Patanjali Yoga Sutras Lecture 011

Full Transcript(Not Corrected)

Oṁ sa nāvavatu, sa ha nāubhūnaktu, sa ha vīryam karavāvaye tejasvi nāvadhītamastu mā vidviṣāvaye Oṁ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ Oṁ yogena cittasya padena vācāṁ malam śarīrasya ca vaidhyakena upākarottam pravaram munīnām patanjaliṁ prāñjali rāna toṣme 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. Aum, peace, peace, peace be unto all. In our last class we discussed that there are five causes because of which all our thoughts arise. In other words the cause of thought is of fivefold. Any thought, any mental modification is due to these five. What are those? First of all direct perception, then wrong knowledge, right knowledge, wrong knowledge, then delusion or illusion, sleep and memory. These are the five. There is nothing excluded out of this. Everything. And we are influenced by our thoughts. When we can completely control our thoughts. What is controlling the thoughts? Not to be attached to them. Yes, you experience them, you witness them, you enjoy them but do not get identified with them. That is called mastery. That is called yoga. When a person attains to that state then he attains to the state of yoga or samadhi. What happens? He attains to self-knowledge. He knows I am not this. We also know now what we are. Not as we are but as we appear to be. We do not have, we have self-knowledge but wrong type of self-knowledge because of the thoughts. We are identified with the thoughts. Now of the five causes, right knowledge we discussed, wrong knowledge we discussed. Right knowledge is pratyaksha, wrong knowledge is viparyaya and the third one is called delusion. What is delusion? We hear words. Here means even reading is also hearing only and then we get a picture and we become deluded. Why deluded? Because what we read doesn't correspond to the reality. That means there are only words but there are no corresponding objects. Now let us not forget one important part. All these, even a delusion or even a wrong knowledge, wrong knowledge also can be beneficial or injurious. What you call a mental delusion can also be beneficial or injurious. Sleep also can be, to put it in different words, either it could be worldly or it could be spiritual and of course memory. Let us discuss, in our last class we discussed the third one which is delusion. What is delusion? We hear words, we read words, newspapers, TV, talking with other people. Oh what are all those things? Are there corresponding realities? And in this corresponding, so-called corresponding reality there are two types. What is it? Right knowledge and right knowledge. Am I creating verbal delusion in you? What is right knowledge? Now here is Swami Dayatmananda sitting and giving a talk. You are seeing. Is it right knowledge? Yes. You are hearing his words. You are looking at him. What is the third one? Vikalpa. Delusion. What is delusion? Why is it called delusion? You are hearing my words and you are seeing me is pratyaksha, direct perception and yet it is vikalpa because from worldly point of view it's right knowledge. From spiritual point of view you are not seeing Swami Dayatmananda. Whom are you seeing? Brahman, God. Not only that, who are you? What do you think about yourself? You are seeing yourself every day. How many times you see yourself into the mirror? And it is all because of delusion. What is the delusion? I am the body and therefore that's from worldly point of view it's absolutely right knowledge. From the spiritual point of view absolute delusion. So this delusion even though we use the word delusion, how it could be beneficial or injurious? Say somebody tells you give me five pound note, I will change it into 50 pound note. So what is it? You are hearing words and it doesn't correspond to reality and it is you lose even that five pounds what you have. This is called injurious non-beneficial delusion. But is there something called beneficial delusion? Yes. In fact we are all dealing with beneficial delusion only. For example, you are in trouble and then someone tells you here is an image and very powerful God and you just worship him, pray to him and you will get out of this trouble and lot of benefit will come. In reality it is a delusion. What is there? There is only either an image made out of stone or wood or a picture or something like that. It is not God. We must always remember. Say you are going into the shrine room and looking at the picture. That's not reality. That's a delusion but it's a very beneficial delusion. Why? It's a symbol. You see there are symbol signs. Go this way, go this way. That symbol itself is not the reality. But if you follow that symbol then it will take you to the right place. So you go to the shrine and you have faith in the person who told you this and you look and say you are God and you pray to him with intense faith and very soon you will become blessed with the vision and with knowledge with everything. Let me explain it because this might come as a bit of shock to you. You are telling that this Ramakrishna sitting in your own shrine, you go and do every day worship and all those things. You are educating that this Ramakrishna is a delusion. You see it's a delusion but it's a wonderful delusion because the final result is extremely good. That's why it is called a symbol. What is a symbol? Why do we worship images, icons, pictures? All these are what is called symbols. What is a symbol? Or in Vedantic language we call it Upasana. What is Upasana? Contemplation. What is a contemplation? That which is a lower object which we see, elevate it to the highest object in your imagination and behave as though that is the reality and that is called Upasana and through that method the picture is not going to change, the image is not going to change but you are going to change. The change will occur in your own mind and these are all extremely useful things for us. That is why in religion or in this world there are two types. One type is it is reality, you see it. The other type is you superimpose something good and we have found out in the second cause of thought. What is it? Wrong knowledge. What is wrong knowledge? You see a serpent, a snake and a piece of rope lying down. That also can be taken as an example in this case. Then you see there. What do you see? There is really a snake but this time you are seeing it as a... Now this time what is the benefit? You become fearless but here we are dealing with verbal delusion. We hear, we don't know anything about anybody. We hear the news, we read the news about so many people, politicians. Have you ever met any one of them? Have you lived with them? Do you know what is their true nature? All that knowledge we get is from the newspapers and we judge them as though it is true. A good man is portrayed as a bad man. A bad man is portrayed as a good man but certain types of delusions are very beneficial to us. One simple example I will give you. You know the story of Ekalavya. It is a very famous story in the Mahabharata. There was a low caste man. He wanted to become an expert archer. So there was at that time a very famous master archer called Dronacharya. He was the teacher of both the princes of Kaurava and Pandava. So this low caste man approached him with all reverence and begged to be accepted as a disciple and the teacher he rejected him. This man saluted him once more and said doesn't matter whether you choose me as your disciple or not that's your headache but I have chosen you as my teacher. So he went into the forest made an image of his teacher and every day practiced. He became the best archer at that time. He defeated even Arjuna. You know the story. Now what is the point? The point is this Ekalavya he has made an image and he considered that image as Dronacharya his teacher. Now an image can never become a reality but in his mind he considered it as a real teacher. He is teaching me every day he will bow down before the image and then practice, practice, practice and he became the best one. This is what we are all doing as whether it is picture of Shri Ramakrishna, image of Shri Ramakrishna or Shiva or whatever it is, these are all what is called do not correspond to the reality but having taken them in the right way they are highly beneficial. In fact this is the only way we can ever reach God. We do not know what is God. Through our body, through our speech, through our mind we will never come to know what is God but by following the teachings of the scriptures, words and by taking them as realities we get the highest benefit. That is called verbal delusion. The next cause of thought is called Nidra. Nidra means sleep. Sleep is a kind of thought. It produces thought wave. Now when we sleep, we are talking about when from the Vedantic point of view we use the word sleep, we have to distinguish it from dream. When we go to bed we have two states. You know this state where I am giving a talk and you are listening is called waking state but as soon as we lie down on the bed we go through two states. One is called dream state, another is called dreamless state. That dream state is called dream. The person who goes through the dream state is called a dreamer. The person who is in the waking state is called a waker and the person who is really sleeping, dreamless sleep, deep sleep is called sleeper. By the word sleep we mean that third stage where there are no dreams. Not waking state, not dreaming state but sleeping state. Now in that sleeping state are there any thoughts? Do we experience any thoughts? But here is the teacher of yoga who is telling us but that is also a kind of thought wave and that creates thought. But let me first explain what happens. Suppose you had wonderful sleep, you wake up but what are the thoughts? Immediately after waking up what would be your thoughts? You had a wonderful sleep, you wake up, refreshed, completely rested, absolutely filled with bliss, peace. Do you know what happens the moment you get up? Before your mind starts thinking any other thoughts, in between those you wake up, then before you start thinking there are certain thoughts filling your mind. What are those thoughts? I slept well, I was very happy, I feel very refreshed, I am looking forward with joy to spend the day. Don't you? Instinctively, without meaning this would be the thought. Similarly, imagine you had a restless night, you didn't have good sleep and the question of waking up, probably you woke up long back, we don't know. As soon as you get up from the bed what are the thoughts that fill up your mind? I didn't sleep well, what a wretched night I passed. It may be mosquitoes, it may be neighbors, it may be snoring partners, sound sleeping partners, whatever be the cause, your mind is filled with negative thoughts. So because this sleep causes that type of thoughts, is it not causing? Does not sleep cause thoughts? This is our day-to-day