Swami Venkatesananda

Word Is Word, Truth Is Truth

In our lives we have varied experiences which we then endeavor to describe. The original experience is past and what we describe is something quite different. Though it lasts only as a description, we consider it to be the reality. Thus a confusion arises. It is this confusion that haunts our lives. We cannot struggle out of this confusion; any effort can only aggravate the problem by compounding the confusion. If we become aware that the description is only a description, the truth can be seen.

Yoga is not any of its descriptions; but we may need a description to help us realize the truth of yoga. An inspiring description occurs in The Bhagavad-Gita (VI-22): "yoga is non-contact with that which is in contact with pain." 'Pain' is a word. The word is not pain nor is it painful. The first actual experience of pain was not the 'pain', for then neither the word nor its corresponding concept existed. There was an experience and the appropriate action arose out of it.

After that first experience, thought created a concept and its corresponding word. There arises memory. This memory is in contact with the concept of 'pain'. The 'me' is a bundle of countless such memories. Memory may have its own field of activity and in that field it may be valuable; but neither experience nor action should spring from memory. If the present experience of 'pain' is not linked with the memory of past experiences, it is easy for the body-intelligence to deal with this 'pain' unhampered by the dreadful load of past associations. For instance, the little baby may not experience 'pain' and 'pleasure' (as we know these). It rejects whatever may be a threat to the life-force (in that rejection there is no hate) and it receives everything else. It does not desire and there is nothing undesirable to it. Such action is spontaneous and non-volitional. The whole thing leaves no trace at all. But it is memory that distorts it.

When the present experience is not thus linked, we are in yoga. The present experience is freed from contact with that (memory) which is in contact with the concept of 'pain'. Hence there is no-one even to call that present experience 'pain'. There is experiencing, for sure; but it is freed from the notion of 'pain'. The pure experience gives rise to its own action. This is life. And it is the life freed from sorrow and suffering. One may call it bliss, but that is only a word - the truth is just truth.