Yoga is the Illumination of an Ignorant Mind

Ignorance, Egoism, Attachment, Hatred, and clinging to bodily life are the five obstacles (book two, sutra 3)

The sutra above lists the five obstacles that come in the way of a person achieving Samadhi. Samadhi is the state of true concentration and is when the person transcends the limits of their body, mind, and self. The five obstacles are things we face in everyday life and hold us back from achieving our goals, not only the goal of Samadhi but all goals in general.

Ignorance is bliss is a popular saying throughout the world. Ignorance is not bliss, not knowing something doesn't mean it doesn't affect your life without you knowing, knowledge is bliss. Sometimes it is better to be aware of something such as an illness so you can start treatment. Some may say that they would not want to know if they had a disease so their lives will continue on as if nothing is happening. Sure, you may seem happy but you may feel nauseous all of the time and not want to do the things that bring you joy. My mother is a cancer survivor and when she received the news she was unhappy but after the long journey she was glad to know the truth. If she never went to the doctor and stayed ignorant she would not be here today. Patanjali explains ignorance as either regarding the self or the non-self. The self is the one that doesn’t change. The body is the nonself and this is the obstacle of ignorance. In my mom’s case her self did not have the disease but her non-self or body did. “Yoga is practiced to dispel ignorance” (page 88), the book says that yoga is not for someone ignorant or for someone all-knowing because the only all-knowing is all mighty and humans can never be all mighty, unless they are god.

In Sutra 6 Patanjali says “the ego is the reflection of the true self on the mind” (page 89). If a person is ignorant their ego will always falsely represent the self. It makes sense if you think about it. If a person is ignorant, the way they view themselves will be in an ignorant light. The practices of yoga are to remove the egoism since egoism forms attachment. The brain forms an attachment to anything that brings it pleasure or happiness. Since the mind is preoccupied with possessions that cause it pleasure, the egoism causes people to lose their focus to the Divine Being. Egoism is one of the most treacherous forms of ignorance because people place themselves above others and view themselves as all mighty.  Ignorance is the root of egoism and each of the obstacles build off one another.

Attachment is an obstacle based off of egoism. Like stated above, the brain becomes attached to whatever gives it a sense of pleasure. Swami Satchidananda says “we become attached to things that cause us pleasure because we expect happiness from them, we forget that happiness is always in our true Self” (page 90). As humans we always want whatever makes us happy and sometimes what make us happy aren’t the greatest thing for us such as drugs and various forms of addiction. In the book it states that happiness is already inside of us, nobody can cause us happiness or unhappiness; just reflect our own (page 91).  This relates back to ignorance, we are ignorant if we believe that things we are attached to can bring us happiness. The only thing that can cause us to be happy is our own Self. We don’t need fancy jewelry or designer clothes to be happy, we just need our self. The fancy jewels are trendy clothes just reflect egoism and ignorance. We as humans get selfishness attached to the material items on earth, so being non-attached helps us reach enlightenment.

Many fear death because they are ignorant of their true self and are attached to their human body. By clinging we are just making ourselves miserable. Our souls are not our body and many are ignorant to their spirituality by thinking our body is more than just a temporary home for our souls. This is a big obstacle because Avidya hides out true self and stop us realizing our souls; if you cannot realize your true Self then you have not overcome the obstacles above. The good news is that all of the obstacles can be destroyed through mediation.

Overcoming these obstacles is a challenging task. As humans we get distracted by many things around us and want to do whatever makes us happy. We have to realize the only way we can make ourselves happy is through ourselves. As individuals we need to gain knowledge because knowledge is bliss in the long run because it puts us in the state of enlightenment. We can fall into the trap of the obstacles by being ignorant so if we are knowledgeable we can reach a state of enlightenment.  Yes, it can be a long journey but once we reach Samadhi it is all worth it.