house, we run here and there, and run to the police and tell people, “Some thieves
have come at night and stolen... .” We will find that our own treasurer has stolen the
whole thing! We did not know that. The treasurer to whom we have entrusted
everything—he is the thief. We are running about in search of the thief somewhere
else, but he is sitting near us. He is speaking to us, and he himself went to the police
to make a complaint. The man who has stolen—he himself went to the police.
The ego is trying to practise yoga. Oh, what a pity! The ego cannot practise yoga,
because the ego is to be destroyed in yoga. So how can it practise yoga? Here we have
a strange difficulty, and it has to be overcome with a strange technique; that is yoga
itself. Yogena yogo jñātavya yogo yogātpravartate (Y.B. III.6), says the Yoga Bhashya.
Yoga is achieved by yoga itself; there is no other means. This is what yoga tells us.
Chapter 87ABSORBING SPACE AND TIME INTO CONSCIOUSNESSWe were considering the conditions which tend towards the communion of the self
with the object of meditation, and also the factors which prevent this communion.
On a deep probing into the matter, we concluded that there is nothing impeding the
communion of consciousness with the object except a peculiar feature of its own self.
It is consciousness itself tying itself into a knot, and standing before itself, as it were,
as an obstacle preventing this communion which is called samadhi. This peculiar
kink which arises in consciousness—this knot, this granthi—is the obstacle. This has
been designated in the language of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as asmita. It is this
asmita, which can be popularly translated as egoism, which acts as the obstacle. It is
very difficult to translate this word ‘asmita’ because it is not simply egoism, as
common language makes it appear. It is a peculiar sense of being, which does not
allow the entry of consciousness into the nature of the object—which is precisely the
point in samadhi. The object of meditation stands outside oneself usually—just as
you all are outside me and I am outside you. You see me and I see you. And even if
you think of me deeply, or when I think of you with great concentration, we remain
outside each other. There is an exclusive, and not an inclusive, relationship between
us. We always separate each other by a peculiar thing which is not cognisable even by
the most analytic of minds. What is it that excludes one from the other? The peculiar
feature, we may call it, which separates me from you and separates you from me is
not space, not time, not distance—neither spatial or temporal—but a consciousness.
This is what we will begin to realise when we go deep into the subject.
The isolating or separating factor is nothing objective or external. It is something
arising from one’s own self. That which has germinated from your own consciousness
becomes the obstacle or impediment in your identification of yourself with me.
Previously we noted an interesting feature behind this peculiar activity of
consciousness in obstructing its own endeavour in the communion of itself with the
object. The whole purpose—the be-all and end-all of yoga—is nothing but
communion. Technically, in Sanskrit, we call it samadhi. This communion is the aim
of yoga. All this effort, right from yama, niyama, asana, etc., is a preparation for
bringing about this communion. But when we come to the verge of this
communion—when the bell rings, as it were, to announce that the communion is to