There are many
questions. The first question: LAST NIGHT YOU SAID THAT WITH
THE DAWN OF ENLIGHTENMENT, THE SPACE BETWEEN THE TWO EYEBROWS, THE THIRD EYE, BECOMES ALL
INCLUSIVE. THE OTHER DAY YOU SAID THAT ALL ENLIGHTENED ONES ARE CENTERED IN THEIR NAVEL,
AND ON STILL ANOTHER DAY YOU HAVE EXPLAINED ABOUT THE SILVER CORD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE
SPINE. THUS, WE KNOW ABOUT THREE BASIC THINGS AS THE ROOTS OF MAN. PLEASE EXPLAIN THE
RELATIVE SIGNIFICANCE AND RELATIVE FUNCTIONS OF THESE THREE THINGS: THE NAVEL CENTER, THE
THIRD EYE AND THE SILVER CORD.
The basic thing to
be understood about these centers is this: whenever you are centered within, the moment
you are centered, whatsoever may be the center, you fall down to the navel. If you are
centered at the heart, the heart is irrelevant -- centering is meaningful. Or if you are
centered at the third eye, the third eye is not basic; the basic point is that your
consciousness is centered. So whatsoever may be the point of centering, once you are
centered -- anywhere -- you will fall down to the navel.
The basic
existential center is the navel, but your functional center may be anywhere. From that
center you will fall down automatically. There is no need to think about it. And this is
not so only with the heart center or the third eye center. If you are really centered in
reason, in the head, you will also fall down to the navel center.
Centering is the
thing, but it is very difficult to be centered in reason, in the head. There are problems.
The heart center is based on love, faith, surrender. The head is based on doubt and
negation.
To be totally
negative is really impossible; to be totally in doubt is impossible. But it has happened
sometimes, because the impossible also happens. Sometimes, if your doubt comes to such an
intensity that nothing remains which is believed, not even the doubting mind is believed,
if the doubt turns upon itself and everything becomes doubt, then you will fall down to
the navel center immediately. But this is a very rare phenomenon.
Trust is easier.
You can trust totally more easily than you can doubt totally. You can say yes totally more
easily than you can say no. So even if you are centered at the head, the CENTERING is what
is basic: you will fall down to your existential roots. So be centered anywhere. The spine
will do; the heart will do; the head will do. Or you can also find other centers in the
body.
Buddhists talk
about nine CHAKRAS -- nine dynamic centers in the body. Hindus talk about seven CHAKRAS --
seven dynamic centers in the body. Tibetans talk about thirteen centers in the body. You
can find your own also, there is no need to study about these.
Any point in the
body can be made an object of centering. For example, tantra uses the sex center for
centering. Tantra works with bringing your consciousness to it totally. The sex center
will do.
Taoists have used
the big toe as the center. Move your consciousness down to the big toe; remain there,
forget the whole body. Let your whole consciousness go to the toe. That will do, because
really, on what you are centering is irrelevant. You are centering -- that is what is
basic. The thing happens because of centering, not because of the center -- remember this.
The center is not significant, CENTERING is significant.
So do not be
puzzled, because in so many methods, in one hundred and twelve methods, many centers will
be used. Do not become puzzled over which center is more important or which is real, any
center will do. You can choose according to your own liking.
If your mind is
very sexual, it is good to choose the sex center. Use it, because your consciousness is
naturally flowing toward it -- then it is better to choose it. But it has become difficult
to choose the sex center. That is one of the most natural centers; your consciousness is
attracted toward it biologically. Why not use this biological force toward inner
transformation? Make it the point of your centering.
But social
conditioning, sexually repressive teachings, moralizing, they have done a deep harm. You
are disjoined from your sex center. Really, our image of our real selves excludes the sex
center. Imagine your body: you will leave your sex organs out of it; that is why many
people feel as if their sex organs are something different from them, that they are not
part of them. This is why there is so much hiding, so much becoming unconscious.
If someone should
come from space, from some other planet, and he should see you, he will not be able to
conceive that you have any sex center. If he should listen to your talk, he will not be
able to understand that there exists anything like sex. If he moves in your society, in
the formal world, he will not know that anything like sex is happening.
