The Obstacles to Meditation

 

 

The sutras:

PATANJALI BELIEVES - NOT ONLY BELIEVES - HE KNOWS - that sound is the basic element of existence. Just as physicists - say that electricity is the basic element, yogis say that sound is the basic element. They agree with each other in a subtle way.

Physicists say that sound is nothing but a modification of electricity and yogis say that electricity is nothing but a modification of sound. Then both are true. Sound and electricity are two forms of one phenomenon, and to me, that one phenomenon is not known yet and will not be known ever. Whatsoever we know will be just a modification of it. You may call it 'electricity', you may call it 'sound', you may call it 'fire' like Heraclitus, you may call it 'water' like Lao Tzu: that depends on you. But all these are modifications - forms of the formless. That formless will always remain unknown.

How can you know the formless? Knowledge is possible only when there is a form. When something becomes visible, then you can know it. How can you make invisibility the object of knowledge? The very nature of invisibility is that it cannot be objectified. You cannot pinpoint it - where it is, what it is. Only something visible can become the object.

So whenever anything is known, it will be just a modification of the unknown. The unknown remains unknown. It is unknowable. So it depends on you what you call it, and it depends on the utility you are going to put it to. For the yogi, electricity is not relevant. He is working in the inner lab of being. There, sound is more relevant, because through sound he can change many phenomena inside and through sound he can change the inner electricity also. Yogis call it prana - the inner bio-energy or bio-electricity. Through sound that can be changed immediately.

That's why, when listening to classical music, you feel a certain silence surrounding you: your inner body energy is changed. Listen to a madman and you will feel you are also going crazy: because the madman is in a chaos of body electricity and his words and sounds carry that electricity to you. Sit with an enlightened person - satsang - and suddenly you feel everything within you is falling in a rhythm. Suddenly you feel a different quality of energy arising in you.

That's why Patanjali says the repetition of AUM and meditation on it destroys all obstacles. What are the obstacles? Now he describes each obstacle, and how they can be destroyed by repeating the sound of AUM and meditating on it; we will have to ponder over.

Take each: disease. For Patanjali, disease means 'dis-ease'. It is a non-rhythmic way of your inner bio-energy. You feel uncomfortable. If this uncomfort, this disease, continues, sooner or later it will affect your body. Patanjali will agree with acupuncture absolutely, and in Soviet Russia a man named Kirlian will agree with Patanjali absolutely. All the three trends... Acupuncture is not concerned with enlightenment, but acupuncture is concerned how the body becomes diseased, how illness happens, and acupuncture has discovered seven hundred points on the body where the inner bio-energy touches the physical body - touchpoints - seven hundred all around the body.

Whenever the electricity is not flowing in a circle in these seven hundred points - some gaps are there, few points are no more functioning, through few points the electricity is no more moving, blocks are there, electricity is cut, it is not a circle - then disease happens. So acupuncture believes that without any medicine, without any other treatment, if you allow the bio-energy flow to become a circle, the disease disappears. And for five thousand years... acupuncture was born almost when Patanjali was alive.

As I told you, that after two thousand five hundred years there comes a peak of human consciousness. It happened in the time of Buddha; in China Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Confucius; in India Buddha, Mahavira and others; in Greece Heraclitus; in Iran Zoroaster: the peak phenomenon happened. All the religions that you see now in the world derive from that moment of human consciousness. From that peak, the Himalaya, all the rivers of all the religions have been flowing for these two thousand five hundred years.

Just the same, two thousand five hundred years before Buddha there was a peak phenomenon. Patanjali, Rishabh - the originator of Jainism - the Vedas, Upanishads; acupuncture in China; yoga in India and tantra - these all happened. They attained a peak. Never again that peak has been surpassed. And from that very remote past, five thousand years back, yoga, tantra, acupuncture, they have been flowing like rivers.

