Samprajnata samadhi is the samadhi that is accompanied by reasoning, reflection, bliss and a sense of pure being.
In asamprajnata samadhi there is a cessation of all mental activity, and the mind only retains unmanifested impressions.
Videhas and prakriti-layas attain asamprajnata samadhi because they ceased to identify themselves with their bodies in their previous life. The take rebirth because seeds of desire remained.
Others who attain asamprajnata samadhi attain through faith, effort, recollection, concentration and discrimination.
Patanjali is the greatest scientist of the inner. His approach is that of a scientific mind: he is not a poet. And in that way, he is very rare, because those who enter into the inner world are almost always poets, those who enter into the outer world are always almost scientists.
Patanjali is a rare flower. He has a scientific mind, but his journey is inner. That’s why he became the first and the last word: he is the alpha and the omega. For five thousand years nobody could improve upon him. It seems he cannot be improved upon. He will remain the last word – because the very combination is impossible. To have a scientific attitude and to enter into the inner is almost an impossible possibility. He talks like a mathematician, a logician. He talks like Aristotle and he is a Heraclitus.
Try to understand his each word. It will be difficult: it will be difficult because his terms will be those of logic, reasoning, but his indication is towards love, towards ecstasy, towards God. His terminology is that of the man who works in a scientific lab, but his lab is of the inner being. So don’t be misguided by his terminology, and retain the feeling that he is a mathematician of the ultimate poetry. He is a paradox, but he never uses paradoxical language. He cannot. He retains to the very firm logical background. He analyzes, dissects, but his aim is synthesis. He analyzes only to synthesize.
So always remember the goal – don’t be misguided by the path – reaching to the ultimate through a scientific approach. That’s why Patanjali has impressed the western mind very much. Patanjali has always been an influence. Wherever his name has reached, he has been an influence because you can understand him easily; but to understand him is not enough. To understand him is as easy as to understand an Einstein. He talks to the intellect, but his aim, his target, is the heart. This you have to remember.
We will be moving on a dangerous terrain. If you forget that he is a poet also, you will be misguided. Then you become too much attached to his terminology, language, reasoning, and you forget his goal. He wants you to go beyond reasoning, but through reasoning. That is a possibility. You can exhaust reasoning so deeply that you transcend. You go through reasoning; you don’t avoid it. You use reason to go beyond it as a step. Now listen to his words. Each word has to be analyzed.
Samprajnata samadhi is the samadhi that is accompanied by reasoning, reflection, bliss and a sense of pure being.
He divides samadhi, the ultimate, in two steps. The ultimate cannot be divided. It is indivisible, and there are no steps, in fact. But just to help the mind, the seeker, he divides it first into two. The first step he calls samprajnata samadhi – A samadhi in which mind is retained in its purity.
This first step, mind has to be refined and purified. You simply cannot drop it, Patanjali says – it is impossible to drop it because impurities have a tendency to cling. You can drop only when the mind is absolutely pure – so refined, so subtle, that it has no tendency to cling.
He does not say “Drop the mind,” as Zen Masters say. He says that is impossible; you are talking nonsense. You are saying the truth, but that’s not possible because an impure mind has a weight. Like a stone, it hangs. And an impure mind has desires – millions of desires, unfulfilled, hankering to be fulfilled, asking to be fulfilled, millions of thoughts incomplete in it. How can you drop? – because the incomplete always tries to be completed.
Remember, says Patanjali, you can drop a thing only when it is complete. Have you watched? If you are a painter and you are painting, unless the painting becomes complete you cannot forget it. It continues, haunts you. You cannot sleep well; it is there. In the mind it has an undercurrent. It moves; it asks to be completed. Once it is completed, it is finished. You can forget about it. Mind has a tendency towards completion. Mind is a perfectionist, and so whatsoever is incomplete is a tension on the mind. Patanjali says you cannot drop thinking unless thinking is so perfect that now there is nothing to be done about it. You can simply drop it and forget.