experience. But there is another thing. But what happens when we are in the deep sleep state itself? Are there any thoughts? Common sense tells us no, there cannot be any thoughts because I did not know anything. But Vedanta comes to us, no, there is also a subtle thought. What is that thought? When you wake up, what did you say? I slept well. How did you know you slept well? That means there is a small subtle thought there throughout that state. How do we know? Look at this. What is this? How did you know it is a watch? How did you know it is a watch? Because you have seen it. You have seen it. Had you not seen it, could you have told what is this? Suppose I put it like this and say what is this? Could you say? Now you see that you are able to recollect because you have experienced. Without experience there could be no knowledge and when there is no knowledge there would be no memory. Do you see? An object, experience, then knowledge, then memory. In this sequence it goes. So now look at what we are discussing. What do you say as soon as you get up? I slept well. That means you have experienced something that had happened. If you were not there, if you didn't experience, how could you say? You could not have said whether you slept well, you did not sleep well, you could not have said that. But the fact that you could say that shows that there was an experience and experience is impossible without some form of mind. Are you with me? Can you tell there is a mindless experience? Can you recollect a mindless experience? It is impossible. Where there is an experience there is a consciousness, there is a mind and this combination brings experience, right? There is an experience and as I said that our experience of deep sleep, whether it is for a short time, long time and very deep or just deep, it has its repercussions in our day-to-day life and that produces thought. You know, how does this? It produces thought not only in you, it produces also in others. Suppose you are listening to my talk and I find you nodding your head, whatever I say, even controversial things. What would be my thoughts about you? This poor fellow didn't have good sleep. So if you didn't have good sleep, then not only you have thoughts but I also have thoughts about your sleep. See the effect of sleep. Even sleep produces this kind of thoughts. So it is called Abhava, Pratyaya, Alambana, Nidra. For the benefit of those who want a little bit of Sanskrit, Abhava means non-existence, Pratyaya means thought, absence of a thought, experience of an absence of experience, a thought about absence of experience, that is called Nidra. Sleep is a mental modification which embraces the feeling of voidness, not non-existence, voidness. Let me also dwell a moment, this wonderful thought. Supposing you have two rooms, your house has two bedrooms and in one of the bedrooms you keep a book. Most of the time you keep that book, say Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, in one room. One day you wanted that book, you were in the kitchen, some thought came, I would like to verify something and then you go in search of that book. You know you kept it in that book, in that room and you go to that room but you do not find that book and it book has not gone outside your house. What would be your deduction? The book must be since the book is in the house and there are two rooms, it is not in this room, therefore it must be in the other room. Absence also leads to right knowledge. So that is called Abhava Pratyaya, absence of not non-existence but absence of what? Voidness. Voidness. It is not absence of voidness, it is voidness. It is there, something is there but you are unable to speak anything about it because there is no thought about it. It doesn't mean you are not experiencing it. You are experiencing it and at the same time there is no way to describe it. That is called Abhava Pratyaya Alambana Nidra. The very reason of our remembering sleep is that during sleep there was a certain class of waves in the mind. When we awake, we know that we have been sleeping. We can only have memory of perception. That which we do not perceive, we never can have any memory of. Every reaction is a wave in the lake. Now if during sleep the mind had no waves, it would have no perceptions, positive or negative and therefore we would not remember them. Swami Vivekananda's commentary. Now what is my thoughts? As I said that you wake up and say I had good sleep or I didn't have good sleep. How did you know? Because there was an experience and where there is an experience there must be some waves in the mind. There must be certain form of mind. Then why can't we remember many things? Now I can see many things. In dreams we can see many things but why can't we have because there are not many things. There is only one experience called sleep and the nature of that experience is absence of other things. That is still it produces waves in the mind and as I explained when we wake up if we had good sleep it produces a different reaction and if we didn't have good sleep it will produce an entirely different type of reaction in our life. Try to drive after a restless or sleepless night you will understand what we are talking about. Now we are going to reach one of the most important things which produces thoughts. What is it called? Memory. What is memory? Anubhuta vishaya asam pramosah smriti he. Memory is when perceived subjects do not slip away and through impressions