These sutras of Patanjali are very significant.

Many things are implied. First, in India we have never used the word "love." We always use "nonviolence" -- "ahimsa" pratishthayam. Jesus uses "love"; Mahavir, Patanjali, Buddha, they never use "love" -- they use "nonviolence." Why? "Love" seems to be a better word, more positive, more poetic. "Nonviolence" looks like an ugly word, negative. But there is something to it. When you say "love," you have moved in a subtle aggression. When I say, "I love you," I have moved from my center towards you. The aggression is beautiful, but it is aggression. Patanjali says "nonviolence." It is a negative state, a passive state: I only say, "I won't hurt you," that's all.

Love says, "I will make you happy" -- which is impossible. Who can make anybody happy? Love promises. All promises are false. How can you make anybody happy? If everybody is responsible for his own self, how is it possible even to think that you can make somebody be happy? When I say, "I love you," I am creating so many promises, I am showing you so many beautiful gardens... I am calling you towards dreams. No, Patanjali will not use the word, because deep down I am saying, "I will make you happy. Come near me; come close to me. I am ready to make you happy" -- which is impossible. Nobody can make anybody happy. At the most I can say, "I will not hurt you." That is for me, not to hurt, but how can I say, "I will make you happy"?

That's why all love leads to frustration. Lovers promise each other -- knowingly, unknowingly -- beautiful roses, paradise; and each one thinking about the promise -- and then it is never fulfilled. Nobody can make you happy -- except yourself. If you fall in love: the man is thinking the woman is going to give him a beautiful life, an enchanted, a magical world; and the woman is also thinking that the man is going to lead her towards the last paradise. Nobody can lead anybody. That's why lovers feel frustrated: the promise was false. Not that they were deceiving each other, they were deceived themselves. Not that they were deliberately deceiving each other, they didn't know. They were not aware what they were saying.

Mahavir, Buddha, Patanjali, they use an ugly word: nonviolence, ahimsa. Does not look good, is simply negative -- it says "no violence," that's all. "I will not hurt you" -- that much can be fulfilled. Even then, there is no absolute guarantee that you will not feel hurt. "I will not hurt you," that's all; then too there is no absolute necessity that you will not feel hurt. Still you can feel hurt because you create your own wounds, you create your own misery. "I will not be a party to it," that's all Patanjali can say -- "I will not participate in it. I will not hurt you."

"When the yogi is firmly established..." In this attitude of nonviolence, that he will not hurt anybody,

Such a man, who is not in any way thinking, dreaming consciously, unconsciously, has no desire to hurt anybody -- in his presence, abandonment of enmity happens. But before you conclude it, many more problems arise.

Jesus was crucified; enmity was not abandoned. That's why if you ask Jainas they will not say that he was enlightened, because people could crucify him. But the same has happened to Mahavira. After his enlightenment he was stoned. To Buddha the same has happened -- not crucified, but stoned, insulted. People tried to kill him. Then how to understand it? Jainas, Buddhists, they have explanations. If it is a question of Jesus, they will say he is not enlightened -- simple explanation, finished. But if it is a question of Mahavira they say that he is closing his accounts of his past lives. Both are wrong. Both are wrong because when one becomes enlightened he has closed all accounts. He has finished all karmas; now nothing is there.

Still, there have been cases. Jesus has been crucified; Socrates poisoned; al-Hillaj Mansoor killed, murdered very brutally; Mahavira stoned many times, insulted, thrown out of villages; Buddha, many times murder was attempted. Then how to explain Patanjali's sutra? If the sutra is true then these things should not happen. If these things happen then there are only two possibilities: either all these persons -- al-Hillaj Mansoor, Jesus, Mahavira, Buddha -- are not enlightened, are not really established in nonviolence, or there are some exceptions to the rule.

There are a few exceptions. In fact whenever a man is established in nonviolence, all of life -- except for human beings -- becomes absolutely nonviolent towards him. It is because man is a perverted being. The mirror of man is not clear. Life, meaning trees are nonviolent towards a buddha, and the animals are nonviolent.

It happened...

One of Buddha's cousin-brothers, Devadatta, was in deep competition with him -- unnecessarily, because a buddha is nobody's competitor -- he was continuously thinking, "Buddha has become so great a man, and I am left behind. I am a nobody." He tried in every way to gather disciples and declare himself, that he is a buddha, but nobody would listen to him. But of course a few fools gathered. He became very antagonistic towards Buddha; he tried to kill him.

It is said Buddha was meditating under a tree near a hill, and Devadutta, Buddha's cousin-brother, rolled a big rock from the hill. There was every possibility that Buddha would have been crushed, but somehow the rock changed its path. Buddha remained untouched.

Somebody asked, "What happened?" Buddha said, "A rock feels more than does Devadutta, my brother. She changed her route."

On another occasion...

A mad elephant was released against Buddha by Devadutta. The elephant was mad; he rushed forward. The disciples completely forgot about Buddha & escaped, Buddha remained silently sitting under the tree. The elephant came near, and something happened -- the mad elephant bowed down at Buddha's feet.

People asked, "What happened?" And Buddha said, "A mad elephant is also not so mad as Devadutta. Even this mad elephant has some sanity left in him."

One of the greatest psychologists working and doing deep research on the human brain is Delgado. He has tried an experiment using electrodes. Delgado placed electrodes in the brain of a bull. Those electrodes could be manipulated from anywhere by radio, wireless.

       

 

Thousands of people had gathered to see him push the button. By pushing the button the electrode pressed the center in the brain from where anger arises. The bull became angry and mad. He came in a rage; he rushed towards Delgado. People stopped breathing, because this was certain death. Just a foot away, Delgado pushed another button and suddenly something happened inside and the bull stopped -- just a foot away, death just a foot away.

Something like that must have happened when the elephant stopped and bowed down to Buddha. Delgado has done it with electric instruments, but the same is the possibility: Buddha has not done anything, but it happened -- a deep nonviolence, and something triggered in the brain of the elephant. He was no longer mad; he understood. He felt it; he bowed down.

Humanity is no longer a right mirror. Humanity is not so pure as the echoing hills. Humanity is perverted, so it is possible. I don't find any explanation in past lives. I don't find any explanation in denying that Jesus was an enlightened man, no. The explanation is this: that life can reflect only when life is alive. And man has become so dead. People don't feel. Even you, if you come to meet a buddha, you don't feel much. You say he is just a man as any other. Of course the bones are the same and the skin the same and the body the same, the boundary is the same -- but who is in the boundary, that flame?

You can feel it only if you have felt it already within yourself. Otherwise, how can you feel it? You can recognize a buddha only when you have recognized a certain quality of buddhahood within yourself; from there is the bridge. If you have not realized any buddhahood within yourself, any divineness in you, it is impossible for you to recognize a buddha -- to recognize his nonviolence, to recognize that he has transcended, that he is no longer part of your madness.

That's why Mahavira was stoned by human beings who had become completely perverted. A natural law didn't function with them; otherwise the law is absolutely perfect. If you are silent and you come near a buddha, suddenly you will feel a great change happening within you. You cannot feel enmity.

That's why there is a fear of coming near a buddha. You can feel enmity when you are far away from him. If you come face to face with him it becomes difficult, more and more difficult. If you are in his presence, even if you are mad, the possibility exists that his presence may work as a magnetic force. The possibility exists that even with you, in all your madness, may be changed and transformed. That's why people have always been avoiding buddhas -- Mahavira, Patanjali, Jesus, Lao Tzu. People don't come near them. They gather things about them in the marketplace and they start believing in rumors, but they won't come near. They won't come to see what has happened with them.

By the time they come, they have gathered so much rubbish, so much rot around themselves that they are already dead. They have so many fixed attitudes that their mirror no longer functions. Their mirror is covered with dust. Of course a mirror mirrors, but if it is covered with dust then you can go on looking and your face will not be reflected.

Animals, trees, birds, even they have understood. It is said that when Buddha became enlightened flowers bloomed out of season. And it has not happened only with Buddha; it has happened many times. It is not a myth. The trees became so happy. That's why Buddhists have been preserving the tree, the Bodhi tree, under which Buddha became enlightened. It carries something -- it has witnessed one of the greatest happenings in the world. It is the only witness left. It carries the real history of what happened on that night when Buddha became enlightened.

Now scientists say that the Bodhi tree is the most intelligent tree in the world. It has some chemicals which are absolutely necessary for intelligence, without which the mind cannot be intelligent. Other trees are there, but nothing like the bodhi tree, the bo tree. It has the greatest quantity of those chemicals which make the mind intelligent. Maybe it is the most intelligent tree in the world. It has witnessed Buddha flowering into a different dimension. It has known one of the greatest peak hours of the whole of existence.

But man's mirror is covered with dust -- the dust of beliefs, of ideologies.

Just two, three days ago, a family took sannyas. The small boy of the family also took sannyas. I gave him one of the very beautiful names, Swami Krishna Bharti. But he said, "No. This name is girlish."

The family is Jaina, they don't have any feelings for Krishna. The name looks girlish. Krishna must look girlish to all the Jainas -- his clothing, his dancing, his face, his long hair. It is good he was born in olden days. If he was born now any government would have cut his hair. He would have looked like a hippie with long hair and with a flute.

The boy said, "The name is girlish. Give me something else, some other name."

If a Jaina comes to meet Krishna, he won't realize who he is. If a Hindu comes to see Mahavira, he won't recognize who he is. Beliefs are dust gathered all around -- you cannot see rightly; your vision is lost. If you are a Mohammedan you cannot read the Gita. If you are a Hindu, you cannot read the Koran -- impossible. Your Hinduism will always be coming in between. Even Gandhi who used to say that all religions are the same has chosen passages from the Koran which are absolute translations -- look like translations -- of the Gita; other passages he has left. He has read the Geeta and the Koran and chosen those passages which can fit with his ideology, and then he says everything is okay. But real passages which go against the Geeta, that make the Koran a Koran -- those are left out.

The mind, with beliefs, ideas, concepts, systems, philosophies, is a paralyzed mind -- no longer free to move, too much fettered, too much in bondage, a slave. And to look at a buddha you need freedom -- a mind moving absolutely in freedom, with no bondage, no prejudice, with no beliefs around it.

The sutra is perfect:

Suddenly, a love arises for no visible cause. Just his presence functions, just the way he is; you move under his energy field, and you are no longer the same.

That's why before such people, the masses have always felt that they are somehow being hypnotized. Nobody is hypnotizing you, but hypnosis happens. Their very quality of being is soothing. Their very quality of being silences you; your inner talk stops in their presence. You don't feel yourself; you feel somehow changed. When you return home, again you are the same as before, the same old one. Then you look back retrospectively and you feel you were hypnotized, or what? Nobody is hypnotizing, but this has always been like this -- Buddha hypnotizes, that Jesus hypnotizes. Nobody is hypnotizing you. Its just that their very being is so soothing that you feel sleepy, so relaxed. You have not slept well; their very being relaxes you.

Under their energy field, something which has been hidden comes up and something which has been up goes down. You are no longer the same; your very structure changes. If you can understand the process then you can understand the word Hindus have been using; the word is satsang: just to be in the presence of the enlightened ones. Nothing else is needed. The West is almost incapable of understanding it, that just the presence is enough. Satsang means just to be in the presence of one who has attained to truth -- to be with him, to be in his energy field, to feed on his energy.

On the last night, when Jesus was departing from his friends, he broke bread and gave it to his disciples and said, "Eat it; this is me." It is possible. When a man like Jesus takes the bread in his hand, the bread is no longer the same; it has become sacred. And when Jesus says, "It is me," he means it literally. To be in the presence of a master is to eat him, literally. To be with him is to be in him.

In fact, old Hindu scriptures say that to be with a Master is to be in his womb. That energy field is his womb, and when you are in his womb you are being transmuted, transformed, transfigured; a new being is born. Through the master, one attains to a new birth. One becomes dwij, twice-born. One birth is attained through the father and the mother, the parents -- that is the birth of the body. Another birth is attained through the master -- that is the birth of the spirit, the soul.

       

 

 

 

To be in the presence of a buddha is to be on the way to becoming a buddha. Nothing else is needed. If you can imbibe the presence, if you can allow the presence to work, if you can remain passive in the presence, feeding on it, receptive -- everything will happen.

Hindus have two words. One is satsang, which is impossible for the Westerners to understand because they say some teaching should be given. Hindus say presence is enough, no other teaching is needed. Another word is darshan. That too is difficult to understand: just to see a Master is enough; just to look into his eyes is enough; just to see is enough. Darshan means to see. Westerners come to me; they come for questions. When they remain here for a few more days then they understand; then they start feeling that questions are useless. Then they start coming and they say, "I have nothing to say... just to be here." It takes time for them to feel that just to be with me is enough.

       

 

To bring a question is to bring a barrier; to come with questions is to come with a barrier. Just to come with no questions -- nothing to ask, just to be -- is to come without barriers. Then energy floats, meets, merges -- you can become a part of my womb; I can float in you. But if you have a question then the mind is upper - the shield is up. When you don't have a question, your being is there, open, vulnerable & accessible.

 

 

This is even more difficult. When the yogi is established in truth: satya pratishthayam. You have to be alert from the very beginning that when Eastern scriptures say "truth" they don't mean just speaking the true, no. "Established in truth" means to be authentic, to be oneself -- not a single iota of falseness inside. Of course such a person speaks truth, but that is not the point. Such a person lives in truth, that is the point. In the West, truth means truthfulness, to speak the true, that's all. In the East, it means to be the truth. Speaking will follow by itself, that is not the point at all -- it is a shadow. But to be in the truth means to be absolutely oneself, with no mask, with no personality, just to be the essence.

The word personality is meaningful. It comes from a Greek root, persona. Persona means mask. In Greek drama actors used masks; those were called personas. The real is hidden behind and persona is all that is known to the world -- the face. Without any personality, just the essence. Zen people say, "Find out your own face -- the original face." That is what meditation is all about. They said to their disciples, "Move back and find out the face that you had before you were born. That is truth." Before you were born -- because the moment you are born, falsity starts. The moment you become part of a family, you have become part of a lie. The moment you become part of a society, you have become a part of a greater lie. All societies are lies -- beautifully decorated, but lies. You have to seek the face that you had before you entered into the world, the original virginity.

One has to move back and in. One has to come to feel the center, the essence of your being, where there is no possibility to go beyond it. One has to go on eliminating; the body you are not, the body goes on changing; the mind you are not, mind is always in a flux -- thoughts and thoughts and thoughts -- it is a process; emotions you are not, they come and they go. You are that which remains and remains and remains. The body comes and goes, the mind comes and goes. That which remains always hidden behind, that is the truth. To be that is the meaning of satya pratishthayam, one who is established in truth.

Here you can understand what Lao Tzu has been saying. If you become attuned to the truth of your being, you need not do anything -- things just happen. Not that you just lie down on your bed and sleep, no, but you are not the doer. You do things, but you are not the doer; the whole starts functioning through you. You become a function of the whole, instrumental; what Krishna calls nimitt, just an instrument of the whole -- he & his works flow through you. You need not worry about the results; you need not worry about planning. You live moment to moment and the whole takes care, and everything fits well.

