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Yoga: The Science of the Soul, Vol.1The Path of YogaDiscovering the Essence and Origin of YogaThe Yoga Sutras of PatanjaliOSHO

Copyright 1973, 2013 OSHO International Foundationwww.osho.com/copyrightsImages and cover design OSHO International FoundationAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrievalsystem, without prior written permission from the publisher.OSHO is a registered trademark of OSHO International Foundationwww.osho.com/trademarksPreviously published as Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol. 1The Path of Yoga is from the series Yoga: The Science of the Soul, Vol.1. It is also available as a printedition ISBN-13: 978-0-918963-09-3This book is a series of original talks by Osho, given to a live audience. All of Osho’s talks have beenpublished in full as books, and are also available as original audio recordings. Audio recordings and thecomplete text archive can be found via the online OSHO Library atwww.osho.com/libraryOriginal sutras from The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali translated from Sanskrit by Yoga Chinmaya, Copyright 1973 OSHO International Foundation.OSHO MEDIA INTERNATIONALis an imprint ofOSHO INTERNATIONALNew York – Zurich – Mumbaiwww.osho.com/oshointernationalLibrary of Congress Catalog-In-Publication Data is availableISBN-13: 978-0-88050-291-7

PrefaceMind is not a thing, but an event. A thing has substance in it; an event is justa process. A thing is like a rock; an event is like a wave: it exists, but is notsubstantial. It is just the event between the wind and the ocean – a process, aphenomenon.This is the first thing to be understood: that mind is a process, like a wave orlike a river, but it has no substance in it. If it has substance, then it cannot bedissolved. If it has no substance, it can disappear without leaving a single tracebehind. When a wave disappears into the ocean what is left behind? – nothing,not even a trace. So those who have known say mind is like a bird flying intothe sky – no footprints are left behind, not even a trace. The bird flies butleaves no path, no footprints.The mind is just a process. In fact, mind doesn’t exist, only thoughts –thoughts moving so fast that you think and feel that something exists there incontinuity. One thought comes, another thought comes, another, and they goon. The gap between one thought and another is so small you cannot see it. Sotwo thoughts become joined, they become a continuity, and because of thatcontinuity you think there is a mind. There are thoughts – no mind; just as thereare electrons – no matter. Thoughts are the electrons of the mind. Just like acrowd A crowd exists in a sense, doesn’t exist in another. Only individualsexist, but many individuals together give the feeling as if they are one. A nationexists and exists not; there are only individuals. Individuals are the electrons ofa nation, of a community, of a crowd.Thoughts exist, mind doesn’t exist. Mind is just the appearance. And whenyou look deeper into the mind, it disappears. Then there are thoughts, but whenthe mind has disappeared and individual thoughts exist, many things areimmediately solved. First thing: immediately you come to know that thoughtsare like clouds. They come and go – and you are the sky. When there is nomind, immediately the perception comes that you are no longer involved in thethoughts. Thoughts are there, passing through you like clouds passing throughthe sky, or the wind passing through the trees. Thoughts are passing throughyou, and they can pass through because you are a vast emptiness. There is nohindrance, no obstacle. No wall exists to prevent them.You are not a walled phenomenon. Your sky is infinitely open; thoughtscome and go. And once you start feeling that thoughts come and go and youare the watcher, the witness, the mind is in control

OshoYoga: The Mystery beyond Mind

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Path of YogaWe live in a deep illusion – an illusion of hope, of future, of tomorrow. Asman is, he cannot exist without self-deception.Nietzsche says somewhere that man cannot live with the true: he needsdreams, he needs illusions, he needs lies to exist. And Nietzsche is right. Asman is, he cannot exist with the truth. This has to be understood very deeply,because without understanding this, there can be no entry into the inquirywhich is called Yoga.The mind has to be understood deeply – the mind which needs lies, the mindwhich needs illusions, the mind which cannot exist with the real, the mindwhich needs dreams. You are not only dreaming in the night; even while awakeyou are continuously dreaming. You may be looking at me, you may belistening to me, but a dream current continuously goes on within you. The mindis creating dreams, images, fantasies.Now scientists say that a man can live without sleep but he cannot livewithout dreams. In the old days it was understood that sleep was a necessity,but now modern research says sleep is not really a necessity; sleep is neededonly so that you can dream. Dreaming is the necessity. If you are allowed tosleep but not allowed to dream, you will not feel fresh, alive, in the morning.You will feel tired, as if you have not been able to sleep at all.In the night there are periods for deep sleep and periods for dreaming. Thereis a rhythm, just like day and night. There is a rhythm: in the beginning you fallinto deep sleep for nearabout forty, forty-five minutes, then the dream phasecomes in; then you dream; then again dreamless sleep, then again dreaming.This goes on the whole night. If your sleep is disturbed while you are deeplyasleep without dreaming, when you wake in the morning you will not feel thatyou have missed anything. But if your dream is disturbed while you aredreaming, in the morning you will feel completely tired, exhausted.Now this can be observed from the outside. If someone is sleeping you canjudge whether he is dreaming or asleep. If he is dreaming his eyes will becontinuously moving, as if he is seeing something with closed eyes. When he isfast asleep the eyes will not move; they will remain steady. So if your sleep isdisturbed while your eyes are moving, in the morning you will feel tired. Whileyour eyes are not moving sleep can be disturbed; in the morning you will notfeel anything is missing.Many researchers have proved that the human mind feeds on dreams;dreaming is a necessity, and dreaming is total auto-deception. And this is so not

only in the night: while awake also the same pattern follows. Even in the dayyou can notice that sometimes there will be dreams floating in the mind,sometimes there will be no dreams.When there are dreams you will be doing something but you will be absent.Inside you are occupied. For example, you are here. If your mind is passingthrough a dream-state you will listen to me without listening at all, becauseyour mind will be occupied within. You can only listen to me if you are not in adreaming state.Day and night, mind goes on moving from no-dream to dream, then fromdream to no-dream again. This is an inner rhythm. Not only do wecontinuously dream, in life also we project hopes into the future.The present is almost always a hell: you can endure this hell only because ofthe hope that you have projected into the future. You can live today because oftomorrow. You are hoping something is going to happen tomorrow – the doorsof paradise will open tomorrow. They never open today, and when tomorrowcomes it will not come as tomorrow, it will come as today, but by that timeyour mind has moved again. You go on moving ahead of yourself: this is whatdreaming means. You are not one with the real, that which is nearby, that whichis here and now, you are somewhere else, moving ahead, jumping ahead.You have named that tomorrow, that future, in many ways. Some people callit heaven, some people call it moksha, but it is always in the future. Somebodyis thinking in terms of wealth, but that wealth is going to be in the future. Andsomebody is thinking in terms of paradise, and that paradise is going to be afteryou are dead, far away in the future. You waste your present for that which isnot: this is what dreaming means. You cannot be here and now. To be just inthe moment seems to be arduous.You can be in the past, because again that is dreaming – memories,remembrance of things which are no more – or you can be in the future, whichis projection, which again is creating something out of the past. The future isnothing but the past projected again. It may be more colorful, more beautiful,more pleasant, but it is the past refined.You cannot think anything other than the past: the future is nothing but thepast projected again. Future and past are not; the present is, but you are neverin the present. This is what dreaming means. Nietzsche is right when he saysthat man cannot live with the truth. He needs lies, he lives through lies.Nietzsche says that we go on saying that we want the truth, but no one wants it.Our so-called truths are nothing but lies, beautiful lies. No one is ready to seethe naked reality.This mind cannot enter on the path of Yoga because Yoga is a methodology