come back to consciousness. A little bit technical and involved type of language. What it means is to remember exactly and to recollect exactly what happened without changing our experience is called memory. You will not deduct anything from it. You will not add anything to it but exactly. Just again let me give you a small example. Here is a watch. You see a watch and after one hour you know when you go away from this room I saw a watch on the table. I saw a watch on the table. That is the right memory. But if you add it was a golden watch. I mean after one hour you may not do it. But after 10 years, 20 years you know Swamiji he was talking about renunciation and all the time he was keeping a golden watch. Where was the need for him to keep a golden watch? An ordinary watch would have done. This is called adding spice and changing your memory. This is what happens you know when we were young. What golden days! Our golden days are golden days. Why? Because nobody you don't remember how many times you were slapped for misbehavior. You don't remember. But only my aunt used to bring me chocolates. How many times she didn't bring chocolates you have forgotten. You know how much of these memories haunt us and they are also harmful in so many ways. They are also beneficial in so many ways. Let me narrate a beautiful incident from the life of the direct disciples. You know Sri Ramakrishna had 16 monastic disciples. One of them was Swami Premaranda. Now Sri Ramakrishna's birthday celebration used to be done in a grand manner. Even today it is done at Belur Nath. Now on one occasion when Swami Premaranda was alive he had a special nature. He loved devotees more than perhaps anyone else or he expressed his devotion much more than anybody else. Now on these occasions he would go around with a large basket of what we call offered food prasada and he would force even people who are not willing to accept it. On one occasion there were hundreds of people and Swami Premaranda was going distributing this offered food and there was one brahmachari, a novice. He was carrying the plate where offered food was there and Swami was taking and giving it. There were some young people and they had also attended the celebration and Swami was trying to give them his prasada but they were very reluctant to accept. But Swami Premaranda started forcing them. No, no this is Sri Ramakrishna's prasada. It is very sacred, very holy. You take it. And in those days of course people were very obedient. Nowadays they say frankly, outright they will say get the hell out of here. But in those days fortunately this is why I said golden days, golden days, golden days. In those days people were, even though they are same people but outside they behave very here also, very politely, very nicely. There is an etiquette they used to do. They were reluctant. The brahmachari could see from their face cut that they were not very happy to receive this but anyway Swami forced them to eat. The event was over and at some point this now is asked Swami Premaranda, Swami we could see that those young people were not willing to eat this prasada. Why did you force it upon them? Swami Premaranda smiled very sweetly and said, look my boy you are a thoughtless fellow. You do not know why I have done that. I will tell you why. Now they are not happy to receive the prasada. But these very people they will grow up and they will get married and they will have a lot of problems and then they don't see any way out. At that time this memory comes. When we were young we used to go to Belur Math and we used to attend the celebrations and we used to get this most sacred prasada offered food and Swamiji used to come and distribute it to us. How blessed we are and that thought would give them peace of mind. What are we talking about? What was that brahmachari thinking about and what was Swami was thinking about? This is absolutely true. See we all have these precious memories and we were also innocent at that time. We have to remember and then we remember only the good part of it. If something is not that good we tend to forget about those things. Remembrance, memory, what are we living upon? Tell me. Every second of our life what are we living upon? Are we living upon our present direct experience or our memories? You know I would be a little bit brutal or direct whatever you want to say. Each one of us have an opinion, an understanding of each other. We are all devotees and we are all listening to such nice things but yet each one of us have our own opinion about each one of us. Right? The point is I'm not saying you are right. Most probably we are all wrong about our opinions. Maybe a little bit correct. Most of it is we are wrong about our understanding of other people because we know very little about them. Just let me give an example. Suppose say one year back as you are entering into the, from outside you entered into the center and you kept your shoes and say I came at that time and I scolded you. Why do you leave the shoes like that? Don't you have common sense? Imagine that. I didn't do it but imagine yeah but after hearing this after one year Swami really scolded me. Don't distort your memory. It's only a talk I'm telling. That unpleasant if there especially if there are other people when I scolded you that would make a deep impression in your mind. Right? And then thereafter you go on nurturing it, nourishing it with a lot of fertilizers and other things. Say