THE EIGHT STEPS OF YOGA ARE: SELF-RESTRAINT, FIXED OBSERVANCE, POSTURE, BREATH REGULATION, ABSTRACTION, CONCENTRATION, CONTEMPLATION AND TRANCE.

Yam, niyam, asan, pranayam, pratyahar, dharana, dhyan. samadhiya ashto angani.

 

THE EIGHT STEPS OF YOGA ARE: YOM, SELF-RESTRAINT; NIYAM. FIXED OBSERVANCE; ASAN, POSTURE; PRANAYAM, BREATH REGULATION; PRATYAHAR, ABSTRACTION; DHARANA, CONCENTRATION; DHYAN, CONTEMPLATION; SAMADHI, TRANCE.

 

The eight steps of yoga. This is the whole science of yoga in one sentence, in one seed. Many things are implied. First, the exact meaning of each step. And remember, Patanjali calls them steps and limbs, both. They are both. Steps they are because one has to be followed by another, there is a sequence of growth. But they are not only steps: they are limbs of the body of yoga. They have an internal unity, an organic unity also, that is the meaning of limbs.

 

For example, my hands, my feet, my heart — they don’t function separately. They are not separate; they are an organic unity. If the heart stops, the hand will not move then. Everything is joined together. They are not just like steps on a ladder, because every rung on the ladder is separate. If one rung is broken the whole ladder is not broken. So Patanjali says they are steps, because they have a certain, sequential growth — but they are also angas. Limbs of a body, organic. You cannot drop any of them. Steps can be dropped; limbs cannot be dropped. You can jump two steps in one jump, you can drop one step, but limbs cannot be dropped; they are not mechanical parts. You cannot remove them. They make you. They belong to the whole; they are not separate. The whole functions through them as a harmonious unit.

 

So these eight limbs of yoga are both steps, steps in the sense that each follows the other, and they are in a deep relationship. The second cannot come before the first — the first has to be first and the second has to be second. And the eighth will come to be the eighth — it cannot be the fourth, it cannot be the first. So they are steps and they are an organic unity also.

 

Yam means self-restraint. In English the word becomes a little different. Not a little different, really, the whole meaning of yam is lost — because in English self-restraint looks like suppressing, repressing. And these two words, suppression and repression, after Freud, have become four-letter words, ugly. Self-restraint is not repression. In the days when Patanjali used the word yam it had a totally different meaning. Words go on changing. Even now, in India also, samyam, which comes from yam, means control, repression. The meaning is lost.

 

You may have heard an anecdote. It is said about King George I of England that he went to see St. John’s Cathedral when it was built. It was a masterpiece of art. The builder, the architect, the artist, was present there; his name was Christopher Wren. The king looked at him and complimented him. He said three words: he said, “It is amusing. It is awful. It is artificial.” Christopher Wren was so delighted with the compliments… but you will be simply surprised. Those words don’t have the same meaning anymore. In those days, three hundred years before, amusing used to mean amazing, awful used to mean awe-inspiring, and artificial used to mean artistic.

 

Each word has a biography, and it changes many times. As life changes, everything changes: the words take new colors. And, in fact, the words which have the capacity to change, only they remain alive; otherwise they go dead. Orthodox words, reluctant to change, they die. Alive words, who have the capacity to collect a new meaning around them, only they live; and they live in many, many meanings, for centuries. Yam was a beautiful word in Patanjali’s days, one of the beautiful…. After Freud, the word has become ugly — not only the meaning has changed, but the whole flavor, the whole taste of the word.

 

To Patanjali self-restraint does not mean to repress oneself. It simply means to direct one’s life — not to repress the energies, but to direct, to give them a direction. Because you can live such a life, which goes on moving in opposite directions, in many directions — then you will never reach anywhere. It is just like a car: the driver goes a few miles to the north, then changes the mind; goes a few miles to the south, then changes the mind; then goes a few miles to the west, then changes the mind; and goes on this way. He will die where he was born. He will never reach anywhere. He will never have the feeling of fulfillment. You can go on moving in many ways, but unless you have a direction you are moving uselessly. You will feel more and more frustrated and nothing else.

 

To create a self-restraint means, first, to give a direction to your life energy. Life energy is limited. If you go on using it in absurd. undirected ways, you will not reach anywhere. You will be emptied of the energy sooner or later — and that emptiness will not be the emptiness of a Buddha; it will be simply a negative emptiness. nothing inside, an empty container. You will be dead before you are dead. But these limited energies that have been given to you by nature, existence, God, or whatsoever you like to call it; these limited energies can be used in such a way that they can become the door for the unlimited. If you move rightly, if you move consciously, if you move alert, gathering all your energies and moving in one direction, if you are not a crowd but become an individual — that is the meaning of yam.

 

Ordinarily you are a crowd, many voices inside. One says, “Go to this direction”; another says, “That is useless. Go to this.” One says, “Go to the temple”; another says, “The theater will be better. And you are never at ease anywhere because wherever you are, you will be repenting. If you go to the theater the voice that was for the temple will go on creating trouble for you: “What are you doing here wasting your time? You would have been in the temple… and prayer is beautiful. And nobody knows what is happening there — and, nobody knows, this may have been the opportunity for your enlightenment and you have missed.” If you go to the temple, the same — the voice that was insisting to go to the theater will go on saying: “What are you doing here? Like a foolish man you are sitting here. And you have prayed before and nothing happens. Why are you wasting your time?” And all around you, you will see fools sitting and doing useless things — nothing happens. In the theater who knows what excitement. what ecstasy was possible? You are missing.

 

If you are not an individual, a unitary being, wherever you are, you will always be missing. You will never be at home anywhere You will always be going somewhere or other and never arriving anywhere. You will become mad. The life which is against yam will become mad. It is not surprising that in the West more mad people exist than in the East. The East — knowingly, unknowingly — still follows a life of a little self-restraint. In the West to think about self-restraint looks like becoming a slave; to be against self-restraint looks like you are free, independent. But unless you are an individual you cannot be free. Your freedom will be a deception; it will be nothing but suicide. You will kill yourself, destroy your possibilities, your energies; and one day you will feel that the whole life you tried so much but nothing has been gained, no growth has come out of it.

 

Self-restraint means, the first meaning: to give a direction to life. Self-restraint means to become a little more centered. How can you become a little more centered? Once you give a direction to your life, immediately a center starts happening within you. Direction creates the center; then the center gives direction. And they are mutually fulfilling.

 

2.

Unless you are self-restrained, the second is not possible — that’s why Patanjali calls them steps. The second is niyam, fixed observance: a life which has a discipline, a life which has a regularity about it, a life which is lived in a very disciplined way, not hectic. Regularity… but that too will sound to you like slavery. All beautiful words of Patanjali’s time have become ugly now. But I tell you, unless you have a regularity in your life, a discipline, you will be a slave of your instincts — and you may think this is freedom, but you will be a slave of all the vagrant thoughts. That is not freedom. You may not have any visible master, but you will have many invisible masters within you; and they will go on dominating you. Only a man who has a regularity about him can become the master someday.

That too is far away still, because the real master happens only when the eighth step is achieved — that is the goal. Then a man becomes a jina, a conqueror. Then a man becomes a Buddha, one who is awakened. Then a man becomes a Christ, a savior, because if you are saved, suddenly, you become a savior for others. Not that you try to save them: just your presence is a saving influence. The second is niyam, fixed observance.

 

3.

The third is posture. And every step comes out of the first, the preceding one: when you have regularity in life, only then can you attain to posture, asan. Try asan sometimes; just try to sit silently. You cannot sit — the body tries to revolt against you. Suddenly you start feeling pain here and there. The legs are going dead. Suddenly you feel, on many spots of the body, a restlessness. You had never felt it. Why is it that just sitting silently so many problems arise? You feel ants are crawling up. Look, and you will see there are no ants; the body is deceiving you. The body is not ready to be disciplined. The body is spoiled. The body does not want to listen to you. It has become its own master. And you have always followed it. Now, even to sit silently for a few minutes has become almost impossible.

 

People pass through such hell if you tell them to just sit silently. If I say this to somebody he says, “Just to sit silently, not doing anything?” — as if “doing” is an obsession. He says, “At least give me a mantra so I can go on chanting inside.” He needs some occupation. Just sitting silently seems to be difficult. And that is the most beautiful possibility that can happen to a man: just sitting silently doing nothing.

 

Asan means a relaxed posture. You are so relaxed in it, you are so restful in it, that there is no need to move the body at all. In that moment, suddenly, you transcend body.

 

The body is trying to bring you down when the body says, “Now look, many ants are crawling on,” or you suddenly feel an urge to scratch, itching. The body is saying, “Don’t go so far away. Come back. Where are you going?” — because the consciousness is moving upwards, going far away from the bodily existence. Hmm?… the body starts revolting. You have never done such a thing. The body creates problems for you because once the problem is there, you will have to come back. The body is asking for your attention: “Give your attention.” It will create pain. It will create itching; you will feel like scratching. Suddenly the body is no longer ordinary; the body is in revolt. It is a body politics. You are being called back: “Don’t go so far away, be occupied. Remain here” — remain tethered to the body and to the earth. You are moving towards the sky, and the body feels afraid.

