3.34. tadvi-muktastu kevalī //
“Separated from pleasure and pain, the yogi is established in real seclusion.”
Over the past couple of years, we have all had different doses and experiences of this aspect of reality. When you think of a yogi, you might think of them in a cave, secluded from the world in order to find their true nature. But as we know in our tradition, that kind of external seclusion must eventually come to an end when they test their attainment by returning back to reality. Can the yogi maintain that inner connection amidst a world that draws them always out? What is your perception of seclusion?
Seclusion in this sutra doesn’t necessarily mean being apart from people, although it could take that form— more importantly it means being apart from your attachments and aversions. What’s more, this type of ‘real seclusion’ as the Sutra calls it, is not a feeling of isolation but rather a feeling of wholeness, oneness. In fact, the very word ‘oneness’ expresses the paradox at the heart of this Sutra, and the experience of meditation in general— Oneness meaning the individual and the whole wrapped up in one singular experience.
As #Patanjali teaches in his #Yoga #Sutras, “The seed of attachment is pleasure. The seed of aversion is pain,” meaning that our pleasures and pains are the seeds of illusion that can all too quickly grow into a weed patch that overtakes our reality. According to this Sutra, though, these seeds of pleasure and pain are all an illusion— albeit an incredibly real one, but nonetheless, they are all a part of the grand illusion of duality. It’s as if we are trapped in a VR headset, pushing and pulling against a reality that doesn’t even exist in our dimension— and when we take off the headset, all of our energy naturally begins to grow the fruit of our practice.
“In Kālikākrama, it is said:
All those states, like the perception of pleasure and pain and the thoughts associated with them, have arisen by imagination. That differentiation is actually the great illusion of duality. Herein one distinguishes between two opposites, such as the differentiation between pleasure and pain, thinking pleasure is welcome and pain is to be avoided. The yogī who has destroyed this kind of illusion actually attains the real fruit of yoga. (Kālikākrama Stotra)”
https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/konalani-yoga/the-cave-of-the-heart-shiva-FLel9RYy7zm/