from that time onwards you have a colored eye towards me. Colored opinion about me. Swami is like that. You have to be careful. He will scold me without any reason also. At that time you forget that there was a reason. He scolds me with reason, without reason, anything like that. You know we are all colored by this type of memories. We are living on memories. Good also. As I said it's not all bad. It could be beneficial. It could also be injurious. What is the criteria by which we know what is beneficial and what is injurious? If our memories are directing us, propelling us towards spiritual progress, towards God, towards unselfishness, towards self-knowledge, self-control that is beneficial. The opposite is injurious. So of all the things that we have, our knowledge is only of memories. Memories of Vedanta center. Memories of the Swamis. Memories when we were, we met them. Memories of what we heard or what we misheard etc. etc. etc. And they produce thoughts. What type of thoughts? If the memory is of wrong type, the thoughts will be also wrong thoughts. If the memory is good, positive and beneficial, then the thoughts also will be very beneficial thoughts. So this is how memories help us. Memory is the mental modifications of perceived subjects when they do not slip away and through impressions come back to consciousness. We are all living on memories only of each other. Memory can come from direct perception. Memory can come from false knowledge. Memory can come from verbal delusion and memory also can come from sleep. Memory belongs to all the other four categories. You see something, that will be memory. You had some kind of wrong knowledge. So what is the point? Point is this memory can come and it does come from all these things. Sleep also can cause memory. Delusion can cause memory. Wrong knowledge can cause memory. Right knowledge also causes memory. Memory has no distinction. Not only that, when we say memory can come from what is called Nidra, we also mean Swapna. Swapna means dream. You know dreams have their own effect upon us. You have a beautiful dream. Just let me give an illustration. One day you are reading some nice book, Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna or Holy Mother's life, whatever and you went to bed and you had a wonderful dream. You went to Jairambati, you met Holy Mother or Sri Ramakrishna. You had a nice talk. Mother had fed you nicely and then you came back, came back to consciousness. After waking up distinctly, clearly, you remember that dream. I remember many times this kind of dreams. Is it a beneficial dream or not? It's a memory. But what type of memory? It's a very very good memory and sometimes your dreams also benefit me. Then I'll give a real illustration. You know Swami Brahmananda was the direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. At that time there was another householder devotee called Balarambasu. Balarambasu passed away. His wife was there. One old lady and this Balarambasu's granddaughter was there. A small girl, seven, eight years old girl. So one day this Balarambasu's wife, no sorry, Balarambasu's daughter dreamt that she was feeding Swami Brahmananda. So she wanted to fulfill the dream and she invited the Swami, fed him sumptuously and Swami was very pleased and while taking leave of her, Swami Brahmananda called this small girl seven, eight years old girl and whispered in her ears tell your grandma to dream more frequently. This was there in the one incident in the life of Swami Brahmananda. Now let me tell you quite a few times it happened to me. People suddenly had saw me in a dream and then they within two days, three days time they have come to see me. I said why? I was not expecting them. So why suddenly Swami, hey we saw you in a dream. We felt like coming and seeing you. So that itself would not have made me any more happier but they always bring some nice food whenever they visit. I said God bless you. It's very good to see sadhus in your dreams. More and more. Seriously we are all living on memories. Memories of where we are born, our parents, the people with whom we associated in the long past and incidentally this memory also has got something very very marvelous. What is it? First let me dispose of that thought. You know as we age the old memories become very strong and the immediate things we often forget. I don't know how many young people may not have that kind of experience. You know when we are old, let me tell you one of my experiences just that happened this year. You know I left my home in 1962. How many years now? I was a young man. I left my village in 1962 and I have experienced it. So many people. I knew so many people. Believe me this year suddenly one day I was sitting suddenly vividly the thought of this person what happened, what incident happened came to my mind. I said my God all these years I never remembered more than 50 years I did not that thought did not come even once but suddenly all of a sudden so vivid this thought has come. I could see whereas if you ask me what happened a few days back or few months back I have totally, my memory is totally gone. This is happening more and more frequently because of age because of whatever reasons you call it but we are living memories. Now let me also give something very wonderful. There was one Swami who was a direct disciple of Holy Mother. His name was Swami Sambuddhananda and in his old age when he was practically in his 80s he became, he