Patanjali Yoga Sutras Lecture 079

Full Transcript(Not Corrected)

Om Sahanaavavatu Sahanaubhunakthu Saaveeryam Karavavahai Tejasvinavaditamastumavidvishavahai Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Hari Om Om Yogena Chittasyapadena Vacham Malam Sharirasya Javaidhyakena Yopakarottam Pravaram Muninam Patanjalim Praanjali Rana Tosmi I bow to the eminent sage Patanjali who removed the impurities of the mind through yoga, of speech through grammar and of the body through medicine. We have entered into one of the most difficult part of Patanjali Yoga Sutras. As I mentioned whenever any spiritual aspirant undertakes spiritual practice there must occur some changes. The mind as we understand is consisting of three gunas. As I mentioned in my previous talks according to Sankhya Yoga there are two eternal but completely separate even opposed principles pure consciousness and everything else non-consciousness Purusha and Prakruti. Now the mind the body these belong to the Prakruti but we feel my hand is moving my mind is working what is it due to it has borrowed consciousness from the Purusha. This undesirable mixture of pure consciousness with that which is non-consciousness is the cause of this whole what we call transmigratory process. Now what is the problem with it? Everyone who is caught in this cycle suffers. Suffering is the only problem of life. That's why Buddha had said the greatest Aryan truth is life is full of suffering. Do we really understand that we are all suffering? No. That's why the longing to get out also does not arise in our minds. So Patanjali has come to our help. The important thing for us to remember is that whenever we are trying to get rid of this samsara or this transmigratory process we will have to get rid of this delusion. What is the delusion? I am not what I am truly am. In other words I am the body I am the mind. Whenever we say we are the body there would be mind because the body itself cannot say I am the body like this table it cannot say I am the table. It has to be illumined by something else which seems to have consciousness but upon analysis we find even the mind also doesn't have consciousness. How do we know? Because if something is the nature of an object that nature should always be there 24 hours a day for eternity but what happens to this mind? In deep sleep, in swoon there appears no consciousness at all. At other times there is consciousness therefore sometimes it is there sometimes it is absent. What is the conclusion? That it is not its nature. If it is not its nature then it must be borrowing from something else. We give an illustration supposing there is water. Is water sweet or bitter? It's neither. Water in its true nature is tasteless, colorless, shapeless. Then suddenly you drink water and either it is sweet or bitter or saltish. What do you conclude? That some extraneous element has come into it and again you can separate whatever is the extraneous object. What is the problem with us? The body, mind have nothing to do with our true nature but our true nature is pure consciousness. Here is a wonderful analysis. The body doesn't have consciousness. It seems to have consciousness because mind directs it. The car seems to move all by itself. Imagine a car nowadays especially driverless cars. What happens when you see a driverless car moving? That it has suddenly come to life and it is moving but you know it doesn't have consciousness. Then how comes it behaves as though it has consciousness because it has borrowed or man has put into it in the form of programming etc. It is easier to understand the body like a carpet, like a table, like a cloud of earth doesn't have consciousness but very difficult to understand the mind also doesn't have consciousness. That is our problem but if we are rational we can understand if the mind has really consciousness it should possess that consciousness all the time but it doesn't possess. Vedanta also agrees. Sankhya yoga also agrees with it and then another reason is reduced to it. That reason is that which goes on changing is not its real nature. Whatever is our true nature it will never change. Trikala abadhitam satyam. Past, present and future it must be absolutely the same. Now if it is not having consciousness, if the mind is not having consciousness but it appears to have consciousness the only conclusion are two. One conclusion is that there must be something else which possesses consciousness and this mind must be borrowing that consciousness. In Vedanta we give many examples. Two examples I will give you. That light is shining in the mirror and that reflected light through the mirror also can illumine. Just imagine there is a room completely closed, there is a hole and the sunlight is falling directly upon a mirror through that hole and now the mirror also has acquired the power of illumining the whole room. This is one example. Second example of course all of us know even though we use the word moonlight, does the moon have any light? We know that it is purely borrowed light. It is an inert. The moon is an inert thing, not really. From the Vedantic point of view it is a devata, it is a divine being. I am talking from ordinary point of view. Moonlight is a borrowed light. Enough examples. So the purusha, pure consciousness seems to be lending consciousness to the body-mind. Here is the important point to understand. Is the consciousness lending? Is it doing something? Is the sunlight lending its light to the mirror or by its very nature it is shining. That