Yoga Sutra 27 Supreme Happiness

FROM MENTAL PURITY THERE ARISES CHEERFULNESS, POWER OF CONCENTRATION, CONTROL OF THE SENSES, AND A FITNESS FOR SELF REALIZATION.

This man is so blissful, this man who has now no need to be in contact with others is so blissful in his freedom, so cheerful, celebrating – his every moment is an intense delight. The more you are rooted in the body, the more sad you will be, because the body is gross. It is matter; heavy. The more you go beyond your body, you become lighter. Jesus has said to his followers, “Come, follow me. My burden is light. All those who are heavily loaded, come, follow me. My burden is light, weightless.”

“From mental purity there arises cheerfulness….” If you are sad, if you are always depressed, if you are always miserable, nothing can be done directly to your misery. And whatsoever should be done will prove to be in vain. The East has come to know that if you are sad, miserable, depressed, always moving heavily burdened – this is not the disease; this is just the symptom of the disease.

The disease is that you must be deep down bodily oriented. So the question is not how to dispel your darkness and how to make you happy; that is not the question. The question is how to help you to become unengaged with the body; how to help you so that your entanglement with the body is less and less and less.

People come to me every day. They say, “We are sad, miserable. Every day in the morning it seems again a hopeless day is going to be faced. Somehow we carry ourselves out of the bed – with no hope. We know, we have lived long… the same repetition of sad days. So what to do? Can you give us something so that we can pull ourselves out, out of sadness?” Directly, nothing can be done; only indirectly can something be done. This is symptomatic; this is not the cause. And if you treat the symptom, the disease will not disappear.

The Western psychology has been treating the symptoms, and yoga is the psychology which treats the cause. Western psychology goes on: whatsoever you say is your symptom, they take it for granted and they start removing it. They have not been successful. Western psychology has proved to be a hoax, a complete failure, but now it is such a great establishment that psychologists cannot say it. Their whole life depends on it – their big salaries… and they are one of the most highly paid professions. They cannot accept the fact: now they have become aware that they have not been helping anybody. At the most they prolong, at the most they give hope, at the most they help you to adjust with your miseries, but no transformation happens through it. As time passes one becomes attuned to the misery, one becomes accepting of the fact that it is there.

One is not much worried about it, but nothing has changed.

Now they know, but now psychology is such a growing profession, and thousands of people live on it – and really live luxurious lives; much is invented in it – that who will say it, that this whole thing is just a hoax, a fraud, nobody’s helped? It has to be so, because symptoms cannot be changed. You can paint them, but deep down they remain the same. You can give them new names, new labels; that makes no difference.

The cause has to be changed, and the cause is: you will be sad in the same proportion in which you are rooted in the body. You will be cheerful in the same proportion as you are not rooted in the body. Freer from the body… cheerfulness, more cheerfulness. When you are completely free from the body you become a fragrance floating in the sky. You become blissful – the blessedness that Jesus talks of, the benediction that Jesus goes on talking about; the nirvana of Buddha.

Mahavir has given it the exactly right word; he calls it kaivalya, aloneness. You have become totally independent and alone. Now nothing is needed; you are enough unto yourself. This is the goal, but the goal can be reached only if you move very cautiously and you don’t get entangled with symptoms.

Somebody has a fever, the body is hot, the temperature has gone high – this is a symptom. The temperature may be a hundred three, a hundred four, five. This is a symptom; don’t start curing the body of the temperature. You can cure it: you can put the man under a cold shower, ice cold. In the beginning it may even appear that things are being helped, but remember, you will not be able to cure him of the disease – you may cure him of life itself. He will die – because the fever is a symptom. The fever simply shows that inside the body there is a great war, an elemental war. Elements of the body are in conflict, that’s why heat is created. That’s why there is a fever. The body is not at ease. A civil war has broken out inside the body. Some elements of the body are fighting other elements, maybe foreign elements. They are in a conflict; because of the conflict the heat has come out.

The heat is just an indication that the war has broken out. The war has to be treated, not the temperature. The temperature is just to give you a message: “Now you should do something; things have gone beyond me.” The body is giving you an indication: “Things are now beyond me; I cannot do anything. Do something. Go to the doctor, to the physician. Take help; now it is beyond me. Whatsoever could be done I have done, but now no more can be done. The war has broken out.”

Never treat the symptom, and don’t waste time in treating the symptom; always go to the cause.

And this is not a hypothesis, and this is not a theory – yoga does not believe in theories and Patanjali is not a philosopher. He is absolutely a scientist of the inner world, and whatsoever he is saying he is saying because millions of yogis have experienced it. Without any exception this is so. In ordinary life also have you watched? When you feel cheerful: in ordinary life also if you remain watchful you will become aware that whenever you feel cheerful you forget the body. Whenever somebody is cheerful he forgets his body, and whenever somebody is sad he cannot forget the body.

