Sutra 1.19: The Comparison Compulsion

Sutra 1.19: bhava-pratyayo videha-prakṛti-layānām ॥19॥

Higher integration results from objective existence for disembodied beings (videhas) and for those merged in nature (prakritilayas). -Ruben Vasquez

Sutra 1.19 escapes my understanding as it speaks of disembodied beings and beings who have become aspects of nature, yet they are still subject to birth and death due to samskaras or residue of remaining bounds that need to be broken by taking on a physical body.

Considering you and I are very much here in our bodies, let us make this sutra relevant in a way that it can serve our spiritual growth. As I hear about Gods, Demi Gods, and the ability to transform into the wind or the rain, there is a part of me that shuts down and goes into the not enough, will never be enough, don’t even want to try to realize my “enough-ness" mode.

This feeling is one we can all relate to, perhaps more so around particular people like your boss or your father or that one yoga teacher or that really hot guy or girl you see at Starbucks every morning or someone else that you have placed high up on a pedestal. Opposing this feeling of “not enough,” is the formidable adversary of the feeling “better than.” It’s quite possibly the reason we place ourselves around other particular people, perform certain yoga postures, or the reason we exaggerate our stories, or why we want more money, more trophies, and more recognition.

Maybe this sutra is more about finding the God within ourselves, so that we can find the God within others without feeling better or worse than, by doing so. Maybe this sutra is calling out the comparison compulsion that is strangling our minds and therefor suffocating our hearts. So whether we can levitate or chant in Sanskrit or we make a million dollars or we are bankrupt does not change the fact that we are holy, divine, and a ray of the light of creation herself.

Tuning directly into our divine station will not happen if all we ever do is listen to everyone else’s station. What other people do and accomplish is not meant to be placed on the scales of our own worthiness ranking, it is meant to inspire us, or to find the spirit inside of us that knows it burns from the very same divine light as theirs. So next time you feel one of those feelings, “better than” or “not enough,” invite them to join you around the campfire and gaze into the light of your very own divinity.

Muchas Gracias dear sisters and brothers,

Our culture gives us so many opportunities to compare and judge others but at the end of the day, it’s just not helpful for anyone. When you notice yourself having thoughts about another, pause and reflect on where those thoughts are actually coming from and choose to explore rather than waste your very precious, limited life moments on being unkind. Very likely those thoughts are coming from a hurt place within you and it’s really just guidance on where to look within yourself. May all being be happy and free, maybe that becomes the mantra to replace those thoughts with.

Blessings,

Andrea Dawn