The need for yoga has arisen from the very facts which surround man’s life today. We have never been apostles of yoga. We live our life in the solitary mountains in order to perfect our own mind and body, that is all. We never thought that in our life we would be preaching yoga to the rest of the world.
In India we live very far from modern civilization, we have no ulterior motives in our life. The purpose for which we dedicated our lives many, many years ago was to realize the fountain of perfection within us.
The modern world did not leave us in peace, however. Doctors, scientists, scholars, philosophers kept on chasing us. Thousands and thousands of young boys and girls come to our country in search of peace and recovery of their identity. You cannot imagine how many millions of boys and girls, men and women from the modern society have come to my place, sleeping on the bare floor. The questions they asked were, “How can we obtain peace of mind?” “How can we realize our true nature?” We said to them questioningly, “But you have plenty in your country, you have affluence and security, you have everything that the body needs.”
Thousands of years ago India developed a science of life. This science of life was intended for a monk like me and a layman like you. Whether you are a great man or an ordinary man you face similar problems in life. The problems in the life of a theist and an atheist are not different. We all have the same mind, the same body and the same type of limitations. Thousands of years ago, India discovered the science of life known as yoga. Yoga means harmony, though everybody is in disharmony.
Ask the doctors of psychology, ask the great men who know about the mind, they will say that one hundred per cent of the human population is suffering from disharmony. That means everybody is in disharmony; one hundred out of one hundred have conflicts. There are only a few people on the face of this earth who don’t have conflicts. There is hardly any personality beyond confusion, there is hardly anyone who is not a victim of tension, and this is the imbalanced personality of the human race.
Yoga is not a philosophy; it is a practical science. Philosophy gives you knowledge, yoga gives you experience. Every one of you knows what happiness is, but you have no experience. Everybody knows what peace of mind is, but they have no experience. The beauty of yoga is that it gives you experience. That experience is a manifestation of your inner being; so the process of yoga depends upon your own personality.
The main hypothesis of yoga is that what you are seeking in your life is in you and not outside. Do you need peace of mind? Search it out from within yourself. Do you want to be happy? Realize it within yourself. Happiness and unhappiness are expressions of your mind. When your mind is unrestrained you are unhappy, when your mind has a lot of turbulence you are unhappy, but when you control and concentrate your mind, you can experience happiness.
Yoga recognizes four facets of your personality. You have a body, emotions, intellect and you have a deeper mind. All these four constitute you and me. If you can develop all these four parts of your personality through yoga, then you can develop them in an integrated way. Therefore, the practices of yoga are constituted in a manner which can be helpful for these four facets of your personality.
Even as you need different vitamins for the normal development of the various organs of your body, in the same way you need a synthesis of all the forms of yoga. It will not be possible for me to deal with all forms of yoga tonight, but I will mention them and then talk about one or two systems. The integral yoga system consists of four forms of yoga. They are known as karma yoga, the yoga of dynamism; bhakti yoga, the yoga of balanced emotions; raja yoga, the yoga of the deeper mind; and jnana yoga, the yoga of the intellect. These are the main faculties of yoga. Then there are the smaller ones and it is not possible for me to tell you all of that. I will just say a few things about hatha yoga and meditation.
It has been realized by the yogis that this physical body is very important for mental development. There are two forces which constitute this body, known as life and consciousness. When there is a balance between life force and the force of consciousness there is perfect health, but when there is an imbalance between them, you have physical diseases or mental diseases.
One of the most important forces in your body is called prana, the life force. This prana is not just oxygen or air which you breathe in, although it is present in your body in the form of oxygen. It can be compared to the energy flowing through electricity cables. Scientific investigations have measured the voltage of the energy in the body and it has been found that through the practice of pranayama you can increase the energy in the body.
Due to faulty lifestyle and mistakes in thinking, many times this force of prana loses its highest frequency. This vital force, this life force penetrates the whole body, but if there is a block in its flow, then physical disease originates. Through the practice of yoga postures and breathing techniques you can increase the frequency of life force in the body. This is the reason why today, throughout the world, yoga postures and breathing techniques are used for curing many chronic and previously incurable diseases. The investigators are coming to the conclusion that most of the psychosomatic diseases can be effectively controlled by yoga postures and pranayama.
Hundreds of scientists are now working on this project. In America, Europe, India, Japan and Australia they are trying to study the effects of yoga postures on the human body and the effects of pranayama on the human mind. Throughout the world, yoga centres are now teaching yoga for what we call complete health. These yoga postures are known as asanas. In the West they are known as hatha yoga.
Before the scientific investigations, people thought they were just exercises and it mattered little if you did yoga, went jogging or did other physical exercises, it was all the same. Now scientists say something else: that in all other practices you use maximum energy, maximum oxygen, you exert maximum pressure on your cardiovascular system, but in yoga you use minimum energy, minimum oxygen and there is the least strain and stress on the coronary system.
They have also come to another conclusion, that the yoga system creates a balance in the endocrine system. By regulating certain endocrine secretions, asanas create an influence on the nature of disease. Therefore, disease born of hormonal deficiency can be perfectly checked through the practice of yoga postures. There are certain yogic postures which exert influence on the adrenal glands. As a result of this, adrenalin is produced to cope with diseases that are respiratory in nature, like asthma. There are certain yoga postures which improve the thyroid secretions and as a result of this you are able to maintain emotional balance during fear and anger. There are certain postures which improve the activity of the pancreas and so you can fight diabetes.