In fact in ayurveda the definition of health is one of the most significant; no other medical science anywhere in the world has given such a definition. In fact Western medicine has no definition of health. At the most they can say: When there are no diseases, then you are healthy. But this is not a definition of health.

What type of definition, when you bring diseases in to define health? You say, “When there are no diseases you are healthy.” It is a negative definition, not positive. Ayurveda says that when you are bodiless you are healthy. This is really tremendously beautiful. Videha: when you don’t feel the body – you are almost no body.

You can watch it: the head comes in only when the headache comes. Otherwise who knows about the head? You are never aware of the head. Headache brings awareness; otherwise you are headless. And if you continuously remember your head, there must be something wrong. When breathing is healthy you are not aware at all, but when something goes wrong – asthma, bronchitis, something goes wrong – then you are aware. The breathing is there with much sound, noise and everything, and you cannot forget it. When your legs are tired then you know they are. When something goes wrong, only then you become conscious. If everything is functioning perfectly, you forget it.

This is the definition of health: when you forget the body completely you are healthy. And who can forget the body completely? Only a yogi.

We have three words: rogi, bhogi, yogi. The rogi: one who is ill; the bhogi: one who is indulging in the body; and the yogi: one who has gone beyond the body.

The bhogi rarely will attain some moments of yoga, some moments when he will forget the body. Ninety-nine percent of his life he will belong to the world of the rogi, the ill; only one percent of his life will be moments, rare moments, when he will become a yogi. Sometimes everything is functioning well, humming – just like a beautiful, perfectly functioning car hums, sings; your whole mechanism is humming beautifully, well: rarely with a bhogi, never with a rogi, always with a yogi. The rogi is the ill person; the bhogi is one who is indulging in the body too much and falling towards the rogi, will sooner or later become ill and die; and the yogi: the yogi is one who has transcended the body, lives beyond – then he is cheerful.

The rogi is never cheerful, the bhogi rarely, the yogi always. Cheerfulness is his nature. For no visible cause he remains happy.

With you the case is just the opposite: for no visible cause you remain unhappy.

If somebody asks you, “Why are you so miserable?” you shrug your shoulders.

You don’t know why. You have taken it for granted as your way of life, to be miserable. In fact if you see a miserable man you never ask, “Why are you miserable?” You accept it. When you see somebody happy, very happy, you ask, “What is the matter? Why are you so happy? What has happened?” Misery has been taken for granted, accepted. Happiness has become so rare, so exceptional, that it is almost too good to be true.

It happens, people come to me: when they start meditating, and if they really move in it, things start changing. When they had come they were miserable, sad; then something bursts open – a cheerfulness starts. They cannot believe it. They come running to me and they say, “What has happened? Suddenly I am feeling very happy. Am I imagining?” They cannot believe that this can be true. The mind says, “You must be imagining. You, such a miserable man, and you can be happy? Impossible.” They come to me and they say, “Are we imagining, or have you hypnotized us?”

They never thought when they were miserable that somebody may have hypnotized them. They never thought when they were miserable that maybe they are imagining it, but when they feel happiness, happiness has become so rare a thing, so unbelievably rare that they ask, “Is it true?”

In English you have the phrase “too good to be true”; you don’t have the phrase “too bad to be true.” The other should be more prevalent, more common, but “good” cannot be believed; that’s why the phrase “too good to be true.” That phrase should be destroyed, completely forgotten. When somebody says something bad you should say, “Too bad to be true, cannot be believed. You must have imagined.” But no, it is not so. Misery seems to be the natural thing; happiness, something unnatural.

“From mental purity there arises cheerfulness, POWER OF CONCENTRATION….” People try to concentrate by remaining rooted in the body; then concentration is very difficult, almost impossible. You cannot concentrate for a single minute. The mind wavers, a thousand and one thoughts arise, and before you know, you have moved somewhere else: a daydream starts.

Whenever you want to concentrate on something… almost impossible. But the reason is that you are much too rooted in the body. If you look through the body, concentration is not possible. If you look beyond the body, concentration is so easy….

It happened, Vivekanand was staying with a great scholar. His name was Deussen, one of the great scholars, who translated Sanskrit scriptures into Western languages. Particularly, Deussen was working on the Upanishads, and he was one of the most penetrating translators. A new book had arrived.

Vivekanand asked, “Can I go through it? Can I have it to read?” Deussen said, “Yes, you can have it. I have not read it at all.” After half an hour Vivekanand returned the book. Deussen could not believe it; such a big book will need at least one week to read, and if you want to digest it, then even more. If you really want to understand it, it is a difficult book, then even more. He said, “Have you gone through it? Have you really read it, or just looked here and there?”

Vivekanand said, “I have studied it.” Deussen said, “Then I cannot believe it. Then you will have to do me a favor. Let me read the book, and I will ask you a few questions about the book.”

Deussen had to read the book for seven days, study it; and then he asked a few questions, and Vivekanand replied so exactly, as if he had been reading that book for the whole of his life. Deussen has written in his memoirs: “It was impossible for me, and I asked, ‘How is it possible?’ Vivekanand said, ‘When you study through the body, concentration is not possible. When you are not rooted in the body, you hover on the book directly – your consciousness directly in touch. Nobody between the book and you standing like a barrier: then even half an hour is enough. You imbibe the spirit of it.”

It is just like: a small child reads – he cannot read a big word; he has to cut words into small pieces. He cannot read the whole sentence. When you read you read the whole sentence. If you are really a good reader you can read the whole paragraph – just a glimpse, it passes. There is a possibility, if the body is not interfering, you can read the whole book just by passing. And if you read with the body you may forget. If you read without the body there is no need to memorize it; you will not forget it – because you have understood it.

Power of concentration arises in a man of pure body, of pure consciousness, of purity.

“… CONTROL OF THE SENSES….” These are consequences, remember. They cannot be practiced; if you practice you will never attain them. They just happen. If the basic cause has been removed, if you are no longer identified with the body, then, “control of the senses.” Then it is within your control. Then if you want to think you think; if you don’t want to think you just say to the mind, “Stop.” It is a mechanism you can put on and off, but mastery is needed; and if you are not a master and you try to become a master, you will create more confusion and trouble for yourself and you will be defeated again and again, and the senses will remain the boss. That’s not the way to win over them. The way to win over them is to disidentify yourself with the body. You have to come to know that you are not the body; and then you have to come to know that you are not the mind.

You have to become the witness to all that is around you. The body is there, the first circle; then the mind is there, the second circle; then the heart is there, the third circle. And then just behind these three circles is the center – you. If you are centered in yourself, all these three layers will follow you. If you are not centered there then you will have to follow them.

“… CONTROL OF THE SENSES, AND A FITNESS FOR SELF-REALIZATION.”

And this is how one becomes fit, capable of realizing oneself. Everybody wants to realize oneself, but nobody wants to pass through the discipline – nobody wants to mature. Everybody wants it as a magic thing. People come to me and they say, “Can’t you bless us so that we can become self-realized?” If it were just that easy, that my blessing would do, then I would have blessed the whole world.

Why bother to bless each individual? Bless wholesale, and let the whole world be enlightened. Then Buddha would have done so already, Mahavir would have done so – finished. All would have become enlightened.

It cannot be done that way. Nobody can bless you; you have to earn that blessing. You have to pass through a deep discipline, you have to change your focus of being, you have to become capable, you have to become a right vehicle; otherwise sometimes it has happened that accidentally someone has stumbled upon the self, but that has been a shock and that has not helped anybody. That has cracked down your whole personality – you may go mad. It is just like: a strong current passes through you for which you are not ready – everything will go wrong. Even, the fuse may blow – you may die.

You have to attain purity, attain non identification with the body, with the mind; you have to attain a certain quantity of witnessing. Only then, in that proportion only, self knowledge becomes possible. You cannot get it free. You have to pay for it – and pay in terms of being. Not that you can pay for it with money, nothing else will be helpful: you have to pay for it in terms of being. “… and a fitness for self-realization.”

CONTENTMENT BRINGS SUPREME HAPPINESS

And this purity, finally, brings contentment. This word is one of the most profound; you have to understand it, feel it, imbibe it. “Contentment” means whatsoever the situation is, you accept it without any complaint. In fact you not only accept it without complaint, you rejoice in it with deep gratefulness. This moment is perfect. When your mind doesn’t move from it, when you don’t ask for any other time, when you don’t ask for any other space, when you don’t ask for any other way of being, when you don’t ask anything, when the asking has dropped, you are simply here-now, rejoicing, like birds singing in the trees, flowers blooming on the trees, stars moving, everything is taken as “this is the all, the whole, the perfect, no improvement is possible in it” – when the future is dropped, when the tomorrow disappears… there is contentment. When now is the only time, the eternity, there is contentment, and in that contentment, says Patanjali, “… supreme happiness.”

“Contentment brings supreme happiness.” So contentment is the discipline of the yogi; he has to be – contented. If nothing can create discontent in you, if nothing can create restlessness in you – if nothing can push you off your center – there arises supreme happiness.