do that in your mind, that's yoga, because Master Patanjali, in the second verse, defined yoga as?

Yogas citta-vrtti-nirvana, right? When you stop misunderstanding things, that's yoga. See how well it connects together?

When you stop misunderstanding things, he said in the beginning of the book, that's what yoga is. Then you are doing yoga. If somebody says, did you do yoga today?

You can say yes. And they'll say, oh, did you go to Central, or did you go to Tsim Sha Tsui? Then you say, no, I did yoga inside my mind.

No, you can say differently. You can say, I did yoga in the kitchen. Then they say, but your kitchen is very small.

Then you can say, no, no, there's room in my kitchen for me and my husband. That's where I did the yoga. You say, what do you mean?

I did yoga with my husband. How did two of you do yoga in a small kitchen? No, you don't understand.

My husband was criticizing me this morning. Then what's that got to do with yoga? Well, then I decided I want to stop him from criticizing me.

So what did you say to him? I didn't say anything. What do you mean you didn't say anything?

I did yoga with him. What's yoga? I checked him.

For what? I checked him to see if he's coming from him, or if he's coming from me. That's yoga, you see?

Vrtti niroda, chitta vrtti. That's yoga. And you know what I found out?

He's not coming from him. He's coming from me. So I decided in the kitchen at 7 o'clock this morning, when I was doing yoga with my husband, that I'm not going to complain at my boss anymore when I go to lunch with my friends.

Why? Because I want my husband to shut up, OK? And this is how you do it.

You always thought, oh, you have to argue with him. You know it doesn't work. And oh, sometimes you think I shouldn't say anything.

Maybe he will shut up. He won't shut up. This method is the greatest.

This method is, I should charge you a lot of money for this. This is how to stop your husband complaining. Do yoga with him at the breakfast table.

Do yoga. He's complaining about breakfast, right? Oh, it's too cold, or it's too hot.

Or he's reading the newspaper, and he's not even looking at you, right? Then you can do yoga with him. Check.

Use samadhi. Number eight. Is he coming from his side?

No. Is he coming from me? I guess so.

How can you check? I will stop complaining about my friend at work. And I will see if my husband changes within two or three weeks.

That's all. Do experiments. Try it.

Just check. If it doesn't work, you can ask Pure Yoga for your money back. That's yoga.

That's real yoga. Is what they do here real yoga? Is what they do in this building real yoga?

Yeah, it's a part. You can say it's a part. It's number what?

Four?

[Speaker 2]
Asana.

[Speaker 1]
Three. Three. It is part of yoga.

It is part of yoga. Asana is part of yoga. But the goal, the reason to do all those physical exercises is that it will make the chi flow better.

If the chi flows better, your mind improves. If your mind improves, instead of fighting with your husband, you will decide not to complain at other people. And then you will fix your husband.

And that's yoga. But if you do some yoga, asana, and pure yoga in the afternoon, it will be easier to understand your husband in the evening. Because the chi is flowing.

It's true. So yoga is just exercises are just a way to make the chi flow better so you can have this breakthrough with your husband and you stop blaming him. And you don't blame yourself either.

You just fix it. And then you don't have to worry about whose fault it was. You just fix it.

And you don't have to talk to him. You save so much time. Do you have a question?

[Speaker 2]
So if I see a very kind person, is all her kindness come from me?

[Speaker 1]
Yes.

[Speaker 2]
And if I see my hot teacher, is all her sacredness come from me?

[Speaker 1]
Exactly.

[Speaker 2]
So why I need the hot teacher?

[Speaker 1]
This is a very good question. Somebody asked me this question. They said, I have trouble with what you said.

I said, what's the trouble? They said, you want me to make my hot teacher, create my hot teacher by teaching other people. I said, that's correct.

Then they said, that hot teacher is going to give me something which I don't have. They are going to give me blessing or power or knowledge that I don't have. I said, yes.

Then they said, this is funny. I'm making a person who knows more than me. How's that possible?

That's impossible. That's fine. There's no problem.

You? Because the shikwa jongzu is smaller than the shikwa. OK?

The seed of a watermelon is smaller than the watermelon. So you create the teacher with a small seed. Maybe you teach one time to the postman in the car.

You see? And then, because of that seed, if it's planted properly, you can find a hot teacher who will teach you for 30 years. And what he teaches you is bigger than what you taught the postman.

Because the seed is smaller than the watermelon. And not just a little bit, it's a thousand times. It's 10,000 times.