We have created a
division. A barrier is there, and we have cut off the sex center from ourselves. Really,
because of sex we have divided the body into two. The upper means "higher" in
our minds and the lower means "lower" -- it is condemned. So "lower"
is not just some information about the location of the bottom half, it is an evaluation
also. You yourself do not think that the lower body is you.
If someone asks
you, "Where are you in your body?" you will point to your head, because that is
the highest. That is why brahmins in India will say, "We are the head and the sudras,
the untouchables, they are the feet." The feet are lower than the head. Really, you
are the head, and the feet and the other parts only belong to you, they are not you. To
make this division we have made clothes in two parts -- some for the upper body and some
for the lower body. This is only to divide the body in two. There is a subtle division.
The lower body is
not part of you. It hangs on you -- that is another thing. That is why it is difficult to
use the sex center for centering. But if you can use it, that is the best, because
biologically your energy is flowing toward that center. Concentrate on it. Whenever you
feel any sexual urge, close your eyes and feel your energy flowing toward the sex center.
Make it a
meditation; feel yourself centered in the sex center.
Then suddenly you will feel a change of quality in the energy. Sexuality
will disappear, and the sex center will become illumined, full of energy, dynamic. You
will feel life at its peak at this center. And if you are centered, sex will really be
forgotten completely at that moment. From the sex center you will feel energy flowing all
over the body, even transcending the body and going into the cosmos. If you are totally
centered at the sex center, suddenly you will be thrown to your basic root, at the navel.
Tantra has used the
sex center, and I think tantra has been one of the most scientific approaches toward human
transformation, because to use sex is very scientific. When the mind is already flowing
toward it, why not use this natural flow as a vehicle?
That is the basic
difference between tantra and so-called moralist teachings. Moralist teachers can never
use the sex center for transformation -- they are afraid. And one who is afraid of sex
energy will really find it very, very difficult to transform himself or herself because he
is fighting against the current, unnecessarily flowing against the river.
It is easy to flow
with the river, just float. And if you can float without any conflict, you can use this
center for centering.
Any center will do.
You can create your own centers... no need to be traditional. All centers are devices --
devices for centering. When you are centered you will come down to your navel
automatically. A centered consciousness goes back to the original source.
The second
question:
BUDDHA INSPIRED A LARGE NUMBER
OF PERSONS TO BECOME SANNYASINS -- SANNYASINS WHO WOULD BEG FOR THEIR MEALS AND LIVE AWAY
FROM SOCIETY, BUSINESS AND POLITICS. BUDDHA HIMSELF LIVED AN ASCETIC LIFE. THIS
MONASTIC LIFE SEEMS TO BE THE OTHER EXTREME OF THE WORLDLY LIFE. THIS DOESN'T SEEM TO BE
THE MIDDLE PATH. CAN YOU EXPLAIN THIS?
It will be
difficult to understand because you are not aware of what is the other end of worldly
life. The other end of life is always death. There have been teachers who said that
suicide is the only path. And not only in the past; even now, in the present, there are
thinkers who say that life is absurd. If life as such is meaningless, then death becomes
meaningful. Life and death are polar opposites, so the opposite to life is death. Try to
understand it. And it will be helpful for you to find out the way for yourself.
If death is the
polar opposite of life, then mind can move to death very easily -- and it happens. When
someone commits suicide, have you ever observed that the person who commits suicide was
attached too much to life? Only those who are too much attached to life can commit
suicide.
For example, you
are too attached to your husband or to your wife and you think you cannot live without him
or her. Then the husband or the wife dies, and you commit suicide. The mind has moved to
the other end because it was too attached to life. When life frustrates, the mind can move
to the other end.
Suicides are of two
types -- wholesale suicide and gradual suicide. You can commit gradual suicide by
withdrawing yourself from life, cutting yourself off, cutting your moorings in life by and
by, dying slowly, gradually.
In Buddha's time
there were schools which preached suicide. These were the real opposites to life, to
worldly life. There were schools which were teaching that to commit suicide is the only
way out of this nonsense which we call life, the only way out of this suffering. "If
you are alive you will have to suffer," they said, "and there is no way of going
beyond misery while you are alive. So commit suicide, destroy yourself." When you
hear this it looks like too extremist a view, but try to understand it deeply. It carries
some meaning.
Sigmund Freud,
after forty years of constant work with the human mind, one of the longest researches one
individual can do, came to conclude that man as he is cannot be happy. The very way mind
functions creates misery, so at the most less misery or more misery can be the choice. No
misery cannot be the choice. If you adjust your mind you will be less miserable, that is
all. It looks very hopeless.
