Patanjali Yoga Sutras Lecture 024

Full Transcript(Not Corrected)

OM YOGENA CHITTASYA PADENA VACHAM MALAM SHARIRASYA CHAVAIDYA KENA YOPAKAROTAM PRAVARAM MUNINAM PATANJALIM PRANJALI RANATHOSME 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 been discussing the process of concentration. In our last class, we did the first two steps. The first step is to focus on any object to the exclusion of every other object. When we can do it, our mind stands absolutely still, almost identified as it were with that object. Then what happens? The mind gets all the knowledge belonging to that particular object. Then the next step is, even though a person is able to focus on an object, he is aware of the name, he is aware of the idea, and he is also aware of the knowledge. Our normal condition of the mind is that we mix up this, the sound or the name, and the idea and the knowledge. But when concentration comes, we can break up these three. Automatically it happens. But still, all these three take place within time and space and causation. Then the next step would be to focus on any gross object. But on its, what is called, without the interference of time, space and causation. When a person becomes so absorbed, he is not aware of time. It happens even to us. Let me give a small illustration. Suppose you are reading a book and you are absorbed in it. You forget time. When you forget time, you forget also space. And also, why you have forgotten? You forget also why you have forgotten. This is the highest step of concentration from the lowest point of view. Then we progress. And to understand that, let me again remind that every object in this world is a result of the combination of five gross elements. These are called space, air, fire, water and earth. Any object you take, any gross object, and it is consisting of all these five. Now this is gross. As we know, anything gross is an effect. And if there is an effect, wherever we find an effect, we necessarily have to deduce a cause. So what is the cause? Where from this earth has come? Where from the water has come? Where from the fire has come? What is its cause? From which element has it come? So Vedanta or Sankhya has found it out. And again through meditation only. Because these objects you cannot guess. So what are those five elements called? Five subtle elements. So now the concentration moves into the next higher step, which is meditation on this any subtle object. Again to illustrate, we have got a gross body. We also have got a subtle body. Now the gross body is the outcome of the subtle body. What do we mean by subtle body? We all know. Subtle body means our thoughts, which is in short called our mind. And our mind is consisting of, first of all, our mind consists of Vasanas. Our subtle body consists of Vasana. Vasana means deep desires at their very subtlest expression. And these Vasanas, when they express themselves in a conditioned way, in a limited way through repeated practice, then that is what we call Samskara. Samskara means Vasanas concretized in time, space and causation. I gave many times an example. Suppose you know we all have different food habits. The desire, the pleasure we receive from food is universal, East, West, but the particular type of food, which gives us the greatest pleasure or which repulses us, is all due to the habit. Perhaps we are born in a particular part of the world and we are accustomed to what our parents eat. Just to give an example, it happened in Swami Vivekananda's life. You know, in West Bengal, these Muslims, they all smoke that Guduguda, we call it. What is that? Hubble bubble. Of course, Swamiji didn't carry, but in a pipe. And what happened is they have taken, Swamiji had taken some of his tobacco, specialized tobacco, and he became friends with somebody on the ship. They became Buddies. And Swamiji said, Oh, I will give you something so marvelous that you think that this is heaven. And he offered it to that man. He took one puff. And I don't want to describe what he did. See, in every way, whether it is smell, whether it is taste, we are accustomed. Similarly, a very common experience, a person who is brought up on a pure diet of classical music, you make him listen to some Bollywood cinema songs or some rock music. Similarly, you make this person listen to rock music. The love of music is common, but its specialized experience depends upon habit. That is called Samskara, limited by time, place, habit, tradition, what we see, etc., etc. So this is Samskara. Samskara produces desires, concretized desires. For example, if you ask me, what would you like to eat? If the Holy Mother comes and says to my son, I am ready, what would you like to eat? But first, let us talk about Moksha, Mother. Moksha, I will give to everybody. But what type of food do you want? And suppose Mother says, you ask, do you want Bengali, some curry? Mother, I had enough of it. Why don't you have some first-class hot Idli, Sambar, if you give, it will be marvelous. The Mother will be disappointed. What does she want? She wants me to enjoy. But in what form? This is where we all fight with each other because we are so unintelligent. I don't want to use a stronger word. About religion, what is it? This is a building. What do you call it? Bricks, made out of bricks. A temple. Why can't a Christian come and pray there? After all, it is a building. Is not a church a building? Is not a mosque a building? No. This fellow, he will come, a Muslim will come, sees a church, chops off the top only. Have you noticed? Only the top. And puts a different