Tag: pratyahar

Returning to the Source – Osho

Then comes the dispersion of the cover that hides the light.

And then the mind becomes fit for concentration.

The fifth constituent of yoga, pratyahar — returning to the source — is the restoration of the mind’s ability to control the senses by renouncing the distractions of outside objects.

Then comes the complete mastery over all the senses.

-Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras

“Man is being abolished,” says C. S. Lewis. “Good riddance,” says B. F. Skinner. “How like a god,” says Shakespeare’s Hamlet about man. “How like a dog,” says Pavlov. The trouble is that man is both — godlike, doglike, both. If man was a unity — doglike or godlike — there would have been no problem. The problem arises because man is a paradox: on the surface, worse than any dog; at the center, glorious, more glorious than any god.

If you look at man just from the outside, you cannot say that if man is being abolished there is some harm — “It is good, good riddance.” Skinner is right. The earth will be better; at least, more silent. Nature will be happier. But if you look at man deeply, in his infinite depth, then without man the earth may be silent, but that silence will be dead. It will not have any music in it. It will not have any depth in it. Flowers will be there, but they will not be beautiful anymore. Who will feel their beauty? Who will know their beauty? Birds will go on singing, but who will call the singing poetic, mysterious? Trees will be green but, at the same time, will not be green because that greenery has to be recognized by a deep resonance of the human heart.

With man, appreciation will disappear. With man, prayer will disappear. With man, God will disappear. The earth will be there, but ungodly. The silence, but the silence of the cemetery. The silence will not be throbbing with the heart. It may be spread all over the earth, it may have expansion, but it will miss depth — and a silence without depth is no longer silence. The world will be profane; it won’t be sacred anymore.

Man creates the holy because deep hidden behind man is the holy. Man cannot live without temples, without churches, without mosques because man himself is a temple. He goes on creating temples — even atheists create temples. Look at the temple of the Kremlin. Communists passing before the Kremlin or before the mausoleum of Lenin are as worshipful as any theist worshipping any other god. Man cannot live without a god because deep down he is a god.

The problem, the trouble, arises because man is both: a bridge stretched between two eternities — between matter and mind, between this world and that, between the profane and the sacred, between life and death. That’s the beauty also: with the mystery, with the paradox, man is not only a puzzle, he also becomes a mystery.

What to do? If you settle with Pavlov and his disciple B.F. Skinner, you have settled without knowing man, without understanding man, without even making an effort to know him. If you settle too soon with Buddha, Mahavir, Krishna, Christ, Patanjali, if your acceptance is immature, then that “man is a god” will remain a belief; it can never become a faith. If you are in a hurry to be settled with anything, then you will miss. A deep patience is needed to know man.

And there is no way to know man objectively. If you try to know man objectively, as a scientist is tempted to, you will commit the mistake of Pavlov — man will look like a dog. The only way to know man is to know the man who is within you. The only way to come face to face with man is to encounter yourself.

You are carrying a tremendous energy within you. Unless you are acquainted with it you will not be able to see and know it outside in others. Remember this as a criterion: that as much as you know yourself, only that much can you know the other. Not a bit more, no — impossible. The knower must be known first; only then can the mystery of the known be penetrated. You must know your depth; only then your eyes become attuned to know the depth of the others.

If you remain on the surface of your being then the whole existence will remain just the surface. If you think that you are only a wave on the ocean, and you have not known the ocean at all, all other waves will remain waves. Once you have a look within your being and you become the ocean — you have been the ocean, you come to know it — all other waves have disappeared: now it is only the ocean waving. Now behind every wave — beautiful, ugly, small, big, it doesn’t matter — the same ocean exists.

Yoga is a method to come to terms with the innermost depth of your own being, the subjectivity of your soul. It is infinite: you enter into it, but you never come to a point where you can say, “I have known all.” You go on and on and on . . . It is infinite. You can be deeply in it, but still, much always remains. That point never comes when you can say, “Now I have come to the boundary.” In fact, boundaries don’t exist. They don’t exist in the universe. Outside there are no boundaries; existence is infinite. They don’t exist within your subjectivity. Boundaries are always false. [The] deeper you go, the unboundage opens more and more.

But once you have fallen in it, once you have flown in it . . . now you know. Now the small disappears, the bounded disappears, the limited disappears. Now you look into anybody’s eyes and you know the infinite waiting there. Love, for the first time, becomes possible. Love is possible only when you have known your depth. Only gods love, and only gods can love. Dogs can only fight; even in the name of love they will fight. And if gods fight, even in their fight they love; otherwise is not possible.

When you have come to know your being as divine, the whole existence immediately is transfigured. It is no longer the old existence, the stale, the day-to-day, the ordinary. No, nothing ordinary exists after that; everything takes the color of extraordinariness, of a superb glory. Ordinary pebbles become diamonds — they are. Every leaf becomes alive with tremendous life hidden behind it, within it, below it, beyond it. The whole existence becomes divine. The moment you know you are god, you only know God everywhere. That is the only way to know.

The whole yoga is a methodology: how to uncover it which is so hidden, how to open the doors within yourself, how to enter the temple that you are, how to discover yourself. You are there, you have been there from the very beginning, but you have not discovered it. The treasure is carried by you every moment. Every breath you take in or out, the treasure is there. You may not be aware, but you have never missed it. You may be completely oblivious, but you have never lost it. You may have forgotten it completely, but there is no way to lose it — because you are it.

So the only question is: how to discover it. It is covered; many layers of ignorance cover it. Yoga tries step by step, slowly, to penetrate the inner mystery. In eight steps yoga completes the discovery. The beginning steps are called bahirang yoga, the yoga of the outside: yam, niyam, asan, pranayam, pratyahar — these five steps are known as the yoga of the outside. The following three, the last three — dharana, dhyan, samadhi — are known as antarang, the yoga of the inside.

Now, the sutra:

Tatah kshiyate prakashavaranam.

Then comes the dispersion of the cover that hides the light.

The four steps have been taken. The fifth works as a bridge between the four, the yoga of the outside, and the last three, the yoga of the inside. The fifth, which is part of the yoga of the outside, also functions as a bridge. pratyahar: the word means “returning to the source” — not reaching to the source, just returning to the source. The process of return has started: now the energy is no longer moving outwardly, the energy is no longer interested in objects — the energy has taken a turn, an about turn. It is turning inwards — this is what Jesus calls conversion, coming back.

Ordinarily, the energy is moving outwards. You want to see, you want to smell, you want to touch, you want to feel: the energy is moving out. You have completely forgotten who is hidden within you. You have become eyes, ears, nose, hands, and you have forgotten who is hidden behind these senses, who looks through your eyes. You are not the eyes. You have the eyes, right, but you are not the eyes. Eyes are only windows. Who is standing behind the windows? Who looks through the eyes? I look at you; eyes are not looking at you. Eyes cannot look by themselves. Unless I am standing near the window, looking out, eyes by themselves cannot look.

It happens many times to you also: you go on reading a book, you have read pages, and suddenly you become aware that you have not read a single word. Eyes were there, but you were not there. Eyes went on moving from one word to another, from one sentence to another, from one paragraph to another, from one page to another, but you were not there. Suddenly you become mindful that “Only eyes were moving; I was not there.” You are in deep pain, suffering: then eyes are open, but you don’t see; they are too much filled with tears. Or you are very happy, so happy that you don’t care: suddenly your eyes are filled with so much cheerfulness they don’t see.

You are in the market and somebody tells you, “Your house has caught fire” — you start running. You see many people on the street. A few people say, “Good morning. Where are you going? Why are you in such a hurry? What has happened?” Your eyes go on seeing, your ears go on hearing, but you are not there. Your house has caught fire . . . your presence is not there, no more. If afterwards you are asked, “Can you remember who had asked you, ‘Where are you going? Why are you in such a hurry?’” you will not be able to remember. You had seen the man, you have heard what he said, but you were not there.

