The First sutra: Athayoganushasanam.

Each & every single word has to be understood because Patanjali will not use a single superfluous word.

Now the Discipline of Yoga.

First try to understand the word "now". This "now" indicates to the state of mind [that was just talked about in the above post].

Anguish

If you are disillusioned, if you are hopeless, if you have completely become aware of the futility of all desires, if you see your life as meaningless - whatsoever you have been doing up to now has simply fallen dead, nothing remains in the future, you are in absolute despair - what Kierkegaard calls 'anguish'. If you are in anguish, suffering, not knowing what to do, not knowing where to go, not knowing to whom to look, just on the verge of madness or suicide or death, your whole pattern of life suddenly has become futile.

If this moment has come, Patanjali says, NOW, THE DISCIPLINE OF YOGA. Only now you can understand the science of yoga, the discipline of yoga.

If that moment has not come, you can go on studying yoga, you can become a great scholar, but you will not be a yogi. You can write theses upon it, you can give discourses upon it, but you will not be a yogi. The moment has not come for you. Intellectually, you can become interested, through your mind you can be related to yoga, but yoga is nothing if it is not a discipline. Yoga is not a shastra; it is not a scripture. It is a discipline. It is something you have to do. It is not curiosity; it is not philosophic speculation. It is deeper than that. It is a question of life and death.

If the moment has come where you feel that all directions have become confused, all roads have disappeared; the future is dark, and every desire has become bitter, and through every desire you have known only disappointment; all movement into hopes and dreams has ceased:

This 'Now' may not have come. Then I may go on talking about yoga but you will not listen. You can listen only if the moment is present in you.

Are you really dissatisfied7 Everybody will say "yes", but that dissatisfaction is not real. You are dissatisfied with this, you may be dissatisfied with that, but you are not totally dissatisfied. You are still hoping. You are dissatisfied because of your past hopes, but for the future you are still hoping. Your dissatisfaction is not total. You are still hankering for some satisfaction somewhere, for some gratification somewhere.

Sometimes you feel hopeless, but that hopelessness is not true. You feel hopeless because certain hopes have not been achieved, certain hopes have fallen. But hoping is still there: hoping has not fallen. You will still hope. You are dissatisfied with this hope, that hope, but you are not dissatisfied with hope as such. If with hope as such you are disappointed, the moment has come and then you can enter yoga. And then this entry will not be entering into a mental, speculative phenomenon. This entry will be an entry into a discipline.

What is discipline? Discipline means creating an order within you. As you are, you are a chaos. As you are, you are totally disorderly. Gurdjieff used to say - and Gurdjieff is in many ways like Patanjali: he was again trying to make the core of religion a science - Gurdjieff says that you are not one, you are a crowd, not even when you say "I", there is any "I". There are many "I's" in you, many egos. In the morning, one "I"; in the afternoon, another "I"; in the evening, a third "I", but you never become aware of this mess because who will become aware of it? There is not a center who can become aware.

"Yoga is discipline" means yoga wants to create a crystallized center in you. As you are, you are a crowd and a crowd has many phenomena. One is, you cannot believe a crowd. Gurdjieff used to say that man cannot promise. Who will promise? You are not there. If you promise, who will fulfill the promise? Next morning the one who promised is no more.

People come to me and they say, "Now I will take the vow. I promise to do this." I tell them, "Think twice before you promise something. Are you confident that next moment the one who promised will be there?" You decide to get up early in the morning from tomorrow - at four o'clock. And at four o'clock somebody in you says, "Don't bother. It is so cold outside. And why are you in such a hurry? We can do it tomorrow." And you fall asleep again.

When you get up, you repent. And you think, "This is not good. I should have done it." You decide again that "Tomorrow I will do;" and the same is going to happen tomorrow because at four in the morning the one who promised is no more there, somebody else is in the chair. And you are a Rotary Club: the chairman goes on changing. Every member becomes a rotary chairman. Rotation is there. Every moment someone else is the master.

Gurdjieff used to say, "This is the chief characteristic of man, that he cannot promise." You cannot fulfill a promise. You go on giving promises, and you know well you cannot fulfill, because you are not one: you are a disorder, a chaos. Hence, Patanjali says, NOW THE DISCIPLINE OF YOGA. If your life has become an absolute misery, if you have realized that whatsoever you do creates hell, then the moment has come. This moment can change your dimension, your direction of being.

Up until now you have lived as a chaos, a crowd. Yoga means now you will have to be a harmony, you will have to become one. A crystallization is needed; a centering is needed. And unless you attain a center, all that you do is useless. It is wasting life and time. A center is the first necessity, and only a person can be blissful, who has got a center. Everybody asks for it, but you cannot ask. You have to earn it! Everybody hankers for a blissful state of being, but only a center can be blissful. A crowd cannot be blissful, a crowd has got no Self. There is no atman. Who is going to be blissful?

Bliss means absolute silence, and silence is possible only when there is harmony - when all the discordant fragments have become one, when there is no crowd, but one. When you are alone in the house and nobody else is there, you will be blissful. Right now everybody else is in your house, you are not there. Only guests are there, the host is always absent. And only the host can be blissful.

This centering Patanjali calls discipline - Anushasanam. The word "discipline" is beautiful. It comes from the same root from where the word "disciple" comes. "Discipline" means the capacity to learn, the capacity to know. But you cannot know, you cannot learn, unless you have attained the capacity to be.

One man once came to Buddha and he said... He must have been a social reformer, a revolutionary. He said to Buddha, "The world is in misery. I agree with you."

But, Buddha has never said that the world is in misery. Buddha says, "You are the misery," not the world. "Life is misery," not the world. "Man is misery," not the world. "Mind is misery," not the world.

But that revolutionary said, "The world is in misery. I agree with you. Now tell me, what I can do? I have a deep compassion, and I want to serve humanity." Service must have been his motto.

Buddha looked at him and remained silent. Buddha's disciple, Ananda, said, "This man seems to be sincere. Guide him. Why you are silent?" Then Buddha said to that revolutionary, "You want to serve the world, but where are you? I don't see anyone inside. I look in you, there is no one. You don't have any center, and unless you are centered whatsoever you do will create more mischief."

All of your social reformers, your revolutionaries, your leaders, they are the great mischief creators, mischief-mongers. The world will be better if there were no leaders. But they cannot help. They must do something because the world is in misery. And they are not centered, so whatsoever they do, they create more misery. Compassion will not help, service will not help. Compassion through a centered being is something totally different. Compassion through a crowd is mischief. That type of compassion is poison.

Stillness

Discipline means the capacity to be, the capacity to know, the capacity to learn. We must understand these three things.

The capacity to be. All the yoga postures are not really concerned with the body, they are concerned with the capacity to be. Patanjali says if you can sit silently without moving your body for few hours, you are growing in the capacity to be. Why you move? You cannot sit without moving even for few seconds. Your body starts moving. Somewhere you feel itching; the legs go dead; many things start happening. These are just excuses for you to move.

You are not a master. You cannot say to the body, "Now for one hour I will not move." The body will revolt immediately. Immediately it will force you to move, to do something, and it will give reasons: "You have to move because an insect is biting." You may not find the insect when you look. You are not a being, you are a trembling - a continuous hectic activity. Patanjali's asanas, postures, are concerned not really with any kind of physiological training, but an inner training of being, just to be - without doing anything, without any movement, without any activity, just remain. That remaining will help centering.

If you can remain in one posture, the body will become a slave; it will follow you. And the more the body follows you, you will have a greater being within you, a stronger being within you. And, remember, if the body is not moving your mind cannot move, because mind and body are not two things. They are two poles of one phenomenon. You are not body and mind, you are body-mind. Your personality is psychosomatic - body-mind both. The mind is the most subtle part of the body. Or you can say the reverse, that body is the most gross part of the mind.

So whatsoever happens in the body happens in the mind, and the vice versa: whatsoever happens in the mind happens in the body. If the body is non-moving and you can attain a posture, if you can say to the body "Keep quiet," the mind will remain silent. Really, the mind starts moving and tries to move the body, because if the body moves then the mind can move. In a nonmoving body, the mind cannot move; it needs a moving body.

If the body is non-moving, the mind is non-moving, you are centered. This non-moving posture is not a physiological training only. It is just to create a situation in which centering can happen, in which you can become disciplined. When you are, when you have become centered, when you know what it means to be, then you can learn, because then you will be humble. Then you can surrender. Then no false ego will cling to you because once centered you know all egos are false. Then you can bow down. Then a disciple is born.

A disciple is a great achievement. Only through discipline you will become a disciple. Only through being centered you will become humble, you will become receptive, you will become empty, and the guru, the Master, can pour himself into you. In your emptiness, in your silence, he can come and reach to you. Communication becomes possible.

A disciple means one who is centered, humble, receptive, open, ready, alert, waiting, prayerful. In yoga, the Master is very, very important, absolutely important, because only when you are in a close proximity of a being who is centered your own centering will happen.

That is the meaning of satsang. You have heard the word satsang. It is totally wrongly used. Satsang means in close proximity of the truth; it means near the truth, it means near a Master who has become one with the truth - just being near him, open, receptive and waiting. If your waiting has become deep, intense, a deep communion will happen.

The Master is not going to do anything. He is simply there, available. If you are open, he will flow within you. This flowing is called satsang. With a Master you need not learn anything else. If you can learn satsang, that's enough - if you can just be near him without asking, without thinking, without arguing: just present there, available, so the being of the Master can flow in you. And being can flow. It is already flowing. Whenever a person achieves integrity, his being becomes a radiation.

He is flowing. Whether you are there to receive or not, that is not the point. He flows like a river. If you are empty like a vessel, ready, open, he will flow in you.

A disciple means one who is ready to receive, who has become a womb - the Master can penetrate into him. This is the meaning of the word satsang. It is not basically a discourse; satsang is not a discourse. Discourse may be there, but discourse is just an excuse. You are here and I will talk on Patanjali's sutras. That is just an excuse. If you are really here, then the discourse, the talk, becomes just an excuse for your being here, for you to be here. And if you are really here, satsang starts. I can flow, and that flow is deeper than any talk, deeper than any communication through language, deeper than than any intellectual meeting with you.

While your mind is engaged, if you are a disciple, if you are a disciplined being, your mind is engaged in listening to me, your being can be in satsang. Then your head is occupied, your heart is open. Then on a deeper level, a meeting happens. That meeting is satsang, and everything else is just an excuse, just to find ways to be close to the Master.

Closeness is all, but only a disciple can be close. Anybody and everybody cannot be close. Closeness means a loving trust. Why we are not close? Because there is fear. Too close may be dangerous, too open may be dangerous, because you become vulnerable and then it will be difficult to defend. So just as a security measure we keep everybody at a distance, never allow to enter a certain distance.

Everybody has a territory around him. Whenever somebody enters your territory you become afraid. Everybody has a space to protect. You are sitting alone in your room. A stranger enters in the room. Just watch when you become really scared. There is a point. If he enters that point, beyond that point, you will become scared, you will be afraid. A sudden trembling will be felt. Beyond a certain territory he can move.

To be close means now no territory of your own. To be close means to be vulnerable, to be close means whatsoever happens you are not thinking in terms of security.

A disciple can be close for two reasons. One: he is a centered one; he is trying to be centered. A person who is trying even to be centered becomes unafraid; he becomes fearless. He has something which cannot be killed. You don't have anything, hence the fear. You are a crowd. The crowd can disperse any moment. You don't have something like a rock which will be there whatsoever happens. Without a rock, without a foundation you are existing - a house of cards, bound to be always in fear. Any wind, any breeze even, can destroy you, so you have to protect yourself.

Because of this constant protection, you cannot love, you cannot trust, you cannot be friendly. You may have many friends but there is no friendship, because friendship needs closeness. You may have wives and husbands and so-called lovers, but there is no love, because love needs closeness, love needs trust. You may have gurus, Masters, but there is no disciplehood because you cannot allow yourself to be totally given to somebody's being, nearness to his being, closeness to his being, so that he can overpower you, overflood you.

A disciple means a seeker who is not a crowd, who is trying to be centered and crystallized, at least trying, making efforts, sincere efforts to become individual, to feel his being, to become his own master. All discipline of yoga is an effort to make you a master of yourself. As you are, you are just a slave of many, many desires. Many, many masters are there, and you are just a slave - and pulled in many directions.

Yoga is discipline. It is an effort on your part to change yourself. Many other things have to be understood. Yoga is not a therapy. In the West many psychological therapies are prevalent now, and many western psychologists think that yoga is also a therapy. It is not! It is a discipline. And what is the difference? This is the difference: a therapy is needed if you are ill, a therapy is needed if you are diseased, a therapy is needed if you are pathological. A discipline is needed even when you are healthy. Really, when you are healthy only a discipline can help then.

It is not for pathological cases. Yoga is for those who are completely healthy as far as medical science is concerned, normal. They are not schizophrenic; they are not mad they are not neurotic. They are normal people, healthy people with no particular pathology. Still, they become aware that whatsoever is called normality is futile, whatsoever is called health is of no use. Something more is needed, something greater is needed, something holier and whole is needed.

