Yoga The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 2 Discourses on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Chapter #4, Find the Ever-Present Flower Question 3

Question 3

IS A MASTER NEEDED AFTER SATORI?

Yes! Even more so, because satori is just a glimpse, and a glimpse is dangerous because now you enter the territory of the unknown. Before it, Master is not necessary. Before it you were moving in the known world. Only after satori he becomes absolutely necessary, because now somebody is needed to hold your hand and to lead you towards that which is not simply a glimpse, but becomes an absolute reality. After satori you have the taste, and the taste creates more desire. And the taste becomes so magnetic that you would like to rush into it madly. Now the Master is needed.

After satori, many more things are going to happen. satori is like seeing the peak of Gourishankar, Everest, from the plains. Some day, a clear morning, a sunny morning, and mist is not there, you can see from thousands of miles away the beautiful peak of Gourishankar rising high in the sky. This is satori. Now the actual traveling starts. Now the whole world looks useless.

This is a turning point. Now all that you knew becomes useless, all that you had becomes a burden. Now the world, the life that you had lived up to now, simply disappears like a dream because the greater has happened. And this is satori, a glimpse. Soon the mist will be there, and the peak will not be visible. The clouds will come and the peak will disappear. Now you will be in an absolute uncertain state of consciousness.

The first thing will be whether whatsoever you have seen was real or just a dream, because where it is now? It has disappeared. It was just a breakthrough, just a gap, and you are back -- thrown to your own world.

Suspicions will arise: whatsoever you have seen, was it true? Was it really there or you dreamed about it or you imagined it? And there are possibilities. Many people imagine, so the suspicion is not wrong. Many times you will imagine, and you cannot make the distinction, what is real and what is unreal. Only a Master can say that, "Yes, don't be worried. It was real," or a Master can say, "drop, throw it! It was just imaginary."

Only one who has known the peak -- not from the plains -- only one who has attained to the peak, only one who has become the peak himself, only he can tell you because he has the criterion, he has the touchstone. He can say, "Throw it! Rubbish! It is just your imagination," because when seekers go on thinking about these things, the mind starts dreaming.

Many people come to me. Only one percent of them have the real thing; ninety-nine percent bring unreal things. But it is difficult for them to decide -- impossible, not difficult -- they cannot decide. You suddenly feel an upsurge of energy in your backbone, in the spine: how you will decide whether it is real or unreal? You have been thinking too much about it; you have been desiring also. Unconsciously you are sowing seeds that it should happen, the kundalini should rise. Then you have been reading Patanjali, then you have been talking about it, then you meet people who say their kundalini has risen. Your ego, and then everything mixed...

Suddenly one day, you feel the upsurge; it is nothing but a creation of the mind -- just to satisfy you -- that, "Don't be worried: don't be so much worried. Look! Your kundalini has arisen," and just mind imagining. Then who will decide? And how you will decide? -- because you don't know the true. Only truth can become the criterion to decide whether this is true or untrue.

A Master is needed even more after first satori. There are three satoris. The first satori is just a glimpse. This is possible even sometimes through drugs; this is possible through many other things -- sometimes accidents. Sometimes you were climbing a tree and you fell down, and it was such a shock that the mind stopped for a single moment, and the glimpse will be there, and you will feel so euphoric that you are taken out of your body, you have known something.

Within a second you are back, the mind starts functioning: it was simply a shock. Through electric shock it is possible, through insulin shock it is possible, through drugs it is possible. Even sometimes in illness it happens. You are so weak that the mind cannot function; suddenly you have a glimpse. Through sex it is possible. In the orgasm, when the whole body vibrates, it is possible.

The first glimpse is not necessarily through religious effort. That's why LSD, mescaline, marijuana, have become so much important and appealing. The first glimpse is possible, and you can be caught because of the first glimpse in a drug. It can become a permanent trip; then it is very dangerous because glimpses won't help. They can help, but there is not necessarily help coming from them. They can help only around a Master, because then he will say, "Now don't be after the glimpse. You have got the glimpse, now start traveling to reach the peak." Because it is not only to reach the peak; finally one has to become the peak.

These are the three stages: first is glimpse -- this is possible through many ways, not necessarily religious. Even an atheist can have the glimpse, a person who is not interested in religion can have the glimpse. Drugs, chemicals can give you the glimpse. Even after an operation, when you are coming out of chloroform, you can have the glimpse. While the chloroform is given to you and you are going deeper and deeper, you can have the glimpse.

Many people have attained to first satori; that is not very, very significant. It can be used as a step for the second satori. Second satori is to reach the peak. That never happens accidentally. That happens only through methods, techniques, schools, because it is a long effort to reach the second satori.

And then there is the third satori, what Patanjali calls samadhi: that third is to become the peak. Because from the second also you can come down. You reach to the peak; it may be unbearable. Bliss is also sometimes unbearable -- not only pain, bliss also -- it is too much; one comes back to the plains.

To live on a high peak is difficult -- very difficult! -- and one would like to come back. Unless you become the peak itself, unless the experiencer becomes the experience, it can be lost. And up to the third -- samadhi -- a Master is needed. Only when the final samadhi, the ultimate, has happened, a Master is not needed.

Chapter-4

THE YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI

Find the Ever-Present Flower

Third Question