Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #1

Chapter title: Be a witness not a judge

25 March 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7303255

ShortTitle: VBT201

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 91 mins

AT THE START OF SNEEZING, DURING FRIGHT, IN ANXIETY, ABOVE A CHASM, FLYING IN BATTLE, IN EXTREME CURIOSITY, AT THE BEGINNING OF HUNGER, AT THE END OF HUNGER, BE UNINTERRUPTEDLY AWARE.

THE PURITY OF OTHER TEACHINGS IS AN IMPURITY TO US. IN REALITY, KNOW NOTHING AS PURE OR IMPURE.

Life is a paradox. To reach near you have to travel far, and that which is already achieved you have to achieve again. Nothing is lost. Man remains natural, man remains pure, man remains innocent; it is only that he forgets it. The purity is not disturbed, the innocence is not destroyed. Only a deep forgetfulness is there.

That which is to be achieved you are already. In essence, nothing new is to be achieved. You have only to discover, uncover, unfold that which is already the case; hence, both the difficulty of spiritual endeavor and the simplicity. I say "both".... It is very simple if you can understand, but it is very difficult because you have to understand that which you have completely forgotten, that which is so obvious that you never become aware of it, that which is just like your breathing. It goes on continuously, uninterruptedly, but because it goes on continuously, uninterruptedly, you need not be aware of it. Your awareness is not needed; it is not a basic requirement. You can forget it or you can remember it: it is a choice.

SANSARA and NIRVANA, the world and the liberated state of consciousness, are not two things -- just two attitudes, just two choices. You can choose either. You can be in the world because of a certain attitude, and the same world becomes NIRVANA, the same world becomes absolute bliss, just by changing the attitude. You remain the same, everything remains the same; just a change of focus, a change of emphasis, a change of choice, is required. It is easy. Once absolute bliss is achieved, you will laugh about it. Once it is known, you will not be able to understand why you were missing it, how you could miss it. It was there always just waiting to be looked at, and it was yours.

A buddha laughs. Anyone who achieves it laughs because the whole thing seems to be ridiculous. You were searching for something which was never lost. The whole effort was absurd. But this happens only when you have achieved it, so those who have achieved it say it is very simple. But those who have not achieved it, they say it is the most arduous thing, the most difficult -- really, not simply difficult, but the most impossible thing.

These methods which we will be discussing are told by someone who has achieved -- remember this. They will look too simple, and they are. To our minds things so simple cannot be appealing -- because if techniques are so simple and the abode is so near, if you are already in it, if techniques are so simple and the home is so near, you will look ridiculous to yourself. Then why are you missing it? Rather than feel the ridiculousness of your own ego, you will think that such simple methods cannot help.

That is a deception. Your mind will tell you that these simple methods cannot be of any help -- that they are so simple, they cannot achieve anything. To achieve divine existence, to achieve the absolute and the ultimate, how can such simple methods be used? How can they be of any help? Your ego will say that they cannot be of any help.

Remember another thing: ego is always interested in something which is difficult, because when something is difficult there is a challenge, and if you can overcome the difficulty your ego will feel fulfilled. The ego is never attracted towards anything which is simple -- never! If you want to give your ego a challenge, then you have to have something difficult devised. If something is simple there is no appeal, because even if you can conquer it there will be no fulfillment of the ego. In the first place, there was nothing to be conquered, the thing was so simple. Ego asks for difficulties -- some hurdles to be crossed, some peaks to be conquered. And the more difficult the peak, the more at ease your ego will feel.

Because these techniques are so simple, they will not have any appeal to your mind. Remember, that which appeals to the ego cannot help your spiritual growth. Only that which has no appeal to your ego can be a help towards transformation. But this is what happens: if some teacher says that this or that is very difficult, very arduous, that only after lives and lives and lives will you have any possibility for any glimpse, your ego will feel good.

These techniques are so simple that right now, here and now, the thing is possible. But then there is no contact with your ego. If I say that right now, here, this very moment you can achieve all that is possible to man, that you can become a Buddha or a Christ or a Krishna in this very moment here and now without losing a single instant, then there will be no contact with your ego. You will say, "This is not possible. I must go somewhere else to search for it." And these techniques are so simple that you can achieve all that is possible to human consciousness at any moment that you decide to achieve it.

When I say that these techniques are simple, I mean many things. First, spiritual explosion is not caused by anything; it is not a causal phenomenon. If it were caused by something, then time would be needed, because time is necessary for the cause to take place. And if time is needed, then it cannot be the case, it cannot happen this very moment. Then you will have to wait for tomorrow or for another life. The next moment will be needed. If anything is causal, then the cause has to take place, and then after the cause the effect will follow,.and you cannot produce the effect right now without the cause; time will be needed. But a spiritual happening is not a causal phenomenon. You are already in that state; just a remembering is needed. It is not a causal phenomenon.

It is just like this: in the morning somebody has suddenly awakened you, and you cannot recognize where you are. For a moment you may not even recognize who you are. In a sudden awakening from deep sleep, you may not be able to recognize the place, the time, but within a moment you will recognize. The more alert you will become, the more you will recognize who you are, where you are and what has happened. This is not a causal thing -- just a question of alertness. With a growing alertness, you will recognize.

All these techniques are for a growing alertness. You are already the person you long to be, you are already where you want to reach. You have reached your home already. You have never left it really. You have always been there, but dreaming, asleep. You can fall asleep here and then you can dream, and in your dream you can move anywhere; you can go to hell or to heaven or anywhere.

Have you ever observed that whenever you are in your dream, one thing is certain? -- that you are never in the room in which you are asleep. Have you observed that fact? You can be anywhere, but you will never be in the same room, on the same cot where you are. Because you are already there, there is no need to dream about it. Dream means you have to trek away.

You may be sleeping in this room, but you will never dream of this room. There is no need, you are already there. The mind desires something which is not, so the mind moves. It may go to London, to New York, to Calcutta, to the Himalayas, to Tibet, to anywhere. It may go anywhere, but it will never be here. It can be anywhere, but never here -- and you are here. This is the case. You are dreaming. Your divine existence is here; you are THAT. But you have been trekking long.... And each dream creates a new sequence of dreaming. Each dream creates new dreams, and you go on dreaming and dreaming and dreaming.

All these techniques are just to make you alert so that you can come out of your dreams back to the place where you have always been, to the state which you have never missed. And you cannot miss it, it is your nature -- it is SWABHAV. It is your very being, so how can you miss it? These techniques are just to help your alertness to grow more, to help it become more intense. With the intensity of awareness, everything changes. The more intense the awareness, the less the possibility for dreaming; you become more and more alert about the real. The less intense the awareness, the more you drift into dreaming. So the whole phenomenon is that a non-alert state of mind is the world, and an alert state of mind is NIRVANA. Non-alert, you are what you appear to be. Alert, you are what you are.

So the whole question is one of how to change your non-alert state of mind into an alert state of mind, how to become more aware, how to get out of sleep and dreaming. That is why techniques can be of help. Even an alarm clock can be of help -- just an artificial device, just an alarm clock. But if the alarm goes on, it can help to bring you out of your dreaming. But you can deceive it also; you can even dream about it, and then the whole thing is falsified. When the alarm goes, you can dream, you can make a dream around the alarm also. You can dream that you have entered a temple and the bells are going on. Now you have deceived the alarm. It could have broken your sleep, but you can change it into dream itself; you can make it part of your dreaming.

If you can make it part of your dreaming, if it can be absorbed into a dreaming process, then it cannot help you. You can dream anything, and then it will not look like an alarm. It will have become something else. You have entered a temple and the bells are....; now there is no need to wake up. You have changed the alarm, the real thing, into a dream, and a dream cannot be disturbed by another dream, it can only be helped.

These techniques are all artificial in a way. They are just devices to help bring you out of your dreaming state, but you can make them also part of your dream. Then you miss the point. Then you MISS the point! Try to understand this because this is very basic. And once understood, it will be helpful; otherwise you can go on deceiving yourself.

For example, I say, "Take a jump into sannyas." That is just a device. Your old identity is broken; your old name becomes as if it belongs to someone else. You can look at your past more detachedly. You can be a witness. You are aloof, a distance is created. I give you a new name and a new robe just to create the distance. But you can make it part of your dreaming; then you will miss the whole point. You can still think in terms of the old -- that the old man, A, has taken sannyas. You feel, "I have taken sannyas. " "I" remain the old. "I" have changed my robe, my name, but "I" remain the old,.and the old continues. Now this sannyas is just something added to the old. It is not discontinuous, it is continuous. If it is continuous, if YOU have taken sannyas, you the old one, if YOU have changed your robe and name, you have missed the point.

You must be dead, you must not be the old now. You must feel that the old has died, that this is a new entity which you never knew, that this is not a growth out of the old. This is discontinuous with the old. Then the device will have helped. Then the alarm will have worked and the technique is useful. You are not missing the point. All these techniques are such that you can miss or you can use them; it depends. But remember well, the techniques are just techniques. If you understand the spirit, you may become alert even without any technique.

For example, the alarm clock may not be needed. Go deeply into it. Why do you need an alarm clock? If you want to get up early in the morning at three, why do you need an alarm clock? Deep down you know that you can deceive yourself, and deep down you know that if you really want to get up at three, you will get up at three and no clock is needed. But with the clock, the responsibility is put off. Now you will not be responsible. Now if something goes wrong, the clock is responsible. You can sleep with ease now. Now the clock is there; you can sleep without any disturbance.

But if you really want to get up early at three, you will get up early at three. No clock is needed. This very intensity to get up will bring the happening. This will to get up at three may be so intense, you may not be able to sleep at all, and there will be no need to get up; you will already be awake the whole night. But to sleep well the clock is needed. Then you can go to sleep. But you can deceive. When the alarm goes off, you can deceive; you can dream about it.

These techniques are helpful only because your intensity is low. If you are really intense, there is no need of any technique; you can be alert. But your intensity is not such. Even with the technique you may start dreaming, and many possibilities are there. The first possibility is that you will not believe that such simple techniques can be of any help. This is the first thing. Then there is no contact. Secondly, you may think that a very, very long process is needed, that it will come gradually. But there are certain things that only happen suddenly, they never come gradually.

I am reminded that Mulla Nasruddin was asked to give his blessings to one of his neighbor's sons on his birthday. So he said, "Son, I hope you live One hundred and twenty years plus three months." Everyone was wondering at this "plus three months."

The son asked, "But why? It is okay -- one hundred and twenty years. Why plus three months?"

So Mulla Nasrudin said, "I would not like you to die so suddenly. Just one hundred and twenty years, and suddenly you die? I would not like you to die so suddenly; that is why plus three months."

But even with "plus three months" you will die suddenly anyway. Whenever you are going to die, you will die suddenly. Every death is a sudden death. No death is gradual because either you are alive or dead. There is no gradual process. One moment you are alive and the next moment you are dead. There is no time process.

Death is sudden; SAMADHI is also sudden. Spiritual explosion is also sudden. It is like death. It is more like death than it is like life; it is sudden. It can happen at any moment. If you are ready, these techniques can be of help. They will not bring it gradually; really, they will gradually bring you to be ready for the sudden happening. Remember this distinction: they are preparing you so that the sudden SAMADHI happens.

These techniques are not techniques for SAMADHI; they are techniques to prepare you, and then SAMADHI happens. So how you use these techniques depends on you. So don't think that a very long process is needed, because that may be just a trick. The mind says a very long process is needed so that you can postpone. You can say, "Tomorrow I will do it or the day after tomorrow," and you can go on postponing forever. A postponing mind goes on always postponing. It is not a question of whether you are going to do it tomorrow; there is only a question because you are not going to do it today, that is all. Tomorrow will again be a today, and the same mind will say, "Okay, I am going to do it tomorrow."

And, remember, you never postpone for years. You postpone for one day because if you postpone for years you cannot deceive yourself. You say, "It is only a question of one day. Just today I am not doing it; tomorrow I will do it." And the gap is so small that you never feel you are postponing it forever.

Tomorrow never comes, it is always today. And this mind which thinks in terms of tomorrow will ALWAYS think in terms of tomorrow. And it never comes, it has never been, it will never be. All that you have is this very moment, so don't go on postponing. Now we will enter the techniques.

The first technique:

"AT THE START OF SNEEZING, DURING FRIGHT, IN ANXIETY, ABOVE A CHASM, FLYING IN BATTLE, IN EXTREME CURIOSITY, AT THE BEGINNING OF HUNGER, AT THE END OF HUNGER, BE UNINTERRUPTEDLY AWARE."

It looks so simple: at the start of sneezing, during fright, in anxiety or before hunger or after hunger, "BE UNINTERRUPTEDLY AWARE." Many things have to be understood. Very simple acts like sneezing can be used as devices, because howsoever simple they look, they are very complex, and the inner mechanism is a very delicate thing. Whenever you feel that a sneeze is coming become alert, and the sneeze may not come at all. It may simply disappear, because a sneeze is a non-voluntary thing -- unconscious, non-voluntary.

You cannot sneeze voluntarily; you cannot "will" it. How can you? How helpless man is! You cannot "will" a single sneeze. Howsoever you may try, you cannot bring it out. A single sneeze -- such a small thing, but you cannot will it. It is non-voluntary; volition is not needed. It does not happen because of your mind; it is because of your total organism, your total body.

And the second thing: when you become alert, when the sneeze is coming -- you cannot bring it, but when it is coming -- if you become alert, it may not come, because you are bringing something new to the process: the alertness. It may disappear, but when the sneeze disappears and you are alert, there is a third thing. First, a sneeze is non-voluntary. You bring in a new thing -- alertness. When the alertness comes, the sneeze may not come. If really you are alert, it will not; it may not happen at all. Then a third thing happens. The energy that was going to be released through a sneeze, where does it move? It moves to your alertness. Suddenly there is a flash, a lightning. You become more alert. The energy, that was going to be thrown by the sneeze moves into alertness. Suddenly you become more alert.

In that flash, in that lightning, even enlightenment is possible. That is why I say that these matters are so simple, they look absurd. Their promise seems to be too much. Just through sneezing, how can one become enlightened? But sneezing is not just sneezing; you are totally involved in it. Whatsoever you do or whatsoever happens to you is a total involvement. Observe again: whenever a sneeze happens, you are totally in it with the whole body, the whole mind. It is not just your nose in which the sneeze is happening; every fiber, every cell of your body is involved in it. A subtle trembling, a subtle wavering goes all over the body, and with it the whole body becomes concentrated. And when the sneeze has happened, the whole body relaxes. But it is difficult to bring alertness to it. If you bring alertness to it, it will not happen, and if it happens you can know that the alertness was not there. That is why you should be alert.

"AT THE START OF SNEEZING...", because if it has started, nothing can be done. The arrow has gone; you cannot change it now. The mechanism has started. The energy is on its way to being released, it cannot be stopped. Can you stop a sneeze in the middle? How can you stop it in the middle? By the time you are ready, it has already happened. You cannot stop it in the middle.

Just at the beginning, become alert. The moment you feel the sensation that it is coming, become alert. Close your eyes and be meditative. Bring your total consciousness to the focus just where you are feeling the sensation of an oncoming sneeze. Just at the beginning, remain alert. The sneeze will disappear, and the energy will be transformed into more alertness. And because in the sneeze the whole body is involved, the whole mechanism is involved -- it is a release mechanism and you are alert at this moment -- there will be no mind, there will be no thought, no meditation.

In a sneeze, thinking stops. That is why so many people like snuff. It unburdens them, their minds feel more relaxed because for a moment thinking stops. Snuff gives them a glimpse of no-thinking. Through snuff, when the sneeze comes, they are not minds, they become bodies. The head disappears for a single moment, but it feels good.

If you become habituated to snuff, it is very difficult to leave it. It is more penetrating a habit than smoking; smoking is nothing before it. It penetrates more deeply, because smoking is conscious and sneezing is unconscious. To leave snuff is more difficult than to leave smoking. And smoking can be changed, substitutes can be found -- but there is no substitute for snuff, because, really, sneezing is a very unique phenomenon in the body.

The only other thing that can be compared and which has been compared is the sex act. Those who think in terms of physiology, they say that the sex act is just sneezing through the sex organ -- and the similarity is there. It is not one hundred percent right because much more is involved in sex, greater things are involved in it. But in the beginning, just in the beginning, the similarity is there.

Something is thrown out from the nose and you feel relieved, and something is thrown out from the sex organ and you feel relieved. And both are non-voluntary. You cannot move into sex with will. If you try, you will be a failure -- particularly men, because man's sex organ has to do something. It is active. You cannot "will" its act, and if you try, then the more you try, the more it will be impossible. It can happen, but you cannot make it happen. Because of this, in the West sex has become a problem. This half century in the West sex knowledge has developed, and everyone has become so conscious about it that the sex act is becoming more and more impossible.

If you are alert, sex will be impossible. If a man is alert while making love, the more he is alert, the more it will be difficult. He will not be able to get an erection. It cannot be willed, and if you will it you will lose it. The same method, the same technique, can be used in sex. Just in the beginning, when you feel the sensation of an erection just coming to you but it has not yet come, you just feel the vibration, become alert. The vibration will be lost, and the same energy will move into alertness.

Tantra has used this. It has tried in many ways. A beautiful naked woman will be there just as an object for meditation, and the seeker, the meditator, will sit before the nude woman meditating on her body, her form, her proportions, just waiting for the first sensation in his sex center. The moment the sensation is there, be will close his eyes. He will forget the woman. He will close his eyes, and he will become alert of the sensation. Then sex energy is being transformed into alertness.

He is allowed to meditate on the nude woman only up to the point when the sensation is felt. When he has to close his eyes and move to his own sensation and become alert there, the same as is done in sneezing. And why does this flash happen? Because mind is not there. The basic thing is that if the mind is not there and you are alert, you will have SATORI, you will have the first glimpse of SAMADHI.

Thought is the barrier. So if thought disappears in any way, the thing will happen. But thought must disappear; only then is alertness there. Thought can disappear even in sleep; thought can disappear when you go unconscious; thought can disappear when you take some drug. Thought disappears, but then there is no alertness to be aware of the phenomenon that is hidden behind thought. So I define meditation as thoughtless consciousness. You can become thoughtless and unconscious; then there is no meaning. You can be conscious with thought; you are already that.

Bring these two things together -- consciousness and thoughtlessness. When they meet, meditation happens, meditation is born. And you can try with very small things because nothing is really small. Even a sneeze is a cosmic phenomenon. In existence, nothing is great and nothing is small. Even a minute atom can destroy the whole world, and even a sneeze, a very atomic phenomenon, can transform you.

So don't see things as small or big. There is nothing small and nothing big. If you have the penetrating eye, then very small things are vital. Between atoms universes are hidden, and between the universe and an atom you cannot say which is great and which is small. Even a single atom is a universe in itself, and the greatest universe is nothing but atoms. So don't think in terms of great and small. Just try. Don't say, "What can happen in a sneeze? I have been sneezing the whole life, and nothing has happened."

Bring in this technique: JUST "AT THE START OF SNEEZING, DURING FRIGHT...", when you feel afraid and fear enters, just when you feel the fear enter, become aware and fear will disappear. With alertness, there can be no fear. How can, you be afraid when you are alert? You can be afraid only when you lose alertness. Really, a coward is not a person who is afraid; a coward is a person who is asleep, and a brave man is a person who can bring his alertness to the moments of fear. So fear disappears.

In Japan, they train their warriors for alertness. The basic training is for alertness, and everything else is secondary: swordsmanship, archery, everything is secondary. It is known, it is said about the great Zen master Rinzai that he never succeeded -- never succeeded in his archery -- to get to the right point, to the right aim. His arrow always missed; it never reached to the right point. And he is known as one of the greatest archers, so it is asked, "How is Rinzai known as the greatest archer when he never succeeded in any aim and the point was always missed? His arrow never reached to the right point, so how is he known as one of the greatest archers?"

The followers of Rinzai say, "It is not the end, it is the beginning. We are not concerned with the arrow reaching to the end, we are concerned with when the arrow starts its journey. We are concerned with Rinzai. When the arrow leaves the bow, he is alert; that is all. It is not the result, that is irrelevant."

One man was a disciple to Rinzai. He was a great archer himself, he never missed his aim, and then he came to Rinzai to learn, so someone said, "To whom are you going to learn? He is not a master; he is not even a disciple. He is a failure, and you are a great master and you are going to Rinzai to learn?"

So that archer said, "Yes, because I have succeeded technically. But as far as my consciousness is concerned, I am a failure. He is technically a failure, but as far as his consciousness is concerned he is the archer and the master -- because when the arrow leaves he is alert, and that is the point."

This archer who was a master technically had to learn, for years under Rinzai, and every day he was one hundred percent accurate in his aiming. Rinzai would say, "No, you are a failure. Technically the arrow leaves rightly. But you are not there, you are not alert. You loose it in your sleep."

In Japan they have been training their warriors to be alert first, and everything else is secondary. A warrior is a brave man if he can be alert. And it was felt in the Second World War that you cannot match Japan's warriors; their bravery is incomparable. From where does it come? Physically they are not so strong, but in consciousness, in alertness, fear cannot enter. They are not afraid, and whenever fear comes they will try Zen methods.

This sutra says, "DURING FRIGHT, IN ANXIETY..." When you feel anxious, much anxiety-ridden, try it. What is one to do? What do you ordinarily do when anxiety is there? What do you do? You try to solve it. You try alternatives, and you get more and more into it. You will create a bigger mess because anxiety cannot be solved through thinking. It cannot be dissolved through thinking because thinking itself is a sort of anxiety. So you help it to grow more. Through thinking, you cannot come out of it; you will go deeper into it. This technique says don't do anything with anxiety. Just be alert. Just be alert!

I will tell you one old anecdote about Bokuju, another Zen master. He lived alone in a cave, all alone, but during the day, or even in the night, he would sometimes say loudly, "Bokuju" -- his own name, and then he would say, "Yes, I am here." And no one else was there.

Then his disciples used to ask him, "Why are you calling `Bokuju', your own name, and then saying, `Yes sir, I am here'?"

He said, "Whenever I get into thinking, I have to remember to be alert, and so I call my own name, `Bokuju.' The moment I call `Bokuju' and I say, `Yes sir, I am here,' the thinking, the anxiety disappears."

Then, in his last days, for two or three years, he never called "Bokuju," his name, and never had to reply, "Yes sir, I am here."

The disciples asked, "Master, now you never do this."

So he said, "But now Bokuju is always there. He is ALWAYS there, and there is no need. Before I used to miss him. Sometimes the anxiety would take me, cloud me all over, and Bokuju was not there. So I had to remember `Bokuju,' and the anxiety would disappear." Try your name. When you feel deep anxiety, just call Try this. This is a beautiful thing. Try your name. When you feel deep anxiety, just call your name -- "Bokuju" or any name, but your name -- and then reply to it, "Yes sir, I am here," and feel the difference. Anxiety will not be there. At least for a single moment you will have a glimpse beyond the clouds, and that glimpse can be deepened. Once you know that if you become alert anxiety is not there, it disappears; you have come to a deep knowing of your own self and the mechanism of inner working.

"... Above a chasm, flying in battle, in extreme curiosity, at the beginning of hunger, at the end of hunger, be uninterruptedly aware."

You can use anything. Hunger is there, become alert. What to do when you feel hunger is there? What has happened? When you feel hunger you never see it as something happening to you. You become the hunger. You feel, "I am hungry." The real feeling is that "I am hunger," but you are NOT hunger; you are only conscious of it. It is something happening on the boundary. You are the center, you have become aware of it. It is an object. You remain the subject, you are a witness. You are not hunger; hunger is happening to you. You were there when hunger was not and you will be there when hunger will have gone. So hunger is an accident; it happens to you.

Become alert, then you will not be identified with it. If you feel hunger, become alert that hunger is there. Look at it, encounter it, face it. What will happen? The more you become alert, the farther away will the hunger be felt; the less alert, the nearer. If you are not alert, exactly at the center you will feel, "I am hunger." If you become alert, hunger is thrown away. Hunger is there, you are here. Hunger is an object, you are a witness.

Fasting has been used only because of this, for this technique. Fasting in itself is of no use. If you are not doing this technique with the hunger, fasting is foolish -- just foolish, of no use. Mahavira used fasting with this technique, and Jainas have been simply using fasting without this technique. Then it is foolish. You are just destructive, and it cannot be of any help. You can be hungry for months and identified with hunger, feeling that "I am hungry." It is useless, harmful. There is no need to go on a fast. Every day you can feel it, but there are problems. That is why fasting may be helpful.

Ordinarily, we stuff ourselves with food before we feel hunger. In the modern world there is no need to feel hunger. You have a time fixed for your meals, and you take them. You never ask whether the body is feeling hungry or not; at a fixed hour you take your meals. Hunger is not felt. You may say, "No, when it is one o'clock I feel hungry." That may be a false hunger; you feel it because it is one o'clock, your time. Someday you can play a trick. Tell your wife or your husband to change the clock. It is twelve, and the clock will show that it is one. You will feel hunger. Or it is already one hour fast: it is two exactly, and the clock shows one; then you will feel hunger. You look at the clock, and you feel hunger. This is artificial, false, it is not real.

So fasting may be helpful. If you fast, then for two or three days you will feel a false hunger. Only after the third or fourth day will real hunger be felt; your body will demand, not the mind. When mind demands, it is false. When the body demands, it is real. And when it is real and you become alert, you become totally different from your body. Hunger is a body phenomenon. Once you can feel that hunger is different from you and you are a witness to it, you have transcended the body.

But you can use anything, these are just examples. This technique can be used in many ways; you can devise your own way. But insist on one thing: if you are trying with hunger, then go on at least for three months with hunger. Then only will you be disidentified with your body someday. Don't change the device every day because a deepening is needed with any technique.

So choose anything for three months. Stick to it, apply the technique, go on working with it, and always remember to be aware in the beginning. In the middle it will be very difficult, because once the identity is felt that YOU are hungry, you cannot change it. You can get changed mentally. You can say, "No, I am not hunger, I am a witness." That is false. This is the mind talking, this is not a feeling experience. Just try to be aware in the beginning, and, remember, you are not to say that "I am not hunger." This is how mind can deceive. You can say, "The hunger is there, but I am not hunger. I am not body, I am the BRAHMAN." You are not to say anything. Whatsoever you say will be false because you are false.

This chanting that "I am not the body" will not help. You go on saying "I am not the body" because you know that you are body. If you really know that you are not the body, what is the use of saying "I am not the body"? There is no use, it will look stupid. Be aware, and then the feeling that "I am not the body" will be there. This will not be a thought, this will be a feeling. This will not be felt in the head, this will be felt all over your being. You will feel the distance -- that the body is far away, that "I am absolutely different." And there is not even a possibility of mixing both. You cannot. The body is the body; it is matter, and you are consciousness. They can live together, but they never mix. They cannot become mixed.

The second technique:

"THE PURITY OF OTHER TEACHINGS IS AN IMPURITY TO US. IN REALITY, KNOW NOTHING AS PURE OR IMPURE.

This is one of the basic messages of tantra. It is very difficult to conceive of it because it is absolutely non-ethical, non-moral. I will not say immoral because tantra is not concerned with morality or immorality. Tantra says it is irrelevant. This message is to help you to grow beyond purity and impurity, beyond division really, beyond dichotomy, duality. Tantra says, existence is non-dual, it is one, and all distinctions are man-created -- all distinctions, remember. Distinctions as such are man-created. Good-bad, pure-impure, moral-immoral, virtue-sin: all these concepts are man-created. They are attitudes of man; they are not real. What is impure and what is pure? It depends on your interpretation. What is immoral and what is moral? It depends on your interpretation.

Nietzsche has said somewhere that all morality is interpretation. So something can be moral in this country and immoral in the neighboring country, something can be moral to a Mohammedan and immoral to a Hindu, moral to a Christian and immoral to a Jaina. Or something can even be moral to the older generation and immoral to the younger generation. It depends; it is an attitude. Basically, it is a fiction. The fact is simply the fact. The naked fact is simply the fact; it is neither moral nor immoral, pure nor impure.

Think of the earth without human beings. Then what will be pure and what will be impure? Everything will be -- simply "be." Nothing will be pure and nothing will be impure; nothing will be good and nothing will be bad. With man, mind comes in. Mind divides. It says "this" is good and "that" is bad. This division not only creates a division in the world; this division creates a division in the divider also. If you divide, you are also divided in that division, and you cannot transcend your inner division unless you forget outer divisions. Whatsoever you do to the world, you have done to yourself also.

Naropa, one of the greatest masters of Siddha Yoga, says, "An inch division, and hell and heaven are set apart" -- an inch division! But we go on dividing; we go on labeling, condemning, justifying. Look at the bare fact of existence and don't label it. Only then can tantra's teachings be understood. Don't say good or bad; don't bring your mind to the fact. The moment you bring your mind to the fact, you have created a fiction. Now it is not a fact, it is not a reality: it is your projection. This sutra says, "THE PURITY OF OTHER TEACHINGS IS AN IMPURITY TO US. IN REALITY, KNOW NOTHING AS PURE OR IMPURE."

"THE PURITY OF OTHER TEACHINGS IS AN IMPURITY TO US:" Tantra says, "What is very pure for other teachings, a virtue, is a sin for us, because their concept of purity divides. For them something becomes impure."

If you call a man a saint, you have created the sinner. Now you will have to condemn someone somewhere because the saint cannot exist without the sinner. And look now at the absurdity of our efforts: we go on trying to destroy sinners, and we conceive of and hope for a world where there will be no sinners -- only saints. This is nonsense because saints cannot exist without sinners. They are the other aspect of the same coin. You cannot destroy one aspect of the coin, they both will exist. Sinners and saints are both part and parcel of one thing. If you destroy the sinners, saints will disappear from the world. But don't be afraid; let them disappear because they have not proved to be of any worth.

Sinners and saints are both part of one interpretation, of one attitude towards the world, in which one says, "This is good and that is bad." And you cannot say that "This is good" unless you say that "That is bad." The bad is needed to define the good. So the good depends on the bad, your virtue depends on sin, and your saints are impossible; they cannot exist without the sinners. So they must be grateful to the sinners; they cannot exist without them. In relation to them, in comparison to them, howsoever much they condemn the sinners, they are part and parcel of the same phenomenon. Sinners can disappear from the world only when saints disappear -- not before that; and sin will not be there when there is no concept of virtue.

Tantra says that the fact is real and the interpretation is unreal. Don't interpret. "IN REALITY, KNOW NOTHING AS PURE OR IMPURE." Why? Because purity and impurity are OUR attitudes imposed on reality. Try this. This technique is arduous, not simple -- because we are so much oriented towards dual thinking, based, rooted in dual thinking, that we are not even aware of our condemnations and justifications. If someone starts smoking here, you may not have consciously felt anything, but you have condemned. Deep down within you, you have condemned. Your look may have condemned or no look may have condemned. You may not have looked at the person, and you have condemned.

This is going to be difficult because the habit has become so deep-rooted. You go on -- just by your gestures, your sitting, your standing -- you go on condemning, justifying, not even aware of what you are doing. When you smile at a person or when you don't smile at a person, when you look at someone or you don't look, you just ignore someone, what are you doing? You are imposing your attitudes. You say something is beautiful; then you will have to condemn something as ugly. And this dual attitude is simultaneously dividing you, so within you there will be two persons.

If you say that someone is angry and anger is bad, what will you do when you will feel angry? You will say that this is bad, then there will be problems because you say that "This is bad: this anger in me is bad." Then you have started to divide yourself into two persons -- a bad person, an evil person within, and a good person, a saint. Of course, you are bound to be identified with the saint within, so the devil, Satan, the evil within you is to be condemned. You are divided in two. Now there will be a constant fight, a conflict. Now you cannot be an individual; you will be a crowd, a house divided against itself. Now there will be no peace, no silence. You will feel only tensions and anguish. This is what you are feeling, but you don't know why.

A divided person cannot be at peace. How can he be? Where to put your devil? You have to destroy it, and it is you; you cannot destroy it. You are not two. The reality is one, but because of your divisive attitude you have divided the outer reality. Now the inner is also divided accordingly -- so everyone is fighting with himself. It is as if you are fighting against one hand -- fighting the right hand with the left hand -- and the energy is one. In my right hand and left hand, I am; I am flowing in both. But I can oppose one against the other, my right hand against my left hand, and I can create a conflict, a bogus fight. Sometimes I can deceive myself that the right hand has won, and now the left is down. But this is a deception, because I know that it is me in both and any moment I can put the left up and the right down. I am in both; both the hands are mine.

So howsoever much you think you have put your saint above and crushed the devil down, know that at any moment you can change the positions, and the saint will be down and the devil will be up. That creates fear, insecurity, because you know that nothing is certain. You know you are so loving this moment and you have crushed your hatred down, but you are afraid because at any moment the hatred can come up and the love will be just crushed down. And it can happen at any moment because you are within both.

Tantra says don't divide, be undivided; only then will you be victorious. How to be undivided? You don't condemn, don't say "this" is good and "that" is bad. Just withdraw all conceptions of purity and impurity. Look at the world, but don't say what it is. Be ignorant, don't be too much wise. Don't label, remain silent, non-condemnatory, non-justifying. If you can remain silent about the world, by and by this silence will penetrate within. And if the division is not there outwardly, the division will disappear from the inner consciousness, because both CAN exist together.

But this is dangerous for society. That is why tantra was suppressed. This is dangerous! Nothing is immoral, nothing is moral; nothing is pure, nothing is impure. Things are as they are. A real tantric will not say that a thief is bad; he will say that he is a thief; that is all. And by using the word `thief' there is no condemnation in his mind. This "thief" is just a fact, not a condemnation. If someone says that "Here is a man who is a great saint," he will say, "Okay! He is a saint." But there is no evaluation in it. He will not say, "He is good", he will say, "Okay! He is a saint and that man is a thief," just like this is a rose and that is not a rose, this tree is high and that tree is low, night is dark and day is light -- but without comparison.

But this is dangerous. Society cannot exist without condemning one thing and without appreciating the other -- society cannot exist! Society exists on duality. That is why tantra was suppressed. It was thought to be anti-social, but it is not. It is not! But that very attitude of non-duality is transcendental. It is not anti-society, it is transcendental; it is beyond society.

Try this. Just move in the world without any values, just with natural facts: someone is this, someone is that. And then, by and by, you will feel a non-division within yourself. Your polarities will be coming together, your "bad" and your "good" will be coming together. They will merge into one, and you will become one unity. There will be nothing as pure, nothing as impure. Know the reality.

"THE PURITY OF OTHER TEACHINGS IS AN IMPURITY TO US:" Tantra says that "What is basic for others is poisonous for us." For example, there are teachings which are based on non-violence. They say violence is bad, non-violence is good. Tantra says that non-violence is non-violence, violence is violence; nothing is good and nothing is bad.

There are teachings which are based on celibacy -- BRAHMACHARYA. They say that BRAHMACHARYA is good, sex is bad. Tantra says sex is sex, BRAHMACHARYA is BRAHMACHARYA. One is a BRAHMACHARI and one is not. But these are simple facts, no values are attached to them. And tantra will never say that BRAHMACHARYA is good -- the celibate is good -- and that the one who is in sex is bad. Tantra will not say that. Tantra accepts things as they are. And why? Just to create a unity within you.

This is a technique to create a unity within you, to have a total existence within, undivided, non-conflicting, not opposed. Only then is silence possible. One who is trying to move to some place against something can never be at peace. How can he be? And one who is divided within himself, fighting with himself, how can he win? It is impossible. You are both, so who is going to win? No one is going to win, and you will be at loss because you will dissipate your energy in fighting unnecessarily. This is a technique to create a unity in yourself. Allow valleys to disappear; don't judge.

Jesus says somewhere, "Judge ye not so that ye may not be judged." But this was impossible for the Jews to understand, because the whole Jewish conception is morality oriented: "This is good and that is not good." Jesus in his teaching, "Judge ye not," is talking in terms of tantra. If he was murdered, crucified, it is because of this. He had a tantra attitude -- "Judge ye not."

So don't say that a prostitute is bad -- who knows? and don't say that a puritan is good. Who knows? And ultimately they both are part of one game. They are based on each other -- on a mutual existence. So Jesus says, "Judge ye not," and this is what this sutra means: "Judge ye not so that ye may not be judged."

If you are non-judging, not taking any moral standpoint, simply observing facts as they are, not interpreting them according to yourself, then you cannot be judged. You are transformed completely. Now there is no need for YOU to be judged by any divine power -- there is no need! You have become divine yourself; you have become God yourself. Be a witness, not a judge.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #2

Chapter title: Alertness through tantra -- not principles

26 March 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7303265

ShortTitle: VBT202

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 84 mins

The first question:

Question 1

"IS IT NOT TRUE THAT AN IMMORAL LIFE CREATES HINDRANCES IN MEDITATION?"

What is meditation? It is not your character, it is not what you do. It is what you are. It is not the character, it is the consciousness that you bring to whatsoever you do. The doing is irrelevant. Whether you are doing it consciously or not is the question, whether moral or immoral. Are you alert? If you are alert, meditation happens. If you are not alert, you live in sleep.

You can be moral while fully asleep, there is no problem. Rather, it is better to be moral if you want to be fully asleep because then society will not disturb you. Then no one will be against you. You can sleep conveniently. The society will help you.

You can be moral without being meditative, but the immorality will always be just behind you. Just like a shadow it will follow, and your morality will be just skin deep because your morality can only be imposed from without when you are asleep. It can only be pseudo, false, a facade, it cannot become your being. You will become moral outwardly, but inwardly you will remain immoral. And the more moral you become outwardly, the more immoral you will be within -- in the same proportion, because your morality is bound to be nothing but a deep suppression. You cannot do anything else while asleep; you can only suppress.

And through this morality you will also become false. You will not be a person, but simply a "persona" -- just a pseudo entity. Misery will follow, and you will consequently be on the verge of explosion -- explosion of all that you have suppressed. It is there waiting for you. And if you are really honest in being moral while asleep, you will go mad. Only a dishonest person can remain moral without being mad. That is what hypocrisy means. Hypocrites just show that they are moral, that they are not, and they find ways and means to be immoral, constantly remaining moral on the surface or pretending to be moral. Then only can you remain sane; otherwise you will go insane.

This so-called morality leaves only two alternatives. If honest, you will become insane; if dishonest, you will become a hypocrite. So those who are clever, cunning, they are hypocrites. Those who are simple, innocent, who become victims of such teachings, go mad.

While asleep, real morality cannot happen to you. And what do you mean by "real morality"? Something which is a spontaneous flowering out of your being, not imposed from without. And real morality is not in opposition to immorality; a real morality is just an absence of immorality, it is not in opposition. For example, you can be taught to love your neighbors, to love everyone, to be loving. It can become a moral attitude, but the hate remains within. You force yourself to be loving, and a forced love cannot be real, cannot be authentic. It is not going to fulfill either you or the other person whom you love. No one is to be fulfilled by this false love.

It is just like false water. No one's thirst can be quenched by it. The hatred is there, and the hatred is trying to assert. And a false love cannot be a real hindrance to it. Rather, the hatred will penetrate the false love and will even poison it, and your loving will become just a sort of hatred. It is very tricky and cunning.

A real morality happens to a person who has gone deep within himself -- and the deeper you move, the more loving you become. It is not something forced against hatred; it is not something antagonistic to hatred. The deeper you move, the more love flows out of you. It has nothing to do with hatred at all; it is not concerned with hatred at all. The moment you reach to your center, you are loving without any moral imposition. You may not even be aware that you are loving. How you can be aware? This love will just be so natural that it will be just like breathing, just like your shadow following you. You will simply be loving.

Tantra teaches the inner journey. Morality will happen, but that will be a consequence, not a prerequisite. Be clear about this distinction. Tantra says don't be entangled with moral and immoral concepts. They are outer. Rather, move within. So the techniques are there for how to move within. And don't be concerned with moral and immoral, pure and impure; don't be concerned with distinctions. Just move within. Forget the outer -- the outer world, the society and whatsoever the society has taught you. All that society teaches is bound to be dualistic, it is bound to be suppressive; it is bound to be a conflict within you. And if the conflict is there, you cannot move within.

So forget the conflict and forget all that creates conflict. Simply move within. The deeper you go, the more moral you will become, but that morality will not be the morality of the society. You will be moral without "being moral" -- without being conscious that you are moral, because there is nothing opposed to it within you. You are simply loving because you feel blissful when you are loving. It is a bliss in itself. There is no end to it; no result is needed. It is not that you will get into the kingdom of God if you love. It is not a bargain. The morality that society preaches and so-called religions preach is a bargain: "Do this and you will get that. If you don't do this you will not get that. You will even be punished."It is a bargain.

Tantric morality is not a bargain, it is a happening. The deeper you move, the more you start living in the moment. You feel that to love is bliss. It is not a step, a condition, a bargain towards something else; it is enough unto itself. You love because you feel blissful in loving. You are not doing anything for your neighbor; you are not obliging anyone else. It is a pleasure to be loving. It is good for you right here and now. There is no future heaven or hell. Just now it creates the heaven, and the kingdom of God enters you. And this happens with all the virtues; they flower spontaneously.

Now look at the question: "IS IS NOT TRUE THAT AN IMMORAL LIFE CREATES HINDRANCES IN MEDITATION?" Really, the contrary is the truth. A meditative life creates hindrances in immoral life. Immoral life cannot create any hindrances. Immoral life means that you are non-meditative -- nothing else; you are fast asleep. That is why you are doing harm to yourself.

For tantra, the basic thing is meditation, alertness, awareness. Nothing else is more basic than that. When someone is immoral, it shows that he is not alert. It is just a symptom. The immoral life is just a symptom that he is not alert. What is ordinary teaching doing? Ordinary teachers will tell to this sleeping man who is immoral to be moral. He may change from immorality to morality, but the sleep continues.

So the whole effort is wasted because the real disease was not immorality; immorality was just a symptom. The disease was non-alertness, non-meditativeness. That is why he was immoral. You can convert him to morality. You can create fear, and you can make afraid only that person who is asleep; otherwise you cannot create fear. You can create a fear about hell and you can create a profit motive for heaven. Both of these things are possible only while you are asleep. If you are not asleep, you cannot be threatened and you cannot be motivated because of profit. Those two things are meaningful only to the mind that is asleep.

So create the fear of punishment, and a person will move from immorality to morality -- but he will move because of fear. Create a profit motive, and then he can move from immorality to morality -- but he will move because of lust, greed, profit motivation. Greed and fear are part of the sleeping mind. He remains asleep, nothing basic is changed.

He is good for the society; that is okay. For the society the immoral person is a problem, but the moral person is not a problem. So society has solved its problems, but the man remains asleep. For himself, nothing is solved; he is now more convenient for the society. Previously, he was inconvenient. Try to observe the fact: an immoral person is inconvenient to the society, but he is convenient for himself. A moral person becomes convenient to the society, but he becomes inconvenient to himself.

So it is only that the coin is put upside down. That is why immoral persons look more happy and gay, and a moral person is serious, sad, burdened. The immoral person is fighting with the society and the moral person is fighting with himself. The immoral person feels worried only because there is always a fear of being caught. He is afraid of being caught, but he is enjoying. If no one catches him, if there is no fear of being caught, he is okay.

The moral person is caught in a struggle with himself. Nothing is okay with him; he is only okay with the society. Morality is a lubricant, it helps you to move easily with others. But then you become uneasy with yourself. Uneasiness remains either with the society or with yourself. Only when you become awakened does uneasiness leave you.

Tantra is concerned with the basic disease, not with the symptoms. Morality is removing symptoms. So tantra says don't be concerned with moral or immoral concepts. It does not mean that tantra says become immoral. How can tantra tell you to become immoral when tantra cannot even tell you to become moral? Tantra says the whole thing is irrelevant: don't talk about morality and immorality; come to the root. You can be moral or immoral, but that is only the symptom. Come to the root! The root is that you are asleep -- fast asleep.

How to break this sleeping pattern? How to be aware and how not to fall again and again into sleep? That is what tantra is concerned with -- and once you become alert your character will change. But that is a consequence. Tantra says you need not worry about it.; that is a consequence. Inevitably, it happens, so you need not worry about it. You are not to bring it, it will happen. You simply become more and more alert, and you will be less and less immoral. But this morality that will happen to you is not forced; it is not something done by you on your part. You are just trying to be alert, and it happens.

How can an alert man be violent? How can an alert man feel hatred and anger? It may look paradoxical, but it is so. One who is asleep cannot be without hatred. It is impossible. He can only pretend that there is no anger, no hatred. He can only pretend that there is love, compassion, kindness, sympathy. Those are all pretensions. Quite the contrary happens to the one who has awakened. If anger is needed, he can only pretend. He cannot be angry.; he can only pretend! If anger is needed -- and sometimes it is needed -- he can only pretend. He cannot be sad, but if it is needed he can pretend that he is sad. Now these are impossible.

Love is natural now, as hatred was before. Love was a pretension before. Now hatred can only be a pretension -- if it is needed. Jesus fighting with the moneychangers in the great temple was pretending. He cannot be angry, but he has chosen to pretend. He cannot be really angry. He cannot be angry, but he can use anger -- as you use love and cannot be loving.

You use love for certain purposes. Your love is just to get something else; it is never simply love. You may be trying to get money, you may be trying to get sex, you may be trying to get something -- ego fulfillment, a victory, a feeling that you are very powerful. You may be trying to get anything else, but it is never love.

A buddha can be angry if he thinks that it is going to help. Because of his love sometimes he may be angry, but that is only a pretension and only fools are befooled by it. Those who know, they will simply laugh. As meditation deepens, says tantra, you start changing. And it is beautiful when change happens to you. If you "do" it, it can never be something very deep because doing is just on the surface. So tantra says, allow it to happen from the being, from the very center. Let it flow from the center towards the periphery; don't force it from the periphery to the center. That is impossible.

Tantra will not say moral or immoral. The only thing is if you are asleep try to change it. Allow yourself to become more and more alert, wherever you are. If you are immoral, tantra says, "It is okay. We are not concerned with your immorality, we are concerned with your sleep and with how to transform it into alertness." Don't fight with the immorality. Just try to transform your sleep.

If you are moral it is okay. Tantra is not going to tell you first to become immoral and then to try. Neither does the immoral one have any need to transform himself into a moral person, nor does the moral person have to transform himself into an immoral one in order to get into meditation. All that they need is to change their quality of consciousness. So wherever you are, a sinner or a saint, for tantra there is no distinction. If you are asleep, then try the techniques for alertness. And don't try to change symptoms. The sinner is ill and the so-called saint is also ill because both are asleep.

The illness is the sleep, not your character. Your character is just a by-product. And whatsoever you do while remaining asleep will not make any basic change. Only one thing can change you and create a mutation and that is alertness. The question is one of how to become more and more alert. So whatsoever you do, make it an object of alertness. If you do some immoral act, do it meditatively. It will not be long before the act will dissolve by itself and disappear. Then you will not be able to do it -- not because you have created an armor against it, but because now you are more alert. And how can you do a thing which needs sleep as a requisite? You cannot do it.

Understand well this basic distinction between tantra and what others teach. Tantra is more scientific. It goes to the very root of the problem, transforms you from the very being -- not from your outer sheath of character, of morality and immorality, of acts and doings. Whatsoever you do is just on the periphery; whatsoever you are is never on the periphery. The quality of the act, not the act itself, is meaningful for tantra.

For example, one butcher came to Nan-in. He was a butcher and Nan-in was a Buddhist monk who believed in non-violence. His whole profession was of violence. The whole day he was killing animals. But when the butcher came to Nan-in, he asked him, "What am I to do? My profession is one of violence. So am I to leave my profession first and is it that only then I can be a new man, or is there some other way?"

Nan-in said, "We are not concerned with what you do. We are concerned with what you are. So you go on doing whatsoever you are doing, but be more alert. While killing, remain alert, meditative, and go on doing whatsoever you are doing. We are not concerned."

Nan-in's followers became disturbed -- because here was a person who was a follower of Buddha, a believer in non-violence, allowing a butcher to continue. One disciple said, "This is not good. And we never expected that a person like you would allow a butcher to remain a butcher. And when he was asking, you should have told him to drop this. He himself was ready."

Nan-in is reported to have said, "You can change the butcher's profession easily; he was himself ready. But in that way you cannot change his quality of consciousness. He will remain a butcher."

He may become a saint, but the quality of the mind will remain that of a butcher. That will be a deception for others and for himself also. Go and look at your so-called saints. Many of them remain butchers. The quality, the attitude, the violence, their very look towards you, is condemning, violent. You are a sinner and they are saints. When they see you, the very look is such that you are condemned, you are thrown into hell.

Nan-in said, "So it is not good to change his outer life; it is better to bring a new quality to his mind. And it is good to let him remain a butcher, because he is disturbed by his butchery and violence. If he becomes a saint he will remain a butcher, but then he will not be disturbed. His ego will be strengthened. So this is good. He is disturbed that violence is there, and he has become at least this much aware -- that this is not good. He is ready to change, but just readiness to change will not help. A new quality of the mind has to be developed. Let him meditate."

After one year had passed, the man came. He had become a different man. He was still a killer, but the man had changed although the doing remained the same. He came to Nan-in again and he said, "Now I am a different man. I meditated and meditated and meditated, and my whole life has become a meditation because you told me to meditate in whatsoever I am doing. I am butchering animals, but the whole day I am meditating. Now what do you tell me to do?"

So Nan-in said, "Now do not come to me. Allow your awareness to make a path for you. You need not come to me."

So the butcher said, "Now, only if you say remain in the profession will I pretend to be there. But as far as I am concerned, I am no more there. So if you allow me, I am not going back. But if you say to go, then it is okay. I will go and pretend, and I will continue."

This is how, when your quality changes -- your quality of consciousness -- you become a different person altogether. And tantra is concerned with you, not with what you do.

The second question:

Question 2

"IF ONE FOLLOWS CERTAIN LAWS OF LIFE AND CALLS THIS MORAL, THEN IS THERE ANY OBJECTION FROM A TANTRIC?"

Tantra has no objections, but this having no objection is the problem. Tantra has no objection whatsoever; tantra is not in any way condemning. It is not concerned to tell you, "Do this," or "Don't do that." If you feel good, if you feel happy following certain principles, then follow them. But following certain principles can never lead you to happiness because you are not going to change through principles and through following them. You will remain the same.

Principles are always borrowed, ideals are always borrowed. Someone else has given them to you. They are not your own; they have not grown out of your own experience. They are without roots. The society, the religion to which you are born, the teachers you happened to be near, they have given them to you. You can follow them and you can force yourself accordingly, but then you will be a dead person -- not alive. You may create a certain peace around yourself, but that will be the peace of the cemetery -- dead. You may be less vulnerable to disturbances, more closed in because of the principles, but then you will become less sensitive and less alive. So so-called principled men are always dead.

Look at them: they look silent, still, peaceful, at ease, but a certain deadness is always around them. The aura of death is always there. You cannot feel the feast of life around them, the festivity of being alive, the celebration of being alive. You can never feel that around them. They have created an armor around them -- a safety armor. Nothing can penetrate them. The walls of their principles and character stop everything, but then they are behind the walls, imprisoned, and they are their own prisoners. If you choose this, tantra has no objection. You are free to choose a life which is not a life at all.

Once Mulla Nasruddin visited a cemetery, and he saw a very beautiful marble mausoleum. Inscribed on it was the name "Rothschild." Mulla is reported to have said, "Aha! Ahhh! This is what I call life. This is what I called living -- a beautiful marble mausoleum." But howsoever beautiful it is, it is not life. It is marble -- beautiful, rich -- but not life. You can create a mausoleum out of your life through principles, ideals, impositions, but then you will be dead, although less vulnerable because death is not vulnerable.

Death is a security; life is always insecure. Anything can happen to a live person; nothing can happen to a dead person. He is secure. There is no future, no possibility for change. The last thing has happened to him -- death. Now nothing can happen.

Principled personalities are dead personalities. Tantra is not interested in them. Tantra has no objection -- if you feel good being dead, it is your choice. You can commit suicide, and this is a suicide. But tantra is for those who want to be more alive, and the truth, the ultimate, is not death, it is life. Remember that: the ultimate is not death. It is life -- more life. Jesus has said, "Abundant life, infinite life."

So by being dead you can never reach to the ultimate. If it is life, and "abundant life," then by being dead you will never be in contact with it. Just by being more alive, more vulnerable, more sensitive, less principled and more alert, you will reach it. Why do you seek principles? You may not have observed why. It is because with principles you need not be alert. You need not be alert! If you live through principles you need not be alert.

Suppose I make a principle out of non-violence and then I stick to it, or I make it a principle to be truthful and I stick to it; then it becomes a habit. I create a habit of being truthful, of always speaking the truth. It becomes a mechanical habit; now there is no need to be alert. I cannot speak lies because a principle, a habit, will always create a barrier. The society depends on principles, on inculcating and educating the children with principles. Then they become incapable, really, of being otherwise. If a person becomes incapable, he is dead.

Your truth can be alive only if it comes through alertness, not through principle. Each moment you have to be alert in order to be true. Truth is not a principle; it is something born out of your alertness. Non-violence is not a principle; if you are alert you cannot be violent. But that is difficult and arduous. You will have to transform yourself totally. It is easy to create a life according to principles, rules and regulations. Then you need not worry. You need not worry about being more alert and aware; you can follow the principles.

Then you are just like a railway train running on the tracks. Those tracks are your principles. You are not afraid because you cannot miss the path. Really, you don't have any path.; you have just mechanical rails on which your train is running. You will reach the destination, you need not be afraid. You will be asleep and the train will reach. It is running on dead paths; they are not alive.

But tantra says that life is not like that, it is more like a river. It is not running on iron rails, on tracks; really, it is like a river. The path has not even been charted before. As the river flows, the path is created. As the river moves, the path is created. The river will reach to the sea, and this is how life should be if you understand the tantra way.

Life is like a river. There is no precharted way; there are no maps to be given to you which are to be followed. Just be alive and alert, and then wheresoever life leads you go with full confidence in it. Tantra is a trust -- a trust in the life force. Allow it to lead you, don't force it. Surrender to it and allow it to lead you towards the sea. Just be alert, that is all. While life leads you towards the sea just be alert so that you don't miss anything.

It is very important to remember that tantra is not simply concerned with the end; it is also concerned with the means. It is also concerned with the path, not only the destination. If you are alert, even this life will be a bliss. The very movement of the river is a bliss in itself. Passing through the valleys, through the rocks, falling down from the hills, moving into the unknown is itself a bliss.

Be alert here also, because the ocean, the ultimate, cannot just be a happening in the end. It cannot be. It is a growth. The river is "growing" to be the sea. It is not simply going to meet the sea, it is "growing" to be the sea, and this is possible only through rich experience, alert experiences, moving, trusting. This is how tantra looks at the search -- at the human search. Of course, it is dangerous. If rivers can be run through predetermined paths, there would be less danger, fewer errors. But the whole beauty of aliveness would be lost.

So don't be a follower of principles. Just be a creator of more and more consciousness. Those principles will happen to you, but you will never feel imprisoned in them.

The third question:

Question 3

"THE SECOND SUTRA DISCUSSED YESTERDAY SAYS, `THE PURITY OF OTHER TEACHINGS IS AN IMPURITY TO US. IN REALITY, KNOW NOTHING AS PURE OR IMPURE.' IF NOTHING IS IMPURE, THEN HOW CAN THE TEACHINGS OF OTHERS BE IMPURE?"

Really, nothing is impure, but the teaching that something is pure and something is impure has to be discarded. Only in that sense does the sutra mean, "The purity of other teachings is an impurity to us." Nothing is pure and nothing is impure, but if someone teaches that something is pure and something is impure, tantra says that this has to be discarded. Only in this sense does the sutra say that "The purity of other teachings is an impurity to us." This is just a discarding. It is just saying don't make any distinctions, remain innocent.

But look at the complexity of life. If I say remain innocent, and if you then try innocence, that innocence will not be innocent. How can it be? If you have "tried" it, it has become a calculated thing. Then it cannot be innocent. If you try it, it cannot be! So what is to be done? Just discard those things which create cunningness. Don't try to create any innocence; you cannot. Just discard those things which create cunningness in your mind. This is negative. When you have discarded the root causes of cunningness, innocence will have happened to you. Nothing is pure or impure. But what is to be done then? Your mind is filled with distinctions: "This is pure and That is impure." So tantra says, "For us this is the only impurity. This mind filled with concepts of purity and impurity is the only impurity. If you can discard it, you have become pure."

This sutra is meaningful in another sense also. There are teachings with very fixed rules. For example, Catholic Christian teachings or Jaina teachings in India are against sex.; they say that sex is impure, ugly, sin. Tantra says that nothing is ugly, nothing is impure, nothing is sin. Even sex can become a path; even sex can become a path toward salvation. It depends on you. It is not sex, it is you who determines the quality of it.

Even prayer can become a sin -- and sex can become a virtue. It depends on you. The value is not in the object, the value is brought to it by you. Look at it -- at this phenomenon -- in a different way. Tantra says that even sex can become salvation, but then come to sex without any notions of purity and impurity, good or bad, morality and immorality. Come to sex as pure energy, just energy. Move in that energy as if you are moving into the unknown. Don't fall asleep: be alert! When sex brings you to the very root of your being, be alert. Don't fall asleep, on the path. Be alert and experience everything, whatsoever is happening -- the relaxation that comes, the tension that happens, the peak that comes, and the valley in which you are thrown back.

Your ego dissolves for a moment; you become one with your beloved or with your partner. For a moment, the two are not there. The bodies are two, but deep down there is a communion and they have become one. Be alert! Don't miss this moment in sleep. Be alert; see what is happening. This oneness is what was hidden in the sex act. The sex was just the outer core. Now this is the meaning -- the central point. This is what you were longing for, this is what the hankering was for. This was for what there was the search -- this unity, this dissolving of the ego, this feeling of oneness, this ecstasy of non-tension, this ecstasy of relaxation. This was the meaning, the goal, and this is what you were searching for through this woman and that, through this man and that. You were searching and searching, but no woman can fulfill it, no man can give it.

Only through a deep tantric awareness does the sex act completely disappear, and a deep ecstasy is revealed. So tantra says it is you: if you can bring meditation to your love, to your sex, the sex is transformed. So tantra doesn't say that this is pure or that is impure -- and if you want to use the old terminology of purity and impurity, then I will say that for tantra sleep is impure, alertness is pure, and all else is just meaningless.

The fourth question:

Question 4

"IF AN EMOTIONAL DESIRE OR MOOD BECOMES EXHILARATING FOR US, AND IF WE DO NOT EXPRESS IT OUTWARDLY, DOES THIS ENERGY NECESSARILY GO BACK TO THE SOURCE AND MAKE THE PERSON FRESH AND ENERGETIC?"

Not necessarily! But if you are aware, then it is so, necessarily. Any energy, any energy, needs roots to move, and no energy can be destroyed. Energy is indestructible. It can only change into different forms; it can never become nothing. So when you try to suppress any energy, you are doing absolute nonsense with yourself. Energy cannot be suppressed: it can only be transformed. A suppressed energy will become a cancer. If you feel anger, two ordinary routes are available: either express it or suppress it. If you express it, then it becomes a chain, because then you create anger in the other person and he will express it -- and there is no end to it. Then you will express it, and it can continue for years. It continues! That is how everyone is living. It goes on and on.

Those who know deeply, they say that for lives also, for lives together, it goes on and on. You have been angry with a person in your past life, and still in this life you are repeating the same pattern with the same person. You are not aware, you are blissfully unaware. So it is good if you think something new is happening. Ninety-nine percent of the time nothing new is happening; old patterns are just being repeated again and again.

Sometimes you suddenly see a stranger, and you become angry. He has not done anything -- you have not even met him before -- but you feel depressed or angry or violent, or you want just to escape from this person. You feel bad. Why? It is some old pattern. Energy never dies, it remains, so if you express it, you are falling into an eternal chain. Someday you will have to come out of it. And the whole thing is useless, it is just wastage. Don't start the chain.

Then the other ordinary alternative is to suppress it, and when you suppress it you are creating a wound within yourself. That will be a suffering. That will create problems. And the anger will go on being suppressed, and you will become a volcano of anger.

So it may be that you are not now expressing your anger, but now your whole personality will become angry. There will be no eruptions, no one will see you beating someone and being violent, but now your whole personality will become angry because so much anger within poisons you. Now whatsoever you do the angry part is there. Even while you are loving someone, the angry part is there -- in everything. If you are eating your food, the angry part will be there. You will be violent with your food, you will not be loving. If you are opening a door, the angry part will be there. You will be violent with the door.

One day in the morning, Mulla Nasruddin was passing down a street shouting oaths and saying very angrily, "The devil will take possession of your spirit and beets will grow in your belly" -- and so it went on and on.

One man looked at him and said, "Mulla, whom are you cursing so much so early in the morning?"

Mulla said, "Who? I don't know. But don't worry, someone will turn up sooner or later."

If you are filled with anger, this happens: you are just waiting, and sooner or later someone will turn up. Inside you are bubbling with fire, just waiting for some objects, some medium, someone who should help you to unburden yourself. Then your whole personality becomes angry or violent or sexual. You can suppress sex, and then the suppressed sex becomes your whole personality. Then wherever you look you will see sex, in whatsoever you touch you will see sex, whatsoever you do will be a sexual act. You can suppress sex very easily; it is not difficult. But then sex will spread all over you. Your every fiber, every cell will become sexual.

Look at the celibates. Their minds become totally sexual; they dream about sex, they fight with sex; constantly they fantasize about sex. They are obsessed. That which could have been natural has become perverted. If you express it you create a chain, if you suppress you create a wound, and both are not good. So tantra says that whatsoever you do -- for example, if you are angry, when you feel that anger is coming -- be uninterruptedly aware. Don't suppress it and don't express it. Do a third thing, take the third alternative: be suddenly aware that anger is coming. This awareness changes the energy that is moving as anger into a different energy. The very energy that is known as anger becomes compassion. Through alertness there is the transmutation.

The same energy which is known as sex becomes BRAHMACHARYA, spirituality, through awareness. Alertness is the alchemy. Through it everything changes. Try it, and you will come to know. When you bring alertness, awareness, to any mood, any feeling, any energy, it changes its nature and quality. It is never the same again, and a new route opens. It is not going back again to the same place where it was, from where it came; it is not moving outwards The horizontal movement has stopped. With alertness it becomes vertical, it moves upwards. That is a different dimension. A bullock cart moves horizontally; an airplane moves vertically -- upwards.

I would like to tell you one parable. One fakir, a Sufi, used to say that someone was presented an airplane, a very small aircraft, by a friend, who was a great king. But the man was poor. He had heard about airplanes, but he had never seen one. He knew only bullock carts, so he thought that this was a new device -- a new type of bullock cart. He used his two bullocks to bring the airplane home, and then he used the airplane as a bullock cart. He was very happy. Of course, the small aircraft worked as a bullock cart. But then, by and by, just from being curious he started studying it. Then he came to understand that bullocks were not needed. It had a motor and it was able to go by itself, so he fueled it and used it as a motor car.

But then by and by, he became aware of the wings, and he thought "Why are they there?" And it seemed to him that the man who had devised this machine must have been very intelligent, a genius; thus, he could not have added something unnecessarily. The wings showed that the machine could fly also. So he tried. Then the airplane came to its own; it became vertical.

You are using the mind that you have as a bullock cart. The same mind can become a motor car; then bullocks will not be needed. It has an inbuilt mechanism, but then too it will be moving horizontally. However, the same mind has wings. You have not observed, that is why you don't know that it has wings. It can fly! It can move upwards! And once it moves upwards, once your energies start moving upwards, the whole world is different. Your old questions simply fall down and your old problems are no more there, because you are now moving vertically.

All those problems were there because you were moving horizontally. The problems of a bullock cart are not problems for an airplane. The road was not good, so there was a problem. The road was blocked, so there was a problem. Now this is not a problem because the road is not used at all. Whether blocked or not, whether good or not, it is irrelevant.

Moral teachings are bullock-cart teachings; tantra's teaching is vertical. That's why all those problems are irrelevant for tantra. The energy that you know as anger, sex, greed or whatsoever, is moving horizontally. Once you bring your alertness to it, you have brought a new dimension. Just by being alert, you move upwards.

Why? Observe the fact: when you are alert, you are always above the fact. Become alert about anything, and you are always above the fact. The fact is somewhere below, down, and you are looking from above, from a peak. Whenever you have witnessed something you have moved upwards, and the thing has remained below. If this attention is really authentic and you can be uninterruptedly aware, then the energy that was moving horizontally as anger, as sex, will move into this new dimension. It will come near to you, to the witness. Then you have started flying. And for lives and lives you have been using the device which is meant for flying as a bullock cart, unnecessarily creating problems because you were just not knowing what is possible for you.

The fifth question:

Question 5

"YOU SAID THAT ONE SHOULD NEITHER SUPPRESS NOR INDULGE IN ANGER, BUT THAT ONE SHOULD REMAIN PASSIVELY ALERT AND MEDITATIVE. OBVIOUSLY, IT WILL NEED A SORT OF INNER EFFORT TO AVOID SUPPRESSION OR INDULGENCE, BUT THEN IS THIS NOT ALSO A SORT OF SUPPRESSION?"

No! It is an effort, but not."a sort of suppression." Every effort is not suppression. There are three types of effort. One is the effort which is expression. When you express your anger, it is an effort. Then the second type of effort is when you suppress it. When you express what you are doing, you are forcing your energy outwards to the person, to the object; you are throwing out your energy, the other is the target. Energy moves to the other; it is an effort. When you suppress, you return the energy back to the original source, to your own heart. You force it back. It is an effort, but the direction is different. In expression it moves away from you; in suppression it again moves near you.

The third thing, alertness, passive alertness, is also an effort, but the dimension is different. The energy moves upwards. In the beginning it is an effort. When I say be passively alert, in the beginning even passivity is bound to be an effort. Only by and by, as you become more acquainted with it, will it not be an effort. And when it is not an effort, it becomes more passive -- and the more passive, the more magnetic. It pulls the energy upwards.

But in the beginning everything is going to be an effort, so don't become a victim of words. It creates problems. Mystics have always been talking about effortlessness. They say don't make any effort. But in the beginning even this is going to be an effort. When we say be effortless we only mean don't force the effort. Allow it to come through awareness. If you force it, you will become tense. If you become tense, anger cannot move upwards. Tension is horizontal; only a non-tense mind can be above, hovering like a cloud.

Look at the clouds floating with no effort. Just bring your witnessing in like a floating cloud. In the beginning it is going to be an effort, but remember only that it is going to become effortless. You will be forcing it and allowing it more and more.

This is difficult because language creates the difficulty. If I tell you to relax, what will you do? You will make a sort of effort. But then I tell you don't make any effort, because if you make any effort that will create tension and you will not be able to relax. I tell you to simply relax. Then you are at a loss, and you are bound to ask, "Then what do you mean? If I am not going to make any effort then what am I supposed to do?"

You are not supposed to do anything, but in the beginning that non-doing will look like a doing. So I will say, "Okay! Make a little effort, but remember that the effort is to be left behind. Use it as a starter just in the beginning. You cannot understand non-doing; you can only understand doing. So use the language of doing and action. Start, but use effort only as a starter. And remember, the sooner you leave it behind, the better.

I have heard that when Mulla Nasruddin became very old, he became a victim of insomnia, he couldn't sleep. Everything was tried -- hot baths, pills, tranquilizers, syrups -- but nothing was of any help. Everything was of no avail. And the children were disturbed because Mulla would not sleep himself, and he would not allow anyone in the house to sleep. So the whole night had become a nightmare for the whole family.

They searched desperately for any method, any medicine that would help Mulla to sleep, because the whole family was going crazy. So finally they brought a hypnotist. The children came very happily, and they told old Mulla, "Now you need not be worried, papa. This is a miracle man. He creates sleep within minutes. He knows the very magic of it, so don't be worried. Now there is no fear, and you will sleep."

The hypnotist showed a watch with a chain to Nasruddin and said, "Only very little faith will do the miracle. You need a little trust towards me. Just trust me, and you will fall like a small babe into deep sleep. Look at this watch."

He started moving that watch left and right. Nasruddin looked at it, and the hypnotist said, "Left-right, left-right. Your eyes are becoming tired, tired, tired. You are falling asleep, asleep, asleep, asleep."

Everyone was in joy -- happy. Mulla's eyes closed, his head moved down, and he felt like a small babe going into deep sleep. A very rhythmic breathing came. The hypnotist took his fee, and he put his finger on his lips, just to indicate to the children not to be disturbed now. Then he sneaked out. The moment he was out, Mulla opened one eye and said, "That nut! Has he gone yet?"

He was making an effort to relax, so he relaxed "like a babe." He had started breathing rhythmically and closed his eyes, but it was all an effort. He was helping the hypnotist. He thought that he was helping the hypnotist. But it was effort on his part, so nothing happened. Nothing could happen. He was awake. If he could have just been passive, if he could have heard what was being said, looked at what was being shown, the sleep would have happened. No effort on his part was necessary; only passive acceptance was necessary. But even for you to bring your mind to that passive acceptance, in the beginning you will need effort.

So don't be afraid of effort. Start with effort, and just remember that effort has to be left behind and you have to move beyond effort. Only when you have moved beyond will you be passive, and that passive awareness brings the miracle.

With passive awareness, mind is no more there. For the first time your inner center of being is revealed, and there is a reason. Effort is needed for anything that is to be done in the world. If you want to do something in the world, anything, effort is needed. But if you want to do something in the inner, no effort is needed. Just relaxation is needed. Non-doing is the art there just as doing is the art in the outward, the outside world.

This passive alertness is the key. But don't become disturbed by language. Start with effort. Just keep in mind that you have to leave it, and go on leaving it. Even leaving will be an effort -- but a moment comes when everything has gone. Then you are there, simply there not doing anything -- just there, being. That "beingness" is SAMADHI, and all that is worth knowing, worth having, worth being, happens to you in that state.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #3

Chapter title: Finding the changeless through the changing

27 March 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7303275

ShortTitle: VBT203

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 92 mins

BE THE UNSAME SAME TO FRIEND AS TO STRANGER, IN HONOR AND DISHONOR.

HERE IS THE SPHERE OF CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE. THROUGH CHANGE CONSUME CHANGE.

Northrope says somewhere that the Western mind has been continuously searching for the theoretical component of existence -- the causal link for how things happen, what is the cause, how the effect can be controlled, how man can manipulate nature. And the Eastern mind, says Northrope, has been on a different adventure. The search has been to find the aesthetic component of reality -- not the theoretical, but the aesthetic.

The Eastern mind has not been much involved with the search to know how to manipulate nature, but it has been interested in how to be one with nature -- not in how to conquer it, but in how to be in a deep friendship, a deep participation with it. The Western mind has been in a conflict, a struggle; the Eastern mind has been in a mystique, a love relationship. I don't know whether Northrope will agree with me or not, but my feeling is that science is a hatred, a relationship of hatred with nature; hence, struggle, fight, conquering, the language of victory.

Religion is a love relationship; hence, no conflict, no struggle. In another way, science is a male attitude and religion a female attitude. Science is aggressive, religion is receptive. The Eastern mind is religious. Or, if you allow me, I will say that wherever a religious mind is, it is Eastern. The scientific mind is Western. It makes no difference whether a man is born in the East or the West. I am using East and West as two attitudes, two approaches, not as two geographical denominations. You can be born in the West, but you may not belong there; you may be Eastern through and through. You may be born in the East, but you may not belong; you may be scientific, the approach may be mathematical, intellectual.

Tantra is absolutely Eastern. It is a way of participating with reality -- a way how to be one with it, how to dissolve boundaries, how to move in an undifferentiated realm. Mind differentiates, creates boundaries, definitions, because mind cannot work without definitions, without boundaries. The more clear-cut the boundaries, the better the possibility for the mind to work. So mind cuts, divides, chops everything.

Religion is a dissolving of boundaries in order to move to the undifferentiated where there is no definition, where there is no limit to anything, where everything moves into everything else, where everything is everything else. You cannot cut, you cannot chop existence. The consequences are bound to be very different in each approach. By the scientific approach, by dividing, chopping, you can come only to dead particles, atoms, because life is something which cannot be cut into divisions. And the moment you cut it, it is no more there. It is as if someone goes to study a symphony by studying each single note. Each single note is part of the symphony, but it is not the symphony. The symphony is created by many notes dissolving into each other. You cannot study a symphony by studying notes.

I cannot study you by studying your parts, You are not just a total of parts, you are more than that. When you divide and cut and analyze, life disappears; only dead parts are left. That is why science will never be capable of knowing what life is, and whatsoever is known through science will be about death -- matter -- it will never be about life. Science may become capable of manipulating life, of knowing the parts, the dead parts. It may be capable of manipulating life, but, still LIFE is not known, not even touched. Life remains unknowable for science. By the very method of its technology, its methodology, by the very approach, life cannot be known through it.

That is why science goes on denying -- denying anything else other than matter. The very approach debars any contact with that which is life. And the vice versa happens also: if you move deeply into religion, you will start denying matter. Shankara says that matter is illusion, it is not there; it simply appears to be. The whole Eastern approach has been to deny the world, matter, anything material. Why? Science goes on denying life, the divine, consciousness. Deeper religious experiences go on denying matter -- all that is material. Why? Because of the very approach. If you look at life without differentiation, matter disappears. Matter is life divided, differentiated. Matter means life defined, analyzed into parts.

So, of course, if you look at life undifferentiatedly and become part of it, in a deep participation, if you become one with existence as two lovers become one, matter disappears. That is why Shankara says that matter is illusion. If you participate in existence, it is. But Marx says that consciousness is just a by-product, it is not substantial; it is just a function of matter. If you divide life, then consciousness disappears, becomes illusory. Then only matter is.

What I am intending to say to you is this: Existence is one. If you approach it through analysis, it appears material, dead. If you approach it through participation, it appears as life, as divine, as consciousness. If you approach it through science there is no possibility of any deep bliss happening to you, because with dead matter bliss is impossible. At the most it can only be illusory. Only with a deep participation is bliss possible.

Tantra is a love technique. The effort is to make you one with existence. So you will have to lose many things before you can enter. You will have to lose your habitual pattern of analyzing things; you will have to lose the deep-rooted attitude of fighting, of thinking in terms of conquering.

When Hillary reached to the highest peak of the Himalayas, Mount Everest, all of the Western world reported it as a conquering -- a conquering of Everest. Only in a Zen monastery in Japan, on a wall newspaper, it was written, "Everest has been befriended" -- not conquered! This is the difference -- "Everest has been befriended"; now humanity has become friendly with it. Everest has allowed Hillary to come to it. It was not a conquering. The very word `conquer' is vulgar, violent. To think in terms of conquering shows aggressiveness. Everest has received Hillary, welcomed him, and now humanity has become friendly; now the chasm is bridged. Now we are not unacquainted. One of us has been received by Everest. Now Everest has become part of human consciousness. This is a bridging.

Then the whole thing becomes totally different. It depends on how you look at it. Remember this before we enter the techniques. Remember this: tantra is a love effort towards existence. That is why so much of sex has been used by tantra: because it is a love technique. It is not only love between man and woman; it is love between you and existence, and for the first time existence becomes meaningful to you through a woman. If you are a woman, then existence becomes for the first time meaningful to you through a man.

That is why sex has been so much discussed and used by tantra. Think of yourself as absolutely asexual -- as if all sex were removed from you the day you were born. Just think: all sex was completely removed from you the day you were born. You will be unable to love; you will be unable to feel any affinity with anyone. It will be difficult to get out of yourself. You will remain enclosed, you will not be able to approach, to go out to meet someone. There in existence, you will be a dead thing, closed from everywhere.

Sex is your effort to reach out. You move from yourself; someone else becomes the center. You leave your ego behind, you go away from it to meet someone. If you really want to meet you will have to surrender, and if the other also wants to meet you he will also have to move out. Look at the miracle in love -- at what happens. You move to the other and the other moves to you. He comes into you and you go into him or into her. You have changed places. Now he becomes your soul and you become her soul or his soul. This is a participation. Now you are meeting. Now you have become a circle. This is the first meeting where you are not enclosed in the ego. This meeting can become just a stepping stone toward a greater meeting with universe, with existence, with reality.

Tantra is based not on intellect, but on heart. It is not an intellectual effort, it is a feeling effort. Remember this, because that will help you to understand the techniques. Now we will enter the techniques.

The first technique:

"BE THE UNSAME SAME TO FRIEND AS TO STRANGER, IN HONOR AND DISHONOR."

"BE THE UNSAME SAME" -- this is the base. What is happening in you? Two things are happening. Something in you remains continuously the same, it never changes. You may not have observed it, you may not have encountered it yet, but if you observe you will come to know that something in you remains constantly the same. Because of that sameness, you can have an identity. Because of that sameness, you feel yourself centered; otherwise you will be a chaos. You say, "My childhood." Now what has remained of it? WHO says, "My childhood"? Who is this "my, me, I"?

Nothing has remained of your childhood. If your pictures of your childhood are shown to you for the first time, you will not be able to recognize them. Everything has changed. Your body is no more the same; not a single cell has remained the same. Physiologists says that the body is a flux, it is river-like. Every moment many cells are dying and many new ones are born. Within seven years your body will have changed completely. So if you are going to live seventy years, ten times over your body has renewed itself completely.

Every moment your body is changing, and your mind. You cannot recognize a photograph of your childhood, and if it were possible to give you a photograph of your mind, of your childhood mind, it would be impossible to recognize it. Your mind is even more of a flux than your body. Every moment everything changes. Even for a single moment nothing remains the same. In the morning you were different as far as your mind is concerned. In the evening you are totally a different person.

When someone would come to meet Buddha, before the person would depart, take leave of him, Buddha would say, "Remember, the man who has come to meet me is not the man who is going back. You are totally different now. Your mind has changed." Meeting with a buddha is, of course, bound to change your mind for better or worse, but you cannot be the same.

You came here with a different mind; you will go with a different mind. Something has changed. Something new has been added, something has been deleted. And even if you are not meeting anyone, if you are just remaining by yourself, then too you cannot remain the same. Every moment the river is moving.

Heraclitus has said, "You cannot step twice in the same river." The same can be said about man: you cannot meet the same man again -- impossible! And because of this fact, and because of our ignorance of it, life becomes a misery -- because you go on expecting the other to be the same. You marry a girl and you expect her to be the same. She cannot be! Unmarried, she was different; married, she is completely different. A lover is something else, a husband is something totally different. You cannot expect your lover to meet you through your husband. That is impossible. A lover is a lover; a husband is a husband. The moment a lover becomes a husband, everything has changed. But you go on expecting. That creates misery -- unnecessary misery. If we can recognize this fact that mind goes on moving and changing continuously, we will escape many, many miseries without any cost. All you need is simple awareness that mind changes.

Someone loves you and then you go on expecting love. But the next moment he hates you; then you are disturbed -- not because of his hate, but only because of your expectation. He has changed. He is alive, so he is bound to change. But if you can see the reality as it is you will not be disturbed. The one who was in love a moment before can be in hate a moment later, but wait! One moment later he will be in love again. So don't be in a hurry, just be patient. And if the other can also see this changing pattern, then he will not be fighting for changing patterns. They change; that is natural.

So if you look at your body, it changes. If you try to understand your mind, it changes. It is never the same. Even for two consecutive moments, nothing is the same. Your personality goes on like a flux. If this is all and there is nothing which remains the same continuously, eternally, timelessly, then who will remember that this was "my childhood"? Childhood has changed, the body has changed, the mind has changed. Then who remembers? Then who knows about childhood and about youth and about old age? Who knows?

This knower must remain the same; this witness must remain the same. Only then can the witness have a perspective. The witness can say, "This was my childhood, this was my young age, this was my old age. This moment I was in love, and this moment the love changed into hatred." This witnessing consciousness, this knower, is always the same.

So you have two realms or two dimensions existing together in you. You are both -- the changing which is always changing and the non-changing which is always remaining non-changing. If you become aware of these two realms, then this technique will be helpful: "BE THE UNSAME SAME." Remember this: "BE THE UNSAME SAME." You are bound to be "unsame" on the periphery, but at the center remain the same.

Remember that which is the same. Just remembering will be enough; you need not do anything else. It is non-changing. You cannot change it, but you can forget it. You can be so engrossed, obsessed with the changing world around you -- with your body, with your mind -- that you may completely forget the center. The center is so much clouded by the changing flux -- and, of course, there are problems: that which is constantly the same is difficult to remember because change creates problems.

For example, if a constant noise goes on around you, you will not be aware of it. If a clock on the wall goes on, tick-tock, tick-tock the whole day, you are never aware of it. But if suddenly it stops, you will immediately become aware. If something is constantly the same, there is no need to take any notice. When something changes, the mind has to take notice. It creates a gap, and the pattern vibrates. You were hearing it continuously, so there was no need to hear it. It was there, it became part of the background. But if now suddenly the clock stops, you will become aware. Your consciousness will suddenly come to the gap.

It is just as if one of your teeth falls out; then your tongue goes continuously to the place. When the tooth was there the tongue never tried to touch it. Now the tooth is not there -- just a gap is there -- then the whole day, howsoever you try, you cannot help it: the tongue goes to the gap. Why? Because something is missing and the background has changed. Something new has entered.

Whenever something new enters, you become conscious -- for many reasons. It is a safety measure. It is needed for your life -- to survive. When something changes you have to become aware. It may be dangerous. You have to take notice, and you have to adjust again to the new situation that has come into being. But if everything is as it was, there is no need. You need not be aware. And this same element in you, what Hindus have called ATMAN, the soul, has been there always from the very beginning, if there was any beginning. And it is going to the very end, if there is going to be any end. It has been eternally the same, so how can you be aware of it?

Because it is so permanently the same, eternally the same, you are missing it. You take notice of the body, you take notice of the mind because they are changing. And because you take notice of them, you start thinking that you are them. You know only them; you become identified.

The whole spiritual effort is to find the same amidst the unsame -- to find the eternal in the changing, to find that which is always the same. That is your center, and if you can remember that center, only then will this technique be easy -- or if you can do this technique, remembering will become easy. From both the ends you can travel.

Try this technique. The technique is to "BE THE UNSAME SAME TO FRIEND AS TO STRANGER." To the friend and to the enemy, or to the stranger, be the "unsame same." What does it mean? It seems contradictory. In a way you will have to change, because if your friend comes to meet you, you will have to meet him differently, and if a stranger comes you will have to meet him differently. How can you meet a stranger as if you know him already? You cannot. The difference will be there, but still, deep down remain the same. The attitude must remain the same, but the behavior will be "unsame." You cannot meet an unknown person as if you know him already. How can you? You can pretend at the most, but pretensions will not do. The difference will be there.

There is no need to pretend with a friend that he is a friend. With a stranger, even if you try to act as if he is a friend, it will be pretension -- something new. You cannot be the same; unsameness will be necessary. As far as behavior is concerned you will be different, but as far as your consciousness is concerned you can be the same. You can look at the friend as at the stranger.

It is difficult. You may have heard, "Look at the stranger as if he is a friend," but that is not possible if what I am saying is not possible. First look at your friend as the stranger; only then you can look at the stranger as at the friend. They are correlated.

Have you ever looked at your friends as if they are strangers? If you have not, then you have not looked at all. Look at your wife: do you really know her? You may have lived with her for twenty years or even more, and the more you live with her, the more is the possibility that you will go on forgetting that she is a stranger -- and she remains a stranger. Howsoever you love her, it will not make any difference.

Really, if you love her more, the more strange she will look -- because the more you love, the deeper you penetrate and the more you know how river-like she is, moving, changing, alive, every moment different. If you don't look deeply, if you just stick to the level that she is your wife, that this is her name or that, then you have chosen a particular fragment, and you go on thinking of that particular fragment as your wife. And whenever she has to change, she has to hide her changes. She may not be in a loving mood, but she has to pretend because you expect love from your wife.

Then everything becomes false. She is not allowed to change; she is not allowed to be herself. Then something is being forced. Then the whole relationship goes dead. The more you love, the more you will feel the changing pattern. Then each moment you are a stranger. You cannot predict; you cannot say how your husband is going to behave tomorrow morning. You can predict only if you have a dead husband: then you can predict. Predictions are possible only about things, never about persons. If some person is predictable, know well he is dead; he has died. His living is just false, so you can predict. Nothing is predictable about persons because of the change.

Look at your friend as at a stranger; he is one! Don't be afraid. We are afraid of strangers, so we go on forgetting that even a friend is a stranger. If you can look at the stranger in your friend also, you will never get frustrated because you cannot expect anything from a stranger. You take your friends for granted; hence, expectations and then frustrations -- because no one can fulfill your expectations, no one is here to fulfill your expectations. Everyone is here to fulfill his own expectations; no one is here to fulfill you. Everyone is here to fulfill himself or herself, but you expect others to fulfill you and others expect you to fulfill them. Then there is conflict, violence, struggle and misery.

Go on always remembering the stranger. Don't forget, even your closest friend is a stranger -- as far removed from you as possible. If this feeling happens to you, this knowing, then you can look at the stranger and you can find a friend there also. If a friend can be a stranger, then a stranger can be a friend. Look at a stranger: he doesn't know your language, he doesn't belong to your country, he doesn't belong to your religion, he doesn't belong to your color. You are white and he is black or you are black and he is white. You cannot communicate through language; you don't belong to the same church. So there is no common ground in nation, religion, race or color -- no common ground! He is totally a stranger. But look into his eyes, and the same humanity is there, that is the common ground; and the same life, that is the common ground; and the same existence, that is the root of your being friends.

You may not understand his language, but you can understand him. Even silence can be communicative. Just by your looking deep down into his eyes, the friend will be revealed. And if you know how to look, then even an enemy cannot deceive you. You can look at the friend in him. He cannot prove that he is not your friend. Howsoever far removed, he is near you because you belong to the same existential current, to the same river to which he belongs. You belong to the same earth of being.

If this happens, then even a tree is not far away from you, then even a stone is not far away from you. A stone is very strange. There is no meeting ground, no possibility of any communication -- but the same existence is there. The stone also exists, the stone also participates in being. He is there -- I call it "he" -- he also takes up space, he also exists in time. The sun also rises for him -- as it rises for you. One day he was not, as you were not, and one day you will die and he will also die. The stone will disappear. In existence we meet. The meeting is the friendship. In personality we differ, in manifestation we differ; in essence we are one.

In manifestations we are strangers, so howsoever close we come we remain far away. You can sit close, you can embrace each other, but there is no possibility to come more close. As far as your changing personality is concerned, you are never the same. You are never similar; you are always strangers. You cannot meet there because before you can meet you have changed. There is no possibility of meeting. As far as bodies are concerned and minds are concerned there can be no meeting, because before you can meet you are no more the same.

Have you ever observed? You feel love for someone -- a very deep upsurge. You are filled with it, and the moment you go and say, "I love you," it has disappeared. Have you observed? It may not be there now, it may be just a memory. It was there, but it is not there now. The very fact that you asserted it, made it manifest, has made it enter into the realm of change. When you felt it, it may have been deep in the essence, but when you bring it out you are bringing it into the pattern of time and change, it is entering into the river. When you say, "I love you," by then it may have disappeared completely. It is so difficult, but if you observe, it will become a fact. Then you can look. In the friend there is the stranger and in the stranger the friend. Then you can remain "THE UNSAME SAME." You change peripherally; you remain the same in the essence, in the center.

"IN HONOR AND DISHONOR..." Who is honored and who is dishonored? You? Never! Only that which is changing, and that you are not. Someone honors you; if you take it that he is honoring YOU, you will be in difficulty. He honors a particular manifestation in you, not you. How can he know you? You don't even know yourself. He honors a particular manifestation; he honors something which has come into your changing personality. You are kind, loving; he honors it. But this kindness and this love are just on the periphery. The next moment you will not be loving, you may be filled with hate. There may be no flowers -- only thorns. You may not be so happy. You may be just sad, depressed. You may be cruel, angry. Then he will dishonor you. Then again the loving manifestation. Others come in contact not with you, but with your manifestations.

Remember this, they are not honoring and dishonoring YOU. They cannot do either because they don't know you; they cannot know you. If even you are not aware of yourself, how can they be? They have their own formulas, they have their theories, they have their measurements and criteria. They have their touchstones and they say, "If a man is such and such we will honor him, and if a man is such and such we will dishonor him." So they act according to their criteria, and you are never near their touchstones -- only your manifestations.

They can call you a sinner one day and a saint another. They can call you a saint today, and the next day they may go against you, stone you to death. What is happening? They come in contact with your periphery, they never come in contact with you. Remember this, that whatsoever they are saying, it is not about you. You remain beyond; you remain outside. Their condemnations, their appreciations, whatsoever they do is not really concerned with you, just with your manifestations in time.

I will tell you one Zen anecdote. One young monk lived near Kyoto. He was beautiful, young, and the whole town was pleased. They honored him. They believed him to be a great saint. Then one day everything turned upside down. One girl became pregnant, and she told her parents that this monk was responsible. So the whole town turned against him. They came, and they burned his cottage. It was morning, and a very cold morning, a winter morning, and they threw the child onto the monk.

The father of the girl told him, "This is your child, so take the responsibility."

The monk simply said, "Is it so?" And then the child started weeping, so he forgot about the crowd and began caring for the child.

The crowd went and destroyed the whole cottage, burned it down. Then the child was hungry and the monk was without any money, so he had to go to beg in the city for the child. Who will give him anything now? Just a few moments before he was a great saint, and now he is a great sinner. Who will give him anything now? Wherever he tried, they closed their doors in his face. They condemned him completely.

Then he reached to the same house -- to the house of the girl. The girl was very much distressed, and then she heard the child weeping and screaming, and the monk standing there just saying, "Don't give anything to me, I am a sinner. But the child is not a sinner; you can give milk to this child." Then the girl confessed that just to hide the real father of the child, she had taken the name of the monk. He was absolutely innocent.

So the whole town turned around again. They fell at his feet, started asking his forgiveness. And the father of the girl came, took the child back with weeping eyes, tears rolling down, and he said, "But why did you not say so before? Why did you not refuse in the morning? The child does not belong to you."

The monk is reported to have said again, "Is it so?" In the morning he had said, "Is it so? This child belongs to me?" And in the afternoon he said, "Is it so? This child doesn't belong to me?"

This is how this sutra has to be applied in life. In honor and dishonor, you must remain "THE UNSAME SAME." The innermost center must remain the same, whatsoever happens to the periphery. The periphery is bound to change, but you must not change. And because you are two, the periphery and the center, that is why opposite, contradictory terms have been used: "BE THE UNSAME SAME..." And you can apply this technique to all opposites: in love and hate, poverty and richness, comfort and uncomfort, or in anything, remain "THE UNSAME SAME."

Just know that the change is happening only to your periphery; it cannot happen to you, it is impossible. So you can remain detached, and this detachment is not forced. You simply know it is so. This is not a forced detachment; this is not any effort on your part to remain detached. If you TRY to remain detached, you are still on the periphery; you have not known the center. The center is detached; it has always been so. It is transcendental. It is always the beyond. Whatsoever happens below never happens to it.

Try this in polar situations. Go on feeling something in you which is the same. When someone is insulting you, focus yourself to the point where you are just listening to him -- not doing anything, not reacting -- just listening. He is insulting you, and then someone is praising you. Just listen. Insult-praise, honor-dishonor: just listen. Your periphery will get disturbed. Look at it also; don't change it. Look at it; remain deep in your center, looking from there. You will have a detachment which is not forced, which is spontaneous, which is natural.

And once you have the feeling of the natural detachment, nothing can disturb you. You will remain silent. Whatsoever happens in the world, you will remain unmoved. Even if someone is killing you, only the body will be touched -- not you. You will remain beyond. This "beyondness" leads you into existence, into that which is bliss, eternal, into that which is true, which is always, into that which is deathless, into life itself. You may call it God or you can choose your term. You can call it NIRVANA, whatsoever you like, but unless you move from the periphery to the center and unless you become aware of the eternal in you, religion has not happened to you, neither has life happened to you. You are missing, simply missing all. That is possible -- to miss the ecstasy of living.

Shankara says that "I call the man a SANNYASIN who knows what is changing and what is non- changing, who knows what is moving and what is non-moving." This, in Indian philosophy, is known as discrimination -- VIVEK. To discriminate between these two, the realm of the change and the realm of the unchanging -- this is called VIVEK, discrimination, awareness.

This sutra can be used very, very deeply and very easily with whatsoever you are doing. You feel hunger? Remember the two realms. Hunger can only be felt by the periphery because the periphery needs food, needs fuel. You don't need food, you don't need any fuel, but the body needs them. Remember, when hunger happens it is happening to the periphery; you are just the knower of it. If you were not there, it would not be known. If the body were not there, it would not happen. By your absence only knowledge will not be there because the body cannot know. The body can have it, but it cannot know it. You know it; you cannot have it.

So never say that "I am hungry." Always say within, "I know that my body is hungry." Give emphasis to your knowing. Then the discrimination is there. You are becoming old: never say, "I am becoming old." Just say, "My body is becoming old." Then in the moment of death also you will know, "I am not dying; my body is dying. I am changing bodies, just changing the house." If this discrimination deepens, one day, suddenly, there will be enlightenment.

The second sutra:

"HERE IS THE SPHERE OF CHANGE, CHANGE, CHANGE. THROUGH CHANGE CONSUME CHANGE."

The first thing to understand is that everything you know about is change; except for you, the knower, everything is change. Have you seen anything which is not change? This whole world is a phenomenon of change. Even the Himalayas are changing. They say -- the scientists who work on it -- that they are growing; these Himalayas are the youngest mountains in the world, still a child, really, still growing. They have not yet become mature; they have not reached to the point from where something begins to decline. They are still rising.

If you compare them with Vindhyachal, another mountain, they are just children. Vindhyachal is one of the oldest -- and some say the oldest mountain in the world. It is so old, it is decreasing -- coming down. For centuries, it is coming down -- just dying, in its old age. So even a Himalaya which looks so stable, unchanging, unmoving, is changing. It is just a river of stones. Stones make no difference; they are also river-like, floating. Comparatively everything is changing. Something looks more changing, something looks less changing, but that is only relative.

Nothing is unchanging that you can know. Remember my point: nothing that you can know is unchanging. Nothing is unchanging except the knower. But that is always behind. It always "knows"; it is really never known. It can never become the object; it is always the subject. Whatsoever you do or know, it is always behind. You cannot know it. When I say this, don't get disturbed. When I say that you cannot know it, I mean you cannot know it as an object. I can look at you, but how can I look at myself in the same way? It is impossible because to be in a relationship of knowledge two things are needed -- the knower and the known.

So when I look at you, you are the known and I am the knower, and the knowledge can exist as a bridge. But where to make the bridge when I look at myself, when I am trying to know myself? There only I am, alone -- totally alone. The other bank is missing, so where to create the bridge? How to know myself?

So self-knowledge is a negative process. You cannot know yourself directly; you can simply go on eliminating objects of knowledge. Go on eliminating the objects of knowledge. When there is no object of knowledge, when you cannot know anything, when there is nothing but the vacuum, the emptiness -- and this is what meditation is: just eliminating all objects of knowledge -- then a moment comes when consciousness is, but there is nothing to be conscious of; knowing is, but there is nothing to know. The simple, pure energy of knowing remains and nothing is left to be known. There is no object.

In that state when there is nothing to be known, it is said that you know yourself in a certain sense. But that KNOWLEDGE is totally different from all other knowledge. It is misleading to use the same word for both. There have been mystics who have said that self-knowledge is contradictory, the very term is contradictory. Knowledge is always of the other; self-knowledge is not possible. But when the other is not, something happens. You may call it "self-knowledge," but the word is misleading.

So whatsoever you know is change. Everywhere, even these walls, are constantly changing. Now physics supports this. Even the wall which looks so stationary, non-changing, is changing every moment. A great flux is on. Every atom is moving, every electron is moving. Everything is moving fast, and the movement is so fast that you cannot detect it. That is why the wall looks so permanent. In the morning it was like this, in the afternoon it was like that, in the evening it was like this, yesterday it was like this and tomorrow it will be like this. You look at it as if it is the same, but it is not. Your eyes are not capable of detecting such great movement.

The fan is there. If the fan is moving very fast, you will not be able to see the space, it will look like just one circle. Space cannot be seen because the movement is fast, and if the movement is so fast -- just as fast as electrons are moving -- you will not see that the fan is moving at all. You will not be able to detect the movement. The fan will look stationary; you will even be able to touch it. It will be stationary, and your hand will not even be able to enter into the gaps, because your hand cannot move so fast as to go into the gaps. Before you move, another blade will have come. Before you move, still another blade will have come. You will always touch the blade, and the movement will be so fast that the fan will look like it is non-moving. So things that are non-moving are very fast moving: that is why there is the appearance that they are stationary.

This sutra says that everything is change: "HERE IS THE SPHERE OF CHANGE..." On this sutra Buddha's whole philosophy stands. Buddha says that everything is a flux, changing, non-permanent, and that one should know this. Buddha's emphasis is so much on this point. His whole standpoint is based on it. He says, "change, change, change: remember this continuously." Why? If you can remember change, detachment will happen. How can you be attached when everything is changing?

You look at a face; it is very beautiful. When you look at a face that is very beautiful, there is a feeling that this is going to remain. Understand it deeply. Never expect that this is going to remain. But if you know that this is changing fast, that this is beautiful this moment and it may be ugly the next, how can you feel any attachment? It is impossible. Look at a body: it is alive; the next moment it will be dead. All is futile, if you feel the change.

Buddha left his palace, his family -- his beautiful wife, his child -- and when someone asked him, "Why?" he said, "Where there is nothing permanent, what is the use? The child will die." And the night Buddha left, the child was born. He was just a few hours old. Buddha went into his wife's room to have a last look. The wife's back was towards the door. She was holding the child in her arms in sleep. Buddha wanted to say goodbye, but then he resisted. He said, "What is the use?"

A moment came in his mind when a thought flashed that "The child is just one day old, a few hours old, and I must have a look." But then he said, "What is the use? Everything is changing. This day the child is born, and the next day the child will die. And one day before he was not here. Now he is here, and one day again he will not be here. So what is the use? Everything is changing." He left -- turned back and left.

When someone asked, "Why have you left all that?" he said, "I am in search of that which never changes, because if I stick to that which changes there is going to be frustration. If I cling to that which is changing, I am stupid, because it will change, it will not remain the same. Then I will be frustrated. So I am in search of that which never changes. If there is anything which never changes, only then does life have any worth and meaning. Otherwise everything is futile." He based his whole teaching on change.

This sutra is beautiful. This sutra says, "THROUGH CHANGE CONSUME CHANGE." Buddha would never say the second part. The second part is basically tantric. Buddha will say that everything is change; feel it, and then you will not cling to it. And when you don't cling to it, by and by, by leaving everything that changes, you will fall into yourself to the center where there is no change. Just go on eliminating change, and you will come to the unmoving, to the center -- the center of the wheel. That is why Buddha has chosen the wheel as the symbol of his religion: because the wheel moves, but the center on which it moves remains unmoving. So the SANSARA -- the world -- moves like a wheel. Your personality moves like a wheel, and your innermost essence remains the center on which the wheel moves. It remains unmoving.

Buddha will say life is change. He will agree with the first part. The next -- the second part -- is typically tantric: "THROUGH CHANGE CONSUME CHANGE." Tantra says don't leave that which is changing; move into it. Don't cling, but move. Why be afraid? Move into it, live it out. Allow it to happen, and you move into it. Consume it through itself. Don't be afraid, don't escape. Where will you escape? How can you escape? Everywhere there is change. Tantra says everywhere is change. Where will you escape? Where can you go?

Wherever you go the change will be there. All escape is futile, so don't try to escape. Then what to do? Don't cling. Live the change, be the change. Don't create any struggle with it. Move with it. The river is flowing; you flow with it. Don't even swim; allow the river to take you. Don't fight with it, don't waste your energy by fighting with it; just relax. Be in a let-go and move with the river.

What will happen? If you can move with a river without any conflict, without any direction of your own, if the river's direction is your direction, suddenly you will become aware that you are not the river. You will become aware that you are not the river! Feel it. Some day try it in a river. Go there, relax, and allow the river to take you. Don't fight; become the river. Suddenly you will feel that the river is all around, but you are not the river.

In fighting you may forget this. That is why tantra says, "THROUGH CHANGE CONSUME CHANGE." Don't fight. There is no need because in you the change cannot enter. So don't be afraid. Live in the world. Don't be afraid because in you the world cannot enter. Live it. Don't choose this way or that.

There are two types of people: one that will cling to the world of change and one that will escape. But tantra says it is change, so to cling is futile and to escape also. What is the use? Buddha says, "What is the use of remaining in the world of change?" Tantra says, "What is the use of escaping from it?"

Both are futile. Rather, allow it to happen. You are not concerned with it; it is happening, you are not even needed for it. You were not and the world was changing, and you will not be and the world will go on changing -- so why create any fuss about it?

"CONSUME CHANGE THROUGH CHANGE." This is a very deep message. Consume anger through anger, consume sex through sex, consume greed through greed, consume the SANSARA through the sansara. Don't fight with it, be relaxed, because fight creates tensions and fight creates anxiety, anguish, and you will be unnecessarily disturbed. Allow the world to be as it is.

There are two types of persons. One type is those persons who cannot allow the world to be as it is. They are called revolutionaries. They will change it, they will struggle to change it. They will destroy their whole life in changing it, and it is already changing. They are not needed, they will only consume themselves. They will burn out in changing the world, and it is already changing. No revolution is really needed. The world is a revolution; it is changing.

You may wonder why India has not created great revolutionaries. It is because of this insight that everything is already changing. Why are you disturbed to change it? You can neither change it nor stop the change. It IS changing. Why waste yourself?

One type of personality always tries to change the world. In religion's eyes he is neurotic. Really, he is afraid of coming to himself, so he goes on and becomes obsessed with the world. The state has to be changed, the government has to be changed, the society, the structure, the economics, everything has to be changed, and he will die, and he will never have a moment of ecstasy in which he could know what he was, and the world will continue and the wheel will go on moving. It has seen many revolutionaries, and it goes on moving. Neither can you stop it nor can you accelerate the change.

This is a mystic's attitude: mystics say there is no need to change the world. But mystics are also of two types. One will say there is no need to change the world, but there is a need to change oneself. He also believes in changing -- not in changing the world, but himself.

But tantra says there is no need to change anyone -- neither the world nor yourself. That is the deepest core of mysticism. You need not change the world and you need not change yourself. You are just to know that everything is changing, and to float in the change and relax in the change.

And the moment there is no effort to create any change, you can relax totally -- because if the effort is there you cannot relax. Then tension will be there because in the future something of value is going to happen: the world is going to change. The world is going to become communistic, or the earthly paradise is to come, or some utopia in the future, or you are going to enter into the Kingdom of God, or into MOKSHA. Somewhere in paradise the angels are waiting to welcome you -- but "somewhere" is the future. With this attitude you are going to be tense.

Tantra says forget it. The world is already changing and you are also already changing. Change is existence, so don't become worried about it. It is already happening without you; you are not needed. You just float in it with no anxiety for the future, and suddenly amidst change you will become aware of a center within you which never changes, which has remained always as it is -- the same.

Why does it happen? Because if you are relaxed, then the changing background gives you the contrast, and through it you can feel the non-changing. If you are in any effort to change the world or yourself, you cannot look at the small unmoving center within you. You are so much obsessed with change, you are not able to have a look at what is the case.

The change is all around. The change becomes the background, the contrast, and you are relaxed. So there is no future in your mind -- no future thoughts. You are here now; this moment is all. Everything is changing, and suddenly you become aware of a point within you which has never changed. "THROUGH CHANGE CONSUME CHANGE." This is what is meant by "THROUGH CHANGE CONSUME CHANGE."

Don't fight. Through death become deathless; through death allow the death to die. Don't fight with it. The tantra attitude is difficult to conceive of, because our minds want to do something and this is a non-doing. It is just relaxing, not doing, but this is one of the most hidden secrets. If you can feel this, you need not bother about anything else. This one technique can give you all.

Then you need not do anything because you have come to know the secret that through change, change can be consumed, and through death, death can be consumed, and through sex, sex can be consumed, and through anger, anger can be consumed. Now you have come to know the secret that through poison, poison can be consumed.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #4

Chapter title: Tantra's secrets of love and liberation

28 March 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7303285

ShortTitle: VBT204

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 90 mins

The first question:

Question 1

"IN REFERENCE TO YOUR STATEMENT THAT TANTRA IS A LOVE TECHNIQUE, PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY MODERN MAN AND WOMAN HAVE BECOME INCAPABLE OF LOVE."

Love is spontaneous. It cannot be controlled. You cannot "make" love; you cannot do anything about it. And the more you do, the more you will miss it. You have to allow it to happen. You are not needed for it. Your presence is the hindrance. The more you are absent, the better. When you are not, love happens. Because of their inability to be absent, modern man and woman have become incapable of love.

They are capable of doing things. The whole modern mind is based on doing. Whatsoever can be done, modern man can do more efficiently than any man that has ever existed. Whatsoever can be done, we can do more efficiently. We are the most efficient century; we have turned everything into technology -- into a problem of how to "do" it. We have developed one dimension and that is the dimension of doing, but in developing this dimension we have lost much.

At the loss of being we have learned how to do things, so that which can be done we do better than anyone -- better than any society that ever existed on earth. But when the question of love comes, a problem arises because love cannot be done. And not only is this so with love; we have become incapable of all that cannot be done.

For example, meditation: we have become incapable of it; it cannot be done. Or play: we have become incapable of it; it cannot be done. Or joy, happiness: we have become incapable of them because they cannot be done. They are not acts; you cannot manipulate them. On the contrary, you have to let yourself go. Then joy happens to you, then happiness comes to you, then love enters you, then love takes possession. And because of this possession we have become afraid.

Modern man, the modern mind, wants to possess everything and not be possessed by anything. Modern man wants to be the master of everything, and you can only be the master of things -- not of happenings. You can be the master of a house, you can be the master of a mechanical device; you cannot be the master of anything which is alive. Life cannot be mastered; you cannot possess it. On the contrary, you have to be possessed by it. Only then is there contact with it.

Love is life, and it is greater than you. You cannot possess it. I would like to repeat it: love is greater than you; you cannot possess it. You can only allow yourself to be possessed by it; it cannot be controlled. The modern ego wants to control everything, and you become scared of whatsoever you cannot control. You become afraid; you close the door. You close that dimension completely because fear enters. You will not be in control. With love you cannot be in control, and the whole trend which has led to this century was one of how to control. All over the world, and particularly in the West, the trend is for how to control nature, how to control everything, how to control energies.

Man must become the master, and you have become the master -- of course, only of those things which are possible to possess, and side by side you have been developing an incapacity for those things which cannot be possessed. You can possess money; you cannot possess love. And because of this we have been turning everything into a thing. You even go on turning persons into things because then you can possess them. If you love a person, you are not the master; no one is the master. Two persons love each other, and no one is the master -- neither the lover nor the beloved. Rather, love is the master and both are possessed by a greater force than themselves, encircled by a greater force -- a whirlwind. If they try to possess each other, they will miss. Then they can possess each other. Then the lover will become the husband and the beloved will become the wife. Then they can possess, but a husband is a thing and a wife is a thing. They are not persons. You can possess them. They are dead entities, legal labels -- not alive.

We go on turning persons into things just to possess them, and then we feel frustrated -- because we wanted to possess the person and the person cannot be possessed. When you possess a person, he is no more a person; he is a dead thing, and you cannot be fulfilled by a dead thing. Look at this contradiction: you can be fulfilled only by persons, never by things, but your mind desires possessions -- so you turn them into things. Then you cannot be fulfilled. Then frustration sets in.

Possessiveness, the attitude to possess, has killed the capacity to love. Don't think in terms of possession. Rather, think in terms of being possessed. That is what surrender means -- being possessed: you allow yourself to be possessed by something greater than you. Then you will not be in control. Then a greater force will take you. Then the direction will not be yours. Then you cannot choose the goal. Then the future is unknown; you cannot be secure now. Moving with a greater force than yourself, you are insecure, afraid.

If you are afraid and insecure, it is better not to move with great forces. Just work with lower forces than you; then you can be the master, and you can decide the goal beforehand. Then you will achieve the goal, but you will not get anything out of it. You will have just wasted your life.

The secret of love and the secret of prayer and the secret of anything that can make you fulfilled is surrender -- the capacity to be possessed. The problem with love exists because this capacity is not there. There are other reasons also, but this is the base. The first reason is too much emphasis on intellect, reason. So man is lopsided. Your head has grown and your heart has remained absolutely neglected. And love is not a capacity of the intellect. It has a different center; it has a different focus, source. It is in your heart, it is your feeling; it is not reasoning. But the whole modern education consists of reasoning, logic, intellect, mind. The heart is not even talked about. It is denied, really; it is just "a poetic fiction."

It is not! It is a reality! Just look at it in this way: if from the very beginning a child is brought up without any training of the mind or the reasoning, without any intellectual training, will he have an intellect? He cannot!

There have been such cases. Sometimes it has happened that wolves have brought up a human child. Just ten years before, one child was caught in a forest. The wolves had brought him up. He was fourteen years of age. He couldn't even stand on two legs; he would run on all fours. He couldn't speak a single word; he would roar like a wolf. He was in every way a wolf, and fourteen years of age. Those who caught him named him Ram. The child took six months to learn the name. Within a year the child died, and the psychologists who worked on him suspected that he died because of too much strain on the intellect. This forcing, this training to get him to stand on two feet, this memory training to get him to remember the name, the effort to make him a human being, killed him.

He was robust in health when he was caught -- more healthy than any human being ever is. He was just like an animal. But this training killed him. Every effort was made so that if you could have asked him, "What is your name?" he would be able to say "Ram." This was his whole intellect. After six months of constant training, punishment, creating a profit motive in him, the only proof that the child could give of his intellect was this much: he would be able to say "Ram." What happened? If someone from Mars could get hold of this child, he would think that humanity has no mind, no intellect, no reason.

The same has happened to the heart. Without training it is as if it is not. It has been completely neglected, so your whole life energy has been forced towards the head, not towards the heart, and love is a functioning of the heart center. This is why modern man has become incapable of love: modern man has become incapable of the heart. He calculates, and love is not a calculation. He knows arithmetic and love is not arithmetic. He thinks in terms of logic and love is illogical. He always tries to rationalize everything. Whatsoever he is doing reason must support it, and love is not supported by reason.

Really, when you fall in love you throw your reason completely. That is why we say man "falls" in love. Falls from where? Falls from the head down into the heart. We use this term of condemnation, "falling in love," because the head, the reason, cannot look at it without condemning it. It is a fall. Is love really a fall or a rising? Do you become more with it or do you become less? Do you expand or do you shrink? With love you become more! Your consciousness is more, your feeling is more; your ecstatic sensation is more, your sensitivity is more. You are more alive, but one thing is less: reasoning is less. You cannot reason it out; it is blind. As far as reason is concerned it is blind. The heart has its own reason -- that is another thing -- and the heart has its own eyes, but that is another thing. The eyes of reason are not there, so reason says it is a fall; you have fallen.

Unless the heart center starts functioning again man will not be capable of love, and the whole misery of modern life is because unless he loves he cannot feel any meaning in his life. Life looks meaningless. Love gives it meaning; love is the only meaning. Unless you are capable of love you will be meaningless, and you will feel that you are existing without any meaning, futilely, and suicide will become attractive. Then you will like to kill yourself, to finish with yourself, to end, because what is the use of existing?

Mere existing cannot be tolerated. Existence must have a meaning; otherwise, what is the use? Why go on prolonging yourself unnecessarily? Why go on repeating the same pattern every day? Getting out of the bed and doing the same thing, and again falling asleep and the next day the same pattern: why?

You have done it so far, and what has happened? And you will do it unless death comes and relieves of you of your body. So what is the use? Love gives meaning. It is not that through love any result comes into being or any goal -- no! Through love every moment becomes of value in itself. Then you never ask this. If someone asks what is the meaning of life, know well that love is lacking. Whenever someone asks what is the meaning of life, he is asking because he has not been able to flower in a love experience. Whenever someone is in love, he never asks what is the meaning of life. He knows the meaning; there is no need to ask. He knows the meaning! The meaning is there: love is the meaning in life.

And through love prayer is possible because prayer is again a love relationship -- not between two individuals, but between one individual and existence itself. Then the whole existence becomes your beloved or lover. But it is possible only through love experience that you can grow into prayer or into meditation, and the ultimate ecstasy is just like love. That is why Jesus says that "God is love," not that "God is loving."

Christians have been interpreting it in this way -- that God is kind, loving. That is not the meaning. Jesus says that God is love. He simply equates God and love. You can say "love" or you can say "God"; they both mean the same. God is not loving; God is love itself. If you can love, you have entered the divine. And when your love grows to such an infinity that it is not concerned with anyone in particular -- rather, it has become a diffused phenomenon; when there is no lover for you -- rather, the whole existence, all that is, has become the lover or beloved -- then it has become prayer.

And tantra is a love method. So the first thing is how to love, and then the second thing is how to grow in love so that love becomes prayer. But one must start from love. And don't be afraid of love because that fear shows you are afraid of the heart. The head is cunning; the heart is innocent. With the head you feel protected; with the heart you become vulnerable, open. Anything can happen.

That is why we have become closed. The fear is there: if you are vulnerable, anything can happen to you; someone can deceive you. With the mind no one can deceive you; you can deceive others. But I tell you be ready to be deceived, but don't close the heart. Be ready to be deceived, but don't close the heart! That vulnerability to be deceived is of worth because you will not lose anything by it. And if you are ready to be deceived infinitely, only then can you believe in the heart. If you are calculative, cunning, clever, too much clever, then you will miss the heart, and modern man is so educated, so sophisticated, so clever; that is why he has become incapable of love.

Women were not like this, but they are following modern man fast, they are copying modern man fast. Sooner or later they will become just like man, or they may even overtake him. Now they are also becoming incapable because the same head orientation, the same effort to be cunning and clever, is there now. They may form a "Women's Liberation Movement" or anything like it, but it is not heart oriented. It is just a copy of the same stupidity that man has been doing with himself. You may go to the other extreme, but if you react, even in your reaction you are following.

A great crisis is there. It is difficult now to prevent women all over the world from copying man and his nonsense because man seems to be so successful. He is successful in a way; he has become the master of things. Now he possesses the whole world. Now he feels he has conquered nature, and "success succeeds; nothing succeeds like success."

Now women feel that man has succeeded and has become the master, so they must copy him. But look also at the thing in which man has failed completely. He has lost his heart; he cannot love. Reason alone is not enough, and reason in control is dangerous. The heart must be higher than reason because reason is just an instrument and the heart is you. The heart must be allowed to use reason -- not vice versa. But you have been doing that. The head is allowed to dominate; in its domination, the head has killed the heart.

And thirdly, one thing more has to be remembered as to why modern man has become incapable of love. Love is basically a sort of madness, a sort of deep participation with nature, a sort of dissolving of the ego. It is primal. You are born out of love; your every cell of the body is a love cell. Your very energy, your life energy, is a love energy. You exist in it, but there is no ego in that energy. You cannot feel "I." That energy is unconscious, and when you move in love YOU become unconscious. Only a fragment of your mind is conscious, and in that fragment of the mind exists the ego.

The mind has three layers. First is the unconscious: when you are deeply asleep with no dreams, you are in it. The child in the mother's womb is absolutely unconscious, he is just part of the mother. The child is not aware that "I am separate"; he is just part of the mother. There is no separation, no defined existence. He is undifferentiated from the mother and from the existence itself. There is no fear because fear comes only when you become aware of yourself. The child is totally at ease; he is unconscious.

And the second layer is of consciousness. It is a very small fragment. One tenth part of the unconscious has become conscious in you through training, education, society, family. It was needed for survival, so a part of you has become conscious. But that part also gets tired very soon; that is why you need sleep. In sleep you become again a child in the womb. You have fallen back, the conscious is no more there. It has become part of the unconscious. That is why sleep is so refreshing. In the morning you feel alive again, fresh, because you have fallen back into the mother's womb.

You may not have observed this.... Observe someone who is deeply asleep. More or less, he will be in the same posture in which he was in his mother's womb. And if you can be in the right posture, sleep will follow more easily. If you feel any difficulty in falling asleep, just feel your mother's womb, as if you are in it. Imagine it, and take the posture in which you would have been in your mother's womb. In that posture you will fall deeply asleep. You need the same warmth; otherwise the sleep will be disturbed. You need the same warmth as there was in your mother's womb.

That is why hot milk is good. If you sip hot milk before you go to sleep it will be good, because that again makes you a child. Milk is child's food, and if it is hot you are again at your mother's breast. Hot milk is good for sleep only because of this reason: you fall back into childhood, you are reduced into a child. Sleep refreshes you. Why? Because the conscious mind gets tired. It is just a part, and the whole is unconscious. It has to fall back to the whole to become revived. It is again resurrected. That is why in the morning you feel good and morning looks beautiful -- not only because morning is beautiful, but because again you have a child's eyes. The afternoon is not so beautiful. The world is the same, but you have lost those innocent eyes again. And the evening becomes ugly because you are tired.

You have lived too much in the conscious. This conscious has ego as the center. These are two ordinary states which we know. The third state, that with which tantra and yoga are concerned, is the superconscious. "Superconscious" means that your whole unconscious has become conscious. In the unconscious there is no ego; you are total. In the superconscious, again there is no ego; you are total. But in between the two the conscious mind has a center -- the ego. This ego is the problem, this ego creates problems. You cannot fall in love because then you will have to become unconscious, just as unconscious as you become in sleep. Or, if you want to rise to prayer, you have to become totally conscious like a Buddha or like a Meera. So love becomes impossible, prayer becomes impossible.

The ego creates the barrier. You cannot lose yourself, and love is losing, dispersing, dissolving, melting. If you melt into the unconscious, it is love; if you melt into the superconscious it is prayer -- but both are a melting. So what is to be done? Remember this: you cannot do anything about it. Let it be deeply noted: you cannot do anything about love, about prayer. Your conscious mind is impotent; it cannot do anything. It has to be lost, it has to be put aside. And then remember surrender: whenever you want to move beyond yourself, surrender is the way -- either in love or in prayer.

Whenever you long to move beyond, somewhere else where you are not, then surrender, let-go is the path. Allow something to happen to you; don't manipulate. And once you know how to allow, many things will start happening. You may not be even aware of what is possible for you, of what a great, tremendous energy you have closed within yourself which can explode and then become an ecstasy. Your whole life will be filled with consciousness, light and bliss, but you don't know it. It is just as if every atom is an atom bomb: if one atom explodes, tremendous energy is released. And every heart is also an atom bomb. If it explodes in love or prayer, tremendous energy is released.

But you have to explode and lose yourself. The seed has to lose itself; only then is the tree born. And if the seed resists and says, "No, I must survive," then the seed can survive, but the tree will never be born. And unless the tree is born the seed will feel frustrated, because the tree is the meaning. The seed will feel frustrated! The seed can feel fulfilled only when the tree is there flowering. But then the seed has to lose itself, die.

Modern man has become incapable of love because he has become incapable of death. He cannot die to anything. He clings to life; he cannot die to anything.

In old English, three or four hundred years ago, this was a usual expression. The lover would say to the beloved, "I want to die in you." This was a love expression. It is beautiful! "I want to die in you." Love is a death -- a death of the ego. Only then is your real self born, and modern man is very, very afraid of death. In every way, surrender is death, love is death, and life also is a continuous death. If you are afraid, you will miss life itself.

Be ready to die every moment. Die to the past, die to the future, and die in the present moment. Don't cling and don't resist. Don't make any effort for life, and you will have abundant life. Life will happen to you if you are ready to die. This looks paradoxical, but this is the law. Jesus says that one who is ready to lose will gain, and one who clings will lose everything.

The second question:

Question 2

"YOU SAID LAST NIGHT THAT THE PERIPHERY IS ALWAYS CHANGING, WHEREAS THE INNERMOST CENTER IS ETERNALLY UNMOVING. TO REALIZE THE CENTER IS IT NECESSARY THAT THE PERIPHERAL MOVEMENT MUST CEASE? CAN THAT BE? HOW AND WHEN?"

You have missed the whole point. The whole point was not to make any effort to change the periphery. Allow the periphery to be as it is. And you cannot change it. It is the nature of the periphery to move and change. You cannot make it static. Nature is a flux. It is so; you cannot make it static. And don't waste your time and opportunity of life trying to make it static. Just know it as change. Be the witness of it, and you will come to feel the innermost center which is not change. The world is change, your personality is change, your body-mind is change, but you are not; you are not the change. What is the use of struggling with change? No need!

Tantra says please be reestablished in your center, be aware of the center which is unmoving, and allow the whole existence to move. It is not a disturbance at all. It becomes a disturbance only if you cling to it or if you try to make it unmoving. Then you are falling into absurdities, foolish efforts. They will not succeed; you will be a failure. Know well that life is a change, but somewhere within this change there is an unmoving center also. Just become aware of it. That very awareness is enough to liberate you. That very feeling that "I am unmoving" liberates. That is the truth. You know it, and you are different.

Don't fight with shadows! And the whole life is a shadow because change is nothing but a shadow. The unchanging is the real; the changing is the unreal. So don't ask whether the peripheral change and movement has to be forced to cease in order to realize the center. There is no need, and you cannot force it. It cannot cease! The world goes on; only it will not go on in you. You can remain in the world, and there is no need for the world to be in you. The world is not the disturbance. When you get involved in it, when you become the change, when you feel that you have become the change, then it creates problems.

Problems are created not by the changing periphery. They are created by the identification that "I am this change." You have fallen ill; illness is not really the disturbance. When you feel that "I have fallen ill," it is a disturbance. If you can be a witness to that illness, if you can feel that illness is a happening somewhere on the periphery -- that it is not happening to you, it is happening to someone else and you are just the witness -- then death also can happen and you will be just a witness.

Alexander was returning from India. Some friends had requested him to bring back a sannyasin from India. They said, "When you come with conquered possessions, don't forget: bring a sannyasin also. We want to see what a sannyasin is -- what type of a man renounces the world. We want to know what has happened to one who has renounced all desires, what type of bliss comes to one who leaves all hankering, thirst or hunger for the future, for possessions and things."

Just at the last moment Alexander remembered. In the last town from where he was to leave India to go back to his country, he told his soldiers to go and find a sannyasin. They went to the town, and they asked an old man of the town. He said, "Yes there is a sannyasin, a great sannyasin, but it will be difficult. It will be very difficult to persuade him to go with Alexander to Athens."

But the soldiers were soldiers, so they said, "Don't you be worried about it. We can force anyone. Just tell us where he is. We know how to force him, so there is no need to persuade. If Alexander tells even the whole town to follow him, you will have to follow, so what of a single sannyasin?"

But the old man laughed, and the soldiers couldn't understand because they had never encountered a sannyasin. They reached the sannyasin. He was standing naked on the bank of the river, and they told him, "Alexander orders that you have to come with us. Every care will be taken, there will be no inconvenience for you; you will be the royal guest. But you have to come with us to Athens."

The sannyasin laughed and he said, "It will be very difficult for your Alexander to take me with him. No force in this world can force me to follow. You will not be able to understand, but it is better that you bring your Alexander."

Alexander was disturbed. He felt insulted, but he wanted to see this man. He came with a naked sword and he said, "If you say no, then immediately you lose your life. I will cut your head." The name of the sannyasin was -- as it is reported in Alexander's records -- Dandami.

The sannyasin laughed and said, "You came a little late. You cannot kill me now because I have killed myself already. You are a little late. You can cut my head, but you cannot cut me because I have become a witness. So when this head will fall down on the earth, you will see it falling down and I will also see it falling down. But you cannot cut me; you cannot even touch me. So don't waste time, you can cut! Raise your sword and cut my head."

Alexander couldn't kill that man. It was impossible because it was useless. The man was so beyond death, it was impossible to kill him. You can only be killed if you cling to life. That clinging to the changing pattern makes you a mortal. If you don't cling, you are as you have always been -- immortal. Immortality is your birthright; it has always been there. You become a mortal only if you cling. So there is no question, there is no need to force the changing periphery to be static. There is no need, and you CANNOT make it static. It will go on, the wheel will go on. All that you can do is to know that you are not the wheel. You are the axis, not the wheel.

The third question:

Question 3

"MAN BEING AS HE IS, IS IT NOT DIFFICULT FOR HIM TO DISSOLVE CHANGE THROUGH CHANGE, SEX THROUGH SEX, ETCETERA, WITHOUT ATTACHMENTS AND WITH THEIR CONSEQUENT ANXIETY AND DISAPPOINTMENT?"

Man as he is CAN do this, and this is suggested ONLY for man as he is. Tantra is a medicine for YOU -- for those who are ill. So don't think that it is not for you. It is for you and you can do it, but you will have to understand what is meant when you say that there is the possibility of falling into attachments, and then the consequences will be there and frustration. You have not understood. "Consume change through change" means that even if there is attachment don't fight with it. Be attached, but be a witness also.

Let the attachment be there; don't fight with it. Tantra is a non-fighting process. Don't fight! Frustration will come, of course, so be frustrated. But be a witness also. You were attached, and you were a witness. Now the frustration has come, and you know well that it had to come. Now be frustrated, but be a witness. Then through attachment, attachment is consumed, and through frustration, frustration is consumed.

Try this when you feel miserable. Be miserable; don't fight with it. Try this, it is wonderful. When there is misery and you feel miserable, close your doors and be miserable. Now what can you do? You are miserable, so you are miserable. Now be totally miserable. Suddenly you will become aware of the misery. And if you try to change it you will never become aware, because your effort, your energy, your consciousness is directed towards change, towards how to change this misery. Then you start thinking about how it came, and what to do now to change it. Then you are missing a very beautiful experience -- the misery itself.

Now you are thinking about the causes and you are thinking about the consequences and you are thinking about the method for how to forget it, how to go beyond it, and you are missing misery itself, and misery is there and that can be liberating. Just don't do anything. Don't analyze how the misery is created; don't think about what consequences are going to follow. They will follow, so you can see later on. There is no haste. Be miserable, simply miserable, and don't try to change it.

Try this: see for how many minutes you can remain miserable. You will start laughing about the whole thing; the whole thing will look stupid, because if you are totally miserable, suddenly your center is beyond misery. That center can never be miserable, it is impossible! If you remain with the misery, the misery becomes the background, and your center which can never be miserable suddenly rises above, and then you are miserable and you are not miserable: the "same unsame." Now you are consuming misery through misery. This is what is meant. You are not doing anything; you are simply consuming misery through misery. Misery will disappear as clouds disappear, and the sky will be open and you will be laughing, and you have not done anything. And you cannot do anything; all that you can do will create more confusion and more misery.

Who has created this misery? You, and now you are trying to change it. It will get worse. You are the creator of the misery. You have created it, you are the source, and now the source itself is trying. What can you do? Now the patient is treating himself, and he has created the whole thing. Now he is thinking of surgery. It is suicidal. Don't do anything. The inside is very deep. You have tried so many times to stop misery, to stop depression, to stop this and that, and nothing has happened. Now try this: don't do anything; allow the misery to be there in its totality. Allow it to happen in its full intensity, and remain non-doing. Just be with it and see what happens.

Life is change. Even the Himalayas are changing, so your misery cannot be unchanging. It will change by itself, and you will see that it is changing -- that it is disappearing and it is going away, and you feel unburdened and you have not done anything.

Once you know the secret you can consume anything through itself, but the secret is to be silently without doing anything. Anger is there, so be, just BE. Don't do anything. If you can do this much, this "non-doing," if you can just be there -- present, witnessing, but making no effort to change anything -- allowing things to have their own way, you will consume anything. You CAN consume anything.

The last question:

Question 4

"TANTRA SAYS DO NOT STRUGGLE OR SWIM, BUT LET GO AND FLOAT IN THE RIVER OF LIFE. BUT EXPERIENCE SHOWS THAT THE MODERN CITY LIFE OF SPEED AND HEAVY TECHNOLOGY CREATES CONSTANT TENSIONS AND EXERTIONS PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY. WHAT WILL BE TANTRA'S ATTITUDE ABOUT IT? IS IT NOT GOOD TO AVOID UNNECESSARY EXERTIONS?"

Life has always been so, modern or primitive. Tensions are there, anxieties are there. Objects change, but man remains the same. Two thousand years back you were driving a bullock cart; now you are driving a car -- but the driver remains the same. The bullock cart has changed -- things are different now, you are driving a car -- but the driver remains the same. He was anxious about his cart, tense about his cart; now you are tense and anxious about your car. Objects change, but the mind remains the same.

So don't think that because of the modern life you are so much in anxiety. It is because of you, not because of modern life, and you will be in anxiety anywhere, in any type of civilization. Go to a village for a few days -- two or three days -- and you will feel good for a while because even diseases need readjustment. But within three days you will be adjusted to the village, and then anxieties will start coming, disturbances will be felt again. Now the causes will not be the same, but you are the same.

Sometimes it happens that you may be disturbed because of city traffic and noise, and you may be saying that you cannot sleep at night because there is so much traffic and noise. Then go to a village, and you will not be able to sleep because there is no traffic and no noise. You will have to come back because the village looks dead, dull -- because there is no life.

People go on reporting such feelings to me. I told one friend to go to Kashmir, to Pahalgam. He came back and said that life is dull there, that there is no life. You can enjoy for one or two days valleys and hills, and then one gets bored. He had been telling me here that city life was getting on his nerves, and now he said that those hills were getting boring and he began longing to come back home.

You are the problem; Kashmir will not be of any help. It is not Bombay that disturbs you or London or New York; it is YOU! And it is not that London has created you: you have created London. It is not the traffic and the noise and the mad rush: you have created this -- you and others like you. Look! The cause is within you. It is not that you are tense because of noise. The noise is there because you are tense, and you cannot live without it. That is why it is there. You need it, you cannot live without it. And in villages people are suffering. They want to come to Bombay or to New York or to London, and the moment they get the opportunity they run. And I have been listening to people who go on talking about the beautiful village life, but they never go to live there. They NEVER go to live there, they simply talk about it.

Who prevents you? Why not go? Go to the forest -- who prevents you? You will not like it, you cannot like it. Right now you will like it for a few days because it is a change, and then? Then you will get bored. You will find it dull, and you will like to escape from there.

This city life is created by your mad mind. You are not becoming mad because of these cities; these cities are built because of your mad mind. They are built for you and by you, and they exist for you. And unless this mad mind changes, these cities cannot disappear, they will have to remain. They are your by-product.

Remember one thing: whenever you feel that something is wrong, first find out the cause in yourself. Don't go anywhere. Out of a hundred times, ninety-nine times you will find the cause within yourself. And if you find the cause within you, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the hundredth cause will disappear by itself.

You are the cause of whatsoever is happening to you. YOU are the cause, and the world is just a mirror. But it is consolatory always to find the cause somewhere else. Then you never feel guilt, you never feel self-condemned. You can always point out that here is the cause, and unless this cause changes, "How can I change?" You can escape into it; this is a trick. So your mind always goes on projecting causes somewhere else. The wife is disturbed because of the husband; the mother is disturbed because of the children; the children are disturbed because of the father. Everyone is disturbed because of someone else, and everyone always thinks that the cause exists outside.

Mulla Nasruddin was passing down a street. It was evening, and the darkness was descending. Suddenly he became aware that the street was empty with no traffic, and he became afraid. A group of people were coming toward him, and he was reading about DACOITS, robbers, murderers. So he created fear, he started trembling. He thought, he projected, that now these murderers and dacoits were coming, and they were bound to kill him, so how to escape them? He looked all around.

There was a cemetery, so he jumped over the wall of the cemetery. There was a ready-made grave for someone, so he thought that it would be good to be dead in this grave. They will feel that he is dead, so there won't be any need to murder him.

So Mulla lay down. The group was just a marriage procession, but they saw this man trembling and jumping. Then they became afraid and wondered what was the matter and who this man was. They thought, "He seems to be up to some mischief. He is hiding there." So the whole procession stopped, and they jumped over the wall. Mulla became more afraid. Now they came near and they asked, "What are you doing here? Why are you here in this grave?"

So Mulla said, "You are asking a very difficult question. I am here because of you and you are here because of me."

And this is happening everywhere. You are disturbed because of someone else; he is disturbed because of you. And you are just creating everything around you, projecting, and then becoming afraid, scared, and making efforts to defend. And then there is misery and frustration and conflict and depression and fighting.

The whole thing is stupid, and it will remain unless you change your attitude. And always try first to find the cause within you. How can the traffic noise disturb you? How? If you are against it, it will disturb. If you have the attitude that it disturbs, it will disturb. But if you accept it, if you allow it to happen without any reaction, then you may even start enjoying it. It has its own melody, its own music. You have not heard it, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have its own music. Someday forget yourself and listen to the traffic noise. Just listen, and don't bring in your attitudes that this is disturbing, that this is not good. Don't bring in your attitudes, just listen to the melody! In the beginning it will look chaotic. That too is because of the mind. If you relax totally, sooner or later everything will fit into a harmonious whole and even the traffic noise will become music. You can enjoy it and you can dance to its tune. It depends on you.

Nothing disturbs unless you think that it disturbs. For example I will tell you that many things have disturbed humanity because there was a certain concept that they disturb. When the concept changes the things remain the same, but they don't disturb. For example, masturbation disturbed the whole world. Just half a century before, the whole world was disturbed by masturbation. Every teacher, every father, every mother was disturbed, and every child was disturbed. And still in the larger, ignorant world, the disturbance remains. And then physiologists and psychologists discovered that masturbation cannot disturb anyone; it is natural, and nothing is wrong with it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it, but the old teaching was that if you become mad, it was because of masturbation.

Everything was forced down, reduced to masturbation. And more or less every child was doing it, every boy was doing it, so every boy was afraid. He was doing it, and he was afraid that now he was going to be mad, inferior, crazy, eccentric, ill, and his life would be wasted. But he couldn't resist. He had to do it, and these ideas entered into the mind and had effects. They affected him, and many went mad, many remained inferior, many remained stupid because of it, and it has no relationship at all.

Modern science, modern research says that rather it is healthy. Medical science says that it is good because a boy at the age of thirteen or fourteen or a girl at the age of twelve or thirteen becomes sexually mature. If nature were allowed they would have to get married immediately. They are ready to reproduce, but civilization of necessity forces that they will have to remain unmarried for ten years at least or even more. But medicine says that fourteen to twenty, these six years, are the most sexually potent. A boy is never so potent again as he is then. The energy is bubbling up; the whole body is ready to burst into sex. But the society says no, the energy should not be allowed to move. However, the energy is moving and the child cannot do anything, and whatsoever he is going to do will have effects because of the philosophy around him. He will feel he is doing something wrong, he will feel guilt, and that guilt will follow like a shadow. And many diseases will happen because of the idea, not because of the act.

Medicine says that it is healthy because he is relieved of unnecessary energy. That unnecessary energy would create problems otherwise, so it is healthy. Now, particularly in America and England and other Western developed countries who know much more about physiology, masturbation is being propagated. Now there are films on how to masturbate to show to the children, and every teacher will be teaching sooner or later how to masturbate rightly. They say it is healthy, and now those who think it is healthy feel very healthy about it.

I don't think it is either -- it is neither healthy nor unhealthy. The idea is the thing. If it is healthy and the concept is stretched, it will become healthy. Now in the West they say not only that masturbation never affected anyone's intelligence adversely, but that the better the intelligence, the more masturbation will be there. So a boy who is masturbating more will be of higher I.Q. than the boy who is not masturbating. And they have reasons for saying this, because even for a boy to discover masturbation is a sign of intelligence: he is finding out a way.

The society has closed the door for marriage, and the nature is forcing the energy. The intelligent one will find a way and the non-intelligent one will just be blocked, he will not be able to find the way. Now the studies show that those boys who masturbate are more intelligent. If this idea is spread, and it is bound to be there, sooner or later the whole world will be having this idea. Then masturbation will be healthy, and you will feel a well-being from it.

Now every parent is afraid because the parent knows what he did when he was young. When his boy comes to the same age, he becomes afraid and he starts looking around at what the boy is doing. He is afraid, and if he catches the boy he will punish him. But the new knowledge says don't punish the boy -- no! Rather, teach him. If he is not masturbating, then go to the doctor and find out what is wrong. If this knowledge becomes well spread, then this will happen.

But both are positions. BOTH are positions! And when some boy masturbates, he is very suggestive in that moment -- because when sexual energy is being released, he becomes vulnerable, open, flexible, and his mind is silent. Any idea put in at that moment will have its effects -- so if you tell him, "You are going to be ill because of it," he will feel ill. If you tell him, "You are going to be healthy because of it," he will become healthy. If you say to him, "You will be stupid for your whole life if you do this," he will remain a dunce. If you say, "Now this is a good sign of intelligence," he may develop a higher I.Q. You are simply suggesting something to him in a very vulnerable moment. Whatsoever you think starts happening.

Buddha is reported to have said that every thought will become actual, so be aware. If you think that the traffic noise disturbs you, it will disturb you: you are ready for disturbance. If you think that a family life is a bondage, it will be a bondage for you: you are ready for this. If you think that poverty will help to make you liberated, it will help. Ultimately it is you who is creating a world around you, and whatsoever you think becomes the noosphere, the milieu, and you exist in it.

Tantra says remember this causality, it is always within you. And if you know this, then you will not cause anything. If you know this, you will not cause anything for yourself. And when someone is not causing anything, he is liberated. Then he is not in misery and not in bliss. Bliss is your creation and misery is also your creation. You can change your misery into bliss because it is your creation.

The liberated one, the enlightened one, is really in neither because he has ceased to cause anything around him. He simply is! That is why Buddha never says that the enlightened one is blissful. Whenever someone asked him, "Tell us something about someone who has gone beyond -- whether he is in perfect bliss," Buddha laughed and said, "Don't ask. I can say only this much, that he is not in misery. I cannot say anything more. He is not in misery; that is all I can say."

Why so much insistence on the negative? Because Buddha knows. When you have come to know that you were the cause of your misery, then you know well that the bliss also was caused by you. Then one ceases to cause anything. That is what NIRVANA is: a cessation of causing anything around you. Then you are, simply -- no misery, no bliss. If you can understand, only this is bliss. There is no misery and no bliss, because if there is bliss then misery is there; you are still causing something. And if you can cause bliss, then you can cause misery, and you will become bored of the bliss also.

How much can you stand it -- how much? Have you ever thought about it? Twenty-four hours in bliss: will you be able to stand it? You will become bored, and you will go on seeking teachers who can teach you how to become miserable again. If the world becomes blissful, I cannot conceive that there won't be any teachers. There will be teachers, because then people will need misery. Someone will be needed to tell them how to become miserable again, just for a change. Then you can go back to your bliss, and you will feel it more -- because only then can you feel it more, when you have missed it.

Teachers will be there! Now they are teaching how to become blissful; then they will teach how to become miserable, how to have a taste of hell. A little change will be helpful, healthy.

But you are the cause, and you will become enlightened the moment you have known that the world you are living in was caused by you. When you will not cause it, it will have disappeared. The traffic will go on, the noise will be there, and everything will be there as it is, but you will not be there because you will have disappeared with the cause.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #5

Chapter title: Remaining with the real

29 March 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7303295

ShortTitle: VBT205

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 87 mins

AS A HEN MOTHERS HER CHICKS, MOTHER PARTICULAR KNOWINGS, PARTICULAR DOINGS, IN REALITY.

SINCE, IN TRUTH, BONDAGE AND FREEDOM ARE RELATIVE, THESE WORDS ARE ONLY FOR THOSE TERRIFIED WITH THE UNIVERSE. THIS UNIVERSE IS A REFLECTION OF MINDS. AS YOU SEE MANY SUNS IN WATER FROM ONE SUN, SO SEE BONDAGE AND LIBERATION.

Hui-neng had asked a person, "What is the problem? What are the roots so that man can be solved and man can make some efforts to know who he is?"

Why shouldn't he know without any effort? Why should there be any problem at all? You are, you know you are -- so why can't you know who you are? Where do you miss? You are conscious. You are conscious that you are conscious. A life is there; you are alive. Why are you not aware who you are? What becomes the barrier? What prevents you from this basic self-knowledge? If you can understand the barrier, the barrier can be dissolved very easily.

So the real question is not how to know oneself. The real question is to know how you are not knowing yourself, how you are missing such an obvious reality, such a basic truth which is so near to you, how you go on not seeing. You must have created a device; otherwise it is difficult to escape from oneself. You must have created walls; you must, in some sense, be deceiving yourself.

So what is that trick of escaping from oneself, of not knowing oneself? If you don't understand that trick, whatsoever you do will not be of any help -- because the trick remains, and you go on asking how to know oneself, how to know the truth, how to know the reality, and consequently you go on helping the barrier. You go on creating it also, so whatsoever you do will be of no use.

Really, nothing positive is needed to know oneself, only something negative. In a way, you have only to destroy the barrier that you yourself have constructed, and the moment that barrier is not there you will know. Knowing happens when the barrier is not; you cannot make any positive effort for it. You have just to be aware of how you are missing it.

So a few things have to be understood as to how you are missing it. One: you live in your dreams, and then dreams become barriers. Reality is not a dream. It is there, you are surrounded by it everywhere. Inside and outside, it is there -- you cannot miss it -- but you are dreaming. Then you move in a different dimension which is not a reality. Then you go on moving in a dreamworld. Then dreams become like clouds around you, and they create the barrier. Unless mind ceases dreaming, the truth cannot be known. And when you see through dreams the reality is distorted, and your eyes are filled with dreams, and your ears are filled with dreams, and your hands are filled with dreams.

So whatsoever you touch is touched through the dreams, and whatsoever you see is seen through dreams, and whatsoever you hear is heard through the dreams, and you distort everything. Whatsoever reaches you, reaches through dreams, and they change everything, they color everything. Because of the dreaming mind you are missing the reality outside and the reality inside. You can go on finding ways and means how to come to reality, but you will be trying that too through your dreaming mind. So you can dream religious dreams -- you can dream dreams about reality, about truth, about God, about Christ and Buddha -- but that too will be dreaming. Dreaming must cease, and dreaming cannot be used to know reality.

What do I mean when I say "dreaming"? You are hearing right now, but a dream is there, and that dream is constantly interpreting what is being said. You are not hearing me; you are hearing yourself, because simultaneously you are interpreting -- are you not? You are thinking about what is being said. What is the need to think? Just hear, don't think, because if you think you cannot hear, and if you go on thinking and hearing, then whatsoever you hear is your own noise. Then it is not what is being said. Stop thinking; let the passage of hearing be clear of thoughts. Then that which is said will be heard.

When looking at the flower, stop dreaming. Don't allow your eyes to be filled with thoughts and dreams about the past and future, with what you know about flowers. Don't even say that "This flower is beautiful," because then you are missing the reality. These words will become a barrier. You say, "This flower is beautiful," and words have come in: the reality is interpreted through the words. Don't allow words to gather around you. Look directly, hear directly and touch directly.

When you touch someone, just touch; don't say that the skin is beautiful, smooth. Then you are missing, you have moved in dream. Whatsoever the skin is, it is here now. Touch it and allow the skin itself to be revealed to you. You look at a beautiful face. Look at it, and allow the face to enter itself. Don't interpret it, don't say anything. Don't bring your past mind in.

The first thing: dreams are created by your past mind. It is the past mind continuously moving around you. Don't allow the past to come in and then don't allow the future. The moment you see a beautiful face, a beautiful body, immediately desire arises. You want to possess. You see a beautiful flower and you want to pluck it. Then you have moved. The flower is there, but you have moved into desire, into the future. Now you are not here. So either you are in the past which is not, or you are in the future which has not come yet, and you are missing that which is there right now.

So the first thing to remember: words should not be allowed to exist between you and reality. With less words there are less barriers; with no words there are no barriers. And then you face reality directly; immediately you are face to face. Words destroy everything because they change the very meaning.

I was reading someone's biography. She was describing one day after just coming out of her bed. The woman writes that "One day, in the morning, I opened my eyes." Then immediately, she says, "But it is not right to say that I opened my eyes. `I' didn't do anything. The eyes opened by themselves." She changes the sentence and she writes, "No, it is not good to say that I opened my eyes. I did not do anything. There was no effort on my part; it was not an action at all." Then she writes, "The eyes opened by themselves." But then she feels this is too absurd because the eyes belong to her, so how can they open themselves? So what to do?

Language never says what is. If you say, "I opened my eyes," it is a lie. If you say, "The eyes opened by themselves," it is a lie again, because eyes are just fragments. They cannot open themselves. The whole organism is involved. And whatsoever we say is like that. If you go to aboriginal societies in India -- and there are many aboriginal tribes -- they have a different language structure. Their language structure is more basic and more real, but they cannot create much poetry. Their language structure cannot be helpful for dreaming.

If it is raining, we say, "It is raining." They ask, "What do you mean by `it'? What do you mean by `it'?" They have simply the word rain. What do you mean by "it"? What is raining? They just say "rain." Rain is the reality, but we go on adding things -- and the more words are added, the more we are lost, far away, thrown far away from reality.

Buddha used to say, "When you say, `A man is walking,' what do you mean? Where is the man? Only the walking is. What do you mean by `the man'?" When we say, "A man is walking," it appears that there is something like a man and something like walking -- two things added together. Buddha says there is walking.

When you say, "The river is flowing," what do you mean? There is just flowing, and that flowing is the river. The walking is the man, the seeing is the man, standing and sitting is the man. If you eliminate all these -- walking, sitting, standing, thinking, dreaming -- will there be a man left behind? There will be no man behind. But language creates a different world, and by constantly moving into words we go on moving away.

So the first thing to remember is how not to allow words unnecessarily. When there is a need, you can use them, but when there is no need remain empty, remain non-verbal, MOUNA, remain silent. There is no need to be constantly verbalizing things.

Secondly, don't project. Don't verbalize, don't project. Look at what is there. Don't add things and then look. You see a face. When you say, "It is beautiful," you are putting something into it, or if you say, "It is ugly," you are again putting something into it. A face is a face. Beauty and ugliness are your interpretations. They are not there, because the same face may be beautiful to someone and ugly to someone else, and to a third it may be neither. He may be indifferent; he may not even look at it -- at the same face. The face is simply a face. Don't put things into it; don't project. Your projections are your dreams, and if you project then you miss. And this is happening every day.

You see that a face is beautiful; then desire is created. The desire is not for that face or that body; it is for your own interpretation, your own projection. The person that is there, the real person, has been used as a screen, and you have projected yourself. And then disillusion is bound to be there because the real face cannot be forced into unreality by your projection. Sooner or later the projection will have to be dropped, and the real face will come out, and then you will feel that you have been cheated. You will say, "What has happened to this face? This face was so beautiful and this person was so beautiful, and now everything has gone ugly." Again you are interpreting. The person remains whatsoever he is, but your interpretations and projections go on, and you are never allowing energy to assert itself. You go on suppressing it. You are suppressing inwardly and outwardly also. You never allow the reality to assert itself.

I am reminded that one day a neighbor asked Mulla Nasruddin whether he could have his horse for a few hours. The Mulla said, "I would gladly give my horse to you, but my wife has gone with the horse and they will be out for the whole day." Just at this moment the neigh of the horse was heard from the stable, so the man looked at Mulla Nasruddin. Nasruddin said, "Okay, whom do you believe -- me or the horse? And the horse is a notorious liar to boot. Whom do you believe?"

We create an untrue world around us because of our projections, but if the reality asserts and the horse neighs from the stable, we ask, "Whom do you believe?" We always believe ourselves, not the reality that goes on asserting. It is asserting every moment, but we go on forcing our illusions. That is why every man feels disillusioned in the end. It is not because of reality. Every man and woman feels disillusioned in the end, as if the whole life has been a waste. But now you cannot do anything, you cannot undo it. Time is no more with you. Time has flown and death is near and you are disillusioned, and now the opportunity is lost.

Why does everyone feel disillusioned? Not only those who are unsuccessful in life, but those who are successful in life, they also feel the same. It is okay if unsuccessfuls feel disillusioned, but even those who succeed feel this way. Napoleons and Hitlers and Alexanders, they also feel disillusioned. The whole life has been a waste. Why? Is the cause really in reality, or is the cause in the dreams which you were projecting? And then you could not project them and the reality asserted itself, and ultimately reality wins and you are defeated. You can win only if you are not projecting.

So remember the second thing: look directly at things as they are. Don't project, don't interpret, don't force your mind upon things. Allow the reality to assert itself, whatsoever it is. This is always good, and howsoever beautiful your dreams they are bad, because you are bound on a journey of disillusion. And the sooner you are disillusioned, the better, but once one illusion is gone, immediately you start creating another to replace it.

Allow a gap. Between two illusions, allow a gap. Allow an interval so the reality can be seen. This is very arduous -- to look at the reality as it is. It may not be according to your desires. There is no need for it to be according to your desires. But then you have to live with reality, to live in it -- and you ARE in it! It is better to come to terms with reality than to go on deceiving yourself, and you are not aware how you go on projecting. Someone says something, and you understand something else. And you base things on your understanding, and then you make a house of cards out of it, you create a palace of cards. It was never said! Something else was meant!

Always see what is there. Don't be in a haste. It is better not to understand something than to misunderstand. It is better to remain ignorant consciously than to think that you know. Look into your relationships -- at the husband, the wife, the friend, the teacher, the master, the servant -- look! Everyone is thinking in his own ways, interpreting the other, and there is no meeting, no communication. Then they are fighting, in constant conflict. The conflict is not between two persons, the conflict is between false images. Be alert so that you don't have any false image of anyone else. Remain with the real, howsoever hard, howsoever arduous and difficult, even if sometimes it seems impossible. But once you know the beauty of remaining with the real, you will never be a victim of dreaming.

And thirdly, why do you dream? It is a substitute. Dreaming is a substitute. If you cannot get whatsoever you desire in reality, then you start dreaming. For example, if you have fasted the whole day, in the night. You will dream: you will dream about food, of being invited by a great emperor, or some such thing. You will be eating and eating and eating in your dreaming. The whole day you were fasting, and now in the night you are eating. If you are sexually suppressive, then your dreams will become sexual. Through your dreams it can be known what you are suppressing in the day. Your daytime fast will be shown by your dream. Dreams are substitutes, and psychologists say that it will be difficult for man as he is to live without dreams. And they are right in a way. As man is it will be difficult to live without dreams, but if you want a transformation, then you have to live without dreams. Why are dreams created? Because of desires. Unfulfilled desires become dreams.

Study your desiring; be aware and observe it. The more you observe it, the more it will disappear. And then you will not create webs in the mind, and you will not move in a private world of your own. Dreams cannot be shared; even two intimate friends cannot share their dreams. You cannot invite anyone into your dreams. Why? You and your lover cannot both be in the same dream. Your dream is yours; another's dream is another's. They are private. Reality is not so private, only madness is private. Reality is universal, you can share it; you cannot share dreams. They are your private madness -- fictions. So what is to be done?

One can, in the day, live so totally that nothing is left suspended. If you are eating, eat totally. Enjoy it so totally that you don't need any dream in the night. If you are loving someone, love so totally that no love enters into your dreams. Whatsoever you do in the day, do it so totally that nothing is suspended on the mind, nothing is incomplete which has to be completed in dreams. Try this, and within a few months you will have a different quality of sleep. Dreams will go on becoming less and less, and deep sleep will deepen. And when in the night dreams are less, in the day projections will be less because, really, your sleep continues and your dream continues. With closed eyes in the night and with opened eyes in the day, they continue. Inside a current goes on.

Any moment, close your eyes and wait, and you will see that the film has come back; the dream is running. It is always there, just waiting for you. It is just like the stars in the day. They have not disappeared, but only because of the sunlight you cannot see them. They are there waiting, and when the sun will set they will start appearing.

Your dreams are just that way -- moving within you even while you are awake. They are just waiting. Close your eyes, and they start functioning. When dreams are less in the night, in the day you will have a different quality of waking. If your night changes, your day changes; if your sleep changes, your waking changes. You will be more alert. With less dreams running within, you will be less asleep. You will look more directly.

So don't leave anything suspended, that is one thing. And whatsoever you are doing, remain with the act. Don't move anywhere else. If you are taking a shower, be there. Forget the whole world. Now this shower is the whole universe. Everything has ceased; the world has disappeared. There is only you and the shower. Remain there. Move with each act so totally that you are neither lagging behind nor jumping ahead; you are with the act. Then dreams will disappear, and with less dreaming you will be more able to penetrate the reality.

Now the technique. The technique is concerned with this.

"AS A HEN MOTHERS HER CHICKS, MOTHER PARTICULAR KNOWINGS, PARTICULAR DOINGS, IN REALITY."

The key term is "IN REALITY." You are also mothering many things, but in dreams -- not in reality. You are also doing many things, but in dream -- not in reality. Don't mother dreams, don't help dreaming to grow more in you; don't give your energy to dreaming. Withdraw yourself from all dreams. It will be difficult because you have invested so much in your dreaming. If you suddenly withdraw yourself totally from dreaming, you will feel as if you are sinking and dying, because you have always lived in a postponed dream. You have never been here and now, you are always somewhere else. You have been hoping.

Have you heard the Greek parable of Pandora's box? To revenge a certain deed on the part of a man, Pandora was sent a box, and the box had all the diseases that are now rampant in humanity. They were not there before, and when the box was opened the diseases were released. Pandora, being afraid after seeing the diseases, closed the box. Only one disease remained there and that was hope; otherwise man would have dissipated, all these diseases would have killed him -- but because of hope he continued.

Why are you living? Have you ever asked? There is nothing to live for here and now. There is just hope. You are carrying a Pandora's box. Why are you living right now? Why do you get up every morning? Why do you start the whole day again -- again and again? Why this repetition? What is the reason? You cannot find any reason right now for why you are living, and if you find something it will be something in the future -- a hope that something is going to happen: someday "something" is going to happen. You don't know when that day will come; you even don't know what it is that is going to happen -- but someday "something is going to happen," and so you go on prolonging yourself, you go on carrying yourself.

Man lives just in hope, and this is not life because hope means dream. Unless you live here and now, you are not alive. You are a dead weight, and that tomorrow which will fulfill all your hopes is never to come. When death will come, then only will you realize that now there is no tomorrow, and now you cannot postpone. Then you will feel disillusioned, cheated -- but no one has cheated you; you are the master of the whole mess.

Try to live in the moment, in the present, and don't cherish hopes, whatsoever their nature. They may be worldly, they may be other-worldly; it makes no difference. They may be religious -- somewhere in future, in the other world, in heaven, in the NIRVANA, after death -- but it makes no difference. Don't hope. Even if you feel a subtle hopelessness here, remain here. Don't move from the moment here and now. Don't move! Suffer it, but don't allow the hope to enter in.

Through hope dreaming enters. Be hopeless. If life is hopeless, be hopeless. Accept it, but don't cling to any future event. Then suddenly there will be a change. Once you remain in the present moment, dreams stop -- because then they cannot arise. The source has been withdrawn. You cooperate with them, you mother them; that is why they arise. Don't cooperate with them, don't mother them.

This sutra says "... MOTHER PARTICULAR KNOWINGS." Why particular knowings? You also mother, but you mother particular theories, not knowings; particular scriptures, not knowings; particular hypotheses, systems, philosophies, world views -- but never particular knowings. This sutra says throw them away. Scriptures, theories, they are of no use. Have your own experience which is real, your own knowings, and mother them. Howsoever trivial, a real knowing is something. You can base your life upon it. Whatsoever they are, always think of real, particular knowings that YOU have known.

Have you known anything? You know many things, but everything is borrowed. Someone has said them, someone has given them to you. Teachers, parents, society, they have conditioned your mind. You "know" about God, you "know" about love, you "know" about meditation. You don't know anything really! You have not tasted anything, this all is borrowed. Someone else has tasted, the taste is not your own. Someone else has seen, but you have your eyes and you have not used them. Someone else has experienced -- a Buddha has experienced, a Jesus has experienced -- and you just go on borrowing their knowings. They are false! For you, they are of no use. They are more dangerous than ignorance, because ignorance is yours and the knowledge is borrowed.

It is better to be ignorant; at least the ignorance is yours. It is authentic, it is real, sincere and honest! Don't go on with borrowed knowledge. Otherwise you will forget that you are ignorant, and you will remain ignorant.

This sutra says "... MOTHER PARTICULAR KNOWINGS." Always try to know something in a way that is fresh, direct, immediate. Don't believe in anyone. Your belief will lead you astray. Trust yourself -- and if you cannot trust yourself, how can you trust anybody else?

Sariputta came to Buddha, and he said, "I have come to believe in you. I have come! Help me to build faith in you."

Buddha is reported to have said, "If you don't believe in yourself, how can you believe in me? So forget me. First have trust in yourself, believe in yourself. Only then can you have trust in someone else."

So remember this: you cannot trust anybody if you cannot even trust yourself. The first trust is always within. Only then can it flow; only then can it overflow, it can reach to others. But how can you trust if you don't know anything? How can you trust in yourself if you don't have any experience? Try to trust in yourself. Don't think that this experience of looking through others' eyes is only with the absolute. It is with ordinary experiences also. But let them be your own. They will help you to grow, they will make you mature, they will make you ripened.

This is really strange: you look with others' eyes, you live with others' lives. You call a rose beautiful. Really, is it your feeling or just a teaching that is spread around you that a rose is beautiful? Is this your knowing? Have you known it? You say that moonlight is good, beautiful. Is it your knowing, or is it just that poets have been singing about it and you are repeating it? If you are like a parrot, you cannot live your life authentically. Whenever you assert anything and whenever you say anything, first check within whether it is your knowledge and your experience.

Throw out all that is not yours -- it is of no use -- and cherish and mother all that is yours, because only through that will you grow. "MOTHER PARTICULAR KNOWINGS, PARTICULAR DOINGS, IN REALITY." Always remember "in reality." Do something. Have you done anything ever, or have you been just following others, just following orders? "Love your wife": have you really loved her? Or are you just doing a duty because it has been said, because it has been taught, "Love your wife -- or love your mother, love your father, love your brother," so you are loving and you are following! Have YOU really loved any time when you were there? Was it ever the case that no teaching was working and no other was being followed? Were you ever authentically in love? You can deceive yourself; you can say, "Yes!" But find out before you say anything. If you have loved, you would be transformed; the particular act of love would have changed you. But it has not changed you because your love is false. And the whole life has become false. You go on doing things that are not your own. Do your own thing and mother it.

Buddha is good, but you cannot follow him. Jesus is good, beautiful, but you cannot follow him. And if you will follow, you will become ugly. You will be a carbon copy. You will be false, and you will not be accepted by the existence. Nothing false is accepted. Love a Buddha, love a Jesus, but don't be their carbon copies. Don't imitate. Always allow your own self to move in its own way. You will become Buddha-like one day, but the path will be basically your own. One day you will become a Jesus, but you will have traveled along a different route, you will have experienced different things. One thing is certain: whatsoever may be the route and whatsoever may be the experience, it must be authentic, real, and your own. Then you will reach one day. Through falsity you cannot reach the truth; falsity will lead to more falsity.

Do something, remembering well that it is you who are doing it without following anybody. Then even a very small act, just a smile, may become a source of SATORI, a source of SAMADHI, cosmic consciousness. You come back to your home and smile at your children. That smile is false; you are pretending. You are smiling because a smile is expected. It is a painted smile. Nothing else is smiling in you but the lips. They are manipulated; the smile is mechanical. And you can become so habituated in this that you may completely forget how to smile. You may laugh, but the laughter may not be coming from your center.

Always remember, no matter what you are doing, observe whether your center is involved in it or not, because if it is not involved it is better not to do a thing. Don't do it! No one is forcing you to do anything. Don't do it! Preserve your energy for the moment when something real happens to you; then do it. Don't smile, preserve the energy. The smile will come, and then it will change you completely. Then it will be total. Then every cell of your body will smile. Then it will be an explosion -- nothing painted.

And children know, you cannot deceive them. The moment you can deceive them, they are no more children. They know when your smile is false, they can detect it; anyone who is real will detect it. Your tears are false, your smile is false. These are small acts, but you are made up of small acts. So don't think to do something big -- that then you will do this. If you are false in small things you will always be false.

It is easy to be false in big things. If you are false in small things, it is very easy to be false in big things, because big things because big things are always on exhibition. They are for others to see, so you can very easily be false. You can be a saint if saintliness is respected. Then you are on exhibition -- just an exhibition piece. You can be a saint because it is respected and ego-fulfilling, but everything will be false. Just think, if a society changes its attitudes as they have been changed in Soviet Russia or in China, immediately, saints disappear -- because there is no respect for them.

I remember one of my friends, a Buddhist BHIKKHU who went to Soviet Russia in Stalin's days. He told me that whenever somebody would shake hands with him, suddenly the man would shrink and would say, "You have the hands of a bourgeois." He had very beautiful hands. As a BHIKKHU he had never done anything; he was a beggar, a royal beggar, so there had been no labor. His hands were very smooth, beautiful, feminine. In India, whenever someone touched his hands he would say, "So beautiful!" In Russia, whenever someone would touch his hands, he would shrink away, and the condemnation would come into his eyes and he would say, "So you have bourgeois hands, the hands of an exploiter." He came back and told me, "I felt so condemned there that I longed to be a laborer."

Saints disappeared from Russia because now there is no respect. All that saintliness which was there was only on exhibition; it was a showpiece, painted. Only real saints can exist now in Russia. For unreal ones there is no possibility because you will have to struggle there to be a saint, and the whole society will be against you. In India, the easiest way to survive and exist is to be a saint. Everyone respects you. You can be false, and falsity pays.

Remember this: from the very morning, when you open your eyes, try to be real and authentic. Don't do anything which is false. Only for seven days, go on remembering. Don't do anything which is false. Whatsoever is lost, let it be lost. Whatsoever you lose, lose it. But remain real, and within seven days a new life will be felt within you. The dead layers will be broken and a new living current will come to you. You will feel alive again for the first time -- a resurrection.

"MOTHER DOINGS... MOTHER KNOWINGS.... IN REALITY" -- not in dream. Do whatsoever you like to do, but think -- really, are you doing it, or is your mother doing it through you or your father doing it through you? Because dead men, dead parents, societies, old generations gone long ago are still functioning within you. They have created such conditionings that you go on fulfilling THEM -- and they were fulfilling their dead fathers and mothers, and you are fulfilling your dead fathers and mothers, and no one is fulfilled. How can you fulfill someone who is dead? But the dead are living through you.

Always observe when you do something, whether your father is doing it through you or you are doing it. When you get angry, is it your anger or is it the way your father used to be angry? You are just imitating. I have seen patterns going on, being repeated. If you marry, your marriage is going to be just approximately the same as your father's and your mother's. You will act like your father, your wife will act like her mother, and you will create the same mess again. When you get angry, observe: are you there or someone else? When you love, remember, are you there or someone else? When you speak something, remember, are you speaking or your teacher? When you make a gesture, remember, is it yours or is someone else present in your hand? It will be difficult, but this is SADHANA. This is what spiritual effort means.

And leave all falsities. You may feel a certain dullness for a time being, because all your falsities will drop and the real will take time to come and assert itself. There will be a period of a gap. Allow that period, and don't be afraid and don't become scared. Sooner or later your false selves will drop, masks will drop, and your real face will come into being. Only through that real face can you encounter God. That is why this sutra says, "AS A HEN MOTHERS HER CHICKS, MOTHER PARTICULAR KNOWINGS, PARTICULARS DOINGS, IN REALITY."

The second sutra:

"SINCE, IN TRUTH, BONDAGE AND FREEDOM ARE RELATED, THESE WORDS ARE ONLY FOR THOSE TERRIFIED WITH THE UNIVERSE. THIS UNIVERSE IS A REFLECTION OF MINDS. AS YOU SEE MANY SUNS IN THE WATER FROM ONE SUN, SO SEE BONDAGE AND LIBERATION."

This is a very deep technique, one of the deepest, and only very rare minds have tried it. Zen is based on this technique. This technique is saying a very difficult thing -- difficult to comprehend, not difficult to experience. But first comprehension is needed.

This sutra says that the world and NIRVANA are not two things, they are one; that heaven and hell are not two things, they are one; and that bondage and liberation are not two things, they are one. It is difficult because we can only conceive of something easily if it is in terms of polar opposites.

We say that this world is bondage, so how to get out of this world and be liberated? Then liberation is something which is opposite, which is not bondage. But this sutra says that both are the same -- liberation and bondage -- and unless you are freed from both you are not freed. Bondage binds, and liberation also. Bondage is a slavery, and liberation is also.

Try to understand this. Look at a person who is trying to go beyond bondage. What is he doing? He leaves his home, he leaves his family, he leaves the riches, he leaves the things of the world, he leaves society just to get out of bondage, out of the fetters of the world. Then he creates new fetters for himself. Those fetters are negative.

I have seen one saint who cannot touch money. He is respected -- he is bound to be respected by those who are mad after money. He has moved to the other pole. If you put money in his hand, he will throw it as if there were some poison or as if you have put some scorpion in his hand. He will throw it and he will become scared. A subtle trembling comes to his body. What is happening? He has been fighting with money. He must have been a greedy man -- too much greed. Only then can he move to this extreme. He may have been too much obsessed with money. He is still obsessed, but now in the reverse direction. However, the obsession is still there.

I have seen one sannyasin who cannot look at any female face. He becomes afraid. He will always look down, he will never look up if some woman is there. What is the problem? He must have been too much sexual, obsessed with sex. He is still obsessed, but then he was running after this woman or that and now he is running from women -- from this one and that. But he is still obsessed with women. Whether he is running after or running from, his obsession remains. He thinks that now he is liberated from women, but this is a new bondage. You cannot become liberated by reaction. The thing you go against will bind you negatively; you cannot escape it. If someone is against the world and for liberation, he cannot be liberated; he will remain in the world. The attitude of being against is a bondage.

This sutra is very deep, it says "SINCE IN TRUTH, BONDAGE AND FREEDOM ARE RELATED..." They are not opposite, they are relative. What is freedom? You say, "Not bondage." And what is bondage? You say, "Not freedom." You can define them by each other. They are just like hot and cold, not opposite. What is hot and what is cold? They are just degrees of the same phenomenon -- degrees of temperature -- but the phenomenon is the same, and they are relative. If there is in one bucket cold water and in another there is hot water and you put in both your hands -- one hand in the hot and one in the cold -- what will you feel? A difference of degrees.

And if at first you cool down both your hands on ice and then you put both your hands into the hot and the cold water, what will happen? Now again you will feel a difference. Your cold hand will now feel more hot in the hot water than it felt before. And if your other hand has become cold, much colder than the cold water, then that water will now look hot; you will not feel it as cool. It is relative. There are only degrees of difference, but the phenomenon is the same.

Tantra says that bondage and liberation, SANSARA and MOKSHA, are not two things, but a relative phenomenon -- of the same thing. So tantra is unique. Tantra says that you have to be liberated not only from bondage; you have to be liberated from MOKSHA also. Unless you are liberated from both, you are not Liberated.

So the first thing: don't try to go against anything because you will move to something which belongs to it. It looks opposite, but it is not. Don't move from sex to BRAHMACHARYA. If you are trying to move from sex to BRAHMACHARYA, your BRAHMACHARYA will be nothing but sexuality. Don't move from greed to no-greed because that no-greed will again be a subtle greed. That is why if a tradition teaches to be non- greedy, it gives you some profit motive in it.