OK? The seed is unbelievable.

[Speaker 2]
But on the level of holding, how do you count one from 100?

[Speaker 1]
All right. You can, I think. You can.

Like sometimes we feel a sacred feeling, right? Sometimes we feel, I don't know. Like sometimes during the music, I feel uplifted, right?

But then maybe there are people who feel that way all day. And even when they are walking or going in the metro or everything, they feel sacred all day. I would rather be like that.

You see, you do need to develop it. We have moments of grace. They are living in grace all day.

I would like to be like them. Did you have a question?

[Speaker 2]
So the process is speeded up by truly knowing where things are coming from rather than just being kind. Yeah. Randomly.

[Speaker 1]
Exactly.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Exactly. Yeah. To do the act and at the same time knowing that it's coming from you.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

What she said is, I promised you today, I have to do two things today. So you have to give me time, OK? One is how to speed things up.

One is how to stop the old blood seed. We need to do both of those. But what she said is very true.

The best way to speed up the seed is to understand it. By the way, an old seed cannot grow if you understand it. How's that?

An old seed cannot grow. An old seed requires misunderstanding to grow. If you stop misunderstanding your husband or where your husband is coming from, it will kill the seed which is creating him.

It's very interesting. Understanding kills old seeds. And it also makes new seeds grow faster.

That's why people you know who are nice didn't make much money because they're not planting it properly. They don't know the... they don't understand it properly.

They are nice by instinct or habit and they... A bad person who's being nice because they understand what we talked about for three days is more powerful than a good person who's being nice because it's a habit or their mother told them to. Understand?

[Speaker 2]
So when you say plant it properly, is that the same thing as plant it with understanding?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, you can say that.

[Speaker 2]
Is there more to plant it properly?

[Speaker 1]
There is more. There's four more things. We have to talk about that.

We will. Maybe now. Let me think about it.

Let me do a little bit more and then we'll take a break. And then we'll do those. Well, let's see what we've got left.

Okay, let's talk about one more thing. Let's talk about... let's go with the how to make seeds grow.

If you do Limb No. 8 and you learn to meditate well and Christina Pao Chang is teaching a nice meditation class with Eric Streisand this next week. And Wednesday you can talk to them about...

We'll put the place up on the thing, okay? And it's free. They're not going to charge you anything.

It's okay. Just come. They can teach you to meditate.

They'll teach you Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi. How to move up those three things. You can learn.

I told them... we gave a talk on Monday, you know. I said, learn what they know about meditation, then dump them.

Like take it home and use it for the rest of your life. You don't have to join anything. You don't have to become anything.

Just learn it and then go use it yourself. You don't have to join any club or organization or... It's not like that.

Master meditation and then use it. Take it to your home. Yourself.

In a deep state of meditation, Limb No. 8, while you are thinking about whether your husband comes from you or whether your husband comes from your husband, sometimes you can have a special experience. In the meditation, sometimes you can have a very, very special experience, okay?

If you have that experience in deep meditation, your body will start to change, okay? You can see the future, right? You can see what's going on.

What is up there? Don't look at this. Turn that off.

You have to listen to this. You have to... Okay, I'm going to start that over.

Sometimes, when you're in deep meditation, thinking about whether your husband comes from you or not, some special thing will happen to you, okay? It's called the diamond or something like the diamond, okay? And then something will happen to you.

And maybe it lasts for 10 minutes or 20 minutes, okay? Something unusual will happen to you. And then your mind changes and your body changes.

You can see the future. I'm not talking tomorrow. I'm talking 500 years ahead.

You can see the future. You can see the face of every living person on this planet all at the same time. I just say that because I don't want to tell you the real thing, which is, on every planet, you see the face of every single living creature on every planet in the universe at the same time.

You gain this ability. You gain this unbelievable ability. Then you see the day that you will take care of all of them.

And I'm not kidding, okay? You have an experience where you see a day when you will be taking care of every living creature in the universe at the same time. You will have that ability, okay?

Your body will start to change. Then you can be on a bus in Hong Kong helping some old person. And you can also be in the subway in New York helping somebody.

And you can be in Mexico City eating a taco. And all of these things will happen. You become a person who can be everywhere at the same time helping people, okay?

Really, I'm trying to tell you what happens at the Ashtanga. At the end of the Ashtanga, if you work hard, you will have this experience, okay? Then, then what do you need?