The existentialists
-- Sartre, Camus and others -- say that life can never be blissful. The very nature of
life is dread, anguish, suffering, so the most one can do is to face it bravely, with no
hope. You can only face it bravely, and that is all -- with no hope. The situation as such
is hopeless. Camus asks, "Well, if this is the situation, then why not commit
suicide? If there is no way to go beyond in life, then why not leave this life?"
One of Dostoevsky's
characters in one of the greatest novels of the world, THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, says,
"I am trying to find out where your God is just to return to him the entrance ticket
-- the entrance ticket to life. I don't want to be here. And if there is any God, he must
be very violent and cruel," the character says, "because without asking me he
has thrown me into life. It has never been my choice. Why am I alive without my choosing
it?"
There were many
schools in Buddha's time. Buddha's time was one of the most intellectually dynamic periods
in human history. For example, there was Ajit Kesh Kambal. You may not have heard the name
because it is difficult to create a following around those who preach suicide. So no sect
exists around Ajit Kesh Kambal, but he said continuously for five years that suicide alone
is the only way.
It is reported that
someone asked Ajit, "Then why have you not committed suicide up to now?" He
said, "Just to preach, I have to suffer life. I have a message to give to the world.
If I commit suicide, then who will preach? Who will teach this message? Just to give this
message, I am here. Otherwise, life is not worth living." It is the opposite extreme
of life, of this so-called life which we live.
Buddha's was the
middle path. Buddha said, neither death nor life. That is what sannyas means: neither
attachment to life nor repulsion, but just being in the middle. So Buddha says that
sannyas is to be just in the middle. Sannyas is not negation of life. Rather, sannyas is
the negation of both life and death. When you are concerned with neither life nor death,
then you become a sannyasin.
If you can see the
polar opposites of life and death, then Buddha's initiation into sannyas is just an
initiation in the middle path. So a sannyasin is not really against life. If he is, then
he is not a sannyasin. Then really, he is a neurotic; he has gone to the other extreme. A
sannyasin has a very balanced consciousness -- balanced just in the middle.
"If life is
misery," the mind says, "then move to the other end." But to Buddhists life
is misery because you are at the extreme. That is the Buddhist idea: life is a misery
because it is at one extreme, and death will also be a misery because it is another
extreme. Bliss is just in the middle; bliss is balance.
A sannyasin is a
balanced being -- neither leaning to the right nor to the left, neither a leftist nor a
rightist: just in the middle -- silent, unmoving, not choosing this nor that, in a
non-choice, remaining in the center.
So do not choose
death. CHOICE is misery. If you choose death you have chosen misery, if you choose life
you have chosen misery, because life and death are two extremes. And remember, they are
two extremes of one thing. They are not really two, only one thing which has two poles:
life and death.
If you choose one,
you will have to go against the other pole. That creates misery, because death is implied
in life. You cannot choose life without choosing death. How can you? The moment you choose
life, you have chosen death. That creates misery because as a result of your having chosen
life, death will be there. You have chosen happiness: simultaneously, without your
knowing, you have chosen unhappiness, because that is part of it.
If you have chosen
love, then you have chosen hate. The other is intrinsic in it; it is hidden there. And one
who chooses love will suffer, because then he will hate -- and when he comes to hate he
will suffer.
Do not choose, be
in the middle. In the middle is the truth. At one end is death, at the other end is life.
But this energy moving between these two, in the middle, is the truth. Do not choose,
because choice means choice of one thing against another thing. To be in the middle means
being choiceless. Then you will leave the whole thing. And when you have not chosen, you
cannot be made miserable.
Man is made
miserable through choice. Do not choose. Just be! It is arduous, it appears impossible --
but try it. Whenever you have two opposites, try to be in the middle. By and by you will
know the hunch, the feel, and once you know the feel of how to be in the middle -- and it
is a delicate thing, very delicate, the most delicate thing in life -- once you have the
feel nothing can disturb you, nothing can make you suffer. Then you exist without
suffering.
That is what
sannyas means: to exist without suffering. But to exist without suffering you have to
exist without choice, so be in the middle. And Buddha has tried for the first time, so
consciously, to create a path of being always in the middle.
