Tatt Tvamm Asi

Summary of the human life: we want happiness but get it sporadically, we do not want suffering but it arrives often.

Is happiness only the absence of suffering or suffering is only the absence of happiness?

Two sides of the same coin.

The Yoga Sutras focus the least on the asanas (poses). After all, the body is just a medium, necessary to be kept healthy but eventually will deteriorate.
Yoga is about mastering the mind, not just the splits!

Bhagavad Gita goes even deeper into: Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga and Karma Yoga.

Yoga's true aim? Control of the mighty mind not just pretzel poses:

योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः ॥ १.२ ॥

yogaścittavṛttinirodhaḥ || 1.2 ||

Yoga is the suppression/control of the modifications/fluctuations of the mind.
- Patanjali Yoga Sutras (1.2)

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Image credit: Gemma Correll

“Why would absolute reality want freedom? Freedom from what? There is only one reality. You are that one reality right now. What freedom are you seeking and from what?”

~ Swami Sarvapriyananda, Vedanta Society of New York

Spiritually: it's the "monkey mind" leaping branch to branch, very rapidly. Awareness is focused only in one moment; true presence demands focus.

Single-task for deeper flow & peace 🙏🏾

Does multitasking really exist? Are you a proud multitasker?

From neuroscience perspective: No multitasking doesn’t exist, our brain's prefrontal cortex handles tasks sequentially, with "switching costs" causing errors & fatigue. It's rapid pivoting, not true parallelism.
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Remember always: Why to worry, why feel anxious. All is well...the mind can also go where we direct it, not always the other way around.

As the great sage Patanjali wrote in the Yoga Sutras (II.33):

वितर्कबाधने प्रतिपक्षभावनम् ॥ २.३३ ॥

vitarkabādhane pratipakṣabhāvanam || 2.33 ||

When the mind is inhibited by negative thoughts, the opposites should be thought of.

👆 If the above sounds like CBT, perhaps it is. 🙏🏾
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While the mind resists change at first, consistent effort can rewire it over time (the samskaras). This means you have the power to shape your mental patterns consciously.
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Neuroscience meets Spirituality:

Neuroplasticity empirically validates what ancient Indian wisdom has been teaching for millennia: the mind functions like a strong, inertial feedback system. Whatever you feed it, it amplifies and reproduces, creating a cycle of reinforcement.
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…. the author Holt tries to do a detective investigation of this question at the intersection of philosophy and cosmology. “Why is there something rather than nothing?”, from philosophical arguments to many worlds hypothesis to mathematical laws pre-existing matter…. A very interesting read!
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Interesting book: “Why does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story” by Jim Holt.
From Leibniz posing such a question to Roger Penrose, John Updike, David Deutsch, Adolf Grünbaum, John Leslie, Derek Parfit, Richard Swinburne, Steven Weinberg, Andrei Linde,…. 1/2

Are there truly any “original thinkers” or is it the nature that is the one and only original thinker? We often feel proud and feed our fragile egos thinking “wow that’s my original idea”, but is it really so?

As Swami Vivekananda said in his lectures on Karma Yoga:

The entire causal chain of suffering:

Avidyā -> Asmitā -> Rāga, Dveśa -> Abhiniveśa

- Avidyā: ignorance, misapprehension about the real nature of things

- ⁠Asmitā: egoism

- ⁠Rāga: attachment

- ⁠Dveśa: aversion

- ⁠Abhiniveśa: fear of death

Yoga Sutras

The Tragedy of Skill in the Chakravyuha of Modern Life Over-credentialed yet Under-equipped

Article link: tatttvammasi.substack.com/p/the-traged...

We are over-credentialed yet under-equipped, modern Abhimanyus trapped in life’s Chakravyuha.

My new essay draws from the Mahabharata to uncover why modern minds break under pressure, and how ancient Indian wisdom shows a way out.

Osho: Truth is not something outside to be discovered, it is something inside to be realized.

Karma is the entire cause and effect, every word we say, every breath we take, walking, sleeping, doing or not doing anything, it’s all Karma….
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Swami Vivekananda (Karma Yoga): “Every mental and physical blow that is given to the soul, by which, as it were, fire is struck from it, and by which it’s own power and knowledge are discovered, is Karma”
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प्रियवाक्यप्रदानेन सर्वे तुष्यन्ति जन्तवः।

तस्मात्तदेव वक्तव्यं वचने का दरिद्रता॥

All living beings are satisfied by speaking pleasant words. Therefore, only such (pleasant words) should be spoken. Why be stingy in speech?

~Chanakya Neeti Shastra, Ch 16, verse 14(16-14).

How afraid are we in life? Can we get out of fear?

Peace of mind is a luxury, Peace FROM the mind is a necessity

This idea into emptiness (śūnyatā) is central to Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, focusing that all phenomena are interdependent and lack any intrinsic, permanent nature.
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However, all of these fail to capture reality because they presuppose inherent existence.

Nāgārjuna argued that reality is ultimately empty of inherent essence and arises through Dependent Origination, where all phenomena exist in dependence on causes and conditions.
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The brilliant Indian Buddhist philosopher used the Catuskoti (four-fold negation) to reveal the limitations of conceptual thinking, to cut through any concept of capturing “reality”.

He presented four logical possibilities about reality: existence, non-existence, both, and neither.
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Nāgārjuna’s Sword of Logic:
Is the walker walking?
Or is walking what makes the walker?
And if walker and walking are the same, who’s left to walk at all?

Indian logic & philosophy was playing 4D chess centuries ago!
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“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.”
~Lao Tzu

Anger is a violence towards one "self" before the external world.

The play of Maya: through the prism of space, time, and causality, duality appears.

One of the earliest explorations of the source of consciousness and the mysteries behind perception, first person experience can be found in the Kena Upanishad !!!

1 millennium BCE !!!!