The word “yoga” means the method of becoming one. Yoga means how to join together that which has fallen apart. The very word “yoga” means “joining together.” The word “yoga” means UNIO MYSTICA. The word “yoga” means “union.” Yes, profit is when you can make two into one.
And the whole effort is how to find the permanent, how to find the one behind the many, how to find the unmoving behind all the changes, the flux – how to find the deathless, how to find the beyond.
Your habits will create trouble because you have lived with wrong habits for so long. Your mind is conditioned for wrong habits – you always divide. Your whole intellect has been trained to divide and dissect and make many out of one. Man has lived up to now through the intellect, and he has forgotten how to put them together.
A man came to a Mohammedan mystic, Farid, with golden scissors as a present; the scissors were really very beautiful and very valuable. But Farid laughed, and he said, “What am I going to do with scissors, because I never cut a thing in two? You take it. Rather, bring me a needle – and no need to bring a golden needle, any needle will do – because my whole effort is to sew things together.” But old habits are to dissect. Old habits are of finding that which is continuously changing. The mind is excited about something new and the changing; the unchanging seems uninteresting. You will have to be aware of these habits; otherwise they will assert themselves in some way or other… and mind is very cunning.
Let me tell you one story: Maulana Arshad Va’ez was a great preacher, very eloquent, but he was also a beggar.
Once the king called him to his court and said, “Maulana, on the recommendations of my ministers I am sending you as a delegate to Shah Shoja’s court in Shiraz. However, I want you to promise me that you will refrain from begging during your stay abroad – because I would not like my representative to beg, so you have to promise.”
Maulana did as asked and set out for Shiraz.
After bringing his mission to a successful termination, he was addressed by the Shah of Shiraz, “The fame of your preaching has reached to our land and has made us desirous of listening to one of your sermons.”
Maulana consented.
On the appointed day, Friday, he climbed to the pulpit and delivered a moving sermon, bringing tears to the eyes of his audience. But before he had left the pulpit, suddenly he could not resist his begging habit any longer.
He said, “O Muslims! Until several weeks ago I used to beg. But before coming here they made me take an oath that I would not beg during my stay in your city. I ask you, my brothers, if I have sworn to refrain from begging, have you too sworn not to give me anything?”
Mind is very cunning. It will find ways and means: “If I cannot beg, you can give.”
Remember that the mind is very much accustomed to analysis, and yoga is synthesis. So whenever the mind comes to analyze, put it aside, set it aside. Through analysis you will reach to the last, the minutest, the atomic; through synthesis you will reach to the greatest, to the total. Science has come to discover atoms, and yoga has come to discover atma. Atom means the minutest, and atma means the biggest. Yoga came to know the whole, to realize the total; and science has come to know the smaller and the smaller and the smaller, and they go on.
First science divided matter into molecules, then they thought that the molecule is difficult to divide; then they succeeded in dividing it, then they called it “atom.” The word “atom” means indivisible, which cannot be divided anymore – but they divided that too. Then they came to electrons and neutrons and they thought now it cannot be divided because it has become almost invisible – it cannot be seen. Nobody has ever seen any electron, so how can you divide it? But now they have succeeded in dividing it also. Without seeing it, they have succeeded in dividing.
They will go on and on and on…. Everything has slipped out of hand.
Yoga is just the opposite process: of synthesizing, of joining and joining and joining, so you come to the total. The total is one.
The mind is also divided into the sun mind or moon mind. The sun mind is scientific; the moon mind is poetic. The sun mind is analytical; the moon mind is synthetical. The sun mind is mathematical, logical, Aristotelean; the moon mind is totally different – illogical, irrational. They function so differently that there exists no language between them.
A gypsy was having a quarrel with his son. He said to the boy, “You lazy, do-nothing idler! How many times shall I tell you that you should work and not let your life pass in indolence? How many times shall I tell you that you should learn juggling and clowning so that you can enjoy your life?” Then he raised his finger in threat, saying, “By God, if you don’t listen to my words anymore, I will throw you in a school; then you will gather lots of stupid knowledge, become a learned man, and spend the rest of your life in want and misery.” That’s a gypsy mind – no mind. A gypsy thinks become a wanderer, be a clown, but enjoy. And a gypsy says, “I will throw you in a school so that you will gather all sorts of stupid knowledge and become a learned man – and then your whole life will be wasted. You will live in misery.” Try to see where you are: in the sun mind – rational, arguing, argumentative, logical; or in the moon mind – poetic, imaginative, dreaming. Where are you?
And remember, both minds are half half. One has to go beyond both. If you are in the sun mind, come to the moon mind first, because the way passes through that. If you are a householder, first become a gypsy.
That’s what sannyas is. Masters make you gypsies, wanderers. If you are too logical, he says trust, surrender, sacrifice, submit. If you are too argumentative, he says to you I have no argument. Just look at me, and fall in love – if you can. It is a love affair. If you can trust, you will shift your energy from the sun to the moon.
Once you shift your energy from the sun to the moon, then there opens a new possibility: you can go beyond the moon also. Then you become a witness. That is the goal.
Tags: Patanjali Yoga Sutra 37 Yoga Is Synthesis