This is completely the diametrically opposite way from Zen, from Heraclitus. First samadhi, which is samadhi only for name’s sake, is samprajnata – samadhi with a subtle purified mind. Second samadhi is asamprajnata – samadhi with no mind. But Patanjali says that when the mind disappears, then too there are no thoughts, then, too, subtle seeds of the past are retained by the unconscious.
The conscious mind is divided in two. First, samprajnata – mind with purified state, just like purified butter. It has a beauty of its own, but it is there. And howsoever beautiful, mind is ugly. Howsoever pure and silent, the very phenomenon of mind is impure. You cannot purify a poison. It remains poison. On the contrary, the more you purify it, the more poisonous it becomes. It may look very, very beautiful. It may have its own color, shades, but it is still impure.
First you purify; then you drop. But then too the journey is not complete because this is all in the conscious mind. What you will do with the unconscious? Just behind the layers of the conscious mind is a vast continent of unconscious. There are seeds of all your past lives in the unconscious.
Then Patanjali divides the unconscious into two. He says sabeej samadhi – when the unconscious is there and mind has been dropped consciously, it is a samadhi with seeds – sabeej. When those seeds are also burned, then you attain the perfect – the nirbeej samadhi: samadhi without seeds.
So conscious into two steps, then unconscious into two steps. And when nirbeej samadhi, the ultimate ecstasy, without any seeds within you to sprout and to flower and to take you on further journeys into existence . . . then you disappear.
In these sutras he says,
Samprajnata samadhi is the samadhi that is accompanied by reasoning, reflection, bliss and a sense of pure being.
But this is the first step; many are misguided – they think this is the last because it is so pure and you feel so blissful and so happy that you think that now nothing is there to be achieved more. If you ask Patanjali, he will say the satori of the Zen is just the first samadhi. It is not the final, the ultimate; ultimate is still far away.
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; the very possibility is denied. Somebody is deceiving. […]
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. 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 vitarka – 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.
Or, on a sunny morning, near the Himalayas, for a moment you can have the glimpse of the Gourishankar – the highest peak. But then there is mist, and then there are clouds, and the peak is lost. This is satori. That’s why never try to translate satori as samadhi. Satori is a glimpse. Much has to be done after it is attained. In fact, the real work starts after the first satori, first glimpse, because then you have tasted of the infinite. Now a real authentic search starts. Before it, it was just so-so, lukewarm, because you were not really confident, certain, what you are doing, where you are going, what is happening.
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. […]
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 loneliness, and the total loneliness, 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.
In asamprajnata samadhi there is a cessation of all mental activity, and the mind only retains unmanifested impressions.
Samprajnata samadhi is the first step. Right reasoning, right reflection, a state of bliss, a glimpse of bliss, and a feeling of am-ness – pure simple existence without any ego in it – this leads to asamprajnata samadhi. First is a purity; second is a disappearance because even the purest is impure because it is there. “I” is wrong; “am” is also wrong – better than “I”, but a higher possibility is there when “am” also disappears – not only ahankar, but asmita also. You are impure; then you become pure. But if you start feeling that “I am pure,” purity itself has become impurity. That too has to disappear.
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.
In asamprajnata samadhi there is a cessation of all mental activity, and the mind only retains unmanifested impressions.
But still, it is not the goal – because what will happen to all your impressions that you have gathered in the past? Many, many lives you have lived, acted, reacted. You have done many things, undone many things. What will happen to it? Conscious mind has become pure; conscious mind has dropped even the activity of purity. But the unconscious is vast and there you carry all the seeds, the blueprints. They are within you.
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-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.
A Buddha is a perfect dropout; a Mahavira, a Patanjali, is a perfect drop-out. They have not dropped out of the establishment or the society. They have dropped out of the very wheel of life and death. But that happens only when all the seeds are burned. The final is nirbeej samadhi – seedless.
In asamprajnata samadhi there is a cessation of all mental activity, and the mind only retains unmanifested impressions.
Videhas and prakriti-layas attain asamprajnata samadhi because they ceased to identify themselves with their bodies in their previous life. The take rebirth because seeds of desire remained.
