How is the law of the logic presented in Yoga?

You remember that there are two basic principles in Yoga. The first principle says the following: «Do not harm any living being unless absolutely necessary.» Let us leave it now, we will not consider it. But there is a second principle of yoga, which says the following: «We do not have to spend our time, forces, energy, consciousness on the unworthy, secondary things, and we have to spend them only for achieving our goals.» In essence, the second principle of Yoga encourages us to be extremely logical.
For example, you have a goal: you want to find a new job, or you want a lot of money, or you want to achieve results in a yoga exercise, or in understanding something. The first of all you must understand the goal to yourself, and then we must be as logical, as we understand it or can imagine. We must move to this goal and to reject everything that takes us to the side. That is, the second principle of Yoga is exactly the cornerstone of Karma Yoga. Karma yoga is just following out of this second principle of Yoga.
If you have a real problem (who doesn’t?), you do not have to go to fortune-tellers, shamans, healers, psychics, soothsayers immediately. Maybe you should sit down with a sheet of paper and a pencil and write what you want. Then, you write what you have. And then try to imagine: how to make what we want from the fact that we have, how to come up the multistage combination.
Example: my student came to me and said: "I want a lot of money." And it was in the early 90s. If you're not a gangster or an oligarch, it was problematic to earn a lot of money. I say: "Well, what do you think?" He gave me a list of steps. The steps were as follows:
  1. Learning a foreign language.
  2. Learning in a good school, which does not only collect money, but also gives good knowledge.
  3. Get work in good company, where work is hard, but there are prospects for growth. (if there are no growth possibilities, then you will never realize your dream).
And he has consistently made step 1, step 2 and so on. And when the last time I saw him (it was long ago), he received a very significant improvement in work, went abroad. Many companies love to take a person from one country to put at a greater position in another country, they have their own logic. But he got everything he wanted. He got exactly the amount of earnings that he wanted, even more. He did not rely to magic, mantras (if you know, there are popular mantras for attracting wealth and success), he started to acting in logic way, and he has achieved the goal.
Therefore Yoga invites us, firstly and foremost, to reach any goal only by the logical way. Only later, when you have done everything that was possible in the logical way, only then connect the heavy artillery of yoga, such as mantra, yantra, pranayama and other methods that allow us getting the result that seems magic at some extent. In fact, there is no magic in yoga, there are more subtle laws that do not contradict the rough laws, but accelerate their action. And it is clear that he acted in parallel ways: he learned English and studied at school, he later did some of his work and, of course, practiced yoga, mantra that give success, a full program of yoga. But these yoga methods were put on his specific logic methods.

Question from the audience: Does it apply to the left or right hemisphere?

What exactly?

Question from the audience: Logical thinking, causal connections, goal achievement.

I do not know, it is question for physicians. Yes, there is such an approach, of course. I heard about it, but it's not my task to explore this topic. When we hear about the left and the right hemisphere, we must understand that it is an achievement of the modern scientists and modern medicine. And the charm of Yoga is in the fact that Yoga does not depend of the result of modern medicine and the results of modern scientists.

Tomorrow somebody can say that we messed up, that the left side is not the left and the right side is not right. But I do not need to refer to this new fact, I do not give it as an argument, I am free, and the Yoga is free of this. It means that new facts on the topic can appear every day, but Karma Yoga has its own logic. I don’t want to relate to the construction of our body, although it is very informative. But Karma Yoga is based on deeper principles.

Question from the audience: Does logical thinking implies that we become like everyone else? Since we have some limits in our mind, we go behind the others. It is turn out, the logic implies repeating steps.

Consistency involves a repetition of steps, but what's wrong in it? Why do we need to reinvent the wheel?

Question from the audience: Do we become like everyone else?

There is the second principle of yoga. We have a goal, but I can reach it by applying the standard methods or by inventing my own methods.

Example: I have a task, which can be solved by a computer program. And I did not know that there was a standard program for my task, which had been written long ago and it is common throughout the world. And I referred to one of our programmers and asked him to write the same program. He began to write and did it, of course, a long, painful, with a million mistakes and rectifiers. When he finished his program it had the same functionality as the program that has become the standard throughout the world, many people used it. But I spent a tremendous amount of energy and resources for the invention was had invented so long ago. Well, we went to our own way and, as a result, we spent a lot of effort, energy, and reached our goal in longer time than if we went through the standard.
I do not understand why we should be ashamed of standardization. Do not fool ourselves at least, we are standardized to some extent.

Question from the audience: Maybe some ideas are mixed in my head. But one of the Yoga books says that everyone is working for the same benefits, but yoga does not call to stand in line for American dream. Yoga calls to go to your own way.

