On sanskaras – The Creation, Cutting Up, and Destruction – Part 2/4

 

The Four Yogas There are four kinds of yoga—karma, bhakti, raj, and Jnan.  But the essential and principal first condition of every yoga is renunciation of all worldly attachments, and after this, preparation for advancement on the path of Truth.

  1. Karma yoga means (first renouncing everything, and then) doing your work—giving your service to others—selflessly, absolutely without any ulterior aim. Render your service to humanity without expecting a return.
  2. Bhakti yoga means worship. Renounce everything, take the name of the One—Paramatma—and burn yourself in His love.
  3. Raj yoga means concentration. Renounce everything and concentrate your mind exclusively on the One, Paramatma.
  4. Jnan yoga means to “know thyself.” Renounce everything and check your mind; engage it in the One, and thus try to gain the Knowledge of Self—which means Realization.

But as I have been explaining and now say again, these yogas succeed only in stopping the formation of new sanskaras. The past store remains as it was, undestroyed, still a hindrance and a block in the advancement towards the Goal of Realization. For this reason yoga marg in its various forms remains ineffective, since it does not serve the end in view—which is to attain to perfection.

Then what to do to prevent and block the creation of new sanskaras while destroying the old ones from the past? No other method or remedy offers itself but for satsang and sahavas—the company of and remaining with a Perfect Saint; make such a one your Guru and surrender to him heart and soul. This is the easiest and best—indeed, the only—way; it provides the rare remedy, the key to this almost impossible task of destroying all of your sanskaras. And why so? Because a true Guru has realized God, and these Realized Ones can be compared to knowledge-furnaces (jnan-bhatthi), furnaces that consume all things tossed into them—indeed, even those things that approach and come into contact with them. And what kinds of things do these spiritual furnaces—these Sages, Saints, Sadgurus—burn and consume? The sanskaras of those who come near and live under them, sanskaras of all kinds, good and bad, past and present, all: just as a furnace consumes everything put into it, good things and bad, beautiful, fragrant flowers along with filthy, dirty, stinking nark—absolutely everything, without the slightest regard to its worth, material or otherwise.

– “Meher Baba’s Tiffin lectures”, p308
28-November-1926; Lonavala

Share with love

Comments are closed.