How to live?
“How to live?” because life is not the goal now: death is also part of it. “How to live?” that you can live and die also beautifully. “How to live?” that not only does life become a crescendo of bliss, but death becomes the highest, because death is the climax of life.
To live in such a way that you become capable of living totally and you become capable of dying totally, that’s the whole meaning of self-discipline. Self- discipline is not a suppression; it is to live a directed life, a life with the sense of direction. It is to live a life fully alert and aware of death. Then your river of life has both the banks. Life and death, and the river of consciousness flows between these two. Anybody who is trying to live life denying death its part is trying to move along one bank; his river of consciousness cannot be total. He will lack something; something very beautiful he will lack. His life will be superficial — there will be no depth in it. Without death there is no depth.
The life of yam is a life of balance. These five vows of Patanjali are to give you a balance. But you can misunderstand them and you can create again another unbalanced life. Yoga is not against indulgence; yoga is for balance. Yoga says, “Be alive but be always ready to die also.” It looks contradictory. Yoga says, “Enjoy. But, remember, this is not your home. This is an overnight stay.” Nothing is wrong: even if you are enjoying in a dharmasala and it is a full moon night, nothing is wrong. Enjoy it, but don’t take the dharmasala to be your home, because tomorrow we leave. We will be thankful for this overnight stay, we will be grateful — it was good while it lasted — but don’t ask it to last forever. If you ask that it should last forever, this is one extreme; and if you don’t enjoy at all because it is not going to last forever, this is another extreme. And in both the ways you remain half.
If you try to understand, to make you whole and total so all the contradictions are absorbed and a harmony arises. Don’t become monotonous. A life of ordinary indulgence is monotonous. A life of ordinary yoga is also monotonous, boring. A life which comprehends all contradictions in it, which has many notes in it but, still, all notes fall in a harmony; that life is a rich life. And to become that rich life, is yoga.
And these five vows are not to cut you from life, they are to join you. That emphasis has to be remembered because many people have used these five vows to cut themselves from life. They are not meant for that — they are meant for just the opposite.
