Yoga Sutra 42 Sattva And Purusha

FROM THIS FOLLOWS INSTANTANEOUS COGNITION WITHOUT THE USE OF THE BODY, AND COMPLETE MASTERY OVER PRADHANA (PRAKRITI), THE MATERIAL WORLD.

If you can see tanmatras, the subtle energies of your senses, you will become-capable of using your cognition without the grosser instruments. If you know that behind the eye there is an accumulated pool of energy, you can close your eyes and use that energy directly. Then you will be able to see without opening your eyes. That’s what telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience is.

In Soviet Russia there is a woman who has been investigated scientifically who stands just twenty feet away from any object and starts pulling it just with energy. She makes movements with her hands, twenty feet away. As you have seen a hypnotist making passes, she simply draws, gestures. Within fifteen minutes, things start moving towards her. She has not touched them. Much investigation has been done to know what happens.

And that woman loses at least half a pound of weight in a half-hour experiment. Certainly she is losing some sort of energy.

This is what yoga calls tanmatra. Ordinarily you use the energy through the hand, when you pick something up, a stone, a rock. You can try it; you use the same energy through the hand. But if you know the energy directly, you can drop the use of the hand. The energy can move the object directly. The same way with telepathy – you can hear or read people’s thoughts or can see faraway scenes. Once you know the tanmatra, the subtle energy that is being used by your eyes, eyes can be discarded. Once you know that it is not really the sense that is functioning but the energy, you are freed of the sense.

I have heard a story.

So this guy phoned Cohen & Goldberg, wholesalers.

“Put me through to Mr. Cohen, please.”

“I am afraid Mr. Cohen has gone out, sir,” said the switchboard girl.

“Then get me Mr. Goldberg.”

“I am afraid Mr. Goldberg is tied up at present, sir.”

“Okay, I will phone back later.”

Ten minutes later: “Mr. Goldberg, please.”

“I am afraid Mr. Goldberg is still tied up, sir.”

“I will phone back.”

Half an hour later: “Get me Mr. Goldberg.”

“I am terribly sorry, sir, but Mr. Goldberg is still tied.” “I will phone back.”

Another half an hour later: “Goldberg!”

“I have dreadful news for you, sir. Mr. Goldberg is still tied up.”

“But look, this is ridiculous. How can you run a business like that? The one partner is out all morning and the other is tied up for hours on end. What is going on there?”

“Well, you see, sir, whenever Mr. Cohen goes out he ties up Mr. Goldberg.”

This is what is happening inside you also. Whenever you go out, through the eyes, through the hands, through your genital organs, through your ears, whenever you go out, Continuously a certain type of bondage and tying is created. By and by you become tight with the particular sense – eyes, ears – because that is from where you go out, again, again, again. By and by you forget the energy that is going out.

This getting in bondage to the senses is the whole world, the samsar. How to unite yourself from the senses? And once you are tied up with the senses, you start thinking in terms of them. You forget yourself.

Another story: A disciple wanted very much to renounce the world and follow his guru, but he said that his wife and family loved him too much and he was unable to leave his home.

The guru came up with a plan. The man was taught certain yogic secrets so that he could give the appearance to all who looked upon his body that he was deceased. The next day the man followed instructions and his body was besieged with the wailings and sobbings of his wife and family.

The guru appeared at the door in the guise of a magician and told the family that if they loved this man so much he could bring him back to life. He said that the man would live if someone would die in his place by drinking the potion he had.

Each member of the family had an excuse that made it necessary to keep his own life, and the wife added, “Anyway, he is already dead; we will manage.”

At this the yogi stood up and said, “Woman, if you can live-without me then I can go with my guru.” He faced the teacher and said, “Let us go, sir, revered Master. I will follow you.”

The whole attachment to the senses is as if you are the senses, as if you cannot live without them, as if your whole life is confined to them. But you are not confined to them.

