Can you explain the terms: Do, Un-Do, Non-Do?
Take Parsvakonasana for example. You are going to bend your right leg, it is not yet bent. Your left leg is straight when you bend your right leg, the straightness is undone on the back leg, you loose the grip of the back leg. What was done is lost, so there is undoing. And also there is non-doing. When you are doing something, there will be some non-doing somewhere. And there has to be non-doing. So, action includes all these aspects. It has factors. As you know, in mathematics, there are factors. So similarly, an action has factors and action means all these things: non-action plus un-action plus complementary action plus reaction. That is what action is, because they all have the word "action" in them. So, that is how the action is to be understood, with analysis. When you do, you don't merely do: you also undo, you also non-do. In fact, you are supposed to non-do. Suppose, in Trikonasana, the teacher shouts "open you chest, open your sternum." You are supposed to keep your jaws and face relaxed. As I said in twistings today, the teacher shouts, "turn" and the face is turned, the brain is turned, the mouth is turned. You should know that you are supposed to non-do there. Only then can you be doing at the right place. As a matter of fact, without non-doing, you cannot be doing.
A simple example: at nine o'clock, you come to the class and you do the class. How do you do the class? By non-doing at home! Unless you non-do there, or in your office, or in your house, you can't be doing here. So, non-do is so integral to doing. Without non-doing there is no doing at all. But what we think that "doing" means that we have got to "do it" and "do it" and "do it"...
But you must know that there is some non-doing and there has to be some non-doing; and there might also be some wrong non-doing. So all those things have to be observed. Which is "right" non-doing and which is "wrong" non-doing and is it in your action? It has to be there, the right non-action should be there, otherwise your action is not complete. If your brain is tensed in Urdhva Dhanurasana, you have done everywhere and also, you have done in the brain, where you are supposed to be non-doing. So therefore, your pose is not complete and the pose is also wrong. It is not complete and it is also wrong because you have not observed where you are supposed to be non-doing.
When you are doing actions, you should not get carried away in action. This morning I said "you all get carried away in the storm of action!" Your action is like a storm. Where is the control in the storm? Where is the control in the tornado? Where is the control in the tempest? And this is what happens in your enthusiasm, in your spirit; your action is so forceful that you are caught in the storm. So that is why you should know that it is not just the storm of action but there is something pulling back, as there should be. Guruji said many times: there should be resistance. Particularly looking at supple people, he has often very strongly said that suppleness is not good; there must be some resistance. So all these things have to be observed, otherwise you are caught in the storm.
So, that is what we have got to understand, the action of going down in Trikonasana. When we are going down to the pose, what is the non-action? What is the un-action? What is the counter-action? What is the complementary action? What is the reaction? And you stay there again to watch: how do you maintain the pose? If you have got to maintain the pose, you have to non-do, you have to undo, you have to do. All those things should be going on with proper synchronization and coordination. Similarly, when you come out, you have to observe all those things: where should I undo? See, in Utthita Parsvakonasana, when you come out, you are not supposed to straighten the leg, you are supposed to undo. When the teacher shouts, "stretch your legs" in Trikonasana, it is to undo. Now, in Utthita Parsvakonasana, when you come up from the right side, you are not supposed to straighten the front leg, you are supposed to undo, because you don't stretch. Imagine what is the stretch of quadriceps and cartilages in Trikonasana? The leg is turning out. Or before going to Utthita Parsvakonasana, your leg is straight and you bend, so again you don't do, you undo. So bending the leg for Utthita Parsvakonasana is undoing, and straighten the legs to come back from Parsvakonasana is also undoing.
So for all those aspects, the dynamics are different. The "leg straight" before Parsvakonasana, and "leg straight" after Parsvakonasana is different. It is not the same. So if you develop keen observation, you will know what you do; also you must analyse how you do. These are the paradigms; I call them "karma-scopies." You have got to analyse the action. What was the action? What was the inter-action? What was the counter-action? What was the reaction? What was the complementary action? What was the un-action? What was the non-action?
Then you will come to know that when you do one bit, the effect is a hundred-fold. You do one thing and several things happen. Say, in Trikonasana, you exhale, take the buttock bone in, turn the pelvis: so many things happen in the groin - the groin of the front leg - and in so many other places. You have done only one thing: buttock-bone in, but when you take the buttock-bone of the front leg inwards, so many other things happen... So they are not "done" by you, they happen; you can't take credit for what has happened, you can take credit for what you have done but not for all that has happened.
Once you develop all that analytical ability, then you also develop the mind, the proper mind. You will not take pride in your success. If you do Vrchikasana, you will not take pride in your achievement, because you know how much you have done and how much has happened. So you do only one bit and what happens? The effect is a hundred times, a thousand times bigger.
What you do, when you do elbow-balance, is arch your back, bring the feet down and touch your head; that is all you do. But so many things happen when you are doing, which you don't do - all those things you don't do, you don't have access to.
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