Raja Yoga – The Royal Path

The Raja Yoga path is important to understand and is not an easy path. At the beginning of the journey in the path of Raja Yoga, the royal path, is self-acceptance. We may think it’s very simple. I can accept myself, and the path is on or open. But try self-acceptance; you’ll know it’s the toughest.

You can accept other people more easily, but to accept yourself is very difficult, extremely difficult. Self-acceptance is number one. Number two is awareness. There are three aspects of awareness – be aware, alert and active. That means no absentmindedness. Is it possible?

The path is very simple. It’s all very simple techniques. Self-acceptance is the beginning and the end until you complete your journey. It’s only through self-acceptance that you can evolve. If you start criticizing yourself – how do you know you’re criticizing yourself? Easy to know. You’re criticizing other people. If you’re criticizing other people, you’re actually very critical of yourself; it’s a clear sign. These are very tiny, little, and easy benchmarks.

Our path is so simple, and then awareness. Awareness is the main understanding of what you are. Always awake – it means you’re always awake to the truth of the time, the present time. You’re aware of what’s going on. That means your mind is right here. When we live our life, our mind is here. Then, be alert. You should always be alert and the mind ready for action, ready for whatever is coming.

Destiny keeps throwing situations at you; if we are absent-minded, it’ll hit you in your face. If you’re always alert, you can tackle everything in life. That means your acceptance level automatically becomes high; it goes up.

Be active; you should always be active. That means you have no tamas, zero tamas, inertia, or procrastination. You don’t waste your time analysing, complaining, criticising, and judging. You won’t waste your time.

Role of the Guru

What’s the Guru’s role? As Subhashree said, the Guru has a major role here as somebody who has attained it. The Guru is your benchmark. ‘That’s the consciousness I’m looking at. That’s where I’m going, not the person.’ Please don’t confuse the Guru with the person, but a person could be a representation of that state.

Guru is a state; a person who has attained that state is everything for you. That’s how Hanuman attained all his powers. His connection to Ram was unshakeable. Whatever happened in the world, his connection to Ram was unshakeable; he got ashta siddhis (eight powers) and nava nidhis (nine divine treasures), everything. Just remember: just be aware, alert, and active.

Self-acceptance and awareness are very important. Then time, space, emotions, and situations have no value; zero value. What’s their value? Only entertainment value. When you’re living your life, going through situations, and through the motions, they’re all just entertainment. They’re all just part of the drama of life.

Whenever we start criticising, we’re criticising ourselves. Whenever we judge people, we’re judging ourselves. Whenever we aren’t accepting others or people or situations around us, we have a conflict within ourselves. When this is very clear, Raja Yoga is very easy. That’s why I said the Raja Yoga path is very simple and very tough because to practise something is very easy.

If I give you a meditation to practise, that’s okay; that’s very easy. To evolve by connecting to yourself and beautifying yourself is extremely difficult. This is called the path of fire. This Raja Yoga path is called the path of Shiva, the path of fire. Why is it called so? Because here you’re always on your toes: alert and aware.

Key teachings of Raja Yoga

You need to be completely happy when you’re going through happiness or situations of happiness. Your every cell is rejoicing. When you’re going through bouts of sadness, your every cell is experiencing sadness. That means you don’t come back. Every situation is experienced 100 per cent, so the recurrence will be less. How can the recurrence happen? When we break that pattern.

This means that when we are happy, we are kind of in the mind saying, ”Oh no, this happiness won’t stay, or is going to be long, with sadness around the corner.” When we’re sad, we want to be happy. In every situation, we’re pushing it away. What happens? Everything is postponed. This means everything is pending. When all these things are pending, life gets repeated. That’s what happens. Everything has to be experienced through acceptance; you’re flowing. That’s what this path is exactly about.

Empowered 5.0 is coming up, focusing on ‘Making Masters.’ It’s not about teaching some techniques. It’s very easy to teach techniques. I can teach you thousands of techniques, but for what? You may get addicted to a technique. You’ll have to get connected to ‘you’; only then can you become a master.

