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This is the Patañjali Yoga Sūtra. Patañjali lived approximately 2,500 years before Christ and is known as the father of psychology. The great saint Patañjali researched the entire being of the human: body, emotion, chakras, intellect, memory, different levels of consciousness, soul, and ātmā. Very systematically, with many examples, he guides his students. Patañjali put the yoga system together, but yoga is not limited to him; yoga is very, very ancient. As I said on the first day, yoga is the universal principle of balancing, harmonizing, and uniting. Patañjali begins with āsanas. Āsana is not exercise; it is known as postures. It is that comfortable posture in which you feel comfortable, relaxed, happy, and can concentrate or meditate. That is followed by yoga vyāyam. Vyāyam means exercise—yoga exercises. These are divided into three parts: dynamical movements for body warming, then stretching to remove stiffness, and then the postures where you can sit comfortably and relaxed, allowing more prāṇa-śakti, life energy, to flow in the body. After āsanas, the second level is prāṇāyāma, or prāṇa-vyāyāma. This means the exercise of the prāṇa through breath control. Prāṇa is like cement that holds bricks together. Similarly, the physical and astral body of a living being is held together through prāṇa. Prāṇa is not oxygen; it is completely different. Prāṇa is divided into ten different qualities: five prāṇas and five upa-prāṇas, or sub-prāṇas. The five prāṇas are Prāṇa, Apāna, Vyāna, Samāna, and Udāna. They help us live healthy, relaxed, and comfortable lives. The sub-prāṇas, like Kṛkal and Dhananjay, have a fine quality and sit near our eyelids, which react very quickly and need super petrol quality. Our heart constantly serves our life, yet we neglect it. We never ask, "How are you, my heart?" or tell it to relax. These are all different kinds of energies in the body. Prāṇa is the inhalation force; apāna is the exhalation force. If there is disturbance in your apāna, you cannot pass urine or exhale. What Mother Nature gave to our body is unbelievable. All this has been researched by Patañjali, who taught what is good for keeping our prāṇa pure and healthy. In prāṇāyāma definition and techniques, there are only three prāṇāyāmas. They are called Pūrak (inhalation), Kumbhak (retention of the breath inside), Rechak (exhalation), and Bāhya Kumbhak (retention of the breath outside). Kumbhak means the retention of the breath either inside or outside. So, inhalation, exhalation, and retention are the three prāṇāyāmas. How does one gain mastery over these three levels? There are different techniques, beginning with Nāḍī Śodhana, the purification of the nerves. Always begin Nāḍī Śodhana with the left nostril because it controls our left hemisphere, which connects with our emotion from the ājñā cakra. The right nostril controls the right hemisphere. After completing the left nostril breathing exercise, we do it with the right. You have to read the book called Hidden Powers in Humans. Nāḍī Śodhana involves inhalation and exhalation, as we did yesterday. This technique must be practiced for a minimum of three months, twice a day, for at least half an hour in one sitting. Inhale and exhale using three levels of breathing: abdominal, diaphragmatic, and chest. Whoever breathes a short breath through the chest has a short life. Whoever breathes from the diaphragm has a medium life, but whoever has a long breath has a long life, slowly, like a crocodile or a turtle. We breathe quickly due to a lack of oxygen. Prāṇa-vyāyām is exercise for gaining more oxygen in the body. Our memory, immunity, and the functions of different organs all depend on healthy oxygen. Then comes Anuloma Viloma: inhalation through the left, exhalation through the right. After 20 or 25 times, then inhale through the right, exhale through the left. The left nostril is responsible for our emotion, which belongs to the mind, maṅka devatā. The principle of the mind is the moon, which changes constantly. Similarly, our thoughts, mind, decisions, emotions, and feelings are constantly changing. To balance our thoughts, emotions, and clarity, it is very important to control Iḍā Nāḍī, which is from the left side. Intellect is controlled by Piṅgalā Nāḍī, the right nostril, which belongs to the sun. That is our intellect, knowledge, activities, temperament, and creativity. Meditation comes when both hemispheres are balanced. We activate both hemispheres, emotion and intellect, and then create a balance through the second step of prāṇāyāma, called Anuloma Viloma. Inhale through the right or left, exhale through the opposite; this is one round. This creates balance, helping you to have good concentration, alertness, self-confidence, and sharp memory. Anuloma Viloma supplies much oxygen to the body, blood, brain, and all other systems, strengthening immunity. You will have no allergic diseases, and infections will not attack you easily because of the immunity built through prāṇāyāma. These are nine-month exercises: first through one nostril, then from one to the other, and then both sides—three months each. After nine months, you will look in the mirror and see your skin, the color of your face, and your eyes becoming so beautiful again. You are already very beautiful, but it will be more beautiful, with very healthy skin. You will not need too many creams. The whole body, the skin, everything. Yes, we will be old, but still, prāṇāyāma will make your skin very soft, gentle, and smooth. After nine months of practice, you come to Kumbhak, the retention of the breath with correct ratios. Inhale while counting 1, 2, 3. Exhale to 6. The ratio is 1 to 2. Inhalation is quicker; exhalation is slow. This trains your diaphragm and lungs, purifies your respiratory system, and gives you very