This is just a glimpse I am providing you with. I have found a system of my own for yoga therapy which is acceptable today throughout the world. I have been writing volumes and volumes of books on the scientific investigations of yoga. Therefore, all of you who are present here this evening should not feel that I am just giving tall talk.
Another force in the body is the mind. You can call it consciousness, mind or whatever you like. This mind is a great force, no doubt. It controls your body, it destroys your body, it kills a man, it spoils the family and it influences society. This mind is very powerful. It can make you great, it can make you wretched, and the most important thing in the life of man is that he does not know the mind. What you know about the mind is not the mind. You know you are worried, you know you are angry, you know that you are remembering and you know that you are nervous. This is not the mind; this is the pattern of the mind. The light is not electricity; it is the manifestation of electricity. Anger, passion or thought are not the mind.
A little of the mind you know and the rest you do not. The mind is like an iceberg and only the tip is seen by man. You have to know the mind if you want to improve the quality of your personality, your thinking, your behaviour and your society. The most beautiful thing about yoga is that it gives you a glimpse of the total mind, but of course, gradually.
What is meditation? Just think about it, what is meditation? To close the eyes, to close the mind, to stop thinking? No, that is not meditation. Meditation is opening the doors to the mind. Meditation is diving deep into past, present and future. Even as you go into an ancient treasure house and see so many jewels there, in the same manner, when you go into the mind you can find infinite faculties and infinite beauties.
This science of meditation has been perfected by the yoga system. As you go on successfully meditating, changes take place in the body also. I can give you a glimpse or idea about that; when you sit in the lotus posture with your spine upright and straight and with your eyes closed, what happens? Scientists have found brain waves altering, oxygen consumption changing; the respiratory system behaving differently, the metabolic rate and the metabolic process undergoing great change, and the muscles of the heart improving. They have also found changes in the rate of cell regeneration of the body.
Meditation can be practised by each and everybody, but of course in order to practise meditation you must have some sort of basis. The most important basis for successful meditation is sound. When you want to meditate, please remember that you will succeed only if you have a symbol for meditation. There are three symbols for meditation: one symbol is known as sound, the second symbol is known as yantra and the third symbol is known as mandala. These three form the basis for your meditation. It is not necessary that you should have all the three symbols. I can tell you which is the best and the easiest for everyone. The best is the sound symbol.
This sound can be given a higher frequency, so much so that this sound can be transformed into explosive energy. You know there are various forms of energy in the universe: you know about electrical energy and nuclear energy. I am talking about sound energy. This sound can be made very powerful. When it is repeated and repeated and repeated, it attains a high frequency. Therefore, everybody who wants to achieve success in meditation must discover a sound for themselves. This sound is known as mantra in yoga.
Please do not misunderstand me. I do not mean a holy name. I am not dealing with a religious matter. I am dealing with the phenomenon of sound. I know that even in modern science, sound can be made to pierce matter. Sound knows no barriers. Sound waves travel hundreds or thousands of kilometres across continents. They can be transformed into electrical waves and again transformed into sound waves.
One must discover a mantra for oneself. The discovery of the sound depends upon one’s quality of elements and you can realize the quality of your elements by your astrological sign. According to the astrological sign, one has a sound for oneself. The sound must be practised every morning and night when you listen to it with rapt attention for just ten minutes. You should practise your mantra either audibly or mentally. Start with ten minutes in one stretch. When you begin, do it once a day and when you like it, later, practise twice a day.
Whether your mind is calm or not, you should keep your body calm and quiet. The mind cannot become quiet in one day or even in one year. It is not even good to compel the mind to become quiet. In fact, in the beginning of your meditation your mind will purge more thoughts. If thoughts come into your mind you should not worry at all. You should be constant with the practice of the mantra, but at the same time you should not try to concentrate because sometimes when you try to concentrate you are creating unnecessary stress and strain.
In order for you to concentrate it is necessary for you to choose another symbol for yourself. Mantra is not intended for concentration. Mantra is intended to facilitate a passage for concentration. Mantra purifies your consciousness, but for concentration you must have another kind of symbol. It should be either a yantra, a diagram, or it should be a mandala.
The yantra reaches the depths of consciousness without any difficulty and can permeate both your consciousness and dreams. Now remember what I said, mantra is not for concentration. If you try to concentrate during mantra you will have to face repressions. Let it take one or two or three years, but the mantra must purge more and more of your mental impurities. When by constant practise of mantra the mind becomes tranquil and equipoised, you should practise concentration on yantra.
There are many thousands of yantras and you can choose any one of them. The science of mantra and the science of yantra are very old. Every culture of the world, Aryans, Babylonians, Egyptians and the pre-Hellenic cultures, knew all about it, and the Kabbalists among the Jews knew about it very well. They knew the power of the mind and that the mind can make life hell or heaven. It is precisely for this reason that people all over the world want to practise yoga.
Tonight it is definitely not possible to teach you all about yoga, but it is my humble submission to all of you here that for yourself, for your coming generation, for posterity, you must discover the science of yoga yourself. It will not interfere with your modern way of life, your system of thinking or your religion. It will not interfere with your culture, for yoga has two important qualities: it is a curative science and it is a creative science. Curative science because it cures the ailments of your body and a creative science because it improves the quality of your thinking.
30 September 1982, Kapsis Hotel, Thessaloniki, Greece