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oshothe vigyana bhairava tantra vol one | ||
the book of the secrets : a new commentary : talks given from 01/10/1972 pm to 01/03/1973 pm | ||
the vigyana bhairava tantra vol one chapter three | ||
breath : a bridge to the universe 03 october 1972 pm in woodlands bombay | ||
SUTRAS: SHIVA REPLIES: 1. RADIANT ONE,
THIS EXPERIENCE MAY DAWN BETWEEN TWO BREATHS. AFTER BREATH COMES IN (DOWN) AND JUST BEFORE
TURNING UP (OUT) -- THE BENEFICENCE. 2. AS BREATH TURNS
FROM DOWN TO UP, AND AGAIN AS BREATH CURVES FROM UP TO DOWN -- THROUGH BOTH THESE TURNS,
REALIZE. 3. OR, WHENEVER
IN-BREATH AND OUT-BREATH FUSE, AT THIS INSTANT TOUCH THE ENERGY-LESS, ENERGY-FILLED
CENTER. 4. OR, WHEN BREATH
IS ALL OUT (UP) AND STOPPED OF ITSELF, OR ALL IN (DOWN) AND STOPPED -- IN SUCH UNIVERSAL
PAUSE, ONE'S SMALL SELF VANISHES. THIS IS DIFFICULT ONLY FOR THE IMPURE. Truth is always
here. It is already the case. It is not something to be achieved in the future. YOU are
the truth just here and now, so it is not something which is to be created or something
which is to be devised or something which is to be sought. Understand this very clearly;
then these techniques will be easy to understand and also to do. Mind is a mechanism
of desiring. Mind is always in desire, always seeking something, asking for something.
Always the object is in the future; mind is not concerned with the present at all. In this
very moment the mind cannot move -- there is no space. The mind needs the future in order
to move. It can move either in the past or in the future. It cannot move in the present;
there is no space. The truth is in the present, and mind is always in the future or in the
past, so there is no meeting between mind and truth. When the mind is
seeking worldly objects it is not so difficult, the problem is not absurd; it can be
solved. But when the mind starts seeking the truth the very effort becomes nonsense,
because the truth is here and now and the mind is always then and there. There is no
meeting. So understand the first thing: you cannot seek truth. You can find it, but you
cannot seek it. The very seeking is the hindrance. The moment you
start seeking you have moved away from the present, away from yourself, because YOU are
always in the present. The seeker is always in the present and the seeking is in the
future, you are not going to meet whatsoever you are seeking. Lao Tzu says, "Seek
not; otherwise you will miss. Seek not and find. Don't seek and find." All these
techniques of Shiva's are simply turning the mind from the future or the past to the
present. That which you are seeking is already there, it is the case already. The mind has
to be turned from seeking to non-seeking. It is difficult. If you think about it
intellectually it is very difficult. How to turn the mind from seeking to non-seeking? --
because then the mind makes non-seeking itself the object! Then the mind says, "Don't
seek." Then the mind says, "I should not seek." Then the mind says,
"Now non-seeking is my object. Now I desire the state of desirelessness." The
seeking has entered again, the desire has come again through the back door. That is why
there are people who are seeking worldly objects, and there are people who think they are
seeking non-worldly objects. All objects are worldly because "seeking" is the
world. So you cannot seek
anything non-worldly. The moment you seek, it becomes the world. If you are seeking God,
your God is part of the world. If you are seeking MOKSHA -- liberation -- NIRVANA, your
liberation is part of the world, your liberation is not something that transcends the
world, because seeking is the world, desiring is the world. So you cannot desire nirvana,
you cannot desire non-desire. If you try to understand intellectually, it will become a
puzzle. Shiva says nothing
about it, he immediately proceeds to give techniques. They are non-intellectual. He
doesn't say to Devi, "The truth is here. Don't seek it and you will find it." He
immediately gives techniques. Those techniques are non-intellectual. Do them, and the mind
turns. The turning is just a consequence, just a by-product -- not an object. The turning
is just a by-product. If you do a
technique, your mind will turn from its journey into the future or the past. Suddenly you
will find yourself in the present. That is why Buddha has given techniques, Lao Tzu has
given techniques, Krishna has given techniques. But they always introduce their techniques
with intellectual concepts. Only Shiva is different. He immediately gives techniques, and
no intellectual understanding, no intellectual introduction, because he knows that the
mind is tricky, the most cunning thing possible. It can turn anything into a problem.
Non-seeking will become the problem. There are people
who come to me who ask how not to desire. They are desiring non-desire. Somebody has told
them, or they have read somewhere, or they have heard spiritual gossip, that if you do not
desire you will reach bliss, if you do not desire you will be free, if you do not desire
there will be no suffering. Now their minds hanker to attain that state where there is no
suffering, so they ask how not to desire. Their minds are playing tricks. They are still
desiring, it is only that now the object has changed. They were desiring money, they were
desiring fame, they were desiring prestige, they were desiring power. Now they are
desiring non-desire. Only the object has changed, and they remain the same and their
desiring remains the same. But now the desire has become more deceptive. Because of this,
Shiva proceeds immediately with no introduction whatsoever. He immediately starts talking
about techniques. Those techniques, if followed, suddenly turn your mind: it comes to the
present. And when the mind comes to the present it stops, it is no more. You cannot be a
mind in the present, that is impossible. Just now, if you are here and now, how can you be
a mind? Thoughts cease because they cannot move. The present has no space in which to
move; you cannot think. If you are in this very moment, how can you move? Mind stops, you
attain to no-mind. So the real thing
is how to be here and now. You can try, but effort may prove futile -- because if you make
it a point to be in the present, then this point has moved into the future. When you ask
how to be in the present, again you are asking about the future. This moment is passing in
the inquiry, "How to be present? How to be here and now?" This present moment is
passing in the inquiry, and your mind will begin to weave and create dreams in the future:
some day you will be in a state of mind where there is no movement, no motive, no seeking,
and then there will be bliss -- so how to be in the present? Shiva doesn't say
anything about it, he simply gives a technique. You do it, and suddenly you find you are
here and now. And your being here and now is the truth, and your being here and now is the
freedom, and your being here and now is the nirvana. The first nine
techniques are concerned with breathing. So let us understand something about breathing,
and then we will proceed to the techniques. We are breathing continuously from the moment
of birth to the moment of death. Everything changes between these two points. Everything
changes, nothing remains the same, only breathing is a constant thing between birth and
death. The child will
become a youth; the youth will become old. He will be diseased, his body will become ugly,
ill, everything will change. He will be happy, unhappy, in suffering; everything will go
on changing. But whatsoever happens between these two points, one must breathe. Whether
happy or unhappy, young or old, successful or unsuccessful -- whatsoever you are, it is
irrelevant -- one thing is certain: between these two points of birth and death you must
breathe. Breathing will be a
continuous flow; no gap is possible. If even for a single moment you forget to breathe,
you will be no more. That is why YOU are not required to breathe, because then it would be
difficult. Someone might forget to breathe for a single moment, and then nothing could be
done. So, really, YOU are not breathing, because YOU are not needed. You are fast asleep,
and breathing goes on; you are unconscious, and breathing goes on; you are in a deep coma,
and breathing goes on. YOU are not required; breathing is something which goes on in spite
of you. It is one of the
constant factors in your personality -- that is the first thing. It is something which is
very essential and basic to life -- that is the second thing. You cannot be alive without
breath. So breath and life have become synonymous. Breathing is the mechanism of life, and
life is deeply related with breathing. That is why in India we call it PRANA. We have
given one word for both -- PRANA means the vitality, the aliveness. Your life is your
breath. Thirdly, your
breath is a bridge between you and your body. Constantly, breath is bridging you to your
body, connecting you, relating you to your body. Not only is the breath a bridge to your
body, it is also a bridge between you and the universe. The body is just the universe
which has come to you, which is nearer to you. Your body is part
of the universe. Everything in the body is part of the universe -- every particle, every
cell. It is the nearest approach to the universe. Breath is the bridge. If the bridge is
broken, you are no more in the body. If the bridge is broken, you are no more in the
universe. You move into some unknown dimension; then you cannot be found in space and
time. So, thirdly, breath is also the bridge between you, and space and time. Breath, therefore,
becomes very significant -- the most significant thing. So the first nine techniques are
concerned with breath. If you can do something with the breath, you will suddenly turn to
the present. If you can do something with breath, you will attain to the source of life.
If you can do something with breath, you can transcend time and space. If you can do
something with breath, you will be in the world and also beyond it. Breath has two
points. One is where it touches the body and the universe, and another is where it touches
you and that which transcends the universe. We know only one part of the breath. When it
moves into the universe, into the body, we know it. But it is always moving from the body
to the "no-body," from the "no-body" to the body. We do not know the
other point. If you become aware of the other point, the other part of the bridge, the
other pole of the bridge, suddenly you will be transformed, transplanted into a different
dimension. But remember, what
Shiva is going to say is not yoga, it is tantra. Yoga also works on breath, but the work
of yoga and tantra is basically different. Yoga tries to systematize breathing. If you
systematize your breathing your health will improve. If you systematize your breathing, if
you know the secrets of breathing, your life will become longer; you will be more healthy
and you will live longer. You will be more strong, more filled with energy, more vital,
alive, young, fresh. But tantra is not
concerned with that. Tantra is concerned not with any systematization of breath, but with
using breath just as a technique to turn inward. One has not to practice a particular
style of breathing, a particular system of breathing or a particular rhythm of breathing
-- no! One has to take breathing as it is. One has just to become aware of certain points
in the breathing. There are certain
points, but we are not aware of them. We have been breathing and we will go on breathing
-- we are born breathing and we will die breathing -- but we are not aware of certain
points. And this is strange. Man is searching, probing deep into space. Man is going to
the moon; man is trying to reach farther, from earth into space, and man has not yet
learned the nearest part of his life. There are certain points in breathing which you have
never observed, and those points are the doors -- the nearest doors to you from where you
can enter into a different world, into a different being, into a different consciousness.