clear consciousness. Then comes the inner Kumbhak. Practice only inner Kumbhak, higher Kumbhak, for three months. Before that, you are doing only the inhalation and exhalation ratios. In the beginning, if you do it incorrectly, you will harm your health and body. For example, if I inhale for five counts and exhale slowly for ten, after five or six rounds, I will be sweating. That means I am doing it wrong. When you do breath exercise, prāṇāyāma, there should be no sweating. If you begin to sweat, it is the wrong technique; you are giving too much strength to your lungs and heart. Your heartbeat should not increase. The complete prāṇāyāma course, if you want to do it fully, is a three-year or five-year course, which I have completed. After five years, you can go in a swimming pool, dive, and sit inside for a minimum of five minutes. Then we will see some bubbles come to the surface from exhalation. Prāṇa is not oxygen, and it is very hard to translate. There is no word in the English language for prāṇa. There is also no word to translate nāḍīs. Nāḍīs are not nerves; they are not just nerves. They include all different channels, arteries, veins, and nerves together. Nāḍīs are fine, subtle channels outside of the body that lead cosmic light into the body. They connect our nerve systems and channels everywhere liquid flows, purifying them. That is why it is called Nāḍī-śodhana; it reduces toxins from the body. So, the sequence is: āsana, prāṇāyāma, then comes pratyāhāra. Pratyāhāra means learning to withdraw your senses from the external world. Those whose senses are not protected or controlled, and who have not mastered pratyāhāra, cannot sleep. They cannot endure outside disturbances. You are sleeping, and your neighbor is snoring; you can't sleep. But those who have practiced pratyāhāra are happy when the neighbor is snoring. I am happy that this person is sleeping so deeply and well. How nice. Now I will concentrate on his or her breath and breathe with them. Once, a lady told me that her husband snores so much. I asked, "Can you sleep?" She said, "Yes. When he begins to snore, I concentrate on his breath. I breathe also deep and relaxed, and suddenly I sleep. I don't hear him." I said, "You practice good pratyāhāra." This is self-control. With pratyāhāra, you can control your senses: sound, smell, light, thoughts, different problems. There is a story: One man went to meditate. Before going, he told his daughter-in-law, "Someone is coming at 10 o'clock to meet me. I have a meeting, but I am a little bit late. Tell him that I'm meditating, and after 10:30 I will meet him." He went to his meditation room. At five to ten, the bell rang. The young lady opened the door. A man came and said, "I want to meet your father-in-law. Is he at home?" She said, "No, he went for shopping shoes." The father-in-law was meditating. She lied; he had told her to say he was meditating. And now she said, "He went for shopping." She said, "Please sit down. Would you like to have some drink?" and so on. "He will be here at 10:30." At 10:30, he came from his meditation, had the meeting, and then asked his daughter, "My daughter, why did you lie? I told you that I'm meditating, and you said I was shopping." She said, "Yes, my father, I know, but I couldn't lie." "Why couldn't you?" "Your body was there, but you were thinking to buy shoes." His mouth and eyes remained open. "That's true, but how did you know this? What kind of yoga are you practicing?" And what did she answer? "I practice yoga in daily life." So, pratyāhāra is withdrawing your senses from external objects. That is the first step of meditation to develop the power of meditation. Then comes dhāraṇā. Dhāraṇā means concentration. How much concentration you have, only you know. How long can you concentrate? I have one exercise for you to find out how strong your concentration is. Stand up and put your hands sidewards. Stretch your hands sidewards, palms facing the ground. Put one leg on the thigh, support on the thigh, or just put it above the knee on the thigh. Look at a point, like my microphone. This is a concentration point. Do not look here and there, or you will lose stability. Stretch your wings to balance the turbulence. You have beautiful concentration. Now, I would like to check your concentration. You will check yourself. Remain like this, motionless. Close your eyes. Thank you. Now, maybe with the other leg is better. Change the leg. This time, do hands up for more balance. Gently close your eyes. You have to be stabilized. Close your eyes. Don't dance. That's it. Thank you. Sit down. So, this is what concentration means. It is not easy to concentrate. It takes a long, long time to develop concentration. That is what we call tratāk—a very good practice of looking at a candle flame, then closing your eyes and seeing the flame inside. How long you can keep that flame depends on your concentration, or how long you can remain thinking of one thing. If you think of one thing, let's say you think of Mahāprabhujī, and suddenly Swāmījī comes, then you say, "No, Swāmījī, I want to think only of Mahāprabhujī, only of Mā Prabhujī." When you said, "only Mā Prabhujī," it means you already have other thoughts. We have to become one-pointed concentration, like rope dancing. The person who can dance or walk on the rope has balance and concentration, so as not to lose balance. Walking on the rope needs long practice. You can learn, but do not try to walk on the rope on hard ground. Hang your rope over a swimming pool, so if you fall down, you fall in the water. Similarly, your concentration is like this. Or practice like Indian village ladies. The village lady had a water pot on her head, and her friends also had water pots on their heads. They are talking, but the water pot is still there; it does not fall down. When we put it and look