 

Asan comes only to a person who lives a life of restraint, fixed observance, regularity; then posture is possible. Then you can simply sit because the body knows that you are a disciplined man. If you want to sit, you will sit — nothing can be done against you. The body can go on saying things… by and by it stops. Nobody is there to listen. It is not suppression; you are not suppressing the body. On the contrary, the body is trying to suppress you. It is not suppression. You are not saying anything for the body to do; you are simply resting. But the body does not know any rest because you have never given rest to it. You have always been restless. The very word asan means rest, to be in deep rest; and if you can do that, many things will become possible to you.

 

If the body can be in rest, then you can regulate your breathing You are moving deeper, because breath is the bridge from the body to the soul, from the body to the mind. If you Can regulate breathing — that is pranayam — you have power over your mind.

 

Have you ever watched that whenever the mind changes, the rhythm of the breath immediately changes? If you do the opposite — if you change that rhythm of the breath — the mind has to change immediately. When you are angry you cannot breathe silently; otherwise the anger will disappear. Try. When you are feeling angry your breath goes chaotic, it becomes irregular, loses all rhythm, becomes noisy, restless. It is no longer a harmony. A discord starts being there; the accord is lost. Try one thing: whenever you are getting angry just relax and let the breath be in rhythm. Suddenly you will feel the anger has disappeared. The anger cannot exist without a particular type of breathing in your body.

 

When you are making love the breath changes, becomes very violent. When you are very much filled with sexuality, the breath changes, becomes very violent. Sex has a little violence in it. Lovers are known to bite each other and sometimes harm each other. And if you see two persons making love, you will see that some sort Or fighting is going on. There is a little violence in it. And both are breathing chaotically; their breathings are not in rhythm, not in unison.

 

In tantra, where much has been done about sex and the transformation of sex, they have worked very much on the rhythm of the breath. If two lovers, while making love, can remain in a rhythmic breathing, in unison, that both have the same rhythm, there will be no ejaculation. They can make love for hours, because ejaculation is possible only when the breath is not in rhythm; only then can the body throw the energy. If the breath is in rhythm, the body absorbs the energy; it never throws it out. Tantra developed many techniques of changing the rhythm of breath. Then you can make love for hours and you don’t lose energy. Rather on the contrary you gain, because if a woman loves a man and a man loves a woman, they help each other to be recharged — because they are opposite energies. When opposite energies meet and spark, they charge each other; otherwise energy is lost and, after the lovemaking, you feel a little cheated, deceived — so much promise and nothing comes in hand, the hands remain empty.

 

4.

 

After asan comes breath regulation, pranayam. Watch for a few days and just take notes: when you become angry what is the rhythm of your breathing — whether exhalation is long or inhalation is long or they are the same, or inhalation is very small and exhalation very long, or exhalation very small, inhalation very long. Just watch the proportion of inhalation and exhalation. When you are sexually aroused, watch, take a note. When sometimes sitting silently and looking at the sky in the night, everything is quiet around you.  Just take note of how your breath is going. When you are feeling filled with compassion, watch, note down. When you are in a fighting mood, watch, note down. Just make a chart of your own breathing. and then you know much.

 

And pranayam is not something which can be taught to you. You have to discover it because everybody has a different rhythm to his breathing. Everybody’s breathing and its rhythm is as much different as thumbprints. Breathing is an individual phenomenon, that’s why I never teach it. You have to discover your own rhythm. Your rhythm may not be a rhythm for somebody else, or may be harmful for somebody else. Your rhythm — you have to find.

 

And that is not difficult. There is no need to ask any expert. Just keep a chart for one month of all your moods and states. Then you know which is the rhythm where you feel most restful, relaxed, in a deep let-go; which is the rhythm where  you feel quiet, calm, collected, cool; which is the rhythm when, suddenly, you feel blissful. filled with something unknown, overflowing — you have so much in that moment, you can give to the whole world and it will not be exhausted. Feel and watch the moment when you feel that you are one with the universe, when you feel the separateness is there no more, a bridge. When you feel one with the trees and the birds. and the rivers and the rocks, and the ocean and the sand — watch You will find that there are many rhythms of your breath, a great spectrum: from the most violent, ugly, miserable hell-type, to the most silent heaven-type.

 

And then when you have discovered your rhythm, practice it — make it a part of your life. By and by it becomes unconscious; then you only breathe in that rhythm. And with that rhythm your life will be a life of a yogi: you will not be angry, you will not feel so sexual, you will not feel so filled with hatred. Suddenly you will feel a transmutation is happening to you.

