Beyond Right and wrong

BEYOND RIGHT AND WRONG

Q: What does it mean to fail in Yoga? Who is a failure in Yoga (yoga bhrashta)? 

Maharaj: It is only a question of incompletion. He who could not complete his Yoga for some reason is called failed in Yoga. Such failure is only temporary, for there can be no defeat in Yoga. This battle is always won, for it is a battle between the true and the false. The false has no chance.

Q: Who fails? The person (vyakti) or the self (vyakta)? 

M: The question is wrongly put. There is no question of failure, neither in the short run nor in the long. 

It is like traveling a long and arduous road in an unknown country. Of all the innumerable steps there is only the last which brings you to your destination. Yet you will not consider all previous steps as failures. Each brought you nearer to your goal, even when you had to turn back to by-pass an obstacle. In reality, each step brings you to your goal, because to be always on the move, learning, discovering, unfolding, is your eternal destiny. 

Living is life's only purpose. The Self does not identify itself with success or failure -- the very idea of becoming this or that is unthinkable. The Self understands that success and failure are relative and related, that they are the very warp and weft of life. Learn from both and go beyond. If you have not learned, repeat. 

- Nisargadatta Maharaj, I AM THAT ch 29, P. 93