Commentaries around
“Bhakti Dhyānam uses Japa to build a bridge,
over the fear bringing streams of the mind.”
– Paul Harvey on Yoga Sūtra Chapter One verse 28
“There are essentially three causes for fear….
desire, disease and death.”
– T Krishnamacharya on Yoga Sūtra Chapter Two verse 9
“Yoga is about looking inwards,
at what we fear most.
Rather than looking outwards,
at what we desire most.”
– Paul Harvey on Yoga Sūtra Chapter Two verse 9
“Fear and Insecurity feed on the leftovers
from the meals of past experiences.”
– Paul Harvey on Yoga Sūtra Chapter Two verse 9
“We can build
bridges of fear,
or we can build
bridges over fear.
The choice is ours.”
– Paul Harvey on Yoga Sūtra Chapter Two verse 9
“A person who is physically fit and
who has been cleansed by the Agni of Dhyānam
has no fear of sickness, disease, age or death.”
– T Krishnamacharya on Yoga Sūtra Chapter Three verse 2
“Attachment comes through pleasure. There’s nothing wrong with pleasure, but when we no longer have what gave us pleasure, or if there is some threat of losing it, attachment often appears.
Negation is a tendency to resist or reject after something bad has happened. It could be a fact, an idea or whatever, but if we were not comfortable with it, we resist. There is a strong relationship between attachment and negation, like heads and tails of a coin. Strangely, the more we are attached to something the more there is a likelihood to reject it later – when what we were expecting is not forthcoming heads becomes tails!
Fear is a very fundamental emotion which seems to have some special energy that can make it survive on its own. Fear exists independently of objects, they just give it something to fix on, like the wolf in Western fairy tales. There are two types of fear : fear of something, an earthquake, an illness, a wolf etc., and fear of losing something, a job, a loved one, prestige etc.
Fear, negation, attachment and association either alone or together create the conditions for suffering to erupt again and again. Suffering appears, disappears and re-appears forcing us to admit that something is missing and this pushes us to seek how to find it.”
– TKV Desikachar from unedited manuscript for ‘What are We Seeking?’
“Holding the body steady, with the three upper parts erect,
causing the senses and the mind to enter the heart,
the wise person should cross by the boat of Mantra,
all the fear bringing streams of the mind.”
– Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad Chapter 2 verse 8
– 108 Chanting Practice Pointers
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