Sacredsmile Yoga

In the yogic environment that I have experienced there are two scriptures that get referenced most as yogic authorities: The Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras from Patanjali.
Both scriptures basically lay out a route to enlightment. Patanjali’s sutras are like a scientific exposé of instructions on how to still the mind and experience the yogic state.
The Bhagavad Gita is like a song of how to celebrate and discover our ‘purpose’ in life. According to the Gita our ‘purpose’ in life is to realize our divine nature.
Although pointing to the same thing both scriptures use different approaches. The Yoga Sutras are more like a technical manual emphasizing the practical application of specific techniques towards our goal. Mother Gita as it is often called goes beyond mere technique and encompasses different kinds of ‘yoga’. It is more of a metaphorical essay on understanding and mastering the art of Life.

In the yogic environment that I have experienced there are two scriptures that get referenced most as yogic authorities: The Bhagavad Gita and the Yoga Sutras from Patanjali.
Both scriptures basically lay out a route to enlightment. Patanjali’s sutras are like a scientific exposé of instructions on how to still the mind and experience the yogic state.
The Bhagavad Gita is like a song of how to celebrate and discover our ‘purpose’ in life. According to the Gita our ‘purpose’ in life is to realize our divine nature.
Although pointing to the same thing both scriptures use different approaches. The Yoga Sutras are more like a technical manual emphasizing the practical application of specific techniques towards our goal. Mother Gita as it is often called goes beyond mere technique and encompasses different kinds of ‘yoga’. It is more of a metaphorical essay on understanding and mastering the art of Life.

Bhagavad Gita
In contrast to the Yoga Sutras from Patanjali that stands by itself the Bhagavad Gita is part of a big Epic called the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata describes a part of India’s history in story form. The Gita therefore is on first glance a story described in 18 chapters. It is regarded as the most popular and well known of all the sacred scriptures from ancient India. Being revered as a true source of spiritual knowledge it reveals the purpose and goal of human existence. It takes place on a battlefield and features two main figures; The warrior Arjuna and his charioteer Lord Krishna. There are two armies facing each other ready for battle as Arjuna asks Krishna to place them both in between the armies to get a good view on what they are about to engage in. From here the story takes off…

Looking deeper we will discover that this whole setting is a metaphor for our lives. The two armies actually correspond to the duality in our lives. The good and the opposite. Arjuna leads the army of the Pandavas, our virtues, against the army of the Kauravas, the negative forces within us. Every character in the Gita corresponds with a quality of our personality as reflected in our inner struggle. When we get in touch with the message of the Gita we start to recognize all our internal aspects within the characters featured in the story. We start to identify with Arjuna and especially within the first chapter we come face to face with ourselves as Arjuna does. Basically Arjuna becomes despondent and turns to Lord Krishna for help. Isn’t that how most people now a days step onto a yoga mat?
From chapter 2 onwards Krishna, who is seen as representing our soul or higher Self or the essence of our being, starts to address Arjuna. He shares with him the knowledge on how to master life.

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
‘The Eight Fold Path’ as Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are also known consist of four sections. The first section is the portion on contemplation, giving the theory of Yoga and describing the advanced stages of contemplation. The second portion is on practice and in this section the first five steps of the famous eight are given. The third portion states the final three steps and all the accomplishments that come with them. The final and fourth portion is more cosmic philosophy on Yoga.
In the sutras Patanjali in the second verse states that Yoga is the restraint of the mind-stuff. The whole rest of the sutras expand on this principle.

Inspiration and daily application
Both works become alive when used daily and specifically when applied on a consistent skilfull basis. These works are not so much to be read as to be understood and realized.
Although I have read and studied the Yoga Sutras I have not (yet) built a relationship with it to the same degree as I have with the Bhagavad Gita. My first impression as a comparison between the two is that the Gita is really more like a ‘mother’, more intuitive and expansive. It touches more areas of life and practice than the Yoga Sutras do. Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga is more like a ‘father’, it gets right down to business and is practical.

The Gita has become a magical scripture to me. I carry it with me wherever I go and regularly I go through periods that I use it on a daily basis as a source of inspiration. Devotion and selfless service are two of the main themes touched upon in the Gita and they play a big role in my life. As a yoga teacher I am devoting myself to a life of service to students in the yoga class. I am challenged and learning to see the divine within everything as the Gita teaches you. My life has been highly influenced by the Gita especially since a remarkable event on a late winter evening…

Awakening to a scripture
One evening in December 1998 I was studying chapter two. I was listening to a cd where each sloka was chanted and following along using a book with translation. I spent the evening working through the whole chapter and contemplating on it.
One of the main teachings of this chapter is that we are mostly governed by false belief systems. According to the Bhagavad Gita the most influential of these beliefs is that we are our body. In the story Krishna here introduces the concept that we are not our bodies. Reincarnation is mentioned and a beautiful sloka states ‘The wise man grieves neither for the living nor for the dead’. He goes on to expound that the essence of our existence can’t be cut, burned or wet. It is also in this chapter we find the slokas 54-72 about the man of steady wisdom - slokas that Gandhi would read and meditate upon every day of his life.

Shortly after having finished I received a phone call from Brother Anthony, a very dear friend who was a Franciscan monk. I had come to know him as a wonderful person. A living saint.

He was calling from Ireland where he lived and we talked and talked about many things but as always with Brother Anthony we couldn’t stray away from the subject of God for long. During that mystical evening he took me with his natural innocence and his pure love of his inspiration to a wonderful place where I started to feel so close to something that I would describe as God. With his enlightened words he just made that experience so real and palpable for me that I felt blessed to know such a being and to experience such a moment.
That is when the evening was about to take a dramatic turn. I don’t recall exactly what was said but we had a funny witty exchange where he was laughing and then suddenly it went silent…

The rest of the evening was bizarre as I kept the phone line open while getting helped organized. Meanwhile I lit a candle and wanted to pray for Brother Anthony’s well-being but I just couldn’t. I could not pray for him to stay alive. There was a very deep intense block knowing that there was no sense arguing with reality. I knew and sensed he had died. I could only pray for light. In the end I could hear the emergency services and police eventually break a window and make it into the house and allowing me to get confirmation on Brother Anthony’s passing away.

Now, this whole experience was so linked with Chapter two that I feel that the Gita prepared me for what I was about to experience later that evening. It has permanently changed my perception of life and death. Although the Gita already was alive for me before that evening, since then it has simply become magical. The interesting thing is when you truly engage with a scripture like this it really becomes like a living presence in your life.