Patanjali’s yoga system and Hindu system of medicine, Ayurveda, developed simultaneously, together. Ayurveda is totally different; than allopathy. Allopathy is suppressive of the disease. Allopathy has developed side by side with Christianity; it is a byproduct. And because Christianity is suppressive, allopathy is suppressive. If you are ill, allopathy immediately suppresses the illness. Then the illness tries some other weak point to come up. Then from somewhere else it explodes. Then you suppress it from there, then from somewhere else it explodes. But with allopathy, you go on from one illness to another, from another to another, but it is a never-ending process.
Ayurveda has a totally different concept. Illness should not be suppressed: it should be released. A catharsis is needed. So Ayurvedic medicine is given to the ill person so that the illness comes up and is thrown out, a catharsis. So the beginning doses of Ayurvedic medicine may make you more ill, and it takes a long time because it is not a suppression. It cannot be done right now: it is a long process. The illness has to be thrown, and your inner energy has to become a harmony so the health comes from within. The medicine will throw the illness out, and the healing force will replace it from your own being.
They developed Ayurveda and yoga together. If you are doing yoga asanas, if you are following Patanjali, then never go to an allopathic doctor. If you are not following patanjali, then there is no problem. But if you are following the yoga system and working many things in your body energy, then never go to allopathy because they are contrary. Then seek an ayurvedic doctor or homeopathy or naturopathy – anything that helps catharsis.
But if there is a disease, first tackle it. Don’t move with the disease. With Osho’s methods it is very easy to get rid of a disease. Because Patanjali’s method of Aum, of chanting and meditating, is a very mild one. But in those days, that was strong enough because people were simple, they lived with nature. Illness was rare; health was common. Now just the opposite is the case: health is rare, illness is common, and people are very complex, they don’t live near nature.
There was a survey in London. One million boys and girls have not seen a cow. They have seen only pictures of a cow. By and by, we are bracketed into a man-made world; concrete buildings, asphalt roads – all man-made – technology, big machinery, cars. Nature is thrown somewhere into the dark, and nature is a healing force. And then man becomes more and more complex. He doesn’t listen to his nature; he listens to the demands of the civilization, demands of the society. He completely is out of contact with his own inner being.
Then Patanjali’s mild methods won’t help much. Hence, Osho’s dynamic, chaotic methods – because you are almost mad, you need mad methods which can bring out all that is suppressed within you and throw it out. But health is a must. One who goes for a long journey must see that he is healthy. Ill, bedridden, it is difficult to move.
Second obstacle is languor: languor means a man who has very low energy search. He wants to seek and search, but a very low energy search – lukewarm. He wants to evaporate, but that’s not possible. Such a man always talks about God, moksha, yoga, this and that, but talks. With low energy levels you can talk; that’s all you can do. If you want to do something, you need a high energy effort.
Once it happened: Mulla went with his horse and buggy to some town. It was a hot summer day; Mulla was perspiring. Suddenly, on the road, the horse stopped, looked back at Mulla and said, “Saints alive, but it is too hot!” Mulla could not believe it. He thought he had gone crazy because of the heat, because how can the horse say? How can the horse talk?
So he looked around if anybody else had heard, but there was nobody except his dog who was sitting in the buggy. Not finding anyone, but just to get rid of the idea, he told the dog, “Have you heard what he says?” The dog says, “Oh, he is just like anybody else – always talking about the weather and doing nothing.”
This is the man of languor – always talking about God, doing nothing. He always talks of great things, and this talk is just to hide a wound. He talks so that he can forget that he is not doing anything about it. Through a cloud of talk, he escapes. Talking again and again about it, he thinks he is doing something, but talking is not doing. You can go on talking about the weather, you can go on talking about God. And if you don’t do anything, you are simply wasting your energy.
This type of person can become a minister, a priest, a pundit. These are low-energy people. And they can become very proficient in talking – so proficient that they can deceive, because they always talk about beautiful and great things. Others listen to them and get deceived; philosophers – these are all people of languor. Patanjali is not a philosopher. He himself is a scientist, and he wants others to be scientists. Much effort is needed.
Through the chanting of Aum and meditating on it, your low energy level will become high. How does it happen? Why are you on a low energy level always, always feeling exhausted, tired? Even in the morning when you get up, you are tired. What is happening to you? Somewhere in your system there are leakages; you leak energy. You are not aware, but you are like a bucket with holes. Every day you fill the bucket, but you see it is always empty, getting empty. This leakage has to be stopped.
How energy leaks through the body? These are deep problems for bio-energetics. The body leaks always from fingers of the hand, of the feet, eyes. The energy cannot leak through the head: it is round. Anything round helps the body to preserve. That’s why yoga postures – siddhasana, padmasana – they make the whole body round.
