Our expectations and ideas have no relation to reality
I have entitled my book Yoga—Union with Reality, because the human being lives a life completely disconnected from reality, in the sense that we are educated and we grow and develop, in the mental dimension of ideas. Our world is a world of thoughts, conclusions, and concepts. For this reason, it is said that when the revelation called enlightenment occurs, the world disappears. And the world that disappears is the world of ideas. That is to say, you cease to move through a world of conclusions and concepts.
We may have noticed that the successful person in society is the one who satisfies its expectations—and what are expectations, if not the ideas, thoughts, and imagination; that is to say, all that is taking place in the world of the mind. For example, they say, “He’s met the woman of his dreams; she’s found her prince charming, the man of her dreams.”
Without being aware of it, when we live in our nostalgias, reminiscences, and memories, and react from that past, with expectations and hopes for a future; all of this is an idea, all of this is something that occurs only and solely in our mind. None of this is related to reality. None of this! Your expectations have no relation to the real existential dimension of facts, happening or unfolding solely in the present, now.
Yoga is a union with the dimension of reality
We are not operating with the real; we are functioning with a map we have fabricated about reality, a map that marks out a territory, but this territory is not the map. And—this map has been fabricated from ideas, from information, thoughts, conclusions, and all that we have acquired through our senses. We operate with the map to the extent that for each one of us, his own map and his own plan, is the territory itself. We confuse the map with reality.
Yoga is “union with reality” in the sense that its system, its words, all that is found in the revealed scriptures, as well as the words we are speaking now, do not aim to add new information or ideas, or a new concept, doctrine or philosophy; this is not the purpose of what we are doing here, this is not the purpose of religion. The intention of religion is to awaken us to the dimension of facts, to reality.
In the dimension of ideas, we know that fire burns; in the dimension of reality we put our finger in the fire and we get burned. In the dimension of ideas, we speak of fear, love, anger, rage, and jealousy. Let’s see how real all this is, in the dimension of facts.
In the dimension or world of ideas, we speak of memories, behavior patterns, reactions, hopes, and expectations. Let’s see how real all this is, in the dimension of facts, of reality.
In a world of ideas we can live on the surface without going deeply
Why do I say all this? Because we do not understand that the difference between material and spiritual life is exactly this: it is to stop moving in a world of ideas, concepts, expectations, memories, and conclusions, in order to move through a world of facts—a world of what is, not what was or what should be, not what should have been or will be, but the world of what is. And for this reason, my definition of meditation is to observe what is, as it is. Not as I would like it to be, not as we wish that it was, not as we think it should be or should have been, but as it is.
I have the feeling that if you wish to grasp what I am speaking about, it won’t be enough for you to remain on the surface of these ideas. It will be necessary to go deeper, because the world of facts, the world of reality, is found in the depths.
With “the world of ideas,” I am referring to the surface. That is to say, we are uttering terms without really knowing what they actually symbolize, because terms and words are symbols. Yet often we remain in the world of symbols without going deeply into what the words represent.
Many people believe in God and other people do not believe in God, but few have gone deeply into what God is. Many people are religious and many others are irreligious, but have they really understood, or perceived? The word “understand” is dangerous, because we understand many things, but we perceive nothing. Have they seen deep within themselves, what it is to be religious, what religion is? Many believe that they possess the truth, but few have taken the time to go deeply into what truth is.
Meditation is to renounce our expectations and abandon our mental world
So this is very important, especially when we try to meditate. Dhyāna, or “meditation,” is a leap, a leap from the world of what should be, or what we would like to be, to what is.
At the moment we meditate, we try to observe what is, and so it is very important to renounce all that we expect to gain through meditation. It is highly important, essential and basic, because as long as any expectation exists, it will continue to bind us to the world of thought.
Krishna says in the Bhagavad-Gita, Chapter 18 – verse 66:
sarva-dharman parityajya
mam ekam saranam vraja
aham tvam sarva-papebhyo
moksayisyami ma sucahAbandon all kinds of dharma,
abandon all action, abandon all duty,
and surrender to Me.
I will protect you, do not fear.
What must we renounce? What must we abandon? We must abandon what in Hinduism, we call maya, or “illusion.” We must abandon the material world in order to surrender, and be taken by the spiritual. But what does this mean?
We must renounce our mental world, which is made of bubbles; we must renounce our past, that past that we project as an imagination upon the future; we must renounce our expectations. We must renounce this mental world, in order to give ourselves up, surrender ourselves, to reality, to Krishna, to what is.
It is a renouncing of all that we think we should be, because it does not solely consist of your expectations, or your hopes. If you look deeply, you will see that perhaps you wish to fulfill the expectations of your mother or father, which are interconnected with the expectations of your grandparents, your family. We must renounce all of this.
And Krishna says here: “do not fear.” Why be afraid? Why be afraid to renounce the world of ideas? What is the fear? What are you afraid of? I am afraid, because this world of ideas is what I am. It is what I believe myself to be. Or, at least it is what we have been convinced that we are: a name . . . a person . . . someone. We have to be “someone” in life. And it is that someone, that something, that wants to be enlightened, wants to be a saint, in the same way that it wants to be a millionaire, or be famous.
Renouncing this mental dimension means relinquishing yourself; it means dying, disappearing, evaporating . . .
And Krishna says, “Do not fear, you are protected.” Not “protected” in the sense that nothing can happen to you, but in the sense that there isn’t a “someone” that something could happen to . . . You are an idea. Relinquish yourself as a dream, and surrender to what you really are as a fact, as a reality.
Meditation is precisely to operate with what is . . . with you, here and now. And that is renunciation; that is the leap. To situate yourself, to be present, as what you are, here and now.