I was staying with a saint, and he told his followers, "If you leave greed you will get much in the other world. If you leave greed, you will gain much in the other world!" Those who are greedy, greedy for the other world, will be influenced by this. They may be motivated, and they will be ready to leave many things to gain. But the motive to gain remains; otherwise how can a greedy man move toward non-greed? Some motive must be there which fulfills his greed deeply.

So don't create opposite poles. All opposites are related; they are degrees of the same phenomenon. If you become aware of this, you will say that both poles are the same. If you can feel this, that both poles are the same, and if this feeling deepens, you will be liberated from both. Then you are neither for SANSARA nor for MOKSHA. Really, then you are not asking for anything; you have stopped asking. In that stopping, you are liberated. In that feeling that everything is the same, the future will have dropped. Where can you move now? Sex and BRAHMACHARYA both are the same, so where is one to move? And if greed and non-greed are the same and violence and nonviolence are the same, where has one to move?

There is nowhere to move. Then movement ceases; there is no future. You cannot desire anything because all desires will be the same; the difference will be just of degrees. What can you desire? Sometimes I ask people -- when they come to me, I ask them -- "What do you really desire?" Their desire is based in them as they are. If they are greedy, they desire nongreed; if they are sexual, obsessed with sex, they desire BRAHMACHARYA, how to be beyond sex, because they are miserable in their sex.

But this desire for BRAHMACHARYA is based, rooted, in their sexuality. They ask, "How to get out of this world?" The world is too much on them, they are too much burdened and they are clinging too much, because the world cannot burden you unless you cling to it. The burden is in your head -- not because of the burden, but because of you, you are carrying it. And they are carrying the whole world; then they get burdened. And in this experience of misery there arises a new desire for the opposite, so then they start hankering for the opposite.

They were running after money, so now they run after meditation. They were running after something in this world; now they are running after something in that world. But the running remains, and the running is the problem. The object is irrelevant. Desire is the problem. What you desire is meaningless. You desire, that is the problem, and you go on changing objects. Today you desire A, tomorrow you desire B, and you think you are changing. Then the day after tomorrow you desire C, and you think you are transformed. BUT you are the same. You desired A, you desired B, you desired C, and A-B-C are not you. You desire -- that is you, and that remains the same. You desire bondage, then you get frustrated, fed up; then you desire liberation. You desire, and desire is the bondage.

So you cannot desire liberation. Desire is bondage, so you cannot desire liberation. When desire ceases, liberation is. That is why this sutra says, "IN TRUTH, BONDAGE AND FREEDOM ARE RELATIVE." So don't become obsessed with the opposite.

"These words are only for those terrified with the universe." These words of bondage and freedom are for those who are terrified with the universe.

"THIS UNIVERSE IS THE REFLECTION OF MINDS." Whatsoever you see in this universe is a reflection. If it looks like bondage, it means it is your reflection. If it looks like liberation, again it is your reflection.

"AS YOU SEE MANY SUNS IN WATER FROM ONE SUN, SO SEE BONDAGE AND LIBERATION." The sun rises, and there are many ponds -- dirty and pure, big and small, beautiful and ugly -- and one sun reflects in many ponds. One who goes on counting the reflections will think that there are many, many suns. One who looks not into the reflections but to the reality will see one. The world, as you look at it, reflects you. If you are sexual, the whole world seems sexual. If you are a thief, the whole world seems to be in the same profession.

Once Mulla Nasruddin and his wife were fishing, and the place was restricted; only license holders could fish there. Suddenly a policeman appeared, so Mulla's wife said, "Mulla, you have the license so you run away. Meanwhile, I will escape."

So Mulla started running. He ran and ran and ran, and the policeman followed. Of course, Mulla left the wife there, and the policeman followed him. Mulla ran and ran until he felt that now his heart would explode. But by that time the policeman caught hold of him. The policeman was also perspiring, and he said, "Where is your license?" So Mulla produced his papers. The policeman looked at them and they were okay. So he said, "Why are you running, Nasruddin? Why did you run away?"

Nasruddin said, "I am going to a doctor, and he says after every meal to run for half a mile."

The policeman said, "Okay, but you saw me running after you, chasing you, yelling, so why didn't you stop?"

Nasruddin said, "I thought that maybe you go to the same doctor."

It is logical; it is what is happening. Whatsoever you see all around you is more a reflection of you than of any real thing there. You look at yourself mirrored everywhere. The moment you change, the reflection changes. The moment you become totally silent, the whole world becomes silent. The world is not a bondage: bondage is a reflection. And the world is not liberation; liberation is again a reflection.

A Buddha finds the whole world in NIRVANA. A Krishna finds the whole world celebrating in ecstasy, in bliss; there is no misery. But tantra says that whatsoever you see is a reflection unless all seeing disappears and only the mirror is seen with nothing reflected in it. That is the truth.

If something is seen, it is just a reflection. Truth is one; many can only be reflections. Once this is understood -- not theoretically, but existentially, through experience -- you are liberated, liberated from both bondage and liberation.

Naropa, when he became enlightened, was asked by someone, "Have you achieved liberation now?"

Naropa said, "Yes and no both. Yes, I am not in bondage, and no because that liberation was also a reflection of bondage. I thought about it because of bondage."

Look at it in this way: you are ill then you long for health. That longing for health is part of your illness. If you are really healthy, you will not long for health. How will you? If you are really healthy, where is the longing? What is the need? If you are really healthy, you never feel that you are healthy. Only ill, diseased persons feel that they are healthy. What is the need? How can you feel that you are healthy? If you are born healthy and you have never been ill, will you be able to feel your health? Health is there, but it cannot be felt. It can be felt only through contrast, through the opposite. Only through the opposite are things felt. If you are ill, you can feel health -- and if you are feeling health, remember, you are still ill.

So Naropa says, "Yes and no both. `Yes' because there is no bondage now, but with the bondage liberation has also disappeared; that is why `No'. It was part of it. Now I am beyond both -- neither in bondage nor in liberation."

Don't make religion a search, a desire. Don't make MOKSHA, Liberation, NIRVANA, an object of desiring. It happens when there is no desiring.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #6

Chapter title: The tantric way to freedom from desires

30 March 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7303305

ShortTitle: VBT206

Audio: Yes

Video: No

The first question:

Question 1

"YOU SAID YESTERDAY THAT THE MOTIVATION TOWARDS LIBERATION OR SAMADHI IS ALSO A TENSION AND A BARRIER, BUT IS IT NOT CORRECT THAT IT IS NOT A DESIRE BUT AN ASPIRATION -- THE INTRINSIC THIRST OF THE HUMAN BEING?"

You must understand what desire means, and religions have confused you much about it. If you desire something of the world, they call it desire. If you desire something of the other world, they call it by a different name. This is absurd. Desire is desire! It makes no difference what the object of desire is. The object may be anything -- of this world, material, or of another world, spiritual -- but desiring remains the same.

Every desire is a bondage. Even if you desire God, it is a bondage; even if you desire liberation it is a bondage. And liberation cannot happen unless this desiring goes away totally. So remember, you cannot desire liberation, that is impossible; that is contradictory. You can become desireless, and then liberation happens. But that is not a result of your desire. Rather, it is a consequence of no-desire.

So try to understand what desire is. Desire means that right now you are not okay, you are not at ease. This very moment you are not at ease with yourself, and something else in the future, if fulfilled, will bring you peace. The fulfillment is always in the future; it is never here and now. This tension of the mind for the future is desire. Desire means you are not in the present moment, and all that is there is only the present moment. You are somewhere in the future, and the future is not. It never has been, it will never be. All that is, is always the present -- this moment.

This projection of your fulfillment somewhere in the future is desire. So what that future fulfillment is, is irrelevant. It may be the kingdom of God, heaven, NIRVANA, it may be anything, but if it is in the future, it is desire. And you cannot desire in the present, remember; that is not possible. In the present you can only be, you cannot desire. How can you desire in the present?

Desire leads into the future, into fantasy, dreaming. That is why so much insistence by Buddha for no-desire -- because only in no-desire do you move into reality. With desire you move into dreams. The future is a dream, and when you project into the future you are going to be frustrated. You are destroying reality right now for future dreams, and this habit of the mind will remain with you. It is being strengthened every day. So when your future comes it will come in the form of the present, and your mind will again move to some other future. Even if you could reach God, you will not be satisfied. The way you are, it is impossible. Even in the presence of the divine, you will have moved away into the future.

Your mind is always moving into the future. This movement of the mind in the future is desire. Desire is not concerned with any object, with whether you desire sex or you desire meditation -- it makes no difference. Desiring is the thing -- that you desire. It means you are not here. It means you are not in the real moment, and the present moment is the only door into existence. The past and future are not doors, they are walls.

So I cannot call any desire spiritual. Desire as such is worldly. Desire is the world. There is no spiritual desire; there cannot be. That is a trick of the mind, a deception. You don't want to leave desiring, so you change the objects. First you were desiring wealth, prestige, power. Now you say you don't desire and that these are worldly things. You condemn them, and those who desire them are condemned in your eyes. Now you desire God, the kingdom of God, NIRVANA, MOKSHA, the eternal, SATCHITANANDA, the brahman. Now you desire these, and you feel very good. You think you are transformed, but you have not done anything. You remain the same.

You are just playing tricks with yourself, and now you are in a greater mess because you think that this is not desiring. You remain the same. The mind remains the same; the functioning of the mind remains the same. You are not yet here. The objects of desire have changed, but the running, the dreaming, remains, and the dreaming is the desire -- not the object.

So try to understand me. I say that every desire is worldly because desire is the world. So it is not a question of changing the desire, it is not a question of changing objects. It is a question of a mutation, of a revolution from desire to no-desire; from desire to no-desire, not from old desires to new desires, from worldly desire to otherworldly desires, from material desires to spiritual desires -- no! From desire to no-desire is the revolution!

But how to move from desire to no-desire? You can move only if there is some desire. If some profit motive, some greed, some gain is there, only then can you move from desire to no-desire. But then you are not moving at all. I say that with no-desire you will attain eternal bliss. This is right -- that with no-desire eternal bliss happens -- but if I say to you that with no-desire you will gain eternal happiness, you will make it an object of the desire and then you will have missed the point completely.

It is not a result, it is a consequence of deep understanding. So try to understand that with desire there is misery, and don't think that you know it already. You don't know; otherwise how can you move into desire? You have not yet become aware that desire is misery, desire is hell. Be aware When you desire something be aware. Then move with the desire in full alertness, and then you will reach hell.

Every desire leads to misery, whether fulfilled or not. If fulfilled, it leads sooner; unfulfilled it takes time -- but every desire leads to misery. Be alert of the whole process, and move with it. There is no hurry because nothing can be done in a hurry, and spiritual growth is not possible in a hurry. Move slowly, patiently. Watch every desire and then watch how every desire becomes a door to hell. If you are watchful, sooner or later you will realize that desiring is hell. The moment that realization happens, there will be no desire. Suddenly desires will disappear, and you will be in a state of no-desire. I don't say desirelessness, I simply say "no-desire."

You cannot practice it, remember; only desires can be practiced. How can you practice no-desire? You cannot practice it, you can only practice desires. But if you are alert, you will become aware that they lead to misery. And when each desire leads to misery, when this becomes a realization to you -- not mere opinion and knowledge, but a realized fact -- desiring disappears, it becomes impossible. How can you lead yourself into misery? You are always "leading yourself to happiness" -- thinking that you are -- and always moving into misery. This has been happening for lives and lives. You always think this or that is the door of heaven, and when you have entered you always realize that this is hell. And this has been without any exception; it is always the case.

Move with mindfulness in every desire, and allow every desire to lead you to misery. Then, suddenly, one day the maturity will happen to you, this ripeness will happen to you: you will realize that every desire is misery.

The moment you realize it, desiring disappears. There is no need to do anything now; desiring simply falls away, withers away, and you are in a state of no-desire. In that no-desire NIRVANA is, the perfect, the absolute bliss is. You may call it God, the kingdom of God or whatsoever you choose to call it, but remember well that it is not a result of your desiring. It is a consequence of non-desiring, and non-desiring cannot be practiced.

Those who "practice" non-desiring, they are deluding themselves. There are many all over the world -- BHIKKHUS, sannyasins -- who are practicing non-desiring. You cannot practice non-desiring; no negative thing can be practiced. Underneath they are desiring, they are hankering after God, the peace that will happen, the bliss that is waiting for them somewhere in the future beyond death. They are desiring, and they call only their desiring "spiritual desire."

You can deceive yourself very easily. Words are very deceptive and you can rationalize. You call a poison "ambrosia," and when you call it ambrosia it appears as ambrosia. Words hypnotize; that is one thing. But this feeling, this realization that desire is misery, must be yours.

Mary Stevens has written somewhere that she was visiting a friend's home, and her friend's daughter was blind. Mary Stevens was very puzzled because the girl would say, "He is ugly, I don't like him"; and "The color of this dress is beautiful."

As she was blind, Mary Stevens asked, "How do you feel that someone is ugly and that a color is beautiful?"

The girl said, "My sisters say this to me." This is knowledge.

Buddha has said that desire is misery and you go on repeating. This is knowledge. You are desiring, and you have never seen that desire is misery. You have simply heard Buddha. This will not do. You are simply wasting your life and opportunity. Your own experience can change you; nothing else changes. Knowledge cannot be borrowed. If borrowed, it is just a fake. It looks like knowledge, but it is not. But why do we follow a Buddha or a Jesus -- why? Because of our greed. We look at Buddha's eyes, and they are so peaceful that greed arises, desire arises for how to attain this. Buddha is so blissful -- every moment in ecstasy. A desire arises for how to be Buddhalike. We also desire such states.

Then we go on asking how Buddha achieved this, how it happens. The "how" creates many problems because then Buddha will say that in "no-desire" it happens. And he is right, it HAS happened in no-desire. But when we hear that in no-desire it happens, we start practicing no-desire, we start leaving desires, and the whole effort is a desire to be Buddha-like.

Buddha was not trying to be like someone else; he was not asking to be a buddha. He was simply trying to understand his own misery -- and the more understanding dawned upon him, the more misery disappeared. Then one day he came to understand that desire is poison. If you have desire you have fallen a victim; now there is no possibility of your ever being happy. You can only hope -- have hope and frustration, then more hope and more frustration: this will be your circle. And when you become more frustrated you hope more, because that is the only consolation. You go on moving in the future because in the present you always have frustration, and the frustration is coming because of your past.

In the past this present was the future, and you hoped for it. Now it is a frustration. Then you hope again for the future, and when it will become the present you will again become frustrated. Then you will hope again. Then more frustration, more hope, and with more hope, still more frustration. This is a vicious circle. This is what the wheel of SANSARA is.

But no buddha can give you his own eyes. And it is good that be cannot give them to you; otherwise you will remain a fake always, eternally. Then you will never become authentic. It is good to suffer because only through suffering will you become authentic and real. So the first thing: move with your desires so that you can understand what they really are. Experience whatever suffering is hidden there. Let it be revealed to you. Only that is austerity -- only that is TAPASCHARYA.

Naropa has said that if you can be alert every desire leads you to NIRVANA, and this is the meaning, because if you are alert, you know that every desire is misery. And when you have searched every nook and corner of desiring, suddenly you stop. In that stopping is the happening, and it is always there. That happening is always waiting for you, just waiting to meet you in the present. But you are never in the present, you are always dreaming. Reality sustains you. Because of the real you are alive; because of the real you exist. But you go on moving in the unreal. The unreal is very hypnotizing.

I have heard one Jewish joke. Two old friends met after many, many years. Then one friend said to the other, "I have not seen you in twenty-five years. How is your son, your boy Harry?"

The other said, "There is a son; he is a great poet. All over the land his voice is heard, his songs are sung, and those who know poetry say that sooner or later he is going to become a Nobel laureate."

The other friend said, "Marvelous! And tell me about your second son, Benny. How is he?"

The friend said, "I am so happy about my second son. He is a leader, a great political leader. Thousands and thousands follow him, and I am sure that sooner or later he is going to be the prime minister of this land."

Then the friend said, "My! So fortunate you are! And what about your third son Izzie?"

The father became very sad and said, "Izzie? He is still Izzie. He is a tailor. But I tell you that if it was not for Izzie we would all be starving."

But the father was sad because Izzie is just a tailor. And the poet and the great politician, the great leader -- they are dreams. Izzie is the reality -- the tailor. "But if not for Izzie, we would all be starving," he said.

You could not exist were it not for this moment. THAT is real. But you are never happy about it. You are happy in your dreams for the future about Nobel laureates, prime ministers. Right now, "Izzie is just a tailor." Your reality is where you are grounded; your dreams are not your ground. They are false. Come to terms with your reality in the present moment. Encounter it, face it whatsoever it is, and don't allow the mind to move into the future. The future is desire. If you can be here and now, you are a buddha. If you cannot be here and now, then everything is just dream stuff.

And you will have to come back because dreams cannot lead you anywhere. They can only lead you to hope and frustration, but nothing real happens through them. But remember my point that you cannot imitate. You will have to pass through suffering. Suffering is the path. It purifies you, it makes you alert, it makes you aware. The more you are aware, the less you are desire-filled. If you are perfectly aware, no-desire happens, and meditation means nothing else but perfect awareness.

The second question:

Question 2

"PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW IT IS POSSIBLE THAT ONE CAN BE SPIRITUALLY TRANSFORMED BY BEING TOTAL IN ACTIONS THAT ARE OF ANGER, HATRED AND VIOLENCE."

Yes, you can be totally transformed through anger, through hatred, through violence. And there is no other way -- because you exist in violence, in anger, in greed, in passion. From where you exist, ONLY from there, does the way start. I will not tell you to create non-greed against your greed; I will tell you to be greedy totally, but with a fully alert mind -- to be violent, to be angry, but be total so that you suffer totally, so that you can feel the whole poison of it. You must pass through this fire. No one else can pass for you; no proxy is possible. You will have to pass through it, and you always think that someone else will do it.

Christians go on thinking that through Jesus there is salvation. It has not happened yet. The world remains the same. Two thousand years have passed since Jesus was crucified, but we go on hoping that someone else will suffer and we will reach to bliss. No! Everyone has to carry his own cross. Jesus was crucified; he reached the goal. You cannot reach. You will have to pass through that crucifixion yourself. And this is the crucifixion -- that anger is there, passion is there, violence is there, greed is there, jealousy is there.

What are you doing with them? The society teaches to create the anti pole. Greed is there, so suppress it and create a non-greedy mind. Anger is there, so suppress it. Don't be angry. Push the energy back and smile. What happens? Anger goes on being accumulated within, and you go on becoming more and more angry, because more and more energy is accumulated within as anger -- suppressed. It becomes your unconscious reservoir, and against this anger you go on smiling. That smile becomes false, because while anger is knocking within how can you smile? You can smile, but then it will be just a false thing.

So you are divided into two -- a false smile and a real anger. The false smile becomes your personality and the real anger remains your soul. You are divided against yourself, and a constant fight will be there. And you cannot be happy with the false smile. No one else is deceived. You cannot be happy with a real anger hidden behind always trying to come out. A false smile and a real anger -- this is the situation. All that is good is false and all that is bad is real. The real you carry within and the false you show outside. This is schizophrenic, and every man has become schizophrenic, divided -- not only divided, but constantly fighting with himself. The whole life and energy is wasted and dissipated in this fight. And the fight is stupid, but this is happening.

What I am suggesting is, don't create any falsity around you. The false will never lead you to the real; the false will lead you to more that is false. Don't do the false, and allow the real total expression. When I say this you may become scared, because violence is there and you may want to kill someone. So do I mean to go and kill? No! Meditate on it. Close your room and allow your violence. You can express it on a pillow, on a picture, on anything. There is no need to go and kill someone, because that is not going to help. That will create more problems and a chain.

On the pillow, write the name of your enemy or your friend -- and remember, we are more angry at our friends than at our enemies. Just put a picture of your wife or husband on a pillow, and bring your violence out. Beat the pillow, kill the pillow, and do whatsoever you feel. And don't feel that you are doing a stupid thing. This is what you want to do with the real object, and that will be more stupid. Don't think that this is silly. This is how you are: you are silly, and you cannot change by just repressing it. Look at this silliness: see that this is how you are. Allow yourself full expression; act it out. And if you can be real, you will realize for the first time what anger, what violence is hidden within you. You are a volcano, and this can erupt from you at any moment.

In any situation, the volcano may erupt. It is erupting every day. Someone kills someone, and just a day before he was as normal as you. No one ever suspected that he was going to be a murderer. No one suspects about you, and you have so many thoughts in your mind to murder. You have thought, you have planned it many times. The idea to murder someone else or yourself has come to you. It has happened to you if you are not absolutely idiotic. Psychologists say that an intelligent man is bound to think of suicide at least ten times in his life -- at least ten times! -- and ten thousand times you think to murder someone. You never do it, that is another thing. But you can do it; the possibility is always there.

Make your anger a total act in meditation, and then see what happens. You will feel it coming from your whole body. If you allow it, then every cell of your body will be in it. Every pore, every fiber of the body will become violent. Your whole body will be in a mad situation. It will go mad, but allow it, and don't withhold. Move with the river, and after the cyclone is over, you will feel for the first time a deep center within you. A subtle calmness will happen. When the anger has gone, there will be no repentance because you have not done it to anyone. There will be no guilt. You will be unburdened. When this anger is thrown out and silence comes, that silence is real -- not forced.

You can sit down like a buddha in PADMASANA, in a yogic posture. You can force yourself, but the monkey within you goes on jumping. Now only the body is static. The mind is more mad than it ever was before. Whenever you sit for meditation, you feel what is happening. You are never so noisy within when you are not meditating, so why does so much noise happen whenever you meditate? Why does the mind go so vagrant? Why do so many thoughts come in a cloud? It is because your body is static, and through this staticness of your body you can feel the monkeyness of the mind more. The contrast is there.

But forced silence is of no use. Either you will not succeed in it or if you will succeed you will move into sleep. A forced silence, if successful, becomes sleep. It is good as far as sleep is concerned; otherwise it is useless. A real silence always happens only when some pent-up energy is released totally. The disturbance was because of that pent-up energy. That forced energy was trying to erupt, that was the problem, that was the disturbance within. When it is released, you are unburdened.

Then every fiber in your being is relaxed. In that relaxedness you can say that you are in a state of no-anger. It is not against anger; it is simply absence of anger. Remember, the real is always the absence, not the opposite -- NOT the opposite! It is always the absence -- an absence of greed, an absence of sex, an absence of jealousy -- but in that absence, your reality flowers because the diseases have gone. Now your inner health can flower. And once it starts flowering you will not accumulate anger. You accumulate anger only because you are missing yourself.

Really, you are not angry at anyone else, you are angry within yourself. But you go on projecting that anger onto others; otherwise you will go mad, so you go on finding excuses. Really, you are angry because you are missing yourself, you are missing your destiny. That which is possible for you is not happening, and that is why you are angry. Nothing is happening to you, and time goes on flowing. Death is coming nearer, and you remain as unfulfilled as ever, and there seems to be no possibility to be fulfilled. Because of this, because you are not realizing your potentialities, because you have not become that which you can become, you are angry, violent. And then you go on finding excuses.

You throw your anger on this, on that. Really, it is not a question of anger, and if you make it a question of anger, your diagnosis is wrong. It is a question of self-realization. Why is one violent? Why is one destructive? Because he is angry against himself, against his very being -- because he is. And then he feels to be against the whole world.

A buddha is silent, non-violent, not because he has practiced it, but because now he has realized himself. Now the flower has come to its total flowering, so nothing is there to release. He is fulfilled. Simple gratefulness to the existence remains. Now there is no complaint; nothing is wrong. When you really flower, everything is okay; all is good. Because of this Buddha couldn't see problems. All is good! That is why Buddha is not a revolutionary. To be a revolutionary, you must be able to see misery, you must be able to feel the whole mess around, the hell. To be a revolutionary, you must have a feeling that everything is wrong. Only then are you a revolutionary. Buddha was here in this land, Mahavira was here in this land, but they were not revolutionaries. Why? This question arises: why?

When one is at ease with oneself, all is good. He cannot be destructive, he can only be creative. His revolution can only be a creative one, and you cannot see anything creative. When someone destroys something, only then does it become news; only then can you see it.

A Lenin is seen as a revolutionary, not as a buddha. All over the world now there are revolutionaries, and they go on growing. And the reason? It is because fewer and fewer persons are realizing their potentiality. They are violent and they want to destroy -- because if there is no meaning in their lives how can they feel that there can be meaning in others' lives? A Mahavira is even aware not to kill an insect, not even to kill a mosquito, because he has realized himself. Now he knows what is possible even for a mosquito. A mosquito is not just a mosquito; this is a possibility. An infinite possibility is there: this mosquito can become divine. He cannot destroy it, it is impossible. He can only help. He is only concerned with how to help so that the potential becomes the actual.

You are just seeds. A great destiny is hidden, but nothing is being realized. The potential is wasted; the seed remains the seed. You feel anger. The modern generation is much angrier than older generations because there is more awareness of the possibility and less fulfillment. Now the new generation knows what is possible much more than the older generation. This generation is alive to the fact that much is possible. But nothing is happening and nothing is becoming actual, so there is more frustration. If you cannot be creative, at least you can be destructive; you feel your power in being destructive. Anger, violence, are destructive forces. They are there because creativity is not there.

Don't go against them. Rather, help them to be released. Don't suppress them; allow them to evaporate from you. Then that which you think is opposite is absent. When they have evaporated, you will suddenly realize that silence is there, that love is there, compassion is there. They are not to be cultivated. They are just like a stream hidden in rocks. You remove the rocks and the stream starts flowing. The stream is not against the rocks, not the opposite of the rocks. Just the absence of the rocks, and an opening happens and the stream starts flowing.

Love is in you like a stream, anger is in you like a rock. Remove it. But you go on forcing it inside, more inside. Then you are forcing the stream as well to go more inside. Throw this rock. There is no need to hit someone with it. You want to hit someone because you don't know how to throw it without hitting anyone. That is what I am teaching: to throw it without hitting anyone. There is no need to hit anyone. And if you can throw this rock without hitting anyone, everyone will profit out of it. You may not be throwing it on others' heads, but it was always there and others feel it.

When you are angry, howsoever you suppress it your anger is felt. You vibrate it; around you a subtle sadness happens. Everyone becomes alert that some disease has entered. Everyone wants to leave you; you become repulsive. Your very attitude gives a bad odor to you.

You may not be aware, but biochemists say that when someone is in love or in anger or in sex, different odors are released from the body -- actually, not metaphorically. When you are in anger, a bad odor is released from your body. When you are in love, the quality is different. In sexual passion, a different odor is released.

Animals are attracted by odor -- because when the female is ready, a subtle odor is released from her sex glands and the male is attracted. Without that odor the female is not ready. That is why you see dogs smelling: they can smell sex. If you are sexual, you are also releasing a subtle odor. If you are angry, then too -- because different chemicals are released in the blood system. Consciously no one may notice, but unconsciously everyone notices it. You are a burden -- repulsive, destructive. Throw this poison out of your system.

So remember this: it is good to release in the vacuum. And the sky is big enough, it will not return it back to you. It will simply absorb it, and you will be released. So do anything meditatively and totally, even anger, even violence, even sex. It is easy to conceive of how to be angry alone, but you can also create a sexual orgy alone meditatively. And you will have a different quality after that.

While all alone, just close your room and move as if in the sex act. Allow your whole body to move. Jump and scream; do whatsoever you feel like doing. Do it totally. Forget everything -- societal inhibitions, etcetera. Move in the sex act alone meditatively, but bring your total sexuality to it.

With the other, the society is always present because the other is present. And it is so difficult to be in such a deep love that you can feel as if the other is not present. Only in a very deep love, in a very deep intimacy, is it possible to be with your lover or beloved as if he is not or she is not.

This is what intimacy means: if you are as if alone with your lover or beloved or your spouse in the room with no fear of the other, then you can move in the sex act totally; otherwise the other is always an inhibiting presence. The other is looking at you: "What will she think? What will be think? What are you doing? Behaving like an animal?"

One lady was here just a few days before. She came to complain against her husband. She said, "I cannot tolerate it. Whenever he loves me, he starts behaving like an animal."

When the other is present, the other is looking at you: "What are you doing?" And you have been taught that there are some things which you can do and some things which you are not to do. It inhibits; you cannot move totally.

If love is really there, then you can move as if you are alone. And when two bodies become one, they have a single rhythm. Then the two-ness is lost, and sex can be released totally. And it is not like in anger; anger is always ugly, but sex is not always ugly. Sometimes it is the most beautiful thing possible -- but only sometimes. When the meeting is perfect, when the two become one rhythm, when their breaths have become one and their PRANA, energy, flows in a circle, when the two have disappeared completely and the two bodies have become one whole, when the negative and positive, the male and female, are no more there, then sex is the most beautiful thing possible. But that is not always the case.

If it is not possible, you can bring your sex act to a climax of frenzy and madness while alone, in a meditative mood. Close the room, meditate in it, and allow your body to move as if you are not controlling it. Lose all control!

Spouses can be very helpful, and particularly in tantra: your wife, your husband or your friend can be very helpful if you both are experimenting deeply. Then allow each total uncontrol. Forget civilization as if it never existed; move back into the Garden of Eden. Throw that apple -- the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Be Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before they were expelled. Move back! Just be like innocent animals, and act out your sexuality in its totality. You will never be the same again.

Two things will happen. Sexuality will disappear. Sex may remain, but sexuality will disappear completely. And when there is no sexuality, sex is divine. When the cerebral hankering is not there, when you are not thinking about it, when it has become a simple involvement -- a total act, a movement of your whole being, not only of the mind -- it is divine. Sexuality will disappear first, and then sex may also disappear, because once you know the deeper core of it, you can achieve that core without sex.

But you have not known that deeper core, so how can you achieve it? The first glimpse comes through total sex. Once known, the path can be traveled in other ways also. Just looking at a flower, you can be in the same ecstasy in which you are when you meet with your spouse in a climax. Just watching the stars, you can move in it.

Once you know the path, you know it is within you. The spouse only helps you to know it, and you help your spouse to know it. It is within you! The other was just a provocation. The other was just a challenge to help you know something which was always within you.

And this is what is happening between a master and a disciple. The master can become only a challenge to you to show that which has always been hidden in you. The master is not giving you anything. He CANNOT give; there is nothing to give. And all that can be given is worthless because it will only be a thing.

That which cannot be given but which can only be provoked is worthwhile. A master is just provoking you. He challenges you to help you to come to a point where you can realize something which is already there. Once you know it, there is no need of a master.

Sex may disappear, but first sexuality disappears. Then sex becomes a pure, innocent act; then sex also disappears. Then there is BRAHMACHARYA, celibacy. It is not opposite to sex; it is just its absence. And remember this difference. This is not in your awareness.

Old religions go on condemning anger and sex as if both are the same or as if both belong to the same category. They do not! Anger is destructive; sex is creative. All old religions go on condemning them in a similar way, as if anger and sex, greed and sex, jealousy and sex are similar. They are not! Jealousy is destructive -- ALWAYS! It is never creative; nothing can come out of it. Anger is always destructive, but not so with sex! Sex is the source of creativity. The divine has used it for creation. Sexuality is just like jealousy, anger and greed: it is always destructive. Sex is not -- but we don't know pure sex, we know only sexuality.

A person who is looking at a pornographic picture or one who is going to see a film, a movie of sexual orgies, is not seeking sex; he is seeking sexuality. There are persons I know who cannot make love to their wives unless they first go through some dirty magazines or books or pictures. When they see these pictures, then they are excited. The real wife is nothing to them. A picture, a nude picture, is more exciting to them. That excitement is not in the gut; that excitement is in the mind, in the head.

Sex transferred to the head is sexuality; thinking about it is sexuality. Living it is a different thing, and if you can live it you can go beyond it. Anything lived totally leads you beyond. So don't be afraid of anything. LIVE IT! If you think it is destructive to others, move in it alone, do not do it with others. If you think it is creative, then find a partner, find a friend. Become a couple, a tantric couple, and move in it totally. If you still feel that the other's presence is inhibiting, then you can do it alone.

The last question:

Question 3

"DOES AN ENLIGHTENED PERSON EVER DREAM? CAN YOU TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT THE QUALITY AND NATURE OF AN ENLIGHTENED PERSON'S SLEEP?"

No, an enlightened person cannot dream. And if you like dreams very much, never become enlightened. Beware! Dreaming is part of sleep. The first thing is that for dreaming to happen you have to move into sleep. For ordinary dreams you have to move into sleep. In sleep you become unconscious. When you are unconscious, dreams can happen. They happen only in your unconsciousness.

An enlightened person is conscious even while asleep. He cannot become unconscious. Even if you give him an anaesthetic -- chloroform or something like that -- only his periphery goes to sleep. He remains conscious; his consciousness cannot be disturbed.

Krishna says in the Gita that while everyone is asleep the yogi is awake. It is not that yogis are not going to sleep in the night; they also sleep, but their sleep has a different quality. Only their bodies sleep, and then their sleep is beautiful. It is a rest.

Your sleep is not a rest. It may even be an exertion, and in the morning you may feel more exhausted than you ever felt in the evening. A whole night's sleep, and in the morning you feel more exhausted -- what is happening? You are a miracle!

The whole night was an inner turmoil. Your body was not at rest because the mind was so active. And the activity of the mind is bound to be an exertion for the body, because without the body the mind cannot act. The activity of the mind means parallel activity of the body, so the whole night your body is moving and is active. That is why in the morning you feel more exhausted.

What does it mean for someone to become enlightened? It means one thing: now he is perfectly conscious. Whatsoever goes on in his mind, he is aware. And the moment you are aware, certain things completely stop. Just through awareness they stop. It is just like this room is dark and you bring a candle: the darkness will disappear. Everything will not disappear. These bookcases will be here, and if we are sitting here we will be here. By bringing the candle only darkness disappears.

When someone becomes enlightened, now he has an inner light. That inner light is awareness. Through that awareness sleep disappears -- nothing else. But because sleep disappears, the quality of everything changes. Now whatsoever he is going to do will be in his perfect alertness, and that which needs unconsciousness as a prerequisite now becomes impossible.

He cannot be angry -- not because it is a decision not to be angry; he CANNOT be angry. Anger can exist only when you are unconscious. Now unconsciousness is not there, so the base is not there and anger is not possible. He cannot hate: hate exists only when you are unconscious. He becomes love -- not because of any decision on his part. When light is there, when consciousness is there, love flows; it is natural. Dreaming becomes impossible because dream needs, first of all, unconsciousness, and he is not unconscious.

Buddha's disciple, Ananda, said to him, after sleeping and living in the same room, in the same place with Buddha, "This is a miracle; this is very strange. You never move in your sleep." Buddha always remained in one posture the whole night. The way he would sleep in the beginning, that would be the way he would come out of it, and his hand would remain in the exact place where it was put.

You might have seen Buddha's picture showing him sleeping. His posture is called "the lying posture." He would remain in this same posture the whole night. Ananda watched him for years. Whenever he would look at Buddha sleeping, he would be the same the whole night. So Ananda asked, "Tell me, what are you doing the whole night? You remain in one posture."

Buddha is reported to have said, "Only once did I move in my sleep, but then I was not a buddha. Just before, just a few days before the enlightenment happened, I moved in my sleep. But then suddenly I became aware and I wondered, 'Why am I moving?' I moved unconsciously without any knowing on my part. But after enlightenment there is no need. If I want I can move, but there is no need. And the body is so relaxed..."

Consciousness penetrates even in sleep. But you can have a fixed posture the whole night and you will not be enlightened. You can practice it; it is not difficult. You can force yourself; then within a few days you will be able to do this. But that is not the point. If you look at a Jesus moving, do not think, "Why is he moving?" It depends. If Jesus moves in his sleep, he is conscious. If he wants to move, he moves.

For me, it happens quite the reverse. Before coming to awareness I slept always in one posture the whole night. I do not remember ever moving. But since then I have been moving the whole night. Even five minutes are enough for me in one posture. I have to move again and again. I am so aware that it is not a sleep at all really. So it depends. But you can never deduce anything from the outside. Always, this is only possible from the inside.

For an enlightened one, awareness will remain there even in his sleep, and then dreams are not possible. They require unconsciousness -- that is one thing -- and they require suspended experiences: that is the second thing. And for an enlightened one there is no suspended experience -- no incomplete experience. Everything is complete. He has eaten his food; now he is not thinking about eating again. When he feels hungry he will eat again, but meanwhile there is no thought of eating.

He has taken his bath; now he is not thinking of the bath tomorrow. When the time comes, if he is alive, he will take it. If the situation permits it will happen, but there is no thinking. Acts are there, but not any thinking about them.

What are you doing? You are constantly rehearsing -- constantly rehearsing for tomorrow as if you are an actor and you are to show someone. Why are you rehearsing? When the time comes, you will be there.

The enlightened person lives in the moment, in the act, and he lives so totally that it is not incomplete. If something is incomplete, then it will be completed in a dream. Dream is a completion. It happens because the mind cannot allow anything to be incomplete. If something is incomplete, there is an inner uneasiness. It wonders how to complete it. Then in a dream you complete it, and you are at ease. Even if it is completed in a dream, for the mind it is a relaxation.

What are you dreaming? You are just completing your incomplete acts which you could not complete in the day. In the day you may have wanted to kiss a woman, and you could not kiss. Now you will kiss her in your dream, and your mind will feel relaxed; a tension is released.

Your dreaming is nothing but your incompleteness, and an enlightened person is complete. Whatsoever he is doing, he is doing it so wholly, so totally, that nothing remains suspended. There is no need for any dreaming. Dreaming in the night will cease and thinking in the day will cease.

It is not that he will become unable to think. He can think if he needs. If you ask him a question he will think immediately, but no rehearsal is needed. First you think and then you reply, but his reply is his thinking. He thinks and replies. That is also not good to say, because actually there is no gap. It is simultaneous. He thinks out loud, but there is no rehearsal, no thinking, no dreaming. He lives life. With thinking and dreaming you miss life.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #7

Chapter title: Tantric meditation with light techniques

31 March 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7303315

ShortTitle: VBT207

Audio: Yes

Video: No

CONSIDER YOUR ESSENCE AS LIGHT RAYS FROM CENTER TO CENTER UP THE VERTEBRAE, AND SO RISES "LIVINGNESS" IN YOU.

OR IN THE SPACES BETWEEN, FEEL THIS AS LIGHTNING.

FEEL THE COSMOS AS A TRANSLUCENT EVER-LIVING PRESENCE.

Man can be considered in three ways: in terms of the normal, the abnormal and the supernormal. Western psychology is basically concerned with the abnormal, the pathological, with the man who has fallen down from the normal, who has fallen down from the norm. Eastern psychology, tantra and yoga, consider man from the standpoint of the supernormal -- of the one who has gone beyond the norm. Both are abnormal. One who is pathological is abnormal because he is not healthy, and one who is supernormal is abnormal because he is MORE healthy than any normal human being. The difference is of negative and positive.

Western psychology developed as part of psychotherapy. Freud, Jung, Adler and other psychologists were treating the abnormal man, the man who is mentally ill. Because of this the whole Western attitude towards man has become erroneous. Freud was studying pathological cases. Of course, no healthy man would go to him -- only those who were mentally ill. They were studied by him, and because of that study he thought that now he understood man. Pathological men are not really men, they are ill, and anything based on a study of them is bound to be deeply erroneous and harmful. This has proved harmful because man is looked at from a pathological standpoint. If a particular state of mind is chosen and that state is ill, pathological, then the whole image of man becomes disease-based. Because of this attitude, the whole Western society has fallen down -- because the ill man is the base, the perverted has become the foundation.

And if you study only the abnormal, you cannot conceive of any possibility of supernormal beings. A buddha is impossible for Freud, not conceivable. He must be fictitious, mythological. A buddha cannot be a reality. Freud has only come in contact with ill men who are not even normal, and whatsoever he says about normal man is based on the study of abnormal man. It is just like a physician who is doing a study. No healthy man will go to him, there is no need. Only unhealthy people will go. By studying so many unhealthy people, he creates a picture in his mind of man, but that picture cannot be of man. It cannot be because man is not only illnesses. And if you base your concept of man on illnesses, the whole society will suffer.

Eastern psychology, particularly tantra and yoga, also has a concept of man, but that concept is based on the study of the supernormal -- Buddha, Patanjali, Shankara, Nagarjuna, Kabir, Nanak -- on persons who have reached to the peak of human potentiality and possibility. The lowest has not been considered, only the highest. If you consider the highest your mind becomes an opening; you can grow because now you know higher reaches are possible. If you consider the lowest, no growth is possible. There is no challenge. If you are normal you feel happy. It is enough that you are not perverted, that you are not in a mental asylum. You can feel good, but there is no challenge.

But if you seek the supernormal, the highest possibility that you can become, if someone has become that possibility, if that possibility has become actual in someone, then a possibility for growth opens. You can grow. A challenge comes to you, and you need not be satisfied with yourself. Higher reaches are possible and they are calling you. This must be understood deeply. Only then will the psychology of tantra be conceivable. Whatsoever you are is not the end. You are just in the middle. You can fall down, you can rise up. Your growth has not finished. You are not the end product; you are just a passage. Something is constantly growing in you.

Tantra conceives of and bases its whole technique on this possibility of growth. And remember, unless you become that which you can become, you will not be fulfilled. You MUST become that which you can become -- it is a must! Otherwise you will be frustrated, you will feel meaningless, you will feel that there is no purpose in life. You can carry on, but there can be no joy in it. And you may succeed in many other things, but you will fail with yourself. And this is happening. Someone becomes very rich and everyone thinks that now he has succeeded. Everyone except himself thinks that he has succeeded. He knows his failure. Wealth is there, but he has failed. You are a great man, a leader, a politician. Everyone thinks that they have succeeded, but they have failed. This world is strange: you succeed in everyone's eyes except your own.

People come to me daily. They say they have everything, but now what? They are failures, but where have they failed? As far as outward things are concerned they have not failed, so why do they feel this failure? Their inner potentiality has remained potent. They have not flowered. They have not achieved what Maslow calls "self-actualization." They are failures -- inner failures, and ultimately, what others say is meaningless. What you feel is meaningful. If you feel that you are a failure, others may think that you are a Napoleon or an Alexander the Great, but it makes no difference. Rather, it depresses you more. Everyone thinks that you are a success, and now you cannot say that you are not -- but you know you are not. You cannot deceive yourself. As far as self-actualization is concerned you cannot deceive. Sooner or later you will have to call upon yourself and look deeply into yourself at what has happened. The life is wasted. You have given up an opportunity and gathered things which mean nothing.

Self-actualization refers to the highest peak of your growth, where you can feel a deep content, where you can say, "This is my destiny, this is for what I was meant, this is why I am here on earth." Tantra is concerned with that self-actualization -- with how to help you grow more. And remember, tantra is concerned with you, not with ideals. Tantra is not concerned with ideals; it is concerned with you as you are and as you can become. The difference is great. All teachings are concerned with ideals. They say become like Buddha, become like Jesus, become like this or that. They have ideals, and you have to become like those ideals. Tantra has no ideal for you. Your unknown ideal is hidden within you; it cannot be given to you. You are not to become Buddha, there is no need. One Buddha is enough, and no repetition is of any value. Existence is always unique, it never repeats; repetition is boredom. Existence is always new, eternally new, so even a Buddha is not repeated -- such a beautiful phenomenon left unrepeated.

Why? Because even if a Buddha is repeated it will create boredom. What is the use? Only the unique is meaningful; copies are not meaningful. Only if you are firsthand is your destiny fulfilled. If you are secondhand, you have missed.

So tantra never says be like this or that; there is no ideal. Tantra never talks about ideals; hence, the name "tantra." Tantra talks about techniques -- never about ideals. It talks of HOW you can become; it never says what. It exists because of that how. Tantra means technique; the very word tantra means technique. It is concerned with "how" you can become, it is not concerned with what. That "what" will be supplied by your growth. Just use the technique, and by and by your inner potentiality will become actual. The uncharted possibility will become opened, and as it opens you will realize what it is. And no one can say what it is. Unless you become it, no one can predict what you can become.

So tantra gives you only techniques -- never ideals. This is how it is different from all moral teachings. Moral teachings always give ideals. Even if they talk about techniques, those techniques are always for particular ideals. Tantra gives no ideal to you; you ARE the ideal, and your future is unknown. No ideal from the past can be of any help because nothing can be repeated, and if it is repeated it is meaningless.

Zen monks say to remember and be alert. If you meet Buddha in your meditation, kill him immediately; don't allow him to stand there. Zen monks are Buddha's followers, and yet they say kill Buddha immediately if you meet him in your meditation, because the personality, the ideal of Buddha may become so hypnotizing that you may forget yourself, and if you forget yourself you have missed the path. Buddha is not the ideal; you are the ideal, your unknown future. That has to be discovered.

Tantra gives you techniques of discovery. The treasure is within you. So remember this second thing: it is very difficult to believe that you are the ideal -- difficult for you to believe because everyone is condemning you. No one accepts you, not even you yourself. You go on condemning yourself. You always think in terms of being like someone else, and that is false, dangerous. If you go on thinking like that you will become a fake and everything will be phoney. Do you know from where the word `phoney' comes? It comes from telephone. In the early days of the telephone, the transmission was so false, so unreal, that a real voice and a phoney voice were heard from the telephone -- a phoney voice that was mechanical. The real voice was lost -- just in those beginning days. From there comes the word phoney. If you are imitating someone else, you will become phoney, you will not be real. A mechanical device will be there all around you, and your reality, your real voice, will be lost. So don't be phoney, be real,

Tantra believes in you. That is why there are so few believers in tantra -- because no one believes in himself. Tantra believes in you and says that you are the ideal, so don't imitate anyone. Imitation will create a pseudo personality around you. You can go on moving with that pseudo personality thinking it is yourself, but it is not. So the second thing to remember is that there is no fixed ideal. You cannot think in terms of the future; you can only think in terms of the present -- just the immediate future in which you can grow. No fixed future is there, and it is good that there is no fixed future; otherwise there would be no freedom. If there were a fixed future, man would be a robot.

You have no fixed future. You have multi possibilities; you can grow in many ways. But the only thing that will give you ultimate contentment is that you grow -- that you grow in such a way that every growth produces further growth. Techniques are helpful because they are scientific. You are saved from unnecessary wandering, unnecessary groping. If you don't know any techniques, you will take many lives. You will reach the goal because the life energy within you will move unless it comes to the point where no movement is possible. It will go on moving to the highest peak, and that is the reason why one goes on being born again and again. Left to yourself you will reach -- but you will have to travel very, very long, and the journey will be very tedious and boring.

With a master, with scientific techniques, you can save much time, opportunity and energy. And sometimes within seconds you can grow so much that within lives even you will not be able to grow that much. If a right technique is used growth explodes, and these techniques have been used in millions of years of experiments. They were not devised by one man; they were devised by many, many seekers, and only the essence is given here. In these one hundred and twelve techniques, all techniques from all over the world have been covered. Nowhere does there exist any technique which has not been covered in this one hundred and twelve; they are the whole spiritual search in essence. But all the techniques are not for everyone, so you will have to try them out. Only certain techniques will be helpful to you, and you will have to find them out. There are two ways: either by your own trial and error, until you stumble upon something which starts working and you start growing, and then you move in it; or you surrender to some teacher and he finds out what will suit you. These are the two ways. You can choose. Now the technique.

The first technique:

"CONSIDER YOUR ESSENCE AS LIGHT RAYS RISING FROM CENTER TO CENTER UP THE VERTEBRAE, AND SO RISES `LIVINGNESS' IN YOU."

Many yoga methods are based on this. First understand what it is; then the application. The vertebrae, the spine, is the base of both your body and mind. Your mind, your head, is the end part of your spine. The whole body is rooted in the spine. If the spine is young, you are young. If the spine is old, you are old. If you can keep your spine young, it is difficult to become old. Everything depends on your spine. If your spine is alive, you will have a very brilliant mind. If the spine is dull and dead, you will have a very dull mind. The whole yoga tries in many ways to make your spine alive, brilliant, filled with light, young and fresh.

The spine has two ends: the beginning is the sex center and the end is SAHASRARA, the seventh center at the top of the head. The beginning of the spine is attached to the earth, and sex is the most earthly thing in you. From the beginning center in your spine you are in contact with nature, with what Sankhya has called PRAKRATI -- the earth, the material. From the last center, or the second pole, SAHASRAR, in the head, you are in contact with the divine. These are the two poles of your existence. First is sex and second is the SAHASRAR. There is no word for SAHASRAR in English. These are the two poles. Either your life will be sex oriented or SAHASRAR oriented. Either your energy will be flowing down from the sex center back to the earth, or your energy will be released from the SAHASRAR into the cosmos. From the SAHASRAR you flow into the BRAHMAN, into the absolute Existence. From sex you flow down into the relative existence. These are the two flows, the two possibilities. Unless you start flowing upwards, your misery will never end. You may have glimpses of happiness, but only glimpses -- and very illusory ones.

When the energy starts moving upwards you will have more and more real glimpses. And once it reaches the SAHASRAR and is released from there, you will have the absolute bliss with you. That is NIRVANA. Then there is no glimpse; you become the bliss itself. So the whole thing for yoga and tantra is how to move energy upwards through the vertebrae, through the spinal column, how to help it move against gravity. Sex is very easy because it follows gravitation. The earth is pulling everything down, back; your sex energy is pulled by the earth. You may not have heard it, but astronauts have felt this -- that the moment they move beyond the earth's gravity they don't feel much sexuality. As the body loses weight, sexuality dissolves, disappears.

The earth is pulling your life energy down and this is natural, because the life energy comes from the earth. You eat food and you are creating life energy within you; it comes from the earth, and the earth is pulling it back. Everything goes to its source. And if it continues to move in this way, life energy going back again and again, and you are moving in a circle, you will go on moving for lives and lives. You can go on moving this way infinitely unless you take a jump just like the astronauts. Like the astronauts, you have to take a jump and move beyond the circle. Then the pattern of earth's gravitation is broken. It can be broken!

The techniques for how it can be broken are here -- for how the energy can move vertically and rise up within you, reaching new centers; for how new energies can be revealed within you, making you a new person with every move. And the moment the energy is released from your SAHASRAR, the opposite pole of sex, you are no more man. Then you don't belong to this earth; you have become divine. That is what is meant when we say Krishna is God or Buddha is God. Their bodies are just like yours -- their bodies will have to fall ill and they will have to die -- everything happens in their bodies as it happens to you. Only one thing is not happening in their bodies which is happening to you: the energy has broken the gravitation pattern.

But that you cannot see, it is not visible to your eyes. But sometimes when you are sitting by the side of a Buddha, you can feel this. Suddenly you feel an upsurge of energy within you, and your energy starts moving upwards. Only then do you know that something has happened. Just by being in contact with a buddha your energy begins to move upwards towards the SAHASRAR. A buddha is so powerful that even the earth is less powerful; it cannot pull your energy downwards. Those who have felt this around a Jesus, a Buddha, a Krishna, have called them God. They have a different source of energy which is stronger than the earth.

How can the pattern be broken? This technique is very useful for breaking the pattern. First understand something basic. One, if you have observed at all you must have observed that your sex energy moves with imagination. Just through imagination your sex center starts functioning. Really, without imagination it cannot function. That is why if you are in love with someone it functions better -- because with love imagination enters. If you are not in love it is very difficult. It will not function.

This is the reason why male prostitutes were not found in the old days, only women prostitutes. It is difficult for a male prostitute if he has no love, and how can he have love just because of money? You can pay a man to have intercourse with you, but if he has no imagination for you he cannot function. Women can function because their sex is passive. Really, their functioning is not needed. They can be totally detached; they may not be feeling anything at all. Their bodies can just be there like corpses. With a prostitute you are not making love with a real body -- only with a dead corpse. But women can easily be prostitutes because their sex is passive.

The sex center functions through imagination. That is why even in dreams you can get erections and ejaculations. They are actual. Dreams are just imagination. It has been observed that every man, if physically fit, will have at least ten erections in the night. With every movement of the mind, with only a slight thought of sex, the erection will come. Your mind has many energies, many faculties, and one is will. But you cannot will sex. For sex will is impotent. If you try to love someone, you will feel you have gone impotent. So never try. Will never functions with sex; only imagination will function. Imagine, and the center will start to function. Why am I emphasizing this fact? Because if imagination helps the energy to move, then you can move it upwards or downwards just by imagination. You cannot move your blood by imagination; you cannot do anything else in the body by imagination. But sex energy can be moved by imagination. You can change its direction.

This sutra says, "CONSIDER YOUR ESSENCE AS LIGHT RAYS" -- think of yourself, your being, as light rays -- "FROM CENTER TO CENTER UP THE VERTEBRAE" -- up your spine -- "AND SO RISES `LIVINGNESS' IN YOU." Yoga has divided your spine into seven centers. The first is the sex center and the last is SAHASRAR, and between these two there are five centers. Some systems divide into nine, some into three, some into four. Division is not very meaningful, you can make your own division. Just five centers are enough to work with; the first is the sex center, the second is just behind the navel, the third is just behind the heart, the fourth is behind your two eyebrows, just in between, in the middle of the forehead. And the fifth, SAHASRAR, is just on the peak of your head. These five will do.

This sutra says, "CONSIDER YOURSELF...", which means imagine yourself -- close your eyes and imagine yourself just as if you are light. This is not just imagination. In the beginning it is, but it is reality also because everything consists of light. Now science says that everything consists of electricity, and tantra has always said that everything consists of light particles -- and you also. That is why the Koran says that God is light. YOU are light! Imagine first that you are just light rays; then move your imagination to the sex center. Concentrate your attention there and feel that light rays are rising upwards from the sex center, as if the sex center has become a source of light and light rays are moving in an upsurge -- upwards towards the navel center. Division is needed because it will be difficult for you to connect your sex center with the SAHASRAR. So smaller divisions will be of help. If you can connect, no divisions are needed. You can just drop all divisions from your sex center onwards, and the energy, the life force will rise up as light towards the SAHASRAR. But divisions will be more helpful because your mind can conceive of smaller fragments more easily.

So just feel that the energy -- just the light rays -- is rising up from your sex center to your navel like a river of light. Immediately you will feel a warmth rising in you. Soon your navel will become hot. You can feel the hotness; even others can feel that hotness. Through your imagination the sex energy will have started to rise. When you feel that now the second center at the navel has become a source of light, that the rays are coming and being collected there, then start to move to the heart center. As the light reaches the heart center, as the rays are coming, your heartbeat will be changed. Your breathing will become deeper, and a warmth will come to your heart. Go on upwards.

"CONSIDER YOUR ESSENCE AS LIGHT RAYS FROM CENTER TO CENTER UP THE VERTEBRAE, AND SO RISES `LIVINGNESS' IN YOU." And as you will feel warmth, just side by side you will feel a "livingness," a new life coming to you, an inward light rising up. Sex energy has two parts: one is physical and one is psychic. In your body everything has two parts. Just like your body and mind, everything within you has two parts -- one material and the other spiritual. Sex energy has two parts. The material part is semen; it cannot rise upwards, there is no passage for it. Because of this, many physiologists of the West say that tantra and yoga methods are nonsense and they deny them completely. How can sex energy rise up? There is no passage and sex energy cannot rise. They are right and still wrong. Semen, the material part, cannot rise -- but that is not the whole of it. Really, it is only the body of sex energy, it is not the sex energy. The sex energy is the psychic part of it, and the psychic part can rise. And for that psychic part, the spinal passage is used -- the spinal passage and its centers. But that has to be felt and your feelings have gone dead.

I remember somewhere that a certain psychotherapist wrote about a patient, a woman. He was telling her to feel something, but the psychotherapist felt that whatever she did she was not feeling, but thinking about feeling -- and that is a different thing. So the therapist put his hand on the woman's hand and pressed it, telling her to close her eyes and relate what she felt. She said immediately, "I feel your hand."

But the therapist said, "No, this is not your feeling. This is just your thinking, your inference. I have put my hand in your hand; you say you are feeling my hand. But you are not. This is inference. What do you feel?"

So she said, "I feel your fingers."

The therapist again said, "No, this is not feeling. Don't infer anything. Just close your eyes and move to the place where my hand is; then tell me what you feel."

Then she said, "Oh! I was missing the whole thing. I feel pressure and warmth."

When a hand touches you, a hand is not felt. Pressure and warmth are felt. The hand is just inference, it is intellect, not feeling. Warmth and pressure, that is feeling. Now she was feeling. We have lost feeling completely. You will have to develop feeling; only then can you do such techniques. Otherwise, they will not function. You will just intellectualize, you will just think that you are feeling, and nothing will happen. That is why people come to me and say, "You tell us this technique is so significant, but nothing happens." They have tried, but they are missing a dimension -- the feeling dimension. So first you will have to develop that, and there are some methods which you can try.

You can do one thing. If you have a small child in your house, follow the child around for one hour every day. It will be better and more fulfilling than following a buddha. Allow the child to move on all fours, and you also move on all fours. Just follow the child moving on all fours, and you will feel for the first time a new life energy coming to you. You will again become a child. Look at the child and just follow. He will go to every corner; he will touch everything -- not only touch, he will taste everything, he will smell everything. Just follow, and do whatsoever he is doing.

You were also a child once; you have done this. The child is feeling. He is not intellectualizing, he is not thinking. He feels a smell, so he moves to that corner from where it is coming. He sees an apple, so he tastes it. Just taste like a child. Watch when he is eating the apple, look at him: he is totally absorbed in it. The whole world has dropped, the world is no more there -- only the apple. Even the apple is not and the child is not -- only the eating. Just follow a small child for one hour. That hour will be so enriching, you will become again a child.

Your defense mechanisms will drop, your armor will drop, and you will start looking at the world as a child looks -- from the feeling dimension. When you feel that now you can feel, not think, you will enjoy the texture of the carpet on which you are moving like a child, the pressure, the warmth -- and just by innocently following a child. Man can learn much from children, and sooner or later your real innocence will erupt. You were once a child and you know what it means to be one. You have simply forgotten.

The feeling center must start functioning; only then will these techniques be of any help. Otherwise you will go on thinking that energy is rising, but there will be no feeling. And if there is no feeling, imagination is impotent, futile. Only a feeling imagination will give you a result. You can do many other things and there is no need to make a specific effort to do them. When you go to sleep just feel your bed, feel the pillow -- the coldness. Just turn onto it; play with the pillow.

Close your eyes and listen to the noise of the air conditioner, or of the traffic or of the clock or anything. Just listen. Don't label, don't say anything. Don't use the mind. Just live in the sensation. In the morning, in the first moment of waking, when you feel that now sleep has gone, don't start thinking. For a few moments you can again be a child -- innocent, fresh. Don't start thinking. Don't think about what you are going to do and when you are starting for the office and what train you are going to catch. Don't start thinking. You will have enough time for all that nonsense. Just wait. For a few moments just listen to the noise. A bird is singing or the wind is passing through the trees or a child is crying or the milkman has come and is making sounds or the milk is being poured. With anything that happens, feel it. Be sensitive to it, open to it. Allow it to happen to you, and your sensitivity will grow.

When taking a shower, feel it all over the body -- every drop of water touching you. Feel the touch, the coldness, the warmth! Try this the whole day whenever you have the chance, and everywhere there is a chance -- everywhere! When just breathing, feel the breath -- its movement within and its going out -- just feel it! Just feel your own body. You have not felt it.

We are so afraid of our own bodies. No one touches his own body in a loving way. Have you ever given any love to your own body? The whole civilization is afraid of anyone touching himself because from childhood touching has been denied. It appears to be masturbatory to touch oneself in a loving way. But if you cannot touch yourself in a loving way your body will go dull and dead. It has gone so. Touch your eyes with your palms. Feel the touch, and your eyes will feel fresh and alive immediately. Feel your body all over. Feel your lover's body, your friend's body. Massage is good. Two friends can massage each other and feel each other's bodies. You will become more sensitive.

Create sensitivity and feeling. Then it will be easy for you to do these techniques, and then you will feel "livingness" arising in you. Don't leave this energy anywhere. Allow it to come to the SAHASRAR. Remember this: whenever you do this experiment, don't leave it in the middle. You have to complete it. Take care that no one disturbs you. If you leave this energy somewhere in the middle, it can be harmful. It has to be released. So bring it to the head and feel as if your head has become an opening.

In India we have pictured SAHASRAR as a lotus -- as a thousand- petalled lotus. `SAHASRAR' means a thousandpetalled -- an opening of a thousand petals. Just conceive of the lotus with a thousand petals, opened, and from every petal this light energy is moving into the cosmos. Again, this is a love act -- not with nature now, but with the ultimate. Again, it is an orgasm.

There are two types of orgasms: one is sexual and the other spiritual. The sexual comes from the lowest center and the spiritual from the highest center. From the highest you meet the highest and from the lowest you meet the lowest. Even while actually in the sex act, you can do this exercise; both the partners can do this. Move the energy upwards, and then the sex act becomes tantra SADHANA; it becomes meditation.

But don't leave the energy somewhere in the body at some center. Someone may come and you will have some business, or some phone call will come and you will have to stop. So do it at such a time that no one will disturb you, and don't leave the energy in any center. Otherwise that center where you leave the energy will become a wound, and you may create many mental illnesses. So be aware; otherwise don't do this. This method needs absolute privacy and no disturbance, and it must be done completely. The energy must come to the head, and it should be released from there.

You will have various experiences. When you will feel that the rays are starting to come up from the sex center, there will be erections or sensations at the sex center. Many, many people come to me very afraid and scared. They say that whenever they start meditation, when they start to move deep, there is an erection. They wonder, "What is this?" They are afraid because they think that in meditation sex should not be there. But you don't know life's functioning. It is a good sign. It shows that energy is now there alive. Now it needs movement. So don't become scared and don't think that something is wrong. It is a good sign. When you start meditation the sex center will become more sensitive, alive, excited, and in the beginning the excitement will be just the same as any sexual excitement -- but only in the beginning. As your meditation becomes deeper, you will feel energy flowing up. As the energy flows, the sex center becomes silent, less excited.

When the energy will really move to the SAHASRAR, there will be no sensation at the sex center. It will be totally still and silent. It will have become completely cool, and the warmth will have come to the head. And this is physical. When the sex center is excited, it becomes hot; you can feel that hotness, it is physical. When the energy will move, the sex center will become cooler and cooler and cooler, and the hotness will come to the head.

You will feel dizzy. When the energy comes to the head, you will feel dizzy. Sometimes you may even feel nausea because for the first time energy has come to the head and your head is not acquainted with it. It has to become tuned. So don't become afraid. Sometimes you may immediately become unconscious, but don't be afraid. This happens. If so much energy moves suddenly and explodes in the head, you may become unconscious. But that unconsciousness cannot remain for more than one hour. Within one hour the energy automatically falls back or is released. You cannot remain that way for more than one hour. I say one hour, but in fact it is exactly forty-eight minutes. It cannot be more than that. It never has been in millions of years of experiments, so don't be afraid. If you do become unconscious, it is okay. After that unconsciousness you will feel so fresh that it is as if you have been in sleep for the first time, in the deepest sleep.

Yoga calls it by a special name -- YOGA TANDRA: yogic sleep. It is very deep; you move to your deepest center. But don't be afraid. And if your head becomes hot, it is a good sign. Release the energy. Feel as if your head is opening like a lotus flower -- as if energy is being released into the cosmos. As the energy is released, you will feel a coldness coming to you. You have never felt the coldness that comes after this hotness. But do the technique completely; never do it incompletely.

The second technique:

"OR IN THE SPACES BETWEEN, FEEL THIS AS LIGHTNING."

This is a very similar method with a slight difference: "OR IN THE SPACES BETWEEN, FEEL THIS AS LIGHTNING." Between one center and another, as rays are coming, you can feel it like lightning -- just a jump of light. For some people the second will be more suitable and for others the first. This is why there is a modification. There are people who cannot imagine things gradually and there are people who cannot imagine in jumps. If you can think and imagine gradually, then the first method is good. But if you try the first method and you suddenly feel that from one center the rays jump directly to the second, then don't do the first method. The second is better for you. "FEEL THIS AS LIGHTNING" -- like a spark of light jumping from one center to the next. And the second is more real because, really, light jumps. There is no gradual step-by-step growth. Light is a jump.

Look at the electric light. You think it is constant, but that is illusory. There are gaps, but the gaps are so small that you cannot detect them. Electricity comes in jumps. One jump, and then there is a gap of darkness. Another jump, and then there is a gap of darkness. But you never feel the gap because the jump is so fast. Otherwise, every moment there is darkness. Again there is a jump, light comes, then again darkness. Light jumps, it never travels. For those who can conceive of jumps, the second modification is best. "OR IN THE SPACES BETWEEN, FEEL THIS AS LIGHTNING." Just try it. If you feel good with the rays coming gradually, it is okay. If you don't feel good and rays are jumping, then forget about rays. Think of this as lightning in the sky, in the clouds, just jumping from one place to another.

For women the first technique will be easier and for men the second. The feminine mind can conceive of gradualness more easily and the male jumps more easily. The male mind is "jumpy"; it jumps from one thing to another. There is a subtle uneasiness in the male mind. The female mind has a gradual process, it is not jumpy. That is why female and male logic are very different. A man goes on jumping from one thing to another, and for women this is inconceivable. For them there must be growth -- gradual growth. But choose. Try these, and choose whichever you feel is good for you.

Two or three things more about this method. With lightning you may feel such hotness that it may seem unbearable. If you feel that, don't try it. Lightning can give you much heat. If you feel this, that it is unbearable, then don't try this. Then with the first method, if you are at ease, then it is good. Otherwise with uneasiness don't try it. Sometimes the explosion can be so great that you may become afraid of it, and once afraid you will never be able to do it again. Then fear enters.

So one has to be aware always not to become afraid of anything. If you feel that fear will come and it is too much for you, don't try it. Then the first method with light rays is best. If you feel that even with light rays too much hotness is coming to you -- and it depends because people differ -- then conceive of the rays as cool, imagine them as cool. Then instead of feeling warmth you will feel a coldness with everything. That too will be effective. So you can decide; try and decide. Remember, with this technique, and with others also, if you feel very uneasy or anything unbearable, don't do it. There are other methods, and this one may not be for you. With unnecessary disturbance inside, you will create more problems than you will solve.

In India, because of this, we have developed a particular yoga which we call SAHAJ YOGA. SAHAJ means spontaneous, easy, natural. Always remember SAHAJ. If you feel any technique spontaneously coming to you, if you feel more affinity with it, if you feel better with it -- more healthy, more alive, more at home -- then that is the method for you. Move with it; you can trust it. Don't create unnecessary problems. And the inner mechanism is very complex. If you do something which is too much for you, you may destroy many things. So it is better to move with something which feels harmonious to you.

The third technique:

"FEEL THE COSMOS AS A TRANSLUCENT EVER-LIVING PRESENCE."

This again is concerned with light: "FEEL THE COSMOS AS A TRANSLUCENT EVER-LIVING PRESENCE." If you have taken any drugs such as LSD or some such thing, the whole world around you becomes a light phenomenon of colors that are translucent, alive. This is not because of LSD. The world is such, but your eyes have become dull. The LSD is not creating a colorful world around you; the world is already colorful, nothing is wrong with the world. It is a rainbow of colors -- a mystery of colors and translucent light. But your eyes have become dull. That is why you can never feel it in such colorfulness.

LSD is just clearing your eyes. It is not making the world colorful; it is just helping your dullness to go chemically, and then the whole world erupts before you. It is a new thing. Even an ordinary chair becomes a marvelous phenomenon. Just a shoe on the floor takes on new colors, a new youth. Ordinary traffic noise becomes musical. Trees you have always seen but never looked at are born anew though you have always passed them by and you know you have seen them. Every leaf of a tree is a miracle.

And this is how reality is. It is not LSD which is creating this reality. LSD is just destroying your dullness, your insensitivity, and you look at the world as one should really look. But LSD can give you only a glimpse, and if you depend on it, sooner or later even LSD will not be able to remove your dullness. Then you will need greater doses, and then you will become immune to greater doses. And, really, if you then leave LSD or other drugs, the world will be duller than it has ever been. Then you will become even more insensitive.

Just a few days ago a girl came to see me. She said she could not feel any orgasm in the love act. She has tried many men, but she cannot feel any orgasm. The peak never comes, and she has become frustrated. So I asked her to tell me her whole love and sex life -- the whole story. Then I discovered that she had been using an electric vibrator. Now in the West they are using these. Once you use an electric vibrator as a male penis, then no male can satisfy you because an electric vibrator is, after all, an electric vibrator. Then your vagina and clitoris will go dead, dull, and then orgasm will become impossible. Then there won't be any possibility of any orgasm. You will now need a more powerful electric vibrator, and this can go to such an extreme that your total sexual mechanism will become stony. And this is happening to our every sense. If you use any outer device, you will become dull.

LSD will make you dull ultimately because with it you are not growing. If YOU grow, then it is a different process. Then you become more sensitive, and as you become more sensitive the world becomes different. Now you can sense many things you never sensed before because you were not sensitive.

This technique is based on inner sensitivity. First grow in sensitivity. Just close your doors, make the room dark and light a small candle. Sit near the candle with a very loving attitude -- rather, with a prayerful attitude. Just pray to the candle, "Reveal yourself to me." Take a bath, throw cold water on your eyes, then sit in a very prayerful mood before the candle. Look at it and forget everything else. Just look at the small candle -- the flame and the candle. Go on looking at it. After five minutes you will feel that many things are changing in the candle. They are not changing in the candle, remember; your eyes are changing.

With a loving attitude, with the whole world closed out, with total concentration, with a feeling heart, just go on looking at the candle and the flame. Then you will discover new colors around the flame, new shades which you were never aware were there. They are there; the whole rainbow is there. Wherever light is, the rainbow is there because light is all color. You need a subtle sensitivity. Just feel it and go on looking at it. Even if tears start flowing, go on looking at it. Those tears will help your eyes to be more fresh.

Sometimes you may feel that the flame, the candle, has become mysterious. It is not the ordinary candle you brought with you; it has taken on a new glamor, a subtle divineness has come into it. Go on doing this. You can also do this with many other things.

One of my friends was telling me that a group of five or six persons had been experimenting with rocks. I had told them how to experiment, and then they reported to me. They were experimenting with rocks on the bank of a lonely river. They were trying to feel them with their hands, with their faces, touching the rocks with their tongues, smelling the rocks. In every way possible they were feeling the rocks -- just ordinary rocks which they found on the bank.

They tried this for a whole hour, everyone with a rock. And then, my friend reported, there was a miracle. Everyone said, "Could I keep this rock? I have fallen in love with it!" An ordinary rock! If you have a sympathetic relationship with it, you will fall in love. And if you don't have that sensitivity, then even with a very beautiful person you are with a rock; you cannot fall in love.

Sensitivity must grow. Your every sense must become more alive. Then you can experiment with this technique. "FEEL THE COSMOS AS A TRANSLUCENT EVER-LIVING PRESENCE." Everywhere light is -- in many, many shapes, forms, light is happening everywhere. Look at it! And everywhere light is because the whole phenomenon is based on the foundation of light. Look at a leaf or a flower or a rock, and sooner or later you will feel rays coming out of it. Just wait patiently. Don't be in a hurry because nothing is revealed when you are in a hurry. In a hurry you are dull. Wait silently with anything, and you will discover a new phenomenon which was always there, but of which you were not alert -- not aware of it.

"FEEL THE COSMOS AS A TRANSLUCENT EVER-LIVING PRESENCE," and your mind will become completely silent as you feel the presence of the ever-living existence. You will be just a part in it, just a note in the great symphony. No burden, no tension... the drop has fallen into the ocean. But great imagination will be needed in the beginning, and if you are also trying with other sensitivity training it will be helpful.

You can try many ways. Just take someone's hand into your hand. Close your eyes and feel the life in the other. Feel it, and allow it to move towards you. Feel your own life and allow it to move towards the other. Sit near a tree and touch the bark of the tree. Close your eyes and feel the life arising in the tree, and you change immediately.

I have heard about one experiment. A doctor was experimenting with people to see whether their feelings changed their biochemistry. Now he has reported that feeling changes biochemistry immediately. He experimented with a group of twelve persons. He collected their urine before the experiment, and the urine was ordinary, normal.

Each person was put under a different stress. One was shown a film of horror, anger, violence, cruelty -- it was just a film -- for thirty minutes he was shown a film of horror. Of course, with the film his emotions changed. He felt stress. To another a very joyful film was shown. He felt happy. And so on went the experiment for twelve persons. Then their urine was taken again and the urine analysis showed that everyone's urine was different now. The chemicals had changed in the body. The person who felt horror was ill now; the person who felt hope, happiness, joy, was healthy now. His urine was different, the chemicals of the body were different.

You are not aware of what you are doing with yourself. When you go to see a murder film, you don't know what you are doing. You are changing your body chemistry. If you are reading a detective novel, you don't know what you are doing. You are killing yourself. You will become excited, you will become afraid, a tension will come to you. That is how you enjoy the detective novel. The more tense you become, the more you enjoy it. The more the suspense over what is going to happen, the more you get excited -- and you are changing your body chemistry.

All these techniques also change your body chemistry. If you feel the whole world as filled with life, light, then you are changing your body chemistry. And this is a chain reaction. When your body chemistry changes, you can look at the world and it will look more alive. And if it looks more alive, your body chemistry will change again, and then it becomes a chain.

If this method is done for three months, you will be living in a different world because you will be different now.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #8

Chapter title: The potentiality of the seed

1 April 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7304015

ShortTitle: VBT208

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 80 mins

The first question:

Question 1

"LAST NIGHT YOU SAID THAT A KRISHNA, A CHRIST, A BUDDHA, THEY ARE THE CLIMAX OF HUMAN POSSIBILITY AND GROWTH, AND THEN YOU SAID THAT YOGIC AND TANTRIC PSYCHOLOGY PUT NO IDEAL BEFORE MAN AND THAT TO HAVE AN IDEAL IS A MISTAKE ACCORDING TO TANTRA. IN THIS REFERENCE PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN INSPIRATION AND AN IDEAL. WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF INSPIRATION IN A SEEKER'S LIFE? PLEASE TELL WHETHER EVEN BEING INSPIRED BY A GREAT MAN IS A MISTAKE ON THE PATH OF A MEDITATOR."

A Buddha, a Krishna or a Christ, they are not ideals for YOU; you are not to follow them. If you follow them you will miss them, and your own buddhahood will never be achieved. Buddhahood is the ideal, not Buddha. Christhood is the ideal, not Jesus. Buddhahood is different from Gautam Buddha; christhood is different from Jesus. Jesus is only one of the christs. You can become a christ, but you can never become a Jesus. You can become a buddha, but you can never become Gautam. Gautam became a buddha and YOU can become a buddha. Buddhahood is a quality, it is an experience! Of course, when Gautam became a buddha, Gautam had his own individuality. You have your own individuality. When you will become a buddha, these two buddhas will not be the same. The inner most experience will be the same, but the expression will be different -- absolutely different. No comparison is possible. Only at the innermost core will you be the same.

Why? Because at the innermost core there is no individuality. The individual is on the periphery. The deeper you move, the more the individual dissolves. At the innermost core you are as if no one. At the innermost core you are just a deep void, a nothingness -- a SHUNYA, a zero. And because of this nothingness there is no difference, because two nothings cannot be different. But two somethings are bound to be different. Two "somethings" can never be the same and two "nothings" can never be different. When one becomes just absolutely nothing, a zero point, that is similar in a Jesus, in a Krishna, in a Buddha. When you will reach to the ultimate, you will reach to this SHUNYA -- this nothingness.

But your personality, your expression of that ecstasy, is bound to be different. A Meera will dance; a Buddha can never dance. It is impossible to conceive of Buddha dancing, it looks absurd. But Meera sitting under a bodhi tree like a Buddha also looks absurd. She will lose everything, she will not be a Meera at all; she will be imitation. The real Meera can only be conceived of as dancing in ecstasy in her own love madness. That is her expression. The innermost core is the same. With Buddha sitting under the bodhi tree and Meera dancing in mad ecstasy, the innermost core is the same. In the dancing Meera and in the silently sitting Buddha who is just like a statue, the innermost core is the same but the periphery is different. The dancing and the silent sitting are just on the periphery. If you move within Meera, as you go deeper the dance will cease, the Meera will cease. If you go deep into Buddha, the sitting will cease, the Buddha will cease as an individual.

You can become a buddha, but you can never become a Gautam buddha: that is what is meant. Don't make them your ideals; otherwise you will start imitating them. And what can you do if you imitate? You can force something from without, but that will be a fake phenomenon. You will become pseudo -- just painted. You will look Buddha-like -- more than Buddha. You can look, but that will be just a look, an appearance; deep down you will remain the same -- and this will create a duality, a conflict, an inner anguish, and you will be in suffering.

You can be in bliss only where you are authentically yourself. You can never feel any happiness when you are acting as someone else. So remember tantra's message: YOU are the ideal. You are not to imitate anyone; you are to discover yourself. Looking at a buddha, there is no need to imitate him. When you are looking at a buddha, the possibility hits deep in you that something of the beyond can happen. Buddha is just a symbol that something has happened to this man -- and if it can happen to this man, it can happen to EVERY man. Then the whole possibility of humanity is revealed.

In a Jesus, in a Meera, in Chaitanya, just a possibility is revealed, the future is revealed. You need not be whatsoever you are. Something more is possible. So Buddha is just a symbol of the future. Don't imitate him; rather, let his life, his being, the phenomenon that is happening, become a new thirst in you, that is all. You must not be content with yourself as you are right now. Let Buddha become a discontent in you, a thirst to transcend, to go beyond, to move into the unknown. When you reach to the peak of your own being, you will know what happened to Buddha under the bodhi tree or what happened to Jesus on the cross or what happened to Meera when she was dancing in the streets. You will know, but your expression will be your own. You are not going to be a Meera or a Buddha or a Jesus. You are going to be yourself, and you have never been before. You are unique.

So nothing can be said; you are not predictable. No one can say what will happen, how you will manifest it. Whether you will sing, dance, paint or remain silent no one can say. And it is good that nothing can be said, nothing can be predicted. That is the beauty. If it is predictable that you will be like this or that, then you will become a mechanical thing.

Predictions are possible only about mechanical devices. Human consciousness is unpredictable; that is its freedom. So when tantra says don't follow ideals, it doesn't mean to deny Buddha. No, it is not a denial. Really, it is how you can find your own buddhahood. Following another, you will miss it. Following your own path, you can gain it, you can achieve it.

Someone came to a Zen master, Bokuju. Bokuju's master was very famous, well known, a very great man, so someone asked "Are you really following your master?"

Bokuju said, "Yes, I am following him."

But the man who asked the question was disturbed because it was well known all over the country that Bokuju was not following his master at all. So the man said, "Are you trying to deceive me? Everyone knows and you are also aware that you are not following your master at all, and still you say that you are following. What do you mean?"

Bokuju said, "I am following my master -- because my master never followed his master. This is what I have learned from him. He was himself!"

This is how a Buddha, a Jesus is to be followed. This is how! They are unique! If you are really following them, YOU must be unique.

Buddha never followed anyone, and he achieved enlightenment only in that moment when he had completely stopped following. When he became himself, when he left all paths, all teachings, all doctrines, then he could achieve. If you follow him, you are not following him. It is not paradoxical, it only looks so. If you follow him as a dead routine, if you imitate him, you are not following him. He never followed anyone, and only then could he become the peak. Understand him, don't follow him; and then a subtle following will happen. But that is inner -- not an imitation.

In Nietzsche's great work THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA, the last message of Zarathustra to his disciple is "Beware of me. Now I have told everything that was to be told to you. Now beware of me. Don't follow me; just forget me. Leave me and go away."

This is the last message of all the great masters. No great master would like to make you a puppet because then he is killing you. He is a murderer then. He will help you to be yourself. And if you cannot be yourself in the intimacy and communication with your master, then where will you be yourself?

The master means an opportunity for you to be yourself. Only small minds, narrow minds who pretend to be masters and who are not masters, will try to impose themselves on you. Great masters will help you to grow on your own path, and great masters will create every barrier so that you don't become a victim of following. They will create every barrier! They will not allow it because your tendency will be to follow. It is easy, imitation is easy; to be authentic is arduous. And when you imitate you don't feel responsible for it, the master is responsible. No great master has ever allowed anyone to imitate. He will create every hindrance so that you cannot imitate him. He will throw you by every means to yourself.

I am reminded of one Chinese saint who was celebrating his master's enlightenment day. Many followers had come. They said, "But we never heard that this man was your master. We never knew that you belonged to this man." That old man was dead. They said, "Only today did we come to hear and know that you are celebrating your master's enlightenment day. This man was your master? But how? We never saw you with him!"

The saint replied, "I had been with him, but he had refused. He had refused to become my master, and because of his refusal I could become myself. Now, whatsoever I am is because of his refusal. I am his disciple. He could have accepted me; then I would have thrown all responsibility on his shoulders. But he refused, and he was the last man. There was no comparison. When he refused, I could not go to anyone else because he was the only shelter. If he had refused, then there was no meaning, no purpose in going anywhere. I left going to anyone. He was the last. If he would have accepted me, I would have forgotten myself. But he refused, and he refused very rudely. The refusal became a shock and a challenge, and I decided that now I would not go to anyone. If this man had refused, then there was no one worth going to. Then I started working on my own, and only then did I realize by and by why he had refused. He had thrown me to myself, and only then did I know that he had accepted me. Otherwise why should he refuse?"

This looks contradictory, but this is how the deeper dynamism of consciousness works. Masters are mysterious. You cannot judge them; you cannot be sure what they are doing unless the whole thing happens. Then only retrospectively will you be able to know what they were doing. Now it is impossible. On the middle path you cannot judge what is happening, what is being done. But one thing is certain: imitation cannot be allowed.

Inspiration is a different thing. Through inspiration you start on the journey, not on any effort of copying. You move on your own path. Inspiration is just a challenge. A thirst arises, and then you move.

Tantra says be inspired, but don't become imitators. Always remember that you are your own goal. No one else can be, and unless you achieve that point from where you can say, "I have achieved my destiny and now I am fulfilled," don't stop. Go on transcending, go on being in discontent, go on moving. And if you don't make any ideal, then you can be enriched by everyone. The moment you become obsessed with an ideal, you are closed. If you become obsessed with Buddha, then Jesus is not for you, then how can Mohammed be for you? Then you are obsessed with an ideal; then you are trying to copy it. Then all the contrary ones, all the different ones are inimical in your mind. How can a follower of Mahavira conceive of being open to Mohammed? It is impossible. He is totally different. Not only different, they are contraries. They look like polar opposites. If you put both in your mind you will be in deep conflict, so you cannot put both.

That is why followers are always enemies of others' followers. They create enmity in the world. A Hindu cannot conceive that Mohammed can be enlightened; a Mohammedan cannot conceive that Mahavira can be enlightened; a follower of Krishna cannot conceive that Mahavira can be enlightened, that Jesus can be enlightened. Jesus looks so sad and Krishna looks so blissful. Krishna's bliss and Jesus' sadness are total opposite poles. Jesus' followers cannot conceive of Krishna being enlightened. So much misery in the world and he is playing on his flute? It looks to be too selfish. The whole world is suffering, and he goes on dancing with his GOPIS?

The followers of Jesus will think this to be profane -- but I say "followers." A Jesus and a Buddha and a Krishna can exist together without any problem, without any conflict. Rather, they will enjoy each other very much -- but not the followers. Why? Why is this so? This will be so because there is a deep psychological reason. The follower is not concerned with Mohammed or Mahavira; he is concerned with himself. If he thinks both are good, he will be in difficulty. Then whom to follow and what to do? Mohammed is with his sword in his hand and Mahavira says that even to kill an insect means that for lives you will suffer. Mohammed is with his sword, so what to do? Mohammed goes to war, and Mahavira escapes from life completely. He escapes so much that he is afraid even to breathe, because while you breathe, many lives -- many, many lives -- are killed through it. He is afraid to breathe and Mohammed goes to war.

How can a follower of either make accommodations for the opposite? Then his heart will be divided and he will be in constant conflict. To avoid this, he says that everyone else is wrong and only this is right. But this is his problem. This is created because he is trying to imitate. There is no need. If you are not an imitator, then you can taste the water of many rivers and many wells, and there is no problem if the taste differs. Rather, it is beautiful. You are enriched by this. Then you are open to Mohammed and Mahavira and Christ and Zarathustra and everyone. They all inspire you towards yourself. They are not ideals; they all help you to be yourself. They are not pointing towards themselves, they are pointing towards you in different ways, in different methods. They are pointing to one goal, and that is YOU

Laura Huxley has written a book. The name of the book is YOU ARE NOT THE TARGET. But I tell you, you ARE the target of all these -- of Buddha, of Mahavira, of Krishna, of Christ. They all indicate towards you. You are the target, you are the goal. Through you life is trying, striving, to achieve a unique peak. Be happy about it! Be grateful about it! Life is trying to achieve a unique goal through you, and that goal can be achieved only through you. No one else can achieve it. You are meant for it, you are destined for it. So don't waste time following others. But that doesn't mean not to get inspired. Really, if you are not following anyone you can become inspired easily. If you are following, you have become dead. You will not get inspired. Inspiration is an openness; following is being closed.

The second question:

Question 2

"YOU SPOKE OF WESTERN PSYCHOLOGY BEING ROOTED IN FREUDIAN CONCEPTS OF PATHOLOGY AND OF EASTERN PSYCHOLOGY USING THE SUPERNORMAL AS THE BASE FROM WHICH TO EVALUATE A MAN. BUT AS I LOOK AROUND ME IN THE MODERN WORLD, I SEE THAT MOST PEOPLE FIT FREUD'S CATEGORIES OF PATHOLOGY. ONE IN A MILLION FITS THE CATEGORY OF SUPERNORMAL AND A SMALL NUMBER ACTUALLY FIT THE SOCIETAL IDEAL OF NORMAL. WHY IS THERE SO MUCH PATHOLOGY NOWADAYS AND WHAT WOULD YOU CONSIDER TO BE THE DEFINITION OF NORMAL?"

Many things will have to be understood. It is not so -- it is not that very few are there who achieve their peaks. Many are there, but you don't have the eyes to see them. Whenever you look around you, you see that which you can see. How can you see that which you cannot see? Your capacity to see determines many things. You hear that which you can hear, not that which is there. If a buddha passes, you may not be able to recognize. And you really were there when Buddha passed, but you missed him. You were there! You were there when Jesus was alive, but you crucified him. It is difficult to see because you see in your own ways. You have concepts, you have categories, you have attitudes. Through them you look at a Buddha and a Jesus.

Jesus looked like a criminal to you. When Jesus was crucified he was crucified with two other criminals; on each side there was a thief. Three persons were crucified together, and Jesus was just between two thieves. Why? He was considered to be an immoral criminal somehow and you were there to judge. Even if Jesus comes right now, you will judge again in the same way because your judgment, your criteria, have not changed.

Jesus lived and stayed with anyone and everyone. He stayed in a prostitute's house, and the whole village went against him. But his values were different. The prostitute came, washed his feet with her tears and said, "I am guilty. I am a sinner and you are my only hope. If you come to my home, I will be relieved of my guilt. I will become alive again. If Jesus could come to my house, then I am accepted."

So Jesus went. He stayed there, but the whole town went against him. What type of man is he, staying with a prostitute? But for Jesus love is the value, and no one has given such a loving invitation ever. He couldn't say no. And if Jesus had said no, he could not have been an enlightened man. Then he would have just been seeking after social respectability. He was NOT seeking after respectability.

In another village, the whole town came to Jesus with a woman who had sinned. In the Old Testament it is written that if someone sins she should be stoned to death. It is not that HE should be, it is that SHE should be stoned to death, because only women sin; man never sins -- because all these scriptures are written by men. And this was a great problem, so they asked Jesus about it. They were playing a trick, because if Jesus would have said, "No, don't kill this woman, don't be the judges," then they could say, "You are against the scriptures." And if Jesus would have said, "Yes, kill this woman, stone her to death," then they would say, "Where has gone your message `Love your enemy' and where has gone your message `Judge ye not that ye should be not judged'?"

So they were playing a trick. They were creating a dilemma -- a logical dilemma. Whatsoever Jesus would have said, he would be trapped. But you cannot trap an enlightened man, it is impossible. It is impossible, and the more you try to trap him you will get trapped with him. So Jesus said, "The scripture is absolutely correct. But come forwards only those who have never sinned. Take these stones in your hands and murder this woman, but only those who have never sinned." The crowd started disappearing. Those who were standing in front went back -- because who will stone this woman?

But they became enemies of Jesus. And when I say "they," I mean you. You have always been here. You cannot recognize, you cannot see. You are blind! That is why you always feel that the world is bad and there is no enlightenment -- that everyone is pathological. It is not so, but you can only see pathology because you are pathological. You can understand illness because you are ill. You cannot understand health because you have never been healthy. The language of health simply escapes you.

I have heard about one Jewish mystic, Baal Shem. Someone came and asked Baal Shem, "Which is more significant, which is more valuable -- wealth or wisdom?"

The man was asking the question for a reason, so Baal Shem laughed and said, "Of course, wisdom is more significant, more valuable."

Then the man said, "Then, Baal Shem, the second question: I always see you, the wise man, waiting on the wealthy. You always go to rich people's houses. I have never seen any wealthy man waiting on you, the wise one, and you say that wisdom is more valuable than wealth. Then explain this phenomenon to me."

Baal Shem laughed and said, "Yes, wise men go to the wealthy ones because they are wise and they know the value of wealth, and the wealthy ones are just wealthy -- simply wealthy and nothing else -- and they cannot understand the value of wisdom. Of course, I go -- because I understand the value of wealth. And those poor idiots? They are just wealthy -- nothing else. They cannot understand the value of wisdom, so they never come to me."

If you see a saint going to a palace, you will say, "Okay! This man is not the saint." It is finished because you look through your own eyes. Wealth has meaning for you. You can only follow a saint who renounces wealth because you are wealth obsessed. You look through you, and whatsoever you say is more about you than about anyone else. It is always about you; you are the reference. When you say that Buddha is not enlightened, you don't mean that. You simply mean, "For me he does not look enlightened."

But who are you? And does his enlightenment depend in any way on your attitude, your approach, your standpoint? You have fixed categories of thought and you go on using them. To you pathology is recognizable, but enlightenment is not. And you cannot understand that which is higher than you -- remember. You can only understand that which is lower than you or at the most on the same level. You cannot understand the higher, that is impossible. To understand the higher you will have to move higher. You can understand the lower.

Look at it in this way: a madman cannot understand you. It is impossible for a madman to understand you; he looks through his madness. But you can understand a madman. He is lower than you. The normal human being can understand abnormals who have gone below, pathological, but he cannot understand higher ones. Even a Freud is afraid.

Jung has written in his memoirs that once it happened to him that he wanted to analyze Freud's dreams. He was one of Freud's greatest disciples. They were traveling to the United States on a ship, so for many days they were together. One day Jung gathered courage. He was the most intimate disciple in those days, and he asked Freud, "I would like to analyze your dreams, so just tell me any dream. For many, many days we will be together, so I will analyze it."

What did Freud say? Freud said, "What do you mean? If you analyze my dreams I will lose my authority. I cannot tell you my dreams."He was so afraid because in his dreams the same pathology, the same illnesses will be revealed as he is revealing in others' dreams. He said, "I cannot lose my authority. I cannot tell you about my dreams."

Freud, the greatest psychologist of this age, is prone to all the illnesses that anyone else is. When Jung said that "I am going to leave you," he fell from his chair and became unconscious. He swooned. For hours he was unconscious because he was so shocked just by the idea of a disciple leaving him, just by a disciple saying, "I am going to leave you."

If you say to a buddha, "I am going to leave you," can you conceive of him falling down and becoming unconscious? Even with all of the ten thousand disciples leaving him, he will be happy -- so happy that he will feel it will be good if you go. Why? Your psychologists are also like you. They are not from above. They have the same problems, so one psychologist goes to another psychologist to be analyzed. It is not like one doctor going to another doctor to be treated. For doctors it is okay; they can be forgiven. But for psychologists it seems absurd. One psychologist going to another to be analyzed? What does it mean? He is an ordinary man. Psychology is just a profession.

Buddha is not in any profession, he is not an ordinary man. He has awakened to a new reality; he has reached to a new state of being. Now he can look from a peak. He can understand you, but you cannot understand him. And howsoever he tries, it is really impossible to make you understand him. You will go on misunderstanding him unless you are caught not by his words, but by his personality -- unless you are caught by his magnetism, not by his words. Unless you become just like an iron piece and you are caught by his magnetism, you will not be able to understand him; you will misunderstand. That is why you cannot see. But the world always has its enlightened persons. Pathology is recognized because we are pathological, so we can see and understand it.

Secondly, even if there is only one -- only a single human being who has ever achieved enlightenment throughout human history, even if there is only one buddha, he is enough to show you the possibility. If it can happen to one human being, why can it not happen to you? If one seed can become a flower, then every seed has the potentiality to become a flower. You may be just a seed, but now you know your future. Now you are aware that much more is possible.

But with the human mind the reverse is happening. It has been happening always. You see a cocoon and then it breaks, and then the butterfly moves. With man it seems to be quite the reverse. Man is born as the butterfly, and then he enters the cocoon. Every child is more buddha-like than he will ever be again. Look at a child, look at the eyes. They are more buddha-like than any adult's eyes. The way he sits, the way he moves -- the grace, the beauty, the living in the moment, even his anger is beautiful. It is so total, and whenever anything is total it is beautiful.

Look at a child in anger jumping and screaming. Just look! Don't be concerned with yourself, that he is disturbing you. Just look at the phenomenon. The anger is beautiful -- because the child is so totally in it that nothing is left behind. He IS the anger, and he is so authentic that nothing is being suppressed. He is not withholding, he has moved and become anger. Look at the child when he loves, when he welcomes you, when he comes near to you: he is like a buddha. But soon you will help him, the society will help him to enter the cocoon, and then he will die in it.

From the cradle we enter into the grave immediately. That is why so much pathology is there -- because no one is allowed to be natural. The pathology is forced. You are caged, imprisoned in a dead pattern, and then your spontaneous being suffers and you cannot come out of it. That is why so much pathology is there. This pathology is man-created -- and the more man becomes civilized, the more pathological he becomes. So now this is a criterion: if in your country there are less madmen, know well that you are less civilized. If in your country the madmen are growing, and everyone is going insane and everyone is going to the psychoanalyst, know well you are the most civilized country in the world.

When any country achieves the optimum, everyone will have become mad. Civilization drives you mad because it is not allowing you to be your natural self. Everything is suppressed, and with suppression everything is disturbed. You cannot even breathe naturally; anything else is out of the question. Even your breath is unnatural. You cannot breathe deeply because the society does not allow you deep breathing.

Breathe deeply, because if you take deep breaths you cannot suppress your instincts. If you want to suppress anything, you can observe the changes in breathing in yourself. If you are angry and you want to suppress it, what will you do? Immediately you will stop breathing. With anger breathing goes deep, because anger will need a hot flow of blood in you, anger will need more oxygen. Anger will need some chemical changes within you, and through breathing those changes happen. So whenever you feel angry and you want to repress it, you will not be able to breathe naturally. You will take shallow breaths.

Look at a child and tell him not to do something. Immediately his breathing will be shallow. Then he will not be able to breathe deeply, because if he takes deep breaths he cannot follow your commands. Then he will do whatsoever he likes to do. So no one is even taking deep breaths. If you take deep breaths, your sex center is massaged from within and the society is against this. Take slow breaths, shallow breaths. Don't go deep, then the sex center is not hit!

Really, civilized man has become incapable of deep sexual orgasm because he cannot take deep breaths. In the love act your breathing must be so deep that your whole body becomes involved. Otherwise you will not achieve orgasm, and then you will feel frustrated. So many people come to me and they say, "There is no pleasure in sex. We go on doing it like a mechanical act, and energy is only lost. After it we feel frustrated, depressed." The reason is not sex, the reason is only that they are not getting into it totally. It becomes local, so only semen is released. Then they feel weak, and nothing is gained through it.

If the whole body is involved like an animal, if every cell of the body is excited and starts shaking, if the whole body becomes like an electric force and feeling moves, if you become egoless, headless, and thinking is not there, if you are the body moving in a rhythm, vibrating in a rhythm, then you will have a deep pleasure out of it. You will feel relaxed -- in a certain sense, fulfilled.

But this cannot happen because you cannot take deep breaths. You are so afraid... Look at the body. The body has two poles. One pole is for intake -- your head is for intake. The upper pole is for intake of food, air, impressions, thoughts, anything. You take in from the upper part; this is one pole. The lower body is for release. It is not for intake, you cannot take anything in from the lower. The lower body is to release, to relax. You take from the upper, and from the lower you release it.

But the civilized man only takes in -- never releases. That creates pathology. You go mad. It is just like eating food and then continuing to store it, never defecating. You will go mad. The other pole has to be used. If someone is a miser, automatically he becomes constipated. Look at any miser: he will be suffering from constipation. Miserliness is a sort of spiritual constipation. So go on hoarding, don't leave anything.

Those who are against sex without knowing what they are doing are misers. They go on taking in food, but they will not release the sex energy. Then they will go mad. There is no need to release it only from the sex center. There is another possibility -- to release it from SAHASRAR, the highest center at the top of the head. That is what tantra teaches. But it must be released, you cannot hoard it. Nothing can be hoarded in the world. The world is a movement, it is a river. Take in and give out. If you take in and never give out, you will become mad.

That is what is happening: everyone is taking and no one is giving. You become afraid when a moment of giving comes. You want just to take -- even with love. You want that someone should love you. The basic need is that you should love someone, then you will be released. If someone loves you that will not help, because then you are taking in again. Both of these poles must be balanced; then health happens. And that is what I call a normal being. A normal being is one whose taking in and giving out is parallel, balanced. He is normal.

I call that man abnormal whose taking in is too much and whose giving out is unbalanced. He is not giving out at all. Even if he gives sometimes, it has to be forced. It is not his own. You can snatch something from him, you can force him to give, but he will not give. His giving out is just like an enema, it is not natural. You can force, so he will defecate. But HE is not defecating, he is not ready. It is abnormal to just go on hoarding everything. Then he will go mad, because the whole system is disturbed. This is abnormal, and supernormal is the one who gives and never takes in.

These are three things -- the abnormal one who takes in and never gives out, the normal one whose give and take are balanced, and the supernormal who never takes in and only gives. A buddha is a giver; a madman is a taker. He is at the opposite pole of a buddha. If both poles are balanced, you are a normal man. At least be normal, because if you cannot be normal you will fall down and you will become abnormal.

That is why DANA -- giving -- is so much emphasized in all religions. Give! Whatsoever it is, give, and don't think in terms of taking. Then you will become supernormal. But that is a very far-off thing. First be normal, be balanced. Whatsoever you take in, give it back to the world. You just be the passage. Don't hoard. Then you will never become mad, you will never be neurotic, schizophrenic, psychotic or whatsoever you may call it.

My definition of a normal man is one who is balanced -- absolutely balanced. Nothing is retained. He takes the breath in and then he allows it to move out. The incoming breath and the outgoing breath are just the same -- balanced. Try to be balanced, and always remember that you must give back that which you have received. You will be alive, healthy, silent, peaceful, happy. A deep rhythm will happen to you, and this rhythm happens through a balance of give and take.

But we go on thinking in terms of taking in more and more. Whatsoever you take in without giving it out again will create disturbance, tension, suffering. You will become a hell. Before you take something in, always think to release something out. Have you observed that you always emphasize the breath that goes in? You never emphasize the breath that goes out. You take the breath in, and then the body throws the breath out. Reverse it: you will be more normal. Emphasize the outgoing breath. Throw the breath out as much as you can, and let the body take in.

When you take in and you have not released, your lungs become filled with carbon dioxide. Then you go on taking in, and you never release the entire lungs. You go on forcing the carbon dioxide inwards. Then your breathing becomes shallow, and the entire lungs are filled with carbon dioxide. First throw it out, and forget about taking in. The body will take care of that itself. The body has its own wisdom, and it is more wise than you. Throw the breath out and forget taking in. Don't be afraid, you are not going to die. The body will take in, and it will take in as much as is needed. As much as you have thrown out it will take in, and the balance will be there. If you take in, then you will disturb the balance because the hoarding mind is there.

I have stayed in many, many houses and I see that people have collected so many things that they cannot live, there is no space to live -- and they go on hoarding. They go on hoarding, and they think that someday the things will be needed. Whatsoever is not needed, don't hoard it. And if something is needed more by someone else than you, it is better to give it. Be a giver, and you will never be pathological. All the old civilizations were based on DANA -- on giving, and this modern civilization is based on hoarding. That is why more people are going abnormal, neurotic. Everyone is asking from where to get, and no one is asking where to go and give, to whom to give.

The last question:

Question 3

"DAILY IN EACH OF YOUR TALKS, YOU SPEAK OF AWARENESS -- TOTAL AWARENESS, UNINTERRUPTED AWARENESS, ETCETERA. YOU ALSO SAID THAT IT CANNOT BE ACHIEVED BY THE MIND, BY REPEATING A THOUGHT -- THAT IT IS TO BE FELT. BUT HOW CAN ONE FEEL UNLESS ONE ACHIEVES IT? WHAT IS THAT FEELING WHICH IS THE PRECURSOR OF ACHIEVEMENT? HOW TO IMAGINE OR PROJECT THAT WHICH HAS NOT YET HAPPENED? DOES THAT TOO HAPPEN BY EXCLUDING MIND? WHAT IS THE WHOLE PROCESS? HOW CAN IT BE MADE FEASIBLE?"

When I say that awareness cannot be attained by mind, I mean that you cannot attain it by thinking about it. You can go on thinking about and about, but you will be moving in a circle. When I say that it cannot be attained by the mind, I mean that it cannot be attained by thinking. You have to practice it, you have to DO it. It can be attained only by doing, not by thinking; that is the first thing. So don't go on thinking about what awareness is, how to achieve it or what will be the result. Don't go on thinking; start doing it.

When walking on the street, walk with awareness. It is difficult and you go on forgetting, but don't be afraid. Whenever you remember again, be alert. Take every step with full alertness, knowingly, remaining with the step, not allowing the mind to move somewhere else. While eating, eat; chew with awareness. Whatsoever you are doing, don't do it mechanically -- and that is different. And when I say that it can be felt only, the meaning is this: for example, I can raise my hand mechanically, but then I can also raise my hand with full alertness. My mind is conscious that my hand is being raised. Do it, try it -- once mechanically and then with alertness. You will feel the change. The quality changes immediately.

Walk with alertness, and you walk differently; a different grace comes to your walking. You move more slowly, more beautifully. If you walk mechanically -- only because you know how to walk and there is no need to be alert, then the walking is ugly, there is no grace in it. Do whatsoever you are doing with alertness, and feel the difference. When I say "feel," I mean observe. First do it mechanically and then with awareness, and feel the difference. And you will be able to feel the difference.

For example, if you eat with awareness, then you cannot eat more than is needed by the body. People go on coming to me and they say, "Put us on a diet. My weight is constantly increasing, the body is constantly hoarding. Put us on a diet."

I tell them, "Don't think of diet, think of consciousness. By dieting nothing will happen. You cannot do it. You will do it one day and the next day it will go. You cannot continue it. Rather, eat with awareness."

The quality changes. If you eat with awareness, you will chew more. With unconscious, mechanical habits, you simply go on pushing things into your stomach. You are not chewing at all, you are just stuffing. Then there is no pleasure, and because there is no pleasure you need more food in order to get the pleasure. There is no taste, so you need more food.

Just be alert and see what happens. If you are alert, you will chew more, you will feel the taste more, you will feel the pleasure of eating, and much more time will be taken. If you take half an hour to eat your meal, then by taking the same quantity of a meal with full awareness you will need one and a half hours -- thrice the time. In half an hour you will have eaten only one-third of the quantity, and you will feel more fulfilled; you will have enjoyed the meal more. And when the body enjoys, it tells you when to stop. When the body has not enjoyed at all, it never says when to stop, so you go on. Then the body becomes dull. You never hear what the body is saying.

You are eating without being there; that creates the problem. Be there, and every process will be slowed down. The body will itself say, "No more!" And when the body says it, that is the right moment. If you are aware, you cannot trespass the body's order. You will stop. So allow your body to say something. The body is saying things every moment, but you are not there to hear it. Be alert and you will hear it.

And when I say, "feel it," I know it is difficult. How can you feel awareness without being aware? I am not saying that you can feel Buddha's enlightenment right now, but one has to start somewhere. You may not get the whole ocean, but a drop -- just a drop -- will give you the taste, and the taste is the same. If even for a single moment you become aware, you have tasted buddhahood. It is momentary, a glimpse of it, but now you know more. And this will never happen to you through thinking; it will happen only through feeling.

The emphasis is on feeling because the emphasis is on a "lived" experience. Thinking is false, you can go on thinking about love and creating theories. You can even get a doctorate on the thesis of love, on what love is, and without ever being in love. You may not know what love is; you may have never felt it. You can grow in knowledge without in any way growing in being. And these are two different dimensions. You can go on growing in knowledge. Your head will go on growing bigger and bigger, but you will remain the same tiny self.

Then nothing is growing really -- only accumulation. When you start feeling things, you grow, your being grows. And one has to start somewhere, so start! There will be errors, there are bound to be. You will go on forgetting, it is natural. But don't get frustrated, don't throw the effort away saying, "I cannot do it." You CAN do it! The same possibility exists in you that existed in Jesus or Buddha. You are the seed; you are not lacking anything at all. You are just an arrangement, you are just a chaotic whole; everything is there. You can become a buddha, but a reorganization of your qualities is needed.

Right now you are chaotic because there is no arrangement. The arrangement comes in when you start being aware. Just by your being aware things start falling in line, and this chaos that you are becomes a symphony.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #9

Chapter title: Conscious doing

22 May 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7305225

ShortTitle: VBT209

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 93 mins

IN SUMMER WHEN YOU SEE THE ENTIRE SKY

ENDLESSLY CLEAR ENTER SUCH CLARITY.

SHAKTI,

SEE ALL SPACE AS IF ALREADY ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN HEAD

IN THE BRILLIANCE.

WAKING, SLEEPING, DREAMING, KNOW YOU AS LIGHT.

AS I LOOK IN YOUR EYES I never see you there -- as if you are absent. You exist absently, and this is the core of all suffering. You can be alive without being at all present, and if you are not present your existence will become a boredom. And this is what has happened. So when I look in your eyes I don't find you there. You have yet to come, you have yet to be. The situation is there, and the possibility is there -- you can be there any moment -- but yet you are not.

To become aware of this absence is to begin the journey towards meditation, towards transcendent. If you are aware that somehow you are missing... you exist but you don't know why, you don't know how, you don't know even who exists within you. This unawareness creates all suffering, because, unknowingly, whatsoever you do will bring suffering. It is not what you do that is basic; it is whether you do it with your presence or with your absence that is significant.

Whatsoever you do, if you can do it with your total presence, your life will become ecstatic; it will be a bliss. If you do something without your presence there, absently, your life will be a suffering -- bound to be. Hell means your absence.

So there are two types of seekers: one type of seeker is always in search of what to do. That seeker is on a wrong path, because the question is not of doing at all. The question is of being -- what to be, how to be. So never think in terms of action and doing, because whatsoever you do, if you are absent it will be meaningless.

Whether you move in the world or you live in a monastery; whether you function in the crowd or you move to an isolated spot in the Himalayas will make no difference. You will be absent here and you will be absent there, and whatsoever you do -- in the crowd or in the isolation -- will bring suffering. If you are not there, then whatsoever you do is wrong.

The second type, and the right type of seeker, is not in search of what to do, he is in search of how to be. The first thing is how to be.

One man came to Gautam Buddha. He was filled with much compassion, with much sympathy, and he asked Gautam Buddha, `What can I do to help the world?'

Buddha is reported to have laughed and said to the man, `You cannot do anything because you are not. How can you do anything when you are not? So don't think of the world. Don't think of how to serve the world, how to help others.' Buddha said, `First be -- and if you are, then whatsoever you do becomes a service, it becomes a prayer, it becomes compassion. Your presence is the turning point. Your being is the revolution.'

So these are the two paths: the path of action and the path of meditation. They are diametrically opposite. The path of action is basically concerned with you as a doer. It will try to change your actions; it will try to change your character, your morals, your relationships, but never you. The path of meditation is diametrically opposite. It is not concerned with your actions; it is directly and immediately concerned with you. What you do is irrelevant. What you are is relevant. And that is basic and primary, because all action springs from you.

Remember, your actions can be changed and modified, can even be replaced by diametrically opposite actions, but they are not going to change you. Any outward change will not bring the inner revolution, because the outward is superficial and the innermost core remains untouched; by what you do it remains untouched. But the vice versa brings the revolution: if the innermost core is different, the surface automatically changes. So think a basic question; only then can we enter these techniques of meditation.

Don't be concerned with what you are doing. That may be a trick, that maya be a device to escape from the real problem. For example, you are violent. You can make every effort to be non-violent, thinking that by being non-violent you will become religious; by becoming non-violent you will come closer to the divine. You are cruel, and you may make every effort to be compassionate.

You can do it, and nothing will change and you will remain the same. Your cruelty will become a part of your compassion -- and that is more dangerous. Your violence will become a part of your non-violence -- that is more subtle. You will be violently non-v iolent. Your non-violence will have all the madness of violence, and through your compassion you will be cruel.

You can even kill through your compassion; people have killed. There are so many religious wars -- they are fought in the mood of compassion. You can kill very compassionately, very non-violently; lovingly you can kill and murder, because you are killing for the sake of the person you are killing. You are killing him for himself, for his own sake, to help him.

You can change your actions, and this effort to change the actions may be just a device to escape the basic change. The basic change is this -- first you must be. You must become more alert, more conscious of your being, only then a presence comes to you.

You never feel yourself, and even sometimes when you feel, you feel through others -- through excitement, through stimulation, through reaction. Someone else is needed, and via someone else you can feel yourself. This is absurd. Alone, without excitement, with no one there to become a mirror, you fall in sleep, you get bored. You never feel yourself. There is no presence. You live absently.

This absent existence is the non-religious mind. To become filled with your own presence, with the light of your own being, is to become religious. So remember this as a basic point: that my concern is not with your actions. What you do is irrelevant. What you are -- absent, present, aware, unaware -- that's my concern. And these techniques we will enter are techniques to make you more present, to bring you here and now.

Either someone else is needed for you to feel yourself, or the past is needed -- through the past, through past memories, you can feel your identity. Or the future is needed -- you can project in your dreams. You can project your ideals, future lives, moksha. Either you need past memories to feel that you are, or you need a future projection, or someone else, but you alone are never enough. This is the disease, and unless you alone become enough, nothing will be enough for you. And once you alone have become enough unto yourself, you have become victorious, the struggle is over. Now there will be no suffering any more. A point of no return has come.

Beyond this point there is beatitude, eternal bliss. Before this point you are bound to suffer, but the whole suffering, strangely, is your own doing. It is a miracle that you create your own suffering. No one else is creating it. If someone else is creating it then it is difficult to go beyond it. If the world is creating it then what can you do? But because you can do, it means no one else is creating your suffering -- it is your own nightmare. And these are the basic elements of it.

The first thing: you go on thinking that you are, you believe that you are. This is simply a belief. You have never encountered yourself, you have never come face to face with yourself; you have never met yourself, there has been no meeting. You simply believe that you are. Throw this belief totally. Know well that you are yet to be, that you are not, because with this false belief you will never be able to transform. On this false belief your whole life will become false.

Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, `Don't ask me what to do. You cannot do anything, because to do something first you will be needed. And you are not there, so who will do it? You can think about doing, but you cannot do anything.'

These techniques are to help you, to bring you back; to help you to create a situation in which you can meet yourself. Much will have to be destroyed -- all that is wrong, all that is false. Before the real arises the false will have to leave; it must cease. And these are the false notions -- that you are. These are the false notions -- that you are a soul, atma, you are Brahma. Not that you are not, but these notions are false.

Gurdjieff had to insist that there is no soul in you. Against all the traditions he insisted, `Man has no soul. Soul is simply a possibility -- it can be, it may not be. It has to be achieved. You are simply a seed.'

And this emphasis is good. The possibility is there, the potentiality is there, but it is not yet actual. And we go on reading the Gita and the Upanishads and the Bible, and we go on feeling that we are the soul -- the seed thinking that it is the tree. The tree is hidden there, but it is yet to be uncovered. And it is good to remember that you may remain a seed, and you may die a seed -- because the tree cannot come, the tree cannot sprout by itself. You have to do something consciously about it, because only through consciousness it grows.

There are two types of growth. One is unconscious, natural growth: if the situation is there, the thing will grow. But the soul, the atma, the innermost being, the divine within you, is a different type of growth altogether. It is only through consciousness that it grows. It is not natural, it is supernatural.

Left to nature itself it will not grow; just left to evolution it will never evolve. You have to do something consciously, you have to make a conscious effort about it, because only through consciousness it grows. Once the consciousness is focused there, the growth happens. These techniques are to make you more conscious.

Now we will enter the techniques.

The first technique:

IN SUMMER WHEN YOU SEE

THE ENTIRE SKY

ENDLESSLY CLEAR,

ENTER SUCH CLARITY.

IN SUMMER WHEN YOU SEE THE ENTIRE SKY ENDLESSLY CLEAR, ENTER SUCH CLARITY.

Mind is confusion; there is no clarity. And mind is always crowded, always cloudy; never the open sky, cloudless, empty. Mind cannot be that. You cannot make your mind clear; it is not the nature of the mind to be so. Mind will remain unclear. If you can leave the mind behind, if you can suddenly transcend the mind and come out of it, clarity will happen to you. You can be clear, but not the mind. There is not such a thing as a clear mind; never has been and never will be. Mind means the unclarity, the confusion.

Try to understand the structure of the mind, and then this technique will be clear to you. What is mind? A continuous process of thought, a continuous procession of thoughts -- associated, non-associated, relevant, irrelevant -- many multi-dimensional impressions gathered from everywhere. The whole life is a gathering, a gathering of the dust. And this goes on and on.

A child is born. A child is clear because the mind is not there. The moment mind appears, the unclarity, the confusion enters. A child is clear, a clarity, but he will have to gather knowledge, information, culture, religion, conditionings -- necessary, useful. He will have to gather many things from everywhere, from many sources -- opposite, contradictory sources. From thousands and thousands of sources he will gather. Then the mind will become a market-place, a crowd, and because of so many sources, confusion is bound to be there. And whatsoever you gather, nothing is certain, because knowledge is always a growing affair.

I remember, someone related an anecdote to me. He was a great searcher, and he told me this about his professor who taught him for five years in a medical college. The professor was a great scholar of his subject. The last thing he did was to gather his students and tell them, `One thing more I have to teach you. Whatsoever I have taught you is only fifty percent correct, and the remaining fifty percent is absolutely wrong. But the trouble, is, I don't know which fifty percent is correct and which fifty percent is incorrect -- I don't know.'

The whole edifice of knowledge is such. Nothing is certain, no one knows, everyone is groping. Through groping we create systems, and there are thousands and thousands of systems. Hindus say something, Christians say something else, Mohammedans still something else -- all contradictory, all contradicting each other; no agreement, no certainty -- and all these sources are the sources for your mind. You collect: your mind becomes a junk-yard; confusion is bound to be there. Only a person who doesn't know much can be certain. The more you know, the more uncertain you will become.

People, primitive people, were more certain and apparently appeared to be more clear. There was no clarity -- simply unawareness of facts which could contradict them. If the modern mind is more confused, the reason is that the modern knows more. If you know more you will be more confused, because now you have more knowledge, and the more you know, the more uncertain you become. Only idiots can be certain, only idiots can be dogmatic, only idiots will never hesitate. The more you know, the more the earth is taken away from your feet, the more hesitant you become. What I mean to say is, the more the mind grows, the more you will know the nature of the mind is confusion.

When I say only idiots can be certain, I don't mean that a Buddha is an idiot -- because he is not uncertain. Remember the difference. He is not certain, he is not uncertain -- he is simply clear. With the mind, uncertainty; with the idiotic mind, certainty. With no mind both disappear -- certainty and uncertainty.

Buddha is a clarity, a space, open space. He is not certain -- there is nothing to be certain. He is not uncertain, because there is nothing to be uncertain. Only one who is seeking certainty can be uncertain. Mind is always uncertain and always seeking certainty; always confused and always seeking clarity. A Buddha is one who has dropped the mind; and with the mind all confusion, all certainty, all uncertainty, everything is dropped.

Look at it in this way: your consciousness is just like the sky and your mind is just like the clouds. The sky remains untouched by the clouds. They come and go; no scar is left behind. The sky remains virgin: no record, no footprints, nothing of the clouds, no memory. They come and they go; the sky remains undisturbed. This is the case within you also: the consciousness remains undisturbed. Thoughts come and go, minds evolve and disappear. And don't think that you have one mind; you have many minds, it is a crowd. Your minds go on changing.

You are a communist, so you have a certain type of mind. You can leave it and you can become anti-communist. Then you have a different mind; not only different, quite the opposite. You can go on changing your minds just like your dress. And you go on changing. You may not be aware of it -- these clouds come and go. Clarity can be achieved if you become aware of the sky; if your focus changes. You are focused on the clouds if you are unfocused on the sky. Unfocus on the clouds and focus on the sky.

This technique says:

IN SUMMER WHEN YOU SEE

THE ENTIRE SKY

ENDLESSLY CLEAR,

ENTER SUCH CLARITY.

Meditate on the sky; a summer sky with no clouds, endlessly empty and clear, nothing moving in it, in its total virginity. Contemplate on it, meditate on it, and enter this clarity. Become this clarity, this space-like clarity.

If you meditate on open unclouded sky, suddenly you will feel that the mind is disappearing, the mind is dropping away. There will be gaps. Suddenly you will become aware that it is as if the clear sky has entered in you also. There will be intervals. For a time being, thoughts will cease -- as if the traffic has ceased and there is no one moving.

In the beginning it will be only for moments, but even those moments are transforming. By and by the mind will slow down, bigger gaps will appear. For minutes together there will be no thought, no cloud. And when there IS no thought, no cloud, the outer sky and the inner become one, because only the thought is the barrier, only the thought creates the wall; only because of the thought the outer is outer and the inner is inner. When the thought is not there, the outer and the inner lose their boundaries, they become one. Really, boundaries never existed there. They appeared only because of the thought, the barrier.

To meditate on the sky is beautiful. Just lie down so you forget the earth; just lie down on your back on any lonely beach, on any ground, and just look at the sky. But a clear sky will be helpful -- unclouded, endless. And just looking, staring at the sky, feel the clarity of it -- the uncloudedness, the boundless expanse -- and then enter that clarity, become one with it. Feel as if you have become the sky, the space.

In the beginning, if you only meditate on the open sky, not doing anything else, intervals will start appearing, because whatsoever you see enters you. Whatsoever you see stirs you within; whatsoever you see is pictured, reflected.

You see a building. You cannot simply see it; something immediately starts happening within you. You see a man, a woman; you see a car -- you see anything. It is not just outside, something has started within, the reflection, and you have started reacting to it. So everything you see moulds you, makes you, modifies you, creates you. The without is constantly related with the within.

To look into the open sky is good. Just the expanse is beautiful, with no boundaries there. Your own boundaries will disappear, because the no-boundary sky will reflect within you. And if you can stare without blinking your eyes it will be good. If you stare without blinking your eyes... because if you blink your eyes your thought-process will continue. Stare without blinking the eyes. Stare in the emptiness, move into that emptiness, feel that you have become one with it, and any moment the sky will enter within you.

First you enter into the sky and then the sky enters you. And there is a meeting: the inner sky meeting the outer sky. In that meeting is realization. In that meeting there is no mind, because the meeting can happen only when the mind is not there. In that meeting you are for the first time not your mind. There is no confusion. Confusion cannot exist without the mind. There is no misery, because misery also cannot exist without the mind.

Have you observed this fact anytime or not -- that misery cannot exist without your mind? You cannot be miserable without your mind. The very source is not there. Who will supply you with this misery? Who will make you miserable? And the same is true from the opposite direction also: you cannot be miserable without your mind and you cannot be blissful with your mind. The mind can never be the source of bliss.

So if the inner and outer sky meet and mind disappears, even for a moment, you will be filled with a new life. The quality of that life is absolutely different. It is life eternal, uncontaminated by death, uncontaminated by any fear. In that meeting you will be here and now, in the present -- because past belongs to thoughts, future belongs to thoughts. Past and future are part of your mind. Present is existence -- it is not part of your mind.

This moment doesn't belong to your mind. The moment that has gone belongs; the moment that has to come belongs to your mind. This moment never belongs to you. Rather, you belong to this moment. You exist here, right now here. Your mind exists somewhere else, always somewhere else.

Unload yourself.

I was reading one Sufi mystic. He was travelling on a lonely path, the way was deserted, and he saw a farmer with his bullock-cart. The cart was stuck in mud. The road was rough. The farmer was carrying a big load of apples in his bullock-cart, but somewhere on the rough road the tailboard of the wagon became unfastened and the apples were scattered. But he was not aware of it; the farmer was not aware of it.

When the cart got stuck in the mud, first he tried to bring it out somehow, but all efforts were in vain, so he thought, `Now I must unload my cart, then maybe I can pull it out.' He looked back. Hardly a dozen apples were left -- the load was already unloaded. You can feel his misery. The Sufi reports in his memoirs that that exasperated farmer made a remark. He said, `Stuck, by heck! Stuck! -- and not a damn thing to unload!' The only possibility was that if he could unload the cart it could come out; but now -- nothing to unload!

Fortunately you are not stuck in such a way. You can unload -- your cart is too much loaded. You can unload the mind, and the moment the mind is not there, you fly; you become capable of flying.

This technique -- to look into the clarity of the sky and to become one with it -- is one of the most practised. Many traditions have used this. And particularly for the modern mind it will be very useful, because on earth nothing is left. On earth nothing is left to meditate on -- only the sky. If you look all around, everything is man-made, everything is limited, with a boundary, a limitation. Only the sky is still, fortunately, open to meditate on.

Try this technique, it will be helpful, but remember three things. One: don't blink -- stare. Even if your eyes start to feel pain and tears come down, don't be worried. Even those tears will be a part of unloading; they will be helpful. Those tears will make your eyes more innocent and fresh -- bathed. You just go on staring.

The second point: don't think about the sky, remember. You can start thinking about the sky. You can remember many poems, beautiful poems about the sky -- then you will miss the point. You are not to think `about' it -- you are to enter it, you are to be one with it -- because if you start thinking about it, again a barrier is created. You are missing the sky again, and you are again enclosed in your own mind. Don't think about the sky. Be the sky. Just stare and move into the sky, and allow the sky to move in you. If you move into the sky, the sky will move into you immediately.

How can you do it? How will you do it -- this moving into the sky? Just go on staring further away and further away. Go on staring -- as if you are trying to find the boundary. Move deep. Move as much as you can. That very movement will break the barrier. And this method should be practised for at least forty minutes; less than that will not do, will not be of much help.

When you really feel that you have become one, then you can close the eyes. When the sky has entered in you, you can close the eyes. You will be able to see it within also. Then there is no need. So only after forty minutes, when you feel that the oneness has happened and there is a communion and you have become part of it and the mind is no more, close the eyes and remain in the sky within.

The clarity will help the third point: ENTER SUCH CLARITY. The clarity will help -- the uncontaminated, unclouded sky. Just be aware of the clarity that is all around you. Don't think about it; just be aware of the clarity, the purity, the innocence. These words are not to be repeated. You have to feel them rather than think. And once you stare into the sky the feeling will come, because it is not on your part to imagine these things -- they are there. If you stare they will start happening to you.

The sky is pure, the purest thing in existence. Nothing makes it impure. Worlds come and go, earths are there and then disappear, and the sky remains pure. The purity is there. You need not project it; you are simply to feel it -- to be vulnerable to it so you can feel it -- and the clarity is there. Allow the sky to happen to you. You cannot force it; you can only allow it to happen.

All meditations are really allowing something to happen. Never think in terms of aggression, never think in terms of forcing something. You cannot force anything. Really, because you have been trying to force, you have created all misery. Nothing can be forced, but you can allow things to happen. Be feminine. Allow things to happen. Be passive. The sky is absolutely passive: not doing anything at all, just remaining there. Just be passive and remain under the sky -- vulnerable, open, feminine, with no aggression on your part -- and then the sky will penetrate you.

IN SUMMER WHEN YOU SEE

THE ENTIRE SKY

ENDLESSLY CLEAR,

ENTER SUCH CLARITY.

But if it is not summer what will you do? If the sky is clouded, not clear, then close your eyes and just enter the inner sky. Just close your eyes, and if you see some thoughts, just see them as if they are floating clouds in the sky. Be aware of the background, the sky, and be indifferent to thoughts.

We are too much concerned with thoughts and never aware of the gaps. One thought passes, and before another enters there is a gap -- in that gap the sky is there. Then, whenever there is no thought, what is there? The emptiness is there. So if the sky is clouded -- it is not summer-time and the sky is not clear -- close your eyes, focus your mind on the background, the inner sky in which thoughts come and go. Don't pay much attention to thoughts; pay attention to the space in which they move.

For example, we are sitting in this room. I can look at this room in two ways. Either I can look at you, so that I am indifferent to the space you are in, the roominess, the room you are in -- I look at you, I focus my mind on you who are here, and not on the room in which you are -- or, I can change my focus: I can look into the room, and I become indifferent to you. You are there, but my emphasis, my focus, is on the room. Then the total perspective changes.

Just do this in the inner world. Look at the space. Thoughts are moving in it: be indifferent to them, don't pay any attention to them. They are there; note it down that they are there, moving. The traffic is moving in the street. Look at the street and be indifferent to the traffic. Don't look to see who is passing; just know that something is passing and be aware of the space in which it is passing. Then the summer sky happens within.

There is no need to wait for the summer, because our minds are such that they can find any excuse. They will say, `Summer is not here, and even if it is summer, the sky is not clear.'

The second technique:

SHAKTI,

SEE ALL SPACE AS IF

ALREADY ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN HEAD

IN THE BRILLIANCE.

SEE ALL SPACE AS IF ALREADY ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN HEAD IN THE BRILLIANCE. Close your eyes for this technique. When you do it, close your eyes and feel as if the whole space is absorbed in your own head. It will be difficult in the beginning. It is one of the advanced techniques, so it will be good to proceed towards it in steps. Do one thing. If you want to do this technique, start in steps.

First: while going to sleep, when just ready to sleep, lie down on your bed, close your eyes and feel where your feet are. If you are six feet tall, or five feet tall, just feel where your feet are, the demarcation. Then just imagine one thing: you have become six inches longer. Your height has lengthened, it has become six inches more. Just with closed eyes feel this. In imagination, feel that your height has become six inches more.

Then the second step: feel your head, where it is, just inside, and then feel that your head has also become six inches longer. When you can feel this, everything will be easy. Then you make it more. You feel that you have become twelve feet all; or, that you have filled the whole room. Now in your imagination you are touching the walls -- you have filled the whole room. Then, by steps, feel that the whole house has come within you. And once you know the feel, it is very easy. If you can grow six inches taller, everything is easy then. If you can feel that you are not five foot, but you are five foot six, then nothing is difficult; this technique will be easy.

For three days go on feeling that; then for three days more, feel that you have filled the whole room. It is just a training of imagination. Then for three days the whole house is within you; then for three days you have become the sky. Then this technique will be very easy.

SHAKTI,

SEE ALL SPACE AS IF

ALREADY ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN HEAD

IN THE BRILLIANCE.

Then you can close your eyes and feel that the whole sky, the whole space, is absorbed by your head. The moment you can feel this, the mind disappears, because the mind needs a very narrow space. With such vastness the mind cannot exist; it simply disappears. In such vastness mind is impossible. Mind can only be narrow, limited. In such infinite space there is no place for the mind to exist.

This technique is good. Suddenly the mind explodes and the space is there. Within a three month period you can feel this. Your whole life will be different. But grow towards it in steps, because sometimes through this technique people become crazy, they lose balance. It is so tremendous, the impact is so tremendous -- suddenly if you become aware that your head has absorbed the whole space, and then you see stars and moons moving within you, the whole universe, you may become dizzy. In many traditions this technique is used very cautiously.

One of the Indian mystics of this century, Ramteerth, used this technique, and many suspect, many of those who know suspect that because of this technique he committed suicide. For him it was not a suicide, because for him -- one who has known that the whole space has come within him -- suicide is impossible, it cannot happen. No one is there to commit suicide. But for others, for those who were watching from outside, it was a suicide.

He started feeling that the whole universe was moving within him, within his head. His disciples thought that he was talking poetry. Then they started feeling that he had gone mad, because he started claiming that he was the universe and everything was within him. And then one day he just jumped from a mountain cliff into a river. Before jumping he wrote a beautiful poem saying, `I have become the universe. Now I feel this body as a burden, unnecessary, so I give it back. Now no boundary is needed. I have become the unbounded Brahma.'

Someone with a psychiatric training will think that he has gone mad, it is just neurosis, but one who knows deeper dimensions of human consciousness will say he has become a mukta, an enlightened one. But to the ordinary mind it is a suicide.

With such techniques there is danger. That's why I say grow towards them gradually, because you don't know -- anything is possible. Sometimes you are not aware of your own potentiality, sometimes you don't know how ready you are, and something can happen. So do it in steps.

First try your imagination with small things: just that the body has become bigger or has become smaller. You can go both the ways. You are five feet six: feel you have become four feet, three feet, two feet, one foot; you have become just a seed. This is just a training; just a training so that you can feel whatsoever you want to feel. Your inner mind is absolutely free to feel; nothing can hinder it from feeling anything. It is your feeling. You can grow and you can be small. Suddenly you become aware that it is you.

And if you can work well through this, you can come out of your body very easily. If you can grow and become small through imagination, you are capable of coming out of your body. You simply imagine that you are standing outside of your body and you will stand -- but not immediately.

First work with small steps, and then when you feel that you are at ease and you don't become scared, then feel that you have filled the whole room -- actually you will feel the touch of the walls. And then feel that the whole house has come within you -- you will feel it within you. And then go on. Then, by and by, let the sky be felt in the head. And once you feel the sky in your head, absorbed there, the mind simply disappears. It has no business to do there.

For this technique it is good to be with someone: to be with a teacher, or to be with a friend. Don't do it alone. Someone must be there to take care of you, to watch you. This is a school method. Where many people are working in a school, it is very easy, less harmful, less dangerous -- because sometimes when the sky explodes within, for many days you may not become aware of your body. You may not come out, you may be so absorbed in the feeling, because time disappears; you cannot feel how much time has elapsed. The body disappears, you cannot feel the body. You become the sky. Someone must take care of your body; very loving care will be needed.

So with a master, or with a group, this technique is less harmful and less dangerous. And with a group that knows what is possible -- what can happen and what should be done... because if in such a state of mind you are suddenly awakened, you may go mad, because time will be needed for your mind to come back. If suddenly brought back to the body, your nervous system cannot bear it. It is not made for that. It has to be trained. So don't do it alone. You can do it in a group, with a few friends, in a lonely place. And do it in steps, not suddenly.

The third technique:

WAKING,

SLEEPING,

DREAMING,

KNOW YOU AS LIGHT.

WAKING, SLEEPING, DREAMING, KNOW YOU AS LIGHT. First start with waking. Yoga and Tantra divide the life of man's mind into three divisions -- the life of the mind, remember. They divide mind into three divisions: waking, sleeping, dreaming. These are not the divisions of your consciousness, these are the divisions of your mind, and the consciousness is the fourth.

They have not given any name to it in the east; they call it simply the fourth, turiya. These three have names. These are the clouds, they can be named -- a waking cloud, a sleeping cloud, a dreaming cloud. They are all clouds, and the space in which they move -- the sky -- in unnamed, left simply as the fourth.

Western psychology has only recently become aware of the dreaming dimension. Really, only with Freud, dreaming became important. But with Hindus, this is one of the most ancient concepts: that you cannot really know a man unless you know what he is doing in his dreams. Because whatsoever he is doing in his waking hours is more or less bound to be acting, false, because in the waking state of his mind he is forced to do many things.

He is not free. The society is there, rules are there, moralities are there. He is constantly struggling with his own desires: suppressing them, modifying them, moulding them in the mould the society allows. And the society never allows you to be your total being; it chooses. That is what a culture means -- culture means a choice.

Every culture is a conditioning: a choice of certain things and a denial of certain things. Your total being is not accepted anywhere; it is not -- nowhere. Certain aspects are accepted here, certain aspects are accepted there, in this country or that, but nowhere is the total human being accepted. So the waking consciousness is bound to be false, pseudo, artificial, forced. You are not real there -- just actors; not spontaneous -- manipulated. ONly in dreams are you free; only in dreams are you authentically yourself.

You can do whatsoever you like in your dreams. No one is concerned; you are alone. No one can penetrate, no one can look into your dreams. And no one is bothered: what you do in your dreams is your business, no one is concerned. They are absolutely private. Because they are absolutely private and related to no one, you can be free. So unless your dreams are known, your real face cannot be known. Hindus have been aware of it: dreams must be penetrated. But they are still clouds -- private of course, freer, but still clouds, and one has to go beyond them also.

These are the three states: waking and sleeping and dreaming. Dreaming became very primary with Freud. Now sleeping has been touched. Now many sleep labs are working in the west to know what sleep is, because it seems to be very strange that we don't know what sleep is. What really happens to you in sleep is not yet known scientifically.

And if we cannot know what sleep is, it will be difficult to know what man is, because for one third of his life he will be sleeping. One third of your life! If you are going to live for sixty years, for twenty years you will be sleeping. It is such a major part. What are you doing while you are asleep? Something mysterious is going on, and it is so essential that life is not possible without it. Something deep is happening, but you are not aware.

Waking, you are a different person; dreaming, you are again a different person. In deep sleep, you are again a different person. You can't remember even your name while deep asleep. You don't know whether you are a Mohammedan or a Christian or a Hindu. Out of your deep sleep you can't answer who you are; rich or poor -- no identity, no image.

In the waking layer you exist with the society. In the dreaming layer you exist with your own desires. In deep sleep you exist with nature, deep in the womb of nature. And yoga and Tantra say that only beyond these three you exist in Brahma, in the cosmic whole. So these three must be crossed, passed, transcended.

There is one difference. The western psychology is now interested in studying these states. Eastern seekers were interested in these states, but not in studying them. They were interested only in how to transcend them. This technique is a transcendental technique.

WAKING,

SLEEPING,

DREAMING,

KNOW YOU AS LIGHT.

Very difficult. You have to start with waking. How can you remember in dreams? Can you create a dream consciously? Can you manipulate a dream? Can you have your own dreams of your own wishes? You cannot. How impotent man is! You cannot even create a dream of your own. They too happen to you; you are helpless. But there are certain techniques through which dreams can be created, and those techniques are very helpful in transcending, because if you can create, then you can transcend. But one has to start with waking.

While waking -- moving, eating, working -- remember yourself as light. As if in your heart a flame is burning, and your body is nothing but the aura around the flame. Imagine it. In your heart a flame is burning, and your body is nothing but a light aura around the flame; your body is just a light around the flame. Allow it to go deep within your mind and your consciousness. Imbibe it.

It will take time, but if you go on thinking about it, feeling it, imagining it, within a certain period you will be able to remember it the whole day. While awake, moving on the street, you are a flame moving. No one else will be aware of it in the beginning, but if you continue it, after three months others will also become aware. And only when others become aware can you then be at ease. Don't say to anyone. Simply imagine a flame, and your body as just the aura around it. Not a physical body, but an electric body. Go on doing it.

If you persist, within three months, or somewhere near about then, others will become aware that something has happened to you. They will feel a subtle light around you. When you come near them, they will feel a different warmth. If you touch them, they will feel a fiery touch. They will become aware that something strange is happening to you. Don't say to anyone. When others become aware, then you can feel at ease, and then you can enter the second step, not before it.

The second step is to take it into dreaming. Now you can take it into dreaming. It has become a reality. Now it is not an imagination. Through imagination you have uncovered a reality. It is real. Everything consists of light. You are light -- unaware of the fact -- because every particle of matter is light.

The scientists say it consists of electrons. It is the same thing. Light is the source of all. You are also condensed light: through imagination you are simply uncovering a reality. Imbibe it -- and when you have become so filled with it, you can carry it into dreams, not before.

Then, while falling asleep, go on thinking of the flame, go on seeing it, feeling you are the light. Remembering it... remembering... remembering... you fall down asleep. And the remembrance continues. In the beginning you will start having some dreams in which you will feel you have a flame within, you are light. By and by, in the dreams also you will move with the same feeling. And once this feeling enters the dreams, dreams will start disappearing. Dreams will start disappearing: there will be less and less dreams and more and more deep sleep.

When in all your dreaming this reality is revealed -- that you are light, a flame, a burning flame -- all dreams will disappear. Only when dreams disappear can you carry this feeling into sleep, never before. Now you are at the door. When dreams have disappeared and you remember yourself as a flame, you are at the door of sleep. Now you can enter with the feeling. And once you enter sleep with the feeling that you are a flame, you will be aware in it -- the sleep will now happen only to your body, not to you.

This technique is to help you go beyond these three states. If you can be aware that you are a flame, a light, that sleep is not happening to you, you are conscious. You are carrying a conscious effort. Now you are crystallized around that flame. The body is asleep, you are not.

This is what Krishna says in Gita: that yogis never sleep. While others are asleep, they are awake. Not that their bodies never sleep. Their bodies sleep -- but only bodies. Bodies need rest, consciousness needs no rest; because bodies are mechanisms, consciousness is not a mechanism. Bodies need fuel, they need rest. That's why they are born, they are young, then they become old, and then they die. Consciousness is never born, never becomes old, never dies. It needs no fuel, it needs no rest. It is pure energy, perpetual eternal energy.

If you can carry this image of flame and light through the doors of sleep, you will never sleep again, only the body will rest. And while the body is sleeping, you will know it. Once this happens, you have become the fourth. Now the waking and the dreaming and the sleeping are parts of the mind. They are parts, and you have become the fourth -- one who goes through all of them and is none of them.

Really, this is so simple. If you are in the waking state, and then you move into dreams, you cannot be either. If you are the waking state, then how can you dream? And if you are the dreaming state, how can you fall into sleep where there is no dream? You must be a traveller, and these states must be stations, so you can move from here and there and come back again. Again in the morning you will move into the waking state.

These are states, and the one who moves within these states is you. But that you is the fourth -- and that fourth is what you call the soul. That fourth is what you call divine, that fourth is what you call the immortal element, the life eternal.

WAKING

SLEEPING,

DREAMING,

KNOW YOU AS LIGHT.

This is a very beautiful technique. But try it first in the waking. And remember, when others become aware, then only have you succeeded in it. They will become aware. Then you can enter into dream, and then into sleep, and then you can awaken to that which you are -- the fourth.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #10

Chapter title: Moving to the roots

23 May 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7305235

ShortTitle: VBT210

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 85 mins

Question 1

LAST NIGHT YOU SAID THAT BY CHANGING THE OUTER, THE INNER REMAINS UNCHANGED, UNTRANSFORMED. BUT IS IT NOT TRUE THAT THE RIGHT FOOD, RIGHT LABOUR, RIGHT SLEEP, RIGHT ACTIONS AND BEHAVIORS ARE ALSO IMPORTANT FACTORS FOR INNER TRANSFORMATION? ISN'T IT A MISTAKE TO IGNORE THE OUTER COMPLETELY?

THE OUTER CANNOT CHANGE THE INNER, but the outer can help, or it can hinder. The outer can create a situation in which the inner can explode more easily. The thing to be remembered is this: that the outer transformation is not the inner. Even if you have done everything and the situation is there, the inner is not going to explode. The situation is necessary, it is helpful, but it is not the transformation. And those who get involved with the outer....

The outer is a vast phenomenon. You can go on changing for lives and you will never be satisfied, and something or other will remain to be changed, because unless the inner changes, the outer can never be perfect. You can go on changing it and polishing it and conditioning it. You will never feel satisfied. You will never come to a situation where you can feel, `Now, the field is ready.' So many have wasted their lives.

If your mind becomes obsessed with the outer -- with the food, with the clothes, with the behavior... I am not saying to neglect them. No, what I am saying is, don't get obsessed with them. They can be helpful, but they can become great hindrances if your mind becomes obsessed. Then it becomes an escape, then you are just postponing the inner change. And you can go on changing the outer. The inner is not even touched by it, the inner remains the same.

You might have heard one old Indian fable. In `Panchtantra' it is said that a mouse was very much afraid of a cat; constantly in fear, anxiety. He couldn't sleep: he would dream about the cat and he would tremble. A magician, just out of pity, transformed the mouse into a cat. The outer was changed, but immediately the mouse within the cat now became afraid of a dog. The anxiety was the same; only the object had changed. Previously it was the cat, now it was the dog. The trembling continued, the anguish remained, the dreams were still of fear.

So the magician changed the cat into a dog. Immediately the dog became afraid of the tiger, because the mouse within remained the same. The mouse was not changed; only bodies, the outer. The same anxiety, the same disease, the same fear remained. The magician changed the dog into a tiger. Immediately the mouse within the tiger became afraid of a hunter. So the magician said to the mouse, `Now be a mouse again, because I can change your bodies, I cannot change you. You have the heart of a mouse, so what can I do?' The heart of a mouse.

You can go on changing the outer, but the heart of the mouse remains the same. And that heart creates the problems. The shape will change, the form will change, but the substance will remain the same. And it makes no difference whether you are afraid of a cat, or of a dog, or of a tiger. The question is not of whom you are afraid; the question is that you are afraid.

The emphasis is -- my emphasis is -- that you must remain aware that your outer effort should not become a substitute for the inner transformation. One thing. Take every help that can be taken. It is good to have right food, but it is nonsense and madness to become obsessed with food. It is good to have right behavior, but it is neurotic to become obsessed with it. You should not become mad about anything.

In India there are many sects of sannyasins who are obsessed with food. The whole day they are thinking only of food: what to eat and what not to eat; who should prepare the food and who should not prepare the food. Once I was travelling with a sannyasin. He would take only milk, and only cow's milk, and only from those cows which were white; otherwise he would go without food. This man is mad.

Remember this: that the inner is important, significant. The outer is helpful, it is good, but you must not become focused with it. It must not become so important that the inner is forgotten. The inner must remain the inner and the central, and the outer, if possible, should be changed just as a help.

Don't ignore it completely. There is no need to ignore it, because really the outer is also part of the inner. It is not something opposite to it, it is not something contrary to it, it is not something imposed upon you -- it is you. But the inner is the central, and the outer is the periphery. So give as much importance as a periphery needs, as a circumference needs, as a boundary needs -- but the boundary is not the house. So take care of it, but don't become mad after it.

Our mind is always trying to find escapes. If you can become involved with food, with sex, with clothes, with the body, your mind will be at ease, because now you are not going towards the inner. Now there is no need to change the mind. Now there is no need to destroy the mind, to go beyond the mind. With the change of food, the same mind can exist. You may eat this or that -- the same mind can exist. Only when you move inwards... the more inner you reach, the more this mind which you have has to cease. The inward path is the path towards no-mind.

The mind becomes afraid. It will try to find some escape -- something to do with the outer. Then the mind can exist as it is. Whatsoever you do makes no difference. It is irrelevant what you do -- this mind can exist, and this mind can find ways for how to remain the same. And sometimes, when you struggle with the natural outlet, your mind will find some perverted outlets which are more dangerous. Rather than being a help, they will become hindrances.

I have heard that Mulla Nasrudin fell down his stairs. His leg was fractured, so it was put in a plaster cast, and he was told that for three months he was not to go up and down the stairs. After three months he came to the doctor and the plaster was removed. Mulla asked, `Now can I go up and down the stairs?'

The doctor said, `Now you can go. You are absolutely okay.'

Mulla said, `Now I am so happy, doctor. You cannot believe how happy I am. It was so awkward to go up and down the drain-pipe the whole day. For three months, every day going up and down the drain-pipe -- it was so awkward, and the whole neighborhood was laughing at me. But you had told me not to go up and down the stairs, so I had to find a way.'

This is what everyone is doing. If one outlet is blocked, then a perversion is bound to happen. And you don't know the ways of the mind -- =they are very cunning and very subtle. People come to me with their problems. The problem seems to be obvious -- it is not. All problems seem to be obvious, clear -- it is not so. Deep down something else is hidden, and unless that something else is known, discarded, gone beyond, the problem will remain. It will change its shape.

Someone is smoking too much and he wants to stop it. But smoking in itself is not a problem; the problem is something else. You can stop smoking, but the problem will remain, and it will have to come out in something else. When do you smoke? When you are anxious, nervous, you start smoking, and smoking helps you. You feel more confident, you feel more relaxed.

Just by stopping the smoking, your nervousness is not going to change. You will feel nervous, you will feel anxious; the anxiety will come. Then you will do something else. And you can find something which is a beautiful substitute; it looks so different. You can do anything. You can just use a mantra instead of smoking, and whenever you feel nervous you can say, RAM, RAM, RAM -- anything continuously.

What are you doing with smoke? It is a mantra. You smoke in and out, you smoke in and out -- it becomes a repetitive thing. Because of the repetition you feel relaxed. Repeat anything and the same will happen. But if you are using a mantra and saying, RAM, RAM, RAM, no one is going to say that you are doing something wrong. And the problem is the same.

The problem has not changed; only you have changed the trick. Previously you were doing it with smoke; now you are doing it with a word. Repetition helps; any nonsense thing will help. You just have to repeat it continuously. When you repeat a thing it gives relaxation, because it creates a sort of boredom. Boredom is relaxing. You can do anything that creates a sort of boredom. Boredom is relaxing. You can do anything that creates boredom.

If you are smoking, everyone will say that it is wrong. And if you are chanting a mantra, no one is going to say that it is wrong. But if the problem is the same, I am saying that it is also wrong -- rather, more dangerous than the previous one, because with smoking you were aware that it was wrong. Now, with this chanting of the mantra you are not aware, and this disease that you are unaware is more dangerous and more harmful.

You can do anything on the surface, but unless deeper roots are changed, nothing happens. So with the outer remember this: be aware of it, and move from the surface towards the roots and find the root -- why are you nervous? Someone is eating too much food. It can be stopped. You can force yourself to not eat too much. But why is one eating too much food? Why? Because this is not a bodily need, so somewhere the mind is interfering. Something has to be done with the mind; it is not a question of the body. Why do you go on stuffing yourself?

Too much obsession with food is a love need. If you are not loved well, you will eat more. If you are loved and you can love, you will eat less. Whenever someone loves you, you cannot eat more. Love fills you so much, you don't feel empty. When there is not love, you feel empty; something has to be stuffed in -- you go on forcing food.

And there are reasons, root reasons, for it, because the first encounter of the child with love and food is simultaneous. From the same breast, from the same mother, he gets food and love -- food and love become associated. If the mother is loving, the child will never take too much mild. There is no need. He is always secure in his love; he knows that whenever there is a need the food will come, the milk will be there, the mother will be there. He feels secure. But if the mother is non-loving, then he is insecure. Then he doesn't know whether, when he feels hungry, food will come, because there is no love. He will eat more. And this will continue. It will become an unconscious root.

So you can go on changing your food -- eat this, eat that, don't eat this -- but it makes no difference, because the basic root remains there. Then if you stop stuffing yourself with food, you will start stuffing with something else. And there are many ways. If you stop eating too much you may start accumulating money. Then again you have to be filled by something; then you go on accumulating money.

Observe deeply, and you will see that a person who accumulates money is never in love, cannot be, because the money accumulation is really a substitute. With money he will feel secure now. When you are loved there is no insecurity; in love all fears disappear. In love there is no future, no past. This moment is enough, this very moment is eternity. You are accepted. There is no anxiety for the future, for what will happen tomorrow -- there is no tomorrow in love.

But if love is not there, then the tomorrow is there. What will happen? Accumulate money, because you cannot rely on any person. So rely on things, rely on money and wealth. There are people who say, `Donate your money. Don't accumulate money. Be non-attached to money.' But these are superficial things, because the inner need will remain the same -- then he will start accumulating something else.

Stop one outlet and you will have to create another -- unless roots are destroyed. So don't be too much concerned with the outer. Be aware of whatsoever your outer personality is. Be aware of it, be alert, and from the periphery always move towards the roots to find what the cause is there. Howsoever disturbing, move to the roots. Once you come to know the roots, once the roots are exposed.... Remember this law: the roots can exist only in darkness -- not only the roots of trees, but the roots of anything. They can exist only in darkness. Once they are brought to light, they die.

So move with your periphery; dig it deep and go to the roots, and bring the roots to consciousness, to light. Once you have come to the root, it simply disappears. You have not to do anything about it. You have to do something only because you don't know what the problem is. A problem rightly understood disappears. Right understanding of a problem, a root understanding of the problem, becomes the disappearance of it. The first thing.

The second thing: whatsoever you do is superficial; it is not you in your totality. So don't judge a man by his actions, because action is very atomic. You see a person in anger, and you can judge that this man is filled with hatred, violence, vengeance. But a moment later the anger disappears; the man becomes as loving as possible, and a different perfume, a different flowering, comes to his face. The anger was atomic. Don't judge the whole man. But this love is also atomic. Don't judge the whole man by this love.

Whatsoever you have done is not your total sum. Your actions remain just atomic -- part of you of course, but your totality transcends them. You can be different immediately. And whatsoever is known about you by your behavior, by your actions, by your doings, you can contradict. You may have been a saint: you can become a sinner this very moment. No one could imagine that you, a saint, could do this. You can do it. It is not inconceivable. You may have been a sinner up to this moment, and the next moment you can jump out of it.

What I am saying is, your inner is so vast and so great that by your outer it cannot be judged. Your outer remains superficial, accidental. I will repeat it. Your outer remains accidental, your inner is the essence. So remember to uncover the inner, and don't get entangled with the outer.

One thing more: outer is always of the past. It is always dead, because whatsoever you have done, you have done. It is always of the past, it is never alive. The inner is always alive, it is here and now, and the outer is always dead. If you know me -- whatsoever I have done and said -- you know my past, you don't know me. I am here, the living. That is my inner point, and whatsoever you know about me is just the outer. It is dead, it is no more there.

Observe it in your own consciousness. Whatsoever you have done is not a bondage on you. It is no more really; it is just a memory. And you are greater than that. Your infinite possibilities are there. It was only accidental that you are a sinner or you are a saint. It was only accidental that you are a Christian or a Hindu. But your innermost being is not accidental; it is essential.

The emphasis on the inner is the emphasis on the essential. And that inner remains free, it is freedom. The outer is a slavery, because you can know the outer only when it has happened; then you cannot do anything about it. What can you do about your past? It cannot be undone, you cannot move backwards. You cannot do anything with the past; it is a slavery.

If you understand it rightly, then you can understand the theory of karma, the theory of actions. This theory -- one of the most essential parts of Hindu realization -- is that unless you go beyond karmas, you are not free; unless you have gone beyond all actions, you will remain in bondage. Don't pay much attention to the outer, don't get obsessed with it. Use it as a help, but continuously remembering that the inner has to be discovered.

These techniques we are discussing here are for the inner, for how to discover it. I will tell you one thing. There have been traditions.... For example, one of the most important religious traditions has been Jainism. But Jainism pays too much attention to the outer; too much, so much so that they completely forget that there is anything like meditation, that there is anything like a science of yoga. They forget it completely.

They are obsessed with food, with clothes, with sleep, with everything -- but with no effort towards meditation. Not that in their tradition originally there was no meditation, because no religion can be born without it, but they got obsessed somewhere with the outer. It became so important that they forgot completely that this whole situation is just a help; it is not the goal.

What you eat is not the goal. What you are is the goal. It is good if your eating habits help you to uncover the being. It is good. But if you become just obsessed with eating, continuously thinking about it, then you have missed the point. Then you are a food-addict. You are mad, neurotic.

Question 2

ISN'T IT TRUE THAT ALL MEDITATION TECHNIQUES ARE REALLY DOINGS WHICH LEAD THE SEEKER TO HIS BEING?

In a way, yes; and in a deeper way, no. Meditation techniques are doings, because you are advised to do something. Even to meditate is to do something, even to sit silently is to do something, even to not do anything is a sort of doing. So in a superficial way, all meditation techniques are doings. But in a deeper way they are not, because if you succeed in them, the doing disappears.

Only in the beginning it appears like an effort. If you succeed in it, the effort disappears and the whole thing becomes spontaneous and effortless. If you succeed in it, it is not a doing. No effort on your part is needed then. It becomes just like breathing -- it is there. But in the beginning the effort is bound to be, because the mind cannot do anything which is not an effort. If you tell it to be effortless, the whole thing seems absurd.

In Zen, where much emphasis is paid to effortlessness, the masters say to the disciples, `Just sit. Don't do anything.' And the disciple tries. Of course, what can you do other than trying? The disciple tries to just sit, and he tries to just sit, and he tries to not do anything, and then the master hits him on his head with his staff and he says, `Don't do this! I have not told you to try to sit, because that becomes an effort. And don't try not to do anything, because that is a sort of doing. Simply sit!'

If I tell you to simply sit, what will you do? You will do something, which will make it not a simple sitting; an effort will enter. You will be sitting with an effort; a strain will be there. You cannot simply sit. It looks strange, but the moment you try to sit simply, it has become complex. The very effort to simply sit makes it complex. So what to do?

Years pass, and the disciple goes on sitting and being blamed, condemned by the master that he is missing the point. But he simply goes on, goes on, goes on, and every day he is a failure, because the effort is there. And he cannot deceive the master. But one day, just patiently sitting, even this consciousness to sit simply disappears. One day suddenly he is sitting -- like a tree or like a rock -- not doing anything. And then the master says, `This is the right posture. Now you have attained it. Now remember this. This is the way to sit.' But it takes patience and long effort to achieve effortlessness.

In the beginning, effort will be there, doing will be there, but only in the beginning as a necessary evil. But you have to remember constantly that you have to go beyond it. A moment must come when you are not doing anything about meditation -- just being there and it happens; just sitting or standing and it happens; not doing anything, just being aware, it happens.

All these techniques are just to help you to come to an effortless moment. The inner transformation, the inner realization, cannot happen through effort, because effort is a sort of tension. With effort you cannot be relaxed totally; the effort will become a barrier. With this background in mind, if you make effort, by and by you will become capable of leaving it also.

It is just like swimming. If you know about swimming, you know that in the beginning you have to make effort -- but only in the beginning. Once you know the feel of it, once you know what it is, the effort has gone; you can swim effortlessly. And even a good swimmer cannot say what swimming is, what exactly he is doing. He cannot explain to you what he is doing. Really, he is not doing anything. He is simply allowing himself to be in a deep responsive relationship with the water, with the river. He is not doing anything really. And if he is still doing, he is still not an expert swimmer -- he is still amateur, still learning.

I will tell you one anecdote. In Burma, one Buddhist monk was ordered to make a design for the new temple, particularly for the gate. So he was making many designs. He had one very talented disciple, so he told that disciple to be near him. While he made the design the disciple was simply to watch, and if he liked it he had to say that it was okay, it was right. If he didn't like it then he had to say no. And the master said, `When you say yes, only then will I send the design. If you go on saying no, I will discard the design and will create a new one.'

Hundreds of designs were discarded in this way. Three months passed. Even the master became afraid, but he had given his word so he had to keep it. The disciple was there, the master would make the design, and then the disciple would say no. The master would start another one.

One day the ink was just about to be finished, so the master said, `Go out and find more ink.' The disciple went out. The master forgot him, his presence, and became effortless. His presence was the problem. The idea was constantly in his mind that the disciple was there, judging. He was constantly wondering whether he was going to like it or not, whether he would discard it again. This created an inner anxiety and the master could not be spontaneous.

The disciple went out. The design was completed. The disciple came in and he said `Wonderful! But why couldn't you do it before?'

The master said, `Now I understand why -- because you were here. Because of you -- I was making an effort to get your approval. The effort destroyed the whole thing. I couldn't be natural, I couldn't flow, I couldn't forget myself because of you.'

Whenever you are doing meditation, the very effort that you are doing it, the very idea of succeeding in it, is the barrier. Be conscious of it. Go on doing, and be conscious of it. A day will come... just through patience a day comes when effort is not there. Really, you are not there, only meditation is. It may take a long time. It cannot be predicted, no one can say when it will happen. Because if something is to be achieved by effort, it can be predicted -- that if you do this much effort you will succeed -- but meditation is going to succeed only when you become effortless. That's why nothing can be predicted. Nothing can be said about when you will succeed. You may succeed this very moment, and you may not succeed for lives.

The whole thing hinges on one thing -- when your effort drops and you become spontaneous, when your meditation is not an act but becomes your being, when your meditation is just like love....

You cannot do anything about love, or can you? If you do anything, you falsify it. It will become artificial. It will not go deep. You will not be in it. It will become an acting. Love IS -- you cannot do anything about it.

You cannot do anything about meditation also. But I don't mean don't do anything, because then you will remain whatsoever you are. You have to do something, perfectly conscious that by only doing you will not achieve. Doing will be needed in the beginning. One cannot leave it; one has to go through it. But one has to go through it, one has to transcend it, and an effortless floating has to be achieved.

The path is arduous and very contradictory. You cannot find anything more contradictory than meditation. Contradictory because it has to be started as an effort and it has to end as effortlessness. But it happens. You may not be able to conceive logically hot it happens, but in experience it happens. A day comes when you just get fed up with your effort. It falls.

It happened to Buddha this way. For six years he was making every effort possible. No human being has been so obsessed with becoming enlightened. He did everything that he could do. He moved from one teacher to another, and whatsoever he was taught, he did it perfectly. That was the problem, because no teacher could say to him, `You are not doing well, that's why you are not achieving.' That was impossible. He was doing better than any master, so the masters had to confess. They said, `This much we have to teach. Beyond this we don't know, so you go somewhere else.'

He was a dangerous disciple -- and only dangerous disciples achieve. He studied everything that was possible. Whatsoever he was told, he would do it -- absolutely as it was told. And then he would come to the master and say, `I have done it, but nothing has happened. So what next?'

The teachers would say, `You go somewhere else. There is one teacher in the Himalayas -- go there.' Or, `There is one teacher in some forest -- go there. We don't know more than this.'

He went around and around for six years. He did all that can be done, all that is humanly possible, and then he got fed up. The whole thing appeared futile, fruitless, meaningless. One night he relaxed all efforts. He was sitting under the Bodhi tree, and he said, `Now everything is finished. In the world there is nothing, and in this spiritual search also there is nothing. Now there is nothing for me to do. Everything is finished. Not only this world, but the other world also. Suddenly all efforts dropped. He was empty. Because when there is nothing to do, the mind cannot move. The mind moves only because there is something to do -- some motivation, some goal. The mind moves because something is possible, something can be achieved, the future. If not today then tomorrow, but the possibility is there that one can achieve it -- the mind moves.

That night Buddha came to a dead point. Really, he died that very moment, because there was no future. Nothing was to be achieved, and nothing could be achieved -- `I have done everything. The whole world is futile and this whole existence is a nightmare.' Not only the material world became futile, but the spiritual also. He relaxed. Not that he did something to relax. This is the point to understand: there was nothing to be tense, therefore he relaxed. There was no effort on his part to relax.

Under the Bodhi tree he was not trying relaxation. There was nothing to do, nothing to be tense, nothing to desire, no future, no hope. He was absolutely hopeless that night -- relaxed. Relaxation happened. You cannot relax, because something or other is still there to be achieved. That goes on stirring your mind; you go on spinning and spinning around and around. Suddenly the spinning stopped, the wheel stopped -- Buddha relaxed and fell asleep.

In the morning when he awoke, the last star was setting. He looked at the last star disappear, and with that last star disappearing, he disappeared completely, he became an enlightened one. Then people started asking, `How did you achieve this? How? What was the method?'

Now you can understand Buddha's difficulty. If he said that he had achieved through some methods, then he was wrong, because he achieved only when there was no method. If he said that he had achieved through effort, then he was wrong, because he achieved only when there was no effort. But if he said, `Don't make any effort and you will achieve,' then too he was wrong, because to his no-effort those six years of effort were the background. Without that effort, that six years' arduous effort, this state of no-effort could not have been achieved. Only because of that mad effort he came to a peak and there was nowhere further to go; he relaxed and fell down in the valley.

This has to be remembered for many reasons. Spiritual effort is the most contradictory phenomenon. Effort has to be made, with full consciousness that nothing can be achieved through effort. Effort has to be made only to achieve no-effort, only to achieve effortlessness. But don't relax your effort, because if you relax you will never achieve that relaxation which came to Buddha. You go on doing every effort, so automatically a moment comes when just by sheer effort you reach a point where relaxation happens to you.

For example, you may take it in a different way. As I see it, in the west, ego has been the central point: the fulfillment of the ego, the development of the ego, the achievement of a strong ego, has been the whole western effort. In the east, it has been how to achieve egolessness, how to be a non-ego, how to forget, surrender, dissolve yourself completely so that you are not. The east has been trying for egolessness. The west has been trying for the perfect ego.

But this is the contradictoriness of things: if you don't have a very developed ego, you cannot surrender. You can surrender only if you have a perfectly clearcut ego. Otherwise you cannot surrender, because who will surrender? So to me, both are half and both are in misery -- east and west both. Because the east has taken egolessness, which is the end part, and the beginning part is missing.

Who will surrender the ego? The peak is not there, so who will create the valley? The valley is created only around a peak. The greater the peak, the deeper the valley. If you don't have an ego, or a very lukewarm one, surrender is not possible. Or, your surrender will be a lukewarm surrender, just so-so. Nothing will happen out of it; there will be no explosion.

In the west, the beginning part has been emphasized. So you can go on growing with your ego. It will create more and more anxiety. And when you have really created it, you don't know what to do with it, because the end part is not there.

To me, the spiritual search is both. Create a very great peak, create a perfect ego, just to dissolve it. That seems absurd -- just to dissolve it, just to achieve a deep surrender, just to lose it somewhere. And you cannot lose something which you don't have. So in my view, humanity has to be trained for these two things together: help everyone to create a perfect ego, a fulfilled ego -- but this is only half the journey -- and then, help them to surrender it.

The greater the peak, the deeper will be the valley. The higher the ego, the deeper you will move in your surrender. And this is for everything. On the spiritual path, remember this continuous contradictoriness. Don't forget it even for a single moment. Become perfect egoists so that you can surrender, so that you can dissolve, melt. Do every effort that you can do, just to reach a point where effort leaves you and you are totally effortless.

Question 3

YOU SAID LAST NIGHT THAT THE MORE THE MIND GROWS, THE MORE WE KNOW THAT THE NATURE OF THE MIND IS CONFUSION. BUT ISN'T IT TRUE THAT THIS GROWTH OF THE MIND ALSO LEADS TO CLARITY?

Whatsoever I was just saying is related to this.

Yes, it leads to clarity, because only when you have a very mature mind do you become aware that you are confused. Even to become aware that mind is confusion, a very developed mind is needed. Those who are not aware that their mind is confusion are really not mature minds. They are childish, juvenile, still developing. Only a very mature mind can become aware of the quality of the mind, that it is confusion. And when you have developed the mind, only then is meditation possible, because meditation is the opposite goal.

Meditation means no-mind. But how can you achieve a no-mind if you have not achieved a mind? So achieve a mind just to lose it. And don't think that if ultimately one has to reach the state of no-mind, then what is the use of achieving a mind? -- because if you don't achieve a mind, the ultimate is not going to happen to you. It can happen only if the mind is there. So I am not against mind, I am not against intellect. Really, I am not against anything. I am for everything, because everything can be used to reach the opposite pole.

There is a polarity, and the opposite pole cannot be reached if the polarity is not there. A madman cannot meditate. Why? Because he has no mind. But this no-mind is not the no-mind of Buddha. No-mind can have two dimensions: below mind and above mind. The above mind is also no-mind, and the below mind is also no-mind. You can fall down from the mind: the mind is not there, but it is not meditation. You have to go beyond mind, only then is the Buddha's no-mind achieved. And always remember it, because they are so similar you can misunderstand the whole thing. They are so similar.

For example, a child is innocent. A saint is also innocent -- a Jesus or a Krishna -- but their innocence is not childish. It is childlike, not childish; because a child is innocent only because he is ignorant. He is innocent only as a negative thing, just the absence. Sooner or later everything will erupt; he is a volcano waiting to erupt. The innocence is just the silence before the volcano erupts.

A saint is one who has gone beyond. The eruption has happened; the volcano is silent again. But this silence is different. The first silence was very pregnant; something was present there. The silence was just on the surface; deep down that child was getting ready to be disturbed. The saint has passed the disturbance. The cyclone has gone. This silence, the innocence, appears similar, but there is a deep difference.

So sometimes an idiot can also appear to be saint-like. And idiots are saint-like. They are not cunning; to be cunning, intelligence is needed. They are not calculating; to be calculating, mind is needed. Idiots are simple, innocent, non-cunning, non-calculating. They cannot deceive anyone. Not that they would not like to; they cannot. The very capacity is not there. They look like saints, and sometimes saints look like idiots, because the same thing has happened again, in a different, altogether different, dimension.

You can fall down below the mind: then too a no-mind happens, but it is not meditation. You have simply lost even that mind which was going to become a step towards meditation. So I am not against mind. Develop mind, develop intellect, but remember well -- this is just a means, and a means which has to be forsaken, thrown away. It has to be used like a boat. You reach the other shore, you leave the boat. You forget about the boat completely.

Question 4

WE VERY OFTEN FEEL THAT WE CREATE OUR OWN SUFFERINGS. IN SPITE OF THIS, WHY DO WE CONTINUE CREATING THEM? AND WHEN AND HOW DOES ONE STOP CREATING ONE'S OWN SUFFERING?

The first thing, and very basic to be understood, is that whenever you say WE VERY OFTEN FEEL THAT WE CREATE OUR OWN SUFFERING, this is not the case. You never really feel that you are the creator of your own suffering. You may think so, because you have been taught so; because for centuries and centuries teachers have been teaching that you are the creator of your own suffering and no one else is responsible.

You have heard these things, you have read these things. They have become your blood and bone, they have become your unconscious conditionings, so sometimes you repeat like a parrot WE CREATE OUR OWN SUFFERING. But this is not your feeling, this is not your realization, because if you realize it, then the other thing is impossible. Then you cannot say, IN SPITE OF THIS, WHY DO WE CONTINUE CREATING IT?

If you really feel, and if it is your own feeling that you are the creator of your own suffering, any moment you can stop -- unless you want to create it, unless you enjoy it, unless you are a masochist. Then everything is okay, then there is no question. If you say, `I enjoy my suffering,' then it is okay; you can go on creating it. But if you say, `I suffer and I want to go beyond it. I want to stop it completely -- and I understand that I am the creator,' then you are wrong. You don't understand it.

