To take you deeper into the subject of yog, let me begin with an example. A small boy likes to play with guns and he says that he wants to become a dacoit when he grows up. No matter how much you convince him, he will tell people this. Or he will say he wants to be a truck driver, who drives at top speed. If you tell him sternly that he should say he wants to become a doctor, he will repeat it to people.
Intellectually he understands that his father thinks that a doctor is better than a truck driver, but deep inside he thinks being a dacoit or a truck driver is more fun. When this child grows up, he doesn’t want to be a dacoit anymore. He finds an ideal in the environment around him, and wishes to be like that. It is the first gyan. When he grows more and decides more, he wants to be an IAS officer or a hot-shot executive; more gyan.
There is no synonym for the word gyan in English or any other language. It is not the intellectual knowledge you gain from books, which have several limitations. Gyan can only be gained through a guru who gives it to you by a certain technique, which is beyond the scope of the senses—which is all you have experienced so far. Wisdom, too, is part of knowledge. You can see the parameters, determine things and give solutions. So you become wise. This gyan forms the basics of human civilisation; it has been tried and tested for several million generations. We are talking about a language that is a hundred thousand years old.
Some anthropologists say that humans were monkeys jumping around trees. Anyone who understands the Vedas will say, like Sir John Woodroffe, “Your ancestors were definitely monkeys. Not mine. My ancestors were those men who have given the knowledge of the Vedas to us, the philosophies, the dictum of peace.” Can an uncivilised barbarian ever think of shanti? Has this country ever initiated aggression in the history of its existence? Never. Why not? Because our principles, our culture, and our ancient philosophy are civilised. A civilised person is someone who thinks beyond his or her needs. A barbarian is someone who eats, sleeps, breathes, and lives for himself alone.
I normally visit a few chat rooms on the Net and people ask me lots of questions. I got this message about a guru who was going to the US to give everyone diksha, and this person was collecting the fee and bookings. I e-mailed him, ‘The whole principle of yog is to get you out of maya and this guru is drawn by maya to you. What do you intend to achieve out of this joke’? The answer I got was, ‘Thank you for opening my eyes’.
Lord Ram did not tell the guru to come to his palace. He went to his ashram, lived there, and no one can be greater than Lord Rama, right?
The guru cannot come to you, you have to go to the guru; otherwise the art will lose its efficacy. The system and the foundation work on the basic principle, of the ancient tradition of the guru-shishya. But here, gurus are seeking out disciples in the West, even flying abroad to acquire them. Are we blind fools to allow this? Can’t we see that these are not gurus? They are clever businessmen selling smart ideas.
To take a step back, how can you sell something that is not yours to begin with? In Vedic chants there is a specific short shloka: ‘idam namam’; it’s not mine. When it’s not yours, how can you sell it? You can only make an effort to present it at best. The true yogi would never go to anyone, people come to him.
So, go find your guru.
(Yogi Ashwini is the spiritual head of Dhyan Ashram. He can be reached at dhyan@dhyanfoundation.com)
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