The words that he uses cannot be exactly translated into English because Sanskrit is the most perfect language; no language comes even near to it. So I would have to explain to you. The word used is vitarka: in English it is translated as reasoning. It is a poor translation. vitarka has to be understood. Tarka means logic reasoning: then Patanjali says there are three types of logic. One he calls kutarka - reasoning oriented towards the negative: always thinking in terms of no, denying, doubting, nihilistic.

Whatsoever you say, the man who lives in kutarka - negative logic - always thinks how to deny it, how to say no to it. He looks to the negative. He is always complaining, grumbling. He always feels that something somewhere is wrong - always You cannot put him right because this is his orientation. If you tell him to see to the sun, he will not see the sun. He will see the sunspots; he will always find the darker side of things: that is kutarka. That is kutarka - wrong reasoning - but it looks like reasoning.

It leads finally to atheism. Then you deny God, because if you cannot see the good, you cannot see the lighter side of life, how can you see God? You simply deny. Then the whole existence becomes dark. Then everything is wrong, and you can create a hell around you. If everything is wrong, how can you be happy? And it is your creation, and you can always find something wrong because life consists of a duality.

In the rose bush there are beautiful flowers, but thorns also. A man of kutarka will count the thorns, and then he will come to an understanding that this rose must be illusory; it cannot exist. Amidst so many thorns, millions of thorns, how can a rose exist? It is impossible; very possibility is denied. Somebody is deceiving.

Mulla Nasrudin was very, very sad. He went to the priest and said, "What to do? My crop is destroyed again. No rains." The priest said, "Don't be so sad, Nasrudin. Look at the lighter side of life. You can be happy because still you have much. And always believe in God who is the provider. He even provides for birds of the air, so why you are worried?" Nasrudin said, "Yes!" very bitterly, "Off of my corn! God provides the birds of the air off of my corn."

He cannot see the point. His crop is destroyed by these birds, and God is providing them..."and my crop is destroyed." This type of mind will always find something or other, and he will be always tense. Anxiety will follow him like a shadow. This Patanjali calls kutarka - negative logic, negative reasoning.

Then there is tarka - simple reasoning. Simple reasoning leads nowhere. It is moving in a circle because it has no goal. You can go on reasoning and reasoning and reasoning, but you will not come to any conclusion because reasoning can come to a conclusion only when there is a goal from the very beginning. You are moving in a direction, then you reach somewhere. If you move in all directions - sometimes to the south, sometimes to the east, sometimes to the west - you waste energy.

Reasoning without a goal is called tarka; reasoning with a negative attitude is called kutarka; reasoning with a positive grounding is called vitarka. Vitarka means special reasoning. So vitarka is the first element of samprajnata samadhi. A man who wants to attain to the inner peace has to be trained into vitarka - special reasoning. He always looks to the lighter side, the positive. He counts the flowers and forgets the thorns - not that there are not thorns, but he is not concerned with them. If you love the flowers and count the flowers, a moment comes when you cannot believe in the thorns, because how is it possible where so beautiful flowers exist, how can thorns exist? There must be something illusory.

The man of kutarka counts thorns; then flowers become illusory. The man of vitarka counts flowers; then thorns become illusory. That's why Patanjali says: vitarka is the first element. Only then bliss is possible. Through vitarka one attains to heaven. One creates one's own heaven all around.

Your standpoint counts. Whatsoever you found around you is your own creation - heaven or hell. And Patanjali says you can go beyond logic and reasoning only through the positive reasoning. Through the negative you can never go beyond, because the more you say 'no', the more you found things to be sad - no, denied. Then, by and by, you become a constant 'no' inside - a dark night, only thorns and no flowers can flower in you - a desert...

When you say 'yes', you find more and more things to be said 'yes' to. When you say 'yes', you become a yea-sayer. Life is affirmed, and you absorb through your 'yes' all that is good, beautiful, all that is true.

'Yes' becomes the door in you for the divine to enter; 'no' becomes a closed door. Door closed, you are a hell: doors open, all doors open, existence flows in you. You are fresh, young, alive; you become a flower.

Vitarka, vichar, ananda: Patanjali says if you are attuned with a positive reasoning, then you can be a thinker, never before it. Then thinking arises. He has a very different meaning of thinking. You also think that you think. Patanjali will not agree. He says you have thoughts, but no thinking. That's why I say it is difficult to translate him.

He says you have thoughts, vagrant thoughts like a crowd, but no thinking. Between your two thoughts there is no inner current. They are uprooted things; there is no inner planning. Your thinking is a chaos. It is not a cosmos; it has no inner discipline. It is just like you see a rosary. There are beads; they are held together by an invisible thread running through them. Thoughts are beads; thinking is the thread. You have beads - too many, in fact, more than you need - but no inner running thread through them. That inner thread is called by Patanjali thinking - vichar. You have thoughts, but no thinking. And if this goes on and on, you will become mad. A madman is a man who has millions of thoughts and no thinking, and samprajnata samadhi is the state in which there are no thoughts, but thinking is perfect. This distinction has to be understood.