shaped dome. God likes this place. And again, after a few years, the Christian comes, he chops off that one and brings back his old shape. He calls it a church. And if it happens to be Hindu, then he will cut it off and he will make a kind of tower like that. He calls it a temple. This is what Kabamekhiya. Kabamekhiya. Kabir's song is there. It is the same God. But why are we so quarreling about each other? That's because we do not understand that in essence it is the same. So, these samskaras or habits produce desires. And the desires express themselves in specific type. I want only this. I do not want this. I wish only this. And those desires translate themselves into thoughts. For everything that we do, this is what really happens. And those thoughts express themselves in appropriate planning and execution of the plan and the result will come. This is called Karma. Karma is divided into two parts. Doing is the first part. And enjoying or experiencing the result, Karmaphala, is the second part. And the Karmaphala produces two types. One is instantaneous, immediate satisfaction. For example, if someone eats a chocolate, then immediately there is a satisfaction. Suppose he is hungry, there is appeasement of the hunger. And at the same time there is a pleasure if it is a tasty food. That is only short-term effect. But there is a long-term effect. This food is very nice. This food is not at all tasty. This is called, what is this called? Samskara. Again goes back. This is a cycle. The whole cycle is there. Anyway, what is the point that we are discussing? If there is an effect, there must be a cause. So all our actions, where are they really produced? That's why Ramana Maharshi always used to say find out the origin of your thoughts, your mind, your thoughts. Where from a thought is rising? Latu Maharaj also, in his reminiscences, he mentioned this one so wonderfully. Where from your thoughts are arising? There is only one source. What is that source? If you are aware of a thought, what should come before the thought? Awareness. If you are not aware, there would be no thought. That's why in deep sleep, there is no thought at all. In waking, in dream, there is a thought. But before a thought arises, what should be there? There must be consciousness. And that consciousness must be aware. There is nothing now, but there must be a thought. If you want to understand this phenomena, of course, you should be very careful. As soon as you get up, the mind is in a very semi-conscious state. Then, as soon as your first thoughts start, you pay attention to your mind. What thoughts? Before you even wake up fully, there is a state, when you are aware of certain thoughts. We do not normally pay attention to them. As soon as a man gets up, suppose he is given a task in the office, and he has to complete, that day will be the last. Or a student had to appear in an examination, and he knows, he has gone to bed, he has prepared well, he has gone to bed. And as soon as he gets up, what would be the first thought that would be running in his mind? I have an examination to write, to attend to. And then only he will notice the other people. Have you seen? But before even to notice that thought, what is the first thing that comes? Awareness. That is why, what is the first word that comes before we utter anything? I. What is that I? It is called Ahamkara. What is that I? It is of the nature of reflected consciousness. When a person becomes adept, in concentrating his mind on any gross object, as his mind becomes more concentrated, it becomes like a magnifying glass. And as he takes nearer the object, the object as it were, reveals, I am not one single object, I am a combination of five elements, gross elements. And when he becomes more concentrated on that gross object, then he forgets time, space and causation. Then the result would be, he gets complete knowledge of that object. So this is the advantage of concentration. That is why Swami Vivekananda said, the very essence of education is concentration. You concentrate. Afterwards you choose your subject. On any subject you put your mind, the knowledge will be revealed to you. The more the concentration, the better a person. There is a word, knowledge is power. You know, how do you get knowledge? Concentration. So concentration is equal to knowledge. Knowledge is equal to power. And when a person has power, what is that power? Do you know what that power is? If I have power over an object, I can do whatever I like. And what do you think I will be doing? I will be doing only what gives me the greatest joy, or happiness, or pleasure. This is what happens, when a person focuses on an object, that object reveals its nature, and the result is the man has power. And if that object is not good, then he will turn away from it, because he has the power. If the object is good, then he will focus more upon it. That means he can do whatever he likes. He is a master. Now let us keep that point in mind, because we are the opposite. The opposite is we know some things are not good, but we know it, but we don't have power. Now why do you think we do not have a power? Because we do not have concentration. And because we do not have concentration, we do not have complete knowledge of that object. And if we do not have complete knowledge of that object, then we become enslaved. This is called Maya, lingering look. Even though I know it is not good, but still my mind doesn't listen to me, I go about it. This is how we are caught. Whereas this man is a master, because he knows. He has