66. Powers and Obstacles in Yoga🔗

This sutra was the favourite sutra of my own teacher, Yogi Yogananda Puri. He would continuously repeat this one sutra. For anybody who comes with any problem, from knee pain to some experiences of Samadhi, he had a standard answer. He would say, abhyāsavairāgyābhyāṁ tannirodhaḥ. Sometimes they would talk about the problem and say, 'We know your answer; you don't have to answer, we just want to tell you our problem, that's all!'

Means, this sutra is the ultimate solution for all the problems and obstacles you face on the path of Yoga.

It is very easy to start the path of Yoga, because it is very inviting. But when you start working on your inner space, you will face so many enemies. So many enemies! I am not talking about the enemies of the outer world. I am talking about the enemies of the inner world.

Patanjali goes to the extreme of saying that even extraordinary powers are obstacles on the path. He explains the whole science. I myself have seen my teacher, Yogi Yogananda Puri, expressing different kinds of powers. As I told you, just through sound, he would play in whatever way he wanted. He also knew how to create a kind of a sound which would get converted into a smell! Just through sound, he would create a smell, and all the snakes in that area will start crawling around him.

He had extraordinary powers, but he lived a very ordinary life as a householder, with fourteen kids, like a typical Indian villager of those times!

Sometimes, I used to ask him, when I saw him expressing these kinds of powers, ‘Why don’t you express these powers in front of more people? You will have a big following.’

He would just laugh and say, ‘The biggest miracle is producing a few enlightened people! If I do that job, I am done; not with these small miracles and small powers.’

In the same way, Patanjali explains all the powers beautifully, but he says very clearly that even these things are obstacles, even these things are obstacles.