Chapter-4

THE YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI

Beyond Mind To Awareness

Fifth Question

Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Yoga Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

The fifth question:

Question 5

PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW IT IS POSSIBLE THAT JUST BY LOOKING, BY WITNESSING THE RECORDINGS IN THE BRAIN CELLS, THE SOURCES OF THOUGHT PROCESS CAN CEASE TO BE.

They never cease to be, but just by witnessing identification is broken. Buddha lived in his body for forty years after his enlightenment; the body has not ceased. Continuously for forty years he was talking, explaining, making people understand what has happened to him and how the same can happen to them. He was using the mind; the mind has not ceased. And when he came back after twelve years to his home town, he recognized his father, he recognized his wife, he recognized his son. The mind was there, the memory was there; otherwise recognition is impossible.

The mind has not really ceased. When we say the mind ceases, we mean your identification is broken. Now you know this is the mind and this is "I am". The bridge is broken. Now the mind is not the master. It has become just an instrument; it has fallen to its right place. So whenever you need it, you can use it. It is just like a fan! If you want to use it, we put it on, then the fan starts functioning. Right now we are not using the fan, so it is non-functioning. But it is there, it has not ceased to be. Any moment you can use it. It has not disappeared.

Just by witnessing, identification disappears, not the mind. But identification disappearing, you are totally a new being. For the first time you have come to know your real phenomenon, your real reality. For the first time you have come to know who you are. Now mind is just part of the mechanism around you.

It is just as if you are a pilot and flying an airplane. You use many instruments; your eyes are working on many instruments, continuously aware of this and that. But you are not the instruments.

This mind, this body and many functions of the body-mind, are just around you, the mechanism. In this mechanism, you can exist in two ways. One way of existence is forgetting yourself and feeling as if you are the mechanism. This is bondage, this is misery; this is the world, the samsar.

Another way of functioning is this: becoming alert that you are separate, you are different. Then you go on using, but now it makes a lot of difference. Now the mechanism is not you. And if something goes wrong in the mechanism, you can try to put it right, but you will not be disturbed. Even if the whole mechanism disappears, you will not be disturbed

Buddha dying and you dying are two different phenomena. Buddha dying knows only the mechanism is dying. It has been used, and now there is no need. A burden has been removed; he is becoming free. He will move now without form. But you dying is totally different. You are suffering, you crying, because you feel you are dying, not the mechanism. It is your death. Then it becomes an intense suffering.

Just by witnessing, mind doesn't cease and the brain cells will not cease. Rather, they will become more alive because there will be less conflict, more energy. They will become more fresh. And you can use them more rightly, more accurately, but you will not be burdened by them and they will not force you to do something. They will not push and pull you here and there. You will be the master.

But how does it happen just by witnessing? Because it has happened, the bondage has happened, by not witnessing. The bondage has happened because you are not alert, so the bondage will disappear if you become alert. The bondage is only unawareness. Nothing else is needed: becoming more alert, whatsoever you do.

You are sitting here listening to me. You can listen with awareness, you can listen without awareness. Without awareness also listening will be there, but it will be a different thing, the quality will differ. Then your ears are listening, and your mind is functioning somewhere else.

Then somehow, few words will penetrate you. And they will be mixed, and your mind will interpret them in its own way. And it will put its own ideas into them. Everything will be a muddle and a mess. You have listened, but many things will be bypassed, many things you will not listen. You will choose. Then the whole thing will be distorted.

If you are alert, the moment you become alert thinking ceases. With alertness you cannot think. The whole energy becomes alert, there is no energy left to move into thinking. When you are alert even for a single moment, you simply listen. There is no barrier. Your words are not there which can get mixed. You need not interpret. The impact is direct.

If you can listen with alertness, then what I am saying may be meaningful or may not be meaningful, but your listening with alertness will always be significant in meaning That very alertness will make a peak of your consciousness. The past will dissolve; the future will disappear. You will be nowhere else, you will just be here and now. And in that moment of silence when thinking is not, you will be deep in contact with your own source. And that source is bliss, and that source is divine. So the only thing to be done is to do everything with alertness.