Where Do I Go Without Yoga?

6.36 For one whose mind is uncontrolled, it is difficult to attain yoga in My opinion.

But, it is practical to achieve control over the mind by appropriate means.

6.37 Arjuna said: O Krishna, if a person is engaged in yoga with faith but does not attain yoga because of the wavering mind, what destination does he achieve?

6.38 O mighty-armed Krishna, does the person who deviated from the path perish, torn like a cloud without any position?

6.39 This is my doubt, O Krishna and I request You to dispel it completely. Certainly, there is no one to be found other than You who can remove this doubt.

6.40 The Lord said: O son of Pritha, the person engaged in activities for good does not meet with destruction either in this world or the next life; he never faces degradation.

Krishna continues to declare in this verse that it is possible to achieve Self-realization by stilling the mind if one intensely practices the appropriate techniques. Here, Krishna explains that it is possible to achieve control over the mind. He says that it is possible to stay in that state where we are in control of the mind.

Actually, having an experience of satori or the first glimpse of bliss is not a big thing. It is easy to get a taste of enlightenment. But to stay in that same state, the same space, the same consciousness, needs preparation of the body and mind. To express that high energy through the body and to radiate that experience of bliss requires that our body and mind be prepared. Preparing the body and mind for enlightenment is what yoga is all about. This is what Patanjali created yoga for. The problem is that only the verbal language of Patanjali remains, but the body language is absent. What Patanjali wanted to convey is not there. Only the words are there. That is why so much confusion and mutated forms of yoga are around today.

How much can words convey? Only a person in the same space, in the same consciousness as Patanjali can convey what he wanted to convey. This is what Nithya Yoga is all about. It is yoga taught by a Master who can convey the body language of Patanjali, the experience of Patanjali, because he is in the same consciousness as Patanjali. The whole purpose of Nithya Yoga is to prepare the body to experience, stay in and radiate eternal bliss. Its purpose is to 'un-clutch' and enlighten. I can say it is a direct means to enlightenment.

Here, Arjuna again asks the questions we all will have in our minds. We are so used to wanting to reach a particular goal that we are always concerned about what will happen if the goal is not reached. What happens if we start with faith but somewhere, we fail in controlling the mind?

Be very clear, this situation will happen. When we start off, we will face failure in our attempts to control the mind. If we don't experience this, we should check ourselves because we may be fooling ourselves with whatever we are doing!

Arjuna wants Krishna to give an assurance that enlightenment is possible for all kinds of people. He wants Krishna to give an assurance that even if a person starts practicing intensely but fails due to the wavering mind, it is still possible to attain the divine consciousness. Actually, at the very root of Arjuna's question is the mind that is generating the fear and making him believe that it is hard to find the no-mind state. The mind does not want to lose its existence. The mind always looks for a reason to convince us that we cannot carry on our lives without it.

In our day-to-day life we face the situation that Arjuna faces here. Even with activities that we have carried out successfully many times in the past, we feel nervous when we start again. Will we succeed? What will happen if we fail? Even before we begin, we start imagining the worst.

Actually, it is okay to imagine the worst. Then we are prepared to face the worst situation. I tell people that to overcome fear and face fear, it is good to imagine the worst-case scenario. Visualize it fully, relive such an experience fully and the fear will disappear. However, if all we can do is to think of an undesirable future possibility that we are afraid to face and just want to be comforted, we will be in the same situation as Arjuna totally confused!

The future is not ours to see. The goal as we imagine it does not exist. There is no purpose to life. The meaning of life is to live. That is all. If only Arjuna was comfortable with just practicing the techniques that Krishna has already outlined for him, trusting Krishna and enjoying the path shown to him, he would not be asking such questions. Arjuna still does not believe Krishna. He does not believe what the Master has told him so far. He has heard Krishna. He intellectually understood the meaning of what has been said, that is all. He has not internalized the Master and he has not imbibed the Master's words. Arjuna has yet to learn.

Krishna assures Arjuna by saying that there is no destruction either in this life or the next life for one who is on the right path, the path of yoga. He provides the assurance that Arjuna is looking for, since he knows how frail Arjuna's state of mind is. Krishna is giving a wonderful assurance for all of us that any amount of practice of this yoga will save us from the cycle of birth and death. Any amount of yoga practiced will give us tremendous benefit. The very intent to practice yoga itself means that we have gained knowledge about the problem of the mind. The very intent that we want to try yoga means that we know about the nature of the mind.

One important thing we should know is that any movement of the body with a strong intention will cause that intention to get deeply inscribed into our bodies and muscles. If the intention is wanting to become one with our true identity and wanting to drop our false identity, it will get deeply inscribed or recorded in our body and will remain there and automatically the body will start moving towards that one goal. Any emotion with which we move the body becomes strongly ingrained in our system. This is a very important thing to understand. If we move our body with the thought of bliss, the bliss emotion gets ingrained in our system. If it is anger that moves our body, the anger emotion gets ingrained. This is such an important and beautiful truth. Don't miss it!

There is a wonderful movie, 'What the Bleep Do We Know?' Using principles of Quantum Physics they visually explain this truth from Vedanta very nicely. They say that whenever we experience an emotion in our system, it is like rain. The emotion is poured like rain, it happens inside our system, in our Being. There are particular cells that catch those emotions. For example, if we think about anger, there are particular cells that catch the anger emotion. Not only do they just catch the emotion, they start reproducing it as well. This cell will create at least four or five more of the same 'anger' cells.

One important thing that you should know is that the basic quality of life is reproduction and expansion. This is the survival instinct. The survival instinct is governed by the swadhishtana chakra (spleen energy center). Reproduction is governed by the muladhara chakra (sex energy center). Both these are closely associated. Fear is associated with swadhishtana chakra and reproduction is associated with muladhara chakra; both the chakras are very near. Both the centers are closely connected.

These cells that catch the anger emotion start reproducing and each cell creates some five or six more anger cells. The next time, when the shower of anger happens, when the rain of anger happens, all these cells will also catch the same emotion. They become the size of the original cells. Now, these cells also start reproducing. The third time, when the shower happens, all these cells catch the emotion and start growing. That is why, when you are showered with the same emotion repeatedly, it becomes stronger. The first time, if the emotion of anger affects you for ten minutes, the next time, it will surely become twenty minutes. The third time, it will naturally become half an hour. That is how the emotion becomes stronger. Therefore, it is possible for us to replicate happiness, joy and bliss as well. It is up to us to choose what type of emotion we want to allow in our bodies, what emotion we want to be ingrained in our system. All that we need to do is to intend that we are joyful and joyful cells will keep reproducing. This process cannot stop. We will be full of joy.

We can try this when we meet people we do not particularly like. Just smile at them. However embarrassed we might feel, we should just smile. Not the plastic smile that we see in civilized countries that only cover the lips, but smile from our heart with warmth, so that the smile spreads to our eyes. See what happens. All our negativity will disappear. In addition, any negativity that we create in others also will disappear and they will respond with the same smile.

In our programs on energization of chakras, I advise people to respond always from the anahata chakra, the heart center, to every one in all situations. When our anahata is unblocked, we are capable of pouring out unconditional love. Spread that love around and we will find that the negative emotions of people who approach us with anger, fear or jealousy will be consumed by the energy of love that we unleash.

Q: How does one know the difference between being an intellectual idiot versus the development of the intellectual ability that you speak about in connection to the sastras?

If a person is torturing himself and others with the knowledge that he has, then he is an intellectual idiot. If he is living happily and giving happiness to others with the knowledge he has, he is intelligent. A man who has intelligence will increase the peace and joy in his being and in others. Intelligence always creates more bliss. Intelligence is bliss.

Please understand that all these four are the same: Intelligence, Compassion, Energy and Bliss.

When the Self expresses through the head, it is intelligence. When it expresses through the heart, it is compassion. When it expresses through the being, it is energy. When it is there without expressing, it is bliss. If we are intelligent, we will be blissful and we will radiate bliss.

An intellectual idiot is driven by ego. All that he is interested in is in showing off the knowledge that he has got. This is knowledge that has no value. When he realizes that such acquired knowledge that has not been supported by his own experience has no real value, he rises to a higher level of intelligence. At least he knows that he does not know and he's not embarrassed anymore to admit that he does not know.

Just reading the scriptures is of no lasting value at all. All scriptures, from whichever religion they may originate, are metaphorical. They do not represent facts. They convey the truth. These truths are experiential. They need to be imbibed by internalization and experiential understanding. When a person has arrived at this level of understanding, he is no longer repeating mere knowledge. He is sharing wisdom, experiential wisdom.