It is very difficult for me to explain love because I have never experienced what you people call love. However, I have thought about it often, because all over the world people ask me, “What is love?” I always use the word yoga, as yoga means union. And if love has something to do with union, then it is much better if I explain yoga to you.
Yoga is not only certain exercises or breathing techniques. It is a process of union between Shiva and Shakti, the two complementary aspects in everybody’s nature. Shiva represents consciousness and Shakti represents energy. When consciousness and energy unite, a great experience takes place. That is known as the awakening of kundalini.
When I was six years old, I had a fantastic experience. I could see my body but I could not feel it. I felt that I was bodiless. This experience came to me again when I was a little older, and I began to search for an explanation for it. This search led me to many people and to a life that was somewhat different from that of the average person. From the age of twelve or thirteen, I had hardly anything to do with other people. I didn’t even know how to relate to my parents, I felt that I was living with them and that was all. Then, when I was in the ashram in Rishikesh, there were many swamis of my age, but I didn’t have much to do with any of them.
Later, I attracted a lot of people and many disciples became attached to me, but finally they left me because they thought I did not love them. And this is the most common complaint of all the people who have lived with me in the last thirty to forty years. They come to live in the ashram with me, expecting some sort of love which I don’t even understand. Not that I misbehave with them, but I do not know how to say, “I love you”.
Often my disciples, students and devotees say, “We have so much devotion for you, but you don’t give us anything in return.” I don’t really know what they want from me, but I have thought about it. I can feel for them and care about their spiritual welfare, and their material welfare too if it is necessary. I can think about them in my meditation or when I am practising japa yoga. I can tend to their physical, material and spiritual welfare, but more than that I cannot do. I think this must be because I was born with some sort of defect. That particular mechanical device called the emotional aspect was not fitted into this machinery. Well, that meter is not here so it cannot work.
There was a magazine published by this ashram called Light of Love. The first issue was sent to me and my secretary held it up and said, “Light of Love.” I said, “No! Light of Yoga,” because yoga means union. When two things become one, it is called union. I think love should also mean that. Love is not merely talking to each other sweetly. Love is not just embracing.
Love is not merely saying, “My darling, my darling.” I’ve seen the pictures, I’ve seen the books. Yes, that’s romance. I don’t mean to say that romance is unnecessary because many people do need it, but I can’t explain that. Just as children need toys, some people need romance as well. But there is a higher aspect of man’s mind and consciousness, and we call it union. This union can occur between the two complementary constituents of your personality called Shiva and Shakti.
In the human body, within the framework of the vertebral column, there are two channels passing from mooladhara chakra up to ajna chakra. They are known as ida and pingala nadis. Through certain practices, such as shambhavi mudra (eyebrow centre gazing), trataka, pranayama with kumbhaka, and kriya yoga, the forces of ida and pingala can be united. When the energies of these two channels are united, a current is created and then the energy descends to mooladhara chakra and awakens the sleeping kundalini shakti. This union is the highest of all unions, and when it occurs, you begin to feel everybody is a part of you and that the whole world is your expansion and expression. Then you do not see the difference between yourself and myself and you do not feel separate from other things. So, this is all I can say about your word ‘love’ which, in my language, is known as yoga.
November 1980, Satyananda Ashram, Mangrove Mountain, Australia