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 YOGA 

- Yoga is the Cessation of the Mind -

 "Yoga Chitta Vritti Nirodhah.  

 Tada Drastuh Svarupe Vasthanam."

- Yoga is the Cessation of Mind. 

Then the Witness is established in itself -

- Patanjali, "Yoga Sutra, #1"

"Chitta means mind, nirodha means cessation - cessation of the mind.

The most famous sutra of Patanjali is 'Chitta vritti nirodha yoga':

the cessation of the waves in the mind is the union.

The whole of science is based on this simple sutra: this is the seed.

If in one's life one can fulfil this small sutra nothing else is needed."

- Osho, "The Tongue-Tip Taste of Tao, #20"

"NOW THE DISCIPLINE OF YOGA.

YOGA IS THE CESSATION OF MIND.

THEN THE WITNESS IS ESTABLISHED IN ITSELF.

IN THE OTHER STATES THERE IS IDENTIFICATION

WITH THE MODIFICATIONS OF THE MIND."

- Patanjali, "Yoga Sutra, chapter 1.1 ~ 1.4"

The basic definition is,

YOGA IS THE CESSATION OF MIND

chittavrittinirodha.

I told you that Patanjali is just mathematical. In a single sentence, NOW THE DISCIPLINE OF YOGA, he is finished with you. This is the only sentence that has been used for you. Now he takes it for granted that you are interested in yoga, not as a hope, but as a discipline, as a transformation right here and now. He proceeds to define:

YOGA IS THE CESSATION OF MIND.

This is the definition of yoga, the best. In many ways yoga has been defined; there are many definitions. Some say yoga is the meeting of the mind with the divine; hence, it is called yoga - yoga means meeting, joining together. Some say that yoga means dropping the ego: ego is the barrier; the moment you drop the ego you are joined to the divine. You were already joined, only because of the ego it appeared that you were disjoined. And there are many, but Patanjali's is the most scientific. He says,

YOGA IS THE CESSATION OF MIND.

Yoga is the state of no-mind. The word "mind" covers all - your egos, your desires, your hopes, your philosophies, your religions, your scriptures. "Mind" covers all. Whatsoever you can think is mind. All that is known, all that can be known, all that is knowable, is within mind. Cessation of the mind means cessation of the known, cessation of the knowable. It is a jump into the unknown. When there is no mind, you are in the unknown. Yoga is a jump into the unknown. It will not be right to say "unknown"; rather, "unknowable".

What is the mind? What the mind is doing there? What it is? Ordinarily we think that mind is something substantial there inside the head. Patanjali doesn't agree - and no one who has ever known the insides of the mind will agree. Modern science also doesn't agree. Mind is not something substantial inside the head. Mind is just a function, just an activity.

You walk and I say you are walking. What is walking? If you stop, where is walking? If you sit down, where the walking has gone? Walking is nothing substantial; it is an activity. So while you are sitting, no one can ask, "Where you have put your walking? Just now you were walking, so where the walking has gone?" You will laugh. You will say, "Walking is not something substantial, it is just an activity. I can walk. I can again walk and I can stop. It is activity."

Mind is also activity, but because of the word "mind", it appears as if something substantial is there. It is better to call it "minding" - just like "walking". Mind means "minding", mind means thinking. It is an activity."

I have been quoting again and again Bodhidharma.

He went to China, and the emperor of China went to see him. And the emperor said, "My mind is very uneasy, very disturbed. You are a great sage, and I have been waiting for you. Tell me what I should do to put my mind at peace."

Bodhidharma said, "You don't do anything. First you bring your mind to me." The emperor could not follow he said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Come in the morning at four o'clock when nobody is there. Come alone, and remember to bring your mind with you."

The emperor couldn't sleep the whole night. Many times he cancelled the whole idea: "This man seems to be mad. What does he mean, 'Come with your mind; don't forget?'" The man was so enchanting, so charismatic that he couldn't cancel the appointment. As if a magnet was pulling him, at four o'clock he jumped out of the bed and said, "Whatsoever happens, I must go. This man may have something; his eyes say that he has something. Looks a little crazy, but still I must go and see what can happen."

So he reached, and Bodhidharma was sitting with his big staff. He said, "So you have come? Where is your mind? Have you brought it or not?"

The emperor said, "You talk nonsense. When I am here my mind is here, and it is not something which I can forget somewhere. It is in me." So Bodhidharma said, "Okay. So the first thing is decided - that the mind is within you." The emperor said, "Okay, the mind is within me." Bodhidharma said, "Now close your eyes and find out where it is. And if you can find out where it is, immediately indicate to me. I will put it at peace."

