You are involved not merely in human society; you are also involved in nature. The five elements - earth, water, fire, air and ether - constitute your physical body. Do you know that they are outside you? Yes, they are outside you; you are seeing them. You see the earth outside you; water is there, fire is there, air is there, the sky is there. All these five elements appear to be totally outside, but you forget that your very body is made up of these five elements. The building bricks of your personality are the very things of which the world outside is made. So, do you know you are involved in the five elements? Your involvement is not merely in your neighbour, in society - but vitally, in nature.

'Involvement' is a peculiar word which has many connotations. You may be very pleasantly or unpleasantly involved in a thing. When consciousness is pleasantly involved in your body, you appear to be a very healthy person. When you say you are very healthy and robust, you mean to say that the prana, the vitality, the consciousness itself is very harmoniously involved in this bodily individuality, though it is also an involvement. But when it is unpleasantly involved, you feel odd, you are sick and you would like to go to bed. Hence, involvements may be of different kinds: necessary or unnecessary, pleasant or unpleasant, right or wrong. When the right involvement is resorted to, it automatically becomes pleasant. It is only wrong involvements that seem unpleasant. Therefore, with society outside, with the people around you, with nature, you have to conduct yourself in a harmonious manner - specifically, by practising the yamas, niyamas, asana postures and other things mentioned in the yoga system.

Never be in a hurry in the practice of yoga. Take only one step if it becomes necessary; do not try to make a hurried movement. If today you are capable of taking only one step, that is good enough. It is better to take only one step, but a firm step, rather than many steps which may have to be later retraced due to some errors that you have committed. Quality is important, not quantity. Many days of meditation do not mean much; it is the kind of meditation that you have been practising, and the quality, that is involved there.

Here, the Upanishads, or the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, or the Bhagavadgita - all are telling you, finally, one and the same thing: "To thine own self be true," as the poet has very rightly said. The whole of yoga can be said to be equanimous with this implication of the poet's words: "To thine own self be true." Are you true to yourself? Svastha - a person who is svastha is a person who is healthy. If you are in yourself, you are healthy; if you are not in yourself, you are not healthy. The word 'svasthya' in Sanskrit, or even in Hindi, comes from the word 'svastha' - one who is established in one's own self. 'Swa' means one's own self; 'stha' means establishment. Are you svastha? Generally we enquire: "Are you healthy, fine?" But the real meaning is: "Are you in yourself or outside yourself?"

Yoga is nothing but yourself being yourself. It is not a very complicated thing; it is easy to understand. You have to be what you are. But mostly we find it difficult to be what we are; we are other than what we are, on account of the involvement of our consciousness not in what we are, but in what appears to be what we are through the sense organs. All our affections are misdirected because the senses tell us that we are that which we love. All people who hug things and love things wrongly imagine that they have gone into that thing which they hug or love, forgetting that they have lost themselves, in some percentage, in that act of movement of their consciousness to that which they consider as themselves. All sensory activity and mental operation in terms of sensory activity is an aberration of consciousness; it is un-yoga, non-yoga, anti-yoga, whatever one may call it.

Hence, a daily prescription has to be adopted by one's own self. I am not asking you all to become yogis, but to be sensible persons, good human beings, successful in your careers, friends of humanity and satisfied in your own self. Let that, at least, be achieved first, before trying to reach God or attain Self-realisation. It will take care of itself. Unless you are friendly with what you see, how will you be friendly with what you do not see? You are at loggerheads with people, in conflict with nature and dissonant in your own personality, psychologically, and you want to be in harmony with God Almighty! Is it possible? Psychological alignment within, social harmony outside and natural adaptation with creation as a whole form part and parcel of yoga. Psychologically, are you aligned? Do your understanding and feeling go together, or do you understand something and feel another thing? Are you brooding over something about the past which is not capable of accommodation with your present existence? Are you grieved in any manner whatsoever?