Socrates is reported to have said that knowledge is virtue. And there has been a long discussion for these two thousand years over whether Socrates is right or wrong -- knowledge is virtue. Socrates says that once you know something, you cannot do contrary to it. If you know that anger is suffering, you cannot be angry. This is what Socrates means -- knowledge is virtue. You cannot say, `I know anger is bad; still I move in it. What to do about it now?' Socrates says that the first thing is wrong. You don't know that anger is bad; that's why you go on moving in it. If you know, you cannot move in it. How can you move against your own knowledge?

I know that if I put my hand in the fire it is going to be painful. If I know, I cannot put my hand in. But if somebody else has told me, if I have heard through the tradition, if I have read in the scriptures that fire burns, and I have not known fire, and I have not known any similar experience, only then can I put my hand into fire -- and that too only once.

Can you conceive it? That you have put your hand into fire and you have been burned and you have suffered, and again you go and ask, `I know that fire burns, but in spite of it I go on putting my hand into the fire. What to do about it?' Who will believe that you know? And what type of knowledge is this? If your own experience of suffering and burning cannot stop you, nothing is going to stop you. Now there is no possibility, because the last possibility has been missed. But no one can miss it; that is impossible.

Socrates is right, and all those who have know, they will agree with Socrates -- that agreement has a very deep point in it. Once you know.... But remember -- the knowledge must be yours. A borrowed knowledge won't do; borrowed knowledge is useless. Unless it is your own experience, it is not going to change you. Others' experiences are of no help.

You have heard that you are the creator of your own suffering, but this is just in the mind. It has not entered your being, it is not your own knowledge. So when you are discussing, you can discuss about it cerebrally, but when the actual phenomenon happens, you will forget, and you will behave in the way you know, not in the way others know.

When you are at ease, cool, collected, silently discussing anger, you can say it is poison, it is a disease, evil. But when someone makes you angry then a complete change occurs. Not it is not an intellectual discussion, now you are involved. And the moment you are involved, you become angry. Later on again, retrospectively, when you again get cool, the memory will come back, your mind will again start functioning, and you will say, `That was wrong. It was not good of me to do that. I know anger is wrong.'

Who is this `I'? -- just intellect, just the superficial mind. You don't know -- because when someone pushes you into anger, you throw this mind away. It is useful as far as discussion is concerned, but when a real situation arises, only the real knowledge will help. When there is no situation, you can go on. Even in a discussion the real situation can arise. The other can go on contradicting you so much that you become angry and then you will forget.

Real knowledge means that which has happened to you. You have not heard about it, not read about it, you have not collected information about it -- it is your own experience. And then there is no question, because after that you cannot go against it. Not that you will have to make an effort not to go against it; simply you cannot go against it.

How can I? When I know this is a wall and I want to go out of this room, how can I try to pass through the wall? I know this is a wall, so I will search for the door. Only a blink man will try to go out through the wall. I have got eyes. I see what is a wall and what is a door.

But if I try to enter the wall and tell you, `I know very well where the door is, and I know this to be a wall, but in spite of this, how can I stop myself from trying to enter the wall?' then that means that as far as I am concerned that door looks false. Others have told me that it is the door, but as far as I am concerned, I know that door is false. And others have told me that this is a wall, but as far as I see, I see the door here in this wall, and that is why I try.

In this situation you have to make a clearcut distinction between what you know and what you have gathered as knowledge. Don't rely on information. From the greatest source -- even if you collect from the greatest source -- information is information. Even if a Buddha says it to you, it is not your own, and it is not going to help you in any way. But you can remain thinking that it is your knowledge, and this misunderstanding will waste your energy, time and life.

The basic thing is not to ask what to do so that suffering is not created. The basic thing is to know that you are the creator of your suffering. Next time whenever a real situation arises and you are in suffering, remember to find out whether you are the cause of it. And if you can find out that you are the cause of it, the suffering will disappear, and the same suffering will not appear again -- impossible.

But don't deceive yourself. You can -- that's why I say it. When you are suffering you can say, `Yes, I know I have created this suffering,' but deep down you know that someone else has created it. Your wife has created it, your husband has created it, someone else has created it, and this is simply a consolation because you cannot do anything. You console yourself: `No one has created it, I have created it myself, and by and by I will stop it.'

But knowledge is instant transformation; there is no `by and by.' If you understand that you have created it, it will drop immediately. And it is not going to come up again. If it comes again, it means the understanding has not gone deep.

So there is no need to find out what to do, and how to stop. The only need is to go deep and to find out who is really the cause of it. If others are the cause then it cannot be stopped, because you cannot change the whole world. If you are the cause, only then can it be stopped.

That's why I insist that only religion can lead humanity towards non-suffering. Nothing else can lead, because everyone else believes that the suffering is caused by others; only religion says that suffering is caused by you. So religion makes you the master of your destiny. You are the cause of your suffering, hence you can be the cause of your bliss.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #11

Chapter title: Come back to existence

24 May 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7305245

ShortTitle: VBT211

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 93 mins

IN RAIN DURING A BLACK NIGHT

ENTER THAT BLACKNESS AS THE FORM OF FORMS.

WHEN A MOONLESS RAINY NIGHT IS NOT PRESENT,

CLOSE EYES AND FIND BLACKNESS BEFORE YOU.

OPENING EYES, SEE BLACKNESS.

SO FAULTS DISAPPEAR FOREVER.

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS,

AT THIS VERY POINT,

EXPERIENCE.

Once a doctor, a very well known historian and an eminent scholar, was staying in a village. The postmaster, the old postmaster of the village, became curious about this old man, this doctor. He was curious to know what kind of doctor he is, so one day he asked, `What kind of doctor are you sir?'

The man said, `Doctor of Philosophy.'

The old man had never heard about it. He was puzzled and he said, `I have never heard of any case of this disease here.'

Don't laugh about it, because that old postmaster was right in a way -- philosophy is a kind of disease. Of course, doctors of philosophy are not doctors; rather, they are the perfect victims of a disease.

Philosophy is not a specific disease, so you cannot think of it in terms of cases. It is born with the human being. It is as old as humanity or the human mind. And every human being is a victim, more or less -- because thinking leads nowhere; or, it leads you in circles, vicious circles. You move much, and if you are expert you can move fast, but you reach nowhere.

This has to be understood very deeply, because if you cannot understand and feel this, you cannot take a jump into meditation. Meditation means the very anti approach -- anti to philosophy. Philosophy means thinking and meditation means a state of non-thinking. They are polar opposites.

This is just human -- to think about questions and to try to find out answers. But philosophy comes to no answers. Science comes to certain answers, religion comes to certain answers, but philosophy comes to no answers. And all the answers that philosophy appears to come to are just facades: if you dig deep in them you will find more questions and nothing else. So every answer leads to more questions -- and this goes on and on.

Science comes to certain answers, because science depends not on thinking but on experimentation. Thinking is used as a help only, but the base is experimentation. That's why science has given some answers. Philosophers, known and unknown, have been working and working for centuries, but not a single answer, not a single conclusion has been achieved. It cannot be achieved. The very nature of thinking is such that if you use thinking as a help towards experimentation, something can be achieved; that's why science comes to certain answers.

But religion also comes to certain answers, because religion is also experimentation. Science experiments with the object, religion experiments with the subject, but both are experimentations and both depend on experiment. Between these two is philosophy -- just pure thinking, abstract thinking, with no experiment. You can go on, you can go on, but you reach nowhere. Abstract thinking, speculative thinking, is thinking ad infinitum. You can enjoy, you can enjoy the journey, but there is no goal.

Religion and science are similar in a way -- both believe in experiment. Religious experiment is of course deeper than scientific, because in science the experimenter himself is not involved. He is working with tools, working with things, working with objects; he remains aloof, he remains out of the experiment. Religion is a deeper science, because the experimenter himself becomes the experiment. There are no tools which are apart from him, no objects which are outside him. He is both -- his tools, his objects, his method; he is everything. And he has to work upon himself.

It is arduous. Because you are involved, it is arduous. And because you are involved, the experiment will become experience. In science, the experiment will remain an experiment will remain an experiment. The scientist will not be touched by it, will not be transformed by it. The scientist will remain the same. But in religion, passing through the experiment, you will be a different man altogether. You cannot come out the same; you are bound to change. That's why religious experiment becomes experience.

Remember this: you can go on thinking about God, about soul, about the other world, and you may make believe that you know something about God just by thinking `about'. That will be false. You cannot know anything about God -- the word `about' is absurd. You can know God, but you cannot know `about' -- that `about' creates philosophy.

How can you know about God? Or, for example, how can you know about love? You can know love, you cannot about love, because `about' means someone else knows and you believe in his knowledge. You collect and gather opinions. You say, `I know something about God.' All knowledge which is `about' is false, dangerous, because you can be deluded by it.

You can know God, you can know love, you can know yourself, but forget that `about'. That `about' is philosophy. The Upanishads say something, the Vedas say something, the Bible says something, the Koran says something, but for you, all that will become `about'. Unless it becomes your experience it is futile, wasted.

This point must go deep within you, because you can go on thinking, and the mind is such that you can start thinking about meditation. You can make anything an object for meditation, for thinking. Even about meditation you can think, and you can go on thinking about it -- nothing will happen.

I am talking about so many methods. There is a danger: you may start thinking about these methods, you may become knowledgeable. That won't do, that is of no use. Not only is it of no use, it is dangerous -- because meditation is experience, knowing `about' is worthless.

Remember this word `experience'. Life's problems, all the problems of life, are existential, they are not speculative. You cannot solve them by thinking; you can solve them only by living them. Through living the future opens. Through thinking the future never opens. On the contrary, even the present closes.

You may not have observed: whenever you think, what happen? Whenever you think, you are closed. All that is present drops. You move on a dream-path in your mind. One word creates another, one thought creates another, and you go on moving. The more you move in thinking, the further away you go from existence. Thinking is a way to go away. It is a dream-way; it is dreaming in concepts. Come back to the earth. Religion is very earthly in this sense; not worldly but very earthly, substantial. Come back to existence.

Life's problems can be solved only when you become deeply rooted in existence. Flying in thoughts you move away from the roots, and the further away you are, the less is the possibility of solving anything. Rather, you will confuse everything, and everything will become more entangled. And the more entangled, the more you will think, and the further away you will move. Beware of thinking!

Now we will enter the techniques.

The first technique:

IN RAIN DURING A BLACK NIGHT,

ENTER THAT BLACKNESS AS THE FORM OF FORMS.

There has been one very old esoteric school about which you may not have heard. The school was known as the school of Essenes. Jesus was taught in that school; he belonged to the Essenes group. That Essenes group is the only group all over the world who thinks of God as absolute darkness. The Koran says God is light, the Upanishads say God is light, the Bible says God is light. The Essenes group is the only tradition in the world which says that God is absolute blackness, absolute darkness, just an infinite black night.

This is very beautiful; strange, but very beautiful -- and very meaningful. You must understand the meaning, then this technique will be very helpful, because this is the technique used by the Essenes to enter darkness, to become one with it.

Reflect. Why has God been symbolized everywhere as light? Not because God is light, but because man is afraid of darkness. This is human fear -- we like light and we are afraid of darkness, so we cannot conceive God as darkness, as blackness. This is human conception. We conceive God as light because we are afraid of darkness.

Our gods are created out of our fear. We give them shape and form. That shape and form is given by us -- it shows something about us, not about our gods. They are our creations. We are afraid in darkness, so God is light. But these techniques belong to the other school.

Essenes say that God is darkness, and there is something in it. One thing: darkness is eternal. Light comes and goes and darkness remains. In the morning the sun will rise and there will be light; in the evening the sun will set and there will be darkness. For darkness nothing will rise -- it is always there. It never rises and never sets. Light comes and goes; darkness remains. Light always has some source; darkness is without source. That which has some source cannot be infinite; only that which is sourceless can be infinite and eternal. Light has a certain disturbance; that's why you cannot sleep in light. It creates a tension. Darkness is relaxation, total relaxation.

But why are we afraid of darkness? Because light appears to us as life -- it is; and darkness appears to be death -- it is. Life comes through light, and when you die it appears you have fallen into eternal darkness. That's why we paint death as black, and black has become a color for mourning. God is light, and death is black. But these are our fears projected. Actually, darkness has infinity; light is limited. Darkness seems to be the womb out of which everything arises and into which everything falls.

Essenes took this standpoint. It is very beautiful and very helpful also, because if you can love darkness you will become unafraid of death. If you can enter into darkness -- and you can enter only when there is no fear -- you will achieve total relaxation. If you can become one with darkness, you are dissolved, it is a surrender. Now there is no fear, because if you have become one with darkness, you have become one with death. You cannot die now. You have become deathless. Darkness is deathless. Light is born and dies; darkness simply is. It is deathless.

For these techniques, first you will have to remember that there should be no fear in your mind about darkness, about blackness, otherwise how can you do this experiment? First the fear must be dropped. So do one thing as a preliminary step: sit in darkness, put off the lights, feel darkness. Have a loving attitude towards it; allow the darkness to touch you. Look at it. Open your eyes in a dark room or in a dark night; have a communion, be together, imbibe a relationship. You will become afraid -- then these techniques cannot be of any help, you cannot do them.

First a deep friendship with darkness is needed. Sometimes in the night when everyone has gone to sleep, remain with the darkness. Don't do anything, just remain with it. And just remaining with it will give you a deep feeling towards it, because it is so relaxing. You have not known it simply because of the fear. If you are not feeling sleepy, you will put on the light immediately, you will start reading or doing something, but you will not remain with the darkness. Remain with it. If you can remain with it, you will have new openings, new contacts with it.

Man has closed himself completely against darkness. There were reasons, historical reasons -- because the night was very dangerous, and man was in the caves or in the jungles. In the day he was more secure: he could see all around, and no wild animals could attack him; or, he could make some arrangements, some defence -- at least he could escape. But in the night everywhere was darkness and he was helpless, so he became afraid -- and that fear has gone into the unconscious; still we are afraid.

We are not living in caves now and we are not at the mercy of wild animals, no one is going to attack us -- but the fear is there, it has gone deep, because for millions of years the human mind was afraid. Your unconsciousness is not your own; it is collective, it is hereditary, it has come down to you. The fear is there, and because of that fear you can have no communion with darkness.

One thing more: because of this fear, man started to worship fire. When fire was discovered, fire became a god. Not that fire is a god, but because of the fear of darkness. In the day there was light and no fear -- man was more protected. In the night there was darkness, so when fire was discovered, of course, fire became a god -- the greatest. The Parsees still go on worshipping fire. The worship of fire came into being because of the fear of darkness. In the night the fire became the friend, the protector, the divine security.

That fear is still there. You may not be aware of it, because no situations are there in which you can become aware of it, but one day put off the light in the night and sit -- and the primitive fear will come to you. In your own house you will start feeling that some wild animals are around. Some noise will come, and you will become afraid of wild animals -- some danger is around. That danger is not around; that is in your unconscious.

So first you have to overcome your unconscious fear, and then you can enter these techniques, because these techniques are concerned with darkness. And Shiva is giving all the techniques that are possible.

My own experience with these techniques is very beautiful. If you can do them they are wonderful. You will enter such a deep relaxation that you have never known. But first uncover your unconscious fears and try to live and love darkness. It is very blissful. Once you know, and once you are in contact with it, you are in contact with a very deep cosmic phenomenon.

So whenever you have the opportunity to be in the dark, and awake.... Because you can do two things: either you can put on the light or you can go to sleep. Both are tricks to escape the darkness. If you are asleep then you are not afraid, because you are not conscious. Or, if you are conscious, then you will put on the light. Don't put on the light and don't go to sleep. Remain with darkness.

Many fears will be felt. Feel them. Be aware of them. Bring them to your conscious. They will come by themselves, and as they come, you remain just a witness.. They will disappear, and very soon a day will come when you can be in darkness with total surrender, with no fear. With a total let-go you can be in darkness. Then a very beautiful phenomenon happens. Then you can appreciate the saying of Essenes that God is darkness, absolute darkness.

IN RAIN DURING A BLACK NIGHT,

ENTER THAT BLACKNESS AS THE FORM OF FORMS.

All forms arise out of darkness and dissolve into darkness. Worlds come, are created out of darkness, and they fall back into darkness. Darkness is the womb, the cosmic womb. The undisturbed, the absolute stillness is there.

Shiva says that it will be good to do this technique in a rainy night when everything is black, when clouds are there and no stars can be seen and the sky is completely dark. In a black night when there is no moon... ENTER THAT BLACKNESS AS THE FORM OF FORMS. Be a witness to that blackness, and then dissolve yourself into it. It is the form of all forms. You are a form -- you can dissolve into it.

When there is light, you are defined. I can see you, the light is there. Your body has a definition. You are defined, you have boundaries. Boundaries exist because of the light. When the light is not there, boundaries are dissolved. In blackness nothing is defined, everything merges into every other thing. Forms disappear.

That may be one of the causes of our fear -- because then you are not defined, then you don't know who you are. The face cannot be seen, the body cannot be known. Everything merges into a formless existence. That may be one of the causes of fear -- because you cannot feel your defined existence. Existence becomes vague and fear enters, because you don't know now who you are. The ego cannot exist: undefined, it is difficult to exist as an ego. One feels afraid. One wants light to be there.

Contemplating, meditating, merging, it will be easier to merge into darkness than to merge into light, because light gives distinctions. Darkness takes away all distinctions. In the light you are beautiful or ugly, rich or poor. The light gives you a personality, a distinctness -- educated, uneducated, saint or sinner. The light reveals you as a distinct person. Darkness envelops you, accepts you -- not as a distinct person; it simply accepts you without any definitions. You are enveloped and you become one.

The darkness is doing it always, but because you are afraid you cannot understand it. put aside your fear and become one.

ENTER THAT BLACKNESS AS THE FORM OF ALL FORMS.

ENTER THAT BLACKNESS... How can you enter blackness? Three things. One: stare into blackness. Difficult. It is easy to stare at a flame, at any source of light, because it is there as an object, pointed; you can direct your attention to it. Darkness is not an object; it is everywhere, it is all around. You cannot see it as an object. Stare into the vacuum. All around it is there; you just look into it. Feel at ease and look into it. It will start entering your eyes. And when the darkness enters your eyes you are entering into it.

Remain with open eyes when doing this technique in the dark night. Don't close your eyes, because with closed eyes you have a different darkness. That is your own, mental; it is not real. If is not real. Really, it is a negative part; it is not positive darkness. Here is light: you close your eyes and you can have a darkness, but that darkness is simply the negative of the light. Just as when you look at the window and then you close your eyes you have a negative figure of the window. All our experience is of light, so when we close our eyes we have a negative experience of light which we call darkness. It is not real, it won't do.

Open your eyes, remain with open eyes in darkness, and you will have a different darkness -- the positive darkness that is there. Stare into it. Go on staring into darkness. Your tears will start, your eyes will get sore, they will hurt. Don't get worried, just go on. And the moment the darkness, the real darkness which is there, enters in your eyes, it will give you a very deep soothing feeling. When real darkness enters in you, you will be filled by it.

And this entering of darkness will empty you of all negative darkness. This is a very deep phenomenon. The darkness that you have within in a negative thing; it is against the light. It is not the absence of light; it is against the light. It is not the darkness that Shiva is speaking of as the form of all forms -- the real darkness that's there. We are so afraid of it that we have created many sources of light just as protection, and we live in a lighted world. Then we close our eyes and the lighted world reflects negatively inside. We have lost contact with the real darkness that is there -- the darkness of the Essenes, or the darkness of Shiva. We have no contact with it. We have become so much afraid of it that we have turned ourselves completely away. We are standing with our backs to it.

So this will be difficult, but if you can do it, it is miraculous, it is magical. You will have a different being altogether. When darkness enters you, you enter into it. It is always reciprocal, mutual. You cannot enter into any cosmic phenomenon without the cosmic phenomenon entering in you. You cannot rape it, you cannot force any entry. If you are available, open, vulnerable, and if you give way for any cosmic realm to enter in you, then only will you enter into it. It is always mutual. You cannot force; you can only allow it.

It is difficult to find real darkness in cities now; difficult in our houses to find real darkness. With the unreal light we have made everything unreal. Even our darkness is polluted, it is not pure. So it is good to move to some remote place only to feel darkness. Just go to a very remote village where there is no electricity, or move to a mountain peak. Just be there for one week to experience pure darkness.

You will come back a different man, because in those seven days of absolute darkness, all the fears, all the primitive fears, will come up. You will have to face monsters, you will have to face your own unconscious. The whole humanity will... it will be as if you are passing through the whole passage that has passed, and deep from your unconscious many things will arise. They will look real. You may get afraid, scared, because they will be so real -- and they are just your mental creations.

Many madmen in our mad asylums are suffering not from anything else but just from the primitive fears inside them which have erupted. The fears are there; the madmen are afraid, scared every moment of their lives. And we don't yet know how to allow those primitive fears to evaporate. If madmen can be helped to meditate on darkness, madness will disappear.

But only in Japan do they work a little towards this. With their madmen they behave absolutely differently. If someone goes mad, psychotic or neurotic, the Japanese method is to allow him to live in isolation for three weeks or for six weeks, as the case may need. They just allow him to live in isolation. No doctor, no psychoanalyst goes to him. Food is supplied, his needs are taken care of, and he is left alone.

In the night there is no light;in darkness he is alone -- suffering of course, passing through many phases. Every care is taken, but no companionship is given to him. He has to face his own madness immediately and directly. And within three to six weeks, the madness starts disappearing. Nothing has been done really; he has simply been left alone. This is the only measure that has been taken.

Western psychiatrists have become amazed. They can't understand really how it can happen, because they work for years. They psychoanalyze, they treat, they do everything, but they never leave the man alone. They never leave him to face his inner unconscious totally on his own. Because the more help you give, the more you make him helpless, because the more he depends on you. And the question is of an inner encounter; no one can help really. So those who know, they will leave you to face yourself.

You have to come to terms with your unconscious. And this meditation on darkness will absorb all your madness completely. Try it. Even in your home you can try it. Every night, for one hour remain with darkness. Don't do anything, just stare into darkness. You will have a melting feeling, and you will feel that something is entering you and you are entering into something.

Staying, living with darkness for three months, for one hour a day, you will lose all feeling of individuality, of separation. Then you will not be an island; you will become the ocean. You will be one with darkness. And darkness is so oceanic: nothing is so vast, nothing is so eternal. And nothing is so near you, and of nothing are you so scared and afraid. It is just by the corner, always waiting.

IN RAIN DURING A BLACK NIGHT,

ENTER THAT BLACKNESS AS THE FORM OF FORMS.

Stare so that it enters in your eyes.

Secondly: lie down and feel as if you are near your mother. The darkness is the mother, the mother of all. Think: when there was nothing, what was there? You cannot think of anything else than darkness. If everything disappears, what will be there still? Darkness will be there.

Darkness is the mother, the womb, so lie down and feel that you are lying in the womb of your mother. And it will become real, it will become warm, and sooner or later you will start feeling that the darkness, the womb, is enveloping you from everywhere. You are in it.

And thirdly: moving, going to work, talking, eating, doing whatsoever, carry a patch of darkness within you. The darkness that has entered in you, just carry it. As we were discussing about the method of carrying a flame, carry darkness. And as I said to you that if you carry a flame and feel you are light, your body will start radiating a certain strange light and those who are sensitive will start feeling it, the same will happen with darkness.

If you carry darkness within you, your whole body will become so relaxed and calm, so cool, that it will be felt. And as when you carry light within you some people will become attracted to you, when you carry darkness within you some people will simply escape from you. They will become afraid and scared. They will not be able to bear so silent a being; it will become unbearable to them.

If you carry darkness within you, those who are afraid of darkness will try to escape from you; they will not come near you. And everyone is afraid of darkness. You will start feeling that friends are leaving you. Your family will get disturbed when you enter, because you enter like a pool of coolness, and everyone is agitated and excited. It will be difficult for them to look into your eyes, because your eyes will become deep like valleys, an abyss. If someone looks into your eyes he will become dizzy, such a deep abyss will be felt there.

But you will feel many things. It will be impossible for you to get angry. Carrying darkness within, you cannot be angry. Carrying a flame you can be angry very easily, more easily than ever, because the flame can excite you. Carrying a flame you will feel more sexual than ever, because the flame will excite you, it will create passion. But carrying darkness within you, you will feel a deep asexuality happening to you. You will not feel sexual; you will not be able to easily get into anger. Passion will disappear. You will not feel that you are a man or a woman. You will feel that those words have become irrelevant, meaningless. You simply are.

Carrying darkness within for the whole day will help you very much, because then when you contemplate and meditate on darkness in the night, the inner darkness that you have carried the whole day will help you to meet -- the inner will come to meet the outer.

And just be remembering that you are carrying darkness -- you are filled with darkness, every pore of the body, every cell of the body is filled with darkness -- you will feel so relaxed. Try it. You will feel so relaxed. Everything in you will be slowed down. You will not be able to run, you will walk, and that walk also will be slowed down. You will walk slowly, just as a pregnant woman walks. You will walk slowly, very carefully. You are carrying something.

And quite the opposite will happen when you are carrying a flame: your walk will become faster; rather, you would like to run. There will be more movement, you will become more active. Carrying darkness you will be relaxed. Others will start feeling that you are lazy.

In the days when I was at university, I was doing this experiment for two years. I became so lazy that even to get out of bed in the morning was difficult. My professors became very much disturbed about it, and they thought something had gone wrong with me -- either I was ill, or I had become absolutely indifferent. One professor who loved me very much, the head of my department, became so worried that on my examination days he would come to fetch me from the hostel in the morning just to lead me to the examination hall so that I could be there on time. Every day he would see that I had entered the hall, and only then would he feel okay and go home.

Try it. It is one of the most beautiful experiences in life to carry darkness in your womb, to become dark. Walking, eating, sitting, doing whatsoever, remember, the darkness is filled in you; you are filled with it. And then see how things change. You cannot get excited, you cannot be very active, you cannot be tense. Your sleep will become so deep that dreams will disappear and the whole day you will move as if intoxicated.

Sufis have used this method, a particular sect of Sufis, and those Sufis are known as drunken Sufis. They are drunk with this darkness. They make holes in the ground, and they lie down in the holes every night, and they meditate lying down in their holes -- meditating darkness, becoming one with it. And their eyes will show you that they are intoxicated. You can feel from their eyes such deep relaxation, such a relaxed vibration, that it can happen only if you are deeply intoxicated or feeling very sleepy. Only then can your eyes show that expression. They are known as drunken Sufis -- and they are drunk with darkness.

The second technique:

WHEN A MOONLESS RAINY NIGHT IS NOT PRESENT

CLOSE EYES AND FIND BLACKNESS BEFORE YOU.

OPENING EYES, SEE BLACKNESS.

SO FAULTS DISAPPEAR FOREVER.

I said that if you close your eyes the blackness will be false, so what to do if there is no moonless night, no dark night? If there is a moon and the moonlight is there? This sutra gives a key.

WHEN A MOONLESS RAINY NIGHT IS NOT PRESENT

CLOSE EYES AND FIND BLACKNESS BEFORE YOU.

This blackness will be false in the beginning. You can make it real, and the method to make it real is -- OPENING EYES, SEE BLACKNESS. First close your eyes, see blackness. Then open the eyes, and the blackness that you have seen within, see it without. If it disappears without, that means that your blackness that you have seen within was false.

This is a little bit more difficult. In the first you carry the real darkness within. In the second you carry the false out -- go on carrying it. Close your eyes, feel darkness; open your eyes, and with open eyes see the darkness out. This is how you throw the inner false darkness out -- go on throwing it. It will take at least three to six weeks, and then one day suddenly you will be able to carry the inner darkness out. The day you can carry the inner darkness out, you have come upon the inner real darkness. The real can be carried; the false cannot be carried.

And it is a very magical experience. If you can carry the inner darkness out, even in a lightened room you can carry it out, and a patch of darkness spreads before you. The experience is very weird, because the room is lightened. Or even in sunlight... if you have come to the inner darkness you can bring it out. Then a patch of darkness comes before your eyes. You can go on spreading it.

Once you know that it can happen, you can have darkness, dark as the darkest night, in the full sunny day. The sun is there, but you can spread the darkness. The darkness is always there; even while the sun is there the darkness is there. You cannot see it; it is covered by the sunlight. Once you know how to uncover it, you can uncover it.

In Tibet they have many methods just like this. They can bring things from the inner world to the outer world. You may have heard of one very famous technique; they call it `heat yoga'. The night is cold, ice-cold, snow is falling, and a Tibetan monk, a Tibetan lama, can sit under the open sky with snow falling all around, the temperature below zero, and he can start perspiring. This is a medical miracle. How is he perspiring? He is bringing the inner heat out.

And the inner coolness or inner cold can also be brought out. In Mahavir's life it is related.... No one has tried to explain it up to now. Jains think that he was just doing an austerity; it is not so. It is related that whenever it was summer, the hot season, and the sun was burning hot, he would always stand somewhere where there was no shade, no tress, none at all. He would stand in the burning sun in the days of summer, and in winter he would find a cool place, the coolest -- under a tree, a shady tree, or near a river, or just where the temperature had gone below zero.

In the cold season he would find a cool place to meditate, and in the hot season he would find the hottest place to meditate. People thought that he was mad, and his followers think he was just doing austerities. It is not so. He was really trying some inner techniques like this.

When it was hot he was trying to bring his inner cold -- and it can be felt only in a contrast. When it was cold outside he was bringing his inner heat -- and it can be felt only when there is a contrast. He was not a body enemy, he was not against his body, as Jains think. They think that he was killing his body, because if you can kill your body, you can kill your desire. This is sheer nonsense. He was doing nothing of the sort. He was bringing the inner out, and he was protected by the inner. Just as Tibetan lamas can create heat and they can perspire while snow is falling, Mahavir would stand under a hot burning sun and he would not perspire. He was bringing his inner cold, and that inner cold would come out and protect his body.

Similarly you can bring your inner darkness, and that feeling is very cool. If you can bring it, you are protected by it: no excitement, no passion will disturb you. Try it. These three things: stare in darkness with open eyes and allow the darkness to enter within. Secondly: feel darkness as a mother's womb all around; live with it; forget yourself more and more in it. And thirdly: carry a patch of darkness in your heart wherever you go.

If you can do this, the darkness will become the light. You will be enlightened through darkness.

WHEN A MOONLESS RAINY NIGHT IS NOT PRESENT, CLOSE EYES AND FIND BLACKNESS BEFORE YOU. OPENING EYES, SEE BLACKNESS.

That's the method. First feel it inside, feel it deeply so you can perceive it out. Then open the eyes suddenly and feel it out. It will take time.

SO FAULTS DISAPPEAR FOREVER.

And if you can bring the inner darkness outside, faults disappear forever, because if the inner darkness is felt, you have become so pool, so silent, so unexcitable, that faults cannot remain with you.

Remember this: faults can exist only if you are prone to be excited, if you tend to be excited. They don't exist in themselves; they exist in your capacity to get excited. Someone insults you, and you have no darkness within to absorb the insult; you become inflamed, you get angry, you get fiery, and then everything is possible. You can be violent, you can kill, you can do what only a madman can do. Anything is possible -- you are now mad. Someone praises you: you again go mad to the other extreme.

All around you there are situations, and you are not capable of absorbing. Insult a Buddha: he can absorb it, he can simply swallow it, digest it. Who digests that insult? An inner pool of darkness, silence. You throw anything poisoned; it is absorbed. No reaction comes out of it.

Try this, and when someone insults you, just remember that you are filled with darkness, and suddenly you will feel there is no reaction. You pass through a street; you see a beautiful woman or a man -- you get excited. Feel that you are filled with darkness; suddenly the passion will disappear. You try it. This is absolutely experimental, there is no need to believe it.

When you feel that you are filled with passion or desire or sex, simply remember the inner darkness. For a single moment close your eyes and feel darkness and see -- the passion has disappeared, the desire is no more there. The inner darkness has absorbed it. You have become an infinite vacuum into which anything can fall and it will not return. You are now like an abyss.

That's why Shiva says: SO FAULTS DISAPPEAR FOREVER. These techniques appear so simple -- they are. But don't leave them without trying them because they appear so simple. They may not challenge your ego, but still try them. It always happens that we never try simple things, because we think they are so simple they cannot be true. And truth is always simple, it is never complex. There is no need for it to be complex. Only lies are complex. They cannot be simple, because if they are simple they will be caught immediately.

And because something appears simple we think nothing is possible out of it. Not that nothing is possible out of it, but because our ego gets challenged only when something is very difficult. Many schools and many systems have simply complicated their methods because of you. There is no need, but they have to create complexities, unnecessary hurdles, to make them difficult so that you feel good because your ego is challenged. If something is very difficult and only few can do it, then you feel, `Now, this is something to do, because only a few can do it; rarely can someone do it.'

These methods are absolutely simple. Shiva is not taking you into account. He is simply describing the exact method as it is -- as simply as possible, as telegraphically as possible, only the bare essentials. So don't seek any ego challenge. These techniques are not to send you on an ego trip. They may not challenge you, but if you can try them, they will transform you. And challenge is not good, because with challenge you get feverish, you get mad.

The third technique:

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS,

AT THIS VERY POINT,

EXPERIENCE.

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS, AT THIS VERY POINT, EXPERIENCE. What? What experience? In this technique, firstly you have to develop attention. You have to develop a sort of attentive attitude, only then will this technique become possible, so then wherever your attention alights you can experience -- you can experience yourself. Just by looking at a flower you can experience yourself. Then looking at a flower is not looking at the flower only, but at the looker also -- but only if you know the secret of attention.

You also look at a flower, and you may think you are looking at the flower, but you have started thinking about the flower, and the flower is missed. You are no more there, you have gone somewhere else, you have moved away. By attention is meant that when you are looking at a flower, you are looking at a flower and not doing anything else -- as if the mind has stopped, as if now there is no thinking and only a simple experience of the flower there. You are here, the flower is there, and between you two there is no thought.

Suddenly -- if this is possible -- suddenly, from the flower your attention will come back, bounce back to yourself. It will become a circle. You will look at the flower and the look will come back; the flower will reflect it, rebounce it. If there are no thoughts, this happens. Then you are not looking at the flower only, you are looking at the looker also. Then the looker and the flower have become two objects and you have become a witness of both.

But first attention has to be trained, because you have no attention at all. Your attention is just flickering, moving from this to that, from that to something further. Not for a single moment are you attentive. Even if I am talking here, you never hear all my words. You hear one word, then your attention goes somewhere else; then you come back, you hear another, then your attention goes somewhere else. You hear a few words, and you fill the gaps, and then you think you have heard me.

And whatsoever you carry with yourself, it is your own business, it is your own creation. Just a few words you have heard from me, and then you have filled the gaps, and whatsoever you fill in the gaps changes everything. I say a word, and you have started thinking about it. You cannot remain silent. If you can remain silent while hearing, you will become attentive.

Attention means a silent alertness with no thoughts interfering. Develop it. You can develop it only by doing it; there is no other way. Do it more and you will develop it. Doing anything, being anywhere, try to develop it.

You are travelling in a car, or in a train. What are you doing there? Try to develop attention; don't waste time. For half an hour you will be in a train: develop attention. Just be there. Don't think. Look at someone, look at the train or look outside, but be the look, don't think anything. Stop thinking. Be there and look. Your look will become direct, penetrating, and from everywhere your look will be reflected back and you will become aware of the looker.

You are not aware of yourself because there is a wall. When you look at a flower, first your thoughts change your look; they give their own color. Then that look goes to the flower. It comes back, but then again your thoughts give it a different color. And when it comes back it never finds you there. You have moved somewhere else, you are not there.

Every look comes back; everything is reflected, responsed, but you are not there to receive it. So be there to receive it. The whole day you can try it on many things, and by and by you will develop attentiveness. With that attentiveness do this:

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS,

AT THIS VERY POINT,

EXPERIENCE.

Then look anywhere, but simply look. The attention has alighted -- and you will experience yourself. But the first requirement is to have the capacity to be attentive. And you can practise it. There is no need for it to take some extra time.

Whatsoever you are doing -- eating, taking a bath, standing under a shower -- just be attentive. But what is the problem? The problem is that we do everything with the mind, and we are planning continuously for the future. You may be travelling in a train, but your mind may be arranging other journeys; programming, planning. Stop this.

One Zen monk, Bokuju, has said, `This is the only meditation I know. While I eat, I eat. While I walk, I walk. And while I feel sleepy, I sleep. Whatsoever happens, happens. I never interfere.'

That's all there is -- don't interfere. And whatsoever happens, allow it to happen; you be simply there. That will give you attentiveness. And when you have attention, this technique is just in your hand.

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS,

AT THIS VERY POINT,

EXPERIENCE.

You will experience the experiencer; you will fall back to yourself. From everywhere you will be rebounded; from everywhere you will be reflected. The whole existence will become a mirror; you will be reflected everywhere. The whole existence will mirror you, and only then can you know yourself, never before.

Unless the whole existence becomes a mirror for you, unless every part of existence reveals you, unless every relationship opens you.... You are such an infinite phenomenon -- ordinary mirrors won't do. You are such a vast existence within, that unless the whole existence becomes a mirror you will not be able to get a glimpse. When the whole universe becomes a mirror, only then will you be mirrored. In you exists the divine.

And the technique to make existence a mirror is this: create attention, becomes more alert, and then wherever your attention alights -- wherever, on any object you alight -- suddenly experience yourself. This is possible, but right now impossible, because you don't fulfill the basic requirement.

You can look at a flower, but that is not attention. You are just running near the flower, around and around. You have seen the flower while running; you have not been there for a single moment. Then the whole life becomes meditative.

WHEREVER YOUR ATTENTION ALIGHTS,

AT THIS VERY POINT,

EXPERIENCE.

Just remember yourself.

There is a deep reason because of which this technique can be helpful. You can throw a ball and hit the wall -- the ball will come back. When you look at a flower or at a face, a certain energy is being thrown -- your look is energy. And you are not aware that when you look, you are investing some energy, you are throwing some energy. A certain quantity of your energy, of your life energy, is being thrown. That's why you feel exhausted after looking in the street the whole day: people passing, advertisements, the crowd, the shops. Looking at everything you feel exhausted and then you want to close your eyes to relax. What has happened? Why are you feeling so exhausted? You have been throwing energy.

Buddha and Mahavir both insisted that their monks should not look too much; they must concentrate on the ground. Buddha says that you can only look up to four feet ahead. Don't look anywhere. Just look on the path where you are moving. To look four feet ahead is enough, because when you have moved four feet, again you will be looking four feet ahead. Don't look more than that, because you are not to waste energy unnecessarily.

When you look, you are throwing a certain amount of energy. Wait, be silent, allow that energy to come back. And you will be surprised. If you can allow the energy to come back, you will never feel exhausted. Do it. Tomorrow morning, try it. Be silent, look at a thing. Be silent, don't think about it, and wait patiently for a single moment -- the energy will come back; in fact, you may be revitalized.

People continuously ask me... I go on reading continuously so they ask me, `Why are your eyes still okay? You must have needed space long ago.'

You can read, but if you are reading silently with no thought, the energy comes back. It is never wasted. You never feel tired. My whole life I have been reading twelve hours a day, sometimes even eighteen hours a day, but I have never felt any tiredness. In my eyes I have never felt anything, never any tiredness. Without thought the energy comes back; there is no barrier. And if you are there you reabsorb it, and this reabsorption is rejuvenating. Rather than your eyes being tired they feel more relaxed, more vital, filled with more energy.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #12

Chapter title: Enter this moment

27 May 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7305275

ShortTitle: VBT212

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 88 mins

Question 1

THE OTHER NIGHT YOU SAID THAT PHILOSOPHIES ARE ANTI-MEDITATION. BUT ON THE OTHER HAND YOU AGREE THAT THE EASTERN PHILOSOPHIES SUCH AS TANTRA, YOGA AND VEDANT, ARE THE WRITINGS OF ENLIGHTENED SAGES. WHY DO THE ENLIGHTENED SAGES LEAVE BEHIND THEM A STRONG STRUCTURE OF PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEMPLATION, IF PHILOSOPHIES ARE ANTI-MEDITATION?

Philosophy is not darshan. Darshan is the eastern term. Darshan means perception, philosophy means thinking. Herman Hesse has coined a new word to translate darshan into western languages. He calls it `philosia' -- `sia' from `to see'.

Philosophy means to think, and darshan means to see. Both are basically different; not only different, but diametrically opposite. Because when you are thinking you cannot see. You are so filled with thoughts that perception is blurred, perception is clouded. When thinking ceases, you become capable of seeing. Then your eyes are opened, they become unclouded. Perception happens only when thinking ceases.

For Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and the whole western tradition, thinking is the base. For Kanad, Kapil, Patanjali, Buddha, and the whole eastern tradition, seeing is the base. So Buddha is not a philosopher, not at all; neither is Patanjali, nor Kapil or Kanad. They are not philosophers. They have seen the truth; they have not thought about it.

Remember well that you only think when you cannot see. If you can see, there is no reason to think. Thinking is always in ignorance. Thinking is not knowledge, because when you know, there is no need to think. When you don't know, you will the gap by thinking. Thinking is groping in the dark. So eastern philosophies are not philosophies. To use the word philosophy for eastern darshan is absolutely wrong. Darshan means to see, to attain the eye, to realize, to know -- immediately, directly, without the mediation of thinking and thought.

Thinking can never lead to the unknown. How can it lead? It is impossible. The very process of thinking has to be understood. When you think, what do you really do? You go on repeating old thoughts, memories. If I ask you a question -- does God exist? -- you can think about it. What will you do? All that you have heard, all that you have read, all that you have accumulated about God, you will repeat. Even if you come to a new conclusion, the newness of it will only be apparent, not real. It will be simply a combination of old thoughts. You can combine many old thoughts and create a new structure, but that structure will be apparently new, not new at all.

Thinking can never come to any original truth. Thinking is never original; it cannot be. It is always of the past, of the old, of the known. Thinking cannot touch the unknown; it is repetitively moving in the circle of the known. You don't know truth, you don't know God. What can you do? You can think about it. You will move in circles, around and around. You can never come to any experience of it.

So the eastern emphasis is not on thinking, but on seeing. You cannot think about God, but you can see. You cannot come to any conclusion about God, but you can realize. It can become an experience. You cannot get to it through information, through knowledge, through scriptures, through theories and philosophies; no, you cannot get to it. You can get into it only if you throw all knowledge. All that you have heard and read and collected, all the dust that your mind has collected, the whole past, must be put aside. Then your eyes are fresh, then your consciousness is unclouded, and then you can see it.

It is here and now -- you are clouded. You have not to go somewhere else to find the divine or the truth -- it is here. It is right there where you are. And it has always been so -- only you are clouded, your eyes are closed. So the question is not to think more; the question is how to come to a non-thinking consciousness. That's why I say that meditation and philosophy are anti each other. Philosophy thinks, meditation comes to a no-thinking consciousness. And eastern philosophies are not really philosophies. In the West, philosophies exist; in the East, only religious realizations.

Of course, when a Buddha happens, or a Kanad or a Patanjali happens, when someone comes to realize the absolute, he makes statements about it. Those statements are different from the Aristotelan statements, from western philosophical conclusions. The difference is this: a Kanad, a Buddha, first comes to realize -- the realization is the first thing -- and then he makes statements about it. Experience is primary, and then he expresses it. Aristotle, Hegel and Kant, they think, and then through thinking and logical argument and dialectics, they reach particular conclusions. These conclusions are reached through thinking, through mind, not through any practice of meditation. Then they make assertions, then they make statements. The source is different.

For a Buddha, his statements are only as a vehicle to communicate. He never says that through his communication you will achieve the truth. If you can understand Buddha, that doesn't mean you have achieved the truth; that simply means you have gathered knowledge. You will have to pass through meditations, deep ecstasies, deep pools of the mind, only then will you come to the truth.

So truth is reached through a certain existential experience. It is existential, it is not mental. You must change to know it and to be it. If you remain the same and go on collecting information, you will become a great scholar, a philosopher, but you will not be enlightened. You will remain the same man; there will have been no mutation.

That's why I said that philosophy is one dimension Meditation is quite the contrary, the very opposite, the polar-opposite dimension. So don't think about life; rather, live it in depth. And don't think about ultimate problems; rather, enter this very moment in the ultimate. And the ultimate is not in the future. It is always there, timelessly there.

Someone else has also asked a similar question. He has asked:

Question 2

CAN PROBLEMS BE SOLVED THROUGH THINKING?

Yes, certain problems can be solved through thinking -- only those problems which are created by thinking can be solved by it. But no real problem can be solved by it, no lived problem can be solved by it. It is not created by it; it is there in life itself. Thinking will not be of much help. Only in one way can thinking help you, and that is that through thinking and thinking and thinking, you will stumble upon the truth that thinking is futile. And the moment you realize that thinking is futile for existential problems, it has helped you in a way. It is through thinking that you have come to this realization.

But problems which are created by thinking can be solved by thinking itself. For example, a mathematical problem: it can be solved by thinking, because the whole mathematics is created by thinking. For example, if there is no man on earth, will there be mathematics? There will be no mathematics. With the disappearance of human mind, mathematics will disappear. There is no mathematics in life and existence. In the garden, trees are there, but when you count ONE, TWO, THREE, three trees are not there, because the THREE is a mental thing. The trees are there, but the figures are not there. The figure three is in your mind. If you are not there, the trees will be there, but not three trees, only trees. The THREE is a quality given by the mind, it is a projected quality.

Mind creates mathematics, so any problem of mathematics will be solved by mind, it will be solved by thinking. Remember, you cannot solve a mathematical problem through non-thinking. No meditation will be of help, because meditation will dissolve the mind, and with the mind the whole mathematics will dissolve. So there are problems which are created by the mind; they can be solved. But there are problems which are not created by the mind, but are existential. Those problems cannot be solved by the mind. You will have to move deep in existence itself.

For example, love. It is an existential problem. You cannot solve it by thinking; rather, you will get more puzzled. The more you think, the less you will be in touch with the source of the problem. Meditation will be of help. It will give you insight, it will lead you to the unconscious roots of the problem. If you think about it, you will remain on the surface.

So remember, life problems cannot be solved by thinking. On the contrary, really, because of too much thinking you are missing all solutions, and more problems are created. For example, death. Death is not a problem created by thinking; you cannot solve it by thinking. Whatsoever you think, how can you solve it? You can console, and you can think that consolation is a solution -- it is not. You can deceive yourself; that's possible through thinking. You can create explanations, and through explanations you can think that you have solved it. You can escape the problem through thinking, but you cannot solve it. And see the distinction clearly.

For example, death is there. Your beloved dies, or your friend, or your daughter -- the death is there. Now what can you do? You can think about it. You can think and you can say that the soul is immortal -- because you have read it. In the Upanishads it is said that the soul is immortal, only the body dies. You don't know it at all, because if you really know, there is no problem -- or is there a problem? If you really know that the soul is immortal, then death has not occurred; there is no problem at all. But the problem is there: death has occurred, and you are disturbed and deep in sorrow. Now you want to escape this sorrow. Now somehow you want to forget this sorrow.

You can take the explanation that the soul is immortal -- now this is a trick. Not that the soul is not immortal -- I am not saying that -- but for you this is a trick. You are trying to deceive yourself. You are in sorrow, and now you want to escape this sorrow, so this explanation will be helpful. Now you can console yourself that the soul is immortal, no one dies, only the body -- just as if one changes the clothes, or one changes the abode -- so from one house to another the soul has gone. You can go on thinking, but you don't know anything about it. You have heard, you have collected information; but through these explanations you will be at ease. You can forget the death.

Really this is no solution to the problem. Nothing has been solved. The next day someone else will die and the same problem will be there. Again someone will die and the same problem will be there. And deep down you know that you will have to die. You cannot escape death -- and the fear is there. But you can go on postponing, and you can go on escaping through explanations. This won't do.

Death is an existential problem. You cannot solve it through thinking. You can create only fake solutions. What to do then? Then there is another dimension -- the dimension of meditation; not of thinking, not of mentation. You just encounter the situation.

Death has occurred. Your beloved is dead. Don't move in thinking. Don't bring the Upanishads and the Gita and the Bible. Don't ask the Christs and Buddhas. Leave them alone. Death is there: face, encounter. Be with this situation totally. Don't think about it. What can you think? You can only repeat old rubbish. The death is such a new phenomenon, it is so unknown, that your knowledge is not going to help in any way. So put aside your mind. Be in a deep meditation with death.

Don't do anything, because what can you do which can be of any help? You don't know. So be in ignorance. Don't bring false knowledge, borrowed knowledge. Death is there; you be with it. Face death with total presence. Don't move in thinking, because then you are escaping from the situation, you are becoming absent from here. Don't think. Be present with the death.

Sadness will be there, sorrow will be there, a heavy burden will be on you -- let it be there. It is part -- part of life, and part of maturity, and part of the ultimate realization. Remain with it, totally present. This will be meditation, and you will come to a deep understanding of death. Then death itself becomes eternal life.

But don't bring the mind and knowledge. Remain with death; then death will reveal itself to you, then you will know what death is. You will move into the inner mansions of it. Then death will take you to the very center of life -- because death is the very center of life. It is not against life; it is the very process of life. But mind brings the contradiction that life and death are opposites. Then you go on thinking, and because the root is false, the opposition is false, you can never come to any conclusion which can be true and real.

Whenever there is a lived problem, be with the problem without your mind -- that's what I mean by meditation -- and just being there with the problem will solve it. And if you have really been there, death will not occur to you again, because then you know what death is.

We never do this -- never with love, never with death, never with anything that is authentically real. We always move in thoughts, and thoughts are the falsifiers. They are borrowed, not your own. They cannot liberate you. Only the truth which is your own can become your liberation. And you can only come to your own truth through a very silent presence. With any problem, that fails. Thinking will not solve the real problems, but thinking can solve unreal problems created by thinking itself -- because those problems follow the rules of logic. Life doesn't follow the rules of logic. Life has its own hidden laws, and you cannot force logic on them.

One point more about this: wherever you bring the mind, the mind dissects, analyzes. Reality is one, and mind always divides. And when you have dived a reality, you have falsified it. Now you can struggle for your whole life -- nothing will be achieved, because basically the reality was one and the mind divided into two, and now you are working with the division.

For example, as I was saying, life and death are one, but for the mind they are two and death is the enemy of life. It is not, because life cannot exist without death. If life cannot exist without death, how can death be the enemy? It is the basic situation. It makes life possible. Life grows in it; it is the soul. Without it life is impossible. But mind, thinking, divides it and puts it as a polar opposite. Then you can go on thinking about. Whatsoever you think will be false, because in the beginning you have committed a sin -- the sin of division.

When you meditate, divisions disappear. When you meditate, there cannot be divisions, because how can you divide in silence?

We are here. Everyone is thinking in his own mind something or other; then we are different, everyone is different, because your thought is yours, and my thought is mine. In my mind I have my own dreams and you have your own. There are many individuals here, but if we all are meditating -- neither you are thinking nor I am thinking, the thinking has ceased -- then there will not be so many individuals. Really, there will not be individuals at all. If we are all meditating then limitations have disappeared.

When I am meditating and you are meditating, there are not two persons, there cannot be, because two silences become one. They cannot be two, because how can you demark one silence from another silence? You cannot demark. You can demark one thought from another, one mind from another, but two silences are simply one -- just like two zeros. Two zeros are not two; two zeros are one. You can put a thousand zeros, but they are one.

Meditation is creating a zero within -- all limitations, all divisions disappear. And that gives you the real eye, the third eye, darshan. Now you have the real eyes to see. For these real eyes reality is clear, open, revealed. And with the reality revealed, there are no problems.

Question 3

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GAZING AT AN OPEN CLEAR SKY, GAZING AT AN ENLIGHTENED MASTER'S PHOTO, AND GAZING AT THE DARKNESS?

The technique of gazing is not concerned really with the object; it is concerned with gazing itself. Because when you stare without blinking your eyes, you become focused, and the nature of the mind is to be constantly moving. If you are really gazing, not moving at all, the mind is bound to be in a difficulty.

The nature of the mind is to move from one object to another, to move constantly. If you are gazing at darkness or at light or at something else, if you are really gazing, the movement of the mind stops. Because if the mind goes on moving, your gaze will not be there; you will go on missing the object. When the mind has moved somewhere else, you will forget, you will not be able to remember what you were looking at. The object will be there physically, but for you it will have disappeared because your are not there; you have moved in thought.

Gazing means, TRATAK means, not allowing your consciousness to move. And when you are not allowing the mind to move, in the beginning it struggles, struggles hard, but if you go on practising gazing, by and by the mind loses struggling. For moments it stops. And when mind stops there is no mind, because mind can exist only in movement, thinking can exist only in movement. When there is no movement, thinking disappears, you cannot think, because thinking means movement -- moving from one thought to another. It is a process.

If you gaze continuously at one thing, fully aware and alert... because you can gaze through dead eyes. Then you can go on thinking -- only eyes, dead eyes, not looking at... just with dead men's eyes you can look, but your mind will be moving. That will not be of any help. Gazing means not only your eyes, but your total mind focused through the eyes.

So whatsoever the object.... It depends: if you like light, it is okay. If you can like darkness, good. Whatsoever the object, deeply it is irrelevant. The question is to stop the mind completely in your gaze, to focus it, so the inner movement, the fidgeting, stops; the inner wavering stops. You are simply looking at, not doing anything. That deep looking will change you completely. It will become a meditation.

And it is good; you can try it. But remember that your eyes and your consciousness should meet in the focusing. You must be really looking through the eyes; you must not be absent there. Your presence is needed -- totally present. Then you cannot think, then thinking is impossible. There is only one danger: you may become unconscious, you may fall asleep. Even with open eyes it is possible that you may fall asleep. Then your gaze will become stony.

In the beginning the first trouble will be that you will be looking at, but you will not be present. This is the first barrier. Your mind will move. Your eyes will be fixed, your mind will be moving -- there will be no meeting of the eyes and the mind. This will be the first difficulty. If you win over it, the second difficulty will be that gazing with no movement, you will fall asleep. You will move into auto-hypnosis, you will be hypnotized by yourself. That's natural, because our mind knows only two states: either the constant movement or sleep. The mind knows only two states naturally: constant movement, thinking, or falling into sleep. And meditation is a third state.

The third state of meditation means your mind is as silent as a deep sleep, and as alert and aware as in thinking -- both these must be present. You must be alert, completely alert, and as silent as if deep in sleep. So Patanjali's Yoga Sutras say that meditation is a sort of deep sleep, with only one difference -- that you are alert. Patanjali equates sushupti and samadhi: deep sleep and ultimate meditation. The difference is only that in deep sleep you are not aware, and in meditation you are aware, but the quality of both is deep silence -- unrippled, unwavering silence, unmoving silence.

In the beginning it may happen that through staring you may fall asleep. So if you have become capable of bringing your mind to your focus and the mind is not moving, then remain alert, don't fall asleep. Because if sleep comes, you have fallen in the abyss, the ditch. Just between these two ditches -- constant thinking and sleep -- is the narrow bridge of being in meditation.

Question 4

YOU HAVE SAID THAT SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS WITH THE OBJECTIVE, AND RELIGION WITH THE SUBJECTIVE. BUT NOW THERE IS A NEW GROWING SCIENCE, PSYCHOLOGY, OR MORE ACCURATELY, DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY, WHICH IS BOTH SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE. SO SCIENCE AND RELIGION MEET IN DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY.

They cannot meet. Depth psychology, or the study of psychic phenomena, is again objective. And the method of depth psychology is the method of objective science.

Try to see the distinction. For example, you can study meditation in a scientific way. You can observe someone who is meditating, but then this has become objective for you. You meditate and I observe. I can bring all the scientific instruments to observe what is happening to you, what is happening there in you, but the study remains objective. I am outside. I am not meditating. You are meditating; you are an object to me.

Then I can try to understand what is happening to you. Even through instruments much can be known about you, but that will remain objective and scientific. So really, whatsoever I am studying is not the real thing that is happening to you, but the effects that your body is recording.

You cannot penetrate a Buddha, what is happening to him, because really nothing is happening there. The deepest center of an enlightened man is nothingness. Nothing is happening there. And if nothing is happening, how can you study it? You can study something. You can study the Alpha waves; what is happening to the mind, to the body, to the chemistry, you can understand. But really deep down, when someone becomes enlightened, there is not anything happening. All happening has ceased.

This is what is meant -- the world has ceased. Now there is no sansar, no happening. He is as if he is not. That's why Buddha says, `Now I have become a no-atman, no-self. There is no one inside me. I am just an emptiness. The flame has disappeared, and the house is vacant.' Nothing is happening. What can you record about it? At the most you can record that nothing is happening. If something happens it can be recorded objectively.

The method of science remains objective, and science is very much afraid of the subjective, for many reasons. Science and the scientific mind cannot believe in the subjective, because firstly, it is private and individual and no one can enter in it. It cannot become public and collective, and unless something is public and collective, nothing can be said about it. The person who is saying may be deceived, or may be deceiving others. He may be a liar. Or, he may be just in an illusion, not a liar. He may be thinking and believing that this has happened to him, and this may be just a delusion, a self-deception.

So for science the truth must be objective. Others must be able to participate in it, so we can judge whether it is happening or not. Secondly, it must be that it can be repeated; it must be repeatable. If we heat water it evaporates at a certain degree -- it must be repeatable. So we repeat and repeat and again and again it evaporates at a certain degree. If it evaporates only once at a hundred degrees and never gain, or sometimes at ninety and sometimes at eighty, it cannot become a scientific fact. It must be repeatable, and the same conclusion should be achieved through many repeated experiments.

But the subjective realization is not repeatable -- it is not even predictable. And you cannot invite it; it happens. You cannot force it. You may achieve a deep meditation, you may have a very elated peak experience, but if someone says, `Repeat it here,' you may not be able to repeat it. On the contrary, because someone says, and you make an effort to repeat it, this very effort may become the barrier. Even the presence of observers may be distracting. You may not be able to repeat it.

Science needs objective, repeatable experiments. And psychology, if it wants to be a science, must follow scientific rules. Religion is subjective. It is not concerned with proving any fact; rather, it is concerned with coming to an individual experiencing of it. And the deepest must remain individual, and the ultimate must remain private; it cannot become collective. Because unless everyone has come to the status of an enlightened one, it cannot become collective. You have to grow to achieve it.

So science and religion really cannot meet, because their approaches are different. Religion is absolutely private -- the concern of the individual with himself. Because of this, those countries which in the past have been more religious than others have remained individualistic. For example, India. India is individualistic. Sometimes it appears even selfish. Everyone is concerned with himself, his own growth, his own enlightenment; not concerned with others, indifferent to others, indifferent to society, social conditions, poverty, slavery. Everyone is concerned with himself, with growing to the ultimate peak. It also looks selfish.

Western countries are more socialistic, less individualistic. That's why the very concept of communism was impossible with the Indian mind. We have given a Buddha and a Patanjali, but we couldn't give a Marx. It had to come from the West where the society, the collective whole, is more important than the individual; where science is more important than religion; where that which happens objectively is more important than that which happens in your absolute privacy. That which happens in the privacy is dream-like for the West.

Look at this: that which happens publicly we have called maya, illusion. Shankara says the whole world is illusion; only that which happens deep down within you, the ultimate, the Brahma that happens there is real, and everything is unreal. Quite the opposite is the western scientific attitude: that which happens within you is illusory; that which happens outside is the real. The reality is there outside, and the dream-world is there inside.

These are the two attitudes -- so different, the approach so diametrically opposite, that there can be no meeting. There is no need also. Their dimensions are different, their spheres are different. They never trespass on each other; there is no conflict at all. And there need be no conflict. Science works with the objective world, and religion works with the individual, subjective world. They never cross each other. There cannot be any conflict.

And to me, when you are working with the outside world, work with a scientific attitude. When you are working with yourself, work with a religious attitude. And don't create any conflict; there is no need. Don't bring science for the inner world, and don't bring religion for the outer world.

If you bring religion to the outer world, you will create chaos. In India we have created it -- it is a mess. If you bring a scientific attitude for the inner, you will create madness -- the West has created it. Now the West is completely neurotic. And both have made the same mistake. Don't confuse the two, and don't try to bring the outer to the inner, or the inner to the outer. Let the subjective be subjective and let the objective be the objective. While you move outwards be scientific and objective, and while you move inwards be religious and subjective.

There is no need to create any conflict. There is none. The conflict arises only because we want to impose one attitude on both realms. We want either to be scientific totally, or to be religious totally -- that's wrong. With the objective, the subjective approach will be false, dangerous, harmful, and vice versa.

Question 5

YOU HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT SO MANY METHODS AND TECHNIQUES. THE YEARNING TO SUCCEED IN THEM IS VERY GREAT. HOW CAN WE OVERCOME OUR GREAT IMPATIENCE?

Two things to be remembered. One: spirituality cannot be an outcome of desire, because desire is the root cause of all our anxiety and anguish. And you cannot direct your desires to the spiritual realm. But it happens, it is natural, because we know only one movement -- that is desire. We desire the things of the world. Someone desires riches, someone desires fame, someone desires prestige and power, or something else. We desire things of the world, and through this desiring we are frustrated.

And we are bound to be frustrated -- it is irrelevant whether a desire is fulfilled or not. If it is not fulfilled, obviously we will be frustrated. If it is fulfilled, then too we will be frustrated, because whenever a desire is fulfilled, the desire is fulfilled, but the hope, the promise, is not fulfilled. You can get as much wealth as you desire, but the wealth was not desired really; something else was desired through it -- that is never fulfilled.

You can achieve wealth, but the hope that was lingering around -- the dream of happiness, of bliss, of some ecstatic life -- that is not fulfilled. If wealth is not achieved you will feel frustrated. If wealth is achieved then too you will feel frustrated, because the promise is not fulfilled, the dream is not fulfilled. Everything is there. The means are there, and the end has escaped. The end is always elusive.

Through desire one comes to deep frustration. When this frustration happens you start looking for something absolutely other than this world -- religious yearning is born, a religious longing, but again you start desiring. You become impatient; you want to achieve this and that. The mind has not changed. The object of desire is different: it was wealth, now it is meditation. It was power and prestige, now it is silence and peace. Before it was something, now it is something else. But the mind, the mechanism, the very working of your being, is the same. You were desiring A, now you are desiring B -- but the desiring is there.

And desiring is the problem, not what you desire; that is not the problem. What you desire is not the problem -- that you desire is the problem. Now you are again desiring and you will be frustrated again. If you achieve, you will be frustrated. If you don't achieve, you will be frustrated. The same will happen to you, because you have not been able to see the point, you have missed the point.

You cannot desire meditation, because meditation happens only when there is no desire. You cannot desire liberation, nirvana, because it happens only in a desireless state. It cannot be made an object of desire. So to me, and to all those who know, desiring is the world; not that you desire worldly things. Desiring, the very phenomenon of desiring, is the world.

And when you desire, impatience is bound to be there, because the mind doesn't want to wait, the mind doesn't want to postpone. It is impatient. Impatience is the shadow of desire. The more intense the desire, the more impatience will be there. And impatience will create disturbance. So how will you achieve meditation? Desire will create movement of the mind, and then desiring will create impatience, and impatience will bring you to more disturbances.

So it happens, and I observe it daily, that a person who was living a very worldly life was not ordinarily so disturbed. When he starts to meditate, or to seek the religious dimension, he becomes more disturbed, more than ever. The reason is that now he has an even keener desire, more impatience. And with the worldly things, things were so real and objective that he could wait for them. They were always in his reach. Now in the spiritual realm things are so elusive, so far away, they never seem to be in reach. Life seems to be very short, and now the object of desires seems to be infinite -- there is more impatience and then more disturbance. And with a disturbed mind, how can you meditate?

So this is the puzzle. Try to understand it. If you are really frustrated and you have come to feel that all that is outside is futile -- money or sex or power or prestige just futile -- if you have come to this realization, then a deeper realization is also needed. If these things are futile, then desiring is even more futile: you desire and desire and nothing happens -- and your desiring creates the misery.

Look at the fact that desiring creates misery. If you don't desire, there is no misery. So drop desiring. And don't create a new desire; simply drop desiring. Don't create a spiritual desire. Don't say, `Now I am going to seek God. Now I am going to find this and that. Now I am going to realize the truth.' Don't create a new desire. If you create, it shows you have not understood your misery.

Look at the misery that desire creates. Feel that desire is misery and drop it. No effort is needed to drop it. Remember, if you make an effort you will create another desire. That's why you need some other desire, because then you can leave it. If some other desire is there, you can hang onto it. You can cling to the new desire and you can leave the old one. To leave the old is easy if some new is to be gained, but then you are missing the whole point. Simply leave desire because it is misery, and don't create a new desire.

Then there will be no impatience. Then meditation is not be practised really; it will start happening to you, because a non-desiring mind is in meditation. Then you can play with these techniques. And I say play. Then you can play with these techniques; there is no practice. Practice is not a good word the very word is wrong. Then you can play with these techniques, and you can enjoy playing, because there is no desire to achieve something and there is no impatience to reach somewhere.

You can play, and through play, when meditation is a play, everything is possible. And everything is possible immediately, because you are not disturbed, you are not impatient, you are not in any hurry, you are not going somewhere, not reaching somewhere. You are here and now. If meditation happens, okay. If it doesn't happen, it is still okay. Nothing is wrong with you because there is no desire, no expectation, no future.

And remember, when meditation or no-meditation are similar to you, meditation has happened to you. You have reached. Now the goal has come, the ultimate has descended in you. This will look strange -- that I say don't make meditation a practice, rather make it a play, a fun. Enjoy it while doing it, not for any result.

But our minds are very serious, deadly serious. Even if we play, we make it a serious thing. We make it a work, a duty. Play just like small children. Play with meditation techniques, and then much more is possible through them. Don't be serious about them; take them as fun. But we make everything serious. Even if we are playing, we make it serious. And with religion we have always been very serious. Religion has never been fun, that's why the earth has remained irreligious. Religion must become a fun and a festivity,, a celebration -- a celebration of the moment, enjoying whatsoever you are doing; enjoying so much and so deeply that mind ceases.

If you really understand me, these 112 techniques will show you that everything can become a technique -- if you really understand. That's why there are 112. Everything can become a technique if you understand the quality of the mind which brings meditation. Then whatsoever you do can become a technique. Be playful, celebrate it, enjoy it. Move so deeply in it that time ceases.

But time cannot cease if desire is there. Really, desire is time. When you desire, future is needed, because desire cannot be fulfilled here and now. Desire can be fulfilled only in the future somewhere, so you will need future to move. And then time destroys you. You miss eternity. Eternity is here.

So take meditation as a fun, a festivity, a celebration of anything. You are just digging outside in the garden -- it can become a technique. Simply dig and enjoy and celebrate the very act. Become the act and forget the actor. The `I' is not there, only the action remains, and you are present to the action, blissfully present. Then ecstasy is there -- no impatience, no desire, and no motivation.

If you bring motivation, desire and impatience to meditation, you will destroy the whole thing. And then the more you do, the more frustrated you will feel. You will say, `I am doing so much and nothing is happening.' People come to me. They say, `I am doing this and I am doing that, and for so many months and for so many years, and nothing has happened.'

One seeker from Holland was here, and he was doing a particular technique three hundred times every day. So he told me, `For two years I have been doing this technique three hundred times every day. Not a single day has been missed. I have left everything, because I have to do this three hundred times every day -- and nothing has happened.' And he was just on the verge of a nervous breakdown, because of the technique.

So I said, `The first thing is to leave this. Do anything whatsoever, but don't do this. You will go mad.' He was deadly serious about it. It was a life-and-death problem for him. It had to be achieved.

And he said, `Who knows how many days are left? Time is short, and I must achieve it in this life. I don't want to be born again. Life is much a misery.'

He will be born again and again. The way he is doing, he will go more and more mad. But it is wrong -- the whole attitude is wrong. Take meditation as a play, a fun, enjoy it, and then the very quality changes. Then it is not something you are doing as a cause to gain some effect. No, you are enjoying it here and now. It is the cause and it is the effect, both. It is the beginning and it is the end.

And then you cannot miss meditation. You cannot miss it, it will happen to you, because now you are ready to take it in. You are open. No one has said that meditation should be taken as a fun, but I say it. Make it a play. Just like small children, play with it.

Question 6

THE OTHER DAY YOU SAID THAT DARKNESS IS MORE FUNDAMENTAL TO EXISTENCE, WHILE MOST RELIGIONS HOLD THE CONTRARY VIEW. WILL YOU KINDLY SHED SOME MORE LIGHT ON THIS QUESTION, PARTICULARLY IN VIEW OF WHAT MODERN SCIENCE HAS TO SAY ABOUT IT? DOES IT NOT SAY THAT THE LAST DIVISIBLE COMPONENTS OF MATTER ARE JUST ELECTRIC ENERGY?

Again the same division -- light and darkness. They are two if you look at them through the mind. They are one if you meditate upon them. Whether you meditate on light or on darkness, it makes no difference. If you meditate, the other is dissolved into it. Then light is nothing but less darkness and darkness is nothing but less light; the difference is of degree. They are not two things opposed to each other; rather, two degrees of one phenomenon. And that one phenomenon is neither light nor darkness. That one of which these two are degrees is neither light nor darkness; or, it is both. You can enter into it from light, you can enter into it from darkness.

Many religions have used light because it is more comfortable, easier. Darkness is difficult, more uncomfortable, and if you try to enter through darkness, you have chosen a more arduous path. That's why many religions have chosen light. But you can choose either; it depends on you. If you are adventurous, courageous, choose darkness. If you are afraid, and don't want to go on an arduous path, choose light. Because both belong to one phenomenon which appears at one point as light, at another point as darkness.

For example, this room is filled with light. But it is not filled with the same light for everyone, or is it? If my eyes are weak then the light is not as light as it is for you. I see it as a little darker. Imagine if someone from Mars or from some other planet comes, who has very penetrating eyes. Then where you see light, he will see much light, more light then you see. And where you see darkness, he will see light. There are animals and birds who see in the night where you cannot see. For them it is light, for you it is darkness.

So what is light? And what is darkness? -- one phenomenon. And how much you can penetrate into it, and how much it can penetrate into you... it depends on that penetration whether you call it light or darkness. These polar opposites just appear to be opposites. They are not, they are relative degrees of one phenomenon. So scientists say that the last divisible components of matter are just electric energy. But they don't say they are light; they say electric energy. Darkness is also electric energy, and light is also electric energy. Electric energy is not synonymous with light. If you give it the name electric energy, then light is one expression and darkness is another.

But there is no need to move into scientific discussion about it. It is useless. Rather, think about your own mind, what you like. If you feel at ease with light, enter through light. That is your door. If you feel at ease with darkness, enter through darkness. And both will lead to the same.

Many methods in these 112 are concerned with light; a few are concerned with darkness. And Shiva is trying to explain all the methods possible. He is not talking to particular types; he is talking to all types. But there are a few persons who will like to enter through darkness. For example, a feminine mind, more passive, more receptive, will like to enter through darkness; it will be more acceptable. A male mind will like the light more.

You may not have observed the fact that many poets of the past and the present, many philosophers, and many others who have a deep insight into the human mind, have always compared the female with darkness, and the male with light. Light is aggressive, a male element; darkness is receptive, a female element. Darkness is like a womb.

So it depends: if you like darkness, good, enter through it. If you like light, enter through it. Sometimes even the opposite becomes appealing. You can try that also. There is no danger in trying anything, because every path leads to the same goal.

But don't go on thinking about what to choose. Don't waste time; rather, try. Because you can go on thinking forever about what will be suitable, what to do and what not to do, and why so many religions have insisted on light, and so few on darkness. Don't get worried about these things; they don't help. Rather, you think about your own type, about what will be suitable for you, in what you will feel more comfortable, and then start it.

And then forget all others, because all of these 112 methods are not for you. Even if you choose one method, for you it is enough. You need not go through 112 methods; one method will do. So just be receptive and aware so that you can catch the method that is for you. You need not get worried about every other method; that is unnecessary. Choose one, play with it, and if you feel good and something is happening, then move into it and forget all the other 111. If you feel you have chosen wrongly, then throw it, choose another, and play with it. If you try this with four or five or six methods, you will fall upon the right one. But don't be serious -- just play.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #13

Chapter title: From death to deathlessness

28 May 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7305285

ShortTitle: VBT213

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 88 mins

FOCUS ON FIRE

RISING THROUGH YOUR FORM

FROM THE TOES UP

UNTIL THE BODY BURNS TO ASHES

BUT NOT YOU.

MEDITATE ON THE MAKE-BELIEVE WORLD AS BURNING TO ASHES AND BECOME BEING ABOVE HUMANAS,

AS SUBJECTIVELY,

LETTERS FLOW INTO WORDS AND WORDS INTO SENTENCES,

AND AS, OBJECTIVELY,

CIRCLES FLOW INTO WORLDS AND WORLDS INTO PRINCIPLES,

FIND AT LAST THESE CONVERGING IN OUR BEING

All the enlightened ones, all the religions, agree on one thing only. Their disagreements are many, but there is one agreement amongst all, and that is that man, because of his ego, is closed to the reality. The ego is the only barrier; the feeling that I AM.

On this point Buddhas and Christs and Krishnas all agree. And because they all agree it seems to me that this is the basic thing in all religious endeavor. All else is accidental; this is essential -- that you are debarred because of your own ego.

What is this ego? Of what does it consist? How does it arise? And why does it become so important?

Look at your mind -- because you cannot understand the phenomenon of ego theoretically; you can only understand it existentially. Look at your mind, observe it, and you will come to a deep understanding. And if you can understand what the go is, there is no problem; it can be dropped easily. Rather, there is no need to drop it. If you can understand it, the very understanding becomes the dropping, because the ego is created through your non-understanding, it is created through your sleepiness.

If you become alert about it, if you focus your consciousness towards it, it disappears. It disappears -- just as when you bring light in a room and the darkness disappears. Even if you bring light to look at darkness, to see what darkness is... if you bring light it disappears. The ego exists because you have never been alert to your existence; it is a shadow of your non-alertness. So really, there is no need to drop it. If you can look at it, it drops by itself.

What is it? Have you ever felt any moment when there is no ego? Whenever you are silent, the ego is not. Whenever your mind is in turmoil, chattering, restless, the ego is there. Whenever you are relaxed, silent and calm, the ego is not. Just now, if you are silent, where is the ego? You will be there, but no feeling of `I'. So try to understand it existentially.

Right now as I am speaking, you can observe the fact that if you are silent, totally alert, you are there, but with no feeling of `I'. And just the contrary happen: if you are troubled, in conflict, in anxiety, you feel a centered ego within you. When you are in anger, in passion, violent, aggressive, you feel a crystallized ego within you. Whenever you are in love, in compassion, it is not there.

That's why we cannot love, because with the ego, love is impossible. That's why we go on talking so much about love, but we never are in love. And whatsoever we call love is more or less sex, it is not love; because you cannot lose your ego, and love cannot exist unless the ego has disappeared. Love, meditation, God, they all require one thing -- the ego must not be there. That's why Jesus is right in saying that God is love, because both phenomena happen only when the ego is not.

If you know love, there is no need to know God -- you have known him already. Love is just another name for it. If you know love, there is no need to go into meditation -- you have gone already. Love is just another name for it. So many techniques of meditation are needed, and so many teachers, and so many schools of meditation are needed, because there is no love. If love exists, there is no need to practice anything, because the thing has happened already. And the thing is the disappearance of the ego.

So the first thing to be understood: whenever you are silent, the ego is not. And don't believe in me. I am not talking about a theory; this is a fact. You need not take my opinion; you can observe it in yourself. And there is no need to postpone it for the future; right now you can observe the fact that if you are silent, you are -- but with no limitation, with no center. You exist without the center, there is no crystallized I. The presence is there, the consciousness is there, but there is no one who can say `I am'.

When you are silent, the ego is not. And when you are not silent, the ego is. So ego is the disease, all diseases combined together, hence the emphasis to surrender the ego. The emphasis is to surrender the disease.

Secondly: if in silence, for even a single moment you have the glimpse of your existence as egoless, then you can analyze it, and then you can enter the phenomenon of ego, of what it is. Thew mind is accumulated past. The mind is never here, it is never now. It is always from the past. It is accumulation. Mind is memory: all the experiences that you have gone through, all the information that you have come across, all the knowledge that you have gathered, heard, listened to, read -- that is accumulated. The mind is constantly accumulating.

The mind is the greatest accumulator; it goes on accumulating. Even while you are not conscious it goes on accumulating; even while you are asleep the mind is accumulating. You may not be aware of it. While you are asleep, and there is noise in the road, the mind is accumulating. You can be hypnotized in the morning and you can be asked about it, and you will say everything, you will relate everything -- whatsoever the mind has accumulated in the night. Even if you have fallen in a coma, or you are unconscious, or you have fallen in a fit, the mind is accumulating.

The mind doesn't need your consciousness to accumulate; it goes on accumulating. Even while you were in the womb of your mother the mind was accumulating. And through hypnosis the memories of your days in the womb of your mother can be awakened. You don't remember anything about taking birth, but the mind was accumulating. Whatsoever was happening, the mind was accumulating. And now it can be awakened again. Through hypnosis the memory can be brought again to your focus. And millions of memories are being accumulated -- this accumulation is the mind. Memory is the mind.

How is the I, the ego, created? The consciousness is within you, and around the consciousness all these memories are accumulated on the periphery. They are useful, and you cannot survive without them, they are needed, but then a new thing happens between these two, an epi-phenomenon.

Consciousness is within, you are within, without the I. There is no I within. You are, without a center. On the periphery, every moment knowledge, experience, memories, accumulate. This is the mind. And whenever you look at the world, you look through the mind. Whenever you pass through a new experience, you look through the memories, you interpret it through the memories. You look at everything through the past. The past becomes a mediator.

Constantly looking through the past, you get identified with it -- that identification is the ego. Let me put it in this way: the identification of the conscious with the memories is the ego. You say `I am a Hindu' or `I am a Christian' or `I am a Jain'. What are you doing? No one is born as a Christian, or a Hindu, or a Jain. You are simply born as a human being. Then you are taught, then you are conditioned to think that you are a Christian, a Hindu, or a Jain. This is a memory. You have been taught that you are a Christian. This is a memory, and now, whenever you look through this memory, you feel, `I am a Christian.'

Your consciousness is not Christian; it cannot be. It is simply consciousness. You have been taught that you are a Christian. This teaching is accumulated on the periphery. Now you look through the glasses and the whole world is colored. Those glasses stick too much and too deeply with you, and you are never away from them, you never put them aside. You have become so accustomed to them that you have forgotten that there are spectacles on your eyes. Then you say, `I am a Christian.'

Whenever you get identified with any memory, any knowledge, any experience, any name and form, that I is born. Then you are young, you are old; you are rich, you are poor; you are beautiful or you are not beautiful; you are educated or you are not educated; you are respected or you are not respected -- then you go on getting identified with things which accumulate around you and the ego is born. Ego is identification with the mind.

That's why when you are silent the ego is not, because when you are silent the mind is not functioning. That's what silence means. Whenever the mind is functioning you are not silent. You cannot be -- the functioning of the mind is the inner noise, the chattering, the constant chattering within you. When the chattering stops, or it is not there, or you have gone beyond it, or you have gone within, moved within, there is silence, and in that silence there is no ego.

But it happens only sometimes, and only for a moment, that you are silent. That's why you feel that those situations in which this happens are lovely. You start desiring those situations. You go to a hill, and while the sun is rising in the morning you look at it. Suddenly you have an upsurge of joy. You feel blissful, a beatitude descends upon you.

What has happened really? Because of the silent morning, and the silent rising of the sun, and the greenery, and the hill, suddenly your inner chattering has stopped. The phenomenon is so great -- all around you such beauty, such peace and tranquility -- that you have stopped for a moment. In that stopping you have realized a non-ego state -- for a single moment of course.

This can happen through many situations. In sex it happens, in music it can happen; in anything which is so great that you are overwhelmed, overpowered, and your constant chattering is put aside, forced aside for a moment, it will come again. Whenever you are egoless, accidentally or through some practice, you feel a subtle bliss which you have not felt before.

The bliss is not coming from outside. It is not coming from the hills or from the rising sun or from beautiful flowers; it is not coming from the sex act. It is not coming from outside. The outside is only creating an opportunity -- it is coming from inside. So if you repeat the outer situation again and again, it will not come, because you will get immune to it, you will get accustomed to it.

The same hill and the same morning... again you go there and you don't feel. You feel something is missing. Because for the first time it was so new that it stopped your mind completely. The wonder was so great and the miracle was so new, you couldn't continue with the past chattering. It stopped -- just in awe it stopped -- but next time you go there you know everything. There is no awe, no mystery -- the mind continues. This happens with every experience. In any experience, if you feel a joy, it will be destroyed if you repeat it, because then, in a repeated experience, you cannot put aside the mind.

So the second thing to remember is that mind is accumulation. Your consciousness is just hidden behind this accumulated past, and you are identified with it. Whenever you say `I am this, I am that', you are creating the ego.

Thirdly: if you can understand this, then the third point is not difficult, and that third point is that mind has to be used. There is no need to get identified; you can use it as an instrument -- and it is an instrument. There is no need to get identified with it. Remain always above it.

And really, you are always above it, because you are here, now, always present, and mind is always past. You are always ahead of it. It is just lagging behind you; it is a shadow. This very moment is a new thing; your mind cannot have it. A moment later it will be absorbed in the memory; then the mind can have it. Every single moment you are free.

That's why Buddha has emphasized the moment so much. He says, `Remain in the moment and there will be no mind.' But the moment is very atomic, it is very subtle; you can miss it easily. The mind is always the past -- whatsoever you have known -- and the reality that is passing just now is not part of the mind. It will become part of the mind a moment later.

If you can be aware of the reality here and now, you will remain always transcendental to the mind. And if you can remain transcendental to the mind -- always above, never entangled in it, using it, but never getting involved in it, using it as an instrument, never getting identified with it -- the ego will disappear. You will be egoless, and when you are egoless, nothing else is to be done. Then all else happens to you. You have become vulnerable, you have become open. Then the whole existence happens to you, then all the ecstasies are yours, then suffering is impossible. Suffering comes through the ego. Bliss comes through the egoless gate.

Now we will enter the techniques -- because these techniques are concerned with being egoless. Very simple techniques, but if you understand this background then you can do them, and much becomes possible through them.

The first technique:

FOCUS ON FIRE

RISING THROUGH YOUR FORM

FROM THE TOES UP

UNTIL THE BODY BURNS TO ASHES

BUT NOT YOU.

FOCUS ON FIRE RISING THROUGH YOUR FORM, FROM THE TOES UP, UNTIL THE BODY BURNS TO ASHES BUT NOT YOU. A very simple technique and very wonderful, very easy to do, but some basic requirements are to be fulfilled beforehand. Buddha liked this technique very much; he initiated his disciples into this technique.

Whenever someone was initiated by Buddha, the first thing was this: he would tell him just to go to the burning place and observe a body being burned, a dead body being burned. For three months he was not to do anything, but just sit there and watch. So the seeker would go to the burning place of the village. He would stay there for three months, day and night, and whenever a dead body would come there he would just sit and meditate. He would just look at the dead body; then the fire would be created and then the body would start burning. And for three months continuously he would not do anything else -- just look at dead bodies being burned.

Buddha said, `Don't think about it. Just look at it." And it is difficult not to come upon the thought that sooner or later your body is going to be burned. Three months is a long time, and continuously, day and night, whenever there was a body to be burned, the seeker was to meditate. Sooner or later he would start seeing his own body on the burning pyre. He would start seeing himself being burned.

It will be helpful; if you want to do this technique, go to the burning place. Watch -- not for three months -- but at least watch one body being burned; observe it. Then you can do this technique easily with yourself. Don't think: simply watch the phenomenon, watch what is happening.

People go to burn their relatives' bodies, but they never watch. They start talking of other things, or about death; they argue and discuss. They do many things. They talk many things and gossip, but they never watch. It should be made a meditation. No talking should be allowed there, because it is a rare experience to see someone you loved being burned. You are bound to feel that you are also burning there. If you are seeing your mother being burned, or your father, or your wife, or your husband, you are bound to see yourself also there in the flames. That experience will help for this technique. The first thing.The second thing: if you are very much afraid of death you cannot do this technique, because the very fear will protect you. You cannot enter into it. Or, you can just imagine on the surface, but your deep being will not be in it. Then nothing will happen to you. So remember, the second thing: whether you are afraid or not, death is the only certainty.

It makes no difference whether you are afraid or not; it is irrelevant. In life, nothing is certain except death. Everything is uncertain; only death is not accidental. And look at the human mind. We always talk about death as if it is an accident. Whenever someone dies we say his death was untimely. Whenever someone dies we start talking as if it has been an accident. Only death is not an accident -- only death. Everything else is accidental. Death is absolutely certain. You have to die.

And when I say you have to die, it seems in the future, very far away. It is not so -- you have already died. The moment you were born, you died. With birth, death has become a fixed phenomenon. One part of it has already happened -- the birth; now only the second, later part has to happen. So you are already dead, half-dead, because once one is born, one has come into the realm of death, entered into it. Now nothing can change it, now there is no way to change it. You have entered into it. You are half-dead with birth.

Secondly: death is not going to happen in the end; it is already happening. It is a process. Just as life is a process, death is a process. We create the n -- but life and death are just like your two feet, your two legs. Life and death are both one process. You are dying every moment.

Let me put it in this way: whenever you inhale, it is life, and whenever you exhale, it is death. The first thing a child does is to inhale. A child cannot exhale. The first thing is inhalation. He cannot exhale, because there is no air within his chest; he has to inhale. The first act is inhalation. And the old man, while dying, will do the last act, which will be exhalation. Dying, you cannot inhale -- or can you? When you are dying, you cannot inhale. The last act cannot be inhalation; the last act will be exhalation. The first act is inhalation and the last is exhalation. Inhalation is birth and exhalation is death. But every moment you are doing both -- inhaling, exhaling. Inhalation is life, exhalation is death.

You may not have observed, but try to observe it. Whenever you exhale, you are more at peace. Exhale deeply and you will feel a certain peace within. Whenever you inhale, you become intense, you become tense. The very intensity of inhalation creates a tension. And the normal, ordinary emphasis is always on inhalation. If I tell you to take deep breaths, you will always start with inhalation.

Really, we are afraid of exhaling. That's why breathing has become shallow. You never exhale, you go on inhaling. Only the body goes on exhaling, because the body cannot exist with inhalation alone. It needs both: life and death.

Try one experiment. The whole day, whenever you remember, exhale deeply and don't inhale. Allow the body to inhale; you simply exhale deeply. And you will feel a deep peace, because death is peace, death is silence. And if you can pay attention, more attention, to exhalation, you will feel egoless. With inhalation you will feel more egoistic; with exhalation you will feel more egoless. Pay more attention to exhalation. The whole day, whenever you remember, exhale deeply and don't inhale. Allow the body to inhale; you don't do anything.

This emphasis on exhalation will help you very much to do this experiment, because you will be ready to die. A readiness is needed, otherwise the technique will not be of much help. And you can be ready only if you have tasted death in a certain way. Exhale deeply and you will have a taste of it. It is beautiful.

Death is just beautiful, because nothing is like death -- so silent, so relaxing, so calm, so unperturbed. But we are afraid of death. And why are we afraid of death? Why is there so much fear of death? We are afraid of death not because of death -- because we don't know it. How can you be afraid of something you have never encountered? How can you be afraid of something that you don't know? At least you must know it to be afraid of it. So really you are not afraid of death; the fear is something else. You have never really lived -- that creates the fear of death.

The fear comes because you are not living, so you are afraid -- `I have not lived yet, and if death happens then what? Unfulfilled, unlived, I will die.' The fear of death comes only to those who are not really alive. If you are alive, you will welcome death. Then there is no fear. You have known life; now you would like to know death also. But we are so afraid of life itself that we have not know it, we have not entered deep into it. That creates the fear of death.

If you want to enter this technique you must be aware of this deep fear. And this deep fear must be thrown away, purged, only then can you enter the technique. This will help: pay more attention to exhalation. And really, if you can pay all attention to exhalation and forget inhaling.... Don't be afraid that you will die; you will not die -- the body will take inhalation by itself. The body has its own wisdom: if you deeply exhale, the body will take a deep inhalation by itself. You need not interfere. Then a very deep relaxation will spread all over your consciousness. The whole day you will feel relaxed, and an inner silence will be created.

You can deepen this feeling more if you do another experiment. Just for fifteen minutes in the day exhale deeply. Sit in a chair or on the ground, exhale deeply, and while exhaling close the eyes. When the air goes out, you go in. And then allow the body to inhale, and when the air goes in, open the eyes and you go out. It is just the opposite: when the air goes out, you go in; when the air goes in, you go out.

When you exhale, space is created within, because breath is life. When you exhale deeply, you are vacant, life has gone out. In a way you are dead, for a moment you are dead. In that silence of death, enter within. Air is moving out: you close your eyes and move within. The space is there and you can move easily.

Remember, when you are inhaling, to move inwards is very difficult, because there is no space to move. While exhaling you can move within. And when the air goes in, you go out; open the eyes and move out. Create a rhythm between these two. Within fifteen minutes you will feel so deeply relaxed, and you will be ready to do this technique.

Before doing this technique, do this for fifteen minutes so that you are ready -- not only ready, but welcoming, receptive. The fear of death is not there, because now death appears like relaxation, death appears like a deep rest. Death appears not antagonistic to life, but the very source of it, the very energy of it. Life is just like ripples on the face of a lake, and death is the lake itself. When ripples are not there the lake is there. And the lake can exist without the ripples, but the ripples cannot exist without the lake. Life cannot exist without death. Death can exist without life, because it is the source. Then you can do this technique.

FOCUS ON FIRE

RISING THROUGH YOUR FORM

FROM THE TOES UP...

Just lie down. First conceive of yourself as dead; the body is just like a corpse. Lie down, and then bring your attention to the toes. With closed eyes move inwards. Bring your attention to the toes and feel that the fire is rising from there upwards, everything is being burned. As the fire rises, your body is disappearing. Start from the toes and move upwards.

Why start from the toes? It will be easier, because the toes are very far away from your I, from your ego. Your ego exists in the head. You cannot start from the head, it will be very difficult, so start from the far away point. The toes are the most far away point from the ego. Start the fire from there. Feel that the toes are burned, only ashes remain, and then move slowly, burning everything that the fire comes across. Every part -- the legs, the thighs -- will disappear.

And just go on seeing that they have become ashes. The fire is rising upwards, and the parts it has passed are no more there; they have become ashes. Go on upwards, and lastly the head disappears. Everything has become... the dust has fallen unto dust... UNTIL THE BODY BURNS TO ASHES BUT NOT YOU.

You will remain just a watcher on the hill. The body will be there -- dead, burned, ashes -- and you will be the watcher, you will be the witness. This witness has no ego.

This technique is very good to reach the egoless state. Why? -- because so many things are implied in it. It appears simple; it is not so simple. The inner mechanism is very complex. First thing: your memories are part of the body. Memory is matter; that's why it can be recorded. It is recorded in the brain cells. They are material, part of the body. Your brain cells can be operated on, and if certain brain cells are removed, certain memories will disappear from you. Memories are recorded in the brain cells. Memory is matter; it can destroyed. And now scientists say it can be replanted, it can be transplanted again.

Sooner or later we will find ways so that when a person like Albert Einstein dies we will be able to save his brain cells. And those brain cells will be able to be transplanted into a child, and that child will have all the memories of Albert Einstein without going through all those experiences. It is part of the body, memory is part of the body, and if the whole body is burned and has become ashes, you will not have any memory.

Remember, this is the point to understand: if the memory is still there, then the body remains and you have been playing tricks. If really you go deep in the feeling that the body is dead, burning, and the fire has completely destroyed it, you will not have any memory in that moment. In that moment of watching, there will be no mind. Everything will have stopped -- no movement of thought, just watching, just seeing what has happened.

And once you know this, you can remain in this state continuously. Once you have known that you can separate yourself from the body.... This technique is just a method to separate yourself from the body, just to create a gap between you and the body, just for a few moments to be out of the body. If you can do this, then you can remain in the body and you will not be in the body. You can go on living as you were living before, but you will not be the same again.

This technique will take at least three months. Go on doing it. It is not going to happen in one day, but if you go on doing it every day for one hour, within three months, some day suddenly your imagination will have helped and the gap will be created, and you will actually see the body gone to ashes. Then you can watch.

In that watching you will realize a deep phenomenon -- that the ego is a false entity. It was there because you were identified with the body, with the thoughts, with the mind. You are neither -- neither the mind nor the body. You are different from all that surrounds you; you are different from your periphery.

Apparently the technique seems simple, but it can bring you a deep mutation. But first go and meditate on the burning ghat, on the burning ground, so you can see how the body burns, how the body turns to dust again -- so you can imagine easily. Then start from the toes and move very slowly. And before doing this technique, pay more attention to exhalation. Right before entering the technique, for fifteen minutes exhale and close the eyes; allow the body to inhale and open the eyes. For fifteen minutes feel a deep relaxation and then enter into it.

The second technique:

MEDITATE ON THE MAKE-BELIEVE WORLD AS BURNING TO ASHES, AND BECOME BEING ABOVE HUMAN.

If you can do the first, the second will be very easy. If you can come to imagine that your body is burning, it is not difficult to imagine that the whole world is burning -- because your body is the world, and through your body you are related to the world. Really, only for your body are you related to the world -- the world is extended body. If you can think and imagine that your body is burning, there is no difficulty in imagining it with the whole world. And the sutra says it is a make-believe world -- just because you believe, it is there. The whole world is burning, disappearing.

But if you feel the first is very difficult, you can even start with the second. The second is very easy if you can do the first. And there is no need really to do the second if you have done the first. With your body, everything disappears automatically. But you can do the second directly also, if the first is very difficult.

I said start with the toes because they are very far away from the head, from the ego, but you may not even feel like starting from the toes. Then move still further away: start with the world, and then move nearer and nearer towards yourself. Start with the world and then come nearer. And when the whole world is just burning, it will be easy for you to burn in that whole burning world.

The second is:

MEDITATE ON THE MAKE-BELIEVE WORLD AS BURNING TO ASHES AND BECOME BEING ABOVE HUMAN.

If you can see the whole world burning, you have gone above human, you have become superhuman. You have come to know a superhuman consciousness. You can imagine it, but a training of imagination is needed. jOur imaginations are not very trained. They are very untrained, because there is no schooling for imagination. Intellect is trained, schools and colleges exist and a major part of life is spent in training the intellect. Imagination is not trained. And imagination has a very wonderful dimension of its own. If you can train your imagination, you can do wonders through it.

Start with small things, because it is difficult to jump to bigger things and you may be a failure. For example: this imagination that the whole world is burning -- it cannot go very deep. First, you know it is imagination, and even if in imagination you think that the flames are everywhere, you will feel that the world is not burned, it is there still, because it is only your imagination. You don't know how imagination can become real. You have to feel it first.

Try a simple experiment before you enter this technique. Just close both your hands together, close your eyes, and just imagine that now your hands cannot be opened, they have gone dead, locked, and you cannot do anything to open them. In the beginning you will feel that you are just imagining and you can open them. But for ten minutes go on thinking that you cannot open them, you cannot do anything, your hands cannot be opened. And then after ten minutes try to open them.

Out of ten, four persons will immediately succeed, forty percent of people will immediately succeed: after ten minutes they cannot open their hands -- the imagination has become real. Howsoever they struggle... and the more they struggle to open, the more difficult it will be. You will start perspiring. You are seeing your own hands and you cannot open them. They are locked!

But don't be afraid. Just close your eyes again, and again imagine that now you can open them; only then will you be able to open them. Forty percent will succeed immediately. Those forty percent can move in this technique easily; there is no problem for them.

For the other remaining sixty percent it will be difficult, it will take time. Those who are very sensitive can imagine anything and it will happen. And once they feel that imagination can become real, then they have a feeling and they can move. Then you can do many things with your imagination. Already you are doing it without knowing it. Already you are doing it, but you are not aware.

A certain disease comes to the city -- a French 'flu comes -- and you become a victim of it. You can never think that out of one hundred cases, seventy percent are just because of imagination. Because the 'flu is there you start imagining that now you are going to fall prey to it -- and you will fall. Many diseases are just caught through your imagination, many problems you create because of your imagination. You can also solve them once you know that it is you who are creating them. Train your imagination a little, and then this technique will be very helpful.

The third technique:

AS, SUBJECTIVELY,

LETTER FLOW INTO WORDS AND WORDS INTO SENTENCES,

AND AS, OBJECTIVELY,

CIRCLES FLOW INTO WORLDS AND WORLDS INTO PRINCIPLES,

FIND AT LAST THESE CONVERGING IN OUR BEING.

That too is an imaginative technique. The ego is always afraid -- afraid of being vulnerable, open; afraid something may enter and destroy it. So the ego creates a citadel around it; you start living in a walled prison. Nothing should be allowed to enter in you. You are afraid -- if something comes in and disturbs, then what to do? -- so it is better not to allow anything to come in. All communication stops. Even with those you love or you think that you love, there is no communication.

Look at a wife and husband talking. They are not talking to each other; there is no communication. Rather, they are avoiding each other through words. They are talking so that the communication can be avoided. In silence they will become vulnerable, in silence they will come closer, because in silence the ego, the wall, will not be there. So the husband and wife, they will never be silent. They will be talking about something or other just to fill in time, and just so as not to be open to each other. We are so afraid of the other.

I have heard about Mulla Nasrudin, that one day as he was just walking out of his house his wife said, `Nasrudin, have you forgotten what day today is?'

Nasrudin knew about it -- it was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary -- so he said, `I know it. I know it well.'

The wife persisted, `Then how are we going to celebrate it?'

So Nasrudin said, `Darling, I don't know.' And then he scratched his head, puzzled, and said, `How would it be if we keep two minutes' silence to celebrate it?'

You cannot remain silent with someone; you begin to feel restlessness. In silence, the other enters you. You are open, your doors are open, your windows are open. You are afraid. You go on talking, you go on creating devices to remain closed.

The ego is an enclosure, it is a prison, and the prison is accepted because we feel so insecure. The prison gives a certain feeling of security: you are protected, guarded. To do this technique, this third technique, the first and most basic thing is: know well that life is insecurity. There is no way to make it secure. Whatsoever you do is not going to help. You can create only a fiction of security -- life remains insecure. It is the very nature of it, because death is involved in it, so how can life be secure?

And think for a moment: if life is really secure, it will be already dead. An absolutely totally secure life cannot be alive, because the very adventure is lost. If you are protected from all dangers you will be dead. In the very being of life there is adventure, danger, insecurity. Death is involved.

I love you. I have entered a dangerous path. Now nothing can be secure, but now I will try to make everything secure. For tomorrow, I will kill everything that is alive, because only then can I feel secure tomorrow also. Love is transformed into marriage -- marriage is a security. Love is insecure -- the next moment everything can change. And you have invested so much, and in the next moment the beloved leaves you, or the friend leaves you, and you are left in a vacuum. Love is insecure. You cannot fix the future, you cannot predict. So live is killed and a secure substitute is found -- that is marriage.

With marriage you can be secure; it is predictable. The wife will be your wife the next day; the husband will be your husband in the future also -- but just because you have secured it. And now there is no danger. It is dead. The relationship is dead now, because only dead things can be permanent; alive things are bound to be changing. Change is the very quality of life, and in change is insecurity.

Those who want to enter deeper realms of life must be ready to be insecure, must be ready to be in danger, must be ready to move into the unknown, and must not try in any way to fix the future. The very effort will kill everything. And remember this also: that insecurity is not only alive, it is beautiful. Security is dull, ugly. Insecurity is alive and beautiful. You can be secure if you close your doors and windows and everything. Neither light enters nor air enters; no one enters. You are secure in a way, but you are not living, you have already entered your tomb.

This technique is possible if you are vulnerable, open, not afraid, because this technique is allowing the whole universe to enter in you.

AS, SUBJECTIVELY,

LETTERS FLOW INTO WORDS AND WORDS INTO SENTENCES,

AND AS, OBJECTIVELY,

CIRCLES FLOW INTO WORLDS AND WORLDS INTO PRINCIPLES,

FIND AT LAST THESE CONVERGING IN OUR BEING.

Everything converging in my being... I am standing under the open sky, and the whole existence, from everywhere, from every nook and corner, is converging in me -- your ego cannot exist. In that openness where the whole existence is converging in you, you cannot exist as an I. You will exist as an open space, but not as a crystallized I.

To do this technique start with a small step. Just sit under a tree. The breeze is blowing and the leaves of the tree are rustling. The wind touches you, it moves around you, it passes. But don't allow it just to pass you; allow it to move within you and pass through you. Just close your eyes, and as it is passing through the tree and there is a rustling of the leaves, feel that you are also like a tree, open, and the wind is blowing through you -- not by your side but right through you.

The rustling of the tree will enter in you, and you will feel that from every pore of your body the air is passing. It is really passing through you. It is not only imagination, it is a fact -- you have forgotten. You are not only breathing through the nose, you are breathing through the whole body -- from every pore of it, from millions of pores. If you are allowed to breathe through your nose, but all the pores of your body are closed, painted, you will die within three hours. You cannot be alive just by breathing through the nose. Every cell of your body is a living organism, and every cell is breathing. The air is really passing through you, but you have lost the contact. So sit under a tree and feel.

In the beginning it will look like imagination, but soon it will turn into a reality. It is a reality -- that the air is passing through you. Then sit under a rising sun, and not only feel that the rays of the sun are touching you, but that they are entering you and passing through you, so you become vulnerable, you begin to feel open.

And this can be done with everything. For example, I am speaking here and you are hearing me. You can hear just through the ears, or you can hear through the whole of the body. You can just try it right here, just with a change of the emphasis: you are not hearing my words through the ears only, you are hearing me through the whole of your body. And when you really hear, and when you really listen, it is the whole body that listens. It is not only a part, it is not a fragmented energy that listens, it is the whole of you. The whole of your body is involved in listening -- then my words are passing through you; from every cell, from every pore, you are drinking them. They are being absorbed from everywhere.

You can do this. Just go and sit in a temple. Many worshippers will be coming and going, and the bell of the temple will be hit again and again. Just listen with the whole of your body. The bell is ringing and the whole temple is agog; every wall of it is reflecting. To reflect this, in order to feel that the sound is converging on you, we created a round shape. So from everywhere the sound is thrown back, it converges upon you from everywhere, and you can listen to it through your whole body -- every pore, every cell, listening, drinking, absorbing it, and it is passing through you. You have become porous; everywhere the door is open. You are not a barrier now to anything -- the air, or the words, or the sound, or the rays, or anything. You are not a barrier, you don't resist anything.

When you come to feel that now you don't resist, you are not in a struggle, suddenly you will become aware that the ego is not there, because the ego exists only when you struggle. It is a resistance. Whenever you say no, the ego comes into existence; whenever you say yes, the ego is not there. So I call a man an ASTIK, a real theist, who has said yes to the whole existence; there is no `no' in him, no resistance. He accepts everything, he allows everything to happen. Even if death comes, he will not close his door. The doors will remain open.

This openness has to be brought, only then can you do this technique, because this technique is saying that the whole existence is falling, converging on you -- no resistance, welcoming, allowing it to converge. You will simply disappear, you will become a space, infinite space, because this infinite universe cannot converge on such a narrow atomic thing as the ego. It can converge only when you have become infinite like it, when you have yourself become an infinite space. But this happens. Slowly you have to become more and more sensitive and you have to become aware of your resistances.

We are very resistant. If I touch you, you can feel that you are resisting the touch, you are creating a barrier, so my warmth cannot enter you, my touch cannot enter you. We don't allow each other to touch. If someone touches you, you become alert and the other says `Excuse me'. There is resistance everywhere. If I look at you, you resist, because the look can enter in you, it can penetrate deep, it can stir you, and then what will you do?

And this is not only with strangers. There is no need even with strangers, because no one is a stranger or everyone is a stranger. Just by living under one roof, how can the strangeness be destroyed? Do you know your father who has given you birth? He is a stranger. Do you know your mother? She remains a stranger. So either everyone is a stranger, nor no one is a stranger. But we are afraid and create barriers everywhere. These barriers make us insensitive; then nothing can enter into us.

People come to me and they say, `No one loves. No one loves me.' And I touch that man and I feel he is afraid even of touch. There is a subtle withdrawal. I take his hand in my hand and he has withdrawn. He is not there in the hand; only a dead thing is in my hand -- he has withdrawn. And he says, `No one loves me.' How can anyone love you? And even if the whole world loves, you will not feel it, because you are closed. Love cannot enter you; there is no gate, no door. And you are suffering in your own prison.

If the ego is there, you are closed -- for love, for meditation, for God. So first try to be more sensitive, more vulnerable, open, allowing things to happen to you. Only then can the divine happen, because that is the last happening. If you cannot allow ordinary things to happen to you, how can you allow the ultimate? Because when the ultimate happens to you, you will be no more. You will be simply no more.

Kabir has said, `When I was seeking you, you were not there. And now, when you are there, where is that seeker Kabir? He is no more. So what type of meeting is this?' Kabir wonders, `What type of meeting is this? When I was there, the divine was not. Now the divine is there, but I am not. So what type of meeting is this?'

But really this is the only meeting, because two cannot meet. Ordinarily we think two are needed to meet -- how will the meeting be there if there is only one? So the ordinary logic says that for a meeting at least two are needed, the other is needed. But for a real meeting, for a meeting which we call love, for a meeting which we call prayer, for a meeting which we call samadhi, ecstasy, one is needed. When the seeker is there, the sought is not; and when the sought has come, the seeker has disappeared.

Why is this so? -- because the ego is the barrier. When you feel you are, you are so much that nothing can enter in you. You are filled with your own self. When you are not, then everything can pass through you. You have become so vast that even the divine can pass through you. The whole existence is now ready to pass through you, because you are ready.

So the whole art of religion is how not to be, how to dissolve, how to surrender, how to become an open space.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #14

Chapter title: The fire of awareness

29 May 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7305295

ShortTitle: VBT214

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 83 mins

Question 1

A MEDITATOR WHO IS VULNERABLE, PASSIVE, OPEN AND RECEPTIVE, FEELS THAT WITH THESE CHARACTERISTICS HE SUFFERS DUE TO THE INFLUENCE OF THE NON-MEDITATIVE, NEGATIVE AND TENSE VIBRATIONS AROUND HIM. PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW HE CAN PRESERVE HIS VULNERABLE PSYCHE FROM THE HARMFUL VIBRATIONS.

If you are really vulnerable, nothing is negative for you -- because the negative is your interpretation. Nothing is harmful to you -- because the harmful is your interpretation. If you are really open, then nothing can harm you, nothing can be felt as harmful. You feel something is negative and something is harmful because you resist, because you are against it, because there is no acceptance of it. This has to be deeply understood.

The enemy exists there because you are protecting yourself against him. The enemy is there because you are not open. If you are open, then the whole existence is friendly; it cannot be otherwise. Really, you will not even feel it as friendly -- it is simply friendly. There is no feeling even that it is friendly, because that feeling can exist only with the contrary feeling of enmity.

Let me put it in this way: if you are vulnerable, it means you are ready to live in insecurity. Deep down it means you are ready even to die. You will not resist, you will not oppose, you will not stand in the way. If death comes, there will be no resistance. You will simply allow it to happen. You accept existence in its totality. Then how can you feel it as death?

If you deny, then you can feel it as the enemy. If you don't deny, how can you feel it as the enemy? The enemy is created by your denial. The death cannot harm you, because the harm is your interpretation. Now no one can harm you; it has become impossible.

This is the secret of Taoist teaching. Lao Tzu's basic teaching is this: if you accept, the whole existence is with you. It cannot be otherwise. If you deny, you create the enemy. The more you deny, the more you defend, the more you protect, the more enemies are created. The enemies are your creation. They are not there outside; they exist in your interpretation.

Once you can understand this, then this question can never arise. You cannot say, `I am meditative, I am vulnerable, open. So now how am I to defend myself against negative vibrations around me?' Nothing can be negative now. What does the negative mean? The negative means that which you want to deny, that which you don't want to accept, that which you think is harmful. Then you are not open, then you are not in a meditative state.

This question arises only intellectually, this is not a felt question. You have not tasted meditation, you have not known it. You are simply thinking, and that thinking is just a supposition. You suppose, `If I meditate and become open, then I will be in insecurity. The negative vibrations will enter in me and they will be harmful. Then how am I to defend myself? This is a supposed question. Don't bring supposed questions to me. They are futile, irrelevant.

Meditate, become open, and then you will never bring this question to me, because in the very opening, the negative will have disappeared. Then nothing is negative. And if you think that something is negative, you cannot become open. The very fear of the negative will create the closure. You will be closed; you cannot open. The very fear that something can harm you... how can you become vulnerable? That's why I emphasize the fact that unless the fear of death disappears from you, you cannot become vulnerable, you cannot be open. You will remain closed in your own mind, in your own imprisonment.

But you can go on supposing things, and whatsoever you suppose will be wrong, because the mind cannot know anything about meditation, it cannot penetrate that realm. When it ceases completely, meditation happens. So you cannot suppose anything, you cannot think about it. Either you know it, or you don't know it -- you cannot think about it.

Be open -- and in the very opening of yourself, all that is negative in existence disappears. Even death is not negative then. Nothing is negative. Your fear creates the negativity. Deep down you are afraid; because of that fear you create safety measures. Against those safety measures the enemy exists.

Look at this fact -- that you create the enemy. Existence is not inimical to you. How can it be? You belong to it, you are just a part of it, an organic part. How can existence be inimical to you? You are existence. You are not separate; there is no gap between you and the existence.

Whenever you feel that the negative, the death, the enemy, the hate, is there, and if you are open, unguarded, existence will destroy you, you feel that you have to defend yourself. And not only defend -- because the best way to defend is to be aggressive, to offend. You cannot be simply defensive. When you feel that you have to defend yourself, you become offensive, because to offend, to be aggressive, is the best way to defend yourself.

The fear creates the enemy, and then the enemy creates defence, and then defence creates offence. You become violent. You are constantly on guard. You are against everybody. This point has to be understood: that if you are in fear, you are against everybody. Degrees may differ, but then your enemy and your friend are both your enemy. The friend is a little less, that's all. Then your husband or your wife is also your enemy. You have made an arrangement, that's all. You have become adjusted. Or it may be that you both have a common and a greater enemy, and against that common and greater enemy you both have become joined, you both have become one party, but the enmity is there.

If you are closed, the whole existence is inimical to you. Not that it is so. It appears to you that it is inimical. When you are open, the whole existence has become your friend. Now, when you are closed, even the friend is the enemy. It cannot be otherwise. Deep down you are afraid of your friend also.

Somewhere, Henry Thoreau or someone else has written that he prayed to God, `I will take care of my enemies, but you take care of me from my friends. I will fight with my enemies, but protect me from my friends.'

Just on the surface is friendship; deep down is enmity. Your friendship may be just a facade to hide the enemy. If you are closed you can create only the enemy, because when you are open only then is the friend revealed. When you are open totally to someone, the friendship has happened. It cannot happen in any other way.

How can you love when you are closed? You live in your prison, I live in my prison, and whenever we meet, only the prison walls touch each other and we are hiding behind. We move in our capsules: the capsules touch each other, the bodies touch each other, but deep down we remain isolated.

Even while making love, when your bodies have entered into each other, you have not entered. Only bodies are meeting; you remain still in your capsule, in your cell. You are just deceiving yourselves that there is communion. Even in sex, which is the deepest relationship, communion is not. It cannot happen because you are closed. Love has become an impossibility. And this is the reason -- you are afraid.

So don't ask such questions; don't bring false questions. If you have known openness, you cannot feel that something can be harmful to you. Now nothing is harmful. That's why I say even death is a blessing. Your approach has become different. Now wherever you look, you look with an open heart -- that open heartedness changes the quality of everything. And you cannot feel that something is going to be harmful; you cannot ask how to defend -- there is no need. The need arises because you are closed.

But you can go on supposing questions. People come to me and they say, `Okay, if we have realized God, then what?' They start with the question -- if? There are no `ifs'. In existence you cannot raise such questions. They are absurd, stupid, because you don't know what you are saying. `If I have realized God, then what?'

That `then what?' never arises, because with the realization, you are no more, only the God is. And with the realization, there is no future, only the present is. And with the realization, there is no worry, because you have become one with existence. So the question `then what?' never arises. This question arises because of the mind which is in constant worry, constant struggle, constantly thinking for the future.

Question 2

WHEN I BECOME MORE AND MORE AWARE, MY ATTENTION DEVELOPS AND THERE REMAINS A FEELING THAT I EXIST, I AM PRESENT, I AM AWARE. PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW THIS FEELING CAN BE DISSOLVED INTO AN EGOLESS STATE OF JUST AWARENESS.

This is again a supposed question. WHEN I BECOME MORE AND MORE AWARE, MY ATTENTION DEVELOPS AND THERE REMAINS A FEELING THAT I EXIST, I AM PRESENT, I AM AWARE. This never happens, because as awareness grows, I decreases. In full awareness, you are, but there is no sense that I AM. In words, at the most, this can be said -- that you feel a subtle AMNESS, but there is no I.

You feel existence, and you feel it in abundance, a fulfilled moment, but the I is not there. You cannot feel I EXIST; you cannot feel I AM PRESENT; you cannot feel I AM AWARE. That I is part of unawareness, inattention; part of your sleeping state. It cannot exist. It cannot exist when you are really alert and aware and conscious.

This is how supposed questions can arise. You can go on thinking about them, and nothing will be solved. If this happens -- that you feel I AM; I AM AWARE -- then you only have to note one thing, and that is that you are not alert, you are not aware. Then these feelings -- I AM AWARE, I AM CONSCIOUS, I EXIST -- these are thoughts, you are thinking them. They are not realized moments. You can think I AM AWARE; you can go on repeating I AM AWARE -- that will not do. Awareness is not this repetition. And when you are aware, there is no need to repeat I AM AWARE. You are simply aware; the I is no more.

Try awareness. Right now be alert. Where is the I? You are -- rather, you are more intensely -- but where is the I, the ego? In the very intensity of consciousness, the ego is no more. Later on, when you lose awareness and thinking starts, you can feel I AM, but in the moment of awareness there is no I. Right now experience it. Silently you are here, you can feel your presence, but where is the I? The I never arises. It arises only when retrospectively you think. When you lose awareness the I arises immediately.

Even if for a single moment you can experience simple awareness, you are, and the I is not there. When you lose awareness, when the moment has slipped, gone, and you are thinking, the I comes back immediately. It is part of the thought process. The very concept of I is a thought, it belongs to thinking. I AM is a thought.

When you are alert and there is no thought, how can you feel that I AM? The AMNESS is there -- but that too is not a thought, it is not thinking. It is there existentially, it is a fact. But you can turn the fact into thinking immediately, and you can think about this gap that existed where there was no I. And the moment you think, the I has come back. With thinking, the ego enters -- thinking is the ego. With no-thinking, the ego is not.

So whenever you want to ask a question, first make it existential. Before giving me the question, test whether whatsoever you are asking is relevant or not. Such questions look relevant, just verbally, but they are like this: I say that the light has been put on, and then I ask, `The light has been put on and still the darkness remains, so what is to be done with darkness?' The only thing is that the light is still off, it has not been put on, otherwise how can the darkness remain? And if the darkness is there, then the light is not there. And if the light is there, then the darkness is not there. They cannot be both together.

Awareness and the ego cannot be together. If awareness has come on, if it is there, the ego has disappeared. This is simultaneous; there is not even a single second's gap. The light is on and the darkness has disappeared. It is not that it disappears by and by, in steps, gradually. You cannot see it going outside; you cannot say that now the darkness is going out.

The light is there, and the darkness is immediately not there. There is not a single moment's gap, because if there is a gap then you can see darkness moving out. And if there is a single moment's gap, then there is no reason why there can't be a gap of one hour. There is no gap. The act is simultaneous. Really, the coming of the light and the going out of the darkness are two aspects of one phenomenon.

The same happens with awareness: when you are aware, the ego is not. But the ego can go on playing tricks, and the ego can say, `I am aware.' The ego can say, `I am aware,' and can n you. Then the question will arise. And the ego wants to accumulate everything, even awareness. The ego not only wants wealth, power, and prestige; it wants meditation also, it wants samadhi also, it wants enlightenment also.

The ego wants everything. That which is possible must be possessed. The ego wants to possess everything -- even meditation, samadhi, nirvana. So the ego can say, `Now I have achieved meditation,' and then the question will arise. The meditation has been achieved, the awareness has come, but the ego remains, the misery remains. The whole burden of the past remains. Nothing changes.

The ego is a very subtle braggart. Be aware of it. It can deceive you. And it can use words, it can verbalize things. It can verbalize anything, even nirvana.

I have heard that once it happened that two butterflies were winging their way through the canyons of New York. Just passing near the Empire State Building, the male butterfly said to the female, `You know, if I wanted to, just with one blow I could cause this Empire State Building to collapse.'

One wise man happened to be there who heard this remark, so he called that male butterfly and asked, `What were you saying? You know very well that you cannot cause that Empire State Building to collapse with a single blow. You know it well, there is no need to tell you, so why did you say such a thing?'

The male butterfly said, `Excuse me, sir. I am very sorry. I was just trying to influence my girl friend.'

The wise man said, `Don't do it,' and dismissed the butterfly.

The male butterfly went back to his girl friend. Of course, the girl friend asked, `What was the wise guy saying to you?'

So the male braggart said, `He begged me and said, "Don't do it!" He was so afraid, trembling, nervous. He had heard that I was going to cause this Empire State Building to collapse, so he said, "Don't do it~"'

The same is happening continuously. Those words were uttered by the wise man with a very different meaning. He meant, `Don't say such things,' but the ego exploited him. Your ego can exploit anything, it is deeply cunning. And it is so experienced in cunning -- experiences of millennia -- that you cannot even detect where the cunning enters.

People come to me and they say, `The meditation has happened. Now what to do about my worries?' This is how the ego goes on playing tricks -- and they are not even aware of what they are saying. `The meditation has happened, the kundalini has arisen -- so what to do? The worries still continue.'

Your mind wants to believe things, so without doing anything you go on believing, deceiving -- wish-fulfillments. But the reality doesn't change by your wish-fulfillments: the worries continue. You can deceive yourself, you cannot deceive the worries. They will not just disappear because you say, `The meditation has happened and the kundalini has arisen, and now I have entered the fifth body.' Those worries will not even hear what you are saying. But if meditation really happens, where are the worries? How can they exist in a meditative mind?

So remember this: that when you are aware, you are, but you are not the ego. Then you are unlimited, then you are infinite expanse, but with no center. There is no focused feeling of I; just unfocused existence, beginning nowhere, ending nowhere -- just infinite sky. And when this I disappears, automatically the YOU disappears, because the YOU can exist only in reference to the I. I am here; that's why you are there. If this I disappears from me, you are no more there. You cannot be. How can you exist?

I don't mean that you will not be there bodily, that you will not be there physically. You will be there as you are, but for me, you cannot be you. The you is meaningful in reference to my I; my I creates YOU. One part disappears; the other disappears for me. Then simple existence is there; all the barriers have dissolved. With the ego disappearing, the whole existence becomes one. The ego is the divider -- and the ego exists because you are inattentive. The fire of awareness will destroy it.

Try it more and more. Suddenly become alert. Walking on the street, immediately stop, take a deep breath, become alert for a moment. And when I say alert, I mean simply alert of whatsoever is happening -- the traffic noise, people passing and talking, everything that is all around. Simply become alert. You are not there in that moment: existence is and the beauty of it.

Then the traffic noise doesn't appear to be noise, it doesn't look like a disturbance, because there is no one to resist it and fight it. It simply comes to you and passes; it is heard and heard no more. It comes and passes. There is no barrier against which it can strike. It cannot make a wound in you, because all wounds are made in the ego. It will pass. There will be no barrier to it on which it can strike; there will be no fight, no disturbance.

Remember this: the noise on the street is not the disturbance. When the noise of the street struggles against you, when you have a fixed notion that it is a disturbance, it becomes disturbance. When you accept it, it comes and passes. And you are simply bathed by it; you come out of it more fresh. And nothing tires you then. The only tiring thing, that which goes on dissipating your energy, is this resistance which we call the ego.

But we never look at it in this way. The ego has become our life, the very gist of it. Really, there is no ego. If I say to someone.... Many times it happens. If I say to someone to dissolve this ego, immediately he stares at me as if with the question, the nude question, that `If ego is dissolved, then where is life? Then I am no more'.

I have heard that one very great politician, a big leader of a country, was asked, `You must be getting tired. The whole day, wherever you move, there is a crowd of autograph seekers.'

That politician, that leader said, `It almost kills me -- but this is only half of the truth.' He must have been a very rare, honest man. He said, `It almost kills me -- but almost. If there was no one seeking my autograph, it would kill me completely. This continuous crowd almost kills me, but the other thing would be more dangerous. It would kill me completely if there was no one to ask for my autograph.'

So howsoever tiring the ego, howsoever wearing, you still feel it is life, and if the ego is not there, you feel life will disappear from your mind. You cannot conceive how life can exist without you, without there always being a reference point of I. It is logical in a way, because we have never lived without it. We have lived through it, we have lived around it; we know only one type of life, which is based on ego. We don't know any other life.

And because we have lived through it, we have not been really able to live. We are simply struggling to live, and the life never happens to us, it just by-passes us. It is always just in the reach, in the hope -- just tomorrow, the next moment, and we will be living. But it never comes, it is never achieved. It always remains a hope and a dream -- but we go on moving. And because it is not coming, we move fast. That too is logical: if life is not happening to us, the mind can think only one thing -- that we are not moving fast enough. So make hurry, be in a speed.

Once it happened that one of the great scientists, T.H. Huxley, was going to deliver a talk somewhere in London. He came to the station, to the suburban station, but the train was late, so he jumped into a cab and told the driver, `Hurry! Go at top speed!'

They were racing fast, when suddenly he realized that he had not given the address. But then he also remembered that he had himself forgotten the address. So he asked the driver, `Cabby, do you know where I am supposed to be going?'

He said, `No, sir. But I am going as fast as possible.'

This is happening. You are going as fast as possible. Where are you moving? Why are you moving? What is the destination? -- the hope that someday life will happen to you. And why is it not happening right now? You are alive -- why is it not happening right now? Why is the nirvana always in the future, always in the tomorrow? Why is it not today? And the tomorrow never comes -- or whenever it comes it will always be the today and you will miss again. But we have lived only in this way. We know only one dimension of living -- this so-called living we are already living -- just dead, not alive at all, just pulling together anyhow, just waiting.

With the ego it will always remain a waiting -- and a hopeless waiting. You can do it fast, you can make haste, but you will never reach anywhere: just by hurrying you will dissipate energy and you will die. And you have done that so many times. You have always been in a hurry, and in that hurry dissipating energy, and then only death comes and nothing else. You are hurrying for life, and only death comes and nothing else. But the mind, because it is accustomed to only one dimension, because it has known only one way -- which is not even a way, but just appears to be a way -- will say that if there is no ego, where is life?

But I say to you, if there is ego, there is no possibility of life, only promises. The ego is a perfect promise-maker. It goes on promising you. And you are so unaware -- no promise is ever fulfilled, but again you believe. When the new promises are given, you again believe.

Look back! The ego promised many things, and nothing has been achieved through it. All the promises have fallen down. But you never look back, you never compare. When you were a child there were promises for youth: life will be there when you are young. Everyone was saying it, and you also were hoping that when you become young, all that was to happen would happen. Now those days have passed, the promise remains unfulfilled, but you have forgotten. You have forgotten the promise, you have forgotten that is has not been fulfilled. It is so painful to look at it that you never look at it.

Now you hope for the old age -- that in old age the sannyas will flower, the meditation will happen to you. Then the worries will be over: your children will have gone to the college, and everything will have become established. Then there will be no responsibility on you. Then you will be able to seek the divine. Then, in the old age, the miracle is going to happen. And you will die unfulfilled.

It is not going to happen, because it never happens in the hope, it never happens with the hope. It never happens with the promise of the ego. It can happen right now. It can only happen right now. But then a very intense awareness is needed, so that you can throw all the promises, and all the hopes, and all the future programs, and all the dreams, and look directly here and now at what you are.

In that returning to yourself -- your consciousness not moving somewhere ahead but returning to yourself -- you become a circle of consciousness. This moment becomes eternal. You are alert and aware. In that alertness, in that awareness, there is no I; simple existence, simple being. And simplicity comes out of that awareness.

Simplicity is not a loin-cloth, simplicity is not living in poverty, simplicity is not becoming a beggar. Those are very complex and very cunning things, very calculated. Simplicity is born when you have achieved a simple existence where no I exists. Out of that, simplicity arises; you become humble. Not that you practise it, because a practised simplicity can never be simplicity. A practised humbleness is just a hidden ego.

It happens: if you can be aware, it starts flowing through you. You become humble; not against the ego, because a humbleness against the ego is again a different sort of ego -- a more subtle ego and more dangerous, more poisonous. It is humbleness as the absence of ego; not as the opposite of the ego, just the absence. The ego has disappeared. You have come to yourself and known that there is no ego: simplicity arises, humbleness arises -- they simply flow. You have not done anything for them; they are by-products -- by-products of intense awareness.

So this type of question is foolish. If you feel that you are aware and still the I remains, know well that you are not aware. Make effort to be aware. And this is the criterion: when you are aware, the I is not; when you are aware, the I is not; when you are aware, the I is not found there. This is the only criterion.

Question 3

ONE DAY YOU EXPLAINED ABOUT THE IMBALANCE OF OBJECT-CENTERED WESTERN CULTURE AND SUBJECT-CENTERED EASTERN CULTURE, AND YOU ALSO MENTIONED THAT NOWHERE IN ANY CULTURE IS THE TOTAL HUMAN BEING ACCEPTED. DO YOU VISUALIZE SUCH A COMING CULTURE WHICH WILL BE ABLE TO ACCEPT AND DEVELOP THE HUMAN BEING IN HIS TOTALITY -- OBJECTIVE AS WELL AS SUBJECTIVE?

This one-sided development has occurred as a natural fallacy, as a very natural fallacy. Try to understand the natural fallacy, because many things depend on it.

Whenever something is said, the opposite of it is denied. Whenever something is said, something is simultaneously denied. If I say `God is within;, `God is without' is denied. I have not mentioned it at all. But if I say `God is without', then `God is within' is denied. If I say, `To be silent you have to move inwards,' it is implied that if you move outwards, you will never be silent. So whatsoever is said in language always negates something.

This means that language can never cover the whole of life. Or, if you try to cover the whole of life, language becomes illogical, irrational. If I say, `God is within and God is without,' it becomes meaningless. If I say, `Everything is God,' it becomes meaningless. If I say, `Whether you go out or whether you go in, silence can be achieved,' no meaning is carried then because I am saying both -- both the opposites simultaneously. I am putting them together; they negate each other -- and then nothing is said.

It has been tried. It has been tried many times that the whole of life be covered by linguistic expression. It has never been successful, and it cannot be. You can do it, but then your assertions become mystic; they don't carry any meaning. Logic has some requirements to be fulfilled -- and language is logic.

If you ask me, `Are you here?' and I say, `Yes, in a sense I am here, and in a sense I am not here,' or I say, `Both yes and no,' then if you love me you will call me a mystic; if you don't love me, you will call me a madman -- because how can both be? Either I am here -- then I must say yes; or I am not here -- then I must say no. But if I say yes and no both together, I am taking a jump out of the logical structure of the language.

Language is always a choice. Because of this, all the cultures, all the societies, all the civilizations become one-sided. And no culture can exist without language. Really, language creates the culture. Man is the only language animal; no other animal creates any culture or society or civilization. Only man creates culture and civilization and society. And with language, choice enters; and with choice, imbalance. No animal is imbalanced, remember. Only man is imbalanced. All animals exist in deep balance: trees and rocks and everything. Everything is balanced; only man is imbalanced. What is the problem? -- that man lives through language. Language creates choice.

If I say to someone that he is both beautiful and ugly, the sentence carries no meaning. Ugly and beautiful both? -- what do you mean? If I say, `You are beautiful,' it is meaningful. If I say, `You are ugly,' it is meaningful. But if I say, `You are both. You are wise and foolish both,' it cannot carry any meaning. But reality is so. Really, no one is simply ugly and no one is simply beautiful. Wherever beauty exists, ugliness exists; wherever ugliness exists, beauty exists. They are part of one whole. And wherever wisdom exists, foolishness exists. You cannot find a wise man who is not also a fool, and you cannot find a fool who is not also a wise man.

It may be difficult for you to conceive, because whenever you say, `This man is a fool,' you stop searching, you are closed, you have closed the door. You say, `This man is a fool.' Now you are not going to search for his wisdom. And even if his wisdom is revealed to you, you will not listen to it. You will say, `This man is a fool. How can he be a wise man? It is impossible; something wrong has happened. He must have done it in a foolish way. This is something accidental. He cannot be wise.' If you decide that this man is wise and then something foolish comes out of him, you cannot believe it, or you will have come explanations and you will rationalize it -- that this must be wise.

Life is both together, but language divides. Language is a choice. Because of this, every culture creates its own choice-pattern. In the east they developed technology, they developed scientific research; they developed all that is now developed in the west. Five thousand years ago they developed everything, and then they felt the meaninglessness of it -- as it is now felt in the west. They felt that it was useless.

When they felt that it was useless, they turned to the opposite extreme. They said, `Now turn within. Whatsoever is without is illusory, it leads nowhere. Turn within.' Then science stopped growing, then technology stopped. Not only stopped: when they turned within, they started condemning all that was without. `Just live the life which is in! Leave all that is without!' They became against the world, life-negative, denying all that is material... only the spiritual, the pure spiritual.

Life is both. Really, to say life is both is not right. Life is one. That which we call material is just one expression of the spiritual, and that which we call spiritual is nothing but one expression of the material. Life is one. The within and without are not two opposite things, just two poles of one existence.

But whenever a society reaches to the extreme of one choice -- because one choice is bound to be extremist -- immediately you will miss the other, and that which you miss, you feel more. That which you have, you can forget, but that which you miss, you feel more. So the east, at the peak of scientific and technological development, felt the absurdity of it: it is useless, you cannot attain silence through it, you cannot attain bliss through it, so throw it away, renounce it, move inward, move to the inner world. And then this inner movement automatically became a denial of the outer.

In the west that is happening now. Now the west has attained to a technological height; now the meaninglessness is felt. Now India has gone to the depths of poverty. It was bound to happen, because the eastern mind started moving inwards. When you move inwards at the cost of all that is without, you are going to be poor, and you are going to be in bondage, and you are going to be in disease and suffering. That is bound to be so.

Now India is not interested in meditation, India is not interested in the inner world, India is not interested in the nirvana. India is interested in the modern technology. The Indian student is interested in engineering, in medical science. The Indian genius is going to the west to learn the know-how, the atomic energy. And the western genius is interested in coming to the east to know what meditation is, to know how to move in the inner space.

And they have achieved. For the first time in the history of man they have known how to move in the outer space. They have reached the moon. Now that they have reached the moon the thing has become absurd. Now they are asking, `What will come out of it? Even if we have gone to the moon, what has happened? -- man remains in the same misery.' The moon is not going to help, because you can transfer man to the moon, but he remains the same man. So movement in the outer space seems to be of no use, a wastage of energy. How to move in the inner space?

Now they turn to the east, and the east is turning to the west -- again the choice. If the west turns to the east completely, within two or three centuries the west will become poor. Look at the hippies -- they are already doing that. And if the new western generation turns absolutely hippie, then who is going to work for the technology, and who is going to work for the industry, and who is going to work for the civilization that the west has achieved? It takes centuries and centuries to achieve something; you can lose it within a generation.

If the generation denies and says, `We are not going to the universities,' what can you do? The old generation -- how long can it prolong it? Twenty years and everything can disappear, just through the denial of the new generation -- `I am not going to the university~' And they are leaving, they are becoming dropouts. They say, `What is the use of big cars, of big houses, of a big technology, when there is no love? When there is no peace of mind, what is the use of all this wealth? What is the use of this high standard of living when there is no life? So leave this!'

Within two centuries the west can go to the very depths of poverty. It has happened in the east. In the days of the Mahabharat, almost the same technology was developed in the east. Then it was found to be of no use. And if the Indian mind turns to technology, within two generations religion will disappear -- it has already disappeared -- and just the word `meditation' will look out of date. If you talk about the inner, people will think you are not in your senses: `What do you mean by the inner? There is no inner.'

This happens because of the language -- because language is a choice, and the mind moves to the extreme. And when it moves to one extreme, the other is lost. And with the other, many qualities disappear, and when they disappear you feel the hunger for them. Then you again move to the other extreme. Then something else is lost.

So no total culture has been born yet, and it cannot be born unless man learns to remain silent, unless silence becomes the very core of human mind. Not language but silence -- because in silence you are whole, in language you are always part. Unless humanity starts living through silence -- not through language, not through mind, but through the totality of the being -- no total culture is possible. Only total human beings can constitute a total culture.

The human being is partial and fragmented. Every human being is just a fragment of that which he can be, that which he should be. He is just a fragment of his potentiality. These fragmentary human beings create fragmentary societies. Fragmentary societies have always been there. But now it seems possible that we may become aware of this whole nonsense of turning to extremes. And if this awareness becomes intense, and we don't move to the opposite, but rather we start to look at the whole....

For example, myself. I am not against the material, I am not against the spiritual. I am not for the spiritual, and I am not for the material. I am for both. There is no choice for me between the material and the spiritual, the inner and the outer. I am for both, because if you accept both, only then you become total and whole. But this is difficult to understand, to grasp, because of the heritage.

Whenever you see a spiritual man, you start looking to see whether he is poor or not. He must be poor, he must be living in a hut, he must be starving. Why? Why should he be poor and why should he be starving? -- because the inner has to be chosen against the outer; that has become a part of the heritage. If you see a man living in luxury, you cannot believe that he is spiritual. How can he be spiritual?

What is wrong in luxury? And how is spirituality against luxury? Really, spiritually is the ultimate luxury. Really, only a spiritual man can be in luxury. He knows how to relax, and he knows how to enjoy, and he knows how to carry bliss wherever he moves. But the heritage has gone into the very cells of your brain. If you see a spiritual man walking in poverty, you feel that he must be authentic. How is poverty related to spirituality? And why? We have been choosing extremes. This is difficult to understand because of a long tradition -- and you are not even aware.

Someone was just here, and he told me that in Wardha where Vinoba lives, it is very hot now the whole day -- and he will not use a fan, he will not use a cooler, he will not use an air-conditioner. Impossible! How can a spiritual man use an air-conditioner? He cannot even use a fan. The man who had come from there was very much impressed. He said, `See, what a great spiritual man! He is not even using a fan.'

Then I asked, `What is he doing?'

He said, `The whole day, from ten to five, for seven hours, he goes on putting cold cloths on his head and on his stomach.'

Seven of Vinoba's hours wasted every day! -- and what is the cost of a fan or a cooler or an air-conditioner? And Vinoba's seven wasted hours every day...? But if there was a fan, this man would have felt that Vinoba is not spiritual. And somehow Vinoba is also agreeing with this type of attitude -- that Vinoba's seven hours every day are not important.

Life is very short, and a genius like Vinoba is wasting seven hours unnecessarily. But he himself also feels that technology is somehow anti-spiritual. The outside and the inside -- he has chosen the inside. But if you are choosing the inside, even putting on the wet cloth is outside. It is doing the same thing, only in a very primitive way. What are you doing? You are creating a sort of cooling. And you are wasting seven hours for it! This is at a very great cost. But we will say, `No, this is austerity, this is spirituality, and this man is great.' This has gone to the very cells of our brains.

I accept life in its totality. The outer and the inner both are there, and they both belong to me. And they must be balanced. You need not choose one at the cost of the other. And if you choose, you are falling a victim -- victim of an extreme -- and you will suffer for it.

Create a balance. The outer and the inner are not opposed. They are movements of the same energy, two banks of the same river, and the river cannot flow with only one bank. You can forget the other, but the other will be there. And the river can exist only if the other is there. You can forget it completely: then hypocrisy is born, because unnecessarily you have to go on hiding the other. There is no need. The river cannot flow.

Life flows between the inner and the outer, and both are essential. Life cannot exist with one. And the two are not really two. The two banks of the river only appear two; if you go deep in the river they are joined -- the same ground is appearing as two banks. The outer and the inner are the same ground, the same phenomenon.

If this insight goes deep, and human beings... and I am interested in human beings, not in cultures, not in societies, not in civilizations. If human beings become total and balanced, it is possible that some day humanity can become a balanced society. And only then will man be at ease. And only then will it be possible to grow without any unnecessary difficulty.

Now, rarely it happens that someone grows -- rarely. Almost all the seeds are wasted. In millions, one seed grows and comes to flower. This seems sheer wastage. But if society is balanced -- nothing is denied, nothing is chosen, but the whole is accepted in a deep harmony -- then many will grow. Really, quite the reverse will be the case: it will happen rarely that someone will not grow.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #15

Chapter title: Only the unreal dissolves

30 May 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7305305

ShortTitle: VBT215

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 84 mins

FEEL: MY THOUGHT, I-NESS, INTERNAL ORGANS -- ME.

BEFORE DESIRE AND BEFORE KNOWING,

HOW CAN I SAY I AM?

CONSIDER. DISSOLVE IN THE BEAUTY.

Once a visitor asked many people in a small town about the mayor: `What type of man is your mayor?'

Said the priest, `He is no good.'

Said the filling-station attendant, `He is a bum.'

And said the barber, `I never in my life voted for that rascal.'

Then the visitor met the mayor, a much maligned man, and the visitor asked, `What pay are you getting for your job?'

Said the mayor, `My goodness, I am not getting any pay for it. I have accepted this job just for the honor of it!'

This is the situation of the ego -- only YOU think about your ego, no one else. Only you think that your ego is enthroned; for everyone else it is not so. No one agrees with your ego except you; everyone else is against it. But you go on living in a dream, in a delusion. You create your own image. You feel that image, you protect that image, and you think the whole world exists for it. This is a delirium, a madness. This is not reality.

The world is not existing for you. No one is concerned with your ego; no one at all. Whether you are or you are not, it makes no difference. You are just a wave. The wave comes and goes; the ocean is not worried about it. But you think yourself very important.

Those who want to dissolve the ego have first to recognize this fact. And unless you can put aside your egoistic structure, you will not be able to see the reality, because whatsoever you see, whatsoever you perceive, your ego distorts it. It tries to manipulate everything for itself. And nothing is for it, because reality cannot help anything which is false. Remember that.

Reality cannot support anything which is not, and your ego is the most impossible thing, the greatest falsity. It is not there; it is your creation, your imaginative creation. The reality cannot help it. The reality is always shattering it, always destroying it. Whenever your ego comes in contact with reality, the reality proves shocking. Just to defend yourself against these shocks which are always coming, continuously coming to destroy your ego, by and by you avoid seeing reality.

Rather than lose your ego, you try to avoid seeing the reality. And then around your ego you create a false world which you think is the reality. Then you live in your own world. You are not in contact with the real world, you cannot be, because you are afraid. You are living in a glasshouse of the ego. The fear is there: whenever the reality comes in contact, your ego may be destroyed, so it is better not to come in contact with the reality. We go on escaping from reality just to protect, to defend, this impossible ego.

Why do I call it impossible? Why do I say it is false? Try to understand this. The reality is one: the reality exists as a whole, as a totality. You cannot exist alone, or can you? If the trees are not existing you will not be able to exist, because they are producing oxygen for you. If the air disappears you will simply die, because that air is giving you vitality, life. If the sun goes out you will be no more here, because thew warmth, the rays, they are your life.

Life exists as a cosmic totality. You are not alone, and you cannot exist alone. You exist in a world. You exist not as an atomic, separate, isolated existence; you exist in the cosmic whole as a wave. You are interrelated. And the ego gives you the feeling that you are individual, alone, separate, isolated. The ego gives you the feeling that you are in island -- you are not. That's why the ego is false. It is unreal, and the reality cannot support it.

So there are only two ways. If you come in contact with reality, if you become open to it, your ego will dissolve. Or, you have to create your own dream-world, and then live in it. And you have created that world. Everyone is living in his own dream.

People come to me and I look at them, and I see that they are fast asleep, dreaming. Their problems are out of their dreams, and they want to solve them. They cannot be solved because they are not real. How can you solve an unreal problem? If it exists, it can be solved -- but it is nowhere; it cannot be solved. An unreal problem -- how can it be solved? It can be solved only by an unreal answer. But that unreal answer will create other problems which again will be unreal. And then you fall ad nauseum; there is no end to it.

If you want to come to meet reality.... And to meet reality is to meet God. God is not something hidden somewhere in the sky; it is the reality around you. God is not hidden; you are hidden in an unreality. God is the nearest immediate presence, but you are hidden in a capsule of your own unreal world and you go on protecting it -- and the center of it is the ego.

The ego is unreal, because you are not isolated; you are one with reality. You exist as an organic part of it. You cannot be separated from it. If separated, not even for a single moment can you be alive. Every breath, and you are bridged with the cosmos; every moment you are moving in and out, meeting the real and coming back.

You are a pulsation, not a dead entity, and that pulsation exists in a deep harmony with the real. But you have forgotten that pulsation. You have created a dead ego, a concept -- I AM -- and this I AM is always against the whole: defending itself, struggling, in conflict, in war. Hence the emphasis of all religions to dissolve the ego.

The first thing: it is unreal; that's why it can be dissolved. Nothing real can be dissolved. How can you dissolve it? If something is real, it cannot be destroyed; it will remain. And it will remain whatsoever you do. Only unreal things can be dissolved. They can disappear, they can simply evaporate into nowhere, into nothingness. Your ego can dissolve because it is unreal. It is just a thought, a notion; it has no substance to it.

Secondly: you cannot even carry this ego continuously for twenty-four hours. It is so unreal that you have to constantly fuel it, feed it. While you are asleep, the ego is not there. That's why in the morning you feel so fresh, because you have been in a deep contact with reality. The reality has rejuvenated you, revitalized you.

In deep sleep, your ego is not. Your name, your form, all have dissolved. You don't know who you are -- educated or uneducated, poor or rich, a sinner or a saint -- you don't know. In deep sleep you have fallen back to the cosmic whole; the ego is not there. In the morning you feel vitalized, fresh, young. Energy has come to you from some deep source. You are again alive. But if in the night there are dreams and dreams and dreams, in the morning you feel tired because in the dreams the ego persists. In the dreams the ego persists, it is there, so it is not allowing you to fall into the original source. You will feel tired in the morning.

In deep sleep, the ego is not. When you are in deep love, the ego is not. When you are relaxed, silent, the ego is not. When you are absorbed in something so totally that you have forgotten, the ego is not. Listening to music, you have forgotten that you are -- the ego is not. And really, the peace that comes to you is not coming through music; it is coming because you have forgotten the ego. The music is instrumental.

Looking at a beautiful sunrise or sunset, you forget yourself. Then suddenly you feel that something has happened to you. You are not there; something greater than you is there. This presence of the great... Jesus calls it God -- that word is just symbolic. Mohammed calls it God -- that word is just symbolic. `God' means greater than you -- a moment when you feel that something greater than you is happening to you. And you can feel this only when you are not. While you are there, the greater cannot happen to you, because you are the barrier.

In any moment, if you are absent, the God is present there. Your absence is the presence of the divine. Remember it always: your absence is the presence of the divine; your presence is the absence of the divine. So really the question is not how to reach God, the question is not how to attain God; the question is how to be absent.

You need not worry about the divine, you can forget it completely. There is no need to remember even the word god. It is irrelevant, because the basic thing is not God, the basic thing is your ego. If it is not there, God happens to you. And if you try, if you make effort to reach God, to attain God, or to be liberated, you may miss, because this whole effort may be ego-centered.

That's the problem for the spiritual seeker. It may be just the ego which is thinking to attain God. You cannot be satisfied by your worldly successes. You have achieved; in the outer world you have reached a certain status, position, prestige. You are powerful, you are rich, knowledgeable, respected, but your ego is not satisfied. The ego is never satisfied. And the reason? -- the same. A real hunger can be satisfied. The hunger of the ego is false; it cannot be satisfied. Whatsoever you do will be futile. Because the hunger is false, no food can satisfy it. If the hunger is real, it can be satisfied.

All natural hungers can be satisfied -- it is nothing, not a problem at all -- but unnatural hungers cannot be satisfied. In the first place they are not hungers -- how can you satisfy them? And they are unreal; just emptiness exists there. You go on throwing food, and you are throwing food into an abyss, a bottomless abyss. You will not reach anywhere. The ego cannot be satisfied.

I have heard that when Alexander was coming to India someone said to him, `Have you ever meditated upon the fact that there is only one world, and if you win it then what will you do?'

And it is reported that upon hearing this Alexander became very sad and he said, `I have not thought about it, but it makes me very very sad. Really, there is only one world and I am going to win it. And when I have won it, what am I going to do then?'

Even this whole world will not quench your thirst, because the thirst is false, unreal. The hunger is not natural.

The ego can go in search of God. In almost ninety-nine cases out of a hundred this has been my feeling -- that the ego is in search. And then the search is bound to be doomed from the very beginning, because the ego cannot meet the divine, and the ego is making every effort to reach it. Remember well, your meditation, your prayer, your worship, should not be an ego-trip. If it is, you are unnecessarily wasting your energy. So be perfectly aware.

And this is only a question of awareness. If you are aware, you can find out how your ego moves and works. It is not difficult; no particular training is needed. You can close your eyes and you can see what the search is. You can ask the question whether you are really seeking the divine, or whether it is again just an ego-trip -- because it is respectable, because people think you are religious, because deep down you think, `How can I be satisfied -- I -- unless I possess God?'

Is God going to be your possession? The Upanishads say that one who says that he has achieved God, has not achieved, because the very assertion that `I have achieved God', is an ego-assertion. The Upanishads say that one who claims that he has known, has not known. The very claim shows that he has not known, because the claim that `I have known', comes from the ego. And the ego cannot know. The ego is the only barrier.

Now we will enter the techniques. First:

FEEL:

MY THOUGHT,

I-NESS,

INTERNAL ORGANS

-- ME.

A very simple and a very beautiful technique. Feel: MY THOUGHT, I-NESS, INTERNAL ORGANS -- ME. The first thing is not to think but to feel. These are two different dimensions. And we have become so intellect-oriented that even when we say that we are feeling, really we are not feeling, we are thinking. Feeling has completely stopped; it has become a dead organ in you. Even when you say, `I love,' it is not a feeling, it is again a thought.

And what is the difference between feeling and thought? If you feel, you will feel yourself centered near the heart. If I say, `I love you,' this very feeling of love will flow from my heart, the center will be near the heart. If it is just a thought, it will come from my head. When you love someone, try to feel whether it is coming from the head, or whether it is coming from the heart.

Whenever you deeply feel, you are headless. In that moment there is no head; there cannot be. The heart becomes your whole being -- as if the head has disappeared. In feeling, the center of being is the heart. While you are thinking, the center of being is the head. But thinking proved very useful for survival, so we have stopped everything else. All other dimensions of our being have been stopped and closed. We are just heads, and the body is just a situation for the head to exist. We go on thinking; even about feelings we go on thinking. So try to feel. You will have to work on it, because that capacity, that quality, has remained retarded. You must do something to re-open that possibility.

You look at a flower and immediately you say it is beautiful. Ponder over the fact, linger over the fact. Don't give a hurried judgement. Wait -- and then see whether it is just from the head that you have said it is beautiful, or whether you have felt it. Is it just a routine thing, because you know a rose is beautiful, supposed to be beautiful? People say it is beautiful, and you have also said many times that it is beautiful.

The moment you see the rose, the mind supplies you; the mind says it is beautiful. Finished. Now there is no contact with the rose. There is no need; you have said. Now you can move to something else. Without any communion with the rose... the mind didn't allow you even a glimpse of the rose. The mind came in between, and the heart couldn't come in touch with the rose. Only the heart can say whether it is beautiful or not, because beauty is a feeling, it is not a concept.

You cannot say from the head that it is beautiful. How can you say? Beauty is not mathematics, it is not measurable. And beauty is not really just in the rose, because to someone else it may not be beautiful at all; and someone else may just pass without looking at it; and to someone else it may even be ugly. The beauty doesn't exist simply in the rose; the beauty exists in a meeting of the heart with the rose. When the heart meets with the rose, beauty flowers. When the heart comes in deep contact with anything it is a great phenomenon.

If you come in deep contact with any person, the person becomes beautiful. The deeper the contact, the more beauty is revealed. But beauty is a phenomenon that happens to the heart, not to the mind. It is not a calculation, and there is no criterion by which to judge it. It is a feeling.

So if I say, `This rose is not beautiful,' you cannot argue about it. There is no need to argue. You will say, `That is your feeling. And the rose is beautiful -- this is my feeling.' There is no question of argument. Heads can argue. Hearts cannot argue. It is finished, it is a full stop. If I say, `This is my feeling,' then there is no question of argument.

With the head, argument can continue and we can come to a conclusion. With the heart, the conclusion has already happened. With the heart, there is no procedure towards the conclusion; the conclusion is immediate, instantaneous. With the head, it is a process -- you argue, you discuss, you analyze, and then you come to a conclusion about whether this is so or not. With the heart, it is an immediate phenomenon -- the conclusion comes first. Look at it: with the head, conclusion comes in the end. With the heart, conclusion comes first, and then you can proceed to find the process -- but that is the work of the head.

So when such techniques have to be practised, the first difficulty will be that you don't know what feeling is. Try to develop it. When you touch something, close your eyes; don't think, feel. For example, if I take your hand in my hand and I say to you, `Close your eyes and feel what is happening,' immediately you will say, `Your hand is in my hand.' But this is not a feeling, this is a thinking.

Then I again say to you, `Feel. Don't think.' Then you say, `You are expressing your love.' That too is again thinking. If I insist again, `Just feel, don't use your head. What are you feeling right now?' only then will you be able to feel and say, `The warmth.' Because love is a conclusion. `Your hand is in my hand' -- this is a head-oriented thought.

The actual feeling is that a certain warmth is flowing from my hand to your hand, or from your hand to my hand. Our life energies are meeting and the point of meeting has become hot, it has become warm. This is the feeling, the sensation, the real. But we go on with the head continuously. That has become a habit; we are trained for it. So you will have to re-open your heart.

Try to live with feelings. Sometimes in the day when you are not doing any particular business -- because in business, in the beginning it will be difficult to live with feeling. There, head has proved very efficient, and you cannot depend on feeling. While you are at home playing with your children, the head is not needed, it is not a business -- but there too you are with the head. Playing with your children or just sitting with your wife, or not doing anything, relaxing in a chair, feel. Feel the texture of the chair.

Your hand is touching the chair: how are you feeling it? The air is blowing, the breeze is coming in. It touches you. How do you feel? Smells are coming from the kitchen. How do you feel? Just feel. Don't think about them. Don't start brooding that this smell shows that something is being prepared in the kitchen -- then you will start dreaming about it. No, just feel whatsoever is the fact. Remain with the fact; don't move in thinking. You are surrounded from everywhere. Everywhere so much is converging on you. The whole existence is coming to meet you from everywhere, from all your senses it is entering you, but you are in the head, and your senses have become dead; they don't feel.

A certain growth will be needed before you can do this, because this is an inner experiment. If you cannot feel the outer, it will be very difficult for you to feel the inner, because the inner is the subtle. If you cannot feel the gross, you cannot feel the subtle. If you cannot hear the sounds, then it will be difficult for you to hear the inner soundlessness -- it will be very difficult. It is so subtle.

You are just sitting in the garden, the traffic is passing by and there are many noises and many sounds. You just close your eyes and try to find the most subtle sound there around you. A crow is cawing: just concentrate yourself on that crow's noise. The whole traffic noise is going on. The sound is such, it is so subtle, that you cannot be aware of it unless you focus your awareness towards it. But if you focus your awareness, the whole traffic noise will go far away and the noise of the crow will become the center. And you will hear it, all the nuances of it -- very subtle, but you will be able to hear it.

Grow in sensitivity. When you touch, when you hear, when you eat, when you take a bath, allow your senses to be open. And don't think -- feel.

You are standing under the shower: feel the coolness of the water falling on you. Don't think about it. Don't immediately say, `It is very cool. It is cold. It is good.' Don't say anything. Don't verbalize, because the moment you verbalize, you miss feeling. The moment words come in, the mind has started to function. Don't verbalize. Feel the coolness and don't say that it is cool. There is no need to say anything. But our minds are just mad; we go on saying something or other.

I remember, I was working in a university, and there was a lady professor who would always be saying something or other. It was impossible for her to be silent in any situation. One day I was standing on the verandah of the college and the sun was setting. It was tremendously beautiful. And she was just standing by my side, so I told her, `Look!' She was saying something or other, so I said, `Look! Such a beautiful sunset.' So, very reluctantly she conceded. She said, `Yes, but don't you think there should be a little more purple just on the left?' It was not a painting; it was a real sunset!

We go on saying things, not even aware of what we are saying. Stop verbalizing; only then can you deepen your feelings. If feelings are deepened, then this technique can work miracles for you.

FEEL:

MY THOUGHT,

Close your eyes and feel the thought. A continuous flow of thoughts is there, a continuum, a flux; a river of thoughts is flowing. Feel these thoughts, feel their presence. And the more you feel, the more will be revealed to you -- layers upon layers. Not only thoughts that are just on the surface; behind them there are more thoughts, and behind them there are still more thoughts -- layers upon layers.

And the technique says:FEEL: MY THOUGHT. And we go on saying, `These are my thoughts.' But feel -- are they really yours? Can you say `my'? The more you feel, the less will it be possible for you to say that they are yours. They are all borrowed, they are all from the outside. They have come to you but they are not yours. No thought is yours -- just dust gathered. Even if you cannot recognize the source from where this thought has come to you, no thought is yours. If you try hard, you can find from where this thought has come to you.

Only the inner silence is yours. No one has given it to you. You were born with it, and you will die with it. Thoughts have been given to you; you have been conditioned to them. If you are a Hindu, you have a different type, a different set of thoughts; if you are a Mohammedan, of course, a different set of thoughts; if you are a communist, again a different set of thoughts. They have been given to you, or you may have taken them voluntarily, but no thought is yours.

If you feel the presence of thoughts, the crowd, you can feel this also -- that they are not yours. The crowd has come to you, it has gathered around you, but it doesn't belong to you. And if this can be felt -- that no thought is mine -- only then you can throw the mind. If they are yours, you will defend them. And the very feeling that `this thought is mine' is the attachment. Then I give it roots in myself. Then I become the soil and the thought can remain rooted in me. If anything that I can see is not mine is uprooted, then I am not attached to it. The feeling of `mine' creates attachment.

You can fight for your thoughts, you can even become a martyr for your thoughts. Or, you can become a killer, a murderer for your thoughts. And thoughts are not yours. Consciousness is yours, but thoughts are not yours. And why will this help? -- because if you can see that thoughts are not yours, then nothing is yours because thought is the root of all. The house is mine and the property is mine and the family is mine -- these are the outer things. Deep down the thoughts are mine. Only if thoughts are mine can all these things, the superstructure, be mine.

If thoughts are not mine then nothing matters, because this too is a thought -- that you are my wife, or you are my husband. This too is a thought. And if basically thought itself is not mine, then how can the husband be mine? Or how can the wife be mine? Thoughts uprooted, the whole world is uprooted. Then you can live in the world and not live in it.

You can move to the Himalayas, you can leave the world, but if you think that your thoughts are yours, you have not moved a single inch. Sitting there in the Himalayas, you will be as much in the world as here because thoughts are the world. You carry your thoughts to the Himalayas. You leave the house -- but the real house is inner, and the real house is built by the bricks of thought. It is not the outer house.

So this is strange, but this happens every day: I see a person who has left the world but still he remains a Hindu. He becomes a sannyasin and still he remains a Hindu or remains a Jain. What does it mean? He renounces the world but he doesn't renounce the thoughts. He is still a Jain, he is still a Hindu -- the thought-world is carried still. And that thought-world is the real world.

If you can see that no thought is yours.... And you will see, because you will be the seer and thoughts will become the objects. When you silently look at the thoughts, thoughts will be the objects and you will be the looker. You will be the seer, the witness, and thoughts will be flowing before you.

And if you look deeply and feel deeply, you will see that there are no roots. Thoughts are floating like clouds in the sky; they have no roots in you. They come and go. You are just a victim, and you unnecessarily become identified with them. About every cloud that passes by your house you say, `This is my cloud.' Thoughts are like clouds: in the sky of your consciousness they go on passing and you go on clinging to each one. You say, `This is mine' -- and this is only a vagrant cloud that is passing. And it will pass.

Go back in your childhood. You had certain thoughts, and you used to cling to them and you used to say that they were your thoughts. Then the childhood disappeared, and with that childhood those clouds disappeared. Now you don't even remember. Then you were young: then other clouds which are attracted when you are young came to you and then your started clinging to them.

Now you are old: those thoughts are no more there, you don't even remember them. And they were so significant that you could have died for them, and now you don't even remember. Now you can laugh at the whole nonsense that you once thought that you could die for them, you could become a martyr for them. Now you are not ready to even give a single penny for them. They don't belong to you now. Now those clouds have gone but other clouds have come, and you are clinging to them.

Clouds go on changing but your clinging never changes. That's the problem. And it is not that only when you are no longer a child they will change; every moment they are changing. A minute ago you were filled with certain clouds; now you are filled with other clouds. When you came here, certain clouds were hovering on you; when you leave this room, other clouds will be hovering on you -- and you go on clinging to every cloud. If in the end you find nothing in your hand, it is natural because nothing can come of clouds -- and thoughts are just clouds.

This sutra says: FEEL. Be established in feeling first. Then MY THOUGHT. Look at that thought which you have always been calling MY -- MY THOUGHT. Established in feeling, looking at thought, the MY disappears. And MY is the trick because out of many MY'S, out of many ME'S, the I evolves -- this is MINE, this is MY. So many MINE'S; out of them the I evolves.

This technique starts from the very root. Thought is the root of all. If you can cut the feeling of MY at the very root, it will not appear again, it will not be seen anywhere again. But if you don't cut it down there, you can go on cutting everywhere and it is useless; it will go on appearing again and again.

I can cut it. I can say, `My wife? No, we are strangers, and marriage is just a social formality.' I cut myself away. I say, `No one is my wife' -- but this is very superficial. Then I say, `MY religion,' Then I say, `MY sect.' Then I say, `This is MY religious book. This is the Bible. This is the Koran. This is MY book.' Then the MY continues in some other field and you remain the same.

MY THOUGHT, and then I-NESS. First look at the traffic of thought, the process of thought, the river-like flow of thought, and find out whether any thought belongs to you or whether they are just passing clouds. And when you have come to feel that no thought is yours, to attach MY to any thought is an illusion, then the second thing; then you can move deeper. Then be aware of I-ness. Where is this I?

Raman used to give a technique to his disciples: they were just to enquire, `Who am I?' In Tibet they use a similar technique, but still better than Raman's. They don't ask, `Who am I?' They ask, `Where am I?' -- because the WHO can create a problem. When you enquire, `Who am I?' you take it for granted that you are; the only question is to know who you are. You have presupposed that you are. That is not contested. It is taken for granted that you are. Now the only question is WHO you are. Only the identity is to be known, the face is to be recognized, but it is there -- unrecognized it is there.

The Tibetan method is still deeper. They say to be silent and then search within for where you are. Go on in the inner space, move to every point and ask, `Where am I?' You will not find it anywhere. And the more you seek, the more it will not be there. And asking `Who am I?' or `Where am I?' a moment comes when you come to a point where you are, but no I -- a simple existence has happened to you. But it will happen only when thoughts are not yours. That is a deeper realm -- I-NESS.

We never feel it. We go on saying I. The word I is used continuously -- the most used word is I -- but you have no feeling. What do you mean by I? When you say I, what do you mean? What is connoted through this word? What is expressed? I can make a gesture. Then I can say, `I mean this.' I can show my body -- `I mean this.' But then it can be asked, `Do you mean your hand? Do you mean your leg? Do you mean your stomach?' Then I will have to deny, I will have to say no. Then the whole body will be denied. Then what do you mean when you say I? Do you mean your head? Deep down, whenever you say I, it is a very vague feeling, and the vague feeling is of your thoughts.

Established in feeling, cut from thoughts, face I-ness, and as you face it, you find that it exists not. It was only a useful word, a linguistic symbol -- necessary, but not real. Even a Buddha has to use it, even after his enlightenment. It is just a linguistic device. But when a Buddha says I, he never means I, because there is no one.

When you face this I-NESS it will disappear. Fear can grip you at this moment, you can be scared. And it happens to many who move in such techniques deeply that they become so afraid that they run out of it. So remember this: when you feel and face your I-NESS you will be in the same situation as you will be when you die -- the same. Because I is disappearing, and you feel death is occurring to you. You will have a sinking sensation, you will feel you are sinking down and down. And if you get afraid, you will come out again and you will cling to thoughts because those thoughts will be helpful. Those clouds will be there: you can cling to them, and then the fear will leave you.

Remember, this fear is very good, a very hopeful sign. It shows that now you are going deep -- and death is the deepest point. If you can go into death you will become deathless, because one who goes into death cannot die. Then death is also just around; never in the center, just on the periphery. When I-NESS disappears you are just like death. The old is no more and the new has come into being.

This consciousness which will come out is absolutely new, uncontaminated, young, virgin. The old is no more -- and the old has not even touched it. That I-NESS disappears, and you are in your pristine virginity, in your absolute freshness. The deepest layer of being has been touched.

So think of it in this way: thoughts, then below them I-NESS, and thirdly:

FEEL:

MY THOUGHT,

I-NESS,

INTERNAL ORGANS

-- ME.

When thoughts have disappeared or you are not clinging to them -- if they are passing it is none of your business, you are aloof and detached and unidentified, and the I-NESS has disappeared -- then you can look at the internal organs. These internal organs.... This is one of the deepest things. We know the outer organs. With hands I touch you, with eyes I see you -- these are the outer organs.

The internal organs are those through which I feel my own being. The outer are for others. I know about you through the outer. How do I know about me? Even that I am -- how do I know about it? Who gives me the sensation of my own being? There are internal organs. When thoughts have stopped and when I-NESS is no more, only then, in that purity, in that clarity, can you see the internal organs.

Consciousness, intelligence -- they are internal organs. Through them I am aware of my own being, of my own existence. That's why if you close your eyes, you can forget your body completely, but your own feeling that you are, remains. And it is conceivable that when a person dies.... It is a fact. When a person dies, for us he is dead, but it takes a little time for him to recognize the fact that he is dead because the internal feeling of being, remains the same.

In Tibet they have special exercises for dying and they say one must be ready to die. One of the exercises is this: whenever someone is dying, the master or the priest or someone who knows the bardo exercises will go on saying to him, `Remember, be alert, you are leaving the body.' Because even when you have left the body it will take time to recognize that you are dead because the internal feeling remains the same; there is no change.

The body is only to touch and feel others. Through it you have never touched yourself, through it you have never known yourself. You know yourself through some other organs which are internal. But this is the misery -- that we are not aware of those internal organs and our image in our own eyes is created by others. Whatsoever others say about me is my knowledge about myself. If they say I am beautiful or if they say I am ugly, I believe in it. Whatsoever my senses say to me through others, reflected through others, is my belief of myself.

If you can recognize the internal organs you are freed from society completely. That is what is meant when it is said in old scriptures that a sannyasin is not part of the society, because now he knows himself through his own internal organs. Now his knowledge about himself is not based upon others, it is not a reflected thing. Now he doesn't need any mirror to know himself. He has found the inner mirror, and he knows through the inner mirror. And the inner reality can be known only when you have come to the inner organs.

INTERNAL ORGANS. You can then look through those internal organs. And then -- the ME. It is difficult to express it in words, that's why ME is used. Any word will be wrong -- ME is also wrong -- but the I has disappeared. So remember, this ME doesn't have anything to do with I. When thoughts are uprooted, when I-NESS has disappeared, when internal organs are known, the ME appears. Then for the first time my real being is revealed -- that real being is called ME.

The outer world is no more, thoughts are no more, the feeling of ego is no more, and I have come to recognize my own internal organs of knowing, consciousness, intelligence -- or whatsoever you call it -- awareness, alertness. Then, in the light of this internal organ, ME is revealed.

This ME doesn't belong to you. This ME is your innermost center, unknown to you. This ME is not an ego. This ME is not against any YOU. This ME is cosmic. This Me has no boundaries. In this ME everything is implied. This ME is not the wave. This ME is the ocean.

FEEL: MY THOUGHT, I-NESS, INTERNAL ORGANS. Then there is a gap, and suddenly the ME is revealed. When this ME is revealed, then one comes to know, `Aham Brahmasmi. I am the God.' This knowing is not any claim of the ego; the ego is no more there. You can mutate yourself through this technique, but first get established in feeling.

The second technique:

BEFORE DESIRE AND BEFORE KNOWING,

HOW CAN I SAY I AM?

CONSIDER.

DISSOLVE IN THE BEAUTY.

BEFORE DESIRE AND BEFORE KNOWING, HOW CAN I SAY I AM?

A desire arises: with the desire, the feeling that I AM arises. A thought arises: with the thought, the feeling that I AM arises. Look for it in your own experience. Before desire and before knowing, there is no ego.

Sit silently. Look within. A thought arises: you get identified with the thought. A desire arises: you get identified with the desire. In the identification you become the ego. Then think: there is no desire and there is no knowledge and no thought -- you cannot get identified with anything. The ego cannot arise.

Buddha used this technique and he said to his disciples not do anything else but just one thing: when a thought arises, not it down. Buddha used to say that when a thought arises, note down that a thought is arising. Just inside, note it: now a thought is arising, now a thought has arises, now a thought is disappearing. Just remember that now the thought is arising, now the thought has arisen, now the thought is disappearing, so that you don't get identified with it.

It is very beautiful and very simple. A desire arises. You are walking on the road; a beautiful car passes by. You look at it -- and you have not even looked and the desire to possess it arises. Do it. In the beginning just verbalize; just say slowly, `I have seen a car. It is beautiful. Now a desire has arisen to possess it.' Just verbalize.

In the beginning it is good; if you can say it loudly, it is very good. Say loudly, `I am just noting that a car has passed, the mind has said it is beautiful, and now desire has arisen and I must possess this car.' Verbalize everything, speak loudly to yourself and immediately you will feel that you are different from it. Note it.

When you have become efficient in noting, there is no need to say it loudly. Just inside, note that a desire has arisen. A beautiful woman passes; the desire has come in. Just note it -- as if you are not concerned, you are just noting the fact that is happening -- and then suddenly you will be out of it.

Buddha says, `Note down whatsoever happens. Just go on noting, and when it disappears, again note that now that desire has disappeared, and you will feel a distance from the desire, from the thought.'

This technique says:

BEFORE DESIRE AND BEFORE KNOWING,

HOW CAN I SAY I AM?

And if there is no desire and if there is no thought, how can you say I AM? How can I say I AM? Then everything is silent, not a ripple is there. And without any ripple how can I create this illusion of I? If some ripple is there I can get attached to it and through it I can feel I AM. When there is no ripple in the consciousness, there is no I.

So before desire, remember; when the desire comes in, remember; when the desire goes out, go on remembering. When a thought arises, remember. Look at it. Just note that a thought has arisen. Sooner or later it will go because everything is momentary, and there will be a gap. Between two thoughts there is a gap, between two desires there is a gap, and in the gap there is no I.

