Yoga Sutras for Modern Day Life: Get Up and Change The Channel
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: 1:25-There the omniscient seed is unsurpassed
Defining the Sutra
This verse refers to the omniscience of Isvara or Supreme consciousness. For more information on Supreme consciousness, check out previous posts from the Yoga Sutras for Modern Day Life series.
To understand this verse, we have to look at the rabbit hole of “omniscient”. Most people see omniscience as knowing everything about everything and they picture God sitting on a thrown in heaven. That is one way to look at it.
I am going to postulate another way to look at omniscience. If you want to really go down the rabbit hole, read Omniscience: Misconception and Clarification by Dr. Ramje Singh.
Keep in mind that language is limited and so is the intellect. How can you really describe an unlimited concept with limited language and intellect? I will try anyway. Science tells us that energy cannot be destroyed, just transformed. Everything is made of energy. You, me, this computer, everything. Supreme consciousness is ALL energy. Supreme consciousness is omniscient because Supreme consciousness is ALL. How can anything exist outside of ALL? So Supreme Consciousnesses is omniscient.
Why Is It Important?
Patanjali is describing the qualities of Isvara, Supreme consciousness. Connecting with Isvara is a way to transcend the fluctuations of our mind that cause suffering. If Supreme consciousness is omniscient and contains all possible outcomes, and you can connect with that, you can chose another frequency to tune your radio or mind too. If you are tuned into suffering and pain, you can just connect back into the source of everything, and tune into something else. The mental fluctuations can melt back into consciousness and you can tap into something that makes you feel good and brings you joy.
Modern Day Application
Being caught in your thoughts is like loosing the remote to your TV or forgetting that you even have a remote and believing that you are stuck watching a disturbing, sad or depressing movie. Yoga gives us back our remote so that we can tune into Isvara and change the channel.
Shanna Small
Shanna Small has been practicing Ashtanga Yoga and studying the Yoga Sutras since 2001. She has studied in Mysore with Sharath Jois and is the Director of AYS Charlotte, a school for traditional Ashtanga in Charlotte NC. She has written for Yoga International and the Ashtanga Dispatch. Go here for more information on AYS Charlotte. For information on workshops, please e-mail [email protected]
