Dear all,
In the mode of sharing (especially for you, Interpaul) on this forum, below is my take on what the Samyama sutras currently mean to me in the results they have brought to my life. I say ‘currently’ because the meaning and perceived results have evolved over the years.
Love = Agape (a spontaneous outpouring of compassion - the Lake of Light pours itself out into the physical world using my body as a vessel. I introduce here the term “Lake of Light” as an analogy where we are all whirlpools in the lake of light)
Radiance = Transfiguration of the physical and mental into Light
Unity = a merging of my inner and outer world until “I” die and only reality is.
Healing = healing of all sentient beings
Inner Strength = for all sentient beings to face the challenges of this physical world
Abundance = Abundance of all the qualities of the other nine words
Inner Sensuality = the ability to see /hear/ smell/feel within
Wisdom = Understanding through direct seeing
Akasha, Lightness of Air = development of Inner Space and becoming un-bounded by gravity; set free
“I” - thought, what am I? = Gaining insight into my true nature
I am not in anyway attached to these meanings and I expect that they will continue to evolve. Gentle reminder that during the practice itself, we are not to attach any meaning to the words.
I invite others to share their journey with Samymama 
Sey 
Sey, Thanks for honoring me with engagement. I continue to see a gradual evolution in the meaning of my sutras. What is most meaningful in the last year is the ability to truly release the word in/from my head. I didn’t realize how profound that simple mental task is and how fundamental it is to the practice. This truly is one of the most subtle of the practices and most profound. An area that requires letting go on a level which changes our relationship with our thinking mind.
Agree wholeheartedly. Simplicity and Surrender.
I had imagined that the practice of samyama had refined as much as it had room to for me, only to discover - not so. I believe it was triggered by a recent post by someone (sorry can’t recall who and I can’t find the post) where Yogani’s emphasis on resting your attention on the sutra for a split second. I started really paying attention to this, leading to gaining meaningful insight to the beauty of this practice. When I start the practice, I am already in empty clarity. Mind is still. Casting in a sutra causes a ripple in the mind that automatically wants to draw ‘you’ in i.e. Awareness is set into motion as mind; sucking Awareness into mind. A thought is sticky. Not easy to let go off it. The skill being learned, I believe, is to let mind move /do its thing without letting it drag Awareness with it. Awareness remains still and dissociated from the moving mind. Mind moves, ‘you’ remain… still.
In that way, ‘you’ learned to let life do its thing (perception & experience in constant flux) while you are still.
Sey
Sey, unbelievable you put this into words, I seem to be here, now. I have been watching in DM how thoughts tip-toe in and out. Sometimes it is guru and others intent to distract from the mantra. I have learned to do nothing but return to the mantra. After all, thought is no thing.
How does this lead to the sutra manifesting in your life? Why do we call Samyama the purest form of prayer? I propose - a sutra is a single, short thought that you drop and pick up from the empty, still field of “things yet to be” (potentiality). It moves mind into life - one simple clear vibration that moves from Nothingness…becoming… to Is-ness.
Sey
Sey, On a rational level I can’t imagine it having any value at all. The practice however has opened me up to the subtle realm. In my prior explorations into self hypnosis I became familiar with my subconscious mind. I believe samyama functions from similar territory. If there is a space in which unmanifest becomes manifest, a territory of spirit, it is there.
This resonates, as does a sutra, swallowed in silence.
On a rational level, I agree with you, expect the nine words listed above have become a reality for me, un-deniably. I have also logically tried to attribute them to the other practices - SBP, DM etc?. But I can?t conclusively say - the sutras had nothing to do with it.
Sey
I had a “revelation” about samyama last night. Samyama is the practice that allows Inner Silence to permeate our daily life. Else, we would be sitting in the eighth chakra or even higher, well above our turbulent minds and this physical world and we would be un-touched by the world and its shenanigans. We may perceive this as “being spiritual” But that is only half of the equation, says Yogani. We need to bring it all back down to the physical world (the heart) and operate from here in an outpouring of divine love and service to others.
This realization came to me as I sat in the higher chakras yesterday, blissed out, and watching the swirling of mind.
Sey
There appears to be two ways to disentangle Awareness from mind - move above and gain higher clarity (although, I would argue you are still ‘in Mind’ there but just less turbulence and stickiness (less gravitational pull??)) or disentangle from wherever you are by releasing thoughts and attachment and judgement (state of dispassion)
I may be talking nonsense here (building wrong concepts).
Sey
Dear Sey, it’s interesting to see your thoughts on the samyama practice, and it’s also wonderful to see that a discussion on these topics can lead to a deepening (rather than a distraction from) the practice.
I actually have never thought much about the meaning of the sutras, except for “Akasha - Lightness of air”. Already the fact that Yogani chose Akasha, rather than Inner Space, but at same time emphasized that we can translate sutras to our own language and that Inner Space would have been just as good, made this one stick out. Not to mention that this is also the sutra that we are invited to repeat for 5 minutes, with people reporting jumping, sensations of floating, and of course Yogani’s teasing with levitation. So there seems to be a certain sense of importance and mystery that Yogani wanted to instill for this particular sutra.
I haven’t thought much about the other sutras because I thought it would be make it even harder to let go of them immediately.
Currently I don’t see any evidence that particular sutras have had specific effects in my life, or short term, such as floating sensations during the Akasha sutra. The samyama practice in general certainly makes the ability to act from and release into stillness feel more and more like a normal mode of operation rather than something that needs a lot of effort. But then I guess this ability could be also practiced with any type of thought, rather than just these particular sutras.
