A gardener has a small piece of barren land. He wants to convert it into a beautiful garden. So he has to prepare the land, remove the weeds and rocks, mix the earth, break the dry earth and prepare the ground. When the soil is ready, he brings the seeds, plants them and looks after them until they are able to flower and give fruit. If a gardener goes through such a process to create a garden of his liking, then why don’t you bring this concept of gardening into your life?
Therefore, become a gardener of your life. The moment you can become a gardener of your life, your life potentials will develop spontaneously, automatically, naturally, for they are contained, inherent inside, waiting for the right opportunity to manifest. You have to give this right opportunity to yourself. When you are running around in your life, what is the aim behind it? Is it success, economic security, becoming famous in society, playing a positive role in the evolution and creation of society? Whatever effort a person makes, the aim behind it is that there be name, fame, happiness, contentment, prosperity, peace. This is what you wish for in your race in life, from birth to death.
The mental conditioning created as a result of this wish proves to be a hindrance in the development of your mind. The central point of yoga is development of the human mind. This aim should be considered the foundation of yoga, and the method of mind development in yoga is related to your behavioural, social, and material life. If you can understand this relationship, then, according to yoga, life becomes meaningful and you can identify your intentions and goals. The basic character of a human being is to seek material, financial, emotional, intellectual and social fulfilment. The drive and effort of everyone is to attain prosperity. Prosperity is a goal of life, fulfilment and satisfaction are goals of life, and your effort is to experience the goal. When the search for prosperity, peace and contentment falter, the results are undesirable.
You have to come back to the basic idea – your life. You have to see your mind as a field on which you can work. If you simply ignore the field and do not cultivate the good, the appropriate, eventually what will happen is there will be an overgrowth of weeds and the land will become unusable for some time until you are able to remove the weeds.
In your life, in the drive for prosperity, fulfilment, contentment and satisfaction in the material world, you ignore a basic rule governing human life. You have never considered the development of mind to be important, rather you have considered the development of intellect to be important for your progress, success and security in life. However, the intellect is only one part, one small component of the mind. The focus and foundation of yoga is to develop the entire mind. Unless and until you begin to work with your mind, the mind is not utilized, for what you think does not reflect the functions and the activities of the mind. What you desire does not reflect the nature of the mind. What you think are thoughts that come to the surface of your mind, what you desire are aspirations and ambitions, and you seek their immediate fulfilment – or in the near future.
According to yogic traditions, the mind is composed of ego or ahamkara, intellect or buddhi, analysis and the power of reflection or manas, and chitta, the memories and impressions in our psyche throughout the course of our life. Intellect, memories, ego and the ability to reflect are the four aspects of the human mind, out of which you have emphasized the development and activation of intellect. You have not been able to regulate or manage the activities of ego. You have not been able to manage or utilize the wisdom contained in your memories. You have not been able to use properly the power of analysis and refection. Today, despite having so much know ledge, understanding and wisdom around, you are still ignorant of the basic facts and conditions of life. According to yoga, to improve the quality of life, you have to focus on the mind, which is the engine. Just as the car cannot run without its engine, in the same way, your life becomes redundant if it is not guided by the powers of the mind. It is the management and development of the mind potential which is the aim of yoga, according to classical scriptures.
Maharishi Patanjali, who codified raja yoga, represents a tradition of the Indian civilization in which yoga had already come to its apex. Yoga was well known to everybody, and therefore the teachings of Maharishi Patanjali are in the form of sutras, small sentences, not in the form of books, scriptures or essays. These sutras or statements indicate that the knowledge of people of that time was such that just by being given a hint they would understand.
What is yoga? Atha yoga anushasanam – instruction and guide lines on yoga, disciplines that can be followed, implemented and incorporated. What is the outcome of these disciplines? Yogaschitta vritti nirodhah – attainment of mental balance. What happens after you attain inner, mental balance? Tadaa drashtuh svaroope’vasthaanam – then you realize your true nature. These three statements of yoga are the most important and crucial statements which define the entire philosophy, theory and practice of raja yoga. If the mind is not stimulated, focused, concentrated and made positive, it will fall into negative traps which come through association with the outside world.
What are the negative traps? There is a beautiful statement in the Bhagavad Gita which explains (2:62–63):
Dhyaayato vishayaanpumsah sangasteshoopajaayate;
Sangaat sanjaayate kaamah kaamaatkrodho'bhijaayate.
When a man thinks of the objects, attachment to them arises;
from attachment desire is born; from desire anger arises. (62)Krodhaadbhavati sammohah sammohaatsmritivibhramah;
Smritibhramshaad buddhinaasho buddhinaashaatpranashyati.