 

Pranayam is one of the greatest discoveries that has even happened to human consciousness. Compared to pranayam, going to the moon is nothing. It looks very exciting, but it is nothing, because even if you reach to the moon, what will you do there? Even if you reach to the moon you will remain the same. You will do the same nonsense that you are doing here. Pranayam is an inner journey. And pranayam is the fourth — and there are only eight steps. Half the journey is completed on pranayam. A man who has learned pranayam, not by a teacher —  but by his own discovery and alertness, a man who has learned his rhythm of being, has achieved half the goal already. Pranayam is one of the most significant discoveries.

 

5.

And after pranayam, breath regulation, is pratyahar, abstraction. Pratyahar is the same as I was talking to you about yesterday. The “repent” of Christians is, in fact, in Hebrew “return” — not repent but return, going back. The toba of Mohammedans is nothing; it is not “repenting.” That too has become colored with the meaning of repentance; toba is also returning back. And pratyahar is also returning back, coming back — coming in, turning in, returning home. After pranayam that is possible — pratyahar — because pranayam will give you the rhythm. Now you know the whole spectrum: you know in what rhythm you are nearest to home and in what rhythm you are farthest from yourself. Violent, sexual, angry, jealous, possessive, you will find you are far away from yourself; in compassion, in love, in prayer, in gratitude, you will find yourself nearer home. After pranayam, pratyahar, return, is possible. Now you know the way — then you already know how to step backwards.

 

6.

Then comes dharana. After pratyahar, when you have started coming back nearer home, coming nearer your innermost core, you are just at the gate of your own being. pratyahar brings you near the gate; pranayam is the bridge from the out to the in. Pratyahar, returning, is the gate, and then is the possibility of  dharana, concentration. Now you can become capable of bringing your mind to one object. First, you gave direction to your body; first, you gave direction to your life energy — now you give direction to your consciousness. Now the consciousness cannot be allowed to go anywhere and everywhere. Now it has to be brought to a goal. This goal is concentration, dharana: you fix your consciousness on one point.

 

When consciousness is fixed on one point thoughts cease, because thoughts are possible only when your consciousness goes on wavering — from here to there, from there to somewhere else. When your consciousness is continuously jumping like a monkey, then there are many thoughts and your whole mind is just filled with crowds — a marketplace. Now there is a possibility — after pratyahar, pranayam, there is a possibility — you can concentrate on one point.

 

If you can concentrate on one point, then the possibility of dhyan. In concentration you bring your mind to one point. In dhyan you drop that point also. Now you are totally centered, nowhere-going — because if you are going anywhere it is always going out. Even a single thought in concentration is something outside you — object exists; you are not alone, there are two. Even in concentration there are two: the object and you. After concentration the object has to be dropped.

 

All the temples lead you only up to concentration. They cannot lead you beyond because all the temples have an object in them: the image of God is an object to concentrate on. All the temples lead you only up to dharana, concentration. That’s why the higher a religion goes, the temple and the image disappear. They have to disappear. The temple should be absolutely empty, so that only you are there — nobody, nobody else, no object: pure subjectivity.

 

7.

Dhyan is pure subjectivity, contemplation — not contemplating “something,” because if you are contemplating something it is concentration. In English there are no better words. Concentration means something is there to concentrate upon. Dhyan is meditation: nothing is there, everything dropped, but you are in an intense state of awareness. The object has dropped, but the subject has not fallen into sleep. Deeply concentrated, without any object, centered — but still the feeling of “I” will persist. It will hover. The object has fallen, but the subject is still there. You still feel you are.

 

This is not ego. In Sanskrit we have two words, ahankar and asmita. Ahankar means “I am.” And asmita means ‘am.’ Just “amness” — no ego exists, just the shadow is left. You still feel, somehow, you are. It is not a thought, because if it is a thought. that “I am,” it is an ego. In meditation the ego has disappeared completely; but an amness, a shadowlike phenomenon, just a feeling, hovers around you — just a mist-like thing, that just in the morning hovers around you.  In meditation it is morning. the sun has not risen yet, it is misty: asmita, amness, is still there.

 

You can still fall back. A slight disturbance — somebody talking and you listen — meditation has disappeared; you have come back to concentration. If you not only listen but you have started thinking about it, even concentration has disappeared; you have come back to pratyahar. And if not only are you thinking but you have become identified with the thinking, pratyahar has disappeared; you have fallen to pranayam. And if the thought has taken so much possession of you that your breathing rhythm is lost, pranayam has disappeared: you have fallen to asan. But if the thought and the breathing are so much disturbed that the body starts shaking or becomes restless. Asan has disappeared. They are related.

