---
section: Library
booktitle: "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 2"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "YOGA2"
dategiven: "03 January 1975 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #3"
chaptertitle: "Total Effort or Surrender"
acode: "7501030"
shorttitle: "YOGA203"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "81mins"
displaytitle: "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 2: Chapter #3"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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<p class="sutra">SUCCESS IS NEAREST TO THOSE WHOSE EFFORTS ARE INTENSE AND SINCERE.
THE CHANCES OF SUCCESS VARY ACCORDING TO THE DEGREE OF EFFORT.</p>
<p class="sutra">SUCCESS IS ALSO ATTAINED BY THOSE WHO SURRENDER TO GOD.
GOD IS THE SUPREME RULER. HE IS AN INDIVIDUAL UNIT OF DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS. HE IS UNTOUCHED BY THE AFFLICTIONS OF LIFE, ACTION AND ITS RESULT.</p>
<p class="sutra">IN GOD THE SEED IS DEVELOPED TO ITS HIGHEST EXTENT.</p>


THERE ARE THREE TYPES OF seekers. The first type comes onto the path because of curiosity: Patanjali calls it kutuhal. He is not really interested. He has drifted into it as if by accident. He may have read something. He may have heard somebody talk about God, the truth, the ultimate liberation, and he became interested.


The interest is intellectual, just like a child who becomes interested in everything and each thing and then, after a time, drifts away because more and more curiosities are always opening their doors.


Such a man will never attain. Out of curiosity you cannot attain the truth, because truth needs a persistent effort, a continuity, a perseverance which a man of curiosity cannot do. A man of curiosity can do a certain thing for a certain period of time according to his mood, but then there is a gap and in that gap all that is made disappears, is unmade. Again he will start from the very beginning, and the same will happen.


He cannot crop the result. He can sow the seeds; but he cannot wait, because millions of new interests are always calling him. He goes to the south, then he moves to the east, then he goes to the west, then to the north. He is like a drifting wood in the sea. He is not going anywhere; his energy is not moving to a certain goal. Whatsoever circumstance pushes him... Accidental he is and the accidental man cannot attain to the divine. And he may do much activity, but it is all futile because in the day he will make and in the night he will unmake it. A perseverance is needed; a continuous hammering is needed.


Jalaludin Rumi had a small school  --  a school of wisdom. He used to take his disciples to the fields, to the farms around. Particularly one farm he used to take all his new disciples to show what has happened there. Whenever a new disciple will come, he will take him to that farm. There was something worth. The farmer was an example of a certain state of mind. The farmer was digging a well, but he will dig ten feet, fifteen feet, and then he will change the mind. "This place doesn't look good"  --  so he will start another hole and then another.


Since many years, he has been doing that. Now there were eight incomplete holes. The whole farm was destroyed, and he was working on the ninth. Jalaludin will say to his new disciples, "Look Don't be like this farmer. If he had put all his effort into one hole, by this time the hole would have been one hundred feet at least. He has made much effort; much activity he has done, but he cannot wait. Ten, twelve, fifteen feet, then he gets bored. Then he starts another hole. This way the whole farm will be covered with holes, and there will never be a well."


This is the man of curiosity, the accidental man who does things, and when he starts, he has much zeal  --  in fact, too much. And this too much zeal cannot become a continuity. He starts with such vigor and zest that you know that soon he will stop.


The second type of man who comes to the inner search is the man of jigyasa  --  inquiry. He has not come out of curiosity. He has come with an intense inquiry. He means it, but he is also not enough because his meaning is basically intellectual. He may become a philosopher, but he cannot become a religious man. He will inquire deeply, but his inquiry is intellectual. It remains head-oriented; it is a problem to be solved.


Life and death is not involved; it is not a question of life and death. It is a riddle, a puzzle. He enjoys solving it just as you enjoy solving a crossword Puzzle because it gives you a challenge. It has to be solved, you will feel very good if you can solve it. But this is intellectual, and deep down ego is involved. This man will become a philosopher. He will try hard. He will think, con-template, but he will never meditate. He will reflect logically, rationally; he will find many clues. He will create a system, but the whole thing will be his own projection.


Truth needs you totally. Even ninety-nine percent won't do: exactly hundred percent of you is needed, and head is only one percent. You can live without the head. Animals are living without the head, trees are living without the head. Head is not such an essential thing in existence. You can easily live  --  in fact, you can more easily live without the head than you are living with the head. It creates millions of complexities. Head is not just an absolute necessity and nature knows that. It is a superfluous luxury. If you have not enough food, the body knows where the food should go: it stops giving it to the head.


That's why, in poor countrieS, intellect cannot develop, because intellect is a luxury. When everything is finished, when the body is completely getting everything, only then the energy moves towards the head. Even in your life it happens every day, but you are not aware. Eat too much food  --  immediately you feel sleepy. What is happening? The body needs energy to digest. The head can be forgotten; the energy moves towards the stomach. Head feels dizzy, sleepy. Energy is not moving, blood is not moving, towards head. The body has its own economy.


There are basic things, there are non-basic things. Basic things have to be fulfilled first, because the non-basic can wait, your philosophy can wait. There is not much necessity for it. But your stomach cannot wait. Your stomach has to be fulfilled first; that hunger is more basic. Because of this basic realization many religions have tried fasting, because if you fast the head cannot think, because the energy is not so much; it cannot be given to the head. But this is a deception. When the energy will be there, the head will start thinking again. This meditation is a lie.


If you fast long, for few days continuously, the head cannot think. Not that you have attained to no-mind; simply superfluous energy doesn't exist in you now. The body needs first; bodily needs are basic, essential; head needs are secondary, superfluous. It is just as you have an economy in your home. If your child is dying you will sell the TV set. There is nothing much involved in it. You can sell the furniture when the child is dying; when you are hungry, you can sell even the house. First things first  --  that is the meaning of economy  --  second things second. And head is the last; it is only one percent of you, and that too superfluous. You can exist without it.


Can you exist without the stomach? Can you exist without the heart? But you can exist without the head. And when you pay too much attention to the head, you are completely upside down. You are doing shirshasana: standing on the head. You have completely forgotten that head is not essential.


And when you give only head to an inquiry, it is jigyasa. Then it is a luxury. You can become a philosopher and sit on an armchair; rest and think. Philosophers are like luxurious furniture. If you can afford good, but it is not a life-and-death problem. So Patanjali says the man of  kutuhal  --  the man of curiosity  --  cannot achieve; the man of jigyasa  -- inquiry  --  will become a philosopher.


Then there is the third man whom Patanjali calls the man of mumuksha. This word mumuksha is difficult to translate, so I will explain it. mumuksha means the desire to be desireless, the desire to be completely liberated, the desire to get out of the wheel of existence, the desire not to be born again, not to die again, the feeling  --  that it is enough  --  born millions of times, dying again and again and moving in the same vicious circle. Mumuksha means to become the ultimate drop-out from the very wheel of existence. Bored, suffering, and one wants to get out of it. The inquiry becomes now a life-and-death problem. Your whole being is at stake. Patanjali says only a man of mumuksha, to whom the desire for moksha  --  liberation  --  has arisen, can become a religious man, and then too because he is a very, very logical thinker.


Then too there are three types of men who belong to the category of mumuksha. The first type of man who belongs to mumuksha puts his one-third being into the effort. Putting one-third of your being into the effort you will attain something. What you will attain will be a negative achievement: you will not be tense  --  this has to be understood very deeply  --  but, you will not be calm. You will not be tense; the tensions will drop. But you will not be tranquil, calm, cool. The attainment will be negative. You will not be ill, but you will not be healthy also. Illness will disappear. You will not feel irritated, you will not feel frustrated. But you will not feel fulfilled also. The negative will drop, the thorns will drop, but the flower has not come


This is the first degree of mumuksha. You can find many people who are stuck there. You will feel a certain quality in them: they don't react, they don't get irritated, you cannot make them angry, you cannot put them in anxiety. They have attained something, but still you feel something is lacking. They are not at ease. Even non-angry, they don't have compassion. They may not be angry at you, but they cannot forgive. Subtle is the difference. They are not angry, that is right. But even in their being non-angry there is no forgiveness. They are stuck.


They don't bother about you, your insult, but they are, in a way, cut off from relationship. They can't share. Trying to be not angry, they have moved out of all relationships. They have become like islands  -- closed. And when you are an island, closed, you are uprooted. You cannot flower, you cannot be happy, you cannot have a well-being. It is a negative achievement. Something has been thrown, but nothing has been attained. The path is clear, of course. Even to throw something is very good because now the possibility comes into existence: you can attain something.


Patanjali calls them mridu: soft. The first degree of attainment, negative. You will find many sannyasins in India, many monks in Catholic monasteries, who are stuck at the first degree. They are good people, but you will find them dull. It is very good not to be angry, but it is not enough. Something is missing; nothing positive has happened. They are empty vessels. They have emptied themselves, but somehow they have not been refilled. The higher has not descended, but the lower has been thrown.


Then there is a second degree of mumuksha  --  the second degree of the right seeker  --  who puts himself two-thirds into the effort. Not yet total, just in the middle. Because of the middle, Patanjali calls him madhya  --  the middle man. He attains something. The first-degree man is in him, but something more is added. He is at peace  --  silent, cool, collected. Whatsoever happens in the world does not affect him. He remains unaffected, detached. He becomes like a peak: very peaceful.


If you come near him you will feel his peace surrounding you; just as you go in a garden and the cool air and the fragrance of the flowers and the singing of the birds all surround you, they touch you, you can feel. With the first-degree man, the mridu, you will not feel anything. You will feel only an emptiness  --  a desert-like being. And the first type of man will suck you. If you go near him you will feel that you have been emptied  --  somebody has been sucking you because he is a desert. With him you will feel being dried, and you will be afraid.


You will feel this with many sannyasins. If you go near them, you will feel they are sucking you, not knowingly. They have attained the first degree. They have become empty, and that very emptiness becomes like a hole and you are sucked by it automatically.


It is said in Tibet that this first-degree man, if he is anywhere, should not be allowed to move in the town. When lamas in Tibet attain to the first degree, they are prohibited to go out of the monasteries  -- because if this man comes near anybody, he sucks. That sucking is beyond his control; he cannot do anything about it. He is like a desert. Anything that comes near becomes sucked, exploited.


It is not allowed for the first-degree lamas to touch a tree because it has been observed that the tree dies. Even in the Himalayas, a Hindu sannyasin is not allowed to touch trees  --  they will die. He is a sucking phenomenon. This first-degree lama is not allowed to attend anybody's marriage because he will become a destructive force. He is not allowed to bless anybody because he cannot bless. Even when he is blessing, he is sucking. You may not have known it, for these first-degree lamas, sannyasins, sadhus, monasteries were created, so they can live in an enclosed world of their own, not allowed to move out. Unless they attain to the second degree, they are not allowed to bless anybody.


The second-degree seeker who has put his two-third being becomes peaceful, calm. If you go near him, he flows in you, he shares. Now he is no more a desert; now he is a green forest. Many things are coming up in him  --  silent, calm, tranquil. You will feel it. But this is also not the goal; many are stuck there. Just to be silent is not enough. What type of achievement is this? Just to be silent? It is like death, no movement, no activity. You are at peace of course, at home of course, but no celebration, no bliss.


Third-degree seeker who puts his totality into it attains to bliss. Bliss is a positive phenomenon; peace is just on the way. When bliss comes nearer, you become peaceful. It is a distant influence of the bliss that is reaching near you. It is just like coming near a river: from a long distance you start feeling that the air is cooling, the quality of the greenery is changing. Trees are greener with more foliage. The air is cool. The river you have not seen yet, but the river is somewhere near, the source of water is somewhere near. When the source of life is somewhere near, you become peaceful, but you have not attained yet  -- just on the way. Patanjali calls this man the madhya: the middle man.


He is also not the goal. Unless you can dance with ecstasy... This man cannot dance, this man cannot sing, because singing will look like disturbing the peace, dancing will look foolish  --  what are you doing? This man can only sit like a dead statue  --  silent, of course, but not flowering; green, but the flowers have not happened yet: the final has not descended. Then there is the third-degree man who can dance, who will look mad because he has so much. He cannot contain and because he cannot contain he will sing and he will dance and he will move and he will share, and he will throw wherever he can the seeds that are showering on him endlessly. This is the third-degree man.
Says Patanjali:
<p class="sutra">SUCCESS IS NEAREST TO THOSE WHOSE EFFORTS ARE INTENSE AND SINCERE.
THE CHANCES OF SUCCESS VARY ACCORDING TO THE DEGREE OF EFFORT.</p>


SUCCESS IS NEAREST TO THOSE WHOSE EFFORTS ARE INTENSE AND SINCERE. Your totality is needed. Remember, sincerity is a quality that happens whenever you are totally in something, but people are almost wrong in their idea of sincerity. They think to be serious is sincere. To be serious is not to be sincere. Sincerity is a quality which happens whenever you are totally in something. A child playing with his toys is sincere, totally in it, absorbed, nothing left behind, no holding back; he is not there really, only the play goes on.


