Extreme of any kind is opposed to yoga. Yoga is the course via media, the madhyama-marga in every type of engagement, physically, verbally as well as mentally. In our behaviour we must be moderate. We should not be excessive in our behaviour with others or with our own selves. When we talk, we should not talk the head off a person, as if the lid is open—go on talking until the man is tired and wants to get away. This is a weakness. Speak what is necessary. Speak in proper terms. Speak in the proper mood, and speak at the proper time, in a proper manner. Then you will succeed in your aims. You should not tell the wrong thing, at a wrong time, in a wrong manner. Nor should you be in an agitated mood when you speak, with curled lips and red eyes. Let not the mind be agitated when you express yourself in action or speech. All this is a part of the composure of personality. It is only in this composed nature that we can say the right charioteer is seated. The chariot of Arjuna was very peculiarly made. It was protected by Hanuman on the top, Krishna in the front as well as the blessing of the Lord of Fire, Agnideva, who presented Arjuna with the Gandiva bow. It had blessings of various kinds. If you read the Mahabharata, you will know it. On such a chariot was Arjuna seated, the best of archers, with the best of charioteers endowed with the highest wisdom and power. This is described to some extent in the Katha Upanishad itself, in certain other contexts as well.

The objects of sense are regarded as the roads along which the chariot is driven. This is something very curious. How are we to drive this chariot along the objects of sense? Can you say that the objects are the way to the goal of our life? Yes. The world is the field of training in yoga. The objects have to become aids in our practice rather than oppositions to our effort. In one particular school of yoga, called tantra, there is a strange principle followed; the principle being that the things by which you fall, by those very things you shall rise—yair eva patanam dravyaih siddhis taireva. That which can kill you can also make you alive if it is properly administered. This is something like the homeopathic system of medicine. The yoga of the Upanishad is a very healthy way of approach to the objects of sense and the world as a whole. You know the hymns of the Samhitas of the Vedas look upon the world as a manifestation of God’s glory and abundance. The rise of the sun in the east, the fall of rain from the skies, the luminosity of the moon, the dawn, the sunset—all these were objects of praise for the rishis of the Vedas. They were manifestations of God’s majesty. Positive was the approach of the Vedic seers. They had nothing of the negative in their approach to God. The Upanishads, being the concluding portions of these exquisite outpourings of the Vedas, give us the quintessence of the positive approach to life. If you read all the major Upanishads attentively, you will see that their approach is marvellous. They take you from one state of joy to another state of joy, from ananda to ananda. Every level of experience is a state of delight for the Upanishads. There is no sorrow, grief or negativity there. The objects of sense appear as impediments on account of our wrong approach to them. Your own son can become your enemy if you do not properly behave with him. Your own husband or wife can be your opponent if there is maladjustment with him or her. We have no friends, even as we have no enemies in this world. Whether one is a friend or an enemy depends on how we conduct ourselves with others. There is no such thing as an intrinsic friend or an intrinsic enemy. Such things do not exist. We can create a friend or an enemy, if we like, according to our predilections. Even in our own families, in our own blood-relations, we can have friends as well as foes. Father and son fight cases in courts because of an erroneous adjustment between themselves, psychologically. The objects of sense are our enemies when we conduct ourselves wrongly with them. They become friends when our understanding of them is perfect. Even snakes are charmed and controlled by snake-charmers. Even lions are tamed. What to say of other objects in the world!

The yoga of the Katha Upanishad, which regards objects of sense as roads along which the chariot of the personality has to be driven holds the world as an aid in the practice of yoga. Forces of nature are friends of the practicant. They also become temptations in the earlier stages. The various grand manifestations which come to distract the attention of the practicant of yoga, which we hear of in the Puranas and Epics—Rambha, Urvasi, Indra and such other persons coming and obstructing the path—all these are the reactions set up by the forces of nature, forming also the ingredients of our own personalities. The world outside and the body within are made up of the same stuff. There is a similarity of character and quality between both. This is the reason why we are unable to avoid the perception of the world. It is ingrained within us, being a part of our life. It is with us, and in us. But the world can be an obstacle even as, as mentioned in the sixth chapter of the Bhagavadgita, God Himself can be an obstacle to us when we do not obey His laws or do not understand Him. The Atman is regarded both as a friend and a foe.

ᾱtmaiva hyᾱtmano bandhur ᾱtmaiva ripur ᾱtmanaḥ.

