The Nature of the True Religious Life

by Swami Krishnananda

Chapter 13: All Life is Yoga

As a science of life, yoga goes deep into the ultimate reality of things and is not satisfied with the surface view of the world, to which we are usually accustomed. Thus, yoga is a very serious matter, the final step that a person takes in one's life. Being bent upon the solution of the great problem of existence, which harassed the minds of persons such as Buddha, and to enable people to tread which path, Incarnations such as Christ were born into this world. Messengers from the Eternal descend as Incarnations—sages and saints, masters and adepts—to help mortal individuals rise to the peak of achievement, towards which all life is moving. Hence, that “all life is yoga” is well said.

All life is yoga, any kind of life is yoga, anything that we do is yoga, whatever we think is yoga, whatever we speak is yoga—provided that what we think, what we feel, what we do, and how we behave and conduct ourselves is a continuous adjustment of our being with the requisition of that great yoga, which is the universe contemplating itself. What is yoga? Yoga is the universe contemplating itself. It is not our thinking of somebody, not A, B, C or X, Y, Z meditating on some God outside; it is the whole creation becoming aware that it is. That is yoga. It is in this sense we can say that every life is yoga, provided that it becomes a conscious affair. Everyone is unconsciously a part of this vast universe, but we have to consciously be such a part.

Hence, yoga is a rousing of this unconscious relationship to a conscious experience. We are no doubt unconsciously in perpetual union with the whole of the universe; no one can gainsay this, but this has to become a conscious affair. We may be unconsciously the son of a millionaire, but thereby we regard ourselves in no way better. When we become conscious that we are the heir apparent of a millionaire, we become wealthy. It is the consciousness that matters, not the thing as such. The thing may be there or may not be there; our awareness of it is what really matters.

During a previous session I told you that the whole world is Consciousness. Sarvam khalv idaṁ brahma (C.U. 3.14.1): “The whole universe is the Absolute scintillating in various forms,” says the Upanishad; and as Madhyamika Buddhism puts it, the whole universe is a void. A void of what? A void of forms and names, particularisations and sensations of every type. Nagarjuna, the great thinker of the Madhyamika school, declared that the whole of reality can be summed up in one word: nothingness. It is a nothingness of everything that is perceptible to the senses. Everything that is cognisable by the empirical mind and recognisable by the empirical senses, all this is a nihil, a zero; it is not there. It is a phantasm, but we think it is a hard, diamond-like, flint-like reality because we ourselves, as perceiving individuals of the same, are a part of this phantasmagoria. It is like blind men being led by the blind.

Thus, there is no chance of our recognising the phantasmal character of things. We cannot know it as long as we are involved in it. When we have joined a band of thieves, we have to behave like thieves. Because we are part of this band of thieves, we cannot behave like policemen at that time. Thus, we have become part and parcel of this band of sensory experience. The world that we experience is nothing but a bundle of sensations. The world is not a solid object. It is a heap of sensations, vibrations, actions and reactions. This is what the great Buddha never tired of telling again and again in all his sermons. Transitoriness is the nature of this world. It is not that the world is transitory, but the world is transitoriness itself. It is not that a bird is flying; there is only flying without a bird—something very difficult to understand.

Many of the disciples of the Buddha could not grasp what he meant. The meaning is that there is no solidity, substantiality, perceptibility, tangibility, etc., in the objects of the world, including our own bodies. The substantiality, the hardness, the solidity, the thisness or thatness of things is an electrical repulsion brought about by a coming together of two electromagnetic impulses: from our fingers, and from the structure of that particular thing we call matter or objects.

People who have had the experience of an electric shock, of a high voltage particularly, would have known what one feels at that time. If you touch a live wire of 240 volts you will not know what is happening. There will be a peculiar sensation of a tremendous weight, as if a hill is tied to your hand. A large weight is hanging on your arm. It will actually feel as though somebody is pulling you down with tons of weight, while there is no weight, really speaking, and nothing in your hand. A mere electrical contact, a repulsion created by the velocity of the electric force, can create a sensation of an iron weight hanging on your hand.

Why go so far? You have a solid, tangible experience of substantial centres of pleasure and pain in the dream world, which you cannot deny at the time of experiencing them. Oftentimes, you get awakened to a real perception of this world by a shocking experience in dream, such as the roar of a tiger or a fall from a tree, and the like. Unreal things can create real experiences. You can have a real waking from sleep by an unreal roar of an unreal tiger in dream. Very strange indeed! How can an unreal cause produce a real effect? This happens.