Note a thought in the mind and then you will feel that there is an interval. Howsoever small, there is an interval. Then another thought comes; then again there is an interval. In those intervals there is no I -- and those intervals are your real being. Thoughts are moving in the sky. In those intervals you can look between two clouds, and the sky is revealed.

CONSIDER.

DISSOLVE IN THE BEAUTY.

And if you can consider that a desire has arisen and a desire has gone and you have remained in the gap and the desire has not disturbed you.... It came, it went. It was there, and it is now not there, and you have remained unperturbed, you have remained as you were before it. There has been no change in you. It came and it passed like a shadow. It has not touched you; you remain unscarred.

Consider this movement of desire and movement of thought but no movement in you. CONSIDER AND DISSOLVE IN THE BEAUTY. And that interval is beautiful. Dissolve in that interval. Fall in the gap and be the gap. It is the deepest experience of beauty. And not only of beauty, but of good and of truth also. In the gap you are.

The whole emphasis has to go from the filled spaces to the unfilled spaces. You are reading a book. There are words, there are sentences, but between the words there are gaps, between the sentences there are gaps. In those gaps you are. The whiteness of the paper you are, and the black dots are just clouds of thought and desire moving on you. Change the emphasis, change the gestalt. Don't look at the black dots. Look at the white.

In your inner being, look at the gaps. Be indifferent to the filled spaces, the occupied spaces. Be interested in the gaps, the intervals. Through those intervals you can dissolve into the ultimate beauty.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #16

Chapter title: Discovering the emptiness

31 May 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7305315

ShortTitle: VBT216

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 81 mins

Question 1

IN MEDITATION, WHEN THE `I' DROPS TEMPORARILY AND AN EMPTINESS IS CREATED WITHIN, AFTER IT A FRUSTRATION IS FELT WHEN THAT EMPTINESS IS NOT FILLED BY THE ENTRY OF THE UNKNOWN. HOW CAN ONE LEARN TO LIVE WITH THAT EMPTINESS?

Emptiness is the unknown. Don't wait and don't hope that something is going to fill the emptiness. If you are waiting, hoping, desiring, you are not empty. If you are waiting that something, some unknown force, will descend upon you, you are not empty -- this hope is there, this desire is there, this longing is there. So don't desire for something to fill you. Simply be empty. Don't even wait.

Emptiness is the unknown. When you are really empty the unknown has descended upon you. It is not that first you become empty and then the unknown enters. You are empty, and the unknown has entered. There is not a single moment's gap. The emptiness and the unknown are one.

In the beginning it appears to you as emptiness; that is only appearance, because you have always been filled by the ego. Really, you are feeling the absence of the ego; that's why you feel empty. First the ego disappears -- but the feeling that the ego is no more creates the feeling of emptiness. Just the absence... something was there, and now it is not there. The ego has gone, but the absence of the ego is felt. First the ego will disappear, and then the absence of the ego will disappear. Only then will you be really empty. And to be really empty is to be really filled.

That inner space which is created by the absence of the ego is the divine. The divine is not to come from somewhere else; you are already that. Because you are filled with the ego you cannot realize it, you cannot see it, you cannot touch it. A filmy barrier of the ego prevents you.

When the ego has dropped, the barrier has dropped. The curtain is no more there. Nothing is to come; whatsoever is to come is already there. Remember this: that nothing new is going to come to you. Whatsoever is possible is already there, actual. So the question is not of achieving; the question is only of discovering. The treasure is there, just covered -- you uncover it.

When he became a realized man, Buddha was asked so many times, `What have you gained? What have you achieved?'

Buddha is reported to have said, `I have not achieved anything. Rather, on the contrary, I have lost myself. And that which I have achieved was already there, so I cannot say I have achieved it. I was unaware of it. Now I have become aware. But I cannot say I have achieved it. Rather, on the contrary, now I wonder how it was possible that I didn't know it before. And it was always there just by the corner -- just a turning was needed.'

The divinity is not a future. Your divinity is the present. It is here and now. This very moment you are that -- unaware, not looking in the right direction, or not tuned to it, that's all.

A radio is there: the waves are passing right now, but if the radio is not tuned to a particular wave, the wave is unmanifest. You tune the radio and the wave becomes manifest. A tuning is needed. Meditation is a tuning. When you are tuned, that which is unmanifest becomes manifest.

But remember, don't desire, because the desire will not allow you to be empty. And if you are not empty nothing is possible, because the space is not there, so your own unmanifest nature cannot be revealed. It needs space to be revealed. And don't ask how to live with emptiness. That is not the real question. Just be empty. You are not yet empty.

If once you know what emptiness is, you will love it. It is ecstatic. It is the most beautiful experience possible to mind, to man, to consciousness. You will not ask how to live with emptiness. You are asking that as if emptiness is something like a misery. It appears so to the ego. The ego is always afraid of emptiness, so you ask how to live with it as if it is some enemy.

Emptiness is your innermost center. All the activity is on the periphery; the innermost center is just a zero. All the manifest is on the periphery; the deepest core of your being is the unmanifest vacuum. Buddha has given it a name -- shunyata. It means nothingness or emptiness. That's your nature, that's your being, and out of that nothingness everything comes, and everything goes back to it.

That emptiness is the source. Don't ask to fill it, because whenever you ask to fill it you will create more and more ego -- ego is the effort to fill the emptiness. And even this desire that now something must descend upon you -- a god, a divinity, a divine power, some unknown energy -- this is again a thought. Whatsoever you can think about God is not going to be God; it is simply going to be a thought.

When you say the unknown, you have made it the known. What do you know about the unknown? Even to say that it is the unknown, you have known some quality about it -- the quality of its being unknown. The mind cannot conceive the unknown. Even the unknown becomes known, and whatsoever the mind says is going to be just a verbalization, a thought process.

God is not the word `God'. The thought of God is not God. Ans when there is no thought, only then will you come to feel and realize what it is. Nothing else can be said about it. It can only be indicated. And all indications are erroneous because they are all indirect.

This much can be said -- that when you are not.... And you are not, only when there is no desire, because you exist with desire. Desire is the food through which you exist. Desire is the fuel. When there is no desire, no longing, no future, and when you are not, that emptiness is the fullness of existence. In that emptiness the whole existence is revealed to you. You become it.

So don't ask how to live with emptiness. First be empty. There is no need to ask how to live with it. It is so blissful -- the deepest bliss it is. When you ask how to live with emptiness, you are really asking how to live with oneself. But you have not known yourself. Enter more and more into it.

In meditation sometimes you feel a sort of emptiness; that is not really emptiness. I call it just a sort of emptiness. When you are meditating, for certain moments, for a few seconds you will feel as if the thought process has stopped. In the beginning these gaps will come. But because you are feeling as if the thought process has stopped, this is again a thought process, a very subtle thought process. What are you doing? You are saying inside, `The thought process has stopped.' But what is this? This is a secondary thought process which has started. And you say, `This is emptiness.' You say, `Now something is going to happen.' What is this? Again a new thought process has started.

Whenever this happens again, don't become a victim of it. When you feel a certain silence is descending, don't start verbalizing it, because you are destroying it. Wait -- not for something -- simply wait. Don't do anything. Don't say, `This is emptiness.' The moment you have said, you have destroyed it. Just look at it, penetrate into it, encounter it, but wait -- don't verbalize it. What is the hurry? Through verbalization the mind has again entered from a different route, and you are deceived. Be alert about this trick of the mind.

In the beginning it is bound to happen, so whenever this happens again, just wait. Don't fall in the trap. Don't say anything -- remain silent. Then you will enter, and then it will not be temporary, because once you have known the real emptiness you cannot lose it. The real cannot be lost; that is its quality.

Once you have known the inner treasure, once you have come in contact with your deepest core, then you can move in activity, then you can do whatsoever you like, then you can live an ordinary worldly life, but the emptiness will remain with you. You cannot forget it. It will go on inside. The music of it will be heard. Whatsoever you are doing, the doing will be only on the periphery; inside you will remain empty.

And if you can remain empty inside, doing only on the periphery, whatsoever you do becomes divine, whatsoever you do takes on the quality of the divine because now it is not coming from you. Now it is coming directly from the original emptiness, the original nothingness. If then you speak, those words are not yours. That's what Mohammed means when he says, `This Koran is not said by me. It has come to me as if someone else has spoken through me.' It has come out of the inner emptiness. That's what Hindus mean when they say, `The Vedas are not written by man, they are not human documents, but the divine, the God himself has spoken.'

These are symbolic ways of saying something which is very mysterious. And this is the mystery: when you are deeply empty, whatsoever you do or speak is not from you -- because you are no more. It comes from the emptiness. It comes from the deepest source of existence. It comes from the same source from which this whole existence has come. Then you have entered the womb, the very womb of existence. Then your words are not yours, then your acts are not yours. It is as if you are just an instrument -- an instrument of the whole.

If emptiness is felt only momentarily, and then it comes and goes like a flash, it is not real. And if you start thinking about it, even the unreal is lost. Not to think in that moment takes great courage. It is the greatest control I know. When the mind becomes silent and when you are falling empty, it takes the greatest courage not to think, because the whole past of the mind will assert. The whole mechanism will say, `Now think!'

In subtle ways, indirect ways, your past memories will force you to think -- and if you think, you have come back. If you can remain silent in that moment, if you are not tempted by the mechanism of your memory and mind.... This is really the satan -- your own mind which tempts you. Whenever you are falling empty, the mind tempts you and creates something to think about -- and if you start thinking, you are back.

It is said that when one of the great masters, Bodhidharma, went to China, many disciples gathered around him. He was the first Zen master. One disciple, who was to become his chief disciple, came to him and said, `Now I have become totally empty.'

Bodhidharma slapped him immediately and said, `Now go and throw this emptiness also! Now you are filled with emptiness -- throw this also. Only then will you be really empty.

You understand? You can be filled by the idea of emptiness. Then it will hover on you, it will become a cloud. He said, `Throw this emptiness also, and then come to me.' If you say you are empty, you are not empty. Now this word `empty' has become meaningful and you are filled with it. The same I say to you -- throw this emptiness also.

Question 2

YOU HAVE TALKED ABOUT TRANSFORMATION AND MUTATION OF MAN'S MIND, OF MAN'S UNCONSCIOUS INTO SUPERCONSCIOUS, AND YOU HAVE SAID THAT SPIRITUALITY IS AN EXISTENTIAL EXPERIMENTATION. BUT LAST NIGHT YOU SAID THAT THE EGO IS A FALSE ENTITY AND IT HAS NO SUBSTANCE AND REALITY TO IT. THEN DOES IT MEAN THAT THE WHOLE SPIRITUAL EXPERIMENTATION IS AN EXISTENTIAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE EGO WHICH IS NON-EXISTENTIAL?

No. The spiritual transformation is not the transformation of the ego; it is the dissolution of it. You are not going to transform the ego, because howsoever transformed, the ego will remain the ego. It may become superior, more refined, more cultured, but the ego will remain the ego. And more cultured; it becomes more poisonous. The more subtle, the more you will be in its grip, because you will not be able to be aware of it. You are not even aware of such a gross ego. When it becomes subtle you will not be aware of it; there will be no possibility.

There are ways to refine the ego, but those ways are not of spirituality. Morality exists on those methods. And that is the difference between morality and religion. Morality exists on methods of refining the ego; morality exists on respectability. So we say to a person, `Don't do this. If you do this, your respect is at stake. Don't do this. What will others think about you? Don't do this. You will not be honored. Do this and everyone will honor you.'

The whole morality depends on your ego, a subtle ego. Religion is not a transformation of the ego, it is a transcendence. You simply leave the ego. And it is not that you leave it because it is wrong. Remember this distinction. Morality always says, `Leave that which is wrong, and do that which is right,' Religion says, `Leave that which is false -- not wrong, but false. Leave that which is unreal, and enter the real.' With spirituality, truth is the value, not right. Because right may itself be false, and in a false world we need false rights to oppose wrongs.

Spirituality is not a transformation of the ego, it is a transcendence. You go beyond the ego. And this going beyond is really an awakening; it is a deep alertness to see whether the ego exists or not. If it exists, if it is a part, a real part of your being, you cannot go beyond it. If it is false, only then is transcendence possible. You can awaken out of a dream. You cannot awaken out of reality, or can you? You can transcend a dream, but you cannot transcend reality.

The ego is a false entity. And what do we mean when we say that the ego is a false entity? We mean that it exists only because you have not encountered it. If you encounter it, it will not exist. It exists in your ignorance; because you are not aware, it is there. If you become aware, it will not be there. If you become aware and some entity disappears just by your becoming aware, it means it was false. The real will be revealed in awareness and the false will disappear.

So really this too is not right to say -- leave your ego -- because whenever it is said to leave your ego, it gives a sense that the ego is something and you can leave it. You can even start struggling to throw this ego. The whole effort will be absurd. You cannot throw it, because only a reality can be thrown. You cannot fight with it. How can you fight with a shadow? And if you fight, remember, you will be defeated. Not because the shadow is very powerful, but because the shadow is not; you cannot defeat it. You will be defeated by your own stupidity.

Fight with a shadow and you cannot win -- that is certain. You will be defeated. That too is certain, because you will dissipate your own energy in the fight. Not that the shadow is very powerful, but because the shadow is not. You are fighting with your own self, wasting your energy. Then you will be exhausted and you will fall down. And you will think that the shadow has won and you are defeated -- and the shadow has not been there at all. If you fight with the ego you will be defeated. Rather, enter and try to find out where it is.

It is said that the Emperor of China asked Bodhidharma, `My mind is very restless. I am in constant inner turmoil. Give me some peace or give me some secret key to how I can enter into the inner silence.'

So Bodhidharma said, `You come early in the morning, four o'clock, when there is no one here. When I am alone here in my hut you come. And remember, bring your restless mind with you. Don't leave it at home.'

The king was very much disturbed, thinking that this man was mad. He says, `Bring your disturbed mind with you. Don't leave it at home, otherwise who am I going to silence? I will make it still, but bring it! Remember well.'

The emperor left, but more disturbed than ever. He had been thinking that this man was a sage, a wise man, and he would give him some key, but whatsoever he said seemed to be foolish -- how can one leave one's mind at home? He couldn't sleep. The eyes of Bodhidharma and the way he had looked at him... he was hypnotized -- as if a magnet was pulling. He couldn't sleep the whole night, and at four he was ready. He didn't really want to go because this man was mad. And going so early, in darkness, when no one was there -- this man could do anything.

But still, he was so attracted that in spite of himself he went. And the first thing that Bodhidharma asked.... He was sitting before his hut with his staff in his hands, and he said, `Okay. So you have come. Where is your restless mind? Have you brought that? I am ready to silence it.' The emperor now said, `What are you talking about? How can one forget the mind? It is always there.'

Bodhidharma said, `Where? Where is it? Show it to me so I can silence it, and you can go back.'

The emperor said, `But it is not something objective. I cannot show it to you, I cannot put it in my hand. It is within me.'

So Bodhidharma said, `Okay, close your eyes and try to find out where it is. And the moment you catch hold of it, open your eyes and tell me and I will still it.'

In that silence and with this madman, the emperor closed his eyes. He tried and tried. And he was afraid also, because Bodhidharma was sitting with his staff -- any moment he would hit. He tried and tried and tried. He looked everywhere, in every nook and corner of his being -- where is that mind which is restless> And the more he looked, the more he realized that the restlessness had disappeared. The more he tried to search... like a shadow it was not there.

Two hours passed, and he was not even aware of what had happened. His face became silent, he became like a Buddha statue, and then with the rising sun Bodhidharma said, `Now open your eyes. It is enough. Two hours are more than enough. Now can you tell me where it is?'

The emperor opened his eyes. He was as silent as a human being can be. He bowed down his head at Bodhidharma's feet and said, `You have already silenced it.'

Emperor Wu has written in his autobiography, `This man is miraculous, magical. Not doing anything he silenced my mind. And I also didn't do anything. I just entered myself and tried to find where it is. Of course he was right: first locate it, where it is. And just the effort to locate it, and it was not found there.'

You will not find the ego. If you go in, if you search for it, you will not find it there. It has never existed. It is just a false substitute. It has some utility, that's why you have invented it. Because you don't know your real being, the real center, and without a center it is difficult to function, you have created a fiction, a fictitious center, and you function through it.

The real center is hidden. You have created a false center -- the ego is a false center, a substitute center. Without a center it is difficult to exist, difficult to function. You need a center to function. And you don't know your real center, so the mind has created a false center. Mind is very skilled in creating substitutes. It always gives you a substitute if you cannot find the real, because otherwise you will go mad. Without a center you will go mad. You will get scattered, you will become fragmented; there will be no unity. So the mind creates a false center.

It is just like in dreaming. You dream you are feeling thirsty. Now if this thirst becomes penetrating, the sleep will be disturbed, because then you will have to get up to drink water. Now your mind will give a substitute: the mind will create a dream. You need not get up, the sleep need not be disturbed -- you dream that you are drinking water. From the fridge you are taking water and drinking. The mind has given you a substitute. Now you feel okay. The real thirst has not been quenched, simply deceived. But now you feel that you have drunk, you have taken water. Now you can sleep; the sleep can continue undisturbed.

In dreams the mind is constantly giving you substitutes just to protect sleep. And the same is happening while you are awake. The mind is giving you substitutes just to protect your sanity; otherwise you will be scattered in fragments.

Unless the real center is known, the ego has to function. Once the real center is known, there is no need to dream about water. When you have got the real water you can drink it. There is no need to dream about it. Meditation brings you to the real center. And with that very happening, the utility for the false disappears.

But this must be kept in consciousness -- that the ego is not your real center. Only then can you start a search for the real. And spirituality is not a transformation of it. It cannot be transformed. It is unreal, it is simply not. You cannot do anything with it. If you are aware, alert, if you watch it within yourself, it disappears. Just the flame of your awareness and it is not there. Spirituality is a transcendence.

Question 3

IF THE EGO IS UNREAL, THEN DOES IT NOT MEAN THAT THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND, THE ACCUMULATION OF MEMORIES IN THE BRAIN CELLS, AND THE PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION THAT IS THE SUBJECT MATTER OF SPIRITUALITY, IS ALSO UNREAL, A DREAM PROCESS?

No. Ego is unreal; brain cells are not unreal. Ego is unreal; memories are not unreal. Ego is unreal; thought process is not unreal. Thought process is a reality. Memories are real, brain cells are real, your body is real. Your body is real, your soul is real. These are two realities. But when your soul gets identified with the body, the ego is formed -- that is unreality.

It is just like this. I am standing before a mirror: I am real, the mirror is real, but the reflection in the mirror is not real. I am real, the mirror is also real, but the reflection in the mirror is a reflection, it is not a reality. Brain cells are real, consciousness is real, but when consciousness gets involved, attached, identified with the brain cells, the ego is formed. That ego is unreal.

So when you have awakened, when you have become enlightened, your memory is not going to disappear. The memory will be there. Really, it will be more crystal-clear. Then it will function more accurately because there will be no disturbance from the false ego. Your thought process will not disappear. Rather, for the first time you will be capable of thinking. Before that you were simply borrowing things. Then you will really be able to think. But then you, not the thought process, will be the master.

Before, the thought process was the master. You couldn't do anything about it. It continued on its own; you were just a victim. You wanted to sleep and the mind continued thinking. You wanted to stop it, but it would not stop. Really, the more you tried to stop it, the more stubborn it became. It was your master. When you become enlightened it will be there, but then it will be instrumental. Whenever you need it, you will be able to use it. Whenever you don't need it, it will not crowd your consciousness. Then it can be called and then it can also be stopped.

Mind cells will be there, the body will be there, memory will be there, thought process will be there. Only one thing will not be there -- the feeling of I will not be there. This is difficult to understand.

Buddha walks, Buddha eats, Buddha sleeps, Buddha remembers. He has memory, his brain cells function beautifully. But Buddha has said, `I walk, but no one walks in me. I talk, but no one talks in me. I eat, but no one eats in me.' The inner consciousness is no more the ego. So when Buddha feels hungry, he cannot feel like you. You feel, `I am hungry.' When Buddha feels hungry, he feels, `The body is hungry. I am just the knower.' And that knower is without any feeling of I.

The ego is the false entity, the only false entity -- everything else is real. Two realities can meet, and in their meeting, a third epi-phenomenon can be created. When two realities meet, something false can happen. But the false can happen only if there is consciousness. If there is no consciousness, the false cannot happen. Oxygen and hydrogen meet: a false water cannot happen. The false can happen only when you are conscious, because only consciousness can err. Matter cannot err, matter cannot be false. Matter is always true. Matter cannot deceive and cannot be deceive -- only consciousness can. With consciousness is the possibility to err.

But remember another thing: matter is always real, never false, but also never true. The matter cannot know what truth is. If you cannot err, you cannot know what truth is. Both the possibilities open simultaneously. Human consciousness can err and can know that it has erred and can move away from it. That is the beauty of it. The danger is there, but danger is bound to be there. With every growth new dangers come in. For matter, there is no danger.

Look at it in this way. Whenever a new thing grows in existence, a new thing evolves, now dangers come with it into existence. For a stone there is no danger. There are small bacteria. In those bacteria sex doesn't exist in the way it exists in man or in animals. They simply divide their bodies. When one bacterium grows bigger and bigger, when it grows to a certain extent, its body automatically divides into two. The parent body divides into two. Now there are two bacteria. Those bacteria can live eternally -- because there is no birth, so there is no death.

And the reverse process also happens. If food is not available, two bacteria will come nearer and nearer and they will become one, their bodies will become one. No birth, no death. With sex entered birth; with birth entered death; with birth entered individuality; with individuality entered ego.

Every growth has its own potential dangers, but they are beautiful. If you can understand, there is no need to fall into them, and you can transcend them. And when you transcend, you mature and you achieve a greater synthesis. If you fall a victim, the greater synthesis is not achieved.

Spirituality is the peak, the last, the ultimate synthesis of all growth. The false is transcended and the real absorbed. And only the real remains; all the false drops away. But don't think that the body is unreal -- it is real. Brain cells are real, the thought process is real. Only the relationship between the consciousness and the thought process is unreal. That is a tie. You can untie it. And the moment you untie it, you have opened the door.

Question 4

HOW CAN ONE KNOW THAT THE SPIRITUAL SEARCH IN WHICH ONE IS INVOLVED IS NOT AN EGO-TRIP, BUT IS AN AUTHENTIC RELIGIOUS SEARCH?

If you don't know, if you are confused, then know well that this is an ego-trip. If you are not confused, if you know well that this is authentic, if there is no confusion at all, then it is authentic. And it is not a question of deceiving someone else. It is a question of deceiving or not deceiving oneself. If you are confused, in doubt, it is an ego-trip, because the moment the authentic search is there, there is no doubt. Faith happens.

Let me put it in some other way. Whenever you phrase such problems, the very confusion exactly shows that you are on the wrong path. Someone comes to me and he says, `Tell me. I don't know whether my meditation is going deep or not.'

So I say, `If it is going deep, there is no need to come and ask me. The depth is such an experience, you will know it. And if you cannot know your depth, who is going to know about it? You have come to ask me only because you are not feeling the depth. Now you want someone else to certify you. If I say, "Yes, your meditation is going very deep," you will feel very good -- this is an ego-trip.'

When you are ill, you know that you are ill. It may sometimes happen that illness may be very very hidden. You may not be aware of it. But the reverse never happens: when you are perfectly healthy, you know it. It is never hidden. When you are healthy, you know it. It may be that for your illness you may not be so aware, but for health -- if health is there -- you are aware of it, because the very phenomenon of health is a phenomenon of well-being. If you cannot feel your health, who is going to feel it? For your ill-health there may be experts to tell you what type of disease you have; there is no expert to tell you about your health. There is no need. But if you ask whether you are healthy or nor, you are unhealthy; that much is certain. This very confusion shows it.

So when you are on a spiritual search, you can know whether it is an ego-trip or an authentic search. And the very confusion shows that this is not an authentic search; this is a sort of ego-trip. What is the ego-trip? You are less concerned with the real phenomenon; you are more concerned with possessing it.

People come to me and they say, 1You know, and you can know about us. Tell us whether our kundalini has arisen or not.' They are not concerned with kundalini, not concerned really; they need a certificate. And sometimes I play and I say, `Yes, your kundalini has arisen,' and immediately they are so happy. The person came very very gloomy and sad, and when I say, `Yes, your kundalini is awakened,' he is happy like a child.

He goes away happy, and when he is just going out of my room, I call him back and I say, `I was just playing. It is not real. Nothing has happened to you.' He is again sad. He is not really concerned with any awakening; he is simply concerned with feeling good: now his kundalini has awakened, now he can feel superior to others.

And this is how many so-called gurus go on exploiting, because you are for your ego. They can give you certificates, they can tell you, `Yes, you are already awakened. You have become a Buddha.' And you are not going to deny. If I say this to ten persons, out of ten, nine are not going to deny it. They will just feel happy. They were in search of such a guru who would say that they are awakened.

False gurus exist because of your need, because no authentic guru is going to say this to you, or give you any certificate -- because any certificate is a demand from the ego. No certificate is needed. If you are experiencing it, you are experiencing it. If the whole world denies it, let them deny. It makes no difference. If the real experience is there, what does it matter who says that you have achieved and who says you have not achieved? It is irrelevant. But it is not irrelevant, because your basic search is the ego. You want to believe that you have achieved all.

And this happens many times: when you become a failure in the world, when you are in misery in the world, when you cannot succeed there and when you feel that your ambition remains unfulfilled and life is passing, you turn to spirituality. The same ambition now asks to be fulfilled here. And it is easy to be fulfilled here -- easy, because in spirituality you can deceive yourself easily. In the real world, in the world of the matter, you cannot deceive so easily.

If you are poor, how can you pretend that you are rich? And if you pretend, no one is deceived. And if you go on insisting that you are rich, then the whole society, the whole crowd around you, will think you have gone mad.

I once knew a man who started thinking that he was Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru. His family, his friends, everyone tried to persuade him, `Don't talk such nonsense, otherwise you will be thought to be mad.'

But he said, `I am not talking nonsense. I am Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru.'

He started signing `Jawaharlal Nehru'. He would send telegrams to circuit houses, to officials, to collectors, to commissioners saying that, `I am coming -- Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru.'

He had to be caught and chained in his house. I went to meet him. He lived in my village. He said, `You are a man of understanding. You can understand. These fools, no one understands me -- I am Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru.'

So I said, `Yes, that's why I have come to meet you. And don't be afraid of these fools, because great men like you have always suffered.'

He said, `Right.' He was so happy. He said, `You are the only man who can understand me. Great men have to suffer.'

In the outer world, if you try to deceive yourself you will be thought mad, but in spirituality it is very easy. You can say that your kundalini has arisen. Just because you have a certain pain in your back, your kundalini has arisen. Because your brain is feeling a little unbalanced, you think centers are opening. Because you have a headache constantly, you think the third eye is opening. You can deceive and no one can say anything, and no one is interested. But there are false teachers who will say, `Yes, this is the method.' And you will feel very happy.

An ego-trip means that you are not interested in really transforming yourself; you are only interested in claiming. And the claim is easy, you can purchase it cheaply. And it is a mutual thing. When a guru, a so-called guru, says that you are an awakened man, of course he has made you awakened, so you have to pay respect to this guru. This is a mutual thing. You pay respect to him. And now you cannot leave that guru, because the moment you leave that guru what will happen to your awakening, your kundalini? You cannot leave. That guru depends on you because you give respect and honor to him, and then you will depend on him because no one else is going to believe that you are awakened. You cannot leave. This is a mutual bluff.

If you are really in search it is not so easy. And you don't need any witness. It is difficult and arduous; it may take even lives. And it is painful, it is a long suffering, because much has to be destroyed, much has to be transcended, long-established chains have to be broken. It is not easy. It is not a child's play. It is arduous, and suffering is bound to be there because whenever you start changing your pattern, all that is old has to be dropped. And all your investments are in the old. You will have to suffer.

When you start looking inwards for your ego and you don't find it, what will happen to your image that you have lived with? You have always thought you were a very good man, moral, this and that -- what will happen to that? When you find that you are nowhere to be found, where is that good man? Your ego implies all that you have thought about yourself. Everything is implied in it. It is not something that you can throw easily. It is you, your whole past. When you drop it you become like a zero, as if you never existed before. For the first time you are born; no experience, no knowledge, no past -- just like an innocent child. Daring is needed, courage is needed.

Authentic search is arduous. Ego-trip is very easy. And it can be fulfilled very easily, because nothing is really fulfilled. You start believing; you start believing that something has happened to you. You are simply wasting time and energy and life. So if you are really with a master, he will constantly pull you back from your trip. He will have to watch that you don't become mad, that you don't start thinking in dreams. He will have to pull you back.

And it is a very very difficult thing, because whenever you are pulled back you take revenge on the master. `I was going so high, and was just on the verge of exploding, and he says, "Nothing is happening. You are just imagining."' You are pulled back to the earth.

With a real master it is difficult to be a disciple. And disciples almost always go against their masters, because they are on their ego-trips and the master is trying to bring them out of that. And these disciples create false masters. They have a need, such a great need, that anyone who fulfills their need will become their master. And it is easy to help your ego grow, because you are for it. It is very difficult to help your ego to disappear.

Remember well, and check every day and every moment that your search is not an ego-trip. Go on checking it. It is subtle, and the ways of the ego are very very very cunning. They are not on the surface. The ego manipulates you from within; deep down from the unconscious. But if you are alert, the ego cannot deceive you. If you are alert, you will come to know its language, you will come to know its feeling, because it is always going after experience. This is the key word.

The ego is always looking for the experience -- sexual or spiritual, it makes no difference. The ego is greedy to experience this and to experience that: to experience kundalini and to experience the seventh body. The ego is always after experiences. The real search is not a greed for any experience, because any experience is going to frustrate you, is bound to frustrate you -- because any experience is going to be repetitive. Then you will get fed up with it; then you will again demand some new experience.

The search for the new will remain with the ego. You will meditate, and if you are only meditating just to get a new thrill, because your life has become boring -- you are fed up with your ordinary routine life, so you want to get some thrill.... You may get it, because man gets whatsoever he tries to find. That is the misery -- whatsoever you desire, you will find. And then you will repent. You will get the thrill. Then what? Then you get fed up with it also. Then you want to take LSD or something else. Then you go on moving from this master to that, from this ashram to that, just in search of a new thrill.

The ego is a greed for new experiences. And every new experience will become old, because whatsoever is new will become old -- then again.... Spirituality is not a search for experience really. Spirituality is a search for one's being. Not for any experience -- not even for bliss, not even for ecstasy -- because experience is an outer thing; howsoever inner, it is outer.

Spirituality is the search for the real being that is inside you: I must know what my reality is. And with that knowing, all greed for experiencing ceases. And with that knowing, there is no urge -- no urge to move for any new experience. With the knowing of the inner true reality, the authentic being, all search ceases.

So don't move for an experience. All experiences are just tricks of the mind, all experiences are just escapes. Meditation is not an experience, it is a realization. Meditation is not an experience; rather, it is a stopping of all experience. Because of this, those who have really tried to express the inner happening -- for example, Buddha -- they say, `Don't ask what happens there.' Of, if you insist, they will say, `Nothing happens there.'

If I say to you that nothing will happen in meditation, what will you do? You will stop meditating. If nothing is going to happen there, what is the use? -- that shows you are on an ego-trip. If I say nothing happens there, and you will say, `Okay, I have known many happenings and I have known many experiences, and every experience proved to be frustrating....' You pass through it and then you know it was nothing. And then an urge to repeat, and then repetition also becomes a boredom. Then you move to something else.... This is how you have been moving for lives and lives; for thousands and thousands of lives you have been moving for experience. You say, `I have known experience. Now I don't want any new experience. I want to know the experience.' The whole emphasis changes.

Experience is something outside you. The experiencer is your being. And this is the distinction between true spirituality and false: if you are for experiences, the spirituality is false; if you are for the experiencer, then it is true. But then you are not concerned about kundalini, not concerned about chakras, not concerned about all these things. They will happen, but you are not concerned, you are not interested, and you will not move on these by-paths. You will go on moving towards the inner center where nothing remains except you in your total aloneness. Only the consciousness remains, without content.

Content is the experience. Whatsoever you experience is the content. I experience misery -- then the misery is the content of my consciousness. Then I experience pleasure -- then pleasure is the content. Then I experience boredom -- then boredom is the content. And then you can experience silence -- then silence is the content. And then you can experience bliss -- then bliss is the content. So you go on changing the content. You can go on changing ad infinitum, but this is not the real thing.

The real is the one to whom these experiences happen -- to whom boredom happens, to whom bliss happens. The spiritual search is not WHAT happens, but to WHOM it happens. Then there is no possibility for the ego to arise.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #17

Chapter title: Searching for freedom

28 June 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7306285

ShortTitle: VBT217

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 93 mins

TOSS ATTACHMENT FOR BODY ASIDE,

REALIZING I AM EVERYWHERE.

ONE WHO IS EVERYWHERE IS JOYOUS.

THINKING NO THING

WILL LIMITED-SELF UNLIMIT.

I have heard a story about an old doctor. One day his assistant phoned him because he was in very great difficulty -- his patient was choking himself to death. A billiard ball was stuck in his throat, and the assistant was at a loss for what to do. So he asked the old doctor, `What am I supposed to do now?' The old doctor said, `Tickle the patient with a feather.'

After a few minutes the assistant phoned again, very happy and jubilant, and said, `Your treatment proved wonderful -- the patient started laughing and he spat the ball out. But tell me from where you learned this remarkable technique.'

The old doctor said, `I just made it up. This has always been my motto: When you don't know what to do, do something.'

But this will not do as far as meditation is concerned. If you don't know what to do, don't do anything, because mind is very intricate, complex, delicate. If you don't know what to do, it is better not to do anything, because whatsoever you do without knowing, is going to create more complexities than it can solve. It may even prove fatal, it may even prove suicidal.

If you don't know anything about the mind.... And really, you don't know anything about it. Mind is just a word. You don't know the complexity of it. Mind is the most complex thing in existence; there is nothing comparable to it. And it is the most delicate -- you can destroy it, you can do something which cannot then be undone. These techniques are based on a very deep knowledge, on a very deep encounter with the human mind. Each technique is based on long experimentation.

So remember this, don't do anything on your own, and don't mix two techniques, because their functioning is different, their ways are different, their bases are different. They lead to the same end, but as means they are totally different. Sometimes they may even be diametrically opposite. So don't mix two techniques. Really, don't mix anything -- use the technique as it is given.

Don't change it, don't improve it, because you cannot improve it, and any change you bring to it will be fatal. And before you start doing a technique, be fully alert that you have understood it. If you feel confused and you don't know really what the technique is, it is better not to do it, because each technique is to bring about a revolution in you.

These techniques are not evolutionary. By evolution I mean that if you don't do anything and just go on living, in millions of years the meditation will happen automatically to you, in millions of lives you will evolve. In the natural course of time, you will come to the point to which a Buddha comes through a revolution. These techniques are revolutionary. Really, they are shortcuts; they are not natural. Nature will lead you to Buddhahood, to enlightenment -- you will come to it one day -- but then it is up to nature; you cannot do anything about it except just go on living in misery. It will take a very long time; really, millions of years and lives.

Religion is revolutionary. It gives you a technique which can shorten the lengthy process, and with which you can take a jump -- a jump which will avoid millions of lives. In a single moment you can travel millions of years. So it is dangerous, and unless you understand it rightly, don't do it. Don't mix anything on your own. Don't change.

First try to understand the technique absolutely rightly. When you have understood it, then try it. And don't use this old doctor's motto that when you don't know what to do, do something. No, don't do anything. Non-doing will be more beneficial to you than any doing. This is so because the mind is so delicate that if you do something wrongly it is very difficult to undo it -- very difficult to undo it. It is very easy to do something wrong, but very difficult to undo it. Remember this.

The first technique:

TOSS ATTACHMENT FOR BODY ASIDE,

REALIZING I AM EVERYWHERE.

ONE WHO IS EVERYWHERE IS JOYOUS.

TOSS ATTACHMENT FOR BODY ASIDE, REALIZING I AM EVERYWHERE. ONE WHO IS EVERYWHERE IS JOYOUS. Many points have to be understood. First: TOSS ATTACHMENT FOR BODY ASIDE. There is a deep attachment to the body -- bound to be, it is natural. You have been living in the body for many, many lives, from the very beginning. Bodies have changed, but you were always with a body, you were always embodied.

There have been certain moments and times when you were not embodied, but then you were not conscious. When you die from one body, you die in unconsciousness and then you remain unconscious. Then you are born again in a new body, but then too you are unconscious. The gap between one death and another birth is unconscious, so you don't know how you will feel when not embodied. You don't know who you are when you are not in a body. You know only one phenomenon, and that is of embodiment; you have always known yourself in the body.

This has been so long, so continuous, that you have forgotten that you are different from it. This is a forgetfulness -- natural, bound to happen in the circumstances -- hence the attachment. You feel you are the body -- this is the attachment. You feel that you are not anything other than the body, not anything more than the body. You may not agree with me at this point, because many times you think that you are not the body, you are the soul, the self. But this is not your knowing; this is simply what you have heard, what you have read, and what you have believed without knowing.

So the first thing to be done is that you have to realize the fact that really this is your knowing -- that you are the body. Don't deceive yourself, because deception will not help. If you think that you already know that you are not the body, then you cannot toss aside the attachment, because really for you there is no attachment, you already know. Then many difficulties arise which cannot be solved. A difficulty has to be solved at the beginning. Once you lose the beginning, you can never solve it; you have to come back again to the beginning. So remember well, and realize well that you don't know yourself as anything other than the body. This is the first basic realization.

This realization is not there. Your mind is befogged by whatsoever you have heard; your mind is conditioned by the knowledge of others -- it is borrowed, it is not real. Not that it is false -- those who have said it, they have known it -- but for you it is false unless it becomes your own experience. So whenever I say something is false, I mean it is not your experience. It may be true for someone else, but it is not true for you. And truth is individual in this sense -- that truth is truth only when experienced; not experienced, it is untrue. There are no universal truths. Every truth has to be individual before it becomes true.

You know, you have heard; this is part of your knowledge, part of an inheritance -- that you are not the body -- but it is not real for you. First toss aside this unreal knowledge. Face the fact that you know yourself only as the body. That will create a great tension in you -- it was just to hide that tension that you gathered this knowledge. You go on believing that you are not the body and you go on living as the body, so you are divided, and your whole being becomes non-authentic, pseudo.

Really this is a paranoid condition. You live as the body and you think and talk as the soul -- then there is a struggle and a conflict and then you are constantly in an inner turmoil, a deep unease which cannot be bridged. So first encounter the fact you don't know anything about the soul, the self -- all that you know is about the body.

This will release a very uneasy condition in you. All that is hidden will come up to the surface. In realizing this fact that you are the body, you will literally start perspiring. In realizing this fact that you are the body, you will feel very uneasy, strange, but that feeling has to be gone through; only then can you know what attachment to the body means.

Teachers go on saying that you should not be attached to your body, but the basic thing -- what the attachment to the body is -- is unknown to you. Attachment to the body is a deep identification with the body, but first you have to realize what this identification is. So put aside all your knowledge that has given you an illusory sense that you are the soul. Realize that you know only one thing, and that is the body. How does this create and how does this release hidden turmoil and a hidden hell within you?

The moment you realize you are the body, for the first time you realize the attachment. For the first time you grip the fact in your consciousness that this body which is born, and this body which is gong to die, is you. For the first time you realize the fact that these bones, this bones -- this is you. For the first time you realize the fact that this sex, this anger -- this is you. So all the false images fall. You become real.

The reality is painful, very painful -- that's why we go on hiding it. It is a deep trick. You go on thinking about yourself as the self, and everything that you don't like, you throw on the body. So you say sex belongs to the body, love belongs to you. Then you say greed and anger, they belong to the body; compassion belongs to you. Compassion belongs to the self, and cruelty belongs to the body. Forgiveness belongs to the self, and anger belongs to the body. So whatsoever you feel is wrong, ugly, you throw to the body, and whatsoever you feel is beautiful, you go on being identified with. You create a division.

This division will not allow you to know what attachment is, and unless you know what attachment is and unless you suffer the misery of it and the hell of it, you cannot put it aside. How can you put it aside? You can put something aside only when it proves a disease, when it proves a heavy burden, when it proves a hell; only then can you put it aside.

Your attachment has not proved a hell yet. Whatsoever Buddha says and Mahavir says is irrelevant. They may go on saying that attachment is hell, but this is not your feeling. That's why you again and again ask how to be detached, how to be not attached, how to go beyond attachment. You go on asking this `how' only because you don't know what attachment is. If you know what attachment is, you will simply jump out of it. You will not ask `how'.

If your house is on fire you will not ask anyone, you will not go seeking a master to ask how to come out of it. If the house is on fire you will simply get out of it. You will not lose a single moment. You will not search for the teacher, you will not consult the scriptures. And you will not try to choose in what ways one has to come out, what means have to be adopted, and which door is the right door. These things are irrelevant when the house is on fire. When you know what attachment is, the house is on fire. You can put it aside.

To enter in this technique, first you have to throw the false knowledge of the self so that attachment with the body is revealed in its totality. It is going to be very difficult; it is going to be a deep anxiety and anguish to face it. It is not going to be easy, it is arduous, but once you face it, you can put it aside. And there is no need to ask how. It is absolutely a fire, a hell. You can jump out of it.

This sutra says:

TOSS ATTACHMENT FOR BODY ASIDE,

REALIZING I AM EVERYWHERE.

And the moment you toss aside the attachment, you will realize you are everywhere. Because of this attachment you feel you are limited by the body. It is not the body which is limiting you; it is your attachment to it. It is not the body which is making a barrier between you and the reality; it is your attachment to it. Once you know what the attachment is not there, there is no body to you. Rather, the whole existence becomes your body; your body becomes a part of the total existence. Then it is not separate.

Really, your body is nothing but existence comes to you, existence reached to you. It is the nearest existence to you, that's all -- and then it goes on spreading. Your body is just the nearest corner of it, and then the whole existence is there -- it goes on spreading. Once your attachment is not there, there is no body to you; or, the whole existence has become your body. You are everywhere.

In the body you are somewhere; without the body you are everywhere. In the body you are confined to a particular space; without the body you have no confinement. That's why those who have known, they say the body is the imprisonment. Not that the body is the imprisonment; really, the attachment to it is the imprisonment. Once your eyes are not focused on the body, you are everywhere.

This looks absurd. To the mind who is in the body, this looks absurd, a madness -- how can one be everywhere? To a Buddha, whatsoever we say -- that `I am here' -- really looks like madness. How can you be somewhere? Consciousness is not a space concept. That's why if you close your eyes and try to find out where in your body you are, you will be at a loss. You cannot find out where you are.

There have been many religions and many sects which have preached that you are in the navel. Some say that you are in the heart, some say that you are in the head, some say that you are in this center and that center, but Shiva says you are nowhere. That's why if you close your eyes and try to find out where you are, you cannot say. You are, but there is no `where' to you. Simply you are.

In deep sleep you are not aware of the body. YOu are. In the morning you will say that the sleep was very deep, very blissful. You were aware of a deep bliss running throughout, but you were not aware of the body. In deep sleep where are you? When you die, where do you go? Continuously people ask, `When someone dies, where does he go?' But the question is absurd, foolish. It is related to our embodied consciousness -- because we think that we are somewhere, so then when we die, where do we go? -- nowhere.

When you die, you are not somewhere, that's all. You are not confined to a space, that's all. But if you have a desire to be confined, you will be confined again. Your desire leads you to new confinements. But when you are not in the body, you are nowhere, or, everywhere -- this depends on which word appeals to you.

If you ask Buddha, he will say you are nowhere. That's why he chooses the word `nirvana'. Nirvana means you are nowhere. Just like a flame which has gone out -- how can you say where the flame is then? He will say it is nowhere. The flame has simply ceased to be. Buddha uses a negative term -- nowhere. That's what nirvana means. When you are not attached to the body you are in nirvana, you are nowhere.

Shiva chooses a positive term -- he says everywhere -- but both the terms mean the same. If you are everywhere, you cannot be somewhere. If you are everywhere, it is saying almost the same thing as saying that you are nowhere.

But in the body we are attached, and we feel that we are confined. This confinement is a mental act; it is your own doing. And you can confine yourself to anything. You have a valuable diamond. Your being can be confined to it, and if the diamond is stolen you may commit suicide or you may go mad. What has happened? There are so many persons without a diamond: no one is committing suicide, no one is feeling any difficulty without a diamond, but what has happened to you?

Once you were also without a diamond; there was no problem. Now you are again without a diamond, but there is a problem. How is this problem created? It is your own doing. Now you are attached, confined. The diamond has become your body. Now you cannot live without it; it is impossible to live without it.

Wherever you get attached, it becomes a new imprisonment. And whatsoever we are doing in life is this: we go on creating more and more imprisonments, bigger and bigger jails to live in. Then we go on decorating those jails so that they look like home, and then we forget completely that they are jails.

This sutra says that if you toss aside the attachment with the body, realization happens that I AM EVERYWHERE. You have an oceanic feeling, your consciousness exists without any location. Your consciousness exists without being tethered anywhere. You become just like a sky, enveloping all; everything is in you. Your consciousness has expanded to the infinite possibility. And then the sutra says:

ONE WHO IS EVERYWHERE IS JOYOUS.

Confined to a place you will be in misery, because you are always bigger than where you are confined. This is the misery -- as if you are forcing yourself into a small bowl; the ocean is being forced into a small pot. The misery is bound to be there. This is the misery, and whenever this misery has been felt, the search for enlightenment arises, the search for the Brahma. Brahma means the infinite one. The search for moksha means the search for freedom. In a limited body you cannot be free; somewhere you will be a slave. Nowhere or everywhere you can be free.

Look at the human mind: whatsoever the direction, it is always for freedom, searching for freedom. It may be political, it may be economic, it may be psychological, it may be religious -- whatsoever the direction, but the human mind is always groping for freedom. Freedom seems to be the deepest need. Wherever human mind finds any barrier, any slavery, any limitation, it fights against t. The whole human history is a fight for freedom.

Dimensions may be different. A Marx, a Lenin, they are fighting for economic freedom. A Gandhi, a Lincoln, they are fighting for political freedom. And there are thousands and thousands of slaveries, and the fight goes on. But one thing is certain -- that somewhere, deep down, man is searching continuously for more and more freedom.

Shiva says, and all the religions say, that you can become politically free, but the struggle will not cease. Only one type of slavery will be no more, but there are other types of slaveries there, and when you are politically free then you will become aware of other slaveries. Economic slavery can cease, but then you will become aware of other slaveries -- sexual, psychological. This struggle cannot cease unless you begin to feel and know that you are everywhere. The moment you feel you are everywhere, freedom is attained.

This freedom is not political, this freedom is not economical, not sociological. This freedom is existential. This freedom is total. That's why we have called it moksha, total freedom. And then only can you be joyous. Joy or bliss is possible only when you are totally free.

Really, to be totally free means joy. The joy is not a consequence, it is the very happening. When you are totally free you are joyous, you are blissful. This bliss is not happening as an effect. Freedom is bliss, slavery is misery. The moment you feel limited you are miserable; wherever you feel limited you feel miserable. When you feel unlimited, misery disappears. So misery exists in barriers, and bliss exists in a no-barrier land, in a no-barrier existence.

Whenever you feel this freedom, joy happens to you. Even now, whenever you feel a certain freedom, even if it is not total, joy comes to you. You fall in love with somebody: a certain joy, a certain bliss happens to you. Why does it happen? Really, whenever you are in love with somebody, you have tossed aside your own attachment to the body. In a deep sense, now the other's body has also become your body. You are not confined to your own body now; somebody else's body has also become your body, it has also become your home, it has also become your abode. You feel a freedom Now you can move into the other and the other can move into you. In a limited way a barrier has fallen You are more than before.

When you love someone you are more than you ever were; your being has increased, expanded. Your consciousness is not limited like it was before; it has reached a new realm. You feel a certain freedom in love. It is not total, and sooner or later you will feel again confined. You feel extended, but still finite. So those who really love, are sooner or later bound to fall into prayer.

Prayer means a greater love. Prayer means a love with the whole existence. You now know the secret. You know a key, a secret key -- that you loved a person, and the moment you loved, the doors opened and the barriers dissolved, and at least for one person more your being was expanded, increased. Now you know the secret key. If you can fall in love with the whole existence, you will not be the body.

In deep love you become bodiless. When you are in love with someone you don't feel yourself as a body. When you are not loved, when you are not in love, you feel yourself more as a body, you become more aware of the body. The body becomes a burden; you have to carry it. When you are loved, the body has lost weight. When you are loved and you are in love, you don't feel gravitation has any effect on you. You can dance, you can fly really. In a deeper way the body is no more -- but this is in a limited way. The same can happen when you are in love with the total existence.

In love, joy comes to you. It is not pleasure. Remember, joy is not pleasure. Pleasure comes to you through the senses; joy come to you through being non-sensuous. Pleasures comes to you through the body; joy comes to you when you are not the body. When for a moment the body has disappeared and you are simply consciousness, then joy comes to you. When you are the body, pleasure can happen to you. It is always through the body. Pain is possible, pleasure is possible through the body. Joy is possible only when you are not the body.

It happens ordinarily also, accidentally also. You are listening to music and suddenly gravitation is lost. You are so absorbed in it, you have forgotten your body. You are filled with music and you have become one with music. There is not a listener to it: the listener and the listened have become one. Only music exists; you are no more. You have expanded. Now you are flowing with musical notes, now there is no limit to you. The notes are dissolving into silence, and you are also dissolving into silence with them. The body is forgotten.

Whenever the body is forgotten, it is tossed aside unknowingly, unconsciously, and joy happens to you. Through Tantra and Yoga you can do it methodologically. Then it is not an accident; then you are the master of it. Then it is not happening to you; then you have the key in your hands and you can open the door whenever you want. Or, you can open the door forever and throw away the key; no need to close the door again.

Joy happens in ordinary life also, but you don't know how it happens. The happening is always when you are not the body -- remember this. So whenever you again feel any moment of joy, become aware of whether you are the body in that moment or not. You will not be. Whenever joy is, the body is not. Not that the body disappears -- the body remains, but you are not attached to it. You are not attached to it, you are not tethered to it. You have jumped out.

You may have jumped out because of music, you may have jumped out because of a beautiful sunrise, you may have jumped out because a child was laughing, you may have jumped out because you were in love. Whatsoever the cause, but you have jumped out for a moment -- out of the body. The body is there, but tossed aside; you are not attached to it. You have taken a flight.

Through this technique, you know that one who is everywhere cannot be miserable; he is joyous, he is joy. So the more you become confined, the more miserable. Expand, push your boundaries away, and whenever you can, leave the body aside. You look in the sky and clouds are floating: move with the clouds, leave the body here on the earth. And the moon is there: move with the moon. Whenever you can forget the body, don't miss the opportunity -- go on a journey. And then you will become accustomed to what it means to be out of the body.

And this is only a question of attention. Attachment is a question of attention. If you pay attention to the body, you are attached. If the attention has moved away, you are not attached.

Look, for example: you are playing on the sports-grounds; you are playing hockey or volley-ball or something else. When you are deep in play, your attention is not on the body. Someone has hit your feet and the blood is flowing -- you are not aware. The pain is there, but you are not there. The blood is flowing but you are out of the body. Your consciousness, your attention, may be flying with the ball, may be running with the ball. Your attention is somewhere else. The game finishes: suddenly you come back to the body, and the blood is there and the pain. And you wonder how it happened -- when it happened and how it happened and how you were not aware of it.

To be in the body, your attention is needed to be there. So remember it -- wherever your attention is, you are there. If your attention is in the clouds, you are there. If your attention is in the flower, you are there. If your attention is in money, you are there. Your attention is your being. And if your attention is nowhere, you are everywhere.

So the whole process of meditation is to be in such a state of consciousness where your attention is nowhere, there is no object to it. When there is no object to it, there is no body to you. Your attention creates the body. Your attention is your body. And when attention is nowhere, you are everywhere -- joy happens to you. It is not good to say that it happens to you -- you are it. It cannot leave you now; it is your very being. Freedom is joy, that's why so much hankering after freedom.

The second technique:

THINKING NO THING

WILL LIMITED-SELF UNLIMIT.

That's what I was saying. If there is no object to your attention, you are nowhere; or, you are everywhere, you are free. You have become freedom. This second sutra says: THINKING NO THING -- OR, THINKING NOTHING -- WILL LIMITED-SELF UNLIMIT.

If you are not thinking, you are unlimited. Thinking gives you a limit, and there are many types of limits. You are a Hindu -- it gives a limit. Hindu, to be a Hindu, is to be attached to a thought, to a system, to a pattern. You are a Christian -- then again you are limited. A religious man cannot be a Hindu or a Christian. And if someone is a Hindu or a Christian, he is not religious -- impossible -- because these are thoughts. A religious man means not thinking thoughts; not limited by any thought, by any system, by any pattern; not limited by the mind, living in the unlimited.

When you have a certain thought, that thought becomes your barrier. It may be a beautiful thought -- still it is a barrier. A beautiful prison is still a prison. It may be a golden thought but it makes no difference, it imprisons you all the same. And whenever you have a thought and you are attached to it, you are always against someone, because barriers cannot exist if you are not against someone. A thought is always a prejudice; it is always for and against.

I have heard about a very religious Christian man who was a poor farmer. He belonged to the Society of Friends, he was a Quaker. Quakers are non-violent; they believe in love, in friendship. He was coming from the city to his village on his mulecart, and suddenly, apparently without any cause, the mule stopped and he would not budge. He tried, he persuaded the mule in Christian ways, he persuaded the mule in a very friendly way, a non-violent way. He was a Quaker: he couldn't beat the mule, he couldn't use strong words, he couldn't abuse, scold, but he was filled with anger. But how to beat the mule?

He wanted to beat him, so he said to the mule, `Behave rightly, because I am a Quaker -- I cannot beat you, I cannot scold you, I cannot be violent -- but remember, mule, that I can sell you to someone who is not a Christian!'

The Christian has his own world, and the non-Christian is opposite. The Christian cannot conceive that the non-Christian can reach the kingdom of God. A Hindu cannot conceive, a Jain cannot conceive, that others can enter into that realm of bliss -- impossible. Thought creates a limitation, a barrier, a boundary, and all those who are not for are taken to be against. One who is not in agreement with me is against me.

How can you be everywhere? You can be with the Christian; you cannot be with the non-Christian. You can be with the Hindu, but you cannot be with the non-Hindu, with the Mohammedan. Thought is bound to be somewhere against -- against someone or something. It cannot be total. Remember: thought cannot be total; only no-thought can be total.

Secondly: thought is always from the mind, it is always a by-product of the mind. It is your attitude, your speculation, your prejudice; it is your reaction, your formulation, your concept, your philosophy, but it is not existence itself. It is something about the existence; it is not existence itself.

A flower is there. You can say something about it; that is a thought. You can say it is beautiful, you can say it is ugly, you can say it is sacred, but whatsoever you say about the flower is not the flower. The flower exists without your thoughts, and whenever you are thinking about the flower, you are creating a barrier between you and the flower.

The flower doesn't need your thoughts. It exists. Drop your thoughts, and then you can drop yourself into the flower. Whatsoever you say about a rose is meaningless, howsoever meaningful it appears, it is meaningless. What you say is not needed. It is not giving any existence to the flower. It is creating a film between you and the flower; it is creating a limitation. So whenever there is thought, you are debarred; the door is closed to existence.

This sutra says:

THINKING NO THING

WILL LIMITED-SELF UNLIMIT.

If you don't think, if you simply are, fully alert, aware, but without any clouds of thought, you are unlimited. The body is not the only body -- a deeper body is the mind. Body consists of matter; mind also consists of matter -- subtle, more refined. Body is the outer layer, mind is the inner layer. And it is easy to be detached from the body. It is more difficult to be detached from the mind, because with the mind you feel you are more yourself.

If someone says that your body looks ill, you don't feel offended. You are not so attached; it is a little away from you. But if someone says your mind seems to be pathological, ill, you feel offended. He has insulted you. With the mind you are nearer. If someone says something about your body you can tolerate it. If someone says something about your mind, it is impossible to tolerate it, because he has hit deeper.

The mind is the inner layer of the body. Mind and body are not two: the outer layer of your body is the body and the inner layer is the mind. Just as if you have a house: you can see the house from the outside, and you can see the house from the inside. From the outside the outer layer of the walls will be seen; from the inside the inner layer. The mind is your inner layer. It is nearer to you, but it is still a body.

In death your outer body drops, but you carry the inner, subtle layer with you. You are so attached to it that even death cannot separate you from your mind. Mind continues. That's why your past births can be known, because you are still carrying all the minds that you ever had. They are there. If you were a dog once, the dog mind is still with you. If you were a tree once, the tree mind is still with you. If you once were a woman or a man, you carry those minds. All the minds are carried by you. You are so attached to them that you never lose the grip.

In death the outer dissolves, but the inner is carried. It is a very subtle material thing. Really, just vibrations of energy, thought vibrations. You carry them, and according to your thought pattern that you carry, you enter a new body. According to the thought pattern, the desire pattern, the mind, you again create a new body for yourself. The blue-print is in the mind, and the outer layer is again accumulated.

The first sutra is to put aside the body. The second sutra is to put aside the mind, the inner body. Even death cannot separate you -- only meditation can separate. That's why meditation is a greater death, it is a deeper surgery -- deeper than death itself. That's why so much fear. People go on talking about meditation but they will never do it. They will talk, they can write about it, they can preach about it, but they will never do it. A deep fear exists about meditation, and the fear is of death.

Those who do meditation, they come one day or another to the point where they are scared, thrown back. They come to me and they say, `Now we cannot enter more. It is impossible.' A point comes where one feels that one is dying. And that point is of a deeper death than any death, because now the innermost is being separated; the most inner identity is being shattered. One feels one is dying; one feels now one is moving into non-existence. A deep abyss opens, infinite emptiness opens. One is scared, runs back to cling to the body so that one is not thrown, because the earth beneath is moving, is being removed. A valley is opening, a nothingness.

So people, even if they try, they always try superficially; they play with meditation. They are unconsciously aware that if they move deep they will be no more. And that's right, the fear is true -- you will not be yourself again. Once you have known that abyss, that shoonya, the void, you will not be the same again.

You come back, but you are resurrected, a new man. The old has disappeared. You cannot find even a trace of it, of where it has gone. The old was the identity with the mind. Now you cannot be identified with the mind. Now you can use the mind, you can use the body, but they have become instruments; you are above them. Whatsoever you do, you can do, but you are not one with them. This gives freedom. But this can happen only when THINKING NO THING.

Hmm -- this is very paradoxical -- THINKING NO THING. You can think about things. How can you think about no thing? What does this `no thing' mean? And how can you think about it? Whenever you think about something it becomes a thing, it becomes an object, it becomes a thought, and thoughts are things. How can you think no thing? You cannot, but in the very effort -- the effort to think no thing -- thinking will be lost, thinking will be dissolved.

You may have heard about Zen koans. Zen masters give an absurd puzzle to the seeker to think about -- and it is something which cannot be thought. It is given knowingly just to stop thinking. For example, they say to the seeker: `Go and find out what your original face is: the face you had when you were not born. Don't think about this face which you have got; think of the face you had before birth.'

How can you think about it? There was no face before birth; the face comes with the birth. The face is part of the body. You have no face; only the body has a face. Close your eyes and you have no face. You know about your face through the mirror. You have not seen it yourself, and you cannot see it, so how can one think about the original face?> But one can try; the very effort will help.

The seeker will try and try -- and it is impossible. He will come to the master again and again, asking, `Is this the original face?' And before he says it to the master, the master says, `It is wrong. Whatsoever you bring is going to be wrong.'

For months together the seeker comes again and again. He finds something, imagines something, and he sees the face -- `The original face is like this?' And the master says, `No.' And every time this `No, no', and by and by he becomes more and more puzzled. He cannot think. He tries and tries and tries and fails -- that failure is the basic thing. One day he comes to a total failure. All thinking stops in that total failure and he comes to realize that the original face cannot be thought. Thinking stops.

And whenever this last time happens to a seeker, when he comes to the master, the master says, `Now there is no need. I see the original face.' The eyes have become vacant. The seeker has come not to say something, but just to be near the master. He has not found any answer. There was none. He has come for the first time without the answer. There is no answer to it. He comes silently.

Every time he had come he had some answer. The mind was there, the thought was there -- he was limited by that thought. He had found or imagined some face -- he was limited by that face. Now he has become original; now there is no limit. Now he has got no face, no idea, no thought. He has come without any mind. This is the state of no-mind.

In this state of no-mind, the limited-self unlimits. The limits are dissolved. Suddenly you are everywhere, suddenly you are everyone. Suddenly you are in the tree and in the stone and in the sky and in the friend and in the enemy -- suddenly you are everywhere. The whole existence has become just a mirror -- you are everywhere, mirrored. This state is the state of bliss. Now nothing can disturb you, because nothing exists except you. Now nothing can destroy you; nothing exists except you. Now there is no death, because even in death you are. Now nothing is opposed to you. Alone, you exist.

This aloneness Mahavir has called KAIVALYA, total aloneness. Why alone? -- because everything is involved, absorbed, has become you. You can express this state in two ways. You can say, `Only I am. Aham Brahmasmi -- I am the God, the divine, the total. Everything has come unto me; all the rivers have dissolved into my ocean. Alone I exist. Nothing else exists.' Sufi mystics say this, and Mohammedans could never understand why Sufis say such things. A Sufi says, `There is no God. Alone I exist.' Or, `I am the God.' This is a positive way of saying that now no separation is there. Buddha uses a negative way. He says, `I am nor more. Nothing exists.'

Both are true, because when everything is included in me, there is no sense in calling myself. The I is always opposed to the YOU; I is always opposed to THOU. In relation to YOU it is meaningful. When there is no YOU, I becomes meaningless. So Buddha says there is no I, nothing exists. Either everything has become you, or you have become a non-being and you dissolve into everything.

Both the expressions are true. Of course, no expression can be totally true, that's why the opposite expression is always also true. Every expression is partial, part; that's why the opposite expression is also true -- that too is part of it. Remember this. Whatsoever you express may be true and the opposite also may be true -- the very opposite. Really, it is bound to be true, because every expression is only a part.

And there are two types of expression: you can choose the positive or you can choose the negative. If you choose the positive, the negative seems to be untrue. It is not; it is complementary. It is not really opposed to it. So whether you say Brahma -- the total -- or you say Nirvana -- the nothingness -- it is the same. Both connote the same experience, and the experience is this -- thinking no thing, you come to know it.

Some basic things have to be understood about this technique. One: thinking, you are separated from existence. Thinking is not a relation, it is not a bridge, it is not a communication -- it is a barrier. Non-thinking you are related, bridged; you are in communion. When you are talking to someone, you are not related. The very talk becomes a barrier. The more you talk, the further away you move. If you are with someone in silence, you are related. If the silence is really deep and there are no thoughts in your mind and both the minds are totally silent, you are one.

Two zeros cannot be two. Two zeros become one. If you add two zeros they don't become two, they become a bigger zero -- one. And, really, a zero cannot be bigger -- more big, or less big. A zero is simply a zero. You cannot add something to it, you cannot deduct something from it. A zero is whole. When ever you are silent with someone, you are one. When you are silent with existence, you are one with it.

This technique says be silent with existence and then you will know what God is. There is only one dialogue with existence and that is in silence. If you talk with existence, you miss. Then you are enveloped in your own thoughts.

Try this as an experiment. Try it with anything as an experiment -- even with a rock. Be silent with it -- take it in your hand and be silent -- and there will be a communion. You will move deep into the rock and the rock will move deep into you. Your secrets will be revealed to the rock and the rock will reveal its secrets to you. But you cannot use language with it. The rock doesn't know any language. Because you use language, you cannot be related to it.

And man has lost silence completely. When you are not doing anything, then too you are not silent; the mind goes on doing something or other. Because of this constant inner talk, this continuous inner chattering, you are not related to anything. Not even to your beloved ones are you related, because this chattering goes on.

You may be sitting with your wife: you are chattering in your own mind; she is chattering in her own mind. Both are chattering. They are far away from each other, poles away. It is as if one is on one star, and the other on another star, and there is infinite space between them. Then they feel that the intimacy is not there, and then they blame each other -- `You don't love me.'

This is not the question really. Love is not possible. Love is a flower of silence. It flowers only in silence, because it flowers in communion. If you cannot be without thoughts, you cannot be in love. And then to be in prayer is impossible -- but even if we do prayer we chatter. To us, prayer is just chattering with God.

We have become so conditioned to chattering that even if we go to the church or to the temple we continue chattering there also. We chatter with God, we talk with God. This is absolute nonsense. God, existence, cannot understand your language. Existence understands only one language -- that is of silence. And silence is neither Sanskrit nor Arabic nor English nor Hindi. Silence is universal; it doesn't belong to anyone.

There are at least four thousand languages on earth, and everyone is enclosed in his own language. If you don't know his language you cannot be related to him. You cannot be related. If I don't understand your language and you don't understand my language, we cannot be related. We are strangers. We cannot penetrate each other, we cannot understand, we cannot love. This is happening only because we don't know a basic universal language -- that is silence.

Really only through silence is one related. And if you know the language if silence then you can be related to anything, because rocks are silent, trees are silent, the sky is silent -- it is existential. It is not only human, it is existential. Everything knows what silence is; everything exists in silence.

If a rock is there in your hand, the rock is not chattering within itself and you are chattering -- that's why you cannot be related to the rock. And the rock is open, vulnerable, inviting. The rock will welcome you, but you are chattering and the rock cannot understand the chattering -- that becomes the barrier. So even with human beings you cannot be in a deep relationship; there can be no intimacy. Language, words, destroy everything.

Meditation means silence: not thinking about anything. Not thinking at all, just being -- open, ready, eager to meet, welcoming, receptive, loving, but not thinking at all. Then infinite love will happen to you, and you will never say that no one loves you. You will never say it, you will never feel it. Now, whatsoever you do, you will say this and you will feel this. You may not even say it. You may pretend that someone loves you, but deep down you know.

Even lovers go on asking each other, `Do you love me?' In so many ways they go on enquiring continuously. Everyone is afraid, uncertain, insecure. In many ways they try to find out whether really the lover loves them. And they can never be certain, because the lover can say, `Yes, I love you,' but it will not give any guarantee. How can you be at ease? How can you know whether he is deceiving you or not? He can argue, he can convince you. He can convince you intellectually, but the heart will not be convinced. So lovers are always in agony. They cannot be convinced of the fact that the other loves. How can you be convinced?

Really there is no way to convince through language. And you are asking through language, and while the lover is there you are chattering in the mind, questioning, arguing. You will never be convinced, and you will always feel that you have not been loved, and this becomes the deepest misery. And this is happening not because someone is not loving you. This is happening because you are closed in a wall. You are closed within your thoughts; nothing can penetrate. The thoughts cannot be penetrated unless you drop the. If you drop them the whole existence penetrates you.

This sutra says:

THINKING NO THING

WILL LIMITED-SELF UNLIMIT

You will become unlimited. You will become whole. You will become universal. You will be everywhere. And then you are joy. Now you are nothing but misery. Those who are cunning, they go on deceiving themselves that they are not miserable, or they go on hoping that something will change, something will happen, and they will achieve at the end of life -- but you are miserable.

You can create faces, deceptions, false faces; you can go on smiling continuously, but deep down you know you are in misery. That is natural. Confined in thoughts you will be in misery. Unconfined, beyond thoughts -- alert, conscious, aware, but unclouded by thoughts -- you will be joy, you will be bliss.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #18

Chapter title: In your hands

29 June 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7306295

ShortTitle: VBT218

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 88 mins

Question 1

TECHNIQUES ARE SHORTCUTS, REVOLUTIONS, BUT ARE NOT THESE AGAINST TAO, SWABHAV, THE NATURE?

They are. They are against tao, they are against swabhav. Any effort is against shabhav, tao; effort as such is against tao. If you can leave everything to swabhav, tao, nature, then no technique is needed, because that is the ultimate technique. If you can leave everything to tao, that is the deepest surrender possible. You are surrendering yourself, your future, your possibilities. You are surrendering time itself, all effort. This means infinite patience, awaiting.

If you can surrender everything to nature then there is no effort, then you don't do anything. You just float. You are in a deep let-go. Things happen to you, but you are not making any effort for them -- you are not even seeking them. If they happen, it is okay; if they don't happen, it is okay -- you have no choice. Whatsoever happens, happens; you have no expectations and of course, no frustrations.

Life flows by, you flow in it. You have no goal to reach, because with the goal effort enters. You have nowhere to go, because if you have somewhere to go, effort will come in; it is implied. You have nowhere to go, nowhere to reach, no goal, no ideal; nothing is to be achieved -- you surrender all.

In this surrendering moment, in this very moment, all will happen to you. Effort will take time; surrender will not take time. Technique will take time; surrender will not take time. That's why I call it the ultimate technique. It is a no-technique. You cannot practise it -- you cannot practise surrender. If you practise, it is not surrender. Then you are relying on yourself; then you are not totally helpless; then you are trying to do something -- even if it is surrender, you are trying to do it. Then technique will come in, and with technique time enters, future enters.

Surrender is non-temporal; it is beyond time. If you surrender, this very moment you are out of time, and all that can happen, will happen. But then you are not searching for it, not seeking it; you are not greedy for it. You have no mind for it at all: whether it happens or not, it is all the same to you.

Tao means surrender -- surrender to swabhav, to nature. Then you are not. Tantra and Yoga are techniques. Through them you will reach to swabhav, but it will be a long process. Ultimately after every technique you will have to surrender, but with techniques it will come in the end; with tao, in tao, it comes in the beginning. If you can surrender right now, no technique is needed, but if you cannot, and if you ask me how to surrender, then a technique is needed. So, rarely in millions and millions of men, one can surrender without asking how. If you ask `how', you are not the right type who can surrender, because the `how' means you are asking for a technique.

These techniques are for all those who cannot get rid of this `how'. These techniques are just to get rid of your basic anxiety about `how' -- how to do it. If you can surrender without asking, then no technique is needed for you. But then you would not have come to me, you could have surrendered any time, because surrender needs no teacher. A teacher can teach only technique.

When you seek, you are seeking technique; every seeking is a seeking for technique. When you go to someone and ask, you are asking for a technique, for a method. Otherwise there is no need to go anywhere. The very search shows that you have a deep need for technique. These techniques are for you.Not that without technique it cannot happen. It can happen, but it has happened to very few persons. And those few persons are also really not rare: in their past lives they have been struggling with techniques, and they have struggled so much with techniques that now they are fed up, they are bored. A saturation point comes when you have asked again and again `How? How? How? -- and ultimately the `how' falls. Then you can surrender.

In every way technique is needed. A Krishnamurti, he can say that no technique is needed -- but this is not his first life. And he couldn't have said this in his past life. Even in this very life many techniques were given to him, and he worked on them. You can come to a point through techniques where you can surrender -- you can throw all techniques and simply be -- but that too is through techniques.

It is against tao, because you are against tao. You have to be deconditioned. If you are in tao then no technique is needed. If you are healthy then no medicine is needed. Every medicine is against health. But you are ill; medicine is needed. This medicine will kill your illness. It cannot give you health, but if the illness is removed, health will happen to you. No medicine can give you health. Basically every medicine is a poison -- but you have gathered some poison; you need an antidote. It will balance, and health will be possible.

Technique is not going to give you your divinity, it is not going to give you your nature. All that you have gathered around your nature it will destroy. It will only decondition you. You are conditioned, and right now you cannot take a jump into surrender. If you can take it, it is good -- but you cannot take it. Your conditioning will ask, `How?' Then techniques will be helpful.

When one lives in tao, then no yoga, no tantra, no religion is needed. One is perfectly healthy; no medicine is needed. Every religion is medicinal. When the world lives in total tao, religions will disappear. No teacher, no Buddha, no Jesus will be needed, because everyone will be a Buddha or a Jesus. But right now, as you are, you need techniques. Those techniques are antidotes.

You have gathered around yourself such a complex mind that whatsoever is said and given to you, you will complicate it. You will make it more complex, you will make it more difficult. If I say to you, `Surrender,' you will ask, `How?' If I say, `Use techniques,' you will ask, `Techniques? Are not techniques against tao?' If I say, `No technique is needed; simply surrender and God will happen to you,' you will immediately ask, `How?' -- your mind.

If I say, `Tao is right here and now: you need not practise anything, you simply take a jump and surrender,' you will say, `How? How can I surrender?' If I give you a technique to answer your `how', your mind will say, `But is not a method, a technique, a way, against swabhav, against tao? If divinity is my nature, then how can it be achieved through a technique? If it is already there, then the technique is futile, useless. Why waste time with the technique?' Look at this mind!

I remember, once it happened that one man, a father of a young girl, asked composer Leopold Godowsky to come to his house and give an audition to his daughter. She was learning piano. Godowsky came to their house; patiently he heard the girl playing. When the girl finished, the father beamed, and he cried in happiness and asked Godowsky, `Isn't she wonderful?'

Godowsky is reported to have said, `She is wonderful. She has an amazing technique. I have never heard anyone play such simple pieces with such great difficulty. She has an amazing technique. Playing such simple pieces with such great difficulty, I have never seen anyone do before!'

This is what goes on happening in your mind. Even a simple thing you will make complicated, you will make difficult for yourself. And this is a way of defence, this is a defence measure, because when you create difficulty you need not do it -- because first the problem must be solved and then you can do it.

If I say surrender, you ask how. Unless I answer your `how', how can you surrender? If I give you a technique, your mind immediately creates a new problem. `Why the technique? Swabhav is there, tao is there, God is within you, so why this endeavor, this effort?' Unless this is answered, there is no need to do anything.

Remember, you can go on in this vicious circle continuously for ever and ever. You will have to break it somewhere and come out of it. Be decisive, because only with decision is your humanity born. Only with decision do you become human. Be decisive. If you can surrender, surrender. If you cannot surrender, then don't create philosophical problems; then use some technique.

In both the ways the surrender will happen to you. If you can surrender right now, it is okay. If you cannot surrender, then pass through techniques -- that training is needed. It is needed because of you, not because of swabhav, not because of tao. Tao needs no training. It is needed because of you. And the techniques will destroy you. You will die through the techniques, and the innermost nature will evolve. You have to be shattered completely. If you can shatter it in a jump -- surrender. If you cannot, then piecemeal -- through techniques work on it.

But remember one thing: your mind can create problems which are tricks -- tricks to postpone, to postpone decision. If the mind is not settled, you don't feel guilty. You feel, `What can I do? Unless something is absolute, clearcut, transparent, what can I do?' Your mind can create clouds around you, and your mind will not allow you to be transparent ever -- unless you decide. With decision clouds disappear. Mind is very diplomatic, mind is political, and it goes on playing politics on you. It is very tricky, cunning.

I have heard, once Mulla Nasrudin came to visit his son and daughter-in-law. He had come for three days, but then he stayed for one week. Then the one week passed, and he stayed for one month. Then the young couple started worrying -- how to get rid of the old man? So they discussed how to get rid of him, and they hit upon a plan.

The husband said, `Tonight you prepare soup, and I will say that there is too much salt in it, it cannot be eaten, it is impossible to eat. And you have to say that there is not enough salt in it. We will argue and we will start quarrelling, and then I will ask my father what his opinion is, what he says. If he agrees with me, then you get mad and tell him to go away. If he agrees with you, I will get sore and I will tell him to go away immediately.'

The soup was prepared, and as it was planned, they started quarrelling and arguing. And then the climax came. They were just on the verge of hitting each other and Nasrudin was sitting silently watching. And then the son turned towards him and said, `Pa what do you say? Is there too much salt or not?'

So Nasrudin dipped his spoon in the soup, tasted it, meditated a moment upon the taste, and then said, `It suits me perfectly.' He didn't take any side. The whole plan was futile.

Your mind goes on working in this way. It will never take any side, because the moment you take a side, action has to be there. It will not take any side; it will go on arguing. It will never decide anything; it will be always in the middle. Whatsoever is said will be argued, but it will never become a decision. And you can argue ad infinitum; there is no end to it. Only decision will give you action, and only action will become transformation.

If you are really interested in a deep revolution within you, then decide -- and don't go on postponing. Don't be too philosophical; that is dangerous. For a seeker it is dangerous. For one who is not seeking really but just passing time, it is good, it is a good game. Philosophy is a good game if you can afford it. But I don't see that anyone can afford it because it is wasting time.

So be decisive. If you can surrender, then surrender. Then there is no `how' to it. If you cannot, then practise some technique, because only then through technique will you come to a point where surrender will happen.

Question 2

IN THE NATURAL COURSE, AFTER MILLIONS OF YEARS AND LIVES, ONE WILL BE ENLIGHTENED. BUT WE MIGHT HAVE ALREADY PASSED THROUGH MILLIONS OF YEARS AND LIVES AND YET ARE NOT ENLIGHTENED. WHY?

You cannot ask why. You can ask why only if you are doing something. If nature is dong something you cannot ask why; it is up to nature. And nature is not responsible; it is not going to answer you. It is completely silent. And for nature, millions of lives are nothing; for nature it may be just seconds. To you, millions of lives and years is a long history; for nature it is nothing. Nature is not worried, and nature is not interested in you particularly. Nature goes on working -- someday it will happen, but you cannot ask why, because nature is silent.

If you are worried about why it has not happened yet, then you have to do something. If worry has entered you, then you have to do something. Only your doing will help you to come to a point where enlightenment can happen. Nature's ways are very patient, slow. There is no hurry, because for nature there is no limit to time. It is eternal. There is no beginning and no end. But man has come to a point: he has become conscious, he has started asking.

A tree never asks -- even the Bodhi tree under which Buddha became enlightened. The tree will never ask, `Why have I not become enlightened? -- because I have also been existing for as many millions of years as you have existed, Gautam. Why?' The tree will never ask. The tree is absolutely natural. The questioning makes man unnatural. The unnatural has entered in you: you have started questioning why -- why it has not happened yet.

This questioning is good, because it can lead you to a decisive moment where you can start working upon yourself. And man cannot leave it to nature, because man has become conscious. You cannot leave it to nature now. That's why man has created religions. No animal has any religion. There is no need: they are not asking, they are not in a hurry. In nature everything is unhurried -- moving so slowly as if not moving at all; continuously repeating the same pattern, infinitely repeating the same circle.

Man has become conscious. Man has become conscious of time, and the moment you become conscious of time, you are thrown out of eternity. Then you are in a hurry. So as man's consciousness evolves more, he is more hurried, he becomes more and more time conscious. Go to a primitive society: they are not time conscious. The more civilized a society, the more time conscious. A primitive society is nearer nature: unhurried, it moves slowly. Just as nature moves, it moves. The more you become civilized, the more you become conscious of time. Really, time can be the criterion: how civilized a society is can be known by how time conscious it is. Then you are in a hurry, then you cannot wait, then you cannot leave it to nature. You have to take it in your own hands.

And man can take it in his own hands: he can do something and the process can be finished sooner. It can even be finished in a single moment. All that millions of years have not done, have not been able to do, you can do in a single moment. In that single moment you can become so intense that millions of years and millions of lives are travelled simultaneously.

That's possible -- because it is possible you are worried. Your worry is a symptom that something which is possible you are not making actual -- that is the worry, that is the human dilemma. You can do it and you are not doing it -- that creates an inner worry, anguish. When you cannot do it the question never arises, there is no worry. The worry shows that it is possible now that you can jump -- many lives which are unnecessary you can just by-pass -- and you are not by-passing. You have become conscious, and you have come above nature.

Consciousness is a new phenomenon. You have come above nature and now you can consciously evolve. Conscious evolution is revolution. You can do something about it. You are not just a victim, not just a puppet. You can take your destiny in your hands. That is possible, and because it is possible and you are not doing anything, it creates inner anxiety. And the more you become aware that this is possible, the more the anxiety will be felt.

A Buddha is very worried; you are not so worried. Buddha was very worried, in deep anguish, suffering. Unless he attained he would live in hell, because he was perfectly aware that something was absolutely possible, was just at hand, just by the corner, and he felt, `Still I am missing it. If I just stretch my hand it will happen -- and my hand is paralyzed. Just a step and I will be out of it -- and I cannot take that step. I am afraid of taking a jump.'

When you are near the goal, and you can feel it and you can see it and still you go on missing, then you feel anguish. When you are very far away and you cannot feel it, you cannot see it, you are not even aware that there is a goal, you are perfectly unaware of any destiny, then there is no anxiety.

Animals are not in anguish. They appear happy -- happier then man. What is the reason? Trees are even more happy than animals. They are perfectly unaware of what can happen, of what is possible, of what is just near at hand. They are blissfully unaware. There is no anxiety. They drift. Man becomes anxious, and the greater a man, the more anxiety will be there.

If you simply live, you are living an animal existence. Religious anguish arises the moment you become aware that something is possible -- 1The seed is there and I have to do something. I have to do something and the seed will sprout. The flowers are not very far away, and I can reap this crop' -- but still nothing is happening. A very impotent state is felt.

That was the Buddha's condition before he became a Buddha. He was just on the verge of committing suicide. You will have to pass through that. And you cannot leave it to nature; you have to do something about it -- and you can do. And the goal is not very far.

So don't be depressed if you feel anxiety. If you feel a very tense anguish within you, a suffering, agony, don't feel depressed about it -- that's a good sign. That shows you are becoming more and more aware of that which is possible, and now you will never be at ease unless it becomes actual.

Man cannot leave it to nature because man has become conscious. Only a very minor part of his being is conscious, but that changes everything. And unless your total being becomes conscious, you cannot know again the simple happiness of the animal or of the trees. There is only one way to know it now: to become more and more alert, more and more aware, and more and more conscious. You cannot regress. There is no process for going back; no one can go back. You can either remain where you are and suffer, or you have to go forward and go beyond suffering. You cannot go back.

Total unconsciousness is blissful, total consciousness is blissful -- and you are in between. A part of you has become conscious, and the major part of you is still unconscious. You are divided. You have become two, you are not one. The integration is lost. Animals are integrated and then saints are integrated. Man is disintegrated: a part remains animal and a part has become saintly. There is a struggle, conflict, and whatsoever you do you can never do with one heart.

So there are two ways. One is just to deceive yourself -- that is to become totally unconscious again. You can take drugs, you can take alcohol, you can take intoxicants -- you fall back to the animal world. You drug the part that has become conscious; you become totally unconscious. But this is a temporary deception; you will arise again. The effect of the chemical will be lost and your consciousness will become conscious again. The part which you have forcibly suppressed with alcohol or drugs or something else will arise again, and then you will feel more suffering, because then you can compare. You will feel more suffering.

You can go on drugging yourself. There are many methods -- not only chemical. There are religious methods. You can use a japa, a mantra: you can chant it and create an intoxicating effect. You can do many things which can make you unconscious again, but that is going to be temporary, you will have to come out -- and you will come out with a deeper suffering with you, because then you will be able to compare. If in unconsciousness this is possible, what will be possible in total consciousness? You will become more hungry for it, you will feel more starved.

Remember one thing: totality is bliss. If you are unconscious totally then too it is bliss, but you are not aware of it. Animals are happy but they are not aware of their happiness. So it is futile. It is just like when you are asleep you are happy, and whenever you are awake you are unhappy. Totality is bliss.

You can be total in consciousness also. Then there will be bliss and you will be perfectly aware of it. This is possible through sadhana, through methods, through practising techniques which increase your consciousness. You are not enlightened because you have not done anything for it, but you have become aware that you are not enlightened. This has been done by nature; in millions of years nature has made you aware.

You may not be aware of the fact that man has stopped growing as far as body is concerned. We have skeletons that are millions of years old, but there is no visible change; they are similar to our skeletons. So for millions of years there has been no growth in the body, it has remained the same. Even the brain has not grown; it has remained the same. As far as body is concerned, evolution has done whatsoever could have been done. In a sense, man is now responsible for his own growth. And the growth is not going to be of the physical; the growth is going to be of the spiritual.

The skeleton of a Buddha and your skeleton are not basically different, but you and Buddha are absolutely different. Evolution is working horizontally; methods, techniques, religions, they work vertically. Your body has stopped: it has come to a point, an omega point. Now there is no further growth for it. Horizontally, evolution has stopped; now a vertical evolution starts. Now, wherever you are, you have to take a jump vertically. That vertical evolution will be of consciousness, not of body. And you are responsible for it.

You cannot ask nature why, but nature can ask you why you are not enlightened yet, because everything is provided now. Your body has all that which is needed; you have a Buddha's body. Exactly whatsoever is needed for the buddha to happen to you, you have got. Only a new arrangement, a new synthesis of all the elements that are given, and the buddha will happen to you. Nature can ask you why you are not enlightened yet, because nature has provided you with everything.

And nature asking you will not be irrelevant, but you asking nature is absurd. You cannot be allowed to ask. Now you are aware and you can do something. All the elements are given to you. The hydrogen is there, the oxygen is there, the electricity is there; you have to just make certain efforts and experiments and the water will happen.

All that is needed for you to be enlightened is with you, but it is scattered. You have to combine it, synthesize it, you have to make a harmony of it, and suddenly the flame will arise which becomes enlightenment. All these techniques are for that. You have got everything; just a know-how is needed, what to do, so that enlightenment happens to you.

Question 3

YOU SAY THAT MILLIONS OF LIVES AND MILLIONS OF YEARS OF NATURAL EVOLUTION CAN BE AVOIDED THROUGH REACHING TOTAL AWARENESS AND TOTAL FREEDOM CAN IT NOT BE ARGUED THAT KARMA, WITH ITS NATURAL FORCES OF CAUSE AND EFFECT, SHOULD NOT BE INTERFERED WITH BY ANY SHORTCUTS, OR IS IT ALSO THE WAY OF DIVINITY TO BRING SUCH A POSSIBILITY WITHIN THE REACH OF THE EVOLVING WORLD, THE EVOLVING SOUL?

Everything can be argued, but argument leads nowhere. You can argue, but how is that argument going to help you? You can argue that the natural process of karma should not be interfered with -- don't interfere then. But then be happy in your misery -- and you are not. You want to interfere. If you can rely on the natural process, it is just wonderful -- but then don't make any complaint. Don't ask, `Why is this so?' It is so because of the natural process of karma. You are suffering? -- you are suffering because of the natural process of karma, and otherwise is not possible; don't interfere.

This is what the doctrine of fate, of kismat is -- the doctrine of believing in fate. Then you are not to do anything: whatsoever is happening is happening, and you have to accept it. Then too it becomes a surrender, and you need not do anything. But the total acceptability is needed. Really there is no need to interfere, but can you be in such a state where you don't interfere? You are constantly interfering with everything. You cannot leave it to nature. If you can leave it, then nothing else is needed and everything will happen to you. But if you cannot leave it, then interfere. And you can interfere, but the process has to be understood.

Really, meditating is not interfering in the process of karma; rather, it is taking a jump out of it. Exactly it is not interfering; it is taking a jump out of the vicious wheel, out of the vicious circle. The circle will go on, and the process will come to an end by itself. You cannot put an end to it, but you can be out of it, and once you are out of it, it becomes illusory.

For example, Raman died of cancer. His disciples tried to persuade him to go for treatment. He said, `Okay. If you like it and if it will make you happy, then treat me. But as far as I am concerned it is okay.' The doctors were surprised, because his body was suffering, it was in deep pain, but his eyes were without any pain. His body was suffering deeply, but he was not suffering.

The body is part of the karma, it is part of the mechanical circle of cause and effect, but the consciousness can be beyond it, it can transcend it. He was just a witness. He was seeing that the body was suffering, that the body was going to die, but he was a witness. He was not interfering with it, not interfering at all. He was just watching whatsoever was happening, but he was not in the vicious circle, he was not identified, he was not within it then.

Meditation is not an interference. Really, without meditation you are interfering every moment. With meditation you go beyond; you become a watcher on the hill. Deep down in the valley things go on, they continue, but they don't belong to you. You are just an onlooker. It is as if they are happening to somebody else, or as if they are happening in a dream, or in a film on the screen. You are not interfering. You are just not within the drama itself -- you have come out. Now you are not an actor, you have become a spectator. This is the only change.

And when you are just a witness, the body will complete immediately whatsoever, has to be completed. If you have many karmas for suffering, and now that you have become a witness you are not going to be reborn again, the body will have to suffer in this life all the suffering that would have been in many lives. So it happens many times that an enlightened man has to suffer many bodily ills, because now there is no future birth, no future life. This is going to be the last body, so all the karmas and the whole process has to be completed, finished.

So it happens that if we look at Jesus' life through eastern eyes, then the crucifixion is a different phenomenon. To the western mind there is no succession of lives, no rebirth, no reincarnation, so they don't really have a very deep analysis of the crucifixion. They have a myth that Jesus suffered for us, his suffering was a salvation for us. But this is absurd; and this is not true to the facts also, because if Jesus' suffering has become a salvation for you, then why is humanity still suffering? It is suffering more than it ever suffered before.

After Jesus' crucifixion humanity has not entered into the kingdom of God. If he suffered for us, if his crucifixion was a repentance of our guilt and sin, then he is a failure, because the guilt continues, the sin continues, the suffering continues. Then his suffering was in vain, then the crucifixion didn't succeed.

Christianity has simply a myth. But the eastern analysis of human life has a different attitude. Jesus' crucifixion was all his suffering accumulated through his own karmas. And this was his last life, he would not enter the body again, so the whole suffering had to be crystallized, concentrated, in a single point. That single point became the crucifixion.

He did not suffer for anyone else -- no one can suffer for anyone else. He suffered for himself, for his past karmas. No one can make you free, because you are in the bondage because of your karmas, so how can Jesus make you free? He can make himself a slave, he can make himself a free man, he can liberate himself. Through the crucifixion the account of his own karmas closed. He was finished, the chain had come to an end. Cause and effect -- they had come to an ed. This body would not be born again; he would not enter into another womb. If he was not an enlightened person, then he would have had to suffer all this for many lives. It became concentrated in one point, in one life.

You cannot interfere, and if you interfere you will create more misery for yourself. Don't interfere with karmas, but go beyond, be a witness to them Take them as a dream, not real; just look at them and be indifferent. Don't get involved. Your body suffers -- look at the suffering. Your body is happy -- look at the happiness. Don't get identified -- that's all that meditation means.

And don't find alibis, don't find excuses. Don't say that this can be argued. You can argue anything, you are free to, but remember that your argument may be suicidal. You can argue against yourself, and you can create an argument which is not going to help you, which is not going to transform you, rather, which is going to become a hindrance. We go on arguing.

Just today one girl came to meet me. She asked me, `Tell me, is there really a God?' She was ready to argue that there is no God. I looked at her face, her eyes. She was tense, filled with argument; she wanted to fight about the point. Really deep down she wanted that there is no God, because if there is God you are in trouble. If there is God then you cannot remain whatsoever you are; then a challenge comes. God is a challenge. It means you cannot be satisfied with yourself; something higher than you is possible. A higher state, an absolute state of consciousness is possible. That's what God means.

So she was ready to argue, and she said, `I am an atheist and I don't believe in God.'

I told her, `If there is no God, how can you not believe in him? And God is irrelevant. Your belief and your disbelief, your argument for and your argument against is related to you; it is not related to God. Why are you concerned? If there is no God, why have you travelled so long, and why have you come to me to argue about something which is not? Forget and forgive him. Go to your home, don't waste your time. If he is not, then why are you worried? Why this effort to prove that he is not? This effort shows something about you. You are afraid. If God is, then it is a challenge. If God is not, then you can remain whatsoever you are; there is no challenge to life.'

A person who is afraid of challenges, risks, dangers, of changing himself, of mutation, will always deny that there is God. The denial is his mind; the denial shows something about him, not about God.

I told her that God is not a thing which can be proved or disproved. God is not an object about which we can take some opinion for or against. God is a possibility within you. It is not something without; it is a possibility within you. If you travel to that possibility, he becomes real. If you don't travel up to that point, he is unreal. And if you argue against him then there is no point in travelling; you remain the same. And this becomes a vicious circle.

You argue that God is not, and because of it you never travel towards him -- because it is an inner travel, an inner journey. You never travel, because how can you travel towards the point which is not? So you remain the same. And when you remain the same you never meet, you never encounter God. You never come to any feeling, to any vibration from him. Then it is proved more for you that he is not. And the more it is proved, the more you are far away, the more you are falling, the more the gap increases.

So it is not a question of whether God is nor not, I told her. It is a question of whether you want to grow or not. If you grow, your total growth will be the meeting, your total growth will be the communion, your total growth will be the encounter. I told her one anecdote.

One windy morning, just as the spring was ending, a snail started travelling upwards on a cherry tree. Some sparrows which were just on a neighboring oak started laughing, because it was not the season and there were no cherries on the tree, and this poor snail was making so much effort to reach the top. They laughed at his expense.

Then one sparrow flew down, came near to the snail and said, `Darling, where are you going? There are no cherries yet on the tree.'

But the snail never even paused; she continued her upward journey. Without pausing, the snail said, `But they will be there when I reach. They will be there when I reach there. It will take a long time for me to reach to the top, and by that time cherries will be there.'

God is not, but he will be there by the time you reach. It is not something which is already there -- it is never there. It is a growth. It is your own growth. When you reach to a point where you are totally conscious, God is. But don't argue. Rather than wasting your energy in arguing, use your energy in transforming yourself.

And energy is not much. If you divert your energy into argument you can become a genius in arguing. But then you are wasting, it is at a great cost, because the same energy can become meditation. You can become a logician: you can make very logical arguments, you can find very convincing proofs or disproofs, but you will remain the same. Your arguments are not going to change you.

Remember one thing: whatsoever changes you is good. Whatsoever gives you growth, expansion, increase in consciousness, is good. Whatsoever makes you static and whatsoever protects your status quo is not good; it is fatal, suicidal.

Question 4

SOMETIMES I FEEL IN A STATE OF NON-DOING, VERY PASSIVE, BUT MAY AWARENESS OF WHAT IS HAPPENING AROUND ME SEEMS LESS. IN FACT, I FEEL DETACHED FROM THINGS AROUND ME. THIS SOMEHOW MEANS FALSE PASSIVITY, AS I IMAGINE ON-DOING SHOULD BE SYNONYMOUS WITH INCREASED AWARENESS. CAN YOU PLEASE DEFINE THIS STATE?

Ordinarily we are in a feverish state -- active, but feverishly. If you become passive the fever will be lost. If you become passive, non-doing, if you relax within yourself, activity will be lost, fever will be lost, and the intensity that comes through fever will not be there. You will feel a little dull, you will feel as if your awareness is decreasing. It is not decreasing; only the feverish glow is decreasing.

And it is good, so don't be afraid of it, and don't think that this passivity is not real. This is being said by your mind which needs and wants the feverish activity and the glow that comes through fever. Fever is not awareness, but in fever you can have a very unhealthy awareness, alertness. That is diseased; don't hanker for it. Allow it to go, fall into passivity.

In the beginning it will look like your awareness is decreasing rather than increasing. Allow it to decrease, because whatsoever decreases with passivity was feverish, that's why it decreases. Allow it to decrease. A moment will come when you will gain a balance. In that point of balance there will be no increase and no decrease. That is a healthy point; now the fever has gone.

On that point of balance, whatsoever awareness you have, that is real, that is not feverish. And if you can wait for that moment to come.... It is difficult, because in the beginning you feel that you are losing grip, you are becoming really dead; your activity, your alertness, everything has gone -- you are relaxing into death. It appears that way because whatsoever you know about life is feverish. It is not really life but just a fever, just a state of tension, just a state of hyper-activity. So in the beginning.... And you know only one state -- this state of fever. You don't know anything else so how can you compare?

When you become passive, relaxed, you will feel that something is lost. Allow i to be lost. Remain with passivity. A balancing point will come soon when you will be right at the point where there is no fever. You will be simply your own self -- not pushed by someone else into activity, not pulled by someone else into activity. Now activity will start happening to you, but it will be spontaneous, it will be natural. You will do something, but you will not be pulled and pushed.

And what is the criterion by which to know whether this activity is not forced on you, is not feverish? This is the point: if the activity is spontaneous you will not feel any tension through it, you will not feel any burden. You will enjoy it. And the activity will become an end unto itself; there will be no end. This will not be a means to reach somewhere else; it will be just an overflow of your own energy. And this overflow will be here and now; it will not be for something in the future. You will enjoy it.

Whatsoever it is -- digging a hole in the garden, or pruning the trees, or just sitting, or walking, or eating -- whatsoever you are doing will become absolute in itself, total action. And after it you will not be tiered; rather, you will feel refreshed. A feverish activity tires you; it is ill. A natural activity nourishes you; you feel more energetic, more vital after it. You feel more alive after it. It gives you more life.

But in the beginning when you start becoming passive and you fall into non-doing, it is bound to be felt that you are losing awareness. No, you are not losing awareness. You are simply losing a feverish type of mentation, a feverish type of alertness. You will settle into passivity and a natural awareness will happen.

This is the difference between a feverish alertness and natural awareness; this is the difference: in feverish alertness there is a concentration; it excludes everything. You can concentrate on a thing. You are listening to me. If it is a feverish alertness then you listen to me and you are totally unaware of anything else. But if it is a passive awareness, not feverish, but balanced, natural, then if a car passes by, you hear that car also. You are simply aware. You are aware of everything; of whatsoever is happening around you. And this is the beauty of it -- that the car passes by and you hear the noise but it is not a disturbance.

If you are feverishly attentive and you hear the car, you will miss listening to me; it will be a disturbance, because you don't k now how to be totally, simply aware of everything that is happening. You know only one way: how to be alert of one thing at the cost of everything else. If you move to something else then you lose the contact with the first thing. If you are listening to me in a feverish mind, then anything can disturb you. Because your alertness goes there, then you are cut off from me. It is one-pointed; it is not total. A natural, passive awareness is just total; nothing disturbs it. It is not concentration, it is meditation.

Concentration is always feverish, because you are forcing your energy to one point. Energy by itself flows in all directions. If has no direction in which to move; it simply enjoys flowing all over. We create conflict because we say, `This is good to listen to; that is bad.' If you are doing your prayer and a child starts laughing, it is a disturbance -- because you cannot conceive of a simple awareness in which the prayer continues and the child goes on laughing and there is no conflict between the two; they both are part of a bigger whole.

Try this: be totally alert, totally aware. Don't concentrate. Every concentration is tiring, you feel tired, because you are forcing energy unnaturally. Simple awareness is inclusive of all. When you are passive and non-doing then everything happens around you. Nothing disturbs you and nothing by-passes you. Everything happens and you know it, you witness it.

A noise comes: it happens to you, it moves within you, then it passes, and you remain as you were. Just as in an empty room: if there was no one here the traffic would go on passing, the noise would come into this room, then it would pass==and the room would remain unaffected, as if nothing had happened. In passive awareness you remain unaffected. Everything goes on happening; just passes you, but never touches you. You remain unscarred. In feverish concentration everything touches you, impresses you.

One more point about this. In the eastern psychology we have a word, SANSKAR -- conditioning. If you are concentrating on something you will be conditioned, you will get a sanskar, you will get impressed by something. If you are simply aware -- passively aware, not concentrating, not focusing yourself, just being there -- nothing conditions you. Then you don't accumulate any sanskar, you don't accumulate any impressions. You go on remaining virgin, pure, unscarred; nothing touches you. If one can be passively aware, he passes through the world but the world never passes through him.

One Zen monk, Bokuju, used to say, `Go and cross the stream, but don't allow the water to touch you.' And there was no bridge over the stream near his monastery.

Many would try, but when they crossed, of course the water would touch them. So one day one monk came and he said, `You give us puzzles. We try to cross that stream; there is no bridge. If there was a bridge, of course we could have crossed the stream and the water would not have touched us. But we have to pass through the stream -- the water touches.'

So Bokuju said, `I will come and I will cross and you watch.' And Bokuju crossed. Of course, water touched his feet, and they said, `Look, the water has touched you!'

Bokuju said, `As far as I know, it has not touched me. I was just a witness. The water was touching my feet, but not me. I was just witnessing.'

With passive alertness, with witnessing, you pass through the world. You are in the world, but the world is not in you.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #19

Chapter title: Watching from the hills

30 June 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7306305

ShortTitle: VBT219

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 86 mins

SUPPOSE YOU CONTEMPLATE SOMETHING

BEYOND PERCEPTION,

BEYOND GRASPING,

BEYOND NOT BEING.

-- YOU.

I AM EXISTING.

THIS IS MINE.

THIS IS THIS.

OH BELOVED,

EVEN IN SUCH KNOW ILLIMITABLY.

Man is Janus-Faced -- animal and divine both. Animal belongs to his past, divine belongs to his future, and this creates the difficulty. The past has passed, it is no more; just a shadow of it lingers on. And the future is still the future, it has not yet come; it just a dream, just a possibility. And between these two exists man -- the shadow of the past and the dream of the future. He is neither and he is both.

He is both because the past is his -- he was animal. He is both because the future is his -- he can be divine. And he is not both, because the past is no more and the future is yet to be.

Man exists as a tension between these two: that which was and that which can be. This creates a conflict, a constant struggle to realize, to be something. In a sense, man is not. Man is just a step from the animal to the divine -- and a step is nowhere. It was somewhere and it will be somewhere, but right now it is nowhere, just hanging in the air.

So whatsoever man is doing -- whatsoever I say -- he is never satisfied in it, never content, because two diametrically opposite existences meet in him. If the animal is satisfied then the divine is in discontent. If the divine is satisfied then the animal is in discontent. A part is always in discontent.

If you move to the animal, in a way you satisfy part of your being, but immediately in that satisfaction dissatisfaction arises, because the opposite part, your future, is just contrary to it. The satisfaction of the animal is the dissatisfaction of the possibility of your future. If you satisfy your divine possibility the animal revolts; it feels hurt. A definite discontent arises within you. You cannot satisfy both, and satisfying one, the other is dissatisfied.

I remember one anecdote. One sports car enthusiast reached the pearly gates, and St. Peter welcomed him. He had come with his Jaguar, and the first thing he asked St. Peter was this: `Are there beautiful highways in heaven?'

St. Peter said, `Yes, they have the most beautiful highways, but there is one difficulty -- in heaven they don't allow automobiles.'

The speed-fiend said, `Then it is not for me. Then please arrange for me to be sent to the other place. I would like to go to hell. I cannot leave my Jaguar.'

So it was arranged. He reached hell, he came to the gates, and Satan welcomed him and said that he was very happy to see him. He said, `You are just like me; I am also a lover of Jaguars.'

The speed-fiend said, `Fine, give me the map of your highways.'

Satan became sad. He said, `Sir, we don't have any highways down here -- that is the hell of it!'

This is the situation of man. Man is Janus-faced, a double being, split in two. If you satisfy one thing, then something becomes frustrating to your other part. If you do otherwise, then the other part is dissatisfied. Something is always lacking. And you cannot satisfy both, because they are diametrically opposite.

And everyone is doing this impossible thing, trying to do this -- to have a compromise somewhere so both heaven and hell can meet; so body and soul, the lower and the higher, the past and the future, can somewhere meet and have a compromise. We have been doing that for many lives. It has not happened, and it is not going to happen. The whole effort is absurd, impossible.

These techniques are not concerned with creating a compromise within you. These techniques are to give you a transcendence. These techniques are not to satisfy the divine against the animal. That is impossible. That will create more turmoil within you, more violence, more struggle. These techniques are not to satisfy your animal against the divine. These techniques are just to transcend the duality. They are neither for the animal nor for the divine.

Remember, that is the basic difference between other religions and tantra. Tantra is not a religion, because religion basically means: for the divine against the animal -- so every religion is part of the conflict. Tantra is not a struggle technique, it is a transcendence technique. It is not to fight with the animal, it is not for the divine. It is against all duality. It is neither for nor against really. It is simply creating a third force within you, a third center of existence where you are neither animal nor divine. For tantra that third point is ADVAITA, that third point is non-duality.

Tantra says you cannot reach the one by fighting through duality. You cannot come to a non-dual point by choosing one thing in the struggle in duality. Choice will not lead you to the one; only a choiceless witnessing.

This is very foundational to tantra, and because of this tantra was never really understood rightly. It has suffered a long, a centuries-old misunderstanding, because the moment tantra says it is not against the animal, you start feeling as if tantra is for the animal. And the moment tantra says it is not for the divine, you then start thinking that tantra is against the divine.

Really, tantra is for a choiceless witnessing. Don't be with the animal, don't be with the divine, and don't create a conflict. Just go back, just go away, just create a gap between you and this duality and become a third force, a witnessing, from where you can see both the animal and the divine.

I told you that the animal is the past and the divine is the future, and past and future are opposed. Tantra is in the present. It is neither past nor future. Just this very moment, don't belong to the past and don't hanker for the future. Don't long for the future and don't be conditioned by the past. Don't allow the past to become a hangover and don't create any projections in the future. Remain true to this very moment, here and now, and you transcend. Then you are neither animal nor divine.

For tantra, to be such is to be God. To be such, in this suchness of the moment, where past is unrelated and future is not created, you are free, you are freedom.

These techniques are not religious in this sense, because religion is always opposed to the animal. Religion creates a conflict. So if you are really religious you will become schizophrenic, you will be split. All religious civilizations are split civilizations. They create neurosis, because they create inner conflict. They divide you into two, and one part of your being becomes the enemy. Then your whole energy is dissipated fighting with yourself.

Tantra is not religious in that sense, because tantra doesn't believe in any conflict, in any violence. And tantra says don't fight with yourself. Just be aware. Don't be aggressive and violent with yourself. Just be a witness, a watcher. In the moment of witnessing you are neither; both the faces disappear. In that moment of witnessing you are not human. You simply are. You exist without any label. You exist without any name. You exist without any category. You are without being anyone in particular -- a simple amness, a pure being. These techniques are for that pure being.

Now I will discuss the techniques.

The first technique:

SUPPOSE YOU CONTEMPLATE SOMETHING

BEYOND PERCEPTION,

BEYOND GRASPING,

BEYOND NOT BEING

-- YOU.

SUPPOSE YOU CONTEMPLATE SOMETHING BEYOND PERCEPTION -- that which cannot be seen, which cannot be perceived. But can you imagine something which cannot be seen? Imagination is always of that which can be seen. How can you imagine something, how can you suppose something, which cannot be perceived?

That which you can perceive you can imagine. You cannot even dream something which is not capable of being seen and perceived. That's why even your dreams are shadows of reality. Even your imagination is not pure imagination, because whatsoever you can imagine you have known somehow. You can create new combinations, but all the elements of the combination are known and perceived.

You can imagine a golden mountain flying in the sky like a cloud. You have not perceived such a thing ever, but you have perceived a cloud, you have perceived a mountain, you have perceived gold. These three elements can be combined. Imagination is not original; it is always a combination of something you have perceived.

This technique says:

SUPPOSE YOU CONTEMPLATE SOMETHING

BEYOND PERCEPTION

It is impossible, b ut that's why it is worth doing, because in the very effort something will happen to you. Not that you will become capable of perceiving -- if you try to perceive something which cannot be perceived, all perception will be lost. In the very effort, if you try to see something which you have never seen, all that you have ever seen will disappear.

If you persist in the effort, many images will come to you -- you have to discard them, because you know that you have seen this; this can be perceived. You may not have seen it actually as it is, but even if you can imagine it, it can be perceived. Discard it. Go on discarding. This technique says to persist for that which cannot be perceived.

What will happen? If you go on discarding, it is going to be an arduous effort, because many images will bubble up. Your mind will supply many images, many dreams; many conceptions will come, many symbols. Your mind will create now combinations, but go on discarding unless something happens which cannot be perceived. What is that?

If you go on discarding, nothing will happen to you as an object; only the screen of the mind will be there with no image, with no symbol, with no dream on it, no picture on it. In that moment a metamorphosis happens. When the screen is simply there without any image, you become aware of yourself. You become aware of the perceiver. When there is nothing to be perceived, the whole attention changes. The whole consciousness reflects back. When you have nothing to see, for the first time you become aware of your own self. You start seeing yourself.

This sutra says:

SUPPOSE YOU CONTEMPLATE SOMETHING

BEYOND PERCEPTION,

BEYOND GRASPING,

BEYOND NOT BEING

-- YOU.

Then you happen to yourself. For the first time you will become aware of the one who has been perceiving, who has been grasping, who has been knowing. But this subject is always hidden in objects. You know certain things but you never know the knower. The knower is lost in knowledge.

I see you, then I see someone else, and this procession goes on. From birth to death I will see this and that and that, and I will go on seeing and seeing. And the seer, the one who was seeing this procession, is forgotten; it is lost in the crowd. The crowd is of objects, and the subject is lost.

This sutra says if you try to CONTEMPLATE SOMETHING BEYOND PERCEPTION, BEYOND GRASPING -- which you cannot grasp by the mind -- BEYOND NOT BEING... Immediately the mind will say that if there is something which cannot be seen and cannot be grasped, it is not. The mind will immediately react that if something is not seeable, not perceivable, not graspable, then it is not. The mind will say that it doesn't exist. Don't become a victim of the mind.

This sutra says: ... BEYOND PERCEPTION, BEYOND GRASPING, BEYOND NOT BEING. The mind will say that this is nothing, this cannot exist, this is a not-being. The sutra says, don't believe in it. There is something which is being beyond not-being, which exists and which cannot be perceived, and which is not graspable: that is you.

You cannot perceive yourself, or can you? Can you imagine any situation in which you can encounter yourself, in which you can know yourself? You can go on using the word `self-knowledge', which is absolutely absurd, because you cannot know the self. The self is always the knower. It cannot be reduced to a known, it cannot be reduced to an object.

For example, if you think that you can know the self, then the self that you know will not be your self, but the one who is knowing the self will be the self. You will always remain the knower; you cannot become the known. You cannot put yourself in front of you; you will always recede back. Whatsoever you know cannot be yourself -- this means that you cannot know it. You cannot know it the way you know other things.

I cannot see myself the way I see you. Who will see? Because every relationship of knowledge, seeing, perception, melans that there are at least two things: the known and the knower. Self-knowledge is not possible in this sense, because there is only one. There the knower and the known are one; the observer and the observed are one. You cannot convert yourself into an object.

So the word `self-knowledge' is just wrong, but it connotes something, it says something which is true. You can know yourself in a very different sense, in an altogether different sense than from how you know other things. When there is nothing to be known, when all objects have disappeared, when all that can be perceived and grasped is no more, when you have discarded all, suddenly you become aware of yourself. And this awareness is not dual: there is no object and no subject. There is simply subjectivity.

This awareness is a different type of knowing. This awareness gives you a different dimension of existence. You are not divided in two. You are aware of yourself. You are not perceiving, you cannot grasp it, and yet it is existential -- the most existential.

Try to think in this way. We have energy: that energy goes on moving to objects. Energy cannot be static. Remember it as one of the ultimate laws: energy cannot be static, it is dynamic. It cannot be otherwise. Dynamism is its very nature -- energy moves. When I see you, my energy moves towards you. When I perceive you, a circle is made. My energy moves to you, then it comes back to me -- a circle is made.

If my energy moves to you and doesn't come back, I will not know you. A circle is needed: the energy must go and then come back to me. With its coming back it bring you to me. I know you. Knowledge means that energy has made a circle. It has moved from the subject to the object, and then it has moved again and come back to the original source. If I go on living in this way -- making circles with others -- I will never know myself, because my energy is filled with energies of others. It brings those images, it delivers those images to me. This is how you gather knowledge.

This technique says to allow the object to disappear from there. Allow your energy to move in a vacuum, in emptiness. It goes from you, but there is no object to be grasped by it, not object to be perceived by it. It moves and comes back to you through emptiness; there is no object. It brings no knowledge to you. It comes vacant, empty, pure. It brings nothing. It brings only itself. It comes virgin -- nothing has entered into it; it remains pure.

This is the whole process of meditation. You are sitting silently, your energy is moving. There is no object with which it can be contaminated, with which it can become entangled, with which it can become impressed, with which it can become one. Then you bring it back to yourself. There is no object, no thought, no image. Energy moves, the movement is pure, and then it comes back to you -- virgin. As it left you it comes; it carries nothing. An empty vehicle, it comes to you, it hits you. There is no knowledge carried by it; it is coming only by itself. In that penetration of pure energy you become aware of yourself.

If your energy is bringing something else, then you will become aware of that something. You look at a flower. The energy is bringing the flower to you -- the image of the flower, the smell of the flower, the color of the flower. The energy is bringing the flower to you. It is introducing you to the flower. Then you become acquainted with the flower. The energy is covered by the flower. You never become acquainted with the energy, the pure energy which is you. You are moving to the other and coming back to the source.

If there is nothing to impress it, if it comes unconditioned, if it comes as it had gone, if it brings itself, nothing else, you become aware of yourself. This is a pure circle of energy -- energy moving not to something else, but within you, creating a circle within you. Then there is no one else, only you moving within yourself. This movement becomes self-knowledge, self-illumination. Basically, all meditation techniques, all of them, are different variations of this.

SUPPOSE YOU CONTEMPLATE SOMETHING

BEYOND PERCEPTION,

BEYOND GRASPING,

BEYOND NOT BEING

-- YOU.

If this can happen, then for the first time you will become aware of yourself, of your being, of your existence -- the subjectivity.

Knowledge is of two kinds: knowledge of objects, and knowledge of the subjectivity. Knowledge of the known, the knowable, and knowledge of the knower. And a man can know millions and millions of things, he can become acquainted with the whole world, but if he is not aware of the knower he is ignorant. He may be knowledgeable, but he is not wise. He may have collected much information, much knowledge, but the basic thing which makes one a knower is lacking -- he is not aware of himself.

In the Upanishads there is a story. Svetaketu, a young boy, came back from his master to his home. He had passed all his examinations, and he had passed well. All that the master could give him, he had collected. He had become very egoistic.

When he reached his father's house, the first thing the father asked Svetaketu was this: `You seem to be too filled with knowledge, and your knowledge is making you very egoistic -- the way you walk, the way you have entered the house. I have only one question to ask you. Have you known that who knows all? Have you known that by knowing which everything is known? Have you known yourself?'

Svetaketu said, `But there was no course for it in the school, and the master never discussed it. I have known everything that can be known. You ask me anything and I will answer you. But what type of question are you raising? It was never discussed.'

The father said, `Then you go back, and unless you know that by knowing which everything is known, and without knowing which nothing is known, don't come back. First know yourself.'

Svetaketu went back. He asked the master, `My father says I cannot be allowed to go back home, I cannot be welcomed there, because he says that in our family we have been Brahmins not only by birth. We have been knowers, knowers of Brahma, Brahmins, not only by birth but by real authentic knowledge. So he said, "Unless you become a real Brahmin, not by birth, but by knowing the Brahma, by knowing the ultimate, don't enter the house. You are not worthy of us." So now teach me that.'

The teacher said, `All that can be taught I have taught you. And that is something which cannot be taught. So you do one thing: you simply be available for it. It cannot be directly taught. You simply be receptive; some day it will happen. You take all the cows of the ashram...' The ashram had many cows; they say four hundred. `You take all the cows to the forest. Remain with the cows: stop thinking, stop verbalizing, just become a cow. Remain with the cows, love them, and be silent as cows are silent. When the cows become one thousand, come back.'

So Svetaketu went with four hundred cows to the forest. There was no use in thinking, there was no one to talk to. By and by his mind became just like a cow. He sat silently under the trees, and for many years he had to wait, because only when the cows became one thousand could he come back. By and by language disappeared from his mind. By and by society disappeared from his mind. By and by he became not a human being at all. His eyes became just like cows'.

And the story is very beautiful. The story says he forgot how to count -- because if language disappears and verbalizations disappears.... He forgot how to count, he forgot when he had to return. The story is beautiful. The cows said, `Svetaketu, now we are one thousand. Now let us go back to the master's house. He must be waiting.'

Svetaketu came back, and the master said to the other disciples, `Count the cows.'

The cows were counted and the disciples said, `Yes, there are one thousand cows.'

And the master is reported to have said, `Not one thousand, one thousand and one -- that's Svetaketu.'

He was standing amidst the cows, silent, just being there, with no thought, with no mind. Just like a cow -- pure, simple, innocent. And the master said, `You need not enter. Now go back to your father's house. You have known; it has happened to you. Why have you come again to me? It has happened to you.'

It happens: when there is no object in the mind to know, the knower happens to you. When the mind is not filled by thoughts, when there is not a single ripple, when there is not a single wave, you are there alone. There is nothing other than you. Obviously you become aware of your self; for the first time you become filled by yourself. A self-illumination happens.

This sutra is one of the foundational ones. Try it. It is arduous, because the habit of thinking, the habit of clinging to objects, to that which can be perceived and that which can be grasped, is so deep-rooted, so ingrained, that it will take time and a very persistent effort not to be involved in objects, not to be involved in thoughts, but to just become a witness and discard them and say, `No, not this, not this.'

The whole technique of the Upanishads is condensed in two words; NETI, NETI -- not this, not this. Whatsoever comes to the mind, say, `Not this.' Go on saying and discarding and throwing all the furniture out. The room has to be empty, totally empty. When emptiness is there, then that happens. If something else is there you go on being impressed by it, and you cannot know yourself. Your innocence is lost in objects. A thought-ridden mind is moving outwards. You cannot be related to yourself.

The second technique:

I AM EXISTING.

THIS IS MINE.

THIS IS THIS.

O BELOVED,

EVEN IN SUCH KNOW ILLIMITABLY.

I AM EXISTING. You never enter deeply into this feeling. I AM EXISTING. You are existing, but you never dig deep into this phenomenon. Shiva says: I AM EXISTING. THIS IS MINE. THIS IS THIS. OH BELOVED, EVEN IN SUCH KNOW ILLIMITABLY.

I will tell you one Zen anecdote. Three friends were walking along a road. Evening was just falling and the sun was setting when they become aware of a monk standing on a nearby hill. They started talking about the monk, wondering what he was doing there. One of them said, `He must be waiting for his friends. He must have gone for a walk from his hermitage and his friends are left behind, so he is waiting for them to come.'

The other denied that and said, `This is not right, because if a person waits for someone, sometimes he will look backwards. But he is not looking backwards at all. So my assumption is this -- that he is not waiting for anyone. Rather, he must have lost his cow. Evening is coming near, and the sun is setting, and soon it will be dark, so he is looking for his cow. He is standing there on the hilltop, and looking for where the cow is in the forest.'

The third one said, `This cannot be right, because he is standing so silently, not moving at all, and it seems that he is not looking at all; his eyes are closed. He must be in prayer. He is not looking for any lost cow or waiting for some friends who have been left behind.;'

They couldn't decide. They argued and argued and then they said, `We must go to the top of the hill and ask the man himself what he is doing.'

So they reached the monk. The first one said, `Are you waiting for your friends who are left behind to come?'

The monk opened his eyes and said, `I am not waiting for anyone. And I have neither friends nor enemies to wait for.' He closed his eyes again.

The other one said, `Then I must be right. Are you looking for your cow which is lost in the forest?'

He said, `No, I am not looking for anyone -- for any cow or anyone. I am not interested in anything except myself.'

So the third one said, `Then certainly, definitely, you are doing some prayer or some meditation.'

The monk opened his eyes and said, `I am not doing anything at all. I am just being here. I am just being here, not doing anything at all. I am just being here.'

This is what Buddhists say meditation is. If you do something, it is not meditation -- you have moved far away. If you pray, it is not meditation -- you have started chattering. If you use some word, it is not prayer, it is not meditation -- the mind has entered in. That man said the right thing. He said, `I am just being here, not doing anything.'

This sutra says this: I AM EXISTING. Go deep into this feeling. Just sitting, go deep into this feeling -- I AM EXISTING, I AM. Feel it, don't think it, because you can say it in the mind -- I AM -- and it is futile. Your head is your undoing. Don't go on repeating in the head I AM, I AM EXISTING. It is futile, it is useless. You miss the point.

Feel it deep down in your bones. Feel it all over your body. Feel it as a total unit, not in the head. Just feel it -- I AM. Don't use the words `I am'. Because I am relating to you, I am using the words. `I am'. And Shiva was relating to Parvati, so he had to use the words `I am existing'. Don't. Don't go on repeating. This is not a mantra. You are not to repeat I AM EXISTING, I AM EXISTING. If you repeat this you will fall asleep, you will become self-hypnotized.

If you go on repeating a certain thing, you become auto-hypnotized. First you get bored, then you feel sleepy, and then your awareness is lost. You will come back from it very much refreshed, just like after a deep sleep. It is good for health, but it is not meditation. If you are suffering from insomnia you can use chanting, a mantra. It is as good as any tranquillizer, or even better. You can go on repeating a certain word: repeating constantly in a monotonous tone you will fall asleep.

Anything that creates monotony will give you deep sleep. So psychoanalysts and psychologists go on telling people who suffer from insomnia to just listen to the tick-tock of the clock. Go on listening to it and you will fall asleep, because the tick-tock becomes a lullaby.

The child in the mother's womb sleeps continuously for nine months, and the heart of the mother goes on... tick-tock. That becomes a conditioning, a deep conditioning -- the continuous repetition of the heart. That's why whenever someone takes you near his heart, you feel good. Tick-tock -- you feel sleepy, relaxed. Anything that gives monotony gives relaxation; you can fall asleep.

In a village you can sleep more deeply than in a city, because a village is monotonous. The city is not monotonous. Every moment something new is happening; the traffic noises go on changing. In a village everything is monotonous, the same. Really, in a village there is no news, nothing happens; everything moves in a circle. So villagers sleep deeply, because life around them is monotonous. In a city, sleep is difficult, because life around you is very sensational; everything changes.

You can use any mantra: RAM, RAM, AUM, AUM -- anything. You can use Jesus Christ; you can use Ave Maria. You can use any word and monotonously chant it; it will give you deep sleep. You can even do this: Raman Maharshi used to give the technique WHO AM I? And people started using it as mantra. They would sit with closed eyes and they would go on repeating. `Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?' It had become a mantra. That was not the purpose.

So don't make it a mantra, and sitting, don't say, `I am existing.' There is no need. Everyone knows, and you know already that you are existing; there is no need, it is futile. Feel it -- I AM EXISTING. Feeling is a different thing, totally different. Thinking is a trick to escape from feeling. It is not only different, it is a deception.

What do I mean when I say to feel I AM EXISTING? I am sitting in this chair. If I start feeling I AM EXISTING, I will become aware of many things: the pressure on the chair, the touch of the velvet, the air passing through the room, the noise touching my body, the blood circulating silently, the heart, the breathing that goes on continuously, and a subtle vibrating feeling of the body. Because the body is a dynamism; it is not a static thing. You are vibrating. Continuously there is a subtle trembling and while you are alive it will continue. The trembling is there.

You will become aware of all these multidimensional things. And the more you become aware of the many things that are happening.... If right now you become aware of whatsoever is happening within you and without, this is what is meant by I AM EXISTING. If you become aware in this way, thinking will stop, because when you feel you are existing it is such a total phenomenon that thinking cannot continue.

In the beginning you will feel thoughts floating. By and by, the more you get rooted in existence, the more and more you settle down in the feeling of being, the thoughts will be far away, you will feel a distance -- as if those thoughts are not now happening to you, but they are happening to someone else, very very far away. There is a distance. And then, when you are really rooted, grounded in the being, mind will disappear. You will be there with not a single word, not a single mental image.

Why does this happen? -- because mind is a particular activity for relating with others. If I am to relate with you I will have to use my mind, language, words. It is a social phenomenon; it is a group activity. So even if you are talking while alone, you are not alone -- you are talking to someone. Even when you are alone, when you are talking you are talking to someone; you are not alone. How can you talk alone? Someone is present in the mind and you are talking to him.

I was reading the autobiography of a professor of philosophy. He relates that one day he was going to take his daughter, who was five years old, to school, and after leaving her at the school he was going to go to the university to deliver his lecture. So he was preparing his lecture on the way, and he forgot all about his daughter who was sitting just by his side in the car, and he started lecturing loudly. The girl listened for a few moments and then she asked, `Daddy, are you talking with me or without me?'

Even when you are talking it is never without, it is always with -- with someone. He may not be present, but to you he is present; for your mind he is there. All thinking is a dialogue. Thinking as such is a dialogue, it is a social activity. That's why if a child is brought up without any society, he will not know any language. He will not be able to verbalize. It is society which gives you language; without society there is no language. Language is a social phenomenon.

When you get grounded within yourself, there is no society, there is no one. You alone exist. Mind disappears. You are not relating to anyone, not even in imagination, so mind disappears. You are there without the mind, and this is what meditation is -- being without the mind. Being perfectly alert and conscious, not unconscious, feeling existence in its totality, in its multidimensionality, but the mind has suddenly disappeared.

And with the mind many things disappear. With the mind, your name, with the mind, your form; with the mind, that you are a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Parsee; with the mind, that you are good or bad; with the mind, that you are a saint or a sinner; with the mind, that you are ugly or beautiful -- everything disappears. All that is labelled on you suddenly is not there. You are in your pristine purity. In your total innocence you are there; in your virginity -- grounded, not floating, rooted in that which is.

With the mind you can move into the past. With the mind you can move into the future. Without mind you cannot move into the past or into the future. Without mind you are here and now -- just this moment is all eternity. Nothing exists except this moment. Bliss happens. You need not go in any search. Rooted in the moment, rooted in the being, you are blissful. And this bliss is not something which is happening really to you -- you are it.

I AM EXISTING. Try it. And you can do it anywhere. Just riding in a bus, or travelling in a train, or just sitting, or lying down on your bed, try to feel existence as it is; don't think about it. Suddenly you will become aware that you have not known many things which are continuously happening to you. You have not felt your body. You have your hands, but you have not ever felt it -- what it says, and what it continuously goes on informing you; how it feels.

Sometimes it is heavy and sad, sometimes it is happy and light. Sometimes everything flows in it, sometimes everything is dead. Sometimes you feel it alive, dancing, sometimes as if there is no life in it -- frozen, dead; hanging on you, but not alive.

When you start feeling your being, you will come to know the moods of your hands, of your eyes, of your nose, of your body. It is a big phenomenon; there are subtle nuances. The body goes on telling you and you are not there to hear it. And existence all around you goes on penetrating you in subtle ways, in many ways, in different ways, but you are not aware. You are not there to receive it, to welcome it.

When you start feeling existence, the whole world becomes alive to you in a totally new way; you have not known it. Then you pass through the same street and the street is not the same, because now you are grounded in existence. You meet the same friends but they are not the same, because you are different. You come back to your house and the wife you have lived with for years is not the same.

Now you are aware of your own being, you become aware of the other's being. When the wife becomes angry, you can enjoy even her anger, because now you can feel what is happening. And if you can feel it, anger my not look like anger; it may become love. If you can feel it deep down, then anger shows that she still loves you. Otherwise she would not be angry; she would not bother. She still waits for you the whole day. She is angry because she loves you. She is not indifferent.

Remember, anger or hate or not the real opposites of love -- indifference is the real opposite. When someone is indifferent to you, love is lost. If someone is not even ready to be angry with you, then everything is lost. But ordinarily if your wife is angry you react more violently, you become aggressive. You cannot understand the symbolic meaning of it. You are not grounded in yourself. You have not really known your own anger; that's why you cannot understand others' anger.

If you know your own anger, if you can feel it in its total mood, then you know others' anger also. You are angry only when you love someone, otherwise there is no need. Through anger the wife is saying that she still loves you, she is not indifferent to you. She has been waiting, waiting, and now the whole waiting has become anger.

She may not say it directly, because the language of feeling is not direct. And that has become a big problem today -- because you cannot understand the language of feeling, because you don't know your own feelings. You are not grounded in your own being. You can understand only words, you cannot understand feelings. Feelings have their own way of expression, and they are more basic, more real.

Once you get acquainted with your own existence, you will become aware of others' existence also. And everyone is so mysterious, and everyone is such a deep abyss to be known -- an infinite possibility of being penetrated and known. And everyone is waiting that someone should penetrate, go deep, and feel his or her heart. But because you have not known your own heart, you cannot know anyone else's. The nearest heart remains unknown, so how can you know others; hearts?

You move as a zombie, and you move in a crowd of zombies; everyone is fast asleep. You have only this much alertness: that you pass through fast-asleep people and without any accident you come to your home, that's all. This much alertness you have got. This is the minimum which is possible to man, that's why you are so bored, so dull. Life is just a long heaviness, and deep down everyone is waiting for death, in order to be delivered from life. Death seems to be the only hope.

Why is this happening? Life can be infinite bliss. Why is this so boring? You are not grounded in it. You are uprooted; uprooted, and living at the minimum. And life really happens when you live at the maximum.

This sutra will give you a maximum of existence. Thought can give you only a minimum; feeling can give you the maximum. Through mind there is no way to existence; through heart is the only way.

I AM EXISTING. Feel it through the heart. And feel THIS EXISTENCE IS MINE. THIS IS MINE. THIS IS THIS. This is very beautiful I AM EXISTING. Feel it, be grounded in it; then know THIS IS MINE -- this existence, this overflowing being is mine.

You go on saying that this house is mine, this furniture is mine. You go on talking about your possessions, and you never know what you really possess. You possess total being. You possess the deepest possibility, the center-most core of existence in you. Shiva says: I AM EXISTING. Feel this. THIS IS MINE.

This too is not to be made a thought; remember that continuously. Feel it -- this is mine, this existence -- and then you will feel gratitude. How can you thank God? Your thankfulness is superficial, formal. And look what a misery... even with God we are formal. How can you be grateful? You have not known anything to be grateful for.

If you can feel yourself rooted in existence, merged in it, overflowing with it, and allow even dancing with it, then you will feel, `This is mine. This existence belongs to me. This whole mysterious universe belongs to me. This whole existence has been existing for me. It has created me. I am a flower of it.'

This consciousness that has happened to you is the greatest flower that has happened to the universe. And for millions and millions of years this earth was preparing for you to exist.

THIS IS MINE AND THIS IS THIS. To feel, `This is what life is, THIS IS THIS -- this suchness. I was unnecessarily worried. I was unnecessarily a beggar, unnecessarily thinking in terms of begging. I am the master.'

When you are rooted, you are one with the whole, and the existence exists for you. You are not a beggar; you become an emperor suddenly. THIS IS THIS.

OH BELOVED,

EVEN IN SUCH KNOW ILLIMITABLY.

And while feeling this, don't create a limit to it. Feel it illimitably. Don't create a boundary to it; there is none. It ends nowhere. The world begins nowhere; the world ends nowhere. Existence has no beginning and no end. You also don't have any beginning; you also don't have any end.

Beginning and end are because of the mind -- mind has a beginning and mind has an end. Go backwards, travel backwards into your life: there comes a moment where everything stops -- there is a beginning. You can remember back to when you were three years of age, or, at the most, two years of age -- that is rare -- but then memory stops. You can travel backwards to when you were two years of age. What does it mean? And you cannot remember anything previous to that, previous to that age of two years. Suddenly there is a blank, you don't know anything.

Do you remember anything about your birth? Do you know anything about the nine months in your mother's womb? You were, but the mind was not there. Mind started around the age of two; that's why you can remember back to that age. Then there is no mind, memory stops. Mind has a beginning, mind has an end, but you are beginningless.

If in deep meditation, in such meditation you can come to feel existence, then there is no mind -- a beginningless, endless flow of energy, of cosmic force; an infinite ocean around you, and you are just a wave in it. The wave has a beginning and an end -- the ocean has none. And once you know that you are not the wave but the ocean, all misery has disappeared.

What is deep down in your misery? -- deep down there is death. You are afraid of some end which is going to be there. It is absolutely certain; nothing is so certain as death -- the fear, the trembling. Whatsoever you do, you are helpless. Nothing can be done -- death is going to be there. And that goes on and on inside in the conscious and unconscious mind. Sometimes it erupts in the conscious -- you become afraid of death. You push it down, and then it continues in the unconscious. Every moment you are afraid of death, of the end.

Mind is going to die, you are not going to die -- but you don't know yourself. You know something which is just a created thing: it has a beginning, it is going to have an end. That which begins must end. If you can find within your being something which never begins, which simply is, which cannot end, then the fear of death disappears. And when the fear of death disappears, love flows through you, not before it.

How can you love when there is going to be death? You can cling to someone, but you cannot love. You can use someone, but you cannot love. You can exploit someone, but you cannot love.

Love is not possible if fear is there. Fear is the poison. Love cannot flower with fear deep inside. Everyone is going to die. Everyone is standing in a queue waiting for his time. How can you love? Everything seems nonsense. Love appears nonsense if death is there, because death will destroy everything. Even love is not eternal. Whatsoever you do for your beloved, for your lover, you cannot do anything because you cannot avoid death -- it is just waiting behind everything.

You can forget it, you can create a facade, and you can go on believing that it is not going to be there, but your belief is just superficial -- deep down you know it is going to be there. And if death is there, then life is meaningless. You can create artificial meanings, but they won't help much. Temporarily, for some moments, they can help, and again the reality erupts and the meaning is lost. You can just deceive yourself continuously, that's all -- unless you come to know something which is beginningless and endless, which is beyond death.

Once you come to know it, then love is possible, because then there is no death. Love is possible. Buddha loves you, Jesus loves you, but that love is absolutely unknown to you. That love has come because fear has disappeared, and your love is just a mechanism to avoid fear. So whenever you love, you feel fearless. Someone gives you strength.

And this is a mutual phenomenon: you give strength to someone and someone gives strength to you. Both are weak, and both are seeking someone, and then two weak persons meet and they help each other to be strong -- this is just wonderful! How does it happen? It is just a make-believe. You feel that someone is there behind you, with you, but you know no one can be with you in death. And if someone cannot be with you in death, how can he or she be with you in life? Then it is just postponing, just avoiding death. And because you are afraid, you need someone to make you fearless.

It is said, somewhere Emerson has written, that even the greatest warrior is a coward before his wife. Even a Napoleon is a coward, because the wife knows that he needs her strength, he needs her in order to be himself. He depends on her. When he comes back from the war, from the fighting, he is trembling, afraid. He rests in her, he relaxes in her. She consoles him; he becomes just like a child. Every husband is a child before the wife. And the wife? -- she depends on the husband. She lives through him. She cannot live without him;he is her life.

This is a mutual deception. Both are afraid -- death is there. They both try to love each other and forget death. Lovers become, or appear to be, fearless. Lovers even sometimes can face death very fearlessly, but that is just appearance.

Our love is part of fear -- just to escape from it. Real love happens when there is no fear -- when death has disappeared, when you know you never begin and you are never going to end. Don't think it. You can think it, because of the fear. You can think, `Yes, I know I am not going to end, there is no death, the soul is immortal.' You can think because of fear -- that will not help.

If you move deep in meditation it will happen. Fear will disappear, because you know yourself endlessly. You go on spreading endlessly -- back into the past, forward into the future, and this very moment, this present moment, in the depth of it you are there. You simply are -- you never begin, you are never going to end.

FEEL THIS ILLIMITABLY -- infinitely.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #20

Chapter title: Liberation from yourself

1 July 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7307015

ShortTitle: VBT220

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 85 mins

Question 1

YOU SAY THAT RELIGION IS TOTAL FREEDOM OR MOKSHA, AND YOU ALSO STRESS THE IMPORTANCE OF SURRENDER IN RELIGION. BUT ARE NOT FREEDOM AND SURRENDER CONTRADICTORY IN TERMS?

They appear contradictory but they are not. And they appear so because of the language; existentially they are not. Try to understand two things. First: you cannot be free remaining as you are, because as you are is your bondage. Your ego i s the bondage. You can be free only when this ego point disappears -- this ego point is the bondage.

When there is no ego, you become one with existence, and only that oneness can be freedom. While you exist separate, this separation is false. Really, you are not separate; you cannot be. You are part of existence -- and not a mechanical part, but an organic part. You cannot exist for a single moment separated from existence. You breathe it every moment; it breathes you every moment. You live in a cosmic whole.

Your ego gives you a false feeling of separate existence. Because of that false feeling, you start fighting existence. When you fight you are in bondage. When you fight you are bound to be defeated, because the part cannot win against the whole. And because of this fight with the whole, you feel in bondage; everywhere limited. Wherever you move, a wall comes. That wall is nowhere in existence -- it moves with your ego, it is part of your separate feeling. Then you struggle against existence. In that struggle you will be defeated constantly; in that defeat you feel bondage, limitation.

By surrender it is meant that you surrender the ego, you surrender the separating wall, you become one. That is reality, so whatsoever you are surrendering is just a dream, a concept, a false notion. You are not surrendering reality; you are just surrendering a false attitude. The moment you surrender this false attitude you become one with existence. Then there is no conflict.

And if there is no conflict you have no limitation; nowhere there comes a bondage, a boundary. You are not separate. You cannot be defeated, because there is no one to be defeated. You cannot die, because there is no one to die. You cannot be in misery, because there is no one to be in misery. The moment you surrender the ego, the whole nonsense is surrendered -- misery, bondage, dukkha, hell -- everything is surrendered. You become one with existence. This oneness is freedom.

Separation is bondage. Oneness is freedom Not that you become free, remember this -- you are no more. So it is not that you become free -- you are no more. Really, when you are not, freedom is. How to express it is a problem. When you are not, freedom is. Buddha is reported to have said, `You are not going to be in bliss. When you are not, the bliss is. You are not going to be liberated. You are going to be liberated from yourself.'

So freedom is not freedom of the ego. Freedom is freedom from the ego. And if you can understand this -- that freedom is freedom from the ego -- then surrender and freedom become one, then they mean one. But if you take the ego as the standpoint from which to think, then the ego will say, `Why surrender? -- because if you surrender, then you cannot be free. Then you become a slave. When you surrender, you become a slave.'

But really, you are not surrendering to someone. This is the second point to be understood: you are not surrendering to someone; you are simply surrendering. There is no one who will take your surrender. If there is someone and you surrender to him, then it is a sort of slavery. Really, there is not even a god to whom you are surrendering. And when we talk about a god, that is just to find you something to help you to surrender.

In Patanjali's 1Yoga Sutras', God is talked about just to help you to surrender. There is no God. Patanjali says there is no God, but it will be difficult for you to surrender to one ; it will be difficult for you to simply surrender. To help surrender, God is talked about. So God is just a method. This is rare, very scientific -- God is just a method to help you surrender. There is no one who is going to take your surrender. If there is someone and you surrender, then it is a slavery, a bondage. This is a very subtle and deep point: there is no God as a person; God is just a way, a method, a technique.

Patanjali relates many techniques. One of them is ISHWARA PRANIDHAN -- the idea of God. There are many methods to reach the surrender; one method is the idea of God. That will help your mind to surrender, because if I say, `Surrender,' you will ask, `To whom?' If I say, `Simply surrender,' it will be difficult for you to conceive. Try to understand in a different way. If I say to you, `Simply love,' you will ask, `Whom? What do you mean by "simply love"? If there is no one to be loved, how to love?' If I say, `Pray,' then you will ask, `To whom? Worship to whom?' Your mind cannot conceive non-duality. It will ask, it will raise a question, `To whom?'

Just to help your mind, so that the mind's question is satisfied, Patanjali says that God is just a way, a technique. Worship, love, surrender -- to whom? Patanjali says, `To God.' Because if you surrender, then you will come to know that there is no God -- or you yourself are that to which you have surrendered. But this will happen when you have surrendered. God is just a trick.

It is said that even to surrender to a god who is nowhere seen, who is invisible, is difficult, so scriptures say, `Surrender to the guru, to the master.' The master is visible and a person, so then the question becomes relevant -- if you surrender to a master then it is a slavery, because a person is there and you are surrendering to him. But then too you will have to understand again a very subtle point -- even more subtle than the notion o God. A master is a master only when he is not. If he is, then he is not a master. A master becomes a master only when he is not. He has achieved non-being; there is no one.

If someone is sitting here in this chair, then there is no master; then it is going to become a slavery. But if there is no one sitting in this chair, a non-being, one who is not centered anywhere, one who has surrendered -- not to anyone, but simply surrendered and achieved non-being, has become a non-person -- who is simply there, not concentrated in an ego, diffused, not concentrated anywhere, then he can become a master. So when you are surrendering to a master, again you are surrendering to nobody.

This is a deep question for you. When you are surrendering, if you can understand that this is simply surrendering, not a surrender -- surrendering, not a surrender.... A surrender is to someone. A surrendering is something on your part. So the basic thing is surrendering -- the act, not the object. The object should not be important, but the one who is surrendering is important. The object is just an excuse -- just an excuse.

If you can understand, then there is no need to surrender to anyone -- you can simply surrender. Then there is no need to love someone -- you can simply love. You are significant, not the object. If the object is significant, you will create a bondage out of it. So even a god who is not, will become a bondage; even a master who is not, will become a bondage. But that bondage is created by you; it is a misunderstanding. Otherwise surrendering is freedom They are not contradictory.

Question 2

WHILE `THIS IS THIS' ALSO INCLUDES `THIS IS THAT,' AND `THAT IS BRAHMA,' HOW IS IT THAT THE SUTRA EMPHASIZES ONLY `THIS IS THIS'?

For a very particular reason -- because tantra, deep down, is interested only in the here and now. THIS IS THIS means that which is here and now. THAT goes a little further away.

Secondly, for tantra there is no division between this and that. Tantra is non-dualistic. This is the world, and that is Brahma. This is the mundane, the material, and that is consciousness, the spiritual. For tantra there is no distinction like this. THIS is all -- THAT is included in it. This very world is divine.

And tantra makes no distinction and no categorization of higher and lower: THIS means the lower, and THAT means the higher; THIS means that which you can see and touch and know, and THAT means the invisible that you cannot see and cannot touch, you can only infer. For tantra there is no distinction of higher and lower, of visible and invisible, of matter and mind, of life and death, of world and Brahma -- no distinction.

Tantra says THIS IS THIS, and THAT is included in it. But the emphasis on THIS is beautiful. It says here and now, whatsoever is, this is all. And everything is in it; nothing is excluded. The near, the intimate, the ordinary, is all.

It is a very well known saying of Zen mysticism that if you can become just ordinary, you have become extraordinary. Only the person who is at ease with his ordinariness is extraordinary. Because everyone hankers to be extraordinary, so the desire to be extraordinary is very ordinary. Everyone -- you cannot find a person who is not trying to be extraordinary in some way, so the desire, the lust to be extraordinary, is a part, a basic part of the ordinary mind. Zen masters say, `So to be ordinary is the most extraordinary thing in the world. To be just ordinary. It is rare. Very rarely it happens that someone is simply ordinary.

One Japanese emperor was in search of a master, so he went from one teacher to another, but no one could satisfy him, because one old man had said that the real master would be most ordinary. He went on searching, but he couldn't find an ordinary man. He came back to the old man who was just on his dying bed, and he said, `You have put me to great trouble. The way you defined the master -- that he will be simple, ordinary -- has become a problem for me. I have been searching all over the country, and no one satisfies me. So give me some clue how to find the master.'

The dying man said, `You have been searching in wrong places. You have been searching in wrong places! You have been going to persons who are in some way extraordinary, and then you try to find the ordinary. Move in the ordinary world. And really you are still trying to find the extraordinary. Now you define him as ordinary, but you are still searching for the extra-ordinary. Now the definition has changed. Now you define him as the most ordinary, but the rare, the exceptional. You are still in this search. Don't do that, and the moment you are ready and not searching in this way, the master will come to you.

The next morning while he was sitting, he tried to understand what the old man had said, and he felt that he was right. The desire left him. A beggar appeared -- and he was the master. And he had known that beggar his whole life. He was always coming, that beggar was coming daily to the palace, so the emperor asked the beggar, `How did it happen that I couldn't recognize you before?'

The beggar said, `Because you were searching for the extra-ordinary. I was here, but you were searching THERE. You missed me continuously.'

Tantra says THIS not THAT, particularly in this technique. There are techniques in which THAT is discussed, but THIS is most tantric -- this, here and now, the most intimate. Your wife, your husband, THIS, your friend, the beggar, may be the master. But you are not looking at THIS; you are looking at THAT, there, somewhere in the clouds. You cannot even conceive that near you can be that quality of being. You cannot conceive; because you think you already know the near, so you search for it far away. You already feel that you know THIS, so now the only thing to be found is THAT.

This is not true. You don't know THIS, you don't know the near. The near is as unknown as the far away. Have a look around you. You are not acquainted with anybody. You don't have any knowledge of anybody. Do you know the tree you pass every day? Do you know your friend with whom you have lived your whole life? Or do you know yourself, who is the nearest? Do you know your body, the breath that comes and goes continuously? Do you know it? Nothing is known. Even THIS is not known, so why hanker after THAT?

This technique says, if THIS is known, THAT will be known automatically, because THAT is implied in THIS. The far away is hidden in the near, in the intimate. But the human mind hankers for the far away. This is an escape. It is an escape to think of the far away, because then you can go on thinking forever, and you can go on postponing the living, because life is THIS. If you think about it and if you contemplate about it, you will have to change yourself.

I am reminded of one anecdote. Once it happened, a Zen master was appointed as a preacher in a temple. No one knew that he was a Zen master. The congregation gathered and the first sermon was delivered. Everyone was thrilled; it was just beautiful. No one had heard such a thing before. The next day an even greater crowd came to the temple, but the master repeated the same sermon. So they got bored -- `What type of man is he?'

Then on the third day they came again, not in so great a number, but the master repeated the same sermon again. So many left just in the middle; only very few were left, and those few were there only to ask. `Have you got only one sermon? And are you going to deliver it every day?' One spokesman blurted out and asked the priest, `What type of preaching is this? Thrice we have heard you, and you go on repeating exactly the same thing, in exactly the same words. Don't you have any other lectures, any other sermons?'

The priest said,`I have quite a few, but you have not done anything about the first one. Unless you do something about the first one, I am not going to deliver the second. It is unnecessary.'

The crowd stopped coming. No one would come near the temple, because the moment anyone would come, the Zen priest would start the first sermon. It is said that people stopped passing that way, that temple -- `That priest is there, and if you happen to be there he will give you the same sermon again.'

He must have been a very deep knower of the human mind. The human mind wants to think but never wants to do anything -- action is dangerous. Thinking is good, because you go on being the same. If you think about the far away, the distant, there is no need to change yourself. The Brahma, the absolute, cannot change you, but the neighbor, the friend, the wife, the husband -- if you look at them, you will have to change yourself. And it is a trick not to look at them.

You look at the THAT to forget the THIS -- and THIS is the life, and THAT is simply a dream. You can think about God, because that thinking is impotent; it is not going to do anything. You will continue thinking about God and you will remain the same. This is a trick to remain the same. If you think about your wife, if you think about your child, if you penetrate deep in the intimate near, you cannot remain the same -- action will come out of it.

Tantra says, `Don't go far away. He is here, this very moment, just near you. Be open, and look at the THIS, and the THAT will take care of itself.'

Question 3

YOU HAVE SAID THAT TANTRA TEACHES MAN TO TRANSCEND BOTH HIS CRAVING FOR HIS ANIMALISTIC PAST, AND ALSO HIS CRAVING FOR THE DIVINE. DOES IT MEAN THAT DIVINITY IS PART OF THE WORLD, AND THAT TOO HAS TO BE TRANSCENDED? AND WHAT IS IT THAT GOES BEYOND BOTH?

You will have to understand many things. First: the nature of desire. Divinity is not what you call it. The god that you talk about is not the god of reality; it is the god of your desire. So it is not a question of whether the divine is part of the world. That is not the question. The real question is, can you desire the divine without making him part of the world?

Look at it in this way. It has been said again and again that unless you leave desiring, you cannot attain to him, the ultimate. You cannot attain to the divine if you don't leave desiring. Leave desiring and you can attain to him. You have heard it many times, but I wonder whether you understand it or not. More or less, you will be misunderstanding it. Hearing this, you start desiring the divine -- and that is to miss the whole point.

If you leave desiring, the divine will happen to you. Then you start desiring the divine, so your divine will be part of the world. That which can be desired is the world. This is how I define it: that which can be desired is the world. So the divine cannot be desired, and if you desire it, it has become part of the world.

When desiring stops, the divine happens. When you are not desiring anything, the divine is there -- then the whole world is divine. You will not find the divine somewhere in contradiction, in opposition to the world -- contrary to the world. When you are not desiring, everything is divine; when you are desiring, everything is the world. Your desiring creates the world: whatsoever you desire becomes the world. This is not the world that you see -- the trees, and the sky, and the sea, and the rivers, and the earth, and the stars. This is not the world -- that which you desire is the world.

A flower is there in the garden. The moment you pass the tree, and you look at the flower, and the smell of the flower comes to you, look within. If you are not desiring that flower, if there is not even a slight urge to possess it, not even a slight ripple of desire to have it, that flower becomes divine. You will have the divine face through it. But if the desire is there to possess it, or a jealousy arises about the owner of the tree, you have created a world; the divine has disappeared. It is your desire that changes the quality of existence; your desire makes it the world. When you are non-desiring, the whole world becomes divine.

Now I will read this question again. YOU HAVE SAID THAT TANTRA TEACHES MAN TO TRANSCEND BOTH HIS CRAVING FOR HIS ANIMALISTIC PAST, AND ALSO HIS CRAVING FOR THE DIVINE.

Tantra teaches only to transcend craving. It is irrelevant what you crave -- that you crave is the point. You can go on changing the objects. You crave money, you crave power, you crave prestige -- you crave for the world. Then you change. You get fed up with it, you are bored. Or, you have attained whatsoever you craved, and now you are not fulfilled; you feel frustrated. You start a new craving.

Now you crave the divine. You crave moksha, nirvana, liberation -- now you crave for the god. The object has changed; you have not changed -- your craving remains the same. It was running after prestige and power and money. Now it is running after divine power. It is running after the ultimate, moksha, the absolute freedom, but the craving is there.

Ordinarily, religious people go on changing their objects of desire. Desire remains the same, unchanged. And it is not the objects which create the problem; it is the desire, the craving, which creates the problem. Tantra says it is futile to go on changing objects. It is wasting time and life and energy. Changing objects won't help -- drop craving. Don't crave. Don't crave for freedom, because craving is bondage. Don't crave for the divine, because craving is the world. Don't crave for the inner, because craving is the outer. So it is not a question of transcending this craving or that -- simply drop craving. Don't crave, don't desire. Just be yourself.

When you don't desire, what happens? When you don't crave, what happens? You are non-moving; all movement ceases. You are not in a hurry to reach anywhere. You are not serious. There is no hope and there is no frustration. You don't expect anything; nothing can frustrate you. There is no desire; you cannot be a failure. Of course, there is not going to be any success either.

When you are not craving, not desiring, what happen? You are simply left alone, moving nowhere. There is no goal, because craving creates the goal. There is no future, because craving creates the future. There is no time, because craving needs time to move. Time stops. Future drops. And when there is no craving, mind drops, because mind is nothing but craving, and because of that craving you have to plan and think and dream and project.

When there is no craving, everything drops. You are simply in your purity. You exist without moving anywhere; inside, all ripples disappear. The ocean remains, but the waves are not there. This is what divineness is for tantra.

So look at it in this way: craving is the barrier. Don't think of the object, otherwise you will be deceived by yourself. You will change one object for another, and then time will be wasted. Again you will get frustrated, and then you will again change the object. You can go on changing objects infinitely, unless you realize that it is not the object which creates the problem, it is your craving. But craving is subtle and the object is gross. The object can be seen, and craving can be seen only when you go deep down and meditate upon it; otherwise, craving is not seen.

You can marry a woman or a man with great dreams and hope, and the greater the dreams, the greater the hope, the greater will be the frustration. An ordinary arranged marriage cannot be such a failure as a love-marriage is bound to be, because with an ordinary arranged marriage there is not much hope, there is not much dreaming. It is business-like; there is no romance, no poetry. There is no peak to it; you are travelling on plain ground. So arranged marriages never fail. They cannot fail, because there is no point. How can you fail in an arranged marriage? You were never on a height, so you cannot fall. Love-marriages fail. Only love-marriages can fail, because with a great poetry, with a great dreaming force, they come up. They touch heights, on the waves you rise high, and then you will have to fall down.

So old countries, those who have knowledge, experience, they have come to settle for arranged marriages. They don't talk about love-marriages. In India they never talk about love-marriages. They have also tried in the past, and then they felt that a love-marriage is going to be a failure. Because you expect too much, you will be frustrated, and the proportion of frustration will be the same. Whatsoever you desire and dream gives you expectations -- they cannot be fulfilled.

You marry a woman; if it is a love-marriage, you expect much. Then you get frustrated. The moment you get frustrated, immediately you start thinking about another woman. So if you say to your wife, `I am not interested in any other woman,' and she feels you have become indifferent to her, you cannot convince her -- it is impossible, it is unnatural. The moment you become indifferent to your wife, the wife knows instinctively that you have become interested in someone else.

This is how mind functions. You become aware of the woman that you have married, and you feel the frustration is coming because of her -- `This was not a right choice.' This is ordinary logic. `This was not a right choice. This woman is not for me. I have chosen a wrong partner, so the conflict has arisen.' Now you will try to find another partner.

You can go on that way ad infinitum. You may marry all the women on the earth, and still you will be thinking in the same way -- that `This woman is not right for me'. And the subtle craving which is creating all trouble is not seen. It is subtle. The woman is seen; the craving is not seen. It is not the woman or the man who is frustrating you; it is your craving, your desire, which is frustrating you.

If you can come to understand this, you have become wise. If you go on changing objects, you are ignorant. If you can come to feel yourself and the craving which is creating the whole thing, you have become wise. Then you don't go on changing one object for another; you simply drop the very effort to possess, to desire, to crave.

The moment this craving is not there, the whole world becomes divine. It has always been so, only your eyes were not open to see. Your eyes were filled with craving. Eyes filled with craving, the divine appears as the world. Open eyes, unfilled, unclouded by craving, the world appears as the divine.

The world and the divine are not two things, not two existences, but two ways of looking at the same thing, two approaches to the same thing, two outlooks, two types of perception. One perception clouded with craving, another perception unclouded with craving. If you can look unclouded, and your eyes are not filled with tears of frustration and dreams of hope, there is nothing like the world; only the divine exists -- existence is divine. This is what tantra means. And when tantra says transcend both, tantra is not concerned with either this or that -- tantra is concerned only with transcendence, so there is no craving.

AND WHAT IS IT THAT GOES BEYOND BOTH? That cannot be said, because the moment anything is said about it, it comes within the two. Whatsoever can be said about God will be false, just because it is said.

Language is dualistic. There is no non-dual language; cannot be. Language is meaningful only because of dualism. I say `light'; immediately in your mind bubbles up the word `darkness' or `black'. I say `day', and immediately in your mind comes `night'. I say `love', and just behind it is hidden `hate'. If I say light and there is no darkness, how will you define it?j

We can only define words because of their opposite terms. I say light, and if you ask me what light is, I say that which is not darkness. If someone asks you what mind is, you say that which is not body. If someone asks what body is, you have to say that which is not mind. All terms are circular, so, basically meaningless, because neither you know anything about the mind, nor do you know anything about the body. When I ask about the mind, you define it with the body, and the body is undefined. When I ask you about the body, you define it with the mind, which is itself undefined.

This is good as a game. Language is good as a game -- language is a game. But we never feel that the whole thing is absurd, circular; and nothing is defined, so how can you define anything? When I ask about the mind, you bring in the body -- and the body is undefined. With an indefined term, you define mind. And then when I ask, `What do you mean by body?' you have to define it with the mind. This is absurd -- but there is no other way.

Language exists through the opposite, so language is dualistic. It cannot be otherwise. So nothing can be said about the non-dual experience. Whatsoever is said will be wrong. It can be indicated, symbols can be used for it, but silence is the best. That which can be said about it is silence. Everything else can be defined, talked about -- not the ultimate. You can know it, taste it, you can be it, but nothing can be said about it. Only negatively we can say something, but only negatively. We cannot say what that is; we can only say what that is not.

The whole mystic tradition is simply using negative terms for it. If you ask what that ultimate is, they will say, `That ultimate is not this, not that. It is neither life nor death. It is neither light nor darkness. It is neither near nor far. It is neither I nor you.' They will say in this way, but this makes no sense.

Drop craving and you come to know it face to face. And the experience is so deep and individual, non-verbal, non-linguistic, that even when you come to know it, you cannot say anything about it. You will become silent. Or, at the most, you can say this that I am saying. You can say, `Nothing can be said about it.'

Then what is the point of talking so much? Then why do I go on saying something to you if nothing can be said? Just to bring you to that point where nothing can be said. Just to push you to that abyss where you can take a jump out of language. Up to that point, language can be helpful. Up to the point when you take the jump, language can be helpful, but the moment you have taken the jump, it is silence, it is beyond language.

So I can push you to the very end of the world through language -- to the very end of the world -- but not a single inch into the divine through language. But this pushing you up to the very end will be helpful, because then you can see with your own eyes that there is this blissful abyss beyond. And then that beyond will call you by itself; then the beyond will attract you; then the beyond will become a magnet, a pull. It is impossible then for you to come back, to retreat. The abyss is so enchanting -- the abyss of silence -- that before you know, you will have taken a jump.

That's why I go on talking, knowing well that all that I am saying will not help you to know it. But it will help you to take a jump. It is methodological. It will look contradictory, paradoxical, if I say that all language that I am using, or that the mystics have ever used, is to bring you to the temple of silence; to force you into silence, to call you unto silence. It looks paradoxical. Then why use language? I can use silence also, but then you will not understand.

When I have to talk to madmen. I have to use a mad language. It is because of you I am using language. It is not that anything can be expressed by it; only your inner chattering can be destroyed by it. It is just as if you have a thorn in your foot -- another thorn can pull it out. The other one is also a thorn. Your mind is filled with words, with thorns. What I am trying to do is to pull those words out of you. What I am using are also words. You are filled with poison. What I am giving you is again a dose of poison, just an antidote. It is also a poison. But a thorn can pull out another thorn -- then they both can be thrown.

When I have talked to you to the point where you are ready to be silent, throw all that I have said to you; it is useless, it is even dangerous to carry it. When you have come to realize that language is useless, dangerous, that inner verbalization is the only barrier, and when you are ready to be silent, then remember well -- don't carry whatsoever I have said to you. Because the truth cannot be said, and all that can be said cannot be true. Be unburdened of it.

The last thing Zarathustra said to his disciples is very beautiful. He had taught them. He had given them glimpses. He had stirred their souls. He had challenged them to the ultimate adventure. The last thing he said to them was, `Now I am leaving you. Now beware of Zarathustra.'

So they asked, `What are you saying? Beware of Zarathustra? You are our teacher, our master, our only hope.'

And Zarathustra said, `All that I have said to you, now beware of it. Don't cling to me, otherwise I will become a bondage to you.'

When one thorn has pulled out your thorn, throw the other one also with it. When I have prepared you to move into silence, then beware of me. Then whatsoever I have said has to be thrown; it is rubbish, of no use. It has utility only up to the point before you are ready to take a jump into silence. Nothing can be said about that which transcends both. Only this much can be said -- and this is too much really. If you can understand, this is enough to indicate towards it.

I am saying this -- that if your mind becomes totally vacant of words, you will know it. When you are not burdened with thoughts, you will realize it, because it is already there. It is not something which is going to happen; it has already happened within you. You are just an expression of it. But you are so much engrossed, involved, with thoughts, with clouds, that you miss the key. You are too concentrated on the clouds; you have forgotten the sky. Allow the clouds to disperse, and the sky has always been there just waiting for you. The beyond is waiting for you. Just drop the duality and it is there.

Question 4

YOU HAVE SAID THAT ONE WHO IS IN FEAR CANNOT LOVE, NOR CAN HE REACH GODHOOD. BUT HOW IS ONE TO GET RID OF HIS FEAR ACCORDING TO TANTRA?

Why do you want to get rid of fear? Or have you become afraid of fear? If you have become afraid of fear, this is a new fear. This is how mind goes on creating the same pattern again and again. I say, `Don't desire and then you will reach the divine.' So you ask, `Really, if we don't desire, then will we reach the divine?' You have started desiring the divine.

I say to you, `If there is fear, love cannot be,' so you become afraid of fear. You ask, `How can one get rid of fear?' This is again a fear, and more dangerous than the first one, because the first one was natural; the second one is unnatural. And it is so subtle that you are not aware of what you are asking -- how to get rid of fear?

The question is not of getting rid of anything; the question is only of understanding. Understand fear, what it is, and don't try to get rid of it, because the moment you start trying to get rid of anything, you are not ready to understand it -- because the mind which thinks to get rid of is already closed. It is not open to understand, it is not sympathetic. It cannot contemplate quietly; it has already decided. Now the fear has become the evil, the sin, so get rid of it. Don't try to get rid of anything.

Try to understand what fear is. And if you have fear, then accept it. It is there. Don't try to hide it. Don't try to create the opposite. If you have fear, then you have fear. Accept it as part of your being. If you can accept it, it has disappeared already. Through acceptance, fear disappears; through denial, fear increases.

You come to a point where you know that you are afraid, and you come to understand, `Because of this fear, love cannot happen to me. So, okay, what can I do? The fear is there, so only one thing will happen -- I will not pretend love. Or, I will say to my beloved or my lover that it is because of fear that I am clinging to you. Deep down I am afraid. I will become frank about it; I will not deceive anyone, nor myself. I will not pretend that this is love. I will say this is simply fear. Because of fear, I cling to you. Because of fear, I go to the temple, or to the church, and pray. Because of fear, I remember God. But then I know that this is not prayer, this is not love, this is only fear. I am fear, so whatsoever I do, it is there. I will accept this truth.'

A miracle happens when you accept a truth. The very acceptance changes you. When you know that there is fear in your being and you cannot do anything about it, what can you do? All that you can do is pretend, and pretensions can go to the very extreme, to the other extreme.

A very fearful man can become a very brave man. He can create an armour around him. He can become a dare-devil, just to show that he is not afraid; just to show others that he is not afraid. And if he can go into danger, he can deceive himself that he is not afraid. But even the bravest man is afraid. His whole bravery is just around him; deep down he trembles. Not to be aware of it, he takes a jump into danger. He becomes engaged with the danger so that he is not aware of the fear, but the fear is there.

You can create the opposite, but this is not going to change anything. You can pretend that you are not afraid -- that makes no change again. The only transformation that can happen is that you become simply aware that `I am fear. My whole being is trembling, and whatsoever I do is because of the fear.' You have become true to yourself.

Then you are not afraid of fear. It is there, a part of you; nothing can be done about it. You have accepted it. Now you don't pretend, now you don't deceive anyone, nor yourself. The truth is there, and you are not afraid of it. The fear starts disappearing, because a person who is not afraid to accept his fear has become fearless -- that is the deepest fearlessness that is possible. He has not created the opposite, so there is no duality in him. He has accepted the fact. He has become humble before it. He doesn't know what to do -- no one knows -- and nothing can be done, but he has stopped pretending; he has stopped using masks, faces. He has become authentic in his fear.

This authenticity, and this fearlessness to accept the truth, changes you. And when you don't pretend, don't create a false love, don't create a deception around you, don't become a pseudo-person, you have become authentic. In this authenticity, love arises; fear disappears, love arises. This is the inner alchemy of how love arises.

Now you can love. Now you can have compassion, sympathy. Now you don't depend on anyone, because there is no need. You have accepted the truth. There is no need to depend on anyone; there is no need to possess and be possessed. There is no hankering for the other. You accept yourself -- through this acceptance, love arises. It fills your being. You are not afraid of fear, you are not trying to get rid of it. Simply it disappears when accepted.

Accept your authentic being and you will be transformed. Remember: acceptability, total acceptability, is the most secret key of tantra. Don't reject anything. Through rejection you will be crippled. Accept everything -- whatsoever it is. Don't condemn it, and don't try to get rid of it.

There are many things implied in it. If you try to get rid of it, you will have to cut your being into departments, fragments, parts. You will be crippled. When you throw one thing, something else is also thrown with it -- the other part of it -- and you become crippled. Then you are not total. And you cannot be happy unless you are total and whole. To be whole is to be holy. To be in fragments is to be ill and diseased.

So I will say, try to understand fear. Existence has given it to you. It must have some deep meaning, and it must have some hidden treasure, so don't throw it. Nothing is given without any meaning. Nothing exists within you which cannot be used in a higher symphony, in a higher synthesis.

All that exists in you, whether you understand it or not, can become a step. Don't think of it as a hindrance; allow it to become a step. You can take it that it is hindering the path -- it is not hindering. If you can ride above it, if you can use it, stand on it, a new view of the path will be revealed to you on a higher level. You will be able to look deep into the possibility, into the future, into the potentiality.

Fear is there for certain purposes. Try to understand this. One: if there is no fear, you will become too egoistic, and there will be no going back. If there is no fear, as you are, you will never try to merge into existence, into the cosmos. Really, if there is no fear you will not be able to survive at all. So it is doing something for you. Whatsoever you are, it is playing a role in it.

But if you try to hide it, destroy it, create the opposite of it, you will be divided and you will become fragmentary, disintegrated. Accept it and use it. And the moment you know that you have accepted it, it disappears. Just try to think: if you accept your fear, where is it?

One man came to me and he said, `I am very much afraid of death.' He had cancer, and death was very near; any day it could happen. And he could not postpone it. He knew it was going to happen. Within months it would be there, or even within weeks.

He was really physically, literally, trembling, and he said, `Just give me one thing: how can I get rid of this fear of death? Give me some mantra, or something which can protect me and give me courage to face death. I don't want to die trembling in fear.' The man said, `I have been to many saints. Many things they have given. They were very kind. Someone has given me a mantra, someone has given me some sacred ashes, someone has given me his picture, someone has given something else, but nothing helps. Everything is in vain. Now I have come to you as the last resort. Now I will not go to anyone any more. Give me something.'

So I told him, `Still you are not aware. Why are you asking for something? -- just to get rid of fear? Nothing will help. I cannot give you anything, otherwise, as others have proved failures, I will also prove a failure. And they gave you something because they don't know what they are doing. I can say only one thing to you. Accept it. Tremble if trembling is there -- what to do? Death is there, and you feel a trembling, so tremble. Don't reject it, don't suppress it. Don't try to be brave. There is no need. Death is there. It is natural. Be afraid totally.'

He said, `What are you saying? You have not given me anything. Rather, on the contrary, you say to accept.'

I said, `Yes, you accept. You just go and die peacefully with total acceptance.'

After three or four days he came again, and said, `It works. I couldn't sleep for so many days, but for these four days I slept deeply, because it is right, you are right.' He said to me, `You are right. Fear is there, death is there, nothing can be done. All the mantras are just hocus-pocus; nothing can be done.'

No doctor can help, no saint can help. Death is there, a fact, and you are trembling. It is just natural. A storm comes and the whole tree trembles. It never goes to any saint to ask how not to tremble when a storm is passing by. It never goes for a mantra to change it, to protect it. It trembles. It is natural; it is so.

And the man said, `But a miracle has happened. Now I am not so afraid.' If you accept, fear starts disappearing. If you reject, resist, fight, you give energy to fear. That man died peacefully, unafraid, fearless, because he could accept fear. Accept fear and it disappears.