But they are very subtle. To observe a moon
is not very difficult. Even to reach the moon is not very difficult; it is a gross
journey. You need mechanization, you need technology, you need accumulated information,
and then you can reach it. Breathing is the nearest thing to you, and the nearer a thing
is, the more difficult it is to perceive it. The nearer it is, the more difficult; the
more obvious it is, the more difficult. It is so near to you that again there is no space
between you and your breathing. Or, there is such a small space that you will need a very
minute observation, only then will you become aware of certain points. These points are
the basis of these techniques. So now I will take
each technique. 1 1 SHIVA REPLIES: RADIANT ONE, THIS
EXPERIENCE MAY DAWN BETWEEN TWO BREATHS. AFTER BREATH COMES IN (DOWN) AND JUST BEFORE
TURNING UP (OUT) -- THE BENEFICENCE. That is the
technique: RADIANT ONE, THIS
EXPERIENCE MAY DAWN BETWEEN TWO BREATHS. After breath comes
in -- that is, down -- and just before turning out -- that is, going up -- THE
BENEFICENCE. Be aware between these two points, and the happening. When your breath comes
in, observe. For a single moment, or a thousandth part of a moment, there is no breathing
-- before it turns up, before it turns outward. One breath comes in; then there is a
certain point and breathing stops. Then the breathing goes out. When the breath goes out,
then again for a single moment, or a part of a moment, breathing stops. Then breathing
comes in. Before the breath
is turning in or turning out, there is a moment when you are not breathing. In that moment
the happening is possible, because when you are not breathing you are not in the world.
Understand this: when you are not breathing you are dead; you ARE still, but dead. But the
moment is of such a short duration that you never observe it. For tantra, each
outgoing breath is a death and each new breath is a rebirth. Breath coming in is rebirth;
breath going out is death. The outgoing breath is synonymous with death; the incoming
breath is synonymous with life. So with each breath you are dying and being reborn. The
gap between the two is of a very short duration, but keen, sincere observation and
attention will make you feel the gap. If you can feel the gap, Shiva says, THE
BENEFICENCE. Then nothing else is needed. You are blessed, you have known; the thing has
happened. You are not to
train the breath. Leave it just as it is. Why such a simple technique? It looks so simple.
Such a simple technique to know the truth? To know the truth means to know that which is
neither born nor dies, to know that eternal element which is always. You can know the
breath going out, you can know the breath coming in, but you never know the gap between
the two. Try it. Suddenly
you will get the point -- and you can get it; it is already there. Nothing is to be added
to you or to your structure, it is already there. Everything is already there except a
certain awareness. So how to do this? First, become aware of the breath coming in. Watch
it. Forget everything, just watch breath coming in -- the very passage. When the breath
touches your nostrils, feel it there. Then let the breath move in. Move with the breath
fully consciously. When you are going down, down, down with the breath, do not miss the
breath. Do not go ahead and do not follow behind, just go with it. Remember this: do not
go ahead, do not follow it like a shadow; be simultaneous with it. Breath and
consciousness should become one. The breath goes in -- you go in. Only then will it be
possible to get the point which is between two breaths. It will not be easy. Move in with
the breath, then move out with the breath: in-out, in-out. Buddha tried
particularly to use this method, so this method has become a Buddhist method. In Buddhist
terminology it is known as Anapanasati Yoga. And Buddha's enlightenment was based on this
technique -- only this. All the religions
of the world, all the seers of the world, have reached through some technique or other,
and all those techniques will be in these one hundred and twelve techniques. This first
one is a Buddhist technique. It has become known in the world as a Buddhist technique
because Buddha attained his enlightenment through this technique. Buddha said,
"Be aware of your breath as it is coming in, going out -- coming in, going out."
He never mentions the gap because there is no need. Buddha thought and felt that if you
become concerned with the gap, the gap between two breaths, that concern may disturb your
awareness. So he simply said, "Be aware. When the breath is going in move with it,
and when the breath is going out move with it. Do simply this: going in, going out, with
the breath." He never says anything about the latter part of the technique. The reason is that
Buddha was talking with very ordinary men, and even that might create a desire to attain
the interval. That desire to attain the interval will become a barrier to awareness,
because if you are desiring to get to the interval you will move ahead. Breath will be
coming in, and you will move ahead because you are interested in the gap which is going to
be in the future. Buddha never mentions it, so Buddha's technique is just half. But the other half
follows automatically. If you go on practicing breath consciousness, breath awareness,
suddenly, one day, without knowing, you will come to the interval. Because as your
awareness will become keen and deep and intense, as your awareness will become bracketed
-- the whole world is bracketed out; only your breath coming in or going out is your
world, the whole arena for your consciousness -- suddenly you are bound to feel the gap in
which there is no breath. When you are moving
with breath minutely, when there is no breath, how can you remain unaware? You will
suddenly become aware that there is no breath, and the moment will come when you will feel
that the breath is neither going out nor coming in. The breath has stopped completely. In
that stopping, THE BENEFICENCE. This one technique
is enough for millions. The whole of Asia tried and lived with this technique for
centuries. Tibet, China, Japan, Burma, Thailand, Ceylon -- the whole of Asia except India
has tried this technique. Only one technique and thousands and thousands have attained
enlightenment through it. And this is only the first technique. But unfortunately,
because the technique became associated with Buddha's name, Hindus have been trying to
avoid it. Because it became more and more known as a Buddhist method, Hindus have
completely forgotten it. And not only that, they have also tried to avoid it for another
reason. Because this technique is the first technique mentioned by Shiva, many Buddhists
have claimed that this book, VIGYANA BHAIRAVA TANTRA, is a Buddhist book, not a Hindu
book. It is neither Hindu
nor Buddhist -- a technique is just a technique. Buddha used it, but it was there already
to be used. Buddha became a buddha, an enlightened one, because of the technique. The
technique preceded Buddha; the technique was already there. Try it. It is one of the most
simple techniques -- simple compared to other techniques; I am not saying simple for you.
Other techniques will be more difficult. That is why it is mentioned as the first
technique. The second
technique -- all these nine techniques are concerned with breath. 2 2 AS BREATH TURNS FROM DOWN TO UP, AND AGAIN
AS BREATH CURVES FROM UP TO DOWN -- THROUGH BOTH THESE TURNS, REALIZE. It is the same, but
with a slight difference. The emphasis is now not on the gap, but on the turning. The
outgoing and ingoing breath make a circle. Remember, these are not two parallel lines. We
always think of them as two parallel lines -- breath going in and breath going out. Do you
think that these are two parallel lines? They are not. Breath going in is half the circle;
breath going out is the other half of the circle. So understand this:
first, breathing in and out creates a circle. They are not parallel lines, because
parallel lines never meet anywhere. Secondly, the breath coming in and the breath going
out are not two breaths, they are one breath. The same breath which comes in, goes out, so
it must have a turn inside. It must turn somewhere. There must be a point where the
incoming breath becomes outgoing. Why put such
emphasis upon turning? Because, Shiva says, AS BREATH TURNS FROM DOWN TO UP AND AGAIN AS
BREATH CURVES FROM UP TO DOWN, THROUGH BOTH THESE TURNS, REALIZE. Very simple, but he
says: realize the turns and you will realize the self. Why the turn? If
you know driving you know about gears. Each time you change the gear, you have to pass
through the neutral gear, which is not a gear at all. From the first gear you move to the
second or from the second to the third, but always you have to move through the neutral
gear. That neutral gear is a turning point. In that turning point the first gear becomes
the second and the second becomes the third. When your breath goes in and turns out, it
passes through the neutral gear; otherwise it cannot turn out. It passes through the
neutral territory. In that neutral
territory you are neither a body nor a soul, neither physical nor mental, because the
physical is a gear of your being and the mental is another gear of your being. You go on
moving from gear to gear, but you must have a neutral gear where you are neither body nor
mind. In that neutral gear you simply are: you are simply an existence -- pure, simple,
unembodied, with no mind. That is why there
is the emphasis on the turn. Man is a machine -- a large, very complicated machine. You
have many gears in your body, many gears in your mind. You are not aware of your great
mechanism, but you are a great machine. And it is good that you are not aware; otherwise
you could go mad. The body is such a great machine that scientists say if we had to create
a factory parallel to the human body, it would require four square miles of land, and the
noise would be such that one hundred square miles of land would be disturbed by it. The body is a great
mechanical device -- the greatest. You have millions and millions of cells and each cell
is alive. So you are a big city of seventy million cells; there are seventy million
citizens inside you, and the whole city is running very silently, smoothly. Every moment
the mechanism is working. It is very complicated. These techniques will be related at many
points with the mechanism of your body and the mechanism of your mind. But always the
emphasis will be on those points where suddenly you are not part of the mechanism --
remember this. Suddenly you are not part of the mechanism. There are moments when you
change gears. For example, in the
night when you drop into sleep you change gears, because during the day you need a
different mechanism for a waking consciousness -- a different part of the mind functions.
Then you drop into sleep, and that part becomes non-functioning. Another part of the mind
begins to function, and there is a gap, an interval, a turning. A gear is changed. In the
morning when you are again getting up, the gear is changed. You are silently sitting, and
suddenly someone says something and you get angry -- you move into a different gear. That
is why everything changes. If you get angry,
your breathing will suddenly change. Your breathing will become irritated, chaotic. A
trembling will get into your breathing; you will feel suffocated. Your whole body would
like to do something, shatter something, only then can the suffocation disappear. Your
breathing will change; your blood will take a different rhythm, a different movement.
Different chemicals will have to be released in the body, the whole glandular system will
have to change. You become a different man when you are angry. A car is
standing... you start it. Do not put it in any gear, let it be in neutral. It will go on
pulling, vibrating, trembling, but it cannot move; it will get hot. That is why, when you
are angry and you cannot do something, you will get hot. The mechanism is ready to run and
do something and you are not doing -- you will get hot. You are a mechanism, but, of
course, not only a mechanism. You are more, but the "more" has to be found. When
you get into a gear, everything changes inside. When you change the gear, there is a
turning. Shiva says, AS BREATH TURNS FROM DOWN TO UP, AND AGAIN
AS BREATH CURVES FROM UP TO DOWN -- THROUGH BOTH THESE TURNS, REALIZE. Be aware at the
turn. But it is a very short turn; very minute observation will be needed. And we are just
without any observing capacity; we cannot observe anything. If I say to you, "Observe
this flower; observe this flower which I give to you," you cannot observe it. For a
single moment you will see it, and then you will begin to think of something else. It may
be about the flower, but it will not be THE FLOWER. You may think about the flower, about
how beautiful it is -- then you have moved. Now the flower is no more in your observation,
your field has changed. You may say that it is red, it is blue, it is white... then you
have moved. Observation means remaining with no word, with no verbalization, with no
bubbling inside -- just remaining WITH. If you can remain with a flower for three minutes,
completely, with no movement of the mind, the thing will happen -- the beneficence. You
will realize. But we are not at
all observers. We are not aware, we are not alert; we cannot pay attention to anything. We
just go on jumping. This is part of our heritage, our monkey heritage. Our mind is just
the growth of the monkey mind, so the monkey moves on. He goes on jumping from here to
there. The monkey cannot sit still. That is why Buddha insisted so much on just sitting
without any movement, because then the monkey mind is not allowed to go on its way. In Japan they have
a particular type of meditation which they call Zazen. The word 'zazen' in Japan means
just sitting, doing nothing. No movement is allowed. One is just sitting like a statue --
dead, not moving at all. But there is no need to sit like a statue for years together. If
you can observe the turn of your breath without any movement of the mind, you will enter.
You will enter into yourself or into the beyond within. Why are these
turnings so important? They are important because on turning, the breath leaves you to
move in a different direction. It was with you when it was coming in; it will be with you
again when it goes out. But at the turning point it is not with you and you are not with
it. In that moment the breath is different from you, and you are different from it: if
breathing is life, then you are dead; if breathing is your body, then you are no-body; if
breathing is your mind, then you are no-mind... in that moment. I wonder whether
you have observed it or not: if you stop your breath, the mind stops suddenly. If you stop
your breath just now, your mind will stop suddenly; the mind cannot function. A sudden
stoppage of breath and the mind stops. Why? Because they are disjoined. Only a moving
breath is joined with the mind, with the body; a non-moving breath is disjoined. Then you
are in the neutral gear. The car is running, the power is on, the car is making a noise --
it is ready to go forward -- but it is not in gear, so the body of the car and the
mechanism of the car are not joined. The car is divided into two. It is ready to move, but
the moving mechanism is not joined with it. The same happens
when breath takes a turn. You are not joined with it. In that moment you can easily become
aware of who you are. What is this being? What is it to be? Who is inside this house of
the body? Who is the master? Am I just the house or is there some master also? Am I just
the mechanism or does something else also penetrate this mechanism? In that turning gap,
Shiva says, REALIZE. He says just be aware of the turning, and you become a realized soul. The third
technique: 3 3
OR, WHENEVER IN-BREATH AND OUT-BREATH FUSE, AT THIS INSTANT TOUCH THE
ENERGY-LESS, ENERGY-FILLED CENTER. We are divided into
the center and the periphery. The body is the periphery; we know the body, we know the
periphery. We know the circumference, but we do not know where the center is. When the
out-breath fuses with the in-breath, when they become one, when you cannot say whether it
is the out-breath or the in-breath... when it is difficult to demarcate and define whether
the breath is going out or coming in, when the breath has penetrated in and starts moving
out, there is a moment of fusion. It is neither going out nor moving in. The breath is
static. When it is moving out it is dynamic; when it is coming in it is dynamic. When it
is neither, when it is silent, non-moving, you are near to the center. The fusion point of
the in and outgoing breath is your center. Look at it in this
way: when the breath goes in, where does it go? It goes to your center, it touches your
center. When it goes out, from where does it go out? It moves from your center. Your
center has to be touched. That is why Taoist mystics and Zen mystics say that the head is
not the center, the navel is your center. The breath goes to the navel, then it moves out.
It goes to the center. As I said, it is a
bridge between you and your body. You know the body, but you do not know where your center
is. The breath is constantly going to the center and moving out, but we are not taking
enough breath. Thus, ordinarily it does not really go to the center -- now, at least, it
is not going to the center. That is why everyone feels "off-center." In the
whole modern world, those who can think at all feel they are missing their center. Look at a child
sleeping, observe his breath. The breath goes in; the abdomen comes up. The chest remains
unaffected. That is why children have no chests, only abdomens -- very dynamic abdomens.
The breath goes in and the abdomen comes up; the breath goes out and the abdomen goes
down... the abdomen moves. Children are in their center, at their center. That is why they
are so happy, so bliss-filled, so energy-filled, never tired -- overflowing, and always in
the present moment with no past, no future. A child can be
angry. When he is angry, he is totally angry; he becomes the anger. Then his anger is also
a beautiful thing. When one is totally angry, anger has a beauty of its own, because
totality always has beauty. You cannot be angry
and beautiful, you will become ugly, because partiality is always ugly. And not only with
anger. When you love you are ugly because you are again partial, fragmentary; you are not
total. Look at your face when you are loving someone, making love. Make love before a
mirror and look at your face -- it will be ugly, animal-like. In love also your face
becomes ugly. Why? Love is also a conflict, you are withholding something. You are giving
very miserly. Even in your love you are not total; you do not give completely, wholly. A child even in
anger and violence is total. His face becomes radiant and beautiful; he is here and now.
His anger is not something concerned with the past or something concerned with the future,
he is not calculating, he is just angry. The child is at his center. When you are at your
center you are always total. Whatsoever you do will be a total act; good or bad, it will
be total. When you are fragmentary, when you are off-center, your every act is bound to be
a fragment of yourself. Your totality is not responding, just a part, and the part is
going against the whole -- -that creates ugliness. We all were
children. Why is it that as we grow our breathing becomes shallow? It never goes to the
abdomen; it never touches the navel. If it could go down more and more it would become
less and less shallow, but it just touches the chest and goes out. It never goes to the
center. You are afraid of the center, because if you go to the center you will become
total. If you want to be fragmentary, this is the mechanism to be fragmentary. You love -- if you
breathe from the center, you will flow in it totally. You are afraid. You are afraid to be
so vulnerable, so open to someone, to anyone. You may call him your lover, you may call
her your beloved, but you are afraid. The other is there. If you are totally vulnerable,
open, you do not know what is going to happen. Then YOU ARE completely, in another sense.
You are afraid to be so completely given to someone. You cannot breathe; you cannot take a
deep breath. You cannot relax your breathing so that it goes to the center -- because the
moment breathing goes to the center your act becomes total. Because you are
afraid of being total, you breathe shallowly. You breathe just at the minimum, not at the
maximum. That is why life seems so lifeless. If you are breathing at the minimum, life
will become lifeless; you are living at the minimum, not at the maximum. You can live at
the maximum -- then life is an overflowing. But then there will be difficulty. You cannot
be a husband, you cannot be a wife, if life is overflowing. Everything will become
difficult. If life is
overflowing, love will be overflowing. Then you cannot stick to one. Then you will be
flowing all over; all dimensions will be filled by you. And then the mind feels danger, so
it is better not to be alive. The more you are dead, the more you are secure. The more you
are dead, the more everything is in control. You can control; then you remain the master.
You feel that you are the master because you can control. You can control your anger, you
can control your love, you can control everything. But this controlling is possible only
at the minimum level of your energy. Everyone must have
felt at some time or other that there are moments when he suddenly changes from the
minimum level to the maximum. You go out to a hill station. Suddenly you are out of the
city and the prison of it. You feel free. The sky is vast, and the forest is green, and
the height touches the clouds. Suddenly you take a deep breath. You may not have observed
it. Now if you go to a
hill station, observe. It is not really the hill station that makes the change. It is your
breathing. You take a deep breath. You say, "Ah! Ah!" You touch the center, you
become total for a moment, and everything is bliss. That bliss is not coming from the hill
station, that bliss is coming from your center -- you have touched it suddenly. You were afraid in
the city. Everywhere there were others present and you were controlling. You could not
scream, you could not laugh. What a misfortune! You could not sing on the street and
dance. You were afraid -- a policeman was somewhere around the corner, or the priest or
the judge or the politician or the moralist. Someone was just around the corner, so you
could not just dance in the street. Bertrand Russell
has said somewhere, "I love civilization, but we have achieved civilization at a very
great cost." You cannot dance in the streets, but you go to a hill station and
suddenly you can dance. You are alone with the sky, and the sky is not an imprisonment. It
is just opening, opening and opening -- vast, infinite. Suddenly you take a breath deeply,
it touches the center and the bliss. But it is not so for long. Within an hour or two, the
hill station will disappear. You may be there, but the hill station will disappear. Your worries will
come back. You will begin to think to make a call to the city, to write a letter to your
wife, or you will begin to think that since after three days you are going back you should
make arrangements. You have just reached and you are making arrangements to leave. You are
back. That breath was not
from you really; it suddenly happened. Because of the change of situation the gear
changed. You were in a new situation, you could not breathe in the old way, so for a
moment a new breath came in. It touched the center, and you felt the bliss. Shiva says you are
every moment touching the center, or if you are not touching you CAN touch it. Take deep,
slow breaths. Touch the center; do not breathe from the chest -- that is a trick.
Civilization, education, morality, they have created shallow breathing. It will be good to
go deep into the center, because otherwise you cannot take deep breaths. Unless humanity
becomes non-suppressive toward sex, man cannot breathe really. If the breath goes deep
down to the abdomen, it gives energy to the sex center. It touches the sex center; it
massages the sex center from within. The sex center becomes more active, more alive.
Civilization is afraid of sex. We do not allow our children to touch their sex centers,
their sex organs. We say, "Stop! Don't touch!" Look at a child
when he first touches his sex center, and then say "Stop!" and then observe his
breathing. When you say "Stop! Don't touch your sex center!" the breath will
become shallow immediately -- because it is not only his hand which is touching the sex
center, deep down the breath is touching it. And if the breath goes on touching it, it is
difficult to stop the hand. If the hand stops, then basically it is necessary, required,
that the breath should not touch, should not go deep. It must remain shallow. We are afraid of
sex. The lower part of the body is not only lower physically, it has become lower as a
value. It is condemned as "lower." So do not go deep, just remain shallow. It is
unfortunate that we can only breathe downwards. If some preachers were allowed, they would
change the whole mechanism. They would only allow you to breathe upward into the head.
Then you would absolutely not feel sex. If we are to create
a sexless humanity, then we will have to change the breathing system. The breath must go
into the head, to the SAHASRAR -- the seventh center in the head -- then come back to the
mouth. This should be the passage: from the mouth to the sahasrar. It must not go deep
down because down is dangerous. The deeper you go, the nearer you reach to the deeper
layers of biology. You reach to the center, and that center is just near the sex center --
just near. It has to be, because sex is life. Look at it in this
way: breath is life from above downwards; sex is life from just the other corner -- from
down upwards. Sex energy is flowing and breath energy is flowing. The breath passage is in
the upper body and the sex passage is in the lower body. When they meet they create life;
when they meet they create biology, bio-energy. So if you are afraid of sex, create a
distance between the two, do not allow them to meet. So really, civilized man is a
castrated man; that is why we do not know about breath, and this sutra will be difficult
to understand. Shiva says,
WHENEVER IN-BREATH AND OUT-BREATH FUSE, AT THIS INSTANT TOUCH THE ENERGY-LESS,
ENERGY-FILLED CENTER. He uses very contradictory terms: "energy-less,
energy-filled." It is energy-less because your bodies, your minds, cannot give any
energy to it. Your body energy is not there, your mind energy is not there, so it is
energy-less as far as you know your identity. But it is energy-filled because it has the
cosmic source of energy, not because of your body energy. Your body energy is
just fuel energy. It is nothing but petrol. You eat something, you drink something -- it
creates energy. It is just giving fuel to the body. Stop eating and drinking and your body
will fall dead. Not just now, it will take three months at least, because you have
reservoirs of petrol. You have accumulated much energy; it can run for at least three
months without going to any petrol station. It can run; it has a reservoir. For an
emergency, any emergency, you may need it. This is
"fuel" energy. The center is not getting any fuel energy. That is why Shiva says
it is energy-less. It is not dependent on your eating and drinking. It is connected with
the cosmic source; it is cosmic energy. That is why he says ENERGY- LESS, ENERGY-FILLED
CENTER. The moment you can feel the center from where breath goes out or comes in, the
very point where the breaths fuse -- that center -- if you become aware of it, then
enlightenment. The fourth
technique: 4 4 OR, WHEN BREATH IS ALL OUT (UP) AND STOPPED OF ITSELF, OR ALL IN (DOWN) AND STOPPED -- IN SUCH UNIVERSAL PAUSE, ONE'S SMALL SELF VANISHES. THIS IS DIFFICULT ONLY FOR THE IMPURE. But then it is
difficult for everyone because, he says, THIS IS DIFFICULT ONLY FOR THE IMPURE. But who is
the pure one? It is difficult for you; you cannot practice it. But you can feel it
sometimes suddenly. You are driving a car and suddenly you feel there is going to be an
accident. Breathing will stop. If it is out, it will remain out. If it is in, it will
remain in. You cannot breathe in such an emergency; you cannot afford it. Everything
stops, departs. OR, WHEN BREATH IS ALL OUT (UP) AND STOPPED
OF ITSELF, OR ALL IN (DOWN) AND STOPPED -- IN SUCH UNIVERSAL PAUSE, ONE'S SMALL SELF
VANISHES: Zen monks have
tried this method very much in Japan. That is why their methods seem very weird, absurd,
strange. They have done many inconceivable things. A master will throw someone out of the
house. Suddenly the master will begin slapping the disciple without any rhyme or reason,
without any cause. You were sitting
with your master and everything was okay. You were just chit-chatting, and he will begin
to beat you in order to create the pause. If there is any cause the pause cannot be
created. If you had abused the master and he starts beating you there is a causality, your
mind understands: "I abused him, and he is beating me." Really, your mind
was expecting it already, so there is no gap. But remember, a Zen master will not beat you
if you abuse him, he will laugh, because then laughter can create the pause. You were
abusing him and you were saying nonsense things to him, and you expected anger. But he
starts laughing or dancing. That is sudden; that will create the pause. You cannot
understand it. If you cannot understand the mind stops, and when the mind stops, breathing
stops. Either way -- if breathing stops, mind stops; if mind stops, breathing stops. You were
appreciating the master and you were feeling good, and you were thinking, "Now the
master must be pleased." And suddenly he takes his staff and begins to beat you --
and mercilessly, because Zen masters are merciless. He begins to beat you; you cannot
understand what is happening. The mind stops, there is a pause. If you know the technique,
you can attain to your self. There are many
stories that someone attained buddhahood because the teacher suddenly started beating him.
You cannot understand it -- what nonsense! How can one attain buddhahood by being beaten
by someone, or by being thrown out of the window by someone? Even if someone kills you,
you cannot attain buddhahood. But if you understand this technique, then it becomes easy
to understand. In the West
particularly, in the last thirty or forty years Zen has become very much prevalent -- a
fashion. But unless they know this technique, they cannot understand Zen. They can imitate
it, but imitation is of no use. Rather, it is dangerous. These are not things to be
imitated. The whole Zen
technique is based on the fourth technique of Shiva. But this is unfortunate. Now we will
have to import Zen from Japan because we have lost the whole tradition; we do not know it.
Shiva was the expert par excellence of this method. When he came to marry Devi with his
BARAT, his procession, the whole city must have felt the pause... the whole city! Devi's father was
not willing to marry his girl to this "hippie" -- Shiva was the original hippie.
Devi's father was totally against him, and no father would permit this marriage. So we
cannot say anything against Devi's father. No father would permit his daughter's marriage
to Shiva. But Devi insisted so he had to agree -- unwillingly, unhappily, but he agreed. Then came the
marriage procession. It is said that people began to run, seeing Shiva and his procession.
The whole barat must have taken LSD, marijuana. They were "high." And really,
LSD and marijuana are just the beginning. Shiva knew and his friends and disciples knew
the ultimate psychedelic -- SOMA RASA. Aldous Huxley has named the ultimate psychedelic
"soma" only because of Shiva. They were high, just dancing, screaming, laughing.
The whole city fled. It must have felt the pause. Any sudden,
unexpected, unbelievable thing can create the pause for the impure. But for the pure there
is no need of such things. For the pure, the pause is always there. Many times, for pure
minds, breathing stops. If your mind is pure -- pure means you are not desiring,
hankering, seeking anything -- silently pure, innocently pure, you can be sitting and
suddenly your breath will stop. Remember this: mind
movement needs breath movement. Mind moving fast needs fast movement in breath. That is
why when you are in anger, breath will move fast. In the sex act, the breath will move
very fast. That is why in Ayurveda- a system of herbal medicine in India- it is said that
your life will be shortened if too much sex is allowed. Your life will he shortened,
according to Ayurveda, because Ayurveda measures your life in breaths. If your breathing
is too fast, your life will be shortened. Modern medicine
says that sex helps blood circulation, sex helps relaxation. And those who suppress their
sex may get into trouble -- particularly heart trouble. They are right and Ayurveda is
also right, but they seem contradictory. But Ayurveda was invented five thousand years
before. Every man was doing much labor: life was labor, so there was no need to relax,
there was no need to create artificial devices for blood circulation. But now, for those
who are not doing much physical labor, sex is their only labor. That is why modern
medicine is also right for modern man. He is not doing any physical exertion, so sex gives
the exertion: the heart beats more, the blood circulates faster, the breathing becomes
deep and goes to the center. So after the sex act you feel relaxed and you can fall into
sleep easily. Freud says that sex is the best tranquillizer, and it is -- at least for
modern man. In sex breathing
will become fast; in anger breathing will become fast. In sex the mind is filled with
desire, lust, impurity. When the mind is pure -- no desire in the mind, no seeking, no
motivation; you are not going anywhere, but just remaining here and now as an innocent
pool... not even a ripple -- then breathing stops automatically. There is no need for it. On this path, the
small self vanishes and you attain to the higher self, the supreme self. I think this will do for today. |
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