So the emperor closed his eyes, tried and tried, looked and looked. The more he looked, the more he became aware there is no mind, mind is an activity. It is not something there so you can pinpoint it. But the moment he realized that it is not something, then the absurdity of his quest became exposed to himself. If it is not something, nothing can be done about it. If it is an activity, then don't do the activity; that's all. If it is like walking, don't walk.

He opened his eyes. He bowed down to Bodhidharma and said, "There is no mind to be found." Bodhidharma said, "Then I have put it at peace. And whenever you feel that you are uneasy, just look within, where that uneasiness is." The very look is anti-mind, because look is not a thinking. And if you look intensely your whole energy becomes a look, and the same energy becomes movement and thinking.

YOGA IS THE CESSATION OF MIND.

This is Patanjali's definition. When there is no mind, you are in yoga; when there is mind you are not in yoga. So you may do all the postures, but if the mind goes on functioning, if you go on thinking, you are not in yoga. Yoga is the state of no-mind. If you can be without the mind without doing any posture, you have become a perfect yogi. It has happened to many without doing any postures, and it has not happened to many who have been doing postures for many lives.

Because the basic thing to be understood is: when the activity of thinking is not there, you are there; when the activity of the mind is not there, when thoughts have disappeared, they are just like clouds, when they have disappeared, your being, just like the sky, is uncovered. It is always there - only covered with the clouds, covered with thoughts.

YOGA IS THE CESSATION OF MIND.

In the West now, there is much appeal for Zen - a Japanese method of yoga. The word "zen" comes from dhyana. Bodhidharma introduced this word dhyana in China. In China the word dhyana became jhan and then chan and then the word traveled to Japan and became zen.

The root is dhyana. Dhyana means no-mind, so the whole training of Zen in Japan is of nothing but how to stop minding, how to be a no-mind, how to be simply without thinking. Try it! When I say try it, it will look contradictory, because there is no other way to say it. Because if you try, the very try, the effort is coming from the mind. You can sit in a posture and you can try some japa chanting, mantra - or you can just try to sit silently, not to think. But then not to think becomes a thinking. Then you go on saying, "I am not to think; don't think; stop thinking," but this is all thinking.

Try to understand. When Patanjali says, no-mind, cessation of mind, he means complete cessation. He will not allow you to make a japa, "Ram-Ram-Ram." He will say that this is not cessation; you are using the mind. He will say, "Simply stop!" but you will ask, "How? How to simply stop?" The mind continues. Even if you sit, the mind continues. Even if you don't do, it goes on doing.

Patanjali says just look. Let mind go, let mind do whatsoever it is doing. You just look. You don't interfere. You just be a witness, you just be an onlooker not concerned, as if the mind doesn't belong to you, as if it is not your business, not your concern. Don't be concerned! Just look and let the mind flow. It is flowing because of past momentum, because you have always helped it to flow. The activity has taken its own momentum, so it is flowing. You just don't cooperate Look, and let the mind flow.

For many, many lives, million lives maybe, you have cooperated with it, you have helped it, you have given your energy to it. The river will flow awhile. If you don't cooperate, if you just look unconcerned - Buddha's word is indifference, upeksha: looking without any concern, just looking, not doing anything in any way - the mind will flow for a while and it will stop by itself When the momentum is lost, when the energy has flowed, the mind will stop. When the mind stops, you are in yoga: you have attained the discipline. This is the definition: YOGA IS THE CESSATION OF MIND.

THEN THE WITNESS IS ESTABLISHED IN ITSELF.

When the mind ceases, the witness is established in itself.

When you can simply look without being identified with the mind, without judging, without appreciating, condemning, without choosing - you simply look and the mind flows, a time comes when by itself, of itself, the mind stops.

When there is no mind, you are established in your witnessing. Then you have become a witness - just a seer-a drashta, a sakchhi. Then you are not a doer, then you are not a thinker. Then you are simply being pure being, purest of being. Then the witness is established in itself.

IN THE OTHER STATES THERE IS IDENTIFICATION WITH THE MODIFICATIONS OF THE MIND.

Except witnessing, in all states, you are identified with the mind. You become one with the flow of thoughts, you become one with the clouds: sometimes with the white cloud, sometimes with the black cloud, sometimes with a rain-filled cloud, sometimes with a vacant, empty cloud, but whatsoever, you become one with the thought, you become one with the cloud, and you miss your purity of the sky, the purity of space. You become clouded, and this clouding happens because you get identified, you become one.

A thought comes. You are hungry, and the thought flashes in the mind. The thought is simply that there is hunger, that the stomach is feeling hunger. Immediately you get identified; you say, "I am hungry." The mind was just filled with a thought that hunger is there; you have become identified and you say, "I am hungry." This is the identification.

Buddha also feels hunger, Patanjali also feels hunger, but Patanjali will never say that, "I am hungry." He will say "The body is hungry"; he will say, "My stomach is feeling hungry"; he will say, "There is hunger. I am a witness. I have come to witness this thought, which has been flashed by the belly in the brain, that 'I am hungry.'" The belly is hungry; Patanjali will remain a witness. You become identified, you become one with the thought.

THEN THE WITNESS IS ESTABLISHED IN ITSELF.

IN THE OTHER STATES THERE IS IDENTIFICATION WITH THE MODIFICATIONS OF THE MIND.

This is the definition:

YOGA IS THE CESSATION OF MIND.

When mind ceases, you are established in your witnessing self. In other states, except this, there are identifications. And all identifications constitute the samsar; they are the world. If you are in the identifications, you are in the world, in the misery. If you have transcended the identifications, you are liberated. You have become a siddha, you are in nirvana. You have transcended this world of misery and entered the world of bliss.

And that world is here and now-right now, this very moment! You need not wait for it a single moment even. Just become a witness of the mind, and you have entered. Get identified with the mind, and you have missed. This is the basic definition.

Remember everything, because later on, in other sutras, we will enter details what is to be done, how it is to be done - but always keep in the mind this is the foundation.

One has to achieve a state of no-mind: that is the goal.

- Osho, "Yoga - The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 1"

 Yoga is pure science 

Yoga is pure science, and Patanjali is the greatest name as far as the world of yoga is concerned. This man is rare. There is no other name comparable to Patanjali. For the first time in the history of humanity, this man brought religion to the state of a science: he made religion a science, bare laws; no belief is needed.

Because so-called religions need beliefs. There is no other difference between one religion and another; the difference is only of beliefs. A Mohammedan has certain beliefs, a Hindu certain others, a Christian certain others. The difference is of beliefs. Yoga has nothing as far as belief is concerned; yoga doesn't say to believe in anything. Yoga says experience. Just like science says experiment, yoga says experience. Experiment and experience are both the same, their directions are different. Experiment means something you can do outside; experience means something you can do inside. Experience iS an inside experiment

Science says: Don't believe, doubt as much as you can. But also, don't disbelieve, because disbelief is again a sort of belief. You can believe in God, you can believe in the concept of no-God. You can say God is, with a fanatic attitude; you can say the quite reverse, that God is not with the same fanaticism. Atheists, theists, are all believers, and belief is not the realm for science. Science means experience something, that which is; no belief is needed. So the second thing to remember:

Yoga is existential, experiential, experimental. No belief is required, no faith is needed -- only courage to experience. And that's what's lacking. You can believe easily because in belief you are not going to be transformed. Belief is something added to you, something superficial. Your being is not changed; you are not passing through some mutation. You may be a Hindu, you can become Christian the next day. Simply, you change: you change Gita for a Bible. You can change it for a Koran, but the man who was holding Gita and is now holding the Bible, remains the same. He has changed his beliefs. [....]

Belief is easy because you are not required really to do anything -- just a superficial dressing, a decoration, something which you can put aside any moment you like. Yoga is not belief. That's why it is difficult, arduous, and sometimes it seems impossible. It is an existential approach. You will come to the truth, but not through belief, but through your own experience, through your own realization. That means you will have to be totally changed. Your viewpoints, your way of life, your mind, your psyche has to be shattered completely as it is. Something new has to be created. Only with that new will you come in contact with the reality.

- Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 1, #1"

Patanjali is absolutely scientific. He says we are not related with means; there are a thousand and one means. The goal is the truth. Some have achieved it through God, so it is okay -- believe in God and achieve the goal, because when the goal is achieved you will throw your belief. So belief is just instrumental. If you don't believe, it is okay; don't believe, and travel the path of belieflessness, and reach the goal.

He is neither theist nor atheist. He is not creating a religion, he is simply showing you all the paths that are possible and all the laws that work in your transformation. God is one of those paths; it is not a must. If you are godless, there is no need to be non-religious. Patanjali says you can also reach -- be godless; don't bother about God. These are the laws and these are the experiments; this is the meditation -- pass through it

- Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 1, #2, Q2"

Patanjali is not going to give you the answer, he is only going to indicate you the path, the way from where your own answer will arise, from where you will encounter the answer.

The great Masters have given only methods, they have not given the answer. Philosophers have given answers, but Patanjali, Jesus or Buddha, they have not given answers. You ask for answers and they give you methods, they give you techniques. You have to work your answer out yourself, through your effort, through your suffering, through your penetration, through your TAPASCHARYA. Only the answer can come, and it can become a significance. Your fulfillment is through it.

- Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 1, #6, Q2"

Yoga is discipline. It is an effort on your part to change yourself. Many other things have to be understood. Yoga is not a therapy. In the West many psychological therapies are prevalent now, and many western psychologists think that yoga is also a therapy. It is not! It is a discipline. And what is the difference? This is the difference: a therapy is needed if you are ill, a therapy is needed if you are diseased, a therapy is needed if you are pathological. A discipline is needed even when you are healthy. Really, when you are healthy only a discipline can help then.

It is not for pathological cases. Yoga is for those who are completely healthy as far as medical science is concerned, normal. They are not schizophrenic; they are not mad they are not neurotic. They are normal people, healthy people with no particular pathology. Still, they become aware that whatsoever is called normality is futile, whatsoever is called health is of no use. Something more is needed, something greater is needed, something holier and whole is needed.

Therapies are for ill people. Therapies can help you to come to yoga, but yoga is not a therapy. Yoga is for a higher order of health, a different order of health -- a different type of being and wholeness. Therapy can, at the most, make you adjusted. Freud says we cannot do more. We can make you an adjusted, normal member of the society -- but if the society itself is pathological, then? And it is! The society itself is ill. A therapy can make you normal in the sense that you are adjusted to the society, but the society itself is ill! [....]

Yoga is not therapy; yoga is not trying in any way to make you adjusted to the society. If you want to define yoga in terms of adjustment, then it is not adjustment with the society, but it is adjustment with existence itself. It is adjustment with the divine!

- Osho, "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 1, #1"

 "Try to find your own posture. 

 Try to find your own yoga, 

 and Never Follow a rule" 

"STHIR SUKHAM ASANAM"

- Posture should be steady and comfortable -

Patanjali's yoga has been very much misunderstood, misinterpreted. Patanjali is not a gymnast, but yoga looks like it is a gymnastics of the body. Patanjali is not against the body. He is not a teacher to teach you contortions of the body. He teaches you the grace of the body, because he knows only in a graceful body a graceful mind exists; and only in a graceful mind a graceful self becomes possible; and only in a graceful self, the God.

Step by step, deeper and higher grace has to be attained. Grace of the body is what he calls asan, posture. He's not a masochist. He is not teaching you to torture your body. He is not a bit against the body. How can he be? He knows the body is going to be the very foundation-stone. He knows if you miss the body, if you don't train the body, then higher training will not be possible.

The body is just like a musical instrument. It has to be rightly tuned; only then will the higher music arise out of it. If the very instrument is somehow not in right shape and order, then how can you imagine, hope, that the great harmony will arise out of it? Only discordance will arise. Body is a veena, a musical instrument.

"STHIR SUKHAM ASANAM" -- the posture should be steady and should be very, very blissful, comfortable. So never try to distort your body, and never try to achieve postures which are uncomfortable.

For the Westerners, sitting on the ground, sitting in padmasan, lotus posture, is difficult; their bodies have not been trained for it. There is no need to bother about it. Patanjali will not force that posture on you. In the East people are sitting from their very birth, small children sitting on the ground. In the West, in all cold countries, chairs are needed; the ground is too cold. But there is no need to be worried about it. If you look at Patanjali's definition, what a posture is, you will understand: it should be steady and comfortable.

If you can be steady and comfortable in a chair, it is perfectly okay -- no need to try a lotus posture and force your body unnecessarily. In fact, if a Western person tries to attain to lotus posture it takes six months to force the body; and it is a torture. There is no need. Patanjali is not in any way helping you, in any way persuading you, to torture the body. You can sit in a tortured posture, but then it will not be a posture according to Patanjali.

A posture should be such that you can forget your body. What is comfort? When you forget your body, you are comfortable. When you are reminded continuously of the body, you are uncomfortable. So whether you sit in a chair or you sit on the ground, that's not the point. Be comfortable, because if you are not comfortable in the body you cannot long for other blessings which belong to deeper layers: the first layer missed, all other layers closed. If you really want to be happy, blissful, then start from the very beginning to be blissful. Comfort of the body is a basic need for anybody who is trying to reach inner ecstasies.

"Posture should be steady and comfortable." And whenever a posture is comfortable it is bound to be steady. You fidget if the posture is uncomfortable. You go on changing sides if the posture is uncomfortable. If the posture is really comfortable, what is the need to fidget and feel restless and go on changing again and again?

And remember, the posture that is comfortable to you may not be comfortable to your neighbor; so please, never teach your posture to anybody. Every body is unique. Something that is comfortable to you may be uncomfortable to somebody else.