Once you are established in your being, you are established in the whole because your being is part of the whole. Your face is part of the society, your personality is part of the world; your being, your essence, is part of the whole. You are deep-hidden gods. On the surface you may be a thief, on the surface you may be a monk, a good man, a bad man, a criminal, a judge -- a thousand and one games & plays -- but deep down you are a god. Once you are established into that godliness, the whole starts functioning through you.

Can't you see? No tree is worried about the flowers, they will come. No river is worried about reaching the ocean, never goes neurotic, never goes to consult a psychoanalyst, but simply reaches to the ocean. Stars go on moving. Everything is moving so smoothly, there is no disturbance and the target is never missed. Only man carries so much burden of worries. What to do, what not to do; what is good and what is bad; how to reach the goal, how to compete -- how to be the first to reach and not allow others to reach. "How to become" -- Buddha has called this the disease of tanha, the disease of becoming.

One who is established in truth has become. Now there is no disease of becoming. He has attained to being. Becoming is disease; being is health. And being is available right now if you move withinwards. Only a look is needed.

I have heard about a Zen monk. He was a minor officer in the government service before he became enlightened. He came to his Master and he wanted to become a monk, he wanted to renounce the world. The Master said, "There is no need, because the being can be attained anywhere. There is no necessity to come to the monastery. It can be attained wherever you are. Remain, just allow it to happen."

The man started meditating, and meditation was nothing but just sitting silently, not doing anything. Thoughts come and go. One just witnesses, does not condemn, does not appreciate -- no valuation -- just simply looks at them, aloof, indifferent.

Years passed. One day he was sitting in his office doing some official work.

Suddenly -- it was just the beginning of the rains -- a sudden clash of thunder, and he was shocked and thrown into his being: and he started laughing. And it is said then he never stopped laughing.

He went laughing to the Master and he said, "A sudden clash of thunder, and I awoke, and I looked within... and the old man was there in all his at-home-ness. And I have been seeking and seeking this old man, this ancient one, and he was just sitting there within me completely at home, at ease."

A sudden clash of thunder.... You just have to be in a receptive mood, then anything can trigger it. Just a shout from the master, a hit from the master, a look from the master -- a sudden clash of thunder -- and something. You are that which you are seeking. The only thing needed is to look within. One becomes established and one becomes a function of the whole. And to become the function of the whole is all. Nothing else remains then. Then your river flows towards the ocean, your tree goes on blooming, flowering.

Then there is nothing to be done; everything happens. Not that you don't do -- remember it -- but the whole does it; you are not the doer.

 

 

You have always been seeking and seeking treasures, and they elude you. They are mirages that appear and when you reach after long journeys, they are not there -- because the real treasure is hidden behind you. It is you! There is no other treasure; you are the treasure.

When one is established in honesty: asteya pratishthayam. The word asteya literally means "no-theft." That has to be understood. Honesty doesn't carry that meaning. Of course honesty is part of it, one of the components, but no-theft is very different.

You may not be a thief, but if you are jealous of others' possessions you are a thief. If you see somebody's car passing by and envy arises, jealousy arises, or ambition arises -- a desire to possess that car -- you have committed a theft. No court can catch you, but in the court of the whole, you are caught. A theft has been committed. "No-theft" means a nondesiring mind, because how can you be a nonthief with desiring? The mind goes on trying to possess more and more -- and whenever you want to possess you have to take it from someone else. It is a theft. You may not commit it, but the mind has already committed it.

"No-theft" means a mind who is not jealous, not competitive. When this no-theft is there in your being, a great revolution happens. Suddenly, you fall into your own treasure, because when you are a thief -- competitive, ambitious, jealous -- you are always looking to others' treasures. That's how you are missing your own treasure. The eyes are always moving and looking at others' treasures -- who is carrying what, who is having what. When you are trying to have more, you are missing that which you already have. Because in that more, you are always on the move and never in a rest where you can discover your own being.

Your own treasure can be discovered only in a certain space. And that certain space is available when you are not jealous, envious, when you are not bothering about what others have. You close your eyes; the world doesn't matter. Having more & more is no longer meaningful. Then being is revealed.

There are two types of people. There are people interested in having more, and people interested in being more. If you are interested in having more, whatsoever is the object of having more of, it makes no difference -- you can go on collecting money, you can go on collecting knowledge, you can go on collecting prestige, power, you can go on collecting whatsoever you want -- but if you are interested in having, you will miss. There is no need for this continuous effort to have. You already have the treasure within you.

Brahmacharya pratishthayam veerya labha.

To translate Sanskrit is almost impossible. After centuries and centuries of refinement, of spiritual inquiry, meditation, Sanskrit has attained a flavor of its own which no other language has. For example, it is impossible to translate the word brahmacharya. Literally it means "behaving like a god," being like a god. Ordinarily it is translated as "sexual continence." A vast difference. It is not just celibacy and has to be understood. You can be celibate and you may not attain to brahmacharya, but if you attain to brahmacharya you will be celibate.

Celibacy is repressive -- you suppress your sex energy -- and that suppression never leads to transformation. But there are ways in which your godliness is revealed to you, then suddenly, sex disappears. Not that it is suppressed. In that realization of godliness, the energy takes a totally different form. You become celibate, with no effort on your part; if there is effort then it is going to be a suppression. Celibacy is a consequence of brahmacharya.

Then how to attain to brahmacharya?

If you are firmly established in ahimsa, nonviolence, if you are firmly established in truth, if you are firmly established in nontheft, it is simple to be established like a god. You are a god. When you are not hurting others, you are not creating chains. You are cutting your fetters; you are becoming free. When you are not trying to pose and you are authentic, when you are not trying to have masks around you -- you are true to your very core -- already sex energy will be changing.

Have you noticed that when you are violent there is more sexual energy? In fact, husbands and wives know well that if they fight, that night they can make love better. Why does it happen? Violence creates sex energy. The more violent a person is, the more sexual he will be. Nonviolence transforms sexual energy. If you are not trying to hurt anybody, if you are not interested in hurting anyone, if you have a deep love, affection, compassion towards others, you will find your sexual desire is subsiding.

Sex can exist in a certain company, such as anger, violence, hatred, jealousy, competition, ambition. All of these have to be there; sex can exist as part of the company. If you drop other things, by and by, you find sex has lost that urge. It is becoming more and more affectionate than sex, more and more love than sex, more and more compassion -- the same energy moving higher, on a higher plane.

One becomes established in brahmacharya -- not by celibacy. If watch people who have suppressed their sex, you will find that they have become more angry, they have become more violent. That's why all over human history armies have been forced to remain celibate. Its because, once armies are forced to remain celibate, they become more violent -- the energy that can be released through sex is not released.

In fact psychologists have found a deep association between violence and suppressed sex energy. All violent weappons -- you push a knife or a dagger or a sword into somebody: it is just like sex energy penetrating the woman. The other's body becomes the woman and your weapons become just phallic symbols. It may be a bullet from a machine gun and you may be far away, but it is the same. Whenever your sex energy is suppressed, you will find ways and means how to penetrate others' bodies. Male armies have not been allowed girlfriends. Only the American army is allowed -- they will be defeated, and everywhere. They cannot fight in the world. American soldiers cannot fight. If you are sexually satisfied, the desire to fight disappears. They are connected.

That's why it happens that whenever a culture is very developed it is always defeated by a culture which is not very developed. India was defeated by Huns, Turks, Mohammedans -- they came from a very undeveloped world and they defeated a very developed culture. Whenever a culture is very developed, it is very satisfied, content. Everything is going so good, who wants to fight? When everything is so peaceful, who bothers to kill and be killed? And those who came were just barbarians, absolutely uncultured, and sexually very frustrated. If you want an army to fight well, make the army sexually frustrated. Then they will fight, because then the fight has become a symbolic sexuality.

This has happened recently in Vietnam. It is not that communists have won and America has been defeated; it is simply that a higher culture is always defeated. A lower culture, a poor country, in every way unsatisfied -- sexually in a very deep repressive state -- is bound to win. Whenever a poor country gets in a fight with a rich country, the rich country will be defeated finally. You can see it easily: if a rich family starts fighting with a poor family, the rich family will be defeated -- because when you are rich, satisfied, the very urge to fight disappears; and in fighting you are going to lose, so you avoid fighting. And the poor has nothing to lose -- why should he avoid fighting? In fact he enjoys it. He has everything to gain, nothing to lose.

The same happens in individuals' lives. If you become nonviolent, if you become established in truth, if you become established in nontheft, suddenly you find sex has lost the lust. It is no longer a mad passion. You can enjoy it if you like it, but the passion is no longer mad. It has become softer, and finally it disappears.

When it disappears, the energy that was encaged in sex is released. That energy becomes your reservoir. That's why Patanjali says,

Tremendous energy is gained. Not that you become a great athlete or you become a boxer, no. That energy has a totally different dimension. That energy is not to fight. That energy is not of this world. That energy is not really male; that energy is feminine. All yogis who have attained to it become more feminine. Look at Buddha, his face, the body, the roundness of it, the softness of it, it looks feminine.

       

 

 

 

Hindus have done well -- they have never painted Buddha, Mahavir, Krishna, Ram, with moustaches, beards, no. Not that they were in any way lacking in hormones and they didn't have any moustache and beard -- they must have had beautiful beards and moustaches -- but Hindus have dropped the idea because with moustaches and beards they look more male, and the whole idea has to be expressed in a feminine way -- the roundness of Buddha's body, the softness. And the marble helped tremendously; the marble gives it a feminine quality. Nietzsche criticized Buddha and Jesus, has called them "womanish." His criticism is absolutely absurd, but he has hit a right point at least in calling them womanish -- they are.

When the sexual energy disappears, where does it go? It does not move out; it becomes an inner pool. One simply feels full of power and energy. Not that he uses it and goes fighting with it; now there is no urge to fight. One is so strong that in fact to fight is not possible. Only weaklings fight. Those who are afraid of their strength -- they fight to prove that they are strong. Really strong people don't fight. They look at the whole thing as a game, childish.

"When the yogi is established in nonpossessiveness..." When he possesses nothing except himself; he may be a king, he may live in a palace, but he does not possess it. If it is lost, not a ripple will arise in his mind.

There is a story of a great yogi; his name was Janak. India has worshipped him for centuries, and India has not worshipped anybody else like him because he is unique in one way. Buddha left his palace, kingdom; Mahavir left his palace and kingdom; Janak never left. Buddha and Mahavir are in the thousands, the whole history is full of them -- Janak seems to be unique. He did not follow the pattern. He remained in the palace; he remained a king.

It happened...

       

 

 

 

A young seeker was told by his master, "Now, you go to Janak. Your last initiation will be done by him. Whatsoever I could teach I have taught you, but I am a beggar. I don't know anything about the world; I have renounced it. You must go to a man who knows about the world. This is going to be your last initiation. Before you renounce you must ask somebody who knows the world. I don't know it, so go to Janak the king."

The disciple was a little hesitant because he was ready to renounce and he didn't believe that this Janak can be an enlightened man. If he is enlightened, then why is he in the palace? Ordinary logic says he should renounce everything. He should not possess anything because that is one of the basic things -- to become nonpossessive, to remain in nonpossessiveness, in pure austerity of nonpossessiveness. One becomes so simple, so innocent, why is he living as a king? But when the Master said, he had to go. Hesitantly, reluctantly, he reached Janak's palace.

In the evening he reached, Janak invited him to the court. There was much jubilation. Beautiful girls were dancing, there was wine and women, and everybody was almost drunk. This young man from an ashram could not believe his eyes, and he could not believe his old Master. "Why that fool has sent him here. For what?" He was disturbed so much that he wanted to leave immediately. 

But Janak said, "That will be insulting. You have come; be here at least one night. Tomorrow morning you can leave. And why are you so disturbed? Rest a little while. In the morning I will ask you for what purpose you have come."

The young man said, "Now there is no need to ask anything. I have seen with my own eyes what is happening here."

Janak laughed. The young man was taken care of -- fed well, given a good massage and a bath, given a beautiful room, very costly bed.

The young man was tired, coming on foot from the jungle monastery to the capital, and he wanted to rest. The moment he lay down on the bed, he saw a sword hanging just above him by a very thin thread. He could not believe what was the point of it all, and he has been received so well and now why this joke. The continual fear made it impossible for him to sleep the whole night. He could not enjoy the bed, he could not enjoy the palace -- the sword was hanging over him.

In the morning the king inquired, "Did you sleep well?"

He said, "How could I sleep? What nonsense are you talking to me? Everything was okay, but that sword just hanging by a thin thread -- any moment it can fall. Just a breeze, and I will be killed."

So the king said, "You couldn't enjoy the bed? It is the most beautiful we have in this palace, and the room that I have given to you is the most luxurious."

The young man replied,He said, "I don't even remember that room and that bed. I have never been in such suffering -- because of that sword."

The king said, "Then it is better you don't go. I am in this palace, but the sword is hanging over me -- the sword of death. And the thread is thinner than this. Any moment I can die."

When one remembers death, how can one possess anything? The place is there, the palace is there, the kingdom is there -- but death is more there than anything else. How can one possess? When death is there, and one remembers it, one becomes nonpossessive. Then one knows, "I can possess only myself. Death will take everything else."

When one becomes nonpossessive, the energy is no longer moving outward. It is moving outwardly because of the desire to possess. When you are aware that nothing can be possessed -- you come in the world and you go out of it; the world was there before you, it will be there after you.... Nothing can be possessed; the very idea to possess is stupid.

The moment you are aware of death, suddenly, the whole of your energy that had been moving outwardly in a thousand and one directions to possess the world, it then moves inwards, and, Patanjali says,

And then you know from where you have come, who you are. Then you come to face the original source of life, existence. Then you are face to face with the source, the very source. That source is God: the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega.

Enough for today.

 

 

Patanjali Yoga sutras continues:

Always keep in mind that nonviolence, nonpossessiveness, no-theft, and authenticity in being, they all give purity. These are not moralistic concepts for Patanjali. In the West they have been taught as morals, in the East as inner hygiene, not as morals. In the West they have been taught as altruistic goals. in the East there is nothing of altruism in them -- it is absolutely selfish. It is your inner hygiene. They give purity to you, and through purity the impossible becomes possible, the unattainable is attained. Through purity your grossness of being is lost. You become delicate, subtle, and soft. Through purity you become a temple of the divine. Through purity, an invitation is sent to the whole to come and drop in you... And one day, the ocean comes and drops into the drop.

When they are taught as moralistic concepts, as in the West -- or in India also, as Mahatma Gandhi has been teaching -- their total quality changes. When you say, "You have to be nonviolent because violence hurts others. Don't hurt anybody. Humanity is one family, and to hurt is to sin," you have diverted the whole thing to a totally different dimension.

Patanjali says, "Be nonviolent. It purifies you. Don't hurt anyone and don't even think of hurting anybody, because the moment you start thinking that way you are falling into impurity inside." The question is not the other, the question is you. Of course, when one is nonviolent others are benefited, but that is not the goal of being nonviolent. That is just a by product, just a shadow.

If you are nonviolent because others should not be hurt, then you are not really nonviolent. Then, you are a good social citizen, civilized, but nothing of religion has happened within your being. Your nonviolence will work as a lubricant between you and others. Your life will be smoother but not purer, because the goal changes the whole quality. The goal is not to protect the other -- the other is protected, that's another thing -- the goal is to become pure so that you can know the ultimate purity.