The third question:
ENLIGHTEN US ABOUT A FEW
PRACTICAL POINTS FOR THE OPENING AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE HEART CENTER.
The first point:
try to be headless. Visualize yourself as headless; move headlessly. It sounds absurd, but
it is one of the most important exercises. Try it, and then you will know. Walk, and feel
as if you have no head. In the beginning it will be only "as if." It will be
very weird. When the feeling will come to you that you have no head, it will be very weird
and strange. But by and by you will settle down at the heart.
There is one law...
You may have seen that someone who is blind has more keen ears, more musical ears. Blind
men are more musical; their feeling for music is deeper. Why? The energy that ordinarily
moves through the eyes now cannot move through them, so it chooses a different path. It
moves through the ears.
Blind men have a
deeper sensitivity of touch. If a blind man touches you, you will feel the difference,
because we ordinarily do much work with touch through our eyes; we are touching each other
through our eyes. A blind man cannot touch through the eyes, so the energy moves through
his hands. A blind man is more sensitive than anyone who has eyes. Sometimes it may not be
so, but generally it is so. Energy starts moving from another center if one center is not
there.
So try this
exercise I am talking about -- the exercise in headlessness -- and suddenly you will feel
a strange thing: it will be as if for the first time you are at the heart. Walk
headlessly. Sit down to meditate, close your eyes, and simply feel that there is no head.
Feel, "My head has disappeared." In the beginning it will be just "as
if," but by and by you will feel that the head has really disappeared. And when you
feel that your head has disappeared, your center will fall down to the heart --
immediately. You will be looking at the world through the heart and not through the head.
When for the first
time Westerners reached Japan, they couldn't believe that Japanese had traditionally
believed for centuries that they think through the belly. If you ask a Japanese child --
if he is not educated in Western ways -- "Where is your thinking?" he will point
to his belly.
Centuries and
centuries have passed, and Japan has been living without the head. It is just a concept.
If I ask you, "Where is your thinking going on?" you will point toward the head,
but a Japanese will point to the belly, not to the head. And one of the reasons why the
Japanese mind is more calm, quiet and collected, is this.
Now this concept
has been disturbed because the West has spread over everything. Now there exists no East.
Only in some individuals here and there, who are like islands, does the East exist.
Otherwise the East has disappeared; now the whole world is Western.
Try headlessness.
Meditate standing before your mirror in the bathroom. Look deep into your eyes and feel
that you are looking from the heart. By and by the heart center will begin to function.
And when the heart functions, it changes your total personality, the total structure, the
whole pattern, because the heart has its own way.
So the first thing:
try headlessness. Secondly, be more loving, because love cannot function through the head.
Be more loving! That is why when someone is in love, he loses his head. People say that he
has gone mad. If you are not mad and in love, then you are not in love really. The head
must be lost. If the head is there, unaffected, functioning ordinarily, then love is not
possible, because for love you need the heart to function -- not the head. It is a
function of the heart.
It happens that
when a very rational person falls in love, he becomes stupid. He himself feels what
stupidity he is doing, what silliness. What is he doing? Then he makes two parts of his
life. He creates a division. The heart becomes a silent, intimate affair. When he moves
out of his house, he moves out of his heart. He lives in the world with the head, and only
comes down to the heart when he is loving. But it is very difficult, and ordinarily it
never happens.
I was staying in
Calcutta at a friend's house, and the friend was a justice of the High Court. His wife
told me, "I have only one problem to tell you. Can you help me?"
So I said,
"What is the problem?"
She said, "My
husband is your friend. He loves you and respects you, so if you say something to him it
may be helpful."
So I asked her,
"What is to be said? Tell me." She said, "He remains a High Court judge
even in the bed. I have not known a lover, a friend or a husband. He is a High Court judge
twenty-four hours a day."
It is difficult, it
is difficult to come down from your pedestal. It becomes a fixed attitude. If you are a
businessman, you will remain a businessman in the bed also. It is difficult to accommodate
two persons within, and it is not easy to change your pattern completely, immediately,
anytime you like. It is difficult, but if you are in love you will have to come down from
the head.
So for this
meditation try to be more and more loving. And when I say be more loving, I mean change
the quality of your relationship: let it be based on love. Not only with your wife or with
your child or with your friend, but toward life as such become more loving. That is why
Mahavir and Buddha have talked about nonviolence. It was just to create a loving attitude
toward life.
