Yoga Sutras

[Questioner]

Dear Mukunda, Could you give me some insights into Yoga Sutras I 17, reflections into bliss and inquiry into one's purity? These are foreign territory to me. I have a handle on analytical thinking and somewhat on meditative insights on thoughts, but unclear about these last two. from j

[Mukunda]

This sutra is a reflection coming out of previous sutras on nonattachment. What one detaches from is the concept of experiencing yourself as vacillations. Anything that changes cannot be the True Self. It must be some aspect of personality, which is subject to reactions to thoughts and actions. This sutra talks about the attainment of thorough knowledge which is gained by reflections into your nature as bliss and inquiry into one's essential nature as unchanged purity. Thorough knowledge is that which arises from the Self as pure consciousness, it does not arise from the thinking instrument we call the mind. This type of knowledge is not subject to change, it is of the nature of true contentment gained from just being yourself. Good question, continue thinking about that which is untouched by thoughts.