Because if you don't hold anything, where you are? You have become completely one with the activity. The actor is no more there, the doer is no more there. When the doer is not, there is sincerity. How can you be serious?  --  because seriousness belongs to the doer. So in mosques, temples, churches, you will find two types of people  --  sincere and serious. Serious will be with long faces, as if they are doing a very great thing  --  something sacred, something of the other world. This too is ego, as if you are doing something great, as if you are obliging the whole world because you are praying.


Look at the religious people  --  so-called, of course: they walk in such a way as if they are obliging the whole world. They are the salt of the earth. If they disappear, the whole existence will disappear. They are supporting it. It is because of them life exists  --  because of their prayers. You will find them serious.


Seriousness belongs to the ego, the doer. Look at a father working in the shop, in the office somewhere. If he doesn't love his wife, his children, he will be serious because it is a duty. He is doing it, and he is obliging everybody around. He will always say, "I am doing it for my wife, I am doing it for my children." And this man by his seriousness will become a dead stone hanging around the necks of his children, and they will never be able to forgive this father because he never loved.


If you love, you never say such words. If you love your children, you go dancing to your office. You love them; it is not something that you are obliging. You are not fulfilling a duty; it is your love. You are happy that you are allowed to do something for your children. You are happy and blissful that you can do something for your wife because love feels so helpless; love wants to do so many things and cannot do. Love always feels that 'Whatsoever I am doing is less than should be done." And duty? Duty always feels, "I am doing more than is needed." Duty becomes serious; love is sincere. And love is to be totally with a person, so totally to be with a person that the duality disappears  --  even for moments  --  there is no duality, one exists in two, a bridge comes in. Love is sincere, never serious. And wherever you can put your total being in anything, it becomes a love. If you are a gardener and you love, you bring your total being into it. Then sincerity happens.


Sincerity you cannot cultivate. Seriousness you can cultivate, but sincerity  --  no Sincerity is a shadow of being total in something. Says Patanjali:
<p class="sutra">SUCCESS IS NEAREST TO THOSE WHOSE EFFORTS ARE INTENSE AND SINCERE.</p>


Of course, there is no need to say intense and sincere. Sincerity is always intense. But why does Patanjali say intense and sincere? For a certain reason. Sincerity is always intense, but intensity is not necessarily always sincere. You can be intense in something but not sincere, may not be sincere. Hence, he adds the qualification, intense and sincere, because you can be intense even in your seriousness. You can be intense even with your part being, you can be intense in a certain mood, you can be intense in your anger, you can be intense in your lust, you can be intense in millions of things and may not be sincere, because sincerity belongs when you are totally in it.


You can be intense in sex and you may not be sincere, because sex is not necessarily love. You may be very, very intense in your sexuality  --  but once sexuality is fulfilled, it is finished, the intensity gone. Love may not look so intense, but it is sincere  --  and because it is sincere, the intensity continues. In fact, if you are really in love it becomes a timelessness. It is always intense. And make a clear distinction: if you are intense without sincerity, you cannot be forever intense. Only momentarily you can be intense; when the desire arises you are intense. It is not really your intensity. It is enforced by the desire.


Sex arises. You feel a starvation, a hunger. The whole body, the whole bio-energy, needs a release; you become intense. But this intensity is not yours; it is nothing coming from your being. It is just enforced by the biological crust around you: it is a bodily enforcement on your being. It is not coming from the center. It is being forced from the periphery. You will be intense, and then sex fulfilled, the intensity gone, then you don't care about the woman.


Many women have told me that they feel cheated, they feel deceived, they feel used because whenever their husbands make love to them, in the beginning they feel so loving, so intense; they feel so happy. But the moment sex is finished they turn over and go to sleep. They didn't care at all what is happening to the woman. After you have made love, you even don't say goodbye. You don't thank; the woman feels used.


Your intensity is biological, bodily; it is nothing coming from you. In sex intensity there is a foreplay, but no afterplay. The word doesn't exist really. I have seen thousands of books written on sex; the word "afterplay" doesn't exist. What type of love is this? Bodily need fulfilled, finished. The woman has been used; now you can throw her just as you use something and throw it  --  a plastic container  --  you use it and you throw it. Finished! When the desire will arise, then again you will look at the woman, and at that woman you are very intense.


