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‌CHAPTER 5

20 October 1970 am in Poona, India

[Note: This is a translation from the Hindi Neo-Yoga Sutras, which is in the process of being edited. It is for research only.]

My Beloved Ones,

There are some questions. It will be helpful to understand some things in that regard.

A friend has said that some seekers have already been practicing the ‘Kundalini Sadhana’. They are gaining much from this experiment, so should they continue it or not? Can there be any harm in it?

There is no question of harm. If you have already been doing something and you are gaining from that, then continue it with speed – there will be only gain. There is nothing harmful anyway on the path of the divine.

Another friend has asked, and two or three more friends have asked the same thing – how long will weeping, shouting, laughing, dancing continue?

It can last from three weeks to three months. If you do the experiment rightly – weeping, laughing and shouting will vanish in three weeks and you will go from the first to the fourth stage. The two stages in between will be dropped. Those who do not do it rightly, who do it slowly, for them it may take three weeks to three months, but it is not something that will go on forever, because once the problems of the mind are dropped, mind will dissolve on its own. The length of time will depend on how intensely you drop your problems. But if you do the experiment rightly, then usually all this quietens down in three months, then you will take one or two deep breaths and immediately you will enter into the fourth stage. But this will happen only when you do the two in between stages

completely. If you are a little miserly, then it may take years. The point is to throw out from your inside completely.

Another few friends have said that weeping and crying will cause difficulty to family members, neighbors. In the beginning it will cause problems; for one day, two days, it will cause problems. You yourself go and make a request to them beforehand, saying, “I will do this for one hour, please forgive me for one hour.” You tell them first, before they ask what you are doing. And because this experiment is altogether new, it will take a little time. Now if someone starts singing devotional songs loudly in the neighborhood, no one feels any difficulty. Someone starts saying Ram, Ram, loudly and you understand that he is meditating. In a year or two, thousands of people will do it in the world and people will understand that they are meditating. For those who will do it now, in the beginning there will be a little difficulty for them.

In the beginning there is always a little difficulty in doing something, but that is only a matter of a day or two. Even now, thousands of people have started doing it in this country. The people around you become curious for a day or two, but then they forget. And they will also see the changes in your being that will begin to take place within three weeks – they will not see your weeping and crying only. And if you did the experiment honestly, your neighbors will not be able to escape from the experiment for very long; that experiment will start gripping them also. So do not take your weeping and crying to be very disturbing, rather that too will be favorable. When neighbors come to ask, explain the whole meditation to them and tell them that they also can come to participate tomorrow.

One more question is being asked daily, I would like to say something in that regard.

Quite recently in the Manali Camp, twenty people entered into a new kind of sannyas. Now every day the question is being asked, “What is that sannyas?”

A few things in brief. Firstly, in the future there is no possibility of the survival of sannyas as it was in the world until now – it will not be able to survive. In Soviet Russia today, it is not possible to be a sannyasin; in China, now it is not possible to be a sannyasin. And wherever socialism is influential, sannyas will become impossible. Wherever the idea arises that anyone who does not do regular work has no right to eat, sannyas will become difficult.

In the coming fifty years, many traditions of sannyas will simply disappear from the world. In China there was a great Buddhist tradition of sannyas; it simply disappeared. Lamas are disappearing from Tibet, they cannot survive. In Russia also, there was a tradition of very old Christian fakirs, it is ruined. And sannyas will have difficulty in surviving anywhere in the world. Hence my own understanding is that a precious flower like sannyas should not be destroyed. The institution of sannyas may disappear but sannyas should not disappear.

So, there is only one way to save it, and that is that a sannyasin does not renounce and run away from life, but becomes a sannyasin in the midst of life. He should sit in the shop, do laborer’s work, work in the office. He must not flee, his livelihood should not depend on the society. Wherever he is, whatever he is, he should become a sannyasin there. So these twenty people have been initiated in this direction. They will work in their offices, they will work in their schools, they will run their shops and will live the life of a sannyasin.

The result will be twofold. Firstly the result will be that a sannyasin will not seem to be an exploiter, it will not look as if he is dependent on anyone. It will also be advantageous to the sannyasin because the old tradition of sannyas which depends on society, makes the sannyasin a slave whether it is apparent or not. The sannyasin starts living in the slavery of the society. And those to whom we give bread, we buy their souls also. That is why a sannyasin should actually be a rebel but he cannot be because he has to spend time in the slavery of the people he gets his food from. He goes on saying only those things which are pleasant to you because you give him his bread.

Sannyas is a revolutionary event. For that it is essential that financially and psychologically a person should be dependent on himself. First of all, I would like to make sannyas reach into each and every home.

Its other great result will be that it will not happen that the sannyasin renounces his home and runs away, and the advantages of sannyas that should come to the world are lost. When good people renounce the world, the world falls into the hands of bad people. This has been a loss to the world. In my understanding, if the flower of goodness has blossomed in someone’s life, he should be sitting right in the center of the marketplace, so that his fragrance begins to spread in the market. Otherwise if he runs away, others who only spread a bad smell will be sitting there.

So there should be a sannyasin in each and every house. He may change his garb, he may put all his energies towards the divine, but he should not leave and run away. The housework which he was doing until yesterday, he should still go on doing, thinking himself to be a vehicle of the divine.

He should neither leave his wife, nor his home, nor his children. Now he should silently go on doing all this work thinking it to be the work of the divine. He should not remain a doer – he should only remain a witness. With such sannyas I think thousands of people will become interested. Those who can never think of leaving home, even in their lives there will be bliss of sannyas and this life will also blossom. If sannyasins become available to us in the street, in the markets, in houses, in offices, their clothes, their remembrance, their climate, their behavior will affect the whole life.

