Fear of transformation (100-101)

100. THE APPRECIATION OF OBJECTS AND SUBJECTS IS THE SAME FOR AN ENLIGHTENED
AS FOR AN UNENLIGHTENED PERSON.
THE FORMER HAS ONE GREATNESS:
HE REMAINS IN THE SUBJECTIVE MOOD, NOT LOST IN THINGS.

101. BELIEVE OMNISCIENT, OMNIPOTENT, PERVADING.

Many people seem to be interested in meditation, but that interest cannot be very deep because so very few are transformed through it. If the interest is really deep, it becomes a fire by itself. It transforms you. Just through intense interest you start becoming different. A new center of being arises. So many people seem to be interested but nothing new arises in them, no new center is born, no new crystallization is achieved. They remain the same.

That means they are deceiving themselves. The deception is very subtle but it is bound to be there.

If you go on taking medicine, having treatments, and the illness remains the same – rather on the contrary, it goes on increasing – then your medicine, your treatment, is bound to be false. Maybe deep down you don’t want to be transformed. That fear is very real – the fear of transformation. So on the surface you go on thinking that you are deeply interested, but deep down you go on deceiving.

The fear of transformation is just like the fear of death. It is a death, because the old will have to go and the new will come into being. You will be there no more, something totally unknown to you will be born out of you. Unless you are ready to die, your interest in meditation is false, because only those who are ready to die will be reborn. The new cannot become a continuity with the old. The old must be discontinued. The old must go. Only then can the new come into being. The new is not an outgrowth of the old, the new is not continuous with it – the new is totally new. And it comes only when the old dies. There is a gap between the old and the new – that gap gives you the fear. You are afraid. You want to be transformed but simultaneously you want to remain the old. This is the deception. You want to grow, but you want to remain you. Then growth is impossible; then you can only deceive; then you can go on thinking and dreaming that something is happening, but nothing will happen because the basic point has been missed.

So there are many people all over the world who are very interested in meditation, moksha, nirvana, and nothing is happening. There is so much noise about it but nothing real is happening. What is the matter?

Sometimes the mind is so cunning that because you don’t want to be transformed, the mind will create a superficial interest so that you can say to yourself, “You are interest, you are doing whatsoever can be done.” And you remain the same. And if nothing happens, you think that the technique you are using is wrong, the guru you are following is wrong, the scripture, the principle, the method, is wrong. You never think that even with a wrong method transformation is possible if the real interest is there; even with a wrong method you will be transformed. If you are really interested in transformation, you will become different even if following a wrong guru. If your soul and your heart is in your effort, no one can mislead you except yourself. And nothing is a barrier to your progress except your own deceptions.

When I say that even a wrong master, a wrong method, a wrong principle, can lead you to the real, I mean that the real transformation happens when you are intensely involved in it, not through any method. The method is just a device, the method is just a help, the method is secondary – your being involved in it is the fundamental thing. But you go on doing something – not even doing, you go on talking about doing. And words create an illusion: because you think so much about it, you read so much about it, you listen so much about it, that you start feeling you are doing something.

So-called religious persons have developed many deception devices.

I have heard that a motorist, driving along a road, saw the school building on fire. The teacher of the small school of that small village was Mulla Nasruddin. He was sitting under a tree. The motorist called to him, “What are you doing there? The school building is on fire!” Mulla Nasruddin said, “I know about it.” The motorist was much excited. He said, “Then why are you not doing something?”

Mulla Nasruddin said, “Ever since it started I have been praying for rain. I am doing something.”

Prayer is a trick to avoid meditation, and the so-called religious mind has developed many types of prayer. Prayer can also become a meditation – when it is not only a prayer, it is a deep effort, a deep involvement. Prayer can also become meditation, but ordinarily prayer is just an escape. To avoid meditation, people go on praying. To avoid doing anything they pray. Prayer means that God must do something. Someone else must do. Prayer means that we are passive – something must be done to us. Meditation is not prayer in that sense: meditation is something you do to yourself. And when you are transformed, the whole universe behaves differently to you, because the universe is nothing but a response to you, whatsoever you are. If you are silent, the whole universe responds to your silence in thousands and thousands of ways. It reflects you. Your silence is multiplied infinitely.

If you are blissful, the whole universe rejects your bliss. If you are in misery, the same happens.

The mathematics remains the same, the law remains the same: the universe goes on multiplying your misery. Prayer won’t do. Only meditation can help because meditation is something to be done authentically by you, it is a doing on your part.

So the first thing I would like to say to you is be constantly alert that you are not deceiving yourself.

You may be doing something and still deceiving yourself.

I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin once came running into a post office, grasping the postmaster by the lapel, shook him, and said, “I have gone crazy. My wife has disappeared!” The postmaster felt sorry and he said, “Really, she has disappeared? Unfortunately this is a postal department – you have to go to the police department to report this disappearance.” Mulla Nasruddin shook his head negatively and said, “I am not going to be caught again. In the past my wife also disappeared and when I reported it to the police department, they found her. I am not going to be caught again. If you can take the report, take it, otherwise I am going.”

He wants to report to feel good, to feel that he has done whatsoever can be done. But he doesn’t want to report to the police department because he is afraid.

You go on doing things just to feel good, just to feel that you are doing something. But really you are not ready to be transformed. So all that you do just passes as useless activity – not only useless, harmful also, because it is a wastage of time, energy, and opportunity. These techniques of Shiva are only for those who are ready to do. You can ponder over them philosophically – that means nothing. But if you are actually ready to do, then something will start happening to you. They are alive methods, not dead doctrines. Your intellect is not needed; your totality of being is required.

And any method will do. If you are ready to give it a chance, any method will do. You will become a new man.

Methods are devices, I will repeat again. If you are ready, then any method can do. They are just tricks to help you to take the jump, they are just like jumping boards. From any jumping board you can jump into the ocean. The jumping boards are insignificant: what color they are, what wood they are made of is irrelevant. They are simply jumping boards and you can take a jump from them.

All these methods are jumping boards. Whatsoever method takes your fancy, don’t go on thinking about it, do it!

Difficulties will arise when you start doing something – if you don’t do anything there will be no difficulty. Thinking is very easy doing because you are not really traveling, but when you start doing something, difficulties arise. So if you see that difficulties have arisen, you can feel that you are on the right track – something is happening to you. Then old barriers will break, old habits will go, there will be change, there will be disturbance and chaos. All creativity comes out of chaos. You will be created anew only if all that you are becomes chaotic. So these methods will destroy you first, then only will a new being be created. If there are difficulties, feel fortunate – that shows growth. No growth is smooth… and spiritual growth cannot be smooth, that is not its nature. Because spiritual growth means growing upwards, spiritual growth means reaching into the unknown, reaching into the uncharted. Difficulties will be there. But remember that with each difficulty that is passed you are crystalized. You become more solid. You become more real. For the first time you will feel something centering within you, something becoming solid.

As you are now you are just a liquid phenomenon, changing every moment, nothing stable. Really you cannot claim any ‘I’ – you don’t have one. You are many ‘I’s’ just in a flow, a river-like flow. You are a crowd, not an individual yet. But meditation can make you an individual.

This word ‘individual’ is beautiful: it means indivisible. Right now as you are, you are divided. You are only many fragments clinging together anyhow without any center being there, without any master in the house, with only servants. And for a moment any servant can become the master.

Every moment you are different because you are not – and unless you are, the Divine cannot happen to you. To whom can it happen? You are not there. People come to me and they say, “We would like to see God.” I ask them, “Who will see? You are not there. God is always there, but you are not there to see. It is just a passing thought that you want to see God.” The next moment they are not interested; the next moment they have forgotten all about it. A persistent, intense effort and longing is needed. Then any method will do.

Now, we should enter the methods.

The first method:

THE APPRECIATION OF OBJECTS AND SUBJECTS IS THE SAME FOR AN ENLIGHTENED AS FOR AN UNENLIGHTENED PERSON. THE FORMER HAS ONE GREATNESS: HE REMAINS IN THE SUBJECTIVE MOOD, NOT LOST IN THINGS.

There is a very beautiful method. You can start it as you are; no other prerequisite is needed. The method is simple: you are surrounded by persons, things, phenomena – every moment something is around you. Things are there, events are there, persons are there – but because you are not alert, you are not there. Everything is there but you are fast asleep. Things move around you, persons move around you, events move around you, but you are not there. Or, you are asleep.

So whatsoever happens in your surroundings becomes a master, becomes a force over you; you are dragged by it. You are not only impressed, conditioned by it, you are dragged by it.

Anything can catch you, and you will follow it. Somebody passes – you look, the face is beautiful – and you are carried away. The dress is beautiful, the color, the material is beautiful – you are carried away. The car passes – you are carried away. Whatsoever happens around you, catches you. You are not powerful. Everything else is more powerful than you. Anything changes you. Your mood, your being, your mind, depend on other things. Objects influence you.

This sutra says that enlightened persons and unenlightened persons live in the same world. A Buddha and you both live and move in the same world – the world remains the same. The difference is not in the world, the difference happens in the Buddha: he moves in a different way. He moves among the same objects but he moves in a different way. He is his own master. His subjectivity remains aloof and untouched. That is the secret. Nothing can impress him; nothing from the outside can condition him; nothing can overpower him. He remains detached; he remains himself. If he wants to go somewhere, he will go, but he will remain the master. If he wants to pursue a shadow, he will pursue it, but it is his own decision.

This distinction must be understood. By ‘detachment’ I don’t mean a person who has renounced the world – then there is no sense and no meaning in detachment. A detached person is a person who is living in the same world as you – the difference is not in the world. A person who renounces the world is changing the situation, not himself. And you will insist on changing the situation if you cannot change yourself. That is the indication of a weak personality. A strong person, alert and aware, will start to change himself… not the situation in which he is. Because really the situation cannot be changed – even if you can change the situation, there will be other situations. Every moment situations go on changing so every moment the problem will be there.

This is the difference between the religious and the non-religious attitude. The non-religious attitude is to change the situation, the surrounding. It doesn’t believe in you, it believes in situations: when the situation is okay, you will be okay. You are dependent on the situation: if the situation is not okay, you will not be okay. So you are not an independent entity. For communists, Marxists, socialists, and all those who believe in changing the situation, you are not important; really, you don’t exist. Only the situation exists and you are just a mirror which reflects the situation. The religious attitude says that as you are you may be a mirror, but this is not your destiny – you can become something more, someone who is not dependent.

There are three steps of growth. Firstly, the situation is the master, you are just dragged by it. You believe that ‘you are’, but you are not. Secondly, ‘you are’, and the situation cannot drag you, the situation cannot influence you because you have become a will, you are integrated and crystalized.

Thirdly, you start influencing the situation: just by your being there, the situation changes.

The first state is that of the unenlightened; the second state is of the person who is constantly aware but as yet unenlightened – he has to be alert, he has to do something to be alert. The alertness has not become natural yet so he has to fight. If he loses consciousness or alertness for a single moment, he will be in the influence of the thing. So he has to stand on his toes continuously. He is the seeker, the SADHAK, the one who is practising something. The third state is that of the SIDDHA, the enlightened one. He is not trying to be alert, he simply is alert – there is no effort to it. Alertness is just like breathing: it goes on, he does not have to maintain it. When alertness becomes a phenomenon like breathing, natural, SAHAJ, spontaneous, then this type of person, this type of centered being, automatically influences situations. Situations change around him – not that he wishes them to change, but he is powerful.

Power is the thing to be remembered. You are powerless so anything can overpower you. And power comes through alertness, awareness: the more alert, the more powerful; the less alert, the less powerful. Look… while you are asleep even a dream becomes powerful because you are fast asleep, you have lost all consciousness. Even a dream is powerful, and you are so weak that you cannot even doubt it. Even in an absurd dream you cannot be skeptical, you will have to believe it. And while it lasts, it looks real. You may see just absurd things in the dream, but while you are dreaming, you cannot doubt. You cannot say this is not real; you cannot say this is a dream; you cannot say this is impossible. You simply cannot say it because you are so fast asleep. When consciousness is not there even a dream affects you. While awake, you will laugh and you will say, “It was absurd, impossible, this cannot happen. This dream was just illusory.” But you have not noticed that while it was there you were influenced by it, you were totally taken over by it. Why was a dream so powerful? The dream was not powerful – you were powerless. Remember this: when you are powerless even a dream becomes powerful.

While you are awake, a dream cannot influence you, but reality, the so-called reality around, does.

An awakened person, an enlightened person, has become so alert that your reality also cannot influence him. If a woman passes, a beautiful woman, you are suddenly carried away. Desire has arisen, the desire to possess. If you are alert, the woman will pass by, but the desire will not arise – you have not been influenced, you have not been taken over. When this happens for the first time, when things move around you and you are not influenced, you will feel a subtle joy of being. For the first time really you feel that you are; nothing can drag you out of you. If you want to follow, that is another thing. That is your decision. But don’t deceive yourself. You can deceive. You can say, “Yes.

The woman is not powerful, but I want to follow her, I want to possess her.” You can deceive. Many people go on deceiving. But you are deceiving nobody except yourself – then it is futile. Just take a close look: you will know the desire is there. The desire comes first, and then you start rationalizing it.

For an enlightened person, things are there and he is there but there is no bridge between him and the thing. The bridge has broken. He moves alone. He lives alone. He follows himself. Nothing else can possess him. Because of this feeling we have called this attainment MOKSHA – total freedom, MUKTI. He is totally free.

All over the world, man has searched for freedom; you cannot find a man who is not hankering after freedom in his own way. Through many paths man tries to find a state of being where he can be free, and he resents anything that gives him a feeling of bondage. He hates it. Anything that hinders, that makes him imprisoned, he fights. He struggles against it. Hence so many political fights, so many wars, revolutions; hence so many continuous family fights – wife and husband, father and son, all fighting each other. The fight is basic. The fight is for freedom. The husband feels confined, the wife has imprisoned him – now his freedom is cut. And the wife feels the same. They both resent each other, they both fight, they both try to destroy the bondage. The father fights the son because every stage of growth in the son means more freedom for him. And the father feels he is losing something: power, authority. In families, in nations, in civilizations, man is hankering after only one thing – freedom.

But nothing is achieved through political fights, revolutions, wars. Nothing is achieved. Because even if you get freedom, it is superficial – deep down you remain in bondage. So every freedom proves a disillusionment. Man longs so much for wealth, but as far as I understand it, it is not a longing for wealth, it is a longing for freedom. Wealth gives you a feeling of freedom. If you are poor, you are confined, your means are limited – you cannot do this, you cannot do that. You don’t have the money to do it. The more money you have, the more you feel you have freedom, you can do anything you like. But when you have all the money and you can do all that you wish, imagine, dream about, suddenly you feel this freedom is superficial, because inside your being knows well that you are powerless and that anything can attract you. You are impressed, influenced, possessed by things and persons.

This sutra says that you have to come to a state of consciousness where nothing impresses you, you can remain detached. How to do it? Throughout the whole day the opportunity is there to do it. That is why I say this method is good for you to do. Any moment you can become aware that something is possessing you. Then take a deep breath, inhale deeply, exhale deeply, and look at the thing again.

While you are exhaling look at the thing again, but look just as a witness, as a spectator. If you can achieve the witnessing state of mind for even a single moment, suddenly you will feel you are alone, nothing can impress you; at least in that moment nothing can create desire in you. Take a deep breath and exhale it whenever you feel that something is impressing you, influencing you, dragging you away from you, becoming more important than yourself. And in that small gap created by the exhalation look at the thing – a beautiful face, a beautiful body, a beautiful building, or anything. If you feel it is difficult, if just by exhaling you cannot create a gap, then do one thing more: exhale, and stop inhalation for a single moment so the exhalation has thrown all the air out. Stop, don’t inhale.

Then look at the thing. When the air is out, or in, when you have stopped breathing, nothing can influence you. In that moment you are unbridged – the bridge is broken. Breathing is the bridge. Try it. It will be only for a single moment that you will have the feeling of witnessing, but that will give you the taste, that will give you the feeling of what witnessing is. Then you can pursue it. Throughout the whole day, whenever something impresses you and a desire arises, exhale, stop in the interval, and look at the thing. The thing will be there, you will be there, but there will be no bridge. Breathing is the bridge. Suddenly you will feel you are powerful, you are potential. And the more powerful you feel, the more YOU will become. The more things drop, the more their power over you drops, the more crystalized you will feel. Individuality has begun. Now you have a center to refer to, and any moment you can move to the center and the world disappears. Any moment you can take shelter in your own center, and the world is powerless.

This sutra says, THE APPRECIATION OF OBJECTS AND SUBJECTS IS THE SAME FOR AN ENLIGHTENED AS FOR AN UNENLIGHTENED PERSON. THE FORMER HAS ONE GREATNESS: HE REMAINS IN THE SUBJECTIVE MOOD, NOT LOST IN THINGS. He remains in the subjective mood, he remains within himself, he remains centered in consciousness. Remaining in the subjective mood has to be practised. As many opportunities as you can get, try it. And every moment there is an opportunity, every single moment there is an opportunity. Something or other is impressing you, dragging you out, pulling you out, pushing you in.

I am reminded of an old story. A great king, Bharthruhari, renounced the world. He renounced the world because he had lived in it totally and he had come to realize that it was futile. It was not a doctrine to him, it was a lived reality. He had come to the conclusion through his own life. He was a man of strong desire, he had indulged in life as much as possible, then suddenly he realized it was useless, futile. So he left the world, he renounced it, and he went to a forest.

One day he was meditating under a tree. The sun was rising. Suddenly he became aware that just on the road, the small road which passed nearby the tree, lay a very big diamond. As the sun was rising, it was reflecting the rays. Even Bharthruhari had not seen such a big diamond before.

Suddenly, in a moment of unawareness, a desire arose to possess it. The body remained unmoved, but the mind moved. The body was in the posture of meditation, SIDDHASANA, but the meditation was no longer there. Only the dead body was there, the mind had moved – it had gone to the diamond.

Before the king could move, two men came from different directions on their horses and simultaneously they became aware of the diamond lying on the street. They pulled out their swords, each one claiming that he had sene the diamond first. There was no other way to decide so they had to fight. They fought and killed each other. Within moments two dead bodies were lying there next to the diamond. Bharthruhari laughed, closed his eyes, and went into meditation again.

What happened? He again realized the futility. And what happened to these two men? The diamond became more meaningful than their whole life. This is what possession means: they threw away their life just for a stone. When desire is there, you are no more – desire can lead you to suicide.

Really, every desire is leading you to suicide. When you are in the power of a desire, you are not in your senses, you are just mad.

The desire to possess arose in Bharthruhari’s mind also; in a fragment of a moment the desire arose.

And he might have moved to get it but before he could, the other two persons came and fought, and there were two dead bodies lying on the road with the stone there in its own place. Bharthruhari laughed, closed his eyes, and went into his meditation again. For a single moment his subjectivity was lost. A stone, a diamond, the object, became more powerful. But again the subjectivity was regained. Without the diamond the whole world disappeared, and he closed his eyes.

For centuries meditators have been closing their eyes. Why? It is only symbolic that the world has disappeared, that there is nothing to look at, that nothing is worth anything, even to look at.

You will have to remember continuously that whenever desire arises, you have moved out of your subjectivity. This is the world, this movement. Regain, move back, get centered again! You will be able to do it: the capacity is there with everyone. No one ever loses the inner potential, it is always there. You can move. If you can move out, you can move in. If I can go out of my house, why can I not come back within it? The same route is to be traveled; the same legs are to be used. If I can go out, I can come in. Every moment you are moving out, but whenever you move out, remember – and suddenly come back. Be centered. If you feel it difficult in the beginning then take a deep breath, exhale, and stop. In that moment look at the thing which was attracting you. Really, nothing was attracting you, YOU were attracted. That diamond lying there on the road in the lonely forest was not attracting anybody, it was simply lying there being itself. The diamond was not aware that Bharthruhari had been attracted, that someone had moved from his meditation, from his subjectivity, had come back into the world. The diamond was not aware that two persons had fought for it and lost their lives.

So nothing is attracting you – YOU get attracted. Be alert and the bridge will be broken and you will regain balance inside. Go on doing it more and more. The more you do, the better. And a moment will come when you will not need to do it because the inner power will give you such a strength that the attraction of things will be lost. It is your weakness which is attracted. Be more powerful and nothing will attract you. Only then for the first time are you master of your own being.

That will give you real freedom. No political freedom, no economic freedom, no social freedom, can be of much help. Not that they are not desirable, they are good, good in themselves, but they will not give you the things which the innermost core of your being is longing for – the freedom from things, from objects, the freedom to be oneself without any possibility of being possessed by anything or anybody.

The second technique is similar in a way, but it is from a different dimension.

BELIEVE OMNISCIENT, OMNIPOTENT, PERVADING.

This too is based on inner power, inner strength. It is very seed-like. Believe that you are omniscient, all-knowing; believe that you are omnipotent, all-powerful; believe that you are pervading, all- pervading…. How can you believe it? It is impossible. You know you are not all-knowing, you are ignorant. You know you are not all-potent, you are absolutely powerless, helpless. You know you are not all-pervading, you are confined in a small body. So how can you believe it? And if you believe it, knowing well that this is not the case, the belief will be useless. You cannot believe against yourself. You can force a belief, but it will be useless, meaningless. You know it is not so. A belief becomes useful only when you know that it is so.

This has to be understood. A belief becomes powerful if you know that this is the case. True or untrue is not the point. If you know that this is the case, a belief becomes truth. If you know that this is not the case, then even a truth cannot become a belief. Why? Many things have to be understood.

Firstly, whatsoever you are is your belief: you believe in that way, you have been brought up in that way; you have been conditioned in that way, so you believe in that way. And your belief influences you. It becomes a vicious circle. For example, there are races where man is less powerful than woman, because those races believe that a woman is stronger, more powerful, than man. Their belief has become a fact. In those races, man is weaker and woman is stronger. The women do all the work that ordinarily, in other countries, men would do, and men do the work that in other countries women would do. Not only that, their bodies are weak, their structure is weak. They have come to believe that this is so. The belief creates the phenomenon. Belief is creative.

Why does this happen? Because mind is more powerful than matter. If mind really believes something, matter has to follow. Matter cannot do anything against the mind because matter is dead.

Even impossibilities happen. Jesus says, “Faith can move mountains.” Faith CAN move mountains.

If it cannot, it only means that you don’t have faith – not that faith cannot move mountains. Your faith cannot move them because you don’t have the faith.

Now much research is going on on this phenomenon of belief, and science is coming to many unbelievable conclusions. Religion always believed in them but science is finally coming to the same conclusions. It has to because many phenomena are being investigated for the first time.

For example, you may have heard about placebo medicines. There are hundreds and hundreds of ‘pathies’ in the world – allopathy, ayurvedic, unani, homeopathy, naturopathy – hundreds, and they all claim that they can cure. And they do cure. Their claims are not false. This is the rare thing – their diagnosis is different, their treatment is different. There is one illness and there are a hundred and one diagnoses, and a hundred and one treatments, and every treatment helps. So the question is bound to be raised whether it is really the treatment that helps or the belief of the patient. This is possible.

In many ways, in many countries, in many universities, in many hospitals, they are working. Just water or something non-medicinal is given but the patient believes that a medicine has been given.

And not only the patient, the doctor also believes it, because he also is not aware. If the doctor is aware whether it is medicine or not, it will have an effect, because the doctor gives a belief to the patient more that a medicine. So when you pay more and you have a greater doctor, you get well better and sooner. It is a question of belief. If the doctor gives you a four-penny medicine, just four pennies, you know well that nothing is going to happen. How can such a big patient with such a disease, such a great phenomenon, be cured by four pennies? Impossible! The belief cannot be created. Every doctor has to create around him an aura of belief. It helps. So if the doctor knows that it is just water that he is giving, he will not give his belief with faith. His face will show, his hands will show, his whole attitude and behavior will show that he is giving just water, and the unconscious of the patient will be affected. The doctor must believe. The more he believes the better, because his belief is infectious. The patient looks at the doctor. If the doctor feels confident – “Don’t worry, this is a new treatment, a new medicine and this is going to help you. It is a hundred per cent certain.

There is no doubt about it” – if the whole personality of the doctor gives the impression of a hundred per cent hope, then already, even before taking the medicine, the patient is being cured. The cure has already started. Now they say that whatsoever you use, thirty per cent of the patients will be cured almost immediately; whatsoever you use – allopathy, naturopathy, homeopathy, or any ‘pathy’ – whatsoever you do, thirty per cent of the patients will be cured immediately.

Those thirty per cent are believers. That’s the ratio. If I look at you, into you, thirty per cent are potential, are ones who can immediately be transformed. Once they get the belief, it will immediately start working. One third of humanity can be immediately transformed, changed, to new orders of being without any difficulty. The question is only how to create the belief in them. Once the belief is there, nothing can debar them. You may be one of those fortunate ones, one of the thirty per cent. But a great misfortune has happened to humanity, and that is that those thirty per cent are condemned. Society, education, civilization, all condemn them. They are thought to be stupid people. No, they are more potential people. They have a great power but they are condemned, and impotent intellectual people are praised – because they can praise with language, words, reason, they are praised. Really, they are simply impotent. They cannot do anything in the real world of inner being, they can just go on with their mind. But they possess the universities, they possess the news media, they are the masters in a way. And they are artists in condemnation. They can condemn anything. And this thirty per cent of potential humanity, those who can believe and can get transformed, they are not so articulate – they cannot be. They cannot reason, they cannot argue, that’s why they can believe. But because they cannot argue their case they have themselves become self-condemning. They think something is wrong. If you can believe, you start feeling that something is wrong with you; if you can doubt, you think something is great with you. But doubt is not a force. Through doubt no one ever got to the innermost being, to the ultimate ecstasy, no one, ever.

If you can believe, then this sutra will be helpful. BELIEVE OMNISCIENT, OMNIPOTENT, PERVADING. You are that already so just by believing it, all that is hiding you, all that is covering you, will fall down immediately. But even for those thirty per cent it will be difficult because they are also conditioned to believe in something which is not the case. They are also conditioned to doubt; they are also trained to be skeptical; and they know their limitations, so how can they believe? Or, if they believe, people will think they are mad. If you say that you believe that inside you is the all-pervading, the omnipotent, the Divine, the all-powerful, then people will look at you and think you have gone crazy. How can you believe such things unless you are mad?

But try something. Start from the very beginning. Get a little feeling of this phenomenon, then belief will follow. If you want to use this technique, do this. Close your eyes and just feel that you have no body, feel as if the body has disappeared, melted away. Then you can feel your all-pervadingness.

With the body it is difficult. That’s why many traditions go on teaching that you are not the body because with the body, limitation comes in. It is not difficult to feel that you are not the body, because you are not the body. It is just a conditioning, it is just a thought that has been forced upon your mind. Your mind has been impregnated with the thought that you are the body.

There are phenomena which demonstrate this. In Ceylon, Buddhist monks walk on fire. They do in India also, but the Ceylonese phenomenon is very rare – they walk for hours and they are not burned.

It happened once, just a few years ago, that a Christian missionary went to see the fire-walk. They do it on the night when Buddha became enlightened, a full moon night – because they say that on that day it was revealed to the world that the body is nothing, matter is nothing; that the inner being is all-pervading and the fire cannot burn it. But to do this for one year the monks who walk on the fire purify their bodies, through PRANAYAMA, breathing processes, and fasting. They meditate to purify their minds, empty their minds. For one year continuously they prepare. They live in isolated cells just feeling that they are not in their bodies. For one year continuously a group of fifty or sixty monks goes on thinking that they are not their bodies. A year is a long time. Thinking every moment only one thing – that they are not their bodies – continuously hammering that the body is illusory, they come to believe it. Then too they are not forced to walk on the fire. They are brought to the fire and then whosoever thinks that he will not be burned, jumps into it. A few remain doubting, hesitating – they are not allowed to jump because this is not a question of fire burning or not, this is a question of their doubt. If they hesitate a little they are stopped. So sixty are prepared and sometimes twenty, sometimes thirty people jump into the fire and they dance in it for hours together without getting burned.

A missionary came to see it in nineteen-fifty. He was very surprised but he thought that if belief in Buddha could do this miracle, then why not belief in Jesus? So he thought for a while, hesitated a little, but then, with the idea that if Buddha could help, Jesus would also help, he jumped. He got burned, badly burned; he had to be hospitalized for six months. And he couldn’t understand the phenomenon. It was not a question of Jesus or Buddha, it was not a question of belief in someone, it was a question of belief. And that belief has to be hammered into the mind. Unless it reaches to the very core of your being, it will not start working.

That Christian missionary went back to England to study about hypnosis, mesmerism, and allied phenomena, and what happens during fire-walking. Then they invited two monks to Oxford University to give a demonstration. The monks went. They walked on fire. The experiment was tried many times. Then the two monks saw that one professor was looking at them, and he was looking so deeply and he was so involved that his eyes, his face, were ecstatic. The two monks went to the professor and said to him, “You can also come with us.” Immediately he ran with them, jumped into the fire, and nothing happened. he was not burned. The Christian missionary was also present, and he knew well that this professor was a professor of logic, a man who is professionally doubtful, whose profession is based on doubt. So he said to the man, “What! You have done a miracle. I couldn’t do it, and I am a believer.” The professor said, “In that moment I was a believer.

The phenomenon was so real, so fantastically real, it gripped me. It was so clear that body is nothing and mind is everything and I felt so ecstatically in tune with the two monks that when they invited me, there was not a single hesitation. It was simple to walk, it was just as if there was no fire.”

There was no hesitation, no doubt – that is the key.

So first try this experiment. Sit with closed eyes for a few days just thinking that you are not your body – not only thinking but feeling that you are not your body. And if you sit with closed eyes a distance is created. Your body goes on moving away and away. You go on moving inwards. A great distance is created. Soon you can feel that you are not the body. If you feel you are not the body, then you can believe you are all-pervading, omnipotent, omniscient, all-knowing, all-powerful. This all-powerfulness or this all-knowingness is not concerned with so-called knowledge: it is a feeling, an explosion of feeling – that you KNOW. This has to be understood, particularly in the West, because whenever you say that you know, they will say, “What? What do you know?” Knowledge must be objective. You must know something. And if it is a question of knowing something you cannot be all- pervading, no one can be, because there are infinite facts to be known. No one can be all-knowing in that sense.

That’s why in the West they laugh when Jains claim that Mahavir was SARVAGYA, all-knowing. They laugh, because if Mahavir was all-knowing, then he must have known all that science is discovering now and even that which science will discover in future. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. He says many things which are obviously contradictory to science, which cannot be true, which are not factual. His knowledge, if it is all-pervading, should never be erroneous. But there are errors.

Christians believe that Jesus was all-knowing. But the modern mind will laugh because he was not all-knowing – all-knowing in the sense of knowing all about the facts of the world. He didn’t know that the earth was circular, that the earth was a globe – he didn’t know. He knew that the earth was flat ground. He didn’t know that the earth had been in existence for millions and millions of years, he believed that God created it just four thousand years before him. As far as facts, objective facts are concerned, he was not all-knowing.

But this word ‘all-knowing’ is totally different. When the Eastern sages say ‘all-knowing’, they don’t mean knowing all about the facts – they mean all-conscious, all-aware, fully inside, fully conscious, enlightened. They are not concerned with knowing something, they are concerned only with the pure phenomenon of knowing – not knowledge, but the very quality of knowing. When we say that Buddha knows we don’t mean that he knows what Einstein knows. He doesn’t know that. He is a knower. He knows his own being and that being is all-pervading. That feeling of isness is all- pervading. And in that knowing nothing remains to be known, that is the point. Now there is no curiosity to know anything. All questions have dropped. Not that all answers have been achieved, all questions have dropped. Now there is no question to be asked. All curiosity has gone. There is no problem to be solved. This inner quietness, this inner silence, filled with inner light, is infinite knowing. This is what is meant by omniscient. It is subjective awakening.

This you can do. But it will not happen if you go on adding more knowledge to your mind. You can go on adding knowledge for lives together – you will know something but you will never know all.

The all is infinite; it cannot be known in that way. Science will always remain incomplete, it can never be complete – that’s impossible. It is inconceivable that it can be complete. Really, the more science knows, the more it comes to know that more has to be known.

This all-knowingness is an inner quality of awakening. Meditate, and drop your thoughts. When you don’t have any thoughts you will feel what this omniscience is, what this all-knowledge is. When there is no thought, consciousness becomes pure, purified; in that purified consciousness you don’t have any problem. All questions have dropped. You know yourself, your being, and when you know your being, you have known all, because your being is the center of everybody’s being. Really your being is everybody’s being. Your center is the center of the universe. In this sense, Upanishads have declared, “AHAM BRAHMASMI – I am the Brahman, I am the Absolute.” Once you know this little phenomenon of your being you have known the infinite. You are just like a drop of the ocean: if even one drop is known, all the secrets of the ocean become revealed.

BELIEVE OMNISCIENT, OMNIPOTENT, PERVADING. But this will come through faith, this you cannot argue with yourself. You cannot convince yourself with some argument, you will have to dig deep within you for such feelings, for sources of such feelings.

This word ‘believe’ is very significant. It doesn’t mean that you have a conviction, because conviction means a rational thing: you are convinced, you have argued it over, you have proofs for it. Belief means you don’t have any doubts about it, not that you have proofs. Conviction means you have proofs. You can prove, you can argue. You can say, “This is so.” You can reason it out. Belief means you don’t have any doubts. You cannot argue it, you cannot rationalize, you will be defeated if you are asked. But you have an inner grounding – you feel it is so. It is a feeling, not a reasoning.

But remember that such techniques can work only if you work with your feeling, not with your reasoning. So it has happened many times that very ignorant people, uneducated, uncultured, reach heights of human consciousness and those who are very cultured, educated, reasonable, rational, miss.

Jesus was just a carpenter. Friedrich Nietzsche writes somewhere that in the whole New Testament there was only one person really worth something, who was cultured, educated, philosophically knowledgeable, wise – that man was Pilate, the Roman governor who ordered Jesus to be crucified.

Really he was the most cultured man, the governor-general, the viceroy. And he knew what philosophy was: at the last moment, when Jesus was going to be crucified, he asked, “What is truth?” It was a very philosophical question. Jesus remained silent – not because this puzzle was not worth answering, Pilate was the only person who could have understood deep philosophy – Jesus remained silent because he could speak only to those who could feel. Thinking was not of any use. He was asking a philosophical question. It would have been good if he had asked in a university, in an academy, but asking Jesus a philosophical question was meaningless. He remained silent because it was futile to answer. No communication was possible. But Nietzsche, himself a man of reason, condemns Jesus. He said he was uneducated, uncultured, unphilosophical – and he couldn’t answer, that’s why he remained silent. Pilate asked a beautiful question. If he had asked it of Nietzsche, Nietzsche would have talked about it for years together. “What is truth?” This one question is enough to talk about and discuss for years. All of philosophy is just this business: “What is truth?” One question and all the philosophers are involved in it.

Nietzsche’s criticism is really a criticism by reason, a condemnation by reason. Reason has always condemned the dimension of feeling because feeling is so vague, so mysterious. It is there, and you cannot say anything about it. Either you have got it or you haven’t got it; either it is there or it is not there. You cannot do anything about it and you cannot discuss it. You also have many beliefs but those beliefs are just convictions; they are not beliefs because you have doubts about them. You have crushed those doubts by your arguments, but they are there. You are sitting on top of them, but they are there. You go on fighting with them, but they are not dead. They cannot be. That’s why your life may be that of a Hindu, or a Mohammedan, or a Christian, or a Jain, but it is only because of conviction. Faith is not there.

I will tell you an anecdote. Jesus told his disciples to go by boat to the other bank of a lake where they were staying. And he said, “I will be coming later.” They went. When they were just in the middle of the lake a great wind came and there was much turmoil and they were afraid. The boat was rocking and they started crying and screaming. They started crying, “Jesus, save us!” The bank where Jesus was was very far away, but Jesus came. It is said that he came running on the water.

And the first thing he said to his disciples was, “Men of little faith, why are you crying? Don’t you believe?” They were scared. Jesus said, “If you believe, then come out of the boat and walk towards me.” He was standing on the water. They saw with their own eyes that he was standing on the water, but still it was difficult to believe. They must have thought in their minds that it was a trick, or it was maybe just an illusion, or this was not Jesus. Maybe it was just the Devil, luring them or something.

So they started looking at each other, “Who will walk?” Then one disciple got out of the boat and walked. Really, he could walk. He couldn’t believe his own eyes. He was walking on the water.

When he came close to Jesus he said, “How? How is it happening?” Immediately the whole miracle disappeared. The “How?” – and he was under water. Jesus pulled him out and said, “Man of little faith, why do you ask how?”

But reason asks “Why?” and “How?” Reason asks, reason questions. Faith is the dropping of all questions. If you can drop all questions and believe, then this technique can work miracles for you.

The greater the sensitivity, the greater the detachment

The first question:

Question 1:

WITH DEEPENING MEDITATION, ONE BECOMES MORE AND MORE SENSITIVE TO OBJECTS, EVENTS AND PERSONS.BUT DUE TO THIS HEIGHTENED SENSITIVITY ONE FEELS A SORT OF DEEP INTIMACY WITH EVERYTHING,
AND THIS USUALLY BECOMES A CAUSE OF SUBTLE ATTACHMENTS.
HOW TO BE SENSITIVE AND YET DETACHED?

How to be sensitive and yet detached? These two things are not contraries, they are not opposites.

If you are more sensitive, you will be detached; or, if you are detached, you will become more and more sensitive. Sensitivity is not attachment, sensitivity is awareness. Only an aware person can be sensitive. If you are not aware you will be insensitive. When you are unconscious you are totally insensitive – the more consciousness, the more sensitivity. A Buddha is totally sensitive, he has optimum sensitivity, because he will feel and he will be aware to his total capacity. But when you are sensitive and aware you will not be attached. You will be detached, because the very phenomenon of awareness breaks the bridge, destroys the bridge, between you and things, between you and persons, between you and the world. Unconsciousness, unawareness, is the cause of attachment.

If you are alert, the bridge suddenly disappears. When you are alert there is nothing to relate you to the world. The world is there, you are there, but between the two the bridge has disappeared. The bridge is made of your unconsciousness. So don’t think and feel that you become attached because you are more sensitive. No. If you are more sensitive you will not be attached. Attachment is a very gross quality, it is not subtle.

For attachment you need not be aware and alert. There is no need. Even animals can be attached very easily, rather, more easily. A dog is more attached to his master than any man can be. The dog is completely unconscious so attachment happens. That is why in the countries where human relationship has become poor, such as in the West, man goes on seeking relationship with animals, with dogs, with other animals, because the human relationship is no longer there. Human society is disappearing and every man feels isolated, alienated, alone. The crowd is there but you are not related to it. You are alone in the crowd and this aloneness scares. One becomes afraid and fearful.

When you are related, attached to someone, and someone is attached to you, you feel you are not alone in this world, in this strange world. Someone is with you. That feeling of belonging gives you a sort of security. When human relationship becomes impossible then men and women try to make relationships with animals. In the West they are very deeply related to dogs and other animals, but here in the East, although you may be worshipping cows you are not related to them. You may go on saying that you worship the cow as a divine animal, but your cruelty has no end.

In the East you are so cruel with your animals that the West cannot even conceive of how you can go on thinking that you are non-violent. All over the world, particularly in the West, there are many societies to protect animals from the cruelty of men. You cannot beat a dog in the West. If you beat it, it will be a criminal act and you will be punished for it. What is happening really, is that human relationship is dissolving – but man cannot live alone. He must have a relationship, a belonging, a feeling that someone is with him. Animals can be very good friends because they get so attached; no one, no man, can get that attached.

For attachment, awareness is not necessary; rather, awareness is the barrier. The more aware you become the less you will be attached, because the need for attachment disappears. Why do you want to be attached to someone? Because alone you feel you are not enough. You lack something.

Something is incomplete in you. You are not a whole. You need someone to complete you. Hence, attachment. If you are aware, you are complete, you are a whole; the circle is now complete, nothing is lacking in you – you don’t need anyone. You, alone, feel a total independence, a feeling of wholeness.

That doesn’t mean that you will not love persons; rather, on the contrary, only you can love. A person who is dependent on you cannot love you: he will hate you. A person who needs you cannot love you. He will hate you because you become the bondage. He feels that without you he cannot live, without you he cannot be happy, so you are the cause of both his happiness and unhappiness. He cannot afford to lose you. This will give a feeling of imprisonment: he is imprisoned by you and he will resent it, he will fight against it. Persons hate and love together, but this love cannot be very deep. Only a person who is aware can love, because he doesn’t need you. But then love has a totally different dimension: it is not attachment, it is not dependence. He is not dependent on you and he will not make you dependent on him; he will remain a freedom and he will allow you to remain a freedom. You will be two free agents, two total, whole beings, meeting. That meeting will be a festivity, a celebration – not a dependence. That meeting will be a fun, a play.

That is why we have called Krishna’s life KRISHNA-LEELA, the play of Krishna. He loves so many persons but there is no attachment. The same is not true on the part of the GOPIS and the GOPALS, the friends and the girl friends of Krishna. The same is not true. They have become attached, so when Krishna moves from Brindavan to Dwaraka, they weep and cry and suffer. Their anguish is great because they think that Krishna has forgotten them. He has not forgotten, but there is no pain because there was no dependence; he is as whole and happy in Dwaraka as he was in Brindavan and his love is flowing as much in Dwaraka as it was in Brindavan. The objects of love have changed but the source of love remains the same. So whosoever comes near him receives the gift. And this gift is unconditional: nothing is required as a return, nothing is asked as a return.

When love comes through an aware consciousness it is just a pure gift with no condition, and the person who is giving it is happy because he is giving it. The very act of giving is his bliss, his ecstasy.

So remember that if you feel that through meditation you have become more sensitive, then automatically you will become less attached, more detached. Because you will be more grounded in yourself, you will be more centered in yourself, you will not use somebody else as your center.

What does attachment mean? Attachment means that you are using someone else as your center of being, Majanu is attached to Laila: he says he cannot live without Laila. That means the center of being has been transferred. If you say that you cannot live without this or that, then your soul is not within you. Then you are not existing as an independent unit, your center has moved somewhere else.

This movement of the center from yourself to something else, to the other, is attachment. If you are sensitive, you will feel the other, but the other will not become the center of your life. You will remain the center and out of this centering the other will receive many gifts from you. But they will be gifts, they will not be bargains. You will simply give because you have too much, you are an overflowing.

And you will be thankful that the other has received it. That will be enough and that will be the end.

That is why I go on saying that the mind is a great deceiver. You think that you are meditating and that that is why you have become sensitive. Then the question of why you get attached arises. If you get attached, that is a clear symptom that the sensitivity is not because of awareness. Really, it is not sensitivity at all. It may be sentimentalism: that is a totally different thing. You can be sentimental:

you can cry and weep over small things, you can be touched, and a storm can be created very easily within you – but that is sentimentalism, not sensitivity.

Let me tell you a story. Buddha was staying in a village. A woman came to him, weeping and crying and screaming. Her child, her only child, had suddenly died. Because Buddha was in the village, people said, “Don’t weep. Go to this man. People say he is infinite compassion. If he wills it, the child can revive. So don’t weep. Go to this Buddha.” The woman came with the dead child, crying, weeping, and the whole village followed her – the whole village was affected. Buddha’s disciples were also affected; they started praying in their minds that Buddha would have compassion. He must bless the child so that he will be revived, resurrected.

Many disciples of Buddha started weeping. The scene was so touching, deeply moving. Everybody was still. Buddha remained silent. He looked at the dead child, then he looked at the weeping, crying mother and he said to the mother, “Don’t weep, just do one thing and your child will be alive again. Leave this dead child here, go back to the town, go to every house and ask every family if someone has ever died in their family, in their house. And if you can find a house where no one has ever died, then from them beg something to be eaten, some bread, some rice, or anything – but from the house where no one has ever died. And that bread or that rice will revive the child immediately.

You go. Don’t waste time.”

The woman became happy. She felt that now the miracle was going to happen. She touched Buddha’s feet and ran to the village which was not a very big one, very few cottages, a few families.

She moved from one family to another, asking. But every family said, “This is impossible. There is not a single house – not only in this village but all over the earth – there is not a single house where no one has ever died, where people have not suffered death and the misery and the pain and the anguish that comes out of it.”

By and by the woman realized that Buddha had been playing a trick. This was impossible. But still the hope was there. She went on asking until she had gone around the whole village. Her tears dried, her hope died, but suddenly she felt a new tranquility, a serenity, coming to her. Now she realized that whosoever is born will have to die. It is only a question of years. Someone will die sooner, someone later, but death is inevitable. She came back and touched Buddha’s feet again and said to him, “As people say, you really do have a deep compassion for people.” No one could understand what had happened. Buddha initiated her into SANNYAS, she became a BHIKKHUNI, a SANNYASIN. She was initiated.

Anand asked Buddha, “You could have revived the boy. He was such a beautiful child and the mother was in such anguish.” But Buddha said, “Even if the child was resurrected, he would have had to die. Death is inevitable.” Anand said, “But you don’t seem to be very sensitive to people, to their misery and anguish.” Buddha replied, “I am sensitive; you are sentimental. Just because you start weeping, do you think you are sensitive? You are childish. You don’t understand life. You are not aware of the phenomenon.”

This is the difference between Christianity and Buddhism. Christ was reported to have done many miracles of reviving people. When Lazarus was dead, Jesus touched him and he came back to life. We in the East cannot conceive of Buddha touching a dead man and bringing him back to life. To ordinary persons, to the ordinary mind, Jesus would look more loving and compassionate than Buddha. But I say to you that Buddha is more sensitive, more compassionate, because even if Lazarus was revived, it made no difference. He still had to die. Finally Lazarus had to die. So this miracle was of no use, of no ultimate value. One cannot conceive of Buddha doing such a thing.

Jesus had to because he was bringing something new, a new message to Israel. And the message was so deep that people would not understand it so he had to create miracles around it – because people can understand miracles but they cannot understand the deep message, the esoteric message. They can understand miracles, so through miracles they might become open and able to be receptive to the message. Jesus was carrying a Buddhist message to a land which was not Buddhist; an Eastern message to a country which had no tradition of enlightenment, of many Buddhas.

We can conceive that Buddha was more sensitive than his disciples who were weeping and crying.

They were sentimental.

Don’t misunderstand your sentimentality for sensitivity. Sentimentality is ordinary; sensitivity is extraordinary. It happens through effort. It is an achievement. You have to earn it. Sentimentality is not to be earned; you are born with it. It is an animal inheritance which you already have in the cells of your body and your mind. Sensitivity is a possibility. You don’t have it already. You can create it, you can work for it – then it will happen to you. And whenever it happens, you will be detached.

Buddha was totally detached. The dead child was there but he didn’t seem to be affected at all. The woman, the mother, was miserable and he was playing a trick on her. This man seems to be cruel and this playing of a trick seems to be too much for a mother whose child has died. He gave her a riddle, and he knew well that she would come back empty-handed. But I say again that he has real compassion because he was helping this woman to grow, to be mature. Unless you can understand death you are not mature; and unless you can accept death, you don’t have a center within your being. When you accept death as a reality, you have transcended it.

Buddha used the situation. He was less concerned with the dead child and more concerned with the alive mother because he knew that the dead child would come back to life again – there was no need for the miracle. But if the child was revived the mother might have lost an opportunity. For lives together she might not again have a meeting with a Buddha. So in the East only third-rate SADDHUS have been doing miracles; the first-rate have never done any – they work on a higher level. Buddha is also doing a miracle but the miracle is being done on a very high level. The mother is being transformed.

But it is difficult to understand because our minds are gross and we only understand sentimentality, we cannot understand sensitivity. Sensitivity means an alertness which feels everything that happens around. And you can feel only when you are not attached. Remember this: if you are attached you are no longer there to feel, you have moved out of you. So if you want to know the truth about someone don’t ask his friends. They are attached. And don’t ask his enemies. They are also attached, in the reverse order. Ask someone who is neutral, neither a friend nor an enemy.

Only he can say the truth.

Friends cannot be believed, enemies cannot be believed; but we believe either the friends or the enemies. Both are bound to be wrong because they don’t have a neutral witnessing, they don’t have a detached view. They cannot stand aloof and look because they have an investment in the person.

Friends have an investment and enemies have an investment. They see according to particular viewpoints, and with those viewpoints they are attached. The moment you feel you are attached, you have taken a viewpoint. The totality is lost; only a fragmentary thing is in your hands. And fragments are always lies because only the whole is true.

Meditate, become more sensitive, and take it as a criterion that you will go on becoming more and more detached. If you feel that attachment is growing, then you are erring somewhere in your meditation. These are the criteria. And to me, attachment cannot be destroyed and detachment cannot be practised. You can only practise meditation – and detachment will follow as a consequence, as a by-product. If meditation really flowers within you, you will have a feeling of detachment. Then you can move anywhere and you will remain untouched, unafraid. Then when you leave your body, you will leave it unscratched. Your consciousness will be absolutely pure, nothing foreign has entered into it. When you are attached, impurities enter into you. This is the basic impurity: that you are losing your center and somebody else or something else is becoming your center of being.

The second question:

Question 2:

IF FAITH CAN MOVE THE MOUNTAINS, WHY CAN YOU NOT HEAL YOUR OWN BODY?

I don’t have any body.

This feeling that you have a body is absolutely wrong. The body belongs to the universe; you don’t have it, it is not yours. So if the body is ill or if the body is healthy the universe will take care of it.

And a person who is in meditation should remain a witness, whether the body is healthy or ill.

The desire to be healthy is part of ignorance. The desire not to be ill is also part of ignorance. And this is not a new question – this is one of the oldest questions. It has been asked of Buddha; it has been asked of Mahavir. Ever since there have been enlightened persons, the unenlightened have always asked this question.

Look… Jesus said faith can move mountains, but he died on the cross. He couldn’t move the cross.

You or someone like you must have been present there waiting. The disciples were waiting because they knew Jesus, and he had been saying again and again that faith could move mountains. So they were waiting for some miracle to happen – and Jesus simply died on the cross. But this was the miracle: he could be a witness to his own death. And the moment of witnessing one’s own death is the greatest moment of being alive.

Buddha died of food poisoning. He suffered for six months continuously. And there were many disciples who were waiting for him to do a miracle. But he suffered silently and died silently. He accepted death. There were disciples there who were trying to cure him, many medicines were given to him.

A great physician of those days, Jeevak, was Buddha’s personal physician. He used to move with him wherever he went. Many times people must have asked, “Why does this Jeevak go with you?” But it was Jeevak’s own attachment. Jeevak was moving with Buddha because of his own attachment, and the disciples who were trying to help Buddha’s body remain alive longer in this world, even if only for a few days more, were also attached.

For Buddha himself, illness and health were the same. That doesn’t mean that illness will not give pain. It will! Pain is a physical phenomenon, it will happen. But it will not disturb the inner consciousness. The inner consciousness will remain undisturbed, it will remain as balanced as ever. The body will suffer, but the inner being will remain just a witness of the whole suffering.

There will be no identification – and this I call the miracle. This is possible through faith. And no mountain is bigger than identification – remember. The Himalayas are nothing; your identification with your body is a greater mountain. The Himalayas may be moved or not moved through faith, that is irrelevant, but your identification can be destroyed.

But we cannot conceive of anything which we do not know, we can think only according to our minds.

We think according to where we are; the pattern remains the same.

Sometimes my body is ill, and people come to me and they say, “Why are you ill? You should not be ill; an enlightened person should not be ill.” But who told you that it is so? I have never heard about any enlightened person who was not ill. Illness belongs to the body. It has no concern with your consciousness or whether you are enlightened or not.

And sometimes it happens that enlightened persons are more ill than unenlightened ones. There are reasons…. Now that they don’t belong to the body, they don’t co-operate with the body; deep down they have broken themselves from the body. So the body remains but the attachment and the bridge is broken.

Many illnesses happen because of the separation that has happened. They are in the body but their co-operation is no longer there. That is why we say an enlightened person will never be born again – because now he cannot make any bridge with any body again. The bridge is broken. While he is in the body, then too, really, he is dead.

Buddha attained enlightenment when he was near about forty. He died when he was eighty so he lived forty years more. On the day he was dying, Anand started crying and said, “What will happen to us? Without you we will fall into darkness. You are dying and we have not yet become enlightened.

Our own light is not yet lit and you are dying. Do not leave us!”

Buddha is reported to have said, “What? What are you saying, Anand? I died forty years before.

This existence was just a phantom existence, a shadow existence. It was running along somehow, but the force was not there. It was just a momentum from the past.”

If you are pedalling a bicycle, and then you stop and there is no pedalling, you are not giving any co-operation to the cycle, it will go on moving for a little whole just because of the momentum, the energy that you gave it in the past.

The moment someone becomes enlightened, the co-operation is broken. Now the body will take its own course. It has a momentum. From many lives in the past, momentum has been given to it. It has a life span of its own which will be completed, but now, because the inner force is no longer with it, the body is prone to be more ill than ordinarily. Ramakrishna died of cancer; Raman died of cancer. To the disciples it was a great shock, but because of their ignorance they could not understand.

One thing more has to be understood. When a person becomes enlightened, this is going to be his last life. So all the past karmas and the whole continuum has to be fulfilled in this life. The suffering – if he has anything to suffer – will become intense. For you there is no hurry, your suffering will be spread out over many lives. But for a Raman this is the last. All that is there from the past has to be completed. There will be an intensity of everything, of all karmas. This life will become a condensed life.

Sometimes it is possible – this is difficult to understand – to suffer in a single moment the sufferings of many lives. In a single moment, the intensity becomes much because time can be condensed or spread out.

You know already that sometimes when you sleep you see a dream, and when you are awake again you know that you have been asleep for only a few seconds. But you have seen such a long dream.

It is possible that even a whole life can be seen in a single dream.

What has happened? In such a small period of time how could you see such a long dream? There is not a single layer of time as we ordinarily understand – there are many layers of time. Dream time has its own existence. Even while awake time goes on changing. It may not change according to the clock because a clock is a mechanical thing, but psychological time goes on changing.

When you are happy, the time flows fast. When you are unhappy, the time slows down. A single night can be eternity if you are in suffering, and a whole life can become a single moment if you are happy and blissful.

When a person becomes enlightened, everything has to be closed: this is a closing time. Many millions of lives have to be closed and all the accounts have to be cleared, because there will be no chance any more. After his enlightenment and enlightened person lives in a different time altogether and whatsoever happens to him is qualitatively different. But he remains a witness.

Mahavir died of stomach pain, something like an ulcer – for many years he suffered. His disciples must have been in difficulty because they have created a story around it. They could not understand why Mahavir should suffer, so they have created a story which shows something about the disciples, not about Mahavir.

They say that a person who had a very evil spirit, Goshalak, was the cause of Mahavir’s suffering.

He threw his evil force on Mahavir and Mahavir absorbed it only because of his compassion – and that is why he suffered. This shows nothing about Mahavir but something about the difficulty of the disciples. They cannot conceive of Mahavir suffering so they had to find a cause somewhere else.

One day I was suffering from a cold – it is my constant companion. So somebody came and he said, “You must have taken somebody else’s cold.” That doesn’t show anything about me, it shows something about him. It is difficult for him to conceive of me suffering. So he said, “You must have somebody else’s cold.” I tried to convince him, but it is impossible to convince disciples. The more you try to convince them, the more they believe that they are right. In the end he said to me, “Whatsoever you say I am not going to listen. I know! You have taken somebody else’s illness.”

What to do? The body’s health and illness is its own affair. If you want to do something about it, you are still attached to it. It will take its own course; you need not be much worried about it.

I am only a witness. The body is born, the body will die; only the witnessing will be there. It will remain forever. Only witnessing is something absolutely eternal – everything else goes on changing, everything else is a flux.

The third question:

Question 3:

LAST NIGHT YOU EXPLAINED IN DETAIL ABOUT HOW SEEKERS DECEIVE THEMSELVES
BY NOT MAKING EARNEST AND SINCERE EFFORTS TOWARD MEDITATION.BUT WITH MANY OF THE SEEKERS WHO EARNESTLY ASK YOU FOR MEDITATION TECHNIQUES,
YOU SIMPLY SAY TO THEM TO LEAVE EVERYTHING TO YOU
AND THAT YOU WILL LOOK AFTER THEIR SPIRITUAL PROGRESS.BUT MANY SEEKERS FEEL DISSATISFACTION ABOUT THEIR SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION THAT WAY.
IN THIS CASE, PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW THESE SEEKERS ARE DECEIVING THEMSELVES.

Firstly, when they ask for a technique, I give them a technique. This is a technique: LEAVE EVERYTHING TO ME. This is one of the most powerful techniques possible. And don’t think that it is easy; it is very difficult, sometimes impossible. It is difficult to leave everything to somebody, but if you can, in that very surrender your ego has disappeared; in that very surrender, your past has disappeared; in that very surrender a new point is born – you are different. Up to now you were living with your own ego; from now onwards you will be living without the ego, you will be following a path of surrender.

So don’t think that this is not a technique! It is a technique – one of the very basic techniques.

And I don’t give it to any and everybody. I give it only to particular persons who are very egoistic, because for them any technique will create trouble. Their ego will exploit it. They will become more egoistic through it. They can practise anything else except this, but by that practise their ego is not going to be destroyed; rather, it will be more fulfilled. They will become great ‘meditators’. They can renounce the world, but their ego will be strengthened whatsoever they do. Whenever I feel that this seeker has such a subtle ego that any method will be poisonous to him, then only do I say, “Leave everything to me.” Not that this is going to be the end, but this is going to be the beginning. And this is going to be the right beginning for all those who are ego-centered. If they can leave everything to me, then I will start giving them other techniques – but only then. Then other techniques will not prove poisonous. Once the ego is not there those techniques will transform them. And if their surrender is so total that nothing is left to be transformed, then there will be no need for any other technique. This too is possible, and this is possible only for those who are very egoistic; only they can surrender totally.

This will look confusing, paradoxical – but remember, you can leave something only if you have it.

If you don’t have a very strong ego, what can you leave? What can you surrender? It is just like asking a beggar to surrender all his riches. He will be ready, he will say, ‘Okay,’ but his okay means nothing. It is absolutely futile because he has nothing to lose. And if you have a very strong ego, that means a very concentrated ego, crystallized, you can leave it totally because it will be difficult to leave it in parts. It is so concentrated and crystalized that it will be difficult to leave it in fragments.

Either you can leave it or not. It is one of the paradoxes of life that for surrender a very authentic ego is needed to be there in the first place. So to me, a right education will consist in creating strong egos, to the very extreme, where a great suffering is born out of them, and then – surrender. Only the is surrender possible.

This has been my experience. Persons coming from the West have stronger egos than the Eastern persons because in the West there is no concept of surrender, no concept of obedience, no concept of guru and disciple. Really, the Western mind cannot conceive of what a guru is. And they cannot conceive of someone surrendering to anybody. The whole Western education, culture and civilization is based on ego, ego-fulfillment. And Western psychologists say that to be mentally healthy, you must have a strong ego. So all the Western psychologies help the ego to be strong: a child’s ego must be strengthened in every way otherwise he will become mentally ill. But Eastern religions say that unless you leave the ego you cannot know the ultimate truth, you cannot know what life’s mystery is. Both seem to be contradictory, but they are not. To me, the Western training must be there in the beginning with every person all over the world. Every person should be given a strong ego. By the age of thirty-five you should reach to the peak of your ego; at the age of thirty- five it should be at its peak, strong, as strong as possible. Only then will surrendering happen. So whenever Western seekers come to me and I tell them to leave things to me, they are very hesitant, resistant. And it seems impossible, but sometimes, when surrender happens, they achieve a much deeper realization.

With Eastern persons surrender is not very difficult. They are ready. You say, ‘Surrender,’ they say, ‘Yes.’ There is not a single hesitation on their part. They don’t have very strong, developed egos.

They can surrender it – but that surrender is impotent. It will not help. So it almost always happens that with the Eastern person I immediately give him a technique to work on, so that it helps his ego.

With Western persons I immediately say, ‘Surrender.’ They have already reached that point within them so they can surrender; their very hesitancy shows that they can surrender. But their surrender is going to be a struggle, and when it is a struggle it is a SADHANA. When it is a struggle it means something; it is going to transform them.

So firstly, when I say, “leave everything to me,” this is a technique; and I say it only to persons who have very developed egos. Secondly… BUT MANY SEEKERS FEEL DISSATISFACTION ABOUT THEIR SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION THAT WAY. Right, these are the people to whom I say, ‘Surrender.’ They feel very dissatisfied. They want something to do, they don’t want to surrender. I know they will feel dissatisfied because their ego will resist; it will try in every way not to surrender.

But that cannot be helped. They will have to pass through this dissatisfaction, and they will have to understand that leaving everything to me is just the beginning. If they cannot do that, I am not going to give them any technique right now. They can leave me, or leave everything to me. There is no other alternative. Once I say to someone, “Leave everything to me,” I am not going to give any technique to him. I know that it will be difficult and arduous – but it has to be so. The more difficult, the more arduous, the better, because that means he has a more evolved ego, and it is struggling.

He will have to come some day – to me or to someone else, it is irrelevant – and he will have to surrender it.

The master is not so relevant; the surrendering is relevant. Where you surrender is of no significance. You can surrender to a stone Buddha. That will do. Surrendering transforms you.

It is putting your ego aside, unburdening yourself; living for the first time not out of the past but moving into the present, fresh and young, unburdened.

And the third thing: IN THIS CASE, PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW THESE SEEKERS ARE DECEIVING THEMSELVES. They can deceive themselves. They can say to me, “Yes, we leave everything to you,” and go on withholding everything. They can deceive themselves that they have surrendered and they can go on insisting on their own ways. Surrender cannot be partial, it can be only total – and then you cannot set your conditions, your likes and dislikes.

It happened just a few days ago. A man came to me and he said, “I will leave everything to you.

Whatsoever you say, I will do.” I told him, “Repeat it again slowly, “Whatsoever you say, I will do.”‘

He repeated it. I told him to repeat it again and go more slowly. He became a little disturbed and said, ‘Why?’ And he also became aware of why I was saying go slowly. He said, “You may be right.

I should not say this, because it is very difficult to leave everything to you and it will be difficult to follow whatsoever you say.” So I told him to make it conditional, to be exact so that he could not change. He said, “Right, Whatsoever I like – give me the freedom to choose.”

This is how you can deceive. Inside YOU remain the master; you go on choosing what to do and what not to do. And as it happens, whatsoever you choose is going to be wrong because the mind that is choosing is wrong, otherwise there would have been no need to come to me. When I say surrender it means that now you will not choose, now I will choose and you will follow. And if you can follow totally, the day is not far away when I will say, “Now there is no need. Now you can choose.”

