Yoga Sutra 11 Reality Plus Mind

Hindus call this world also maya, illusory, dreamlike, mind-stuff. What do they mean? Do they mean that it is unreal? No, it is not unreal. But when your mind gets mixed into it, you create an unreal world of your own. We don’t live in the same world; everybody lives in his own world. There are as many worlds as there are minds. When Hindus say that these worlds are maya, they mean the reality plus mind is maya. Reality, that which is, we don’t know. Reality plus mind is illusion, maya. When somebody becomes totally awakened, a Buddha, then he knows reality minus mind. Then it is the truth, the brahman, the ultimate. Plus mind, and everything becomes a dream, because mind is the stuff that creates dreams. Minus mind, nothing can be a dream; only reality remains in its crystal purity. Mind is just like a mirror. In the mirror the world reflects. That reflection cannot be real, that reflection is just a reflection. When the mirror is no more there, the reflection disappears. Now you can see, the real.

A full-moon night and the lake is silent and the moon is reflected in the lake and you try to catch the moon. This is all that everybody has been doing for many lives – trying to catch the moon in the mirror of the lake. And of course you never succeed – you cannot succeed – it is not possible. One has to forget about the lake and look exactly in the opposite direction. There is the moon.

Mind is the lake in which the world becomes illusory. Whether you dream with closed eyes or you dream with open eyes makes no difference. If the mind is there, all that happens is dream. This will be the first realization if you meditate on dreams.

And the second realization will be that you are a witness: dream is there but you are not part of it. You are not part of your mind, you are a transcendence. You are in the mind but you are not the mind. You look through the mind but you are not the mind. You use the mind but you are not the mind. Suddenly you are a witness – no more a mind. And this witnessing is the final, the ultimate realization. Then, whether dream while asleep or whether dream while awake makes no difference, you remain a witness. You remain in the world, but the world cannot enter; in you anymore. Things are there but the mind is not in the things, and the things are not in the mind. Suddenly the witness comes in and everything changes.

It is very, very simple once you know the knack of it. Otherwise, it looks very very difficult, almost impossible – how to awake while dreaming? Looks impossible but it is not: three to nine months it will take if you every night go to sleep – while falling into sleep, trying to be alert and watching it. But remember, don’t try to be alert in an active sense, otherwise you will not be able to fall asleep. Passive alertness: loose, natural relaxed, just looking by the corner, not too; much active about it, just passive awareness, not too; much concerned. Sitting by the side and the river flows by and you are just watching.

Three to nine months this takes. Then someday, suddenly the sleep is falling on you like a dark screen, like a dark curtain, as if the sun has set and the night is descending. It settles all around you, but deep inside a flame goes on burning. You are watching – silent, passive. Then the world of dreams starts. Then many plays happen, many psychodramas, and you go on watching. By and by, the distinction comes into existence – now you can see what type of dream. Then suddenly, one day you realize that this is the same as while waking. There is no difference of quality. The whole world has become illusory. And when the world is illusory, only the witness is real.

This is what Patanjali means when he says, ALSO MEDITATE ON KNOWLEDGE THAT COMES DURING SLEEP – and that will make you a realized man.

ALSO, MEDITATE ON ANYTHING THAT APPEALS TO YOU.

Meditate on the face of your beloved meditate. If you love flowers, meditate on a rose. Meditate on the moon, or whatsoever you like. If you love food, meditate on food. Why does Patanjali say, “… whatsoever appeals to you?” Because meditation should not be a forced effort. If it is forced, it is doomed from the very beginning. A forced thing will never make you natural. So from the very beginning, find out something which appeals to you. There is no need to create unnecessary conflict. And this is to be understood, because the mind has a natural capacity to meditate if you give it objects which are appealing to it.

In a small school, a child is listening: the birds are chirping in the trees and he is listening, and he is raptly listening – he is in rapport. He has forgotten the teacher, he has forgotten the class. He is no more there; he is rapt attention. Meditation has happened. And then the teacher says, “What are you doing? Are you asleep? Concentrate here on the board!” Now the child has to try, make an effort. Those birds never said anything to the child that, “Look we are singing here. Be attentive!” Simply it happened because it had a deep appeal for the child. This blackboard looks so ugly and this teacher looks so murderous, and the whole thing is forced. He will try, but by effort nobody can meditate. Again and again the mind will slip. So many things are happening outside the room: suddenly a dog starts barking or a beggar passes by singing, or somebody is playing on a guitar. So many millions of things are happening outside, and he has to bring his attention again and again to the blackboard, to the ugly schoolroom.

We have made schools just like prisons. In India, the school building and the prison building have the same color, red. Schoolrooms are ugly. Nothing is appealing there: no toys, no music, no trees, no birds – nothing. The schoolroom is meant to force your attention. You have to learn to concentrate.

And this is the difference between concentration and meditation: concentration is a forced thing, meditation is natural. Says Patanjali, ALSO, MEDITATE ON ANYTHING THAT APPEALS TO YOU – then spontaneously your whole being starts flowing. Just look at the face of your beloved. In her eyes, meditate.

Ordinary religious teachers will say, “What are you doing? Is this meditation?” They teach not to think of your beloved while you are meditating. They think that is a distraction. And this is a subtle point to be understood: there are no distractions in the world. If you make unnatural efforts, then there are distractions – you create them. Your whole being would like to watch the face of your wife, husband, your child, and the religious teacher says, “These are allurements, these are the distractors. You go to the temple, to the church; meditate on the cross.” You meditate on the cross: again and again you remember your beloved. Now the face of the beloved becomes a distraction. Not that it is distraction – there is nothing special in meditating on the cross; you are simply stupid. What is the need to go and meditate on the cross? If it appeals to you it is good, but there is no necessity. There is no special quality in a cross.

In fact, wherever meditation happens, there is the special quality. Meditation brings a special quality. It is not in the objects, it is in you. When you meditate on something, you give your inner being to it. Suddenly it becomes sacred, holy. Things are not holy; meditation makes them holy. You can meditate on a rock, and suddenly the rock becomes the temple. No Buddha is so beautiful like that rock when you meditate on it. What is meditation? It is showering the rock with your consciousness. It is moving around the rock, so absorbed, so deep in rapport, that the bridge is there between you and the rock. The gap disappears when you are bridged. In fact, you don’t know now who is the observer and who is the observed. The observer becomes the observed, the observed becomes the observer. Now you don’t know who is the rock and who is the meditator. Suddenly, the energies meet and mingle, and there is the temple. Don’t unnecessarily create distractions – then you become miserable.