Yoga Sutra 31 Samyama

SAMADHI IS WHEN THE MIND BECOMES ONE WITH THE OBJECT.

When the subject disappears in the object, when the object disappears in the subject, when there is nothing to look at and there is no looker-on, when simply the duality is not there, a tremendously potential silence prevails. You cannot say what exists, because there is nobody to say. You cannot make any statement about samadhi, because all statements will fall short. Because whatsoever you can say either will be scientific or will be poetic. Religion remains inexpressible, elusive.

So there are two types of religious expression. Patanjali tries the scientific terminology. Because, religion in itself has no terminology – the whole cannot be expressed. To express, it has to be divided. To express, either it has to be put as an object or as a subject. It has to be divided to say anything about it is to divide it. Patanjali chooses the scientific terminology: Buddha also chooses the scientific terminology. Lao Tzu, Jesus, they choose the poetic terminology. But both are terminologies. It depends on the mind. Patanjali is a scientific mind, very rooted in logic, analysis. Jesus is a poetic mind; Lao Tzu is a perfect poet, he chooses the way of poetry. But remember always that both ways fall short. One has to go beyond.

“Samadhi is when the mind becomes one with the object.”

When the mind becomes one with the object, there is no one who is a knower and there is none who is known.

And unless you come to know this – this knowing which is beyond the known and the knower – you have missed your life. You may have been chasing butterflies, dreams, maybe attaining a little pleasure here and there, but you have missed the ultimate benediction.

A jar of honey having been upset in a housekeeper’s room, a number of flies were attracted by its sweetness. Placing their feet in it they ate greedily. Their feet, however, became so smeared with honey that they could not use their wings nor release themselves and were suffocated. Just as they were expiring, one of them exclaimed, “Ah, foolish creatures that we are, for the sake of a little pleasure we have destroyed ourselves.”

Remember, this is the possibility for you also. You may get smeared with the earth so much that you cannot use your wings. You may get loaded with your small pleasures so much that you forget all about the ultimate bliss, which was always yours just for the asking. In collecting pebbles and shells on the seashore you may miss the utterly blissful treasure of your being. Remember this. This is happening. Only rarely somebody becomes aware enough not to be caught in this ordinary imprisonment of life.

I am not saying don’t enjoy it. The sunshine is beautiful and the flowers also and butterflies also, but don’t get lost in them. Enjoy them, nothing is wrong in them, but always remember, the tremendously beautiful is waiting. Relax sometimes in the sunshine, but don’t make it a life-style. Sometimes relax and play with pebbles on the seashore. Nothing is wrong in it. As a holiday, as a picnic, it can be allowed, but don’t make it your very life then you will miss it. And remember, wherever you pay your attention, that becomes your reality of life. If you pay your attention to pebbles, they become diamonds – because wherever is your attention, there is your treasure.

I have heard; it happened once: A railway employee accidentally trapped himself in a refrigerator car. He could neither escape nor attract the attention of anybody to his sad plight, so he resigned himself to a tragic fate. The record of his approaching death was scribbled on the wall of the car in these words: “I am becoming colder. Still colder now. Nothing to do but wait. These may be my last words.” And they were.

When the car was opened, the searchers were astonished to find him dead. There was no physical reason for his death. The temperature of the car was a moderate fifty-six degrees. Only in the mind of the victim did the freezing apparatus work.

There was plenty of fresh air; he had not suffocated.

He died of his own wrong attention. He died of his own fears. He died of his own mind. It was a suicide.

Remember, wherever you pay your attention, that becomes your reality. And once it becomes a reality, it becomes powerful to attract you and your attention.

Then you pay more attention to it: it becomes even more of a reality and, by and by, the unreal that is created by your mind becomes your only reality and the real is completely forgotten.

The real has to be sought. And the only way to reach it is, first, drop too many objects, let there be one object: second, drop all distractions. Let your consciousness fall on that object in an uninterrupted Row. And the third happens by itself. If these two conditions are fulfilled. Samadhi happens on its own accord. Suddenly one day the subject and object both have disappeared: the guest and the host both have disappeared: silence reigns, stillness reigns. In that stillness, you attain the goal of life.

Patanjali says:

THE THREE TAKEN TOGETHER – DHARANA, DHYAN, AND SAMADHI – CONSTITUTE SAMYAMA.

Such a beautiful definition of samyama. Ordinarily, samyama is thought to be a discipline, a controlled state of character. It is not. Samyama is the balance which is attained when subject and object disappear. Samyama is the tranquillity when the duality is no more within you and you are not divided and you have become one.

Sometimes it happens naturally also, because if it were not so, Patanjali would not have been able to discover it. Sometimes it happens naturally also – it has happened to you also. You cannot find a man to whom there have not been moments of reality. Accidentally, sometimes you fall in tune not knowing the mechanism, how it happens, but sometimes you fall in tune and suddenly it is there.

One man wrote me a letter and he said, “Today I attained five minutes of reality.”

I like the expression “five minutes of reality.” “And how did it happen?” I inquired. He said that he had been ill for a few days. And this is unbelievable, but this is true, that to many people, in illness sometimes the tranquillity comes – because in illness your ordinary life is stopped. For a few days he was ill and he was not allowed to move out of the bed, so he was relaxing – nothing to do.