 

One can fall from meditation. Meditation is the most dangerous point in the world, because that is the highest point from where you can fall, and you can fall badly. In India we have a word, yogabhrasta: one who has fallen from yoga. This word is very, very strange. It appreciates and condemns together. When we say somebody is a yogi, it is a great appreciation. When we say somebody is yogabhrasta, it is also a condemnation: fallen from the yoga. This man had attained up to meditation somewhere in his past life and then fell down. From meditation the possibility of going back to the world is still there — because of asmita, because of amness. The seed is still alive. It can sprout any moment; so the journey is not over.

 

8.

When asmita also disappears, when you no longer know that you are — of course, you are but there is no reflection upon it, that “I am,” or even amness — then happens samadhi, trance, ecstasy. Samadhi is going beyond; then one never comes back. Samadhi is a point of no return. From there nobody falls. A man in samadhi is a god: we call Buddha a god, Mahavir a god. A man in samadhi is no longer of this world. He may be in this world, but he is no longer of this world. He doesn’t belong to it. He is an outsider. He may be here, but his home is somewhere else. He may walk on this earth, but he no longer walks on the earth. It is said about the man of SAMADHI he lives in the world but the world does not live in him.

 

Eight Steps / Eight Limbs

 

These are the eight steps and eight limbs together. Limbs because they are so interrelated and so organically related; steps because you have to pass one by one — you cannot start from just anywhere: you have to start from yam.

 

Now a few more things, because this is such a central phenomenon for Patanjali you have to understand a few things more. Yam is a bridge between you and others; self-restraint means restraining your behavior. Yam is a phenomenon between you and others, you and the society. It is a more conscious behavior: you don’t react unconsciously, you don’t react like a mechanism, like a robot. You become more conscious; you become more alert. You react only when there  is absolute necessity; then too you try so that that reaction should be a response and not a reaction.

 

A response is different from a reaction. The first difference is: a reaction is automatic; a response is conscious. Somebody insults you: immediately you react — you insult him. There has not been a single moment’s gap to understand: it is reaction. A man of self-restraint will wait, listen to his insult, will think about it.

 

Yam is the bridge between you and others — live consciously; relate with people consciously. Then the second two, niyam and asan — they are concerned with your body. Third, pranayam is again a bridge. As the first, yam, is a bridge between you and others, the second two are a preparation for another bridge — your body is made ready through niyam and asan — then pranayam is the bridge between the body and the mind. Then pratyahar and dharana are the preparation of the mind. Dhyan again, is a bridge between the mind and the  soul. And samadhi is the attainment. They are interlinked, a chain; and this is your whole life.

 

Your relation with others has to be changed. How you relate has to be transformed. If you continue to relate with others in the same way as you have always been doing, there is no possibility to change. You have to change your relationship. Watch how you behave with your wife or with your friend or with your children. Change it. There are a thousand and one things to be changed in your relationship. That is yam, a control — but control, not suppression. Through understanding comes control. Through ignorance one goes on forcing and suppressing. Always do everything with understanding and you never harm yourself or anybody else.

 

Yam is to create a congenial environment around yourself. If you are inimical to everybody — fighting, hateful, angry — how can you move inwards? All these Things will not allow you to move. You will be so much disturbed on the surface that that inner journey will not be possible. To create a congenial, a friendly, atmosphere around you is yam. When you relate with others beautifully, consciously, they don’t create trouble for you in your inner journey. They become helps; they don’t hinder you. If you love your child, then when you are meditating he will not disturb you. He will say to others, “Keep quiet. Pop is meditating.” But if you don’t love your child, you are simply angry, then when you are meditating he will create all sorts of nuisances. He wants to take revenge — unconsciously. If you love your wife deeply, she will be helpful; otherwise she won’t allow you to pray, she won’t allow you to meditate — you are going beyond her control.

 

A man of yam controls himself, not others. To others he gives freedom. You try to control the other and never yourself. A man of yam controls himself, gives freedom to others — loves so much that he can give freedom, and he loves himself so much that he controls himself. This has to be understood: he loves himself so much that he cannot dissipate his energies; he has to give a direction.

 

Then, niyam and asan are for the body. A regular life is very healthy for the body because the body is a mechanism. You confuse the body if you lead an irregular life. Today you have taken your food at one o’clock, tomorrow you take at eleven o’clock, day after tomorrow you take at ten o’clock — you confuse the body. The body has an inner biological clock; it moves in a pattern. If you take your food every day at exactly the same time, the body is always in a situation where she understands what is happening. and she is ready for the happening — the juices are flowing in the stomach at the right moment. Otherwise, whenever you want to take the food, you can take, but the juices will not be flowing. And if you take the food and the juices are not flowing, then the food becomes cold; then the digestion is difficult.