You can renounce them, and you can live still, and live on a higher plane. Difficult. Just as if you want to persuade a seed that “Die, and soon a beautiful plant will be born.” How can he believe it, because he will be dead? And no seed has ever known that by his death a new sprout comes up, a new life arises. So how to believe it? Or if you go near an egg and you want to persuade the bird within that “Come out,” but how is the bird to believe it, that there is any possibility of life without the egg? Or if you talk to a child inside the womb of a mother and tell him, “Come out, don’t be afraid,” but he knows nothing outside the womb. The womb has been his whole life; he knows only that much. He is afraid. The same is the situation: surrounded by the senses, we live in a sort of confinement, an imprisonment.

One has to be a little daring, courageous. Right now, wherever you are and whatsoever you are, nothing is happening to you. Then take the risk. Then move into the unknown.

Then try to find out a new way of life.

“From this follows instantaneous cognition without the use of the body, and complete mastery over prakriti, the material world.” Up to now you have been possessed by the material world. Once you know that you have your own energy, totally independent from the material world, you become a master. The world possesses you no more; you possess it. Only those who renounce become the real masters.

ONLY AFTER THE AWARENESS OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN SATTVA AND PURUSHA DOES SUPREMACY AND KNOWLEDGE ARISE OVER ALL STATES OF EXISTENCE.

And the subtlest discrimination has to be made between sattva and purusha – intelligence and awareness. It is very easy to separate yourself from the body. The body is so gross you can feel it; you cannot be it. You must be inside it. It is easy to see that you cannot be the eyes. You must be someone hidden behind who looks through the eyes; otherwise who will look through the eyes? Your glasses cannot look. Behind the glasses eyes are needed. Your eyes are also like glasses. They are glasses; they cannot look. You are needed somewhere behind to look.

But the subtlest identification is with intelligence. Your power to think, your power of intellect, understanding, that is the subtlest thing. It is very difficult to discriminate between awareness and intelligence. But it can be discriminated between awareness and intelligence.

By and by, step by step, first, know that you are not the body. Let that understanding grow deep, crystallize. Then know that you are not the senses. Let that understanding grow, crystallize. Then know that you are not the tanmatras, the energy pools behind the senses. Let that grow and crystallize. And then you will be able to see that intelligence is also a pool of energy. It is the common pool, in which eyes pour their energy, ears pour their energy, hands pour their energy. All the senses are like rivers, and intelligence is the central thing, in which they bring information and pour.

Whatsoever your mind knows is given by the senses. You have seen colors: your mind knows. If you are color-blind, if you cannot see the color green, then your mind does not know anything about green. Bernard Shaw lived his whole life unaware that he was color-blind. It is very difficult to come to know it, but one accidental incident allowed him to become aware. On one of his birthdays somebody presented him a suit, but the tie was missing, so he went to the market to find a tie which could fit with the suit. The suit was green, and he started purchasing a yellow tie. His secretary was watching, and she said, “What are you doing? It won’t fit. The suit is green and the tie is yellow.” He said, “Is there any difference between these two?” For seventy years he had lived, not knowing that he could not see yellow. He saw green. Whether it was yellow or green, both the colors looked green. Now yellow was not part of his mind; the eyes never poured that information into the mind.

The eyes are like servants, information collectors, PROs, roaming all over the world, collecting things, pouring into the mind. They go on feeding the mind; the mind is the central pool.

First you have to become aware that you are not the eye, not the energy that is hidden behind the eye, then you will be able to see that every sense is pouring into the mind. You are not this mind, also. You are the one who is seeing it being poured. You are just standing on the bank, all the rivers pouring into the ocean – you are the watcher, the witness.

Swami Ram has said: “Science is difficult to define, but perhaps the most essential feature of it involves the study of something which is external to the observer. The techniques of meditation offer an approach which allows one to be external to one’s own internal states.” “The techniques of meditation offer an approach which allows one TO BE EXTERNAL TO ONE’S OWN INTERNAL STATES” – and the ultimate of meditation is to know that whatsoever you can know, you are not it. Whatsoever can be reduced to a known object, you are not it, because you cannot be reduced to an object.

You remain eternally subject – the knower, the knower, the knower. And the knower can never be reduced to the known.

This is purusha, awareness. This is the final understanding that arises out of yoga.

Meditate over it.