The Alchemy of Yoga (Commentaries on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali)

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About Osho

Osho defies categorization, reflecting everything from the individual quest for meaning to the most urgent social and political issues facing society today. His books are not written but are transcribed from recordings of extemporaneous talks given over a period of thirty-five years. Osho has been described by the Sunday times in London as one of the "1000 Makers of the 20th Century" and by Sunday Mid-Day in India as one of the ten people - along with Gandhi, Nehru and Buddha - who have changed the destiny of India.

Osho has a stated aim of helping to create the conditions for the birth of a new kind of human being, characterized as "Zorba the Buddha" - one whose feet are firmly on the ground, yet whose hands can touch the stars. Running like a thread through all aspects of Osho is a vision that encompasses both the timeless wisdom of the East and the highest potential of Western science and technology.

He is synonymous with a revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation and an approach to meditation which specifically addresses the accelerated pace of contemporary life. The unique Osho Active Meditations are designed to allow the release of accumulated stress in the body and mind so that it is easier to be still and experience the thought-free state of meditation.

Introduction

These transcribed talks given by Osho on the yoga sutras of Patanjali address the seed, or the source, of misery a look at what makes misery inevitable, from an inner point of view. Given any of life's situations, one can be happy. The main reason that we are not is because we habitually and mechanically seek solutions and understanding outside of ourselves.

It is like a child building a house of blocks around himself until he is trapped, and then calling out for help from his self-made prison. He seems to find it more convenient to cry out in anguish than to, finally and irrevocably, take responsibility for himself. This is a vision of how to begin to go inwards and break the cycle of anguish and blame that so many of us find ourselves in.

Yoga, according to Osho, need not be a path of hardship. It has been misinterpreted as such by people who mistrust the natural and fear freedom. Austerity is simplicity: living not through desires but through needs. And these talks deal with how to re-establish a relationship with ourselves where we can determine what our needs are.

Patanjali is the greatest scientist of the inner; his approach is that of a scientific mind. He is not a poet. In that way he is very rare because those who enter the inner world are almost always poets; those who enter the outer world are almost always scientists.

He is a rare flower with 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. In five thousand years nobody could improve upon him. And it seems he cannot be improved upon. He will remain the last word – because the very combination is impossible. It is almost impossible to have a scientific attitude and to enter the inner. He talks like a mathematician, a logician. He talks like Aristotle, and he is a Heraclitus.

Try to understand his every word. It will be difficult because his terms will be those of logic and reasoning, but his indication is toward love, ecstasy, godliness. His terminology is that of the man who works in a scientific lab, but his lab is one of the inner being. So don't be misguided by his terminology, just retain the feeling that he is a mathematician of the ultimate – h cannot. He is a paradox, but he never uses paradoxical language – he cannot. He retains a very firm logical background. He analyzes, dissects, but his aim is synthesis. He analyzes only to synthesize.

So always remember the goal: to reach to the ultimate through a scientific approach. And don't b misguided by the path. That's why Patanjali has impressed the Western mind so much. He has always been an influence. He has been an influence wherever his name has been heard because you can understand him easily – but to understand an Einstein. He talks to the intellect, but you have to remember this: his aim, his target, is the heart.

We will be moving on a dangerous terrain. If you forget that he is also a poet, you will be misguided. You will then become too attached to his terminology, language, reasoning, and forget his goal. He wants you to go through reasoning to beyond it. That s a possibility. You can exhaust reasoning so deeply that you transcend it. You go through reasoning, you don't avoid it. You use reason as a step to ho beyond. Now listen to his words. Each word has to be analyzed.