The four facets of your psyche - manas, buddhi, ahamkara and chitta - have to be blended together into a single act of mentation. It is not that you think something, remember something else, brood over another thing and are conscious of another thing at the present moment. Otherwise, you will be a dichotomised personality, a split individual, a psychotic or schizophrenic; it may lead to that. People are suffering intensely: they cannot sleep; they cannot eat; they cannot speak one word with people with satisfaction inside on account of a split personality - the need that they feel every day to put on some kind of contour in their daily outer existence while being another thing inside. You are one thing in your house and another thing in your office. This kind of gulf that you have created within yourself - between your inner personality and your outer personality - will tell upon you to such an extent that you will never be integrated; you will not be what is called a gentleman. A gentleman is an integrated person. You feel attracted towards that individual. He is a whole and he does not have any kind of split between his inner feelings and the outer conduct. He is able to adapt his outer conduct to his inner feelings, and vice versa.

So, first and foremost, each student has to find out, by a probe into his own self, whether there is any kind of psychological conflict. Do you want something and you are unable to get it? Some years back, were you brooding over something that you wanted and did not get? Do you have a submerged memory of that which has caused you frustration? "Oh, I wanted it when I was a little child, but my mother did not give it." A small thing that your mother did not give when you were a little baby can harass you till your death unless you have been able to refurbish your personality and overcome that little trouble that is in your mind. The earlier days of your life determine your later days. The kind of life that you lived when you were a little child in a family, with your father and mother, will have a direct impact upon you when you are an elderly person. It is not that you can forget it completely. Even the breast milk of the mother will tell upon you; it is not unimportant. The first twenty-five years of your life, at least, should be well-guarded. How did you live for the first twenty-five years, tell me? That will take care of you for the rest of your life. If you lived a broken life, a dissipated life, a distracted life, a frustrated life during the first twenty-five years, then you will feel broody and suffer for the rest of your life. You will become weak physically. If you have guarded your personality well and strengthened your individuality, led a very disciplined life of a student for the first twenty-five years, you will live a long life, you will be a healthy person, you can walk a long distance, and it is unlikely that you will fall sick so easily.

Therefore, I am mentioning to you as a precaution, as you are all students, that it is necessary for you to guard yourself psychologically and never brood and think over things that are past - dead and gone. Of course, many a time we have certain difficulties with memories of the past, with which we have to be very well accommodated in some way or the other. They have to be put an end to, in some way or the other. If you want something and you feel that it is necessary to have it and you have the means to have it, then have it - no problem. But there are cases where you cannot get all the things that you want. These are the frustrations. Some person may have died and you cannot get that person back. Many people come to this ashram: their mother died, father died, son died, the only child died in an accident and the mother stopped speaking. She cannot open her mouth. The only child has been crushed in an accident: "I cannot live, I cannot speak; everything is finished." There is a complete blockage of the personality. How will you handle these things?

It is not that we should wait for problems to arise and then try to solve them. As far as possible, we should see that unnecessary psychological problems do not arise. These are problems that arise on account of attachments and aversions, intense liking and intense hatred for certain things. They are embedded in the human personality, and they cannot go. As long as you are a pure subject, cut off from the objective world outside, love and hate are unavoidable. But you are a yoga student, you are a spiritual seeker yearning for God and, therefore, it is no use merely living a humdrum life like an ordinary man of the street. A greater discipline is called for.

Again I repeat, if any one of you has got internal tensions, frustrations of any kind caused by not having what you wanted or having what you do not want, either way, you have to handle the situation before you take to japa, meditation or any such thing. Otherwise, it will be like a thorn in your foot and you will never have peace as long as the thorn is there, whatever is the diet that you eat. You have very good meals every day, everything is fine, but the thorn in your foot will not give you peace. It has to be removed. Whatever be the finery and the beauty of your life, a little canker will upset the whole thing. Harmony is yoga: samatvam yoga uchyate (Gita 2.48). What kind of harmony? Harmony with yourself, first. This is the meaning of the saying: "To thine own self be true." Are you one thing outside and another thing inside? Are you happy? Can you smile with people? There are people who cannot smile; they close their mouths and live like persons who have lost everything in the world. Even a few words cannot come out of their mouths. Very few people can smile. A laughter a day keeps the doctor away, and also keeps many problems away. Why don't you smile? Why don't you be happy? Why don't you be happy with people, be accommodative? Let people be your friends; don't consider any person as your enemy. "He is an idiot. I will finish him." You should not think like that. There is no idiot in this world. You are the idiot, really speaking, so why should you condemn other people?

