| Dear friends, Happy to meet you all. Happy also to note your concern for progress in the spiritual aspect of our life. There is the mundane aspect, which is overwhelmingly becoming important for us, so much so we tend to neglect the spiritual side. It is necessary that we should proceed on both the fronts equally well. Nobody flies with one wing, no bird can do that nor can we totally succeed with only materialistic approach. So, I should congratulate you for this much of viveka that you have got, namely that there is another side of our life, namely the spiritual aspect of our life. People tend to use yoga even today in many places for material benefit only. They will ask me whether it gives you breath control, blood pressure control, sugar control or many other diseases with which we suffer. These questions are better presented to doctors rather than to a spiritual person, though it has been a habit for some reason or the other, people tend to ask such questions. They belong to the physiological plane and better attended to by the doctors who know more about it. Incidentally many things can happen, when you control the mind, the body also gets some amount of control. Yoga also has been confused with lot of exercises, physical exercises. They do good, they are supposedly doing good to so many people about which I am personally not aware of, nor had I at any point of time any inclination to practice any one of them. So I will be the least competent person to talk about that, though at the schools, I was taught certain exercises and a good sports man myself and there the matter ends. I never took it to be a way of controlling diseases. This is enough as an introduction about other aspects of yoga. We are talking today about the efficacy of Rajayoga. By now you have been introduced to the subject of Rajayoga as a means of utilizing the thought force in us for union with the Ultimate. Ultimate here means the cosmos, the entire life force, the entire energy. Some people prefer to call it Divinity, some people prefer to call it God, I don't mind any definition you give for it but there is a force above, we are not independent, we are interdependent - this is one fundamental truth that we have to learn in life. No person, however big he may be and however small he may be, can claim to be independent. We are dependent upon others, we are dependent upon the environment, and we are dependent upon the society. There are various relationships and the matrix is really very very complicated so if any person says that he is independent, we don't agree to it. The life force is there in all and in each one of us whether it is a plant or an animal or a friend or a foe, it doesn't matter much, the same life force is there. There is a fundamental unity amongst all of us. Saints called it God; some other people may call it by some other name, it does not matter much. God has neither a form nor a name, so call Him by whatever way you like. It is what He is. He is just what He is. THAT. That is That. That's all. Om Tat Sat. That's all. There is nothing more. All other things are our relationships which we feel, as we feel to so many people so many relationships, again go on changing our relationships with them, again re-changing them. Attitudes do change towards every person. A person who was a friend yesterday becomes all of a sudden somebody neutral tomorrow and day after tomorrow perhaps enimical to your interests. These things do happen, relationships vary, but the essence is always there. The essence of communication that is there between you and me is irrevocable. We always move in the same wavelength of Divinity, there is one thing, superficially there are differences. Rajayoga aims at arriving at that thought, which is there at the base. This thought which is there which is not coloured with anything else. It is we who colour the thought, the thought by itself has no colour. Consciousness is always pure and simple, it is not tainted, it is not vitiated, it is in no way affected by anyone of our relations or emotions. So what happens during our meditations is, we try to meditate on the Divine light without luminosity, as the method is. Divine light without luminosity is an impossible idea. We can understand light with some luminosity. We can think about some intensity of the light, we can think of so many things, color of the light, we can see the smallness of it or the bigness of it but light by itself without luminosity if we can think of, you would have reached the highest stage of consciousness but it is an impossibility. Mind is not capable of comprehending that idea. The very purpose of this system of yoga is to make you understand that Ultimate is something that you will never know. It is beyond your mind, your mind cannot reach that. That is what the Vedas have said 'Na tatra vak gacchati na mano na vijno na vijanimo'- you cannot go there,you cannot reach that. It is far beyond. Whatever you think it is something other than that. NETI NETI. Whatever you say it is not that. Something beyond, something beyond. So this beyond-ness of the Divinity is what we are trying to have access to, because you have that in your heart. The mysterious thing is, that which is far far beyond our comprehension, is so near to us in our heart. It is beyond our comprehension but it is easily comprehendible by our feeling. You can feel it but you can never know it. If you try to know through logic, you will never know. Nahi nahi rakshati dukrun karane. No vyakarana can help you, no grammar can help you, no logic can help you, you have to understand only through your feeling. God's language is feeling, God's language is in silence, not in words. So long as it's a word it is already distorted. Whether it is our Vedas or whether it is our Bible, it does not matter much, they are distorted. The original thing is the feeling, the feeling you have. That is why the call of God is Nistraygunyo Bhavarjuna; Vedha trigunya vishayaaha nistraigunyo bhavarjuna. You have got to go beyond, the point is God is beyond the Vedas - the word. The essence is something that defies any structure. Any structure you try to give for God is something that is limiting God and chaining God in bondage. That which is free can never be bound, God by definition is free, energy by definition is free. We can bind it in the form of electricity, in the form of magnetism, in the form of light, in any form that we like, but energy as such is something far beyond this. So this is the feeling that we have got to have. So when you start meditation in this system, the first thing that happens to you is that you become aware of the vibrations of the Ultimate Consciousness. When you have your sitting, some of you will feel vibrations, some of you will feel calmness, some of you as usual feel enormous noise outside and inside. Noise outside you cannot help it because it is there in the road. Noise inside, it is your complication. You have got so many feelings, you have got so many attitudes, you have got so many thoughts, you have got so many responsibilities. All of them will come to you one after the other. You try to sit down in calmness you will find all these things coming together. You engage yourself in some task, all of them seem to disappear almost because you are task oriented. Since you are task oriented, your mind is only on that. When you try to empty yourself and then sit somewhere, all the thoughts will come to you, bombard you and that is the nature of vacuum, please note it. Vacuum is such when you try to have vacuum in some place, all the air around you tries to enter that. You must be knowing the famous experiment of trying to heat up a tin and then as it throws out the hot air goes out, put a cork and then the shape of the tin is lost for the only reason air wants to enter, it has no chance of entering into it and then the can becomes totally twisted and wrinkled totally out of shape. Similar is our mind when we try to keep your mind calm, what happens is all thoughts will come to you. It is not thoughts which come to you, they are thoughts which are there in you which are trying to go out, which want expression, which want attention. So many things which you forcibily put down and were attending to certain other things, they kept quiet. When you are calm, all of them will come to you and then they want precedence to be established 'Now I will try to come, no no I am more important'. So many thoughts, some ex  |
