Before we enter Yoga Sutra 46, let us understand what Frustration is.
Man is almost mad – mad because he is seeking something which he has already got; mad because he’s not aware of who he is; mad because he hopes, desires, and then ultimately, feels frustrated. Frustration is bound to be there because you cannot find yourself by seeking; you are already there. The seeking has to stop, the search has to drop: that is the greatest problem to be faced, encountered.
The problem is that you have something and you are seeking it. Now how can you find it? You are too occupied with seeking, and you cannot see the thing that you already have. Unless all seeking stops, you will not be able to see it. Seeking makes your mind focus somewhere in the future, and the thing that you are seeking is already here, now, this very moment. That which you are seeking is hidden in the seeker himself: the seeker is the sought. Hence, so much neurosis, so much madness.
Once your mind is focused somewhere, you have some intention. Immediately, your attention is no longer free. Intention cripples attention. If you are intently looking for something, your consciousness has narrowed down. It will exclude everything else. It will include only your desire, your hope, your dream. And to realize that which you are you need not have any intention; you need attention, just pure attention: not intending to go anywhere, unfocused consciousness, consciousness here-now, not anywhere else. This is the basic problem: the dog is chasing its own tail. It gets frustrated; it becomes almost mad because each step, and nothing comes into its hands – only failure, failure, failure.
A sannyasin told Osho that he was now feeling frustrated. I became tremendously happy. Because when you feel frustrated, something opens within you. When you feel frustrated, if you are really frustrated, then the future disappears. Future can exist only with the support of expectation, desire, and intention. Future is nothing but intentionality. I became tremendously happy that one man was frustrated.
Fritz Perls, one of the very perceptive men of this century, has said that the whole work of the therapist is nothing but skillful frustration, creating frustration.
What does he mean? He means that unless you are really frustrated with your desires, hopes, expectations, you will not be thrown back to your own being. A real frustration is a great blessing.
Suddenly you are, and there is nothing else. The sannyasin said, “I am feeling frustrated. It seems that nothing is happening. I have been doing all sorts of meditations, all sorts of group therapies, and nothing is happening.” That’s the whole point of all meditations and all group therapies: to make you aware that nothing can happen. All has happened already. In deep frustration, your energy moves back to the source. You fall upon yourself.
You will try to create new hope. That’s why people go on changing their therapists, their therapies, their Masters, gurus, religions. They go on changing because they say, “Now I am feeling frustrated here; somewhere else, I will again sow new seeds of hope.” Then you will be continuously missing. If you understand, the problem is: how to throw you upon yourself, how to frustrate you in your desires.
Of course, it has to be very skillful.
That’s what I am doing here. If you don’t have any desires, first I create them. I give you hope. I say, “Yes, soon something is going to happen” – because I know that desire is there, but not full-fledged.
It is there hiding in a seed form; it has to sprout, it has to flower. And when a desire flowers, those flowers are of frustration.
Then suddenly you drop the whole nonsense, the whole trip. And once you are authentically frustrated – and when I say authentically, really frustrated, I mean that now you don’t start any other hope again; you simply accept it and you return back home – you will start laughing. This is what you were always seeking. And it has always been inside you, but you were too much occupied with seeking.
There is a very beautiful movie called THE KING OF HEARTS. The context is the First World War, and the Germans and the English are fighting over a French town. The Germans plant a time-bomb and leave the town, and the French learn about the bomb and they also leave the town.
All the people in the insane asylum come out, take over the empty town, and have a wonderful time – because nobody is left there, only the insane people of the insane asylum. Even their guards have escaped, so they are free. They come into the town and everything is empty: shops are empty, offices are empty. So they take over the town; they take over the empty town. and have a wonderful time. They all put on different clothes and enjoy themselves thoroughly. Their madness simply disappears; they are no more mad. Whatsoever they always wanted to become and could not become, now they simply became, without any effort. Somebody became the general, and somebody became the duke, and somebody the madame, and somebody else the doctor, the bishop, or whosoever he wants to become. Everything is free. They put on different clothes and enjoy themselves thoroughly. Everyone takes on some role in the town: general, duke, lady, madame, bishop, etc. One guy becomes a barber, and he pays customers because he enjoys being a barber; and he gets more customers that way.
They are all living these roles, living in the moment and enjoying it completely, utterly.
A British soldier is sent to the town to disable the bomb. He gets frustrated because he cannot find where the bomb has been put. He starts ranting and raving and shouting, “We are all going to die!” So everyone, everyone: the general, the duke, the bishop – the mad people – everyone brings lounge chairs to watch him perform. They clap and they cheer. Of course, he gets even more mad.
The next day both the Germans and the British march back into the town and all the crazy people treat it as a parade. Then the soldiers see each other, shoot and kill each other. The duke, up in a balcony, looks down disdainfully at all the bodies and says, “Now they are overacting.” A young woman looks down sadly and says with puzzlement, “Funny people.” The Bishop says, “These people have certainly gone mad.”
You think mad people are mad… just look at yourself, at what you are doing. You think when a madman pretends that he is the prime minister or the president that he is mad? Then what are your presidents and prime ministers doing? In fact, they may be more mad. The madman simply enjoys the fantasy, he does not bother to make it an actuality; but the premiers, the presidents and the generals have not remained satisfied with their fantasy; they have tried to actualize it. Of course, if any madman is an Alexander or a Genghis Khan, he never kills anybody; he simply is. He does not go to prove that he really is. He’s not dangerous, he’s innocent. But when these so-called sane people have the idea of being an Alexander, a Genghis Khan, a Tamurlaine, then they don’t remain content with the idea. They try to actualize it. Your Adolf Hitlers are more mad, your Mao Tse Tungs are more mad than any mad people in any mad asylum.
The problem is that the whole of humanity exists as if under a certain hypnosis.
It is as if you have all been hypnotized and you don’t know how to get out of it. All our life-styles are insane, neurotic. They create more misery than they create happiness. They create more frustration than they create fulfillment. The whole way you live brings you more and more, closer and closer, nearer and nearer to hell. Heaven is just a desire; hell is almost a reality. You live in hell and you dream about heaven. In fact, heaven is a sort of tranquilizer: it gives you hope – but all hopes are going to be frustrated. The hope of heaven simply creates a hell of frustration. Remember this; only then will you be able to understand Patanjali’s last chapter, KAIVALYA PADA.
What is the art of liberation? The art of liberation is nothing but the art of de-hypnosis: how to drop this hypnotic state of mind; how to become unconditioned; how to look at reality without any idea creating a barrier between you and the real; how to simply see without any desires in the eyes; how simply to be without any motivation. That’s all yoga is about. Then suddenly that which is inside you, and has always been inside you from the very beginning, is revealed.
Tags: Frustration Is A Great Blessing Patanjali