And there is a certain phenomenon which Jung called "synchronicity". When a certain principle is born, not only one person becomes aware of it - many on the earth, as if the whole earth is ready to receive it. Einstein is reported to have said that "If I had not discovered the theory of relativity, then within a year somebody else would have discovered it." Why? Because many people all over the earth were working in the same direction.

When Darwin discovered the theory of evolution that man has evolved out of monkeys, that there is a constant struggle for the survival of the fittest, another man - Wallace Russell - discovered it. He was in Philippines, and both were friends. But for many years they had not known each other. Darwin was working for twenty years continuously, but he was a lazy man. He has many fragments and everything was ready, but he will not make a book out of it and he will not present it to the scientific society of those days.

Friends again and again will request that "Do it. Otherwise somebody else will do it." And then one day from Philippines, a letter arrived and the whole theory was presented in that letter by Russell. And he was a friend, but they both were working separately. They never knew that both are working on the same. And then he became afraid, what to do! Because he will become the discoverer, and for twenty years he had known the principle. He rushed, somehow managed to write a report, presented it to the scientific society.

After three months, everybody else became aware that Russell has also discovered. Russell was really a very beautiful person. He declared that the discovery goes to Darwin because for twenty years, whether he has presented it or not... But he is the discoverer.

And this is happening many times. Suddenly a thought becomes very prominent, as if a thought is trying to take a womb somewhere. And as is the way of the nature, it never takes risks. One man may miss; then many men have to be tried. Nature never takes risks. A tree will drop millions of seeds. One seed may miss, may not fall on the right ground, may be destroyed, but millions of seeds - there is no possibility all the seeds will be destroyed.

When you make love, in one ejaculation millions of seeds are thrown by the man - one of them will reach to the egg of the woman - but millions. Almost in one ejaculation, a man releases as many seeds as there are men on the earth right now. One man in one ejaculation can give birth to the whole earth, to the whole population of the earth. Nature takes no risks. It tries many ways. One may miss, two may miss, a million may miss, but with millions at least one will reach and become alive.

Jung discovered a principle which he calls "synchronicity". It is a rare thing. We know one principle of cause and effect: a cause produces an effect. Synchronicity says whenever something happens, parallel to it many things similar happen. Yet we don't know why it happens, because it is not a cause and effect phenomenon. They are not related with each other as cause and effect.

How can you relate Buddha and Heraclitus? But the same principle. Buddha never heard of Heraclitus; Heraclitus, we cannot imagine, ever knew about Buddha. They lived in separate worlds. There was no communication. But the same principle of flow, of river-like existence, of momentary existence both gave to the world. They are not causing each other. They are parallel. A synchronicity exists as if the whole existence at that moment wants to produce a certain principle and wants to make it manifest - it manifested, and it will not depend only on Buddha or only on Heraclitus: many it will try. And there were others also who went into oblivion: they were not so prominent. Buddha and Heraclitus became the most prominent. They were the most forceful Masters.

In the days of Patanjali, a principle was born. You can call it the principle of prana - bio-energy. In China it took the form of acupuncture, in India it took the form of the whole system of yoga. How it happens when the body energy is not flowing rightly you feel uncomfort? Because a gap exists in you, an absence, and you feel something is missing. This is disease in the beginning. First it will be felt in the mind. As I told you, first it will be felt in the unconscious.

You may not be aware of it; in your dreams it will come first; in your dreams you will see illness, disease, somebody dying, something wrong. A nightmare will happen in your unconscious because the unconscious is nearest to the body and nearest to nature. From the unconscious it will come up to the subconscious; then you will feel irritated. You will feel that stars are wrong, whatsoever you do goes wrong. You would like to love a person, and you try to love but you cannot love. You would like to help somebody, but you only hinder. Everything goes wrong.

You think some bad influence, some star in the high sky - no - something in the subconscious, some uncomfort, and you get irritated, angry, and the cause is somewhere in the unconscious. You are finding the cause somewhere else. Then the cause comes to the conscious. Then you start feeling that you are ill, and then it moves to the body. It has been always moving to the body, and suddenly you feel ill.