Eastern religions remain selfish because they know there is no other way to be. When somebody is selfish others are benefited immensely. In fact all altruism, real authentic altruism, flowers out of deep selfishness. They are not contraries, they are not opposites: the flowers of altruism bloom only in a being who has been deeply selfish. To be selfish is just natural. To force people to be otherwise is to make them unnatural. And whatsoever is unnatural is not the way of God. Whatsoever is unnatural is going to be a suppression. It will not bring purity to you.

So this has to be remembered: these are not moralistic goals. In fact in the East, morality has never been taught as a goal. It is a shadow of religion. When religion happens, morality happens automatically, and one need not bother about it. One need not be concerned, it comes on its own accord. In the West morality has been taught as the goal; in fact, taught as the religion. In Eastern scriptures, there exists nothing like the Ten Commandments, nothing like it.

Life should not be a life following commandments, otherwise you will become a slave. Even if you reach paradise through slavery, your paradise is not going to be enough of a paradise, because slavery will remain a part of it. Independence, freedom, should be an intrinsic part of your growth.

So these are hygienic measures. They purify you. They give you inner health.

says Patanjali,

There is some difficulty with the word jugupsa. In all the translations, it has been translated in all the translations as disgust because no equivalent word exists in English. It is not disgust, not at all. The very word is wrong. The very word disgust is disgusting. And to think of a yogi having disgust arises in him for his own body, this is simply unbelievable, because yogis have cared for their bodies as nobody else has ever cared. They look after their bodies as no one else looks after their bodies. They have beautiful bodies. Look at Mahavir or Buddha -- beautiful bodies, very proportionate, like symphonies in matter. No, it is not possible. Disgust is a wrongly translation of the word.

   

First, it has to be understood, jugupsa does not mean disgust. The meaning is very difficult. I will have to explain it to you. There are three types of people. One type is madly in love with their bodies; in fact obsessed. Particularly women -- absolutely body-oriented. Look at a woman. She is never happier than when she is facing a mirror. Narcissistic -- hours and hours they can devote before the mirror, obsessed. Nothing is wrong in being in front of a mirror, but just being there, for hours, looks like an obsession. This is the first type, who is continuously obsessed with the body; so much so, that they forget that they exist beyond the body. The transcendental is forgotten, they become only the body. They do not possess the body. The body  possesses them. This is the first type.

       

 

The second type of person is just the opposite of the first: this type is also obsessed, but in the reverse direction. This type is against the body, disgusted with it. This type has broken the mirror, goes on hurting the own body in millions of ways; hates it. The first loves it as an obsession; the second type moves to the other extreme, and hates it, wants to commit suicide.

You can find the second type; they may be pretending to be yogis, but they are not. The yogi cannot hate. It is not a question of any object. The yogi simply cannot hate because hate creates impurity. It is not a question of hating somebody else or something or one's own body. Whatsoever the object of hate, hate brings impurity. The yogi cannot hate his own body. But you can find this type of perverted yogi in the streets of Varanasi, lying on thorns or pointed steel nails, torturing his own body. This is just the opposite of a woman enjoying a narcissistic indulgence before a mirror.

Fasting: fasting in itself can be good, can be bad. It depends. Fasting can be just a way of torturing the body; then it is bad, then it is violence. And this is my observation. People who are not violent towards others, who have suppressed their violence towards others and have become nonviolent -- their violence starts a new way: as a release they start becoming violent towards their own bodies. There are stories of perverted people who destroyed their own eyes so that they could not see any beauty, as in a beautiful woman. Stories of people -- and not exceptional, in thousands.

Before the revolution in Russia, there existed a sect with thousands of followers who had cut off their genital organs, just to be in deep hate with the body. They could not produce children. But then, how to increase the number of the followers? So they were in a difficulty. They would adopt children and cut off their genital organs. A criminal act against one's own body.

       

 

In Christianity there have been sects whose only prayer was to flog their own body every morning. And the greatest saint was thought to be one who flogged his body so much that it became blue all over the body with skin broken and blood flowing. It used to be written in the biographies of great saints how many times he hits his body in the morning with a whip -- one hundred times, two hundred times, three hundred times. Just as in India where Jaina monks go on counting their days, how many days they have fasted in the year -- one hundred days, fifty days, how many days. The greater one is who has been fasting, almost starving, his own body.

In Christianity there have been monks who had nails in their shoes intruding in their bodies; and they would walk on those shoes and they would carry continuous wounds in their feet. Blood flowing, puss accumulating -- they were great saints.

If one looks at religion scientifically then ninety percent of it will prove to be pathological. These people needed mental treatment. These people were not religious, not at all. To call them religious is simply foolish. They were not even normal; they were mad.

These are the two types, and then between these two -- just exactly in the middle -- is the third. For whom Patanjali uses the word jugupsa: one who is not disgusted with his own body, not obsessed either. He is in a deep balance. He takes care of the body because the body is a vehicle. He even treats the body as a holy thing. It is -- God created it. And whatsoever God creates, how can it be unholy? It is a temple. It has not to be condemned. It has not to be indulged so madly that you are lost in it.

The temple should not become the image, the temple should not become the shrine. The shrine is the innermost core for which the temple exists. You should not start worshipping the walls of the temple. There is also no need to move to the opposite in which you start destroying the temple.

Just a deep non-identification is needed. One has to know: "I am in the body, but transcendental to the body. I am in the body, but not the body. I am in the body, but not confined to it. I am in the body, but also beyond it." The body should not be a limitation. A shelter, of course, and a beautiful shelter at that. One has to be grateful to it. There is no need to fight with it. It is simply foolish and childish to fight with it. It has to be used and used rightly.

If I have to translate jugupsa, I will say that the yogi is disillusioned with the body. Not disgusted, simply disillusioned. He does not think that the bliss that the soul is seeking is through the body is possible -- no. And, he does not think the contrary either -- that through destroying the body that bliss can be attained. No, he drops the duality. He lives in the body as a guest, and he treats the body as a temple.

When you are in the body too much you are always hankering for contact with other bodies, a lust to be in contact with other bodies -- which you call love, which is not love, which is just a lust -- because the body cannot exist alone. It exists in a network of other bodies.

The child is borne in the mother's womb; for nine months the mother's body feeds the child's body. The child's body grows out of the mother's body, just like branches grow out of a tree. Of course, when the child is ready, he moves out of the womb, but still remains deeply in contact. The child goes on feeding on mother's breast. Not only does the child take the milk, but goes on taking the warmth of her body, which is a physical need.

If a child misses the warmth of the mother, he can never be healthy and his body will always suffer. He may be given every thing that is needed -- food, milk, vitamins -- but if the warmth of the woman is not given to him.... And that, too, in a very loving way, because if you are not loving towards a person, then heat is possible, it may pass from your body to the other person, but not warmth from love. Heat becomes warmth through love. It has a qualitatively different dimension. It is not just the heat. Otherwise, you can give only the heat to the child... Many experiments have been done. You can place the child is in a centrally heated room, but that in itself doesn't help. The mother's body is giving some subtle vibration of love: of being accepted, of being loved, of being needed. That gives roots.

That's why, continuously, the man will be after -- seeking, searching -- a woman's body the whole of his life, and the woman will be seeking a man's body the whole of her life. The opposite sex is attractive because the polarity of the bodies helps; it gives energy. The very polarity gives a tension and energy. You feed through it, you become strong through it. This is natural, nothing is wrong in it, but when one becomes pure -- through nonviolence, nonpossessiveness, authenticity -- when one becomes more and more pure, the focus of consciousness shifts from the body to the being. The being can remain absolutely alone.

That's why a man who is deeply attached to his body can never become free. The very attachment will lead him into many types of bondages, imprisonments. You may love a woman, you may love a man, but deep down you resist also, because the lover is also the bondage. The relationship cripples you, it also feeds you & imprisons you. You cannot live without it, and you cannot live with it. This is the problem of all the lovers. They cannot live separately and they cannot live together. When separate they think of each other; when together they fight with each other.

Why this happens? The mechanism is simple. When you are not with a woman, who will you love and who will love you? You start feeling starved of the warmth that flows from a woman's body. When you are with the woman you are no longer starved, you are no longer hungry, you are well fed. And soon you become fed up. Soon you have taken too much: now you would like to separate and be aloof and alone. All lovers, when together, think, "How beautiful it will be to be alone." And when they are alone, then sooner or later they start feeling the need of the other and they start imagining and dreaming, "How beautiful it will be to be together."

The body needs togetherness; and your innermost soul needs aloneness. That is the problem. Your innermost soul can remain alone -- it is a Himalayan peak standing alone against the sky. Your innermost soul grows when it is alone, but your body needs relatedness. The body needs crowds, warmth, clubs, societies, organizations; wherever you are with many people the body feels good. In a crowd, your soul may feel starved because it feeds on aloneness, but your body feels good. In aloneness your soul feels perfect, but the body starts feeling hungry for relationship.

If you don't understand this in life, you become very, very miserable, unnecessarily. If you understand it, you create a rhythm: you fulfill the bodily need and you fulfill the soul need also. Sometimes you move in relationship, sometimes you move out of it. Sometimes you live together, sometimes you live alone. Sometimes you become peaks -- so absolutely alone that even the idea of the other is absent. This is the rhythm.

But when somebody has attained to aloneness and the focus of consciousness has changed.... That's what Yoga is all about: how to change the focus from the body to the soul, from matter to nonmatter, from the visible to the invisible, from the known to the unknown -- from the world to God. Howsoever you phrase it is immaterial. It is a change of focus. When the focus has completely changed, the yogi is so happy in his aloneness, so blissful, that, by and by, that ordinary hankering of the body to be with others disappears.

When the purity is attained there arises in the yogi a disillusionment for his own body. Now he knows that the paradise that he has been seeking cannot be attained through the body, the bliss that he has been dreaming about is not possible through the body. It is impossible for the body because through the limited you are trying to reach the unlimited. Through matter you are trying to reach the eternal, the immortal. Nothing is wrong in the body, rather, it's your effort that is absurd. Don't be angry with the body, the body has not done anything to you. It is just as if someone is trying to listen through the eyes. Nothing is wrong with the eyes, eyes are made to see, not to listen. The body is made of matter, it is not made of the immaterial. It is made of death. It cannot be immortal. You are asking the impossible. Don't ask that.

That is the point of disillusionment. The yogi simply understands what is possible and what is not possible with the body. That which is possible is okay, that which is not possible, he does not ask. He is not angry. He doesn't hate the body. He takes every care of it because the body can become a ladder; it can become a door. It cannot become the goal, but it can become the door.

A disillusionment for his own body -- and when this disillusionment happens:

Then the need to be in physical contact with others, by and by, withers away. In fact this is the right moment when you can say the man has come out of the womb, not before it.

 

Some people never come out of the womb. Even when they are dying, their need for others' presence, their need for contact, relationship, continues. They have not come out of the womb. Physically they have come out many, many years before - - the man may be eighty, ninety. Ninety years before, he had come out of the womb, but all these ninety years also he has been living in contact -- seeking, always greedy for body contact. He has lived in a lost womb again and again in his dreams.

It is said that whenever a man falls in love with a woman, whatsoever he thinks, that is not the point. He is again falling in the womb. And maybe, it is almost certain -- I say "maybe" because it is not yet a scientifically proved hypothesis -- that the urge to enter the woman's body, the sexual urge, may be nothing but a substitute for entering the womb again. All sexuality may be a search how to enter the womb again. In all the ways that man has invented to make his body comfortable, psychologists say that he is trying to create a womb outside. Look at a comfortable room: if it is really comfortable it must have something in common with the womb -- the warmth, the coziness, the silk, the velvet -- the inner touch of the mother's skin. The pillows, the bed. Everything gives you a feeling of comfort only when, somehow, it is related with the womb.

       

 

In the West they have made small tanks that are womb-like. In those tanks lukewarm water is filled, exactly of the same temperature as the mother's womb. In deep darkness the person floats in the tank, absolutely comfortable -- in darkness, just as in the womb. They call them meditation tanks. It helps, as one feels very, very silent, an inner happiness arising, and you have again become a child. A child in the womb floats on liquid of a certain temperature. The liquid has all the ingredients of the sea, the same salty water with the same ingredients. Because of that scientists have come to realize that man must have evolved from fish, with the same atmosphere of the sea still being maintained in the womb.

All comfort is, deep down, womblike. And whenever you are lying with a woman, curled up, you feel good. Every man, howsoever old, becomes a child again; and every woman, howsoever young, becomes a mother again. Whenever they are in love the woman starts playing the role of the mother and the man starts playing the role of the baby. Even a young woman becomes a mother and an old man becomes a child.

In a yogi this urge disappears. And with this urge, he is really born. We in India have called him "twice-born," dwij. This is his second birth, the real birth. Now he is no longer in need of anybody; he has become a transcendental light. Now he can float above the earth, now he can fly in the sky. He is not earth-rooted now. He has become a flower -- not a flower, because even a flower is earth-rooted... He has become the fragrance of the flower. Completely free. Moves into the sky with no roots in the earth. His desire to come in contact with others' bodies disappears.

This man is so blissful. This man, who has now no need to be in contact with others, is so blissful in his freedom, so cheerful, celebrating -- his every moment is an intense delight. The more you are rooted in the body, the more sad you will be, because body is gross. It is matter, heavy. The more you go beyond the body, the lighter you become. Jesus has said to his followers, "Come, follow me. My burden is light. All those who are heavily loaded, come, follow me. My burden is light, weightless."

If you are sad, if you are always depressed, if you are always miserable, nothing can be done directly to your misery. And whatsoever should be done will prove to be in vain. The East has come to know that if you are sad, miserable, depressed, always moving heavily burdened -- this is not the disease. This is just the symptom of the disease. The disease is that you must be deep down bodily oriented. So the question is not how to dispel your darkness and how to make you happy; that is not the question. The question is how to help you to become unengaged with the body; how to help you so that your entanglement with the body is less and less and less.

People come to me every day. They say, "We are sad, miserable. Every day in the morning it seems again a hopeless day is going to be faced. Somehow we carry ourselves out of the bed -- with no hope. We know, we have lived long, and its the same repetition of sad days. So what to do? Can you give us something so that we can pull ourselves out, out of sadness?" Directly, nothing can be done; only indirectly can something be done. This is symptomatic; this is not the cause. And if you treat the symptom, the disease will not disappear.

The Western psychology has been treating the symptoms. Yoga is the psychology which treats the cause. Whatsoever you say is your symptom, Western psychology goes on taking it for granted and they start removing it. They have not been successful. Western psychology has proved to be a hoax, a complete failure. But now it is such a great establishment that psychologists cannot say it. Their whole life depends on it -- their big salaries. And they are one of the most highly paid professions. They cannot accept the fact -- they have become aware -- that they have not been a help to anyone. At the most they prolong, at the most they give hope, at the most they help you to adjust to your miseries, but no transformation happens through it. As time passes one becomes attuned to the misery, one becomes accepting of the fact that it is there. One is not very worried about it, but nothing has changed.

Now they know it, but psychology is such a growing profession with thousands of people making a living off of it -- and really live luxurious lives. So much has been invested in it -- that who will say it that this whole thing is just a hoax, a fraud, and nobody is helped? It has to be so, because symptoms cannot be changed. You can paint them, but deep down they remain the same. You can give them new names, new labels; that makes no difference.

