Are yoga and devotion both necessary for pratyahara?

Osho, in the meditation experiments you lead, there is a synthesis of yoga and devotion. So, are both necessary for pratyahara?

Life can be of two kinds: one life is built only on what is necessary; and one life is built on excess, on overflow. Watch the peacock dancing. Are those feathers, spread with the colors of the rainbow, necessary? If you cut off the feathers, would the peacock face any difficulty or hindrance in life? He would still live. Feathers are connected neither with the stream of life, nor with food, nor will they obstruct procreation. The feathers are surplus; they are a sign of more-than-needed, not of need. These birds are singing—stitch their beaks shut; will anything be lost? What difference would it make? The birds would still live. The songs would cease, because songs were never necessary—they were a flood, an exuberance. You dance—don’t dance; run your shop, come home. You sing—don’t sing. Will there be any obstacle? You love—don’t love; doing business is enough. If you don’t…

Osho, just as the sage Shandilya calls knowledge (jnana) and yoga the helpers of devotion (bhakti), do the exponents of knowledge and yoga likewise regard devotion as their helper, or not?

The devotee’s vision is more generous than the vision of the knower and the yogi. Because the source of devotion is the heart. The heart is vast; it can include even what is opposed to it. The heart does not worry about coherence; the heart cares about music. Jnana and yoga are not the ways of the heart; they are the ways of the intellect. The intellect is very narrow. The intellect chooses. Then the intellect worries about coherence, not about music—there must be logical consistency. So in Mahavira’s utterances there can be no room for devotion. His is the path of pure thought: samyak jnana, right knowledge. There only what exactly suits knowledge will be accepted. Knowledge selects, sifts; it is orderly; it has a blueprint. The devotee is not so narrow. He does not get flustered by a little inconsistency. The logician, the philosopher, is consistent—but the poet…

Beloved Osho, your meditation techniques include yoga and bhakti. Are both of these necessary for pratyahar?

Look at existence. The divine does not agree with having only what is absolutely necessary. He does not stop at the necessary, he goes on flowing into the unnecessary. Birds are singing, it is not necessary; trees are flowering, it is not necessary; fragrance is flowing from the flowers, it is not necessary. Rivers are flowing rapidly towards the sea, and the sea goes on roaring and its waves go on dashing against the shore. It is not necessary. Just think over what is necessary. If God had been an economist then he would have made only the necessary things in this world. Then this world would not have been fit for living; it would have been good for committing suicide only. There would have been no pleasure in living in a world which had only necessary things. You will attain by knowledge, you will attain by bhakti, but it…

Beloved Osho, shankaracharya teaches metaphysics and at the same time he sings the songs of govinda. Is there any interrelation between knowledge and bhakti, devotion?

You can fly in this sky if you make them both your wings. No bird can fly with one wing, no man can walk with one foot, nor can a boat be rowed with one oar; both the oars are needed. There is no contradiction, and those who have told you that there is a contradiction are wrong. They made this error because they did not know this great harmony. They were either mind-dominated people who possessed only dry thoughts and logic and never experienced the dance of the heart, or they were heart-dominated people who could dance but did not have any understanding. It will be a fortunate moment when you can dance with understanding. That moment will be fortunate when you can love with understanding. And never refuse anything which existence has given you, because if you do so you will become disabled to that degree. You are…

But mark a condition: there must be two, and yet between the two the one must be experienced—that is meeting. Union is a wondrous event: there are two, yet they are not two. They appear two, yet duality has melted. Two shores seem to be, yet between them flows only a single current. Two banks stand, but the river running between is one. When the one is felt between two—yoga. Thus Krishna calls devotion the highest yoga. What fun is there if there is only one? Then meeting has no meaning. And if there are two and they remain two, there is no way to meet. Two must be, and the sense of oneness arise; two-ness remain on the surface, oneness become the inner experience. When the one is felt between two, Krishna calls that yoga. That is union; that is the ultimate samadhi.