Regarding the specific meanings of the sutras, I find it plausible that subliminal messages or affirmations have some psychological effect, and that samyama is likely an effective way of getting these affirmations deep into the subconscious. Thus dropping positive affirmations into the subconscious mind twice a day might have some additional effect on top of just training the ourselves to act from and release into stillness.
“Regarding the specific meanings of the sutras, I find it plausible that subliminal messages or affirmations have some psychological effect, and that samyama is likely an effective way of getting these affirmations deep into the subconscious. Thus dropping positive affirmations into the subconscious mind twice a day might have some additional effect on top of just training the ourselves to act from and release into stillness”
Tensor, As I noted in my response back in December I definitely experience samyama in this way. It is very similar to the release that comes with hypnosis, that is the willingness one places on surrendering to the process without any clinging. It is a subtle shift when one truly releases the sutra into stillness. This is why I’ve always felt this is one of the most subtle yet powerful practices as it can’t be understood by dissecting it intellectually. It is nearly the exact opposite, surrender to the process without any control. I believe this is a process just like returning to the mantra in DM that shapes our very way of engaging in the world. We program our expectations of the outcomes with the pre-work of giving meaning to the sutra. I believe this is why Yogani cautions against doing any conscious processing of meaning during the releasing of the sutra.
This is what I believe, as well as being open to the expansion of felt silence in the very ritual itself.
Instead of starting yet another thread on Samyama, I thought I would add the recent thoughts I have been having here.
Aside from the regular 9 or 10 sutras we are automatically dropping in Samyama without further thought, with results becoming evident over years, there are times when we would wish to achieve a specific result in the short-term e.g. health for someone sickly. The common AYP practice would be to drop that person’s name in stillness during samyama. However, I find this very uncertain - the person may or may not get well and if the person does get well, you have no proof that it had anything to do with your samyama.
Worst, when in empty clarity, all is good. “You” have no preference, so even an intention is barely there. Surrendering a person’s name with intent for good health feels weak (and you have no preference) - why don’t we speak words with power instead? “Heal!”
Your whole will is behind words of power. It’s a decree. Like Jesus did - “get up and walk!” and (with luck? 
) the results are immediate. I can feel the power but I have no will (of my own) to exert it - so, it’s always a surrender, with no attachment to results, never knowing if it ever comes to a successful conclusion or even if it does, if “you” ever had any part in it.
My point here is - why not use power? And I know many Churches do, in the name of Jesus, whether successful or not, is another matter.
Sey 
Hello Sey
I have no answers for you…but definitely understand what you are saying
it is one of those many paradoxes in spiritual matters
I can’t speak from my own experience, but from my understanding of the AYP writings, the answer might be that using “words of power” is less powerful than samyama unless one is already at the discrimination milestone or beyond.
Also, the powerful intention is not necessarily absent in samyama. I think the trick is supposed to be to have the inactive seed of a strong intention to heal readily waiting during samyama by preparing this intention outside of practice. The name of the person picked up and released/surrendered during samyama then activates this seed very close to stillness, which then supposedly amplifies the effect. This is explained here.
I have started to notice immediate experiential effects brought about by certain sutras during samyama practice. These effects have quite distinct qualities and have become more clearly distinguishable and reproducible over the last months (and I suspect they will keep changing gradually). So, I’m no longer skeptical about the possibility of very specific and intense subjective experiences arising from very subtle causes during samyama.
However, I certainly also would like to see some demonstration of the power of samyama to affect the world outside of my own body/mind. And I also agree with you that during samyama there is a sense in which “all is good”, because the word barely exists and so there is barely any preference about its condition. So the sitting practice samyama state seems to be an odd choice for attempting to affect the physical world.
Hi All,
There are a couple of ways we can think about samyama that might help bring some clarity to what we are doing with it.
First, we can think about samyama as being like a bow and arrow, with the arrow being the sutra, and the pulled back bow being like the potential of abiding inner silence. Once the bow is pulled back and the arrow is easily resting on the string, what do we have to do? Just let it go, right? Then the arrow flies with great force, even though nothing was moving right before. This is what samyama is like. We may choose to throw the arrow (sutra) with some external force, but can it ever duplicate the force of the bow? Not likely. On the other hand, if we are emotionally invested in a particular intention, like helping a friend or family member to heal, there is nothing wrong with letting that feeling go in stillness, where it can find much greater power than it could by being projected outwardly. Here we get back to the terms “relational” and “non-relational,” which we have used in the discussions on self-inquiry, with relational being released in stillness, and non-relational being projected outward in mind only.
There is another way of looking at samyama, when it becomes a full time experience, with all perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and actions occurring and moving in stillness. It is becoming a way of life as we come into that state of being, where everything we see and do is permeated with abiding inner silence, This is the result of the practice we do in our daily sittings, an awakening in our daily life. Then everything is imbued with the bow and arrow effect, released with power and divine purpose from within stillness, or “stillness in action,” as we have called it. Living in this way is similar to nuclear fission, where the natural proximity of everything we see and do with abiding inner silence is amplified as a continuous reaction between outer and inner life, releasing great energy and divine purpose from within. It becomes more than sutras released in stillness, the bows and arrows. It becomes an ongoing flow (reaction) of daily life released in stillness, which is freedom and the power to uplift everyone and everything in our surroundings.
Well, these are just a couple of analogies to help understand the dynamics between the release of sutras, and eventually all of life, in abiding inner silence. The analogies are just analogies, but the dynamics of samyama practice and its ultimate results in daily life are real. So let’s keep practicing, and sharing the fruit. This is not a passive situation. Those who continually move in stillness may be seen as being very active in the world.
The guru is in you.