The cause has to be changed. And the cause is: you will be sad in the same proportion in which you are rooted in the body. You will be cheerful in the same proportion as that which you are not rooted in the body. Freer from the body, the more cheerfulness. When you are completely free from the body you become a fragrance floating in the sky. You become blissful -- the blessedness that Jesus talks of, the benediction that Jesus goes on talking about; the nirvana of Buddha. Mahavir has given it the exactly right word; he calls it kaivalya, aloneness. You have become totally independent and alone. Now nothing is needed; you are enough unto yourself. This is the goal, but the goal can be reached only if you move very cautiously and you don't get entangled with symptoms.

Somebody has a fever, the body is hot, the temperature has gone high -- this is a symptom. The temperature may be a hundred three, a hundred four, five. This is a symptom. Don't start curing the body of the temperature. You can cure it, you can put the man under a cold shower, ice cold. In the beginning it may even appear that things are being helped, but remember, you will not be able to cure him of the disease -- you may cure him of life itself. He will die because the fever is a symptom. The fever simply shows that inside the body there is a great war, an elemental war. Elements of the body are in conflict, that's why heat is created. That's why there is a fever. The body is not at ease. A civil war has broken out inside the body. Some elements of the body are fighting other elements, maybe foreign elements. They are in a conflict. And because of the conflict, the heat has come out.

The heat is just an indication that the war has broken out. The war has to be treated, not the temperature. The temperature is just to give you a message: "Now you should do something; things have gone beyond me." The body is giving you an indication: "Things are now beyond me; I cannot do anything. Do something. Go to the doctor, to the physician. Get help because now it is beyond me. Whatsoever could be done, I have done, but now no more can be done. War has broken out."

Never treat the symptom, and don't waste time in treating the symptom. Always go to the cause. This is not a hypothesis, not a theory. Yoga does not believe in theories and Patanjali is not a philosopher. He is absolutely a scientist of the inner world, and whatsoever he is saying, he is saying because millions of yogis have experienced it. Without any exception, this is so. In ordinary life also have you watched? When you feel cheerful: in ordinary life also if you remain watchful you will become aware that whenever you feel cheerful you forget the body. Whenever somebody is cheerful, he forgets his body. And whenever somebody is sad, he cannot forget the body.

In fact in Ayurveda the definition of health is one of the most significant. No other medical science anywhere in the world has given such a definition. Western medicine has no definition of health. At the most they can say, "When there are no diseases, then you are healthy." But this is not a definition of health. What type of definition, when you bring diseases in to define health? You say, "When there are no diseases you are healthy." It is a negative definition, not a positive one. Ayurveda says that when you are bodiless you are healthy. This is really tremendously beautiful. Videha: when you don't feel the body, you are almost no body.

You can watch it. The head comes in only when the headache is there. Otherwise, who knows about the head? You are never aware of the head. The headache brings awareness, otherwise you are headless. And if you continuously remember your head, there must be something wrong. When breathing is healthy you are not aware at all, but when something goes wrong -- asthma, bronchitis, something goes wrong -- then you are aware. The breathing is there with much sound to it, very noisy and everything. You cannot forget it. When your legs are tired, you know they are. When something goes wrong, only then you become conscious. If everything is functioning perfectly, you forget it. This is the definition of health: when you forget the body completely you are healthy. And who can forget the body completely? Only a yogi.

 

Supreme Happiness

 

We have three words: rogi, bhogi, yogi. The rogi: one who is ill; the bhogi: one who is indulging in the body; and the yogi: one who has gone beyond the body.The bhogi rarely will attain to some moments of Yoga, some moments when he will forget the body. Ninety-nine percent of his life he will belong to the world of the rogi, the ill. Only one percent of his life will be moments, rare moments, when he will become a yogi. Sometimes everything is functioning well, humming -- just like a beautiful, perfectly functioning car hums, sings. Your whole mechanism is humming beautifully well. This happens rarely with a bhogi, never with a rogi, always with a yogi. The rogi is the ill person. The bhogi is one who is indulging in the body too much and falling towards the rogi. Sooner or later he become ill and die. And the yogi is one who has transcended the body, lives beyond it and is cheerful.

The rogi is never cheerful, the bhogi rarely, the yogi always. Cheerfulness is his nature. For no visible cause he remains happy.

With you, the case is just the opposite: for no visible cause you remain unhappy. If somebody asks you, "Why are you so miserable?" you shrug your shoulders. You don't know why. You have taken it for granted, to be misrable is your way of life. In fact, if you see a miserable man, you never ask, "Why are you miserable?" You accept it. When you see somebody happy, very happy, you ask, "What is the matter? Why are you so happy? What has happened?" Misery has been taken for granted, accepted. Happiness has become so rare, so exceptional, that it is almost too good to be true.

It happens, people come to me: when they start meditating, and if they really move in it, things start changing. When they had come they were miserable, sad; then something bursts open -- a cheerfulness starts. They cannot believe it. They come running to me and they say, "What has happened? Suddenly I am feeling very happy. Am I imagining?" They cannot believe that this can be true. The mind says, "You must be imagining. You, such a miserable man, and you can be happy? Impossible." They come to me and they say, "Are we imagining, or have you hypnotized us?"

They never thought when they were miserable that somebody may have hypnotized them. They never thought when they were miserable that maybe they are imagining it, but when they feel happiness, happiness has become so rare a thing, so unbelievably rare that they ask, "Is it true?"

In English you have the phrase "too good to be true"; you don't have the phrase "too bad to be true." The other should be more prevalent, more common, but "good" cannot be believed; that's why the phrase "too good to be true." That phrase should be destroyed, completely forgotten. When somebody says something bad you should say, "Too bad to be true, cannot be believed. You must have imagined." But no, it is not so. Misery seems to be the natural thing; happiness, something unnatural.

People try to concentrate remaining rooted in the body; then concentration is very difficult, almost impossible. You cannot concentrate for a single minute. The mind wavers, a thousand and one thoughts arise, and before you know, you have moved somewhere else: a daydream starts. Whenever you want to concentrate on something... almost impossible. But the reason is that you are much too rooted in the body. If you look through the body, concentration is not possible. If you look beyond the body, concentration is so easy....

It happened...

 

Vivekananda was staying with a great scholar. His name was Deussen, one of the great scholars, who translated Sanskrit scriptures into Western languages. In particular, Deussen was working on the Upanishads. He was one of the most penetrating translators.

A new book had arrived and Vivekananda asked, "Can I go through it? Can I have it to read?" Deussen said, "Yes, you can have it. I have not read it at all."

After half an hour Vivekananda returned the book. Deussen could not believe it; such a big book will need at least one week to read, and if you want to digest it, then even more. If you really want to understand it, it is a difficult book, then even more. He said, "Have you gone through it? Have you really read it, or just looked here and there?"

Vivekananda said, "I have studied it."

Deussen said, "Then I cannot believe it. Then you will have to do me a favor. Let me read the book, and I will ask you a few questions about the book."

Deussen had to read the book for seven days, study it; and then he asked a few questions, and Vivekanand replied so exactly, as if he had been reading that book for the whole of his life. Deussen has written in his memoirs: "It was impossible for me, and I asked,'How is it possible?'

Vivekananda said, "When you study through the body, concentration is not possible. When you are not rooted in the body, you hover on the book directly -- your consciousness directly in touch. No body between the book and you standing like a barrier, then even half an hour is enough. You imbibe the spirit of it."

It is just like a small child reads. He cannot read a big word. He has to cut words into small pieces. He cannot read the whole sentence. When you read you read the whole sentence. If you are really a good reader you can read the whole paragraph -- just a glimpse, it passes. There is a possibility, if the body is not interfering, you can read the whole book just by passing over it. If you read with the body you may forget. If you read without the body there is no need to memorize it. You will not forget it because you have understood it.

Power of concentration arises in a man of pure body, of pure consciousness, of purity.

These are consequences, remember. They cannot be practiced. If you practice, you will never attain to them. They just happen. If the basic cause has been removed, if you are no longer identified with the body, then... control of the senses... Then it is within your control. If you want to think, you think. If you don't want to think, you just say to the mind, "Stop." It is a mechanism that you can put on and off, but mastery is needed. If you are not a master and you try to become a master, you will create more confusion and trouble for yourself and you will be defeated again and again, and the senses will remain the boss. That's not the way to win over them. The way to win over them is to disidentify yourself with the body. You have to come to know that you are not the body. You have to come to know that you are not the mind.

       

 

You have to become the witness to all that is around you. The body is there, the first circle; then the mind is there, the second circle; then the heart is there, the third circle. And then just behind these three circles is the center -- you. If you are centered in yourself, all these three layers will follow you. If you are not centered there, then you will have to follow them.

This is how one becomes fit, capable of realizing oneself. Everyone wants to realize oneself, but nobody wants to pass through the discipline. No one wants to mature. Everybody wants it as a magic thing. People come to me and they say, "Can't you bless us so that we can become self-realized?" If it were just that easy, that my blessing will do, then I would have blessed the whole world. Why bother to bless each individual? Bless wholesale, and let the whole world be enlightened. Then Buddha would have done so already, Mahavir would have done so -- finished. All would have become enlightened.

It cannot be done that way. Nobody can bless you, you have to earn that blessing. You have to pass through a deep discipline, you have to change your focus of being, you have to become capable, you have to become a right vehicle. Sometimes it has happened that accidentally someone has stumbled upon the self, but that has been a shock and that has not helped anyone. That will crack down your whole personality, and you may go mad. It is just like a strong current passes through you for which you are not ready. Everything will go wrong. Even, the fuse may blow and you may die.

You have to attain purity, attain non-identification with the body, with the mind. You have to attain a certain quantity of witnessing. Only then, in that proportion only, self-knowledge becomes possible. You cannot get it free. You have to pay for it, and pay for it in terms of being. Not that you can pay for it with money, nothing else will be helpful: you have to pay for it in terms of being.

And this purity, finally, brings contentment. This word is one of the most profound. You have to understand it, feel it, imbibe it. Contentment means whatsoever the situation is, you accept it without any complaint. In fact, you not only accept it without complaint, you rejoice in it with deep gratefulness. This moment is perfect. When your mind doesn't move from it, when you don't ask for any other time, when you don't ask for any other space, when you don't ask for any other way of being, when you don't ask anything, when the asking has dropped, you are simply here-now, rejoicing, like birds singing in the trees, flowers blooming on the trees, stars moving, everything is taken as "This is the all, the whole, the perfect, no improvement is possible in it." When the future is dropped, when the tomorrow disappears, there is contentment. When now is the only time, the eternity, there is contentment, and in that contentment, says Patanjali, ... supreme happiness.

So contentment is the discipline of the yogi. He has to be contented. If nothing can create discontent in you, if nothing can create restlessness in you -- if nothing can push you off your center -- there arises supreme happiness.

Enough for today.

 

 

Man is like an iceberg: only a part, a minor part, is visible on the surface. The major part of the whole is hidden beneath. Or, man is like a tree. The real life is in the roots, hidden underground with only the branches visible. If you cut the branches, new branches will come out because branches are not the source. But if you cut the roots the tree is destroyed. Only a part of man is visible on the surface, the major part is hidden beneath. If you think that the visible man is all there is, then you commit a great mistake. Then you miss the whole mystery of man, and you miss the doors within yourself which can lead you towards the divine.

If you think that by knowing the name of a person, by knowing from which family he comes, by knowing his profession, that he is a doctor or an engineer or a professor, or by knowing his face, his picture, you have known him. Then you are in great illusion. These are just the appearances on the surface. The real man is far, far away from all these appearances. In this way you may be acquainted, but you will never know the man. It is enough as far as society is concerned, more is not needed. This skin-deep knowledge is enough for the marketplace, but if you really want to know the man then you have to go deeper. And the only way to go deeper is to first go within your own self.

Unless you know the unknown that is within you, you will never be able to know anyone else. The only way to know the mystery that man is, is to know the mystery that you are. There are hidden layers behind hidden layers. Man is infinity.

If you go on diving deep into man, you will reach to God. Man is just the surface of the ocean, waves. If you dive deep, you reach to the very center of existence. Those who have known God they have not known him as an object. They have known him as their innermost subjectivity. Those who have known God have not encountered him. They have not seen him as an object. They have seen him as the very seer, as their very own consciousness. You cannot encounter God anywhere except within yourself. He is your depth, you are his surface. You are his periphery; he is your center.

The deeper you move within yourself, the deeper you are moving into the whole of existence. In others also, because the center is one. Peripheries are millions, the center is but one. The whole of existence is centered on one point, and that one point is God. God is the deepest depth of being.

It is a great journey, a great pilgrimage, to know man. Patanjali's sutras give you clues how to enter.

The first sutra: Kayendriya siddhih ashuddhih ksyayat tapasah.

Before you can understand this sutra, many more things have to be understood. The body has been very much misused. You have mistreated your own body. You don't know the mystery of the body itself. It is not just the skin. It is not just the bones. It is not just the blood. It is a great organic unity, a great dynamism.

For centuries man thought that blood filled the body as water fills a container. Only just three centuries ago, we came to know that blood does not fill the body, that it is not a stagnant thing. Blood circulates. Just only three centuries ago, we came to know that blood circulates, it is a dynamic force. It does not fill the body, but it circulates -- so silently and so continuously. The movement is so graceful, without any noise. We have lived with bodies for millions of lives and we have never come to encounter the reality of the blood, that it circulates.

There are many more mysteries which are hidden. This body is just the first layer of many bodies. In all, there are seven bodies. If you move deep in this body you will come across new phenomena. Behind this gross body is hidden the subtle body. Once that subtle body awakens, you become very powerful because you attain to certain new dimensional forces. This body can lie down in your bed & your subtle body can move. For it there is no barrier. The gravitation of the earth does not affect it. There is no barrier of time and space for it. It can move, it can move anywhere. The whole world is open for it. That is not possible for the gross body.

In some of your dreams, the subtle body actually leaves your physical body. In some of your deep meditations, your subtle body leaves your physical body. Many of you have sometimes become aware that, while deeply meditating, it feels as if you have risen above the earth a few inches, a few feet. When you open your eyes you are sitting on the earth. You think you have imagined it. It is not so. In deep meditation, the subtle body can go a little higher than your gross body. Sometimes that, too, happens -- that the gross body also follows the subtle body.

There is a woman in Europe; she has been investigated by all the scientific methods. In deep meditation she rises four feet above the earth; not only in the subtle body, but the gross body also. It has been found to be a fact. This is said in the oldest yoga treatises: that in deep meditation it happens that with the subtle body the gross body can go above the ground -- and, exactly, it says it can go four feet very easily.

And the gross body is just the surface body, the skin of other bodies. Then behind the subtle there are subtler bodies -- in all, seven bodies. They all belong to seven different planes of being. The more you enter in your own being, the more you become aware that this body is not the all. But you will encounter the second body only if this body has become pure.

Yoga does not believe in torturing the body, it is not a masochistic affair -- but it believes in purifying it. And, sometimes, purifying it and torturing it may look alike. A distinction has to be made. A man can fast, and he may be only torturing. He may be just against his own body, suicidal, masochistic. But then another man can fast and he may not be a torturer, and he may not be a masochist, and he may not be trying to destroy the body in any way. Rather, he may be trying to purify it. Because in deep fasting, body attains to certain purities.

You continuously go on eating every day; you never give any holiday to the body. The body goes on accumulating many dead cells -- they become a load.