No, Patanjali doesn't mean that type of intensity. I have taken sex to explain to you, because that is the only intensity that is left with you. There is no other example possible. You have become so lukewarm in your life, you exist on such a low level of energy, that there is no intensity. Somehow you go to the office. Just stand by the corner of the road when the people are rushing toward their offices; just watch their faces  --  sleepy.


Where going? Why going? It seems as if they don't have anywhere else to go, so they are going to the office. They cannot help it; because what they will do at home? So they are going to the office, bored, automata, robot-like, going because everybody is going to the office and it is time to go. And what to do if you don't want to go? Holidays become such a suffering, no intensity. Coming back  --  look people in the evening, coming back to the house, not knowing why they are going again, but nowhere else to go, somehow, dragging life. Lukewarm, a low-energy phenomenon.


That is why I have taken the example of sex  -- because I cannot find any other intensity in you. You don't sing, you don't dance, you don't have any intensity. You don't laugh, you don't weep. All intensity is gone. In sex, a little intensity exists; that too because of nature  --  not because of you.


Patanjali says "intense and sincere". Religion is really like sex  --  deeper than sex, higher than sex, holier than sex, but like sex. It is one individual meeting with the whole: it is a deep orgasm. You melt into the whole, you completely disappear. Prayer is like love. Yoga  --  in fact, the very word "yoga" means meeting, communion, meeting of the two  --  and such a deep and intense and sincere meeting that the two disappear. The boundaries become blurred and one exists. It cannot be in any other way. If you are not sincere and intense, bring your total being. Only then the ultimate is possible. You have to risk yourself completely; less than that won't do.
<p class="sutra">THE CHANCES OF SUCCESS VARY ACCORDING TO THE DEGREE OF EFFORT.</p>


This is one path  --  the path of will. Patanjali is basically concerned with the path of will, but he knows, he is aware, that the other path also exists, so he gives just a footnote.
That footnote is:
<p class="sutra">Ishwarapranidhanatwa: SUCCESS IS ALSO ATTAINED BY THOSE WHO SURRENDER TO GOD.</p>


Just a footnote, just to indicate that the other path is also there. This is the path of will  -- effort intense, sincere, total. Bring your wholeness to it. But Patanjali is aware; all those who know, are aware. And Patanjali is very considerate, he is a very scientific mind; he will not leave a single loophole. But that is not his path, so he simply gives a footnote just to remember that the other path is there.
<p class="sutra">Ishwarapranidhanatwa: SUCCESS IS ALSO ATTAINED BY THOSE WHO SURRENDER TO GOD.</p>


Effort or surrender, but the basic thing is the same: totality is needed. Paths differ, but they cannot differ absolutely. Their shape, their form, their direction, may differ, but their inner meaning and significance has to remain the same because both lead to the divine. Effort: your totality is needed. Surrender: again your totality is needed. So to me there is only one path, and that is: bring your totality.


Whether you bring it through effort  --  yoga  -- it is up to you, or you bring it through samarpan  -- surrender, let-go  --  it is up to you. But remember always that a totality will be needed; you have to stake yourself completely. It is a gambling  --  a gamble with the unknown. And nobody can say when it will happen  --  nobody can predict, nobody can give you a guarantee. You gamble. You may win, you may not win. The possibility of not winning is always there because it is a very complex phenomenon. It is not as simple as it looks. But if you go on gambling, it has to happen one day.


If you miss one time don't be depressed, because even a Buddha has to miss many times. If you miss, just get up and risk again. Some time, in some unknown manner, the whole existence culminates to help you. Some time and in some unknown way, you hit the target exactly the right time when the door was open. But you have to hit many times. You go on throwing your arrow of consciousness. Don't bother about the result. It is very dark and the goal is not fixed; it goes on changing. So you go on throwing your arrow in the dark. Many times you will miss, and I say to you so that you don't become depressed. Many times everybody misses, that is how it is. But if you go on and on and on and don't get depressed, it will happen. It has always happened. That's why infinite patience is needed.


What is surrender to God? How can you surrender? How surrender will become possible? That too becomes possible if you make many efforts, and you go on failing. You make many efforts, you depend on yourself; effort depends on oneself. It is a willpower  --  the path of will. You depend on yourself. You fail and you fail and you fail. You stand up, again you fall, you stand up again, and you again start walking. And then a moment comes, when you have been failing and failing and failing, and you come to see that your effort is the cause, because your effort has become your ego.