Therapies are for ill people. Therapies can help you to come to yoga, but yoga is not a therapy. Yoga is for a higher order of health, a different order of health - a different type of being and wholeness. Therapy can, at the most, make you adjusted. Freud says we cannot do more. We can make you an adjusted, normal member of the society. But if the society itself is pathological, then what? And it is! The society itself is ill. A therapy can make you normal in the sense that you are adjusted to the society, but the society itself is ill!

So sometimes it happens that in an ill society a healthy person is thought to be ill. A Jesus is thought to be ill, and every effort is done to make him adjusted. And when it is found that he is a hopeless case, then he is crucified. When it is found nothing can be done, this man is incurable, then he is crucified. The society is ill itself because society is nothing but your collective. If all the members are ill, the society is ill, and every member has to be adjusted to it.

Yoga is not therapy; yoga is not trying in any way to make you adjusted to the society. If you want to define yoga in terms of adjustment, then it is not adjustment with the society, but it is adjustment with existence itself. It is adjustment with the divine!

So it may happen that a perfect yogi may appear mad to you. He may look out of his senses, out of his mind, because now he is in touch with the greater, with a higher mind, higher order of things. He is in touch with the universal mind. It has happened always so: a Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna, they always look somehow eccentric. They don't belong to us; they seem to be outsiders.

That's why we call them avatars, outsiders. They have come as if from some other planet; they don't belong to us. They may be higher, they may be good, they may be divine, but they don't belong to us. They come from somewhere else. They are not part and parcel of our being, mankind. The feeling has persisted that they are outsiders; they are not. They are the real insiders because they have touched the innermost core of existence. But to us they appear.

If your mind has come to realize that whatsoever you have been doing up to now was just senseless, it was a nightmare at the worst or a beautiful dream at the best then the path of discipline opens before you.

 

VIDEO

What is that path?

The basic definition is: chittavrittinirodha.

I told you that Patanjali is just mathematical. In a single sentence, NOW THE DISCIPLINE OF YOGA, he is finished with you. This is the only sentence that has been used for you. Now he takes it for granted that you are interested in yoga, not as a hope, but as a discipline, as a transformation right here and now. He proceeds to define:

This is the definition of yoga, the best. In many ways yoga has been defined; there are many definitions. Some say yoga is the meeting of the mind with the divine; hence, it is called yoga - yoga means meeting, joining together. Some say that yoga means dropping the ego: ego is the barrier; the moment you drop the ego you are joined to the divine. You were already joined, only because of the ego it appeared that you were disjoined. And there are many, but Patanjali's is the most scientific. He says:

Yoga is the state of no-mind. The word 'mind' covers all - your egos, your desires, your hopes, your philosophies, your religions, your scriptures. "Mind" covers all. Whatsoever you can think is mind. All that is known, all that can be known, all that is knowable, is within mind. Cessation of the mind means cessation of the known, cessation of the knowable. It is a jump into the unknown. When there is no mind, you are in the unknown. Yoga is a jump into the unknown. It will not be right to say "unknown"; rather, "unknowable".

What is the mind? What the mind is doing there? What it is? Ordinarily we think that mind is something substantial there inside the head. Patanjali doesn't agree - and no one who has ever known the insides of the mind will agree. Modern science also doesn't agree. Mind is not something substantial inside the head. Mind is just a function, just an activity.

You walk and I say you are walking. What is walking? If you stop, where is walking? If you sit down, where the walking has gone? Walking is nothing substantial; it is an activity. So while you are sitting, no one can ask, "Where you have put your walking? Just now you were walking, so where the walking has gone?" You will laugh. You will say, "Walking is not something substantial, it is just an activity. I can walk. I can again walk and I can stop. It is activity."

Mind is also activity, but because of the word 'mind', it appears as if something substantial is there. It is better to call it 'minding' - just like 'walking'. Mind means 'minding', mind means thinking. It is an activity.

I have been quoting again and again Bodhidharma.

He went to China, and the emperor of China went to see him. And the emperor said, "My mind is very uneasy, very disturbed. You are a great sage, and I have been waiting for you. Tell me what I should do to put my mind at peace."

Bodhidharma said, "You don't do anything. First you bring your mind to me." The emperor could not follow, he said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Come in the morning at four o'clock when nobody is there. Come alone, and remember to bring your mind with you."

The emperor couldn't sleep the whole night. Many times he cancelled the whole idea: "This man seems to be mad. What does he mean, 'Come with your mind; don't forget?'" The man was so enchanting, so charismatic that he couldn't cancel the appointment. As if a magnet was pulling him, at four o'clock he jumped out of the bed and said, "Whatsoever happens, I must go. This man may have something; his eyes say that he has something. Looks a little crazy, but still I must go and see what can happen."

So he reached, and Bodhidharma was sitting with his big staff. He said, "So you have come? Where is your mind? Have you brought it or not?"

The emperor said, "You talk nonsense. When I am here my mind is here, and it is not something which I can forget somewhere. It is in me." So Bodhidharma said, "Okay. So the first thing is decided - that the mind is within you." The emperor said, "Okay, the mind is within me." Bodhidharma said, "Now close your eyes and find out where it is. And if you can find out where it is, immediately indicate to me. I will put it at peace."

So the emperor closed his eyes, tried and tried, looked and looked. The more he looked, the more he became aware there is no mind, mind is an activity. It is not something there so you can pinpoint it. But the moment he realized that it is not something, then the absurdity of his quest became exposed to himself. If it is not something, nothing can be done about it. If it is an activity, then don't do the activity; that's all. If it is like walking, don't walk.

He opened his eyes. He bowed down to Bodhidharma and said, "There is no mind to be found." Bodhidharma said, "Then I have put it at peace. And whenever you feel that you are uneasy, just look within, where that uneasiness is."

The very look is anti-mind, because to look is not a thinking. And if you look intensely your whole energy becomes a look, and the same energy becomes movement and thinking.

This is Patanjali's definition. When there is no mind, you are in yoga; when there is mind you are not in yoga. So you may do all the postures, but if the mind goes on functioning, if you go on thinking, you are not in yoga. Yoga is the state of no-mind. If you can be without the mind without doing any posture, you have become a perfect yogi. It has happened to many without doing any postures, and it has not happened to many who have been doing postures for many lives.

Because the basic thing to be understood is: when the activity of thinking is not there, you are there; when the activity of the mind is not there, when thoughts have disappeared, they are just like clouds, when they have disappeared, your being, just like the sky, is uncovered. It is always there - only covered with the clouds, covered with thoughts.