Relaxed, after four, five days, suddenly one day it happened. He was just lying down, looking at the ceiling and it happened – those five minutes of reality.

Everything stopped. Time stopped, space disappeared. There was nothing to look at, and there was nobody to look. Suddenly there was oneness, as if everything fell in line, became one piece.

To a few people it happens while they are making love. A total orgasm, and after the orgasm everything silences, everything falls into line… one relaxes. The frozenness is gone, one is no longer tense, the storm is gone, and the silence that comes after it… and suddenly there is reality.

Sometimes walking in the sun against the wind, enjoying it. Sometimes swimming in the river, flowing with the river. Sometimes doing nothing, just relaxing on the sand, looking at the stars, it happens.

But those are just accidents. And because they are accidents, and because they don’t fit in your total style of life, you forget them. You don’t pay much attention to them. You just shrug your shoulders, and you forget all about them.

Otherwise, in everybody’s life, sometimes, reality penetrates.

Yoga is a systematic way to reach to that which sometimes happens only accidentally. Yoga makes a science out of all those accidents and coincidences.

The three taken together constitute samyama. The three – concentration, meditation, and samadhi – are as if they are the three legs of a three-legged stool, the trinity.

BY MASTERING IT, THE LIGHT OF HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS.

Those who attain to this trinity of concentration, meditation and samadhi, to them happens the light of higher consciousness.

“Climb high, climb far, your goal the sky, your aim the star.” But the journey starts where you are. Step by step Climb high, climb far, your goal the sky, your aim the star. Unless you become as vast as the sky, don’t rest; the journey is not yet complete. Unless you reach and become an eternal light, the star, don’t become complacent, don’t feel content. Let the divine discontent burn like a fire, so that one day, out of all your efforts the star is born and you become an eternal light.

“By mastering it, the light of higher consciousness.” Once you master these three inner steps, the light becomes available to you. And when the inner light is available you always live in that light: “At dusk the cock announces dawn. At midnight, the bright sun.” Then even in the midnight there is bright sun available; then even at dusk the cock announces dawn. When you have the inner light there is no darkness. Wherever you go your inner light moves with you – you move in it, you are it.

Remember that your mind always tries to make you satisfied wherever you are; the mind says there is nothing more to life. The mind goes on trying to convince you that you have arrived. The mind does not allow you to become divinely discontent. And it always can find rationalizations. Don’t listen to those rationalizations. They are not real reasons they are tricks of the mind, because the mind does not want to go, to move. Mind is basically lazy. Mind is a sort of entropy: the mind wants to settle, to make your home anywhere but make your home; just settle, don’t be a wanderer.

To be a sannyasin means to become a wanderer in consciousness. To be a sannyasin means to become a vagabond – in consciousness – go on searching and wandering. “Climb high, climb far, your goal the sky, your aim the star.”

And don’t listen to the mind.

It happened one night: A policeman was watching a very drunken man vainly trying to fit his house key into a lamp post.

“It is no use, old chap,” he said, “There is nobody at home.”

“That is where you are wrong,” replied the fuddled man. “There is light upstairs.”

The mind is very much fuddled and drunken. It goes on giving reasons. It says, “What more is there?” Just a few days ago, a politician came to me. He said, “Now what more is there? I was born in a small village to a poor family, and now I have become a Cabinet Minister. What more is there to life?” Cabinet Minister?

What more is there to life he asks, and he is satisfied. “Born in a village to a poor family, what more can one expect?” While the whole sky was available, he is satisfied in being a Cabinet Minister. Don’t get finished that way.

Unless you become a god! Take rest sometimes by the way, but always remember: it is only a night’s rest; by the morning we go.

There are a few people who are satisfied with their worldly achievements. There are a few more who are not satisfied with their worldly achievements but who are satisfied by the promises of the priests. Those, the second category, you call religious. They are also not religious – because religion is not a promise. It has to be attained. Nobody else can promise you; you have to attain it. All promises are consolations and all consolations are dangerous, because they are like opium. They drug you.

It happened: At an examination of a class in first-aid, a priest was asked (he was also taking the training of first-aid), “What would you do if you found a man in a fainting condition?”

“I would give him some brandy,” was the answer.

“And if there was no brandy?”

“I would promise him some,” said the priest.

The priest has always been saying that. The priests are the great promisers, – they go on issuing promissory notes. They go on saying, “Don’t be worried. Donate, make a church, give money to the poor, make a hospital, this and that, and we promise you.”

Yoga is self-effort. Yoga has no priests. It has only Masters who have attained by their own effort – and in their light you have to learn how to attain yourself.

Avoid the promises of the priests. They are the most dangerous people on earth, because they don’t allow you to become really discontent. They go on consoling you; and if you are consoled before you have attained, you are cheated, you are deceived. Yoga believes in effort, in tremendous effort. One has to become worthy. One has to EARN God; you have to pay the cost.

Someone once asked the former Prince of Wales, “What is your idea of civilization?”

“It is a good idea,” replied the prince, “Somebody ought to start it.”

Yoga is not just an idea it is a practice, it is abhyas, it is a discipline, it is a science of inner transformation. And remember, nobody can start it for you. You have to start it for yourself. Yoga teaches you to trust yourself; yoga teaches you to become confident of yourself. Yoga teaches you that the journey is alone. A Master can indicate the way, but you have to follow it.