Maha Yoga – A Key to Success

I was asked to speak on the above topic at the Mahayoga Global Meet 2012.  Here’s the written version of my speech.  For those who are interested, the PowerPoint charts I used are available at 

http://www.slideshare.net/dpkamat/maha-yoga-akeytosuccesspresentation.

I have been asked to speak to you about how Maha Yoga can become a key to success, i.e. how the practice of Maha Yoga can help you become successful.

This is somewhat of a difficult task, because success, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.  What might seem like success to one might be perceived as abject failure by another.  To some of you, success might mean having good things happen to yourself, i.e. having a good education, having a great job or a career or a business, having a lot of power, having a wonderful family life, making lots of money.  Others might see success in making good things happen to others, i.e. helping others get educated, helping others out of poverty, taking care of the sick and injured, helping lead communities and societies improve their lot, etc.  Still others might not care so much for their own material growth, or for the material uplift of others, but might define success in terms of their own spiritual growth as well as the spiritual growth of others. 

Regardless of these distinctions in how we define success, we tend to be happy only if we think we are being successful in achieving our goals, whether they are material or spiritual, for the uplift of ourselves or for others; and are unhappy if we do not achieve them.  So in all our actions we strive to become successful in achieving our goals, whatever they may be!  But there are two big traps waiting for us in such a goal-oriented success-driven life. 

The first trap is what I call Newton’s Third Law!  Those of you who are familiar with basic physics will know that this law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  This law is not so severe in our day-to-day lives, i.e. the reactions to our actions might not be exactly equal and opposite, but those of us who have been knocked around a bit are quite aware that every action or initiative we take becomes a struggle to overcome the reactions of forces that oppose it.  Sometimes our actions succeed, sometimes they fail.  But if we tie our happiness to our day-to-day successes and failures, whether they are material or spiritual, whether they are for ourselves or for others, we are bound to go through life being ecstatic sometimes and being depressed at other times.  

The second trap we face arises out of the fact that our perceptions of success are short-lived.  If we are successful in achieving our goal, we right away move our goal-posts to achieve what we perceive is a better and higher goal.  In other words, we continually redefine success, and doing so keeps us in a constant state of unhappiness.  I call this the trap of “moving goalposts”.

So, if we define success by our careers, the higher we rise up the corporate ladder, the higher we want to go.  We won’t be satisfied unless we become the Managing Director or the CEO.  And if we become the CEO of the organization we have been working in, we want to become the CEO of a larger, more powerful organization.  If we define success by the amount of money we make, when we think we have achieved the goal of making our first million, we want to make ten million.  If we make ten million, why stop there; we want to make a hundred million, and so on.  And there is nothing inherently wrong with that, other than the fact that as we move the goal posts further, we become unhappy if we do not achieve the next target.  Thus we remain in a constant state of unfulfilled goals which keeps us in a constant state of unhappiness.

If we define success by the impact we have on others, when we have achieved the target of helping a small community of people, we want to help a larger community.  If we are successful in doing that, we might set our sights on being political leaders, of course with the intent of helping others.  And if we fail to achieve our specific objectives and goals we set for ourselves, we become unhappy.  And again, there is nothing wrong with that other than the fact that we tend to define our happiness in terms of wanting to have an ever increasing impact on others and the ever-increasing recognition we receive from others for our good deeds.  Once again, the trap of ever changing goals keeps us in a constant state of unhappiness.

The same applies even when we define success in terms of our spiritual goals!  When we have a particularly enjoyable spiritual experience (Kriya), we get attached to it and we want it to happen over and over again.  Or if we hear that our Sadhak friend has had a specific wonderful experience and we haven’t had it, we want to experience it as well.  Again, there is nothing wrong with that other than the fact that we become unhappy if we do not have that particular experience and we write to P. P. Kaka Maharaj complaining that we haven’t had the experience our friend had.  And to make matters worse, we feel that we have not been as blessed by P. P. Kaka Maharaj as our friend has been, or we are not doing something right!  All such behavior is the antithesis of Maha Yoga!  Again, it is the constant focus on goals and the constant moving of the goal-posts which keeps us unhappy.

Having expressed all these misgivings about how we define success, and the traps that a singular focus on goal-oriented success poses for us in terms of our happiness, how then can we say that Maha Yoga is a key to success? 

In fact, Maha Yoga can not only contribute to success, no matter how it is defined, but more importantly, it is a key to happiness.  In order to support this assertion, let me first briefly describe some of the key elements of Maha Yoga in this regards. 

