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Abhyasa is the direct inward practice of our soul’s location in the direction of its movement upwards. Yoga is an upward ascent from involvement in physical matter and conditions which are outward, in the direction of whatever is above it from whatever is beneath it. We look upon ourselves as the physical body only—we have little time to think that we are anything other than this body. Conceding that the involvement of our mind in the body is a fact of life, to that extent we have to be sympathetic enough to also take the body into confidence and convert the body itself into an instrument of higher ascent. It is not true that the body is to be always rejected as something redundant. Nothing can be called unnecessary when we, mentally or intellectually or in our conscious life, get involved in it. Even an utter illusion can become a reality, insofar as we are involved in it. It is no more an illusion to the extent we are involved in that illusion, our mind is in it, our consciousness has enveloped it—to that extent, even utter unrealities are realities only. Do not illusions satisfy us in life? They do so because of our involvement wholly by the entry of our consciousness into the structure of that illusion. So do not say that the body is an illusion, that it is an ass that is to be struck down. It is no more that. As the body has somehow managed to insinuate itself into our own feeling that it is us, it has to be utilised and not rejected in the practise of yoga. This healthy, cooperative, sympathetic, intelligent transmutation of our physical association with this body into a practise of yoga actually is what is known as hatha yoga. The asanas, the postures and the various disciplines of the muscles and the nerves are physical no doubt, but they are disciplines of such a nature that they stabilise the muscles and nerves and the biological functions in such a way that the chaotic involvement of our psyche in the physical body through the pranas, causing distress to us every day, are properly aligned along required lines, and we assume a health which is not only of the muscles and the nerves but also of the vitality in us.

We are sick people, though we may not be always lying in bed, in a hospital. Our ailment is not always a medical sickness, but it is some kind of discomfort that we always feel in our own selves, caused by a peculiar wrong adjustment between our thought and the body, and our not being aware that we have some inner mechanism operating inside the body. We are just the body, and sometimes we do not even know that we have a mind, as we are wholly occupied with physical relations and physical activities.

The ascent in yoga is also an inwardness that we establish in our own selves. Really the ascent is an inwardised ascent. The ascent is not actually to be construed in spatial terms as a kind of rising from one rung of ladder to another rung of a ladder, the type of ladder which masons or workers use in the construction of a house. That is not the kind of a ladder which we are using in our ascent through yoga. It is an ascent of ourselves through our own selves. The ladder is not outside us—we ourselves become the ladders.

At present we are in the lowest rung of the ladder. We say the mind is lodged in the muladhara chakra, which is to say that we are wholly involved in the physical world. We are entirely sunk in physical relations, and our desires are entirely material and physical. Our frustrations are caused by the inability of the mind to secure enough physical satisfaction and material comfort. Our instincts are basically animalistic. If we are in the lowest rung of the ladder, which is the entire satisfaction that the senses feel in their contact with physical objects, we are at the lowest level of life. We are unable to find any joy in a life which is not sensory, which is not physically construed, which is not material in nature. To the extent that we require material objects for our comfort, to that extent we are far, far removed from the spiritual requirement.

The physical exercises, known as asanas, constitute therefore a necessary discipline to stabilise the operations of the body in order to facilitate the permeating of the vital energy in us through the pores or cells of the body, making us healthy, first physically and then poised in our minds as a consequence. The practise of yoga is a movement towards the health of the personality and also in the direction of the establishment of a healthy relationship with people.

The mentioned achievement, by way of an expansion of our dimension through social coordination, also is not an easy affair. We generally take to yoga asanas, pranayama, concentration and such practices under the impression that we are wholly prepared for such exercises. It is not always true, because our relations outwardly, our visioning of things, our opinions in respect of the things of the world, are not always as they ought to be. The loves and hates that mostly condition our social life and personal relations will tell us how far we are from even the initial requirement for the practise of yoga. We have to emphasise again what yoga calls the yamas—they are not so many unimportant and merely ethical instructions, as we consider them to be. The yamas are not a requirement of ethics and morality. They are a direct requirement in our daily life, in our day-to-day relationships.

