Before we enter into this sutra it is good to understand WHAT IS AVIDYA?
The word means ignorance, but avidya is not ordinary ignorance. It has to be understood deeply. Ignorance is lack of knowledge.
Avidya is not a lack of knowledge but a lack of awareness. Ignorance can be dissolved very easily; you can acquire knowledge. It is only a question of training the memory. Knowledge is mechanical; no awareness is needed. It is as mechanical as ordinary ignorance. Avidya is a lack of awareness. One has to move towards more and more consciousness, not towards more and more knowledge.
Only then can avidya be dissolved.
Avidya is what Gurdjieff used to call ‘the spiritual sleep’. Man moves, lives, dies, not knowing why he was alive, not knowing from where he was coming, not knowing where he was moving, for what. Gurdjieff calls it sleep, Patanjali calls it avidya: they mean the same thing. You don’t know why you are. You don’t know the purpose of your being here in this world, in this body, in these experiences.
You do many things without knowing why you are doing them, without knowing that you are doing them, without knowing that you are the doer.
Everything moves as if in a deep sleep. Avidya, if I am to translate it for you, will mean ‘hypnosis’.
Man lives in a deep hypnosis. Osho has been working on hypnosis, because that is the only way to bring man out of hypnosis, to understand it. All awakening is a sort of dehypnotization, so the process of hypnosis has to be understood very, very clearly. Only then can you move out of it. A disease has to be understood, diagnosed; only then can it be treated. Hypnosis is the disease of man, and de-hypnosis will be the way.
He worked once with a man, and he was a very, very good medium for hypnosis.
One third of the people in the world are good mediums, thirty-three percent, and those people are not unintelligent. Those people are very, very intelligent, imaginative, creative. From this thirty three percent come all the great scientists,
all the great artists, poets, painters, musicians. If a man can be hypnotized, that shows that he is very sensitive. Just the contrary is the rumor: people think that only a person who is a little stupid can be hypnotized. That is absolutely wrong.
It is almost impossible to hypnotize an idiot, because he won’t listen, he won’t understand, and he will not be able to imagine. A very strong power of imagination is needed. People think that only weak personalities can be hypnotized. Absolutely wrong – only very strong persons can be hypnotized. A weak person is so loose that he has no integration in him, he has no center in him. And unless you have a center of some sort, hypnosis cannot work because from where will it work and spread through your being? And a weak person is so uncertain about everything, so unconfident about himself, that he cannot be hypnotized. Only people who have strong personalities can be hypnotized.
Osho worked on many people and this is his finding: that a person who can be hypnotized can be de-hypnotized, and a person who cannot be hypnotized finds it very difficult to move on the spiritual path, because the ladder goes both ways.
If you can be hypnotized easily, you can be de hypnotized easily. The ladder is the same. Whether you are hypnotized or de-hypnotized, you move on the same ladder; only the directions differ.
Osho was working on one young man for many years. One day Osho hypnotized him and gave him what hypnotists call a post hypnotic suggestion. Osho told him, ‘Tomorrow, exactly at this hour – it was nine o’clock in the morning – you will come to see me. You will have to come to see me. There is no apparent reason for coming, but at exactly nine o’clock you will have to come.’ He was unconscious and Osho told him, ‘When you come tomorrow at nine o’clock, exactly at nine, you will jump on my bed and kiss the pillow, embrace the pillow as if the pillow is your beloved.’
Of course, the next day at a quarter to nine he arrived, but Osho was not sitting in his bedroom, he was sitting on the veranda waiting for him. He came. Osho asked, ‘Why have you come?’ He shrugged his shoulders. He said, ‘Just by chance I was passing and a thought came: why not come to you?’ He was not aware that a post hypnotic suggestion was working; he was finding a rationalization. He said, ‘I was just passing through this road.’ Osho asked him, ‘Why were you passing through this road? You never pass, and this is out of your way. Unless you want to come to me, there is no point in going out of the town.’ He said, ‘Just for a morning walk’ – a rationalization. He could not think that he had come without any reason, otherwise it would be too much of a shattering experience to the ego.
‘Are you mad?’ he might think. But he was fidgety, uncomfortable. He was looking all around not knowing why. He was looking for the pillow and the bed, and the bed was not there. And knowingly, Osho was sitting outside. As minutes passed, he became more and more restless. Osho asked him, ‘Why are you so restless? You cannot even sit properly. Why do you change position?’ He said, ‘Last night I could not sleep well’ – a rationalization again. One has to somehow find reasons, otherwise one will look mad. Then at just five minutes before nine he said, ‘It is too hot here.’ It was not, because he had gone for a morning walk and it was winter. ‘It is too hot here. Can’t we go inside?’ – Again a rationalization. Osho tried to avoid this and said, ‘It is not hot.’
Then suddenly he stood up. It was just two minutes before nine. He looked at his watch, stood up, and he said, ‘I am feeling sick.’ Before Osho could prevent him he rushed into the room. Osho followed him. He jumped on the bed, kissed the pillow, embraced the pillow, and I was standing there so he felt very embarrassed, puzzled. Osho asked, ‘What are you doing?’ He started crying. He said, ‘I don’t know, but this pillow has been continuously in my mind since I left you yesterday.’ He did not know that in the hypnosis I had suggested it. And he said, ‘In the night also, I dreamed of this pillow again and again, embracing, kissing, and it became an obsession. The whole night I could not sleep. Now I am relieved but I don’t know why.’
Is your whole life not like this? You may not be kissing a pillow, you may be kissing a woman, but do you know the reason why? Suddenly a woman looks attractive to you, or a man, but do you know the reason why? It is something like hypnosis. Of course, it is natural; nobody has hypnotized you, nature has hypnotized you. This power of nature to hypnotize is what Hindus call maya, the power of illusion. You are under an illusion, in a deep hallucination. You live like a somnambulist; fast asleep you go on doing things, not knowing why. And whatsoever reasons you give are rationalizations, they are not true reasons.
You see a woman, you fall in love, and you say, ‘I have fallen in love.’ But can you give the reasons why? Why has it happened? You will find some reasons.
You will say, ‘Her eyes are so beautiful, the nose so shapely, and the face like a marble statue.’ You will find reasons but these are rationalizations. In fact, you don’t know, and you are not courageous enough to say that you don’t know. Be courageous! When you don’t know, it is better to know that you don’t know.
That will be a breaking point. You may come out of the whole hallucination that surrounds you. Patanjali calls it avidya. Avidya means lack of awareness. This is happening because of lack of awareness.
What happens in hypnosis? Have you ever watched a hypnotist, what he does?
First he says, ‘Relax.’ And he repeats it, he goes on saying, ‘Relax, relax, relax….’
Even the continuous sound of ‘relax’ becomes a mantra, a T. M. That’s what happens in T. M. You repeat a mantra continuously; it gives sleep. If you have a case of insomnia, then T. M. is the best thing to do. It gives you sleep, and that’s why it has become so important in the United States. The United States is the only country which is suffering deeply from insomnia. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is not just an accident there, he is the need. When people suffer from insomnia, they cannot sleep, they need tranquilizers. And Transcendental Meditation is nothing but a tranquilizer – it soothes you. You continuously repeat a certain word: Ram, Ram, Ram. Any word will do: Coca.Cola, Coca Cola – that will do; it has nothing to do with Ram. Coca-Cola will be as perfect as Ram, or even more so, because it is more relevant. You repeat a certain word continuously; the continuous repetition creates boredom, and boredom is the base for all sleep.
When you feel bored you are ready to go into sleep.
A hypnotist goes on repeating, ‘Relax, relax.’ The very word penetrates into your body and being. He goes on repeating it and he tells you to cooperate, and you cooperate. By and by, you start feeling sleepy. Then he says, ‘You are falling deeply asleep – falling, falling, falling into the deep abyss of sleep’ – he goes on repeating. And just by repetition you fall asleep.
This is a different type of sleep. It is not ordinary sleep because it is induced; somebody has induced it in you. Because somebody has induced it, it has a different quality. The first difference, and very basic, is that you will be asleep for the whole world but not for the hypnotist. You will not listen to anything now, you will not be able to hear anything now. Even if a bomb explodes it will not disturb you. The trains will pass, the aeroplanes will fly, but nothing will disturb you. You will not be able to hear anything. You are closed to the whole world but open to the hypnotist. If he says something, you will immediately listen, you will listen only to him. There is only one opening left – the hypnotist, and the whole world is closed. Whatsoever he says you will believe, because your reason has gone to sleep. Intelligence doesn’t function. You have become like a small child who has trust, so whatsoever the hypnotist says, you have to believe. Your conscious mind is not functioning; your conscious mind has gone to sleep. Only the unconscious mind functions. Now even an absurd thing will be believed. If the hypnotist says that you have become a horse, you cannot say, ‘No,’ because who will say no? In deep sleep, trust is perfect; you will become a horse, you will feel like a horse. And if he says, ‘Now you neigh like a horse,’ you will neigh. If he says, ‘Gallop, jump like a horse,’ you will jump and gallop.
Hypnosis is not ordinary sleep. In ordinary sleep you cannot say to somebody that you have become a horse. In the first place, if he hears you he is not asleep.
In the second place, if he hears you and he is not asleep, he will not believe what you are saying. He will open his eyes and laugh and say, ‘Have you gone mad? What are you saying? Me, a horse?’ Hypnosis is induced sleep. It is more like an intoxicant than like sleep. You are under the influence of a drug. The drug is not chemical ordinarily, but it is chemical deep down in the body. Just the repetition of a certain word changes the chemistry of the body. That is why mantras have been so influential all through the history of man. Continuously chanting a particular word changes the chemistry of the body because a word is not just a word; it has vibrations, it is an electric phenomenon. The word vibrating continuously: Ram, Ram, Ram – Ram passes through the whole chemistry of the body. The very vibrations are soothing; they create a small humming inside you just as a mother will sing a lullaby when a child is not going to sleep. A lullaby is a very simple thing: one or two lines continuously repeated. And if the mother can take the child near her heart, then the effect will happen sooner because the heartbeat gives another rhythm. The heartbeat and a lullaby both together, and the child is fast asleep.
This is the whole trick of chanting and mantras: they give you a good induced sleep; you will feel fresh afterwards. But there is nothing spiritual in it. There is nothing spiritual because spirituality is concerned with being more aware, not less aware.
Watch a hypnotist. What is he doing? Nature has done the same to you. Nature is the greatest hypnotist; it has given you suggestions. Those suggestions are carried by the chromosomes, the cells of your body. Now scientists say that a single cell carries almost ten million messages for you. They are in-built. When a child is conceived, two cells meet: one from the mother, and one from the father.
Two chromosomes meet; they bring millions of messages. They become the blueprint, and a child is born out of those basic blueprints. They go on multiplying; that’s how the body increases.
Your whole body is made of small invisible cells, millions of them. And each cell carries messages, just like each seed carries the whole message for the whole tree: what type of leaves will come out of it, what type of flowers will come out of it, whether they will be red or blue or yellow. A small seed carries the whole blueprint for the whole life of the tree. The tree may live four thousand years. For four thousand years the small seed carries everything about it. The tree need not bother and worry; everything will be implemented. You also carry seeds: one seed from the father, one from the mother. And they come from millennia, because your father’s seed was given to him from his father and mother. In this way, nature has entered you.
Your body comes from nature; you come from somewhere else. That somewhere else is God. You are a meeting point of consciousness and the unconsciousness of the body. But the body is very, very powerful, and unless you do something you will remain under its power, possessed. Yoga is the way to overcome. Yoga is the way not to be possessed by the body and to become the master again.
Otherwise, you will remain a slave.
Avidya is slavery, the slavery of the hypnosis that nature has brought on you.
Tags: Lack Of Awareness Patanjali
