Simple Yoga Blog

2.16 Avoiding suffering Are you aware of the difference between pain and suffering? Is your life an emotional roller coaster? The pain you feel is a sensation that offers you potentially useful information. Does your suffering originate in not being willing to be with what is, just as it is? Is it possible to choose not to suffer?

Yoga Sutra 2.15 Suffering What would you need to love your life exactly as it is right now? All experiences and sensations are temporary. The wise person knows that anything that can be earned will eventually be lost and that anything that can be bought or sold is unlikely to bring lasting joy and happiness.

Yoga Sutras 2.12 2.13 & 2.14 Karma Afflictions create impressions that influence experiences and life according to our intentions Interaction between afflictions (kleshas), actions (karma), impressions (samskaras) and life both in the present and in the future. How have your decisions, actions and interactions influenced your identity, perspective and circumstances? How are you contributing to enhance the quality of life?

Yoga Sutra 2.11 Meditation counteracts active afflictions What afflictions emerge during your meditation? The second way to deactivate afflictions, meditation. What happens when you try to be with what is just as it is? Have you noticed patterns in your ways of moving, breathing, thinking, feeling, perceiving and interacting? How do you cultivate your meditation?

Yoga Sutra 2.10 Dissolving subtle afflictions What is the subtlest aspect of you? The involution process to deactivate the afflictionsgradually. First letting go of the sense of self-importance. Then noticing our relationship with likes and dislikes. Then clarifying who you are. Is it possible that most of your sense of identity dissolves at the end of each day, and only subtle traces remain in your subconscious?

Yoga Sutra 2.9 Clinging to life What is the most important moment of your life? The more invested we are in our identity the greater our attachment to our life. What is your life? Do you live your life with a tacit assumption that your embodied life will last for a long time? Can you consider that millions of people before you have lived and died and that life itself has continued?

2.7 & 2.8 Desire and Aversion What are you chasing after and what are you pushing away? Are you in charge of your likes and dislikes, or are they driving your decisions and actions? What is the origin of your wanting and cravings? To what extent do you believe that your likes and dislikes define who you are? Is there any time during your day when you are free from all of your preferences?

Yoga Sutra 2.6 Self-centeredness (asmita) Confusing awareness with the instruments of perception What is your sense of "I"? Is there something in you that is not temporary? Do you entertain misperceptions distorting who you think you are such as “I am not good enough,” “I am not complete,” “I am lacking” and “I do not deserve unconditional love”?

Yoga Sutra 2.5 Confusing permanent and impermanent Avidya leads you to get entangled in endless internal chatter What in you is permanent? What in you is impermanent? What is pure? Wat is impure? How do you know the difference? What motivates you to be fully present in your life?