'Yoga is the cessation of the mind.' This is the definition of Yoga, the best... Some say Yoga is the meeting of the mind with the divine... Yoga means meeting, joining together. Some say that Yoga means dropping the ego: ego is the barrier; the moment you drop the ego you are joined to the divine. You are already joined, only because of the ego it appeared you were disjoined.

Mind can be either the source of bondage or the source of freedom. Mind becomes the gate for this world, the entry; it can also become the exit. Mind leads you to the hell; mind can lead you also to the heaven. So it depends how the mind is used. Right use of mind becomes meditation, wrong use of the mind becomes madness
Mind is there with everyone. The possibility of darkness and light both are implied in it. Mind itself is neither the enemy nor the friend. You can make it a friend you can make it an enemy. It depends on you - on you who is hidden behind the mind. If you can make the mind your instrument, your slave, the mind becomes the passage through which you can reach the ultimate If you become the slave and the mind is allowed to be the master, then this mind which has become master will lead you to ultimate anguish and darkness.
All the techniques, all the methods, all the paths of yoga, are really concerned deeply only with one problem: how to use the mind. Rightly used, mind comes to a point where it becomes no-mind. Wrongly used, mind comes to a point where it is just a chaos, many voices antagonistic to each other - contradictory, confusing, insane.

Would you please explain the working of that unknown force which keeps the human mind attached to wordly things and habits in spite of being fully aware that the ultimate result is nothing but misery?

The awareness is not total, the awareness is just intellectual. Logically you follow that "Whatsoever I am doing is leading me to misery," but this is not your existential experience. Just rationally you understand. If you were reason alone then there would have been no problem, but you are "unreason" also. If you had only conscious mind then it was okay. You have unconscious mind also. Conscious mind knows that you are going into misery every day by your own efforts; you are creating your own hell. But the unconscious is not aware, and the unconscious is nine times more than your conscious mind. And that unconscious goes on persisting in its own habits.

You decide not to be angry again because anger is nothing but poisoning your own system. It gives you misery. But next time, when someone insults you, the unconscious will put aside your conscious reasoning, will erupt, and will be angry. And that unconscious has not known about your decision at all, and that unconscious remains the active force.

The conscious mind is not active, it only thinks. It is a thinker; it is not a doer. So what has to be done? Just by thinking consciously that something is wrong, you are not going to stop it. You will have to work at a discipline, and through discipline this conscious knowledge will penetrate like an arrow into the unconscious.

Through discipline, through yoga, through practice, the conscious decision will reach into the unconscious. And when it reaches into the unconscious, only then it will be of any use. Otherwise you will go on thinking something, and you will go on doing something quite the contrary.

St. Augustine says that, "Whatsoever good I know -- and I always think to do it -- but whenever the opportunity to do it comes, I will always do whatsoever is wrong." This is the human dilemma.

And yoga is the path to bridge the conscious with the unconscious. And when we will go deeper into the discipline you will become aware how this can be done. This can be done So don't rely on the conscious, it is inactive. The unconscious is the active. Change the unconscious; only then your life will have a different meaning. Otherwise you will be in more misery.

Thinking something, doing something else, will constantly create chaos -- and by and by you will lose self-confidence. By and by you will feel that you are absolutely incapable, impotent, you cannot do anything. A self-condemnation will arise. You will feel guilty. And guilt is the only sin.

Other Osho books on YOGA

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