Thus, a complete revaluation of values precedes entry into the path of yoga. Great masters who are leaders par excellence, such as the Buddha and the Christ, as I mentioned, cannot be regarded as ordinary religious men. They did not belong to any religion, because they were percipients of Reality. And while we are told that yoga is union, actually what is intended to be conveyed by this statement is that the basic Reality in us comes in union with the basic Reality of things. In one terminology it is called samadhi or samapatti; in another terminology it is called union with Reality. It is called God-realisation, Cosmic-experience or Cosmic-consciousness, freedom from birth and death, attainment of immortality, and other names you can conceive in your mind.

The structural pattern of our personality has got involved in the mire of externality to such an extent that we would find it hard to enter into the technique of the inwardisation of consciousness. We have heard it said that meditation is an internal affair, and when we hear that we have to inwardise our consciousness and centralise our being within in meditation, we may be under the impression that we have to close our eyes and look inside our chest or contemplate something within our physical heart, the inwardisation getting identified with a centralisation within this physical body.

This inwardisation referred to in yogic meditations is not of this kind. It is not a physiological, spatial or physical entry into our body. We are not withdrawing the mind from an outside something into an inside something, attempting to place the mind inside the physical body. This inwardness, or pratyaksha chaitanyata of consciousness, is hard for us to imagine in our minds because we are like the prisoners in the den which Plato describes in his Republic—looking at the shadows and beholding their movements on a dark wall, getting identified with the shadows themselves, and not knowing that we have an archetypal or original existence. Thus involved in the perception of shadows, unsubstantial movements, we would not be able to imagine what it is to inwardise consciousness.

Consciousness is the seer, the knower, the pure subject. As a pure subject, it cannot become an object of cognition or awareness. Thus, when we transfer the logic of this subjectivity of consciousness to our earlier conclusion that the whole world is Consciousness, we can know where we stand at this moment. Stretch your imagination a little bit with effort. What do you feel at this moment? In this pure, non-objective or purely subjective Consciousness, which is the substance of all things in the universe, what is your location? Where do you stand?

This establishment of ourselves is yoga. There the mind does not oscillate, does not flicker, does not move to any object outside, because it is just not there. Things which are apparently hard melt into this liquidity of Consciousness, into which we too liquefy ourselves, to put it into intelligible language—liquefy in the sense that the location of our presence enters into the locations of all things. As all rivers enter into every other river in the ocean and every river is everywhere, all things are everywhere and we too will find ourselves everywhere.

This happens merely because of one important fact, that our essentiality as pure Consciousness recognises itself as equally present in all other things also, due to the fact that the whole world is scintillating Consciousness—the alaya vijnana, the repository of Universal Awareness. It is not a particular person's awareness, not yours or mine. It is, thus, not an inwardisation of our particular awareness into our physical inwardness, but an inwardness of what may metaphysically be called Subjectivity proper. It is a metaphysical subjectivity, not a physical subjectivity of bodily inwardness. Yato yato niścarati manaś cañcalam asthiram, tatas tato niyamyaitad ātmanyeva vaśaṁ nayet (B.G. 6.26) says the Bhagavadgita: “As the mind moves hither and thither in meditation in search of its food, from there, from that particular corner into which it is moving, draw it inwardly into the Selfhood of itself.” This is your effort in yoga.

We are living in an unreal world in one important sense. We are living in a world of shadows. These people moving in front of us are the shadows cast by the originals, which we cannot see because we have been chained to face one direction only, as Plato puts it in his great description. Our necks and bodies are chained tightly in one particular direction—towards the dark wall, upon which we see the movement of the shadows cast by the originals of people moving in the sunlight behind us—and we cannot turn our heads and see behind us, because we have been chained tightly. The space and time complex are the chains which tie us forcefully in the direction of the shadows, the movements. They are called shadows because they are merely movements of another thing altogether, which cannot be seen with the eyes. We may call it the world of three dimensions or the world of shadows; we may say it is a world of movement, transitoriness, a world of flux, as Buddha said or Heraclitus said, or anyone might say in his own language.

The problem is that we ourselves are involved in this flux. Therefore, we cannot see it is there. Whatever be the sermons that we hear regarding the flux, the transitoriness, the shadowy nature and the non-externality of things, all these sermons, teachings and lectures go over our heads. Nothing will enter our vitals because we are involved in this very flux we are supposed to cognise.

Thus, yoga is difficult, like climbing on one's own shoulders. Hard is this because it is necessary to achieve an almost impossible task of standing aside, away from or apart from the whole flux of Nature, including the flux of your own bodily individuality, so that the meditator, the yogin, the seeker, the spiritual aspirant, is not inside your body. It is not you that is meditating. Here, the you or the I have gone. Gate gate pāragate pārasaṁgate bodhi svāhā is a great mantra of Buddhist Mahayana, by which they proclaim the reaching of the other shore by this involved consciousness. Auṁ maṇi padme hūṁ. All these mantras of Buddhism imply the entry of the jewel of your essentiality into the lotus of universality. This is maṇi padme hūṁ, and this is this pārasaṁgate, the entering or the reaching of the other shore of Consciousness of the Madhyamikas, of the Yogacharas, and of even the Vedantins.

