What is Yoga?

Whenever we hear the term yoga we are often reminded of complicated asanas, pranayam and so on. The real meaning of yoga is not any of these . Yoga means union. Union with what ?. Union with reality. Depending on how misplaced we are, different systems of yoga have been prescribed.

In order to understand this, let us try to first understand what are the problems ordinary mortals face in their lives. You can see that most of us seeking something. For many it is security, for some it is various desires of status , peace of mind and so on. At least some confess that they are not seeking all these , but what they want is eternal happiness. If you ask spiritual people they would say terms like enlightenment , liberation and so on. One thing strikes us . Most people don't succeed in their life in attaining these goals. What could be the reason for this?

We can try to guess what these problems or hindrances could be . Either we are not well equipped for attaining them, or that what we are seeking is not what we really want . There could also be a problem in our seeking methodology. We may not be using the right technology for attaining all the purashartha . Vedanta tells us that , what we are seeking cannot be found in the outside world or in material possessions or elsewhere. In fact it says there is no need for any search at all, because what you are seeking cannot be found at all. Why?. It says what you are seeking is YOU. Tatvamasi is the famous mahavakya . So our life is a big story of misplaced search.

Now see what vedanta is telling us. It doesn't tell you it is within you . It says it is you yourself. The happiness seeker is happiness itself. So this explains why we cannot find it. Happiness is seeking itself and saying it cannot find itself anywhere. It is guaranteed to fail. Any amount of searching would fail without any doubt.

Now an ardent student of vedanta , would ask "Why cannot I see this fact?.". What is the problem with me that make my vision blurred to not to see this fact?. Vedanta points out that it is the various hindrances inherent in our body mind systems that prevents this supreme vision of ourselves.

The first hindrance is impurity of the mind. The way in which we are living and way in which we have been conditioned in this life has created various impurities in our mind. We have likes , dislikes , greed, competition, vanity and so on. All these impurities are so ingrained in our mind that we hardly notice them as relevant. Yoga says removing them comes from good action or right karma. Actions which are done with proper attitude and dedication can remove this hindrance to see reality. This ashudhi nivarthi is karma yoga. So using the path of karma yoga we can remove the impurities of our mind.Serving others without even a tinge of expectation and full dedication is the proper path of karma yoga. It is important not only to do the action , but also not have any expectation on the result. So right action and attitude are the primary focus in karma yoga.Only such right action and attitude would reduce the hindrances of kama , krodha , mada , etc. So karma yoga can be defined as any action which is an offering and which reduces these impurities of the mind. Karma yoga thus brings us chitta shudhi.

The second hindrance comes from the projective power of the mind. This is called vikshepa. Most of our thinking is based on past and future projections. Also our mind is focused on external objects. This extrovertedness and rajas guna is what makes our life full of effort. We are always running behind things in the external material world. This hindrance can only be removed by calming the mind. For this various meditation and introspection techniques are prescribed and is often called Upasana Yoga. Thus upasana yoga brings us nishalatvam .

The third and most important hindrance is called avarana or ignorance. This can only be removed by right knowledge. This is entailed in the Jyana Yoga . Jyana yoga concerns itself with knowledge of what is our true identity.It uses various techniques like self enquiry , meditation etc to achieve this .
Various vedanta texts like upanishads etc are concerned with Jyana yoga. Jyana yoga is thus concerned with finding the correct subject or pramatha.

So you can use yoga is concerned with removing hindrances for merging ourselves with reality. It is this union which is true purpose of yoga. It is important that these yoga are not something that brings me anything as i don't really need anything. Yoga just removes the obstacles for realizing what our treasure is. In a way it is also concerned with self realization.

The Gita which is an elucidation of these yogic principles also talks about the samsara which binds people. It comes from three important conditions. Attachment , sorrow and delusion. All are a consequence of the same impurities in our mind. When we seek things in life with attachment , it leads to sorrow. When sorrow comes, our intellect becomes clouded and we commit grave mistakes. All decisions taken with delusion are bound to be incorrect. The cycle continues. 

Who am I?

Äpnoti iti ätmä

---That which includes all

All spiritual endeavors are concerned with only one question. Who am I?. Take any scripture , any
religion any philosophy and you will see this question asked again and again. For a common man, this question is not a problem as he has no doubts regarding this. In fact the question itself has never arisen in his life. So we need to ask is there any scope for this question?. Isn't it obvious ?. Why do we require thick books , discourses, temples, monuments , great saints, satsangs and so on to find out answer to this question?.