Your thoughts, in the first place, are not yours. You have gathered them. Just in a dark room, sometimes a beam of light comes from the roof and you see millions of dust particles floating in the beam. When I look into you, I see the same phenomenon: millions of dust particles. You call them thoughts. They are moving in you and out of you. From one head they enter another, and they go on. They have their own life.

A thought is a thing; it has its own existence. When a person dies, all his mad thoughts are released immediately and they start finding shelter somewhere or other. Immediately those who are around they enter. They are like germs: they have their own life. Even when you are alive, you go on dispersing your thoughts all around you. When you talk, then, of course, you throw your thoughts into others. But when you are silent, then also you are throwing thoughts all around. They are not yours, the first thing.

A man of positive reasoning will discard all thoughts that are not his own. They are not authentic; he has not found them through his own experience. He has accumulated from others, borrowed. They are dirty. They have been in many hands and heads. A man of thinking will not borrow. He would like to have a fresh thought of his own. And if you are positive, and if you look at the beauty, at the truth, at the goodness, at the flowers, if you become capable of seeing even in the darkest night that the morning is coming nearer, you will become capable of thinking.

Then you can create your own thoughts. And a thought that is created by you is really potential: it has a power of its own. These thoughts that you have borrowed are almost dead because they have been traveling - traveling for millions of years. Their origin is lost: they have lost all contact with their origin. They are just like dust floating all around. You catch them. Sometimes you even become aware of it, but because your awareness is such that it cannot see through things...

Sometimes you are sitting. Suddenly you become sad for no reason at all. You cannot find the reason. You look around, there is no reason; nothing there, nothing has happened. You are just the same and suddenly a sadness takes. A thought is passing; you are just in the way. It is an accident. A thought was passing like a cloud - a sad thought released by someone. It is an accident. You are in the grip. Sometimes a thought persists. You don't see why you go on thinking about it. It looks absurd; it seems to be of no use. But you cannot do anything. It goes on knocking at the gate. "Think me," it says. A thought is waiting at the door knocking. It says, "Give space. I would like to come in."

Each thought has its own life. It moves. And it has much power, and you are so impotent because you are so unaware, so you are moved by thoughts. Your whole life consists of such accidents. You meet people, and your whole life pattern changes. Something enters in you. Then you become possessed, and you forget where you were going. You change your direction; you follow this thought. And this is just an accident. You are like children.

Patanjali says this is not thinking. This is the state of absence of thinking; this is not thinking. You are a crowd. You have not a center within you which can think. When one moves in the discipline of vitarka - right reasoning - then one becomes by and by capable of thinking. Thinking is a capacity; thoughts are not. Thoughts can be learned from others; thinking, never. Thinking you have to learn yourself.

And this is the difference between the old Indian schools of learning and the modern universities: in the modern universities you are getting thoughts; in the ancient schools of learning, wisdom schools, they were teaching thinking, not thoughts.

Thinking is a quality of your inner being. What does thinking mean? It means to retain your consciousness, to remain alert and aware, to encounter a problem. A problem is there: you face it with your total awareness. And then arises an answer - a response. This is thinking. A question is posed; you have a ready-made answer. Before even you have thought about it, the answer comes in. Somebody says, "Is there God?" And he has not even said and you say, "Yes." You nod your wooden head; you say, "Yes, there is."

Is it your thought? Have you thought about the problem right now, or you carry a ready-made answer within your memory? Somebody gave it to you - your parents, your teachers, your society. Somebody has given it to you, and you carry it as a precious treasure, and this answer comes from that memory.

A man of thinking uses his consciousness each time there is a problem. Freshly, he uses his consciousness. He encounters the problem, and then arises a thought within him which is not part of memory. This is the difference. A man of thoughts is a man of memory; he has no thinking capacity. If you ask a question which is new, he will be at a loss. He cannot answer. If you ask a question which he knows the answer, he will immediately answer. This is the difference between a pundit and a man who knows; a man who can think.

Patanjali says vitarka - right reasoning - leads to reflection - vichar. Reflection - vichar - leads to bliss. This is the first glimpse, of course, and it is a glimpse. It will come and it will be lost. You cannot hold it for long. It was going to be just a glimpse, as if for a moment a lightning happened and you saw all darkness disappeared. But again the darkness is there - as if clouds disappeared and you saw the moon for a second - again clouds are there.

Before it, it was a faith, a trust. Before it a Master was needed to show you, to bring you back again and again. But after satori has happened, now it is no more a faith. It has become a knowing. Now the trust is not an effort. Now you trust because your own experience has shown you. After the first glimpse, the real search starts. Before it you are just going round and round. Right reasoning leads to right reflection, right reflection leads to a state of bliss, and this state of bliss leads to a sense of pure being.

A negative mind is always egoist. That is the impure state of being. You feel "I", but you feel "I" for wrong reasons. Just watch. Ego feeds on 'no'. Whenever you say 'no', ego arises. Whenever you say 'yes', ego cannot arise because ego needs fight, ego needs challenge, ego needs to put itself against someone, something. It cannot exist alone; it needs duality. An egoist is always in search of fight - with someone, with something, with some situation. He is always trying to find something to say 'no' - to win over, to be victorious.

