but will not allow the unity of the substantiality of the subject with the object because
if that could be achieved, there would be no function for the senses.
The senses have no work to perform if the unity between what is perceived and the
perceiver is achieved. But the senses do not want to go without a job. They would be
jobless if this could be done, so they vehemently prevent any such thing. If we
perform our work very efficiently, and if all the work is completed, there will be no
work for us to do; we will be jobless. So we do the work very slowly and very
inefficiently, so that the work will be there forever, and we will be employed. That is a
very good way of having work—never doing it completely. This is what the senses are
doing. They will never allow this achievement called yoga because the moment it is
achieved, they have no work. They will cease to exist. They will be put out
immediately.
Thus, there is always a struggle and an effort on the part of the senses to maintain a
distance between consciousness and the object. Whatever be the proximity of the
object with the subject in meditation, a little distance is maintained. It is not a
complete union. And, that little distance is equal to any distance. In an electrical
operation, if there is even the least distance between the contacting wire and the
plug, though it may be only half a millimetre of distance, there will be no contact,
really speaking. It is not physical distance that counts here, but distance as such.
Whether I do not like you a little, or do not like you very much, anyhow I do not like
you—that is all. It matters little whether it is much or little. The quality is what is
important here, not merely the quantity. The quality of the distance maintains the
isolation of the object from the subject.
But yoga aims at the abolition of this difference between the rupa of the object and
the svarupa of the meditator. The object has to assume the svarupa of the
consciousness. There should be no such distinction between svarupa and rupa. The
form of the object and the nature of consciousness should stand together on par. This
is called samadhi—the balancing of consciousness on par with the nature of the
object, so that they stand on equal footing, on a single level. There is no inferiority or
superiority between the two. The moment we regard something as an object, we
regard it as inferior. It becomes a tool, a kind of instrument for the purpose of the
subject. But here, in this balancing of consciousness with the nature of the object,
they stand on the same level of reality and value. In this sameness of value and reality
they converge, or merge together, so that there is no distance between the object that
is meditated upon and the consciousness that meditates.
The distance is really a psychological distance, and that is of greater consequence
than physical distance. Physical distance does not count much, but mental distance is
very important. Distance that is mentally maintained here has always kept the object
outside. To come to the point, there is a subtle feeling that we exist as an
independent entity, maintaining our own status as different from the nature and the
status of the object. This idea will not leave us at all. How on earth can we ever
imagine that we are the same as the object? No man with sense will ever think like
that because the moment this idea of the sameness of oneself with the object arises,
the attraction for the object ceases. This is a very peculiar thing.
All desire gets burnt up immediately the moment we assume the form of the object.
No desire can function unless the object is outside us. If we have ourselves become