Chapter 11 Meditation and Yoga

The purpose of life is to become conscious. This is also the purpose of yoga; the evolution of life itself lies in becoming more and more conscious, and yoga means something more. The evolution of life requires becoming more and more conscious, but consciousness is always directed towards something else: you are always aware of something, some object. Yoga means evolving at a level where there is no object, only consciousness. Yoga is an evolution towards pure, conscious awareness, not about being aware of "something," it is simply "consciousness" itself.

When you are aware of something, you are not aware of the existence of awareness itself. Your awareness is focused on something; your attention is not on the source of awareness. In yoga, the whole effort is to become aware of both the object and awareness itself; awareness has a dual purpose. You must be aware of the object, and you must also be aware of the subject at the same time; awareness must be a two-way bridge. The subject must never be forgotten; when you focus your awareness on the object, the subject must not be forgotten. This is the first step in yoga. The second step is to remove both subject and object and simply become aware. This pure awareness is the goal of yoga.

Even without yoga, a person will grow towards greater consciousness, but yoga adds something to this evolution of consciousness, contributes something. It can change many things, and transform many things. The first transformation is that something needs to be realized; you can be a two-way awareness, you can remember yourself.

The dilemma is this: you're either conscious of an object or you're unconscious. Without an external object, you're in a deep sleep; the object is needed to make you conscious. You feel sleepy when you're not fully occupied—you need some object to be conscious of, but when you have too many objects to be conscious of, you can't sleep. That's why a person can't sleep if they're too preoccupied with thoughts. The object keeps appearing, the thought keeps appearing, and he can't become unconscious; the thought is constantly demanding his attention. And that's how most of us live, most of the time.

You become more conscious of new objects. That's why we have desires and cravings for new things. Old things become boring. Once you spend a little more time with an object, you become unaware of it. You've accepted it, so now it doesn't need your attention anymore; you become bored. You might not have been aware of your wife for years because you've taken her for granted. You no longer look at her face; you haven't truly paid attention to her for years. Only when she dies will you become aware of her presence again. That's why wives and husbands become bored with each other. Any object, once it no longer consistently attracts your attention, will become boring.

Similarly, a Sanskrit word, a repetitive sound vibration, can induce deep sleep. When a particular Sanskrit word is repeated continuously, you become bored. There's nothing mysterious about this. Continuously repeating a particular word will bore you; you can't stay with it for long, you'll start to feel drowsy, you'll enter a kind of sleep state, and you'll become unconscious. In fact, hypnosis relies on boredom. If your mind can become bored with something, then you will fall asleep; sleep can be induced.

Our entire consciousness depends on new objects, which is why there is so much desire for the new. A new feeling, a new piece of clothing, a new house—these are all "new," even if they aren't particularly good. It's only when something different exists within the new that you feel a sudden surge of consciousness. Because life is an evolution of consciousness, this is good; in terms of life, this is good. If a society craves new feelings, life will progress; but if it stagnates in the old state and doesn't demand the new, it will become stagnant, and consciousness will be unable to evolve.

For example, for a long time in the East, we tried to be content with the status quo, which produced boredom; nothing was new. So, for centuries, everything continued as before. You just felt bored. Of course, you could sleep better. What you really need is a consciousness that isn't necessarily related to the "new," not necessarily related to the object. If it's destined to be related to the object, then it will inevitably be related to the "new." Man needs a consciousness completely unrelated to the object, one that transcends the object. Only then is man free: you can sleep when you want, and you can stay awake when you want, without needing the object to help you. Man becomes inwardly free, truly unaffected by the objective world.