Ears by themselves cannot hear. Eyes by themselves cannot see. Your presence is needed. You may be on the playground playing football, hockey, or volleyball or something: when the play is at the peak you are hit on your feet, blood starts flowing . . . but you are so deeply involved in the game, you are not aware. It hurts, but you are not there to feel. After half an hour the game stops; suddenly your attention moves to the feet, blood is flowing — now it hurts. For half an hour the blood was flowing but it was not hurting — you were not there.

This has to be deeply understood: that senses by themselves are impotent — unless you cooperate. That’s the whole art of yoga. If you don’t cooperate senses close. If you don’t cooperate conversion starts. If you don’t cooperate pratyahar comes in. That’s what people who are sitting silently for hours, for years, are doing — they are trying to drop the cooperation between themselves and their senses. When the energy is not obsessed to see, to hear, to touch, the energy starts moving inwards. That is pratyahar: movement toward the source, movement toward the place from where you have come, movement to the center. Now you are no longer moving to the periphery.

This is just the beginning. The end will be in samadhi. Pratyahar is just a beginning of the energy moving toward home. Samadhi is when you have reached home, arrived. The four — yam, niyam, asan, pranayam — are the preparation for pratyahar, the fifth. And pratyahar is the beginning, the turning; samadhi is the end.

Then comes the dispersion of the cover that hides the light.

The last sutra was about pranayam. Pranayam is a way of getting in rhythm with the universe, but you remain outside. You start breathing in such a way, in such a rhythm, that you fall in tune with the whole. Then you are not fighting the whole; you have surrendered. You are no longer an enemy of the whole; you have become a lover. That’s what it means to be a religious man: now he is not in conflict; now he has no private goals to achieve; now he is flowing with existence; now he is in tune with the goal of the whole, if there is any; now he has no individual destiny, the whole’s destiny is his. He is floating with the river, not fighting up current.

When you really float you disappear because the ego can exist only when it fights. The ego can exist only when there is resistance. The ego can exist only when you have some private goal against the whole. Try to understand this, how the ego exists. People come to me and they say, “We would like to drop the ego,” and I tell them, “If you like to drop the ego, you cannot drop it because who are you to drop? Who is this who is saying, ‘I would like to drop?’ This is the ego. Now you are fighting with your ego also.”

You may pretend to become humble; you may force humility on yourself, but the ego will exist. You may have been a king, now you may become a beggar, but the ego will exist. It existed as a king: now it will exist as a humble beggar. Your very way of walking, seeing — will show it. The way you will move — you will announce it. The way you will talk — you will announce it. You may say, “I am the most humble man in the world,” that makes no difference. Before, you were the greatest man in the world, now you are the humblest — but you are extraordinary. You are there.

If you start fighting with the ego, you will create a subtler ego which is more dangerous because that subtler ego will be a pious ego. It will pretend to be religious. In the beginning it was at least this-worldly, now it will be that-worldly — greater, powerful, subtle — and the grip will be more dangerous, and it will be difficult to come out of it. You have moved from a smaller danger to a greater one. You are more in the trap. The prison has closed upon you, even in a stronger way.

Pranayam, what has been continuously and wrongly translated as “breath control,” is not control at all. Pranayam is a way of being spontaneous with the universe. It is not a control at all. All control belongs to the ego; otherwise, who will control? Ego is the controller, the manipulator. If you understand this, ego will disappear — there is no need to drop it.

You cannot drop an illusion; you can only drop a reality — and ego is not real. You cannot drop maya. Illusions cannot be dropped because, in the first place, they are not. You have only to understand, and then they disappear. A dream cannot be dropped. You have just to become aware that this is a dream, and the dream disappears. The ego is the subtlest dream: the dream that I am separate from existence, the dream that I have to achieve some goals against the whole, the dream that I am an individual. The moment you become alert, the dream disappears.

You cannot be against the whole because you are part of the whole. You cannot float against the whole because how can you float? It is just as foolish as my own hand trying to go against me. There is no way to go against the whole. There is only one way: to be with the whole.

Even when you are fighting you cannot go against — that is just your imagination. Even when you think that you are moving against the whole or separate from the whole or you have a different dimension of your own, that is just a dream; you cannot do that. It is just like a ripple on the lake thinking to go against the lake: absolutely stupid — not the least possibility there of it ever happening. How can a ripple on the lake move somewhere on its own? It will remain part of the lake. If it is moving somewhere, it must be the will of the lake, that’s how it is moving.

When one understands, one knows. One starts laughing that “I was in a great dream — now the dream has disappeared. I am no more. I was the dream and the dreamer, both. Now the whole exists.”

Pranayam creates the situation in which return becomes possible because now there is nowhere to go. The fight has stopped. The enemy disappears. Now you start floating toward your own being — and that is not a going, really, that is a floating. If you stop fighting, if you stop going outward, you will start floating inward. That’s natural.

After pranayam, Patanjali says, “Then comes the dispersion of the cover that hides the light.” This sutra has to be dissected, analyzed, and understood because many things will depend on this sutra.

Patanjali is not saying that after pranayam the inner light is achieved. Many commentators on Patanjali have taken the wrong attitude. They think that this sutra says that the cover drops and one attains to light. That’s not possible. If it happens then what about dharana, dhyan, samadhi? If it happens in pratyahar that you have attained to the goal, reached to your innermost being, known the inner light, then what is the point of dharana, dhyan, samadhi? Then what will you do? No, Patanjali cannot mean it, and the sutra is clear. Patanjali says “dispersion of the cover,” not the attainment of light — these are two things.

Dispersion of the cover is a negative achievement — it creates the possibility to attain to the light — but dispersion of the cover in itself is not the attainment of light. Many more things are still there to be done. For example, you have remained with closed eyes; your eyelids have functioned as a cover on the sunlight. After millions of lives, you open your eyes: the cover is no longer there, but you will not be able to see the light — you have become attuned to darkness. The sun will be there in front of you and the cover no more hiding it, but you will not be able to see it.

The cover has disappeared, but the long habit of darkness has become a part of your eyes. The gross cover of the eyelids is no longer there, but a subtle cover of darkness is still there . . . and if you have lived so many lives in darkness, the sun will be much too dazzling for your eyes. Your eyes will be so weak that they will not be able to tolerate so much light. And when there is more light than you can tolerate, it becomes darkness again. Try to look at the sun for a few moments: you will see darkness falling on your eyes. If you try too much you can even go blind. Too much light can even become darkness.

And you don’t know for how many lives you have lived in darkness. You have not known any light, not even a ray has penetrated into your being. Darkness has been the only experience. The light will be so unknown that it will be impossible to recognize it. Just by the dispersion of the cover, you will not be able to recognize it.

Patanjali knows it well. That’s why he formulates the sutra in such a way: “tatah kshiyate prakashavaranam” — then the dispersion of the cover which hides the light. But not the attainment of light. This is a negative attainment.

Let me try to explain it to you in some other way. You are ill: medicine can help — the illness can disappear through medicine — but that doesn’t mean that you have attained to health. Illness may disappear, now there is no longer any illness in the body, but health has not appeared yet. You will have to rest to recoup. Disappearance of illness is not necessarily attainment of health. Health is a positive phenomenon; disease is a negative phenomenon. It may be possible that you go to the doctor and he cannot find any disease — that does not mean that you are healthy. You may go on saying, “I don’t feel healthy. I don’t feel a well-being arising in me. I don’t feel the zest of life, I don’t feel that I am alive.”

The doctor can only detect disease, he cannot detect health. There is no way for him to detect whether you are healthy or not. The doctor cannot give you a certificate that you are healthy; he can only give you a certificate that you are not ill. Not to be ill is not necessarily to be healthy. Of course, not to be ill is a basic condition to be healthy — if you are ill you cannot be healthy — but if you are not ill it is not necessarily that you are healthy. Health is something positive.