Not only are they a load and a burden, they are toxins, they are poisonous. They make the body impure. When the body is impure you cannot see the hidden body behind it. This body needs to be clean, transparent, pure; then suddenly you become aware of the second layer, the subtle body. When the subtle body is pure then you become aware of the third body, and the fourth, and so on.

Fasting helps tremendously, but one needs to be very much aware that one is not destroying the body. No condemnation should be in the mind; and there is the problem because almost all religions have condemned the body. Their original founders were not condemners; they were not poisoners. They loved their bodies. They loved the body so much that they always tried to purify it. Their fasting was a purification.

Then came blind followers, unaware of the deep science of fasting. They started fasting, blindly. They enjoyed, because mind is violent. It enjoys being violent with others, it enjoys a power, because whenever you are violent with others you feel powerful; but to be violent with others is risky because the other will retaliate. Then there is a simple way: to be violent with your own body. Then there is no risk. The body cannot retaliate. The body cannot harm you. You can go on harming your own body; there is nobody to react. This is simple. You can torture and enjoy power -- that now you control your body; the body doesn't control you.

If this fasting is aggressive, violent, if there is anger and destructiveness; then you miss the point. You are not purifying the body; you are in fact destroying it.

And to clean a mirror is one thing and to destroy the mirror is another. To clean the mirror is totally different, because when the mirror is clean of all dust, pure, you will be able to look into it -- it will reflect you. But if you destroy the mirror, then there is no possibility to look into it. If you destroy the gross body you lose all possibility of contact with the second, the subtle body. Purify it, but don't be destructive.

How does fasting purify? Whenever you are on a fast, the body has no more work for digestion. In that period, the body can work in throwing out dead cells, toxins. It is just as one day, Sunday or Saturday, you are on a holiday, and you come home and you clean  your house the whole day. The whole week you were so engaged and so busy you couldn't clean the house. When the body has nothing to digest, you have not eaten anything, the body starts a self-cleaning. A process starts spontaneously and the body starts throwing out all that is not needed, which is like a load. Fasting is a method of purification. Once in a while, a fast is beautiful -- not doing anything, not eating, just resting. Take as much liquid as possible and just rest, and the body will be cleaned.

Sometimes, if you feel that a longer fast is needed, you can do a longer fast also, but be deep in love with the body. And if you feel the fast is harming the body in any way, stop it. If the fast is helping the body, you will feel more energetic, you will feel more alive, you will feel rejuvenated, vitalized. This should be the criterion: if you start feeling that you are getting weaker, if you start feeling that a subtle trembling is coming into the body, then be aware -- now the thing is no longer a purification. It has become destructive. Stop it.

One should learn the whole science of it. In fact, one should do fasting near somebody who has been fasting for long and who knows the whole path very well, who knows all the symptoms. If the fast becomes destructive what will start happening? If it is not destructive then what will happen? After a real, purifying fast you will feel new, younger, cleaner, weightless, happier; and the body will be functioning better because now it is unloaded. But fasting comes only if you have been eating wrongly. If you have not been eating wrongly there is no need for fasting. Fasting is needed only when you have already done the wrong with the body -- and we all have been eating wrongly.

Man has lost the path. No animal eats like man; every animal has its chosen food. If you bring buffaloes in the garden and leave them, they will eat only a particular grass. They will not go on eating everything and anything. They are very choosey. They have a certain feeling about their food. Man is completely lost, has no feeling about his food. He goes on eating everything and anything. In fact you cannot find anything which is not eaten somewhere or other by man. In some places, ants are eaten. In some places, snakes are eaten. In some places, dogs are eaten. Man has eaten everything. Man is simply mad. He does not know what is in resonance with his body and what is not. He is completely confused.

      

According to Human Phsyiology

Man Is Meant to be Vegitarian

Man, naturally, should be a vegetarian, because the whole body is made for vegetarian food. Even scientists concede to the fact that the whole structure of the human body shows that man should not be a nonvegetarian. Man comes from the monkeys. Monkeys are vegetarians -- absolute vegetarians. If Darwin is true then man should be a vegetarian. Now there are ways to judge whether a certain species of animal is vegetarian or nonvegetarian. It depends on the intestine, the length of the intestine. Nonvegetarian animals have a very small intestine. Tigers, lions -- they have a very small intestine, because meat is already a digested food. It does not need a long intestine to digest it. The work of digestion has been done by the animal. Now you are eating the animal's meat. It is already digested; a long intestine is not needed. Man has one of the longest intestines, which means that man is a vegetarian. A long digestion is needed, and much excreta will be there which has to be thrown out.

If man is not a nonvegetarian and he goes on eating meat, the body is burdened. In the East, all the great meditators -- Buddha, Mahavira -- they have emphasized the fact. Not because of any concept of nonviolence -- that is a secondary thing -- but, because if you really want to move in deep meditation your body needs to be weightless, natural, flowing. Your body needs to be unloaded. And a nonvegetarian's body is very much loaded.

Just watch what happens when you eat meat. What happens to the animal when it is killed? Of course, nobody wants to be killed. Life wants to prolong itself. The animal is not dying willingly. If somebody kills you, you will not die willingly. If a lion jumps on you and kills you, what will happen to your mind? The same happens when you kill a lion. Agony, fear, death, anguish, anxiety, anger, violence, sadness -- all these things happen to the animal. Violence, anguish, agony spreads all over its body. The whole body becomes full of toxins, poisons. All the body glands release poisons because the animal is dying very unwillingly. And then you eat the meat. That meat carries all the poisons that the animal has released. The whole energy is poisonous. Then those poisons are carried in your body.

The meat which you are eating belonged to an animal's body. It had a specific purpose there. A specific type of consciousness existed in the animal's body. You are on a higher plane than the animal's consciousness, and when you eat the animal's meat your body goes to the lowest plane, to the lower plane of the animal. There exists a gap between your consciousness and your body, and a tension arises, and anxiety arises.

One should eat things which are natural for you. Fruits, nuts, vegetables, eat as much as you can. The beauty is that you cannot eat these things more than is needed. Whatsoever is natural always gives you a satisfaction, because it satiates your body, saturates you. You feel fulfilled. If some thing is unnatural it never gives you a feeling of fulfillment. Go on eating ice cream, you never feel that you are satiated. In fact, the more you eat, the more you feel like eating it. It is not a good food. Your mind is being tricked. Now you are not eating according to the body need; you are eating just to taste it. The tongue has become the controller.

The tongue should not be the controller. It does not know anything about the stomach. It does not know anything about the body. The tongue has a specific purpose to fulfill: to taste food. Naturally, the tongue has to judge, that is the only thing, which food is for the body -- for my body -- and which food is not for my body. It is just a watchman on the door; it is not the master. If the watchman on the door becomes the master, then everything will be confused.

Now advertisers know well that the tongue can be tricked, the nose can be tricked. And they are not the masters. You may not be aware that much food research goes on in the world. They say if your nose is closed completely, and your eyes closed, and then you are given an onion to eat, you cannot tell what you are eating. You cannot tell onion from apple if the nose is closed completely. Its because half of the taste comes from the smell that is decided by the nose, and half is decided by the tongue -- and these two have become the controllers. Advertisers know this. Whether ice cream is nutritious or not is not the point. It can carry a flavor, it can carry some chemicals which fulfill the tongue but are not needed for the body.

Man is confused, more confused than buffaloes. You cannot convince buffaloes to eat ice cream. Try!

A natural food... And when I say "natural", I mean that which your body needs. The need of a tiger is different, he has to be very violent. If you eat the meat of a tiger you will be violent, but where will your violence be expressed? You have to live in human society, not in a jungle. Then you will have to suppress the violence. Then a vicious circle starts.

When you suppress violence, what happens? When you feel angry, violent, a certain poisonous energy is released, because that poison creates a situation where you can be really violent and kill somebody. The energy moves towards your hands, the energy moves towards your teeth. These are the two places from where animals become violent. Man is part of the animal kingdom.

When you are angry, energy is released. It comes to the hands and to the teeth, to the jaw. But you live in a human society and it is not always profitable to be angry. You live in a civilized world, and you cannot behave like an animal. If you behave like an animal, you will have to pay too much for it -- and you are not ready to pay that much. Then what do you do? You suppress the anger in the hands, you suppress the anger in your teeth. You go on smiling a false smile, and your teeth go on accumulating anger.

I have rarely come to see people with a natural jaw. It is not natural. It is blocked, stiff because too much anger is there. If you press the jaw of a person, the anger can be released. Hands become ugly. They lose grace, they lose flexibility, because too much anger is suppressed there. People who have been working on deep massage, they have come to know that when you touch the hands deeply, massage the hands, the person starts becoming angry. There is no reason. You are massaging the man and suddenly he starts feeling angry. If you press the jaw, persons become angry again. These people carry accumulated anger.

These are the impurities in the body. They have to be released. If you don't release them, the body will remain heavy. Yoga exercises exist to release all sorts of accumulated poisons in the body. Yoga movements release them. A yogi's body has a suppleness of its own. Yoga exercises are totally different from other exercises. They don't make your body strong, they make your body more flexible. And when your body is more flexible, you are strong in a very different sense. You are younger. They make your body more liquid, more flowing with no blocks in the body. The whole body exists as an organic unity, in a deep rhythm of its own. It is not like noise in the market, it is like an orchestra. A deep rhythm inside, no blocks, then the body is pure. Yoga exercises can be tremendously helpful.

Everyone is carrying much rubbish in the stomach, because that is the only space in the body where you can suppress things. There is no other space. If you want to suppress anything, it has to be suppressed in the stomach. If you want to cry -- your wife has died, your beloved has died, your friend has died -- but it doesn't look good, looks as if you are a weakling, crying for a woman, you suppress it: where will you put that crying? Naturally, you have to suppress it in the stomach. That is the only space available in the body, the only hollow place where you can force it.

If you suppress in the stomach -- and everybody has suppressed many sorts of emotions: of love, of sexuality, of anger, of sadness, of weeping, even laughter. You cannot laugh a good belly laugh. It looks rude, looks vulgar -- if you do, then you are not cultured. You have suppressed everything. And, because of this suppression, you cannot breathe deeply, you have to breathe shallowly. If you breathe deeply, then those wounds of suppression, they would release their energy. You are afraid. Everybody is afraid to move in the stomach.

Every child, when born, breathes through the belly. Look at a child sleeping: the belly goes up and down -- never the chest. No child breathes from the chest; they breathe from the belly. They are completely free now, nothing is suppressed. Their stomachs are empty, and that emptiness has a beauty in the body.

Once the stomach has too much suppression in it, the body is divided in two parts, the lower and the higher. Then you are not one; you are two. The lower part is the discarded part. The unity is lost; a duality has entered into your being. Now you cannot be beautiful, you cannot be graceful. You are carrying two bodies instead of one, and there will always remain a gap between the two. You cannot walk beautifully. Somehow you have to carry your legs. In fact if the body is one, your legs will carry you. If the body is divided in two then you have to carry your legs.

You have to drag your body. It is like a burden. You cannot enjoy it. You cannot enjoy a good walk, you cannot enjoy a good swim, you cannot enjoy a fast run, because the body is not one. For all these movements, and to enjoy them, the body needs to be reunited. A unison has to be created again: the stomach will have to be cleansed completely.

For the cleansing of the stomach very deep breathing is needed. That is because when you inhale deeply and exhale deeply, the stomach throws all that it is carrying. In exhalations, the stomach releases itself. Hence the importance of pranayam, deep rhythmic breathing. The emphasis should be on the exhalation, so that everything that the stomach has been unnecessarily carrying is released.

When the stomach is not carrying emotions inside, if you have constipation it will suddenly disappear. When you are suppressing emotions in the stomach, there will be constipation because the stomach is not free to have its movements. You are deeply controlling it; you can't allow it freedom. So if emotions are suppressed, there will be constipation. Constipation is more a mental disease than a physical one. It belongs to the mind more than it belongs to the body.

But remember, I am not dividing mind and body in two. They are two aspects of the same phenomenon. Mind and body are not two things. In fact, to say "body and mind" is not good, "bodymind" will be the right expression. Your body is a psychosomatic phenomenon. Mind is the subtlest part of the body, and body is the grossest part of the mind. They both affect each other, they run parallel. If you are suppressing something in the mind, the body will start a suppressing journey. If the mind releases everything, the body also releases everything. That's why I emphasize catharsis very much. Catharsis is a cleansing process.

All these are austerities: fasting, natural eating, deep rhythmic breathing, Yoga exercises. Living a more and more natural, flexible, supple life; creating less and less suppressed attitudes; allowing the body to have its own say, following the wisdom of the body. These I call austerities.

"Austerities" does not mean to torture the body. It means to create a living fire in the body so that the body is cleansed. As if you have thrown gold into the fire, all that was not gold is burned. Only pure gold comes out.

When the body is pure, you will see tremendous new energies arising, new dimensions opening before you, new doors suddenly opening, new possibilities. The body has much hidden power. Once it is released, you will not be able to believe it, that the body carried so many things in it, and so close.

Every sense has a hidden sense behind it. Eyes have a hidden eyesight, an insight behind them. When the eyes are pure, clean, then you don't see things only as they are on the surface. You start seeing their depth. A new dimension opens. Right now when you see a person you don't see his aura, you just see his physical body. The physical body is surrounded by a very subtle aura. A diffused light surrounds the body. And everyone's body is surrounded by a different color aura. The moment your eyes are clean you can see the aura. By seeing the aura, you know many things about the man that you cannot know in any other way. The man cannot deceive you. It is impossible because his aura reveals his being.

Somebody comes before you with an aura of dishonesty and tries to convince you that he is a very honest man. But the aura cannot deceive. Its because that man cannot control the aura. That is not possible. The dishonest aura has a different color. The aura of an honest man has a different color. The aura of a pure man is pure white. The more impure a man, the more white moves towards gray. The more impure, it moves still more towards black. The aura of a man who is absolutely dishonest is absolutely black. The aura of a confused man changes; it is never the same. Even if you go on looking for just a few minutes, you will see the aura is changing. The man is confused. He himself is not settled in what he is. He is a changing aura.

A man who is meditative has a very silent quality to the aura, a calmness, a coolness around him. The man who is in deep anxiety, turmoil, tension, has the same quality to the aura also. The man who is very tense may try smiling, may create a face, may have a mask, but when he comes to you his aura will show the reality.

And the same happens with the ears also. Just as eyes have a deep insight, the ears have a deep hearing quality. Then you don't hear what the man is saying, but rather, you hear the music. You don't bother about the words that he is using, but the tone, but the rhythm of his voice... An inner quality of the voice which says many things which words cannot deceive, cannot change. The man may be trying to be very polite, but his rudeness will be in his sound. The man may be trying to be very graceful, but his sound will show his ungracefulness. The man may be trying to show his certainty, but his sound will show a hesitant quality.

If you can hear the very sound, and if you can see the aura, and if you can feel the quality of the being that is near you, you become capable of many things. And these are very simple things. They start happening once the austerity starts.

Then there are deeper powers which Yoga calls siddhis -- magical powers, miraculous powers. They look like miracles because we don't understand their mechanism, how they function. Once you know the mechanism they are not miracles. In fact a miracle is not possible. All that happens, happens according to a law. The law may not be known, then you call it a miracle. When the law is known the miracle disappears.