I understand the meaning of the question. Yoga encourages to set the goals without standardized methods The goal must be your personal one. But we don’t need to reinvent the wheel in achieving this goal. If I want to achieve my goal, I should not invent my personal tools to achieve it if they had been invented long ago and all errors had been eliminated.
Let us go back. So, the Karma Yoga is primarily the logic. We only think that we are the logical beings. Believe me, we are illogical creatures. We solve by logic a number of problems, indeed, but there are challenges which we are afraid even to see, we are afraid even to think about. On the one hand, we want them very much, and on the other hand, we perceive them as unrealistic and so outrageous, that we do nothing to realize them. And it may be a variety of things, from our work to the relationship with family and friends. So, yoga encourages us to refuse of creating such taboo topics, which we can neither see nor think calmly. Yoga calls us to use logic to analyze, and first of all, to create a mechanism for solving them using ordinary logic. And only after that we can attract all sorts of magical tricks.

Law of logic - a particular case of super logic laws.

Karma Yoga says, that there are certain laws, by which our Universe was created, and these laws are Super Logical. And one of the special cases of these Super Logical laws is the law of logic or the law of Karma, where the consequence goes after the cause. We live in the plane of Karma, in the field of application of this law. But yoga argues that we can rise to such heights, where nobody cancel the law of Karma, but it will stop impacting us. It is really a very strange. The law of Karma will be still in use. The law of cause and consequences will be still in use. But your existence suddenly rises to a new level, you will not be exposed to the law of cause and consequence, and you will become free. Or as yoga says, you become free of Karma, you will have no Karma. I want to emphasize once again: at the same time the law of Karma will be there, but you can neutralize it, if you live by the higher law.

The main topic of Karma Yoga

The main topic of Karma Yoga is the fact that the yogi does not try to get rid of negative Karma, yogi does not seek for the possibility to get good Karma. Yogi seeks the way to exit from the field of action of Karma. That is, yogi changes his/her existence in a way, where the law of Karma cannot touch them. And the freedom begins only from that moment. It is not freedom before this point as before that we depend on Karma. Karma Yoga argues that if we do bad things, they come back to us as poor results, and we suffer. If we do good deeds, they come back to us as good results, and we enjoy, rejoice. This positive and negative actions are called influence of Karma. For example, if you did a lot of bad things in this life, you are doing bad. Why? You shall reap so as you sow On the contrary, if we did a lot of good in a past life, we get something good in life. And we call it the action of positive Karma.

In Yoga the concept of positive Karma and the concept of negative Karma are not a global opposition, and it is essentially the same thing, but with a different impact. Sometimes I hear that the purpose of Yoga is to get rid of negative Karma. No, the goal of Yoga is to get rid of bad Karma and good Karma and of the law of Karma in general, to be free from this law. And there is a question: how to bring it to life. Yoga says that there is a sequence: first, do good deeds, in order to neutralize the bad previous cases, and then when bad things are neutralized you can get rid of good Karma and a bad Karma at the same time.

So if I did a lot of bad things, robed, killed, stole in a previous life, the negative Karma stretches after me like a tail. But if I did a lot of positive things distributed alms, saved lives in a previous life, then the positive things are waiting for me. But I understand that it's all a series: the positive can always come after the negative, the negative can always come after the positive. I stop to cling to the positive and stop to cling to the negative. And I tell to myself: "I refuse of my merits and my sins". But refuse is not an exact expression, I compensate one thing by another.

As soon as a negative compensates a positive I get rid of everything: from the negative and from the positive, from the opportunity to get negative, and from the opportunity to get a positive. I aspire to freedom. Toward being free from what? Toward the freedom from the rules of the game. But there is one nuance, as we insist on the fact that "I am eager to get rid of these rules of the game and from the plane of Karma". But the Karma is the logic in essence. It seems like I am eager to get rid of the logic. Is it? But we remember that the time and the logic are actually the same, but said in different words. And if I try to rise above the usual logic and enter into the existence, which is called Super Logiс, I want to rise above this law which creates the cause and the consequence, and I want to live outside of the law, which aggravates me. But then the next question arises: "Is it possible to do it?" We already talked that we are still only partially in the logic plane as very often we are guided by some sort of animal instinct rather than logic. We would want to approach the logic level at least. And here we are called to transcend the logic and come out to the Super Logic. Is it possible? Karma Yoga says that it is quite possible, and we call it spiritual process, spiritual development, this is transition to the Super Logic. As long as we are in the plane of logic, there is no a question of any spiritual things. Rather, the mastery of the logic makes the person such a cynical creature, such a businessman who wants only to buy everything and then to sell it. It is such kind of approach to life, the approach of a big money, as is sometimes said.
Example: Which political party will win the elections? Just one who can pay the PR agencies more money. It is a question of money.
And, unfortunately, many people believe it. Why? Because they did it many times. They give us the leaders, and we think that these persons guide us. But if we study the question in more detail we understand that we are governed by the gray cardinals, which we do not even know, and everyone else is just clowns. Although our country is often blamed for this, it seems to me, our country is the most honest in this aspect, and the most transparent. There are so many financial interests, and some logical, hardened people stand after these financial interests which we can hardly imagine.

"Living and dead water."

The logic is good, but the logic is not spiritual. Let us remember about the living and dead water, that the logic is the dead water, it wins all diseases, destroys our material problems, but it does not solve our spiritual problems. It does not respond to our spiritual needs, because the world is more fantastic than the plane of logic, than the plane of Karma. The world cannot be understood only with the help of money. Generally, all philosophical systems warned: "Money cannot buy happiness." And sometimes it seems to us that it is a trivial statement for the kids: it is good to be honest, happiness is not in money, but in something more sublime. What do you think? Do these systems (teaching, doctrines) simply spend the paper for the trivial tips? No, this advice is given from those people who meticulously worked the logic, who learned to make a lot of money that nobody can even dreamed of.
And only when they got all the advantages which the power of money provides, only from this position, they can tell us that there are problems that cannot be solved entirely with cash.
Example: When I meet people who do not want to work, they want to decide nothing for themselves. And they start me to preach with a deep look that the money cannot buy the happiness, though they need the money more than all of the knowledge of Yoga.
Another example: Sometimes I meet a cynical people. One of them comes to me ostensibly to study Yoga, and in fact, he wants one thing: fame, wealth, a good sum in a off-shore bank account. This is a moment of self-deception. And if this man starts to tell me, that money cannot buy the happiness, I feel hypocritical, and I'm not inclined to pay attention to it.
Therefore, the dead water is needed, but it is precisely the dead water and therefore there is a saying: "Money cannot buy the happiness". Well, how this can be understood? It may not necessarily be money. You may apply the logic and you may have everything under your control and pay for all. You can be very poor as our rulers, which can get everything they need without money and all depends on them. This is dead water, it heals all wounds, but it cannot give the life. And such people feel very bad, because they can do everything, but they understand that there is no happiness anyway. And then yoga just comes and says that you need to go to the next level of the Super Logic. But only after you have worked the logic level, remember it. Sometimes I hear very paradoxical statements.

For example: Some man wants to reach enlightenment, and he wants to make a million. He comes to me and says: "I'll start with enlightenment. First, enlightened, and then I'll make a million." I say: "No, my dear, it is much harder to attain enlightenment than to make a million." But for some reason it seems to him that it is more easy. Somehow, it seems that to achieve higher results is easier than to make a good career, or to live in the conditions in which you dream to live.

The Living water begins when you completely fulfilled all that you could work with in the logic plane. And Karma Yoga teaches us that at this point it is automatically turns in something that we tend to consider as the Super power, the Super wonder or some qualitatively new level of being, when you climb above the ordinary logic. And Karma Yoga calls for it. But only after you work the logic level through and through. Do not allow the situation as a fox with grapes: the fox cannot reach some goods and begins to scold them. The fox cannot reach the grapes and eat them, and begins to scold it as sour, tasteless. Or (in yoga style) the fox begins to apply magical ways of Yoga: to recite the mantras to make this grape to fall down in the mouth. It's stupidity. In general, the Universe does not like when somebody jumps through the stage.
Question from the audience: You say that it is not possible to get the money with the help of mantras. But it sometimes happens that a man does nothing, reads the mantras, and some wealth come to him/her? Or is it just bad?
It's not bad, it's good. Moreover, there are some methods that can do exactly that. But the question is in a violation of the second principle of Yoga. By the way, it is a very interesting topic!

For example, there is a mantra not to be alone. I hear very often: "I want to find a love of life, but I cannot." The ancient treatises say that there is such a mantra. If you climb to the cave, cover the entrance with stones and begin to practice this mantra, you will get a soul mate. There are no obstacles absolutely. But you will spend to it not a ridiculous amount of time. And you can go to the nearest place to practice yoga, to communicate with like-minded people and to help your soul mate to found you. This rough component speeds up the process several thousand times. You can read mantra of wealth during the whole life, but you will not get a wealth in the present life, but only in the next life. But I doubt that someone will be especially interested in such a perspective. And you can go to earn money without reciting mantras. Finally, there is a third option: you can combine the "dead water" with "living water", when you go to work and recite mantras, too. And this is the quickest and most effective way. I'm not saying that the mantra doesn’t work, I'm not saying that you do not reach your goal. You will get it, but you will spend a lot of time. Is there any sense in it? As again we violate the principle of logicality.

Question from the audience: You said that we should use all logical methods, and then all the rest?

I am saying the following: when you begin to put the cart before the horse when you start to flirt with something intricate, unclear, but you ignore something real and meaningful, you do nonsense. Combining of your actions is wisdom. Here we can recall the anecdote: give a chance to God - buy a lottery ticket. That is, no one keeps you from buying one ticket, the second, the third, fifth and tenth. There is no contradiction. But the contradiction is only in the fact that we are absolutely not concerned with logic, we begin to flirt with Super Logic. We absolutely do not do anything for real, but we think that something other-worldly will do all. It will not do, my friends. As the proverb says: If man is waiting, then the Universe is waiting, too.
Let us take the India as the most typical and an eloquent example. The mantra yoga was known for centuries in the India, but at the same time, for some reason, the India was the poorest country in the world. There are a huge number of hungry hindu who are dying - it is absolutely monstrous figures. But every peasant, every scavenger from morning till night was repeating these mantras, and repeats now as well. And what we see? Since the time when India was a British colony, the Hindus began to copy the actions of the British: if there is a problem with health care, it is necessary to bring fresh water, but do not read the mantra. It is better to make the sewer, so it will not be necessary the mantra of the plague and cholera, because they do not appear. And they have achieved the progress, when they began to combine two methods. Now they are developing, and we will hear more about them later. On the one hand the Hindu is a harsh businessman, and on the other hand he goes to a Hindu temple and makes the puja, and pours oil in the fire for the multiplying of his wealth. And it works when the rough is with a fine level, when the body is with the soul.

Question from the audience: we have a goal and we go for it logically, step by step. For example, we have no result, but we have a feeling that there is something, that we cannot realize, but it can lead us to the finish line, to the result. But sometimes we do nothing, but the result comes. It does not seem so obvious, does not it?

Otherwise there would not be logic. For example, a man did some work by 99%, and one percent was not done. One year passed, two years, three… It is clear that a man did not get the result. It looks like in the mechanism: if you want a car to go, you must tighten all the screws until the last. Otherwise the car will not go. If only one wire breaks, and that’s it. Similarly, we sometimes do some actions by 99%, and we have not tighten the last screw. Then several years pass, and sometimes by accident, we come to the same engine and suddenly notice a cut wire: "O, let me fix it!" And we fix it and go home. And suddenly the mechanism starts working on the following day. And we wonder: we worked before this time, but we got nothing. And now we did nothing and we got the result. Once again I say: it is an axiom. If we are not an advanced yogis and yoginis, and we live in the plane of Karma, all that we have, we created ourselves. If something comes to us, it is certainly due to the fact that we have done. But we can forget about it at all. So we do not know when and how this consequence will come to us, it depends on the purpose and the intensity of our work. But once again: it is the logic and there are no miracles. When you hear that some man did not work, but got the result, it is unlikely a miracle. Even if there is the trace of the Super Logic, it never contradicts the logic.

Example: you know the famous stories about Sherlock Holmes, when he received the result, and Dr. Watson wondered: "But how?" And we do not know how he got the result, but he immediately deduced the same result from the logical chain by the causes and the consequences. Sherlock Holmes is really a fantastic and he applied the methods of Raja Yoga. It seems like the person receives the result from above, but he explains it using the ordinary logic. If you think about it you can get the same result, and Dr. Watson always was convinced. In fact, Arthur Conan Doyle was well-versed in many areas, including a knowledge of Yoga. So if you get something that does not fit in your head, all this should be displayed using the logic as long as we live in the plane of logic.

Question from the audience: How can I understand what to do, when I do something, but do not get the result? Do I need to go the same way, or I need to change the path?

Yoga says nothing on this matter. I already told you today, I wanted to solve the problem using a computer. I asked the programmer to solve this problem. He started to do it, but ran into difficulties. He would have done, but he would spend two years on it. Suddenly, I found out that the solution to this problem is through the other way. I made corrections in my actions. If I see that something is not effective, I use common sense and logic: "I would spend 3 years to get a result, but I will spend 3 days and get a result."Of course, you can adjust the actions.

Question from the audience: What to do, if we do not see any solutions?

Yes, I understand. But you see that our mind needs a time. Nothing is surprising that we do not get the decision. The most important thing for our mind is to formulate the problem. At first the mind understands the decision vaguely, but then sharper and clearer when experience comes. I would not want to touch topics how the logical process is implemented on our higher mental activity. This is a very interesting topic, but I do not want to lead you away to another side. Our mind has many abilities that we do know about. And even if we do not know how to approach the problem today in the plane of the logic, we must clearly identify a goal. It is the most important. And if we have set the goal (what I want), believe me, the mind will work every second, will build a new method somewhere inside, not even letting you know about it. And then one beautiful morning it will bring you the decision. But it's the topic of Raja Yoga.

Последнее изменение: воскресенье, 24 мая 2020, 20:15