complete power. Power means he can. Power means he has complete knowledge. He has complete control over it. When he wants, he can have it. When he doesn't want, he simply says no. One example, one man asked me, after reading the gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, one day Sri Ramakrishna was completely annoyed with somebody. And then at the end of this class, this man asked me, even a great saint like Sri Ramakrishna, he also gets angry. What then is the difference between his getting angry and our getting angry? It's a wonderful question. You know, there are some of us who think he never really gets angry. No, no, he can get angry. At least Swami Vivekananda. Do you know he used to get angry? Very often. And very intensely. The only person, we like Holy Mother. Do you know why we like Holy Mother? She never gets angry with us. So that's what we want. No. These people, do you think they get angry at a puny object like that? This is controlled anger. Because they have complete power. The idea came to me and said, even great people behave as though like us. The difference is, they do not behave unconsciously controlled by their unconscious mind. Whatever they do it, first of all, they don't do it. Who does it? The divine does it. Secondly, even if you think they are doing it, they have complete control. What does it mean? What does it mean? See Ramakrishna, he got annoyed with this man. And next second, he goes into deep Samadhi. When you get annoyed, what happens to you? Even if you want, you can't even sleep, let alone go into Samadhi. This is the difference. They have perfect control. Why? Because they have perfect knowledge. Knowledge of what? Knowledge of not only the object, knowledge of their own minds. They know what they are. What is our knowledge? I am the body and mind. What would be their knowledge? I am the divine. Let us never forget this. So this is what happens. Then this man's mind, after analysis, he turns into the second step, which is called Vichara Samadhi, Savichara. Vichara means, as it were, is analyzing, deep thinking. Vichara, the Sanskrit word means deep thinking, analyzing, discriminating. What is the cause of this object? As I mentioned, every object in this world is a combination of five elements. Pancha, Maha, Bhutas. Stola, Maha, Bhutas. Now one point we have to remember it. If we know that everything is five gross elements, do you know what happens as a result of this knowledge? If everything is made up of this object, that this is valuable and this is not valuable, this is very covetable and this is not at all covetable, that kind of valuation is completely lost. Remember, Shri Ram Krishna had a desire to eat a sweet meat called Sandesh, put it in his mouth and he started discriminating. After some time he said, Oh my, this sweet meat is also made up of five elements. What is the big deal of difference between this and a little bit of clay? And after that, the desire for eating that has never again arisen in his mind. So these two points let us keep in mind. When a person has complete knowledge of any particular object as the combination of five gross elements, the first thing that happens is he has tremendous control. The second thing that happens is his discrimination, Raga and Dvesha, that is, this is valuable and this is not valuable, totally disappears. Now what happens when a person doesn't have any same valuation of any object? Do you know what happens? He becomes free from Raga and Dvesha. That means he doesn't have likes and dislikes. That means he doesn't have bondage. When a person doesn't have likes and dislikes, then that person is completely free from this bondage. That is what happens. His egotism disappears. Our ego is full of what? Likes and dislikes. That's all. If anybody says I am very proud, you observe anybody who is proud, there must be a cause of his pride. Either his beautiful body, he or she, or beautiful voice, or some talent, either for writing, or cooking, or creating mischief, or whatever it is. But if a person doesn't have that discrimination, he says everything is wonderful, everything is same. You know, Taka, Mati, Mati, Taka. Clay is coin, coin is clay. Then do you think Sri Ramakrishna ever paid any attention to money? Why? Because in his mind both are same things. Not only that, that's not the only knowledge. Then he went beyond. Then he says then who will look after me? Who will look after me? He who created the world, universe, that Divine Mother, or Ishwara, or God, He will look after you. In fact, when you are thinking I have to look after myself, it is complete nonsense because you don't know what next second is going to bring. The roof may fall, something may happen. We don't know. So, what we don't know, see, what we don't know, we have no power. That means when we have no power, then we have no knowledge. You see, knowledge is power. Power means control. Now, here there is no knowledge and therefore there is no control. No control means what? We are slaves. We are helpless people. So, the next stage is this person clearly perceives this is a gross element. Then, if this is gross, when you see a tree, you have to guess there must be a seed somewhere. Then, the next stage is what is the seed of this? So, our Patanjali Rishi proceeds and says the next stage of concentration is on this subtle object. Everything has got a subtle thing. Now, we talk about human personality consisting of three layers. The gross body, subtle body and the causal body. We know that. Human beings. What about this microphone? Does it