Yoga is our ancient culture. If you study your ancient history, you will find that yoga flourished all over the world as an international self-culture. Not a political culture, but an inter- national self-culture. Humanity has needed governments.
Humanity has needed society, but much more than these, it needed a process, a way through which it could express its own creativity. Ask yourself tonight if this is in fact so, and I am sure that you will endorse my views.
Every individual, both consciously and unconsciously, is trying to be creative, right from childhood to the moment he dies. This is known as culture. We use the word culture in the sense of self-expression towards creativity, and therefore humanity has always been talking about creative intelligence, a creative faculty and about intuition. Therefore, yoga is a common world culture. I do not like to accept the basic assumption of most people that it is only Indian. India has been able to preserve the knowledge of yoga, while most of the countries of the world faced social, political and historical upheavals and cultural damage. India was able to protect this science of humanity through the help of the great tradition of swamis. We preach this science during the periods of crisis and times of trial, and impart it to our disciples. Today your culture is coming back to your home through all of you who are here today. This message applies to the whole of the nation, to everybody we shall meet, and with whom we shall communicate.
It is your own lost heritage that is coming to you; and this you must realize. For example, kriya yoga is one of the most fascinating sciences of self-evolution. Kriya yoga is one of the most powerful, simple and practical of systems that was created by your ancestors and practised by them. They felt that the evolution of the brain and intellect alone could not solve the problems of total and eternal existence. Brain and intellect form just one layer of our existence, which may be likened to an iceberg, with most of the potential hidden below the water. How then are you going to investigate and explore that hidden part of consciousness?
Many ways and means have been tried throughout history through which people could create, express, materialize and manifest these hidden forces in man. Inherent in matter is energy, behind or inherent in energy is reality, behind reality is existence, and behind existence is what? According to tantra, there is bindu which is the origin of creation, the origin of man. It is the origin of the total cosmos, the ultimate manifestation. To explain it differently – inherent in milk is curd, inherent in curd is butter, inherent in butter is cheese, and so on.
In the same way, this mind through which you live, and this intellect through which you understand, is not the ultimate basis of knowledge. The beautiful paintings of Rembrandt, Goya and Picasso, and the great literature of the past and the marvels of science are not born of the intellect. They are not born of the mundane mind; they are explosions of a greater mind. To bring the mind of an individual to that stage where the limited mentality exploded into a greater mind is a system for which yoga alone has an answer, and which no other science has an answer for.
There are not just a few, but there are a great many practices which have been expounded upon during this congress by the speakers, and we have been learning many things from them; but perhaps the greatest thing or the most important thing which I have contributed has been in reference to the awakening of prana. Awaken your pingala nadi, awaken prana and heal your body, heal your mind, and then realize the pranic centres and the pranic being pervading the whole universe. You can transmit your prana through the ether, through distance, to any object you wish. You can transmit your prana to a flower, or transmit your prana with benevolence, compassion, mercy and good wishes to whoever you want. How many thousands of people could you rid of fears, agonies and pain in this way? This is tantra. This is yoga, and what we are talking about is a very honest science. We have never been dishonest in any of the claims.
Whenever we talk about yoga or tantra, we are being totally honest. I can give you one example to illustrate this. It is in reference to how sex should be understood. Sex cannot be suppressed, and the desire cannot be fulfilled. You know this better than I do. There is no fulfilment, because you cannot extinguish the fire by throwing more petrol on it. It simply increases more and more. There is no cessation and no fulfilment. There is just no end to it. So, there are many people who cannot resolve their personal conflicts, and their solution is to commit suicide. Is that the best way to resolve sexual conflicts? No.
Tantra says that you should sublimate the urge, if you wish to control it. I think you would agree. We, the yogis and tantrics, have never said that sex is a bad thing. I say that it is a thing; that’s all. We are saying that whether it is good or bad, it is left to you to decide, but you will not be able to fulfil it. You also cannot suppress it. You will have to find a third way, which is sublimation, transformation, conversion, diversion, transmutation, channelling. How does one channel it? How does one transform it? This energy is a very great Shakti. It is the most powerful force and it has not spared anyone from its power. We call it kama, we call it sex or the sexual drive.
Mooladhara chakra is the seat of kama. The desire to have sexual union is called kama, and this desire is a part of the universal Shakti. This drive can only be sublimated by the practices of yoga. There is no other way. There may possibly be a few medicines that can suppress the hormonal levels, or there may be medicines that tranquillize the sexual attitude. What these medicines do however is to interfere with the natural processes of hormonal secretion, and ultimately they could render damage to the brain itself. Religion cannot kill the sexual drive; it is impossible. History has served as a witness to this fact.
I am a student of world history and I have read in detail the history of the Scandinavian countries. There is only one way in which this most abused and misused force can be fully utilized, and that way is sublimation. Sublimation of kama takes place by means of a great resolve or sankalpa. From mooladhara chakra, mentally you draw the force up to swadhisthana, and from there you take it up to manipura, and once it reaches manipura, you are out of danger. Because, up to manipura, it can again return to mooladhara to the beginning. The kundalini energy ’wakes up’ and goes to swadhisthana but it can again retrogress. It is something like a baby. You say that the baby gets up at five o’clock, again he goes back to slumber, again wakes up later, sleeps again and so on.
The sleeping kundalini in mooladhara is activated by pranic force, through pranayama, maha mudra or other related spiritual techniques, and for a moment there is an experience of heat and cold; a tingling like an electric shock, a quietness and tranquillity, a vision of beautiful swirling colours, of brightness, peace and bliss – then again it goes back to mooladhara. Up to the time when prana shakti has driven kundalini to manipura, you have to work very hard with yoga, your guru and with the practices. Once kundalini is established in manipura, the yogi never falls in his spiritual evolution. The consciousness does not alternate, nor does it retrogress. It progresses rapidly like an electric current.
This is just one example to show that yoga and yogis have always been truthful, honest, optimistic and positive. We have never been negative about anything. We do not say that sex is bad and we have no use for it. Nor do we say that such and such a thing is bad, horrible, ignoble or deplorable. No. The scientist has utilized every material on the earth; even the mud from which iron, copper or aluminium is extracted. Scientists have been creating one material after another, because for a scientist, every material is important. In the same way, for a yogi everything has a potential.
May 1977, Stockholm, Sweden