You must disappear: the surface, the superficial ego must disappear. Then your own being comes into being. I am not going to keep you following me forever and ever. That is not a very happy business. When your ego is no longer there, your own guru, the inside master, has come into being.

The outer guru is nothing but a representative of the inner one. Once the inner is there, the outer is not needed. And your own guru will say to you, “Now follow yourself. Move alone. Now you don’t need anybody to guide you, the inner guide has come into being. Now you have your own inner light. You can see through it. It will show you the path.”

But right now, as you are, it is not possible. You don’t have any light. You cannot see. And wherever your mind leads you it will be wrong. This mind has been leading you for lives and it always leads you into particular patterns. It has old habits and it leads you accordingly. It is a mechanical thing.

Just to create a break, surrender is needed. If you surrender to something, even for a few days, there will be a gap between now and your past. A new force has entered within you. Now you cannot continue with the past; your way, as it has always been, cannot be any more. A turning will happen. This gap is what is meant by surrender.

But you can deceive. You can say, “Yes, I surrender,” and you may not have surrendered. Or you may think that you have surrendered but unconsciously you are fighting. Not only in surrender, but in everything where a ‘let-go’ is needed, we fight.

In the West much research is going on about the phenomenon of sex, because people are becoming less and less capable of deep orgasms. They have sex but no ecstasy comes out of it. It has become a boring affair. They feel only frustrated, only weakened through it. And then it becomes a routine.

They don’t know what to do. A deep ecstasy through the orgasm is its significance. If it doesn’t happen it is futile and useless and even harmful. Many schools of psychology go on working on the questions: “What has happened to man? Why is he not achieving orgasm through sex? Why is there so much dissatisfaction?” All the researches indicate that the reason is that man cannot surrender – that is why he cannot achieve orgasm. Even while making love, while deep in sex, your mind remains in control. You go on controlling. You are not in a ‘let-go’. You are afraid to let go because if you allow the sex energy to move uncontrolled you don’t know where it will lead. You may go mad, you may even die. That is the fear. So you remain in control.

You go on manipulating your body. This manipulation from the mind doesn’t allow the whole body to become a flow of energy. Then sex becomes a local affair, the whole body is not involved, the whole body is not in an inner dance; the ecstasy is missed. You lose energy and you don’t gain anything – there is bound to be frustration. So psychologists say that you will not achieve a deep ecstasy unless you are in a deep ‘let-go’, unless the mind is not there and the ego is not there; unless the body has taken over with its own force, its own momentum, and is moving by its own unconscious sources; unless YOU are not there. That ecstasy can give you a first glimpse of the ultimate ecstasy that happens in a total ‘let-go’ of your ego with the Divine, with the universe.

Samadhi, the ultimate goal of all yoga and Tantra, is a deep orgasm with the universe itself, with the existence itself. The guru is just trying to help you, to bring you to a point where you can at least surrender the ego. Then a deep ecstasy will happen between you and your master. Wherever there is a ‘let-go’, ecstasy happens – that is the law.

So if you can surrender to a guru, don’t listen to anybody. Even if the whole world says that this guru is wrong, don’t listen to it. If you can surrender, this guru is right. You will achieve an ecstatic moment through him. And if the whole world says that this guru is right, and you cannot surrender, he is useless for you. So wherever you have the feeling of surrendering, there is your guru, your master.

Search for the place, search for the person in whose presence you can allow a ‘let-go’, in whose presence you can drop your mind even for a time. Once this force from the outside enters into you, your path will be different, your life will have taken a new turning.

You can deceive yourself: you can go on thinking that you have surrendered but you know well inside that you have not surrendered. And remember: you cannot deceive a master – he knows. And he will go on insisting unless the ‘let-go’ really happens. You can manoeuvre, you can play a game, but you cannot deceive a master. You can put your head to his feet but that gesture means nothing. It may be just a superficial gesture, you are not bowing down at all. But if bowing down really happens, the master can work.

So whenever I say, “Surrender,” or “Leave it to me and I will take care,” I mean it. Exactly whatsoever I say I mean it. I want to create a gap within you, a discontinuity with the past. Once the gap is there, you will sooner or later become capable of going on your own. But before that, if you go on your own, you will continue the past story. Nothing new is possible. For the new, something from the outside must enter you, must push you onto a new path.

The last question:

Question 4:

YOU SAID THAT JESUS DIDN’T KNOW THAT THE EARTH IS ROUND.

SO FOR CHRISTIANS WHO BELIEVE THAT JESUS WAS GOD, THIS SEEMS VERY STRANGE.

ISN’T IT IMPLIED THAT AN ENLIGHTENED ONE LIKE JESUS,
WHO KNEW DEEP OCCULT SCIENCES,
MUST ALSO KNOW MANY ASTRONOMICAL AND ASTROLOGICAL FACTS ABOUT PLANETS,
THE UNIVERSE, AND THE INTER-RELATIONSHIP OF CELESTIAL BODIES?
PLEASE EXPLAIN.

No, Jesus was not concerned. When Jesus said that the world was flat, he was using the knowledge that was prevalent in those days. He was not concerned about whether the world was round or flat; it was meaningless to him. He was more concerned about those persons who were living on this ‘flat’ or ’round’ earth.

The concern has to be understood. It is absolutely futile for Jesus to discuss these things. What difference does it make? For example, you know from the geography books that the world is round.

If your geography books were teaching that the world is flat, as they were teaching in the past, what difference will it make to you? Will you be a better man? Will you be more meditative on a ‘flat’ world or on a ’round’ earth? What difference will it make to your being and the quality of your consciousness? It is irrelevant.

Jesus was concerned with your consciousness, and he will not unnecessarily argue about things which are useless. Only unenlightened persons are dragged into unnecessary things. If you had told Jesus that the world was round, he would have said yes. It makes no difference to him because that was not his concern. The prevalent idea was that the world was flat. And really, to the ordinary mind, the world is still flat. It looks flat. The roundness is a scientific fact, but Jesus was not a scientist.

For example, I know that it is a scientific fact that the sun never rises and never sets. The earth is moving around, the sun is not moving. But still I sue the words ‘sunset’ and ‘sunrise’. Sunrise is basically wrong. The very word is wrong, because the sun never rises. Sunset is wrong, the sun never ‘sets’. So after two thousand years, someone can say that this man was unenlightened because he said ‘the sun rises’, ‘sunrise’, ‘sunset’. Didn’t he know these small things?

But if I am to change every word then I will be fighting unnecessarily and that is not going to help anybody. Jesus simply used the prevalent knowledge – and the prevalent idea was that the earth was flat. He was not concerned about it. If he were here today, he would say that the earth is round. But even that is not exactly scientific, because the earth is not exactly round. Now they say it is like an egg, not exactly round. The shape is like an egg. But who knows? – the next day they may change and say that this is not so. Science goes on changing, because as it becomes more accurate, as it attains to more knowledge, as more facts are known, as more experiments are done, things change. But a person like Jesus or Buddha is not concerned about these facts.

Remember one thing: science is concerned with facts, religion is concerned with truth. Facts are not its concern, truth is its concern. Facts are about objects, truth is about you, your consciousness. So every enlightened person has to use the prevalent knowledge about facts. But you should not judge Jesus or Buddha by that – you are judging wrongly. They can be judged only by what they have said about the truth, about the intrinsic truth of human consciousness. About that they are always absolutely right although their language differs.

A Buddha speaks in one language, Jesus in a different one, Krishna in another. They use different factual knowledge, they use different techniques, devices, but the central core of their teaching is the same. And that, if you allow me to say it, is how to attain to total awareness.

Awareness is the basic teaching of all the enlightened ones. They use many parables, techniques, devices, symbols, myths, but those are irrelevant. You can cut them away, you can put them aside and just bring out the basic core. The basic core of all the awakened persons is awareness. So Jesus goes on telling his disciples how to be more awake – not to be sleeping, not to move in dreams, but to be alert, awake.

He used to tell a parable. He said that it happened once that a great lord, a great master, a very rich man, went on a far-away journey. He told his servants that they had to be always alert because he would be back any moment, ANY moment. And whenever he came back, the house should be ready to receive him. He could come back, any moment. The servants had to be alert, they couldn’t even sleep. Even at night they had to be ready because the master could come any moment.

Jesus used to say that you have to be alert every moment because any moment the Divine can descend into you. You may miss. If the Divine knocks at your door and you are fast asleep, you will miss. You have to be alert. The guest can come at any moment, and the guest is not going to inform you beforehand that he is coming.

Jesus said just like the servants of that master, remain alert continuously, remain aware, waiting, watchful because any moment the Divine can penetrate you. And if you are not alert, he will come, knock and go back. And that moment may not repeated soon; no one knows how many lives it may take before the Divine will again knock at your door. And if you have become habitually asleep, you may have missed that knock many times already and you may miss it again and again.

Be alert. That is the basic core. All else is only to be used to reach it. So just because Jesus says the earth is flat, he doesn’t become unenlightened. And just because you know the earth is round, you don’t become enlightened. It is not so easy!