Day 58 

Patanjali has said four things.

Manaha prasaadaha - the pleasantness in the mind. It is a big tapas to maintain the pleasantness of the mind. You may feel pleasant but soon you drop all that pleasantness.

Manaprasaadah is maintaining the pleasantness and contentment in the mind. Sowmyataam, sowmya means calm and composed. You can feel pleasant, but excited. That is not sowmya. Some people feel very pleasant but they do not feel calm. 

The pleasantness can mak them feel very crazy and excited. So, along with pleasantness it is essential to be composed - sowmyataam. People who are happy create trouble for others. This is because they are not aware that, in their excitement and happiness, they say and do things that may adversely affect others. 

But if a person is calm and composed, he is more aware. There is awareness in a composed mind. You are sensitive to other’s feelings and to your surroundings. So, what is required is pleasant and composed mind. Manah peasaadaha sowmyataam.

Mounam is a silent mind, not chattering mind. Silence is the tapas of the mind. Mounam is the silence obtained by bringing together the scattered mind and trying all the loose ends. Aatma vinigraha is remaining in the Self, getting back to the Self. This is the tapas of the mind. The mind loses its way again and again. 

It needs to be brought back to the Self and see the Self in everybody. Feel this person is also you and that person, too - everybody. Normally, we think our mind is in the body. But it is not so. The body is inside the mind. Your body of prana is ten times bigger than physical body. 

Your energy, bio-energy is ten times bigger than the physical body. And ten times bigger than the pranic body is your mind body, your thought body. And ten times bigger than that is your intuitive body. And ten times bigger than that is the blissful body. Our blissful body is boundless. 

That is why when you feel blissful and happy you do not feel any boundary. You feel expanded and do not feel any limit to yourself. And when you feel sad or unhappy, you feel crushed, because then your prana is getting smaller than your real body. This is the mechanism of unhappiness. 

It is like trying to put your body through a small hole where it cannot fit. This is the reason why you feel so unhappy. When you try to crush your prana, which is so big into a small space, you feel unhappy. Whenever you are unhappy in life, know that you have put your love into a small channel. 

Your love is so great, so big. It needs a royal donor to walk through. But you have stuck that big elephant body of your love, into a small chimney, or ventilator. It can neither go out not come in. This is entanglement. 

That is why that love seems to bring problems to you. You do not understand this magnitude. This is tapas. Manomaya Tapas. Aatma vinigraha is coming back to the Self, holding to the centeredness in you.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS