Generally, we are afraid because we see something frightening. But when there is
nothing to see, even then we are frightened. This is a child’s fear, and this is the fear
of any individual placed in unusual circumstances.
Therefore it is that the great teacher Gaudapada mentions in his Karikas that if yogis
are frightened about it, what about others? We will be simply stunned even to
imagine such a possibility of becoming something of which we have no idea. Great
mystics have given rapturous exclamations of this condition. The language of
mysticism is not English or Sanskrit or anything that is spoken through the tongue. It
is the language of feeling and, therefore, it cannot be expressed except through
image, comparison, metaphor and such images, which are the only means of
communication. Epics, for example, are one of the means. Logically we cannot
explain it, because this is an experience which is above logic; therefore, there is only
story, image, metaphor, comparison, etc. When one enters into such experiences it
looks frightening because of the maintenance of individuality. This is what happened
to Arjuna in the earlier part of the great prayer he offers to the Virat Svarupa in the
eleventh chapter of the Bhagavadgita. There is an expression of fear—awe. It is like
the awe that we feel when we stand on the shore of the ocean. We are frightened to
even see the ocean, and we know why we are frightened. It is very clear that we are
frightened because of the largeness, the vastness and the magnitude that is before us.
The magnitude and also the imagination as to what the ocean can do to us are what
frightens. What can the ocean do to us? It can simply swallow us—that is all it can do;
and we are frightened of being swallowed. That is, again, the fear of self-
annihilation.
Thus, in the beginning, in the earlier part of Arjuna’s prayer, there is an expression of
awe, fear and consternation. He is flabbergasted, and it is impossible for him to bear
the sight of the Virat Svarupa because there is a retention of individuality in the
earlier stage of communion. It is at this stage of the retention of individuality,
simultaneous with the flash of Cosmic Insight, that there is a sense of fear and
shaking up, because the Cosmic and the individual are incompatibles—they cannot
go together—but there is a peculiar verge, or borderland, where one dashes against
the other. The individual touches the Infinite, and the Infinite kicks the individual
back. That condition is the condition of fear, awe, and impossibility of expression and
feeling. This will not continue for a long time. How long it will continue varies from
individual to individual, according to idiosyncrasies. In some cases it may last for
days, months or years; and sometimes it may be for a few minutes only. The border
of the entry of the mind into the nature of the object is the stage where there is a
sudden reshuffling of the constituents of personality; and this reshuffling can take
place in all the levels of one’s being. Our bodily cells will change, and they can be
charged with a new set-up of values. The vital energy will start to flow in different
ways, so that we will feel a different kind of warmth in our system. The mind will be
reoriented thoroughly, and our outlook of life will change. The logic of the intellect
also will be completely different, and what we will be, we alone can know—nobody
can explain it. So this is, if we would like to call it, an all-inspiring picture of the great
aim of life, the goal of yoga, which has been described almost in a mathematical
language in the simple, precise, crisp sutra of Patanjali: trayam ekatra saṁyamaḥ
(III.4).
In future, we will not use the words ‘dharana’, ‘dhyana’ and ‘samadhi’, but only the
word ‘samyama’, which is inclusive of all these three stages. The processes of