When Mahavir moves,
walks, he remains aware not even to kill an ant. Why? Really, the ant is not his concern.
He is coming down from the head to the heart. He is creating a loving attitude toward life
as such. The more your relationships are based on love -- all relationships -- the more
your heart center will function. It will start working; you will look at the world through
different eyes, because the heart has its own way of looking at the world. The mind can
never look in that way -- that is impossible for the mind. The mind can only analyze! The
heart synthesizes; the mind can only dissect, divide -- it is a divider. Only the heart
gives unity.
When you can look
through the heart, the whole universe looks like one unity. When you approach through the
mind, the whole world becomes atomic. There is no unity, only atoms and atoms and atoms.
The heart gives a unitary experience, it joins together, and the ultimate synthesis is
God. If you can look through the heart, the whole universe looks like one. That oneness is
God.
That is why science
can never find God. That is impossible, because the method applied can never reach to the
ultimate unity. The very method of science is reason, analysis, division. So science comes
to molecules, atoms, electrons... They will go on dividing, but they can never come to the
organic unity of the whole. The whole is impossible to look at through the head.
So be more loving.
Remember, whatsoever you are doing, the quality of love must be there. This has to be a
constant remembering. You are walking on the grass -- feel that the grass is alive. Every
blade is as much alive as you are.
Mahatma Gandhi was
staying with Rabindranath Tagore in Shanti Niketan. And look at their different
approaches! Gandhi's nonviolence was a mind affair. He was always reasoning about it,
rational about it. He thought about it, he struggled over it, he pondered, contemplated,
and then he concluded; he experimented, then he concluded. If you have read his
autobiography, you will recall that he has named the book, EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH. The
very word EXPERIMENTS is scientific, of reason -- a lab word.
He was staying with
Rabindranath the poet, and they both went for a walk in the gardens. The land was green,
alive, so Gandhi said to Rabindranath, "Come out to the lawn." Rabindranath
said, "That is impossible. I cannot walk over the lawn. Every blade is as much alive
as I am. I cannot step over so alive a phenomenon."
And Rabindranath
was not a preacher of nonviolence -- not at all. He never talked about nonviolence, but
his approach was through the heart. He feels the grass. Gandhi pondered over what he said,
and then answered, "You are right." This is a mind approach.
Be loving. Even
with things, be loving. If you are sitting on a chair, be loving. Feel the chair; have a
feeling of gratitude. The chair is giving comfort to you. Feel the touch, love it, have a
loving feeling. The chair itself is not important. If you are eating, eat lovingly.
Indians say that
food is divine. The meaning is that when you are eating, the food is giving you life,
energy, vitality. Be grateful, be loving to it.
Ordinarily we eat
food very violently, as if we are killing something, not as if we are absorbing -- as if
we are killing. Or very indifferently you go on throwing things into your belly, without
any feeling. Touch your food lovingly, with gratitude: it is your life. Take it in, taste
it, enjoy it. Do not be indifferent and do not be violent.
Our teeth are very
violent because of our animal heritage. Animals have no other weapons; nails and teeth are
their only weapons of violence. Your teeth are basically a weapon, so people go on killing
with their teeth -- they kill their food. That is why, the more violent you are, the more
you will need food.
But there is a
limit to food, so one goes on smoking or one goes on chewing gum. That is violence. You
enjoy it because you are killing something with your teeth, grinding something with your
teeth, so one goes on chewing gum or pan. This is a part of violence. Do whatsoever you
are doing, but do it lovingly. Do not be indifferent. Then your heart center will start
functioning, and you will come down deep into the heart.
First: try
headlessness. Secondly: try love. Thirdly: be more and more aesthetic -- sensitive toward
beauty, toward music, toward all that touches the heart. If this world can be trained more
for music and less for mathematics, we will have a better humanity; if we can train the
mind more for poetry and less for philosophy, we will have a better humanity. Because
while you are listening to music or playing music the mind is not needed, you drop from
the mind.
Be more aesthetic,
more poetic, more sensitive. You may not be a great musician or a great poet or a great
painter, but you can enjoy, and you can create something in your own right. There is no
need to be a Picasso. You can paint your house yourself; you can paint some pictures.