is its nature and anything that can catch the and reflect the light can reflect it freely. That is the Vedantic understanding. Now what is the problem? Reflected consciousness like borrowed beauty always lands us in trouble. Anything that is borrowed lands us in trouble because if you have borrowed what does that mean? It has to be given back to the owner. At some point or other we lose and that's what every day the mind loses its capacity to reflect. How many times does it? How many times does the mind lose, loses its the borrowed consciousness in a day? In between two thoughts it doesn't at all borrow. It cannot borrow. The moment there is a vritti and there is a consciousness present there. We have discussed this point at the beginning of our talks. If you go back you will see that what is everything. Elaborately I have described it. Now coming back to this point, the important point where Patanjali wants to convey to us is whatever spiritual practice we are doing it must bring about a tremendous change in the mind. These changes have been categorized in an ascending order by Patanjali into three. He called it Nirodha Parinama, Samadhi Parinama, Ekagra Parinama. Nirodha, Samadhi and Ekagrata. These three and in that particular order. In any spiritual aspirant if he is sincerely practicing, if these changes do not take place then there is something seriously wrong. Either he is not practicing but claiming that he is doing or there is something wrong he is doing it. Now I used three Sanskrit words. Let me try to explain it. Prakruti consists of three gunas. Sattva, Rajas and Tamas and what is the nature of the mind? Scatteredness and therefore at the beginning the mind is dull. After some time it becomes super active and after some time it becomes concentrated. At the beginning of these sutras at any given time the mind remains in five modifications like Sripta, Scatteredness etc. We have discussed Sripta, Modha, Ekagrata etc. Now when we are progressing. Progress means, the word progress is a very interesting word. The general meaning of the word progress is always from a lower state to a higher state. Otherwise it cannot be called progress at all. In that sense that from a lower state one is going up to a higher state. Has civilization really been progressing? How do we know that it's not progressing? We know because of three criteria. This was given by Aldous Huxley. Three criteria for judging whether civilization or culture is progressing. What are they? Is man growing in goodness? Is man growing in happiness? Is man growing in creativity, goodness? Can you say that we are growing in goodness? How much of destruction, suffering we are imposing upon every human being consciously, unconsciously, deliberately or planned way or fallen into inescapable circumstances. What is called pressure? Can we say that we are more happy than our ancestors who were 50 million years back? Absolutely no. Every rational person has agreed. Are we growing in creativity? Absolutely no. What is creativity? It's an interesting word. Creativity has nothing to do with artists and musicians and painters and others. Creativity means the ability to look at things from a higher point of view is creativity. For example, an intellectual person is more creative than a worldly person and an aesthetic person is much more creative than an intellectual person and a moral person is much more creative than an aesthetic person and a spiritual person is much more creative than a moral person. Morality is a foundation from which spirituality takes off but morality has nothing to do with spirituality. I don't mean an immoral person is going to be spiritual. Morality is a take-off point like a rocket. There is a take-off point. It gives the boost to the energy but once the rocket takes off, it has nothing to do with the platform upon which it is fixed for which they spend a lot of money. Coming back, all that we are discussing is we have to discern changes and these changes must take place in four stages. Now, last class I have mentioned four words if you really remember. What are those? Vasana, Samskara, Vritti and Pratyaya. Some of them are really difficult to translate into English language but I will give the nearest translation. Vasana means deepest desires and vasanas consist of two types, worldly vasanas and spiritual vasanas. The next step is Samskara. Samskara means certain types of impressions we get through repeated practice, bhyasa, through habits. That's why there is a beautiful book has come, one of the probably most wonderful book I have ever come across, The Power of Habit. It is worth reading by every spiritual person, The Power of Habit. This is what our spiritual teachers have been trying to instill into our minds. This is called achara, habit. Progress starts with habit. Get up at a particular time. Have a particular breakfast at a particular time. Everything must have a time. Not only that, have a particular type of breakfast. By experience you will know particular type of food, particular type of dress, particular type of activity. Okay. This is the second stage. What is the first one? Vasana. What is the second one? Samskara, habit. What is the next, what is called lower state? These are all deeper states. These are higher states. What is the third one? Vritti. Vritti means thoughts. Various thoughts come because of the habits. And the last one is Pratyaya. Pratyaya means there cannot be a thought without the end of knowledge. Every thought will have knowledge. A simple