Yoga is the science to be in the here and now

 

 

We live in a deep illusion -- the illusion of hope, of future, of tomorrow. As man is, man cannot exist without self-deceptions. Nietzsche says somewhere that man cannot live with the true: he needs dreams, he needs illusions, he needs lies to exist. And Nietzsche is true. As man is he cannot exist with the truth. This has to be understood very deeply because without understanding it, there can be no entry into the inquiry which is called yoga.

 

The mind has to be understood deeply -- the mind which needs lies, the mind which needs illusions, the mind which cannot exist with the real, the mind which needs dreams. You are not dreaming only in the night. Even while awake, you are dreaming continuously. You may be looking at me, you may be listening to me, but a dream current goes on within you. Continuously, the mind is creating dreams, images, fantasies.

 

Now scientists say that a man can live without sleep, but he cannot live without dreams. In old days it was understood that sleep is a necessity, but now modern research says sleep is not really a necessity. Sleep is needed only so that you can dream. Dream is the necessity. If you are not allowed to dream and allowed to sleep, you will not feel in the morning fresh, alive. You will feel tired, as if you have not been able to sleep at all.

 

In the night there are periods -- periods for deep sleep and periods for dreaming. There is a rhythm -- just like day and night, there is a rhythm. In the beginning you fall into deep sleep for nearabout forty, forty-five minutes. Then the dream phase comes in, then you dream. Then again dreamless sleep, then again dreaming. The whole night this goes on. If your sleep is disturbed while you are deeply asleep without dreaming, in the morning you will not feel that you have missed anything. But while you are dreaming, if your dream is disturbed then in the morning you will feel completely tired and exhausted.

 

Now this can be known from the outside. If someone is sleeping you can judge whether he is dreaming or asleep. If he is dreaming, his eyes will be moving continuously -- as if he is seeing something with closed eyes. When he is fast asleep, eyes will not move; they will remain steady. So while your eyes are moving, if your sleep is disturbed in the morning you will feel tired. While your eyes are not moving, sleep can be disturbed, in the morning you will not feel anything missing.

 

Many researchers have proved that human mind feeds on dreams, dream is a necessity, and dream is total autodeception. And this is not only so in the night: while awake also the same pattern follows; even in the day you can notice. Sometimes there will be dream floating in the mind, sometimes there will be no dreams.

 

When there are dreams you will be doing something, but you will be absent. Inside you are occupied. For example, you are here. If your mind is passing through a dream state, you will listen to me without listening at all, because your mind will be occupied within. If you are not in a dreaming state, only then you can listen to me. Day, night, mind goes on moving from no-dream to dream, then from dream to no-dream again. This is an inner rhythm. Not only that we continuously dream, in life also we project hopes into the future

 

The present is almost always a hell. You can prolong it only because of the hope that you have projected into the future. You can live today because of the tomorrow. You are hoping something is going to happen tomorrow -- some doors of paradise will open tomorrow. They never open today, and when tomorrow will come it will not come as a tomorrow, it will come as today, but by the time your mind has moved again. You go on moving ahead of you: this is what dreaming means. You are not one with the real, that which is nearby, that which is here and now, you are somewhere else -- moving ahead, jumping ahead.

 

And that tomorrow, that future, you have named it in so many ways. People call it heaven, some people call it moksha, but it is always in the future. Somebody is thinking in terms of wealth, but that wealth is going to be in the future. And somebody is thinking in terms of paradise, and that paradise is going to be after you are dead -- far away into the future. You waste your present for that which is not: this is what dreaming means. You cannot be here and now. That seems to be arduous, to be just in the moment.

 

You can be in the past because again that is dreaming -- memories, remembrance of things which are no more Or you can be in the future, which is projection, which is again creating something out of the past. The future is nothing but past projected again -- more colorful, more beautiful, more pleasant, but it is past refined.

 

You cannot think anything else than the past. Future is nothing but past projected again, and both are not. The present is, but you are never in the present. This is what dreaming means. And Nietzsche is right when he says that man cannot live with the truth. He needs lies he lives through lies. Nietzsche says that we go on saying that we want the truth, but no one wants it. Our so-called truths are nothing but lies, beautiful lies. No one is ready to see the naked reality.

 

This mind cannot enter on the path of yoga because yoga means a methodology to reveal the truth. Yoga is a method to come to a non-dreaming mind. Yoga is the science to be in the here and now. Yoga means now you are ready not to move into the future. Yoga means you are ready now not to hope, not to jump ahead of your being. Yoga means to encounter the reality as it is.

 

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, 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 now, through yoga, that you may gain something, but the achieving motive is there-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 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.

 

Yoga means that now there is no hope, now there is no future, now there are no desires. One is ready to know what is. One is not interested in what can be, what should be, what ought to be. One is not interested! One is interested only in that which is, because only the real can free you, only the reality can become liberation.

 

Total despair is needed. That despair is called dukkha by Buddha. And if you are really in misery, don't hope, because your hope will only prolong the misery. Your hope is a drug. It can help you to reach death only and nowhere else. All your hopes can lead you only to death. They are leading.

