Inner Journey

Your relation with others has to be changed. How you relate has to be transformed. If you continue to relate with others in the same way as you have always been doing, there is no possibility to change. You have to change your relationship. Watch how you behave with your wife or with your friend or with your children. Change it. There are a thousand and one things to be changed in your relationship. That is yam, a control – but control, not suppression. Through understanding comes control. Through ignorance one goes on forcing and suppressing. Always do everything with understanding and you never harm yourself or anybody else.

Yam is to create a congenial environment around yourself. If you are inimical to everybody – fighting, hateful, angry – how can you move inwards? All these Things will not allow you to move. You will be so much disturbed on the surface that that inner journey will not be possible. To create a congenial, friendly, atmosphere around you is yam. When you relate with others beautifully, consciously, they don’t create trouble for you in your inner journey. They – become help; they don’t hinder you. If you love your child, then when you are meditating he will not disturb you. He will say to others, “Keep quiet. Pop is meditating.” But if you don’t love your child, you are simply angry, then when you are meditating he will create all sorts of nuisances. He wants to take revenge – unconsciously. If you love your wife deeply, she will be helpful; otherwise she won’t allow you to pray, she won’t allow you to meditate – you are going beyond her control.

A man of yam controls himself, not others. To others he gives freedom. You try to control the other and never yourself. A man of yam controls himself, gives freedom to others – loves so much that he can give freedom, and he loves himself so much that he controls himself. This has to be understood: he loves himself so much that he cannot dissipate his energies; he has to give a direction.

Then, niyam and asan are for the body. A regular life is very healthy for the body because the body is a mechanism. You confuse the body if you lead an irregular life. Today you have taken your food at one o’clock, tomorrow you take at eleven o’clock, day after tomorrow you take at ten o’clock – you confuse the body. The body has an inner biological clock; it moves in a pattern. If you take your food every day at exactly the same time, the body is always in a situation where she understands what is happening. and she is ready for the happening – the juices are flowing in the stomach at the right moment. Otherwise, whenever you want to take the food, you can take, but the juices will not be flowing. And if you take the food and the juices are not flowing, then the food becomes cold; then the digestion is difficult.

The juices must be ready there to receive the food while it is hot, then immediately absorption starts. Food can be absorbed in six hours if the juices are ready, waiting. If the juices are not waiting, then it takes twelve hours to eighteen hours. Then you feel heavy, lethargic. Then the food gives you life, but does not give you pure life. It feels like a weight on your chest; you somehow carry, drag.

And food can become such pure energy – but then a regular life is needed.

You go to sleep every day at ten o-clock: the body knows – exactly at ten o’clock the body gives you an alarm. I’m not saying become obsessive – that when your mother is dying then too you go at ten o’clock. I’m not saying that. Because people can become obsessive….

There are many stories about Immanuel Kant. He became obsessive about regularity; it became a madness. Don’t create an obsession. He had a fixed routine, so fixed, second to second, that if somebody, a guest has come, he will look at the clock and he will not even say anything to the guest, because that saying will take time – he will jump into the bed, cover himself with the blanket, and he has gone to sleep and the guest is sitting there. The servant will come and say, “Now you go, because that was his time.” The servant became so attuned to Kant that there was no need to say, “Your food is ready,” and no need to say.

“Now you go to sleep.” Only the time had to be said. The servant will come into the room and say, “lt is eleven o’clock, sir.” So he will follow immediately because there was no need to say anything.

He was so regular that the servant became the dictator – because he will always threaten him, “I will leave. Raise my pay.” immediately, the pay has to be raised because another servant, a new man, will disturb. Once they tried also: a new man came, but it was not possible, because Kant was living second to second.

He would go to the university; he was a great teacher and a great philosopher.

One day the road was muddy and it was raining, and one of his shoes got stuck in the mud – so he left it there. Otherwise he will be late. So he went with one shoe on. It was said in the university area of Konigsberg that people looking at him would fix their watches, because everything was absolutely clockwise.

A new neighbor purchased the house adjacent to Kant’s house and he started planting new trees. Every day at exactly five o’clock in the evening, Kant used to come to that side of the house and sit near the window and look at the sky. Now the trees covered the window and he could not look at the sky. He fell sick. He fell so sick… and the doctors could not find anything wrong with him, because he was such a regular man. He was really tremendously healthy. They could not find anything; they couldn’t diagnose. Then the servant said, “You don’t bother. I know the reason. Those trees are intruding on his regularity. Now he cannot go to the window and sit there and look at the sky. Looking at the sky is no longer possible.” The neighbour had to be persuaded. The trees were cut, and he was okay; the illness disappeared.

But this is an obsession. No need to become obsessive; everything has to be done with understanding.

Niyam and asan, regularity and posture: they are for the body. A controlled body is a beautiful phenomenon – a controlled energy, glowing, and always more than is needed, and always alive, and never dull and dead. Then the body also becomes intelligent, body also becomes wise, body glows with a new awareness.

Then, pranayam is a bridge: deep breathing is the bridge from mind to body.

You can change the body through breathing; you can change the mind through breathing. Pratyahar and dharana, returning home and concentration, belong to the transformation of the mind. Then, dhyan is again a bridge from mind to the self, or to the no-self – whatsoever you choose to call it, it is both. Dhyan is the bridge of samadhi.

The society is there; from the society to you there is a bridge: yam. The body is there; for the body: regularity and posture. Again there is a bridge, because of the different dimension of mind from the body: pranayam. Then, the training of the mind: pratyahara and dharna, returning back home and concentration. Then again a bridge, this is the last bridge: dhyan. And then you reach the goal: samadhi.

Samadhi is a beautiful word. It means now everything is solved. It means samadhan: everything is achieved. Now there is no desire; nothing is left to achieve. There is no beyond; you have come home.