“Can we induce this system of spiritual harmony by the intake of certain medicines or drugs?” is the next question. It is not possible. When we take a strong dose of coffee or tea, or perhaps when we smoke a cigarette, we seem to be energised, and it looks as though we are in a state of mental concentration. When we take a strong dose of coffee we will find, for a few minutes, that our mind is concentrated. But it is only for a few minutes, and then the concentration lessens. The reason for this rush of energy is not from concentration of mind but due to the stirring up of the nervous system. Drugs act upon the nerves and not so much on the mind. Inasmuch as the mind is connected with the action of the nerves, it looks as though the mind is influenced by the action of the nerves.

Suppose the person to my left pushes me. The impact of the push from my friend on the left may be communicated to my friend on the right. I am not actually pushing the person to the right, but the push that I received from the left causes me to contact the person on the right, and the right also receives the push. But the person on the right is not influenced, though the push has been felt. First of all, there is no actual psychological influence on the person who receives this push, though he feels the push physically. Second, that person who has received the push may give another push back to keep his balance. This the mind may do, and it will do this. The intake of any drug, narcotic or any kind of stimulant—even a cup of tea—such a simple thing as that gives a push to the nerves. The nerves push the mind, and it looks as if the mind has been influenced. The mind will immediately react. It may give a push back to the nerves, and when it does, we feel a debilitated condition of our system.

After the effects of a heavy dose of a narcotic have worn off, we will find that we have become physically weak. We were not strong during the drug experience; the strength was only a temporary feeling that had been artificially induced. The mind gives a push back because the push was given to it involuntarily. If I had wanted to be pushed, of course then I may keep quiet, but if I do not want to receive the push and you unnecessarily push me, then I’ll retaliate by giving you a push back. The mind is not prepared to accept the push. Even a monkey does not want to be taken unawares. Immediately he will make faces if someone goes near him and he is caught off guard.

Therefore in the intake of drugs—including narcotics, pharmaceutical preparations, etc.—the action is directly upon the nervous system and the cellular constitution of the body, and not on the mind. The mind will retaliate against the stimulation that it has received from the intake of drugs; and secondly it will not be really influenced, because influence is different from a push. We know the difference. I can influence someone and convince him to do some work, but if I try to push him to do something, that is another thing. Sometimes we are compelled to do a thing on account of the force that is exerted upon us, but it may be against our own will. If however we are convinced internally, then we will do the work more satisfactorily and joyously than under compulsion from outside. The mind will not concentrate when it is compelled to concentrate. Nobody will do anything under compulsion. This is a general law everywhere, applicable to everyone. People may appear to do a forced activity, but it will be mechanical action and not an organic action. We are concerned with living forces and not merely with dead facts.

The mind is not ultimately our concern in yoga, though we may take it for granted that the mind is influenced to some extent by drugs, etc. Consciousness is different from mind, and in yoga we can never influence consciousness, not even with the mind. Even if, for the time being, the mind can be influence to some extent through drugs, that concentration of the mind is not yoga. Concentration of the mind in yoga is to bring about another condition altogether, which is Spiritual-realisation.

The question may arise again as to whether we can enter into the infinite bliss of Reality through these inducements of mental concentration brought on by drugs. The answer is that ‘we’ cannot enter the Infinite, because who is entering the Infinite? May I ask this question: who is it who is putting these questions? Mister So-and-So, Jacob or John? So, we want to enter the Infinite? It is impossible. Only the Infinite can enter the Infinite—not you and I. Anything that is external to infinitude cannot enter the Infinite—not drugs, and not even the mind if it is external to the Infinite. There is no such thing as entering the Infinite, because there is nobody outside the Infinite who is to enter it.

Then what is it that we call the Realisation of the Infinite in yoga? It is realisation, not entering—we must remember the difference. Realisation is different from entering. We realise that we are inside a room. We are already there, so there is no question of entering the room. Entering is a question that arises when we are outside it. When we are already there, we have only to be aware that we are there. The consciousness within us, the consciousness that we really are, is to become aware that it is consciousness. It is not the mind that enters the Infinite. It is not an individual that goes to God. It is not man that confronts the Maker. There is no such thing.

