Patanjali’s yoga sutras (aphorisms) are references to yoga practices – spiritual disciplines and techniques of meditation which have been codified over thousands of years, with the objective of enabling one to achieve unitive knowledge of the Godhead. They can be “scientifically” traced back over 10,000 years, but I sense they have been handed down from pre-historic times and likely from civilizations that pre-date any modern Western understanding of this planet’s history.
As someone who woke up rather suddenly, with a compulsive and obsessive feeling, that the path I was walking in this lifetime was significantly “missing the mark” (definition of the Greek word for “sin”), Patanjali’s yoga sutras landed with me (a person who had never practiced yoga in the first 48 years of their life) in a profound way. Just prior to being exposed to these sutras, I had arrived (the hard way!) at the realization that my societal programming - work, eat, sleep, entertainment routine - with an implicit goal of maximizing material comfort, was no longer working for me. Like many before me that have arrived at this disillusioning self-realization, I lived in a void of confusion and lack of purpose for a period. With nothing to replace my false higher power of materialism and consumerism I didn’t know where to aim. Aiming up had failed me, so I aimed down, and travelled further into the abyss. In the abyss we find desperation, and through desperation we find surrender, and through surrender we find salvation. Salvation arrived to me in the form of Patanjali’s aphorisms and every part of my pysche latched onto seeking “unitive knowledge of the Godhead” as the path I was meant to walk. But I had questions!
What does “unitive knowledge of the Godhead” even mean? It can’t be explained in words because it is beyond the capacity of our limited thinking minds. That is why it is such a profoundly fulfilling path to walk. The question itself is the path. It is walking into infinity.
If I can’t understand what it means, then how do I know where to start? One of the most important lines in Patanjali’s work holds the key “The universe exists in order that the experiencer may experience it, and thus become liberated”. Our own experiences hold the key to our own liberation. We must go through, to go up. The path starts by identifying, accepting and acknowledging every obstacle that stands in the Way and making that path the Way.
“Generational curse breakers are not ones to mess with. They don’t care what anyone thinks. They have gone against so many, even their own blood to pull themselves out of the path that so many before could not. They have scratched and clawed their way out of darkness so their children wouldn’t have to be the ones to do it. They have stood alone so many times and stood strong. You can’t break the generational curse breaker.” – Unknown
If one is liberated, one cannot be broken. Finding “unitive knowledge of the Godhead” is the path that we are meant to walk but…..
“Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself” - Morpheus, The Matrix 1999
The Way
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