That is the problem on the path of will. Because a man who is working on the path of will  --  making efforts, methods, using techniques, doing this and that  --  is bound to accumulate a certain sense of "I am": "I am superior, special, extraordinary. I am doing this and that  --  austerities, fasting, sadhana. I have done this much."


On the path of will one has to be very, very watchful of the ego, because the ego is bound to come. If you can watch the ego, and you don't accumulate ego, there is no need to surrender  --  because if there is no ego, there is nothing to surrender. This has to be understood very, very deeply. And when you are understanding  --  trying to understand Patanjali  -- this is a very fundamental thing.


If you make your effort continuously for many lives, the ego is bound to arise. You have to be very watchful. You should work, you should make all efforts, but don't gather the ego. Then there is no need to surrender; you may hit the target without surrendering. There is no need because the disease doesn't exist.


If the ego is there, then the need arises to surrender. That's why Patanjali says  --  after talking about intense, sincere, total effort, he suddenly says  --
<p class="sutra">Ishwarapranidhanatwa: SUCCESS IS ALSO ATTAINED BY THOSE WHO SURRENDER TO GOD.</p>


If you feel continuously failing, then remember that the failure is not because of the divine. The failure is happening because of your ego, from where the arrow is being thrown, the source of your being, there something is happening  --  a diversion. Ego is collecting there. Then there is only one possibility: surrender it! You have failed with it so totally, in so many ways. You did this and that, you tried to do this and that, and you failed and failed and failed. When frustration becomes final and you cannot see what to do, Patanjali says, "Now surrender to God."


Patanjali is very rare in this sense. He does not believe in God; he is not a God-believer. God is also a technique. Patanjali doesn't believe in any God, that there is some God. No, he says God is a technique. Those who fail, for them this technique  --  the last. If you fail in that also, there is no way. Patanjali says it is not a question whether God exists or not; that is not the point at all. The point is that God is hypothetical. Without God it will be difficult to surrender. You will ask, "To whom?n


So God is a hypothetical point just to help surrender. When you have surrendered you will know there is no God, but that is when you have surrendered and when you have known. For Patanjali even God is a hypothesis to help you. It is a lie. That's why I told you Patanjali is a sly Master. It is just a help. Surrender is the basic thing, not God. And this difference you must note, because there are people who think God is the basic thing  --  because there is God you surrender.


Patanjali says that because you have to surrender, posit a God. God is a posited thing. When you have surrendered, you will laugh. There is no God But one thing more: there are gods  --  no God  --  a multiplicity of gods, because whenever you surrender you become a god. So don't be confused with Patanjali's God and Christian-Jewish God. Patanjali says God is the potentiality of every being. Man is as if a seed of God  --  every man. And when the seed flowers, comes to a fulfillment, the seed has become a god. So every man, every being, will become finally a god.


"God" means just the ultimate culmination, the ultimate flowering. There is no God, but there are gods  --  infinite gods. This is a totally different conception. If you ask Mohammedans, they will say there is only one God. If you ask Christians, they also say there is only one God. But Patanjali is more scientific. He says God is a possibility. Everybody is carrying that possibility within the heart. Everybody is just a seed, a potentiality to become a god. When you reach to the highest beyond which nothing exists, you become a god. Many have reached before you, many will reach  --  and many will be reaching alter you.


Everyone becomes a god finally, because everyone is a god potentially, infinite gods. That is why it becomes difficult for Christians to understand. You call Rama a god, you call Krishna a god, you call Buddha a god, you call Mahavira a god. Even a Rajneesh you call a god.


For a Christian it becomes impossible to understand. What are you doing? For them only one God exists who has created the world. For Patanjali nobody has created the world. Millions of gods exist, and everybody is on the path to become a god. Whether you know it or not, you carry a god within your womb. And you may miss many times, but how can you miss it ultimately? If you carry it within you, some day or the other the seed is going to flower. You cannot miss it absolutely  --  no.


This is a totally different conception. Christian God seems to be very dictatorial, dominating the whole existence. Patanjali is more democratic  --  no despot, no dictator, no Stalin, no czar sitting on the top of the throne, with his only begotten son Christ by the side and the apostles around. This is nonsense. The whole concept is as if in the image of an emperor it has been made  --  on the throne. No, Patanjali is absolutely democratic. He says godliness is everybody's quality. You carry it; it is up to you to bring it to its totality. If you don't want it, that too is up to you.