Action should be pure. What’s pure action? Action without expectation. More and more actions without expectation happen, and life itself is enhanced. Life becomes purer. What you think is unachievable will come in your hand, plate, and platter. That’s because we’ve accepted ourselves and decided that this path, this way, is us. We’re the way; we’re the path. That’s understood. These are a few things that you should always remember.

It’s not about the other person or the situation; it’s about people. We go through all these situations, so why do we have a conflict? Mostly, it’s because of our identity. We identify ourselves as this person or personality. That’s the problem. The identification and other connections like me and my job, my family, my property and my society – me is the whole thing. If you’re reinforcing the personality aspect too much, everything leads to calamities, both pleasure and pain. These are all important, fundamental things connected to the Raja Yoga path.

Steadfastness is the key

From what I’ve seen, two types of people immediately get attracted to this path. This is my experience in the last ten years. One type is the beings who have come from other lokas (worlds). They’ve come to earth, experienced the human body, lived here long enough, and taken multiple births. Finally, they know it’s time to go back, or they want to really return. These are the kinds of people who immediately gravitate towards the Raja Yoga path.

The other type of people are people who lived in other yugas (eras), like in Treta Yuga (Shri Rama’s time), Dwaapar Yuga (Shri Krishna’s time), or different times. They’ve come to the Kali Yuga, our time. They also want to return, or they want to elevate themselves. These are the two types of people who’ll never leave. People who’ve found the path and know that this is the path will never leave.

A lot of people are born only in this Kali Yuga time, and their basic traits, expression or orientation is unconscious. They’re always sense-oriented, looking for sensory pleasures. They’re possession-oriented; they like to control or capture things, me and mine. All these wars are waged by such people. Evolved beings don’t wage wars or torture animals in laboratories and dairy farms. Who is doing these things? They are beings who are insensitive. These are Kali Yuga-born people. Those people may not find it interesting in the Raja Yoga path. They walk in, and they’ll go out also. They’ll not stay. This is my experience.

People who come from other lokas (worlds) or people who’ve come from other yugas (eras) will definitely stay in the Raja Yoga path. They’ll never leave. This is the path that will take them back to where they came from.– Mohanji

People who come from other lokas (worlds) or people who’ve come from other yugas (eras) will definitely stay in the Raja Yoga path. They’ll never leave. This is the path that will take them back to where they came from. Understand that if somebody says, “Oh! this is not my cup of tea,” it’s fine. It’s okay because they may not be able to do anything here. Self-acceptance will be impossible for them. They can’t do it. Likewise, being alert and aware isn’t possible when they like absentmindedness, an unconscious state. People who like intoxication, which is basically taking you to unconsciousness, will not have anything to do here. We’re looking at fully conscious people.

Focus on being alert, aware and active

The Raja Yoga path is taking you to a fully conscious state, being alert, aware, active, and fully conscious. Where your intoxications are and making you unconscious, that’s not the path. Hallucinatory things that take you high and then drop you back down are not our path. Understand that. Violence doesn’t sit here; violence can’t happen. Violence isn’t connected to higher evolution. Violence is connected to lower emotions. It’s not connected to evolution; it’s connected to emotions. That doesn’t sit here. We have to be clear; this is a very powerful path.

I can’t even begin to explain how powerful it is. You got to walk; there’s no way. Nobody carries you. The path strengthens you; the Guru strengthens you and empowers you to go further. Nobody is going to tell you, “Look here, I’ll give you this enlightenment.” Enlightenment happens when you’re detached from your bindings, fully conscious and unbound. When you’re unbound, it’ll show in your life as freedom; connect as freedom from within. When you’re unbound from your mind, it shows. You don’t need to prove to anybody; it shows – unbound freedom. This is visible.