It is not one thing going to another thing, one man speaking to another person, and it is not a union between two things. The so-called ‘union’ which is yoga is only a manner of speaking; there is really no union. It is Self-realisation—that is the proper term, if we must describe the state. Self-realisation is the Self realising Itself as the Infinite, and not one man entering another person or the Self entering the Infinite. What is more, the Self is the Infinite, so the Self does not enter the Infinite. A doubt may still persist whether any artificial means can be employed in this Self-realisation? What is an artificial means? By artificial means, one perhaps thinks that it is any matter other than yoga. Can we become the Infinite or realise it or experience it or enter into it by any means other than yoga? If any other means is competent to make us realise the Self, then that is yoga, because any means that can enable the consciousness to rest in itself—by freeing itself from the so-called clutches of body, nerves, senses and even the mind—that is yoga.

My point is that drugs cannot do this, because if we do not want to have this experience, drugs cannot compel us to have it, and if we really want to have this experience, drugs are not necessary. We want a drug only when we do not want to do a thing. We cannot go to sleep, therefore we take a tablet. If we could get to sleep on our own, why would we want to take a tablet? The reason is that we want a push from outside. We want a cardamom mixture for digesting food because we cannot digest it ourselves, and we want a tablet to go to sleep, and we want someone to force us to get up and go for a walk.

This is the way in which most people live these days, on account of a kind of weakness that has crept into their systems. The body has become very weak; and the nerves, the senses and the mind are all very weak due to a depression and a mood of melancholy. A kind of frustrated feeling has entered into the mind due to which one cannot do anything for oneself. “I cannot even stand up.” That seems to be the feeling of many people. What do we then do with ourselves? We attempt to drive ourselves with a force that is not our own. The force that is not ours should come to our aid and make us move. This is not going to help us, because the Infinite has no concern with another—not drugs and not with any other external influence. Yoga or Self-experience is an inner ripening of consciousness—a growth that is taking place within us. It is like growing up from childhood into adulthood. By using drugs we cannot suddenly make ourselves taller in one day. A sapling cannot become a huge banyan tree in one day by any amount of drugs.

Gradual growth is a natural process, and inducements of any kind, whatever be their nature, are unnatural. Lack of strength, lack of concentration of mind, and a subtle desire for enjoyment persisting within us are the causes for the obstacles mentioned just now. One cannot love two things at the same time. We either have this or we have that. We cannot have experience of the Infinite along with the finite within us. There is an unconscious feeling in people’s minds that when we experience the Infinite, we are as individuals still there experiencing the Infinite. The Infinite is something regarded as some kind of objective reality, but it is not so. God is not an objective reality, and the Infinite is not an objective reality. It is a wrong usage of terms. What do we mean by ‘objective reality’, as if it were there outside us? It is not outside us. The very same inner experience of our own Self is the Infinite. We may call it objective in the sense that it is real, just as in common parlance we say something is an objective observation of facts—which means a dispassionate observation. In that sense, the Infinite is objective, but it is not objective in the sense of a thing outside us.

There is no individual ‘I’, and therefore there is no ‘another’. It is the incrustation of desire for another that is preventing the consciousness from resting in itself. When the desire is absent, we enter into the Infinite automatically—there need be no doubt about it. Why worry about drugs, medicines, this, that and so on? There is no obstacle to our experiencing the Infinite except our love for objects, which means to say, those things which are artificially regarded by us as outside the Infinite. If this so-called ‘outside the Infinite’ is the obstacle, and if the Infinite alone exists, and we really believe it, we shall enter into it even today.

