Yoga Sutras? Wut?!

[The White Belt]

Hi guys.

So I'm currently reading the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and a couple of things are standing out as quite negative for me.

Firstly it's completely saying we should abstain from all sensory pleasure if we do not wish to suffer, which I get that we should limit things like TV, music (not so much, but negative music) and stop craving bad foods (not always) but the way it's described in this book is like a hard and fast rule of complete denial. What gives?

 

The second thing is to deny to desire for physical life over spiritual. Now to me this is kind of nuts.. Life is to be enjoyed, not denied for something we may never attain such as enlightenment, surely? 

 

Anybody care to shed some light on this sacred text?

 

Thanks.

[Frogfucius]

I haven't read Yoga Sutras, but the way I interpret it from your post is that it's enforcing becoming detached from things. Detachment = happiness. But forced detachment is not pleasurable, it is a suppression. I think there should be a balance between so-called "spiritual" and "material". If you wanna enjoy pizza and beer, fucking enjoy pizza and beer. But don't become attached to it, be completely fine if you don't have it. Even be okay with death.

It's silly to deny the physical-based world, because we obviously exist in some universe that our mind projects a sense of physical reality on. Our mind couldn't function without food or water, we need these things. But denying the "spiritual" side of things is also silly, and will only lead to doubt, suffering, and taking life too seriously.

Ultimately, you want to come to the realization that thoughts and ideas are not reality, and to lose all attachments to any opinion or belief you have about reality.

[Leo Gura]

@BeginnerActualizer Keep in mind that was written 2000 years ago, for hardcore practitioners.

If you ever experience God, you'll see why Patanjali wrote what he wrote. No other pleasure compares. The problem is that most people these days aren't serious about discovering God. The entire culture has been pussified, pacified, and materialized. Asceticism and hardcore spirituality has been demonized by mainstream culture so that average folks can feel good about their piddling spiritual efforts.

If you want to read yoga philosophy that's more embracing of sensual desire, check out Tantra Yoga. It was the next evolutionary step after Patanjali's classical yoga.

[Prabhaker]

4 hours ago, BeginnerActualizer said:

to deny to desire for physical life over spiritual. Now to me this is kind of nuts.. Life is to be enjoyed, not denied for something we may never attain such as enlightenment

Yoga means that now there is no hope, now there is no future, now there are no desires. Total despair is needed. That despair is called dukkha by Buddha. And if you are really in misery, don’t hope, because your hope will only prolong the misery. Your hope is a drug. It can help you to reach death only and nowhere else. All your hopes can lead you only to death. They are leading.
 

If you are disillusioned, if you are hopeless, if you have completely become aware of the futility of all desires, if you see your life as meaningless – whatsoever you have been doing up to now has simply fallen dead nothing remains in the future, you are in absolute despair. If you are in anguish, suffering, not knowing what to do, not knowing where to go, not knowing to whom to look, just on the verge of madness or suicide or death, your whole pattern of life suddenly has become futile. If this moment has come, Patanjali says, NOW THE DISCIPLINE OF YOGA. Only now you can understand the science of yoga, the discipline of yoga.

If that moment has not come,you can go on studying yoga, you can become a great scholar, but you will not be a yogi. You can write theses upon it, you can give discourses upon it, but you will not be a yogi. The moment has not come for you. Intellectually you can become interested, through your mind you can be related to yoga, but yoga is nothing if it is not a discipline. Yoga is not a scripture. It is a discipline. It is something you have to do. It is not curiosity; it is not philosophic speculation. It is deeper than that. It is a question of life and death.

[The White Belt]

What does 21st century spiritual purification look like then? 

[Prabhaker]

2 hours ago, BeginnerActualizer said:

What does 21st century spiritual purification look like then?

Dance, meditate, celebrate! 

[The White Belt]

@Prabhaker I like it ;-)