From Yoga Sutra 11 few questions.
A CONFLICT BETWEEN BEING LOOSE AND NATURAL AND BEING AWARE.
THERE IS NO conflict, but you can create a conflict. Even where no conflict exists the mind creates the conflict, because the mind cannot exist without being in conflict.
Being loose and natural will give you a spontaneous awareness. There is no need to make any effort for awareness; it will follow like a shadow. If you are loose and natural, it will come. There is no need to make any other effort for it because being loose and natural automatically flowers in being aware. Or, if you are aware, then you will become loose and natural. They both go together. But if you try for both, then you will create the conflict. There is no need to try for both together.
What does it mean when I say: Be loose and natural? It means: make no effort. Just be whatsoever you are. If you are unaware, then be unaware because that is what you are in your loose and natural state. Be unaware. If you make any effort, then how can you be loose and natural? Simply relax, and accept whatsoever is the case, and accept your acceptance also. Don’t move from there. A time will pass before things settle down. In that transitory period, you may not be aware because things are settling. Once things are settled and the flow is natural, you will be suddenly surprised. Unexpectedly, one morning you find you are aware – no need to make any effort.
Or, if you are working through awareness – and both the methods are different, they start from different standpoints – then don’t think of being loose and natural. You simply work it out through your effort to be aware. It will take a long time… when awareness becomes natural and no effort is needed. Unless this point comes where no effort is needed, awareness has not been, attained yet. When you can forget about all efforts and simply be aware, then only have you achieved it. Then, just by the side, you will find the phenomenon of being loose and natural. They come together. They always happen together. They are two aspects of the same phenomenon, but you cannot work them out together.
It is just like one is climbing up a mountain. There are many paths; they all reach to the top, they all culminate in the top. But you cannot walk on two paths together. If you try, you will go mad and you will never reach the top. How can you walk on two paths together and knowing well that they all lead to the same top? But one has to walk only one. Finally, when one reaches to the top, he will find all the paths have culminated in it. For walking choose always one path. Of course, when you reach, all the paths will reach the same point, to the same peak.
To be aware is a different type of process. Buddha followed it. He called it self-remembering or right-mindfulness. In this age another Buddha, George Gurdjieff, followed it; he called it self-remembering. Another Buddha, Krishnamurti, goes on talking about awareness, alertness. This is one path. Tilopa belongs to another path, the path of being loose and natural – not even bothering about awareness – just being whatsoever you are, not making any effort for any improvement. And I tell you, Tilopa’s standpoint is higher than Buddha, Gurdjieff and Krishnamurti, because he creates no conflict. He simply says, “First be whatsoever you are.” Not even spiritual effort… because that too is part of the ego. Who is trying to improve? Who is trying to be aware? Who is trying to attain enlightenment? Who is this inside you? – It is again the same ego. The same ego which was trying to become the president of a country or the prime minister, now is trying to attain buddhahood.
Buddha himself has called enlightenment “the last nightmare.” Enlightenment, the last nightmare, because it is again a dream… And not only is it a dream but a nightmare, because you suffer through it. Tilopa’s standpoint is the ultimate standpoint. If you can understand it, then no effort is needed of any sort. You simply relax and be, and everything follows on its own accord. One has simply to be non-doing: sitting quietly, and the spring comes and the grass grows by itself.
IN MEDITATION THE DISTRACTION IS OFTEN PHYSICAL PAIN. WOULD YOU TALK ABOUT MEDITATING ON PAIN WHILE PAIN IS HAPPENING?
This is what I was talking about. If you feel pain, be attentive to it, don’t do anything. Attention is the great sword – it cuts everything. You simply pay attention to the pain.
For example, you are sitting in the last part of the meditation silently, unmoving, and you feel many problems in the body. You feel the leg is going dead, there is some itching in the hand, you feel ants are creeping on the body and many times you have looked – there are no ants. The creeping is inside, not outside. What you should do? You feel the leg is going dead – be watchful just give your total attention to it. You feel itching – don’t itch. That will not help. You just pay your attention. Don’t open even your eyes. Just pay your attention inwardly, and just wait and watch, and within seconds the itching has disappeared. Whatsoever happens – even if you feel pain, severe pain in the stomach or in the head, it is possible because in meditation the whole body changes. It changes its chemistry. New things start happening; the body is in chaos. Sometimes the stomach will be affected, because in the stomach you have suppressed many emotions, and they are all stirred. Sometimes you will feel like vomiting, nausea. Sometimes you will feel a severe pain in the head because meditation is changing the inner structure of your brain. You are really in a chaos passing through meditation. Soon things will settle. But for the time being, everything will be unsettled.
So what are you to do? You simply see the pain in the head; watch it. You be, a watcher. You just forget that you are a doer, and by and by, everything subsides and subsides so beautifully and so gracefully that you cannot believe unless you know it. And not only that the pain disappears from the head – because the energy which was creating pain, if it is watched… pain disappears and the same energy becomes pleasure. The energy is the same.
Pain or pleasure are two dimensions of the same energy. And if you can remain silently sitting and paying attention to distractions, all distractions disappear. And when all distractions disappear, you will suddenly become aware that the whole body has disappeared.
In fact, what was happening? Why were these things happening? – And when you don’t meditate they don’t happen. The whole day you are there and the hand never itches, the head has no pain, and the stomach is perfect, and the legs are okay. Everything is okay. What was really happening? Why during meditation do these things start suddenly?
The body has remained the master for long, and in meditation you are throwing the body out of its mastery. You are dethroning it. It clings; it tries in every way to remain the master. It will create many things to distract you so the meditation is lost. You are thrown off balance and the body is again on the throne. Up to now, the body has remained the master and you have been a slave. Through meditation, you are changing the whole thing; it is a great revolution. And of course, no ruler wants to be thrown out of his power. The body plays politics – that’s what is happening. When she creates imaginary pain, itching, ants creeping, the body is trying to distract you. And it is natural, because the body has remained in rule for so long; for many lives it has been the emperor and you have been the slave. Now you are changing everything upside down. You are reclaiming your throne, and it is natural the body will try whatsoever it can do to disturb you. If you get disturbed, you are lost. Ordinarily, people suppress these things. They will start chanting a mantra; they will not look at the body.
I am not teaching you any sort of suppression. Only awareness I teach. You just watch, pay attention, and because it is false, immediately it will disappear. When all the pains and itches and ants have disappeared and the body has settled in its right place of being a slave, suddenly arises so much bliss you cannot contain it. Suddenly; arises so much celebration in the being, you cannot express it; you are overflowing with a peace that passeth understanding, a bliss which is not of this world.
Tags: Distractions Disappear Patanjali
