I would like to mention some of the subtle aspects of yoga in relation to our personalities, so that we can understand the working of yoga in life. The working of yoga in life could also be integrated and incorporated with the practices of pratyahara and dharana.

It is my firm belief that in the absence of pratyahara and dharana practices, yoga is incomplete and nothing can be achieved. I am not a keen follower of meditation, for I know that meditation is something which we will never be able to practise or achieve in this lifetime.

It is a state of inner harmony, equilibrium, balance and inner awareness, and as long as we have the body which functions with the aid of the senses and mind, meditation cannot be achieved. This is quite obvious from the descriptions of yoga given by Patanjali in Ashtanga Yoga in which dhyana is defined as the seventh stage.

Even in other yoga text books and in the upanishadic descriptions of yoga, meditation comes towards the culmination of yogic practices. It comes when we have transcended and gone beyond the realm of the senses and mind.

Therefore, when we say in the day-to-day usage of words that we ‘practise meditation’, in my opinion we are giving a totally incorrect description of what we are trying to do. One cannot practise meditation at all because it is a state of Advaita, it is a state of oneness between the individual and the cosmic reality or the self.

We do not have the capacity to understand this advaitic approach because there are many different barriers which have to be overcome in our own expressions of life, in our own expressions of personality and behaviour.

If and when one begins to understand the Advaita system of evolution, I am using the word evolution and not philosophy, if one begins to understand this Advaita system, then at that stage, intuitive faculties play a very predominant role rather than the intellectual faculties.

Intellect leads to the clouding of the mind, the clouding of knowledge and intellect leads to deviation of action which is performed in good faith. I’ll give you one example.

A man goes to a guru and says, “I wish to attain higher knowledge. Please guide me on the path.” The guru says, “No, it is not possible to guide anybody in higher knowledge.” Once a person asked Paramahamsaji also, whether it is possible to attain self-realization in this life or not and he gave a very straightforward answer.

He said, “No, one cannot and can never attain self-realization.” The person was taken aback and said, “How can this be possible, when all the philosophies and religious systems speak of attaining this higher realization?”

Paramahamsaji explained to him that what we know as higher reality or realization of the higher self, is something transcendental and the human mind and the human brain is definitely not transcendental.

The systems which exist in the world today, whatever they may be, they simply guide one to achieve a transcendental state of brain and mind. These systems give instructions on how to transform the limited nature of mind and brain, the limited knowledge into transcendental knowledge.

Once the brain and mind have been transformed, then there is no need to seek that transcendental experience; it dawns naturally and spontaneously without any effort, and that has been the concept of yoga; that has been the concept of Tantra; that has been the concept of Samkhya; that has been the concept of Vedanta.

Through effort, work to change yourself without aspiring to know something which is beyond perception. Once the change happens within yourself, you will know what is to be known.

29 August 1994, Prem Puri Ashram, Mumbai

From the book “Yoga Sadhana Panorama, Vol. 8”, pg. 34-35, Sw. Niranjanananda Saraswati