44. Relax from Imagination🔗

Vikalpa is the ultimate suffering; relaxing from vikalpa is the ultimate relaxation. Sometimes people ask me, ‘Swamiji, I can relax from vikalpa consciously, but what about the unconscious and subconscious vikalpa?’

I give you one important secret, a secret I learnt from my teacher. When I asked him this same question, he told me, ‘If you continuously contemplate on an idea for eleven days, it will sink into your subconscious mind. ‘If you continuously contemplate on it for twenty-one days, it will simply sink into your unconscious.’ So don’t worry about how you can get out of vikalpa. Don’t fight with it. Don’t ask for a technique.

For eleven days, just remember this idea, contemplate on it, intranalyze it. Let it sink inside you.

Whenever you are consciously entertaining imagination, just remember: imagination will lead to suffering. Just remember and relax from it, that’s all.

Do this for eleven days. Suddenly, you will see that even in your dream, you remember the same idea.

If you constantly remember some idea strongly in the waking state, in the dream also you will remember the same idea strongly.

For example, suppose you have a fear of ghosts, and you decide that whenever the fear happens, you will remember God or Guru and pray to them.

If you remember this continuously in the waking state, after eleven days, even if you have a dream of a ghost, you will remember God or Guru in your dream!

How many of you have experienced this - the ideas that you carry in your waking state penetrating your dream state? It happens if you constantly remember it for more than eleven days.

So don’t even have the fear, ‘How will I purify my unconscious or subconscious?’

Just remember - śabda jñāna anupātī vastu śūnyo vikalpaḥ. Imagination brings suffering. Imagination as opposed to the reality is the result of mere words. This is known as vikalpa or fantasy. Let this sink inside you. It will penetrate your dream state and your deep sleep state, and you will be out of vikalpa. If you are out of vikalpa, you are in nirvikalpa - what we call 'enlightenment.' So, by understanding vikalpa, you can achieve nirvikalpa. Let you all experience nirvikalpa.

I wanted to share with you all one more important thing: this is the first subject I spoke on, in this incarnation on planet earth! At the age of eleven, after my yoga master taught me the Yoga Sutra thoroughly, he called a huge gathering of all his disciples and followers, and asked me to speak to the gathering. I can say this was my first public lecture!

My yoga master's name is Yogiraj Yogananda Puri. While introducing me, he said, > If you continuously > contemplate on an idea > for eleven days, it will sink > into your subconscious mind.

'In the future, he will express thousands of concepts, and millions of people will listen to him. But I want to have the joy of being the first to put him on a public stage and be listening to him.'

That is why Patanjali is very dear to me, very near to me. He is the first that I learnt, experimented, experienced and expressed. I remember Yogiraj Yogananda Puri with deep respect and reverence and joy for his foresight in bringing this knowledge to the whole world by sharing this knowledge with me. I offer and dedicate this whole Yoga Sutra series, and especially today's discourse, and the whole knowledge which I am sharing with you, at his feet, with my reverence and respect.

Let you all experience nirvikalpa by his grace and by Patanjali's grace! I bless you all - let you all experience nirvikalpa state, living enlightenment.

ACTIVITY

Continuously contemplate on this idea for eleven days. It will penetrate your dream state and your deep sleep state, and you will be out of vikalpa.