It happens in many cases. A person — old, ill, weary of life — loses the lust for life, what Buddha calls tanha. He loses interest in life. You can go on treating him — you may help him to become completely okay as far as medicine can help, he is no longer ill — but you are worried: he is no longer ill, but he is not healthy. The desire to live has disappeared. Illness is not there, the hospital is ready to discharge him, but he has no desire to live. He will not be healthy; he will die. Nobody can help him. To be healthy is a positive phenomenon; to be ill is a negative phenomenon.

Patanjali says the cover is no longer there. That does not mean that you have known the light — three more steps still wait. By and by you will have to train your eyes in your being to feel, to know, to imbibe light. Sometimes it can take years.

Then comes the dispersion of the cover that hides the light.

So I disagree with all those commentators who say that the inner light is attained — that is not the meaning. Now, the hindrance no longer exists, the barrier disappears, but the distance is still there. You will have to walk a little more, now even more carefully than before because you can also fall in the same error: you may think, “Now everything is attained; the barrier has broken, disappeared. Now I am back home.” Then you will settle before the goal has been achieved.

There are many yogis who have settled with the fifth. Then they cannot understand what is happening. The barrier is no longer there, but they are not deeply content also. In fact, if you are very egoistic you will stop here, with this sutra, because with the barrier, the ego has something to fight. The cover: you go on trying to penetrate it, to disperse it. When it disperses then there is nothing. It is just like you were fighting with something that suddenly disappears — your whole meaning of life disappears with it. Now you don’t know what to do.

There are people in the world who are fighting with others in deep competition — in business, in politics, this and that. Then they become tired. If they are a little intelligent, they are bound to become tired. Then they start fighting with their own ego, which is the cover. One day that cover also disappears, then there is nothing to fight. Once there is nothing to fight, it becomes impossible for the ego to move even an inch, because the whole training of the ego is to fight with somebody — either somebody else or your own ego, but fight. When there is nothing to fight, the hindrance no more, one stops. There is nowhere to go now . . . but three steps are still waiting.

Dharanasu cha yojnata manasah.

And then the mind becomes fit for concentration.

Dharana is not only concentration. “Concentration” gives a little glimpse into the nature of dharana, but dharana is a bigger concept than concentration. So let me explain it to you.

The Indian word dharma also comes from dharana. Dharana means: the capacity to contain, the capacity to become a womb. When, after pranayam, you have become in tune with the whole, you become a womb — a great capacity to contain. You can contain the whole. You become so vast that anything can be contained. But why has dharana been continuously translated as “concentration”? Because “concentration” gives a little glimpse into it. What is concentration? To remain with a single idea for a long time is concentration, to contain a single idea for a long time.

If I tell you to just concentrate on a picture with a monkey inside, try so that you remain with the concept of the monkey, the picture of the monkey and nothing else — it will be very difficult for you. A thousand and one things will interfere. In fact, only the monkey will not be there and everything else will be there, the monkey will disappear again and again and again.

It becomes so difficult for the mind to contain anything. Mind is very narrow. It can contain something only for a few seconds, then it loses it. It is not vast; it cannot remain with one thing for long. That is one of the deepest problems of humanity. You fall in love with a woman or a man; then the next day the mind is moving to somebody else. One day, and you cannot contain. You cannot be in love with the same person for long; even hours is too much. Your mind goes on wandering all over the world.

You were hankering for a car for many days. You struggled; somehow you managed. Now the car is there in your drive — but finished. Now the mind is moving somewhere else again — the neighbor’s car. And the same will happen with that car also. The same has been happening for ever and ever: you cannot contain. Even if you reach to a point, soon you lose it.

Dharana means the capacity to contain — because if you want to know God you will have to become capable to contain him. If you want to know your innermost being you will have to create the capacity to become the womb for it. You will have to give a rebirth to yourself. Concentration is only a fragment of it. Dharana is a very wide word; it is very, very comprehensive. It contains more than concentration; concentration is only one part of it.

And then the mind becomes fit for concentration. I would like to translate it: “And then the mind becomes a womb.” When I say “a womb” I mean: a woman contains a child for nine months in her own being, like a seed she carries it. Hindus have called woman the earth, because she carries the child, the seed of the child, just as the earth carries a seed of a great oak tree, for months together.

When the seed settles deep into the soil, loses all fear, is no longer a stranger in the earth, starts feeling at home . . . Remember, a seed has first to feel at home, only then the shell breaks; otherwise, the shell will not break. When the seed starts feeling that this earth is motherly — now there is no need to protect oneself, there is no need to carry the armor of the shell around — it becomes loose. By and by, the shell breaks and disappears into the earth. Now the seed is no longer a stranger; he has found the mother. And then the sprout comes up.

In India, we have called woman the earth element and man the sky element — because man is a wanderer. He cannot contain much. And it happens every day: if a woman falls in love with a man, she can remain in love for her whole life. That is easier for her — she knows how to contain one idea deep and remain with it. Man is a vagabond, a wanderer. If there were no women there would have been no homes in the world — at the most, tents — because man is a wanderer. He would not like to live in the same place for ever and ever. He would not create stone palaces and marble palaces, no; that is too static. He will have a vagabond’s tent so any moment he can remove it, move somewhere else.

There would have been no men if there were no women. Home exists because of the women. In fact, the whole civilization exists because of the women. Man would have remained a nomad, moving. And that remains his mind still: even though he lives in the home, his being goes on moving. He cannot contain; he has no capacity to become a womb.

That’s why this has been my feeling: that women can move in meditation more easily than men. It is difficult for a man; his mind wavers more, tricks him into new traps, always is on the move, always thinking of going to the Himalayas, to Goa, to Nepal, to Kabul — somewhere. A woman can settle down; she can remain in one place. There is no inner urgency to move.

And then the mind becomes fit to become a womb — because only through that womb a new being is to be born to you. You are going to be born to yourself; you have to carry yourself in your womb. Concentration is part of it. It is beautiful to learn concentration. If you can remain with one idea for long, you become capable of the higher possibility of remaining one and the same for a long period — because if you cannot remain one and the same for a long period, you will be distracted by the objects: one car, then another car; one house, then another house; one woman, then another woman; this post, then another post. You will be distracted by objects. You will not be able to come back home.

When no object distracts you, only then is the return possible. A mind which can remain in deep patience, like a mother, can wait, can remain unmoving, only that mind can come to know one’s own divinity.

The fifth constituent of yoga, pratyahar — returning to the source — is the restoration of the mind’s ability to control the senses by renouncing the distractions of outside objects.

Unless you can renounce the distractions of the outside objects, you cannot move withinwards, because they will go on calling you again and again and again. It is just like you are meditating, but in the meditation room you are keeping your phone also. It goes on ringing again and again and again — how can you meditate? You have to put your phone off the hook.

And it is not a question of one telephone. There are millions of objects around you — millions of telephones ringing continuously when you are trying to meditate. A part of your mind says, “What are you doing? This is the time to go to the market because this is the time the richest customer is to come. Why are you wasting your time sitting here doing nothing?” Another part of the mind says something else — and there are a thousand and one pieces and fragments in the mind. They all go on ringing continuously to attract your attention. If this continues, pratyahar is not possible. How will you be able to go withinwards? One has to drop the periphery interests, the distractions, only then return becomes possible.

The fifth constituent of yoga, pratyahar — returning to the source — is the restoration of the mind’s ability to control the senses by renouncing the distractions of outside objects.

By renouncing the distractions: how does one renounce the distractions? Can you simply take a vow that “Now I renounce my interest in riches,” or, “my interest in women,” or “men”? Just by taking a vow it is not possible. In fact, just the opposite will happen if you take a vow. If you say, “I renounce all my interest in women,” then your mind will be much too filled with the pictures of women; you will visualize more. In fact, if you renounce by the will, you will be more in the mess. Many people have been doing that.