Ego is violent, and 'no' is the subtlest violence. When you say 'no' for ordinary things, even there ego arises. A small child says to the mother, "Can I go out to play?" and she says 'No'. Nothing much was involved, but when the mother says 'No!' she feels she is someone. You go to the railway station and you ask for a ticket and the clerk simply doesn't look at you. He goes on working even if there is no work. But he is saying, "No! Wait!" He feels he is someone, somebody. That's why, in offices everywhere, you will hear 'no'. 'Yes' is rare - very rare. An ordinary clerk can say 'no' to anybody, whomsoever you are. He feels powerful.

'No' gives you a sense of power - remember this. Unless it is absolutely necessary, never say 'no'. Even if it is absolutely necessary, say it in such an affirmative way that the ego doesn't arise. You can say. Even 'no' can be said in such a way that it appears like 'yes'. You can say 'yes' in such a way that it looks like 'no'. It depends on the tone; it depends on the attitude; it depends on the gesture.

Remember this: for seekers, it has to be remembered constantly that you have to live continuously in the aroma of 'yes'. That is what a man of faith is: he says 'yes'. Even when 'no' was needed, he says 'yes'. He doesn't see that there is any antagonism in life. He affirms. He says 'yes' to his body, he says 'yes' to his mind, he says 'yes' to everybody, he says 'yes' to the total existence. The ultimate flowering happens when you can say a categorical 'yes', with no conditions. Suddenly the ego falls; it cannot stand. It needs the props of 'no'. The negative attitude creates ego. The positive attitude - the ego drops, and then the being is pure.

Sanskrit has two words for "I" - ahankar and asmita. It is difficult to translate. ahankar is the wrong sense of "I" which comes from saying 'no'. Asmita is the right sense of "I" which comes from saying 'yes'. Both are "I". One is impure: 'no' is the impurity. You negate, destroy. 'No' is destructive, a very subtle destruction. Never use it. Drop it as much as you can. Whenever you are alert, don't use it. Try to find a roundabout way. Even if you have to say it, say it in such a way that it has the appearance of 'yes'. By and by you will become attuned, and you will feel such a purity coming to you through 'yes'.

Then asmita: asmita is egoless ego. No feeling of "I" against anybody. Just feeling oneself without putting against anybody. Just feeling your total alone-nss, and the total alone-ness, the purest of states. "I am" - when we say "I" is ahankar; "am" is asmita, just the feeling of am-ness with no "I" to it, just feeling the existence, the being - 'yes' is beautiful, 'no' is ugly.

Disappearance of the impurity is samprajnata. Disappearance of the purity also, is asamprajnata. There is a cessation of all mental activity. Thoughts disappear in the first state. In the second state, thinking also disappears. Thorns disappear in the first state. In the second state, flowers also disappear. When 'no' disappears in the first state, 'yes' remains. In the second state, 'yes' also disappears because 'yes' is also related to 'no'. How can you retain 'yes' without 'no'? They are together; you cannot separate them. If 'no' disappears, how can you say 'yes'? Deep down 'yes' is saying 'no' to 'no'. Negation of negation - but a subtle 'no' exists. When you say 'yes', what you are doing? You are not saying 'no', but the 'no' is inside. You are not bringing it out: it is unmanifested.

Your 'yes' cannot mean anything if you have no 'no' within you. What it will mean? It will be meaningless. 'Yes' has meaning only because of 'no'; 'no' has meaning only because of 'yes'. They are a duality. In samprajnata samadhi, 'no' is dropped: all that is wrong is dropped. in asamprajnata samadhi, 'yes' is dropped. All that is right, all that is good, that too is dropped. In samprajnata samadhi you drop the devil; in asamprajnata samadhi you drop the God also, because how the God can exist without the devil? They are two aspects of the same coin.

All activity ceases. 'Yes' is also an activity, and activity is a tension. Something is going on, even beautiful but still something is going on. And after a period even the beautiful becomes ugly. After a period you are bored with flowers also. After a period, activity, even very subtle and pure, gives you a tension: it becomes an anxiety.

The tree has disappeared; you have cut down the tree completely. But the seeds that have fallen, they are in the ground lying. They will sprout when their season comes. You will have another life; you will be born again. Of course, your quality will be different now, but you will be born again because those seeds are still not burned.

You have cut down that which was manifested. It is easy to cut down anything that is in manifestation; it is easy to cut all the trees. You can go into the garden and pull up all the whole lawn, the grass completely; you can kill everything. But within two weeks the grass will be coming up again because what you did is only with the manifested. The seeds which are lying in the soil you have not touched them yet. That has to be done in the third state.

Asamprajnata samadhi is still sabeej - with seeds. And there are methods how to burn those seeds, how to create fire - the fire that Heraclitus talked about, how to create that fire and burn the unconscious seeds. When they also disappear, then the soil is absolutely pure; nothing can arise out of it. Then there is no birth, no death. Then the whole wheel stops for you; you have dropped out of the wheel. And dropping out of the society won't help unless you drop out of the wheel. Then you become a perfect dropout.