THE EXPLANATION GIVEN FOR THE SAMADHIS OF SAVITARKA AND NIRVITARKA ALSO EXPLAINS THE HIGHER STATES OF SAMADHI, BUT IN THE HIGHER STATES OF SAVICHARA AND NIRVICHARA SAMADHI, THE OBJECTS OF MEDITATION ARE MORE SUBTLE.
Then, Patanjali brings two other words, savichara and nirvichara. Savichara means with contemplation, and nirvichara means without contemplation. They are the higher states of the same phenomenon he calls savitarka and nirvitarka. Savitarka samadhi, if followed, will become savichara.
If you think about logically, and go on thinking, and go on thinking, logic has a boundary to it. It is not infinite. Logic cannot be infinite. In fact, logic denies all infinities. Logic is always in, a boundary. Only then it can remain logical, because with the infinite enters the illogical; with the infinite enters the mysterious, with the infinite enters the miraculous. With the entry, Pandora’s box is open. So logic never talks about the infinite. Logic says everything is finite, can be defined. Everything is within boundaries, can be understood. Logic is always afraid of the infinite. It looks like a vast darkness; logic trembles to move into it. Logic keeps itself on the highway, it never moves into the wild. On the highway everything is safe and you know where you are going. Once you step aside and move into the wild, you don’t know where you are going. Logic is a very deep fear.
If you ask me, logic is the greatest coward. People who are courageous always go beyond logic. People who are cowardly always remain within the confinements of logic. Logic is a prison, beautifully decorated, but it is not like a vast sky. The sky is not decorated at all. It is undecorated, but it is vast. It is freedom, and freedom has its own beauty; it needs no decorations. The sky is enough unto itself. It needs no painter to paint it, no decorator to decorate it. The very vastness is its beauty. But vastness is terrific also, because it is so tremendous. The mind simply boggles before it; the mind seems so puny. The ego gets shattered before it, so the ego creates a beautiful prison of logic, definitions – everything clean-cut, everything known, of the experience – and closes its doors to the unknown, makes a world of itself, a separate world, a private world. That world doesn’t belong to the whole; it has been cut. All the relationships with the whole have been cut.
That’s why logic will never lead anybody to the divine, because logic is human, and it has broken all the bridges with the divine. Divine is wild; it is mysterium and tremendum. It is a great mystery that cannot be solved. It is not a riddle that you can solve, it is a mystery. Its nature is such that it cannot be solved. But if you go on, continuing logically thinking, there comes a moment when you reach the boundary of logic. If you go on thinking more and more, then logical thinking changes into contemplation, into vichar.
The first step is logical thinking and, if you continue, the last step will be contemplation. If a philosopher continues, goes on moving, is not stuck somewhere, he is bound to become a poet someday, because when the boundary is crossed, suddenly there is poetry. Poetry is contemplation; it is vichar.
Think it this way: a logical philosopher is sitting in the garden and looking at a rose flower. He interprets it. He classifies it – he knows what type of rose is this, from where it comes, the physiology of the rose, the chemistry of the rose: everything logically he thinks about. He classifies it, defines it, works around and around – in fact, never touching the rose at all – moves just around and around, around and around, beating the bush around, leaving the rose there.
Because logic cannot touch a rose. It can cut it, it can put it into pigeonholes, it can classify, it can label it – but it cannot touch it. The rose won’t allow logic to touch it. And even if logic wants, it is not possible. Logic has no heart, and only the heart can touch the rose. Logic is just a head affair. The head cannot touch the rose. The rose will not allow its mystery for the head because the head is just like a rape. And the rose opens itself only for love, not for a rape.
Science is rape; poetry is love. If somebody continues, like Einstein, then the philosopher or the scientist or the logician becomes a poet. Einstein became a poet in his last days. Eddington became a poet in his last days. They started talking about the mysterious. They had come to the boundary of the logic. People who always remain logical are people who have not gone to the very extent, to the very end of their logical reasoning. They are not really logical. If they really go, then a moment is bound to come where logic ends and poetry starts.
Vichar is – contemplation. What a poet does? – He contemplates. He just looks at the flower, he doesn’t think about it. This is the distinction, very subtle: the logician thinks about the flower, the poet thinks the flower, not about it. And “about it” is not the flower. You may talk and talk about it, but it is not the flower. The logician goes round and round, a poet goes direct and hits the very reality of flowers. For a poet, a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose – not “about”. He moves inwards, into the flower. Now the memory is not brought in. The mind is put aside; it is a direct contact.
This is a higher stage of the same phenomenon. The quality has become refined but the phenomenon is the same.
That’s why Patanjali says, THE EXPLANATION GIVEN FOR THE SAMADHIS OF SAVITARKA AND NIRVITARKA ALSO EXPLAIN THE HIGHER STATES OF SAMADHI, BUT IN THE HIGHER STATES OF SAVICHARA AND NIRVICHARA SAMADHIS, THE OBJECTS OF MEDITATION ARE MORE SUBTLE.
In savichara, the poet – and anybody who enters savichara becomes a poet – thinks of the flower, not about it, but immediate and direct, but there is still division. The poet is separate from the flower. The poet is the subject and the flower is the object. The duality exists. The duality is not transcended: the poet has not become the flower, the flower has not become the poet. The observer is the observer, and the observed is still the observed. The observer has not become the observed; the observed has not become the observer. Duality exists.
In savichara samadhi logic has been dropped, but not duality. In nirvichara samadhi even duality is dropped. One simply looks at the flower, not thinking of himself and not thinking of the flower; not thinking at all. That is nirvichara: without contemplating, beyond contemplation. One simply is being with the flower, not thinking about, not thinking – neither like the logician nor like the poet.
Now comes the mystic, the sage, who is simply with the flower. You cannot say that he thinks about, or he thinks. No, he is simply with. He allows the flower to be there and allows himself to be there. In that moment of allowing, there comes suddenly a unity. The flower is no more the flower, and the observer is no more the observer. Suddenly energies meet and mingle and become one. Now the duality is transcended. The sage doesn’t know who is the flower and who is watching it. If you ask the sage, the mystic, he will say, “I don’t know. It may be the flower who is watching me. It may be I who is watching the flower. It changes,” he will say, “it depends. And sometimes, there is neither I nor the flower. Both disappear. Only a unified energy remains. I become the flower and the flower becomes me.” This is the state of nirvichara, of no contemplation but of being.
Savitarka is the first step, nirvitarka is the last step in the same direction. Savichara is the first step, nirvichara is the last step in the same direction, on two planes. But Patanjali says the same explanation applies. The highest, up to now, is nirvichara.
Patanjali will come to higher stages also, because few more things have to be explained, and he moves very slowly – because if he moves very fast it will not be possible for you to understand. He is going deeper and deeper every moment. He is leading you, by and by, to the infinite ocean, step by step. He is not a believer of sudden enlightenment – gradual, that’s why his appeal is so great.
Many people have existed who have talked about sudden enlightenment, but they have not appealed to the masses because it is simply unbelievable that sudden enlightenment is possible. Tilopa may say, but that is not the point – that Tilopa says. The point is: does anybody understand it? – That’s why many Tilopas have disappeared. Patanjali’s appeal continues, because nobody can understand those wild flowers like Tilopa. They suddenly appear just out of the blue and they say, “Suddenly, you can also become like us.” This is incomprehensible. Under their magnetic personality you may listen to them, but you cannot believe them. The moment you leave them you will say, “This man is saying something which is beyond me. It goes over my head.”
Tilopas have lived, talked, tried, but they have not been able to help many people. Rarely somebody will understand them. That’s why Tilopa had to go to Tibet to find a disciple – this vast country, and he couldn’t find a single disciple – and Bodhidharma had to go to China to find a disciple. This ancient country, for thousands of years working on the religious dimension, and he couldn’t find a single disciple. Yes… difficult for Tilopa, difficult for Bodhidharma to find a single disciple.
To find someone who can understand Tilopa is difficult because he talks of the goal, and he says, “There is no path and no method.” He is standing on the hilltop and he says, “There is no path,” and you are standing in the valley, dark, damp, in your misery. You look at Tilopa and you say, “Maybe… but how, how one reaches?” You go on asking, “How?”
Krishnamurti goes on telling people there is no method, and after each talk people ask, “Then how? Then how to reach?” And he simply shrugs his shoulders and becomes angry that, “I have told you there is no method, so don’t ask how, because how is again asking for the method.” And these are not new people who ask. Krishnamurti has people who have been listening to him for thirty, forty years. Very old, ancient people you will find in his talks. They have been listening to him continuously; religiously they listen to him. They come always – whenever he is there, they come always and they listen. You will find almost the same faces for years and years and years, and again and again they ask from their valleys, “But how?” – And Krishnamurti simply shrugs his shoulders and says, “There is no how. You simply understand, and you reach. There is no path.”
Tilopa, Bodhidharma, Krishnamurti, they come and go; they are not much help. The people who listen to them enjoy listening to them – even come to a certain intellectual understanding – but they remain in the valley. I myself have come across many people who listen to Krishnamurti, but I have never seen a single person who has gone beyond his valley by listening to him. He remains in the valley, starts talking like Krishnamurti, that’s all; starts telling to other people that there is no way and no path, and remains in the valley.
Patanjali has been a tremendous help, incomparable. Millions have passed through this world with the help of Patanjali because he doesn’t talk according to his understanding, he moves with you. And as your understanding grows, he goes deeper and deeper and deeper. Patanjali follows the disciple; Tilopa would like the disciple to follow him. Patanjali comes to you; Tilopa would like you to come to him. And of course, Patanjali takes your hand and, by and by, he takes you to the highest peak possible, of which Tilopa talks but cannot lead because he will never come to your valley. He will remain on his hilltop and will go on shouting from there. In fact he will irritate many people because he will not stop; he will go on shouting from the top that “This is possible! And there is no way, and there is no method. You can simply come. It happens; you cannot do it!” He – irritates.
When there is no method, people get irritated and they would like him to stop, not to shout. Because if there is no way, then how to move from the valley to the top? You are talking nonsense. But Patanjali is very sensible, very sane, he moves step by step, takes you from where you are, comes to the valley, takes your hand and says, “One by one, take steps.”
Patanjali said, “There is a path. There are methods.” And he is really very, very wise. By and by, he will persuade you in the end that drop the method and drop the path – there are none – but only at the end, at the very peak, just when you have reached, when even Patanjali leaves you, there is no trouble; you will reach by yourself. At the last moment he becomes nonsensical. Otherwise, he is sensible. And he has remained so sensible the whole way that when he becomes nonsensical, then too he appeals, then too he looks very sensible. Because a man like Patanjali cannot talk nonsense. He is reliable.
Tags: Patanjali Yoga Sutra 13.2 Savichara And Nirvichara