From this point of view, whosoever have been asking again and again... if they are interested, can talk to me separately today between three and four – whosoever has thought that sannyas can be a possibility in their life.

I have added a few more things to this sannyas. Firstly, I have called this sannyas ‘periodical renunciation’. My understanding is that no one should make decisions for a whole life-time. Today you make a decision; maybe after six months you feel that it was a mistake, so there should be a path for you to return, otherwise even sannyas can become a burden. Once we give sannyas to someone, we expect that he should remain a sannyasin for his whole life. Maybe after a year he feels that he made a mistake, then he should have every right to return without condemnation. Hence this, which I have called sannyas, is periodical. Any day you want, you can quietly come back. There will be no binding on you for it.

The experiment of this kind of sannyas is in practice in Thailand and Burma and it has caused a difference in life in the life there. Every man, once in a while takes sannyas for a few days. If someone has some free time for two months in a year, he will take sannyas for two months and after living as a sannyasin forthat period, he goes back to the world and his home. The man is

transformed. After living as a sannyasin for two months, a man cannot remain the same as he was. Everything in him is transformed. Again after a year or two, when it is convenient for him, he takes sannyas for two months.

That is why I have also added another way to it, that those who want to take sannyas for some limited period can do that and experiment. If their bliss becomes enhanced, they can lengthen the period and if they feel that it is not for them, they can quietly return. It has a twofold advantage. Sannyas will not be a bondage, sannyas is freedom – hence it should not be a bondage. At the present our sannyasin becomes a prisoner in chains.

The first thing is that sannyas will not be a bondage, and the second thing is that sannyas will become available for everyone – even if only for a short period. If a man during his life of seventy years becomes a sannyasin five times, for two months each time, he will be a different man at the time of his death. He cannot be the same man. The maximum number of people will get the opportunity to become a sannyasin, the maximum number of people will be able to experience the bliss and have a taste of sannyas. And it is my understanding that one who goes for sannyas once, will not return back. This not-returning back should not be as per rule, but it should be out of the bliss of sannyas, and the freedom to return should always be there. It is not good to talk much on this subject right now. The friends who may have a longing for sannyas can see me in the afternoon between three and four.

Perhaps some new friends may be here, so briefly I will repeat the process again. Then we will sit for the experiment of meditation.

This experiment of meditation is an experiment in will-power. You will get results according to how much will power you use. If you hold yourself back even a little, then there will be no results. You have to jump into it totally – it cannot work if you save yourself. And the process is such that you can jump totally – it is not difficult.

It has three stages. In the first stage you have to do intense breathing for ten minutes; you have to go on increasing it, intensifying it. You have to breathe in such a way that you remember nothing else – only the breathing remains. For ten minutes you forget the whole world. And one who breathes vigorously will forget. Only the act of breathing will be left in his consciousness. Inner and outer have to be engaged in breathing alone.

The second ten minutes are of catharsis. In the second ten minutes, dancing, jumping, crying, weeping, laughing, whatever starts coming to you, you have to do with total energy. For a few friends to whom it may not come on its own... they have to begin from their side... whatever they can think of to do – if dancing comes then dancing; if crying comes then crying; and do not try, just start it. Yesterday some friends came and they said, “We try but it does not happen to us.” There is no need to make an effort. For jumping, do you need to make some effort? Just do it. Do not bother about effort. The moment you begin, the current will be broken and it will become spontaneous. And within a day or two, you will find that it starts coming on its own. Many suppressions have been accumulated, many energies have accumulated in our minds; they must drop off.

Energy will be born in you, the whole body will be electrified, will begin to vibrate. To awaken this energy, for ten minutes you will be hammering with deep breathing. Kundalini will get awakened

by it. Then, in the next ten minutes you will be experimenting with dropping the madness of the mind, so that no obstacle remains in the path of the Kundalini – all obstacles should drop away, and the energy of Kundalini can go straight upwards. All the madness of the mind should drop away, otherwise the energy awakened by Kundalini is absorbed by the madness of the mind, it enters into the madness of the mind. Hence catharsis is essential; the throwing out of all the rubbish is essential.

Then in the third stage, the pure energy of Kundalini which will be left behind has to be transformed into inquiry. Hence in the third stage for ten minutes, ‘who am I’? is to be asked.

Today is the last day, so do not ask it quietly within yourself – for the entire ten minutes ask it with your total energy, shouting loudly. Ask it so intensely that there remains no space for any thought that there is anything else or any other world. Just drown in asking ‘who am I’? If someone finds it more convenient to ask in Marathi instead of Hindi, they can ask in Marathi. That is not the prblem. If they find Marathi more convenient, then they should ask in Marathi. Any language which is deep in your heart – ask in that language. You have to ask with total energy for ten minutes. In these thirty minutes you have to make yourself completely tired. Not even a little is to be kept back nor should you stop.

In the last ten minutes, you have to wait in silence. These ten minutes of silent waiting are real. Those thirty minutes are of preparation and these ten minutes are the real thing. In those ten minutes, deep energy, bliss, deep light and many kinds of experiences will start happening.

If you want, you may form groups of five or ten friends and do this experiment together so that the problems which each person comes across do not appear. Those five or ten friends should get together in one house and do the experiment there. Do it together for twenty-one days. Then sit and start doing it alone in your house. This shouting and weeping will gradually subside and silence will go on increasing. And within three months, a continuous current of peace and bliss will begin to flow in you and the divine will start appearing on all sides. It is not that you will find him standing somewhere. No, whatever will be seen, will begin to appear as a form of the divine itself.

Now get up for the experiment. Those friends who want to do it sitting, may sit behind me.

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