Patanjali Yoga

Yoga is pure science, and Patanjali is the greatest name as far as the
world of yoga is concerned. This man is rare. There is no other name
comparable to Patanjali. For the first time in the history of humanity, this
man brought religion to the state of a science: he made religion a science,
bare laws.

A Mohammedan has certain beliefs, a Hindu certain others, a Christian
certain others. The difference is of beliefs. Yoga has nothing as far as
belief is concerned; yoga doesn't say to believe in anything. Yoga says
experience. Just like science says experiment, yoga says experience.
Experiment and experience are both the same, their directions are
different. Experiment means something you can do outside; experience
means something you can do inside. Experience is an inside experiment.
Science says: 􀂳Don't believe, doubt as much as you can. But also, don't
disbelieve, because disbelief is again a sort of belief􀂴. Yoga is existential,
experiential, and experimental. No belief is required, no faith is needed --
only courage to experience.

Yoga is not a philosophy. I say it is not a religion, I say it is not a
philosophy. It is not something you can think about. It is something you
will have to be; thinking won't do. So with Patanjali we will not be
thinking, speculating. With Patanjali we will be trying to know the
ultimate laws of being: the laws of its transformation the laws of a new
order of being. That is why I call it a science.

Patanjali is rare. He is an enlightened person like Buddha, like Krishna,
like Christ, like Mahavira, Mohammed but he is different in one way.
Buddha, Krishna, Mahavira, Jesus, Mohammed no one has a scientific
attitude. They are great founders of religions. They have changed the
whole pattern of human mind and its structure, but their approach is not
scientific.

Patanjali is like an Einstein. He is a phenomenon. He could have easily
been a Nobel Prize winner like an Einstein or Bohr or Max Planck,
Heisenberg. He has the same attitude, the same approach of a rigorous
scientific mind. He is not a poet; He is not a moralist. He is basically a
scientist, thinking in terms of laws. And he has come to deduce absolute
laws of human being, the ultimate working structure of human mind and

reality.

PATANJALI IS THE GREATEST scientist of the inner. His approach is that
of a scientific mind: he is not a poet. And in that way he is very rare,
because those who enter into the inner world are almost always poets,
those who enter into the outer world are always almost scientists.
Patanjali is a rare flower. He has a scientific mind, but his journey is
inner. That's why he became the first and the last word: he is the alpha
and the omega. For five thousand years nobody could improve upon him.
It seems he cannot be improved upon. He will remain the last word --
because the very combination is impossible. To have a scientific attitude
and to enter into the inner is almost an impossible possibility. He talks
like a mathematician, a logician. He talks like Aristotle and he is a
Heraclitus.

Patanjali had given us sutras. Sutras mean formulae. In science first
comes the hypothesis. If you want to prove something, you cannot
proceed without a hypothesis. But hypothesis is not belief. It is just a
working arrangement. A hypothesis is just a direction; you will have to
experiment. And if the experiment proves right, then the hypothesis
becomes a theory. If the experiment goes wrong, then the hypothesis
can be discarded. Formula is the condensed part of the theory. It is not
even the hypothesis.

And if you follow Patanjali, you will come to know that he is as exact as
any mathematical formula. Simply do what he says and the result will
happen. The result is bound to happen; it is just like two plus two, they
become four. It is just like you heat water up to one hundred degrees
and it evaporates. No belief is needed: you simply do it and know. It is
something to be done and known. That's why I say there is no
comparison. On this earth, never a man has existed like Patanjali.

Patanjali Yoga is not concerned with the "why" of things, it is concerned
with "how"; not with what is truth, but how the truth can be attained.
Yoga means technique. So this treatise is a scientific one. Science is not
concerned with why, science is concerned with how. That is the basic
difference between philosophy and science. Philosophy asks, "Why this
existence?" Science asks, "How this existence?" The moment you ask the
question, how?, method, technique, become important. Theories become
meaningless; experience becomes the center.

Yoga is science, yoga is not philosophy. To understand philosophy is easy
because only your intellect is required. If you can understand language,
if you can understand concept, you can understand philosophy. You need
not change; you require no transformation. As you are, you can
understand philosophy -- but not yoga. You will need a change... rather,
a mutation. Unless YOU are different, yoga cannot be understood, because yoga is not an intellectual proposition, it is an experience.
Unless you are receptive, ready, vulnerable to the experience, it is not
going to come to you.

Pathanjali Divides his Sutras into 4 (Four) Chapters

They are

1. Samâdhi-pâdaï ( Integration )
2. Sâdhana-pâdaï ( The Path To Realization )
3. Vibhûti-pâdaï ( The Extraordinary Powers )
4. Kaivalya-pâdaï ( Freedom )