Even if one is a very happy person, one need not be in a state of yoga. Even if one’s
mind is very calm and not disturbed by outside factors, for various reasons, that is
not a state of yoga. What is yoga then? Yoga is the revelation of the truth of things;
and if the mind is a part of the truth, well, it is also a revelation of the truth of the
mind. But the mind alone is not the whole truth. There are other things than the
mind in this vast panorama of creation. The mind is one of the elements in this vast
mechanism of creation.
Inasmuch as the mind is involved in this mechanism, it cannot be regarded as a
whole truth, though it is also a truth. The mind is involved in certain other things,
and its proper adjustment with the other things also is a necessity in order that it can
keep pace with the law of truth. The mind usually, from the point of view of
psychology, we may say, is a receptacle for the impressions received by the senses
from the objects outside. The mind acts as a photographic film, as it were, which
receives the pictures of the objects outside through the apertures of the senses. The
mind, therefore, cannot contain anything which is not in the objects outside, because
it is like a film of the camera. It receives impressions and is conditioned by the
structure of the senses. This is also to be remembered. Whatever the condition of the
mind is at any given moment of time, it is also based on certain other factors—
namely, the operation of the senses and the existence of objects outside. The objects
impress upon the mind through the senses and, corresponding to the nature of the
impression produced by the objects, there is a transformation taking place in the
mind. Therefore, the transformations of the mind, whatever they be, can be regarded
as conditioned by the transformations of the objects outside.
Now we have to take a little step further in the understanding of the philosophy of
yoga before we actually go deeper into its practice. What is all this about? What is
yoga trying to aim at? What is its message to us? Its message is simple—namely, the
return of consciousness to the Ultimate Truth. This is the message of yoga. And its
practice consists in the adoption of those methods which are necessary for the return
of consciousness to the Ultimate Truth, or Reality. What is the Ultimate Truth to
which we have to return, which is the aim of yoga? This is the philosophy of yoga,
which describes the nature of things ultimately. If we are not in harmony with the
nature of things, we are supposed to be in samsara. If we are in harmony with the
nature of things, we are supposed to be in the state of moksha—liberation. A person
who abides by law is a free person. A person who infringes the law is a bound soul.
He will be caught by the law.
A person who is caught in samsara is one who infringes the law of the cosmos, who
interferes with it, violates it, and does not abide by it. A free soul is one who has
attained moksha. The freedom here consists in the abidance of the law of the cosmos.
When our way of thinking and living corresponds exactly to the nature of things as
they are, we are free; nobody can bind us. But if there is a variance of our thinking
and our way of living with the existing order of things, this order of things will tell
upon us and compel us to abide by that law. That is the force exerted upon us by the
world outside, and that pressure which we feel in a painful manner is what is called
samsara.
We are like captives in a jail who suffer because of their own mistakes. We have
broken the principles of the law, and the law is taking hold of us by the neck. If we
say, “I am in a sorrowful condition; I am being harassed”—well, who is harassing us?