example, the moment you hear the word man, you don't think of a tiger, you don't think of a table, but you think of a particular species of living beings called man. It could be man, it could be woman, it could be baby, it could be old person, whatever it is, you think some knowledge will be there. And changes must take place within these four, whether a person is worldly or spiritual. But for spiritual person, the change must take place. And this change must take place from the outer to the inner, not from the inner to the outer. What do I mean? I mean you cannot change your vasanas, you can't start your spiritual life by changing your deep desires. You change your activities and activities are the result of knowledge. Knowledge is the result of thoughts. Thoughts are the result of certain habitual desires. Habitual desires are the result of deepest desires, either for worldly happiness or spiritual happiness. This is how one attains Samadhi, from outer to inside. Change the activity, you change the knowledge. Change the knowledge, you change the thoughts. Change the thoughts, you change the habits. Change the habits, then you change the vasana. Ultimately there should be only one vasana and that vasana is called Brahma Vasana. In technical language, it is called Brahma Akara Vritti. Only one, again and again. I want God, is the simplest language that we can tell. These changes must take place in our activities, then in our knowledge, then in our thoughts, then in our habits. Ultimately that change also takes place like a wave in the vasana and once the change takes place in the vasana, that change becomes permanent. Until the vasana becomes changed, any amount of superficial changes is like, you know, there is a dilapidated house and you want to show it, you want to sell it. What do you do? You remove all the stains etc, paint it brightly and you think that you can sell for a normal price. But the buyer also is very intelligent. What does he do? He sends a surveyor and he comes and goes on knocking at every place and finds out how strong the house is. The buyer also is not a fool. Now I would like to take up an illustration. We can never understand spiritual truths unless we study the lives of people who have practiced these things and how their life has become transformed. I am going to take certain incidents from the life of Sri Ramakrishna. But before that I would like to read out to you one of the most marvellous poems any one of us would ever come across. The experience of Nirvikalpa Samadhi by no other than Swami Vivekananda himself. It is called the song of the Samadhi. First I will read out in the Bengali then I will come back. The original Bengali hymn. It is one of the greatest mystical poems. I have never come across equivalent to that poem. Maybe it is there but I have not come across. The nearest that we can get when the soul is led by the divine to the highest realm. What happened? This is more or less this song is manifested. This meaning is manifested in one poem. There was a great Spanish mystic saint called Saint John of the Cross and he wrote a poem. It remains one of the greatest mystical and mystifying poem he had ever written. A dark night of the soul. I don't know some of you might have heard about it. Okay now coming back to Swami Vivekananda's poem. This is the translation. Lo! the sun is not, nor the calmly moon. All light extinct in the great void of space, floats shadow-like the image universe. In the void of mind involute, there floats the fleeting universe, rises and floats, sinks again, ceaseless in the current I. Slowly, slowly, the shadow multitude entered the primal Aum and flowed ceaseless, the only current, the I am, I am. Lo! it stopped, even that current flows no more. Void, merged into void, beyond speech and mind, whose heart understands, verily he does. This is the English translation. One of the most mystical translations. It has several parts. What is it? Slowly the mind is merging like Bhrigu. If you remember in the Taittiriya Upanishad, the last chapter called Bhrigu Valli, there was a spiritual aspirant called Bhrigu and the Bhrigu approaches his own father, biological father but he was actually a realized soul and that shows to us that even a householder can become a realized soul. We have several examples of that. Another example is Yajnavalkya and Maitreya. Yajnavalkya was a householder. So he renounced. Before renouncing, his wife also renounces with him and she gets instruction and the conversation is between a teacher and the student, not between a husband and wife. If you can recollect, same thing happened in the life of Sri Ramakrishna. Who was the first disciple of Sri Ramakrishna? Holy Mother and was Sri Ramakrishna the husband of Holy Mother at that time? He was only a Brahma Gnani, a teacher. So this Bhrigu, he asks teach me Brahman, teach me God, take me to God realization and nobody can take one to God realization. They can only give some hints. So he gave the hint. It is find out that from which the whole universe comes out, that in which it lives and that unto which it returns again. A profound psychological or biological, physical law. One chair asks the other chair, what's your true nature? Oh teacher, bigger chair, older chair, guru chair is approached by a younger chair, eager to realize its nature, says oh teacher, Bhagawan teach me my real nature. Brahman means our real nature. Then the older chair is instructing, I can't take you to that realization. Find out from where did you come and in