Question 5

BY THE USE OF TECHNIQUES SIMILAR TO THE SECOND TECHNIQUE YOU DISCUSSED YESTERDAY, I HEAR SOME SOUNDS LIKE THE FLOWING OF A RIVER OR A STREAM. MAY I KNOW WHAT THAT SOUND IS? IF I HAVE UNDERSTOOD RIGHTLY, THERE SHOULD BE NO THOUGHTS OR SOUND, AND THERE SHOULD BE COMPLETE SILENCE. THEN WHAT IS THIS SOUND?

In the beginning, before silence happens to you, sound will happen. So this is a good sign. Words, language, verbalization, disappear; the second layer is of sound. But don't fight with it; enjoy it. It will become musical, beautiful, You will be filled by its music, and you will become more alive through it.

When mind disappears, a natural inner sound appears. Allow it to happen. Meditate on it. Don't fight with it; just be a witness to it -- it will deepen. And if you don't fight with it, and don't create any struggle, it will disappear by itself, and when it disappears, you will fall into silence. Words -- sound -- silence. Words are human, sounds are natural, silence is cosmic.

So this is a good sign. This is what is called nada, the inner sound. Hear it, enjoy it, be a witness to it. It will disappear. And don't be disturbed and feel that it should not be there. If you say it should not be there, or if you hurry to get rid of it in any way, you will come to the first layer again -- to the words. Remember this. If you fight with this second layer of sound, you have started thinking about it and words have entered. If you say anything about this sound, you have lost the second deeper layer, and you are thrown back again to the first. You have come to the mind.

Don't say anything, don't think about it. Don't even say that this is sound. Just listen to it. Don't create any word around it. Don't give it any name or form. Let is be as it is. Allow it to flow, and you be a witness. The stream flows, and you are sitting on the bank, just a witness -- not even knowing the name of the stream, not knowing where it is going, not knowing from where it is coming.

Just sit near by the sound, and sooner or later it will disappear, and when it disappears there will be silence. This is a good sign -- you have touched a second layer -- but if you try to think about it, you will lose it; you will be thrown back to the first. If you don't think about it and can enjoy in witnessing, you will go deeper to the third layer.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #21

Chapter title: Techniques to become one with the whole

2 July 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7307025

ShortTitle: VBT221

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 79 mins

EACH THING IS PERCEIVED THROUGH KNOWING.

THE SELF SHINES IN SPACE THROUGH KNOWING.

PERCEIVE ONE BEING AS KNOWER AND KNOWN.

BELOVED,

AT THIS MOMENT

LET, MIND, KNOWING, BREATH, FORM,

BE INCLUDED.

I have heard one anecdote. In a conservative party rally, Lord Mancroft was invited to speak. He came right on time, reached the rostrum and said to the public -- he was looking a little flustered -- he said, `Forgive me for shortening my speech a little, but the fact is that my house is on fire.'

And that fact is everybody's fact. Your house is also on fire, but you don't even seem a little flustered.

Everybody's house is on fire, but you are not aware -- not aware of death, not aware that your life is just passing through your hands. Every moment you are dying, every moment you are losing an opportunity which cannot be regained. The time that is lost, is lost: nothing can be done to regain it, and your life becomes shorter and shorter every moment.

This is what I mean when I say that your house is also on fire. But you don't seem even a little flustered. You don't even seem to be worried about it. You are not aware of the fact that the house is on fire. The fact is there, but your attention is not there. And everybody thinks that there is enough time to do something. There is not enough time, because whatsoever has to be done is so much that the time is never enough.

Once it happened that the Devil was waiting for years and years and nobody was coming to hell. He was waiting to welcome people, but the earth was running so well and people were so good that no one was coming to hell. Of course he became very worried. He called an emergency council. His greatest disciples gathered together to discuss the situation. Hell was passing through a great crisis and this could not be tolerated. Something had to be done. So he asked for advice: `What should we do?'

One disciple suggested, `I would go to the earth and I would talk to people and try to convince them that there is no God and religions are false, and whatsoever the Bible, the Koran and the Vedas say is nonsense.'

The Devil said, `This won't do, because we have been doing this since the very beginning and it has not influenced people very much. Through such teaching you can convince only those who are already convinced. So it is of no use; it is not of much use.'

Then the second disciple, subtler than the first, said, `I will go and teach people and try to convince people that whatsoever the Bible, the Koran and the Vedas say is right. There is heaven, there is God, but there is no Devil and no hell, so don't be afraid. And if we can make them less afraid, they will not bother about religion at all, because all religion is based on fear.'

The Devil said, `Your proposal is a little better. You may be able to, you may succeed in convincing a minority, but the majority will not listen to you. They are not as much afraid of hell as they are greedy of heaven. Even if you convince them that there is no hell, they will still want to enter into heaven, and they will try to be good for that. So this also won't do much.'

Then the third disciple, the subtlest of them all, said, `I have an idea. Give me a chance to try it. I will go and say that whatsoever religion says is absolutely true -- there is God and there is Devil and there is heaven and there is hell -- but there is no hurry.'

And the Devil said, `Right? You have the right system. You go!'

And it is said that since then there has never been a crisis in hell. Rather, they are worried about the over-population.

This is how our minds are functioning: we always think there is no hurry. These techniques we are talking about will be of no use if your mind thinks there is no hurry. Then you can go on postponing and death will come first. That day will not come when you think there is a hurry, when you think that now the moment has come. You can go on postponing. This is what we have been doing with our lives.

You have to be decisive to do something. You are in a crisis -- the house is on fire. Life is always on fire because death is always there hidden behind it; any moment and you may not be any more. And you cannot argue with death. You cannot do anything. When death happens, it happens. Time is very short. Even if you live for seventy years or for a hundred years, it is very short. What you have to do with yourself to transform, to mutate, to become a new being, is such a great work. Don't go on postponing.

Unless you feel it as an emergency, a deep crisis, you will not do anything. Unless religion becomes a very critical process for you, and you feel that unless something is done to transform you, your whole life is just wasted.... If you feel this very keenly and deeply and honestly, only then will these techniques be of any help. Because you can understand them -- understanding is of no use unless you do something about it. Really, unless you do something about it, you have not understood them, because understanding must become action. If it is not becoming action then it is only acquaintance, not understanding.

Try to understand this distinction. Acquaintance is not understanding. Acquaintance will not force you to actions. It will not force you to any change. It will not force you to do something about it. You will gather it in the mind; it will become information. You will become more knowledgeable. But at death everything stops. You go on collecting many things, never doing anything about them. They become just a burden on you.

Understanding means action. When you understand a thing, immediately you start working on it, because if it is right and you feel it is right, you have to do something about it. Otherwise everything remains borrowed, and borrowed knowledge cannot become understanding. You can forget that it is borrowed -- you would like to forget that it is borrowed, because to feel that it is borrowed means that your ego is hurt. So you go on forgetting that it is borrowed. By and by you start feeling that it is your own. That is very dangerous.

I have heard an anecdote. The congregation of a church was very bored by the minister. A point came when the members of the church said directly to the minister, `Now you have to leave.'

The minister said, `Give me one more chance, only one chance, and if then you say so, I will leave.'

So next Sunday the whole town gathered in the church to see what that minister was going to do now that only one chance was given to him. They never suspected, they never imagined, that such a beautiful sermon was going to be delivered on that day. They had never heard such a thing.

Surprised, delighted, they enjoyed it, and when the sermon was finished they gathered around the minister and they said, `You need not leave. You remain here. We have never heard such a thing before -- never in our lives. Be here and remain here, and of course, with an increase in your stipend.'

But then one man, a very prominent member of the congregation, asked, `Tell me one thing only. When you started your lecture you raised your left hand with two fingers raised, and when you closed your lecture you raised your right hand, again with two fingers raised. So what is the meaning of this symbol?`

The minister said, `The meaning is easy. Those fingers are symbolic of quotation marks. That sermon was not mine -- it was borrowed.'

Always remember those quotation marks. It is very good to forget them, you feel good, but all that you know is within quotation marks; it is not your own. And you can drop those quotation marks only when something has become your own experience.

These techniques are to change knowledge into experience. These techniques are to change acquaintance into understanding. That which belongs to a Buddha or to a Krishna or to a Christ, through these techniques can belong to you -- that can become your own. And unless it becomes your own, no truth is true. It may be a grand lie, a beautiful lie, but no truth is true unless it becomes your experience -- individually, authentically your own.

Three things. First: always remember that your house is on fire. Second: don't listen to the Devil. He will constantly say to you that there is no hurry. And thirdly: remember, acquaintance is not understanding.

Whatsoever I am saying here will make you acquainted. It is needed, but it is not enough. It starts you on a journey, but it is not the end. Do something so that knowledge doesn't remain knowledge, doesn't remain as memory, but becomes your experience and your life.

Now the first technique:

EACH THING IS PERCEIVED THROUGH KNOWING.

THE SELF SHINES IN SPACE THROUGH KNOWING.

PERCEIVE ONE BEING AS KNOWER AND KNOWN.

Whenever you know something, it is known through knowing. The object comes to your mind through the faculty of knowledge. You look at a flower. You know this is a rose flower. Thew rose flower is there and you are inside. Something from you comes to the rose flower, something from you is projected on the rose flower. Some energy moves from you, comes to the rose, takes its form, color and smell, and comes back and informs you that this is a rose flower.

All knowledge, whatsoever you know, is revealed through the faculty of knowing. Knowing is your faculty. Knowledge is gathered through this faculty. But knowing reveals two things: the known and the knower. Whenever you are knowing a rose flower, your knowledge is half if you forget the knower who is knowing it. So while knowing a rose flower there are three things: the rose flower -- the known; and the knower -- you; and the relationship between the two -- knowledge.

So knowledge can be divided into three points: knower, known and knowing. Knowing is just like a bridge between two points -- the subject and the object. Ordinarily your knowledge reveals only the known; the knower remains unrevealed. Ordinarily your knowledge is one-arrowed: it points to the rose but it never points to you. Unless it starts pointing to you, that knowledge will allow you to know about the world, but it will not allow you to know about yourself.

All the techniques of meditation are to reveal the knower. George Gurdjieff used a particular technique just like this. He called it self-remembering. He said that whenever you are knowing something, always remember the knower. Don't forget it in the object. Remember the subject. Just now you are listening to me. When you are listening to me, you can listen in two ways. One: your mind can be focused towards me -- then you forget the listener. Then the speaker is known but the listener is forgotten.

Gurdjieff said that while listening, know the speaker and also know the listener. Your knowledge must be double-arrowed, pointing to two points -- the knower and the known. It must not only flow in one direction towards the object. It must flow simultaneously towards two directions -- the known and the knower. This he called self-remembering.

Looking at a flower, also remember the one who is looking. Difficult, because if you do try it, if you try to be aware of the knower, you will forget the rose. You have become so fixed to one direction that it will take time. If you become aware of the knower, then the known will be forgotten. If you become aware of the known, then the knower will be forgotten.

But a little effort, and by and by you can be aware of both simultaneously. And when you become capable of being aware of both, this Gurdjieff calls self-remembering. This is one of the oldest techniques that Buddha used, and Gurdjieff again introduced it to the western world.

Buddha called is samyak smriti -- right-mindfulness. He said that your mind is not in a right-mindfulness if it knows only one point. It must know both. And then a miracle happen: if you are aware of both the known and the knower, suddenly you become the third -- you are neither. Just by endeavoring to be aware of both the known and the knower, you become the third, you become a witness. A third possibility arises immediately -- a witnessing self comes into being -- because how can you know both? If you are the knower, then you remain fixed to one point. In self-remembering you shift from the fixed point of the knower. Then the knower is your mind and the known is the world, and you become a third point, a consciousness, a witnessing self.

This third point cannot be transcended, and that which cannot be transcended is the ultimate. That which can be transcended is not worthwhile, because then it is not your nature -- you can transcend it.

I will try to explain it through an example. In the night you sleep and you dream. In the morning you wake and the dream is lost. While you are awake there is no dream; a different world comes into your view. You move in the streets, you work in a factory or in an office. Then you come back to your home, and again you fall asleep at night. Then this world that you knew while you were awake disappears. Then you don't remember who you are. Then you don't know whether you are black or white, poor or rich, wise or foolish. You don't know anything. You don't know if you are young or old. You don't know if you are man or woman. All that was related with the waking consciousness disappears; you enter the world of dreams. You forget the waking world; it is no more. In the morning, again the dreaming world disappears. You come back.

Which is real? -- because while you are dreaming, the real world, the world that you knew when you were awake, is no more. You cannot compare. And while you are awake, the dreaming world is no more. You cannot compare. Which is real? Why do you call the dreaming world unreal? What is the criterion?

If you say, `Because it disappears when I am awake,' this cannot be the criterion, because your waking world disappears when you are dreaming. And really, if you argue this way, then the dreaming world may be more real, because while you are awake you can remember the dream, but while you are dreaming you cannot remember the waking consciousness and the world around it. So which is more real and more deep? The dreaming world completely washes away the world that you call real. Your real world cannot wash away the dreaming world so totally; it seems more solid, more real. And what is the criterion? How to say? How to compare?

Tantra says that both are unreal. Then what is real? Tantra says that the one who knows the dreaming world and the one who knows the waking world, he is real -- because he is never transcended. He is never cancelled. Whether you dream or whether you are awake, he is there, uncanceled.

Tantra says that the one who knows the dream, and the one who knows that now the dream has stopped, the one who knows the waking world, and the one who knows that now the waking world has disappeared, is the real. Because there is no point when it is not; it is always there. That which cannot be cancelled by any experience is the real. That which cannot be transcended, beyond which you cannot go, is your self. If you can go beyond it, then it was not your self.

This method of Gurdjieff's, which he calls self-remembering, or Buddha's method, which he calls right-mindfulness, or this tantra sutra, lead to one thing. They lead within you to a point which is neither to known nor the knower, but a witnessing self which knows both.

This witnessing self is the ultimate, you cannot go beyond it, because now whatsoever you do will be witnessing. Beyond witnessing you cannot move. So witnessing is the ultimate substratum, the basic ground of consciousness. This sutra will reveal it to you.

EACH THING IS PERCEIVED THROUGH KNOWING.

THE SELF SHINES IN SPACE THROUGH KNOWING.

PERCEIVE ONE BEING AS KNOWER AND KNOWN.

If you can perceive in yourself one point which is both knower and known, then you have transcended object and subject both. Then you have transcended the matter and mind both; then you have transcended the outer and inner both. You have come to a point where the knower and the known are one. There is no division.

With the mind, division will remain. Only with the witnessing self, division disappears. With the witnessing self you cannot say who is the known and who is the knower -- it is both. But this has to be based on experience, otherwise it becomes a philosophical discussion. So try it, experiment.

You are sitting near a rose flower: look at it. The first thing to do is be totally attentive, give total attention to the rose, so that the whole world disappears and only the rose remains there -- your consciousness is totally attentive to the being of the rose. If the attention is total then the world disappears, because the more the attention is concentrated on the rose, the more everything else falls away. The world disappears; only the rose remains. The rose becomes the world.

This is the first step -- to concentrate on the rose. If you cannot concentrate on the rose, it will be difficult to move to the knower, because then your mind is always diverted. So concentration becomes the first step towards meditation. Only the rose remains; the whole world has disappeared. Now you can move inwards; now the rose becomes the point from where you can move. Now see the rose, and start becoming aware of yourself -- the knower.

In the beginning you will miss. When you shift to the knower, the rose will drop out of consciousness. It will become faint, it will go away, it will become distant. Again you will come to the rose, and you will forget the self. This hide-and-seek play will go on, but if you persist, sooner or later a moment will come when suddenly you will be in between. The knower, the mind, and the rose will be there, and you will be just in the middle, looking at both. That middle point, that balancing point, is the witness.

Once you know that, you have become both. Then the rose -- the known, and the knower -- the mind, are just two wings of you. Then the object and the subject are just two wings; you are the center of both. They are extensions of you. Then the world and the divine are both extensions of you. You have come to the very center of being. And this center is just a witness.

PERCEIVE ONE BEING AS KNOWER AND KNOWN.

Start by concentrating on something. When the concentration has come to be total, then try to move inwards, become mindful of yourself, and then try to balance. It will take time -- months, even years. It depends on how intense is your effort, because it is the most subtle balancing to come between the two. But it happens, and when it happens you have reached the center of existence. In that center you are rooted, grounded, silent, blissful, in ecstasy, and duality is no more. This is what Hindus have called samadhi. This is what Jesus called the kingdom of God.

Just understanding is verbally will not be of much help, but if you try, from the very beginning you will start to feel that something is happening. When you concentrate on the rose, the world will disappear. This is a miracle -- when the whole world disappears. Then you come to understand that it is your attention which is basic, and wherever you move your attention, a world is created, and from wherever you remove your attention, the world drops. So you can create worlds through your attention.

Look at it in this way. You are sitting here. If you are in love with someone, then suddenly only one person remains in this hall; everything else disappears, it is not there. What happens? Why does only one person remain when you are in love? The whole world drops really; it is phantom-like, shadows. Only one person is real, because now your mind is concentrated on one person, your mind is totally absorbed in one person. Everything else becomes shadow-like, a shadow existence -- it is not real for you.

Whenever you can concentrate, the very concentration changes the whole pattern of your existence, the whole pattern of your mind. Try it -- on anything. You can try it on a Buddha statue or a flower or a tree or anything. Or just on the face of your beloved or your friend -- just look at the face.

It will be easy, because if you love some face it is very easy to concentrate. And really, those who tried to concentrate on Buddha, on Jesus, on Krishna, they were lovers; they loved Buddha. So it was very easy for Sariputta or for Modgalayan or for the other disciples to concentrate on Buddha's face. The moment they looked at Buddha's face they were easily flowing towards it. The love was there; they were infatuated.

So try to find a face -- any face you love will do -- and just look in the eyes and concentrate on the face. Suddenly the whole world drops; a new dimension has opened. Your mind is concentrated on one thing -- then that person or that thing becomes the whole world.

When I say this, I mean that if your attention is total towards anything, that thing becomes the whole world. You create the world through your attention. Your world you create through your own attention. And when you are totally absorbed, flowing like a river towards the object, then suddenly start becoming aware of the original source from where this attention is flowing. The river is flowing; now become aware of the origin.

In the beginning you will get lost again and again; you will shift. If you move to the origin, you will forget the river and the object; the sea towards which it is flowing. It will change: if you come to the object, you will forget the origin. It is natural, because the mind has become fixed to either the object or to the subject.

That's why so many persons go into retreat. They just leave the world. Leaving the world basically means leaving the object, so that they can concentrate on themselves. It is easy. If you leave the world and close your eyes and close all your senses, you can be aware of yourself easily, but again that awareness is false because you have chosen one point of duality. This is another extreme of the same disease.

First you were aware of the object -- the known, and you were not aware of the subject -- the knower. Now you are fixed with the knower and you have forgotten the known, but you remain divided in duality. And this is the old mind again in a new pattern. Nothing has changed.

That's why my emphasis is not to leave the world of the objects. Don't leave the world of the objects. Rather, try to become aware of both the subject and the object simultaneously, the outer and the inner simultaneously. If both are there, only then can you be balanced between them. If one is there you will get obsessed with it.

Those who go to the Himalayas and close themselves, they are just like you standing in a reverse position. You are fixed with the objects, they are fixed with the subject. You are fixed with the outer, they are fixed with the inner. Neither you are free nor they, because you cannot be free with the one. With the one you become identified. You can be free only when you become aware of the two. Then you can become the third, and the third is the free point. With one you become identified. With two you can move, you can shift, you can balance, and you can come to a midpoint, an absolute midpoint.

Buddha used to say that his path is a middle path -- majjhim nikaya. It has not been really understood why he insisted so much on calling it the middle path. This is the reason: because his whole process was of mindfulness -- it is the middle path. Buddha says, `Don't leave the world, and don't cling to the other world. Rather, be in between. Don't leave one extreme and move to the other; just be in the middle, because in the middle both are not. Just in the middle you are free. Just in the middle there is no duality. You have come to one, and the duality has become just the extension of you -- just two wings.'

Buddha's middle path is based on this technique. It is beautiful. For so many reasons it is beautiful. One: it is very scientific, because only between two can you balance. If there is only one point, imbalance is bound to be there. So Buddha says that those who are worldly are imbalanced, and those who has renounced are again imbalanced in the other extreme. A balanced man is one who is neither in this extreme nor that; he lives just in the middle. You cannot call him worldly, you cannot call him other-worldly. He is free to move; he is not attached to any. He has come to the midpoint, the golden mean.

Secondly: it is very easy to move to the other extreme -- very easy. If you eat too much you can fast easily, but you cannot diet easily. If you talk too much you can go into silence very easily, but you cannot talk less. If you eat too much, it is very easy not to eat at all -- this is another extreme. But to eat moderately, to come to a midpoint, is very difficult. To love a person is easy; to hate a person is easy. To be simply indifferent is very difficult. From one extreme you can move to the other.

To remain in the middle is very difficult. Why? Because in the middle you have to lose your mind. Your mind exists in extremes. Mind means the excess. Mind is always extremist: either you are for or you are against. You cannot be simply neutral. Mind cannot exist in neutrality: it can be here or there -- because mind needs the opposite. It needs to be opposed to something. If it is not opposed to anything it disappears. Then there is no functioning for it; it cannot function.

Try this. In any way become neutral, indifferent -- suddenly mind has no function. If you are for, you can think; if you are against, you can think. If you are neither for nor against, what is left to think? Buddha says that indifference is the basis of the middle path. UPEKSHA indifference -- be indifferent to the extremes. Just try one thing: be indifferent to the extremes. A balancing happens.

This balancing will give you a new dimension of feeling where you are both the knower and the known, the world and the other world, this and that, the body and the mind. You are both, and simultaneously neither -- above both. A triangle has come into existence.

You may have seen that many occult, secret societies have used the triangle as their symbol. The triangle is one of the oldest occult symbols just because of this -- because the triangle has three angles. Ordinarily you have only two angles, the third is missing. It is not there yet, it has not evolved. The third angle is beyond both. Both belong to it, they are part of it, and still it is beyond and higher than both.

If you do this experiment you will help to create a triangle within yourself. The third angle will arise by and by, and when it comes then you cannot be in misery. Once you can witness, you cannot be in misery. Misery means getting identified with something.

But one subtle point has to be remembered -- then you will not even get identified with bliss. That's why Buddha says, `I can say only this much -- that there will be no misery. In samadhi, in ecstasy, there will be no misery. I cannot say that there will be bliss.' Buddha says, `I cannot say that. I can simply say there will be no misery.'

And he is right, because bliss means when there is no identification of any type -- not even with bliss. This is very subtle. If you feel that you are blissful, sooner or later you will be in misery again. If you feel you are blissful, you are preparing to be miserable again. You are still getting identified with a mood.

You feel happy: now you get identified with happiness. The moment you get identified with happiness, unhappiness has started. Now you will cling to it, now you will become afraid of the opposite, now you will expect it to remain with you constantly. You have created all that is needed for misery to be there and then misery will enter, and when you get identified with happiness, you will get identified with misery. Identification is the disease.

At the third point you are not identified with anything: whatsoever comes and passes, comes and passes; you remain a witness, just a spectator -- neutral, indifferent, unidentified.

The morning comes and the sun rises and you witness it. You don't say, `I am the morning.' Then when the noon comes, you don't say, `I have become the noon.' You witness it. And when the sun sets and darkness comes and the night, you don't say, `I am the darkness and the night.' You witness it. You say, `There was morning, then there was noon, then there was evening and now there is night. And again there will be morning and the circle will go on and I am just an onlooker. I go on witnessing.'

If the same becomes possible with your moods -- moods of the morning and moods of the noon and moods of the evening and the night, and they have their own circle, they go on moving -- you become a witness. You say, `Now happiness has come -- just like a morning. And now night will come -- the misery. The moods will go on changing around me, and I will remain centered in myself. I will not get attached to any mood. I will not cling to any mood. I will not hope for anything and I will not feel frustrated. I will simply witness. Whatsoever happens, I will see it. When it comes, I will see; when it goes, I will see.'

Buddha uses this many times. He says again and again that when a thought arises, look at it. A thought of misery, a thought of happiness arises -- look at it. It comes to a climax -- look at it. Then it starts falling down -- look at it. Then it disappears -- look at it. Arising, existing, dying, and you remain just a witness; go on looking at it. This third point makes you a witness, SAKSHI, and to be a witness is the highest possibility of consciousness.

The second technique:

BELOVED,

AT THIS MOMENT

LET MIND, KNOWING, BREATH, FORM,

BE INCLUDED.

BELOVED, AT THIS MOMENT LET MIND, KNOWING, BREATH, FORM, BE INCLUDED.

This technique is a little difficult, but if you can do it, then very wonderful, beautiful. Sitting, don't divide. Sitting in meditation, be inclusive of all -- your body, your mind, your breath, your thinking, your knowing, everything. Be inclusive of all. Don't divide, don't create any fragmentation. Ordinarily we are fragmenting; we go on fragmenting. We say, `The body is not me.' There are techniques which can use that also, but this technique is totally different; rather, the opposite.

Don't divide. Don't say, `I am not the body.' Don't say, `I am not the breath.' Don't say, `I am not the mind.' Just say, `I am all' -- and be all. Don't create any fragmentation within you. This is a feeling. With closed eyes include everything that exists in you. Don't get yourself centered anywhere -- be uncentered. The breath comes and goes, the thought comes and moves. The form of your body will go on changing. You have not observed this.

If you sit with closed eyes, you will feel that sometimes your body is big, sometimes your body is small; sometimes it is very heavy, sometimes just light, as if you can fly. You can feel this increasing and decreasing of the form. Just close your eyes and sit and you will feel that sometimes the body is very big -- filling the whole room; sometimes it is so small -- just atomic. Why does this form change? As your attention changes, the form of the body changes. If you are inclusive, it will become big; if you exclude -- this is not I, this is not I -- then it will become very minute, very small, atomic.

This sutra says:

BELOVED,

AT THIS MOMENT

LET MIND, KNOWING, BREATH, FORM,

BE INCLUDED.

Include everything in your being and don't discard anything. Don't say, `This is not I,' say, `I am,' and include everything in it. If you can do this just sitting, wonderful, absolutely new happenings will happen to you. You will feel there is no center; in you there is no center. And with the center gone, there is no self, there is no ego; only consciousness remains -- consciousness like a sky covering everything. And when it grows, not only your own breath will be included, not only your own form will be included; ultimately the whole universe becomes inclusive to you.

Swami Ramteerth used this technique for his own sadhana. A moment came when he started saying, `The whole world is in me, and the stars move in me.' Somebody was talking to him and he said, `It is very beautiful here in the Himalayas.' Ramteerth was staying in the Himalayas, and the man said to him, `It is very beautiful here in the Himalayas.' And Ramteerth is reported to have said, `Himalayas? The Himalayas are in me.'

The man must have thought that he was mad. How could the Himalayas be in him? But if you practise this meditation, you can feel that the Himalayas are in you. Let me explain how it is possible.

Really, when you look at me you cannot look at the one who is here sitting in the chair. Really, you are looking at a picture of me which is in you, in your mind. How can you know me here on this chair? Your eyes carry just a picture. Not even a picture -- just rays of light enter in your eyes. And then the eyes don't go themselves to the mind; just rays passing through the eyes go inside. And your nervous system which carries those rays cannot carry them as rays; it transforms them into chemicals. So only chemicals travel, and these chemicals are decoded and you see me in your mind.

You have never been out of your mind. The whole world that you know, you decode it in your mind, you know it in your mind. All the Himalayas and all the suns and the stars and the moons, they are there in your mind in a very subtle existence. If you close your eyes and feel that everything is inclusive, you will know that the whole world is moving within you. And once you feel this -- that the whole world is moving within you -- all your individual misery is lost. You are no more an individual. You have become the absolute, the non-individual. You have become the whole existence.

This technique expands your consciousness. Now in the west, many drugs are being used to expand consciousness -- LSD, marijuana, and other drugs. In India also, in the old days, they were used, because they give a false feeling of expansion. All those who use drugs, for them this technique will be beautiful, very helpful, because their hankering is for expansion.

When you take LSD, you are no more confined in yourself, you have become inclusive of all. There have been cases.... One girl jumped from a seven-storey building because she felt that she could not die, death was impossible. She felt that she could fly, and she felt that there were no barriers, there was no fear. She jumped out of a seven-storey building and died, shattered. But in her mind, under the influence of the drug, there was no limitation, no death.

Expansion of consciousness has become a fad, because when you expand you feel high. The whole world, by and by, becomes included in you. You become great, infinitely great, and with greatness, with expansion, all your individual miseries fall. But through LSD or marijuana or other drugs, this is only a false feeling.

Through this technique, this feeling becomes real -- really the whole world comes within you. There are two reasons for this. One: our individual consciousness is not really individual; deep down it is collective. We look like islands, but all the islands deep down are connected to the earth. We look like islands, different -- I am conscious, you are conscious -- but your consciousness and my consciousness somewhere deep down is one. It is connected to the earth, the basic ground.

That's why many things happen which look inexplicable. If you meditate alone it will be more difficult to enter into it, but if you meditate with a group it is very easy, because the whole group works as a unit. In meditation camps I have felt and observed that after two or three days your individuality is no more; you become part of a greater consciousness. And very subtle waves are being felt, very subtle waves start moving, and the group consciousness evolves.

So when you dance, you are not really dancing, but the group consciousness is dancing; you are just a part of it. The rhythm is not only within you, the rhythm is also without you. The rhythm is all around you. In a group you are not. The superficial phenomenon of being islands is forgotten and the deeper phenomenon of being one is realized. In a group you are nearer to the divine; alone you are further away, because again you become concentrated on the ego, on the superficial difference, on the superficial separation. This technique helps, because really you are one with the universe. It is only a question of how to dig it or how to fall into it and realize it.

Being with a friendly group always gives you energy. Being with someone who is antagonistic, you always feel that your energy has been drained out. Why? If you are with a friendly group, in a family, and you are sitting, relaxing, just being together, you feel energized, vitalized. Meeting a friend, you feel more alive than you were before. Just passing an enemy, you feel that you have lost some energy, you feel tired. What happens?

When you are meeting a friendly sympathetic group, you forget your individuality; you drop down to the basic level where you can meet. When someone is antagonistic, you become more individual, egoistic; you cling to your ego. Because of that clinging you feel tired. All energy comes from the roots; all energy comes with the feeling of a collective being.

In the beginning, doing this meditation you will feel a collective being arising, and then ultimately a cosmic consciousness arises. When all differences are lost, all boundaries disappear and existence remains as one piece, one unit, one whole; then everything is included. This effort to include everything starts from your own individual existence. Include.

BELOVED,

AT THIS MOMENT

LET MIND, KNOWING, BREATH, FORM,

BE INCLUDED.

The basic point is to remember inclusiveness. Don't exclude. This is the key for this sutra -- inclusiveness, include. Include and grow. Include and expand. Try it with your body, and then try it with the outside world also.

Sitting under a tree, look at the tree, then close your eyes and feel that the tree is within you. Look at the sky, then close your eyes and feel that the sky is within you. Look at the rising sun, then close your eyes and feel that the sun is rising within you. Feel more inclusive.

A tremendous experience will happen to you. When you feel that the tree is within you, immediately you will feel more young, more fresh. And this is not imagination, because the tree and you both belong to the earth. You both are rooted in the same earth and ultimately rooted in the same existence. So when you feel that the tree is within you, the tree IS within you -- this is not an imagination -- and immediately you will feel the effect. The tree's aliveness, the greenery, the freshness, the breeze passing through it, will be felt within you in your heart. Include more and more existence and don't exclude.

In many ways, many world teachers have been teaching this. Jesus says, `Love your enemy as yourself.' This is an experiment in inclusiveness. Freud used to say, `Why should I love my enemy as myself? He is my enemy, so why should I love him as myself? And how can I love?' His question seems relevant, but he is not aware of why Jesus says to love your enemy as yourself. It is not for any social politics, not for any change in society, not to create a better society, but to give you an expanded feeling of being and consciousness.

If you can include the enemy within yourself, he cannot harm you. That doesn't mean that he cannot kill you: he can kill you, but he cannot harm you. The harm comes when you exclude him. The moment you exclude him, you become the ego, separate, alone, cut off from existence. If you include the enemy within you, then everything is included. When the enemy can be included, then why not the tree and why not the sky?

The emphasis for the enemy is that if you can include the enemy in your being, you can include everything; then there is no need to exclude anything. If you feel that your enemy is included within you, then even your enemy will give you vitality, energy. He cannot be harmful to you. He can kill, you, but even while he is murdering you, he cannot harm you. That harm comes from your own mind when you exclude.

But the case with us is totally diametrically opposite -- even friends are not included. Enemies are excluded, and even friends are not included. Even your lover, your beloveds, are not included. While being with your lover, you are not merging in him or her. You remain separate, you control yourself. You don't want to lose your identity. Because of this, love has become impossible.

Unless you lose identity how can you love? You want to remain yourself, and your lover wants to remain himself, and no one is ready to merge, no one is ready to include. Both exclude, both are bracketed in themselves: there is no meeting, no merging, no communion. If even lovers are not included, then it is bound to be that your existence is the poorest possible. You are alone, poor, a beggar. With the whole existence included, you are the emperor.

So remember this: make it a style of life to include. Not only meditation, but a style of life, a way of living. Try to include more and more. The more you include, the more you expand, the more your boundaries recede to the very corners of existence. One day only you are; the whole existence is included. This is the ultimate of all religious experience.

BELOVED

AT THIS MOMENT

LET MIND, KNOWING, BREATH, FORM,

BE INCLUDED.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #22

Chapter title: Right now is the goal

3 July 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7307035

ShortTitle: VBT222

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 82 mins

Question 1

YESTERDAY YOU SAID THAT ONE SHOULD HURRY TOWARDS THE GOAL BECAUSE WHATEVER TIME WE HAVE IS VERY LITTLE. HOWEVER, SOME TIME AGO YOU ALSO SAID THAT THE WHOLE PROCESS OF ATTAINING THE GOAL SHOULD BE AN EFFORTLESS PLAY. HOW WOULD YOU RECONCILE THE TWO WORDS `HURRY' AND `PLAY'? -- BECAUSE THE ONE WHO HURRIES NEVER GETS THE JOY OF PLAYING.

The first thing: don't try to reconcile different techniques. When I say don't be in a hurry, forget time completely, don't be serious, don't make any effort, surrender, be in a let-go, this is a different technique. This is suitable only for a part of humanity -- all cannot do this technique -- and the type of person who can do this cannot do the opposite one.

This technique is for the feminine mind. All females are not necessarily feminine, and all males are not necessarily male, so when I say a feminine mind, I don't mean females. A feminine mind means a mind who can surrender, who can be receptive like a womb, who can be open, passive. Half of the humanity can be of this type, but the other half is totally opposite. As man and woman are the two halves of humanity, in just the same way the feminine mind and the masculine mind are the two halves of the human mind.

The feminine mind cannot make effort. If it makes effort it will never reach anywhere. The effort will be the undoing for it; it will only create anguish and tension and no achievement. The very working of the feminine mind is to wait and allow things to happen.

Just like a woman: even if she is in love, she will not take the initiative. And if a woman takes the initiative, you have every reason to be afraid and escape, because that attitude is the male attitude -- in the feminine body there is a masculine mind, and you will be in difficulty. If you are really male, immediately the woman will lose attraction. If you are feminine -- male in the body but feminine in the mind -- only then can you allow the woman to take initiative and you will be happy. But then physically she is a woman and you are a man; mentally you are feminine and she is masculine, she is male.

A woman will wait. She will never utter the words `I love you' before you have uttered them and you have committed yourself. In the very waiting is the feminine power. The male mind is aggressive. It has to do something. It has to move and go and take initiative.

The same happens on the spiritual path. If you have an aggressive mind, a male mind, effort is necessary. Then make hurry; then don't lose time and opportunity. Then create an urgency and crisis so that you can put all your being into your effort. When your effort has become total you will achieve. If your mind is feminine, then there is no hurry at all. There is no time.

You may or may not have observed that women have no sense of time -- they cannot have. So the husband is standing outside the house and he is honking the horn and saying, `Come down!' And the wife says, `I have told you a thousand times that I am coming in one minute. Continuously for two hours I have been telling you that I am coming in one minute. So don't get mad. Why are you honking the horn?'

The feminine mind cannot have a sense of time. It is the male, aggressive mind who is time-worried, time-conscious. They are totally different.

The feminine is not in any hurry -- there is no hurry. Really, there is nowhere to reach. That's why women cannot become great leaders, great scientists, great warriors -- they cannot become. And if sometimes there are freak women, they have a male mind. For example, Joan of Arc, or Laxmi Bai: they are only feminine in body; the mind is not feminine at all. It is masculine.

For the feminine mind there is no goal, and our world is man-oriented. So women cannot be really great in a man-oriented world, because greatness is related to the goal. Some goal has to be achieved; then you become great -- and the feminine mind is not after any goal. Here and now she is happy. Here and now she is unhappy. There is nowhere to move.

The feminine mind exists in the moment. That's why the feminine curiosity is never for the far-away; it is always about the neighborhood. She is not interested in what is happening in Vietnam. She is interested in what is happening in the other house -- the intimate, the here. The man looks absurd: `Why are you worried about what Nixon is doing or what Mao is doing?' The woman is interested in the love affairs that are going on in the neighborhood. She is curious about the near; the far is meaningless. Time doesn't exist.

Time exists for those who have a goal to reach. Remember, time can exist only when you have to reach somewhere. If you don't have to reach anywhere, what is the meaning of time? Then there is no hurry.

Look at this situation from a different angle. The east is feminine and the west is masculine. The east has never been concerned much about time; the west is mad after time. The east has been very leisurely: moving slowly as if not moving at all; no change, no revolution. Such a silent evolution that it creates no noise anywhere. The west is just mad: every day revolution is needed, and everything has to become a revolution. Unless everything is changing, it seems we are not going anywhere; we have become static. If everything is changing and everything remains in an upheaval, then the west feels that something is happening. And the east thinks that if there are upheavals, it means we are diseased. Something is wrong; that's why there is change. If everything is okay, there is no need for any revolution, for any change.

The eastern mind is feminine. That's why in the east, we have praised all the feminine qualities: compassion, love, sympathy, non-violence, acceptance, contentment -- all feminine qualities. In the west, all the masculine qualities are praised: will, willpower, ego, self-esteem, independence, rebellion -- these are the values praised there. In the east -- obedience, surrender, acceptance. The basic attitude is feminine in the east and masculine in the west.

These techniques are not to be compromised, are not to be in any way synthesized. The technique of surrender is for the feminine mind. The technique of effort, will, endeavor, is for the masculine mind. And they are bound to be polar opposites, so if you make any synthesis between the two you will create a hodge-podge -- meaningless, absurd, and even dangerous. It will not be of use for anyone.

So remember this. These techniques many times will look contradictory, because they are meant to be for different types of mind, and there is no effort to make any synthesis. So if you feel something is contradictory, don't get uneasy about it -- it is. And only very small minds become afraid of contradiction -- very small minds, petty minds. They become uneasy, they feel a discomfort. They think everything must be non-contradictory, everything must be consistent. This is nonsense, because life is inconsistent.

Life is contradictory itself, so truth cannot be uncontradictory; only lies can be uncontradictory, only lies can be consistent. Truth is bound to be inconsistent, because it has to cover everything that is in life. It has to be total. And life is contradictory. There is man and there is woman: what can I do and what can Shiva do? And man is totally the polar opposite to woman; that's why they are attracted. Otherwise there would be no attraction. Really, the opposite type of being, the difference, creates the attraction. The polar opposite becomes a magnetic force. That's why when man and woman meet there is happiness, because when two polar opposites meet they negate each other. They negate each other because they are opposites. They negate each other, and for a single moment when man and woman really meet -- not just bodily, but totally; when their beings meet in love -- for a single moment both disappear. Then there is neither man nor woman; pure existence exists -- that's the bliss of it.

The same can happen within you also, because deep analysis shows that within you also there is a polarity. Now modern deep psychoanalytic approaches have revealed that the conscious mind and the unconscious mind are polar opposites within you also. If you are a man, your conscious mind is masculine, your unconscious mind is feminine. If you are a woman, your conscious mind is feminine, your unconscious mind is masculine. The unconscious is the opposite of the conscious. In deep meditation there comes a deep orgasm, an intercourse, a love, between your conscious and unconscious -- they become one. When they become one you attain to the highest bliss possible.

So man and woman can meet in two ways. You can meet a woman outside you: then this meeting can be only momentary, very momentary. For a single second the peak comes, and then things start falling away. There is another meeting of man and woman that happens within you: your conscious and unconscious mind meet. When this happens, this meeting can be eternal. The sexual pleasure is also a glimpse of the spiritual -- only momentary -- but when the real meeting happens within, then it becomes samadhi, then it becomes a spiritual phenomenon.

But you have to start from your conscious mind, so if your conscious mind is feminine, surrender will be helpful. And remember, being a woman is not necessarily synonymous with having a feminine mind. That creates the difficulty. Otherwise everything would be very easy: then women would follow the path of surrender and men would follow the path of will. But it is not so easy. There are women who have masculine minds -- their very approach towards life is aggressive. And they are growing every day.

The women's lib. movement will create more and more masculine women. They will be more and more aggressive, and the path of surrender will not be for them then. And because women are becoming competitive with man, man is regressing from aggression; he is becoming more and more feminine. More and more the path of surrender will be useful for man in the future.

So you have to decide about yourself. And don't think in terms of valuation. Don't think that you are a man, so how can you have a feminine mind? You can have, and nothing is wrong in it; it is beautiful. And don't think that you are a woman, so how can you have a masculine mind? Nothing is wrong in it; it is beautiful. Be authentic towards your own mind. Try to understand what type of mind you have, then follow the path that is for you, and don't try to create any synthesis.

Don't ask me how I am going to reconcile these two. I am not going to. I am never for reconciliation, and I am not for non-contradictory statements. They are stupid and childish. Life is contradictory, and that's why life is alive. Only death is consistent and non-contradictory. Life lives through opposition, through encountering the opposite pole, and this opposition, challenge, creates energy. It releases energy, and life moves through it. This is what Hegelians say: a dialectical movement -- thesis, antithesis, and then the synthesis again becomes a thesis and creates its own antithesis, and this goes on. Life is not monotonous. It is not logical. It is dialectical.

You must understand the difference between logical and dialectical. The question is because you think life is logical, so you ask how you will reconcile, because logic always reconciles; logic cannot tolerate the contradictory. Logic cannot tolerate the contradictory. Logic has to somehow explain that it is not contradictory, and if it is contradictory then both cannot be true; then one must be wrong. Both can be wrong, but both cannot be true. Logic tries to find non-contradiction everywhere.

Science is logical. That's why science is not totally true to life, cannot be. Life is contradictory, illogical. It works through the opposite. It is not afraid of the opposite; it uses the opposite. The opposites are only apparently opposite; deep down they work together. It is dialectical, not logical. It is a dialogue between the opposites -- a continuous dialogue.

Think for a single moment: if there is no contradiction, life will be dead, because from where will come the challenge? From where will come the attraction? From where will the energy be released? It will be monotonous, dead, Life is possible only because of dialectics, because of the opposite. Man and woman is the basic opposition, and then the challenge creates the phenomenon of love. And the whole life moves around love. If your lover and you become so totally one that there is no gap at all, you both will be dead. You will not be able to exist then. You both will disappear from this dialectical process.

You can only exist in this life if oneness is never total, and you have to move away again and again to come near. That's why lovers fight. That fight creates dialectics. The whole day they will fight. They will go far away from each other, they will become enemies. This means that they have now come to be really polar opposites; they have moved as far away as possible. The lover starts thinking how to kill this woman, and the woman starts thinking how to get rid of this man. They have moved to the very farthest corner possible. And then again in the evening they are making love.

When they are far away, so far away, again the attraction comes. Again they look from such a faraway point that they feel attracted. Then they have become simply man and woman again, not lovers. Then they are man and woman, strangers. They will fall in love again. They will come near. A point will come when they will become one for a single moment, and that will be their happiness, their joy.

But the moment they have become one, the process to go away starts again. In the very moment when the wife and husband are one, if they can be a witness to it, they will see they have started being separate again. The very moment the peak comes, the process starts to be different, to be separate, to be opposite. This goes on moving -- again and again you come near and go away.

This is what I mean -- life creates energy through polarities. Without polarities life cannot exist. If two lovers really become one, they disappear from life. They are liberated really. They will have no rebirth again; there will be no life in future. If two lovers can become so totally one, their love has become the deepest meditation possible. They have achieved what Buddha achieved under the Bodhi tree. They have achieved what Jesus achieved on the cross. They have achieved non-duality. Now they cannot exist.

Existence as we know it is dual, dialectical, and these techniques are for you who exist in duality. So there will be many contradictions, because these techniques are not philosophy; these techniques are meant to be done and lived. They are not mathematical formulas; they are actual life processes. They are dialectical, they are contradictory. So don't ask me to reconcile them. They are not the same, they are opposite.

Try to find out what is your type. Can you relax? Can you let go? Can you be in a passive moment, not doing anything? -- then all the techniques which require will are not for you. If you cannot relax, and if I say to you to relax and you immediately ask me how to relax, that `how' shows your mind. That `how' shows that you cannot relax without making an effort. Even for relaxation you need some effort, so you ask `how;. Relaxation is relaxation; there is no `how' to it. If you can relax, you know how to relax. You simply relax. There is no effort, no method.

Just as in the night, you go to sleep. You never ask how to go to sleep. But there are persons who have insomnia. If you say to them, `I just put my head on the pillow, and it's okay, I am asleep,' they cannot believe you. And their suspicion is meaningful. They cannot believe you; you are deceiving -- because they also put their head on the pillow. They go on putting their head the whole night -- nothing happens.

They are going to ask how -- how to put the head on the pillow? There must be a secret which you are not telling them. You are deceiving; the whole world is deceiving them. Everybody says, `We just go to sleep. There is no `how' to it. There is no technology.' They cannot believe you, and you cannot blame them. You say, `We simply put down our heads, close our eyes, put off the light, and we are asleep.'

They also do the same procedure, they do the same ritual, and they do it more correctly than you have ever done, but nothing happens. The light is off, they have closed eyes, lying on their bed -- nothing is happening. Once you lose the capacity to relax, then technique is needed. Then they need technique; then without technique they will not be able to sleep.

So if you have a mind which can relax, then surrender is for you. And don't create any problems -- then simply surrender. At least half of you can do this. You may not be aware, but fifty percent is the possibility, because masculine and feminine minds exist in a proportion. They are always fifty-fifty, almost fifty-fifty, in every realm, because a man cannot exist without a woman opposing him. There is a deep balance in nature.

Do you know? -- one hundred and fifteen boys are born to one hundred girls, because boys are weaker than girls -- so by the time they are sexually mature fifteen boys will have died. One hundred and fifteen boys are born for every one hundred girls. Girls are stronger: they have more stamina, more resistance. Boys are weak, they don't have so much resistance, so one hundred and fifteen boys are born for one hundred girls. Then fifteen boys die. The moment they become sexually mature, by the age of fourteen, the number will be the same. For each man a woman exists, for each woman a man exists, because there is an inner tension. They cannot exist without it; that polar opposite is needed.

And similar is the case with the inner mind also. The existence, the nature, needs a balance, so half of you are feminine and can be deeply in surrender very easily. But you can create problems for yourself. You may feel that you can surrender, but you think, `How can I surrender?' You feel that your ego may be hurt. You become afraid of surrendering, because it has been taught to you: `Be independent. Remain independent. Don't lose yourself. Don't give your control to someone else. Always be in control.'

This has been taught; these are taught difficulties. So you can feel that you can surrender, but then other problems arise which have been given to you by society, culture and education. And they create problems. If you really feel that surrender is not for you, then forget it. It is not to be worried about. Then put all your energy in effort.

So these are the two extremes. One: if you are a really feminine mind, you have nowhere to go. There is no goal, no God to be achieved, no future heaven -- nothing. Don't be in any hurry now, remain true to the moment, and all that can be achieved by the male mind through hurry, effort, you will achieve here and now without any effort. Right now you are at the goal, if you can relax.

The male mind will have to run round about and round about until it is tired completely, and then it falls down; only then it can relax. Aggression, effort, endeavor, are necessary for the male mind to be exhausted. When that exhaustion happens, then it is possible for it to relax and to surrender. That surrender will come only in the end; for the feminine mind it is always in the beginning. You reach the same happening but the ways of reaching are different.

So when I said yesterday, `Don't waste time,' I said it to the male mind. If I said be in a hurry and create such an emergency that your total energy and being becomes pinpointed, concentrated, and only in that concentrated effort your life will become a flame, this is for the male mind, the masculine mind. For the feminine mind, relax and you are already a flame.

Because of this, you have Mahavir, you have Buddha, you have Jesus, Krishna, Ram, Zarathustra, Moses, but you don't have a similar list of women. Not because women have not achieved such a state of mind. They have achieved, but their ways are different. And this whole history has been recorded by man, and man can understand only the masculine mind. Man cannot understand the feminine mind. That's the problem. It is really very difficult.

A man cannot understand that a woman, just by being a simple housewife, can achieve something which a Buddha achieves with so much difficulty, so arduously. A man cannot conceive, it is impossible for him to conceive that a woman can achieve just by being a housewife: living moment to moment, enjoying moment to moment, just near and here and now, and not bothering about anything else -- no goal, no spirituality; just loving the children, loving the husband, just being an ordinary woman, but blissful. No need to make such arduous effort as a Mahavir is making -- twelve years of long arduous effort. But man will appreciate Mahavir, because he can appreciate effort.

If you achieve a goal without the effort, for man it is not worth it. He cannot appreciate it. He can appreciate someone, a Tensing, a Hillary, reaching the Everest -- not because Everest is worth it, but because so much effort is needed and it is so dangerous. And if you say that you are already on the Everest he will laugh, because Everest is not meaningful -- the effort to reach it is meaningful. The moment Everest becomes easy to reach, for the masculine mind all attraction is lost. There is nothing to be achieved on the Everest. When Hillary and Tensing reached there, nothing was there to be achieved, but the masculine mind feels such a glory.

When Hillary reached, I was in a university; all the professors were just thrilled. I asked one woman professor, `What do you say about Hillary and Tensing who have reached Everest?'

She said, `I cannot understand why there is so much fuss about it. What is the point? What have they gained by reaching there? Even reaching to the market, to a shop, would have been better.'

For the feminine mind it is useless. Going to the moon? -- why such danger? There is no necessity. But for the masculine mind, it is not the goal. Really, the effort is the thing, because then he proves that he is masculine. They very effort, the very aggression, and the very possibility of death, gives him the thrill.

Danger is very appealing to the masculine mind. For the feminine mind it has no appeal at all. Because of this, human history is really half-recorded. The other half has been totally unrecorded, left unrecorded. We don't know how many woman became Buddhas; it is impossible to know, because our measurement, our criterion, cannot be applied to the feminine mind.

So first decide about your own mind. First meditate about your own mind -- what type of mind you have got -- then forget all those methods which don't belong to you. And don't try to reconcile them.

Question 2

YOU HAVE SAID, `LEARN TO INCLUDE MORE AND MORE OF EXISTENCE INTO YOUR BEING. DRAW ENERGY FROM THE ROOT SOURCE OF ALL EXISTENCE. BE INCLUSIVE EVEN OF YOUR ENEMY.' HOW CAN I BE INCLUSIVE OF MY ENEMY WHILE AT THE SAME TIME GOING FULLY INTO THE EMOTION OF HATRED? DOES THIS NOT LEAD TO SUPPRESSION?

I have said to be inclusive even of your enemy, but I have not said to start from the enemy. Start from the friend. As you are right now, you are not even inclusive of the friend. Start from the friend. Even that is difficult -- to include the friend into your being, to allow him to enter in you and penetrate you, to be open to him, vulnerable. Start from the friend. Start from the lover, the beloved. Don't jump to the enemy.

And why do you jump to the enemy? -- because then you can say, `It is impossible, it cannot be done,' so you can discard it. Start from the first step. You start from the last. How can the journey become possible? You always start from the last step. The first has not been taken yet, so the last is only in the imagination. And you feel it is impossible. Of course, it is impossible. How can you start from the end? The enemy is the last point to be included.

If you can include your friend it becomes possible, because only friends become enemies. You cannot make someone an enemy without making him first your friend. Or can you? Friendship will be needed first if you want to make someone your enemy. Friendship will be the first step.

Buddha is reported to have said, `Don't make friends, because that is the first step towards making enemies.' Buddha says, `Be friendly; don't make friends. If you make friends you have already taken the first step; now it is not very far from when you will make the enemy.'

Include the friend. Start from the near, begin from the beginning. Only then is it possible. You don't feel any difficulty. When you have to include the friend and be inclusive of the friend, it is difficult, because it is not a question of the friend or the enemy. It is a question of your opening. Even for the friend you are closed; even with the friend you remain guarded; even with the friend you have not revealed your being totally, so how can you include him?

You can include him only when there is no fear, when you are not afraid, when you can allow him to move within you, and you are not making any security arrangements. Even with the beloved you are closed; you have not opened your mind. Still there are a few things which are secret, private. If you have privacy you cannot be open, you cannot be inclusive, because then the privacy can be known, then your secrets can become public. It is not easy to include even a friend, so don't think it is difficult to include an enemy -- it is impossible right now.

That's why Jesus' teaching became impossible, and Christians became pseudo. They had to, because Jesus says, `Love your enemies,' and you are not even capable of loving your friends. He gives you an impossible goal. You are bound to become hypocrites, pseudo; you will not be authentic. You will talk about loving -- loving your enemies -- and you will hate your friends. I am not saying that.

So the first thing: don't think of the enemy right now. That's a trick of your mind. Think of the friend. The second thing: the question is not to include someone; the question is to be inclusive. That's a quality of your consciousness. Create the inclusiveness, create the quality.

How can you create the quality? -- for that is the technique. You are sitting near a tree. Look at the tree. It is outside you, but if it is really outside you, you cannot know it. Something of it has already travelled within you; that's how you can know the tree is there. It is green. But do you know that the green exists in you, not in the tree? When you close your eyes, the tree is not green.

Now scientists say this -- that the color is given by you. Everything in nature is colorless; there exists no color. Color comes into being when rays travelling from a particular object meet your eye. Then the color is created. So color is given by your eye. It is a meeting of the tree and you where green-ness happens. The flowers are there in bloom: the scent comes to you, and you smell it. But that fragrance also is given by you; it is not in nature. Only waves are coming towards you which you translate as smell. It is your nose which smells it. If you are not there, there will be no smell.

There have been philosophers like Berkeley or Nagarjuna, Shankara, who say the world is unreal, it exists in your mind, because whatsoever we know about the world is really given by us. Because of this, Immanuel Kant, a German thinker and philosopher, says that the thing-in-itself cannot be known. Whatsoever we know is not the thing; it is our projection.

Your face looks beautiful to me. Your face is neither beautiful nor ugly; it is my attitude. It is I who make you beautiful or ugly. It depends on me: it is my feeling. If you are alone in the world and there is no one to say that you are ugly or beautiful, you will not be either. Or will you be? If you are alone on the earth, will you be beautiful or ugly? Will you be intelligent or foolish? You will be nothing. Really you cannot exist alone on the earth. You cannot be.

If you are sitting near a tree, meditate. Open your eyes and look at the tree, and then close your eyes and look at the tree within. If you try it -- again open the eyes, meditate on the tree and then close the eyes and look at the tree within -- in the beginning the tree within will be a faint shadow of the tree without, but if you go on continuing, by and by it will come to have the same reality and being as the tree without.

And if you continue and persist, which is difficult, a moment comes when the outer tree becomes just a shadow of the inner. The inner becomes more beautiful, more alive, because now your inner consciousness is the soil for it. Now it is rooted in the inner consciousness. Now it is feeling on the consciousness, really. It is something rare.

So when Jesus or people like Jesus talk about the kingdom of God, they talk in such colorful language that we think that either they are mad, or just in hallucination. They are neither. They have learned how to include existence. Their own inner consciousness has become now a life-giving phenomenon. Now whatsoever is planted within becomes alive. It is more colorful, more fragrant, more vital -- as if it doesn't belong to this world, this mundane world; it belongs to some other world. Poets know this a little. Mystics know it very deeply, but poets also know it a little. They have a glimpse. They can feel the world included in them.

Try it -- to be inclusive. This is what I mean when I say to be inclusive: let the tree go in and be rooted there. Let the flower go in and allow it to flower there. You cannot believe it, because there is no way unless you experience it. Concentrate on a bud, a bud of a rose flower. Concentrate on it, go on concentrating on it, and allow it to be transferred to the inner.

And when really your inner experience of the bud has become so real that the outer, the real bud, the so-called real bud, appears to be just a shadow of it -- the real idea is now inside, the real essence is inside, and the outer is just a faint copy -- when you have come to this point, close your eyes and concentrate on the inner bud. You will be amazed, because the inner bud will start opening. It will become a flower, and such a flower that you have not known. And you cannot meet that flower outside. Now this is a rare phenomenon when something starts growing within you, opening, blooming.

In this way be inclusive, and then by and by allow your boundaries to expand. Include your lovers, your friends, your family, include strangers, and then by and by you will be able to include the enemy. That will be the last point. And when you can include the enemy and you can allow him to enter in you and be rooted there and become part of your consciousness, then nothing is inimical to you. Then the whole world has become your home. Then nothing is strange, no one is alien, and you are at ease in it.

But be aware of the cunning mind. The mind will always say to you something which you cannot do, and when you cannot do it, the mind will say, `These are absurd things. Leave them.' The mind will set a target which cannot be reached. Always remember that, and don't be a victim of your own mind. Always start from somewhere which is possible; don't jump to the impossible. If you can grow in the possible, the impossible is only the other end of it. It is not opposite to it; it is only the other end. It is the same spectrum -- the other end of the spectrum.

Question 1

ONE QUESTION MORE IS INCLUDED IN IT: HOW CAN I BE INCLUSIVE OF MY ENEMY WHILE AT THE SAME TIME GOING FULLY INTO THE EMOTION OF HATRED? DOES THIS NOT LEAD TO SUPPRESSION?

This is a subtle point to be understood deeply. While you hate, I don't say suppress it, because whatsoever is suppressed is dangerous. And if you suppress something you cannot be open ever. Then you create a private world which will not allow you to include others. You will always be afraid of this which you have suppressed, because any moment this can come out. So first thing: don't suppress anger, hatred, or anything. But there is no need to express it on someone.

You express it on someone because you feel the other is responsible -- that is wrong. The other is not responsible; only you are responsible. You feel hate because you are hateful, and the other only gives you an opportunity, nothing else. If you come and abuse me, you simply give me an opportunity to bring out whatsoever is in me. If there is hate, hate comes out. If there is love, then love will come out. If there is compassion, then compassion will come out. You are just an opportunity for me to be revealed.

If hate comes out, don't feel that the other is responsible. He is just instrumental. We have a beautiful word in Sanskrit for it -- nirmit -- instrumental. He is not the cause; the cause is always within. He is just the instrument to bring the cause out. So just be thankful to him -- be thankful that he makes you aware of your own hidden hate. He is a friend. You convert him into an enemy because you impose all responsibility on him. You think that he is creating the hatred. No one can create anything in you, remember that forever.

If you go to Buddha and abuse him, he is not going to hate you, he is not going to be angry with you. Whatsoever you do, you cannot make him angry. Not because your effort is less, but because the anger is not there; you cannot bring it out. The other is not the source of hate, so don't throw it on him. Just be thankful to him, be grateful to him, and the hate that is within you, throw it out unto the sky. The first thing.

The second thing: be inclusive about hate also. That's a deeper realm, a deeper dimension. Be inclusive of hate also.

What do I mean when I say this? Whenever there is something bad, whenever something which you call bad, evil, happens, you never include it in yourself. Whenever something good happens, you include it. If you are loving, you say, `I am love.' When you hate, you never say, `I am hate.' When you have compassion, you say, `I am compassion.' When you are angry, you never say, `I am anger.' You always say, `I am angry' -- as if anger has happened to you; as if you are not anger -- it is just a happening from outside, something accidental. And when you say, `I am love,' it seems something essential; not something accidental that has happened to you, not something that has come from without. It is coming from within.

Whatsoever is good, you include it. And whatsoever is bad, you don't include it. Be inclusive of the bad also. Because you are hate, you are anger, and unless you feel this deeply -- that `I am hate' -- you will never go beyond it.

If you can feel, `I am anger,' a subtle process of transformation sets in immediately. What happens when you say, `I am anger'? Many things happen. First: when you say, `I am angry,' you are different from the energy you call anger. This is not true, and from an untrue base nothing true can happen. This is not true -- this anger is you; this is your energy. It is not something separate from you.

You separate it because you create a false image of yourself -- that you are never angry, that you are never hateful, that you are always loving, that you are always kind and sympathetic. You have created a false image of yourself. This false image is your ego. This ego goes on saying to you, `Cut anger, cut hate, they are not good.' Not because you know they are not good, but because they don't give you the image; they don't feed your ego and your image.

You are a good man, respectable, nice, cultured -- you have an image. Sometimes you fall down from the image -- those are accidents. You regain your image again. Those are not accidents. Really, they are more true about you. When you are angry, your true self is revealed more truly than when you are smiling falsely. When you show your hate, you are more authentic than when you pretend love.

The first thing is to be authentic, true. Include hate, include anger, include everything that is in you. What will happen? If you include everything, your false image will fall forever, and that's very good. That's just beautiful that you are relieved of the false image, because it goes on creating complexities. With the image falling your ego will fall, which is a door to spirituality.

When you say, `I am anger,' how can you have your ego? When you say, `I am hate, I am jealousy, I am cruelty. I am violence,' how can you have the ego? The ego can be had easily when you say, `I am Brahma. I am the supreme God.' Then it is easy. `I am atma, the supreme self' -- then it is easy. But when you say, `I am jealousy, hate, anger, passion, sex,' you cannot have the ego. With the false image the ego falls; you become true, natural. Then it is possible to understand your reality. Then you can approach your anger without any anti-attitude. It is you. You have to understand that it is your energy.

And if you can be understanding about your anger, the very understanding changes and transforms it. If you can understand the whole process of anger and hate, in the very process of understanding it disappears, because a basic ingredient to be angry and to be hateful is to be ignorant about it, to be unaware about it, to be unalert about it. So whenever you are not alert, you can be angry. When you are alert, you cannot be angry. The alertness absorbs all energy which becomes anger.

Buddha has said again and again to his monks, `I don't say not to be angry. I say while you are angry, be alert.' This is really one of the fundamentals for mutation. `I don't say not to be angry. I say: while angry, be alert.' Try it. When anger comes, be alert. Look at it. Observe it. Be conscious of it. Don't be sleepy. And the more alert you are, the less anger. In a moment when you are really alert, anger is not -- the same energy becomes alertness.

Energy is neutral. The same energy becomes anger. The same energy becomes hate. The same energy becomes love. The same energy becomes compassion. The energy is one; these are all expressions. And there are basic situations in which energy can become a particular mood. If you are unalert, energy can become anger, energy can become sex, energy can become violence. If you are alert, it cannot become -- the alertness, awareness, consciousness, doesn't allow it to move in those grooves. It moves on a different plane -- the same energy.

Buddha says, `Walk, eat, sit. Whatsoever you do, do, but do fully conscious, mindful, aware that you are doing it.'

Once it happened that Buddha was walking and a fly came and sat on his head, on his forehead. He was talking to some monks, so without really paying any attention to the fly, he just waved his hand and the fly left his forehead. Then he became aware that he had done something not fully aware, because his awareness was towards the monks to whom he was talking, so he said to the monks, `Excuse me for a single minute.' He closed his eyes and he raised his hand again. The monks were amazed at what he was doing, because now there was no fly. He raised his hand again and waved his hand near the spot where the fly was -- it was not there now. He brought his hand back and then he opened his eyes and said, `You can ask now.'

But those monks said, `We have forgotten what we were asking. Now we want to ask you what you did. There was no fly -- it was there previously -- so what did you do?'

Buddha said, `I did as I should have done before -- fully consciously raising the hand. It was not good of me. Something had been done unconsciously, automatically, robot-like.'

Such alertness cannot become anger, such alertness cannot become hate -- impossible. So first include hate, anger, all that is thought to be bad. Include it in yourself, include it in your image, so that your ego falls down. You come down on the ground from the sky. You become true.

Then don't throw it on someone else. Let it be there; express it to the sky. Be fully alert. If you are angry, move in a room, be alone, and be angry and express your anger -- and be alert. Do whatsoever you would have done with the person who was instrumental. You can take his picture there, or just put a pillow there and say, `You are my father,' and give a good beating. Be fully alert. Be fully alert about what you are doing, and do it.

It will be a deep realization. The anger will be expressed, and you will be alert. And you will be able to laugh; you will be able to know what stupid things you are doing. But you could have done this to your real father -- you are only doing it to the pillow. And if you really do it authentically, you will feel very kindly, very loving towards your father. When you come out of the room and when you look at your father's face you will feel very sympathetic, very loving. You would even like to ask him to forgive you.

This is what I mean by being inclusive. No suppression is meant. Suppression is always dangerous, poisonous. With whatsoever you suppress, you are creating inner complexes which will continue and which will make you ultimately mad. Suppression is bound to become madness. Express, but don't express on anyone. There is no need. That is stupid, and creates a vicious circle. Express alone meditatively, and be alert while expressing.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #23

Chapter title: No map to follow

4 July 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7307045

ShortTitle: VBT223

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 85 mins

TOUCHING EYEBALLS AS A FEATHER,

LIGHTNESS BETWEEN THEM OPENS INTO HEART

AND THERE PERMEATES THE COSMOS.

KIND DEVI,

ENTER ETHERIC PRESENCE

PERVADING FAR ABOVE AND BELOW YOUR FORM.

Once it happened in a church that after a very long dry sermon, the minister announced that there would be a meeting, a brief meeting of the board, right after the benediction. After the services a stranger approached the minister; he was the first man. The minister thought, `There has been some misunderstanding,' because the man was absolutely a stranger. He didn't even look like a Christian; his appearance was that of a Mohammedan, so the minister said, `It seems you have misunderstood the announcement. There is going to be a meeting of the board.'

The stranger said, `So I have also heard -- and if there was someone here more bored than me then I would like to meet him.'

But this seems to be the situation of everyone. Look at people's faces, or at your own face in a mirror, and you will feel you are the most bored, and it seems impossible that there can be someone else who is more bored than you. The whole life seems to be a long boredom -- dry, dreary, meaningless; somehow you are carrying it as a burden.

Why has this happened? Life is not meant to be a boredom. Life is not meant to be a suffering. Life is a festival, a celebration, a peak of joy -- but that is only in poetry, in dreams, in philosophies. Sometimes a Buddha, a Krishna, appears to be in a deep celebration, but they look like exceptions. Really, unbelievable; not real, just ideal. It seems they never happen. They are our wish-fulfillments, myths, dreams and hopes, but not realities. The reality seems to be our face -- bored, in anguish, and with suffering impressed on it -- and the whole life is just a `carrying on anyhow'.

Why has this happened? And this must not be the basic reality of life, this cannot be, because this happens only to man. The trees, the stars, the animals, the birds... nowhere else does it happen. Except for man, no one is bored. And even if sometimes pain happens, it is momentary; it never becomes an anguish. It never becomes a constant obsession; it is not always on the mind. It is a momentary thing, an accident; it is not carried over.

Animals can be in pain, but they are not in suffering. Pain looks like an accident; they get over it. They don't carry it. It doesn't become a wound. It is forgotten and forgiven. It goes into the past; it never becomes a part of the future. When pain becomes a constant thing, a wound, not an accident but a reality, essential, as if you cannot exist without it, then it becomes a problem -- and that problem has arisen only for the human mind.

Trees are not in suffering. There seems to be no anguish. Not that death doesn't occur to them; death occurs, but it is not a problem. Not that painful experiences are not there; they are there, but they don't become life itself. Just on the periphery they happen and disappear. Deep down in the inner core, life remains celebrating.

A tree goes on celebrating. Death will happen, but it happens only once. It is not carried over constantly. Except for man, everything is in a festive mood. Only man is bored -- boredom is a human phenomenon. What has gone wrong? Something must have gone wrong.

In a way this can be a good sign also. Boredom is human. You can define the human being through boredom. Aristotle has defined the human being as rational. That may not be exactly true; it is not a hundred percent true, because the difference is only of degree. Animals are also rational -- less rational, but not absolutely irrational. There are animals which are just below the human mind. They too are rational in their own way; not as much as man, but not completely devoid of reason. The difference is only of degrees, and man cannot be defined by reason alone. But through boredom you can define him: he's the only bored animal.

And this boredom can come to such a climax that man can commit suicide. Only man can commit suicide; no animal commits suicide. That is an absolutely human phenomenon. When boredom comes to such a point that even hope becomes impossible, then you drop dead by yourself, because then there is no sense in carrying all this. You can carry this boredom, this pain, because somewhere the tomorrow is yet hopeful. This is bad today, but tomorrow something will happen. Because of that hope you go on carrying.

I have heard, once it happened one Chinese emperor sentenced his prime minister to death. The day the prime minister was to be hanged, the emperor came to see him to say a good-bye. He had been his devoted servant for many many years, but he had done something which irritated the emperor so much that he had sentenced him to death. But remembering that this was going be the last day, the emperor came to meet him.

When the emperor came, he saw the prime minister weeping, and tears were rolling down from his eyes. He couldn't imagine that death could be the cause, because he was a brave man, so he asked, `It is impossible to imagine that you are weeping because you are going to die this evening. It is impossible to conceive. You are a brave man, and I have known your bravery so many times, so it must be something else. What is it? If I can do something I will do it.'

The prime minister said, `Now nothing can be done and it is of no use to say to you, but if you insist, then I am still your servant -- I will obey you and tell you.'

The emperor insisted, so the prime minister said, `It is not my death, because that is not of much importance -- man has to die one day; any day death will be -- but I am weeping because I have seen your horse standing outside.'

The emperor asked, `Because of the horse? Why?'

The prime minister said, `I was looking for my whole life for this type of horse, because I have learned one ancient secret -- that I can teach horses to fly -- but only of a particular type. This is the type, and this is my last day. I am not worried about my death, but just that one ancient art will be lost with me. That's why I am weeping.'

The emperor was thrilled, excited -- if the horse could fly, this would be something -- so he said, `How many days will it take?'

The prime minister said, `At least one year -- and then this horse will start flying.'

So the emperor said, `Okay, for one year I will make you free, but remember, if in one year the horse is not flying, you will be again sentenced and hanged. But if the horse is flying, you will be forgiven. And not only forgiven, I will give you half of my kingdom, because I will be the first emperor in history who has a flying horse. So come out of the jail and don't weep.'

The prime minister rode, happy and laughing, on the horse to his house. But the wife was still weeping and crying and she said, `I have heard, the news has reached before you -- but one year only? And I know you know no art, and this horse cannot fly. This is just a trick, a deception, so if you could ask for one year why couldn't you ask for ten years?'

The prime minister said, `That would be too much. As it is, it is already too much. The horse flying is already too much. Then asking for ten years would have been obviously a trick. But don't weep.'

But the wife said, `It makes me still more sad that now I will be living with you and after one year you will be hanged. This one year is going to be a suffering.'

The prime minister said, `Now I will tell you one ancient secret you don't know. In this one year the king can die, the horse can die, I can die. Or, who knows? -- the horse can learn to fly! One year!'

Just hope -- and man lives through hope because he is so bored. When boredom comes to a point where you cannot hope, when hopelessness is absolute, you commit suicide. Boredom and suicide are both human. No animal can commit suicide, no tree can commit suicide.

Why has this happened? What is the reason behind it? Has man forgotten completely how to live, how to celebrate, how to be festive? While the whole existence is festive, how has man retreated out of it and created a sad milieu around him?

It has happened. Animals live through instinct; they don't live through awareness. They live through instinct, mechanically. Nothing has to be learned. They are born with whatsoever they need to know. Their life runs on a smooth instinctive plane; there is no learning. They have an inbuilt program, a blueprint in their cells, for all that they need to live and be happy, so they go on living mechanically.

Man has lost instinct; now there is no blueprint to live. You are born without any blueprint, without any inbuilt program. No mechanical lines are available for you to move on. You have to create your own path. You have to substitute instinct with something which is not instinct, because instinct has dropped. You have to substitute your instinct with intelligence, with awareness. You cannot live mechanically. You have gone beyond that stage where mechanical life is possible -- it is not possible for you. You cannot live like animals and you don't know how t live in some other way -- this is the problem.

You don't have a natural inbuilt program to follow. Without a program you have to face existence. And boredom, suffering, is bound to be your destiny if you cannot create such awareness that you can live through awareness rather than living through instinct. You have to learn everything. This is the problem. No animal needs to learn anything. You have to learn everything, and unless you learn it, you cannot live it. You have to learn how to live. No animal needs it.

This learning is the problem. You learn many things: you learn how to earn money, you learn mathematics, you learn history, you learn science, but you never learn how to live. That is creating the boredom. The whole of humanity is bored because a basic thing remains untouched. And it cannot be left to instinct, because there are now no instincts to live. For man, instinct has dropped; that door is closed. You have to build your own program. You are born without a map.

This is good, because existence thinks you are so responsible you will create your own map. This is a glory. This is magnificent. This makes man the highest, the peak of existence, because existence leaves you free. No animal is free: he has to live and follow a particular program that existence gives to him. When he is born, he is born with a program -- he has to follow it. He cannot go astray, he cannot choose. There are no alternatives given to him. For man, all alternatives are open, and with no map to move with.

If you don't learn how to live, your life will become a dreary affair. This has happened. Then you can go on doing many things and still you will feel you are not alive -- dead. Deep down something is dead, not alive. You go on doing things because you have to. Just to live you go on doing things, but that `just to live' is not life. There is no dance in it, no song in it. It has become a business. There is no play in it, and obviously you cannot enjoy it. These techniques of tantra are to teach you how to live. They are to teach you not to depend on animal instinct, because it is no more there. It has become so faint it cannot work for you, it cannot function.

It has been noted, observed, that if a human child is brought up without the mother, he will never be able to learn love, he will never be able to love. For his whole life he will remain without love, because now there is no instinct; he has to learn it. Even love has to be learned. A human child who is brought up without love cannot learn it. He will not be able to love. If a mother is not there, and if a mother doesn't become a source of happiness, of ecstasy, then no woman can become a source of happiness and ecstasy for that child. When he becomes mature, grown-up, he will not be attracted to women, because now instinct is not functioning.

This will not happen to animals: in the right moment they will start functioning. They will become sexual; they will move towards the opposite sex -- that is instinctive, mechanical. With man nothing is mechanical. If you don't teach a human child language, he will not learn it. If you don't teach it, he is not going to have it. It is not natural; there is no instinct for it. Whatsoever you are is because of your learning. Man is less nature and more culture. Animals are simply nature.

Man is less natural and more cultural, but one dimension, the basic and the most foundational, remains uncultured -- that is the dimension of being alive. You take it as if you already have it; it is taken for granted -- that is wrong. You don't know how to live, because just to breathe is not synonymous with living. Just to eat and sleep and just carry on the bodily affairs is not synonymous with living. You are existing, that's right, but you re not alive.

A Buddha is alive, not simply existing. That aliveness can come only if you learn it, if you become aware of it, and if you search for it and if you create situations in which it can evolve. Remember this: for man, mechanical evolution is not. Conscious evolution has taken place, and now you cannot do anything about it -- you have to move into conscious evolution. You cannot fall back. You can stick where you are -- then you will get bored.

That's what is happening. You are not moving. You go on accumulating physical things, so things are moving, not you. Your riches go on accumulating, they are growing -- your bank balance is growing, not you. You are not increasing at all. On the contrary, you may be shrinking, decreasing, but you are not increasing. Unless you do something consciously, you are lost. A conscious effort is needed. It is not asked from the animals because they are not responsible. So you have to understand one very basic thing: with freedom comes responsibility. And you can be free only if you are responsible.

Animals are not responsible, but they are also not free. They are not free; they have to follow a particular pattern. They are happy because nothing can go wrong. They are following a predetermined course: they are following a pattern which has been worked out in millennia, in centuries of evolution. It has been worked out and found correct. They are following that. There is no possibility of going wrong.

There is every possibility for you to go wrong, because there is no plan, there is no map, there is no pattern. Your life ahead is not charted. You are free. But then a great responsibility falls on you, and that responsibility is to choose rightly, to work rightly, and to create your future through your effort. Really, the human being has to create himself through his own effort.

What existentialists in the west say is true. They say man is born without an essence, or you can say without a soul. Sartre, Marcel, Heidegger, they say that man is born without an essence. He is born as an existence, and then through his own effort he creates the essence. He is born only as a possibility, and then through his own effort he creates the soul. He is born only as a form, and then through his own conscious effort he creates the substance.

Just the contrary is the case for all nature: every animal, every plant, is born with an essence, with a soul, with a program, with a fixed destiny. Man is born as an opening with no fixed destiny -- this creates burden, this creates responsibility. This gives you fear, anguish, anxiety. And then wherever you are, if you don't do anything you get stuck. That getting stuck creates boredom.

You can be alive, happy, festive, joyful, only when you are moving when you are growing, when you are increasing, when you are creating the soul; really when you are pregnant with the divine, and when the divine is growing in your womb, when you are going to give birth.

For tantra, God is not the beginning, God is in the end. God is not the creator, but the ultimate peak, the omega point, of evolution. It is the last, not the first; not the alpha but the omega. And unless you become pregnant and unless you carry a child within you, you will be bored, because then your life is futile -- nothing is going to come out of it; no fruit is going to come out of it. That creates boredom.

You can make this opportunity a source of evolution, or you can miss the opportunity and can make it a point of suicide. It depends on you.

Because man can commit suicide, only man can grow spiritually. No animal can grow spiritually. Because man can destroy himself, he can also create. Remember, both the possibilities move simultaneously. No animal can destroy himself -- impossible. You cannot conceive of a lion thinking about suicide, to jump from a cliff and end the whole thing -- no, impossible. No lion can think of it. Howsoever brave, no lion can think of ending himself, destroying himself. He's not free.

You can conceive of destroying yourself. It is impossible to find a human being who has not thought many times to destroy himself. And if you can find a human being who has not thought of committing suicide, then either he is animal or God. That is very basically human -- the possibility to destroy. But that also opens another door; simultaneously both the doors open -- you can create also. You can create yourself, because you can destroy yourself.

No animal can create himself. You can create yourself, and unless you start creating, you will be destroying. Unless you create yourself, start creating.... And it is not a thing to create yourself, it is a process -- you have to go on creating. Unless you reach to the ultimate, you have to go on creating. Unless the God is born within you, you have to go on creating. If you are not creating, you will be bored -- uncreative life is boredom. All these techniques are to help you to create, to be reborn, to become pregnant. Now I will take the techniques.

The first technique. This technique is very easy and really wonderful. You can do it, anyone can do it. There is no question of type: anyone can do this technique, and for everyone this will be helpful. Even if you cannot move very deeply in it, then too it will be helpful. It will refresh you.

Whenever you are bored, it will immediately refresh you. Whenever you are tired, it will immediately revitalize you. Whenever you are in a mood where you feel fed up with the whole thing, immediately a new surge of energy will flow within you. So for everyone, even if you are not meditation on it, it will be helpful, a medical help. It will give you health. And it is very easy to do; no prerequisites.

The sutra is:

TOUCHING EYEBALLS AS A FEATHER,

LIGHTNESS BETWEEN THEM OPENS INTO HEART

AND THERE PERMEATES THE COSMOS.

Before entering the technique, some introductory remarks about it. First, something has to be understood about the eye, because the whole technique depends on it.

The first thing: whatsoever you are, whatsoever you appear from without, is false, but you cannot deceive your eyes. You cannot create false eyes. You can create a false face; you cannot falsify your eyes. That is impossible -- unless you become a perfect master like a Gurdjieff. Unless you become a perfect master of all your energies, you cannot falsify your eyes. No ordinary human being can do that. You cannot falsify your eyes.

That's why if someone looks in your eyes, stares in your eyes, you feel offended, because he is trying to find the real thing. And at that point you cannot do anything -- your eyes will reveal the true self. So it is not good manners to stare in anybody's eyes. Even while talking you go on avoiding the eyes. Unless you are in love with someone, unless someone is ready to be true with you, you cannot stare. There is a limit.

Psychologists have observed that thirty seconds is the limit. With a stranger you can stare for thirty seconds, not more. If you stare more, you have started being aggressive, and the other will immediately start to feel uneasy. You can stare from a far-away point, because then no one is aware. If you are a hundred feet away I can go on staring at you, but if you are just two feet away it becomes impossible.

In a crowded train, or in a crowded elevator, sitting or standing just close together, you never look at each other's eyes. You can touch the body -- that is not so offensive -- but you never look into each other's eyes because that will be too much, too near, and you will penetrate the real man. The first thing to remember: eyes have no personality. They are pure nature. They have no personality.

The second thing to remember: you move into the world almost only through the eyes; they say eighty percent. Those who have been working with eyes, the psychologists, they say that eighty percent of contact with the world is through the eyes. Eighty percent of your life moves out through the eyes.

That's why whenever you see a blind man, you feel pity. You never feel so much pity and sympathy when you see a deaf man, but when you see a blind man, suddenly you feel sympathy and compassion. Why? -- because he is eighty percent non-alive. A deaf man is not so non-alive. Even if your feet are cut and your hands are cut, you will not be so unalive, but a blind man is eighty percent closed; he lives only twenty percent.

Through your eyes eighty percent of your energy moves out. You are moving into the world through the eyes. So when you get tired, the first thing is the eyes. Later on, other parts of the body will be affected; the eyes will be the first to be drained of energy. If you can refresh your eyes, you can refresh your whole body, because they are eighty percent of your energy. If you can revitalize your eyes, you have revitalized yourself.

In a natural surrounding you never feel as tired as you feel in an unnatural city, because in a natural surrounding your eyes are continuously fed. The greenery, the fresh atmosphere -- everything relaxes your eyes and feeds them. In a modern city everything exploits your eyes and nothing feeds them. So move to a remote village, or to a hilltop where nothing artificial is in the milieu, where everything is natural, and you will see a different type of eyes. The twinkling, the quality, will be different -- fresh, animal-like, penetrating, alive, dancing.

In a modern city, eyes are dead; just living on the minimum. They don't know what festivity is. They don't know what freshness is. The eyes are unaware of any life flowing through them; they are just being exploited. Eighty percent of your energy moves from your eyes, so you have to be perfectly aware, and you have to learn an art about this movement, this energy, and the possibility of the eyes.

In India we have been calling blind men PRAJNA-CHAKSHU -- wisdom-eye -- for a particular reason, because every misfortune can be transformed into a great opportunity. Eighty percent of the energy moves through the eyes, and when a person is blind, he is eighty percent not alive; with the world eighty percent of his contact is lost.

He is very poor as far as the world without is concerned, but if he can use this opportunity -- this opportunity of being blind -- then he can use this eighty percent of his energy for his inner world; this eighty percent that you cannot use ordinarily unless you know the art. So eighty percent of his energy is with him, it is a reservoir, and the energy that normally moves out can move within. If he knows how to allow it to move within, he will become a wisdom-eye.

A blind man is not a PRAJNA-CHAKSHU, a wisdom-eye, just by being blind, but he can be. He doesn't have ordinary eyes, but he can get the eyes of wisdom. The possibility is there. We named him PRAJNA-CHAKSHU just to make him aware that he should not be sorry that he doesn't have eyes. He can create an inner eye, and eighty percent of energy is with him which is not with those who have eyes. He can move it. He can use it.

Even if the blind man is not aware, he becomes more silent than you are. He becomes more relaxed. Look at a blind man. He is more silent. His face is more relaxed. He seems to be at ease with himself; no discontent. This will not be the case with a deaf man. He will be more restless than you, and he will become cunning. But a blind man is never cunning, never restless, never calculative; basically trusting, in a deep faith with existence.

Why does this happen? -- because the eighty percent of energy, even if he doesn't know anything about it, is moving within. It becomes a constant fall, just like a waterfall. Even unaware, it goes on falling on his heart. The same energy that moves out, goes on falling on his heart -- that changes the quality of his being. In ancient India the blind man was very much respected -- very much respected. In deep respect we called him PRAJNA-CHAKSHU, wisdom-eye.

The same you can do with your eyes, and this technique is for that: to help your energy which moves out to fall back upon yourself, upon your own heart center. If it falls on the heart, you become as light as possible. You feel as if the whole body has become a feather; as if gravitation has absolutely no effect on it. And immediately you are connected with the deepest source of your being, which revitalizes you.

For tantra, deep sleep revitalizes you not because of sleep, but just because the energy which was moving out, moves in. If you know the secret, then what an ordinary man is doing in six hours or eight hours sleep, you can do within minutes. What an ordinary man is doing in eight hours, really he is not doing. He is allowing nature to do something, and he is not aware of what it is. A mysterious process is happening in your sleep. One of the basic things is that your energy is not moving out; it goes on falling on your heart, and that revitalizes you. You are in a deep bath with your own energy.

Something more about this moving energy. You might have observed that whenever there is a dominant man, he always stares in your eyes. Whenever there is a dominated man, he looks down. Slaves, servants, or anyone who is inferior to someone, will never stare in the eyes of the superior. But the superior can stare. Kings can stare, but standing before a king, standing in the audience of the king, you are not supposed to stare. That would be an offence. You have to look down.

Really, with your eyes your energy moves. It can become a subtle violence. And not only in man, even in animals. When two strangers meet, two animals meet, they stare each other in the eye just to judge who is going to be the superior and who is going to take the role of the inferior. And once one animal looks down, the thing is decided. Then they will not fight; the thing is over. It is now taken for granted who is superior.

Even children play the game of staring into each other's eyes, and whoever looks away is defeated. And they are right. When two children stare into each other's eyes, whosoever becomes first uncomfortable and starts fidgeting and starts looking away and avoiding the look of the other, is defeated. The one who goes on staring is stronger. If your eyes can defeat the other's eyes, it is a subtle indication that you are stronger than the other.

On the stage when someone comes to speak or to act, he becomes very afraid, a great trembling happens. Even with those who are long in the profession, old actors... even when they come on the stage a fear grips them, because so many eyes are staring; there is so much aggressive energy. There is so much energy from the thousands of people staring at them that they suddenly start trembling deep down. A fear grips them. A subtle energy is flowing through the eyes, a very subtle energy. The subtlest, the most refined of physical forces, is flowing through the eyes. And the quality of the energy changes with you.

From the eyes of a Buddha a different type of energy is flowing. From the eyes of a Hitler a totally different type. If you look at Buddha's eyes, they accept you, they welcome you, they become a door. If you look at Hitler's eyes, they reject you, they condemn you, they push you away, they throw you away. For Hitler, his eyes are like weapons; for Buddha, his eyes are compassion. The quality of the eyes changes. Sooner or later we must come to measure the eye-energy, and then there will be no need to know much about the man. Just the eye-energy and its quality will show what type of man is hidden behind. Sooner or later that will be possible.

This sutra, this technique:

TOUCHING EYEBALLS AS A FEATHER,

LIGHTNESS BETWEEN THEM OPENS INTO HEART

AND THERE PERMEATES THE COSMOS.

TOUCHING EYEBALLS AS A FEATHER... Use both your palms, put them on your eyes, and allow the palms to touch the eyeballs -- but just like a feather, with no pressure. If you press you miss the point, you miss the whole technique. Don't press; just touch like a feather. You will have to adjust, because in the beginning you will be pressing. Put less and less pressure until you are just touching with no pressure at all -- just your palms touch the eyeballs. Just a touch, just a meeting with no pressure, because if the pressure is there, then the technique will not function. So -- LIKE A FEATHER.

Why? Because a needle can do something which a sword cannot do. If you press, the quality has changed -- you are aggressive. And the energy that is flowing through the eyes is very subtle: a small pressure and it starts fighting and a resistance is created. If you press, then the energy that is flowing through the eyes will start a resistance, a fight; a struggle will ensue. So don't press; even a slight pressure is enough for the eye-energy to judge.

It is very subtle, it is very delicate. Don't press -- like a feather, just your palm is touching, as if not touching. Touching as if not touching, no pressure; just a touch, a slight feeling that the palm is touching the eyeball, that's all.

What will happen? When you simply touch without any pressure, the energy starts moving within. If you press, it starts fighting with the hand, with the palm, and moves out. Just a touch and the energy starts moving within. The door is closed; simply the door is closed and the energy falls back. The moment energy falls back, you will feel a lightness coming all over your face, your head. This energy moving back makes you light.

And just between these two eyes is the third eye, the wisdom-eye, the PRAJNA-CHAKSHU. Just between these two eyes is the third eye. The energy falling back from the eyes hits the third eye. That's why one feels light, levitating, as if there is no gravitation. And from the third eye the energy falls on the heart. It is a physical process: just drip, drip, it drops, and you will feel a very light feeling entering in your heart. The heartbeats will slow down, the breathing will slow down. Your whole body will feel relaxed.

Even if you are not entering deep meditation, this will help you physically. Any time in the day, relax on a chair -- or if you don't have any chair, when just sitting in a train -- close your eyes, feel a relaxed being in the whole of your body, and then put both your palms on your eyes. But don't press -- that's the very significant thing. Just touch like a feather.

When you touch and don't press, your thoughts will stop immediately. In a relaxed mind thoughts cannot move; they get frozen. They need frenzy and fever, they need tension to move. They live through tension. When the eyes are silent, relaxed, and the energy is moving backwards, thoughts will stop. You will feel a certain quality of euphoria, and that will deepen daily.

So do it many times in the day. Even for a single moment, touching will be good. Whenever your eyes feel exhausted, dry of energy, exploited -- after reading, seeing a film, or watching TV -- whenever you feel it, just close the eyes and touch. Immediately there will be the effect. But if you want to make it a meditation, then do it for at least forty minutes. And the whole thing is not to press. Because it is easy for a single moment to have a feather-like touch; it is difficult for forty minutes. Many times you will forget and you will start pressing.

Don't press. For forty minutes, just remain aware that your hands have no weight; they are just touching. Go on being aware that you are not pressing, only touching. This will become a deep awareness, just like breathing. As Buddha says to breathe with full awareness, the same will happen with touching, because you have to be constantly mindful that you are not pressing. Your hand should just be a feather, a weightless thing, simply touching.

Your mind will be totally there, alert, near the eyes, and the energy will be flowing constantly. In the beginning it will be just dropping in drops. Within months you will feel it has become a river-like thing, and within a year you will feel it has become a flood. And when it happens -- TOUCHING EYEBALLS AS A FEATHER, LIGHTNESS BETWEEN THEM -- when you touch you will feel lightness. You can feel it right now. Immediately, the moment you touch, a lightness comes. And that LIGHTNESS BETWEEN THEM OPENS INTO THE HEART; that lightness penetrates, opens into the heart. In the heart, only lightness can enter; nothing heavy can enter. Only very light things can happen to the heart.

This lightness between the two eyes will start dropping into the heart, and the heart will open to receive it -- AND THERE PERMEATES THE COSMOS. And as the falling energy becomes a stream and then a river and then a flood, you will be washed completely, washed away. You will not feel that you are. You will feel simply the cosmos is. Breathing in, breathing out, you will feel you have become the cosmos. The cosmos comes in and the cosmos goes out. The entity that you have always been, the ego, will not be there.

This technique is very simple, without any danger, so you can experiment with it as you like. But because it is so easy, you may not be able to do it. The whole thing depends on touch without pressure, so you will have to learn it. Try it. Within a week it will happen. Suddenly some day when you are just touching with no pressure, immediately you will feel what I am saying -- a lightness and an opening in the heart, and something dropping from the head into the heart.

The second technique:

KIND DEVI,

ENTER ETHERIC PRESENCE

PERVADING FAR ABOVE AND BELOW YOUR FORM.

KIND DEVI, ENTER ETHERIC PRESENCE PERVADING FAR ABOVE AND BELOW YOUR FORM. The second can be done only if you have done the first. It can be done separately also, but then it will be very difficult. But if you do the first, then it is good to do the second and very easy.

Whenever this happens -- that you feel light, levitating, as if you can fly -- suddenly you will become aware that around your body form there is a bluish light. But that you can see only when you feel that you can levitate, that your body can fly, that it has become light, completely free of any burden, completely free of any gravitation towards the earth.

Not that you can fly; that is not the point. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it happens that it comes to such a balancing point that your body goes up. But that is not the goal, and don't think about it at all. This much will do: if you feel with closed eyes that your body has gone up. When you open your eyes you will see you are just sitting on the ground, so don't become worried about it. If with closed eyes you feel as if your body has gone up and you feel there is no weight to it, this is enough.

For meditation this is enough. But if you are trying to learn levitation, then it is not enough. But I am not interested in that, and I will not tell you anything about it. This much is enough -- that you feel that your body has no weight, it has become weightless.

Whenever you feel this weightlessness, just with closed eyes become aware of the form of your body. Just with closed eyes, feel your toes and their form, and the legs and their form, and then the form of the whole body. If you are sitting in siddhasana, just like a Buddha, then feel the form while sitting like a Buddha. Just inside try to feel the form of your body. It will become apparent, it will appear before you, and you will simultaneously become aware that just around the form there is a bluish light.

Do it with closed eyes in the beginning. And when this light goes on spreading and you feel an aura, a bluish aura, all around the form, then sometimes while doing it in the night with no light in a dark room, open your eyes and you will see it exactly around your body -- a bluish form, just light, blue light, all around your body. If you want to see it actually, not with closed eyes but with open eyes, do it in a dark room with no light at all.

This bluish form, this bluish light, is the presence of the etheric body. You have many bodies. This technique is concerned with the etheric body, and through the etheric body you can enter into the highest ecstasy. There are seven bodies, and every body can be used to enter into the divine; every body is just a door.

This technique uses the etheric body, and the etheric body is the easiest to realize. The deeper the body, the more difficult; but the etheric body is just near you, just near the physical. It is just near. The second form is of the etheric -- just around you, just around your body. It penetrates your body and it is also around your body just like a hazy light, a blue light, hanging all around like a loose robe.

KIND DEVI,

ENTER ETHERIC PRESENCE

PERVADING FAR ABOVE AND BELOW YOUR FORM.

Far above, below -- everywhere around your form. If you can see that blue light around you, thinking will stop immediately, because for the etheric body, no thinking is needed. And the blue light is so calming, so soothing, so relaxing. Even ordinarily blue light is so soothing. Why? -- because it is the light of your etheric body. The blue sky is so soothing. Why? -- because it is the color of your etheric body. And the etheric body is very soothing.

Whenever someone loves you, whenever someone touches you with deep love, he touches your etheric body. That's why you feel it as such a soothing thing. It has even been photographed. Two lovers in deep love, making love: if their intercourse can continue for a certain limit, beyond forty minutes, and there is no ejaculation, around both the bodies, deep in love, a blue light appear. It has even been photographed.

And sometimes there have been very strange phenomena, because this light is a very subtle electric force. All around the world, many times it has happened that a new couple, staying in a new room on their honeymoon, or on their first night when they don't know each other's body and they don't know what is possible.... If both the bodies are in a certain vibration of love, of attraction, of deep involvement and commitment -- open, vulnerable to each other, ready to become one space -- then sometimes it has happened accidentally that their bodies have become so electrified, their etheric body becomes so alive, that things in the room start falling.

Very strange phenomena: a statue is there on the table -- suddenly it falls down. The glass on the table suddenly breaks. There is no one else, only the couple making love, and they have not even touched the glass. Or suddenly something catches fire. These cases have been reported to many police stations all around the world, and much investigation has been done, and then it was found that two persons in deep love can create such an electric force that it may affect things around them.

That force also comes through the etheric body. Your etheric body is your electric body. Whenever you are overflowing with energy, you have a bigger range to your etheric body. Whenever you are sad, depressed, you don't have any etheric body near your body. It recedes back into the body. So with a sad person, depressed person, you will also feel sad. If a really sad person enters in this room, you will feel that something has gone wrong, because his etheric body affects you immediately. He becomes an exploiter, because his own etheric forces are so depressed they start feeding on others.

A sad person will make you sad, a depressed person will make you depressed, an ill person will make you ill, because it is not only that which you see that he is; something hidden is constantly working. Even if he has not said anything, even if he is smiling outwardly, if he is depressed he will exploit you. Your etheric body will lose its energy -- he will exploit, he will feed on you. When someone is happy and he enters, immediately you feel a happiness around you, because he is throwing so much etheric force. He is really giving you a feast; he is feeding you. He has so much he is overflowing.

When a Buddha moves around, or a Christ, or a Krishna, they are constantly giving you a feast, constantly you are guests. And when you come after seeing a Buddha, you feel so refreshed, so alive, so vitalized, so rejuvenated. What has happened? Buddha may not have said anything. Even a darshan, just a look, and you feel something has changed within you, something has entered within you.

What is entering? He is so overflowing with his energy.... And whosoever is at peace with himself is always overflooded, because his energy is not wasted in unnecessary nonsense in which you are wasting your energy. He is always overflooded, and whosoever comes can take. Jesus says, `Come unto me. If you are heavily burdened, come unto me. I will unburden you.' Really he is not doing anything; it is just his presence.

It is said that whenever a god-man, a teerthankara, an avatar, a Christ, moves on the earth, around him a particular milieu is created. Jain yogis have even measured it. They say it is twenty-four miles. Twenty-four miles is the radius around a teerthankara, and for twenty-four miles in the whole radius everyone is flooded with his energy: knowing, not knowing, friend or enemy, following him or opposing him, it makes no difference.

If following, you are flooded more, because you are more open; if opposing, you are flooded, but not so much because you are closed -- but the energy is flooding. A single man is such a reservoir; a single man, if undisturbed, silent, at ease, at home, is such a reservoir that for twenty-four miles around him in all directions a milieu is created. And in that milieu you are on a constant feast.

This happens through the astral body. The astral body is your electric body. The body that we see is the physical, the material. This is not really life. Life comes to this body because of the electric, the etheric body. That is your prana, that is your vitality.

So Shiva says:

KIND DEVI,

ENTER ETHERIC PRESENCE...

First you will have to become aware of the form that surrounds your physical form, and when you have become aware, then help it to grow, help it to increase and expand. What can you do?

Just sitting silently, looking at it; not doing anything, just looking at the bluish form around you; not doing anything, just looking at it, you will feel it is increasing, spreading, becoming bigger and bigger. Because when you are not doing anything, the whole energy goes to the etheric. Remember this. When you are doing anything, the energy is taken out of the etheric.

Lao Tzu says, `Non-doing, no one is stronger than me. Not doing anything at all, and no one is stronger than me. Those who are strong by doing can be defeated.' Says Lao Tzu, `I cannot be defeated, because my energy comes from non-doing.' So the secret is not doing anything.

What was Buddha doing under the Bodhi tree? -- not doing anything. He was not doing in that moment. He was not. Just sitting he achieved the ultimate. It looks puzzling. We are doing so much effort and nothing is achieved, and Buddha was not doing anything under the Bodhi tree and he achieved the ultimate.

When you are not doing anything, your energy is not moving out. It goes to the etheric. It is accumulated there. Your etheric body becomes an electric reservoir. And the more it grows, the more you become silent. The more you become silent, the more it grows. And once you know how to give energy to the etheric body and how not to waste it unnecessarily, you have come to realize, you have come to know about a secret key.

Then you can be festive. Really, only then can you be festive. As you are now, drained of energy, how can you be festive? How can you celebrate? How can you blossom? Flowers are part of the luxury. When the tree is overflowing with energy, then flowers come. Flowers are always luxury.

If the tree is starved, flowers won't come, because even for the leaves there is not enough food. There is a hierarchy: first the roots will be fed, because they are the most basic. If they disappear, then there is no possibility for the flowers. Then the trunk will be fed, then the branches will be fed. If everything goes okay and energy is still there, then the leaves will be fed, and if still the food is there and the tree is totally satisfied and no food is needed, no energy is needed to exist and survive, suddenly it blooms. The overflowing energy becomes flowers. Flowers are a feast for others. It is a presentation. It is a gift from the tree to you.

And the thing happens in man also. A Buddha is a tree which has flowered. Now the energy is so overflowing that he has invited all and sundry to come and share.

First try the first technique and then try the second. You can do it separately also, but it will be more difficult to realize the bluish form of the ethereal body.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #24

Chapter title: Choicelessness is bliss

5 July 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7307055

ShortTitle: VBT224

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 80 mins

Question 1

IS IT THAT THERE ARE ONLY TWO ALTERNATIVES BEFORE MAN -- A LIFE OF ABIDING SORROW AND SUFFERING OR ONE OF DIVINITY AND BLISS -- AND THIS CHOICE LIES WITH HIM? HOW IS IT THAT MOST HAVE CHOSEN THE PATH OF SORROW AND SUFFERING?

It is a very significant question, but very delicate also. The first thing to be understood is that life is very paradoxical, and because of that many things happen. These are the two alternatives: either man can be in heaven or hell. And there is no third possibility. Either you can be in deep suffering, or you can be without suffering and in deep bliss. These are the only two possibilities, two openings, two doors, two modes of being.

Then the question necessarily arises why man chooses to be in suffering. Man never chooses to be in suffering, man always chooses to be in bliss -- and there comes the paradox. If you choose to be in bliss, you will be in suffering, because to be in bliss means to be choiceless. This is the problem. If you choose to be in bliss you will be in suffering. If you don't choose, if you simply remain a witness, non-choosing, you will be in bliss. So it is not a question of choosing between bliss and suffering; deep down it is a question of choosing between choosing and non-choosing.

Why does it happen that whenever you choose you are in suffering? -- because choice divides life: something has to be cut and thrown away. You don't accept the total. You accept something in it and you deny something, that's what choice means. And life is a totality. If you choose something and deny something, that which you deny will come to you, because life cannot be divided. And that which you deny, just because you deny it, becomes a powerful thing over you. You really become afraid of it.

Nothing can be denied. You can only close your eyes to it. You can only escape. You can become inattentive towards it, but it is always there hidden, waiting for the moment to assert. So if you deny suffering -- if you say you are not going to choose suffering -- then in a subtle you have chosen it. Now it will always be around you. One thing.

Life is totality -- the first thing; and life is change -- the second thing. These are basic truths. You cannot divide life. Secondly: nothing is stagnant, and nothing can be. So when you say, `I am not going to suffer. I am going to choose a blissful mode of living,' you will cling to happiness. And whenever you cling to something, you want it, you hope it to be permanent. And nothing can be permanent in life. Life is a flux.

So when you cling to happiness, you are again creating suffering, because this happiness will pass away; nothing can remain. It is a river, and the moment you cling to a river, you are creating a situation in which you will be frustrated, because the river will move. Sooner or later you will find that the river has gone far away. It is not now with you: your hands are empty and your heart is frustrated.

If you cling to bliss, there will be moments of bliss, but they are going to pass away. Life is a flux. Nothing can be permanent here except you. Except you, nothing is eternal here, and if you cling to a changing thing, when it is gone you will suffer. And it is not only that when it is gone you will suffer; if you have the mind of clinging, while it is there you will not be able to enjoy it, because you will be constantly afraid that it is going to be lost.

If you cling you will miss the opportunity also. Later on you will suffer and right now you will not enjoy, because the fear is just around the corner -- sooner or later it has to go. The guest has come to your house, and you know he is a guest and tomorrow morning he will leave. You start suffering for the future -- tomorrow morning he will leave -- and that pain, that suffering, that anguish, comes upon you right now. You cannot be happy while the guest is in your home. While the guest is with you, you cannot be happy because you are already in anxiety and anguish that tomorrow morning he will leave. So while he is there you will not be happy, and when he is gone you will be unhappy. This is what is happening.

The first thing: life cannot be divided. If you divide, only then can you choose. And that which you choose is flux-like -- sooner or later ut will be gibe -- and that which you have denied will fall over you; you cannot escape it. You cannot say, `I will live only in the days and I will escape the nights.' You cannot say, `I will live only with the ingoing breath and I will not allow the outgoing breaths.'

Life is a rhythm of opposites. The breath comes in and goes out: between these two opposites -- ingoing and outgoing -- you exist. Suffering is there, happiness is there. Happiness is just like the ingoing breath, suffering is just like the outgoing breath; or day and night -- the rhythm of opposites. You cannot say, `I will live only if I am happy. When I am not happy, I will not live.' You can take this attitude, but this attitude will make you suffer more.

No one chooses suffering, remember. You ask why man has chosen to suffer. No one has chosen to suffer. You have chosen not to suffer, you have chosen to be happy, and you have chosen strongly. You are doing everything to be happy and that's why you are in suffering, why you are not happy.

So what is to be done? Remember that life is total. You cannot choose -- the whole life has to be lived. There will be moments of happiness and there will be moments of suffering, and both have to be lived; you cannot choose. Because life is both -- otherwise the rhythm will be lost, and without rhythm there will be no life.

It is just like music. You hear some music: there are notes, sounds, and after each sound there is silence, a gap. Because of that gap, that interval of silence, and the sound -- because of both the opposites -- music is created. If you say, `I will choose only sounds and I am not going to take the gaps,' there will be no music. It will be a monotonous thing, it will be dead. Those gaps give life to sound. This is the beauty of life -- that through opposites it exists. Sound and silence, sound and silence -- that creates music, the rhythm. The same is with life. Suffering and happiness are two opposites. You cannot choose.

If you choose you have become a victim; you will suffer. If you become aware of this totality of the opposites and the way that life functions, you don't choose -- the first thing. And when you don't choose there is no need to cling, there is no meaning in clinging. When suffering comes you enjoy the suffering, and when happiness comes you enjoy the happiness. When the guest is at home you enjoy him, when he has gone you enjoy the suffering, the absence, the pain. I say enjoy both. This is the path of wisdom: enjoy both, don't choose. Whatsoever falls upon you, accept it. It is your fate, it is how life is, and nothing can be done about it.

If you take this attitude, there is no choosing. You have become choiceless. And when you are choiceless, you will become aware of yourself, because now you are not worried about what happens, so you are not outgoing. You are not worried about what is happening around you. Whatsoever happens you will enjoy it, you will live it, you will go through it, you will experience it, and you will gain something out of it, because every experience is an expansion of consciousness.

If there is really no suffering you will be poor for it, because suffering gives you depth. A man who has not suffered will always remain on the surface. Suffering gives you depth. Really, if there is no suffering you will be saltless. You will be nothing, just a boring phenomenon. Suffering gives you tone, a keenness. A quality comes to you which only suffering can give, which no happiness can give. A man who has remained always in happiness, in comfort, who has not suffered, will not have any tone. He will be just a lump of being. There cannot be any depth. Really, there cannot be any heart. The heart is created through suffering; through pain you evolve.

If a man has only suffered and he has not known any happiness, then too he will not be rich, because richness comes through opposites. The more you move in opposites, the higher, the deeper you evolve. A man who has simply suffered will become a slave. He who has not known any moments of happiness will not be really alive. He will become an animal; he will just exist anyhow. There will be no poetry, no song in the heart, no hope in the eyes. He will settle down to his pessimistic existence. There will be no struggle, no adventure. He will not move. He will be simply a stagnant pool of consciousness, and a stagnant pool of consciousness is not conscious -- by and by he will become unconscious. That's why if there is too much pain you fall unconscious.

So just happiness will not be of much help, because there will be no challenge. Just pain will not be of much growth, because there will be nothing to struggle, to hope, to dream; there will be no fantasy. Both are needed, and life exists between both as a very delicate tension, a subtle tension.

If you understand this, then you don't choose. Then you know how life functions, how life is. This is the way, this is the way of life -- it moves through happiness, it moves through suffering and gives you tone, and gives you meaning, and gives you depth. So both are good.

I say both are good. I don't say choose between the two -- I say both are good, don't choose. Rather, enjoy both; rather, allow both to happen. Be open without any resistance. Don't cling to one and don't resist the other.

Let no-resistance be your motto: I will not resist life. Whatsoever life gives to me, I will be ready to take it, available, and I will enjoy it. The nights are also good and beautiful, and suffering has a beauty of its own. No happiness can have that beauty. Darkness has its own beauty; day has its own beauty. There is no comparison and there is no choice. Both have their own dimensions to work in.

The moment this consciousness arises in you, you will not choose. You will be just a witness, and you will enjoy -- this choicelessness will become bliss. This choicelessness will become bliss. Bliss is not contrary to suffering; bliss is a quality which you can bring to anything whatsoever -- even to suffering.

A Buddha cannot suffer, but that doesn't mean that suffering doesn't happen to him. Remember, suffering happens as much to Buddha as it happens to you, but he cannot suffer because he knows the art of enjoying it. He cannot suffer because he remains blissful. Even in suffering he remains festive, meditative, alive, enjoying, open, non-resistant. Suffering happens to him, but he is not touched. Suffering comes and goes, just like a breath coming in and going out. He remains himself. The suffering cannot push him aside. The suffering cannot push him off his feet. Nothing can push him -- neither suffering nor happiness. You exist like a pendulum: everything pushes you -- everything. You cannot even be really happy, because happiness will also kill you. You get so involved in it.

I remember, once it happened that a poor schoolmaster -- very old, poor, retired -- won a lottery. The wife was afraid and she thought, `This is going to be too much for the old man. Five thousand dollars is too much for him. Even a five dollar note gives him so much happiness, so five thousand dollars may kill him.'

She ran to the church, to the nearby church, and went to the priest and told him what had happened. She said, `The old man is out, but he is just coming back, this is his time to return, so do something. Five thousand dollars -- just the news will kill him!'

The priest said, `Don't be afraid. I know the human mind and the way it functions. I know the psychology. I will come.'

So the priest came to the house. The moment they arrived the old man also arrived, so the priest started. He said, `Suppose you won a lottery of five thousand dollars -- what would you do?'

The old man thought about it, pondered over it, and he said, `I would give half of the money to the church.'

The priest fell down dead. It was too much.

Even happiness will kill you, because you get so involved. You cannot remain out of anything. Suffering or happiness, whatsoever comes to your door, you get so involved in it you are just pushed off your feet. You are no more there. Just a breeze comes in the house and you are no more there.

What I am saying is that if you don't choose, if you remain alert and aware that this is how life is -- days and nights come and go, suffering and happiness -- you just witness. There is no clinging to happiness, no hankering for happiness, and no escape from suffering. You remain in yourself -- centered, rooted. This is what bliss is.

So remember, bliss is not something opposite to suffering. Don't think that when you become blissful there will be no suffering -- nonsense. Suffering is part of life. It ceases only when you are not. When you completely disappear from the body, suffering ceases. When there is no birth, suffering ceases. But then you are lost in the totality, then you are no more -- just a drop has fallen into the ocean and is no more.

While you are, suffering will continue. It is part of life. But you can become aware: then suffering happens somewhere around you, but it never happens to you. But then happiness also never happens to you. Don't think that happiness will go on happening to you and suffering will not happen -- both will not happen to you. They will just happen around, just on the periphery, and you will be centered in yourself. You will see them happening, you will enjoy them happening, but they will happen around you; they will not happen to you.

This becomes possible if you don't choose. That's why I said this is delicate, subtle. Because of the paradoxical life, you choose happiness and you fall in suffering. You try to escape from suffering, and more and more suffering is invited. So you can take it as an ultimate law: whatsoever you choose, the opposite will be your fate. say it as an ultimate law: whatsoever you choose, the opposite will be your fate.

So whatsoever is your fate, remember, you have chosen it by choosing the opposite. If you are suffering, you have chosen your suffering by choosing happiness. Don't choose happiness and suffering disappears. Don't choose at all. Then nothing can happen to you, and everything is a flux except you. That has to be understood very deeply.

Only you are the constant factor in existence, nothing else. Only you are the eternity, nothing else. Your awareness is never a flux. Suffering comes, you witness it. Then happiness comes, you witness it. Then nothing comes, you witness it. Only one thing remains constant -- witnessing -- and witnessing is you.

You were a child.... Or, if you move even further backwards, once you were just an atomic cell. You cannot even imagine it -- just an atomic cell in your mother's womb, not even visible to the naked eyes. If that cell comes before you and you encounter it, you will not be able to recognize that once you were that. Then you were a child, then you became young, and now you are old, or lying on your deathbed. Many things happened. Your whole life has been a flux; nothing remained the same for even two moments.

Heraclitus says you cannot step twice in the same river -- and this he says for the river of life. You cannot have two similar moments. The moment that has gone cannot be repeated. It is gone forever; you cannot have it again. The same cannot exist. In such a great flux, only one thing within you remains the same -- the witnessing.

If you could have witnessed in your mother's womb, the quality of consciousness would have been the same. If you could have witnessed when you were a child, the quality of witnessing would have been the same. Young or dying, while just dying on your bed, if you can witness, the quality of consciousness will be the same.

The only one thing deep down within you is your witnessing self, your consciousness -- that remains the same; everything else changes. And if you cling to any object of the world of change, you will suffer. Nothing can be done about it. You are trying to do the impossible, that's why you suffer. I know you never choose, but that is not the point. If you suffer, you have chosen it indirectly.

Once you become aware of this indirectness of life, this paradoxical quality of life, you will stop choosing. When choice falls, the world has disappeared. When choosing falls, you have entered the absolute.

But that is possible only when the choosing mind disappears completely. A choiceless awareness is needed and then you will be in bliss. Rather, you will be the bliss. And I will repeat again: suffering will continue to happen, but now nothing can make you suffer. Even if you are suddenly thrown into hell, just by your presence there, for you it will be a hell no more.

Someone asked Socrates where he would like to go, so Socrates said, `I don't know whether there is a hell and a heaven. I don't know whether they are there or not, but I will not choose between them. My only prayer will be this: allow me to be alert wherever I am. Let me be fully aware wherever I am. Whether it is hell or heaven, that is irrelevant.' Because if you are fully alert, hell disappears -- hell is your being not aware. If you are fully aware, heaven appears -- heaven is your being fully aware.

Really there are no such geographical places as hell or heaven. And don't go on thinking in childish terms that someday you will die and God will send you to heaven or hell according to your doings, according to whatsoever you have done on earth. No, you carry your hell and heaven within you. Wherever you move, you carry your hell or heaven with you.

Even God cannot do anything. If suddenly you meet him, he will look like a hell. You carry your hell within you; you project it wherever you are. You will suffer. The encounter will be just death-like, intolerable. You may become unconscious. Whatsoever happens to you, you carry within you. The seed of consciousness is the seed of the whole existence.

So remember, if you suffer you have chosen it: consciously, unconsciously, directly, indirectly, you have chosen it. It is your choice and you are responsible. No one else is responsible.

But in our mind, in our confused mind, everything is upside-down. If you suffer, you think you suffer because of others. You suffer because of you. No one can make you suffer. That is impossible. And even if someone makes you suffer, it is your choice to be in suffering through him. You have chosen him and you have chosen a particular type of suffering through him. No one can make you suffer -- it is your choice. But you always go on thinking that if the other changes, or if the other is doing something else, you will not suffer.

I have heard. Mulla Nasrudin was filling out a report because he had crashed his car into a parked car. He was filling out a report, and many things were asked. When he came to the part where it was asked what the driver of the other vehicle could have done to avoid the accident, he filled it, `He should have parked the car somewhere else. The car was parked there; he should have parked it somewhere else -- because of him the accident has happened.'

And this is what you are doing. Always the other is responsible: he should have done something or other and there would have been no suffering. No, the other is not responsible at all. You are responsible, and unless you take this responsibility consciously upon you, you will not change. The change will become possible, easily possible, the moment you realize that you are responsible for it.

If you have suffered, it was your choice. This is what the law of karma is, nothing else: you are wholly responsible. Whatsoever happens -- suffering or happiness, hell or heaven -- whatsoever happens, ultimately you are totally responsible. This is what the law of karma is: total responsibility is with you.

But don't be afraid, don't be scared by it, because if the total responsibility is with you, then suddenly a door of freedom opens -- because if you are the cause of your suffering, you can change. If others are the cause, then you cannot change. Then how can you change? Unless the whole world changes, you will suffer. And there seems to be no way to change others -- then suffering cannot end.

But we are so pessimistic that even such beautiful doctrines as the law of karma we interpret in such a way that they don't free and liberate us, but rather, on the contrary, they make us more burdened. In India the law of karma has been known for at least five thousand years or even more, but what have we done? It is not that we have taken responsibility upon ourselves; we have thrown all the responsibility on the law of karma -- that it is happening because of the law of karma and we cannot do anything, nothing can be done; because of the past lives this life is such.

The law of karma was to free you. It was giving you total freedom towards yourself. No one else can make any suffering for you -- this was the message. If you are suffering you have created it. You are the master of your fate, and if you want to change it, immediately you can change it and the life will be different. But the attitude....

I have heard, once two friends were talking. One was a bonafide optimist, the other a bonafide pessimist. Even the optimist was not too happy about the situation. The optimist said, `If this economic crisis continues and these political catastrophes continue and the world remains the same as it is, immoral, then we are going to be reduced to begging soon.'

Even he was not too hopeful about it -- the optimist. When he said, `We are going to be reduced to begging,' the pessimist said, `From whom? From whom are you going to beg if this condition continues?'

You have a mind, and you goon bringing your mind to everything. Really, you transform the quality of every teaching and doctrine. You defeat Buddhas and Krishnas so easily because you convert the whole thing; you color it in your own way.

You are totally responsible for whatsoever you are and for whatsoever world you are living in. It is your creation. If this goes deep in you, you can change everything. You need not suffer. Don't choose, be a witness, and bliss will happen to you. Bliss is not a dead state. Suffering will go on continuing around you. So it is not a question of what happens to you; it is a question of how you are. The total ultimate meaning comes from you, not from the happening.

Question 2

LAST NIGHT YOU TALKED ABOUT BOREDOM. HOW CAN WE HOPE FOR AN ENLIGHTENED SOCIETY WHEN IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN SOCIETY MOST PEOPLE MUST PERFORM BORING, MONOTONOUS AND REPETITIVE TASKS?

Again: nothing is boring, nothing is repetitive and monotonous -- you are, and you bring your quality to everything that you do. No act is boring in itself, and no act can be non-boring in itself -- it is you who make it boring or non-boring. And the same act can be a boredom to you this moment and the next moment it may become a blissful thing. Not that the act has changed; your mood, the quality you bring to the act, has changed.So remember, you are not bored because repetitive acts have to be done. Rather, on the contrary, you are bored -- that's why they appear repetitive.

For instance, children want to repeat things. They go on playing the same game again and again. You get bored. What are they doing? The same game again and again? They go on asking for the same story. They enjoy it again and again, and they say, `Tell me that story again.'

What is the matter? You cannot conceive it. It looks stupid. It is not. They are so alive that nothing is repetitive for them. You are dead and everything is repetitive for you. They go on repeating the same game. The whole day they can go on, and if you stop them they will scream and cry and they will resist you, saying, `Don't destroy our game.' And you cannot understand what they are doing the whole day.

They have a different quality of consciousness. Nothing is repetitive for them. They enjoy it so much that the very enjoyment changes the quality, and then they enjoy it again -- and they enjoy it more, because now they know the know-how. The third time they enjoy it even more, because now they are acquainted with everything. They go on enjoying; their enjoyment goes on increasing. Your enjoyment goes on decreasing.

What is the matter? Is the act itself boring, or is something wrong with your mode of being, your mode of consciousness?

Look at it from another angle. Two lovers will go on repeating the same acts every day. They will kiss and they will hug -- they are the same acts. And they would like to go on doing that ad infinitum. If you give them time, they will go on repeating to the very end of existence. Looking at two lovers, you will get bored. What are they doing? -- the same thing every day? And if you give them the whole day, they will go on hugging, loving, embracing, kissing. What are they doing?

Lovers have again become children. That's why love is so innocent -- it makes you a child again. Now they are enjoying the game. They are again children. The whole nonsense of maturity they have thrown. They are planing with each other's body, and to them nothing is repetitive. Each kiss is something absolutely new, unique. It was never so before, it will never be the same again. Each moment of love has its own individual existence, non-repetitive; that's why they goon enjoying.

The economic law of diminishing returns doesn't apply to it. For love, there is no law of diminishing returns; rather, increasing returns. That's why economists cannot understand love, mathematicians cannot understand love. All those who are efficient in calculation cannot understand love, because this is absurd: it defies all laws, all mathematics -- it goes on increasing.

When I was a student, when my teacher of economics explained to us about the law of diminishing returns, I asked him about love, `What do you say about love?' He became disturbed, and when I said that just the contrary -- the law of increasing returns -- applies to love, he said to me, `You go out of the class. You cannot understand economics.' He said, `This law is universal.' I said,`Don't say it is universal, because what about love?'

Two lovers appear to us as if they are repeating. To them, they are not repeating. But to a prostitute the law of economics will apply, because for her, love is not love, it is a commodity -- something to be sold, something which can be purchased. So if you go and kiss a prostitute, for her it is boredom, repetition, and some day she will say. `This is nonsense. I am bored of being kissed and kissing the whole day. It is intolerable.' She will say that it is a repetitive act.

That's what I want to show you -- the distinction. For a lover it is not repetitive; for a prostitute it is repetitive. So, really, the act itself is not repetitive; it is your quality that you bring to it. Whatsoever you do, if you love it, it will never be repetitive. If you love your doings, your acts, there will be no boredom. But you don't love.

I go on talking to you every day. I can goon ad infinitum. I love it. It is not repetitive for me. From eternity to eternity I can goon talking with you. Communication, to communicate with your heart, is love to me. It is not a repetitive act, otherwise I would get bored.

I have heard, one small child went with his father and mother to the church one Sunday, and then the next and the next. On the third Sunday this little child asked his father, `The God must be getting bored, because there are the same faces every day in the church. For three Sundays we have been coming here -- the same faces! The God must be bored, seeing them turning up again and again every Sunday.'

But the God is not bored.The whole existence has been repeating continuously. It looks like repetition to us, but if there is a being, a total being, something like a God, he is not bored. If he is bored there is no need to continue. He can stop. He can say, `No more!' He can say, `Finished!' But he is not bored. Why?

He loves -- whatsoever is happening is his love. He is a creator, not a worker, not a laborer. He is a creator.

A Picasso is not bored, he is a creator. If your act becomes creation, you will not be bored. And your act becomes creation if you love it. But the basic difficulty is that you cannot love whatsoever you do because you hate yourself -- that's the problem. So whatsoever you do, you hate it, because basically you hate yourself.

You have not yet accepted yourself, you have not yet thanked existence for your existence. From your heart there is no thank-you towards God. Really, you have a grudge -- `Why have you created me?' Deep down you go on asking. `Why have I been thrown into existence? What is the purpose?' Think, if suddenly God meets you, what will be the first question you will ask? You will ask, `Why have you created me? To suffer? To be in agony? To be unnecessarily wandering through lives and lives? Why did you create me? Answer!'

You have not accepted yourself so how can you accept your acts? Love yourself. Accept yourself as you are. Because action is secondary -- it flows from your being. If I love myself then whatsoever I do, I love it. And if I don't love it, I stop it. What is the need to continue?

But you don't love, and the source is unloved so the products of that source cannot be loved. Whatsoever you do -- you may be an engineer or you may be a doctor or a chemist or a scientist -- whatsoever you do, you will bring hate to it. Your hate makes it repetitive. You hate it, and you go on finding excuses for why you are doing it. You say, `I am doing it for my wife, for my children.' And your father was doing it for you, and his father was doing it for him, and your children will do it for their children, and no one will enjoy life.

These are tricks. You are simply a coward. You cannot escape from it, because it gives you security, safety, income, bank balance. Because you are a coward, you cannot stop doing it and you cannot start doing that which you love. Then you go on putting everything on your children, on your wife, and they are also doing the same.

Ask the child. He is going to the school, he is bored. He says, `I am going for my father. He feels happy. If I don't go he feels very miserable.' And your wife? -- she is doing everything just for you and the children. No one is really existing for himself. No one loves himself enough to exist for himself. Then everything goes wrong. The source is poisoned, and then all that comes out of that source is poisoned.

And don't think that if you change your job, you will love it. No, you will bring your quality to the new job also. In the beginning it may be a sensation, something new, but sooner or later you will settle down and it will be the same. Change yourself, love yourself, and love whatsoever you do; howsoever small it makes no difference.

I am reminded of an anecdote. It happened that when Abraham Lincoln became President, on the first day when he was inaugurating the senate, someone who was very jealous of his power, his prestige, his success, stood and said to Abraham Lincoln, `Lincoln, don't forget that your father was a shoemaker.'

It was absolutely irrelevant, absurd, and the man who said this added, `Your father was a shoemaker, and he used to make shoes for my family. Don't forget him.'

It was just to insult him, and the whole senate laughed because everyone was jealous. Deep down everyone was feeling, `This chair belongs to me, and this man has usurped it.' Of course, whenever someone succeeds, he succeeds in some cunning way; only you succeed rightly. This is how we adjust to others' successes -- it was cunning, by some wrong techniques somehow he has reached. This is how w can tolerate it and console ourselves. So the whole senate laughed.

But Abraham Lincoln said something which is beautiful. He said, `It is so good of you to remind me of my father. I know he was a shoemaker -- but I have never seen such a shoemaker. He was unique, he was a creator, because he loved shoemaking. And I cannot think myself as successful as he was, because I don't love this presidency as much as he loved shoemaking. He enjoyed it, he was blissful. I will never be as blissful in this presidency as he was just as a shoemaker.

`But why have you remembered him this moment? I know,' said Abraham Lincoln, `that my father was making shoes for your family, but they never complained, so I hope the shoes were alright. But you remember him in this moment, without any relevance -- I feel some shoe is still pinching. I am his son, I can repair it.'

If you love yourself, if you love your work, you live in a different milieu. In that milieu nothing is repeated. Repetition appears only to a bored mind. Don't say that you are bored because of repetitive acts. Acts appear repetitive because you are bored -- then whatsoever you do will appear repetitive.

But look at life -- life enjoys repetition. The seasons move in a circle. The sun moves in a circle -- every day, every morning, it arises. And the summer comes and the winter comes and the rains come and they go on moving. In a deep way the whole existence is repetitively moving. It seems creation is just like a child's play. The trees are not bored, and the sky is not bored. The sky never says, `Now, again the clouds?' For so many many millennia the sky has been seeing the clouds -- every rainy season the clouds come and they start moving. Look at life? It is repetitive.

The word is not good; the word `repetitive' is not good. Rather it will be better to say it goes on playing the same game. It enjoys it so much that it wants to repeat it again. And it goes on increasing; it goes on moving towards a climax. Why does man get bored with repetition? Not because repetition is boring, but because you are so bored that everything will be boring.

Once it happened that Sigmund Freud was asking a patient questions; just the preliminary basic questions that he asked before the psychoanalysis could start. He asked, `Look at the book-case, and what does it immediately remind you of?'

The man looked at the books, not really looking at all, and he said, `It reminds me of a woman, a beautiful woman.' This was good for Freud, because it was falling under his theory that everything is sexual, so he said, `Okay.' Then he took his handkerchief and said, `Look at this. What does this remind you of immediately? Whatsoever comes to your mind.''

The man laughed and said, `A beautiful woman.'

Freud was overjoyed. Really that was his theory -- that every man is basically concerned with sex and nothing else. Man thinks of woman, woman thinks of man, and that is all thinking. So he said, `Look at the door.' There was no one at the door, there was no one even moving in the street. He said, `Look, there is no one. This absence -- what do you feel? What do you immediately remember?'

The man said, `A beautiful woman.'

Now even Freud was a little disturbed whether this man was just deceiving him or not, so he said, `It seems too much. Everything makes you remember a woman~'

The man said, `That is not the point. Whether it is a bookcase or a handkerchief or an empty door is not the point. Really, I never think of anything except of women. I never think of anything else, so whatsoever you say is irrelevant. I think only of women. It is not that everything reminds me of them; I am thinking only of women -- it is not a question of any reminding.'

So really it is not a question that this act makes you bored or that act makes you bored, or repetition or monotony or tedious jobs make you bored. The real thing is that you are bored whether you do something or not. If you are simply relaxing in a chair you will be bored. Not doing anything you will be bored. You will say, `There is nothing to do and I am bored. Nothing to do -- I am bored.' The whole week you are bored because of the tedious job, and on the week-end you are bored because there is nothing to do. The whole life you are bored because of doing a repetitive job in a factory, in an office, in a shop. Then when you retire you are bored, because now there is nothing to do.

It is not a question of anything else. Something is not creating boredom in you; you are bored, and you go on bringing your boredom to everything that you touch. You have heard of King Midas -- whatsoever he touched became gold. You are also a King Midas -- whatsoever you touch becomes boredom. You have an alchemical touch: you can change everything into a boredom; everything, I say.

Don't think of changing j obs, actions; think of changing the quality of your consciousness. Be more loving to yourself. The first thing to remember is to be more loving to yourself. The moralists have poisoned the whole world. They say, `Don't love yourself. This is selfishness.' They say, `Love others, don't love yourself. The love of the self is sin.'

And I say to you that this is absolute nonsense -- and not only nonsense; it is dangerous nonsense. Unless you love yourself you cannot love anybody, it is impossible, because a man who is not in love with himself cannot be in love with anybody. If you are in love with yourself, only then can your overflowing love reach somebody.

A man who has not loved himself will hate himself, and if you yourself hate yourself, how can you love anybody? You will hate others also. You can only pretend. And when you cannot love yourself, how do you expect others to love you? Everyone is condemned in his own eyes. The whole moralistic teaching gives you only one thing: techniques of self condemnation -- how to condemn yourself, how you are bad, a criminal, guilty, a sinner.

Christianity says that your being a sinner is not a question of what you do/ you are born a sinner. It is not a question of whether you do some sin or not; no, you are a born sinner. Man is born in sin. Adam, the first man, committed the sin, and you are descendants. The sin has been committed, nothing can be done. Now it cannot be undone, and you are born into sin -- Adam's sin.

If you are born in sin, how can you love yourself? If your very being is guilt, how can you love yourself? And if you cannot love yourself, you cannot love anybody. The love must happen at home first -- you are the home -- and only when it overflows can it reach to others. And when it overflows, it overflows into your acts, into whatsoever you do. Whether you paint or make a shoe or anything -- just cleaning the street -- whatsoever you do, if you are in deep love, if you are in deep love with yourself, it flows into everything you do. It flows even when you are not doing anything. It goes on flowing, it becomes your very existence, and then nothing is boring.

People come to me; sometimes very sympathetically some friends ask me, `The whole day you are sitting in one room, not even looking out of the window. Don't you get bored?' I am with myself. Why should I get bored? They say, `Just sitting alone, don't you get bored?'

If I hate myself I will get bored, because you cannot live with a person you hate. You get bored with yourself. You cannot be alone. Even if you are alone for a few moments you get fidgety, you get uncomfortable, an uneasiness comes into your being. You long to meet someone, because you cannot remain with yourself. The company is so boring -- your own company. You cannot look at your own face. You cannot touch your hand lovingly; no -- impossible.

They ask me -- and their asking is relevant to their own reference, because they will get bored if they are alone -- they ask me, `Don't you go out sometimes?' There is no need. Sometimes they ask me, `People come to you with the same problem again and again. Don't you get bored?'

Because everyone has the same problem. You are so unoriginal you cannot even create an original problem. Everyone has the same problem. Some are related with your love, with your sex, with your peace of mind, with your confusion, or something else -- some psychology, some pathology, something -- but man can be easily divided into seven categories, and there are the same questions, the seven basic questions, and people go on asking them. So friends ask me, `Don't you get bored?'

I never get bored, because each individual is unique to me, and because of the individual, the problem he brings is not a repetition because the context is different, the individual is different. You come with your love problem, another comes with his love problem: both look similar but they are not, because two individuals are so different -- their difference changes the quality of the problem.

So if you categorize, you can categorize into seven categories, but I never categorize. Each individual is so unique that he cannot be put with anyone else. No category can be made. But then you have to have a very keen awareness to penetrate to the very root where the individual is unique. Otherwise, on the surface everyone is alike.

Just on the surface everyone is alike, with the same problems, but if you penetrate deep, if you are alert and ready to move with the person to the deeper core of his being, the deeper you go, the more original, individual and unique a phenomenon comes into being. If you can see to the very center, this person before you is unrepeatable. He has never been before, he will never be again. He is just unique. And the mystery then overfills you -- the mystery of the unique person.

Nothing is a repetition if you know how to penetrate, how to be loving and alert. Otherwise everything is repetitive. You are bored because you have a consciousness which creates boredom. Change the consciousness, and there will be no boredom. But you go on changing objects -- that will not make any difference.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #25

Chapter title: Life is a mystery, not a problem

25 July 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7307255

ShortTitle: VBT225

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 88 mins

PUT MINDSTUFF

IN SUCH INEXPRESSIBLE FINENESS

ABOVE, BELOW AND IN YOUR HEART.

CONSIDER ANY AREA OF YOUR PRESENT FORM

AS LIMITLESSLY SPACIOUS.

Life is not a problem but a mystery. For science life is a problem, but for religion it is a mystery. A problem can be solved, a mystery cannot be solved -- it can be lived but it cannot be solved. Religion offers no solutions, no answers. Science offers answers; religion has none.

This is the basic difference, and before you make any effort to understand what religion is, this basic difference in the very approach of a religious mind and a scientific mind is to be deeply understood.

When I say that science looks at life as a problem, as something which can be solved, the whole approach becomes intellectual. Then the mind is involved, not you. You are out of it. The mind manipulates, the mind tackles, the mind penetrates and analyses. The mind argues, doubts, experiments, but you as a totality are out of it. Hence this very puzzling phenomenon: a scientist may be a very keen intellectual as far as his own department of research is concerned, but in ordinary life he will be just as ordinary a human being as anyone else -- nothing special, just ordinary. In his own branch of knowledge he may be a genius, but in life he is just ordinary.

Science includes only your intellect, not your totality. An intellect has a violence, it is aggressive. That is why very few women can be scientists -- aggression is not natural to them. Intellect is male, aggressive, violent: that is why men are more scientific and women are more religious. Intellect tries to dissect, divide, analyze, and whenever you dissect an alive thing, the life disappears. Only dead parts are left in your hands.

That is why science never touches life. Really, whatsoever it touches becomes dead. When science says there is no soul or there is no God it is meaningful, not because their is no soul or no God, but because this shows that the very approach of the scientific mind is such that you cannot touch life anywhere. Wherever science touches, death happens. In the very method, in the very way, in the very approach of division, analysis, dissection, life is bracketed out.

One thing: intellect is violent and aggressive, so the ultimate outcome through intellect can only be death, not life. It is partial, not total, and parts are dead. Life is an organic unity. You can know life through synthesis, not through analysis. The greater the synthesis the higher the forms of life that evolve. God is the ultimate synthesis, the total unity, the wholeness of existence. God is not a puzzle but the ultimate synthesis of all that is -- matter is the ultimate analysis of all that is.

So science comes to atomic materiality and religion comes to cosmic consciousness. Science moves downwards to the last, lowest denominator and religion moves upwards to the highest denominator. They move in opposite dimensions. So science transforms everything into a problem, because if you have to tackle it scientifically, you first have to decide whether it is a problem or not. Religion takes mystery as the base. There is no problem, life is not a problem. The emphasis is that it cannot be solved. A problem means something solvable, something which can be known, something knowable. It may not be known right now, but it is not unknowable. At the most it may be unknown, but that unknownness will disappear and it will be transformed into a known thing.

So really, religion cannot ask a question like, "What is life?" This is absurd. Religion cannot ask such a question as, "What is God?" This is nonsense. The very approach of religion is not to create problems. Religion can ask how to be more alive, how to be in the very current of life, how to live abundantly; religion can ask how to be a God -- but it cannot ask what God is.

We can live mysteries, we can become one with them, we can lose ourselves in them, we can have a totally difference existence, the very quality changes -- but nothing is solved, because nothing can be solved. And all that appears to be solvable, all that appears to be knowable, is only because we are taking it in fragments. If we look at the whole then nothing is knowable, we just go on pushing the mystery backwards. All our questions are temporary, they appear to be answers only to lazy minds. If you have a penetrating mind you will come again upon the same mystery, only it has been pushed back, a step back. Just behind the answers the question is hidden. You have simply created a facade of an answer, just a curtain over the mystery.

If you can feel the distinction, then from the very beginning religion takes on a different shape, a different color and a different view. The whole perspective changes. These techniques that we are discussing here are not to solve anything -- they don't take life as a problem. Life is there. It has been a mystery and will remain a mystery. Whatsoever we do we cannot demystify it, because to be mysterious is the very quality of it. That life is mysterious is not something accidental, it is not something which can be separated, it is the very life itself. So to me, the more you enter into the mysterium, into the mysterious, the more religious you become.

A really religious man will not say that he believes in God; he will not say that God exists. These things seem to be very superficial, they seem to be like answers given to certain questions. A religious man cannot utter such profanities -- that God is. It is such a profound phenomenon, such a mysterious thing, that to say anything will be profane. So whenever someone asked Buddha whether God existed or not, he remained silent. You are asking a thing which cannot be answered. Not that there is no God, but to answer such a thing will make it answerable. Then life will become a problem which can be answered. Then the mystery disappears. So Buddha said, "Don't ask me any metaphysical questions."

Questions can only be physical. Physics can answer them. Metaphysical questions are not there, they cannot be, because metaphysics means the mystery.

These techniques are to help you to move more deeply into mystery, not into knowledge.

Or you can look at it in a different way: these techniques are to help you to be unburdened of your knowledge. They are not to help you to increase your `knowledgeability', because `knowledgeability' is the barrier. The door is then closed for the mystery. The more you know, the less you are capable of penetrating deep into life. The original wonder must be recaptured, because in a childlike sense of wonder nothing is known and everything becomes a mystery. And if you move into the mystery, the deeper you move, the deeper the mystery becomes. Then a moment comes when you can say that you don't know anything. That is the right moment.

Now you have become meditative. When you can feel a deep ignorance, when you become aware that you don't know anything, you have come to the right balancing point from where the door of the mystery can open. If you know, then the door is closed; if you are ignorant, fully alert that you don't know anything, the door suddenly opens. The very feeling that you don't know opens the door.

So take these techniques not as knowledge, but as a help to make you more innocent. Ignorance is innocent, knowledge is always a sort of cunningness, cleverness. If you can use your knowledge to be ignorant again, then you have used it rightly. This is the only use of all the scriptures, of all the knowledge, of all the Vedas -- to make you childlike again.

Now the first technique:

PUT MINDSTUFF IN SUCH INEXPRESSIBLE FINENESS

ABOVE, BELOW AND IN YOUR HEART.

Three things. First, if knowledge is important then the head is the center; if childlike innocence is important then the heart is the center. The child lives in the heart; we live in the head. The child feels; we think. Even when we say that we feel, we think that we feel. Thinking becomes primary for us, feeling becomes secondary. Thinking is the tool for science, feeling is the tool for religion.

You must start to be a feeling organism again. And both the dimensions are different. When you think, you remain separate; when you feel, you melt.

Think about a flower, a rose flower. When you think, you are separate, there is a gap, a distance, a space. For thinking, space is needed; for thoughts to move, distance is needed. Feel the flower and the gap disappears, the distance drops. Because for feeling, distance is the barrier. The closer you come, the more you feel. A moment comes when even closeness appears to be a sort of distance -- and then melting happens. Then you cannot feel the boundaries of where you are and where the flower is, of where you end and where the flower begins. Then boundaries melt into each other: the flower enters you in a way, you enter the flower in a way. Feeling is losing the boundaries; thinking is creating the boundaries. That is why thinking always insists on definitions, because without definitions you cannot create boundaries.

Thinking says define first, and feeling says don't define. If you define, feeling stops.

The child feels; we think. The child comes close to existence, he melts and allows the existence to melt into him. We are isolated, imprisoned in the head. We are like islands.

This sutra says to come back to the heart center. Start feeling things. It will be a great experiment if you start feeling things. Whatsoever you do, give a certain amount of your time and energy to feeling. You are sitting here, you can listen to me -- but that will be part of thinking. You can also feel me here but that will not be a part of thinking. If you can feel my presence, then definitions are lost. Then really, if you come to a moment of feeling, you don't know who is speaking and who is listening. This can happen right this very moment. Then the speaker becomes the listener and the listener becomes the speaker. Then really they are not two, rather, they are two poles of one phenomenon: on one pole is the speaker, on another pole is the listener. But these are just poles, isolated. They are not real. The real thing is just in-between these two -- the life, the flow. Whenever you feel, something other than your ego becomes important. Object and subject lose their definitions. A flow, a wave, exists -- on one pole the speaker, on another pole the listener, but the life is the wave.

Head gives you clarity, and because of this clarity much confusion has come into being because the head defines clearly, marks boundaries, makes maps. With reason, everything is clear-cut: no vagueness, no mystery is allowed. All that is vague is rejected, only the clear is real. Reason gives you a clarity, and because of clarity, a great misunderstanding arises. Clarity is not reality. Reality is always unclear, vague. Concepts are clear, reality is mysterious; concepts are rational, reality is irrational.

Words are clear, logic is clear life is not clear. The heart gives you a melting vagueness. It reaches reality more intimately, but it is not clear. And because we have chosen clarity as the goal, we have been missing reality. You must have unclear eyes to enter reality again. You must be vague, you must be ready to enter into something which cannot be conceptualized, into something which is not logic, into something which is staggering and real, staggering and alive.

Clarity is dead. It remains fixed. Life is a flux, nothing is fixed, nothing remains the same the next moment. How can you be clear about it? If you insist too much on clarity you will lose contact with it. That is what has happened.

This sutra says that the basic thing is to come back to the heart center -- but how to come to it? PUT MINDSTUFF IN SUCH INEXPRESSABLE FINENESS ABOVE, BELOW AND IN YOUR HEART.

The word `mindstuff' is not a good translation of the original Sanskrit word CHITT. But English has no other equivalent. So it is good in a way, it carries the meaning, not of `mind' but of `mindstuff'.

Mind means mentation, thinking, thought, and mindstuff means the background upon which these thoughts float -- just as in the sky the clouds move. Clouds are the thoughts and the sky is the background upon which they move. That sky, consciousness, has been called mindstuff. Your mind can be without thoughts; then it is chitt, then it is pure mind. When it has thoughts it is impure mind.

If your mind can be without thought, then it is very subtle, the subtlest thing possible in existence. You cannot conceive of a more subtle possibility. Consciousness is the most subtle thing. So when there are no thoughts in the mind, you have pure mind. The pure mind can move towards the heart, the impure mind cannot. By impurity I don't mean any immoral thoughts in the mind, by impurity I mean all thoughts -- thought as such is impure.

Even if you are thinking of God it is an impurity, because the cloud is moving. The cloud is very white, but the cloud is there and the purity of the space is not there. A cloudless sky is not there. A cloud may be a black cloud, a sexual thought moving in the mind, or the cloud may be a white cloud, beautiful, a prayer moving in the mind, but in both cases the pure mind is not there. It is impure, clouded. And if the mind is clouded you cannot move in the heart.

This has to be understood because with thoughts you cling to the head. Thoughts are the roots, and unless those roots are cut you cannot fall back to the heart.

The child remains in the heart only up to the moment that thoughts crystalize, that thoughts start floating in his mind. Then they take root; then through education, culture, cultivation, they become rooted; then by and by the consciousness moves from the heart to the head. The consciousness can remain in the head only if there are thoughts. This is basic. If there are no thoughts, consciousness immediately drops back to its original innocence in the heart.

Hence so much emphasis on meditation, so much emphasis on non-thinking, on thoughtless awareness, on choiceless awareness, or on Buddha's `right mindfulness', which is just mindfulness without any thought, just being aware. What happens then? A very great phenomenon happens because when the roots are cut, immediately consciousness drops back to the heart, to the original place where it had been. You become a child again.

Jesus said, "Only those who are like children will enter into the kingdom of my God." He refers to those persons whose consciousness has come back to the heart. They have become innocent, childlike.

But the first basic requirement is to PUT MINDSTUFF IN SUCH INEXPRESSIBLE FINENESS....

Thoughts can be expressed. There is not a single thought which is inexpressible, nor can there be. If it is inexpressible you cannot think it; if you can think it, it is expressible. There is not a single thought which you can say is inexpressible. The moment you can think it, it has become expressible -- you have already expressed it to yourself.

Consciousness, pure consciousness, is inexpressible. That is why mystics go on saying that they cannot express what they know. Logicians always raise the question that if you know, then why can't you say it? And their argument has meaning and significance. If you really say that you know then why can't you express it?

For a logician, knowledge must be expressible -- that which can be known can be made known to others, there is no problem. If you have known it, then where is the problem? You can make it known to others. But the mystic's knowledge is not of thoughts. He has not known it as a thought, he has known it as a feeling. So really, it is not good to say, "I know God." It is better to say, "I feel." It is not good to say, "I have known God." It is better to say, "I have felt him." That is a more accurate description of the phenomenon because the `knowledge' is through the heart it is like feeling, it is not like knowledge.

PUT MINDSTUFF IN SUCH INEXPRESSIBLE FINENESS.... Mindstuff, consciousness, CHITT, is inexpressible. If a single thought is moving, it is expressible. So, to PUT MINDSTUFF IN SUCH INEXPRESSIBLE FINENESS means to come to a point where you are conscious, but not conscious of any thought; where you are alert, but there is no thought moving in the mind. This is a delicate point and very difficult -- you can miss it easily.

We know two states of mind. One is when thoughts are there. When thoughts are there, you cannot move to the heart. Then we know another state of mind -- when thoughts are not there. When thoughts are not there, you fall asleep. Then too, you cannot move to the heart. Every night, for a few moments, for a few hours, you fall out of thinking. Thoughts cease, but you don't reach to the heart because you are unconscious. So a very delicate balance is needed. Thoughts must cease as they cease in deep sleep, when there is no dream -- and you must be as alert as you are while awake. These two points must meet. Mind must be as thoughtless as it is in deep sleep, but you must not be asleep, you must be perfectly alert, aware.

When awareness and this thoughtlessness meet, it is meditation. That is why Patanjali says that samadhi is like SUSHUPTI. The highest ecstasy, samadhi, is like the deepest sleep, with only one difference: in it you are not asleep. But the quality is the same -- thoughtless, dreamless, undisturbed, without a single ripple, totally calm and quiet, but alert. When you are aware and there is no thought, you will feel a sudden transformation in your consciousness. The center changes. You are thrown back. You are thrown to the heart. And from the heart, when you look at the world, there is no world, there is only God. From the head, when you look towards existence, there is no God, there is only material existence.

Matter, material existence, the world, and God are not two things, two outlooks, two perspectives. They are the same phenomenon looked at from two centers of being.

PUT MINDSTUFF IN SUCH INEXPRESSIBLE FINENESS, ABOVE, BELOW AND IN YOUR HEART. Be totally in it, merged, immersed. Be simply consciousness, above, below, in the heart; the whole heart surrounded by simple consciousness; not thinking anything in particular, just being aware, with no word, with no verbalization, not thinking at all, just being.

Put mindstuff above, below, and in your heart, and everything will become possible to you. All the doors of perception will be cleansed and all the doors of mysteries will be opened. Suddenly there will be no problem, and suddenly there will be no misery -- it is as if the darkness has disappeared completely. Once you know this you can move back to the head but you will not be the same. Now you can use the head as an instrument. You can work with it, but now you are not identified with it, and even while working with it and looking at the world through it, you will know that whatsoever you are seeing is because of the intellect. Now you are acquainted with a higher standpoint, a deeper view -- and any moment you want to you can drop back.

Once you know the passage and how consciousness drops back; how your age, your past, your memory and your knowledge, disappear and you become a newborn child again -- once you know this secret, this passage, you can travel to that point as many times as you like, and you can be refreshed again and again. If you have to move to the head, you can use it; you can move in the ordinary world, working but not getting involved in it, because deep down you know that that which is known by the intellect is partial. It is not the whole truth. And a partial truth is more dangerous than a lie, because it appears to be true and you can be deceived by it.

Some more points. When you move to the heart, you look at existence as a total being. The heart is not departmental, the heart is not a fragment of you, the heart means you in your totality. Mind is a fragment, hand is a fragment, leg is a fragment, stomach is a fragment, the whole body taken in parts is fragmented. The heart is not a fragment. That is why my hand can be cut off and I will be alive. Even my brain can be removed and I will be alive, but if the heart is gone, I am gone.

Really, my whole body can be removed but if my heart is beating I am alive. The heart means your wholeness, so when the heart fails, you are no longer there. All other things are just parts, disposable. If the heart is beating you will remain intact. The center of the heart is the very core of your existence. I can touch you with my hand. That touch will give me a certain knowledge about you, about your skin, whether it is smooth or not. The hand will give a certain knowledge to me, but that knowledge will be partial because the hand is not my wholeness. I can see you. My eyes will give a certain knowledge from a different standpoint but that will not be the whole. I can think about you -- again the same thing. But I cannot feel you in part. If I feel you at all I feel you in your wholeness. That is why, unless you know through love, you never know the wholeness of any person.

Only love can reveal the whole personality to you, the whole being, the essential, the total. Because love means knowing through the heart, feeling through the heart. So to me, feeling and knowing are not two fragments of your being. Feeling is your whole being and knowing is just a fragment of it.

To religion love is the highest knowledge. That is why religion is expressed more in poetic terms than in scientific ones. Scientific terms cannot be used, they belong to the realm of knowing. Poetry can be used. And those who have come to know reality through love, whatsoever they say becomes poetry. The Upanishads, the Vedas, the sayings of Jesus or Buddha or Krishna, they are all poetic statements.

It is not just a coincidence that all the old religious scriptures are written in poetry. It has a significance. It shows that there is some affinity between the world of a poet and the world of a mystic. The mystic is also using the language of the heart.

The poet is only a mystic in certain moments of flight, just as when you jump you can go away from the gravitation of the earth, but you again come back to it. A poet means a person who has been for some seconds on a flight into the world of the mystics. He has had some glimpses. A mystic is one who has gone beyond gravitation completely, who lives in the world of love, who lives through the heart. This has become his very abode. For the poetic person it is just a glimpse: sometimes he falls down from the head to the heart. But this is just for the time being -- again he goes back to the head. So if you see a beautiful poem, don't try to see the poet who has written it because you will not meet the same person. You will be disappointed because you will meet a very ordinary man. He had a glimpse. For certain moments reality was revealed to him and he came down to the heart. But he doesn't know the passage. He is not the master of it. It has been a happening and he cannot move to it by his own will.

When Coleridge died he left about forty thousand incomplete poems. He really completed only seven poems in his whole life. He became a great poet, one of the greatest in the world, but he was asked many times, "Why do you go on piling up incomplete poems, and when are you going to complete them?" He said, "I cannot do anything. Sometimes a few lines come to me and then they stop. So how can I complete them? I will wait. I will have to wait. If it happens again and the glimpse comes to me, and I again have the world revealed to me, the reality, then I will complete it. But on my own I can do nothing." He must have been a very sincere poet. To find such sincere poets is difficult, because the tendency of the mind is to supply. If three lines have come then you will supply the fourth, and the fourth will kill all the three because it will come from a very lower state of mind -- when you are back on the earth.

When you jumped, and you were freed for some moments from gravitation, you had a different dimension of being.

A poet moves on the earth but sometimes he jumps. In those jumps he has glimpses. A mystic lives in the heart. He doesn't move on the earth, the heart has become his abode. So he doesn't really create poetry but whatsoever he does becomes poetic, whatsoever he says becomes poetry. Really, a mystic cannot use prose because his prose is also poetry -- it is coming through the heart, it is coming through love.

PUT MINDSTUFF IN SUCH INEXPRESSIBLE FINENESS, ABOVE, BELOW AND IN YOUR HEART. The heart is your total being, and when you are total you can know the total -- remember this. Only the similar can know the similar. When you are fragmentary you cannot know the total. As within, so without. When you are total within, the total reality without is revealed to you; you have become capable of knowing it, you have earned the right to know it. When you are fragmented within, the reality is fragmented without. So whatsoever you are within will be the without for you.

Deep in the heart the whole world is different, the gestalt is different. I am looking at you. If I am looking at you through the head, through intellect, through one of my parts of knowing, then a few friends are here, individuals, egos -- separate. But if I am looking at you through the heart, then individuals are not here. Then just an oceanic consciousness is here and individuals are just waves. If I look at you through the heart, then you and your neighbor are not two, then the reality is between you and your neighbor. You are just two poles, and the real is just in-between. Then here there is an ocean of consciousness in which you exist as waves. But waves are not separate, they are linked together. And you are melting every moment into the other, whether you know it or not.

The breath that was within you just a moment ago has left you -- now it is moving into your neighbor. Just a moment before, it was your life and you would have died without it, and now it is moving into your neighbor. It is his life now. Your body is continuously radiating vibrations, you are a radiator, so your life energy is constantly moving into the neighbor and his life energy is moving into you.

If I look at you from my heart, if I look at you with loving eyes, if I look at you totally, then you are just radiating points, and life is moving continuously from you to others and from others to you....

And not only just in this room, this whole universe is a constant flux of life energy. It goes on moving. There are no individual units, it is a cosmic whole. But through intellect the cosmic never appears, only fragments, atomic fragments, appear. And this is not a question which can be comprehended through intellect. If you try to comprehend through intellect it will be impossible to comprehend it. It is a totally different outlook, from a different point of existence.

If you are total within, the totality without is revealed to you. Some have called that revelation God-realization: some have called it moksha, liberation; some have called it nirvana, cessation. Different words, altogether different words, but they signify the same core, the same essence.

One thing is basic to all these expressions -- the individual disappears. You may call it God-realization, then you are no longer an individual; you can call it liberation, then you are no longer a self; you can call it cessation -- as Buddha has called it -- then just as a lamp, a flame, ceases to be, disappears, disperses, you cannot find it anywhere again, you cannot locate it, it has gone into non-being, so the individual disappears. But this point has to be pondered over. Why do all religions say that the individual, the self, the ego, disappears when you realize the truth? If all religions emphasize this, this means that the self must be illusory -- otherwise how can it disappear? The self must not be there really, only then can it disappear. This may seem paradoxical, but this is so: only that which is not can disappear. That which is will persist in being, it cannot disappear.

Just because of the head a false entity has come into being -- the individual. If you come down to the heart, the false entity disappears. It was a creation of the head. From the heart the cosmic is, the individual is not; the whole is, the parts are not. And remember, when you are not, you cannot create a hell; when you are not, you cannot be in misery; when you are not, there can be no anxiety, no suffering. All anxiety, all suffering, exists because of you -- the shadow of the shadow. The self is unreal, the ego is unreal, and because of that unreal self many unreal shadows are created. They follow you, you go on fighting with them, but you will never be victorious because the base goes on being hidden within you.

Swami Ramteerth has said somewhere that he was staying in a house, in a poor villager's house. The small child of the villager was playing just in front of the hut, and the sun was rising and the child saw his shadow. He tried to catch it, but the more he moved, the more the shadow would move ahead. The child started crying. He was a failure. He tried in every way to catch it, but it was impossible. To catch a shadow is impossible -- not because a shadow is such a difficult thing to catch, it is impossible because the child was moving to catch it. When he was moving, the shadow moved ahead. You cannot catch a shadow because a shadow has no substance, and only a substance can be caught.

Ramteerth was sitting there. He was laughing and the child was crying, and the mother was at a loss about what to do. How to console the child? So she said to Ramteerth, "Swamiji, can you help me?" Ramteerth went to the child, caught the child's hand and put it on his head -- the shadow was caught. Now that the child had put his hand on his head, the shadow was caught. The child started laughing. Now he could see that his hand had caught the shadow.

You cannot catch a shadow, but you can catch yourself. And the moment you catch yourself, the shadow is caught.

Suffering is just a shadow of the ego. We are all like that child, fighting with suffering, anxiety, anguish, and trying to disperse them. We can never be victorious. It is not a question of strength -- the whole effort is absurd, impossible. You must catch the self, the ego, and once you catch it, suffering suddenly disappears. It was just a shadow.

There are persons who start fighting with the self. It has been taught, "Disperse the self, be egoless, and you will be in bliss," so they start fighting the self, the ego. But if you fight you are still believing that the self exists. Your fight will give food to it, it will become an energy-giving thing to it, you will be feeding it. This technique says don't think of the ego, just move from the head to the heart and the ego will disappear. The ego is a projection of the head. Don't fight with it. You can go on fighting for lives together, but if you remain in the head you cannot win.

Just change the standpoint, just move from the head to a different standpoint, to a deeper standpoint of the being, and the whole thing changes because now you can look from a different perspective. From the heart there is no ego. Because of this we have become afraid of the heart. We never allow it to have its own way, we always interfere with it, we always bring mind into it. We try to control the heart through the mind because we have become afraid -- if you move to the heart, you lose yourself. And this losing is just like death. Hence the incapacity to love, hence the fear of falling in love. Because you lose yourself, you are not in control. Something greater than you grips you and takes possession. Then you are not on sure ground and you don't know where you are moving. So the head says, "Don't be a fool, move with reason. Don't be mad."

Whenever someone is in love everyone thinks that he is mad. He himself thinks that something has gone crazy, "I am not in my senses!" Why does it happen? Because now there is no control. Something is happening that he cannot control, he cannot manage and manipulate. Rather, something is manipulating him, a greater force has taken him over. He is possessed....

But unless you are ready to be possessed there can be no God for you. Unless you are ready to be possessed there is no mystery for you, and no bliss, no benediction. One who is ready to be possessed by love, by prayer, by the cosmos, means one who is ready to die as an ego. Only that one can know what life really is, what life has to give. What is possible becomes immediately actual, but you must put yourself at the stake.

This technique is beautiful. It doesn't say anything about your ego. It doesn't say anything about it. It simply gives you a technique, and if you follow the technique, the ego will have disappeared.

The second sutra:

CONSIDER ANY AREA OF YOUR PRESENT FORM AS LIMITLESSLY SPACIOUS.

This is the same, through a different door. The basic essential is the same, that is, to destroy limits. Mind creates limits. If you don't think, you move into the unlimited. Or, from a different door, you can try with the unlimited and you will fall from the mind. The mind cannot co-exist with the unlimited, with the undefined, unbordered, infinite. The mind cannot exist with the unbordered, so if you can try something limitless, the mind will disappear.

This technique says, CONSIDER ANY AREA OF YOUR PRESENT FORM AS LIMITLESSLY SPACIOUS. Any area. You can just close your eyes and imagine that your head has become infinite. Now there are no boundaries to it. It goes on and on and on and there is no boundary to it. Your head has become the whole cosmos, without any boundaries. If you can imagine this, suddenly thoughts will stop. If you can imagine your head as infinite, thinking will not be there. Thinking can exist only in a very narrow mind. The narrower it is, the better for thinking. The greater the mind, the less the thinking, and when the mind becomes total space, there is no thinking at all.

Buddha is sitting under his Bodhi tree. Can you imagine what he is thinking? He is not thinking at all. His head is the whole cosmos. He has become spacious, infinitely spacious. This technique is good for those who can imagine, it will not be good for all. For those who can imagine, and for whom the imagination becomes so real that you cannot really say whether it is imagination or real, it will work. Otherwise it will not be of much use. But don't be afraid, because at least thirty per cent of people are capable of such imagination. These people are very powerful.

If your mind is not very educated it will be easy for you to imagine. If it is educated then the creativity is lost, then your mind is just a storage space, a bank. And the whole education system is a banking system. They go on banking and dumping stuff onto you. Whatsoever they feel has to be dumped onto you, they do. They use your mind for storage-then you cannot imagine. Then whatsoever you do is just repeating that which has been taught to you.

So those who are uneducated, they can use this technique very easily. And those who have come out of university without being distorted by it, they can also use it. Those who are really still alive, even after so much education, they can do it. Women can do it more easily than men. All those who are imaginative, dreamers, they can do it very easily.

But how to know whether you can do it or not?

You can do a small experiment before entering it. Just lock both your hands together and close your eyes. For five minutes, any time, relax in a chair, lock both your hands together, and just imagine that the hands are so locked that even if you try, you cannot open them. It will look absurd to you because they are not locked but you just go on imagining that they are.

For five minutes go on thinking, and then say three times in your mind, "Now I will try to open my hands but I know it is impossible. They are locked and they cannot be opened."

Then try to open them. Thirty per cent of you will not be able to open your hands. They will be really locked, and the more you try, the more you will feel that it is impossible. You will start perspiring -- you cannot open your own hands. Then this method is for you. Then you can try this method.

If you can easily open your hands and nothing has happened, this method is not for you. You will not be able to do it. But don't get scared if your hands do not open, and don't try too much, because the more you try, the more difficult it will be. Just close your eyes again and imagine that now your hands are unlocked. You will need five minutes again to go on imagining that when you try to open them, they will open immediately.

Unlock the same way as you locked them, just through imagination. And if this is possible, that your hands become locked just by imagination and you yourself cannot open them, then this technique will work miracles for you. And in these one hundred and twelve techniques there are many which work with imagination. For all those techniques this hand-locking experiment will be good. Just remember, experiment whether or not the technique is for you.

CONSIDER ANY AREA OF YOUR PRESENT FORM AS LIMITLESSLY SPACIOUS. Any area.... You can consider the whole body. Just close your eyes and consider that the whole body is spreading, spreading, spreading, and then the boundaries are lost. It has become infinite. What will happen? You cannot even conceive of what will happen. If you can conceive that you have become the cosmos -- that is the meaning, the infinite -- all that is bound up with your ego will not be found there. Your name, your identity, all will be lost. Your poorness or richness, your health or your disease, your miseries -- all will be lost, because they are part of the finite body. With an infinite body they cannot exist. And once you know this, come back to your finite body. But now you can laugh. And even in the finite you can have the sense, the feel of the infinite. Then you can carry it.

Try. And it will be good if you try from the head, because that is the base of all illness. Close your eyes, lie down on the ground or sit on a chair and relax. Just look within the head. Feel the walls of the head spreading, expanding. If you feel that it will be very staggering, then try it slowly. First think that your head has come to occupy the whole room. You will actually feel your skin touching the walls. If you can lock your hands, this will happen. You will feel the coolness of the walls which your skin is touching. You will feel the pressure.

Go on moving. Your head has gone beyond -- now the house has come within your head, then the whole town has come within your head. Go on spreading. Within three months, slowly, you can come to the point where the sun rises in your head, it starts moving in your head. Your head has become infinite. This will give you a deep freedom such as you have never known. And all the misery that belongs to this narrow mind will disappear. In such a state, Upanishadic seers could say, `AHAM BRAHMASMI' -- "I am the Divine, I am the Absolute." In such ecstasy `ANALAHAK' was uttered.

Mansoor cried in ecstasy, "ANALAHAK, ANALAHAK -- I am the God." Mohammedans couldn't understand him. Really, no sectarian will be able to understand such things. They thought he had gone mad, but he was not mad, he was the sanest person possible. They thought he had become an egoist. He said, "I am the God." So they killed him. While he was being killed, with his hands cut off, he was laughing and he was saying, "ANALAHAK, AHAM BRAHMASMI -- I am the God." Someone asked, "Mansoor, why are you laughing? You are being murdered." He said, "You cannot murder me. I am the whole."

You can murder only a part. How can you murder the whole? Whatsoever you do to it cannot make any difference.

Mansoor is reported to have said, "If you really wanted to kill me, you should have come at least ten years before. Then I was. Then you could have killed me, but now you cannot kill me, because I am no more. I myself have killed the ego which you could have killed and murdered."

Mansoor was practising certain Sufi methods of this type, the type in which one goes on expanding until the expanse becomes so infinite that one is no more. Then the whole is and the individual is not. In these past few decades, these past two or three decades in the West, psychedelic drugs have become very significant. And the attraction is really one of expansion, because under the influence of the drug your narrowness, your limitations, are lost. But it is a chemical change, nothing spiritual happens out of it. It is just a forced violence on the system -- you force the system to break.

You can have a glimpse that you are no longer confined to anything, that you have become infinite, liberated. But this is because of the chemical enforcement. Once back, you will be again in the narrow body, and now this body will feel more narrow than before. Again you will be confined to the same imprisonment, but now the imprisonment will be more intolerable because you have had a glimpse. And because that glimpse was through a chemical you are not master of it, you will become a slave, you will become addicted. Now you will need it more and more.

This technique is a spiritual psychedelic. If you practise it, a spiritual change will take place which will not be chemical and of which you will be the master.

Take it as a criterion: if you are the master, then the thing is spiritual. If you are the slave, then beware -- the thing may appear to be spiritual, but it cannot be. Anything that becomes addictive, powerful, enslaving, imprisoning, is leading you towards more slavery, more `unfreedom' -- whatsoever the appearance.

So take it as a criterion that whatsoever you do, your mastery must grow through it. You must become more and more the master of it. It is said, and I repeat it again and again, that when meditation has really happened to you, you will not need to do it. If you still need to do it, it has not yet really happened. Because that too has become a slavery. Even meditation must disappear. A moment must come when you need not do anything. Then just as you are, you are Divine; just as you are, you are the bliss, the ecstasy.

But this technique is good for expansion, for expanding the consciousness. Before trying it, try the hand-locking experiment, so that you can feel. If your hands become locked, you have a very creative imagination, it is not impotent. Then you can work miracles through it.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #26

Chapter title: Enlightenment -- the most ordinary

26 July 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7307265

ShortTitle: VBT226

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 84 mins

The first question:

Question 1

LAST NIGHT YOU SAID THAT WHEN THERE ARE NO THOUGHTS IN THE MIND, THE MIND BECOMES AN EMPTY SPACE AND THE DOORS TO ALL THE MYSTERIES ARE OPENED. I FEEL THIS INNER SPACE DEEPLY AND CLEARLY BUT THERE IS NOTHING SPECIAL THAT I FEEL AS MYSTERY.

WILL YOU EXPLAIN WHAT YOU MEAN BY THE MYSTERY AND HOW IT IS FELT?

The inner emptiness itself is the mystery. You cannot feel it and you cannot know it. You become it. You are IT. When the inner space is there, then you are not. You cannot observe it. If you observe it, then the inner space has not yet appeared. Who will observe it? If you can observe it you are separate from it, so it is not inner, it is outer. It is `out' to you. The inner has not yet become empty, it is filled. The ego is there -- in a very subtle form; as an observer or onlooker, it is there. The inner is not empty yet, because when the inner is empty, you are not.

So the first thing to remember is that you will not be a witness to the mystery, you will be the mystery. You will not be able to observe it because you cannot be separate, there cannot be any duality.

One thing... when the inner is really empty, you are not, because you are the thing by which the inner is filled. Because of you it is not empty; because of you the space is covered, occupied. When you dissolve, when you simply disappear, only then the inner emptiness is there. So you will not be a witness to the mystery. Until you are not, the mystery will not be revealed; when you are not, the mystery will be revealed. So if you say that you feel inner emptiness it means you are not the emptiness; emptiness is something that is happening to you, around you, but you are not empty. So really this emptiness is just a `thought' of emptiness -- that is why you can say that now your inner space has become empty. This is a thought: this emptiness is not real, this emptiness is just part of the mind. The observer is there so the object must be there. You can make emptiness an object, a thought.

