Conscious doing (73-75)

Conscious doing:

73…
IN SUMMER WHEN YOU SEE THE ENTIRE SKY
ENDLESSLY CLEAR ENTER SUCH CLARITY.
‘ग्रीष्‍म ऋतु में जब तुम समस्‍त आकाश को अंतहीन निर्मलता में देखो, उस निर्मलता में प्रवेश करो।‘’

74…
SHAKTI,
SEE ALL SPACE AS IF ALREADY ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN HEAD
IN THE BRILLIANCE.
‘हे शक्‍ति, समस्‍त तेजोमय अंतरिक्ष मेरे सिर में ही समाहित है, ऐसा भाव करो।’

75…
WAKING, SLEEPING, DREAMING, KNOW YOU AS LIGHT.
‘जागते हुए सोते हुए, स्‍वप्‍न देखते हुए, अपने को प्रकाश समझो।’

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:

73…
IN SUMMER WHEN YOU SEE THE ENTIRE SKY
ENDLESSLY CLEAR ENTER SUCH CLARITY.
‘ग्रीष्‍म ऋतु में जब तुम समस्‍त आकाश को अंतहीन निर्मलता में देखो, उस निर्मलता में प्रवेश करो।‘’

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

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

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

The whole life is a gathering, a gathering of the dust. And this goes on and on.

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

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

The whole edifice of knowledge is such. Nothing is certain, no one knows, everyone is groping. Through groping we create systems, and there are thousands and thousands of systems.

Hindus say something, Christians say something else, Mohammedans still something else – all contradictory, all contradicting each other; no agreement, no certainty – and all these sources are the sources for your mind. You collect: your mind becomes a junk-yard; confusion is bound to be there. Only a person who doesn’t know much can be certain. The more you know, the more uncertain you will become.

People, primitive people, were more certain and apparently appeared to be more clear. There was no clarity – simply unawareness of facts which could contradict them. If the modern mind is more confused, the reason is that the modern knows more. If you know more you will be more confused, because now you have more knowledge, and the more you know, the more uncertain you become.

Only idiots can be certain, only idiots can be dogmatic, only idiots will never hesitate. The more you know, the more the earth is taken away from your feet, the more hesitant you become. What I mean to say is, the more the mind grows, the more you will know the nature of the mind is confusion.

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

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

Look at it in this way: your consciousness is just like the sky and your mind is just like the clouds. The sky remains untouched by the clouds. They come and go; no scar is left behind. The sky remains virgin: no record, no footprints, nothing of the clouds, no memory. They come and they go; the sky remains undisturbed. This is the case within you also: the consciousness remains undisturbed.

Thoughts come and go, minds evolve and disappear. And don’t think that you have one mind; you have many minds, it is a crowd. Your minds go on changing.

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

This technique says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

You see a building. You cannot simply see it; something immediately starts happening within you.

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

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

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

Have you observed this fact anytime or not – that misery cannot exist without your mind? You cannot be miserable without your mind. The very source is not there. Who will supply you with this misery?

Who will make you miserable? And the same is true from the opposite direction also: you cannot be miserable without your mind and you cannot be blissful with your mind. The mind can never be the source of bliss.

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

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

Unload yourself.

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

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

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

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

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

You just go on staring.

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

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

When you really feel that you have become one, then you can close the eyes. When the sky has entered in you, you can close the eyes. You will be able to see it within also. Then there is no need.

So only after forty minutes, when you feel that the oneness has happened and there is a communion and you have become part of it and the mind is no more, close the eyes and remain in the sky within.

The clarity will help the third point: ENTER SUCH CLARITY. The clarity will help – the uncontaminated, unclouded sky. Just be aware of the clarity that is all around you. Don’t think about it; just be aware of the clarity, the purity, the innocence. These words are not to be repeated.

You have to feel them rather than think. And once you stare into the sky the feeling will come, because it is not on your part to imagine these things – they are there. If you stare they will start happening to you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no need to wait for the summer, because our minds are such that they can find any excuse.

They will say, ‘Summer is not here, and even if it is summer, the sky is not clear.’

The second technique:

74…
SHAKTI,
SEE ALL SPACE AS IF ALREADY ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN HEAD
IN THE BRILLIANCE.
‘हे शक्‍ति, समस्‍त तेजोमय अंतरिक्ष मेरे सिर में ही समाहित है, ऐसा भाव करो।’

SHAKTI, SEE ALL SPACE AS IF ALREADY ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN HEAD IN THE BRILLIANCE.

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

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

Then the second step: feel your head, where it is, just inside, and then feel that your head has also become six inches longer. When you can feel this, everything will be easy. Then you make it more.

You feel that you have become twelve feet all; or, that you have filled the whole room. Now in your imagination you are touching the walls – you have filled the whole room. Then, by steps, feel that the whole house has come within you. And once you know the feel, it is very easy. If you can grow six inches taller, everything is easy then. If you can feel that you are not five foot, but you are five foot six, then nothing is difficult; this technique will be easy.

For three days go on feeling that; then for three days more, feel that you have filled the whole room.

It is just a training of imagination. Then for three days the whole house is within you; then for three days you have become the sky. Then this technique will be very easy.

SHAKTI, SEE ALL SPACE AS IF ALREADY ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN HEAD IN THE BRILLIANCE.

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

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

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

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

Someone with a psychiatric training will think that he has gone mad, it is just neurosis, but one who knows deeper dimensions of human consciousness will say he has become a mukta, an enlightened one. But to the ordinary mind it is a suicide.

With such techniques there is danger. That’s why I say grow towards them gradually, because you don’t know – anything is possible. Sometimes you are not aware of your own potentiality, sometimes you don’t know how ready you are, and something can happen. So do it in steps.

First try your imagination with small things: just that the body has become bigger or has become smaller. You can go both the ways. You are five feet six: feel you have become four feet, three feet, two feet, one foot; you have become just a seed. This is just a training; just a training so that you can feel whatsoever you want to feel. Your inner mind is absolutely free to feel; nothing can hinder it from feeling anything. It is your feeling. You can grow and you can be small. Suddenly you become aware that it is you.

And if you can work well through this, you can come out of your body very easily. If you can grow and become small through imagination, you are capable of coming out of your body. You simply imagine that you are standing outside of your body and you will stand – but not immediately.

First work with small steps, and then when you feel that you are at ease and you don’t become scared, then feel that you have filled the whole room – actually you will feel the touch of the walls.

And then feel that the whole house has come within you – you will feel it within you. And then go on.

Then, by and by, let the sky be felt in the head. And once you feel the sky in your head, absorbed there, the mind simply disappears. It has no business to do there.

For this technique it is good to be with someone: to be with a teacher, or to be with a friend. Don’t do it alone. Someone must be there to take care of you, to watch you. This is a school method.

Where many people are working in a school, it is very easy, less harmful, less dangerous – because sometimes when the sky explodes within, for many days you may not become aware of your body.

You may not come out, you may be so absorbed in the feeling, because time disappears; you cannot feel how much time has elapsed. The body disappears, you cannot feel the body. You become the sky. Someone must take care of your body; very loving care will be needed.

So with a master, or with a group, this technique is less harmful and less dangerous. And with a group that knows what is possible – what can happen and what should be done… because if in such a state of mind you are suddenly awakened, you may go mad, because time will be needed for your mind to come back. If suddenly brought back to the body, your nervous system cannot bear it. It is not made for that. It has to be trained. So don’t do it alone. You can do it in a group, with a few friends, in a lonely place. And do it in steps, not suddenly.

The third technique:

75…
WAKING, SLEEPING, DREAMING, KNOW YOU AS LIGHT.
‘जागते हुए सोते हुए, स्‍वप्‍न देखते हुए, अपने को प्रकाश समझो।’

WAKING, SLEEPING, DREAMING, KNOW YOU AS LIGHT.

WAKING, SLEEPING, DREAMING, KNOW YOU AS LIGHT. First start with waking. Yoga and Tantra divide the life of man’s mind into three divisions – the life of the mind, remember. They divide mind into three divisions: waking, sleeping, dreaming. These are not the divisions of your consciousness, these are the divisions of your mind, and the consciousness is the fourth.

They have not given any name to it in the east; they call it simply the fourth, turiya. These three have names. These are the clouds, they can be named – a waking cloud, a sleeping cloud, a dreaming cloud. They are all clouds, and the space in which they move – the sky – in unnamed, left simply as the fourth.

Western psychology has only recently become aware of the dreaming dimension. Really, only with Freud, dreaming became important. But with Hindus, this is one of the most ancient concepts: that you cannot really know a man unless you know what he is doing in his dreams. Because whatsoever he is doing in his waking hours is more or less bound to be acting, false, because in the waking state of his mind he is forced to do many things.

He is not free. The society is there, rules are there, moralities are there. He is constantly struggling with his own desires: suppressing them, modifying them, moulding them in the mould the society allows. And the society never allows you to be your total being; it chooses. That is what a culture means – culture means a choice.

Every culture is a conditioning: a choice of certain things and a denial of certain things. Your total being is not accepted anywhere; it is not – nowhere. Certain aspects are accepted here, certain aspects are accepted there, in this country or that, but nowhere is the total human being accepted.

So the waking consciousness is bound to be false, pseudo, artificial, forced. You are not real there – just actors; not spontaneous – manipulated. ONly in dreams are you free; only in dreams are you authentically yourself.

You can do whatsoever you like in your dreams. No one is concerned; you are alone. No one can penetrate, no one can look into your dreams. And no one is bothered: what you do in your dreams is your business, no one is concerned. They are absolutely private. Because they are absolutely private and related to no one, you can be free. So unless your dreams are known, your real face cannot be known. Hindus have been aware of it: dreams must be penetrated. But they are still clouds – private of course, freer, but still clouds, and one has to go beyond them also.

These are the three states: waking and sleeping and dreaming. Dreaming became very primary with Freud. Now sleeping has been touched. Now many sleep labs are working in the west to know what sleep is, because it seems to be very strange that we don’t know what sleep is. What really happens to you in sleep is not yet known scientifically.

And if we cannot know what sleep is, it will be difficult to know what man is, because for one third of his life he will be sleeping. One third of your life! If you are going to live for sixty years, for twenty years you will be sleeping. It is such a major part. What are you doing while you are asleep?

Something mysterious is going on, and it is so essential that life is not possible without it. Something deep is happening, but you are not aware.

Waking, you are a different person; dreaming, you are again a different person. In deep sleep, you are again a different person. You can’t remember even your name while deep asleep. You don’t know whether you are a Mohammedan or a Christian or a Hindu. Out of your deep sleep you can’t answer who you are; rich or poor – no identity, no image.

In the waking layer you exist with the society. In the dreaming layer you exist with your own desires.

In deep sleep you exist with nature, deep in the womb of nature. And yoga and Tantra say that only beyond these three you exist in Brahma, in the cosmic whole. So these three must be crossed, passed, transcended.

There is one difference. The western psychology is now interested in studying these states. Eastern seekers were interested in these states, but not in studying them. They were interested only in how to transcend them. This technique is a transcendental technique.

WAKING, SLEEPING, DREAMING, KNOW YOU AS LIGHT.

Very difficult. You have to start with waking. How can you remember in dreams? Can you create a dream consciously? Can you manipulate a dream? Can you have your own dreams of your own wishes? You cannot. How impotent man is! You cannot even create a dream of your own. They too happen to you; you are helpless. But there are certain techniques through which dreams can be created, and those techniques are very helpful in transcending, because if you can create, then you can transcend. But one has to start with waking.

While waking – moving, eating, working – remember yourself as light. As if in your heart a flame is burning, and your body is nothing but the aura around the flame. Imagine it. In your heart a flame is burning, and your body is nothing but a light aura around the flame; your body is just a light around the flame. Allow it to go deep within your mind and your consciousness. Imbibe it.

It will take time, but if you go on thinking about it, feeling it, imagining it, within a certain period you will be able to remember it the whole day. While awake, moving on the street, you are a flame moving. No one else will be aware of it in the beginning, but if you continue it, after three months others will also become aware. And only when others become aware can you then be at ease. Don’t say to anyone. Simply imagine a flame, and your body as just the aura around it. Not a physical body, but an electric body. Go on doing it.

If you persist, within three months, or somewhere near about then, others will become aware that something has happened to you. They will feel a subtle light around you. When you come near them, they will feel a different warmth. If you touch them, they will feel a fiery touch. They will become aware that something strange is happening to you. Don’t say to anyone. When others become aware, then you can feel at ease, and then you can enter the second step, not before it.

The second step is to take it into dreaming. Now you can take it into dreaming. It has become a reality. Now it is not an imagination. Through imagination you have uncovered a reality. It is real.

Everything consists of light. You are light – unaware of the fact – because every particle of matter is light.

The scientists say it consists of electrons. It is the same thing. Light is the source of all. You are also condensed light: through imagination you are simply uncovering a reality. Imbibe it – and when you have become so filled with it, you can carry it into dreams, not before.

Then, while falling asleep, go on thinking of the flame, go on seeing it, feeling you are the light.

Remembering it… remembering… remembering… you fall down asleep. And the remembrance continues. In the beginning you will start having some dreams in which you will feel you have a flame within, you are light. By and by, in the dreams also you will move with the same feeling. And once this feeling enters the dreams, dreams will start disappearing. Dreams will start disappearing:

there will be less and less dreams and more and more deep sleep.

When in all your dreaming this reality is revealed – that you are light, a flame, a burning flame – all dreams will disappear. Only when dreams disappear can you carry this feeling into sleep, never before. Now you are at the door. When dreams have disappeared and you remember yourself as a flame, you are at the door of sleep. Now you can enter with the feeling. And once you enter sleep with the feeling that you are a flame, you will be aware in it – the sleep will now happen only to your body, not to you.

This technique is to help you go beyond these three states. If you can be aware that you are a flame, a light, that sleep is not happening to you, you are conscious. You are carrying a conscious effort.

Now you are crystallized around that flame. The body is asleep, you are not.

This is what Krishna says in Gita: that yogis never sleep. While others are asleep, they are awake. Not that their bodies never sleep. Their bodies sleep – but only bodies. Bodies need rest, consciousness needs no rest; because bodies are mechanisms, consciousness is not a mechanism.

Bodies need fuel, they need rest. That’s why they are born, they are young, then they become old, and then they die. Consciousness is never born, never becomes old, never dies. It needs no fuel, it needs no rest. It is pure energy, perpetual eternal energy.

If you can carry this image of flame and light through the doors of sleep, you will never sleep again, only the body will rest. And while the body is sleeping, you will know it. Once this happens, you have become the fourth. Now the waking and the dreaming and the sleeping are parts of the mind.

They are parts, and you have become the fourth – one who goes through all of them and is none of them.

Really, this is so simple. If you are in the waking state, and then you move into dreams, you cannot be either. If you are the waking state, then how can you dream? And if you are the dreaming state, how can you fall into sleep where there is no dream? You must be a traveller, and these states must be stations, so you can move from here and there and come back again. Again in the morning you will move into the waking state.

These are states, and the one who moves within these states is you. But that you is the fourth – and that fourth is what you call the soul. That fourth is what you call divine, that fourth is what you call the immortal element, the life eternal.

WAKING SLEEPING, DREAMING, KNOW YOU AS LIGHT.

This is a very beautiful technique. But try it first in the waking. And remember, when others become aware, then only have you succeeded in it. They will become aware. Then you can enter into dream, and then into sleep, and then you can awaken to that which you are – the fourth.

Moving to the roots

Question 1:

LAST NIGHT YOU SAID THAT BY CHANGING THE OUTER,
THE INNER REMAINS UNCHANGED, UNTRANSFORMED.

BUT IS IT NOT TRUE THAT THE RIGHT FOOD,
RIGHT LABOUR, RIGHT SLEEP, RIGHT ACTIONS
AND BEHAVIORS ARE ALSO IMPORTANT FACTORS
FOR INNER TRANSFORMATION?

ISN’T IT A MISTAKE TO IGNORE THE OUTER COMPLETELY?

THE OUTER CANNOT CHANGE THE INNER, but the outer can help, or it can hinder. The outer can create a situation in which the inner can explode more easily. The thing to be remembered is this: that the outer transformation is not the inner. Even if you have done everything and the situation is there, the inner is not going to explode. The situation is necessary, it is helpful, but it is not the transformation. And those who get involved with the outer….

The outer is a vast phenomenon. You can go on changing for lives and you will never be satisfied, and something or other will remain to be changed, because unless the inner changes, the outer can never be perfect. You can go on changing it and polishing it and conditioning it. You will never feel satisfied. You will never come to a situation where you can feel, ‘Now, the field is ready.’ So many have wasted their lives.

If your mind becomes obsessed with the outer – with the food, with the clothes, with the behavior… I am not saying to neglect them. No, what I am saying is, don’t get obsessed with them. They can be helpful, but they can become great hindrances if your mind becomes obsessed. Then it becomes an escape, then you are just postponing the inner change. And you can go on changing the outer.

The inner is not even touched by it, the inner remains the same.

You might have heard one old Indian fable. In ‘Panchtantra’ it is said that a mouse was very much afraid of a cat; constantly in fear, anxiety. He couldn’t sleep: he would dream about the cat and he would tremble. A magician, just out of pity, transformed the mouse into a cat. The outer was changed, but immediately the mouse within the cat now became afraid of a dog. The anxiety was the same; only the object had changed. Previously it was the cat, now it was the dog. The trembling continued, the anguish remained, the dreams were still of fear.

So the magician changed the cat into a dog. Immediately the dog became afraid of the tiger, because the mouse within remained the same. The mouse was not changed; only bodies, the outer. The same anxiety, the same disease, the same fear remained. The magician changed the dog into a tiger. Immediately the mouse within the tiger became afraid of a hunter. So the magician said to the mouse, ‘Now be a mouse again, because I can change your bodies, I cannot change you. You have the heart of a mouse, so what can I do?’ The heart of a mouse.

You can go on changing the outer, but the heart of the mouse remains the same. And that heart creates the problems. The shape will change, the form will change, but the substance will remain the same. And it makes no difference whether you are afraid of a cat, or of a dog, or of a tiger. The question is not of whom you are afraid; the question is that you are afraid.

The emphasis is – my emphasis is – that you must remain aware that your outer effort should not become a substitute for the inner transformation. One thing. Take every help that can be taken. It is good to have right food, but it is nonsense and madness to become obsessed with food. It is good to have right behavior, but it is neurotic to become obsessed with it. You should not become mad about anything.

In India there are many sects of sannyasins who are obsessed with food. The whole day they are thinking only of food: what to eat and what not to eat; who should prepare the food and who should not prepare the food. Once I was travelling with a sannyasin. He would take only milk, and only cow’s milk, and only from those cows which were white; otherwise he would go without food. This man is mad.

Remember this: that the inner is important, significant. The outer is helpful, it is good, but you must not become focused with it. It must not become so important that the inner is forgotten. The inner must remain the inner and the central, and the outer, if possible, should be changed just as a help.

Don’t ignore it completely. There is no need to ignore it, because really the outer is also part of the inner. It is not something opposite to it, it is not something contrary to it, it is not something imposed upon you – it is you. But the inner is the central, and the outer is the periphery. So give as much importance as a periphery needs, as a circumference needs, as a boundary needs – but the boundary is not the house. So take care of it, but don’t become mad after it.

Our mind is always trying to find escapes. If you can become involved with food, with sex, with clothes, with the body, your mind will be at ease, because now you are not going towards the inner.

Now there is no need to change the mind. Now there is no need to destroy the mind, to go beyond the mind. With the change of food, the same mind can exist. You may eat this or that – the same mind can exist. Only when you move inwards… the more inner you reach, the more this mind which you have has to cease. The inward path is the path towards no-mind.

The mind becomes afraid. It will try to find some escape – something to do with the outer. Then the mind can exist as it is. Whatsoever you do makes no difference. It is irrelevant what you do – this mind can exist, and this mind can find ways for how to remain the same. And sometimes, when you struggle with the natural outlet, your mind will find some perverted outlets which are more dangerous. Rather than being a help, they will become hindrances.

I have heard that Mulla Nasrudin fell down his stairs. His leg was fractured, so it was put in a plaster cast, and he was told that for three months he was not to go up and down the stairs. After three months he came to the doctor and the plaster was removed. Mulla asked, ‘Now can I go up and down the stairs?’

The doctor said, ‘Now you can go. You are absolutely okay.’

Mulla said, ‘Now I am so happy, doctor. You cannot believe how happy I am. It was so awkward to go up and down the drain-pipe the whole day. For three months, every day going up and down the drain-pipe – it was so awkward, and the whole neighborhood was laughing at me. But you had told me not to go up and down the stairs, so I had to find a way.’

This is what everyone is doing. If one outlet is blocked, then a perversion is bound to happen. And you don’t know the ways of the mind – =they are very cunning and very subtle. People come to me with their problems. The problem seems to be obvious – it is not. All problems seem to be obvious, clear – it is not so. Deep down something else is hidden, and unless that something else is known, discarded, gone beyond, the problem will remain. It will change its shape.

Someone is smoking too much and he wants to stop it. But smoking in itself is not a problem; the problem is something else. You can stop smoking, but the problem will remain, and it will have to come out in something else. When do you smoke? When you are anxious, nervous, you start smoking, and smoking helps you. You feel more confident, you feel more relaxed.

Just by stopping the smoking, your nervousness is not going to change. You will feel nervous, you will feel anxious; the anxiety will come. Then you will do something else. And you can find something which is a beautiful substitute; it looks so different. You can do anything. You can just use a mantra instead of smoking, and whenever you feel nervous you can say, RAM, RAM, RAM – anything continuously.

What are you doing with smoke? It is a mantra. You smoke in and out, you smoke in and out – it becomes a repetitive thing. Because of the repetition you feel relaxed. Repeat anything and the same will happen. But if you are using a mantra and saying, RAM, RAM, RAM, no one is going to say that you are doing something wrong. And the problem is the same.

The problem has not changed; only you have changed the trick. Previously you were doing it with smoke; now you are doing it with a word. Repetition helps; any nonsense thing will help. You just have to repeat it continuously. When you repeat a thing it gives relaxation, because it creates a sort of boredom. Boredom is relaxing. You can do anything that creates a sort of boredom. Boredom is relaxing. You can do anything that creates boredom.

If you are smoking, everyone will say that it is wrong. And if you are chanting a mantra, no one is going to say that it is wrong. But if the problem is the same, I am saying that it is also wrong – rather, more dangerous than the previous one, because with smoking you were aware that it was wrong.

Now, with this chanting of the mantra you are not aware, and this disease that you are unaware is more dangerous and more harmful.

You can do anything on the surface, but unless deeper roots are changed, nothing happens. So with the outer remember this: be aware of it, and move from the surface towards the roots and find the root – why are you nervous? Someone is eating too much food. It can be stopped. You can force yourself to not eat too much. But why is one eating too much food? Why? Because this is not a bodily need, so somewhere the mind is interfering. Something has to be done with the mind; it is not a question of the body. Why do you go on stuffing yourself?

Too much obsession with food is a love need. If you are not loved well, you will eat more. If you are loved and you can love, you will eat less. Whenever someone loves you, you cannot eat more. Love fills you so much, you don’t feel empty. When there is not love, you feel empty; something has to be stuffed in – you go on forcing food.

And there are reasons, root reasons, for it, because the first encounter of the child with love and food is simultaneous. From the same breast, from the same mother, he gets food and love – food and love become associated. If the mother is loving, the child will never take too much mild. There is no need. He is always secure in his love; he knows that whenever there is a need the food will come, the milk will be there, the mother will be there. He feels secure. But if the mother is non-loving, then he is insecure. Then he doesn’t know whether, when he feels hungry, food will come, because there is no love. He will eat more. And this will continue. It will become an unconscious root.

So you can go on changing your food – eat this, eat that, don’t eat this – but it makes no difference, because the basic root remains there. Then if you stop stuffing yourself with food, you will start stuffing with something else. And there are many ways. If you stop eating too much you may start accumulating money. Then again you have to be filled by something; then you go on accumulating money.

Observe deeply, and you will see that a person who accumulates money is never in love, cannot be, because the money accumulation is really a substitute. With money he will feel secure now. When you are loved there is no insecurity; in love all fears disappear. In love there is no future, no past.

This moment is enough, this very moment is eternity. You are accepted. There is no anxiety for the future, for what will happen tomorrow – there is no tomorrow in love.

But if love is not there, then the tomorrow is there. What will happen? Accumulate money, because you cannot rely on any person. So rely on things, rely on money and wealth. There are people who say, ‘Donate your money. Don’t accumulate money. Be non-attached to money.’ But these are superficial things, because the inner need will remain the same – then he will start accumulating something else.

Stop one outlet and you will have to create another – unless roots are destroyed. So don’t be too much concerned with the outer. Be aware of whatsoever your outer personality is. Be aware of it, be alert, and from the periphery always move towards the roots to find what the cause is there.

Howsoever disturbing, move to the roots. Once you come to know the roots, once the roots are exposed…. Remember this law: the roots can exist only in darkness – not only the roots of trees, but the roots of anything. They can exist only in darkness. Once they are brought to light, they die.

So move with your periphery; dig it deep and go to the roots, and bring the roots to consciousness, to light. Once you have come to the root, it simply disappears. You have not to do anything about it. You have to do something only because you don’t know what the problem is. A problem rightly understood disappears. Right understanding of a problem, a root understanding of the problem, becomes the disappearance of it. The first thing.

The second thing: whatsoever you do is superficial; it is not you in your totality. So don’t judge a man by his actions, because action is very atomic. You see a person in anger, and you can judge that this man is filled with hatred, violence, vengeance. But a moment later the anger disappears; the man becomes as loving as possible, and a different perfume, a different flowering, comes to his face. The anger was atomic. Don’t judge the whole man. But this love is also atomic. Don’t judge the whole man by this love.

Whatsoever you have done is not your total sum. Your actions remain just atomic – part of you of course, but your totality transcends them. You can be different immediately. And whatsoever is known about you by your behavior, by your actions, by your doings, you can contradict. You may have been a saint: you can become a sinner this very moment. No one could imagine that you, a saint, could do this. You can do it. It is not inconceivable. You may have been a sinner up to this moment, and the next moment you can jump out of it.

What I am saying is, your inner is so vast and so great that by your outer it cannot be judged. Your outer remains superficial, accidental. I will repeat it. Your outer remains accidental, your inner is the essence. So remember to uncover the inner, and don’t get entangled with the outer.

One thing more: outer is always of the past. It is always dead, because whatsoever you have done, you have done. It is always of the past, it is never alive. The inner is always alive, it is here and now, and the outer is always dead. If you know me – whatsoever I have done and said – you know my past, you don’t know me. I am here, the living. That is my inner point, and whatsoever you know about me is just the outer. It is dead, it is no more there.

Observe it in your own consciousness. Whatsoever you have done is not a bondage on you. It is no more really; it is just a memory. And you are greater than that. Your infinite possibilities are there.

It was only accidental that you are a sinner or you are a saint. It was only accidental that you are a Christian or a Hindu. But your innermost being is not accidental; it is essential.

The emphasis on the inner is the emphasis on the essential. And that inner remains free, it is freedom. The outer is a slavery, because you can know the outer only when it has happened; then you cannot do anything about it. What can you do about your past? It cannot be undone, you cannot move backwards. You cannot do anything with the past; it is a slavery.

If you understand it rightly, then you can understand the theory of karma, the theory of actions.

This theory – one of the most essential parts of Hindu realization – is that unless you go beyond karmas, you are not free; unless you have gone beyond all actions, you will remain in bondage.

Don’t pay much attention to the outer, don’t get obsessed with it. Use it as a help, but continuously remembering that the inner has to be discovered.

These techniques we are discussing here are for the inner, for how to discover it. I will tell you one thing. There have been traditions…. For example, one of the most important religious traditions has been Jainism. But Jainism pays too much attention to the outer; too much, so much so that they completely forget that there is anything like meditation, that there is anything like a science of yoga.

They forget it completely.

They are obsessed with food, with clothes, with sleep, with everything – but with no effort towards meditation. Not that in their tradition originally there was no meditation, because no religion can be born without it, but they got obsessed somewhere with the outer. It became so important that they forgot completely that this whole situation is just a help; it is not the goal.

What you eat is not the goal. What you are is the goal. It is good if your eating habits help you to uncover the being. It is good. But if you become just obsessed with eating, continuously thinking about it, then you have missed the point. Then you are a food-addict. You are mad, neurotic.

Question 2:

ISN’T IT TRUE THAT ALL MEDITATION TECHNIQUES ARE REALLY DOINGS
WHICH LEAD THE SEEKER TO HIS BEING?

In a way, yes; and in a deeper way, no. Meditation techniques are doings, because you are advised to do something. Even to meditate is to do something, even to sit silently is to do something, even to not do anything is a sort of doing. So in a superficial way, all meditation techniques are doings.

But in a deeper way they are not, because if you succeed in them, the doing disappears.

Only in the beginning it appears like an effort. If you succeed in it, the effort disappears and the whole thing becomes spontaneous and effortless. If you succeed in it, it is not a doing. No effort on your part is needed then. It becomes just like breathing – it is there. But in the beginning the effort is bound to be, because the mind cannot do anything which is not an effort. If you tell it to be effortless, the whole thing seems absurd.

In Zen, where much emphasis is paid to effortlessness, the masters say to the disciples, ‘Just sit.

Don’t do anything.’ And the disciple tries. Of course, what can you do other than trying? The disciple tries to just sit, and he tries to just sit, and he tries to not do anything, and then the master hits him on his head with his staff and he says, ‘Don’t do this! I have not told you to try to sit, because that becomes an effort. And don’t try not to do anything, because that is a sort of doing. Simply sit!’

If I tell you to simply sit, what will you do? You will do something, which will make it not a simple sitting; an effort will enter. You will be sitting with an effort; a strain will be there. You cannot simply sit. It looks strange, but the moment you try to sit simply, it has become complex. The very effort to simply sit makes it complex. So what to do?

Years pass, and the disciple goes on sitting and being blamed, condemned by the master that he is missing the point. But he simply goes on, goes on, goes on, and every day he is a failure, because the effort is there. And he cannot deceive the master. But one day, just patiently sitting, even this consciousness to sit simply disappears. One day suddenly he is sitting – like a tree or like a rock – not doing anything. And then the master says, ‘This is the right posture. Now you have attained it. Now remember this. This is the way to sit.’ But it takes patience and long effort to achieve effortlessness.

In the beginning, effort will be there, doing will be there, but only in the beginning as a necessary evil. But you have to remember constantly that you have to go beyond it. A moment must come when you are not doing anything about meditation – just being there and it happens; just sitting or standing and it happens; not doing anything, just being aware, it happens.

All these techniques are just to help you to come to an effortless moment. The inner transformation, the inner realization, cannot happen through effort, because effort is a sort of tension. With effort you cannot be relaxed totally; the effort will become a barrier. With this background in mind, if you make effort, by and by you will become capable of leaving it also.

It is just like swimming. If you know about swimming, you know that in the beginning you have to make effort – but only in the beginning. Once you know the feel of it, once you know what it is, the effort has gone; you can swim effortlessly. And even a good swimmer cannot say what swimming is, what exactly he is doing. He cannot explain to you what he is doing. Really, he is not doing anything.

He is simply allowing himself to be in a deep responsive relationship with the water, with the river.

He is not doing anything really. And if he is still doing, he is still not an expert swimmer – he is still amateur, still learning.

I will tell you one anecdote. In Burma, one Buddhist monk was ordered to make a design for the new temple, particularly for the gate. So he was making many designs. He had one very talented disciple, so he told that disciple to be near him. While he made the design the disciple was simply to watch, and if he liked it he had to say that it was okay, it was right. If he didn’t like it then he had to say no. And the master said, ‘When you say yes, only then will I send the design. If you go on saying no, I will discard the design and will create a new one.’

Hundreds of designs were discarded in this way. Three months passed. Even the master became afraid, but he had given his word so he had to keep it. The disciple was there, the master would make the design, and then the disciple would say no. The master would start another one.

One day the ink was just about to be finished, so the master said, ‘Go out and find more ink.’ The disciple went out. The master forgot him, his presence, and became effortless. His presence was the problem. The idea was constantly in his mind that the disciple was there, judging. He was constantly wondering whether he was going to like it or not, whether he would discard it again. This created an inner anxiety and the master could not be spontaneous.

The disciple went out. The design was completed. The disciple came in and he said ‘Wonderful!

But why couldn’t you do it before?’

The master said, ‘Now I understand why – because you were here. Because of you – I was making an effort to get your approval. The effort destroyed the whole thing. I couldn’t be natural, I couldn’t flow, I couldn’t forget myself because of you.’

Whenever you are doing meditation, the very effort that you are doing it, the very idea of succeeding in it, is the barrier. Be conscious of it. Go on doing, and be conscious of it. A day will come… just through patience a day comes when effort is not there. Really, you are not there, only meditation is. It may take a long time. It cannot be predicted, no one can say when it will happen. Because if something is to be achieved by effort, it can be predicted – that if you do this much effort you will succeed – but meditation is going to succeed only when you become effortless. That’s why nothing can be predicted. Nothing can be said about when you will succeed. You may succeed this very moment, and you may not succeed for lives.

The whole thing hinges on one thing – when your effort drops and you become spontaneous, when your meditation is not an act but becomes your being, when your meditation is just like love….

You cannot do anything about love, or can you? If you do anything, you falsify it. It will become artificial. It will not go deep. You will not be in it. It will become an acting. Love IS – you cannot do anything about it.

You cannot do anything about meditation also. But I don’t mean don’t do anything, because then you will remain whatsoever you are. You have to do something, perfectly conscious that by only doing you will not achieve. Doing will be needed in the beginning. One cannot leave it; one has to go through it. But one has to go through it, one has to transcend it, and an effortless floating has to be achieved.

The path is arduous and very contradictory. You cannot find anything more contradictory than meditation. Contradictory because it has to be started as an effort and it has to end as effortlessness. But it happens. You may not be able to conceive logically hot it happens, but in experience it happens. A day comes when you just get fed up with your effort. It falls.

It happened to Buddha this way. For six years he was making every effort possible. No human being has been so obsessed with becoming enlightened. He did everything that he could do. He moved from one teacher to another, and whatsoever he was taught, he did it perfectly. That was the problem, because no teacher could say to him, ‘You are not doing well, that’s why you are not achieving.’ That was impossible. He was doing better than any master, so the masters had to confess. They said, ‘This much we have to teach. Beyond this we don’t know, so you go somewhere else.’

He was a dangerous disciple – and only dangerous disciples achieve. He studied everything that was possible. Whatsoever he was told, he would do it – absolutely as it was told. And then he would come to the master and say, ‘I have done it, but nothing has happened. So what next?’

The teachers would say, ‘You go somewhere else. There is one teacher in the Himalayas – go there.’

Or, ‘There is one teacher in some forest – go there. We don’t know more than this.’

He went around and around for six years. He did all that can be done, all that is humanly possible, and then he got fed up. The whole thing appeared futile, fruitless, meaningless. One night he relaxed all efforts. He was sitting under the Bodhi tree, and he said, ‘Now everything is finished. In the world there is nothing, and in this spiritual search also there is nothing. Now there is nothing for me to do. Everything is finished. Not only this world, but the other world also. Suddenly all efforts dropped. He was empty. Because when there is nothing to do, the mind cannot move. The mind moves only because there is something to do – some motivation, some goal. The mind moves because something is possible, something can be achieved, the future. If not today then tomorrow, but the possibility is there that one can achieve it – the mind moves.

That night Buddha came to a dead point. Really, he died that very moment, because there was no future. Nothing was to be achieved, and nothing could be achieved – ‘I have done everything. The whole world is futile and this whole existence is a nightmare.’ Not only the material world became futile, but the spiritual also. He relaxed. Not that he did something to relax. This is the point to understand: there was nothing to be tense, therefore he relaxed. There was no effort on his part to relax.

Under the Bodhi tree he was not trying relaxation. There was nothing to do, nothing to be tense, nothing to desire, no future, no hope. He was absolutely hopeless that night – relaxed. Relaxation happened. You cannot relax, because something or other is still there to be achieved. That goes on stirring your mind; you go on spinning and spinning around and around. Suddenly the spinning stopped, the wheel stopped – Buddha relaxed and fell asleep.

In the morning when he awoke, the last star was setting. He looked at the last star disappear, and with that last star disappearing, he disappeared completely, he became an enlightened one. Then people started asking, ‘How did you achieve this? How? What was the method?’

Now you can understand Buddha’s difficulty. If he said that he had achieved through some methods, then he was wrong, because he achieved only when there was no method. If he said that he had achieved through effort, then he was wrong, because he achieved only when there was no effort.

But if he said, ‘Don’t make any effort and you will achieve,’ then too he was wrong, because to his no-effort those six years of effort were the background. Without that effort, that six years’ arduous effort, this state of no-effort could not have been achieved. Only because of that mad effort he came to a peak and there was nowhere further to go; he relaxed and fell down in the valley.

This has to be remembered for many reasons. Spiritual effort is the most contradictory phenomenon.

Effort has to be made, with full consciousness that nothing can be achieved through effort. Effort has to be made only to achieve no-effort, only to achieve effortlessness. But don’t relax your effort, because if you relax you will never achieve that relaxation which came to Buddha. You go on doing every effort, so automatically a moment comes when just by sheer effort you reach a point where relaxation happens to you.

For example, you may take it in a different way. As I see it, in the west, ego has been the central point: the fulfillment of the ego, the development of the ego, the achievement of a strong ego, has been the whole western effort. In the east, it has been how to achieve egolessness, how to be a non-ego, how to forget, surrender, dissolve yourself completely so that you are not. The east has been trying for egolessness. The west has been trying for the perfect ego.

But this is the contradictoriness of things: if you don’t have a very developed ego, you cannot surrender. You can surrender only if you have a perfectly clearcut ego. Otherwise you cannot surrender, because who will surrender? So to me, both are half and both are in misery – east and west both. Because the east has taken egolessness, which is the end part, and the beginning part is missing.

Who will surrender the ego? The peak is not there, so who will create the valley? The valley is created only around a peak. The greater the peak, the deeper the valley. If you don’t have an ego, or a very lukewarm one, surrender is not possible. Or, your surrender will be a lukewarm surrender, just so-so. Nothing will happen out of it; there will be no explosion.

In the west, the beginning part has been emphasized. So you can go on growing with your ego. It will create more and more anxiety. And when you have really created it, you don’t know what to do with it, because the end part is not there.

To me, the spiritual search is both. Create a very great peak, create a perfect ego, just to dissolve it.

That seems absurd – just to dissolve it, just to achieve a deep surrender, just to lose it somewhere.

And you cannot lose something which you don’t have. So in my view, humanity has to be trained for these two things together: help everyone to create a perfect ego, a fulfilled ego – but this is only half the journey – and then, help them to surrender it.

The greater the peak, the deeper will be the valley. The higher the ego, the deeper you will move in your surrender. And this is for everything. On the spiritual path, remember this continuous contradictoriness. Don’t forget it even for a single moment. Become perfect egoists so that you can surrender, so that you can dissolve, melt. Do every effort that you can do, just to reach a point where effort leaves you and you are totally effortless.

Question 3:

YOU SAID LAST NIGHT THAT THE MORE THE MIND GROWS,
THE MORE WE KNOW THAT THE NATURE OF THE MIND IS CONFUSION.

BUT ISN’T IT TRUE THAT THIS GROWTH OF THE MIND ALSO LEADS TO CLARITY?

Whatsoever I was just saying is related to this.

Yes, it leads to clarity, because only when you have a very mature mind do you become aware that you are confused. Even to become aware that mind is confusion, a very developed mind is needed.

Those who are not aware that their mind is confusion are really not mature minds. They are childish, juvenile, still developing. Only a very mature mind can become aware of the quality of the mind, that it is confusion. And when you have developed the mind, only then is meditation possible, because meditation is the opposite goal.

Meditation means no-mind. But how can you achieve a no-mind if you have not achieved a mind?

So achieve a mind just to lose it. And don’t think that if ultimately one has to reach the state of no- mind, then what is the use of achieving a mind? – because if you don’t achieve a mind, the ultimate is not going to happen to you. It can happen only if the mind is there. So I am not against mind, I am not against intellect. Really, I am not against anything. I am for everything, because everything can be used to reach the opposite pole.

There is a polarity, and the opposite pole cannot be reached if the polarity is not there. A madman cannot meditate. Why? Because he has no mind. But this no-mind is not the no-mind of Buddha.

No-mind can have two dimensions: below mind and above mind. The above mind is also no-mind, and the below mind is also no-mind. You can fall down from the mind: the mind is not there, but it is not meditation. You have to go beyond mind, only then is the Buddha’s no-mind achieved. And always remember it, because they are so similar you can misunderstand the whole thing. They are so similar.

For example, a child is innocent. A saint is also innocent – a Jesus or a Krishna – but their innocence is not childish. It is childlike, not childish; because a child is innocent only because he is ignorant.

He is innocent only as a negative thing, just the absence. Sooner or later everything will erupt; he is a volcano waiting to erupt. The innocence is just the silence before the volcano erupts.

A saint is one who has gone beyond. The eruption has happened; the volcano is silent again. But this silence is different. The first silence was very pregnant; something was present there. The silence was just on the surface; deep down that child was getting ready to be disturbed. The saint has passed the disturbance. The cyclone has gone. This silence, the innocence, appears similar, but there is a deep difference.

So sometimes an idiot can also appear to be saint-like. And idiots are saint-like. They are not cunning; to be cunning, intelligence is needed. They are not calculating; to be calculating, mind is needed. Idiots are simple, innocent, non-cunning, non-calculating. They cannot deceive anyone.

Not that they would not like to; they cannot. The very capacity is not there. They look like saints, and sometimes saints look like idiots, because the same thing has happened again, in a different, altogether different, dimension.

You can fall down below the mind: then too a no-mind happens, but it is not meditation. You have simply lost even that mind which was going to become a step towards meditation. So I am not against mind. Develop mind, develop intellect, but remember well – this is just a means, and a means which has to be forsaken, thrown away. It has to be used like a boat. You reach the other shore, you leave the boat. You forget about the boat completely.

Question 4:

WE VERY OFTEN FEEL THAT WE CREATE OUR OWN SUFFERINGS.