developed became what is called dementia. He developed dementia and his memories got all jumbled up. Recently what happened he would never remember but what happened he was very closely moving with Swami Premananda when he was young man 15, 16, 17 years old. He was responsible for taking Swami Premananda to what we call now Bangladesh or East Bengal and his impressions of the Swami and direct disciple was so strong in this state of dementia he used to tell people hey Swami Premananda Maharaj has come. Baburao Maharaj in Indian language. Baburao Maharaj has come come on give him a seat. Don't you see he is standing here immediately put a chair for him to sit down. No one else is seeing. Only he was seeing. Now he was living and as though he was a young man he was able to see Swami Premananda. Even though we know these are just memories but they are highly beneficial memories. In fact we are supposed to cultivate only this type of memories of our Guru, of Sri Ramakrishna, of Holy Mother, direct disciples, what we read in the scriptures Bhagavad Gita or classes like this. Remember more and more and more. They become very beneficial. The point Patanjali teacher wants to remember is that memories produce the most number of thoughts in our minds either for good or bad and they can be either beneficial or injurious and as we just discussed if these memories are only taking us to God they are beneficial. The opposite is injurious not only that. Now there are people who are very deeply studying the science of happiness because all of us irrespective of whether we want we are spiritual or worldly people we want to be happy. There is no controversy about it. Even a most worldly person also he would not say I would like to be unhappy. What is the nature of happiness? Why are some people happy some people unhappy? Practically under those very circumstances. The study concluded even though it is a worldly type of secular type of study very wonderful lesson we have to learn from there. What is the conclusion? He says happy people are those who forget unhappy experiences and remember retain only happy memories whereas unhappy people are those people equally they have not gone through more unhappy experiences but they tend to remember only the unhappy events that happen and forget the happy events. Now this is what is wanted even to be a happy person. Remember this always we are all extraordinarily fortunate not only fortunate we are extraordinarily fortunate. Why do I say so? First of all we are born as human beings you could have been born as a non-human as a mosquito as a animal as a tree as a plant anything that itself is a greatest blessing to be born as a human being is a one of the greatest blessing. Keep it in memory. Who is saying this? I am not saying this. Shankaracharya is telling. Sri Ram Krishna is telling. Blessed is the human birth because it is in this human birth that one can realize God. Not only you can become a great scientist you can become a great musician or a great creative person or you can also become one of the worst types of humanities like so many what we call demons in the form of human being have done. Choice is there and this is the best birth that is the first. Secondly how all of you all of us I would say we have you we all had a choice. You could have spent your time watching tv or chit-chatting or doing many many many things but you have decided to take the trouble and you have come to the center and you are listening that itself is a great good fortune. Let us not underestimate it to come to a spiritual life. How much we are progressing that's a different issue but we have to thank our stars or God and say Lord you have been so gracious to me. You have brought me to a spiritual place. I'm not only talking Vedanta center. It could be any other spiritual place. It doesn't matter. So that is a great great good fortune and you are listening to these good thoughts. Let me tell you you know once some worldly people went to one of our swamis and the swami was only talking about spiritual things. Then you see some other people and they later on they commented why did you talk so much so many worldly spiritual topics these people are not at all interested. They have come as tourists and they saw a swami they just came and stood and you started talking spiritual things about them. Why did you do it? Why did you waste your time? He said no I didn't waste my time. You know what happened? If I don't speak about spiritual life they would have gone away. What would have they been thinking? They would have been thinking only about worldly things. At least for half an hour I prevented them from thinking about worldly things and whether they realize it or not it is of greatest benefit. So we are very fortunate so many not only that. Whenever a negative thought comes into your mind just remember how many millions and millions I would say billions of people are under less fortunate circumstances than us. This is also part of spiritual life. If you want to be spiritual meditate upon this. Don't go on moaning and groaning and complaining and saying oh that didn't happen this didn't happen what an unfortunate. No what a fortunate thing you are not under Saddam Hussein's regime. You are not under this Syria where the guns are blazing every day. You are not in Afghanistan. You are not in other so many other places. So many one I mean benefits we are taking for granted and especially I can say you are