Even a Buddha is born. In his past life he attained to asamprajnata samadhi, but the seeds were there. He had to come once more. Even a Mahavira is born – once – the seeds bring him. But this is going to be the last life. After asamprajnata samadhi, only one life is possible. But then the quality of the life will be totally different because this man will not be identified with the body. And this man really has nothing to do because the activity of the mind has ceased. Then what he will do? For what this one life is needed? He has just to allow those seeds to be manifested, and he will remain a witness. This is the fire. […]
In this life when a videha – one who has understood that he is not the body, who has attained asamprajnata samadhi – comes in the world just to finish accounts… His whole life consists of finishing accounts; millions of lives, many relationships, many involvements, commitments – everything has to be closed. […]
A videha or a prakriti-laya: both words are beautiful. Videha means bodiless. When you attain to asamprajnata samadhi the body is there, but you become bodiless. You are no more the body. The body becomes the abode, you are not identified.
So these two terms are beautiful. Videha means one who knows that he is not the body – knows, remember – not believes. And prakriti-laya, because one who knows that he is not the body, he is no more the prakriti – the nature.
Body belongs to the material. Once you are not identified with the matter in you, you are not identified with the matter without, outside. A man who attains that he is no more the body, that he is no more the manifested – the prakriti – his nature is dissolved. There is no more world for him; he is not identified. He has become a witness to it. Such a man is also born once at least because he has to close many accounts, many promises to be fulfilled, many karmas to be dropped.
It happened that Buddha’s cousin, Devadatta, was against him. He tried to kill him in many ways. When Buddha was waiting under a tree meditating, he rolled down a big rock from the hill. The rock was coming; everybody ran away. Buddha remained there sitting under the tree. It was dangerous, and the rock came just touching him, brushing him. Ananda asked him, “Why didn’t you escape when we were all escaping? There was time enough.”
Buddha says, “For you there is time enough. My time is over. And Devadatta has to do it. Some time back in some life there was some karma. I must have given him some pain, some anguish, some anxiety. It has to be closed. If I escape, if I do anything, again a new line starts.”
A videha, a man who has attained to asamprajnata, does not react. He simply watches, witnesses. And this is the fire of witnessing which burns all the seeds in the unconscious. And a moment comes when the soil is absolutely pure. There is no seed waiting to sprout. Then there is no need to come back. First the nature dissolves, and then he dissolves himself into the universe.
Videhas and prakriti-layas attain asamprajnata samadhi because they ceased to identify themselves with their bodies in their previous life. The take rebirth because seeds of desire remained.
I am here to fulfill something; you are here to close my account. You are here not accidentally. There are millions of people in the world. Why you are here, and not somebody else? Something has to be closed.
Others who attain asamprajnata samadhi attain through faith, effort, recollection, concentration and discrimination.
So these are the two possibilities. If you have attained to asamprajnata samadhi in your past life, in this life you are born a Buddha – just a few seeds which have to be fulfilled, which have to be dropped, burned – almost. That’s why I say you are born almost a Buddha. There is no need for you to do anything; you have simply to watch whatsoever happens.
Hence, Krishnamurti’s continuous insistence that there is no need to do anything. It is right for him; it is not right for his listeners. For his listeners, there is much to be done, and they will be misguided by this statement. He is speaking about himself. He was born an asamprajnata Buddha. He was born a videha; he was born a prakriti-laya. […]
He is a passivity. Much can happen through him, but that can happen only if somebody comes and surrenders to him. Because he is a passivity, he cannot force you to do something. He is available, but he cannot be aggressive.
His invitation is for everybody and all. It is an open invitation, but he cannot send you an invitation in particular, because he cannot be active. He is an open door; if you like, you can pass. The last life is an absolute passivity, just witnessing. This is one way how asamprajnata Buddhas are born from their past life.
But you can become an asamprajnata Buddha in this life also. For them Patanjali says,
Shraddha virya smriti samadhi prajna: Others who attain asamprajnata samadhi attain through faith, effort, recollection, concentration and discrimination.
It is almost impossible to translate it, so I will explain rather than translate, just to give you the feel, because words will misguide you.