Unlike most other forms of Yoga, Maha Yoga does not require that the Sadhak actively and intentionally do anything, other than become aware of the Universal Life Energy, the Mother Prana Shakti within himself, and to give her the freedom to do what is needed for the Sadhak’s spiritual progress.  This is the essence of Maha Yoga Sadhan (meditation), the surrendering of the Sadhak’s intent to the Prana Shakti within.  When the Sadhak does that, the Mother Energy within him becomes the “doer” and the Sadhak assumes the role of an observer.  With diligent Maha Yoga Sadhan, the Sadhak is able to actively experience the process of cleansing that the Mother Energy puts him through.  He is able to observe the involuntary actions of his body (physical Kriyas), the involuntary flow of nervous energy through him (Pranic Kriyas), and the involuntary coming and going of thoughts through his mind (mental Kriyas).  Gradually, with diligent Sadhan, he will find his physical, Pranic and mental Kriyas diminishing and more importantly, the interval between successive thoughts (mental Kriyas) beginning to increase.  It is the interval between successive thoughts when the Sadhak begins to experience the bliss of Maha Yoga, and as that interval begins to increase he will increasingly exist in the blissful state, eventually reaching the state of Self-Realization.

So, how can a process designed to help a Sadhak reach the state of Self-Realization contribute in any way to “success” and help him overcome the traps I mentioned so he can be truly happy?  This is because although the purpose of Maha Yoga is Self-Realization, way before he reaches the self-realized state, a Sadhak will experience changes within himself, which are essentially the by-products of Maha Yoga, which will give him the tools needed to be both successful and happy.  He will experience significant improvements in three areas which are highly correlated with perceived success – improved concentration, heightened creativity and increased self-confidence.  He will also find himself delinking his actions from the fruits of those actions, in other words becoming a Karma Yogi, which is the key to avoiding the two types of traps I mentioned earlier.

While Maha Yoga Sadhan does not require a Sadhak to focus on anything (in fact Sadhaks are asked not to intentionally focus on anything at all but to simply surrender to the Mother Energy within and observe what happens), as a by-product of Maha Yoga meditation, a Sadhak’s concentration will show considerable improvement.  In addition to being able to concentrate better, during and after Sadhan, a Sadhak might find himself magically coming up with solutions to problems, personal, professional, you name it, which might have been vexing him.  He will find that the solutions he comes up with are very creative and even Sadhaks who have not considered themselves to be creative at all will find themselves developing creative solutions all of a sudden. 

While this might seem magical, it has nothing to do with magic!  It has been borne out by western science, where in trials conducted at MIT and at other major universities in the US and in Europe, the practice of meditation has been shown to improve powers of concentration as well as creativity.  This happens because Maha Yoga Sadhan helps a Sadhak’s mind to become calm.  And when his mind becomes calm he can concentrate better when he needs to because his mind does not get as easily distracted by random thoughts as before.  Also, when the mind becomes calm, a Sadhak’s intuition becomes heightened, and it is this enhanced intuition that gives him the ability to synthesize his knowledge base, without even being aware of it, and come up with intuitively creative solutions!

A Sadhak’s increased self-confidence comes from improved self-awareness.  With the diligent practice of Maha Yoga, a Sadhak understands himself better and knows fully his strengths and weaknesses.  He also begins to develop an inner sense of calm.  With this sense of inner calm and a better and more accurate understanding of himself, he begins to project true self confidence, not a superficial one that might come out of insecurities and bluster, but one that is based on a true sense of self that comes out of confidence that no matter what happens, his inner peace will remain unaffected by the ups and downs of day-to-day life. 

The change whereby a Sadhak develops the attitude of a Karma Yogi is more gradual, and comes about with diligent Maha Yoga Sadhan (meditation).  It is also the most responsible for Maha Yoga being a key to the Sadhak’s success and more importantly, his ongoing happiness.  With regular Sadhan, a Sadhak begins to experience himself more in the role of an observer rather than the doer, and when he does so he begins to get a perspective which is quite different from the one he had as a goal-oriented doer of actions.  He begins to delink action from the fruits of that action and comes to experientially realize the satisfaction of engaging in action for the joy of the action itself, rather than in anticipation of the rewards that action might bring.  The action he engages in becomes an extension of his Sadhan (meditation); he derives joy from it, he sees himself not as the doer of the action but as the vehicle through which the Prana Shakti within him – the Mother Energy – is projecting herself, and he participates in the action for the joy it brings him and not for the results derived from the action.

For those of you who are familiar with how the brain works, action that is free from the distraction of trying to anticipate outcomes, generally results in superior outcomes.  Athletes are encouraged to “be in the flow” rather than be concerned of whether their performance is a winning one or not.  Making a good cricketing stroke is more fun for a cricketer and results in more runs rather than one that is simply focused on hitting a sixer which often ends up with the batsman getting out.  So, as a Sadhak begins to take enjoyment in the process of action itself rather than in anticipation of the results of the action his performance actually improves and whether he cares about it or not, he experiences a greater degree of success.

But more importantly, the delinking of action from the fruits of that action results in a Sadhak gradually becoming less goal-oriented, thus overcoming the two types of traps I mentioned earlier.  Since the Maha Yoga Sadhak no longer links his happiness to achieving specific goals, he is free from the trap of “Newton’s Third Law” as well as the trap of “moving goalposts”.  He derives his happiness from seeing his actions as Kriyas experienced during perpetual and ongoing Sadhan (meditation).  As far as he is concerned, the results of his actions are secondary to the process of the actions themselves, and do not affect his happiness in the least.  The rest of the world will likely see him as being highly successful.  The Sadhak will not only be successful, but more importantly, happy!