Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 9

Discourses on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Talks given from 21/04/76 am to 30/04/76 am

English Discourse series
10 Chapters
Year published:
During the early 1980's it was planned to publish the "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega" volumes as "Yoga: The Science of the Soul". Only the first three volumes were actually published, the title stayed as "Alpha and Omega" for the other seven volumes.
Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 9
Chapter #1
Chapter title: Mastery over the five elements
21 April 1976 am in Buddha Hall

THE POWER OF CONTACTING THE STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
WHICH IS OUTSIDE THE MENTAL BODY
AND THEREFORE INCONCEIVABLE
IS CALLED MAHAVIDEHA.
THROUGH THIS POWER
THE COVERING OF THE LIGHT IS DESTROYED.
PERFORMING SAMYAMA ON THEIR GROSS, CONSTANT,
SUBTLE, ALL-PERVADING, AND FUNCTIONAL STATE
BRINGS MASTERY OVER THE PANCHABHUTAS --
THE FIVE ELEMENTS.
FROM THIS FOLLOWS THE ATTAINMENT OF ANIMA, ETC.,
PERFECTION OF THE BODY, AND
THE REMOVAL OF THE ELEMENTS' POWER TO OBSTRUCT THE BODY.
BEAUTY, GRACE, STRENGTH, AND ADAMANTINE HARDNESS
CONSTITUTE THE PERFECT BODY.

THE yoga system of Patanjali is not a philosophical system. It is empirical. It is a tool to work with. But still it has a philosophy. That too is just to give an intellectual understanding where you are moving, what you are seeking. The philosophy is arbitrary, utilitarian, just to give a comprehensive picture of the territory you are going to discover; but the philosophy has to be understood.

The first thing about the philosophy of Patanjali. He divides human personality into five seeds, five bodies. He says you don't have one body; you have layers upon layers of bodies; and they are five. The first body he calls annamaya kosha -- the food body, the earth body, which is made of earth and is constantly to be nourished by food. Food comes from earth. If you stop taking food, your annamaya kosha will wither away. So one has to be very alert about what one is eating because that makes you and it will affect you in

millions of ways, because sooner or later your food is not just food. It becomes blood, your bones, your very marrow. It circulates in your being and goes on affecting you. So the purity of food creates a pure annamaya kosha, the pure food body.
And if the first body is pure, light, not heavy, then it is easy to enter into the second body; otherwise it will be difficult -- you will be loaded. Have you watched when you have eaten too much and heavy foods. Immediately you start feeling a sort of sleep, a sort of lethargy. You would like to go to sleep; awareness immediately starts disappearing. When the first body is loaded it is difficult to create great awareness. Hence fasting became so important in all the religions. But fasting is a science and one should not fool around with it.

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