Shraddha is not exactly faith. It is more like trust. Trust is very, very different from faith. Faith is something you are born in; trust is something you grow in. Hinduism is a faith; to be a Christian is a faith; to be a Mohammedan is a faith. But lo be a disciple here with me is a trust. I cannot claim faith – remember. Jesus also could not claim faith because faith is something you are born in. Jews were faithful; they had faith. And, in fact, that is why they destroyed Jesus: because they thought that he was bringing them out of their faith, destroying their faith.
He was asking for trust. Trust is a personal intimacy; it is not a social phenomenon. You attain to it through your own response. Nobody can be born in trust; in faith, okay. Faith is dead trust; trust is alive faith. So try to understand the distinction.
Shraddha – trust – one has to grow in. And it is always personal. The first disciples of Jesus attained to trust. They were Jews, born Jews. They moved out of their faith. It is a rebellion. Faith is a superstition; trust is a rebellion. Trust first leads you away from your faith. It has to be so, because if you are living in a dead graveyard, then you have to be led out of it first. Only then you can be introduced to life again. Jesus was trying to bring people towards shraddha, trust. It will always look as if he is destroying their faith. […]
With birth how religion is associated? Birth cannot give you religion; it can give you a society, a creed, a sect; it can give you a superstition. The word “superstition” is very, very meaningful. It means “unnecessary faith”. The word “super” means unnecessary, superfluous – faith which has become unnecessary, faith which has become dead; sometimes it may have been alive. Religion has to be born again and again.
Remember, you are not born in a religion, religion has to be born in you. Then it is trust. Again and again. You cannot give your children your religion. They will have to seek and find their own. Everybody has to seek and find his own. It is adventure – the greatest adventure. You move into the unknown. shraddha, Patanjali says, is the first thing, if you want to attain asamprajnata samadhi. For samprajnata samadhi, reasoning, right reasoning. See the distinction? For samprajnata samadhi, right reasoning, right thinking are the base; for asamprajnata samadhi, right trust – not reasoning.
No reasoning – a love. And love is blind. It looks blind to the reasoning because it is a jump into the dark. The reason asks, “Where are you going? Remain in the known territory. And what is the use to move to a new phenomenon? Why not remain in the old fold? It is convenient, comfortable, and whatsoever you need; it can supply.” But everybody has to find his own temple. Only then it is alive. […]
Don’t take religion from somebody else. You cannot borrow it; it is a deception. You are getting it without paying for it, and everything has to be paid. And it is not cheap to attain to asamprajnata samadhi. You have to pay the full cost, and the full cost is your total being. […]
Shraddha, trust, is the first door, second is virya. That too is difficult. It is translated as effort. No, effort is simply a part of it. The word virya means many things, but deep down it means bio-energy. One of the meanings of virya is semen, the sexual potency. If you really want to translate it exactly, virya is bio-energy, your total energy phenomenon – you as energy. Of course, this energy can be brought only through effort; hence, one of the meanings is “effort”.
But that is poor – not so rich as the word virya. Virya means that your total energy has to be brought into it. Only mind won’t do. You can say yes from the mind that will not be enough. Your totality, without holding anything back: that is the meaning of virya. And that is possible only when there is trust. Otherwise you will hold something, just to be secure, safe, because, “This man may be leading somewhere wrong, so we can step back any moment. In a moment we can say ‘Enough is enough; now no more.’”
You hold back a part of you just to be watchful, where this man is leading. People come to me and they say, “We are watching. Let us first watch what is happening.” They are very clever – clever fools – because these things cannot be watched from the outside. What is happening is an inner phenomenon. Even you cannot see to whom it is happening many times. Many times only I can see what is happening. You become aware only later on, what has happened. […]
Clever people never want to be committed, but is there any life without commitment? But clever people think commitment is a bondage. But is there any freedom without bondage? First you have to move in a relationship, only then you can go beyond it. First you have to move in a deep commitment, depth to depth, heart to heart, and only then you can transcend it. There is no other way. If you just move out and watch, you can never enter into the shrine – the shrine is commitment. And then there can be no relationship.