have three elements or not? By implication, everything, if my body has got, then this is also a body like anything else. It also has got a subtle element. So, what is the subtle element? Next, the gross part of the earth has its subtle comes from the cause which is called the subtle five elements. Sthula Maha Bhutas. Five elements but they are subtle and from those subtle elements these gross elements have come. So, actually this also has got you know, scientists nowadays they analyse. So, you see here piece of paper. When they analyse, what do they get? Atoms, right? When they analyse the atoms further, electrons, neutrons, protons, etc. And when they further analyse that, they get something still divisible. Go on dividing, go on dividing. Dividing means what? Go back to their causes and ultimately the final thing that they come, they called it matter and then matter, they discovered something wonderful. Matter is also, there is a gross form of something is called matter. The subtle form of matter, what is it called? Energy. Energy. Swami Vivekananda in his introduction to this Raja Yoga, he gives an elaborate introduction and says there are two elements from which this whole universe has come. What is the name of those two elements? One is called Akasha. Akasha is equivalent to matter. Then the second Prana. Prana is energy. This energy and matter they are interacting with each other and then he goes further and says both of them sprang from one single cause and according to Sankhya that cause is called Ahamkara. I am elaborating so much so that the idea, we get clear idea that every gross object has got behind it as its cause the five subtle elements. Sthula Mahabhutas are gross five elements behind they have sprung they have originated from Sukshma Pancha Mahabhutas. So every object in this world so the next stage which is called Savichara Samadhi that is concentration with discrimination is nothing but focusing on the subtle elements and again let me put it this way suppose somebody says you focus on the subtle body of any person say Ramakrishna first time what do you do? you see the gross body here is a face here is legs here is hands and after some time by focusing you forget time, space and causation and you reached the peak of the lowest state and then is that all? Ramakrishna he also has got a subtle body just like us he has also got a mind so you focus on his mind what does this mind consist of? four things every mind called in Sanskrit Amta Karana or inner instrument has got four elements what are they? Eye Eye Consciousness Ahamkara Manas Vegetation Chitta the receptacle of memory the factor which decides everything has got Ramakrishna's subtle body also mind also must consist of those four what is the difference? the difference is his Ahamkara consists of pure reflected consciousness uncontaminated by Rajas and Tamas and his buddhi decides he has only buddhi means that factor which makes us decide he decided I only want God nothing else everything must fall into that our mind is scattered you see even Thakur's illustrations are so marvelous when does a man realize God? what did he say? when three things are combined together and directed towards God so what illustrations did he take? he took the illustration of a mother whose thoughts are focused fixed on what? only her beloved husband and what is the second illustration? a mother who has only child all her thoughts are also fixed on the child only and what is the third very interesting a miser what is the third illustration? he says I know some new factor and it can be conveyed only through known factors and we know these three to some extent so he says miser all his mind is there what was that stuff? then his mind is always cositating what is this? what do you think he was cositating? a man goes there and meets him he looks at that person what do you think his mind works you know? is this a devotee or is this not a devotee? if he has some potentiality for spiritual life please come and do a little bit service all these things will come then his memory you know we also have memory where is our mind in 2050? one horse and one rabbit how do we know? analyze your dreams in your dreams if you are seeing sadhus spiritual personalities gods goddesses places of pilgrimage temples etc etc beautiful songs this is what is there and you meditate upon it take any part of it you want to meditate on his memories you want to meditate upon his mind has got this subtle part of it and that subtle part is the result of the combination of five subtle elements so the next savichara samadhi take any one of them which part of siram krishna's personality am i focusing suppose you are focusing on what siram krishna used to eat that means what are your interests supposing you are remembering so many incidents that he was discriminating that means choose which part of the personality of siram krishna you want to focus upon that is called the nirvichara and when you are conscious about time space after 10 minutes ok i had enough of this concentration on siram krishna's meditative faculty now let us focus on meditation in time space and causation but a time will come you fix only on that one particular aspect of siram krishna or this is also known as guna dhyana meditation on the qualities of siram krishna concentration on the subtleness of any object within time space and causation nirvichara means the same focus but now you are so much absorbed you do not have you are not conscious of time space and causation 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