Yoga Sutra 34 Variation In Transformation

THE VARIATION IN TRANSFORMATION IS CAUSED BY THE VARIETY IN THE UNDERLYING PROCESSES.

You have heard about so many miracles, so many siddhis. Patanjali says there is no miracle possible; all miracles follow a certain law. The law may not be known.

When the law is not known, people think out of their ignorance that it is a miracle. Patanjali believes in no miracles. He is utterly scientific in his understanding. He says if something happens there must be a law. The law may not be known, you may be ignorant about it – even the person who is doing the miracle may be unaware of the law, but he has come, stumbled upon how to use it and he is using it.

This is the basic sutra for all miracles, “The variation in transformation is caused by the variety in the underlying processes.” If you change the underlying process, the manifestation changes. You may not be aware of the underlying process; you just see the manifestation. Because you just see the manifestation and you cannot go deep and you cannot see the underlying process, the undercurrent of the basic law, you think there is a miracle. There are no miracles.

For example, alchemists in the West tried hard for centuries to transform base metal into gold. There are reports that a few of them did succeed. Scientists had always been denying it, but now science itself has succeeded in it. Now you cannot deny – now we know the underlying process. Now physics says that the whole world consists of atoms, and atoms consist of electrons. Then what is the difference between gold and steel? The difference is not in the basic reality; both consist of electrons, electric particles. Then what is the difference? Then why are they different? Gold, iron, they are different. And what is the difference? The difference is only in the structure, not in the basic substance.

Sometimes electrons are more, sometimes less – that makes the difference. The quantity makes the difference, but the substance is the same. The structure is different. You can make many types of houses with the same bricks. The bricks are the same. You can make a poor man’s hut and you can make a king’s palace – the bricks are the same. The basic reality is the same. If you want, the hut can be transformed into a palace and the palace can be transformed into a hut.

This is the basic sutra of Patanjali, “The variation in transformation is caused by the variety in the underlying processes.” So if you understand the underlying process you become capable of things which ordinarily people are not capable of doing.

BY PERFORMING SAMYAMA ON THE THREE KINDS OF TRANSFORMATION – NIRODH, SAMADHI, AND EKAGRATA – KNOWLEDGE OF PAST AND FUTURE.

If you concentrate on nirodh, the gaps between two thoughts, and you go on piling up those gaps, you go on accumulating those gaps that is what Patanjali calls samadhi – and then arises in you a situation where you become one and one-pointed – ekagrata – if this happens knowledge of the past and the future.

It will be a miracle if you can know the future. It is not a miracle.

There is a scientific record about a very rare man in the West, Swedenborg. He wrote a letter to Wesley, a famous priest, and told him, “In the world of the spirits, I have heard the rumor that you want to see me.” Wesley was surprised because he was thinking to see him, but he had not said so to anybody. He could not believe it. He wrote a letter saying, “I am simply amazed. I don’t know what you mean by the world of spirits, I don’t know what you mean that you have heard the rumor, but this is certain that I have been thinking to see you – and I have not said this to anybody I will be coming on such and such date, because I am going for a tour, and three, four months afterwards I will be coming to you.”

Swedenborg wrote to him, “That is not possible because, exactly on that date, I have heard the rumor in the world of the spirits that I am going to die.” And exactly on That date he died.

Swedenborg was staying with a few friends at a holiday resort, and suddenly he started crying, “Fire! Fire!” They could not believe what he was saying. They ran out. There was no fire – nothing, a small village, a seaside village. They asked him what he meant – and he was perspiring as if there was fire, and he was so trembling. Then he said, “Nearabout three hundred miles away a town is on fire.”

A horseman was sent immediately. He was right. The town was on fire, and at that moment the people of the town became aware, when he said, “Fire! Fire!” The queen of Sweden became interested in this man. She said, “Can you say something to me which can give me proof that you move in the world of the spirits?” He closed his eyes and he said, “In your palace,” where he had never been because he had never been called before to the palace and it was not a public place where anybody could go…. He said, “In a certain room,” the number of the room, “in a certain drawer, which is locked, and the key will be found in another room, open it. Your husband has left a letter for you.” The husband had been dead for almost twelve years. “And this is the message on the letter….” He wrote the message. The room was found, the key was searched for and found, the drawer was opened, and there was a letter and exactly those were the words that Swedenborg had written on the piece of paper.

Patanjali says if nirodh is accomplished it becomes samadhi. If samadhi is attained, one becomes one-pointed, consciousness becomes a sword, a sharp, one-pointed thing, knowledge of past and future. Because then for you time disappears and you become part of eternity. Then the past is not the past for you and the future is not the future for you. Then for you all the three are available simultaneously.

But this is not a miracle. This is a simple Law, a basic Law. One has to understand and use it.