Acharya Prashant: Arjun has been taught that respecting elders is a virtue. Arjun has been taught that non-violence is a virtue. Arjun, has also been taught that defending your territory is a virtue. Now, these two things clash with each other. If he must defend his territory, then he must fight his elders. But he has been taught that not fighting with your elders is a virtue. Arjun, has been taught that one must take care of the interests of one’s kins and clan. But Arjun has also been taught that one must take good care of one’s wife. Now, these two are ranged against each other. The kins have insulted the wife, now Arjun must defend and avenge the wife. This is how the mind gets divided.
Society influences it, media influences it, religion influences it, the entire gamut of experiences of the past, influences the mind. The biology inherent in one’s cells and tissues influences the mind. The country you come from, the system you have experienced, in terms of politics, economy, even ecology. That is what constitutes the Mind. The Mind is the bundle of influences. And these influences do not agree with each other, they fight with each other. Hence, the contradiction, hence, the strife that makes our life a battlefield. That is human suffering. That is grief.
One part of oneself is fighting with another part. And none of the parts is prepared to be related directly to the center. All parts are off-center and in disagreement with each other. Yoga is to have a composite mind. Yoga is to return to one’s innocence. One’s primal Purity, in which the mind is not conditioned, or stained at all. That is Yoga.
Still you see, we have not talked about anything that is as gross as physical objects or physical body. Neither have we talked of anything that is hypothetically extremely subtle. As subtle, as divinity or Godhood or enlightenment. Yoga does not pertain to either of these. I repeat, Yoga is not about having a fit body. If it was having a fit body, Arjun, was the fittest of them all already. Why does he need lectures on Yoga then?
