This misapprehension has descended upon mankind in every one of its levels, and we cannot reconcile the inner and the outer in any field of life. It may be in our kitchens, in our bathrooms, it may be in our offices, it may be between two friends, it may be in any level of society—we will find this gulf between the inner and the outer is a gulf that always remains. We do not know what to do with the friend near us. That which we see in front of us may become a terrifying apparition which we would want to avoid at all costs. This attitude of the bifurcation of the inner and the outer is philosophically the Samkhya, politically the difference between the state and religion, psychologically the difference between desire and its fulfilment, and spiritually, religiously and philosophically it is the difference between us and our Maker—man and God.

The true purpose of yoga in its essence is to bridge this gulf, and when yoga bridges this gulf, it bridges the gulf in every level of society, so that it becomes a remedy for every one of society’s ailments. Yoga is a bridge between us and God, and also between two friends. It is the solution for the difficulty that people have in relation to everything that is outside them. A yogi would be a good businessman and not merely a good meditator. He would be a good worker, he would be a good friend, he would be a good cook, as well as a good sweeper. He would be the best of the lot. That is what yoga will do for us, if we understand what yoga is. If we were a clerk in an office, we would be the best clerk if we were a yogin along with being a clerk.

Even if we do the work of sweeping, we will find that we sweep better than anybody else—we do it as a yogi does because yoga is an art. It is that which gives beauty to things, and even simple things in life will assume an artistic shape when yoga is behind these simple things of life. Wherever there is a gulf between the inner and the outer, there is ugliness. Wherever there is harmony between the two, there is beauty. The art of painters and musicians, architectural and sculptural beauty, and the beauty of literature are nothing but the beauty of the harmony between the inner and the outer. Wherever there is this union between the inner and the outer, there is beauty and there is happiness, there is strength, and there is a feeling of completeness in life.

An extremist attitude in yoga should be avoided. There is no use being a Vedantin or a bhakta in name only, because there is no such thing as a Vedantin or a bhakta before God. These are names that we have coined for our own convenience. When we stand before God, what are we? We cannot say, “I am a Vedantin, I am a philosopher, I am a devotee.” We are no such thing, as we can bear no appellation before God. When we approach and begin to practise the system of yoga, we should approach it as we would approach God Himself in all the possible simplicity in our make-up.

When we are a student of yoga, we are neither a man nor a woman, because before God we cannot be a man or a woman. When we are a student of yoga, we are not a tax collector or a government worker or this or that official, because before God we cannot be any of these things. Our height or weight, our profession and our name or form make no difference to us when we stand as a unit of aspiration in the practice of yoga. The yoga student is a unit of aspiration, and not a human being. We are not Mr. So-and-So—we are not a person, really speaking. It is not a person that is approaching God. If that were our attitude, we would not approach God at all. God does not look upon us as a person of this kind or that kind. We are a simple spark of the divine flame, and it is this spark that tries to unite itself with the universal conflagration of divinity. That is yoga.

Again, caution has to be exercised in our minds when we approach yoga, namely, that we do not practise it merely as an adherent of a school of yoga. Do not say, “I am a hathayogin, rajayogin, bhaktayogin, Vedantin, kundaliniyogin,” and all this. These are all just jargon of the schools, which will simply lead us astray. Do not say, “I am practising this kind of meditation, that kind of meditation.” These are all merely advertising slogans of the marketplace, and these are not going to cut ice before God. We have to be humble, and we cannot rely on name or advertising in the practise of yoga. We cannot approach this mystery of yoga so easily, in the same way that we cannot approach the mystery of creation or the mystery of God so easily.

Honesty and simplicity are the watchwords of yoga practice, because it is easy to misunderstand yoga and slip out of the golden mean of the practice. Yoga is a golden mean between two extremes. Because it is easy to slip on a precipitous path, we have to place our feet with great caution if we are walking near a huge precipice or slippery ground, lest we should fall down. In the same way we have to walk this path of yoga, which is a subtle and sharp golden mean between two extremes. As the poet John Dryden has said it somewhere, “Genius and madness look alike, a thin partition divides them both.” Genius to madness is near alike—this side is genius, that side is madness. A hair’s breadth of partition lies between the two realms, and such is the hair’s breadth partition between success in yoga and failure in it. If we rise in yoga, we will rise to the top. If we fall, we will be in the nether regions. This is what yoga will do to us.

It is a subtle, golden mean and not a broad highway on which we travel while closing our eyes. It is a very, very narrow path. In the Kathopanishad it is very beautifully said that the path is sharp and subtle like the edge of a razor. How sharp is the edge of a razor? We cannot see it with our naked eyes—so sharp, subtle and pointed is the edge. Such is this path of yoga: subtle and difficult to observe with the naked eye, because it is a very subtle medium between the extremes of approach. For example, we have the great extreme approaches of idealism and realism in philosophy. Yoga is neither of these. It is neither the idealistic approach nor the realistic. It is neither a subjective approach nor an objective, and in true yoga we are neither going to be a bhakta nor a Vedantin.