In the West now, there is much appeal for Zen - a Japanese method of yoga. The word "zen" comes from dhyana. Bodhidharma introduced this word dhyana in China. In China the word dhyana became jhan and then chan and then the word traveled to Japan and became zen.

The root is dhyana. Dhyana means no-mind, so the whole training of Zen in Japan is of nothing but how to stop minding, how to be a no-mind, how to be simply without thinking. Try it! When I say try it, it will look contradictory, because there is no other way to say it. Because if you try, the very try, the effort is coming from the mind. You can sit in a posture and you can try some japa chanting, mantra - or you can just try to sit silently, not to think. But then not to think becomes a thinking. Then you go on saying, "I am not to think; don't think; stop thinking," but this is all thinking.

Try to understand. When Patanjali says, no-mind, cessation of mind, he means complete cessation. He will not allow you to make a japa, "Ram-Ram-Ram." He will say that this is not cessation; you are using the mind. He will say, "Simply stop!" but you will ask, "How? How to simply stop?" The mind continues. Even if you sit, the mind continues. Even if you don't do, it goes on doing.

Patanjali says just look. Let mind go, let mind do whatsoever it is doing. You just look. You don't interfere. You just be a witness, you just be an onlooker not concerned, as if the mind doesn't belong to you, as if it is not your business, not your concern. Don't be concerned! Just look and let the mind flow. It is flowing because of past momentum, because you have always helped it to flow. The activity has taken its own momentum, so it is flowing. You just don't cooperate Look, and let the mind flow.

For many, many lives, million lives maybe, you have cooperated with it, you have helped it, you have given your energy to it. The river will flow awhile. If you don't cooperate, if you just look unconcerned - Buddha's word is indifference, upeksha: looking without any concern, just looking, not doing anything in any way - the mind will flow for a while and it will stop by itself When the momentum is lost, when the energy has flowed, the mind will stop. When the mind stops, you are in yoga: you have attained the discipline. This is the definition: YOGA IS THE CESSATION OF MIND.

When the mind ceases, the witness is established in itself. When you can simply look without being identified with the mind, without judging, without appreciating, condemning, without choosing - you simply look and the mind flows, a time comes when by itself, of itself, the mind stops.

When there is no mind, you are established in your witnessing. Then you have become a witness - just a seer - a drashta, a sakchhi. Then you are not a doer, then you are not a thinker. Then you are simply being pure being, purest of being. Then the witness is established in itself.

Except witnessing, in all states, you are identified with the mind. You become one with the flow of thoughts, you become one with the clouds: sometimes with the white cloud, sometimes with the black cloud, sometimes with a rain-filled cloud, sometimes with a vacant, empty cloud, but whatsoever, you become one with the thought, you become one with the cloud, and you miss your purity of the sky, the purity of space. You become clouded, and this clouding happens because you get identified, you become one.

A thought comes. You are hungry, and the thought flashes in the mind. The thought is simply that there is hunger, that the stomach is feeling hunger. Immediately you get identified; you say, "I am hungry." The mind was just filled with a thought that hunger is there; you have become identified and you say, "I am hungry." This is the identification.

Buddha also feels hunger, Patanjali also feels hunger, but Patanjali will never say that, "I am hungry." He will say "The body is hungry"; he will say, "My stomach is feeling hungry"; he will say, "There is hunger. I am a witness. I have come to witness this thought, which has been flashed by the belly in the brain, that 'I am hungry.'" The belly is hungry; Patanjali will remain a witness. You become identified, you become one with the thought.

This is the definition:

When mind ceases, you are established in your witnessing self. In other states, except this, there are identifications. And all identifications constitute the samsar; they are the world. If you are in the identifications, you are in the world, in the misery. If you have transcended the identifications, you are liberated. You have become a siddha, you are in nirvana. You have transcended this world of misery and entered the world of bliss.

And that world is here and now - right now, this very moment! You need not wait for it a single moment even. Just become a witness of the mind, and you have entered. Get identified with the mind, and you have missed. This is the basic definition.

Remember everything, because later on, in other sutras, we will enter details what is to be done, how it is to be done - but always keep in the mind this is the foundation.

One has to achieve a state of no-mind: that is the goal.

Mind can be either the source of bondage or the source of freedom. Mind becomes the gate for this world, the entry; it can also become the exit. Mind leads you to the hell; mind can lead you also to the heaven. So it depends how the mind is used. Right use of mind becomes meditation, wrong use of the mind becomes madness.

Mind is there with everyone. The possibility of darkness and light both are implied in it. Mind itself is neither the enemy nor the friend. You can make it a friend, you can make it an enemy. It depends on you => you, the one who is hidden behind the mind. If you can make the mind your instrument, your slave, the mind becomes the passage through which you can reach the Ultimate. If you become the slave & the mind is allowed to be the master, then this mind, which has become master, will lead you to ultimate anguish and darkness.

All the techniques, all the methods, all the paths of yoga, are really concerned deeply only with one problem => how to use the mind. Rightly used, mind comes to a point where it becomes a no-mind.

Wrongly used, mind comes to a point where it is just a chaos, many voices antagonistic to each other - contradictory, confusing, insane.

The madman in the madhouse and Buddha under his bodhi tree - both have used the mind; both have passed through the mind. Buddha has come to a point where mind disappears. Rightly used it goes on disappearing; a moment comes when it is not. The madman has also used the mind. Wrongly used, mind becomes divided; wrongly used, mind becomes many; wrongly used it becomes a multitude. And, finally, the mad mind is there, you are absolutely absent.

Buddha's mind has disappeared, and Buddha is present in his totality. A madman's mind has become total, and he himself has disappeared completely. These are the two poles. You and your mind, if they exist together, then you will be in misery. Either you will have to disappear or the mind will have to disappear. If the mind disappears, then you achieve truth; if you disappear, you achieve insanity. And this is the struggle: who is going to disappear? Are you going to disappear, or the mind? This is the conflict, the root of all struggle.

These sutras of Patanjali will lead you step by step towards this understanding of the mind - what it is, what types of modes it takes, what types of modifications come into it, how you can use it and go beyond it. And, remember, you have nothing else right now - only the mind. You have to use it.

Wrongly used, you will go on falling into more and more misery. You are in misery. That is because for many lives you have used your mind wrongly. And the mind has become the master; you are just a slave, a shadow following the mind. You cannot say to the mind, "Stop!" You cannot order your own mind; your mind goes on ordering you and you have to follow it. Your being has become the shadow and the slave, an instrument.