a little bit, it falls down. So, concentration—after dhāraṇā, then comes dhyāna, meditation. Through concentration, you adopt dhyāna from dhāraṇā. So, the sequence is: pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna. Dhyāna means oneness. You are one with it. Take care that nothing comes between. When your child goes to school, Hindi parents say, "Betā, yā betī, dhyān rakhna. Dhyān se sadaq par karnā." Child, take care. Be careful. Cross the road very carefully, so dhyāna means nothing comes between. Take care. If your dhāraṇā śakti and pratyāhāra śakti are both strong—withdrawing yourself from the external world and remaining on one point—then your meditation will develop. That is called the power of meditation. How to develop it? Have only one aim. Meditation then leads to samādhi. Samādhi means where three becomes one; three merges into oneness. Which three? The first is yourself, the knower. The third is the knowledge. Someone is talking there too. And what you would like to know, so the knower, the knowledge, and the object—so we are the knower between the object and us. What we want to know is knowledge. Our navigator leads us directly there, and now we are at our destination. That is self-realization. So, three becomes one. There is no number, no knowledge, no object, but there is only oneness. All three merge into oneness. That is the highest consciousness, samādhi. Samādhi has different definitions. Patañjali says sabīja samādhi and nirbīja samādhi. Sabīja samādhi means you are under the highest consciousness level, but still there are vṛttis; the seeds are there. Bīja means seed. Nirbīja samādhi is seedless; there are no more thoughts, no karmas. You are above all this. You are just living. You are doing the things which your body needs, that's all. But you are above this. You are doing, but you are not doing. You are not doing, but you are doing. It is oneness. That power of meditation leads you to that level of consciousness. This is called the eightfold of yoga, or aṣṭāṅga yoga, or the eight levels of yoga, or integral yoga, put together by the great sage Patañjali: āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna, and what one is missing? Yes, yama and niyama are missing. My God, I said the eighth. Before pratyāhāra, yama and niyama. Yama means you control your senses from the outer world to bring them in. Niyama means you observe your senses so that they do not run with their own will outside. These are ethical principles. In this ethic, Niyama includes Ahiṃsā (non-violence), Satya (truth), Aparigraha (not to collect). There are ten points. Many of them are described or written in the Bible as the Ten Commandments. So, the eight limbs are: yama, niyama, āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, dhāraṇā, dhyāna, and samādhi. These are the Aṣṭāṅga, the eighth part of yoga, which leads to that power of your meditation. And of course, the core of all this is your Mantra. Mantra Mantrāpti. When you are thirsty and you drink water, then you say, "Now my thirst is quenched. I am satisfied." Similarly, the mind has so many desires running here and there, but through the mantra, all is fulfilled. The second definition of mantra: "mantra"—"man" means mind, and "tra" is liberation. It is the liberated mind from all these vāsanās. Another one: mantra means that your mind adopts one name of the Supreme God in the form of some sentences. Because in reality, it is your words, what you pronounce. If you tell someone, "Hey, stupid one," he will be angry. If you tell someone, "Dear sir, my God," he will be happy. Same tongue, same mouth, same prāṇa, same energy coming out, but how do you formulate the sound? How do you tune that? The mantra is that energy tuned—the cosmic energy, the subtle energy. All from these different principles come in your favor in a positive way, and that is why the mantra is so important. Patañjali says already in the Samādhi Pāda, Īśvara Praṇidhāna. Finally, the yogī has to surrender to Īśvara, to God, repeating His name constantly. Finally, when a yogī achieves that highest level of consciousness, then he or she has two techniques to do continuously. First, Īśvara Praṇidhāna—surrender completely in devotion. Second, the god's name is your mantra. If you do not do this, your ego comes: "Oh, I know everything now. I know all. I can practice. I have a higher level of consciousness. I don't need a mantra. I don't need a Guru." This is your distraction. You began, but you are not going upwards; now you are going downward. Therefore, be ready that any time there can be an attack from the āśvarī śaktas, śaktīs, and suddenly you lose your confidence. You should read Patañjali's Yogasūtra. I think there are some available in English bookstores. You must read one book from Śaṅkarācārya called Vivekacūḍāmaṇi. Beautiful, beautiful. And read all four books of Swami Vivekānanda: Jñāna Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Rāja Yoga. There you will also come to know what is the power of meditation. And Īśvara Praṇidhāna, Guru Sevā, Guru Vakya, and Guru Kṛpā. Read Līlā Amṛt, which you have; our Gurujī wrote it. Read some authentic books. Not a neutral book's. Only come to me, follow me. I am this, I can give you this. Who are you that you can give this? I will try to help you. Those are wise words. Even a perfect doctor, professor, or a surgeon will not tell you, "Okay, I will make you healthy, and you will live." He will say, "I will try. I will do something. Let's try. So, let's try that we work together, and we will do something." This is the way to come to the deep levels of prāṇāyāma and meditation systematically, and that is what you have in Yoga and Daily Life. That is why we call the system "Yoga and Daily Life"—the system. Very comfortable, very beautiful, and very easy. Everyone can practice and utilize it.