Semyon Kirlian

In Soviet Russia a photographer, a rare scientist, Kirlian, has discovered that before one person becomes ill, six months before, the illness can be photographed. And this is going to be one of the greatest discoveries in the world of twentieth century. It will transform the whole concept of man, disease, medicine, everything. It is a revolutionary concept, and he has been working thirty years and he has almost proved everything scientifically that when a disease comes to the body, first it comes to the electric aura around the body. A gap comes to the...

You may be going to have a tumor in the stomach after six months. Right now no base exists. No scientist can find anything wrong with your stomach; everything is okay, no problem. You can be checked thoroughly and you are right. But Kirlian photographs the body on a very sensitive plate: he has developed the most sensitive plates. And on that plate not only your body is photographed, but around the body a light aura which you carry always. And in that aura, near the stomach there is a hole in the aura - not exactly in the physical body, but something is disturbed.

And now he says that he can predict that within six months there will be a tumor. And after six months, when the tumor comes to the body, x-rays show the same picture as he had taken six months before. So Kirlian says without being ill it can be predicted - and it can be cured before ever it comes to the body, if the body aura becomes more circulating. He doesn't know how it can be cured; acupuncture knows, Patanjali knows how it can be cured.

Disease for Patanjali is some disturbance in the body aura, in the prana, in the bio-energy, in the electricity of your body. That's why through AUM it can be cured. Sometime, you sit lonely in a temple. Go through some old temple where nobody goes, under the dome - circular dome is just to reflect the sound - so sit under it, chant AUM loudly and meditate on it. And let the sound reflect back and fall upon you like a rain, and suddenly you will feel after a few minutes your whole body is getting peaceful, calm, quiet: the body energy is getting settled.

The first thing is disease. And if you are ill in your prana energy, you cannot go far. How can you go far with illness hanging around you like a cloud? You cannot enter into deeper realms. A certain health is needed. The Indian word for health is very meaningful: it is swasthya. The very word means "to be oneself". The word for health in Sanskrit means to be oneself, to be centered. The English word health is also beautiful. It comes from the same word, the same root, from where holy and whole come. When you are whole you are healthy and when you are whole you are holy also.

It is always good to go to the roots of words because they arose of a long experience of humanity. Words have not come accidentally. When a person feels whole his body energy is running in a circle. The circle is the most perfect thing in the world. A perfect circle is a symbol of God. Energy is not being wasted. It circulates again and again; it goes on moving like a wheel; it perpetuates itself.

When you are whole you are healthy, and when you are healthy you are holy also, because that holy word also comes from whole. A perfectly healthy person is holy, but then there will be problems. If you go to the monasteries you will find there all types of ill people. In fact, ill people only go there. A healthy person you will ask what he has to do in a monastery. Ill people go there, abnormal people go there. Something is basically wrong with them. That's why they escape from the world and go there.

Patanjali makes it a first rule that you should be healthy, because if you are not healthy you cannot go far. Your illness, your discomfort, your inner broken circle of energy, will be a stone on your neck. When you will meditate you will feel ill at ease. When you would like to pray, you cannot pray, you would like to rest. A low energy level will be there. And with low energy how can you go far? And to reach to God? And for Patanjali God is the farthest point: much energy is needed. A healthy body, a healthy mind, a healthy being is needed. Disease is disease - disease in the body energy. Aum will help and other things also we will discuss. But here Patanjali is talking about how Aum, the sound itself, helps you inside to become a whole.

For Patanjali, and for many others who have searched deeply into human energy, one fact has become very certain - you must know about it - and that is, the more you are ill, the more sensual. When you are perfectly healthy you are not sensual. Ordinarily, we think just the contrary - that a healthy man has to be sensual, sexual, this and that: he has to enjoy the world and the body. It is not the case. When you are ill, then more sensuality, more sex, grips you. When you are perfectly healthy, sex and sensuality disappear.