Mind is nothing but an instrument, just like your hands or your feet. You order your feet - your legs, they move. When you say "Stop" they stop. You are the Master. If I want to move my hand, I move it. If I don't want to move, I don't move it. The hand cannot say to me, "Now I want to be moved." The hand cannot say to me, "Now I will move whatsoever you do. I am not going to listen to you." And if my hand starts moving in spite of me, then it will be a chaos in the body. The same has happened in the mind.

You don't want to think, and the mind goes on thinking. You want to sleep. You are Lying down on your bed, changing your sides; you want to go to sleep, and the mind continues, the mind says, "No, I am going to think about something." You go on saying, "Stop" and it never listens to you. And you cannot do anything. Mind is also an instrument, but you have given it too much power. It has become dictatorial, and it will struggle hard if you try to put it in its right place.

Buddha also uses the mind, but his mind is just like your legs. People go on coming to me and they ask, "What happens to the mind of an enlightened one? Does it simply disappear? He cannot use it?"

It disappears as a Master, it remains as a slave. It remains as a passive instrument. A Buddha wants to use it, he can use it. When Buddha speaks to you he will have to use it, because there is no possibility of speech without the mind. The mind has to be used. If you go to Buddha and he recognizes you, that you have been before also, he has to use the mind. Without mind there can be no recognition; without mind there is no memory. But he uses the mind to remember, this is the distinction - and you are being used by the mind. Whenever he wants to use it, he uses it. Whenever he doesn't want to use it, he doesn't use it. It is a passive instrument; it has no hold upon him.

So Buddha remains like a mirror. If you come before the mirror, the mirror reflects you. When you have moved, the reflection has gone; the mirror is vacant. You are not like a mirror. You see somebody, the man has gone, but the thinking continues, the reflection continues. You go on thinking about him. And even if you want to stop, the mind won't listen.

Mastery of the mind is yoga. And when Patanjali says "cessation of the mind", this is what is meant: cessation as a master. Mind ceases as a master. Then it is not active. Then it is a passive instrument. You order, it works; you don't order, it remains still. It is just waiting. It cannot assert by itself. The assertion is lost; the violence is lost. It will not try to control you.

Now just the reverse is the case. How to become masters? And how to put mind into its proper place, where you can use it; where, if you don't want to use it, you can put it aside and remain silent? So the whole mechanism of the mind will have to be understood.

 

Now we should enter the sutra.

The First Sutra:

First thing to be understood: that mind is not something different from the body, remember. Mind is part of the body. It is body, but deeply subtle - a state of body, but very delicate, very refined. You cannot catch it, but through the body you can influence it. If you take a drug, if you take LSD or marijuana or something else, or alcohol, suddenly the mind is affected. The alcohol goes in the body, not in the mind, but the mind is affected. Mind is the subtlest part of the body.

The reverse is also true. Influence the mind and the body is affected. That happens in hypnosis. A person who cannot walk, who says that he has a paralysis, can walk under hypnosis. You don't have paralysis, but if under hypnosis it is said that "Now your body is paralyzed; you cannot walk," you cannot walk. A paralyzed man can walk under hypnosis. What is happening? Hypnosis goes into the mind, the suggestion goes into the mind. Then the body follows.

First thing to be understood: mind and body are not two. This is one of the deepest discoveries of Patanjali. Now modern science recognizes it; it is very recent in the West. Now they say, 'body & mind' -- to talk in this dichotomy is not right. Now they say it is "psychosoma": it is mind-body. These two terms are just two functions of one phenomenon. One pole is mind, another pole is body, so you can work from either and change the other.

The body has five organs of activity -- five indriyas, five instruments of activity. The mind has five modifications, five modes of function. Mind and body are one. Body is divided into five functions; mind is also divided into five functions. We will go into each function in detail.

The second thing about this sutra is:

These five modifications of the mind, this totality of the mind, can lead you into deep anguish, into dukkha, into misery. Or, if you rightly use this mind, its functioning, it can lead you into non-misery. It can lead you at the most into non-misery.

That word 'non-misery' is very significant. Patanjali doesn't say that it will lead you into ananda, into bliss - no. The mind can lead you into misery if you wrongly use it, if you become a slave to it. If you become the Master, the mind can lead you into non-misery - not into bliss, because bliss is your nature; the mind cannot lead you to it - your nature. But if you are in non-misery, the inner bliss starts flowing.

The bliss is always there inside; it is your intrinsic nature. It is nothing to be achieved and earned; it is nothing to be reached somewhere. You are born with it; you have it already; it is already the case. That's why Patanjali doesn't say that the mind can lead you into misery and can lead you into bliss - no! He is very scientific, very accurate. He will not use even a single word which can give you any untrue information. He simply says either misery or non-misery.

Buddha also says many times, whenever seekers will come to him - and seekers are after bliss, so they will ask Buddha, "How can we reach to the bliss, the ultimate bliss?" He will say, "I don't know. I can show you the path which leads to non-misery, just the absence of misery. I don't say anything about the positive bliss, just the negative. I can show you how to move into the world of non-misery."

That's all that methods can do. Once you are in the state of non-misery, the inner bliss starts flowing. But that doesn't come from the mind, that comes from your inner being. So mind has nothing to do with it; mind cannot create it. If mind is in misery then mind becomes a hindrance. If mind is in non-misery, then mind becomes an opening. But it is not creative; it is not doing anything.

You open the windows and the rays of the sun enter. By opening the windows you are not creating the sun. The sun was already there. If it was not there, then just by opening the windows, rays wouldn't enter. Your window can become a hindrance - the sunrays may be outside and the window is closed. The window can hinder or it can give way. It can become a passage, but it cannot be creative. It cannot create the rays; the rays are there.

Your mind, if it is in misery, becomes closed. Remember, one of the characteristics of misery is closedness. Whenever you are in misery, you become closed. Observe, whenever you feel some anguish, you are closed to the world. Even to your dearest friend you are closed. Even to your wife, your children, your beloved, you are closed when you are in misery, because misery gives you a shrinking inside. You shrink. From everywhere you have closed your doors.

That's why in misery people start thinking of suicide. Suicide means total closure - no possibility of any communication, no possibility of any door. Even a closed door is dangerous. Someone can open it, so destroy the door, destroy all possibilities. Suicide means, "Now I am going to destroy all possibility of any opening. Now I am closing myself totally."

Whenever you are in misery you start thinking of suicide. Whenever you are happy you cannot think of suicide; you cannot imagine. You cannot even think that "Why people commit suicide? Life is such joy, life is such a deep music, why people destroy life." It appears impossible.

