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Chapter 10: The Cause of Misery

Sometimes it happens that your watch has gone wrong, you just shake it and it starts - but that is not a science. Sometimes it happens that something you do, and just by luck, accident, you feel something happening. But you have not become a master. And if it has happened once, don’t try it again, because if you next shake your watch it may stop. This is not a science.

Don’t move by accidents. Discipline is only a safeguard. Don’t move by accidents! Move with a master who knows what he is doing. And he knows if something goes wrong he can bring it to the right path: one who is aware of your past and who is also aware of your future, and who can join together your past and future.

Hence so much emphasis on masters in Indian teachings. And they knew, and they meant it, because there is no mechanism so complex as the human mind, no computer so complex as the human mind.

Man has not yet been able to evolve anything comparable to the mind, and I think it is not ever going to be evolved, because who will evolve it? If the human mind can evolve something, it is always going to be lower and lesser than the mind that creates it. At least one thing is certain: that whatsoever the human mind creates, that created thing cannot create a human mind. So the human mind remains the superior-most, the supreme-most complex mechanism.

Don’t do anything just because of curiosity or just because others are doing it. Get initiated, and move with someone who knows the path well. Otherwise madness can be the result. And it has happened before; it is happening to many people right now.

Patanjali doesn’t believe in accidents, he believes in a scientific order. So he has given one-by-one steps. These two he makes his base: vairagya, desirelessness, and abhyasa, constant, conscious inner practice. Abhyasa is the means and vairagya is the goal. Desirelessness is the goal and constant, conscious inner practice is the means.

But the goal starts from the very beginning and the ends are hidden in the beginning. The tree is hidden in the seed, so the beginning implies the end. That’s why he says desirelessness is needed in the beginning also. The beginning has the end in it and the end will also have the beginning in it.

So even when a master has become complete, total, he continues practicing. This will look absurd to you. You have to practice because you are in the beginning and the goal has not been achieved - but when the goal is achieved, even then the practice continues. It now becomes spontaneous, but it continues. It never stops. It cannot, because the end and the beginning are not two things. If the tree is in the seed, then in the tree again seeds will come.

Somebody asked Buddha - one of his disciples, Purnakashyap - he asked, “We see, bhante, that you still follow a certain discipline.”

Buddha?.still following a certain discipline? He moves in a certain way, he sits in a certain way, he remains alert, he eats certain things, he behaves - everything seems to be disciplined.

So Purnakashyap said, “You have become enlightened, but we feel that you still have a certain discipline.”