The inner study

Yoga is the only way to realise God and to get liberation. There is no other way. Yoga means union with God. If one wants to get a Master’s degree, one goes to the university to study. If one says, “I will not study, but I will get my Master’s degree anyway,” it is impossible. Similarly, if one does not practise yoga, if one does not have discipline, if one does not meditate, if one does not aspire, then it is impossible to get liberation. Liberation is like the higher course. If I don’t first go through high school and then go to college and university, how am I going to get my Master’s degree? Similarly, in yoga also, step by step we go up, up, up, up. Then, at the end of our inner study, we get liberation.

If we offer our existence to God, to Truth, to Light, then we can expect Peace, Light and Bliss in boundless measure. If we study hard in school, naturally we will expect a high mark. As we sow, so we reap. If we sow divine seeds, seeds of aspiration, then sooner or later we are bound to see the bumper crop of God-realisation. If we can offer our inner cry, if we can cry for Peace, Light and Bliss, then God is bound to come. Our cry will be fulfilled by God, who is the possessor of infinite Peace, Light and Bliss.

Some spiritual Masters tell their disciples, even after they have meditated for ten years or twenty years, not to use the words “salvation”, “liberation”, “illumination”. These are very big words. We start with the ABC’s of spiritual life. Even while we are asleep if we think of reaching the goal, then we are just fooling ourselves. We will reach the goal, but at God’s choice Hour. Salvation, liberation, realisation: these things come at the end of the road. Right now, all the seekers must think of the basic things in their spiritual life. Meditate for five minutes or ten minutes or half an hour: that is right now your study. A child does not think of his Master’s degree when he has not yet learned the alphabet; it is impossible. So let him learn the preliminary things, the elementary things; then, when he is in the university, he can think of liberation and realisation.

Please don’t think that I am discouraging you. Far from it. A child’s ultimate goal is definitely to get his Master’s degree. But just by all the time thinking of the highest course, he will never get his Master’s degree. A seeker has to go step by step. If he always thinks of the goal, he will feel that the goal is very far. Here he has not yet started the journey, and the goal is millions of miles away. Then he will start thinking, “I am so weak, I am so insincere, I am so ignorant. How can I reach my goal?” These thoughts will come, and he will be disappointed and disheartened and he will give up spiritual life.