Why, when you are happy, it looks impossible? Because you are open; life is flowing in you. When you are happy you have a bigger soul, expansion. When you are unhappy you have a smaller soul, shrinked.

When someone is unhappy, touch him, take his hand into your hand. You will feel that his hand is dead. Nothing is flowing through it - no love, no warmth. It is just cold, as if it belonged to a corpse.

When someone is happy, touch his hand, there is communication, energy is flowing. His hand is not just a dead hand, his hand has become a bridge. Through his hand something comes to you, communicates, relates. A warmth flows. He reaches to you. He makes every effort to flow in you and he allows you also to flow within him.

When two persons are happy, they become one. That's why in love oneness happens and lovers start feeling that they are not two. They are two, but they start feeling they are not two because in love they are so happy that a melting happens. They melt into each other; they flow into each other. Boundaries dissolve, definitions are blurred, and they don't know who is who. In that moment they become one.

When you are happy, you can flow into others and you can allow others to flow in you: this is what celebration means. When you allow everybody to flow in and you flow into everybody, you are celebrating life. And celebration is the greatest prayer, the highest peak of meditation.

In misery you start thinking of committing suicide; in misery, you start thinking of destruction. In misery, you are just on the opposite pole of celebration. You blame. You cannot celebrate. You have grudge against everything. Everything is wrong and you are negative, and you cannot flow, and you cannot relate, and you cannot allow anybody to flow into you. You have become an island - closed completely. This is a living death. Life is only when you are open and flowing, when you are unafraid, fearless, open, vulnerable, celebrating.

Patanjali says mind can do two things. It can create misery. You can use it in such a way that you can become miserable, and you have used it. You are past masters of it. There is no need to talk much about it; you know it already. You know the art, how to create misery. You may not be aware, but that is what you are doing, continuously. Whatsoever you touch becomes a source of misery. I say whatsoever!

I see poor men. They are miserable, obviously. They are poor; basic needs of life are not fulfilled. But then I see rich men, they are also miserable. And they think, these rich men, they think that wealth leads nowhere. That is not right. Wealth can lead to celebration, but you don't have the mind to celebrate. So if you are poor you are miserable; if you become rich you are more miserable. The moment you touch the riches, you have destroyed them.

You have heard the Greek story of the king Midas? Whatsoever he will touch it will turn into gold. You touch gold, immediately it becomes mud. It is turned into dust, and then you think that there is nothing in this world, even riches are useless. They are not. But your mind cannot celebrate, your mind cannot participate in any non-misery. If you are invited in the heaven, you will not find heaven there, you will create a hell. As you are, wherever you go you will take your hell with you.

There is one Arabic proverb, that hell and heaven are not geographical places, they are attitudes. And no one enters heaven or hell; everybody enters with heaven or hell. Wherever you go you have your hell projection or the heaven projection with you. You have a projector inside. Immediately you project.

But Patanjali is careful. He says misery or non-misery - positive misery or negative misery - but not bliss. Mind cannot give you bliss; no one can give. It is hidden in you, and when mind is in a non-miserable state that bliss starts flowing. It is not coming from the mind, it is coming from beyond. That's why he says they can be either a source of anguish or of non-anguish.

Right Knowledge < ----------------------------------- > Wrong Knowledge

Now we should enter the sutra.
The Second Sutra:

The first is praman, right knowledge. The Sanskrit word praman is very deep and really cannot be translated. Right knowledge is just a shadow, not the exact meaning, because there is no word which can translate praman. Praman comes from the root prama. Many things have to be understood about it.

Patanjali says that the mind has a capacity. If that capacity is directed rightly, then whatsoever is known is true; it is self-evidently true. We are not aware about it because we have never used it. That faculty has remained unused. It is just like... The room is dark, you come in it, you have a torch, but you are not using it - so the room remains dark. You go on stumbling on this table, on that chair, and you have a torch, but the torch has to be put on. Once you put the torch on, immediately darkness disappears. And wherever the torch is focused you know. At least that spot becomes evident, self-evidently clear.

Mind has a capacity of praman, of right knowledge, of wisdom. Once you know how to put it on, then wherever you move that light, only right knowledge is revealed. Without knowing it, whatsoever you know will be wrong.

Mind has the capacity of wrong knowledge also. That wrong knowledge is called in Sanskrit viparyaya - false, mithya. And you have that capacity also. You take alcohol. What happens? The whole world becomes a viparyaya; the whole world becomes false. You start seeing things which are not there.

What has happened? Alcohol cannot create things. Alcohol is doing something within your body and brain. The alcohol starts working the center that Patanjali calls viparyaya. The mind has a center which can pervert anything. Once that center starts functioning, everything is perverted.

I am reminded...

Once it happened that Mulla Nasrudin and his friend were drinking in a pub. They came out, completely drunk, and Nasrudin was an old, experienced drinker. The other was new, so the other was affected more. So the other asked, "Now I cannot see, I cannot hear, I cannot even walk rightly. How I will reach my home? You tell me, Nasrudin please direct me. How I should reach my home?"

Nasrudin said, "First you go. After so many steps you will come to a point where there are two ways: one goes to the right, the other goes to the left. You go to the left because that which goes to the right doesn't exist. I have been many times on that right also, but now I am an experienced man. You will see two paths. Choose the left one; don't choose the right. That right doesn't exist. Many times I have gone on it, and then you never reach, you never reach your home."

Once Nasrudin was teaching his son the first lessons of drinking. So he told him... The son was asking, he was curious. He asked that, "When is one to stop?" Nasrudin said, "Look at that table. Four persons are sitting there. When you start seeing eight, stop!" The boy said, "But father, there are only two persons sitting!"

Mind has a faculty. That faculty functions when you are under any influence of a drug, any intoxicant. That faculty Patanjali calls viparyaya, wrong knowledge, the center of perversion.

Exactly opposite to it there is a center you don't know. Exactly opposite to it there is a center. If you meditate deeply, silently, that other center will start functioning. That center is called praman, right knowledge. Through the functioning of that center, whatsoever is known is right. What you know is not the question, from where you know is the question.

That's why all the religions have been against alcohol. It is not on any moralistic grounds, no! It is because alcohol influences the center of perversion. And every authentic religion is for meditation because meditation means more and more creating a stillness, more and more becoming silent.

Alcohol goes on doing quite the opposite, makes you more and more agitated, excited, disturbed. A trembling enters within you. The drunkard cannot even walk rightly. His balance is lost. Not only in the body, but in the mind also balance is lost.

Meditation means gaining the inner balance. When you gain the inner balance and there is no trembling, the whole body-mind has become still, then the center of right knowledge starts functioning. Through that center, whatsoever is known is true.

