Yoga Sutra 9 Distracted Mind

DISEASE, LANGUOR, DOUBT, CARELESSNESS, LAZINESS, SENSUALITY, DELUSION, IMPOTENCY, AND INSTABILITY ARE THE OBSTACLES THAT DISTRACT THE MIND.

ANGUISH, DESPAIR, TREMORS AND IRREGULAR BREATHING ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF A DISTRACTED MIND.

TO REMOVE THESE, MEDITATE ON ONE PRINCIPLE.

PATANJALI BELIEVES – and not only believes, he knows also – that sound is the basic element of existence. Just as physicists – say that electricity is the basic element, yogis say that sound is the basic element. They agree with each other in a subtle way.

Physicists say that sound is nothing but a modification of electricity and yogis say that electricity is nothing but a modification of sound. Then both are true. Sound and electricity are two forms of one phenomenon, and to me, that phenomenon is not known yet and will not be known ever. Whatsoever we know will be just a modification of it. You may call it electricity, you may call it sound, you may call it fire like Heraclitus, you may call it water like Lao Tzu: that depends on you. But all these are modifications – forms of the formless. That formless will always remain unknown.

How can you know the formless? Knowledge is possible only when there is a form. When something becomes visible, then you can know it. How can you make invisibility the object of knowledge? The very nature of invisibility is that it cannot be objectified. You cannot pinpoint it – where it is, what it is. Only something visible can become the object.

So whenever anything is known, it will be just a modification of the unknown. The unknown remains unknown. It is unknowable. So it depends on you what you call it, and it depends on the utility you are going to put it to. For the yogi, electricity is not relevant. He is working in the inner lab of being. There, sound is more relevant, because through sound he can change many phenomena inside and through sound he can change the inner electricity also. Yogis call it prana – the inner bio-energy or bio-electricity. Through sound that can be changed immediately.

That’s why, when listening to classical music, you feel a certain silence surrounding you: your inner body energy is changed. Listen to a madman and you will feel you are also going crazy: because the madman is in a chaos of body electricity and his words and sounds carry that electricity to you. Sit with an enlightened person and suddenly you feel everything within you is falling in a rhythm. Suddenly you feel a different quality of energy arising in you.

That’s why Patanjali says the repetition of Aum and meditation on it destroys all obstacles. What are the obstacles? Now he describes each obstacle, and how they can be destroyed by repeating the sound of Aum and meditating on it; we will have to ponder over.

DISEASE, LANGUOR, DOUBT, CARELESSNESS, LAZINESS, SENSUALITY, DELUSION, IMPOTENCY AND INSTABILITY ARE THE OBSTACLES THAT DISTRACT THE MIND.

Take each: disease. For Patanjali, disease means ‘dis-ease’. It is a non-rhythmic way of your inner bio-energy. You feel uncomfortable. If this uncomfort, this disease continues, sooner or later it will affect your body. Patanjali will agree with acupuncture absolutely, and in Soviet Russia a man named Kirlian will agree with Patanjali absolutely. All the three trends… Acupuncture is not concerned with enlightenment, but acupuncture is concerned how the body becomes diseased, how illness happens, and acupuncture has discovered seven hundred points on the body where the inner bio-energy touches the physical body – touchpoints – seven hundred all around the body.

Whenever the electricity is not flowing in a circle in these seven hundred points – some gaps are there, few points are no more functioning, through few points the electricity is no more moving, blocks are there, electricity is cut, it is not a circle – then disease happens. So acupuncture believes that without any medicine, without any other treatment, if you allow the bio-energy flow to become a circle, the disease disappears. And for five thousand years… acupuncture was born almost when Patanjali was alive.

Disease for Patanjali is some disturbance in the body aura, in the prana, in the bio-energy, in the electricity of your body. That’s why through Aum it can be cured. Sometime, you sit lonely in a temple. Go through some old temple where nobody goes, under the dome – circular dome is just to reflect the sound – so sit under it, chant Aum loudly and meditate on it. And let the sound reflect back and fall upon you like a rain, and suddenly you will feel after a few minutes your whole body is getting peaceful, calm, quiet: the body energy is getting settled.