A Master and disciple is a love relationship, the highest love that is possible. Unless the relationship is there, you cannot grow. Says Patanjali, “The first is trust – shraddha – and second is energy – effort.” Your whole energy has to be brought in; part won’t do. It may even be destructive if you come only partially in and remain partially out, because that will become a rift within you. It will create a tension within you; it will become an anxiety rather than bliss.
Bliss is where you are in your totality; anxiety is where you are only in part, because then you are divided and there is a tension, and the two parts going separate ways. Then you are in a difficulty.
Others who attain asamprajnata samadhi attain through faith, effort, recollection, concentration and discrimination.
This word recollection is smriti: it is remembrance – what Gurdjieff calls self-remembering. That is smriti.
You don’t remember yourself. You may remember millions of things, but you go on continuously forgetting yourself, that you are. Gurdjieff had a technique. He got it from Patanjali. And, in fact, all techniques come from Patanjali. He is the past Master of techniques. smriti, remembrance – self-remembering – whatsoever you do. You are walking: remember deep down that “I am walking, I am.” Don’t be lost in walking. Walking is there – the movement, the activity – and the inner center is there, just aware, watching, witnessing.
You need not repeat it in the mind, “I am walking.” If you repeat, that is not remembrance. You have to be non-verbally aware that “I am walking, I am eating, I am talking, I am listening.” Whatsoever you do, the “I” inside should not be forgotten; it should remain. It is not self-consciousness. It is consciousness of the self. Self-consciousness is ego; consciousness of the self is asmita – purity, just being aware that “I am.”
Ordinarily, your consciousness is arrowed towards the object. You look at me: your whole consciousness is moving towards me like an arrow. But you are arrowed towards me. Self-remembering means you must have a double-arrowed arrow, one side of it showing to me, another side showing to you. A double-arrowed arrow is smriti – self-remembrance.
Very difficult, because it is easy to remember the object and forget yourself. The opposite is also easy – to remember yourself and forget the object. Both are easy; that’s why those who are in the market, in the world, and those who are in the monastery, out of the world, are the same. Both are single-arrowed. In the market they are looking at the things, objects. In the monastery they are looking at themselves.
Smriti is neither in the market nor in the monastery. smriti is a phenomenon of self-remembering, when subject and object both are together in consciousness. That is the most difficult thing in the world. Even if you can attain for a single moment, a split moment, you will have the glimpse of satori immediately. Immediately you have moved out of the body, somewhere else.
Try it. But, remember, if you don’t have trust it will become a tension. These are the problems involved. It will become such a tension you can go mad, because it is a very tense state. That’s why it is difficult to remember both – the object and the subject, the outer and the inner. To remember both is very, very arduous. If there is trust, that trust will bring the tension down because trust is love. It will soothe you; it will be a soothing force around you. Otherwise the tension can become so much, you will not be able to sleep. You will not be able to be at peace any moment because it will be a constant problem. And you will be just in anxiety continuously.
That’s why we can do one: that’s easy. Go to the monastery, close your eyes, remember yourself, forget the world. But what you are doing? You have simply reversed the whole process, nothing else. No change. Or, forget these monasteries and these temples and these Masters, and be in the world, enjoy the world. That too is easy. The difficult thing is to be conscious of the both. And when you are conscious of the both and the energy is simultaneously aware, arrowed in the diametrically opposite dimensions, there is a transcendence. You simply become the third: you become the witness of both. And when the third enters, first you try to see the object and yourself. But if you try to see both, by and by, by and by, you feel something is happening within you – because you are becoming a third: you are between the two, the object and the subject. You are neither the object nor the subject now.
Attain through faith, effort, recollection, concentration and discrimination.
Shraddha, trust, virya, total commitment, total effort, total energy has to be brought in; all your potentiality has to be brought in. If you are really a seeker after truth, you cannot seek anything else. It is a complete involvement. You cannot make it a part-time job and that, “Sometimes in the morning I meditate and then I go.” No, meditation has to become your twenty-four-hours continuity for you. Whatsoever you do, meditation has to be there in the background continuously. Energy will be needed: your whole energy will be needed.
