The Real Meaning of Yoga

Today, it's a great day that you are here to worship your Guru in the realm of the heart of the universe. If we can do that in our domain of the heart, we don't have to do anything else.

Today, also, I feel I have to tell you about Sahaja Yoga and its value, which is related to other Yogas which were accepted in the olden days all over the world. They called it, one, as the Yoga - not Sahaja Yoga, Yoga. It started with various types of practices of 'Ashtanga' Yogas - eightfold yogas - with a Guru. And one had to go through lots of hardships. Nobody who was married was allowed into that Ashtanga Yoga, and they had to give up their families, give up their relationships. They had to become absolutely without any attachments, to go to a Guru. All their property, all their possessions were given up. Not to the Guru as is done in modern times, but given away. And this was called as Yoga.

The another style was called as Sankhya. Sankhya is where all your life you have to gather things with detachment, and then to distribute them completely and take to a Guru, in a way completely surrendered, and then get realization. Sankhya was the left-sided behavior. And the Yoga was the right-sided. Where the Gayatri Mantra was used was the Sankhya. Because they were left-sided, they used to use Gayatri Mantra. They went so much to the left side - that is to gather things, to gather possessions, to gather properties, to gather all kinds of friends and relations and societies - that they were afraid that they may be completely lost into all those things. They would go to Gayatri, the Mantra of Gayatri which teaches you the essences of all our Chakras - the centers. I have told about this before also - 'Bhu', 'Bhurv', 'Swaha'. 'Bhu' stands for the essence or the 'Bija' of the 'Mooladhara'; 'Bhuv' for the universe that is created that is Swadisthana's 'Bija'; 'Swaha' is the 'Bija' of the Nabhi; 'Manah' is the essence of the Heart Chakra. Then, 'Janah' is the people, collectivity, is the essence or the 'Bija' of the Vishuddhi Chakra. Then, 'Tapah' is the one where you go into 'tapasya', into renunciation, into hardships - is the essence of the Agnya Chakra. And then the 'Satya' is the truth, is the essence of the Sahasrara - not the truth that we think as truth, but the truth that is expressed in our central nervous system. So, this is discovered at the seventh stage of the Sahasrara. So the people who did Sankhya were, sort of, not so much respected as spiritual people, because they thought these are all involved into worldly things and worldly possessions and worldly happenings. So, they were regarded as something secondary. Or those who were yogis of the Gurus were regarded higher, because they had already given up everything, and they have gone to a Guru giving up all the things that they have. But here, these Gurus had a problem within themselves because they found that those who came to them gave up everything - no doubt - but still there was lurking attachments. In their own 'Ashramas'  they found, these people had their own attachments to things. Though outwardly they had given up, but inside they had not given up. So, they were still sticking on to these ideas that, 'Oh, its all right. But still we can have little things like that, doesn't matter.' Like that, there was little compromises going on. Like, as we have here nunneries and all that. So both, in a way, were artificial. The one side, is the Sankhyas, were trying to ascend with all the luggage they were carrying. And another were trying to descend with all the ambitions of ascent
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Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi   July 12, 1987   Guru Puja   Shudy Camps, Cambridgeshire, U.K.