The search for the rhythm of the opposites:
102. IMAGE SPIRIT SIMULTANEOUSLY WITHIN
AND AROUND YOU UNTIL THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE SPIRITUALIZES.
‘अपने भीतर तथा बाहर एक साथ आत्मा की कल्पना करो। जब तक कि संपूर्ण अस्तित्व आत्मवान न हो जाए।’103. WITH YOUR ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE VERY START OF DESIRE,
OF KNOWING, KNOW.
‘अपनी संपूर्ण चेतना से कामना के, जानने के आरंभ में ही जानो।’104. O SHAKTI, EACH PARTICULAR PERCEPTION IS LIMITED, DISAPPEARING IN OMNIPOTENCE.
‘हे शक्ति, प्रत्येक आभास सीमित है, सर्वशक्तिमान में विलीन हो रहा है।’105. IN TRUTH FORMS ARE INSEPARATE. INSEPARATE ARE OMNIPRESENT BEING
AND YOUR OWN FORM. REALIZE EACH AS MADE OF THIS CONSCIOUSNESS.
‘सत्य में रूप अविभक्त है। सर्वव्यापी आत्मा तथा तुम्हारा अपना रूप अविभक्त है। दोनों को इसी चेतना से निर्मित जानो।’
One of the greatest poets, Walt Whitman, is reported to have said, “I contradict myself because I am big, I contradict myself because I contain all the opposites, because I am all.” The same thing can be said about Shiva, about Tantra.
Tantra is the search for the rhythm of opposites, of contradictions. Contradictory, opposite standpoints become one in Tantra. This has to be deeply understood, only then will you be able to understand why there are so many contradictory, different techniques. Life is a rhythm between opposites: male and female, positive and negative, day and night, birth and death. Between these opposites moves the river of life. The opposites are the banks – they appear to be contradictory, but they are co-operative. The appearance is false. Life cannot exist without this rhythm between the opposites. And life contains all. Tantra is neither for this nor for that – Tantra is for all. Tantra has no standpoint of its own really. All standpoints that are possible are contained in it. It is big. It can contradict itself because it contains all. It is not partial, it is the whole. Hence it is holy.
All partial standpoints are bound to be profane; they cannot be holy if they don’t contain the opposite.
They may be logical and rational, but they cannot be alive. Wherever life exists, it exists through its opposite. It cannot exist alone, the opposite is a must.
In Greek mythology, two gods are at polar opposites: Apollo and Dionysius. Apollo is the god of order, discipline, virtue, morality, culture, and Dionysius is the god of disorder, chaos, freedom, nature. Both are polar opposites. Almost all religions are more or less based on the Apollonian standpoint. They believe in reason, they believe in order, they believe in virtue, they believe in discipline, control… really they believe in the ego.
But Tantra is basically different: it contains both. It contains the Dionysian standpoint also. It believes in nature, it believes in chaos, it believes in laughing and dancing and singing; it is not just serious, it is both. It is BOTH serious and non-serious. Nietzsche writes in one of his letters, “I can believe only in a dancing god.” He couldn’t find any dancing god. Had he known something about Shiva then the story of his life would have been totally different. Shiva is the dancing god. Nietzsche knew only about the Christian god. That is the only standpoint – very serious. Sometimes the seriousness of the Christian god looks absurd, childish, because the opposite is denied completely.
You cannot conceive of a Christian god dancing. Impossible! Dancing looks too earthly. And you cannot conceive of a Christian god laughing – or can you? It is impossible. The Christian god cannot laugh. Laughter will look too worldly. The Christian god is the very spirit of seriousness and Nietzsche couldn’t believe in it.
And I think that no one can believe in such a god because it is half, it is not the whole. Only persons like Billy Graham can believe in it. Somewhere Billy Graham says very seriously that when you are reading sexy magazines you must remember that God is looking at you. This looks foolish. You are reading a sexy magazine and God is reading you reading the sexy magazines! This very attitude is stupid. It is stupid because it doesn’t contain the opposite. You will become stupid and dead if the opposite is denied. But if you can move to the opposite easily with no contradiction, if you can be serious and you can be laughing, if you can sit like a Buddha and you can dance like a Krishna and there is no inherent opposition between these two – you can move from being a Buddha towards being a Krishna easily and smoothly – if you can do this, you will be alive. And if you can do this you will be a Tantric, because Tantra is the basic search for the rhythm which exists between the opposites, for the river which flows between the opposites.
So Tantra goes on working on all and every technique possible. Tantra is not for someone, it is for all. Every type of mind can move through Tantra. Every type of mind cannot be Christian, every type of mind cannot be Hindu, every type of mind cannot be Buddhist. A particular type of mind will be attracted by Buddha, a particular type by Jesus, a particular type by Mohammed. Shiva contains all. Shiva can have an appeal for every type possible. The total, the whole has been included, it is not a partial standpoint. That is why Tantra has no sect. You cannot create a sect around the whole you can create a sect only around a fragment. You can live the whole, but you cannot create a sect. A sect can be created only when you are for something and against something else. If both the opposites are contained, how can you create a sectarian mind? Tantra is the essential religion, it is not a sect. Hence so many techniques.
People keep on coming to me and asking, “There are so many techniques and one technique contradicts the other?’ Yes, it contradicts the other because it is not meant for a particular mind.
In these hundred and twelve techniques, all the types, all the possible types of humanity have been included. Please don’t be concerned with all the techniques, otherwise you will get confused. You simply find that which suits you, that which appeals to you. Towards it you will feel a deep affinity, an attraction; you will fall in love with it. Then forget all the remaining one hundred and eleven techniques Forget them. You just stick to the one that works for you. In these one hundred and twelve techniques, only one technique is for you. If you try many techniques you will get confused, because to try so many techniques you will need a very big mind which can absorb contradiction.
That is not possible right now. One day it may become possible. You can become so complete, so total, that you can move easily with many techniques. Then there will be no problem. But then there will also be no need! Right now is the need. Find your technique.
I can be helpful to you in finding which technique will be suitable for you. And if you feel that other techniques are contradictory to the technique that suits you, don’t think about them. They are contradictory. But they are not for you. At least they are not for you now. One day it may become possible that when you don’t have the ego within, you can move to the opposite without any problem.
The ego creates the problem. It is stuck somewhere, it clings to something, it is not liquid, it cannot flow. And Shiva is flowing in all directions.
So remember, don’t start thinking about these techniques: that this technique is against that. Shiva is not trying to create a system, he is not a system-maker. Shiva is giving all the techniques without any systematizing. They cannot be systematized, because a system means that the contradictory, the opposite, must be denied. And here the opposite is included. It is both Apollo and Dionysius; it is both serious and laughing; it is both immanent and transcendent; it is both earthly and unearthly – because it is all.
Now we should enter the techniques:
The first technique:
IMAGINE SPIRIT SIMULTANEOUSLY WITHIN AND AROUND YOU UNTIL THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE SPIRITUALIZES.
First you must understand what imagination is. It is condemned very much nowadays. The moment you hear the word “imagine’ you will say this is useless, we want something real, not imaginary. But imagination is a reality, it is a capacity, it is a potentiality within you. You can imagine. That shows that your being is capable of imagination. This capacity is a reality. Through this imagination you can destroy or you can create yourself. That depends on you. Imagination is very powerful. It is potential power.
What is imagination? It is getting into an attitude so deeply that the very attitude becomes reality.
For example, you may have heard about a technique which is used in Tibet. They call it heat yoga.
The night is cold, snow is falling, and the Tibetan lama will be standing naked under the open sky.
The temperature is below zero. You would simply start dying, you would freeze. But the lama is practicing a particular technique. That technique is that he is imagining that his body is a burning fire and he is imagining that he is perspiring – the heat is so much that he is perspiring.. And he actually starts perspiring although the temperature is below zero and even the blood should freeze.
He starts perspiring. What is happening? This perspiration is real, his body is really hot – but this reality is created through imagination.
You just try some simple technique so that you can feel how reality can be created through imagination. Unless you feel it, you cannot work with this technique. Just count your pulse. Sit in a closed room and count your pulse. And then for five minutes just imagine that you are running.
Imagine that you are running, it is hot, you are taking deep breaths, you are perspiring, and your pulse rate is going high. After imagining this for five minutes again count your pulse. You will see the difference: your pulse rate will be high. You have worked it just by imagination, you were not really running.
In old Tibet, Buddhist monks used to do exercise only through imagination. And those techniques can be of much use for modern man, because it is difficult to run in the street, difficult to have a long walk, difficult to find a lonely street. You can just lie down on the floor in your room and imagine that for one hour continuously you are taking a long fast walk. Just in imagination go on walking. And now even medical experts say that the effect would be the same as if it were a real walk. Once you get in tune with your imagination, the body starts functioning. You are already doing many things without knowing that it is your imagination working. Many times you create many illnesses just through imagination; you imagine that now this disease is there, infectious, it is all over the place.
You have become receptive, now there is every possibility that you will fall ill – and that illness is real. But it has been created through imagination. Imagination is a force, an energy, and the mind moves through it. And when the mind moves through it, the body follows.
It happened once in a university hostel in the United States that four students were trying an experiment in hypnosis. Hypnosis is nothing but imagination power. When you hypnotize a person, he is really falling into deep imagination, and whatsoever you suggest will start happening. So they suggested many things to a boy that they had hypnotized. Four boys tried hypnosis on one. They tried many things and whatsoever they said, the boy immediately followed. When they said, “Jump,”
the boy started jumping. When they said, “Weep,” the boy started weeping. When they said, “Tears are flowing from your eyes,” tears started flowing. Then just as a joke they said, “Now lie down. You are dead!” And the boy lay down and he was dead.
This happened in nineteen fifty-two. After that they made a law against hypnosis in the United States. No one should try hypnosis unless some research work is involved; unless some medical institute, or some psychological department of some university authorizes you. Only then can you experiment. Otherwise it is dangerous – the boy simply believed, imagined, that he was dead, and he was dead.
If death can occur through imagination, why not life, why not more life?
This technique is based on the power of imagination. IMAGINE SPIRIT SIMULTANEOUSLY WITHIN AND AROUND YOU UNTIL THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE SPIRITUALIZES.
Just sit in a lonely place where no one will disturb you – a lonely secluded room will do. Or if you can get somewhere outside it will be better, because when you are near nature you are more imaginative.
When there are only man-made things around you, you are less imaginative. Nature is dreaming, and it gives you a dreaming force. Alone you become more imaginative: that’s why you are afraid when you are alone. It is not that ghosts are going to trouble you, but alone your imagination can work. And your imagination can create ghosts or anything you want it to. When you move alone, your imagination is more potential; when someone else is there, your reason is in control Because without reason you cannot be related to the others; to others goes on working. When there is no one there, the mind goes on working. When there is no one there, the mind relaxes and you regress to a deeper imaginative layer of the being. When you are alone, imagination starts functioning.
Many experiments have been done with sensory deprivation. If a person can be deprived of all sensory stimuli – if you are closed in a soundproof room with no light entering it, no possibility of being related to any other human being, no pictures on the walls, nothing in the room to which you can relate – after one, two or three hours you will start relating to yourself. You will become imaginative. You will start talking to yourself. You will question and you will answer. A monologue will start in which you will be divided. Then suddenly you will start feeling many things which you cannot understand. You will start hearing sounds, but the room is soundproof, no sound can come in. Now you are imagining. You may start smelling perfumes, but no perfume is there. Now you are imagining. After thirty-six hours of sensory deprivation, you cannot make any difference between what is real and what is imaginary – impossible. After thirty-six hours of sensory deprivation, imagination becomes reality and reality becomes illusory.
That is why seekers in the old days would move to the mountains, to the lonely places, where they could lose the distinction between the real and the unreal. Once the distinction is lost, your imagination is in full force. Now you can use it and you can be creative through it.
For this technique sit in a lonely place: if the surrounding is natural, it is good, it not, then a room can also do. Then close your eyes and imagine a spiritual force is felt within and without. Within you a river of consciousness is flowing and it is going all over the room, overflowing. Within and without, around you, everywhere, spirit is present, energy is present. And don’t only imagine it only in the mind, start feeling within the body – your body will start vibrating. When you feel that the body has started vibrating, it shows that the imagination has started functioning. Feel that the whole universe by and by is spiritualized – everything, the walls of the room, the trees around you, everything has become no-material, it has become spiritual. Matter is no more.
That is the reality also. Physicists say that matter is illusory and energy is real, and wherever you see solid things, that solidity is just an appearance, it is not there. As physics enters deeper into the world of matter, matter disappears. Only energy, immaterial energy, remains indefinable.
Through imagination you are reaching to a point where, by your conscious effort, you are destroying the structures of the intellect, the patterns of the intellect. You feel that there is no matter, only energy, only spirit, within and without. Soon you will feel that within and without have disappeared.
When your body becomes spiritual and you feel it is energy, then there is no distinction between the within and the without. The boundaries are lost. Now there is only a flow, an ocean, vibrating. This is the real also – you are reaching to the real through imagination.
What is imagination doing? Imagination is only destroying the old concepts, matter, old patterns of the mind which go on looking at things in a certain way. Imagination is destroying them. And then the reality will be revealed.
IMAGINE SPIRIT SIMULTANEOUSLY WITHIN AND AROUND YOU UNTIL THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE SPIRITUALIZES – until you feel that all distinctions have disappeared, all boundaries have dissolved and the universe has become just an ocean of energy. That is the fact, also. But the deeper you proceed in the technique, the more scared you will become. You will feel as if you are going mad. Because your sanity consists of distinctions, your sanity consists of this so- called reality and when the reality starts disappearing, you will feel that simultaneously your sanity is disappearing. Saints and insane persons move in a world which is beyond our so-called reality.
They both move, but the insane persons fall and saints go beyond. The difference is very small but it is very great also. If without any effort on your part you lose your mind and the distinctions, the real and the unreal, you will become insane. But if you destroy the concepts with conscious effort, you will become “un-sane,” not insane. That “un-sanity” is the dimension of religion. It is beyond sanity.
But conscious effort is needed. You should not be a victim, you should remain a master. When it is your effort which is destroying the patterns of the mind, you look into the unpatterned reality.
The unpatterned reality is the only reality; the patterned reality is just imposed. That’s why now anthropologists say that every society, every culture, looks at the same reality but finds a different reality there, because their patterns, their concepts are different. There are many cultures in the world, primitive cultures. They look at the same world in a very different way; their interpretation is totally different. The reality is the same for us and for them, but the pattern looked through is different. For example, Buddhists say that there is no substance in the world, the world is a process.
There is nothing substantial. Everything is in movement – or even that may not be the right thing to say. Movement is the only thing. When we say that everything is in movement, again there is the old fallacy – it is as if there is something which is moving. Buddha says there is nothing which is moving – only movement is there. That is all that there is. So in a Buddhist country like Thailand or Burma, they don’t have any corresponding word for “is” in their languages. When the Bible was translated into Thai for the first time, it became a problem to translate it because in the Bible it is said that “God is.” You cannot say that “God is” in Burmese or in Thai; you cannot say it. Whatsoever they say will mean, “God is becoming.” Everything is moving, nothing is. When a Burmese looks at the world, he looks at movement. When we look, when particularly the Greek-oriented Western mind looks, there is no process, only substance. There are dead things, not movements. Even when you look at a river, you see the river as “is.” The river is not there – the river just means a movement, something which is constantly becoming. And a point never comes where you say it has become, it is a process without end. When we look at a tree, we see the tree “is”. The Burmese language has nothing to say. They can only say that the tree is becoming, the tree is flowing, the tree is growing, the tree is in process. If the child is brought up with this pattern in the mind – then everything is a process – the world, the reality, will be totally different. For you it is different and the reality is one and the same. But what mind do you bring to it to interpret it? Then it changes.
Remember one basic thing: unless the pattern of your mind is thrown away, unless you are “de- patterned”, unless your conditioning is thrown away and you are deconditioned, you will not know what reality is – you will know only interpretations. Those interpretations are the workings of your own mind. Unpatterned reality is the only reality. And this technique is to help you to unpattern, to decondition, to dissolve from the mind the words which have gathered there. You cannot look because of them. Whatsoever looks real to you let it be dissolved.
Imagine energy, not substance, nothing static, but process, movement, rhythm, dance, and go on imagining until the entire universe spiritualizes. If you persist, within three months of intensively working for just one hour every day, you can move to this feeling. Within three months you can have a different feeling of the whole existence around you. Matter is no longer there, only immaterial, oceanic existence, just waves, vibrations. When this happens then you know what God is. That ocean of energy is God. God is not a person. God is not somewhere sitting on a throne in heaven.
The whole creative energy of existence is God. But we have a pattern of thinking. We say God is the creator. God is not the creator. Rather, God is the creative force, the very creation itself.
It has been forced again and again on our minds that somewhere in the past, God created the world – and then and there creation finished. Christians have a story that within six days God created the world and on the seventh day he rested. That’s why the seventh day, Sunday, is a holiday. God took a holiday on that day. In six days he created the world, forever and ever – and since then there has been no creation. Since the sixth day there has been no creation. This is a very dead concept.
Tantra says God is the very creativity. Creation is not a historical event that happened somewhere in the past – it is happening every moment, God is creating every moment. But again language creates a problem and we say, “God is creating.” It feels that God is someone who goes on creating.
No, the very creativity that goes on moving and moving every moment, that very creativity is God.
So you are in creation every moment. This is a very alive concept. It is not that God has created something somewhere and since then there has been no dialogue between man and God, there has been really no connection, no relationship – he created and the thing was finished. Tantra says that every moment you are being created, eery moment you are in deep relationship with the divine, with the source of creativity. This is a very alive concept.
Through this technique you will have glimpse of the creative force, within and without. And once you can feel the creative force and the touch, the impact of it, you will become totally different, you will never be the same again. God has entered you.You have become an abode.
The second technique:
WITH YOUR ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE VERY START OF DESIRE, OF KNOWING, KNOW.
The basic thing about this technique is ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS. If you can bring your entire consciousness to anything, it will become a transforming force. The transformation happens whenever you are entire in it – in anything. But that is difficult, because wherever we are, we are only there in part, never in entirety.
You are here listening to me. This very listening can become a transformation. If you are entirely here, this very moment here and now, if listening is your entirety, that listening will become a meditation: you will enter a different realm of ecstasy, a separate reality. But you are not entire.
That is the problem with the human mind, it is always partial. A part is listening. Other parts may be somewhere else, or may be asleep, or may be thinking about what is being said, or arguing inside. That creates a division and division is a dissipation of energy. So when doing anything bring your entire being to it. When you are not holding anything back, not even a minor part is separate, when you have taken a jump, total, whole, your whole being has come into it, then any act becomes meditative.
It is reported that one day Rinzai was working in his garden – Rinzai was a Zen master – and somebody approached. The man had come to ask some philosophical questions. He was a philosophical seeker. He didn’t know that the man who was working in the garden was Rinzai himself. He thought he must be a gardener, a servant, so he asked, “Where is Rinzai?” Rinzai said,”Rinzai is always here.” Of course, the man thought that this gardener seemed to be mad because he said that Rinzai was always here. So he thought it would not be good to ask anything of this man again and he started moving off to ask someone else. Rinzai said, “Don’t go anywhere, because you will not find him anywhere. He is always here.” But he escaped from this madman.
Then he inquired from others and they said, “The first man you met is Rinzai.” So he came back and said, “Forgive me, I am sorry, I thought you were mad. I have come to inquire about something. I want to now what truth is. What should I do to know it?” Rinzai said, “Do whatsoever you want to do, but do it entirely.”
The point is not what you do, that is irrelevant. The point is that you do it entirely.
“For example,” Rinzai said, “when I am digging this hole in the earth, my entirely is there in the act of digging. There is no Rinzai left behind. The whole has gone into the digging. Really there is no digger left, only the digging. If the digger is left, then you are divided.”
You are listening to me. If the listener is left, then you are not entire. If there is only listening and there is no listener left behind you are entire, here and now. Then this very moment becomes a meditation. In this sutra Shiva says, WITH YOUR ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE VERY START OF DESIRE, OF KNOWING, KNOW. If a desire arises within you, Tantra doesn’t say to fight it. That is futile. No one can fight a desire. It is foolish also, because whenever you start fighting with something within you, you are fighting with yourself, you will become schizophrenic, your personality will be split. And all these so-called religions have helped humanity to by and by become schizophrenic. Everybody is split, everybody is divided and fighting with himself because so-called religions have told you, “This is bad. Don’t do this.” If the desire comes, what to do? You go on fighting with the desire. Tantra says don’t fight the desire. But that doesn’t mean that you become a victim of it. That doesn’t mean that you indulge in it. Tantra gives you a very subtle technique. When desire arises, be alert just at the beginning with your entirety. Look at it with your entirety. Become the look. Don’t leave the looker behind. Bring your total consciousness to this arising desire. This is a very subtle method, but wonderful. Miraculous are its effects.
Three things have to be understood. Firstly, when desire has already arisen you cannot do anything.
Then it will take its full course, it will complete its circle, and you cannot do anything. Just in the beginning something can be done – the seed should be burned then and there. Once the seed has sprouted and the tree has started growing, it is difficult, almost impossible, to do something.
Whatsoever you do will create more anguish, dissipation of energy, frustration, weakness. When the desire arises, just at the beginning, just at the first glimpse, the first flicker that a desire is arising, bring your total consciousness, the entirety of your being to look at it. Don’t do anything. Nothing else is needed. With the entire being the look is so fiery that the seed is burned, with no struggle, with no conflict, with no antagonism. Just a deep look with the entire being and the arriving desire disappears completely. And when a desire disappears without a fight, it leaves you so powerful, with such immense energy, with such tremendous awareness, you cannot imagine it. If you fight, you will be defeated. Even if you are not defeated and you defeat the desire, that too will amount to the same thing. No energy will be left. You will feel frustrated whether you win or get defeated. In both cases you will be weak in the end, because the desire was fighting with your energy and you were fighting with the same energy. The energy was coming from the same source, you were taking from the same source – so the source will be weakened whatsoever the result. But if the desire disappears just in the beginning, without any conflict – remember, this is basic – without any fight, with just a look, not even an antagonistic look, not even with a mind to destroy, with no enmity, just a total look, in the intensity of that total look the seed is burnt. And when the desire, arising desire, disappears, just like smoke in the sky, you are left with tremendous energy – that very energy is bliss. That will give you a beauty of its own, a grace.
The so-called saints who are fighting their desires are always ugly. When I say ugly, I mean they are always mean, fighting. Their whole personality becomes graceless. And they are always weak, always lacking energy, because all their energy is used up in the inner fight. A Buddha is totally different. And the grace that has come to Buddha’s personality is the grace of desires disappearing without any struggle or fight, without any inner violence.
WITH YOUR ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE VERY START OF DESIRE, OF KNOWING, KNOW. In that very moment simply know, look, see. Don’t do anything. Nothing else is needed. All that is needed is that your total being should be there present. Your total presence is needed. This is one of the secrets of achieving the ultimate enlightenment without any violence. And remember, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God with violence. No, those doors shall never open for you, howsoever much you knock. Knock and go on knocking. You may break your head but those doors will never open. But for those who deep inside are non-violent and not fighting with anything, those doors are always open, they were never closed. Jesus said, “Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you.” I say to you that there is no need even to knock. Look, the doors are open. They have always been open. They were never closed. Just take a deep look, entire, total, whole.
The third technique:
O SHAKTI, EACH PARTICULAR PERCEPTION IS LIMITED, DISAPPEARING IN OMNIPOTENCE.
Whatsoever we see is limited, whatsoever we feel is limited, all perceptions are limited. But if you can become aware, then every limited thing is disappearing into the unlimited. Look at the sky. You will see a limited part of it, not because the sky is limited by because your eyes are limited, your focus is limited. But if you can become aware that this limitation is because of the focus, because of the eye, it is not the sky that is limited, then you will see the boundaries melting into the unlimited.
Otherwise existence is unlimited, otherwise everything is melting into something else. Everything is losing its boundary, every moment waves are disappearing into the ocean – and there is no end to anything and there is no beginning. Everything is everything else also.
Limitation is forced by us. It is because of us, because we cannot see the infinite, that we divide it. We have done it in everything. You make a fence around your house and you say, “This land belongs to me and beyond the fence is somebody else’s land.” But deep down your land and your neighbor’s land are one. The fence is just because of you. The land is not divided, the neighbors and you are divided – because of your mind.
Nations are divided because of your mind. Somewhere India ends and Pakistan starts, but just a few years back India was where Pakistan now is. At that time India used to continue up to the limits of Pakistan, the present day limits. But now Pakistan is divided, there is a barrier. But the land remains the same.
I have heard a story that happened when India and Pakistan were divided. There was a madhouse, a mad asylum, just on the boundary of India and Pakistan. The politicians were not very worried about where the madhouse went, to Pakistan or to India, but the superintendent was very worried.
So he asked where the madhouse was going to be, whether it was going to be in India or in Pakistan.
Somebody from Delhi informed him that he should ask the inmates, the madmen, and take a vote as to where they wanted to go.
The superintendent was the only man who was not insane and he tried to explain. He gathered all the madmen together and told them, “Now it is up to you, wherever you want you can go. If you want to go to India, you can go to India. If you want to go to Pakistan, you can go to Pakistan.” But the madmen said, “We want to remain here. We don’t want to go anywhere.” He tried and tried to explain. He said, “You will remain here. Don’t worry about it. You will remain here, but where do you want to go?” Those madmen said, “People say we are mad, but you look more mad. You say you will remain here, and we will remain here, so why worry about going anywhere?” The superintendent was at a loss as to how to explain the whole thing.
There was only one way. He erected a wall, and divided the madhouse into two equal parts. One part became India, another part became Pakistan. And it is reported that sometimes madmen from the Pakistan madhouse came over the wall, and the madmen from India they also jumped over the wall, and they’re still much confused about what is happening. “We are in the same place, and you have gone to Pakistan, and we have gone to India, and no one has gone anywhere!”
Those madmen are bound to be at a loss, they will never be able to understand, because in Delhi and Karachi there are bigger madmen.
We go on dividing. Life, existence, is not divided. All demarcations are man-made. They are useful, if you don’t go mad about them, and if you know that they are just artificial, man-made, utilitarian, not real, not true, that they are just myths, that they help but they don’t go any deeper.
O SHAKTI, EACH PARTICULAR PERCEPTION IS LIMITED, DISAPPEARING IN OMNIPOTENCE.
So, whenever you see anything limited, always remember that beyond the limit it is disappearing, the limitation is disappearing. Always look beyond and beyond.
This you can make a meditation. Just sit under a tree and look, and whatsoever comes into your view, just go beyond, look beyond, and don’t stop anywhere. Just find where this tree is melting.
This tree, this small tree just in your garden, has the whole of existence in it. It is melting every moment. If the sun does not rise tomorrow this tree will die, because this tree’s life is bound together with the life of the sun. The distance between them is very long – for the sun-rays to reach earth takes time, ten minutes’ time. Ten minutes’ time is very long, because light travels at a very fast speed, tremendous. Light travels one hundred and eighty-six lahk miles in one second and it takes ten minutes for light to reach this tree from the sun. The distance is tremendous, vast. But if the sun is no longer there, the tree will immediately disappear. They exist together. The tree is melting every moment into the sun and the sun is melting into the tree. Every moment the sun is entering into the tree, making it alive…. The other things is as yet unknown to science, but religion says another thing is also happening – because in life nothing can exist without response. If the sun is giving life to the tee, the tree must be giving life back to the sun, because in life there is always a response.
And energy equalizes. The tree must be giving life to the sun. They are one. Then the tree has disappeared, the limitation has disappeared.
Wherever you look, look for the beyond and don’t stop anywhere. Go on and on and on, until you lose your mind, until you lose all your limited patterns. Suddenly you will be illumined. The whole existence is one. That oneness is the goal. And suddenly mind is tired of pattern, limitation, boundary – and as you insist on going beyond, as you go on pulling it beyond and beyond, the mind slips, suddenly it drops, and you look at existence as a vast oneness, everything melting into each other, everything changing into the other.
O SHAKTI, EACH PARTICULAR PERCEPTION IS LIMITED, DISAPPEARING IN OMNIPOTENCE.
You can make a meditation out of it. Sit for one hour and work it out. Don’t create any limitation anywhere. Whatsoever the limitation just try to find the beyond, and move and go on moving. Soon the mind becomes tired because mind cannot cope with the unlimited. Only with the limited can it be related. With the unlimited, it cannot be related: it gets bored, it gets tired, it says, “Enough, now stop!” But don’t stop, go on moving. A moment will come when mind is left behind and only consciousness is moving. In that moment you will have the illumination of oneness, of non-duality.
That is the goal. That is the highest peak of consciousness. And that is the greatest ecstasy possible to human mind, and the deepest bliss.
The fourth technique:
IN TRUTH FORMS ARE INSEPARATE. INSEPARATE ARE OMNIPRESENT BEING AND YOUR OWN FORM. REALIZE EACH AS MADE OF THIS CONSCIOUSNESS.
In truth forms are inseparate. They appear separate, but every form is joined together with other forms. Our reality is a co-existence. It is really an inter-reality, an inter-subjectivity. For example, think of yourself alone on this earth. What will you be? The whole of humanity has disappeared, you are left alone after a third world war, alone in the world, alone on this big earth. Who will you be?
The first thing is that it is impossible to conceive of yourself alone. It is impossible, I say, to conceive of yourself alone. You will try and try and you will see that someone is just standing there – your wife, your children, your friends – because you cannot exist alone, even in imagination. You exist with others. They give you existence. They contribute. You contribute to them and they contribute to you.
Who will you be? Will you be a good man or a bad man? Nothing can be said, because goodness and badness exist in relation. Will you be beautiful or ugly? Nothing can be said. Will you be man or woman? Nothing can be said, because whatsoever you are, you are related to someone else.
Will you be wise or foolish? By and by you will see that every form has disappeared. And with these other forms, all forms within you have also disappeared. You are neither foolish nor wise, neither good nor bad, neither ugly nor beautiful, neither man nor woman. Then what will you be? If you goon eliminating all forms, soon you will realize that only nothing remains. We see forms as separate, but they are not. Every form is linked with others. Forms exist in a pattern.
This sutra says, IN TRUTH FORMS ARE INSEPARATE. INSEPARATE ARE OMNIPRESENT BEING AND YOUR OWN FORM. Even your form and the form of the whole existence is inseparate.
You are one with it. You cannot be without it. And the other thing is also true but difficult to conceive:
the universe cannot be without you. The universe cannot be without you just as you cannot e without the universe. You have been existing in many, many forms always and you will exist always in many, many forms. But you will be there. You are an intrinsic part of this universe. You are not alien, you are not a stranger to it, you are not an outsider. You are an insider, an intrinsic part. And the universe cannot afford to lose you because if it loses you, it will lose itself. Forms are not separate, they are inseparate. They are one. Only the appearance gives demarcations and boundaries. This can become a realization if you ponder over it, penetrate into it; it becomes a realization, not a doctrine, not a thought, but a realization that, “Yes, I am one with the universe and the universe is one with me.”
This is what Jesus was saying to the Jews. But they felt offended because Jesus said, “I and my father in heaven are one.” Jews felt offended. What was he claiming? Was he claiming that he and God are one? This was blasphemy. He must be punished. But he was simply teaching a technique, nothing else. He was simply teaching a technique that forms are not separate, that you and the whole are one – “I and my father in heaven are one.” But this was not a claim, this was just a suggested technique. And when Jesus said, “I and my father are one,” he didn’t mean that you and the father and the Divine are separate. When he said ‘I’, every ‘I’ is represented. Whenever ‘I’ exists, that ‘I’ and the Divine is one. But it can be misunderstood, and both Jews and Christians misunderstood. Even Christians misunderstood, because they say he was the only begotten son of God, the only begotten son, so that no one else can claim that he also is a son of God.
I was reading a very funny book. The title is THREE CHRISTS. In a madhouse, there were three men, and all the three claimed that they were Christ. This is an actual fact not a story. So one psychoanalyst studied all three. Then the thought came to his mind that it would be very funny to introduce them to each other to see what would happen – how they would introduce themselves and what their reaction would be. So he brought all three together and left them in a room to introduce themselves. The first one said, “I am the only begotten son, Jesus Christ.” The other laughed and in his mind he thought he must be mad! He said, “How can you be? I am Jesus Christ. You are also part of that whole. A fragment of that consciousness is in you also. But Jesus Christ, the only son of God – that I am.”
The third thought that both were foolish, that both had gone insane. He said, “What are you talking about? Look at me. The son of God is here.”
Then the psychoanalyst asked them separately, “What is your reaction?” They all said, “Both the others are mad. The other two have gone crazy.”
And this is not only the case with madmen. (f you ask Christians what they think about Krishna, because he claims that he is God, they will say that there is only one, one penetration of the beyond, and that is Jesus Christ. At only one time in history did God penetrate into the world, and that was with Jesus Christ. Krishna is good, a great man but not Divine, not God himself.
If you ask Hindus, they will laugh at Jesus. The same madness goes on, and the reality is that everyone is the only begotten son of God – everyone. The otherwise is not possible. You come from the same source, whether you are Jesus or Krishna or A, B, C, anybody or anybody, you come from the same source. And every ‘I’, every consciousness, is immediately related to the Divine. Jesus was giving only a technique. He was misunderstood.
This technique is the same. In truth forms are inseparate. Inseparate are omnipresent being and your own form. Realize each as made of this consciousness. Not only realize that you are made of this consciousness, realize that everything around you is made of this consciousness. Because it is very easy to realize that you are made of this consciousness, it can give you a very egoistic feeling, it can be a deep fulfillment to the ego. But realize that the other is also, then it become a humbleness.
When everything is Divine you cannot have any egoistic mind. When everything is Divine, you are humbled. Then there is no question of your being somebody, or something above, then the whole of existence is Divine, and wherever you look, you look at the Divine. The looker and the looked-at are both Divine because forms are not separate. Underneath all forms is hidden one formlessness.
Buddha’s inner orgasm:
The first question:
Question 1:
WE HAVE ALWAYS HEARD THAT TANTRA IS BASICALLY CONCERNED WITH SEX ENERGY
AND SEX CENTER TECHNIQUES.
BUT YOU SAY THAT TANTRA IS ALL-INCLUSIVE.IF THERE IS ANY TRUTH IN THE FORMER STANDPOINT,
THE MAJORITY OF TECHNIQUES IN VIGYANA BHAIRAVA SEEM TO BE NON-TANTRIC.
IS THIS TRUE?
The first thing is to understand sex energy. As you understand it, it is just a part, one part, one fragment of the life force, but as Tantra understands it, it is just synonymous with life. It is not a part, not a fragment – it is life itself. So when Tantra says “sex” energy it means “life” energy.
The same is true about Freudian concepts of sex energy. Freud was also very much misunderstood in the West. It appeared to people that he was reducing life to sex, but he was doing the same thing that Tantra has been doing for so long. Life is sex. The word “sex” is not confined to reproduction, the whole play of life energy is sex. Reproduction is just a part of that play. Wherever two energies are meeting – negative and positive – sex has entered.
It is difficult to understand. For example: you are listening to me. If you ask Freud, or if you ask Tantra masters, they would say that listening is passive, feminine, and speaking is male. Speaking is a penetration of you and you are receptive to it. Between a speaker and a listener a sex act is happening because the speaker is trying to penetrate you and the listener is receiving. The energy in the listener has become feminine, and if the listener has not become feminine there will be no phenomenon of listening. That is why the listener has to be totally passive. He should not think while listening because thinking will make him active. He should not go on arguing within between argument will make him active. While listening, he should be simply listening, not doing anything else. Only then can the message penetrate and become illumined. But then the listener has become feminine.
Communication happens only when one party has become male and the other party has become female, otherwise there can be no communication. Wherever negative and positive meet, sex has happened. It may be on the physical plane – positive and negative electricity meet and sex has happened. Wherever polarities meet, opposites meet, it is sex. So sex is a very wide, a very spacious term, it is not concerned only with reproduction. Reproduction is only one type of phenomenon which is included in sex. Tantra says that when the ultimate bliss and ecstasy comes inside you, it means your own positive and negative pole have come to a meeting – because every man is both man and woman, and every women is both man and woman. You are born not only from woman or from man, you are born out of a meeting of the opposites. Your father has contributed, your mother has contributed. You are half your mother and half your father and they both co-exist within you. When they meet within, ecstasy happens.
Buddha sitting under his Bodhi tree is in a deep inner orgasm. The inner forces have met, they have melted into each other. Now there will be no need to seek a woman outside because the meeting has happened with the inner woman. And Buddha is non-attached to, or detached from, woman outside, not because he is against woman, but because the ultimate phenomenon has happened within. Now there is no need. An inner circle has become whole, now it is complete. That is why such grace comes to Buddha’s face. It is the grace of being complete. Now nothing is lacking, a deep fulfillment has happened, now there is no further journey. He has achieved the ultimate destiny. The inner forces have come to a meeting and now there is no conflict. But it is a sexual phenomenon.
Meditation is a sexual phenomenon, that is why Tantra is said to be sex-based, sex-oriented – and all these hundred and twelve techniques are sexual.
Really, no meditative technique can be non-sexual. But you have to understand the wideness of the term “sex”. If you don’t understand you will be confused, and misunderstanding will follow.
So whenever Tantra says “sex-energy” it means the “elan-vital”, the life-energy itself. They are synonymous. Whatsoever we call sex is just one dimension of life-energy. There are other dimensions. And really it should be so. You see a seed sprouting, somewhere flowers are coming on a tree, the birds are singing – the whole phenomenon is sexual. It is life manifesting itself in many ways. When the bird is singing it is a sexual call, an invitation. When the flower is attracting butterflies and bees it is an invitation, because the bees and butterflies will carry the seeds of reproduction.
Stars are moving in space…. No one has yet worked on it but it is one of the oldest Tantra concepts that there are male planets and female planets – otherwise there would be no movement. It must be so because the polarity is needed, the opposite is needed to create magnetism, to create attraction.
Planets must be male and female. Everything must be divided into these two polarities. And life is a rhythm between these two opposites. Repulsion and attraction, coming nearer and going far…
these are the rhythms.
Tantra uses the word “sex” wherever the opposites meet. It is a sexual phenomenon. And how to make your inner opposites meet, is the whole purpose of meditation. So all these hundred and twelve methods are sexual. There cannot be anything else, there is no possibility. But try to understand the wideness of the term “sex”.
The second question:
Question 2:
YOU SAID THAT EXISTENCE IS A WHOLENESS, THAT EVERYTHING IS RELATED,
THAT THINGS ARE MELTING INTO EACH OTHER,
THAT THE TREE CANNOT BE WITHOUT THE SUN
AND THE SUN ALSO CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT THE TREE.
IN REFERENCE TO THE ABOVE,
PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW IGNORANCE AND ENLIGHTENMENT ARE RELATED TO EACH OTHER.
They are related. Enlightenment and ignorance are two polar opposites. Enlightenment can exist only because there is ignorance. If ignorance disappeared from the world, enlightenment would disappear simultaneously. But because of our dualistic thinking we always think that opposites are opposites. They are complementary, they are not really opposite. They are complementary because one cannot exist without the other. So they are not enemies. Birth and death are not enemies because death cannot exist if there is no birth. Birth creates the base for death to exist but if there were no death, birth could not exist.
Death creates the base – so whenever someone is dying, someone else is being born. At one point there is death, at the next point immediately there is birth. They look opposite, they work in opposition as far as the surface is concerned, but deep down they are friends helping each other. It is easy to understand about ignorance and enlightenment because we think that when a man becomes enlightened, ignorance has disappeared completely. This is the ordinary standpoint about enlightenment – that ignorance has disappeared completely. No. That is not right. Rather, on the contrary, when a person becomes enlightened, enlightenment and ignorance have both disappeared. Because if one is there the other is bound to be there; one cannot exist without the other. They exist together or they disappear together. They are aspects of one thing, two faces of one coin. You cannot make one face of the coin disappear and retain the other.
So when a person becomes a Buddha, really, at that moment both have disappeared – ignorance and enlightenment both. Just consciousness is left, pure being is left, and the conflicting, opposing, helping opposites have disappeared. That is why when Buddha is asked what happens to an enlightened man, he remains silent many times. He says, “Don’t ask this because whatsoever I say will be untrue. Whatsoever I say will be untrue. If I say that he has become silent it means the opposite of silence must exist there, otherwise how can you feel silence? If I say he has become blissful, then anguish must exist side by side. How can you feel bliss without anguish?” Buddha says, “Whatsoever I say will be untrue.” So he remains consistently silent about the state of an enlightened person, because all our terms are dual. If you say light, and if someone insists, “Define it,” how are you going to define it? You will have to bring darkness in, only then can you define it. You will say that light is where darkness is not – or something like that.
One of the greatest thinkers of the world, Voltaire, used to say that you can communicate only if you define your terms first. But that is impossible. If you have to define light, you will have to bring darkness in. And then if it is asked what darkness is, you will have to define it by light, which is undefined. All definitions are circular. They used to say, “What is mind?” and the definition was, “Not matter.” And, “What is matter?” and the definition was, “Not mind.” Both terms are undefined and you are playing a trick with yourself. You define one term by another term which itself needs definition.
The whole language is circular and the opposite is necessary.
So Buddha says, “I will not even say that the enlightened person exists.” Because existence is possible only if non-existence is also present. So, he will not even say that you exist after enlightenment, because existence has to be defined by non-existence. Nothing can be said then because all language consists of the polar opposite. That is why in the Upanishads it is said that if someone says that he is enlightened, know well that he is not. Because how can he feel that he is enlightened? Some ignorance must have remained because a contrast is needed.
If you write on a blackboard with white chalk – the blacker the board the whiter will be the writing.
You cannot write on a white board with white chalk. If you do, there will be no writing. The contrast is needed. If you feel that you are enlightened that shows that the blackboard is right there – only then could you feel it. If the blackboard has really disappeared, the writing would have also disappeared.
It happens simultaneously. So a Buddha is neither ignorant nor wise, he simply is. You cannot put him on any pole of any duality. Both the poles have disappeared.
When they disappear how does it happen? When both poles meet they negate each other and disappear. In another way you can say Buddha is both the most ignorant person and the most enlightened. The polarity has come to its extreme point, there has been a meeting, and the meeting has cancelled both. The minus and plus have come together. Now there is neither minus nor plus, because they cancel each other. The minus has cancelled the plus and the plus has cancelled the minus, they have both disappeared and a pure being, an innocent being is left. You cannot say it is wise, you cannot say it is ignorant – or, you can say it is both.
Enlightenment means the point from where you take a jump into the non-dual. Before that point is duality. Everything is divided.
Someone asked Buddha, “Who are you?” He laughed and said, “It is difficult to say.” But the man insisted. He said something can be said because you are. Something meaningful can be asserted because you are. But Buddha said, “Nothing can be said. I am, but even to say this leads me into untruth.” Then the man took another route. He asked “Are you a man or a woman?” Buddha said,”It is difficult to say. Once I was a man, but then my whole being was attracted towards women. When I was a man, my mind was filled with women, and when women disappeared from my mind, my man also disappeared with them. Now I cannot say. I don’t know who I am and it is difficult to define.”
When duality is no more, nothing can be defined. So if you are aware that you have become wise it means that foolishness persists. If you think that you have become blissful, it means that you are still in the world, in the realm of anguish. If you say that you feel a very deep well-being, a health, that means that disease is still possible. The opposite will follow you; if you carry one the other will follow. You have to drop both. And the dropping happens when both meet. So the basic science of all religion is how to allow your inner opposites to meet so that they disappear and not a trace is left. You will disappear with the disappearance of the opposite. You as you are will no longer be there and something totally new and unknown, something unimaginable, will come into being.
That something is called Brahma, you can call it God. Buddha prefers the term “nirvana”. The word “nirvana” simply means cessation of all that was, total cessation of the past. And you cannot use your past experience and knowledge to define this new. This new is indefinable.
Ignorance and enlightenment are also part of duality. For us Buddha looks enlightened because we are in ignorance. For Buddha himself he is neither. It is impossible for him to think in terms of duality.
The third question:
Question 3:
WILL YOU PLEASE TELL US WHY KRISHNAMURTI IS AGAINST TECHNIQUES,
WHEREAS SHIVA IS FOR SO MANY TECHNIQUES.
Being against techniques is simply a technique. Not only Krishnamurti is using that technique, it has been used many times before. It is one of the oldest techniques, nothing is new about it.
Two thousand years ago Bodhidharma used it. He introduced into China what is now known as Chan or Zen-Buddhism. He was a Hindu monk, a monk from India. He believed in no-technique.
Zen is based on no-technique. Zen masters say that if you do something you will miss, because who will do? You? You are the disease, and out of you nothing else can be born. Who will make the effort? Your mind, and your mind has to be destroyed – and you cannot destroy the mind itself with help from the mind. Whatsoever you do, your mind will be more strengthened.
So Zen says there is no technique, no method, there is no scripture and there can be no guru. But the beauty is that Zen has created the greatest of gurus and Zen masters have written the best scriptures in the world. And through Zen thousands and thousands of people attained nirvana – but they say there is no technique.
So it has to be understood that no-technique is really one of the foundational techniques. The emphasis is on “no” so that your mind is negated. Mind can have two attitudes – yes or no. These are the two possibilities, the two alternatives, just as they are in everything. No is the feminine and yes is the male. So you can use the method of no, or you can use the method of yes. If you follow the method of yes, then there are many methods – but you have to say yes and there can be many yes’s. If you follow no, then there are not many methods, only one, because there cannot be many no’s.
Look at this point: there are so many religions in the world, so many types of theists. There are at least three hundred religions in existence right now. So theism has three hundred temples, churches, scriptures. But there is only one type of atheism, there cannot be two. Atheists have no sects. When you say there is no God, the thing is finished. You cannot differentiate between two no’s, you cannot make any difference. But when you say,”Yes there is God,” then there is a possibility of difference.
Because my yes will create my own God and your yes will create your own God. Your yes may be said to Jesus, my yes may be said to Krishna – but when you say no, then all no’s are similar. That is why on the earth there are no sects in atheism.
Atheists are all alike. They don’t have any scripture, they don’t have any church. When they don’t have any positive attitude there is nothing to differ about, a simple no is enough. The same has happened about techniques: no has only one technique, yes has one hundred and twelve, or many more even are possible. You can create new combinations.
Someone has said that the method I teach, the dynamic method of meditation, is not included in these one hundred and twelve methods. It is not included because it is a new combination, but all that is in it is there in the hundred and twelve methods. Some parts are in one technique, some other part is in some other technique. These hundred and twelve are the basic methods. You can create thousands out of them. There is no end to it. Any number of combinations is possible.
But those who ay there is no method can have only one method. You cannot create much out of no.
So Bodhidharma, Lin Chi, Bokuju, Krishnamurti, have only one method. Really Krishnamurti comes just after a succession of Zen masters. He is talking Zen. Nothing is new about it. But Zen always looks new, and the reason is because Zen doesn’t believe in scriptures, doesn’t believe in tradition, doesn’t believe in techniques.
So whenever no arises again it is fresh and new. Yes believes in tradition, in scriptures, in masters.
Whenever yes is there, it will have a long beginningless tradition. Those who have said yes, Krishna or Mahavir, they go on saying that they are not saying anything new. Mahavir says,”Before me twenty-three TEERTHANKARAS have taught the same.” And Krishna says, “Before me, this seer gave this message to that seer, that seer gave the message to that and it has been coming down. I am not saying anything new.”
Yes will always be old, eternal. No will always look new, as if it has suddenly come into being. No cannot have traditional roots. It is unrooted. That is why Krishnamurti looks new. He is not.
What is this technique of “denying technique”? It can be used. It is one of the subtlest ways to kill and destroy the mind. Mind tries to cling to something that is a support; mind needs support to be there, it cannot exist in a vacuum. So it creates many types of supports – churches, scriptures, Bible, Koran, Gita – then it is happy, there is something to cling to. But then with this clinging the mind remains.
This technique of no-technique insists on destroying all supports. So it will insist that there is no scripture. No Bible can be of help because the Bible is nothing but words; no Gita can be of any help because whatsoever you come to know through Gita will be borrowed, and truth cannot be borrowed. No tradition is of any help because truth has to be achieved authentically, individually.
You have to come to it, it cannot be transferred to you. No master can give it to you because it is not something like property. It is not transferable, it cannot be taught because it is not information.
If a master teaches you, you can learn only words, concepts, doctrines. No master can make you a realized one. That realization has to happen to you and it has to happen without any help. If it happens through some help then it is dependent and then it cannot lead you to ultimate freedom, to MOKSHA.
These are the parts of this no-technique. Through these criticisms, negations and arguments, supports are destroyed. Then you are left alone with no guru, no scripture, no tradition, no church, nowhere to move, nowhere to go, nowhere to be dependent. You are left in a vacuum. And really, if you can conceive of this vacuum and are ready to be in it, you will be transformed. But mind is very cunning. If Krishnamurti says to you that these are things – no support, no clinging, no master, no scripture, no technique – you will cling to Krishnamurti. There are many clinging to him. The mind has again created a support and then the whole point is lost.
Many people come to me and they say, “Our minds are in anguish. How to come to the inner peace, how to attain the inner silence?” And if I give them some technique they say, “But techniques cannot help because we have been listening to Krishnamurti.” Then I ask them, “Then why have you come to me? And what do you mean when you ask, ‘How to attain silence?’ You are asking for a technique and you are still going to listen to Krishnamurti. Why? If there is no master and if the real cannot be taught, then why are you going on listening to him? He cannot teach you anything. But you go on listening to him and you are being aught. And you have now started to cling to this no-technique.
So whenever someone gives you technique, you will say, ‘No, we don’t believe in techniques.’ And you are still not silent. So what has happened? Where have you missed the train? If you really need no-technique, if you don’t have any technique – you must have attained. But you have not attained.”
The basic point has been missed; the basic point is that for this no-technique technique to work you must destroy all support, you must not cling to anything. And it is very arduous. It is almost impossible. That is why so many people for these last forty years have been listening to Krishnamurti but nothing has happened to them. It is so arduous and difficult, almost impossible to remain unsupported, to remain totally alone and to be alert that the mind is not allowed to create any support. Because mind is very cunning, it can create subtle supports again and again. You may throw away Gita, but then you fill the space with Krishnamurti’s books. You may laugh at Mohammed, you may laugh at Mahavir, but if someone laughs at Krishnamurti you get angry. Again in a roundabout way you have created a support, you are clinging.
Non-clinging is the secret of this method. If you can do it, it is good; if you cannot do it, then don’t deceive. Then there are methods. Use them! Then be clear that you cannot be alone so you will take someone’s help. Help is possible. Through help also, transformation is possible.
These are the opposites – no and yes, these are opposites. You can move from either but you must decide about your own mind and its working. If you feel that you can be alone….
Once it happened that when I was staying in a village a man came and he said to me, “I am confused.
My family is trying to arrange a marriage for me.” He was a young man, just fresh from university.
He said, “I don’t want to be involved in all that. I want to become a SANNYASIN, I want to renounce all. So what is your advice?” I told him, “I never went to ask anybody, but you have come to take my advice. When you have come to take advice it shows that you need support, that you need. It will be difficult for you to live without a wife. That too is a support,”
You cannot live without a wife, you cannot live without your husband, but you think you can live without a guru? Impossible! Your mind needs support in every way. Why do you go to Krishnamurti?
You go to learn, you go to be taught, you go to borrow knowledge. Otherwise there is no need. Many times it has happened that friends will say, “It would be good if you and Krishnamurti meet.” So I tell them, “You go and ask Krishnamurti and if he wants to meet, I will come. But what is going to be there? What will we do? What will we talk about? We can remain silent. What is the need? But they say, “It would be good if you both meet. It would be good for us. We will be happy to listen to what you say.”
So I tell them a story.
Once it happened that a Mohammedan mystic, Farid, was traveling. When they came near the village of Kabir, another mystic, the followers of Farid said that it would be very good if they both meet. And when it became known to Kabir’s disciples, they also insisted that, As Farid was passing, they should invite him in. So Kabir said, “It is okay.” Farid also said, “It is okay. We will go, but don’t say anything when I enter Kabir’s hut, remain quite silent.”
For two days Farid stayed in Kabir’s hut. There was total silence. They sat silently for two days and then Kabir came to the edge of his village to give a send-off to Farid – and in silence they departed.
The moment they departed the followers of both started asking. The followers of Kabir asked him, “What was this? It became a boredom. You were sitting silently for two days, not even a single word was spoken, and we were so eager to hear.” Farid’s followers also said, “What was this? It seems weird. For two days continuously we were watching and watching and waiting and waiting for something to come out of this meeting. But nothing came out.”
Farid is reported to have said, “What do you mean? Two persons who know, cannot talk; two persons who don’t know, can talk much, but it is useless, even harmful. The only possibility is one person who knows, talking to one who doesn’t know” And Kabir said,”Whoever uttered a single word would have proved that he didn’t know.”
You go on asking for advice, you go on searching for supports. Realize it will that if you cannot remain without support, then it is good to find a support, a guide, knowingly. If you think that there is no need, that you are enough unto yourself, then stop seeking Krishnamurti or anybody. Stop going and remain alone.
It has happened also to persons who were alone but the phenomenon is very rare. Sometimes to one person in millions it happens – and that too is not without any cause. That person may have been seeking for many lives; he may have been finding many supports, many masters, many guides, and now a point has come where he can be alone. Only then it happens. But whenever it happens to a person, that he achieves the ultimate alone, he starts saying that it can happen to you also. It is natural.
Because it happened to Krishnamurti alone, he goes on saying that it can happen to you. It cannot happen to you! You are in search of support and that shows that alone you cannot do it. So don’t be deceived by yourself! Your ego may feel good that, “I don’t need any support!” Ego always thinks in terms of, “I alone am enough,” but that ego will not help. That will become the greatest barrier possible. No-technique is a technique but only for very specific people; for those who have struggled in many lives and have now come to a point where they can be alone, that technique is a help. And if you are that type of person, I know well you will not be here. So I am not worried about that person, he will not be here. He cannot be here. Not only here, he cannot be anywhere with any master, listening, seeking, searching, practicing. He will not be found anywhere. So we can leave him, we need not discuss him.
These techniques are for you. So this is how I will conclude. Krishnamurti is talking for the person who cannot be there and I am talking for persons who are here. Whatsoever Krishnamurti is saying is absolutely right but the persons to whom he is saying it are absolutely wrong. The person who can be alone, who without any method, any support, any scripture, any guru, can reach, is not going to listen to Krishnamurti because there is no need, there is no meaning. And those who are going to listen, they are not of that type, they will be in deep difficulty – and they are. They need support and their mind goes on thinking that there is no need for support. They need a guru and their mind goes on saying that the guru is a barrier. They need techniques and logically they have concluded that techniques cannot help. They are in deep trouble, but the trouble is created by themselves.
Before you start doing something you must try to understand what type of mind you have got, because ultimately the guru is not meaningful, ultimately our mind is meaningful. The ultimate decision is going to come through your mind, the destiny is to be fulfilled through your mind – so understand it, without any ego confusing you. Just understand if you need support, guidance, techniques, methods to work with. If you need them, find them. If you don’t need them, there is no question: be alone, unclinging, move alone, unclinging. The same will happen through both ways.
Yes and no are two opposites and you have to find out what your path is.
The last question:
Question 4:
YOU SAID THAT SHIVA IS NOT A SYSTEM-MAKER
AND SECTS CANNOT FORM AROUND HIS TEACHINGS.BUT PERSONS LIKE BUDDHA, MAHAVIR, JESUS, GURDJIEFF,
SEEM TO BE GREAT SYSTEM-MAKERS.WHY DO THEY HAVE TO BE SYSTEM-MAKERS?
PLEASE EXPLAIN THE PRO’S AND CON’S OF SYSTEM-MAKING.
ARE YOU A MULTI-SYSTEM-MAKER?
There are two possibilities: you can create a system to help people, create multi-systems to help people, or the other, you can try to destroy systems to help people. Again the yes and no. Again the polar opposites. And in both ways you can help people.
Bodhidharma is a system-destroyer, Krishnamurti is a system-destroyer, the whole tradition of Zen is system-destroying. Mahavir, Mohammed, Jesus, Gurdjieff, are great system-makers. The problems is always that we cannot understand these two contradictory things simultaneously together: we think that either one can be right but both cannot be. If system-makers are right, then our mind says that system-destroyers must be wrong. Or if the system-destroyers are right, then system-makers must be wrong. No, both are right.
A system means a pattern to follow, a clear-cut map to follow so that no doubt arises, no indecisiveness arises and you can follow with absolute faith. Remember this: a system is created to create faith, to create trust. If everything is clear, then there will be trust more easily. If all your questions are answered mathematically, then you will be in a state of no doubt and you can proceed.
So sometimes Mahavir answers your absurd questions also. They are futile questions, meaningless, but he will answer. And he will answer in such a way that it helps you to have trust, because that quality of trust is needed.
When someone tries to penetrate into the unknown a deep trust is needed otherwise it will be impossible to move. It will be so dangerous you will get scared. It is dark, the path is not clear, everything is chaos and every step leads you into more and more insecurity. Hence system-making is needed so that everything is planned: you know everything about heaven and hell and the ultimate moksha, and from where you will move, from where you will pass. Every inch has been mapped.
That gives you a security, a feeling, that everything is okay. People have been there before and you are not moving into a no-man’s land, you are not moving into the unknown. A system makes it appear as if it is known. That is to help you, just to give you support. And if you have faith then you will have energy to move. If you are doubtful, you will dissipate energy and movement will be difficult.
System-makers have tried to answer all types of questions and they have created a neat and clean map. With that map in your hand you feel everything is okay, you can proceed. But I tell you, every system is just artificial. Every system is just to help you. It is not true. No system can be true. It is a device. But it helps because your whole personality is so untrue that even untrue devices help. You live in lies and you cannot understand truth. A system means less lies and then even less lies and then by and by, by and by, you will come nearer and nearer to the truth. When the truth is revealed to you the system will become meaningless, it will simply drop.
When Sariputta became enlightened, came to the ultimate goal, he looked back from that point and saw that the whole system had disappeared. Whatsoever he had been taught was not there. So he said to Buddha, “The whole system that was taught to me has disappeared.” Buddha said to him, “Keep silent, don’t tell the others! It has disappeared, it has to disappear because it was never there, it was a make-believe – but it helped you to come to this point. Don’t tell those who have not come yet, because if they know that there is no knowledge where they are going to they will drop. They cannot go into the unknown unguarded, alone they cannot go.”
It happens many times. It has been my own experience that people come to me and they say, “Now meditation is going deep but we are scared.” An ultimate feeling is bound to come when you feel a “dying” fear, as if death is approaching near. When meditation comes to its peak it is death-like.
I tell them, “Don’t worry, I am with you.” Then they feel okay. I cannot be there – impossible! No one can be there. This is untrue. No one can be there, you will be alone. That point is one of total aloneness. But when I say, “I will be there, you don’t worry, you go ahead,” they feel okay and they move. If I say, “You will be alone and no one is going to be there,” they will step back. The point has come where fear is bound to be there. The abyss is there and they are going to fall – I must help them to fall. So I say that I am there, you just take the jump. And they take the jump! After the jump they will come to know that no one was there, but now, now the whole thing is finished. They cannot come back. This is a device.
All systems are devices to help: to help people who are full of doubts, to help people who have no trust, to help people who have no confidence. To help people to move into the unknown without fear, systems are created. In those systems everything is just like a myth, that is why there are so many systems. Mahavir creates his own – that system is created according to the needs of his followers.
So he creates a system. It is a myth, but very helpful, because many moved through it and reached to the truth. And when they reached they knew that the system was false – but it worked.
Buddha defines truth as “That which works”. His definition of truth is “That which works”. If a lie can work, it is true, and if a truth cannot work, it is false.
There are so many systems, and every system helps. But every system cannot help everybody. That is why the old religions insisted that a person should not be converted into a new religion, because although the mind can after a time be conditioned in a system and can be changed, deep down you will never change, and a new system will never become useful for you. A Hindu can become a Christian, a Christian can become a Hindu, but after the age of seven the mind is almost fixed, conditioned. so if a Hindu becomes a Christian he will remain a Hindu deep down and the Christian system will not help him. And he has lost contact with his own system which might have worked.
Hindus and Jews have always been against conversion. Not only against conversion – if someone wants to enter into their religion voluntarily, they will resist. They will say, “No, follow your own path.”
Because a system is a great unconscious phenomenon; it has to be deep in the unconscious, only then can it help. Otherwise it cannot help and it is an artificial thing. It is just like language. You can never speak any language as you speak your mother-tongue, it is impossible. Nothing can be done about it. Howsoever efficient you become in somebody else’s language it will remain superficial.
Deep down your mother-tongue will continue to influence it. Your dreams will be in your mother- tongue; the unconscious will function with the original language. Anything can be imposed on and above it, but it cannot be replaced.
Religious systems are like language, they are language. But if they penetrate deep, they help because you feel confident. The system is irrelevant but the confidence is relevant. You feel trusting so you move with a sure step – you know where you are moving. And this knowing helps.
But there are system-destroyers also and they also help. There is a rhythmic circle, just like day and night – again day comes, again night comes. They help because sometimes it happens that when there are so many systems people get confused, and rather than moving with the maps, the maps become so heavy that they cannot carry them. It happens always.
For example, a tradition, a very long tradition, is helpful because it will give confidence because it is so long. But because it is so long it is heavy also, it has become a dead weight. So rather than helping you to move, you cannot move because of it. You have to be unburdened. So there are system-destroyers who destroy the system from your mind and unburden you and help you to move.
They both help, but it depends. It depends on the age, it depends on the person who is to be helped.
In this age systems have become very heavy and confused. For many reasons the whole point has been lost. Before, each system lived in its own world: a Jain was born Jain, lived Jain, died Jain.
He did not study Hindu scriptures, it was prohibited. He did not go to the mosque or the church, that was a sin. He lived in the walls of his system. Nothing alien ever penetrated his mind, so no confusion was there.
But all that has been destroyed and everyone is acquainted with everything else. Hindus are reading the Koran and Mohammedans are reading the Gita. Christians are moving to the East and the East is moving to the West. Everything is confused. The confidence that used to come from a system is no longer there. Everything has penetrated your mind and things are jumbled up. Jesus is not alone there, Krishna has penetrated and Mohammed has also penetrated. And they have contradicted each other within you. Now nothing is certain.
The Bible says this, the Gita says exactly the contrary. Mohammed says this, Mahavir is just the opposite. They have contradicted. You are no longer anywhere. You don’t belong, you are simply standing there confused. No path is yours. In such a state of mind, system-destroying can be helpful. Hence the great appeal of Krishnamurti in the West. He does not have so much appeal in the East because the East is still not as confused as the West, because the East is still not as educated about others. The West is obsessed about knowing about others. They know too much.
Now no system is real, they know that everything is a make-believe, and once you know it, it will not work.
Krishnamurti appeals to them because he says leave all systems. If you can leave all systems you will become unconfused – but it depends on you. It may happen, as it happens almost always, that all the systems will remain there and this new system of destroying all systems will also enter. So one more disease is added.
Jesus goes on speaking, Krishna goes on speaking – and then Krishnamurti also enters. Your mind becomes the Tower of Babel – so many tongues and you cannot understand what is happening. You just feel crazy.
If you can believe in a system, so far so good; if you cannot believe in any system, then drop all.
Then be completely clean, unburdened. But don’t be just in the middle of these two alternatives.
And it appears that everyone is just in the middle. Sometimes you move to the right, sometimes to the left, then again to the right and then to left – just like the pendulum of a clock. You go from this side to that, this side to that. This movement may appear to you that you are proceeding. You are not proceeding anywhere. Every step cancels some other step, because when you move to the right and then to the left you go on contradicting yourself. In the end you are just confused, puzzled, a chaos.
Either be unburdened completely – that will be helpful. You will be clean, innocent, childlike, and you can fly – or if that understanding seems too dangerous to you, if you are afraid of unburdening because that will lead you into a vacuum, into an emptiness, if that unburdening looks dangerous and you are scared, then choose a system. But there are many who go on saying to you that everything is the same – the Koran says the same, the Bible says the same, the Gita says the same, their message is the same. These people are the great confusers. The Koran, the Bible, the Gita, they don’t say the same, they are systems. Clear-cut systems. Different. Not only different, but sometimes contradictory and opposite.
For example, Mahavir says that non-violence has to be the key. If you are violent, even slightly violent, the door of ultimate reality is closed for you. This is a technique. To become totally non- violent needs a complete cleansing of your mind and body – both. You have to be purified completely, only then will you become non-violent. This process of becoming no-violent will purify you so totally that the very process will become the end.
Just the opposite is Krishna’s message. He says to Arjuna, “Don’t be afraid of killing because the soul cannot be killed. You can kill the body but you cannot kill the soul. So why be afraid? And the body is already dead, so that which is dead will be dead and that which is alive will remain alive.
You need not be concerned. It is just a play.” He is also right, because if you can come to realize this point – that the soul cannot be destroyed – then the whole life becomes a play, a fiction, a drama.
And if the whole life becomes a drama, even murder and suicide become a drama to you, not just in thinking, but you realize the fact that everything is just a dream. Death too will make you a witness, and that witnessing will become transcendence… you will transcend the world. The whole world becomes a drama – there is nothing good, nothing bad, just a dream. You need not worry about it.
But these two things are totally different. They lead to the same point ultimately but you should not mix them. If you mix them, you will suffer. System-makers have been there to help you, system- destroyers have been there to help you. But it seems that no one has been able to help. You are such, so adamant and so cunning, you always find some loopholes to escape through.
Buddha and Krishna and Jesus – every century they go on teaching certain things. You go on listening but you are very clever. You listen and yet you don’t listen. And you always find something, some hole, from where you can escape. Now the trick of the modern mind is that if there is a system, if Gurdjieff is teaching, then people will go to him and say, “Krishnamurti says no system.”
These same people will go to Krishnamurti – Krishnamurti teaches no-system – and they will say, “But Gurdjieff says that without a system nothing can be done.” So while near Gurdjieff they use Krishnamurti as a loophole to escape; while near Krishnamurti they use Gurdjieff as a trick to escape. But they are not deceiving anybody, they are simply destroying themselves.
Gurdjieff can help, Krishnamurti can help, but they cannot help against you. You must be certain about certain things. One, either you need help or you don’t need it. Second, either you can move into the unknown without any fear or you cannot. And third, without any method, without any technique, without any system, can you proceed a single inch or can’t you? These three things you have to decide within you: analyze your mind, open it, look into it and decide what type of mind you have got. If you decide that you cannot do it alone then you need a system, a master, a scripture, a technique. If you think that you can do alone then there is no need for anything else.
You are the master, you are the scripture, you are the technique. But be honest, and if you feel that it is impossible to decide – it is not easy to decide – if you feel confused, then first try a master, a technique, a system. And try it hard, to the very extreme, so that if something is going to happen, it happens. If nothing is going to happen then you come to a point where you can decide that now you will have all, you will be alone. That too will be good.
But my suggestion is that you should always start with a master, a system, a technique, because in both ways it will be good. If you can achieve through it, it is good; if you cannot achieve through it, then the whole thing becomes futile and you can drop it and then you can proceed alone. Then you will not need Krishnamurti to tell you that no master is needed, you will know it. Then you will not need any Zen teaching to tell you to throw away your scriptures and burn them, you will have already burned them.
So it is good to proceed with a master, with a system, with a technique – but be sincere. When I say be sincere I mean that you should do whatsoever you can do with a master, so that if something can happen, it happens. If nothing can happen, then you can conclude that this is not the path for you and you can move alone.
Osho ~ Vigyan Bhairav Tantra 