We are something different from both but yet combining both the elements in us. Whenever we try to practise yoga, we should place ourselves before the Creator of the cosmos. “What am I before Him? That I am even now.” We are an unnamed, formless unit of spiritual longing. With this attitude we have to practise yoga. The two extremes of approach of the objective and the subjective are obstacles in the practice of yoga, because creation is our object of study and not the external world. The world is not external to us, as creation is not external. As we are a part of creation, when we study creation, we study it as a whole.

Therefore, in yoga the study of the universe is not the study of an object outside. From the very beginning of the practice of yoga, it is a system of harmony—ethically, physiologically, vitally, psychologically, intellectually, spiritually and socially. Yoga commences its practice with the resolution of conflicts with society, and then it tries to solve the apparent differences between our present level and the higher levels of life. If we have any misgivings about the society around us, we may not be a good student of yoga. Before we step into the path of yoga, we must be clear that we have no enemies in the world, nor also too many attachments. Is there any person whom we hate from the bottom of our hearts, or is there any person who hates us from the bottom of his or her heart? This will be a kind of social conflict which will tell upon our emotions one day or the other. “How I hate to look at that person.” Would we make such a remark regarding any person in the world? That is not proper. Before we try to take to the first limb in yoga, we should resolve this conflict first, because we cannot kick the world outside and then go to yoga. The world will come with us, wherever we go and at any level.

It is not the world as such that is of much consequence; it is rather our thoughts and emotions connected with the world that mean much. What will trouble us later on is not the world of physical objects but the relations of our thoughts and emotions with the objects. Our intense love and intense hatred are forms of emotions which have taken the shape of their corresponding objects outside. The harmony between the personality and society outside is the first step in yoga. We may call this the ethical or the moral discipline. The moral discipline is nothing but an attempt to maintain a harmony between our personality and society outside.

We should not be conspicuous in society in any manner—especially a student of yoga should not become conspicuous. We should become simple persons who may not be noticed too much by other people, either positively or negatively. Do not try to become a focal point of all eyes, because that would be another kind of psychological extreme into which we might fall. If society hates us too much, or if society thinks too much of us, that would not be good for us as students of yoga, because this again is a social extreme with a psychological reaction. We would then be thinking about that which thinks of us—this is a truth of psychology. We create a conflict between ourselves and society in many ways, on account of which we are mostly not at peace with ourselves. We are kept in a state of psychological suspense on account of unwanted circumstances of society around us.

The solution for this would be either to change society around us or change ourselves in conformity with the existing laws of society. There are two kinds of people in the world: one type wants to change their atmosphere and another that changes themselves. We are welcome to change society if we can; but if this cannot be done, we will have to change ourselves according to the norms of society. When we go to Rome, we should be a Roman; otherwise we will be made a Roman by the Romans. We can choose any of the ways we like according to our capacity and understanding, but if we cannot do either—if we cannot change our atmosphere outside and we also will not change ourselves—then we are not going to do well. We are going to have difficulties. We cannot digest our food and we cannot get good sleep, because the atmosphere is in conflict with us, and we are in conflict with it. The yoga system has found out a technique of establishing moral harmony between the personality and the society outside, and these are usually known as the yamas or the restraints of the moral sense. Yama is a restraint. The restraints of the yamas are a moral control exercised over the personality of the human being to render its relations with the outer world harmonious.

Love and hatred are the two strings with which we are connected to life. If these connections were to be snapped, there would then be no connection between us and the world. If we achieve a condition where we neither love anything not hate anything, we become something different from a person. However, we retain our consciousness of personality on account of the loves and hatreds that we have for things. Either we cannot get on without certain things or with certain things. We have something to do with the objects of the world which seem to be drawing our attention positively or negatively. Earlier I tried to suggest that a student of yoga should not live in an atmosphere where tempting objects are plentiful, because these objects will constantly attract the attention, and one would be consistently thinking of these objects. If the objects of sense are engaging our attention too much in such places, it is better if we change our locality. We should go to some other place for some time—for a few months at least. Sometimes we are emotionally connected with some other persons or with certain objects such as property or possessions we have, and we are thinking only of these.

Sometimes we are emotionally disturbed by imagined circumstances. One old but very rich man came to me once. His problem was very peculiar. I had been told that he did not get proper sleep and had some anxiety. I asked him, “What is your difficulty; why don’t you sleep?” “I have got great worries,” he said. I replied, “You are a well-to-do person. You have no monetary difficulties, I believe. Your health is all right, so what is your problem?” He said, “My difficulty is that by God’s grace I have plenty of money and lots of property, but my children are spendthrifts, and naturally when I die, they will waste all this money. This is my anxiety. After my death they are going to squander this wealth.” This is an example of someone worrying unnecessarily about imagined circumstances, and such anxieties are an example of how our thinking gets distracted.