Lecture on Meaning of Yoga

“Saha” means with; “Ja” means born, Sahaja, is something that is born with you, that is innately built in you that sprouts by itself in you, which manifests itself. Like you can see a seed sprouting into a tree. This is what is Sahaja.

Now all other Yogas, which go along with it are part and parcel of Sahaja-Yoga. They cannot be separated from this yoga. I think the people have misunderstood that there are four limbs of Yoga.

That would be a misunderstanding as to think that they are separate or different. When we say that we have eaten this food, it does not mean that like a bolt it has gone inside the body and passed out of the body like a bolt coming out. Does it ? It means that you tasted the food in your mouth; it means that it has secreted some saliva in the mouth, later on, it has passed through the trachea, esophagus, going down into the stomach part and then to the intestines and then to the larger intestines. All this movement along this passage is done through the other kind of the movement which is existing in the organs itself like the stomach itself pushing it down, coming from your brain. The sympathetic and parasympathetic coming into play and working it out. It is a big system and the organization that is working it out.

Now if you want to separate it; that the digestive system is different, the respiratory system is different, and your heart system is different, other brain system or nervous system is different, I mean you can’t take it out like that, your brain hanging on one side and your digestive system hanging on the other. It is one integrated form of organization which is a living organization, which understands each other, which reacts to the demands. You cannot separate the system, but as it is, our brains are so disintegrated or they are good at that disintegrating everything within us and without that we want to disintegrate the living thing which is Yoga.

Yoga is not a dead organization. It is a living process. Absolutely a living process. When it is a living process, you cannot do anything about it. So it is Sahaja. At the most you can shift it a little bit and push it here or there, push it around and all that. If a tree is coming up, like in Japan, and they will like to give it a shape, then they will cut branch first and bend it a little more another one and bend it this way, that way and give it a shape. But whatever is living is working out spontaneously within us with many complicated organizations which are living themselves and are aware of what they are doing. For example your body is much more aware of me than your rationality. Say, you are a possessed person. You won’t accept that you are a possessed person. I won’t say myself also because I don’t want to get very kind of thing which is in stock there. I know human beings, that if you tell them something like that you could be out for any sort of trouble. So I don’t tell you. But the body knows me and when you come before me, the whole body shakes. Because it is a living body, it knows me-, it is not a dead body.

So whatever is living, is so well looked after, so well organized and in a living way which we do not understand because we deal with the dead. Suppose I have to start this instrument then I have to know that there must be a cord that I have to put to the mains. I always say that Sahaja Yoga is like that; you take out your cord and put it to the mains. But do you think it is that simple ? You believe that ? That you just pull out the Kundalini and put to the mains? No, it is not. When the sprouting of the Kundalini starts, when awakening starts it passes through the various centres. How will you explain the Kundalini which is at the base of your spinal cord rising upward ? Now, If I tell you that this is even more complicated than your digestive system, that the Kundalini which is an energy as we call it and which thinks, understands and loves you and knows each and everything about you in this life and lives before. If she is so capable, she knows everything then she is entity by itself. And if it has to come up to your head, is it easy ?

It is the most difficult thing. If you have a stone lying somewhere, you can pick it up and throw it anywhere you like. Even if there is a little worm it knows how to get out of the way of a big bull coming round. And if a bull, if it sits somewhere, impossible to raise it. You try your level best. There are some very drastic methods for that in India. You have to burn some red chilies and put that smoke in the nose of the bull, like that. Then only the bull will rise. Otherwise you try anything it won’t rise. It will be settling itself nicely on the ground.

So you come across such bulls also. Sometimes it happens like that. But to make this Kundalini, which thinks, which understands, is the individual mother of an individual which has been born with you all the time, who knows all about you and who loves you most and She is ‘the one who is going to give you the realization, your second birth. She is your mother. This kind of a Kundalini that exists within us must be the most difficult person to rise. Has to be. That is why people say, Kundalini raising is very difficult.

So one has to find the methods of how to make the bull rise. Because this Kundalini is “absolute Dharma” righteousness, absolute purity, ideal-most personality that you could think of, which does not tolerate any nonsense.

She is Nirmala you can call Her. She is Purity personified. She does not accept any nonsense, no compromise She is within you. See how beautiful you are. She is not afraid of anyone, cannot be enticed, enchanted or tempted by anything. She Loves but Her Love is that pure that nothing is higher for Her than her own love. She cannot reconcile to anything. And she is the one who is going to give you your self-realization.

So, for human beings who desire to raise Kundalini, they have to find out methods of pleasing Her. What makes Her so unhappy ? Why doesnt She rise ?

They have to find out the means and methods. And as a result of that probe has brought forth other Yogas, which we call as Raj-Yogaor they call it as Hatha-Yoga, or the third one they call as Kriya Yoga (1 think Kriya and Raj is about the same) and Bhakti Yoga and Gyan Yoga and Karam Yoga. All these are the methods human beings want to employ to make the bull rise. When they get frustrated, they want to hang themselves by the nearest tree. So, that also is another frustrated Yoga. Then Sadistic Yoga, then beating Yogas, then beating others Yogas then it goes on like that, you see, flowering into better and better things. Then fanaticism, because human beings find it difficult to sit still they get a challenge. “Oh this bull does not rise, I will make it rise.”

