The Avatar narrates an example from His own Divine Life to explain the topic of altered states of consciousness, literally giving us “immunity against ignorance".
“Please understand the today sutra is pain vaccination, fear vaccination, greed vaccination; vaccination against maya, immunity against ignorance. I’ll expand on this sutra for next three days because Patanjali is very beautifully putting, how the altered states of consciousness plays a major role in what you think as life and what you live as life. I’ll explain only one part of this sutra today. The technical term is, 'awasthaa parinamaha' means; the space where the altered states of awareness disappears. You need to achieve a space where altered states of awareness disappears. In the last four sutra, Patanjali has explained through different methods and techniques. Nirodha parinama, samadhi parinama, ekakritha parinama, different space. Now Patanjali is entering into a very deep state. How the altered states of consciousness, altered states of awareness, pulls and pushes your life and creates intense suffering. I know one disciple; Raghupati Yogi’s (The Avatar’s Yoga Guru, photographed below disciple.
He was having deep depression. Naturally when the depression comes, first thing happens is a strong hatred towards the master; because which way you will direct your depression. He is the guy who is sitting in the throne, shining, which you always wanted but never get. Unconsciously taking revenge so all the anger turns towards the master. This guy came with so much of anger and said," all your yoga is waste, all your exercise is waste, all your teachings are waste. There is so much depression”. And he started abusing Raghupati Yogi. He is married and had many kids, 14 kids. And he said, “What kind of yogi you are? You don’t know anything about yoga”. I have seen Raghupati Yogi is a very different kind of a person. He just picked up a small root of a plant which was there. He did not give much advice and all that. I tried to give them counselling and give them understanding so that they evolve and stay in that state. All he did is he told them, told this that guy just bite this root. That fellow bit that root and sucked the juice for few seconds. Immediately I can see his state of awareness has changed. All his ideas have disappeared. Anger, depression, hatred towards the master, everything disappeared. And now he is like a baby. “Oh I was wrong. I should have been little more intelligent before uttering all those words to you”. I have seen, when the states of awareness gets altered suddenly all your understanding about life changes. Suddenly now everything looks green, alive, bright. Never believe human beings. When they fall, don’t think they are going to touch your feet and be relaxed. Be aware any moment they will pull it. Poor fellows, because they are not under their control, unless you make human beings immune to pain and suffering by giving this maya vaccination, you can’t have evolved civilisation. See every day the barbaric acts, killings happening. But these officials are too busy with arresting Swamis and so much of crime is happening. They don’t bother about the real crime. They are too busy in going after Swami who is sitting and teaching spirituality, meditation, silence, peace. The broad view about the life is not there. First catch somebody who is ignorant then try to prove. Just because you caught, now you need to prove your ideas, your actions are right; justifying. Understand, the altered states of awareness is responsible for all the sufferings you have in your life, all the misunderstandings you have in your life. Understand the other states of awareness like a dream and deep sleep also is part of you and expand your planning about life. If you are too oriented only on waking state, you will have heavy dreams and completely disturbed sleep. I’ll take you layer by layer in this sutra. How Patanjali describes elements, sense organs, then natural characteristics, the cosmic flow, conditions, time, all these five makes your states of awareness different.”
Read further: https://nithyanandapedia.org/wiki/February_16_2011