It is reported that Bokuju became empty like this. He must have come across this type of emptiness. He came to his master and he said, "Now there is nothing, I have become empty." The master said, "Go out and throw this nothingness also. This nothingness is still something, why are you carrying it? If you have really become nothing you will not be able to report it. Who will carry it? Who will feel in it a certain achievement?" The master said to Bokuju, "You have done well, you have become empty, now go and throw out this emptiness also."

You can be filled with emptiness -- that is the problem. And if you are filled with emptiness you are not empty.

The second thing... what do I mean by mystery? Whatsoever you understand, I don't mean, because you think that a mystery will be something very amazing, staggering, shocking, that you will be thrown off the ground. That is not the point. Mystery is the simple pure existence with nothing amazing about it, nothing staggering. You will not be pushed aside, not thrown, not shocked, not puzzled. Mystery is nothing mysterious really. This very ordinary existence -- accept it as it is without creating any problem. When you don't create a problem this existence is the mystery; when you create the problem you are destroying the mystery. Now you are in search of a solution, some answer. The same mind goes on. If you hear me talking about the mystery then you think about something very special. There is nothing special in existence. Only for the ego does the word `special' exist.

It is reported that when Lin Chi achieved enlightenment he laughed. His disciples asked, "Why are you laughing?" He said, "I am laughing for this. I was endeavoring for thousands and thousands of lives for this -- it is so ordinary."

This is the mystery -- nothing special.

It is said of Do-zen, another Zen master, that when he achieved enlightenment disciples asked him, "What was the first thing that you wanted to do after it?" Do-zen is reported to have said, "I wanted a cup of tea."

It was so ordinary. But for the ego these things are not appealing. If I say that enlightenment is so ordinary that you would like to have a cup of tea after it, then you will feel that the whole thing is nonsense -- why endeavor? Then the ego comes in. The ego wants something special, something rare, something that does not usually happen, that has happened only to you, which has not happened to just anyone. The ego wants something special, extraordinary.

Reality is not extraordinary; it is happening everywhere. And if it has not happened to you than that is special! Because it is there, always present. Not for a single moment is it absent. Enlightenment is happening every moment, it is the very core of existence -- but you are deaf and blind. It is nothing special.

To be a Buddha, to be enlightened, is the most ordinary phenomenon. When I say `ordinary' I mean: it must be so. If it looks very extraordinary it is because of you, because you create so many hurdles -- and you love them. First you create the obstacle, and then you try to cross it. And then you feel very elated. In the first place, there is no obstacle. But your ego will not feel good -- you must create a long route to come to the point that was the nearest, the most intimate one. And you had never missed it!

So don't seek something mysterious. Just be simple and innocent. And then the whole existence opens to you. You will not go mad, you can simply smile at the absurdity of the whole thing that was so near but you could not attain it. And there was no barrier. It was, in a sense, always within you. It was a miracle how you went on missing it.

If the emptiness is real, all that is there, the whole of it, the reality, will be opened to you. Not that it is closed right now, it is open. You are closed. Your mind is occupied. When your mind is empty, unoccupied, you will be open to it, and there will be a meeting. And then everything is beautiful in its total ordinariness. Hence it is said that one who has known becomes absolutely ordinary. He is one with the reality. To be hankering for the special is the way of the ego, and all the ways of the ego create gaps and distances between you and the real. Be empty and everything will have happened to you.

Not that you will have must to report: there is nothing to be reported. It is thought that Buddhas and Krishnas or those who have attained the ultimate, cannot describe it because it is so simple. Complex things can be described, remember. Simple things cannot be described. The more complex a thing is, the easier the description is, because in a complexity you can divide, contrast, compare. With a simple thing you cannot do anything.

For example, if I ask you, "What is yellow?" what will you say? Yellow is so simple, there is nothing complex about it. If I ask, "What is water?" you can say, "H20." It is complex: there is hydrogen, there is oxygen, so you can define it. But if I ask you, "What is yellow?" at the most you can say that yellow is yellow. But that is a tautology, it makes no sense. What will you do if I say, "What is yellow?" You may indicate a yellow flower, you may indicate a yellow sun rising, but you are not saying anything, you are indicating.

A simple thing can only be indicated; a complex thing can be defined, divided, analyzed. Buddhas are silent, not because they have encountered a very complex reality, they are silent because of a phenomenon so simple that it can only be indicated, not defined. So they can lead you towards it but they cannot say anything about it.

That mystery is not a complex thing, it is very simple, the simplest possible. But you can only meet with it when you have also become simple. If you are complex, you cannot meet it. There is no meeting ground. Only when you have become simple, totally simple, innocent, empty, the reality and you meet. Then there is a reflection of it in you. It echoes in you. It enters into you.

But don't wait for anything special. Nirvana is nothing special. When I say this, what is happening to your mind? When I say this nirvana is nothing special, what do you feel? How do you feel? You feel a little disappointed. In the mind the question must be arising -- then why struggle? Then why make any effort? Then why meditate? Then why these techniques?

Look at that mind, that mind is the problem. The mind wants something special. And because of that desire the mind goes on creating special things. In reality there is nothing special: either the whole of reality is special or nothing is special.

Because of this desire, the mind has created heavens, paradises. And it is not satisfied with one, it goes on creating many. Christians have one heaven, Hindus have seven -- because there are so many good people, there must be a hierarchy. The supreme good, where should they go? There is no end to it. In Buddha's days there was a sect who believed in seven hundred heavens. You have to place the egos: the highest ego must go to the highest heaven.

I was looking at a book of the Radha swamis. They say there are many divisions -- fourteen divisions. Only their guru has reached to the last. Buddha is somewhere in the seventh, Krishna somewhere in the fifth, Mohammed somewhere in the third. Only their guru has reached to the fourteenth. And everyone else is given a place, categorized. Only their guru is special. This is the desire to be special. And everyone is according to his desire.

I have heard an anecdote. In a Sunday school the priest was giving a religious lesson to the very small boys of the neighborhood. He talked much about what good people would achieve -- the crowns of glory and a heavenly reward. Those who are good would be crowned in heaven. Then at the end of his talk he said, "Who will get the biggest crown?" There was silence for a while, then a little boy, the hatmaker's son, stood up confidently and said, "The one who has the biggest head."

This is what we are all doing. Our definition of the biggest head may differ but we have a conception of something special in the end, and because of that `special' we go on moving. But remember, because of that `special' you are not moving anywhere at all, you are moving in desires. And a movement in desire is not a progress, it is circular.

If you can still meditate -- knowing well that nothing special is going to happen, that you will just come to a reconciliation with the ordinary reality, that you will be in harmony with this ordinary reality -- if with this mind you can meditate, then enlightenment is possible this very moment. But with this mind you won't feel like meditating -- you will say, "Leave everything if nothing special is going to happen."

People come to me and they say, "I have been meditating for three months and nothing has happened yet." A desire... and that desire is the barrier. It can happen in a single moment if desire is not there.

So don't desire the mysterious. Really, don't desire anything. Just be at ease, at home with reality as it is. Be ordinary -- to be ordinary is wonderful. Because then there is no tension, no anguish. To be ordinary is very mysterious because it is so simple. To me, meditation is a play, a game; it is not a work. But to you it goes on being work; you think in terms of work.

It will be good to understand the distinction between work and play. Work is end-oriented, not enough in itself. It must lead somewhere, to some happiness, to some goal, to some end. It is a bridge, a means. In itself it is meaningless. The meaning is hidden in the goal.

Play is totally different. There is no goal to it, or, it itself is the goal. Happiness is not beyond it, outside it; to be in it is to be happy. It will not give you any happiness outside of it, there is no meaning beyond it -- all that is there is intrinsic, internal. You play, not because of any reason, but because you enjoy it right now. It is purposeless.

That's why only children can play really; the more you grow, the less capable you become of playing. Because of more and more purpose, more and more you ask why, why should I play? More and more you become end-oriented: something must be achieved through it, in itself it has no meaning. Intrinsic value loses meaning for you. Only children can play because they don't think of the future. They can be here timelessly.

Work is time; play is timeless. Meditation must be like play, not end-oriented. You must not meditate to achieve something because then the whole point is lost. You cannot meditate at all if you are meditating for something. You can meditate only if you are playing with it, enjoying it, if nothing is to be achieved out of it, if it is beautiful in itself. Meditation for meditation's sake... then it becomes timeless. And then the ego cannot arise.

Without desire, you cannot project yourself into the future, without desire you cannot start expectations, and without desire you will never be disappointed. Without desire, time really disappears: you move from one moment of eternity to another moment of eternity. There is no sequence... and then you will never ask why nothing special is happening.

For myself, I have not come to know the mystery yet. The very play is the mystery; being timeless, desireless, is the mystery. And to be ordinary is the `goal', if you allow me to use the word. To be ordinary is the goal. If you can be ordinary you are liberated, then there is no SANSAR for you, no world for you.

This whole world is a struggle to be extraordinary. Some try it in politics, some try it in economics, some try it in religion. But the lust remains the same.

The second question:

Question 2

NOT ONLY IN MEDITATION BUT IN ROUTINE LIFE ALSO, I CONSTANTLY FEEL A ONENESS WITH THE EXISTENCE, EGOLESSNESS, TIMELESSNESS. YET I FEEL MYSELF ORDINARY. AND I DO NOT FIND IN ME THE TOTAL TRANSFORMATION ABOUT WHICH YOU TALK VERY OFTEN.

This is good. This is the goal. You should not create a problem out of it. You should relax and be ordinary.

But why do you feel it? Why do you feel that you remain ordinary? Somewhere there must be the desire to be extraordinary, to be not ordinary. Only in contrast to that can you feel ordinary, and then a certain sadness will follow. But why not be ordinary? What do I mean when I say, "Be ordinary?" I mean that whatsoever the case is -- be.

One young man came to me just a few days ago, and he said, "I am an egoist and whenever I listen to you, I feel that I am wrong. So how to be egoless?" I told him, "You be simply egoistic, and accept the fact that you are so and don't struggle. Don't try to be egoless. You are an egoist, so feel it and be it."

He felt very disappointed because really he was searching for a new way for the ego. He was searching for egolessness. And I said, "Be whatsoever you are," so that that desire would be cut and the ego couldn't move. And I told him, "For three months don't come to me and don't fight the ego -- accept it, it is there. It is part of you, it is how you are. Don't fight with it, and don't think in terms of the contrary, how to be egoless, because that is the way of the ego. Accept it. Acceptance is the death."

But the young man said, "But every religion says be egoless, and I want to be egoless." Who is this`I' that wants to be egoless? The ways of the ego are very subtle. When I was talking to him I felt he was not listening to me. If I gave him some technique to do to be egoless, he would be ready and accepting, receptive, because then the ego could start work. But I was saying, "Don't talk about egolessness, just be whatsoever you are. And for three months don't struggle, then come to me."

He tried. After three months he came again and he said to me, "It has been very hard to accept, but because you told me, I tried. Now give me some technique, give me some key to go beyond this ego." The whole effort was false, because if you accept then there is no desire to go beyond.

Whenever you feel yourself to be ordinary you try to be extraordinary in some way. But everyone is ordinary: to be ordinary is to be real. It may be that to you someone looks extraordinary because you compare him with yourself, but a genius in himself is as ordinary as anybody, and he feels himself ordinary. A rose flower is ordinary, a lotus flower is ordinary, but if the rose starts comparing and starts thinking about how to be a lotus flower then problems arise. And if the lotus starts thinking about the beautiful perfume that comes from the rose flower, then the rose flower becomes extraordinary.

When you compare, in comparison extraordinariness happens -- otherwise everything is ordinary. In itself everything is as it is. Don't compare and don't hanker after it. If you hanker then meditation will disappoint you, because meditation will bring you to a point where you feel your total ordinariness. Be receptive to it, welcome it. It is good. It shows that meditation is progressing, deepening. But somewhere the desire for the extraordinary is still there and that is creating the barrier.

If that desire disappears, you will not feel yourself as ordinary. You will simply be. How can you feel that you are ordinary? You will simply be, and to be, to be so simple that you don't feel whether you are ordinary or extraordinary, is to attain.

It is good, don't be disappointed by it. If you are disappointed then remember that you are carrying a desire, and that desire is creating poison. Why is there this madness? Why does it come and happen to everyone? This whole world is mad because of this: everyone is trying to be something special, somebody.

Life happens to you only when you are nobody. When you are so empty that there is no one, then the whole of life flows through you without any barrier, without any obstacle, without any hindrance. Then the flow is total and complete.

When you are somebody, you become a rock, you disturb the flow -- life cannot move through you. There is a struggle, a resistance, and of course you create much noise. And you may think that because you are creating so much noise that you are something extraordinary.

Be an empty vessel, passage, with no resistance, so that life can flow through it, flow through it easily. Then no noise will be created. You may not be able to feel that you are, because you only feel that you are when you fight. The more you fight, the more you feel.

Life flows so smoothly through you that you may even completely forget that you exist. There is no barrier, no resistance, no rejection, no negation. And you are so welcoming that you even forget that you are.

It was heard about one Zen master that he would call his own name many times during the day. In the morning he would call, "Bokuju?" and then he would say, "Yes sir, I am here." Bokuju was his name. And his disciples would ask why he did this. He would say, "I go on forgetting. I have become so smooth that I have to remind myself -- `Bokuju?' And then I say, `Yes sir, I am here.'"

Life can become such a smooth flow, such a silent river, that no noise is created. But if you are bent upon being something, somebody, extraordinary, special, then life cannot flow through you. Then there is a constant struggle between life and you, between your small ego and the cosmos.

This is creating madness. The whole earth has become a mad planet. And this madness cannot be helped by treatments, therapies, because it is so basic a style of life that it is not a pathology. This is how we are living. Our whole style of life is mad. So you cannot be helped through therapies unless the whole life-style changes.

There are only two life-styles: ego-oriented and egoless-oriented. You must be somebody... this is one way of life. Then madness is the outcome. Really, the madman is the most extraordinary man. He has achieved extraordinariness because now he is completely uprooted from reality, he is not concerned with the reality at all. Now he lives isolated in himself, he has created his own world. Now the dream is the real and the real has become just a dream. Everything is upside down.

You cannot convince a madman that he is wrong, because he is very logical. Madmen are very rational and logical.

One madman used to come out of his house every day in the morning and chant some mantras and make some gestures. So, whosoever was passing would ask, naturally, what he was doing. And the madman would say, "I am protecting this neighborhood from ghosts." So the person who was asking would say, "But there are no ghosts in this neighborhood." And the man would say, "See, because of my chanting mantras, there are no ghosts."

He is rational, you cannot convince him -- ghosts are not there because of his chanting. But he lives now in his own subjective dream-world and you cannot pull him out.

If you think yourself somebody -- nobody can be somebody that is not in the nature of things -- but if you think yourself somebody, then a part of you has gone mad. That somebodiness is your madness. And the more this cancer of somebodiness grows, the more you will be cut off from reality.

A Buddha is a nobody. All his doors are open. The wind comes and blows, the rains come and blow, the sun-rays enter and pass, the life flows, but he is not there. This is what I mean when I say meditation has happened to you. And this is very ordinary, natural, real.

The third question:

Question 3

YOU ARE OFTEN SAYING THAT THIS IS GOOD OR BAD, OR THIS IS RIGHT OR WRONG. IS THIS A LANGUAGE JUST FOR US AS WE ARE NOT ABLE TO REALIZE THE ONENESS OF EVERYTHING, OR IS THERE SUCH A THING AS GOOD AND BAD?

No, it is simply a language. For me there is nothing good and nothing bad. But this will be too dangerous for you. Truth can be dangerous. Really, only truth can be dangerous -- lies are never so dangerous because they are not potential. They have no force in them.

Truth can be very shattering. It is the truth that there is no good, no bad, that nothing is right, nothing is wrong. Everything is as it is, all condemnation, division, is futile -- but this will be dangerous for you. This will be too much for you, you will misunderstand it. You cannot understand it; when there is nothing good, nothing bad, you cannot understand it, and you will have your own interpretation of it.

If I say there is nothing good, nothing bad, you will think that now whatsoever you have been thinking of up to now as bad, there is no need to think of it as such. So it will become a licence for you and you will start double thinking. You will think that for yourself there is nothing good, nothing bad, but for others you will not allow the same. If you can allow the same for others also, then you have understood; then it is not a licence, it is a freedom. But the mind must be one; there should not be double standards.

Why do I say that there is nothing good and nothing bad? Because goodness and badness are interpretations, they are not reality.

If there is a flower outside in the garden, you can call it beautiful and somebody else can call it ugly. The flower is neither. The flower exists there as it is in its authenticity. And it is not bothered about your interpretations. But to you it is either beautiful or not. That beauty and ugliness is interpretation, not reality. It is your mind which says that it is beautiful or ugly. The flower will not be affected by it, but you will be. If you say that it is beautiful, your behavior will be of one kind; if you say that it is ugly, your behavior will be different. You will be affected by your interpretation.

And I am talking to you, so I have to constantly remember that whatsoever I say, your behavior will be affected. Unless you come to a point where the whole emphasis has changed from doing to being, when you are not interested in doing and you are only interested in being, you cannot understand what I mean when I say that there is nothing good or bad. Things are as they are.

But it is only possible to understand this when you are deeply centered in the being. And if you are centered in the being, then whatsoever you do will be good. Then there is no danger. But right now you are not centered in the being, you are centered on the periphery. You are continuously choosing what to do and what not to do.

Really, you have not asked the question, "What to be?" You have always been asking what to do and what not to do and whether it will be good or not. You never ask the question, "What to be?" And unless being becomes more important than doing, there is good and there is bad -- for you. Then something has to be done and something has not to be done.

How do I make this difference and why? If there is really no good and no bad then how and why is this difference made?

To me, this is again a difference I make for you: I call something good if it leads to your being, where everything will become good, and I call something bad if it leads you away from the being. If you go on being away from yourself, everything will become bad.

To help you to come to yourself, to your home, I call something good and bad, or, something right and wrong. It is better to use the words `right' and `wrong' than the words `good' and `bad' because I am more concerned with techniques of how to bring yourself to your being. So, a technique can be right if it brings you to your being; a technique can be wrong if it doesn't bring you to your being or if it becomes a hindrance, or moves you into by-paths, or moves you on ways which will become cul-de-sacs and will not lead you anywhere.

But if you ask me, ultimately there is nothing good, nothing bad, nothing right, nothing wrong. And if you can understand this right now, then start living in a way where nothing is wrong and nothing is right -- and this is for you as far as you are concerned with others, and for others as far as they are concerned with you.

Jesus says, "Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you." This is the basic principle of `one standard' and this is the whole of the teaching of all those who want to help you to come to yourself -- there is one standard where nothing is good and nothing is bad, not only for you but for everyone.

It is easy to say that to steal is not bad if you are stealing, but if someone else is stealing something from you then it becomes difficult to say that stealing is not bad.

I have heard about a thief. For the fourth time he was caught and the judge asked him, "You get caught again and again, what is the matter? If you are not so efficient, why go on doing it?" The man said, "It is not a question of efficiency. I am alone and the work is too much." So the judge said, "Then why don't you have a companion, a partner?" The thief said, "Morals have become so low that you cannot depend on any partner."

Even a thief thinks in terms of morality, for others -- "Morals have gone so low that you cannot depend on a partner. So I have to do all the work myself and the work is too much."

This is the deepest teaching of all the knowers: there is nothing to choose. Everything is accepted. If you can accept it in its totality, you are transformed. But if you are cunning and want to deceive yourself, then this total acceptability will be dangerous.

So, I say many things to you just because of you. And just in-between I also go on communicating that which I would really like to say to you. But it can be given only very indirectly. You are so dangerous, so suicidal, that you can commit something which will be harmful to you.

I am talking about a higher truth -- not only a higher truth, but an ultimate truth. Naropa, in his song, says that only an inch difference sets heaven and hell apart. An inch difference between what is good and what is bad sets heaven and hell apart.

And you will have to live in anguish because you have created the division. Bring all the dualities nearer, closer, and let them merge. Let the good and bad merge into each other, the darkness and the light merge into each other, life and death merge into each other. Then there is ADVAIT, then there is oneness. That oneness brings freedom, transformation.

The fourth question:

Question 4

IT IS OUR IMAGINATION, THROUGH AUTO-SUGGESTIONS, THAT HAS ESTABLISHED US IN THE WORLD OF THE FINITE, IN THE WORLD OF NAMES AND FORMS, IN THE WORLD OF PAINS AND PLEASURES. CAN THE SAME INSTRUMENT BE USED TO REACH THE INFINITE, THE ABSOLUTE, THE BLISSFUL? THE SAME INSTRUMENT IN THE REVERSE ORDER?

You have come to this house, soon you will be going back, and the same path will be used again -- but in the reverse order. While you were coming here your face was towards me and when you go back, your back will be towards me. But the path will be the same. No other path is needed to go back home. Only the direction changes.

The way which you have traveled to come into darkness will be the way, is the way, the only way. You will have to travel back that way. The way that has brought you into misery and anguish will be the way which will lead you towards bliss and ecstasy. There is no other way, there is no need. And remember, don't follow any other way otherwise you will never reach home.

You have to be alert to follow the same path again. The only change is in the direction -- it is a total about-turn. Hypnosis, auto-suggestion, they create this world; de-hypnosis, de-auto-suggestion will lead you back to the real. There is no finite world, the world is infinite. It is your super-imposition, your hypnosis, that makes it look finite. Withdraw your hypnosis and the world is infinite -- it has always been so.

All techniques of meditation are similar to hypnosis. This creates a problem. It creates a problem when people go on asking about the difference between hypnosis and meditation. There is no difference. The path is the same but the direction is different.

In hypnosis you are falling more and more asleep, losing awareness; in meditation you are coming out of sleep, gaining awareness. It is the same path. In hypnosis you are conditioning yourself, in meditation you are unconditioning yourself -- but the process is the same. Meditation is hypnosis in reverse. So whatsoever you have done with yourself you have to undo it. That's all.

Try to do a very simple experiment which will be revealing: you can hypnotize yourself. Close your room and make it completely dark, then put a small candle just in front of your eyes. Then without blinking your eyes, stare at the flame, and just go on thinking that you are falling asleep, you are falling asleep. A deep sleep is descending upon you -- just let this thought be floating there, within. Go on staring at the candle and let this thought be there as a cloud hovering over you. You are falling asleep, you are falling asleep. When you do it, you have to say, "I am falling asleep. Sleep is descending. My limbs are relaxing."

You will immediately feel a subtle change, and within three minutes you will feel that the body has become heavy. Any moment you can fall. The lids of the eyes are heavy and now it is very difficult to go on staring at the flame. The eyes want to close. Everything has become numb.

Now you can feel that this is what hypnosis is: being more sleepy, falling into unawareness, becoming more unconscious. Feel the feel of it, what is happening, how your mind has become cloudy. The clarity has gone, aliveness has gone, you are becoming dead. Your body feels more weighty. This will give you the sensation of how your consciousness can become unconsciousness.

Try this for seven days so that you can feel completely what it is, and how you descend into the well. With more and more darkness, more sleep, more unconsciousness, at the last moment suddenly you will not be there and the flame will have disappeared. You are fast asleep. You can feel the grave.

Then after one week try the other experiment. Have the same room, the same flame, the same way of staring, but a different thought in the mind, "I will become more alert, I am becoming more and more alert, more alive, more alert. The body is becoming more and more weightless." Let this thought be there and go on staring at the flame -- you will feel a sudden surge of life awareness and consciousness.

Within seven days you can come to a point where you will feel so alert that you will feel as if the body is not. On one pole the whole spectrum is deep sleep where you forget yourself completely; on the other pole there is deep awareness where everything is forgotten, you remember only yourself.

Then there are many mid-stages. The stage we are in is just in the middle -- half asleep, half awake. So whatsoever you do, you are doing it half asleep, half awake. Both the processes are the same, they are the same process.

Thought in an intense state becomes reality; thought condensed becomes a thing. One thought kept continuously in the consciousness transforms you, becomes a seed. So if you are struggling to be more and more alert, you are deconditioning yourself, moving in the other direction. Gurdjieff calls it self-remembering -- he says, "Continuously remember yourself." Buddha says, "Don't forget yourself whatsoever you are doing; continuously go on hammering that you are doing it." And he is so particular that he says to his monks, "While you are walking and your left foot comes up, remember that your left foot is coming up: now the foot is going down, now the right one is coming up, now the right is going down. Remember that the breath is coming in, that the breath is going out. Remember continuously, whatsoever is happening and use every happening as a situation to remember. Don't do anything in an unconscious state, a sleepy state." And Buddha says that this is enough. If you can work like this for twenty-four hours, sooner or later you will have de-hypnotized yourself. You will have become aware, alert.

Hypnosis and meditation are the same process in diametrically opposite directions. You can use hypnosis to awaken you; you can use hypnosis to fall deep into sleep. And if you become master of the art of hypnosis, you have got the key to open all the doors of life.

If you are not the master of the key of hypnosis, then you are a victim of many, many forces. This is worth understanding: if you don't know what hypnosis is then you are a victim. Everybody is trying hypnosis on you -- I say everybody! They may not be doing it knowingly, but everybody is trying. There are different ways, methods. The whole world is filled with hypnotic tricks: the same advertisement in the newspaper, on the television and on the radio. It goes on hammering, it becomes a hypnotic thing.

In the mind you go on repeating, "Lux is the best soap." You go on repeating it. Wherever you move it is written on the walls; in films you see it, on the T.V. screen it is there, on the radio it is there, in magazines, in newspapers, in anything: "Lux Toilet Soap." It goes on and on. You become hypnotized by it. Then you go to the shop and the man behind the counter asks you, "What soap do you need?" You say, "Lux Toilet Soap." You are asleep. You are not saying it consciously, it has been hammered in and now it is built in.

Crores of rupees are spent on advertising just to hypnotize you. Those advertisements have to be repeated continuously. Repetition is the way. Then there is imprint, and you become unconscious about it; then suddenly it comes out of your mouth, "Lux Toilet Soap." And you think that you are choosing. You are not the chooser.

The whole education system is hypnotic. That's why for the teacher a higher place is needed. It must be measured scientifically because there is a particular point -- the way I am sitting here is at a wrong point, this is not right. Your eyes should be in a tension looking at me, in much tension, not relaxed -- then you are easily hypnotized.

Hitler used every proportion. He had an expert committee to measure how much distance from the audience and how much height was needed so that the eyes are correctly at a tension where they become easily hypnotized and sleepy. And then all the lights would be put off -- in Hitler's lecture hall the only lights would be on Hitler. Nobody could see anywhere else, and so you were forced to look only at him. In a particular situation a particular tension was created. In this tension he would go on saying something for a while. The things that he wanted to put into you would be said later on, when the whole audience had become sleepy. Then the words would simply move into the unconscious and start functioning.

Now they have invented subliminal advertisements in films. As you watch a film, between two scenes, just for a fraction of a second, the advertisement will be flashed. You will not be able to read it, you will not even know what has happened. Simply watching the film, suddenly for a few seconds the advertisement will be there -- but you will not be continuously aware of it.

Only two persons in a hundred can feel that something has happened. Only those who have very keen eyes can feel that something was in-between. Ninety-eight per cent will not feel it, but the unconscious has read it. It has entered you.

There was one experiment about it in an American film. They flashed a particular brand of cold drink on the screen, something new. Only two per cent of the people became aware that there was an advertisement, ninety-eight per cent were fully unaware, but in the interval many people went out and asked for the drink. They were not aware that there had been an advertisement because it had been so fast.

Hypnosis is all around. Education uses it, politics uses it, the market uses it -- everyone is using it. And if you are not aware then you are a victim. Become aware. If you become aware, you can use it; not to hypnotize others, but to de-hypnotize yourself. And if you can become completely de-hypnotized, you are free, you are liberated.

And there is no conflict between meditation and hypnosis. The conflict is in the directions -- the process is the same.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #27

Chapter title: Neither mind nor matter

27 July 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7307275

ShortTitle: VBT227

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 97 mins

FEEL YOUR SUBSTANCE, BONES, FLESH, BLOOD, SATURATED WITH THE COSMIC ESSENCE.

FEEL THE FINE QUALITIES OF CREATIVITY PERMEATING YOUR BREASTS' AND ASSUMING DELICATE CONFIGURATIONS.

Philosophers all over the world have been arguing for centuries about what basic stuff the universe is made of, what the substance is. There have been propositions, systems, that say that matter is the basic reality and mind is just an outgrowth, that matter is basic and mind is just a by-product, that mind is also material, only subtle. Charwak proposed this in India, Epicurus in Greece, and even today, Marxists and other materialists go on talking in terms of matter. Just opposite to this, there has been a second system of thinking which says that mind rather than matter is the basic stuff, and that matter is nothing but a form of mind. Vedanta and other idealist philosophies of the world have reduced everything to mind.

Just at the beginning of this century, it was thought that the materialists had become victorious because physics and other scientific investigations were proving, or appeared to be proving, that matter was the basic substance. But just two or three decades ago the whole thing changed completely. One of the greatest scientists of this age, Eddington, said, "Now we can say that the universe appears to be more like a thought than like a thing." And as the physicists, Max Planck and Einstein, worked deeper, they came to realize that the deeper one penetrates matter, the more matter disappears -- something more than matter, more beyond than matter, appears to be there. You can call it mind more easily than matter because it is a form of energy. One thing is certain: it is not material in the old sense at all.

For Tantra, for yoga, there has been no choice. Tantra doesn't say that either matter or the mind is the basic reality. Tantra has a third standpoint, and I think that that standpoint is ultimately going to win. Tantra says mind and matter are both forms of something which we can call `X'. Neither matter nor mind is substantial but a third entity, which exists in both but which is not confined to either, is the real -- these two are the manifestations. Matter and mind are not realities, but forms of a third reality, a basic reality, which remains hidden. Whenever it manifests itself, it manifests itself either as matter or as mind.

So the whole conflict between mind and matter, and their followers, is baseless, because the ultimate substratum that physics has now come to know is really neither like matter nor like mind. The division has disappeared, the duality has disappeared. The behavior of the basic substance is very vague: sometimes it behaves like matter, and sometimes it behaves like mind. You may be surprised to know that physics cannot say anything about individual atoms -- they are unpredictable, just like any human being. Nothing can be said about the individual atom and how it is going to behave. It appears that it has a certain independence; no causality can predict how it is going to behave. We can predict mass behavior, but we cannot predict the behavior of an individual atom. Sometimes it behaves in cause-effect terms, like matter, and sometimes it behaves like mind, as if it has a will of its own, as if it has a choice.

With Tantra, this idea of physics fits very well. But why does Tantra say that the basic reality is the third, the unknown, the `X'? Not because Tantra is interested in propounding any theory about reality, no. It is proposed just as a help for SADHANA, just as a help for spiritual growth. If it is so -- that the reality is the third, and mind and matter are just two manifestations -- then you can enter the reality through two doors: either from matter or from mind. If you try to enter from matter, then there are certain techniques to use. Hatha Yoga is a technique to enter the reality through matter, through the body. You have to do something with the body, you have to transform the body, you have to crystalize certain chemical phenomena in the body, and then you will enter into the reality.

Or, you can enter directly through the mind. Raja Yoga and other methods are used to enter through the mind. And for Tantra, both are right.

You cannot say to Tantra, "How can a body posture, a particular body posture, be helpful to enter reality?" Tantra says it can be helpful. A certain body posture is not a mere body posture, because body is the manifestation of the reality. So when you give your body a certain posture, you are giving the reality a certain form. And there are postures with which you can easily enter into yourself. A certain food can be helpful. A certain practice of breathing can be helpful. These are material things -- food, breathing, body. But you can enter through them.

And similar is the case with mind: just working with mind also you can enter. Many times the question may have arisen in your mind about Shiva telling Parvati certain techniques which look just imaginary. The question is bound to arise -- how can imagination be helpful?

Even imagination is a mode of reality because the mind is a manifestation of reality. And when you change the imagination in the mind, you are changing the mode of reality. For Tantra nothing is unreal. Even a dream has its own reality -- and it affects you. So a dream is not a mere dream. A dream is as real as anything else because it affects you, it changes you. You are different because you dreamed it; you will never be the same because a certain dream has happened. So if you dream that you are a thief, in the morning you will say that it makes no different, it was just a dream. But for Tantra it is not so. A dream of stealing, of theft, has changed you. Your reality is different in the morning; you cannot be the same. Whether you recognize it or not, it has affected you. It will affect your behavior, your future -- it has become a seed.

Even a dream is not irrelevant. And you think that dreams are just dreams. That is not so, because you cannot create a dream consciously, you cannot choose a dream. It happens to you as anything else happens to you. Can you choose a dream? Can you think about a dream that you will dream tonight? Can you choose it? Can you will it? You cannot will it, because to will a dream will need many changes in your reality. Only then will a dream come. A dream is just like a flower. A rose flower comes on a rose bush, and you cannot change the flower unless you change the whole process, from the seed onwards. You cannot just change the flower. A dream is a flowering. If you can change the dream, you can change reality.

So, many times, many techniques will appear imaginary -- but they are also real. And Tantra is trying to change your imagination. If the imagination can be changed, then the hidden reality behind it will automatically be different.

The techniques that we will discuss today start from your imagination, from your dreaming, from your mind. Three things have to be remembered. One: whatsoever happens to your mind is not superficial -- it is happening because of you, it is happening because you happen to be in a certain situation. So two things can be done: either change the situation, then you will have to start from the body because body is the situation; or if you are not starting with the situation, then change the happening. It will persist, it will not be easy to change it, but if you make an effort and you go on making the effort, if you are stubborn and are not defeated, then the very effort will change it.

One thing is certain: you may not achieve the goal that you were thinking of, but the fact that you make this effort will bring a change. You will be different: whether you succeed or fail, you will be different. The very effort will be counted.

Thirdly, don't think that mind is just mind, and don't think that dreaming is just dreaming. If you can direct your dreaming -- and now there is a therapy in the West called `Directed Daydreaming' -- if you can direct your dreaming, you are directing yourself. And many things will become different.

There is an old Tibetan technique called `The Lion's Roar'. If you are angry, sexual, filled with hatred, jealousy, then the Tibetan master will give you this technique, `The Lion's Roar'. You have to sit before a mirror, and you are to imagine that you are a lion, not a man. You have to make your face like a lion, you have to put your tongue out, and you have to roar. And you have to practise it so that the imagination becomes so true that you forget that you are a man daydreaming that he is a lion. And when the point comes when you have really fallen prey to your own imagination, and you have become the lion, and a real roar comes out of you, suddenly you are transformed. In that roar, all hatred, anger, sex, disappears, and you will fall into a deep silence such as you have not known before. In old Tibetan monasteries they have a special room with many mirrors. Whenever someone is suffering from something like anger, hatred, or jealousy, he is to be sent to that mirrored room and he has to remain there until he comes to a climax. And when he comes to the climax, the whole monastery will know, because a real lion will be roaring there. To us, he has gone mad. The whole monastery will gather and welcome the man, and he will come out a totally different man. It may take three days, it may take seven days. Food will be supplied to him, but he is not allowed to come out. He has to persist in imagining that he is a lion, until from the very roots of the unconscious the roar comes. The whole body is involved, every cell of it; every cell in it roars, and in that roar everything is thrown out. It is the deepest catharsis possible. And you will never see that man angry again because now the poison is not there. For the first time the face will become human.

Your face cannot be human because so much is suppressed there. The jealousy, the hatred, the anger that you have suppressed, is there -- layers upon layers are just hidden under the skin. They are making your face. But they can be released -- just by this daydream, a directed daydream.

In the West they now have another technique they call psychodrama. That too is one of the oldest Buddhist methods -- to become a part of a drama, to act it so totally that you forget that you are simply acting. The acting becomes action, and you are not the actor, you become a real doer in it. It changes you.

Tantra says that if you can change dreaming, imagination, if you can change your mind and the pattern of it, the reality behind will be different. Because it is deeply rooted in reality, you can move through the mind. These techniques are just to change the way and the style in which your mind has been behaving up to now.

The first technique:

FEEL YOUR SUBSTANCE, BONES, FLESH, BLOOD, SATURATED WITH THE COSMIC ESSENCE.

Try with simple experiments. For seven days try one simple experiment: feel your blood, your bones, your flesh, your body, filled with sadness -- every cell of the body sad; dark night around you; very heavy, depressed; not a single ray of light; no hope, gloomy, just as if you are going to die. Life is not throbbing in you; you are just waiting for death. It is as if death has already settled, or is settling. For seven days contemplate on the feeling that death has entered throughout the body; it has penetrated deep to the bone, to the very marrow. Go on thinking in this way, don't disturb this mood. And then, after seven days, see how you feel.

You will be just a dead weight. All feeling will have disappeared, the body will not be felt as alive. And what have you done? You have been eating, you have been doing everything the same as you have always been doing; the only change has been in the imagination -- there is a new pattern of imagination around you.

If you succeed in it.... You will succeed. Really, you have already succeeded in it; you are doing it, you are expert in doing this, unknowingly. That's why I say start with sadness. If I say be filled with bliss, it will be very difficult. You cannot conceive of it. But if you can do it with sadness, then you will become aware that if sadness can happen to you, why not happiness? If you can create a sad milieu around you and become a dead thing in it, then why can't you create an alive milieu around you and be alive, dancing? The other becomes conceivable.

Secondly, you will become aware that whatever sadness you have been suffering was not real. You were the creator of it, you were the author; unknowingly you have been doing this. It seems difficult to believe that your sadness is your imagination, because then the whole responsibility falls on you. Then no one else is responsible, then you cannot throw it on God, on fate, on others, on society, on wife, on husband -- you cannot throw it anywhere. You are the creator, and whatsoever is happening to you, you are creating it.

Try it for seven days, consciously. And then, I say, you will never be sad again -- because you will have known the key.

Then for seven days try just being in a stream of bliss -- floating in it, every breath giving you ecstasy: just feel it. Start with sadness for seven days and then for seven days move to the contrary. And when you move to the direct opposite, you will feel it better because the contrast will be there.

Then only can you try this experiment -- because it is deeper than happiness. Sadness is the surface, happiness is the middle, and this is the last core, the innermost core, the cosmic essence. FEEL YOUR SUBSTANCE, BONES, FLESH, BLOOD, SATURATED WITH THE COSMIC ESSENCE, with eternal life, with Divine energy, with cosmic essence. But don't start it directly because then you will not be able to touch it. Start from sadness, then move to happiness, and then try the origin, the very origin of life -- the cosmic essence. And feel yourself filled with it.

In the beginning you will become aware again and again that you are simply imagining it, but don't stop. Even imagination is good. Even that you can imagine something worthwhile is good. You are imagining, and in the very imagination you are changing. It is you who are imagining. Go on imagining, and by and by you will forget completely that you are imagining it -- it will have become a reality.

One of the greatest books ever written is the Buddhist scripture, `Lankawatar Sutra'. Buddha says again and again to his disciple Mahamati, he goes on saying again and again, "Mahamati, this is only mind. Hell is mind. Heaven is mind. The world is mind. Enlightenment is mind." Mahamati asks again and again, "Just mind? Just mind? Even nirvana, enlightenment, just mind?" And Buddha says, "Just mind, Mahamati."

When you understand that everything is just mind, you are freed. Then there Then there is no bondage, then there is no desire. In `Lankawatar Sutra', Buddha says that the whole world is just like a magical world, a city of Gandharwa, as if a magician has created a world. Everything appears to be there, but it is there only because of the thought form.

But don't start with outer reality, that is too far. That too is mind, but it is very away from you. Start from the very near, you own moods; and you will be the master if you can feel and know that they are your own creation.

Whenever you start thinking in terms of sadness, you become sad, and you become receptive to all the sadness around you. Then everybody helps you to be sad. Everybody helps, the whole world is always ready to help you, whatsoever you do. When you want to be sad, the whole world is helpful, cooperative. You have become receptive. Really, you fall to a certain wave-length where only sadness can be received. So even if someone comes to cheer you up, he will make you more sad. He will not look friendly, he will not look understanding; you will feel that he is insulting you because you are so sad and he is trying to cheer you up. He thinks your sadness is superficial. He is not taking you seriously.

And when you are ready to be happy, you are on a different wave-length. Now you are attuned to all the happiness that this world can give, now everywhere flowers start flowering, now every sound and noise becomes musical -- and nothing has happened. The whole world remains the same, but you are different. You have a different pattern of looking, a different attitude, a different perspective; through that perspective a different world comes to you.

But start with sadness because you are expert in that. I was reading a sentence of some old Hassid mystic -- I liked it very much. He says there are certain people, who, if their whole life becomes a bed of roses, will not be happy until they develop some allergy towards the roses. Roses cannot make them happy... only when they become allergic will they start feeling alive. They can be attuned only to sadness, to illness, to disease, they cannot be aware of anything else. They go on finding sadness. They are searchers after wrong -- something wrong, something sad, depressed, dark. They are death-oriented.

I have been meeting hundreds and hundreds of persons deeply, intimately, closely. When they start talking about their sadness I have to be serious -- otherwise they will not feel that I am sympathetic, they will not feel good about it. Then they will never turn to me again. I have to be sad with their sadness and serious with their seriousness to help bring them out of it.. and this is their own creation, and they are making every effort to create it. And if I try to bring them out, they create every type of barrier -- not knowingly of course, because no one will do it knowingly.

This is what the Upanishads call ignorance. Unknowingly you go on disturbing your own life, you go on creating more problems and anxieties, and whatsoever happens will not make any difference because you have a pattern -- whatsoever happens. There are persons who come to me and say, "We are lonely." So they are unhappy. And the next moment someone comes and says he cannot find a place where he can be lonely. So he is unhappy. Then there are persons who have too much work on their minds, so they are unhappy, and there are persons who have no work, so they are unhappy. A person who is married is unhappy, a person who is not married, he is unhappy. It seems it is impossible for man to be happy. That's what I mean when I say you are experts -- you are very efficient in finding ways and means to be unhappy. And you always succeed.

Start from sadness, and for seven days be completely unhappy for the first time. That will transform you totally. Because once you know that consciously you can be unhappy, you will become conscious whenever you become unhappy. Then you will know what you are doing: it is your own doing. And if you can be unhappy by your own mind, then why can't you be happy? There is no difference, the pattern is the same. And then you can try this.

FEEL YOUR SUBSTANCE, FLESH, BLOOD, BONES, SATURATED WITH THE COSMIC ESSENCE. Feel as if the Divine is flowing through you: you are not, but the cosmic exists in you, God exists in you. When you feel hungry, he feels hungry -- then to give food to the body becomes worship. When you feel thirsty, he feels thirsty -- the cosmic in you. When you feel sleepy, he feels sleepy, he wants rest, relaxation. When you are young, he is young in you. When you fall in love, he falls in love. Be saturated with him, and be TOTALLY saturated with him. Don't make any distinction. Good or bad, whatsoever happens is happening to him. You just withdraw, you are no longer there, only he is there. So good or bad, hell or heaven, whatsoever happens, happens to him. All the responsibility is thrown onto him and you are no more. The `no-moreness' that this technique can bring you is the ultimate in religion.

But you have to be saturated with it. And you don't know any saturation, you don't feel your body as porous, you don't feel that in your body a life energy is flowing. You think of yourself as something solid, dead, closed. Life can happen only when you are vulnerable, open, not closed. Life moves through you, and whatsoever happens is happening to the life energy, not to you -- you are just a fragment. And all the boundaries that you have created around you are false, they are not real.

You cannot exist alone. If you are alone on the earth, can you exist? You cannot exist alone. You cannot exist without the stars. Somewhere Eddington says that the whole existence is like a spider's web -- the whole existence is a spider's net. If you touch the net anywhere, the whole vibrates; if you touch existence anywhere, the whole vibrates. It is one. If you touch a flower you have touched the whole cosmos; if you look into your neighbors eyes you have looked into the cosmos. Because the whole net is one. You cannot touch any part without touching the whole, and no part can exist without the whole.

When you start feeling this, the ego will disappear. The ego exists only when you take a certain part as the whole. When you make a part the whole, the ego exists. When you come to know the right proportion, that the part is part, and the whole is whole, the ego disappears. Ego is just a misunderstanding.

And this technique, to feel oneself saturated with the cosmic, is just wonderful!

From the very early morning, when you feel life awakening, when you feel that the sleep has gone, the first thought must be of this saturation -- now the Divine is opening, coming back out of sleep, not you. So Hindus, who have been one of the most penetrating races in the world, will start their first breath with the name of God. Now it has become a formality and the essential has been lost, but this was the root of it -- that at the moment you become alert in the morning you must not remember yourself, you must remember the Divine. The Divine must become the first remembrance -- and the last, at night, when you are falling asleep. The Divine must be remembered: he must be the first and the last. And if he is really the first in the morning and the last at night, he will be with you the whole day, in the middle also.

You must drop into sleep saturated with him. You will be surprised, because the quality of your sleep will be different. While falling into sleep tonight, please don't you fall into sleep, let the Divine fall into sleep. While you are preparing the bed, prepare it for the Divine -- the guest is coming. And while you are lying on the bed, let the Divine be there, not you -- treat yourself as the guest. And while dropping into sleep go on feeling that the Divine exists, he saturates every breath, he pulsates in the blood, he beats in the heart. Now he is tired after a whole day of work, now he wants to sleep.

And in the morning you will feel that you have been sleeping in a different way. The quality of the sleep will be cosmic, because the meeting will be deep at the source.

When you feel yourself as Divine, you fall into the abyss because then there is no fear. Otherwise, even in the night while you are sleeping you are afraid to fall deeply into it. Many people are suffering from sleeplessness -- not because of any other tension, but because they are afraid to fall asleep, because sleep appears like an abyss, a bottomless thing. I have known a few persons who are afraid.

One old man came to me and said that he could not sleep because he was afraid. I asked, "Why are you afraid?" He said, "I am afraid because if I really sleep, and I die, I will not be conscious, alert. And I can die because now I am old -- and I don't like the idea of dying in sleep. At least let me be aware and alert of what is happening."

You go on clinging to something so that you cannot fall into sleep, but when you feel that the Divine is there, you have accepted. Then the abyss is also Divine. Then you fall very deeply into the very original sources of your being -- and the quality will be different. And when you arise in the morning and you feel that sleep has gone, remember that the Divine is arising. The whole day will be different.

And be saturated -- whatsoever you do, or you don't do, let the Divine do it -- simply allow it to be done. Eat, sleep, work, but let the Divine do it. Only then can you be saturated, can you become one with it. And once you feel, even for a single moment -- even for a single moment, I say -- that the peak has come, that you are not, that the Divine has saturated you completely, you are enlightened. In that single moment, that timeless moment, you will become aware of the whole mystery of life. Then there is no fear and then there is no death. Now you have become life itself. It goes on and on; it never ends, it never begins. Then life is ecstasy.

And the concepts of MOKSHA, of heaven and paradise, are just childish, because they are not really something geographical. They are symbols of this ultimate state of being: when the individual has dissolved into the cosmos or when the individual has allowed the cosmos to dissolve into him; when the two have become one, when mind and matter, both the manifestations, have come back to the original source, the third. The whole search is for that. That is the only search, and you will not be satisfied until this is achieved. Nothing can be a substitute for it. You can go on moving for lives and lives, but unless this is achieved, your search will be constantly haunting you. You cannot rest.

This technique can be very helpful and there is no danger in it; you can practise it without a master. Remember this: all the techniques that start with the body are dangerous without a master -- because the body is a very complex phenomenon, very complex. It is a mechanism, and without someone who knows exactly what is going on, it is dangerous to start -- you may disturb the mechanism, and then it will be difficult to repair it. All the techniques that start directly from mind are based on imagination, and are not dangerous because the body is not touched at all. They can be done even without a master -- although it will be difficult because you don't have any self-confidence. A master is not really going to do anything, but he becomes a catalytic agent. He is not going to do anything -- really nothing can be done -- but with just his presence, your confidence and trust are touched, and it helps. With just the feeling that the master is there, you move confidently. Because he is present, you are not afraid; because he is with you, you can move into the unknown, the uncharted. But with body techniques he is very necessary, because the body is a mechanism and you can do something which cannot be easily undone. You can harm yourself.

One man came to me, he was doing SIRSHASAN -- standing on his head for hours together. In the beginning it was very good and he felt very relaxed and cool the whole day. But then problems followed, and he became very disturbed when the coolness disappeared and he became hot all over. He became almost mad. And because he thought that SIRSHASAN helped in the beginning, and he became very cool, and felt very collected, silent, relaxed, he did it more because now he felt so disturbed. He thought more SIRSHASAN would help him -- and SIRSHASAN was really the cause.

The mind mechanism, the brain, needs only a certain amount of blood to circulate through it; if less blood is circulating, you will be in difficulty. And with everyone it is different. It depends. That's why you cannot sleep without pillows. If you try to sleep without pillows, you cannot sleep, or you will sleep less because more blood flows into the head. Those pillows help you. Your head is high so less blood flows, and for sleep, less blood is needed. If more blood flows, then the brain is alert, it cannot relax. If you do too much of SIRSHASAN, your sleep may be completely lost. You may not be able to sleep at all. And there are dangers. It has been recorded that seven days is the longest you can go without sleep. Only seven days, after that you will go mad, because very subtle tissues of the brain will break, and they cannot be replaced easily. While you are standing on your head in SIRSHASAN, all the blood is flowing downwards towards the head. So I have not seen anyone doing SIRSHASAN who is in any way intelligent. If a person is doing much SIRSHASAN, he is bound to become stupid, because the very subtle tissues of the brain will be destroyed. With so much blood passing through, delicate tissues cannot exist.

So it has to be decided by a master who knows how much will be helpful to you -- a few seconds, or a few minutes. And this is just an example. All the bodily postures, asanas, techniques, have to be done with a master. They are never to be done alone because you don't know your body. Your body is such a big thing, you cannot even conceive of it. The small head, your head, has seven crores of cells in it. And those seven crores of cells are interrelated. Scientists say that the interrelationship is as complex as the whole universe.

Old Hindu seers have said that the whole cosmos exists in the head in miniature. The whole complexity of the universe is there in miniature. If the whole relationship of all the cells can be understood, you have understood the whole complexity of the universe. You are not aware of any cells, and about any relationship you are not aware. And it is good that you are not aware, otherwise you will go mad with such a big war going on. It can go on only unconsciously. The blood circulates, but you are not aware of it.

Only just three centuries ago it was discovered that blood circulates in the body. Before that it was thought that the blood was static, not circulating. Circulation is a very recent concept. And man has been in existence for millions of years but no one could feel that the blood was circulating. You cannot feel it. Much speed, much work is going on there. It is a big factory, your body, and one of the most delicate ones. It is constantly repairing itself, constantly renewing itself. For seventy years, if you don't make any trouble for it, it will run smoothly. We have not created any mechanism up to now that can take care of itself for seventy years. So when you start any work on your body remember to be near a master who knows about what he is telling you to do. Otherwise don't do it.

But with imagination there is no problem. It is a simple phenomenon. You can start it.

The second technique:

FEEL THE FINE QUALITIES OF CREATIVITY PERMEATING YOUR BREASTS AND ASSUMING DELICATE CONFIGURATIONS.

A few important points before I enter this....

Shiva is talking to Parvati, to Devi, his consort, so this technique is specifically for women. There are a few points to be understood. One: the male body and the female body are similar, but still, different in many, many ways. And the difference is always complementary. Whatsoever is positive in the male body will be negative in the female body; and whatsoever is positive in the female body will be negative in the male body. That is why when they meet in deep orgasm, they become one organism. The positive meets the negative, the negative meets the positive, and both become one -- one circle of electricity. Hence, so much attraction for sex, so much appeal. This appeal is not because man is a sinner or immoral, it is not because the modern world has become too licentious, it is not because of obscene films and literature -- it is very deep rooted, very cosmic.

The attraction is because both male and female are half circuits, and there is an inherent tendency in existence to transcend whatsoever is incomplete and to become complete. This is one of the ultimate laws -- the tendency towards completion. Wherever you feel something is lacking, you feel that you would like to fill it, to make it complete. Nature abhors incompleteness, any type of incompleteness. The male is incomplete, the female is incomplete, and they can have only one moment of completion -- when their electric circuits become one, when the two are dissolved. That's why the two most important words in all languages are love and prayer. In love you become one with a single individual; in prayer you become one with the whole cosmos. And love and prayer are similar as far as their inner workings are concerned.

Male and female bodies are similar, but their positive and negative poles are different. When a child is born in the mother's womb, for a few weeks, at least for six weeks I think, he is neutral -- he is neither male nor female. He has the tendency, but the body is still just in the middle. Then after six weeks the body will become either male or female. If it becomes female, then the polarity of sex energy will be near the breasts, the positive pole -- because the female vagina is the negative pole. If the child is male, the sex center, the penis, will be the positive pole, and the breasts are also there -- the whole mechanism is there -- but they are negative. In the female body a counterpart to the penis exists, the clitoris, but it is non-functional -- it has no function.

Physiologists have been raising questions about why there are breasts in the male body when there appears to be no need because a child is not going to be fed. What is the need? They are negative poles. Hence so much attraction of the male mind towards female breasts -- they are positive electricity. So much poetry, literature, painting, sculpture, everything, is concerned with female breasts. Really, it seems man is less concerned with the whole of the feminine body, and more concerned with the breasts. And this is not something new. The oldest primitive paintings in the caves are of breasts, so emphatically of breasts that the whole body is just around them. Breasts are basic.

This technique is for women because their positive electricity pole is in the breasts. Really, as far as the vagina is concerned, it is more or less insensitive. The breasts are the most sensitive parts, and the whole creativity of the feminine body is around the breasts.

That is why Hindus have been saying that unless a woman becomes a mother she is not fulfilled. The same is not true for men -- no one will say that unless a man becomes a father he is not fulfilled. To be a father is accidental. It may be, it may not be. It is not very basic, and a man can remain without being a father without losing anything. But a woman will lose something because her whole creativity, her whole functioning, comes only when she becomes a mother. When her breasts become the center of her being she becomes total. And she cannot come to the breasts unless a child is there to call. So men marry women to get wives, and women marry men to become mothers -- not to get husbands. Their basic sole interest is to have a child who will call their womanhood. So really, husbands are always afraid, because the moment a child is born they move to the periphery of the woman's interest -- the child becomes the center. So fathers always feel jealous because the children come in-between. And now the woman is more interested in the children than in the father of the children. He has become a peripheral existence -- necessary for survival but non-essential. Now the basic need has been fulfilled.

In the West now there is a trend, a fashion, not to feed children directly from the breasts. This is very dangerous because it means that the woman will not come to the creative center of her being. When a man loves a woman he can lover her breasts, he will love them, but he cannot call them mother. Only a small child can call them mother. Or if the love is very deep -- so deep that the husband becomes just like a child -- then it is possible. Then the woman forgets completely that she is just a consort and she becomes a mother to her lover. Then there will be no need for a child; she can become a mother and the center of being can happen near the breasts.

This technique says: FEEL THE FINE QUALITIES OF CREATIVITY PERMEATING YOUR BREASTS AND ASSUMING DELICATE CONFIGURATIONS. The whole creativity of feminine existence is rooted in motherhood. That is why women are not interested in any other type of creativity. Man is a creator; woman is not a creator. She has not painted, she has not created great poetry, she has not written big books, she has not created great religions -- she has not done anything really. But man goes on creating, he is mad. He goes on inventing, creating, making, constructing. Tantra says that this is because man is not a creator by nature -- he remains unfulfilled, tense. He wants to become a mother, he wants to become a creator, so he creates poetry, he creates books, he creates many things, he will `mother' many things. But a woman is at ease. If she can really become a mother she is fulfilled, she is not interested. It is only when a woman cannot become a mother, cannot love, cannot really come to the peak of her creativity, that she will start thinking about doing something else. So basically, uncreative women will become creators -- poets and painters -- but they will always be second-rate, they cannot be first-rate. It is just as impossible for them to be creators of paintings and poetry and other things, as it is impossible for man to create a child. He cannot become a mother, that is biologically impossible. And he feels the gap. To fill the gap he goes on doing many things -- but still even a great creator is not as fulfilled, or only very rarely, as a woman is if she really becomes a mother.

A Buddha is fulfilled because he has created himself. He is reborn, he has given rebirth to himself, he is a new man, he is both father and mother to himself now. He can feel fulfilled.

A woman can feel fulfilled more easily. Her creativity is just around the breasts. That's why all over the world, women are concerned so much with their breasts -- it is as if their whole existence is concentrated there. They are always alert about their breasts -- hiding or exhibiting, but always concerned. The breasts are their most secret part, their treasure, their center of being; of being mother, of being a creator.

Shiva says: FEEL THE FINE QUALITIES OF CREATIVITY PERMEATING YOUR BREASTS AND ASSUMING DELICATE CONFIGURATIONS. Just concentrate on the breasts, become one with them, forget the whole body. Move your total consciousness to the breasts and many phenomena will happen to you. If you can do this, if you can concentrate totally near the breasts, the whole body will lose weight, and a very sweet, deep sweetness will envelop you. It will pulsate around you, within you, above, below, everywhere -- a deep feeling of sweetness.

Really, all the techniques that have been developed have been developed more or less by man, so they always give centers which are easier for men to follow. As far as I know, only Shiva has given some techniques which are basically for women. A man cannot do this. Really if a man tries to concentrate near the breasts he will become very uneasy. Try it. Even within five minutes you will start perspiring and you will become very uneasy, because male breasts are negative, they will give you negativity. You will feel uneasy, uncomfortable, that something is going wrong in the body, ill.

But female breasts are positive. If women concentrate near the breasts, they will feel very happy, very blissful, a sweetness will pervade all over their being and their body will lose gravity. They will feel light, as if they can fly. And with this concentration many things will change: you will become more motherly. You may not become a mother but you will become more motherly. To everyone your relationship will become motherly -- more compassion, more love will happen. But this concentration near the breasts should be done very relaxedly, not tensely. If you are tense about it there will be a division between you and the breasts. Relax and melt into them, and feel that you are no more, that only the breasts are there.

If man has to do the same he will have to do it with the sex center, not with the breasts. Hence the importance of the first chakra in all kundalini yogas. He has to concentrate just at the root of the penis -- there he has the creativity, there he is positive. And remember this always: never concentrate on anything negative because with the negative everything negative will follow. With the positive, everything positive will follow.

When the two poles of man and woman meet, negative is in the upper part of man, positive is in the lower; and negative is in the lower part of woman and positive in the upper. These two poles of positive and negative meet and a circle is created. That circle is blissful, but it is not ordinary. In ordinary sexual acts, the circle does not happen -- that is why you feel so attracted towards sex, and so repelled also. You feel so much for it, you need it so much, you ask for it so much, but when it is given, when it is there, you feel frustration -- nothing happens. It is possible only when both the bodies are very relaxed and very open to each other without any fear, without any resistance. Then the let-go is so complete that the electricities can merge and meet and become a circle.

Then there is a very strange phenomenon.... Tantra has recorded it but you may not have heard of it. This phenomenon is a very strange one. When two lovers really meet and become a circle then a flickering happens. For a moment the lover becomes the beloved and the beloved becomes the lover, and the next moment, again the lover is lover and the beloved is the beloved. The male becomes the female for a moment, then the female becomes the male for the moment -- because the energy is moving, and it has become one circle. So it will happen that the male will be active for a few minutes and then he will relax and the female will become active. That means that now the male energy has passed to the female body and she will act while the male will remain passive. And this will go on. Ordinarily you are man, and woman. In deep love, in deep orgasm, it will happen that for moments man will become woman, and the woman will become man. It will be felt, absolutely felt and recognized, that the passivity changes.

In life there is rhythm; in everything there is rhythm. When you take a breath, the breath goes in -- then for a few seconds it stops, there is no movement. Then again it moves, out it goes -- and again there is a stop, a gap, no movement. Movement, no movement, movement. When your heart beats, there is one beat, gap, another beat, gap. The beat means male, the non-beat gap means female.

Life is rhythm. When two persons meet, male and female, it becomes a circle: there will be gaps for both. You will be a woman and suddenly there will be a gap and you are no longer a woman, you have become a man. You will be man and woman and man. When these gaps are felt you can feel that you have achieved a circle. This circle is represented in Shiva's symbol-the shiva-linga. This circle is represented by the yoni of Devi and linga of Shiva. It is a circle. It is one of the peak phenomena of two high energies meeting.

This technique will be good. FEEL THE FINE QUALITIES OF CREATIVITY PERMEATING YOUR BREASTS AND ASSUMING DELICATE CONFIGURATIONS. Simply relax, move into the breasts, let your breasts become your whole being. Let the whole body be just a situation for the breasts to exist, your body has become secondary, just a background, and the breasts are emphasized. And you are totally relaxing in them, moving in them. Then your creativity will arise. The feminine creativity arises only when the breasts become active. Merge into them and you will feel creativity arising.

What does it mean when creativity arises? You will have many visions around you. Buddha and Mahavir have said in their past lives that when they are born their mothers will see certain visions, certain dreams. Because of those dreams, it could be predicted that a Buddha was going to be born. Sixteen visions would follow each other.

I have been experimenting with this. If a woman really melts into her breasts, certain visions will follow in a certain sequence. She will start seeing certain things. To different women there will be different sequences, but I will tell you a few. One, there will be figures, human figures, and if the woman is going to give birth to a child, then the figure of the child will appear. If total melting has happened in the breasts then the woman can see what type of child is going to be born to her. The figure will appear, and then it will be more clear. If she is not going to be a mother soon or she is not pregnant, then very unknown scents, perfumes will happen around her. The breasts can become sources of very delicate perfumes which are not of this world, which cannot be created chemically; sounds, harmonious sounds will be heard; all the realms of creativity can appear in new and many configurations. All that has happened to great painters and poets will happen to the woman if she can melt into her breasts.

And this will be so real that it will change her total personality -- she will become different. And if she goes on with these visions, by and by they will drop, and a moment will come when nothingness, void, emptiness will happen -- SHUNYATA will happen. This SHUNYATA is the highest of meditations.

So remember this: if you are a woman, don't concentrate on the third eye. It will be better for you to concentrate near the breasts -- on the breasts, right on the two nipples of the breasts. Concentrate there. And the second thing: don't concentrate on one breast -- concentrate on both simultaneously. If you concentrate on one, your body will immediately be disturbed. Even paralysis is possible if you concentrate on only one. So just concentrate on both simultaneously, melt into them and allow whatsoever happens to happen. Just go on watching and don't get attached to any rhythm because the rhythms will be very beautiful, just heavenly. Don't get attached. Go on watching them and be a witness. A moment will come when they will start disappearing -- and when SHUNYATA, nothingness, happens, when just space, just space remains and the breasts have disappeared, then you are under the Bodhi tree.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #28

Chapter title: If you get serious you lose the point

28 July 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7307285

ShortTitle: VBT228

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 88 mins

The first question:

Question 1

IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT NO DESIRE, NEITHER WORLDLY NOR RELIGIOUS, CAN LEAD TOWARDS FREEDOM. BUT A POSITIVE IMAGINATION OF HAPPINESS AND BLISS IS ALSO A SORT OF DESIRE. THEN ISN'T IT TRUE THAT IMAGINATION IS ALSO DESIRE AND HENCE CREATES TENSIONS?

Imagination is not desire. Imagination is just a play.

Desire is a totally different thing. You can base your imagination on desire, you can project your imagination through desire -- then it will be a bondage. If you simply play with imagination without any desire -- not to reach anywhere, not to get anything out of it, but just as a game, then it is not desire and not binding. These techniques of imagination can be helpful only if you are playing with them. If you get serious, you lose the point.

But the question is relevant because, really, you cannot conceive of anything which you can do without desire. Even if you are playing, you can play only to reach somewhere, to get something, to win. If there is nothing in the future, you will lose interest. You will say, "Then why? Then why play at all?"

We are so end-oriented that we turn everything into a means. This must be remembered: meditation is the ultimate play, it is not a means to something, it is not a means to enlightenment. Enlightenment happens in it, but it is not a means to it. It is not a means to ultimate freedom. Ultimate freedom happens in it, but it is not a means to it. You cannot use it as a cause to effect something. This has been one of the most puzzling things -- all through the centuries, those who have known go on insisting on meditation for meditation's sake. Don't desire anything out of it, enjoy it in itself, don't move out of it -- and the consequence will be enlightenment. Remember, consequence -- not effect. Meditation is not a cause, but if you are deep in meditation, enlightenment happens. Really, being deep in the play is enlightenment.

But the mind always turns everything into work. It says, "Do something because this will be the profit from it." Imaginary or real, the mind needs something to hang onto, to project onto. Only then can it devote itself. That is how mind functions -- it functions in the present for the future. The future may be illusory, it may not ever happen, but if the mind can hope for the future then it can work. This is what is called desire: working in the present for the future. The end is always somewhere else; the means are here but the end is somewhere else. This division of end and means, this gap, is desire. If you are playing, there is no desire because the end is here and the means are also here. While playing there is no future; you are simply merged so much in it that the future disappears.

Look at children playing. Look at their faces, at their eyes. Now they are in eternity. They are happy because they are playing. Happiness will not result in an end, it is here right now. Moment to moment they are happy -- not that something great is going to happen later on -- it is happening already. They are in eternity. But their minds are still not developed. We will force them to develop because this play will not be of much help in the world. They will have to learn work. They will have to divide means and end. They will have to create a gap between this moment and the future, and we will teach them to sacrifice the present for the future. This is the way of the world, the way of the market, the way of desire. Desire makes everything utilitarian.

In meditation you will become a child again, playing, with no idea of the future, enjoying this very moment, enjoying the very act in itself, intrinsically. Then imagination is not desire. Then you can play with it, and it is one of the most beautiful things possible. And this playing, this being in the moment, totally absorbed, is enlightenment. The moment it happens you are transformed.

So enlightenment is never in the future, it is always in the present; and it is not a work to be done, it is a game to be played.

That is the meaning of the Indian concept of LEELA. God is playing; he is not engaged in work. This world is not utilitarian, it is just a play of energy. Energy enjoys itself playing; it divides itself and then plays the game of hide and seek. So, really, Indian seers have never said that God is the creator, they say that God is the player -- because the very word `creation' carries much seriousness about it, as if there is some end and something has to be achieved. God creating the world? This is absurd. Because it means that something is lacking, so God is creating the world to achieve something. Or it means that there is a future, so God also lives in desire.

Jains and Buddhists could not understand the Hindu concept of LEELA, so they completely denied God. Because if God creates the world, then he desires -- so Jains and Buddhists say that if God desires, then God is part of the world. He himself is not free, he himself is not liberated. So they completely denied the concept of God because they say that God means one who is beyond desire. And they say that Mahavir is a God, he is beyond desire, but Brahma is not a God because he creates the world, he desires the world. They couldn't follow the concept of LEELA.

The concept of LEELA is totally different from the concept of creation. God is just playing and you cannot ask "Why?" because a play has no "Why?" to answer. If children are playing can you ask, "Why are you playing?" They will say, "We are playing, so we are playing." Playing is good in itself -- the energy is moving, abundant energy is overflowing.

The more you grow the less you play. Why? Because now your energy is not so overflowing. Now you have become economical. Now you know that you have a certain amount of energy and you have to channel that energy for work, to achieve something. Children are just overflowing. Their energy is so much that they have to play. The play is just overflowing energy, too much energy moving. Then they enjoy the very moment. A child is jumping, running, but not to reach some goal. Running itself is a beautiful experience of vital energy, an experience of vitality, an experience of being alive, of overflowing so abundantly that you can throw out the energy without any economical mind behind it.

God means absolute energy, infinite energy. God cannot be economical. He has so much, so infinitely much, that he can only play. And this play goes on and on, there is no end to it. There cannot be because the energy is infinite. And you cannot ask "Why?" Energy moves, there is no "Why?" to it. If God created the world you can ask, "Why? Why have you created the world?" But if he is simply playing you cannot ask "Why?"

When you also become a player, you become Divine. If you are a worker you are human; if you are a player you have become Divine. Then you share in the game. That's why we have called Krishna the absolute AVATAR. We have not called Ram the absolute AVATAR, we call him a partial AVATAR -- a partial coming of the Divine to the world. But Krishna we call an absolute coming. The difference is that Ram is serious. He is still utilitarian, end-oriented: this is right and that is wrong. Only in work do right and wrong exist: this should be done and that should not be done, this is good and that is bad. For Krishna everything has become a play so everything is arbitrary -- just rules of the game.

If you follow the rules, and if you follow them knowing that this is a game and that the rules have to be followed, it is good. If you don't follow, nothing is wrong; really, you are playing the reverse game of not following. If you obey, you follow the game of obedience; if you don't obey, you follow the game of disobedience, the game of rebelliousness. But nothing is wrong. What you want to play is your choice. And if you are not serious and are happy whatsoever you do, you are enlightened.

There are rules because a game has to be played with others. If you are playing alone there is no question of rules; then you can change your rules any moment you like. But because you are playing with others, rules have to be followed so that you can play with them. There isn't any other reason behind it. Morality is a rule, love is a rule, society is just a rule -- agreed-upon rules that we are going to play a game so we will agree. If you don't want to play the game then you can be rebellious, but don't be serious about it. Then play the game of being rebellious. And if someone kills you, murders you, or crucifies you, you know that you were playing the game of a rebellious leader, so you have been killed. There is no condemnation. You were not with the established rules, so the established rules were against you -- it is okay. Then nothing is wrong, and you don't have to complain.

Once you become aware that the concept of work, utility, reaching somewhere, the goal, is the bondage, it doesn't mean that you stop playing the dame in the market -- you go on playing. But you know that this is a game. It doesn't mean that you divorce your wife -- you go on playing the game of marriage. But know well that this is a game. Don't get serious about it. And if you want to play the game of divorce, you can play it, but remember, don't get serious about it. Divorce or marriage -- these are alternative games; being a worldly man or becoming a sannyasin -- these are alternative games. But don't be serious about it. Be light-hearted, festive. And whatsoever you choose, you can play; and whatsoever consequences follow, you will welcome them because there is nothing serious about them.

Once this deepens in your consciousness -- and it will deepen if you start playing with meditation -- it will be a good beginning. Because in meditation you alone are the player. That's why it can be a good beginning, the right beginning. You are alone playing the game so you can forget society and society will not come to interfere. This is a solo game, meditation, a solo game. You play alone.

So whatsoever you want to play you can play, but forget the ends. If there are ends you have also turned meditation into a work. Just play it, enjoy it, love it. It is beautiful in itself. There is no need for any other end to beautify it.

People come to me and they say, "We are enjoying meditation, but tell us what is going to happen. What will be the end result?" I tell them, "This IS the end result -- that you are enjoying. Enjoy it more!" But they go on insisting, "Tell us something about it. What will be the end result? Where will we reach to?" They are not concerned at all where they are: they are always concerned with where they will reach to. The mind cannot exist in the present so it goes on giving you excuses to move into the future. These excuses are the desires. So if you desire to be a god, to be a buddha, your meditation will be a sort of desire, and then it is not meditation. If you don't desire anything, you just enjoy being here, you just celebrate being alive, you enjoy the inner energy playing in imagination, in visions, in emptiness, whatsoever you choose, and you are totally one with this moment of enjoyment, then it is meditation. Then there is no desire, and, with no desire, the world drops. With a non-desiring, playful mind you have entered. You are already in it.

But this has to be hammered into your mind again and again because your mind is a transformer. It transforms anything into a desire -- anything -- it can transform even non-desire into a desire. People come to me and they say, "How does one achieve the state of non-desire?" How to achieve the state of non-desire? Now this has become the desire. Your mind has a transforming mechanism: whatsoever you put in will come out as a desire.

Be alert of this and enjoy moments so much that no energy is left to move into the future. Then, any day, any moment, it will happen to you that suddenly all the darkness falls; suddenly all that is a burden disappears; suddenly you are freed. But the emphasis should be more and more on play, the present, here and now -- and less and less on the future.

The second question:

Question 2

YESTERDAY, YOU SAID THAT MIND IS REALITY, DREAM IS REALITY. THEN WHY DO GURUS LIKE YOU TAKE THE TROUBLE TO TEACH US THAT MIND IS THE ONLY BARRIER, MIND IS THE ONLY OBSTACLE?

Gurus and disciples are mind phenomena. Because your mind needs gurus, there are gurus. You create them. Because you want to be taught, there are teachers. You need them.

This is a game. When I say marriage is a game, don't think that I would not say that `guru and disciples' is not a game. It is a game. Some people enjoy it, so they play it. If you enjoy it, play it deeply; if you don't enjoy it, forget it. But this is one of the most beautiful of games. It goes even deeper than marriage.

It is one of the most beautiful, most refined of games -- and only when a culture reaches the peak does this dame develop, never before. So, really, only in India has the game developed. The game of the guru and the disciple came into being here. Now the West is discovering it for the first time because now the West is reaching to a peak. This game is the most luxurious. It is not ordinary, so only people who can afford it can play it. And if you know that this is a beautiful game and you enjoy it, you can play it. But don't get serious about it. And disciples can be forgiven if they are serious, but when teachers are serious it is absurd. It cannot be forgiven if they are not even aware that this is a game.

In reality all games disappear, but for the mind, games exist. By this I am not saying that you should stop playing, I am only saying that you should become aware that this is a play and then if you enjoy it go on playing it. If you don't enjoy it, then stop. Once you become aware that everything in life, every relationship, is a sort of game, you are already free, because you are in bondage only because of the seriousness. You are in bondage because you think everything is so serious. Nothing is so serious. But it is difficult to conceive of this whole life as a game.

Why is it so difficult? Because then the ego falls flat. If everything is a game, the ego cannot stand. The ego needs food. Seriousness is the food. It feeds on it. So when you become a disciple, if you are just playing, your ego cannot get strong through it because you know that this is a play.

What is there to be so egoistic about? People start thinking that they are disciples of a very great guru. The guru may not be great or he may be great, that is not the point -- but the disciple thinks, "I am the disciple of the greatest guru." That becomes a vitamin and the ego grows on it, becomes stronger.

That's why disciples go on fighting about gurus. No one can believe that his guru is number two, he is always number one. And it is not about whether he is number one or not -- that is not the point -- it is because you can be number one only if your guru is number one. The ego of the disciple depends on the height of the guru. If someone says something against your guru, why do you feel so hurt? Your ego is hurt. YOUR guru means YOUR ego, embodied, and if someone says something against your guru, you cannot tolerate it. It is impossible because it is a direct hit at your ego.

But for disciples it can be tolerated. They are ignorant and whatsoever they do, they will do wrongly. That is agreed upon. But so-called gurus are also playing the game very seriously. They cannot laugh; it is impossible for them to laugh about the whole game. A guru is really a guru when he knows that the whole thing is a game and that in the game he is helping to make you more aware. And a moment will come when you will also laugh, a moment will come when you will be able to look back -- and then you will feel very grateful because for you it was so serious and for the guru it was never anything. But he was playing the game so seriously with you and making every effort -- as if he was leading you somewhere.

Remember, it is `as if' because there is nowhere to lead you to. You have to be here. So all the efforts which appear to be leading you somewhere are just devices. You cannot be led anywhere. You are already at home, you have never left it. You are rooted in the reality, in the truth. So all these games of leading, guidance, guru-dom, are to bring you to situations where you will find everything that you wanted to find already there.

But you cannot understand non-seriousness. The ego doesn't know that language. Every religion is born as a play, and every religion becomes a church, very serious, deadly serious. Every religion is born as a dance, as a song, as a festivity, and then everything goes dead and serious. Religion cannot be serious really. It must be ecstatic. It must be the highest peak of bliss. How can it be serious?

Christians go on thinking and believing that Jesus never laughed. Look at Krishna -- you cannot find any common ground between them. Not that Jesus was like that, but Christians have made him serious because only around a serious Jesus is a serious church possible. And then the whole game of popes -- so serious, so burdened. Jesus must have been a very light-hearted man, laughing, enjoying, eating, drinking, dancing. He must have loved life very deeply.

That was the sin. That was the reason why he was crucified. Those who crucified him were very serious. They were the old established church. Really, they did not crucify Jesus -- they crucified the festivity of him. And there would have been no Christianity if he had not been crucified, because he was a very joyous man. The moment Jews crucified him the whole thing became very serious. Death became the point. And the figure on the cross is of course very serious -- dead. And Christianity arose around the dead body and the cross. The cross became the symbol -- not Jesus laughing in a village, drinking at a party, eating with friends, or staying in a prostitute's home. No, they were not to become the symbols. The cross became the symbol, and with the cross, seriousness -- dead seriousness. And because of that cross and the crucified Jesus, Christianity went against life. All that is alive became sin.

And every religion goes on doing this in its own way.

Those who are very sophisticated will not do it in this way, they will do it in another way. We have not transformed Krishna -- India is a very sophisticated land, it will not do such a thing -- but we have never taken him to our heart. He is just a myth, beautiful.

The Gita became more important than Bhagvad. Krishna's life is not so important for Hindus, but his message delivered on the war field is very important. Why? Because it is a serious thing. A war field is nearer to death than to life. Krishna's life is very much alive, but that has become a myth and nobody bothers about it. His few words uttered on the war field have become more important than his whole life. And then there are pundits who go on explaining that his life is just symbolic, it is not real. His playing with the GOPIS is not real -- GOPIS are just symbols of senses, not real. They are not real women of bone and flesh, no. GOPIS are not women, they are symbolic. And pundits are very efficient in doing such tricks. They say that Krishna is the soul and the GOPIS are the senses of the body -- the senses are dancing around the soul. This is a sophisticated country. They kill Krishna, they crucify Krishna, but in a very sophisticated way. His festivity is killed; it becomes symbolic, meaningless. And his whole real life is pushed aside.

He was dancing with real women, but that is shocking because we cannot conceive of Krishna dancing with real women. We can allow him to dance with symbolic women but not with real women. We will be shocked. Life shocks us. We have become so dead that anything alive shocks us.

Every religion is born in festivity -- and when the festivity dies know well that the religion is dead. Whenever a new religion is born, all the old religions will be against it because again the festivity will be there. Just as when a child is born -- every child is born as a player, festive, alive, celebrating, irresponsibly celebrating, not believing in the future, believing in the here and now -- the whole society will be against him; the whole society will try to put him right before he goes astray. He must be put on the right track.

The same happens with every new religion. So when I talk of meditation as a dance, or when I talk about SANNYAS as an inner celebration and happiness, an affirmation of life, of course all those who belong to old traditions will say, "You call this SANNYAS?" And in a way they are right because whatsoever they have been believing that SANNYAS is, is not this. They have been believing in dead men -- the more dead, the more they say, "Now this is real renunciation." When life has been renounced, they call it SANNYAS -- but I call it SANNYAS when life is being lived in its totality.

But this is how it will be always. When I am no more, you will turn it into a serious thing. You will give explanations of what the real meaning is. But the real meaning is always obvious, there is no need to give any explanation. All explanations are to explain away -- to bring in something which was not there.

Gurus, disciples, awakened ones and ignorant ones... this is a great play, a cosmic play. Ignorant ones need awakened ones; awakened ones cannot play solo, alone -- they need ignorant ones. But the master knows that this is a play and is not serious about it.

The third question:

Question 3

YOU SAID LAST NIGHT THAT A CHANGE IN THE OUTER OR INNER AND PHYSICAL OR MENTAL ASPECTS CAN BRING A CHANGE IN CONSCIOUSNESS. THAT MEANS THAT CHANGES ON THE PERIPHERY ALSO AFFECT THE CONSCIOUSNESS, THE CENTER. BUT THEN WHY DO YOU EMPHASIZE CHANGING THE CENTER, INSTEAD OF CHANGING THE OUTER, THE PERIPHERY?

This is the trouble: you go on catching the words and missing the meaning.

The periphery also belongs to you; it is part of the center. The periphery is part of the center, it is the outer part of the center, but it is not different from the center. Can you create a periphery without the center? Or can you create a center without the periphery? They are not separate, they are one. The periphery is the center looked at from without. If you change your periphery, the center will also be affected for two reasons: firstly, the periphery is part of the center, and secondly, what will change the periphery but the center? What will change the periphery? The center will change the periphery.

But my emphasis on starting the work from the center is still there because if you start changing the periphery it will take a longer time to reach to the center. That which can be done in a single moment may take many lives, because you have to travel from the periphery to the center -- backwards from the superficial to the depth. If you start work from the center, the periphery automatically changes. When the center is different, the periphery will follow it because the periphery cannot go away from you. For example, I will not tell you to try to be non-violent at the periphery -- it is an unnecessary wastage of time and effort. Be non-violent at the heart, be compassionate, loving, at the heart -- and the periphery will follow. You can forget it completely because whatsoever happens at the periphery comes from the center, so if at the center you are compassionate, the periphery will follow. And this compassion will be totally different because the periphery will not know that this is compassion; the periphery will not feel elated that this is compassion; the periphery will be blissfully unaware -- the compassion will follow you like a shadow. This is the easiest course.

What I mean is this: if you want to change a tree, change the roots. Of course, the leaves of the tree are also the tree, and you can also try to change the leaves. If you change the leaves the roots will be affected but it is going to be a very long process because the flow is from the roots to the leaves, the flow is not from the leaves to the roots. You are following a reverse direction from that of nature. If you go on changing the leaves, after many, many lives you may affect the pattern of the roots, but this is going to be unnecessarily long. You can do it immediately if you change the pattern at the roots. The leaves will change and will become different.

So when I emphasize the center, I don't mean that the periphery is separate from the center. And when I emphasize the center, I don't mean that you cannot affect the center from the periphery -- you can, but this is the longest route possible. If you choose to travel the long route it is up to you. Nothing is wrong in it. If you enjoy the journey, then the long route is good. If you just want to see the side views then the long route is good. Otherwise start from the center.

It is like this: we are sitting here and you are listening to me, so a center is created in this room -- you become the periphery, I become the center. A group soul exists. You are centered towards me. If someone wants to affect this room and this group soul, it is better to start from me than from you. Because if I change my mind, effects will come soon, but if someone starts from you, it is going to be a very long effort. Because for one thing, you are many and first he has to change you one by one, and then he must try to change me through you. This is going to be very long, and it may not succeed ever. The other is easier. If he changes me and if you are attached to me as the center, immediately there will be effects.

In your body, in your being, the same phenomenon is happening. There is the center and there is the periphery of your life. With a direct hit at the center the periphery will follow -- it has to follow, there is no other way to go. Changing the periphery is a piecemeal affair: you change one fragment and ninety-nine other fragments remain as the old; then when you move to another fragment, those ninety-nine others will change the one you tried to change -- they will make it again the old. The whole pattern will be against it. I can change one habit -- much effort will be needed -- but not your whole pattern because your center goes on giving you all the old habits. I have changed only one habit and there are thousands of habits. This changed habit is just from the surface, forced. The moment you become unaware, all the other habits and the pattern will change it again into the old. So much effort is wasted working on the periphery.

I have seen people who have been working their whole life for ordinary things. For example, someone has been trying for his whole life to stop smoking -- this has been the whole aim, the only aim, and he has not achieved it. I tell such a person that even if you achieve it, what is achieved? The while life is lost just in trying to stop smoking. It is not worth it. When you reach to the Divine source, to God, you will only be able to say that you have stopped smoking. This won't be worth telling. And the whole life has been spent trying to stop smoking and even that has not been achieved. This is piecemeal work. And the problem is not smoking: you are fighting against a current by changing a small wave -- and the whole river goes on flowing. If you change a wave, the whole river will change the wave back again into itself, because the pattern, the built-in pattern, goes on being flashed from the center to the periphery. It is a built-in program: whatsoever is happening on the periphery has happened already in the center. That's why it is happening there. The periphery comes to know about things which have been happening very deeply.

Move to the cause and don't be too much concerned with the effect.

This is scientific. Change the center. Don't try to stop smoking, don't try to stop this and that -- follow the deepest pattern. Why is smoking there? Why is this obsession with sex there? Why is this obsession with money there? Why are you a miser? Why do you go on clinging to dead money? You can donate it -- it will not make any difference. Donating will not help, you will again gather. And donating in itself will be an investment for the future, it will be part of your bank balance. You cannot donate just in play, can you? You can donate very seriously when it is said that the donation will lead you to heaven. Then you can donate. To me a donator who is giving his money for some future end in paradise is more clinging to his money than a person who can throw away all his fortune in a game of cards. This person is less greedy. He can play with it, and his achievement is deeper. He may look immoral because morality is created by the donators. They will say, "You are wasting money." They never waste money; they always invest it. And this man is mad, immoral, wasting money. But this man is less greedy, and this man can move deeper more easily than the greedy man who is donating for some paradise or something.

You can change outer things, but even the change will deep down have the same pattern. The pattern has to be uprooted and transformed. That's why I emphasize starting from the center. But don't think that I mean that if you cannot start from the center, don't start from the periphery. That is not what I mean. If you can't start from the center, please start from the periphery. Something is better than nothing. It will take much time, or you may not ever be able to do it, but still the very effort will be good.

I am reminded of an incident. In a waiting room of an airport, a young woman was crying steadily. Everyone around was aware of it, but no one know what to do. Then one fellow took courage. He came near the woman, tried to console her, said some soothing things, put his arm around her, and asked, "What can I do? Is there anything I can do to help you to stop crying?" But she was not listening. She continued crying, so he squeezed her a little more tightly and then again asked, "Is there anything I can do to stop you from crying?" The woman said at last, "I am afraid not. This is hayfever, but, still, please, keep on trying."

That's what I say to you. From the periphery it is difficult because it is like hayfever. It is almost impossible, but please, keep on trying. Something may happen. Who knows?

But if you are really interested, start from the center.

The fourth question:

Question 4

WHY SHOULD THERE BE A DIFFERENCE IN TECHNIQUES FOR MEN AND WOMEN?

Because they are different. They are as different as possible. They are polar opposites. Really, the more relevant question would be this: Why should there be similar techniques?

There are techniques which are being used by both men and women, not because they are suited to women, but really because special techniques were never developed for them. They have been a neglected part of humanity. All the techniques were developed by men. Basically man was experimenting with himself: he knew about his energy pattern, his routes of energy, his passages of energy. He worked on these. And then he was talking to other men -- so techniques were developed by men for men. Women were never considered.

Women cannot enter a Mohammedan mosque. They are not to be a part of Islam really: the mosque exists only for men. For many years Buddha insistently denied women initiation. Mahavir initiated many women, he never denied them initiation, but no techniques were developed for them. All the techniques were for men. Women worked through them. That's why the results were never so miraculous, never; they were always so-so, bound to be. Really, there is no need for three hundred religions in the world, there is only need for two religions: one for men and one for women. And those two religions need not be in conflict, they can be married together. They will become one. There is no need of any conflict. If a man and a woman can fall in love and live together as a single unit, those two religions can fall in love -- they should.

The whole physiology, the whole psychology, every layer of the feminine consciousness is different from man's -- not only different, just the opposite. For example, kundalini yoga... it is not for women at all. But many will be shocked if I say that. And women particularly will be shocked. They will think that something has been taken out of their hands. It is not for them at all because kundalini is based on the positive sex center for man. The positive sex center is at the root of the penis -- for men not for women. For women that center is negative, and energy cannot be raised from a negative center. So almost always it is the case -- this is my observation -- that whenever women say they are feeling kundalini arising in the, they are imagining. It cannot happen but they are very imaginary, more imaginary than men. So if I work with ten women and ten men, nine women will feel the energy arising and only one man will feel the energy arising. This is miraculous because it cannot happen! They go on coming to me and I say, "Okay, it is happening." What to do? It is impossible, scientifically impossible, because energy can come only from a positive pole.

Totally different techniques should be developed, totally different techniques -- but because man and woman live so near, so close together, they go on forgetting that they are different. Nothing is similar, and it is good that nothing is similar, because that's why they can become one circle of energy. They are complementary, they fit into each other. But because they fit that doesn't mean that they are similar -- they fit because they are not similar.

And whenever two similar types of bodies and minds try to fit into each other, this is perversion. So I say that homosexuality is a perversion. In the West, now, it has become more and more prevalent. Now homosexuals think they are progressive: they have their clubs, parties, institutions, magazines, propaganda, everything. And their number is rising. In certain countries it has come to near about forty per cent. Sooner or later homosexuality will become a pattern all over, a normal pattern. Now even certain states in America are allowing homosexual marriage. If people insist, you have to allow it because the government has to serve the people. If two men want to live together in marriage, it is no one's business to create obstacles. It's okay. If two women want to live together, married, it's no one's business. It's their own affair. But this is basically unscientific. It is their affair, but unscientific. It is their affair and no one needs to interfere, but their minds are unenlightened about the very basic pattern of human energy and its movement. Homosexuals cannot develop spirituality. It is very difficult. Their whole pattern of energy movement is disturbed. The whole mechanism is shocked, perverted. And now if homosexuality grows too much in the world, very different techniques will have to be developed, unknown before, to help them to move towards meditation.

When I say a man and woman are two counterparts of one whole, I mean they are complementary. And the complementariness is possible only when their opposite poles meet. Look at it in this way: the vagina is the negative pole in the feminine body and the breasts are the positive pole. This is the rod of magnetism: the positive pole near the breasts, the negative pole near the vagina. For man the negative pole is at the breasts, and the positive pole is at the penis. So when breasts meet -- male and female -- negative and positive are meeting; and when sex centers meet in coitus, negative and positive are meeting. Now both magnetic rods are meeting at their opposite poles, now there is a circle -- the energy can flow, the energy can move. But this circle will happen only when a man and woman are in love. If they are not in love, then only their sex centers will meet -- one positive pole will meet with one negative pole. There will be an exchange of energy, but linear. A circle cannot be made. That's why without love you never feel satisfied.

Sex without love becomes just a trifle. It is not deep moving. Energy moves, but in a line -- a circle is not made. And when a circle is there you become one, not before. When you are deep in love, then breasts also meet, never before. So the sex act is very easy, the love act is more complex. The sex act is just physical -- two energies meeting and dissipating. Hence, if there is only sex, sooner or later you will feel frustrated: you waste energy and nothing is gained. The gain happens only when there is a circle. If the circle is totally there, then both the partners will come out of the sex act more energetic, more alive, more charged, with more energy flowing. If there is only the sex act, both partners will come out of it discharged, faint. They have lost energy. Sleep will follow because all they are feeling is weak.

In this `one pole meeting', men are at more of a loss than women. That's why women can become prostitutes -- because the positive pole is man and the negative pole is woman. Energy flows from man to woman but not vice versa. So a woman can be in twenty or thirty sex acts in one night, a man cannot. A man cannot be in two. It depends on age, how his energy is moving -- because nothing is gained. So to me, if prostitution is bad it is not because of prostitution, it is because a circle is impossible. You are not charged. You simply waste your energy. If there is love, then man and woman meet on two poles. Man gives to the woman and the woman returns it back. This is reciprocal, mutual.

For females, meditation will be good if it starts from the breasts. That is their positive pole. Because of this, many strange things become possible, happen. Man always likes to enter the woman immediately. He is not interested in foreplay because his positive pole is always ready. And women are always reluctant to enter into the sex act immediately, without any foreplay, because their negative pole is not ready. And it cannot be ready. Unless the man starts loving the woman from the breasts, the negative pole will not be ready. They can yield but they will not participate. And man thinks the sex act is simple. Why waste time? Enter the woman immediately -- and he is finished within minutes. But the woman was not a part, she was not aroused. That's why women have a hankering that their lovers should touch their breasts, love their breasts -- a deep hankering. Only when their breasts have become filled with energy does their second pole of the magnetic rod, which is negative, respond. Then they are alive to it, then they can participate, then communication is possible -- and then they will melt. Foreplay is a must.

Marriages become dry because in the beginning when you meet a new woman you play with her body before. You are not certain whether she will allow you a direct approach, so you play. You just feel the ground to see whether she is ready. But when she is your wife, you take her for granted -- there is no need. Wives are so dissatisfied with their husbands, not because their husbands are not loving but because they are wrongly loving. They don't think that a woman exists in a different way; that her body responds in a different way just opposite to them.

This concentration at the breasts, melting into them, will give a new feeling to the female meditator -- a new feeling about her own body, because now from the center she can feel the whole body vibrating. Just by loving the breasts of a woman she can be brought to a deep orgasm because the negative pole will automatically go on responding.

There are many other things. If you start from the breasts, meditating on the nipples, don't follow the route that you have read in books because that is meant for men. Simply don't follow any chart, just allow the energy itself to move. It will happen in this way: with just a vague suggestion your breasts will become filled with energy, they will radiate energy, they will become hot, and then immediately your vagina will respond. And only after your vagina responds and vibrates, will your kundalini start working. The route will be different and the way the kundalini will arise will be different.

In man it arises very actively, forcibly. That's why they have called it a serpent rising. Very forcibly, suddenly, with a jerk, the serpent unfolds. And it is felt on many points. Those points are called chakras. Wherever there is resistance, the snake forces itself. Just as the penis enters the vagina, so the passage is similar for man. When the energy arises it is as if the penis inside is moving.

And the snake is a phallic symbol. Really, not to use direct language, not to call it penis, they have called it a snake. You must have heard the story of the Garden of Eden where the serpent persuaded Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Now scholars are working and they say that this serpent is also just a phallic symbol, used so as not to say it directly. So it is not a question, really, of eating the Fruit of Knowledge; it is a question of sexuality.

The same symbol has been used similarly in India: the serpent rises just like a penis erecting in jerks, and moving inwards.

This will not be the feeling for woman. The feeling will be quite the opposite. As a woman feels when the penis has entered the vagina -- the melting sensation, the welcoming, the vagina giving way, vibrating very, very delicately, in a very receptive mood, loving, welcoming -- the same will be the phenomenon inside. When the energy rises, it will be a receptive, passive rise, as if a passage is opening -- not a serpent rising, but a door opening, and a passage opening, and something giving way. It will be passive and negative. With men something is entering; with women something is opening, not entering.

But no one has worked on it, never before, because no one has taken any cognisance of women. But for the future, I think that now it is a must -- the feminine body should not be neglected. Much research and work is needed, but it is very difficult to work because of so much puritanical, moralistic nonsense. It is very difficult to work and to create a map of how the feminine body will respond to the phenomena.

But this is how I feel it will be; everything will be just the opposite. It must be so. It cannot be similar. But the ultimate thing will be the same.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #29

Chapter title: You are unknown to yourself

29 July 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7307295

ShortTitle: VBT229

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 93 mins

ABIDE IN SOME PLACE ENDLESSLY SPACIOUS, CLEAR OF TREES, HILLS, HABITATIONS. THENCE COMES THE END OF MIND PRESSURES.

CONSIDER THE PLENUM TO BE YOUR OWN BODY OF BLISS.

Man is born alone and dies alone, but between these two points he lives in society, he lives with others.

Aloneness is his basic reality; society is just accidental. And unless man can live alone, can know his aloneness in its total depth, he cannot be acquainted with himself. All that happens in society is just outer: it is not you, it is just your relations with others. You remain unknown. From the outside you cannot be revealed.

But we live with others. Because of this, self-knowledge is completely forgotten. You know something about yourself, but indirectly -- it is said to you by others. It is strange, absurd, that others should tell you about yourself. Whatsoever identity you carry is given to you by others; it is not real, it is just a labelling. A name is given to you. That name is given as a label because it will be difficult for society to be related to a nameless person. Not only is the name given, the very image that you think yourself to be is given by society: that you are good, that you are bad, that you are beautiful, that you are intelligent, that you are moral, a saint, or whatsoever. The image, the form, is also given by society, and you don't know what you are. Neither your name reveals anything, nor the form that society has given to you. You remain unknown to yourself.

This is the basic anxiety. You are there, but you are unknown to yourself. This lack of knowledge about oneself is the ignorance, and this ignorance cannot be destroyed by any knowledge which others can give to you. They can say to you that you are not this name, you are not this form, you are `soul eternal', but that too, is given by others, that too is not immediate. Unless you come to yourself directly, you will remain in ignorance. And ignorance creates anxiety. You are not only afraid of others, you are afraid of yourself -- because you don't know who you are and what is hidden in you. What is possible, what will erupt out of you the next moment, you don't know. You go on trembling and life becomes a deep anxiety. There are many problems which create anxiety, but those problems are secondary. If you penetrate deeply, then every problem will ultimately reveal that the basic anxiety, the basic anguish, is that you are ignorant of yourself -- of the source from where you come, of the end to where you are moving, of the being whom you are right now.

Hence every religion says to move into solitude, into aloneness, so that you can for a time leave society and all that society has given to you, and face yourself directly.

Mahavir lived for twelve years alone in the forest. He would not speak during those days, because the moment you speak you have moved into society. Language is society. He remained completely silent, he would not speak. The basic bridge had been cut so that he would be alone. When you don't speak you are alone, deeply alone. There is no way to move to the other. For twelve long years he lived alone without speaking. What was he doing? He was trying to find out who he was. It is better to put away all labels, it is better to move away from others so that there is no need for the social image. He was destroying the social image. He was throwing away all the garbage that society had given; he was trying to be totally naked, without any name, without any form. That;s what Mahavir;s nakedness means. It was not just throwing away the clothes. It was deeper. It was the nudity of being totally alone. You also use clothes for society: they are to hide your body, or they are to cover you in the eyes of others, because society doesn't approve of your whole body. So whatsoever society doesn't approve of, you have to hide. Only particular parts of the body are allowed to be in the open. The society chooses you in parts. Your totality is not approved of, not accepted.

The same is happening with the mind -- not only with the body. Your face is approved of, your hands are approved of, but your whole body is not approved of, particularly the parts of the body that can give any hint of sex. They are disapproved of, not accepted. Hence the importance of clothes. And this is happening with the mind also: your total mind is not accepted, only parts of it. So you have to hide the mind and suppress it. You cannot open your mind. You cannot open your mind to your deepest friend because he will judge. He will say, "This is what you think? This is what goes on in your mind?" So you have to give him only that which can be accepted -- a very minute part -- and all else that is in you has to be hidden completely. That hidden part creates many diseases. The whole psychoanalysis of Freud consists only of bringing the hidden part out. It takes years before the person is healed. But the psychoanalyst is not doing anything, he is simply bringing the suppressed part out. Just to bring it out becomes a healing force.

What does it mean? It means the suppression is the illness. It is a burden, a heavy burden. You wanted to confess to someone; you wanted to tell, to express; you wanted someone to accept you in totality. That is what love means -- you will not be rejected. Whatsoever you are -- good, bad, saint, sinner -- someone will accept you in your totalness, he will not reject any part of you. That;s why love is the greatest healing force, it is the oldest psychoanalysis. Whenever you love a person you are open to him, and just by being open, your cut, divided parts are brought together. You become one.

But even love has become impossible. Even with your wife you cannot tell the truth. Even with your lover you cannot be totally authentic, because even his or her eyes are judging. He or she also wants an image to be followed, an ideal -- your reality is not important, the ideal is important. You know that if you express your totality you will be rejected, you will not be loved. You are afraid, and because of this fear love becomes impossible. Psychoanalysis brings the hidden part out, but the psychoanalyst is not doing anything, he is simply sitting there listening to you. No one has listened to you it seems. That is why you now need professional help. No one is ready to listen to you. No one has the time. No one has much interest in you. So professional help has come into being -- you are paying someone to listen. And then year in, year out, he will listen to you every day, or twice a week, or thrice a week, and you will be healed. This is miraculous! Why should you be healed just by listening? It is because someone pays attention to you without any judgement and you can tell anything that is in you. And just by telling, it comes up and becomes a part of the conscious. When you cut off something, deny something, prohibit something, suppress something, you are creating a division between the conscious and the unconscious, the accepted and the rejected. This division has to be thrown.

Mahavir moved into aloneness so that he could be as he was with no fear of anybody. Because he didn't have to show a face to anybody he could throw away all the masks, all the faces. Then he could be alone, totally naked, as he is under the stars, by the river and in the forest. No one would judge him and no one would say, :You are not allowed to be like this. You should behave. You should be like this." Leaving society means leaving the situation where suppression has become inevitable. So nudity means to be as one is, with no barriers, no withholding. Mahavir moved into silence, into loneliness, and he said, "Unless I find myself -- not the self that others have given to me, that is false, but the self that I am born with -- I will not return to society. Unless I know who I am I will not return to society. Unless I have come directly face to face with my reality, unless I have encountered the essential in men, not the accidental, I will not speak, because it is useless to speak."

You are the accidental. Whatsoever you think you are is the accidental part. For example, you are born in India. You could have been born in England or in France or in Japan. That is the accidental part. But just by being born in India, you have a different identity. You are a Hindu. You think yourself a Hindu -- but you would have thought yourself a Buddhist in Japan, or a Christian in England, or a communist in Russia. You have not done anything to be a Hindu, it is just an accident. Wherever you were you would have joined yourself with the situation. You think yourself religious but your religion is just accidental. `If you have been born in a communist country, you would not have been religious, you would have been as irreligious there as you are religious here. You are born into a Jain family so you don;t believe in God without your having discovered that there is no God. But just by the side of your house another child is born on the same day, and he is a Hindu. He believes in God and you don;t. This is accidental, it is not essential. It depends on circumstances. You speak Hindi, someone speaks Gujarati, someone speaks French -- these are accidents. Language is accidental. Silence is essential; language is accidental. Your soul is essential; your self is accidental. And to find the essential is the search, the only search.

How to find the essential? Buddha moved in silence for six years. Jesus also moved into a deep forest. His followers, the apostles wanted to go with him. They followed him and at a certain moment, at a certain point, he said, "Stop. You should not come with me. Now I must be alone with my God." He moved into the wilderness. When he came back he was a totally different man; he had faced himself.

Loneliness becomes the mirror. Society is the deception. That;s why you are always afraid of being alone -- because you will have to know yourself, and you will have to know yourself in your nudity, in your nakedness. You are afraid. To be alone is difficult. Whenever you are alone, you immediately start doing something so you are not alone. You may start reading the newspaper, or you may put on the T.V., or you may go to some club to meet some friends, or you may go to visit some family -- but you must do something. Why? Because the moment you are alone your identity melts, and all that you know about yourself becomes false and all that is real starts bubbling up.

All religions say that man must move into solitariness to know himself. One need not be there forever, that is futile, but one has to be in solitude for a time, for a period. And the length of the period will depend on each individual. Mohammed was in solitude for a few months; Jesus for only a few days; Mahavir for twelve years and Buddha for six years. It depends. But unless you come to the point where you can say, "Now I have know the essential," it is a must to be alone.

This technique is concerned with loneliness.

ABIDE IN SOME PLACE ENDLESSLY SPACIOUS, CLEAR OF TREES, HILLS, HABITATIONS. THENCE COMES THE END OF MIND PRESSURES.

Before we enter this technique three other points about loneliness must be understood. One: to be alone is basic, foundational -- that is how your being is. In the mother;s womb you are alone, totally alone, and psychologists say that the hankering for nirvana, for enlightenment, for salvation, for paradise, is really a deep imprinted memory of the experience of the mother;s womb. You have known it -- the total aloneness -- and the bliss of it. You were alone, you were God. No one else was there. No one disturbed you, no one interfered. Alone, you were the master. With no conflict the peace was intrinsic. Silence was there, no language. You were deep in yourself. You are not consciously aware of the fact but it is deeply imprinted, it is there hidden in the unconscious.

Because of this, psychologists say that everyone thinks that life in childhood was beautiful. And ever country and every race thinks that somewhere in the past was the Golden Age -- somewhere in the past, life was blissful. Hindus call it SATYA-YUG, age of truth. In the past, somewhere, the very, very past, before history began, everything was beautiful and blissful. There was no conflict, no strife, no violence. Only love prevailed. That was the Golden Age. Christians say that Adam and Eve lived in Eden, in the garden, in absolute innocence and blissfulness. Then came the fall. So the Golden Age is before the fall. Every country, every race, every religion, believes that the Golden Age was somewhere in the past. And the strangeness is that howsoever deeply into the past you move, this was always believed to be so, always.

In Mesopotamia a stone has been found which is six thousand years old. There is an inscription on it. If you read it you will feel that it is the editorial of today's morning newspaper. The inscription says that this age is the age of sin. Everything has gone wrong. The son doesn't believe in the father, the wife doesn't believe in the husband. Darkness has set. Where are those days, the days of the past, those golden days? This is a six thousand-year-old inscription! Lao Tzu says that in the days of the past, in the days of the ancients, everything was beautiful. Then Tao prevailed, then there was nothing wrong, and because there was nothing wrong, no one preached. There was nothing wrong to be changed, transformed, and there was no priest, no preacher, no moral leaders, because everything was so right. Lao Tzu says that in those days, those old days, there was no religion. There was no need because Tao prevailed. Everyone was so religious that there was no need for religion. There were no sages then, because there were no sinners. Everyone was such a sage that, naturally, no one was aware of who was a sage and who was a sinner.

Psychologists say that this past never existed. This past is just the deep memory within every individual of the womb. It existed. Really, Tao was in the womb, and everything was beautiful, everything was as it should be. Completely unaware of the world, the child is moving in bliss. The situation of the child in the womb is just as it is for Vishnu on his SHESHNAGA. Hindus believe that Vishnu is lying on his couch, a serpent couch, floating on the ocean of bliss. Really, that is the child's position in the womb. The child floats. The mother's womb is just like the ocean. And you may be surprised to know that the water in which the child floats in the mother's womb has the same constituents as the ocean water -- very similar, the same salts, everything. It is ocean water, soothing. And the womb always keeps the right temperature for the child. The mother may be shivering with cold, that makes no difference. For the child it is always the same temperature in the womb. He is warm, blissfully floating, with no worries, no anxieties, no responsibilities, alone. He is not aware of the mother; mother doesn't exist for him. This SANSKAR, this imprint, is carried on by you. This is the basic reality, how you were before you entered society, and this will be the reality again when you go out of society and die. You will again be alone.

And between these two points of loneliness your life is filled with many events. But those events are accidental. Deep down you remain alone because that is your basic reality. Around that aloneness many things happen: you get married, you become two, then you have children and you become many. Everything goes on happening -- but just on the periphery. The deep stratum remains totally alone. That is your reality. You may call this your ATMA, your essence.

In deep solitude this essence has to be recaptured. So when Buddha says that he has achieved nirvana, really he has achieved this loneliness, this basic reality. Mahavir says he has achieved KAIVALYA. The very word KAIVALYA, means loneliness, the alone. Just below the turmoil of events that aloneness is there. It runs through you like a thread running in a mala. The beads are apparent, but the thread is not. But the beads are hanging on the thread, and the beads are many and the thread is one. Really, the mala is a symbol of this reality. The thread is the reality and the beads are just the events which go on hanging on it. And unless you penetrate and come to the basic thread, you will be in anguish, you will be in suffering.

You have a history -- that history is accidental. And you have a nature -- that nature is non-historical. You are born on a certain date, to certain parents, in a certain society, in a certain age. You are educated in a certain way. Then you enter a particular profession, you fall in love with a woman, you have children. These dramas are beads, events, history, but deep down you are always alone. And if you forget yourself completely because of these events you have missed the very purpose of being here. Then you have lost yourself in the drama and you have forgotten the actor who was not part of it, who was just playing the role. All these things are roles.

Because of this India does not have written histories. Really, it is very difficult to be certain about when Krishna was born, when he died; when Ram was born, when he died -- or whether he was ever born or not or is just a myth. We have not written his history, and this is the reason: we in India are concerned with the thread and not with the beads. Really, in the religious world, Christ is the first historical person, but had he been born in India he would not have been historical. We in India are always looking for the thread, the beads are irrelevant. But the West is more oriented towards events, facts -- temporal things -- than to the essential and the eternal. History is the drama. In India, we say that Ramas and Krishnas go on being born in every age. They have been repeated many times before and they will be repeated many times afterwards. So there is no need to carry on the records. When they are born is irrelevant. What their being is -- the thread -- that is the meaningful. So we are not concerned if they were really historical persons or not, we are not concerned with outer things that happen to a being, we are concerned with the being itself and whether anything happens to it or not.

When you move into solitude you are moving to the thread; when you move into solitude, you are moving into nature. If you are really alone, not even thinking of others, you will feel the world of nature around you for the first time. You will become attuned to it. Right now you are attuned to society. If you fall from this attunement to society, you will be attuned to nature. When the rains come -- they are always coming but you cannot understand the language of the rains -- they don't say anything to you, they don't mean anything to you; at the most some utilitarian thing about water being needed is realized. So there is some use, but you don't have any dialogue, you cannot understand the language of the rains, the rain has no personality for you. But if you leave society for a time and remain in aloneness, you will start feeling a new phenomenon: the rains will come and they will talk to you. Then you will feel their moods -- some day the rain is very angry and some day it is very soothing and loving. Some day the whole sky is depressed, and some day it is dancing. Some day the sun rises as if without any will of its own, forced, doing the work; and some day on its own -- now it is not a work but a play.

You will feel all the moods around you. Nature has its own language but it is silent, and unless you are silent you cannot understand it.

The first layer of attunement is with society, the second layer of attunement is with nature, and the third layer, the deepest, is with Tao or DHARMA. That is the pure existence. Then the tree, then the rains, then the clouds, they are also left behind. Then, just existence.... Existence has no moods. Existence is always the same. Existence is always the same: always festive, exploding with energy. But one has first to move from society to nature -- then from nature to existence. When you are attuned with existence you are totally alone, but this aloneness is different from that of the child in the womb. The child is alone, but it is not that he is really alone, he is unaware of anything else. He is enclosed in darkness, that's why he feels alone. The whole world exists around him but he is not aware of it. His aloneness is that of ignorance. When you become consciously silent, one with existence, your aloneness will not be surrounded by darkness, it will be surrounded by light.

For the child in the womb the world is not, because he is unaware. For you the world will not be, because the world and you have become one.

When you reach the deepest being you are alone again because the ego is lost. The ego is given by society. It can persist a little even when you are in nature although it will not be as much as it is in society. When you move alone, your ego starts disappearing -- because it is always in relationship. Look at this phenomenon: with every individual your ego changes. If you are talking to your servant, look inside, look at the ego, see how it is. If you are talking to your friend, look within, see how the ego is. You are talking to your beloved, look within, see whether the ego is or is not. If you are talking to an innocent child, look within -- the ego will not be there because it will be stupid to be an egoist with an innocent child. You will feel that this would be stupid, so while playing with children you become a child. The child doesn't know the language of ego. And being egoistic with a child you will look awkward. So when you play with children they pull you down. They bring you back to your own childhood. When you are talking with a dog, or playing with a dog, the ego that the society has given to you cannot exist because with a dog there is no question of ego. If you are walking with your dog -- a very beautiful and costly dog -- and someone crosses the street, even the dog seems to give you ego. But the dog is not giving you ego, it is the man who is passing. You become straight, you feel elated because you have a very beautiful dog and the man looks jealous.

The ego is there. If you move into a forest the ego disappears. Hence the insistence of all religions to move, at least for a time, into the world of nature.

This sutra is simple: ABIDE IN SOME PLACE ENDLESSLY SPACIOUS -- on some hilltop from where you can see endlessly, from where the vision never comes to any end. If you can see endlessly and there is no end to your vision, the ego will dissolve. Ego needs limits, boundaries. The more defined the boundaries, the easier it is for the ego to exist.

ABIDE IN SOME PLACE ENDLESSLY SPACIOUS, CLEAR OF TREES, HILLS, HABITATIONS. THENCE COMES THE END OF MIND PRESSURES.

Mind is very subtle. You can live on a hilltop where there is no one, but if you can see a cottage deep down in the valley you will start talking with that cottage, you will be in relationship with it -- the society has come. You don't know who lives there, but someone lives there, and that becomes the boundary -- you will start dreaming about who lives there and your eyes will search each day to see who lives there. The cottage will become a symbol of humanity. So the sutra says WITHOUT HABITATIONS -- even without trees, because it has been known that people who live alone start talking with trees. They make friendships, they create a dialogue. You cannot understand the difficulty of a man who has gone to be lonely. He wants someone so he will say "Hello" to the tree and "How are you?" And trees are beings. If you are really honest, they will start replying, there will be a response. So you can create a society.

The meaning is this: be in some place and be alert that you don't create a society again. You may start tending a tree, loving a tree. You may feel that the tree is feeling thirsty so you should bring some water -- you have started a relationship and with a relationship you are not alone. So this is the emphasis: move to such a place but have it in your mind that you are not going to create any relationship. Leave all relationship and the world of relationship behind, and be alone there. In the beginning it is going to be very difficult because your mind is created by society. You can leave society but where will you leave the mind? The mind will follow you like a shadow. The mind will haunt you. The mind will start torturing you. Faces will come in your dreams -- they will try to pull you. You will try to meditate but thoughts will not cease. You will start thinking of your house, you will start thinking of your wife, of your children. It is human.

And it does not happen to you only -- it has happened to Buddha and to Mahavir. It has happened to everyone. Even a Buddha is bound to think of Yashodhara during six long years of loneliness. In the beginning, when the mind was following him, he must have been sitting under a tree pretending to meditate, and Yashodhara must have followed him. He loved that woman. And he must have felt guilty because he had left her -- and without saying anything to her. Nowhere is it mentioned that he thought about Yashodhara, but I say he must have thought of her. It is so human; it is so natural. To think that he never thought again of Yashodhara would be very inhuman and would not be fair to Buddha. Only by and by, after a long struggle, would he have been able to throw off the mind.

But mind will persist because it is nothing but society -- society internalized. Society has entered into you -- that is your mind. You can escape from society, the outer reality, but the inner will follow you.

Many times Buddha must have been talking with Yashodhara, with his father, with the small child he left behind. The face of his child must have followed him. It was there in his mind when he left. The night he left he went into Yashodhara's room, just to see the child for the last time. The child was only one day old. Yashodhara was sleeping and the child was clinging to her breast. He looked at the child. He wanted to take the child into his hands because this was his last opportunity. He had not touched him yet and now he might never return so there would be no meeting. He was leaving the world. He wanted to touch and kiss the child but then he became afraid because if he took the child up in his hands, Yashodhara might be awakened. Then it would be very difficult for him to leave -- she would start weeping and crying. He had a human heart. It was beautiful that he thought of it: that if she started crying it would be very difficult for him to leave. Then all that he had created in his mind -- that this world was useless and futile -- would disappear. He would not be able to see Yashodhara crying. He loved that woman. So he left. He moved out of the room without making any noise.

This man could not leave Yashodhara and the child easily. No one could. When he was begging it was bound to come to his mind -- his palace and everything. He was a beggar of his own accord. The past would persist, it would hammer the mind again and again, "Come back." Many times he would think, "I have made a mistake." It is bound to be so. Nowhere is this recorded and sometimes I think about making a diary about what happened to Buddha's mind during those six years -- a diary about what happened to his mind, what was going on.

Mind will follow like a shadow wherever you go. So it is not going to be easy. It has never been easy for anyone. It will be a long struggle to make yourself again and again alert; again and again to be a witness; again and again not to fall a victim. And to the very last the mind follows. Unless you are desperate, unless you feel that you are incurable, that nothing can be done, the mind will go on haunting you. It will try in every way. It will create fantasies, reveries, dreams; it will create all types of allurements, seductions. It is written in the lives of all the seers that Satan comes, the Devil comes, to seduce. No one comes -- only your mind. Your mind is the only Devil and no one else. It will try in every way. It will say to you, "I will give you the whole world, come back." It will make you depressed, "You are a fool -- the whole world is enjoying and you have come to this hilltop. You are mad. All this religious stuff is humbug, come back. Look, the whole world is not insane and they are enjoying." And the mind will give such beautiful pictures of everyone who is enjoying and the whole world will be more attractive to you than ever. All that you have left behind will pull you backwards.

This is the basic struggle. And this is just because the mind is a mechanism of habits, of mechanical persistence. On the hilltop the mind will feel like hell -- nothing is good there, everything is wrong. The mind will create negativity all around you, "What are you doing here? Have you gone mad?" The world that you have left behind will become more and more beautiful to your eyes and the place that you are in will become more and more ugly. But if you persist and you remain aware that this is what the mind is doing, this is what the mind is bound to do, and if you don't get identified with the mind, a moment comes when the mind leaves you, and with it all the pressures. When the mind leaves you, you are unburdened, because it is the only burden. Then there is no worry, no thought, no anxiety, you have entered the womb of existence. Unworried, you float. A deep silence explodes within you.

The sutra says, THENCE COMES THE END OF MIND PRESSURES. In such solitude, in such loneliness, one thing more has to be remembered: the crowd exerts a deep pressure on you, whether you know it or not.

Now, after working on animals, scientists have come to a very basic law. They say that every animal has a certain space as his territory. If you enter that space then the animal becomes tense and he will attack you, Every animal has a certain space around him. He will not allow anybody to enter, because the moment someone enters, he feels the pressure. You hear many birds singing in the trees. You don't know what they are doing. Scientists say now, after years of study, that whenever a bird is singing in the trees he is doing many things. One, he is calling for his girlfriend. Another, he is alerting all the male competitors that this is his territory -- don't enter it. And if someone enters the territory a fight will ensue. And the girlfriend will just wait and see who wins, because whoever gets the territory will get her/ She will just wait, and the one who wins will stay there and the one who is defeated will have to leave. By many means every animal creates territory: by sound, by singing, by body odor. No other competitor should enter that territory.

You may have seen dogs pissing all around. Scientists say that they create their territory by pissing. The dog will go and piss on this pole and on that pole. He will not piss on one place -- why? You can do it on one place, why move so much? He is creating territory. His urine has a particular odor and with it he creates a territory. No one should enter, it is dangerous. He lives secluded in his own territory, master of it.

There are many studies going on. They have tried putting many animals in one cage with all their needs fulfilled -- better than they can fulfil them themselves in a forest. But they go mad because they don't have space. When someone is always around they are tense, afraid, ready to fight. This constant readiness to fight gives such tensions that there heart failures or they go mad. Animals even commit suicide because the pressure becomes so much. And many abnormalities develop which are never found in the wild state. Monkeys in the wild are totally different. When caged in a zoo they start behaving abnormally. In the beginning it was thought that it was the bondage that was creating the problem. Now it is known that it is not the bondage. If you give them the proper space that they need in a cage they are happy. Then there is no problem. But they have an intrinsic feeling of space. When someone enters that space, pressure comes to their minds. Their minds start to be tense, strained; they cannot sleep right, they cannot feed right, they cannot love right.

Because of these studies, scientists now say that the whole of humanity is going crazy and mad because of too much over-population. The pressure is so great. You are never left alone: in the train, in the bus, in the office, everywhere, crowds and crowds. Man also has a need of space, to be left alone. But there is no place, you are never alone. When you come to your home, your wife is there, the children are there, and the relatives keep on coming. And they still think that the guest is God! You are already crazy because the pressure is too much all around you. You cannot say to anyone, "Leave me alone." If you say to your wife, "Leave me alone," she will get angry, "What do you mean?" She has been waiting for you the whole day. Mind needs space to be relaxed.

This sutra is really beautiful and very scientific. THENCE COMES THE END OF MIND PRESSURES.

When you move alone on a solitary hilltop you have space all around you, endless space. The pressure of the crowd, the pressure of others around you, leaves you. You will sleep more deeply. You will have a different quality of awakening in the morning. You will feel free. An inner pressure circle is not there. You will feel unimprisoned, unfettered.

This is good. But we have become so addicted to crowds that only for a few days -- three or four days -- will you feel good, then the desire will arise to go again to the crowd. Every holiday you go on, you want to come back after three days. Because of the pattern, the habit, you feel useless. Alone, you feel useless, alone you cannot do anything, and even if you do something, no one will know about it, no one will see you doing it, no one will appreciate it. You cannot do anything alone because all your life you have been doing something for others. You feel useless.

So remember, if you ever try this solitary madness, drop the idea of utility. Be useless. Only then can you be alone. Because really, utility has been forced on your mind by society. Society says, "Be of some utility. Don't be useless." Society want you to be an economic unit, a thing, efficient, utilitarian. Society doesn't want you to be just a flower. No, even if you are a flower then you must be worth being sold. Society needs you to be in the market, you must have some utility. Only then are you of use, otherwise not. Society goes on preaching that use is the goal of life, the purpose of life. This is nonsense.

I am not saying be useless. I am saying that this use is not the goal. You have to live in society, to be useful to it, but to remain capable of being useless at any moment. That capacity must be retained otherwise you become a thing and not a person. When you move into solitariness, aloneness, this will become a problem. You will feel yourself useless.

I have been working with many people. Sometimes I suggest that they go for three weeks or three months into total loneliness, silence. And I tell them that after seven days they will want to come back and their mind will find all the reasons for not being there so that they can come back. I tell them not to listen to those arguments and to make it a point that for the time they have decided upon they will not leave. They say to me that they are going of their own will, so why should they leave? I tell them that they don't know themselves. This will not be there for more than three to seven days; afterwards they will long to return, because society has become alcoholic, it is an intoxicant. In sober moments you can think about being alone, but when you are alone, within three days you will think, "What am I doing?" Remember, use is for society. Society uses you and you use society. This is a reciprocal relationship.

But life is not for use. It is non-utilitarian, purposeless, it is a play, a celebration. So when you move into solitariness to do this technique, be prepared from the very beginning that you are going to be useless, and enjoy it, don't feel sad about it. You cannot conceive of what arguments the mind will bring. You will say, "The world is in such trouble and you are sitting in silence here. Look what is happening in Vietnam and what is happening in Pakistan and what is happening in China; and your country is dying, there is no food, there is no water. What are you doing here meditation? What is the use? Will it bring socialism to the country?" Mind will bring beautiful arguments; mind is the great arguer. It is the Devil -- it will try to persuade you, it will convince you that you are wasting time. But don't listen to it. From the very beginning be prepared, "I am going to waste time. I will not be of any use. I will simply enjoy being here."

And don't be concerned with the world. The world goes on. It is always in trouble. It has been always in trouble and it will remain always in trouble. That is the way of the world. You cannot do anything so don't try to be a great world reformer, a revolutionary, a messiah. Don't try.

You simply be yourself and enjoy your solitariness, just like a rock or a tree or a river. Useless! What is the use of a rock just lying there under the rains, under the sun, under the stars? What is the use of this rock? No use -- the rock enjoys itself being that way. Just be a rock. There are rock gardens in Japan, in Zen monasteries; they make rock gardens particularly for this. There are no trees in the garden, just sand and rock. A solitary rock, just sits there, and the master says to the disciple, "Go, and be just a rock, just like that rock. Don't be bothered about the world. That rock remains there whatsoever happens to the world. It is not worried. It is always in meditation."

Unless you are really prepared to be useless, you cannot be solitary, you cannot be in solitude. And once you know the depth of it you can come back to society. You must come back because solitariness is not a style of life -- it is just a training. It is not a way of life, it is just a deep relaxation to change the perspective. It is just falling out of step with society to have a look at yourself, who you are, alone. So don't think that this is a style of life. Many have made it a style of life. They are in error. They are absolutely in error. They have made a medicine food. It is not a style of life, it is just medicinal. You fall out for a time being just to have a perspective, a distance, to see what you are and what society is doing to you. When you are out of it, you can have a better look. You can observe. Without being concerned, without being in it, you can become an observer from the hilltop, you can become a witness. You are so far away. Unprejudiced, undisturbed, you can look.

So note it, this is not a way of life. I am not saying leave the world and become hermits somewhere in the Himalayas -- no. But sometimes leave, relax, be useless, be alone, exist like a rock, be independent, free from the world, be a part of nature -- and you will be rejuvenated, reborn. Then come back and move in society and in the crowd again. And try to carry that beauty, that silence that happened to you when you were alone. Now carry it, don't lose contact with it. Move deep into the crowd but don't become a part of it. Let the crowd be there outside you -- you remain alone.

And when you become capable of being alone in the crowd, you have achieved real aloneness. It is easy to be alone on a hilltop. The whole of nature helps you, and nothing is a barrier. To be back in the market-place, in the shop, in the office, in the family, and to remain alone -- that is an achievement. Then it is something you have achieved and it is not just accidental, something that happened because of the hills. Now the quality of consciousness has changed. So remain alone in the crowd. The crowd will be there outside but don't allow it to enter in. Protect whatsoever you have gained. Defend it, don't allow it to be disturbed. And whenever you feel that the feeling has become dull, that you are missing it, that society has disturbed it, that the dust has gathered around, that the fresh spring is no longer fresh, that it is polluted -- move again. Fall out of society to renew it, to make it alive again. Then come back and move in the crowd. And then a moment will come when that original spring will remain fresh and no one will be able to pollute it or contaminate it. Then there is no need to move anywhere.

So this is just a technique, not a style of life. Don't become a monk, don't become a nun, don't move to a monastery to live there forever. That is nonsense. If you live forever in a monastery you will never be able to know whether you have attained what you have attained, or whether the monastery has just given it to you. It may be accidental, not essential. The essential has to be tested. The essential has to be set against society; it has to be brought to the touch-stone. And when it never breaks, when you can depend on it, when nothing can change it, then it has become a crystallization.

The second technique:

CONSIDER THE PLENUM TO BE YOUR OWN BODY OF BLISS.

This second technique is concerned with the first. Consider space to be your own body of bliss. Meditating on a hilltop with endless space before you, you can do it. Consider it to be filled with your own body of bliss.

There are seven bodies. The bliss body is the last body, so the more you enter within, the more you feel yourself to be blissful. You are nearing the bliss body, the layer of bliss. It is just around your essential soul, which is the first body from within outwards, or the last body from without inwards. Just around your being, the essential soul, is the layer of bliss. It is called the bliss body. Sitting on a hilltop, looking at the endless sky, feel that the whole space, the whole plenum, is filled with your bliss body. Feel that your bliss body has increased and the whole space is filled with it.

How will you feel it? You don't know what bliss is so how to imagine it? It will be better to try first to feel that the whole space is filled with silence, not with bliss. Feel it filled with silence. Nature will be helpful about it because in nature even noises are silent. In cities even silence is noisy. Natural sounds are silent because they don't disturb. They are harmonious. So don't think that silence is necessarily soundlessness. No, a musical sound can be silence because it is so harmonious -- it doesn't disturb you. Rather, it deepens your silence. So when you move into nature, the breeze blowing, the stream, the river, the wind or whatsoever sounds there are, are harmonious, they make a whole. They are not disturbing. You can listen to them and the very listening will deepen your silence. So first feel that the whole space is filled with silence; feel deeply that it is growing more and more silent, that the sky has become silence around you.

And when you feel that the sky has become silence, only then should you try to be filled with bliss. As silence deepens you will have the first glimpse of bliss. As tension increases, you have the first glimpse of misery, strain; as silence deepens you will feel at ease, at home, relaxed, and the first glimpse of bliss will come to you. And when that glimpse comes, then you can imagine that the whole space is now filled with that bliss. CONSIDER THE PLENUM TO BE YOUR OWN BODY OF BLISS. The whole sky becomes your body of bliss.

You can do it separately, there is no need to join it to the first, but the same requirements are needed -- endless space, silence, no human beings around you. Why this insistence on no human beings around you? Because the moment you see a human being you will start reacting in the old ways. You cannot see a human being without reacting. Something or other will happen to you immediately. He brings you back to your old patterns. If you don't see human beings you forget that you are human, and to forget that you are human, part of society, is good. It is good to remember that simply you are, even if you don't know what. You don't belong to anybody, to any society, to any group, to any religion. This non-belonging will be helpful.

So it will be good if you move alone somewhere and do this, practise this. Alone this technique will be helpful, but remember to start with something that you can feel. I have seen people doing techniques which they cannot feel. If you cannot feel, if you don't have any experience, even a glimpse, then the whole thing becomes false. A man came to me and he said, "I am practising that God is everywhere." So I asked him, "How can you practise? What do you imagine? Have you any taste, any feeling of God? Only then will it be easy to imagine. Otherwise, you will be simply thinking that you are imagining and nothing will happen."

Remember this for any technique you do -- at the start you must do something you are acquainted with; you may not be totally acquainted with it, but a little glimpse will be necessary. Only then can you progress, step by step. But don't jump into something which is absolutely unknown to you because then you cannot feel it and you cannot imagine it. Because of this, many masters, particularly Buddha, completely dropped the word `God'. Buddha said, "You cannot work with it. It is the very end, and you cannot bring the end into the beginning. So begin from the very beginning." He said, "Forget the end, the end will follow automatically." And he said to his disciples, "Don't think of God. Think of compassion. Think of love." So he doesn't say that one should feel that God is everywhere, one should simply feel compassion for everyone who is there -- for the tree, for human beings, for animals. Simply feel compassion. Feel sympathetic, create a love... because love you know, howsoever little. There has been something like love in everybody's life. You may not have loved, but someone may have loved you, your mother at least. You must have looked into her eyes: she loved you.

"Just be motherly to existence," Buddha says, "and feel deep compassion. Feel that the whole world is filled with your compassion. Then everything else will follow."

Remember this as a basic law: always start with something you can feel because only then can the unknown enter through it.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #30

Chapter title: Aloneness is pain

30 July 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7307305

ShortTitle: VBT230

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 83 mins

The first question:

Question 1

CONFRONTATION OF ONESELF IN ALONENESS IS VERY FEARFUL, VERY PAINFUL. WHAT TO DO?

It is fearful and it is painful, and one has to suffer it. Nothing should be done to avoid it, nothing should be done to divert the mind, nothing should be done to escape form it. One has to suffer it and go through it. This suffering, this pain, is just a good sign that you are near a new birth, because every birth is preceded by pain. It cannot be avoided, and it should not be avoided because it is part of your growth. This pain and this suffering is known traditionally as TAPASHCHARYA, austerity. This is the meaning of TAPAS -- arduous austerity, effort.

But why is this pain there? This should be understood because understanding will help you to go through it, and if you go through it knowingly, you will come out of it more easily, and sooner.

Why is there pain when you are alone? The first thing is that your ego gets ill. Your ego can exist only with others. It has grown in relationship, it cannot exist alone. So if the situation is one in which it can exist no more, it feels suffocated, it feels just on the verge of death. This is the deepest suffering. You feel just as if you are dying, but it is not you who is dying but only the ego which you have taken to be yourself, with which you have become identified. It cannot exist because it has been given to you by others. It is a contribution.

When you leave others you cannot carry it with you. Think of it in this way: when you are in society, people think you are a very good person. This goodness cannot exist when you are lonely and alone because this is what people thought about you. Now those people are there no more. Your image cannot be helped. It has become foundationless. By and by it will disappear and you will feel very bad because you were such a good person and now you are no more. And not only good people will suffer, if you are a bad person that too was given by others to you. That too is a way of getting attention. When many people consider you bad they give you attention. They cannot be indifferent to you, they have to be aware of you. You are somebody, a bad man, dangerous. When you move into loneliness, you become nobody. That bad image will disappear and you were feeding on it, your ego was feeding on it. So bad men and good men are not basically different -- both are gaining their egos. Their mediums differ, but their goals are the same.

The bad depends on others, the good also. They exist in society. The saint and the sinner, they exist in society. Alone you are neither a saint nor a sinner. So in aloneness all that you know about yourself will fall; by and by it will disappear. You can prolong your ego for a certain period -- and that too you will have to do through imagination -- but you cannot prolong it for long. Without society you are uprooted; the soil is not there from where to get food. This is the basic pain. You are no longer sure who you are: you are just a dispersing personality, a dissolving personality. But this is good, because unless this false you disappears, the real cannot emerge. Unless you are completely washed and become again clean, the real cannot emerge.

This false you is occupying the throne. It must be dethroned. By living in solitariness all that is false can go. And all that is given by society is false -- really, all that is given is false, all that is born with you is real. All that is you by yourself, not contributed by someone else, is real, authentic. But the false must go. And the false is a great investment: you have invested so much in it, you have been looking after it so much. All your hopes hang on it. So when it starts dissolving you will feel fearful, afraid, trembling. What are you doing to yourself? You are destroying your whole life, the whole structure.

There will be fear. But you have to go through this fear, only then will you become fearless. I don't say you will become brave, no. I say you will become fearless. Bravery is just part of fear. Howsoever brave you are, the fear is hidden behind. I say fearless. You will not be brave, there is no need to be brave when there is no fear. Bravery and fear both become irrelevant. They are both aspects of the same coin. So your brave men are nothing but you standing on your head -- just in SHIRSHASAN. Your bravery is hidden within you and your fear is on the surface; their fear is hidden within and their bravery is on the surface. So when you are alone you are very brave, when you think about something you are very brave, but when a real situation comes you are fearful. It is said about soldiers, the greatest of them, that before going to the front they are as afraid as anyone.

The inside is trembling, but they will go. They will push this trembling aside into the unconscious; and the more the inner trembling is there, the more they will create a facade that they are brave around them. They will create an armor. You look at that armor -- it looks brave, but deep down they are filled with fear. One becomes fearless only when one has gone through the deepest fear of all -- that is the dissolving of the ego, the dissolving of the image, the dissolving of the personality.

This is death because you don't know if a new life is going to emerge out of it -- during the process you will know only death. Only when you are dead as you are, as the false entity, only then will you know that the death was just a door to immortality. But that will be the end. During the process you are simply dying. Everything that you cherished so much is being taken away from you -- your personality, your ideas, all that you thought was beautiful.

All is leaving you. You are being denuded. All the roles and robes are being taken away. In the process fear will be there, but this fear is basic, necessary, inevitable -- one has to pass through it. You should understand it, but don't try to avoid it, don't try to escape from it because every escape will bring you back again, you will move back into the personality.

Those who go into deep silence and solitude, they always ask me, "There will be fear, so what to do?" I tell them not to do anything, just to live the fear. If trembling comes, tremble, why prevent it? If an inner fear is there, and you are shaking with it, so shake with it. Don't do anything. Allow it to happen. It will go by itself. If you avoid it -- and you can avoid it. You can start chanting Ram, Ram, Ram; you can cling to a mantra so that your mind is diverted. You will be pacified and the fear will not be there -- you have pushed it into the unconscious. It was coming out -- which was good, you were going to be free from it -- it was leaving you and when it leaves you, you will tremble. That is natural because from every cell of the body, of the mind, some energy which has always been there pushed down, is leaving. There will be a shaking, a trembling; it will be just like an earthquake. The whole soul will be disturbed by it but let it be. Don't do anything. That is my advice. Don't even chant the name of Ram. Don't try to do anything with it because all that you can do will again be suppression. Just by allowing it to be, by letting it be, it will leave you -- and when it has left, you will be altogether a different man.

The cyclone has gone and you will now be centered, centered as you never were before. And once you know the art of letting things be, you will know one of the master keys which opens all the inner doors. Then whatsoever the case is, let it be, don't avoid it.

If just for three months you can be in total solitude, in total silence, not fighting with anything, allowing everything to be, whatsoever it is, within three months the old will be gone and the new will be there. But the secret is allowing it to be, howsoever fearful, painful, howsoever apparently dangerous, deathlike. Many moments will come when you will feel as if you will go mad if you don't do something and involuntarily you will start to do something. You may know that nothing can be done, but you will not be in control and you will start to do something.

It is just as if you are moving through a dark street in the night, midnight, and you feel fear because there is no one around and the night is dark and the street is unknown -- so you start whistling. What can whistling do? You know it can do nothing. Then you start singing a song. You know nothing can be done by singing a song, the darkness cannot be dispelled, you will remain alone, but still, it diverts the mind. If you start whistling, just by whistling you gain confidence and you forget the darkness. Your mind moves into whistling and you start feeling good.

Nothing has happened. The street is the same, the darkness is the same, the danger, if there is any, is there, but now you feel more protected. All is the same, but now you are doing something. You can start chanting a name, a mantra, Ram, Ram, that will be a sort of whistling. It will give you strength. But that strength is dangerous, that strength will again become a problem, because that strength is going to be your old ego. You are reviving it again.

Remain a witness, and allow whatsoever happens to happen. Fear has to be faced to go beyond it. Anguish has to be faced to transcend it. And the more authentic the encounter, the more face to face, the more looking at things as they are, the sooner the happening will be there.

It takes time only because your authenticity is not intense. So you may take three days, three months, or three lives -- it depends on the intensity. Really, three minutes can also do -- three seconds can also do. But then you will have to pass through a tremendous hell, with such an intensity that you may not be able to bear it, to tolerate it. If one can face whatsoever is hidden in oneself, it passes, and when it has gone, you are different. Because all that has left you was part of you before, and now it is no longer a part.

So don't ask what to do. There is no need to do anything. Non-doing, witnessing, effortlessly facing whatsoever is, not even making a slight effort, just allowing it to be... remain passive and let it pass. It always passes. When you do something, that is the undoing because then you interfere.

And who will interfere? Who is afraid? The same which is the disease will interfere. The same ego which has to be left behind, will interfere.

I told you that the ego is part of the society. You left the society but you don't want to leave the part that society has given to you. It is rooted in society; it cannot live without society. So either you have to leave it or you have to create a new society in which it can live.

So you can create an alternative society. That is one of the greatest tricks of the mind. It has always been so. You can create a different society. You can create an ashram. Twenty people who think they want to live in solitude can create a monastery -- then the monastery has become an alternative society. So they move from society but they create another society, so basically nothing changes. They remain the same. Rather on the contrary, they may become more egoistic because now they are the chosen few, the elect. They have left the world but they have created another world, and the same pattern of relationship moves again. Then there is the chief, then there are the disciples, then there is a master, and all hierarchy and everything comes in, in miniature form. And then there are good disciples, there are bad disciples, there are successful ones and the unsuccessful ones... so it is the same. In a small group the whole society is there.

That will not do. Now this is happening in the West. A great number of young people are leaving society because they feel that society is rotten, decadent, dying, and they feel it is so decadent that it cannot be changed. This is a very new thing. Young people always think that the society is rotten, but they think it can be changed, transformed, so a revolution is needed. Only in the last stage of a society or civilization does this happen -- people start thinking that nothing can be done, that revolution is nonsense, that society is so dead that no one can revive it, that you cannot change it. So you just drop out of it.

You cannot do anything, the house is on fire -- so you simply escape from it. This is what is happening in the West: hippies, beatniks, yippies, others, all dropping out of society. But they are creating another society, an alternative society. Hippies themselves have become an alternative society.

In ordinary society if you have long hair, others will look at you as if you have gone astray. Something is wrong. In the hippie society if you have short hair, you are wrong! Something is wrong with you. What is the difference?

In ordinary society if you live in a dirty way you are wrong -- you are unmannerly, uncultivated, uneducated, unacceptable. But in a hippie society if you live very cleanly then something is wrong with you. Then you are still clinging to the old mind which said that cleanliness is next to God, God has died a long time ago, now the second thing, cleanliness, has also died. It cannot exist without God.

The same condemnation and the same appreciation is there. You can create an alternative society with just the opposite rules but it makes no difference -- your ego can be fed again. It has been transplanted. A new soil has been formed.

To be solitary means not to create an alternative society. Just move out of society, and then whatsoever society has given you will leave you. It can exist only in a milieu, in the social milieu, it cannot exist out of it. You will have to drop it It will be painful because you are so adjusted to it, everything is so arranged. It has become such a comfort to be adjusted, where everything is convenient. When you change and move alone, you are leaving all comforts, all conveniences, all that society can give -- and when society gives something to you, it also takes something from you: your liberty, your soul.

So it is an exchange -- and when you are trying to get to your soul in its purity you have to stop the bargaining. It will be painful, but if you can pass through it, the highest bliss is just near. Society is not as painful as loneliness; society is tranquillizing; society is convenient, comfortable. But it gives you a sort of sleep. If you move out of it inconvenience is bound to be there. All types of inconveniences will be there. Those inconveniences have to be suffered with the understanding that they are part of solitude, part of regaining yourself.

This is TAPAS, this is austerity, and you will come out of it new, with a new glory and dignity, a new purity and innocence.

The second question:

Question 2

LAST NIGHT YOU SAID THAT TOTAL ALONENESS IS THE ESSENTIAL NATURE, IS THE ULTIMATE REALITY OF MAN. ANOTHER DAY YOU EXPLAINED THAT INDIVIDUALITY IS FALSE AND MAN IS A WAVE IN THE ORGANIC WHOLE OF EXISTENCE. HOW IS A RECONCILIATION POSSIBLE BETWEEN ALONENESS AND WHOLENESS?

There is no need of reconciliation. Aloneness is wholeness. But aloneness doesn't mean individuality. You are an individual because of society. When you are totally alone you will not be an individual.

An individual means a part of a society, a unit of a society. When you are in the crowd you are an individual; when you move out of the crowd not only is the crowd dropping behind, the individual also is dropping behind. That individuality was given to you. Individuality and society are two poles of one phenomenon. Alone you are not an individual; the individual has to exist in a pattern of society. It is just as when I said that alone you are neither good nor bad, alone you are neither sage nor sinner, alone you are neither beautiful nor ugly, alone you are neither wise nor foolish. Both the dualities drop. The dichotomy drops.

The individual exists in society; the individual is the unit of society. Alone you are not an individual, so don't think that you will become an individual when alone. No, you will not be an individual. If there is no society how can you be an individual? You will be there, and that aloneness will be wholeness. The ego will drop, and it is the ego that gives you the feeling of individuality.

Alone doesn't mean that you are an individual, alone means that now the dichotomy of society and individual is no longer there. This will give you wholeness. You are not part of anything now. You have become the whole.

This is difficult to express because in language it appears absurd. You cannot imagine how you will not be an individual if you are alone, because if you think and imagine yourself on a hilltop, sitting alone somewhere in a Himalayan cave, you will think of yourself as an individual -- because you don't know what aloneness is. Aloneness means that all thought, all mind, all individuality that was given by society has been left behind. You will become just a space, an emptiness, nobody. Sitting in a Himalayan cave there will be no one who is sitting, just a space.

Buddha was meditating under a tree. It was a full moon night and some young people had come to the forest. They had brought much alcohol with them and a young prostitute. But they took so much alcohol and they became so intoxicated that the prostitute escaped. When they became aware that the girl had left them, they started to search for her. Where did she go?

In their search they reached Buddha who was sitting under a tree meditating. So they said to him, "You must have seen a young, beautiful, nude girl passing by here because this is the only way and it is a full moon night. So you must have seen a beautiful young girl, nude, passing by. Did you see her?"

Buddha opened his eyes and said, "Someone passed by, but I cannot say whether the one who passed was a woman or a man. I cannot say whether the person who passed was beautiful or ugly. And I cannot say whether the person who passed was clothed or naked. Someone did pass -- I heard the foot-steps."

They were amazed and they said, "This is impossible!" Buddha said, "I would not have believed this myself before. When I was a part of society it would have been impossible, but now that I have left society I have left all the conceptions of society as well. Now only nature happens around me. So I heard the sound of someone passing; there was just a sound which reached into my inner space, that is all. Someone passed."

You become a silent inner space. You are not an individual because you are not a mind. To drop the mind solitude is suggested. And with the mind everything drops. A moment comes when you don't know who you are -- and that is the moment from where real knowledge will start.

A moment comes when you forget completely who you are, and all that you knew before is no longer there, all the old leaves have fallen. Now this is the moment, and now there will be an interval for a time being. This interval will be of much anguish because the old has left and the new has not yet come. When the old leaves drop from the tree, the tree will be naked for a few days, just waiting for the new to emerge. The new leaves are coming, they are on the way, the old have left a place. Now that the place is vacant the new are flowing towards the space and sooner or later they will emerge. But you will have to wait. While meditating in aloneness, society will drop, the mind will drop, the ego will drop and there will be a gap. You will have to pass through that gap also. Now the tree is awaiting for the new leaves to come, but one cannot do anything. What can the tree do? Nothing can be done to bring them sooner, they will take their own course.

It is good that the old have dropped -- because now the place is there. Space is there for the new to emerge. Now there will be no barrier.

So there is an autumn of the inner mind. Leaves will drop. It will be painful. You have lived with those old leaves for so long that you will feel that you are losing something. And then there will be a winter of waiting, an inner winter, when you will be nude -- with no leaves, a naked tree against the sky. And you don't know what is going to happen. Now everything has stopped. Now no bird comes to sing on your branches; now no one comes to sit under you, under your shadow to wait, to relax. Now you are not in any way aware of whether you are dead or whether a new life is going to happen to you. This is the gap, the interval.

Christian mystics have called it the dark night of the soul -- before the sunrise. All artificial lights have been put off. The night has become very dark. And the moment nearest to the sunrise will be the darkest.

So there is a winter of the inner soul when there are no leaves, and no birds sing, and no one comes to wait under you and relax. You feel dead. Everything has stopped. All movement is gone. This has to be passed -- because then there will be spring, new leaves will come, new life, new flowers. A totally new dimension will appear within you.

But remember the autumn, remember the winter -- only then is spring possible. The autumn is also part of the spring -- if you can understand -- it is making the way for the spring to happen. So autumn is not against spring, it is just the beginning of it. And the gap is also necessary, because in the gap you become ready. The old has left. You are not tormented by it now, not burdened by it. You are pregnant -- but pregnancy is waiting, the new child is growing. Before it emerges, manifests itself in the world, it will have to hide deep in the unconscious, because every seed has to go deep into darkness, underneath, hidden. Only then does life happen to it. If you put the seed in the sunlight nothing will happen to it. It needs deep darkness, a womb. So there will be winter while you are pregnant: all movement ceases, you just have to carry the burden, consciously, understandingly, lovingly, hoping, praying, waiting.

And then there will be spring. It has been always so. Man is also a tree.

And remember, aloneness is wholeness, they are not contradictory. Ego is part, ego is fragmented, ego cannot be whole, ego is against the whole. In aloneness ego disappears. You become one with the whole and the boundary disappears. When you are really alone you are the cosmos, you are Brahma.

The third question:

Question 3

IN THE FIRST TECHNIQUE TAKEN LAST NIGHT IT IS SAID THAT TO ABIDE IN LONELINESS IS TO MINIMIZE RELATIONSHIP. BUT ON PREVIOUS OCCASIONS YOU SAID THAT ONE SHOULD MAXIMIZE THE RELATIONSHIP WITH LIMITLESS EXPANSION.

Do either. Either expand yourself so much that nothing remains unrelated to you, then you will disappear; or be so totally alone that nothing remains related to you, then too you will disappear.

You are in the middle, where something is related and something is not related, where someone is a friend and someone is an enemy, where someone belongs to you and someone doesn't belong to you, where there is a choice. You are in the middle. Move to either extreme. Become related to everyone, to everything that exists and you will disappear. It is so tremendous a phenomenon to be related to everything that you cannot exist, you will be flooded. Your ego is so narrow, it can exist with only a few relationships -- and that in those too it is against something, otherwise it could not exist. If you are friendly to everything that is in the world, you disappear. If you want to exist as an ego you can be friendly; but you must also be inimical to someone. You must love someone and you must hate. Then you can exist between these two contradictions -- the ego can exist. Either love everything that is and you will disappear, or hate it and you will disappear. They look contradictory. They are not. The technique is the same. The technique is the same whether you love all or whether you hate all. The hatred of everything is known in the East as VAIRAGYA, as renunciation. This is hatred of everything, withdrawing your love completely, feeling that everything is useless, not worth anything.

If you can hate so totally you will become total -- then you cannot exist. You can exist only when two contradictions are there: love and hate. Between these two you balance. It is just like a man walking on a rope. He has to balance between right and left. If he moves to the left completely he will fall; if he moves completely to the right he will fall. So whether you move to the right or to the left makes no difference. Choose one. You will fall down from the rope.

If you want to be a man on a rope, you have to balance, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right. And really the balance is a science. Whenever you lean to the left you will immediately have to lean to the right because the left will create the possibility of falling. To counter-balance it you will have to lean to the right, and when you lean to the right the possibility comes that you can fall. So you will have to lean to the left. That is why you go on moving between love and hate, between friend and enemy, between this and that, like and dislike, attraction and repulsion. You are moving on a rope, continuously. If you don't understand this your life will be a total misunderstanding.

I have been studying many, many people and this is one of the basic problems of all. They love, then they hate, and they cannot understand why they hate when they love also. This is how they balance -- and this balancing gives you the ego, your personality. If you really want to be without the ego, choose either extreme. Move to the left, love, and don't balance it by the right -- you will fall from the rope. Or move to the right, hate, and hate totally, and don't move to the left. You will fall from the rope.

Mahavir says be detached from everything -- that is hate. And Krishna says love. That is why Jains can never understand the message of Krishna. Impossible. And Hindus have not taken any note of Mahavir. They have not even mentioned his name in their scriptures. Not a single mention. They have not even taken note because he says be so unattached from everything that it becomes hatred. Krishna says love, and love so deeply that hate falls completely from the mind. Both are the same. They look contradictory to you. They are not.

Either you lean to the left or to the right -- it makes no difference, you will fall to the ground, you will not be on the rope. That is certain. That rope is the ego or the world, the SANSAR, and you are balancing yourself. Many people love me but I know that sooner or later they will balance and they will hate. And when they hate they get disturbed. They should not get disturbed because that is how they can be on the rope. But the cannot hate long. Again they will have to balance.

In the morning you love, in the evening you hate, in the morning you love again. Unless you are ready to leave the ego the balancing will continue. It can continue infinitely -- infinitely it can continue. The rope is endless. But once you get fed up with the whole game, once you feel that this is nonsense -- balancing each time with hate and love and each time moving to the opposite direction again and again; this is nonsense -- then you can move to one, either love or hate, and drop from the rope. And once you drop from the rope, you are enlightened. The balance is SANSAR, the world.

The fourth question:

Question 4

MAN HAS AN INHERENT LONGING TO ENTER INTO THE WOMB. KINDLY EXPLAIN WHETHER OR NOT MAN'S LUST FOR THE SEXUAL ACT, PENETRATION, SYMBOLIZES HIS INHERENT LONGING FOR THIS RETURN.

Yes. It is part of it. Everything in nature wants to return to the source. This is one of the laws. Whatsoever happens in-between is irrelevant, every circle comes to the end or to the very beginning -- to the original source.

Man is born out of the womb. Whenever he is in distress or depression, whenever there is too much responsibility in the world, too much burden, things become heavy, he wants to return back to the womb. Hence this attraction, lust, to enter the woman. You cannot enter, you cannot become a child again, so the sexual act becomes a symbolic act. The penetration becomes symbolic. You are again in the womb. That is why sex is so relaxing, so soothing. All the tensions are gone, your mind is unburdened. In this moment at least you are ecstatic. It is a catharsis: you are purged of much dirt.

So sex becomes a release, a relaxation. And the woman becomes a womb. This is part of the attraction, part of the lust. You may not be aware of it, but all that we have created for comfort is womb-like. In a room, closed, at body temperature, silent, you can relax easily. It is womb-like. And if all the qualities of the womb are there, in your sleeping room, you will sleep deeply. Even a clock on the wall helps you. It goes on tick-tock, tick-tock. It is the same as the heart of the mother going tick-tock, tick-tock, for the child in the womb. He goes on listening to it. The tick-tock rhythm is helpful; the mattress, the pillows, all the things we use are really womb-like. Now scientists are of the mind that sooner or later we will make exactly womb-like sleeping chambers, exactly the same, because they will give you the deepest sleep possible.

The ultimate conception of nirvana is also womb-like. In the womb the child is so free, free of all responsibilities. He never comes to know any desire. Before the desire is there it is fulfilled. That is what Hindus call KALPAVRIKSHA. In heaven there are trees under which you sit and when a desire comes to your mind, immediately it is fulfilled. There is no gap, no time gap, between desire, demand, and supply. There is no time gap. When the desire is there it is fulfilled.

This is happening in the womb, it is KALPAVRIKSHA, the wish-fulfilling tree. A child never becomes aware that he is hungry -- before there is hunger, it is fulfilled. The child never becomes aware that he is thirsty -- before there is thirst, the thirst is fulfilled. He never becomes aware of any strife, any strain; he is silently served by the cosmos around him. Psychologists say that that is why the child in the womb cannot be conscious. Because for consciousness, strife is needed, struggle is needed. Consciousness grows only when there is demand, then a time gap, and then supply. That time gap makes you conscious. If there is no time gap, if whatsoever you need is fulfilled immediately, you will fall asleep. So the child is asleep for nine months together -- not for a single moment does he become alert. There is no need to be alert. All needs are fulfilled. There is no pain, no suffering, no tension, so alertness is not possible.

The child sleeps, and when he is born it is such a shock that Freud says that no one ever recovers from it. It is traumatic. It remains like a wound in you. And I think he is right. When the child is born it is a shock! He is thrown out of the Garden of Eden, out of paradise. Everything was so beautiful -- it was so beautiful that he was asleep. It was so comfortable that there was no need to be awake for even a single moment. It was a dream land, and now he has been thrown out forcibly. There is every possibility that the unconsciousness of the child struggles to remain in the womb. It is difficult to say whether it is so or not, but there is every possibility that the unconsciousness of the child struggles to remain in the womb. He creates every difficulty in coming out. Hence the pain and the struggle. He is being thrown out, expelled. And the first moment out of the womb is bound to be the greatest suffering that the child will ever suffer again. Even death will not be such a suffering. Because in the first moment on his own he will have to breathe -- and the world has started with all its worries. Now he will be the center and he will be responsible and he will have to carry his own burden. He is thrown out of the mother. He will have to breathe and to cry when he is hungry. And now nothing is certain: whether when he is hungry he will be fulfilled or not, is not certain. It will depend. He has become dependent. Now for every need he has to struggle. But then we provide every comfort for our children, in every way, so the shock is not so much, not too much. The mother goes on fulfilling his needs immediately.

Because of this the child comes to feel that he is the center of the world and the whole world has to follow him. Just a cry and the whole world has to fall at his feet. This gives a very egoistic beginning. So every child is very egoistic. And then other shocks are bound to follow because this is only the first birth, just the beginning of births. Those who know human phenomena deeply say that the whole life is a continuous birth. There are many births. A day will come when the mother will refuse to breast-feed the child. Now he has to depend on foods. He has to chew it. Responsibility grows. Now the food has to be chewed, digested. The milk was something else. The child was not doing anything, simply sucking. He was a sucker.

Every day responsibilities will grow and he will be thrown away, away from the mother. And the further away he is thrown, the more the world surrounds him. The world is hostile -- the womb was never hostile, it was so friendly,. The world is not friendly: there is competition, and everyone is interested in himself and no one is interested in you. The world is not your mother.

When a child moves to the school he is moving into a hostile world, with traumas and traumas and many shocks. And it goes on. The ultimate break happens when the child falls in love with a woman. He is becoming grown up. This is the last break with the mother; now the last link is broken. But still this man-child will go on behaving as if his wife is his mother. She is not. She is interested in herself, and he is interested in himself. Both are interested in themselves. They are egos. And every husband goes on trying to get the wife to behave like his mother. That is the struggle. She cannot behave like that -- she has her own interests. The mother was totally devoted.

So every man is frustrated with his wife because no wife can be a mother. It is not a question of good and bad wives -- no wife can be a mother. Every man is frustrated. I have not yet seen a man who is not frustrated with his wife. It seems impossible not to be frustrated because the desire is so impossible.

But the husband feels good when he enters the woman, the wife. Again he is in the womb. This is a symbolic penetration. In those few moments he forgets all the worries, the world, everything. He is again a child. Look at a man deep in love with his wife, or beloved -- his face will look like a child. All the tensions have gone. So it is not just coincidence that when in love the wife will call the husband `baby'.

I was just reading an anecdote. It was midnight and a house was on fire. At the last moment a woman was pulled out of it. She was mad and crying, "My baby has remained inside." And then suddenly the baby appeared -- on the balcony stood a three hundred and sixty pound man and he said, "Don't get worried, I am alive and I am coming." And the whole crowd was wondering what the matter was!

But they were deep in love, just lying together, and the man was a baby at that moment. In all ways mind is seeking a womb-like state again, but you cannot enter the womb, even in a sexual act. You just seem to be.

The only possibility of entering the womb again is not physical, it is psychological, or, on deeper layers, spiritual. If you can be one with the cosmos you will be in the womb again, and this is something which cannot be taken away from you. Then the whole existence becomes a mother. So to me, those religions that have said that God is not a father but a mother, are more scientific. Those who have called their God `father' are not so scientific. Because a father is not a very essential thing. It is just accidental. `Father' has not always existed. The word `mother' is very very much older than `father'. Even the word `uncle' is older than `father'. Because five thousand years back there was no marriage -- groups lived together. The child knew his mother but he didn't know who the father was, so all the male members of the group were uncles. `Uncle' is an older word than `father.' All the males were uncles because there was no certainty who the father was.

Father is a later arrival. When one male dominated a woman and pushed away all the other males, father came into being. And it is not certain whether it is going to remain, because the family is dispersing. It is not something eternal, just institutional. The father seems to be going; in the future he cannot say. For father there is no hope! He will drop. Uncles will again become important. Mother is basic; father is social and can be discarded. It depends on the institution, on the way society thinks. But mother cannot be discarded. So those religions that think of God as the Mother are really deeper -- when you enter God the mother, and become one with it, you have entered the eternal womb. Now there will be no pain, there will be no suffering. Now you will never be thrown out.

The last question:

Question 5

YOU SAID WE ARE CONCERNED WITH THREADS, NOT THE ESSENCE. BUT WHOM DO YOU MEAN BY `WE ARE'? BECAUSE AS WE ARE WE ARE CONCERNED WITH BEADS, WITH EVENTS. WE LIVE IN EVENTS.

When I say that we are concerned with the thread, with the essence, the foundational, the real, by `we' I don't mean you. You as you are, no. But you as you can be, yes. You are double, and that which you are right now is not the real. It is just a false thing, just an image which can be discarded easily. The real you is that which can be known only when all the masks are thrown away. So when I say `we' are concerned with the thread, I include you in your reality -- not as egos, but as souls. You are two: one as you appear to be and one as you are. The appearance is concerned with events, concerned with beads, the superficial. The inner, the one that you are, is not concerned with events: it is not concerned with time at all. It is concerned with the eternal.

I will tell you a story of one of Buddha's past lives, when he was not yet a Buddha; in that life Buddha was as ignorant as anyone. He heard about a man who had become enlightened. So he went to touch his feet and to have a DARSHAN. He touched the feet of the enlightened one, and when he was rising, he was amazed to see the enlightened man touching his feet. He said, "What are you doing? I am ignorant, unenlightened, a sinner, and you are enlightened, the purest light I have ever seen. Why should you touch my feet? I have come to touch your feet. Why should you touch my feet?"

The enlightened one laughed and said, "I am not touching your feet. I am touching the feet of the essential, of the soul that is hidden within you. That is already enlightened. You may know it, later on, and when you know, remember. One day you will come to know the reality before which I have bowed down. You don't know it right now, your own treasure you don't know, but I know my treasure and the moment I have known my treasure, I have known everybody else's treasure."

The enlightened one said to Buddha, "The moment I became enlightened I knew the essential reality of all. You can go on deluding yourself, that is up to you, but I can penetrate and I can see the purest light within you. Remember me when you realize it."

And when Buddha became enlightened in his next life, he said to his disciples, "I didn't understand what that awakened one was saying. It was a mystery. But now I can see what he meant. Now the appearance has come. And whatsoever I am now I was at the moment also. He must have bowed to this."

So when I say `we', I include you in your possibility, not in your appearance. Your appearance is just a dream. But you are not aware of it because if you become aware that you are dreaming, the dream has ceased. You are not aware of the real you. If you become aware, the appearance will disappear.

I am aware. So you can understand my difficulty -- I see you as enlightened ones. You are already that. You are just playing the game of being ignorant, just trying to deceive yourself, but whatsoever you do makes no difference to the innermost reality. It remains innocent, pure, absolutely pure. You are here. If I look at your surface, you have to be taught many things. But if I look to your inner, there is no need to teach you anything, there is no need to do anything. That is what I mean when I say, "We are concerned with the thread, the essence, not with the beads, the events, the outer."

Remember this. Some day when you become enlightened you will know what my meaning was when I said `we', and who was included. It is certain that you are not included as you are here, just before me, the appearance, no -- but as you have always been and as you will always be when this curtain is thrown away, when these clouds disappear and the sun rises. I can see the sun behind the clouds.

You are so identified with the clouds that you cannot even believe me. If I say you are already enlightened, how can you believe it? You will say I must be deceiving you or playing a trick. This is the truth, but truth is difficult to understand. And you have to travel long before you come to yourselves, you have to travel long before you come to realize that your home is the goal, that you have been always in the place that you wanted to reach.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #31

Chapter title: Forget the periphery

31 July 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7307315

ShortTitle: VBT231

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 88 mins

IN ANY POSITION GRADUALLY PERVADE AN AREA BETWEEN THE ARMPITS INTO GREAT PEACE.

FEEL YOURSELF AS PERVADING ALL DIRECTIONS, FAR, NEAR.

Life without is a cyclone -- a constant conflict, turmoil, struggle. But it is only so on the surface -- just as on the surface of the ocean are waves, maddening noise, constant struggle. But this is not all of life. Deep down there is also a center -- soundless, silent, no conflict, no struggle. In the center, life is a noiseless flow, relaxed, a river moving with no struggle, with no fight, no violence Towards that inner center is the search. You can get identified with the surface, with the outer. Then anxiety and anguish follows. This is what has happened to everyone: we are identified with the surface and with the struggle that goes on there.

The surface is bound to be disturbed, nothing is wrong in it. And if you can be rooted in the center, the disturbance on the surface will become beautiful it will have a beauty of its own. If you can be silent within, then all the sounds without become musical. Then nothing is wrong; it becomes a play. But if you don't know the inner core, the silent center, if you are totally identified with the surface, you will go mad. And everyone is almost mad.

All religious techniques, techniques of yoga, meditation, Zen, are basically to help you to be again in contact with the center; to move within; to forget the periphery; to leave the periphery for a time being and to relax into your own being so deeply that the outer disappears completely and only the inner remains. Once you know how to move backwards, how to step down into yourself, it is not difficult. It becomes as easy as anything. But if you don't know, if you know only the mind clinging to the surface, it is very difficult. Relaxing into one's self is not difficult: non-clinging to the surface is.

I have heard a Sufi story. Once it happened that a Sufi fakir was traveling. It was a dark night and he lost his way. It was so dark he couldn't even see where he was moving -- then suddenly he fell into an abyss. He was terrified. He didn't know what was down there in the darkness or how deep the abyss was. So he caught hold of a branch and started praying. The night was cold. He cried but there was no one to listen, only his own voice echoed back. And the night was so cold that his hands were becoming frozen and he knew that sooner or later he would have to leave the branch -- it was going to be difficult to keep on holding it. His hands were getting so frozen that they were already slipping from the branch. Death was absolutely near. Any moment he would fall and die. And then the last moment came. You can understand how terrified he was. Dying moment by moment, then the last moment came and he saw the branch slipping out of his hand. And his hands were so frozen that there was no way to hold on, so he had to fall.

But the moment he fell he started dancing -- there was no abyss, he was on clear ground. And he had suffered all night....

This is the situation. You go on clinging to the surface, afraid that if you leave the surface you will be lost. Really, clinging to the surface you are lost. But deep down there is darkness and you cannot see any ground; you cannot see anything else than the surface. All these techniques are to make you courageous, strong, adventurous, so that you can stop the holding on and fall within yourself. That which looks like an abyss, dark, bottomless, is the very ground of your being. Once you leave the surface, the periphery, you will be centered.

This centering is the aim. Once you are centered you can move to the periphery but you will be totally different. The quality of your consciousness will have changed altogether. Then you can move to the periphery but you will never be the periphery again -- you will remain at the center. And remaining centered at the periphery is beautiful. Then you can enjoy it; it will become a beautiful play. Then there is no conflict; it is a game. Then it will not create tensions within you and there will be no anguish and no anxiety around you. And any moment that it becomes too much, too heavy on you, you can go back to the original source -- you can have a dip. Then you will be refreshed, rejuvenated, and you can move to the periphery again. Once you know the way.... And the way is not long. You are not going anywhere else than into your own self, so it is not long. It is just near. The only barrier is your holding on, holding to the periphery, afraid that if you leave it you will be lost. The fear feels just as if you are going to die. Moving to the inner center is a death -- death in the sense that your identity with the periphery will die, and a new image, a new feeling of your being will arise.

So if we want to say in a few words what Tantra techniques are, we can say that they are a deep relaxation into oneself, a total relaxation into oneself.

You are always tense, that is the holding, the clinging. You are never relaxed, never in a state of let-go. You are always doing something: that doing is the problem. You are never in a state of non-doing, when things are happening and you are just there not doing anything. Breath comes in and goes out, the blood circulates, the body is alive and throbbing, the breeze blows, the world goes on spinning around -- and you are not doing anything. You are not a doer. You are simply relaxed and things are happening. When things are happening and you are not a doer, you are totally relaxed. When you are a doer and things are not happening but are being manipulated by you, you are tense.

You relax partially while you are asleep, but it is not total. Even in your sleep you go on manipulating, even in your sleep you don't allow everything to happen. Watch a man sleeping: you will see that he is very tense, his whole body will be tense. Watch a small child sleeping, he is very relaxed. Or watch an animal, a cat -- a cat is always relaxed. You are not relaxed even while asleep; you are tense, struggling, moving, fighting with something. On your face there are tensions. In dreams you may be fighting, protecting -- doing the same things as when you were awake, repeating them in an inner drama. You are not relaxed; you are not in a deep let-go. That's why sleep is becoming more and more difficult. And psychologists say that if the same trend goes on, soon the day will come when no one will be able to sleep naturally. Sleep will have to be chemically produced because no one will be able to fall naturally into sleep. The day is not very far. You are already on the way towards it because even while asleep you are only partially asleep, partially relaxed.

Meditation is the deepest sleep. It is total relaxation plus something more; you are totally relaxed and yet alert. Awareness is there. Total sleep with awareness is meditation. Fully alert, things are happening but you are not resisting, not fighting, not doing. The doer is not there. The doer has gone into sleep. Only a witness is there a `non-doer alertness' is there. Then nothing can disturb you.

If you know how to relax then nothing can disturb you. If you don't know how to relax then everything will disturb you. I say everything. It is not really something else that disturbs you, everything else is just an excuse. You are almost always ready to be disturbed. If one thing doesn't disturb you, then something else will; you will get disturbed. You are ready, you have a tendency to get disturbed. If all the causes are withdrawn from you even then you will get disturbed. You will find some cause, you will create some cause. If nothing comes from without, you will create something from within -- some thought, some idea -- and you will get disturbed. You need excuses. Once you know how to relax nothing can disturb you. Not that the world will change, not that things will be different. The world will be the same. But you don't have the tendency, you don't have the madness; you are not constantly ready to be disturbed. Then all that happens around you is soothing -- even the traffic noise becomes soothing if you are relaxed. Even the market-place becomes soothing. It depends on you. It is an inner quality. The more you go towards the center the more the quality arises and the more you move towards the periphery the more you will be disturbed. If you are too disturbed or if you are prone to be disturbed that shows only one thing: that you are existing near the periphery -- nothing else. It is an indication that you have made your abode near the surface. And this is a false abode because your real home is at the center, the very center of your being.

Now we will enter the techniques.

IN ANY EASY POSITION GRADUALLY PERVADE AN AREA BETWEEN THE ARMPITS INTO GREAT PEACE.

This is a very simple method but it works miraculously -- try it. And anyone can try it, there is no danger. The first thing is to be in an easy relaxed position -- relaxed in a position that is easy for you. Don't try a particular position or ASANA. Buddha sits in a particular posture. It is easy for him. It also can become easy for you if you practise it for a time being, but in the very beginning it will not be easy for you. And there is no need to practise it: start from any posture that comes easy to you right now. Don't struggle with the posture. You can sit in an easy chair and relax. The only thing is your body must be in a relaxed state.