Therefore, the meditating consciousness is not yourself. You yourself as a boy or a girl, a man or a woman, or an individual of this type or that type are not the meditating centre. You have already got out of this flux, so you are visualising the whole world as an object in front of you, as a movement and not as a substance. The world is not a substance; it is merely a movement. This is what they mean by saying it is a shadow. This can be recognised only if you can perform this almost impossible feat of getting yourself out of your body. You have to stand outside your own body.

There is a very beautiful sutra of Patanjali where he gives a hint at this possibility of your standing outside your body and looking at your own body. When you are able to see your own body as any other object, you are really meditating. Otherwise, you are only imagining that you are meditating, and you are regarding this part of the flux as a reality and considering other aspects of it as only a flux. There is a very simple, unrecognised sutra of Patanjali, but very important for the purpose of meditation, where he uses the word mahavideha (Y.S. 3.44). Many teachers do not even recognise the existence of this sutra because they cannot understand what it actually means. “Meditation is a mahavideha condition of the mind,” says Patanjali. He does not explain by way of a commentary; the word is simply used. A great disembodied state of the mind is called meditation. By a disembodied condition of the mind in meditation, he means getting the mind out of the involvement in this body and feeling its presence equally in other bodies. This alaya vijnana, the Cosmic Awareness, this great Mind that thinks the whole world, the God-mind, if you would like to call it so, is what really meditates, and not your mind or my mind. The meditating mind is a divine mind, and to enter into this purely meditating divine mind, you have to find an exit from this body.

I am seated here, and each one feels that I am here. This little five-foot or six-foot length of myself is here. My mind is inside this body. My mind cannot be outside my body. This is what we, each one of us, thinks. Now, in this mahavideha meditation, in the attempt at getting out of this body, what are you supposed to do? Strongly feel that you are inside the body of another object. “I am inside the tree, not inside this body. I am the tree itself seeing this person seated here. It is not this person seeing the tree, but the tree seeing this person.” Then you have gone there and entered into that object. This is also a system of telepathic communication. Telepathy, telecommunication, telekinesis, and such other things which you must have heard of, are techniques of a simple transference of your mind to that which you expect to think in a particular manner, do something in a particular way, behave in a particular manner, etc. This technique can be adopted in regard to any object in the world. You can think as another person thinks. For this purpose you have to transfer your mind to the personality of another individual and assume the couture of that individual in every respect, to every minute detail. Right from the top of the head to the tip of the toe you are that person, not this person. That person is seeing this person; the mind has gone out of their body. This can be applied in respect of anything, or to all things at the same time.

This is a far more advanced system of meditation where you can feel your presence not merely in one particular thing to which you have transferred yourself, but in all things in which your basic mind is present—not the empirical mind, but the archetypal mind, the original mind, the alaya vijnana, the supreme Consciousness. Then you will see the world as an object in front of you, and you too will be an object as a part and parcel of this vast universal thing.

Thus, in this meditation, it is not any particular person that meditates because this person, so-called, which is yourself or myself, goes with the objectivity of things in space and time. You get out of this objectivity of space and time and you will find, if you are sincere, if you are honest, if you are sure that your technique is correct and you are one hundred percent hopeful that success must come—not may come, but has to come—that the world will be dancing to your tune. There is no doubt about this. You will not be a servant of the world; the world will become your servant. The dog does not go with the tail; the tail goes with the dog. This is a conviction that has to arise in your mind. You should not go like a doubting Thomas. “O God, if there is a God, please help me.” This should not be your prayer. “If it is possible, let me try.” Then nothing will come. Why should it not be possible?

“If it was possible for Buddha, if it was possible for Christ, if it was possible for this person and that person, why should it not be possible for me? Certainly it is possible for me. And it is not only possible for me, but I am meant only for that, and I have no other function to perform in this world. Every other so-called duty or performance of mine in this world is a contributory link to this development of my personality toward this central achievement of the cosmos.” This conviction itself is a meditation.

Jijñāsur api yogasya śabdabrahmātivartate (B.G. 6.44): “Even this conviction itself takes you above all the scriptures.” The Bible and the Vedas are no more necessary for you when this conviction enters into you, whole-souled. It is in this condition that great saints such as Mira began to dance in ecstasy. They were not mad people. They were not crazy persons. They were at the height of immense sanity. The joy that took possession of them was such that they could not control themselves. Every cell began to dance in ecstasy, so the whole body danced. Tukaram, Namdev, Ekanath, Mirabhai, Surdas, Tulsidas—they looked like madmen because they were dancing in superb ecstasy of an uncontrollable possession, which state they achieved on account of this conviction.

