Darshan with Swami Krishnananda during 1997

by Swami Krishnananda

19. A Brief Outline of Yoga

(Darshan given on March 3rd, 1997.)

A visitor: What is yoga?

Swamiji: Yoga has many meanings. It is not a simple matter. It is setting up a balance in the system. When I say 'system', you must understand what is the system. When there is balance in the system, you are in a state of yoga. When there is disbalance in the system, it is an unhealthy condition.

To take the example of your own body, if it is kept in a perfect equilibrium, you feel healthy, very spirited, agile; you like to run, your breathing is perfect, you feel happy. That is due to the balance of the functioning of the body and the anatomy. The physiology and the organs, the emotions, the lungs, the heart, the muscles and the nerves are all set in harmony. Then you feel a sense of happiness born of perfect health. This is one stage in the practice of yoga. And what you call asana, physical exercise, they are trying to do only this much: to create a balance in the physical system, the nervous system and the muscular system. All the organs inside the body must be kept in balance.

But there is a higher part of yoga, and that is emotional balance. You may be physically okay – you eat well and you have got a strong body, and everything looks all right – but internally the mind is not happy. It is disturbed by some desire, some frustration, some sense of loss. These also are to be taken care of properly. Even if you do yoga exercise every day, if the mind is disturbed for some reason, that yoga practice will not help you much. The mind and the body should cooperate. It is very difficult.

The emotion is the most important factor in your life. Are you always feeling happy or have some agitation inside? You curse something, and you are feeling, “I am not getting what I want. This is hopeless.” Are you making remarks like that? Are you in a mood of despondency? That kind of person is unfit for yoga. So there is also a necessity for an alignment of the internal structure. Physical alignment is yoga exercise, and internal alignment is psychological, and is more important than the physical body.

There is a system of yoga known as the raja yoga of Sage Patanjali. It is a system of yoga which is a systematically arranged pattern of rising from the lower to the higher – systematic. I told you two things: firstly the physical one, then the emotional and psychological one. Then comes one still higher up: the control of the energy of the system. Every person has energy. There is a quantum of energy which is maintained, which keeps you perfectly all right. You should not lose that energy by excessive desire. With too much of anger and jealousy and hatred, and desire for unnecessary things of the world, energy goes out. Such a person becomes psychologically weak, and such a person may also become physically weak. This is a much higher state of yoga, and it cannot be practised by oneself without proper guidance. Physical exercise anybody can do. To some extent you can keep your mind calm, but beyond that it is all very difficult. That requires a guide.

How will you keep your energy intact in yourself without allowing it to go outside through the sense organs? That state is the third state of yoga: control of the sense organs so that your energy is complete. If your energy is stabilised in yourself, and it is not moving in the direction of objects of sense outside, then the energy of the universe will enter into you gradually. Now it is not entering. That's why you feel very weak and unhappy. The whole universe is a mass of energy, and you are inside this universe, so the whole universal energy is operating through you.

But you don't believe it. You have no faith that you actually belong to the universe. You think you are independent, and that you can do whatever you like. You can do whatever you like, provided you are in harmony with the universal force. If you are against it, and you are disobeying it, and you are in conflict with the natural laws, and you develop your egoism too much, the natural forces will not enter into you. So a still-higher yoga is the harmonisation and stabilisation of the energy of the person in a state of balance with the cosmic energy.

Still higher, there is another state. At that state, you will be thinking like the universe. You will not think like a person from any country, and all that. You are not a human being at all at that time. You are a cosmic universal being.

Still beyond, there is something. I should not go on telling you everything like that. There is no purpose in talking about it. These are all internal secrets. The highest yoga is union of your soul with God. That is the highest yoga. The highest yoga is union of your soul with God stage by stage, stage by stage, stage by stage. If your soul is one with the Almighty Creator, you have reached the highest yoga so that yourself and the universe become one and you feel the presence of the all-pervading Spirit in yourself. This is a short answer to your question, and if you have anything more to ask, you are free to ask.

Visitor: How can we get it? How can we be one with the universe?

Swamiji: Now you try to do what I told you. Can you do what I told you? Is it not possible?

Visitor: Yes, I believe this. We can realise it.

Swamiji: If you can understand what I have told you, you will also know how to do it.

Visitor: Maybe you can teach us, to show us the way.

Swamiji: How can I show God to you, show the universe? You are asking me to show the universe. How can I show you the universe? You are inside it. To the extent you understand me…

Firstly, are you happy people? This first of all you find out. Unhappy persons cannot do yoga.

