5. The Role of Nature

There was still this question about nature. In Kaivalya Pada it is said that the guna just retire when they have done their job,[ 6 ] but sometimes, we feel them more like obstacles than like helps.

You see, the guna and the prakrti are for two sakes, two purposes. This comes in the second chapter of the eighteenth sutra. In the eighteenth sutra there is a definition of prakrti: "Prakasha kriya sthiti silam bhutendriyatmakam bhogapavargartham drsyam." [ 7 ] The matter is there to serve two purposes: one is giving you apavarga and the other one is to give you bhoga. One is to give you bondage (bhoga); the other one is to give you instruments for liberation (apavarga). So prakrti works in both ways, it depends upon how you apply it, how you use it. Prakrti is not wholly and solely bad or wholly and solely good. It has to serve both purposes. See, will you enjoy your life and have contentment without any experience? You would like the experience to be there in your life. At the most you might say, "I just want pleasures, desires, successes, fortune. I don't want failures, I don't want misfortune, I don't want worries and such negative things." But you want experience in some form or another. Like fire: fire is not only there to burn you, but also to warm you and cook your food. Fire is good and bad depending upon how you use it.

Similarly prakrti is good or bad depending upon how you apply it. If you say, "I want good," then along with good you have to accept bad. But no one, for that reason, will reject the experience totally. No human being will say, "I should not have any experience!" No one will say, "I should be blind, I should be dumb, I should be deaf, I should be numb. I should have no legs, no hands, no eyes, no ears." Is there any human being who will aspire for such a state? So you want eyes, you want ears, you want a mouth, you want legs, you want hands; you want the body to experience.

So prakrti is there to give you experience and prakrti is also there to give you prashantkyena, viveka, discrimination, intellection, wisdom etc. You can't say that "the mind is a problem for me, I should not have a mind at all." If you don't have the mind, you don't have peace, you don't have tranquillity. You at least definitely say, "I want peace. I want tranquillity." Right? But then that means that you are accepting the mind; you want the mind. Without the mind, there is no question of peace. But, when you are in agony, when you have lots of troubles, you say "this mind is a problem," or "my mind is a problem," or "I should not have a mind at all!" But then that is not genuine aspiration; you don't really aspire for it. You only want the mind, because you want the peace, you want the tranquillity.

So nature has two roles. One is to be conducive and give you conduciveness in yoga and give you intellection, wisdom, tranquillity, sublimity, serenity, passivity, and so on. And the same prakrti also gives you experiences in the form of dualities. So, nature has two roles to play and that is why nature is there.

But yoga is an involution process; it is like going against nature's flow.

No. No. No. Involution is not against nature. No. Involution and evolution are both flows, roles of nature. Nature evolves and nature devolves. Can you get away from space? Can you get away from space?

Yes, of course! (Laughing)

You wish - why do you wish? But what will happen if you are without space around you? You won't be there. Space is omnipresent, all pervasive. Nothing can escape space. Therefore, similarly, nothing can escape prakrti or go against prakrti. Everything is prakrti, whether you antagonize or protagonize. Whether you go with it or against it. It is all your concepts that you are going against, that you are going opposite; intelligent to some standards, some morals, you say, "this is pro, this is against." But there is nothing like that. Everything is matter. Going against the nature itself is nature. Where are you away from the nature? Just say you cannot get away from space, you cannot get away from nature, you cannot be doing again anything, as a matter of fact, against nature, because doing against nature itself is nature. Everything is nature here. To be a saint is a nature. To be a brute is a nature. But the brute antagonizes the society, therefore the brute is not natural for us: a human being should be a human being. If a human being starts behaving like a dog, you say it is unnatural; because you expect the human being to be a human being and therefore you think it is unnatural. But a dog is not unnatural; a dog is also nature. But a human being becoming a dog, a human being behaving like a dog is unnatural.

Aging is natural but you speak of de-aging. Is that not unnatural?

That's also natural. Yogis are undergoing the aging process, it is natural, that's why it happens; otherwise, it wouldn't happen. We are going on the aging track; we are all aging, from moment to moment. And then, if there is a yogi who is defying aging - not only defying aging, but de-aging, he becomes younger and younger and younger - then this also happens because it is nature. In the fourth chapter, in the beginning, Patanjali says "the prakrti supplies everything in abundance" [ 8 ] but what we grab is aging and what the yogi grabs is de-aging. The prakrti has all the potentials. It is the source of everything. If it has all the potentials, well there is also the potential for de-aging, which is opposite nature, against nature. You think it is against nature; but it is not against nature: it is nature! It is nature for a yogi. And aging is nature for you and me.

So if a yogi is de-aging, you can't say it is unnatural. But why speak of a yogi? Even astronauts will not be aging, if the spaceships are travelling at a speed close to the speed of light. They will be becoming shorter. Now, usually we come across people who are growing, or who are not growing. But you will not see a person, unless it's a disease, unless he bends, who will. Height will not decrease for a man. He may appear so because of a disease, but if you go in space at a speed close to the speed of light, you will become shorter and shorter and you will not age.

Suppose an astronaut goes into space and stays in space for twenty-five years. When he started the voyage, he had a baby-son. When he comes back, after 25 years, he is 25 and his son also is 25. If he comes after 50 years, his son will become 50, he will be 25; the father will be 25, and the son will be 50 - if he stays in space for 50 years travelling at a speed of light. This is what physics says, they say "nothing airy-fairy." Why may you not become yogis, in such an event, but still stay young? These are all the accounts given in astronomy that if he travels in space such a long time, the father will be younger than the son.

Nature has everything, all the potentials. Nature is limitless. It has no limits, just as your space. Space is infinite. The universe is infinite. Matter is infinite and therefore nothing is unnatural; but it becomes unnatural in the particular context of sociology, in the particular context of psychology, in the particular context of biology, in the particular context of physics. Then the things are unnatural because you are narrowing the spectrum, the perspective. You look at the biological aspect and then you say, "This is unnatural." You look at psychological aspect and you say, "This is unnatural." Understand this. You have to know the paradigm on which you say or postulate theories that a man should be like a man, that a man should not be a dog. It depends upon the paradigm; but you can't say that nature is limited. You go against nature if you have a psychological perspective; then you can go against nature, because you will defy the psychological rules and laws. On one hand you go against nature; on the other hand you don't go against nature, you can't go against nature. Understand these two perspectives; then there won't be any confusion. So you can't say that I'm saying that nothing is unnatural." There are unnatural things, from a limited perspective.

When will we start the real yoga?

But you are already doing. Everything is real yoga. There are various levels and hierarchies. Why do you think that what you are doing is unreal yoga? What brings you apprehension and scepticism, what makes you think that is unreal?

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