which you are living and unto which at the end of your tableness or chairness you return and then this fellow goes back and says from where did I come? I must have come from wood. How am I living? In wood and when I am broken up where do I go back? Go back means not going back but all the time I am wood only. Before I became table or chair, I am wood. Even now I am wood and when this tableness, name and form break up then also I will remain the wood only. So this was the hint. Varuna, the realized soul gave instructions to his student, apt student but he said these are my words but you cannot understand my words. You have to go and perform austerity. So Bhrigu goes and performs and after some time he comes back and father says what did you realize? I realized I am the body and mind. I am the whole universe, physical universe. But he doubts. Then he approaches the father, go and do, perform the same instruction five times. Then he goes and says no, I am prana, the vital force. No, I am the mind. No, I am the intellect. No, I am the anandamaya kosha. There is no equivalent Sanskrit word. I am anandamaya kosha. In other words he is telling I am not the waker, I am not the dreamer, I am not the sleeper and with that he understood if I am not the waker, if I am not the dreamer, if I am not the sleeper then what am I? I am not the waker. So whole waking state is talak. I am not the dreamer. The whole dream world is talak. I am not the deep sleeper. The whole sleeping state is talak. That means what I am? Who remains there? Only one. Who is that? I. I am the experience. I am alone the reality. So if I am not the dreamer, if I am not the waker, waking state is gone. Dream state is gone. Sleep state is gone. He cannot say I am the observer. He cannot even say I am the knower. He cannot say I am the experiencer. He simply cannot say anything. To whom is he going to tell? There is nobody there to tell. To tell to somebody is possible only in two states. You can tell something to somebody or somebody can tell you something only either in the waking state or in the dream state. In dreamless state to whom are you going to tell? Do you tell that anything? I am where are you? Where are you now? I am in the deep sleep state. Would you say that? Because there is nobody there. The whole point is then I remain as merely I. No questions asked. No answers given. Not even the possibility of someone asking me or answering. That is the state. What is the point we are discussing? The point is the Bhrigu was shedding one by one the coverings with which he identified himself. Ultimately when all the five coverings have been removed he understood this is what I am truly because without coverings there would be no change. In the coverings always there is a change. Just imagine I am the body. Is the body having change or not? All the time we are having the change. I was young. I was conceived. I was a baby. I was a child. I was an adolescent. I was a youth. I was a middle-aged person. I was an old person and after some time he is a dead person. You can't say I am dead person. Someone else has to say he is a dead person. All the changes take place. Are changes taking place in the other four spheres in your prana? Are you always enthusiastic? Are you always full of energy? Are changes taking place in your mind? Are you of the same mind? Are changes taking place in your intellect, your understanding? 20 years back what you have understood about Ramakrishna? Is it the same now? Then are you able to your state of happiness 20 years back, 30 years back is it the same right now? It is changing for better or worse. It is always changing and whatever is changing is not real. Whatever is unchanging is real. So what is it that is unchanging? I the witness to all these changes. I was a baby. I was a child. I was a young man. I was an old man. All these somebody is witness and it is that I. Why this long introduction for this poem of Swami Vivekananda? What is it first that disappears? The outer layer. That's what he is telling. The sun is not nor the calmly moon. All light extinct in the great void of space floats shadow like the image universe. Now for us it is real. I am real. For you I am real. For me you are all real. We never think we are shadow like image. But look at the photograph of Sri Ramakrishna. It is a photograph. It doesn't have any light. We don't know the reason. Of course we have faith that he hears what we are talking about. That's why people don't talk much in the shrine room. At least nasty things. But they are quite happy to talk about nasty things outside because Sri Ramakrishna is not listening. He is listening here. There he is not listening. You know he is not there. So the whole universe is a lifeless image floating. That means the physicality has slowly become a non-real thing. It says in the void of mind involute there floats the fleeting universe rises and floats sinks again ceaseless in the current eye. So what is the next step? There is only one current. If the universe is gone, if all the coverings are gone what remains? Eye. In that eye sometimes the thought is rising up. Sometimes the thought is sinking down. Rising and sinking. Yathana and Thirubhava. Both happening. Rising and falling. Appearing and disappearing. This poem is one of the most profound poems. So sinks again ceaseless in the current eye. So when you are in deep sleep is the physical universe present? Is the dream universe present? But what is present in the deep sleep? What is present? Only eye. How