A guru mixes the right cocktail

Question: Master, there are so many kinds of different yogas, how do I know which type of yoga is best for me?

Right now, the only things that are in your experience are your body, your mind, and your emotions. You know them to some extent and you can infer that if these three things have to happen the way they are happening, there must be an energy that makes them happen. Isn’t it? Without energy all this cannot be happening.

Some of you might have experienced it; others can easily infer that for these three things to function, there must be some energy behind them. For example, a microphone amplifies sound. Even if you don’t know anything about the microphone, you can infer that there is a source that powers it.

So, these are the only four realities in your life: body, mind, emotion and energy. Whatever you wish to do with yourself, it must be on these four levels. Whatever you wish to do, you can only do it with your body, your mind, your emotions or your energy.

If you use your emotions and try to reach the ultimate, we call this bhakti yoga; that means the path of devotion.  If you use your intelligence and try to reach the ultimate, we call this gnana yoga; that means the path of intelligence.  If you use your body, or physical action, to reach the ultimate, we call this karma yoga; that means the path of action.  Now, if you transform your energies and try to reach the ultimate, we call this kriya yoga; that means internal action.

These are the only four ways you can get somewhere: either through karma, gnana, bhakthi or kriya – body, mind, emotion, or energy. These are the only four ways you can work with yourself. It is just that in one person the heart may be dominant, in another person the head may be dominant, in yet another person the hands may be dominant; but everybody is a combination of these four. So, you need a combination of these four.

It is just that only if it is mixed in the right way for you, it works best for you. What we give for one person, if it is given to you, may not work well for you because that person is so much heart and this much head. Only when it is mixed in the right proportion, it works for you. That is why on the spiritual path there is so much stress on a live guru; he mixes the cocktail right for you, otherwise there is no punch.

There is a wonderful story in yogic lore. One day, one gnana yogi, one bhakti yogi, one karma yogi and one kriya yogi were walking together.

Usually, these four people can never be together, because gnana yogi has total disdain for every other yoga; it is the yoga of intelligence. Normally, an intellectual person, a thinking person has complete disdain for everybody else.

A bhakti yogi, full of emotion and love, thinks all this gnana, karma and kriya yoga is just a waste of time. Just love God and it will happen.

The karma yogi thinks that everybody is lazy and that they have all kinds of fancy philosophies; what needs to be done is work. One must work and work and work.

The kriya yogi just laughs at everything. The whole existence is energy. If you don’t transform your energy, whether you long for God or you long for anything, nothing is going to happen.

So, they can’t be together but today they were walking together. Then it started to rain. They were in the forest and it started raining. They started running, looking for shelter, and there they found an ancient temple which just had a roof - no walls on the sides. In the centre, there was a Linga. So, these people went inside the temple for shelter. The storm became more and more furious and it started blowing in torrents. The fury of the storm was getting into the temple so they went closer and closer and closer to the Linga. There was no other way to be because it was just blasting them from all sides. Then it became very furious. There was no other place; the only way they could get some protection was for all four to hug the Linga. Suddenly, they felt something enormous happening. A huge presence, a fifth presence was there. Then all of them said, "Why now? For so many years we have pursued You and nothing happened; why now?” Then Siva said, “At last the four of you got together. I have been waiting for this to happen for a long time.”

Without addressing the four basic ingredients of body, mind, emotion and energy, out of which all your present experiences are rooted, one cannot move ahead. You can only start a journey from where you are right now.

More Articles

Published on 4^th May, 2004