“Spirit vs Matter from a Yoga Sutras Perspective” with Eoin Finn
Enjoy the third video from our Blissology Yoga Sutras course. This is when we are still introducing key concepts and themes in the text. To find out more about this incredible course and the ancient teaching of yoga, check out our online course on teachable.
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Many children have probably asked you questions like: “Where was I before I was born?” or “After you die, where do “you” go?”
The yogis are asking these questions of the Universe itself. We know about the Big Bang 13.8 Billion years ago. But what existed before that? Was there time or anything that existed before the Big Bang?
These answers are beyond my pay scale and probably yours, as well. However, the Yoga Sutras had an answer to that question.
The yogis solved it not through physics equations. They solved it not through sending up NASA space shuttles to measure cosmic microwaves in the background. How did they come to this conclusion? Through an advanced technology.
What is the name of that technology?
Meditation!
That’s right, when you sit down to meditate in the process of YOGA, you are connecting to a source that existed before the Big Bang, you are connected to a “universal consciousness” that existed before you were born of which you are now a vehicle.
What we get in touch with in meditation is a Universal Consciousness. This is what I mean by the blanket term “Spirit”.
Now the Matter Part: Matter is “everything that doesn’t last.” But this Universal Spirit/ Consciousness always lasts. So, there is the “Source of Creation” and “the created.” The Samkhya Yoga terms for this are PURUSHA and PRAKRITI.
Purusha is Spirit/ Universal Consciousness/Source of Creation.
Prakriti is the created, the material + matter.
In a way, God is what we are getting at with the word Purusha but this really is loaded.
“God” in many dictionaries is still defined like: “The creator of the universe, usually male, who judges right and wrong.” This is NOT what they are talking about in the Yoga Sutras when they refer to Purusha.
We tend to put a personality on God like omnipotent, omnipresent and benevolent and judges right and wrong. This takes us in the wrong direction from the meaning of Purusha.
We don’t have a word called Purusha in English. All of these translations I am offering that you will hear in this video are clunky.
Purusha is a source that is “peacefully indifferent.” It is an indifferent force and an energy.
Is electricity benevolent or male or female? In the same way, there is this source from which things come and go and it is indifferent to “you.” That is called Purusha.
As you will see through the text, you have to choose. It’s Spirit or Purusha VERSUS matter or Prakriti. With this stage set, let’s take a deeper dive into this in the coming videos.
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Namaste,
Eoin Finn
