Science Of Union – In Gita Verse 6.18 When the yogī, by practice of yoga, disciplines his mental activities and becomes situated in transcendence – devoid of all material desires – he is said to be well established in yoga.
Krishna says that if you practice eight-fold of Yoga step by step you will be able to transcend all the mental activity and go into Meditation.
Yoga means union, the science of union. Meditation is the most supreme phenomenon as far as union with reality is concerned. Meditation is the god of yoga. But yoga has fallen into the wrong hands, and not only recently – for centuries it has been in the wrong hands.
The original fault must be with the founder, Patanjali himself. Patanjali has divided yoga into eight parts. His division is clear-cut, very scientific, but he was not really aware of human stupidity. He started with the body – and that’s the right way to start. The first part of yoga must be physiological because man lives on the circumference, in the body, so the work has to start there, only then can it reach the mind. And when one has gone beyond the body and beyond the mind, then the third, meditation, happens.
So according to Patanjali the first part belongs to the body. But he was not clearly aware that millions of people would remain entangled with the first part. Hence yoga has become synonymous with yoga postures: people standing on their heads and doing all sorts of contortions. That has become synonymous with yoga.
It is not true yoga, it is just the preface, the introductory part; and the person who thinks the introduction is the whole book is idiotic. But Patanjali did not warn people. If he had warned people it would have been better. People like Patanjali believe in others’ intelligence – which is not there! They trust. Their trust is immense, their trust is as immense as people’s stupidity is! They respect people’s intelligence. So he did not warn people, but the warning was absolutely necessary: ‘Don’t get entangled in the physiological part.’
A few people, only very few – if a hundred people become interested in yoga then only one person will get out of the physiological entanglement. And that one person will become entangled in the psychological part. If a hundred persons are entangled in the psychological part then only one person gets out of it…and only when you get out of the mind does the real yoga begin.
The physiological part of yoga will give you great physiological powers; it can make you live a really long, healthy life. But what are you going to do with a long life? If you are idiotic, instead of being idiotic for seventy years you will be idiotic for two hundred years. It is not going to help anybody; it will be a calamity.
Yoga can make a person live long, but what will you do? That physiological part should not be paid so much attention. Yes, a little bit is good to keep physically fit, but just a little bit; otherwise it is a vast jungle. One can be lost in its subtleties, in its complexities.
The second part is even vaster than the physiological. If you get into it you can have many psychic powers, you can read people’s thoughts. But what is the point? Your own rubbish is so much, what is the point of reading somebody else’s rubbish? He is tortured by his rubbish and you are reading his thoughts – and you think you are doing something great!
The real thing is to get rid of thoughts, not to read them.
The physiological part is ordinary, the psychological part is ordinary. Both can give power, but power is not the goal of meditation. Power is politics, all kinds of power is politics. And power corrupts – all kinds of power – it corrupts unconditionally and absolutely. It always corrupts.
The real core of all religion, of all yoga, of all methods of search, is meditation. One should put aside everything non-essential. You can use things as stepping stones, but not more than that – just like jumping boards. You need not bother too much about them. Your whole concern should be one-pointed; you should move like an arrow towards meditation. Only then in this small life, with so little time, power and energy available and with so many problems surrounding you, can you hope that the arrow will reach the target.
Krishna says that without getting entangled into, physiological and psychological part of yoga, move into meditation. Physiological and psychological part of yoga is preparation and stepping stone for meditation. The moment you know something of meditation – not about it, but the very taste of it – a great release comes. A great relief comes. Suddenly all tensions disappear: anxieties, anguishes, are found no more. Even if you want them just for a change, you cannot find them.
Once you have tasted meditation it is impossible for you to be in any misery. Bliss becomes inevitable, a natural showering, and it goes on showering like flowers showering from the sky.
Tags: Science Of Union