Just now in India they have introduced television in the villages. For the first time, villagers have watched Indira Gandhi in the television boxes, as the villagers call them -- "picture boxes." They could not believe. Impossible. They went around the boxes, they looked from everywhere. How is Indira Gandhi hidden in the box? A miracle, unbelievably miraculous, but once you know the law the thing is simple.

All miracles are according to hidden laws. Yoga says there is no miracle in the world because "miracle" means something against the law, which is not possible. How is there any possibility to go against the universal law? There is no possibility. It may be that people just don't know.

Siddhis become possible as you go deeper into purities and perfection. For example, if you can move your astral body out of the gross body you can do many things which will be miraculous. You can visit people. They can see you but they cannot touch you. You can even talk to them by your astral projection. You can heal people. If you are really pure, just your touch, laying on of the hands, and there will be a miracle. Just surrounding you will be the healing power. Wherever you will move, healing will happen automatically. Not that you do it. The very purity, and you have become a vehicle of the infinite forces. But one has to move withinwards, one has to search to one's own innermost core.

And the greatest power that awakens in you is the feeling of deathlessness. Not that you have a theory, a system, a philosophy that you are immortal, no. Now you have a feeling, now you are grounded in it. Now you know it. It is not a question of any theory. It has become your knowing that there is no death. This body will disappear into its elements, but your consciousness cannot disappear. The mind will disintegrate, the thoughts will be released, the body will go into the elements -- but you, the witnessing self, will remain.

You know it because now you can see your body from the far, faraway space. You can see your body separate from you. You can come out of the body and look at it. You can move around your own body. Now you know that the body will be left when you will die, but not you. Now you can see the mind functioning as a mechanism, as a biocomputer. You are the seer, not the mind. Now the body and mind go on functioning, but you are not identified. This is the greatest miracle that can happen to a man: that he comes to know that he is deathless. Then the fear of death disappears, and with the fear of death all fears disappear.

When all fears disappear, love arises. When there is no fear, love arises. Only then does love arise. How can love arise in a fear-ridden mind? You may seek friendship, you may seek a relationship, but you seek it out of fear -- just to forget yourself, to drown yourself in the relationship. It is not love. Love arises only when you have transcended death. They both cannot exist together. If you are afraid of death, how can you love? Out of this fear you may try to find company, but the relationship will remain of fear.

That's why ninety-nine percent of religious people pray, but their prayer is not real prayer. It is not out of love; it is out of fear. Their God is out of the fear. Only rarely, one percent of religious persons come to realize deathlessness. Then a prayer arises which is not out of fear, which is out of love, sheer gratitude, a thankfulness.

 

 

Swadhyayat istadevata samprayogah.

One has to study oneself. That is the only way to reach the divine. Patanjali does not say, "Go to the temple." He does not say, "Go to the church." He does not say, "Do the rituals." No, that is not the way to be one with the divine. Go into yourself -- swadhyaya, self-study -- because he is hidden behind you, within you. He is your innermost core. You are the temple, go within. Study yourself. You are a tremendous phenomenon. Study yourself. Study all that you are. And the day you have studied yourself completely, he will be revealed. He is hidden behind you, within you. He is you in your deepest being. So study yourself.

This "study" means actually what Gurdjieff means by "self-remembering." Patanjali's swadhyaya is exactly what Gurdjieff means by "self-remembering." Remember yourself and just go on watching. Watch how you relate with people. Relationship is a mirror. How you relate with strangers, how you relate with people who are known to you, how you relate with your servant, how you relate with your boss. Just go on watching. Let every relationship be a mirror, a reflection. And watch how you change your mask. Look at your greed, look at your jealousies, look at your fear, look at your anxieties, your possessiveness. Go on looking and watching.

There is no need to do anything. That's the beauty of the sutra. Patanjali does not say, "Do something!" He says, "Study yourself." The very study, the very awareness will do. A transformation will happen when you come face-to-face to know your whole being.

In different moods: when you are sad, watch. When you are happy, watch. When you are indifferent, watch. When you are feeling hopeless, watch. When you are filled with hope so much, watch. In desire, in frustration, watch. There are millions of moods around you. Go on watching. Let every mood be a window to look within yourself. All the colors of the rainbow, watch yourself. When you are alone, watch. When you are not alone, watch. Move to the mountains, isolated, watch. Go to the factory, to the office, and watch how you change, and where you change.

You just go on watching. Never relax this watching for a single moment. Buddha has said, "When you go to your bed, go on watching. When you are falling into sleep, go on watching how you fall asleep." Go on watching. Don't allow anything to pass without watching. Just this self remembering, this self-study, will do it all. You need not ask, "What do I do after I have watched" Nothing is needed. Once you watch your hatred totally, it disappears.

And this is the criterion: that which disappears by watching is sin, and that which grows by watching is virtue. That's the only definition I can give to you. I don't say that "this is sin and that is virtue." No, sin and virtue cannot be objectified. That which grows by watching is virtue; that which disappears by watching is sin. Anger will disappear by watching; love will grow. Hatred will disappear; compassion will grow. Violence will disappear; prayer will grow, gratitude will grow. So whatsoever disappears through watching is sin. Nothing else is needed to be done with it. Just watch it and it disappears. It disappears just as when you bring light to a dark room the darkness disappears. The room does not disappear; the darkness disappears.

You will not disappear by watching. In fact by watching, you will be revealed. Only darkness will disappear. The darkness of anger, the darkness of possessiveness, the darkness of jealousy -- all that will disappear. Only you will be left in your pristine purity. Only your inner space will be left, empty, void.

Nothing else is needed, only awareness.

Samadhi siddha Ishwar pranidhanat.

When you have studied yourself, when you have come to know yourself -- surrender. That becomes very simple. It is not an effort then. If you want to surrender now, it will be a tremendous effort, and then too, it will never be total. If right now you want to surrender, how can you surrender with hatred inside? How can you surrender with jealousy inside? How can you surrender with violence inside? Surrender is possible only when you are absolutely pure.

How can you go to God and put your hatred, violence, jealousies at his feet? No, only when you are pure, a flower of purity can you then enter the temple and surrender it.

One should become worthy of surrender, because surrender is the greatest act. Nothing is beyond it. You cannot surrender by your will and effort, because will and effort belong to the ego. The ego cannot surrender. When you go on studying yourself, watching yourself, the ego disappears. You remain, but there is no longer the "I." You are a vast emptiness with no "I" in it. You are a vast amness, but no "I" in it. Being exists, and ego is no more -- then it is possible to surrender.

Total illumination, samadhi: you become light itself. Everything disappears. You remain as energy; and the purest energy is light. Now scientists, physicists, say that if anything is moved at the speed of light it will become light. If a stone brick is thrown at the speed of light, the brick will disappear. It will become light itself because at that speed things disappear and only energy remains. They have discovered it just now, within this century, that there is a possibility that all matter is convertible into light, into energy. Matter is a slow-speed energy; light is a high-speed energy.

The ego is a material thing, it is a slow-speed energy. When you surrender it, you attain to the speed of light. Then you are no longer a solid thing, then you are weightless energy. And weightless energy has no limitation, it is unlimited. Weightless energy cannot be defined in any other way. The only way is to say that it is light. The Bible says, "God is light." The Koran says, "God is light." The Upanishads say, "God is light." You become light.

First, move through self-study so you can encounter God within. Then surrender to it. All and all that you are, surrender to it. Remember, that surrendering is not an effort, so don't be bothered about how to surrender. Just first remember yourself, and surrendering comes as a shadow. There is no technique to surrender. Once you know yourself, you know now how to bow down and surrender yourself. Surrendered, you become God himself. Fighting with the whole, you remain an ugly ego. Surrendered with the whole, you become the whole. Let-go is the ultimate mantra.

But the greed may arise in your mind. "Then why wait? Why should I not surrender now?" You cannot. You are the barrier, so how can you surrender? When you are not, surrender will be. If you are, surrender is not possible. You will not surrender, your disappearance will be the surrender. You go out of one door and from another door enters surrender. You and surrender cannot exist together.

So remember, you cannot surrender. Watch yourself, so you become purer and purer and purer. So pure that almost nothing is left, only a purity, a fragrance -- then surrender happens.

In this sutra Patanjali is simply saying that total illumination can be accomplished by surrendering to God. He is not saying how to surrender. He is not saying that surrender has to be done. He is simply indicating a phenomenon. Self-study has to be done and you will come face-to-face with God. If you have done self-study you enter the temple, you face God, and then there is no problem. The moment you face him surrender happens. It is not a doing; it is a happening.

Enough for today.

 

 

JUST the other day, I was reading an old Indian fable, the fable of the woodcutter. The story goes this way:

An old woodcutter was coming back from the forest carrying a big, heavy load of wood on his head. He was very old, tired -- not only tired of the day's routine work, tired of life itself. Life had not been much to him, just a weary round. Every day the same: going to the forest early in the morning, the whole day cutting the wood, then carrying the load back to the town by the evening. He could not remember anything else, only this. And only this had been the whole of his life. He was bored. Life had not been a meaningful thing to him; it carried no significance. Particularly on that day, he was very tired, perspiring. It was hard to breathe, carrying the load and himself.

Suddenly, as a symbolic act, he threw the load. That moment comes to everybody's life, when one wants to throw the load. Not only that wood bundle on his head, it had become a symbolic act, he throws with it the whole life. He fell to the ground on his knees, looked at the sky and said, "Ah, Death. You come to everybody, but why don't you come to me? What more suffering have I to see? What more burdens have I to carry still? Am I not punished enough? And what wrong have I committed?"

Then suddenly, he could not believe his eyes, Death appeared. He could not believe it. He looked around, very much shocked. Whatsoever he was saying, he had never meant it. And he had never heard of anything like this, that you call Death, and Death comes.

And Death said, "Did you call me?"

The old man suddenly forgot all weariness, all tiredness, the whole life of dead routine. He jumped up and he said, "Yes... yes, I called you. Please, could you help me to put the load, the burden, back on my head? Seeing nobody here, I called you."

There are moments when you are tired of life. There are moments when you would like to die. But dying is an art; it has to be learned. And to be weary of life does not really mean that deep down the lust for life has disappeared. You may be weary of a particular life, but you are not weary of life as such. Everybody becomes tired of a particular part of life -- the dead routine, the weary round, the same thing again and again, the repetition -- but not weary of life itself. And if Death comes you will do the same as the woodcutter did. He behaved perfectly humanly. Don't laugh at him. Many times you have also thought to be finished with all this nonsense that goes on. For what to continue it? But if Death suddenly appears? You will not be ready.

Only a yogi can be ready to die, because only a yogi knows that through a voluntary death, a willing death, the infinite life is attained. Only a yogi knows that death is a door; it is not the end. In fact it is the beginning and beyond it opens the infinities of God. In fact beyond it, you are for the first time really, authentically alive. Not only your physical part of the heart throbs, you throb. Not only are you excited by outer things, you are made ecstatic by the inner being. The life abundant, the life eternal, is entered through the door of death.

Everybody dies, but then death is not voluntary; then death is forced on you. You are unwilling, you resist, you cry, you weep; you would like to linger a little longer on this earth in this body. You are afraid. You can't see anything except darkness, the end. Everybody dies unwillingly, but then death is not a door. Then you close your eyes to it in fear.

For the people who are on the path of yoga, death is a willing phenomenon. They will it. They are not suicidal. They are not against life: they are for greater life. They sacrifice their life for a greater life. They sacrifice their ego for a greater self. They sacrifice their self, also, for the supreme self. They go on sacrificing the limited for the unlimited. And this is what growth is all about: to go on sacrificing that which you have for that which becomes possible only when you are empty, when you don't have anything.

Patanjali's whole art is of how to attain to the state where you can die willingly, surrender willingly, with no resistance. These sutras are a preparation, a preparation to die and a preparation to a greater life.

Sthir sukham asanam.

Step by step, deeper and higher grace has to be attained. Grace of the body is what he calls asana, posture. He's not a masochist. He is not teaching you to torture your body. He is not a bit against the body. How can he be? He knows the body is going to be the very foundation-stone. He knows if you miss the body, if you don't train the body, then higher training will not be possible.

The body is just like a musical instrument. It has to be rightly tuned; only then will the higher music arise out of it. If the very instrument is somehow not in right shape and order, then how can you imagine, hope, that the great harmony will arise out of it? Only discordance will arise. Body is a veena, a musical instrument.

Sthir sukham asanam.

The posture should be steady and should be very, very blissful, comfortable. So never try to distort your body, and never try to achieve postures which are uncomfortable.

For the Westerners, sitting on the ground, sitting in padmasana, lotus posture, is difficult; their bodies have not been trained for it. There is no need to bother about it. Patanjali will not force that posture on you. In the East, people are sitting from their very birth, small children sitting on the ground. In the West, in all cold countries, chairs are needed; the ground is too cold. But there is no need to be worried about it. If you look at Patanjali's definition, what a posture is, you will understand.

A posture should be such that you can forget your body. What is comfort? When you forget your body, you are comfortable. When you are reminded continuously of the body, you are uncomfortable. So whether you sit in a chair, or you sit on the ground, that's not the point. Be comfortable, because if you are not comfortable in the body, you cannot long for other blessings which belong to deeper layers. If the first layer missed, all other layers are closed. If you really want to be happy, blissful, then start from the very beginning to be blissful. Comfort of the body is a basic need for anyone who is trying to reach inner ecstasies.

Every body has to be unique because every body is carrying a unique soul. Your thumbprints are unique. You cannot find anybody else all over the world whose thumbprints are just like yours. And not only today. You cannot find anybody in the whole past history whose thumbprints will be like yours. Those who know say that even in the future there will never be a person whose thumbprint will be like yours. A thumbprint is nothing, insignificant, but that too is unique. That shows that every body carries a unique being. If your thumbprint is so different from all others, then your body, your whole body has to be different.

So never listen to anybody's advice. You have to find your own posture. There is no need to go to any teacher to learn it; your own feeling of comfort should be the teacher. And if you try -- within a few days, try all the postures that you know, all the ways that you can sit -- one day you will fall upon, stumble upon, the right posture for yourself. And the moment you feel the right posture, everything will become silent and calm within you. Nobody else can teach you, because nobody can know how your body harmony, in what posture, will exactly be steady and comfortable.

Try to find your own posture. Try to find your own Yoga. And never follow a rule, because rules are averages. For example, in Poona there are one million people, somebody is five feet tall, somebody five-foot-five, somebody five-six, somebody six feet, somebody six and a half feet. One million people, so you calculate their heights and then you divided the total height of one million people by one million; then you will come to an average height. It may be four feet eight inches or something. Then you go and search for the average person -- you will never find them. Average person never exists. Average is the most false thing in the world. Nobody is an average. Everybody is himself; nobody is an average. An average is a mathematical thing. It is not real, it is not actual.

All rules exist for averages. They are good to understand a certain thing, but never follow them. Otherwise you will feel uncomfortable. Four feet eight inches is the average height! Now you are five feet, four inches longer -- cut it. Uncomfortable? If you walk in such a way so you look like the average, you will become an ugly phenomenon, an Aashthvakra. You will be like a camel, crooked everywhere. One who tries to follow the average will miss.