not on the east coast of America when this sand is the super storm hit the coast. How many millions have lost power and food and petrol and for days together they suffered. Now I'm only just making it light how fortunate we are. So remember how fortunate we are itself is a great happy thought. That is a practical spiritual thought. Oh I will one day realize God and then I will be very happy. Until that time I decided to be a very miserable moaning fellow. That's no good. Let us be happier now when we go there we will be still more happy. This is a thought. These memories everyone has got some bad experiences and that is part of our growth. Part of the process of our progress in life. Mind you if everything has been very nice then we would never have grown in life. But so many people insulted us. So many people disrespected us. So many people gave us troubles and all this indirectly is helping us to grow stronger, more dependent upon God, more inner dependent than outer dependent. In so many ways we are getting benefit. We must always remember the mind says oh you are so unfortunate if only this did not happen I would have been happy. No. How fortunate you are. Those things have happened. You read Swami Vivekananda's Sangha of the Sanyasi. What does he say? He says you see thank God that I had so many bad experiences because that made me much stronger. But for those experiences I would not have been as strong today. So memory is to recollect. To recollect what we have been discussing. What is memory? Memory is to recollect exactly the experience we had without removing something from it or without adding something to it. Memory can come also from direct perception, false knowledge, verbal delusion and sleep. Swami Vivekananda comments for instance you hear a word that word is like a stone thrown into the lake of the chitta. It causes a ripple and that ripple causes a series of ripples. This is memory. So in sleep when the peculiar kind of ripple called sleep throws the chitta or the mind into a ripple of memory it is called a dream. What is a dream? What happens? What is a dream? I'll give a simple illustration you know. The other day I was sleeping and I was seeing that I was I think I don't remember exactly but I will something vague as an example not exact I do not remember. I had to give a talk I think in a college or in a school something like that and I was walking and I'm already late five minutes and I was hearing the bell in the school is being rung continuously and I was trying to run but my legs would not run at all. I was cursing why did I why am I late I should have started earlier I'm getting late those people will blame me like that I was thinking. It was my alarm clock. This sound penetrated my mind and that mind has created this whole event I am going to be late for my this thing is what Swami Vivekananda is telling you hear a word and that is like a stone thrown and that causes a ripple and that ripple rouses a series of other ripples connected with that this is our memory you see a memory you see a sweet and you say this sweet is very very wonderful sweet or very bad sweet who did you know that because by seeing it you remember one year back somebody gave me this kind of sweet and I ate it and my stomach has gone wrong then I had gone to the doctor and he charged me 25 pounds and I didn't have the money I had to borrow to from my friend and when I asked he refused to give me one ripple is carrying it's rousing other type of people see this is how our thought waves proceed always one memory leads to infinite chain of other type of memory this is what I said when the peculiar kind of ripple called sleep throws a chitta throws the chitta into a ripple of memory it is called a dream dream is another form of the ripple which in the waking state is called memory so these are the five types five causes of all thoughts to recollect what we have discussed so far yoga is perfect mastery of our mind means perfect mastery control over our thoughts mind is nothing but thoughts thoughts can be beneficial or injurious those thoughts which take us to reality to god to self-knowledge are beneficial the opposite is injurious thoughts can come because of five reasons what are the right knowledge wrong knowledge verbal delusion sleep and memory and any of these thoughts can be both beneficial or injurious whether they are beneficial or injurious we must have control over them what is yoga chitta vritti nirodha control mastery of our thoughts how do we control the thoughts from now onward this is only the anatomy of the mind anatomy of our nature anatomy of what is what is called world or what is called transmigration what makes us really bound what is bondage is describing what is bondage what is bondage to be a slave means to be identified with our thoughts is called bondage and the desire to get out of this bondage is called spiritual desire and the way to get out is called yoga when we become masters we will be called yogi how to control how to become masters how to become a yogi that is the most important subject if the next few aphorisms will deal with it there is no shortcut so finally what is it what is the teacher telling us abhyasa vairagyabhyam tan nirodhaha the control over these thoughts comes only through the long and hard way through repeated practice and accompanied by dispassion and this subject is dealt with so beautifully we will discuss this in our next class om shanti shanti shanti