People who have been running after spiritual enlightenment, about which they have the most vague idea or self-styled notions, become introverted, psychologically abnormal and misfits in society. Spiritual enlightenment means qualifications, and yoga is a means to that end, but the most important point is, how to achieve tranquillity, equipoise and a state of complete relaxation? It is a crucial question today.
Even the people who are not prepared to accept that they are restless and dissipated and who may boast that they are absolutely tranquil and do not worry or suffer from psychic dissipations, I will never believe them. Once you are put to psychological tests and your entire personality examined either through hypnosis, dream or your instinctive actions, it will be proved that you are not tranquil. You have not achieved a tranquil state.
Recently, I met a gentleman who was drinking a lot. He told me, “Swamiji, I don’t worry about anything in this world,” and he immediately drank one glass. Again he said, “Swamiji, I don’t care about anything, I am such a happy man.” To the eyes of a psychoanalyst, he cannot prove that he is happy. He is unhappy, he is the most disturbed soul, but he does not know it. Therefore, the first duty of every man is to become aware that he is unhappy. To realize one’s unhappiness, which is a fact of life, is the first process in yoga.
For most of us ignorance is bliss. The way we accept, understand and react in society, the family or within ourselves will be proof that we have not attained the state of tranquillity. Therefore, yoga comes to us as a method through which we can attain a complete state of tranquillity.
25 May 1968, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA