"Vigyan Bhairab Tantra" spoken by Osho

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra

Introduction:

Devi Asks:

O Shiva, what is your reality?
What is this wonder-filled universe?
What constitutes seed?
Who centers the universal wheel?
What is this life beyond form pervading forms?
How may we enter it fully,
above space and time,
names and descriptions?
Let my doubts be cleared!
Osho says:
Truth is always here. It is already the case. It is not something to be achieved in the future. You are the truth just here and now, so it is not something which is to be created or something which is to be devised or something which is to be sought. Understand this very clearly; then these techniques will be easy to understand and also to do. Mind is a mechanism of desiring. Mind is always in desire, always seeking something, asking for something. Always the object is in the future; mind is not concerned with the present at all. In this very moment the mind cannot move -- there is no space. The mind needs the future in order to move. It can move either in the past or in the future. It cannot move in the present; there is no space.
The truth is in the present, and mind is always in the future or in the past, so there is no meeting between mind and truth. When the mind is seeking worldly objects it is not so difficult, the problem is not absurd; it can be solved. But when the mind starts seeking the truth the very effort becomes nonsense, because the truth is here and now and the mind is always then and there. There is no meeting. So understand the first thing: you cannot seek truth. You can find it, but you cannot seek it. The very seeking is the hindrance. The moment you start seeking you have moved away from the present, away from yourself, because you are always in the present. The seeker is always in the present and the seeking is in the future, you are not going to meet whatsoever you are seeking. Lao Tzu says, "Seek not; otherwise you will miss. Seek not and find. Don't seek and find."
All these techniques of Shiva's are simply turning the mind from the future or the past to the present. That which you are seeking is already there, it is the case already. The mind has to be turned from seeking to non-seeking. It is difficult. If you think about it intellectually it is very difficult. How to turn the mind from seeking to non-seeking? -- because then the mind makes non-seeking itself the object! Then the mind says, "Don't seek." Then the mind says, "I should not seek." Then the mind says, "Now non-seeking is my object. Now I desire the state of desirelessness." The seeking has entered again, the desire has come again through the back door. That is why there are people who are seeking worldly objects, and there are people who think they are seeking non-worldly objects.
All objects are worldly because "seeking" is the world. So you cannot seek anything non-worldly. The moment you seek, it becomes the world. If you are seeking God, your God is part of the world. If you are seeking MOKSHA -- liberation -- NIRVANA, your liberation is part of the world, your liberation is not something that transcends the world, because seeking is the world, desiring is the world. So you cannot desire nirvana, you cannot desire non-desire. If you try to understand intellectually, it will become a puzzle. Shiva says nothing about it, he immediately proceeds to give techniques. They are non-intellectual.
He doesn't say to Devi, "The truth is here. Don't seek it and you will find it." He immediately gives techniques. Those techniques are non-intellectual. Do them, and the mind turns. The turning is just a consequence, just a by-product -- not an object. The turning is just a by-product. If you do a technique, your mind will turn from its journey into the future or the past. Suddenly you will find yourself in the present. That is why Buddha has given techniques, Lao Tzu has given techniques, Krishna has given techniques. But they always introduce their techniques with intellectual concepts.
Only Shiva is different.

He immediately gives techniques, and no intellectual understanding, no intellectual introduction, because he knows that the mind is tricky, the most cunning thing possible. It can turn anything into a problem. Non-seeking will become the problem. There are people who come to me who ask how not to desire. They are desiring non-desire. Somebody has told them, or they have read somewhere, or they have heard spiritual gossip, that if you do not desire you will reach bliss, if you do not desire you will be free, if you do not desire there will be no suffering. Now their minds hanker to attain that state where there is no suffering, so they ask how not to desire. Their minds are playing tricks.
They are still desiring, it is only that now the object has changed. They were desiring money, they were desiring fame, they were desiring prestige, they were desiring power. Now they are desiring non-desire. Only the object has changed, and they remain the same and their desiring remains the same. But now the desire has become more deceptive. Because of this, Shiva proceeds immediately with no introduction whatsoever. He immediately starts talking about techniques. Those techniques, if followed, suddenly turn your mind: it comes to the present. And when the mind comes to the present it stops, it is no more. You cannot be a mind in the present, that is impossible. Just now, if you are here and now, how can you be a mind? Thoughts cease because they cannot move.
The present has no space in which to move; you cannot think. If you are in this very moment, how can you move? Mind stops, you attain to no-mind. So the real thing is how to be here and now. You can try, but effort may prove futile -- because if you make it a point to be in the present, then this point has moved into the future. When you ask how to be in the present, again you are asking about the future. This moment is passing in the inquiry, "How to be present? How to be here and now?" This present moment is passing in the inquiry, and your mind will begin to weave and create dreams in the future: some day you will be in a state of mind where there is no movement, no motive, no seeking, and then there will be bliss -- so how to be in the present?
Shiva doesn't say anything about it, he simply gives a technique. You do it, and suddenly you find you are here and now. And your being here and now is the truth, and your being here and now is the freedom, and your being here and now is the nirvana.
The first nine techniques are concerned with breathing.
So let us understand something about breathing, and then we will proceed to the techniques. We are breathing continuously from the moment of birth to the moment of death. Everything changes between these two points. Everything changes, nothing remains the same, only breathing is a constant thing between birth and death. The child will become a youth; the youth will become old. He will be diseased, his body will become ugly, ill, everything will change. He will be happy, unhappy, in suffering; everything will go on changing. But whatsoever happens between these two points, one must breathe.
Whether happy or unhappy, young or old, successful or unsuccessful -- whatsoever you are, it is irrelevant -- one thing is certain: between these two points of birth and death you must breathe. Breathing will be a continuous flow; no gap is possible. If even for a single moment you forget to breathe, you will be no more. That is why You are not required to breathe, because then it would be difficult. Someone might forget to breathe for a single moment, and then nothing could be done. So, really, you are not breathing, because you are not needed. you are fast asleep, and breathing goes on; you are unconscious, and breathing goes on; you are in a deep coma, and breathing goes on. you are not required; breathing is something which goes on in spite of you. It is one of the constant factors in your personality -- that is the first thing. It is something which is very essential and basic to life -- that is the second thing.
You cannot be alive without breath. So breath and life have become synonymous. Breathing is the mechanism of life, and life is deeply related with breathing. That is why in India we call it PRANA. We have given one word for both -- PRANA means the vitality, the aliveness. Your life is your breath. Thirdly, your breath is a bridge between you and your body. Constantly, breath is bridging you to your body, connecting you, relating you to your body. Not only is the breath a bridge to your body, it is also a bridge between you and the universe. The body is just the universe which has come to you, which is nearer to you. Your body is part of the universe. Everything in the body is part of the universe -- every particle, every cell. It is the nearest approach to the universe.
Breath is the bridge. If the bridge is broken, you are no more in the body. If the bridge is broken, you are no more in the universe. You move into some unknown dimension; then you cannot be found in space and time. So, thirdly, breath is also the bridge between you, and space and time. Breath, therefore, becomes very significant -- the most significant thing. So the first nine techniques are concerned with breath. If you can do something with the breath, you will suddenly turn to the present. If you can do something with breath, you will attain to the source of life. If you can do something with breath, you can transcend time and space. If you can do something with breath, you will be in the world and also beyond it. Breath has two points. One is where it touches the body and the universe, and another is where it touches you and that which transcends the universe. We know only one part of the breath. When it moves into the universe, into the body, we know it. But it is always moving from the body to the "no-body," from the "no-body" to the body.
We do not know the other point. If you become aware of the other point, the other part of the bridge, the other pole of the bridge, suddenly you will be transformed, transplanted into a different dimension. But remember, what Shiva is going to say is not yoga, it is tantra. Yoga also works on breath, but the work of yoga and tantra is basically different. Yoga tries to systematize breathing. If you systematize your breathing your health will improve. If you systematize your breathing, if you know the secrets of breathing, your life will become longer; you will be more healthy and you will live longer. You will be more strong, more filled with energy, more vital, alive, young, fresh. But tantra is not concerned with that. Tantra is concerned not with any systematization of breath, but with using breath just as a technique to turn inward.
One has not to practice a particular style of breathing, a particular system of breathing or a particular rhythm of breathing -- no! One has to take breathing as it is. One has just to become aware of certain points in the breathing. There are certain points, but we are not aware of them. We have been breathing and we will go on breathing -- we are born breathing and we will die breathing -- but we are not aware of certain points. And this is strange. Man is searching, probing deep into space. Man is going to the moon; man is trying to reach farther, from earth into space, and man has not yet learned the nearest part of his life. There are certain points in breathing which you have never observed, and those points are the doors -- the nearest doors to you from where you can enter into a different world, into a different being, into a different consciousness. But they are very subtle.
To observe a moon is not very difficult. Even to reach the moon is not very difficult; it is a gross journey. You need mechanization, you need technology, you need accumulated information, and then you can reach it. Breathing is the nearest thing to you, and the nearer a thing is, the more difficult it is to perceive it. The nearer it is, the more difficult; the more obvious it is, the more difficult. It is so near to you that again there is no space between you and your breathing. Or, there is such a small space that you will need a very minute observation, only then will you become aware of certain points. These points are the basis of these techniques. So now I will take each technique.
No discussion on meditation is complete without mentioning the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra This 5000 year old ancient Indian text on meditation is considered by many as the last word on meditation.
Vigyan ~~ Science ( in Hindi )
Bhairav ~~ An ancient mythological God of Hindu religion.
Tantra ~~ ( A mystical spiritual path. Read more)
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra is an ancient text on meditation. It contains 112 techniques of Meditation. Basically in the form of a dialogue between lord Shiva and his wife Parvati (refer to as Devi in the book), this books discusses 112 meditation techniques which can be used for realizing our true self.
The book starts with a question from Devi regarding the nature of reality. She asked Shiva about Universe, about fundamental nature of this world, how one can go beyond space and time to understand this truth.
The remaining book is all about Shiva’s answers to Devi’s queries.
He does not tell her what is.
He tells her a method…then another method.. then another …he goes on.
He tells her how.
He tells her how one can realize this reality…through 112 methods of centering in the self.
The methods are in their seed form. The entire book can be written in one long piece of paper. However, these methods in their seedy form point towards various powerful meditation techniques. On contemplating upon these techniques, one can find one of the most impressive and powerful collections of meditation techniques which are simple yet very effective.
It is said that 112 techniques of meditation of Vigyan Bhairav Tantra are all inclusive. It is said that there is no meditation techniques which has not been covered in Vigyan Bhairav Tantra. These Meditation techniques are for people of all age and all times. These meditation techniques were for those who had lived in the pasts, for those who are living in the present and for all those who’ll born in future.

Breath
RADIANT ONE, THIS EXPERIENCE MAY DAWN BETWEEN TWO BREATHS. AFTER BREATH COMES IN (DOWN) AND JUST BEFORE TURNING UP (OUT) -- THE BENEFICENCE.
That is the technique:
RADIANT ONE, THIS EXPERIENCE MAY DAWN BETWEEN TWO BREATHS.
After breath comes in -- that is, down -- and just before turning out -- that is, going up -- THE BENEFICENCE. Be aware between these two points, and the happening. When your breath comes in, observe. For a single moment, or a thousandth part of a moment, there is no breathing -- before it turns up, before it turns outward. One breath comes in; then there is a certain point and breathing stops. Then the breathing goes out. When the breath goes out, then again for a single moment, or a part of a moment, breathing stops. Then breathing comes in.
Before the breath is turning in or turning out, there is a moment when you are not breathing. In that moment the happening is possible, because when you are not breathing you are not in the world. Understand this: when you are not breathing you are dead; you ARE still, but dead. But the moment is of such a short duration that you never observe it.
For tantra, each outgoing breath is a death and each new breath is a rebirth. Breath coming in is rebirth; breath going out is death. The outgoing breath is synonymous with death; the incoming breath is synonymous with life. So with each breath you are dying and being reborn. The gap between the two is of a very short duration, but keen, sincere observation and attention will make you feel the gap. If you can feel the gap, Shiva says, THE BENEFICENCE. Then nothing else is needed. You are blessed, you have known; the thing has happened.
You are not to train the breath. Leave it just as it is. Why such a simple technique? It looks so simple. Such a simple technique to know the truth? To know the truth means to know that which is neither born nor dies, to know that eternal element which is always. You can know the breath going out, you can know the breath coming in, but you never know the gap between the two.
Try it. Suddenly you will get the point -- and you can get it; it is already there. Nothing is to be added to you or to your structure, it is already there. Everything is already there except a certain awareness. So how to do this? First, become aware of the breath coming in. Watch it. Forget everything, just watch breath coming in -- the very passage.
When the breath touches your nostrils, feel it there. Then let the breath move in. Move with the breath fully consciously. When you are going down, down, down with the breath, do not miss the breath. Do not go ahead and do not follow behind, just go with it. Remember this: do not go ahead, do not follow it like a shadow; be simultaneous with it.
Breath and consciousness should become one. The breath goes in -- you go in. Only then will it be possible to get the point which is between two breaths. It will not be easy. Move in with the breath, then move out with the breath: in-out, in-out.
Buddha tried particularly to use this method, so this method has become a Buddhist method. In Buddhist terminology it is known as Anapanasati Yoga. And Buddha's enlightenment was based on this technique -- only this.
All the religions of the world, all the seers of the world, have reached through some technique or other, and all those techniques will be in these one hundred and twelve techniques. This first one is a Buddhist technique. It has become known in the world as a Buddhist technique because Buddha attained his enlightenment through this technique.
Buddha said, "Be aware of your breath as it is coming in, going out -- coming in, going out." He never mentions the gap because there is no need. Buddha thought and felt that if you become concerned with the gap, the gap between two breaths, that concern may disturb your awareness. So he simply said, "Be aware. When the breath is going in move with it, and when the breath is going out move with it. Do simply this: going in, going out, with the breath." He never says anything about the latter part of the technique.
The reason is that Buddha was talking with very ordinary men, and even that might create a desire to attain the interval. That desire to attain the interval will become a barrier to awareness, because if you are desiring to get to the interval you will move ahead. Breath will be coming in, and you will move ahead because you are interested in the gap which is going to be in the future. Buddha never mentions it, so Buddha's technique is just half.
But the other half follows automatically. If you go on practicing breath consciousness, breath awareness, suddenly, one day, without knowing, you will come to the interval. Because as your awareness will become keen and deep and intense, as your awareness will become bracketed -- the whole world is bracketed out; only your breath coming in or going out is your world, the whole arena for your consciousness -- suddenly you are bound to feel the gap in which there is no breath.
When you are moving with breath minutely, when there is no breath, how can you remain unaware? You will suddenly become aware that there is no breath, and the moment will come when you will feel that the breath is neither going out nor coming in. The breath has stopped completely. In that stopping, THE BENEFICENCE.
This one technique is enough for millions. The whole of Asia tried and lived with this technique for centuries. Tibet, China, Japan, Burma, Thailand, Ceylon -- the whole of Asia except India has tried this technique. Only one technique and thousands and thousands have attained enlightenment through it. And this is only the first technique.
But unfortunately, because the technique became associated with Buddha's name, Hindus have been trying to avoid it. Because it became more and more known as a Buddhist method, Hindus have completely forgotten it. And not only that, they have also tried to avoid it for another reason. Because this technique is the first technique mentioned by Shiva, many Buddhists have claimed that this book, VIGYANA BHAIRAVA TANTRA, is a Buddhist book, not a Hindu book.
It is neither Hindu nor Buddhist -- a technique is just a technique. Buddha used it, but it was there already to be used. Buddha became a buddha, an enlightened one, because of the technique. The technique preceded Buddha; the technique was already there. Try it. It is one of the most simple techniques -- simple compared to other techniques; I am not saying simple for you. Other techniques will be more difficult. That is why it is mentioned as the first technique.

AS BREATH TURNS FROM DOWN TO UP, AND AGAIN AS BREATH CURVES FROM UP TO DOWN -- THROUGH BOTH THESE TURNS, REALIZE.
It is the same, but with a slight difference. The emphasis is now not on the gap, but on the turning. The outgoing and ingoing breath make a circle. Remember, these are not two parallel lines. We always think of them as two parallel lines -- breath going in and breath going out. Do you think that these are two parallel lines? They are not. Breath going in is half the circle; breath going out is the other half of the circle.
So understand this: first, breathing in and out creates a circle. They are not parallel lines, because parallel lines never meet anywhere. Secondly, the breath coming in and the breath going out are not two breaths, they are one breath. The same breath which comes in, goes out, so it must have a turn inside. It must turn somewhere. There must be a point where the incoming breath becomes outgoing.
Why put such emphasis upon turning? Because, Shiva says, AS BREATH TURNS FROM DOWN TO UP AND AGAIN AS BREATH CURVES FROM UP TO DOWN, THROUGH BOTH THESE TURNS, REALIZE. Very simple, but he says: realize the turns and you will realize the self.
Why the turn? If you know driving you know about gears. Each time you change the gear, you have to pass through the neutral gear, which is not a gear at all. From the first gear you move to the second or from the second to the third, but always you have to move through the neutral gear. That neutral gear is a turning point. In that turning point the first gear becomes the second and the second becomes the third. When your breath goes in and turns out, it passes through the neutral gear; otherwise it cannot turn out. It passes through the neutral territory.
In that neutral territory you are neither a body nor a soul, neither physical nor mental, because the physical is a gear of your being and the mental is another gear of your being. You go on moving from gear to gear, but you must have a neutral gear where you are neither body nor mind. In that neutral gear you simply are: you are simply an existence -- pure, simple, unembodied, with no mind.
That is why there is the emphasis on the turn. Man is a machine -- a large, very complicated machine. You have many gears in your body, many gears in your mind. You are not aware of your great mechanism, but you are a great machine. And it is good that you are not aware; otherwise you could go mad. The body is such a great machine that scientists say if we had to create a factory parallel to the human body, it would require four square miles of land, and the noise would be such that one hundred square miles of land would be disturbed by it.
The body is a great mechanical device -- the greatest. You have millions and millions of cells and each cell is alive. So you are a big city of seventy million cells; there are seventy million citizens inside you, and the whole city is running very silently, smoothly. Every moment the mechanism is working. It is very complicated. These techniques will be related at many points with the mechanism of your body and the mechanism of your mind. But always the emphasis will be on those points where suddenly you are not part of the mechanism -- remember this. Suddenly you are not part of the mechanism. There are moments when you change gears.
For example, in the night when you drop into sleep you change gears, because during the day you need a different mechanism for a waking consciousness -- a different part of the mind functions. Then you drop into sleep, and that part becomes non-functioning. Another part of the mind begins to function, and there is a gap, an interval, a turning. A gear is changed. In the morning when you are again getting up, the gear is changed. You are silently sitting, and suddenly someone says something and you get angry -- you move into a different gear. That is why everything changes.
If you get angry, your breathing will suddenly change. Your breathing will become irritated, chaotic. A trembling will get into your breathing; you will feel suffocated. Your whole body would like to do something, shatter something, only then can the suffocation disappear. Your breathing will change; your blood will take a different rhythm, a different movement. Different chemicals will have to be released in the body, the whole glandular system will have to change. You become a different man when you are angry.
A car is standing... you start it. Do not put it in any gear, let it be in neutral. It will go on pulling, vibrating, trembling, but it cannot move; it will get hot. That is why, when you are angry and you cannot do something, you will get hot. The mechanism is ready to run and do something and you are not doing -- you will get hot. You are a mechanism, but, of course, not only a mechanism. You are more, but the "more" has to be found. When you get into a gear, everything changes inside. When you change the gear, there is a turning.
Shiva says,
AS BREATH TURNS FROM DOWN TO UP, AND AGAIN AS BREATH CURVES FROM UP TO DOWN -- THROUGH BOTH THESE TURNS, REALIZE.
Be aware at the turn. But it is a very short turn; very minute observation will be needed. And we are just without any observing capacity; we cannot observe anything. If I say to you, "Observe this flower; observe this flower which I give to you," you cannot observe it. For a single moment you will see it, and then you will begin to think of something else. It may be about the flower, but it will not be THE FLOWER. You may think about the flower, about how beautiful it is -- then you have moved. Now the flower is no more in your observation, your field has changed. You may say that it is red, it is blue, it is white... then you have moved. Observation means remaining with no word, with no verbalization, with no bubbling inside -- just remaining WITH. If you can remain with a flower for three minutes, completely, with no movement of the mind, the thing will happen -- the beneficence. You will realize.
But we are not at all observers. We are not aware, we are not alert; we cannot pay attention to anything. We just go on jumping. This is part of our heritage, our monkey heritage. Our mind is just the growth of the monkey mind, so the monkey moves on. He goes on jumping from here to there. The monkey cannot sit still. That is why Buddha insisted so much on just sitting without any movement, because then the monkey mind is not allowed to go on its way.
In Japan they have a particular type of meditation which they call Zazen. The word 'zazen' in Japan means just sitting, doing nothing. No movement is allowed. One is just sitting like a statue -- dead, not moving at all. But there is no need to sit like a statue for years together. If you can observe the turn of your breath without any movement of the mind, you will enter. You will enter into yourself or into the beyond within.
Why are these turnings so important? They are important because on turning, the breath leaves you to move in a different direction. It was with you when it was coming in; it will be with you again when it goes out. But at the turning point it is not with you and you are not with it. In that moment the breath is different from you, and you are different from it: if breathing is life, then you are dead; if breathing is your body, then you are no-body; if breathing is your mind, then you are no-mind... in that moment.
I wonder whether you have observed it or not: if you stop your breath, the mind stops suddenly. If you stop your breath just now, your mind will stop suddenly; the mind cannot function. A sudden stoppage of breath and the mind stops. Why? Because they are disjoined. Only a moving breath is joined with the mind, with the body; a non-moving breath is disjoined. Then you are in the neutral gear. The car is running, the power is on, the car is making a noise -- it is ready to go forward -- but it is not in gear, so the body of the car and the mechanism of the car are not joined. The car is divided into two. It is ready to move, but the moving mechanism is not joined with it.
The same happens when breath takes a turn. You are not joined with it. In that moment you can easily become aware of who you are. What is this being? What is it to be? Who is inside this house of the body? Who is the master? Am I just the house or is there some master also? Am I just the mechanism or does something else also penetrate this mechanism? In that turning gap, Shiva says, REALIZE. He says just be aware of the turning, and you become a realized soul.
The third technique:
OR, WHENEVER IN-BREATH AND OUT-BREATH FUSE, AT THIS INSTANT TOUCH THE ENERGY-LESS, ENERGY-FILLED CENTER.
We are divided into the center and the periphery. The body is the periphery; we know the body, we know the periphery. We know the circumference, but we do not know where the center is. When the out-breath fuses with the in-breath, when they become one, when you cannot say whether it is the out-breath or the in-breath... when it is difficult to demarcate and define whether the breath is going out or coming in, when the breath has penetrated in and starts moving out, there is a moment of fusion. It is neither going out nor moving in. The breath is static. When it is moving out it is dynamic; when it is coming in it is dynamic. When it is neither, when it is silent, non-moving, you are near to the center. The fusion point of the in and outgoing breath is your center.
Look at it in this way: when the breath goes in, where does it go? It goes to your center, it touches your center. When it goes out, from where does it go out? It moves from your center. Your center has to be touched. That is why Taoist mystics and Zen mystics say that the head is not the center, the navel is your center. The breath goes to the navel, then it moves out. It goes to the center.
As I said, it is a bridge between you and your body. You know the body, but you do not know where your center is. The breath is constantly going to the center and moving out, but we are not taking enough breath. Thus, ordinarily it does not really go to the center -- now, at least, it is not going to the center. That is why everyone feels "off-center." In the whole modern world, those who can think at all feel they are missing their center.
Look at a child sleeping, observe his breath. The breath goes in; the abdomen comes up. The chest remains unaffected. That is why children have no chests, only abdomens -- very dynamic abdomens. The breath goes in and the abdomen comes up; the breath goes out and the abdomen goes down... the abdomen moves. Children are in their center, at their center. That is why they are so happy, so bliss-filled, so energy-filled, never tired -- overflowing, and always in the present moment with no past, no future.
A child can be angry. When he is angry, he is totally angry; he becomes the anger. Then his anger is also a beautiful thing. When one is totally angry, anger has a beauty of its own, because totality always has beauty.
You cannot be angry and beautiful, you will become ugly, because partiality is always ugly. And not only with anger. When you love you are ugly because you are again partial, fragmentary; you are not total. Look at your face when you are loving someone, making love. Make love before a mirror and look at your face -- it will be ugly, animal-like. In love also your face becomes ugly. Why? Love is also a conflict, you are withholding something. You are giving very miserly. Even in your love you are not total; you do not give completely, wholly.
A child even in anger and violence is total. His face becomes radiant and beautiful; he is here and now. His anger is not something concerned with the past or something concerned with the future, he is not calculating, he is just angry. The child is at his center. When you are at your center you are always total. Whatsoever you do will be a total act; good or bad, it will be total. When you are fragmentary, when you are off-center, your every act is bound to be a fragment of yourself. Your totality is not responding, just a part, and the part is going against the whole -- -that creates ugliness.
We all were children. Why is it that as we grow our breathing becomes shallow? It never goes to the abdomen; it never touches the navel. If it could go down more and more it would become less and less shallow, but it just touches the chest and goes out. It never goes to the center. You are afraid of the center, because if you go to the center you will become total. If you want to be fragmentary, this is the mechanism to be fragmentary.
You love -- if you breathe from the center, you will flow in it totally. You are afraid. You are afraid to be so vulnerable, so open to someone, to anyone. You may call him your lover, you may call her your beloved, but you are afraid. The other is there. If you are totally vulnerable, open, you do not know what is going to happen. Then YOU ARE completely, in another sense. You are afraid to be so completely given to someone. You cannot breathe; you cannot take a deep breath. You cannot relax your breathing so that it goes to the center -- because the moment breathing goes to the center your act becomes total.
Because you are afraid of being total, you breathe shallowly. You breathe just at the minimum, not at the maximum. That is why life seems so lifeless. If you are breathing at the minimum, life will become lifeless; you are living at the minimum, not at the maximum. You can live at the maximum -- then life is an overflowing. But then there will be difficulty. You cannot be a husband, you cannot be a wife, if life is overflowing. Everything will become difficult.
If life is overflowing, love will be overflowing. Then you cannot stick to one. Then you will be flowing all over; all dimensions will be filled by you. And then the mind feels danger, so it is better not to be alive. The more you are dead, the more you are secure. The more you are dead, the more everything is in control. You can control; then you remain the master. You feel that you are the master because you can control. You can control your anger, you can control your love, you can control everything. But this controlling is possible only at the minimum level of your energy.
Everyone must have felt at some time or other that there are moments when he suddenly changes from the minimum level to the maximum. You go out to a hill station. Suddenly you are out of the city and the prison of it. You feel free. The sky is vast, and the forest is green, and the height touches the clouds. Suddenly you take a deep breath. You may not have observed it.
Now if you go to a hill station, observe. It is not really the hill station that makes the change. It is your breathing. You take a deep breath. You say, "Ah! Ah!" You touch the center, you become total for a moment, and everything is bliss. That bliss is not coming from the hill station, that bliss is coming from your center -- you have touched it suddenly.
You were afraid in the city. Everywhere there were others present and you were controlling. You could not scream, you could not laugh. What a misfortune! You could not sing on the street and dance. You were afraid -- a policeman was somewhere around the corner, or the priest or the judge or the politician or the moralist. Someone was just around the corner, so you could not just dance in the street.
Bertrand Russell has said somewhere, "I love civilization, but we have achieved civilization at a very great cost." You cannot dance in the streets, but you go to a hill station and suddenly you can dance. You are alone with the sky, and the sky is not an imprisonment. It is just opening, opening and opening -- vast, infinite. Suddenly you take a breath deeply, it touches the center and the bliss. But it is not so for long. Within an hour or two, the hill station will disappear. You may be there, but the hill station will disappear.
Your worries will come back. You will begin to think to make a call to the city, to write a letter to your wife, or you will begin to think that since after three days you are going back you should make arrangements. You have just reached and you are making arrangements to leave. You are back.
That breath was not from you really; it suddenly happened. Because of the change of situation the gear changed. You were in a new situation, you could not breathe in the old way, so for a moment a new breath came in. It touched the center, and you felt the bliss.
Shiva says you are every moment touching the center, or if you are not touching you CAN touch it. Take deep, slow breaths. Touch the center; do not breathe from the chest -- that is a trick. Civilization, education, morality, they have created shallow breathing. It will be good to go deep into the center, because otherwise you cannot take deep breaths.
Unless humanity becomes non-suppressive toward sex, man cannot breathe really. If the breath goes deep down to the abdomen, it gives energy to the sex center. It touches the sex center; it massages the sex center from within. The sex center becomes more active, more alive. Civilization is afraid of sex. We do not allow our children to touch their sex centers, their sex organs. We say, "Stop! Don't touch!"
Look at a child when he first touches his sex center, and then say "Stop!" and then observe his breathing. When you say "Stop! Don't touch your sex center!" the breath will become shallow immediately -- because it is not only his hand which is touching the sex center, deep down the breath is touching it. And if the breath goes on touching it, it is difficult to stop the hand. If the hand stops, then basically it is necessary, required, that the breath should not touch, should not go deep. It must remain shallow.
We are afraid of sex. The lower part of the body is not only lower physically, it has become lower as a value. It is condemned as "lower." So do not go deep, just remain shallow. It is unfortunate that we can only breathe downwards. If some preachers were allowed, they would change the whole mechanism. They would only allow you to breathe upward into the head. Then you would absolutely not feel sex.
If we are to create a sexless humanity, then we will have to change the breathing system. The breath must go into the head, to the SAHASRAR -- the seventh center in the head -- then come back to the mouth. This should be the passage: from the mouth to the sahasrar. It must not go deep down because down is dangerous. The deeper you go, the nearer you reach to the deeper layers of biology. You reach to the center, and that center is just near the sex center -- just near. It has to be, because sex is life.
Look at it in this way: breath is life from above downwards; sex is life from just the other corner -- from down upwards. Sex energy is flowing and breath energy is flowing. The breath passage is in the upper body and the sex passage is in the lower body. When they meet they create life; when they meet they create biology, bio-energy. So if you are afraid of sex, create a distance between the two, do not allow them to meet. So really, civilized man is a castrated man; that is why we do not know about breath, and this sutra will be difficult to understand.
Shiva says, WHENEVER IN-BREATH AND OUT-BREATH FUSE, AT THIS INSTANT TOUCH THE ENERGY-LESS, ENERGY-FILLED CENTER. He uses very contradictory terms: "energy-less, energy-filled." It is energy-less because your bodies, your minds, cannot give any energy to it. Your body energy is not there, your mind energy is not there, so it is energy-less as far as you know your identity. But it is energy-filled because it has the cosmic source of energy, not because of your body energy.
Your body energy is just fuel energy. It is nothing but petrol. You eat something, you drink something -- it creates energy. It is just giving fuel to the body. Stop eating and drinking and your body will fall dead. Not just now, it will take three months at least, because you have reservoirs of petrol. You have accumulated much energy; it can run for at least three months without going to any petrol station. It can run; it has a reservoir. For an emergency, any emergency, you may need it.
This is "fuel" energy. The center is not getting any fuel energy. That is why Shiva says it is energy-less. It is not dependent on your eating and drinking. It is connected with the cosmic source; it is cosmic energy. That is why he says ENERGY- LESS, ENERGY-FILLED CENTER. The moment you can feel the center from where breath goes out or comes in, the very point where the breaths fuse -- that center -- if you become aware of it, then enlightenment.
The fourth technique:
OR, WHEN BREATH IS ALL OUT (UP) AND STOPPED OF ITSELF, OR ALL IN (DOWN) AND STOPPED -- IN SUCH UNIVERSAL PAUSE, ONE'S SMALL SELF VANISHES. THIS IS DIFFICULT ONLY FOR THE IMPURE. But then it is difficult for everyone because, he says, THIS IS DIFFICULT ONLY FOR THE IMPURE. But who is the pure one? It is difficult for you; you cannot practice it. But you can feel it sometimes suddenly. You are driving a car and suddenly you feel there is going to be an accident. Breathing will stop. If it is out, it will remain out. If it is in, it will remain in. You cannot breathe in such an emergency; you cannot afford it. Everything stops, departs.
OR, WHEN BREATH IS ALL OUT (UP) AND STOPPED OF ITSELF, OR ALL IN (DOWN) AND STOPPED -- IN SUCH UNIVERSAL PAUSE, ONE'S SMALL SELF VANISHES: Your small self is only a daily utility. In emergencies you cannot remember it. Who you are -- the name, the bank balance, the prestige, everything -- just evaporates. Your car is just heading toward another car; another moment and there will be death. In this moment there will be a pause. Even for the impure there will be a pause. Suddenly breathing stops. If you can be aware in that moment, you can reach the goal.
Zen monks have tried this method very much in Japan. That is why their methods seem very weird, absurd, strange. They have done many inconceivable things. A master will throw someone out of the house. Suddenly the master will begin slapping the disciple without any rhyme or reason, without any cause.
You were sitting with your master and everything was okay. You were just chit-chatting, and he will begin to beat you in order to create the pause. If there is any cause the pause cannot be created. If you had abused the master and he starts beating you there is a causality, your mind understands: "I abused him, and he is beating me."
Really, your mind was expecting it already, so there is no gap. But remember, a Zen master will not beat you if you abuse him, he will laugh, because then laughter can create the pause. You were abusing him and you were saying nonsense things to him, and you expected anger. But he starts laughing or dancing. That is sudden; that will create the pause. You cannot understand it. If you cannot understand the mind stops, and when the mind stops, breathing stops. Either way -- if breathing stops, mind stops; if mind stops, breathing stops.
You were appreciating the master and you were feeling good, and you were thinking, "Now the master must be pleased." And suddenly he takes his staff and begins to beat you -- and mercilessly, because Zen masters are merciless. He begins to beat you; you cannot understand what is happening. The mind stops, there is a pause. If you know the technique, you can attain to your self.
There are many stories that someone attained buddhahood because the teacher suddenly started beating him. You cannot understand it -- what nonsense! How can one attain buddhahood by being beaten by someone, or by being thrown out of the window by someone? Even if someone kills you, you cannot attain buddhahood. But if you understand this technique, then it becomes easy to understand.
In the West particularly, in the last thirty or forty years Zen has become very much prevalent -- a fashion. But unless they know this technique, they cannot understand Zen. They can imitate it, but imitation is of no use. Rather, it is dangerous. These are not things to be imitated.
The whole Zen technique is based on the fourth technique of Shiva. But this is unfortunate. Now we will have to import Zen from Japan because we have lost the whole tradition; we do not know it. Shiva was the expert par excellence of this method. When he came to marry Devi with his BARAT, his procession, the whole city must have felt the pause... the whole city!
Devi's father was not willing to marry his girl to this "hippie" -- Shiva was the original hippie. Devi's father was totally against him, and no father would permit this marriage. So we cannot say anything against Devi's father. No father would permit his daughter's marriage to Shiva. But Devi insisted so he had to agree -- unwillingly, unhappily, but he agreed.
Then came the marriage procession. It is said that people began to run, seeing Shiva and his procession. The whole barat must have taken LSD, marijuana. They were "high." And really, LSD and marijuana are just the beginning. Shiva knew and his friends and disciples knew the ultimate psychedelic -- SOMA RASA. Aldous Huxley has named the ultimate psychedelic "soma" only because of Shiva. They were high, just dancing, screaming, laughing. The whole city fled. It must have felt the pause.
Any sudden, unexpected, unbelievable thing can create the pause for the impure. But for the pure there is no need of such things. For the pure, the pause is always there. Many times, for pure minds, breathing stops. If your mind is pure -- pure means you are not desiring, hankering, seeking anything -- silently pure, innocently pure, you can be sitting and suddenly your breath will stop.
Remember this: mind movement needs breath movement. Mind moving fast needs fast movement in breath. That is why when you are in anger, breath will move fast. In the sex act, the breath will move very fast. That is why in Ayurveda- a system of herbal medicine in India- it is said that your life will be shortened if too much sex is allowed. Your life will he shortened, according to Ayurveda, because Ayurveda measures your life in breaths. If your breathing is too fast, your life will be shortened.
Modern medicine says that sex helps blood circulation, sex helps relaxation. And those who suppress their sex may get into trouble -- particularly heart trouble. They are right and Ayurveda is also right, but they seem contradictory. But Ayurveda was invented five thousand years before. Every man was doing much labor: life was labor, so there was no need to relax, there was no need to create artificial devices for blood circulation.
But now, for those who are not doing much physical labor, sex is their only labor. That is why modern medicine is also right for modern man. He is not doing any physical exertion, so sex gives the exertion: the heart beats more, the blood circulates faster, the breathing becomes deep and goes to the center. So after the sex act you feel relaxed and you can fall into sleep easily. Freud says that sex is the best tranquillizer, and it is -- at least for modern man.
In sex breathing will become fast; in anger breathing will become fast. In sex the mind is filled with desire, lust, impurity. When the mind is pure -- no desire in the mind, no seeking, no motivation; you are not going anywhere, but just remaining here and now as an innocent pool... not even a ripple -- then breathing stops automatically. There is no need for it.
On this path, the small self vanishes and you attain to the higher self, the supreme self.
I think this will do for today.
ATTENTION BETWEEN EYEBROWS, LET MIND BE BEFORE THOUGHT. LET FORM FILL WITH BREATH ESSENCE TO THE TOP OF THE HEAD AND THERE SHOWER AS LIGHT. This was the technique given to Pythagoras. Pythagoras went with this technique to Greece, and really, he became the fountainhead, the source of all mysticism in the West. He is the father of all mysticism in the West.
This technique is one of the very deep methods. Try to understand this: ATTENTION BETWEEN THE EYEBROWS... Modern physiology, scientific research, says that between the two eyebrows is the gland which is the most mysterious part of the body. This gland, called the pineal gland, is the third eye of the Tibetans -- SHIVANETRA: the eye of the Shiva, of the tantra. Between the two eyes there exists a third eye, but it is non-functioning. It is there, it can function any moment, but it does not function naturally. You have to do something about it to open it. It is not blind; it is simply closed. This technique is to open the third eye.
ATTENTION BETWEEN THE EYEBROWS... Close your eyes, then focus both of your eyes just in the middle of the two eyebrows. Focus just in the middle, with closed eyes, as if you are looking with your two eyes. Give total attention to it.
This is one of the simplest methods of being attentive. You cannot be attentive to any other part of the body so easily. This gland absorbs attention like anything. If you give attention to it, both your eyes become hypnotized with the third eye. They become fixed; they cannot move. If you are trying to be attentive to any other part of the body it is difficult. This third eye catches attention, forces attention; It is magnetic for attention. So all the methods all over the world have used it. It is the simplest to train you in attention because not only are you trying to be attentive, the gland itself helps you; it is magnetic. Your attention is brought to it forcibly. It is absorbed.
It is said in the old tantra scriptures that for the third eye attention is food. It is hungry; it has been hungry for lives and lives. If you pay attention to it, it becomes alive. It becomes alive! The food is given to it. And once you know that attention is food, once you feel that your attention is magnetically drawn, attracted, pulled by the gland itself, attention is not a difficult thing then. One has only to know the right point. So just close your eyes, let your two eyes move just to the middle, and feel the point. When you are near the point, suddenly your eyes will become fixed. When it becomes difficult to move them, then know you have caught the right point.
ATTENTION BETWEEN THE EYEBROWS, LET MIND BE BEFORE THOUGHT... If this attention is there, for the first time you will come to experience a strange phenomenon. For the first time you will see thoughts running before you; you will become the witness. It is just like a film screen: thoughts are running and you are a witness. Once your attention is focused at the third eye center, you become immediately the witness of thoughts.
Ordinarily you are not the witness, you are identified with thoughts. If anger is there, you become anger. If a thought moves, you are not the witness, you become one with the thought, identified, and you move with it. You become the thought; you take the form of the thought. When sex is there you become sex, when anger is there you become anger, when greed is there you become greed. Any thought moving becomes identified with you. You do not have any gap between you and the thought.
But focused at the third eye, suddenly you become a witness. Through the third eye you become the witness. Through the third eye you can see thoughts running like clouds in the sky or people moving on the street.
You are sitting at your window looking at the sky or at people in the street; you are not identified. You are aloof, a watcher on the hill -- different. Now if anger is there you can look at it as an object. Now you do not feel that YOU are angry. You feel that you are surrounded by anger -- a cloud of anger has come around you -- but you are not the anger. And if you are not the anger, anger becomes impotent, it cannot affect you; you remain untouched. The anger will come and go and you will remain centered in yourself.
This fifth technique is a technique of finding the witness. ATTENTION BETWEEN THE EYEBROWS, LET THE MIND BE BEFORE THOUGHT. Now look at your thoughts; now encounter your thoughts. LET FORM FILL WITH BREATH ESSENCE TO THE TOP OF THE HEAD AND THERE SHOWER AS LIGHT. When attention is focused at the third eye center, between the two eyebrows, two things happen. One is, suddenly you become a witness.
This can happen in two ways. You become a witness and you will be centered at the third eye. Try to be a witness. Whatsoever is happening, try to be a witness. You are ill, the body is aching and painful, you have misery and suffering, whatsoever -- be a witness to it. Whatsoever is happening, do not identify yourself with it. Be a witness, an observer. Then if witnessing becomes possible, you will be focused in the third eye.
The vice versa is the case also. If you are focused in the third eye, you will become a witness. These two things are part of one. So the first thing: by being centered in the third eye there will be the arising of the witnessing self. Now you can encounter your thoughts. This will be the first thing. And the second thing will be that now you can feel the subtle, delicate vibration of breathing. Now you can feel the form of breathing, the very essence of breathing.
First try to understand what is meant by "the form," by "the essence of breathing." While you are breathing, you are not only breathing air. Science says you are breathing only air -- just oxygen, hydrogen, and other gases in their combined form of air. They say you are breathing air! But tantra says that air is just the vehicle, not the real thing. You are breathing prana -- vitality. Air is just the medium; prana is the content. You are breathing prana, not only air.
Modern science is still not able to find out whether there is something like prana, but some researchers have felt something mysterious. Breathing is not simply air. It has been felt by many modern researchers also. In particular, one name is to be mentioned -- Wilhelm Reich, a German psychologist who called it "orgone energy." It is the same thing as prana. He says that while you are breathing, air is just the container and there is a mysterious content which can be called orgone or prana or ELAN VITAL. But that is very subtle. Really, it is not material. Air is the material thing -- the container is material -- but something subtle, non-material, is moving through it.
The effects of it can be felt. When you are with a very vital person, you will feel a certain vitality arising in you. If you are with a very sick person you will feel sucked, as if something has been taken out of you. When you go to the hospital, why do you feel so tired? You are being sucked from everywhere. The whole hospital atmosphere is ill, and everyone there needs more elan vital, more prana. So if you are there, suddenly your prana begins to flow out of you. Why do you feel suffocated sometimes when you are in a crowd? Because your prana is being sucked. While you are alone under the sky in the morning, under the trees, suddenly you feel a vitality in you -- the prana. Each person needs a particular space. If that space is not given, your prana is sucked.
Wilhelm Reich did many experiments, but he was thought to be a madman. Science has its own superstitions, and science is a very orthodox thing. Science cannot feel yet that there is anything more than air, but India has been experimenting with it for centuries.
You may have heard or you may have even seen someone going into SAMADHI, cosmic consciousness -- underground samadhi -- for days together, with no air penetrating. One man went into such underground samadhi in Egypt in 1880 for forty years. Those who had buried him all died, because he was to come out of his samadhi in 1920, forty years afterwards. In 1920 no one believed that they would find him alive, but he was found alive. He lived afterwards for ten years more. He had become completely pale, but he was alive. And there had been no possibility of air reaching to him.
He was asked by medical doctors and others, "What is the secret of it?" He said, "We do not know. We only know this, that prana can enter and flow anywhere." Air cannot penetrate, but prana can penetrate. Once you know that you can suck prana directly, without the container, then you can go into samadhi for centuries even.
By being focused in the third eye, suddenly you can observe the very essence of breath -- not breath, but the very essence of breath, prana. And if you can observe the essence of breath, prana, you are at the point from where the jump, the breakthrough happens.
The sutra says, LET FORM FILL WITH BREATH ESSENCE TO THE TOP OF THE HEAD... And when you come to feel the essence of breathing, prana, just imagine that your head is filled with it -- just imagine. No need of any effort. I will explain to you how imagination works. When you are focused at the third eye center, imagine, and the thing happens -- then and there.
Now your imagination is just impotent; you go on imagining and nothing happens. But sometimes, unknowingly, in ordinary life also things happen. You are imagining about your friend and suddenly there is a knock on the door. You say it is a coincidence that the friend has come. Sometimes your imagination works just like coincidence. But whenever this happens, now try and remember and analyze the whole thing. Whenever it happens that you feel your imagination has become actual, go inside and observe. Somewhere your attention must have been near the third eye. Whenever this coincidence happens, it is not a coincidence. It looks that way because you do not know the secret science. Your mind must have moved unknowingly near the third eye center. If your attention is in the third eye, just imagination is enough to create any phenomenon.
This sutra says that when you are focused between the eyebrows and you can feel the very essence of breathing, LET FORM FILL. Now imagine that this essence is filling your whole head, particularly the top of the head, the SAHASRAR -- the highest psychic center. And the moment you imagine, it will be filled. THERE -- at the top of the head -- SHOWER AS LIGHT. This prana essence is showering from the top of your head as light. And it WILL begin to shower, and under the shower of light you will be refreshed, reborn, completely new. That is what inner rebirth means.
So two things: first, focused at the third eye your imagination becomes potent, powerful. That is why so much insistence has been given on purity. Before doing these practices, be pure. Purity is not a moral concept for tantra, purity is significant -- because if you are focused at the third eye and your mind is impure, your imagination can become dangerous: dangerous to you, dangerous to others. If you are thinking to murder someone, if this idea is in the mind, just imagining may kill the man. That is why there is so much insistence on being pure first.
Pythagoras was told to go through fasting, through particular breathing -- this breathing -- because here one is traveling in a very dangerous land. Because wherever there is power there is danger, and if the mind is impure, whenever you get power your impure thoughts will take hold of it immediately.
You have imagined many times to kill but the imagination cannot work, fortunately. If it works, if it is actualized immediately, then it will become dangerous -- not only to others, but to yourself also, because so many times you have thought to commit suicide. If the mind is focused at the third eye, just thinking of suicide will become suicide. You will not have any time to change, immediately it will happen.
You might have observed someone being hypnotized. When someone is hypnotized, the hypnotist can say anything and immediately the hypnotized person follows. Howsoever absurd the order, howsoever irrational or even impossible, the hypnotized person follows it. What is happening? This fifth technique is at the base of all hypnotism. Whenever someone is being hypnotized he is told to focus his eyes at a particular point -- on some light, some dot on the wall or anything, or on the eyes of the hypnotist.
When you focus your eyes at any particular point, within three minutes your inner attention begins to flow toward the third eye. And the moment your inner attention begins to flow toward the third eye, your face begins to change. And the hypnotist knows when your face begins to change. Suddenly your face loses all vitality. It becomes dead, as if deeply asleep. The hypnotist knows immediately when your face has lost the luster, the aliveness. It means that now attention is being sucked by the third eye center. Your face has become dead; the whole energy is running toward the third eye center.
Now the hypnotist immediately knows that anything said will happen. He says, "Now you are falling into a deep sleep" -- you will fall immediately. He says, "Now you are becoming unconscious" -- you will become unconscious immediately. Now anything can be done. If he says, "Now you have become Napoleon," you will become. You will begin to behave like a Napoleon, you will begin to talk like Napoleon. Your gestures will change. Your unconscious will take the order and will create the actuality. If you are suffering from a disease, now it can be ordered that the disease has disappeared and it will disappear. Or any new disease can be created.
Just putting an ordinary stone from the street in your hand, the hypnotist can say, "This is fire in your hand," and you will feel intense heat; your hand will get burned -- not only in the mind, but actually. Actually your skin will get burned. You will have a burning sensation. What is happening? There is no fire, there is just an ordinary stone, cold. How? How does this burning happen? You are focused at the third eye center, your imagination is being given suggestions by the hypnotist, and they are being actualized. If the hypnotist says, "Now you are dead," you will die immediately. Your heart will stop. It WILL stop.
This happens because of the third eye. In the third eye, imagination and actualization are not two things. Imagination is the fact. Imagine, and it is so. There is no gap between dream and reality. There is NO gap between dream and reality! Dream, and it will become real. That is why Shankara has said that this whole world is nothing but the dream of the divine... the DREAM of the divine! This is because the divine is centered in the third eye -- always, eternally -- so whatsoever the divine dreams becomes real. If you are also centered in the third eye, whatsoever you dream will become real.
Sariputta came to Buddha. He meditated deeply, then many things, many visions started coming, as it happens with anyone who goes into deep meditation. He began to see heavens, he began to see hells, he began to see angels, gods, demons. And they were actual, so real that he came running to Buddha to tell him that such and such a vision had come to him. But Buddha said, "It is nothing -- just dreams. Just dreams!"
But Sariputta said, "They are so real. How can I say that they are dreams? When I see a flower in my vision it is more real than any flower in the world. The fragrance is there; I can touch it. When I see you," he said to Buddha, "I do not see you as real. That flower is more real than your being here just before me, so how can I differentiate between what is real and what is dream?" Buddha said, "Now that you are centered in the third eye, dream and reality are one. Whatsoever you are dreaming will be real, and vice versa also."
For one who is centered in the third eye dreams will become real and the whole reality will become just a dream, because when your dream can become real you know there is no basic difference between dream and reality. So when Shankara says that this whole world is just MAYA, a dream of the divine, it is not a theoretical proposition, it is not a philosophical statement. It is, rather, the inner experience of one who is focused in the third eye.
When you are focused in the third eye, just imagine that the essence of prana is showering from the top of the head, just as if you are sitting under a tree and flowers are showering, or you are just under the sky and suddenly a cloud begins to shower, or you are just sitting in the morning and the sun rises and rays begin to shower. Imagine, and immediately there is a shower -- a shower of light falling down from the top of your head. This shower recreates you, gives you a new birth. You are reborn.
WHEN IN WORLDLY ACTIVITY, KEEP ATTENTIVE BETWEEN THE TWO BREATHS, AND SO PRACTICING, IN A FEW DAYS, BE BORN ANEW.
WHEN IN WORLDLY ACTIVITY, KEEP ATTENTIVE BETWEEN THE TWO BREATHS... Forget breaths -- keep attentive in between. One breath has come: before it returns, before it is exhaled out, there is the gap, the interval. One breath has gone out; before it is taken in again, the gap. IN WORLDLY ACTIVITY KEEP ATTENTIVE BETWEEN THE TWO BREATHS, AND SO PRACTICING, IN A FEW DAYS, BE BORN ANEW. But this has to be done continuously. This sixth technique has to be done continuously. That is why this is mentioned: WHEN IN WORLDLY ACTIVITY... Whatsoever you are doing, keep your attention in the gap between the two breaths. But it must be practiced while in activity.
We have discussed one technique that is just similar. Now there is only this difference, that this has to be practiced while in worldly activity. Do not practice it in isolation. This practice is to be done while you are doing something else. You are eating -- go on eating and be attentive of the gap. You are walking -- go on walking and be attentive of the gap. You are going to sleep -- lie down, let sleep come, but you go on being attentive of the gap. Why in activity? Because activity distracts the mind, activity calls for your attention again and again. Do not be distracted, be fixed at the gap. And do not stop activity, let the activity continue. You will have two layers of existence -- doing and being.
We have two layers of existence: the world of doing and the world of being; the circumference and the center. Go on working on the periphery, on the circumference; do not stop it. But go on working attentively on the center also. What will happen? Your activity will become an acting, as if you are playing a part.
You are playing a part -- for example, in a drama. You have become Ram or you have become Christ. You go on acting as Christ or as Ram, and still you remain yourself. In the center, you know who you are; on the periphery you go on acting as Ram, Christ or anyone. You know you are not Ram -- you are acting. You know who you are. Your attention is centered in you; your activity continues on the circumference.
If this method is practiced, your whole life will become a long drama. You will be an actor playing roles, but constantly centered in the gap. If you forget the gap then you are not playing roles, you have become the role. Then it is not a drama; you have mistaken it as life. That is what we have done. Everyone thinks he is living life. It is not life, it is just a role -- a part which has been given to you by the society, by the circumstances, by the culture, by the tradition, the country, the situation. You have been given a role and you are playing it; you have become identified with it. To break that identification there is this technique.
Krishna has many names. Krishna is one of the greatest actors. He is constantly centered in himself and playing -- playing many roles, many games, but absolutely non serious. Seriousness comes from identification. If you really become Ram in the drama then there are bound to be problems. Those problems will come out of your seriousness. When Sita is stolen you may get a heart attack, and the whole play will have to be stopped. If you really become Ram a heart attack is certain... even heart failure.
But you are just an actor. Sita is stolen, but nothing is stolen. You will go back to your home and you will sleep peacefully. Not even in a dream will you feel that Sita is stolen. When really Sita was stolen, Ram himself was weeping, crying and asking the trees, "Where has my Sita gone? Who has taken her?" But this is the point to understand. If Ram is really weeping and asking the trees, he has become identified. He is no more Ram; he is no more a divine person.
This is the point to remember, that for Ram his real life also was just a part. You have seen other actors playing Ram, but Ram himself was just playing a part -- on a greater stage, of course.
India has a very beautiful story about it. I think that the story is unique; nowhere else in any part of the world does such a thing exist. It is said that Valmiki wrote the RAMAYANA before Ram was born, and then Ram had to follow. So really, the first act of Ram was also just a drama. The story was written before Ram was born and then Ram had to follow, so what can he do? When a man like Valmiki writes the story, Ram has to follow. So everything was fixed in a way. Sita was to be stolen and the war had to be fought.
If you can understand this, then you can understand the theory of destiny, BHAGYA -- fate. It has a very deep meaning. And the meaning is, if you take it that everything is fixed for you, your life becomes a drama. If you are playing the role of Ram in the drama you cannot change it, everything is fixed, even your dialogue. If you say something to Sita it is just repeating something that is fixed. You cannot change it if life is taken as fixed.
For example, you are going to die on a particular day -- it is fixed. When you will be dying you will be weeping, but it is fixed. And such and such persons will be around you -- it is fixed. If everything is fixed, everything becomes a drama. If everything is fixed, it means you are just to enact it. You are not asked to live it, you are just asked to enact it.
This technique, the sixth technique, is just to make yourself a psychodrama -- just a play. You are focused in the gap between two breaths and life moves on, on the periphery. If your attention is at the center, then your attention is not really on the periphery -- that is just "sub-attention"; it just happens somewhere near your attention. You can feel it, you can know it, but it is not significant. It is as if it is not happening to you. I will repeat this: if you practice this sixth technique, your whole life will be as if it is not happening to you, as if it is happening to someone else.
The seventh technique: WITH INTANGIBLE BREATH IN CENTER OF FOREHEAD, AS THIS REACHES HEART AT THE MOMENT OF SLEEP, HAVE DIRECTION OVER DREAMS AND OVER DEATH ITSELF. More and more you are entering deeper layers. WITH INTANGIBLE BREATH IN CENTER OF FOREHEAD... If you have known the third eye then you know the intangible breath, the invisible prana in the center of the forehead, and then you know the showering -- the energy, the light showers. AS THIS REACHES HEART... When the shower will reach your heart... AT THE MOMENT OF SLEEP, HAVE DIRECTION OVER DREAMS AND OVER DEATH ITSELF.
Take this technique in three parts. One, you must be able to feel the prana in breath -- the intangible part of it, the invisible part of it, the immaterial part of it. It comes if you are attentive between the two eyebrows; then it comes easily. If you are attentive in the gap, then too it comes, but a little less easily. If you are aware of the center at your navel where breath comes and touches and goes out, it also comes, but with less ease. The easiest way to know the invisible part of breath is to be centered at the third eye. But wherever you are centered, it comes, you begin to feel the prana flowing in.
If you can feel the prana flowing in you, you can know when you are going to die. Six months before the day of your death you begin to know, if you can feel the invisible part of breath. Why do so many saints declare the day of their death? It is easy, because if you can see the content of the breath, the prana flowing into you, the moment the process reverses you can feel it. Before you die, six months before you die, the process reverses: prana begins to flow out of you. Then the breath is not taking it in. Rather, on the contrary, the breath is taking it out -- the same breath.
You cannot feel it because you do not know the invisible part -- you know only the visible, you know only the vehicle. The vehicle will be the same. Now the breath is carrying prana in, leaving it there; then the vehicle goes back empty. Then again it is filled with the prana and it comes in. So the ingoing breath and the outgoing breath are not the same, remember. The ingoing breath and the outgoing breath are the same as vehicles, but the incoming breath is filled with prana and the outgoing breath is empty. You have taken in the prana and the breath has become empty.
The reverse happens when you are nearing death. The incoming breath comes prana-less, empty, because your body cannot suck prana from the cosmos. You are going to die; there is no need for it. The whole process has reversed. And when the breath goes out, it takes your prana out. One who has been able to see the invisible can know his day of death immediately. Six months before, the process reverses.
This sutra is very, very significant: WITH INTANGIBLE BREATH IN CENTER OF FOREHEAD, AS THIS REACHES HEART AT THE MOMENT OF SLEEP, HAVE DIRECTION OVER DREAMS AND OVER DEATH ITSELF. While you are falling into sleep this technique has to be practiced -- then only, not at any other time. While you are falling asleep, only then; that is the right moment to practice this technique. You are falling asleep. By and by, by and by, sleep is overtaking you. Within moments, your consciousness will dissolve; you will not be aware. Before that moment comes, become aware -- aware of the breath and the invisible part prana, and feel it coming to the heart.
Go on feeling that it is coming to the heart. The prana enters from your heart into the body. Go on feeling that the prana is coming into the heart, and let sleep come while you are continuously feeling it. You go on feeling, and let sleep come and drown you.
If this happens -- that you are feeling invisible breath coming into the heart and sleep overtakes you -- you will be aware in dreams. You will know that you are dreaming. Ordinarily we do not know that we are dreaming. While you dream you think that this is reality. That too happens because of the third eye. Have you seen anyone asleep? His eyes move upwards and become focused in the third eye. If you have not seen, then see.
Your child is sleeping... just open his eyes and see where his eyes are. His pupils have gone up and they are focused in the third eye. I say look at children, do not look at grown-ups -- they are not believable because their sleep is not deep. They will just be thinking that they are asleep. Look at children, their eyes move up. They become focused in the third eye. Because of this focusing in the third eye you take your dreams as real, you cannot feel they are dreams -- they are real. You will know when you get up in the morning. Then you will know that "I was dreaming." But this is the later, retrospective realization. You cannot realize in the dream that you are dreaming. If you realize it, then there are two layers: dream is there but you are awake, you are aware. For one who becomes aware in dreams, this sutra is wonderful. It says, HAVE DIRECTION OVER DREAMS AND OVER DEATH ITSELF.
If you can become aware of dreams, you can do two things. You can create dreams -- one. Ordinarily you cannot create dreams. How impotent man is! You cannot even create dreams. If you want to dream a particular thing you cannot dream it; it is not in your hands. How powerless man is! Even dreams cannot be created. You are just a victim of dreams, not the creator. A dream happens to you; you cannot do anything. Neither can you stop it nor can you create it.
But if you move into sleep remembering the heart being filled with prana, continuously being touched by prana with every breath, you will become a master of your dreams -- and this is a rare mastery. Then you can dream whatsoever dreams you like. Just note while you are falling asleep that "I want to dream this dream," and that dream will come to you. Just say, while falling asleep, "I do not want to dream that dream," and that dream cannot enter your mind.
But what is the use of becoming the master of your dreaming? Isn't it useless? No, it is not useless. Once you become master of your dreams you will never dream -- it is absurd. When you are master of your dreams, dreaming stops; there is no need for it. And when dreaming stops, your sleep has a different quality altogether, and the quality is the same as of death.
Death is deep sleep. If your sleep can become as deep as death, that means there will be no dreaming. Dreaming creates superficiality in sleep. You move on the surface because of the dreams; because of hanging on to the dreams, you move on the surface. When there is no dreaming you just drop into the sea, its depth is reached.
Death is the same. That is why people in India have always been saying that sleep is a short duration of death, and death is a long sleep -- qualitatively they are the same. Sleep is a day-to-day death. Death is a life-to-life phenomenon, a life-to-life sleep. Every day you are tired. You fall into sleep and you regain your vitality, your aliveness in the morning; you are reborn. After a life of seventy or eighty years you are tired completely. Now such short durations of death won't do; you need a great death. After that great death or great sleep, you are reborn with a totally new body.
Once you can know dreamless sleep and can be aware in it, then there will be no fear of death. No one has ever died, no one can die -- that is the only impossibility.
Just a day before I was telling you that death is the only certainty, and now I say to you that death is impossible. No one has ever died and no one can die -- that is the only impossibility -- because the universe is life. You are again and again reborn, but the sleep is so deep that you forget your old identity. Your mind is washed clean of the memories.
Think of it in this way. Today you are going to sleep: it is just as if there were some mechanism -- and soon we will have this -- like that which can erase on a tape recorder, which can wipe a tape clean so that whatsoever was recorded is no more there. The same is possible with memory, because memory is really just a deep recording. Sooner or later we will have a mechanism which can be put on the head and it will clean your mind completely. In the morning you will no longer be the same person because you won't be able to remember who it was who went to sleep. Then your sleep will look like death. There will be a discontinuity; you won't be able to remember who went to sleep. This is happening naturally. When you die and you are reborn, you cannot remember who died. You start again.
With this technique, first you will become the master of your dreams -- that is, dreaming will cease. Or if you want to dream you will be able to dream, but dreaming will become voluntary. It will not be non-voluntary, it will not be forced upon you; you will not be a victim. Then the quality of your sleep will become just like that of death. Then you will know that death is sleep.
That is why this sutra says: HAVE DIRECTION OVER DREAMS AND OVER DEATH ITSELF. you will know that death is just a long sleep -- and helpful and beautiful because it gives you new life; it gives you everything anew. Death ceases to be... with cessation of dreaming, death ceases to be.
There is another meaning to gaining power over death, direction over death. If you can come to feel that death is just a sleep, you will be able to direct it. If you can direct your dreams, you can direct your death also. You can choose where you are to be born again, to whom, when, in what form; you will become master of your birth also.
Buddha died... I am not referring to his last life, but to his last-but-one life, before he became Buddha. Before dying he said, "I will be born to such and such parents; such will be my mother, such will be my father. But my mother will die immediately... when I am born my mother will die immediately. Before I am born my mother will have certain dreams." Not only do you gain power from your dreams, you gain power from others' dreams also. So Buddha, as an example, said, "Certain dreams will be there. When I will be in the womb, my mother will have certain dreams. So whenever any woman has these dreams in this sequence, know well I am going to be born to her."
And it happened. Buddha's mother dreamed the same sequence. The sequence was known all over India, because it was no ordinary statement. It was known to everyone, particularly those who were interested in religion and the deeper things of life and the esoteric ways of life. It was known, so the dreams were interpreted. Freud was not the first interpreter -- and, of course, not the deepest. Only in the West was he the first.
So Buddha's father immediately called dream interpreters, the Freuds and Jungs of those days, and he asked, "What does this sequence mean? I am afraid. These dreams are rare, and they go on repeating in the same sequence. There are one, two, three, four, five, six dreams continuously being repeated. There are the same dreams, as if one is seeing the same film again and again. What is happening?"
So they told him, "You are going to be the father of a great soul -- one who is going to be a buddha. But then your wife is going to be in danger, because whenever this buddha is born it is difficult for the mother to survive."
The father asked, "Why?" The interpreters said, "We cannot say why, but this soul who is going to be born has made a statement that when he will be born again, the mother will die immediately."
Later on Buddha was asked, "Why did your mother die immediately?" He said, "Giving birth to a buddha is such a big event that everything else becomes futile afterwards. So the mother cannot exist. She will have to be born again to start anew. It is such a climax giving birth to a buddha, it is such a peak, that the mother cannot exist beyond it."
So the mother died. And Buddha had said in his previous life that he would be born while his mother was standing under a palm tree -- and it happened. The mother was standing under a palm tree -- standing while Buddha was born. And he had said, "I will be born while my mother is standing under a palm tree, and I will take seven steps. Immediately, I will walk. These are the signs I give to you," he said, "so that you will know that a buddha is born." And he carried out everything.
And this is not only so about Buddha. It is so about Jesus, it is so about Mahavir, it is so about many others. Every Jain TIRTHANKARA has predicted in his previous life how he is going to be born. And they have given particular dream sequences -- that such and such will be the symbols -- and they have told how it will happen.
You can direct. Once you can direct your dreams you can direct everything, because dream is the very stuff of this world. This life is made out of the stuff of dreams. Once you can direct your dreams you can direct everything. This sutra says, OVER DEATH ITSELF. Then one can give a certain birth, a certain life to oneself.
We are just victims. We do not know why we are born, why we die. Who directs us -- and why? There seems to be no reason. It all seems just a chaos, just accidental. It is because we are not masters. Once we are masters it is not like this.
The eighth technique: WITH UTMOST DEVOTION, CENTER ON THE TWO JUNCTIONS OF BREATH AND KNOW THE KNOWER. There is a slight difference in the techniques -- slight modifications. But though the differences are slight in the techniques, for you they may be great. A single word makes a great difference. WITH UTMOST DEVOTION, CENTER ON THE TWO JUNCTIONS OF BREATH. The incoming breath has one junction where it turns, the outgoing breath has another junction where it turns. With these two turnings -- and we have discussed these turnings -- a slight difference is made: that is, slight in the technique, but for the seeker it may be great. Only one condition is added -- WITH UTMOST DEVOTION -- and the whole technique becomes different.
In the first form of it there was no question of devotion, just a scientific technique. You do it, and it works. But there are persons who cannot do such dry, scientific techniques. Those who are heart-oriented, those who belong to the world of devotion, for them a slight difference has been made: WITH UTMOST DEVOTION, CENTER ON THE TWO JUNCTIONS OF BREATH AND KNOW THE KNOWER.
If you are not of the scientific bent, of the scientific attitude, if you are not a scientific mind, then try this: WITH UTMOST DEVOTION -- with faith, love, trust -- CENTER ON THE TWO JUNCTIONS OF BREATH AND KNOW THE KNOWER. How to do this? How? You can have devotion about someone: about Krishna, about Christ you can have devotion. But how can you have devotion about yourself, about this junction of breathing? The phenomenon seems absolutely non-devotional. But that depends....
Tantra says that the body is the temple. Your body is the temple of the divine, the abode of the divine, so do not treat your body as an object. It is sacred, it is holy. And while you are taking a breath in, it is not only you who is taking the breath, it is the divine within you. You are eating, you are moving or walking... look at it in this way: it is not you, but the divine moving in you. Then the whole thing becomes absolutely devotional.
It is said about many saints that they love their bodies. They treat their bodies as if their bodies belong to their beloveds. You can treat your body in this way or you can treat it just like a mechanism -- that again is an attitude. You can treat it with guilt, sin; you can treat it as something dirty; you can treat it as something miraculous, as a miracle; you can treat it as the abode of the divine. It depends on you. If you can treat your body as a temple, then this technique will be helpful -- WITH UTMOST DEVOTION...
Try it. While you are eating, try it. Do not think that YOU are eating. Think that it is the divine in you who is eating, and look at the change. You are eating the same thing, you are the same, but immediately everything becomes different. You are giving the food to the divine. You are taking a bath -- a very ordinary, trivial thing -- but change the attitude: feel that you are giving a bath to the divine in you. Then this technique will be easy: WITH UTMOST DEVOTION, CENTER ON THE TWO JUNCTIONS OF BREATH AND KNOW THE KNOWER *******
Visual Techniques
OR IMAGINE THE FIVE-COLORED CIRCLES OF THE PEACOCK TAIL TO BE YOUR FIVE SENSES IN ILLIMITABLE SPACE. NOW, LET THEIR BEAUTY MELT WITHIN. SIMILARLY, AT ANY POINT IN SPACE OR ON A WALL -- UNTIL THE POINT DISSOLVES. THEN YOUR WISH FOR ANOTHER COMES TRUE.
All these sutras are concerned with how to achieve the inner center. The basic mechanism used, the basic technique used is, if you can create a center outside -- anywhere: in the mind, in the heart, or even outside on a wall -- and if you concentrate totally on it and you bracket out the whole world, you forget the whole world and only one point remains in your consciousness, suddenly you will be thrown to your inner center.
How does it work? First understand this... Your mind is just a vagabond, a wandering. It is never at one point. It is always going, moving, reaching, but never at any point. It goes from one thought to another, from A to B. But it is never at the A; it is never at the B. It is always on the move. Remember this: mind is always on the move, hoping to reach somewhere but never reaching. It cannot reach! The very structure of the mind is movement. It can only move; that is the inherent nature of the mind. The very process is movement -- from A to B, from B to C... it goes on and on.
If you stop at A or B or any point, the mind will fight with you. The mind will say, "Move on," because if you stop the mind dies immediately. It can be alive only in movement. The mind means a process. If you stop and do not move, mind suddenly becomes dead, it is no more there; only consciousness remains.
Consciousness is your nature; mind is your activity -- just like walking. It is difficult because we think mind is something substantial. We think mind is a substance -- it is not, mind is just an activity. So it is really better to call it "minding" than mind. It is a process just like walking. Walking is a process, if you stop, there is no walking. You have legs, but no walking. Legs can walk, but if you stop then legs will be there but there will be no walking.
Consciousness is like legs -- your nature. Mind is like walking -- just a process. When consciousness moves from one place to another, this process is mind. When consciousness moves from A to B, from B to C, this movement is mind. If you stop the movement, there is no mind. You are conscious, but there is no mind. You have legs, but no walking. Walking is a function, an activity; mind is also a function, an activity.
If you stop at any point, the mind will struggle. The mind will say, "Go on!" The mind will try in every way to push you forward or backward or anywhere -- but, "Go on!" Anywhere will do, but do not stay at one point.
If you insist and if you do not obey the mind... it is difficult because you have always obeyed. You have never ordered the mind; you have never been masters. You cannot be because, really, you have never disidentified yourself from the mind. You think you are the mind. This fallacy that you are the mind gives the mind total freedom, because then there is no one to master it, to control it. There is no one! Mind itself becomes the master. It may become the master, but that mastery is just seemingly so. Try once and you can break that mastery -- it is false.
Mind is just a slave pretending to be the master, but it has pretended so long, for lives and lives, that even the master believes that the slave is the master. That is just a belief. Try the contrary and you will know that that belief was totally unfounded.
This first sutra says, IMAGINE THE FIVE-COLORED CIRCLE OF THE PEACOCK TAIL TO BE YOUR FIVE SENSES IN ILLIMITABLE SPACE. NOW LET THEIR BEAUTY MELT WITHIN. Think that your five senses are five colors, and those five colors are filling the whole space. Just imagine your five senses are five colors -- beautiful colors, alive, extended into infinite space. Then move within with those colors. Move within and feel a center where all these five colors are meeting within you. This is just imagination, but it helps. Just imagine these five colors penetrating within you and meeting at a point.
Of course, these five colors will meet at a point: the whole world will dissolve. In your imagination there are only five colors -- just like around the tail of a peacock -- spread all over space, going deep within you, meeting at a point. Any point will do, but the hara is the best. Think that they are meeting at your navel -- that the whole world has become colors, and those colors are meeting at your navel. See that point, concentrate on that point, and concentrate until the point dissolves. If you concentrate on the point it dissolves, because it is just imagination. Remember, whatsoever we have done is imagination. If you concentrate on it, it will dissolve. And when the point dissolves, you are thrown to your center.
The world has dissolved. There is no world for you. In this meditation there is only color. You have forgotten the whole world; you have forgotten all the objects. You have chosen only five colors. Choose any five colors. This is particularly for those who have a very keen eye, a very deep color sensitivity. This meditation will not be helpful to everyone. Unless you have a painter's eye, a color consciousness, unless you can imagine color, it is difficult.
Have you ever observed that your dreams are colorless? Only one person in a hundred is capable of seeing colored dreams. You see just black and white. Why? The whole world is colored and your dreams are colorless. If one of you remembers that his dreams are colored, this meditation is for him. If someone remembers even sometimes that he sees colors in his dreams, then this meditation will be for him.
If you say to a person who is insensitive to color, "Imagine the whole space filled with colors," he will not be able to imagine. Even if he tries to imagine, if he thinks, "Red," he will see the word `red', he will not see the color. He will say, "Green," and the word `green' will be there, but there will be no greenness.
So if you have a color sensitivity, then try this method. There are five colors. The whole world is just colors and those five colors are meeting in you. Deep down somewhere in you, those five colors are meeting. Concentrate on that point, and go on concentrating on it. Do not move from it; remain at it. Do not allow the mind. Do not try to think about green and red and yellow and about colors -- do not think. Just see them meeting in you. Do not think about them! If you think, the mind has moved. Just be filled with colors meeting in you, and then at the meeting point, concentrate. Do not think! Concentration is not thinking; it is not contemplation.
If you are really filled with colors and you have become just a rainbow, a peacock, and the whole space is filled with colors, it will give you a deep feeling of beauty. But do not think about it; do not say it is beautiful. Do not move in thinking. Concentrate on the point where all these colors are meeting and go on concentrating on it. It will disappear, it will dissolve, because it is just imagination. And if you force concentration, imagination cannot remain there, it will dissolve.
The world has dissolved already; there were only colors. Those colors were your imagination. Those imaginative colors were meeting at a point. That point, of course, was imaginary -- and now, with deep concentration, that point will dissolve. Where are you now? Where will you be? You will be thrown to your center.
Objects have dissolved through imagination. Now imagination will dissolve through concentration. You alone are left as a subjectivity. The objective world has dissolved; the mental world has dissolved. You are there only as pure consciousness.
That is why this sutra says: AT ANY POINT IN SPACE OR ON A WALL... This will help. If you cannot imagine colors, then any point on the wall will help. Take anything just as an object of concentration. If it is inner it is better, but again, there are two types of personalities. For those who are introvert, it will be easy to conceive of all the colors meeting within. But there are extroverts who cannot conceive of anything within. They can imagine only the outside. Their minds move only on the outside; they cannot move in. For them there is nothing like innerness.
The English philosopher David Hume has said, "Whenever I go in, I never meet any self. All that I meet are only reflections of the outside world -- a thought, some emotion, some feeling. I never meet the innerness, I only meet the outside world reflected in." This is the extrovert mind par excellence, and David Hume is one of the most extrovert minds.
So if you cannot feel anything within, and if the mind asks, "What does this innerness mean? How to go in?" then try any point on the wall instead. There are persons who come to me and ask how to go in. It is a problem, because if you know only outgoing-ness, if you know only outward movements, it is difficult to imagine how to go in.
If you are an extrovert then do not try this point inside, try it outside. The same will be the result. Make a dot on the wall; concentrate on it. Then you will have to concentrate on it with open eyes. If you are creating a center inside, a point within, then you will have to concentrate with closed eyes.
Make a point on a wall and concentrate on it. The real thing happens because of concentration, not because of the point. Whether it is out or in is irrelevant. It depends on you. If you are looking at the outside wall, concentrating on it, then go on concentrating until the point dissolves. That has to be noted: UNTIL THE POINT DISSOLVES! Do not blink your eyes, because blinking gives a space for the mind to move again. Do not blink, because then the mind starts thinking. It becomes a gap; in the blinking, the concentration is lost. So no blinking.
You might have heard about Bodhidharma, one of the greatest masters of meditation in the whole history of humankind. A very beautiful story is reported about him.
He was concentrating on something -- something outward. His eyes would blink and the concentration would be lost, so he tore off his eyelids. This is a beautiful story: he tore off his eyelids, threw them away, and concentrated. After a few weeks, he saw some plants growing on the spot where he had thrown his eyelids. This anecdote happened on a mountain in China, and the mountain's name is Tah, or Ta. Hence, the name `tea'. Those plants which were growing became tea, and that is why tea helps you to be awake.
When your eyes are blinking and you are falling down into sleep, take a cup of tea. Those are Bodhidharma's eyelids. That is why Zen monks consider tea to be sacred. Tea is not any ordinary thing, it is sacred -- Bodhidharma's eyelids. In Japan they have tea ceremonies, and every house has a tea room, and the tea is served with religious ceremony; it is sacred. Tea has to be taken in a very meditative mood.
Japan has created beautiful ceremonies around tea drinking. They will enter the tea room as if they are entering a temple. Then the tea will be made, and everyone will sit silently listening to the samovar bubbling. There is the steam, the noise, and everyone just listening. It is no ordinary thing... Bodhidharma's eyelids. And because Bodhidharma was trying to be awake with open eyes, tea helps. Because the story happened on the mountain of Tah, it is called tea. Whether true or untrue, this anecdote is beautiful.
If you are concentrating outwardly, then non-blinking eyes will be needed, as if you no longer have eyelids. That is the meaning of throwing away the eyelids. You have only eyes, without eyelids to close them. Concentrating until the point dissolves. If you persist, if you insist and do not allow the mind to move, the point dissolves. And when the point dissolves, if you were concentrated on the point and there was only this point for you in the world, if the whole world had dissolved already, if only this point remained and now the point also dissolves, then the consciousness cannot move anywhere. There is no object to move to -- all the dimensions are closed. The mind is thrown to itself, the consciousness is thrown to itself, and you enter the center.
So whether in or out, within or without, concentrate until the point dissolves. This point will dissolve for two reasons. If it is within, it is imaginary -- it will dissolve. If it is outside, it is not imaginary, it is real. You have made a dot on the wall and have concentrated on it. Then why will this dot dissolve? One can understand it dissolving inside -- it was not there at all; you just imagined it -- but on the wall it is there, so why will it dissolve?
It dissolves for a certain reason. If you concentrate on a point, the point is not really going to dissolve, the mind dissolves. If you are concentrating on an outer point, the mind cannot move. Without movement it cannot live, it dies, it stops. And when the mind stops you cannot be related with anything outward. Suddenly all bridges are broken, because mind is the bridge. When you are concentrating on a point on the wall, constantly your mind is jumping from you to the point, from the point to you, from you to the point. There is a constant jumping; there is a process.
When the mind dissolves you cannot see the point, because really, you never see the point through the eyes: you see the point through the mind AND through the eyes. If the mind is not there, the eyes cannot function. You may go on staring at the wall, but the point will not be seen. The mind is not there; the bridge is broken. The point is real -- it is there. When the mind will come back, you will see it again; it is there. But now you cannot see it. And when you cannot see, you cannot move out. Suddenly, you are at your center.
This centering will make you aware of your existential roots. You will know from where you are joined to the existence. In you, there is a point which is related with the total existence, which is one with it. Once you know this center, you know you are at home. This world is not alien. You are not an outsider. You are an insider, you belong to the world. There is no need of any struggle, there is no fight. There is no inimical relationship between you and the existence. The existence becomes your mother.
It is the existence that has come into you and that has become aware. It is the existence that has flowered in you. This feeling, this realization, this happening... and there can be no anguish again.
Then bliss is not a phenomenon; it is not something that happens and then goes. Then blissfulness is your very nature. When one is rooted in one's center, blissfulness is natural. One happens to be blissful, and by and by one even becomes unaware that one is blissful, because awareness needs contrast. If you are miserable, then you can feel it when you are blissful. When misery is no more, by and by you forget misery completely. And you forget your bliss also. And only when you can forget your bliss also are you really blissful. Then it is natural. As stars are shining, as rivers are flowing, so are you blissful. Your very being is blissful. It is not something that has happened to you: now it IS YOU.
With the second sutra, the mechanism is the same, the scientific basis is the same, the working structure is the same:
LOOK LOVINGLY ON SOME OBJECT. DO NOT GO ON TO ANOTHER. Do not move to another object. HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS OBJECT -- THE BLESSING.
LOOK LOVINGLY ON SOME OBJECT... LOVINGLY is the key. Have you ever looked lovingly at any object? You may say yes because you do not know what it means to look lovingly at an object. You may have looked lustfully at an object -- that is another thing. That is totally different, diametrically opposite. So first, the difference; try to feel the difference.
A beautiful face, a beautiful body -- you look at it, and you feel that you are looking at it lovingly. But why are you looking at it? Do you want to get something out of it? Then it is lust, not love. Do you want to exploit it? Then it is lust, not love. Then really, you are thinking of how to use this body, how to possess it, how to make this body an instrument for your happiness.
Lust means how to use something for your happiness; love means your happiness is not at all concerned. Really, lust means how to get something out of it and love means how to give something. They are diametrically opposite.
If you see a beautiful face and you feel love toward the face, the immediate feeling in your consciousness will be how to do something to make this face happy, how to do something to make this man or this woman happy. The concern is not with yourself, the concern is with the other.
In love the other is important; in lust you are important. In lust you are thinking how to make the other your instrument; in love you are thinking how to become an instrument yourself. In lust you are going to sacrifice the other; in love you are going to sacrifice yourself. Love means giving; lust means getting. Love is a surrender; lust is an aggression.
What you say is meaningless. Even in lust you talk in terms of love. Your language is not very meaningful, so do not be deceived. Look within, and then you will come to understand that you have not once in your life looked lovingly toward someone or some object.
The second distinction to be made: this sutra says, LOOK LOVINGLY ON SOME OBJECT. Really, even if you look lovingly at something material, insentient, the object will become a person. If you look lovingly at it, your love is the key to transform anything into a person. If you look lovingly at a tree, the tree becomes a person.
Just the other day I was talking with Vivek, a close disciple, and I told her that when we move to the new ashram we will name every tree, because every tree is a person. Have you ever heard of anyone naming a tree? No one names a tree because no one feels love for it. If the case were otherwise, a tree would become a person. Then it is not just one in a crowd, it becomes unique.
You name dogs and cats. When you name a dog and you call it Tiger or something else, the dog becomes a person. Then it is not just one dog amongst other dogs, it has a personality; you have created a person. Whenever you look lovingly at something, it becomes a person.
And the contrary is also true. Whenever you look with lustful eyes toward a person, the person becomes an object, a thing. That is why lustful eyes are repulsive -- because no one likes to become a thing. When you look at your wife with lustful eyes -- or at any other woman, or man, with lustful eyes -- the other feels hurt. What are you doing really? You are changing a person, a living person, into a dead instrument. You are thinking of how to "use," and the person is killed.
That is why lustful eyes are repulsive, ugly. When you look at someone with love, the other is raised. He becomes unique. Suddenly he becomes a person. A person cannot be replaced; a thing can be replaced. A `thing' means that which is replaceable; a `person' means that which cannot be replaced: there is no possibility of replacing him or her. A person is unique; a thing is not unique.
Love makes anything unique. That is why without love you never feel like a person. Unless someone loves you deeply, you never feel that you have any uniqueness. You are just one in a crowd -- just a number, a datum. You can be changed.
For example, if you are a clerk in an office or a teacher in a school or a professor in a university, your professor-hood is replaceable. Another professor will replace you; he can replace you at any moment because you are just used there as a professor. You have a functional meaning and significance.
If you are a clerk, someone else is easily able to do the work. The work will not wait for you. If you die this moment, the next moment someone will replace you and the mechanism will continue. You were just a figure -- another figure will do. You were just a utility.
But then someone falls in love with this clerk or this professor. Suddenly the clerk is no more a clerk; he has become a unique person. If he dies, then the beloved cannot replace him. He is irreplaceable. Then the whole world may go on in the same way, but the one who was in love cannot be the same. This uniqueness, this being a person, happens through love.
This sutra says, LOOK LOVINGLY AT SOME OBJECT. It makes no distinction between an object and a person. There is no need, because when you look lovingly anything will become a person. The very look changes, transforms.
You may or may not have observed what happens when you drive a particular car, say a Fiat. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of Fiats exactly similar, but your car, if you are in love with it, becomes unique -- a person. It cannot be replaced; a relationship is created. Now you feel this car as a person. If something goes wrong... a slight sound, and you feel it. And cars are very temperamental. You know the temper of your car -- when it feels good and when it feels bad. The car becomes, by and by, a person.
Why? If there is a love relationship, anything becomes a person. If there is a lust relationship, then a person will become a thing. And this is one of the most inhuman acts man can do -- to make someone a thing.
LOOK LOVINGLY AT SOME OBJECT... So what is one to do? When you look lovingly, what are you to do? The first thing: forget yourself. Forget yourself completely! Look at a flower and forget yourself completely. Let the flower be; you become completely absent. Feel the flower, and a deep love will flow from your consciousness toward the flower. And let your consciousness be filled with only one thought -- how you can help this flower to flower more, to become more beautiful, to become more blissful. What can you do?
It is not meaningful whether you can do or not; that is not relevant. The feeling of what you can do -- this pain, this deep ache over what you can do to make this flower more beautiful, more alive, more flowering -- is meaningful. Let this thought reverberate into your whole being. Let every fiber of your body and mind feel it. You will be transfixed in an ecstasy, and the flower will become a person.
DO NOT GO ON TO ANOTHER OBJECT... You cannot go. If you are in a love relationship, you cannot go. If you love someone in this group, then you forget the whole crowd; only one face remains. Really, you do not see anyone else, you see only one face. All the others are there, but they are subliminal -- just on the periphery of your consciousness. They are NOT. They are just shadows; only one face remains. If you love someone then only that face remains, so you cannot move.
Do not go to another object, remain with one. Remain with a roseflower or remain with a beloved's face. Remain there loving, flowing, with just one heart, with the feeling of, "What can I do to make the loved one happier, blissful?"
HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OBJECT -- THE BLESSING. And when this is the case you are absent, not concerned with yourself at all, not selfish, not thinking in terms of your pleasure, your gratification. You have forgotten yourself completely, and you are just thinking in terms of the other. The other has become the center of your love; your consciousness is flowing toward the other. With deep compassion, with a deep feeling of love, you are thinking, "What can I do to make the loved one blissful?" In this state, suddenly, HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OBJECT -- THE BLESSING. Suddenly, as a by-product, the blessing comes to you. Suddenly you become centered.
This looks paradoxical because this sutra says to forget yourself completely, not to be self-centered, to move to the other completely. Buddha is reported to have said continuously that whenever you are praying, pray for others -- never for yourself. Otherwise the prayer is just useless.
One man came to Buddha and he said, "I accept your teaching, but only one thing is very difficult to accept. You say that whenever we do prayer we are not to think about ourselves, we are not to ask anything about ourselves. We have to say, `Whatsoever may be the result of my prayer, let that result be distributed to all. If blessing happens, let it be distributed to all.'"
The man said, "This is okay, but can I make only one exception? Not to my immediate neighbor -- he is my enemy. Let this blessing be distributed to all except to my immediate neighbor."
The mind is self-centered, so Buddha said, "Your prayer is useless. Nothing will come out of it unless you are ready to give all, to distribute all, and then all will be yours."
In love you are to forget yourself. It looks paradoxical: then when and how will the centering happen? By being totally concerned with the other, with the other's happiness, when you forget yourself completely and only the other remains there, suddenly you are filled with bliss -- the blessing.
Why? Because when you are not concerned with yourself you become vacant, empty; the inner space is created. When your mind is totally concerned with the other, you become mindless within. Then there are no thoughts inside. And then this thought -- "How can I be helpful? How can I create more bliss? How can the other be more happy?" -- cannot continue any more, because really, there is nothing you can do. This thought becomes a stop. There is nothing you can do. What can you do? If you think you can do, you are still thinking in terms of yourself -- ego.
With the love object one becomes totally helpless -- remember this. Whenever you love someone you feel totally helpless. That is the agony of love: one cannot feel what he can do. He wants to do everything, he wants to give the whole universe to the lover or the beloved -- but what can he do? If you think that you can do this or that, you are still not in a love relationship. Love is very helpless, absolutely helpless, and that helplessness is the beauty, because in that helplessness you are surrendered.
Love someone and you will feel helpless; hate someone and you can do something. Love someone and you are absolutely helpless -- because what can you do? Whatsoever you can do seems insignificant, meaningless; it is never enough. Nothing can be done. And when one feels that nothing can be done, one feels that one is helpless. When one wants to do everything and feels nothing can be done, mind stops. In this helplessness surrender happens. You are empty. That is why love becomes a deep meditation.
Really, if you love someone, no other meditation is needed. But because no one loves, one hundred and twelve methods are needed -- and even they may not be enough.
Someone was here the other day. He was telling me, "It gives me much hope. I have heard for the first time from you that there are one hundred and twelve methods. It gives me much hope, but somewhere a depression also comes into the mind: only one hundred and twelve methods? And if these one hundred and twelve methods don't work for me, then is there no one hundred and thirteenth?"
And he is right. He is right! If these one hundred and twelve methods do not work for you, then there is no go. So as he suggests, a depression also follows hope. But really, methods are needed because the basic method is missing. If you can love, no method is needed.
Love itself is the greatest method, but love is difficult -- in a way impossible. Love means putting yourself out from your consciousness, and in the same place, where your ego has been in existence, putting someone else. Replacing yourself by someone else means love -- as if now you are not and only the other is.
Jean Paul Sartre says that the other is the hell, and he is right. He is right because the other creates only hell for you. But he is wrong also because if the other can be hell, the other can he heaven. If you live through lust, the other is a hell because then you are trying to kill that person. You are trying to make that person a thing. Then that person will also react and will try to make you a thing, and that creates hell.
So every husband and every wife, they are creating hell for each other because each one is trying to possess the other. Possession is possible only with things, never with persons. You can only be possessed by a person; you can never possess a person. A thing can be possessed, but you try to possess persons. Through that effort persons become things. If I make you into a thing, you will react. Then I am your enemy. Then you will try to make a thing out of me -- that creates hell.
You are sitting in your room alone, and then suddenly you become aware that someone is peeping through the keyhole. Observe minutely what happens. Have you felt any change? And why do you feel angry about this peeping Tom? He is not doing anything to you -- just peeping. Why do you feel angry? He has changed you into a thing. He is observing; he has made you into a thing, into an object. That gives you an uneasiness.
And the same will happen to him if you come near the keyhole and look through it. The other will become shattered, shocked. He was a subject just a moment before: he was the observer and you were the observed. Now suddenly he has been caught. He has been observed observing you, and now he has become a thing.
When someone is observing you, suddenly you feel your freedom has been disturbed, destroyed. That is why, unless you are in love with someone, you cannot stare. That stare becomes ugly and violent -- unless you are in love. If you are in love then a stare is a beautiful thing, because your stare is not changing the other into a thing. Then you can look directly into the eyes; then you can go deep into the eyes of the other. You are not changing him into a thing. Rather, through your love your look is making him a person. That is why only the stares of lovers are beautiful; otherwise stares are ugly.
Psychologists say there is a time limit. And you all know, observe and you will come to know, what the time limit is for how long you can stare into someone's eyes, if he is a stranger. There is a time limit. One moment more, and the other will become angry. Just a passing look in public can be pardoned because it seems as if you were just seeing, not looking.
A look is a deep thing. If I just see you when passing, no relationship is created. Or I am passing and you look at me, just while passing -- no offense is meant so it is okay. But if you suddenly stand and look at me, you become an observer. Then your look will disturb me and I will feel insulted: "What are you doing? I am a person, not a thing. This is not the way to look."
Because of this, clothes have become so meaningful. Only when you love someone can you be easily naked, because the moment you are naked your whole body becomes an object. Someone can look at your whole body, and if he is not in love with you his eyes will turn your whole body, your whole being, into an object. But when you are in love with someone you can be naked without feeling that you are naked. Rather, you would like to be naked, because you would like this transforming love to transform your whole body into a person.
Whenever you are turning someone into a thing, that act is immoral. But if you are filled with love, then in that love-filled moment with any object this phenomenon, this blessing, is possible. It happens.
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OBJECT -- THE BLESSING. Suddenly you have forgotten yourself -- the other was there. Then when the right moment comes, when you are no longer present, absolutely absent, the other will also become absent. And between the two the blessing happens. That is what lovers feel. That blessing is also because of an unknown, unconscious meditation.
When two lovers are there, by and by they both become absent. A pure existence remains -- without any egos, without any conflict... just a communion. In that communion one feels blissful. It is wrongly inferred that the other has given that bliss to you. That bliss has come because unknowingly you have fallen into a deep meditative technique.
You can do it consciously -- and when you do it consciously it goes deeper, because then you are not obsessed with the object. This is happening every day. If you love someone, you feel blissful not because of him or her, but because of love. And why because of love? Because this phenomenon happens -- this sutra happens.
But then you become obsessed. Then you think that because of A, because of A's proximity, nearness, because of A's love this blessing happens. Then you think, "I must possess A, because without A being present I may not be able to get this blessing again." You become jealous. If someone else possesses A, then he will be blissful and you will feel miserable, so you want to take away all possibilities of A being possessed by anyone else. A should be possessed only by you, because you have glimpsed a different world through him. Then the moment you try to possess, you will destroy the whole beauty and the whole phenomenon.
When the lover is possessed, love is gone. Then the lover is just a thing. You can use it, but the blessing will never come again, because that blessing was coming when the other was a person. The other was made, created: you created the person in the other, and the other created the person in you. No one was an object. Both were subjectivities meeting -- two persons meeting, not one person and one thing.
But the moment you possess, this will become impossible. And mind will try to possess because mind thinks in terms of greed: "One day bliss has happened, so it must happen to me every day. So I must possess." But the bliss happens because there is no possession. And the bliss happens not because of the other, really, but because of you. Remember this, the bliss happens because of you. Because you are so absorbed in the other, the bliss happens.
It can happen with a roseflower, it can happen with a rock, it can happen with the trees, it can happen with anything. Once you know the situation in which it happens, it can happen anywhere. If you know that you are not, and with a deep love your consciousness has moved to the other -- to the trees, to the sky, to the stars, to anyone; when your total consciousness is addressed to the other it leaves you, it moves away from you -- in that absence of the self is the blessing.
Look at anything. A bowl or any object will do, but look with a different quality. LOOK UPON A BOWL WITHOUT SEEING THE SIDES OR THE MATERIAL. Look upon any object, but with these two conditions... Do not look at the sides, look at the object as a whole. Ordinarily, we look at parts. It may not be done so consciously, but we look at parts. If I look at you, first I see your face, then your torso, and then your whole body. Look at an object as a whole; do not divide it in parts. Why? Because when you divide something in parts, the eyes have an opportunity to move from one part to another. Look at a thing as a whole. You can do it.
I can look at all of you in two ways. I can look from this side and then move. I can look at A, then at B, then I look at C and go on moving. When I look at A, B and C, I am not present -- or just present on the fringe, but not focused. When I look at B, I am leaving A. When I look at C, A has been completely lost; he has gone out of my focus. I can look at this group in this manner, but I can look at the whole group without dividing it into individuals, into units, taking it as a whole.
Try it. First look at a thing moving from one fragment to another. Then suddenly look at this thing as a whole; do not divide it. When you look at a thing as a whole, the eyes have no need to move. In order not to give any opportunity for movement, this has been made a condition: look at an object totally, taken as a whole. And secondly, without seeing the material. If the bowl is of wood, do not see the wood: just see the bowl, the form. Do not see the substance.
It may be of gold, it may be of silver -- observe it. Do not look at the material of which it is made, just look at the form. The first thing is to look at it as a whole. Secondly, look at it as a form, not as a substance. Why? Because substance is the material part, form is the spiritual part, and you are to move from the material to the non-material. It will be helpful.
Try it. You can try it with anyone. Some man or some woman is standing: look, and take the man or woman wholly into your look, totally into it. It will be a weird feeling in the beginning because you are not habituated this way, but it is very beautiful in the end. And then, do not think about whether the body is beautiful or not, white or black, man or woman. Do not think; just look at the form. Forget the substance and just look at the form.
In a few moments become aware. Go on looking at the form as a whole. Do not allow the eyes any movement. Do not start thinking about the material. What will happen? You will suddenly become aware of your self. Looking at something, you will become aware of your self. Why? Because for the eyes there is no possibility to move outwards. The form has been taken as a whole, so you cannot move to the parts. The material has been dropped; pure form has been taken. Now you cannot think about gold, wood, silver, etc.
A form is pure form. No thinking about it is possible. A form is just a form; you cannot think about it. If it is of gold, you can think many things. You would like, you may like to steal it, or to do something with it, or to sell it, or you can think about the price -- many things are possible. But of pure form, no thinking is possible. Pure form stops thinking. And there is no possibility of changing from one part to another; you have taken it as a whole.
Remain with the whole and the form. Suddenly you will become aware of yourself, because now the eyes cannot move. And they need movement; that is their nature. So your look will move toward you. It will come back, it will return home, and suddenly you will become aware of your self. This becoming aware of one's self is one of the most ecstatic moments possible. When for the first time you become aware of your self, it has such beauty and such bliss that you cannot compare it with anything else you have known.
Really, for the first time you become your self; for the first time you know you are. Your being is revealed in a flash.
But why does it happen? You might have seen, in children's books particularly, a picture, or in some psychological treatises, but I hope everyone must have seen somewhere or other -- a picture of an old woman, and in the same lines a beautiful young woman is also hidden. There is one picture, the same lines, but two figures are in it: one old woman, one young woman.
Look at the picture: you cannot become aware of both simultaneously. You will become aware either of one or the other. If you have become aware of the old woman, you cannot see where the young woman is hiding. But if you try to find her, it will be difficult, and the very effort will become a barrier. Because you have become aware of the old woman, she will have become a fixed thing in your eyes. With this fixed thing, you are trying to find the young woman. It is impossible, you will not be able to find her. You have to do a technique.
Just stare at the old woman; forget the young woman completely. Stare at the old woman, at the old woman figure. Stare! Go on staring. Suddenly the old woman will disappear, and you will become aware of the young woman hiding there. Why? If you try to find her you will miss. This type of picture is given to children like a puzzle, and it is said to them, "Find the other." Then they start trying to find her, and because of that they miss.
The trick is not to try to find her: just stare at the figure and you will become aware. Forget the other, no need to think about it. Your eyes cannot remain at one point, so if you stare at the old woman figure the eyes will become tired. Then suddenly they will move from the figure, and in that movement you will become aware of the other figure which is hidden just by the old woman's side, in the same lines. But the miracle is that when you become aware of the young woman, you cannot see the old woman. But you know that both are there now.
In the beginning you may not have believed that the young woman is hiding, but now you know because you have seen the old woman first. Now you know that the old woman is there, but while looking at the young one you cannot simultaneously become aware of the old one. And if you become aware of the old one, you will miss the young are again. Both cannot be seen simultaneously; you can see only one at a time.
The same happens with the outside and the inside look. You cannot have both looks simultaneously. When you are looking at a bowl or at any object, you are looking out: the consciousness is moving out, the river is flowing out. You are focused on the bowl. Go on staring at it. That very staring will create the opportunity to move in. Your eyes will become tired; they would like to move. Finding nothing to move out toward, suddenly the river will turn back -- that remains the only possibility. You will have forced your consciousness to fall back. And when you will become aware of you, you will miss the bowl; it will not be there.
That is why a Shankara or a Nagarjuna says the whole world is illusory; they have known it so. When we come to know ourselves, the world is not. Really, the world is not illusory; it is there. But you cannot see both worlds simultaneously -- that is the problem. So when a Shankara enters into himself, when he comes to know his self, when he becomes a witness, the world is not there. So he is right. He says it is maya -- illusion. It simply appears to be; it is not there.
Be aware of the fact. When you know the world, you are not. You are there, but hidden, and you cannot believe that you are hidden there; the world is too much present for you. And if you start to look for yourself directly, it will be difficult, the very effort may become a barrier. So tantra says, fix your stare somewhere in the world, on any object, and do not move from there, remain there. This very effort to remain there will create the possibility for the consciousness to begin to flow upwards -- backwards. Then you will become aware of your self.
But when you become aware of your self, the bowl will not be there. It is there, but FOR YOU it will not be there. So Shankara says the world is illusory because when you come to know your self the world is not there. It disappears like a dream.
But Charwak and Epicurus and Marx, they are also right. They say the world is true, and your self is just false; it is nowhere to be found. They say science is real. Science says only matter is, only objects are; there is no subject. They are right, because the eyes are focused on the object.
A scientist is constantly focusing on objects. He forgets the self completely. Both Shankara and Marx are right in one sense and wrong in another. If you are fixed upon the world, if your look is fixed on the world, the self will look illusory -- like it is just a dream. If you are looking inwards, the world will become a dream. Both are real, but you cannot be aware of both simultaneously -- that is the problem. And nothing can be done. You will meet the old woman or you will meet the young woman, and one will become maya, illusory. But this technique can be used easily. It will take a little time, but it is not difficult.
Once you know the turning of consciousness, you can do it anywhere. Just riding in a bus or sitting in a train you can do it -- anywhere. No need of a bowl or any particular object: you can do it with anything. With anything, stare, stare, stare... and suddenly turn inwards, and the train disappears. Of course, when you come back from your inner journey you will have traveled, but the train will have disappeared. From one station you will reach to another, and in between there will have been no train -- just a gap. Of course, the train was there; otherwise how can you come to the other station? But it was not there for you; for you it was not.
Those who can practice this technique, they can live in the world very easily. Any moment they can make anything disappear -- remember this. You are bothered with your wife or with your husband -- you can have her or him disappear. The wife is there sitting just by your side and she is not there. She is maya, she has disappeared. Just by staring and then turning your consciousness inwards, she has ceased to be there. And it has happened many times.
I remember Socrates. His wife Xanthippe was very much worried about him, and any wife would have been in the same dilemma. To have a Socrates as a husband is one of the most difficult things to tolerate. Socrates is good as a teacher, but not as a husband.
One day it happened... and because of it his wife has been condemned for two thousand years continuously, but that is not just, I do not think she has done anything wrong. Socrates was sitting there, and he must have been doing something like this technique -- it is not recorded, I am just assuming. His wife came with a tray, a teapot to give him tea. She must have found that he was not there, so it is reported that she poured the tea upon Socrates, over his face. Then suddenly he came back.
His face remained burned for his whole life. And because of this his wife has been condemned very much, but no one knows what Socrates was doing there -- because no wife would do this suddenly, there is no need. He must have done something; something must have been happening there. That is why Xanthippe had to throw tea over him. He must have been in an inner trance, and the burning sensation of the tea must have brought him back, the consciousness must have returned.
I assume that this was the case because there are many other cases reported about Socrates which are similar. For forty-eight hours he was not found. He was sought all over, the whole Athens went in search of Socrates, but he was not to be found anywhere. Then he was found outside the city, miles away, standing under a tree. Half of his body was just under snow. Snow was falling, and he was just frozen, standing there with open eyes. But he was not looking at anyone.
When the crowd gathered around, they looked into his eyes and they thought that he was dead. His eyes were just like stones -- looking, but not looking at anyone; just static, unmoving. They felt his heart: It was beating slowly; he was alive. They had to give him shocks, only then did he come back to look at them. Immediately he asked, "What is the time now?" He had missed forty-eight hours completely, they never existed for him. He was not in this world of time and space.
So they asked, "What were you doing? We thought you were dead already... forty-eight hours!" He said, "I was staring at the stars, and just suddenly it happened that the stars disappeared. And then, I don't know... then the whole world disappeared. But I remained in such a cool, calm, blissful state that if it is death it is worth thousands of lives. If it is death, then I would like to enter it again and again."
It may have happened without his knowledge, because Socrates was not a yogi, not a tantric. He was not in any way concerned consciously with any spiritual practice. But he was a great thinker, and it may have happened as an accident that he was staring at the stars in the night, and suddenly his look returned back, inwards. You can do it. And stars are really good objects.
Lie down on the ground, look at the black sky, and then fix yourself on one star. Concentrate on it, stare at it. Narrow down your consciousness to one star; forget other stars. By and by, concentrate, narrow down your gaze. Other stars will be there just on the fringe, on the boundary. But by and by they will disappear, and only one star will remain. Then go on staring, go on staring. A moment will come when that star will disappear. And when that star disappears, you will appear to yourself.
Some basic things first; then you can do this technique. We look at things always with old eyes. You come to your home; you look at it without looking at it. You know it -- there is no need to look at it. You have entered it again and again for years together. You go to the door, you enter the door; you may unlock the door. But there is no need to look.
This whole process goes on robot-like, mechanically, unconsciously. If something goes wrong, only if your key is not fitting into the lock, then you look at the lock. If the key fits, you never look at the lock. Because of mechanical habits, repeatedly doing the same thing again and again, you lose the capacity to look; you lose the freshness to look. Really, you lose the function of your eyes -- remember this. You become basically blind, because eyes are not needed.
Remember the last time you looked at your wife. The last time you looked at your wife or at your husband may have been years ago. For how many years have you not looked? You just pass, giving a casual glimpse, but not a look. Go again and look at your wife or at your husband as if you were looking for the first time. Why? Because if you are looking for the first time, your eyes will be filled with a freshness. They will become alive.
You are passing through a street, and a beautiful woman passes. Your eyes become alive -- lighted. A sudden flame comes to them. This woman may be a wife to someone. He will not look at her; he may become as blind as you have become seeing your wife. Why? For the first time eyes are needed, the second time not so much, and the third time they are not needed. After a few repetitions you become blind. We live blindly.
Be aware. When you meet your children, are you looking at them? You are not looking at them. This habit kills the eyes; the eyes become bored -- repeatedly there is the old again and again. And nothing is old really, it is just that your habit makes you feel that it is so. Your wife is not the same as she was yesterday, she cannot be; otherwise she is a miracle. Nothing can be the same the next moment. Life is flux, everything is flowing, nothing is the same.
The same sunrise will not happen again. In a sense also, the sun is not the same. Every day it is new; basic changes have occurred. And the sky will not be the same again; this morning is not going to come again. Every morning has its own individuality, and the sky and the colors, they will not gather in the same pattern again. But you go on moving as if everything is just the same.
They say nothing is new under the sky. Really, nothing is old under the sky. Only the eyes become old, accustomed to things; then nothing is new. For children everything is new: that is why everything gives them excitement. Even a colored stone on a beach, and they become so excited. You will not be excited even seeing God himself coming to your house. You will not be so excited! You will say, "I know him, I have read about him." Children are so excited because their eyes are new and fresh, And everything is a new world, a new dimension.
Look at children's eyes -- at the freshness, the radiant aliveness, the vitality. They look mirror-like, silent, but penetrating. Only such eyes can reach within.
So this technique says, SEE AS IF FOR THE FIRST TIME A BEAUTEOUS PERSON OR AN ORDINARY OBJECT. Anything will do. Look at your shoes. You have been using them for years, but look as if for the first time and see the difference: the quality of your consciousness suddenly changes.
I wonder whether you have seen Van Gogh's painting of his shoe. It is one of the rarest things. There is just an old shoe -- tired, sad, as if just on the verge of death. It is just an old shoe, but look at it, feel it, and you will feel what a long, boring life this shoe must have passed through. It is so sad, just praying to be taken away from life, tired completely, every nerve broken, just an old man, an old shoe. It is one of the most original paintings. But how could Van Gogh see it?
You have even more old shoes with you -- more tired, more dead, more sad, depressed, but you have never looked at them, at what you have done to them, how you have behaved with them. They tell a life story about you because they are your shoes. They can say everything about you. If they could write, they would write a most authentic biography of the person they had to live with -- every mood, every face. When their owner was in love he behaved differently with the shoes, when he was angry he behaved differently. And the shoes were not concerned at all, and everything has left a mark.
Look at Van Gogh's painting, and then you will see what he could see in the shoes. Everything is there -- a whole biography of the person who was using them. But how could he see? To be a painter, one has to regain the child's look, the freshness. He can look at everything -- at most ordinary things even. He can look!
Cezanne has painted a chair, just an ordinary chair, and you may even wonder... why paint a chair? There is no need. But he worked on that painting for months together. You may have stopped for a single moment to look at it, and he worked for months on it because he could look at a chair. A chair has its own spirit, its own story, its own miseries and happinesses. It has lived! It has passed through life! It has its own experiences, memories. They are all revealed in Cezanne's painting. But do you look at your chair? No one looks at it, no one feels it.
Any object will do. This technique is just to make your eyes fresh -- so fresh, alive, radiantly vital, that they can move within and you can have a look at your inner self. SEE AS IF FOR THE FIRST TIME. Make it a point to see everything as if for the first time, and sometime, suddenly, you will be surprised at what a beautiful world you have been missing. Suddenly become aware and look at your wife as if for the first time. And it will be no wonder if you feel again the same love you felt the first time, the same surge of energy, the same attraction in its fullest. But look as if for the first time at a BEAUTEOUS PERSON OR AN ORDINARY OBJECT. What will happen? You will regain your eyesight. You are blind. Just now, as you are, you are blind. And this blindness is more fatal than physical blindness, because you have eyes and still you cannot look.
Jesus says many times, "Those who have eyes, let them see. Those who have ears, let them hear." It seems that he was talking to blind men or to deaf men. But he goes on repeating it What was he - a superintendent in some institute for the blind ? He goes on repeating, "If you have eyes, look." He must be talking with ordinary men who have eyes. But why this insistence on, "If you have eyes, look"? He is talking about the eyes which this technique can give you.
Look at everything you pass as if for the first time. Make it a continuous attitude. Touch everything as if for the first time. What will happen? If you can do this, you will be freed from your past. The burden, the depth, the dirtiness, the accumulated experiences - you will be freed from them.
Every moment, move from the past. Do not allow it to enter within you; do not allow it to be carried -- leave it. Look at everything as if for the first time. This is a great technique to help you to be freed from the past. Then you are constantly in the present, and by and by you will have an affinity with the present. Then everything will be new. Then you will be able to understand Heraclitus' saying that you cannot step twice in the same river.
You cannot see a person twice - the same person -- because nothing is static. Everything is river-like, flowing and flowing and flowing. If you are freed from the past and you have a look which can see the present, you will enter the existence. And this entry will be double: you will enter into everything, into its spirit, and you will enter into yourself also because the present is the door. All meditations in one way or the other try to get you to live in the present. So this technique is one of the most beautiful techniques -- and easy. You can try it, and without any danger.
If you are looking afresh even when passing through the same street again, it is a new street. Meeting the same friend as if he is a stranger, looking at your wife as you looked for the first time when she was a stranger, can you really say that he or she is not still a stranger? You may have lived for twenty years or thirty years or forty years with your wife, but can you say that you are acquainted with her? She is still a stranger: you are two strangers living together. You know the outer habits of each other, the outer reactions, but the inner core of the being is unknown, untouched.
Look freshly again, as if for the first time, and you will see the same stranger. Nothing, nothing, has become old; everything is new. This will give a freshness to your look. Your eyes will become innocent. Those innocent eyes can see. Those innocent eyes can enter into the inner world.
We live on the surface of ourselves -- just at the fringe, the boundary. The senses are just on the boundary and your consciousness is way deep down at the center. We live in the senses; that is natural. But that is not the ultimate flowering, it is just the beginning. And when we are living in the senses, we are basically concerned with objects, because senses are irrelevant unless there is concern with some object of enjoyment. For example, eyes are useless unless there is something to be seen, ears are useless unless there is something to be heard, and hands are useless unless there is something to be touched.
We live in the senses; therefore, we have to live in objects. The senses are just on the boundary of the being, in the body, and objects are not even on the boundary: they are beyond the boundary. So three points have to be understood before we enter the techniques.
First, the consciousness is at the center. Second, the senses through which the consciousness moves out are at the boundary. And third, the objects in the world to which the consciousness moves, through the senses, are beyond the boundary. These three things have to be remembered: consciousness at the center, senses at the boundary and objects beyond the boundary. Try to understand it clearly, because then the techniques will be very simple.
Look at it from many directions. One: senses are just in between, just in the middle. At one side is consciousness, at another side is the world of objects. Senses are just in the middle -- between the two. From the senses you can move either way: either you can go to the objects or you can go to the center. Either way the distance is the same. From the senses, doors open both ways -- move to the objects or move to the center.
You are at the senses. That is why one of the most famous Zen Masters, Bokuju, has said that NIRVANA and the world are the same distance away. So do not think that the nirvana is very far away. The world and the nirvana, this world and that other world, are both at the same distance.
This saying has created much confusion because we feel that nirvana is very, very far away - that Moksha, liberation, the kingdom of God, is very, very far away. We feel that the world is just near, just here. But Bokuju says, and he says rightly, that both are at the same distance.
The world is here, and nirvana is also here. The world is near, and nirvana is also near, For nirvana you have to move inwards, for the objects you have to move outwards; the distance is the same. From my eyes, my center is just as near as you are near me. I can see you if I move outward, I can see myself if I move inward. And we are at the doors of the senses, but naturally, the bodily needs are such that consciousness moves outwards. You need food, you need water to drink, you need a house where to live. These are your bodily needs and these can only be found in the world, so quite naturally, consciousness moves through the senses toward the world. Unless you create a need which can only be fulfilled when you move inward, you will never move inward.
For example, if a child were born self-sufficient, if he didn't need any food, he would not look at his mother at all. The mother would become irrelevant, meaningless, because for the child the mother is not the meaning: food is the meaning. The mother is his first food, and because the mother gives him food and satisfies a basic need, without which he will die, he starts loving the mother. That love comes secondly, as a shadow, because the mother is fulfilling a basic need.
So those mothers who are feeding their children through bottles should not expect much love because for the child food is the need, not the mother. The mother will come into his being, enter into his being only through food. That is why food and love are deeply related-very, very deeply related. If your love need is fulfilled, you will need less food. If your love need is not fulfilled, you will need more food. So those who love and who are loved will not gather much fat. There are other reasons also, but this is one of the most basic. They will not eat much. If love is not fulfilled, then food becomes a substitute. Then they will eat much.
For the child, food is the basic need. But if a child should be born who can be self-sufficient, who does not need any food, who does not need any outward help to be alive, he will not move in the world at all. Do you think he will move? There would be no need. And unless a need is there, the energy will never move. We move outwardly not because we are sinners. We move outwardly because we have needs which can be fulfilled only through objects-which can be gained if we move in the world of objects.
Why do you not move inward? Because you have not yet created the need to move inward. Once the need is there, it is as easy to move inward as to move outward. What is that need? That need is concerned with religion. You cannot be religious unless that need is there. How is that need created? By what process does one become aware of a deep need which helps you move inward?
Three things are to be remembered. Firstly, death. Remember, all life-needs force you to move outward. If you want to move inward, death must become a basic concern; otherwise you cannot move inward. That is why it happened that persons like Buddha, who became deeply conscious of death, started moving inward. Only when you become aware of death will you create the need to look back.
Life looks outward. Unless you become aware of death, religion is meaningless for you. That is why animals have no religion. They are alive, they are as much alive as man, or even more, but they cannot be conscious of death, they cannot conceive of death, they cannot see death in the future. They see that others are dying, but it never occurs to the animal mind that this death is an indication of his death also.
For the animal mind death always occurs to others. And if for you also death is just something which happens to others, you still live in the animal mind. If you are not aware of death, you have not yet become man. That is the basic difference between animal and man-because animal cannot be aware of death, only man can be. If you are not aware of death you are not a man yet, and only man creates the need to move inward.
To me, man means awareness of death. I am not saying become afraid of death; that is not awareness. Just be aware of the fact that death is coming nearer and nearer and you have to be prepared for it.
Life has its own needs; death creates its own needs. That is why younger societies are irreligious -- because younger societies are not yet aware of the phenomenon of death; it has not become a central concern for them. An older society -- for example, India, one of the oldest societies in existence -- is so much aware of death. Because of that awareness, deep down India is religious. So the first thing: become aware of death. Think about it, look at it, contemplate it. Do not be afraid, do not escape the fact. It is there and you cannot escape it! It has come into existence with you.
Your death is born with you; now you cannot escape it. You have hidden it in yourself -- become aware of it. The moment you become aware that you are going to die, that death is certain, your total mind will start looking in a different dimension. Then food is a basic need for the body, but not for the being, because even if you get food death will occur. Food cannot protect you from death, food can only postpone. Food can help you to postpone. If you get a good shelter, a good house, it will not protect you from death. it will only help you to die conveniently, comfortably. And death, whether it happens comfortably or uncomfortably, is the same.
In life you may be poor or rich, but death is the great equalizer. The greatest communism is in death. Howsoever you live, it makes no difference; death happens equally. In life, equality is impossible; in death, inequality is impossible. Become aware of it, contemplate it. And it is not only that death is certain somewhere in the future: with the idea that it is very far away, you will again not be able to contemplate it. The mind has a very small range; the focus of the mind is very small. You cannot think beyond thirty years. After thirty years there will be death... it is as if you are not going to die. Thirty years is so long, the distance is so much, it is as if death is not going to occur.
If you want to contemplate death, know another fact about it: it can occur the next moment; it is possible the very next moment. You may not be able to hear my whole sentence, I may not be able to complete it. My mother's father used to tell me that when I was born he consulted one astrologer, one of the best known astrologers of those days. The astrologer was to make my KUNDALI -- birth chart. But the astrologer studied it and he said, "If this child survives after seven years, only then will I make the chart. It seems impossible that he can survive for more than seven years, so it is useless. If the child is going to die in seven years it is useless to make the kundali; it will be of no use. And it has been my habit," the astrologer said, "that unless I am certain that the kundali will be useful I never make it." So he didn't make it.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, I survived. Then my mother's father went to the astrologer, but he was dead, so he never could make my kundali. He was dead, and I have been constantly wondering about this. He was aware of the fact that this child may die, but he was not aware of the fact that he may die. He was not aware! It seems that he was absolutely unconcerned -- and he was no ordinary man. But no one is concerned with his own death. Knowingly, cunningly, we are not concerned with it because it creates a fear. So I have always suspected that that astrologer might have never looked at his own kundali; otherwise he would have become aware.
Death is possible the very next moment, but the mind will not believe it. I say it and your mind will say, "No! How is it possible the next moment? It is far away." But that is a trick. If you postpone, you cannot contemplate. It must be so near that you can focus on it. And when I say that the next moment it is possible, I mean it. It can happen, and whenever it will happen it will be the next moment. Just before it, you could not have conceived that it was going to happen.
A person is dying: just a moment before he could never have thought that death is so near. It always happens in the next moment -- remember. It has always happened that way, and this will be the way always. It always happens in the next moment. Bring it near so that you can focus on it, and that very focusing will help you to enter in, a new need will be created.
Secondly, you go on living. You go on creating artificial meanings and purposes for this very moment. You never think of your life as a whole, whether it has any meaning or not. You go on creating new meanings, and you push yourself on with those meanings. That is why a poor man lives a more meaningful life than a rich man -- because a poor man has many things to get, and that gives a meaning to his life. If you are really rich, it means you have everything that is possible and this world cannot offer anything to you. Then your life becomes meaningless. Now you cannot create any meaning for this moment, for this day, to help you live. That is why the richer a society, the more affluent a culture, the more meaninglessness is felt. Poorer societies never feel meaninglessness.
A poor man is concerned with having a house. For years together he will work for it. His life has a meaning; something has to be achieved. And when he gets the house he will be happy for a few days at least, but then bigger houses are there... So he will go on moving, doing this and that, never thinking about his life as a whole, whether it has any meaning or not. He never takes life as a whole.
Just imagine that you have everything -- the house, the car that you long for, and all your dreams are fulfilled. So now what? Just imagine that whatsoever you need is there, you have it. Now what? Suddenly meaning disappears. You are standing on an abyss; nothing can be done. You become meaningless. You are already meaningless, just not aware. Even if you get the whole world, then what? What is fulfilled?
Alexander was coming to India, and he met a great saint, Diogenes. Diogenes was one of the most penetrating minds ever born. He lived naked like Mahavir; he is the Mahavir of Greek civilization and culture. He left everything, renounced everything, not because through renouncing things he was going to get anything -- that is not real renouncing, not authentic renunciation. If you renounce something to get something, that is a bargain. If you think that you are going to have some reservation in heaven and that is why you renounce, it is not renunciation. If you renounce the bodily pleasures to have spiritual pleasures, this is not renunciation.
Diogenes renounced everything, not because out of it he was going to get something. He renounced just to see if when he has nothing, whether there is any meaning or not. He thought that if one possesses nothing, if even then one has a meaning, a purpose, a destiny, then death cannot annihilate anything, because death can annihilate only a possessions and the body is also possession. He left everything. He had only one thing: a wooden bowl out of which to drink water. He thought, "This is not much of a possession." Then one day he saw a child drinking water with his hands. He immediately threw away the bowl. He said, "If a child can drink water with his hands, am I more weak than a child?"
When Alexander was coming to India to conquer, to make a world empire, somebody informed him that just on the way, where he would be stopping, there lived a great sage who was just the opposite of him. He was told, "You are going to make a world empire, and he has even thrown away his bowl because he says that as he is happy without it, why carry this burden? And you say that unless the whole world becomes your empire, you cannot be happy. So he is just at the opposite pole, and it would be good if you meet him."
Alexander was fascinated. It happens that the opposite always fascinates. The opposite always fascinates; it has a deep sexual attraction. Just a man is attracted to woman or woman is attracted to man, there is the same attraction with the opposite. Alexander could not by-pass Diogenes, but it was not good for him to go to Diogenes, and it was impossible that Diogenes would come to him -- there was no solution.
Diogenes was informed. Many, many messengers came to inform him that "The Great Alexander is passing this way. It would be good if you meet him." He said, "The Great Alexander? Who has said this to you! I think he himself has. So tell your Great Alexander that he has nothing to give to me, and there is no need for him to meet me -- and I am a very small man." He used to say, "Really, I am a dog, not a man at all -- just a dog, so there is no need. It is below his dignity to meet this dog."
Then Alexander had to come. Diogenes is reported to have said, "I hear you are going to win the whole world, so I thought, I closed my eyes and thought, 'Okay! If I have won the whole world, then what?' This has been my problem constantly: if I have won the whole world, then what?" It is reported that Alexander, after hearing this, became very sad. "Then what?" he said to Diogenes. "Do not talk such things. You make me very sad."
Diogenes said, "But you will become very sad when you win the whole world. What can I do? I am just imagining, and I have come to conclude that this is useless. You are making a suicidal effort. You yourself are trying to win the whole world -- so then what? If you succeed, then what? "
Alexander returned from Diogenes very disturbed, upset, sad. He said to his companions, "This man is very dangerous. He has shattered my dreams." And he could never forget, could never forgive Diogenes. The day he died, he remembered him again, and he said, "It may be that that fellow was right: then what ?"
So the next thing is to remember always that whatsoever you are doing, whatsoever you are achieving, remember to ask, "If I succeed, then what?" Is there any meaning in it all, or is there just some artificial meaning given by you only to divide, to create an illusion around you so that you feel you are doing something worthwhile -- and all the time you are really wasting life and energy, not doing anything worthwhile! There is only one thing worthwhile: if you can become happy without anything, without any dependence: if you can be blissful alone, totally alone. If nothing is needed for your bliss, only then can you be blissful; otherwise you will be in misery, always in misery.
Dependence is misery, and those who depend on possessions, those who depend on accumulated knowledge, those who depend on this or that, they are helping their own misery to become accumulated more and more. So the next point to remember is to ask whether you have any meaning, or whether you are just floating along without any meaning. Are you just making believe that this or that is the meaning of your existence?
One man used to come to me. He used to say that if his son gets into college, that would be all and he would be very happy. He was a poor man, a very ordinary clerk, and that was the only dream, that his son would get into college. Then the son got into college. Now the son has become a forest official. A few months back the son was here and he told me, "I am getting only six hundred rupees per month. I have two children and this is my only dream, that they can get a good education; that is all. I am working hard. If they can be well educated and if I can send one of my children to some foreign country to study, that is all I ask."
His father is no more; he has died. This was his meaning in life, his purpose -- to make his boy educated and well placed. Now the boy is well placed, and now the boy has the same purpose, to help his children become educated and well placed. And he will die, and those children will go on doing the same nonsense.
What is the meaning of all this? What are you doing? Just passing time? Just destroying life? Or have you got some authentic meaning which you can say makes you happy, blissful? This is the second consideration which will turn you inward.
And thirdly, man goes on forgetting. You go on forgetting things. You were angry yesterday, and you repented it. Now you have forgotten, and if the same stimulus is given again, you will be angry again. This has been so for your whole life: you go on repeating the same things.
It is said that it is very extraordinary to find a man who learns through life -- very rare. Really, no one learns. If you learn, then you cannot commit the same mistake twice. But you go on committing the same thing again and again. Rather, the more you commit, the more you become prone to commit it. You are angry again and again, and again and again you repent it, and you have not learned anything. Given the stimulus, you will be angry, and you will do the same madness, and then you will repent again -- that is also part of it. And then you will again be ready to be stimulated and to be angry.
The third thing: if you want to turn in, learn! Whatsoever you are doing, learn through it. Take the essential out of it. Look back at what have you been doing with your life and your energy and your time. The same mistakes, the same foolishnesses, the same stupidities, again and again.
So you move in a wheel. However, it is not good to say that you move the wheel: rather, the wheel moves you. Mechanically, you go on and on and on. That is why in India we have called the world SANSAR. SANSAR means the wheel which goes on, and you are just clinging to some spoke on it and you go on moving.
Unless you learn something about this wheel, this vicious circle, this sansar, unless you learn something about it, you will not leave the spoke and jump out of it. So three words, three key words:
Death: make it a constant contemplation.
Meaning: go on searching for it in your life.
And learn: learn through your life, because there is no other learning. Scriptures won't give you anything.
If your own life cannot give you something, nothing can give it to you. Learn through your own life, conclude through it. What have you been doing with yourself? If you are in a wheel, jump out of it. But to know that you are in a wheel, you will have to go deep into understanding and learning. These three things will help you to turn in.
Now the techniques:
SIMPLY BY LOOKING INTO THE BLUE SKY BEYOND CLOUDS, THE SERENITY.
That is why I have said so many things -- because the techniques are very easy, and you can do them and nothing will result. Then you will say, "What type of techniques are these? We can do them, they are so simple. SIMPLY BY LOOKING INTO THE SKY, THE BLUE SKY, BEYOND THE CLOUDS, THE SERENITY: one will become silent and serene, fulfilled."
You can look at the blue sky beyond the clouds and nothing will happen. Then you will say, "What type of technique is this? Shiva is not talking rationally, reasonably. He is saying anything, whatsoever comes to his mind. What kind of technique is this -- SIMPLY BY LOOKING INTO THE BLUE SKY BEYOND CLOUDS, THE SERENITY. One will become serene!"
But if you remember: death, meaning, learning, this technique will help you immediately to turn in. LOOKING INTO THE BLUE SKY BEYOND CLOUDS... Just looking, not thinking. The sky is infinite; it ends nowhere. Just look into it. There is no object; that is why the sky is chosen. The sky is not an object. Linguistically it is; existentially, the sky is not an object because an object begins and ends. You can go around an object; you cannot go around the sky. You are in the sky, but you cannot go around it. So you may be the object for the sky, but the sky cannot be your object. You can look into it, but you cannot look at it, and that looking into it goes on and on... it never ends.
So look into the blue sky and go on looking. The object is infinite, there is no boundary to it. Do not think about it; do not say it is beautiful. Do not say, "How lovely!" Do not appreciate the color; do not start thinking. If you start thinking, you have stopped. Now your eyes are not moving into the blue, the infinite blue. Just move, just look -- do not think. Do not create words; they will become barriers. Not even "blue sky" should be said. Do not verbalize.
There should be just a pure, innocent look into the blue sky. It never ends. You will go on and on and on and on, and suddenly, because there is no object, just a vacuum, suddenly you will become aware of yourself. Why? Because if there is any vacuum your senses become useless. Senses are only useful if there is an object.
If you are looking at a flower, then you are looking at something -- the flower is there. The sky is not there. What do we mean by a sky? That which is not there. Sky means the space. All objects are in the sky, but the sky is not an object. It is just the vacuum, the space in which objects can exist. The sky itself is just pure emptiness. Look at this pure emptiness. That is why the sutra says: BEYOND THE CLOUDS. Because clouds are not the sky, they are objects floating in the sky. You can look at the clouds, but that will not help. Look into the blue sky -- not at the stars, not at the moon, not at the clouds, but at objectlessness, emptiness. Look into it.
What will happen? In emptiness, there is no object to be grasped by the senses. Because there is no object to be grasped, clung to, senses become futile. And if you are looking into the blue sky without thinking, without thinking, suddenly you will feel that everything has disappeared; there is nothing. In that disappearance you will become aware of yourself. Looking into this emptiness, you will become empty. Why? Because your eyes are like a mirror. Whatsoever is before them is reflected. I see you and you are sad -- then a sudden sadness enters into me. If a sad person enters into your room, you become sad. What has happened? You have looked at sadness. You are like a mirror: the sadness is reflected in you.
Someone laughs heartily -- suddenly you feel a laughter coming to you also. It has become infectious. What has happened? You are like a mirror, you are reflecting things. You look at a beautiful object -- it is reflected in you. You look at an ugly object -- it is reflected in you. Whatsoever you are seeing penetrates deep into you. It becomes part of your consciousness.
If you are looking into the emptiness, there is nothing to be reflected - or only the blue infinite sky. If it is reflected, if you feel the blue infinite sky within, you will become serene, you will find serenity. That is there. And if really you can conceive of emptiness - where sky, blue, everything disappears: just at emptiness - inside also emptiness will be reflected. And in emptiness, how can you be worried, how can you be tense?
In emptiness, how can the mind function? It stops; it disappears. In the disappearance of the mind - the mind that is tense, worried, filled with thoughts that are relevant, irrelevant - in that disappearance of the mind, THE SERENITY.
One thing more. Emptiness, if reflected in, becomes desirelessness. Desire is tension. You desire and you become worried. You look at a beautiful woman -- a sudden desire arises. You look at a beautiful house -- you want to possess it. You look at a beautiful car just passing by your side -- you want to be in it, you want to drive it. A desire has come in, and with the desire mind becomes worried: "How to get it? What to do to get it?" The mind becomes frustrated or hopeless or hopeful, but it is all dreaming. Many things can happen.
When desire is there, you are disturbed. The mind is shattered into fragments, and many plans, dreams, projections start; you become mad. Desire is the seed of madness.
But emptiness is not an object; it is just emptiness. When you look at emptiness, no desire arises; it cannot arise. You do not want to possess emptiness, you do not want to love emptiness, you do not want to make a house out of it. Emptiness? You cannot do anything with it! All movement of the mind stops, no desire arises, and with the non-arising of desire, THE SERENITY. You become silent, serene. A sudden peace explodes in you. You have become like the sky.
Another thing. Whatsoever you contemplate, you become like it, you become that, because mind can take infinite forms. Whatsoever you desire, your mind takes its form, you become it. That is why a person who is just after riches, gold, after money, his mind becomes just a treasure - nothing else. Shake him, and you will feel the rupees inside - the sound of rupees, nothing else. Whatsoever you desire, you become that. So be conscious of what you are desiring because you are becoming that.
The sky is the most empty thing. It is just near you and it costs nothing, and you do not have to go somewhere -- to the Himalayas or to Tibet -- to find the sky. They have destroyed everything, technology has destroyed everything, but the sky is still there; you can use it. Use it before they destroy it -- any day they will destroy it. Look, penetrate into it. And the look must be a non-thinking one, remember this. Then you will feel the same sky within, the same dimension within, the same space and blueness and emptiness. That is why Shiva says, SIMPLY.
SIMPLY BY LOOKING INTO THE BLUE SKY BEYOND CLOUDS, THE SERENITY.
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The techniques are similar, with a slight difference. AT THE EDGE OF A DEEP WELL LOOK STEADILY INTO ITS DEPTHS UNTIL -- THE WONDROUSNESS. Look into a deep well. The well will be reflected in you. Forget thinking completely; stop thinking completely. Just go on looking into the depth. Now they say mind has its own depth, like a well. Now in the West, they are developing depth psychology. They say mind is not just a surface. It is just a beginning; there are depths -- many depths, hidden depths.
Look into a well without thinking. The depth will be reflected in you, the well will become just an outer symbol of the inner depth. And go on looking UNTIL - THE WONDROUSNESS, until you feel wonder-filled.
Do not stop before this moment. Go on looking, go on looking, go on looking, day after day, month after month. Just go to a well, look deep, with no thoughts moving in the mind. Just meditate. Just meditate on the depth: meditate the depth, become one with it. Go on meditating; one day your thoughts will not be there. Any moment it can happen. Suddenly you will feel you have the same well within you, the same depth. And then a strange, very strange feeling will come to you: you will feel wonder-filled.
Chuang Tzu was passing over a bridge with his master, Lao Tsu. Lao Tsu is reported to have said to Chuang Tzu, "Remain here. Go on looking down from this bridge to the river until the river stops and the bridge starts flowing. Then come to me." The river is flowing; the bridge never flows. But Chuang Tzu was given this meditation - to wait on this bridge. It is said he made a hut on the bridge and remained there. Months passed... he would just sit on the bridge, looking down for the moment when the river would stop and the bridge would flow. Then he would go to the master.
One day it happened: the river stopped and the bridge started flowing. How can it happen? If thought stops completely, then anything is possible, because really, it is fixedness of thought which says that the river is flowing and the bridge is static. This is just relative - just relative!
Einstein says, and physics says, that everything is relative. You are traveling in a train, a fast train. What happens? The trees flow by, they run by. And if the train is really smooth and you do not feel that the train is running, you are just looking through the windows, the trees are moving, not the train.
Einstein has said that if in space two trains are running, or two spaceships are running side by side with the same speed, you will not be able to feel that they are moving. You can feel a moving train because you see the static things by the side. If there is nothing - for example, if the trees are also moving in the same direction with the same speed - you will feel static. Or when a train passes in the opposite direction, your speed is doubled. You feel your train has become faster.
It has not become faster. It is the same train with the same speed, but a train going in the opposite direction gives you the feeling of double speed. If speed is relative, then it is just a fixedness of the mind to think that the river is flowing and the bridge is static.
Continuously meditating, meditating, meditating, Chuang Tzu came to realize that everything is relative. The river is flowing because you take the bridge as static. The bridge is also flowing deep down. Nothing is static in this world. Atoms are moving, electrons are moving; the bridge is a constant movement within. Everything is flowing; the bridge is also flowing.
Chuang Tzu must have had a glimpse of the atomic structure of the bridge. Now they say this wall which looks static is not static. Movement is there, every electron is running, but the movement is so fast you cannot see it. That is why you feel it as static.
If this fan goes on with a faster movement, faster and faster, you will not be able to see its wings, the spaces between them. You will not be able to see this. And if it moves with the speed of light, you will see simply one circular disc that is static. Nothing will be moving in it because eyes cannot catch that fast movement.
So Chuang Tzu must have had a glimpse of the atomic structure of the bridge. He waited and waited, and the fixed mind dissolved. Then he saw that the bridge was flowing - and the movement was so fast that the river was just static in comparison to it. He came running to Lao Tsu and Lao Tsu said, "Okay! Now do not ask me. The thing has happened to you." What had happened? No-mind had happened.
In this technique, AT THE EDGE OF A DEEP WELL LOOK STEADILY INTO ITS DEPTH UNTIL - THE WONDROUSNESS. When you feel wonder-filled, when the mystery descends upon you, when mind is no more but simply mystery - a milieu of mystery -- then you will be capable of knowing yourself.
Look upon some object. Look at a flower, but remember what that LOOK means. Look! Do not think. I need not repeat it. Always remember that look means: look, do not think. If you think, it is not a look; then you have contaminated everything. It must be a pure look, a simple look.
LOOK UPON SOME OBJECT. Look at a flower,- a roseflower. THEN SLOWLY WITHDRAW YOUR SIGHT FROM IT - very slowly. The flower is there -- first look at it. Drop thinking; go on looking. When you feel that now there is no thought, simply the flower is there in your mind, nothing else, now slightly move your eyes away. By and by the flower recedes, goes out of focus, but the image will remain with you. The object will have gone out of focus; you will have turned your look away. The image, the outer flower is no more there, but it is reflected - reflected in your mirror of consciousness. It will be there! THEN SLOWLY WITHDRAW YOUR SIGHT FROM IT, THEN SLOWLY WITHDRAW YOUR THOUGHT FROM IT.
So first, withdraw from the outer object. Then only the inner image remains - the thought of the roseflower. Now withdraw that thought also. This is very difficult, the second part, but if the first part is done exactly as it is said, it will not be so difficult. First withdraw your mind from the object, your sight. Then close your eyes, and just as you have removed your eyesight from the object, remove yourself from the image. Withdraw yourself; become indifferent. Do not look at it inside, just feel that you have gone away from it. Soon the image will also disappear.
First the object disappears, then the image disappears. And when the image disappears, Shiva says, THEN. Then you are left alone. In that aloneness one realizes oneself, one comes to the center, one is thrown to the original source.
This is a very good meditation -- you can do it. Take any object, but let the object remain the same every day so that the same image is created inside and you remove yourself from the same image. Images in the temples were used for this technique.Now images are there, but the technique is lost. You go to a temple -- this is the technique to do. Look at the statue of Mahavir or Buddha or Ram or Krishna or any other. Look at the statue, concentrate on it; focus the whole mind so that the statue becomes an image inside. Then close your eyes. Remove your eyes from the statue, then close them. And then remove the image, wipe it out completely.
Then you are there in your total aloneness, in your total purity, in your total innocence. Realizing that is freedom, realizing that is truth.
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.'
We go on eating things; we cannot live without them. But we eat them very unconsciously, automatically, robot-like. If the taste is not lived, you are just stuffing. Go slow, and be aware of the taste. And only when you go slow can you be aware. Do not just go on swallowing things. Taste them unhurriedly and become the taste. When you feel sweetness, become that sweetness. And then it can be felt all over the body -- not just in the mouth, not just on the tongue, it can be felt all over the body! A certain sweetness -- or anything else -- is spreading in ripples. Whatsoever you are eating, feel the taste and become the taste.
This is how tantra appears to be quite the contrary from other traditions. Jainas say, "No taste -- ASWAD." Mahatma Gandhi had it as a rule in his ashram -- "ASWAD: do not taste anything. Eat, but do not taste; forget the taste. Eating is a necessity, but do it in a mechanical way. Taste is desire, so do not taste." Tantra says taste it as much as possible; be more sensitive, alive. And not only be sensitive -- become the taste.
With ASWAD, with no taste, your senses will be deadened. They will become less and less sensitive. And with less sensitivity, you will not be able to feel your body, you will not be able to feel your feelings. Then you will just remain centered in the head. This centeredness in the head is the split. Tantra says do not create any division within yourself. It is beautiful to taste; it is beautiful to be sensitive. And if you are more sensitive you will be more alive, and if you are more alive, then more life will enter your inner being. You will be more open.
You can eat things without tasting; it is not difficult. You can touch someone without touching; it is not difficult. We are already doing it. You shake hands with someone without touching him because to touch, you have to come to the hand, you have to move to the hand. You have to become your fingers and your palm as if you, your soul, have come to the hand. Only then can you touch. You can take someone's hand in your hand and withdraw. You can withdraw; then the dead hand is there. It appears to be touching, but it is not touching.
We are not touching! We are afraid to touch somebody because symbolically touch has become sexual. You may be standing in a crowd, in a tram, in a railway compartment, touching many persons, but you are not touching them and they are not touching you. Only bodies are there in contact, but you are withdrawn. And you can feel the difference: if you really touch someone in the crowd, he will feel offended. Your body can touch, but you must not move in that body. You must remain aloof -- as if not in the body, as if there is only a dead body touching.
This insensitivity is bad. It is bad because you are defending yourself against life. You are so much afraid of death, and you are already dead. You need not really be afraid because no one is going to die; you are already dead. And that is why you are afraid -- because you have not lived. You have been missing life and death is coming.
A person who is "alive" will not be afraid of death because he is living. When you are really living there is no fear of death. You can even live death. When death comes, you will be so sensitive to it that you will enjoy it. It is going to be a great experience. If you are alive you can even live death, and then death is no more there. If you can even live death, if you can even be sensitive to your dying body as you are withdrawing to the center and dissolving, if you can live even this, then you have become deathless.
Taste
"WHEN EATING OR DRINKING, BECOME THE TASTE OF THE FOOD OR DRINK, AND BE FILLED BY THE TASTE:" When drinking water, feel the coolness. Close your eyes, drink it slowly, taste it. Feel the coolness and feel that you have become that coolness, because the coolness is being transferred to you from the water; it is becoming a part of your body. Your mouth is touching, your tongue is touching, and the coolness is transferred. Allow it to happen to the whole of your body. Allow its ripples to spread, and you will feel a coolness all over your body. In this way your sensitivity can grow, and you can become more alive and more filled.
We are frustrated, feeling vacant, empty, and we go on talking that life is empty. But we are the reasons why it is empty. We are not filling it and we are not allowing anything to fill it. We have an armor around us -- a defense armor. We are afraid to be vulnerable, so we go on defending against everything. And then we become tombs -- dead things.
Tantra says be alive, more alive, because life is God. There is no other God than life. Be more alive, and you will be more divine. Be totally alive, and there is no death for you.
Civilization is a training in how to become unreal. Tantra is the reverse process -- how to prevent yourself from becoming unreal, and if you have already become unreal, how to touch the reality which is hidden within you, how to contact it again, how to be again real. The first thing to be understood is how we go on becoming unreal, and once this process is understood many things change immediately. The very understanding becomes mutation.
Man is born undivided. He is neither a body nor a mind. He is born undivided, as one individual. He is both body and mind. Even to say that he is both is wrong. He is body-mind. Body and mind are two aspects of his being, not two divisions -- two polarities of something which we may call life, energy or anything -- X,Y,Z -- but body and mind are not two things.
The very process of civilization, education, culture, conditioning, starts with the division. Everyone is taught that he is two, not one, and then, of course, one begins to be identified with the mind and not with the body. The very thinking process becomes your center and the thinking process is just a periphery. It is not the center because you can exist without thinking. Once you existed without thinking: thinking is not a necessity to exist. If you go deep in meditation YOU will be, and there will be no thinking. If you become unconscious YOU will be, but there will be no thinking. Moving into deep sleep YOU will be, but there will be no thinking. Thinking is just on the periphery; your being is somewhere else -- deeper than thinking. But you are being taught continuously that you are two, body and mind, and that, really, you are the mind and you possess the body. The mind becomes the master and body becomes the slave, and you go on struggling against the body. This creates a rift, a gap, and that gap is the problem. All neurosis is born out of that gap; all anxiety is born out of that gap.
Your being is rooted in your body, and your body is not just something separate from existence. It is part of it. Your body is the whole universe. It is not something limited, finite. You may not have observed it, but try to observe where your body really ends -- where! Do you think that your body ends where your skin ends?
If the sun which is so far away just goes dead, instantly you will be dead here. If the sun rays stop coming, you will be no more here. Your body cannot exist without the sun being there so far away. The sun and you are somehow deeply related. The sun must be included in your body; otherwise you cannot exist. You are part of its rays.
In the morning you see flowers open: their opening is really the rising of the sun. In the night they will close: their closing is the setting of the sun. They are just rays that are spread out. You exist here because there, so far away, the sun exists. Your skin is not really your skin. Your skin goes on spreading; even the sun is included. You are breathing: you can breathe because the air is there, the atmosphere is there. Each moment you exhale and inhale the atmosphere in and out.
If for a single moment there were no air, you would be dead. Your breath is your life. If your breath is your life, then the whole atmosphere is part of you. You cannot exist without it. So where does your body really end? Where is the limit? There is no limit! If you observe, if you go deep, you will find there is no limit. Or, the limit of the universe is your body limit. The whole universe is involved in you, so your body is not just your body; it is your universe and you are grounded in it. Your mind too cannot exist without the body. It is part of it, a process of it.
Division is destructive, and with the division you are bound to become identified with the mind. You think, and without thinking there is no division. You think, and you become identified with your thinking. Then you feel as if you possess the body. This is a complete reversal of the truth. You do not possess the body; neither is the body possessing you. They are not two things. Your existence is one, a deep harmony of opposite poles. But opposite poles are not divided, they are joined together. Only then can they become opposite poles. And the opposition is good. It gives challenge, it gives stamina, it creates energy. It is dialectical.
If you were really one, without opposite poles within, you would be dull and dead. These two opposite poles, body and mind, give you life. They are opposite and at the same time complementary -- and basically and ultimately one. One current of energy runs in both. But once we get identified with the thinking process, we think that we are centered in the head. If your legs are cut, you will not feel that YOU are cut. You will say, "My legs are cut." But if your head is cut, YOU are cut. You are murdered.
If you close your eyes to feel where you are, immediately you will feel you are in your head. You are not there -- because when for the first moment you entered life in your mother's womb, when the male and female atoms met, there was no head. But life was started. You were there, and there was no head. In that first meeting of two alive cells, you were created. The head came later on, but your being was there. Where is that being? It is not in your head. Really, it is nowhere -- or everywhere in your body. It is nowhere; you cannot pinpoint where it is. And the moment you pinpoint it you miss the whole thing. It is everywhere. Your life is everywhere, it is spread out all over you. And not only all over you; if you follow it, you will have to go to the very ends of the universe. It is everywhere!
With the identification that "I am my mind," everything becomes false. You become unreal because this identity is false. This has to be broken. Tantra techniques are to break down this identity. The effort of tantra is to make you headless, uncentered, everywhere or nowhere. And why does humanity, why do human beings become false and unreal with the mind? Because mind is an epiphenomenon -- a process which is necessary, useful, but secondary; a process which consists of words, not of realities. The word `love' is not love, the word `god' is not God. But mind consists of words, of a verbal process, and then love itself becomes less significant than the word `love'. For the mind, the word is more significant. God becomes less significant than the word `God'. For the mind it is so. Words become more meaningful, significant. They become primary, and we start living in words. And the more you live in words the more shallow you become, and you will go on missing the reality which is not words. Reality is existence.
Living in the mind is as if someone is living in a mirror. In the night, if you go to a lake and the lake is silent and there are no ripples, the lake becomes a mirror. You can look at the moon in the lake, but that moon is false -- just a reflection. The reflection comes from the real, but the reflection is not real. Mind is just a reflecting phenomenon. The reality is reflected in it, but reflections are not real. And if you get caught in reflections, you will miss reality completely. That is why, with the mind, with mind reflections, everything wavers. A slight wave, a slight wind, will disturb your mind. Reality is not disturbed, but the mind is disturbed by anything. Mind is a reflecting phenomenon, and we are living in mind.
Tantra says come down. Descend from your thrones, come down from your heads. Forget the reflections and move towards the reality. All the techniques which we are discussing are concerned with this: how to be away from the mind so that you can move into reality. Now we will discuss the techniques.
The first technique:
"OH LOTUS-EYED ONE, SWEET OF TOUCH, WHEN SINGING, SEEING, TASTING, BE AWARE YOU ARE AND DISCOVER THE EVERLIVING."
We are living, but we are not aware that we are or that we are living. There is no self-remembering. You are eating or you are taking a bath or you are taking a walk: you are not aware that you are while walking. Everything is, only you are not. The trees, the houses, the traffic, everything is. You are aware of everything around you, but you are not aware of your own being -- that you are. You may be aware of the whole world, but if you are not aware of yourself that awareness is false. Why? Because your mind can reflect everything, but your mind cannot reflect you. If you are aware of yourself, then you have transcended the mind.
Your self-remembering cannot be reflected in your mind because you are behind the mind. It can reflect only things which are in front of it. You can just see others, but you cannot see yourself. Your eyes can see everyone, but your eyes cannot see themselves. If you want to see yourself you will need a mirror. Only in the mirror can you see yourself, but then you will have to stand in front of the mirror. If your mind is a mirror, it can reflect the whole world. It cannot reflect you because you cannot stand before it. You are always behind, hidden behind the mirror.
This technique says while doing anything -- singing, seeing, tasting -- be aware that you are and discover the ever-living, and discover within yourself the current, the energy, the life, the ever-living. But we are not aware of ourselves.
Gurdjieff used self-remembering as a basic technique in the West. The self-remembering is derived from this sutra. The whole Gurdjieffian system is based on this one sutra. Remember yourself, whatsoever you are doing. It is very difficult. It looks very easy, but you will go on forgetting. Even for three or four seconds you cannot remember yourself. You will have a feeling that you are remembering, and suddenly you will have moved to some other thought. Even with this thought that "Okay, I am remembering myself," you will have missed, because this thought is not self-remembering. In self-remembering there will be no thought; you will be completely empty. And self-remembering is not a mental process. It is not that you say, "Yes, I am." Saying "Yes, I am," you have missed. This is a mind thing, this is a mental process: "I am."
Feel "I am," not the words "I am." Don't verbalize, just feel that you are. Don't think, FEEL! Try it. It is difficult, but if you go on insisting it happens. While walking, remember you are, and have the feeling of your being, not of any thought, not of any idea. Just feel. I touch your hand or I put my hand on your head: don't verbalize. Just feel the touch, and in that feeling feel not only the touch, but feel also the touched one. Then your consciousness becomes double-arrowed.
You are walking under trees: the trees are there, the breeze is there, the sun is rising. This is the world all around you; you are aware of it. Stand for a moment and suddenly remember that you are, but don't verbalize. Just feel that you are. This nonverbal feeling, even if for only a single moment, will give you a glimpse -- a glimpse which no LSD can give you, a glimpse which is of the real. For a single moment you are thrown back to the center of your being. You are behind the mirror; you have transcended the world of reflections; you are existential. And you can do it at any time. It doesn't need any special place or any special time. And you cannot say, "I have no time." When eating you can do it, when taking a bath you can do it, when moving or sitting you can do it -- anytime. No matter what you are doing, you can suddenly remember yourself, and then try to continue that glimpse of your being.
It will be difficult. One moment you will feel it is there, the next moment you will have moved away. Some thought will have entered, some reflection will have come to you, and you will have become involved in the reflection. But don't be sad and don't be disappointed. This is so because for lives together we have been concerned with the reflections. This has become a robot-like mechanism. Instantly, automatically, we are thrown to the reflection. But if even for a single moment you have the glimpse, it is enough for the beginning. And why is it enough? Because you will never get two moments together. Only one moment is with you always. And if you can have the glimpse for a single moment, you can remain in it. Only effort is needed -- a continuous effort is needed.
A single moment is given to you. You cannot have two moments together, so don't worry about two moments. You will always get only one moment. And if you can be aware in one moment, you can be aware for your whole life. Now only effort is needed, and this can be done the whole day. Whenever you remember, remember yourself.
"OH LOTUS-EYED ONE, SWEET OF TOUCH, WHEN SINGING, SEEING, TASTING, BE AWARE YOU ARE, AND DISCOVER THE EVER-LIVING:" When the sutra says "Be aware you are", what will you do? Will you remember that, "My name is Ram" or "Jesus" or something else? Will you remember that you belong to such and such a family, to such and such a religion and tradition? To such and such a country and caste and creed? Will you remember that you are a communist or a Hindu or a Christian? What will you remember?
The sutra says be aware you are; it simply says "You are". No name is needed, no country is needed. Let there be simple existence: you are! So don't say to yourself who you are. Don't answer that, "I am this and that." Let there be simple existence, that you are.
But it becomes difficult because we never remember simple existence. We always remember something which is just a label, not existence itself. Whenever you think about yourself, you think about your name, religion, country, many things, but never the simple existence that you are.
You can practice this: relaxing in a chair or just sitting under a tree, forget everything and feel this "you-areness." No Christian, no Hindu, no Buddhist, no Indian, no Englishman, no German -- simply, you are. Have the feeling of it, and then it will be easy for you to remember what this sutra says: "BE AWARE YOU ARE, AND DISCOVER THE EVER-LIVING." And the moment you are aware that you are, you are thrown into the current of the ever-living. The false is going to die; only the real will remain.
That is why we are so much afraid of death: because the unreal is going to die. The unreal cannot be forever, and we are attached to the unreal, identified with the unreal. You as a Hindu will have to die; you as Ram or Krishna will have to die; you as a communist, as an atheist, as a theist, will have to die; you as a name and form will have to die. And if you are attached to name and form, obviously the fear of death will come to you, but the real, the existential, the basic in you, is deathless. Once the forms and names are forgotten, once you have a look within to the nameless and the formless, you have moved into the eternal.
"BE AWARE YOU ARE AND DISCOVER THE EVER-LIVING": This technique is one of the most helpful, and it has been used for millennia by many teachers, masters. Buddha used it, Mahavira used it, Jesus used it, and in modern times Gurdjieff used it. Among all the techniques, this is one of the most potential. Try it. It will take time; months will pass.
When Ouspensky was learning with Gurdjieff, for three months he had to make much effort, arduous effort, in order to have a glimpse of what self-remembering is. So continuously, for three months, Ouspensky lived in a secluded house just doing only one thing -- self-remembering. Thirty persons started that experiment, and by the end of the first week twenty-seven had escaped; only three remained. The whole day they were trying to remember -- not doing anything else, just remembering that "I am." Twenty-seven felt they were going crazy. They felt that now madness was just near, so they escaped. They never turned back; they never met Gurdjieff again.
Why? As we are, really, we are mad. Not remembering who we are, what we are, we are mad, but this madness is taken as sanity. Once you try to go back, once you try to contact the real, it will look like craziness, it will look like madness. Compared to what we are, it is just the reverse, the opposite. If you feel that this is sanity, that will look like madness.
But three persisted. One of the three was P. D. Ouspensky. For three months they persisted. Only after the first month did they start having glimpses of simply being -- of "I am." After the second month, even the "I" dropped, and they started having the glimpses of "am-ness" -- of just being, not even of "I", because "I" is also a label. The pure being is not "I" and "thou"; it just is.
And by the third month even the feeling of "am-ness" dissolved because that feeling of am-ness is still a word. Even that word dissolves. Then you are, and then you know what you are. Before that point comes you cannot ask, "Who am I?" Or you can go on asking continuously, "Who am I?", just continuously inquiring, "Who am I ? Who am I?", and all the answers that will be provided by the mind will be found false, irrelevant. You go on asking, "Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?" and a point comes where you can no more ask the question. All the answers fall down, and then the question itself falls down and disappears. And when even the question, "Who am I?" disappears, you know who you are.
Gurdjieff tried from one corner: just try to remember you are. Raman Maharshi tried from another corner. He made it a meditation to ask, to inquire, "Who am I?" And don't believe in any answers that the mind can supply. The mind will say, "What nonsense are you asking? You are this, you are that, you are a man, you are a woman, you are educated or uneducated, rich or poor." The mind will supply answers, but go on asking. Don't accept any answer because all the answers given by the mind are false. They are from the unreal part of you. They are coming from words, they are coming from scriptures, they are coming from conditioning, they are coming from society, they are coming from others. Go on asking. Let this arrow of "Who am I?" penetrate deeper and deeper. A moment will come when no answer will come.
That is the right moment. Now you are nearing the answer. When no answer comes, you are near the answer because mind is becoming silent -- or you have gone far away from the mind. When there will be no answer and a vacuum will be created all around you, your questioning will look absurd. Whom are you questioning? There is no one to answer you. Suddenly, even your questioning will stop. With the questioning, the last part of the mind has dissolved because this question was also of the mind. Those answers were of the mind and this question was also of the mind. Both have dissolved, so now YOU ARE.
Try this. There is every possibility, if you persist, that this technique can give you a glimpse of the real -- and the real is ever-living.
Civilization is a training in how to become unreal. Tantra is the reverse process -- how to prevent yourself from becoming unreal, and if you have already become unreal, how to touch the reality which is hidden within you, how to contact it again, how to be again real. The first thing to be understood is how we go on becoming unreal, and once this process is understood many things change immediately. The very understanding becomes mutation.
Man is born undivided. He is neither a body nor a mind. He is born undivided, as one individual. He is both body and mind. Even to say that he is both is wrong. He is body-mind. Body and mind are two aspects of his being, not two divisions -- two polarities of something which we may call life, energy or anything -- X,Y,Z -- but body and mind are not two things.
The very process of civilization, education, culture, conditioning, starts with the division. Everyone is taught that he is two, not one, and then, of course, one begins to be identified with the mind and not with the body. The very thinking process becomes your center and the thinking process is just a periphery. It is not the center because you can exist without thinking. Once you existed without thinking: thinking is not a necessity to exist. If you go deep in meditation YOU will be, and there will be no thinking. If you become unconscious YOU will be, but there will be no thinking. Moving into deep sleep YOU will be, but there will be no thinking. Thinking is just on the periphery; your being is somewhere else -- deeper than thinking. But you are being taught continuously that you are two, body and mind, and that, really, you are the mind and you possess the body. The mind becomes the master and body becomes the slave, and you go on struggling against the body. This creates a rift, a gap, and that gap is the problem. All neurosis is born out of that gap; all anxiety is born out of that gap.
Your being is rooted in your body, and your body is not just something separate from existence. It is part of it. Your body is the whole universe. It is not something limited, finite. You may not have observed it, but try to observe where your body really ends -- where! Do you think that your body ends where your skin ends?
If the sun which is so far away just goes dead, instantly you will be dead here. If the sun rays stop coming, you will be no more here. Your body cannot exist without the sun being there so far away. The sun and you are somehow deeply related. The sun must be included in your body; otherwise you cannot exist. You are part of its rays.
In the morning you see flowers open: their opening is really the rising of the sun. In the night they will close: their closing is the setting of the sun. They are just rays that are spread out. You exist here because there, so far away, the sun exists. Your skin is not really your skin. Your skin goes on spreading; even the sun is included. You are breathing: you can breathe because the air is there, the atmosphere is there. Each moment you exhale and inhale the atmosphere in and out.
If for a single moment there were no air, you would be dead. Your breath is your life. If your breath is your life, then the whole atmosphere is part of you. You cannot exist without it. So where does your body really end? Where is the limit? There is no limit! If you observe, if you go deep, you will find there is no limit. Or, the limit of the universe is your body limit. The whole universe is involved in you, so your body is not just your body; it is your universe and you are grounded in it. Your mind too cannot exist without the body. It is part of it, a process of it.
Division is destructive, and with the division you are bound to become identified with the mind. You think, and without thinking there is no division. You think, and you become identified with your thinking. Then you feel as if you possess the body. This is a complete reversal of the truth. You do not possess the body; neither is the body possessing you. They are not two things. Your existence is one, a deep harmony of opposite poles. But opposite poles are not divided, they are joined together. Only then can they become opposite poles. And the opposition is good. It gives challenge, it gives stamina, it creates energy. It is dialectical.
If you were really one, without opposite poles within, you would be dull and dead. These two opposite poles, body and mind, give you life. They are opposite and at the same time complementary -- and basically and ultimately one. One current of energy runs in both. But once we get identified with the thinking process, we think that we are centered in the head. If your legs are cut, you will not feel that YOU are cut. You will say, "My legs are cut." But if your head is cut, YOU are cut. You are murdered.
If you close your eyes to feel where you are, immediately you will feel you are in your head. You are not there -- because when for the first moment you entered life in your mother's womb, when the male and female atoms met, there was no head. But life was started. You were there, and there was no head. In that first meeting of two alive cells, you were created. The head came later on, but your being was there. Where is that being? It is not in your head. Really, it is nowhere -- or everywhere in your body. It is nowhere; you cannot pinpoint where it is. And the moment you pinpoint it you miss the whole thing. It is everywhere. Your life is everywhere, it is spread out all over you. And not only all over you; if you follow it, you will have to go to the very ends of the universe. It is everywhere!
With the identification that "I am my mind," everything becomes false. You become unreal because this identity is false. This has to be broken. Tantra techniques are to break down this identity. The effort of tantra is to make you headless, uncentered, everywhere or nowhere. And why does humanity, why do human beings become false and unreal with the mind? Because mind is an epiphenomenon -- a process which is necessary, useful, but secondary; a process which consists of words, not of realities. The word `love' is not love, the word `god' is not God. But mind consists of words, of a verbal process, and then love itself becomes less significant than the word `love'. For the mind, the word is more significant. God becomes less significant than the word `God'. For the mind it is so. Words become more meaningful, significant. They become primary, and we start living in words. And the more you live in words the more shallow you become, and you will go on missing the reality which is not words. Reality is existence.
Living in the mind is as if someone is living in a mirror. In the night, if you go to a lake and the lake is silent and there are no ripples, the lake becomes a mirror. You can look at the moon in the lake, but that moon is false -- just a reflection. The reflection comes from the real, but the reflection is not real. Mind is just a reflecting phenomenon. The reality is reflected in it, but reflections are not real. And if you get caught in reflections, you will miss reality completely. That is why, with the mind, with mind reflections, everything wavers. A slight wave, a slight wind, will disturb your mind. Reality is not disturbed, but the mind is disturbed by anything. Mind is a reflecting phenomenon, and we are living in mind.
Tantra says come down. Descend from your thrones, come down from your heads. Forget the reflections and move towards the reality. All the techniques which we are discussing are concerned with this: how to be away from the mind so that you can move into reality. Now we will discuss the techniques.
The first technique:
"OH LOTUS-EYED ONE, SWEET OF TOUCH, WHEN SINGING, SEEING, TASTING, BE AWARE YOU ARE AND DISCOVER THE EVERLIVING."
We are living, but we are not aware that we are or that we are living. There is no self-remembering. You are eating or you are taking a bath or you are taking a walk: you are not aware that you are while walking. Everything is, only you are not. The trees, the houses, the traffic, everything is. You are aware of everything around you, but you are not aware of your own being -- that you are. You may be aware of the whole world, but if you are not aware of yourself that awareness is false. Why? Because your mind can reflect everything, but your mind cannot reflect you. If you are aware of yourself, then you have transcended the mind.
Your self-remembering cannot be reflected in your mind because you are behind the mind. It can reflect only things which are in front of it. You can just see others, but you cannot see yourself. Your eyes can see everyone, but your eyes cannot see themselves. If you want to see yourself you will need a mirror. Only in the mirror can you see yourself, but then you will have to stand in front of the mirror. If your mind is a mirror, it can reflect the whole world. It cannot reflect you because you cannot stand before it. You are always behind, hidden behind the mirror.
This technique says while doing anything -- singing, seeing, tasting -- be aware that you are and discover the ever-living, and discover within yourself the current, the energy, the life, the ever-living. But we are not aware of ourselves.
Gurdjieff used self-remembering as a basic technique in the West. The self-remembering is derived from this sutra. The whole Gurdjieffian system is based on this one sutra. Remember yourself, whatsoever you are doing. It is very difficult. It looks very easy, but you will go on forgetting. Even for three or four seconds you cannot remember yourself. You will have a feeling that you are remembering, and suddenly you will have moved to some other thought. Even with this thought that "Okay, I am remembering myself," you will have missed, because this thought is not self-remembering. In self-remembering there will be no thought; you will be completely empty. And self-remembering is not a mental process. It is not that you say, "Yes, I am." Saying "Yes, I am," you have missed. This is a mind thing, this is a mental process: "I am."
Feel "I am," not the words "I am." Don't verbalize, just feel that you are. Don't think, FEEL! Try it. It is difficult, but if you go on insisting it happens. While walking, remember you are, and have the feeling of your being, not of any thought, not of any idea. Just feel. I touch your hand or I put my hand on your head: don't verbalize. Just feel the touch, and in that feeling feel not only the touch, but feel also the touched one. Then your consciousness becomes double-arrowed.
You are walking under trees: the trees are there, the breeze is there, the sun is rising. This is the world all around you; you are aware of it. Stand for a moment and suddenly remember that you are, but don't verbalize. Just feel that you are. This nonverbal feeling, even if for only a single moment, will give you a glimpse -- a glimpse which no LSD can give you, a glimpse which is of the real. For a single moment you are thrown back to the center of your being. You are behind the mirror; you have transcended the world of reflections; you are existential. And you can do it at any time. It doesn't need any special place or any special time. And you cannot say, "I have no time." When eating you can do it, when taking a bath you can do it, when moving or sitting you can do it -- anytime. No matter what you are doing, you can suddenly remember yourself, and then try to continue that glimpse of your being.
It will be difficult. One moment you will feel it is there, the next moment you will have moved away. Some thought will have entered, some reflection will have come to you, and you will have become involved in the reflection. But don't be sad and don't be disappointed. This is so because for lives together we have been concerned with the reflections. This has become a robot-like mechanism. Instantly, automatically, we are thrown to the reflection. But if even for a single moment you have the glimpse, it is enough for the beginning. And why is it enough? Because you will never get two moments together. Only one moment is with you always. And if you can have the glimpse for a single moment, you can remain in it. Only effort is needed -- a continuous effort is needed.
A single moment is given to you. You cannot have two moments together, so don't worry about two moments. You will always get only one moment. And if you can be aware in one moment, you can be aware for your whole life. Now only effort is needed, and this can be done the whole day. Whenever you remember, remember yourself.
"OH LOTUS-EYED ONE, SWEET OF TOUCH, WHEN SINGING, SEEING, TASTING, BE AWARE YOU ARE, AND DISCOVER THE EVER-LIVING:" When the sutra says "Be aware you are", what will you do? Will you remember that, "My name is Ram" or "Jesus" or something else? Will you remember that you belong to such and such a family, to such and such a religion and tradition? To such and such a country and caste and creed? Will you remember that you are a communist or a Hindu or a Christian? What will you remember?
The sutra says be aware you are; it simply says "You are". No name is needed, no country is needed. Let there be simple existence: you are! So don't say to yourself who you are. Don't answer that, "I am this and that." Let there be simple existence, that you are.
But it becomes difficult because we never remember simple existence. We always remember something which is just a label, not existence itself. Whenever you think about yourself, you think about your name, religion, country, many things, but never the simple existence that you are.
You can practice this: relaxing in a chair or just sitting under a tree, forget everything and feel this "you-areness." No Christian, no Hindu, no Buddhist, no Indian, no Englishman, no German -- simply, you are. Have the feeling of it, and then it will be easy for you to remember what this sutra says: "BE AWARE YOU ARE, AND DISCOVER THE EVER-LIVING." And the moment you are aware that you are, you are thrown into the current of the ever-living. The false is going to die; only the real will remain.
That is why we are so much afraid of death: because the unreal is going to die. The unreal cannot be forever, and we are attached to the unreal, identified with the unreal. You as a Hindu will have to die; you as Ram or Krishna will have to die; you as a communist, as an atheist, as a theist, will have to die; you as a name and form will have to die. And if you are attached to name and form, obviously the fear of death will come to you, but the real, the existential, the basic in you, is deathless. Once the forms and names are forgotten, once you have a look within to the nameless and the formless, you have moved into the eternal.
"BE AWARE YOU ARE AND DISCOVER THE EVER-LIVING": This technique is one of the most helpful, and it has been used for millennia by many teachers, masters. Buddha used it, Mahavira used it, Jesus used it, and in modern times Gurdjieff used it. Among all the techniques, this is one of the most potential. Try it. It will take time; months will pass.
When Ouspensky was learning with Gurdjieff, for three months he had to make much effort, arduous effort, in order to have a glimpse of what self-remembering is. So continuously, for three months, Ouspensky lived in a secluded house just doing only one thing -- self-remembering. Thirty persons started that experiment, and by the end of the first week twenty-seven had escaped; only three remained. The whole day they were trying to remember -- not doing anything else, just remembering that "I am." Twenty-seven felt they were going crazy. They felt that now madness was just near, so they escaped. They never turned back; they never met Gurdjieff again.
Why? As we are, really, we are mad. Not remembering who we are, what we are, we are mad, but this madness is taken as sanity. Once you try to go back, once you try to contact the real, it will look like craziness, it will look like madness. Compared to what we are, it is just the reverse, the opposite. If you feel that this is sanity, that will look like madness.
But three persisted. One of the three was P. D. Ouspensky. For three months they persisted. Only after the first month did they start having glimpses of simply being -- of "I am." After the second month, even the "I" dropped, and they started having the glimpses of "am-ness" -- of just being, not even of "I", because "I" is also a label. The pure being is not "I" and "thou"; it just is.
And by the third month even the feeling of "am-ness" dissolved because that feeling of am-ness is still a word. Even that word dissolves. Then you are, and then you know what you are. Before that point comes you cannot ask, "Who am I?" Or you can go on asking continuously, "Who am I?", just continuously inquiring, "Who am I ? Who am I?", and all the answers that will be provided by the mind will be found false, irrelevant. You go on asking, "Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?" and a point comes where you can no more ask the question. All the answers fall down, and then the question itself falls down and disappears. And when even the question, "Who am I?" disappears, you know who you are.
Gurdjieff tried from one corner: just try to remember you are. Raman Maharshi tried from another corner. He made it a meditation to ask, to inquire, "Who am I?" And don't believe in any answers that the mind can supply. The mind will say, "What nonsense are you asking? You are this, you are that, you are a man, you are a woman, you are educated or uneducated, rich or poor." The mind will supply answers, but go on asking. Don't accept any answer because all the answers given by the mind are false. They are from the unreal part of you. They are coming from words, they are coming from scriptures, they are coming from conditioning, they are coming from society, they are coming from others. Go on asking. Let this arrow of "Who am I?" penetrate deeper and deeper. A moment will come when no answer will come.
That is the right moment. Now you are nearing the answer. When no answer comes, you are near the answer because mind is becoming silent -- or you have gone far away from the mind. When there will be no answer and a vacuum will be created all around you, your questioning will look absurd. Whom are you questioning? There is no one to answer you. Suddenly, even your questioning will stop. With the questioning, the last part of the mind has dissolved because this question was also of the mind. Those answers were of the mind and this question was also of the mind. Both have dissolved, so now YOU ARE.
Try this. There is every possibility, if you persist, that this technique can give you a glimpse of the real -- and the real is ever-living.
Sound
This technique can be done in many ways. One way is to begin by just sitting anywhere. Sounds are always present. It may be in a market or it may be at a Himalayan retreat: sounds are there. Sit silently, and with sound there is something very special. Whenever there are sounds, you are the center. All the sounds come to you from everywhere, from all directions.
With sight, with eyes, this is not so. Sight is linear. I see you -- then there is a line toward you. Sound is circular, it is not linear. So all sounds come in circles and you are the center. Wherever you are, you are always the center of sound. For sounds, you are always God, the center of the whole universe. Every sound is coming to you, moving toward you, in circles.
This technique says, BATHE IN THE CENTER OF SOUND. Wherever you are, if you are doing this technique, just close your eyes and feel the whole universe filled with sound. Feel as if every sound is moving toward you and you are the center. Even this feeling that you are the center will give you a very deep peace. The whole universe becomes the circumference and you are the center, and everything is moving toward you, falling toward you.
... AS IN THE CONTINUOUS SOUND OF A WATERFALL. If you are sitting by the side of a waterfall, close your eyes and feel the sound all around you, falling on you from every side, creating a center in you from every side. Why this emphasis on feeling that you are in the center? Because in the center there is no sound. The center is without sound, that is why you can hear sounds; otherwise you could not hear them. A sound cannot hear another sound. Because you are soundless at your center, you can hear sounds. The center is absolute silence. That is why you can hear sounds entering you, coming to you, penetrating you, encircling you.
If you can find out where is the center, where is the field in you to where every sound is coming, suddenly sounds will disappear and you will enter into soundlessness. If you can feel a center where every sound is being heard, there is a sudden transference of consciousness. One moment you will be hearing the whole world filled with sounds, and another moment your awareness will suddenly turn in and you will hear the soundlessness, the center of life.
Once you have heard that, then no sound can disturb you. It comes to you, but it never reaches you. It is always coming to you, but it never reaches you. There is a point where no sound enters. That point is YOU. Do it in a market, there is no other place like a market. It is so much filled with sounds, mad sounds. But do not start thinking about sounds -- that this is good and that is bad, and this is disturbing and that is very beautiful and harmonious. You are not supposed to think about sounds, you are simply supposed to think of the center. You are not supposed to think about every sound moving toward you -- whether it is good, bad, beautiful. You are just to remember that you are the center and all the sounds are moving toward you -- every sound, whatsoever the sort.
In the beginning you will get dizzy because you have not been hearing whatsoever is happening all around. Your hearing is selective, your seeing is selective. And now scientific research says that ninety-eight percent is not heard, only two percent of whatsoever is happening all around you is heard. Otherwise, if you heard one hundred percent of what is happening all around you, you will simply go mad. Previously, it was thought that the senses are the doors, the openings, the windows for the outside to enter inside. Now they say they are not doors, and they are not so open as it was thought. Rather, they are like a watchman, a censor, who is every moment watching what is to be allowed in or not.
Only two percent of happenings are allowed in -- and you are already mad with two percent. With one hundred percent, with a total opening, with everything opened, every sense opened, functioning, and everything being allowed in, you will go mad. So when you try this method, in the first step you will feel a dizziness coming to you. Do not be afraid, go on feeling the center -- and allow everything, whatsoever is happening. Allow everything to move in.
Relax yourself, relax your watch towers, your senses; relax everything, let everything enter you. You have become more liquid, open; everything is coming to you, all sounds are moving toward you. Then move with the sounds, and come to the center where you hear them.
Sounds are not heard in the ears, the ears cannot hear them. The ears only do a transmission work, and in the transmission they cut out much which is useless for you. They choose, they select, and then those Sanskrit sounds enter you. Now find out within where is your center. The ears are not the center, you are hearing from somewhere deep down. The ears are simply sending you selected sounds. Where are you? Where is your center?
If you are working with sounds, then sooner or later you will be surprised -- because the center is not in the head. It appears to be in the head because you have never heard sounds, you have heard only words. With words the head is the center, with sounds it is not the center. That is why in Japan they say that man thinks not through the head, but through the belly -- because they have been working with sounds for a long time.
You have seen in every temple a gong. That is placed there to create sounds around a seeker. Someone is meditating, and the gong is sounded or a bell is rung. A disturbance seems to have been created by the very sound of the bell; someone is meditating, and this bell or gong seems disturbing. In a temple, every visitor who comes will hit the gong or ring the bell. With someone meditating there, this would seem to be a constant disturbance. It is not, because the person is waiting for this sound.
So every visitor is helping. Again and again the bell is hit, and the sound is created and the meditator again enters himself. He looks at the center, where this sound goes deep. There is one hit on the bell -- the visitor has done that. Now the second hit will be inside the meditator, somewhere inside. Where is it? The sound always hits at the belly, at the navel, never in the head. If it hits in the head, you can understand well that it is not sound, it is words. Then you have started thinking about the sound. Then the purity is lost.
Now there is much research about children who are in the womb. They are also hit by sounds and they react to sounds. They cannot react to language. They have no head yet, they have no reasoning, and they do not yet know language and the agreed-upon customs of the society. They do not know about language, but they hear the sounds. And every sound affects the child more than it affects the mother, because the mother cannot hear the sounds -- she hears the words. And we are creating mad sounds, chaotic, and those sounds are hitting the unborn children. They will be born mad; you have already disturbed them too much.
Even plants are affected by sound. They grow more if some musical sounds are created around them; they grow less if some chaotic sounds are created around them. You can help them to grow. You can help them in many ways through sounds.
Now they say that because of traffic noises -- which are not harmonious and cannot be -- man is going mentally insane, and it seems that the limit has come. If it grows more, then there is no hope for man. These sounds are hitting you continuously, but if you think about them they will hit your head, and that is not the center: the navel is the center. So do not think about them.
All the mantras are meaningless sounds. And if some master says that "This is the meaning of this mantra," then it is not a mantra at all. A mantra needs to be, of necessity, without meaning. It has some work, but no meaning. It has to do something within you, but it has no meaning because it has just to be a pure sound within you. That is why we evolved the mantra AUM. It is meaningless, it is just a pure sound. If this pure sound is created within you, if you can create it within, then too the same technique can be used.
BATHE IN THE CENTER OF SOUND, AS IN THE CONTINUOUS SOUND OF A WATERFALL. OR, BY PUTTING THE FINGERS IN THE EARS, HEAR THE SOUND OF SOUNDS. You can create the sound just by using your finger, or with anything which closes your ears forcibly. Then a certain sound is heard. What is that sound, and why do you hear it when the ears are closed, when the ears are plugged?
It happened in America, that a train passed through a certain neighborhood in the middle of the night, somewhere about 2:00 a.m. A new line was inaugurated and the train stopped moving on the old route. But a very strange phenomenon happened. The people who were living in that neighborhood where the train had stopped moving complained to the police that at about 2:00 a.m. something mysterious was heard. There were so many reports, it had to be investigated what was the matter. Strange sounds were heard at about two. They were never heard when the train was passing; the people had become accustomed to the train. Now suddenly the train stopped. They were waiting to hear it in their sleep; they had become accustomed to it, conditioned. They were waiting, and the sound was not there. Absence was heard, and this absence was something new. They felt uneasy about it, they couldn't sleep.
So for the first time it was understood that if you are constantly hearing something and it stops, you will hear the absence of it. So do not think that you will simply not hear it. You will hear the absence, the negative part of it will be heard. If I look at you, and then if I close my eyes, I see your negative. If you look at the window and then close your eyes you will see the negative of the window, and the negative can be so forceful that if you suddenly look at the wall the negative will be projected on the wall. You will be seeing the negative.
Just as there are negatives of photographs, there are negative sounds. Not only can the eyes see the negative, the ears can even hear the negative. So when you close your ears, you hear the negative world of sounds. All the sounds have stopped. Suddenly a new sound is heard. This sound is the absence of sound. A gap has come in. You are missing something, and then you hear this absence.
OR, BY PUTTING THE FINGERS IN THE EARS, HEAR THE SOUND OF SOUNDS. That negative sound is known as the sound of sounds -- because it is not really a sound, but its absence. Or, it is a natural sound, because it is not created by anything.
All sounds are created. The sound you hear when you close your ears is not a created sound. If the whole world becomes absolutely silent, then you will hear the silence also. Pascal is reported to have said, "The moment I think about the infinite cosmos, the silence of the infinite cosmos makes me very much afraid." The silence makes him afraid because sounds are only on the earth. Sounds need atmosphere. The moment you go beyond the earth's atmosphere there are no sounds -- only absolute silence. That silence you can create even on the earth, if you close both of your ears completely. Then you are on the earth, but you have moved; you have dropped below sounds.
Astronauts are being trained for many things, and one thing is to be in the silence. They have to be trained in silent chambers so that they become accustomed to soundlessness; otherwise they will go mad. Many problems face them, and this is one of the deepest problems: how to be away from the human world of sounds. Then you become isolated.
If you are lost in the forest and you hear a certain word, you may not know the source but you are less afraid. Someone is there! You are not alone! In soundlessness, you are alone. In a crowd, if you close both of your ears totally and move in, you are alone. The crowd has disappeared, because it was through sounds that you could know others were there.
PUTTING THE FINGERS IN THE EARS, HEAR THE SOUND OF SOUNDS. This absence of sound is a very subtle experience. What will it give to you? The moment there are no sounds, you fall back upon yourself. With sounds we move away, with sounds we move to the other. Try to understand this: with sounds we are related to the other, we communicate with the other.
So even a blind man is not in so much difficulty as a man who cannot speak, who is dumb. Observe a person who is dumb: he looks inhuman. A blind man never looks inhuman, but a dumb person looks inhuman; the face gives a feeling of something which is not human. And a dumb person is in more difficulty than a blind man. With the blind man the problem is that he cannot see, but he can communicate. He can become a part of a greater humanity, he can become a part of a society, of a family; he can love, he can speak. A dumb man is suddenly out of society. He cannot speak, he cannot communicate, he cannot express.
Try to imagine yourself in an air-conditioned glass room, a soundproof room. No sound can enter to you, and you cannot scream, you cannot do anything to express yourself, the sound will not go out. In a glass room you can see the whole world moving around you, but neither can you speak to them nor can they speak to you. You will feel hopelessly frustrated, and the whole thing will become a nightmare.
A dumb man is in a nightmare continuously. Without communicating he is not part of humanity. Without expression he cannot flower. He cannot reach anyone and no one can reach him. He is with you and far away, and the gap is unbridgeable.
If sound is the vehicle to move to the other, then soundlessness becomes the vehicle to move to oneself. With sound you communicate with the other; with soundlessness you fall down into your own abyss, into yourself. That is why so many techniques use soundlessness to move within.
Become absolutely dumb and deaf -- even if only for a few moments -- and you cannot go anywhere else than to yourself. Suddenly you will find that you are standing within; no movement will be possible. That is why silence was practiced so much. In it, all the bridges for moving to the other are broken.
Gurdjieff used to give long silent periods to his disciples, and then he would insist that not only was language not to be used, but there was to be no communication, no gesture -- neither with the eyes nor the hands. No communication was to be used. Silence means NO communication. So he would force the group to live in a house -- twenty, thirty or forty people in one bungalow, in one house -- and than he would say, "Remain here in this house as if you are alone. You cannot go out." Forty persons would be there, and he would say, "Move in the house, live in the house as if you are alone. No communication! Do not recognize that the other is, not even by the eyes. Move completely as if you are the only person residing in the house." With three months of living in this way, absolutely dumb and deaf, with no possibility of communicating, there would be no possibility to move out.
I do not know whether you have observed or not, but in society those who can talk much become prominent; those who can communicate their thoughts easily become leaders -- religious, political, literary, any type. Those who can communicate their thoughts, those who can talk efficiently, they become leaders. Why? They can reach more people, they can reach to greater masses.
Have you ever heard of any dumb person becoming a leader? You can find a blind man becoming a leader; there is no problem. And sometimes he may become a great leader, because all that his eyes are not doing, all those energies will be transferred to his ears. But a dumb man cannot become a leader in any walk of life. He cannot communicate, he cannot become social.
Society is a language. Language is basic to social existence -- to relationship. If you leave language, you are alone. The world may be filled with millions, but if you lose language you are alone.
Meher Baba stayed continuously for forty years in silence. What was he doing in silence? Really, you cannot do anything in silence because every act is somehow related with others. Even in imagination, if you do something you will have to imagine others; you cannot do it alone. If you are absolutely alone, action becomes impossible. Even the imagination to act becomes impossible. Acting is related to others. If you drop language inside, all doing drops. You are, but you are not doing anything.
Meher Baba would tell his disciples, by writing a note, "On this particular date I am going to break my silence," and then he would not break it. This continued for forty years, and then he died in silence. What was the problem? Why should he say, "Now, this year, on this day, on this date, I am going to speak?" And why should he postpone it again? What was happening inside? Why would he not keep his promise?
Once you know silence for such a long time, you cannot fall back to sounds again; it becomes impossible. There is a rule, and he didn't follow the rule so he could not come back. There is a rule that one should not remain silent for more than three years. Once you cross the limit, you cannot come back to the world of sounds. You may try, but it is impossible. It is easy to move from sounds to silence, but it is very difficult to move from silence to sounds. Beyond three years many things simply become impossible. The mechanism cannot function the same way again. It has to be used continuously; at the most, one can remain silent for three years. Beyond that, if you remain silent the mechanism which can produce sounds and words cannot be used again, it becomes dead.
Secondly, the person becomes so much silent remaining with himself alone that it will now be a misery to communicate. Then to say something to someone will be like talking to a wall, because the person who has remained silent for such a long time knows that you cannot understand whatsoever he is saying. Regardless of what he is saying, he knows he is not saying that which he wants to say. The whole thing has gone. After such a deep silence, he cannot move again to the world of sounds.
So Meher Baba tried and tried, but he couldn't bring himself to speak again. He wanted to say something, and he had something worth saying, but the mechanism and the movements necessary to come back to a lower realm were impossible. Thus, he died without saying what he wanted to say.
It will be helpful to understand this: whatsoever you are doing, always go on doing the opposite with it. Go on changing to the opposite always. Remain silent for a few hours, then talk. Do not become fixed in anything -- you will be more alive and more moving. Do meditation for a few days, and then stop suddenly and do everything that can create tension in you. Then move again to meditation.
Go on moving between the opposites, you will be more alive and dynamic. Do not get fixed. Once you get fixed, you will not be able to move to the other extreme, and the ability to move to the other extreme means life. If you are not able to move, you are already dead. This movement is very good.
Gurdjieff advised his disciples to have sudden changes. He would insist on fasting and then he would say, "Now eat as much as you can." Then suddenly he would say, "Go on a fast." Then again he would say, "Start eating." He would say, "Be awake for a few days and nights continuously, then fall asleep for a few nights." This movement between the polar opposites gives you a dynamism, an aliveness.
OR, BY PUTTING THE FINGERS IN THE EARS, HEAR THE SOUND OF SOUNDS. In one technique, two opposites have been shown. BATHE IN THE CENTER OF SOUND, AS IN THE CONTINUOUS SOUND OF A WATERFALL -- this is one extreme. OR, BY PUTTING THE FINGERS IN THE EARS, HEAR THE SOUND OF SOUNDS -- this is another extreme.
One part is to hear the sounds coming to your center; another part is to stop all sounds and feel the soundless center. These both have been given in one technique for a special purpose -- so that you can move from one to the other.
The OR is not a choice to do this or that. Do both! That is why both have been given in one technique. First do one for a few months, then do the other for a few months. You will be more alive, and you will know two extremes. And if you can move to the two extremes easily, you can remain young forever. Those who get fixed at any extreme become old and die.
I wonder whether or not you have heard about the concept of anti-matter. A new concept has entered recently in the world of physics -- the concept of anti-matter. It has been felt always that nothing can exist in the universe without its opposite. It is impossible to conceive of anything which exists alone without its opposite. The diametrically opposite must be there whether known or not.
The shadow cannot exist without light, life cannot exist without death, morning cannot exist without night, man cannot exist without woman -- or the same with anything you can think of.
The diametrically opposite pole is inevitably needed. This was always proposed in philosophy, but now this is a proposition of physics. And very absurd notions have developed because of this concept. Time moves from the past to the future, but now physicists say that if time moves from the past to the future, there must be somewhere the opposite time process, whic
the future to the past; otherwise this time process cannot be -- but it is. The opposite, the diametrically opposite must be there somewhere -- anti-time. Moving from the future to the past? It looks very absurd. How can something move from the future to the past?
They also say that matter exists, so anti-matter must be existing somewhere. What will be the anti-matter? Matter is density. Suppose a stone is here in my hand. What is that stone? Around it is space and in the space there is a density of matter. That density is matter. What will be the anti-matter? They say anti-matter will be just a hole in space. Density is matter, and there is also a hole in space with nothing in it. A space will be around it, but it will be just a hole of nothingness. They say anti-matter must exist to balance matter. Why am I talking on this? Because these sutras which are to follow are based on this "anti"phenomenon.
Sound exists, but tantra says sound can exist only because of silence; otherwise sound will be impossible. Silence is anti-sound. So wherever there is sound, just behind it there is silence. It cannot exist without silence; it is the other aspect of the same coin. So I utter a word; for example, Aum. The more I utter it, just side by side, just behind it is the anti-phenomenon, soundlessness. So if you can use sounds as a technique to enter soundlessness, you will enter meditation. If you can use a word to go beyond words, you will move into meditation. Look at it in this way: mind is the word; meditation is no-mind. Mind is filled with sound and words and thought. Just by the corner is the other extreme -- no-mind.
Zen masters have called meditation the state of no-mind. What is mind? If you analyze it, it is a process of thought. Or if you analyze it in terms of physics, then it is a process of sounds. This sound process is mind, then just near it the no-mind exists. And you cannot move into the no-mind without using the mind as the jumping board, because you cannot even conceive of what no-mind is without understanding what mind is. Mind has to be used as a jumping board, and from that jumping board you can have a plunge into the no-mind.
There have been two opposing schools. One school is there -- it is known as "Sankya." Sankya says mind has not to be used, because if you use mind you cannot go beyond it. The same is the teaching of J. Krishnamurti; he is a Sankyaite. You cannot use mind. If you use mind you cannot go beyond it, because the very use of the mind will strengthen it, will make it more powerful. When you use it, you will be in its clutches. Using it, you cannot go beyond it. So don't use mind. That is why Krishnamurti is against all techniques of meditation: because any technique is bound to use mind as a base. Mind has to be used if you are going to use a technique. Any technique is bound to be a sort of conditioning -- or a reconditioning, or an unconditioning, or whatsoever name you give to it, but it is going to be with the mind.
Sankya philosophy says that mind cannot be used: just understand this and take a jump. But yoga says this is impossible. Even this understanding is to be done by mind. Even with this understanding -- that you cannot use mind, that no technique will be of help, that every technique will become a hindrance and whatsoever you do will create a new conditioning -- you will still be using mind, you will move within mind. This too has to be understood by mind.
So yoga says there is no way in which mind is not used; mind will have to be used. It should not be used positively, it should be used negatively. It should not be used in such a way that it is strengthened, it should be used in such a way that it is weakened. And techniques are the ways to use the mind in such a way that you use it to jump beyond it. You use it just to go beyond it -- as a jumping board.
If mind can be used as a jumping board -- and yoga and tantra believe that it can -- then something which belongs to mind has to be trained. Sound is one of the basic things, you can use sound to go into soundlessness.
The third technique on sound:
INTONE A SOUND, AS AUM, SLOWLY. AS SOUND ENTERS SOUNDFULNESS, SO DO YOU.
INTONE A SOUND, AS AUM, SLOWLY. For example, take Aum This is one of the basic sounds. A-U-M: these three sounds are combined in it. A-U-M are three basic sounds. All sounds are made of them or derived from them; all sounds are combinations of these three sounds. So these three are basic. They are as basic as in physics the electron, neutron and proton are basic. This has to be deeply understood.
Gurdjieff speaks of "The Law Of The Three". He says existence in the absolute sense is one. In the absolute sense, in the ultimate sense, there is only one. But that is absolute, and whatsoever we see is relative. Whatsoever we see is never absolute; the absolute is always hidden. It cannot be seen, because the moment we see something, it is divided. It is divided in three: the seer, the seen, and the relationship. I am seeing you: I am here, you are there, and between the two there is the relationship of knowledge, of seeing, of vision, of cognition. The process is divided into three. The absolute is divided into three; the moment it is known it becomes three. Unknown, it remains one. Known, it becomes three. The known is relative; the unknown is absolute.
So even our talk about the absolute is not absolute, because the moment we say "the absolute," it has become known. Whatsoever we know, even the word `absolute' is relative. That is why Lao Tsu insists so much that truth cannot be said. The moment you say it, it has become untrue because it has become relative. So whatsoever word we use -- the truth, the absolute, PARA-BRAHMA, Tao -- whatsoever word we use, the moment we use it, it has become relative and it has become untrue. The one has become divided into three.
So Gurdjieff says that "The Law Of The Three" is basic for the universe that we know. And if we go deep we will find, we are bound to find, that everything will be reduced to three. This is "The Law Of The Three". Christians have called it the trinity -- God the father, Jesus the son, and the Holy Ghost. Indians have called it TRIMURTI: the three faces of Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh or Shiva. Now physics says that if we move, if we go on moving through analysis to the very base, then matter will be reduced to three: the electron, neutron and proton.
Poets have said that if we go deep in search for human aesthetic feeling, emotion, then there is SATYAM, SHIVAM, SUNDARAM -- the true, the good and the beautiful. Human feeling is based on these three. Mystics have said that if we analyze ecstasy, SAMADHI, then there is SAT-CHIT-ANANDA -- existence, consciousness and bliss.
The whole human consciousness, in whatsoever dimension it works, comes to "The Law Of The Three". `Aum' is a symbol of The "Law Of The Three". A-U-M: these three are basic sounds. The atomic sounds, you can call them. These three sounds have been combined in Aum, so Aum is just near the absolute, just behind it is the absolute, the unknown. And Aum is the last station as far as sounds are concerned. If you move beyond Aum, you move beyond sound; then there is no sound. A-U-M: these three are the last, they are the boundary of existence. Beyond these three you move into the unknown, into the absolute.
Physicists say that now we have come to the electron, it seems we have come to the limit, to the very limit, because the electron cannot be said to be matter. Electrons are not visible; they have no material property. And they cannot be called non-matter either because all matter consists of them, is constituted of them. If they are neither matter nor non-matter, what to call them? No one has seen electrons, they are just inferred; it is mathematically assumed that they are there. Their effects are known, but they have not been seen. Now we cannot move beyond them. The "Law Of The Three" is the limit, and if you move beyond "The Law Of The Three" you move into the unknown. Nothing can be said then. Even about electrons very little can be said.
Aum is the limit as far as sound is concerned, you cannot move beyond. That is why Aum has been used so much, in India, and all over the world. The Christian-Mohammedan 'Amen' is nothing but Aum in a different form; the same basic notes are there. The English words 'omnipresent', 'omnipotent', 'omniscient' contain it: the prefix 'omni' is a derivation of Aum. So 'omnipresent' refers to that which is present in the whole of the Aum, in the whole of existence. 'Omnipotent' means that which is absolutely potent. 'Omniscient' means that which has seen the Aum, the whole, "The Law Of The Three". The whole universe comes under it.
Christians, Mohammedans, have been using after their prayers 'Amen'. But Hindus have made a complete science out of it -- the science of sound and the science of how to transcend sound. And if mind is sound, then no-mind must be soundlessness, or -- and both mean the same -- soundfulness.
This has to be understood. The absolute can be described in either of two ways -- negative or positive. The relative has to be described in both the ways -- negative and positive: it is a duality. When you try to express the absolute, you can use either positive terms or negative terms, because human languages have two types of terms -- negative and positive. When you are going to describe the absolute, the indescribable, you have to use some terms symbolically. So it depends on the mind.
For example, Buddha liked to use negative terms. He would say soundlessness; he would never say soundfulness. 'Soundfulness' is a positive term. Buddha would say soundlessness, but tantra uses positive terms. The whole thinking of tantra is positive. That is why the term used here is 'soundfulness': ENTER SOUNDFULNESS. Buddha describes his absolute in negative terms: SHUNYA, nothingness. The Upanishads describe the same absolute as the BRAHMAN -- absoluteness. Buddha will use nothingness and the Upanishads will use absoluteness, but both mean the same thing.
When words lose meaning you can use either the negative or the positive, because all words are either negative or positive; you just have to choose one. You can say for a liberated soul that he has become the whole. This is a positive way of saying it. Or you can say he is no more -- he has become nothingness. This is a negative way of saying it.
For example, if a small drop of water meets the ocean, you can say that the drop has become nothingness, the drop has lost its individuality, the drop is no more. This is a Buddhist way of saying things. It is good, it is right as far as it goes, because no word goes very far. So as far as it goes, it is good. The drop is no more" that is what is meant by NIRVANA. The drop has become non-being, it is not. Or you can use Upanishadic terms. The Upanishads will say that the drop has become the ocean. They are also right, because when the boundaries are broken, the drop has become the ocean.
So these are simply attitudes. Buddha likes negative terms, because the moment you say anything positive it becomes limited, it looks limited. When you say that the drop has become the ocean, Buddha will say that the ocean is also finite. The drop remains the drop; it has become a little bigger, that is all. Howsoever bigger makes no difference. Buddha will say that it has become a little bigger, but it remains. The finite has not become infinite. The finite remains finite, so what is the difference? A small drop and a big drop... for Buddha, that is the only difference between 'ocean' and 'drop' -- and it is right, mathematically it is so.
So Buddha says that if the drop has become the ocean, then nothing has happened. If you have become a god, then nothing has happened, you have only become a bigger man. If you have become the BRAHMAN nothing has happened, you are still finite. So Buddha says that you have to become nothing, you have to become SHUNYA -- empty of all boundaries and attributes, empty of everything that you can conceive of, just emptiness. But Upanishadic thinkers will say that even if you are empty YOU ARE. If you have become emptiness YOU are still there, because emptiness exists, emptiness is. Nothingness is also a way of being, a way of existence. So they say, why belabor the point and why unnecessarily use negative terms? It is good to be positive.
It is your choice, but tantra almost always uses positive terms. The very philosophy of tantra is positive. It says, do not allow no, do not allow the negation. Tantrics are the greatest of yea-sayers. They have said yes to everything, so they use positive terms. The sutra says, INTONE A SOUND, AS AUM, SLOWLY. AS SOUND ENTERS SOUNDFULNESS, SO DO YOU...
INTONE A SOUND, AS AUM, SLOWLY. The intoning of a sound is a very subtle science. First you have to intone it loudly, outwardly; then others can hear it. And it is good to start loudly. Why? Because you can also hear it clearly when you intone it loudly; because whatsoever you say it is to others, and this has become a habit. Whenever you are talking you are talking to others, and you hear yourself talk only when you are talking to others. So start from the natural habit.
Intone the sound Aum, then by and by, feel attunement with the sound. When you intone the sound Aum, be filled with it, forget everything else. Become the Aum, become the sound. And it is very easy to become the sound, because sound can vibrate through your body, through your mind, through your whole nervous system. Feel the reverberation of Aum. Intone it, and feel it as if your whole body is being filled with it, every cell is vibrating with it.
Intoning is also "in-tuning." Tune yourself with the sound, become the sound. And then, as you feel a deep harmony between you and the sound, and you develop a deep affection for it -- and the sound is so beautiful and so musical: Aum -- then the more you intone it, the more you will feel yourself filled with a subtle sweetness. There are sounds which are bitter, there are sounds which are very hard. Aum is a very sweet sound, the purest. Intone it and be filled with it.
And when you begin to feel harmonious with it, you can drop intoning loudly. Then close your lips and intone it inwardly, but inwardly also first try it loudly. Intone inwardly, but loudly, so that the sound spreads all over your body, touches every part, every cell of your body. You will feel vitalized by it, you will feel rejuvenated, you will feel a new life entering you -- because your body is a musical instrument. It needs harmony, and when the harmony is disturbed you are disturbed.
That is why when you hear music you feel good. Why do you feel good? What is music, but just some harmonious sounds? Why do you feel such a well-being when there is music around you? And when there is chaos, noise, why do you feel so disturbed? You yourself are deeply musical. You are an instrument, and that instrument re-echoes things.
Intone Aum inside, and you will feel that your whole body dances with it. You will feel that your whole body is undergoing a cleansing bath; every pore is being cleansed. But as you feel it more intensely, and as it penetrates you more, go on becoming more and more slow, because the slower the sound, the deeper it can go. It is just like homeopathy. The smaller the dose, the deeper it penetrates -- because if you want to go deeper, you have to go more subtly, more subtly, more subtly...
Crude, coarse sounds cannot enter your heart. They can enter your ears, but they cannot enter your heart. The passage is very narrow, and the heart is so delicate that only very slow, very rhythmic, very atomic sounds are allowed to enter it. And unless a sound enters your heart, the mantra is not complete. The mantra is complete only when the sound enters your heart -- the deepest, most central core of your being. Then go on being more slow, more slow, more slow.
And there are also other reasons for making these sounds slower and more subtle: the more subtle a sound is, the more intense an awareness you will need to feel it inside. The more coarse the sound, the less need there is of any awareness. A coarse sound will hit you, you will become aware of it; but then it is violent.
If a sound is musical, harmonious, subtle, then you will have to listen to it inside and you will have to be very alert to listen to it. If you are not alert, you will go to sleep and miss the whole point. That is the problem with a mantra, with any chanting, with any use of sound: it can create sleep. It is a subtle tranquilizer. If you continuously repeat any sound without being alert about it, you will fall asleep, because then the repetition becomes mechanical. "Aum, Aum, Aum..." becomes mechanical, and then repetition creates boredom.
Boredom is a basic necessity for sleep. You cannot get to sleep unless you are bored. If you are excited, you cannot get to sleep. That is why the modern man is becoming incapable of going to sleep. What is the reason? There is so much excitement. It was never like this before.
In the old, past world life was a deep boredom, a repetitious boredom. If you go to a village hidden somewhere in the hills, there life is a boredom. It may not look to you like a boredom because you have not lived there, and on a holiday you may feel very much excited. But that excitement is because of Bombay, not because of those hills. Those hills are completely boring. Those who are living there are bored and asleep. There is only the same thing, the same routine with no excitement, with no change, and nothing ever happens. There is no news. Things go on as they have always, they go on repeating in a circular way. As seasons repeat, as nature repeats, as day and night move in a circle, everything moves in a village, in an old village, in a circle. That is why villagers can fall to sleep so easily: everything is just boring.
Modern life has become so exciting -- nothing repeats. Everything goes on becoming new, changing. Life has become unpredictable, and you are so excited you cannot fall asleep. Every day you can see a new film, every day you can hear a new speech, every day you can read a new book, every day something new is possible.
This constant excitement continues. When you go to your bed, the excitement is there. The mind wants to be awake; it seems futile to fall asleep. There are thinkers who are saying that this is pure wastage -- if you live for sixty years, twenty years are wasted in sleep. Sheer wastage! Life is so much excitement, why waste any of it? But in the old world, in the old days, life was not an excitement. It was a circular movement of the same repetition. If anything excites you, it means it is new.
If you repeat a particular sound, it creates a circle within you. It creates boredom; it creates sleep. That is why Mahesh Yogi's transcendental meditation is known in the West as a non-medical tranquilizer. It is because it is a simple repetition of a mantra. But if your mantra becomes just a repetition without an alert YOU inside, an alert YOU constantly listening to you, listening to the sound, it may help sleep, but it cannot help anything else. As far as it goes, it is good. If you are suffering from insomnia, transcendental meditation is good.
Otherwise, it helps -- but not unless you use the mantra with an alert inner ear. Then you have to do two things: go on reducing the pitch of the mantra, reducing the sound, making it more slow and more subtle, and at the same time simultaneously go on becoming more alert, more alert. As the sound becomes subtle, become more alert; otherwise, you will miss the whole point.
So two things have to be done: sound has to be slowed down, and you have to become more alert. The more sound becomes subtle, the more alert you are. To make you more alert the sound has to be made more subtle, and a point comes when sound enters soundlessness, or soundfulness, and you enter total awareness. When the sound enters soundlessness or soundfulness, by that time your alertness must have touched the peak. When the sound reaches the valley, when it goes to the down-most, deepest center in the valley, your alertness has gone to the very peak, to the Everest. And there, sound dissolves into soundfulness or soundlessness, and you dissolve into total awareness.
This is the method: INTONE A SOUND, AS AUM, SLOWLY. AS SOUND ENTERS SOUNDFULNESS, SO DO YOU. And wait for the moment when the sound has become so subtle, so atomic, that now, any moment, it will take a jump from the world of the laws, the world of the three, and it will enter the world of the one, the absolute. Wait! This is one of the most beautiful experiences possible to man -- when sound dissolves. Then suddenly you cannot find where the sound has gone.
You were hearing it subtly, deep down: "Aum, Aum, Aum..." and then it is no more there. You have entered the world of the one. The world of the three is no more. This, tantra says, is soundfulness; Buddha says soundlessness.
This is a way -- one of the most used, one of the most helpful. Mantra became so important because of this. Because sound is already there and your mind is so filled with it, you can use it as a jumping board. But there are difficulties, and the first difficulty is sleep. Whosoever uses a mantra must be aware of this difficulty. That is the hindrance -- sleep. You are bound to fall into sleep because it is so repetitious, it is so harmonious, it is so boring -- you will fall victim. And do not think that your sleep is your meditation. Sleep is not meditation.
Sleep is good in itself, but beware. If you are using the mantra for sleep, then it is okay. But if you are using the mantra for spiritual awakening, then beware of sleep. For those who use a mantra, sleep is the enemy -- and it so easily happens. And it is so beautiful, because it is a different type of a sleep: remember that too. When it comes from a mantra, this is not ordinary sleep. This is a different kind of sleep.
The Greeks have called it HYPNOS, and from hypnos the word hypnotism has been derived. In yoga, they call it YOGA TANDRA -- a particular sleep which happens to the yogi and not to the ordinary man. It is hypnos -- an induced sleep, not an ordinary sleep. And the difference is very basic, so try to understand it -- because if you try a mantra, any sound, this is going to be your problem. The greatest problem to face is sleep.
Hypnosis uses the same technique -- creating boredom. The hypnotist goes on repeating a certain word or certain sentences. He is continuously repeating, and you become bored. Or he gives you a light to concentrate on. Seeing a light continuously, you get bored.
In many temples, churches, people are fast asleep. Listening to scriptures, they fall asleep. They have heard those scriptures so many times, it has become a boredom. There is no excitement, they already know the story.
If you go on seeing the same film again and again, you will be fast asleep: no excitement for the mind, no challenge, and there is nothing to see. You have heard the RAMAYANA so many times, you can be asleep and without any difficulty you can go on hearing in your sleep. And you will never feel that you were asleep because you will never miss anything in the story: you know it already.
Preachers' voices are very deeply sleep- inducing, monotonous. You can talk monotonously, in the same pitch, then sleep happens. Many psychologists advise their patients with insomnia to go and hear a religious talk, that gives sleep easily. Whenever you are bored, you will fall asleep, but that sleep is hypnosis, that sleep is yoga tandra. And what is the difference? That is not natural. It is unnatural, and with particular attributes.
One, when you fall asleep through a mantra or through hypnosis, you can create any illusion easily and the illusion will be as real as possible. In ordinary sleep you can create dreams, but the moment you are awake you will know that they were dreams. In hypnosis, in yoga tandra, you can create visions, and when you will be out of it you will not be able to say that they were dreams. You will say that they were more real than the life around you. That is one of the basic differences.
You can create any illusion. So if a Christian falls into hypnosis, he will see Christ. If a Hindu falls, he will see Krishna playing on his flute. It is beautiful! And the quality of hypnosis is that you will believe that this is real. That is the danger, and no one can convince you that this is unreal. The feeling is such that you KNOW this is real. You can say that the whole life is unreal, MAYA, illusion, but you cannot say that whatsoever you have seen in hypnosis, in yoga tandra, is unreal. It is so alive, so colorful, so attractive and magnetizing.
That is why if someone says something to you while you are hypnotized, you will believe him absolutely. There can be no doubt; you cannot doubt him. You may have seen some hypnotic sessions. Whatsoever the hypnotist says, the hypnotized person believes and starts acting out. If he says to a man, "You are a woman. Now walk on the stage," the man will walk like a woman. He cannot walk like a man because hypnosis is deep trust; it is faith. There is no conscious mind to think, no reasoning mind to argue. You are simply the heart, you simply believe. There is no way not to believe, you cannot question. The questioning mind is asleep -- that is the difference.
In your ordinary sleep, the questioning mind is present, it is not asleep. In hypnosis your questioning mind is asleep, and you are not asleep. That is why you can hear the hypnotist say anything to you and you will follow his instructions. In ordinary sleep you cannot hear, but your reasoning is not asleep. So if something happens which can be fatal to you, your sleep will be broken by your reason.
A mother is sleeping with her child. She may not hear anything else, but if the child gives even a very small sound, a small signal, she will be awake. If a child feels a little uneasy, she will be awake. The reasoning mind is alert. You are asleep, but your reasoning mind is alert. So even sometimes in dreams, you can feel that they are dreams. Of course, the moment you feel this your dream will be broken. You can feel that it is absurd, but the moment you feel it the dream will be broken. Your mind is alert, a part is constantly watching.
But in hypnosis, or in yoga tandra, the watcher is asleep. That is the problem with all those who want to use sound to go into soundlessness or soundfulness, to go beyond. They must be aware that the mantra should not become an auto-hypnotic technique. It must not create auto-hypnosis.
So what can you do? You can do only one thing: while you are using your mantra, while you are intoning your mantra, do not simply intone it. At the same time be alert and listen to it also. Intone it and listen to it both. Otherwise, if you are not listening consciously, it will become your lullaby and you will fall into deep sleep. That sleep will be very good -- you will feel refreshed after it, alive; you will feel a certain well-being -- but this is not the point.
Any sound will do, but if you love a certain sound it will be better, because if you love a certain sound then the sound is not just sound. When you intone the sound, then you are also intoning a hidden feeling with it, and by and by the sound will be dropped and only feeling will remain.
The sound has to be used as a passage toward feeling. Sound is mind and feeling is heart. Mind has to use a passage toward the heart. It is difficult to enter the heart directly. Because we have been missing it so much and for so many lives, we do not know from where to move to the heart. How to enter it? The door seems closed.
We go on talking about the heart, but that talk also is just in the mind. We say that we love through the heart, but this too is cerebral; in the head. Even the talk of the heart is in the head. And we do not know where the heart is. I do not mean the physical part of it, we know about that. But then physicians will say, medical science will say, that there is no possibility of love in it. It is just a pumping system. Nothing else is in it, and all else is just myth and poetry and dreaming.
But tantra knows a deep center hidden behind your physical heart. That deep center can only be reached through the mind because we are standing in the mind. We are there in the head, and any travel inwards has to begin from there. Mind is sound. If all sound stops, you won't have any mind. In silence there is no mind -- that is why there is so much insistence on silence. Silence is a no-mind state.
Ordinarily we say, "My mind is silent." This is absurd, meaningless, because mind means absence of silence. So you cannot say that the mind is silent. If mind is, there cannot be any silence, and when silence is, there is no mind. So there is no such thing as a silent mind; there cannot be. It is just like saying that someone is alive-dead. It makes no sense. If he is dead, then he is not alive. If he is alive, then he is not dead. You cannot be alive-dead.
So there is nothing like a silent mind. When silence comes, mind is not there. Really, mind goes out and silence comes in; silence comes in and mind goes out. Both cannot be there. Mind is sound. If the sound is systematic you are sane, if the sound has gone chaotic you are insane; but in both the cases sound is there, and we exist at the point of the mind.
So how to drop from that point to the inner point of the heart? Use sound, intone sound. One sound will be helpful. If there are many sounds in the mind, it is difficult to leave them. If there is only one sound, it can be left easily. So first many sounds are to be sacrificed for one sound. That is the use of concentration.
Intone one sound. Go on intoning it, first audibly so that you can hear it, and then by and by, slowly, inaudibly. No one else can hear it then, but you can hear it inside. Make it more quiet, make it less and less audible, and then suddenly drop it. There will be silence, an explosion of silence -- but feeling will be there. Now there will be no thought, but feeling will be there.
That is why it is good to use a sound, a name, a mantra, for which you have some feeling. If a Hindu uses "Ram," he has some feeling for it. It is not simply a word for him, it is not only in his head. The vibrations reach to his heart also. He may not be aware, but it is deep-rooted in his bones, in his very blood. There has been a long tradition, a long conditioning, for many lives. If you have been attached to one sound continuously, it is very deep-rooted. Use it. It can be used.
A Christian can use "Ram," but it will remain in the mind, it will not go deep. It is better that he uses "Jesus" or "Maria" or something else. It is very easy to be influenced by a new idea, but it is difficult to use it. You do not have any feeling for it. Even if you are convinced in the mind that this will be better, this conviction is on the surface.
One of my friends was living in Germany. He was there for thirty years and he completely forgot his mother tongue -- he was a Maharashtrian and his mother tongue was Marathi. But he had forgotten it, for thirty years he was using German. German became just like his mother tongue. I say just like because no other tongue can become your mother tongue. There is no possibility because the mother tongue remains deep down inside of you. He consciously forgot it, and he was not able to speak or understand it.
Then he fell ill, and he was so ill that his whole family had to go there to see him. He was unconscious, but sometimes consciousness would come. Whenever he would become conscious he would speak German and whenever he would become unconscious he would mutter in Marathi. Consciously he couldn't understand anything of Marathi; unconsciously he couldn't understand anything of German.
Deep in the unconscious Marathi remained; it was the mother tongue. And you cannot replace the mother tongue. You can put other things over and above it, you can overimpose other things, but you cannot replace it. Deep down, it will remain.
So if you have a feeling for a certain sound, it is better to use it. Do not use an intellectual sound, it will be of no help because the sound has to be used to make a passage from the mind to the heart. So use some sound for which you have a deep love, a certain feeling.
If a Mohammedan uses "Ram," it is very difficult, the word means nothing to him. That is why the two oldest religions never believe in conversion -- Hinduism and Judaism. They are the two oldest religions, the two original religions, all other religions are just offshoots of these two. Christianity and Islam are offshoots of the Jewish tradition; Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism are offshoots of Hinduism. These two original religions never believed in conversion, and the reason was this: that you can convert a man intellectually, but you cannot convert a man from his heart. You can convert a Hindu into a Christian, you can convert a Christian into a Hindu, but the conversion will remain of the mind.
Deep down a converted Hindu remains a Hindu. He may go to a church and he may pray to Mary or to Jesus, but his prayer remains of the head. You cannot change the unconscious. And if you hypnotize him, you will find he is a Hindu. If you hypnotize him and let him reveal his unconscious, you will find he is a Hindu.
Hindus and Jews never believed in conversion because of this basic fact. You cannot change a man's religion because you cannot change his heart and unconscious feelings. And if you try, then you disturb him, because you give him something which will remain on the surface and you divide him. Then he becomes a split personality. Deep down he is a Hindu; on the surface he is a Christian. He will use Christian sounds, mantras, which will not go deep, and he cannot use Hindu sounds which can go deep. You have disturbed his life.
So find a certain sound for which you have some feeling. Even your own name may be helpful. If you do not have any feeling for anything else, then your own name will be helpful. There are many cases on record... One very famous mystic, Bukkh, used his own name, because he said, "I do not believe in any God. I do not know about him, I do not know what his name is. There are names I have heard, but there is no proof that they are his name. And I am in search of myself, so why not use my own name?" So he would use his own name, and just by using his own name he would drop down into silence.
If you do not have any love for anything else, use your own name. But it is very difficult because you are so condemning toward yourself that you do not have any feeling, you do not have any respect toward yourself. Others may be respectful toward you, but you are not respectful toward yourself.
So the first thing is to find any sound that will be helpful: for example, your lover's name, your beloved's name. If you love a flower, then "rose" will do, anything -- any sound that you feel good using, uttering, listening to, from which you feel a certain well -- being coming to you. If you cannot find one, then there are some suggestions from traditional sources. "Aum" can be used, "Amen" can be used, "Maria" can be used, "Ram" can be used, or Buddha's name, or Mahavir's name, or any name that you have a love for. But a feeling must be there. That is why the Master's name can be helpful, if you have the feeling. But feeling is essential!
INTONE A SOUND AUDIBLY, THEN LESS AND LESS AUDIBLY AS FEELING DEEPENS INTO THIS SILENT HARMONY. And go on reducing the sound. Intone it more slowly, more inaudibly so that even you have to make an effort to hear it inside. Go on dropping, go on dropping, and you will feel the change. The more sound will drop, the more you will be filled with feeling. When sound disappears, only feeling remains. This feeling cannot be named. It is a love, a deep love, but not toward anyone -- this is the difference.
When you use a sound or a word, the love is attached to a label. You say, "Ram, Ram, Ram..." You have a deep feeling for this word, but the feeling is addressed to "Ram," narrowed down to "Ram." When you go on reducing the "Ram," a moment will come when "Ram" disappears, the sound disappears. Now only the feeling remains, the feeling of love -- not toward Ram, it is now not addressed. There is simply a feeling of love -- not toward anyone, not even toward; there is simply a feeling of love, as if you are in an ocean of love.
When it is not addressed, then it is of the heart. When it is addressed, it is of the head. Love toward someone is through the head; simple love is of the heart. And when love is simple, unaddressed, it becomes prayer. If it is addressed, it is not yet prayer; you are just on the way. That is why I say if you are a Christian you cannot start as a Hindu, you should start as a Christian. If you are a Mohammedan you cannot start as a Christian, you should start as a Mohammedan. But the deeper you go, the less you will be a Mohammedan or a Christian or a Hindu.
Only the start will be Hindu, Mohammedan or Christian. The more you will proceed toward the heart, as the sound will be less and less and feeling more and more, you will be less a Hindu, less a Mohammedan. When the sound disappears, you will simply be a human being -- not Hindu, not Mohammedan, not Christian.
It is like the difference between 'sects' and 'religion'. Religion is one, sects are many. Sects help you to begin. If you think that they are the end, then you are finished. They are just the beginning. You have to leave them and go beyond, because the beginning is not the end. In the end there is religion; in the beginning there is just a sect. Use the sect to go toward religion; use the limited to go toward the unlimited; use the finite to go toward the infinite.
Any sound will do. Find your own sound. And when you intone it, you will feel whether you have a loving relationship with it, because the heart will start vibrating. Your whole body will begin to be more sensitive. You will feel as if you are falling into something warm, just like your beloved's lap; something warm begins enveloping you. And this is a physical feeling also, not simply a mental feeling. If you intone a sound which you love, you will feel a certain warmth around you, inside you. Then the world is not a cold world, it is warm.
If you have gone to a Hindu temple, then you must have heard of the GARBHAGRIHA -- the womb house. The innermost center of the temple is known as GARBHA -- the womb. You might not have observed why it is called the womb. If you intone the sound of the temple -- and every temple has its own sound, its own mantra, its own ISHTA DEVATA, its own deity, and the related mantra of the deity -- if you intone that sound, the same warmth as there is in the womb of the mother is created. That is why the garbha, the womb of the temple, is made just similar to the womb of the mother: round-shaped, almost closed, with only one opening.
When Christians came for the first time to India and discovered Hindu temples, they felt that these temples were really unhygienic -- not ventilated at all, with only one little door. But the womb is with only one door and not ventilated at all. That is why the temple was made only with one door, just like a womb, and if you intone that sound, that womb becomes alive. And also it is called the garbha because you can get a new birth there, you can become a new man.
If you intone a sound that you love, that you have feeling for, you will create a sound-womb around you. So it is good not to practice this method under the open sky. You are very weak, you cannot fill the whole sky with your sound. It is better to choose a small room, and if the room is such that it vibrates your sound it is good, it will help you. And if you can choose the same place every day, it will be very good. It becomes charged. If the same sound is repeated every day, every atom, the very space becomes a milieu.
That is why followers of other religions are not allowed in the temples. In Mecca, no one can enter if he is not a Mohammedan, and this is good. Nothing is wrong in it, it is because Mecca belongs to a particular science. One who is not a Mohammedan goes there with a sound which will be disturbing to the whole milieu. If a Mohammedan is not allowed into a Hindu temple, there is no insult in it. And all those social reformers who do not know anything about temples, religion and esoteric science, they go on giving slogans, nonsense slogans, and they are disturbing everything.
A Hindu temple is for Hindus because a Hindu temple is a particular place -- a created place. For millennia they have been working on it to make it alive, and anyone can disturb it. That disturbance is very dangerous. A temple is not a public place. It is for a particular purpose and for particular people; it is not for visitors. That is why visitors were not allowed in the old days. Now they are allowed because we do not know what we are doing. A visitor should not be allowed. It is not a place to see, to go to for sightseeing. It is a created space filled with particular vibrations.
If it is a Ram temple and you were born in a family where Ram's name has been sacred, loved, then when you enter an alive space which is always filled with Ram's name, even if you do not want to chant, even if you are not using the Ram mantra, you will start chanting. The space all around will press you. Those vibrations all around will hit you, and you will start chanting from deep down. So use a place -- a temple is good.
These methods are temple methods. A temple is good, or a mosque or a church. Your own house is not good for these methods, because with so many sounds you have a chaotic space around you and you are not so strong that just by your sound you can change the space. So it is better to go to a certain place which belongs to a certain sound, and then use it. And it is good to go to the same place every day.
By and by you will become powerful. By and by you will drop down from the mind to the heart. Then you can do this method anywhere and the whole cosmos becomes your temple. Then there is no problem. But in the beginning it is good to choose the place, and if you can even choose the time, exactly the same time every day, it is good because then the temple waits for you. Right at that exact time, the temple waits for you. It is more receptive; it is happy that you have come. And I mean physically; this is not a symbolic thing, but a physical one.
It is just as if you take your meals every day at a particular time. At that particular time your whole body feels the hunger. The body has its own inner clock, it feels the hunger exactly at that time. If you go to sleep every day at a particular time, your whole body gets ready at that particular period. If you change every day your sleeping time and your food time, you are disturbing your body.
Now they say your age will be affected by it. If you go on daily changing your body routine, then if you were going to be alive for eighty years you will be alive only for seventy years. Ten years will be lost. And if you go regularly with the body clock, then if you were going to live for eighty years you will live for ninety very easily. Ten years can be added.
Exactly like this, everything all around you has its own clock, and the world moves in cosmic time. If you enter the temple at exactly the same time every day, the temple is ready for you and you are ready for the temple. These two readinesses meet, and the results are magnified a thousandfold.
Or you can create a small corner in your house. But then do not use that corner for any other purpose, because every purpose has its own vibrations. If you use that corner for a business purpose or you play cards there, that space becomes confused. And now these confusions can even be recorded on mechanical devices; it can be known if the space is confused.
If you can create a corner in your house, a small temple, it is very good. If you can afford a small temple, that is the first thing to be tried. But do not use it for any other purpose. Let it be absolutely private for you, and results will come very soon then.
The same! You are hearing an instrument -- a sitar, or anything. Many notes are there. Be alert and listen to the central core, the backbone of it around which all the notes are flowing, the deepest current which holds all the notes together -- that which is central, just like your backbone. The whole body is held by the backbone. Listening to the music, be alert, penetrate the music, and find the backbone of it -- the central thing which goes on flowing, holding everything together. Notes come and go and disappear, but the central core flows on. Become aware of it.
Basically, originally, music was used for meditation; particularly Indian music developed as a method of meditation, Indian dancing developed as a method of meditation. For the doer it was a deep meditation, and for the audience also it was a deep meditation. A dancer or a musician can be a technician. If there is no meditation in it, he is a technician. He can be a great technician, but then the soul is not there, only the body. The soul comes only when the musician is a deep meditator.
And music is just the outward thing. While playing on his sitar, one is not only playing on his sitar, he is also playing on his alertness inside. The sitar goes on outwardly and his intense awareness moves inside. The music flows outwardly, but he is alert, constantly aware of the innermost core of it. And that gives samadhi. That becomes ecstasy. That becomes the highest peak.
It is said that when the musician has really become the musician, he will break his instrument -- because it is of no use. If he still needs his instrument, he is not a real musician yet. He is just learning. If you can play with music, with meditation, sooner or later the inner music will become more important, and the outer will become not only less important: ultimately it will become a disturbance. If your consciousness moves inside and can find the inner music, then the outer music will be a disturbance. You will throw the sitar, you will throw the instrument away from you, because now you have found the inner instrument. But it cannot be found without the outer; with the outer you can become alert more easily. Once you have become alert, leave the outer and move inwards. And for the listener also, the same!
But what are you doing when you listen to music? You are not meditating. On the contrary, you are using music as something like alcohol. You are using it to be relaxed, you are using it for self-forgetfulness. This is the misfortune, the misery: the techniques which were developed for awareness are being used for sleep. And this is how man goes on doing mischief with himself.
If something is given to you which can make you awake, you will use it to make yourself more sleepy. That is why for millennia teachings were kept secret -- because it was thought to be useless to give techniques to a sleepy man. He will use them for sleep; he cannot do otherwise. So techniques were given only to particular disciples who were ready to shake their sleep, who were ready to be shattered out of their sleepiness.
Ouspensky dedicates one book to George Gurdjieff as "the man who disturbed my sleep." Such people ARE disturbers. Persons like Gurdjieff or Buddha or Jesus, they are disturbers. That is why we take revenge upon them. Whosoever disturbs our sleep, we will crucify him. He doesn't look good to us. We may have been dreaming beautiful dreams and he comes and disturbs our sleep. We want to kill him. The dream was so beautiful.
The dream may be beautiful and I may not be beautiful, but one thing is certain: it is a dream, and futile, useless! And if it is beautiful, then it is more dangerous because it can attract you more, it can become a drug.
We have been using music as a drug, dancing as a drug. And if you want to use music and dancing as drugs, then they will become not only drugs for your sleep, they will become drugs for sexuality also. So remember this point: sexuality and sleep go together. The more sleepy the person, the more sexual; the more awake, the less sexual. Sex is basically rooted in sleep. When you awake you will be more loving, the whole energy of sex will have been transformed to love.
This sutra says: WHILE LISTENING TO STRINGED INSTRUMENTS, HEAR THEIR COMPOSITE CENTRAL SOUND -- their complete central sound -- THUS OMNIPRESENCE. And then you will know what is to be known, or what is worth knowing. You will become omnipresent With the music, finding the composite central core, you will become awake, and with that awakening you will be everywhere.
Right now, you are somewhere -- a point which we call the ego. If you can become awake, this point will disappear. You will not be anywhere then, you will be EVERYWHERE -- as if you have become the all. You will have become the ocean, you will have become the infinite.
The finiteness is with the mind.
The infiniteness enters with meditation.
Mind can be focused anywhere in the body. Ordinarily, we have focused it in the head, but it can be focused anywhere. And with a change of the focus, your qualities change. For example, in many Eastern countries -- Japan, China, Korea -- traditionally it has been taught that mind is in the belly, not in the head. And because of this, those who thought that mind is in the belly had different qualities of mind. You cannot have those qualities because you think mind is in the head.
Really, the mind is nowhere. The brain is in the head; the mind is not there. "Mind" means your focusing. You can focus it anywhere, and once focused it is very difficult to remove it from that point.
For example, now psychologists and workers who are doing in depth human research say that when you are making love your mind must move from the head to the genital area; otherwise your sex will be a frustration. If it remains in the head, you cannot go deep into sex. No orgasm will result, the experience will not be orgasmic. It will not give you a peak. You may produce children, but you will not have known what is the highest peak of love.
You have not known that about which tantra talks or Khajuraho depicts, you cannot. Have you seen Khajuraho? Or if you have not seen Khajuraho, you might have seen pictures of the Khajuraho temple. Then look at the faces, at couples making love. Look at the faces, the faces look divine. They are in the act of sex, but the faces are as ecstatic as any buddha's face. What is happening to them? This sex is not cerebral. They are not making love through the head; they are not thinking about it. They have dropped down from the head. Their focusing has changed.
Because of this dropping from the head, the consciousness has moved to the genital area. The mind is no more. The mind has become no-mind. Their faces have the same ecstasy as a buddha has. This sex has become a meditation. Why? Because the focus has changed. If once you can change the focus of your mind, if you can remove it from the head, the head is relaxed, the face is relaxed. Then all tensions have dissolved. You are not there, the ego is not there.
That is why the more mind becomes intellectual, rational, the less capable it becomes of love, because love needs a different focusing. In love you need a focusing near the heart; in sex you need a focusing near the genital center. If you are doing mathematics, the head is okay. But love is not mathematics and sex is absolutely not. And if the mathematics continues in the head and you are making love, you are simply wasting energy. Then this whole effort will be disgusting.
But mind can be changed. Tantra says there are seven centers, and mind can be changed to any center. Each center has a different functioning. If you concentrate on a particular center, you become a different man.
In Japan there has been a military group, which is just like the KSHATRIYAS in India, known as the SAMURAI. They are trained to be soldiers, and their first training is to bring the mind down to just two inches below the navel. In Japan this center is called the HARA. The samurai are trained to bring the mind to the hara. Unless a soldier can bring his mind's focusing to the hara, he is not allowed to go to fight, and this is right. The samurai are the greatest fighters the world has ever known, the greatest warriors; in the world there is no comparison with a samurai. He is a different man, a different being, because his focusing is different.
They say that when you are fighting there is no time. Mind needs time to function; it calculates. If you are attacked and your mind thinks about how to protect, you have missed the point already, you have lost. There is no time. You must function timelessly and mind cannot function timelessly, mind needs time. Howsoever short, mind needs time.
Below the navel there is a center, the hara, which functions timelessly. If the focusing is at the hara and the fighter is fighting, then this fight is intuitive, not intellectual. Before you attack him, he knows. It is a subtle feeling in the hara, not in the head. It is not an inference, it is a psychic telepathy. Before you attack him, before you think of attacking him, the thought has reached him. His hara is hit and he is ready to protect himself. Even before you have attacked, he is in defense, he has protected himself.
Sometimes, if two persons are fighting and both are samurais, defeating the other is a problem. Neither can defeat the other; it is a problem. No one can be declared the winner. In a way it is impossible because you cannot attack the man -- before you attack, he knows.
There was one Indian mathematician... The whole world was wonderstruck because he would not calculate. Ramanujam was his name. You would give him the problem and he would give you the answer immediately. One of England's best mathematicians, Hardy, visited Ramanujam. Hardy was one of the best mathematicians ever born, and he had to work with a particular problem for six hours. But Ramanujam was given the same problem and he answered immediately. There was no possibility for the mind to function in this way, as the mind needs time.
Ramanujam was asked again and again, "How do you do it?" He would say, "I don't know. You give me the problem, and the answer comes to me. It comes from somewhere below. It is not from my head." It was coming from the hara. He was not aware, he was not trained, but this is my feeling: he must have been a Japanese in his previous birth because in India we have not worked much upon the hara.
Tantra says, focus your mind on different centers and the results will be different. This technique is concerned with focusing on the tongue, in the middle of the tongue. WITH MOUTH SLIGHTLY OPEN -- as if you are going to speak. Not closed, but slightly open as if you are going to speak; not like when you are speaking, but like when you are just going to speak.
Then keep the mind in the middle of the tongue. You will have a very strange feeling, because the tongue has a center just in the middle which controls your thoughts. If you suddenly become aware and you focus on that, your thoughts will stop. Focus as if your whole mind has come to the tongue -- just in the middle. Let the mouth be slightly open as if you were going to speak, and then focus the mind as if it is not in the head. Feel it as if it is in the tongue, just in the middle.
The tongue has the center of speech, and thought is speech. What are you doing when you are thinking? Talking within. Can you think anything without talking within? You are alone; you are not talking to anyone, you are thinking. What are you doing while you are thinking? Talking within, talking to yourself. Your tongue is involved. Next time, while you are thinking, be aware: feel your tongue. It is vibrating as if you are talking to someone else. Then feel it again, and you can feel that the vibrations are centered in the middle. They arise from the middle and then they spread all over the tongue.
Thinking is talking within. If you can bring your total consciousness, your mind, to the center of the tongue, thinking stops. So those who have been practicing silence, they are simply practicing not talking. If you stop talking outwardly, then you will become very deeply aware of talking inside. And if you remain completely silent for one month or two months or one year, not talking, you will feel your tongue vibrating violently. You are not feeling it because you go on talking and the vibrations are released. But even now, if you stop and become conscious while thinking, you will feel your tongue vibrating a little. Stop your tongue completely and then try to think -- you cannot think. Stop your tongue completely as if it is frozen; do not allow it to move. You cannot think then.
The center is just in the middle, so bring your mind there. WITH MOUTH SLIGHTLY OPEN, KEEP MIND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TONGUE. OR, AS BREATH COMES SILENTLY IN, FEEL THE SOUND "HH."
This is the second technique. It is just similar: OR, AS BREATH COMES SILENTLY IN, FEEL THE SOUND "HH."
With the first technique your thinking will stop, you will feel a solidity within -- as if you have become solid. When thoughts are not there you become immovable; thoughts are the inner movement. And when thoughts are not there and you have become immovable, you have become part of the eternal, which only appears to move but which is immovable, which remains unmoved.
In thoughtlessness you become part of the eternal, the unmoved. With thought you are part of the movement, because nature is movement. The world is movement, that is why we have called it the SANSAR, the wheel -- it is moving and moving and moving. The world is movement and the hidden, the ultimate, is unmoved, unmoving, immovable.
It is just like a wheel that is moving, but a wheel is moving on something which never moves. A wheel can move only because in the center there is something which never moves, which remains unmoved. The world moves and the transcendental remains unmoved. If your thoughts stop, suddenly you drop from this world to the other. With the movement stopped inside, you become part of the eternal -- that which never changes.
OR, AS BREATH COMES SILENTLY IN, FEEL THE SOUND "HH." Open your mouth slightly, as if you are going to speak. Then inhale, and be aware of the sound which is created by inhaling. It is just "HH" -- whether you are exhaling or inhaling. You are not to make the sound, you are just to feel the incoming breath on your tongue. It is very silent. You will feel "HH." It will be very silent, very slightly audible. You have to be very alert to be aware of it. But do not try to create it. If you create it, you have missed the point. Your created sound will be of no help, it is the natural sound that happens when you inhale or exhale.
But the technique says while inhaling, not exhaling -- because while exhaling you will go out, and with the sound YOU will go out, while the effort is to go in. So while inhaling, hear the sound "HH." Go on inhaling and go on feeling the sound "HH." Sooner or later you will feel that the sound is not being created only at the tongue, it is being created in the throat also. But then it is very, very inaudible. With very deep alertness you can become aware of it.
Start from the tongue, then by and by be alert; go on feeling it. You will hear it in the throat, then you will start hearing it in the heart. And when it reaches the heart, you have gone beyond mind. All these techniques are just to give you a bridge from where you can move from thought to no-thought, from mind to no-mind, from the surface to the center.
Just the "U" remains. This is a difficult technique, but for some it may be suitable, particularly for those who work with sound: musicians, poets, those who have a very sensitive ear, for them this technique can be helpful. For others, those who have no sensitive ear, this is very difficult because it is very delicate.
You have to intone Aum, and you have to feel in this Aum three sounds separately: A-U-M. Intone Aum, and in the sound you have to feel three sounds -- A-U-M. They are there, infused together. A very delicate ear can be aware, can hear A-U-M separately while intoning. They are separate -- very close, but separate. If you cannot hear them separately, then this technique cannot be done. Your ears will have to be trained for it.
In Japan, particularly in Zen, they train the ears first. They have a method of training the ears. The wind is blowing outside -- it has a sound. The master will say, "Concentrate on it. Feel all the nuances, the changes: when the sound is angry, when the sound is furious, when the sound is compassionate, when the sound is loving, when the sound is strong, when the sound is delicate. Feel the nuances of the sound. The wind is blowing through the trees -- feel it. The river is running -- feel the nuances."
For months together the seeker, the meditator, will be sitting by the side of the bank of the river, listening to it. It has different sounds. Everything is changing. In the rain it will be flooded; it will be very much alive, overflowing. The sounds will be different. In the summer it will be reduced to nothingness, sounds will cease. But there will be inaudible sounds if one is listening, if you listen. All the year round the river will be changing, and one has to be aware.
In Hermann Hesse's book SIDDHARTHA, Siddhartha lives with a boatman. And there is no one, just the river, the boatman and Siddhartha. And the boatman is a very silent man. He has lived all his life with the river. He has become silent, he rarely speaks. Whenever Siddhartha feels lonely, he tells Siddhartha to go to the river, to listen to the river. It is better than listening to human words.
And then by and by, Siddhartha is attuned to the river. Then he begins to feel its moods -- the river changes moods. Sometimes it is friendly and sometimes it is not, and sometimes it is singing and sometimes it is weeping and crying, and sometimes there is laughter and sometimes there is sadness. And then he begins to feel the slight, delicate differences. His ear becomes attuned.
So in the beginning you may feel it to be difficult, but try. Intone Aum, go on intoning it, feeling A-U-M. Three sounds are combined together in it: Aum is a synthesis of three sounds. Once you start feeling them differently, then drop "A" and "M". Then you cannot say Aum: "A" will be dropped, "M" will be dropped. Then "U" will remain. Why? What will happen? The real thing is not the mantra. It is not A-U-M or the dropping. The real thing is your sensitivity.
First you become sensitive of three sounds, which is very difficult. And when you become so sensitive that you can drop the "A" and "M" and only the middle sound remains, in this effort you will lose your mind. You will be so much engrossed in it, so deeply attentive to it, so sensitive to it, that you will forget to think. And if you think, you cannot do this.
This is just an indirect way to bring you out of your head. So many ways have been tried, and they look very simple. You wonder, "What can happen? Nothing will happen by such simple methods." But miracles happen, because it is just indirect. Your mind is being focused on something very subtle. If you focus, you cannot go on thinking; mind will drop. Suddenly one day you will become aware, and you will wonder what has happened.
In Zen they use koans. One of the famous koans they tell to the beginner is, "Go and try to hear the sound of one hand. You can create a sound with two hands. If one hand can create a sound, hear it."
One small boy was serving a Zen master. He would see many people coming. They would come to the master, put their head at his feet, and then they would ask the master to tell them something to meditate on. He would give them a koan. The boy was just doing some work for the master, he was serving him. He was just nine or ten years of age.
Seeing every day many people coming and going, one day he also came very seriously, put his head at the master's feet, and then asked him, "Give me some koan, some object for meditation." The master laughed, but the boy was very serious, so the master said, "Okay! Try to hear the sound of one hand. And when you have heard it, then come to me and tell me."
The boy tried and tried. He couldn't sleep the whole night. In the morning he came and he said, "I have heard. It is the sound of the wind blowing through the trees." The master said, "But where is the hand involved in it? Go again and try." So he would come every day. He would find some sound and then he would come, and the master would say, "This is also not it. Go on trying, go on trying!"
Then one day the boy didn't come. The master waited and waited, and then he told his other disciples to go and find out what had happened -- it seemed the boy had heard. So they went around. He was sitting under a tree, absorbed -- just a newborn buddha. They came back and they said, "But we are afraid to disturb the boy. He is looking just like a newborn buddha. It seems he has heard the sound." So the master came, put his head at the boy's feet and asked him, "Have you heard? It seems you have heard." The boy said, "Yes, but it is soundlessness."
How did this boy develop? His sensitivity developed. He tried every sound, he listened attentively. Attention developed. He would not sleep. The whole night he would listen for what is the sound of one hand. He was not so intellectual as you are, so he never thought that there cannot be any sound of one hand. If the koan is given to you, you are not going to try. You will say, "What nonsense! There cannot be any sound with one hand."
But the boy tried. The master had said there must be something in it, so he tried. He was a simple boy, so whenever he would hear something, whenever he would feel this was something new, he would come again. But by this process his sensitivity developed. He became attentive, alert, aware. He became one-pointed. He was in search, and the mind dropped because the master said, "If you go on thinking you may miss. Sometimes there is the sound which is of one hand. Be so alert that you do not miss it."
He tried and tried. There is no sound of one hand, but that was just an indirect method to create sensitivity, awareness. And one day, suddenly, everything disappeared. He was so attentive that only attention was there, so sensitive that only sensitivity was there, so aware -- not aware of something, but simply aware! And then he said, "I have heard it, but it is soundlessness. It is soundlessness!" But you have to be trained to be attentive, to be alert.
This is just a method to make you very delicately aware of the subtle nuances of sound. Just doing this, you will forget Aum. Not only will "A" drop, not only will "M" drop, but one day suddenly you will also drop, and there will be soundlessness, and you will be a newborn buddha sitting under a tree.
Tantra is not a philosophy. Rather, it is a science with one difference: science is objective, tantra is subjective. But still, it is a science and not a philosophy. Philosophy thinks about the truth, the unknown, the ultimate; science tries to discover what is. Science enters the immediate; philosophy thinks of the ultimate. Philosophy is always looking toward the sky; science is more down to earth.
Tantra is not concerned with the ultimate. It is concerned with the immediate, the here and now. Tantra says, the ultimate is hidden in the immediate, so you need not worry about the ultimate. By worrying about the ultimate you will miss the immediate, and the ultimate is hidden in the immediate. So by thinking about the ultimate you will miss both. If the immediate should be missed, because of it you will miss the ultimate also. So philosophy is just smoke. The approach of tantra is scientific, but the OBJECT is different from that of so-called science.
Science tries to understand the object, the objective world, the reality that is before your eyes. Tantra is the science of the reality that is behind your eyes, the subjectivity, but the approach is scientific. Tantra doesn't believe in thinking, it believes in experimenting, in experiencing. And unless you can experience, everything is just a wastage of energy.
I am reminded of one incident. Mulla Nasruddin was crossing a street. Just in front of a church he was knocked down by a hit-and-run driver. He was an old man, and a crowd gathered. Someone was saying that "That man cannot survive." The priest of the church ran out. He came near and he found out that the old man was just going to die, so he prepared to administer the last rites. He came near and asked the dying Mulla, "Do you believe in God the Father? Do you believe in God the Son? Do you believe in God the Holy Ghost?" Mulla opened his eyes and said, "My God! I am dying and he is asking me puzzles!"
All philosophy is like this: it is asking puzzles while you are dying. Every moment you are dying, every moment everyone is on his deathbed - because death can occur at any moment. But philosophy goes on asking and answering puzzles. Tantra says, it is good for children to philosophize but those who are wise will not waste their time in philosophy. They should try to know - not to think, because through thinking there is no knowledge. Through thinking you go on webbing words, creating patterns of words. It leads nowhere, you remain the same -- no transformation, no new insights. The old man just goes on gathering dust.
Knowing is a different phenomenon. It does not mean "thinking about," it means going deep into the existence itself in order to know, moving into the existence. Remember this, that tantra is not a philosophy. It is science - a subjective science. The approach is scientific and non-philosophic. It is very down to earth, concerned with the immediate. The immediate is to be used as a door to the ultimate, the ultimate happens if you enter the immediate. It is there, and there is no other way to reach to it.
Philosophy is not a way in the eyes of tantra. It is a false way! It only appears that this is a way. It is a door which is not; it simply appears to be a door. It is a false door. The moment you try to enter it you come to know that you cannot enter, it is just a painted door, there is no door in reality. Philosophy is a painted door. If you sit by its side and go on thinking and thinking, it is good. If you try to enter it, it is a wall.
So every philosophy is good for philosophizing. For experiencing, every philosophy is impotent. That is why there is so much insistence on technique in tantra - SO MUCH insistence on technique, because a science can do nothing but give technology, whether of the outside world or of the inside. The very word `tantra' means technique. The very word `tantra' MEANS technique! That is why, in this small and yet one of the greatest and deepest books, only techniques are given, no philosophy, just one hundred and twelve techniques to reach the ultimate through the immediate.
SILENTLY INTONE A WORD ENDING IN "AH " Any word that ends in "AH" -- intone it silently. Emphasis should be given to the ending "AH." Why? Because the moment this sound "AH" is intoned, your breath goes out. You may not have observed it, but now you can observe: whenever your breath goes out you are more silent, and whenever your breath comes in you are more tense - because the outgoing breath is death and the incoming breath is life. Tension is part of life, not of death. Relaxation is part of death; death means total relaxation. Life cannot be totally relaxed; it is impossible.
Life means tension, effort. Only death is relaxed. So whenever a person becomes absolutely relaxed, he is both - alive outwardly and dead within. You can see in the face of a buddha both life and death simultaneously. That is why there is so much silence and calm, they are part of death. Life is not relaxation. You relax in the night when you are asleep. That is why the old traditions say that death and sleep are similar. Sleep is a temporary death and death is permanent sleep. That is why night relaxes you, it is the outgoing breath. The morning is the incoming breath.
The day makes you tense and the night relaxes you. Light makes you tense, darkness relaxes you. That is why you cannot sleep when there is light, it is difficult to relax because light is similar to life: it is anti-death. Darkness is similar to death: it is pro-death.
So darkness has deep relaxation in it, and those who are afraid of darkness cannot relax... impossible, because every relaxation is dark. And darkness surrounds your life on both the sides. Before you are born you are in darkness; when life ceases you are again in darkness. Darkness is infinite, and this light and this life is just a moment in it, just a wave arising and then falling back. If you can remember the darkness that surrounds both the ends, you will be relaxed here and now.
Life, death - they both are two sides of existence. The incoming breath is life, the outgoing breath is death. So it is not that you die someday, you are dying with every breath. That is why the Hindus have been counting life in breaths, they do not count life in years. Tantra, yoga, all the old Indian systems, they count life in breaths: how many breaths you are going to live. So they say if you breathe very fast, with too much breathing in a short time, you will die very soon. If you breathe very slowly and your breaths are less in an interval, you will live very long. And this is so.
If you go and observe animals, those animals whose breathing is very slow live long. Take the elephant: the elephant lives long; the breath is very slow. Then there is the dog: the dog dies soon; the breath is very fast. Whenever you find an animal in which the breath is fast, any animal, the animal will not have a long life. A long life is always with slow breath.
Tantra and yoga and other Indian systems count your life in breaths. Really, with every breath you are born and with every breath you are dying. This mantra, this technique, uses the outgoing breath as the method, the medium, the vehicle, to go deep into silence. It is a death method. INTONE SILENTLY A WORD ENDING IN "AH." The breath has gone -- that is why a word ending in "AH."
This AH is meaningful because when you say AH it completely empties you. The whole breath has moved out; nothing remains within. You are totally empty - empty and dead. For a single moment, for a very small interval, life has moved out of you. You are dead - empty. This emptiness, if realized, if you can become aware of it, will change you completely. You will be a different man.
Then you will know well that this life is not your life and this death is also not your death. Then you will know something which is beyond the incoming and outgoing breath - the witnessing soul. And this witnessing can happen easily when you are empty of breath, because life has subsided and with it all tensions have subsided. So try it, it is a very beautiful method. But the ordinary process, the ordinary habit, is to emphasize the incoming breath, never the outgoing breath.
We always take the breath in. We ALWAYS take it in, but we never throw it out. We take it in and THE BODY throws it out. Observe your breathing and you will know. We take it in. We never exhale, we only inhale. The exhaling is done by the body because we are afraid of death, that is the reason. If it was in our power we would not exhale at all, we would inhale and then control it within. No one emphasizes exhaling -- inhaling is emphasized. Because we HAVE to do exhaling after inhaling, that is why we go on "suffering" it. We tolerate it because we cannot inhale without exhaling.
So exhaling is accepted as a necessary evil, but basically we are not interested in exhaling. And this is not only about breath, this is our whole attitude toward life. We cling to everything that comes to us; we will not leave it. This is the miserliness of the mind.
And remember, there are many implications in it. If you are suffering from constipation, this will be the basic cause: you always inhale and never exhale. The mind which never exhales but just inhales will suffer from constipation. The constipation is the other end of the same thing. He cannot exhale anything, he goes on accumulating, he is afraid. The fear is there. He can only accumulate, but anything that is accumulated becomes poisonous.
If you only inhale and do not exhale, your very breath becomes poison to you; you will die because of it. You can turn a life-giving force into poison if you behave in a miserly way, because the exhaling is absolutely necessary. It throws all the poisons out of you.
So really, death is a purifying process and life is a poisoning process. This will look paradoxical. Life is a poisoning process because to live you have to use many things - and the moment you have used them they turn into poison, they are converted into poisons. You take a breath in, you use oxygen, and then what remains becomes poison. It was life only because it was oxygen, but you have used it. So life goes on changing everything into a poison.
Now there is a great movement in the West - ecology. Man has been using everything and turning it into poison, and the very Earth is just on the verge of dying. Any day it can die because we have turned everything into poison. Death is a purifying process. When your whole body has become poisonous, death will relieve you of the body. It will renew you, it will give you a new birth; a new body will be given to you. Through death all the accumulated poisons are dissolved back into nature. You are given a new mechanism.
And this happens with every breath. The outgoing breath is similar to death -- it takes poisons out. And when it is going out, everything ebbs within. If you can throw the whole breath out, completely out so that no breath remains within, you touch a point of silence that can never be touched while the breath is in.
It is just like the ebb and tide: with every breath a tide of life comes to you; with every exhalation, everything ebbs - the tide has gone. You are just a vacant, empty shore. This is the use of this technique. SILENTLY INTONE A WORD ENDING IN "AH." Emphasize the exhaling breath. And you can use it for many changes in the mind. If you are suffering from constipation, forget intaking. Just exhale and do not inhale. Let the body do the work of inhaling; you just do the work of exhaling. You force the breath out and do not inhale. The body will inhale by itself; you need not worry about it, you are not going to die. The body will take breath in, you just throw it out and let the body take it in. Your constipation will go.
If you are suffering from heart disease, just exhale, do not inhale. Then you will not suffer from heart disease. If while just going upwards on a staircase, or anywhere, you feel tired - very much tired, suffocated, breathless - simply do this: just exhale, do not inhale. Then you can climb up any amount of steps and you will not be tired. What happens? When you go with an emphasis on exhaling, you are ready to let go, you are ready to die. You are not afraid of death; that makes you open. Otherwise you are closed -- fear closes you.
When you exhale, the whole system changes and accepts death. There is no fear, you are ready to die. And one who is ready to die can live. Really, only one who is ready to die can live. He alone becomes capable of life - because he is not afraid.
One who accepts death, welcomes it, receives it as a guest, lives with it, goes deep into life. Exhale, do not inhale, and that will change your total mind. Because of simple techniques tantra never appeals, because we think, "My mind is such a complex thing." It is not complex - just foolish. And fools are very complex. A wise man is simple. Nothing is complex in your mind, it is a very simple mechanism. If you understand, you can change it very easily.
If you have not seen anybody dying, if you have been protected from seeing death as Buddha was protected, you cannot understand anything about it.
some astrologer said that "This boy is going to be a great sannyasin. He will renounce the world." The father asked, "What is to be done to protect him from doing such a thing?" So those astrologers thought and thought, and then they concluded and they said, "Do not allow him to see death, because if he is not aware of death he will never think of renouncing life."
This is beautiful - very meaningful. That means all religion, all philosophy, all tantra and yoga, is basically death-oriented. If you are aware of death, only then does religion become meaningful. That is why no animal except man is religious, because no animal is aware of death. They die, but they are not aware. They cannot conceive or imagine that there is going to be death.
When one dog dies, other dogs never imagine that death is going to happen to them also. Always someone else dies, so how can a dog imagine that "I am going to die"? He has never seen himself dying. Someone else, some other dog dies, so how can he connect that "I am going to die"? No animal is aware of death; that is why no animal renounces. No animal can become a sannyasin. Only a very high quality of consciousness can lead you to renounce - when you become aware of death. And if even by being a man you are not aware of death, you belong to the animal kingdom; you are not yet a man. You become a man only when you encounter death
Buddha's father was afraid because
Otherwise there is no difference between you and the animal.
Everything is similar; only death makes the difference. With death encountered, you are no more animal, something has happened to you which never happens to an animal. Now you will be a different consciousness.
So Buddha's father protected him from seeing any type of death - not only man's death, but the death of animals and even of flowers. So the gardeners were instructed not to allow the child to see a dead flower, a pale flower dying on the branch, a pale leaf, a dry leaf. No, nowhere should he come to realize that something dies -- he may infer from it that "I am going to die." And you do not infer it even seeing your wife dying, your mother, your father, your child. You weep for them, but you never conceive that this is a sign that "I am going to die."
But the astrologers said, "The boy is very, very sensitive, so protect him from any type of death." And the father was over-conscientious He would not allow even an old man or an old woman to be seen, because oldness is just death heard from a distance; death is there from a distance, just coming. So Buddha's father would not allow any old man or old woman to be seen by the child. If Buddha suddenly became aware that just by stopping the breath a man could die, it would be very difficult for him. "Just because no breath is coming in, how can a man die?" he would wonder. "Life is such a big, complex process."
If you have not seen anyone dying, even you cannot conceive that just by stopping the breath a man will die. Just by stopping the breath? Such a simple thing! And how can such a complex life die?
It is the same with these methods. They look simple, but they touch the basic reality. When the breath is going out, when you are completely emptied of life, you touch death: you are just near it, and everything becomes calm and silent within you.
Use it as a mantra. Whenever you feel tired, whenever you feel tense, use any word which ends in "AH." "Allah" will do - any word that brings your total breath out so that you exhale completely and you are emptied of breath. The moment you are emptied of breath you are emptied of life also. And all your problems belong to life: no problem belongs to death. Your anxiety, your anguish, your anger, your sadness, they all belong to life.
Death is non-problematic. Death never gives any problem to anyone. And even if you think that "I am afraid of death and death creates a problem," it is not death that creates the problem but your clinging to life. Only life creates problems; death dissolves all problems. So when the breath has moved completely out, "AH," you are emptied of life. Look within at that moment when the breath is completely out. Before taking another breath in, go deep down in that interval and become aware of the inside calm, the silence. In that moment you are a buddha.
If you can catch that moment, you have known a taste of what Buddha might have known. And once known, you can detach this taste from the incoming-outgoing breath. Then the breath can go on coming in, going out, and you can remain in that quality of consciousness that you have come to know. It is always there; one has just to discover it. And it is easier to discover when life is emptied out.
SILENTLY INTONE A WORD ENDING IN "AH." THEN IN THE "HH," EFFORTLESSLY, THE SPONTANEITY. And when the breath goes out, "HH," everything is emptied. EFFORTLESSLY: in this moment, there is no need to make any effort. The SPONTANEITY: just be aware, be spontaneous, be sensitive, and realize this moment of death.
In this moment you are just near the door, just near the door!- very, very near to the ultimate. The immediate has moved out, the superfluous has moved out. In this moment you are not the wave: you are the ocean - just near, just near! If you can become aware you will forget that you are a wave. Again the wave will come, but now you can never be identified with it, you will remain the ocean. Once you have known that you are the ocean, you can never again be the wave.
Life is waves... death is the ocean. That is why Buddha so much insists about his NIRVANA that it is death-like. He never says you will attain life immortal, he says you will simply die totally. Jesus says, "Come to me and I will give you life, and life abundant." Buddha says, "Come to me to realize your death. I will give you death totally." And both mean the same thing, but Buddha's terminology is more basic. But you will become afraid of it. That is why Buddha had no appeal in India; he was uprooted completely. And we go on saying that this land is a religious land, but the most religious person couldn't get roots here.
What type of religious land is this? We have not produced another Buddha; he is incomparable. And whenever the world thinks India to be religious, the world remembers Buddha - no one else. Because of Buddha, India is thought to be religious. What type of religious land is this? Buddha has no roots here; he was totally uprooted. He used the language of death - that is the cause, and brahmins were using the language of life. They say THE BRAHMAN and he says NIRVANA: `Brahman' means life -- life, infinite life; and `Nirvana' means just cessation, death - total death.
Buddha says, "Your ordinary death is not total; you will be born again. It is NOT total! You will be born again! I will give you a total death, and you will never be born again." A total death means now no birth is possible. So this so-called death, Buddha says, is not death. It is just a rest period, you will become alive again. It is just a breath gone out. You will take the breath in again, you will be reborn. Buddha says, "I will give you the way so that the breath will go out and will never come in again - total death, nirvana, cessation."
We become afraid because we cling to life. But this is the paradox: the more you cling to life, the more you will die, and the more you are ready to die, then the more you become deathless. If you are ready to die, then there is no possibility of death. No one can give you death if you accept it, because through that acceptance you become aware of something within you which is deathless.
This incoming breath and outgoing breath are the life and death of the body, not of "me." But "I" do not know anything other than the body; "I" am identified with the body. Then it will be difficult to be aware when the breath comes in, easy to be aware when the breath goes out. When the breath is going out, for that moment you have become old, dying, emptied completely of the breath; you are dead for a moment.
IN THE "HH," EFFORTLESSLY, THE SPONTANEITY. Try it! Any moment you can try it. Just riding in a bus or traveling in a train or moving to the office, whenever you have time intone a sound like "Allah" - any sound ending with "AH." This "Allah" helped so much in Islam - not because of any Allah there in the sky, but because of this "AH." This word is beautiful. And then the more one goes on using this word "Allah, Allah..." it becomes reduced. Then what remains is "Lah, Lah..." Then it is reduced further; then it remains as "Ah, Ah..." It is good, but you can use any word that ends in "AH" - or just "AH" will do.
Have you observed that whenever you are tense you will sigh -- "AH" -- and you will feel relaxed. Or whenever you are in joy, overjoyed, you say "AH," and the whole breath is thrown out and you feel within a tranquility that you have never felt. Try this: when you are feeling very good, take the breath in and then see what you feel. You cannot feel that well-being that comes with "AH." It is coming because of the breath.
So languages differ, but these two things never differ. All over the world, whenever someone feels tired he will say "AH." Really, he is calling for death to come and relax him. Whenever one feels overjoyed, blissful, he says "AH." He is so overfilled with joy that he is not afraid of death now. He can relieve himself completely, relax completely.
And what will happen if you go on trying it, trying it? You will become fully aware of something within you - the spontaneousness of your being; of SAHAJ of being spontaneous. That you are already, but you are too much engaged with life, too much occupied with life. You cannot become aware of the being which is behind.
When you are not occupied with life, with the incoming breath, the being behind is revealed; there is a glimpse. But the glimpse will become, by and by, a realization. And once it is known you cannot forget it - and this is not something which you are creating. That is why it is spontaneous: it is not something you are creating. It is there, you have simply forgotten. It is a remembrance! It is a rediscovery!
Try to see children, very small children, taking their breaths. They take them in a different way. Look at a child sleeping. His belly comes up and down, not the chest. If you are sleeping and you are being observed, your chest comes up and down; your breath never goes down to the belly. The breath can go down to the belly only if you exhale and do not inhale. If you inhale and do not exhale, the breath cannot go down to the belly. The reason why breath goes to the belly is that when one exhales, the whole breath is thrown out and then the BODY takes it in. And the body takes only that amount which is needed -- never more, never less.
The body has its own wisdom, and it is more wise than you. Do not disturb it. You can take more -- then it will be disturbed. You can take less -- then it will be disturbed. The body has its own wisdom, it only takes that amount which is needed. When more is needed, it creates the situation. When less is needed, it creates the situation. It never goes to the extreme, it is always balanced. But if YOU inhale it is never balanced, because you do not know what you are doing, you do not know what is the need of the body. And the need changes every moment.
Allow the body! You just exhale, you just throw it out, and then the body will take breath in - and it will take it deeply and slowly, and the breath will go down to the belly. It will hit the navel point exactly and your belly will go up and down. If you inhale then really, you never exhale totally. Then the breath is in and you go on inhaling, so the breath which is already in will not allow your breath to go down to the very bottom. Then just shallow breathing happens. You go on taking breath in, and the poisonous breath is there, filling you up.
They say that you have six thousand sacs in your lungs and only two thousand are touched by your breath. The four thousand are always filled with poisonous gases which need to be exhaled, and that two-thirds portion of your chest creates much anxiety, much anguish and misery in the mind, in the body. A child exhales, he never inhales. Inhaling is done by the body itself.
When the child is born, the first thing he is going to do is cry. With that cry his throat opens, with that cry comes the first "AH." The oxygen and air that had been given by the mother is exhaled. This is his first effort with breathing. That is why if a child is not crying, then the doctor will become uneasy, because he has not shown the sign of life. He still feels dependent on the mother. He must cry! That cry shows that now he is becoming an individual; the mother is not needed, he will take his own breath. And the first thing is that he is going to cry in order to exhale that which was given by the mother, and then his body will start functioning, inhaling.
A child is always exhaling, and when the child starts inhaling, when the emphasis moves to inhaling, be aware. He has already become old; he has learned things from you. He has become tense. Whenever you are tense, you cannot take a deep breath. Why? Your stomach becomes rigid. Whenever you are tense your stomach becomes rigid, it won't allow breath to go down. Then you have to take shallow breaths.
Try with "AH." It has a beautiful feeling around it. Whenever you feel tired, "AH" -- throw the breath. And make it a point to emphasize exhaling. You will be a different man, and a different mind will evolve. With the emphasis on breathing in, you have developed a miser mind and a miser body. With exhaling, that miserliness will disappear and with it many problems. Possessiveness will disappear.
So tantra will not say leave possessiveness. Tantra says, change your system of breathing; you cannot possess then. Observe your own breathing and your moods, and you will become aware. Whatsoever is wrong is always associated with the emphasis that is given to the incoming breath and whatsoever is good, virtuous, beautiful, true, is always associated with exhaling. Whenever you are speaking a lie, you will hold your breath in. Whenever you speak truth, you never hold the breath. You fear that "I am speaking a lie," so you hold the breath. You are afraid something may go out with it - the out-moving breath. Your hidden truth may be revealed, so you are afraid.
Go on trying this "AH" more and more. You will be more healthy in body, more healthy in mind, and a different quality of calm, at-easeness, tranquillity will develop.
STOPPING EARS BY PRESSING AND RECTUM BY CONTRACTING, ENTER THE SOUND.
We are not aware of the body even or how the body functions and what is its tao, what is its way. But if you observe, then you can become very easily aware. If you stop your ears and pull your rectum up, contract your rectum, everything will stop for you. It will be as if the whole world has become non-moving - as if everything has become static, stopped. Not only movements, you will feel as if time has stopped.
What happens when you pull the rectum up, contract it? What happens? When both the ears are closed simultaneously, with closed ears you will hear a sound within. But if the rectum is not pulled up, that sound is released by the rectum. That sound is very subtle. If the rectum is pulled up, contracted, and the ears are closed, you will see within you a pillar of sound - and that sound is of silence. It is a negative sound. When all sounds have ceased, then you feel the sound of silence or the sound of soundlessness. But it will be released from the rectum.
So close the ears and pull the rectum up. Then you are closed from both the sides, and your body becomes closed and just filled with sound. This feeling of being filled with sound gives a deep fulfillment. So we will have to understand many things around it, only then will it become possible for you to have the feeling of what happens.
We are not aware of the body -- that is one of the basic problems for a seeker. And the society is against becoming aware of the body because society is afraid of the body. So we train every child not to be aware of the body, we make every child insensitive. We create a distance between the child's mind and body, so he is not very much aware of the body, because body awareness will create problems for the society.
Many things are implied. If the child is aware of the body, he will become aware of sex sooner or later. And if he is too much aware of the body, he will feel too much sexual, sensuous. So we have to kill the very root. He should be "made dull" about his body, insensitive, so he never feels it. You do not feel your body. You feel it only when something wrong happens, when something goes wrong.
You have a headache in the head, then you feel your head. Some thorn is there, then you feel your leg, your feet. When your body aches, you feel that you have a body. You feel it only when something goes wrong, and then too not right away. You are never aware of your diseases immediately. You become aware only when a period has passed and when the disease goes on knocking at your consciousness that, "I am here." Only then do you become aware. So no one really goes to the doctor in time. Everyone reaches there late, when the disease has entered deep and has done much wrong.
If a child has grown up with sensitivity he will become aware of the disease even before the disease happens. And now, in Russia particularly, they are working on the theory that a disease can be known even six months before its happening if someone is very deeply sensitive about his body, because subtle changes start long in advance. They prepare the body for the disease. The impact is felt even six months before.
But never mind disease, we never become aware even of death! If you are going to die tomorrow, you are not aware even today. A thing like death which may happen the next moment, and you are not aware this moment. You are totally dead to your body, insensitive. This whole society, the whole culture up to now, creates this dullness, this deadness, because it has been against the body. You are not allowed to feel it. Only in accidents can you be pardoned, forgiven for being aware of it; otherwise "do not be aware of the body."
This creates many problems, particularly for tantra, because tantra believes in deep sensitivity and knowledge of the body. You go on moving and your body goes on doing many things and you are unaware. Now much work is being done on body language. The body has its own language, and psychiatrists and psychologists and psychoanalysts in particular are being trained for body language, because they say you cannot believe the modern man. Whatsoever he says cannot be believed. Rather, one must observe his body, that will give a more true clue.
A man enters a psychiatrist's office. The old psychiatry, Freudian psychoanalysis, will talk and talk with the man to bring out whatsoever is hidden in his mind. Modern psychiatry will observe his body because that gives clues. If a man is an egoist, if ego is his problem, he stands in a different way than a humble man. His neck has a different angle than a humble man, his spine is not flexible but dead, fixed. He looks wooden, not alive. If you touch his body it has a wooden feeling, not the warmth of a living body. He is like a soldier just moving to the front.
Look at the soldier moving to the front. He has a wooden shape, a wooden feeling, and that is needed by a soldier because he is going to die or to kill. He must not be much aware of the body, so his whole training is to create a wooden body. Soldiers marching look like toys, like dead toys marching.
If you are humble you have a different body; you sit differently you stand differently. If you feel inferior, you stand differently; if you feel superior you stand differently. If you are always in fear, you stand in such a way as if you are protecting yourself from some unknown force. That is always there. If you are not afraid, you are just like a child playing with his mother; there is no fear. Wherever you go you are unafraid, at home with the universe around you. The man who is afraid is armored. And when I say armored it is not only symbolically, physiologically he is armored.
Wilhelm Reich was working very much on body structure, and he came to see some deep associations between mind and body. If a man is afraid, his stomach is not flexible. You touch his stomach and it is like a stone. If he becomes fearless, his stomach relaxes immediately. Or if you relax the stomach, then the fear disappears. Massage the stomach to relax, and you will feel more fearless, less afraid.
A person who is loving has a different quality of body and warmth -- he is warm bodily. A person who is not loving is cold, physiologically he is cold. Cold and other things have moved into your body and they have become barriers, they do not allow you to know about your body. But the body goes on working in its own way and you go on working in your own way -- a rift is created. That rift has to be broken.
I have seen that if someone is suppressive, if you have suppressed your anger, then your fingers, your hands, have the sensation of a suppressed anger. And a person who knows how to feel it can feel just by touching your hand that you have suppressed anger. And why in the hand? Because anger has to be released by the hands. If you have suppressed anger then in your teeth, in your gums, it is suppressed - and it can be felt by touching. It gives a vibration that "I am suppressed here."
If you have suppressed sex, then in your erotic zones it is there. If a person has suppressed sex, then if you touch his erotic zones you can feel it. With any erotic zone touched, sex is there if it has been suppressed. The zone will become afraid and will withdraw from your touch, it will not be open. Because the person inside is withdrawing, the part of the body will withdraw. It will not allow you to bring about an opening.
Now they say that fifty percent of women are frigid, and the reason is because we teach girls to be more suppressive than boys. So they have suppressed, and when a girl suppresses her sexual feelings up to the age of twenty, it has become a long habit - twenty years of suppression. Then when she will love, she will talk about love, but her body will not be open; the body will be closed. And then an opposite, a diametrically opposite phenomenon happens: two currents oppose each other. She wants to love but her body is repressive, the body withdraws; it is not ready to come closer.
If you see a woman sitting with a man, if the woman loves the man she will be inclining toward him, the body will be inclining. If they are sitting on a sofa, both of their bodies will be inclining toward each other. They are not aware, but you can see it. If the woman is afraid of the man, her body will be inclining to the opposite direction. If a woman loves a man she will never cross her legs when sitting near him. If she is afraid of the man she will cross her legs. She is not aware; this is not done consciously. It is body armor. The body protects itself and works in its own ways.
Tantra became aware of this phenomenon; the first awareness of such deep body feeling, sensitivity, was with tantra. And tantra says that if you can use your body consciously, the body becomes the vehicle to move to the spirit. Tantra says, it is foolish, absolutely idiotic, to be against the body. Use it! It is a vehicle! And use its energy in such a way that you can go beyond it.
Now, STOPPING EARS BY PRESSING AND RECTUM BY CONTRACTING, ENTER THE SOUND. Many times you have been contracting the rectum and sometimes the rectum is released even without your consciousness. If you suddenly become afraid, the rectum is released. You may defecate in fear, you may urinate in fear. Then you cannot control it. If a sudden fear grips you, your bladder will relax, your rectum will relax. What happens? In fear, what happens? Fear is a mental thing, so why do you urinate in fear? Why is the control lost? There must be some deep connecting root.
Fear happens in the head, in the mind. When you are unafraid this never happens. The child really has no mental control over his body. No animal controls his urine, bladder or anything. Whenever the bladder is full it is released. No animal controls it, but man has to control it of necessity. So we force a child to control when he should go to the bathroom and when not. We tell him he has to control; we give timings. So the mind takes over the control of a function which is non-voluntary. That is why it is so difficult to train the child for the toilet. And now psychologists say that if we stop toilet training, humanity will very much improve.
Toilet training is the first repression of the child and its natural spontaneity, but it seems difficult to listen to these psychologists. We cannot listen to them because then the children will create many problems. We have to train them of necessity. Only a very, very rich, affluent society will be able not to bother. Poor societies have to manage. We cannot afford it. If the child urinates anywhere, we cannot afford it. If he urinates on the sofa we cannot afford it, so we have to train. This training is mental. The body really has no built-in program for it. The body has NO built-in program for it!
Man is an animal as far as body is concerned, and the body knows no culture, no society. That is why when you are in deep fear, the control mechanism that you have imposed on the body is relaxed. You are not in control; you are thrown off control. You can control only in normal conditions. In emergencies you cannot control because for emergencies you have never been trained. You have only been trained for the normal, day-to-day, routine world. In an emergency the control is lost, your body starts functioning in its own animal way. But one relationship can be understood, that with a fearless man this will never happen. So this has become a sign of a coward.
If in fear you urinate or defecate, this shows you are a coward. A fearless man will not behave in this way, because a fearless man is taking deep breaths. His body and his breathing system are related; there is no gap. With a man who is a coward there is a gap, and because of that gap he is always overburdened with urine and defecation. So whenever an emergency comes, that overburdenedness has to be thrown: he has to be unburdened. And it has a reason in nature. A coward who is unburdened can escape more easily with his stomach relaxed, can run more easily. A burdened stomach will become a hindrance, so it is helpful for a coward to be relaxed.
Why am I talking about this? I am just saying this, that you have to be aware of your mental processes and your stomach processes; they are deeply related. Psychologists say that fifty to ninety percent of your dreams are because of your stomach processes. If you have taken a very heavy meal you are bound to see nightmares. They are not related with the mind, it is just that the heavy stomach creates them.
Many dreams can be created by outside tricks. If you are sleeping, your hands can be crossed on your chest and immediately you will start dreaming some nightmare. A pillow can be put on your chest and you will dream that some demon is sitting on your chest just going to kill you. And this has been one of the problems. Why is there such a burden from the small weight of a pillow? If you are awake, there is no weight; you do not feel anything heavy. But why is it that a small pillow placed on you in the night when you are sleeping is felt as being so heavy that it is as if you have been burdened with a big stone or a rock? Why is so much weight felt?
The reason is this: when you are aware, when you are awake, your mind and body are not correlated; the gap is there. You cannot feel the body and its sensitivity. While asleep, the control, the culture, the conditioning, dissolves; you have again become a child and your body has become sensitive. Because of that sensitivity, a small pillow is felt as a rock. It is magnified because of sensitivity -- the sensitivity magnifies it. So body-mind processes are deeply related, and if you know what happens you can use this.
Rectum closed, pulled upwards, contracted, creates a situation in the body in which sound can be felt if present. You will feel a pillar of sound in silence within the closed space in your body. Close the ears and pull up the rectum, and then just remain with what is happening inside you. Just remain in that vacant state which is created by these two things. Your life energy is moving within and it has no way to go out. Sound goes out either from your ears or from your rectum. Those are the two doors from where the sound can move out. If is not moving out, you can feel it more easily.
And what will happen when you feel this inner sound? With the very phenomenon of hearing the inner sound, your thoughts dissolve. Just try it anytime during the day: just pull up the rectum and put your fingers in the ears. Press the ears and pull up the rectum. You will feel that your mind has stopped. It will not be functioning; thoughts will have stopped. That constant flow of thoughts is not there. It is good! And if one goes on doing it whenever there is time, in the day if you can do it for five or six times, within three or four months you will become an expert in it. And then such a well-being flows out of it!
And the inner sound, once heard, remains with you. Then you can hear it the whole day. The market is noisy, the road is noisy, the traffic is noisy, but if even in that noise you have heard the inner sound, you will feel the still small voice that goes on inside. And then nothing will disturb you. If you can feel your inner sound, then nothing from the outside can disturb you. You remain silent; whatsoever happens around you makes no difference.
Your own name can be used as a mantra very easily, and it is very helpful because your name has gone very deep into your unconscious. Nothing else has gone so deep. If we are all are sitting here, and we all fall asleep and someone comes and calls "Ram," no one will listen except the person whose name is Ram. He will listen to it; he will be disturbed in his sleep. No one else will listen to the sound "Ram," but why does this man listen? It has gone down deep; it is not conscious now, it has become unconscious.
Your name has gone very deep within you, but there is a very beautiful phenomenon about your name: you never call it, others call it. Others use it; you never use it.
I have heard that in the first world war, for the first time in America rationing was created. Thomas Edison was a very great scientist, but he was very poor so he had to stand in the queue for his ration card. And he was such a great man that no one ever used his name before him. There was no need to use his name for himself, and no one else would use his name because he was so much respected. Everyone would call him Professor, so he had forgotten what was his name.
He was standing in the queue, and when his name was called, when it was asked who Thomas Alva Edison was, he just stared blankly. Again the name was called, then someone who was a neighbor to Edison said to him, "Why are you standing? Your name is being called. It is your name, Professor." Then he became aware and he said, "But how can I recognize it? No one calls me Edison. It has been so long... they just call me Professor."
You never use your own name. Only others use it -- you have heard it used by others. But it has gone deep, very deep. It has penetrated like an arrow into your unconscious. If you yourself use it, then it becomes a mantra. And for two reasons it helps: one, when you use your own name, if your name is "Ram" and you use "Ram, Ram, Ram...", suddenly you feel as if you are using someone else's name - as if it is not yours. Or if you feel that this IS yours, you feel that there is a separate entity within you which is using it. It may belong to the body, it may belong to the mind, but he who is calling "Ram, Ram..." becomes a witness.
You have always called others' names. When you call your own name it looks as if it belongs to someone else, not to you, and it is a very revealing phenomenon. You can become a witness to your own name, and with the name your whole life is involved. Separated from the name, you are separated from your whole life. And this name has penetrated deep within you because everyone has called you this from your very birth, you have always heard this. So use this sound, and with this sound you can go to the very depths to which the name has gone.
In the old days we gave everyone a name of God - everyone. Someone was Ram, someone was Narayan, someone was Krishna, someone was Vishnu, or something like that. They say all the Mohammedan names are the names of God - ALL the Mohammedan names! And all over the world that was the practice, to give a name which is really a name of God.
This was for good reasons. One reason was this technique -- because if your name can be used as a mantra it will serve you a double purpose. It will be YOUR name - and you have heard it so much, so many times, and all your life it has penetrated deep. Then also, it is the name of God. So go on repeating it inside, and suddenly you will become aware that "This name is different from me." Then by and by this name will have a sanctity of its own. You will remember any day that "Narayan" or "Ram," this is God's name. Your name has turned into a mantra.
Use it! This is very good! You can try many things with your name. If you want to be awakened at five o'clock in the morning, no alarm is so exact as your own name. Just repeat thrice inside, "Ram, you have to be awake by five o'clock sharp." Repeat it three times, and then just fall asleep. You will be awakened at five o'clock because "Ram," YOUR name, is very deep in the unconscious.
Call your name and tell yourself that "At five o'clock in the morning, let me be awakened." Someone WILL awaken you. And if you continue this practice, one day you will suddenly realize that at five o'clock someone calls you and says, "Ram, be awake." That is your unconscious calling you.
This technique says, ENTER THE SOUND OF YOUR NAME AND, THROUGH THIS SOUND, ALL SOUNDS. Your name becomes just a door for all names. But enter the sound. First, when you repeat "Ram, Ram, Ram..." it is just a word. But it means something when you go on repeating "Ram, Ram, Ram..."
You must have heard the story of Valmiki. He was given this mantra "Ram," but he was an ignorant man - uneducated, simple, innocent, childlike. He started repeating "Ram, Ram, Ram..." but he was repeating so much that he forgot completely and reversed the whole thing. Instead he was chanting "Mara, Mara..." He was chanting "Ram, Ram, Ram..." so fast that it became "Mara, Mara, Mara..." And he achieved the goal through "Mara, Mara, mara..."
If you go on repeating the name fast inside, soon it will not be a word: it will become a sound, just meaningless. And then there is no difference between Ram and Mara - no difference! Whether you call Ram or Mara, it makes no sense, they are not words. It is just the sound, just the sound that matters. Enter the sound of your name. Forget the meaning of it, just enter the sound. Meaning is with the mind, sound is with the body. Meaning is in the head, sound spreads all over the body. So forget the meaning. Just repeat it as a meaningless sound, and through this sound you will enter all sounds. This sound will become the door to all sounds. And "all sounds" means all that exists.
This is one of the basic tenets of Indian inner search, that the basic unit of the existence is sound and not electricity. Modern science says that the basic unit of the existence is electricity, not sound, but they also say that sound is a form of electricity. Indians, however, have always been saying that electricity is nothing but a form of sound.
You may have heard that through a particular RAGA, a particular sound, fire can be created. It can be created - because this is the Indian idea, that sound is the basis of all electricity. So if you hit sound in a particular frequency, electricity will be created.
On long bridges, if a military, is passing, they are not allowed to march because many times it has happened that because of their march the bridge falls. It is because of sound, not because of their weight. They will be passing anyhow, but if they pass marching, then the particular sound of their feet breaks the bridge.
In old Hebrew history, the city of Jericho was very protected by great walls and it was impossible to break those walls by guns. But through a particular sound the walls were broken, and that sound was the secret of the breaking of those walls. If that sound is created before walls, the walls will give way.
You have heard the story of Ali Baba: a particular sound and the rock moves. These are allegories. Whether they are right or not, one thing is certain: if you can create a particular sound so continuously that meaning is lost, mind is lost, the rock at your heart will be removed.
Sex
Sigmund Freud has said somewhere that man is born neurotic. This is a half-truth. Man is not born neurotic, but he is born in a neurotic humanity and the society around drives everyone neurotic sooner or later. Man is born natural, real, normal, but the moment the newborn becomes part of the society neurosis starts working.
As we are, we are neurotic, and the neurosis consists of a split -- a deep split. You are not one: you are two or even many. This has to be understood deeply; only then can we proceed in tantra. Your feeling and thinking have become two different things: this is the basic neurosis. Your thinking part and your feeling part have become two, and you are identified with the thinking part, not with the feeling part. And feeling is more real than thinking; feeling is more natural than thinking. You have come with a feeling heart, but thinking is cultivated; it is given by society. And your feeling has become a suppressed thing. Even when you say that you feel, you only think that you feel. The feeling has become dead, and this has happened for certain reasons.
When a child is born, he is a feeling being: he feels things. He is not a thinking being yet. He is natural, just like anything natural in nature -- just like a tree or like an animal. But we start molding him, cultivating. He has to suppress his feelings because without suppressing his feelings he is always in trouble. When he wants to cry he cannot cry because his parents will not approve of it. He will be condemned. He will not be appreciated, he will not be loved. He is not accepted as he is. He must behave: he must behave according to a particular ideology, ideals. Only then will he be loved.
Love is not for him as he is. He can be loved only if he follows certain rules. Those rules are imposed; they are not natural. The natural being begins to become suppressed, and the unnatural, the unreal, is imposed over it. This unreal is your mind, and a moment comes when the split is so great that you cannot bridge it. You go on forgetting completely what your real nature was -- or is. You are a false face; the original face is lost. And you are also afraid to feel the original, because the moment you feel it the whole society will be against you. So you yourself are against your real nature.
This creates a very neurotic state. You do not know what you want; you do not know what are your real, authentic needs. And then you go on after non-authentic needs because only the feeling heart can give you the sense, the direction, of what are your real needs. When they are suppressed you create symbolic needs. For example, you may go on eating more and more, stuffing yourself with food, and you may never feel that you are filled. The need is for love; it is not for food. But food and love are deeply related, so when the need for love is not felt, or is suppressed, a false need for food is created and you can go on eating. Because the need is false, it can never be fulfilled, and we live in false needs. That is why there is no fulfillment.
You want to be loved; that is a basic need -- natural. But it can be diverted into a false dimension. For example, the love need, the need to be loved, can be felt as a false need if you try to divert the attention of others to yourself. You want that others should pay attention to you, so you may become a political leader. Great crowds may pay attention to you, but the real basic need is to be loved. And even if the whole world is paying attention to you, that basic need cannot be fulfilled. That basic need can be fulfilled even by a single person loving you, paying attention to you because of love.
When you love someone, you pay attention to him. Attention and love are deeply related. If you suppress the need for love, then it becomes a symbolic need; then you need the attention of others. You may get it, but then too there will be no fulfillment. The need is false, disconnected from the natural, basic need. This division in the personality is neurosis.
Tantra is a very revolutionary concept -- the oldest and yet the newest. Tantra is one of the oldest traditions and yet non-traditional, even anti-traditional, because tantra says unless you are whole and one you are missing life altogether. You should not remain in a split state: you must become one. What to do to become one? You can go on thinking, but that is not going to help because thinking is the technique to divide. Thinking is analytical. It divides; it splits things. Feeling unites, synthesizes, makes things one. So you can go on thinking, reading, studying, contemplating. It is not going to help unless you fall back to the feeling center. But it is very difficult, because even when we think about the feeling center, WE THINK!
When you say to someone, "I love you," be aware of whether it is just a thought or whether it is a feeling. If it is just a thought, then you are missing something. A feeling is of the whole: your whole body, mind, everything you are, is involved. In thinking, only your head is involved, and that too not totally, but just a fragment of it. There is only a passing thought; it may not be there the next moment. Only a fragment is involved, and that creates much misery in life -- because with a fragmentary thought, you give promises which you cannot fulfill. You can say, "I love you and I will love you forever." However, the second part is a promise which you cannot fulfill because it is given by a fragmentary thought. Your whole being is not involved in it. And what will you do tomorrow when the fragment has gone and the thought is no more there? Now the promise will become a bondage.
Sartre said somewhere that every promise is going to be false. You cannot promise because you are not whole. Just a part of you promises, and when the part is no more there on the throne and another part has taken over, what are you going to do? Who will fulfill the promise? Hypocrisy is born because when you go on trying to fulfill, pretending that you are fulfilling, then everything becomes false. Tantra says fall down deep within to the feeling center. What to do and how to fall back? Now I will enter the sutras. These sutras, each sutra, is an effort to make you whole.
The first sutra:
"AT THE START OF SEXUAL UNION KEEP ATTENTIVE ON THE FIRE IN THE BEGINNING, AND SO CONTINUING, AVOID THE EMBERS IN THE END."
Sex can be a very deep fulfillment, and sex can throw you back to your wholeness, to your natural, real being, for many reasons. Those reasons have to be understood. One, sex is a total act. You are thrown off your mind, off balance. That is why there is so much fear of sex. You are identified with the mind, and sex is a no-mind act. You become headless; you do not have any head in the act. There is no reasoning, no mental process. And if there is any mental process, there is no real, authentic sex act. Then there is no orgasm, no fulfillment. Then the sex act itself becomes a local thing, something cerebral, and it has become so.
All over the world, so much hankering, so much lust for sex, is not because the world has become more sexual. It is because you cannot even enjoy sex as a total act. The world was more sexual before. That is why there was no such hankering for sex. This hankering shows that the real is missing and there is only the false. The whole modern mind has become sexual because the sex act itself is no more there. Even the sex act is transferred to the mind. It has become mental; you think about it.
Many people come to me: they say they go on thinking about sex; they enjoy thinking about it, reading, seeing pictures, pornography. They enjoy this, but when the actual moment for sex comes they suddenly feel they are not interested. They even feel they have become impotent. They feel vital energy when they are thinking. When they want to move into the actual act, they feel there is no energy, even no desire. They feel that the body has become dead.
What is happening to them? Even the sex act has become mental. They can only think about it; they cannot do it because doing will involve their whole being. And whenever there is any involvement of the whole, the head becomes uneasy because then it can no more be the master; it can no more be in control.
Tantra uses the sex act to make you whole, but then you have to move in it very meditatively. Then you have to move in it forgetting all that you have heard about sex, studied about sex, all that the society has told you: the church, your religion, the teachers. Forget everything and get involved in it in your totality. Forget to control! Control is the barrier. Rather, be possessed by it; do not control it. Move in it as if you have become mad. The "no-mind" state looks like madness. Become the body, become the animal, because the animal is whole. And as modern man is, only sex seems to be the easiest possibility to make you whole because sex is the deepest, the biological center within you. You are born out of it. Your every cell is a sex cell; your whole body is a sex-energy phenomenon.
This first sutra says, "AT THE START OF SEXUAL UNION KEEP ATTENTIVE ON THE FIRE IN THE BEGINNING, AND SO CONTINUING, AVOID THE EMBERS IN THE END." And this makes the whole difference. For you, the sex act is a release. So when you move in it you are in a hurry. You just want a release. Overflowing energy will be released; you will feel at ease. This at-easeness is just a sort of weakness. Overflowing energy creates tensions, excitement. You feel something has to be done. When the energy is released, you feel weak. You may take this weakness as relaxation. Because the excitement is no more, the overflowing energy is no more, you can relax. But this relaxation is a negative relaxation. If you can relax just by throwing energy, it is at a very great cost. And this relaxation can only be physical. It cannot go deeper and cannot become spiritual.
This first sutra says don't be in a hurry and do not hanker for the end: remain with the beginning. There are two parts to the sex act -- the beginning and the end. Remain with the beginning. The beginning part is more relaxed, warm. But do not be in a hurry to move to the end. Forget the end completely.
"At the start of sexual union, keep attentive on the fire in the beginning." While you are overflowing, do not think in terms of release: remain with this overflowing energy. Do not seek ejaculation: forget it completely. Be whole in this warm beginning. Remain with your beloved or your lover as if you have become one. Create a circle.
There are three possibilities. Two lovers meeting can create three figures -- geometrical figures. You may have even read about it or even seen an old alchemical picture in which a man and woman are standing naked within three geometrical figures. One figure is a square, another figure is a triangle and the third figure is a circle.
This is one of the old alchemical and tantric analyses of the sex act. Ordinarily, when you are in the sex act, there are four persons, not two, and this is a square: four angles are there because you yourself are divided in two -- into the thinking part and the feeling part. Your partner is also divided in two; you are four persons. Two persons are not meeting there, four persons are meeting. It is a crowd, and there can be no deep meeting really. There are four corners, and the meeting is just false. It looks like a meeting, but it is not. There can be no communion because your deeper part is hidden and your beloved's deeper part is also hidden. And only two heads are meeting, only two thinking processes are meeting -- not two feeling processes. They are hidden.
The second type of meeting can be like a triangle. You are two -- two angles of the base. For a sudden moment you become one, like the third angle of the triangle. For a sudden moment your two-ness is lost and you become one. This is better than a square meeting because at least for a single moment there is oneness. That oneness gives you health, vitality. You feel alive and young again.
But the third is the best and the third is the tantric meeting: you become a circle. There are no angles, and the meeting is not for a single moment. The meeting is really non-temporal; there is no time in it. And this can happen only if you are not seeking ejaculation. If you are seeking ejaculation, then it will become a triangle meeting -- because the moment there is ejaculation the contact point is lost.
Remain with the beginning; do not move to the end. How to remain in the beginning? Many things are to be remembered. First, don't take the sex act as a way of going anywhere. Don't take it as a means: it is the end in itself. There is no end to it; it is not a means. Secondly, do not think of the future; remain with the present. And if you cannot remain in the present in the beginning part of the sex act, then you can never remain in the present -- because the very nature of the act is such that you are thrown into the present.
Remain in the present. Enjoy the meeting of two bodies, two souls, and merge into each other, melt into each other. Forget that you are going anywhere. Remain in the moment going nowhere, and melt. Warmth, love, should be made a situation for two persons to melt into each other. That is why, if there is no love, the sex act is a hurried act. You are using the other; the other is just a means. And the other is using you. You are exploiting each other, not merging into each other. With love you can merge. This merging in the beginning will give many new insights.
If you are not in a hurry to finish the act, the act, by and by, becomes less and less sexual and more and more spiritual. Sex organs also melt into each other. A deep, silent communion happens between two body energies, and then you can remain for hours together. This togetherness moves deeper and deeper as time passes. But don't think. Remain with the moment deeply merged. It becomes an ecstasy, a samadhi, cosmic consciousness. And if you can know this, if you can feel and realize this, your sexual mind will become non-sexual. A very deep BRAHMACHARYA, CELIBACY, can be attained. Celibacy can be attained through it!
This looks paradoxical because we have been always thinking in terms that if a person has to remain celibate he must not look at the other sex, he must not meet the other sex. He must avoid, escape. A very false celibacy happens then: the mind goes on thinking about the other sex. And the more you escape from the other, the more you have to think, because this is a basic, deep need.
Tantra says do not try to escape; there is no escape possible. Rather, use nature itself to transcend. Don't fight: accept nature in order to transcend it. If this communion with your beloved or your lover is prolonged with no end in mind, then you can just remain in the beginning. Excitement is energy. You can lose it; you can come to a peak. Then the energy is lost and a depression will follow, a weakness will follow. You may take it as relaxation, but it is negative.
Tantra gives you a dimension of a higher relaxation which is positive. Both partners melting with each other give vital energy to each other. They become a circle, and their energy begins to move in a circle. They are giving life to each other, renewing life. No energy is lost. Rather, more energy is gained because through the contact with the opposite sex your every cell is challenged, excited. And if you can merge into that excitement without leading it to a peak, if you can remain in the beginning without becoming hot, just remaining warm, then those two "warmths" will meet and you can prolong the act for a very long time. With no ejaculation, with no throwing energy out, it becomes a meditation, and through it you become whole. Through it your split personality is no more split: it is bridged.
All neurosis is a "splitness." If you are bridged again, you become again a child -- innocent. And once you know this innocence you can go on behaving in your society as it requires. But now this behavior is just a drama, an acting. You are not involved in it. It is a requirement, so you do it. But you are not in it; you are just acting.
You will have to use unreal faces because you live in an unreal world; otherwise the world will crush you and kill you. We have killed many real faces. We crucified Jesus because he started behaving like a real man. The unreal society will not tolerate it. We poisoned Socrates because he started behaving like a real man. Behave as the society requires; do not create unnecessary troubles for yourself and others. But once you know your real being and the wholeness, the unreal society cannot drive you neurotic; it cannot make you mad.
"AT THE START OF SEXUAL UNION KEEP ATTENTIVE ON THE FIRE IN THE BEGINNING, AND SO CONTINUING, AVOID THE EMBERS IN THE END". IF ejaculation is there, energy is dissipated. Then there is no more fire. You are simply relieved of your energy without gaining anything
When in such embrace, in such deep communion with the beloved or the lover, your senses are shaken as leaves, enter this shaking. We have even become afraid: while making love you do not allow your bodies to move much, because if your bodies are allowed much movement the sex act spreads all over your body. You can control it when it is localized at the sex center. The mind can remain in control. When it spreads all over your body, you cannot control it. You may start shaking, you may start screaming, and you will not be able to control your body once the body takes over.
We suppress movements. Particularly, all over the world, we suppress all movements, all shaking for women. They remain just like dead bodies. You are doing something to them; they are not doing anything to you. They are just passive partners. Why is this happening? Why all over the world do men suppress women in such a way? There is fear -- because once a woman's body becomes possessed, it is very difficult for a man to satisfy her: because a woman can have chain orgasms; a man cannot have. A man can have only one orgasm; a woman can have chain orgasms. There are cases of multiple orgasms reported. Any woman can have at least three orgasms in a chain, but man can have only one. And with man's orgasm, the woman is aroused and is ready for further orgasms. Then it is difficult. Then how to manage it?
She needs another man immediately, and group sex is a taboo. All over the world we have created monogamous societies. We seem to feel that it is better to suppress the woman. So, really, eighty to ninety percent of women never know what orgasm is. They can give birth to children; that is another thing. They can satisfy the man; that is also another thing. But they themselves are never satisfied. So if you see such bitterness in women all over the world -- sadness, bitterness, frustration -- it is natural. Their basic need is not fulfilled.
Shaking is just wonderful because when you shake in your sex act the energy starts flowing all over the body, the energy vibrates all over the body. Every cell of the body is involved then. Every cell becomes alive because every cell is a sex cell.
When you were born, two sex cells met and your being was created, your body was created, those two sex cells are everywhere in your body. They have multiplied and multiplied and multiplied, but your basic unit remains the sex cell. When you shake all over your body, it is not only a meeting of you with your beloved. Within your body also, each cell is meeting with the opposite cell. This shaking shows it. It will look animal-like, but man IS an animal and there is nothing wrong in it.
This second sutra says, "WHEN IN SUCH EMBRACE YOUR SENSES ARE SHAKEN AS LEAVES..." A great wind is blowing and a tree is shaking. Even the roots are shaking, every leaf is shaking. Just be like a tree. A great wind is blowing, and sex IS a great wind -- a great energy blowing through you. Shake! Vibrate! Allow every cell of your body to dance, and this should be for both. The beloved is also dancing, every cell vibrating. Only then can you both meet, and then that meeting is not mental. It is a meeting of your bio-energies.
Enter this shaking, and while shaking don't remain aloof. Don't be a spectator, because mind is the spectator. Don't stand aloof! Be the shaking, become the shaking. Forget everything and become the shaking. It is not that your body is shaking: it is YOU, your whole being. You become the shaking itself. Then there are not two bodies, two minds. In the beginning, there are two shaking energies, and in the end just a circle -- not two.
What will happen in this circle? One, you will be part of an existential force -- not a societal mind, but an existential force. You will be part of the whole cosmos. In that shaking you will be part of the whole cosmos. That moment is of great creation. You are dissolved as solid bodies. You have become liquid -- flowing into each other. The mind is lost, the division is lost. You have a oneness.
This is ADVAITA, this is non-duality. And if you cannot feel this non-duality, then all the philosophies of non-duality are useless. They are just words. Once you know this non-dual existential moment, then only can you understand the Upanishads. Then only you can understand the mystics -- what they are talking about when they talk of a Cosmic oneness, a wholeness. Then you are not separate from the world, not alien to it. Then the existence becomes your home. And with that feeling that "Now I am at home in the existence," all worries are lost. Then there is no anguish, no struggle, no conflict. This is what Lao Tzu calls Tao, what Shankara calls ADVAITA. You can choose your own word for it, but through a deep love embrace it is easy to feel it. But be alive, shaking, and become the shaking itself.
Once you know this, even the partner is not needed. You can simply remember the act and enter into it. But first you must have the feeling. If you know the feeling, you can enter into the act without the partner. This is a little difficult, but it happens. And unless it happens, you go on being dependent, a dependency is created. For so many reasons it happens. If you have had the feeling, if you have known the moment when you were not there but only a vibrating energy had become one and there was a circle with the partner, in that moment there was no partner. In that moment only you are, and for the partner you are not: only he or she is. That oneness is centered within you; the partner is no more there. And it is easier for women to have this feeling because they are always making love with closed eyes.
During this technique, it is good if you have your eyes closed. Then only an inner feeling of a circle, only an inner feeling of oneness, is there. Then just remember it. Close your eyes; lie down as if you are with your partner. Just remember and start feeling it. Your body will begin to shake and vibrate. Allow it! Forget completely that the other is not there. Move as if the other is present. Only in the beginning is it "as if." Once you know, then it is not "as if," then the other is there.
Move as if you are actually going into the love act. Do whatsoever you would have done with your partner. Scream, move, shake. Soon the circle will be there, and this circle is miraculous. Soon you will feel that the circle is created, but now this circle is not created with a man and woman. If you are man, then the whole universe has become woman; if you are woman, then the whole universe has become man. Now you are in a deep communion with the existence itself, and the door, the other, is no more there.
The other is simply a door. While making love to a woman, you are really making love to existence itself. The woman is just a door, the man is just a door. The other is just a door for the whole, but you are in such a hurry you never feel it. If you remain in communion, in deep embrace for hours together, you will forget the other and the other will just become an extension of the whole. Once this technique is known you can use it alone, and when you can use it alone it gives you a new freedom -- freedom from the other.
It really happens that the whole existence becomes the other -- your beloved, your lover -- and then this technique can be used continuously, and one can remain in constant communion with the existence. And then you can do it in other dimensions also. Walking in the morning, you can do it. Then you are in communion with the air, with the rising sun and the stars and the trees. Staring at the stars in the night, you can do it. Looking at the moon, you can do it. You can be in the sex act with the whole universe once you know how it happens.
But it is good to start with human beings because they are nearest to you -- the nearest part of the universe. But they are dispensable. You can take a jump and forget the door completely -- "EVEN REMEMBERING UNION, THE TRANSFORMATION" -- and you WILL be transformed, you will become new.
Tantra uses sex as a vehicle. It is energy; it can be used as a vehicle. It can transform you, and it can give you transcendental states. But as we are using sex, it looks difficult for us -- because we are using it in a very wrong way, and the wrong way is not natural. Even animals are better than us: they are using it in a natural way. Our ways are perverted. Constant hammering on the human mind that sex is sin has created a deep barrier within you. You never allow yourself a total let-go. Something is always standing aloof condemning, even for the new generation. They may say they are not burdened, obsessed, that sex is not a taboo for them, but you cannot unburden your unconscious so easily. It has been built over centuries and centuries; the whole human past is there. So while you may not be condemning it as sin consciously, the unconscious is there constantly condemning it. You are never totally in it. Something is always left out. That left-out part creates the split.
Tantra says move in it totally. Just forget yourself, your civilization, your religion, your culture, your ideology. Forget everything. Just move in the sex act: move in it totally; do not leave anything out. Become absolutely non-thinking. Only then does the awareness happen that you have become one with someone. And this feeling of oneness can then be detached from the partner and it can be used with the whole universe. You can be in a sex act with a tree, with the moon, with anything. Once, you know how to create this circle, it can be created with anything -- even without anything.
You can create this circle within yourself because man is both man and woman, and woman is both woman and man. You are both because you were created by two, You were created by man and woman both, so half of you remains the other. You can forget everything completely, and the circle can be created within you. Once the circle is created within you -- your man is meeting your woman, the inner woman is meeting the inner man -- you are in an embrace within yourself. And only when this circle is created is real celibacy attained. Otherwise all celibacies are just perversions, and then they create their own problems. When this circle is created inside, you are freed.
This is what tantra says: "Sex is the deepest bondage, yet it can be used as a vehicle for the highest freedom." Tantra says poison can be used as medicine, but wisdom is needed. So do not condemn anything. Rather, use it. And do not be against anything. Find out ways how it can be used and transformed. Tantra is a deep, total acceptance of life. It is the only approach of its kind. All over the world, in all the centuries that have gone by, tantra is unique. It says don't throw anything and don't be against anything and don't create any conflict, because with any conflict you will be destructive with yourself.
All the religions are against sex, afraid of it, because it is such a great energy. Once you are in it you are no more, and then the current will take you anywhere. That is why the fear. So create a barrier in which you and the current become two, and do not allow this vital energy to have any possession over you: be the master of it.
Only tantra says that this mastery is going to be false, diseased, pathological, because you cannot really be divided with this current. You are it! So all divisions will be false, arbitrary, and basically, no division is possible because you are the current -- a part and parcel of it, just a wave in it. You can become frozen and you can separate yourself from the current, but that frozenness will be deadness. And humanity has become dead. No one is really alive; you are just dead weights floating in the stream. Melt!
Tantra says try to melt. Do not become like icebergs: melt and become one with the river. Becoming one with the river, feeling one with the river, merging in the river, be aware and there will be transformation. There IS transformation. Transformation is not through conflict; it is through awareness. These three techniques are very, very scientific, but then sex becomes something other than what you know. Then it is not a temporary relief; then it is not throwing energy out. Then there is no end to it. It becomes a meditative circle.
The Spine
PLACE YOUR WHOLE ATTENTION IN THE NERVE, DELICATE AS THE LOTUS THREAD, IN THE CENTER OF YOUR SPINAL COLUMN. IN SUCH BE TRANSFORMED.
For this sutra, for this technique of meditation, one has to close his eyes and visualize his spinal column, his backbone. It is good to look up in some physiology book the structure of the body, or to go to some medical college or hospital and look at the structure of the body. Then close your eyes and visualize your backbone. Let the backbone be straight, erect. Visualize it, see it, and just in the middle of it visualize a nerve, delicate as the lotus thread, running in the center of your spinal column. IN SUCH BE TRANSFORMED.
If you can, concentrate on the spinal column, and then on a thread in the middle of it -- on a very delicate nerve like a lotus thread running through it. Concentrate on it, and this very concentration throws you to your center. Why?
The spinal column is the base of your whole body structure. Everything is joined to it. Really, your brain is nothing but one pole of your spinal column. Physiologists say it is nothing but a spinal column growth; your brain is really a growth of your spinal column.
Your spine is connected with your whole body -- everything is connected to it. That is why it is called the spine, the base. In this spine there is really a thread-like thing, but physiology will not say anything about it because it is not material. In this spine, just in the middle, there is a silver cord -- a very delicate nerve. It is not really a nerve in the physiological sense. You cannot operate and find it; it will not be found there.
But in deep meditation it is seen. It is there; it is non-material. It is energy, not matter. And really, that energy cord in your spinal column is your life. Through that you are related to the invisible existence, and through that also you are related to the visible. That is the bridge between the invisible and the visible. Through that thread you are related to the body, and through that thread also you are related to your soul.
First, visualize the spine. At first you will feel very strange, you will be able to visualize it, but as an imagination. And if you go on endeavoring, then it will not be just your imagination. You will become capable of seeing your spinal column.
I was working with a seeker on this technique. I gave him a picture of the body structure to concentrate upon so that he would begin to feel how the spinal column can be visualized inside. Then he started. Within a week he came and said, "This is very strange. I tried to see the picture you gave me, but many times that picture disappeared and I saw a different spine. It is not exactly like the picture you gave to me."
So I told him, "Now you are on the right path. Forget that picture completely, and go on seeing the spine that has become visible to you."
Man can see his own body structure from within. We have not tried it because it is very, very fearful, loathsome; because when you see your bones, blood, veins, you become afraid. So really, we have completely blocked our minds from seeing within. We see the body from without, as if someone else is looking at the body. It is just as if you go outside this room and look at it -- then you know the outer walls. Come in and look at the house -- then you can look at the inner walls. You see your body from outside as if you are somebody else seeing your body. You have not seen your body from inside. We are capable of it, but because of this fear it has become a strange thing.
Indian yoga books say many things about the body which have been found to be exactly right by new scientific research, and science is unable to explain this. How could they know? Surgery and knowledge of the inside of the human body are very recent developments. How could they know of all the nerves, of all the centers, of all the inner structures? They knew even about the latest findings; they have talked about them, they have worked upon them. Yoga has always been aware about all the basic, significant things in the body. But they were not dissecting bodies, so how could they know?
Really, there is another way of looking at your own body -- from within. If you can concentrate within, suddenly you begin to see your body -- the inner lining of the body. This is good for those who are deeply body-oriented. If you feel yourself a materialist, if you feel yourself to be nothing but body, this technique will be very helpful for you. If you feel yourself to be a body, if you are a believer in Charvak or in Marx, if you believe that man is nothing but a body, this technique will be very helpful for you. Then go and see the bone structure of man.
In the old tantra and yoga schools they used many bones. Even now a tantric will always be found with some bones, with a man's skull. Really, that is to help concentration from inside. First he concentrates on that skull, then he closes his eyes and tries to visualize his own skull. He goes on trying to see the outer skull inside, and by and by he begins to feel his own skull. His consciousness begins to be focused. That outer skull, the concentration on it and the visualization, are just helps. Once you are focused inside, you can move from your toes to your head. You can move inside -- and it is a great universe. Your small body is a great universe.
This sutra uses the spinal column because within the spinal column there is the thread of life. This is why there is so much insistence on a straight backbone, because if the backbone is not straight you will not be capable of seeing the inner thread. It is very delicate, it is very subtle -- it is minute. It is an energy flow. So if the spinal column is straight, absolutely straight, only then can you have glimpses of that thread.
But our spinal columns are not straight. Hindus have tried to make everyone's spinal column straight from the very childhood. Their ways of sitting, their ways of sleeping, their ways of walking were all based, basically, on a straight spinal column. If the spinal column is not straight, then it is very difficult to see the inner core. It is delicate -- and really, it is not material. It is immaterial; it is a force. When the spinal column is absolutely straight, that thread-like force is seen easily.
... IN SUCH BE TRANSFORMED. Once you can feel, concentrate and realize this thread, you will be filled with a new light. The light will be coming from your spinal column. It will spread all over your body; it may even go beyond your body. When it goes beyond, auras are seen.
Everyone has an aura, but ordinarily your auras are nothing but shadows with no light in them -- just dark shadows around you. And those auras reflect your every mood. When you are angry, then your auras become as if blood-filled; they become filled with a red, angry expression. When you are sad, dim, down, then your auras are filled with dark threads, as if you are just near death -- everything dead, heavy.
When this spinal column thread is realized, your auras become enlightened. So a Buddha, a Mahavir, a Krishna, a Christ are not painted with auras just as decorations, those auras exist. Your spinal column begins to throw out light. Within, you become enlightened -- your whole body becomes a body of light -- then it penetrates the outer. So really, for a buddha, for anyone who is enlightened, there is no need to ask anyone what he is. The aura shows everything. And when someone becomes enlightened the master knows it, because the aura reveals everything.
I will tell you one story... Hui Neng, a Chinese master, was working under his master. When Hui Neng went to his master, the master said, "For what have you come here? There is no need to come to me." He couldn't understand. Hui Neng thought that he was not yet ready to be accepted, but the master was seeing something else. He was seeing his growing aura. He was saying this: "Even if you do not come to me, the thing is bound to happen sooner or later, anywhere. You are already in it, so there is no need to come to me."
But Hui Neng said, "Do not reject me." So the master accepted him and told him to go just behind the monastery, in the kitchen of the monastery. It was a big monastery of five hundred monks. The master said to Hui Neng, "Just go behind the monastery and help in the kitchen, and do not come again to me. Whenever it will be needed, I will come to you."
No meditation was given to Hui Neng, no scriptures to read, study or meditate upon. Nothing was taught to him, he was just thrown into the kitchen. The whole monastery was working. There were pundits, scholars, and there were meditators, and there were yogis, and the whole monastery was agog. Everyone was working and this Hui Neng was just cleaning rice and doing kitchen work.
Twelve years passed. Hui Neng didn't go again to the master because it was not allowed. He waited, he waited, he waited... he simply waited. He was just taken as a servant. Scholars would come, meditators would come, and no one would even pay any attention to him. And there were big scholars in the monastery.
Then the master declared that his death was near, and now he wanted to appoint someone to function in his place, so he said, "Those who think they are enlightened should compose a small poem of four lines. In those four lines you should put all that you have gained. And if I approve any poems and see that the lines show that enlightenment has happened, I will choose someone as my successor."
There was a great scholar in the monastery, and no one attempted the poem because everyone knew that he was going to win. He was a great knower of scriptures, so he composed four lines. Those four lines were just like this... the meaning of it was like this: "Mind is like a mirror, and dust gathers on it. Clean the dust, and you are enlightened."
But even this great scholar was afraid because the master would know. He already knows who is enlightened and who is not. Though all he has written is beautiful, it is the very essence of all the scriptures -- mind is like a mirror, and dust gathers on it; remove the dust, and you are enlightened -- this was the whole gist of all the Vedas, but he knew that was all that it was. He had not known anything, so he was afraid.
He didn't go directly to the master, but in the night he went to the hut, to his master's hut, and wrote all the four lines on the wall without signing -- without any signature. In this way, if the master approved and said, "Okay, this is right," then he would say, "I have written them." If he said, "No! Who has written these lines?" then he would keep silent, he thought.
But the master approved. In the morning the master said, "Okay!" He laughed and said, "Okay! The man who has written this is an enlightened one." So the whole monastery began to talk about it. Everyone knew who had written it. They were discussing and appreciating, and the lines were beautiful -- really beautiful. Then some monks came to the kitchen. They were drinking tea and they were talking, and Hui Neng was there serving them. He heard what had happened. The moment he heard those four lines, he laughed. So someone asked, "Why are you laughing, you fool? You do not know anything; for twelve years you have been serving in the kitchen. Why are you laughing?"
No one had even heard him laugh before. He was just taken as an idiot who would not even talk. So he said, "I cannot write, and I am not an enlightened one either, but these lines are wrong. So if someone comes with me, I will compose four lines. If someone comes with me, he can write it on the wall. I cannot write; I do not know writing."
So someone followed him -- just as a joke. A crowd came there and Hui Neng said, "Write: There is no mind and there is no mirror, so where can the dust gather? One who knows this is enlightened."
But the master came out and he said, "You are wrong," to Hui Neng. Hui Neng touched his feet and returned back to his kitchen.
In the night when everyone was asleep, the master came to Hui Neng and said, "You are right, but I could not say so before those idiots -- and they are learned idiots. If I had said that you are appointed as my successor, they would have killed you. So escape from here! You are my successor, but do not tell it to anyone. And I knew this the day you came. Your aura was growing; that was why no meditation was given to you. There was no need. You were already in meditation. And these twelve years' silence -- not doing anything, not even meditation -- emptied you completely of your mind, and the aura has become full. You have become a full moon. But escape from here! Otherwise they will kill you.
"You have been here for twelve years, and the light has been constantly spreading from you, but no one observed it. And they have been coming to the kitchen, everyone has been coming to the kitchen every day -- thrice, four times. Everyone passes through here; that is why I posted you in the kitchen. But no one has recognized your aura. So you escape from here."
When the spinal column thread is touched, seen, realized, an aura begins to grow around you. ... IN SUCH BE TRANSFORMED. Be filled with that light and be transformed. This is also a centering -- a centering in the spinal column. If you are body-oriented, this technique will help you. If you are not body-oriented, it is very difficult, it will be very difficult to visualize from the inside. Then to look at your body from the inside will be difficult.
This sutra will be more helpful for women than for men. They are more body-oriented. They live more in the body; they feel more. They can visualize the body more. Women are more body-oriented than men, but for anyone who can feel the body, who feels the body, who can visualize, who can close his eyes and feel his body from within, this technique will be very helpful for him.
Then visualize your spinal column, and in the middle a silver cord running through it. First it may look like imagination, but by and by you will feel that imagination has disappeared and your mind has become focused on that spinal column. And then you will see your own spine. The moment you see the inner core, suddenly you will feel an explosion of the light within you.
Sometimes this can also happen without any effort. It happens sometimes. Again, in a deep sex act it sometimes happens. Tantra knows: in a deep sex act your whole energy becomes concentrated near the spine. Really, in a deep sex act the spine begins to discharge electricity. And sometimes, even, if you touch the spine you will get a shock. If the intercourse is very deep and very loving and long -- really, if the two lovers are just in a deep embrace, silent, non-moving, just being filled with each other, just remaining in a deep embrace -- it happens. It has happened many times that a dark room will suddenly become filled with light, and both bodies will be surrounded with a blue aura.
Many, many such cases have happened. Even in some of your experiences it may have happened, but you may not have noticed that in a dark room, in deep love, suddenly you feel a light around both of your bodies, and that light spreads and fills the whole room. Many times it has happened that suddenly things drop from the table in the room without any visible cause. And now psychologists say that in a deep sex act, electricity is discharged. That electricity can have many effects and impacts. Things may suddenly drop, move or be broken, and even photographs have been taken in which light is visible. But that light is always concentrated around the spinal column.
So sometimes, in a deep sex act also -- and tantra knows this well and has worked on it -- you may become aware, if you can look within to the thread running in the middle of the spinal column. And tantra has used the sex act for this realization, but then the sex act has to be totally different, the quality has to be different. It is not something to be gotten over with; it is not something to be done for a release; it is not something to be finished hurriedly; it is not a bodily act then. Then it is a deep spiritual communion. Really, through two bodies it is a deep meeting of two innernesses, of two subjectivities, penetrating each other.
So I will suggest to you to try this technique when in a deep sex act -- it will be easier. Just forget about sex. When in a deep embrace, remain inside. Forget the other person also, just go inside and visualize your spinal column. It will be easier, because then more energy is flowing near the spinal column, and the thread is more visible because you are silent, because your body is at rest. Love is the deepest relaxation, but we have made love also a great tension. We have made it an anxiety, a burden.
In the warmth of love, filled, relaxed, close your eyes. But men ordinarily do not close their eyes. Ordinarily, women do close their eyes. That is why I said that women are more body-oriented while men are not. In a deep embrace in the act of sex, women will close their eyes. Really, they cannot love with open eyes. With closed eyes, they feel the body more from within.
Close your eyes and feel your body. Relax. Concentrate on the spinal column. And this sutra says very simply, IN SUCH BE TRANSFORMED. And you will be transformed through it.
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.
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.
Emotions
. "ON JOYOUSLY SEEING A LONG ABSENT FRIEND, PERMEATE THIS JOY."
Enter this joy and become one with it -- any joy, any happiness. This is just an example: "On joyously seeing a long absent friend..." Suddenly you see a friend you have not seen for many, many days or many, many years. A sudden joy grips you. But your attention will be on the friend, not on your joy. Then you are missing something, and this joy will be momentary. Your attention is focused on the friend: you will start talking, remembering things, and you will miss this joy and this joy will go.
When you see a friend and suddenly feel a joy arising in your heart, concentrate on this joy. Feel it and become it, and meet the friend while being aware and filled with your joy. Let the friend be just on the periphery, and you remain centered in your feeling of happiness.
This can be done in many other situations. The sun is rising, and suddenly you feel something rising within you. Then forget the sun; let it remain on the periphery. You be centered in your own feeling of rising energy. The moment you look at it, it will spread. It will become your whole body, your whole being. And do not just be an observer of it; merge into it. There are very few moments when you feel joy, happiness, bliss, but you go on missing them because you become object-centered.
Whenever there is joy, you feel that it is coming from without. You have met a friend: of course, it appears that the joy is coming from your friend, from seeing him. That is not the actual case. The joy is always within you. The friend has just become a situation. The friend has helped it to come out, has helped you to see that it is there. And this is not only with joy, but with everything: with anger, with sadness, with misery, with happiness, with everything, it is so. Others are only situations in which things that are hidden in you are expressed. They are not causes; they are not causing something in you. Whatsoever is happening, is happening TO YOU. It has always been there; it is only that meeting with this friend has become a situation in which whatsoever was hidden has come out in the open -- has come out. From the hidden sources it has become apparent, manifest. Whenever this happens remain centered in the inner feeling, and then you will have a different attitude about everything in life.
Even with negative emotions, do this. When you are angry, do not be centered on the person who has aroused it. Let him be on the periphery. You just become anger. Feel anger in its totality; allow it to happen within. Don't rationalize; don't say that this man has created it. Do not condemn the man. He has just become the situation. And feel grateful towards him that he has helped something which was hidden to come into the open. He has hit you somewhere, and a wound was there hidden. Now you know it, so become the wound.
With negative or positive, with any emotion, use this, and there will be a great change in you. If the emotion is negative, you will be freed of it by being aware that it is within you. If the emotion is positive, you will become the emotion itself. If it is joy, you will become joy. If it is anger, the anger will dissolve.
And this is the difference between negative and positive emotions: if you become aware of a certain emotion, and by your becoming aware the emotion dissolves, it is negative. If by your becoming aware of a certain emotion you then become the emotion, if the emotion then spreads and becomes your being, it is positive. Awareness works differently in both cases. If it is a poisonous emotion, you are relieved of it through awareness. If it is good, blissful, ecstatic, you become one with it. Awareness deepens it.
So to me this is the criterion: if something is deepened by your awareness, it is something good. If something is dissolved through awareness, it is something bad. That which cannot remain in awareness is sin and that which grows in awareness is virtue. Virtue and sin are not social concepts, they are inner realizations.
Use your awareness. It is just as if there is darkness and you bring in light: the darkness will be no more there. Just by bringing light in, the darkness is no more there, because, really, it was not. It was negative, just an absence of light. But many things will become manifest which are there. Just by bringing in light, these shelves, these books, these walls, will not disappear. In darkness they were not; you could not see them. If you bring light in, darkness will be no more there, but that which is real will be revealed. Through awareness all that is negative like darkness will dissolve -- hatred, anger, sadness, violence. Then love, joy, ecstasy, will, for the first time, become revealed to you. So, "ON JOYOUSLY SEEING A LONG ABSENT FRIEND, PERMEATE THIS JOY."
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The original mind is like a mirror: it is pure, and it remains pure, but dust can gather upon it. The purity is not lost, the dust cannot destroy the purity -- but the purity can be covered up. This is the condition of the ordinary mind -- covered with dust. Hidden behind the dust, the original mind remains pure. It cannot become impure; that is impossible. And if it was possible for it to become impure, then there would be no way to regain the purity again. In itself it remains pure, just covered by dust.
Our mind is the original mind plus dust, the buddha-mind plus dust, the divine mind plus dust. Once you know how to uncover it, how to reclaim it from the dust, you have known all that is worth knowing and you have attained all that is worth attaining. All these techniques are concerned with how to free your mind from the day-to-day dust that is bound to gather upon it. Dust is but natural. Just like with a traveler passing from many, many roads, dust is gathered -- and for many, many lives you have been a traveler. You have traveled long distances, and much dust has gathered.
Many points have to be understood before we enter the techniques. One, the East is basically different from the West in its attitude towards inner transformation. Christianity thinks that something has happened to man's being itself -- the sin. The East thinks that nothing has happened to the being itself; nothing can happen. The being remains in its absolute purity; there has been no sin. So man is not condemned in the East, he is not something degraded. On the contrary, he remains the divine that he is, that he has always been, and it is natural that dust will gather. Dust is bound to gather.
So there is no sin, just a false identification.
We become identified with the mind, with the dust. Our experience, our knowledge, our memories, all are dust. Whatsoever you have known, whatsoever you have experienced, whatsoever has been your past, is all dust. Regaining the original mind means regaining the purity -- without experiences, without knowledge, without memories, without the past.
The whole past is dust, but we are identified with the past and not with the consciousness that is always present. Think of it in this way: whatsoever you know is always of the past, and you are here and now in the present. All your knowledge is dust. "Knowing" is your purity, knowledge is dust. The capacity to know, the energy to know, knowing, is your original nature. Through that knowing you gather knowledge. That knowledge is dust-like. Here and now, this very moment, you are absolutely pure, but you are not identified with this purity, you are identified with the past, the accumulated past. So all meditative techniques are basically methods to remove yourself from the past and to allow you to plunge into the here and now.
Buddha was searching for how to regain this purity of consciousness, how to be free from the past, because unless you are free from the past you will remain in bondage, you will be a slave. The past is heavy on you, and because of the past the present is never known. The past is known; the present is a very minute atomic moment. You go on missing it because of the past, and because of the past you go on projecting into the future. The past is projected into the future, and both are false. The past is no more, the future is yet to be. Both are not, and that which is, is hidden between these two which are not.
Buddha was in search; he went from one teacher to another. He searched, and he went to many teachers, all of the known teachers. He consulted them, he allowed them to work upon him, he cooperated. He disciplined himself in many ways, but he was not fulfilled, and the difficulty was this: the teachers were interested in the future, in some liberated state somewhere beyond death, after the life is over. They were interested in some God, some nirvana, some moksha -some liberated state -- somewhere in the future, and Buddha was interested in the here and now, so there was really no meeting. He said to every teacher, "I am interested in the here and now, in how to be total, complete and pure here and now." And they would say, "Apply this method, do this, and if you do it rightly, someday in the future, in some future life, in some future state, you will attain."
Sooner or later he left every teacher, and then he tried by himself alone. What did he do? He did a very simple thing. Once you know it, it is very simple and obvious, but when you don't know it, it is so arduous and so difficult, it seems impossible. He did only one thing: he remained with the present moment. He forgot his past and he forgot his future. He said, "I will be here and now. I will simply exist." If you can exist even for a single moment, you have known the taste -- the taste of your pure consciousness. And once it is tasted you can never forget it. Then the taste, the flavor, remains with you, and that flavor becomes a transformation.
Many are the ways how to uncover yourself from your past, how to throw the dust and have a look into the mirror of your own mind. All these techniques are different ways, but with every technique a deep understanding is needed: remember that. These techniques are not mechanical because they are to uncover consciousness. They are not mechanical things. You can use these techniques mechanically, and if you use them as mechanical techniques you may gain a certain stillness of mind, but that won't be the original purity. You may gain a certain silence, but that silence will he cultivated. That too belongs to the dust part of the mind, not to the original layer. Don't use them mechanically. A deep understanding is needed, and with understanding they can be helpful to uncover your being.
The first technique:
"IN MOODS OF EXTREME DESIRE, BE UNDISTURBED."
"IN MOODS OF EXTREME DESIRE, BE UNDISTURBED": When desire grips you, you are disturbed. Of course, that is natural. Desire grips you, then your mind starts wavering and many ripples go on, on the surface. The desire pulls you somewhere into the future; the past pushes you somewhere in the future. You are disturbed, you are not at ease. Desire is, therefore, a "dis-ease."
This sutra says, "IN MOODS OF EXTREME DESIRE, BE UNDISTURBED." But how to be undisturbed? Desire means disturbance, so how to be undisturbed -- and in extreme moments of desire? You will have to do certain experiments; only then will you understand what it means. You are in anger, anger grips you, you are temporarily mad, possessed, you are no more in your senses. Suddenly remember to be undisturbed -- as if you are undressing. Inside, become naked, naked from the anger, undressed. Anger will be there, but now you have a point within you which is not disturbed.
You will know that anger is there on the periphery. Like fever, it is there. The periphery is wavering; the periphery is disturbed. But you can look at it. If you can look at it, you will be undisturbed. Become a witness to it, and you will be undisturbed. This undisturbed point is your original mind. The original mind cannot be disturbed; it is never disturbed -- but you have never looked at it. When anger is there, you become identified with the anger. You forget that anger is something other than you. You become one with it, and you start acting through it, you start doing something through it.
Two things can be done. In anger you will be violent to someone, to the object of your anger. Then you have moved to the other. Anger is just in between you and the other. Here I am, then there is anger, and there you are -- the object of my anger. From anger I can travel in two dimensions: either I can travel to you; then you become my center of consciousness, the object of my anger. Then my mind becomes focused on you, the one who has insulted me. This is one way how you can travel from anger. There is another way: you can travel to yourself. You don't move to the person whom you feel has caused the anger. You move to the person who feels to be angry; you move to the subject and not to the object.
Ordinarily, we go on moving to the object. If you move to the object, the dust part of your mind is disturbed, and you will feel, "'l' am disturbed." If you move within to the center of your own being, you will be able to witness the dust part; you will be able to see that the dust part of the mind is disturbed, but "I am not disturbed." And you can experiment upon this with any desire, any disturbance.
A sexual desire comes to your mind; your whole body is taken by it. You can move to the sexual object, the object of your desire. The object may be there, it may not be there. You can move to the object in imagination also. But then you will get more and more disturbed. The further you go away from your center, the more you will be disturbed. Really, the distance and disturbance are always in proportion. The more distant you are from your center, the more you are disturbed; the nearer you are to the center, the less you are disturbed. If you are just at the center, there is no disturbance.
In a cyclone, there is a center which is undisturbed -- in the cyclone of anger, the cyclone of sex, the cyclone of any desire. Just in the center there is no cyclone, and a cyclone cannot exist without a silent center. The anger also cannot exist without something within you which is beyond anger.
Remember this: nothing can exist without its opposite. The opposite is needed there. Without it, there is no possibility of it existing. If there were no center within you which remains unmoved, no movement would be possible there. If there were no center within you which remains undisturbed, no disturbance could happen to you. Analyze this and observe this. If there were no center of absolute undisturbance in you, how could you feel that you are disturbed? You need a comparison. You need two points to compare.
Suppose a person is ill: he feels illness because somewhere within him, a point, a center of absolute health exists. That is why he can compare. You say that your head is aching. How is it that you know about this ache, this headache? If you were the headache, you could not know it. You must be someone else, something else -- the observer, the witness, who can say, "My head is aching."
This ache can be felt only by something which is not the ache. If you are ill, you are feverish, you can feel it because you are not the fever. The fever cannot feel that there is fever; someone is needed who is beyond it. A polarity is needed. When you are in anger, and if you feel you are in anger, it means that a point exists within you which is still undisturbed and which can be a witness. You may not look at that point, that is another thing. You may not see yourself at that point, that is another thing. But it is there always in its pristine purity; it is there.
This sutra says, "IN MOODS OF EXTREME DESIRE, BE UNDISTURBED." What can you do? This technique is not for suppression. This technique is not saying that when there is anger suppress it and remain undisturbed -- no! If you suppress, you will create more disturbance. If the anger is there and an effort to suppress is there, it will double the disturbance. When anger is there, close your doors, meditate on the anger, allow the anger to be. You remain undisturbed, and don't suppress it.
It is easy to suppress; it is easy to express. We do both. We express if the situation allows, and if it is convenient and not dangerous for you. If you can harm the other and the other cannot harm you, you will express the anger. If it is dangerous, if the other can harm you more, if your boss or whoever you are angry at is more strong, you will suppress it.
Expression and suppression are easy, witnessing is difficult. Witnessing is neither; it is not suppressing, it is not expressing. It is not expressing because you are not expressing it to the object of anger. It is not being suppressed either. You are allowing it to be expressed -- expressed in a vacuum. You are meditating on it.
Stand before a mirror and express your anger -- and be a witness to it. You are alone, so you can meditate on it. Do whatsoever you want to do, but in a vacuum. If you want to beat someone, beat the empty sky. If you want to be angry, be angry; if you want to scream, scream. But do it alone, and remember yourself as a point which is seeing all this, this drama. Then it becomes a psychodrama, and you can laugh at it and it will be a deep catharsis for you. Afterwards you will feel relieved of it -- and not only relieved of it, you will have gained something through it. You will have matured; a growth will have come to you. And now you will know that even while you were in anger there was a center within you which was undisturbed. Now try to uncover this center more and more, and it is easy to uncover it in desire.
That is why tantra is not against desire. It says be in desire, but remember the center which is undisturbed. So tantra says that even sex can be used. Move in sex, but remain undisturbed. Be a witness. Go on being a deep observer. Whatsoever is happening, is happening on the periphery; you are just an onlooker, a spectator.
This technique can be very useful, and much benefit can happen to you through it. But it will be difficult because when you become disturbed, you forget everything. You may forget that you have to meditate. Then try it in this way: don't wait for the moment when anger happens to you. Don't wait for the moment! Just close your room, and think of some past experience of anger when you went mad. Remember it, and re-enact it. That will be easy for you. Re-enact it again, do it again, relive it. Do not just remember it, relive it. Remember that someone had insulted you and what was said and how you reacted to him. React again, replay it.
You may not know that mind is just a tape-recording device. And now scientists say, now it is a scientific fact, that if your memory centers are touched with electrodes, they start replaying. For example, you were once angry: the incident is recorded, in the same sequence as it happened, just as if on a tape-recording in your brain. If it is touched by an electrode, it mill start replaying. You will have the same feeling again. Your eyes will go red, your body will start trembling and will become feverish, the whole thing will be re-enacted. The moment the electrode is put away, it stops. If you give it energy again, it starts from the very beginning again.
Now they say that mind is a recording machine, and you can re-enact anything. But don't just remember: relive. Start feeling the experience again, and the mind will get the idea. The incident will come to you; you will relive it. In reliving it, remain undisturbed. Start from the past. This is easy because now it is a play, the actual situation is not there. And if you become capable of doing this, then you will be able to do it when the situation for anger is really there, when a real situation is there. And this can be done with every desire, and it is to be done with every desire.
This re-enacting something from the past will do much. Everyone has scars in his mind; unhealed wounds are there. If you re-enact them, you will be unburdened. If you can go to your past and do something which has remained incomplete, you will be unburdened from your past. Your mind will become fresher; the dust will be thrown away. Remember in your past something which you feel has remained suspended. You wanted to kill someone, you wanted to love someone, you wanted this and that, and that has remained incomplete.
That incomplete thing goes on hovering on the mind like a cloud. It influences everything that you are and that you are doing. That cloud has to be dispersed. Move back on the time track and bring back desires which have remained incomplete, and relive the wounds which are still green. They will be healed. You will become more whole, and through this you will have the knack of how to remain undisturbed in a situation which is disturbed.
"IN MOODS OF EXTREME DESIRE, BE UNDISTURBED." Gurdjieff used this technique very much. He created situations, but to create situations a school is needed. You cannot do that alone. Gurdjieff had a small school in Fontainebleau, and he was a taskmaster. He knew how to create situations. You would enter the room, and a group would be sitting there. You would enter the room where a group was sitting, and something would be done so that you would get angry. And it would be done so naturally that you could never imagine that some situation was being created for you. But it was a device. Someone would insult you by saying something, and you would get disturbed. Then everyone would help the disturbance and you would become mad. And when you were right at the point where you could explode, Gurdjieff would shout, "Remember! Remain undisturbed!"
A situation can be created, but only in a school where many persons are working on themselves. And when Gurdjieff would shout, "Remember! Remain undisturbed," now you would know that this was a created situation. The disturbance cannot disappear so suddenly, so immediately, because it has physical roots. Your glands had thrown poison in the blood; your body had become affected.
Anger cannot disappear so immediately. Even now that you had come to know that you had been deceived, that no one was insulting you and no one meant anything by it, it would be difficult to do anything. The anger is there, your body is filled with it -- but suddenly your temperature cools down. Only on the body, on the periphery, does the anger remain. At the center you suddenly cool down, and you know that a point exists within you which is undisturbed. You start laughing. Your eyes are red with anger; your face is violent, animal-like, but you start laughing. You know two things now -- a point which is undisturbed and a periphery which is disturbed.
You can help. Your family can become a school; you can help each other. Friends can become a school and they can help each other. You can decide with your family... the whole family can decide that now a situation has to be created for the father or for the mother, and then the whole family works to create the situation. When the father or mother goes completely mad, then everyone starts laughing and says, "Remain completely undisturbed." You can help each other, and the experience is simply wonderful. Once you know a cool center within you in a hot situation, you cannot forget it, and then in any hot situation you can remember it, reclaim it, regain it.
In the West now one technique, a therapeutic technique, is used; it is called psychodrama. It helps, and it is also based on techniques like this. In psychodrama you just enact, you just play a game. In the beginning it is a game, but sooner or later you become possessed. And when you become possessed your mind starts functioning, because your mind and your body function automatically. They function automatically!
So if you see an actor acting in a psychodrama who, in a situation of anger, really becomes angry, you may think that he is simply acting, but it is not so. He might have really become angry; it may not be acting at all now. He is possessed by the desire, by the disturbance, by the feeling, by the mood, and if he is really possessed, only then does his acting look real.
Your body cannot know whether you are playing or whether you are doing it for real. You may have observed yourself at some time in your life that you were just playing at being angry, and you didn't know when the anger became real, or you were just playing and you were not feeling sexual. You were playing with your wife or with your girlfriend, or with your husband, and then suddenly it became real. The body takes it, and the body can be deceived. The body cannot know whether it is real or unreal, particularly with sex. If you imagine it your body thinks it is real.
Sex is one of the most imaginary centers in the body, so just by imagining, you can have a sexual orgasm. You can deceive the body. In dream, you can have a sexual release; even in dream, the body is deceived. You are not making love to anyone; just in dream, in fantasy, in imagination, you are making love. But the body can release sexual energy, and even a deep orgasm can be felt. What is happening? How is the body deceived? The body cannot know what is real and what is unreal. Once you start doing something, the body thinks it is real and it starts behaving in a real way.
Psychodrama is a technique based on such methods. You are not angry, you are simply acting angry -- and then you get into it. But psychodrama is beautiful because you know that you are simply acting, and then on the periphery anger becomes real, and just behind it you are hidden and looking at it. Now you know that you are not disturbed, but the anger is there, the disturbance is there. The disturbance is there, and yet the disturbance is not.
This feeling of two forces working simultaneously gives you a transcendence, and then in real anger also you can feel it. Once you know how to feel it, you can feel it in real situations also. Use this technique; this will change your total life. Once you know how to remain undisturbed, the world is not misery for you. Then nothing can create any confusion in you, really,.nothing can hurt you. Now there is no suffering for you, and once you know it you can do another thing.
Gurdjieff used to do it. He was able to change his face at any moment. He would be laughing, he would be smiling, he would be looking happy with you, and suddenly he would become angry without any cause. And it is reported about him that he became so proficient at this art that if two persons were sitting near him, one on each side, he could be angry with half of his face and he could be smiling with the other half of his face. Then one person would report, "What a beautiful man Gurdjieff is," and the other would say, "What an ugly man! " He would look at one person from one side smiling, and he would look at the other side angrily.
Once you can detach your center from the periphery, you can do it. Once the center is detached completely, if you can remain undisturbed in anger, in desire, you can play with desires, with anger, with disturbances.
This technique is to create a feeling of two extremes within you. They are there, two polar opposites are there. Once you become aware of this polarity, you become for the first time a master of yourself. Otherwise others are your masters; you are just a slave. Your wife knows, your son knows, your father knows, your friends know, that you can be pushed and pulled. You can be disturbed, you can be made happy and unhappy. If someone else can make you happy and unhappy, you are not a master, you are just a slave. The other has a hold. Just by a single gesture he can make you unhappy; just by a small smile be can make you happy.
So you are just at the mercy of someone else; the other can do anything to you. And if this is the situation, then all your reactions are simply reactions, not actions. You simply react. If someone insults you and you become angry, your anger is not an action, it is a reaction. If someone appreciates you and you start smiling and feeling good, great, this is a reaction, not an action.
Buddha was passing by a village, and some persons gathered there. They were against him, and they insulted him. Buddha listened, and then he said, "I am to reach to the other village in time, so can I go now? If you have said whatsoever you have come to say, if it is finished, then I can move. Or, if you have to say something more to me, while returning I will wait here. You can come and tell me."
Those persons were just surprised. They couldn't understand. They had been insulting him, using bad words, abusing him, so they said, "But we are not saying something to you, we are abusing and insulting you.
" Buddha said, "You can do that, but if you want any reaction from me you have come late. Ten years before, if you had come with such words, I would have reacted. But now I have learned how to act, I am a master of myself now; you cannot force me to do anything. So you will have to go back. You cannot disturb me; nothing can disturb me now because I have known my own center."
This knowledge of the center or this grounding in the center makes you a master. Otherwise you are a slave, and a slave of so many -- not only of one master, but of many. Everything is a master, and you are a slave to the whole universe. Obviously, you will be in trouble. With so many masters pulling you in so many directions and dimensions, you are never together; you are not in a unity, and pulled in so many dimensions, you are in anguish. Only a master of oneself can transcend anguish.
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If hate arises for someone or against someone, or love arises for someone, what do we do? We project it on the person. If you feel hate toward me, you forget yourself completely in your hate; only I become your object. If you feel love toward me, you forget yourself completely; only I become the object. You project your love or hate or whatsoever upon me. You forget completely the inner center of your being; the other becomes the center. This sutra says when hate arises or love arises, or any mood for or against anyone, do not project it on the person in question. Remember, you are the source of it.
I love you -- the ordinary feeling is that you are the source of my love. That is not really so. I am the source, you are just a screen on which I project my love. You are just a screen; I project my love on you and I say that you are the source of my love. This is not fact, this is fiction. I draw my love energy and project it onto you. In that love energy projected onto you, you become lovely. You may not be lovely to someone else, you may be absolutely repulsive to someone else. Why? If you are the source of love then everyone will feel loving toward you, but you are not the source. I project love, then you become lovely; someone projects hate, then you become repulsive. And someone else doesn't project anything, he is indifferent; he may not even have looked at you. What is happening? We are projecting our own moods upon others.
That is why, if you are on your honeymoon, the moon looks beautiful, miraculous, wonderful. It seems that the whole world is different. And on the same night, just for your neighbor, this miraculous night may not be in existence at all. His child has died -- then the same moon is just sad, intolerable. But for you it is enchanting, fascinating; it is maddening. Why? Is the moon the source or is the moon just a screen and you are projecting yourself?
This sutra says, WHEN A MOOD AGAINST SOMEONE OR FOR SOMEONE ARISES, DO NOT PLACE IT ON THE PERSON IN QUESTION -- or on the object in question. Remain centered. Remember that you are the source, so do not move to the other, move to the source. When you feel hate, do not go to the object. Go to the point from where the hate is coming. Go not to the person to whom it is going, but to the center from where it is coming. Move to the center, go within. Use your hate or love or anger or anything as a journey toward your inner center, to the source. Move to the source and remain centered there.
Try it! This is a very, very scientific, psychological technique. Someone has insulted you -- anger suddenly erupts, you are feverish. Anger is flowing toward the person who has insulted you. Now you will project this whole anger onto him. He has not done anything. If he has insulted you, what has he done? He has just pricked you, he has helped your anger to arise -- but the anger is yours. If he goes to Buddha and insults him, he will not be able to create any anger in him. Or if he goes to Jesus, Jesus will give him the other cheek. Or if he goes to Bodhidharma, he will roar with laughter. So it depends.
The other is not the source, the source is always within you. The other is hitting the source, but if there is no anger within you it cannot come out. If you hit a buddha, only compassion will come out because only compassion is there. Anger will not come out because anger is not there. If you throw a bucket into a dry well, nothing comes out. In a water-filled well, you throw a bucket and water comes out, but the water is from the well. The bucket only helps to bring it out. So one who is insulting you is just throwing a bucket in you, and then the bucket will come out filled with the anger, hate, or fire that was within you. You are the source, remember.
For this technique, remember that you are the source of everything that you go on projecting onto others. And whenever there is a mood against or for, immediately move within and go to the source from where this hate is coming. Remain centered there; do not move to the object. Someone has given you a chance to be aware of your own anger -- thank him immediately and forget him. Close your eyes, move within, and now look at the source from where this love or anger is coming. From where? Go within, move within. You will find the source there because the anger is coming from your source.
Hate or love or anything is coming from your source. And it is easy to go to the source at the moment you are angry or in love or in hate, because then you are hot. It is easy to move in then. The wire is hot and you can take it in, you can move inward with that hotness. And when you reach a cool point within, you will suddenly realize a different dimension, a different world opening before you. Use anger, use hate, use love to go within.
We use it always to move to the other, and we feel very much frustrated if no one is there to project upon. Then we go on projecting even on inanimate objects. I have seen persons being angry at their shoes, throwing them in anger. What are they doing? I have seen angry persons pushing a door in anger, throwing their anger on the door, abusing the door, using dirty language against the door. What are they doing?
I will end with one Zen insight about this. One of the greatest of Zen masters, Lin Chi, used to say, "While I was young I was very fascinated by boating. I had one small boat, and I would go on the lake alone. For hours together I would remain there.
"Once it happened that with closed eyes I was in my boat meditating on the beautiful night. One empty boat came floating downstream and struck my boat. My eyes were closed, so I thought, `Someone is here with his boat, and he has struck my boat.' Anger arose. I opened my eyes and I was just going to say something to that man in anger, then I realized that the boat was empty. Then there was no way to move. To whom could I express the anger? The boat was empty. It was just floating downstream, and it had come and struck my boat. So there was nothing to do. There was no possibility to project the anger on an empty boat."
So Lin Chi said, "I closed my eyes. The anger was there, but finding no way out, I closed my eyes and just floated backward with the anger. And that empty boat became my realization. I came to a point within myself in that silent night. That empty boat was my master. And now if someone comes and insults me, I laugh and I say, `This boat is also empty.' I close my eyes and I go within."
Use this technique. It may work miracles for you.
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Centering
BLESSED ONE, AS SENSES ARE ABSORBED IN THE HEART, REACH THE CENTER OF THE LOTUS.
Every technique is useful for a certain type of mind. The technique we have been discussing, the third -- closing the openings of the head -- can be used by many. It is very simple and not very dangerous. You can use it very easily, and there is also no need to close the openings with your hands. Closing is needed, so you can use ear plugs and you can use a mask for the eyes. The real thing is to close the openings of your head completely for a few moments -- for a few moments or for a few seconds. Try it. Do not practice it -- only suddenly is it helpful. When it is sudden it is helpful. When lying in your bed, suddenly close all your openings for a few seconds, and see what is happening within.
When you feel suffocated, go on -- unless it becomes absolutely unbearable, because breathing will be closed. Go on, unless it becomes absolutely unbearable. And when it is absolutely unbearable, you will not be able to close the openings any more, so you need not worry. The inner force will throw all the openings open. So as far as you are concerned, continue. When the suffocation comes, that is the moment -- because the suffocation will break the old associations. If you can continue for a few moments more, it would be good. It will be difficult and arduous, and you will feel that you are going to die -- but do not be afraid, because you cannot die. You cannot die just by closing the openings. But when you feel now you are going to die, that is the moment.
If you can persist in that moment, suddenly everything will be illumined. You will feel the inner space which goes on spreading, and the whole is included in it. Then open your openings. Go on trying it again and again. Whenever you have time, try it. But do not practice it. You can practice stopping the breath for a few moments. But practice will not help, a sudden jerk is needed. In that jerk, the flow into your old channels of consciousness stops, and a new thing becomes possible.
Many practice this even today -- many persons all over India. But they practice it, and it is a sudden method. If you practice, then nothing will happen. If I throw you out of this room suddenly, your thoughts will stop. But if we practice it daily, then nothing will happen. It will become a mechanical habit. So do not practice it. Just try it whenever you can. Then suddenly, by and by, you will become aware of an inner space. That inner space comes only to your consciousness when you are on the verge of death. When you are feeling, "Now I cannot continue for a single moment; now death is near," that is the right moment. Persist! Do not be afraid. Death is not so easy. At least up until now not a single person has died using this method.
There are built-in securities, that is why you cannot die. Before death one becomes unconscious. If you are conscious and feeling that you are going to die, do not be afraid. You are still conscious, so you cannot die. And if you become unconscious, then your breath will start. Then you cannot prevent it. So you can use ear plugs, etc. Hands are not necessary. Hands were used only because if you are falling into unconsciousness, the hands will become loose and the life process will resume again by itself.
You can use plugs for the ears, a mask for the eyes, but do not use any plugs for the nose or for the mouth, because then it can become fatal. At least the nose should remain open. Close it with your hands. Then when you are actually falling into unconsciousness, the hands will become loose and the breathing will come in. So there is a built-in security. This method can be used by many.
The fourth method is for those who have a very developed heart, who are loving, feeling types, emotional. BLESSED ONE, AS SENSES ARE ABSORBED IN THE HEART, REACH THE CENTER OF THE LOTUS. This method can be used only by heart-oriented persons. Therefore, understand first what is a heart-oriented person. Then this method can be understood.
With one who is heart-oriented, everything leads to the heart, everything. If you love him, his heart will feel your love, not his head. A head-oriented person, even when loved, feels it cerebrally, in the head. He thinks about it; he plans about it. Even his love is a deliberate effort of the mind.
A feeling type lives without reasoning. Of course, the heart has its own reasons, but it lives without reasoning. If someone asks you, "Why do you love?" if you can answer why, then you are a head-oriented person. And if you say, "I do not know, I just love," you are a heart-oriented person.
Even if you say that someone is beautiful and that is why you love, it is a reason. For a heart-oriented person, someone is beautiful because they love him. The head-oriented person loves someone because he is beautiful or she is beautiful. The reason comes first, and then comes love. For the heart-oriented, love comes first and then everything else follows. The feeling type is centered in the heart, so whatsoever happens touches his heart.
Just observe yourself. In your life, many things are happening every moment. Where do they touch you? You are passing, and a beggar crosses the street. Where are you touched by the beggar? Do you start thinking about economic conditions? Do you start thinking about how begging should be stopped by law, or about how a socialist society should be created so that there are no beggars? This is a head-oriented man. This beggar becomes just a datum for him. His heart is not touched, only his head is touched. He is not going to do something for this beggar here and now -- no! He will do something for communism, he will do something for the future, for some utopia. He may even devote his whole life, but he cannot do anything just now.
The mind is always doing in the future; the heart is always here and now. A heart-oriented person will do something now for this beggar. This beggar is an individual, not a datum. But for a head-oriented man, this beggar is just a mathematical figure. For him, how begging should be stopped is the problem, not that this beggar should be helped -- that is irrelevant. So just watch yourself. In many situations, watch how you act. Are you concerned with the heart or are you concerned with the head?
If you feel that you are a heart-oriented person, then this method will be very helpful to you. But know well that everyone is trying to deceive himself that he is heart-oriented. Everyone tries to feel that he is a very loving person, a feeling type -- because love is such a basic need that no one can feel at ease if he sees that he has no love, no loving heart. So everyone goes on thinking and believing this, but belief will not do. Observe very impartially, as if you are observing someone else, and then decide -- because there is no need to deceive yourself, and it will be of no help. Even if you deceive yourself, you cannot deceive the technique, so when you do this technique you will feel that nothing is happening.
People come to me, and I ask them to what type they belong. They do not know really. They have never thought about it -- about what type they are. They have just vague conceptions about themselves, and those conceptions are really just imagination. They have certain ideals and self-images, and they think -- or rather, they wish -- that they are those images. They are not, and often it happens that they prove to be just the contrary.
There is a reason for it. A person who insists that he is a heart-oriented person may be insisting only because he feels the absence of heart, and he is afraid. He cannot become aware of the fact that he has no heart.
Look at the world! If everyone is right about his heart, then this world cannot be so heartless. This world is our total, so somewhere, something is wrong. Heart is not there. Really, it was never trained to be there. Mind is trained, so it is there. There are schools, colleges, universities to train the mind, but there is no place to train the heart. And the training of the mind pays, but the training of the heart is dangerous. If your heart is trained you will become absolutely unfit for this world, because the whole world is run through reason.
If your heart is trained, you will just be absurd in the context of the whole pattern. When the whole world will be moving to the right, you will be moving to the left. Everywhere you will feel difficulty. Really, the more man becomes civilized, the less and less the heart is trained. We have really forgotten about it -- that it exists, or that there is any need for its training. That is why such methods, which can work very easily, never work.
Most of the religions are based on heart-oriented techniques -- Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and many others. They are based on the heart-oriented person. The older the religion, the more it is based on heart-oriented persons. Really, when the Vedas were written and Hinduism was developing, there were people who were heart-oriented. And to find a mind-oriented person then was really difficult. But now the reverse is a problem. You cannot pray, because prayer is a heart-oriented technique. That is why even in the West, where Christianity -- which is a religion of prayer -- prevails, prayer has become difficult. Particularly, the Catholic Church is prayer-oriented.
There exists no such thing as meditation for Christianity, but now even in the West people are becoming crazy about meditation. No one is going to church -- and even if someone is going, it is just a formal thing, just Sunday religion -- because the heart-oriented prayer has become absolutely unknown for man as he is in the West.
Meditation is more mind-oriented, prayer is more heart-oriented. Or we can say that prayer is a technique of meditation for heart-oriented persons. This technique is also for heart- oriented persons: BLESSED ONE, AS SENSES ARE ABSORBED IN THE HEART, REACH THE CENTER OF THE LOTUS.
So what is to be done in this technique? AS SENSES ARE ABSORBED IN THE HEART... Try! Many ways are possible. You touch someone: if you are a heart-oriented person the touch immediately goes to your heart, and you can feel the quality. If you take the hand of a person who is head-oriented, the hand will be cold -- not just cold, but the very quality will be cold. A deadness, a certain deadness will be in the hand. If the person is heart-oriented then there is a certain warmth, then his hand will really melt with you. You will feel a certain thing flowing from his hand to you, and there will be a meeting, a communication of warmth.
This warmth comes from the heart. It can never come from the head, because the head is always cool... cold, calculative. The heart is warm, non-calculative. The head always thinks about how to take more; the heart always feels how to give more. That warmth is just a giving -- a giving of energy, a giving of inner vibrations, a giving of life. That is why you feel a different quality in it. If the person really embraces you, you will feel a deep melting with him.
Touch! Close your eyes; touch anything. Touch your beloved or your lover, touch your child or your mother or your friend, or touch a tree or a flower, or just touch the earth. Close your eyes and feel a communication from your heart to the earth, or to your beloved. Feel that your hand is just your heart stretched out to touch the earth. Let the feeling of touch be related to the heart.
You are listening to music. Do not listen to it from the head. Just forget your head and feel that you are headless, there is no head at all. It is good to have a picture of yourself without the head in your bedroom. Concentrate on it; you are without the head, do not allow the head to come in. While listening to music, listen to it from the heart. Feel the music coming to your heart; let your heart vibrate with it. Let your senses be joined to the heart, not to the head. Try this with all the senses, and feel more and more that every sense goes into the heart and dissolves into it.
BLESSED ONE, AS SENSES ARE ABSORBED IN THE HEART, REACH THE CENTER OF THE LOTUS. The heart is the lotus. Every sense is just the opening of the lotus, the petals of the lotus. Try to relate your senses to the heart first. Secondly, always think that every sense goes deep down into the heart and becomes absorbed in it. When these two things become established, only then will your senses begin to help you. They will lead you to the heart, and your heart will become a lotus.
This lotus of the heart will give you a centering. Once you know the center of the heart, it is very easy to fall down into the navel center, very easy. This sutra does not even mention this -- there is no need. If you are really absorbed in the heart totally, and reason has stopped working, then you will fall down. From the heart, the door is opened toward the navel. Only from the head is it difficult to go toward the navel. Or if you are between the two, between the heart and the head, then too it is difficult to go to the navel. Once you are absorbed in the navel, you have suddenly fallen beyond the heart. You have fallen into the navel center which is the basic one -- the original.
That is why prayer helps. That is why Jesus could say, "Love is God." It is not exactly right, but love is the door. If you are deeply in love -- with anyone, it doesn't matter who... Love matters; the object of love doesn't matter. If you are in deep love with anyone, so much in love that there is no relationship from the head, if just the heart is functioning, then this love will become prayer and your beloved or your lover will become divine.
Really, the eye of the heart cannot see anything else, and that is why it happens with ordinary love also. If you fall in love with someone, that someone becomes divine. It may not prove to be very lasting, and it may not prove to be a very deep thing, but in that moment the lover or the beloved becomes divine. The head will destroy the whole thing sooner or later, because the head will come in and try to manage everything. Even love has to be managed. And once the head manages, everything is destroyed.
If you can be in love without the head's management coming in, your love is bound to become prayer and your beloved will become the door. Your love will make you centered in the heart -- and once you are centered in the heart, you automatically fall down deep into the navel center.
******* UNMINDING MIND, KEEP IN THE MIDDLE -- UNTIL.
Only this much is the sutra. Just like any scientific sutra it is short, but even these few words can transform your life totally. UNMINDING MIND, KEEP IN THE MIDDLE -- UNTIL.
KEEP IN THE MIDDLE... Buddha developed his whole technique of meditation on this sutra. His path is known as MAJJHIM NIKAYA -- the middle path. Buddha says, "Remain always in the middle -- in everything."
One Prince Shrown took initiation, Buddha initiated him into sannyas. That prince was a rare man, and when he took sannyas, when he was initiated, his whole kingdom was just amazed. The kingdom couldn't believe it, the people couldn't believe that Prince Shrown could become a sannyasin. No one had ever even imagined it, as he was a man of this world -- indulging in everything, indulging to the extreme. Wine and women were his whole milieu.
Then suddenly Buddha came to the town, and the prince went to see him for a DARSHAN -- A spiritual encounter. He fell at Buddha's feet and he said, "Initiate me. I will leave this world." Those who had come with him were not even aware... this was so sudden. So they asked Buddha, "What is happening? This is a miracle. Shrown is not that type of man, and he has lived very luxuriously. Up to now we couldn't even imagine that Shrown is going to take sannyas, so what has happened? You have done something."
Buddha said, "I have not done anything. Mind can move easily from one extreme to the other. That is the way of the mind -- to move from one extreme to another. So Shrown is not doing something new. It is to be expected. Because you do not know the law of the mind, that is why you are so much taken aback."
The mind moves from one extreme to another, that is the way of the mind. So it happens every day: a person who was mad after wealth renounces everything, becomes a naked fakir. We think, "What a miracle!" But it is nothing -- just the ordinary law. A person who was not mad after wealth cannot be expected to renounce, because only from one extreme can you move to another -- just like a pendulum, from one extreme to the other.
So a person who was after wealth, mad after wealth, will become mad against it, but the madness will remain -- that is the mind. A man who lived just for sex may become a celibate, may move into isolation, but the madness will remain. Before he was living only for sex, now he will be living only against sex -- but the attitude, the approach, remains the same.
So a BRAHMACHARI, a celibate, is not really beyond sex; his whole mind is sex-oriented. He is against, but not beyond. The way of beyond is always in the middle, it is never at the extreme. So Buddha says, "This could have been expected. No miracle has happened. This is how mind works."
Shrown became a beggar, a sannyasin. He became a BHIKKHU, a monk, and soon other disciples of Buddha observed that he was moving to the other extreme. Buddha never asked anyone to be naked, but Shrown became naked. Buddha was not for nakedness. He said, "That is just another extreme."
There are persons who live for clothes as if that is their life, and there are other persons who become naked -- but both believe in the same thing. Buddha never taught nakedness, but Shrown became naked. He was the only disciple of Buddha who was naked. He became very, very self-torturing. Buddha allowed one meal every day for the sannyasins, but Shrown would take only one meal on alternate days. He became lean and thin. While all the other disciples would sit for meditation under trees, in the shade, he would never sit under any tree. He would always remain in the hot sun. He was a beautiful man and he had a very lovely body, but within six months no one could recognize that he was the same man. He became ugly, dark, black, burned.
Buddha went to Shrown one night and asked him, "Shrown, I have heard that when you were a prince, before initiation, you used to play on a VEENA, a sitar, and you were a great musician. So I have come to ask you one question. If the strings of the veena are very loose, what happens?" Shrown said, "If the strings are very loose, then no music is possible." And then Buddha said, "And if the strings are very tight, too tight, then what happens?" Shrown said, "Then too music cannot be produced. The strings must be in the middle -- neither loose nor tight, but just exactly in the middle." Shrown said, "It is easy to play the veena, but only a master can set these strings right, in the middle."
So Buddha said, "This much I have to say to you, after observing you for the last six months -- that in life also the music comes only when the strings are neither loose nor tight, but just in the middle. So to renounce is easy, but only a master knows how to be in the middle. So Shrown, be a master, and let these strings of life be just in the middle -- in everything. Do not go to this extreme, do not go to that one. Everything has two extremes, but you remain just in the middle."
But the mind is very unmindful. That is why the sutra says, UNMINDING MIND... You will hear this, you will understand this, but the mind will not take note. The mind will always go on choosing extremes.
The extreme has a fascination for the mind. Why? Because in the middle, mind dies. Look at a pendulum: if you have any old clock, look at the pendulum. The pendulum can go on moving the whole day if it goes to the extremes. When it goes to the left it is gathering momentum to go to the right. When it goes toward the right, do not think that it is going toward the right -- it is accumulating momentum to go toward the left. So the extremes are right-left, right-left.
Let the pendulum stay in the middle, then the whole momentum is lost. Then the pendulum has no energy, because the energy comes from one of the extremes. Then that extreme throws it toward another, then again, and it is a circle... the pendulum goes on moving. Let it be in the middle, and the whole movement will then stop.
Mind is just like a pendulum and every day, if you observe, you will come to know this. You decide one thing on one extreme, and then you move to another. You are angry; then you repent. You decide, "No, this is enough. Now I will never be angry." But you do not see the extreme.
"Never" is an extreme. How are you so certain that you will never be angry? What are you saying? Think once more -- never? Then go to the past and remember how many times you have decided that "I will never be angry." When you say, "I will never be angry," you do not know that by being angry you have accumulated momentum to go to the other extreme.
Now you are feeling repentant, you are feeling bad. Your self-image is disturbed, shaken. Now you cannot say you are a good man, you cannot say that you are a religious man. You have been angry, and how can a religious man be angry? How can a good man be angry? So you repent to regain your goodness again. At least in your own eyes you can feel at ease -- that you have repented and you have decided that now there will be no more anger. The shaken image has come back to the old status quo. Now you feel at ease, you have moved to another extreme.
But the mind that says, "Now I will never be angry," will again be angry. And when you are again angry, you will forget completely your repentance, your decision -- everything. After anger, again the decision will come and the repentance will come, and you will never feel the deception of it. This has been so always.
Mind moves from anger to repentance, from repentance to anger. Remain in the middle. Do not be angry and do not repent. If you have been angry, then please, at least do this: do not repent. Do not move to the other extreme. Remain in the middle. Say, "I have been angry and I am a bad man, a violent man. I have been angry. This is how I am." But do not repent; do not move to the other extreme. Remain in the middle. If you can remain, you will not gather the momentum, the energy to be angry again.
So this sutra says, UNMINDING MIND, KEEP IN THE MIDDLE -- UNTIL. And what is meant by UNTIL? Until you explode! Keep in the middle until the mind dies. Keep in the middle until there is no mind. So, UNMINDING MIND, KEEP IN THE MIDDLE -- UNTIL there is no mind. If mind is at the extremes, then the middle will be no-mind.
But this is the most difficult thing in the world to do. It looks easy, it looks simple; it may appear as if you can do this. And you will feel good if you think that there is no need for any repentance. Try this, and then you will know that when you have been angry the mind will insist on repenting.
Husbands and wives continue to quarrel, and for centuries and centuries there have been counsellors, advisors, great men who have been teaching how to live and love -- but they go on quarreling. Freud, for the first time, became aware of the phenomenon that whenever you are in love -- so-called love -- you are also in hate. In the morning it is love, in the evening it is hate, and the pendulum goes on moving. Every husband, every wife knows this, but Freud has a very uncanny insight. Freud says that if a couple has stopped fighting, know well that love has died.
That love which existed with hate and fight cannot remain, so if you see a couple never fighting, do not think that this is the ideal couple. It means no couple at all. They are living parallel, but not with each other. They are parallel lines never meeting anywhere, not even to fight. They are both alone together -- parallel.
Mind has to move to the opposite, so psychology now gives better advice. The advice is better, more deep, more penetrating. It says that if you really want to love -- with the mind -- then do not be afraid to fight. Really, you must fight authentically so you can move to the other extreme of authentic love. So when you are fighting with your wife, do not avoid it; otherwise the love will also be avoided. When the time for fight is there, fight until the end. Then by evening you will be able to love: the mind will have gathered momentum. The ordinary love cannot exist without fight because there is a movement of the mind. Only a love which is not of the mind can exist without fight, but then it is a different thing altogether.
A Buddha loving... that is a different thing altogether. But if Buddha comes to love you, you will not feel good because there will be no fault in it. It will be simply sweet and sweet and sweet -- and boring, because the spice comes from fight. A Buddha cannot be angry, he can only love. You will not feel his love because you can feel only opposites; you can feel it only in contrast.
When Buddha came back to his home town after twelve years, his wife wouldn't come to receive him. The whole city gathered to receive him except his wife. Buddha laughed, and he said to his chief disciple, Ananda, "Yashodhara has not come. I know her well. It seems she still loves me. She is proud, and she feels hurt. I was thinking that twelve years is a long time and she might not be in love now, but it seems she is still in love -- still angry. She has not come to receive me. I will have to go to the house."
So Buddha went. Ananda was with him; it was a condition with Ananda. When Ananda took initiation he made a condition with Buddha, to which Buddha agreed, that he would always remain with him. He was an elder cousin-brother, so Buddha had to concede.
Ananda followed him into the house, into the palace, so Buddha said, "At least for this you remain behind and do not come with me, because she will be furious. I am coming back after twelve years, and I just ran away without even telling her. She is still angry, so do not come with me; otherwise she will feel that I have not even allowed her to say anything. She must be feeling to say many things, so let her be angry, do not come with me."
Buddha went in. Of course, Yashodhara was just a volcano. She erupted, exploded. She started crying and weeping and saying things. Buddha stayed there, waited there, and by and by she cooled down and realized that Buddha had not even uttered a single word. She wiped her eyes and looked at Buddha, and Buddha said, "I have come to say that I have gained something, I have known something, I have realized something. If you become cool I can give you the message -- the truth that I have realized. I have waited so much in order that you could go through a catharsis. Twelve years is a long affair. You must have gathered many wounds, and your anger is understandable; I expected this. That shows that you are still in love with me. But there is a love beyond this love, and only because of that love have I come back to tell you something."
But Yashodhara could not feel that love. It is difficult to feel it because it is so silent. It is so silent, it is as if absent. When mind ceases, then a different love happens. But that love has no opposite to it. When mind ceases, really, whatsoever happens has no opposite to it. With the mind there is always the polar opposite, and mind moves like a pendulum. This sutra is wonderful, and miracles are possible through it: UNMINDING MIND, KEEP IN THE MIDDLE -- UNTIL.
So try it. And this sutra is for your whole life. You cannot practice it sometimes, you have to be aware continuously. Doing, walking, eating, in relationship, everywhere -- remain in the middle. Try at least, and you will feel a certain calmness developing, a tranquility coming to you, a quiet center growing within you.
Even if you are not successful in being exactly in the middle, try to be in the middle. By and by you will have the feel of what middle means. Whatsoever may be the case -- hate or love, anger or repentance -- always remember the polar opposites and remain in between. And sooner or later you will stumble upon the exact middle point.
Once you know it you can never forget it again, because that middle point is beyond the mind. That middle point is all that spirituality means.
Everything is polar, and mind moves from one polarity to another, never staying in between. Have you known any moment when you were neither happy nor unhappy? Have you known any moment when you were neither healthy nor sick? Have you known any moment when you were neither this nor that, when you were just in between, just in the middle, right in the middle? Mind moves from one pole to another immediately. If you are happy, sooner or later you will move to unhappiness, and you will move immediately: the happiness will disappear and you will be unhappy.
If you are feeling good, sooner or later you will feel bad, and there is no point where you stay in between. You move immediately from this to that. Just like the pendulum of an old clock, you move from left to right, from right to left, and the pendulum goes on moving. There is a secret law: when the pendulum is going to the left, it appears to be going to the left, but it is gathering momentum to go right. When it is going to the left, it is gathering energy, momentum, to go right; when it is going right, it is gathering momentum to go left. So what appears is not the whole. When you are becoming happy, you are gathering momentum to be unhappy. So whenever I see you laughing, the moment is not far away when you will be weeping.
In Indian villages, the mothers know this, so when a child starts laughing too much they say, "Stop him; otherwise he will weep." It is bound to be so. If a child is so much happy, the next step can be nothing but unhappiness. Thus, they stop him. Otherwise he will be unhappy. But the same applies to the reverse, and that is not known. When a child is weeping and you try to stop him, you are not only stopping his weeping; you are stopping his next step. He cannot be happy now. When a child is weeping, allow him. Help him to weep more so that when weeping is finished he has gathered momentum. Now he can move to the right, he can be happy.
Now psychoanalysts say that when a child is weeping and screaming, don't stop him, don't try to persuade him, don't distract him. Don't try to focus his mind somewhere else; don't bribe him to stop. Don't do anything. Just remain silent near him, and allow him to weep and cry and scream so that he can move easily to happiness. Otherwise, neither will he be able to weep nor will he be able to be happy. That is how we all have become. We cannot do anything. The smile is half-hearted, the tear is also half-hearted; everything is confusion.
But this is the natural law of mind. It moves from one pole to another. This technique is to change this natural law: "OH BELOVED, PUT ATTENTION NEITHER ON PLEASURE NOR ON PAIN, BUT BETWEEN THESE." Any of the polarities can be chosen, and try to be just in between. What can you do to be in between? How will you be in between? One thing: when pain is there, what can you do? When pain is there, you want to escape from it. You don't want it; you try to go away from it. Your effort is to go to the opposite -- to be happy, to be joyful.
When there is happiness, what do you do? Your effort is to cling to it so that the other pole may not enter -- to CLING to it! When happiness is there you cling; when pain is there you escape. This is the natural attitude. If you want to change this natural law and transcend it, when pain is there don't try to escape. Remain with it. You will disturb the whole natural mechanism. You have a headache: remain with it. Close your eyes, meditate on the headache; remain with it. Don't do anything. Just be a witness; don't try to escape.
When happiness is there and you are feeling especially blissful in any particular moment, don't cling to it. Close your eyes and remain a witness to it all. Clinging or escaping are natural for the dust-covered mind. If you remain a witness, sooner or later you will fall in between because the natural law is to move to the polarity, to the polar opposite. If you remain a witness, you are in between.
Buddha has called his whole philosophy MAJJHIM NIKAYA -- the middle way, because of this technique. He says remain in the middle always; no matter what the polarity, remain always in the middle. By witnessing one remains in the middle. The moment you lose your witnessing you either become attached or repulsed. If you are repulsed you will go to the other extreme; if you are attached you will try to remain at this extreme, but you will never be in between. Just be a witness. Don't be attracted, don't be repulsed. The headache is there; accept it. It is there as a fact. As a tree is there, as the house is there, as the night is there, the headache is there. Accept it and close your eyes. Don't try to escape from it.
You are happy; accept the fact. Don't cling to it, and don't try not to become unhappy; don't try anything. If unhappiness comes, allow it. If happiness comes, allow it. Just remain a watcher on the hill, just seeing things. The morning comes, and then evening comes, and then the sun rises, and then the sun sets and there are stars and darkness, and again the sun rises -- and you are just a watcher on the hill. You cannot do anything. You simply see. The morning has come; you note the fact, and you know that now the evening will come because the evening follows the morning. And when the evening comes you note the fact, and you know that now the morning will be coming because the morning follows the evening.
When pain is there, you are just a watcher. You know that pain has come, and sooner or later it will go, and the polar opposite will come. And when happiness has come, you know that it is not going to remain always. Unhappiness will be just hidden somewhere, it will be coming. You remain a watcher. If you can watch without attraction and without repulsion you will fall in the middle, and once the pendulum stops in the middle you can look for the first time at what the world is.
While you are moving, you cannot know what the world is; your movement confuses everything. Once you are not moving, you can look at the world. For the first time you know what reality is. A non-moving mind knows what reality is; a moving mind cannot know what reality is. Your mind is just like a camera: you go on moving and taking shots, but whatsoever comes is just a confusion because the camera must not move. If the camera is moving, the pictures are going to be just a confusion.
Your consciousness is moving from one pendulum to another, and whatsoever you know of reality is just a confusion, a nightmare. You don't know what is what; everything is confused, missed. If you remain in the middle and the pendulum has stopped, if your consciousness is focused now, centered, then you know what reality is. Only a mind that is unmoving can know what the truth is. "OH BELOVED, PUT ATTENTION NEITHER ON PLEASURE NOR ON PAIN, BUT BETWEEN THESE."
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Death & Sleep
The ninth technique: LIE DOWN AS DEAD. ENRAGED IN WRATH, STAY SO. OR STARE WITHOUT MOVING AN EYELASH. OR SUCK SOMETHING AND BECOME THE SUCKING.
LIE DOWN AS DEAD. Try it: suddenly you have gone dead. Leave the body! Do not move it, because you are dead. Just imagine that you are dead. You cannot move the body, you cannot move the eyes, you cannot cry, you cannot scream, you cannot do anything, you are just dead. And then feel how it feels. But do not deceive. You can deceive -- you can slightly move the body. Do not move. If some mosquito is there, then treat the body as if it is dead. It is one of the most used techniques.
Raman Maharshi attained his enlightenment through this technique, but it was not a technique used by him in his life. In his life it suddenly happened, spontaneously. But he must have persisted with this in some past life, because nothing happens spontaneously. Everything has a causal link, a causality. Suddenly one night Raman felt -- he was just young, fourteen or fifteen at the time -- that he was going to die. And it was so certain in his mind that death had taken over. He couldn't move his body, he felt as if he was paralyzed. Then he felt a sudden choking, and he knew that now the heart was going to stop. He could not even cry and say to another, "I am going to die."
Sometimes it happens in some nightmare -- you cannot cry, you cannot move. Even when you become awake for a few moments you cannot do anything. That happened. He had absolute power over his consciousness, but no power over his body. He knew he was there, that he was present, conscious, alert, but he felt he was going to die. And the knowledge became so certain that there was no other possibility, so he just gave up. He closed his eyes and remained there, just waiting to die; he waited there just to die.
By and by the body became stiff. The body died, but then it became a problem. He knew that the body had died, but he was there and he knew it. He knew that he was alive and that the body had died. Then he came back. In the morning the body became okay but the same man never returned -- because he had known death. He had known a different realm, a different dimension of consciousness.
He escaped from the house. That death experience changed him completely. He became one of the very few enlightened persons of this age.
This is the technique. This happened spontaneously to Raman, but it is not going to happen spontaneously to you. But try it. In some life it may become spontaneous. It may happen while you are trying it. And if it is not going to happen, the effort is never wasted. It is in you; it remains in you as a seed. Sometime, when the time is ripe and the rains will fall, it will sprout.
Every spontaneity is just like this. The seed was sown some time ago, but the time was not ripe; there were no rains. In another life the time becomes ripe. You are more mature, more experienced, more frustrated with the world -- then suddenly, in a certain situation, there are rains and the seed explodes.
LIE DOWN AS DEAD. ENRAGED IN WRATH, STAY SO. Of course, while you are dying it will not be a happy moment. It is not going to be so blissful while you are feeling that you are dead. Fear will take you, anger may come in the mind, or frustration, sadness, sorrow, anguish... anything. It will differ from individual to individual.
The sutra says: ENRAGED IN WRATH, STAY SO. If you feel enraged, stay so. If you feel sad, stay so. If you feel anxiety, fear, stay so. You are dead and you cannot do anything, so stay so. Whatsoever is in the mind, the body is dead and you cannot do anything, so stay.
That staying is beautiful. If you can stay for a few minutes, suddenly you will feel that everything has changed. But we start moving. If there is some emotion in the mind, the body begins to move. That is why we call it "emotion" -- it creates motion in the body. If you are angry, suddenly your body begins to move. If you are sad, your body begins to move. That is why it is called emotion, because it creates motion in the body. Feel dead and do not allow emotions to move your body. Let them be there, but you STAY SO -- fixed, dead. Whatsoever is there... no movement. Stay! No movement.
OR STARE WITHOUT MOVING AN EYELASH. This OR STARE WITHOUT MOVING AN EYELASH was the method of Meher Baba. For years together he was staring just at the ceiling of his room. For years together he was just lying dead on the floor, staring at the ceiling without moving an eyelash, without moving his eyes. He would lie down for hours together, just staring, not doing anything. Staring with the eyes is good, because you become fixed again in the third eye. And once you are fixed in the third eye, even if you want to move the eyelids you cannot; they become fixed.
Meher Baba attained through this staring, and you say, "How with these small exercises...?" But for three years he was staring at the ceiling not doing anything. Three years is a long time. Do it for three minutes and you will feel as if you have been lying there for three years. Three minutes will become very, very long. It will look as if time is not passing and as if the clock has stopped.
Meher Baba stared and stared and stared. By and by thoughts ceased, movement ceased, and he became just a consciousness, he became just a staring. Then he remained silent for his whole life. He became so silent inside by this staring that it became impossible for him to formulate words again.
Meher Baba was in America. There was one man who could read others' thoughts, who could do mind readings, and he was really one of the rarest mind readers. He would close his eyes, sit before you, and within a few minutes he would become attuned with you and he would begin to write what you are thinking. Thousands and thousands of times he was examined, and he was always right, always correct. So someone brought him to Meher Baba. He sat there, and this was the only failure of his life -- the only failure. But then again we cannot say it was a failure. He tried and tried, and he began to perspire, but he couldn't catch a single word.
Pen in his hand, he remained there and said, "What type of man is this? I cannot read because there is nothing to read. This man is absolutely vacant. I even forget that someone is sitting there. After closing my eyes, I have to open them again and look to see whether that man is there or whether he has escaped. So it is difficult to concentrate, because the moment I close my eyes I feel I am being deceived -- as if that man has escaped and there is no one before me. I have to open my eyes again, and I find that this man is there. And he is not thinking at all." That staring, that constant staring had stopped his mind completely.
OR STARE WITHOUT MOVING AN EYELASH. OR SUCK SOMETHING AND BECOME THE SUCKING. These are slight modifications. Anything will do... you are dead -- it is enough.
ENRAGED IN WRATH, STAY SO. Even this part can become one technique. You are in anger: lie down, remain in the anger. Do not move from it, do not do anything, just remain still.
Krishnamurti goes on talking about this. His whole technique depends on this single thing: ENRAGED IN WRATH, STAY SO. If you are angry then be angry, and remain angry. Do not move. If you can stay so, anger will go and you will come out a different man. If you are in anxiety, do not do anything. Remain there, stay there. The anxiety will go; you will come out a different man. And once you have looked at anxiety without being moved by it, you will be the master.
OR STARE WITHOUT MOVING AN EYELASH. OR SUCK SOMETHING AND BECOME THE SUCKING. This last one is physical and easy to do, because sucking is the first thing a child has to do. Sucking is the first act of life. When the child is born, he begins to cry. You may not have tried to penetrate into why there is this crying. He is not really crying -- it appears to us that he is crying -- he is just sucking air. And if the child cannot cry, within a few minutes he will be dead, because crying is the first effort to suck air. The child was not breathing while he was in the womb. He was alive without breathing. He was doing the same which yogis are doing underground. He was just getting prana without breathing -- pure prana from the mother.
That is why the love between the child and the mother is an altogether different thing from other loves, because the purest prana -- energy -- joins both. Now this can never happen again. There was a subtle pranic relationship. The mother was giving her prana to the child, and the child was not breathing at all. When he is born, he is thrown out of the mother into an unknown world. Now the prana, the energy, will not reach him so easily. He has to breathe himself.
The first cry is an effort to suck, and then he will suck the milk from the mother's breast. These are the first basic acts which you have done. Whatsoever YOU have done comes later -- these are the first life acts. They can be practiced also. This sutra says: OR SUCK SOMETHING AND BECOME THE SUCKING. Suck something -- just suck the air, but forget the air and become the sucking. What does this mean? You are sucking something; you are the sucker, not the sucking. You are standing behind and sucking.
This sutra says, do not stand behind, move in the act and become the sucking. Try anything that will work. You are running -- become the running, do not be the runner. Become the running and forget the runner. Feel that there is no runner inside, just the process of running. You are the process, a river-like process running. Nobody is there inside. It is quiet inside and there is only a process.
Sucking is good, but you will feel that it is very difficult because we have forgotten it completely -- but not really completely, however, because we go on substituting for it. The mother's breast is substituted by a cigarette; you go on sucking it. It is nothing but the nipple, the mother's breast and the nipple. And when the warm smoke flows in, it is just like warm milk.
So those who were not really allowed to suck the mother's breast as much as they wanted will smoke later on. This is a substitute, but the substitute will do. While you are smoking a cigarette become the sucking. Forget the cigarette, forget the smoker: become the smoking.
There is the object you are sucking, there is the subject who is sucking, and the process in between of sucking. Become the sucking, become the process. Try it. You will have to try it with many things; then you will find out what is right for you.
You are drinking water, the cold water is going in -- become the drinking. Do not drink the water. Forget the water, forget yourself and your thirst, just become the drinking -- the very process. Become the coolness, the touch, the entry, and the sucking that has to be given to the process.
Why not? What will happen? If you become the sucking, what will happen? If you can become the sucking, immediately you will become innocent, like a first-day, newly-born child -- because that is the first process. You will be regressed in a way. But the hankering is there. The very being of man hankers after sucking. He tries many things, but nothing helps because the point is missed. Unless you become the sucking, nothing will help. So try it.
I gave this method to one man. He had tried many things; he had tried many, many methods. Then he came to me, so I asked him, "If I give you only one thing to choose in the whole world, what are you going to choose?" And I told him immediately to close his eyes and tell me, and not think about it. He became afraid, hesitant, so I told him, "Do not be afraid, do not be hesitant. Be frank and tell me."
He said, "This is absurd, but a breast appears before me."
And then he began to feel guilty, so I said, "Do not feel guilty. Nothing is wrong in a breast; it is one of the most beautiful things, so why be guilty?"
But he said, "This has always been an obsession with me." And he said to me, "Please tell me first, then you can proceed with your method and the technique: first tell me why I am so much interested in the breasts of women? Whenever I look at a woman, the first thing I see is the breast. The whole body is secondary."
And it is not so only with him, it is so with everyone -- with almost everyone. And it is natural, because the breast of the mother was the first acquaintance with the universe. It is basic. The first contact with the universe was the mother's breast. That is why breasts are so appealing. They look beautiful; they attract, they have a magnetic force. That magnetic force comes from your unconscious. That was the first thing with which you came in contact, and the contact was lovely, it felt beautiful. It gives you food, instant vitality, love, everything. The contact was soft, receptive, inviting. It has remained so in the mind of man.
So I told that man, "Now I will give you the method." And this was the method I gave him, to suck something and become the sucking. I told him, "Just close your eyes. Imagine your mother's breasts or anybody's breasts that you like. Imagine, and start sucking as if there is a real breast. Start sucking." He started sucking. Within three days he was sucking so fast, so madly, he became so much enchanted by it. He told me, "It has become a problem -- I want to suck the whole day. And it is so beautiful, and such deep silence is created by it."
Within three months the sucking became a very, very silent gesture. The lips stopped, you couldn't even have judged that he was doing something. But inner sucking had started. He was sucking the whole day. It became a mantra, a JAPA -- a mantra repetition.
After three months he came to me and said, "Something strange is happening to me. Something sweet is falling from my head onto my tongue continuously. And it is so sweet and so energy filling that I do not need any food, there is no hunger left. Eating has become just a formality. I take something in order not to create any problems in the family. But something is continuously coming to me. It is so sweet, life-giving."
I told him to continue. Three months more, and one day he came just mad, dancing to me, and he said, "Sucking has disappeared, but I am a different man. I am no more the same man who had come to you. Some door has opened within me. Something has broken and there is no desire left. Now I do not want anything -- not even God, not even MOKSHA -- liberation. I do not want anything. Now everything is okay as it is. I accept it and I am blissful."
Try this. Just suck something and become the sucking. It may be helpful to many because it is so basic.
This much for today.
************************** You can do it in an actual situation or you can imagine a situation. For example: lie down, relax, and feel as if your body is going to die. Close your eyes; start feeling that you are dying. Soon you will feel that your body is becoming heavy. Imagine: "I am dying, I am dying, I am dying." If the feeling is authentic, the body will start becoming heavy; you will feel as if your body has become like lead. You want to move your hand, but you cannot move; it has become so heavy and dead. Go on feeling that you are dying, dying, dying, dying, dying, and when you feel that now the moment has come -- just a jump and you will be dead -- then suddenly forget your body and transcend.
SUPPOSE YOU ARE GRADUALLY BEING DEPRIVED OF STRENGTH OR OF KNOWLEDGE. AT THE INSTANT OF DEPRIVATION, TRANSCEND. When you feel that the body is dead, what is meant now by transcending? Look at the body. Up to now you were feeling that you are dying; now the body has become a dead weight. Look at the body. Forget that you are dying and now be the observer. The body is lying dead and you are looking at it. There will be a transcendence. You will be out of your mind, because a dead body needs no mind. A dead body relaxes so much that the very process of the mind stops. You are there and the body is there, but the mind is absent. Remember, mind is needed for life, not for death.
If suddenly you come to know that within an hour you will die, what will you do in that hour? One hour left, and it is certain that you are going to die after one hour - exactly after one hour. What will you do? Your thinking will drop completely because the whole of thinking is concerned with either the past or the future.
You were planning to purchase a house or to purchase a car, or you were planning to marry someone or divorce someone. You were thinking many things, and they were constantly on your mind. Now, with only one hour more, there is no meaning in marriage and no meaning in divorce. Now you can leave all the planning to others, who are going to live. With death planning ceases, with death worrying ceases, because every worry is life-oriented.
You have to live tomorrow; that is why there is worry. So all those who have been teaching meditation to the world have always been saying: do not think of tomorrow. Jesus says to his disciples, "Do not think of the tomorrow," because if you think of the tomorrow you cannot go into meditation. Then you move into worries. But we are so fond of worries that not only do we think of the tomorrow, we think of the other life. So we plan not only for this life, we plan for the other life, beyond death, also.
One day I was passing through a street and someone gave me a pamphlet. A very beautiful house was painted on the cover and a very beautiful garden. It was lovely - divinely lovely. And in very big capital letters was the question: "Do you want such a beautiful house and such a beautiful garden? And without any price, without any cost -- for free?" I turned it over. The house was not of this earth. It was a Christian pamphlet, and it read, "If you want such a beautiful house and such a beautiful garden, believe in Jesus. Those who believe in him will get such houses free of cost in the kingdom of God."
The mind goes on not only thinking of tomorrow, but thinking of beyond death, arranging and making reservations for the afterlife. Such a mind cannot be a religious mind. A religious mind cannot think of tomorrow. So those who think of the afterlife are constantly worried about whether God will behave rightly with them or not.
Churchill was dying and someone asked him, "Are you ready to meet the Father there in heaven?" Churchill said, "That is not my worry. I am constantly worried whether the divine Father is ready to meet me."
But either way one goes on worrying about the future. Buddha said, "There is no heaven and no afterlife." And he said, "There is no soul, and your death will be total and complete; nothing will survive." People thought he was an atheist. He was not, he was just trying to create a situation in which you can forget the tomorrow and can remain in this very moment, here and now. Then meditation follows very easily.
So if you are thinking of death -- not the death which will come, or is to come later -- fall down on the ground and lie dead. Relax and feel, "I am dying, I am dying, I am dying." And not only think it, feel it in every limb of the body, in every fib of the body. Let death creep in. It is one of the most beautiful meditations. When you feel that the body is a dead weight and you cannot move your hand, you cannot move your head and everything has become dead, suddenly look at your own body.
Mind will not be there. You can look! You will be there; consciousness will be there. Look at your body -- it will not look like yours, it will be just a body. The gap between you and the body will be clear - crystal clear. There will be no bridge. The body is lying dead and you are there standing as a witness, not in it -- NOT in it!
Remember, the feeling that you are in the body is because of the mind. This feeling that you are in the body is because of the MIND! If the mind is not there, if it is absent, you will not say you are in the body or out of the body. You will simply be there, no in or out. "In" and "out" are both relative terms associated with the mind. Simply, you will be there witnessing. This is transcendence. You can do it in many ways.
Sometimes it is possible in actual situations... You are ill and you are feeling that there is no hope, you are going to die. This is a very useful situation. Use it for meditation. You can try it in other ways also. Suppose you are gradually being deprived of strength. Lie down and feel as if the whole existence is sucking your strength out. You are being sucked from everywhere -- your strength is being sucked. Soon you will be impotent, completely devoid of strength. Your energy is flowing out, being taken out. Soon nothing will be left inside. That is how life is: you are being sucked out, everything that is around you is sucking you out. One day you will be just a dead cell; everything will have been sucked out. The life will have flown out of you, and only the dead body will remain there.
Even this very moment you can do it. Imagine this: lie down and feel that the energy is being sucked out. Within a few days you will have the knack of how energy goes out. And when you feel that everything has moved out, nothing is now left within you, TRANSCEND: AT THE INSTANT OF DEPRIVATION, TRANSCEND. When the last quantum of energy is leaving you, transcend. Be an onlooker; just become a witness. Then this universe and this body, both, are not you. You are looking at the phenomenon.
This transcendence will bring you out of the mind. This is the key. And you can do it in many ways, whatsoever is your liking. For example, we were talking about a run around. Exhaust yourself; go on running and running and running. Do not stop by yourself, let the body fall. When every fib is exhausted, you will fall down. When you are falling down, become aware. Just look and see that the body is falling down. Sometimes a very miraculous happening happens. You remain standing and the body has fallen down, and you can look at it. You can look, as only the body has fallen down and you are still standing. Do not fall with the body. Roam around, run, dance, exhaust the body -- but remember, you are not to lie down. Then the inner consciousness also moves with the body and lies down.
You are not to lie down, you just go on doing it until the body falls by itself. Then it falls like a dead weight. Immediately, you feel the body is falling and you cannot do anything. Open your eyes, be alert, do not miss the point. Be alert and see what is happening. You may be still standing, and the body has fallen down. And once you know it, you can never forget that you are different from the body.
This "standing out" is the real meaning of the English word ecstasy. Ecstasy means to stand out. And once you can feel you are out of the body, there is no mind in that moment, because mind is the bridge that gives you the feeling that you are in the body. If you are out of the body for a single moment, there will be no mind in that moment. This is transcendence. Then you can move in the body, then you can move in the mind, but now you cannot forget the experience . That experience has become part and parcel of your being; it will be there always. Go on doing it every day, and many things happen through such a simple process.
The West is always worried about how to tackle mind, and it tries to find many ways. But still, nothing works or seems to work. Everything becomes a fashion and then dies. Now psychoanalysis is a dead movement. New movements are there - encounter groups, group psychology, action psychology and many other things - but just like a fashion they come and go. Why? Because within mind, at the most you can only make arrangements. They will be disturbed again and again. Making arrangements with the mind is making a house on sand, or making a house of playing cards. It is always wavering, and the fear is always there that now it is going. At any moment it may not be there.
Going beyond the mind is the only way to be inwardly happy and healthy, to be whole. Then you can move in the mind and use the mind, but the mind becomes the instrument and you are not identified with it. So two things. Either you are identified with the mind -- this is illness for tantra -- or you are not identified with the mind. Then you use it as an instrument, and then you are healthy and whole.
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There are some turning points in your consciousness. At these turning points you are nearer to your center than at other times. You change gears, and whenever you change a gear you pass through the neutral gear. That neutral gear is nearer. In the morning, when sleep is going, vanishing, and you are feeling awake but not yet awake, just at the midpoint, you are in a neutral gear. There is a point when you are not asleep and not awake, just in the middle. There you are in a neutral gear. From sleep to waking, your consciousness changes the whole mechanism. It jumps from one mechanism to another. Between the two mechanisms, there is no mechanism; there is a gap. Through that gap you can have a glimpse of your being. The same happens in the night when you are again jumping from your waking mechanism to your sleeping mechanism, from your consciousness to the unconscious. For a single moment there is no mechanism, no grip of the mechanism on you, because you have to take a jump from one to another. Between the two if you can be awake, between the two if you can become aware, between the two if you can remember yourself, you will have a glimpse of your real being.
How to do it? While going to sleep, relax. Close your eyes, make the room dark. Just close your eyes and start waiting. The sleep is coming; just wait, don't do anything, just wait! Your body is relaxing, the body is becoming heavy: feel it. Have the feeling of it. Sleep has its own mechanism, it starts working. Your waking consciousness is vanishing. Remember, because the moment will be very subtle and the moment will be atomic. If you miss, you miss. It is not a very long period -- a single moment, a very small gap, and you will change from waking to sleep. Just wait, fully aware. Go on waiting. This will take time. It takes at least three months. Only then can you have the glimpse one day of the moment which is just in the middle. So don't be in a hurry. You cannot do it just now; you cannot do it tonight. But you have to start and you may have to wait for months.
Ordinarily, within three months, one day it happens. It is happening every day, but your awareness and the meeting of the gap cannot be planned. It is a happening. You just go on waiting, and someday it happens. Someday, suddenly you become aware that you are neither awake nor asleep -- a very weird phenomenon. You may even become afraid because you have known only the two: you know when you are asleep, you know when you are awake. But you don't know a third point in your being when you are neither. At the first impact of it you may become afraid and scared. Don't get scared and don't be afraid. Anything which is so new, unknown previously, is bound to give a certain fear because this moment, when you will have experienced it again and again, will give you another feeling also: that you are neither alive nor dead, neither this nor that. This is an abyss.
These two mechanisms are like two hills; you jump from one peak to another. If you remain in the middle you fall into an abyss, and the abyss is bottomless: you go on falling, you go on falling. Sufis have used this technique, and before they give this technique to a seeker, they give another practice also just to safeguard. Whenever this technique is given in Sufi systems, before it another practice is given, and that is to imagine with closed eyes that you are falling into a deep well -- dark, deep and bottomless. Just imagine falling into a deep well -- falling and falling and falling, eternally falling. There is no bottom, you cannot reach to the bottom. Now this fall cannot stop anywhere. You can stop; you can open your eyes and say no more, but this fall in itself cannot stop. If you continue, the well is bottomless, and it gets more and more dark.
In Sufi systems, this well exercise -- this bottomless, dark well exercise -- is to be practiced first. It is good, helpful. If you have practiced it and you have realized the beauty of it, the silence, then the deeper you go into the well, the more silent you become. The world is left far away, and you feel that you have gone far away, far away, far away. Silence grows with darkness, and deep down there is no bottom. Fear comes to your mind, but you know that this is just imagination so you can continue.
Through this exercise, you become capable of this technique, and then, when you fall into the well between waking and sleeping, it is not imagination; it is a real fact. And it is bottomless, the abyss is bottomless. That is why Buddha has called this nothingness emptiness -- SHUNYA. There is no end to it. Once you know it, you also have become endless. It is difficult to have this glimpse while awake. Then it is impossible, of course, while you are asleep because then the mechanism is functioning, and it is difficult to detach yourself from the mechanism. But there is a moment in the night and in the morning another moment -- in twenty-four hours there are these two moments -- when it is very easy, but one has to wait.
"AT THE POINT OF SLEEP, WHEN SLEEP HAS NOT YET COME AND EXTERNAL WAKEFULNESS VANISHES, AT THIS POINT BEING IS REVEALED:" Then you know who you are, what is your real being, what is your authentic existence. We are false while we are awake, and you know it well. You are false while you are awake. You smile when tears would have been more real. Your tears are also not believable. They may be just a facade, ceremonial, a duty. Your smile is false, and those who study faces can say that your smile is just a painted smile. There are no roots within; the smile is just on your face, just on your lips. It is nowhere else in your being. There are no roots, there are no limbs. It is imposed. The smile is not coming from within to without; the smile has been forced from without.
Whatsoever you say and whatsoever you act is false, and it is not necessarily the case that you are doing this false business of life knowingly -- not necessarily! You may be totally unaware -- and you are! Otherwise it will be very difficult to carry such false nonsense continuously. It is automatic. This falseness continues while you are awake, and it continues even while you are asleep -- in a different way, of course. Your dreams are symbolic, not real. It is surprising that even in your dreams you are not real, even in your dreams you are afraid, and you create symbols.
Now psychoanalysis goes on doing this business of analyzing your dreams. They have a big business because you cannot analyze your own dreams. They are symbolic, they are not real. They say something only in metaphors. If you want to kill your mother and get rid of her, you are not going to kill her even in your dream. You will kill someone else who looks like your mother. You will kill your aunt or someone else, but not your mother. Even in dreams you cannot be real. Then psychoanalysis is needed; a professional is needed to interpret -- but you may describe the whole thing in such a way that even psychoanalysis is deceived.
Your dreams are also totally false. If you are real while you are awake, your dreams will be real. They will not be symbolic. If you want to kill your mother you will see a dream in which you kill your mother, and no interpreter will be needed to show you what your dream means. But we are so false. In dream you are alone, still afraid of the world and the society.
To kill a mother is the greatest sin, and I wonder whether you have ever thought about why to kill a mother is the greatest sin. It is the greatest sin because everyone feels a deep enmity toward his mother. It is the greatest sin, and it is taught, your mind is conditioned, that even to think of harming your mother is a sin. She has given birth to you. All over the world, in all societies, the same is taught. There is not a single society on the earth which will not agree to this, that to kill a mother is the greatest sin. She has given you birth and you are killing her?
But why this teaching? Deep down there is the possibility that everyone goes against his mother of necessity -- because the mother has not only given birth to you, she has been the instrument of falsifying you; she has been the instrument of forcing you to be unreal. She has made you whatsoever you are. If you are a hell, she has a part in it, the greatest part. If you are miserable, your mother is there somewhere, hidden in you because the mother has given you birth, she has brought you up -- or, really, she has brought you "down" from your reality. She has falsified you. The first untruth happened between you and your mother; the first lie happened between you and your mother -- the first lie!
Even when there is no language and the child cannot speak, he can lie. The child sooner or later becomes aware that many of his feelings are not approved by his mother. Her face, her eyes, her behavior, her mood, everything shows that something in him is not accepted, appreciated. Then he starts suppressing. Something is wrong. There is no language yet; his mind is not functioning. But his whole body starts suppressing. Then be begins to feel that sometimes something is appreciated by the mother. He depends on the mother, his life depends on the mother. If the mother leaves him, he will be no more. His whole existence is centered on the mother.
Everything the mother shows, does, speaks, behaves, is significant. If the child smiles, and the mother loves him and gives him warmth and milk and hugs him, he is learning politics. He will smile while there is no smile in him because now he knows he can persuade the mother. He will smile a false smile. Then the liar is born; the politician has come into existence. Now he knows how to falsify, and this he learns in his relationship with his mother. This is the first relationship with the world. When he will become aware of his misery, of his hell, of his confusions, he will find that his mother is hidden somewhere.
There is every possibility that you may feel inimical towards your mother. That is why every culture insists that it is the greatest sin to kill your mother. Even in thought, even in dream, you cannot kill your mother. I am not saying that you SHOULD kill her, I am simply saying that your dreams are also false -- symbolic, not real. You are so false that you cannot even dream a real dream.
These are our two false faces: one is there while you are awake, one is there while you are asleep. Between these two false faces there is a very small door, an interval. In that interval you can have a glimpse of your original face when you were not related to your mother, and through the mother to the society; when you were alone with yourself; when YOU WERE -- not this and that, there was no division. Only the real was; there was no unreal. You can have a glimpse of that face, that innocent face between these two mechanisms.
Ordinarily we are not concerned with dreams, we are concerned with our waking hours. But psychoanalysis is more concerned with your dreams, not with your waking hours, because it feels that in waking hours you are a greater liar. In dreams something can be caught. You are less aware when you are asleep, and you are not forcing things, you are not manipulating. Then something real can be caught. You may be a celibate, a monk in your waking hours, but you have suppressed the sex urge. Then it will force itself into your dreams; your dreams are going to be sexual. It is very difficult to find a monk who is without sexual dreams -- rather, impossible. You can find a criminal without sexual dreams, but you cannot find a religious man without sexual dreams. A debauchee may be without sexual dreams, but not so-called saints, because whatsoever you force down while you are awake will erupt in your dreams and will color your dreams.
Psychoanalysts are not concerned with your waking life because they know it is totally false. If something of the real can be glimpsed, it can be glimpsed only through your dreams. But tantra says that even dreams are not so real. They are more real -- and this will look paradoxical because we think that dreams are unreal -- they are more real than your waking hours because then you are less on guard. The censor is asleep, and things can come up, and the suppressed can express itself -- of course symbolically, but symbols can be analyzed.
And all over the world human symbols are the same. You may speak a different language while awake, but while dreaming you speak the same language. All over the world the dream language is one. If sex is repressed, then the same symbols will come up. If the urge for food, the urge to eat, hunger, is repressed, then the same symbols will come -- or similar ones. The dream language is one, but in dreams there are still problems because they are symbolic. And a Freud may interpret them in a different way, a Jung in a different way and an Adler still in a different way. And if you are analyzed by a hundred psychoanalysts, there will be a hundred interpretations. You will be still more confused than you were before, more confused with a hundred interpretations of one thing.
Tantra says in neither waking nor sleeping are you real. You are real only in between. So don't be concerned with the waking, and don't be concerned with dreaming and sleep. Be concerned with the gap; be aware of the gap. While passing from one state to another have a glimpse. And once you know when the gap comes, you become the master of it. You have the key; you can open that gap anytime and enter into it. A different dimension of being, the real dimension, opens.
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The Body
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 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
The Self
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.
The World
This whole world is just like a drama, so don't be too serious about it. Seriousness will force you into trouble, you will get into trouble. Don't be serious about it. Nothing is serious; this whole world is just a drama.
If you can look to the whole world as a drama you will regain your original consciousness. The dust gathers because you are so serious. That seriousness creates problems, and we are so serious that even while seeing a drama we gather dust. Go to a picture house and look at the spectators. Don't look at the screen, forget the picture; don't look at the screen; just look at the spectators in the hall. Someone will be weeping and tears will be rolling down, someone will be laughing, someone will become sexually excited. Just look at people. What are they doing? What is happening to them? And there is nothing on the screen, just pictures -- pictures of light and shadow. The screen is vacant.
But how are they getting excited? They are weeping, crying, laughing. The picture is not just a picture; the film is not just a film. They have forgotten that it is just a story. They have taken it seriously. It has "become alive"! It is "real"! And this is happening everywhere, not only in a picture house. Look at the life that is all around you. What is it?
Many people have lived on this earth. Where you are sitting, at least ten dead bodies are buried in that place, and they too were serious like you. Now they are no more. Where have their lives gone? Where have their problems gone? They were fighting -- fighting for a single inch of earth, and the earth is there and they are no more.
And I am not saying that their problems were not problems. They were -- as your problems are problems. They were "serious" -- problems of life and death. But where are their problems? And if the whole humanity should disappear anyday, the earth will be there, the trees will grow, the rivers will flow and the sun will rise, and the earth will not feel any absence or wonder where humanity is.
Look at the expanse: look backwards, look forwards, look to all dimensions at what you are, what your life is. It looks like a long dream, and everything that you take so seriously this moment becomes useless the next moment. You may not even remember it.
Remember your first love, how serious it was. Life depended on it. Now you don't remember it at all, it is forgotten. And whatsoever you are thinking that your life depends on today will be forgotten. Life is a flux, nothing remains. It is like a moving film, everything changing into everything else. But in the moment you feel it is very serious, and you get disturbed. This technique says, "THIS SO-CALLED UNIVERSE APPEARS AS A JUGGLING, A PICTURE SHOW. TO BE HAPPY, LOOK UPON IT SO."
In India, we have called this world not a creation of God, but a play, a game, a LEELA. This concept of LEELA is beautiful, because creation seems serious. The Christian, the Jewish God is very serious. Even for a single disobedience, Adam was thrown out of the Garden of Eden -- and not only was he thrown out, because of him, the whole humanity. He was our father, and we are suffering because of him. God seems to be so serious. He should not be disobeyed. And if he is disobeyed, he is going to take revenge, and the revenge has been so long.
The sin doesn't seem to be so serious. Really, Adam committed it because of God's own foolishness. God the Father said to Adam, "Don't go near the tree, the Tree of Knowledge, and don't eat its fruit." This prohibition becomes an invitation, and this is psychological. In that big garden, only that Tree of Knowledge became attractive. It was prohibited. Any psychologist can say, God committed an error. If the fruit of that tree was not to be eaten, it was good not to talk about it at all. There was no possibility of Adam reaching to that tree, and the whole humanity would have been in the garden. But this saying, this order, "Don't eat," created the trouble; this "don't" created the whole trouble.
Because Adam disobeyed he was thrown out of heaven, and the revenge seems so long. And Christians say Jesus was crucified just to redeem us -- to redeem us from that sin that Adam committed. So the whole Christian concept of history hangs on two persons -- Adam and Jesus. Adam committed the sin, and Jesus suffered to redeem us from it and allowed himself to be crucified. He suffered so that Adam's sin may be forgiven. But it doesn't seem that God has forgiven yet. Jesus was crucified, but humanity goes on suffering in the same way.
The very concept of God as a father is ugly, serious. The Indian concept is not of a creator. God is just a player; he is not serious. This is just a game. Rules are there, but rules of a game. You need not be serious about them. Nothing is sin -- only error, and you suffer because of error, not because God punishes you. You suffer because of the rules you don't follow. God is not punishing you. The whole concept of LEELA gives life a dramatic color; it becomes a long drama. And this technique is based on this concept: "THIS SO-CALLED UNIVERSE APPEARS AS A JUGGLING, A PICTURE SHOW. TO BE HAPPY, LOOK UPON IT SO."
If you are unhappy, you have taken it too seriously. And don't try to find any way how to be happy. Just change your attitude. You cannot be happy with a serious mind. With a festive mind, you can be happy. Take this whole life as a myth, as a story. It is one, but once you take it this way you will not be unhappy. Unhappiness comes out of too much seriousness. Try for seven days; for seven days remember only one thing -- that the whole world is just a drama -- and you will not be the same again. Just for seven days! You are not going to lose much because you don't have anything to lose.
You can try it. For seven days take everything as a drama, just as a show. These seven days will give you many glimpses of your buddha nature, of your inner purity. And once you have the glimpse you cannot be the same again. You will be happy, and you cannot conceive of what type of happiness can happen to you because you have not known any happiness. You have known only degrees of unhappiness: sometimes you were more unhappy, sometimes less unhappy, and when you were less unhappy you called it happiness. You don't know what happiness is because you cannot know. When you have a concept of the world in which you are taking it very seriously, you cannot know what happiness is. Happiness happens only when you are grounded in this attitude, that the world is just a play.
So try this, and do everything in a very festive way, celebrating, doing an "act" -- not a real thing. If you are a husband, play, be a play husband; if you are a wife, be a play wife. Make it just a game. And there are rules, of course; any game to be played needs rules. Marriage is a rule and divorce is a rule, but don't be serious about them. They are rules, and one rule begets another. Divorce is bad; because marriage is bad: one rule begets another! But don't take them seriously, and then look how the quality of your life immediately changes.
Go to your home this night, and behave with your wife or husband or your children as if you are doing a part in a drama, and see the beauty of it. If you are playing a part you will try to be efficient, but you will not get disturbed. There is no need. You will do the part and go to sleep. But remember, it is a part, and for seven days continuously follow this attitude. Then happiness can happen to you, and once you know what happiness is you need not move into unhappiness, because it is your choice.
You are unhappy because you have chosen a wrong attitude towards life. You can be happy if you choose a right attitude. Buddha pays so much attention to "right attitude." He makes it a base, a foundation -- "right attitude." What is right attitude? What is the criterion? To me this is the criterion: the attitude that makes you happy is the right attitude, and there is no objective criterion. The attitude that makes you unhappy and miserable is the wrong attitude. The criterion is subjective; your happiness is the criterion.
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 dif 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.
ferent now.
******** 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 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.
your imagination a little, and then this technique will be very helpful.
***********************************************************************************************************
Darkness
***** 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.
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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.
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Stop!
Life has two balances: one is of being and the other of doing. Your being is your nature. It is with you always; you have not to do anything to get it. It is already the case, you are it. It is not that you possess it, not even that a distance exists between you and it -- you are it. You are your being. Doing is an achievement. Whatsoever you do is not already the case. If you do it, it will happen; if you do not do it, it will not happen. All that is not already the case is not your being.
To exist, to survive, you have to do much. And then, by and by, your activity becomes a barrier to knowing your being. Your activity is your circumference -- you live on it, you cannot live without it. But it is only the circumference; it is not you, it is not the center. Whatsoever you have is the achievement of your doing; having is the result of doing. But the center is surrounded, engulfed by your doing and your having.
The first thing to note before we proceed into these techniques is that whatsoever you have is not your being, and whatsoever you do or can do is not your being. Your being precedes all doing. Your being precedes all your possessions, all your having. But the mind is constantly involved in doing and having. Beyond mind or below mind exists your being. How to penetrate into that center is what religions have been seeking. This is what has always been the search of all those who are interested in knowing the basic reality of human existence, the ultimate core, the substance of your being. Unless you understand this division between the circumference and the center, you will not be able to understand these sutras which we are going to discuss.
So note the distinction. Whatsoever you have -- money, knowledge, prestige, whatsoever you have -- it is not you. You have them, they are your possessions; you are different from them. Secondly, whatsoever you do is not your being. You may do it or you may not do it. For example, you laugh, but you may laugh or you may not laugh. You run, but you may run or you may not run. But you are and there is no choice. You cannot choose your being. You are already there.
Action is a choice. You may choose, you may not choose. You may do "this," you may not do "this." You may become a saint or you may become a thief, but your sainthood and your thiefhood are both doings. You can choose, you can change. A saint can become a thief and a thief can become a saint. But that is not your being: your being precedes your sainthood, your thiefhood.
Whenever you have to do something, you have to be there already; otherwise you cannot do it. Who runs? Who laughs? Who steals? Who becomes a saint? The being must precede all activity. The activity can be chosen, but being cannot be chosen. The being is the chooser, not the chosen, and you cannot choose the chooser -- he is already there. You cannot do anything about him. Remember this: having, doing, are with you just as a circumference is with the center, but you are the center.
This center is the self, or you may call it the ATMAN or whatsoever name you like. This center is your innermost point. How to reach it? And unless one reaches it, knows it, unless one realizes it, one cannot reach to a blissful state which is eternal, one cannot know the deathless, one cannot know the divine. Unless one realizes this center, one will remain in misery, anguish and suffering. The circumference is the hell. These techniques are the means to enter into this center.
The first technique:
JUST AS YOU HAVE THE IMPULSE TO DO SOMETHING, STOP.
All these techniques are concerned with stopping in the middle. George Gurdjieff made these techniques very well-known in the West, but he was not aware of VIGYANA BHAIRAVA TANTRA. He learned these techniques in Tibet from Buddhist lamas. He worked on these techniques in the West, and many, many seekers came to realize the center through these techniques. He called them stop exercises, but the source of these exercises is VIGYANA BHAIRAVA TANTRA.
Buddhists learned from VIGYANA BHAIRAVA. Sufis also have such exercises; they are also borrowed from VIGYANA BHAIRAVA. Basically, this is the source book of all techniques which are known all over the world.
Gurdjieff used it in a very simple way. For example, he would tell his students to dance. A group would be dancing -- a group of, say, twenty people would be dancing -- and suddenly he would say, "Stop!" And the moment Gurdjieff would say stop, they would have to stop totally. Wherever the pause would fall, they would have to stop then and there. No change could be made, no adjustment could be made. If one of your feet was above the earth and you were just standing on one foot, you would have to remain that way. If you fell, that was another thing, but you were not to cooperate with the fall. If your eyes were opened, they had to remain opened. Now you could not close them. If they closed by themselves, that was another thing. But as far as you were concerned, consciously you had stopped, you had become just like a stone statue.
Miracles happened because in activity, in dance, in movement, when suddenly you stop, a gap happens. This sudden stoppage of all activity divides you into two: your body and you. Your body and you were in movement. Suddenly you stop. The body has the tendency to move. It was in movement, so there is momentum; you were dancing, and there is momentum. The body is not ready for this sudden stop. Suddenly you feel that the body has the impulse to do something, but you have stopped. A gap comes into existence. You feel your body as something distant, far away, with the impulse to move, with momentum for activity. And because you have stopped and you are not cooperating with the body and its activity and its impulse, its momentum, you become separate from it.
But you can deceive yourself. A slight cooperation and the gap will not happen. For example, you feel uncomfortable, but the teacher has said, "Stop!" You have heard the word, but still you make yourself comfortable and then you stop. Then nothing will happen. Then you have deceived yourself, not the teacher, because you missed the point. The whole point of the technique is missed. Suddenly, when you hear the word "Stop!" instantly you have to stop, not doing anything.
Perhaps the posture was inconvenient, you were afraid you might fall down, you might break a bone. But whatsoever happens, now it is not your concern. If you have any concern, you will deceive yourself. This suddenly becoming dead creates a gap. The stopping is at the body and the stopper is the center; the circumference and the center are separate. In that sudden stopping you can feel yourself for the first time; you can feel the center. Gurdjieff used this technique to help many.
This technique has many dimensions; it can be used in many ways. But first try to understand the mechanism. The mechanism is simple. You are in activity, and when you are in activity you forget yourself completely; the activity becomes the center of your attention.
Someone has died, and you are weeping and crying, and tears are falling down. You have forgotten yourself completely. The one who has died has become the center, and around that center this activity is happening -- your weeping, your crying, your sadness, your tears. If I suddenly say to you, "Stop!" and you stop yourself completely, you will be totally taken away from your body and the realm of activity. Whenever you are in activity, you are in it, deeply absorbed in it. Sudden stoppage throws you off balance; it throws you out of activity. This being thrown leads you to the center.
Ordinarily, what are we doing? From one activity we move to another. We go on from one activity to another, from A to B and from B to C. In the morning, the moment you are awake activity has started. Now you will be active the whole day. You will change to many activities, but you will not be inactive for a single moment. How to be inactive? It is difficult. And if you try to be inactive, your effort to be inactive will become an activity.
There are many who are trying to be inactive. They sit in a Buddha posture and they try to be inactive. But how can you try to be inactive? The very effort is again an activity. So you can convert inactivity also into activity. You can force yourself to be quiet, still, but that forcing is an activity of the mind. That is why so many try to go into meditation but never reach anywhere -- because their meditation is again an activity. They can change... If you were singing an ordinary song, you can now change to a BHAJAN, to a devotional song. You can sing slow now, but both are activities. You are running, you are walking, you are reading -- these are activities. You can pray -- that too is an activity. You move from one activity to another.
And with the last thing in the night, when you are falling into sleep, you are still active; the activity has not stopped. That is why dreams happen, because the activity goes on. You have fallen asleep, but the activity continues. In the subconscious you are still active -- doing things, possessing things, losing things, moving. Dreaming means you have fallen asleep because of exertion, but the activity is still there continuously.
Only sometimes, for a few moments -- and these have become more and more rare for the modern man -- only for a few moments dreaming stops and you are totally asleep. But then that inactivity is unconscious. You are not conscious, you are fast asleep. The activity has ceased; now there is no circumference, now you are at the center -- but totally exhausted, totally dead, unconscious.
That is why Hindus have always been saying that SUSHUPTI -- dreamless sleep -- and SAMADHI -- the ultimate ecstasy -- are similar, the same, with only one difference. But the difference is great: the difference is of awareness. In sushupti, in dreamless sleep, you are at the center of your being -- but unaware. In samadhi, in the ultimate ecstasy, in the ultimate state of meditation, also you are at the center -- but aware. That is the difference, but it is a great difference, because if you are unaware, even if you are at the center it is meaningless. It refreshes you, it makes you more alive again, it gives you vitality -- in the morning you feel fresh and blissful -- but if you are unaware, even if you are at the center your life remains the same.
In samadhi you enter yourself fully conscious, fully alert. And once you are at the center fully alert, you will never be the same again. Now you will know who you are. Now you will know that your possessions, your actions are just on the periphery; they are just the ripples, not your nature.
The mechanism of these techniques of stopping is to throw you suddenly into inactivity. The point must come suddenly, because if you try to be inactive you will turn it into activity. So do not try, and suddenly be inactive. That is the meaning of "Stop!" You are running and I say, "Stop!" Do not try, just stop! If you try, you will miss the point. For example, you are sitting here. If I say stop, then stop immediately then and there; not a single moment is to be missed. If you try and adjust, and you settle down and then say, "Okay, now I will stop," you have missed the point. SUDDENLY is the base, so do not make any effort to stop -- just stop!
You can try it anywhere. You are taking your bath -- suddenly order yourself to "Stop!" and stop. Even if it is only for a single moment, you will feel a different phenomenon happening within you. You are thrown to the center and suddenly everything stops -- not only the body. When the body stops totally, your mind stops also. When you say, "Stop!" do not breathe then. Let everything stop... no breathing, no body movement. For a single moment remain in this stop, and you will feel you have penetrated suddenly, at rocket speed, to the center. And even a glimpse is miraculous, revolutionary. It changes you, and by and by you can have more clear glimpses of the center. That is why inactivity is not to be practiced. Use it suddenly, when you are unaware.
So a master can be helpful. This is a group method. Gurdjieff used it as a group method because if you say "Stop!" you can deceive yourself easily. First you make yourself comfortable and then you say "Stop!" Or even if consciously you have not made any preparation for it, unconsciously you may be prepared. Then you may say, "Now I can stop." If it is done by the mind, if there is a planning behind it, it is useless; then the technique will not be of any help. So in a group it is good. A master is working with you, and he says, "Stop!" He will find moments when you are in a very inconvenient posture, and then a flash happens, a sudden lightning.
Activity can be practiced; inactivity cannot be practiced -- and if you practice it, it becomes just another activity. You can be inactive only suddenly. Sometimes it happens that you are driving a car, and suddenly you feel there is going to be an accident, that another car has reached near yours and in just a moment there will be a crash. Suddenly your mind stops, breathing stops, everything stops. So many times in such accidents one is thrown to the center. But you may miss the point even in an accident.
I was in a car and there was an accident, and one of the most beautiful accidents possible. Three persons were with me, but they missed the whole thing completely. It could have been a revolution in their lives, but they missed. The car went down into a river bed, into a dry river bed, from a bridge. The car was totally upside down, and the three persons with me began crying; they began weeping.
One woman was there and she was crying. She was just beside me and she was crying, "I am dead! I am dead!"
I told her, "If you were dead, then no one would be here to say this."
But she was trembling, and she said, "I am dead! What will happen to my children?" Even after we carried her out of the car she was trembling and saying the same thing: "What will happen to my children? I am dead!" It took at least half an hour for her to calm down.
She missed the point. It was such a beautiful thing: suddenly she could have stopped everything. And one couldn't do anything. The car was falling from the bridge, so her activity was not needed at all. One couldn't do anything. But still the mind can create activity. She started thinking about her children, and then she began crying, "I am dead!" A subtle moment was missed. In dangerous situations the mind stops automatically. Why? Because mind is a mechanism and it can work with only routine things -- that which it has been trained to do.
You cannot train your mind for accidents, otherwise they would not be called accidents. If you are ready, if you have passed through rehearsals, then they are not accidents. `Accident' means that the mind is not ready to do anything. The thing is so sudden, it leaps from the unknown -- mind cannot do anything. It is not ready, it is not trained for it. It is bound to stop unless you start something else, unless you start something for which you are trained.
This woman who was crying about her children was not at all attentive to what was happening. She was not even aware that she was alive. The present moment was not in her focus of consciousness. She had moved away from the situation to her children, to death and to other things. She had escaped. As far as her attention was concerned, she had escaped from the situation completely.
But as far as the situation was concerned, nothing could be done; one could only be aware. Whatsoever was happening was happening. One could only be aware. As far as the present moment is concerned, in an accident what can you do? It is already beyond you, and the mind is not prepared for it. The mind cannot function, so the mind stops.
That is why dangers have a secret appeal, an intrinsic appeal: they are meditative moments. If you race a car and it goes beyond ninety miles per hour, and then beyond one hundred and then beyond one hundred and ten and beyond one hundred and twenty, then a situation comes in which anything can happen and you will not be able to do anything. Now really, the car is beyond control, going beyond control. Suddenly the mind cannot function; it is not ready for it. That is the thrill of speed -- because a silence creeps in, you are thrown to the center.
These techniques help you to move to the center without any accidents, without any danger. But remember, you cannot practice them. When I say you cannot practice them, what do I mean? In a way you can practice them: suddenly you can stop. But the stopping must be sudden, you must not be prepared for it. You should not think about it and plan it and say that "At twelve o'clock I will stop." Let the unknown happen to you when you are unprepared. Move in the unknown, the uncharted, without any knowledge. This is one technique: JUST AS YOU HAVE THE IMPULSE TO DO SOMETHING, STOP. This is one dimension.
For example, you have the impulse to sneeze. You are feeling that the impulse is coming, you are feeling the sneeze coming. Now a moment comes when you cannot do anything -- it will happen. But in the very beginning of the feeling, when you feel the sensation of a sneeze coming to you, the moment you become aware, stop! What can you do? Can you stop the sneeze? If you try to stop the sneeze, the sneeze will come sooner, because stopping will make your mind more conscious about it and you will feel the sensation more. You will become more sensitive, your total attention will be there, and that attention will help the sneeze to come out sooner. It will become unbearable. You cannot stop the sneeze directly, but you can stop yourself.
What can you do? You feel the sensation that the sneeze is coming: stop! Do not try to stop the sneeze, just you yourself stop. Do not do anything. Remain completely unmoving, with not even your breath going in or coming out. For a moment, stop, and you will feel that the impulse has gone back, that it has dropped. And in this dropping of the impulse a subtle energy is released which is used in going toward the center, because in a sneeze you are throwing some energy out -- in any impulse.
`Impulse' means you are burdened with some energy which you cannot use and cannot absorb. It wants to move out, it wants to be thrown out; you want a relief. That is why after you sneeze you will feel good, a subtle well-being. Nothing has happened, you have simply released some energy which was superfluous, a burden. Now it is no more there; you are relieved of it. Then you feel a subtle relaxation inside.
That is why physiologists, Pavlov, B. F. Skinner and others, say sex is also like sneezing. They say physiologically there is no difference, sex is just like sneezing. You are overburdened with energy; you want to throw it out. Once it is thrown out your mechanism relaxes, you become unburdened. Then you feel good. That good feeling is just a release, according to physiologists, and as far as physiology goes they are right. Whenever you have some impulse, JUST AS YOU HAVE THE IMPULSE TO DO SOMETHING, STOP! Not only with a physiological impulse, any impulse can be used.
For example, you were going to drink a glass of water. You have touched the water, the glass -- suddenly stop. Let the hand be there, let the desire to drink, the thirst be there inside, but you stop completely. The glass is outside, the thirst is inside; the hand is on the glass, the eyes are on the glass -- stop suddenly. No breathing, no movement, as if you have become dead. The very impulse, the thirst, will release energy, and that energy is used for going to the center. You will be thrown to the center. Why? Because any impulse is a movement outward. Remember, `impulse' means energy moving outward.
Remember another thing: energy is always in movement -- either going out or coming in. Energy can never be static. These are the laws. If you understand the laws, then the mechanism of the technique will be easy. Energy is always in movement. Either it is moving out or moving in; energy can never be static. If it is static it is not energy, and there is nothing which is not energy, so everything is moving somewhere.
When an impulse, any impulse, comes to you, it means energy is moving out. That is why your hand goes to the glass -- you have moved out. A desire has come to do something. All activities are movements toward that which is without from that which is within -- movements from within to without.
When you stop suddenly, the energy cannot be static in you. You have become static, but the energy cannot be static in you, and the mechanism through which it was moving out is not dead, it has stopped. So what can the energy do? The energy cannot do anything other than move inward. Energy cannot be static. It was going out. You have stopped, the mechanism has stopped, but the mechanism which can lead it toward the center is there. This energy will move inward.
You are converting your energy and changing its dimension every moment without knowing it. You are angry, and you feel to beat someone or to destroy something or to do something violent -- try this. Take someone -- your friend, your wife, your child, anyone -- and hug, kiss or embrace him or her. You were angry, you were going to destroy something; you wanted to do some violent thing. Your mind was destructive; the energy was moving toward violence. Love someone immediately.
In the beginning you may feel that this is just like acting. You will wonder, "How can I love? How can I love in this moment? I am angry!" You do not know the mechanism. In this moment you can love deeply because the energy has been aroused, it has arisen. It has come to a point where it wants to be expressed, and energy needs movement. If you just start loving someone, the same energy will move into love and you will feel a rush of energy that you may not have ever felt.
There are persons who cannot go into love unless they are angry, unless they are violent. There are people who can only go into deep love when their energy is moving violently. You may not have observed, but it happens daily: couples will fight before they make love. Wives and husbands fight, become angry, become violent, and then they make love, and they may not have understood what was happening. Then it becomes a mechanical habit -- whenever they fight they will love. And the day they do not fight they will not be able to love.
Particularly in Indian villages, where wives are still beaten, if a certain husband stops beating his wife it is known that now he has stopped loving her. And even wives understand that if the husband has become totally nonviolent toward them, it means the love has stopped. He is not fighting, so it means he is not loving.
Why? Why is fight so associated with love? It is associated because the same energy can move in different dimensions. You may call it "love" or "hate." They look opposite, but they are not so opposite, because the same energy is moving. So a person who becomes incapable of hate becomes incapable of love, according to your definitions of love. A person who cannot be violently angry becomes incapable of the love which you know. He may be capable of a different quality of love, but that is not your love. A Buddha loves, but that love is totally different. That is why Buddha calls it compassion; he never calls it love. It is more like compassion, less like your love, because your love implies hate, anger, violence.
Energy can move, can change directions. It can become hate, it can become love -- the same energy. And the same energy can move inward also, so whenever you have the impulse to do something, Stop! This is not suppression. You are not suppressing anything, you are just playing with energy -- just playing with energy and knowing the workings of it, how it works inwardly. But remember, the impulse must be real and authentic; otherwise nothing will happen.
For example, when there is no thirst you move to a glass of water and then suddenly you stop. Nothing will happen because there is nothing to happen -- the energy was not moving. You were feeling love toward your wife, your husband, your friend. You wanted to hug, to kiss -- stop! But the impulse must be there authentically. If the impulse is not there and you were just going to console someone, to kiss because the kiss is expected, and then you stop, then nothing will happen because nothing was moving inside.
So first remember, the impulse must be authentic, real. Only with a real impulse does energy move, and when a real impulse is suddenly stopped the energy becomes suspended. With no dimension from where to move out, it turns in. It has to move, it cannot remain there.
But we are so false that nothing seems real. You eat your meal because of the clock, because of the time, not because of hunger. So if you stop, nothing will happen because there was really no hunger behind it, no impulse. No energy was moving there. That is why if you take your meal at one o'clock, at one o'clock you will feel the hunger. But the hunger is false; it is just a mechanical habit, just a dead habit. Your body is not hungry. If you do not eat you will feel something is missing, but if you can remain for one hour without eating you will forget it, the hunger will have subsided.
A real hunger will grow more; it is bound to grow. If your hunger was real, then at two you will feel more hungry. If the hunger was false, then at two you will have completely forgotten. Really, there will be no hunger at two. Even if you want to eat, now you will not feel hungry. The hunger was just a false, mechanical feeling. No energy was moving, it was just the mind saying to you that now this is the time to eat, so eat.
If you are feeling sleepy, stop! But the feeling must be real; that is the problem. And that is the problem for us now. It was not so in Shiva's time. When the VIGYANA BHAIRAVA TANTRA was preached for the first time, it was not so. Man was authentic, humanity was real, pure, nothing was false about it. With us everything is false. You pretend that you love; you pretend that you are angry. You go on pretending and then you forget yourself whether you are pretending or whether anything real is left. You never say what is in you, you never express it. You go on expressing what is not there. Watch yourself and you will come to know it.
You say something, but you feel something else. Really, you wanted to say quite the opposite, but if you say the real thing you will become totally unfit -- because the whole society is false, and in a false society you can exist only as a false person. The more adjusted, the more false, because if you want to be real you will feel a maladjustment.
That is why renunciation came into existence, because of a false society. Buddha had to leave not because it had any positive meaning, but only a negative meaning -- because with a false society you cannot be real. Or at every moment you are in a constant struggle, unnecessarily and dissipating energy. So leave the unreal, leave the false, so that you can be real. That was the basic reason for all renunciation.
But watch yourself, how unreal you are. Watch the double mind. You are saying something, but you are feeling quite the contrary. Simultaneously, you are saying one thing in your mind and something else without. Thus, if you stop anything which is not real, the technique will not help. So find something authentic about yourself and try to stop that. Not everything has become false, many things are still real. Fortunately, everyone is real sometimes; in some moment everyone is real. Then stop it.
You are feeling angry, and you feel it is real. You are going to destroy something, beat your child, or do something: Stop! But do not stop with a consideration. Do not say, "Anger is bad, so I should stop" -- no ! Do not say, "This is not going to help the child, so I should stop." No mental consideration is needed, because if you consider, then the energy has moved into consideration. This is an inner mechanism.
If you say, "I should not beat my child because it is not going to do any good to him, and this is not good for me also. This is useless and this never helps," the same energy which was going to become anger has become consideration. Now you have considered the whole thing, and the energy has subsided. It has moved into consideration, into thinking. Then you stop, but then there is no energy to move in. When you feel angry, do not consider it, do not think about it being good or bad; do not think at all. Suddenly remember the technique and stop!
Anger is pure energy... nothing bad, nothing good. It may become good, it may become bad -- that will depend on the result, not on the energy. It can become bad if it goes out and destroys something, if it becomes destructive. It may become a beautiful ecstasy if it moves within and throws you to the center; it may become a flower. Energy is simply energy -- pure, innocent, neutral. Do not consider it. You were going to do something -- do not think, simply stop and then remain stopped. In that remaining you will have a glimpse of the inner center. You will forget the periphery and the center will come into your vision.
Just as you have the impulse to do something, Stop! Try it. Remember three things... One, try it only when a real impulse is there. Secondly, do not think about stopping, just stop. And thirdly, wait! When you have stopped, no breathing, no movement -- wait and see what happens. Do not try. When I say to wait, I mean do not try now to think about the inner center. Then you will again miss. Do not think of the self, of the atman. Do not think that now the glimpse is there, now the glimpse is coming. Do not think, just wait. Let the impulse, the energy move by itself. If you start thinking about the brahman and the atman and the center, the energy will have moved into this thinking.
You can waste this inner energy very simply. Just a thought will be enough to give it a direction; then you will go on thinking. When I say stop, it means stop totally, fully. Nothing is moving, as if the whole time has stopped. There is no movement -- simply you are! In that simple existence, suddenly the center explodes.
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This is a different dimension of the same technique. WHEN SOME DESIRE COMES, CONSIDER IT. THEN, SUDDENLY, QUIT IT. You feel a desire -- a desire for sex, a desire for love, a desire for food, anything. You feel a desire: consider it. When the sutra says consider it, it means do not think for or against it, just consider the desire, what it is.
A sexual desire comes to the mind. You say, "This is bad." This is not consideration. You have been taught that this is bad, so you are not considering this desire, you are consulting the scriptures, you are consulting the past -- the past teachers, the RISHIS -- sages. You are not considering the desire itself, you are considering something else. You are considering many things; your conditioning, your upbringing, your education, your culture, your civilization, your religion -- but not the desire.
This simple desire has come. Do not bring in the mind, the past, the education, the conditioning; do not bring in values. Just consider this desire -- what it is. If your mind could be washed completely of all that has been given to you by the society, of all that your parents have given to you -- the education, the culture -- if your total mind could be washed out, the desire for sex will arise. It will arise, because that desire is not given to you by the society. That desire is biologically built in; it is in you.
For example, if a child is born and no language is taught, the child will not learn any language. He will remain without language. A language is a social phenomenon; it has to be taught. But when the right moment comes, the child will feel sexual desire. That is not a social phenomenon, it is biologically built in. The desire will come at the right mature moment. It is not social, it is biological -- deeper. It is built into your cells.
Because you were born out of sex, every cell of your body is a sex cell; you consist of sex cells. Unless your biology can be washed off completely, the desire will be there. It will come -- it is already there. When a child is born the desire is already there, because the child is a by-product of a sexual meeting. He comes through sex; his whole body is built with sex cells. The desire is there, only a time is needed before his body becomes mature enough to feel that desire, to enact that desire. The desire will be there whether you are taught that sex is bad or good, whether you are not taught that sex is hell or heaven, whether you are taught this way or that way, for or against -- because both are teachings.
The old traditions, the old religions, Christianity particularly, they go on preaching against sex. The new cults of hippies and yippies and others have started the opposite movement. They say sex is good, sex is ecstatic, sex is the only real thing in the world. Both are teachings. Do not consider your desire according to some teaching. Just consider the desire in its purity, as it is -- a fact. Do not interpret it.
Consideration here means not interpreting, but just looking at the fact as it is. The desire is there: look at it directly, immediately. Do not bring in your thoughts or ideas, because no thought is yours and no idea is yours. Everything has been given to you, every idea is a borrowed thing. No thought is original -- no thought can be original. Do not bring in thinking, just look at the desire, at what it is, as if you do not know anything about it. Face it! Encounter it! That is what is meant by CONSIDER IT.
WHEN SOME DESIRE COMES, CONSIDER IT. Just look at the fact -- at what it is. Unfortunately, it is one of the most difficult things to do. Compared to this, reaching to the moon is not so difficult or reaching to the peak of Everest is not so difficult. It is highly complicated -- reaching to the moon is highly complicated, infinitely complicated, a very complex phenomenon. But compared to living with a fact of the inner mind it is nothing, because the mind is so subtly involved in everything you do. It is always there. Look at the word... If I say, "Sex," the moment I say it you have decided for or against. The moment I say, "Sex," you have interpreted: "This is not good. This is bad." Or, "This is good." You have interpreted even the word.
Many persons came to me when the book FROM SEX TO SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS was published. They came and they said, "Please change the title. The very word `sex' makes them disturbed -- they have not read the book. And those who have already read the book also say to change the title.
Why? The very word gives you a certain interpretation. Mind is so interpretive that if I say "Lemon juice," your saliva starts flowing. You have interpreted the words. In the words `lemon juice' there is nothing like lemon, but your saliva starts flowing. If I wait for a few moments, you will become uneasy because you will have to swallow. The mind has interpreted; it has come in. Even with words you cannot remain aloof, without interpreting. It will be very difficult, when a desire arises, to remain aloof, to remain just a dispassionate observer, calm and quiet, looking at the fact, not interpreting it.
I say, "This man is a Mohammedan" The moment I say, "This man is a Mohammedan," the Hindu has thought that this man is bad. If I say, "This man is a Jew," the Christian has decided that this man is not good. The very word `Jew', and in the Christian mind comes the interpretation; the traditional, conventional idea flares up. This Jew is not to be considered, the old interpretation will have to be imposed on this Jew.
Every Jew is a different Jew. Every Hindu is a different, unique individual. You cannot interpret him because you know other Hindus. You may have come to conclude that all the Hindus you have known are bad, but this Hindu is not in your experience. You are interpreting this Hindu according to your past experience. Do not interpret, interpretation is not consideration. Consideration means consider THIS fact -- absolutely this fact. Remain with this fact.
Rishis have said that sex is bad. It may have been bad for them; you do not know. You have the desire, a fresh desire, with you. Consider it, look at it, be attentive to it. THEN, SUDDENLY, QUIT IT.
There are two parts to this technique. First, remain with the fact -- aware, attentive of what is happening. When you feel a sexual desire, what is happening in you? See how you become feverish, how your body begins to tremble, how you feel a sudden madness creeping in, how you feel as if you are possessed by something else. Feel it, consider it. Do not exercise any judgement, just move into this fact -- the fact of sexual desire. Do not say it is bad!
If you have said that, the consideration has stopped, you have closed the door. Now your face is not toward the desire -- your back is. You have moved away from it. You have missed a moment in which you could have gone deep down into your biological layer of being. You are clinging to the social layer, which is the uppermost.
Sex is deeper than your SHASTRAS -- scriptures -- because it is biological. If all the shastras can be destroyed -- and they can be destroyed, many times they have been -- your interpretation will be lost. But sex will remain; it is deeper. Do not bring superficial things in. Just consider the fact and move within, and feel what is happening to you. What happened to particular rishis, to Mohammed and Mahavir, is irrelevant. What is happening to you this very moment? This alive moment, what is happening to you?
Consider it, observe it. And then the second part... this is really beautiful. Shiva says, THEN, SUDDENLY, QUIT IT.
SUDDENLY -- remember. Do not say, "This is bad, so I am going to leave it. I am not going to move with this idea, this desire. This is bad, this is sin, so I will stop it, I will suppress it." Then a suppression will happen, but not a meditative state of mind. And suppression is really creating by your own hands a deceived being and mind.
Suppression is psychological. You are disturbing the whole mechanism and suppressing energies which are going to burst out any day. The energy is there, you have simply suppressed it. It has not moved out, it has not moved in, you have simply suppressed it. It has simply moved sideways. It will wait and it will become perverted, and perverted energy is the basic problem with man.
Psychological diseases are by-products of perverted energy. Then it will take such shapes, such forms, which are not even imaginable, and in those forms it will try again to be expressed. And when it is expressed in a perverted form, it leads you into a very, very deep anguish, because there is no satisfaction in any perverted form. And you cannot remain perverted, you have to express it. Suppression creates perversion. This sutra is not concerned with suppression. This sutra is not saying to control, this sutra is not saying to suppress. The sutra says, SUDDENLY, QUIT IT.
What to do? The desire is there; you have considered. If you have considered it, it will not be difficult; the second part will be easy. If you have not considered it, look at your mind. Your mind will be thinking, "This is good. If we can quit sexual desire suddenly, this is beautiful." You would like to do it, but your liking is not the question. Your liking may not be your liking, but just the society's. Your liking may not be your own consideration, but just tradition. First consider, do not create any liking or disliking. Just consider, and then the second part becomes easy -- you can quit the desire.
How to quit it? When you have considered a thing totally, it is very easy; it is as easy as dropping this paper from my hand. QUIT IT... What will happen? A desire is there. You have not suppressed it and it is moving out, it is coming up; it has stirred your whole being. Really, when you consider a desire without interpretation your whole being will become a desire.
When sex is there and if you are not against it or for it, if you have no mind about it, then just by looking at the desire, your whole being will be involved in it. A single sex desire will become a flame. Your whole being will be concentrated in the flame, as if you have totally become sexual. It will not only be at the sex center, it will spread all over the body. Every fiber of your body will be trembling. The passion will have become a flame. Now, quit it. Don't fight with it, simply say, "I quit it."
What will happen? The moment you can simply say, "I quit," a separation happens. Your body -- your passionate body, your body filled with sex desire -- and you become two. Suddenly, in a moment, they are two poles apart. The body is writhing with passion and sex, and the center is silent, observing. No fight is there, just a separation -- remember this. In fight you are not separate. When you are fighting you are one with the object. When you have just quit it, you are separate. Now you can look at it as if someone else is there, not you.
One of my friends was with me for many years. He was a constant chain smoker, and he tried and tried, as smokers do, not to smoke. One day, suddenly in the morning, he would decide, "Now I am not going to smoke," and by the evening he would be smoking again. And he would feel guilty and he would defend it, and then for a few days he would not gather courage again to decide not to smoke. Then he would forget what happened. Then one day, again he would say, "Now I am not going to smoke," and I would just laugh because this had happened so many times. Then he himself became fed up with the whole thing -- with this smoking and then deciding not to smoke, and this constant vicious circle.
He wondered what to do. He asked me what to do, so I told him, "Do not be against smoking -- that is the first thing to do. Smoke, and be with it. For seven days do not be against it; do this thing."
He said, "What are you telling me? I have been against it, and even then I could not leave it, and you are saying not to be against it. Then there is no possibility of leaving it."
So I told him, "You have tried with the inimical attitude and you have been a failure. Now try the other -- the friendly attitude. Do not be against it for seven days."
Immediately he said, "Then will I be able to leave it?"
So I told him, "Then again... you are still inimical toward it. Do not think about leaving it at all. How can one think about leaving a friend? For seven days just forget it. Remain with it, cooperate with it, smoke as deeply as possible, as lovingly as possible. When you are smoking, just forget everything; become the smoking. Be totally at ease with it, in deep communion with it. For seven days, smoke as much as you like and forget about leaving it."
These seven days became a consideration. He could look at the fact of smoking. He was not against it, so now he could face it. When you are against something, or someone, you cannot face it. The very being against becomes a barrier. You cannot consider... How can you consider an enemy? You cannot look at him, you cannot look into his eyes; it is difficult to face him. You can look deeply only into the eyes of one you love; then you penetrate deep. Otherwise eyes can never meet.
So he looked into the fact deeply. For seven days he considered it. He was not against, so the energy was there, the mind was there, and it became a meditation. He had to cooperate with it; he had to become the smoker. After seven days he forgot to tell me. I was waiting for him to say, "Now the seven days have ended, so now how can I leave it?" He forgot completely about the seven days. Three weeks passed and then I asked him, "Have you forgotten completely?"
He said, "The experience has been so beautiful, I do not want to think about anything else now. It is beautiful, and for the first time I am not struggling with the fact. I am just feeling what is happening to me."
Then I told him, "Whenever you feel the urge to smoke, simply quit." He didn't ask me how to quit it, he had simply considered the whole thing and the whole thing became so childish, and there was no struggle. So I said, "When you feel again the urge to smoke, consider it, look at it, and leave it. Take the cigarette in your hand, stop for a moment, then leave the cigarette. Let it drop, and as the cigarette drops let the urge also drop inside."
He didn't ask me how to do it, because consideration makes one capable -- you can do it. And if you cannot do it, remember, you have not considered the fact. Then you were against it, all the time thinking how to leave it. Then you cannot quit it. When suddenly the urge is there and you quit it, the whole energy takes a jump inward. The technique is the same, only the dimensions differ: WHEN SOME DESIRE COMES, CONSIDER IT. THEN, SUDDENLY, QUIT IT.
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The same! This technique is the same. ROAM ABOUT UNTIL EXHAUSTED. Just run in a circle. Jump, dance, and run again until you are exhausted -- until you feel that now not a single step more can be taken. But you will have to understand that your mind will say that now you are completely exhausted. Do not pay any attention to the mind. Go on running, dancing, jumping. Go on! Do not pay any attention. The mind will say that now you are exhausted, now you cannot go on any more. Continue until you feel -- not think, until you feel -- that the whole body is tired, that "A single step more has become impossible, and if I move I will fall down."
When you feel that you are falling down and now you cannot move, that the body has become heavy and tired and completely exhausted, THEN, DROPPING TO THE GROUND, IN THIS DROPPING BE WHOLE. Then drop! Remember, be so exhausted that dropping happens of itself. If you continue, you will drop. The point has come -- you are just on the verge of dropping. Then, the sutra says, drop, and IN THIS DROPPING BE WHOLE.
That is the central point in the technique: when you are dropping, be whole. What is meant? Do not drop just according to the mind -- that is one thing. Do not plan it; do not try to sit, do not try to lie down. Drop as a whole, as if the whole body is one and it has dropped. And you are not dropping it, because if you are dropping it then you have two parts: you who is dropping it and the body which has been dropped. Then you are not whole. Then you are fragmentary, divided. Drop it as a whole; drop yourself totally. And remember, drop! Do not arrange it. Fall down dead. IN THIS DROPPING BE WHOLE. If you can drop in this way, you will feel for the first time your whole being, your wholeness. You will feel for the first time your center -- not divided, but one, unitary.
How can it happen? The body has three layers of energy. One is for day-to-day affairs, which is very easily exhausted. It is just for routine work. The second is for emergency affairs; it is a deeper layer. When you are in an emergency, only then is it used. And the third is the cosmic energy, which is infinite. The first can be easily exhausted. If I say to you to run, you will take three or four rounds and you will say, "I am feeling tired." Really, you are not feeling tired -- the first layer is exhausted. In the morning it will not be so easily exhausted; in the evening it will be exhausted very easily because the whole day you have been using it. Now it needs repair; you will need a deep sleep. From the cosmic reservoir it can again get energy enough to work. This is the first layer.
If I tell you to run just now, you will say, "I am feeling sleepy, I cannot run." And then someone comes and says, "Your house is on fire." Suddenly the sleepiness has gone. There is no tiredness, you feel fresh; you start running. What has happened so suddenly? You were tired, and the emergency has made you connected with the second layer of energy, so you are fresh again. This is the second layer. In this technique, the second layer has to be exhausted. The first layer is exhausted very easily. Continue. You will feel tired, but continue. And within a few moments a new surge of energy will come, and you will feel again renewed and there will be no tiredness.
So many people come to me and they say, "When we are in a meditation camp, it seems miraculous that we can do this much. In the morning, for one hour meditating actively, chaotically, going completely mad. And then in the afternoon we do an hour, and then in the night also. Three times a day we can go on meditating chaotically." Many have said that they feel that this is impossible, that they cannot continue and they will be dead tired, and the next day it will be impossible to move any limb of the body. But no one gets tired. Three sessions every day, doing such exertions, and no one is tired. Why? Because they are in contact with the second layer of energy.
But if you are doing it alone -- go to a hill and do it alone -- you will become tired. When the first layer is finished you will feel, "Now I am tired." But in a big group of five hundred people doing meditation, you feel, "No one is tired, so I should continue a little more." And everyone is thinking the same: "No one is tired, so I should continue a little more. If everyone is fresh and doing, why should I feel tired?"
That group feeling gives you an impetus, and soon you reach the second layer. And the second layer is very big -- an emergency layer. When the emergency layer is also tired, finished, only then are you in contact with the cosmic, the source, the infinite.
That is why much exertion is needed -- so much that you feel, "Now it is going beyond me." The first moment you feel it is going beyond you, it is not going beyond you -- it is just going beyond the first layer. And when the first layer is finished, you will feel tired. When the second layer is finished, you will feel, "If I do anything now, I will be dead." So many come to me, and they say that whenever they reach deep in meditation, a moment comes when they become afraid and scared and they say, "Now I am afraid. It seems as if I am going to die. Now I cannot penetrate any further. A fear grips me, as if I am going to die, now I will not be able to come out of meditation."
That is the right moment -- the moment when you need courage. A little courage, and you will penetrate the third, the deepest, infinite layer.
This technique helps you very easily to fall into that cosmic ocean of energy: ROAM ABOUT UNTIL EXHAUSTED AND THEN, DROPPING TO THE GROUND, IN THIS DROPPING BE WHOLE. And when you drop to the ground totally, for the first time you will be whole, unitary, one. There will be no fragments, no divisions. The mind with its divisions will disappear, and the being that is undivided, indivisible, will appear for the first time.
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Acceptance
OR IMAGINE THE FIVE-COLORED CIRCLES OF THE PEACOCK TAIL TO BE YOUR FIVE SENSES IN ILLIMITABLE SPACE. NOW, LET THEIR BEAUTY MELT WITHIN. SIMILARLY, AT ANY POINT IN SPACE OR ON A WALL -- UNTIL THE POINT DISSOLVES. THEN YOUR WISH FOR ANOTHER COMES TRUE.
All these sutras are concerned with how to achieve the inner center. The basic mechanism used, the basic technique used is, if you can create a center outside -- anywhere: in the mind, in the heart, or even outside on a wall -- and if you concentrate totally on it and you bracket out the whole world, you forget the whole world and only one point remains in your consciousness, suddenly you will be thrown to your inner center.
How does it work? First understand this... Your mind is just a vagabond, a wandering. It is never at one point. It is always going, moving, reaching, but never at any point. It goes from one thought to another, from A to B. But it is never at the A; it is never at the B. It is always on the move. Remember this: mind is always on the move, hoping to reach somewhere but never reaching. It cannot reach! The very structure of the mind is movement. It can only move; that is the inherent nature of the mind. The very process is movement -- from A to B, from B to C... it goes on and on.
If you stop at A or B or any point, the mind will fight with you. The mind will say, "Move on," because if you stop the mind dies immediately. It can be alive only in movement. The mind means a process. If you stop and do not move, mind suddenly becomes dead, it is no more there; only consciousness remains.
Consciousness is your nature; mind is your activity -- just like walking. It is difficult because we think mind is something substantial. We think mind is a substance -- it is not, mind is just an activity. So it is really better to call it "minding" than mind. It is a process just like walking. Walking is a process, if you stop, there is no walking. You have legs, but no walking. Legs can walk, but if you stop then legs will be there but there will be no walking.
Consciousness is like legs -- your nature. Mind is like walking -- just a process. When consciousness moves from one place to another, this process is mind. When consciousness moves from A to B, from B to C, this movement is mind. If you stop the movement, there is no mind. You are conscious, but there is no mind. You have legs, but no walking. Walking is a function, an activity; mind is also a function, an activity.
If you stop at any point, the mind will struggle. The mind will say, "Go on!" The mind will try in every way to push you forward or backward or anywhere -- but, "Go on!" Anywhere will do, but do not stay at one point.
If you insist and if you do not obey the mind... it is difficult because you have always obeyed. You have never ordered the mind; you have never been masters. You cannot be because, really, you have never disidentified yourself from the mind. You think you are the mind. This fallacy that you are the mind gives the mind total freedom, because then there is no one to master it, to control it. There is no one! Mind itself becomes the master. It may become the master, but that mastery is just seemingly so. Try once and you can break that mastery -- it is false.
Mind is just a slave pretending to be the master, but it has pretended so long, for lives and lives, that even the master believes that the slave is the master. That is just a belief. Try the contrary and you will know that that belief was totally unfounded.
This first sutra says, IMAGINE THE FIVE-COLORED CIRCLE OF THE PEACOCK TAIL TO BE YOUR FIVE SENSES IN ILLIMITABLE SPACE. NOW LET THEIR BEAUTY MELT WITHIN. Think that your five senses are five colors, and those five colors are filling the whole space. Just imagine your five senses are five colors -- beautiful colors, alive, extended into infinite space. Then move within with those colors. Move within and feel a center where all these five colors are meeting within you. This is just imagination, but it helps. Just imagine these five colors penetrating within you and meeting at a point.
Of course, these five colors will meet at a point: the whole world will dissolve. In your imagination there are only five colors -- just like around the tail of a peacock -- spread all over space, going deep within you, meeting at a point. Any point will do, but the hara is the best. Think that they are meeting at your navel -- that the whole world has become colors, and those colors are meeting at your navel. See that point, concentrate on that point, and concentrate until the point dissolves. If you concentrate on the point it dissolves, because it is just imagination. Remember, whatsoever we have done is imagination. If you concentrate on it, it will dissolve. And when the point dissolves, you are thrown to your center.
The world has dissolved. There is no world for you. In this meditation there is only color. You have forgotten the whole world; you have forgotten all the objects. You have chosen only five colors. Choose any five colors. This is particularly for those who have a very keen eye, a very deep color sensitivity. This meditation will not be helpful to everyone. Unless you have a painter's eye, a color consciousness, unless you can imagine color, it is difficult.
Have you ever observed that your dreams are colorless? Only one person in a hundred is capable of seeing colored dreams. You see just black and white. Why? The whole world is colored and your dreams are colorless. If one of you remembers that his dreams are colored, this meditation is for him. If someone remembers even sometimes that he sees colors in his dreams, then this meditation will be for him.
If you say to a person who is insensitive to color, "Imagine the whole space filled with colors," he will not be able to imagine. Even if he tries to imagine, if he thinks, "Red," he will see the word `red', he will not see the color. He will say, "Green," and the word `green' will be there, but there will be no greenness.
So if you have a color sensitivity, then try this method. There are five colors. The whole world is just colors and those five colors are meeting in you. Deep down somewhere in you, those five colors are meeting. Concentrate on that point, and go on concentrating on it. Do not move from it; remain at it. Do not allow the mind. Do not try to think about green and red and yellow and about colors -- do not think. Just see them meeting in you. Do not think about them! If you think, the mind has moved. Just be filled with colors meeting in you, and then at the meeting point, concentrate. Do not think! Concentration is not thinking; it is not contemplation.
If you are really filled with colors and you have become just a rainbow, a peacock, and the whole space is filled with colors, it will give you a deep feeling of beauty. But do not think about it; do not say it is beautiful. Do not move in thinking. Concentrate on the point where all these colors are meeting and go on concentrating on it. It will disappear, it will dissolve, because it is just imagination. And if you force concentration, imagination cannot remain there, it will dissolve.
The world has dissolved already; there were only colors. Those colors were your imagination. Those imaginative colors were meeting at a point. That point, of course, was imaginary -- and now, with deep concentration, that point will dissolve. Where are you now? Where will you be? You will be thrown to your center.
Objects have dissolved through imagination. Now imagination will dissolve through concentration. You alone are left as a subjectivity. The objective world has dissolved; the mental world has dissolved. You are there only as pure consciousness.
That is why this sutra says: AT ANY POINT IN SPACE OR ON A WALL... This will help. If you cannot imagine colors, then any point on the wall will help. Take anything just as an object of concentration. If it is inner it is better, but again, there are two types of personalities. For those who are introvert, it will be easy to conceive of all the colors meeting within. But there are extroverts who cannot conceive of anything within. They can imagine only the outside. Their minds move only on the outside; they cannot move in. For them there is nothing like innerness.
The English philosopher David Hume has said, "Whenever I go in, I never meet any self. All that I meet are only reflections of the outside world -- a thought, some emotion, some feeling. I never meet the innerness, I only meet the outside world reflected in." This is the extrovert mind par excellence, and David Hume is one of the most extrovert minds.
So if you cannot feel anything within, and if the mind asks, "What does this innerness mean? How to go in?" then try any point on the wall instead. There are persons who come to me and ask how to go in. It is a problem, because if you know only outgoing-ness, if you know only outward movements, it is difficult to imagine how to go in.
If you are an extrovert then do not try this point inside, try it outside. The same will be the result. Make a dot on the wall; concentrate on it. Then you will have to concentrate on it with open eyes. If you are creating a center inside, a point within, then you will have to concentrate with closed eyes.
Make a point on a wall and concentrate on it. The real thing happens because of concentration, not because of the point. Whether it is out or in is irrelevant. It depends on you. If you are looking at the outside wall, concentrating on it, then go on concentrating until the point dissolves. That has to be noted: UNTIL THE POINT DISSOLVES! Do not blink your eyes, because blinking gives a space for the mind to move again. Do not blink, because then the mind starts thinking. It becomes a gap; in the blinking, the concentration is lost. So no blinking.
You might have heard about Bodhidharma, one of the greatest masters of meditation in the whole history of humankind. A very beautiful story is reported about him.
He was concentrating on something -- something outward. His eyes would blink and the concentration would be lost, so he tore off his eyelids. This is a beautiful story: he tore off his eyelids, threw them away, and concentrated. After a few weeks, he saw some plants growing on the spot where he had thrown his eyelids. This anecdote happened on a mountain in China, and the mountain's name is Tah, or Ta. Hence, the name `tea'. Those plants which were growing became tea, and that is why tea helps you to be awake.
When your eyes are blinking and you are falling down into sleep, take a cup of tea. Those are Bodhidharma's eyelids. That is why Zen monks consider tea to be sacred. Tea is not any ordinary thing, it is sacred -- Bodhidharma's eyelids. In Japan they have tea ceremonies, and every house has a tea room, and the tea is served with religious ceremony; it is sacred. Tea has to be taken in a very meditative mood.
Japan has created beautiful ceremonies around tea drinking. They will enter the tea room as if they are entering a temple. Then the tea will be made, and everyone will sit silently listening to the samovar bubbling. There is the steam, the noise, and everyone just listening. It is no ordinary thing... Bodhidharma's eyelids. And because Bodhidharma was trying to be awake with open eyes, tea helps. Because the story happened on the mountain of Tah, it is called tea. Whether true or untrue, this anecdote is beautiful.
If you are concentrating outwardly, then non-blinking eyes will be needed, as if you no longer have eyelids. That is the meaning of throwing away the eyelids. You have only eyes, without eyelids to close them. Concentrating until the point dissolves. If you persist, if you insist and do not allow the mind to move, the point dissolves. And when the point dissolves, if you were concentrated on the point and there was only this point for you in the world, if the whole world had dissolved already, if only this point remained and now the point also dissolves, then the consciousness cannot move anywhere. There is no object to move to -- all the dimensions are closed. The mind is thrown to itself, the consciousness is thrown to itself, and you enter the center.
So whether in or out, within or without, concentrate until the point dissolves. This point will dissolve for two reasons. If it is within, it is imaginary -- it will dissolve. If it is outside, it is not imaginary, it is real. You have made a dot on the wall and have concentrated on it. Then why will this dot dissolve? One can understand it dissolving inside -- it was not there at all; you just imagined it -- but on the wall it is there, so why will it dissolve?
It dissolves for a certain reason. If you concentrate on a point, the point is not really going to dissolve, the mind dissolves. If you are concentrating on an outer point, the mind cannot move. Without movement it cannot live, it dies, it stops. And when the mind stops you cannot be related with anything outward. Suddenly all bridges are broken, because mind is the bridge. When you are concentrating on a point on the wall, constantly your mind is jumping from you to the point, from the point to you, from you to the point. There is a constant jumping; there is a process.
When the mind dissolves you cannot see the point, because really, you never see the point through the eyes: you see the point through the mind AND through the eyes. If the mind is not there, the eyes cannot function. You may go on staring at the wall, but the point will not be seen. The mind is not there; the bridge is broken. The point is real -- it is there. When the mind will come back, you will see it again; it is there. But now you cannot see it. And when you cannot see, you cannot move out. Suddenly, you are at your center.
This centering will make you aware of your existential roots. You will know from where you are joined to the existence. In you, there is a point which is related with the total existence, which is one with it. Once you know this center, you know you are at home. This world is not alien. You are not an outsider. You are an insider, you belong to the world. There is no need of any struggle, there is no fight. There is no inimical relationship between you and the existence. The existence becomes your mother.
It is the existence that has come into you and that has become aware. It is the existence that has flowered in you. This feeling, this realization, this happening... and there can be no anguish again.
Then bliss is not a phenomenon; it is not something that happens and then goes. Then blissfulness is your very nature. When one is rooted in one's center, blissfulness is natural. One happens to be blissful, and by and by one even becomes unaware that one is blissful, because awareness needs contrast. If you are miserable, then you can feel it when you are blissful. When misery is no more, by and by you forget misery completely. And you forget your bliss also. And only when you can forget your bliss also are you really blissful. Then it is natural. As stars are shining, as rivers are flowing, so are you blissful. Your very being is blissful. It is not something that has happened to you: now it IS YOU.
With the second sutra, the mechanism is the same, the scientific basis is the same, the working structure is the same:
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LOOK LOVINGLY ON SOME OBJECT. DO NOT GO ON TO ANOTHER. Do not move to another object. HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS OBJECT -- THE BLESSING.
