ATTAIN THROUGH FAITH, EFFORT, RECOLLECTION, CONCENTRATION AND DISCRIMINATION.
Shraddha, trust, virya, total commitment, total effort, total energy has to be brought in; all your potentiality has to be brought in. If you are really a seeker after truth, you cannot seek anything else. It is a complete involvement. You cannot make it a part-time job and say, “Sometimes in the morning I meditate and then I go.” No, meditation has to become your twenty-four-hours continuity for you. Whatsoever you do, meditation has to be there in the background continuously. Energy will be needed: your whole energy will be needed.
And now, a few things. If your whole energy is needed, sex disappears automatically because you don’t have energy to waste. Brahmacharya for Patanjali is not a discipline, it is a consequence. You put your total energy so you don’t have any energy… and it happens in ordinary life also. You can see a great painter: he forgets women completely. When he is painting there is no sex in his mind, because the whole energy is moving. You don’t have any extra energy.
A great poet, a great singer, a dancer who is moving totally in his commitment, automatically becomes celibate. He has no discipline for it. Sex is superfluous energy; sex is a safety valve. When you have too much in you and you cannot do anything with it, nature has made a safety valve; you can throw it out. You can release it, otherwise you will go mad or burst – explode. And if you try to suppress it, then too you will go mad, because suppressing it won’t help. It needs a transformation, and that transformation comes from total commitment. A warrior, if he is really a warrior – an impeccable warrior, will be beyond sex. His whole energy is moving.
It is reported, a very, very beautiful story: a great philosopher, thinker, his name was Vachaspati… He was so much involved in his studies that when his father asked him that, “Now I am getting old, and I don’t know when I will die – any moment – and you are my only son, and I would like you to be married.” He was so much involved in his studies that he said, “Okay.” He didn’t hear what he was saying. So he got married. He got married, but he completely forgot that he has a wife, he was so involved.
And this can happen only in India; this cannot happen anywhere else: the wife loved him so much that she didn’t want to disturb. So it is said twelve years passed. She will serve him like a shadow, take every care, but not to disturb, not to say that, “I am here, and what you are doing?” Continuously he was writing a commentary – one of the greatest ever written. He was writing a commentary on Badarayan’s brahma-sutras and he was so involved, so totally, that he not only forgot about his wife: he was not even aware who brings the food, who takes the plates back, who comes in the evening and lights the lamp, who prepares his bed.
Twelve years passed, and the night came when his commentary was complete. Just the last word he was to write, and he had taken a vow, and when the commentary is complete he will become a sannyasin. Then he will not be concerned with the mind, and everything is finished. This is his only karma that has to be fulfilled.
That night he was a little relaxed, because the last sentence he wrote was near-about twelve, and for the first time he became aware of the surroundings. The lamp was burning low and needed more oil. A beautiful hand was pouring oil into it. He looked back at who was there. He couldn’t recognize the face; he said, “Who are you and what are you doing here?” The wife said, “Now that you have asked, I must say that twelve years back you had brought me as your wife, but you were so much involved, so much committed to your work, I didn’t like to interrupt or disturb you.”
Vachaspati started weeping, his tears started flowing. The wife asked, “What is the matter?” He said, “This is very complex. Now I am at a loss, because the commentary is complete and I am a sannyasin. I cannot be a householder; I cannot be your husband. The commentary is complete, and I had taken a vow and now there is no time for me, I am going to leave immediately. Why didn’t you tell me before? I could have loved you. And what can I do for your services, your love, your devotion?”
So he called his commentary on brahma-sutras, bhamati. Bhamati was the name of his wife. The name is absurd, because to call Badarayan’s brahma-sutras and the commentary, bhamati, it has no relationship. But he said, “Now nothing else I can do. The last thing is to write the name of the book, so I will call it bhamati so that it is always remembered.”