When old sannyasins come to me, they always say, “What to do with sex? It goes on hammering in the mind, and it hammers more than before. And we have renounced, so what to do now?” The more you renounce without understanding, just by the willpower, the more you will be in trouble. Understanding is needed; will is not needed. Will is part of the ego.

And if you try to will something, you are already divided in two — you start fighting. If you say, “I will not be interested in women,” why are you saying it? If you are not really interested — finished — what is the point of saying it? Why do you go in public to take a vow in some temple before some guru in a public ceremony? What is the point? If you are no longer interested you are no longer interested. Finished. Why make a show of it? Why be an exhibitionist? No, the need is different. You are not finished yet; in fact, you are deeply attracted.

But you are frustrated also. Every time you were in relationship you were frustrated. Frustration is there, attraction is there — both are there, that is the misery. Now you are seeking some shelter where you can renounce it: you seek the society. If you renounce the interest in women before a big crowd, then your ego will say, “Now it is not good to move in that direction,” because the whole society knows that you have taken a vow of brahmacharya. Now it is against your ego; now you have to fight for it.

And with whom are you fighting? — your own sex, your will against your own sex. It is as if your left hand is fighting with your right hand. It is foolish; it is stupid. You will never be able to be victorious.

Then how does one renounce? One renounces by understanding, one renounces by experiencing, one renounces by maturity — not by a vow. If you want to renounce anything, live it through and through. Don’t be afraid and scared. Move to the deepest point in it, so that you understand. Once a thing is understood, it can be dropped without any effort on the part of the will. If will is involved you will be in trouble. Never renounce anything willfully, with will. Never use willpower to do anything; otherwise you will be in trouble. Will is one of the most misery-creating phenomenon in you.

Just by a tacit understanding know well that life is a school to be passed through, and don’t be in a hurry. If still you feel that a lingering desire is there for money, it is better not to pray. Go, and accumulate money and be finished with it. It is nonsense, so if you have intelligence, you will be finished soon. If you don’t have intelligence enough then you will take a little more time: experience will give you intelligence. Experience is the only way; there is no other shortcut. It may take a long time, but nothing can be done — man is helpless. He has to attain to intelligence through experience. And all that you know well can be dropped. In fact, to say that it is dropped is not right: it drops by itself.

By renouncing the distractions of outside objects one becomes capable of pratyahar, returning home. Now there is no longer any interest in the outside world, so you don’t move in a thousand and one directions. Now you would like to know yourself; the desire to know oneself replaces all other desires. Only one desire is left now: to know oneself.

Tatah parama vashyate indriyanam.

Then comes the complete mastery over all the senses.

When you are returning home, inwards, suddenly you become the master. This is the beauty of the process. If you are moving outwards you remain a slave — and a slave to millions of things. Your slavery is infinite because infinite are the objects of your desire.

It happened: I was a teacher in a university. Just next to me a professor used to live. I have never come across such a miserly man; he was really extraordinary. He had enough money; his father had left much. He and his wife lived alone. Enough money, a big house, everything — but he used such a bicycle that it was known all over the town.

That bicycle was something of a miracle. Nobody else could use it: it was in such a ruin it was impossible to use it. It was known all over the town that he never locked the bicycle because there was no need — nobody could steal it. People had tried and returned it. He would go to the theater; he would leave the bicycle outside. He would not put it on the stand because one anna would have to be paid. He would leave it anywhere, and after three hours when he would come, he would always find it there. It had no mudguards, no horn, no chain cover, and it made such a noise that you could hear from one mile that that professor was coming.

By and by, he became friendly with me. I suggested to him, “This is too much, and everybody laughs about your cycle. Why don’t you get rid of it?”

He said, “What to do? I have been trying to sell it, but nobody is ready to purchase it.”

“Nobody is ready to purchase it because it is not worth anything. You simply go and throw it in the river — and thank God if somebody doesn’t bring it back!”

He said, “I will think about it.” But he couldn’t.

So, his next birthday was coming and I purchased a new cycle, the best that was available, and presented it to him. He was very happy. The next day I was waiting to see him on the new bicycle but he was again on the old. So I asked, “What is the matter?”

He said, “The cycle you have given to me is so beautiful, I cannot use it.”

It became a worship object. He would clean it every day; I would see that he was cleaning it. He would clean it and polish it and do and . . . Always it was there in his house as a showpiece, and he was running on his bicycle — four, five miles going to the college; four, five miles coming to the market — the whole day. It was impossible to persuade him to use it. He would say, “Today it is raining,” “Today it is too hot,” and, “I have just polished it. And you know how the students are — they are mischievous — somebody may scratch it. I will have to leave it outside the college, and somebody may scratch it and destroy it.”

He never used it, and as far as I know he must be still worshipping it. There are people who are worshipping objects. I told that professor, “You are not the master of the cycle, the cycle has become master of you. In fact, I was thinking that I have given you a present of a cycle — now I can say to the cycle, ‘I have given you the present of this professor.’” The cycle is the master.

If you desire things, you are never the master, and that is the difference: you can be in a palace, but if you use it, it doesn’t matter. You may be in a hut, but if you don’t use it and the hut uses you, you may look poor to the people from the outside, but you are not: you are obsessed with possessions. A man can live in a palace and be a hermit; and a man can live in a hut and not be a hermit. The quality of being a hermit depends on the quality of your mastery. If you use things, it is good; but if you are used, you are behaving very stupidly.

Patanjali says, “Then comes the complete mastery over all the senses” — and the objects of senses . . . only through pratyahar, when you become the most important thing in your life. Nothing is comparable to it. When everything can be sacrificed to your own self-knowledge, your being, when kingdoms are worthless — if you have to choose between your inner kingdom and the kingdom of the outside you will choose your inner kingdom — at that moment, for the first time, you are no longer a slave: you have become a master. In India, for sannyasins, we have been using the word swami — swami means “the master,” the master of the senses. Otherwise, you are all slaves — and slaves of dead things, slaves of the material world.

And unless you become a master, you will not be beautiful. You will be ugly, you will remain ugly. Unless you become a master you will remain in hell. To be master of oneself is to enter heaven. That is the only paradise there is.

Pratyahar makes you that master. Pratyahar means: now you are not moving after the things, not chasing, hunting things. The same energy that was moving in the world is now moving towards the center. When the energy falls to the center, revelations upon revelations reveal. You become for the first time manifested to yourself — you know who you are. And that knowledge, who I am, makes you a god.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is right when he says about man, “How godlike.” Pavlov is wrong when he says about man, “How doglike.” But, if you are chasing things, Pavlov is true, Hamlet wrong. If you are chasing things then Skinner is true, Lewis is wrong.

Let me repeat: “Man is being abolished,” says C. S. Lewis. “Good riddance,” says B. F. Skinner. “How like a god,” says Shakespeare’s Hamlet. “How like a dog,” says Pavlov. It is for you to choose what you would like to be. If you go inward, you become a god. If you go outwards, Pavlov is true.

-Osho

From The Essence of Yoga, Discourse #9; Yoga: Science of the Soul, V.6 (previously titled Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, V.6).

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

This discourse is the Listening Meditation in the eleventh program of the module, Osho Yoga and the Discipline of Transformation, one of several modules in A Course in Witnessing.

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

The Eight Limbs of Yoga – Osho

By practicing the different steps of yoga for the destruction of impurity, there arises spiritual illumination which develops into awareness of reality.

The eight steps of yoga are: self-restraint, fixed observance, posture, breath regulation, abstraction, concentration, contemplation and trance.

–Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras

The light that you seek is within you. So the search is going to be an inward search. It is not a journey to some goal in the outer space; it is a journey in the inner space. You have to reach your core. That which you are seeking is already within you. You just have to peel the onion: layers and layers of ignorance are there. The diamond is hidden in the mud; the diamond is not to be created. The diamond is already there — only the layers of mud have to be removed.