So just close your eyes and feel all over the body. Start from the legs -- feel whether there is some tension or not. If you feel there is some tension, do one thing: make it more tense. If you feel there is some tension in the right leg, then make that tension as intense as possible. Bring it to a peak -- then suddenly relax so that you can feel how the relaxation settles there. Then go all over the body just looking everywhere for some tension. Wherever you feel the tension make it more so, because it is easy to relax when it is intense. In just a mid-state it is very difficult because you cannot feel it. It is easy to move from one extreme to another, very easy, because the very extreme creates the situation to move to the other. So if you feel some tensions in the face then strain all the face muscles as much as possible, create tension and bring it to a peak. Bring it to a point where you feel that no more is possible -- then suddenly relax. In this way see that all parts of the body, all the limbs are relaxed.

And be particular about the face muscles, because they carry ninety per cent of the tensions -- the rest of the body carries only ten per cent. All your tensions are in the mind so the face becomes the storage. So strain your face as much as possible, don't be shy about it. Make it intensely anguished, anxious -- and then suddenly relax. Do it for five minutes so that you can feel that every limb in the whole body is relaxed. This is an easy posture for you.

You can do it sitting, or lying in bed or howsoever you feel is easy for you. IN ANY EASY POSITION GRADUALLY PERVADE AN AREA BETWEEN THE ARMPITS INTO GREAT PEACE.

The second thing: when you feel that the body has got to an easy posture, don't make much fuss about it. Just feel that the body is relaxed, then forget the body. Because really, remembering the body is a sort of tension. That's why I say don't make much fuss about it. Relax it and forget it. Forgetting is relaxation. Whenever you remember too much, that very remembering brings a tension to the body.

You may not have observed this, but there is a very easy experiment to try. Put your hand on your pulse and count it. Then close your eyes, bring your attention to your pulse for five minutes, and then count. The pulse will now be beating faster because the attention for five minutes gives tension to it. So really, whenever a doctor counts your pulse it is never the real count -- it is always more than it was before the doctor started counting it. Whenever the doctor has taken your hand in his hand you have become alert. And if the doctor is a lady doctor you will be more alert, and it will go faster. So whenever a lady doctor counts your pulse reduce it by ten. Then that will be exactly your pulse count -- otherwise there will be ten more counts per minute.

Whenever you bring your consciousness to any part of the body, that part becomes tense. You become tense when someone observes you; the whole body becomes tense. When you are alone you are different. When someone enters the room you are not the same. The whole body is going at a faster rate. You have become tense. So don't make much fuss about relaxation or you will be obsessed with it. For five minutes simply relax easily and forget. Your forgetting will be helpful and it will bring a deeper relaxation to the body.

.... GRADUALLY PERVADE AN AREA BETWEEN THE ARMPITS INTO GREAT PEACE. Close your eyes and just feel the area between the two armpits: the heart area, your chest. First feel it just between the two armpits with your total attention, total awareness. Forget the whole body, remember just the heart area between the two armpits, the chest, and feel it filled with great peace. The moment the body is relaxed, peace automatically happens in your heart. The heart becomes silent, relaxed, harmonious. And when you forget the whole body and bring your attention just to the chest and consciously feel it filled with peace, much peace will happen immediately.

There are areas in the body, particular centers, where particular feelings can be created consciously. Between the two armpits is the heart center, and the heart center is the source of all the peace that happens to you, whenever it happens. Whenever you are peaceful, the peace is coming from the heart. The heart radiates peace. That is why people all over the world, every race, without any distinction of cat, religion, country, cultured or uncultured, have felt this: that love arises from somewhere near the heart. No scientific explanation exists. Whenever you think of love you think of the heart. Really, whenever you are in love you are relaxed, and because you are relaxed you are filled with a certain peace. That peace arises from the heart. So peace and love have become joined, associated. Whenever you are in love you are peaceful; whenever you are not in love you are disturbed. Because of peace the heart has become associated with love.

So you can do two things. You can search for love, then sometimes you will feel peace. But this path is dangerous, because the other person whom you love has become more important than you. And the other is the other, and you are becoming in a way dependent. So love will give you peace sometimes but not always. There will be many disturbances, many moments of anguish and anxiety, because the other has entered. Whenever another enters there is bound to be some disturbance, because you can meet with the other only on your surface. The surface will be disturbed. Only sometimes when the two of you will be so deeply in love with no conflict, only then will you sometimes be relaxed and the heart will glow with peace.

So love can only give you glimpses of peace but nothing really established, rooted. No eternal peace is possible through it, only glimpses. And between two glimpses there will be deep valleys of conflict, violence, hatred and anger.

The other way is to find peace not through love, but directly. If you can find peace directly -- and this is the method for it -- your life will become filled with love. But now the quality of love will be different. It will not be possessive; it will not be centered around one. It will not be dependent and it will not make any one dependent on you. Your love will become just a lovingness, a compassion, a deep empathy. And now no one, not even a lover, can disturb you, because your peace is already rooted and your love comes as a shadow of your inner peace. The whole thing has become reversed. So Buddha is also loving but his love is not an anguish. If you love you will suffer, if you don't love you will suffer. If you don't love you will suffer the absence of love; if you love you will suffer the presence of love. Because you are on the surface and whatsoever you do can only give you momentary satisfaction -- then again the dark valley.

First be established in peace on your own, then you are independent, then love is not your need. Then you will never feel imprisoned when you are in love; you will never feel that love has become a sort of dependence, a slavery, a bondage. Then love will be just a giving: you have too much peace so you want to share it. Then it will be just a giving with no idea of return; it will be unconditional. And it is one of the secrets that the more you give, the more it happens to you. The more you give and share, the more it becomes your own. The deeper you enter into the treasury, which is infinite, the more you can go on giving to everybody. It is inexhaustible.

But love must happen to you as a shadow of inner peace. Ordinarily the reverse is the phenomenon: peace happens to you just as a shadow of love. Love must happen to you as a shadow of peace, then love is beautiful. Otherwise love also creates ugliness, it becomes a disease, a fever.

.... PERVADE AN AREA BETWEEN THE ARMPITS INTO GREAT PEACE.

Become aware of the area between the armpits and feel that it is filled with great peace. Just feel peace there and you will feel it is filled. It is always filled but you have never been alert about it. This is only to increase your alertness, to bring you nearer home. And when you feel this peace you are farther away from the surface. Not that things will not be happening there -- but when you try this experiment and when you are filled with peace you will feel a distance; the noise is coming from the street but there is a great distance now, a great space. It happens, but it brings no disturbance; rather, it brings you a deeper silence. This is the miracle. The children will be playing, someone will be listening to the radio, someone will be quarrelling and the whole world will be going around, but you feel that a great distance has come between you and everything. That distance comes because you have retreated from the periphery. Things are happening on the periphery and they will appear to you as if they are happening to someone else. You are not involved. Nothing disturbs you so you are not involved -- you have transcended. This is the transcendence.

And the heart is naturally the source of peace. You are not creating anything. You are simply coming to a source which is always there. This imagining will help you become aware that the heart is filled with peace -- it is not that the imagining will create the peace. This is the difference between the Tantra attitude and Western hypnosis. Hypnotists think that you are creating it by imagination but Tantra thinks that you are not creating it by imagination, you are simply becoming attuned to something that is already there. Because whatsoever you can create by imagination cannot be permanent: if it is not a reality then it is false, unreal, and you are creating a hallucination. So it is better to be disturbed and real than to be in a hallucination of peace, because that is not a growth, you are simply intoxicated by it. Sooner or later you will have to come out because sooner or later the reality will shatter the illusion. Reality has to shatter all illusions; only a greater reality cannot be shattered.

A greater reality will shatter the reality which is on the periphery, hence Shankara and others say that the world is illusion. Not that the world is illusion, but they have come to know a higher reality and from that altitude this world looks dreamy. It is so far away, the distance is so infinite that it cannot be felt as real. The noise on the street will be as if you are dreaming about it -- it is not real. It cannot do anything. It just happens and passes and you remain untouched. And when you are untouched by reality how can you feel that it is real? The reality is felt only when it penetrates you deeply. The deeper the penetration, the more you feel it as real.

Shankara says the whole world is unreal. He must have come to a point from where the distance is so vast, so tremendously vast, that all that happens there becomes just like a dream. It comes but no reality comes with it because it cannot penetrate. Penetration is the proportion of reality. If I throw a stone at you it hits you. The hit penetrates you and that penetration makes the stone real. If I throw a stone and it touches you but doesn't penetrate you, deep down you will hear the thud of the falling stone on you, but there will be no disturbance. You will feel it as false, unreal, MAYA, illusory. But you are so near the periphery that if I throw a stone at you, you will be hurt. Not the body -- the body will be hurt in either case. If I throw a stone at a Buddha the body will be hurt as your body will be hurt, but Buddha is not on the periphery, he is rooted in the center. And the distance is so great that he will hear the thud of the stone without being hurt. The being will remain untouched, unscarred. This unscarred being will feel the stone as if it is something thrown in a dream. It is illusory. So Buddha says that nothing has substance to it, everything is `substanceless', without any substance. The world is empty of substance -- which is the same thing as Shankara saying that the world is illusory.

Try this. Whenever you are able to feel the peace between your two armpits filling you, pervading your heart center, the world will look illusory. This is a sign that you have entered meditation -- when the world feels and appears to be illusory. Don't think that the world is illusory, there is no need to think it -- you will feel it. It will suddenly occur to your mind, "What has happened to the world?" The world has suddenly gone dreamy. It is there, a dreamlike existence, without any substance. It looks so real, just like a film on the screen. It can even be three dimensional. It looks like something, but it is a projected thing. Not that the world is a projected thing, not that it is really unreal -- no. The world is real but you create the distance, and the distance gets more and more. And you can understand whether the distance is getting more and more or not by knowing how you are feeling about the world. That's the criterion. That is a meditative criterion. It is not a truth that the world is unreal -- if the world has become unreal, you have become centered in the being. Now the surface and you are so far away that you can look at the surface as being something objective, something other than you. You are not identified.

This technique is very easy and will not take much time if you try it. With this technique it sometimes even happens that with the very first effort you will feel the beauty and the miracle of it. So try it. But if you don't feel anything with the first effort, don't be disappointed. Wait. And go on doing it. And it is so easy that you can go on doing it any time. Just lying on your bed at night you can do it; just in the morning when you feel that you are now awake you can do it. Do first and then get up. Even ten minutes will be enough. Ten minutes at night just before falling asleep, do it. Make the world unreal, and your sleep will be so deep that you may not have slept like that before. If the world becomes unreal just before falling asleep, dreaming will be less. Because if the world has become a dream then dreams cannot continue. And if the world is unreal, you are totally relaxed because the reality of the world will not impinge itself upon you, hammer on you.

I have suggested this technique to people who suffer from insomnia. It helps deeply. If the world is unreal, tensions dissolve. And if you can move from the periphery, you have already moved to a deep state of sleep -- before the sleep comes you are already deep into it. And then in the morning it is beautiful because you are so fresh, so young; your whole energy is vibrating. It is because you are coming back to the periphery from the center.

And the moment you become alert that now sleep is no more, don't open your eyes. First do this experiment for ten minutes, then open the eyes. The body is relaxed after the whole night and is feeling fresh and alive. You are already relaxed; so it will not take much time. Just relax. Bring your consciousness to the heart just between the two armpits: feel it filled with deep peace. For ten minutes remain in that peace, then open the eyes. The world will look totally different because that peace will also be radiated from your eyes. And the whole day you will feel different -- not only will you feel different but you will feel that people are behaving differently with you. To every relationship you contribute something. If your contribution is not there, people behave differently because they feel you are a different person. They may not be aware of it. But when you are filled with peace everyone will behave differently towards you. They will be more loving and more kind, less resistant, more open, closer. A magnet is there. Peace is the magnet. When you are peaceful people come nearer to you; when you are disturbed everyone is repelled. And this is so physical a phenomenon that you can observe it easily. Whenever you are peaceful you will feel everyone wants to be closer to you because that peace radiates, it becomes a vibration around you. Circles of peace move around you and whosoever comes near wants to be nearer to you -- like you want to move under the shadow of a tree and to relax there.

A person who is peaceful within has a shadow around him. Wherever he goes everyone would like to be closer to him, open, trusting. A person who has inner turmoil, conflict, anguish, anxiety, tensions, repels persons. Whosoever come near becomes afraid. You are dangerous. To be near you is dangerous. Because you will give whatsoever you have, you are constantly giving it. So you may want to love someone but if you are very disturbed within, even your lover will be repelled and he will want to escape from you because you will drain his energy and he will not feel happy with you. And whenever you leave him, you will leave him tired, exhausted, because you don;t have a life-giving source, you have a destructive energy within you.

So not only will you feel you are different, others will also feel that you are different.

Your whole life-style can change if you move a little closer to the center -- and the whole outlook and the whole outcome. If you are peaceful the whole world becomes peaceful to you. It is just a reflection. Whatsoever you are is reflected all over. Everyone becomes a mirror.

The second technique:

FEEL YOURSELF AS PERVADING ALL DIRECTIONS, FAR, NEAR.

Tantra and yoga both think that your narrowness is the problem. Because you have made yourself so narrow, so tightly narrow, you feel always in bondage. The bondage is not coming from anywhere else: the bondage is coming from your narrow mind. And it goes on being narrower and narrower and you are very confined. That confinement gives you the feeling of bondage. You have an infinite soul and an infinite being but that infinite being feels imprisoned. So whatsoever you do, you feel limitations everywhere. Wherever you move, a point of cul de sac comes. You cannot move beyond it. Everywhere there is a boundary. There is no open sky to fly. But that boundary is created by you -- that boundary is your own creation. You have created it for certain reasons: for security, safety. You have created a boundary. And the narrower the boundary, the more you feel secure. If you have a very large boundary you cannot watch over all of it, you cannot be alert and watchful everywhere. It becomes vulnerable. Narrow the boundary and you can watch it, you can remain closed, you are not vulnerable, you feel safe. The safety, the security has created the boundary. But then you feel a bondage.

This is how the mind is paradoxical. You go on asking for more safety and you go on asking for more freedom. Both cannot be together. If you want freedom you will have to lose safety, security -- in any case the safety is just illusory, it is not really there. Because death is going to happen -- whatsoever you do, you are going to die. All your safety, security, is just a facade, nothing will help. But afraid of insecurity you create boundaries, you create big walls around you and then the open sky is closed. And then you suffer! And then you say, "Where is the open sky?" and "I want freedom and I want to move!" But you have created these boundaries.

So this is the first thing to remember before you do this technique otherwise it will not be possible to do it. With your boundaries intact you cannot do it. Unless you stop creating boundaries you will not be able to feel or do it.

.... PERVADING ALL DIRECTIONS, FAR, NEAR. No boundaries, becoming infinite, becoming one with infinite space.... This will be impossible with your mind. How can you feel it? How can you do it? First you will have to stop doing certain things.

The first thing is that if you are too concerned about security and safety then remain in bondage. Really, prison is the most secure place. No one can harm you there. No one out of prison is as secure, as guarded, as the prisoners. You cannot kill, you cannot murder a prisoner. It is difficult. He is more guarded than a king. You can murder a president or a king, it is not so difficult. Every day they go on killing them. But you cannot kill a prisoner. He is so safe that those who want to be safe, really, must be in prisons, they must not live outside. To live out of a prison is dangerous, it is full of hazards. Anything can happen. So we have created mental prisons around us, psychological prisons around us, and we carry those prisons with us, they are portable. You need not remain with them, they move with you. Wherever you go, your prison goes with you.

You are always behind a wall. Only sometimes, rarely, do you stretch your hand out of it to touch someone. But only a hand -- you never come out of your prison. So whenever we meet, it is simply meeting hands out of prisons. Out of windows we stretch a hand, afraid, scared, and ready any moment to withdraw the hand. Both the parties are doing the same -- only hands touch. And now psychologists say that even that is just an appearance, because hands have their own armor around them. No hand is ungloved. Not only Queen Elizabeth uses gloves, you also have gloves so that no one can touch you. Or even if someone touches, there is only a hand, dead. You are already withdrawn, afraid. Because the other creates fear. As Sartre says, "The other is the enemy." The other will look like an enemy if you are so armored. With an armored person there can be no friendship. Friendship is impossible, love is impossible, communion is impossible. You are afraid. Someone may make you a possession, someone may overpower you, someone may make you a slave... afraid of this, you have created a prison, a safety wall around you. Cautiously you move, cautiously you take every step. Life becomes a drudgery, life becomes a boredom. If you are too cautious, life cannot be an adventure. If you are protecting yourself too much, hankering after security too much, you are already dead.

So remember one basic law: life is insecurity. And if you are ready to live in insecurity, only then will you be alive. Insecurity is freedom. If you are ready to be insecure, constantly insecure, you will be free. And freedom is the door to the Divine.

Afraid, you create a prison -- you become dead, more and more dead. And then you call, "Where is God?" And then you question, "Where is life? What does life mean? Where is bliss?" Life is there waiting for you, but you have to meet it on its own terms. You cannot have your own terms, life has its own terms. And the basic term is: remain insecure. Nothing can be done about it. You can only create an illusion and in that illusion you can waste your life. Nothing can be done about it. Whatsoever you do is just a deception.

If you fall in love you become afraid that this woman can leave you or this man can leave you. Fear enters immediately. You were never afraid when you were not in love. Now you are in love: life has entered and insecurity has entered with it. One who never loves anybody is never afraid that anyone will leave him. The whole world can leave him, he is not afraid. You cannot harm him. He is secure. The moment you love someone, insecurity has entered because life has entered. And with life, death has entered. The moment you love you have become afraid: this person can die, this person can leave, this person can love somebody else! Now to make things secure, you must do something -- you must get married. So a legal bondage is made so that it is now difficult for this person to leave you. \Now society will protect you, the law will protect you, the policeman, the judge, will all protect you. Now if this person wants to leave, you can drag him to the court, and if he wants a divorce he will have to prove something against you. Even then it will take three or five years. Now you have created safety around you. But the moment you are married you are dead. The relationship is not alive. Now it has become a law, not a relationship. Now it is a legal phenomenon, not an alive thing. The court cannot protect life; the law can only protect laws. Now marriage is something which is dead. It can be defined. Love cannot be defined. Marriage is definable, love is indefinable. Now you have come under the world of definitions.

But the phenomenon is already dead. The moment you wanted it to be secure, the moment you wanted to enclose it so that no new thing happens to it, you are imprisoned in it. Then you will suffer. Then you will say that this wife has become a bondage to you. The husband will say this wife has become a bondage to him. And then you fight because you have each become an imprisonment for the other. Now you fight. Now love has disappeared, there is only conflict. That is what happens because of the hankering for security.

And this has happened in everything. Remember it as something basic: life is insecure. This is the very nature of it. So when there is love, suffer the fear that the beloved can leave you, but don;t create security. Then love will grow. The beloved can die and you cannot do anything, but that will not kill love. Security can kill. Love will grow more.

Really, if man were immortal, I say love would be impossible. If man were immortal it would be difficult to love anybody. It would be so dangerous to fall in love. Death is there and life is just like a dew drop on a trembling leaf. Any moment the breeze will come and the dew drop will fall and disappear. Life is just a wavering. Because of that wavering, because of that movement, death is always there. It gives intensity to love. Love is possible only because there is death. Love becomes intense because there is death. Think... if you know your beloved is going to die the next moment, all meanness will go, all conflict will go. And this one moment will become eternity. And there will be so much love that your whole being will be poured into it. But if you know the beloved is going to live, there is no hurry. You can fight and you can postpone the loving for later on. If life is eternal, if the body is immortal, you cannot love.

Hindus have a beautiful myth. They say in heaven where Indra rules -- Indra is the king of heaven -- there is no love. There are beautiful girls, more beautiful than on the earth, and deities. They have sex but there is no love because they are immortal.

So it is recorded in one of the Indian stories that Urvashi, the chief of the heavenly girls, asked permission of Indra to move to earth for a few days to love a man. "What nonsense!: Indra said. "You can love here! And you will not find such beautiful persons on the earth." Urvashi said, "They are beautiful but they are immortal, so there is no charm. They are really dead."

They are really dead because there is no death to make them alive. They will always be there. They cannot die, so how can they be alive? That aliveness exists against death. A man is alive because death is there constantly, fighting. Against the background of death life exists.

So Urvashi said, "Give me permission to move to the earth. I want to love someone." Permission was given so she came down to earth and fell in love with Pururuwa, a young man.

But there was a condition from Indra. Indra made the condition that she could go to the earth, she could love someone, but she must tell the man who loved her not to ask anything about who she was. This is difficult for love because love is curious. Love wants to know everything about the beloved, everything. The whole unknown has to be made known. The whole mystery has to be entered and penetrated. So Indra cunningly made a condition which Urvashi didn't understand the craftiness of. So she said, "Okay. I will tell my lover not to be curious about me, not to ask who I am. And if he asks, immediately I will leave him, I will come back." And she said to Pururuwa, "Don't ever ask anything about me, who I am. The moment you ask I will have to leave earth."

But love is curious. Because of this Pururuwa must have become more curious about who she was. He could not sleep. He would go on looking at Urvashi. Who is she? Such a beautiful woman, made of dreamy stuff, doesn't look earthly, doesn't look substantial. Perhaps she comes from somewhere else, some unknown dimension. He became more and more curious. But he also became more and more afraid, because she might leave. He became so afraid that in the night when he went to sleep he would take a fragment of her saree in his hand because he was not confident about himself. Any moment he could ask, the question was always there. Even in his sleep he could ask. And Urvashi said that even in sleep he could not ask about her. So he slept with a part of her saree in his hand.

But one night he couldn't contain himself -- and he thought that now she loved him so much that she would not leave. So he asked. And Urvashi had to disappear -- only a fragment of her saree remained in Pururuwa's hand. And it is said that he is still searching for her.

In heaven there cannot be love because there is no life really. Life exists here on earth, where death exists. Whenever you make anything secure, life disappears. Remain insecure, that is the very quality of life itself. Nothing can be done about it. And it is beautiful!

Just think if your body was immortal -- it would be ugly. You will start finding ways and means of committing suicide. And if it is impossible, against the law, you will suffer so much you cannot even imagine. Immortality is a very long thing. Now in the West they go on thinking about euthanasia because people are now living longer. So a person who reaches the age of a hundred wants the right to kill himself. And really, the right will have to be given. We made it a law not to commit suicide when life was very short. Really in Buddha's age to be forty or fifty was much. The average life was just about twenty. In India, just two decades ago the average life was twenty-three. Now in Sweden the average life is eighty-three. So people can very easily live to be a hundred and fifty. In Soviet Russia there are fifteen hundred people who have reached the mark of a hundred and fifty. Now if they say they have the right to kill themselves, because now it is too much, we will have to give them the right. It cannot be denied them. Sooner or later suicide will be one of the birth rights. You cannot deny it if a person wants to die -- not for any reason, just because now life has no meaning. It has been too long already. A person living at a hundred doesn't feel like living. Not that he is frustrated, not that there is no food. Everything is there, but life has no meaning.

So think of immortality. Life will be totally meaningless. The meaning comes with death. Love has meaning because love can be lost. Then it throbs, vibrates, pulsates. It can be lost! You cannot be certain about it! You cannot think anything about it for tomorrow because it may not be there. You have to love the lover and the beloved with the view that tomorrow may never be there at all. Then love becomes intense.

So first, withdraw your efforts to create a secure life. Just by withdrawing, your walls around you will fall. For the first time you will feel rains coming to you directly, the wind blowing at you directly, the sun rising to you directly. You will be under the open sky. It is beautiful. And if it looks horrible to you it is only because you have become accustomed to living in a prison. You will have to get accustomed to this new freedom. This freedom will make you more alive, more flowing, more open, more rich, more radiant. But the more radiant you are, the higher the peak of your aliveness, the deeper will be the death near you. Just near. You can rise only against death, the valley of death. The peak of life and the valley of death are always near and in proportion.

That's why I always say that Nietzsche's dictum is to be followed. It is a very religious dictum. Nietzsche says, "Live dangerously." Not that you have to seek danger positively, there is no need to seek danger positively. Don't create protections. Don't create walls around you. Live naturally, and that will be dangerous, dangerous enough. There is no need to seek any danger.

Then you can do this technique. FEEL YOURSELF AS PERVADING ALL DIRECTIONS, FAR, NEAR. Then it is very easy. If walls are not there, you will already be feeling yourself pervading everywhere. Then there is no point at where you end. You simply begin in the heart and end nowhere. You have a center and no periphery. The periphery goes on expanding -- on and on. The whole space is surrounded by it. Stars move in it. Earths are born and dissolve. Planets arise and set. The whole cosmos becomes your periphery. In this vastness where will your ego be? In this vastness where will your suffering be? In this vastness where will your mean mind be? The mediocre mind, where will it be? It cannot be there in such vastness, it simply disappears. It can exist only in a narrow field. It can exist only when it is walled, enclosed, encapsulated. The encapsulation is the problem. Live dangerously and be ready to live in insecurity.

And the beauty is that even if you decide not to live in insecurity, you will! You cannot do anything!

I have heard about a king. He was very afraid of death....

Kings are more afraid. They are more afraid because they have exploited so many people; they have pushed, crushed; they have played many political games on so many people. They have made many enemies. A real king has no friend. He cannot have. Because the closest friend is also an enemy, just waiting for an opportunity to kill him, to be in his place. A man in power cannot have any friends. A Hitler, a Stalin, a Nixon, they cannot have friends. They just have enemies who are parading around them as friends and just waiting for the right chance to push them aside from the throne. Whenever they get the chance they do everything. Just a moment ago they were friendly, but their friendliness is a strategy. Their friendliness is a tactic. A man who is in power cannot have friends. So Lao Tzu says, "If you want friends, don't be in power." Then the whole world will be friendly to you. If you are in power, then you are your only friend, everyone is your enemy.

.... So the king was very afraid. He was very scared of death, it was all around. He was haunted by the idea that everyone around him was going to kill him. He couldn't sleep. So he asked his wise men, his counsellors, what to do. They told him to make a palace with only one door. At the door he should put seven rings of military men: the first watching the palace, the second watching the first, the third ring watching the second. With only one door no one could enter and the king would be safe.

The king built the palace with only one door and with seven rings of soldiers watching each other. The news spread all over and another king from a nearby state came to see it. He was also afraid. News had reached him that his neighbor had built such a secure palace that it was impossible to kill him. He came to visit his neighbor and together they appreciated very much the idea of only one door and every safety; no danger.

While they were looking at the door a beggar just sitting at the corner of the street started laughing. So the king, the owner of the palace, asked the beggar, "Why are you laughing?" The beggar replied, "I am laughing because you have made one error. You should go inside and close, seal this door also. This door is dangerous, someone can enter it. A door means that somebody can enter. So you do one thing: go inside and let this door be also closed. Then you will be really safe because death cannot enter." But the king said, "That means I would be already dead if I closed this door also." The beggar said, "You are already ninety-nine per cent dead -- you are only as much alive as this door. That is the danger, this much alive. Leave this aliveness also."

Everyone in his own way is creating a palace around him where nothing can enter and he can remain in peace. But then you are already dead. And peace happens only to those who are alive; peace is not a dead thing. Remain alive, live dangerously, live a vulnerable life, open, so that everything can happen to you. And let everything happen to you. The more that happens to you the richer you will be.

Then you can practise this technique. This technique is then very easy, you will not even need to practise it. Just think, and you will be pervading the whole space.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #32

Chapter title: Falling in love with an enlightened person

1 August 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7308015

ShortTitle: VBT232

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 77 mins

The first question:

Question 1

YOU SAID THAT LOVE IS POSSIBLE ONLY WITH DEATH. THEN WILL YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN BUDDHA'S LOVE.

For an ignorant person love is always part of hate, it always goes with hate. For the ignorant mind hate and love are just two aspects of the same coin. For the ignorant mind love is never pure.

And that is the misery of love -- because the hate becomes a poison. You love a person and you hate the same person also. But you may not be doing both simultaneously so you are not aware of it. When you love a person you forget about the hatred part, it goes below, it goes into the unconscious and it waits there. Then when your love is tired, it falls into the unconscious and the hate part comes up. Then you hate the same person.

And when you hate you are not aware that you also love -- now the love has gone deep down into the unconscious. This goes on, just like night and day. It goes on moving in a circle. It becomes a misery.

But for a Buddha, for one who is enlightened, the dichotomy, the dualism, disappears. Everywhere -- not only as far as love is concerned -- the whole life becomes a oneness. Then there is no dichotomy, the opposite doesn't exist.

So really, to call Buddha's love `love' is not good, but we have no other term. Buddha himself never used the word `love'. He used the word `compassion'. But that too is not very good. Because your compassion is always mixed with your cruelty, your non-violence is always mixed with your violence -- whatsoever you do will have its opposite just nearby. You exist between contradictions; hence the tension, the anguish, the anxiety. You are not one; you are always two. You are a crowd, divided into many fragments, and those fragments are opposing each other. Your being is a tension; Buddha's being is a deep relaxation. Remember, tension exists between two opposite poles, and relaxation is just in the middle, where two opposing poles are no longer opposing. They negate each other -- and there is a transcendence. So Buddha's love is basically different from what you know as love.

Your love is a dis-ease; Buddha's love is total relaxation. There is no head part to it, so the quality of it changes completely. Many things will be in Buddha's love which cannot be in ordinary love. First, it cannot be hot. The hotness comes from hate. It is not passion, rather it is compassion. It is not hot, it is cool. To us, a cool love means something which has gone wrong. Buddha's love is cool, there is no heat to it. It is not like the sun, it is like the moon. It will not create passion in you, it will create a deep coolness.

Secondly, Buddha's love is not really a relationship -- your love is a relationship. Buddha's love is his state of being. Really, he does not love you, he IS love. This distinction must be understood clearly. If you love a person, your love is an act, you do something, you behave in a certain way, you create a relationship, a bridge. Buddha's love is just his being, it is just how he is. He is not loving towards you, he is just love. He is just like a flower there in the garden -- you pass by and the perfume comes to you. It is not that the flower is sending its perfume to you especially -- when there was no one passing by, the perfume was there. And if no one ever passes by, the perfume will still be there.

When your lover is not with you, when your beloved is not with you, the love disappears, the perfume is not there. It is an effort on your part, it is not simply your being. You have to do something to bring it out. When no one is there and Buddha is sitting alone under his Bodhi tree, then too he is a lover. It looks absurd that then too he is a lover. There is no one to be loved but still he is a lover. This being a lover is his state. And because it is his state, it is never a tension. Buddha cannot get tired of his love. You will get tired, because it is something you are doing. So lovers get tired of each other if there is too much love. They get tired, they need gaps, intervals, to recuperate. If you are with your lover for twenty-four hours he will get fed up because it is too much attention. Twenty-four hours of doing something is too much.

Buddha is not doing something, he is not tired of his love. It is his very being, it is just as if he is breathing. As you are never tired of breathing, you are never tired of being, so he is not tired of his love.

And then the third thing follows: you will be aware that you love, Buddha will not be at all aware. Because awareness needs the contrary. Buddha is so filled with love that he will not be aware. If you ask him he will say, "I love you." But he is not aware of it. It is flowing so silently from him, it has become so intrinsic a part, that he cannot be aware of it. You will become aware that he loves, and if you are open and receptive you will become more aware that he loves you more. It depends on your capacity, on how much you can receive. But to him it is not a gift. He is not giving anything to you -- he is this way, he happens to be this way. Whenever you become aware of your total being, enlightened, liberated, the dichotomy from your life drops. Then there is no duality. Then life becomes a harmony -- nothing is against anything.

Because of this harmony, much peace happens. There is no disturbance. Disturbance is not created from without, it is within you. The contradiction goes on creating the disturbance although you may find excuses without. For example, watch what happens with your lover, or a friend, a deep friend, very intimate, close. Live with him, and just watch what is happening to you. When you meet you are very elated, ecstatic, dancing. But how much can you dance? And how ecstatic can you feel? Minutes later you are down, the elation has gone, and after a few hours you are bored, you are thinking of escaping to somewhere else. And after a few days you will be fighting. Just watch what is happening. This is all coming from within, but you will find excuses outside. You will say that now this man is not as loving as he was when he came; now this man is disturbing me, he is making me angry. And you will always find that he is doing something to you, you will never be aware that your dichotomy, your duality of mind, the opposites within, are doing something. We are never aware of our own workings of the mind.

I have heard that a very famous, glamorous, Hollywood actress went to a studio for her photograph. The photograph had been taken the day before. The photographer presented the photograph to her, but she was annoyed, furious. She said, "What have you done? You have taken my photographs before and they were heavenly!" The photographer said to the actress, "Yes, but you have forgotten that I was twelve years younger when I took your photographs. I was twelve years younger, you forget that."

We never look within at what is happening. If the photograph is not okay to you, something is wrong with the photographer. It is not that twelve years have passed and you are older -- it is an inner process, the photographer is not concerned at all. But the photographer must have been a very wise man! He said, "You forget that I was twelve years younger then."

Buddha's love is totally different, but we don't have any other word for it. The best that we have is `love'. But, if you can remember this, then the quality changes completely.

And note one thing, think about it deeply. If Buddha is your lover, will you be satisfied? You will not be. Because you will feel that it is cold, that there is no passion in it. You will feel that he loves you as he loves everyone -- you are nothing special. You will feel that his love is not a gift -- he is this way, that is why he is loving.

You will feel his love to be so natural that you will not be satisfied with it. Think inside. You cannot be satisfied with a love which is without hate. And you cannot be satisfied with a love which is with hate. This is the problem. Either way you will be unsatisfied. If love is with hate, you will be unsatisfied, always ill, because the hate part will disturb you. If love is without hate, you will feel that it is cold. And it is happening to Buddha so naturally that even if you were not there it would be happening -- so it is nothing special for you. So your ego will feel unsatisfied. And it is my feeling that if you have a Buddha or a non-Buddha to choose as your lover, you will choose the non-Buddha... because you can understand his language. The non-Buddha is at least just like you. You will be fighting, you will be quarrelling, the whole thing will be just a mess, a mad mess, but still you will choose a non-Buddha. Because Buddha will be so high that you cannot understand the way that Buddha loves unless you rise.

With a non-Buddha, with an ignorant person, you need not transform yourself. You can remain the same. He is not a challenge. Really just the contrary happens to lovers. When two lovers meet and fall in love, they both try to convince each other that they are very high. They bring out the best that is within them. They appear to be on the peak. But it takes much arduous effort! You cannot remain on this peak. So when you start settling down you come back down to the earth.

So lovers are always frustrated with each other because they thought the other was just divine, and when they settle, when everything becomes just mundane, just ordinary, they think the other was deceiving. No, he was not deceiving, he was just presenting himself in his best colors. That is all. He was not deceiving anybody, he was not consciously doing anything. He was just presenting himself in his best colors. And the same was done by the other. But you cannot go on presenting yourself like that for long because it becomes arduous, difficult, heavy. So you come down.

When two lovers settle, when they start to take each other for granted, then they appear very mean, very mediocre, very ordinary -- just the opposite to what they appeared to be before. Then they were angels; now they appear to be just disciples of the devil. You fall down, you come to your ordinary level.

Ordinary love is not a challenge, but it is rare to fall in love with someone who is enlightened. Only very fortunate ones fall in such a love. It is rare. It happens only when you have been searching for an enlightened person for lives together. Only if this has happened do you fall in love with an enlightened person. Fall in love with an enlightened person is in itself a great achievement -- but then there is a problem. The problem is that the enlightened person is a challenge. He cannot come down to your level, that is not possible, that is impossible. You have to go to his peak; you have to travel, you have to be transformed.

So love becomes a SADHANA if you fall in love with a Buddha. It becomes a SADHANA, the greatest SADHANA that is possible. Because of this, whenever there is a Buddha or a Jesus, or a Lao Tzu, many around them are able to reach to peaks in one life that they could not have reached in many lives. But the secret is if they can fall in love. It is not unimaginable, it is imaginable. You may have been there in the time of Buddha, you must have been somewhere around. Buddha might have passed through your village or town and you may not have even heard him, you may not have seen him. Because even to hear a Buddha or to see a Buddha or to come near to him, a certain love is needed, a certain search is needed on your part.

When someone falls in love with an enlightened person it is meaningful, very meaningful. But arduous will be the path. It is easy to fall in love with an ordinary person, there is no challenge, but with an enlightened person the challenge will be much, and the path will be difficult, because you will have to travel all above. And those things will be disturbing. His love will be cold, his love will look as if it is for everyone, his love will not have the hatred part.

This has been my experience. Many people fall in love with me, and then they start to play the game -- the ordinary game. Knowingly or unknowingly, they start to play it. In a way it is natural. They start expecting things from me, ordinary expectations, and their mind works in the duality. For example, if you love me you will feel happy if you can make me happy. This is how love feels, it wants to make the other happy. If you can make me happy, you will feel happy -- but you cannot make me happy, I am already.

If you fall in love with me, you will feel dejected, you will feel very disappointed because you cannot make me happy, you cannot make me more happy, there is nothing more. If you cannot make me happy you will feel unhappy, and so you will try to make me unhappy! Because at least if you can do that, that too will be a satisfaction. You will try to make me unhappy -- unknowingly, you are not alert, you are not aware of it. If you are aware you will not do it. But you will try -- your unconscious mind will try to make me unhappy. If you can make me unhappy then you can be certain that you can make me happy also. But if you cannot make me unhappy you are totally disappointed. Then you will feel that you are not related to me at all, because this is what relationship means to you.

Ordinary love is a disease because the duality goes on persisting. And to understand the love of an enlightened person is difficult. Intellectually there is no way to understand it. You have to fall in love. And then you have to be alert about your own mind because that mind will go on disturbing.

Buddha became enlightened, then he came back to his home -- he came back after twelve years. His wife, whom he had loved very much, was very angry, furious. All these twelve years she had been waiting and waiting -- someday this man will come back. And she had much revenge in her mind because this man had done an injustice to her, he was unfair. Suddenly one night he had disappeared. At least he could have said something, then it would have been fair, but without saying anything he simply disappeared, leaving her and their small child. For twelve years she waited, and then Buddha came. She was furious, she was mad.

Buddha's nearest, closest disciple was Anand. Anand had always followed him like a shadow. When Buddha was entering the palace he said to Anand, "Please don't come with me." Anand asked why, because he had an ordinary mind, he was not enlightened. He became enlightened only when Buddha died. He said, "Why? Are you still thinking in terms of wife and husband? That you are going to meet your wife? Are you still thinking in terms of wife and husband?" He was shocked. How can a Buddha, an enlightened person, say, "Don't come with me. I am going to meet my wife?"

Buddha said, "That is not the point. She will get more furious seeing that I have come with someone. She has been waiting for twelve years. Let her be mad alone. She belongs to a very ancient family, very cultured So she will not be angry before you, she will not express anything -- and she has been waiting for twelve years. So let her explode, don't come with me. I am not a husband to her now, but she is still a wife. I have changed, bust she has not changed."

Buddha went alone. Of course she was furious, she started crying and weeping and screaming and saying things. And Buddha listened. She asked again and again, "If you loved me at all, why did you leave? Why did you go away? And without telling me. If you loved me at all, tell me this." And Buddha said, "If I didn't love you, why should I have come back?"

But these are two different things, totally different. She was not ready to hear what he would say. She went on insisting, "Why did you leave me alone? You tell me that you never loved me, then everything is settled." And Buddha said, "I did love you. I still love you. That is why I have come back after twelve years." But this love is different: she was angry and Buddha was not angry. If he had also been angry because she was screaming and weeping and crying, she could have understood. If he had also been angry and had beaten her, she could have understood. Then everything would have been okay. He was the old man. The twelve years would have disappeared completely and they would have loved again. There was no problem. But he was standing silently and she was mad. Only she was mad, he was smiling. This was too much! What type of love is this? It must have been very hard for her to understand.

Just to taunt Buddha she told her son, who was not twelve years old, "This is your father, look at him, an escapist. You were just one day old when he escaped. This is your father. He is a beggar, and he gave birth to you. Now ask about the heritage. Spread your hands before him, he is your father. Ask him what he has to give to you." She was taunting Buddha, she was angry, naturally. And Buddha called Anand who was standing outside and said, "Anand, come and bring my begging bowl." When the begging bowl was given to Buddha, he gave it to his son, Rahul, and said, "This is my heritage. I initiate you into SANNYAS." This was his love. But Yashodhara got more mad. She said, "What are you doing? If you love your son, you will not make him a beggar, a SANNYASIN." Buddha said, "I make him a beggar because I love him. I know what real heritage is, and that I am giving to him. My father was not so wise, but I know what is worth giving and I am giving it."

These are two different dimensions, two different languages, never meeting anywhere. He is loving. He must have loved his wife; that is why he came back. He must have loved his son; that is why he initiated him. But no father can understand this.

When Buddha's father heard about this -- he was an old man, ill -- he came running out and he said, "What have you done? Are you bent on destroying my whole family? You escaped from the house, you were my only son. Now my hopes are on Rahul, he is your only son. And you have initiated him into SANNYAS. So my family is cut. Now there is no possibility for the future. What are you doing? Are you an enemy?"

And Buddha said, "Because I love my son, I give him what is worth giving. Neither your kingdom nor your family and its tree is significant. It will make no difference to the world whether this tree goes on growing further or not. But the phenomenon of SANNYAS that Rahul is initiated into is something significant. I also love my son."

Two fathers talking.... Buddha's father was again pleading to him, "You come back. I am your father. I am old. I am angry. You have disappointed me. But still I have a father's heart and I will forgive you. Come, my doors are open. Come back. Throw this sannyas, come back, my doors are open. This kingdom is yours, I am waiting. I am very old but I have a deep love for you and I can forgive." This is love.

Then there is the other father, Gautam Buddha himself, giving initiation to his son to leave the world. That too is love.

But both loves are so different that it is not good to call them by one name, one word -- but we don't have any other.

The second question:

Question 2

LAST NIGHT YOU SAID THAT LOVE IS ALIVE BECAUSE IT IS INSECURE, AND MARRIAGE IS DEAD BECAUSE IT IS SECURE. BUT ISN'T IT TRUE THAT LOVE IN THE SPIRITUAL DEPTH BECOMES MARRIAGE?

No! It never becomes marriage. The deeper it goes the more love it becomes, but never a marriage. By marriage I mean an outer bond, a legal sanction, social approval. And I say that love never becomes a marriage because it is never secure. It remains love. It becomes more love, more and more, but the more it is, the more insecure it is. There is no security. But if you love, you don't care about security at all. When you don't love, only then you care about security. When you love, the very moment is so much that you don't care about the next moment, you don't care about the future. What happens tomorrow is not your concern -- because what is happening right now is so much. It is too much. It is unbearably much. You don't care. Why does security come to the mind? It comes because of the future. Really, you are not rooted in the present. You are not living in the present. You are not enjoying it. It is not a bliss. The present is not a bliss. Then you hope for the future, then you plan for the future, then you want to make every security for the future.

Love never wants to make any security, it is secure in itself. That is the point. It is so secure in itself that it never thinks about any security; what will happen in the future is not a concern at all -- because the future is going to grow out of the present, and if the present is so alive, so blissful, the future will grow out of it. Why worry about it?

When the present is not a bliss, when it is a misery, then you are worried about the future. Then you want to make it secure, safe. But remember, no one can make anything secure. That is not in the nature of things. The future will remain insecure. You can do only one thing: live the present more deeply. That is all you can do. If any security happens through that, that is the only security. And if it is not happening, it is not happening -- nothing can be done.

But our mind works in a completely suicidal way. The more miserable the present is, the more you think about the future and want to make it secure. And the more you move into the future, the more the present will be miserable. Then you are moving in a vicious circle. This circle can be broken, but the only way to break it is to live the present moment so deeply that this moment becomes the eternity in its depth. The future is going to be born out of it -- it will take its own course, you need not worry about it.

So I say that love never thinks of security because love is so secure in itself. Love is never afraid of insecurity. If it is there at all, if love is there at all, it is not afraid of insecurity. Life is insecure, but love is not afraid of insecurity. Rather, love enjoys insecurity because it gives color to life, changing seasons and moods. It gives tone. It is beautiful. The changing life is beautiful because there is always something to discover, there is always something to encounter which is new.

Really, two lovers move in a constant discovery of each other. And the landscape is infinite. A loving heart is an infinite landscape. You can never finish it. There is no end to it. It goes on and on. It is as spacious as space itself. Love is not worried about insecurity, love can enjoy it. It gives a thrill. Only those who cannot love are afraid of insecurity, because they are not rooted in life. Those who cannot love are always secure in life. They waste their life just making it secure -- and it is never secure. It cannot be.

Security is the quality of death; safety is the quality of death. Life is insecure, and love is not afraid of it. Love is not afraid of life, insecurity, because it is so grounded. If you are not grounded and you feel a cyclone coming, you will be afraid. But if you are grounded you will welcome the cyclone, it will become an adventure. If you are rooted, the passing cyclone will become a challenge. You will be shaken to the very roots by it; every fibre will become alive. Then when the cyclone has gone you will not think that it was bad, a misfortune. You will say it was fortunate, a blessing, because all the deadness has been taken away by the cyclone. All that was dead has moved with it and all that was alive has become more alive.

Look at the trees after the cyclone has gone. They are vibrating with life, pulsating with life, radiant, vital; energy is filling them. Because the cyclone gave then an opportunity to feel their roots, to feel their `groundedness.' It was an opportunity to feel themselves.

So one who is rooted in love is never afraid of anything. Whatsoever comes is beautiful, a change -- insecurity. Whatsoever happens is beautiful. But it never becomes a marriage. When I say it never becomes a marriage I don't mean that lovers should not marry, but that marriage should not become a substitute for love. It should only be the outer garb, it should not be the substitute. And it will never become a marriage because lovers never take each other for granted. What I mean is that it is deeply psychological -- lovers never take each other for granted. Once you start taking the other for granted, the other has become a thing. Now he is not a person. So marriage reduces the partners into things. A husband is a thing, a wife is a thing -- predictable, very predictable.

I have been staying in many families all over this country and I have come to know many wives and many husbands. They are not persons at all. They are predictable. If the husband asserts a sentence it can even be said what the wife will say. How the wife will react is predictable. And if the wife says something mechanically the husband will reply to it mechanically. It is certain. They are playing the same role again and again. Their life is just like a gramophone record when something goes wrong, when the needle sticks at a point and it goes on repeating. It is as predictable as that. You can tell what is going to happen again and again -- the husband and wife are stuck somewhere, they have become phonograph records. Then they go on repeating. That repetition creates boredom.

I was staying with a family. The husband said to me, "I have become afraid to be alone with my wife. Only when someone else is there are we both happy. We cannot even go for a holiday without taking someone with us because that someone gives something new. Otherwise we know what is going to happen. It is so predictable that it is not worth anything. We know it already."

It is just as if you are reading the same book, again and again and again.... Lovers are not predictable. That is the insecurity. You don't know what is going to happen -- and that is the beauty. You can be fresh and young and alive. But we want to make a thing of each other because a thing can be manipulated easily. And you need not be afraid of a thing. You know its whereabouts, its behavior. You can plan beforehand what to do and what not to do. By marriage I mean an arrangement in which two persons fall to the level of things. Love is not an arrangement: it is a moment to moment encounter, alive. Full of danger of course, but life is so. Marriage is safe, there is no danger; love is unsafe. You never know what is going to happen, the next moment is unknown, remains unknown.

So love is entering every moment into the unknown -- that is what Jesus means when he says, "God is love." God is as unknown as love. And if you are not ready to be alive and in love and insecure, you cannot move into God, because that is a greater insecurity, a greater unknownness. So love prepares you for prayer. If you can love, and remain with an unknown person without reducing him to a thing, without becoming predictable, encountering moment to moment, you are getting ready for prayer.

Prayer is nothing but love -- love for the whole existence. You are living with existence as you are living with your lover: you don't know the mood, you don't know the season, you don't know what is coming. Nothing is known. You go on uncovering it -- it is an endless journey.

The third question:

Question 3

CAN ONE WHO IS NOT ENLIGHTENED LIVE IN TOTAL INSECURITY AND NOT BE ANXIOUS, DEPRESSED AND MISERABLE?

Total insecurity and the capacity to live in it are synonymous with enlightenment. So one who is not enlightened cannot live in total insecurity, and one who cannot live in total insecurity cannot become enlightened. These are not two things, they are just two ways of saying the same thing. So don't wait until you have become enlightened to live in insecurity, no! Because then you will never become enlightened.

Start living in insecurity -- that is the way towards enlightenment. And don't think about total insecurity. Start from where you are. As you are you cannot be total in anything, but one has to make a start. In the beginning it will create anxiety, in the beginning you will feel miserable -- but only in the beginning. If you can pass the beginning, if you can tolerate the beginning, the misery will disappear, the anxiety will disappear.

The mechanism has to be understood. Why do you feel anxiety when you feel insecure? It is not because of insecurity, but because of the demand for security. When you feel insecure you feel anxious, anxiety arises. It is not arising because of insecurity, it is arising because of the demand to make life a security. If you start living insecurely and don't demand security, the anxiety will disappear when the demand goes. The demand is creating the anxiety.

Insecurity is the very nature of life. It is an insecure world for a Buddha; for a Jesus it is also insecure. But they are not anxious because they have accepted the fact. They have become mature enough to accept a reality.

This is my definition of maturity and immaturity. A person I call immature is one who goes on fighting against reality for fictions and dreams. This man is immature. Maturity means coming to terms with reality, throwing away dreams, and accepting the reality as it is. Buddha is mature. He accepts. It is so. For example, although there is death, an immature person goes on thinking that everyone may die but he is not going to die. An immature person goes on thinking that by the time he dies something will be discovered, some medical elixir, which means he will not die. An immature person goes on thinking that it is not the rule to die. Of course, many have died, but in everything there are exceptions, and he goes on thinking that he is an exception.

Whenever someone dies you feel sympathetic, you feel, "Poor man, he has died." But it never comes to your mind that his death is your death also. No, you by-=pass it. You just don't touch such delicate matters. You go on thinking that something or other will save you -- some mantra, some miracle-maker guru. Something will happen and you will be saved. You are living in stories, children's stories. A mature person is one who looks at the fact and accepts that life and death are together. Death is not the end, it is the very peak of life. It is not something like an accident which happens to life, it is something which grows in the very heart of life. It grows and comes to a peak. So he accepts and then there is no fear of death. He accepts that security is not possible. You can create a facade, you can have a bank balance, you can donate much money to have some security in heaven, you can do everything, but deep down you know nothing is really secure. The bank can cheat you, and no one knows that the priest is not a cheat, the greatest cheat. No one knows. They write letters....

In India, there is a Mohammedan sect, the head priest of which writes letters to God. You donate a particular amount of money and he will write a letter. The letter will be put with you in your tomb, in your grave. It will be put with you so you can produce the letter. The money goes to the priest, the letter goes with you. But nothing is secure.

A mature person comes to terms with reality, he accepts it as it is. he doesn't demand. He is not a demander. He doesn't say, "It should be so." He looks at the fact and says, "Yes, it is so." This coming to terms with reality will make it impossible for you to be miserable -- because misery comes when you demand. Really, misery is nothing else than an indication that you are moving against reality. And reality cannot be changed by you, you will have to be changed by reality. You will have to come to terms. You will have to yield.

This is what the meaning of surrender is: you will have to yield. The reality cannot yield, the reality is as it is. Unless you yield, you will suffer. The misery is created by you because you go on fighting. It is just as if the current of a river is flowing towards the sea and you are trying to swim upcurrent. You feel the river is against you. The river is not against you. It has not even heard about you. It doesn't know you at all. The river is simply flowing to the sea. It is a river's nature to flow to the sea, to move to the sea and to fall into it. You are trying to move upstream.

And there may be some foolish fellows sitting or standing on the bank who go on inspiring you, "You are doing well. You shouldn't be worried because sooner or later the river will have to yield. You are simply great, go on doing it! Those who are great, they have won over the river." There are always foolish people who go on giving you inspiration, giving you more enthusiasm. But no Alexander, no Napoleon, no great man, no one has ever been able to go upstream. Sooner or later the stream takes over. But when you are dead, you cannot enjoy the bliss that was possible while you were alive; the bliss of surrendering, of accepting, of becoming so one with the stream that there is no conflict.

But those foolish people on the bank will say, "You have yielded, you are defeated, you are a failure." Don't listen to them, just enjoy the inner freedom that comes with yielding. Don't listen to them.

When Buddha stopped trying to flow upstream, all those that knew him said, "You are an escapist. You are a failure. You have accepted defeat." Don't listen to what others say. Feel the inner feeling. Feel what is happening to you. If you feel good flowing with the stream, this is the way. This is Tao for you. Don't listen to anybody, just listen to your own heart. Maturity accepts, whatsoever there is.

I have heard an anecdote. A Mohammedan, a Christian and a Jew were asked a question. The question was the same. Someone asked all three, "What would you do if a tidal wave forces the ocean onto the land and you are drowned in it?" The Christian said, "I will make the sign of the cross on my heart, and pray to God to allow me into heaven, to open the doors." The Mohammedan said, "I will take the name of Allah, and will say that this is KISMAT, this is fate -- and drown." The Jew said, "I will thank God and accept his will and learn to live under water."

This has to be done. One has to accept the will of existence, the will of the universe, and learn how to live in it. This is the whole art. A mature person accepts whatsoever is here, doesn't demand, doesn't talk about any heaven. The Christian was doing, he was asking, he was saying, "Open the doors of heaven." But he was also not a pessimist who simply accepts and is drowned. The Mohammedan was doing that. The Jew accepted, welcomed rather, and said, "This is the will, now I must learn how to live under water. This is God's will."

Accept the reality as it is and learn how to live in it with a yielding heart, with a surrendered ego.

The last question:

Question 4

YOU SAID YESTERDAY THAT LIFE EXISTS WITH DEATH. THEN PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT IS THE NEED OF TRANSCENDENCE.

This is the need. There is the need. Life exists with death... if you can understand this, you have transcended.

You accept life, you don't accept death. Or do you? You accept life but you reject death, and because of that you are always in trouble. You are in trouble because death is part of life. When you accept life, death is going to be there, but you reject death. When you reject death you have rejected life also because they are not two. So you will be in trouble. Either accept the whole, or reject the whole. That is transcendence.

And there are two ways of transcending. Either accept both, life and death together, or reject both, life and death together -- then you have transcended. These are the two ways, the negative and the positive. The negative says, "Reject both." The positive says, "Accept both" but the emphasis is that BOTH should be there, whether accepted or rejected. When both are there they negate each other, just like minus and plus. They negate each other, and when they are not, you have transcended. You are either attached to life or attached -- sometimes -- to death, but you never accept both. I have come across many people who are so dejected about life that they have started to think about committing suicide. First they are attached to life, then life frustrates -- not that life frustrates, attachment frustrates, but they think life is frustrating -- so they become attached to death. Now they start thinking about how to destroy themselves, how to commit suicide, how to die. But the attachment is there. Previously it was to life, now it is to death. So a person who is attached to life and a person who is attached to death are not different. Attachment is there and that attachment is the problem. Accept both.

Just think. What will happen if you accept both, life and death? Immediately a silence will come to the mind, because they negate each other. Life and death both disappear when you accept them -- then you have transcended, you have gone beyond. Or reject both -- it is the same thing.

Transcendence means going beyond duality. Attachment means remaining within duality, attached to one against the other. When you accept both or reject both, attachment falls. Your tie is unlocked. Suddenly you float into a third dimension of being, where neither life is nor death. That is nirvana, that is moksha -- where both the dualities are not, but oneness, isness, is. And unless you transcend, you will always be in misery.

You can change your attachment from this to that, but you will be in misery. Attachment creates misery. Rejection also creates misery. Whatsoever you choose, it is up to you. You can choose a positive path, like Krishna. He says "Accept. Accept both." Or you can choose a path like Buddha, who says, "Reject both." But do something with both together, then transcendence follows immediately. Even if you THINK of both, there will be transcendence. And if you can do it in real life, a new being is born. That being doesn't belong to the earth of duality, that being belongs to an unknown realm -- the realm of nirvana.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #33

Chapter title: Fear of transformation

1 November 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7311015

ShortTitle: VBT233

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 100 mins

THE APPRECIATION OF OBJECTS AND SUBJECTS IS THE SAME FOR AN ENLIGHTENED AS FOR AN UNENLIGHTENED PERSON. THE FORMER HAS ONE GREATNESS: HE REMAINS IN THE SUBJECTIVE MOOD, NOT LOST IN THINGS.

BELIEVE OMNISCIENT, OMNIPOTENT, PERVADING.

Many people seem to be interested in meditation, but that interest cannot be very deep because so very few are transformed through it. If the interest is really deep, it becomes a fire by itself. It transforms you. Just through intense interest you start becoming different. A new center of being arises. So many people seem to be interested but nothing new arises in them, no new center is born, no new crystallization is achieved. They remain the same.

That means they are deceiving themselves. The deception is very subtle but it is bound to be there. If you go on taking medicine, having treatments, and the illness remains the same -- rather on the contrary, it goes on increasing -- then your medicine, your treatment, is bound to be false. Maybe deep down you don't want to be transformed. That fear is very real -- the fear of transformation. So on the surface you go on thinking that you are deeply interested, but deep down you go on deceiving.

The fear of transformation is just like the fear of death. It is a death, because the old will have to go and the new will come into being. You will be there no more, something totally unknown to you will be born out of you. Unless you are ready to die, your interest in meditation is false, because only those who are ready to die will be reborn. The new cannot become a continuity with the old. The old must be discontinued. The old must go. Only then can the new come into being. The new is not an outgrowth of the old, the new is not continuous with it -- the new is totally new. And it comes only when the old dies. There is a gap between the old and the new -- that gap gives you the fear. You are afraid. You want to be transformed but simultaneously you want to remain the old. This is the deception. You want to grow, but you want to remain you. Then growth is impossible; then you can only deceive; then you can go on thinking and dreaming that something is happening, but nothing will happen because the basic point has been missed.

So there are many people all over the world who are very interested in meditation, moksha, nirvana, and nothing is happening. There is so much noise about it but nothing real is happening. What is the matter?

Sometimes the mind is so cunning that because you don't want to be transformed, the mind will create a superficial interest so that you can say to yourself, "You are interest, you are doing whatsoever can be done." And you remain the same. And if nothing happens, you think that the technique you are using is wrong, the guru you are following is wrong, the scripture, the principle, the method, is wrong. You never think that even with a wrong method transformation is possible if the real interest is there; even with a wrong method you will be transformed. If you are really interested in transformation, you will become different even if following a wrong guru. If your soul and your heart is in your effort, no one can mislead you except yourself. And nothing is a barrier to your progress except your own deceptions.

When I say that even a wrong master, a wrong method, a wrong principle, can lead you to the real, I mean that the real transformation happens when you are intensely involved in it, not through any method. The method is just a device, the method is just a help, the method is secondary -- your being involved in it is the fundamental thing. But you go on doing something -- not even doing, you go on talking about doing. And words create an illusion: because you think so much about it, you read so much about it, you listen so much about it, that you start feeling you are doing something. So-called religious persons have developed many deception devices.

I have heard that a motorist, driving along a road, saw the school building on fire. The teacher of the small school of that small village was Mulla Nasruddin. He was sitting under a tree. The motorist called to him, "What are you doing there? The school building is on fire!" Mulla Nasruddin said, "I know about it." The motorist was much excited. He said, "Then why are you not doing something?" Mulla Nasruddin said, "Ever since it started I have been praying for rain. I am doing something."

Prayer is a trick to avoid meditation, and the so-called religious mind has developed many types of prayer. Prayer can also become a meditation -- when it is not only a prayer, it is a deep effort, a deep involvement. Prayer can also become meditation, but ordinarily prayer is just an escape. To avoid meditation, people go on praying. To avoid doing anything they pray. Prayer means that God must do something. Someone else must do. Prayer means that we are passive -- something must be done to us. Meditation is not prayer in that sense: meditation is something you do to yourself. And when you are transformed, the whole universe behaves differently to you, because the universe is nothing but a response to you, whatsoever you are. If you are silent, the whole universe responds to your silence in thousands and thousands of ways. It reflects you. Your silence is multiplied infinitely. If you are blissful, the whole universe rejects your bliss. If you are in misery, the same happens. The mathematics remains the same, the law remains the same: the universe goes on multiplying your misery. Prayer won't do. Only meditation can help because meditation is something to be done authentically by you, it is a doing on your part.

So the first thing I would like to say to you is be constantly alert that you are not deceiving yourself. You may be doing something and still deceiving yourself.

I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin once came running into a post office, grasping the postmaster by the lapel, shook him, and said, "I have gone crazy. My wife has disappeared!" The postmaster felt sorry and he said, "Really, she has disappeared? Unfortunately this is a postal department -- you have to go to the police department to report this disappearance." Mulla Nasruddin shook his head negatively and said, "I am not going to be caught again. In the past my wife also disappeared and when I reported it to the police department, they found her. I am not going to be caught again. If you can take the report, take it, otherwise I am going."

He wants to report to feel good, to feel that he has done whatsoever can be done. But he doesn't want to report to the police department because he is afraid.

You go on doing things just to feel good, just to feel that you are doing something. But really you are not ready to be transformed. So all that you do just passes as useless activity -- not only useless, harmful also, because it is a wastage of time, energy, and opportunity. These techniques of Shiva are only for those who are ready to do. You can ponder over them philosophically -- that means nothing. But if you are actually ready to do, then something will start happening to you. They are alive methods, not dead doctrines. Your intellect is not needed; your totality of being is required. And any method will do. If you are ready to give it a chance, any method will do. You will become a new man.

Methods are devices, I will repeat again. If you are ready, then any method can do. They are just tricks to help you to take the jump, they are just like jumping boards. From any jumping board you can jump into the ocean. The jumping boards are insignificant: what color they are, what wood they are made of is irrelevant. They are simply jumping boards and you can take a jump from them. All these methods are jumping boards. Whatsoever method takes your fancy, don't go on thinking about it, do it!

Difficulties will arise when you start doing something -- if you don't do anything there will be no difficulty. Thinking is very easy doing because you are not really traveling, but when you start doing something, difficulties arise. So if you see that difficulties have arisen, you can feel that you are on the right track -- something is happening to you. Then old barriers will break, old habits will go, there will be change, there will be disturbance and chaos. All creativity comes out of chaos. You will be created anew only if all that you are becomes chaotic. So these methods will destroy you first, then only will a new being be created. If there are difficulties, feel fortunate -- that shows growth. No growth is smooth... and spiritual growth cannot be smooth, that is not its nature. Because spiritual growth means growing upwards, spiritual growth means reaching into the unknown, reaching into the uncharted. Difficulties will be there. But remember that with each difficulty that is passed you are crystalized. You become more solid. You become more real. For the first time you will feel something centering within you, something becoming solid.

As you are now you are just a liquid phenomenon, changing every moment, nothing stable. Really you cannot claim any `I' -- you don't have one. You are many `I's' just in a flow, a river-like flow. You are a crowd, not an individual yet. But meditation can make you an individual.

This word `individual' is beautiful: it means indivisible. Right now as you are, you are divided. You are only many fragments clinging together anyhow without any center being there, without any master in the house, with only servants. And for a moment any servant can become the master.

Every moment you are different because you are not -- and unless you are, the Divine cannot happen to you. To whom can it happen? You are not there. People come to me and they say, "We would like to see God." I ask them, "Who will see? You are not there. God is always there, but you are not there to see. It is just a passing thought that you want to see God." The next moment they are not interested; the next moment they have forgotten all about it. A persistent, intense effort and longing is needed. Then any method will do.

Now, we should enter the methods.

The first method:

THE APPRECIATION OF OBJECTS AND SUBJECTS IS THE SAME FOR AN ENLIGHTENED AS FOR AN UNENLIGHTENED PERSON. THE FORMER HAS ONE GREATNESS: HE REMAINS IN THE SUBJECTIVE MOOD, NOT LOST IN THINGS.

There is a very beautiful method. You can start it as you are; no other prerequisite is needed. The method is simple: you are surrounded by persons, things, phenomena -- every moment something is around you. Things are there, events are there, persons are there -- but because you are not alert, you are not there. Everything is there but you are fast asleep. Things move around you, persons move around you, events move around you, but you are not there. Or, you are asleep.

So whatsoever happens in your surroundings becomes a master, becomes a force over you; you are dragged by it. You are not only impressed, conditioned by it, you are dragged by it.

Anything can catch you, and you will follow it. Somebody passes -- you look, the face is beautiful -- and you are carried away. The dress is beautiful, the color, the material is beautiful -- you are carried away. The car passes -- you are carried away. Whatsoever happens around you, catches you. You are not powerful. Everything else is more powerful than you. Anything changes you. Your mood, your being, your mind, depend on other things. Objects influence you.

This sutra says that enlightened persons and unenlightened persons live in the same world. A Buddha and you both live and move in the same world -- the world remains the same. The difference is not in the world, the difference happens in the Buddha: he moves in a different way. He moves among the same objects but he moves in a different way. He is his own master. His subjectivity remains aloof and untouched. That is the secret. Nothing can impress him; nothing from the outside can condition him; nothing can overpower him. He remains detached; he remains himself. If he wants to go somewhere, he will go, but he will remain the master. If he wants to pursue a shadow, he will pursue it, but it is his own decision.

This distinction must be understood. By `detachment' I don't mean a person who has renounced the world -- then there is no sense and no meaning in detachment. A detached person is a person who is living in the same world as you -- the difference is not in the world. A person who renounces the world is changing the situation, not himself. And you will insist on changing the situation if you cannot change yourself. That is the indication of a weak personality. A strong person, alert and aware, will start to change himself... not the situation in which he is. Because really the situation cannot be changed -- even if you can change the situation, there will be other situations. Every moment situations go on changing so every moment the problem will be there.

This is the difference between the religious and the non-religious attitude. The non-religious attitude is to change the situation, the surrounding. It doesn't believe in you, it believes in situations: when the situation is okay, you will be okay. You are dependent on the situation: if the situation is not okay, you will not be okay. So you are not an independent entity. For communists, Marxists, socialists, and all those who believe in changing the situation, you are not important; really, you don't exist. Only the situation exists and you are just a mirror which reflects the situation. The religious attitude says that as you are you may be a mirror, but this is not your destiny -- you can become something more, someone who is not dependent.

There are three steps of growth. Firstly, the situation is the master, you are just dragged by it. You believe that `you are', but you are not. Secondly, `you are', and the situation cannot drag you, the situation cannot influence you because you have become a will, you are integrated and crystalized. Thirdly, you start influencing the situation: just by your being there, the situation changes.

The first state is that of the unenlightened; the second state is of the person who is constantly aware but as yet unenlightened -- he has to be alert, he has to do something to be alert. The alertness has not become natural yet so he has to fight. If he loses consciousness or alertness for a single moment, he will be in the influence of the thing. So he has to stand on his toes continuously. He is the seeker, the SADHAK, the one who is practising something. The third state is that of the SIDDHA, the enlightened one. He is not trying to be alert, he simply is alert -- there is no effort to it. Alertness is just like breathing: it goes on, he does not have to maintain it. When alertness becomes a phenomenon like breathing, natural, SAHAJ, spontaneous, then this type of person, this type of centered being, automatically influences situations. Situations change around him -- not that he wishes them to change, but he is powerful.

Power is the thing to be remembered. You are powerless so anything can overpower you. And power comes through alertness, awareness: the more alert, the more powerful; the less alert, the less powerful. Look... while you are asleep even a dream becomes powerful because you are fast asleep, you have lost all consciousness. Even a dream is powerful, and you are so weak that you cannot even doubt it. Even in an absurd dream you cannot be skeptical, you will have to believe it. And while it lasts, it looks real. You may see just absurd things in the dream, but while you are dreaming, you cannot doubt. You cannot say this is not real; you cannot say this is a dream; you cannot say this is impossible. You simply cannot say it because you are so fast asleep. When consciousness is not there even a dream affects you. While awake, you will laugh and you will say, "It was absurd, impossible, this cannot happen. This dream was just illusory." But you have not noticed that while it was there you were influenced by it, you were totally taken over by it. Why was a dream so powerful? The dream was not powerful -- you were powerless. Remember this: when you are powerless even a dream becomes powerful.

While you are awake, a dream cannot influence you, but reality, the so-called reality around, does. An awakened person, an enlightened person, has become so alert that your reality also cannot influence him. If a woman passes, a beautiful woman, you are suddenly carried away. Desire has arisen, the desire to possess. If you are alert, the woman will pass by, but the desire will not arise -- you have not been influenced, you have not been taken over. When this happens for the first time, when things move around you and you are not influenced, you will feel a subtle joy of being. For the first time really you feel that you are; nothing can drag you out of you. If you want to follow, that is another thing. That is your decision. But don't deceive yourself. You can deceive. You can say, "Yes. The woman is not powerful, but I want to follow her, I want to possess her." You can deceive. Many people go on deceiving. But you are deceiving nobody except yourself -- then it is futile. Just take a close look: you will know the desire is there. The desire comes first, and then you start rationalizing it.

For an enlightened person, things are there and he is there but there is no bridge between him and the thing. The bridge has broken. He moves alone. He lives alone. He follows himself. Nothing else can possess him. Because of this feeling we have called this attainment MOKSHA -- total freedom, MUKTI. He is totally free.

All over the world, man has searched for freedom; you cannot find a man who is not hankering after freedom in his own way. Through many paths man tries to find a state of being where he can be free, and he resents anything that gives him a feeling of bondage. He hates it. Anything that hinders, that makes him imprisoned, he fights. He struggles against it. Hence so many political fights, so many wars, revolutions; hence so many continuous family fights -- wife and husband, father and son, all fighting each other. The fight is basic. The fight is for freedom. The husband feels confined, the wife has imprisoned him -- now his freedom is cut. And the wife feels the same. They both resent each other, they both fight, they both try to destroy the bondage. The father fights the son because every stage of growth in the son means more freedom for him. And the father feels he is losing something: power, authority. In families, in nations, in civilizations, man is hankering after only one thing -- freedom.

But nothing is achieved through political fights, revolutions, wars. Nothing is achieved. Because even if you get freedom, it is superficial -- deep down you remain in bondage. So every freedom proves a disillusionment. Man longs so much for wealth, but as far as I understand it, it is not a longing for wealth, it is a longing for freedom. Wealth gives you a feeling of freedom. If you are poor, you are confined, your means are limited -- you cannot do this, you cannot do that. You don't have the money to do it. The more money you have, the more you feel you have freedom, you can do anything you like. But when you have all the money and you can do all that you wish, imagine, dream about, suddenly you feel this freedom is superficial, because inside your being knows well that you are powerless and that anything can attract you. You are impressed, influenced, possessed by things and persons.

This sutra says that you have to come to a state of consciousness where nothing impresses you, you can remain detached. How to do it? Throughout the whole day the opportunity is there to do it. That is why I say this method is good for you to do. Any moment you can become aware that something is possessing you. Then take a deep breath, inhale deeply, exhale deeply, and look at the thing again. While you are exhaling look at the thing again, but look just as a witness, as a spectator. If you can achieve the witnessing state of mind for even a single moment, suddenly you will feel you are alone, nothing can impress you; at least in that moment nothing can create desire in you. Take a deep breath and exhale it whenever you feel that something is impressing you, influencing you, dragging you away from you, becoming more important than yourself. And in that small gap created by the exhalation look at the thing -- a beautiful face, a beautiful body, a beautiful building, or anything. If you feel it is difficult, if just by exhaling you cannot create a gap, then do one thing more: exhale, and stop inhalation for a single moment so the exhalation has thrown all the air out. Stop, don't inhale. Then look at the thing. When the air is out, or in, when you have stopped breathing, nothing can influence you. In that moment you are unbridged -- the bridge is broken. Breathing is the bridge. Try it. It will be only for a single moment that you will have the feeling of witnessing, but that will give you the taste, that will give you the feeling of what witnessing is. Then you can pursue it. Throughout the whole day, whenever something impresses you and a desire arises, exhale, stop in the interval, and look at the thing. The thing will be there, you will be there, but there will be no bridge. Breathing is the bridge. Suddenly you will feel you are powerful, you are potential. And the more powerful you feel, the more YOU will become. The more things drop, the more their power over you drops, the more crystalized you will feel. Individuality has begun. Now you have a center to refer to, and any moment you can move to the center and the world disappears. Any moment you can take shelter in your own center, and the world is powerless.

This sutra says, THE APPRECIATION OF OBJECTS AND SUBJECTS IS THE SAME FOR AN ENLIGHTENED AS FOR AN UNENLIGHTENED PERSON. THE FORMER HAS ONE GREATNESS: HE REMAINS IN THE SUBJECTIVE MOOD, NOT LOST IN THINGS. He remains in the subjective mood, he remains within himself, he remains centered in consciousness. Remaining in the subjective mood has to be practised. As many opportunities as you can get, try it. And every moment there is an opportunity, every single moment there is an opportunity. Something or other is impressing you, dragging you out, pulling you out, pushing you in.

I am reminded of an old story. A great king, Bharthruhari, renounced the world. He renounced the world because he had lived in it totally and he had come to realize that it was futile. It was not a doctrine to him, it was a lived reality. He had come to the conclusion through his own life. He was a man of strong desire, he had indulged in life as much as possible, then suddenly he realized it was useless, futile. So he left the world, he renounced it, and he went to a forest.

One day he was meditating under a tree. The sun was rising. Suddenly he became aware that just on the road, the small road which passed nearby the tree, lay a very big diamond. As the sun was rising, it was reflecting the rays. Even Bharthruhari had not seen such a big diamond before. Suddenly, in a moment of unawareness, a desire arose to possess it. The body remained unmoved, but the mind moved. The body was in the posture of meditation, SIDDHASANA, but the meditation was no longer there. Only the dead body was there, the mind had moved -- it had gone to the diamond.

Before the king could move, two men came from different directions on their horses and simultaneously they became aware of the diamond lying on the street. They pulled out their swords, each one claiming that he had sene the diamond first. There was no other way to decide so they had to fight. They fought and killed each other. Within moments two dead bodies were lying there next to the diamond. Bharthruhari laughed, closed his eyes, and went into meditation again.

What happened? He again realized the futility. And what happened to these two men? The diamond became more meaningful than their whole life. This is what possession means: they threw away their life just for a stone. When desire is there, you are no more -- desire can lead you to suicide. Really, every desire is leading you to suicide. When you are in the power of a desire, you are not in your senses, you are just mad.

The desire to possess arose in Bharthruhari's mind also; in a fragment of a moment the desire arose. And he might have moved to get it but before he could, the other two persons came and fought, and there were two dead bodies lying on the road with the stone there in its own place. Bharthruhari laughed, closed his eyes, and went into his meditation again. For a single moment his subjectivity was lost. A stone, a diamond, the object, became more powerful. But again the subjectivity was regained. Without the diamond the whole world disappeared, and he closed his eyes.

For centuries meditators have been closing their eyes. Why? It is only symbolic that the world has disappeared, that there is nothing to look at, that nothing is worth anything, even to look at. You will have to remember continuously that whenever desire arises, you have moved out of your subjectivity. This is the world, this movement. Regain, move back, get centered again! You will be able to do it: the capacity is there with everyone. No one ever loses the inner potential, it is always there. You can move. If you can move out, you can move in. If I can go out of my house, why can I not come back within it? The same route is to be traveled; the same legs are to be used. If I can go out, I can come in. Every moment you are moving out, but whenever you move out, remember -- and suddenly come back. Be centered. If you feel it difficult in the beginning then take a deep breath, exhale, and stop. In that moment look at the thing which was attracting you. Really, nothing was attracting you, YOU were attracted. That diamond lying there on the road in the lonely forest was not attracting anybody, it was simply lying there being itself. The diamond was not aware that Bharthruhari had been attracted, that someone had moved from his meditation, from his subjectivity, had come back into the world. The diamond was not aware that two persons had fought for it and lost their lives.

So nothing is attracting you -- YOU get attracted. Be alert and the bridge will be broken and you will regain balance inside. Go on doing it more and more. The more you do, the better. And a moment will come when you will not need to do it because the inner power will give you such a strength that the attraction of things will be lost. It is your weakness which is attracted. Be more powerful and nothing will attract you. Only then for the first time are you master of your own being.

That will give you real freedom. No political freedom, no economic freedom, no social freedom, can be of much help. Not that they are not desirable, they are good, good in themselves, but they will not give you the things which the innermost core of your being is longing for -- the freedom from things, from objects, the freedom to be oneself without any possibility of being possessed by anything or anybody.

The second technique is similar in a way, but it is from a different dimension.

BELIEVE OMNISCIENT, OMNIPOTENT, PERVADING.

This too is based on inner power, inner strength. It is very seed-like. Believe that you are omniscient, all-knowing; believe that you are omnipotent, all-powerful; believe that you are pervading, all-pervading.... How can you believe it? It is impossible. You know you are not all-knowing, you are ignorant. You know you are not all-potent, you are absolutely powerless, helpless. You know you are not all-pervading, you are confined in a small body. So how can you believe it? And if you believe it, knowing well that this is not the case, the belief will be useless. You cannot believe against yourself. You can force a belief, but it will be useless, meaningless. You know it is not so. A belief becomes useful only when you know that it is so.

This has to be understood. A belief becomes powerful if you know that this is the case. True or untrue is not the point. If you know that this is the case, a belief becomes truth. If you know that this is not the case, then even a truth cannot become a belief. Why? Many things have to be understood.

Firstly, whatsoever you are is your belief: you believe in that way, you have been brought up in that way; you have been conditioned in that way, so you believe in that way. And your belief influences you. It becomes a vicious circle. For example, there are races where man is less powerful than woman, because those races believe that a woman is stronger, more powerful, than man. Their belief has become a fact. In those races, man is weaker and woman is stronger. The women do all the work that ordinarily, in other countries, men would do, and men do the work that in other countries women would do. Not only that, their bodies are weak, their structure is weak. They have come to believe that this is so. The belief creates the phenomenon. Belief is creative.

Why does this happen? Because mind is more powerful than matter. If mind really believes something, matter has to follow. Matter cannot do anything against the mind because matter is dead. Even impossibilities happen. Jesus says, "Faith can move mountains." Faith CAN move mountains. If it cannot, it only means that you don't have faith -- not that faith cannot move mountains. Your faith cannot move them because you don't have the faith.

Now much research is going on on this phenomenon of belief, and science is coming to many unbelievable conclusions. Religion always believed in them but science is finally coming to the same conclusions. It has to because many phenomena are being investigated for the first time. For example, you may have heard about placebo medicines. There are hundreds and hundreds of `pathies' in the world -- allopathy, ayurvedic, unani, homeopathy, naturopathy -- hundreds, and they all claim that they can cure. And they do cure. Their claims are not false. This is the rare thing -- their diagnosis is different, their treatment is different. There is one illness and there are a hundred and one diagnoses, and a hundred and one treatments, and every treatment helps. So the question is bound to be raised whether it is really the treatment that helps or the belief of the patient. This is possible.

In many ways, in many countries, in many universities, in many hospitals, they are working. Just water or something non-medicinal is given but the patient believes that a medicine has been given. And not only the patient, the doctor also believes it, because he also is not aware. If the doctor is aware whether it is medicine or not, it will have an effect, because the doctor gives a belief to the patient more that a medicine. So when you pay more and you have a greater doctor, you get well better and sooner. It is a question of belief. If the doctor gives you a four-penny medicine, just four pennies, you know well that nothing is going to happen. How can such a big patient with such a disease, such a great phenomenon, be cured by four pennies? Impossible! The belief cannot be created. Every doctor has to create around him an aura of belief. It helps. So if the doctor knows that it is just water that he is giving, he will not give his belief with faith. His face will show, his hands will show, his whole attitude and behavior will show that he is giving just water, and the unconscious of the patient will be affected. The doctor must believe. The more he believes the better, because his belief is infectious. The patient looks at the doctor. If the doctor feels confident -- "Don't worry, this is a new treatment, a new medicine and this is going to help you. It is a hundred per cent certain. There is no doubt about it" -- if the whole personality of the doctor gives the impression of a hundred per cent hope, then already, even before taking the medicine, the patient is being cured. The cure has already started. Now they say that whatsoever you use, thirty per cent of the patients will be cured almost immediately; whatsoever you use -- allopathy, naturopathy, homeopathy, or any `pathy' -- whatsoever you do, thirty per cent of the patients will be cured immediately.

Those thirty per cent are believers. That's the ratio. If I look at you, into you, thirty per cent are potential, are ones who can immediately be transformed. Once they get the belief, it will immediately start working. One third of humanity can be immediately transformed, changed, to new orders of being without any difficulty. The question is only how to create the belief in them. Once the belief is there, nothing can debar them. You may be one of those fortunate ones, one of the thirty per cent. But a great misfortune has happened to humanity, and that is that those thirty per cent are condemned. Society, education, civilization, all condemn them. They are thought to be stupid people. No, they are more potential people. They have a great power but they are condemned, and impotent intellectual people are praised -- because they can praise with language, words, reason, they are praised. Really, they are simply impotent. They cannot do anything in the real world of inner being, they can just go on with their mind. But they possess the universities, they possess the news media, they are the masters in a way. And they are artists in condemnation. They can condemn anything. And this thirty per cent of potential humanity, those who can believe and can get transformed, they are not so articulate -- they cannot be. They cannot reason, they cannot argue, that's why they can believe. But because they cannot argue their case they have themselves become self-condemning. They think something is wrong. If you can believe, you start feeling that something is wrong with you; if you can doubt, you think something is great with you. But doubt is not a force. Through doubt no one ever got to the innermost being, to the ultimate ecstasy, no one, ever.

If you can believe, then this sutra will be helpful. BELIEVE OMNISCIENT, OMNIPOTENT, PERVADING. You are that already so just by believing it, all that is hiding you, all that is covering you, will fall down immediately. But even for those thirty per cent it will be difficult because they are also conditioned to believe in something which is not the case. They are also conditioned to doubt; they are also trained to be skeptical; and they know their limitations, so how can they believe? Or, if they believe, people will think they are mad. If you say that you believe that inside you is the all-pervading, the omnipotent, the Divine, the all-powerful, then people will look at you and think you have gone crazy. How can you believe such things unless you are mad?

But try something. Start from the very beginning. Get a little feeling of this phenomenon, then belief will follow. If you want to use this technique, do this. Close your eyes and just feel that you have no body, feel as if the body has disappeared, melted away. Then you can feel your all-pervadingness. With the body it is difficult. That's why many traditions go on teaching that you are not the body because with the body, limitation comes in. It is not difficult to feel that you are not the body, because you are not the body. It is just a conditioning, it is just a thought that has been forced upon your mind. Your mind has been impregnated with the thought that you are the body.

There are phenomena which demonstrate this. In Ceylon, Buddhist monks walk on fire. They do in India also, but the Ceylonese phenomenon is very rare -- they walk for hours and they are not burned.

It happened once, just a few years ago, that a Christian missionary went to see the fire-walk. They do it on the night when Buddha became enlightened, a full moon night -- because they say that on that day it was revealed to the world that the body is nothing, matter is nothing; that the inner being is all-pervading and the fire cannot burn it. But to do this for one year the monks who walk on the fire purify their bodies, through PRANAYAMA, breathing processes, and fasting. They meditate to purify their minds, empty their minds. For one year continuously they prepare. They live in isolated cells just feeling that they are not in their bodies. For one year continuously a group of fifty or sixty monks goes on thinking that they are not their bodies. A year is a long time. Thinking every moment only one thing -- that they are not their bodies -- continuously hammering that the body is illusory, they come to believe it. Then too they are not forced to walk on the fire. They are brought to the fire and then whosoever thinks that he will not be burned, jumps into it. A few remain doubting, hesitating -- they are not allowed to jump because this is not a question of fire burning or not, this is a question of their doubt. If they hesitate a little they are stopped. So sixty are prepared and sometimes twenty, sometimes thirty people jump into the fire and they dance in it for hours together without getting burned.

A missionary came to see it in nineteen-fifty. He was very surprised but he thought that if belief in Buddha could do this miracle, then why not belief in Jesus? So he thought for a while, hesitated a little, but then, with the idea that if Buddha could help, Jesus would also help, he jumped. He got burned, badly burned; he had to be hospitalized for six months. And he couldn't understand the phenomenon. It was not a question of Jesus or Buddha, it was not a question of belief in someone, it was a question of belief. And that belief has to be hammered into the mind. Unless it reaches to the very core of your being, it will not start working.

That Christian missionary went back to England to study about hypnosis, mesmerism, and allied phenomena, and what happens during fire-walking. Then they invited two monks to Oxford University to give a demonstration. The monks went. They walked on fire. The experiment was tried many times. Then the two monks saw that one professor was looking at them, and he was looking so deeply and he was so involved that his eyes, his face, were ecstatic. The two monks went to the professor and said to him, "You can also come with us." Immediately he ran with them, jumped into the fire, and nothing happened. he was not burned. The Christian missionary was also present, and he knew well that this professor was a professor of logic, a man who is professionally doubtful, whose profession is based on doubt. So he said to the man, "What! You have done a miracle. I couldn't do it, and I am a believer." The professor said, "In that moment I was a believer. The phenomenon was so real, so fantastically real, it gripped me. It was so clear that body is nothing and mind is everything and I felt so ecstatically in tune with the two monks that when they invited me, there was not a single hesitation. It was simple to walk, it was just as if there was no fire."

There was no hesitation, no doubt -- that is the key.

So first try this experiment. Sit with closed eyes for a few days just thinking that you are not your body -- not only thinking but feeling that you are not your body. And if you sit with closed eyes a distance is created. Your body goes on moving away and away. You go on moving inwards. A great distance is created. Soon you can feel that you are not the body. If you feel you are not the body, then you can believe you are all-pervading, omnipotent, omniscient, all-knowing, all-powerful. This all-powerfulness or this all-knowingness is not concerned with so-called knowledge: it is a feeling, an explosion of feeling -- that you KNOW. This has to be understood, particularly in the West, because whenever you say that you know, they will say, "What? What do you know?" Knowledge must be objective. You must know something. And if it is a question of knowing something you cannot be all-pervading, no one can be, because there are infinite facts to be known. No one can be all-knowing in that sense.

That's why in the West they laugh when Jains claim that Mahavir was SARVAGYA, all-knowing. They laugh, because if Mahavir was all-knowing, then he must have known all that science is discovering now and even that which science will discover in future. But that doesn't seem to be the case. He says many things which are obviously contradictory to science, which cannot be true, which are not factual. His knowledge, if it is all-pervading, should never be erroneous. But there are errors.

Christians believe that Jesus was all-knowing. But the modern mind will laugh because he was not all-knowing -- all-knowing in the sense of knowing all about the facts of the world. He didn't know that the earth was circular, that the earth was a globe -- he didn't know. He knew that the earth was flat ground. He didn't know that the earth had been in existence for millions and millions of years, he believed that God created it just four thousand years before him. As far as facts, objective facts are concerned, he was not all-knowing.

But this word `all-knowing' is totally different. When the Eastern sages say `all-knowing', they don't mean knowing all about the facts -- they mean all-conscious, all-aware, fully inside, fully conscious, enlightened. They are not concerned with knowing something, they are concerned only with the pure phenomenon of knowing -- not knowledge, but the very quality of knowing. When we say that Buddha knows we don't mean that he knows what Einstein knows. He doesn't know that. He is a knower. He knows his own being and that being is all-pervading. That feeling of isness is all-pervading. And in that knowing nothing remains to be known, that is the point. Now there is no curiosity to know anything. All questions have dropped. Not that all answers have been achieved, all questions have dropped. Now there is no question to be asked. All curiosity has gone. There is no problem to be solved. This inner quietness, this inner silence, filled with inner light, is infinite knowing. This is what is meant by omniscient. It is subjective awakening.

This you can do. But it will not happen if you go on adding more knowledge to your mind. You can go on adding knowledge for lives together -- you will know something but you will never know all. The all is infinite; it cannot be known in that way. Science will always remain incomplete, it can never be complete -- that's impossible. It is inconceivable that it can be complete. Really, the more science knows, the more it comes to know that more has to be known.

This all-knowingness is an inner quality of awakening. Meditate, and drop your thoughts. When you don't have any thoughts you will feel what this omniscience is, what this all-knowledge is. When there is no thought, consciousness becomes pure, purified; in that purified consciousness you don't have any problem. All questions have dropped. You know yourself, your being, and when you know your being, you have known all, because your being is the center of everybody's being. Really your being is everybody's being. Your center is the center of the universe. In this sense, Upanishads have declared, "AHAM BRAHMASMI -- I am the Brahman, I am the Absolute." Once you know this little phenomenon of your being you have known the infinite. You are just like a drop of the ocean: if even one drop is known, all the secrets of the ocean become revealed.

BELIEVE OMNISCIENT, OMNIPOTENT, PERVADING. But this will come through faith, this you cannot argue with yourself. You cannot convince yourself with some argument, you will have to dig deep within you for such feelings, for sources of such feelings.

This word `believe' is very significant. It doesn't mean that you have a conviction, because conviction means a rational thing: you are convinced, you have argued it over, you have proofs for it. Belief means you don't have any doubts about it, not that you have proofs. Conviction means you have proofs. You can prove, you can argue. You can say, "This is so." You can reason it out. Belief means you don't have any doubts. You cannot argue it, you cannot rationalize, you will be defeated if you are asked. But you have an inner grounding -- you feel it is so. It is a feeling, not a reasoning.

But remember that such techniques can work only if you work with your feeling, not with your reasoning. So it has happened many times that very ignorant people, uneducated, uncultured, reach heights of human consciousness and those who are very cultured, educated, reasonable, rational, miss.

Jesus was just a carpenter. Friedrich Nietzsche writes somewhere that in the whole New Testament there was only one person really worth something, who was cultured, educated, philosophically knowledgeable, wise -- that man was Pilate, the Roman governor who ordered Jesus to be crucified. Really he was the most cultured man, the governor-general, the viceroy. And he knew what philosophy was: at the last moment, when Jesus was going to be crucified, he asked, "What is truth?" It was a very philosophical question. Jesus remained silent -- not because this puzzle was not worth answering, Pilate was the only person who could have understood deep philosophy -- Jesus remained silent because he could speak only to those who could feel. Thinking was not of any use. He was asking a philosophical question. It would have been good if he had asked in a university, in an academy, but asking Jesus a philosophical question was meaningless. He remained silent because it was futile to answer. No communication was possible. But Nietzsche, himself a man of reason, condemns Jesus. He said he was uneducated, uncultured, unphilosophical -- and he couldn't answer, that's why he remained silent. Pilate asked a beautiful question. If he had asked it of Nietzsche, Nietzsche would have talked about it for years together. "What is truth?" This one question is enough to talk about and discuss for years. All of philosophy is just this business: "What is truth?" One question and all the philosophers are involved in it.

Nietzsche's criticism is really a criticism by reason, a condemnation by reason. Reason has always condemned the dimension of feeling because feeling is so vague, so mysterious. It is there, and you cannot say anything about it. Either you have got it or you haven't got it; either it is there or it is not there. You cannot do anything about it and you cannot discuss it. You also have many beliefs but those beliefs are just convictions; they are not beliefs because you have doubts about them. You have crushed those doubts by your arguments, but they are there. You are sitting on top of them, but they are there. You go on fighting with them, but they are not dead. They cannot be. That's why your life may be that of a Hindu, or a Mohammedan, or a Christian, or a Jain, but it is only because of conviction. Faith is not there.

I will tell you an anecdote. Jesus told his disciples to go by boat to the other bank of a lake where they were staying. And he said, "I will be coming later." They went. When they were just in the middle of the lake a great wind came and there was much turmoil and they were afraid. The boat was rocking and they started crying and screaming. They started crying, "Jesus, save us!" The bank where Jesus was was very far away, but Jesus came. It is said that he came running on the water. And the first thing he said to his disciples was, "Men of little faith, why are you crying? Don't you believe?" They were scared. Jesus said, "If you believe, then come out of the boat and walk towards me." He was standing on the water. They saw with their own eyes that he was standing on the water, but still it was difficult to believe. They must have thought in their minds that it was a trick, or it was maybe just an illusion, or this was not Jesus. Maybe it was just the Devil, luring them or something. So they started looking at each other, "Who will walk?" Then one disciple got out of the boat and walked. Really, he could walk. He couldn't believe his own eyes. He was walking on the water. When he came close to Jesus he said, "How? How is it happening?" Immediately the whole miracle disappeared. The "How?" -- and he was under water. Jesus pulled him out and said, "Man of little faith, why do you ask how?"

But reason asks "Why?" and "How?" Reason asks, reason questions. Faith is the dropping of all questions. If you can drop all questions and believe, then this technique can work miracles for you.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #34

Chapter title: The greater the sensitivity, the greater the detachment

2 November 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7311025

ShortTitle: VBT234

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 92 mins

The first question:

Question 1

WITH DEEPENING MEDITATION, ONE BECOMES MORE AND MORE SENSITIVE TO OBJECTS, EVENTS AND PERSONS. BUT DUE TO THIS HEIGHTENED SENSITIVITY ONE FEELS A SORT OF DEEP INTIMACY WITH EVERYTHING, AND THIS USUALLY BECOMES A CAUSE OF SUBTLE ATTACHMENTS. HOW TO BE SENSITIVE AND YET DETACHED?

How to be sensitive and yet detached? These two things are not contraries, they are not opposites. If you are more sensitive, you will be detached; or, if you are detached, you will become more and more sensitive. Sensitivity is not attachment, sensitivity is awareness. Only an aware person can be sensitive. If you are not aware you will be insensitive. When you are unconscious you are totally insensitive -- the more consciousness, the more sensitivity. A Buddha is totally sensitive, he has optimum sensitivity, because he will feel and he will be aware to his total capacity. But when you are sensitive and aware you will not be attached. You will be detached, because the very phenomenon of awareness breaks the bridge, destroys the bridge, between you and things, between you and persons, between you and the world. Unconsciousness, unawareness, is the cause of attachment.

If you are alert, the bridge suddenly disappears. When you are alert there is nothing to relate you to the world. The world is there, you are there, but between the two the bridge has disappeared. The bridge is made of your unconsciousness. So don't think and feel that you become attached because you are more sensitive. No. If you are more sensitive you will not be attached. Attachment is a very gross quality, it is not subtle.

For attachment you need not be aware and alert. There is no need. Even animals can be attached very easily, rather, more easily. A dog is more attached to his master than any man can be. The dog is completely unconscious so attachment happens. That is why in the countries where human relationship has become poor, such as in the West, man goes on seeking relationship with animals, with dogs, with other animals, because the human relationship is no longer there. Human society is disappearing and every man feels isolated, alienated, alone. The crowd is there but you are not related to it. You are alone in the crowd and this aloneness scares. One becomes afraid and fearful.

When you are related, attached to someone, and someone is attached to you, you feel you are not alone in this world, in this strange world. Someone is with you. That feeling of belonging gives you a sort of security. When human relationship becomes impossible then men and women try to make relationships with animals. In the West they are very deeply related to dogs and other animals, but here in the East, although you may be worshipping cows you are not related to them. You may go on saying that you worship the cow as a divine animal, but your cruelty has no end.

In the East you are so cruel with your animals that the West cannot even conceive of how you can go on thinking that you are non-violent. All over the world, particularly in the West, there are many societies to protect animals from the cruelty of men. You cannot beat a dog in the West. If you beat it, it will be a criminal act and you will be punished for it. What is happening really, is that human relationship is dissolving -- but man cannot live alone. He must have a relationship, a belonging, a feeling that someone is with him. Animals can be very good friends because they get so attached; no one, no man, can get that attached.

For attachment, awareness is not necessary; rather, awareness is the barrier. The more aware you become the less you will be attached, because the need for attachment disappears. Why do you want to be attached to someone? Because alone you feel you are not enough. You lack something. Something is incomplete in you. You are not a whole. You need someone to complete you. Hence, attachment. If you are aware, you are complete, you are a whole; the circle is now complete, nothing is lacking in you -- you don't need anyone. You, alone, feel a total independence, a feeling of wholeness.

That doesn't mean that you will not love persons; rather, on the contrary, only you can love. A person who is dependent on you cannot love you: he will hate you. A person who needs you cannot love you. He will hate you because you become the bondage. He feels that without you he cannot live, without you he cannot be happy, so you are the cause of both his happiness and unhappiness. He cannot afford to lose you. This will give a feeling of imprisonment: he is imprisoned by you and he will resent it, he will fight against it. Persons hate and love together, but this love cannot be very deep. Only a person who is aware can love, because he doesn't need you. But then love has a totally different dimension: it is not attachment, it is not dependence. He is not dependent on you and he will not make you dependent on him; he will remain a freedom and he will allow you to remain a freedom. You will be two free agents, two total, whole beings, meeting. That meeting will be a festivity, a celebration -- not a dependence. That meeting will be a fun, a play.

That is why we have called Krishna's life KRISHNA-LEELA, the play of Krishna. He loves so many persons but there is no attachment. The same is not true on the part of the GOPIS and the GOPALS, the friends and the girl friends of Krishna. The same is not true. They have become attached, so when Krishna moves from Brindavan to Dwaraka, they weep and cry and suffer. Their anguish is great because they think that Krishna has forgotten them. He has not forgotten, but there is no pain because there was no dependence; he is as whole and happy in Dwaraka as he was in Brindavan and his love is flowing as much in Dwaraka as it was in Brindavan. The objects of love have changed but the source of love remains the same. So whosoever comes near him receives the gift. And this gift is unconditional: nothing is required as a return, nothing is asked as a return.

When love comes through an aware consciousness it is just a pure gift with no condition, and the person who is giving it is happy because he is giving it. The very act of giving is his bliss, his ecstasy.

So remember that if you feel that through meditation you have become more sensitive, then automatically you will become less attached, more detached. Because you will be more grounded in yourself, you will be more centered in yourself, you will not use somebody else as your center. What does attachment mean? Attachment means that you are using someone else as your center of being, Majanu is attached to Laila: he says he cannot live without Laila. That means the center of being has been transferred. If you say that you cannot live without this or that, then your soul is not within you. Then you are not existing as an independent unit, your center has moved somewhere else.

This movement of the center from yourself to something else, to the other, is attachment. If you are sensitive, you will feel the other, but the other will not become the center of your life. You will remain the center and out of this centering the other will receive many gifts from you. But they will be gifts, they will not be bargains. You will simply give because you have too much, you are an overflowing. And you will be thankful that the other has received it. That will be enough and that will be the end.

That is why I go on saying that the mind is a great deceiver. You think that you are meditating and that that is why you have become sensitive. Then the question of why you get attached arises. If you get attached, that is a clear symptom that the sensitivity is not because of awareness. Really, it is not sensitivity at all. It may be sentimentalism: that is a totally different thing. You can be sentimental: you can cry and weep over small things, you can be touched, and a storm can be created very easily within you -- but that is sentimentalism, not sensitivity.

Let me tell you a story. Buddha was staying in a village. A woman came to him, weeping and crying and screaming. Her child, her only child, had suddenly died. Because Buddha was in the village, people said, "Don't weep. Go to this man. People say he is infinite compassion. If he wills it, the child can revive. So don't weep. Go to this Buddha." The woman came with the dead child, crying, weeping, and the whole village followed her -- the whole village was affected. Buddha's disciples were also affected; they started praying in their minds that Buddha would have compassion. He must bless the child so that he will be revived, resurrected.

Many disciples of Buddha started weeping. The scene was so touching, deeply moving. Everybody was still. Buddha remained silent. He looked at the dead child, then he looked at the weeping, crying mother and he said to the mother, "Don't weep, just do one thing and your child will be alive again. Leave this dead child here, go back to the town, go to every house and ask every family if someone has ever died in their family, in their house. And if you can find a house where no one has ever died, then from them beg something to be eaten, some bread, some rice, or anything -- but from the house where no one has ever died. And that bread or that rice will revive the child immediately. You go. Don't waste time."

The woman became happy. She felt that now the miracle was going to happen. She touched Buddha's feet and ran to the village which was not a very big one, very few cottages, a few families. She moved from one family to another, asking. But every family said, "This is impossible. There is not a single house -- not only in this village but all over the earth -- there is not a single house where no one has ever died, where people have not suffered death and the misery and the pain and the anguish that comes out of it."

By and by the woman realized that Buddha had been playing a trick. This was impossible. But still the hope was there. She went on asking until she had gone around the whole village. Her tears dried, her hope died, but suddenly she felt a new tranquility, a serenity, coming to her. Now she realized that whosoever is born will have to die. It is only a question of years. Someone will die sooner, someone later, but death is inevitable. She came back and touched Buddha's feet again and said to him, "As people say, you really do have a deep compassion for people." No one could understand what had happened. Buddha initiated her into SANNYAS, she became a BHIKKHUNI, a SANNYASIN. She was initiated.

Anand asked Buddha, "You could have revived the boy. He was such a beautiful child and the mother was in such anguish." But Buddha said, "Even if the child was resurrected, he would have had to die. Death is inevitable." Anand said, "But you don't seem to be very sensitive to people, to their misery and anguish." Buddha replied, "I am sensitive; you are sentimental. Just because you start weeping, do you think you are sensitive? You are childish. You don't understand life. You are not aware of the phenomenon."

This is the difference between Christianity and Buddhism. Christ was reported to have done many miracles of reviving people. When Lazarus was dead, Jesus touched him and he came back to life. We in the East cannot conceive of Buddha touching a dead man and bringing him back to life. To ordinary persons, to the ordinary mind, Jesus would look more loving and compassionate than Buddha. But I say to you that Buddha is more sensitive, more compassionate, because even if Lazarus was revived, it made no difference. He still had to die. Finally Lazarus had to die. So this miracle was of no use, of no ultimate value. One cannot conceive of Buddha doing such a thing.

Jesus had to because he was bringing something new, a new message to Israel. And the message was so deep that people would not understand it so he had to create miracles around it -- because people can understand miracles but they cannot understand the deep message, the esoteric message. They can understand miracles, so through miracles they might become open and able to be receptive to the message. Jesus was carrying a Buddhist message to a land which was not Buddhist; an Eastern message to a country which had no tradition of enlightenment, of many Buddhas.

We can conceive that Buddha was more sensitive than his disciples who were weeping and crying. They were sentimental.

Don't misunderstand your sentimentality for sensitivity. Sentimentality is ordinary; sensitivity is extraordinary. It happens through effort. It is an achievement. You have to earn it. Sentimentality is not to be earned; you are born with it. It is an animal inheritance which you already have in the cells of your body and your mind. Sensitivity is a possibility. You don't have it already. You can create it, you can work for it -- then it will happen to you. And whenever it happens, you will be detached.

Buddha was totally detached. The dead child was there but he didn't seem to be affected at all. The woman, the mother, was miserable and he was playing a trick on her. This man seems to be cruel and this playing of a trick seems to be too much for a mother whose child has died. He gave her a riddle, and he knew well that she would come back empty-handed. But I say again that he has real compassion because he was helping this woman to grow, to be mature. Unless you can understand death you are not mature; and unless you can accept death, you don't have a center within your being. When you accept death as a reality, you have transcended it.

Buddha used the situation. He was less concerned with the dead child and more concerned with the alive mother because he knew that the dead child would come back to life again -- there was no need for the miracle. But if the child was revived the mother might have lost an opportunity. For lives together she might not again have a meeting with a Buddha. So in the East only third-rate SADDHUS have been doing miracles; the first-rate have never done any -- they work on a higher level. Buddha is also doing a miracle but the miracle is being done on a very high level. The mother is being transformed.

But it is difficult to understand because our minds are gross and we only understand sentimentality, we cannot understand sensitivity. Sensitivity means an alertness which feels everything that happens around. And you can feel only when you are not attached. Remember this: if you are attached you are no longer there to feel, you have moved out of you. So if you want to know the truth about someone don't ask his friends. They are attached. And don't ask his enemies. They are also attached, in the reverse order. Ask someone who is neutral, neither a friend nor an enemy. Only he can say the truth.

Friends cannot be believed, enemies cannot be believed; but we believe either the friends or the enemies. Both are bound to be wrong because they don't have a neutral witnessing, they don't have a detached view. They cannot stand aloof and look because they have an investment in the person. Friends have an investment and enemies have an investment. They see according to particular viewpoints, and with those viewpoints they are attached. The moment you feel you are attached, you have taken a viewpoint. The totality is lost; only a fragmentary thing is in your hands. And fragments are always lies because only the whole is true.

Meditate, become more sensitive, and take it as a criterion that you will go on becoming more and more detached. If you feel that attachment is growing, then you are erring somewhere in your meditation. These are the criteria. And to me, attachment cannot be destroyed and detachment cannot be practised. You can only practise meditation -- and detachment will follow as a consequence, as a by-product. If meditation really flowers within you, you will have a feeling of detachment. Then you can move anywhere and you will remain untouched, unafraid. Then when you leave your body, you will leave it unscratched. Your consciousness will be absolutely pure, nothing foreign has entered into it. When you are attached, impurities enter into you. This is the basic impurity: that you are losing your center and somebody else or something else is becoming your center of being.

The second question:

Question 2

IF FAITH CAN MOVE THE MOUNTAINS, WHY CAN YOU NOT HEAL YOUR OWN BODY?

I don't have any body.

This feeling that you have a body is absolutely wrong. The body belongs to the universe; you don't have it, it is not yours. So if the body is ill or if the body is healthy the universe will take care of it. And a person who is in meditation should remain a witness, whether the body is healthy or ill.

The desire to be healthy is part of ignorance. The desire not to be ill is also part of ignorance. And this is not a new question -- this is one of the oldest questions. It has been asked of Buddha; it has been asked of Mahavir. Ever since there have been enlightened persons, the unenlightened have always asked this question.

Look... Jesus said faith can move mountains, but he died on the cross. He couldn't move the cross. You or someone like you must have been present there waiting. The disciples were waiting because they knew Jesus, and he had been saying again and again that faith could move mountains. So they were waiting for some miracle to happen -- and Jesus simply died on the cross. But this was the miracle: he could be a witness to his own death. And the moment of witnessing one's own death is the greatest moment of being alive.

Buddha died of food poisoning. He suffered for six months continuously. And there were many disciples who were waiting for him to do a miracle. But he suffered silently and died silently. He accepted death. There were disciples there who were trying to cure him, many medicines were given to him.

A great physician of those days, Jeevak, was Buddha's personal physician. He used to move with him wherever he went. Many times people must have asked, "Why does this Jeevak go with you?" But it was Jeevak's own attachment. Jeevak was moving with Buddha because of his own attachment, and the disciples who were trying to help Buddha's body remain alive longer in this world, even if only for a few days more, were also attached.

For Buddha himself, illness and health were the same. That doesn't mean that illness will not give pain. It will! Pain is a physical phenomenon, it will happen. But it will not disturb the inner consciousness. The inner consciousness will remain undisturbed, it will remain as balanced as ever. The body will suffer, but the inner being will remain just a witness of the whole suffering.

There will be no identification -- and this I call the miracle. This is possible through faith. And no mountain is bigger than identification -- remember. The Himalayas are nothing; your identification with your body is a greater mountain. The Himalayas may be moved or not moved through faith, that is irrelevant, but your identification can be destroyed.

But we cannot conceive of anything which we do not know, we can think only according to our minds. We think according to where we are; the pattern remains the same.

Sometimes my body is ill, and people come to me and they say, "Why are you ill? You should not be ill; an enlightened person should not be ill." But who told you that it is so? I have never heard about any enlightened person who was not ill. Illness belongs to the body. It has no concern with your consciousness or whether you are enlightened or not.

And sometimes it happens that enlightened persons are more ill than unenlightened ones. There are reasons.... Now that they don't belong to the body, they don't co-operate with the body; deep down they have broken themselves from the body. So the body remains but the attachment and the bridge is broken.

Many illnesses happen because of the separation that has happened. They are in the body but their co-operation is no longer there. That is why we say an enlightened person will never be born again -- because now he cannot make any bridge with any body again. The bridge is broken. While he is in the body, then too, really, he is dead.

Buddha attained enlightenment when he was near about forty. He died when he was eighty so he lived forty years more. On the day he was dying, Anand started crying and said, "What will happen to us? Without you we will fall into darkness. You are dying and we have not yet become enlightened. Our own light is not yet lit and you are dying. Do not leave us!"

Buddha is reported to have said, "What? What are you saying, Anand? I died forty years before. This existence was just a phantom existence, a shadow existence. It was running along somehow, but the force was not there. It was just a momentum from the past."

If you are pedalling a bicycle, and then you stop and there is no pedalling, you are not giving any co-operation to the cycle, it will go on moving for a little whole just because of the momentum, the energy that you gave it in the past.

The moment someone becomes enlightened, the co-operation is broken. Now the body will take its own course. It has a momentum. From many lives in the past, momentum has been given to it. It has a life span of its own which will be completed, but now, because the inner force is no longer with it, the body is prone to be more ill than ordinarily. Ramakrishna died of cancer; Raman died of cancer. To the disciples it was a great shock, but because of their ignorance they could not understand.

One thing more has to be understood. When a person becomes enlightened, this is going to be his last life. So all the past karmas and the whole continuum has to be fulfilled in this life. The suffering -- if he has anything to suffer -- will become intense. For you there is no hurry, your suffering will be spread out over many lives. But for a Raman this is the last. All that is there from the past has to be completed. There will be an intensity of everything, of all karmas. This life will become a condensed life.

Sometimes it is possible -- this is difficult to understand -- to suffer in a single moment the sufferings of many lives. In a single moment, the intensity becomes much because time can be condensed or spread out.

You know already that sometimes when you sleep you see a dream, and when you are awake again you know that you have been asleep for only a few seconds. But you have seen such a long dream. It is possible that even a whole life can be seen in a single dream.

What has happened? In such a small period of time how could you see such a long dream? There is not a single layer of time as we ordinarily understand -- there are many layers of time. Dream time has its own existence. Even while awake time goes on changing. It may not change according to the clock because a clock is a mechanical thing, but psychological time goes on changing.

When you are happy, the time flows fast. When you are unhappy, the time slows down. A single night can be eternity if you are in suffering, and a whole life can become a single moment if you are happy and blissful.

When a person becomes enlightened, everything has to be closed: this is a closing time. Many millions of lives have to be closed and all the accounts have to be cleared, because there will be no chance any more. After his enlightenment and enlightened person lives in a different time altogether and whatsoever happens to him is qualitatively different. But he remains a witness.

Mahavir died of stomach pain, something like an ulcer -- for many years he suffered. His disciples must have been in difficulty because they have created a story around it. They could not understand why Mahavir should suffer, so they have created a story which shows something about the disciples, not about Mahavir.

They say that a person who had a very evil spirit, Goshalak, was the cause of Mahavir's suffering. He threw his evil force on Mahavir and Mahavir absorbed it only because of his compassion -- and that is why he suffered. This shows nothing about Mahavir but something about the difficulty of the disciples. They cannot conceive of Mahavir suffering so they had to find a cause somewhere else.

One day I was suffering from a cold -- it is my constant companion. So somebody came and he said, "You must have taken somebody else's cold." That doesn't show anything about me, it shows something about him. It is difficult for him to conceive of me suffering. So he said, "You must have somebody else's cold." I tried to convince him, but it is impossible to convince disciples. The more you try to convince them, the more they believe that they are right. In the end he said to me, "Whatsoever you say I am not going to listen. I know! You have taken somebody else's illness."

What to do? The body's health and illness is its own affair. If you want to do something about it, you are still attached to it. It will take its own course; you need not be much worried about it.

I am only a witness. The body is born, the body will die; only the witnessing will be there. It will remain forever. Only witnessing is something absolutely eternal -- everything else goes on changing, everything else is a flux.

The third question:

Question 3

LAST NIGHT YOU EXPLAINED IN DETAIL ABOUT HOW SEEKERS DECEIVE THEMSELVES BY NOT MAKING EARNEST AND SINCERE EFFORTS TOWARD MEDITATION. BUT WITH MANY OF THE SEEKERS WHO EARNESTLY ASK YOU FOR MEDITATION TECHNIQUES, YOU SIMPLY SAY TO THEM TO LEAVE EVERYTHING TO YOU AND THAT YOU WILL LOOK AFTER THEIR SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. BUT MANY SEEKERS FEEL DISSATISFACTION ABOUT THEIR SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION THAT WAY. IN THIS CASE, PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW THESE SEEKERS ARE DECEIVING THEMSELVES.

Firstly, when they ask for a technique, I give them a technique. This is a technique: LEAVE EVERYTHING TO ME. This is one of the most powerful techniques possible. And don't think that it is easy; it is very difficult, sometimes impossible. It is difficult to leave everything to somebody, but if you can, in that very surrender your ego has disappeared; in that very surrender, your past has disappeared; in that very surrender a new point is born -- you are different. Up to now you were living with your own ego; from now onwards you will be living without the ego, you will be following a path of surrender.

So don't think that this is not a technique! It is a technique -- one of the very basic techniques. And I don't give it to any and everybody. I give it only to particular persons who are very egoistic, because for them any technique will create trouble. Their ego will exploit it. They will become more egoistic through it. They can practise anything else except this, but by that practise their ego is not going to be destroyed; rather, it will be more fulfilled. They will become great `meditators'. They can renounce the world, but their ego will be strengthened whatsoever they do. Whenever I feel that this seeker has such a subtle ego that any method will be poisonous to him, then only do I say, "Leave everything to me." Not that this is going to be the end, but this is going to be the beginning. And this is going to be the right beginning for all those who are ego-centered. If they can leave everything to me, then I will start giving them other techniques -- but only then. Then other techniques will not prove poisonous. Once the ego is not there those techniques will transform them. And if their surrender is so total that nothing is left to be transformed, then there will be no need for any other technique. This too is possible, and this is possible only for those who are very egoistic; only they can surrender totally.

This will look confusing, paradoxical -- but remember, you can leave something only if you have it. If you don't have a very strong ego, what can you leave? What can you surrender? It is just like asking a beggar to surrender all his riches. He will be ready, he will say, `Okay,' but his okay means nothing. It is absolutely futile because he has nothing to lose. And if you have a very strong ego, that means a very concentrated ego, crystallized, you can leave it totally because it will be difficult to leave it in parts. It is so concentrated and crystalized that it will be difficult to leave it in fragments. Either you can leave it or not. It is one of the paradoxes of life that for surrender a very authentic ego is needed to be there in the first place. So to me, a right education will consist in creating strong egos, to the very extreme, where a great suffering is born out of them, and then -- surrender. Only the is surrender possible.

This has been my experience. Persons coming from the West have stronger egos than the Eastern persons because in the West there is no concept of surrender, no concept of obedience, no concept of guru and disciple. Really, the Western mind cannot conceive of what a guru is. And they cannot conceive of someone surrendering to anybody. The whole Western education, culture and civilization is based on ego, ego-fulfillment. And Western psychologists say that to be mentally healthy, you must have a strong ego. So all the Western psychologies help the ego to be strong: a child's ego must be strengthened in every way otherwise he will become mentally ill. But Eastern religions say that unless you leave the ego you cannot know the ultimate truth, you cannot know what life's mystery is. Both seem to be contradictory, but they are not. To me, the Western training must be there in the beginning with every person all over the world. Every person should be given a strong ego. By the age of thirty-five you should reach to the peak of your ego; at the age of thirty-five it should be at its peak, strong, as strong as possible. Only then will surrendering happen. So whenever Western seekers come to me and I tell them to leave things to me, they are very hesitant, resistant. And it seems impossible, but sometimes, when surrender happens, they achieve a much deeper realization.

With Eastern persons surrender is not very difficult. They are ready. You say, `Surrender,' they say, `Yes.' There is not a single hesitation on their part. They don't have very strong, developed egos. They can surrender it -- but that surrender is impotent. It will not help. So it almost always happens that with the Eastern person I immediately give him a technique to work on, so that it helps his ego. With Western persons I immediately say, `Surrender.' They have already reached that point within them so they can surrender; their very hesitancy shows that they can surrender. But their surrender is going to be a struggle, and when it is a struggle it is a SADHANA. When it is a struggle it means something; it is going to transform them.

So firstly, when I say, "leave everything to me," this is a technique; and I say it only to persons who have very developed egos. Secondly... BUT MANY SEEKERS FEEL DISSATISFACTION ABOUT THEIR SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION THAT WAY. Right, these are the people to whom I say, `Surrender.' They feel very dissatisfied. They want something to do, they don't want to surrender. I know they will feel dissatisfied because their ego will resist; it will try in every way not to surrender. But that cannot be helped. They will have to pass through this dissatisfaction, and they will have to understand that leaving everything to me is just the beginning. If they cannot do that, I am not going to give them any technique right now. They can leave me, or leave everything to me. There is no other alternative. Once I say to someone, "Leave everything to me," I am not going to give any technique to him. I know that it will be difficult and arduous -- but it has to be so. The more difficult, the more arduous, the better, because that means he has a more evolved ego, and it is struggling. He will have to come some day -- to me or to someone else, it is irrelevant -- and he will have to surrender it.

The master is not so relevant; the surrendering is relevant. Where you surrender is of no significance. You can surrender to a stone Buddha. That will do. Surrendering transforms you. It is putting your ego aside, unburdening yourself; living for the first time not out of the past but moving into the present, fresh and young, unburdened.

And the third thing: IN THIS CASE, PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW THESE SEEKERS ARE DECEIVING THEMSELVES. They can deceive themselves. They can say to me, "Yes, we leave everything to you," and go on withholding everything. They can deceive themselves that they have surrendered and they can go on insisting on their own ways. Surrender cannot be partial, it can be only total -- and then you cannot set your conditions, your likes and dislikes.

It happened just a few days ago. A man came to me and he said, "I will leave everything to you. Whatsoever you say, I will do." I told him, "Repeat it again slowly, "Whatsoever you say, I will do."' He repeated it. I told him to repeat it again and go more slowly. He became a little disturbed and said, `Why?' And he also became aware of why I was saying go slowly. He said, "You may be right. I should not say this, because it is very difficult to leave everything to you and it will be difficult to follow whatsoever you say." So I told him to make it conditional, to be exact so that he could not change. He said, "Right, Whatsoever I like -- give me the freedom to choose."

This is how you can deceive. Inside YOU remain the master; you go on choosing what to do and what not to do. And as it happens, whatsoever you choose is going to be wrong because the mind that is choosing is wrong, otherwise there would have been no need to come to me. When I say surrender it means that now you will not choose, now I will choose and you will follow. And if you can follow totally, the day is not far away when I will say, "Now there is no need. Now you can choose."

You must disappear: the surface, the superficial ego must disappear. Then your own being comes into being. I am not going to keep you following me forever and ever. That is not a very happy business. When your ego is no longer there, your own guru, the inside master, has come into being. The outer guru is nothing but a representative of the inner one. Once the inner is there, the outer is not needed. And your own guru will say to you, "Now follow yourself. Move alone. Now you don't need anybody to guide you, the inner guide has come into being. Now you have your own inner light. You can see through it. It will show you the path."

But right now, as you are, it is not possible. You don't have any light. You cannot see. And wherever your mind leads you it will be wrong. This mind has been leading you for lives and it always leads you into particular patterns. It has old habits and it leads you accordingly. It is a mechanical thing. Just to create a break, surrender is needed. If you surrender to something, even for a few days, there will be a gap between now and your past. A new force has entered within you. Now you cannot continue with the past; your way, as it has always been, cannot be any more. A turning will happen. This gap is what is meant by surrender.

But you can deceive. You can say, "Yes, I surrender," and you may not have surrendered. Or you may think that you have surrendered but unconsciously you are fighting. Not only in surrender, but in everything where a `let-go' is needed, we fight.

In the West much research is going on about the phenomenon of sex, because people are becoming less and less capable of deep orgasms. They have sex but no ecstasy comes out of it. It has become a boring affair. They feel only frustrated, only weakened through it. And then it becomes a routine. They don't know what to do. A deep ecstasy through the orgasm is its significance. If it doesn't happen it is futile and useless and even harmful. Many schools of psychology go on working on the questions: "What has happened to man? Why is he not achieving orgasm through sex? Why is there so much dissatisfaction?" All the researches indicate that the reason is that man cannot surrender -- that is why he cannot achieve orgasm. Even while making love, while deep in sex, your mind remains in control. You go on controlling. You are not in a `let-go'. You are afraid to let go because if you allow the sex energy to move uncontrolled you don't know where it will lead. You may go mad, you may even die. That is the fear. So you remain in control.

You go on manipulating your body. This manipulation from the mind doesn't allow the whole body to become a flow of energy. Then sex becomes a local affair, the whole body is not involved, the whole body is not in an inner dance; the ecstasy is missed. You lose energy and you don't gain anything -- there is bound to be frustration. So psychologists say that you will not achieve a deep ecstasy unless you are in a deep `let-go', unless the mind is not there and the ego is not there; unless the body has taken over with its own force, its own momentum, and is moving by its own unconscious sources; unless YOU are not there. That ecstasy can give you a first glimpse of the ultimate ecstasy that happens in a total `let-go' of your ego with the Divine, with the universe.

Samadhi, the ultimate goal of all yoga and Tantra, is a deep orgasm with the universe itself, with the existence itself. The guru is just trying to help you, to bring you to a point where you can at least surrender the ego. Then a deep ecstasy will happen between you and your master. Wherever there is a `let-go', ecstasy happens -- that is the law.

So if you can surrender to a guru, don't listen to anybody. Even if the whole world says that this guru is wrong, don't listen to it. If you can surrender, this guru is right. You will achieve an ecstatic moment through him. And if the whole world says that this guru is right, and you cannot surrender, he is useless for you. So wherever you have the feeling of surrendering, there is your guru, your master.

Search for the place, search for the person in whose presence you can allow a `let-go', in whose presence you can drop your mind even for a time. Once this force from the outside enters into you, your path will be different, your life will have taken a new turning.

You can deceive yourself: you can go on thinking that you have surrendered but you know well inside that you have not surrendered. And remember: you cannot deceive a master -- he knows. And he will go on insisting unless the `let-go' really happens. You can manoeuvre, you can play a game, but you cannot deceive a master. You can put your head to his feet but that gesture means nothing. It may be just a superficial gesture, you are not bowing down at all. But if bowing down really happens, the master can work.

So whenever I say, "Surrender," or "Leave it to me and I will take care," I mean it. Exactly whatsoever I say I mean it. I want to create a gap within you, a discontinuity with the past. Once the gap is there, you will sooner or later become capable of going on your own. But before that, if you go on your own, you will continue the past story. Nothing new is possible. For the new, something from the outside must enter you, must push you onto a new path.

The last question:

Question 4

YOU SAID THAT JESUS DIDN'T KNOW THAT THE EARTH IS ROUND. SO FOR CHRISTIANS WHO BELIEVE THAT JESUS WAS GOD, THIS SEEMS VERY STRANGE. ISN'T IT IMPLIED THAT AN ENLIGHTENED ONE LIKE JESUS, WHO KNEW DEEP OCCULT SCIENCES, MUST ALSO KNOW MANY ASTRONOMICAL AND ASTROLOGICAL FACTS ABOUT PLANETS, THE UNIVERSE, AND THE INTER-RELATIONSHIP OF CELESTIAL BODIES? PLEASE EXPLAIN.

No, Jesus was not concerned. When Jesus said that the world was flat, he was using the knowledge that was prevalent in those days. He was not concerned about whether the world was round or flat; it was meaningless to him. He was more concerned about those persons who were living on this `flat' or `round' earth.

The concern has to be understood. It is absolutely futile for Jesus to discuss these things. What difference does it make? For example, you know from the geography books that the world is round. If your geography books were teaching that the world is flat, as they were teaching in the past, what difference will it make to you? Will you be a better man? Will you be more meditative on a `flat' world or on a `round' earth? What difference will it make to your being and the quality of your consciousness? It is irrelevant.

Jesus was concerned with your consciousness, and he will not unnecessarily argue about things which are useless. Only unenlightened persons are dragged into unnecessary things. If you had told Jesus that the world was round, he would have said yes. It makes no difference to him because that was not his concern. The prevalent idea was that the world was flat. And really, to the ordinary mind, the world is still flat. It looks flat. The roundness is a scientific fact, but Jesus was not a scientist.

For example, I know that it is a scientific fact that the sun never rises and never sets. The earth is moving around, the sun is not moving. But still I sue the words `sunset' and `sunrise'. Sunrise is basically wrong. The very word is wrong, because the sun never rises. Sunset is wrong, the sun never `sets'. So after two thousand years, someone can say that this man was unenlightened because he said `the sun rises', `sunrise', `sunset'. Didn't he know these small things?

But if I am to change every word then I will be fighting unnecessarily and that is not going to help anybody. Jesus simply used the prevalent knowledge -- and the prevalent idea was that the earth was flat. He was not concerned about it. If he were here today, he would say that the earth is round. But even that is not exactly scientific, because the earth is not exactly round. Now they say it is like an egg, not exactly round. The shape is like an egg. But who knows? -- the next day they may change and say that this is not so. Science goes on changing, because as it becomes more accurate, as it attains to more knowledge, as more facts are known, as more experiments are done, things change. But a person like Jesus or Buddha is not concerned about these facts.

Remember one thing: science is concerned with facts, religion is concerned with truth. Facts are not its concern, truth is its concern. Facts are about objects, truth is about you, your consciousness. So every enlightened person has to use the prevalent knowledge about facts. But you should not judge Jesus or Buddha by that -- you are judging wrongly. They can be judged only by what they have said about the truth, about the intrinsic truth of human consciousness. About that they are always absolutely right although their language differs.

A Buddha speaks in one language, Jesus in a different one, Krishna in another. They use different factual knowledge, they use different techniques, devices, but the central core of their teaching is the same. And that, if you allow me to say it, is how to attain to total awareness.

Awareness is the basic teaching of all the enlightened ones. They use many parables, techniques, devices, symbols, myths, but those are irrelevant. You can cut them away, you can put them aside and just bring out the basic core. The basic core of all the awakened persons is awareness. So Jesus goes on telling his disciples how to be more awake -- not to be sleeping, not to move in dreams, but to be alert, awake.

He used to tell a parable. He said that it happened once that a great lord, a great master, a very rich man, went on a far-away journey. He told his servants that they had to be always alert because he would be back any moment, ANY moment. And whenever he came back, the house should be ready to receive him. He could come back, any moment. The servants had to be alert, they couldn't even sleep. Even at night they had to be ready because the master could come any moment.

Jesus used to say that you have to be alert every moment because any moment the Divine can descend into you. You may miss. If the Divine knocks at your door and you are fast asleep, you will miss. You have to be alert. The guest can come at any moment, and the guest is not going to inform you beforehand that he is coming.

Jesus said just like the servants of that master, remain alert continuously, remain aware, waiting, watchful because any moment the Divine can penetrate you. And if you are not alert, he will come, knock and go back. And that moment may not repeated soon; no one knows how many lives it may take before the Divine will again knock at your door. And if you have become habitually asleep, you may have missed that knock many times already and you may miss it again and again.

Be alert. That is the basic core. All else is only to be used to reach it. So just because Jesus says the earth is flat, he doesn't become unenlightened. And just because you know the earth is round, you don't become enlightened. It is not so easy!

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #35

Chapter title: The search for the rhythm of the opposites

3 November 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7311035

ShortTitle: VBT235

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 90 mins

IMAGE SPIRIT SIMULTANEOUSLY WITHIN AND AROUND YOU UNTIL THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE SPIRITUALIZES.

WITH YOUR ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE VERY START OF DESIRE, OF KNOWING, KNOW.

O SHAKTI, EACH PARTICULAR PERCEPTION IS LIMITED, DISAPPEARING IN OMNIPOTENCE.

IN TRUTH FORMS ARE INSEPARATE. INSEPARATE ARE OMNIPRESENT BEING AND YOUR OWN FORM. REALIZE EACH AS MADE OF THIS CONSCIOUSNESS.

One of the greatest poets, Walt Whitman, is reported to have said, "I contradict myself because I am big, I contradict myself because I contain all the opposites, because I am all." The same thing can be said about Shiva, about Tantra.

Tantra is the search for the rhythm of opposites, of contradictions. Contradictory, opposite standpoints become one in Tantra. This has to be deeply understood, only then will you be able to understand why there are so many contradictory, different techniques. Life is a rhythm between opposites: male and female, positive and negative, day and night, birth and death. Between these opposites moves the river of life. The opposites are the banks -- they appear to be contradictory, but they are co-operative. The appearance is false. Life cannot exist without this rhythm between the opposites. And life contains all. Tantra is neither for this nor for that -- Tantra is for all. Tantra has no standpoint of its own really. All standpoints that are possible are contained in it. It is big. It can contradict itself because it contains all. It is not partial, it is the whole. Hence it is holy.

All partial standpoints are bound to be profane; they cannot be holy if they don't contain the opposite. They may be logical and rational, but they cannot be alive. Wherever life exists, it exists through its opposite. It cannot exist alone, the opposite is a must.

In Greek mythology, two gods are at polar opposites: Apollo and Dionysius. Apollo is the god of order, discipline, virtue, morality, culture, and Dionysius is the god of disorder, chaos, freedom, nature. Both are polar opposites. Almost all religions are more or less based on the Apollonian standpoint. They believe in reason, they believe in order, they believe in virtue, they believe in discipline, control... really they believe in the ego.

But Tantra is basically different: it contains both. It contains the Dionysian standpoint also. It believes in nature, it believes in chaos, it believes in laughing and dancing and singing; it is not just serious, it is both. It is BOTH serious and non-serious. Nietzsche writes in one of his letters, "I can believe only in a dancing god." He couldn't find any dancing god. Had he known something about Shiva then the story of his life would have been totally different. Shiva is the dancing god. Nietzsche knew only about the Christian god. That is the only standpoint -- very serious. Sometimes the seriousness of the Christian god looks absurd, childish, because the opposite is denied completely. You cannot conceive of a Christian god dancing. Impossible! Dancing looks too earthly. And you cannot conceive of a Christian god laughing -- or can you? It is impossible. The Christian god cannot laugh. Laughter will look too worldly. The Christian god is the very spirit of seriousness and Nietzsche couldn't believe in it.

And I think that no one can believe in such a god because it is half, it is not the whole. Only persons like Billy Graham can believe in it. Somewhere Billy Graham says very seriously that when you are reading sexy magazines you must remember that God is looking at you. This looks foolish. You are reading a sexy magazine and God is reading you reading the sexy magazines! This very attitude is stupid. It is stupid because it doesn't contain the opposite. You will become stupid and dead if the opposite is denied. But if you can move to the opposite easily with no contradiction, if you can be serious and you can be laughing, if you can sit like a Buddha and you can dance like a Krishna and there is no inherent opposition between these two -- you can move from being a Buddha towards being a Krishna easily and smoothly -- if you can do this, you will be alive. And if you can do this you will be a Tantric, because Tantra is the basic search for the rhythm which exists between the opposites, for the river which flows between the opposites.

So Tantra goes on working on all and every technique possible. Tantra is not for someone, it is for all. Every type of mind can move through Tantra. Every type of mind cannot be Christian, every type of mind cannot be Hindu, every type of mind cannot be Buddhist. A particular type of mind will be attracted by Buddha, a particular type by Jesus, a particular type by Mohammed. Shiva contains all. Shiva can have an appeal for every type possible. The total, the whole has been included, it is not a partial standpoint. That is why Tantra has no sect. You cannot create a sect around the whole you can create a sect only around a fragment. You can live the whole, but you cannot create a sect. A sect can be created only when you are for something and against something else. If both the opposites are contained, how can you create a sectarian mind? Tantra is the essential religion, it is not a sect. Hence so many techniques.

People keep on coming to me and asking, "There are so many techniques and one technique contradicts the other?' Yes, it contradicts the other because it is not meant for a particular mind. In these hundred and twelve techniques, all the types, all the possible types of humanity have been included. Please don't be concerned with all the techniques, otherwise you will get confused. You simply find that which suits you, that which appeals to you. Towards it you will feel a deep affinity, an attraction; you will fall in love with it. Then forget all the remaining one hundred and eleven techniques Forget them. You just stick to the one that works for you. In these one hundred and twelve techniques, only one technique is for you. If you try many techniques you will get confused, because to try so many techniques you will need a very big mind which can absorb contradiction. That is not possible right now. One day it may become possible. You can become so complete, so total, that you can move easily with many techniques. Then there will be no problem. But then there will also be no need! Right now is the need. Find your technique.

I can be helpful to you in finding which technique will be suitable for you. And if you feel that other techniques are contradictory to the technique that suits you, don't think about them. They are contradictory. But they are not for you. At least they are not for you now. One day it may become possible that when you don't have the ego within, you can move to the opposite without any problem. The ego creates the problem. It is stuck somewhere, it clings to something, it is not liquid, it cannot flow. And Shiva is flowing in all directions.

So remember, don't start thinking about these techniques: that this technique is against that. Shiva is not trying to create a system, he is not a system-maker. Shiva is giving all the techniques without any systematizing. They cannot be systematized, because a system means that the contradictory, the opposite, must be denied. And here the opposite is included. It is both Apollo and Dionysius; it is both serious and laughing; it is both immanent and transcendent; it is both earthly and unearthly -- because it is all.

Now we should enter the techniques:

The first technique:

IMAGINE SPIRIT SIMULTANEOUSLY WITHIN AND AROUND YOU UNTIL THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE SPIRITUALIZES.

First you must understand what imagination is. It is condemned very much nowadays. The moment you hear the word "imagine' you will say this is useless, we want something real, not imaginary. But imagination is a reality, it is a capacity, it is a potentiality within you. You can imagine. That shows that your being is capable of imagination. This capacity is a reality. Through this imagination you can destroy or you can create yourself. That depends on you. Imagination is very powerful. It is potential power.

What is imagination? It is getting into an attitude so deeply that the very attitude becomes reality. For example, you may have heard about a technique which is used in Tibet. They call it heat yoga. The night is cold, snow is falling, and the Tibetan lama will be standing naked under the open sky. The temperature is below zero. You would simply start dying, you would freeze. But the lama is practicing a particular technique. That technique is that he is imagining that his body is a burning fire and he is imagining that he is perspiring -- the heat is so much that he is perspiring.. And he actually starts perspiring although the temperature is below zero and even the blood should freeze. He starts perspiring. What is happening? This perspiration is real, his body is really hot -- but this reality is created through imagination.

You just try some simple technique so that you can feel how reality can be created through imagination. Unless you feel it, you cannot work with this technique. Just count your pulse. Sit in a closed room and count your pulse. And then for five minutes just imagine that you are running. Imagine that you are running, it is hot, you are taking deep breaths, you are perspiring, and your pulse rate is going high. After imagining this for five minutes again count your pulse. You will see the difference: your pulse rate will be high. You have worked it just by imagination, you were not really running.

In old Tibet, Buddhist monks used to do exercise only through imagination. And those techniques can be of much use for modern man, because it is difficult to run in the street, difficult to have a long walk, difficult to find a lonely street. You can just lie down on the floor in your room and imagine that for one hour continuously you are taking a long fast walk. Just in imagination go on walking. And now even medical experts say that the effect would be the same as if it were a real walk. Once you get in tune with your imagination, the body starts functioning. You are already doing many things without knowing that it is your imagination working. Many times you create many illnesses just through imagination; you imagine that now this disease is there, infectious, it is all over the place. You have become receptive, now there is every possibility that you will fall ill -- and that illness is real. But it has been created through imagination. Imagination is a force, an energy, and the mind moves through it. And when the mind moves through it, the body follows.

It happened once in a university hostel in the United States that four students were trying an experiment in hypnosis. Hypnosis is nothing but imagination power. When you hypnotize a person, he is really falling into deep imagination, and whatsoever you suggest will start happening. So they suggested many things to a boy that they had hypnotized. Four boys tried hypnosis on one. They tried many things and whatsoever they said, the boy immediately followed. When they said, "Jump," the boy started jumping. When they said, "Weep," the boy started weeping. When they said, "Tears are flowing from your eyes," tears started flowing. Then just as a joke they said, "Now lie down. You are dead!" And the boy lay down and he was dead.

This happened in nineteen fifty-two. After that they made a law against hypnosis in the United States. No one should try hypnosis unless some research work is involved; unless some medical institute, or some psychological department of some university authorizes you. Only then can you experiment. Otherwise it is dangerous -- the boy simply believed, imagined, that he was dead, and he was dead.

If death can occur through imagination, why not life, why not more life?

This technique is based on the power of imagination. IMAGINE SPIRIT SIMULTANEOUSLY WITHIN AND AROUND YOU UNTIL THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE SPIRITUALIZES.

Just sit in a lonely place where no one will disturb you -- a lonely secluded room will do. Or if you can get somewhere outside it will be better, because when you are near nature you are more imaginative. When there are only man-made things around you, you are less imaginative. Nature is dreaming, and it gives you a dreaming force. Alone you become more imaginative: that's why you are afraid when you are alone. It is not that ghosts are going to trouble you, but alone your imagination can work. And your imagination can create ghosts or anything you want it to. When you move alone, your imagination is more potential; when someone else is there, your reason is in control Because without reason you cannot be related to the others; to others goes on working. When there is no one there, the mind goes on working. When there is no one there, the mind relaxes and you regress to a deeper imaginative layer of the being. When you are alone, imagination starts functioning.

Many experiments have been done with sensory deprivation. If a person can be deprived of all sensory stimuli -- if you are closed in a soundproof room with no light entering it, no possibility of being related to any other human being, no pictures on the walls, nothing in the room to which you can relate -- after one, two or three hours you will start relating to yourself. You will become imaginative. You will start talking to yourself. You will question and you will answer. A monologue will start in which you will be divided. Then suddenly you will start feeling many things which you cannot understand. You will start hearing sounds, but the room is soundproof, no sound can come in. Now you are imagining. You may start smelling perfumes, but no perfume is there. Now you are imagining. After thirty-six hours of sensory deprivation, you cannot make any difference between what is real and what is imaginary -- impossible. After thirty-six hours of sensory deprivation, imagination becomes reality and reality becomes illusory.

That is why seekers in the old days would move to the mountains, to the lonely places, where they could lose the distinction between the real and the unreal. Once the distinction is lost, your imagination is in full force. Now you can use it and you can be creative through it.

For this technique sit in a lonely place: if the surrounding is natural, it is good, it not, then a room can also do. Then close your eyes and imagine a spiritual force is felt within and without. Within you a river of consciousness is flowing and it is going all over the room, overflowing. Within and without, around you, everywhere, spirit is present, energy is present. And don't only imagine it only in the mind, start feeling within the body -- your body will start vibrating. When you feel that the body has started vibrating, it shows that the imagination has started functioning. Feel that the whole universe by and by is spiritualized -- everything, the walls of the room, the trees around you, everything has become no-material, it has become spiritual. Matter is no more.

That is the reality also. Physicists say that matter is illusory and energy is real, and wherever you see solid things, that solidity is just an appearance, it is not there. As physics enters deeper into the world of matter, matter disappears. Only energy, immaterial energy, remains indefinable.

Through imagination you are reaching to a point where, by your conscious effort, you are destroying the structures of the intellect, the patterns of the intellect. You feel that there is no matter, only energy, only spirit, within and without. Soon you will feel that within and without have disappeared. When your body becomes spiritual and you feel it is energy, then there is no distinction between the within and the without. The boundaries are lost. Now there is only a flow, an ocean, vibrating. This is the real also -- you are reaching to the real through imagination.

What is imagination doing? Imagination is only destroying the old concepts, matter, old patterns of the mind which go on looking at things in a certain way. Imagination is destroying them. And then the reality will be revealed.

IMAGINE SPIRIT SIMULTANEOUSLY WITHIN AND AROUND YOU UNTIL THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE SPIRITUALIZES -- until you feel that all distinctions have disappeared, all boundaries have dissolved and the universe has become just an ocean of energy. That is the fact, also. But the deeper you proceed in the technique, the more scared you will become. You will feel as if you are going mad. Because your sanity consists of distinctions, your sanity consists of this so-called reality and when the reality starts disappearing, you will feel that simultaneously your sanity is disappearing. Saints and insane persons move in a world which is beyond our so-called reality. They both move, but the insane persons fall and saints go beyond. The difference is very small but it is very great also. If without any effort on your part you lose your mind and the distinctions, the real and the unreal, you will become insane. But if you destroy the concepts with conscious effort, you will become "un-sane," not insane. That "un-sanity" is the dimension of religion. It is beyond sanity. But conscious effort is needed. You should not be a victim, you should remain a master. When it is your effort which is destroying the patterns of the mind, you look into the unpatterned reality.

The unpatterned reality is the only reality; the patterned reality is just imposed. That's why now anthropologists say that every society, every culture, looks at the same reality but finds a different reality there, because their patterns, their concepts are different. There are many cultures in the world, primitive cultures. They look at the same world in a very different way; their interpretation is totally different. The reality is the same for us and for them, but the pattern looked through is different. For example, Buddhists say that there is no substance in the world, the world is a process. There is nothing substantial. Everything is in movement -- or even that may not be the right thing to say. Movement is the only thing. When we say that everything is in movement, again there is the old fallacy -- it is as if there is something which is moving. Buddha says there is nothing which is moving -- only movement is there. That is all that there is. So in a Buddhist country like Thailand or Burma, they don't have any corresponding word for "is" in their languages. When the Bible was translated into Thai for the first time, it became a problem to translate it because in the Bible it is said that "God is." You cannot say that "God is" in Burmese or in Thai; you cannot say it. Whatsoever they say will mean, "God is becoming." Everything is moving, nothing is. When a Burmese looks at the world, he looks at movement. When we look, when particularly the Greek-oriented Western mind looks, there is no process, only substance. There are dead things, not movements. Even when you look at a river, you see the river as "is." The river is not there -- the river just means a movement, something which is constantly becoming. And a point never comes where you say it has become, it is a process without end. When we look at a tree, we see the tree "is". The Burmese language has nothing to say. They can only say that the tree is becoming, the tree is flowing, the tree is growing, the tree is in process. If the child is brought up with this pattern in the mind -- then everything is a process -- the world, the reality, will be totally different. For you it is different and the reality is one and the same. But what mind do you bring to it to interpret it? Then it changes.

Remember one basic thing: unless the pattern of your mind is thrown away, unless you are "de-patterned", unless your conditioning is thrown away and you are deconditioned, you will not know what reality is -- you will know only interpretations. Those interpretations are the workings of your own mind. Unpatterned reality is the only reality. And this technique is to help you to unpattern, to decondition, to dissolve from the mind the words which have gathered there. You cannot look because of them. Whatsoever looks real to you let it be dissolved.

Imagine energy, not substance, nothing static, but process, movement, rhythm, dance, and go on imagining until the entire universe spiritualizes. If you persist, within three months of intensively working for just one hour every day, you can move to this feeling. Within three months you can have a different feeling of the whole existence around you. Matter is no longer there, only immaterial, oceanic existence, just waves, vibrations. When this happens then you know what God is. That ocean of energy is God. God is not a person. God is not somewhere sitting on a throne in heaven. The whole creative energy of existence is God. But we have a pattern of thinking. We say God is the creator. God is not the creator. Rather, God is the creative force, the very creation itself.

It has been forced again and again on our minds that somewhere in the past, God created the world -- and then and there creation finished. Christians have a story that within six days God created the world and on the seventh day he rested. That's why the seventh day, Sunday, is a holiday. God took a holiday on that day. In six days he created the world, forever and ever -- and since then there has been no creation. Since the sixth day there has been no creation. This is a very dead concept. Tantra says God is the very creativity. Creation is not a historical event that happened somewhere in the past -- it is happening every moment, God is creating every moment. But again language creates a problem and we say, "God is creating." It feels that God is someone who goes on creating. No, the very creativity that goes on moving and moving every moment, that very creativity is God. So you are in creation every moment. This is a very alive concept. It is not that God has created something somewhere and since then there has been no dialogue between man and God, there has been really no connection, no relationship -- he created and the thing was finished. Tantra says that every moment you are being created, eery moment you are in deep relationship with the divine, with the source of creativity. This is a very alive concept.

Through this technique you will have glimpse of the creative force, within and without. And once you can feel the creative force and the touch, the impact of it, you will become totally different, you will never be the same again. God has entered you.You have become an abode.

The second technique:

WITH YOUR ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE VERY START OF DESIRE, OF KNOWING, KNOW.

The basic thing about this technique is ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS. If you can bring your entire consciousness to anything, it will become a transforming force. The transformation happens whenever you are entire in it -- in anything. But that is difficult, because wherever we are, we are only there in part, never in entirety.

You are here listening to me. This very listening can become a transformation. If you are entirely here, this very moment here and now, if listening is your entirety, that listening will become a meditation: you will enter a different realm of ecstasy, a separate reality. But you are not entire. That is the problem with the human mind, it is always partial. A part is listening. Other parts may be somewhere else, or may be asleep, or may be thinking about what is being said, or arguing inside. That creates a division and division is a dissipation of energy. So when doing anything bring your entire being to it. When you are not holding anything back, not even a minor part is separate, when you have taken a jump, total, whole, your whole being has come into it, then any act becomes meditative.

It is reported that one day Rinzai was working in his garden -- Rinzai was a Zen master -- and somebody approached. The man had come to ask some philosophical questions. He was a philosophical seeker. He didn't know that the man who was working in the garden was Rinzai himself. He thought he must be a gardener, a servant, so he asked, "Where is Rinzai?" Rinzai said,"Rinzai is always here." Of course, the man thought that this gardener seemed to be mad because he said that Rinzai was always here. So he thought it would not be good to ask anything of this man again and he started moving off to ask someone else. Rinzai said, "Don't go anywhere, because you will not find him anywhere. He is always here." But he escaped from this madman.

Then he inquired from others and they said, "The first man you met is Rinzai." So he came back and said, "Forgive me, I am sorry, I thought you were mad. I have come to inquire about something. I want to now what truth is. What should I do to know it?" Rinzai said, "Do whatsoever you want to do, but do it entirely."

The point is not what you do, that is irrelevant. The point is that you do it entirely.

"For example," Rinzai said, "when I am digging this hole in the earth, my entirely is there in the act of digging. There is no Rinzai left behind. The whole has gone into the digging. Really there is no digger left, only the digging. If the digger is left, then you are divided."

You are listening to me. If the listener is left, then you are not entire. If there is only listening and there is no listener left behind you are entire, here and now. Then this very moment becomes a meditation. In this sutra Shiva says, WITH YOUR ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE VERY START OF DESIRE, OF KNOWING, KNOW. If a desire arises within you, Tantra doesn't say to fight it. That is futile. No one can fight a desire. It is foolish also, because whenever you start fighting with something within you, you are fighting with yourself, you will become schizophrenic, your personality will be split. And all these so-called religions have helped humanity to by and by become schizophrenic. Everybody is split, everybody is divided and fighting with himself because so-called religions have told you, "This is bad. Don't do this." If the desire comes, what to do? You go on fighting with the desire. Tantra says don't fight the desire. But that doesn't mean that you become a victim of it. That doesn't mean that you indulge in it. Tantra gives you a very subtle technique. When desire arises, be alert just at the beginning with your entirety. Look at it with your entirety. Become the look. Don't leave the looker behind. Bring your total consciousness to this arising desire. This is a very subtle method, but wonderful. Miraculous are its effects.

Three things have to be understood. Firstly, when desire has already arisen you cannot do anything. Then it will take its full course, it will complete its circle, and you cannot do anything. Just in the beginning something can be done -- the seed should be burned then and there. Once the seed has sprouted and the tree has started growing, it is difficult, almost impossible, to do something. Whatsoever you do will create more anguish, dissipation of energy, frustration, weakness. When the desire arises, just at the beginning, just at the first glimpse, the first flicker that a desire is arising, bring your total consciousness, the entirety of your being to look at it. Don't do anything. Nothing else is needed. With the entire being the look is so fiery that the seed is burned, with no struggle, with no conflict, with no antagonism. Just a deep look with the entire being and the arriving desire disappears completely. And when a desire disappears without a fight, it leaves you so powerful, with such immense energy, with such tremendous awareness, you cannot imagine it. If you fight, you will be defeated. Even if you are not defeated and you defeat the desire, that too will amount to the same thing. No energy will be left. You will feel frustrated whether you win or get defeated. In both cases you will be weak in the end, because the desire was fighting with your energy and you were fighting with the same energy. The energy was coming from the same source, you were taking from the same source -- so the source will be weakened whatsoever the result. But if the desire disappears just in the beginning, without any conflict -- remember, this is basic -- without any fight, with just a look, not even an antagonistic look, not even with a mind to destroy, with no enmity, just a total look, in the intensity of that total look the seed is burnt. And when the desire, arising desire, disappears, just like smoke in the sky, you are left with tremendous energy -- that very energy is bliss. That will give you a beauty of its own, a grace.

The so-called saints who are fighting their desires are always ugly. When I say ugly, I mean they are always mean, fighting. Their whole personality becomes graceless. And they are always weak, always lacking energy, because all their energy is used up in the inner fight. A Buddha is totally different. And the grace that has come to Buddha's personality is the grace of desires disappearing without any struggle or fight, without any inner violence.

WITH YOUR ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE VERY START OF DESIRE, OF KNOWING, KNOW. In that very moment simply know, look, see. Don't do anything. Nothing else is needed. All that is needed is that your total being should be there present. Your total presence is needed. This is one of the secrets of achieving the ultimate enlightenment without any violence. And remember, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God with violence. No, those doors shall never open for you, howsoever much you knock. Knock and go on knocking. You may break your head but those doors will never open. But for those who deep inside are non-violent and not fighting with anything, those doors are always open, they were never closed. Jesus said, "Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you." I say to you that there is no need even to knock. Look, the doors are open. They have always been open. They were never closed. Just take a deep look, entire, total, whole.

The third technique:

O SHAKTI, EACH PARTICULAR PERCEPTION IS LIMITED, DISAPPEARING IN OMNIPOTENCE.

Whatsoever we see is limited, whatsoever we feel is limited, all perceptions are limited. But if you can become aware, then every limited thing is disappearing into the unlimited. Look at the sky. You will see a limited part of it, not because the sky is limited by because your eyes are limited, your focus is limited. But if you can become aware that this limitation is because of the focus, because of the eye, it is not the sky that is limited, then you will see the boundaries melting into the unlimited. Otherwise existence is unlimited, otherwise everything is melting into something else. Everything is losing its boundary, every moment waves are disappearing into the ocean -- and there is no end to anything and there is no beginning. Everything is everything else also.

Limitation is forced by us. It is because of us, because we cannot see the infinite, that we divide it. We have done it in everything. You make a fence around your house and you say, "This land belongs to me and beyond the fence is somebody else's land." But deep down your land and your neighbor's land are one. The fence is just because of you. The land is not divided, the neighbors and you are divided -- because of your mind.

Nations are divided because of your mind. Somewhere India ends and Pakistan starts, but just a few years back India was where Pakistan now is. At that time India used to continue up to the limits of Pakistan, the present day limits. But now Pakistan is divided, there is a barrier. But the land remains the same.

I have heard a story that happened when India and Pakistan were divided. There was a madhouse, a mad asylum, just on the boundary of India and Pakistan. The politicians were not very worried about where the madhouse went, to Pakistan or to India, but the superintendent was very worried. So he asked where the madhouse was going to be, whether it was going to be in India or in Pakistan. Somebody from Delhi informed him that he should ask the inmates, the madmen, and take a vote as to where they wanted to go.

The superintendent was the only man who was not insane and he tried to explain. He gathered all the madmen together and told them, "Now it is up to you, wherever you want you can go. If you want to go to India, you can go to India. If you want to go to Pakistan, you can go to Pakistan." But the madmen said, "We want to remain here. We don't want to go anywhere." He tried and tried to explain. He said, "You will remain here. Don't worry about it. You will remain here, but where do you want to go?" Those madmen said, "People say we are mad, but you look more mad. You say you will remain here, and we will remain here, so why worry about going anywhere?" The superintendent was at a loss as to how to explain the whole thing.

There was only one way. He erected a wall, and divided the madhouse into two equal parts. One part became India, another part became Pakistan. And it is reported that sometimes madmen from the Pakistan madhouse came over the wall, and the madmen from India they also jumped over the wall, and they're still much confused about what is happening. "We are in the same place, and you have gone to Pakistan, and we have gone to India, and no one has gone anywhere!"

Those madmen are bound to be at a loss, they will never be able to understand, because in Delhi and Karachi there are bigger madmen.

We go on dividing. Life, existence, is not divided. All demarcations are man-made. They are useful, if you don't go mad about them, and if you know that they are just artificial, man-made, utilitarian, not real, not true, that they are just myths, that they help but they don't go any deeper.

O SHAKTI, EACH PARTICULAR PERCEPTION IS LIMITED, DISAPPEARING IN OMNIPOTENCE. So, whenever you see anything limited, always remember that beyond the limit it is disappearing, the limitation is disappearing. Always look beyond and beyond.

This you can make a meditation. Just sit under a tree and look, and whatsoever comes into your view, just go beyond, look beyond, and don't stop anywhere. Just find where this tree is melting. This tree, this small tree just in your garden, has the whole of existence in it. It is melting every moment. If the sun does not rise tomorrow this tree will die, because this tree's life is bound together with the life of the sun. The distance between them is very long -- for the sun-rays to reach earth takes time, ten minutes' time. Ten minutes' time is very long, because light travels at a very fast speed, tremendous. Light travels one hundred and eighty-six lahk miles in one second and it takes ten minutes for light to reach this tree from the sun. The distance is tremendous, vast. But if the sun is no longer there, the tree will immediately disappear. They exist together. The tree is melting every moment into the sun and the sun is melting into the tree. Every moment the sun is entering into the tree, making it alive.... The other things is as yet unknown to science, but religion says another thing is also happening -- because in life nothing can exist without response. If the sun is giving life to the tee, the tree must be giving life back to the sun, because in life there is always a response. And energy equalizes. The tree must be giving life to the sun. They are one. Then the tree has disappeared, the limitation has disappeared.

Wherever you look, look for the beyond and don't stop anywhere. Go on and on and on, until you lose your mind, until you lose all your limited patterns. Suddenly you will be illumined. The whole existence is one. That oneness is the goal. And suddenly mind is tired of pattern, limitation, boundary -- and as you insist on going beyond, as you go on pulling it beyond and beyond, the mind slips, suddenly it drops, and you look at existence as a vast oneness, everything melting into each other, everything changing into the other.

O SHAKTI, EACH PARTICULAR PERCEPTION IS LIMITED, DISAPPEARING IN OMNIPOTENCE. You can make a meditation out of it. Sit for one hour and work it out. Don't create any limitation anywhere. Whatsoever the limitation just try to find the beyond, and move and go on moving. Soon the mind becomes tired because mind cannot cope with the unlimited. Only with the limited can it be related. With the unlimited, it cannot be related: it gets bored, it gets tired, it says, "Enough, now stop!" But don't stop, go on moving. A moment will come when mind is left behind and only consciousness is moving. In that moment you will have the illumination of oneness, of non-duality. That is the goal. That is the highest peak of consciousness. And that is the greatest ecstasy possible to human mind, and the deepest bliss.

The fourth technique:

IN TRUTH FORMS ARE INSEPARATE. INSEPARATE ARE OMNIPRESENT BEING AND YOUR OWN FORM. REALIZE EACH AS MADE OF THIS CONSCIOUSNESS.

In truth forms are inseparate. They appear separate, but every form is joined together with other forms. Our reality is a co-existence. It is really an inter-reality, an inter-subjectivity. For example, think of yourself alone on this earth. What will you be? The whole of humanity has disappeared, you are left alone after a third world war, alone in the world, alone on this big earth. Who will you be?

The first thing is that it is impossible to conceive of yourself alone. It is impossible, I say, to conceive of yourself alone. You will try and try and you will see that someone is just standing there -- your wife, your children, your friends -- because you cannot exist alone, even in imagination. You exist with others. They give you existence. They contribute. You contribute to them and they contribute to you.

Who will you be? Will you be a good man or a bad man? Nothing can be said, because goodness and badness exist in relation. Will you be beautiful or ugly? Nothing can be said. Will you be man or woman? Nothing can be said, because whatsoever you are, you are related to someone else. Will you be wise or foolish? By and by you will see that every form has disappeared. And with these other forms, all forms within you have also disappeared. You are neither foolish nor wise, neither good nor bad, neither ugly nor beautiful, neither man nor woman. Then what will you be? If you goon eliminating all forms, soon you will realize that only nothing remains. We see forms as separate, but they are not. Every form is linked with others. Forms exist in a pattern.

This sutra says, IN TRUTH FORMS ARE INSEPARATE. INSEPARATE ARE OMNIPRESENT BEING AND YOUR OWN FORM. Even your form and the form of the whole existence is inseparate. You are one with it. You cannot be without it. And the other thing is also true but difficult to conceive: the universe cannot be without you. The universe cannot be without you just as you cannot e without the universe. You have been existing in many, many forms always and you will exist always in many, many forms. But you will be there. You are an intrinsic part of this universe. You are not alien, you are not a stranger to it, you are not an outsider. You are an insider, an intrinsic part. And the universe cannot afford to lose you because if it loses you, it will lose itself. Forms are not separate, they are inseparate. They are one. Only the appearance gives demarcations and boundaries. This can become a realization if you ponder over it, penetrate into it; it becomes a realization, not a doctrine, not a thought, but a realization that, "Yes, I am one with the universe and the universe is one with me."

This is what Jesus was saying to the Jews. But they felt offended because Jesus said, "I and my father in heaven are one." Jews felt offended. What was he claiming? Was he claiming that he and God are one? This was blasphemy. He must be punished. But he was simply teaching a technique, nothing else. He was simply teaching a technique that forms are not separate, that you and the whole are one -- "I and my father in heaven are one." But this was not a claim, this was just a suggested technique. And when Jesus said, "I and my father are one," he didn't mean that you and the father and the Divine are separate. When he said `I', every `I' is represented. Whenever `I' exists, that `I' and the Divine is one. But it can be misunderstood, and both Jews and Christians misunderstood. Even Christians misunderstood, because they say he was the only begotten son of God, the only begotten son, so that no one else can claim that he also is a son of God.

I was reading a very funny book. The title is THREE CHRISTS. In a madhouse, there were three men, and all the three claimed that they were Christ. This is an actual fact not a story. So one psychoanalyst studied all three. Then the thought came to his mind that it would be very funny to introduce them to each other to see what would happen -- how they would introduce themselves and what their reaction would be. So he brought all three together and left them in a room to introduce themselves. The first one said, "I am the only begotten son, Jesus Christ." The other laughed and in his mind he thought he must be mad! He said, "How can you be? I am Jesus Christ. You are also part of that whole. A fragment of that consciousness is in you also. But Jesus Christ, the only son of God -- that I am."

The third thought that both were foolish, that both had gone insane. He said, "What are you talking about? Look at me. The son of God is here."

Then the psychoanalyst asked them separately, "What is your reaction?" They all said, "Both the others are mad. The other two have gone crazy."

And this is not only the case with madmen. (f you ask Christians what they think about Krishna, because he claims that he is God, they will say that there is only one, one penetration of the beyond, and that is Jesus Christ. At only one time in history did God penetrate into the world, and that was with Jesus Christ. Krishna is good, a great man but not Divine, not God himself.

If you ask Hindus, they will laugh at Jesus. The same madness goes on, and the reality is that everyone is the only begotten son of God -- everyone. The otherwise is not possible. You come from the same source, whether you are Jesus or Krishna or A, B, C, anybody or anybody, you come from the same source. And every `I', every consciousness, is immediately related to the Divine. Jesus was giving only a technique. He was misunderstood.

This technique is the same. In truth forms are inseparate. Inseparate are omnipresent being and your own form. Realize each as made of this consciousness. Not only realize that you are made of this consciousness, realize that everything around you is made of this consciousness. Because it is very easy to realize that you are made of this consciousness, it can give you a very egoistic feeling, it can be a deep fulfillment to the ego. But realize that the other is also, then it become a humbleness. When everything is Divine you cannot have any egoistic mind. When everything is Divine, you are humbled. Then there is no question of your being somebody, or something above, then the whole of existence is Divine, and wherever you look, you look at the Divine. The looker and the looked-at are both Divine because forms are not separate. Underneath all forms is hidden one formlessness.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #36

Chapter title: Buddha's inner orgasm

4 November 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7311045

ShortTitle: VBT236

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 95 mins

The first question:

Question 1

WE HAVE ALWAYS HEARD THAT TANTRA IS BASICALLY CONCERNED WITH SEX ENERGY AND SEX CENTER TECHNIQUES, BUT YOU SAY THAT TANTRA IS ALL-INCLUSIVE. IF THERE IS ANY TRUTH IN THE FORMER STANDPOINT, THE MAJORITY OF TECHNIQUES IN VIGYANA BHAIRAVA SEEM TO BE NON-TANTRIC. IS THIS TRUE?

The first thing is to understand sex energy. As you understand it, it is just a part, one part, one fragment of the life force, but as Tantra understands it, it is just synonymous with life. It is not a part, not a fragment -- it is life itself. So when Tantra says "sex" energy it means "life" energy.

The same is true about Freudian concepts of sex energy. Freud was also very much misunderstood in the West. It appeared to people that he was reducing life to sex, but he was doing the same thing that Tantra has been doing for so long. Life is sex. The word "sex" is not confined to reproduction, the whole play of life energy is sex. Reproduction is just a part of that play. Wherever two energies are meeting -- negative and positive -- sex has entered.

It is difficult to understand. For example: you are listening to me. If you ask Freud, or if you ask Tantra masters, they would say that listening is passive, feminine, and speaking is male. Speaking is a penetration of you and you are receptive to it. Between a speaker and a listener a sex act is happening because the speaker is trying to penetrate you and the listener is receiving. The energy in the listener has become feminine, and if the listener has not become feminine there will be no phenomenon of listening. That is why the listener has to be totally passive. He should not think while listening because thinking will make him active. He should not go on arguing within between argument will make him active. While listening, he should be simply listening, not doing anything else. Only then can the message penetrate and become illumined. But then the listener has become feminine.

Communication happens only when one party has become male and the other party has become female, otherwise there can be no communication. Wherever negative and positive meet, sex has happened. It may be on the physical plane -- positive and negative electricity meet and sex has happened. Wherever polarities meet, opposites meet, it is sex. So sex is a very wide, a very spacious term, it is not concerned only with reproduction. Reproduction is only one type of phenomenon which is included in sex. Tantra says that when the ultimate bliss and ecstasy comes inside you, it means your own positive and negative pole have come to a meeting -- because every man is both man and woman, and every women is both man and woman. You are born not only from woman or from man, you are born out of a meeting of the opposites. Your father has contributed, your mother has contributed. You are half your mother and half your father and they both co-exist within you. When they meet within, ecstasy happens.

Buddha sitting under his Bodhi tree is in a deep inner orgasm. The inner forces have met, they have melted into each other. Now there will be no need to seek a woman outside because the meeting has happened with the inner woman. And Buddha is non-attached to, or detached from, woman outside, not because he is against woman, but because the ultimate phenomenon has happened within. Now there is no need. An inner circle has become whole, now it is complete. That is why such grace comes to Buddha's face. It is the grace of being complete. Now nothing is lacking, a deep fulfillment has happened, now there is no further journey. He has achieved the ultimate destiny. The inner forces have come to a meeting and now there is no conflict. But it is a sexual phenomenon. Meditation is a sexual phenomenon, that is why Tantra is said to be sex-based, sex-oriented -- and all these hundred and twelve techniques are sexual.

Really, no meditative technique can be non-sexual. But you have to understand the wideness of the term "sex". If you don't understand you will be confused, and misunderstanding will follow.

So whenever Tantra says "sex-energy" it means the "elan-vital", the life-energy itself. They are synonymous. Whatsoever we call sex is just one dimension of life-energy. There are other dimensions. And really it should be so. You see a seed sprouting, somewhere flowers are coming on a tree, the birds are singing -- the whole phenomenon is sexual. It is life manifesting itself in many ways. When the bird is singing it is a sexual call, an invitation. When the flower is attracting butterflies and bees it is an invitation, because the bees and butterflies will carry the seeds of reproduction. Stars are moving in space.... No one has yet worked on it but it is one of the oldest Tantra concepts that there are male planets and female planets -- otherwise there would be no movement. It must be so because the polarity is needed, the opposite is needed to create magnetism, to create attraction. Planets must be male and female. Everything must be divided into these two polarities. And life is a rhythm between these two opposites. Repulsion and attraction, coming nearer and going far... these are the rhythms.

Tantra uses the word "sex" wherever the opposites meet. It is a sexual phenomenon. And how to make your inner opposites meet, is the whole purpose of meditation. So all these hundred and twelve methods are sexual. There cannot be anything else, there is no possibility. But try to understand the wideness of the term "sex".

The second question:

Question 2

YOU SAID THAT EXISTENCE IS A WHOLENESS, THAT EVERYTHING IS RELATED, THAT THINGS ARE MELTING INTO EACH OTHER, THAT THE TREE CANNOT BE WITHOUT THE SUN AND THE SUN ALSO CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT THE TREE. IN REFERENCE TO THE ABOVE, PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW IGNORANCE AND ENLIGHTENMENT ARE RELATED TO EACH OTHER.

They are related. Enlightenment and ignorance are two polar opposites. Enlightenment can exist only because there is ignorance. If ignorance disappeared from the world, enlightenment would disappear simultaneously. But because of our dualistic thinking we always think that opposites are opposites. They are complementary, they are not really opposite. They are complementary because one cannot exist without the other. So they are not enemies. Birth and death are not enemies because death cannot exist if there is no birth. Birth creates the base for death to exist but if there were no death, birth could not exist.

Death creates the base -- so whenever someone is dying, someone else is being born. At one point there is death, at the next point immediately there is birth. They look opposite, they work in opposition as far as the surface is concerned, but deep down they are friends helping each other. It is easy to understand about ignorance and enlightenment because we think that when a man becomes enlightened, ignorance has disappeared completely. This is the ordinary standpoint about enlightenment -- that ignorance has disappeared completely. No. That is not right. Rather, on the contrary, when a person becomes enlightened, enlightenment and ignorance have both disappeared. Because if one is there the other is bound to be there; one cannot exist without the other. They exist together or they disappear together. They are aspects of one thing, two faces of one coin. You cannot make one face of the coin disappear and retain the other.

So when a person becomes a Buddha, really, at that moment both have disappeared -- ignorance and enlightenment both. Just consciousness is left, pure being is left, and the conflicting, opposing, helping opposites have disappeared. That is why when Buddha is asked what happens to an enlightened man, he remains silent many times. He says, "Don't ask this because whatsoever I say will be untrue. Whatsoever I say will be untrue. If I say that he has become silent it means the opposite of silence must exist there, otherwise how can you feel silence? If I say he has become blissful, then anguish must exist side by side. How can you feel bliss without anguish?" Buddha says, "Whatsoever I say will be untrue." So he remains consistently silent about the state of an enlightened person, because all our terms are dual. If you say light, and if someone insists, "Define it," how are you going to define it? You will have to bring darkness in, only then can you define it. You will say that light is where darkness is not -- or something like that.

One of the greatest thinkers of the world, Voltaire, used to say that you can communicate only if you define your terms first. But that is impossible. If you have to define light, you will have to bring darkness in. And then if it is asked what darkness is, you will have to define it by light, which is undefined. All definitions are circular. They used to say, "What is mind?" and the definition was, "Not matter." And, "What is matter?" and the definition was, "Not mind." Both terms are undefined and you are playing a trick with yourself. You define one term by another term which itself needs definition. The whole language is circular and the opposite is necessary.