Why it happens? Because when you are perfectly healthy you are so happy with yourself you don't need the other. When you are ill, you are so unhappy with yourself you need the other. And this is the paradox: when you are ill you need the other, and the other also needs you when she or he is ill. And two ill persons meeting, the illness is not doubled, it is multiplied.

That's what happens in a marriage: two ill persons meeting multiply illnesses and then the whole thing becomes ugly and a hell. Ill persons need others, and they are precisely the persons who will create trouble when they are related. A healthy person doesn't need. But if a healthy person loves, it is not a need, it is a sharing. The whole phenomenon changes. He is not in need of anybody. He has so much that he can share.

An ill person needs sex, a healthy person loves, and love is a totally different thing. And when two healthy persons meet, health is multiplied. Then they can become helpers to each other for the ultimate. They can go together for the ultimate, helping each other. But the need disappears. It is no more a need, it is no more a dependence.

Whenever you have an uncomfortable feeling with yourself, don't try to drown it into sex and sensuality. Rather, try to become more healthy. Yogasanas will help. We will discuss about them later on when Patanjali talks about them. Right now, he says, if you chant Aum and meditate on it, disease will disappear. And he is right Not only the disease that is there will disappear, but the disease that was to come in the future, that will also disappear

If a man can become a perfect chanting so that the chanter is completely lost - only a pure consciousness, a flame of light and all around, chanting - the energy falls into a circle, becomes a circle. And then you have one of the most euphoric moments in life. When the energy falls into a circle, becomes a harmony, there is no discord, no conflict, you have become one. But ordinarily also, disease will be a hindrance. If you are ill, you need treatment.

Patanjali's yoga system and Hindu system of medicine, Ayurveda, developed simultaneously, together. Ayurveda is totally different than allopathy. Allopathy is suppressive of the disease. Allopathy has developed side by side with Christianity; it is a byproduct. And because Christianity is suppressive, allopathy is suppressive. If you are ill, allopathy immediately suppresses the illness. Then the illness tries some other weak point to come up. Then from somewhere else it explodes. Then you suppress it from there, then from somewhere else it explodes. But with allopathy, you go on from one illness to another, from another to another, but it is never-ending process.

Ayurveda has a totally different concept. Illness should not be suppressed: it should be released. A catharsis is needed. So Ayurvedic medicine is given to the ill person so that the illness comes up and is thrown out, a catharsis. So the beginning doses of Ayurvedic medicine may make you more ill, and it takes a long time because it is not a suppression. It cannot be done right now: it is a long process. The illness has to be thrown, and your inner energy has to become a harmony so the health comes from within. The medicine will throw the illness out, and the healing force will replace it from your own being.

They developed Ayurveda and yoga together. If you are doing yogasanas, if you are following Patanjali, then never go to an allopathic doctor. If you are not following patanjali, then there is no problem. But if you are following the yoga system and working many things in your body energy, then never go to allopathy because, they are contrary. Then seek an ayurvedic doctor or homeopathy or naturopathy - anything that helps catharsis.

But if there is a disease, first tackle it. Don't move with the disease. With my methods it is very easy to get rid of a disease. Because Patanjali's method of AUM, of chanting and meditating, is a very mild one. But in those days, that was enough strong because people were simple, they lived with nature. Illness was rare; health was common. Now just the opposite is the case: health is rare, illness is common, and people are very complex, they don't live near the nature.

There was a survey in London. One million boys and girls have not seen a cow. They have seen only pictures of a cow. By and by, we are bracketed into a man-made world; concrete buildings, asphalt roads - all man-made - technology, big machinery, cars. Nature is thrown somewhere into the dark, and nature is a healing force. And then man becomes more and more complex. He doesn't listen to his nature; he listens to the demands of the civilization, demands of the society. He completely is out of contact with his own inner being.

Then Patanjali's mild methods won't help much. Hence, my dynamic, chaotic methods [one method > video] - because you are almost mad, you need mad methods which can bring out all that is suppressed within you and throw it out. But health is a must. One who goes for a long journey must see that he is healthy. Ill, bedridden, it is difficult to move.