This is very basic to understand: the treasure is already there. Maybe you don’t have the key. The key has to be found, but not the treasure. This is basic, very radical, because the whole effort will depend on this understanding. If the treasure has to be created, then it is going to be a very long process; and nobody can be certain whether it can be created or not. Only the key has to be found. The treasure is there, just nearby. A few layers of locks have to be removed.

That’s why the search for truth is negative. It is not a positive search. You are not to add something to your being; rather you have to delete something. You have to cut something from you. The search for truth is surgical. It is not medical; it is surgical. Nothing is to be added to you; rather on the contrary, something has to be removed from you, negated.

Hence, the method of the Upanishads: neti, neti. The meaning of neti, neti is: go on negating until you reach to the negator; go on negating until there is not any possibility to negate, only you are left, you in your core, in your consciousness which cannot be negated — because who will negate it? So go on negating, “I am neither this nor that.” Go on. “Neti, neti . . .” Then a point comes when only you are, the negator; there is nothing else to cut anymore, the surgery is over; you have come to the treasure.

If this is understood rightly, then the burden is not very heavy; the search is very light. You can move easily, knowing well all the time on the way that the treasure may be forgotten, but it is not lost. You may not be able to know where exactly it is, but it is within you. You can rest assured; there is no uncertainty about it. In fact, even if you want to lose it you cannot lose it, because it is your very being. It is not something external to you; it is intrinsic. […]

The seeker is the sought . . . when one is quiet and still.

Nothing new is achieved. One simply starts understanding that looking out was the whole point of missing. Looking in, it is there. It has always been there. There has never been a single moment when it was not there — and there will never be a single moment — because God is not external, truth is not external to you: it is you glorified; it is you in your total splendor; it is you in your absolute purity. If you understand this, then these sutras of Patanjali will be very simple.

By practicing the different steps of yoga for the destruction of impurity, there arises spiritual illumination which develops into awareness of reality.

He is not saying that something is to be created; he is saying something is to be destroyed. You are already more than your being — this is the problem. You have gathered too much around you, the diamond has gathered too much mud. The mud has to be washed away. And, suddenly, there is the diamond. “By practicing the different steps of yoga for the destruction of impurity . . .” It is not a creation of purity or holiness or divineness; it is just a destruction of impurity. Pure you are. Holy you are. The whole path becomes totally different. Then a few things have to be cut and dropped; a few things have to be eliminated.

Deep down this is the meaning of sannyas, renunciation. It is not to renounce the house, not to renounce the family, not to renounce the children — that looks too cruel. And how can a man of compassion do it? It is not to renounce the wife, because that is not the problem at all. The wife is not obstructing God; neither are the children creating barriers nor the house. No, if you renounce them, you have not understood. Renounce something else that you have been gathering within yourself.

If you want to renounce the house, renounce the real house; that is, the body in which you live and reside. And by renouncing I don’t mean go and commit suicide, because that won’t be renouncing. Just knowing that you are not the body is enough. There is no need to be cruel to the body either. You may not be the body, but the body is also of God. You may not be the body, but the body is alive on its own. It also partakes of life; it is part of this totality. Don’t be cruel to it. Don’t be violent to it. Don’t be a masochist. […]

Renunciation is not self-torture. If it is self-torture, it is only politics standing on its head. It may be you are so cowardly you cannot manage to torture others, so you can torture only your own body. Ninety-nine out of a hundred so-called religious people are self-torturers, cowards. They wanted to torture others, but there was fear and danger, and they couldn’t do it. So they have found a very innocent victim, vulnerable, helpless: their own body. And they torture it in millions of ways.

No, renunciation means knowledge; renunciation means awareness; renunciation means realization — realization of the fact that you are not the body. It is finished. You live in it knowing well that you are not it. Unidentified, the body is beautiful. It is one of the greatest mysteries in existence. It is the very temple where the king of kings is hiding.

When you understand what renunciation is, you understand this is neti, neti. You say, “I am not this body, because I am aware of the body; the very awareness makes me separate and different.” Go deeper. Go on peeling the onion: “I am not the thoughts, because they come and go but I remain. I am not the emotions . . . ” They come, sometimes very strong, and you forget yourself completely in them, but they go. There was a time they were not, and you were; there was a time they were, and you were hidden in them. There is again a time when they have gone, and you are sitting there. You cannot be them. You are separate.

Go on peeling the onion: no, body you are not; thinking you are not; feeling you are not. And if you know that you are not these three layers, your ego simply disappears without leaving a trace behind — because your ego is nothing but identification with these three layers. Then you are, but you cannot say “I.” The word loses meaning. The ego is not there; you have come home.

This is the meaning of sannyas: it is negating all that you are not but are identified with. This is the surgery. This is the destruction.

By practicing the different steps of yoga for the destruction of impurity . . . And this is impurity: thinking yourself to be that which you are not, is the impurity. Don’t misunderstand me because there is always a possibility you may misunderstand that the body is impure. I am not saying that. You can have pure water in one container and pure milk in another. Mix both: now the mixture is not doubly pure. Both were pure: water was pure, was exactly from the Ganges, and the milk was pure. Now you mix two purities, and one impurity is born — not that the purity is doubled. What has happened? Why do you call this mixture of water and milk impure? Impurity means the entering of the foreign element, that which does not belong to it, which is not natural to it, which is an intruder, which has trespassed on its territory. It is not only that the milk is impure, the water is also impure. Two purities meet and become impure.

So when I say renounce the impurities, I don’t mean that your body is impure, I don’t mean that your mind is impure, I don’t mean even that your feeling is impure. Nothing is impure — but when you get identified, in that identification is impurity. Everything is pure. Your body is perfect if it functions on its own and you don’t interfere. Your consciousness is pure if it functions on its own and the body does not interfere. If you live in a noninterfering existence, you are pure. Everything is pure. I’m not condemning the body. I never condemn anything. Make it a point to be remembered always: I am not a condemner. Everything is beautiful as it is. But identification creates the impurity.

When you start thinking you are the body, you have intruded upon the body. And when you intrude upon the body, the body immediately reacts and intrudes upon you. Then there is impurity.

Says Patanjali, “By practicing the different steps of yoga for the destruction of impurity . . . ” For the destruction of identity, identification; for the destruction of the mess that you have got in — the chaos, where everything has become everything else. Nothing is clear. No center is functioning on its own; you have become a crowd. Everything goes on interfering into each other’s nature. This is impurity.

. . . for the destruction of impurity, there arises a spiritual illumination . . . And once the impurity is destroyed, suddenly there is illumination. It doesn’t come from outside; it is your innermost being in its purity, in its innocence, in its virginity. A luminosity arises in you. Everything is clear: the crowds of confusion gone; the clarity of perception arises. Now you can see everything as it is: there are no projections, there is no imagination, there is no perversion of any reality. You simply see things as they are. Your eyes are vacant, your being silent. Now, you don’t have anything in you, so you cannot project. You become a passive onlooker, a witness, a sakshin — and that is the purity of being. ” . . . there arises spiritual illumination which develops into awareness of reality.”

Then, the eight steps of yoga. Follow me very slowly, because here is the central teaching of Patanjali:

Yam, niyam, asan, pranayam, pratyahar, dharana, dhyan, samadhiya ashto angani.

The eight steps of yoga are: yam, self-restraint; niyam, fixed observance; asan, posture; pranayama, breath regulation; pratyahara, abstraction; dharana, concentration; dhyan, contemplation; samadhi, trance.

The eight steps of yoga. This is the whole science of yoga in one sentence, in one seed. Many things are implied. First, let me tell you the exact meaning of each step. And remember, Patanjali calls them steps and limbs, both. They are both. Steps they are because one has to be followed by another, there is a sequence of growth. But they are not only steps: they are limbs of the body of yoga. They have an internal unity, an organic unity also, that is the meaning of limbs.

