21. Mild, Middle, Intense Practicants and Practices

The last time I was telling you about practice and of its three grades: mild, middle and intense. But we never bother to know that there are grades in practices and practitioners. Usually when we say it's a mild practice, we refer to the practitioner, that he or she is mild in his practices, that he or she is intense in her practices. These are not practices; we refer to a mild practitioner, an intense practitioner, etc. There are two aspects: practices and practitioners. This is beautifully brought out in Vyasa's commentary. As you were talking about practice last time, it is also important that there are two aspects: mild, middle, intense practices and mild, middle, intense practitioners. Suppose you read a textbook of the first standard of primary school; now, if you read the text of primary school, eight hours a day, ten hours a day, you are working intensely. You know the whole book by heart and still you study on and on and on. So you are intensely doing it for eight hours a day, ten hours a day or perhaps fourteen hours a day. But then only the practitioner is intense but his practices are mild, because he is only reading the first standard book. When we refer to practice, we must understand these two aspects: what are our practices and how are we practising? It is not only that we should be intense. If you are intense in a very primary thing, you can't expect advancement.

By reading the first standard book for twenty years, you can't expect a degree simply by saying that "I have studied for twenty years and I should get a degree." To get a degree you have to study something that is to be studied at the twentieth year, not the first year. Suppose you are a student of English. If you study the same book for twenty years, you can't expect a certificate of graduation. But if you study the twentieth year's text and study and learn it, then you can expect a degree.

It is not just important that you should be intense, it is important where you are intense. Are you intense in mild practices? Then the results are going to be the same. You can't get results beyond a limit. Whether you study that book for fifteen hours a day or eight hours a day or four hours a day, you are not going to gain beyond a limit. By studying first Standard English for four hours, you gain something; but you can't expect that you gain something in the same proportion if you study for twenty years, because the book doesn't contain so much. The book doesn't contain so much to give you five times or six times as much. So in practices you must know, "What are the practices that I am undertaking?" Understand how to make gradations of the practice; there are the two aspects practices and practitioners. The practices - what the principles are you are following and what the level is of those principles - and then your intensity - whether it is mild, middle or intense. In the first chapter of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, there is a beautiful sutra and its commentary by Vyasa, "mrdu madhya adhimatratvat tatah api viseshah." [ 6 ] This sutra of Patanjali mentions mild, middle and intense practices and practitioners. He says that an intense practitioner of intense practices gets samadhi or yoga quickly. That's what he says. Both the things are mentioned. Your practices should be intense and you should also be intense; I am explaining this in the diagrams below.

You know what mild practices are? We are all mild practitioners of yoga, even if we practice eight hours a day or ten hours a day, or perspire; still we are all mild practitioners because the practices which we have taken up are mild. Now you can see the difference between your practice of yoga principles and that of Guruji. Are they the same? Suppose Guruji practices asana for four hours a day and let me practice eight hours a day. Do you mean to say you are on a higher intensity by practicing eight hours a day? Because the principles he practices and the principles you practice makes the big, big difference. We are all mild practitioners because our yoga is integral with bhoga. Our life is "yoga mixed up with bhoga." [ 7 ] Our mild practices are graphically shown, in Fig. 1.

Draw a circle here and make a division, say twenty per cent, is our yoga, and the rest is bhoga.

And this yoga aspect can be moving; it is something like rising between six and seven in the morning, it can go from seven to eight, from eight to nine, compromising everywhere, our late night, last night was a late night, heavy meals. "Let me not practice now, let me see and try in the evening. Let me not practice this much, I have over-eaten,I am not going to sleep tonight." There are so many compromises in our yogic practices, depending upon what has preceded and what is going to follow. If you are going to undertake a journey, you will say, "Let me do just Sirsasana, Sarvangasana, resting poses, I'll have a long journey, fourteen hours flight back home" or "I had fourteen hours flight here, let me do this much of yoga."

If you reverse the position: this is 20% bhoga and 80% yoga, it is still in the mild category, because the two are interpersonal, they are in one circle. Your yoga is influenced by bhoga, and bhoga is influenced by yoga, being in one compartment. Even if there is an increase of sixty per cent, eighty per cent, it is still only mild yoga.

So it's not a question of time or length of practice, like 8 hours, 12 hours or 14 hours a day?

Yes. Because your yoga is so tainted by your life and your experiences of life; it is constantly getting the taint. Happiness of life influences your yoga. Excitement of life influences your yoga, frustrations, sorrows of life influence your yoga.

Unless we go to the Himalayas and do yoga full time.

No. You need not be going to the Himalayas, you can create the Himalayas in your own place. Suppose there are middle practices, then this changes, as shown in Fig. 2a.

The two are not intermingled. Yoga is separate from your life. This is possible for madhyamadhikaris, the middle-intensity yogis. Their yoga is not influenced by life or tainted by bhoga, because there are two circles. Yoga is kept as separate and isolated and yoga will not have any impact or taint your life.

That is the middle hierarchy yogi and he is qualified for samadhi. Sorry to say that the yogi in Fig. 1a or Fig. 1b is not qualified for samadhi, even if it is ninety nine per cent yoga and one per cent bhoga, because it is in one circle.

Is it capable of giving samadhi (Showing Fig. 2)?

Yes. He is qualified for samadhi. The person of the first diagram (Fig. 1a or Fig. 1b) is not qualified for samadhi.

Can you explain the two circles a little more?

Yes. Ascetics like Shankaracharya for example could practice yoga in such a way that their life could not influence or create any infections to yoga. For us, the infections are there. Unhappy? Yoga is affected. I'm unhappy, my practice is affected. I'm excited, yoga is affected. Success? Affected. Failure? Affected. This affects us; but Shankaracharya, or the saints, they do not get the influence or infections and that's why I showed yoga as a separate aspect and bhoga as separate aspect. They have no contact. Nowhere do they come in contact.

Now when the circle of yoga is small and the circle of bhoga is big, the practice becomes "mild." When the circles are both of equal size, they are "middle." When the circle of yoga is large, and the circle of bhoga small, it becomes "intense," as shown in Fig 2b.

These are the yogis who are not onslaught on account of calamities. You know, we get calamities, and they also get them. We lose our parents, they also lose their parents. We lose our dear ones, they also lose their dear ones. But there is a big difference between the trauma that we experience and the trauma that they experience. There is no trauma for them, because they understand the reality of life. They know that people come and go, like waves in the ocean. They know that when a wave comes it is going to go back. Whatever is coming to the shore is going to go back. They understand the philosophy of life and therefore their life doesn't influence their spiritualism. They know that this is business-reality and not the ultimate reality.

You are mother because of a relation. But you are not essentially a mother, you are nobody's mother, you are nobody's daughter, you are nobody's sister. It is only in the business of life, playing a role, that you become somebody's sister, somebody's mother, somebody's daughter, somebody's in-law. That is not the reality. It is a transitory reality, it's the business of life. Therefore their life does not influence yoga. That's how they are able to maintain untainted practice. They follow yogic principles, and their practice will not be influenced by life.

How do they get such ability?

It is because of their evolution. See, when I offend you, you get insulted. When somebody offends me, I get insulted. When I praise you, you get elated. But these things, these dualities do not bother them. The saints have suffered. The saints also have been antagonized by society, more than you and me. They seemed to have suffered more. But they did not really suffer. We think the saints suffered. But the saints have not suffered, because they understand the nature of reality. That is evolution; because of evolution, this can happen. So from here, you have to graduate there. You can't say that you will start practising in such a way starting from tomorrow. It will not happen. It's the evolution; you must go through the evolution.

Then you are qualified to go to the second hierarchy. That's why I said you just know that, if Guruji does hundred and eight Viparita Chakrasana, you are not qualified to do it. Now you question whether you should or you should not do. That's a different thing. You can't say, "I must go to this hierarchy;" if it is not a proper hierarchy and if you try to do it, you will not succeed. You will not be able to keep your life totally isolated from yoga and yoga isolated from life. They will be intermingled, because you are not qualified.

We have to evolve to reach a state in which the business of life will not influence our yoga. So that is the madhyamadhikari.

Great acharyas, great saints also suffered intimidation. Society intimidated them, antagonized them. All sorts of afflictions were inflicted on them. People attempted to torture them, but actually they were not tortured. They did not undergo any torture. We think that they were tortured, but they had the same tranquillity in them. And if they suffered, they were not saints. Understand again. If they say, "Oh, I underwent lots of hardships and intimidations," they were not saints.

That's the second hierarchy. What's the third hierarchy? In the third hierarchy, there is only one circle as shown in Fig. 3.

There is only yoga. And this happens to those like Shuka Mahamuni, Patanjali and Vamadeva, who got liberated in the same life. There is only one circle. It is all yoga and if there is any bhoga, it will only make this circle grey, it will be slightly grey. Because of infections of life, infections of karmas, it will be tainted by a grey colour. If it is middle, the taint will be less, it will be off-white. And if they are adhimatra, that is intense, in intense practices, in intense sadhana - it will be super white, snow white. The karmas will not be creating any afflictions in them. So they have only one circle and that is "intense practice."

Do you mean that there is no life after death for these people?

Yes. No life after death. Know the difference here. In the first diagram, Fig. 1a, Fig. 1b, our yoga is interspersed with bhoga. But in Fig. 3, everything is yoga and there is little infection. We are all exposed to the same bacteria because we are all in the same conditions. But it is possible that one of you might get ill tomorrow, because of less immunity. We all consume the same water, but not everybody suffers from cholera. Some of those who have less immunity will suffer. We all go and eat in one and the same hotel on a day and one of us suffers a lot, one of us suffers less, and one of us does not suffer at all, because of immunity. Yogis in the ultimate realisation have the experiences; they will go to sleep, they will get up, the natural things will happen. They will get hungry and they will get thirsty. So they will eat to quench their thirst and hunger.

And when the grip of karma is less, it will become off-white. And when the grip of karma is not there, when they are about to be liberated, it will be super white.

Can you explain a little more about the second and the third stage?

You see, in the second one, life is coupled with the two aspects; if yoga is practiced, bhoga is also going on, experience is also going on. Pains and pleasures are there. But like the saints, they are able to maintain their frame of mind, quietude of mind without any affect or intimidation. They will aspire to a higher state because bhoga is going on side by side with yoga. The agonising factors are present, the pestering factors are there but they don't get agonized.

When you go to this higher level, the pestering factors will be negligible, and will not be influencing at all. It is just a taint, brownish, off-white. That's how their life will be. But in the second level they will have definitely the two things in life. They will say, "this is my yoga, this is my spiritualism" and "that is my business of life, in family and society." They do not identify themselves with the role they play in family life or social life.

If you have read Tukaram's life then you know that his wife was a horrible wife, she troubled him, and she gave him hell. If he was not troubled, it's a different thing, but still it was part of his life. Whenever he wanted to sit for a Bhajan, worship, or japa, she should make him work but he did not get antagonised. He had no grudge. When he would sit for japa, the wife would say: "the child is crying, you take care of the child." He was not antagonised but those bhogas were there to influence his whole life. They did not influence him but they co-existed. Yoga and Bhoga co-existed.

In Fig. 3, they don't co-exist, as in when the bhoga is mild. It will always be there - as I said, little infections will be there as we are taking in bacteria - but we are not suffering.

As you have done for the second stage, can you give an example for the third stage?

An example for the third one would be Shuka Mahamuni and Vamadeva. Have you read their lives? They were totally out of this world, although they were in this world, because they were about to be liberated at the end of that life or on a particular point of time in that life. They were about to be liberated and that's why they had a unique way of life. Shankaracharya had successes and failures, but there was no question of success or failure for him. They created Himalayas wherever they were. The Himalayas were not around them. Shankaracharya moved from place to place, he had debates, he had encounters, he had fights. Saints also had antagonizing people around, they were moving with people, travelling with people, some of them respecting, some of them not respecting, some of them despising. They did experience all those things but their yoga was not influenced, being saints. These are the examples of those who were about to be liberated. For them it occurs, it happens. So this is intense yoga (Fig. 3), that middle yoga (Fig. 2) and that's why I said, we are all practicing the mildest of mild yoga (Fig. 1).

For us, like everything is part of life, yoga is also part of life. When we are able to segregate then we come to the middle level (Fig. 2) with two separate aspects and when we come to the third level (Fig. 3), there is only one aspect. And in the middle level again, mild, middle, intense are there. Again, in the intense level, one can further make a classification, intense, more intense and most intense. The most intense get instantaneous samadhi, instantaneous liberation - like Vamadeva. Vamadeva came out of the womb of his mother and immediately got liberated. He was not even a human being for one moment; the moment he came out, they say he darted beyond the universe for liberation.

This means that liberation happens just the next moment, when it is intensely intense, in intense practices. So when we refer to intensity, we only refer to one aspect, not to the practices. We are all practicing mild yoga. You might practice intensely but you are practising mild yoga. Because there are lots of compromises, the business reality of the life compromises our yoga, "Today I could not do, tomorrow I will not be able to do, tomorrow I am travelling, I have some other commitments," whatever. So many things are interrupting us. Even if you practice 10 hours a day, 14 hours a day, it is not going to be more than mild practice. The practitioner is intense but the practices are mild. That's the mathematics so beautifully brought out in the theory of yoga. We speak of intensity but, you see, we are all intellectuals, we never bother to know what intensity is, what mildness is. So there are two aspects.

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