Abhyasa is the direct inward practice of our soul’s location in the direction of its movement upwards. Yoga is an upward ascent from involvement in physical matter and conditions which are outward, in the direction of whatever is above it from whatever is beneath it. We look upon ourselves as the physical body only—we have little time to think that we are anything other than this body. Conceding that the involvement of our mind in the body is a fact of life, to that extent we have to be sympathetic enough to also take the body into confidence and convert the body itself into an instrument of higher ascent. It is not true that the body is to be always rejected as something redundant. Nothing can be called unnecessary when we, mentally or intellectually or in our conscious life, get involved in it. Even an utter illusion can become a reality, insofar as we are involved in it. It is no more an illusion to the extent we are involved in that illusion, our mind is in it, our consciousness has enveloped it—to that extent, even utter unrealities are realities only. Do not illusions satisfy us in life? They do so because of our involvement wholly by the entry of our consciousness into the structure of that illusion. So do not say that the body is an illusion, that it is an ass that is to be struck down. It is no more that. As the body has somehow managed to insinuate itself into our own feeling that it is us, it has to be utilised and not rejected in the practise of yoga. This healthy, cooperative, sympathetic, intelligent transmutation of our physical association with this body into a practise of yoga actually is what is known as hatha yoga. The asanas, the postures and the various disciplines of the muscles and the nerves are physical no doubt, but they are disciplines of such a nature that they stabilise the muscles and nerves and the biological functions in such a way that the chaotic involvement of our psyche in the physical body through the pranas, causing distress to us every day, are properly aligned along required lines, and we assume a health which is not only of the muscles and the nerves but also of the vitality in us.

We are sick people, though we may not be always lying in bed, in a hospital. Our ailment is not always a medical sickness, but it is some kind of discomfort that we always feel in our own selves, caused by a peculiar wrong adjustment between our thought and the body, and our not being aware that we have some inner mechanism operating inside the body. We are just the body, and sometimes we do not even know that we have a mind, as we are wholly occupied with physical relations and physical activities.

The ascent in yoga is also an inwardness that we establish in our own selves. Really the ascent is an inwardised ascent. The ascent is not actually to be construed in spatial terms as a kind of rising from one rung of ladder to another rung of a ladder, the type of ladder which masons or workers use in the construction of a house. That is not the kind of a ladder which we are using in our ascent through yoga. It is an ascent of ourselves through our own selves. The ladder is not outside us—we ourselves become the ladders.

At present we are in the lowest rung of the ladder. We say the mind is lodged in the muladhara chakra, which is to say that we are wholly involved in the physical world. We are entirely sunk in physical relations, and our desires are entirely material and physical. Our frustrations are caused by the inability of the mind to secure enough physical satisfaction and material comfort. Our instincts are basically animalistic. If we are in the lowest rung of the ladder, which is the entire satisfaction that the senses feel in their contact with physical objects, we are at the lowest level of life. We are unable to find any joy in a life which is not sensory, which is not physically construed, which is not material in nature. To the extent that we require material objects for our comfort, to that extent we are far, far removed from the spiritual requirement.

The physical exercises, known as asanas, constitute therefore a necessary discipline to stabilise the operations of the body in order to facilitate the permeating of the vital energy in us through the pores or cells of the body, making us healthy, first physically and then poised in our minds as a consequence. The practise of yoga is a movement towards the health of the personality and also in the direction of the establishment of a healthy relationship with people.

The mentioned achievement, by way of an expansion of our dimension through social coordination, also is not an easy affair. We generally take to yoga asanas, pranayama, concentration and such practices under the impression that we are wholly prepared for such exercises. It is not always true, because our relations outwardly, our visioning of things, our opinions in respect of the things of the world, are not always as they ought to be. The loves and hates that mostly condition our social life and personal relations will tell us how far we are from even the initial requirement for the practise of yoga. We have to emphasise again what yoga calls the yamas—they are not so many unimportant and merely ethical instructions, as we consider them to be. The yamas are not a requirement of ethics and morality. They are a direct requirement in our daily life, in our day-to-day relationships.

The yamas—we know very well what these are in the language of yoga—are not instructions given to us to be good. It is not a teaching that we should be moral and ethical in our behaviour, in spite of the fact that it is told to us again and again that it is good to be good, it is proper to be ethical and it is necessary to be moral. It is not an injunction that we are following—it is a necessary recipe that we have to adopt for the freedom that we have to achieve from every kind of illness that is social and relational. We are good, we are moral and ethical not because it is good to be so in the light of social requirement, but because it is essential for the maintenance of our health. Any kind of anti-ethical movement emanating from our internal nature would not merely be an anti-social attitude, it also would be anti-healthy. Anything that is anti in the outer sense is also anti in the inner sense, merely because the relationship that we have with the world is neither inward entirely nor outward entirely—it is a wholesome action taking place vitally within ourselves and the world.