For example, my hands, my feet, my heart — they don’t function separately. They are not separate; they are an organic unity. If the heart stops, the hand will not move then. Everything is joined together. They are not just like steps on a ladder, because every rung on the ladder is separate. If one rung is broken the whole ladder is not broken. So Patanjali says they are steps, because they have a certain, sequential growth — but they are also angas, limbs of a body, organic. You cannot drop any of them. Steps can be dropped; limbs cannot be dropped. You can jump two steps in one jump, you can drop one step, but limbs cannot be dropped; they are not mechanical parts. You cannot remove them. They make you. They belong to the whole; they are not separate. The whole functions through them as a harmonious unit.

So these eight limbs of yoga are both steps, steps in the sense that each follows the other, and they are in a deep relationship. The second cannot come before the first — the first has to be first and the second has to be second. And the eighth will come to be the eighth — it cannot be the fourth, it cannot be the first. So they are steps and they are an organic unity also.

Yam means self-restraint. In English the word becomes a little different. Not a little different, really, the whole meaning of yam is lost — because in English self-restraint looks like suppressing, repressing. And these two words, suppression and repression, after Freud, have become four-letter words, ugly. Self-restraint is not repression. In the days when Patanjali used the word yam it had a totally different meaning. Words go on changing. Even now, in India also, samyam, which comes from yam, means control, repression. The meaning is lost. […]

Each word has a biography, and it changes many times. As life changes, everything changes: the words take new colors. And, in fact, the words which have the capacity to change, only they remain alive; otherwise, they go dead. Orthodox words, reluctant to change, they die. Alive words, who have the capacity to collect a new meaning around them, only they live; and they live in many, many meanings, for centuries. Yam was a beautiful word in Patanjali’s days, one of the beautiful . . . After Freud, the word has become ugly — not only the meaning has changed, but the whole flavor, the whole taste of the word.

To Patanjali self-restraint does not mean to repress oneself. It simply means to direct one’s life — not to repress the energies, but to direct, to give them a direction. Because you can live such a life, which goes on moving in opposite directions, in many directions — then you will never reach anywhere. It is just like a car: the driver goes a few miles to the north, then changes the mind; goes a few miles to the south, then changes the mind; then goes a few miles to the west, then changes the mind; and goes on this way. He will die where he was born. He will never reach anywhere. He will never have the feeling of fulfillment. You can go on moving in many ways, but unless you have a direction you are moving uselessly. You will feel more and more frustrated and nothing else.

To create self-restraint means, first, to give a direction to your life energy. Life energy is limited. If you go on using it in absurd, undirected ways, you will not reach anywhere. You will be emptied of the energy sooner or later — and that emptiness will not be the emptiness of a Buddha; it will be simply a negative emptiness, nothing inside, an empty container. You will be dead before you are dead. But these limited energies that have been given to you by nature, existence, God, or whatsoever you like to call it, these limited energies can be used in such a way that they can become the door for the unlimited. If you move rightly, if you move consciously, if you move alertly, gathering all your energies and moving in one direction, if you are not a crowd but become an individual — that is the meaning of yam.

Ordinarily you are a crowd, many voices inside. One says, “Go to this direction”; another says, “That is useless. Go to this.” One says, “Go to the temple”; another says, “The theater will be better.” And you are never at ease anywhere because wherever you are, you will be repenting. If you go to the theater the voice that was for the temple will go on creating trouble for you: “What are you doing here wasting your time? You would have been in the temple . . . and prayer is beautiful. And nobody knows what is happening there — and, nobody knows, this may have been the opportunity for your enlightenment, and you have missed.” If you go to the temple, the same — the voice that was insisting to go to the theater will go on saying: “What are you doing here? Like a foolish man you are sitting here. And you have prayed before and nothing happens. Why are you wasting your time?” And all around you, you will see fools sitting and doing useless things — nothing happens. In the theater who knows what excitement. what ecstasy was possible? You are missing.

If you are not an individual, a unitary being, wherever you are, you will always be missing. You will never be at home anywhere You will always be going somewhere or other and never arriving anywhere. You will become mad. The life which is against yam will become mad. It is not surprising that in the West more mad people exist than in the East. The East — knowingly, unknowingly — still follows a life of a little self-restraint. In the West to think about self-restraint looks like becoming a slave; to be against self-restraint looks like you are free, independent. But unless you are an individual you cannot be free. Your freedom will be a deception; it will be nothing but suicide. You will kill yourself, destroy your possibilities, your energies; and one day you will feel that the whole life you tried so much but nothing has been gained, no growth has come out of it.

Self-restraint means, the first meaning: to give a direction to life. Self-restraint means to become a little more centered. How can you become a little more centered? Once you give a direction to your life, immediately a center starts happening within you. Direction creates the center; then the center gives direction. And they are mutually fulfilling.

Unless you are self-restrained, the second is not possible – that’s why Patanjali calls them steps. The second is niyam, fixed observance: a life which bas a discipline, a life which has a regularity about it, a life which is lived in a very disciplined way, not hectic. Regularity . . . but that too will sound to you like slavery. All the beautiful words of Patanjali’s time have become ugly now. But I tell you, unless you have a regularity in your life, a discipline, you will be a slave of your instincts — and you may think this is freedom, but you will be a slave of all the vagrant thoughts. That is not freedom. You may not have any visible master, but you will have many invisible masters within you; and they will go on dominating you. Only a man who has a regularity about him can become the master someday.

That too is far away still, because the real master happens only when the eighth step is achieved — that is the goal. Then a man becomes a jina, a conqueror. Then a man becomes a Buddha, one who is awakened. Then a man becomes a Christ, a savior, because if you are saved, suddenly, you become a savior for others. Not that you try to save them: just your presence is a saving influence. The second is niyam, fixed observance.

The third is posture. And every step comes out of the first, the preceding one: when you have regularity in life, only then can you attain to posture, asan. Try asan sometimes; just try to sit silently. You cannot sit — the body tries to revolt against you. Suddenly you start feeling pain here and there. The legs are going dead. Suddenly you feel, on many spots of the body, a restlessness. You had never felt it. Why is it that just sitting silently so many problems arise? You feel ants are crawling up. Look, and you will see there are no ants; the body is deceiving you. The body is not ready to be disciplined. The body is spoiled. The body does not want to listen to you. It has become its own master. And you have always followed it. Now, even to sit silently for a few minutes has become almost impossible.

People pass through such hell if you tell them to just sit silently. If I say this to somebody he says, “Just to sit silently, not doing anything?” — as if “doing” is an obsession. He says, “At least give me a mantra so I can go on chanting inside.” He needs some occupation. Just sitting silently seems to be difficult. And that is the most beautiful possibility that can happen to a man: just sitting silently doing nothing.

Asan means a relaxed posture. You are so relaxed in it, you are so restful in it, that there is no need to move the body at all. In that moment, suddenly, you transcend body.

The body is trying to bring you down when the body says, “Now look, many ants are crawling on,” or you suddenly feel an urge to scratch, itching. The body is saying, “Don’t go so far away. Come back. Where are you going?” — because the consciousness is moving upwards, going far away from the bodily existence. Hmm? . . . the body starts revolting. You have never done such a thing. The body creates problems for you because once the problem is there, you will have to come back. The body is asking for your attention: “Give your attention.” It will create pain. It will create itching; you will feel like scratching. Suddenly the body is no longer ordinary; the body is in revolt. It is a body politic. You are being called back: “Don’t go so far away, be occupied. Remain here,” — remain tethered to the body and to the earth. You are moving towards the sky, and the body feels afraid.