 

Become totally hopeless -- no future, no hope. Difficult. Needs courage to face the real. But such a moment comes to everyone, some time or other. A moment comes to every human being when he feels total hopelessness. Absolute meaninglessness happens to him. When he becomes aware that whatsoever he is doing is useless, wheresoever he is going, he is going to nowhere, all life is meaningless -- suddenly hopes drop, future drops, and for the first time you are in tune with the present, for the first time you are face to face with reality.

 

Unless this moment comes to you... You can go on doing asanas, postures; that is not yoga. Yoga is an inward turning. It is a total about-turn. When you are not moving into the future, not moving toward the past, then you start moving within yourself -- because your being is here and now, it is not in the future. You are present here and now, you can enter this reality. But then mind has to be here.

 

This moment is indicated by the first sutra of Patanjali. Before we talk about the first sutra, a few other things have to be understood. First, yoga is not a religion-remember that. Yoga is not Hindu, it is not Mohammedan. Yoga is a pure science just like mathematics, physics or chemistry. Physics is not Christian physics is not Buddhist. If Christians have discovered the laws of physics, then too physics is not Christian. It is just accidental that Christians have come to discover the laws of physics. But physics remains just a science. Yoga is a science - it is just an accident that Hindus discovered it. It is not Hindu. It is a pure mathematics of the inner being. So a Mohammedan can be a yogi, a Christian can be a yogi, a Jain, a bauddha can be a yogi.

 

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.

 

Beliefs are like clothes. Nothing substantial is transformed; you remain the same. Dissect a Hindu, dissect a Mohammedan, inside they are the same. He goes to a temple; the Mohammedan hates the temple. The Mohammedan goes to the mosque and the Hindu hates the mosque, but inside they are the same human beings.

 

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.

 

So yoga is both a death and a new life. As you are you will have to die, and unless you die the new cannot be born. The new is hidden in you. You are just a seed for it, and the seed must fall down, absorbed by the earth. The seed must die; only then the new will arise out of you. Your death will become your new life. Yoga is both a death and a new birth. Unless you are ready to die, you cannot be reborn. So it is not a question of changing beliefs.

 

Yoga is not a philosophy. I say it is not a religion, I say it is not a philosophy. It is not something you can think about. It is something you will have to be; thinking won't do. Thinking goes on in your head. It is not really deep into the roots of your being; it is not your totality. It is just a part, a functional part; it can be trained. And you can argue logically, you can think rationally, but your heart will remain the same. Your heart is your deepest center, your head is just a branch. You can be without the head, but you cannot be without the heart. Your head is not basic.

 

Yoga is concerned with your total being, with your roots. It is not philosophical. So with Patanjali we will not be thinking, speculating. With Patanjali we will be trying to know the ultimate laws of being: the laws of its transformation, the laws of how to die and how to be reborn again, the laws of a new order of being. That is why I call it a science.

 

Patanjali is rare. He is an enlightened person like Buddha, like Krishna, like Christ, like Mahavira, Mohammed, Zarathustra, but he is different in one way. Buddha, Krishna, Mahavira, Zarathustra, Mohammed no one has a scientific attitude. They are great founders of religions. They have changed the whole pattern of human mind and its structure, but their approach is not scientific.

 

Patanjali is like an Einstein in the word of Buddhas. He is a phenomenon. He could have easily been a Nobel Prize winner like an Einstein or Bohr or Max Planck, Heisenberg. He has the same attitude, the same approach of a rigorous scientific mind. He is not a poet; Krishna is a poet. He is not a moralist; Mahavira is a moralist. He is basically a scientist, thinking in terms of laws. And he has come to deduce absolute laws of human being, the ultimate working structure of human mind and reality.

 

And if you follow Patanjali, you will come to know that he is as exact as any mathematical formula. Simply do what he says and the result will happen. The result is bound to happen; it is just like two plus two, they become four. It is just like you heat water up to one hundred degrees and it evaporates. No belief is needed: you simply do it and know. It is something to be done and known. That's why I say there is no comparison. On this earth, never a man has existed like Patanjali.

 

You can find in Buddha's utterances, poetry - bound to be there. Many times while Buddha is expressing himself, he becomes poetic. The realm of ecstasy, the realm of ultimate knowing, is so beautiful, the temptation is so much to become poetic, the beauty is such, the benediction is such, the bliss is such, one starts talking in poetic language.

 

But Patanjali resists that. It is very difficult. No one has been able to resist. Jesus, Krishna, Buddha they all become poetic. The splendor, the beauty, when it explodes within you, you will start dancing, you will start singing. In that state you are just like a lover who has fallen in love with the whole universe.

 

Patanjali resists that. He will not use poetry; he will not use a single poetic symbol even. He will not do anything with poetry; he will not talk in terms of beauty. He will talk in terms of mathematics. He will be exact, and he will give you maxims. Those maxims are just indications what is to be done. He will not explode into ecstasy; he will not say things that cannot be said; he will not try the impossible. He will just put down the foundation, and if you follow the foundation you will reach the peak which is beyond. He is a rigorous mathematician - remember this.

 

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