than he could drive around with him as well. I tell my students that
anyone who thinks that they are closer to me than anyone else has un
derstood nothing about yoga. Our greed comes from our fear that we
will not have enough-whether it is money or love that we grasp. Yoga
teaches us to let go of these fears and so to realize the abundance
around us and within us.
REMEMBER THAT YOGA IS NOT ASKING us to refrain from en
joyment. Draw in the exquisite fragrance of the flower. Yoga is against
bondage. Bondage is being tied to patterns of behavior from which we
cannot withdraw. Repetition leads to boredom, and eventually
boredom is a form of torture. So yoga says keep the freshness, keep the
pristine, keep the virginity of sensitivity. By all means, as I have sug
gested, keep an eye on our capricious ego, but there are techniques be
yond that. The aim of retention (kumbhaka) is to restrain the breath.
While breath is being held, speech, perception and hearing are con
trolled. The citta (consciousness) in this state is free from passion and
hatred, greed and lust, pride and envy. Prana and citta become one in
retention. Citta wavers with the breath, while retention frees it from
desire. Patanjali also describes other means to address the Emotional
Disturbances and other obstacles that we find on our Inward Journey,
which we will now explore.
To begin with, there is an important point to be made about these
inner conflicts, or Emotional Disturbances. They cannot be conquered
without discretion (vivecana). But in order to be victorious over the
six causes of delusion or emotional disturbances, one has to use the
six spokes of the wheel of peace. These are: discrimination and rea
soning, practice and detachment, and faith and courage. To distin
f.\Uish pleasant transient sensations from permanent spiritual delights,
discrimination and reasoning (viveka and vicara) are rcquirt·d. Tlwy
have to he developed through practice (abhya.ra) and dl"tachml"nl
V I I A I I T Y I II 1·. 1·. N F Il l; Y II() I l \' I /' /! .·1 N .1 I