Moreover they haven’t got the authority. Even those who are self-realized they have no knowledge because Kundalini is not made by them. Like, even if I get this machinery, I do not know how to handle it, how to use it? I may try but I may burn my hands instead. Such a hotch potch of endeavor brings forth so many Yogas in this world. And everybody is baffled at it that how it is that there are so many Yogas and this Yoga and that Yoga and Buddha or Mahabir or Christ. Then Church Yoga “And what is wrong in witchcraft” somebody said the other day. Nothing wrong but the bull will settle down better, it won’t rise then.

Now, so they have tried to find out what should we do ? Stand on your heads, bull won’t rise, it won’t. So what should we do ?

We should know what is the Kundalini that is within us. All these Yogas that have come up, have been depicted from the experiences of people. Because some people when they try to raise the Kundalini “so called” say they started jumping. The Kundalini does not rise. Some people started taking off their clothes or may be some such sort of a funny thing. They felt heated u p. So people thought let us take off our clothes and we’ll find God. Some people felt some sort of a grip on the stomach or some of them did see also these things happening within. So they called it a Moolbandha. The ‘bandha’ has taken place, something has gripped there. So the KriyaYoga is that, you take out your tongue from here. You cut this thread of the tongue from here and you push it back here, touch the tip of the tongue here where normally it is wagging. Push it back here at the Vishuddhi centre, they think the Vishuddhi is here. The problem is that they think the Vishuddhi is here. So they push it back here. They think they will achieve the raising of Kundalini by this. It is just the other way round, we are trying, you see. The effect cannot reach the cause.

You have to go to the root of cause to come to the effect. Did you see my point ? Supposing the Vishuddhi Chakra which is here, a very subtle centre behind, is spoilt then the effects are felt, say, here. And your tongue gets affected, your eyes get effected, your nose gets affected, your cheeks get affected, There are 16 you see. All these can get affected. But by tickling your nose you do not touch the Vishuddhi Chakra. Isn’t it ? Did you see my point ? For example , something goes wrong at the centre from where the electricity is coming here. By tickling it here you cannot correct that one there. You have to go to the roots. Or on a tree you find a fruit. All the fruits are getting rot. So by treating the fruit, can you treat the disease ? Youll have to go to the roots. So these people when they saw things happening to human beings they formed different type of methods. All are wrong and all are right.

Try to understand, this is a very simple thing. After realization all of them are right. Before realization all of them are wrong, Before your car starts, if you start turning the wheel, or using the brake, you are spoiling the car. When the car has started and you know how to drive and you have become a master of driving, then everything is right. Otherwise the same car which has to drive you from your house to this Ashram will land to somewhere. In the same way, the same thing before realization has no meaning. After realization only you start understanding.

So let us take the case of Hatha Yoga. It is based on centres, no doubt. It is based on “lshwar Pranidhana”, no doubt, all the Ashtangas, all the eight sides of Hatha Yoga. See from human point of view, I’m saying. For them why Hatha Yoga came into being.

It’s first that they should fix their attention on Ishwara Pranidhana means they should fix the attention into the existence of God. Not blind faith. But to understand that there is God, so that you humble down yourself. Then you should go to the realized soul as a Guru. Guru means a realized soul minimum. Any Tom, Dick and Harry becomes a, Guru, is a nonsense absolutely. He has to be a realized soul and if he is a realized soul he will say like that.

He doesnt talk of separation, he talks of authority, because he is there he has that authority. Those who talk of separation and crying and weeping and woes and all that are blind like all others. They have no business to be there There is no humility about it, I mean if I have a red shawl, I should say, ‘I have a red shawl.’ What is there to feel humble about ? I mean whatever you are, there is no harm in saying what you are. When you are not that, when you don’t have that and you say that you have, it is arrogance. But when you are there, you have to say. That Christ said, ‘I am the light, I am the path’. I mean he was not trying to be arrogant about it. What is there to feel bad about it ? So Hatha Yoga itself is done under a person who is a realized soul. Not only realized but who knows. Who has mastered the art of Shakti-pat is the raising of the Kundalini minimum. Of course Sahaja Yogis just raise it like that. It is different. But no other Yogis can do that. It is only you, because you are authorized, that you can raise the Kundalini just like that. So what these Hatha-Yogis have done they have boiled it down to only the physical sense. So you have to have Ishwarapranidhana, Yama and Niyama and that too before 25 years of age, you have to discipline yourself in a way that you should understand, what is right and what is wrong. Now those who have done all the wrongs of the world before they are 15 years of age, now at the age of 25 are trying to learn what is Yama and Niyama. How can you do it ? Just tell me now. Supposing you have spoilt the car completely. At the most you can ask for insurance, if you have paid for it. But how can you expect the car to come out absolutely new, as if it has come out from the factory ? A house which is being completely mutilated cannot be renovated. Isn’t it ? That would be madness. So one has to understand that these Yama and Niyamas and all these things are not meant for us. At least for the Western people, in any way. Let us accept it whatever it is in experimentation or whatever it is we have committed lots of mistakes or may be we have been experimenting, again I’ll say the same word. Whatever we have done we have done a lot of harm to ourselves, to our body and to our mind. Because we had nobody to guide us. Alright. We didn’t want to harm ourselves but by mistake it happened. Now what to do ?

It is a very sad affair. People are sick. They cannot do Hatha-Yoga. The atmosphere is sick. The whole place is sick. They want love, they do not want exercise. They do not want scouts. They want somebody to love them, to heal them, to cure them to establish them.