Where you are? You are not alcoholics, you are not meditators, you must be somewhere between the two. You are not in any center. You are between these two centers of wrong knowledge and right knowledge. That's why you are confused.

Sometimes you have glimpses. You lean a little towards the right knowledge center, then certain glimpses come to you. You lean toward the center, which is of perversion, then perversion enters you. And everything is mixed, you are in chaos. That's why either you will have to become meditators or you will have to become alcoholics, because confusion is too much. And these are the two ways.

Either you lose yourself into intoxication, then you are at ease. At least you have gained a center - may be of wrong knowledge, but you are centered. The whole world may say you are wrong. You don't think, you think the whole world is wrong. At least in those moments of unconsciousness you are centered, centered in the wrong center. But you are happy because even centering in the wrong center gives a certain happiness. You enjoy it, hence, so much appeal for alcohol.

Governments have been fighting for centuries. Laws have been made, prohibition and everything, but nothing helps. Unless humanity becomes meditative, nothing can help. People will go on; they will find new ways and new means to get intoxicated. They cannot be prevented, and the more you try to prevent them, more prohibition laws, the more appeal.

America did it, and had to fall back. They tried their best, but when alcohol was prohibited more alcohol was used. They tried; they failed. India has been trying after independence. It has failed, and many states have started again. It seems useless.

Unless man changes inwardly, you cannot force man for any prohibition. It is impossible because then man will go mad. This is his way to remain sane. For few hours he becomes drugged, "stoned", then he is okay. Then there is no misery; then there is no anguish. The misery will come, the anguish will come, but at least it is postponed. Tomorrow morning the misery will be there, the anguish will be there - he will have to face it. But by the evening he can hope again - he will take drink and be at ease.

These are the two alternatives. If you are not meditative, then sooner or later you will have to find some drug. And there are subtle drugs. Alcohol is not very subtle, it is very gross. There are subtle drugs. Sex may become a drug for you. And through sex you may be just losing your consciousness. Anything you can use as a drug. Only meditation can help. Why? Because meditation gives you centering on the center which Patanjali calls praman.

Why so much emphasis of every real religion for meditation? Meditation must be doing some inner miracle.

This is the miracle: that meditation helps you to put on the light of right knowledge. Then wherever you move, then wherever your focus moves, whatsoever is known is true.

Buddha has been asked thousands and thousands of questions. One day somebody asked him that, "We come with new questions. We have not even put the question before you and you start answering. You never think about it. How it happens?"

So Buddha says, "It is not a question of thinking. You put the question and, simply, I look at it. And whatsoever is true is revealed. It is not a question of thinking and brooding about it. The answer is not coming as a logical syllogism. It is just a focusing of the right center."

Buddha is like a torch. So wherever the torch moves, it reveals. Whatsoever the question, that is not the point. Buddha has the light, and whenever that light will come on any question, the answer will be revealed. The answer will come out of that light. It is a simple phenomenon, a revelation. [Similar to having a direct connection to what is known as the Akashic.]

When somebody asks you something, you have to think about it. But how can you think if you don't know? If you know, there is no need to think. If you don't know, what you will do? You will search in the memory, you will find many clues. You will just do a patchwork. You don't know really; otherwise the response would have been immediate.

I have heard about one teacher, a woman teacher in a primary school. And she asked the children that, "Have you got any questions?" One small boy stood and he said, "I have one question and I have been waiting - whenever you ask I will ask: what is the weight of the whole earth?"

She became disturbed because she has never thought about it, never read about it. What is the weight of the whole earth? So she played a trick teachers know. They have to play tricks. She said, "Yes, the question is significant. Now tomorrow, everybody has to find the answer." She needed time. "So tomorrow I will ask the question. Whoever brings the right answer there will be a present for him."

All the children searched and searched, but they couldn't find. And the teacher ran to the library. The whole night she searched, and only just by the morning she could find the weight of the earth. She was very happy. And she came back to school, and the children were there. And they were exhausted. They said they couldn't find. "We asked Mom and we asked Dad and we asked everybody. Nobody knows. This question seems to be so difficult."

The teacher laughed and she said, "This is not difficult. I know the answer, but I was just trying whether you could find it out or not. This is the weight of the earth..." That small child who had raised the question, he stood again, and he said, "With people or without?" Now the same situation.

You cannot put Buddha in such a situation. It is not a question of finding somewhere; it is not really a question of answering you. Your question is just an excuse. When you put a question, he simply moves his light toward that question and whatsoever is revealed is revealed. He answers you; that's a deep response of his right center - praman.

Patanjali says there are five modifications of the mind. Right knowledge. If this center of right knowledge starts functioning in you, you will become a sage, a saint. You will become religious. Before that you cannot become religious.

That's why Jesus or Mohammed, they look mad - because they don't argue; they don't put their case logically, they simply assert. You ask Jesus, "Are you really the only son of God?" He says, "Yes." And if you ask him, "Prove it," he will laugh. He will say, "There is no need to prove. I know. This is the case; this is self-evident." To us it looks illogical. This man seems to be neurotic, claiming something without any proof.

If this praman, this center of prama, this center of right knowledge starts functioning, you will be the same: you can assert, but you cannot prove. How can you prove? If you are in love, how can you prove that you are in love? You can simply assert. You have pain in your leg; how can you prove that you have pain? You simply assert that, "I have pain." You know somewhere inside. That knowing is enough.

Ramakrishna was asked, "Is there God?" He said "Yes." He was asked, "Then prove it." Ramakrishna said, "There is no need. I know. To me, there is no need. To you there is a need, so you search. Nobody could prove it for me I cannot prove it for you. I had to seek; I had to find. And I have found. God is!"

This is the functioning of the right center. So Ramakrishna or Jesus look absurd. They are claiming certain things without giving any proof. They are not claiming; they are not claiming anything. Certain things are revealed to them because they have a new center functioning which you don't have. And because you don't have it you have to prove.

Remember, proving proves that you don't have an inner feeling of anything - everything has to be proved, even love has to be proved. And people go on. I know many couples. The husband goes on proving that he loves, and he has not convinced the wife, and the wife goes on proving that she loves, and she has not convinced the husband. They remain unconvinced and that remains the conflict. And they go on feeling that the other has not proved.

Lovers go on searching. They create situations in which you have to prove that you love. And by and by both get bored - this futile effort to prove, and nothing can be proved. How can you prove love? You can give presents, but nothing is proved. You can kiss and hug and you can sing, you can dance, but nothing is proved. You may be just pretending.