Everybody has to be unique because every body is carrying a unique soul. Your thumbprints are unique. You cannot find anybody else all over the world whose thumbprints are just like yours. And not only today: you cannot find anybody in the whole past history whose thumbprints will be like yours, and those who know, they say even in the future there will never be a person whose thumbprint will be like yours. A thumbprint is nothing, insignificant, but that too is unique. That shows that every body carries a unique being. If your thumbprint is so different from others', your body, the whole body, has to be different.

So never listen to anybody's advice. You have to find your own posture. There is no need to go to any teacher to learn it; your own feeling of comfort should be the teacher. And if you try -- within a few days try all the postures that you know, all the ways that you can sit -- one day you will fall upon, stumble upon, the right posture. And the moment you feel the right posture, everything will become silent and calm within you. And nobody else can teach you, because nobody can know how your body harmony, in what posture, will exactly be steady, comfortable.

Try to find your own posture. Try to find your own yoga, and never follow a rule, because rules are averages. They are just like, in Poona there are one million people: somebody is five feet tall, somebody five five, somebody five six, somebody six feet, somebody six and a half feet. One million people: you calculate their heights and then you divided the total height of one million people by one million; then you will come to an average height. It may be four feet eight inches or something. Then you go and search for the average person -- you will never find. Average person never exists. Average is the most false thing in the world. Nobody is an average. Everybody is himself; nobody is an average. Average is a mathematical thing -- it is not real, it is not actual.

All rules exist for averages. They are good to understand a certain thing, but never follow them. Otherwise you will feel uncomfortable. Four feet eight inches is the average height! Now you are five feet, four inches longer -- cut it. Uncomfortable... walk in such a way so you look like the average: you will become an ugly phenomenon, an ashtha walker. You will be like a camel, crooked everywhere. One who tries to follow the average will miss.

Average is a mathematical phenomenon, and mathematics does not exist in existence. It exists only in man's mind. If you go and try to find mathematics in existence you will not find. That's why mathematics is the only perfect science: because it is absolutely unreal. Only with unreality can you be perfect. Reality does not bother about your rules, regulations; reality moves on its own. Mathematics is a perfect science because it is mental, it is human. If man disappears from the earth, mathematics will be the first thing to disappear. Other things may continue, but mathematics cannot be here.

Always remember, all rules, disciplines, are average; and average is nonexistential. And don't try to become the average; nobody can become. One has to find his own way. Learn the average, that will be helpful, but don't make it a rule. Let it be just a tacit understanding. Just understand it, and forget about it. It will be helpful as a vague guide, not as an absolutely certain teacher. It will be just like a vague map, not perfect. That vague map will give you certain hints, but you have to find out your own inner comfort, steadiness. How you feel should be the determining factor. That's why Patanjali gives this definition, so that you can find out your own feeling.

"STHIR SUKHAM ASANAM." There cannot be any better definition of posture: Posture should be steady and comfortable. In fact I would like to say it the other way, and the Sanskrit definition can be translated in the other way: Posture is that which is steady and comfortable. STHIR SUKHAM ASANAM: That which is steady and comfortable is posture. And that will be a more accurate translation. The moment you bring "should," things become difficult. In the Sanskrit definition there is no "should," but in the English it enters. I have looked into many translations of Patanjali. They always say, "Posture should be steady and comfortable." In the Sanskrit definition -- STHIR SUKHAM ASANAM -- there is no "should." STHIR means steady, SUKHAM means comfortable, ASANAM means posture -- that's all. "Steady, comfortable: that is the posture."

Why does this "should" come in? Because we would like to make a rule out of it. It is a simple definition, an indicator, a pointer. It is not a rule. And remember it always: that people like Patanjali never give rules; they are not so foolish. They simply give pointers, hints. You have to decode the hint into your own being. You have to feel it, work it out; then you will come to the rule, but that rule will be only for you, for nobody else.

If people can stick to it, the world will be a very beautiful world -- nobody trying to force anybody to do something, nobody trying to discipline anybody else. Because, your discipline may have proved good for you, it may be poisonous for somebody else. Your medicine is not necessarily a medicine for all. Don't go on giving it to others. But foolish people always live by rules. [....]

Take these definitions, sayings, sutras, in a very vague way. Let them become part of your understanding, but don't try exactly to follow them. Let them go deep in you, they become your intelligence; and then you seek your path. All great teaching is indirect.

How to attain to this posture? How to attain this steadiness? First look at the comfort. If your body is exactly in deep comfort, in deep rest, feeling good, a certain well-being surrounds you: that should be the criterion with which to judge. That should become the touchstone. And this is possible while you are standing; this is possible while you are Lying down; this is possible while you are sitting on the ground or sitting on a chair. It is possible anywhere, because it is an inner feeling of comfort. And whenever it is attained you will not like to continue moving again and again, because the more you move, the more you will miss it. It happens in a certain state. If you move, you move away; you disturb it.