There are two types of answers to this question. One is something that is in conformance with what we think about ourselves and another which is not at all obvious , but seem to fit the greater picture. The first and simple answer is "I am nothing but this body-mind system". I seem to perceive and interact in this world based on this limited feeling localized in my body-mind. So the world is apart from me and was created by an all pervasive being and i need to surrender to that power and live accordingly. The set of principles i need to follow is given to me by a religion or dharma. Most common people would be very comfortable with this interpretation.

The second and non obvious answer as given by vedanta is that , You are not what you think you  are. You and the supreme reality are one and the same. There are no two things or reality is non-dual. This seems to fly at the face of logic initially. But on close inspection can be seen to be better explaining the phenomenon of consciousness.

Vedanta tells us that in order to understand what we really are , we need to understand what we are not first. This would help us to remove the hindrances  to right knowledge.

 For the purpose of analysis, let us divide all into two categories. Objects are different from us and
we become knowledgeable about them.Objects are either animate or inanimate. Everything that we have known earlier is also object of our knowledge.What is knowing them is the subject. So the question now comes What is the subject?.

The first immediate perception about what is perceiving objects is the body. This is because outside the body , there is no "I-ness". So the hand is mine , the leg is mine, but outside the body when i see an object , i get the feeling that it is not me. A pain when it arises in my hand or leg is mine ,while  a similar pain when it arises in another body is not mine. All the properties of the body is given to this "I". I am tall or beautiful ,  i have pain in my leg and i am currently walking etc.Where the body is "I am" also there. Whatever the body does i do and so on. We do have a relation with the body , but is the body "I"? is the great question. In order to know this let us a simple logic. When i perceive an object , i know that i am not that. When i look at an apple, i know that i am not an apple.So since i perceive the body just like the apple , i cannot be the body. we are the knower of the body. We are in fact knowing that the body is tall, just like knowing the apple is sweet. So this confusion arises because we have mixed up the knower with the known. The body is a known. It is hardly a knower. So we see that I is not the body, and the body is only one of the objects that we know.

Maybe we are the sense organs?. We see, we hear and we taste and we usually say "I see" , "I hear " etc. This conclusion is also not correct. I know the conditions of my sense organs, i say my eye is vague today, my nose is blocked and so on. So since it is an object of knowledge it cannot be "I".Maybe i am my mind. My mind seems to know all objects of perception. So it could be the "I". but even that seems incorrect sometimes. I do know the state of my mind sometimes. I come and report to someone "I am agitated". I am happy and so on. So if i was not perceiving the mind how could i do that ?.So the mind too seems to be an object of knowledge to me. So the mind is not me. All the thoughts , emotions and perceptions are knowable to me , that is why i can analyse them or talk about them.

If i am not anything who am I?. Am i just a non entity? A great void of nothingness. This too seems to be erroneous. This is because if i was not aware then who is doing this self enquiry , who is finding that i am not all these. So there is something which is apart from all these objects and still knowing
all of them. Only thing is the real I have been incorrectly understood.

Let us see what is left. In this process what is seen is the following
"I am aware that i am not this body"
"I am aware that i am not the senses"
"I am aware that i am not the mind".

So something is knowing all these and is common. It is the fact that is "I am aware".
Maybe i am an awarer. A person who is aware of everything. Now this too is wrong. Since the awareness would immediately perceive the person who is aware. So the state of awareness has to be without an object like a person. If you remove all the objects from the process of becoming aware , what is left is awareness which is a state of being and it is not an object. That is why we say awareness is impersonal and formless.
If you look at thought, you can see that awareness is knowing that. Otherwise you would not know you are thinking. At the same time when there is an absence of thought, awareness knows that too. So awareness has to be there all the time. When i speak, awareness knows i am speaking , but it also knows when i dont speak .So whether speaking is there or not, awareness is always present.Presence or absence of anything is known by awareness. So it has to be independent of those objects.

Another property of awareness seems to be that there is no distance between the object that is known and awareness itself. For e.g. when i see my hand, i see that my hand is known in awareness and here is no gap of knowing that hand. There is no portion of hand that is not known. When i look at a star there is a space between the star and body. However the awareness knows the space also. There is nothing in between the star and awareness that it doesn't know. Nothing can be outside awareness. So
star is in awareness. An absence of something has also to be asserted by awareness , so it has to be there to do the assertion.

The concept of time also is in awareness since we are aware of time it should be inside it. No attribute of time is outside awareness.
It seems that nothing can escape awareness. Everything seems to be in it. So it is indeed the proper subject or "I". Actually it is not very proper to call it "I", since there is nothing personal about awareness. It is more like a cosmic I.