From anger comes delusion; from delusion the loss of memory;
from loss of memory the destruction of discrimination;
from the destruction of discrimination he perishes. (63)
The Bhagavad Gita explains the relationship of the individual with the world of objects, and what the association with the object creates within you. It creates a craving, desire, it creates a like. That desire becomes your goal which you try to attain. You struggle and make an effort to attain that desire to fulfil your ambitions and aspirations. When there is difficulty in achieving what you have aspired for, frustration sets in. When frustration sets in, the aggressive nature manifests and then you lose your clarity of mind. This description of the mental state of the individual in relation to the outer world is the most clear description.
When you live in the world, you cannot live without establishing a relationship with the objects of the world; even if you are a renunciate, you also have to live in the world and establish a relationship. When that relationship is established, emotions, hopes, expectations get fused and thoughts are fused with it. With these thoughts comes the colour of expectations, a disease of humanity that no one has ever been able to end. You have expectations from your elders, those younger to you, from your husband, wife, children, friends, acquaintances; you live with expectations from everyone.
When these expectations are not met, you are sad, distressed, disturbed, excited, angry. The mind is confused and this is called stress. When mental states, frustration, restlessness or excitement influence your thoughts and behaviour, the mind is filled with negativity, envy, dislike, disgust, greed. These are considered negative traits. If they enter your life, what will happen to your character, personality and mentality? When the mind is caught up in external objects, you have to endure the influence of those objects. This becomes the reason for the negative state of mind, and the negative state of life, the distress in your life. According to yoga, if you can recognize the restrictions and limitations of your life and want to make an attempt to find satisfaction, contentment, happiness and peace, you will have to fine-tune your own mental states, behaviours and thoughts, the weeds of your mind. Removing the weeds from the garden of life is the process of yoga. Here yoga begins.
If you look at the classical scriptures of yoga, the practice of yoga does not begin with asana or dhyana. In his ashtanga system of yoga, Patanjali defined it clearly: start with yama and niyama. In the Yoga Sutras Patanjali defined eight stages of yoga: yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana and samadhi. In this sequence, it is clear that the mental modification, the fine-tuning of your personality begins when you start to practise the yamas and niyamas. Health is attained when you practise asanas. Vitality is generated when you practise pranayama. The mind is brought under control when you practise pratyahara. You train your mind to become focused and one-pointed when you practise dharana.
To change the basic quality and nature of the mind, to remove the weeds from the mind, you have to start with the practice of yamas and niyamas which rectify the negative traits of human personality. This is the system of yoga that the seers of the past have seen as a means to learn how to deal with the mind which is interacting with the outer world.
The first method in mind control is to regulate the material, external relationships and behaviours, for which yoga teaches the yamas. Until these external relationships are regulated, envy, disgust, dislike, desire, anger, crookedness, fraudulence and greed will certainly be expressed in life. Therefore, the concept of fine-tuning is that you are aware of the behaviour of the mind, and slowly try to develop its positive traits.
You are searching for whatever is good in life – and you can bring about the expression of that goodness in life. There is nothing in that search that you can get only externally. When the search is complete, there is satiation – the mind, the heart, the spirit is satiated. Until the search is complete, there is no satiation. Somewhere there is a thought ‘I want to continue this search.’ The qualities that you search for and desire in life lie within you, only under the influence of tamas you are not able to express them.
Where there is talk of love, selfishness enters; where there is talk of learning, selfishness is there; where there is talk of treatment, there too is selfishness. In other words, everyone is inundated with selfishness, and it is this selfishness that troubles everyone. You need to modify this selfishness a little and how do you do that? There is an easy way that you can practise in your daily lives.
Every night, when you go to bed, do something before falling off to sleep and that will be your yoga. Visualize everything that happened to you during the day. What did you do when you woke up in the morning, whose face did you see first, what did you do first, what did you eat for breakfast, what did you drink, who did you talk to and about what, what did you read in the newspaper, what impressed you, what did you ignore? Revisit your day on your mental screen, and contemplate: if the same situation, person, opportunity or event were to occur again, how would you deal with them in a better way. You have an argument with someone, and you come back home in anger, and that same anger goes to bed with you. You cannot sleep, and your subconscious mind has to deal with the same anger when you are asleep. You get up the next morning with an angry state of the mind, with the same emotion, for you cannot accept and release it. For good physical or mental health, it is essential that you release it.
You eat food and take the necessary energy from it, and the waste matter is expelled, it doesn’t stay inside. If the waste matter stays in the body, then the toxins increase, you will have constipation, indigestion, gas. Therefore, just as it is necessary to expel poisonous matter from the body, in the same way it is necessary to expel the negative elements from the mind. The emotion with which you go to sleep, the thought and situation that you carry with you, is breeding a special tension in your subconscious mind: it is breeding stress.
