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Question 1
HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT BY SIMPLY BECOMING
AWARE AT A PARTICULAR POINT IN THE BREATHING PROCESS ONE CAN ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT? HOW IT
IS POSSIBLE TO BECOME FREE FROM THE UNCONSCIOUS BY JUST BEING AWARE OF SUCH A SMALL AND
MOMENTARY GAP IN THE BREATHING?
This question is
significant, and this question is likely to have occurred to many minds, so many things
have to be understood. First, it is thought that spirituality is a difficult attainment.
It is neither: that is, it is neither difficult nor an attainment. Whatsoever you are, you
are already spiritual. Nothing new is to be added to your being, and nothing is to be
discarded from your being; you are as perfect as possible. It is not that you are going to
be perfect sometime in the future, it is not that you have to do something arduous to be
yourself. It is not a journey to some other point somewhere else; you are not going
somewhere else. You are already there. That which is to be attained is already attained.
This idea must go deep, only then will you be able to understand why such simple
techniques can help.
If spirituality is
some attainment, then of course it is going to be difficult -- not only difficult, but
really impossible. If you are not already spiritual, you cannot be, you never can be,
because how can one who is not spiritual be spiritual? If you are not divine already then
there is no possibility, there is no way. And no matter what effort you will make, effort
made by one who is not already divine cannot create divinity. If you are not divine, your
effort cannot create divinity. Then it is impossible.
But the whole
situation is totally opposite: you are already that which you want to attain. The end of
longing is already there, present in you. Here and now, this very moment, you are that
which is known as divine. The ultimate is here; it is already the case. That is why simple
techniques can help. It is not an attainment, but a discovery. It is hidden, and it is
hidden in very, very small things.
The persona is just
like clothes. Your body is here, hidden in clothes; in the same way your spirituality is
here, hidden in certain clothes. These clothes are your personality. You can be naked just
here and now, and in the same way you can be naked in your spirituality also. But you do
not know what the clothes are. You do not know how you are hidden in them; you do not know
how to be naked. You have been in clothes so long -- for lives and lives and lives you
have been in clothes -- and you have been so identified with the clothes, that now you do
not think that these are clothes. You think these clothes are you. That is the only
barrier.
For example, you
have some treasure, but you have forgotten or you have not yet recognized that this is a
treasure, and you go on begging in the streets... you are a beggar. If someone says,
"Go and look inside your house. You need not be a beggar, you can be an emperor this
very moment," the beggar is bound to say, "What nonsense you are talking. How
can I be an emperor this very moment? I have been begging for years and still I am a
beggar, and even if I go on begging for lives together, I am not going to be an emperor.
So how absurd and illogical your statement is, `You can be an emperor this very
moment.'"
It is impossible.
The beggar cannot believe it. Why? Because the begging mind is a long habit. But if the
treasure is just hidden in the house, then from simple digging, removing the earth a
little bit, the treasure will be there. And immediately he will not be a beggar again, he
will become an emperor.
It is the same with
spirituality: it is a hidden treasure. Nothing is to be achieved somewhere in the future.
You have not yet recognized it, but it is there already in you. You are the treasure, but
you go on begging.
So simple
techniques can help. Digging the earth, removing a little bit, is not a big effort, and
you can become an emperor immediately. You have to dig a little bit to remove the earth.
And when I say remove the earth, it is not only symbolically that I am saying it.
Literally your body is part of the earth, and you have become identified with the body.
Remove this earth a little bit, create a hole in it, and you will come to know the
treasure.
That is why this
question will occur to many. Really, to everyone this question will occur: "So small
a technique like this -- being aware of your breathing, being aware of the incoming breath
and the outgoing breath, and then realizing the interval between the two -- is this
enough?" Such a simple thing! Is this enough for enlightenment? Is this the only
difference between you and Buddha, that you have not realized the gap between two breaths
and Buddha has realized it -- only this much? It seems illogical. The distance is vast
between a Buddha and you. The distance seems infinite. The distance between a beggar and
an emperor is infinite, but the beggar can immediately become an emperor if the treasure
is already hidden.
Buddha was a beggar
like you; he was not a buddha always. At a particular point the beggar died, and he became
the master. This is not a gradual process really; it is not that Buddha goes on
accumulating and then one day he is not the beggar and he becomes the emperor. No, a
beggar can never become an emperor if it is going to be an accumulation, he will remain a
beggar. He may become a rich beggar, but he will remain a beggar. And a rich beggar is a
bigger beggar than a poor beggar.
Suddenly, one day
Buddha realizes the inner treasure. Then he is no more a beggar, he becomes a master. The
distance between Gautam Siddharth and Gautam Buddha is infinite. It is the same distance
that is between you and a buddha. But the treasure is hidden within you as much as it was
hidden in Buddha.
Take another
example.... One man is born with blind eyes, diseased eyes. For a blind man, the world is
a different thing. A small operation may change the whole thing, because only the eyes
have to be made all right. The moment the eyes are ready, the seer is hidden behind and he
will begin to look from the eyes. The seer is already there, only windows are lacking. You
are in a house with no windows. You can break a hole in the wall, and suddenly you will
look out.
We are already that
which we will be, which we should be, which we are to be. The future is already hidden in
the present; the whole possibility is here in the seed. Only a window has to be broken,
only a small surgical operation is needed. If you can understand this, that spirituality
is already there, already the case, then there is no problem concerning how such a small
effort can help.
Really, no big
effort is needed. Only small efforts are needed, and the smaller the better. And if you
work effortlessly it is still better. That is why it happens, many times it happens, that
the more you try, the harder it is to attain. Your very effort, your tension, your
occupiedness, your longing, your expectation, becomes the barrier. But with a very small
effort, an effortless effort as they call it in Zen -- doing as if not doing -- it happens
easily. The more you are mad after it, the less is the possibility, because where a needle
is needed you are using a sword. The sword will not be helpful. It may be bigger, but
where a needle is needed a sword will not do.
Go to a butcher --
he has very big instruments. And go to a brain surgeon: you will not find such big
instruments with the brain surgeon. And if you do find them, then escape immediately! A
brain surgeon is not a butcher. He needs very small instruments -- the smaller the better.
Spiritual
techniques are more subtle; they are not gross. They cannot be, because the surgery is
even more subtle. In the brain the surgeon is still doing something with gross matter, but
when you are working on spiritual planes the surgery becomes more and more aesthetic. No
gross matter is there. It becomes subtle -- that is one thing.
Secondly, the
questioner asks, "If something is smaller, how can a bigger step be possible through
it?" This concept is irrational, unscientific. Now science knows that the smaller the
particle, the more atomic, the more explosive -- the bigger really. The smaller it is, the
bigger the effect. Could you have conceived before 1945, could any imaginative poet or
dreamer have conceived that two atomic explosions would wipe out completely two big cities
in Japan -- Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Two hundred thousand people were simply wiped out of
existence within seconds. And what was the explosive force used? An atom! The very
smallest particle blew up two big cities. You cannot see the atom. Not only with your eyes
can you not see, you cannot see by any means. The atom cannot be seen with any instrument;
we can only see the effects.
So do not think
that the Himalayas are bigger because they have such a big body. The Himalayas are just
impotent before an atomic explosion. One small atom can wipe out the whole Himalayas. Size
in gross material is not necessarily power. On the contrary, the smaller the unit, the
more penetrating. The smaller the unit, the more intensely it is filled with power.
These small
techniques are atomic. Those who are doing bigger things do not know atomic science. You
will think that a person who is working with atoms is a small person working with small
things, and a person who is working with the Himalayas will look very big. Hitler was
working with great masses; Mao is working with great masses. And Einstein and Planck, they
were working in their laboratories with small units of matter -- energy particles. But
ultimately, before Einstein's research politicians were just impotent. They were working
on a bigger canvas, but they did not know the secret of the small unit.
Moralists always
work on big planes, but these are gross. The thing looks very big. They devote their whole
lives to moralizing, practicing this and that, to SANYAM -- control. They go on
controlling; the whole edifice looks very big.
Tantra is not
concerned with this. Tantra is concerned with the atomic secrets in the human being, in
the human mind, in human consciousness. And tantra has achieved atomic secrets. These
methods are atomic methods. If you can attain them, their result is explosive, cosmic.
Another point is to
be noted. If you can say, "How is it that with such a small, simple exercise one can
become enlightened?" you are saying this without doing the exercise. If you do it,
then you will not say that this is a small, simple exercise. It looks this way because
within two or three sentences the whole exercise has been given.
Do you know the
atomic formula? Two or three words, and the whole formula is given. And with those two or
three words, those who can understand, those who can use those words, can destroy the
whole earth. The formula is very small.
These too are
formulas, so if you just look at the formula it will look to be a very, very small, simple
thing. It is not! Try to do it. When you do it, then you will know that it is not so easy.
It looks simple, but it is one of the deepest things. We will analyze the process; then
you will understand.
When you take your
breath in, you never feel the breath. You have never felt the breath. You will immediately
deny this. You will say, "This is not right. We may not be conscious continuously,
but we feel the breath." No, you do not feel the breath, you feel the passage.
Look at the sea.
Waves are there; you see the waves. But those waves are created by air, wind. You do not
see the wind, you see the effect on the water. When you take breath in it touches your
nostril. You feel the nostril, but you never know the breath. It goes down -- you feel the
passage. It comes back -- again you feel the passage. You never feel the breath, you just
feel the touch and the passage.
This is not what is
meant when Shiva says, BE AWARE. First you will become aware of the passage, and when you
have become completely aware of the passage, only then will you begin, by and by, to be
aware of the breath itself. And when you become aware of the breath, then you will be
capable of being aware of the gap, the interval. It is not so easy as it looks.
For tantra, for all
seeking, there are layers of awareness. If I embrace you, first you will become aware of
my touch upon your body; not of my love, my love is not so gross. And ordinarily we never
become aware of love. We are aware only of the body in movement. We know loving movements,
we know non-loving movements -- but we have never known love itself. If I kiss you, you
become aware of the touch, not of my love; that love is a very subtle thing. And unless
you become aware of my love the kiss is just dead, it means nothing. If you can become
aware of my love, then only can you become aware of me, because that again is a deeper
layer.
The breath goes in.
You feel the touch, not the breath. But you are not even aware of that touch. If something
is wrong, only then do you feel it. If you have some difficulty in breathing, then you
feel it; otherwise you are not aware. The first step will be to be aware of the passage
where breath is felt to be touching; then your sensitivity will grow. It will take years
to become so sensitive that not the touch, but the movement of breath is known. Then, says
tantra, you will have known PRANA -- the vitality. And only then is there the gap where
breath stops, where breath is not moving -- or the center where the breath is touching, or
the fusion point, or the turning where the breath, the ingoing breath, becomes outgoing.
This will become arduous; then it will not be so simple.
If you do
something, if you go into this center, only then will you know how difficult it is. Buddha
took six years to come to this center beyond the breath. To come to this turning, he had a
long, arduous journey of six years; then it happened. Mahavir was working on it for twelve
years; then it happened. But the formula is simple, and theoretically this can happen this
very moment -- theoretically, remember. There is no barrier theoretically, so why should
it not happen this very moment? YOU are the barrier. Except for you this can happen this
very moment. The treasure is there; the method is known to you. You can dig, but you will
not dig.
Even this question
is a trick not to dig, because your mind says, "Such a simple thing? Don't be a fool.
How can you become a buddha through such a simple thing? It is not going to be." And
then you are not going to do anything, because how can this happen? Mind is tricky. If I
say this is very difficult, the mind says, "This is so difficult it is beyond
you." If I say this is very simple, the mind says, "This is so simple that only
fools can believe in it." And mind goes on rationalizing things, always escaping from
doing.
Mind creates
barriers. It will become a barrier if you think this is so simple, or this is too
difficult -- then what are you going to do? You cannot do a simple thing, you cannot do a
difficult thing. What are you going to do? Tell me! If you want to do a difficult thing, I
will make it difficult. If you are going to do a simple thing, I will make it simple. It
is both -- it depends on how it is interpreted. But one thing is needed, that you are
going to DO. If you are not going to do then the mind will always give you explanations.
Theoretically, it
is possible here and now; there is no actual barrier. But there are barriers. They may not
be actual, they may simply be psychological -- they may just be your illusions -- but they
are there. If I say to you, "Do not be afraid -- go! The thing that you are thinking
is a snake is not a snake, it is just a rope," still the fear will be there. To you
it appears to be a snake.
So whatsoever I say
is not going to help. You are trembling; you want to escape and run away. I say it is just
a rope, but your mind will say, "This man may be in conspiracy with the snake. There
must be something wrong. This man is forcing me toward the snake. He may be interested in
my death, or something else." If I try to convince you too much that this is a rope,
that will only show that I am somehow interested in forcing you toward the snake. If I say
to you that theoretically it is possible to see the rope as a rope this very moment, your
mind will create many, many problems.
In reality there is
no dilemma; in reality there is no problem. There never has been, there never will be. In
mind there are problems, and you look at reality through the mind; thus, the reality
becomes problematic. Your mind works like a prison. It divides and creates problems. And
not only that, it creates solutions which become deeper problems, because in fact there
are no problems to be solved. Reality is absolutely unproblematic; there is no problem.
But you cannot see anything without problems. Wherever you look, you create problems. Your
"look" is problematic. I told you this breath technique; now the mind says,
"This is so simple." Why? Why does the mind say this is so simple ?
When for the first
time the steam engine was invented, no one believed it. It looked so simple --
unbelievable. Just the same steam that you know in your kitchen, in your kettle, the steam
running an engine, running hundreds and hundreds of passengers and such a load? The same
steam that you are so well-acquainted with? This is not believable.
Do you know what
happened in England? When the first train started, no one was ready to sit in it -- no
one! Many people were persuaded, bribed, they were given money to sit in the train, but at
the last point they escaped. They said, "Firstly, steam cannot do such miracles. Such
a simple thing as steam cannot do such miracles. And if the engine starts, that means that
the devil is at work somewhere. The devil is running the thing, it is not the steam. And
what is the guarantee that once the thing starts you will be capable of stopping it?"
No guarantee could
be given because this was the first train. Never had it stopped before, it was only
probable. There was no experience, so science could not say, "Yes it will stop."
Theoretically it will stop... but the people were not interested in theories. They were
interested if there was any actual experience of stopping a train: "If it never stops
then what will happen to us who will be sitting in it?"
So twelve criminals
from the jail were brought as passengers. Anyhow they were going to die, anyhow they were
sentenced to death, so there was no problem if the train was not going to stop. Then the
mad driver who thought that it was going to stop, the scientist who had invented it and
these twelve passengers who were anyhow going to be killed, they alone would all be
killed. "Such a simple thing as steam," they said at that time. But now no one
says this, because now it is working and you know it.
Everything is
simple -- reality is simple. It seems complex only because of ignorance; otherwise
everything is simple. Once you know it, it becomes simple. The knowing is bound to be
difficult not because of reality, remember, but because of your mind. This technique is
simple, but it is not going to be simple for you. Your mind will create difficulty. So try
with it.
Another friend
says, IF I TRY THIS METHOD OF BEING AWARE OF MY BREATHING, IF I PAY ATTENTION TO MY
BREATHING, THEN I CANNOT DO ANYTHING ELSE, THE WHOLE ATTENTION GOES TO IT. AND IF I AM TO
DO ANYTHING ELSE THEN I CANNOT BE AWARE OF MY BREATHING.
This will happen,
so in the beginning choose a particular period in the morning, or in the evening, or at
any time. For one hour just do the exercise; do not do anything else. Just do the
exercise. Once you become attuned to it, then it will not be a problem. You can walk on
the street and you can be aware.
Between `awareness'
and `attention' there is a difference. When you pay attention to anything it is exclusive;
you have to withdraw your attention from everywhere else. So it is a tension really. That
is why it is called attention. You pay attention to one thing at the cost of everything
else. If you pay attention to your breathing, you cannot pay attention to your walking or
to your driving. Do not try it while you are driving because you cannot pay attention to
both.
Attention means one
thing exclusively. Awareness is a very different thing; it is not exclusive. It is not
paying attention, it is being attentive; it is just being conscious. You are conscious
when you are inclusively conscious. Your breathing is in your consciousness. You are
walking and someone is passing, and you are also conscious of him. Someone is making noise
on the road, some train passes by, some airplane flies by -- everything is included.
Awareness is inclusive, attention exclusive. But in the beginning it will be attention.
So first try in
selected periods. For one hour just be attentive to your breathing. By and by you will be
able to change your attention into awareness. Then do simple things -- for example,
walking, walk attentively with full awareness of walking and also of breathing. Do not
create any opposition between the two actions of walking and breathing. Be a watcher of
both. It is not difficult.
Look! For example,
I can pay attention to one face here. If I pay attention to one face, all the faces will
not be here for me. If I pay my attention to one face, then all the rest are bracketed
out. If I pay attention only to the nose on that face, then the whole face, the remaining
face, is bracketed out. I can go on narrowing down my attention to a single point.
The reverse is also
possible. I pay attention to the whole face; then eyes and nose and everything are there.
Then I have made my focus wider. I look at you not as individuals, but as a group. Then
the whole group is in my attention. If I take you as different from the noise that is
going on the street, then I am bracketing out the street. But I can look at you and the
street as one whole. Then I can be aware of both you and the street. I can be aware of the
whole cosmos. It depends on your focus -- on its becoming greater and greater. But first
start from attention and remember that you have to grow into awareness. So choose a small
period. The morning is good because you are fresh, energies are vital, everything is
rising; you are more alive in the morning.
Physiologists say
that not only are you more alive, but your height is a little more in the morning than in
the evening. If you are six feet tall, then in the morning you are six feet and one half
inch and in the evening you go back to six feet. Half an inch is lost because your spine
settles down when it is tired. So in the morning you are fresh, young, alive with energy.
Do this: do not
make meditation the last thing on your schedule. Make it the first. Then when you feel
that now it is not an effort, when you can sit for an hour together completely immersed in
breathing -- aware, attentive -- when you only know this, that you have achieved attention
of breathing without any effort; when you are relaxed and enjoying it without any forcing,
then you have attained it.
Then add something
else -- for example, walking. Remember both; then go on adding things. After a certain
period you will be capable of being aware of your breath continuously, even in sleep. And
unless you are aware even in sleep you will not be able to know the depth. But this comes,
by and by this comes.
One has to be
patient and one has to start rightly. Know this, because the cunning mind will always try
to give you a wrong start. Then you can leave it after two or three days and say,
"This is hopeless." The mind will give you a wrong start. So always remember to
begin rightly, because rightly begun means half done. But we start wrongly.
You know very well
that attention is a difficult thing. This is because you are totally asleep. So if you
start being attentive to breathing while you are doing something else, you cannot do it.
And you are not going to leave the task, you will leave the effort of being attentive to
breathing.
So do not create
unnecessary problems for yourself. In twenty-four hours you can find a small corner. Forty
minutes will do... so do the technique there. But the mind will give many excuses. The
mind will say, "Where is the time? There is already too much work to be done. Where
is the time?" Or the mind will say, "It is not possible now, so postpone it.
Sometime in the future when things are better, then you will do it." Beware of what
your mind says to you. Do not be too trusting of the mind. And we are never doubtful. We
can doubt everyone but we never doubt our own minds.
Even those who talk
so much of skepticism, of doubt, of reason, even they never doubt their own minds. And
your mind has brought you to the state you are in. If you are in a hell, your mind has
brought you to this hell, and you never doubt this guide. You can doubt any teacher, any
master, but you never doubt your mind. With unflinching faith, you move with your mind as
the guru. And your mind has brought you to the mess, to the misery that you are. If you
are going to doubt anything, doubt first your own mind. And whenever your mind says
something, think twice.
Is it true that you
do not have any time? Really? You do not have any time to meditate -- to give one hour to
meditation? Think twice. Ask again and again to the mind, "Is this the case, that I
do not have any time?"
I don't see it. I
have not seen a man who does not have more than enough time. I go on seeing people who are
playing cards, and they say, "We are killing time." They are going to the movies
and they say, "What to do?" They are killing time, gossiping, reading the same
newspaper again and again, talking about the same things they have been talking about for
their whole lives, and they say, "We don't have any time." For unnecessary
things they have enough time. Why?
With an unnecessary
thing mind is not in any danger. The moment you think of meditation, mind becomes alert.
Now you are moving in a dangerous dimension, because meditation means the death of the
mind. If you move into meditation, sooner or later your mind will have to dissolve, retire
completely. The mind becomes alert and it begins to say many things to you: "Where is
the time? And even if there is time, then more important things are to be done. First
postpone it until later. You can meditate at any time. Money is more important. Gather
money first, then meditate at your leisure. How can you meditate without money? So pay
attention to money, then meditate later on."
Meditation can be
postponed easily, you feel, because it is not concerned with your immediate survival.
Bread cannot be postponed -- you will die. Money cannot be postponed -- it is needed for
your basic necessities. Meditation can be postponed, you can survive without it. Really,
you can survive without it easily.
The moment you go
deep in meditation, you will not survive on this earth at least -- you will disappear.
From the circle of this life, this wheel, you will disappear. Meditation is like death, so
the mind becomes afraid. Meditation is like love, so the mind becomes afraid.
"Postpone," it says, and you can go on postponing ad infinitum. Your mind is
always saying things like this. And do not think I am talking about others. I am talking
particularly about YOU.
I have come across
many intelligent people who go on saying very unintelligent things about meditation. One
man came from Delhi; he is a big government official. He came only for the purpose of
learning meditation here. He had come from Delhi, and he stayed seven days here. I told
him to go to the morning meditation class on Chowpatty beach in Bombay, but he said,
"But that is difficult. I cannot get up so early." And he will never think over
what his mind has told him. Is this so difficult? Now you will know: the exercise can be
simple, but your mind is not so simple. The mind says, "How can I get up in the
morning at six o'clock?"
I was in a big
city, and the collector of that city came to meet me at eleven o'clock at night. I was
just going to my bed, and he came and said, "No! It is urgent. I am very disturbed.
It is a question of life and death," he told me. "So please give me at least
half an hour. Teach me meditation; otherwise I might commit suicide. I am very much
disturbed, and I am so frustrated that something must happen in my inner world. My outer
world is lost completely."
I told him,
"Come in the morning at five o'clock." He said, "That is not
possible." It is a question of life and death, but he cannot get up at five o'clock.
He said, "That is not possible. I never get up so early."
Okay," I told
him, "Then come at ten."
He said, "That
will also be difficult because by ten-thirty I am to be present at my office."
He cannot take one
day's leave, and it is a question of life and death. So I told him, "Is it a question
of your life and death or my life and death? Whose?" And he was not an unintelligent
man, he was intelligent enough. These tricks were very intelligent.
So do not think
that your mind is not playing the same tricks. It is very intelligent, and because you
think it is your mind you never doubt it. It is not yours, it is just a social product. It
is not yours! It has been given to you, it has been forced upon you. You have been taught
and conditioned in a certain way. From the very childhood your mind has been created by
others -- parents, society, teachers. The past is creating your mind, influencing your
mind. The dead past is forcing itself upon the living continuously. The teachers are just
the agents -- agents of the dead against the living. They go on forcing things upon your
mind. But the mind is so intimate with you, the gap is so small, that you become
identified with it.
You say, "I am
a Hindu." Think again, reconsider it. YOU are not a Hindu. You have been given a
Hindu mind. You were born just a simple, innocent being -- not a Hindu, not a Mohammedan.
But you were given a Mohammedan mind, a Hindu mind. You were forced, encaged, imprisoned
in a particular condition, and then life goes on adding to this mind and this mind becomes
heavy -- heavy on you. You cannot do anything; the mind starts forcing its own way upon
you. Your experiences are being added to the mind. Constantly, your past is conditioning
your every present moment. If I say something to you, you are not going to think about it
in a fresh way, in an open way. Your old mind, your past will come in between, will begin
to talk and chatter for or against.
Remember, your mind
is not yours, your body is not yours; it comes from your parents. Your mind is also not
yours; it also comes from your parents. Who are you?
Either one is
identified with the body or with the mind. You think you are young, you think you are old,
you think you are a Hindu, you think you are a Jain, you are a Parsee. You are not! You
were born as a pure consciousness. These are all imprisonments. These techniques which
look so simple to you will not be so simple, because this mind will create constantly
many, many complexities and problems.
Just a few days
before, a man came to me and he said, "I am trying your method of meditation, but
tell me, in what scripture is it given? If you can convince me that it is given in my
religious scripture, then it will be easier for me to do." But why will it be easier
for him to do if it is written in a scripture? Because then the mind will not create a
problem. The mind will say, "Okay! This belongs to us, so do it." If it is not
written in any scripture then the mind will say, "What are you doing?" The mind
goes against it.
I said to the man,
"You have been doing this method for three months. How are you feeling?" He
said, "Wonderful. I am feeling very wonderful. But tell me... give some authority
from the scriptures." His own feeling is not an authority at all. He says, "I am
feeling wonderful. I have become more silent, more peaceful, more loving. I am feeling
wonderful." But his own experience is not the authority. The mind asks for an
authority from the past.
I told him,
"It is not written anywhere in your scriptures. Rather, many things which are against
this technique are written." His face became sad. And then he said, "Then it
will be difficult for me to do it and to continue it."
Why is his own
experience not of any value?
The past -- the
conditioning, the mind -- is constantly molding you and destroying your present. So
remember, and be aware. Be skeptical and doubting about your mind. Do not trust it. If you
can attain to this maturity of not trusting your mind, only then will these techniques be
really simple, helpful, functioning. They will work miracles -- they can work miracles.
These techniques,
these methods cannot be understood intellectually at all. I am trying the impossible, but
then why am I trying? If they cannot be understood intellectually, then why am I talking
to you? They cannot be understood intellectually, but there is no other way to make you
aware of certain techniques which can change your life totally. You can understand only
intellect, and this is a problem. You cannot understand anything else; you can understand
only the intellect. And these techniques cannot be understood intellectually, so how to
communicate?
Either you should
become capable of understanding without intellect being brought in, or some method should
be found so that these techniques can be made intellectually understandable. The second is
not possible, but the first is possible.
You will have to
start intellectually, but do not cling to it. When I say "Do," try doing. If
something begins to happen within you, then you will be capable of throwing your intellect
aside and reaching toward me directly without the intellect, without any effort, without
the meditator. But start doing something. We can go on talking for years and years, your
mind can be stuffed with many things, but that is not going to help. Rather, it may harm
you because you will begin to know many things. And if you know many things you will
become confused. It is not good to know many things. It is good to know a little and to
practice it. A single technique can be helpful; something done is always helpful. What is
the difficulty in doing it?
Deep down somewhere
there is fear. The fear is that if you do it, it may be that something stops happening --
that is the fear. It may look paradoxical, but I have been meeting so many -- so many
persons -- who think they want to change. They say they need meditation, they ask for a
deep transformation, but deep down they are also afraid. They are dual -- double; they
have two minds. They go on asking about what to do, never doing it. Why then do they go on
asking? Just to deceive themselves that they are really interested in transforming
themselves. That is why they are asking.
This gives a
facade, an appearance that they are really, sincerely interested in changing themselves.
That is why they are asking, going to this guru and that, finding, trying, but they never
do anything. Deep down they are afraid.
Eric Fromm has
written a book, FEAR OF FREEDOM. The title seems contradictory. Everyone thinks that they
like freedom; everyone thinks that they are endeavoring for freedom -- in this world and
in "that world" also. "We want MOKSHA -- liberation -- we want to be freed
from all limitations, from all slaveries. We want to be totally free," they say. But
Eric Fromm says that man is afraid of freedom. We want it, we go on saying that we want
it, we go on convincing ourselves that we want it, but deep down we are afraid of freedom.
We do not want it! Why? Why this duality?
Freedom creates
fear, and meditation is the deepest freedom possible. You are not freed only from outward
limitations, you are freed from inner slavery -- the very mind, the base of slavery. You
are freed from the whole past. The moment you have no mind, the past has disappeared. You
have transcended history; now there is no society, no religion, no scripture, no
tradition, because they all have their abode in the mind. Now there is no past, no future,
because past and future are part of the mind, the memory and the imagination.
Then you are here
and now in the present. Now there is not going to be any future. There will be now and now
and now -- eternal now. Then you are freed completely; you transcend all tradition, all
history, body, mind, everything. One becomes free of the fearful. Such freedom? Then where
will YOU be? In such freedom, can you exist? In such freedom, in such vastness, can you
have your small "I" -- your ego? Can you say "I am?"
You can say,
"I am in bondage," because you can know your boundary. When there is no bondage
there is no boundary. You become just a state, nothing more... absolute nothingness,
emptiness. That creates fear, so one goes on talking about meditation, about how to do it,
and one goes on without doing it.
All the questions
arise out of this fear. Feel this fear. If you know it, it will disappear. If you do not
know it, it will continue. Are you ready to die in the spiritual sense? Are you ready to
be NOT?
Whenever anyone
came to Buddha he would say, "This is the basic truth -- that you are not. And
because you are not you cannot die, you cannot be born; and because you are not you cannot
be in suffering, in bondage. Are you ready to accept this?" Buddha would ask,
"Are you ready to accept this? If you are not ready to accept this, then do not try
meditation now. First try to find out whether you really are or you are not. Meditate on
this first: is there any self? Is there any substance within or are you just a
combination?"
If you manage to
find out, you will find that your body is a combination. Something has come from your
mother, something has come from your father, and all else has come from food. This is your
body. In this body you are NOT, there is no self. Contemplate on the mind: something has
come from here, something from there. Mind has nothing that is original. It is just
accumulation.
Find out if there
is any self in the mind. If you move deep, you will find that your identity is just like
an onion. You peel off one layer and another layer comes up; you peel off another layer
and still another layer comes up. You go on peeling layers off, and ultimately you come to
a nothingness. With all the layers thrown off, there is nothing inside. Body and mind are
like onions. When you have peeled off both body and mind, then you come to encounter a
nothingness, an abyss, a bottomless void. Buddha called it SHUNYA.
To encounter this
shunya, to encounter this void, creates fear. That fear is there. That is why we never do
meditation. We talk about it, but we never do anything about it. That fear is there. You
know deep down that there is a void, but you cannot escape this fear. Whatsoever you do,
the fear will remain unless you encounter it. That is the only way. Once you encounter
your nothingness, once you know that within you are just like a space, shunya, then there
will be no fear. Then there cannot be any fear, because this shunya, this void, cannot be
destroyed. This void is not going to die. That which was going to die is no more; it was
nothing but the layers of an onion.
That is why many
times in deep meditation, when one comes nearer to this nothingness, one becomes afraid
and starts trembling. One feels that one is going to die, one wants to escape from this
nothingness back to the world. And many go back; then they never turn within again. As I
see it, every one of you have tried in some life or other some meditative technique. You
have been near to the nothingness, and then fear gripped you and you escaped. And deep in
your past memories, that memory is there; that becomes the hindrance. Whenever you again
think of trying meditation, that past memory deep down in your unconscious mind again
disturbs you and says, "Go on thinking; do not do it. You have done it once."
It is difficult to
find a man -- and I have looked into many -- who has not tried meditation once or twice in
some life. The memory is there, but you are not conscious of it, you are not aware of
where the memory is. It is there. Whenever you begin to do something that becomes a
barrier, this and that begin to stop you in many ways. So if you are really interested in
meditation, find out about your own fear of it. Be sincere about it: are you afraid? If
you are afraid, then first something has to be done about your fear, not about meditation.
Buddha used to try
many devices. Sometimes someone would say to him, "I am afraid of trying
meditation." And this is a must: the master must be told that you are afraid. You
cannot deceive the master... and there is no need -- it is deceiving yourself. So whenever
someone would say, "I am afraid of meditation," Buddha would say, "You are
fulfilling the first requirement." If you say yourself that you are afraid of
meditation, then something becomes possible. Then something can be done because you have
uncovered a deep thing. So what is the fear? Meditate on it. Go and dig out where it comes
from, what the source is.
All fear is
basically death-oriented. Whatsoever its form, mode, whatsoever its shape, name, all fear
is death-oriented. If you move deep, you will find that you are afraid of death.
If someone came to
Buddha and said, "I am afraid of death, I have found this out," Buddha would
say, "Then go to the burning ghat, go to the cemetery, and meditate on a funeral
pyre. People are dying daily -- they will be burned. Just remain there at the MARGHAT --
cemetery -- and meditate on the burning pyre. When their family members have gone, you
remain there. Just look into the fire, at the burning body. When everything is becoming
smoke, you just look at it deeply. Do not think, just meditate on it for three months, six
months, nine months.
"When it
becomes a certainty to you that death cannot be escaped, when it becomes absolutely
certain that death is the way of life, that death is implied in life, that death is going
to be, that there is no way out and you are already in it, only then come to me."
After meditating on
death, after seeing every day, night and day, dead bodies being burned, dissolved into
ashes -- just a smoke remains and then disappears -- after meditating for months together,
a certainty will arise: the certainty that death is inevitable. It is the only certainty
really. The only thing certain in life is death. Everything else is uncertain: it may be
or it may not be. But you cannot say that it may be or it may not be for death. It is; it
is going to be. It has already occurred. The moment you entered life, you entered death.
Now nothing can be done about it.
When death is
certain there is no fear. Fear is always with things which can be changed. If death is to
be, fear disappears. If you can change, if you can do something about death, then fear
will remain. If nothing can be done, if you are already in it, then it is absolutely
certain that fear will disappear. When fear of death had disappeared, Buddha would allow
you to meditate. He would say, "Now you can meditate."
So you also go deep
into your mind. And listening to these techniques will be helpful only when your inner
barriers are broken, when inner fears disappear and you are certain that death is the
reality. So if you die in meditation there is no fear -- death is certain. Even if death
occurs in meditation, there is no fear. Only then can you move -- and then you can move at
rocket speed because the barriers are not there.
It is not distance
that takes time, but the barriers. You can move this very moment if there is no barrier.
You are already there but for the barrier. It is a hurdle race, and you go on putting up
more and more hurdles. You feel good when you cross a hurdle; you feel good that now you
have crossed the hurdle. And the idiocy of it, the foolishness of it, is that the hurdle
was placed there by you in the first place. It was never there. You go on putting up
hurdles, then jumping over them, then feeling good; then you go on putting up more
hurdles, then jumping. You move in a circle and never, never reach to the center.
Mind creates
hurdles because mind is afraid. It will give you many explanations as to why you are not
doing meditation. Do not believe it. Go deep, find out the basic cause. Why does a person
go on talking about food and yet never eat? What is the problem? The man seems mad!
Another man goes on
talking about love and never loves, another man goes on talking about something else and
never does anything about it. This talking
becomes obsessive; it becomes a compulsion. One goes on, one sees talking as a doing. By
talking you feel that you are doing something, so you feel at ease. You are doing
something -- at least talking, at least reading, at least listening. This is not doing.
This is deceptive; do not fall into the deception.
I will be talking
here about these one hundred and twelve methods not to feed your mind, not to make you
more knowledgeable, not to make you more informed. I am not trying to make you a pundit. I
am talking here in order to give you a certain technique which can change your life. So
whichever method appeals to you, do not start talking about it -- do it! Be silent about
it and do it. Your mind will raise many questions. Just inquire deeply first before asking
me. Inquire deeply first whether those questions are really significant or if your mind is
just deceiving you.
Do, then ask. Then
your questions become practical. And I know which question has been asked through doing
and which question has been asked just through curiosity, just through intellect. So by
and by I will not answer your intellectual questions at all. Do something -- then your
questions become significant. These questions which say, "This exercise is a very
simple one," are not asked after doing. This is NOT so simple. In the end I must
repeat again:
You are already the
truth.
Only a certain
awakening is needed.
You are not to go
anywhere else. You are to go into yourself, and the going is possible this very moment. If
you can put aside your mind, you enter here and now.
These techniques
are for putting your mind aside. These techniques are not really for meditation; they are
for putting the mind aside. Once the mind is not there, YOU ARE!
I think this is enough for today, or even more than enough. |
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