From experience we come to the conclusion that, awareness which we truly are is the all pervasive supreme absolute reality in which all objects seem to reside in conformance with what vedanta says.
Its pervasiveness is like sun light illumining everything. You can see that all objects are illumined by sun , nothing is outside sunlight . Illumining is not part of objects, but is a quality of light. Light can exist without objects. Objects can never be seen without light. Similarly all objects are lighted up by consciousness. Without consciousness nothing would be known. But consciousness itself can exist without any objects. This absolute nature of consciousness is what makes it the basic substratum of all existence and that is what we truly are.

Immortal Now

Rising above the senses and the mind
And renouncing separate existence,
The wise realize the deathless Self.

                                                                               Kena Upanishad.

It is not something new. We all search for happiness. Right from the poorest person on earth to the richest person, right from a materialistic to the most spiritual all are searching , seeking only one thing and that is happiness. The place where we search changes. For many it is in people, wealth, possessions, relations, ambitions, enlightenment and so on. There is an innate tendency to seek. Each task that we do, each thought that comes up, emotions , feelings, sensations are all directly or indirectly linked with this seeking. We wonder why doesn't this end?. Why should a rich person search for happiness?. What do spiritual people seek?.

The source of happiness has an essential quality. We need to find something that doesn't come and go.  Remember this simple fact when we are searching. Search by all means but always have this in mind. And we need to find it ourselves, not get what others have found. This is the crux of the matter. We cannot get this something from anywhere or from anybody. It is not a thing. It needs to be realized by the seeker.. As we hear the guru say in the upanishads 

" It is neither in you , nor outside you, it is YOU."

It is strange that we come to this. We seek happiness everywhere, through effort, through longing and finally find that we were not at all searching where we should have. In fact any search is guaranteed to fail as it is the seeker herself who is the source. 

The self image that we have of ourselves, is hardly something that is permanent. We feel that we are fragile , week and mentally pathetic. How can we be the source of happiness?. We all know we would die one day. We go through different stages of life, we age , we get sick and so on. How can this meek thing be the source of happiness?.  This is exactly the problem. The self image that we have is wrong!!!. we have mistaken ourselves to be something we ARE NOT. Here lies the whole problem of life. Life is nothing but a story of mistaken identity. In fact we are lamenting for something that does not even exist. 

If the source of happiness doesn't come and go, it should be present now. If we look at the past it has already vanished so it can never be that source. Future too is absent and it may appear only as a now. So the only thing that exists and doesn't come and go is the now. Combining the fact that YOU are the source of happiness(as upanishad says), we get the brilliant conclusion, YOU are nothing but the NOW( which is always there). What exactly we mean by the fact that statement ?." Now" doesn't exactly mean the present moment in time. Present moment say 10:00 o clock is only a convenient time stamp. Now is something that is the real snapshot of all that exists in its full glory without any imagination, or without any memory. We can only define it as real existence taken together,  which includes the body and mind that you know, all things living and non living without any exclusions. So you are that . How is this permanent?, You can see that even though local changes happen , the totality is always there. It is always present in the now. The body or bodies may die, things may explode or evolve , but doesn't existence just continue?. What is dying  are not identities, they are just parts of YOU. Now is always eternal or immortal.

An essential aspect of the NOW is this. It knows all existence. If you look at your sensations, feelings , thoughts your own concept or self image, you can see that even though all of them change, there is something that knows them that doesn't change at all. It is through these changeless knowing , you are perceiving all the existence. In order to know change , you need a changeless platform. While you stand on a railway  platform you can observe trains moving. In a moving train you cannot know whether your train is moving , or the other train is moving. Sometimes both may be moving. But from a non moving platform , you can always see trains move when they actually move. So something that is noticing all these changes should itself be changeless. And this changeless presence is what is you are and that is what the NOW is. You are independent of all changes and you are prior to all of the changes. You never come and go, but you notice things come and go. 

There is also an automaticity to this Now. Whether anybody wants it or not it is happening. When now comes in contact with a feeling we are drawn to it . When a self image pops up we are drawn to it . However the mind which cannot grasp this  awareness, creates  a small "me" as an added layer on top of all this noticing . So we get the feeling that a small "me" is noticing our mind , the worries the pains etc. When we undo this "me" and understand there is no layer on top of experiencing now, our mind expands to the NOW completely. When that happens , there is a feeling of un-limitedness, which is the source of true bliss. A full stomach is hardly craving.