The yamas—we know very well what these are in the language of yoga—are not instructions given to us to be good. It is not a teaching that we should be moral and ethical in our behaviour, in spite of the fact that it is told to us again and again that it is good to be good, it is proper to be ethical and it is necessary to be moral. It is not an injunction that we are following—it is a necessary recipe that we have to adopt for the freedom that we have to achieve from every kind of illness that is social and relational. We are good, we are moral and ethical not because it is good to be so in the light of social requirement, but because it is essential for the maintenance of our health. Any kind of anti-ethical movement emanating from our internal nature would not merely be an anti-social attitude, it also would be anti-healthy. Anything that is anti in the outer sense is also anti in the inner sense, merely because the relationship that we have with the world is neither inward entirely nor outward entirely—it is a wholesome action taking place vitally within ourselves and the world.

Hence, one need not be too very enthusiastic in devoting all one’s time only for hatha yoga, or even pranayama, not knowing where one stands in one’s outward relations, in one’s opinions, in one’s philosophies, and in one’s likes and dislikes. The touchstone of our personality is the attitude that we put on when we are opposed in life. The strength of a person, as well as the essential character of a person, gets revealed during periods of intense opposition from outside. Otherwise these natures are buried and we cannot know exactly what we are. Though we do not expect actual opposition from nature or society, we can intelligently, rationally, spontaneously place ourselves in an atmosphere of this cooperation that we establish with all things, which is an opposition that we instill into our own selves deliberately—opposition to our own instinctive nature, because if this test is not injected into our own personality, we will be put to this test one day or the other by the compulsions of nature and the demands of the higher reaches of yoga.

Very cautious one has to be in treading these levels of yoga. Haste always makes waste, as they say. There is no need to be quick and anxious in the steps that we take in the direction of yoga practice, because as we rise higher and higher in the ascending series, we will find the practice is more and more difficult. The intensity of the difficulty that we may feel in the higher ascents arises because of shaky foundations that we have laid earlier. The structure cannot rise on a foundation than has not been well laid. We cannot lay this foundation by ourselves, inasmuch as we do not know what is ahead of us. The secrets of nature are always hidden from our eyes, and therefore a Guru is essential. We have to be humble students under a competent master. The study under a teacher is a vital communication that that we establish with a higher response that comes from nature that is above us. The Guru or teacher or master is not just an individual like us, another person, but a super-person who is the object of our adoration. A master, or a Guru, or a teacher is not a person like us, because if we consider the Guru as another person like us, naturally there will be an inclination sometimes to change the person and become a student of some other Guru, which is not possible if we understand what a Guru actually means.

A Guru is a spiritual entity, a manifestation of a higher dimension of realisation that includes the dimension which we are occupying—super-social, super-individual and therefore more capable of inclusiveness than we are. In these days, of course, we know very well that it is difficult to find a competent teacher, yet we may say the world is not so bad as to make it impossible for us to find a good teacher. There is some virtue still prevailing—the world is not all devil yet. There is some sort of goodness, dharma—God is still alive, and there is hope for everyone.

It is therefore necessary for each one of us to gradually move upwards, cautiously taking our steps, one over the other, and find enough time to be alone to our own selves for this purpose, and not become too engrossed in the unnecessary activities of life. In our daily program a distinction should be made between the most essentials which we cannot avoid, and the non-essentials which we may avoid. It is not that everything that we do from morning to evening is all very, very essential. Sometimes we like to be a little light-hearted, free in a sense of abandon in our physical and social nature, on which we can put a sort of restriction gradually, which is not very difficult. It is necessary to feel a kind of greater satisfaction in oneself when alone than when in the midst of people.

We feel miserable when we are alone, mostly. We feel wretched. We would like to go to a shop, go somewhere and shake hands with someone, go to a tea shop and chat with someone, because it is difficult to be alone to oneself. The social nature has entered us in such a morbid way, we may say, that we have ceased to be what we are in ourselves. But to be a spiritual seeker, to be a healthy person is to also realise that it is not always necessary for us to be dependent on external factors. There is a potentiality in us. We are healthy. We can be healthy in our own selves without borrowing things from outside. It is essential, one day or the other, to be alone in our own selves. Alone we have come and alone we will go—we must remember this. Therefore it is necessary for us to realise that even today in social life, in this family life and community life, we are really alone; our friends are not real friends. It is good to be a little wise in our life in this world and not actually be expecting a kick from nature, a time when we will be forced to be alone to our own selves.

We should find a little time to be alone to ourselves, and be free to place ourselves before this great majesty of God’s creation. In the early morning, when we wake up from sleep, we are face-to-face not with people, but with creation. What we see in front of us is God’s creation. It is not our house that we see in the early morning—it is not our kitchen, it is not our family members, it is not our study, it is not our office—it is creation that we are envisaging. It is possible to widen our vision a little bit, it is so easy, if only we can be little investigative and capable of going deep into the implications of our daily perceptions. Again, to repeat, all this is difficult for an individual seeker without the help and guidance of a competent master.

We had, in our own life, the blessing of being under the umbrella and protection of a great sage, Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj. Physically he is not visible, but invisibly he is operating even now, and even if one cannot find a teacher due to the difficulties of one’s personal life, one can be sure that this great master, Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, will act as one’s guide even now, though he is not visible to the eyes. If our soul is actually aspiring, if our heart is sincere and if we truly wish to be spiritual and be on the path of the quest of reality, sages and masters of the higher realms will descent for our protection. Nobody is dead in this world. Neither Swami Sivanandaji is dead, nor is anybody dead. They are placed in some realm, a higher potentiality of existence, from where they can operate in a greater and more powerful way than they could through their physical bodies. When God himself can come to help us, why not others who are Godmen? The world is not remote—it is not entirely outside. It is involved in everything that we are, and our sincerity will summon and is capable of evoking the blessings of all the saints and sages, visible or invisible. Great adepts who live in higher realms will descend and bless us, whether we are aware of the way in which this blessing comes or not, because divine grace descends in its own way and it need not work always in the manner we expect it to work.

God’s incarnations are supposed to be perpetual, and they take place from moment to moment whether or not we are able to recognise them. The entire wonder of God’s creation, the way of nature, of the process of the history of humanity is a perpetual incarnation that is taking place and a perennial demonstration of the fact that protection comes perpetually from every side. It is available to everyone, at every moment—even just now if only we really ask for that protection and grace from the bottom of our hearts.

The spiritual seeker, the soul that aspires, is protected from all sides. This seeking centre becomes the cynosure of all the eyes of the guardian angels. The world opens its eyes and gazes attentively at a sincere spiritually aspiring soul. Spiritual aspiration is a miracle, a wonder in its own way. It is not a kind of occupation, a work that is of this world. It is an awakening, a rising from sleep into the perception of a new dimension and a different kind of world altogether. The seeker himself would be surprised when the world takes possession of this sincerity that emanates from spiritual seeking.

In the earlier stages it often appears that the spiritual seeker is abandoned socially and is often helpless, appearing to be isolated in a kind of individual religious practice. There is an unavoidable state of affairs through which one has to pass in the earlier stages of spiritual seeking, namely, the feeling of a kind of social aloneness.

We are born into a family. We are not born suddenly, individually, isolatedly in a desert. We have a father and a mother; we have an atmosphere of members who constitute a family. From our very birth we are in human society—we are never alone. The security, the satisfaction, the joy and the traditional clinging to an environment of this kind is so ingrained in the human person that no one can even dream of living a single isolated life, freed from social connections. So when a surge of spiritual awakening begins to activate itself in the soul, mostly people feel like being away from human society. Why such feeling arises is something interesting in its own self. What is wrong with our being in human society and yet being a spiritual seeker? No spiritual aspirant in the history of mystical quest has freed himself or herself from this pressure to be alone to oneself whenever this spiritual longing is felt to be very strong in one’s own self.

There is a peculiar juxtaposition of factors which creates this impulse to be alone into oneself, and there is a feeling of irksome unhappiness when one is forced to live in the midst of people, though it is not that people around are always bad and are against the welfare of the seeking aspirant. The activity of the soul is an answer to this great question of the intricate and intriguing aspiration to be alone to oneself. On the one hand there is a feeling of insecurity and fear in being socially alone to one’s own self. We feel protected in the midst of people. But here we have an apprehension which is not a happy thing—when we are totally alone to our own selves we do not know what will happen to us tomorrow, though we feel that nothing of an unbecoming nature will happen as we are guarded by the society of which we are members. Yet spiritual seeking goes together with the necessity to be alone to one’s own self.

This admixture of factors—on the one hand a desire to be alone and on the other hand the feeling of uneasiness in being alone—this mix-up of feeling arises because of an admixture of the stuff of our personality itself. We are neither soul entirely, nor a physical body entirely. If we are wholly soul, the necessity that the physical body feels in its daily life would be out of point entirely, and if we are wholly physical bodies, there would be no impulsion inside along spiritual lines. We are partly physical bodies and partly not physical bodies. The physical aspect of our existence compels us to be in the midst of physically related society. The fear of annihilation and pain takes possession of the physical body, physical existence and all physical values; but the other aspect of us which is not physical, therefore not social, wishes to be alone to itself, because the spirit is always alone.

The spirit cannot be a social unit. It has no society. It is not a member of a family. The nature of the spirit inside us is super-social, eternity being its essential nature, and therefore it craves to assert its aloneness and non-externalised independence, which is the reason why there is a pressure from inside to be alone to oneself when there is an urgent call of the higher life. But the other aspect of the matter also has to be taken into consideration as long as the spirit feels that it is with difficulty that it can free itself from involvement in the physical body and the physical relations of human society. Thus there is a combination of inwardness and outwardness; a kind of contradiction takes possession of a spiritual seeker— neither can one be alone nor can one be in the midst of people.

The earlier stages of spiritual practice are in a way the most difficult stages, because of it being not so easy to lay proper proportionate emphasis on these two aspects, these two sides of our personality—the spiritual on the one hand, and the physical and the social on the other. Hence the advice of adepts in this line is for a graduated extrication of involvement in human relations and physical needs by a systematised diminishing of the percentage of involvement and an increase of the percentage of association with the call of the spirit in itself.

In the Yoga Vashishtha, the teacher mentions that in the earliest of stages of spiritual practice only one-sixteenth of the mind can be devoted to God. Fifteen-sixteenths has to go to the world, because the involvement of everyone in the world is so deep that any attempt at an isolation of oneself from the world entirely, at the very beginning itself, would be something like trying to peel the skin of one’s own body—a total impossibility. The mind is involved in the body to such an extent that in will not permit any kind of attention that is compelled upon it in the direction of anything that is entirely cut off from its desires, which are manifest through the body and social relations. One-sixteenth of the mind, one-sixteenth of our time alone can be permitted to be given to the pursuit of God. Inasmuch as a large percentage of our life goes to social satisfaction, physical fulfilment of desires and all sorts of empirical longings, the mind will not mind much our occupation in the so-called other-worldly, godly occupation. The control of the mind is often compared to the control of a wild beast. No one can go near the beast, because it is violent in its nature. It asserts its own point of view to such point of vehemence that no one can afford to go near it. The mind has its say in everything, and everything has to be done according to its inclinations, predilections and instincts. Any requisition from the mental nature cannot be opposed by logic, social restrictions or religious forms. Therefore great caution is exercised in the restraining of the mind from outer involvements, as a ringmaster in a circus who tries to control wild animals takes care to see that he protects himself from any kind of onslaught from the beasts and at the same time tries to succeed in his endeavour to restrain them, control them and gain mastery over them.

We cannot dub the world as entirely bad while we desire it from our deepest recesses. It would be a hypocrisy of attitude to feel one thing and proclaim something else. The taste that the senses feel in respect of things in the world and the delicate nature of our performances through social relations are so very inviting, attractive and comforting that to make a theoretical proclamation of the illusoriness of the world, or the non-utilitarian character of involvement in the world, would be an entirely futile attempt on our part. It is impossible to escape the notice of the world to the extent that we are involved in the world and the world is entirely present in our own selves in a miniature form as a microcosm in the shape of this body. We are carrying the world with us wherever we go, though we feel that we have renounced the world. The world cannot be renounced by anyone who carries the body with him, because the world is not outside. This body is called the world; it is hanging so heavy on our minds and our consciousness, and it has become so intensely part and parcel of what we ourselves are, that we are ourselves the world.

Who can renounce the world, as the world is ourself? The freedom that one can establish in relation to the involvement of oneself in the body, which is regarded as one’s own self, is also the extent to which one can be free from the world outside. Wherever we go we are in the world. We are not away from the world merely because we are seated on the peak of a mountain or geographically we are distant from some particular location. No one can escape involvement in the world, because all spiritual seeking arises from an individual nature originally, which is nothing but an involvement in the physical body. The needs of the body are something like the calls of a devil. It is true that we are not going to appease the devil, because neither can it be appeased nor it would be wise to pamper the clamours of a demon. But there is a way of freeing oneself from the demon, inasmuch as we can place ourselves in some intelligent context with the devil, not by denying what it asks, and not by entirely acceding to its requirements. We give it what it wants, though it is not our intention to go on giving it what it wants always, forever.