do you know? Because you know many people have come. So I will just take a minute to explain this point. Okay in the waking state I am aware of you. So I know you are there. In the dream state also I am aware of you. So I know you are there. I am there. But in the deep sleep state I am not there. I mean consciousness is not there. This is the greatest mistake people commit all the time. Why? Because I don't remember anything. So as though you remember everything that happened in this life. Do you remember? Suddenly can you remember what breakfast you had yesterday day before yesterday morning or what time? It takes some time for you. If it is four days back it will take longer time for you. That means you never had breakfast. This is a funny example you know. Did you have breakfast four days back or not or food? You don't remember. So forgetfulness is not the proof that something doesn't exist. What is the point here? So this consciousness has two types of knowledge. It acknowledges both the presence and the absence of something. So suppose you are in this room and you look around and say is such and such a person present? Yes, he is present. You are aware that person is present. Suppose one day that person is not. Somebody asks you is that person present or absent? He says no, that person is not here. He is absent. You are aware also of the absence of that person. You have to understand these two points. The consciousness notes both the presence as well as absence. In the deep state you say were you in the waking state? No. Were you in the dream state? No. Then by inference in which state you can be because only there are only three states. So you are not in the room number A, room number B. By logic where are you to be found? In the room number three. This is called logic. But I don't remember anything. You are not remembering anything also indicates your presence. You are not remembering something because you say do you remember what happened 15 years back? No, I don't remember. That means does it indicate that you are dead? Only a conscious person can say I remember or I do not remember. In deep sleep we are there but there is absence of experience. When there is absence of experience what remains? The experiencer alone. You see it is not really a difficult subject to understand but some people find it too difficult or I feel that you are not understanding. Suppose you are in a room with another person. Somebody asks you who is there in the room? Such and so and so is there. Usually we don't mention ourselves because you are being asked and after some time that person goes away. Then another person falls. Who is there with you? You say who is there in that room? Nobody is there in that room. You forget that there is one in that room. Who is that? Yourself. You are there because if you are not there you can't even be questioned or you can't answer that. So unless you are in the deep sleep state you can't even say that I was in deep sleep but you are saying by implication. What do you mean by implication? You are not in the waking state. You are not in the dream state but there is another state called dreamless state. So if you are not in these two states either you are dead which you are not clearly or you are in the deep sleep state. But absence of experience doesn't mean absence of experiencer. That's an important point. The whole Vedanta is foundation is dependent upon this analysis of these three states. This is what Swamiji is telling. In this current I, this whole universe sometimes it comes in the form of thoughts vritti and it sinks and again it. When does the vritti disappear? In which state? In waking state it is there. In dream state it is there. When is it absent? Only in deep sleep. But it is not dead. Absence doesn't mean dead. Absence means you are not aware of it. That's all because as soon as we wake up all the devils are present again for us to face. So Swamiji is telling in that current I slowly slowly the shadow multitude entered the primal womb and flowed ceaseless. Even that three states have gone. What remains? Waking gone, dream gone, dreamless also is gone. The only current I am, I am. But even that a subtle I is there. What happens? Low. Even that I is stopped. Even that current flows no more. Void merged into void. Void. What is this void? Void doesn't mean void. Void means indescribable state. That is all. Above manasa gocharam. Namo namo prabhu vakya mana atitha. Beyond speech and mind. And then what you say? Is it all true? Yes it is true. How do you know? Whose heart understands, he verily does. Only he who has gone through that experience, only he knows. Nobody else. Okay. This poem describes to us from the gross to the subtle, from the subtle to the causal, from the causal to the what? Beyond causal state what is there? Only true nature of oneself. I am. Even that I am is from a human point of view. When there is nobody, there is no need to say I am. That is the state Swami Vivekananda has described. Now what is the point here? Two points here. One point is, as I mentioned earlier, the change never occurs from inside to outside. It always occurs from outside to inside. Gross to the subtle to the causal and beyond the causal. The second point is, if the change doesn't take place, then there is something either we are not practicing or there is something seriously wrong with our practice. I want to dwell on this seriously. What our gurus have given us, there is nothing wrong. Absolutely it is very very highly effective. But