Each single word has to be understood, because Patanjali will not use a single superfluous word.

Now the discipline of Yoga……. First try to under-stand the word ‘now’ is an indication to the state of mind I was just talking to you about.

If you are disillusioned, if you are hopeless, if you have completely become aware of the futility of all desires, if you see your life as meaningless-whatsoever you have been doing up to now has simply fallen dead, nothing remains in the future, you are in absolute despair, what kierkegaard calls anguish, you are in anguish, suffering, not knowing what to do, not knowing where to go, not knowing to whom to turn, just on the verge of madness or suicide or death, your whole pattern of life has suddenly become futile-if this moment has come, Patanjali says, “Now the discipline of yoga.” Only now can you understand the science of yoga, the discipline of yoga.

If that moment has not come you can go on studying yoga: you can become a great scholar but you will not be a yogi. You can write theses on it, you can give discourses on it, but you will not be a yogi. The moment has not come for you. Intellectually you can become interested, through your mind you can be related to yoga, but Yoga is nothing if it is not a discipline. Yoga is not a shastra; it is not a scripture. It is a discipline it is something you have to do. It is not curiosity, it is not philosophical speculation. It is deeper than that- it is a question of life and death.

What is discipline? Discipline means what creates an order within you. As you are, you are a chaos, As you are, you are totally disorderly. Gurdjieff used to say- and Gurdjieff is in many ways like Patanjali. He was again trying to make the core of religion a science –Gurdjieff said that you are not one, you are a crowd; not even when you say “I” is there any1. There are many One’s in you. Many egos. In the morning One 1, in the afternoon another 1, in the evening a third 1. but you never become aware of this mess-because who wi