Another question which has come up is: “Where does the curiosity to know rest?” The question seems to be this one perhaps: “If everything is a manifestation of nature, from where does the desire to know nature come about? Who knows nature, if nature is everything?” When nature is interpreted as everything, and if we really believe that nature is everything and there is nothing outside it, there is no such thing as someone knowing nature. The very doubt implies that there are two things—nature and someone who knows it. This is the Samkhya difficulty of the purusha and prakriti. There is no such thing as a knower of nature, because the moment that we suspect that there is a knower of nature, we do not believe that nature is everything. So we have created an artificial difficulty by raising this question. We either say nature is everything or we say there is something outside nature. We cannot say both things at the same time. If nature is everything and there is nothing outside nature, who is to know nature? Nature knows itself.

But I can understand the reason for this doubt. The reason is, nature is somehow or the other felt to be an unconscious body outside, and there is a feeling that nature cannot know because it is material. In this formulation the knower must be outside, but where does the knower rest? If the knower is regarded as a centre of consciousness, which seems to be the fact, and if nature is regarded as inert matter outside the knower, then there is no question of consciousness resting in nature. The implication is that nature is outside the knowing consciousness. However, this is not the truth. When we speak of nature in yoga psychology and philosophy, it includes all things, and even the so-called matter outside becomes a configuration of Spirit. Again we go back to the analysis we made in our study of perception. Consciousness, which is the knower, is immanent and transcendent—both in the subject that knows and the object that is known. Nature, which is regarded as the object, is again a vehicle of the very same Spirit, and when Spirit realises its immanence in the object, nature shall cease to be. There will be no nature; there will be only Spirit. This, once again, is God-realisation.

When there is attention, where does the attention rest? It rests in the chitta, which is that which entertains attention on anything. There are four aspects of the psychological organ: manas, buddhi, ahamkara and chitta. Chitta is the base or the raw material of the psychological functions. Just as we have ore in a mine out of which we get the minerals, the chitta may be regarded as ore. When the perception is not distracted and there is attention and concentration, chitta functions, and chitta alone functions. The question comes: “Does the chitta pervade the mind?” Just as the mind or the prana pervade the body, does the chitta pervade the mind? Yes, if we regard chitta as the cause and mind as the effect, we may say that chitta pervades the mind. The ore pervades the mineral, and the mineral is contained in the ore, as it is the basic material. The chitta, as the stuff of the psychological functions, operates through every expression of these functions, and so in that sense we may say chitta pervades them.

Sometimes we may identify this chitta with the unconscious storehouse of all impressions within, and it also pervades the expressions thereof. The articles of a retail shop may be said to be pervaded by the wholesale shop from which they came, because these articles of the retail shop originate from the wholesale shop. The wholesale storehouse is the source from which some articles have been taken to the retail shop. In this sense, the mind, the ego and the intellect may be said to be ‘retail’ expressions of and pervaded by the ‘wholesale’ within, which is the chitta.

These are questions that some students have raised. It is necessary that one contemplates the ideas that have been given here. One must meditate on the implications rather than merely the words. Sometimes one has to read between the lines, because everything cannot be taught in a short while. Yoga is a very vast subject—so vast that one may not even be able to learn it fully even in twelve years. Very little can be learned in the space of one short course, and therefore doubts of certain kinds may continue to persist. These doubts will not disappear simply by listening to lectures. They will go only by meditation and concentration.

May I suggest a method? When you go to bed, you must go in a state of concentration of mind. The last thing before going to sleep should be meditation on your day. You should not be engaged in some activity and then go straight to bed. The last thing of the day should not be work, but rather meditation. When all the routines of the day are completed, then you should close your eyes, drop your energies into a concentrated focus, meditate on the implications of the lessons rather then the words and feel confident as a result—and then go to bed. Some of the doubts will get cleared in sleep, because you are natural to yourselves in sleep, and your own chitta will answer our questions. Nothing can be a greater guide to us in our lives than meditation. There are three prescribed processes in yoga which are called sravana, manana and nididhyasana. We hear first, reflect over the lessons afterwards, and then deeply and profoundly go into them in the third stage. After we have heard or read these thoughts, we should reflect over them. That is called manana. What we hear or read now is called sravana. Sravana means, “hearing attentively”. Then reflect over what has been heard, revolve these ideas around in the head and ponder them deeply, which is nididhyasana. May God bless you.