A person who is sitting in a siddhasana puts his both hands together because the body energy leaks through the fingers. When both the hands are put together on top of each other, the energy moves from one hand into the other. It becomes a circle. Feet, legs, are also put on each other so that the energy moves in your own body and doesn’t leak.
Eyes are closed because eyes release almost eighty percent of your bio-energy. That’s why, if you continuously are traveling and you go on looking out of the train or the car, you will feel so tired. If you travel with closed eyes, you will not feel so tired. And you go on looking at unnecessary things, even reading advertisements on the walls. You use your eyes too much, and when eyes are tired the whole body is tired. Eyes give the indication that now it is enough.
A yogi tries to remain with closed eyes as much as possible, with hands and legs crossing each other, so the energy moves into each other. He sits with the spine straight. If the spine is straight while you are sitting, you will preserve more energy than any other way – because when the spine is straight, the gravitation of the earth cannot force much energy out of you, because it touches only one point of the spine. That’s why when you are sitting in such a leaning posture, slanting, you think you are resting. But Patanjali says you are leaking energy, because more of your body is under the influence of gravitation.
This won’t help. Straight spine, with closed hands and legs, with closed eyes, you have become a circle: that circle is represented by Shivalinga. You must have seen the Shivalinga – the phallic symbol, as it is known in the West. In fact, it is the inner bio-energy circle, just egg shaped.
When your body energy flows rightly, it becomes like an egg: the shape is like an egg, exactly like an egg. And that is symbolized in the Shivalinga. You become a Shiva. When the energy is flowing into yourself again and again, not moving out, then languor disappears. It will not disappear by talking; it will not disappear by reading scriptures; it will not disappear by philosophizing. It will disappear only when your energy is not leaking.
Try to preserve it. The more you preserve, the better. But in the West, something just the opposite is being taught – that it is good to release energy through sex, this and that – release energy. It is good if you are not using it in any other way; otherwise you will get mad. And whenever there is too much energy, it is better to release it through sex. Sex is the simplest method to release it.
But it can be used, can be made creative, it can give you a rebirth, a resurrection. You can know millions of euphoric stages through it; you can rise higher and higher through it. It is the ladder to reach God. If you go on every day releasing it, you will never have such built up energy that you can take even the first step towards the divine. Preserve.
Patanjali is against sex, and that is the difference between Patanjali and tantra. Tantra uses sex as a method; Patanjali wants you to bypass it. And there are persons, almost fifty percent, to whom tantra will suit; and fifty percent to whom yoga will suit. One has to find what will suit him. Both can be used, and through both, people reach. And neither is wrong or right. It depends on you. One will be right for you and one wrong for you, but remember, for you It is not an absolute categorical statement.
Something may be right for you and wrong for somebody else. And both the systems were born together, tantra and yoga – twin systems, exactly at the same time – this is the synchronicity. As if man and woman need each other, tantra and yoga need each other; they become a complete thing. If there is only yoga, then only fifty percent can reach; fifty percent will be in trouble. If there is only tantra, then fifty percent can reach; the other fifty percent will be in trouble. And this has happened.
And sometimes, not knowing where you are moving, what you are doing, if you go on without a Master, not knowing who you are and what will suit you… You may be a woman and just dressed like a man, and you think yourself a man – then you will be in trouble. You may be a man and dressed like a woman, and you think yourself a woman – you will be in trouble.
Trouble arises whenever you don’t understand who you are. A Master is needed to give you a clear-cut direction that this is for you. So remember; whenever I say something, that this is for you, don’t go on spreading to others, because it has been specifically told to you. People are curious. If you tell them, they will try. It may not be for them. It may be harmful even. And remember, if it is not helpful, it is going to be harmful. There is no in-between. Something is either helpful for you or harmful.
Languor is one of the greatest obstacles, but it disappears through the chanting of Aum. The Aum creates within you the Shivalinga, the egg-shaped energy circle. When you become perceptive you can even see it. With your closed eyes if you chant Aum for a few months meditate, you can see within you, your body has disappeared. There will be just a bio-energy, an electric phenomenon, and the shape will be the Shivalinga; shape.
The moment this happens to you, languor has disappeared. Now you are high energy. Now you can move mountains. Now you will feel talk is not enough – something has to be done. And the energy level is so high that something can be done now. People come to me and they ask me what to do, but I look at them and I see that they are leaking energy; they cannot do anything. The first thing is to drop this leakage. Only when you have energy, then ask what can be done.
Tags: Patanjali Yoga Sutra 9 Languor