 

The juices must be ready there to receive the food while it is hot, then immediately absorption starts. Food can be absorbed in six hours if the juices are ready, waiting. If the juices are not waiting, then it takes twelve hours to eighteen hours. Then you feel heavy, lethargic. Then the food gives you life, but does not give you pure life. It feels like a weight on your chest; you somehow carry, drag. And food can become such pure energy — but then a regular life is needed.

 

You go to sleep every day at ten o-clock: the body knows — exactly at ten o’clock the body gives you an alarm. I’m not saying become obsessive — that when your mother is dying then too you go at ten o’clock. I’m not saying that. Because people can become obsessive….

 

But this is obsession. No need to become obsessive; everything has to be done with understanding.  Niyam and asan, regularity and posture: they are for the body. A controlled body is a beautiful phenomenon — a controlled energy, glowing, and always more than is needed, and always alive, and never dull and dead. Then the body also becomes intelligent, body also becomes wise, body glows with a new awareness.

 

Then, pranayam is a bridge: deep breathing is the bridge from mind to body. You can change the body through breathing; you can change the mind through breathing. Pratyahar and dharana, returning home and concentration, belong to the transformation of the mind. Then, dhyan is again a bridge from mind to the self, or to the no-self — whatsoever you choose to call it, it is both. Dhyan is the bridge of samadhi.

 

The society is there; from the society to you there is a bridge: yam. The body is there; for the body: regularity and posture. Again there is a bridge, because of the different dimension of mind from the body: pranayam. Then, the training of the mind: pratyahar and dharna, returning back home and concentration. Then again a bridge, this is the last bridge: dhyan. And then you reach the goal: samadhi.

 

Samadhi is a beautiful word. It means now everything is solved. It means samadhan: everything is achieved. Now there is no desire; nothing is left to achieve. There is no beyond; you have come home.

You move from first step to eight step in order but very rarely it is possible that an individual could reach one or the other states first and then move in his own order to achieve all eight of them.   Exceptions are always there with every rule, but when Patanjali talks, he talks about the rule, not about the exception. Exceptions need not be talked about. The greater mass of humanity cannot reach from anywhere in any other way. They will have to follow step by step — from one to two, from two to three. They move in an organic unity. But there are freaks who can go and jump — but then they too will have to come back and absorb the left-behind part. Their arrangement can be different, that’s possible.

 

You can start with pranayam, but then you will have to come to asan, you will have to come to YAM…. You can start by meditation, but then you will have to move to other parts which are left behind. But all the eight have to be developed, and a unison between all the eight, so you become an organic unity.

 

It happens sometimes, even a person can reach up to the seventh without completing all the steps, but nobody has reached to the eighth without completion. Up to seven there is the possibility: you can leave some steps and you can do some and reach up to the seventh — but then you will hang there. Up to meditation you can reach but not up to samadhi, because SAMADHI needs your total being — fulfilled. nothing left behind, nothing left incomplete — everything complete. Then you will have to hang around the seventh for long, and you will have to go back and do things which needed to be done. Only when you have completed everything up to the seventh, the eighth, samadhi, becomes possible.

 

“Nonviolence, truthfulness….” Truthfulness means authenticity, to be true, not to be false — not to use masks: whatsoever is your real face, show it… and at whatsoever the cost.

 

Brahmacharya is: to understand the whole phenomenon, what is happening. And if by shocks you become peaceful and you attain a little glimpse of happiness… this cannot be eternal. It can only be momentary. And soon the energy will be lost and then you will be frustrated. No, something else has to be found and discovered, something of the eternal, something so that you remain blissful. It cannot be through the shock; it can be only through the transmutation of the energy.

 

When the same energy moves upwards you become a dam of energy. That is brahmacharya. You go on accumulating energy. The more you accumulate, the higher it rises. Just like in a dam: it will be raining now, and the water level will go higher and higher and higher. But if there is a leakage, then the water level will not go high. Your sexuality is a leakage of your being.

 

If the leakage is not there, the water level goes higher and higher and higher, and a moment comes — then it passes through many centers. First it comes to the hara, from the muladhar it comes to the second center. At that center you have a feeling of deathlessness; you become aware that nothing dies. Fear disappears. Have you observed, whenever you feel afraid something hits you just near the navel? There is the center of death and deathlessness. When the energy passes to that center, comes to that level, you feel deathless. If somebody even kills you, you know that you are not being killed: “Na hanyate hanyamane sharire” — “By killing the body you cannot kill the soul.”