He left the house. The wife was weeping, crying, but not in pain but in absolute bliss. She said, “That’s enough. This gesture, this love in your eyes, is enough. I have got enough; don’t feel guilty. Go! And forget me completely. I would not like to be a burden on your mind. No need to remember me.”
It is possible, if you are involved totally, sex disappears because sex is a safety valve. When you have energy unused, then sex becomes a haunting thing around you. When total energy is used, sex disappears. And that is the state of brahmacharya, of virya, of all your potential energy flowering.
EFFORT, RECOLLECTION, CONCENTRATION AND DISCRIMINATION:
Shraddha – trust; virya – your total bio-energy, your total commitment and effort; smriti – self-remembrance; and samadhi. Samadhi word means a state of mind where no problem exists. It comes from the word samadhan – a state of mind when you feel absolutely okay, no problem, no question, a non-questioning, non-problematic state of mind. It is not concentration. Concentration is just a quality that comes to the mind who is without problems. That is the difficulty to translate.
Concentration is part – it happens. Look at a child who is absorbed in his play; he has a concentration without any effort. He is not concentrating on his play. Concentration is a by-product. He is so absorbed in the play that the concentration happens. If you concentrate knowingly on something, then there is effort, then there is tension, then you will be tired.
Samadhi happens automatically, spontaneously, if you are absorbed. If you are listening to master, it is a SAMADHI. If you listen to master totally, there is no need for any other meditation. It becomes a concentration. It is not that you concentrate – if you listen lovingly, concentration follows.
In asamprajnata samadhi, when trust is complete, when effort is total, when remembrance is deep, samadhi happens. Whatsoever you do, you do with total concentration – without any effort to do the concentration. And if concentration needs effort, it is ugly. It will be like a disease on you; you will be destroyed by it. Concentration should be a consequence. You love a person, and just being with him, you are concentrated. Remember never to concentrate on anything. Rather, listen deeply, listen totally, and you will have a concentration coming by itself.
And discrimination – prajna. Prajna is not discrimination; discrimination is again a part of prajna. Prajna means in fact wisdom – a knowing awareness. Buddha has said that when the flame of meditation burns high, the light that surrounds that flame is prajna. Samadhi inside, and then all around you a light, an aura, follows you. In your every act you are wise; not that you are trying to be wise, it simply happens because you are so totally aware. Whatsoever you do it happens to be wise – not that you are continuously thinking to do the right thing.
A man who is continuously thinking to do the right thing, he will not be able to do anything – even the wrong he will not be able to do, because this will become such a tension on his mind. And what is right and what is wrong? How can you decide? A man of wisdom, a man of understanding, does not choose. He simply feels. He simply throws his awareness everywhere, and in that light he moves. Wherever he moves is right.
Right does not belong to things; it belongs to you – the one who is moving. It is not that Buddha did the right things – no! Whatsoever he did was right. Discrimination is a poor word. A man of understanding has discrimination. He doesn’t think about it; just it is easy for him. If you want to get out of this room, you simply move out of the door. You don’t grope. You don’t first go to the wall and try to find the way. You simply go out. You don’t even think that this is the door.
But when a blind man has to go out, he asks, “Where is the door?” And then too he tries to find it. He will knock many places with his cane, he will grope, and continuously in the mind he will think, “Is it the door or the wall? Am I going right or wrong?” And when he comes to the door, he thinks, “Yes, now this is the door.”
All this happens because he is blind. You have to discriminate because you are blind; you have to think because you are blind; you have to believe in right and wrong because you are blind; you have to be in discipline and morality because you are blind. When understanding flowers, when the flame is there, you simply see and everything is clear. When you have an inner clarity, everything is clear; you become perceptive. Whatsoever you do is simply right. Not that it is right so you do it; you do it with understanding, and it is right.
Shraddha, virya, smriti, samadhi, prajna. Others who attain asamprajnata samadhi attain through trust, infinite energy, effort, total self-remembrance, a non-questioning mind and a flame of understanding.
Tags: Patanjali Total Commitment