Nobody is sitting as a despot on the world; nobody is forcing you or creating you. Freedom is absolute. You can sin because of freedom, you can move away because of freedom. You suffer because of freedom, and when you understand this, there is no need to suffer; you can come back, that too because of freedom. Nobody is bringing you back, and there is going to be no judgment day. Nobody is there to judge you except your own being. You are the doer, you are the judge, you are the criminal, you are the law. You are all! You are a miniature existence.
<p class="sutra">GOD IS THE SUPREME. HE IS AN INDIVIDUAL UNIT OF DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS. REMEMBER: HE IS AN INDIVIDUAL UNIT OF DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS. HE IS UNTOUCHED BY THE AFFLICTIONS OF LIFE, ACTION AND ITS RESULT.</p>


God is a state of consciousness. It is not a person, really, but "individual", so you will have to understand the difference between personality and individuality. Personality is the periphery. As you look to others, that is your personality. You say, "Nice personality, beautiful personality, ugly personality"  --  as you look to others. Your personality is the decision, the opinion of others about you. If you are alone on the earth, will you have any personality? No personality, because who will say you are beautiful, and who will say you are stupid, and who will say you are a great leader of men? There is nobody to say anything about you. The opinion will not be there, you will not have any personality.


The word personality comes from the Greek word "persona". In the Greek drama, the actors had to use masks. Those masks were called persona. From that persona comes the word personality. The face that you wear when you look at your wife and smile, that is personality  --  persona. You don't feel like smiling, but you have to smile. A guest comes and you welcome him, and deep down you never wanted him to come to you and deep down you are disturbed  --  "Now what to do with this man?"  --  but you are smiling and welcoming and you are saying that "So glad".


Personality is that which you pose, a face, a mask. But if there is nobody in your bathroom, you don't have any personality unless you look in the mirror. Then immediately the personality comes because you yourself start doing the work of the other opinion. You look in the face and say, "Beautiful". Now you are divided, now you are two, giving opinion about yourself. But in the bathroom when nobody is there and you are completely unafraid, that nobody is looking from the keyhole... Because if somebody looks from the keyhole, personality comes in, you start behaving.


In the bathroom only you drop the personality. That's why bathroom is so refreshing. Out of the bath you come so beautiful, fresh, no personality; you become an individual. Individuality is that which you are; personality is that which you show that you are. Personality is your face; individuality is your being. God, in Patanjali's conception, has no personality. He is an individual unit.


If you grow, by and by, opinion of others becomes childish. You don't bother about them; what they say is meaningless. It is not what they say that carries meaning. It is you, what you are, that carries the meaning, not that they say, "Beautiful". This is useless. If you are beautiful, that is the point. What they say is irrelevant. What you are  --  the real, the authentic you  --  that is your individual.


When you drop personalities, you become a sannyasin. When you renounce personalities, you become a sannyasin: you become an individual unit. Now you live through your authentic center. You don't pose. When you don't pose, you are not worried. When you don't pose, you are unaffected by what others say. When you don't pose, you remain detached. Personality cannot remain detached. It is a very fragile thing. It exists between you and the other, and it depends on the other. He can change his mind; he can destroy you completely. You look at a woman and she smiles, and you feel so beautiful because of her smile. And if she simply turns with hatred in her eyes, you are simply crushed. In fact, you are crushed because your personality has been thrown under the shoes. She walked over you; she didn't look even.


Every moment you are afraid somebody may crush your personality. Then the whole world becomes an anxiety. A god has an individuality, but no personality. Whatsoever he is, that's what he shows. Whatsoever he is in, he is out. In fact, in and out have disappeared for him.
<p class="sutra">GOD IS THE SUPREME.</p>


In English it is translated, GOD IS THE SUPREME RULER. That's why I say there exists a misunderstanding about Patanjali. In Sanskrit he calls him purush-vishesh  --  a supreme being, not a ruler. I will like to translate God as the supreme. He is an individual unit of divine consciousness  -- individual, remember, not universal, because Patanjali says every individual is a god.
<p class="sutra">HE IS UNTOUCHED BY THE AFFLICTIONS OF LIFE, ACTION, AND ITS RESULT.</p>


Why? Because the more you become individual, the more life takes a different quality. A new dimension opens  --  the dimension of play. The more you are concerned with the personality and the outer, the crust, the periphery... Your dimension of life is that of work: worried about the result, worried about whether you will attain the goal or not, always worried whether things are going to help you or not, what will happen tomorrow.