Asan comes only to a person who lives a life of restraint, fixed observance, regularity; then posture is possible. Then you can simply sit because the body knows that you are a disciplined man. If you want to sit, you will sit — nothing can be done against you. The body can go on saying things . . . by and by it stops. Nobody is there to listen. It is not suppression; you are not suppressing the body. On the contrary, the body is trying to suppress you. It is not suppression. You are not saying anything for the body to do; you are simply resting. But the body does not know any rest because you have never given rest to it. You have always been restless. The very word asan means rest, to be in deep rest; and if you can do that, many things will become possible to you.

If the body can be in rest, then you can regulate your breathing. You are moving deeper, because breath is the bridge from the body to the soul, from the body to the mind. If you can regulate breathing — that is pranayam — you have power over your mind.

Have you ever watched that whenever the mind changes, the rhythm of the breath immediately changes? If you do the opposite — if you change that rhythm of the breath — the mind has to change immediately. When you are angry you cannot breathe silently; otherwise the anger will disappear. Try. When you are feeling angry your breath goes chaotic, it becomes irregular, loses all rhythm, becomes noisy, restless. It is no longer a harmony. A discord starts being there; the accord is lost. Try one thing: whenever you are getting angry just relax and let the breath be in rhythm. Suddenly you will feel the anger has disappeared. The anger cannot exist without a particular type of breathing in your body.

When you are making love the breath changes, becomes very violent. When you are very much filled with sexuality, the breath changes, becomes very violent. Sex has a little violence in it. Lovers are known to bite each other and sometimes harm each other. And if you see two persons making love, you will see that some sort of fighting is going on. There is a little violence in it. And both are breathing chaotically; their breathings are not in rhythm, not in unison.

In tantra, where much has been done about sex and the transformation of sex, they have worked very much on the rhythm of the breath. If two lovers, while making love, can remain in a rhythmic breathing, in unison, that both have the same rhythm, there will be no ejaculation. They can make love for hours, because ejaculation is possible only when the breath is not in rhythm; only then can the body throw the energy. If the breath is in rhythm, the body absorbs the energy; it never throws it out. Tantra developed many techniques of changing the rhythm of breath. Then you can make love for hours and you don’t lose energy. Rather on the contrary you gain, because if a woman loves a man and a man loves a woman, they help each other to be recharged — because they are opposite energies. When opposite energies meet and spark, they charge each other; otherwise, energy is lost and, after the lovemaking, you feel a little cheated, deceived — so much promise and nothing comes in the hand, the hands remain empty.

After asan comes breath regulation, pranayam. Watch for a few days and just take notes: when you become angry what is the rhythm of your breathing — whether exhalation is long or inhalation is long or are they the same, or inhalation is very small and exhalation very long, or exhalation very small, inhalation very long. Just watch the proportion of inhalation and exhalation. When you are sexually aroused, watch, take a note. When sometimes sitting silently and looking at the sky in the night, everything is quiet around you. Just take note of how your breath is going. When you are feeling filled with compassion, watch, note down. When you are in a fighting mood, watch, note down. Just make a chart of your own breathing, and then you know much.

And pranayam is not something which can be taught to you. You have to discover it because everybody has a different rhythm to his breathing. Everybody’s breathing and its rhythm is as much different as thumbprints. Breathing is an individual phenomenon, that’s why I never teach it. You have to discover your own rhythm. Your rhythm may not be a rhythm for somebody else, or may be harmful for somebody else. Your rhythm — you have to find.

And that is not difficult. There is no need to ask any expert. Just keep a chart for one month of all your moods and states. Then you know which is the rhythm where you feel most restful, relaxed, in a deep let-go; which is the rhythm where you feel quiet, calm, collected, cool; which is the rhythm when, suddenly, you feel blissful, filled with something unknown, overflowing — you have so much in that moment, you can give to the whole world and it will not be exhausted. Feel and watch the moment when you feel that you are one with the universe, when you feel the separateness is there no more, a bridge. When you feel one with the trees and the birds. and the rivers and the rocks, and the ocean and the sand — watch. You will find that there are many rhythms to your breath, a great spectrum from the most violent, ugly, miserable hell-type to the most silent heaven-type.

And then when you have discovered your rhythm, practice it — make it a part of your life. By and by it becomes unconscious; then you only breathe in that rhythm. And with that rhythm your life will be a life of a yogi: you will not be angry, you will not feel so sexual, you will not feel so filled with hatred. Suddenly you will feel a transmutation is happening to you.

Pranayam is one of the greatest discoveries that has even happened to human consciousness. Compared to pranayam, going to the moon is nothing. It looks very exciting, but it is nothing, because even if you reach to the moon, what will you do there? Even if you reach to the moon you will remain the same. You will do the same nonsense that you are doing here. Pranayam is an inner journey. And pranayam is the fourth — and there are only eight steps. Half the journey is completed on pranayam. A man who has learned pranayam, not by a teacher — because that is a false thing, I don’t approve of it — but by his own discovery and alertness, a man who has learned his rhythm of being, has achieved half the goal already. Pranayam is one of the most significant discoveries.

And after pranayam, breath regulation, is pratyahar, abstraction. Pratyahar is the same as I was talking to you about yesterday. The “repent” of Christians is, in fact, in Hebrew “return” — not repent but return, going back. The toba of Mohammedans is nothing; it is not “repenting.” That too has become colored with the meaning of repentance; toba is also returning back. And pratyahar is also returning back, coming back — coming in, turning in, returning home. After pranayam that is possible — pratyahar — because pranayam will give you the rhythm. Now you know the whole spectrum: you know in what rhythm you are nearest to home and in what rhythm you are farthest from yourself. Violent, sexual, angry, jealous, possessive, you will find you are far away from yourself; in compassion, in love, in prayer, in gratitude, you will find yourself nearer home. After pranayam, pratyahar, return, is possible. Now you know the way — then you already know how to step backwards.

Then comes dharana. After pratyahar, when you have started coming back nearer home, coming nearer your innermost core, you are just at the gate of your own being. Pratyahar brings you near the gate; pranayam is the bridge from the out to the in. Pratyahar, returning, is the gate, and then is the possibility of dharana, concentration. Now you can become capable of bringing your mind to one object. First, you gave direction to your body; first, you gave direction to your life energy — now you give direction to your consciousness. Now the consciousness cannot be allowed to go anywhere and everywhere. Now it has to be brought to a goal. This goal is concentration, dharana: you fix your consciousness on one point.

When consciousness is fixed on one point thoughts cease, because thoughts are possible only when your consciousness goes on wavering — from here to there, from there to somewhere else. When your consciousness is continuously jumping like a monkey, then there are many thoughts and your whole mind is just filled with crowds — a marketplace. Now there is a possibility — after pratyahar, pranayam, there is a possibility — you can concentrate on one point.

If you can concentrate on one point, then the possibility of dhyan. In concentration you bring your mind to one point. In dhyan you drop that point also. Now you are totally centered, going nowhere — because if you are going anywhere, it is always going out. Even a single thought in concentration is something outside you — object exists; you are not alone, there are two. Even in concentration there are two: the object and you. After concentration the object has to be dropped.

All the temples lead you only up to concentration. They cannot lead you beyond because all the temples have an object in them: the image of God is an object to concentrate on. All the temples lead you only up to dharana, concentration. That’s why the higher a religion goes, the temple and the image disappear. They have to disappear. The temple should be absolutely empty, so that only you are there — nobody, nobody else, no object: pure subjectivity.

Dhyan is pure subjectivity, contemplation — not contemplating “something,” because if you are contemplating something it is concentration. In English there are no better words. Concentration means something is there to concentrate upon. Dhyan is meditation: nothing is there, everything dropped, but you are in an intense state of awareness. The object has dropped, but the subject has not fallen into sleep. Deeply concentrated, without any object, centered — but still the feeling of “I” will persist. It will hover. The object has fallen, but the subject is still there. You still feel you are.

