THERE ARE THREE TYPES OF seekers. The first type comes onto the path because of curiosity: Patanjali calls it kutuhal. He is not really interested. He has drifted into it as if by accident. He may have read something. He may have heard somebody talk about God, the truth, the ultimate liberation, and he became interested.
The interest is intellectual, just like a child who becomes interested in everything and each thing and then, after a time, drifts away because more and more curiosities are always opening their doors.
Such a man will never attain. Out of curiosity you cannot attain the truth, because truth needs a persistent effort, a continuity, a perseverance which a man of curiosity cannot do. A man of curiosity can do a certain thing for a certain period of time according to his mood, but then there is a gap and in that gap all that is made disappears, is unmade. Again he will start from the very beginning, and the same will happen.
He cannot crop the result. He can sow the seeds; but he cannot wait, because millions of new interests are always calling him. He goes to the south, then he moves to the east, then he goes to the west, then to the north. He is like a drifting wood in the sea. He is not going anywhere; his energy is not moving to a certain goal. Whatsoever circumstance pushes him… Accidental he is and the accidental man cannot attain to the divine. And he may do much activity, but it is all futile because in the day he will make and in the night he will unmake it. A perseverance is needed; a continuous hammering is needed.
Jalaludin Rumi had a small school – a school of wisdom. He used to take his disciples to the fields, to the farms around. Particularly one farm he used to take all his new disciples to show what had happened there. Whenever a new disciple will come, he will take him to that farm. There was something worth it. The farmer was an example of a certain state of mind. The farmer was digging a well, but he will dig ten feet, fifteen feet, and then he will change the mind. “This place doesn’t look good” – so he will start another hole and then another.
For many years, he has been doing that. Now there were eight incomplete holes. The whole farm was destroyed, and he was working on the ninth. Jalaludin will say to his new disciples, “Look Don’t be like this farmer. If he had put all his effort into one hole, by this time the hole would have been one hundred feet at least. He has made much effort; much activity he has done, but he cannot wait. Ten, twelve, fifteen feet, then he gets bored. Then he starts another hole. This way the whole farm will be covered with holes, and there will never be a well.”
This is the man of curiosity, the accidental man who does things, and when he starts, he has much zeal – in fact, too much. And this too much zeal cannot become a continuity. He starts with such vigor and zest that you know that soon he will stop.
The second type of man who comes to the inner search is the man of jigyasa – inquiry. He has not come out of curiosity. He has come with an intense inquiry. He means it, but he is also not enough because his meaning is basically intellectual. He may become a philosopher, but he cannot become a religious man. He will inquire deeply, but his inquiry is intellectual. It remains head-oriented; it is a problem to be solved.
Life and death is not involved; it is not a question of life and death. It is a riddle, a puzzle. He enjoys solving it just as you enjoy solving a crossword Puzzle because it gives you a challenge. It has to be solved, you will feel very good if you can solve it. But this is intellectual, and deep down ego is involved. This man will become a philosopher. He will try hard. He will think, con-template, but he will never meditate. He will reflect logically, rationally; he will find many clues. He will create a system, but the whole thing will be his own projection.
Truth needs you totally. Even ninety-nine percent won’t do: exactly a hundred percent of you is needed, and the head is only one percent. You can live without the head. Animals are living without the head, trees are living without the head. Head is not such an essential thing in existence. You can easily live – in fact, you can more easily live without the head than you are living with the head. It creates millions of complexities. Head is not just an absolute necessity and nature knows that. It is a superfluous luxury. If you have not enough food, the body knows where the food should go: it stops giving it to the head.
That’s why, in poor countries, intellect cannot develop, because intellect is a luxury. When everything is finished, when the body is completely getting everything, only then the energy moves towards the head. Even in your life it happens every day, but you are not aware. Eat too much food – immediately you feel sleepy. What is happening? The body needs energy to digest. The head can be forgotten; the energy moves towards the stomach. Head feels dizzy, sleepy. Energy is not moving, blood is not moving, towards the head. The body has its own economy.
There are basic things, there are non-basic things. Basic things have to be fulfilled first, because the non-basic can wait, your philosophy can wait. There is not much necessity for it. But your stomach cannot wait. Your stomach has to be fulfilled first; that hunger is more basic. Because of this basic realization many religions have tried fasting, because if you fast the head cannot think, because the energy is not so much; it cannot be given to the head. But this is a deception. When the energy will be there, the head will start thinking again. This meditation is a lie.
If you fast for a few days continuously, the head cannot think. Not that you have attained to no-mind; simply superfluous energy doesn’t exist in you now. The body needs first; bodily needs are basic, essential; head needs are secondary, superfluous. It is just as you have an economy in your home. If your child is dying you will sell the TV set. There is nothing much involved in it. You can sell the furniture when the child is dying; when you are hungry, you can sell even the house. First things first – that is the meaning of economy – second things second. And head is the last; it is only one percent of you, and that too superfluous. You can exist without it.
Can you exist without the stomach? Can you exist without the heart? But you can exist without the head. And when you pay too much attention to the head, you are completely upside down. You are doing shirshasana: standing on the head. You have completely forgotten that the head is not essential.
And when you give only head to an inquiry, it is jigyasa. Then it is a luxury. You can become a philosopher and sit on an armchair; rest and think. Philosophers are like luxurious furniture. If you can afford good, but it is not a life-and-death problem. So Patanjali says the man of kutuhal – the man of curiosity – cannot achieve; the man of jigyasa – inquiry – will become a philosopher.
Then there is the third man whom Patanjali calls the man of mumuksha. This word mumuksha is difficult to translate, so I will explain it. Mumuksha means the desire to be desireless, the desire to be completely liberated, the desire to get out of the wheel of existence, the desire not to be born again, not to die again, the feeling – that it is enough – born millions of times, dying again and again and moving in the same vicious circle. Mumuksha means to become the ultimate drop-out from the very wheel of existence. Bored, suffering, and one wants to get out of it. The inquiry becomes now a life-and-death problem. Your whole being is at stake. Patanjali says only a man of mumuksha, to whom the desire for moksha – liberation – has arisen, can become a religious man, and then too because he is a very, very logical thinker.
Tags: Patanjali Types Of Seekers
