People gather for a Yoga Day event in Kolkata on Friday. (Express Photo: Partha Paul)
The most effective way of conveying something is through stories or parables. Our Puranas are filled with such parables. Maharishi Patanjali was a sage and one of our civilisation’s greatest scientific minds who gave complete and authoritative texts on yoga, grammar, and ayurveda to help humans remove impurities from the mind, speech and body, respectively. No one understood the complexities of the mind better than Patanjali; hence I call his Yoga Sutras the “Science of the Consciousness”. The Patanjali Yoga Sutras are a revolutionary text where, through simple yet profound sutras, the entire science of yoga is conveyed.
Here’s a story about him. A long time ago, all the seers approached Lord Vishnu to tell him that even though he had given them the means to cure illnesses through ayurveda (when he had incarnated as Lord Dhanvanthari during the churning of the ocean of milk), people continued to fall ill. These were not just physical illnesses; people also suffered from mental and emotional illnesses that manifested as anger, lust, greed, or jealousy.
Lord Vishnu was resting on Adishesha, the serpent with a thousand heads. Bowing to the request of the rishis, he blessed them with Adishesha, a symbol of awareness. Adishesha then took birth as Patanjali. But there were three conditions before this precious knowledge could be passed on. First, the sutras were not to be narrated unless 1,000 people got together. Second, a screen would be put up between the teacher and the students and nobody was to lift the screen or leave during the sessions. Third, everyone had to stay in the hall until the recitation of the texts was completed.
Patanjali stayed behind the curtain and silently conveyed his knowledge to the 1,000 people who had gathered from the south of the Vindhya Mountains. He did not utter a single word but each student understood his teachings. Each experienced profound enthusiasm and a surge in energy. The students found it difficult to contain this vibrancy but they still had to maintain the discipline of not lifting the curtain or leaving the room.
It so happened that one little boy had to go out to attend nature’s call. He thought he would leave quietly and return. Another boy in the room became curious, desperately wanting to know what the Maharishi was doing behind the curtain. Disobeying the Master, he lifted the curtain. Instantly, all 999 disciples present were burnt to ashes.
At that moment, the boy who had gone to attend nature’s call returned. He explained his predicament and begged for forgiveness. Patanjali was compassionate and shared the remaining sutras with him. However, he said, “Since you have violated the law, you will become a Brahmarakshasa (a ghost hanging from a tree.) And the only way you can liberate yourself from the curse is to teach another student.” Saying this, Patanjali disappeared.
Now, the Brahmarakshasa would ask a question to every passerby and if they could not answer him, he would eat them. He had no choice. For a few thousand years, he could not find a single person to whom he could teach the Yoga Sutras. Out of compassion for the boy, Patanjali himself was reincarnated and came as a student to the Brahmarakshasa.
The Brahmarakshasa taught only at night. Patanjali wrote the Yoga Sutras sitting on a tree since that was where his teacher, the Brahmarakshasa, sat. The teacher recited the sutras at night and Patanjali plucked the leaves from the tree, drew blood from his body and wrote. This went on for seven days. At the end, exhausted, Patanjali put all the leaves into a piece of cloth, set it down and went to bathe. When he returned, he found that a goat had eaten most of the leaves. Patanjali then took the cloth bag and the remaining leaves and walked away.
The Puranas do not give us any explanation for this story. It is for us to decode its meaning. Each student is unique, with varying levels of intelligence and understanding. The Master knows how and in what manner to impart knowledge to each student. You can say that the Master has different forms for each student. The form that the Master reveals to one is different from what he would reveal to another. Once someone asked me, “Do you love all of us equally?” I smiled and said, “No!” That came as a big shock because everyone wants to be loved equally by the Master. “I don’t love you equally because you are not equal. I love you uniquely because you all are unique and different. That doesn’t mean anyone is more or less than the other.”
To teach all thousand disciples, the Maharishi took his real form. He manifested as Adishesha himself, the 1,000-headed snake, and taught the 1,000 disciples individually. But to receive knowledge, the disciple had to have unconditional faith in the Master. Lifting the veil would mean expressing doubt in the Master. Through this, the Maharishi also establishes that to understand such deep knowledge, some rules and some discipline are necessary. Discipline is the first and foremost prerequisite for learning about yoga. Another interpretation of the story is that since the disciples couldn’t see the master, their entire focus was on the teachings. The veil kept their small minds and perceptions from becoming obstacles to receiving knowledge. It shouldn’t matter what the teacher looks like or who he/she is.
Why was one boy forgiven? This act shows the infinite compassion of the Master. He had to go through his karma. But the Master also gave him a way out of his karma. When he had lived through them, the Master himself came there as a student to free him from the curse.
The writer is a spiritual leader and founder of The Art of Living Foundation