The mind is hardly an instrument worth noticing the reality. It is nothing but a tool for the survival of the body. It creates an insulation of the body by creating fears , apprehensions and limitations so that the body is defended all the time. Unfortunately we invest a lot in these story lines and spend our life in hot pursuit of body preservation. This is the reason why we are hardly interested in the now. We are more concerned about the future and spend time by thinking constantly about the past. The now is hardly of concern as it is deemed uninteresting , dull and not worth the time

.Kena upanishad says you need to be wise enough to rise above the sensations as experienced by the body, the thoughts by the mind , and its desires to see what is true and permanent. The real you is the source of everything. So we need to rediscover ourselves for immortal happiness.

Dance of lights

When you go and see movie in a theater and somebody asks you how was it , what would you say?.You would say, the movie was fine. The story was good . or some such comment. You speak as though there is some story enacted really. What happens to the characters in the movie?. What happens to the incidents . The war , the songs and all. When the movie ends, there is only the screen staring at you. All the characters are gone. They have lived a life in 2 hours and have died. The scenes, the experiences are all lost.  If someone asks you "where are the characters now?" . You would say, they were not there in the first place. They were just pictures and images projected on the screen. It is only a dance of the lights. Nothing really exists except as an image in screen.

For a truly realized person, this is how the world appears. A dance of consciousness. All appear in conscious presence and then they are all dissolved into it. There is nothing to reject , only to accept  as it is only a sequence of  appearances. What is the point in rejecting a scene in the movie?. After all it is an appearance. Is there any scope for likes and dislikes about the movie. Let the movie unfold as it is. Even if you don't like, the movie would unfold according to the plan. And also it is not happening for anybody in particular. It is happening according to the laws of the story. Nobody need be concerned or affected by it.

In reality nothing happens. Reality exists independent of all , supporting all appearances. We realize only when we return to the screen that realize that nothing really happened. But for most people they live in the world of the movie , never realizing the screen would come back and cancel all appearances. Spirituality tries to tell you there is a screen that is showing all this drama. So please look at what is supporting it rather than the projected reality.

Spiritual life tells you the secret of how to live. Act as though you are watching the movie, but understand deep down nothing really matters and all this is just a dance of lights.
Some one asked N.Maharaj on how he perceived the world?. He answered, "Just as you have eaten some food and become unconscious of it, i have eaten the world and have become unconscious of it". This means that the appearances are seen to be what they are  and he rests in what really is. He is neither tempted nor blind.

Now when you consider yourself dreaming and seeing appearances in it, you would see little more. In the dream all characters and incidents are made of consciousness. In short they are made from you. This is what the real picture is. All appearances are not different from what is supporting it. All appearances are waves made of consciousness. However when the dream or movie is going on you never doubt its truth. This is life for you. When the movie of life unfolds you believe in the characters, the incidents its problems , its pleasures and so on. You cry , laugh, run behind things and so on. It is so silly, when you understand that it is all a glittering show of nothingness.You need not make the dream any different. You cannot. But at least understand that it is only a dream while watching it.

When you are watching the movie ,the moment you think of the screen and its modifications the movie becomes unreal. Only when you forget about the screen does the movie attract you. When the movie ends, then you realize this. The reality of the an illusion is compounded by our forgetting the source of the illusion. When we travel in a boat , if the boat is closed we may forget that we are moving in water. All experiences are real only when we forget the source of it. The moment we are conscious of the background reality , we immediately see that the experience itself is only a temporary modification and not different from it.

When we go through experiences we don't realize what is behind these experiences. Something that is beyond the form consciousness that is formless and supporting all . The reason why this is not perceptible is because it is not an object like the body or mind . It is the very thing that enables the looking . It is from which, these appearances are happening .The dance of lights cannot happen without an underlying light.

In order to see this, look at a table. What is a table?. It is only a name and a concept given to a piece of wood. When we break it , there is nothing but wood. The thing called table is just a mental construct given to wood. It is only a convenience. If i remove a leg of a table , can we call it a table, even though the table parts are still there?.In reality there are no tables. There is only wood. But even wood is not true reality. Wood is made of atoms. Atoms are made of sub atomic particles. All these are just pure energy. So a thing called table is nothing but a dance of energy embodied in a form which our mind calls as table. Repeating it in our mind continuously we get used to tables.

Reality has nothing to do with concepts or mental constructs. It assumes forms and gets dissolved into energy.Bodies, minds and all appearances are also only a dance of energy . Underlying these form filled illusion, the formless rests peacefully giving rise to all and supporting all.