A man whose life has become a play is not worried about tomorrow, because he exists only today. Says Jesus, "Look at the lilies. They are so beautiful," because for them life is not a work. Look at rivers, look at stars. Except man, everything is beautiful and holy because the whole existence is a play. Nobody is worried about the result. Is the tree worried about whether flowers will come or not? Is the river worried whether she will reach to the ocean or not? Except man, there is no worry. Why man is worried? Because he looks life as work, not as play  --  and the whole existence is a play.


Says Patanjali: when one becomes centered into oneself, one becomes a player; he plays. Life is a game and it is beautiful; no need to worry about the result. Result doesn't matter, it is simply irrelevant. The thing which you are doing in itself has value. I am talking to you; you are listening to me. But you are listening with a purpose, and I am talking purposelessly. You are listening with a purpose, because through listening you are going to attain something  --  some knowledge, some clues, some techniques, methods, some understanding, and then you are going to work them out. You are after a result. I am talking to you purposelessly; I simply enjoy.


People ask me, "Why you go on talking every day?" I enjoy; it is just like birds singing. What is the purpose? Ask the rose why it goes on flowering? What is the purpose? I am talking to you because this sharing of myself with you is in itself a value, it has intrinsic value. I am not looking at the result; I am not worried whether you are transformed through it or not. There is no worry. If you listen me, that's all. And if you are also not worried, then transformation can happen this very moment. Because you are worried how to use it  --  whatsoever I say, how to use it  -- what to do about it...


You are already in the future. You are not here; you are not playing the game. You are in a workshop. You are not playing the game You are thinking to gain some results out of it, and I am absolutely purposeless. It is how I share myself with you. I am talking not to do something in the future: I am talking because right now, through this sharing, something is happening, and that's enough.


Remember the words "intrinsic value", and make your every act an intrinsic value. Don't bother about the result  --  because the moment you think about the result, whatsoever you are doing becomes the means and the end is in the future. Make the means themselves the end; make the path the goal. Make this very moment the ultimate; there is no beyond it. This is the state of God and whenever you are playing, you have some glimpses of it.


Children play, and you cannot find anything diviner than children playing. Hence, Jesus says, "Unless you become like children, you will not enter into the kingdom of my God." Become like children. The meaning is not to become childish, because to be childish is totally a different thing; to be like children is totally a different thing. Childishness has to be dropped. That is juvenile, foolish. To be like children has to be increased. That is innocence  --  purposeless innocence. Profit brings the poison in; the result poisons you. Then innocence is lost.
<p class="sutra">GOD IS THE SUPREME. HE IS AN INDIVIDUAL UNIT OF DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS. HE IS UNTOUCHED BY THE AFFLICTIONS OF LIFE, ACTION AND ITS RESULT.</p>


You can become a god right now because you are already that  --  just the thing has to be realized. You are already the case. It is not that you have to grow into a god. Really, you have to realize that you are already that. This happens through surrender.


Patanjali says you believe in a God, you trust in a God there, somewhere, high in the universe, at the top, and you surrender. That God is just a prop to help surrender. When the surrender happens you become a god, because surrender means, "Now I am not concerned with the result, I am not concerned with the future, I am not concerned with myself at all. I surrender."


When you say, "I surrender", what is surrender? I  --  the ego And without the ego how can you think about purpose, result? Who will think about it? Then you are in a let-go. Then you go wherever it leads. Now the whole will decide; you have surrendered your decision. Patanjali says there are two ways. Make effort total. If you don't accumulate ego, then that total effort will become a surrender in itself. If you accumulate ego, then there is a way: surrender to God.
<p class="sutra">IN GOD THE SEED IS DEVELOPED TO ITS HIGHEST EXTENT.</p>


You are the seed, and God is the manifestation. You are the seed and God is the actuality. You are the potential; he is the actual. God is your destiny, and you are carrying your destiny for many lives without looking at it, because your eyes are fixed somewhere in the future. They don't look to the present. Herenow, everything is as it should be if you are ready to look. Nothing is needed; no doing is needed. Existence is perfect every single moment. It has never been imperfect; it cannot be. If it were imperfect, then how it will become perfect? Who will make it perfect then?


Existence is perfect; nothing at all is needed to be done. If you understand this then surrender is enough. No effort, no pranayama, no bhastrika, no shirshasana, no yoga postures, no meditation, nothing, if you understand this  --  that existence is perfect as it is. Look in, look out: everything is so perfect that nothing can be done except celebration. A man who surrenders starts celebrating.
			

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> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
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