The straight way out of ignorance🔗

December 17, 2010

The great enlightened yogi Patanjali gives you a powerful technique to be out of ignorance, to raise you to the highest coherence. This is a process which you can practice the whole day. It is the only process which can change your muscle-memory.

Please understand, each technique or method transforms some part of you. If you practice yoga, your body will be transformed. If you practice unclutching, your mind will be transformed. This technique, called pratipaksha bhavana, is the only technique which can transform your muscle-memory.

Muscle-memory is that part in you which makes the decision to do any act spontaneously, and executes it within micro-milliseconds - even before you become aware of it! It is such a dangerous thing, as you can see.

You do not act the way you act because you are habituated to do so, or you are trained to do so, or you have engraved memories. No! Actually, there is no specific reason why you act the way you act. There is only one thing we know: the moment the decision happens in you, so much energy is spontaneously released, that without even a gap of a micro-millisecond, it is executed; it becomes action, it becomes

reality. It is very difficult to understand and grasp. So, unless you understand the source of this happening, it is practically impossible for you to alter it. In pratipaksha bhavana, whenever a negative thought happens in you, without allowing the feeling that it should be immediately executed, you need to replace it with an alternative thought, and establish that new thought in you. Whenever negative thoughts which are against the purpose of your life happen in you, you just need to analyze, understand and take that thought to its logical conclusion. Create the opposite understanding, the right understanding of the purpose of your life, and raise the coherence of your system to its highest possible peak. For example, when you have the thought of violence, how do you use pratipaksha bhavana to get yourself back to non-violence, and not allow the violence to get rooted in you? All you need to do is remember, ‘Oh..! Violence will bring suffering and ignorance. I should not allow it!’

So he is teaching us reasoning; he is teaching us the applied science. If a Master of Patanjali's caliber is coming down to teach us applied science, it means that this one process is so powerful that it can transform your complete being.

The word 'confidence' means the courage to live and execute the truths that you grasp intellectually. Have confidence in your understanding and execute that understanding very strongly.

Creating the pratipaksha bhavana simply means creating thoughts contrary to the negative thoughts arising in you, and bringing yourself back to your center. It is not such a difficult job, but people feel lazy to do it. Inability to create pratipaksha bhavana means inability to create the contrary thoughts to destroy negativity, which means allowing negativity to grow in you. Once the negativity grabs you, it is over... over! Your life is hell; you are done for. That is why sometimes I need to push them to do that job. Sometimes I use love, and sometimes I use the fake, so-called hatred, to push them back to their center.

Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi sings very beautifully, Oh Lord, when my five senses entered my house to rob me and to destroy me, where were you? Were you not there in my inner space? So when the negativity enters to rob you and destroy you, immediately bring the right understanding, the right attitude, as your defense against the negativity. The timing is very important. Respond immediately to your negativity. Catch the thief at the right moment. Understand that if you miss the timing even once when creating the right thought against the wrong thought, you are caught! Catch the negativity the moment he enters your house.