if we are not progressing, either we are not practicing sincerely, wholeheartedly, fulfilling all the conditions. Now these conditions are of two types. Two types of conditions are there for the successful fulfillment of any of our spiritual practice. It is like having a physical disease. A person goes to a doctor and what does the doctor do first thing? He diagnoses what is the problem and then he prescribes. He prescribes two things. You always know he prescribes two things. First he prescribes a medicine. Does it? Is it all? You just take medicine and do whatever you like. He also prescribes what conditions must be fulfilled for the medicine to take effect. Suppose a diabetic is there. The doctor gives what is called metformin. That is the medicine. And then you eat this metformin and you do what you like. You can go on eating any number of sweets. Is that? What is the condition? Avoid sweets. Not only the guru gives the mantra, but he says you will have to follow certain conditions. What is the conditions? That is what Vedanta tells. What is called Sadhana Chaturstaya Sampatti. The four treasures of spiritual qualities. What are they? Discrimination, dispassion and control over the sense organs, mind etc. Six and intense longing for liberation. Mumukshuta, Shamadhamadi, Shatka Sampatti and Mumukshuta. Viveka, Viragya, Shamadhamadi, Shatka Sampatti and last Mumukshuta. It is not only necessary to have the mantra and mantras are of two types. For devotees it is what we call Ramakrishna mantra, Krishna mantra, Kali mantra, Jesus mantra etc., Buddha mantra. Buddhists have their mantra you know. You know what is the Buddhist mantra? They have three mantras. You know what are they? Buddham Sharanam Gacchami, Dharmam Sharanam Gacchami, Sangham Sharanam Gacchami. This is called the three Pitaka mantras. Jesus Christ, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner, a little bit of variation is there and Hindus have got the highest number of mantras. Mantras for getting better mangos, mantras for getting children, mantras for getting, destroying one's enemies, their mantras, snake mantras, scorpion mantras and for Jwara mantras, whatever problems you have there is a mantra there and is it effective? Yes, repeated fulfilling all the prescribed conditions it will be very very effective. How do you know it is effective? Because we all know it is effective. It is not a question of faith, it is a question of fact. You know Swami Vivekananda describes the powers of the mind and once he himself was cursed by a fakir in Kashmir and he had to come running, he reports it to Holy Mother and said your old man is useless. Holy Mother gently smiled and said Baba, it is the old man's power only that worked through that fakir and that is going to, is also working through you, through me, through everybody. What is the point here? Certain, not only mantra is like medicine but the how we have to shape our life that is the accompanying conditions for this medicine to become fruitful. That's why in Vedantic literature Guru is compared Bhava Roga Vaidya. Bhava Roga Vaidya is the physician to this disease called this transmigration. Now we will come back as I mentioned, I will have to start with taking Shri Ramakrishna's life. I will come to that point. Shri Ramakrishna's spiritual practice started at Dakshineswar but long before he had acquired tremendous amount of qualities. All these what we call the four treasures of spiritual fitness. What are they? Discrimination, dispassion, body-mind control etc. and concentration and tremendous faith in God, keeping the mind equanimous and intense longing for God realization. All these things Shri Ramakrishna had before, long before he came to Dakshineswar. He was, you know how truthful he was. I told you, I warned you in my last class, I am going to take several classes on these particular three aphorisms because without understanding a great spiritual saint's life, it is not possible for us to understand these aphorisms really speaking. You know a side aside comment, in the olden days any spiritual aspirant who wanted to progress in spiritual they used to go to the gurus and they used to live with the gurus. Simple example, I told you the story of Prajapati and Indra. How many years? Till before they got the highest truth, you know how many years Indra had to practice austerity? 101 years. 32, 32, 32. How many? 96. Three times. Fourth time, five years. Then only he told about the highest truth. But what was he doing all the time? To tell the first truth, 32 years. To tell the second truth, 32 years. To tell the third truth, 32 years. And to tell the final truth, five years. How many years total? 101 years. And we think that, oh yesterday I took initiation. Why did I not have a vision of Sri Ramakrishna? Why did he not come running? Whether it is one day or one year or hundred years. I remember Holy Mother's, you know, one sadhu went to Rishikesh. After a few months he wrote a letter to Holy Mother. Mother, I have come here. I am calling on the Master. Why am I not having the vision of Thakur? Holy Mother, sometimes she could be very very humorous. She wrote, Baba, just because you have gone to Rishikesh, there is no rule that Sri Ramakrishna should come running to you. People have practiced austerities. Thousands of years, you know, putting the head down and legs of Sirsasana. For thousands of years they had practiced spiritual disciplines and yet they did not get God's grace. And just because you went to Rishikesh, you should come