 

Then the energy goes higher, comes to the third center. At the third center you start becoming very, very peaceful. Have you ever observed that whenever you are peaceful you start breathing from the belly and not from the chest? Because the center of peace is just above the navel. Below the navel is the center of death and deathlessness; above the navel is the center of peace and tensions. If there is no energy you will feel tension; if there is no energy you will feel fear. If there is energy, tension disappears; you feel very, very peaceful, tranquil, calm, quiet, collected.

 

Then the energy moves to the fourth center, of the heart. There arises love. You cannot love right now, and whatsoever you call love is nothing but sex camouflaged in a beautiful word “love.” That word is not true to you — cannot be. Love is possible only when energy reaches to the fourth center of the heart. Suddenly you are in love — love with the whole existence, love with everything. You are love.

 

Then the energy moves to the fifth center, in the throat. That center is the center of silence — silence, thought, thinking, speech. Speech, no-speech — both are there. Right now your throat only works to speak. It does not know how to function in silence, how to go into silence. When the energy comes to it, suddenly you become silent. Not that you make any effort, not that you force yourself to be silent — you find yourself to be silent, full of silence Even if you have to speak, you have to make effort. And your voice becomes musical, whatsoever you say becomes poetry a subtle glow in your words, of life. And your words carry silence within them, around them. In fact your silence becomes more pregnant than your words.

 

Then the energy goes to the sixth center, the third eye. There you find light — awareness, consciousness. That is the point where sleep happens — hypnosis happens. Have you watched any hypnotizer? He says to fix your eyes to a point. When you fix your two eyes to a point, your third eye goes into sleep. That is just a trick to create sleep in the third eye. When the energy reaches to the third eye, you feel so full of light… all darkness disappeared, infinite light surrounds you. In fact there is no shadow in you then. The oldest saying in Tibet is, “When a yogi becomes realized in awareness, there falls no shadow of his body.” Don’t take it literally — the body will create the shadow. But deep inside, because there is so much light everywhere…. Light without source! If light is with a source there will be shadow; light without source: there cannot be any shadow.

 

And life now has a different meaning and dimension. You move on the earth but you are no longer of the earth, as if you fly. You have come nearest to Buddhahood. Now the garden is very near; you can feel the fragrance. At this point, for the first time, you become capable of understanding a Buddha; before it, by and by, gradually, fragments happen to you, but not total understanding. But at this point you are close, just near the door. The temple has arrived; a knock, and the door shall open and you yourself will be a Buddha. Now, so near and at such close quarters, you for the first time start feeling what understanding is.

 

And then the energy moves to the seventh, sahasrar. There it becomes brahmacharya, a life divine. Then you are no longer a man — then you are a god. You have attained to bhagwatta, to divineness. This is brahmacharya “… and non-possessiveness.” And only after brahmacharya, when you have attained to the fulfillment, you possess the world! without possessing it.  But by and by you have to train yourself for non-possession. Don’t be possessive, because whenever you are possessive you simply show that you are a beggar. Whenever you try to possess, you simply show that you don’t possess it; otherwise there is no effort. You are the master. There is no need to try for it.

 

For example, if you love a person: if you try to possess the person, then you don’t love. And you are not certain about his love also; that’s why you create all safety measures, surround him by every trick, cunningness, cleverness, so that he cannot leave you. But you are killing love. Love is freedom, love gives freedom, love lives in freedom — love is, in its intrinsic core, freedom. You will destroy the whole thing. If you really love, there is no need to possess; you possess so deeply, what is the need? You don’t claim; the claim will look shallow. When you really possess, you become non-possessive, but one has to train oneself, be aware. Don’t try to possess anything. At the most use, and be thankful that you were allowed to use, but don’t possess.

 

Possession is a miserliness; and a miserly being cannot flower. A miserly being is always in a spiritual constipation, ill. You have to open, share. Share whatsoever you have and it will grow — share more and it grows more. Go on giving, and you are continuously refilled. The source is eternal; don’t be a miser. And whatsoever it is — love, wisdom — whatsoever it is, share. Sharing is the meaning of non-possessiveness.

 

But you can be foolish, as many people are. They think, “Leave the house, go to the forest, because how can you live in the house if you don’t possess?” You can live in the house; there is no need to possess it. You will be living in the forest. Will you possess the forest? Will you say, “Now I am the lord of this forest”? If you can live in the forest without possessing it, what is the problem? Why can’t you live in the house and in the shop without possessing it? Foolish people say, “Leave your wife, your children. Escape, because non-possessiveness is to be practiced.” They are stupid.

 

Where will you go? Where you will go, wherever you go, your possessiveness will be with you. It won’t make any difference. Wherever you are, just understand and drop possessiveness. Nothing is wrong in your wife — don’t say “my” wife. Just drop the “my.” Nothing is wrong in your children — beautiful children, children of the God. You have been given an opportunity to serve and love them — use it, but don’t say “my.” They have come through you, but they  don’t belong to you. They belong to the future; they belong to the whole. You have been a passage, a vehicle, but you are not the owner.

