Scientists experiment outside and draw conclusions while yogis experiment within and draw experiences. Everything has to be watched, witnessed and seen, and then a yogi says, ‘I know’. There are aspects to his experiment which include dhyata (meditator), dheya (object) and dhyan (process). The story continues as the master initiates the student on the path of yoga.
He says, “Now you can practise yoga. Do you know what the practice of yoga is? It is shoonya.”
Shoonya means void or emptiness. The master tells him to try and not to think anything for the next 29 days and come back on the 30th day. The student agrees and spends the following month trying to implement the practice.
He returns and says to the master, “I have done it. I did not think anything.”
Without asking him further questions, the master says, “You were fighting your thoughts. You kept trying not to think which is also thinking.”
Yoga teaches to witness, not to imagine. If imagination is taught as a practice, that is not yoga.
On the path of yoga or spirituality, one should be aware of illusion and mind games. When a swimming coach asks you to jump in the pool, confident that you will not drown, you listen and follow. It is the same with yoga, what the master requires of you is trust to jump into the valley of unknown. Thus the journey between the master and the student continued. The student had been accepted as a disciple by the master and this was the beginning of his disciple-hood. That brings us to the question as to who is a disciple.
Discipline comes from the word ‘disciple’. Disciple means you are centred in the self. That is why Patanjali says one should be disciplined on the path of yoga and he will attain the end because it is a process-oriented science.
Disciple-hood is the opportunity given to very few. It is the process of seeking, searching and growing tired. Each disciple comes with a different combination of love, faith, experience, doubt and logic. Love and faith are innate and very personal to a disciple. Doubt when cleared turns into devotion. Experience and logic are aspects of what the disciple has read, seen or felt. The biggest obstacle that a disciple faces on the path of yoga or truth is the ideas he has about spirituality.
Disciple-hood is also a sense of surrender to the source which is also called God. Each one’s journey is unique and the spiritual experiences of each disciple will be different. There is alchemy between a master and disciple.
My master was old school, when I was 9 years old, he used to hit us or yell if we forgot a sutra of Patanjali. The ancient teacher-student tradition in yoga still continues but now it is a different time. A master’s approach is always relevant to the time he lives in.
Practice of the week
Ardha Padmasana
Next week: Practice of Mudras
