Yoga Sutra 47 In Suchness

KARMASUKLAKRSNAM YOGINAS TRI-VIDHAM ITARESAM.

THE YOGI’S KARMAS ARE NEITHER PURE NOR IMPURE, BUT ALL OTHERS ARE THREE-FOLD: PURE, IMPURE, AND MIXED.

This is something which has been very, very difficult to be understood in the West, because in the West only two categories exist: pure and impure, the saintly and the sin, the divine and the devilish, heaven and hell, black and white. The whole West follows Aristotelian logic, and it has not yet come to be aware of something transcendental which goes beyond both and is neither. Sutras like this are very difficult to be understood by a Western mind because the mind has a certain frame.

The frame says, “How is it possible? – A man is either good or bad! How can a man be possible, a mind be possible which is neither? – You will be either good or bad.” The dichotomy, the dualism is very clear in the Western mind. It is analytical.

The sutra says, “The yogi’s karmas are neither pure nor impure because they come out of the original mind.” Now, many things are implied here.

You see somebody dying and immediately, in the Aristotelian mind, a problem arises: if God is good, why death; if God is good, why poverty; if God is good, why cancer? If God is good, then everything has to be good. Otherwise, doubt arises. Then God cannot be. Or, if He is, then He cannot be good.

And how can you call a God ‘God’ who is not even good? So the whole of Christian theology, for centuries, has been working out this problem; how to explain it away? But it is impossible – because with the Aristotelian mind it is impossible. You can avoid it, but you cannot completely dissolve it because it arises out of the very structure of that mind.

In the East we say that God is neither good nor bad, so whatsoever is happening, is happening.

There is no moral value in it. You cannot call it good or bad. You call it such because you have a certain mind. It is in reference to your mind that something becomes good and something becomes bad.

Now look…. Adolf Hitler was born; if the mother had killed Adolf Hitler, would it have been good or bad? Now, we can see that if the mother had killed Adolf Hitler, it would have been very good for the world. Millions of people were killed; it would have been better to kill one person. But if the mother had killed Adolf Hitler she would have been punished tremendously. She might have been given a life sentence, or she might have been shot by the government, by the court, by the police.

And nobody would have said that the government was wrong, because it is a sin to kill a child. But do you see the implications? Then Adolf Hitler killed millions of people. He had almost brought the world to the very verge of death. Nobody has ever had such a calamity ever before. All Genghis Khans’ and Tamurlaines become pale before him. He was the greatest murderer ever. But what to say? – Whether he did well or not is still difficult because life is never complete, and unless it is complete how can you evaluate it? Maybe whatsoever he did was good. Maybe he cleaned the earth of all wrong people – who knows? And who can decide it? Maybe without him the world would have been worse than it is.

Whatsoever we say is good is just according to a certain narrow mind. Whatsoever we say is bad is also according to a certain narrow mind.

There is a Taoist fable: A man had a very beautiful horse, so precious that even the emperor was envious and jealous. Many times offers had come to him, and people were ready to pay whatsoever amount of money he expected or asked. But the old man would laugh. He would say, “I love the horse and how can you sell your love? So thank you for your offer, but I cannot sell it.”

Then one day, in the night the horse was stolen, or something happened. The horse was not found in the stable the next morning. The whole town gathered and they said, “Now look, silly old man! – The horse is gone. And you could have become very rich. Such a calamity has never happened in this town. And you are poor and old. You should have sold it; you did wrong.”

The old man laughed. He said, “Don’t go into evaluations, and don’t say anything about good or bad, and don’t talk about calamity or blessing. I know only one thing: that last night the horse was in the stable, this morning he is not there, that’s all. But I don’t say anything about it. Just remain with the fact: the horse is not in the stable – finished. Why bring any mind to it? – Whether it is good or bad, whether it should not have happened, whether it is a calamity; forget all about it.”

The people were shocked. They felt insulted that they had come to show their sympathy, and this fool was talking philosophy! – “So it has been good. This man needed to be punished, and Gods are always just.”

But after fifteen days, the horse came back. It had not been stolen; it had escaped to the forest. And there came twelve other horses with it – wild horses, very beautiful, very strong. The whole town gathered. They said, “This old man knows something…. He was right; it was not a calamity. We were wrong.” And they said, “We are sorry. We could not understand the whole situation, but it is a great blessing. Not only is your horse back, but twelve other horses! And we have never seen such beautifully strong horses. You will gather a lot of money.”

The old man said again, “Don’t bother about whether it is a blessing or a calamity. Who knows? Future is unknown, and we should not say anything unless we know the future. You are again making the same mistake. Just say,’The horse is back, and is back with twelve other horses,’ that’s all.” They said, “Now don’t try to befool us. We know you have gathered a lot of money.”

But after a week, the only son of the old man was teaching a wild horse, trying to tame it.

He fell down from the horse. All over he was broken – many fractures. He was the only support of the old man, and the people said, “This old man knows, really knows… Now this is a great calamity. This coming of the horse has been a misfortune. The only support in his old age, his son, is almost dead. He had been supporting the old man; now the old man will have to serve the young man because he will remain in bed for his whole life. And he was just going to be married. Now the marriage will be impossible!”

And they gathered again, and again they spoke, and the old man said, “How to tell you? You go on doing the same thing again and again. Only say this much: that my young son has many fractures, that’s all. Why move in the future? Why do you go so fast into the future? And you have seen for these few days that again and again you were wrong, but again and again you go off from the present and you start evaluating.”

And it happened that after a few days, the country went to war with a neighboring country, and all the young men of the town were forcibly taken into the army. Only this old man’s son was left because he had fractures. They again gathered, but before they gathered the old man said, “Keep quiet! When will you understand? – Life is complex.” This is the Eastern attitude, in essence.

The yogi lives in the original mind, in suchness. Whatsoever happens, happens; he never evaluates it. And he does not do anything on his own accord, he becomes just a vehicle of the whole. The whole flows; through him. He becomes like a hollow bamboo, a flute. The yogi carries that which comes from God, from the total. That’s why Krishna says to Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita, “Don’t be worried, and don’t think in terms that whatsoever you are going to do will be violence and you will kill so many people. If God wills so, let it be so. If He wants to kill, He will kill, whether through you or through somebody else. In fact,” Krishna says, “He has already been killed. You are just instrumental, so don’t become too identified with your actions. Remain a witness.”