Hence, one need not be too very enthusiastic in devoting all one’s time only for hatha yoga, or even pranayama, not knowing where one stands in one’s outward relations, in one’s opinions, in one’s philosophies, and in one’s likes and dislikes. The touchstone of our personality is the attitude that we put on when we are opposed in life. The strength of a person, as well as the essential character of a person, gets revealed during periods of intense opposition from outside. Otherwise these natures are buried and we cannot know exactly what we are. Though we do not expect actual opposition from nature or society, we can intelligently, rationally, spontaneously place ourselves in an atmosphere of this cooperation that we establish with all things, which is an opposition that we instill into our own selves deliberately—opposition to our own instinctive nature, because if this test is not injected into our own personality, we will be put to this test one day or the other by the compulsions of nature and the demands of the higher reaches of yoga.

Very cautious one has to be in treading these levels of yoga. Haste always makes waste, as they say. There is no need to be quick and anxious in the steps that we take in the direction of yoga practice, because as we rise higher and higher in the ascending series, we will find the practice is more and more difficult. The intensity of the difficulty that we may feel in the higher ascents arises because of shaky foundations that we have laid earlier. The structure cannot rise on a foundation than has not been well laid. We cannot lay this foundation by ourselves, inasmuch as we do not know what is ahead of us. The secrets of nature are always hidden from our eyes, and therefore a Guru is essential. We have to be humble students under a competent master. The study under a teacher is a vital communication that that we establish with a higher response that comes from nature that is above us. The Guru or teacher or master is not just an individual like us, another person, but a super-person who is the object of our adoration. A master, or a Guru, or a teacher is not a person like us, because if we consider the Guru as another person like us, naturally there will be an inclination sometimes to change the person and become a student of some other Guru, which is not possible if we understand what a Guru actually means.

A Guru is a spiritual entity, a manifestation of a higher dimension of realisation that includes the dimension which we are occupying—super-social, super-individual and therefore more capable of inclusiveness than we are. In these days, of course, we know very well that it is difficult to find a competent teacher, yet we may say the world is not so bad as to make it impossible for us to find a good teacher. There is some virtue still prevailing—the world is not all devil yet. There is some sort of goodness, dharma—God is still alive, and there is hope for everyone.

It is therefore necessary for each one of us to gradually move upwards, cautiously taking our steps, one over the other, and find enough time to be alone to our own selves for this purpose, and not become too engrossed in the unnecessary activities of life. In our daily program a distinction should be made between the most essentials which we cannot avoid, and the non-essentials which we may avoid. It is not that everything that we do from morning to evening is all very, very essential. Sometimes we like to be a little light-hearted, free in a sense of abandon in our physical and social nature, on which we can put a sort of restriction gradually, which is not very difficult. It is necessary to feel a kind of greater satisfaction in oneself when alone than when in the midst of people.

We feel miserable when we are alone, mostly. We feel wretched. We would like to go to a shop, go somewhere and shake hands with someone, go to a tea shop and chat with someone, because it is difficult to be alone to oneself. The social nature has entered us in such a morbid way, we may say, that we have ceased to be what we are in ourselves. But to be a spiritual seeker, to be a healthy person is to also realise that it is not always necessary for us to be dependent on external factors. There is a potentiality in us. We are healthy. We can be healthy in our own selves without borrowing things from outside. It is essential, one day or the other, to be alone in our own selves. Alone we have come and alone we will go—we must remember this. Therefore it is necessary for us to realise that even today in social life, in this family life and community life, we are really alone; our friends are not real friends. It is good to be a little wise in our life in this world and not actually be expecting a kick from nature, a time when we will be forced to be alone to our own selves.

We should find a little time to be alone to ourselves, and be free to place ourselves before this great majesty of God’s creation. In the early morning, when we wake up from sleep, we are face-to-face not with people, but with creation. What we see in front of us is God’s creation. It is not our house that we see in the early morning—it is not our kitchen, it is not our family members, it is not our study, it is not our office—it is creation that we are envisaging. It is possible to widen our vision a little bit, it is so easy, if only we can be little investigative and capable of going deep into the implications of our daily perceptions. Again, to repeat, all this is difficult for an individual seeker without the help and guidance of a competent master.

We had, in our own life, the blessing of being under the umbrella and protection of a great sage, Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj. Physically he is not visible, but invisibly he is operating even now, and even if one cannot find a teacher due to the difficulties of one’s personal life, one can be sure that this great master, Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, will act as one’s guide even now, though he is not visible to the eyes. If our soul is actually aspiring, if our heart is sincere and if we truly wish to be spiritual and be on the path of the quest of reality, sages and masters of the higher realms will descent for our protection. Nobody is dead in this world. Neither Swami Sivanandaji is dead, nor is anybody dead. They are placed in some realm, a higher potentiality of existence, from where they can operate in a greater and more powerful way than they could through their physical bodies. When God himself can come to help us, why not others who are Godmen? The world is not remote—it is not entirely outside. It is involved in everything that we are, and our sincerity will summon and is capable of evoking the blessings of all the saints and sages, visible or invisible. Great adepts who live in higher realms will descend and bless us, whether we are aware of the way in which this blessing comes or not, because divine grace descends in its own way and it need not work always in the manner we expect it to work.

God’s incarnations are supposed to be perpetual, and they take place from moment to moment whether or not we are able to recognise them. The entire wonder of God’s creation, the way of nature, of the process of the history of humanity is a perpetual incarnation that is taking place and a perennial demonstration of the fact that protection comes perpetually from every side. It is available to everyone, at every moment—even just now if only we really ask for that protection and grace from the bottom of our hearts.