LOOK LOVINGLY ON SOME OBJECT... LOVINGLY is the key. Have you ever looked lovingly at any object? You may say yes because you do not know what it means to look lovingly at an object. You may have looked lustfully at an object -- that is another thing. That is totally different, diametrically opposite. So first, the difference; try to feel the difference.
A beautiful face, a beautiful body -- you look at it, and you feel that you are looking at it lovingly. But why are you looking at it? Do you want to get something out of it? Then it is lust, not love. Do you want to exploit it? Then it is lust, not love. Then really, you are thinking of how to use this body, how to possess it, how to make this body an instrument for your happiness.
Lust means how to use something for your happiness; love means your happiness is not at all concerned. Really, lust means how to get something out of it and love means how to give something. They are diametrically opposite.
If you see a beautiful face and you feel love toward the face, the immediate feeling in your consciousness will be how to do something to make this face happy, how to do something to make this man or this woman happy. The concern is not with yourself, the concern is with the other.
In love the other is important; in lust you are important. In lust you are thinking how to make the other your instrument; in love you are thinking how to become an instrument yourself. In lust you are going to sacrifice the other; in love you are going to sacrifice yourself. Love means giving; lust means getting. Love is a surrender; lust is an aggression.
What you say is meaningless. Even in lust you talk in terms of love. Your language is not very meaningful, so do not be deceived. Look within, and then you will come to understand that you have not once in your life looked lovingly toward someone or some object.
The second distinction to be made: this sutra says, LOOK LOVINGLY ON SOME OBJECT. Really, even if you look lovingly at something material, insentient, the object will become a person. If you look lovingly at it, your love is the key to transform anything into a person. If you look lovingly at a tree, the tree becomes a person.
Just the other day I was talking with Vivek, a close disciple, and I told her that when we move to the new ashram we will name every tree, because every tree is a person. Have you ever heard of anyone naming a tree? No one names a tree because no one feels love for it. If the case were otherwise, a tree would become a person. Then it is not just one in a crowd, it becomes unique.
You name dogs and cats. When you name a dog and you call it Tiger or something else, the dog becomes a person. Then it is not just one dog amongst other dogs, it has a personality; you have created a person. Whenever you look lovingly at something, it becomes a person.
And the contrary is also true. Whenever you look with lustful eyes toward a person, the person becomes an object, a thing. That is why lustful eyes are repulsive -- because no one likes to become a thing. When you look at your wife with lustful eyes -- or at any other woman, or man, with lustful eyes -- the other feels hurt. What are you doing really? You are changing a person, a living person, into a dead instrument. You are thinking of how to "use," and the person is killed.
That is why lustful eyes are repulsive, ugly. When you look at someone with love, the other is raised. He becomes unique. Suddenly he becomes a person. A person cannot be replaced; a thing can be replaced. A `thing' means that which is replaceable; a `person' means that which cannot be replaced: there is no possibility of replacing him or her. A person is unique; a thing is not unique.
Love makes anything unique. That is why without love you never feel like a person. Unless someone loves you deeply, you never feel that you have any uniqueness. You are just one in a crowd -- just a number, a datum. You can be changed.
For example, if you are a clerk in an office or a teacher in a school or a professor in a university, your professor-hood is replaceable. Another professor will replace you; he can replace you at any moment because you are just used there as a professor. You have a functional meaning and significance.
If you are a clerk, someone else is easily able to do the work. The work will not wait for you. If you die this moment, the next moment someone will replace you and the mechanism will continue. You were just a figure -- another figure will do. You were just a utility.
But then someone falls in love with this clerk or this professor. Suddenly the clerk is no more a clerk; he has become a unique person. If he dies, then the beloved cannot replace him. He is irreplaceable. Then the whole world may go on in the same way, but the one who was in love cannot be the same. This uniqueness, this being a person, happens through love.
This sutra says, LOOK LOVINGLY AT SOME OBJECT. It makes no distinction between an object and a person. There is no need, because when you look lovingly anything will become a person. The very look changes, transforms.
You may or may not have observed what happens when you drive a particular car, say a Fiat. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of Fiats exactly similar, but your car, if you are in love with it, becomes unique -- a person. It cannot be replaced; a relationship is created. Now you feel this car as a person. If something goes wrong... a slight sound, and you feel it. And cars are very temperamental. You know the temper of your car -- when it feels good and when it feels bad. The car becomes, by and by, a person.
Why? If there is a love relationship, anything becomes a person. If there is a lust relationship, then a person will become a thing. And this is one of the most inhuman acts man can do -- to make someone a thing.
LOOK LOVINGLY AT SOME OBJECT... So what is one to do? When you look lovingly, what are you to do? The first thing: forget yourself. Forget yourself completely! Look at a flower and forget yourself completely. Let the flower be; you become completely absent. Feel the flower, and a deep love will flow from your consciousness toward the flower. And let your consciousness be filled with only one thought -- how you can help this flower to flower more, to become more beautiful, to become more blissful. What can you do?
It is not meaningful whether you can do or not; that is not relevant. The feeling of what you can do -- this pain, this deep ache over what you can do to make this flower more beautiful, more alive, more flowering -- is meaningful. Let this thought reverberate into your whole being. Let every fiber of your body and mind feel it. You will be transfixed in an ecstasy, and the flower will become a person.
DO NOT GO ON TO ANOTHER OBJECT... You cannot go. If you are in a love relationship, you cannot go. If you love someone in this group, then you forget the whole crowd; only one face remains. Really, you do not see anyone else, you see only one face. All the others are there, but they are subliminal -- just on the periphery of your consciousness. They are NOT. They are just shadows; only one face remains. If you love someone then only that face remains, so you cannot move.
Do not go to another object, remain with one. Remain with a roseflower or remain with a beloved's face. Remain there loving, flowing, with just one heart, with the feeling of, "What can I do to make the loved one happier, blissful?"
HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OBJECT -- THE BLESSING. And when this is the case you are absent, not concerned with yourself at all, not selfish, not thinking in terms of your pleasure, your gratification. You have forgotten yourself completely, and you are just thinking in terms of the other. The other has become the center of your love; your consciousness is flowing toward the other. With deep compassion, with a deep feeling of love, you are thinking, "What can I do to make the loved one blissful?" In this state, suddenly, HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OBJECT -- THE BLESSING. Suddenly, as a by-product, the blessing comes to you. Suddenly you become centered.
This looks paradoxical because this sutra says to forget yourself completely, not to be self-centered, to move to the other completely. Buddha is reported to have said continuously that whenever you are praying, pray for others -- never for yourself. Otherwise the prayer is just useless.
One man came to Buddha and he said, "I accept your teaching, but only one thing is very difficult to accept. You say that whenever we do prayer we are not to think about ourselves, we are not to ask anything about ourselves. We have to say, `Whatsoever may be the result of my prayer, let that result be distributed to all. If blessing happens, let it be distributed to all.'"
The man said, "This is okay, but can I make only one exception? Not to my immediate neighbor -- he is my enemy. Let this blessing be distributed to all except to my immediate neighbor."
The mind is self-centered, so Buddha said, "Your prayer is useless. Nothing will come out of it unless you are ready to give all, to distribute all, and then all will be yours."
In love you are to forget yourself. It looks paradoxical: then when and how will the centering happen? By being totally concerned with the other, with the other's happiness, when you forget yourself completely and only the other remains there, suddenly you are filled with bliss -- the blessing.
Why? Because when you are not concerned with yourself you become vacant, empty; the inner space is created. When your mind is totally concerned with the other, you become mindless within. Then there are no thoughts inside. And then this thought -- "How can I be helpful? How can I create more bliss? How can the other be more happy?" -- cannot continue any more, because really, there is nothing you can do. This thought becomes a stop. There is nothing you can do. What can you do? If you think you can do, you are still thinking in terms of yourself -- ego.
With the love object one becomes totally helpless -- remember this. Whenever you love someone you feel totally helpless. That is the agony of love: one cannot feel what he can do. He wants to do everything, he wants to give the whole universe to the lover or the beloved -- but what can he do? If you think that you can do this or that, you are still not in a love relationship. Love is very helpless, absolutely helpless, and that helplessness is the beauty, because in that helplessness you are surrendered.
Love someone and you will feel helpless; hate someone and you can do something. Love someone and you are absolutely helpless -- because what can you do? Whatsoever you can do seems insignificant, meaningless; it is never enough. Nothing can be done. And when one feels that nothing can be done, one feels that one is helpless. When one wants to do everything and feels nothing can be done, mind stops. In this helplessness surrender happens. You are empty. That is why love becomes a deep meditation.
Really, if you love someone, no other meditation is needed. But because no one loves, one hundred and twelve methods are needed -- and even they may not be enough.
Someone was here the other day. He was telling me, "It gives me much hope. I have heard for the first time from you that there are one hundred and twelve methods. It gives me much hope, but somewhere a depression also comes into the mind: only one hundred and twelve methods? And if these one hundred and twelve methods don't work for me, then is there no one hundred and thirteenth?"
And he is right. He is right! If these one hundred and twelve methods do not work for you, then there is no go. So as he suggests, a depression also follows hope. But really, methods are needed because the basic method is missing. If you can love, no method is needed.
Love itself is the greatest method, but love is difficult -- in a way impossible. Love means putting yourself out from your consciousness, and in the same place, where your ego has been in existence, putting someone else. Replacing yourself by someone else means love -- as if now you are not and only the other is.
Jean Paul Sartre says that the other is the hell, and he is right. He is right because the other creates only hell for you. But he is wrong also because if the other can be hell, the other can he heaven. If you live through lust, the other is a hell because then you are trying to kill that person. You are trying to make that person a thing. Then that person will also react and will try to make you a thing, and that creates hell.
So every husband and every wife, they are creating hell for each other because each one is trying to possess the other. Possession is possible only with things, never with persons. You can only be possessed by a person; you can never possess a person. A thing can be possessed, but you try to possess persons. Through that effort persons become things. If I make you into a thing, you will react. Then I am your enemy. Then you will try to make a thing out of me -- that creates hell.
You are sitting in your room alone, and then suddenly you become aware that someone is peeping through the keyhole. Observe minutely what happens. Have you felt any change? And why do you feel angry about this peeping Tom? He is not doing anything to you -- just peeping. Why do you feel angry? He has changed you into a thing. He is observing; he has made you into a thing, into an object. That gives you an uneasiness.
And the same will happen to him if you come near the keyhole and look through it. The other will become shattered, shocked. He was a subject just a moment before: he was the observer and you were the observed. Now suddenly he has been caught. He has been observed observing you, and now he has become a thing.
When someone is observing you, suddenly you feel your freedom has been disturbed, destroyed. That is why, unless you are in love with someone, you cannot stare. That stare becomes ugly and violent -- unless you are in love. If you are in love then a stare is a beautiful thing, because your stare is not changing the other into a thing. Then you can look directly into the eyes; then you can go deep into the eyes of the other. You are not changing him into a thing. Rather, through your love your look is making him a person. That is why only the stares of lovers are beautiful; otherwise stares are ugly.
Psychologists say there is a time limit. And you all know, observe and you will come to know, what the time limit is for how long you can stare into someone's eyes, if he is a stranger. There is a time limit. One moment more, and the other will become angry. Just a passing look in public can be pardoned because it seems as if you were just seeing, not looking.
A look is a deep thing. If I just see you when passing, no relationship is created. Or I am passing and you look at me, just while passing -- no offense is meant so it is okay. But if you suddenly stand and look at me, you become an observer. Then your look will disturb me and I will feel insulted: "What are you doing? I am a person, not a thing. This is not the way to look."
Because of this, clothes have become so meaningful. Only when you love someone can you be easily naked, because the moment you are naked your whole body becomes an object. Someone can look at your whole body, and if he is not in love with you his eyes will turn your whole body, your whole being, into an object. But when you are in love with someone you can be naked without feeling that you are naked. Rather, you would like to be naked, because you would like this transforming love to transform your whole body into a person.
Whenever you are turning someone into a thing, that act is immoral. But if you are filled with love, then in that love-filled moment with any object this phenomenon, this blessing, is possible. It happens.
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OBJECT -- THE BLESSING. Suddenly you have forgotten yourself -- the other was there. Then when the right moment comes, when you are no longer present, absolutely absent, the other will also become absent. And between the two the blessing happens. That is what lovers feel. That blessing is also because of an unknown, unconscious meditation.
When two lovers are there, by and by they both become absent. A pure existence remains -- without any egos, without any conflict... just a communion. In that communion one feels blissful. It is wrongly inferred that the other has given that bliss to you. That bliss has come because unknowingly you have fallen into a deep meditative technique.
You can do it consciously -- and when you do it consciously it goes deeper, because then you are not obsessed with the object. This is happening every day. If you love someone, you feel blissful not because of him or her, but because of love. And why because of love? Because this phenomenon happens -- this sutra happens.
But then you become obsessed. Then you think that because of A, because of A's proximity, nearness, because of A's love this blessing happens. Then you think, "I must possess A, because without A being present I may not be able to get this blessing again." You become jealous. If someone else possesses A, then he will be blissful and you will feel miserable, so you want to take away all possibilities of A being possessed by anyone else. A should be possessed only by you, because you have glimpsed a different world through him. Then the moment you try to possess, you will destroy the whole beauty and the whole phenomenon.
When the lover is possessed, love is gone. Then the lover is just a thing. You can use it, but the blessing will never come again, because that blessing was coming when the other was a person. The other was made, created: you created the person in the other, and the other created the person in you. No one was an object. Both were subjectivities meeting -- two persons meeting, not one person and one thing.
But the moment you possess, this will become impossible. And mind will try to possess because mind thinks in terms of greed: "One day bliss has happened, so it must happen to me every day. So I must possess." But the bliss happens because there is no possession. And the bliss happens not because of the other, really, but because of you. Remember this, the bliss happens because of you. Because you are so absorbed in the other, the bliss happens.
It can happen with a roseflower, it can happen with a rock, it can happen with the trees, it can happen with anything. Once you know the situation in which it happens, it can happen anywhere. If you know that you are not, and with a deep love your consciousness has moved to the other -- to the trees, to the sky, to the stars, to anyone; when your total consciousness is addressed to the other it leaves you, it moves away from you -- in that absence of the self is the blessing.
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Look at anything. A bowl or any object will do, but look with a different quality. LOOK UPON A BOWL WITHOUT SEEING THE SIDES OR THE MATERIAL. Look upon any object, but with these two conditions... Do not look at the sides, look at the object as a whole. Ordinarily, we look at parts. It may not be done so consciously, but we look at parts. If I look at you, first I see your face, then your torso, and then your whole body. Look at an object as a whole; do not divide it in parts. Why? Because when you divide something in parts, the eyes have an opportunity to move from one part to another. Look at a thing as a whole. You can do it.
I can look at all of you in two ways. I can look from this side and then move. I can look at A, then at B, then I look at C and go on moving. When I look at A, B and C, I am not present -- or just present on the fringe, but not focused. When I look at B, I am leaving A. When I look at C, A has been completely lost; he has gone out of my focus. I can look at this group in this manner, but I can look at the whole group without dividing it into individuals, into units, taking it as a whole.
Try it. First look at a thing moving from one fragment to another. Then suddenly look at this thing as a whole; do not divide it. When you look at a thing as a whole, the eyes have no need to move. In order not to give any opportunity for movement, this has been made a condition: look at an object totally, taken as a whole. And secondly, without seeing the material. If the bowl is of wood, do not see the wood: just see the bowl, the form. Do not see the substance.
It may be of gold, it may be of silver -- observe it. Do not look at the material of which it is made, just look at the form. The first thing is to look at it as a whole. Secondly, look at it as a form, not as a substance. Why? Because substance is the material part, form is the spiritual part, and you are to move from the material to the non-material. It will be helpful.
Try it. You can try it with anyone. Some man or some woman is standing: look, and take the man or woman wholly into your look, totally into it. It will be a weird feeling in the beginning because you are not habituated this way, but it is very beautiful in the end. And then, do not think about whether the body is beautiful or not, white or black, man or woman. Do not think; just look at the form. Forget the substance and just look at the form.
In a few moments become aware. Go on looking at the form as a whole. Do not allow the eyes any movement. Do not start thinking about the material. What will happen? You will suddenly become aware of your self. Looking at something, you will become aware of your self. Why? Because for the eyes there is no possibility to move outwards. The form has been taken as a whole, so you cannot move to the parts. The material has been dropped; pure form has been taken. Now you cannot think about gold, wood, silver, etc.
A form is pure form. No thinking about it is possible. A form is just a form; you cannot think about it. If it is of gold, you can think many things. You would like, you may like to steal it, or to do something with it, or to sell it, or you can think about the price -- many things are possible. But of pure form, no thinking is possible. Pure form stops thinking. And there is no possibility of changing from one part to another; you have taken it as a whole.
Remain with the whole and the form. Suddenly you will become aware of yourself, because now the eyes cannot move. And they need movement; that is their nature. So your look will move toward you. It will come back, it will return home, and suddenly you will become aware of your self. This becoming aware of one's self is one of the most ecstatic moments possible. When for the first time you become aware of your self, it has such beauty and such bliss that you cannot compare it with anything else you have known.
Really, for the first time you become your self; for the first time you know you are. Your being is revealed in a flash.
But why does it happen? You might have seen, in children's books particularly, a picture, or in some psychological treatises, but I hope everyone must have seen somewhere or other -- a picture of an old woman, and in the same lines a beautiful young woman is also hidden. There is one picture, the same lines, but two figures are in it: one old woman, one young woman.
Look at the picture: you cannot become aware of both simultaneously. You will become aware either of one or the other. If you have become aware of the old woman, you cannot see where the young woman is hiding. But if you try to find her, it will be difficult, and the very effort will become a barrier. Because you have become aware of the old woman, she will have become a fixed thing in your eyes. With this fixed thing, you are trying to find the young woman. It is impossible, you will not be able to find her. You have to do a technique.
Just stare at the old woman; forget the young woman completely. Stare at the old woman, at the old woman figure. Stare! Go on staring. Suddenly the old woman will disappear, and you will become aware of the young woman hiding there. Why? If you try to find her you will miss. This type of picture is given to children like a puzzle, and it is said to them, "Find the other." Then they start trying to find her, and because of that they miss.
The trick is not to try to find her: just stare at the figure and you will become aware. Forget the other, no need to think about it. Your eyes cannot remain at one point, so if you stare at the old woman figure the eyes will become tired. Then suddenly they will move from the figure, and in that movement you will become aware of the other figure which is hidden just by the old woman's side, in the same lines. But the miracle is that when you become aware of the young woman, you cannot see the old woman. But you know that both are there now.
In the beginning you may not have believed that the young woman is hiding, but now you know because you have seen the old woman first. Now you know that the old woman is there, but while looking at the young one you cannot simultaneously become aware of the old one. And if you become aware of the old one, you will miss the young are again. Both cannot be seen simultaneously; you can see only one at a time.
The same happens with the outside and the inside look. You cannot have both looks simultaneously. When you are looking at a bowl or at any object, you are looking out: the consciousness is moving out, the river is flowing out. You are focused on the bowl. Go on staring at it. That very staring will create the opportunity to move in. Your eyes will become tired; they would like to move. Finding nothing to move out toward, suddenly the river will turn back -- that remains the only possibility. You will have forced your consciousness to fall back. And when you will become aware of you, you will miss the bowl; it will not be there.
That is why a Shankara or a Nagarjuna says the whole world is illusory; they have known it so. When we come to know ourselves, the world is not. Really, the world is not illusory; it is there. But you cannot see both worlds simultaneously -- that is the problem. So when a Shankara enters into himself, when he comes to know his self, when he becomes a witness, the world is not there. So he is right. He says it is maya -- illusion. It simply appears to be; it is not there.
Be aware of the fact. When you know the world, you are not. You are there, but hidden, and you cannot believe that you are hidden there; the world is too much present for you. And if you start to look for yourself directly, it will be difficult, the very effort may become a barrier. So tantra says, fix your stare somewhere in the world, on any object, and do not move from there, remain there. This very effort to remain there will create the possibility for the consciousness to begin to flow upwards -- backwards. Then you will become aware of your self.
But when you become aware of your self, the bowl will not be there. It is there, but FOR YOU it will not be there. So Shankara says the world is illusory because when you come to know your self the world is not there. It disappears like a dream.
But Charwak and Epicurus and Marx, they are also right. They say the world is true, and your self is just false; it is nowhere to be found. They say science is real. Science says only matter is, only objects are; there is no subject. They are right, because the eyes are focused on the object.
A scientist is constantly focusing on objects. He forgets the self completely. Both Shankara and Marx are right in one sense and wrong in another. If you are fixed upon the world, if your look is fixed on the world, the self will look illusory -- like it is just a dream. If you are looking inwards, the world will become a dream. Both are real, but you cannot be aware of both simultaneously -- that is the problem. And nothing can be done. You will meet the old woman or you will meet the young woman, and one will become maya, illusory. But this technique can be used easily. It will take a little time, but it is not difficult.
Once you know the turning of consciousness, you can do it anywhere. Just riding in a bus or sitting in a train you can do it -- anywhere. No need of a bowl or any particular object: you can do it with anything. With anything, stare, stare, stare... and suddenly turn inwards, and the train disappears. Of course, when you come back from your inner journey you will have traveled, but the train will have disappeared. From one station you will reach to another, and in between there will have been no train -- just a gap. Of course, the train was there; otherwise how can you come to the other station? But it was not there for you; for you it was not.
Those who can practice this technique, they can live in the world very easily. Any moment they can make anything disappear -- remember this. You are bothered with your wife or with your husband -- you can have her or him disappear. The wife is there sitting just by your side and she is not there. She is maya, she has disappeared. Just by staring and then turning your consciousness inwards, she has ceased to be there. And it has happened many times.
I remember Socrates. His wife Xanthippe was very much worried about him, and any wife would have been in the same dilemma. To have a Socrates as a husband is one of the most difficult things to tolerate. Socrates is good as a teacher, but not as a husband.
One day it happened... and because of it his wife has been condemned for two thousand years continuously, but that is not just, I do not think she has done anything wrong. Socrates was sitting there, and he must have been doing something like this technique -- it is not recorded, I am just assuming. His wife came with a tray, a teapot to give him tea. She must have found that he was not there, so it is reported that she poured the tea upon Socrates, over his face. Then suddenly he came back.
His face remained burned for his whole life. And because of this his wife has been condemned very much, but no one knows what Socrates was doing there -- because no wife would do this suddenly, there is no need. He must have done something; something must have been happening there. That is why Xanthippe had to throw tea over him. He must have been in an inner trance, and the burning sensation of the tea must have brought him back, the consciousness must have returned.
I assume that this was the case because there are many other cases reported about Socrates which are similar. For forty-eight hours he was not found. He was sought all over, the whole Athens went in search of Socrates, but he was not to be found anywhere. Then he was found outside the city, miles away, standing under a tree. Half of his body was just under snow. Snow was falling, and he was just frozen, standing there with open eyes. But he was not looking at anyone.
When the crowd gathered around, they looked into his eyes and they thought that he was dead. His eyes were just like stones -- looking, but not looking at anyone; just static, unmoving. They felt his heart: It was beating slowly; he was alive. They had to give him shocks, only then did he come back to look at them. Immediately he asked, "What is the time now?" He had missed forty-eight hours completely, they never existed for him. He was not in this world of time and space.
So they asked, "What were you doing? We thought you were dead already... forty-eight hours!" He said, "I was staring at the stars, and just suddenly it happened that the stars disappeared. And then, I don't know... then the whole world disappeared. But I remained in such a cool, calm, blissful state that if it is death it is worth thousands of lives. If it is death, then I would like to enter it again and again."
It may have happened without his knowledge, because Socrates was not a yogi, not a tantric. He was not in any way concerned consciously with any spiritual practice. But he was a great thinker, and it may have happened as an accident that he was staring at the stars in the night, and suddenly his look returned back, inwards. You can do it. And stars are really good objects.
Lie down on the ground, look at the black sky, and then fix yourself on one star. Concentrate on it, stare at it. Narrow down your consciousness to one star; forget other stars. By and by, concentrate, narrow down your gaze. Other stars will be there just on the fringe, on the boundary. But by and by they will disappear, and only one star will remain. Then go on staring, go on staring. A moment will come when that star will disappear. And when that star disappears, you will appear to yourself.
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Look at anything. A bowl or any object will do, but look with a different quality. LOOK UPON A BOWL WITHOUT SEEING THE SIDES OR THE MATERIAL. Look upon any object, but with these two conditions... Do not look at the sides, look at the object as a whole. Ordinarily, we look at parts. It may not be done so consciously, but we look at parts. If I look at you, first I see your face, then your torso, and then your whole body. Look at an object as a whole; do not divide it in parts. Why? Because when you divide something in parts, the eyes have an opportunity to move from one part to another. Look at a thing as a whole. You can do it.
I can look at all of you in two ways. I can look from this side and then move. I can look at A, then at B, then I look at C and go on moving. When I look at A, B and C, I am not present -- or just present on the fringe, but not focused. When I look at B, I am leaving A. When I look at C, A has been completely lost; he has gone out of my focus. I can look at this group in this manner, but I can look at the whole group without dividing it into individuals, into units, taking it as a whole.
Try it. First look at a thing moving from one fragment to another. Then suddenly look at this thing as a whole; do not divide it. When you look at a thing as a whole, the eyes have no need to move. In order not to give any opportunity for movement, this has been made a condition: look at an object totally, taken as a whole. And secondly, without seeing the material. If the bowl is of wood, do not see the wood: just see the bowl, the form. Do not see the substance.
It may be of gold, it may be of silver -- observe it. Do not look at the material of which it is made, just look at the form. The first thing is to look at it as a whole. Secondly, look at it as a form, not as a substance. Why? Because substance is the material part, form is the spiritual part, and you are to move from the material to the non-material. It will be helpful.
Try it. You can try it with anyone. Some man or some woman is standing: look, and take the man or woman wholly into your look, totally into it. It will be a weird feeling in the beginning because you are not habituated this way, but it is very beautiful in the end. And then, do not think about whether the body is beautiful or not, white or black, man or woman. Do not think; just look at the form. Forget the substance and just look at the form.
In a few moments become aware. Go on looking at the form as a whole. Do not allow the eyes any movement. Do not start thinking about the material. What will happen? You will suddenly become aware of your self. Looking at something, you will become aware of your self. Why? Because for the eyes there is no possibility to move outwards. The form has been taken as a whole, so you cannot move to the parts. The material has been dropped; pure form has been taken. Now you cannot think about gold, wood, silver, etc.
A form is pure form. No thinking about it is possible. A form is just a form; you cannot think about it. If it is of gold, you can think many things. You would like, you may like to steal it, or to do something with it, or to sell it, or you can think about the price -- many things are possible. But of pure form, no thinking is possible. Pure form stops thinking. And there is no possibility of changing from one part to another; you have taken it as a whole.
Remain with the whole and the form. Suddenly you will become aware of yourself, because now the eyes cannot move. And they need movement; that is their nature. So your look will move toward you. It will come back, it will return home, and suddenly you will become aware of your self. This becoming aware of one's self is one of the most ecstatic moments possible. When for the first time you become aware of your self, it has such beauty and such bliss that you cannot compare it with anything else you have known.
Really, for the first time you become your self; for the first time you know you are. Your being is revealed in a flash.
But why does it happen? You might have seen, in children's books particularly, a picture, or in some psychological treatises, but I hope everyone must have seen somewhere or other -- a picture of an old woman, and in the same lines a beautiful young woman is also hidden. There is one picture, the same lines, but two figures are in it: one old woman, one young woman.
Look at the picture: you cannot become aware of both simultaneously. You will become aware either of one or the other. If you have become aware of the old woman, you cannot see where the young woman is hiding. But if you try to find her, it will be difficult, and the very effort will become a barrier. Because you have become aware of the old woman, she will have become a fixed thing in your eyes. With this fixed thing, you are trying to find the young woman. It is impossible, you will not be able to find her. You have to do a technique.
Just stare at the old woman; forget the young woman completely. Stare at the old woman, at the old woman figure. Stare! Go on staring. Suddenly the old woman will disappear, and you will become aware of the young woman hiding there. Why? If you try to find her you will miss. This type of picture is given to children like a puzzle, and it is said to them, "Find the other." Then they start trying to find her, and because of that they miss.
The trick is not to try to find her: just stare at the figure and you will become aware. Forget the other, no need to think about it. Your eyes cannot remain at one point, so if you stare at the old woman figure the eyes will become tired. Then suddenly they will move from the figure, and in that movement you will become aware of the other figure which is hidden just by the old woman's side, in the same lines. But the miracle is that when you become aware of the young woman, you cannot see the old woman. But you know that both are there now.
In the beginning you may not have believed that the young woman is hiding, but now you know because you have seen the old woman first. Now you know that the old woman is there, but while looking at the young one you cannot simultaneously become aware of the old one. And if you become aware of the old one, you will miss the young are again. Both cannot be seen simultaneously; you can see only one at a time.
The same happens with the outside and the inside look. You cannot have both looks simultaneously. When you are looking at a bowl or at any object, you are looking out: the consciousness is moving out, the river is flowing out. You are focused on the bowl. Go on staring at it. That very staring will create the opportunity to move in. Your eyes will become tired; they would like to move. Finding nothing to move out toward, suddenly the river will turn back -- that remains the only possibility. You will have forced your consciousness to fall back. And when you will become aware of you, you will miss the bowl; it will not be there.
That is why a Shankara or a Nagarjuna says the whole world is illusory; they have known it so. When we come to know ourselves, the world is not. Really, the world is not illusory; it is there. But you cannot see both worlds simultaneously -- that is the problem. So when a Shankara enters into himself, when he comes to know his self, when he becomes a witness, the world is not there. So he is right. He says it is maya -- illusion. It simply appears to be; it is not there.
Be aware of the fact. When you know the world, you are not. You are there, but hidden, and you cannot believe that you are hidden there; the world is too much present for you. And if you start to look for yourself directly, it will be difficult, the very effort may become a barrier. So tantra says, fix your stare somewhere in the world, on any object, and do not move from there, remain there. This very effort to remain there will create the possibility for the consciousness to begin to flow upwards -- backwards. Then you will become aware of your self.
But when you become aware of your self, the bowl will not be there. It is there, but FOR YOU it will not be there. So Shankara says the world is illusory because when you come to know your self the world is not there. It disappears like a dream.
But Charwak and Epicurus and Marx, they are also right. They say the world is true, and your self is just false; it is nowhere to be found. They say science is real. Science says only matter is, only objects are; there is no subject. They are right, because the eyes are focused on the object.
A scientist is constantly focusing on objects. He forgets the self completely. Both Shankara and Marx are right in one sense and wrong in another. If you are fixed upon the world, if your look is fixed on the world, the self will look illusory -- like it is just a dream. If you are looking inwards, the world will become a dream. Both are real, but you cannot be aware of both simultaneously -- that is the problem. And nothing can be done. You will meet the old woman or you will meet the young woman, and one will become maya, illusory. But this technique can be used easily. It will take a little time, but it is not difficult.
Once you know the turning of consciousness, you can do it anywhere. Just riding in a bus or sitting in a train you can do it -- anywhere. No need of a bowl or any particular object: you can do it with anything. With anything, stare, stare, stare... and suddenly turn inwards, and the train disappears. Of course, when you come back from your inner journey you will have traveled, but the train will have disappeared. From one station you will reach to another, and in between there will have been no train -- just a gap. Of course, the train was there; otherwise how can you come to the other station? But it was not there for you; for you it was not.
Those who can practice this technique, they can live in the world very easily. Any moment they can make anything disappear -- remember this. You are bothered with your wife or with your husband -- you can have her or him disappear. The wife is there sitting just by your side and she is not there. She is maya, she has disappeared. Just by staring and then turning your consciousness inwards, she has ceased to be there. And it has happened many times.
I remember Socrates. His wife Xanthippe was very much worried about him, and any wife would have been in the same dilemma. To have a Socrates as a husband is one of the most difficult things to tolerate. Socrates is good as a teacher, but not as a husband.
One day it happened... and because of it his wife has been condemned for two thousand years continuously, but that is not just, I do not think she has done anything wrong. Socrates was sitting there, and he must have been doing something like this technique -- it is not recorded, I am just assuming. His wife came with a tray, a teapot to give him tea. She must have found that he was not there, so it is reported that she poured the tea upon Socrates, over his face. Then suddenly he came back.
His face remained burned for his whole life. And because of this his wife has been condemned very much, but no one knows what Socrates was doing there -- because no wife would do this suddenly, there is no need. He must have done something; something must have been happening there. That is why Xanthippe had to throw tea over him. He must have been in an inner trance, and the burning sensation of the tea must have brought him back, the consciousness must have returned.
I assume that this was the case because there are many other cases reported about Socrates which are similar. For forty-eight hours he was not found. He was sought all over, the whole Athens went in search of Socrates, but he was not to be found anywhere. Then he was found outside the city, miles away, standing under a tree. Half of his body was just under snow. Snow was falling, and he was just frozen, standing there with open eyes. But he was not looking at anyone.
When the crowd gathered around, they looked into his eyes and they thought that he was dead. His eyes were just like stones -- looking, but not looking at anyone; just static, unmoving. They felt his heart: It was beating slowly; he was alive. They had to give him shocks, only then did he come back to look at them. Immediately he asked, "What is the time now?" He had missed forty-eight hours completely, they never existed for him. He was not in this world of time and space.
So they asked, "What were you doing? We thought you were dead already... forty-eight hours!" He said, "I was staring at the stars, and just suddenly it happened that the stars disappeared. And then, I don't know... then the whole world disappeared. But I remained in such a cool, calm, blissful state that if it is death it is worth thousands of lives. If it is death, then I would like to enter it again and again."
It may have happened without his knowledge, because Socrates was not a yogi, not a tantric. He was not in any way concerned consciously with any spiritual practice. But he was a great thinker, and it may have happened as an accident that he was staring at the stars in the night, and suddenly his look returned back, inwards. You can do it. And stars are really good objects.
Lie down on the ground, look at the black sky, and then fix yourself on one star. Concentrate on it, stare at it. Narrow down your consciousness to one star; forget other stars. By and by, concentrate, narrow down your gaze. Other stars will be there just on the fringe, on the boundary. But by and by they will disappear, and only one star will remain. Then go on staring, go on staring. A moment will come when that star will disappear. And when that star disappears, you will appear to yourself.
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We live on the surface of ourselves -- just at the fringe, the boundary. The senses are just on the boundary and your consciousness is way deep down at the center. We live in the senses; that is natural. But that is not the ultimate flowering, it is just the beginning. And when we are living in the senses, we are basically concerned with objects, because senses are irrelevant unless there is concern with some object of enjoyment. For example, eyes are useless unless there is something to be seen, ears are useless unless there is something to be heard, and hands are useless unless there is something to be touched.
We live in the senses; therefore, we have to live in objects. The senses are just on the boundary of the being, in the body, and objects are not even on the boundary: they are beyond the boundary. So three points have to be understood before we enter the techniques.
First, the consciousness is at the center. Second, the senses through which the consciousness moves out are at the boundary. And third, the objects in the world to which the consciousness moves, through the senses, are beyond the boundary. These three things have to be remembered: consciousness at the center, senses at the boundary and objects beyond the boundary. Try to understand it clearly, because then the techniques will be very simple.
Look at it from many directions. One: senses are just in between, just in the middle. At one side is consciousness, at another side is the world of objects. Senses are just in the middle -- between the two. From the senses you can move either way: either you can go to the objects or you can go to the center. Either way the distance is the same. From the senses, doors open both ways -- move to the objects or move to the center.
You are at the senses. That is why one of the most famous Zen Masters, Bokuju, has said that NIRVANA and the world are the same distance away. So do not think that the nirvana is very far away. The world and the nirvana, this world and that other world, are both at the same distance.
This saying has created much confusion because we feel that nirvana is very, very far away - that Moksha, liberation, the kingdom of God, is very, very far away. We feel that the world is just near, just here. But Bokuju says, and he says rightly, that both are at the same distance.
The world is here, and nirvana is also here. The world is near, and nirvana is also near, For nirvana you have to move inwards, for the objects you have to move outwards; the distance is the same. From my eyes, my center is just as near as you are near me. I can see you if I move outward, I can see myself if I move inward. And we are at the doors of the senses, but naturally, the bodily needs are such that consciousness moves outwards. You need food, you need water to drink, you need a house where to live. These are your bodily needs and these can only be found in the world, so quite naturally, consciousness moves through the senses toward the world. Unless you create a need which can only be fulfilled when you move inward, you will never move inward.
For example, if a child were born self-sufficient, if he didn't need any food, he would not look at his mother at all. The mother would become irrelevant, meaningless, because for the child the mother is not the meaning: food is the meaning. The mother is his first food, and because the mother gives him food and satisfies a basic need, without which he will die, he starts loving the mother. That love comes secondly, as a shadow, because the mother is fulfilling a basic need.
So those mothers who are feeding their children through bottles should not expect much love because for the child food is the need, not the mother. The mother will come into his being, enter into his being only through food. That is why food and love are deeply related-very, very deeply related. If your love need is fulfilled, you will need less food. If your love need is not fulfilled, you will need more food. So those who love and who are loved will not gather much fat. There are other reasons also, but this is one of the most basic. They will not eat much. If love is not fulfilled, then food becomes a substitute. Then they will eat much.
For the child, food is the basic need. But if a child should be born who can be self-sufficient, who does not need any food, who does not need any outward help to be alive, he will not move in the world at all. Do you think he will move? There would be no need. And unless a need is there, the energy will never move. We move outwardly not because we are sinners. We move outwardly because we have needs which can be fulfilled only through objects-which can be gained if we move in the world of objects.
Why do you not move inward? Because you have not yet created the need to move inward. Once the need is there, it is as easy to move inward as to move outward. What is that need? That need is concerned with religion. You cannot be religious unless that need is there. How is that need created? By what process does one become aware of a deep need which helps you move inward?
Three things are to be remembered. Firstly, death. Remember, all life-needs force you to move outward. If you want to move inward, death must become a basic concern; otherwise you cannot move inward. That is why it happened that persons like Buddha, who became deeply conscious of death, started moving inward. Only when you become aware of death will you create the need to look back.
Life looks outward. Unless you become aware of death, religion is meaningless for you. That is why animals have no religion. They are alive, they are as much alive as man, or even more, but they cannot be conscious of death, they cannot conceive of death, they cannot see death in the future. They see that others are dying, but it never occurs to the animal mind that this death is an indication of his death also.
For the animal mind death always occurs to others. And if for you also death is just something which happens to others, you still live in the animal mind. If you are not aware of death, you have not yet become man. That is the basic difference between animal and man-because animal cannot be aware of death, only man can be. If you are not aware of death you are not a man yet, and only man creates the need to move inward.
To me, man means awareness of death. I am not saying become afraid of death; that is not awareness. Just be aware of the fact that death is coming nearer and nearer and you have to be prepared for it.
Life has its own needs; death creates its own needs. That is why younger societies are irreligious -- because younger societies are not yet aware of the phenomenon of death; it has not become a central concern for them. An older society -- for example, India, one of the oldest societies in existence -- is so much aware of death. Because of that awareness, deep down India is religious. So the first thing: become aware of death. Think about it, look at it, contemplate it. Do not be afraid, do not escape the fact. It is there and you cannot escape it! It has come into existence with you.
Your death is born with you; now you cannot escape it. You have hidden it in yourself -- become aware of it. The moment you become aware that you are going to die, that death is certain, your total mind will start looking in a different dimension. Then food is a basic need for the body, but not for the being, because even if you get food death will occur. Food cannot protect you from death, food can only postpone. Food can help you to postpone. If you get a good shelter, a good house, it will not protect you from death. it will only help you to die conveniently, comfortably. And death, whether it happens comfortably or uncomfortably, is the same.
In life you may be poor or rich, but death is the great equalizer. The greatest communism is in death. Howsoever you live, it makes no difference; death happens equally. In life, equality is impossible; in death, inequality is impossible. Become aware of it, contemplate it. And it is not only that death is certain somewhere in the future: with the idea that it is very far away, you will again not be able to contemplate it. The mind has a very small range; the focus of the mind is very small. You cannot think beyond thirty years. After thirty years there will be death... it is as if you are not going to die. Thirty years is so long, the distance is so much, it is as if death is not going to occur.
If you want to contemplate death, know another fact about it: it can occur the next moment; it is possible the very next moment. You may not be able to hear my whole sentence, I may not be able to complete it. My mother's father used to tell me that when I was born he consulted one astrologer, one of the best known astrologers of those days. The astrologer was to make my KUNDALI -- birth chart. But the astrologer studied it and he said, "If this child survives after seven years, only then will I make the chart. It seems impossible that he can survive for more than seven years, so it is useless. If the child is going to die in seven years it is useless to make the kundali; it will be of no use. And it has been my habit," the astrologer said, "that unless I am certain that the kundali will be useful I never make it." So he didn't make it.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, I survived. Then my mother's father went to the astrologer, but he was dead, so he never could make my kundali. He was dead, and I have been constantly wondering about this. He was aware of the fact that this child may die, but he was not aware of the fact that he may die. He was not aware! It seems that he was absolutely unconcerned -- and he was no ordinary man. But no one is concerned with his own death. Knowingly, cunningly, we are not concerned with it because it creates a fear. So I have always suspected that that astrologer might have never looked at his own kundali; otherwise he would have become aware.
Death is possible the very next moment, but the mind will not believe it. I say it and your mind will say, "No! How is it possible the next moment? It is far away." But that is a trick. If you postpone, you cannot contemplate. It must be so near that you can focus on it. And when I say that the next moment it is possible, I mean it. It can happen, and whenever it will happen it will be the next moment. Just before it, you could not have conceived that it was going to happen.
A person is dying: just a moment before he could never have thought that death is so near. It always happens in the next moment -- remember. It has always happened that way, and this will be the way always. It always happens in the next moment. Bring it near so that you can focus on it, and that very focusing will help you to enter in, a new need will be created.
Secondly, you go on living. You go on creating artificial meanings and purposes for this very moment. You never think of your life as a whole, whether it has any meaning or not. You go on creating new meanings, and you push yourself on with those meanings. That is why a poor man lives a more meaningful life than a rich man -- because a poor man has many things to get, and that gives a meaning to his life. If you are really rich, it means you have everything that is possible and this world cannot offer anything to you. Then your life becomes meaningless. Now you cannot create any meaning for this moment, for this day, to help you live. That is why the richer a society, the more affluent a culture, the more meaninglessness is felt. Poorer societies never feel meaninglessness.
A poor man is concerned with having a house. For years together he will work for it. His life has a meaning; something has to be achieved. And when he gets the house he will be happy for a few days at least, but then bigger houses are there... So he will go on moving, doing this and that, never thinking about his life as a whole, whether it has any meaning or not. He never takes life as a whole.
Just imagine that you have everything -- the house, the car that you long for, and all your dreams are fulfilled. So now what? Just imagine that whatsoever you need is there, you have it. Now what? Suddenly meaning disappears. You are standing on an abyss; nothing can be done. You become meaningless. You are already meaningless, just not aware. Even if you get the whole world, then what? What is fulfilled?
Alexander was coming to India, and he met a great saint, Diogenes. Diogenes was one of the most penetrating minds ever born. He lived naked like Mahavir; he is the Mahavir of Greek civilization and culture. He left everything, renounced everything, not because through renouncing things he was going to get anything -- that is not real renouncing, not authentic renunciation. If you renounce something to get something, that is a bargain. If you think that you are going to have some reservation in heaven and that is why you renounce, it is not renunciation. If you renounce the bodily pleasures to have spiritual pleasures, this is not renunciation.
Diogenes renounced everything, not because out of it he was going to get something. He renounced just to see if when he has nothing, whether there is any meaning or not. He thought that if one possesses nothing, if even then one has a meaning, a purpose, a destiny, then death cannot annihilate anything, because death can annihilate only a possessions and the body is also possession. He left everything. He had only one thing: a wooden bowl out of which to drink water. He thought, "This is not much of a possession." Then one day he saw a child drinking water with his hands. He immediately threw away the bowl. He said, "If a child can drink water with his hands, am I more weak than a child?"
When Alexander was coming to India to conquer, to make a world empire, somebody informed him that just on the way, where he would be stopping, there lived a great sage who was just the opposite of him. He was told, "You are going to make a world empire, and he has even thrown away his bowl because he says that as he is happy without it, why carry this burden? And you say that unless the whole world becomes your empire, you cannot be happy. So he is just at the opposite pole, and it would be good if you meet him."
Alexander was fascinated. It happens that the opposite always fascinates. The opposite always fascinates; it has a deep sexual attraction. Just a man is attracted to woman or woman is attracted to man, there is the same attraction with the opposite. Alexander could not by-pass Diogenes, but it was not good for him to go to Diogenes, and it was impossible that Diogenes would come to him -- there was no solution.
Diogenes was informed. Many, many messengers came to inform him that "The Great Alexander is passing this way. It would be good if you meet him." He said, "The Great Alexander? Who has said this to you! I think he himself has. So tell your Great Alexander that he has nothing to give to me, and there is no need for him to meet me -- and I am a very small man." He used to say, "Really, I am a dog, not a man at all -- just a dog, so there is no need. It is below his dignity to meet this dog."
Then Alexander had to come. Diogenes is reported to have said, "I hear you are going to win the whole world, so I thought, I closed my eyes and thought, 'Okay! If I have won the whole world, then what?' This has been my problem constantly: if I have won the whole world, then what?" It is reported that Alexander, after hearing this, became very sad. "Then what?" he said to Diogenes. "Do not talk such things. You make me very sad."
Diogenes said, "But you will become very sad when you win the whole world. What can I do? I am just imagining, and I have come to conclude that this is useless. You are making a suicidal effort. You yourself are trying to win the whole world -- so then what? If you succeed, then what? "
Alexander returned from Diogenes very disturbed, upset, sad. He said to his companions, "This man is very dangerous. He has shattered my dreams." And he could never forget, could never forgive Diogenes. The day he died, he remembered him again, and he said, "It may be that that fellow was right: then what ?"
So the next thing is to remember always that whatsoever you are doing, whatsoever you are achieving, remember to ask, "If I succeed, then what?" Is there any meaning in it all, or is there just some artificial meaning given by you only to divide, to create an illusion around you so that you feel you are doing something worthwhile -- and all the time you are really wasting life and energy, not doing anything worthwhile! There is only one thing worthwhile: if you can become happy without anything, without any dependence: if you can be blissful alone, totally alone. If nothing is needed for your bliss, only then can you be blissful; otherwise you will be in misery, always in misery.
Dependence is misery, and those who depend on possessions, those who depend on accumulated knowledge, those who depend on this or that, they are helping their own misery to become accumulated more and more. So the next point to remember is to ask whether you have any meaning, or whether you are just floating along without any meaning. Are you just making believe that this or that is the meaning of your existence?
One man used to come to me. He used to say that if his son gets into college, that would be all and he would be very happy. He was a poor man, a very ordinary clerk, and that was the only dream, that his son would get into college. Then the son got into college. Now the son has become a forest official. A few months back the son was here and he told me, "I am getting only six hundred rupees per month. I have two children and this is my only dream, that they can get a good education; that is all. I am working hard. If they can be well educated and if I can send one of my children to some foreign country to study, that is all I ask."
His father is no more; he has died. This was his meaning in life, his purpose -- to make his boy educated and well placed. Now the boy is well placed, and now the boy has the same purpose, to help his children become educated and well placed. And he will die, and those children will go on doing the same nonsense.
What is the meaning of all this? What are you doing? Just passing time? Just destroying life? Or have you got some authentic meaning which you can say makes you happy, blissful? This is the second consideration which will turn you inward.
And thirdly, man goes on forgetting. You go on forgetting things. You were angry yesterday, and you repented it. Now you have forgotten, and if the same stimulus is given again, you will be angry again. This has been so for your whole life: you go on repeating the same things.
It is said that it is very extraordinary to find a man who learns through life -- very rare. Really, no one learns. If you learn, then you cannot commit the same mistake twice. But you go on committing the same thing again and again. Rather, the more you commit, the more you become prone to commit it. You are angry again and again, and again and again you repent it, and you have not learned anything. Given the stimulus, you will be angry, and you will do the same madness, and then you will repent again -- that is also part of it. And then you will again be ready to be stimulated and to be angry.
The third thing: if you want to turn in, learn! Whatsoever you are doing, learn through it. Take the essential out of it. Look back at what have you been doing with your life and your energy and your time. The same mistakes, the same foolishnesses, the same stupidities, again and again.
So you move in a wheel. However, it is not good to say that you move the wheel: rather, the wheel moves you. Mechanically, you go on and on and on. That is why in India we have called the world SANSAR. SANSAR means the wheel which goes on, and you are just clinging to some spoke on it and you go on moving.
Unless you learn something about this wheel, this vicious circle, this sansar, unless you learn something about it, you will not leave the spoke and jump out of it. So three words, three key words:
Death: make it a constant contemplation.
Meaning: go on searching for it in your life.
And learn: learn through your life, because there is no other learning. Scriptures won't give you anything.
If your own life cannot give you something, nothing can give it to you. Learn through your own life, conclude through it. What have you been doing with yourself? If you are in a wheel, jump out of it. But to know that you are in a wheel, you will have to go deep into understanding and learning. These three things will help you to turn in.
Now the techniques:
SIMPLY BY LOOKING INTO THE BLUE SKY BEYOND CLOUDS, THE SERENITY.
That is why I have said so many things -- because the techniques are very easy, and you can do them and nothing will result. Then you will say, "What type of techniques are these? We can do them, they are so simple. SIMPLY BY LOOKING INTO THE SKY, THE BLUE SKY, BEYOND THE CLOUDS, THE SERENITY: one will become silent and serene, fulfilled."
You can look at the blue sky beyond the clouds and nothing will happen. Then you will say, "What type of technique is this? Shiva is not talking rationally, reasonably. He is saying anything, whatsoever comes to his mind. What kind of technique is this -- SIMPLY BY LOOKING INTO THE BLUE SKY BEYOND CLOUDS, THE SERENITY. One will become serene!"
But if you remember: death, meaning, learning, this technique will help you immediately to turn in. LOOKING INTO THE BLUE SKY BEYOND CLOUDS... Just looking, not thinking. The sky is infinite; it ends nowhere. Just look into it. There is no object; that is why the sky is chosen. The sky is not an object. Linguistically it is; existentially, the sky is not an object because an object begins and ends. You can go around an object; you cannot go around the sky. You are in the sky, but you cannot go around it. So you may be the object for the sky, but the sky cannot be your object. You can look into it, but you cannot look at it, and that looking into it goes on and on... it never ends.
So look into the blue sky and go on looking. The object is infinite, there is no boundary to it. Do not think about it; do not say it is beautiful. Do not say, "How lovely!" Do not appreciate the color; do not start thinking. If you start thinking, you have stopped. Now your eyes are not moving into the blue, the infinite blue. Just move, just look -- do not think. Do not create words; they will become barriers. Not even "blue sky" should be said. Do not verbalize.
There should be just a pure, innocent look into the blue sky. It never ends. You will go on and on and on and on, and suddenly, because there is no object, just a vacuum, suddenly you will become aware of yourself. Why? Because if there is any vacuum your senses become useless. Senses are only useful if there is an object.
If you are looking at a flower, then you are looking at something -- the flower is there. The sky is not there. What do we mean by a sky? That which is not there. Sky means the space. All objects are in the sky, but the sky is not an object. It is just the vacuum, the space in which objects can exist. The sky itself is just pure emptiness. Look at this pure emptiness. That is why the sutra says: BEYOND THE CLOUDS. Because clouds are not the sky, they are objects floating in the sky. You can look at the clouds, but that will not help. Look into the blue sky -- not at the stars, not at the moon, not at the clouds, but at objectlessness, emptiness. Look into it.
What will happen? In emptiness, there is no object to be grasped by the senses. Because there is no object to be grasped, clung to, senses become futile. And if you are looking into the blue sky without thinking, without thinking, suddenly you will feel that everything has disappeared; there is nothing. In that disappearance you will become aware of yourself. Looking into this emptiness, you will become empty. Why? Because your eyes are like a mirror. Whatsoever is before them is reflected. I see you and you are sad -- then a sudden sadness enters into me. If a sad person enters into your room, you become sad. What has happened? You have looked at sadness. You are like a mirror: the sadness is reflected in you.
Someone laughs heartily -- suddenly you feel a laughter coming to you also. It has become infectious. What has happened? You are like a mirror, you are reflecting things. You look at a beautiful object -- it is reflected in you. You look at an ugly object -- it is reflected in you. Whatsoever you are seeing penetrates deep into you. It becomes part of your consciousness.
If you are looking into the emptiness, there is nothing to be reflected - or only the blue infinite sky. If it is reflected, if you feel the blue infinite sky within, you will become serene, you will find serenity. That is there. And if really you can conceive of emptiness - where sky, blue, everything disappears: just at emptiness - inside also emptiness will be reflected. And in emptiness, how can you be worried, how can you be tense?
In emptiness, how can the mind function? It stops; it disappears. In the disappearance of the mind - the mind that is tense, worried, filled with thoughts that are relevant, irrelevant - in that disappearance of the mind, THE SERENITY.
One thing more. Emptiness, if reflected in, becomes desirelessness. Desire is tension. You desire and you become worried. You look at a beautiful woman -- a sudden desire arises. You look at a beautiful house -- you want to possess it. You look at a beautiful car just passing by your side -- you want to be in it, you want to drive it. A desire has come in, and with the desire mind becomes worried: "How to get it? What to do to get it?" The mind becomes frustrated or hopeless or hopeful, but it is all dreaming. Many things can happen.
When desire is there, you are disturbed. The mind is shattered into fragments, and many plans, dreams, projections start; you become mad. Desire is the seed of madness.
But emptiness is not an object; it is just emptiness. When you look at emptiness, no desire arises; it cannot arise. You do not want to possess emptiness, you do not want to love emptiness, you do not want to make a house out of it. Emptiness? You cannot do anything with it! All movement of the mind stops, no desire arises, and with the non-arising of desire, THE SERENITY. You become silent, serene. A sudden peace explodes in you. You have become like the sky.
Another thing. Whatsoever you contemplate, you become like it, you become that, because mind can take infinite forms. Whatsoever you desire, your mind takes its form, you become it. That is why a person who is just after riches, gold, after money, his mind becomes just a treasure - nothing else. Shake him, and you will feel the rupees inside - the sound of rupees, nothing else. Whatsoever you desire, you become that. So be conscious of what you are desiring because you are becoming that.
The sky is the most empty thing. It is just near you and it costs nothing, and you do not have to go somewhere -- to the Himalayas or to Tibet -- to find the sky. They have destroyed everything, technology has destroyed everything, but the sky is still there; you can use it. Use it before they destroy it -- any day they will destroy it. Look, penetrate into it. And the look must be a non-thinking one, remember this. Then you will feel the same sky within, the same dimension within, the same space and blueness and emptiness. That is why Shiva says, SIMPLY.
SIMPLY BY LOOKING INTO THE BLUE SKY BEYOND CLOUDS, THE SERENITY.
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The techniques are similar, with a slight difference. AT THE EDGE OF A DEEP WELL LOOK STEADILY INTO ITS DEPTHS UNTIL -- THE WONDROUSNESS. Look into a deep well. The well will be reflected in you. Forget thinking completely; stop thinking completely. Just go on looking into the depth. Now they say mind has its own depth, like a well. Now in the West, they are developing depth psychology. They say mind is not just a surface. It is just a beginning; there are depths -- many depths, hidden depths.
Look into a well without thinking. The depth will be reflected in you, the well will become just an outer symbol of the inner depth. And go on looking UNTIL - THE WONDROUSNESS, until you feel wonder-filled.
Do not stop before this moment. Go on looking, go on looking, go on looking, day after day, month after month. Just go to a well, look deep, with no thoughts moving in the mind. Just meditate. Just meditate on the depth: meditate the depth, become one with it. Go on meditating; one day your thoughts will not be there. Any moment it can happen. Suddenly you will feel you have the same well within you, the same depth. And then a strange, very strange feeling will come to you: you will feel wonder-filled.
Chuang Tzu was passing over a bridge with his master, Lao Tsu. Lao Tsu is reported to have said to Chuang Tzu, "Remain here. Go on looking down from this bridge to the river until the river stops and the bridge starts flowing. Then come to me." The river is flowing; the bridge never flows. But Chuang Tzu was given this meditation - to wait on this bridge. It is said he made a hut on the bridge and remained there. Months passed... he would just sit on the bridge, looking down for the moment when the river would stop and the bridge would flow. Then he would go to the master.
One day it happened: the river stopped and the bridge started flowing. How can it happen? If thought stops completely, then anything is possible, because really, it is fixedness of thought which says that the river is flowing and the bridge is static. This is just relative - just relative!
Einstein says, and physics says, that everything is relative. You are traveling in a train, a fast train. What happens? The trees flow by, they run by. And if the train is really smooth and you do not feel that the train is running, you are just looking through the windows, the trees are moving, not the train.
Einstein has said that if in space two trains are running, or two spaceships are running side by side with the same speed, you will not be able to feel that they are moving. You can feel a moving train because you see the static things by the side. If there is nothing - for example, if the trees are also moving in the same direction with the same speed - you will feel static. Or when a train passes in the opposite direction, your speed is doubled. You feel your train has become faster.
It has not become faster. It is the same train with the same speed, but a train going in the opposite direction gives you the feeling of double speed. If speed is relative, then it is just a fixedness of the mind to think that the river is flowing and the bridge is static.
Continuously meditating, meditating, meditating, Chuang Tzu came to realize that everything is relative. The river is flowing because you take the bridge as static. The bridge is also flowing deep down. Nothing is static in this world. Atoms are moving, electrons are moving; the bridge is a constant movement within. Everything is flowing; the bridge is also flowing.
Chuang Tzu must have had a glimpse of the atomic structure of the bridge. Now they say this wall which looks static is not static. Movement is there, every electron is running, but the movement is so fast you cannot see it. That is why you feel it as static.
If this fan goes on with a faster movement, faster and faster, you will not be able to see its wings, the spaces between them. You will not be able to see this. And if it moves with the speed of light, you will see simply one circular disc that is static. Nothing will be moving in it because eyes cannot catch that fast movement.
So Chuang Tzu must have had a glimpse of the atomic structure of the bridge. He waited and waited, and the fixed mind dissolved. Then he saw that the bridge was flowing - and the movement was so fast that the river was just static in comparison to it. He came running to Lao Tsu and Lao Tsu said, "Okay! Now do not ask me. The thing has happened to you." What had happened? No-mind had happened.
In this technique, AT THE EDGE OF A DEEP WELL LOOK STEADILY INTO ITS DEPTH UNTIL - THE WONDROUSNESS. When you feel wonder-filled, when the mystery descends upon you, when mind is no more but simply mystery - a milieu of mystery -- then you will be capable of knowing yourself.
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The techniques are similar, with a slight difference. AT THE EDGE OF A DEEP WELL LOOK STEADILY INTO ITS DEPTHS UNTIL -- THE WONDROUSNESS. Look into a deep well. The well will be reflected in you. Forget thinking completely; stop thinking completely. Just go on looking into the depth. Now they say mind has its own depth, like a well. Now in the West, they are developing depth psychology. They say mind is not just a surface. It is just a beginning; there are depths -- many depths, hidden depths.
Look into a well without thinking. The depth will be reflected in you, the well will become just an outer symbol of the inner depth. And go on looking UNTIL - THE WONDROUSNESS, until you feel wonder-filled.
Do not stop before this moment. Go on looking, go on looking, go on looking, day after day, month after month. Just go to a well, look deep, with no thoughts moving in the mind. Just meditate. Just meditate on the depth: meditate the depth, become one with it. Go on meditating; one day your thoughts will not be there. Any moment it can happen. Suddenly you will feel you have the same well within you, the same depth. And then a strange, very strange feeling will come to you: you will feel wonder-filled.
Chuang Tzu was passing over a bridge with his master, Lao Tsu. Lao Tsu is reported to have said to Chuang Tzu, "Remain here. Go on looking down from this bridge to the river until the river stops and the bridge starts flowing. Then come to me." The river is flowing; the bridge never flows. But Chuang Tzu was given this meditation - to wait on this bridge. It is said he made a hut on the bridge and remained there. Months passed... he would just sit on the bridge, looking down for the moment when the river would stop and the bridge would flow. Then he would go to the master.
One day it happened: the river stopped and the bridge started flowing. How can it happen? If thought stops completely, then anything is possible, because really, it is fixedness of thought which says that the river is flowing and the bridge is static. This is just relative - just relative!
Einstein says, and physics says, that everything is relative. You are traveling in a train, a fast train. What happens? The trees flow by, they run by. And if the train is really smooth and you do not feel that the train is running, you are just looking through the windows, the trees are moving, not the train.
Einstein has said that if in space two trains are running, or two spaceships are running side by side with the same speed, you will not be able to feel that they are moving. You can feel a moving train because you see the static things by the side. If there is nothing - for example, if the trees are also moving in the same direction with the same speed - you will feel static. Or when a train passes in the opposite direction, your speed is doubled. You feel your train has become faster.
It has not become faster. It is the same train with the same speed, but a train going in the opposite direction gives you the feeling of double speed. If speed is relative, then it is just a fixedness of the mind to think that the river is flowing and the bridge is static.
Continuously meditating, meditating, meditating, Chuang Tzu came to realize that everything is relative. The river is flowing because you take the bridge as static. The bridge is also flowing deep down. Nothing is static in this world. Atoms are moving, electrons are moving; the bridge is a constant movement within. Everything is flowing; the bridge is also flowing.
Chuang Tzu must have had a glimpse of the atomic structure of the bridge. Now they say this wall which looks static is not static. Movement is there, every electron is running, but the movement is so fast you cannot see it. That is why you feel it as static.
If this fan goes on with a faster movement, faster and faster, you will not be able to see its wings, the spaces between them. You will not be able to see this. And if it moves with the speed of light, you will see simply one circular disc that is static. Nothing will be moving in it because eyes cannot catch that fast movement.
So Chuang Tzu must have had a glimpse of the atomic structure of the bridge. He waited and waited, and the fixed mind dissolved. Then he saw that the bridge was flowing - and the movement was so fast that the river was just static in comparison to it. He came running to Lao Tsu and Lao Tsu said, "Okay! Now do not ask me. The thing has happened to you." What had happened? No-mind had happened.
In this technique, AT THE EDGE OF A DEEP WELL LOOK STEADILY INTO ITS DEPTH UNTIL - THE WONDROUSNESS. When you feel wonder-filled, when the mystery descends upon you, when mind is no more but simply mystery - a milieu of mystery -- then you will be capable of knowing yourself.
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Look upon some object. Look at a flower, but remember what that LOOK means. Look! Do not think. I need not repeat it. Always remember that look means: look, do not think. If you think, it is not a look; then you have contaminated everything. It must be a pure look, a simple look.
LOOK UPON SOME OBJECT. Look at a flower,- a roseflower. THEN SLOWLY WITHDRAW YOUR SIGHT FROM IT - very slowly. The flower is there -- first look at it. Drop thinking; go on looking. When you feel that now there is no thought, simply the flower is there in your mind, nothing else, now slightly move your eyes away. By and by the flower recedes, goes out of focus, but the image will remain with you. The object will have gone out of focus; you will have turned your look away. The image, the outer flower is no more there, but it is reflected - reflected in your mirror of consciousness. It will be there! THEN SLOWLY WITHDRAW YOUR SIGHT FROM IT, THEN SLOWLY WITHDRAW YOUR THOUGHT FROM IT.
So first, withdraw from the outer object. Then only the inner image remains - the thought of the roseflower. Now withdraw that thought also. This is very difficult, the second part, but if the first part is done exactly as it is said, it will not be so difficult. First withdraw your mind from the object, your sight. Then close your eyes, and just as you have removed your eyesight from the object, remove yourself from the image. Withdraw yourself; become indifferent. Do not look at it inside, just feel that you have gone away from it. Soon the image will also disappear.
First the object disappears, then the image disappears. And when the image disappears, Shiva says, THEN. Then you are left alone. In that aloneness one realizes oneself, one comes to the center, one is thrown to the original source.
This is a very good meditation -- you can do it. Take any object, but let the object remain the same every day so that the same image is created inside and you remove yourself from the same image. Images in the temples were used for this technique.Now images are there, but the technique is lost. You go to a temple -- this is the technique to do. Look at the statue of Mahavir or Buddha or Ram or Krishna or any other. Look at the statue, concentrate on it; focus the whole mind so that the statue becomes an image inside. Then close your eyes. Remove your eyes from the statue, then close them. And then remove the image, wipe it out completely.
Then you are there in your total aloneness, in your total purity, in your total innocence. Realizing that is freedom, realizing that is truth.
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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.'
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