The average is a mathematical phenomenon, and mathematics does not exist in existence. It exists only in man's mind. If you go and try to find mathematics in existence, you will not find it. That's why mathematics is the only perfect science because it is absolutely unreal. Only with unreality can you be perfect. Reality does not bother about your rules, regulations; reality moves on its own. Mathematics is a perfect science because it is mental, it is human. If man disappears from the earth, mathematics will be the first thing to disappear. Other things may continue, but mathematics cannot be here.

Always remember, all rules, disciplines, are average and the average is nonexistential. Don't try to become the average; no one can become average. One has to find his own way. Learn the average, that will be helpful, but don't make it a rule. Let it be just a tacit understanding. Just understand it, and forget about it. It will be helpful as a vague guide, not as an absolutely certain teacher. It will be just like a vague map, not perfect. That vague map will give you certain hints, but you have to find out your own inner comfort, steadiness. How you feel should be the determining factor. That's why Patanjali gives this definition, so that you can find out from your own feeling.

Sthir sukham asanam. There cannot be any better definition of posture:

Why does this "should" come in? Its because we would like to make a rule out of it. It is a simple definition, an indicator, a pointer. It is not a rule. And remember it always, people like Patanjali never give rules. They are not so foolish. They simply give pointers, hints. You have to decode the hint into your own being. You have to feel it, work it out. And then you will come to the rule, but that rule will be only for you, for no one else.

If people can stick to it, the world will be a very beautiful world -- nobody trying to force anyone else to do something, nobody trying to discipline anybody else. Because, your discipline may have proved good for you, it may be poisonous for somebody else. Your medicine is not necessarily a medicine for all. Don't go on giving it to others. But foolish people always live by rules.

I have heard...

Mulla Nasrudin was learning medicine with a great physician. He watched his master to find out hints. When the master would go for his rounds to see the patients, Mulla would follow. One day Mulla was surprised. The master took the pulse of the patient, closed his eyes, meditated and said, "You have been eating too many mangoes."

Mulla was surprised. How could he find out through the pulse? He never heard that anybody could find through the pulse beat: you have been eating mangoes. He was puzzled. On the way back home he asked, "Master, please give me a little hint. How could you...?"

The master laughed and said, "The pulse cannot show it, but I looked under the bed of the patient. There were many mangoes -- uneaten and a few eaten. So I just inferred; it was an inference."

The master was ill one day, so Mulla had to go for the daily rounds. He went to see a new patient. He took the pulse in his hand, closed his eyes, brooded a little -- just exactly like the master -- and then he said, "You have been eating too many horses."

The patient said, "What! Are you mad?"

Mulla was very much puzzled. He came home very disturbed and sad.

The master asked, "What happened?"

He said, "I also looked under the bed. The saddle and other things were there -- the horse was not there -- so I thought, 'He has eaten too many horses.'"

This is how stupid mind goes on following. Don't be stupid. Take these definitions, sayings, sutras, in a very vague way. Let them become part of your understanding, but don't try exactly to follow them. Let them go deep in you, they become your intelligence; and then you seek your path. All great teaching is indirect.

How to attain to this posture? How to attain this steadiness? First look at the comfort. If your body is exactly in deep comfort, in deep rest, feeling good, a certain well-being surrounds you, then that should be the criterion with which to judge. That should become the touchstone. And this is possible while you are standing; this is possible while you are Lying down; this is possible while you are sitting on the ground or sitting on a chair. It is possible anywhere because it is an inner feeling of comfort. And whenever it is attained, you will not like to continue moving again and again, because the more you move, the more you will miss it. It happens in a certain state. If you move, you move away; you disturb it.

And that's the natural desire in everybody. Yoga is the most natural thing. The natural desire is to be comfortable, and whenever you are in discomfort you will like to change it. That is natural. Always listen to the natural, instinctive mechanism within you. It is almost always correct.

 

 

Always listen to the natural, instinctive mechanism within you. It is almost always correct.

Have you ever noticed watched when you go to a theater, a movie how many times you change your posture? Have you tried to correlate it? If there is something very sensational going on on the screen, you cannot sit leaning against the chair. You sit up, your spine becomes straight. If something boring is going on and you are not excited, you relax. Now your spine is no longer straight. If something very uncomfortable is going on, you go on changing your posture. If something is really beautiful there, even your eye-blinking stops. Even that much movement will be a disturbance. With no movement, you become completely steady, restful, as if the body has disappeared.

The first thing to attain to this posture is relaxation of effort, which is one of the most difficult things in the world to attain -- most simple, and yet most difficult. Simple to attain, if you understand. Very difficult to attain if you don't understand. It is not a question of practice; it is a question of understanding.

       

 

In the West, Émile Coué has discovered a particular law he calls the Law of the Reverse Effect. It is one of the most fundamental things in human mind. There are things, if you want to do them, please, don't try to do them. Otherwise, the reverse will be the effect.

For example, you are not falling asleep. Don't try to fall asleep. If you try, sleep will be farther and farther away. If you try too much it will be impossible to sleep, because your every effort goes against sleep. Sleep comes only when there is no effort. When you are not bothered about sleep, you are just lying down on your pillow, just enjoying the coolness of the pillow, or the warmth of the blanket, the dark, velvety surrounding encompassing you, you are just enjoying it, nothing else, you are not even thinking about sleep. Some dreams pass through the mind, and you look at them in a very, very sleepy way, not interested too much even in them, because if interest arises sleep disappears. You just, somehow, remain aloof, just enjoying, resting, not seeking any end -- sleep comes.

If you start trying so that sleep should come, once the "should" enters it is almost impossible. Then you can remain awake the whole night. If you fall asleep, that may be only because you get tired of the effort. When effort is no longer there -- because you have done everything and you give up -- then sleep comes in.

Émile Coué discovered, just in this century, the law of reverse effect. Patanjali must have known it, almost five thousand years before. He says: prayatna shaithilya -- relaxation of the effort. You would have assumed just the reverse -- that very much effort should be made in order to attain to the posture. Patanjali says, "If you make too much effort it will not be possible. No-effort allows it to happen."

Effort should be relaxed completely, because effort is part of the will and will is against surrender. If you try to do something, you are not allowing God, or Existence, to do it. When you give up and say, "Okay, let thy will be done. If you are sending sleep, perfectly good. If you are not sending sleep, that too is perfectly good. I have no complaints to make; I am not grumbling about it. You know better. If it is needful to send sleep to me, send it. If it is not needed, perfectly good -- don't send it. Please, don't listen to me! Your will should be done." This is how one relaxes effort.

Effortlessness is a great phenomenon. Once you know it, many millions of things become possible to you. Through effort the market; through effortlessness the God. Through effort you can never reach to nirvana -- you can reach lo New Delhi, but not to nirvana.

Through effort you can attain things of the world. They are never attained without effort, remember. So if you want to attain more riches, don't listen to me, because then you will be very, very angry with me. You will say, "This man disturbed my whole life. He was saying, 'Stop making efforts, and many things will become possible,' and I have been sitting and waiting, and the money is not coming, and nobody is coming with an invitation, saying, 'Please come and become the president of the country.'" And nobody is going to come. These foolish things are attained by effort.

If you want to become a president, you have to make a mad effort for it. Unless you go completely mad you will never become a president of a country. Remember, you have to be more mad than other competitors, because you are not alone there. Great competition exists; many others are trying also. In fact everybody else is trying to reach the same place. Much effort is needed. Don't try in a gentlemanly way, otherwise you will be defeated. No gentlemanliness is needed there. Be rude, violent, aggressive. Don't bother about what you are doing to others. Stick to your program. Even if others are killed for your power politics, let them be killed. Make everybody a ladder, a step. Go on walking on people's heads; only then do you become a president or a prime minister. There is no other way.

The ways of the world are the ways of violence and will. If you relax will, you will be thrown out, somebody will jump on you. You will be made a means. If you want to succeed in the ways of the world, never listen to people like Patanjali. Then it is better to read Machiavelli, Chanakya -- cunning, most cunning people of the world. They give you advice how to exploit everybody and not allow anybody to exploit you, how to be ruthless, without any compassion, just violent. Only then can you reach to power, prestige, money, things of the world. But if you want to attain to things of God, just the opposite is needed: no-effort. Effortlessness is needed, relaxation is needed.

It has happened many times....

I have many friends in the world of politics, in the world of money, market. They come to me and they say, "Teach us, somehow, to relax. We cannot relax." A minister used to come to me, and he always came with the same problem: "I cannot relax. Help me."

I told him, "If you really want to relax you will have to leave politics. This ministership cannot go with relaxation. If you relax, you lose. So you decide. I can teach you relaxation, but don't be angry then, because these two things cannot be possible together. So first be finished with your politics; then come to me."

He said, "That is not possible. I have come to learn relaxation so that I can work hard and become chief minister. Because of these tensions in the mind and continuous worries, I cannot work hard. And others -- they go on working. They are great competitors, and I am losing the battle. I have not come to leave politics."

Then I said, "Then, please, don't come to me. Forget about me. Just be in politics, get really tired, bored, be finished with it; then come to me."

Relaxation is a totally different dimension, just the contrary. You move in the world with will. Nietzsche has written a book, The Will To Power. That is the right scripture to read: The Will To Power.

Patanjali is not "will to power." It is surrender to the whole. The first thing: prayatna shaithilya -- effortlessness. You should simply feel comfortable. Don't make much effort about it, let the feeling do the work. Don't bring the will in. How can you force comfort on yourself? It is impossible. You can be comfortable if you allow comfort to happen. You cannot force it.

How can you force love? If you don't love a person, you don't love a person. What can you do? You can try, pretend, force yourself, but just the reverse will be the result. If you try to love a person, you will hate him more. The only result will be, after your efforts, that you will hate the person, because you will take revenge. You will say, "What type of ugly person is he, because I am trying so much to love and nothing happens?" You will make him responsible. You will make him feel guilty, as if he is doing something. And, he is not doing anything.

Love cannot be willed, prayer cannot be willed, posture cannot be willed. You have to feel these things. Feeling is a totally different thing than willing.

Buddha becomes a buddha not by will. He tried for six years continuously through will. He was a man of the world, trained as a prince, trained to become a king of a kingdom. He must have been taught all that Chanakya had said. Chanakya is the Indian Machiavelli, and even a little more cunning than Machiavelli because Indians have a quality of mind to go to the very roots. If they become Buddha, they really become Buddha. If they become Chanakya you cannot compete with them. Wherever they go, they go to the very root. Even Machiavelli is a little immature before Chanakya. Chanakya is absolute.

Buddha must have been taught; every prince has to be taught. Machiavelli's greatest book is named The Prince. Buddha must have been taught all the ways of the world because he was going to have to tackle with other people in the world. He has to cling to his power. But then he left. And, it is easy to leave the palace; it is easy to leave the kingdom. But, it is difficult to leave the training of the mind.

For six years he tried through the will to attain to God. He did whatsoever is humanly possible -- even inhumanly possible. He did everything. He left nothing undone. Nothing happened. The more he tried, the more he felt himself to be further away. In fact, the more he made the will and made the efforts through it, the more he felt that he was deserted -- "God is nowhere." Nothing was happening.

Then one evening he gave up. That very night he became enlightened. That very night prayatna shaithilya, relaxation of the effort, happened. He became a buddha not by willpower, he became a buddha when he surrendered, when he gave up.

I teach you meditations and I go on telling you, "Make every effort that you can make," but always remember, this emphasis to make all the efforts is just so that your will is torn apart, so that your will is finished and the dream with the will is finished. You are so fed up with will that one day, you simply give up. That very day you become enlightened.

But don't be in a hurry, because you can give up right now without making the effort and that will not help. That won't help. That will be a cunning thing, and you cannot win with God by being cunning. You have to be very innocent. The thing has to be allowed to happen, without your ego, without making an effort.

These are simply definitions. Patanjali is not saying, "Do it!" He is simply defining the path. If you understand it, it will start affecting you, your way, your being. Absorb it. Let it be saturated deep in you. Let it flow with your blood. Let it become your very marrow. That's all. Forget Patanjali. These sutras are not to be crammed. They should not be made part of your memory. They should become part of you. Your total being should have the understanding, that's all. Then forget about them. They start functioning.

Two points. First, relax effort. Don't force it. Allow it to happen. It is like sleep; allow it to happen. It is a deep let-go, allow it to happen. Don't try to force it, otherwise you will kill it. Second thing is: while the body is allowing itself to be comfortable, to settle in a deep rest, your mind should be focused on the unlimited.

The mind is very clever with the limited. If you think about money, the mind is clever; if you think about power, politics, the mind is clever; if you think about words, philosophies, systems, beliefs, the mind is clever. These are all limited. If you think about God, suddenly there is a vacuum. What can you think about God? If you can think, then that God is no longer God; it has become limited. If you can think of God as Krishna, it is no longer God. Krishna may be standing there singing on his flute, but there is a limitation. If you think of God as Christ -- finished. God is no longer there; you have made a limited being out of it. Beautiful, but nothing to be compared with the beauty of the unlimited.

There are two types of God. One, the God of belief -- Christian God, Hindu God, Mohammedan God. And second, the God of reality, not of belief. That one is unlimited. If you think about the Mohammedan God you will be a Mohammedan, but not a religious man. If you think about the Christian God you will be a Christian, but not a religious man. If you just bring your mind to God himself, you will be religious -- no longer Hindu, no longer Mohammedan, no longer Christian.

And that God is not a concept! A concept is a toy your mind can play with. The real God is so vast... That God plays with your mind, not your mind playing with God. Then God is no longer a toy in your hands; you are a toy in the hands of the divine. The whole thing has totally changed. Now you are no longer controlling. You are no longer in control. God has taken possession of you. The right word is "to be possessed," to be possessed by the infinite.

It is no longer a picture before your mind's eye. No, there is no picture. A vast emptiness. And in that vast emptiness you are dissolving. Not only God's definition is lost, boundaries are lost; when you come in contact with the infinite, you start losing your boundaries. Your boundaries become vague. Your boundaries become less and less certain, more flexible; you are disappearing like smoke in the sky. A moment comes, you took at yourself, and you are not there.

So Patanjali says two things: no effort, and consciousness focused on the infinite. That's how you attain to asana. And this is only the beginning, this is only the body. One has to go deeper.

 

 

Tato dwandwa anabhighatah.

When the body is really in comfort, restful, the flame of the body is not wavering -- it has become steady, there is no movement -- suddenly, as if time has stopped, no winds blowing, everything still and calm and the body has no urge to move; it is settled, deeply balanced, tranquil, quiet, collected. In that state, dualities, and the disturbances caused by dualities, disappear.

Have you observed that whenever your mind is disturbed, your body fidgets more and you cannot sit silently? Or, whenever your body is fidgeting, your mind cannot be silent? They are together. Patanjali knows well that body and mind are not two things. You are not divided in two -- body and mind. The body and mind are one thing. You are psychosomatic: you are bodymind. The body is just the beginning of your mind and the mind is nothing but the end of the body. Both are two aspects of one phenomenon; they are not two. So whatsoever happens in the body affects the mind and whatsoever happens in the mind affects the body. They run parallel. That's why so much emphasis on the body, because if your body is not in deep rest, your mind also cannot be at rest.

It is easier to start with the body because that is the outermost layer. It is difficult to start with the mind. Many people try to start with the mind, and fail, because their body will not cooperate. It is always best to begin from A, B, C, and go slowly, in the right sequence. The body is the first, the beginning. One should start with the body. If you can attain to tranquility of the body, suddenly you will see the mind is falling in order.