And that's the natural desire in everybody, and yoga is the most natural thing: natural desire is to be comfortable, and whenever you are in discomfort you will like to change it. That is natural. Always listen to the natural, instinctive mechanism within you. It is almost always correct.

- OSHO, "Yoga: The Alpha and The Omega, Vol 6, #7"

 Osho on Yoga 

- YOGA : The Science of the Soul -

Yoga Is Just a Technology

“Technology comes from the mind, and religious technology also comes from the mind – yoga, mantra, yantra. Yoga means body postures, which can help you to go deep inside yourself; they are created by the mind. That is religious technology. That’s why Yoga is not part of any particular religion. There can be Christian yoga, there can be Hindu yoga, there is certainly Buddhist yoga, Jaina yoga – there can be as many yogas as there are religions. Yoga is just a technology. No machine is Hindu; no machine is Mohammedan. You don’t go into the marketplace to purchase a Mohammedan car or a Hindu car. Machines are simply machines. Yoga is technology. Mantra is technology; it is created by the mind. In fact, mantra comes from the same root as mind – both come from the Sanskrit word man. One branch becomes mind, another branch becomes mantra – both are part of the mind.”

- Osho, "Philosophia Perennis, Vol. 1, Talk #9"

The Basic Element of Existence for Yoga Is Sound

“Just as physicists think that the whole consists of nothing but electrons, electric energy, yoga thinks that the whole consists of nothing but sound electrons. The basic element of existence for yoga is sound because life is nothing but a vibration. Life is nothing but an expression of silence. Out of silence we come and into silence we dissolve again. Silence, space, nothingness, nonbeing, is your innermost core, the hub of the wheel. Unless you come to that silence, to that space where nothing else remains except your pure being, liberation is not attained. This is the yoga framework.

“They divide your being into four layers. I am speaking to you; this is the last layer. Yoga calls it vaikhari; the word means ‘fruition’, flowering. But before I speak to you, before I utter something, it becomes manifest to me as a feeling, as an experience; that is the third stage. Yoga calls it madhyama, ‘the middle’. But before something is experienced inside, it moves in a seed form.

“You cannot experience this ordinarily unless you are very meditative, unless you have become so totally calm that even a stirring in the seed which has not sprouted yet can be perceived; it is very subtle. Yoga calls that pashyanti; the word pashyanti means ‘looking back’, looking to the source. And beyond that is your fundamental being out of which everything arises. That is called para; para means ‘the transcendental’.”

- Osho, "Yoga: The Path to Liberation, Talk #9"

Yoga Will always Be Associated with Patanjali

”In fact, it was not he [Patanjali] who invented Yoga; Yoga is far more ancient. Yoga had been there for many centuries before Patanjali. He is not the discoverer, but he almost became the discoverer and founder just because of this rare combination of his personality. Many people had worked before him and almost everything was known, but Yoga was waiting for a Patanjali. And suddenly, when Patanjali spoke about it, everything fell in line and he became the founder. He was not the founder, but his personality is such a combination of opposites, he comprehends in himself such incomprehensible elements, he became the founder – almost the founder. Now Yoga will always be associated with Patanjali.”

- Osho, "The Mystery Beyond Mind, Talk #5"

Yoga Tries Step by Step to Penetrate the Inner Mystery

“The whole yoga is a methodology: how to uncover it which is so hidden, how to open the doors within yourself, how to enter the temple that you are, how to discover yourself. You are there, you have been there from the very beginning, but you have not discovered it. The treasure is carried by you every moment. Every breath you take in or out, the treasure is there. You may not be aware, but you have never missed it.

“You may be completely oblivious, but you have never lost it. You may have forgotten it completely, but there is no way to lose it – because you are it. So the only question is: how to discover it. It is covered; many layers of ignorance cover it. Yoga tries step by step, slowly, to penetrate the inner mystery. In eight steps yoga completes the discovery. The beginning steps are called bahirang yoga, the yoga of the outside. Yam, niyam, asan, pranayam, pratyahar ­ these five steps are known as the yoga of the outside. The following three, the last three – dharana, dhyan, samadhi – are known as antarang, the yoga of the inside.”