Acceptance

Willingly sacrifice the imperfect to the perfect and there will be no more talk about good and evil. 
...............

The essence of saintliness is total acceptance of the present moment, harmony with things as they happen.

                                                                                                        Nis. Maharaj 

Two things avert our spiritual life. One is desire and another is misery or fear. Both are the inevitable aspects of our mind. The mind thrives on them. Either it shows a way out in future filled with expectations or shows us fearsome stories of misery. As saints have told us , desire is memory of pleasure while fear is memory of pain. Between these two, our life flows . Misery and desire are not two things actually. They both stem from a feeling of inadequacy  and ignorance. But as long as our minds are there, they form an inevitable part of our thought system.

If we look at pleasure and pain we would see a common theme. It is based on acceptance or lack of it. If a situation is acceptable , it is pleasurable and painful if it is not. But most of the time we are not aware of this mental process. We feel only the end result . It is either happiness or sadness. But the root cause comes from an acceptance or lack of it. What triggers our acceptance?. You can see that it is knowledge. Jyana turns all situations into acceptable ones.This explains why happiness is always experienced by a true saint whatever be the external situation. To him no life situation is unacceptable. He is aware of the mind all the time. Even in pain , he is always with it. He tries to alleviate what can be , for the rest there is total acceptance.

If you need to develop this sense of acceptance, we need to be with ourselves. We need to become ourselves all the time. This may seem contradictory. Am i not with myself all the time?. No. You are not with yourself. You are always with your mind all the time!!!. We are always lost in our mind's idiosyncrasies and we think we are with ourselves when we do that. This is because of the mistaken identity that we are nothing but the body-mind complex. As a result of this closeness of our own minds, we loose the process of the mind which disagrees with what is happening. We also loose the sense of acceptance when that happens. If on the other hand if we were aware of our mind doing this , we would easily know that desire or pain are only projections by the mind of what is happening now.

The fact that pleasure or pain is totally a mental illusion would not be accepted by many. They would always find fault in external causes for it, and mind to be just perceiving the pleasure or pain. This is where ignorance is. Ignorance is multidimensional. It mistakes a part of a process to be complete. A situation that is unfolding now is not just happening for us. It is a grand scheme of the universe. Many many factors , many many happenings precede it. If it is so, how can we change it?. Can you control precisely all the causes and effects of the present unpleasant happening?.No. On the other hand, see even a painful situation as an inevitable happening which you need to be with. Be with it , embrace it and become familiar with it. This acceptance of all with knowledge is what makes saints smiling at all . Pleasure and pain are the same to them. They don't see the happenings as seen by the mind. They have removed the mind from the filtering of the events by being with themselves.


One of the main teachings in the law of karma is to be detached from our actions. This detachment comes from total acceptance of what is happening now. When our actions are guided by desire or fear, it is attached. It is attached to the consequences. It is attached to success and failure. It is attached to our mind projections. Karma or pure action should come from us when we are with ourselves and free from our mind's usual interpretations. When we give a small favor to someone, are we attached to the results ?. Are we expecting something?. You can see that if we accept him as part of us totally you are not giving anything. You are just accepting the situation of his need as part of you, not the need of the other person. You can't give, You can only accept.

Now you might argue that with pain it is not possible to accept. Pain is something that needs to be avoided. But you can see that the root cause of pain and sorrow is not the physical sensation alone,but the psychological enhancement of it. We attribute the cause of the pain to be something out there in the external world. We resist. We cry and we make lot of thoughts. All these contribute to the enhancement. If we try to see that no happening is isolated , but is part of a whole, acceptance comes . With acceptance comes our detachment.


There is a tao story regarding causes. If you are travelling in a boat, if an empty boat comes and strikes your boat, you would not be angry. This is because you know the boat on its own cannot have acted to trouble you. But if there was a driver in the boat you would easily be angry. You don't understand and accept that the driver is compulsively being pulled by different causes and he is a victim of so many causes  to have produced the collision. How many drivers of cars have you cursed ?. How many signals have you sworn at?. Understand that just as you are now uncontrollably thinking and ruminating so are so many people in this world lost in their own world of their minds. Just as an empty boat that rams into us isn’t targeting us, so too people who act unkindly are driven along by the unconscious force of their own wounding and pain.

 Be with yourselves and observe what is going on in everything. See acceptance and resistance as they arise. Tune yourselves towards acceptance with knowledge. By living in meditation our mind starts becoming flexible, It molds to situations more readily. We move away from flight and fright responses. A soft heart is the road to freedom.