Introduction to the Path of Yoga..message 1

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We live in a deep illusion -- the illusion of hope, of future, of tomorrow. As

man is, man cannot exist without self-deception.

 

Nietzsche says somewhere that man cannot live with the true: he needs dreams, he

needs illusions, he needs lies to exist. And Nietzsche is true. As man is he

cannot exist with the truth. This has to be understood very deeply, because

without understanding it there can be no entry into the inquiry which is called

Yoga.

 

The mind has to be understood deeply -- the mind which needs lies, the mind

which needs illusions, the mind which cannot exist with the real, the mind which

needs dreams. You are not only dreaming in the night; even while awake you are

continuously dreaming. You may be looking at me, you may be listening to me, but

a dream current goes on within you. The mind is continuously creating dreams,

images, fantasies.

 

Now scientists say that a man can live without sleep but he cannot live without

dreams. In the old days it was understood that sleep was a necessity, but now

modern research says sleep is not really a necessity; sleep is needed only so

that you can dream. Dreaming is the necessity. If you are allowed to sleep but

not allowed to dream, you will not feel fresh, alive, in the morning. You will

feel tired, as if you have not been able to sleep at all.

 

In the night there are periods -- periods for deep sleep and periods for

dreaming. There is a rhythm, just like day and night. There is a rhythm: in the

beginning you fall into deep sleep for near about forty, forty-five minutes,

then the dream phase comes in; then you dream; then again dreamless sleep, then

again dreaming. This goes on the whole night. If your sleep is disturbed while

you are deeply asleep without dreaming, in the morning you will not feel that

you have missed anything. But while you are dreaming if your dream is disturbed

then in the morning you will feel completely tired, exhausted.

 

Now this can be known from the outside. If someone is sleeping you can judge

whether he is dreaming or asleep. If he is dreaming his eyes will be

continuously moving, as if he is seeing something with closed eyes. When he is

fast asleep the eyes will not move; they will remain steady. So if your sleep is

disturbed while your eyes are moving, in the morning you will feel tired. While

your eyes are not moving sleep can be disturbed; in the morning you will not

feel anything is missing.

 

Many researchers have proved that the human mind feeds on dreams; dreaming is a

necessity, and dreaming is total auto-deception. And this is so not only in the

night: while awake also the same pattern follows. Even in the day you can notice

-- sometimes there will be dreams floating in the mind, sometimes there will be

no dreams.

 

When there are dreams you will be doing something but you will be absent. Inside

you are occupied. For example, you are here. If your mind is passing through a

dream-state you will listen to me without listening at all, because your mind

will be occupied within. If you are not in a dreaming state, only then can you

listen to me.

 

Day and night, mind goes on moving from no-dream to dream, then from dream to

no-dream again. This is an inner rhythm...

 

The present is almost always a hell: you can prolong this hell only because of

the hope that you have projected into the future. You can live today because of

the tomorrow. You are hoping something is going to happen tomorrow -- some doors

of paradise will open tomorrow. They never open today, and when tomorrow will

come it will not come as tomorrow, it will come as today, but by that time your

mind has moved again. You go on moving ahead of you: this is what dreaming

means. You are not one with the real, that which is nearby, that which is here

and now, you are somewhere else -- moving ahead, jumping ahead.

 

And that tomorrow, that future, you have named it in so many ways. People call

it heaven, some people call it moksha, but it is always in the future. Somebody

is thinking in terms of wealth, but that wealth is going to be in the future.

And somebody is thinking in terms of paradise, and that paradise is going to be

after you are dead -- far away in the future. You waste your present for that

which is not: this is what dreaming means. You cannot be here and now. To be

just in the moment seems to be arduous.

 

You can be in the past, because again that is dreaming -- memories, remembrance

of things which are no more -- or you can be in the future, which is projection,

which again is creating something out of the past. The future is nothing but the

past projected again -- more colorful, more beautiful, more pleasant, but it is

the past refined.

 

You cannot think anything other than the past: the future is nothing but the

past projected again -- and both are not. The present is, but you are never in

the present. This is what dreaming means. And Nietzsche is right when he says

that man cannot live with the truth. He needs lies, he lives through lies.

Nietzsche says that we go on saying that we want the truth, but no one wants it.

Our so-called truths are nothing but lies, beautiful lies. No one is ready to

see the naked reality.

 

This mind cannot enter on the path of Yoga because Yoga means a methodology to

reveal the truth. Yoga is a method to come to a non-dreaming mind. Yoga is the

science to be in the here and now. Yoga means now you are ready not to move into

the future. Yoga means now you are ready not to hope, not to jump ahead of your

being.