- Osho, "The Essence of Yoga, Talk #9"

Yoga Is Effort, Tantra Is Effortlessness

“Yoga is effort; Tantra is effortlessness. With effort, with your tiny energy, and your tiny ego, you fight with the whole. It will take millions of lives. Then too it doesn’t seem possible that you will ever become enlightened. Fighting with the whole is stupid; you are just a part. It is as if a wave is fighting with the ocean, a leaf is fighting with the tree, or your own hand fighting with your body. With whom are you fighting? Yoga is effort, intense effort. And Yoga is a way to fight the current, to move against the current. So whatsoever is natural, Yoga has to drop; and whatsoever is unnatural, Yoga has to strive for. Yoga is the unnatural way: fight with the river and move against the current. Of course, there is challenge and the challenge may be enjoyed. But who enjoys the challenge? – your ego does.”

- Osho, "Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, Talk #6"

Yoga Can Teach You again how to Be Here and Now

“Wherever you are, in that moment, enjoy not asking for the future. No futuring in the mind, just the present moment, the nowness of the moment, and you are satisfied. Then there is no need to go anywhere. Wherever you are, from that very point you will drop into the ocean, you will become one with the cosmos. But the mind is not interested in here and now. The mind is interested somewhere in the future, in some results. So the question is, in a way, relevant for such a mind – it will be better to call it the modern mind rather than Western – the modern mind which is constantly obsessed with the future, with the result, not with the here and now.

“How can this mind be taught Yoga? This mind can be taught Yoga because this future orientation is leading nowhere. And this future orientation is creating constant misery for the modern mind. We have created a hell – and we have created too much of it. Now either man will have to disappear from this planet Earth, or he will have to transform himself. Either humanity will have to die completely because this hell cannot be continued anymore, or we will have to go through a mutation. Hence, Yoga can become very meaningful and significant for the modern mind because Yoga can save. It can teach you again how to be here and now, how to forget past and how to forget future and how to remain in the present moment with such intensity that this moment becomes timeless. The very moment becomes eternity.”

- Osho, "The Path of Yoga, Talk #8"

Yoga Is for a Higher Order of Health

“Yoga is for those who are completely healthy as far as medical science is concerned, normal. They are not schizophrenic, they are not mad, they are not neurotic. They are normal people, healthy people with no particular pathology. Still they become aware that whatsoever is called normality is futile, whatsoever is called health is of no use. Something more is needed, something greater is needed, something holier and whole is needed. Therapies are for ill people. Therapies can help you to come to Yoga, but Yoga is not a therapy. Yoga is for a higher order of health, a different order of health – a different type of being and wholeness. Therapy can, at the most, make you adjusted. Freud says we cannot do more. We can make you an adjusted, normal member of the society – but if the society itself is pathological, then? And it is! The society itself is ill. A therapy can make you normal in the sense that you are adjusted to the society, but the society itself is ill.”

- Osho, "The Path of Yoga, Talk #1"

Yoga Is not a Therapy

“A disciple means a seeker who is not a crowd, who is trying to be centered and crystallized – at least trying, making efforts, sincere efforts to become individual, to feel his being, to become his own master. The whole discipline of Yoga is an effort to make you a master of yourself. As you are, you are just a slave of many, many desires. Many, many masters are there and you are just a slave – and pulled in many directions. Now the discipline of Yoga. Yoga is discipline. It is an effort on your part to change yourself. Many other things have to be understood.

“Yoga is not a therapy. In the West many psychological therapies are now prevalent, and many Western psychologists think that Yoga is also a therapy. It is not! It is a discipline. And what is the difference? This is the difference: a therapy is needed if you are ill, a therapy is needed if you are diseased, a therapy is needed if you are pathological. A discipline is needed even when you are healthy. Really, only when you are healthy can a discipline then help. It is not for pathological cases.”

- Osho, "The Path of Yoga, Talk #1"

The Discipline of Yoga Means Yoga Wants to Create a Crystallized Center in You

“If the moment has come when you feel that all directions have become confused, all roads have disappeared, the future is dark and every desire has become bitter and through every desire you have known only disappointment, all movement into hopes and dreams has ceased: Now the discipline of Yoga. This “now” may not have come. Then I may go on talking about Yoga but you will not listen. You can listen only if the moment is present in you. Are you really dissatisfied? Everybody will say yes, but that dissatisfaction is not real. You are dissatisfied with this, you may be dissatisfied with that, but you are not totally dissatisfied. You are still hoping. You are dissatisfied because of your past hopes but you are still hoping for the future. Your dissatisfaction is not total: you are still hankering for some satisfaction somewhere, for some gratification somewhere.