running. There is no such rule. After all, you are there only to practice spiritual disciplines. You are a monk. What else will you do? Go on calling on God. The grace of the Lord will definitely will come to you. This is what Holy Mother had written. Now the point is, long before Sri Ramakrishna had qualities like truthfulness, steadfastness, total absorption. We will take these three examples. Sri Ramakrishna's truthfulness. What is the example? You know that. He promised one low-caste woman, I will take my first food from you after the sacred thread ceremony. And that was never a custom. But he said, I have given promise, do you want me on the eve of my sacred thread ceremony? And do you know what is sacred thread ceremony? Perhaps some of you know. But still, sometimes I have to remind myself so that I don't forget. So at the time of sacred thread, he put at least three strands of thread. What is the three strands? Or three into three, nine etc. What is this meant for? What is the symbolism? We have got three types of bodies. The gross, the subtle and causal. And we have got three types of instruments. The thoughts, the speech and the activities. Control over these three. I take a vow, I control, I will keep control over these three. That is the meaning of taking these three strands. I will not go into it. Sri Ramakrishna said, if I am going to take a sacred vow that I am going to observe truthfulness, you are asking me to break my first promise. You are asking me to become a liar. On the eve of my taking the sacred vows, I am not going to do it. Either I fulfill my word or otherwise this ceremony is not going to take place. First. Secondly, from the beginning, Sri Ramakrishna's greatest state of mind is whatever he does, he is totally absorbed in it. He is singing, he is absorbed in it. He is reading, he is absorbed in it. And he is playing, he is absorbed in it. There are several examples. We will take one example. One year, he had to act in the role of Shiva. You know what happened? They dressed him. He came onto the stage, dressed like a Shiva. Then what happened? The thought of Shiva was completely overwhelmed him and he could not move. And people were charmed because he looked like a real Shiva. Looked no. He was, he became real Shiva at that time. So that quality where a person can forget everything and get absorbed. What is Patanjali talking about? Yoga. Chitta vritti nirodha. Here is a man who has attained, greatest extent, had already obtained it. This is the second quality. What is the third quality? He has complete control over his mind. Whatever be the circumstance, his mind will remain exactly the same. How do we know? How do we know? Because if the mind is hesitated, you can't get absorbed. Supposing you want to sing, you want to read a book and one minute before you started reading the book, somebody scolds you, criticizes you. Go and read the book. Are you reading the book or are you cursing the fellow who criticizes you? Equanimity of mind. So if any person can forget and then get absorbed in it, that is master. There are many other qualities. Swami Saradanandji, this is for the close devotees of Sri Ramakrishna who has studied six wonderful qualities. Sri Ramakrishna started his life with wonderful memory etc. You go back to the Ramakrishna, the great master. You will get it there. Six wonderful qualities besides these spiritual qualities. So he has got these qualities and then you know incidents when he was going to one temple called Mother Vishalakshi. What happened? He was totally absorbed. Was he attached to anything? He was not attached to anything. His mind in other words, in Vedantic terminology, he became an Adhikari. Adhikari means a fit person to start spiritual practice. With that mindset, he came to Dakshineshwar. Now today we will stop the class here. We will discuss it in our future classes. What is the point? The point is to summarize what we discussed in last class and this class. If we are practicing spiritual discipline, changes must take place. These changes take place in three progressive steps in the ascending order. The lowest step is I will be able to control my unwanted thoughts. I will only produce positive, wanted, favorable thoughts. This is called Nirodha Parinama. When through this practice, I am able to produce same thought again and again, that is called Samadhi Parinama. When the thought I want to cultivate becomes prominent and all other thoughts totally subside, that is called Samadhi Parinama. And when this becomes so natural, the person forgets time, space, causation, everything and becomes absorbed in that idea, that is called Ekagrata Parinama. Changes must take place. But as I said, this is not easy to understand. So for us, for these changes to take place within us, then changes must take place in four stages. What are those four stages? First what is called Pratyaya, then Vritti, then Samskara, then Invasana. So this is how the changes have to take place. And to understand these three aphorisms of Patanjali, we are studying the life of Sri Ramakrishna. In this connection also, we also analyzed very briefly that the description of Samadhi as written by Swami Vivekananda. Then we are trying to understand Patanjali Yoga Sutras in the light of the life of Sri Ramakrishna. In our future classes, we will try to approximate each one of these with Sri Ramakrishna's, the incidents that happened in his life, to be able to understand in a better way. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti