What is Yoga?

Yoga has many definitions. Some say yoga is the meeting of the mind with the divine; hence, it is called yoga -- 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 were already joined, only because of the ego it appeared that you were disjointed.

And there are many other concepts, but to me the most scientific definition is
Yoga is the state of no-mind. The word "mind" covers all -- your egos, your desires, your hopes, your philosophies, your religions, your scriptures. "Mind" covers all. Whatsoever you can think is mind. All that is known, all that can be known, all that is knowable, is within mind. Cessation of the mind means cessation of the known, cessation of the knowable. It is a jump into the unknown. When there is no mind, you are in the unknown. Yoga is a jump into the unknown. It will not be right to say "unknown"; rather, "unknowable

When there is no mind, you are in yoga; when there is mind you are not in yoga. So you may do all the postures, but if the mind goes on functioning, if you go on thinking, you are not in yoga. Yoga is the state of no-mind. If you can be without the mind without doing any posture, you have become a perfect yogi. It has happened to many without doing any postures, and it has not happened to many who have been doing postures for many lives.

Because the basic thing to be understood is: when the activity of thinking is not there, you are there; when the activity of the mind is not there, when thoughts have disappeared, they are just like clouds, when they have disappeared, your being, just like the sky, is uncovered. It is always there -- only covered with the clouds, covered with thoughts.

When mind ceases, you are established in your witnessing self. In other states, except this, there are identifications. And all identifications constitute the world. If you are in the identifications, you are in the world, in the misery. If you have transcended the identifications, you are liberated. You have become a enlightened, You have transcended this world of misery and entered the world of bliss.

We live in a deep illusion -- the illusion of hope, of future, of tomorrow. As man is, man 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

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.