IN SPITE OF THIS, WHY DO WE CONTINUE CREATING THEM?

AND WHEN AND HOW DOES ONE STOP CREATING ONE’S OWN SUFFERING?

The first thing, and very basic to be understood, is that whenever you say WE VERY OFTEN FEEL THAT WE CREATE OUR OWN SUFFERING, this is not the case. You never really feel that you are the creator of your own suffering. You may think so, because you have been taught so; because for centuries and centuries teachers have been teaching that you are the creator of your own suffering and no one else is responsible.

You have heard these things, you have read these things. They have become your blood and bone, they have become your unconscious conditionings, so sometimes you repeat like a parrot WE CREATE OUR OWN SUFFERING. But this is not your feeling, this is not your realization, because if you realize it, then the other thing is impossible. Then you cannot say, IN SPITE OF THIS, WHY DO WE CONTINUE CREATING IT?

If you really feel, and if it is your own feeling that you are the creator of your own suffering, any moment you can stop – unless you want to create it, unless you enjoy it, unless you are a masochist.

Then everything is okay, then there is no question. If you say, ‘I enjoy my suffering,’ then it is okay; you can go on creating it. But if you say, ‘I suffer and I want to go beyond it. I want to stop it completely – and I understand that I am the creator,’ then you are wrong. You don’t understand it.

Socrates is reported to have said that knowledge is virtue. And there has been a long discussion for these two thousand years over whether Socrates is right or wrong – knowledge is virtue. Socrates says that once you know something, you cannot do contrary to it. If you know that anger is suffering, you cannot be angry. This is what Socrates means – knowledge is virtue. You cannot say, ‘I know anger is bad; still I move in it. What to do about it now?’ Socrates says that the first thing is wrong.

You don’t know that anger is bad; that’s why you go on moving in it. If you know, you cannot move in it. How can you move against your own knowledge?

I know that if I put my hand in the fire it is going to be painful. If I know, I cannot put my hand in. But if somebody else has told me, if I have heard through the tradition, if I have read in the scriptures that fire burns, and I have not known fire, and I have not known any similar experience, only then can I put my hand into fire – and that too only once.

Can you conceive it? That you have put your hand into fire and you have been burned and you have suffered, and again you go and ask, ‘I know that fire burns, but in spite of it I go on putting my hand into the fire. What to do about it?’ Who will believe that you know? And what type of knowledge is this? If your own experience of suffering and burning cannot stop you, nothing is going to stop you.

Now there is no possibility, because the last possibility has been missed. But no one can miss it; that is impossible.

Socrates is right, and all those who have know, they will agree with Socrates – that agreement has a very deep point in it. Once you know…. But remember – the knowledge must be yours. A borrowed knowledge won’t do; borrowed knowledge is useless. Unless it is your own experience, it is not going to change you. Others’ experiences are of no help.

You have heard that you are the creator of your own suffering, but this is just in the mind. It has not entered your being, it is not your own knowledge. So when you are discussing, you can discuss about it cerebrally, but when the actual phenomenon happens, you will forget, and you will behave in the way you know, not in the way others know.

When you are at ease, cool, collected, silently discussing anger, you can say it is poison, it is a disease, evil. But when someone makes you angry then a complete change occurs. Not it is not an intellectual discussion, now you are involved. And the moment you are involved, you become angry.

Later on again, retrospectively, when you again get cool, the memory will come back, your mind will again start functioning, and you will say, ‘That was wrong. It was not good of me to do that. I know anger is wrong.’

Who is this ‘I’? – just intellect, just the superficial mind. You don’t know – because when someone pushes you into anger, you throw this mind away. It is useful as far as discussion is concerned, but when a real situation arises, only the real knowledge will help. When there is no situation, you can go on. Even in a discussion the real situation can arise. The other can go on contradicting you so much that you become angry and then you will forget.

Real knowledge means that which has happened to you. You have not heard about it, not read about it, you have not collected information about it – it is your own experience. And then there is no question, because after that you cannot go against it. Not that you will have to make an effort not to go against it; simply you cannot go against it.

How can I? When I know this is a wall and I want to go out of this room, how can I try to pass through the wall? I know this is a wall, so I will search for the door. Only a blink man will try to go out through the wall. I have got eyes. I see what is a wall and what is a door.

But if I try to enter the wall and tell you, ‘I know very well where the door is, and I know this to be a wall, but in spite of this, how can I stop myself from trying to enter the wall?’ then that means that as far as I am concerned that door looks false. Others have told me that it is the door, but as far as I am concerned, I know that door is false. And others have told me that this is a wall, but as far as I see, I see the door here in this wall, and that is why I try.

In this situation you have to make a clearcut distinction between what you know and what you have gathered as knowledge. Don’t rely on information. From the greatest source – even if you collect from the greatest source – information is information. Even if a Buddha says it to you, it is not your own, and it is not going to help you in any way. But you can remain thinking that it is your knowledge, and this misunderstanding will waste your energy, time and life.

The basic thing is not to ask what to do so that suffering is not created. The basic thing is to know that you are the creator of your suffering. Next time whenever a real situation arises and you are in suffering, remember to find out whether you are the cause of it. And if you can find out that you are the cause of it, the suffering will disappear, and the same suffering will not appear again – impossible.

But don’t deceive yourself. You can – that’s why I say it. When you are suffering you can say, ‘Yes, I know I have created this suffering,’ but deep down you know that someone else has created it. Your wife has created it, your husband has created it, someone else has created it, and this is simply a consolation because you cannot do anything. You console yourself: ‘No one has created it, I have created it myself, and by and by I will stop it.’

But knowledge is instant transformation; there is no ‘by and by.’ If you understand that you have created it, it will drop immediately. And it is not going to come up again. If it comes again, it means the understanding has not gone deep.

So there is no need to find out what to do, and how to stop. The only need is to go deep and to find out who is really the cause of it. If others are the cause then it cannot be stopped, because you cannot change the whole world. If you are the cause, only then can it be stopped.

That’s why I insist that only religion can lead humanity towards non-suffering. Nothing else can lead, because everyone else believes that the suffering is caused by others; only religion says that suffering is caused by you. So religion makes you the master of your destiny. You are the cause of your suffering, hence you can be the cause of your bliss.