The first thing is disease. And if you are ill in your prana energy, you cannot go far. How can you go far with illness hanging around you like a cloud? You cannot enter into deeper realms. A certain health is needed. The Indian word for health is very meaningful: it is swasthya. The very word means “to be oneself”. The word for health in Sanskrit means to be oneself, to be centered. The English word health is also beautiful. It comes from the same word, the same root, from where holy and whole come. When you are whole you are healthy and when you are whole you are holy also.

It is always good to go to the roots of words because they arose from a long experience of humanity. Words have not come accidentally. When a person feels whole his body energy is running in a circle. The circle is the most perfect thing in the world. A perfect circle is a symbol of God. Energy is not being wasted. It circulates again and again; it goes on moving like a wheel; it perpetuates itself.

When you are whole you are healthy, and when you are healthy you are holy also, because that holy word also comes from whole. A perfectly healthy person is holy, but then there will be problems. If you go to the monasteries you will find there all types of ill people. In fact, ill people only go there. To a healthy person you will ask what he has to do in a monastery. Ill people go there, abnormal people go there. Something is basically wrong with them. That’s why they escape from the world and go there.

Patanjali makes it a first rule that you should be healthy, because if you are not healthy you cannot go far. Your illness, your discomfort, your inner broken circle of energy, will be a stone on your neck. When you will meditate you will feel ill at ease. When you would like to pray, you cannot pray, you would like to rest. A low energy level will be there. And with low energy how can you go far? And to reach God? And for Patanjali God is the farthest point: much energy is needed. A healthy body, a healthy mind, a healthy being is needed. Disease is disease – disease in the body energy. Aum will help and other things also we will discuss. But here Patanjali is talking about how Aum, the sound itself, helps you inside to become a whole.

For Patanjali, and for many others who have searched deeply into human energy, one fact has become very certain – you must know about it – and that is, the more you are ill, the more sensual. When you are perfectly healthy you are not sensual. Ordinarily, we think just the contrary – that a healthy man has to be sensual, sexual, this and that: he has to enjoy the world and the body. It is not the case. When you are ill, then more sensuality, more sex, grips you. When you are perfectly healthy, sex and sensuality disappear.

Why does it happen? Because when you are perfectly healthy you are so happy with yourself you don’t need the other. When you are ill, you are so unhappy with yourself you need the other. And this is the paradox: when you are ill you need the other, and the other also needs you when she or he is ill. And two ill persons meeting, the illness is not doubled, it is multiplied.

That’s what happens in a marriage: two ill persons meeting, it multiplies illnesses and then the whole thing becomes ugly and a hell. Ill persons need others, and they are precisely the persons who will create trouble when they are related. A healthy person doesn’t need to. But if a healthy person loves, it is not a need, it is a sharing. The whole phenomenon changes. He is not in need of anybody. He has so much that he can share.

An ill person needs sex, a healthy person loves, and love is a totally different thing. And when two healthy persons meet, health is multiplied. Then they can become helpers to each other for the ultimate. They can go together for the ultimate, helping each other. But the need disappears. It is no more a need, it is no more a dependence.

Whenever you have an uncomfortable feeling with yourself, don’t try to drown it into sex and sensuality. Rather, try to become more healthy. Yoga Asanas will help. We have already discussed them. Right now, he says, if you chant Aum and meditate on it, disease will disappear. And he is right Not only the disease that is there will disappear, but the disease that was to come in the future, that will also disappear

If a man can become a perfect chanting so that the chanter is completely lost – only a pure consciousness, a flame of light and all around, chanting – the energy falls into a circle, becomes a circle. And then you have one of the most euphoric moments in life. When the energy falls into a circle, becomes a harmony, there is no discord, no conflict, you have become one. But ordinarily also, disease will be a hindrance. If you are ill, you need treatment.