It is also related to your work-efficiency, as it beats your mental and intellectual talent. When you revisit the events of the day at night, you can learn from them, namely that there could have been another way of dealing with the same situation. If you can do this every day, for one month, two months, three months, you will see that there is change in your thinking, behaviour and responses. This is called yoga.
In India too people have begun to consider yoga a physical science only. This is wrong. Yoga is not a physical science, it is a life science, it is a way to excel in life. Therefore, do not think that meditation, doing asanas and thinking good thought is yoga. No. These can be different parts of yoga, the same way that your body is made up of different nerves and cells. Which one of them is important, which is secondary? None. Whatever part causes sickness becomes important. If you have an upset stomach, then you treat that, and that is what is important to you. If your mind is upset, you treat your mind, and that becomes important to you. Whichever part of the body is diseased becomes important for you. There is nothing like primary, secondary; everything has its own function.
If you see yoga as a life science, then asanas play a small part in it. One-tenth of yoga is asana, not more, and five percent is pranayama. Yoga is an immensely vast science, which can influence every dimension of the personality. Therefore, if at night before going to sleep, you try to remove stress and anger from your mind, then that too is an exercise of yoga. You have to believe in it. If we are able to remove despondency and tension, we are yogis. Until we are able to do so, we are bhogis with our happiness, sadness, likes, dislikes, disgust, greed – everything is there. Therefore, at night, all of you do an analysis of your day; analyse every interaction that you had, your every behaviour. Watch as you watch a movie on a screen, the same way, objectively. Observe the events that happened to you during the day and try to find a better way to deal with that situation or event the next time it happens in your life. The next time it happens to you, if you remember, your responses will be different and you will be less affected by the stresses, pains, sufferings, dissatisfactions and frustrations.
Our guru, Swami Satyananda has always said, especially to his sannyasins, that there are no simple solutions in life, only intelligent choices. There are never any easy solutions, yet for anything in the world there are various possibilities from which you have to choose one. That possibility should be proper and befitting for you, and to search for it you have to remain aware. You can bring this awareness into your life through meditation.
The process which takes you towards salvation is not meditation, yet the process that can make you aware of yourself is. Meditation begins from awareness of yourself. How do you become aware of yourself? You should know what you did, you should know whatever you are doing, you should have control over what you want to do. You can achieve this condition through the practice of the review of the day, your self-analysis. From there you achieve fine-tuning of yourself. When you begin to analyse and see your reactions, you also spot your weaknesses.
You have to realize that you, in one way or the other, express your strengths and weaknesses in life. You follow principles and these principles govern your life, moment to moment. What are these principles? Strength governs and controls your life, weaknesses, ambitions and needs control your life.
Strength and weakness are together, for one weakness can be overcome by cultivating an appropriate strength and quality. Often you ignore the strength and identify with the weakness, and when you identify with the weakness you do not know how to respond or act since you have identified with the weaker component of your nature, not the stronger component of your personality.
Similarly, needs and ambitions go hand in hand for many a time, you confuse your ambition to be your need, and your need to be your ambition. When there is no discrimination between the two, you do not know how to prioritize your life. Sometimes, you are chasing your ambition, thinking it to be your need, and sometimes, ignoring your ambition, thinking it is not a need. There has to be proper cultivation of wisdom which will happen in this meditative process analysing your strengths, weaknesses, ambitions and needs and observing yourself interacting and responding in normal situations. You are the person who has to face the environment of society and deal with every situation. Therefore, it is important that you devote ten minutes to this practice of self-observation and modification of your mental behaviour. This is the beginning of your yogic journey, which leads you to cultivating the positive qualities of life.
For this reason, be a farmer, plant and protect the right seeds. You have to develop the courage to live your life the way you want to, with conviction, faith and strength. The system of yoga provides you with these opportunities. If you are able to understand and adopt yoga in your life routine, definitely the human personality will be transformed. There is no doubt about it, yet you have to have that attitude and bent of mind in which you are able to realize and balance the material and internal dimension at the same time. You need to have that particular aspiration.
Begin your yoga at night by observing the events of the day, try to be aware of the decisions and thoughts that come to you at night when you are thinking about the situations. In this way, the quality of your mind will change. It will become more creative, positive, optimistic. It is the optimistic positive mind which progresses, not the pessimistic restrictive mind. If you can control your desires, the superior qualities of life manifest in your behaviour and thoughts, and society will be inspired by those. This is the teaching of yoga.
5 August 2005, Ramjas College, Delhi