26 – The Greatest Bliss is Desirelessness | Patanjali Yoga Sutras | Swami Tattwamayananda - a podcast by Vedanta Society, San Francisco

Lecture by Swami Tattwamayananda. The lecture begins with the second topic of Sadhanapada: Duhkha-Caturvyuha. It goes into detail about the nature of suffering. By evolving a higher sense of suffering, we evolve spiritually. At first, we suffer from Samsara-Duhkha, the results of our evil tendencies accumulated from previous lives, and Tapa-Duhkha, the constant fluctuation of the mental system. Parinama Duhkha is the sense that even while surrounded by wealth, friends, and happy situations, they will not last for long. It is related to Atha, the state of being ready for Yoga. Vyasa says the bliss of higher spiritual consciousness is still at most one-sixteenth of the bliss of desirelessness. Though we cannot practice that now, Patanjali helps us to recognize the causes of our obsessive desires. The realization itself reduces the intensity of the problem. Verses: II.15, II.16, II.17, I.1

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