Visitor: Yes, we are happy.

Swamiji: You find out. Close your eyes: “Am I satisfied, or am I not satisfied? If I am not satisfied, why am I not satisfied? Perhaps I want something and I'm not getting it.” Are you justified in wanting it? This also you must ask. Sometimes you can create unhappiness by asking for unjustifiable things. So it is up to you to use your discrimination. It does not mean that everybody should want everything. There is no such thing at all. Everybody wants something, but not everything. You want food to eat when you are hungry, you want water to drink when you are thirsty, you want a house to sleep in, you want clothing. Okay, it is perfectly all right. But more than that if you ask, it may lead to luxury. There is a distinction between luxury and necessary requirement. You are permitted to have all those things which are necessary for maintaining your health and comfortable life, but luxury is not permitted.

Anyway, whatever be the reason for your unhappiness, that must be removed first. The first step in yoga is you must be internally calm, quiet and happy. If you are not happy, you must find out the cause for that unhappiness, and the cause must be removed by special means. Here you may not be able to do it independently because a person is involved in the psychological complex, and therefore by oneself one cannot disentangle oneself from that complex. A sick person cannot treat himself. He has to go to a doctor; otherwise, a sick person goes to a shop and eats medicine and becomes okay? That is not possible. In the same way, when there is an emotional complex, an experienced person must be consulted. Every person should have some guide, especially when you are in turmoil emotionally and psychologically. If that matter is set right, then you can go up to the higher stage of meditation.

And I told you how it can be done by daily sitting. Every day you sit for one hour at any convenient time. Close your eyes. Feel the presence of God – that Mighty Being everywhere Who created this universe, Who is called by various names in various religions. In Judaism you have got one name for God, in Christianity you have got another name for God, in Hinduism another name, and so on and so forth. Everybody calls that Mighty Power by different names. Whatever it is, it is One Being. That created you, and you are inseparable from it. Feel the presence of that Being in yourself inside, outside, everywhere, and feel a vibration taking place inside you by the entry of that Great Being into yourself. Every day offer prayers to that Almighty Being, and you will find that God will bless you in some way. God has the power to bless you. The grace will come, the divine grace.

Anyway, you require a guide. Whenever you are in trouble, the mind is not concentrating, and internally you are in disturbance – there is some clash of purpose, some conflict inside or outside – when that takes place, a person individually by himself or herself may not be able to solve the problem. So you must go to a guide. Such a guide you must find. And each one should find it. Anyone among you, someone might be a little superior to the other. You can consult a better person among you: I have got some trouble. My dear friend, what are your suggestions? Also you can mutually consult among yourselves and solve your little problems.

This is a brief outline of yoga. I have told you something which requires deep thinking, and you have to give sufficient time for it. At least one hour every day you must keep quiet. Don't do anything but think along these lines. That's all I can tell you. What else?

Visitor: You can guide us to stop the war in our country so that our enemies will stop.

Swamiji: You do what I told you, then only you ask questions. Are you doing what I told you? Why are you asking questions unnecessarily, which has no connection with what I told you?

Visitor: I don't understand.

Swamiji: You cannot understand anything unless your mind is covering the whole cosmos. You are thinking you are from Israel, and therefore you are talking like that. You must belong to the whole universe and then think with multiple eyes, and interconnectedly. You must connect everything with everything, and then only you can know the connection of one thing with another thing. War or peace, birth or death, that's a different matter. How are these taking place? It is due to some internal operation of the structure of the universe. And unless you know what the universe is made of, you cannot answer any question. So simply sitting quiet and asking questions has no meaning. You must have a good knowledge into the astronomical, psychological and metaphysical structure of the whole cosmos. It requires great training; otherwise, no answer will come.

You are thinking like a small person. You must become a big person, as big as a whole creation; then you will find the answer yourself. Things are interconnected. One thing happens, another thing happens. One cause is there, and an effect follows. If you eat too much, you get headache. “Why a headache is coming?” you are asking me. Because you have eaten bad things. Something is there. So every event has got a cause behind it, and unless you know the cause, the effect cannot be answered.

Every event is a good thing; every event is a bad thing also. It depends upon the viewpoint you take. Nobody can answer such questions unless your mind expands into the level of the entire creation.

Visitor: Thank you very much. I have been doing yoga for 3-4 years and I learned some system, and I think in India they have many things to teach us about the heights of spiritual thinking. Thank you very much.