21 Days of Sutras to Heal Your Soul

Sutras are like threads of wisdom.  I'm beyond excited to start this 21-day Sutras challenge  to kickstart   my Say “Yes” to Life” Well-Being & Yoga Retreat.

I really want everyone attending to get the most from 7 days of yogic well-being immersion in Goa, South India and return home full of joy and renewed possibilities.So, in the spirit of health-expansion and soul nourishment, over the next 21 days I will be sharing short vignettes or words of wisdom from the science of yoga as set out in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali to inspire your well-being and inner curiosity.

Sutras mean threads. Each sutra is a short, concise statement intended to be applied to every day life.

Patanjali is considered to be the “Father of Yoga” because he compiled and organised the already existing ideas and practices of yoga into a system for the expansion of consciousness. His Sutras are the foundation of the various types of yoga and meditations that nourish us today in many diverse forms.

There are 200 sutras and they are general principles and techniques that are universal and not tied to any particular religion or philosophy. Throughout the 21-Day challenge, we’ll explore a variety of ideas and practices that can nourish you and create expanded well-being.

You'll receive in your inbox daily for 21 days, my take on the sutra of the day and what about it inspires me (as translated by Sri Swami Satchidananda). I hope that any wisdom you glean from the Sutras over the 21 days will help you to create greater health, compassion, peace, joy and connection to the universal intelligence.

The principles laid out in the sutras are designed to be experimented with and verified by you through your experience of applying them in your daily life.

I am super excited to kickstart this 21 Days of Sutras For Your Expansion and Well-Being with a Sutra that explains how your mind can remain calm.

Sutra 1:33 By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous and disregard/indifference toward the wicked, the mind remains calm.

This Sutra deals with the relationship with ourselves and others. Each of us has four characteristics within us – happiness, unhappiness, virtue and wickedness. If we are not friendly at all times towards ourselves and others the mind will be disturbed and samadhi (self-realisation) is not possible.

First you must understand what friendliness means to you. So use David Grove's Clean Language questions to ask yourself the following 5 questions:

1. What kind of friendliness could that be... for me?
2. And is there anything else about that friendliness?
3. And where is it?
4. And what needs to happen for me to exude that kind of friendliness?
5. And what will I be seeing and hearing that would let me know that I am that friendliness?

Experiment with the model of friendliness you create by answering the 5 questions. Apply your expression of friendliness to yourself and others. What works well about that friendliness? What doesn't work well? What could you do better or differently? The objective of this experimentation is self-study. So now you know the four keys to a peaceful and serene mind. Next do the same for the other attitudes - compassion, delight and indifference.

You then apply your...
friendliness to the happy
compassion to the unhappy
delight to the virtuous
indifference to the wicked

This inspires me because it reminds me not to let other people's stuff affect me. And to cultivate discernment (not judgement), as Aadil Palkhivala puts it, in your attitude to yourself and others.

If you use the right attitude with the right person you will retain a peaceful mind.