Then what more could you ask for? You see, you see what you are going to be. And you see yourself as someone who can serve countless billions of people at the same time.

You see how your body is going to change. And yoga, physical yoga helps the change of the body. When the body changes completely, something very unusual happens with the chi.

The chi in the body stops. And it comes to the heart. And then your body changes.

And then you can be in many places at the same time. Everybody in this room wants to save the world, okay? You want to have money.

You want to have a boyfriend. That's okay. You want to have, you want to be able to do a handstand without anybody helping you, okay?

No, you want these things. These are okay. Those things you want.

But deep, deep down inside, you want to help the world, you know? When you get the other stuff, you will still keep working because everybody in this room feels bad about what happened in Japan. Everybody in this room feels bad about what's happening in Iraq.

And they feel bad that people are dying every day, everywhere, in every place. Just got old. See, if you, since you were a child, and you started to understand the extent of suffering in the world, right?

It's huge. People are dying everywhere, all the time. People are losing their husbands and their wives and their friends, and all the time.

Their jobs, everywhere, all the time. Then, when you're a child, you become aware of that. And something happens inside you, you know?

You say, I wish I could stop that. You never change. You never stop that wish.

You push the wish down because you think it's not possible. But inside, you have a wish. Since you were a child, that you could help the whole world.

And that wish, deep, deep down inside, then the people who make the movies, they know you want that. So they make X-Men, and they make Superman, Spiderman, Iron Man. What's the other one?

Transformers? I like that one. Why?

He saves the world, but he also gets the best girl. And the best car. Okay?

And that's the story of your life. That's what's going to happen. Those movies are made by people who have the same seed deep in them.

And they are made for people who have the same seed. And that's what we want to see. And that's what we want to hear, you know?

Go see the Adjustment Bureau. Okay? No, and the guy gets the girl, and together they save the world.

I mean, that's what you really want to do. You want to have a partner and save the world together, okay? I mean, I like that movie because he does it with her.

Or Iron Man does it with Gwyneth Paltrow. Okay? It's always together.

That's what you really want. If you can reach the eighth level of Sthanga, that process is triggered inside of you. And it cannot be stopped.

Nothing can stop it. If you can learn to meditate on where your husband's coming from, and if you make that breakthrough, you will become Iron Man on a billion planets. And I'm not kidding.

And you can confirm that yourself. You will see it yourself. If you learn to meditate, you will see the day.

You will know which day it's coming. And what's more fun than that? You know?

I mean, that's the coolest thing in the world. Doing a handstand is pretty cool. I mean, I wish.

Today I almost did it. They let go and I almost didn't fall down. And, you know, I also want to do cool things.

You know? Do all the cool things. But that thing is unbelievable.

That thing is... That's what you really want. You know?

That's what you really want. And Sthanga... The Yoga Sutra tells you how.

And you can do it. You need a heart teacher. Okay?

You need someone to facilitate the process. But you will be there. Even if you don't do it in this life, okay?

You can't stop it. You will. Someday you will do it.

Everybody. Everybody reaches that place. Okay?

That's the good news. You were built to reach that place. And that's all you have to do with your life.

You can do a lot of things. Get rich. Have a nice family.

You know? Do handstands. Do all those things.

Why not? And then do the final thing. And then you'll be a complete...

You'll be really happy. That'll make you really happy. Just to think about it makes you happy.

That's why everybody likes those movies. And that's why they make them. Because people pay more money to come to them.

Okay? Avatar. Oh, wow.

[Speaker 2]
Is there anything you think is kundalini when you talk about kundalini?

[Speaker 1]
Kundalini is an inner spiritual fire which triggers that process. And we talked about it. I don't know.

So, very, very famous in our monastery. When the kundalini burns something happens here and then it melts down. And then...

And that's when you see... That's when you have the eighth level experience. Kundalini triggers that.

All right. I think that might be a good place to stop. Is it about saving the world?

Go ahead. Have I reached that stage yet? Yes.

I've been very lucky in my life. We're not allowed to say if we have or not. But I have a very...

most beautiful teacher and I've been very lucky. Okay? Great.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
All right. Have a refreshment. If you have a question, I'll be here.

Then we'll start in ten minutes. We still have two jobs, right? We have to learn how to make things fast.

Probably I have to teach it fast also.

[Speaker 2]
And then...

[Speaker 1]
And then we talk about how to stop the all bad things. Okay? We'll do it.

[Speaker 2]
Whoa! You're going to send that to me?