“Conviction” is a poor word. We have no word for this in language; it is not conviction, but something more than conviction. It is impossible to describe. Achintyam avyaktum (Kaivalya 6), says the Upanishad. Such certainty takes possession of you that the world is with you like a huge army behind an emperor, and you have greater joy than that so-called king whom I described in the previous session as the possessor of the whole world. You are not an emperor of only this Earth, but of the higher realms as well, with free access to all the worlds. Teṣāṃ sarveṣu lokeṣu kāma-cārobhavati (C.U. 8.4.3), says the Upanishad. A free access, a permanent passport, as it were, for entry into every realm is granted to you by this indubitable certainty that has entered into you by a correct understanding of the principles of yoga practice.

A large amount of time has to be spent in this practice. The whole of your life may have to be devoted for this purpose. Yoga is not an experiment, it is not a vocation, it is not a profession, it is not a religion, it is not a faith, it is not a creed, it is not a political party to which you belong. It is your dedication. It is your envisagement of the meaning of the whole of life. It is your perception of the Reality of things. Then it is that you can smile at the whole of life. You will smile at anything that you see. You will smile at all the events of your life and see all things as beauties, rather than as forms of ugliness. They are incandescent forms of the glory of the Almighty. Whether God smiles or frowns, it makes no difference to Him. As the cub of a tiger or a lion is not afraid of its own mother and can jump on its mother's face, scratch her nose and bite her ears with impunity, with no fear, you can ride on this lion of the world. It can do no harm to you. You need not be afraid of anybody. It is not for nothing that we are told in the stories and histories of great saints that God acted as their servant, unthinkable as it may appear.

Satan tempted Christ when he said, “If you are the son of God, convert these stones into bread. Why do you starve?”

“It is not that I cannot convert stone into bread, but it is written that you should not test or experiment with God,” said the great Christ. “You cannot test God. Do you think I cannot free myself from this cup that I have to drink? The great Father will unleash the whole army of angels at my simple request. Why should Peter raise his sword? Get thee back, Satan! At a mere humble request of mine, my great Father can unleash the whole army of angels. But I want it not at this moment.”

The army of Narayana, Rudra or Brahma will be at your beck and call. The great Sudarshana Chakra, says the Bhagavata, was hurled spontaneously, as it were, by even the very feeling of a great saint. When God is willing to be your servant, as it were, yogakṣemaṁ vahāmyaham (B.G. 9.22), what about this world, what about this nature? What is this universe? Why are you afraid of it? Be bold. As I told you, only if you are convinced that you are greater than the world can you renounce the world. If you are a poor mouse or a little cat that is silently crawling in a corner of the world, helplessly driven by the forces of karma, yoga is not for you. If you are a bold, heroic, adventurous spirit on this path of God, relentlessly taking to this great goal, all the angels will be at your beck and call. The whole army will be behind you, as Christ put it.

As the Yoga Vasishtha says in a famous verse, the angels of all the heavens and realms will be at your service. They will consider it as their duty to protect you, safeguard you and provide you with your needs, provided that you have abolished your ego, you have entered into the cells and the hearts and the Substance of all things. Why do the angels serve you? Because you have entered them. They love you as they love themselves. They are not loving you, protecting you, helping you; they feel as if they are protecting themselves. This is why the world is at your beck and call. God bestows upon you the abundance that He is because of your entry into the Substance of things, which was the great vision of the Buddha when he recognised the transitoriness of things and had a vision of nirvana, which is the originality behind the shadow performances.

So, my dear friends, do not be under the impression that you are merely having some three-month course of lessons. You are on an adventure. We are only here to speak to you in a friendly manner, not as great Masters, not as Incarnations, which we are not, but as co-pilgrims on the path who speak the same language and feel the same feeling on this great journey to the supreme achievement. These few months of the course here, therefore, can be regarded as a friendly concourse of fraternal spirits joining together in a common effort of a concentrated focusing of consciousness in an onward march for a common purpose. Neither are we teachers, nor are you students. We are friends on a common platform in the interest of a great purpose, which is the purpose of all beings. We are here, rather, to pray to the Almighty rather than teach or be taught. Who are we to teach you, and who are you to be taught? These relationships have to be overcome and transcended, broken through one day or the other. It is one spirit speaking to another spirit in a superphysical communion of inward feeling of union. This achieved, yoga has been achieved. This achieved, the purpose of life is achieved, and having become successful in this, you are a success in this world.