 

So what is the need to escape anywhere? Be wherever it has happened that you are. Be wherever God placed you and live in a non-possessiveness, and suddenly you will start flowering — energies will be flowing, you will not be a blocked phenomenon, you will become a flow. And flow is beautiful. To live blocked and frozen is to be ugly and dead.

 

These five inner self-disciplines are the basic requirement “… regardless of class, place, time, or circumstance.” Whether you are born today or you were born five thousand years before makes no difference. There arc preachers in India who say, “In this kali yuga you cannot become enlightened.” And Patanjali says, “… regardless of class, place, time, or circumstance.” You can become enlightened wherever you are.

 

Time doesn’t matter. It is awareness that matters. Place doesn’t matter. Whether you are in the Himalayas or in the market does not matter. Circumstance doesn’t matter — whether you are a grahasta, a householder, or a person who has renounced everything, no. Class doesn’t matter — whether you are rich or poor, educated or uneducated, brahmin or a shudra, Hindu or a Mohammedan, Christian or a Jew. Nothing matters, because deep down you are one.

 

On the circumference there may be differences, but they are only on the circumference; the center remains untouched. Attain to the purity of the center. That’s the goal.

 

Shauch, purity. means purity about food. purity. about body, purity about mind — three layers of purities. And the fourth, which is your being, needs no purity because it cannot become impure. Your innermost core is always Pure, always virgin, but that innermost core is covered with other things which can become impure — which become impure every day. You use your body every day; dust collects. You use your mind every day; thoughts collect. Thoughts are just like dust. Living in the world, how can you live without thoughts? You have to think. Body collects dust, becomes dirty; mind collects thoughts, becomes dirty. Both need a good, cleaning bath. It should become a part of your style. It should not be taken as a law; it should be just a way of living beautifully.

 

And if you feel pure then other possibilities immediately open because everything is linked with everything else; it is a chain. And if you want to change life always start from the beginning.

 

The second step of niyam is “contentment,” santosh. A man who feels healthy, whole, light, weightless, fresh, young, virgin, will be able to understand what contentment is.  Otherwise you will not be able to understand what it means — it will remain a world. Contentment means: whatsoever is  beautiful, the feeling that whatsoever is the best that can be. A feeling of deep acceptance is santosh, contentment, a feeling of saying yes to the whole existence — as it is.

 

Contentment is awareness of all that is already there. If you can just see the glimpse of what is happening already, what more can you expect? To expect more will be sheer ingratitude. If you can see the whole, you will be simply thankful; you will feel a tremendous gratitude arising out of your being. You will say, “All is good, everything is beautiful, everything is holy. And I am thankful, because I have not earned it and I was given the chance, the opportunity, to live, to be, to breathe, to see, to hear — to see the trees blossoming and to hear the birds singing.”

 

If you can become aware — just a little awareness and you will not see that there is anything to be changed, anything to be desired — everything has already been given to you. Because of your complaints — clouds of complaints, negativity — you cannot see; your eyes are filled with smoke and you cannot see the flame.

 

Contentment is a seeing — a different seeing — of life: not seeing through your desires, but trying to see whatsoever is already the case. If you see through the desire, you will never be contented. How can you be… because desire goes on and on?

 

Austerity is simplicity: to live a simple life. What is a simple life? It is like that of a child — you enjoy everything, but you don’t cling.

 

Austerity is possible only after contentment, because after contentment your austerity is not going to be a means to some goal; it will simply be an uncomplicated way of living, a simple way of living. And why simple? Because it is happier. The more complex your living, the more unhappy you will be, because you have to manage so many things. Simpler the life, the happier, because there is no management, really. You can simply live like breathing.

 

And then comes “self-study,” swadhyaya. A man who has attained to purity, contentment, austerity, only he can study self; because now all the rubbish is thrown, all the rot is thrown away. Otherwise self-study will not be possible. You have so much rubbish in you, if you go to study self it will not be self-study, because all that rubbish will have to be studied.

 

Patanjali moves very, very scientifically. After austerity, when you have become very simple, no rubbish accumulates, when you have become so contented that no desire lives in you, when you have become so innocent and pure that no heaviness exists, you have become like fragrance, weightless, on the wings, in the air, riding on the air — then self-study. Now, you can study the self.   Self-study is not self-analysis; it is just looking into the self. It is meditating on the self.

 

“Purity, contentment, austerity, self-study, and surrender to God are the laws to be observed.” These are laws for growth. They do not prohibit; they help. They are not restrictive; they are creative.