And now, few things. If your whole energy is needed, sex disappears automatically because you don’t have energy to waste. brahmacharya for Patanjali is not a discipline, it is a consequence. You put your total energy so you don’t have any energy . . . and it happens in ordinary life also. You can see a great painter: he forgets women completely. When he is painting there is no sex in his mind, because the whole energy is moving. You don’t have any extra energy.
A great poet, a great singer, a dancer who is moving totally in his commitment, automatically becomes celibate. He has no discipline for it. Sex is superfluous energy; sex is a safety valve. When you have too much in you and you cannot do anything with it, the nature has made a safety valve; you can throw it out. You can release it, otherwise you will go mad or burst – explode. And if you try to suppress it, then too you will go mad, because suppressing it won’t help. It needs a transformation, and that transformation comes from total commitment. A warrior, if he is really a warrior – an impeccable warrior, will be beyond sex. His whole energy is moving. […]
It is possible, if you are involved totally, sex disappears because sex is a safety valve. When you have energy unused, then sex becomes a haunting thing around you. When total energy is used, sex disappears. And that is the state of brahmacharya, of virya, of all your potential energy flowering.
Effort, recollection, concentration and discrimination:
Shraddha – trust; virya – your total bio-energy, your total commitment and effort; smriti – self-remembrance; and samadhi. Samadhi word means a state of mind where no problem exists. It comes from the word samadhan – a state of mind when you feel absolutely okay, no problem, no question, a non-questioning, non-problematic state of mind. It is not concentration. Concentration is just a quality that comes to the mind who is without problems. That is the difficulty to translate.
Concentration is part – it happens. Look at a child who is absorbed in his play; he has a concentration without any effort. He is not concentrating on his play. Concentration is a by-product. He is so absorbed in the play that the concentration happens. If you concentrate knowingly on something, then there is effort, then there is tension, then you will be tired.
Samadhi happens automatically, spontaneously, if you are absorbed. If you are listening to me, it is a samadhi. If you listen to me totally, there is no need for any other meditation. It becomes a concentration. It is not that you concentrate – if you listen lovingly, concentration follows.
In asamprajnata samadhi, when trust is complete, when effort is total, when remembrance is deep, samadhi happens. Whatsoever you do, you do with total concentration – without any effort to do the concentration. And if concentration needs effort, it is ugly. It will be like a disease on you; you will be destroyed by it. Concentration should be a consequence. You love a person, and just being with him, you are concentrated. Remember never to concentrate on anything. Rather, listen deeply, listen totally, and you will have a concentration coming by itself.
And discrimination – prajna. Prajna is not discrimination; discrimination is again a part of prajna. Prajna means in fact wisdom – a knowing awareness. Buddha has said that when the flame of meditation burns high, the light that surrounds that flame is prajna. Samadhi inside, and then all around you a light, an aura, follows you. In your every act you are wise; not that you are trying to be wise, it simply happens because you are so totally aware. Whatsoever you do it happens to be wise – not that you are continuously thinking to do the right thing.
A man who is continuously thinking to do the right thing, he will not be able to do anything – even the wrong he will not be able to do, because this will become such a tension on his mind. And what is right and what is wrong? How you can decide? A man of wisdom, a man of understanding, does not choose. He simply feels. He simply throws his awareness everywhere, and in that light he moves. Wherever he moves is right.
Right does not belong to things; it belongs to you – the one who is moving. It is not that Buddha did right things – no! Whatsoever he did was right. Discrimination is a poor word. A man of understanding has discrimination. He doesn’t think about it; just it is easy for him. If you want to get out of this room, you simply move out of the door. You don’t grope. You don’t first go to the wall and try to find the way. You simply go out. You don’t even think that this is the door. […]
When understanding flowers, when the flame is there, you simply see and everything is clear. When you have an inner clarity, everything is clear; you become perceptive. Whatsoever you do is simply right. Not that it is right so you do it; you do it with understanding, and it is right.
Shraddha, virya, smriti, samadhi, prajna. Others who attain asamprajnata samadhi attain through trust, infinite energy, effort, total self-remembrance, a non-questioning mind and a flame of understanding.
-Osho
From The Heart of Yoga; Yoga: The Science of the Soul, V.2, Discourse #1 (previously published as Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, V.2).
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