Jump into the abyss

When the seeker has dropped the past, simply because he has finally matured and is ready, to such a seeker Patanjali says in the first yoga sutra: Athayoganushasanam —‘Now the discipline’. The seeker, having achieved sufficient maturity, is ready to take the inward path which will ultimately lead to his liberation. The sutra also highlights the moot point that yoga is not just a shastra but also a precise science; not a therapy but a simple inner discipline. And this discipline arises when the seeker is lost in his own sufferings and becomes hopeless about life.

Osho says that if that moment of maturity has not come, one can go on studying yoga, one can become a great scholar, but will not be a yogi. Yoga, he says, attempts to create a crystallised centre within the seeker, because as we are, we are a crowd and a crowd has many faces. “Unless you attain a centre, all that you do is useless. It is wasting life and time,” says Osho.

Patanjali, the father of yoga, is not only an enlightened person but also a great scientist, a genius, who approaches life scientifically. He creates an order within the seeker that has been missing. Patanjali categorises the human personality into five bodies, corresponding to the five elements within oneself, and the journey from one body to the next higher one.

The first body is Annamaya kosha, the food body, which is made of earth and emphasises purity of food that one eats.

The second body is Pranamaya kosha, the energy body, made of fire. The second body highlights the energy field around a person. Patanjali says pranamaya kosha is actually made of subtle energy that travels within through breathing and creates an aura of energy.

The third body is Manumaya kosha, the mental body, connected to the third element — water, and highlights the importance of having your own mind, taking the reins of your life in your own hands. When one becomes spontaneous and responsible, we start growing in manumaya kosha.

The fourth is Vigyanamaya kosha, the intuitive body, corresponding with air. Here, one becomes very receptive and available.

The fifth body is Anandamaya kosha, the bliss body, corresponding to the element — ether.

Osho says that these five are just seeds and beyond these five lies reality. He says that the physical body is just a step to the energy body and that again is just a step towards the mind-body. The mind-body again is just a step towards the intuitive body. And finally, this, too, is just a step towards the next, called the bliss body. And from the bliss body, one takes the jump into the sixth. Now there are no further steps — one simply takes the jump into the abyss of our being, and that is infinity, eternity,” says Osho. And beyond the sixth, nothing can be said about the seventh.

In the system of the seven chakras, the first is the Mooladhara, and the seventh is the Sahasrara. These two form the bridge between the individual and the ultimate, while the remaining five are in-between and correspond to the five elements and five bodies.

Patanjali is very clear and direct when he says that yoga postures are not really concerned with the body, but the capacity of the human being to sit silently without doing physical exercises or even moving the body for a few hours. Yoga, says Patanjali, is the state of ‘no-mind’. His emphasis is on the mind which covers everything that defines our mind including religions, scriptures, hopes and our conditioning. When the mind is silent and there are no experiences to haunt us, we are in yoga. But, when one still has the mind with all its experiences, in spite of all the postures, it cannot be called yoga.

Patanjali further says: Tada drashtuh svaroope avasthanam — ‘When the mind is gone, when the mind ceases to exist, the witness is established in himself and the person becomes a yogi.’ And who is a yogi? Through the science of yoga, Patanjali is sending out the message — drop the mind filled with memories. Let it go, just become a witness, like one watching a crowd passing by. The seeker will be in a no-mind state if the mind is flowing; so let it flow.

Osho says that the mind can be either a source of bondage or of freedom, and the right use of mind can become meditation. All the techniques, all the methods, all the paths of yoga, are really concerned with one problem: how to use the mind? It is said that mind is the subtle part of the body, because whatever goes in the body, food or any other kinds of stuff, affects the mind. And at the same time, it works in the reverse order, and if one can influence the mind, we can see the effect within the body. But as Patanjali says, once we are in a no-mind state, the mind drops and this leads to meditation. It paves the way for yoga.

Pratiksha Apurv – www.pratikshaart.com

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