The mind moves to the left and to the right, swings like a pendulum of an old grandfather clock, continuously, right to left, left to right. If you observe a pendulum, you will come to know something about your mind. When the pendulum is moving towards the left, visibly it is going to the left, but invisibly it is gaining momentum to go to the right. When the eyes say that the pendulum is going to the left, that very movement towards the left creates the momentum, the energy, for the pendulum to go to the right again. When it is going to the right it is again earning energy, gaining energy to go to the left.

So whenever you are in love, you are gaining energy to hate. Whenever you are in hate, you are gaining energy to love. Whenever you are feeling happy, you are gaining energy to feel unhappy. Whenever you are feeling unhappy, you are gaining energy to feel happy. This is how the momentum continues.

I have heard...

       

 

When India became independent in 1947, there was a beautiful elephant in Delhi. Before independence, the elephant was used in wedding processions and other things like that, but after the independence even political parties started using the elephant in their rallies, processions, protests. The elephant had something like a flaw. The legs on his left side were a little shorter, so when the elephant walked he would lean towards the left.

Communists were very happy, Socialists were very happy -- the elephant was leftist. So they paid money to the owner to borrow the elephant. They clapped, and their followers threw flowers on the elephant. Really, this is how an elephant should be -- a leftist. Of course, it was very difficult for the elephant to walk, but who bothers about the elephant? It was difficult because two legs were shorter, and the whole burden was falling on the left legs. An elephant carries much weight; it was difficult. Tons of weight have to be carried. But flowers, garlands were showered on the elephant. He was well received. Photographs were published in newspapers, and that this is a communist elephant.

Seeing that, that communists and socialists and other leftists have a beautiful elephant, even rightists, when their time of procession and rally came, they also borrowed the same elephant -- not knowing that the elephant is a leftist elephant. When the elephant went with the rightists they were very angry. This elephant was against them: he should lean towards the right. They started throwing old shoes, tomatoes, banana peels, and all rotten things. In short, they gave him a VIP treatment. They were very angry. They were angry at the owner also, and they told the owner, "Next time we take it, you make arrangements."

So the owner had to make arrangements because he lived on the elephant; that was his only earning. So he made big shoes. Then whenever it was a rightist procession he would put on the big shoes, and the animal would lean towards the right; and whenever it was a leftist procession, he would remove the shoes. Nobody bothered about the elephant. One day the elephant fell, just in Connaught Place, because it was too much to carry that big load with shoes. And it was so uncomfortable -- it was not an asana. It was really uncomfortable. He fell and died.

This is the situation of your mind also -- continuously moving from one extreme to another -- from leftist to rightist, from rightist to leftist -- never in the middle. To be in the middle is really to be. Both extremes are burdensome because you cannot be comfortable. In the middle is comfort, because in the middle the weight disappears. Exactly to be in the middle -- and you become weightless. Move to the left and the weight enters; move to the right and the weight enters. And go on moving... the farther away you move from the middle, the more weight you will have to carry. You will die someday in some Connaught Place.

Be in the middle. A religious man is neither leftist nor rightist. A religious man does not follow the extremes. He is a man of no extreme. And when you are exactly in the middle -- your body and your mind both -- all dualities disappear, because all dualities are because you are dual, because you go on leaning from this side to that.

Tato dwandwa anabhighatah.

And when there is no duality, how can you be tense? How can you be in agony? How can you be in conflict? When there are two within you, there is conflict. They go on fighting, and they will never leave you in rest. Your home is divided; you are always in a civil war. You live in a fever. When this duality disappears you become silent, centered, in the middle. Buddha has called his way majjhim nikaya -- the middle way. He used to tell his disciples, "The only thing to be followed is: Always be in the middle and don't go to the extremes."

There are extremists all over the world. Somebody is chasing women continuously -- a Romeo, a Majnu -- continuously chasing women. And then someday he becomes frustrated with all the chasing. Then he leaves the world; then he becomes a sannyasin. Then he teaches everybody to be against woman and goes on saying, "Woman is hell. Be alert! Only woman is the trap." Whenever you find a sannyasin talking against women you can know he must have been a Romeo before. He is not saying anything about women; he is saying something about his past. Now one extreme finished, he has moved to another extreme.

Somebody is mad after money. And many are mad, just obsessed, as if their whole life is to make bigger and bigger piles of money. That seems to be their only meaning to be here, that when they go to death they will leave big piles -- bigger than the others. That seems to be their whole significance. When such a man becomes frustrated he will go on teaching, "Money is the enemy." Whenever you find somebody teaching that money is the enemy, you can know that this man must have been mad after money. Still he is mad, but on the opposite extreme.

A really balanced man is not against anything, because he is not for anything. If you come and ask me, "Are you against money?" I can only shrug my shoulders. I am not against, because I have never been for it. Money is something, a utility, a medium of exchange. There is no need to be mad about it either way. Use it if you have it. If you don't have it, enjoy the nonhaving of it. If you have it, use it. If you don't have it, then enjoy that state. That's all a man of understanding will do. If he lives in a palace, he enjoys. If the palace is not there, then he enjoys the hut. Whatsoever is the case, he is happy and balanced. He is neither for the palace nor against it. A man who is for, or against, is lopsided; he is not balanced.

Buddha used to say to his disciples, "Just be balanced, and everything else will become possible of its own accord. Just be in the middle." And that is what Patanjali says when he is talking about the posture. The outer posture is of the body, the inner posture is of the mind. Both are connected. When the body is in the middle, restful, steady, the mind is also in the middle, restful, steady.

When the body is in rest, body-feeling disappears. When the mind is in rest, mind feeling disappears. Then you are only the soul, the transcendental, which is neither the body nor the mind.

Between body and mind, breath is the bridge. These three things have to be understood. Body posture, mind merging into the infinite, and the bridge that joins them together. These three have to be in a right rhythm. Have you observed? Whenever your mind changes, the breathing changes. The reverse is also true. Change your breathing, and your mind changes.

When you are deep in sexual passion have you watched how you breathe? Breathing is very nonrhythmic, feverish, excited. If you continue breathing that way you will be tired soon, exhausted. It will not give you life. In fact, in that state you are losing some life energy. When you are calm and quiet, feeling happy, suddenly one morning or evening looking at the stars, nothing to do, a holiday, just resting -- watch the breathing. The breathing is so peaceful. You cannot even feel it, whether it is moving or not. When you are angry, watch. The breathing changes immediately. When you feel love, watch. When you are sad, watch. With every mood the breathing has a different rhythm. It is a bridge.

When your body is healthy, breathing has a different quality. When your body is ill, the breathing is ill. When you are perfectly in health you completely forget about breathing. When you are not in perfect health the breathing comes again and again to your attention. Something is wrong.

These words breath control is not good; it is not a right rendering of the word pranayam. Pranayam never means breath control. It simply means the expansion of the vital energy. Prana-ayam: prana means the vital energy hidden in breath, and ayam means infinite expansion. It is not breath control. The very word control is a little ugly, because the very word control gives you the sense of being a controller. And with that the will enters, the ego comes in. Pranayam is totally different. It is the expansion of vitality, breathing in such a way that you become one with the breathing of the whole; breathing in such a way that you are not breathing in your own individual way, you are breathing with the whole.

It happens sometimes. Two lovers sitting by each other's side holding hands -- if they are really in love they will suddenly become aware that they are breathing simultaneously, they are breathing together. They are not breathing separately. When the woman inhales, the man inhales. When the man exhales, the woman exhales. Try it. Sometime, suddenly become aware. If you are sitting with a friend, you will be breathing together. If the enemy is sitting there and you want to get rid of him, or some bore is there and you want to get rid of him, you will be breathing separately; you will never breathe in rhythm.

Sit with a tree. If you are silent, enjoying, delighting, suddenly you will become aware that the tree, somehow, is breathing the same way you are breathing. And there comes a moment when one feels that one is breathing together with the whole, one becomes the breath of the whole, one is no longer fighting, struggling, one is surrendered. One is with the whole -- so much so, that there is no need to breathe separately.

In deep love people breathe together; in hatred never. I have a feeling that if you are inimical to somebody, he may be a thousand miles away.... This is just a feeling because no scientific research exists for it, but someday the scientific research is possible. But I have a very deep feeling that if you are inimical to somebody, he may be in America and you may be in India, you will breathe separately, you cannot breathe together. And your lover may be in China, you may be here in Poona -- you may not even have the address with you where your lover is -- but you will breathe together. This is how it should be, and I know it is that way, but no scientific proof exists. That's why I say this is just my feeling. Someday, somebody will prove the scientific thing also.

There are a few proofs which suggest.... For example, in Russia there have been a few experiments about telepathy. Two persons, separate, far away, hundreds of miles away: one person is the broadcaster, another is the receiver in telepathy. At a fixed time, twelve in the afternoon, one starts sending messages. He makes a copy of a triangle, concentrates on it, and sends the message that "I have made a triangle." And the other person tries to receive, just remains open, feeling, groping -- what message is coming. And scientists have observed that if he receives the triangle then they both are breathing in the same way; if he misses the triangle then they are not breathing in the same way.

In deep breathing together, something of deep empathy arises; you become one -- because breath is life. Then feeling can be transferred, thoughts can be transferred.

If you go to meet a saint, always watch his breathing. If you feel sympathetic, in deep love with him, watch your breathing also. You will suddenly feel that the nearer you come to him, your feeling, your breathing, fall with his system of breathing. Aware, unaware, that is not the point; but it happens.

This has been my observation. If I see that somebody has come and not knowing anything at all about breathing he starts breathing with me, I know he is going to become a sannyasin, and I ask him. If I feel that he is not breathing with me I forget about asking; I will have to wait. And sometimes I have tried, just for an experiment I have asked, and he will say, "No, I am not ready." I knew it, that he is not ready -- just to test whether my feeling is going right, whether he is in sympathy with me. When you are in sympathy you breathe together. It simply happens by itself, some unknown law functions.

Pranayam means to breathe with the whole. That is my translation, not the control of the breath, but to breathe with the whole. It is absolutely uncontrolled! If you control it, how can you breathe with the whole? So to translate pranayam as breath control is a misnomer. It is not only incorrect, inadequate, it is certainly wrong. Just the opposite is the case.

To breathe with the whole, to become the breath of the eternal and the whole is pranayam. Then you expand. Then your life energy goes on expanding with trees and mountains and sky and stars. Then a moment comes, the day you become a buddha. You have completely disappeared. Now you no longer breathe, the whole breathes in you. Now your breathing and the whole's breathing are never separate. They are always together. So much so that it is now useless to say that "This is my breath."

When the breathing stops, when there is no breathing, you are exactly in the same stage as you will be in when you will die. For a second you are in tune with death -- breathing has stopped. The whole of The Book of Secrets, Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, is concerned with it -- emphatically concerned with it -- because if you can enter into that stoppage, there is the door.

It is very subtle and narrow. Jesus has said again and again, "Narrow is my way. Straight, but narrow, very narrow." Kabir has said, "Two cannot pass together, only one." So narrow that if you are a crowd inside, you cannot pass. If you are even divided in two -- left and right -- you cannot pass. If you become one, a unison, a harmony, then you can pass.

Narrow is the way. Straight, of course; it is not a crooked thing. It goes directly to the temple of the divine, but very narrow. You cannot take anybody with you. You cannot take your things with you. You cannot take your knowledge. You cannot take your sacrifices. You cannot take your woman, your children. You cannot take anybody. In fact you cannot take even your ego, even yourself. You will pass through it, but everything else other than your purest being has to be left at the door. Yes, narrow is the way. Straight, but narrow.

And these are the moments to find the way: when the breath goes in and stops for a second; when the breath goes out and stops for a second. Attune yourself to become more and more aware of these stops, these gaps. Through these gaps, God enters you like death.

Somebody was telling me, "In the West, we don't have any parallel like Yama, the god of death." And he was asking me, "Why do you call death a god? Death is the enemy. Why should death be called a god? If you call death the devil it is okay, but why do you call it a god?"

I said, "We call it a god very consideredly because death is the door to God. In fact death is deeper than life -- life that you know. Not the life that I know. Your death is deeper than your life, and when you move through that death you will come to a life which doesn't belong to you or me or to anybody. It is the life of the whole. Death is the God.

A whole Upanishad exists, Kathopanishad. The whole story, the whole parable is that a small child is sent to Death to learn the secret of life. Absurd, patently absurd. Why go to Death to learn the secret of life? Looks like a paradox, but it is reality. If you want to know life -- real life -- you will have to ask Death, because when your so-called life stops, only then real life functions.

So when you inhale, hold it a little longer so that the gate can be felt. When you exhale it, hold it outside a little longer so that you can feel the gap a little more easily; you have a little more time.

The more you do these stoppages, these gaps, the more the gate becomes a little wider and you can feel it more. Try it. Make it a part of your life. Whenever you are not doing anything, let the breath go in... Stop it. Feel there; somewhere there is the door. It is dark, you will have to grope. The door is not immediately available. You will have to grope, but you will find it.

Whenever you will stop the breath, thoughts will stop immediately. Try it. Suddenly stop the breath and immediately there is a break. Thoughts stop because thoughts and breaths both belong to life -- this so-called life. In the other life, the divine life, breathing is not needed. You live; there is no need to breathe. Thoughts are not needed. You live & thoughts are not needed. Thoughts and breath are part of the physical world. No-thought, no-breath, are part of the eternal world.

Patanjali says these three: stopping inside, stopping outside, stopping suddenly. And there is a fourth which is internal. That fourth has been emphasized by Buddha very much. He calls it Anapanasati Yoga. He says, "Don't try to stop anywhere. Simply watch the whole process of breath." The breath coming in -- you watch, don't miss a single point. The breath is coming in -- you go on watching. Then there is a stop, automatic stop, when the breath has entered you -- watch the stop. Don't do anything; simply be a watcher. When the breath starts for the outer journey -- go on watching. When the breath is completely out, it stops -- watch that stop also. The breath goes on coming in, going out, coming in, going out -- you simply watch. This is the fourth. And just by watching, you become separate from the breath.

When you are separate from the breath you are separate from the thoughts. In fact, the breath is the parallel process in the body to thoughts in the mind. Thoughts move in the mind, breath moves in the body. They are parallel forces, two aspects of the same coin. Patanjali also refers to it, although he has not emphasized the fourth. He simply refers to it, but Buddha has completely focused his whole attention on the fourth; he never talks about the three. The whole Buddhist meditation is the fourth.

That is of witnessing.

But Patanjali is really very scientific. He never uses the fourth, but he says that it is beyond the three. Must be Patanjali didn't have as beautiful a group of disciples as Buddha had. Patanjali must have been working with more body oriented people, and Buddha was working with more mind oriented people. He says that the fourth goes beyond the three, but he himself never uses it -- he goes on saying all that can be said about Yoga. That's why I say he is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end: he has not left out a single point. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras cannot be improved.

There are only two persons in the world who created a whole science alone. One is Aristotle, in the West, who created the science of logic -- alone, with nobody's cooperation. And for these two thousand years nothing has been improved; it remains the same. It remains perfect. Another is Patanjali, who created the whole science of Yoga -- which is many times, a million times greater than logic -- alone.

And it could not be improved; it has not been improved; and I don't see any point how it can be improved any day. The whole science is there, perfect, absolutely perfect.

Enough for today.