From moment to moment the mind finds itself in a necessity to fulfil its potential desires. It asks for its diet every day, and this diet has to be placed before it. Give it what it wants, though we know very well that we have no such idea of continuously giving it what it wants for eternity. As a statesman works wisely in the administration of a country with a consciousness of the past and also an anticipation of the future while he acts in the present, there is a kind of spiritual statesmanship, an adroitness in behaviour on the part of a spiritual seeker. The seeker does not rush headlong, like a fool, into a region which angels fear to tread. He carefully places his steps not to destroy himself in this movement, but to be firm in the steps that are taken, and yet protected even while moving forward.

A very wise suggestion that has come from Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj that we should keep a spiritual diary, together with a daily routine. This is a system of personal check-up that we maintain for assessing the progress that we are making and the amount of control that we have been able to exercise over the calls of the inner nature. Though all the calls of the inner nature have to be attended to properly—the eyes have to see, the ears have to hear, the tongue has to taste and all the senses have to be given what they need—this has to be done only in that percentage and quantum which is essential at the given moment. Excessive pampering is to be avoided. For instance, we are hungry and we are thirsty; we need food every day. We also want drink for the quenching of our thirst, but it does not mean that we should go on eating throughout the day, occupying ourselves only with this work as if there is nothing else for us to do.

The satisfaction of hunger by the giving of a diet to this impulse we call hunger is very necessary indeed, but only in that percentage in which it is required. That is to say, for instance, we have to eat only when we are hungry and we need not eat when we are not hungry. But most of us eat even when we are not hungry. For instance, just at this moment we are not hungry; we have had our breakfast. But if some very delicious prasad is distributed just now, everyone will take it and put it in the mouth. There is no necessity to take it, but the inclination to eat in excess of an otherwise reasonable requirement precipitates into a habit of total involvement in a kind of appeasement of the senses. The senses take possession of us rather than our taking possession of the sense organs.

Social relations are very necessary. We cannot be brooding individually somewhere in a corner and crying that we have lost everything, the world is not helping us, the world does not want us, we have abandoned our homes, we have no friends, we have no wealth, we have no house, and God is not coming—the One whom we have been aspiring for, for whose sake we have left everything. This is not the way of living a spiritual life. Hasty steps should never be taken even when we are engaged in doing something virtuous and most desirable, even spiritually. Though God protects everyone and He is at the beck and call, as it were, of every devotee, there is a way in which God acts.

Our concept, our idea or notion of God will not always be adequate to the purpose. We may affirm that God is here just now and ready to protect us, give us what we need; but we have a peculiar sentiment, a traditional pressure of the feeling that creates a distance between ourselves and God. Even if there is only one inch distance between ourselves and that source from whom we expect protection, there will be no connection. We know very well that even if there is only a millimeter distance between the lightbulb and the electric socket there will be no light, though it is very near indeed to the point of contact. In a similar way, the psychological distance that we inadvertently create in our own selves between ourselves and God, whom we expect to protect us and save us every day, perhaps prevents God from rightly acting and taking steps in the direction of the fulfilment of our aspirations.

Why do we create this distance? It is the pressure that the world exercises upon us, the world that is involved in the space and time process. Because of the pressure of space, which is the very essence of the manifestation of the world, we cannot help feeling that there is some gap between us and the world. We cannot feel that God is sitting on our lap or is clutching our nose—He is not so near, there is a little bit of distance. This is caused by the element of space that is working as this world. Because of the pressure of time, we feel that God will come a little afterwards—a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, a few months or years afterwards. God will come. He has not come but He is going to come. This futurity of attainment and expectation of God’s grace is the subtle activity of the time process which keeps us in anxiety in respect of what has not taken place in the form of a future, and the space that creates the difference. There is therefore an intellectual honesty which affirms that we shall receive all abundance and grace from God Almighty, but a subtle dishonesty from the other side which is the instinct acting from our lower nature, telling us that this is not going to be a simple affair.