When you’re evolving, you’ll know that feeling that you’re detaching from your mind, your sense of objects, and your orientation. To a great extent, your desire pattern changes. When you’re evolving to a level where you are completely yourself, which means not what your mind is projecting, not the personality, but when you are truly yourself, you’ll feel tremendous power. A state of being fully Shiva – still. Nothing affects you; that powerful. That’s the Raja Yoga path, like Lord Dattatreya – living, walking Avadhootas. That’s why we respect them. Sai Baba – a great Avadhoota in every aspect.

What’s Ganesha? We see mostly three idols in our ashrams; Lord Ganesha is the awareness of consciousness – fully conscious, always aware of who he is. We have the gross on one side and the subtle on the other; when they marry each other, we call it life. When they separate from each other, we call it death. Very simple!

The journey from gross to subtle

This whole awareness, the whole spiritual journey, is from being gross to being subtle. From sthula (gross), the awareness shifts to the subtle. The subtle energises, not the sthula, the gross. Without the subtle, the gross cannot function or is not alive. When our focus, our orientation, is shifting more and more slowly to the subtle, we feel expansion and freedom more and more. Society may not understand this freedom or the free man. They think freedom is freedom of the mind to go anywhere, do whatever you like, etc.

Many great free people are sitting in jails, but they’re unaffected by prisons because they are free. They’re not worried about the space they’re occupying. They’re not worried about anything. Nothing! This is very important to understand. Being free is very important; that’s an inside story; It’s inside us. Nobody can tell you, “Okay, now you do this and be free.” It’s not like that; it’s a constant practice.

Travel from this shore, which is gross, to that shore, which is subtle, and these two shores are together as life. When they’re separated, it’s death. While we’re living, we should make the shift from gross to subtle; that’s the beauty. Then, when you’re living as subtle, you may not move to gross. When you’re living, that’s the time when you shift from gross to subtle. That means, from the physical mind, intellect, and ego to that which energises all this, that energy you can call soul or spirit. Shift to that; start experiencing that at work. Then, eventually, when you leave the body, when you die, you’re leaving as that, not as gross.

This whole awareness, the whole spiritual journey, is from being gross to being subtle. Gross means personality. Subtle means what activates the personality.– Mohanji

Gross means personality. Subtle means what activates the personality. You move as subtle energy. When you go, die, or leave as subtle, you may not even want to come back and take another personality because you’re already disconnected from your personality. This is what I’m trying to do exactly in the Empowered programs because what we need are masters, not just people who practise.

Practice is more for alignment, concentration, and focus. For that, you need practise; you need discipline. Discipline is extremely important so that you’re stable, in one part. Determination is even more important to evolve in this life. To go back to the pattern is very easy. Just do what comes to your mind and keep doing it. That’s enough to entertain patterns. Today, the main pattern is our addiction to food; that’s the main pattern.

One of the greatest addictions today is a mobile phone. You cannot live without it. Our whole focus is on this rectangular screen; that’s where we live and die. What are we carrying, then? Images that are useless in the mind. This is what happens.

It’s important to empty everything. The mind should be empty. There’s no activity; there’s nothing; you’re completely empty and free. When you’re moving, you’re moving, walking, talking power; walking, talking Shiva. That’s what we should move exactly. Otherwise, it’s about the mind that’s complaining. My mind is not good today; I’m tired today; I don’t have a mood today; this is our state most of the time. That’s because we’re addicted to activities.

We’re slaves to our minds. The mind is a great servant but a very bad boss. A great servant because if you use your mind well, you can attain the powers. But if you allow your mind to take over, you’ll always be complaining; you’ll be hating all these nonsense things which are completely useless for evolution. Emotions are absolutely useless for evolution because emotions are not permanent. They’re temporary; they come and go.

Spiritual maturity

We talk about spiritual maturity. Imagine somebody is talking and criticising other people. They’re not spiritually mature. Imagine somebody saying, “Because of that person, I got affected.” They’re not spiritually mature. It’s easy to understand. Spiritual maturity simply means you’re happy with whatever happens, and you are stable inside. Externally, whatever happens, it’s not affecting you. If you reach that state, you’re very stable spiritually. You’re mature in spirituality, and from there, you’ll automatically evolve further, and nobody can touch you, shake you or stir you. This is what you should remember when you walk the Raja Yoga path.

I explained so much because it’s important to know what you’re doing and what you’re walking for. It’s not like the feel-good factor of applying an ointment on top of the cancer; it’s not like that. It’s actually removing the cancer completely and purifying that space because everything we’ve collected and stored eventually becomes cancerous. It’s important to stay clear and always stay pure. That’s why we have tremendous charity activities, annadaan (food donation) and all.

The Raja Yoga path is everything. We have Bhakti; we have temples. We have Jnana; the knowledge, what we’re doing now, and Karma Yoga is serving the poor. This is all included in the Raja Yoga path. Every aspect is getting completed. Completion! Yes, completion; that’s what life is all about – total completion. That’s what life is for. That’s what we’re doing.

The Raja Yoga path is everything. Bhakti Yoga is easier because there’s some object outside you can connect to; it’s very easy. Jnana Yoga is easy because there’s knowledge outside that you can chew. Then, Karma Yoga is also easier because you’re serving the world outside. There’s always something outside. With Raja Yoga, everything is inside. Self-acceptance is inside; awareness is inside. All these things are inside. That’s not easy, but if you start walking, it’s very powerful.

That’s why I said many people who are only born in Kali Yuga may not even like it. They’ll not understand it. They can easily connect to something outside, and they’re happy, but when they come to the Raja Yoga path, it’s not easy because this is a path of fire for them. But, as I said, two types of people will never leave: one has come from other lokas, other worlds, and one has evolved from other yugas or other eras. These people will not leave. They have found gold already. Others, if they go, it’s fine. Thank them, bless them and love them.

Taken from Satsang after 41 days of meditation Love Beyond Dimensions

Watch the satsang here.

Transcribed by Seema Jamakhandi
Proofread by Eric Elbers

Quotes on Raja Yoga

Certainly! Here’s another option with a different formatting style for the quotes:

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• Raja Yoga path, the royal path, the path of liberation is a path of dissolution because you become the ocean: you dissolve and become supreme consciousness.
• The fundamental teaching of the path of liberation (Raja Yoga) is self-acceptance.
• We are both gross and subtle. Gross is the physical aspect of us, such as body, mind, intellect, and ego, or the tangible aspect of our existence. The subtle simply means the energy aspect that enlivens all the above. Anger, hatred, jealousy, comparisons, and competition are illusions that the gross maintains. The subtle is love and various natural derivations of love such as compassion, kindness, selflessness, gratitude, righteousness, so on and so forth. In other words, subtle is simply rooted in Dharma (righteous duty), while the gross maintains the shifting, changing illusions. The shift in awareness from gross to subtle is stability in spiritual terms. Adharma cannot take place with the subtle. Subtle is dharma. This is the fundamental awareness that we need when we walk the path of Raja Yoga.
• In the path of Raja yoga, Be aware that you’ve taken birth.
• Acceptance, awareness, and flexibility – these are the fundamentals of the path of Raja Yoga.
• Many gurus who have taken people to higher levels didn’t give anything to the disciples. They gave themselves – ‘You can use this in whatever way you can’. This is our path of Raja Yoga.
• We walk the path of Raja Yoga. It’s connecting to consciousness.
• All you have to do in the path of Raja Yoga is be available. Just walk it; be available. Just walk it, accept yourself, and ‘be you’ all the time.
• Raja Yoga is the royal path. The path that doesn’t have any boundaries and includes all the paths – Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga – is included in Raja Yoga. Everything is there; it means whatever you are, whatever you feel, and whatever expression you have is an expression of the divine. If you look at it that way, everything becomes a divine act. There’s nothing like wrong or right. In Raja Yoga, you work out all your desires; you don’t fight the desires. You see them, experience them, and you go beyond.
• All you do is keep your focus on where you want to go. That’s all; that’s it. That’s the path.
• This path is about stabilizing and settling down within.
• When you’re stable inside, whatever you want to see outside will happen; it’ll manifest. You become everything once you settle down inside, within. That’s the power of the Raja Yoga path.
• Bhakti (devotion), Jnana (knowledge path), and Karma (selfless service); it’s all involved in Raja Yoga.
• Raja yoga is about awareness. What are you being aware of? What will you be aware of? The energy inside you. Just be aware. ‘Hey, it’s not me; it’s not my personality. It’s not Mohanji.’ What’s activating Mohanji is the energy inside. This remembrance is enough. All the time, you’re remembering, ‘I’m not this personality which I’m projecting, but I’m the energy which is activating this projection.’ If you constantly remember that, you’ll start connecting more and more to the subtle aspect, the sukshma inside.
• Our path isn’t easy to understand because it’s internal, internal and internal – connecting with yourself, purifying yourself, and becoming yourself. That’s the power of this path.
• Like Krishna said, “You worship anybody, but eventually, it comes to me.” That’s Supreme Consciousness speaking. That’s exactly what it is. In the Raja Yoga path, Supreme Consciousness, a direct connection to the formless is also good. Every path is good, provided it suits you. It should be as you are, as you naturally can be. Otherwise, everything is just an activity.
• The path is that of Avadhootha – pure consciousness, the Raja Yoga path.
• Devotion is a very good path. Awareness is even better because you become that. But that Raja Yoga path – that’s not easy. It’s not easy because you’re connecting to pure brightness.
• One who worships, meditates and merges into the Supreme Brightness is a Raja Yogi. No form has any true relevance to him except as the available manifestation of the Supreme Brightness.
• The Raja Yoga path, the Supreme Consciousness path, pure brightness, there are no forms attached, you see your soul, you connect to your soul. There is nothing to choose here. When you feel aligned when you do an activity, that activity suits you. When you wear an outfit, what feels good is what suits you; when the size is correct, you feel good about it. Similarly (what suits you is) when you feel good about a path, the Guru Frequency or the external Guru frequency.
• The Raja Yoga path – Integrate into a master, plug into a master, be in the consciousness of the master. The master is already aligned and when you are in the consciousness of the master, then automatically, you will be aligned.
• Raja is a king or an emperor. Yoga is that you are an emperor, i.e. you are not bound by anything on earth. That is exactly what Raja Yoga is. Something which is unbound. Nothing can bind you, no practice, thing, person, situation, or time – nothing binds you. That is the state. It’s a state of being totally free.
• Some people are on the path of dissolution; they have had all the experiences, and they just want to dissolve into the Supreme consciousness, awareness, for them Raja Yoga is suitable.
• A more powerful path of connection is the path of annihilation. Knowledge, devotion and service are all gains in some way. Annihilation means you lose all your identification and just merge with the supreme unmanifested God. No signs, no manifestation. This is called the Golden path, Raja Yoga, or the royal path.
• In the royal path, there is no other aim, just liberation. Whatever you do every day, it takes you one step forward to liberation. The fundamental tenet of that path is things are happening; there is no ‘doing’, only ‘being’. You say, “God, use me for the higher purpose. I do not exist, only you do.” Even Shirdi Sai Baba used to say everybody is owned by the same God; there is no difference. I do not exist. Only You exist, my Lord.
• The whole Raja yoga path is about shedding! Not shedding consciously, but because you don’t want it, it drops off. The moment you say, “I don’t want this,” and you move something out, it will stay. Its residue will stay. But if it goes off by itself because you are not using it, it will not come back. That’s the point.
• Do you know what the possible height of success in one human life is? Conquest of the mind. Because this is the exact path of Raja Yoga, the king of yogas, the highest success means zero mind. Empty. Then you are complete in life.

Compiled by Puja Mathur, Bhumika Arvind and Biljana Vozarevic

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