Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

When was the last time you lived blissfully for an entire day? When did you last have a day in which you did not feel anxiety, agitation, irritation, or stress? Most people have never had a day like this in their entire lives.

Look at your life from this perspective—whatever you want in life is pleasantness. You may desire money, heaven, or any number of things, but at the end of the day what you really want is pleasantness.

Working with his team, an Israeli organic chemist, Raphael Mechoulam, discovered that we feel bliss due to a chemical substance produced by our body. In fact, many feelings we experience are caused by chemical substances produced by our body. What does that mean? If we want to feel bliss, we have to start from within. Bliss is happening inside our bodies, not outside. The way out of misery starts from within.

Inner Engineering is a technology that will help you achieve bliss by paying more attention to your inner mechanism.

“Unless you do the right things, the right things will not happen to you.”

The word “destiny” is an overused word, especially in uncomfortable situations. If something bad or wrong is happening to us or to the world, we label it “destiny.”

There are people that are hungry, there are people dying in wars, this is not God's will. It’s not their destiny. Everything happens naturally according to certain organic law. If you understand those laws, you can take charge of the things that happen.

We make most decisions unconsciously. Most of our life happens to us unconsciously. To have one hundred percent of your life in your hands, you have to master your physical body, your mind, and your life energies.

“Responsibility simply means your ability to respond.”

Do you take responsibility for everything that happens in your life? You are the maker of your life, and what you do with it is fully your responsibility. Responsibility does not always mean that you have to take action. Responsibility means your ability to respond. So, whatever happens, you always have choices. Are you able to make a decision? Are you able to respond?

“The science of yoga is, quite simply, the science of being in perfect alignment, in absolute harmony, in complete sync with existence.”

Yoga means union. Yoga is about uniting you and me. There is no you and me. There is either me or you.

We are composed of “sheaths.” We can call them layers or bodies. We are aware of three of them: the physical body, the mental body, and the energy body. Each body cannot exist without the others. They are all connected, and together they create you.

The body and the mind are strictly connected. Scientists have proved that what you think affects your body and vice versa. Every function in your mind has a chemical reaction, and every chemical reaction in your body affects your mind.

The two bodies need energy to operate. They are like hardware and software—they cannot run without energy.

There are two more sheaths that are beyond the physical. One is gold Gnana, which means knowledge. And the fifth one is Ananda, which means bliss. They are not reachable by you at this stage, so they will not be described further in this book.

Future chapters will help you to gain alignment with these three physical layers: the body, the mind, and energy.

Your body is the most advanced machinery on this planet. And it operates perfectly and autonomously.

Your body has senses, and you observe the world using them and only them. These five senses are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. If you lose all five senses, you can not have contact with the world. When you use these senses you get your perception of reality. Your interpretation of it.

There is a dimension beyond your five senses, and you can call it “self” or “divine.” Yoga is fundamentally aimed to enhance it.

When you arrive at a moment where there is clear space between you and your mind, you have found the essence of yoga. You are not your mind. What you think is mostly determined by your mind, not by you. And once you find this space between you and your mind, you can take control of your thoughts. Otherwise, your thoughts will control you.

If you understand the mechanics of your body, you are naturally joyful. In such a state, you don’t have to follow any moral rules defined by religion. Morality is just rules defined by other people to make order in the world. However, as a result, people feel guilty, fearful, and anxious. All these rules create limitation. However, what we need is liberation, not limitation.

The mind can be in five different states. The lowest state is inert, which means not active. This mind is more similar to an animal’s nature than a human one.

If you energize it, it becomes active but scattered. This happens when people begin to undertake a spiritual practice. Everything feels very new to them.

If you energize it further, it starts oscillating. This means that your mind moves from one place to another. Every moment it moves to 10 different places.

If you energize it further, it slowly becomes concentrated, or, as it’s called in yoga, “one-pointed.” This is a far better state than the previous state, but it is not yet the highest state.

The highest state is conscious. The reason that success comes easily and naturally to some people and not to others is essentially this: one person has organized their mind to think the way they want, and the others think against their own interests.

Once your mind is organized, your emotions and body are also organized. They all work together toward your goals.

Belief is like morality: “People who believe something often think they are superior to others. All that happens the moment you believe something is that your stupidity acquires confidence.”

What you call “myself” is actually a certain amount of energy. Einstein proved this with his formula, E=mc2. This formula showed that everything can be manifested as energy.

As we said before, your mind and your body are not you. The moment you experience the mental and physical process distinctly and not as a basis of yourself, then your experience of life is one hundred percent of your making. All you need to do is create distance between yourself and everything you accumulate from the outside world.

Let’s talk about karma. Karma literally means “action.” The action can be of the body, mind, or energy. Each action leaves a residue, and they accumulate over time creating patterns. This is how your habits, your knowledge, and your way of thinking formed.

Karma is like an old software that you wrote for yourself unconsciously. Each action you perform adds something to this software. Your system operates using this software. Because of it, life is cyclical.

There is no good or bad karma. Karma is your own creation. It’s a necessity, and without it, we would not be able to operate.

You can gain distance from the source of your karma. This will help you avoid being a victim of your karma. You will move from being a spectator of your life to the master.

“There is a way out. And the way out is in. It is only by turning inward that we can truly create a world of love, light, and laughter.”

We live in times where humans have learned how to solve the biggest problems of humanity. We have many great technologies, organizations, and other items that make our lives much better. However, many people have depression and anxiety. Many people that are free are not happy. Many people that are rich are not happy.

What’s missing is human consciousness. Your joy, your misery, your agony, your bliss, all of this is in your hands.