43. Austerities destroy impurities, and with the ensuing perfection
in the body and sense organs, physical and mental powers awaken.
44. Union with the divine happens through self study.
45. Total illumination can be accomplished by surrendering to god.
Man is like an iceberg: only a part, a minor part, is visible on the surface; the major part of the whole is hidden beneath. Or, man is like a tree: the real life is in the roots, hidden underground; only branches are visible. If you cut the branches, new branches will come up because branches are not the source; but if you cut the roots the tree is destroyed. Only a part of man is visible on the surface; the major part is hidden behind. And if you think that the visible man is all, then you commit a great mistake. Then you miss the whole mystery of man; and then you miss the doors within yourself which can lead you towards the divine.
If you think that by knowing the name of a person, by knowing from which family he comes, by knowing his profession, that he is a doctor or an engineer or a professor, or by knowing his face, his picture, you have known him; you are in great illusion. These are just the appearances on the surface. The real man is far, far away from all these. This way you may be acquainted, but you never know the man. It is enough as far as society is concerned; more is not needed. This skin-deep knowledge is enough for the marketplace, but if you really want to know the man then you have to go deep. And the only way to go deep is to go within yourself first.
Unless you know the unknown within you, you will never be able to know anybody else. The only way to know the mystery that man is, is to know the mystery that you are. There are hidden layers behind hidden layers. Man is infinity.
If you go on diving deep in man you will reach to God. Man is just the surface of the ocean, waves. If you dive deep you reach to the very center of existence. Those who have known God – they have not known him as an object. They have known him as their innermost subjectivity. Those who have known God have not encountered him. They have not seen him as an object; they have seen him as the very seer, as their own consciousness. You cannot encounter God anywhere except within yourself. He is your depth; you are his surface. You are his periphery; he is your center.
And the deeper you move within yourself, the deeper you are moving in the whole existence, in others also, because the center is one. Peripheries are millions, but the center is one. The whole existence is centered on one point – that one point is God. God: that is the deepest depth of being.
It is a great journey, a great pilgrimage to know man. Patanjali’s sutras give you clues how to enter.