Neither mind nor matter
94….
FEEL YOUR SUBSTANCE, BONES, FLESH, BLOOD, SATURATED WITH THE COSMIC ESSENCE.
अपने शरीर, अस्थियों मांस और रक्त को ब्रह्मांडीय सार से भरा हुआ अनुभव करो।95….
FEEL THE FINE QUALITIES OF CREATIVITY PERMEATING YOUR BREASTS’ AND ASSUMING DELICATE CONFIGURATIONS.
‘अनुभव करो कि सृजन के शुद्ध गुण तुम्हारे स्तनों में प्रवेश करके सूक्ष्म रूप धारण कर रहे है।’
Philosophers all over the world have been arguing for centuries about what basic stuff the universe is made of, what the substance is. There have been propositions, systems, that say that matter is the basic reality and mind is just an outgrowth, that matter is basic and mind is just a by-product, that mind is also material, only subtle. Charwak proposed this in India, Epicurus in Greece, and even today, Marxists and other materialists go on talking in terms of matter. Just opposite to this, there has been a second system of thinking which says that mind rather than matter is the basic stuff, and that matter is nothing but a form of mind. Vedanta and other idealist philosophies of the world have reduced everything to mind.
Just at the beginning of this century, it was thought that the materialists had become victorious because physics and other scientific investigations were proving, or appeared to be proving, that matter was the basic substance. But just two or three decades ago the whole thing changed completely. One of the greatest scientists of this age, Eddington, said, “Now we can say that the universe appears to be more like a thought than like a thing.” And as the physicists, Max Planck and Einstein, worked deeper, they came to realize that the deeper one penetrates matter, the more matter disappears – something more than matter, more beyond than matter, appears to be there.
You can call it mind more easily than matter because it is a form of energy. One thing is certain: it is not material in the old sense at all.
For Tantra, for yoga, there has been no choice. Tantra doesn’t say that either matter or the mind is the basic reality. Tantra has a third standpoint, and I think that that standpoint is ultimately going to win. Tantra says mind and matter are both forms of something which we can call ‘X’. Neither matter nor mind is substantial but a third entity, which exists in both but which is not confined to either, is the real – these two are the manifestations. Matter and mind are not realities, but forms of a third reality, a basic reality, which remains hidden. Whenever it manifests itself, it manifests itself either as matter or as mind.
So the whole conflict between mind and matter, and their followers, is baseless, because the ultimate substratum that physics has now come to know is really neither like matter nor like mind. The division has disappeared, the duality has disappeared. The behavior of the basic substance is very vague:
sometimes it behaves like matter, and sometimes it behaves like mind. You may be surprised to know that physics cannot say anything about individual atoms – they are unpredictable, just like any human being. Nothing can be said about the individual atom and how it is going to behave. It appears that it has a certain independence; no causality can predict how it is going to behave. We can predict mass behavior, but we cannot predict the behavior of an individual atom. Sometimes it behaves in cause-effect terms, like matter, and sometimes it behaves like mind, as if it has a will of its own, as if it has a choice.
With Tantra, this idea of physics fits very well. But why does Tantra say that the basic reality is the third, the unknown, the ‘X’? Not because Tantra is interested in propounding any theory about reality, no. It is proposed just as a help for SADHANA, just as a help for spiritual growth. If it is so – that the reality is the third, and mind and matter are just two manifestations – then you can enter the reality through two doors: either from matter or from mind. If you try to enter from matter, then there are certain techniques to use. Hatha Yoga is a technique to enter the reality through matter, through the body. You have to do something with the body, you have to transform the body, you have to crystalize certain chemical phenomena in the body, and then you will enter into the reality.
Or, you can enter directly through the mind. Raja Yoga and other methods are used to enter through the mind. And for Tantra, both are right.
You cannot say to Tantra, “How can a body posture, a particular body posture, be helpful to enter reality?” Tantra says it can be helpful. A certain body posture is not a mere body posture, because body is the manifestation of the reality. So when you give your body a certain posture, you are giving the reality a certain form. And there are postures with which you can easily enter into yourself. A certain food can be helpful. A certain practice of breathing can be helpful. These are material things – food, breathing, body. But you can enter through them.
And similar is the case with mind: just working with mind also you can enter. Many times the question may have arisen in your mind about Shiva telling Parvati certain techniques which look just imaginary. The question is bound to arise – how can imagination be helpful?
Even imagination is a mode of reality because the mind is a manifestation of reality. And when you change the imagination in the mind, you are changing the mode of reality. For Tantra nothing is unreal. Even a dream has its own reality – and it affects you. So a dream is not a mere dream. A dream is as real as anything else because it affects you, it changes you. You are different because you dreamed it; you will never be the same because a certain dream has happened. So if you dream that you are a thief, in the morning you will say that it makes no different, it was just a dream. But for Tantra it is not so. A dream of stealing, of theft, has changed you. Your reality is different in the morning; you cannot be the same. Whether you recognize it or not, it has affected you. It will affect your behavior, your future – it has become a seed.
Even a dream is not irrelevant. And you think that dreams are just dreams. That is not so, because you cannot create a dream consciously, you cannot choose a dream. It happens to you as anything else happens to you. Can you choose a dream? Can you think about a dream that you will dream tonight? Can you choose it? Can you will it? You cannot will it, because to will a dream will need many changes in your reality. Only then will a dream come. A dream is just like a flower. A rose flower comes on a rose bush, and you cannot change the flower unless you change the whole process, from the seed onwards. You cannot just change the flower. A dream is a flowering. If you can change the dream, you can change reality.
So, many times, many techniques will appear imaginary – but they are also real. And Tantra is trying to change your imagination. If the imagination can be changed, then the hidden reality behind it will automatically be different.
The techniques that we will discuss today start from your imagination, from your dreaming, from your mind. Three things have to be remembered. One: whatsoever happens to your mind is not superficial – it is happening because of you, it is happening because you happen to be in a certain situation. So two things can be done: either change the situation, then you will have to start from the body because body is the situation; or if you are not starting with the situation, then change the happening. It will persist, it will not be easy to change it, but if you make an effort and you go on making the effort, if you are stubborn and are not defeated, then the very effort will change it.
One thing is certain: you may not achieve the goal that you were thinking of, but the fact that you make this effort will bring a change. You will be different: whether you succeed or fail, you will be different. The very effort will be counted.
Thirdly, don’t think that mind is just mind, and don’t think that dreaming is just dreaming. If you can direct your dreaming – and now there is a therapy in the West called ‘Directed Daydreaming’ – if you can direct your dreaming, you are directing yourself. And many things will become different.
There is an old Tibetan technique called ‘The Lion’s Roar’. If you are angry, sexual, filled with hatred, jealousy, then the Tibetan master will give you this technique, ‘The Lion’s Roar’. You have to sit before a mirror, and you are to imagine that you are a lion, not a man. You have to make your face like a lion, you have to put your tongue out, and you have to roar. And you have to practise it so that the imagination becomes so true that you forget that you are a man daydreaming that he is a lion. And when the point comes when you have really fallen prey to your own imagination, and you have become the lion, and a real roar comes out of you, suddenly you are transformed. In that roar, all hatred, anger, sex, disappears, and you will fall into a deep silence such as you have not known before. In old Tibetan monasteries they have a special room with many mirrors. Whenever someone is suffering from something like anger, hatred, or jealousy, he is to be sent to that mirrored room and he has to remain there until he comes to a climax. And when he comes to the climax, the whole monastery will know, because a real lion will be roaring there. To us, he has gone mad. The whole monastery will gather and welcome the man, and he will come out a totally different man. It may take three days, it may take seven days. Food will be supplied to him, but he is not allowed to come out. He has to persist in imagining that he is a lion, until from the very roots of the unconscious the roar comes. The whole body is involved, every cell of it; every cell in it roars, and in that roar everything is thrown out. It is the deepest catharsis possible. And you will never see that man angry again because now the poison is not there. For the first time the face will become human.
Your face cannot be human because so much is suppressed there. The jealousy, the hatred, the anger that you have suppressed, is there – layers upon layers are just hidden under the skin. They are making your face. But they can be released – just by this daydream, a directed daydream.
In the West they now have another technique they call psychodrama. That too is one of the oldest Buddhist methods – to become a part of a drama, to act it so totally that you forget that you are simply acting. The acting becomes action, and you are not the actor, you become a real doer in it.
It changes you.
Tantra says that if you can change dreaming, imagination, if you can change your mind and the pattern of it, the reality behind will be different. Because it is deeply rooted in reality, you can move through the mind. These techniques are just to change the way and the style in which your mind has been behaving up to now.
FEEL YOUR SUBSTANCE, BONES, FLESH, BLOOD, SATURATED WITH THE COSMIC ESSENCE.
अपने शरीर, अस्थियों मांस और रक्त को ब्रह्मांडीय सार से भरा हुआ अनुभव करो।
Try with simple experiments. For seven days try one simple experiment: feel your blood, your bones, your flesh, your body, filled with sadness – every cell of the body sad; dark night around you; very heavy, depressed; not a single ray of light; no hope, gloomy, just as if you are going to die. Life is not throbbing in you; you are just waiting for death. It is as if death has already settled, or is settling. For seven days contemplate on the feeling that death has entered throughout the body; it has penetrated deep to the bone, to the very marrow. Go on thinking in this way, don’t disturb this mood. And then, after seven days, see how you feel.
You will be just a dead weight. All feeling will have disappeared, the body will not be felt as alive.
And what have you done? You have been eating, you have been doing everything the same as you have always been doing; the only change has been in the imagination – there is a new pattern of imagination around you.
If you succeed in it…. You will succeed. Really, you have already succeeded in it; you are doing it, you are expert in doing this, unknowingly. That’s why I say start with sadness. If I say be filled with bliss, it will be very difficult. You cannot conceive of it. But if you can do it with sadness, then you will become aware that if sadness can happen to you, why not happiness? If you can create a sad milieu around you and become a dead thing in it, then why can’t you create an alive milieu around you and be alive, dancing? The other becomes conceivable.
Secondly, you will become aware that whatever sadness you have been suffering was not real. You were the creator of it, you were the author; unknowingly you have been doing this. It seems difficult to believe that your sadness is your imagination, because then the whole responsibility falls on you.
Then no one else is responsible, then you cannot throw it on God, on fate, on others, on society, on wife, on husband – you cannot throw it anywhere. You are the creator, and whatsoever is happening to you, you are creating it.
Try it for seven days, consciously. And then, I say, you will never be sad again – because you will have known the key.
Then for seven days try just being in a stream of bliss – floating in it, every breath giving you ecstasy:
just feel it. Start with sadness for seven days and then for seven days move to the contrary. And when you move to the direct opposite, you will feel it better because the contrast will be there.
Then only can you try this experiment – because it is deeper than happiness. Sadness is the surface, happiness is the middle, and this is the last core, the innermost core, the cosmic essence. FEEL YOUR SUBSTANCE, BONES, FLESH, BLOOD, SATURATED WITH THE COSMIC ESSENCE, with eternal life, with Divine energy, with cosmic essence. But don’t start it directly because then you will not be able to touch it. Start from sadness, then move to happiness, and then try the origin, the very origin of life – the cosmic essence. And feel yourself filled with it.
In the beginning you will become aware again and again that you are simply imagining it, but don’t stop. Even imagination is good. Even that you can imagine something worthwhile is good. You are imagining, and in the very imagination you are changing. It is you who are imagining. Go on imagining, and by and by you will forget completely that you are imagining it – it will have become a reality.
One of the greatest books ever written is the Buddhist scripture, ‘Lankawatar Sutra’. Buddha says again and again to his disciple Mahamati, he goes on saying again and again, “Mahamati, this is only mind. Hell is mind. Heaven is mind. The world is mind. Enlightenment is mind.” Mahamati asks again and again, “Just mind? Just mind? Even nirvana, enlightenment, just mind?” And Buddha says, “Just mind, Mahamati.”
When you understand that everything is just mind, you are freed. Then there Then there is no bondage, then there is no desire. In ‘Lankawatar Sutra’, Buddha says that the whole world is just like a magical world, a city of Gandharwa, as if a magician has created a world. Everything appears to be there, but it is there only because of the thought form.
But don’t start with outer reality, that is too far. That too is mind, but it is very away from you. Start from the very near, you own moods; and you will be the master if you can feel and know that they are your own creation.
Whenever you start thinking in terms of sadness, you become sad, and you become receptive to all the sadness around you. Then everybody helps you to be sad. Everybody helps, the whole world is always ready to help you, whatsoever you do. When you want to be sad, the whole world is helpful, cooperative. You have become receptive. Really, you fall to a certain wave-length where only sadness can be received. So even if someone comes to cheer you up, he will make you more sad. He will not look friendly, he will not look understanding; you will feel that he is insulting you because you are so sad and he is trying to cheer you up. He thinks your sadness is superficial. He is not taking you seriously.
And when you are ready to be happy, you are on a different wave-length. Now you are attuned to all the happiness that this world can give, now everywhere flowers start flowering, now every sound and noise becomes musical – and nothing has happened. The whole world remains the same, but you are different. You have a different pattern of looking, a different attitude, a different perspective; through that perspective a different world comes to you.
But start with sadness because you are expert in that. I was reading a sentence of some old Hassid mystic – I liked it very much. He says there are certain people, who, if their whole life becomes a bed of roses, will not be happy until they develop some allergy towards the roses. Roses cannot make them happy… only when they become allergic will they start feeling alive. They can be attuned only to sadness, to illness, to disease, they cannot be aware of anything else. They go on finding sadness. They are searchers after wrong – something wrong, something sad, depressed, dark.
They are death-oriented.
I have been meeting hundreds and hundreds of persons deeply, intimately, closely. When they start talking about their sadness I have to be serious – otherwise they will not feel that I am sympathetic, they will not feel good about it. Then they will never turn to me again. I have to be sad with their sadness and serious with their seriousness to help bring them out of it.. and this is their own creation, and they are making every effort to create it. And if I try to bring them out, they create every type of barrier – not knowingly of course, because no one will do it knowingly.
This is what the Upanishads call ignorance. Unknowingly you go on disturbing your own life, you go on creating more problems and anxieties, and whatsoever happens will not make any difference because you have a pattern – whatsoever happens. There are persons who come to me and say, “We are lonely.” So they are unhappy. And the next moment someone comes and says he cannot find a place where he can be lonely. So he is unhappy. Then there are persons who have too much work on their minds, so they are unhappy, and there are persons who have no work, so they are unhappy. A person who is married is unhappy, a person who is not married, he is unhappy. It seems it is impossible for man to be happy. That’s what I mean when I say you are experts – you are very efficient in finding ways and means to be unhappy. And you always succeed.
Start from sadness, and for seven days be completely unhappy for the first time. That will transform you totally. Because once you know that consciously you can be unhappy, you will become conscious whenever you become unhappy. Then you will know what you are doing: it is your own doing. And if you can be unhappy by your own mind, then why can’t you be happy? There is no difference, the pattern is the same. And then you can try this.
FEEL YOUR SUBSTANCE, FLESH, BLOOD, BONES, SATURATED WITH THE COSMIC ESSENCE. Feel as if the Divine is flowing through you: you are not, but the cosmic exists in you, God exists in you. When you feel hungry, he feels hungry – then to give food to the body becomes worship. When you feel thirsty, he feels thirsty – the cosmic in you. When you feel sleepy, he feels sleepy, he wants rest, relaxation. When you are young, he is young in you. When you fall in love, he falls in love. Be saturated with him, and be TOTALLY saturated with him. Don’t make any distinction.
Good or bad, whatsoever happens is happening to him. You just withdraw, you are no longer there, only he is there. So good or bad, hell or heaven, whatsoever happens, happens to him. All the responsibility is thrown onto him and you are no more. The ‘no-moreness’ that this technique can bring you is the ultimate in religion.
But you have to be saturated with it. And you don’t know any saturation, you don’t feel your body as porous, you don’t feel that in your body a life energy is flowing. You think of yourself as something solid, dead, closed. Life can happen only when you are vulnerable, open, not closed. Life moves through you, and whatsoever happens is happening to the life energy, not to you – you are just a fragment. And all the boundaries that you have created around you are false, they are not real.
You cannot exist alone. If you are alone on the earth, can you exist? You cannot exist alone. You cannot exist without the stars. Somewhere Eddington says that the whole existence is like a spider’s web – the whole existence is a spider’s net. If you touch the net anywhere, the whole vibrates; if you touch existence anywhere, the whole vibrates. It is one. If you touch a flower you have touched the whole cosmos; if you look into your neighbors eyes you have looked into the cosmos. Because the whole net is one. You cannot touch any part without touching the whole, and no part can exist without the whole.
When you start feeling this, the ego will disappear. The ego exists only when you take a certain part as the whole. When you make a part the whole, the ego exists. When you come to know the right proportion, that the part is part, and the whole is whole, the ego disappears. Ego is just a misunderstanding.
And this technique, to feel oneself saturated with the cosmic, is just wonderful!
From the very early morning, when you feel life awakening, when you feel that the sleep has gone, the first thought must be of this saturation – now the Divine is opening, coming back out of sleep, not you. So Hindus, who have been one of the most penetrating races in the world, will start their first breath with the name of God. Now it has become a formality and the essential has been lost, but this was the root of it – that at the moment you become alert in the morning you must not remember yourself, you must remember the Divine. The Divine must become the first remembrance – and the last, at night, when you are falling asleep. The Divine must be remembered: he must be the first and the last. And if he is really the first in the morning and the last at night, he will be with you the whole day, in the middle also.
You must drop into sleep saturated with him. You will be surprised, because the quality of your sleep will be different. While falling into sleep tonight, please don’t you fall into sleep, let the Divine fall into sleep. While you are preparing the bed, prepare it for the Divine – the guest is coming. And while you are lying on the bed, let the Divine be there, not you – treat yourself as the guest. And while dropping into sleep go on feeling that the Divine exists, he saturates every breath, he pulsates in the blood, he beats in the heart. Now he is tired after a whole day of work, now he wants to sleep.
And in the morning you will feel that you have been sleeping in a different way. The quality of the sleep will be cosmic, because the meeting will be deep at the source.
When you feel yourself as Divine, you fall into the abyss because then there is no fear. Otherwise, even in the night while you are sleeping you are afraid to fall deeply into it. Many people are suffering from sleeplessness – not because of any other tension, but because they are afraid to fall asleep, because sleep appears like an abyss, a bottomless thing. I have known a few persons who are afraid.
One old man came to me and said that he could not sleep because he was afraid. I asked, “Why are you afraid?” He said, “I am afraid because if I really sleep, and I die, I will not be conscious, alert.
And I can die because now I am old – and I don’t like the idea of dying in sleep. At least let me be aware and alert of what is happening.”
You go on clinging to something so that you cannot fall into sleep, but when you feel that the Divine is there, you have accepted. Then the abyss is also Divine. Then you fall very deeply into the very original sources of your being – and the quality will be different. And when you arise in the morning and you feel that sleep has gone, remember that the Divine is arising. The whole day will be different.
And be saturated – whatsoever you do, or you don’t do, let the Divine do it – simply allow it to be done. Eat, sleep, work, but let the Divine do it. Only then can you be saturated, can you become one with it. And once you feel, even for a single moment – even for a single moment, I say – that the peak has come, that you are not, that the Divine has saturated you completely, you are enlightened.
In that single moment, that timeless moment, you will become aware of the whole mystery of life.
Then there is no fear and then there is no death. Now you have become life itself. It goes on and on; it never ends, it never begins. Then life is ecstasy.
And the concepts of MOKSHA, of heaven and paradise, are just childish, because they are not really something geographical. They are symbols of this ultimate state of being: when the individual has dissolved into the cosmos or when the individual has allowed the cosmos to dissolve into him; when the two have become one, when mind and matter, both the manifestations, have come back to the original source, the third. The whole search is for that. That is the only search, and you will not be satisfied until this is achieved. Nothing can be a substitute for it. You can go on moving for lives and lives, but unless this is achieved, your search will be constantly haunting you. You cannot rest.
This technique can be very helpful and there is no danger in it; you can practise it without a master. Remember this: all the techniques that start with the body are dangerous without a master – because the body is a very complex phenomenon, very complex. It is a mechanism, and without someone who knows exactly what is going on, it is dangerous to start – you may disturb the mechanism, and then it will be difficult to repair it. All the techniques that start directly from mind are based on imagination, and are not dangerous because the body is not touched at all. They can be done even without a master – although it will be difficult because you don’t have any self- confidence. A master is not really going to do anything, but he becomes a catalytic agent. He is not going to do anything – really nothing can be done – but with just his presence, your confidence and trust are touched, and it helps. With just the feeling that the master is there, you move confidently.
Because he is present, you are not afraid; because he is with you, you can move into the unknown, the uncharted. But with body techniques he is very necessary, because the body is a mechanism and you can do something which cannot be easily undone. You can harm yourself.
One man came to me, he was doing SIRSHASAN – standing on his head for hours together. In the beginning it was very good and he felt very relaxed and cool the whole day. But then problems followed, and he became very disturbed when the coolness disappeared and he became hot all over. He became almost mad. And because he thought that SIRSHASAN helped in the beginning, and he became very cool, and felt very collected, silent, relaxed, he did it more because now he felt so disturbed. He thought more SIRSHASAN would help him – and SIRSHASAN was really the cause.
The mind mechanism, the brain, needs only a certain amount of blood to circulate through it; if less blood is circulating, you will be in difficulty. And with everyone it is different. It depends. That’s why you cannot sleep without pillows. If you try to sleep without pillows, you cannot sleep, or you will sleep less because more blood flows into the head. Those pillows help you. Your head is high so less blood flows, and for sleep, less blood is needed. If more blood flows, then the brain is alert, it cannot relax. If you do too much of SIRSHASAN, your sleep may be completely lost. You may not be able to sleep at all. And there are dangers. It has been recorded that seven days is the longest you can go without sleep. Only seven days, after that you will go mad, because very subtle tissues of the brain will break, and they cannot be replaced easily. While you are standing on your head in SIRSHASAN, all the blood is flowing downwards towards the head. So I have not seen anyone doing SIRSHASAN who is in any way intelligent. If a person is doing much SIRSHASAN, he is bound to become stupid, because the very subtle tissues of the brain will be destroyed. With so much blood passing through, delicate tissues cannot exist.
So it has to be decided by a master who knows how much will be helpful to you – a few seconds, or a few minutes. And this is just an example. All the bodily postures, asanas, techniques, have to be done with a master. They are never to be done alone because you don’t know your body. Your body is such a big thing, you cannot even conceive of it. The small head, your head, has seven crores of cells in it. And those seven crores of cells are interrelated. Scientists say that the interrelationship is as complex as the whole universe.
Old Hindu seers have said that the whole cosmos exists in the head in miniature. The whole complexity of the universe is there in miniature. If the whole relationship of all the cells can be understood, you have understood the whole complexity of the universe. You are not aware of any cells, and about any relationship you are not aware. And it is good that you are not aware, otherwise you will go mad with such a big war going on. It can go on only unconsciously. The blood circulates, but you are not aware of it.
Only just three centuries ago it was discovered that blood circulates in the body. Before that it was thought that the blood was static, not circulating. Circulation is a very recent concept. And man has been in existence for millions of years but no one could feel that the blood was circulating. You cannot feel it. Much speed, much work is going on there. It is a big factory, your body, and one of the most delicate ones. It is constantly repairing itself, constantly renewing itself. For seventy years, if you don’t make any trouble for it, it will run smoothly. We have not created any mechanism up to now that can take care of itself for seventy years. So when you start any work on your body remember to be near a master who knows about what he is telling you to do. Otherwise don’t do it.
But with imagination there is no problem. It is a simple phenomenon. You can start it.
FEEL THE FINE QUALITIES OF CREATIVITY PERMEATING YOUR BREASTS AND ASSUMING DELICATE CONFIGURATIONS.
‘अनुभव करो कि सृजन के शुद्ध गुण तुम्हारे स्तनों में प्रवेश करके सूक्ष्म रूप धारण कर रहे है।’
A few important points before I enter this….
Shiva is talking to Parvati, to Devi, his consort, so this technique is specifically for women. There are a few points to be understood. One: the male body and the female body are similar, but still, different in many, many ways. And the difference is always complementary. Whatsoever is positive in the male body will be negative in the female body; and whatsoever is positive in the female body will be negative in the male body. That is why when they meet in deep orgasm, they become one organism. The positive meets the negative, the negative meets the positive, and both become one – one circle of electricity. Hence, so much attraction for sex, so much appeal. This appeal is not because man is a sinner or immoral, it is not because the modern world has become too licentious, it is not because of obscene films and literature – it is very deep rooted, very cosmic.
The attraction is because both male and female are half circuits, and there is an inherent tendency in existence to transcend whatsoever is incomplete and to become complete. This is one of the ultimate laws – the tendency towards completion. Wherever you feel something is lacking, you feel that you would like to fill it, to make it complete. Nature abhors incompleteness, any type of incompleteness. The male is incomplete, the female is incomplete, and they can have only one moment of completion – when their electric circuits become one, when the two are dissolved. That’s why the two most important words in all languages are love and prayer. In love you become one with a single individual; in prayer you become one with the whole cosmos. And love and prayer are similar as far as their inner workings are concerned.
Male and female bodies are similar, but their positive and negative poles are different. When a child is born in the mother’s womb, for a few weeks, at least for six weeks I think, he is neutral – he is neither male nor female. He has the tendency, but the body is still just in the middle. Then after six weeks the body will become either male or female. If it becomes female, then the polarity of sex energy will be near the breasts, the positive pole – because the female vagina is the negative pole.
If the child is male, the sex center, the penis, will be the positive pole, and the breasts are also there – the whole mechanism is there – but they are negative. In the female body a counterpart to the penis exists, the clitoris, but it is non-functional – it has no function.
Physiologists have been raising questions about why there are breasts in the male body when there appears to be no need because a child is not going to be fed. What is the need? They are negative poles. Hence so much attraction of the male mind towards female breasts – they are positive electricity. So much poetry, literature, painting, sculpture, everything, is concerned with female breasts. Really, it seems man is less concerned with the whole of the feminine body, and more concerned with the breasts. And this is not something new. The oldest primitive paintings in the caves are of breasts, so emphatically of breasts that the whole body is just around them. Breasts are basic.
This technique is for women because their positive electricity pole is in the breasts. Really, as far as the vagina is concerned, it is more or less insensitive. The breasts are the most sensitive parts, and the whole creativity of the feminine body is around the breasts.
That is why Hindus have been saying that unless a woman becomes a mother she is not fulfilled.
The same is not true for men – no one will say that unless a man becomes a father he is not fulfilled. To be a father is accidental. It may be, it may not be. It is not very basic, and a man can remain without being a father without losing anything. But a woman will lose something because her whole creativity, her whole functioning, comes only when she becomes a mother. When her breasts become the center of her being she becomes total. And she cannot come to the breasts unless a child is there to call. So men marry women to get wives, and women marry men to become mothers – not to get husbands. Their basic sole interest is to have a child who will call their womanhood. So really, husbands are always afraid, because the moment a child is born they move to the periphery of the woman’s interest – the child becomes the center. So fathers always feel jealous because the children come in-between. And now the woman is more interested in the children than in the father of the children. He has become a peripheral existence – necessary for survival but non-essential.
Now the basic need has been fulfilled.
In the West now there is a trend, a fashion, not to feed children directly from the breasts. This is very dangerous because it means that the woman will not come to the creative center of her being.
When a man loves a woman he can lover her breasts, he will love them, but he cannot call them mother. Only a small child can call them mother. Or if the love is very deep – so deep that the husband becomes just like a child – then it is possible. Then the woman forgets completely that she is just a consort and she becomes a mother to her lover. Then there will be no need for a child; she can become a mother and the center of being can happen near the breasts.
This technique says: FEEL THE FINE QUALITIES OF CREATIVITY PERMEATING YOUR BREASTS AND ASSUMING DELICATE CONFIGURATIONS. The whole creativity of feminine existence is rooted in motherhood. That is why women are not interested in any other type of creativity. Man is a creator; woman is not a creator. She has not painted, she has not created great poetry, she has not written big books, she has not created great religions – she has not done anything really. But man goes on creating, he is mad. He goes on inventing, creating, making, constructing. Tantra says that this is because man is not a creator by nature – he remains unfulfilled, tense. He wants to become a mother, he wants to become a creator, so he creates poetry, he creates books, he creates many things, he will ‘mother’ many things. But a woman is at ease. If she can really become a mother she is fulfilled, she is not interested. It is only when a woman cannot become a mother, cannot love, cannot really come to the peak of her creativity, that she will start thinking about doing something else. So basically, uncreative women will become creators – poets and painters – but they will always be second-rate, they cannot be first-rate. It is just as impossible for them to be creators of paintings and poetry and other things, as it is impossible for man to create a child. He cannot become a mother, that is biologically impossible. And he feels the gap. To fill the gap he goes on doing many things – but still even a great creator is not as fulfilled, or only very rarely, as a woman is if she really becomes a mother.
A Buddha is fulfilled because he has created himself. He is reborn, he has given rebirth to himself, he is a new man, he is both father and mother to himself now. He can feel fulfilled.
A woman can feel fulfilled more easily. Her creativity is just around the breasts. That’s why all over the world, women are concerned so much with their breasts – it is as if their whole existence is concentrated there. They are always alert about their breasts – hiding or exhibiting, but always concerned. The breasts are their most secret part, their treasure, their center of being; of being mother, of being a creator.
Shiva says: FEEL THE FINE QUALITIES OF CREATIVITY PERMEATING YOUR BREASTS AND ASSUMING DELICATE CONFIGURATIONS. Just concentrate on the breasts, become one with them, forget the whole body. Move your total consciousness to the breasts and many phenomena will happen to you. If you can do this, if you can concentrate totally near the breasts, the whole body will lose weight, and a very sweet, deep sweetness will envelop you. It will pulsate around you, within you, above, below, everywhere – a deep feeling of sweetness.
Really, all the techniques that have been developed have been developed more or less by man, so they always give centers which are easier for men to follow. As far as I know, only Shiva has given some techniques which are basically for women. A man cannot do this. Really if a man tries to concentrate near the breasts he will become very uneasy. Try it. Even within five minutes you will start perspiring and you will become very uneasy, because male breasts are negative, they will give you negativity. You will feel uneasy, uncomfortable, that something is going wrong in the body, ill.
But female breasts are positive. If women concentrate near the breasts, they will feel very happy, very blissful, a sweetness will pervade all over their being and their body will lose gravity. They will feel light, as if they can fly. And with this concentration many things will change: you will become more motherly. You may not become a mother but you will become more motherly. To everyone your relationship will become motherly – more compassion, more love will happen. But this concentration near the breasts should be done very relaxedly, not tensely. If you are tense about it there will be a division between you and the breasts. Relax and melt into them, and feel that you are no more, that only the breasts are there.
If man has to do the same he will have to do it with the sex center, not with the breasts. Hence the importance of the first chakra in all kundalini yogas. He has to concentrate just at the root of the penis – there he has the creativity, there he is positive. And remember this always: never concentrate on anything negative because with the negative everything negative will follow. With the positive, everything positive will follow.
When the two poles of man and woman meet, negative is in the upper part of man, positive is in the lower; and negative is in the lower part of woman and positive in the upper. These two poles of positive and negative meet and a circle is created. That circle is blissful, but it is not ordinary. In ordinary sexual acts, the circle does not happen – that is why you feel so attracted towards sex, and so repelled also. You feel so much for it, you need it so much, you ask for it so much, but when it is given, when it is there, you feel frustration – nothing happens. It is possible only when both the bodies are very relaxed and very open to each other without any fear, without any resistance. Then the let-go is so complete that the electricities can merge and meet and become a circle.
Then there is a very strange phenomenon…. Tantra has recorded it but you may not have heard of it. This phenomenon is a very strange one. When two lovers really meet and become a circle then a flickering happens. For a moment the lover becomes the beloved and the beloved becomes the lover, and the next moment, again the lover is lover and the beloved is the beloved. The male becomes the female for a moment, then the female becomes the male for the moment – because the energy is moving, and it has become one circle. So it will happen that the male will be active for a few minutes and then he will relax and the female will become active. That means that now the male energy has passed to the female body and she will act while the male will remain passive. And this will go on. Ordinarily you are man, and woman. In deep love, in deep orgasm, it will happen that for moments man will become woman, and the woman will become man. It will be felt, absolutely felt and recognized, that the passivity changes.
In life there is rhythm; in everything there is rhythm. When you take a breath, the breath goes in – then for a few seconds it stops, there is no movement. Then again it moves, out it goes – and again there is a stop, a gap, no movement. Movement, no movement, movement. When your heart beats, there is one beat, gap, another beat, gap. The beat means male, the non-beat gap means female.
Life is rhythm. When two persons meet, male and female, it becomes a circle: there will be gaps for both. You will be a woman and suddenly there will be a gap and you are no longer a woman, you have become a man. You will be man and woman and man. When these gaps are felt you can feel that you have achieved a circle. This circle is represented in Shiva’s symbol-the shiva-linga.
This circle is represented by the yoni of Devi and linga of Shiva. It is a circle. It is one of the peak phenomena of two high energies meeting.
This technique will be good. FEEL THE FINE QUALITIES OF CREATIVITY PERMEATING YOUR BREASTS AND ASSUMING DELICATE CONFIGURATIONS. Simply relax, move into the breasts, let your breasts become your whole being. Let the whole body be just a situation for the breasts to exist, your body has become secondary, just a background, and the breasts are emphasized.
And you are totally relaxing in them, moving in them. Then your creativity will arise. The feminine creativity arises only when the breasts become active. Merge into them and you will feel creativity arising.
What does it mean when creativity arises? You will have many visions around you. Buddha and Mahavir have said in their past lives that when they are born their mothers will see certain visions, certain dreams. Because of those dreams, it could be predicted that a Buddha was going to be born. Sixteen visions would follow each other.
I have been experimenting with this. If a woman really melts into her breasts, certain visions will follow in a certain sequence. She will start seeing certain things. To different women there will be different sequences, but I will tell you a few. One, there will be figures, human figures, and if the woman is going to give birth to a child, then the figure of the child will appear. If total melting has happened in the breasts then the woman can see what type of child is going to be born to her. The figure will appear, and then it will be more clear. If she is not going to be a mother soon or she is not pregnant, then very unknown scents, perfumes will happen around her. The breasts can become sources of very delicate perfumes which are not of this world, which cannot be created chemically; sounds, harmonious sounds will be heard; all the realms of creativity can appear in new and many configurations. All that has happened to great painters and poets will happen to the woman if she can melt into her breasts.
And this will be so real that it will change her total personality – she will become different. And if she goes on with these visions, by and by they will drop, and a moment will come when nothingness, void, emptiness will happen – SHUNYATA will happen. This SHUNYATA is the highest of meditations.
So remember this: if you are a woman, don’t concentrate on the third eye. It will be better for you to concentrate near the breasts – on the breasts, right on the two nipples of the breasts. Concentrate there. And the second thing: don’t concentrate on one breast – concentrate on both simultaneously.
If you concentrate on one, your body will immediately be disturbed. Even paralysis is possible if you concentrate on only one. So just concentrate on both simultaneously, melt into them and allow whatsoever happens to happen. Just go on watching and don’t get attached to any rhythm because the rhythms will be very beautiful, just heavenly. Don’t get attached. Go on watching them and be a witness. A moment will come when they will start disappearing – and when SHUNYATA, nothingness, happens, when just space, just space remains and the breasts have disappeared, then you are under the Bodhi tree.
If you get serious you lose the point
The first question:
Question 1:
IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT NO DESIRE, NEITHER WORLDLY NOR RELIGIOUS,
CAN LEAD TOWARDS FREEDOM.
BUT A POSITIVE IMAGINATION OF HAPPINESS AND BLISS
IS ALSO A SORT OF DESIRE.THEN ISN’T IT TRUE THAT IMAGINATION IS ALSO DESIRE AND HENCE CREATES TENSIONS?
Imagination is not desire. Imagination is just a play.
Desire is a totally different thing. You can base your imagination on desire, you can project your imagination through desire – then it will be a bondage. If you simply play with imagination without any desire – not to reach anywhere, not to get anything out of it, but just as a game, then it is not desire and not binding. These techniques of imagination can be helpful only if you are playing with them. If you get serious, you lose the point.
But the question is relevant because, really, you cannot conceive of anything which you can do without desire. Even if you are playing, you can play only to reach somewhere, to get something, to win. If there is nothing in the future, you will lose interest. You will say, “Then why? Then why play at all?”
We are so end-oriented that we turn everything into a means. This must be remembered: meditation is the ultimate play, it is not a means to something, it is not a means to enlightenment. Enlightenment happens in it, but it is not a means to it. It is not a means to ultimate freedom. Ultimate freedom happens in it, but it is not a means to it. You cannot use it as a cause to effect something. This has been one of the most puzzling things – all through the centuries, those who have known go on insisting on meditation for meditation’s sake. Don’t desire anything out of it, enjoy it in itself, don’t move out of it – and the consequence will be enlightenment. Remember, consequence – not effect.
Meditation is not a cause, but if you are deep in meditation, enlightenment happens. Really, being deep in the play is enlightenment.
But the mind always turns everything into work. It says, “Do something because this will be the profit from it.” Imaginary or real, the mind needs something to hang onto, to project onto. Only then can it devote itself. That is how mind functions – it functions in the present for the future. The future may be illusory, it may not ever happen, but if the mind can hope for the future then it can work. This is what is called desire: working in the present for the future. The end is always somewhere else; the means are here but the end is somewhere else. This division of end and means, this gap, is desire.
If you are playing, there is no desire because the end is here and the means are also here. While playing there is no future; you are simply merged so much in it that the future disappears.
Look at children playing. Look at their faces, at their eyes. Now they are in eternity. They are happy because they are playing. Happiness will not result in an end, it is here right now. Moment to moment they are happy – not that something great is going to happen later on – it is happening already. They are in eternity. But their minds are still not developed. We will force them to develop because this play will not be of much help in the world. They will have to learn work. They will have to divide means and end. They will have to create a gap between this moment and the future, and we will teach them to sacrifice the present for the future. This is the way of the world, the way of the market, the way of desire. Desire makes everything utilitarian.
In meditation you will become a child again, playing, with no idea of the future, enjoying this very moment, enjoying the very act in itself, intrinsically. Then imagination is not desire. Then you can play with it, and it is one of the most beautiful things possible. And this playing, this being in the moment, totally absorbed, is enlightenment. The moment it happens you are transformed.
So enlightenment is never in the future, it is always in the present; and it is not a work to be done, it is a game to be played.
That is the meaning of the Indian concept of LEELA. God is playing; he is not engaged in work. This world is not utilitarian, it is just a play of energy. Energy enjoys itself playing; it divides itself and then plays the game of hide and seek. So, really, Indian seers have never said that God is the creator, they say that God is the player – because the very word ‘creation’ carries much seriousness about it, as if there is some end and something has to be achieved. God creating the world? This is absurd.
Because it means that something is lacking, so God is creating the world to achieve something. Or it means that there is a future, so God also lives in desire.
Jains and Buddhists could not understand the Hindu concept of LEELA, so they completely denied God. Because if God creates the world, then he desires – so Jains and Buddhists say that if God desires, then God is part of the world. He himself is not free, he himself is not liberated. So they completely denied the concept of God because they say that God means one who is beyond desire.
And they say that Mahavir is a God, he is beyond desire, but Brahma is not a God because he creates the world, he desires the world. They couldn’t follow the concept of LEELA.
The concept of LEELA is totally different from the concept of creation. God is just playing and you cannot ask “Why?” because a play has no “Why?” to answer. If children are playing can you ask, “Why are you playing?” They will say, “We are playing, so we are playing.” Playing is good in itself – the energy is moving, abundant energy is overflowing.
The more you grow the less you play. Why? Because now your energy is not so overflowing. Now you have become economical. Now you know that you have a certain amount of energy and you have to channel that energy for work, to achieve something. Children are just overflowing. Their energy is so much that they have to play. The play is just overflowing energy, too much energy moving. Then they enjoy the very moment. A child is jumping, running, but not to reach some goal.
Running itself is a beautiful experience of vital energy, an experience of vitality, an experience of being alive, of overflowing so abundantly that you can throw out the energy without any economical mind behind it.
God means absolute energy, infinite energy. God cannot be economical. He has so much, so infinitely much, that he can only play. And this play goes on and on, there is no end to it. There cannot be because the energy is infinite. And you cannot ask “Why?” Energy moves, there is no “Why?” to it. If God created the world you can ask, “Why? Why have you created the world?” But if he is simply playing you cannot ask “Why?”
When you also become a player, you become Divine. If you are a worker you are human; if you are a player you have become Divine. Then you share in the game. That’s why we have called Krishna the absolute AVATAR. We have not called Ram the absolute AVATAR, we call him a partial AVATAR – a partial coming of the Divine to the world. But Krishna we call an absolute coming. The difference is that Ram is serious. He is still utilitarian, end-oriented: this is right and that is wrong. Only in work do right and wrong exist: this should be done and that should not be done, this is good and that is bad. For Krishna everything has become a play so everything is arbitrary – just rules of the game.
If you follow the rules, and if you follow them knowing that this is a game and that the rules have to be followed, it is good. If you don’t follow, nothing is wrong; really, you are playing the reverse game of not following. If you obey, you follow the game of obedience; if you don’t obey, you follow the game of disobedience, the game of rebelliousness. But nothing is wrong. What you want to play is your choice. And if you are not serious and are happy whatsoever you do, you are enlightened.
There are rules because a game has to be played with others. If you are playing alone there is no question of rules; then you can change your rules any moment you like. But because you are playing with others, rules have to be followed so that you can play with them. There isn’t any other reason behind it. Morality is a rule, love is a rule, society is just a rule – agreed-upon rules that we are going to play a game so we will agree. If you don’t want to play the game then you can be rebellious, but don’t be serious about it. Then play the game of being rebellious. And if someone kills you, murders you, or crucifies you, you know that you were playing the game of a rebellious leader, so you have been killed. There is no condemnation. You were not with the established rules, so the established rules were against you – it is okay. Then nothing is wrong, and you don’t have to complain.
Once you become aware that the concept of work, utility, reaching somewhere, the goal, is the bondage, it doesn’t mean that you stop playing the dame in the market – you go on playing. But you know that this is a game. It doesn’t mean that you divorce your wife – you go on playing the game of marriage. But know well that this is a game. Don’t get serious about it. And if you want to play the game of divorce, you can play it, but remember, don’t get serious about it. Divorce or marriage – these are alternative games; being a worldly man or becoming a sannyasin – these are alternative games. But don’t be serious about it. Be light-hearted, festive. And whatsoever you choose, you can play; and whatsoever consequences follow, you will welcome them because there is nothing serious about them.
Once this deepens in your consciousness – and it will deepen if you start playing with meditation – it will be a good beginning. Because in meditation you alone are the player. That’s why it can be a good beginning, the right beginning. You are alone playing the game so you can forget society and society will not come to interfere. This is a solo game, meditation, a solo game. You play alone.
So whatsoever you want to play you can play, but forget the ends. If there are ends you have also turned meditation into a work. Just play it, enjoy it, love it. It is beautiful in itself. There is no need for any other end to beautify it.
People come to me and they say, “We are enjoying meditation, but tell us what is going to happen.
What will be the end result?” I tell them, “This IS the end result – that you are enjoying. Enjoy it more!”
But they go on insisting, “Tell us something about it. What will be the end result? Where will we reach to?” They are not concerned at all where they are: they are always concerned with where they will reach to. The mind cannot exist in the present so it goes on giving you excuses to move into the future. These excuses are the desires. So if you desire to be a god, to be a buddha, your meditation will be a sort of desire, and then it is not meditation. If you don’t desire anything, you just enjoy being here, you just celebrate being alive, you enjoy the inner energy playing in imagination, in visions, in emptiness, whatsoever you choose, and you are totally one with this moment of enjoyment, then it is meditation. Then there is no desire, and, with no desire, the world drops. With a non-desiring, playful mind you have entered. You are already in it.
But this has to be hammered into your mind again and again because your mind is a transformer. It transforms anything into a desire – anything – it can transform even non-desire into a desire. People come to me and they say, “How does one achieve the state of non-desire?” How to achieve the state of non-desire? Now this has become the desire. Your mind has a transforming mechanism:
whatsoever you put in will come out as a desire.
Be alert of this and enjoy moments so much that no energy is left to move into the future. Then, any day, any moment, it will happen to you that suddenly all the darkness falls; suddenly all that is a burden disappears; suddenly you are freed. But the emphasis should be more and more on play, the present, here and now – and less and less on the future.
The second question:
Question 2:
YESTERDAY, YOU SAID THAT MIND IS REALITY, DREAM IS REALITY.
THEN WHY DO GURUS LIKE YOU TAKE THE TROUBLE TO TEACH US
THAT MIND IS THE ONLY BARRIER,
MIND IS THE ONLY OBSTACLE?
Gurus and disciples are mind phenomena. Because your mind needs gurus, there are gurus. You create them. Because you want to be taught, there are teachers. You need them.
This is a game. When I say marriage is a game, don’t think that I would not say that ‘guru and disciples’ is not a game. It is a game. Some people enjoy it, so they play it. If you enjoy it, play it deeply; if you don’t enjoy it, forget it. But this is one of the most beautiful of games. It goes even deeper than marriage.
It is one of the most beautiful, most refined of games – and only when a culture reaches the peak does this dame develop, never before. So, really, only in India has the game developed. The game of the guru and the disciple came into being here. Now the West is discovering it for the first time because now the West is reaching to a peak. This game is the most luxurious. It is not ordinary, so only people who can afford it can play it. And if you know that this is a beautiful game and you enjoy it, you can play it. But don’t get serious about it. And disciples can be forgiven if they are serious, but when teachers are serious it is absurd. It cannot be forgiven if they are not even aware that this is a game.
In reality all games disappear, but for the mind, games exist. By this I am not saying that you should stop playing, I am only saying that you should become aware that this is a play and then if you enjoy it go on playing it. If you don’t enjoy it, then stop. Once you become aware that everything in life, every relationship, is a sort of game, you are already free, because you are in bondage only because of the seriousness. You are in bondage because you think everything is so serious. Nothing is so serious. But it is difficult to conceive of this whole life as a game.
Why is it so difficult? Because then the ego falls flat. If everything is a game, the ego cannot stand.
The ego needs food. Seriousness is the food. It feeds on it. So when you become a disciple, if you are just playing, your ego cannot get strong through it because you know that this is a play.
What is there to be so egoistic about? People start thinking that they are disciples of a very great guru. The guru may not be great or he may be great, that is not the point – but the disciple thinks, “I am the disciple of the greatest guru.” That becomes a vitamin and the ego grows on it, becomes stronger.
That’s why disciples go on fighting about gurus. No one can believe that his guru is number two, he is always number one. And it is not about whether he is number one or not – that is not the point – it is because you can be number one only if your guru is number one. The ego of the disciple depends on the height of the guru. If someone says something against your guru, why do you feel so hurt?
Your ego is hurt. YOUR guru means YOUR ego, embodied, and if someone says something against your guru, you cannot tolerate it. It is impossible because it is a direct hit at your ego.
But for disciples it can be tolerated. They are ignorant and whatsoever they do, they will do wrongly.
That is agreed upon. But so-called gurus are also playing the game very seriously. They cannot laugh; it is impossible for them to laugh about the whole game. A guru is really a guru when he knows that the whole thing is a game and that in the game he is helping to make you more aware.
And a moment will come when you will also laugh, a moment will come when you will be able to look back – and then you will feel very grateful because for you it was so serious and for the guru it was never anything. But he was playing the game so seriously with you and making every effort – as if he was leading you somewhere.
Remember, it is ‘as if’ because there is nowhere to lead you to. You have to be here. So all the efforts which appear to be leading you somewhere are just devices. You cannot be led anywhere.
You are already at home, you have never left it. You are rooted in the reality, in the truth. So all these games of leading, guidance, guru-dom, are to bring you to situations where you will find everything that you wanted to find already there.
But you cannot understand non-seriousness. The ego doesn’t know that language. Every religion is born as a play, and every religion becomes a church, very serious, deadly serious. Every religion is born as a dance, as a song, as a festivity, and then everything goes dead and serious. Religion cannot be serious really. It must be ecstatic. It must be the highest peak of bliss. How can it be serious?
Christians go on thinking and believing that Jesus never laughed. Look at Krishna – you cannot find any common ground between them. Not that Jesus was like that, but Christians have made him serious because only around a serious Jesus is a serious church possible. And then the whole game of popes – so serious, so burdened. Jesus must have been a very light-hearted man, laughing, enjoying, eating, drinking, dancing. He must have loved life very deeply.
That was the sin. That was the reason why he was crucified. Those who crucified him were very serious. They were the old established church. Really, they did not crucify Jesus – they crucified the festivity of him. And there would have been no Christianity if he had not been crucified, because he was a very joyous man. The moment Jews crucified him the whole thing became very serious. Death became the point. And the figure on the cross is of course very serious – dead. And Christianity arose around the dead body and the cross. The cross became the symbol – not Jesus laughing in a village, drinking at a party, eating with friends, or staying in a prostitute’s home. No, they were not to become the symbols. The cross became the symbol, and with the cross, seriousness – dead seriousness. And because of that cross and the crucified Jesus, Christianity went against life. All that is alive became sin.
And every religion goes on doing this in its own way.
Those who are very sophisticated will not do it in this way, they will do it in another way. We have not transformed Krishna – India is a very sophisticated land, it will not do such a thing – but we have never taken him to our heart. He is just a myth, beautiful.
The Gita became more important than Bhagvad. Krishna’s life is not so important for Hindus, but his message delivered on the war field is very important. Why? Because it is a serious thing. A war field is nearer to death than to life. Krishna’s life is very much alive, but that has become a myth and nobody bothers about it. His few words uttered on the war field have become more important than his whole life. And then there are pundits who go on explaining that his life is just symbolic, it is not real. His playing with the GOPIS is not real – GOPIS are just symbols of senses, not real. They are not real women of bone and flesh, no. GOPIS are not women, they are symbolic. And pundits are very efficient in doing such tricks. They say that Krishna is the soul and the GOPIS are the senses of the body – the senses are dancing around the soul. This is a sophisticated country. They kill Krishna, they crucify Krishna, but in a very sophisticated way. His festivity is killed; it becomes symbolic, meaningless. And his whole real life is pushed aside.
He was dancing with real women, but that is shocking because we cannot conceive of Krishna dancing with real women. We can allow him to dance with symbolic women but not with real women.
We will be shocked. Life shocks us. We have become so dead that anything alive shocks us.
Every religion is born in festivity – and when the festivity dies know well that the religion is dead.
Whenever a new religion is born, all the old religions will be against it because again the festivity will be there. Just as when a child is born – every child is born as a player, festive, alive, celebrating, irresponsibly celebrating, not believing in the future, believing in the here and now – the whole society will be against him; the whole society will try to put him right before he goes astray. He must be put on the right track.
The same happens with every new religion. So when I talk of meditation as a dance, or when I talk about SANNYAS as an inner celebration and happiness, an affirmation of life, of course all those who belong to old traditions will say, “You call this SANNYAS?” And in a way they are right because whatsoever they have been believing that SANNYAS is, is not this. They have been believing in dead men – the more dead, the more they say, “Now this is real renunciation.” When life has been renounced, they call it SANNYAS – but I call it SANNYAS when life is being lived in its totality.
But this is how it will be always. When I am no more, you will turn it into a serious thing. You will give explanations of what the real meaning is. But the real meaning is always obvious, there is no need to give any explanation. All explanations are to explain away – to bring in something which was not there.
Gurus, disciples, awakened ones and ignorant ones… this is a great play, a cosmic play. Ignorant ones need awakened ones; awakened ones cannot play solo, alone – they need ignorant ones. But the master knows that this is a play and is not serious about it.
The third question:
Question 3:
YOU SAID LAST NIGHT THAT A CHANGE IN THE OUTER OR INNER AND PHYSICAL
OR MENTAL ASPECTS CAN BRING A CHANGE IN CONSCIOUSNESS.
THAT MEANS THAT CHANGES ON THE PERIPHERY ALSO AFFECT THE CONSCIOUSNESS,
THE CENTER.BUT THEN WHY DO YOU EMPHASIZE CHANGING THE CENTER,
INSTEAD OF CHANGING THE OUTER, THE PERIPHERY?
This is the trouble: you go on catching the words and missing the meaning.
The periphery also belongs to you; it is part of the center. The periphery is part of the center, it is the outer part of the center, but it is not different from the center. Can you create a periphery without the center? Or can you create a center without the periphery? They are not separate, they are one. The periphery is the center looked at from without. If you change your periphery, the center will also be affected for two reasons: firstly, the periphery is part of the center, and secondly, what will change the periphery but the center? What will change the periphery? The center will change the periphery.
But my emphasis on starting the work from the center is still there because if you start changing the periphery it will take a longer time to reach to the center. That which can be done in a single moment may take many lives, because you have to travel from the periphery to the center – backwards from the superficial to the depth. If you start work from the center, the periphery automatically changes.
When the center is different, the periphery will follow it because the periphery cannot go away from you. For example, I will not tell you to try to be non-violent at the periphery – it is an unnecessary wastage of time and effort. Be non-violent at the heart, be compassionate, loving, at the heart – and the periphery will follow. You can forget it completely because whatsoever happens at the periphery comes from the center, so if at the center you are compassionate, the periphery will follow. And this compassion will be totally different because the periphery will not know that this is compassion; the periphery will not feel elated that this is compassion; the periphery will be blissfully unaware – the compassion will follow you like a shadow. This is the easiest course.
What I mean is this: if you want to change a tree, change the roots. Of course, the leaves of the tree are also the tree, and you can also try to change the leaves. If you change the leaves the roots will be affected but it is going to be a very long process because the flow is from the roots to the leaves, the flow is not from the leaves to the roots. You are following a reverse direction from that of nature.
If you go on changing the leaves, after many, many lives you may affect the pattern of the roots, but this is going to be unnecessarily long. You can do it immediately if you change the pattern at the roots. The leaves will change and will become different.
So when I emphasize the center, I don’t mean that the periphery is separate from the center. And when I emphasize the center, I don’t mean that you cannot affect the center from the periphery – you can, but this is the longest route possible. If you choose to travel the long route it is up to you.
Nothing is wrong in it. If you enjoy the journey, then the long route is good. If you just want to see the side views then the long route is good. Otherwise start from the center.
It is like this: we are sitting here and you are listening to me, so a center is created in this room – you become the periphery, I become the center. A group soul exists. You are centered towards me.
If someone wants to affect this room and this group soul, it is better to start from me than from you.
Because if I change my mind, effects will come soon, but if someone starts from you, it is going to be a very long effort. Because for one thing, you are many and first he has to change you one by one, and then he must try to change me through you. This is going to be very long, and it may not succeed ever. The other is easier. If he changes me and if you are attached to me as the center, immediately there will be effects.
In your body, in your being, the same phenomenon is happening. There is the center and there is the periphery of your life. With a direct hit at the center the periphery will follow – it has to follow, there is no other way to go. Changing the periphery is a piecemeal affair: you change one fragment and ninety-nine other fragments remain as the old; then when you move to another fragment, those ninety-nine others will change the one you tried to change – they will make it again the old. The whole pattern will be against it. I can change one habit – much effort will be needed – but not your whole pattern because your center goes on giving you all the old habits. I have changed only one habit and there are thousands of habits. This changed habit is just from the surface, forced. The moment you become unaware, all the other habits and the pattern will change it again into the old.
So much effort is wasted working on the periphery.
I have seen people who have been working their whole life for ordinary things. For example, someone has been trying for his whole life to stop smoking – this has been the whole aim, the only aim, and he has not achieved it. I tell such a person that even if you achieve it, what is achieved? The while life is lost just in trying to stop smoking. It is not worth it. When you reach to the Divine source, to God, you will only be able to say that you have stopped smoking. This won’t be worth telling. And the whole life has been spent trying to stop smoking and even that has not been achieved. This is piecemeal work. And the problem is not smoking: you are fighting against a current by changing a small wave – and the whole river goes on flowing. If you change a wave, the whole river will change the wave back again into itself, because the pattern, the built-in pattern, goes on being flashed from the center to the periphery. It is a built-in program: whatsoever is happening on the periphery has happened already in the center. That’s why it is happening there. The periphery comes to know about things which have been happening very deeply.
Move to the cause and don’t be too much concerned with the effect.
This is scientific. Change the center. Don’t try to stop smoking, don’t try to stop this and that – follow the deepest pattern. Why is smoking there? Why is this obsession with sex there? Why is this obsession with money there? Why are you a miser? Why do you go on clinging to dead money?
You can donate it – it will not make any difference. Donating will not help, you will again gather. And donating in itself will be an investment for the future, it will be part of your bank balance. You cannot donate just in play, can you? You can donate very seriously when it is said that the donation will lead you to heaven. Then you can donate. To me a donator who is giving his money for some future end in paradise is more clinging to his money than a person who can throw away all his fortune in a game of cards. This person is less greedy. He can play with it, and his achievement is deeper. He may look immoral because morality is created by the donators. They will say, “You are wasting money.”
They never waste money; they always invest it. And this man is mad, immoral, wasting money. But this man is less greedy, and this man can move deeper more easily than the greedy man who is donating for some paradise or something.
You can change outer things, but even the change will deep down have the same pattern. The pattern has to be uprooted and transformed. That’s why I emphasize starting from the center. But don’t think that I mean that if you cannot start from the center, don’t start from the periphery. That is not what I mean. If you can’t start from the center, please start from the periphery. Something is better than nothing. It will take much time, or you may not ever be able to do it, but still the very effort will be good.
I am reminded of an incident. In a waiting room of an airport, a young woman was crying steadily.
Everyone around was aware of it, but no one know what to do. Then one fellow took courage. He came near the woman, tried to console her, said some soothing things, put his arm around her, and asked, “What can I do? Is there anything I can do to help you to stop crying?” But she was not listening. She continued crying, so he squeezed her a little more tightly and then again asked, “Is there anything I can do to stop you from crying?” The woman said at last, “I am afraid not. This is hayfever, but, still, please, keep on trying.”
That’s what I say to you. From the periphery it is difficult because it is like hayfever. It is almost impossible, but please, keep on trying. Something may happen. Who knows?
But if you are really interested, start from the center.
The fourth question:
Question 4:
WHY SHOULD THERE BE A DIFFERENCE IN TECHNIQUES FOR MEN AND WOMEN?
Because they are different. They are as different as possible. They are polar opposites. Really, the more relevant question would be this: Why should there be similar techniques?
There are techniques which are being used by both men and women, not because they are suited to women, but really because special techniques were never developed for them. They have been a neglected part of humanity. All the techniques were developed by men. Basically man was experimenting with himself: he knew about his energy pattern, his routes of energy, his passages of energy. He worked on these. And then he was talking to other men – so techniques were developed by men for men. Women were never considered.
Women cannot enter a Mohammedan mosque. They are not to be a part of Islam really: the mosque exists only for men. For many years Buddha insistently denied women initiation. Mahavir initiated many women, he never denied them initiation, but no techniques were developed for them. All the techniques were for men. Women worked through them. That’s why the results were never so miraculous, never; they were always so-so, bound to be. Really, there is no need for three hundred religions in the world, there is only need for two religions: one for men and one for women. And those two religions need not be in conflict, they can be married together. They will become one.
There is no need of any conflict. If a man and a woman can fall in love and live together as a single unit, those two religions can fall in love – they should.
The whole physiology, the whole psychology, every layer of the feminine consciousness is different from man’s – not only different, just the opposite. For example, kundalini yoga… it is not for women at all. But many will be shocked if I say that. And women particularly will be shocked. They will think that something has been taken out of their hands. It is not for them at all because kundalini is based on the positive sex center for man. The positive sex center is at the root of the penis – for men not for women. For women that center is negative, and energy cannot be raised from a negative center. So almost always it is the case – this is my observation – that whenever women say they are feeling kundalini arising in the, they are imagining. It cannot happen but they are very imaginary, more imaginary than men. So if I work with ten women and ten men, nine women will feel the energy arising and only one man will feel the energy arising. This is miraculous because it cannot happen! They go on coming to me and I say, “Okay, it is happening.” What to do? It is impossible, scientifically impossible, because energy can come only from a positive pole.
Totally different techniques should be developed, totally different techniques – but because man and woman live so near, so close together, they go on forgetting that they are different. Nothing is similar, and it is good that nothing is similar, because that’s why they can become one circle of energy. They are complementary, they fit into each other. But because they fit that doesn’t mean that they are similar – they fit because they are not similar.
And whenever two similar types of bodies and minds try to fit into each other, this is perversion. So I say that homosexuality is a perversion. In the West, now, it has become more and more prevalent.
Now homosexuals think they are progressive: they have their clubs, parties, institutions, magazines, propaganda, everything. And their number is rising. In certain countries it has come to near about forty per cent. Sooner or later homosexuality will become a pattern all over, a normal pattern. Now even certain states in America are allowing homosexual marriage. If people insist, you have to allow it because the government has to serve the people. If two men want to live together in marriage, it is no one’s business to create obstacles. It’s okay. If two women want to live together, married, it’s no one’s business. It’s their own affair. But this is basically unscientific. It is their affair, but unscientific.
It is their affair and no one needs to interfere, but their minds are unenlightened about the very basic pattern of human energy and its movement. Homosexuals cannot develop spirituality. It is very difficult. Their whole pattern of energy movement is disturbed. The whole mechanism is shocked, perverted. And now if homosexuality grows too much in the world, very different techniques will have to be developed, unknown before, to help them to move towards meditation.
When I say a man and woman are two counterparts of one whole, I mean they are complementary.
And the complementariness is possible only when their opposite poles meet. Look at it in this way:
the vagina is the negative pole in the feminine body and the breasts are the positive pole. This is the rod of magnetism: the positive pole near the breasts, the negative pole near the vagina. For man the negative pole is at the breasts, and the positive pole is at the penis. So when breasts meet – male and female – negative and positive are meeting; and when sex centers meet in coitus, negative and positive are meeting. Now both magnetic rods are meeting at their opposite poles, now there is a circle – the energy can flow, the energy can move. But this circle will happen only when a man and woman are in love. If they are not in love, then only their sex centers will meet – one positive pole will meet with one negative pole. There will be an exchange of energy, but linear. A circle cannot be made. That’s why without love you never feel satisfied.
Sex without love becomes just a trifle. It is not deep moving. Energy moves, but in a line – a circle is not made. And when a circle is there you become one, not before. When you are deep in love, then breasts also meet, never before. So the sex act is very easy, the love act is more complex. The sex act is just physical – two energies meeting and dissipating. Hence, if there is only sex, sooner or later you will feel frustrated: you waste energy and nothing is gained. The gain happens only when there is a circle. If the circle is totally there, then both the partners will come out of the sex act more energetic, more alive, more charged, with more energy flowing. If there is only the sex act, both partners will come out of it discharged, faint. They have lost energy. Sleep will follow because all they are feeling is weak.
In this ‘one pole meeting’, men are at more of a loss than women. That’s why women can become prostitutes – because the positive pole is man and the negative pole is woman. Energy flows from man to woman but not vice versa. So a woman can be in twenty or thirty sex acts in one night, a man cannot. A man cannot be in two. It depends on age, how his energy is moving – because nothing is gained. So to me, if prostitution is bad it is not because of prostitution, it is because a circle is impossible. You are not charged. You simply waste your energy. If there is love, then man and woman meet on two poles. Man gives to the woman and the woman returns it back. This is reciprocal, mutual.
For females, meditation will be good if it starts from the breasts. That is their positive pole. Because of this, many strange things become possible, happen. Man always likes to enter the woman immediately. He is not interested in foreplay because his positive pole is always ready. And women are always reluctant to enter into the sex act immediately, without any foreplay, because their negative pole is not ready. And it cannot be ready. Unless the man starts loving the woman from the breasts, the negative pole will not be ready. They can yield but they will not participate.
And man thinks the sex act is simple. Why waste time? Enter the woman immediately – and he is finished within minutes. But the woman was not a part, she was not aroused. That’s why women have a hankering that their lovers should touch their breasts, love their breasts – a deep hankering.
Only when their breasts have become filled with energy does their second pole of the magnetic rod, which is negative, respond. Then they are alive to it, then they can participate, then communication is possible – and then they will melt. Foreplay is a must.
Marriages become dry because in the beginning when you meet a new woman you play with her body before. You are not certain whether she will allow you a direct approach, so you play. You just feel the ground to see whether she is ready. But when she is your wife, you take her for granted – there is no need. Wives are so dissatisfied with their husbands, not because their husbands are not loving but because they are wrongly loving. They don’t think that a woman exists in a different way; that her body responds in a different way just opposite to them.
This concentration at the breasts, melting into them, will give a new feeling to the female meditator – a new feeling about her own body, because now from the center she can feel the whole body vibrating. Just by loving the breasts of a woman she can be brought to a deep orgasm because the negative pole will automatically go on responding.
There are many other things. If you start from the breasts, meditating on the nipples, don’t follow the route that you have read in books because that is meant for men. Simply don’t follow any chart, just allow the energy itself to move. It will happen in this way: with just a vague suggestion your breasts will become filled with energy, they will radiate energy, they will become hot, and then immediately your vagina will respond. And only after your vagina responds and vibrates, will your kundalini start working. The route will be different and the way the kundalini will arise will be different.
In man it arises very actively, forcibly. That’s why they have called it a serpent rising. Very forcibly, suddenly, with a jerk, the serpent unfolds. And it is felt on many points. Those points are called chakras. Wherever there is resistance, the snake forces itself. Just as the penis enters the vagina, so the passage is similar for man. When the energy arises it is as if the penis inside is moving.
And the snake is a phallic symbol. Really, not to use direct language, not to call it penis, they have called it a snake. You must have heard the story of the Garden of Eden where the serpent persuaded Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Now scholars are working and they say that this serpent is also just a phallic symbol, used so as not to say it directly. So it is not a question, really, of eating the Fruit of Knowledge; it is a question of sexuality.
The same symbol has been used similarly in India: the serpent rises just like a penis erecting in jerks, and moving inwards.
This will not be the feeling for woman. The feeling will be quite the opposite. As a woman feels when the penis has entered the vagina – the melting sensation, the welcoming, the vagina giving way, vibrating very, very delicately, in a very receptive mood, loving, welcoming – the same will be the phenomenon inside. When the energy rises, it will be a receptive, passive rise, as if a passage is opening – not a serpent rising, but a door opening, and a passage opening, and something giving way. It will be passive and negative. With men something is entering; with women something is opening, not entering.
But no one has worked on it, never before, because no one has taken any cognisance of women.
But for the future, I think that now it is a must – the feminine body should not be neglected. Much research and work is needed, but it is very difficult to work because of so much puritanical, moralistic nonsense. It is very difficult to work and to create a map of how the feminine body will respond to the phenomena.
But this is how I feel it will be; everything will be just the opposite. It must be so. It cannot be similar.
But the ultimate thing will be the same.
Osho ~ Vigyan Bhairav Tantra 