“Sometimes you feel hopeless but that hopelessness is not true. You feel hopeless because certain hopes have not been achieved, certain hopes have fallen away – but hoping is still there, hoping has not fallen away. You will still hope. You are dissatisfied with this hope, that hope, but you are not dissatisfied with hope as such. If you are disappointed with hope as such the moment has come, and then you can enter Yoga. And then this entry will not be an entering into a mental, speculative phenomenon. This entry will be an entry into a discipline. What is discipline? Discipline means what creates an order within you. As you are you are a chaos. As you are you are totally disorderly.

“Gurdjieff used to say – and Gurdjieff is in many ways like Patanjali, he was again trying to make the core of religion a science – Gurdjieff said that you are not one, you are a crowd; not even when you say “I”, is there any I. There are many I’s in you, many egos. In the morning one I, in the afternoon another I, in the evening a third I, but you never become aware of this mess – because who will become aware of it? There is not a center that can become aware. The discipline of Yoga means Yoga wants to create a crystallized center in you.”

- Osho, "The Path of Yoga, Talk #1"

For Yoga a total Frustration is Needed

“So one can enter Yoga, or the path of Yoga, only when he is totally frustrated with his own mind as it is. If you are still hoping that you can gain something through your mind, Yoga is not for you. A total frustration is needed – the revelation that this mind which projects is futile, the mind that hopes is nonsense, it leads nowhere. It simply closes your eyes, it intoxicates you, it never allows reality to be revealed to you. It protects you against reality. Your mind is a drug. It is against that which is. So unless you are totally frustrated with your mind, with your way of being, with the way you have existed up to now, if you can drop it unconditionally, then you can enter on the path.

“So many become interested but very few enter, because your interest may be just because of your mind. You may be hoping that now, through Yoga, you may gain something, but the achieving motive is there – that you may become perfect through Yoga, you may reach to the blissful state of perfect being, you may become one with the Brahman, you may achieve the satchitananda. This may be the cause of why you are interested in Yoga. If this is the cause then there can be no meeting between you and the path which is Yoga. Then you are totally against it, moving in a totally opposite dimension.”

- Osho, "The Path of Yoga, Talk #1"

The Path of Yoga is a very Difficult One

“But the path of yoga is a very difficult one. It is just impossible, nearly impossible, that you can attain to the perfection of the ego. It means you become the center of the whole universe. The path is very long, arduous, and really, it never reaches to the end. So what happens to the followers of Yoga the path, in some life, they turn to Tantra. Intellectually Yoga is conceivable; existentially it is impossible. If it is possible you will reach by Yoga also, but generally it never happens. Even if it happens, it happens very rarely, such as to a Mahavira.

“Sometimes centuries and centuries pass and then a man like Mahavira appears who has achieved through Yoga. But he is rare, an exception, and he breaks the rule. But Yoga is more attractive than Tantra. Tantra is easy, natural, and you can attain through Tantra very easily, very naturally, effortlessly. And because of this, Tantra never appeals to you as much. Why? Anything that appeals to you appeals to your ego. Whatsoever you feel is going to fulfill your ego will appeal to you more. You are gripped in the ego; thus yoga appeals to you very much.”

- Osho, "The Book of Secrets, Talk #32"

The Body Must Go through a Catharsis First

“Hatha yoga does not take this into account, because in former times a suppressed mind and suppressive attitude were not prevalent, particularly in India. In those days, India was one of the least suppressive countries. Now, that is not so. And in the West, Christianity has caused so much suppression that everybody is crippled inside. These suppressions in the body have to be released first, otherwise you start out with a body that is not right, not natural, and many unnecessary problems may be created by it.

“That is why something totally unknown to hatha yoga has to be introduced now: the body must go through a catharsis first. To bring about this catharsis, a totally new science will be needed, because this suppression is something new. For example, if you have suppressed sex a lot, then the kundalini cannot move up. It is blocked. The whole structure from where the kundalini can move up is simply blocked, blocked by the suppressed sexual energy. Or, if you have indulged too much in sex, then you have no energy left to move upward. These are the two problems: either you have a suppressed mind and the energy has become blocked or you have indulged too much so that no energy is left to move within you.

“You are not in a natural state, your energy is not balanced, it is not a natural flow. That comes from either suppressing or indulging. With balanced energy, hatha yoga can be used very easily, but otherwise it creates problems. Another thing is that all these hatha yoga techniques were developed for use in monasteries. They are monastic techniques intended for people who are totally involved in them for twenty-four hours a day, not doing anything else. Then too, you have to work with them for a very long period, for years. If hatha is taught to a person who is not totally involved in it – who only comes to do hatha yoga once or twice, or even for an hour a day, but who is involved for twenty-three hours a day in quite a different world, a work that is quite the contrary - it is not going to help much. Whatsoever you have gained is lost every day. The very method is a monastic method.”

- Osho, "The Eternal Quest, Talk #4"