So Buddha says, "I will not even say that the enlightened person exists." Because existence is possible only if non-existence is also present. So, he will not even say that you exist after enlightenment, because existence has to be defined by non-existence. Nothing can be said then because all language consists of the polar opposite. That is why in the Upanishads it is said that if someone says that he is enlightened, know well that he is not. Because how can he feel that he is enlightened? Some ignorance must have remained because a contrast is needed.

If you write on a blackboard with white chalk -- the blacker the board the whiter will be the writing. You cannot write on a white board with white chalk. If you do, there will be no writing. The contrast is needed. If you feel that you are enlightened that shows that the blackboard is right there -- only then could you feel it. If the blackboard has really disappeared, the writing would have also disappeared. It happens simultaneously. So a Buddha is neither ignorant nor wise, he simply is. You cannot put him on any pole of any duality. Both the poles have disappeared.

When they disappear how does it happen? When both poles meet they negate each other and disappear. In another way you can say Buddha is both the most ignorant person and the most enlightened. The polarity has come to its extreme point, there has been a meeting, and the meeting has cancelled both. The minus and plus have come together. Now there is neither minus nor plus, because they cancel each other. The minus has cancelled the plus and the plus has cancelled the minus, they have both disappeared and a pure being, an innocent being is left. You cannot say it is wise, you cannot say it is ignorant -- or, you can say it is both.

Enlightenment means the point from where you take a jump into the non-dual. Before that point is duality. Everything is divided.

Someone asked Buddha, "Who are you?" He laughed and said, "It is difficult to say." But the man insisted. He said something can be said because you are. Something meaningful can be asserted because you are. But Buddha said, "Nothing can be said. I am, but even to say this leads me into untruth." Then the man took another route. He asked "Are you a man or a woman?" Buddha said,"It is difficult to say. Once I was a man, but then my whole being was attracted towards women. When I was a man, my mind was filled with women, and when women disappeared from my mind, my man also disappeared with them. Now I cannot say. I don't know who I am and it is difficult to define."

When duality is no more, nothing can be defined. So if you are aware that you have become wise it means that foolishness persists. If you think that you have become blissful, it means that you are still in the world, in the realm of anguish. If you say that you feel a very deep well-being, a health, that means that disease is still possible. The opposite will follow you; if you carry one the other will follow. You have to drop both. And the dropping happens when both meet. So the basic science of all religion is how to allow your inner opposites to meet so that they disappear and not a trace is left. You will disappear with the disappearance of the opposite. You as you are will no longer be there and something totally new and unknown, something unimaginable, will come into being. That something is called Brahma, you can call it God. Buddha prefers the term "nirvana". The word "nirvana" simply means cessation of all that was, total cessation of the past. And you cannot use your past experience and knowledge to define this new. This new is indefinable.

Ignorance and enlightenment are also part of duality. For us Buddha looks enlightened because we are in ignorance. For Buddha himself he is neither. It is impossible for him to think in terms of duality.

The third question:

Question 3

WILL YOU PLEASE TELL US WHY KRISHNAMURTI IS AGAINST TECHNIQUES, WHEREAS SHIVA IS FOR SO MANY TECHNIQUES.

Being against techniques is simply a technique. Not only Krishnamurti is using that technique, it has been used many times before. It is one of the oldest techniques, nothing is new about it.

Two thousand years ago Bodhidharma used it. He introduced into China what is now known as Chan or Zen-Buddhism. He was a Hindu monk, a monk from India. He believed in no-technique. Zen is based on no-technique. Zen masters say that if you do something you will miss, because who will do? You? You are the disease, and out of you nothing else can be born. Who will make the effort? Your mind, and your mind has to be destroyed -- and you cannot destroy the mind itself with help from the mind. Whatsoever you do, your mind will be more strengthened.

So Zen says there is no technique, no method, there is no scripture and there can be no guru. But the beauty is that Zen has created the greatest of gurus and Zen masters have written the best scriptures in the world. And through Zen thousands and thousands of people attained nirvana -- but they say there is no technique.

So it has to be understood that no-technique is really one of the foundational techniques. The emphasis is on "no" so that your mind is negated. Mind can have two attitudes -- yes or no. These are the two possibilities, the two alternatives, just as they are in everything. No is the feminine and yes is the male. So you can use the method of no, or you can use the method of yes. If you follow the method of yes, then there are many methods -- but you have to say yes and there can be many yes's. If you follow no, then there are not many methods, only one, because there cannot be many no's.

Look at this point: there are so many religions in the world, so many types of theists. There are at least three hundred religions in existence right now. So theism has three hundred temples, churches, scriptures. But there is only one type of atheism, there cannot be two. Atheists have no sects. When you say there is no God, the thing is finished. You cannot differentiate between two no's, you cannot make any difference. But when you say,"Yes there is God," then there is a possibility of difference. Because my yes will create my own God and your yes will create your own God. Your yes may be said to Jesus, my yes may be said to Krishna -- but when you say no, then all no's are similar. That is why on the earth there are no sects in atheism.

Atheists are all alike. They don't have any scripture, they don't have any church. When they don't have any positive attitude there is nothing to differ about, a simple no is enough. The same has happened about techniques: no has only one technique, yes has one hundred and twelve, or many more even are possible. You can create new combinations.

Someone has said that the method I teach, the dynamic method of meditation, is not included in these one hundred and twelve methods. It is not included because it is a new combination, but all that is in it is there in the hundred and twelve methods. Some parts are in one technique, some other part is in some other technique. These hundred and twelve are the basic methods. You can create thousands out of them. There is no end to it. Any number of combinations is possible.

But those who ay there is no method can have only one method. You cannot create much out of no. So Bodhidharma, Lin Chi, Bokuju, Krishnamurti, have only one method. Really Krishnamurti comes just after a succession of Zen masters. He is talking Zen. Nothing is new about it. But Zen always looks new, and the reason is because Zen doesn't believe in scriptures, doesn't believe in tradition, doesn't believe in techniques.

So whenever no arises again it is fresh and new. Yes believes in tradition, in scriptures, in masters. Whenever yes is there, it will have a long beginningless tradition. Those who have said yes, Krishna or Mahavir, they go on saying that they are not saying anything new. Mahavir says,"Before me twenty-three TEERTHANKARAS have taught the same." And Krishna says, "Before me, this seer gave this message to that seer, that seer gave the message to that and it has been coming down. I am not saying anything new."

Yes will always be old, eternal. No will always look new, as if it has suddenly come into being. No cannot have traditional roots. It is unrooted. That is why Krishnamurti looks new. He is not.

What is this technique of "denying technique"? It can be used. It is one of the subtlest ways to kill and destroy the mind. Mind tries to cling to something that is a support; mind needs support to be there, it cannot exist in a vacuum. So it creates many types of supports -- churches, scriptures, Bible, Koran, Gita -- then it is happy, there is something to cling to. But then with this clinging the mind remains.

This technique of no-technique insists on destroying all supports. So it will insist that there is no scripture. No Bible can be of help because the Bible is nothing but words; no Gita can be of any help because whatsoever you come to know through Gita will be borrowed, and truth cannot be borrowed. No tradition is of any help because truth has to be achieved authentically, individually. You have to come to it, it cannot be transferred to you. No master can give it to you because it is not something like property. It is not transferable, it cannot be taught because it is not information. If a master teaches you, you can learn only words, concepts, doctrines. No master can make you a realized one. That realization has to happen to you and it has to happen without any help. If it happens through some help then it is dependent and then it cannot lead you to ultimate freedom, to MOKSHA.

These are the parts of this no-technique. Through these criticisms, negations and arguments, supports are destroyed. Then you are left alone with no guru, no scripture, no tradition, no church, nowhere to move, nowhere to go, nowhere to be dependent. You are left in a vacuum. And really, if you can conceive of this vacuum and are ready to be in it, you will be transformed. But mind is very cunning. If Krishnamurti says to you that these are things -- no support, no clinging, no master, no scripture, no technique -- you will cling to Krishnamurti. There are many clinging to him. The mind has again created a support and then the whole point is lost.

Many people come to me and they say, "Our minds are in anguish. How to come to the inner peace, how to attain the inner silence?" And if I give them some technique they say, "But techniques cannot help because we have been listening to Krishnamurti." Then I ask them, "Then why have you come to me? And what do you mean when you ask, `How to attain silence?' You are asking for a technique and you are still going to listen to Krishnamurti. Why? If there is no master and if the real cannot be taught, then why are you going on listening to him? He cannot teach you anything. But you go on listening to him and you are being aught. And you have now started to cling to this no-technique. So whenever someone gives you technique, you will say, `No, we don't believe in techniques.' And you are still not silent. So what has happened? Where have you missed the train? If you really need no-technique, if you don't have any technique -- you must have attained. But you have not attained."

The basic point has been missed; the basic point is that for this no-technique technique to work you must destroy all support, you must not cling to anything. And it is very arduous. It is almost impossible. That is why so many people for these last forty years have been listening to Krishnamurti but nothing has happened to them. It is so arduous and difficult, almost impossible to remain unsupported, to remain totally alone and to be alert that the mind is not allowed to create any support. Because mind is very cunning, it can create subtle supports again and again. You may throw away Gita, but then you fill the space with Krishnamurti's books. You may laugh at Mohammed, you may laugh at Mahavir, but if someone laughs at Krishnamurti you get angry. Again in a roundabout way you have created a support, you are clinging.

Non-clinging is the secret of this method. If you can do it, it is good; if you cannot do it, then don't deceive. Then there are methods. Use them! Then be clear that you cannot be alone so you will take someone's help. Help is possible. Through help also, transformation is possible.

These are the opposites -- no and yes, these are opposites. You can move from either but you must decide about your own mind and its working. If you feel that you can be alone....

Once it happened that when I was staying in a village a man came and he said to me, "I am confused. My family is trying to arrange a marriage for me." He was a young man, just fresh from university. He said, "I don't want to be involved in all that. I want to become a SANNYASIN, I want to renounce all. So what is your advice?" I told him, "I never went to ask anybody, but you have come to take my advice. When you have come to take advice it shows that you need support, that you need. It will be difficult for you to live without a wife. That too is a support,"

You cannot live without a wife, you cannot live without your husband, but you think you can live without a guru? Impossible! Your mind needs support in every way. Why do you go to Krishnamurti? You go to learn, you go to be taught, you go to borrow knowledge. Otherwise there is no need. Many times it has happened that friends will say, "It would be good if you and Krishnamurti meet." So I tell them, "You go and ask Krishnamurti and if he wants to meet, I will come. But what is going to be there? What will we do? What will we talk about? We can remain silent. What is the need? But they say, "It would be good if you both meet. It would be good for us. We will be happy to listen to what you say."

So I tell them a story.

Once it happened that a Mohammedan mystic, Farid, was traveling. When they came near the village of Kabir, another mystic, the followers of Farid said that it would be very good if they both meet. And when it became known to Kabir's disciples, they also insisted that, As Farid was passing, they should invite him in. So Kabir said, "It is okay." Farid also said, "It is okay. We will go, but don't say anything when I enter Kabir's hut, remain quite silent."

For two days Farid stayed in Kabir's hut. There was total silence. They sat silently for two days and then Kabir came to the edge of his village to give a send-off to Farid -- and in silence they departed. The moment they departed the followers of both started asking. The followers of Kabir asked him, "What was this? It became a boredom. You were sitting silently for two days, not even a single word was spoken, and we were so eager to hear." Farid's followers also said, "What was this? It seems weird. For two days continuously we were watching and watching and waiting and waiting for something to come out of this meeting. But nothing came out."

Farid is reported to have said, "What do you mean? Two persons who know, cannot talk; two persons who don't know, can talk much, but it is useless, even harmful. The only possibility is one person who knows, talking to one who doesn't know" And Kabir said,"Whoever uttered a single word would have proved that he didn't know."

You go on asking for advice, you go on searching for supports. Realize it will that if you cannot remain without support, then it is good to find a support, a guide, knowingly. If you think that there is no need, that you are enough unto yourself, then stop seeking Krishnamurti or anybody. Stop going and remain alone.

It has happened also to persons who were alone but the phenomenon is very rare. Sometimes to one person in millions it happens -- and that too is not without any cause. That person may have been seeking for many lives; he may have been finding many supports, many masters, many guides, and now a point has come where he can be alone. Only then it happens. But whenever it happens to a person, that he achieves the ultimate alone, he starts saying that it can happen to you also. It is natural.

Because it happened to Krishnamurti alone, he goes on saying that it can happen to you. It cannot happen to you! You are in search of support and that shows that alone you cannot do it. So don't be deceived by yourself! Your ego may feel good that, "I don't need any support!" Ego always thinks in terms of, "I alone am enough," but that ego will not help. That will become the greatest barrier possible. No-technique is a technique but only for very specific people; for those who have struggled in many lives and have now come to a point where they can be alone, that technique is a help. And if you are that type of person, I know well you will not be here. So I am not worried about that person, he will not be here. He cannot be here. Not only here, he cannot be anywhere with any master, listening, seeking, searching, practicing. He will not be found anywhere. So we can leave him, we need not discuss him.

These techniques are for you. So this is how I will conclude. Krishnamurti is talking for the person who cannot be there and I am talking for persons who are here. Whatsoever Krishnamurti is saying is absolutely right but the persons to whom he is saying it are absolutely wrong. The person who can be alone, who without any method, any support, any scripture, any guru, can reach, is not going to listen to Krishnamurti because there is no need, there is no meaning. And those who are going to listen, they are not of that type, they will be in deep difficulty -- and they are. They need support and their mind goes on thinking that there is no need for support. They need a guru and their mind goes on saying that the guru is a barrier. They need techniques and logically they have concluded that techniques cannot help. They are in deep trouble, but the trouble is created by themselves.

Before you start doing something you must try to understand what type of mind you have got, because ultimately the guru is not meaningful, ultimately our mind is meaningful. The ultimate decision is going to come through your mind, the destiny is to be fulfilled through your mind -- so understand it, without any ego confusing you. Just understand if you need support, guidance, techniques, methods to work with. If you need them, find them. If you don't need them, there is no question: be alone, unclinging, move alone, unclinging. The same will happen through both ways.

Yes and no are two opposites and you have to find out what your path is.

The last question:

Question 4

YOU SAID THAT SHIVA IS NOT A SYSTEM-MAKER AND SECTS CANNOT FORM AROUND HIS TEACHINGS. BUT PERSONS LIKE BUDDHA, MAHAVIR, JESUS, GURDJIEFF, SEEM TO BE GREAT SYSTEM-MAKERS. WHY DO THEY HAVE TO BE SYSTEM-MAKERS? PLEASE EXPLAIN THE PRO'S AND CON'S OF SYSTEM-MAKING. ARE YOU A MULTI-SYSTEM-MAKER?

There are two possibilities: you can create a system to help people, create multi-systems to help people, or the other, you can try to destroy systems to help people. Again the yes and no. Again the polar opposites. And in both ways you can help people.

Bodhidharma is a system-destroyer, Krishnamurti is a system-destroyer, the whole tradition of Zen is system-destroying. Mahavir, Mohammed, Jesus, Gurdjieff, are great system-makers. The problems is always that we cannot understand these two contradictory things simultaneously together: we think that either one can be right but both cannot be. If system-makers are right, then our mind says that system-destroyers must be wrong. Or if the system-destroyers are right, then system-makers must be wrong. No, both are right.

A system means a pattern to follow, a clear-cut map to follow so that no doubt arises, no indecisiveness arises and you can follow with absolute faith. Remember this: a system is created to create faith, to create trust. If everything is clear, then there will be trust more easily. If all your questions are answered mathematically, then you will be in a state of no doubt and you can proceed. So sometimes Mahavir answers your absurd questions also. They are futile questions, meaningless, but he will answer. And he will answer in such a way that it helps you to have trust, because that quality of trust is needed.

When someone tries to penetrate into the unknown a deep trust is needed otherwise it will be impossible to move. It will be so dangerous you will get scared. It is dark, the path is not clear, everything is chaos and every step leads you into more and more insecurity. Hence system-making is needed so that everything is planned: you know everything about heaven and hell and the ultimate moksha, and from where you will move, from where you will pass. Every inch has been mapped. That gives you a security, a feeling, that everything is okay. People have been there before and you are not moving into a no-man's land, you are not moving into the unknown. A system makes it appear as if it is known. That is to help you, just to give you support. And if you have faith then you will have energy to move. If you are doubtful, you will dissipate energy and movement will be difficult.

System-makers have tried to answer all types of questions and they have created a neat and clean map. With that map in your hand you feel everything is okay, you can proceed. But I tell you, every system is just artificial. Every system is just to help you. It is not true. No system can be true. It is a device. But it helps because your whole personality is so untrue that even untrue devices help. You live in lies and you cannot understand truth. A system means less lies and then even less lies and then by and by, by and by, you will come nearer and nearer to the truth. When the truth is revealed to you the system will become meaningless, it will simply drop.

When Sariputta became enlightened, came to the ultimate goal, he looked back from that point and saw that the whole system had disappeared. Whatsoever he had been taught was not there. So he said to Buddha, "The whole system that was taught to me has disappeared." Buddha said to him, "Keep silent, don't tell the others! It has disappeared, it has to disappear because it was never there, it was a make-believe -- but it helped you to come to this point. Don't tell those who have not come yet, because if they know that there is no knowledge where they are going to they will drop. They cannot go into the unknown unguarded, alone they cannot go."

It happens many times. It has been my own experience that people come to me and they say, "Now meditation is going deep but we are scared." An ultimate feeling is bound to come when you feel a "dying" fear, as if death is approaching near. When meditation comes to its peak it is death-like. I tell them, "Don't worry, I am with you." Then they feel okay. I cannot be there -- impossible! No one can be there. This is untrue. No one can be there, you will be alone. That point is one of total aloneness. But when I say, "I will be there, you don't worry, you go ahead," they feel okay and they move. If I say, "You will be alone and no one is going to be there," they will step back. The point has come where fear is bound to be there. The abyss is there and they are going to fall -- I must help them to fall. So I say that I am there, you just take the jump. And they take the jump! After the jump they will come to know that no one was there, but now, now the whole thing is finished. They cannot come back. This is a device.

All systems are devices to help: to help people who are full of doubts, to help people who have no trust, to help people who have no confidence. To help people to move into the unknown without fear, systems are created. In those systems everything is just like a myth, that is why there are so many systems. Mahavir creates his own -- that system is created according to the needs of his followers. So he creates a system. It is a myth, but very helpful, because many moved through it and reached to the truth. And when they reached they knew that the system was false -- but it worked.

Buddha defines truth as "That which works". His definition of truth is "That which works". If a lie can work, it is true, and if a truth cannot work, it is false.

There are so many systems, and every system helps. But every system cannot help everybody. That is why the old religions insisted that a person should not be converted into a new religion, because although the mind can after a time be conditioned in a system and can be changed, deep down you will never change, and a new system will never become useful for you. A Hindu can become a Christian, a Christian can become a Hindu, but after the age of seven the mind is almost fixed, conditioned. so if a Hindu becomes a Christian he will remain a Hindu deep down and the Christian system will not help him. And he has lost contact with his own system which might have worked.

Hindus and Jews have always been against conversion. Not only against conversion -- if someone wants to enter into their religion voluntarily, they will resist. They will say, "No, follow your own path." Because a system is a great unconscious phenomenon; it has to be deep in the unconscious, only then can it help. Otherwise it cannot help and it is an artificial thing. It is just like language. You can never speak any language as you speak your mother-tongue, it is impossible. Nothing can be done about it. Howsoever efficient you become in somebody else's language it will remain superficial. Deep down your mother-tongue will continue to influence it. Your dreams will be in your mother-tongue; the unconscious will function with the original language. Anything can be imposed on and above it, but it cannot be replaced.

Religious systems are like language, they are language. But if they penetrate deep, they help because you feel confident. The system is irrelevant but the confidence is relevant. You feel trusting so you move with a sure step -- you know where you are moving. And this knowing helps.

But there are system-destroyers also and they also help. There is a rhythmic circle, just like day and night -- again day comes, again night comes. They help because sometimes it happens that when there are so many systems people get confused, and rather than moving with the maps, the maps become so heavy that they cannot carry them. It happens always.

For example, a tradition, a very long tradition, is helpful because it will give confidence because it is so long. But because it is so long it is heavy also, it has become a dead weight. So rather than helping you to move, you cannot move because of it. You have to be unburdened. So there are system-destroyers who destroy the system from your mind and unburden you and help you to move. They both help, but it depends. It depends on the age, it depends on the person who is to be helped.

In this age systems have become very heavy and confused. For many reasons the whole point has been lost. Before, each system lived in its own world: a Jain was born Jain, lived Jain, died Jain. He did not study Hindu scriptures, it was prohibited. He did not go to the mosque or the church, that was a sin. He lived in the walls of his system. Nothing alien ever penetrated his mind, so no confusion was there.

But all that has been destroyed and everyone is acquainted with everything else. Hindus are reading the Koran and Mohammedans are reading the Gita. Christians are moving to the East and the East is moving to the West. Everything is confused. The confidence that used to come from a system is no longer there. Everything has penetrated your mind and things are jumbled up. Jesus is not alone there, Krishna has penetrated and Mohammed has also penetrated. And they have contradicted each other within you. Now nothing is certain.

The Bible says this, the Gita says exactly the contrary. Mohammed says this, Mahavir is just the opposite. They have contradicted. You are no longer anywhere. You don't belong, you are simply standing there confused. No path is yours. In such a state of mind, system-destroying can be helpful. Hence the great appeal of Krishnamurti in the West. He does not have so much appeal in the East because the East is still not as confused as the West, because the East is still not as educated about others. The West is obsessed about knowing about others. They know too much. Now no system is real, they know that everything is a make-believe, and once you know it, it will not work.

Krishnamurti appeals to them because he says leave all systems. If you can leave all systems you will become unconfused -- but it depends on you. It may happen, as it happens almost always, that all the systems will remain there and this new system of destroying all systems will also enter. So one more disease is added.

Jesus goes on speaking, Krishna goes on speaking -- and then Krishnamurti also enters. Your mind becomes the Tower of Babel -- so many tongues and you cannot understand what is happening. You just feel crazy.

If you can believe in a system, so far so good; if you cannot believe in any system, then drop all. Then be completely clean, unburdened. But don't be just in the middle of these two alternatives. And it appears that everyone is just in the middle. Sometimes you move to the right, sometimes to the left, then again to the right and then to left -- just like the pendulum of a clock. You go from this side to that, this side to that. This movement may appear to you that you are proceeding. You are not proceeding anywhere. Every step cancels some other step, because when you move to the right and then to the left you go on contradicting yourself. In the end you are just confused, puzzled, a chaos.

Either be unburdened completely -- that will be helpful. You will be clean, innocent, childlike, and you can fly -- or if that understanding seems too dangerous to you, if you are afraid of unburdening because that will lead you into a vacuum, into an emptiness, if that unburdening looks dangerous and you are scared, then choose a system. But there are many who go on saying to you that everything is the same -- the Koran says the same, the Bible says the same, the Gita says the same, their message is the same. These people are the great confusers. The Koran, the Bible, the Gita, they don't say the same, they are systems. Clear-cut systems. Different. Not only different, but sometimes contradictory and opposite.

For example, Mahavir says that non-violence has to be the key. If you are violent, even slightly violent, the door of ultimate reality is closed for you. This is a technique. To become totally non-violent needs a complete cleansing of your mind and body -- both. You have to be purified completely, only then will you become non-violent. This process of becoming no-violent will purify you so totally that the very process will become the end.

Just the opposite is Krishna's message. He says to Arjuna, "Don't be afraid of killing because the soul cannot be killed. You can kill the body but you cannot kill the soul. So why be afraid? And the body is already dead, so that which is dead will be dead and that which is alive will remain alive. You need not be concerned. It is just a play." He is also right, because if you can come to realize this point -- that the soul cannot be destroyed -- then the whole life becomes a play, a fiction, a drama. And if the whole life becomes a drama, even murder and suicide become a drama to you, not just in thinking, but you realize the fact that everything is just a dream. Death too will make you a witness, and that witnessing will become transcendence... you will transcend the world. The whole world becomes a drama -- there is nothing good, nothing bad, just a dream. You need not worry about it.

But these two things are totally different. They lead to the same point ultimately but you should not mix them. If you mix them, you will suffer. System-makers have been there to help you, system-destroyers have been there to help you. But it seems that no one has been able to help. You are such, so adamant and so cunning, you always find some loopholes to escape through.

Buddha and Krishna and Jesus -- every century they go on teaching certain things. You go on listening but you are very clever. You listen and yet you don't listen. And you always find something, some hole, from where you can escape. Now the trick of the modern mind is that if there is a system, if Gurdjieff is teaching, then people will go to him and say, "Krishnamurti says no system." These same people will go to Krishnamurti -- Krishnamurti teaches no-system -- and they will say, "But Gurdjieff says that without a system nothing can be done." So while near Gurdjieff they use Krishnamurti as a loophole to escape; while near Krishnamurti they use Gurdjieff as a trick to escape. But they are not deceiving anybody, they are simply destroying themselves.

Gurdjieff can help, Krishnamurti can help, but they cannot help against you. You must be certain about certain things. One, either you need help or you don't need it. Second, either you can move into the unknown without any fear or you cannot. And third, without any method, without any technique, without any system, can you proceed a single inch or can't you? These three things you have to decide within you: analyze your mind, open it, look into it and decide what type of mind you have got. If you decide that you cannot do it alone then you need a system, a master, a scripture, a technique. If you think that you can do alone then there is no need for anything else. You are the master, you are the scripture, you are the technique. But be honest, and if you feel that it is impossible to decide -- it is not easy to decide -- if you feel confused, then first try a master, a technique, a system. And try it hard, to the very extreme, so that if something is going to happen, it happens. If nothing is going to happen then you come to a point where you can decide that now you will have all, you will be alone. That too will be good.

But my suggestion is that you should always start with a master, a system, a technique, because in both ways it will be good. If you can achieve through it, it is good; if you cannot achieve through it, then the whole thing becomes futile and you can drop it and then you can proceed alone. Then you will not need Krishnamurti to tell you that no master is needed, you will know it. Then you will not need any Zen teaching to tell you to throw away your scriptures and burn them, you will have already burned them.

So it is good to proceed with a master, with a system, with a technique -- but be sincere. When I say be sincere I mean that you should do whatsoever you can do with a master, so that if something can happen, it happens. If nothing can happen, then you can conclude that this is not the path for you and you can move alone.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #37

Chapter title: Become each being

5 November 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7311055

ShortTitle: VBT237

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 92 mins

FEEL THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF EACH PERSON AS YOUR OWN CONSCIOUSNESS.

SO, LEAVING ASIDE CONCERN FOR SELF, BECOME EACH BEING.

THIS CONSCIOUSNESS EXISTS AS EACH BEING, AND NOTHING ELSE EXISTS.

THIS CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE SPIRIT OF GUIDANCE OF EACH ONE. BE THIS ONE.

Existence as such is one. The human problem arises because of human self-consciousness. Consciousness gives everyone a feeling that they are separate, and the feeling that you are separate from existence creates all the problems. Basically this feeling is false, and whatsoever is based on a falsity will create anguish, will create problems, will create confusion. And whatsoever you do, if it is based on this false separateness, it will go wrong.

So from the very beginning the problem of human anguish has to be tackled: how does it arise? Consciousness gives you a feeling that you are the center of your being, and consciousness makes you aware that others are `other', that you are different from them. This difference is just because you are conscious. While you are asleep there is no difference -- you are again merged with the universe. Hence so much bliss comes out of sleep. In the morning you feel refreshed, rejuvenated, again alive, fresh.

What is happening in deep sleep? You are losing your ego, you are losing yourself, you are falling into a unity with the universe. That falling back int the unity makes you fresh and alive, and in the morning you feel blissful. All the anguish disappears; all conflict, all disturbance, disappears; all fear, all death disappears -- because death is possible only if you are separate. If you are not separate, then death is impossible. Who is going to die if you are not separate? Who can suffer if you are not separate? So all Tantra, yoga and other methods of meditation are just to make you aware that separateness is false and inseparateness is real. And if you can become aware of that you will be totally different, because the center will have disappeared from you and it will take its right place in the universe. You will be just a wave on this vast ocean. You will not be separate so you will not be afraid. You will not feel insecure. You will not feel the anguish of approaching death and annihilation. All that disappears with the ego.

Hindus have always believed that samadhi is conscious sleep.In sleep it happens automatically that you are no more. The existence is, and you are no more; but you are deeply unconscious so you don't know what is happening. If this same phenomenon can happen consciously, you become enlightened. Buddha moves to the same source, to the same source that you move every night in deep sleep, in dreamless sleep. But Buddha moves to that source consciously, alert, aware. He knows where he is moving to, he knows what is happening, and when he comes back from that deep source, he comes totally different. The old has disappeared and a new being, a new energy has arisen out of it. Of this being, the center is the universe; and with this transfer of the center, all your worry, all your anguish, all your hell disappears, simply disappears. It is not solved, it is simply not there. It cannot exist there without the ego.]

So how to be consciously deep asleep? How to move into sleep consciously? How to remain alert while you are losing the ego? The ego is a by-product, a by-product of your whole upbringing, a by-product of the natural course of life. It has to be there. There is no other way. No being can evolve without being involved with the ego. But a point comes when the ego can be dropped and should be dropped, and the being should transcend it.

The ego is just like the shell of the egg. It is needed, it protects. Just like the shell of a seed, it is needed, it protects. But the protection can become dangerous also, if it protects too much. If it goes on protecting and doesn't allow the seed to sprout, then it becomes a hindrance. It must dissolve into the earth so that the inner life evolves out of it. It must die.

The seed must die. Every man is born as a seed. The ego is the outer covering; it protects the child. If a child is born without the ego, without the feeling that "I exist", he cannot survive. He will to be able to protect himself, he will not be able to struggle, he will not be able in any way to exist. He needs a strong center. Even if it is false, it is needed. But a moment comes when this help becomes a hindrance. It protects you from outside, but it become so strong that it will not allow you, the inner being, to spread, to go beyond it, to sprout. So ego is needed -- and then ego-transcendence is needed.

If someone dies with the ego, he has died as a seed. He has died without really attaining the destiny that was possible, without attaining existence consciously These techniques are for how to destroy this seed.

The first technique:

FEEL THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF EACH PERSON AS YOUR OWN CONSCIOUSNESS.

SO, LEAVING ASIDE CONCERN FOR SELF, BECOME EACH BEING.

FEEL THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF EACH PERSON AS YOUR OWN CONSCIOUSNESS. In reality it is so, but it is not felt so. You feel your consciousness as yours, and others' consciousnesses you never feel. At the most you infer that others are also conscious. You infer because you think that because you are conscious, other beings like you must be conscious. This is a logical inference; you don't feel them as conscious. It is just like when you have a headache you feel your headache, you have a consciousness of it. But if someone else has a headache, you infer -- you cannot feel the other's headache. You simply infer that whatsoever he is saying must be true and he must have something like you. But you cannot feel it.

The feeling can come only if you become conscious about others' consciousnesses -- otherwise it is a logical inference. You believe, you trust, that others are saying something honestly, and whatsoever they are saying is worth believing because you also have similar types of experiences.

There is a logical school which says that nothing can be known about the other, it is impossible. At the most there can be an inference but nothing certain can be known about others. How can you know that others have pain like you, that others have anxieties like you? Others are there but we cannot penetrate them, we can only just touch their surface. Their inner being remains unknown. We remain closed in ourselves.

The world around us is not a felt world, it is just inferred -- logically, rationally. The mind says it is there but the heart is not touched by it. That is why we behave with others as if they are things not persons. Our relationship with persons is also as it is with things. A husband behaves towards his wife as if she is a thing: he possesses her. The wife possesses the husband just like a thing. If we behaved with the other as if they were persons then we would not try to possess them, because only things can be possessed.

A person means freedom. A person cannot be possessed. If you try to possess them, you will kill them, they will become things. Our relationship with others is really not an `I-thou' relationship, deep down it is just an `I-it' relationship. The other is just a thing to be manipulated, to be used, exploited. That is why love becomes more and more impossible, because love means taking the other as a person, as a conscious being, as a freedom, as something as valuable as you are.

If you behave as if everything is a thing, then you are the center and things are just to be used. The relationship becomes utilitarian. Things have no value in themselves -- the value is that you can use them, they exist for you. You can be related to your house -- the house exists for you. It is a utility. The car exists for you, but the wife doesn't exist for you and the husband doesn't exist for you. The husband exists for himself and the wife exists for herself. A person exists for himself; that is what being a person means. And if you allow the person to be a person and don't reduce him to being a thing, you will by and by start feeling him. Otherwise you cannot feel. Your relationship will remain conceptual, intellectual, mind to mind, head to head -- but not heart to heart.

This technique says, FEEL THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF EACH PERSON AS YOUR OWN CONSCIOUSNESS. This will be difficult because first you have to feel the person as a person, as a conscious being. Even that is difficult.

Jesus says, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." This is the same thing -- but the other must first become a person for you. He must exist in his own right, not to be exploited, manipulated, utilized, not as a means but an end in himself. First, the other must become a person; the other must become a `thou', as valuable as you are. Only then can this technique be applied. FEEL THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF EACH PERSON AS YOUR OWN CONSCIOUSNESS. First feel that the other is conscious, and then this can happen -- you can feel that the other has the same consciousness that you have. Really, the `other' disappears, only a consciousness flows between you and him. You become two poles of one consciousness flowing, of one current.

In deep love it happens that the two persons are not two. Something between the two has come into being and they have just become two poles. Something is flowing between the two. When this flow is there you will feel blissful. If love gives bliss, it gives bliss only because of this: that two persons, just for a single moment, lose their egos -- the `other' is lost and oneness comes into being just for as ingle moment. If it happens, it is ecstatic, it is blissful, you have entered paradise. Just a single moment, and it can be transforming.

This technique says that you can do this with every person. In love you can do it with one person, but in meditation you have to do it with every person. Whosoever comes near you, simply dissolve into him and feel that you are not two lives, but one life, flowing. This is just changing the gestalt. Once you know how, once you have done it, it is very easy. In the beginning it seems impossible because we are so stuck in our own egos. It is difficult to lose it, difficult to become a flow. So it will be good if in the beginning you try with something that you are not very scared or afraid of.

You will be less afraid of a tree so it will be easier. Sitting near a tree, just feel the tree and feel that you have become one with it, that there is a flow within you, a communication, a dialogue, a melting. Sitting near a flowing river just feel the flow, feel that you and the river have become one. Lying under the sky, just feel that you and the sky have become one. In the beginning it will be just imagination but by and by you will feel that you are touching reality through imagination.

And then try it with persons. This is difficult in the beginning because there is a fear. Because you have been reducing persons to things, you are afraid that if you allow someone to be so intimate he will also reduce you to a thing. That is the fear. So no one allows much intimacy: a gap is always to be kept and guarded. Too much closeness is dangerous because the other can convert you into a thing, he can try to possess you. That is the fear. You are trying to convert others into things, and others are trying to convert you -- and no one wants to be a thing, no one wants to become a means, no one wants to be used. It is the most degrading phenomenon to be reduced to just a means to something, not valuable in yourself. But everyone is trying. Because of this there is a deep fear and it will be difficult to start this technique with persons.

So start with a river, with a hill, with the stars, with the sky, with trees.Once you come to know the feeling of what happens when you become one with the tree; once you come to know how blissful you become when you become one with the river, how without losing anything you gain the whole existence -- then you can try it with persons. And if it is so blissful with a tree, with a river, you cannot imagine how much more blissful it will be with a person, because a person is a higher phenomenon, a more highly evolved being. Through a person you can reach higher peaks of experience. If you can become ecstatic with even a rock, with a person you can feel a Divine ecstasy happening to you.

But start with something that you are not much afraid of, or, if there is a person you love, a friend, a beloved, a lover, of whom you are not afraid, with whom you can be really intimate and close without any fear, with whom you can lose yourself without getting scared deep down that he may turn you into a thing -- if you have someone like that, then try this technique. Lose yourself consciously into him. When you lose yourself consciously into someone, that someone will lose himself into you; when you are open and you flow into the other, the other starts flowing into you and there is a deep meeting, a communion. Two energies melt into each other. In that state there is no ego, no individual -- simply consciousness. And if this is possible with one individual, it is possible with the whole universe. What saints have called ecstasy, samadhi, is just a deep love phenomenon between a person and the whole universe.

FEEL THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF EACH PERSON AS YOUR OWN CONSCIOUSNESS. SO,LEAVING ASIDE CONCERN FOR SELF, BECOME EACH BEING. We are always concerned with our own self. Even while we are in love, we are concerned with our own self, that is why love becomes a misery. It can become heaven but it becomes a hell, because even lovers are concerned with their own selves. The other is loved because he gives you happiness, the other is loved because you feel good with him, but the other is still not loved as if he is something valuable in himself or herself. The value comes through your enjoyment. You are gratified, you are satisfied in some way, that is why the other has become significant. This is also using the other.

Concern for the self means exploitation of the other. And religious consciousness can come into existence only when the concern for the self is lost, because then you become non-exploitive. With existence your relationship becomes one, not of exploitation, but of sheer sharing, sheer bliss.You are not using, you are not being used -- it becomes a sheer celebration of being.

But concern for the self has to be thrown away... and it is very deep-rooted. It is so deep-rooted that you are not even aware of it. In one of the Upanishads it is said that the husband loves his wife, not for the wife, but for himself; and the mother loves the child, not for the child, but for herself. The concern for the self is so deep-rooted that whatsoever you do, you do for yourself. This means that you are always gratifying the ego, feeding the ego, feeding a false center which has become a barrier between you and the universe.

Lose the concern for the self. If even sometimes, even for a few moments, you can lose concern for the self and can become concerned with the other, with the other's self, you will be entering a different reality, a different dimension. Hence so much emphasis on service, love, compassion. Because compassion, love, service, mean concern for the other's self, not your own.

But look... human mind is so cunning that it has converted service, compassion and love into concerns for the self. A Christian missionary serves, and his service is sincere. Really, no one else can serve so deeply and intensely as a Christian missionary. No Hindu can do that, no Mohammedan can do that, because Jesus has emphasized service so much. A Christian missionary is serving poor people, ill people, diseased people, but deep down he is concerned with himself not with them. This service is just a method to reach heaven. He is not concerned with them, he is not really concerned with them at all, he is concerned with his own self. Through service he can achieve a greater self, so he is doing service. But he has missed the basic point, because service means the concern for the other -- the other is the center and you have become the periphery.

Try it some time. Make someone the center -- then his happiness becomes your happiness, his misery becomes your misery. Whatsoever happens, happens to him and flows to you. But he is the center. If once, even once, you can feel that the other is the center and you have become just a periphery to him, you have entered a different type of existence, a different dimension of experience. Because in that moment you will feel a deep bliss, unknown before, unexperienced before. Just by making the other the concern, you will lose all misery. In that moment there will be no hell for you; you have entered paradise.

Why does it happen? It happens because the ego is the root of all misery. If you can forget it, if you can dissolve it, all misery dissolves with it.

FEEL THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF EACH PERSON AS YOUR OWN CONSCIOUSNESS. SO, LEAVING ASIDE CONCERN FOR SELF, BECOME EACH BEING. Become the tree, become the river, become the wife, become the husband, become the child, become the mother, become the friend -- it can be practiced every moment of life. But in the beginning it will be difficult. so do it for a least one hour every day. In that hour, whatsoever passes around you, become that. You will wonder how it can happen. There is no other way to know how it can happen -- you have to practice it.

Sit with the tree and feel that you have become the tree. And when the wind comes and the whole tree starts shaking and trembling, feel that shaking and trembling in you; when the sun rises and the whole tree becomes alive, feel that aliveness in you; when a shower of rain comes and the whole tree is satisfied and content, a long thirst, a long awaiting has disappeared and the tree is completely satisfied and content, feel satisfied and content with the tree. and then you will become aware of the subtle moods, of the nuances of a tree.

You have seen that tree for many years, but you don't know its moods. Sometimes it is happy; sometimes it is unhappy. Sometimes it is sad, dead, worried, frustrated; sometimes it is very blissful, ecstatic. There are moods. The tree is alive and it feels. And if you become one with it, then you will feel it. Then you will feel whether the tree is young or old; whether the tree is dissatisfied with its life or satisfied; whether the tree is in love with existence or not -- is anti, against, furious, angry; whether the tree is violent or there is a deep compassion in it. As you are changing every moment, the tree is also changing -- if you can feel a deep affinity with it, what they call empathy.

Empathy means you have become so sympathetic that really you become one. The moods of the tree become your moods. And then, if this goes deeper and deeper and deeper, you can talk, you can have a communication with the tree. Once you know its moods you start understanding its language, and the tree will share its mind with you. It will share its agonies and ecstasies.

And this can happen with the whole universe.

For at least one hour every day try to be in empathy with something. In the beginning you will look foolish to yourself. You will think,"What kind of stupidity am I doing?" You will look around and you will feel that if someone looks or someone sees or someone comes to know, they will think you have gone crazy. But only in the beginning. Once you enter this world of empathy the whole world will look crazy to you. They are missing so much unnecessarily. Life gives in such abundance and they are missing it. They are missing because they are closed: they don't allow life to enter into them. And life can enter you only if you enter life through many, many ways, through many paths, through multi-dimensions. Be in empathy for at least one hour every day.

This was the meaning of prayer in the beginning of every religion. The meaning of prayer was to be in an affinity with the universe, to be in a deep communication with the universe. In prayer you are talking to God -- God means the totality. Sometimes you may be angry with God, sometimes thankful, but one thing is certain -- you are in communication. God is not a mental concept, it has become a deep, intimate relationship. That is what prayer means.

But our prayers have gone rotten because we don't know how to communicate with beings. And if you cannot communicate with beings, you cannot communicate with the Being -- Being with a capital `B' -- it is impossible. If you cannot communicate with a tree, how can you communicate with the total existence? And if you feel foolish talking to a tree, you will feel more foolish talking to God.

Leave one hour aside every day for a prayerful state of mind, and don't make your prayer a verbal affair. Make it a feeling thing. Rather than talking with the head, feel it. Go and touch the tree, hug the tree, kiss the tree; close your eyes and be with the tree as if you are with your beloved. Feel it. And soon you will come to a deep understanding of what it means to put the self aside, of what it means to become the other.

FEEL THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF EACH PERSON AS YOUR OWN CONSCIOUSNESS. SO, LEAVING ASIDE CONCERN FOR SELF, BECOME EACH BEING.

The second technique:

THIS CONSCIOUSNESS EXISTS AS EACH BEING, AND NOTHING ELSE EXISTS.

Scientists used to say in the past that only matter existed, nothing else. Great systems of philosophy arose based on the concept that only matter existed. But even those who believed that matter existed had to concede that there was something like consciousness. Then what was it? They said that consciousness was just an epi-phenomenon, just a by-product of matter. It was nothing but matter in disguise, something very subtle but still material. But this half century has seen a very great miracle happen.

Scientists tried and tried to find out what matter was, but the more they tried, they more they came to realize that there was nothing like matter. Matter was analyzed and it was found that it had disappeared. Nietzsche had said just a hundred years before, "God is dead." With God dead there can be no consciousness because God means the totality of consciousness. But within a hundred years matter is dead -- and it is dead not because religious people believe it so but because scientists have come to a definite conclusion that matter is just appearance. It appears to be as it is because we cannot see very deeply. If we can see deeply it disappears, and then energy is left.

This phenomenon of energy, this non-material energy force, has been known by mystics since long ago.In the Vedas, in the Bible, in the Koran, in the Upanishads -- all over the world mystics have penetrated into existence and have always concluded that matter is just an appearance; deep down there is no matter, only energy. With this science now agrees. And the mystics have said one thing more which science has yet to agree with -- but with which it will have to agree one day! The mystics have come to another conclusion also. They say that when you penetrate deep into energy, energy also disappears and only consciousness remains.

So these are the three layers. Matter is the first layer, the surface. If you penetrate the surface then the second layer becomes apparent: you can perceive the second layer which is energy. Then if you penetrate energy, the third layer becomes illumined -- that third layer is consciousness. In the beginning, science said that mystics were just dreaming, because science saw only matter and nothing else. Then science tried to penetrate, and the mystics' second layer was uncovered: matter is just apparent -- deep down it is nothing but energy. And the mystics' other claim is: penetrate more into energy and energy also disappears, then there remains only consciousness. That consciousness is God. That is the deepest-most core.

If you penetrate into your body, these three layers are there. Just on the surface is your body. The body looks material, but deep down there are currents of life, PRANA, vital energy. Without that vital energy your body would be just a corpse. It is alive, with something flowing in it. That flowing `something' is energy. But deeper, still deeper, you are aware, you can witness. You can witness both your body and your vital energy. That witnessing is your consciousness.

Every existence has three layers. The deepest is the witnessing consciousness. In the middle is vital energy and just on the surface is matter, a material body.

This technique says, THIS CONSCIOUSNESS EXISTS AS EACH BEING, AND NOTHING ELSE EXISTS. WHAT ARE YOU? Who are you? If you close your eyes and try to find out who you are, ultimately you are bound to come to a conclusion that you are consciousness. Everything else may belong to you, but you are not that. The body belongs to you, but you can be aware of the body -- and that which is aware of the body becomes separate. The body becomes an object of knowledge and you become the subject. You can know your body.Not only can you know, you can manipulate your body, you can activate it or make it inactive. You are separate. You can do something with your body.

And not only are you not your body, you are not your mind either. You can become aware of your mind also. If thoughts move, you can see them, and you can do something with them: you can make them disappear completely, you can become thoughtless. Or, you can concentrate your consciousness on one thought and not allow it to move from there. You can focus yourself on it and make it remain there. Or, you can allow a riverlike flow of thoughts.You can do something with your thoughts. You can even dissolve them completely until there is no thought -- but still you are. You will know that there are no thoughts, that a vacuum has come into being; but you will be there, witnessing that vacuum.

The only thing you cannot separate yourself from is your witnessing energy. That means you are that. You cannot separate yourself from it. You can separate yourself from everything else: you can know that you are not your body, not your mind, but you cannot know that you are not your witnessing because whatsoever you do you will be the witness. You cannot separate yourself from witnessing. That witnessing is consciousness. And unless you come to a point from where separation becomes impossible, you have not come to yourself.

So there are methods by which the seeker goes on eliminating. He goes on eliminating -- first the body, then the mind, and then he comes to the point where nothing can be eliminated. In the Upanishads they say, NETI, NETI. This is a deep method: "This is not, that is not." So the seeker goes on knowing, "This is not, this is not me, this is not I." He goes on and on until ultimately he comes to a point where he cannot say. "This is not I." Just a witnessing self remains. Pure consciousness remains. This pure consciousness exists as each being.

Whatsoever is in existence is just a phenomenon of this consciousness, just a wave, just a crystallization of this consciousness -- and nothing else exists. But this has to be felt. Analysis can be helpful, intellectual understanding can be helpful, but it has to be FELT that nothing else exists, only consciousness. Then behave as if only consciousness exists.

I have heard about Lin Chi, a Zen master. As he was sitting one day in his hut someone came to see him. The man who came was angry. He may have been fighting with his wife or with his boss or something -- but he was angry. He pushed open the door in anger, he threw down his shoes in anger and then he came, very respectfully, and bowed down to Lin Chi. Lin Chi said, "First go and ask forgiveness from the door and from the shoes." The man must have looked at Lin Chi very strangely. There were other people also sitting there and they started laughing. Lin Chi said, "Stop!" and then said to the man, "If you don't do it then leave. I will have nothing to do with you." The man said, "It will look crazy to ask forgiveness from the shoes and from the door." Lin Chi said, "It was not crazy when you expressed anger. Will it now be crazy? Everything has a consciousness. So you go, and unless the door forgives you, I am not going to allow you in."

The man felt awkward but he had to go. Later on he became a monk himself and became enlightened. When he became enlightened, he related the whole anecdote and he said, "When I stood before the door, asking forgiveness, I felt awkward, foolish. But then I thought that if Lin Chi says so, there must be something in it. I trusted Lin Chi, so I thought that even if it was foolish do it. In the beginning whatsoever I was saying to the door was just superficial, artificial; but by and by I started to get warm. And Lin Chi was waiting and he said that he would watch. If the door forgave me, only then could I come in; otherwise I had to stay there until I had persuaded the door and the shoes to forgive me. By and by I became warm. I forgot that many people were looking. I forgot about Lin Chi -- and then the concern became sincere and real. I started to feel the door and the shoes were changing their mood. And the moment I realized that the door and the shoes had changed and that they are feeling happy, Lin Chi immediately said that I could come. I had been forgiven."

This incident became a transforming phenomenon in his life because for the first time he became aware that everything is really a crystallization of consciousness. If you cannot see it, it is because you are blind. If you cannot hear it, it is because you are deaf. There is nothing the matter with the things around you. Everything is condensed consciousness. The problem is with you -- you are not open and sensitive.

This technique says, THIS CONSCIOUSNESS EXISTS AS EACH BEING, AND NOTHING ELSE EXISTS. Live with this notion. Be sensitive to this and wherever you move, move with this mind and this heart -- that everything is consciousness and nothing else exists. Sooner or later, the world will change its face. Sooner or later, objects disappear and persons start appearing everywhere. Sooner or later, the whole world will be suddenly illumined and you will know that you were living in a world of dead things just because of your insensitivity. Otherwise everything is alive -- not only alive, everything is conscious.

Everything deep down is nothing but consciousness. But if you leave it as a theory, if you believe in it as a theory, then nothing will happen. You will have to make it a way of life a style of life -- behaving as if everything is conscious. In the beginning it will be an `as if', and you will feel foolish, but if you can persist in your foolishness, and if you can dare to be foolish, soon the world will start revealing its mysteries.

Science is not the only methodology to use to enter the mysteries of existence. Really, it is the crudest methodology, the slowest. A mystic can enter existence in a single moment. Science will take millions of years to penetrate that much. The Upanishads say that the world is illusory, that matter is illusory, but only after five thousand years can science say that matter is illusory. The Upanishads say that deep down energy is conscious -- science will take another five thousand years more. Mysticism is a jump; science is a very slow movement. The intellect cannot jump; it has to argue -- argue every fact, prove, disprove, experiment. But the heart can jump immediately.

Remember, for the intellect a process is necessary, then comes the conclusion -- process first, then the conclusion -- logical. For the heart, conclusion comes first, then the process. It is just the reverse. That is why mystics cannot prove anything. They have the conclusion, but they don't have the process.

You may not be aware, you may not have noticed, that mystics simply talk about conclusions. If you read the Upanishads you will find only conclusions. When for the first time they were translated into Western languages, Western philosophers couldn't see the point -- because there was no argument. How do you reach this conclusion? What is the proof? On what premises do you declare, "There is Brahma"? The Upanishads don't say anything, they simply come to a conclusion. The heart reaches a conclusion immediately. And when the conclusion is reached, you can create the process. That is the meaning of theology.

Mystics reach the conclusion and theologians create the process. Jesus reached the conclusion and then the theologians -- St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas -- they created the process. That is secondary. The conclusion has been reached, now you have to find the proofs. The proof is in the life of the mystic. He cannot argue about it. He himself is the proof -- if you can see it. If you cannot see, then there is no proof. Then religion is absurd.

Don't make these techniques theories. They are not. They are jumps into experience, jumps into conclusion.

The third technique:

THIS CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE SPIRIT OF GUIDANCE OF EACH ONE. BE THIS ONE.

The first thing is that you have the guide within you but you don't use it. And you have not used it for so long, for so many lives, that you may not even be aware that a guide exists within you. I was reading Castaneda's book. His master, Don Juan, gives him a beautiful experiment to do. It is one of the oldest experiments.

On a dark night, on a very hilly track, dangerous, without any light, Castaneda's master said, "You simply believe in the inner guide and start running." It was dangerous. It was a hilly track, unknown, with trees, bushes, abysses. He could fall anywhere. Even in the daylight he had to be alert walking there, and at night everything was dark. He could not see anything and his master said, "Don't walk, run!" He couldn't believe it! It was simply suicidal. He became scared -- but the master ran. He ran off just like a wild animal, and came running back. And Castaneda could not understand how he was doing it. Not only was he running in this darkness, but each time he came running directly to him, as if he could see. Then by and by Castaneda gathered courage. If this old man could do this, why not he? He tried, and by and by he felt an inner light coming in. Then he started running.

You only ARE whenever you stop thinking. The moment you stop thinking, the inner happens. If you don't think, everything is okay -- it is as if some inner guide is working. Your reason has misguided you. And the greatest misguidance has been this: you cannot believe in the inner guide.

First, you have to convince your reason. Even if your inner guide says, "Go ahead," you have to convince your reason and then you miss opportunities. Because there are moments... you can use them or you can miss them. Intellect takes time, and while you are pondering, contemplating, thinking, you miss the moment. Life is not waiting for you. One has to live immediately. One has to be really a warrior -- as they say in Zen -- because when you are fighting in the field with your sword, you cannot think. You have to move without thinking.

Zen masters have used the sword as a technique for meditation, and they say in Japan that if two Zen masters, two meditative persons, are fighting with those swords, there can be no conclusion. No one can be defeated and no one is going to win, because both are not thinking.. The swords are just not in their hands, they are in the hands of their inner guide, the non-thinking inner guide, and before the other attacks, the guide knows and defends. You cannot think about it because there is no time. The other is aiming at your heart. In a flash of a moment the sword will penetrate to the heart. There is no time to think about it, about what to do. When the thought, "penetrate the heart" occurs to him, simultaneously the thought, "defend" must occur to you -- simultaneously, with no gap -- only then can you defend. Otherwise you will be no more.

So they teach swordsmanship as a meditation and they say, "Be moment to moment with the inner guide, don't think. Allow the inner being to do whatsoever happens to it. Don't interfere with the mind." This is very difficult because we are so trained with our minds. Our schools, our colleges, our universities, the whole culture, the whole pattern of civilization, teach our heads. We have lost contact with the inner guide. Everyone is born with that inner guide but it is not allowed to work, to function. It is almost paralyzed, but it can be revived.

This sutra is for that inner guide. THIS CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE SPIRIT OF GUIDANCE OF EACH ONE. BE THIS ONE. Don't think with the head. Really, don't think at all. Just move. Try it is some situations. It will be difficult, because the old habit will be to start thinking. You will have to be alert: not to think, but to feel inwardly what is coming to the mind. You may be confused many times because you will not be able to know whether it is coming from the inner guide or from the surface of the mind. But soon you will know the feeling, the difference.

When something comes from the inner, it comes from your navel upwards. You can feel the flow, the warmth, coming from the navel upwards. Whenever your mind thinks, it is just on the surface, in the head, and then it goes down. If your mind decided something, then you have to force it down. If your inner guide decides, then something bubbles up in you. It comes from the deep core of your being towards the mind. The mind receives it, but it is not of the mind. It comes from beyond -- and that is why the mind is scared about it. For reason it is reliable because it comes from behind -- without any reason with it, without any proofs. It simply bubbles up.

Try it in certain situations. For example, you have lost your path in a forest. Try it. Don't think -- just close your eyes, sit down, be meditative, and don't think. Because it is futile -- how can you think? You don't know. But thinking has become such a habit that you go on thinking even in moments when nothing can come out of it. Thinking can think only about something which is already known. You are lost in a forest, you don't have any map, there is nobody you can ask. What are you thinking about? But still you think. That thinking will be just a worry, not a thinking. And the more you get worried, the less the inner guide can be competent.

Be unworried. Sit down under a tree, and just allow thoughts to drop and subside. Just wait, don't think. Don't create the problem, just wait. And when you feel a moment of non-thinking has come, then stand up and start moving. Wheresoever your body moves, allow it to move. You just be a witness. Don't interfere. The lost path can be found very easily. But the only condition is, "Don't interfere with the mind."

This has happened many times unknowingly. Great scientists say that whenever a great discovery has been made, it was never made by the mind; it was always made by the inner guide.

Madame Curie was trying and trying to solve a mathematical problem. She did her best, all that was possible. Then she got fed up. For days together, weeks together, she had been working and nothing had come out. She was feeling just mad. No path was leading to the solution. Then one night, just exhausted, she fell down and slept. And in the night, in a dream, the conclusion bubbled up. She was so concerned with the conclusion that the dream was broken, she awoke. Immediately she wrote down the conclusion -- because there was no process in the dream, just a conclusion. She wrote it down on a pad and then slept again. In the morning she was puzzled; the conclusion was right, but she didn't know how it had been achieved. There was no process, no method. Then she tried to find the process; now it was an easier affair because the conclusion was in the hand, and it is easy to go back from the conclusion. She won the Nobel Prize because of this dream -- but she always wondered how it happened.

When your mind gets exhausted and cannot do any more, it simply retires. In that moment of retirement the inner guide can give hints, clues, keys. The man who won the Nobel Prize for the inner structure of a human cell, saw it in a dream. He saw the whole structure of the human cell, the inner cell, in a dream, and then in the morning he just made a picture of it. He himself couldn't believe that it could be so, so he had to work for years. After years of work he could conclude that the dream was true.

With Madame Curie it happened that when she came to know this inner process of the inner guide, she decided to try it. Once there was a problem which she wanted to solve, so she thought, "Why worry about it, and why try? Just go to sleep." She slept well, but there was no solution. So she was puzzled. Many times she tried: when there was a problem immediately she would go to sleep. But there was no solution. First, the intellect has to be tried, completely; only then can the solution bubble up. The head has to be completely exhausted otherwise it goes on functioning, even in a dream.

So now scientists say that all the great discoveries are intuitive, not intellectual. This is what is meant by the inner guide.

THIS CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE SPIRIT OF GUIDANCE OF EACH ONE. BE THIS ONE. Lose the head and drop into this inner guide. It is there. Old scriptures say that the master or the guru -- the "outer" guru -- can be helpful only in finding the inner guru. That is all. Once the outer guru has helped you to find the inner guru, the function of the outer guru is no more.

You cannot reach to the truth through a master; you can reach only to the inner master through a master -- and then this inner master will lead you to the truth. The outer master is just a representative, a substitute. He has his inner guide and he can feel your inner guide also, because they both exist on the same wavelength -- they both exist in the same tuning and the same dimension. If I have found my inner guide, I can look into you and feel your inner guide. And if I am really a guide to you, all my guidance will be to lead you to your inner guide.

Once you are in contact with the inner guide, I am no longer needed. Now you can move alone. So all that a guru can do is to push you down from your head to your navel, from your reasoning to your intuitive force, from your argumentative mind to your trusting guide. And it is not like this with only human beings, it is so with animals, with birds, with trees, with everything. The inner guide exists, and many new phenomena have been discovered which are mysteries.

There are a number of cases. For example, the mother fish dies immediately after she lays the egg. Then the father helps the egg to be fertilized, and then he dies. The egg remains alone without a mother and without a father. It matures. Then a new fish is born. This fish doesn't know anything about father, mother, parents; she doesn't know from where they came. But although this particular fish lives in a particular part of the sea, she will move to the part from where the father and mother came to lay the eggs. She will move to the source. This has been happening again and again, and when she wans to lay an egg she will come to this bank, lay the egg, and die. So there is no communication between parents and their children but the children somehow know where they have to go, where they have to move -- and they never miss. And you cannot misguide them. It has been tried, but you cannot misguide them. They will reach to the source. Some inner guide is working.

In Soviet Russia they have been experimenting with cats, with rats, and with many small animals. A cat, a mother cat, was separated from her children and the children were taken deep down into the sea; she could not know what was happening to her children. Every type of scientific instrument was attached to the cat to measure what was going on within her mind and her heart, and then one child was killed, deep in the sea. Immediately the mother became aware. Her blood-rate changed. She became puzzled and worried, her heartbeat increased.. as soon as the child was killed. And the scientific instrument said that she was feeling severe pain. Then after a while everything became normal. Then another child was killed -- again the change. And the same with the third child. It happened every time, exactly at the same time, without any time-gap. What was happening?

Now Soviet scientists say the mother has an inner guide, an inner feeling-center and it is joined to her children, wherever they are. And she immediately feels a telepathic relationship. The human mother will not feel so much. This is puzzling. It should be quite the otherwise: the human mother should feel more because she is more evolved. But she will not because the head has taken everything into its hands and the inner centers are all lying paralyzed.

THIS CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE SPIRIT OF GUIDANCE OF EACH ONE. BE THIS ONE. Whenever you are puzzled in a situation and you cannot see how to get out of it, don't think; just be in a deep non-thinking and allow the inner guide to guide you. In the beginning you will feel afraid, insecure, but soon, when you come every time to the right conclusion, when you come every time to the right door, you will gather courage and you will become trusting.

If this trust happens, I call it faith. This really is religious faith -- the trust in the inner guide. Reasoning is part of the ego. It is you believing in yourself. The moment you go deep within you, you have come to the very soul of the universe. Your inner guide is part of the Divine guidance. When you follow it, you follow the Divine; when you follow yourself, you are complicating things, and you don't know what you are doing. You may think yourself very wise. You are not.

Wisdom comes from the heart, it is not of the intellect. Wisdom comes from the innermost depth of your being, it is not of the head. Cut your head off, be headless -- and follow the being, whatsoever, wheresoever it leads. Even if it leads into danger, go into danger, because that will be the path for you and your growth. Through that danger you will grow and become mature. Even if the inner guide leads you to death, go into it, because that is going to be the path for you. Follow it, trust it, and move with it.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #38

Chapter title: The inner guide

6 November 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7311065

ShortTitle: VBT238

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 84 mins

The first question:

Question 1

SOME OF THE TECHNIQUES IN THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE METHODS SEEM TO BE END RESULTS AND NOT TECHNIQUES, SUCH AS THOSE THAT SAY TO "BECOME UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS" OR "BE THIS ONE" ETC. IT SEEMS THAT WE NEED TECHNIQUES TO ACHIEVE THESE TECHNIQUES. WERE TECHNIQUES LIKE THESE MEANT FOR VERY ADVANCED PERSONS WHO COULD JUST BECOME COSMIC AT A MERE SUGGESTION?

Such techniques were meant, not for very advanced persons, but for very innocent persons -- simple, innocent, trusting. Then just a suggestion is enough. You have to have something to do because you cannot trust.You don't have faith. Unless you do something, nothing can happen to you because you believe in action. If something happens to you suddenly without any doing on your part, you will be scared and you will not believe it. You may even bypass it; you may not even record in the mind that it happened. Unless you DO, you cannot feel something happening to you -- this is the way of the ego. But for an innocent person, for an innocent, open mind, just a suggestion is enough. Why? Because really, the innermost being is not something to be achieved in the future -- it is here and now, it is already the case. Whatsoever is to be attained is here, present in you right this very moment. If you can trust without any effort, it can become revealed. It is not a question of time, of you having to work it out. It is not somewhere far away that you have to travel to. It is you. You may call it God, you may call it nirvana or whatsoever you like -- it is you already. So even a suggestion , if believed totally, can reveal it to you. That's why so much significance is given to SHRADDHA, trust, faith. If a person can believe in the master, just a hint, a suggestion, an indication -- and in a flash everything will be revealed.

The basic point to be understood is this: there are things which you cannot attain right now because time will be needed to produce them. They are not with you. If I give you a seed, it cannot immediately become a tree. Time will be needed, and you will have to wait and work. Then the seed cannot become the tree immediately. But you are really the tree already. It is not a seed which has to be worked, it is a tree hidden in darkness, it is a tree which is covered, it is a tree which you are inattentive too -- that's all. Your inattention is the cover. You are not looking at it, that's all. You are looking somewhere else and that's why you are missing it. In a trusting moment the master can tell you, just by a suggestion, that it is here. And if you can believe, if you can look in that dimension in trust, it will be revealed to you.

These techniques are not for advanced people; they are for simple, innocent people. Advanced people are, in a way, difficult. They are not innocent, they have been working, they have attained something, and they have a subtle ego behind it. They know something so they are not innocent, they cannot believe. You will have to argue and convince them -- and then too they will have to make some efforts. By an innocent mind, I mean a mind which is not arguing. It is just like a small child. The child goes with his father hand in hand, he is not afraid. Whatsoever the father is leading, he must be leading in the right direction. The father knows -- so the child need not worry about it. He is not thinking of the future, what is going to happen is not his concern. He is enjoying the very journey; the end is not the problem at all. For the father it may be a problem. He may be afraid. He may be wondering whether they have lost the path or not, whether they are on the right path or not. But for the child it is not a problem. He knows that the father knows. That's all. And wherever the father leads, he will follow -- and he is happy at this very moment.

A trusting disciple, an innocent mind is just like a child -- and the master is more than a father. Once the disciple surrenders, he trusts. Then at any moment, when the master feels that the disciple is tuned, that the disciple is in harmony, he will just give a hint.

I have heard about a Zen master, Bokuju. He struggled hard to attain enlightenment, but nothing happened. Really, with a hard struggle sometimes nothing will happen, because the hard struggle is through the ego. And through hard struggle the ego becomes more hard. He did whatsoever could be done but the goal was no nearer. Rather, on the contrary, it was further away; further away than when he had started the journey. He was puzzled, confused, so he came to his master. The master said, "For a few years just completely stop any effort, any goal, any destination. Just forget, and live moment to moment near me. Don't do anything. Simply eat, sleep, walk, and just be near me. And don't raise any question... just see me, my presence. And don't make any effort because nothing is to be achieved. Forget the achieving mind because the achieving mind is always in the future -- that's why it goes on missing the present. Just forget that you have to achieve anything."

Bokuju believed in his master. He started living with him. For a few days, a few months, ideas floated in, thoughts came, and sometimes he would become uneasy and would think, "I am wasting time. I am not doing anything. How can it happen without doing anything? If it couldn't happen through such hard effort, how is it going to be easily attained by not doing anything?" But, still, he believed in the master. By and by the mind slowed down, and in the present of his master he started to feel a subtle calm flowing -- a silence would fall from the master onto him. He started feeling a merging. Years passed. He completely forgot that he was. The master became the center and he started to live like a shadow.

Then the miracle is possible -- this happening itself is the miracle. One day, suddenly, the master called his name, "Bokuju, are you here?" Just this, "Bokuju, are you here?" And he said, "Yes, master." And, it is said, he became enlightened.

There was nothing like a technique, not even a suggestion -- just, "Bokuju, are you here?" The total presence had been called, "Are you here, not moving anywhere, not gone somewhere else? With total intensity, are you present here?" And Bokuju said, "Yes, master." In that "yes" he became totally present there.

It is said that the master started laughing and Bokuju started laughing, and the master said, "Now you can go. Now you can move out there and help people by your presence." Bokuju never taught any method. He would simply ask this much, "Just be near. Remain present." And whenever a disciple was in tune, he would call the name of the disciple and ask, "Are you here?" This was the whole technique.

But this technique will need a grounding of your mind, a deep innocence. There are many techniques which are simple, the simplest possible: just a saying, "Be this one" -- just a hint. But it must have been said by the master in a certain moment. "Be this one" cannot always be said. It must have been said in a certain tuning, when the disciple was totally one with the master, or totally with the universe, merged. Then the master says, "Be this one" -- and suddenly the focus will change and the last part of the ego will dissolve.

These methods worked in the past but now it is difficult, very difficult, because you are so calculating, you are so clever. And being clever is just against being innocent. You are so calculating, you know too much arithmetic. This calculation goes on and on in the mind: whatsoever you do, it is always calculated, planned. You are never innocent, never open, receptive; you believe too much in yourself. Hence you go on missing. These methods won't be helpful for you unless you prepare. That preparation can be very long, and you are very impatient.

This age is basically the most impatient age that has ever happened on this earth. Everyone is impatient, everyone is too time-conscious, and everyone wants to do everything immediately. Not that it cannot be done -- it can be done immediately. But with such time-consciousness it is impossible. People come to me and they say that they have come only for one day. The next day they are going to Sai Baba, and after meeting him they will go to Rishikesh, and then they will go somewhere else. Then they return frustrated and they think there is nothing India can give. It is not a question of whether India can give something or not, the question is always whether you can receive it or not. You are in such a hurry and you want something immediately. Just like instant coffee, you think of instant meditation, instant nirvana. It is not possible. Nirvana cannot be packed, cannot be made instant. Not that it is impossible to make it instant, it can become instant -- but it can become instant only with the mind which is not after the instant. That's the problem. It can become instant. Immediately, this moment, it can happen. Not even a single moment is needed. But only to one who is relaxed about time completely, to one who can wait for infinity -- for him it will happen instantly.

This looks paradoxical but this is the case. If you can wait for eternity, you will not need to wait at all. But if you cannot wait for even a single moment, you will have to wait for eternity. You will have to wait because the mind which says, "Let it happen immediately," is a mind which has already moved from the moment. It is running, it is standing nowhere, it is just on the move. A mind which is on the move, on the way, cannot be innocent.

You may not be aware of it but innocent people are always without time-consciousness. Time lingers slowly. There is no hurry to go anywhere, they are not running. They are enjoying moment to moment. They are chewing each moment. And each moment has its own ecstasy to deliver. But you are in such a hurry that it cannot be delivered. While you are here, your hands are in the future, your mind is in the future -- you will miss this moment. And this will be always the case; you will always miss the now. And NOW is the only time! The future is false, the past is just memory. The past is no more, the future is yet to be -- and all that ever happens is the now. Now is the only time.

So if you can be prepared to slow down a little, to become non-calculating, playing like children, here and now, then these simple techniques can work miracles. But this century is too time-conscious. That's why you ask, IT SEEMS THAT WE NEED TECHNIQUES TO ACHIEVE THESE TECHNIQUES. No. These are techniques, not end-results. They look like end-results because you cannot conceive of how they can work. They can work in particular mind; they cannot work in other types of mind. And really, those who know, they say that all the techniques will ultimately bring you to the innocence where the phenomenon happens. When the phenomenon happens, it will be because the techniques will have brought you to that innocence -- if the innocence is there.

But it is difficult now because nowhere is innocence taught; everywhere we are teaching cleverness. Universities are not to make you innocent, they are to make you clever, cunning, calculating. The more clever you are, the better you will be in the struggle of life. You can gain much wealth, prestige, power, if you are calculating. If you are innocent, you will prove to be stupid; if you are innocent, then you will be nowhere in this competitive world. This is the problem: in this competitive world you may not be anywhere, but in that non-competitive world of nirvana, if you are innocent, you will be somewhere. If you are calculating you will not be anywhere in the world of nirvana, but in this world you will be somewhere. And we have chosen this world to be our goal.

Old universities differed completely, their orientation was totally different. Nalanda, Takshila -- they did not teach calculation, they did not teach cleverness. They were teaching innocence. Their orientation was different from Oxford or Kashi or Cambridge. Their orientation was totally different -- they were creating a different type of mind. So it almost always happened that a person who studied in Takshshila or Nalanda would become a BHIKKHU, a SANNYASIN, in the end. By the time he graduated from university he would renounce this world. Those universities were anti-world; they were preparing for some other dimension. They were preparing you for something else which cannot be measured in terms of this world. These techniques were for those type of people. Either they were innocent by their nature or they were training themselves to be innocent.

When Jesus said to his followers, "If someone hits you on one cheek, you give him the other," what is he intending to do? He is trying to make you innocent. Only a foolish person would do this. When someone hits you on one cheek, a calculating mind will say, "Hit him hard, immediately." And a really calculating mind will say, "Before someone hits you, hit him. Because attack is the best defense." Ask Machiavelli -- he is the cleverest mind. He says, "Before someone attacks you, you attack him, because attack is the best defense. Once someone has attacked you, you are already weak; he has already gained over you. Now the race is not equal. He is ahead of you. So don't allow the enemy to go ahead. Attack before anybody attacks you."

This is a calculating mind; this is a clever mind. Machiavelli was read by every prince and every king in medieval Europe -- but he was such a clever person that no king would employ him. He was read -- his book was the bible for power-politics, every prince would read his book The Prince and they would follow it -- but no king was ready to employ him because he was such a clever man. It was better to keep him away -- he was dangerous; he knew too much. He said, "Virtue is not good, but pretending to be virtuous is. Don't be virtuous, but pretend always that you are virtuous. That is the real good because then you gain from both the ends: from vice you gain, and from virtue also." This is the calculating mind. Go on pretending that you are virtuous, and always praise virtue. But never be really virtuous. Always praise virtue so others know that you are a virtuous person. Always condemn vice -- but don't be afraid to use it.

Jesus says, "When someone hits you on one cheek, give him the other. And if someone takes your coat, snatches it, give him your shirt also. And if someone forces you to carry his load for one mile, tell him that you are ready to carry it for two miles." This is patent foolishness, but very meaningful. If you can do this, these techniques will be for you. Jesus is preparing his disciples for sudden enlightenment. Just think about it. If you can be so innocent, so trusting, that if the other is hitting you, he must be hitting you for your good -- so give him the other cheek also, and let him hit it. The other's goodness is believed in, trusted in; no one is your enemy. When Jesus says, "Love your enemies," this is the meaning. No one is your enemy; don't see the enemy anywhere. That doesn't mean that there will not be enemies and there will not be people who will exploit you. There will be. They will exploit you. But be exploited -- and don't be cunning. Just look at that dimension: be exploited but don't be cunning. Be exploited but don't be mistrusting, don't disbelieve, don't lose faith. That is more valuable than anything others can cheat you of. Nothing else is so valuable.

But how do our minds function? If one man deceives you, the whole of humanity is evil. If one man is dishonest or you think that he is dishonest, then you don't believe in man at all. Then the whole of humanity has become dishonest. If one Jew is a miser, then the whole race of Jews is miserly. If one Mohammedan is bigoted, then all Mohammedans are. Just one is enough for us to lose our faith in all. Jesus says, "Even if all are dishonest, you should not lose faith, because faith is more valuable than what these dishonest people can take from you by their dishonesty." So really, if you lose faith you are losing something; otherwise nothing is lost.

For such innocent people these techniques are enough, they will not ask for anything more. You say, and it happens to them. Just on hearing the master many have become illumined -- but in the past, not in this age.

I have heard a story about Rinzai. He was a very poor BHIKKHU, a poor SANNYASIN, a beggar. As he was sleeping in his hut a thief entered. There was nothing in the hut except a blanket that he himself was using. He was sleeping on the floor, covered with his blanket. Then he became very uncomfortable and stared to think, "What an unfortunate fellow! He has come so far from the village to find something, and there is nothing in my hut. What misery! How to help him? The only thing is this blanket." And he was under it and the thief would not have the courage to snatch the blanket, so he slipped out from under it, left it there and slipped into a dark corner. The thief took the blanket and went away. The night was very cold, but Rinzai was happy that the thief had not gone back empty-handed.

Then he sat at the window of his hut. The night was cool, and the full moon was in the sky. He wrote a small haiku, a small poem. In the haiku he said, "If I could have given this moon to that thief, I would have." This mind! What has he lost? Just a blanket. What has he gained? The whole world, all that can be gained. He has gained innocence, trust, love.

For this man no technique is needed. His master would say, "Just look. Be aware. Be alert." And that would do.

The second question:

Question 2

HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN THE DICTATES OF THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND AND THAT OF THE INNER GUIDE? HOW CAN ONE RECOGNIZE THAT THE INNER GUIDE HAS COME INTO FUNCTION?

The first thing: because of Freud, much misunderstanding has arisen around the word "unconscious". Freud completely misunderstood it, misinterpreted it. And he has become the very basis of modern knowledge about mind. To Freud, unconscious meant simply the repressed conscious, the suppressed part of the conscious. So all that is evil and bad, immoral, has been suppressed. Because the society cannot allow it, it has to be suppressed within. For Freud, that repressed part is the unconscious -- but not for mystics. Freud is not a mystic; he has not entered his own unconscious. He has been simply observing cases of patients: ill people, abnormal people, mad, insane, pathological. He has been studying the pathological mind, and through the study of the pathological mind -- and that, too, from without -- he concluded that just underneath the conscious there is an unconscious mind. That unconscious mind carries all that has been suppressed from the childhood, all that society has condemned. The mind has suppressed it, just to forget that it is there.

But it is there -- and it goes on functioning. And it is very powerful: it goes on changing the conscious, it goes on playing tricks with the conscious. The conscious is really impotent before it, because whatsoever is repressed is repressed only because it is so powerful that society cannot cope with it. So society has been repressing it and society doesn't know what else to do with it. For example, sex. It is so powerful that if you don't repress it you won't know what to do with it. It will lead you into dangerous paths. And it is such a forceful energy that the whole society will become chaotic if it is allowed completely.No marriage could exist, no love could exist, everything could be just a chaos if it was allowed total freedom -- because then man would behave like an animal. If there were no marriage, no family, the whole society would be destroyed. Society depends on the unity of the family; the family depends on marriage; marriage depends on sex-suppression. Everything that is natural, forceful, has been inhibited, tabooed -- so forcibly that you feel guilty about it and you go on fighting with it. Society has not only created policemen outside, it has created inner policemen, your conscience -- a double arrangement so that you don't go astray so that you cannot be natural, you have to be unnatural.

Now modern psychologists say that insanity is part of civilization -- no civilization can be without madness. But mad people are suffering because you have forced such an order over them that their natural instincts are crushed. They have been crippled. It may be that your madmen are more powerful than you, that's why their inner instincts have revolted and they have thrown their conscience, their mind, everything, overboard. That's why they are mad. A better concept of humanity, a better organization, a better discipline with more knowledge and wisdom, may use them. They may prove geniuses; they may prove very talented people. They are. But they have such a force in them that they cannot repress themselves. And society will not allow them to move because they are wild. Freud came to the conclusion that civilization needs the unconscious, the repressed part.

But really, for Tantra and yoga this unconscious is not the unconscious, it is just between the conscious and the unconscious, a small boundary. It is subconscious. The conscious has forced something down, but the conscious knows about it. It is not really unconscious, you know about it. You may not want to recognize it, you may not want to be attentive to it, because you are afraid that if you give it attention it will come up. You have forced it into darkness but you are conscious bout it. The Freudian unconscious is not really unconscious, it is only subconscious. It is not dark night, it is in the light, you can see it.

Tantra talks about the real unconscious which is not suppressed by you but which is your deepest being. And your conscious is just one part of it which has come into light, the one-tenth part which has seen the light, which has become conscious. Nine parts, nine-tenths, are just hidden underneath. That unconscious is really your source of life-energy, of being. Your conscious mind is one-tenth of the whole mind and this conscious mind has created its own center: that center is the ego. This center is false because it doesn't belong to the whole mind, it is not the center of the whole mind. It is just a center of the conscious part, a fragment. The fragment has created its own center and that center goes on pretending it is the center of the whole being. No, your total mind has a center: that center is called the guide. That center is in the unconscious and it will be revealed only when five fragments, or half of the mind, come into light. Then the center which is the guide will be revealed. It is hidden in the unconscious.

So you need not be afraid of the unconscious; it is the Freudian unconscious you are afraid of. It is something to be afraid of. But this Freudian unconscious can be thrown out in catharsis. Hence my great insistence on catharsis. This Freudian unconscious can be thrown out in catharsis: whatsoever you wanted to do and you have not done, do it, meditatively. Don't do it to anyone because that will create a chain of events -- and you will not be in control. Just do it in a vacuum. If you are angry, do it in a vacuum. If you feel sexuality, throw it into the sky. If you feel anything, just allow it to move from your inwards outwards. Express it. A meditative catharsis will relieve you of the Freudian unconscious. With the technique that I am teaching -- if it is followed -- the Freudian unconscious will simply disappear. And only when this Freudian unconscious disappears can you penetrate the real unconscious. It is just in-between, between the conscious and the unconscious. You just go on throwing your rubbish things into a room and you close it; you go on accumulating a junkyard -- Freudian unconscious is just a junkyard. Don't throw it in -- I say, throw it out. When it moves in, you will become pathological, you can go insane. When it moves out you will become fresh, young, unburdened. For this age, catharsis is a must. No one can reach the inner guide without catharsis. And once you are in deep catharsis you need not be afraid. Then the real unconscious will start revealing itself; then it will penetrate into your conscious, and then for the first time you will become aware of your vast territory. You are not such a small fragment, you have a very vast being, and this vast being has a center -- that center is the inner guide.

How to differentiate between the unconscious and the inner guide? How to differentiate between the Freudian unconscious and the inner guide? It will be difficult if you don't go through catharsis. But you can feel a difference by and by because the Freudian unconscious is just a repressed thing. If something appears in you with a violent force, know well that this violent force is coming because you have repressed it in the first place. If something simply appears in you without any violence, just bubbles up silently, easily, without any sounds, even soundlessly, then know that this is the real unconscious. From the guide something is coming to you. But you will become proficient only when you go through catharsis. Then you will know what is happening. Whenever anything comes from the Freudian unconscious you will feel disturbed, it will make you uneasy, uncomfortable; and whenever something comes from the guide you will feel such serenity, you will feel so happy, so at ease, so at home, that you cannot imagine it. You will simply feel that this is the thing. Your total being is in harmony with it, there is no resistance. You know this is the right, this is the good, this is the truth -- and nobody can convince you otherwise. With the Freudian unconscious you can never be serene, you can never be still and calm; you will be disturbed. It is a sort of disease that has come up -- and there will be a fight with it. So it is better if you pass through deep catharsis, then the Freudian unconscious will become silent, by and by.

And just as bubbles come up from a riverbed, come up to the very surface of the water, you will feel bubbles coming up from the very bed of your being. They will come to your conscious mind. But their very coming will give you a deep tranquility -- a feeling that nothing can be more right than this. But before it happens you have to unburden yourself of the Freudian unconscious. And that can happen only if you are in a let-go, because the innermost being is so nonviolent that it will not assert itself. The Freudian unconscious will want to assert itself; every moment it is trying to assert itself and you are pushing it back. This is the difference. It wants to assert itself, it wants to become active, it wants to lead you somewhere, it wants to manipulate you -- and you are resisting it, fighting it. The real unconscious, the guide, is not assertive. If you allow it, if you invite it, prayerfully, it will come to you just like an invited guest. You have to be in a let-go. Only then will it come. When it feels you are ready, when it feels it will not be denied, rejected, when it feels it will be welcomed, then it will come to you. So, you have to do two things: catharsis for the Freudian unconscious, and training in let-go and surrender for the real guide, the real unconscious. These two things done, you will know the difference.

The difference really cannot be taught to you -- you will know it. When it happens, you will know it. How do you know the difference between when there is pain in your body and when the whole body feels a well-being? When the whole body is filled with well-being and when your head has a headache, how do you feel what the difference is? You simply know it. You cannot define it, you simply know it: you know what a headache is and you know what well-being is.

The real guide will always give you a feeling of well-being, and the Freudian unconscious will always give you a feeling of headache. It is a turmoil, it is an inner conflict, it is anguish, it is pain suppressed. So whenever it comes you will feel painful all over.

Because of this Freudian unconscious, many things have become painful which are not naturally painful For example, sex. Because society has repressed sex, it has become painful. One of the most blissful things in natural life is sex. But it has become painful. If you move into sex you will feel frustrated, you will feel guilty, at the end you will feel weakened. And you will decide never to have sex again. This is not because of natural sex, this is because of the unconscious. Sex has become painful. It has been so repressed that it has become ugly and painful Otherwise it is one of the most natural ecstasies. If a child is never taught that sex is bad and a sin he will enjoy it, and every time he will feel a deep well-being flowing all over the body.

Men feel more well-being than women -- because women are repressed more. No one requires that a boy should be a virgin but everyone requires, even the boy himself, that the girl he is going to marry should be a virgin. Even playboys require that the girl should be a virgin. Women's unconscious has been repressed ore than men's, that's why only a few women achieve orgasm. And that, too, in the West -- in the east not more than five per cent of women, at the most, achieve any enjoyment in sex. Ninety-five percent are simply fed up with it. That's why when sadhus and monks teach that sex is sin, women always agree. They gather in multitudes around monks because the thing appeals to them, it is right. Because they are so suppressed they have never known any bliss out of it. In India, while making love, woman are not supposed to move, be active. They have to lie still like a corpse. If they are active their man will become suspicious: they are enjoying sex and this is not the sign of a good woman. A good woman is one who doesn't enjoy. In the East they will say that if you want to marry, marry a good woman, and if you want to enjoy, then have a friendship with a bad woman -- because only bad women can enjoy. This is unfortunate. The woman is not supposed to move, to be active, she should be just dead. How can she achieve orgasm when the energy is not moving?

And if she cannot enjoy it she is bound to be against the husband and she is bound to think that the husband is evil. Every day Indian women come to me and they say that they are fed up with sex and their husbands are forcing them again and again to have sex. They don't like it, they are disgusted. And why are the husbands not so disgusted? Why are the women disgusted? The reason is that they have a greater repressed unconscious about sex than men.

Sex will become painful. If you have suppressed it, it is a headache. Anything can become a headache -- just suppress it, that is the trick. It will become a suffering. And anything can become blissful -- just express it, don't suppress it.

This Freudian unconscious is all that you know right now. You don't know about the real unconscious, the Tantra unconscious -- that's why you are afraid. And afraid, you cannot let go. Afraid, you cannot lose control. You know that if you lose control, immediately the suppressed instincts will take over. Immediately, whatsoever you have repressed will come to the mind and it will insist on being acted out. That's why you are afraid. Catharsis is needed first so the fear goes. And then you can let go. And if you let go, a very silent force will start flowing to your conscious mind and you will feel a well-being, you will feel that you are at home, you will feel that everything is good, you will feel that you are blessed.

HOW CAN ONE RECOGNIZE THAT THE INNER GUIDE HAS COME INTO FUNCTION? This will be the first sign: you will start feeling good, good about yourself. Remember, you always feel bad about yourself. I almost never come across a person who feels good about himself. Everyone is condemning himself, everyone thinks he is bad. And when you think you are bad how do you suppose that someone else is going to love you? And when no one loves you, you feel frustrated. But you yourself don't love you. You have never touched your hand lovingly, you have never felt your body lovingly, you have never thanked God that he has given you such a beautiful body, such a beautiful organism. No, you just feel disgusted. And the religions, the so-called religions have taught you to feel condemned -- this body is a bag of sins. You are carrying a burden.

When the unconscious is released you will feel suddenly that you are accepted, you are not bad. Nothing is bad. The whole of life becomes deep down a blessing. You feel blessed. And the moment you feel blessed, all others around you become blessed; you can bless them, you can feel happy. Because you feel condemned, you feel bad about yourself and you think the same about others. How can you love another's body if you condemn your own body? If you are against your own body, how can you love another body? You will condemn -- deep down you will condemn. Really, religions have prepared you to become just ghosts. They don't want you to be with the body, they want you to be just unembodied spirits. Everything has been so condemned..and you have taken it for granted. I have seen in scriptures, in many scriptures, that it written that your body has nothing but blood, fat, phlegm -- just to condemn it. I don't know what these persons who were writing these scriptures wanted. Did they want gold to be there? Why is blood bad? Blood is life! But they have condemned it and we have accepted the condemnation. They must be mad, insane.

Jains always say that their TEERTHANKARAS never urinated, they don't defecate. Such bad things. But why is urine bad? What do you want to urinate instead of urine? And what is bad in it? But it is such a bad thing. And psychologists say that because the sex center and the urinating organ are the same in man, sex has become condemned. And in woman the sex center is just in the middle, on one side defecation and on the other side urination, sex cannot be good if it is between two such bad things. The condemnation of sex has come because we have condemned defecation. But why? Why condemn it? What is bad? But we accept condemnation and when we accept, then there are problems.

Your whole body is condemned by neurotic people. They may have written scriptures but that doesn't make any difference. They may have been great leaders -- neurotics almost always are. They are great leaders because they are so fanatic that they can immediately get a following. And there are always people who worship fanaticism. Anyone who says something strongly will have people falling at his feet saying he is the right leader. and he may be just neurotic, just mad. These neurotic people have condemned you and you have accepted them, you have been conditioned by them.

When the unconscious flows in you, a subtle well-being will come. You will feel good: everything is good, and everything is Divine. Your body comes from the Divine, your blood also, your urine also. Everything is Divine. When the unconscious flows in you, everything is Divine, everything becomes spiritual. Nothing is bd, nothing is condemned. This will be the feeling, and then you will fly. You will become so light you cannot walk. Then nothing is a burden on your head. Then you can enjoy small things in a very great way. Then every trivial things becomes a beauty. But that beauty is given by you -- whatsoever you touch becomes golden because deep down you are so filled with bliss.

This will be the first thing that will happen to you -- a goodness about yourself. And, when the unconscious starts flowing into your conscious, the second thing will be that you will become less world-oriented, less intellectual, more total. Then if you are happy you will not just simply say that you are happy -- you will dance. Just saying, "I am happy," is pale, meaningless. I see people who say, "I am happy" -- but just look at their faces! I know people who say, "I love you," but their body is not expressing anything. Words are dead but we have substituted them for life. When the unconscious flows in you, this will be the difference: you will live with your total being. When you feel happy, you will dance. Then you will not simply say, "I am happy"-you will be happy: that's the difference. You will not say, "I am happy" -- there is no need to say it because you will be happy. Then there will be no need to say to someone, "I love you" -- you will be love. Your whole being will show the feeling, you will vibrate with love. Anybody passing nearby will feel that you love; anyone just touched by your hand will feel a subtle energy has entered into him. There is a warmth in your presence, a happiness.

This will be the second thing. First, you will feel a goodness about yourself and about everything; and second, you will become total. When the guide takes you, you will be total.

The third question:

Question 3

WHEN THAT INTUITION STARTS FUNCTIONING, IS SURRENDER THE ONLY TECHNIQUE FOR THAT INTUITION, OR THE INNER GUIDE? DOES A PERSON LIVING THROUGH INTUITION ALWAYS SUCCEED? HOW DO YOU VALUE SUCCESS AND FAILURE? IS IT NOT TRUE THAT THE PERSON LIVING INTUITIVELY WILL BECOME WEAK INTELLECTUALLY?

Surrender is the only technique for the inner being to become active.

DOES A PERSON LIVING THROUGH INTUITION ALWAYS SUCCEED? No, but he is always happy -- whether he succeeds or not. And a person not living intuitively is always unhappy whether he succeeds or not. Success is not the criterion because success depends on many things. Happiness is the criterion because happiness depends only on you. You may not succeed because others are competitors there. Even if you are working intuitively, others may be working more cunningly, more cleverly, more calculatingly, more violently, more immorally. So success depends on many other things; success is a social phenomenon. You may not succeed.

Who can say that Jesus succeeded? Crucifixion is not a success, it is the greatest failure. A man crucified when he was just thirty-three -- what type of success is this? No one knew about him. Just a few villagers, uneducated people, were his disciples. He had no position, no prestige, no power. What type of success is this? Crucifixion cannot be said to be a success. But he was happy. He was totally blissful -- even when being crucified. And those who were crucifying him would remain alive for many years but they would remain in misery. So really, who was undergoing crucifixion? That is the point. Those who crucified Jesus, were they undergoing crucifixion? Or was Jesus, who was crucified? He was happy. How can you crucify happiness? He was ecstatic. How can you crucify ecstasy? You can kill the body but you cannot kill the soul. Those who crucified him, they lived, but their life was nothing but a long slow crucifixion -- misery and misery and misery.

So the first thing is that I don't say that if you follow the inner guide you will always succeed -- in the sense that the world recognizes success; but in the sense that a Buddha or a Jesus recognizes success, you will succeed. But that success is measured by your happiness, your bliss -- whatsoever happens is irrelevant, you will be happy. Whether the world says that you have been a failure, or the world makes you a star, a success, it doesn't make any difference. You will be happy whatsoever the case; you will be blissful. Bliss is success to me. If you can understand that bliss is success, then I say you will succeed always.

But to you bliss is not success; success is something else. It may even be misery. Even if you know that it is going to be a misery, you long for success. Ask political leaders -- they are in misery. I have not seen any political leader who is happy. They are just miserable, but still they are trying for higher posts, trying to get still higher on the ladder. And those who are already above him are in misery, and he knows it. But we are ready to be miserable if success comes to us. So what is success to us? Success is egoistic fulfillment, not bliss. It is just so that people will say that you have succeeded. You may have lost everything -- you may have lost your soul; you may have lost all that innocence that gives bliss; you may have lost all that peace, silence, that brings you nearer to the Divine; you may have lost all, and become just a madman -- but the world will say you are a success.

For the world, ego gratification is the success; for me it is not. For me, to be blissful is success -- whether anyone knows about you or not. It is irrelevant whether anyone knows about you or not, whether you live totally unknown, unheard of, unnoticed. But if you are blissful, you have succeeded.

So remember this distinction because there are many people who would like to be intuitive, who would like to find the inner guide, just to succeed in the world. For them the inner guide will be a frustration. In the first place, they cannot find it. In the second place, even if they can find it, they will be miserable. Because what they are aiming at is recognition by the world, ego fulfillment -- not bliss.

Be clear in the mind -- don't be success-oriented. Success is the greatest failure in the world. So don't try to succeed otherwise you will be a failure. Think of being blissful. Every moment think of being more and more blissful. Then the whole world may say you are a failure but you will not be a failure. You have attained.

Buddha was a failure in the eyes of his friends, family, wife, father, teachers, society -- he was a failure. He had become just a beggar. What type of success is this? He could have been a great emperor: he had the qualities, he had the personality, he had the mind. He could have been a great emperor but he became a beggar. He was a failure -- obviously. But I say to you he was not a failure. If he had become an emperor then he would have been a failure because he would have missed the real life. What he attained under the Bodhi Tree was the real and what he lost was unreal.

With the real you will succeed in the inner life; with the unreal... I don't know. If you want to succeed in the unreal then follow the path of those who are working in cunningness, cleverness, competition, jealousy, violence. Follow their path, the inner guide is not for you. If you want to gain something of the world, then don't listen to the inner guide.

But ultimately you will feel that although you have won the whole world, you have lost yourself. Jesus says, "And what does a man get if he loses his soul and gains the whole world?" Who will you call a success: Alexander the Great or Jesus the Crucified? So if -- and that `if' has to be understood well -- if you are interested in the world, then the inner guide is not a guide for you. If you are interested in the inner dimension of being then the inner guide, and only the inner guide, can help.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #39

Chapter title: Sunyawad -- the philosophy of emptiness

7 November 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7311075

ShortTitle: VBT239

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 98 mins

SUPPOSE YOUR PASSIVE FORM TO BE AN EMPTY ROOM WITH WALLS OF SKIN -- EMPTY.

GRACIOUS ONE, PLAY. THE UNIVERSE IS AN EMPTY SHELL WHEREIN YOUR MIND FROLICS INFINITELY.

SWEET HEARTED ONE, MEDITATE ON KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING, EXISTING AND NOT-EXISTING. THEN LEAVE BOTH ASIDE THAT YOU MAY BE.

ENTER SPACE, SUPPORTLESS, ETERNAL, STILL.

These techniques are concerned with emptiness -- they are the most delicate, the most subtle. Even to conceive of emptiness seems impossible. Buddha used all these four techniques for his disciples and BHIKKHUS, and because of these four techniques he was totally misunderstood. Buddhism got completely uprooted from Indian soil just because of these four techniques.

Buddha said that there is no God. If there is God, you cannot be totally empty. You may not be there but the God will be there, the Divine will be there. And your mind can deceive you, because your Divine may be just your mind playing tricks. Buddha said that there is no soul, because if there is any soul, ATMA, you can hide your ego behind it. Your ego will be difficult to leave if you feel that there is some self within you. Then you cannot be totally empty because you will be there.

Just to prepare the ground for these techniques of emptiness, Buddha denied everything. He was not an atheist but he appeared to be an atheist because he said that there is no God, he said there is no soul, he said there is nothing substantial in existence -- existence is empty. But this was just to prepare the ground for these techniques. Once you enter emptiness you have entered all -- you may call it the Divine, you may call it God, or ATMA, soul, whatsoever you like -- but you can enter the truth only when you are totally empty. Nothing should be left of you.

Hindus thought that Buddha was destroying religion, that he was teaching irreligion. And people who heard him, even they couldn't follow, because whenever you go somewhere, you go to seek something -- you never go to seek emptiness. So those who went to hear him were seeking something -- nirvana, moksha, the other world, heaven, truth -- but they were seeking something. They had come to gratify their ultimate desire: to find the truth. That is the last desire. And unless you are completely desireless, you cannot know the truth; the very condition of knowing is to be totally desireless.

So one thing is certain, you cannot desire truth. If you desire it, the very desire will become the barrier. There were masters before Buddha who were teaching, "Don't desire, be desireless." But they were talking about God, about the kingdom of God, heaven, paradise, moksha, the ultimate freedom and liberation -- and they were saying, "Be desireless." Buddha felt that you cannot be desireless if there is something to be attained. You may pretend that you are desireless, but this pretension, desirelessness, is also from some desire to be fulfilled. It is false. The masters say that you cannot attain to ultimate bliss with desire, and you want to attain ultimate bliss -- so you start being desireless, you try to be desireless, so that you can attain the ultimate bliss. But the desire is there.You are trying to be desireless just because of the desire. So Buddha said that there is no God to be attained. Even if you desire, there is no one to be attained... so be desireless. There is no moksha somewhere, there is no goal. Life is meaningless and goal-less.

His emphasis is beautiful and wonderful -- no one has tried that way. He destroyed all the goals just to help you to be desireless. If the goals are there, how can you be desireless? And if you are not desireless, you will not attain to the goal -- this is the paradox. He destroyed all the goals -- not that those goals are not there, they are there and they can be attained -- but if you want to attain them, if you desire to attain them, it becomes impossible. The very basic condition is you must be desireless -- then the ultimate happens to you. So Buddha says there is nothing to be desired, desires are futile. Drop all desires and when there is no desire you will be empty.

Just imagine, if there is no desire within you, what will you be? You are nothing but a bundle of desires. If all desires go, you simply disappear. Not that you will not exist -- you will exist, but as an emptiness. You will be there, just like a vacant room: no one is there, just a SUNYA, a nothingness. Buddha has called this nothingness ANATMA, ANATTA, no-soulness. You will not feel any center, that "I am"; there will be just "am-ness", no "I" to it, because "I" is nothing but accumulated desires, condensed desires, crystallized desires -- many, many desires have become your "I".

It is just as in physics. Physicists say that if you analyze matter, then matter is nothing but atoms; there is nothing to join the atoms, each atom is surrounded by vacant space. If you have a rock in your hand, there is no rock, just atoms of energy, and between two atoms, infinite space. Even a rock is spacious, porous. They say that soon we will be able to pull that space out from anything.

H.G. Wells has written a story.

In the twenty-first century, a passenger starts calling for coolies in a big station. Other passengers who are traveling in the same compartment with this passenger cannot understand, because he has no luggage, just a packet of cigarettes and a small matchbox. That is all his luggage. And he goes on calling for coolies. A big group gathers and a passenger asked, "Why? Why are you calling? You don't have anything. You can carry this matchbox and this packet of cigarettes yourself. What are you going to do with these two dozen coolies?" The passenger laughs and he says, "Try, try that matchbox. That matchbox is not ordinary. One railway engine is condensed into it."

It is possible soon. Space can be pulled out and then it can be again forced in, and the engine will take its shape again. Then big things can be carried without much problem. The weight will remain the same but the shape, the form, will become smaller and smaller. A matchbox can contain a railway engine, but the weight will remain the same, because space has no weight. You can pull out the space but you cannot pull out the weight. The weight will remain the same because weight is contained by the atoms, not by the space. They say that the whole earth can be condensed into the form, the shape, of one apple, but the weight will remain the same. And if you pull apart all these atoms; if you take one atom out, and then another, and then another; if you take all the atoms out, nothing will be left behind -- so matter is just an appearance.

Buddha has analyzed the human mind in a simpler way: he is one of the greatest scientists possible. He says your ego is nothing but desires, atomic desires. There are millions of desires; they make you. If you go on pulling out desires one by one, a moment will come when there is no desire left, you have disappeared... just space, just vacant space remains. And this, Buddha says, is nirvana. This is the cessation of your being completely; you are no more. And Buddha says this is silence: unless you are completely gone, silence cannot descend on you. Buddha says you cannot be silent because you are the problem; you cannot be peaceful because you are the disease; and you can never be blissful because you are the only barrier. The bliss can come at any moment but you are the barrier. When you are not, bliss will be there; when you are not, peace will be there; when you are not, silence will be there, when you are not, ecstasy will be there. When your inner being is totally empty, this emptiness itself is bliss. That's why Buddha's teachings are called SUNYAWAD, the philosophy of emptiness, or the philosophy of zero.

These four techniques are to attain this state of being, or you can call it this state of no-being -- there is no difference. You can give it a positive term, as Hindus and Jains have called it, soul, or you can give it a more appropriate but negative term, as Buddha has called it, ANATTA, no-selfness or no-soulness. It depends on you. But whatsoever you call it, there is no one to be named and called, there is just infinite space. That's why I say that these are the ultimate techniques, the most delicate, the most difficult -- but the most wonderful. And if you can work with any of these four techniques, you will gain the unattainable.

The first technique:

SUPPOSE YOUR PASSIVE FORM TO BE AN EMPTY ROOM WITH WALLS OF SKIN -- EMPTY.

SUPPOSE YOUR PASSIVE FORM TO BE AN EMPTY ROOM WITH WALLS OF SKIN... but inside, everything empty. This is one of the most beautiful techniques. Just sit in a meditative posture, relaxed, alone, your backbone straight and the whole body relaxed -- as if the whole body is hanging on the backbone. Then close your eyes. For a few moments go on feeling relaxed, more relaxed, becoming calmer and calmer and calmer. Do this for a few moments, just to be in tune. And then suddenly start feeling your body is just walls of skin and there is nothing inside, there is no one inside, the house is vacant. Sometimes you will feel thoughts passing, clouds of thoughts moving, but don't think that they belong to you. You are not. Just think that they are roaming in a vacant sky -- they don't belong to anyone, they don't have any roots.

Really this is the case: thoughts are just like clouds moving in the sky. They don't have any roots and they don't belong to the sky, they simply roam in the sky. They come and they go and the sky remains untouched, uninfluenced. Feel that your body is just walls of skin and there is no one inside. Thoughts will still continue -- because of old habit, old momentum, old cooperation, thoughts will go on coming. But just think that they are rootless clouds moving in space -- they don't belong to you, they don't belong to anybody else. There is no one to whom they can belong -- you are empty. It will be difficult, but because of the old habits, nothing else. Your mind would like to catch some thought, be identified with it, move with it, enjoy it, indulge in it. Resist! Just say there is no one to indulge, there is no one to fight, there is no one to do anything with this thought. Within a few days, a few weeks, thoughts will slow down, they will become less and less. The clouds will start disappearing, or, even if they come, there will be great gaps of cloudless sky when there will be no thought. One thought will pass. Then another will not come for a period. Then another will come and then there will again be an interval. In those intervals you will know for the first time what emptiness is. And the very glimpse of it will fill you with such deep bliss you cannot imagine.

Really it is difficult to say anything about it, because whatsoever is said in language will refer to you, and you will not be there. If I say that you will be filled with happiness it will be nonsense. You will not be there, so how can I say you will be filled with happiness? Happiness will be there. Just within the four walls of your skin, happiness will be there, vibrating -- but you will not be there. A deep silence will descend on you, because if you are not, no one can create a disturbance. You always go on thinking that somebody else is disturbing you; the traffic noise on the road, children playing around you, the wife working in the kitchen... somebody is disturbing you. Nobody is disturbing you; you are the cause of the disturbance. Because you are there, anything can disturb you. If you are not there, then disturbances will come and pass through the emptiness without touching it. You are there -- very touchy, a wound; anything immediately hurts you.

I have heard about a scientific story. It happened after the third world war that all were dead; now there was no one on the earth, only trees and hills were there. One big tree thought to create a great noise, as it used to create in the past. It fell down from a big rock, it did everything that was possible, but there was no noise. Because for noise your ears are needed, for sound your ears are needed. If you re not there, sound cannot be created. It is impossible. I am speaking here. I am making sound because you are here. If no one is here, I may go on speaking, but sound cannot be created. But I can create it myself because I myself can hear it. If no one is there to hear, sound cannot be crated, because sound is a reaction of your ears.

If no one is there on the earth, the sun will rise but it cannot create light. It seems absurd. We cannot conceive of it because we always think that the sun will rise and there will be light. Your eyes are needed. Without your eyes, the sun cannot create light. It may go on rising but it will be futile because the rays will pass in emptiness. There will be no one who can react and who can say that this is light. Light is a phenomenon of your eyes. You react. Sound is a phenomenon of your ears. You react. What do you think... a rose is there in the garden, but if no one passes, will there be perfume? A rose alone cannot create perfume. Impossible. You and your nose are needed -- someone to react and interpret that this is perfume, this is rose-perfume. However hard a rose tries, without a nose it will not be a rose at all.

The disturbance on the street is not there really, it is within your ego. Your ego reacts and says that this is a disturbance. It is your interpretation. Sometimes in a different mood you may enjoy it. Then it will not be a disturbance. You may enjoy it in a different mood. And then you will say, "This is beautiful. What music!" But in a sad moment even music will become a disturbance. But if you are not there, just space, emptiness, there can be neither disturbance nor music. Things will just pass through you, unnoticed. Because unstruck, there is no wound to react, there is no one to respond; not even an ego will be created. This is what Buddha calls nirvana.

And this technique can help you.

SUPPOSE YOUR PASSIVE FORM TO BE AN EMPTY ROOM WITH WALLS OF SKIN -- EMPTY. Sit in a passive state, inactive, not doing anything.... Because whenever you do something the doer comes in. Really there is no doer. Only because of the doing you imagine that there is one. Buddha is difficult only because of this. Only because of linguistic forms have problems arisen. We say a man is walking. If you analyze this sentence, it means that there is someone who is walking. But Buddha says there is only a process of walking, there is no one who is walking. You are laughing. Because of language it appears that there is someone who is laughing. Buddha says there is laughter but no one inside who is laughing. When you laugh, remember this, and find out who laughs. You will never find anyone -- there is simply laughter. There is no one behind it doing it. When you are sad, there is no one who is sad, there is simply sadness. Look at this. Simply sadness. It is a process: simply laughter, simply happiness, simply unhappiness. There is no one behind it.

Only because of language do we go on thinking in terms of two. If there is movement, we say there must be someone who has moved -- the mover. We cannot conceive of movement alone. But have you ever see the mover? Have you ever seen the one who laugh? Buddha says there is life, the process of life, but no one inside who is alive. And then there is death, but no one dying. For Buddha you are not a duality -- the language creates a duality. I am speaking, there is no one who is speaking. It is a process. It belongs to no one.

But for us this is difficult because our mind is deeply rooted in dualism. Whenever we think of some activity, we conceive of some actor inside, some doer. That's why a passive, inactive form is good in meditation because then you can fall into emptiness more easily. Buddha says, "Don't meditate. Be in meditation." The difference is vast. I will repeat. Buddha says, "Don't meditate. Be in meditation." Because if you meditate, the doer has come in -- you will go on thinking that you are meditating. Then meditation has become an act. Buddha says, "Be in meditation." That means be totally passive, don't do anything, and don't think that there is any doer. That's why sometimes, when the doer is lost in the doing, you feel a sudden upsurge of happiness. It comes because you have become one. With a dancer a moment comes when dance takes over the dancer disappears -- then happens a sudden blessing, a sudden beatitude, a sudden ecstasy. He is filled with unknown bliss. What has happened? Only the doing remained and the doer was no more.

At the war-front, soldiers sometimes attain to very deep bliss. It is difficult to conceive of because they are so near death -- at any moment they can die. In the beginning it makes them afraid; they tremble in fear. But you cannot continue trembling and fearing every day, continuously. One becomes accustomed, one accepts death -- then the fear disappears. And when death is so near and with any wrong movement you may be dead immediately, the doer is forgotten, and only duty remains, only doing remains. And one has to be so deeply in the doing that one cannot go on remembering that "I am". That "I am" will create trouble. You will miss. You will not be totally in the activity. And life is at stake so you cannot afford duality. Action becomes total. When action is total, you suddenly feel you are happy as you have never been before. Warriors have known very deep springs of joy that ordinary life cannot give to you. That may be the reason why war is so appealing. And that may be the reason why KSHATRIYAS, warriors, have attained to moksha more than brahmins; because brahmins are always thinking and thinking -- much mental activity. Twenty-four Jain TEERTHANKARAS, Ram, Krishna, Buddha, were all KSHATRIYAS, warriors. They have attained to the highest peak.

No businessman has ever been heard to attain to that peak. He lives in such security that he can afford to be dual. Whatsoever he is doing, it is never total. Profit cannot be a total activity. You can enjoy it, but it is never a life-and-death problem. You can play with it, but nothing is at stake. It is a game. A business is playing a game, the game of money. The game is not very dangerous so businessmen almost always remain mediocre.. Even a gambler may attain to higher peaks of bliss than a businessman, because a gambler moves into danger. He stakes everything that he has got -- in that moment of total stake the doer is lost.

That may be the reason why gambling is so appealing, war is so appealing. As far as I understand, behind whatsoever is appealing, there must be some ecstasy lurking somewhere, some hint of the unknown somewhere, some glimpse of the deep mystery of life hidden somewhere there. Otherwise nothing can be appealing.

Passivity.... Any posture that you take in meditation should be passive. In India we have evolved the most passive ASANA, the most passive posture, that is SIDDHASANA. And the beauty of it is that in this SIDDHASANA posture, as Buddha sits, the body is in the deepest of passive states. Even while lying down you are not so passive; even while sleeping, your posture is not so passive, it is active. Why is a SIDDHASANA so passive? For many reasons. In this posture the body is locked, closed. The body has an electric circle: when the circle is closed and locked, the electricity moves round and round inside the body, it does not leak out. Now it is a proved scientific phenomenon that in certain postures your body leaks energy. When the body is leaking energy, it has to create energy continuously. It is active. The body dynamo has to work continuously because you are leaking. When energy is leaking from the outside body, the inside body has to be active to replace it. So the most passive state will be when no energy is leaking.

Now in Western countries, particularly in England, they treat patients just by making a circle of their body electricity. In may hospitals these techniques are being used and they are very helpful. A person lies on the floor on a net of wires. The net of wires is just to make a circle of his body electricity. Just half an hour is enough, and he will feel so relaxed, so filled with energy, so strong, that he cannot believe that when he came he was so weak.

In all the old cultures, people used to sleep in a particular direction in the night just so that energy didn't leak out -- because the earth has a magnetic force. To use that magnetic force you have to lie in a particular direction -- then the force in the earth will magnetize you the whole night. If you are lying opposite to it the force is fighting with you and your energy will be destroyed. Many people in the morning feel very depressed, very weakened. This should not be so, because sleep is meant to rejuvenate you, to give you more energy. But there are many people who are energetic when they go to bed but in the morning they are just dead. There can be many reasons for it but this may be one: they are lying in the wrong direction. If they are lying against the earth magnet they will feel dissipated.

So now scientists say that the body has an electric circuit which can be locked, and they have studied many yogis sitting in SIDDHASANA. In that state the body is leaking the minimum energy; energy is preserved. When energy is preserved the inner batteries need not work, there is no need for any activity. So the body is passive. In this passivity, you can become more empty than if you are active.

In this SIDDHASANA posture your backbone is straight and the whole body is also straight. Now many studies have been done. When your body is straight, totally straight, you are least influenced by the gravitation of the earth. That's why if you sit in a posture which is inconvenient, which you call inconvenient, the inconvenience is caused because your body is affected by more gravitation. If you are sitting straight then gravitation is least effective, because it can pull only your backbone, nothing else. That's why it is difficult to sleep while standing. It is almost impossible to sleep while standing in a SHIRSHASANA, on your head. For sleep you have to lie down. Why? Because then the earth has the maximum pull on you -- and the maximum pull makes you unconscious. For sleep you have to lie down on the ground, so the earth's gravitation touches the whole of your body and pulls every cell of it. Then you become unconscious. Animals are more unconscious than man because they cannot stand erect. Evolutionists say that man could evolve because he could stand erect, on two feet. The gravitation pull is less. Because of that he could become a little more aware.

In siddhasana, the gravitational pull is at its minimum. The body is inactive and passive, closed inside, it has become a world unto itself. Nothing is moving out, nothing is coming in .Eyes are closed, hands are locked, feet are locked -- energy moves in a circle. And whenever energy moves in a circle, it creates an inner rhythm, an inner music. The more you hear that music, the more you feel relaxed.

SUPPOSE YOUR PASSIVE FORM TO BE AN EMPTY ROOM -- just like an empty room -- WITH WALLS OF SKIN -- EMPTY. Go on dropping into that emptiness. A moment will come sometime when you feel everything has disappeared; that there is no one, nobody, the house is vacant, the lord of the house has disappeared, evaporated. In that gap, in that interval, when you are not present inside, the Divine will be present. When you are not, God is. When you are not, bliss is. So try to disappear. Try to disappear from within.

The second technique:

GRACIOUS ONE, PLAY. THE UNIVERSE IS AN EMPTY SHELL WHEREIN YOUR MIND FROLICS INFINITELY.

GRACIOUS ONE, PLAY. THE UNIVERSE IS AN EMPTY SHELL WHEREIN YOUR MIND FROLICS INFINITELY. This second technique is based on the dimension of play. That has to be understood. If you are inactive, it is good to fall into deep emptiness, into the inner abyss. But you cannot be empty the whole day and you cannot be passive the whole day. You will have to do something. Activity is a basic requirement, otherwise you cannot be alive. Life means activity. So you can be inactive for a few hours, but for twenty-four hours you will have to be active. And meditation should be something which becomes your style of life, it should not be a fragment. Otherwise you will gain it and lose it. If you are inactive one hour then for twenty-three hours you will be active. The active forces will be more, and they will destroy whatsoever you attain in your inactivity. The active forces will destroy it. And the next day you will again do the same: for twenty-three hours you will accumulate the doer and in one hour you will have to drop it. It will be difficult. So your mind must change its attitude about work and activity. Hence the second technique.

Work should be considered as play, not as work. Work should be considered as play, just a game. You should not be serious about it; you should be just like children playing. It is meaningless, nothing is to be achieved; just the very activity is enjoyed. You can feel the distinction if you play sometimes. When you work it is different: you are serious, burdened, responsible, worried, anxious, because the result, the end-result, is the motive. The work itself is not worth enjoying. The real thing is just in the future, in the result. In play there is no result, really. The very process is blissful. And you are not worried, it is not a serious thing. Even if you look serious, it is just pretending. In play you enjoy the very process; in work the process is not being enjoyed -- the goal, the end, is important. The process has to be tolerated anyhow. It has to be done because the end has to be achieved. If you could achieve the end without this, you would drop activity and jump to the end.

But in play you would not do that. If you could achieve the end without playing, then the end would be futile. It has meaning only through the process. For example, two football teams are on the playing-ground. Just by throwing a coin they can decide who will win and who will be defeated. Why go through so much effort, unnecessarily exerting yourself? The thing can be decided very easily just by tossing a coin. The end will be there. One team can win, another can be defeated. Why work for it? But then there will be no meaning, no significance. The end is not meaningful, the very process is the meaning. Even if no one wins and no one is defeated the game was worth it. The activity in itself is enjoyed.

This dimension of play has to be applied to your whole life: whatsoever you are doing, be there in that activity so totally that the end is irrelevant. It may come, it has to come, but it is not on your mind. You are playing, you are enjoying.

That's what Krishna means when he tells Arjuna to leave the future in the hands of the Divine. The result of your activity is in the hands of the Divine, you simply do. This simply doing becomes a play. That's what Arjuna finds difficult to understand, because he says that if it is just play, then why kill, why fight? He understands what work is but he cannot understand what play is. And Krishna's whole life is just a play. You cannot find such a non-serious man anywhere. His whole life is just a play, a game, a drama. He is enjoying everything but he is not serious about it. He is enjoying it intensely but he is not worried about the result. What happens is irrelevant.

It is difficult for Arjuna to understand Krishna because he calculates, he thinks in terms of the end-result. He says in the beginning of the Gita, "This whole thing seems to be absurd. On both sides my friends and my relatives are standing to fight. Whosoever wins, it will be a loss, because my family, my relatives, my friends, will be destroyed. Even if I win, it will not be worth anything because to whom am I going to show my victory? Victories are meaningful because friends, relatives, family will enjoy them. But there will be no one, the victory will be just over dead bodies. Who will appreciate it? Who will say, `Arjuna, you have done a great deed'? So whether I am victorious or I am defeated, it seems absurd. The whole thing is nonsense." He wants to renounce. He is deadly serious. And anyone who calculates will be that deadly serious.

The setting of the Gita is unique: war is the most serious affair. You cannot be playful about it, because lives are involved, millions of lives are involved -- you cannot be playful. And Krishna insists that even there you have to be playful. You don't think about what will happen in the end, you just be here and now. You just be a warrior playing. Don't get worried about the result because the result is in the hands of the Divine. And it is not even the point if the result is in the hands of the Divine or not. The point is that it should not be in your hands. You should not carry it. If you carry it then your life cannot become meditative.

This second technique says, GRACIOUS ONE, PLAY. Let your whole life be just a play. THE UNIVERSE IS AN EMPTY SHELL WHEREIN YOUR MIND FROLICS INFINITELY. Your mind goes on playing infinitely: the whole thing is just like a dream in an empty room. While meditating, one has to look at the mind just frolicking, just like children playing, jumping out of overflowing energy, that's all. Thoughts jumping, frolicking, just a play -- don't be serious about them. Even if a bad thought is there, don't feel guilty. Or, if there is a very great thought, a very good thought -- that you want to serve humanity and transform the whole world; and you want to bring heaven onto earth -- don't get too much ego through it, don't feel that you have become great. This is just a frolicking mind. Sometimes it goes down, sometimes it comes up -- it is just overflowing energy, taking many shapes and forms. Mind is just an overflowing spring, nothing else.

Be playful, Shiva says, Gracious one, play. The attitude of the player means he is enjoying the activity, it is good in itself. No profit motive is involved; he is not calculative. Just look at a businessman. Whatsoever he is doing, he is calculating about the profit, what he is going to attain out of it. A customer comes. The customer is not a person, he is just a means. What can be profited out of him? How can he be exploited? Deep down he is calculating what is to be said, what is to be done. Everything is calculated just to manipulate, just to exploit. He is not concerned with this person, he is not concerned with the deal, he is not concerned with anything -- he is concerned only with the future, the profit.

Look at the East:in the villages still, a businessman is not just a profit-maker, and the customer has not come just to purchase something. They enjoy it. I remember my old grandfather. He was a cloth merchant and I and my whole family was puzzled because he enjoyed it so much. For hours together it was a game with the customers. If something was worth ten rupees, he would ask fifty rupees for it, and he knew this was absurd. And his customers knew it too, they knew that it must be near about ten rupees, and they will start from two rupees. Then a long haggling would follow -- hours together. My father any my uncles would get angry. "What is going on? Why don't you simply say what the price is?" But he had his own customers. When they came, they would ask, "Where is Dada, where is grandfather? Because with him it is a game, a play. Whether we lose one rupee or two, whether it is more or less, that is not the point!"

They enjoyed it. The very activity in itself was something worth pursuing. Two persons were communicating through it. Two persons were playing a game and both knew it was a game -- because of course a fixed price was possible.

In the West now they have fixed prices because people are more calculating and more profit-motivated. They cannot conceive of wasting time. Why waste time? The thing can be settled within minutes. There is no need. You can just write the exact price. Why fight for hours together? But then the game is lost and the whole thing becomes a routine. Even machines can do it. The businessman is not needed; the customer is not needed.

I have heard about a psychoanalyst who was such a busy man and who had so many patients that it was difficult to have personal contact with everyone. So he would feed his tape-recorder for a particular patient and the tape-recorder would say whatsoever that psychoanalyst wanted to say to the patient.

Once it happened that it was the appointed time of a patient who was a very rich man. The psychoanalyst was entering a hotel. Suddenly he saw the patient sitting there. So he asked, "What are you doing here? It was your time with me." The patient said, "I am so busy that I have fed my words to my own tape-recorder. Both the tape-recorders are talking to each other. Whatsoever you have to say to me, my tape-recorder has recorded, and whatsoever I have to say to you, your tape-recorder has recorded it from my tape-recorder. This same time, and we are both free."

If you are too calculating then persons disappear, and more and more mechanization comes in. Even now in villages in India the haggling goes on. It is a game and worth enjoying. You are playing. It is a match between two intelligences, and two persons come in deep contact. But it is not time-saving. Games can never be time-saving. And in games you don't worry about the time. You are carefree, and whatsoever is going on, you enjoy it right in that moment. Being playful is one of the deepest bases of all meditative processes. But we are businesslike; we are trained for it. So even when we meditate, we are looking for the end, for the result. And whatsoever happens, you will be unsatisfied.

People come to me and they say, "Yes, meditation is growing, progressing. I'm feeling more happy, a little more silent, at east, but nothing else is happening." What nothing else? I know that people like this are bound to come some day and say, "Yes, I am feeling nirvana, but nothing else is happening. I am blissful, but nothing else is happening." What nothing else? He is looking for some profit and unless some very visible profit comes into his hands, something which he can deposit in a bank, he cannot be satisfied. Silence and happiness are so vague, you cannot possess them, you cannot show them to anyone.

Every day it happens that people come to me and they say that they are sad. They are expecting something which should not be expected even in businesses -- and they are expecting in their meditations. The business mind comes into meditation with the whole training of business -- what profit can be made out of it?

The businessman is not playful. And if you are not playful, you cannot be meditative. Be more and more playful. Waste time in play. Just playing with children will do. Even if there is no one, you can jump and dance alone in the room and be playful. Enjoy. But your mind will go on insisting, "What are you doing, wasting time? You can earn something out of this time. You can do something, and you are just jumping, singing, and dancing. What are you doing? Have you gone mad? Try it. Snatch whatsoever time you can get out of your business, and be playful. Whatsoever. You can paint, you can play on a sitar, anything you like -- but be playful. Look for no profit out of it, see no future in it, just the present. And then, then you can be playful inside also. Then you can jump on your thoughts, play with them, throw them here and there, dance with them, but not be serious about them.

Many people are just unconscious as far as their mind is concerned. Whatsoever happens in their mind, they are unconscious about it; they are drifting in it without knowing where the mind leads them. If you can be aware of any track of the mind you will be puzzled at what is happening. Mind moves through associations. A dog barks on the street. The bark comes to your head -- and now you have started. You may move to the very end of the world through this barking of the dog. You may remember some friend who had a dog. Then this dog is dropped and that friend has come into the mind and he had a beautiful wife and the wife was beautiful... and now you are moving. You can go to the very end of this world and you will never remember that just a dog played a trick on you; it just barked, and put you on the track, and you started to move.

You will feel very awkward at what scientists say about this. They say that this track is fixed in your mind. If the same dog in the same situation barks again, you will follow this track again: the friend, the dog, the wife -- the beautiful wife -- you will go the same way again.

Now they have tried many experiments with electrodes in the human brain. They touch a particular spot in the brain and then a particular memory is released. Suddenly you see that you are five years old, playing in a garden, running after a butterfly. Then the whole sequence is there: you feel pleasant, everything is nice, the air, the garden, the smell, everything comes alive. It is not simply memory, you relive it. Then the electrode is pulled out and the memory stops. If the electrode again touches the same spot, again the same memory comes again. It is just as if you are remembering something mechanical. And it always starts from a certain beginning and ends at a particular end; and then starts from the beginning... just as you record something on a tape-recorder. Your brain has millions of memories, millions of cells recording, and it is all mechanical.

These experiments on the human brain are very strange and very revealing. Memories can be revived again and again, again and again. One experimenter tried three hundred times and the memory was the same -- it was recorded. The person on whom the experiment was done became aware and he felt that it was very, very weird because he was not the master, he could not do anything. When the electrode touched the place, the memory started and he had to see it. During three hundred times he by and by became a witness. He started seeing the memory but then he became aware that he was different and this memory was different. This experiment can be helpful, very helpful, for meditators, because when you know your mind is nothing but a mechanical recording around you, you are separate.

This mind can be touched. Now scientists say that sooner or later we will cut all the centers which give you anguish, anxiety, because again and again the same thing is touched and the whole thing has to be relived.

I have been trying many experiments with many disciples. Do the same thing and they move in the same vicious circle, again and again, again and again -- unless they become a witness that this is a mechanical thing. You are aware that if you say the same thing to your wife each week, the same thing, she will react. After seven days, when she has forgotten, say the same thing: she will react. Then record -- the reaction is going to be the same. You know, your wife knows, a pattern becomes fixed -- and it goes on. Even a dog can start your pattern just by barking. Something is touched, an electrode has entered. You have started on a journey.

If you are playful in life then you can be playful inside with the mind also. Then be as if you are watching something on a TV screen: you are not involved, you are just a spectator, an onlooker. Look, and enjoy it. Don't say good, don't say bad, don't condemn, don't appreciate, because these are serious things. If a naked woman comes onto your screen, don't say that this is bad, that some devil is playing a trick on you. No devil is there to play a trick upon you. Look at it as if it is just on the screen, a film screen. And be playful about it: say to the lady, "Wait". Don't try to push her out because the more you push her out, the more she will come in -- ladies are difficult. And don't follow her. If you follow then you will be in trouble. Don't follow, don't fight -- this is the rule. Just look and be playful. Just say a "hello" or "good morning". Just look and don't be disturbed at all. Let the lady wait. She will go by herself, as she came: she moves on her own. She is not related to you, she is just something in the memory. Struck by some situation she came there, just a picture. Be playful with it. If you can be playful with your mind it will drop very soon, because mind can be there only if you are serious. Seriousness is the link, the bridge.

GRACIOUS ONE, PLAY. THE UNIVERSE IS AN EMPTY SHELL WHEREIN YOUR MIND FROLICS INFINITELY.

The third technique:

SWEET-HEARTED ONE, MEDITATE ON KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING, EXISTING AND NOT-EXISTING. THEN LEAVE BOTH ASIDE THAT YOU MAY BE.

... MEDITATE ON KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING, EXISTING AND NOT-EXISTING. Meditate on the positive aspect of life and then on the negative -- then put both aside because you are neither. THEN LEAVE BOTH ASIDE THAT YOU MAY BE.

Look at it this way. Meditate on a birth: a child is born, you are born. Then you grow, you become young -- meditate on this whole growth. Then you become old, then you die. From the very beginning, imagine the very moment when your father and mother conceived you, and into the womb of the mother you came. Just the first cell. From there look to the very end, where your body is burning on a funeral pyre and all your relative are standing around you. Then put both aside -- the one who was born and the one who has died. Just put both aside and then look within. There you are -- that which is never born and which is never going to die.

... knowing and not-knowing, existing and not-existing. Then leave both aside that you may be. You can do it with any positive-negative polarity. You are sitting here. I look at you. I know you. When I close my eyes, you are no longer there, I don't know you. Then put aside both the knowledge that I have known and the knowledge that I don't know -- you will be empty. Because when you put both knowledge and no-knowledge aside, you will be empty.

There are two types of people: some are filled with knowledge and some are filled with ignorance. There are people who say, "We know." Their ego is bound up with their knowledge. And there are people who say, "We are ignorant." They are filled with their ignorance. They say, "We are ignorant. We don't know." One is identified with knowledge, the other is identified with ignorance, but both possess something, both cherish something. Push both aside, knowing and not-knowing, so that you are neither -- neither ignorant nor knowing. Put aside both positive and negative. Then who are you? Suddenly the who will be revealed to you. You will become aware of the beyond, that which transcends. Putting aside both positive and negative, you will be empty. You will be no one, neither wise nor ignorant. Put both hate and love aside, put both friendship and enmity aside... when both the polarities are put aside you are empty.

But this is a trick of the mind: it can put one aside but never the two together. It can put one aside -- you can put ignorance aside, then you cling to knowledge. You can put pain aside, but then you cling to pleasure. You can put enemies aside, but then you cling to friends. And there are a few people who do just the verse: they will be put friends aside and cling to the enemies, they will put love aside and cling to hate, they will put wealth aside and cling to poverty, and they put knowledge, scriptures, aside and cling to ignorance. These people are great renouncers. Whatsoever you cling to they put it aside and cling to the opposite -- but they cling all the same

Clinging is the problem, because if you cling you cannot be empty. Don't cling -- this is the message of this technique. Just don't cling to anything positive or negative because with non-clinging you will find yourself. You are there but because of the clinging, you are hidden. With non-clinging you will be exposed, you will be uncovered. You will explode.

The fourth technique:

ENTER SPACE, SUPPORTLESS, ETERNAL, STILL.

Enter space, supportless, eternal, still. Three qualities of space have been given in this technique. Supportless: there can be no support in space. Eternal: it can never end. Still: it will be soundless, it will be silent. Enter this space, it is within you.

But the mind always asks for support. People come to me and if I say to them, "Just sit silently, with closed eyes, and don't do anything," they say, "Give me some AVALAMBAN, some support. Give me some mantra as a support, because I cannot sit." Just sitting is difficult. If I give them a mantra, it is okay. They can go on repeating the mantra. Then it is easy. With support you are never empty, that's why it is easy. Something must go on, you must be doing something. Doing, the doer remains: doing, you are filled. You may be filled with Aumkar, Aum, Ram, Jesus, Ave Maria, anything -- you may be filled with anything, but you are filled. Then you are okay Mind resists emptiness. It wants always to be filled by something else, because if it is filled it can be. If it is not filled it will disappear. In emptiness you will attain no no-mind. That's why mind asks for support.

If you want to enter inner space, don't ask for support. Drop all supports, mantras, gods, scriptures, whatsoever gives you a support. If you feel you are supported, drop it, and just move inside -- supportless. It will be fearful; you will feel scared. You are moving to where you can be lost completely. You may not be able to come back because all supports will be lost. Your contact with the bank is lost and where this river will lead you, no one knows. Your support is lost. You may fall into an infinite abyss. Hence, fear grips you, and you ask for some support. Even if it is a false support, you enjoy it. Even a false support is helpful. Because for the mind it makes no difference whether a support is real or false -- it must be a support, that's the point. You are not alone, something is there and supporting you.

It happened once that a man came to me. He was living in a house where he felt there were spirits and ghosts. And he was very worried. Through worries, he started seeing more illusions. Through worries, he became ill, weak. His wife said, "If you live any longer in this house, I am leaving." His children were sent to some relative's house.

The man came to me and he said, "It has become very difficult now. I see them clearly. They walk in the night. The whole house is filled with spirits.You help me." So I gave him one of my pictures and said, "Take it. Now I will tackle those spirits. You simply sleep silently, you need not worry. Really, I will tackle them, I will see to them. Now it is my business. And don't interfere. Now you need not be concerned." The man came the next day. He said, "I slept, it was so beautiful! You have done a miracle!"

And I had not done anything but give a support. Through support the mind was filled. It was no longer vacant; someone was there.

In ordinary life you are leaning on many false supports, but they help. And unless you become strong enough, you will need them. That's why I say that this is the ultimate technique -- no support.

Buddha was dying and Anand asked him, "Now you are leaving us, what shall we do? How shall we attain? How shall we proceed now? When the master is gone, we will be wandering in darkness for many, many lives. No one is there to lead us, to guide us, the light is going out." So Buddha said, "It will be good for you. When I am no more, you become your own light. Move alone, don't ask for any support, because support is the last barrier."

And it happened. Anand had not become enlightened. For forty years he was with Buddha, he was the closest disciple, he was just like a shadow to Buddha, moving with him, living with him; he had had the longest contact with him. For forty years Buddha's compassion was falling over him, raining over him -- for forty years. But nothing happened, Anand remained as ignorant as ever. And the day after Buddha died, Anand became enlightened -- the next day, the very next day. The very support had been the barrier. When there was no more Buddha, Anand could not find any support. It is difficult. If you live with a Buddha, and the Buddha goes, then no one can be a support to you. Now no one will be worth clinging to. One who has been clinging to a Buddha cannot cling to anybody else in this world. This whole world will be vacant. Once you have known a Buddha and his love and compassion, then no love, no compassion can compare. Once you have tasted that, nothing else is worth tasting. So Anand was alone for the first time in forty years, totally alone. There was no way to find a support. He had known the highest support; now lower supports would not do. The next day he became enlightened. He must have moved into the inner space, supportless, eternal, still.

So remember, don't try to find any support. Be supportless. If you are trying to do this technique, then be supportless. That is what Krishnamurti is teaching, "Be supportless. Don't cling to a master. Don't cling to a scripture. Don't cling to anything."

That is what every master has been doing. A master's whole effort is first to attract you towards him, so that you start clinging to him. When you start clinging to him, when you become close and intimate with him, then he knows that the clinging must be cut. And you cannot cling to anyone else now -- that is finished. You cannot move to anyone else -- that is impossible. Then he cuts the clinging and suddenly you are left supportless. It will be miserable in the beginning. You will cry and you will weep and you will scream and the whole being will feel that you are lost. Into the very deepest depth of misery you will fall. But from there one arises alone, supportless.

ENTER SPACE, SUPPORTLESS, ETERNAL, STILL. That space has no beginning, no end. And that space is absolutely soundless. There is nothing -- not even a sound vibrating, not even a ripple. Everything is still.

That point is just within you. Any moment you can enter it. If you have the courage to be supportless, this very moment you can enter it. The door is open. The invitation is for all, all and everyone. But courage is needed; courage to be alone, courage to be empty, courage to dissolve and melt, courage to die. And if you can die within to your inner space, you will attain to the life which never dies, you will attain to AMRIT, to immortality.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2

Chapter #40

Chapter title: All and nothing mean the same

8 November 1973 pm in Bombay, India

Archive code: 7311085

ShortTitle: VBT240

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 84 mins

The first question:

Question 1

YOU SAID THAT REALLY THERE IS NO ONE INSIDE US, THERE IS ONLY A VOID, AN EMPTINESS, BUT THEN WHY DO YOU OFTEN CALL IT THE BEING, THE CENTER?

Being or non-being, nothing or all -- they look contradictory but they both mean the same. All and nothing mean the same. In dictionaries they are opposites but in life they are not.Nobody understands. Look at it in this way: if I say that I love all, or if I say that I love no one, it means the same. If I love someone, then only is there a difference. If I love all, it means the same as loving no one. There is no difference then. The difference is always in degrees, relative. And these are both two extremes, they have no degrees: the total and the zero have no degrees. So you can call the total a zero, or you can call a zero the total. That's why some enlightened persons have called the inner space emptiness, SUNYA, the void, nothingness, non-being, ANATMA -- and some have called it the inner being, the absolute being, the BRAHMA, ATMA, the supreme self. These are the two ways to describe it. One is positive, the other is negative. Either you have to include all or have to exclude all -- you cannot describe it with any term which is relative. An absolute term is needed. Both the contradictory poles are absolute terms.

But there have been some enlightened persons who have remained totally silent. They have not called it anything, because whatsoever you call it -- whether you call it being or non-being -- the moment you give it a name, a term, a word, you have erred, because it includes both.

For example, if you say, "God is alive," or "God is life," it is meaningless, because then who will be death? He includes all. He must have death in him as completely as life, otherwise to whom will death belong? And if death belongs to someone else and life belongs to God -- then there are two Gods, and then there will be many problems which cannot be solved. God must be both life and death. God must be both the creator and the destroyer. If you say God is the creator, then who is the destroyer? If you say God is good, then who will be evil? Because of this difficulty, Christians, Zoroastrians, and many other religions have created a Devil side by side with God, because to whom will the evil belong? They have created a Devil. But nothing is solved -- the problem is only pushed one step back because then it can be relevantly asked, "Who has created the Devil?" If God himself creates the Devil, then he is responsible. And if the Devil is something independent, not related to God, then he himself becomes a God, a supreme power. And if God has not created the Devil, how can God destroy him? It is impossible. Theologians go on giving some answers to a question but that answer again creates more questions.

God created Adam, then Adam became evil. He was expelled. He disobeyed God and he was expelled from the heavenly world. It has been asked again and again, and relevantly, why did Adam become evil? The possibility must have been created by God in him -- the possibility to be evil, to go wrong, to disobey. If there was no possibility, no inherent tendency, then how could Adam go wrong? God must have created the tendency. And if the tendency for evil was there, another thing is also certain: the tendency to overcome it was not so strong. the tendency to fight it was not so strong. The evil tendency was stronger. Who created this strength? No one except God can be responsible. Then the whole thing seems to be a hoax. God creates Adam: he creates an evil tendency in him, a strong evil tendency which he cannot control; then he goes wrong; then he is punished. God should be punished, not Adam! Or, you have to accept that some other force exists side by side with God. And that other force must be stronger than God, because the evil can tempt Adam and God cannot protect him. The Devil can provoke and seduce and God cannot protect. The Devil seems to be a stronger God.

There is a church, recently born in America, called the church of Satan, the church of the Devil. They have a high priest, just like the pope of the Vatican. And they say that history proves that the real God is the Devil. And they look logical. They say, "Your God, the God of good, has always been defeated, and the Devil has always been the victorious. The whole of history proves it. So why worship a weak God who cannot protect you? It is better to follow a strong God who can seduce you but who can protect you also -- because he is stronger." The church of the Devil is now a growing church. And they seem logical. This is what history proves.

This duality -- to save God from the negative pole -- creates problems. In India we have not created the other pole. We say God is both: the creator and the destroyer, the good and the bad. This is difficult to conceive of because the moment we say "God" we cannot conceive of him being bad. But in India we have tried to penetrate the deepest mystery of existence -- that is, oneness. Somehow, good and bad, life and death, negative and positive, meet somewhere, and that meeting point is existence, oneness. What will you call that meeting point? Either you will have to use a positive term, or a negative one, because we don't have any other terms. If you use positive terms, then you call it "Being" with a capital B -- God, Absolute, BRAHMA. Or if you want to use s negative term, then you call it nirvana, nothingness, SUNYA, non-being, ANATMA. Both indicate the same. It is both and your inner being is also both. That is why sometimes I call it being, and sometimes I call it non-being. It is both. It depends on you. If the positive appeals to you, then call it being. If the negative appeals to you, then call it non-being. It depends on you. Whatsoever feels good, whatsoever you feel will give you maturity, growth, evolution, call it that.

There are two types of persons: one who cannot feel any affinity with negativity and the other who cannot feel any affinity with the positive. Buddha is the negative type. He cannot feel affinity with the positive, he feels affinity with the negative. He uses all negative terms. Shankara doesn't feel affinity with the negative. He talks about the ultimate reality in positive terms. Both say the same thing. Buddha calls it SUNYA, and Shankara calls it BRAHMA. Buddha calls it the void, nothing, and Shankara calls it the Absolute, the All. But they are saying exactly the same thing.

Ramanuja, one of Shankara's greatest critics, says that Shankara is just a hidden Buddhist. He is not a Hindu, he only appears to be because he uses positive terms. That is all the difference there is. Wherever Buddha says nothing, he says BRAHMA -- all else is the same. Ramanuja says that Shankara is the great destroyer of Hinduism because he has brought Buddhism in from the back door by just using a trick -- wherever a negative term is used, he uses a positive term, that's all. He calls him a "PRACHANNA-BOUDDHA", a crypto-Buddhist. And he is right in a way because there is no difference. The message is the same.

So it depends on you. If you feel an affinity with silence, nothingness, then call that great being Emptiness. If you don't feel an affinity, if you feel afraid, then call that emptiness The Great Being. But then your techniques will be different. If you feel scared with emptiness, aloneness, nothingness, then the four techniques I talked about last night will not be of much use to you. Forget them. There are other methods about which I have been talking. Use positive techniques.

But if you are ready and have the courage to be supportless, to move into emptiness, alone, ready to cease completely, then these four techniques will help you tremendously. It depends on you.

The second question:

Question 2

IF THERE IS ABSOLUTE EMPTINESS INSIDE AN ENLIGHTENED ONE, THEN HOW IS IT THAT HE SEEMS TO BE MAKING DECISIONS, DISCRIMINATING, LIKING THIS OR DISLIKING THAT, SAYING YES OR NO?

This will really look a paradox. If an enlightened one is simply emptiness, then for us it becomes a paradox. Then why does he say yes or no? Why does ht choose? Why does he like some things and dislike other things? Why does he talk? Why does he walk? Why does he live at all?

For us this is a problem; but for the enlightened one it is not a problem. Everything is done out of emptiness. The enlightened one is not choosing. It looks like choice to us but the enlightened one simply moves in one direction -- that direction comes from the emptiness itself.

It is just like this. You are walking. Suddenly a car comes in front of you and you feel that an accident will happen. You don't decide what to do. Do you decide? How can you decide? There is no time. A decision will take time. You will have to ponder and think, weigh up the pros and cons, decide whether to jump this way or that. You don't decide. You simply jump. From where does that jump com? Between the jump and you there is no thinking process. Suddenly you become aware that the car is in front of you and you jump. The jump happens first. Then later on you can think. In that moment you jump through hastiness; your whole being jumps without any decision.

Remember, decision is always of the part, it can never be of the whole. Decision means that there was a conflict. One part of your being was saying, "Do this," another part was saying, "Don't do this." That's why the decision was needed. You had to decide, argue, and one part had to be pushed aside. That's what decision means. When your totality is there, there is no need to decide. There is no alternative. An enlightened one is total within himself, total emptiness. So whatsoever comes out, it comes out of his totality, not out of any decision. If he says "yes" it is not a choice: there was no "no" to be chosen, there was no alternative. "Yes" is the response of his total being. If he says "no", then "no" is the response of his total being. That's why an enlightened man can never repent. You will repent always. Whatsoever you do, it makes no difference -- whatsoever you do, you will repent. If you want to marry a woman, if you decide "yes", you will repent, if you decide "no", you will repent. Because whatsoever you decide is a partial decision, the other part is always against. If you decide, "Yes, I will marry this woman," one part of your being is saying, "Don't do this, you will repent." You are not total.

When difficulties arise.... They are bound to arise because when two different persons start living together, difficulties are bound to arise. There will be conflicts, there will be a struggle to dominate, there will be power politics. Then the other part will say, "Look! What did I say? I was insisting that you shouldn't do this, and you have done it." But that doesn't mean that if you had followed the other part, there would have been no repentance. No! The repentance would have been there, because then you would have married some other woman, and the conflict and the struggle would have happened. Then the other part would go on saying, "I was saying marry the first woman. You have missed an opportunity. A heaven is lost, and you are married to a hell."

You will repent, whatsoever the case, because your decision cannot be total. It is always against a part, and that part will take revenge. So whatsoever you decide, if you do good you will repent, if you do bad you will repent. If you do good, then your mind, the other part, will go on saying that you have missed an opportunity. If you do bad, then you will feel guilty. An enlightened being never repents. Really he never looks backwards. There is nothing to look backwards at. Whatsoever is done is done with his totality.

So the first thing to be understood is that he never chooses. The choice happens to his emptiness; he never decides. That doesn't mean that he is indecisive. He is absolutely decisive, but he never decides. Try to understand me. The decision happens in his emptiness. This is how his whole being acts: there is nothing more to it. If you are walking and a snake crosses your path, you jump suddenly -- that's all. You don't decide. You don't consult a master and a guide. You don't go to look into books in the library about what to do when a snake crosses the path -- how to do it, what the technique is. You simply jump. And remember, that jump is coming from your total being, it has not been a decision. Your total being has acted that way. That is all. There is nothing more to it. To you it seems as if an enlightened one is choosing, deciding, discriminating, because you are doing that every moment. And you cannot understand something which you have not known at all. An enlightened one happens to be doing things without any decision, without any effort, without any choice -- he is choiceless. But that doesn't mean that if you give him food and stones, he will start eating stones. He will eat the food. To you it will look as if he has decided not to eat the stones, but he has not decided. That is simply foolish. It doesn't occur to him. He eats the food. This is not a decision -- only an idiot person would decide whether to eat stones or food. Stupid minds decide; enlightened minds simply act. And the more mediocre the mind, the more effort has to be made for a decision.

That's what worry means. What is worry? There are two alternatives and no way to decide between them -- and the mind goes on, one moment this side, another moment that side. This is what worry is. Worry means you have to decide and you are trying to decide, but you cannot decide. So you are worrying, puzzled, moving in vicious circles. An enlightened one is never worried. He is total. Try to understand this. He is not divided, he is not split, there are not two beings in him. But in you there is a crowd: not only two, there are many, many persons living in you, many voices, just a crowd. An enlightened one is a deep unity, he is a universe. You are a "multiverse". This word "universe" is beautiful. It means one -- "uni". You are a "multiverse", there are many worlds in you.

The second thing to be understood is that whatsoever you do, before doing it, there is thinking, thought. Whatsoever an enlightened person is doing, there is no thinking, no thought. He is doing it.

Remember, thinking is needed because you have no eyes to see. Thinking is a substitute. It is just like a blind man groping his way on a path with a stick. A blind man can ask people who have eyes how they grope, what type of sticks they use to grope their way on the path. And they will simply laugh; they will say that they don't need sticks. They have eyes. They simply see where the door is, they need not grope for it. And they never think about where the door is. They see and they pass through it. But a blind man cannot believe that you can simply pass through a door. First you will have to think about where the door is. First you will have to inquire. If someone is there you will have to ask where the door is. And even if the direction is given, you will have to grope for it with your stick -- and then too there may be many pitfalls. But when you have eyes, if you want to go out, you simply look... you don't think about where the door is, you don't decide. You simply look, the door is there, you pass through it. You never think that this is a door -- you simply use it and you act.

The same is the situation with unenlightened minds and enlightened minds. An enlightened mind simply looks. Everything is clear. He has a clarity. His whole being is light. He looks around and he simply moves, acts -- he never thinks. You have to think because you don't have eyes. Only blind men think; they have to think because they don't have eyes. They need substitute eyes, and thinking provides that.

I never say that Buddha or Mahavira or Jesus are great thinkers. That would be just nonsense. They are not thinkers at all. They are knowers, not thinkers. They have eyes, they can see, and through their seeing they act. Whatsoever comes out of a Buddha comes out of emptiness, not out of a mind filled with thoughts. It has come out of an empty sky. It is the response of emptiness.

But for us it is difficult because nothing comes to us in that way. We have to think about it. If someone asks a question, you have to think about it. And even then you can never be certain that whatsoever you are saying is the answer. A Buddha answers; he doesn't think. You question him, and the emptiness simply responds. That response is not a thought-over thing. It is a total response. His being behaves that way. That's why you cannot ask for consistency from a Buddha. You cannot. Thought can be consistent, a thinker is bound to be consistent -- but an enlightened person cannot be consistent, because each moment the situation changes. And each moment things come out of his emptiness. He cannot force. He cannot think. He does not really remember what he said yesterday. Every question creates a new answer. And every question creates a new response. It depends on the questioner.

Buddha enters a village. One man asks, "Is there God?" Buddha says, "No." In the afternoon, another man asks, "Is there God?" Buddha says, "Yes." Then in the evening, a third one asks, "Is there God?" Buddha remains silent. In just one day: in the morning, no; in the afternoon, yes; in the evening, silence -- neither yes nor no.

Buddha's disciple, Anand, became puzzled. He had heard all three answers. In the night when everyone had retired, he asked Buddha, "Can I ask you a question? Just in one day you have answered one question in three ways, not only differently, contradictorily. My mind is puzzled. I cannot sleep if you don't answer. What do you mean? In the morning you say yes, in the afternoon no, in the evening you remain silent. And the question was the same." Buddha said, "But the questioners were different. And how can different questioners ask the same question?" This is really beautiful, very deep. He said, "How can different questioners ask the same question? A question comes out of a being, it is a growth. If the being is different, how can the question be the same? In the morning when I said yes, the man who was asking was an atheist. He had come to get my confirmation that there is no God. And I could not confirm his atheism, because he was suffering because of it. And because I could not be a part in his suffering, and I wanted to help him, I said, "Yes, God exists." That's how I tried to destroy his so-called atheism. In the afternoon, when the other person was there, he was a theist and he was suffering through his theism. I couldn't say yes to him because that would have been a confirmation -- which he had come for. Then he would go and say, `Yes, whatsoever I was saying is right. Even Buddha says so.' And the man was wrong. I could not help a wrong man in his wrongness so I had to say no to destroy whatsoever he is, to shatter his mind. And the man who came in the evening was neither. He was a simple, innocent man and he was not asking for any confirmation. He had no ideology; he was really a religious person. So I had to be silent. I said to him, "Be silent about this question. Don't think about it." If I had said yes, it would have been wrong because he was not there to find a theology. If I had said no, it would have been wrong, because he was not to be confirmed in any atheism. He was not interested in thoughts, in ideas, in theories, doctrines, no; he was a real religious man. How can I utter any word before him? I had to be silent. He understood my silence. When he went away, his religiousness had deepened."

Buddha said, "Three persons cannot ask the same question. They can formulate it in a similar way -- that is another thing. The questions were all "Does God exist?" Their formulation was the same, but the being from where the question was coming was totally different. They meant different things by it; their values were different; their associations with words were different."

I remember, once it happened that Mulla Nasruddin came back to his house one evening. The whole day he had been involved in a football match. He was a fan. IN the evening when he entered the house, his wife was reading a newspaper, and she said, "Look, Nasruddin, there is something for you. It is reported here that a man has given his wife in return for a season ticket for the football matches. You are also a fan, a mad fan, but I cannot conceive that you would do the same. Or would you? Could you exchange me just to get a season ticket for the football matches?"

Nasruddin thought hard, and then he said, "Of course I would not -- because it is ridiculous and criminal. The season is half over."

Every mind has its own orientation. You may use the same words but because you are different, those same words cannot be the same.

Then Buddha said another thing, and that is even more significant. He said, "Anand, why are you disturbed? You were not a party. You should not listen, because not a single answer was given to you. You should remain indifferent, otherwise you will go mad. Don't move with me because I will be involved with many, many types of persons. And if you listen to everything that is not said to you, you will get confused and crazy. You just leave me. Otherwise remember to listen only when I speak to you; at other times don't listen. Whatsoever I say is not your business. It was not said to you and it was not your question at all. So why should you be worried? You were not related. Someone asked, someone else replied. Why are you unnecessarily worried about it? If you have the same question, ask, and then I will answer. But remember, my answers are not to the questions, but to the questioners. I respond. I look at the man, I see through the man, the man becomes transparent -- and this is my response. The question is irrelevant; the questioner is relevant."

You cannot ask for consistency from an enlightened person. Only unenlightened, ignorant persons can be consistent, because they don't have to look. They just follow some ideas. They carry dead ideas, consistently. For their whole life they will carry something and they will remain consistent to it. They are stupid, that's why they can remain consistent. They are not alive. They are dead. Aliveness cannot be consistent. That doesn't mean that it is wrong -- aliveness is consistent, but very deeply, not on the surface. Buddha is consistent in all the three answers, but his consistency is not in the answers -- his consistency is in his effort to help. He wanted to help the first man. He wanted to help the second man. He wanted to help the third man. For all three, compassion was there, love was there. He wanted to help them -- that is his consistency. But it is a deep current. His words are different, his answers are different, but his compassion is the same.

So when an enlightened person speaks, answers, that answer is a total response of his emptiness, of his being. He echoes you, he reflected you, he is a mirror. He has no face of his own. Your face is mirrored in his heart. So if an idiot comes to meet a Buddha, he will meet an idiot -- Buddha is just a mirror. And that man will go and spread the rumor that Buddha is an idiot. He has seen himself in Buddha. If someone sensitive, understanding, mature, grown up comes, he will see something else in Buddha: he will see his own face. There is no other way -- you go on seeing mirrors in persons who are totally empty. Then whatsoever you carry is your interpretation.

It is said in old scriptures that when you reach an enlightened person, remain totally silent. Don't think, otherwise you will miss the opportunity of meeting him. Just remain silent. Don't think. Absorb him, but don't try to understand him through your head. Absorb him, drink him, allow your total being to be open to him, let him move within you, but don't think about him -- because if you think, then your mind will be echoed. Let your total being be bathed in his presence. Only then will you have a glimpse of what type of being, of what type of phenomenon you have come in contact with. Many came to Buddha. They came and went. They carried their own opinions, and they went out and they spread them. Very few, really very few, understood -- and that is how it should be, because you can understand only according to you. If you are ready to melt and change and be transformed, only then can you understand what an enlightened person, what an enlightened being is.

The third question:

Question 3

YOU SAID THAT NOISE AND DISTURBANCES ARE NOT OUTSIDE IN THE WORLD, BUT ARE BECAUSE OF YOUR OWN MINDS AND EGO. BUT WHY DO THE SAINTS AND MYSTICS ALWAYS LIVE IN UNNOISY, UNCROWDED PLACES?

Because they are still not saints and mystics. They are still endeavoring, still working. They are seekers, not SIDDHAS. They have not reached. Noise will disturb them, the crowd will disturb them. The crowd will pull them back to its own level. They are still weak, they need protection. They are still not confident. They cannot move into temptation. They have to protect themselves in the lonely solitude where they can grow and become strong. When they are strong there will be no problem. Mahavir moved into the wilderness. For twelve years he was alone, silent, not talking, not moving in villages or cities. Then he became enlightened. Then he came back to the world. Buddha was in total silence for six years. Then he came back to the world. Jesus or Mohammed, or anyone -- when they are growing they need protected conditions. When they have grown, then there is no problem.

So if you find a mystic afraid of moving in a crowd, then know well that he is still a child, growing. Otherwise why should a mystic be afraid of moving in crowds? Nothing can be done to him by the crowd, by the noise, by the world, by the objects of the world. With all this madness around him, nothing can be done to him. He cannot be touched. He can move and he can live -- anywhere it happens for his emptiness to live, he can live.

But in the beginning it is good to be alone, to be in a harmonious, natural surrounding. So remember, don't think that because you live in a noisy Bombay you are a mystic, or you have grown up and have become a SIDDHA. If you want to grow you will also have to move sometimes, for some definite periods, into loneliness -- out of the crowd, out of the concerns of the world, relations of the world, objects of the world -- into such a place where you can be alone and not disturbed by others. As you are now you can be disturbed, but once you have the strength, once you have the inner power, once you are crystallized and you know that now no one can shatter your inner center, you can move anywhere. Then the whole world is lonely. Then wherever you are is wilderness. Then the space of silence moves with you because you are the creator of it. Then around you, you create your own inner silence, and wherever you move, you are in silence. No one can penetrate that silence. No noise can disturb it.

But unless the crystallization has happened, don't believe that you will not be disturbed. You are disturbed, whether you know it or don't know it. Really, you are so disturbed that you cannot know it. You have become accustomed to disturbance. Every nerve is on edge; you are continuously disturbed. Right now you don't feel the disturbance -- to feel the disturbance sometimes you need to be not disturbed. Only then can you feel it in contrast. You are continuously disturbed but you have become accustomed to it, habituated to it. You think this is how life is. It would be good if you move into the Himalayas for some time. It would be good to go into some remove village, a remote forest, and be alone for a few days' silence -- as if the whole of humanity has disappeared. Then come back to Bombay. Then you will know what disturbance you have been living in. You will be suddenly disturbed. Now you have a contrast. You had an inner music, now it is shattered. For seekers solitariness is good; for SIDDHAS it is irrelevant.

And there are two types of wrong people. With the first type, if you say to them that it is they who are disturbed, the situation is irrelevant, then they will never go into solitariness to have a glimpse of what silence is. Then they will remain here and they will say, "Nothing disturbs us. It is us really, not the surrounding. So we remain here." And they are disturbed but their theory will become a rationalization. Then there are other people, the other type of wrong people, who, if you tell them to move into silence, to solitude, because it will help, they will move -- but then they will never come back. Then it becomes an addiction and they will remain weak forever, they will always feel afraid of coming back to the world. Then their solitariness has not been a help; rather, it has become a hindrance. They are not stronger through it, they have become weaker. Now they cannot move in the world. Both these types are wrong.

Be the third type, which is the right type. In the beginning, know well that you are disturbed by circumstances; so sometimes try, manage, to move out of them. Then when you are out of them, whatsoever silence you attain, bring it back to your circumstances and try to preserve it. If you can preserve it in the circumstances, then only will the theory have become an experience. Then you know that nothing disturbs. Then you know it is you ultimately who are disturbed or not disturbed. But make it an experience -- just as a theory it is useless.

The fourth question:

Question 4

IT IS ONE THING TO REALIZE COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS ON EARTH, AND TRANSCEND BODY. BUT HOW DO REALIZED ONES KNOW FOR SURE THAT THIS CONSCIOUSNESS IS ETERNAL AND WILL REMAIN AFTER THE DEATH OF THE BODY?

The first thing is they don't bother about it. They are not worried about whether it will remain or not. It is you who are worried. They don't think of the next moment. The next life is just irrelevant; even the next day, the next moment, is not a point of concern. It is you who always ask about something in the future, something of the future. Why? Because your present is just empty, your present is just nothing, your present is just rotten, your present is such a suffering that you can tolerate it only if you go on thinking of the future and the paradise and the life ahead. Just here now there is no life so you pitch your mind into the future just to escape from the present, the ugly present. One who is realized is here and now, totally alive. All that can happen has happened. There is no future to it. Whether death is going to kill him or not is not a concern at all. It is the same. Whether he disappears or remains, it makes no difference. This moment is so rich, so absolutely rich, this moment is so intense, that his whole being is here and now.

Anand asked Buddha again and again, "What will happen to you when your body dies?" And Buddha insisted again and again, "Anand, why are you so concerned about the future? Why don't you look at me, at what is happening now?" But again, after a few days, he will ask, "What happens to an enlightened one when his body dies?" He is afraid about himself. He is afraid. He knows that when the body dies there is no possibility of reviving it, there is no possibility of remaining, there is no possibility of being. And he has not attained anything. The light will just go out -- it has been a futile thing. If that happens without his attaining anything, he will simply disappear. So the whole thing was meaningless, the whole suffering was meaningless, leading nowhere. He was concerned; he wanted to know if something survives after the body. But Buddha says, "I am here and now. What will happen in the future is not a concern at all."

So the first thing is that a realized one is not bothered. That is one of the signs of a realized one -- he is not bothered by the future.

And the second thing -- you asked, how does he know for sure? Knowledge is always sure. Certainty is inherent, intrinsic, to knowledge. You have a headache. Can I ask you, "How can you say for sure that you have a headache?" You will say, "I know." I can ask, "But how are you sure that your knowledge is right and not wrong?" But no one asks such nonsensical questions. When the headache is there, it is there -- you know it. Knowledge is intrinsically certain. When one is enlightened, he knows he is enlightened; he knows that he is not this body; he knows that inside he is just a vast space. And space cannot die. Things can die, space cannot die.

Just think about this room. We can destroy this building, this "Woodlands", but we cannot destroy the roominess in this room. Can you destroy it? The walls can be destroyed, but we are sitting here in this roominess, space. The walls can be destroyed, but how can you destroy this room -- not the walls, the space here? The whole of "Woodlands" may disappear -- it will disappear one day -- but this space will remain. Your body will disappear and because you don't know the inner space, you are afraid. You want to know it for sure. But an enlightened man knows that he is the space -- not the body, not the walls, but the inner space. The walls will drop, they have dropped many times, but the inner space will remain. It is something he has to find proofs for, it is his immediate knowledge. He knows it, that's all. Knowledge is intrinsically certain.

If your knowledge is uncertain, then remember it is not knowledge. People come to me and they say, "Our meditation is going very well. We are feeling very happy." And then suddenly they ask me, "What do you say about it? Is our happiness really there? Are we really happy?" They ask me! They are not certain about their happiness. What type of knowledge is this? They are simply pretending. But they cannot deceive themselves. They are thinking, they are hoping, they are wishing -- but they are not happy. Otherwise what is the need to ask me? I will never go to ask anybody whether I am happy or not. Why should I? If I am happy, I am happy. If I am not, I am not. Who else can give proof of it? If I cannot be a witness, who will be a witness for me, and how can the other be a witness? So sometimes I play games. Sometimes I say, "Yes, you are happy. You are absolutely happy." And they become more happy just by hearing me. And sometimes I say, "No, you don't show anything. There is no indication. You are not happy. You must have been dreaming." And they drop, their happiness disappears, they become sad. What type of happiness is this? Just by saying that you are happy it increases; and just by saying that you are not, it disappears! They are just trying to be happy but they are not. This is not knowledge, this is just wish-fulfillment. They hope, and they think they can deceive themselves. By thinking that they are happy, believing that they are happy, finding some proof, finding some certificate from somewhere that they are happy, they think that they will create happiness. It is not so easy. When something happens in the inner world, you know it has happened. You don't need any certificate, you don't need one! The very search for someone to approve is childish. It shows that you long for happiness, but you have not attained it. You don't know it. It has not happened to you.

One who has realized is always certain, and when I say certain, sure, absolutely sure, I don't mean that he feels some uncertainty somewhere, and against that uncertainty he feels certain -- no. He is simply certain. There is no question of uncertainty. I am alive. Am I certain about it, sure about it? There is no question. There is no question of certainty. It is absolutely certain. It does not have to be decided. I am alive.

Socrates was dying and someone asked him, "Socrates, you are dying so easily, so happily. What is the matter? Are you not afraid? Are you not scared?" Socrates said a very beautiful thing. He said, "Only two things are possible after I am dead: either I will be or I will not be. If I am not, then there is no question. No one is there to know it, to know that `I am not'. The whole thing simply disappears. And if I am there, then there is no question -- `I am'. Only two are the possibilities: either I will be, or I will not be, and both are okay. If I am, then the whole thing continues. If I am not, then there is no one to know, so why be worried?"

He is not an enlightened one, but he is a very wise man. Remember, this is the difference between a wise one and an enlightened one. A wise one thinks deeply, penetrates intellectually into everything, and comes to a conclusion. He is a very wise man. He says that there are two alternatives. Logically he penetrates into the phenomenon of death: "only two are the possibilities: either I simply disappear, I am no more; or I will remain." Is there any third alternative? There is no third alternative. So Socrates says, "I have thought about both. If I remain, then there is no question to be worried about. If I am no more, there is no one to worry. So why be worried now? I will see what happens." He is not in the know, he doesn't know what is going to happen, but he has thought about it wisely. He is not a Buddha, he is the keenest intellectual possible. But if you can become wise -- not enlightened, because enlightenment is neither wisdom nor ignorance, the duality has been transcended -- even if you can become wise, you will feel relaxed; even if you can become wise, you can feel very contented.

But wisdom is not the goal of Tantra or yoga. Tantra and yoga aim for the superhuman, the point where wisdom and ignorance are both transcended: where one simply knows and does not think, where one simply looks and is aware.

The last question:

Question 5

I CERTAINLY WANT TO BECOME ENLIGHTENED. BUT IF I DO, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD?

But why are you worried about the rest of the world? Let the world worry about itself. And you are not worried about what will happen to the rest of the world if you remain ignorant....

If you are ignorant, what happens to the rest of the world? You create misery. Not that you knowingly do it, you are misery -- so whatsoever you do, you sow seeds of misery all around. Your hopes are meaningless; your being is significant. You may think you are helping others -- you hinder them. You may think you love others -- you may be simply killing them and murdering them. You may think you are teaching others, but you may be simply helping them to remain ignorant forever -- because what you hope, what you think, what you wish, is not significant. What you are is significant.

Every day I see people around who are loving to each other -- but they are killing each other. They think they are loving, and they think they are living for the other, and without them the life of their family, their beloveds, their children, their wives, their husbands, will be miserable -- but it is miserable with them. And they try in every way but whatsoever they do, it goes wrong. It is bound to be so, because they are wrong. Doing is not of much importance, the being from where it comes, originates, is. If you are ignorant, you are helping the world to become a hell. It is already. This is what has happened through you. Wherever you touch, you will create hell.

If you become enlightened, whatsoever you do -- or you need not do anything -- just your being, your presence will help others to flower, to be happy, to be blissful.

But that should not be your concern. The first thing is how to be enlightened. You ask me, "I want to be enlightened." But that wanting seems to be very impotent because immediately you say "but". Whenever "but" comes in, it shows the desire is impotent. "But what will happen to the world?" Who are you? What do you think about yourself? Does the world depend on you? Are you running it? Managing it? Are you responsible? Why give so much importance to yourself? Why feel so important?

This feeling is part of the ego and this worrying about others will never allow you to move to a peak of realization, because that peak is achieved only when you drop all worries. And you are so efficient in accumulating worries that you are simply wonderful. Not only your own, you go on accumulating others' worries -- as if yours are not enough. You go on thinking about others, and what can you do? You can only get more and more worried and mad.

I was reading a viceroy's journal. Lord Wavell's journal. The man seems to be very sincere, deeply honest, because some remarks he makes are just superb. One remark he makes in a journal is, "Unless these three old men, Gandhi, Jinnah, and Churchill, die, India will be in trouble." These three men, Gandhi,Jinnah, Churchill -- and these three were helping in every way! Churchill's own viceroy writes in a journal that these three men should die soon. And he hopefully even gives their ages: Gandhi, 75,Jinnah, 65, Churchill, 68. Because these three are the problems. Can you think of Gandhi imagining that he is the problem -- or Jinnah, or Churchill? All are doing their best to solve the problem of this country! And Wavell said that these three are the problem, because all the three are adamant, stubborn; every one of these three has the absolute truth and the other two are absolutely wrong. These three absolutes cannot meet anywhere -- the other two are simply wrong. There is no question about it.

Everyone thinks as if he is the center and he has to worry about the whole world, and change the whole world, transform the whole world, create a utopia. All that you can do is just change yourself. You cannot change the world. You can create more mischief trying to change it; you can create more chaos; you can harm; and you can puzzle. Already the world is too puzzled. You can puzzle it more and confuse it more.

Please leave the world to itself. You can do only one thing, and that is, you can achieve inner silence, inner bliss, inner light. If you achieve this, you have helped the world very much. Just by changing one ignorant spot into an enlightened flame, just by changing one person from darkness into light, you have changed apart of the world. And this changed part will have its own chain reactions. Buddha is not dead. Jesus is not dead. They cannot be dead because there is a chain reaction -- from one lamp, from one flame, another flame takes over. And a successor is created, and they go on living.

But if your light is not there, if your lamp is without a flame, you cannot help anyone. The first basic thing is that you must attain your inner flame. Then others can share. Then you can kindle others' light also. Then it becomes a succession. Then you may disappear from the body but your flame goes on passing from hand to hand. Up to eternity it goes on and on. Buddhas never die, enlightened persons never die, because their light becomes a chain reaction. And unenlightened persons never live, because they cannot create any chain, they don't have any light to share, no flame to kindle someone else's flame.

Please be concerned with yourself only. Be selfish, I say, because that is the only way you will become selfless, that is the only way you can become a help and a blessing to the world. Don't be worried about it; that is not your concern. The greater your worries are, the greater you think your responsibilities are. And the greater your responsibilities, the more you feel yourself as being great. You are not. You are simply mad. Get out of this madness of helping others. Just help yourself. That's all that can be done.

And then many things happen... but they happen as a consequence. Once you become a source of light, things start happening. Many will share it, man will be enlightened through it, many will attain life, more life, abundant life through it. But don't think about it. You cannot do anything about it consciously. Only one thing can be done and that is: you can become conscious. Then everything follows.

Jesus says somewhere, "Enter into the kingdom of God first. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, then all else shall be added unto you. I repeat the same.