The Atman is your friend. The Atman also is your enemy. How could Atman be an enemy? But so says Bhagavan Sri Krishna. All law is a terror when we do not want to obey it. But law is a protector when we participate in its requirements. The world is the law of God. The principle of Reality, as Rita, manifests itself as this creation. God speaks to us through the various things of the world. He smiles at us through all things. He also frowns at us when occasion demands. The myriad objects, colours and sounds that we see in the world are the various ways in which we confront God in our daily life. These are the lessons God imparts to us through his Virat-Svarupa—Cosmic Form. When we gaze, we gaze at the face of God. There are no objects of sense. They do not exist. When the senses behave in a manner of their own, when the Spirit within us gets externalised through the activity of the senses, it appears as objects. The objects are nothing but Spirit, projected in space and time. God sensualised is the world. The Absolute spatialised and temporalised is this creation. There is no separate world. There is no separate creation. There are no separate objects of sense. They are only names that we have given to the very same truths that we are going to realise ultimately through the practice of yoga. We detest the world as we hang a dog by calling it a bad name. We curse the world because we see it differently from what it is. The objects of sense, according to this Upanishad, are the roads for our movement towards Godhood, which means to say that we have neither to be repelled by them nor to be attracted by them. The world should neither tempt us nor reject us. Neither should we shun the world nor should the world shun us. This point is emphasised in the twelfth chapter of the Bhagavadgita, also. Very difficult, indeed, is this attitude to be developed. You should not shrink away from things, and you should also not conduct yourself in such a way that the world shrinks away from you. This itself is yoga, and this is possible only when the goal is clear before our eyes. Many of us, seekers, aspirants, have not the goal of our life clearly pictured before our minds. We do not know whether we have to realise God first, or serve the world first, to give you only one instance of our quandary and problem. Many seekers think that service of humanity is to come first, and realisation of God afterwards. Sometimes we think that mankind itself is God, and service of man is service of God, and so we begin to identify the goal of our life with the activities of our daily life. This is a wonderful peculiarity of our attitude by which the goal can be interpreted in a dexterous fashion, so that we appear to be pursuing the goal while we are actually pursuing what is pleasant to the deeper needs of this bodily and ego-ridden personality. No one, ordinarily speaking, can aspire for God wholly. It is impossible to truly aspire for God from the entirety of our being. Though we may all regard ourselves as aspirants after God, it is impossible to wholly think of God or love God, because there are other presentations before us which can take the place of God and make us mistake them for God, interpret them as God, put the cart before the horse, and define our conduct and behaviour in a way that appeals to mankind and the world. Many a time we judge our progress from the admirations that we receive from people. If the whole world proclaims you as great, you think that you are progressing in the path of yoga. If all the newspapers publicise you as the leader of mankind, you have a feeling, perhaps, that you are on the right path. Otherwise, why should all people adulate you? “The world regards me, loves me, adores me, publicises me; this means God is blessing me; God’s grace is upon me.” You can think like that, but to understand what God is and what love of God is, God’s grace alone is necessary. The Guru has to bless you. It requires much effort.

The concept of God, the notion of the goal of life before us, is the ultimate determining factor in the success of our practice of yoga, and the Kathopanishad, in this passage on self-control—atmanam rathinam viddhi, etc.—makes it clear that this chariot of the body can go hither and thither if the charioteer lets loose the reins and allows the horses to move according to their whims and fancies. Our intellect can be blurred and clouded by the force exerted upon it by the senses. The senses are very powerful and their power is such that their activities can produce an impact on the mind and the intellect to such an extent that the mind can think and the intellect can understand things only in terms of the senses. The Upanishad warns us against this fall. The Atman, the mind and the senses should be in unison— atmendriyamanoyukta. They should not work in their own way, independently. That is, the activity of the senses, the thoughts of the mind and the needs of the Spirit should be in conformity with one another. They should not be at variance with each other. How is this possible? This is precisely the practice involved in yoga. Yoga is nothing but the conformity of the Spirit, the mind and the senses, together. The perceptions of the senses, the thoughts of the mind and the characteristics of the Spirit should coincide. What are the characteristics of the Spirit? Indivisibility of substance, universality of character, non-objectivity of nature, intelligence and subjectivity as different from externality or objectivity are the essential features of the supreme Spirit, which should influence the thoughts of the mind and the activities of the senses. This is the foundation of the karma yoga of the Bhagavad-Gita. Karma yoga or spiritualised activity is that conduct of life externally, which is guided by the nature of the Atman within and not directed by the desires of the senses.

The Atman wants nothing. It has known everything. Therefore to desire anything through our actions will be contrary to the requirements of the Atman. While there is nothing wrong with action as such, there is something seriously wrong with action done with a motive behind it, because the Atman has no motive. So, if the Atman is to be the basis of our actions, the goal of our deeds and works, naturally, they should not be directed to an ulterior purpose other than the Atman itself. Though the actions are directed outwardly, their aim is the inward realisation of the Atman. Wonderful is this yoga! The movement is outward through action, but the goal is inward which is the Self. Though you are running outward, you are actually moving inward. That is karma yoga. It looks as if you are working in a spatial world, externally directed towards other persons and things, but you are really converging to the point of the Atman that is present hiddenly in the objects. The Atman is not merely within. It is also without. The Atman has, really, no within and without. When it is said that the Atman is also without, and it is this Atman without that is pursued by the activities through karma yoga, what we mean is that whether you run forward, backward, inward or outward into the world of objects, you are directed to the same point. Extremes meet at the same focus. Geometricians tell us that parallel lines also can meet at infinity. Parallel lines, generally, do not meet, but it is said that they can meet if they are stretched to infinitude. The expert performance of karma yoga is identical with the expert meditation on the Absolute. But it should be expert. This is the crucial issue about it. This is the condition to be underlined. When you move to the Infinite outwardly, you reach also the Infinite which is inward. This yoga of the Katha Upanishad is not jnana yoga; it is not bhakti yoga; it is not karma yoga; it is not any kind of known yoga. It is the yoga of the Infinite, the secret way, of which these are aspects. The so-called yogas known as karma, bhakti, jnana, etc. are ramifications of this mysterious technique which Yama describes to Nachiketas.