This is not ego. In Sanskrit we have two words, ahankar and asmita. Ahankar means “I am.” And asmita means “am.” Just “amness” — no ego exists, just the shadow is left. You still feel, somehow, you are. It is not a thought, because if it is a thought that “I am,” it is an ego. In meditation the ego has disappeared completely; but an amness, a shadowlike phenomenon, just a feeling, hovers around you — just a mist-like thing, that just in the morning hovers around you. In meditation it is morning, the sun has not risen yet, it is misty: asmita, amness, is still there.

You can still fall back. A slight disturbance — somebody talking and you listen — meditation has disappeared; you have come back to concentration. If you not only listen but you have started thinking about it, even concentration has disappeared; you have come back to pratyahar. And if not only are you thinking but you have become identified with the thinking, pratyahar has disappeared; you have fallen to pranayam. And if the thought has taken so much possession of you that your breathing rhythm is lost, pranayam has disappeared: you have fallen to asan. But if the thought and the breathing are so much disturbed that the body starts shaking or becomes restless, asan has disappeared. They are related.

One can fall from meditation. Meditation is the most dangerous point in the world, because that is the highest point from where you can fall, and you can fall badly. In India we have a word, yogabhrasta: one who has fallen from yoga. This word is very, very strange. It appreciates and condemns together. When we say somebody is a yogi, it is a great appreciation. When we say somebody is yogabhrasta, it is also a condemnation: fallen from the yoga. This man had attained up to meditation somewhere in his past life and then fell down. From meditation the possibility of going back to the world is still there — because of asmita, because of amness. The seed is still alive. It can sprout any moment; so the journey is not over.

When asmita also disappears, when you no longer know that you are — of course, you are but there is no reflection upon it, that “I am,” or even amness — then happens samadhi, trance, ecstasy. Samadhi is going beyond; then one never comes back. Samadhi is a point of no return. From there nobody falls. A man in samadhi is a god: we call Buddha a god, Mahavir a god. A man in samadhi is no longer of this world. He may be in this world, but he is no longer of this world. He doesn’t belong to it. He is an outsider. He may be here, but his home is somewhere else. He may walk on this earth, but he no longer walks on the earth. It is said about the man of samadhi, he lives in the world, but the world does not live in him.

These are the eight steps and eight limbs together. Limbs because they are so interrelated and so organically related; steps because you have to pass one by one — you cannot start from just anywhere: you have to start from yam.

Now a few more things, because this is such a central phenomenon for Patanjali you have to understand a few things more. Yam is a bridge between you and others; self-restraint means restraining your behavior. Yam is a phenomenon between you and others, you and the society. It is a more conscious behavior: you don’t react unconsciously, you don’t react like a mechanism, like a robot. You become more conscious; you become more alert. You react only when there is absolute necessity; then too you try so that that reaction should be a response and not a reaction.

A response is different from a reaction. The first difference is: a reaction is automatic; a response is conscious. Somebody insults you: immediately you react — you insult him. There has not been a single moment’s gap to understand: it is reaction. A man of self-restraint will wait, listen to his insult, will think about it. […]

Yam is the bridge between you and others — live consciously; relate with people consciously. Then the second two, niyam and asan — they are concerned with your body. Third, pranayam is again a bridge. As the first, yam, is a bridge between you and others, the second two are a preparation for another bridge — your body is made ready through niyam and asan — then pranayam is the bridge between the body and the mind. Then pratyahar and dharana are the preparation of the mind. Dhyan again, is a bridge between the mind and the soul. And samadhi is the attainment. They are interlinked, a chain; and this is your whole life.

Your relation with others has to be changed. How you relate has to be transformed. If you continue to relate with others in the same way as you have always been doing, there is no possibility to change. You have to change your relationship. Watch how you behave with your wife or with your friend or with your children. Change it. There are a thousand and one things to be changed in your relationship. That is yam, control — but control, not suppression. Through understanding comes control. Through ignorance one goes on forcing and suppressing. Always do everything with understanding and you never harm yourself or anybody else.

Yam is to create a congenial environment around yourself. If you are inimical to everybody — fighting, hateful, angry — how can you move inwards? All these things will not allow you to move. You will be so much disturbed on the surface that that inner journey will not be possible. To create a congenial, a friendly atmosphere around you is yam. When you relate with others beautifully, consciously, they don’t create trouble for you in your inner journey. They become helps; they don’t hinder you. If you love your child, then when you are meditating, he will not disturb you. He will say to others, “Keep quiet. Pop is meditating.” But if you don’t love your child, you are simply angry, then when you are meditating, he will create all sorts of nuisances. He wants to take revenge — unconsciously. If you love your wife deeply, she will be helpful; otherwise, she won’t allow you to pray, she won’t allow you to meditate — you are going beyond her control. […]

If you love a person, the person is always helpful for your growth because he knows, or she knows, that the more you grow, the more you will be capable of love. She knows the taste of love. And all meditations will help you to love more, to be more beautiful in every way. […]

A man of yam controls himself, not others. To others he gives freedom. You try to control the other and never yourself. A man of yam controls himself, gives freedom to others — loves so much that he can give freedom, and he loves himself so much that he controls himself. This has to be understood: he loves himself so much that he cannot dissipate his energies; he has to give a direction.

Then, niyam and asan are for the body. A regular life is very healthy for the body because the body is a mechanism. You confuse the body if you lead an irregular life. Today you have taken your food at one o’clock, tomorrow you take at eleven o’clock, day after tomorrow you take at ten o’clock — you confuse the body. The body has an inner biological clock; it moves in a pattern. If you take your food every day at exactly the same time, the body is always in a situation where she understands what is happening, and she is ready for the happening — the juices are flowing in the stomach at the right moment. Otherwise, whenever you want to take the food, you can take, but the juices will not be flowing. And if you take the food and the juices are not flowing, then the food becomes cold; then the digestion is difficult.

The juices must be ready there to receive the food while it is hot, then immediately absorption starts. Food can be absorbed in six hours if the juices are ready, waiting. If the juices are not waiting, then it takes twelve hours to eighteen hours. Then you feel heavy, lethargic. Then the food gives you life, but does not give you pure life. It feels like a weight on your chest you somehow carry, drag. And food can become such pure energy — but then a regular life is needed.

You go to sleep every day at ten o’clock: the body knows — exactly at ten o’clock the body gives you an alarm. I’m not saying become obsessive — that when your mother is dying then too you go at ten o’clock. I’m not saying that. Because people can become obsessive . . . […]

Niyam and asan, regularity and posture: they are for the body. A controlled body is a beautiful phenomenon — a controlled energy, glowing, and always more than is needed, and always alive, and never dull and dead. Then the body also becomes intelligent, body also becomes wise, body glows with a new awareness.

Then, pranayam is a bridge: deep breathing is the bridge from mind to body. You can change the body through breathing; you can change the mind through breathing. Pratyahar and dharana, returning home and concentration, belong to the transformation of the mind. Then, dhyan is again a bridge from mind to the self, or to the no-self — whatsoever you choose to call it, it is both. Dhyan is the bridge of samadhi.

The society is there; from the society to you there is a bridge: yam. The body is there; for the body: regularity and posture. Again there is a bridge, because of the different dimension of mind from the body: pranayam. Then, the training of the mind: pratyahar and dharna, returning back home and concentration. Then again, a bridge, this is the last bridge: dhyan. And then you reach the goal: samadhi.

Samadhi is a beautiful word. It means now everything is solved. It means samadhan: everything is achieved. Now there is no desire; nothing is left to achieve. There is no beyond; you have come home.

-Osho

From Yoga: A New Direction, Discourse #5; Yoga: Science of the Soul, V.5 (previously titled Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, V.5).

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This discourse is the Listening Meditation in the eighth program of the module, Osho Yoga and the Discipline of Transformation, one of several modules in A Course in Witnessing.

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