This first modification of the mind is right knowledge. Meditation leads to this modification. And when you can rightly know and there is no need to prove, then only mind can be dropped, not before it. When there is no need to prove, mind is not needed, because mind is a logical instrument.

You need it every moment. You have to think, find out what is wrong and what is right. Every moment there is choices and alternatives. You have to choose. Only when praman functions, when right knowledge functions, you can drop the mind, because now choosing has no meaning. You move choicelessly. Whatsoever is right is revealed to you.

The definition of the sage is one who never chooses. He never chooses good against bad. He simply moves towards the direction which is that of good. It is just like sunflowers. When the sun is in the east, the flower moves to the east. It never chooses. When the sun moves to the west, the flower moves to the west. It simply moves with the sun. It has not chosen to move; it has not decided. It has not taken a decision that, "Now I should move because the sun has moved to the west."

A sage is just like a sunflower. Wherever is good he moves simply. So whatsoever he does is good. Upanishads say, "Don't judge sages. Your ordinary measurements won't do." You have to do good against bad, he has nothing to choose. He simply moves to whatsoever is good. And you cannot change him because it is not a question of alternatives. If you say, "This is bad," he will say, "Okay, it may be bad, but this is how I move, this is how my being flows."

Those who knew - and people in the days of Upanishads knew - they have decided that, "We will not judge a sage." Once a person has come to be centered in himself, when a person has achieved meditation, once a person has become silent and the mind has been dropped, he is beyond our morality, beyond tradition. He is beyond our limitations. If we can follow, we can follow him. If we cannot follow, we are helpless. But nothing can be done, and we should not judge.

If right knowledge functions, if your mind has taken the modification of right knowledge, you will become religious. Look, it is totally different. Patanjali doesn't say if you go to the mosque, to the gurudwara, to the temple, you do some ritual, you pray... No, that's not religion. You have to make your right-knowledge-center functioning. So whether you go to the temple or not, it is immaterial; it doesn't matter. If your right-knowledge-center functions, whatsoever you do is prayer and wherever you go it is a temple.

Kabir has said, "Wherever I go, I find you, my God. Wherever I move, I move into you, I stumble upon you. And whatsoever I do, even walking, eating, it is prayer." Kabir says, "This spontaneity is my samadhi. Just to be spontaneous is my meditation."

Second is viparyaya - wrong knowledge. If your center of wrong knowledge is functioning, then whatsoever you do, you will do wrongly, and whatsoever you choose, you will choose wrongly. Whatsoever you decide will be wrong because you are not deciding, the wrong center is functioning. The wrong center is deciding.

There are people, they feel very unfortunate because whatsoever they do goes wrong. And they try not to do wrong again, but that's not going to help because the center has to be changed. Their minds function in a wrong way. They may think that they are doing good, but they will do bad. With all their good wishes, they cannot help; they are helpless.

Mulla Nasrudin used to visit a saint. He visited for many, many days. And the saint was a silent one; he will not speak anything. Then Mulla Nasrudin had to say, he had to ask, "I have been coming again and again, waiting that you will say something, and you have not said anything. And unless you say, I cannot understand, so just give me a message for my life, a direction so that I can move in that direction."

So that Sufi sage said, "NEKI KAR KUYEN MAY DAL: Do good and throw it in the well." It is one of the oldest Sufi sayings: "Do good and throw it in the well." It means do good and forget it immediately; don't carry that "I have done good."

So next day Mulla Nasrudin helped one old woman to cross the road, and then he pushed her into the well.

"NEKI KAR KUYEN MAY DAL: DO good and throw it in the well."

If your wrong center is functioning, whatsoever you do... You can read Koran, you can read Gita, and you will find meanings - Krishna will be shocked, Mohammed will be shocked to see that you can find such meanings.

Mahatma Gandhi wrote his autobiography with the intention that it will help people. Then many letters came to him because he describes his sex life. He was honest, one of the most honest men, so he wrote everything - whatsoever has happened in his past - how he was too much indulgent the day his father was dying; he couldn't sit by his side. Even that day he had to go with his wife to bed.

And doctors had said that "This is the last night. Your father cannot survive the morning. He will be dead by the morning." But just about twelve, one, in the night, he started feeling desire, sexual desire. The father was feeling sleepy, so he slipped away, went to his wife, indulged in sex. And the wife was pregnant. It was the ninth month. And the father was dying, and the child also died the moment he was born. And the father died in the night, so the whole life Gandhi had a deep repentance - he couldn't be with his dying father. Sex was so obsessive.

So he wrote everything, he was honest-and just to help others. But many letters started coming to him, and those letters were such that he was shocked. Many people wrote to him that "Your autobiography is such that we have become more sexual than before just reading. Just reading through your autobiography we have become more sexual and indulgent. It is erotic."

If the wrong center is functioning, then nothing can be done. Whatsoever you do, read, behave, it will be wrong. You will move to the wrong. You have a center which is forcing you to move towards the wrong. You can go to Buddha, but something wrong you will see in him. Immediately! You cannot meet Buddha, because something wrong is what you will see immediately. You have a focusing for the wrong, a deep urge to find wrong anywhere, everywhere.

This modification of the mind Patanjali calls viparyaya. Viparyaya means perversion. You pervert everything. You interpret everything in such a way it becomes a perversion, a distortion.

Omar Khayyam writes that "I have heard that God is compassionate." This is beautiful. Mohammedans go on repeating, "God is rehman, compassion; rahim, compassion." They go on repeating, continuously. So Omar Khayyam says, "If really he is compassionate, if he is compassion, then there is no need to be afraid. I can go on committing sin. If he is compassion, then what is the fear? I can commit whatsoever I want and he is compassion - so whenever I will stand before him, I will say, rahim, rehman: Oh God of compassion, I have sinned, but you are compassion. If you are really compassion, then have compassion on me." So he goes on drinking, he goes on committing whatsoever he thinks is sin. He has interpreted in a very perverted way.

All over the world people have done that. In India we say, "If you go to the Ganges, if you bathe in the Ganges, your sins will dissolve." It was a beautiful concept in itself. It shows many things. It shows that sin is not something very deep, it is just like dust upon you. So don't get too much obsessed by it, don't feel guilty; it is just dust, and you remain pure inside. Even bathing in the Ganges can help.

This is just to show you, don't become so much obsessed with sin as Christianity has become. Guilt has become so burdensome, so even just taking a bath in the Ganges will help. Don't be so much afraid. But how we have interpreted it? We say, "Then it is okay. Go on committing sin." And after a while, when you feel now you have committed many, so give a chance to the Ganges to purify; then come back and commit again. This is the center of perversion.