Hence, psychologically guarding oneself is very important in the primary stage, which is comprehended within the yamas and niyamas of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Afterwards, the greater advance starts with the meditational process, which takes into consideration the cosmic structure of things and the Creator of the universe. When you get up in the morning, what do you think first? In your diary, make a note of it. "What did I think, as the first thought, when I woke up in the morning today?" This will give you some indication as to what kind of person you are. What was the first thought that arose in your mind today when you got up from bed? Make a note of it, and tomorrow morning make another note. "Yesterday, when I went to bed, what was the last thought?" What is the first thought in the morning and, also, what is the last thought in the evening? These entries may be made in your diary every day. For one month continuously keep a note of what it is that you thought first thing in the morning and what is that you thought last thing in the evening. Then, to that extent, you can gauge the depth of your personality.

Spend some time by yourself. Be alone to yourself, at least for one hour. Don't be busy always. Can you be alone to yourself for one hour every day? Many of you can be alone to yourselves for several hours, unless of course you are engaged in some business or some official engagement. Nevertheless, a practice has to be started. At least for one hour every day you will not see anybody and will not lift the telephones. You will not talk; you are literally alone to yourself. What is it that you are thinking during that one hour? Make a note of that also. I already mentioned two things: the first thought in the morning and the last thought in the evening. Now I am telling you: what is it that you are thinking during that one hour when you are totally alone? How many thoughts arise? Make a list of these thoughts also. Let them be twenty thoughts, thirty thoughts, fifty thoughts; every day make an attempt to keep track of the thoughts that arise in the mind when you are alone for one hour. You will find the thoughts will diminish gradually, because you are watching. Thieves are not very likely to lurk when policemen are everywhere. Similarly, your watch over the thoughts is like a police action that you are taking against the thoughts, so they will not arise too much. Go on doing this for one month: the first thought in the morning, the last thought in the evening, and what you think for one hour when you are alone to yourself. This will check the unnecessary meandering and the movement of thought and you will learn the art of self-control, gradually.

The actual practice consists of many steps that you may take according to your own predilection. These are the yogas, as they are called. If you want to remember something noble, you have to take its name. Business people say "gold, gold, silver, silver, dollar, dollar, pound, pound, what is the conversion rate, how much?" This is the god for business people; they go on taking the names of that. "How many rupees? How many dollars? What is the dollar value?" The whole day, this is their only thought. When you take the name of a thing, it has an impact upon you. Anything that is noble can also be accommodated in your personality by taking its name. Suppose you want to think of some person; you take the name of that person. Like that, you can take the name or formula of something which you want to remember; that is your meditation. Abstract thinking is of course good, but it is difficult. If you take the name of a thing, the idea of that thing also arises automatically. The name and the form are so intimately connected with each other that it is easy to entertain the thought of the form when the name is recited.

What is the name that you are thinking of in your mind? Take the name of anything which you consider as most valuable for you: your Ishta, your Beloved, your Ishta Devata. Everybody has some beloved; it is this, it is that, it is something material, something psychic, something literary or something spiritual. This is the principle of mantra japa, as it is called. A formula that you go on reciting and the name that you take constantly is the japa thereof. This will help in keeping in your memory the thought of that which you want to remember, and meditation will become very easy. In the Bhagavadgita it is said that japa is the best of spiritual sacrifices: yajnanam japa-yajno'smi (Gita 10.25). I myself feel that nothing is equal to japa. Go on reciting the same thing, with the mind thinking of only that. "God, God, God, God, God" - even that much is good enough. Let God be anything, but the idea itself is good. "God Almighty, God Almighty, God Almighty" - go on saying that; this is also a kind of mantra. You can create a mantra for yourself. "God, I want you! God Almighty, I want you! God Almighty, I want you! I want nothing else! God Almighty, I want you!" This is a mantra that I have created for you. It will have such a force upon you, such a force upon your mind that you will not think anything else. It will bombard your mind. "Oh, God Almighty! Oh, God Almighty! Wonderful! Wonderful! How glorious! How glorious! How glorious! I want Him!" This is a mantra. Go ahead like this, gradually, slowly, blessed people. God bless you!