No need to be a
maestro, an Alauddin Khan. You can play something in your house; you can play on a flute,
no matter how amateurish. But do something which is concerned with the heart. Sing, dance,
do something which is concerned with the heart. Be more sensitive to the world of the
heart -- and not much is needed to be sensitive.
Even a poor man can
be sensitive; riches are not needed. You may not have a palace where you can be sensitive.
If you are just lying on the beach, it is enough to be sensitive. You can be sensitive to
the sand, you can be sensitive to the sun, you can be sensitive to the waves, to the wind,
to the trees, to the sky. The whole world is there for you to be sensitive to it. Try to
be more sensitive, alive -- and ACTIVELY sensitive, because the whole world has become
passive.
You go to a cinema
hall: someone else is doing something and you just sit there and watch. Someone else is
loving on the screen and you are watching. You are just a voyeur -- passive, dead, not
doing anything. You are not a participant. Unless you are a participant, your heart center
will not function. So it is better sometimes to dance.
You are not going
to be a great dancer -- there is no need. Howsoever awkward, just dance. That will give
you the feeling of the heart. While you are dancing your center will be the heart; it can
never be at the mind. Jump, play like children. Sometimes forget completely your name,
your prestige, your degree. Forget them completely; be childlike. Do not be serious.
Sometimes take life as a fun, and the heart will develop. The heart gathers energy.
And when you have a
heart that is alive, the quality of your mind will also change. Then you can go to the
mind, you can function through the mind, but the mind will become just an instrument --
you can use it. Then you are not obsessed with it, and you can move away from it any
moment you like. Then you are a master. The heart will give you a feeling that you are a
master.
And another thing:
you will come to know that you are neither the head nor the heart, because you can move
from heart to head, from head to heart. Then you know that you are something else -- X. If
you remain in the head and never move anywhere, you become identified with the head. You
do not know that you are different. This movement from heart to head and from head to
heart will give you the feeling that you are totally different. Sometimes you are at the
heart and sometimes you are at the head, but you are neither heart nor head.
This third point of
awareness will lead you to the third center -- to the navel. And the navel is not really a
center. There, YOU ARE! That is why it cannot be developed, it can only be discovered.
The fourth
question:
YOU SAID THAT WESTERN
PSYCHOLOGISTS NOW SAY IT IS BETTER NOT TO AVOID FIGHTING IN A LOVE RELATIONSHIP, AND THAT
FACING IT WHEN IT COMES MAKES THE LOVE MORE INTENSE. THEN YOU SPOKE OF BUDDHA'S MIDDLE
PATH WHICH EXCLUDES BOTH EXTREMES. FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT YET TRANSCENDED INTO THE LOVE
THAT IS BEYOND THE TWO POLES, WHICH WAY IS PREFERABLE FOR LOVERS IN YOUR OPINION?
Some basic points.
Firstly, the love of the mind is bound to be a movement between two polar opposites of
hate and love. With mind, duality is bound to be there. So if you are loving to someone
with your mind, you cannot escape the other pole. You can hide it, you can suppress it,
you can forget about it -- the so-called cultured are always doing that. But then they
become numb, dead.
If you cannot fight
with your lover, if you cannot be angry, then the authenticity of the love is lost. If you
suppress your anger, that suppressed anger will become a part of you, and that suppressed
anger will not allow you total let-go while in love. It is always there. You are
withholding it; you have suppressed it.
If I am angry and I
have suppressed it, then when I am loving the suppressed anger is there, and that will
make my love dead. If I have not been authentic in my anger, I cannot be authentic in my
love. If you are authentic, then you are authentic in both. If you are not authentic in
one, you cannot be authentic in the other.
All over the world
so-called teachings, civilization, culture, they have deadened love completely -- and in
the name of love this has happened. They say, "If you love someone, then do not be
angry -- your love is false if you are angry. Then do not fight, then do not hate."
Of course, it looks
logical. If you are in love, how can you hate? So we cut off the hate part. But with the
hate part cut off, the love becomes impotent. It is as if you have cut off one leg of a
man and then you say, "Now you move! Now you can run, you are free to run." But
you have cut off a leg, so the man cannot move.
Hate and love are
two poles of one phenomenon. If you cut hate, love will be dead and impotent. That is why
every family has become impotent. And then you become afraid of letting go. When you are
in love you cannot let go completely because you are afraid. If you let go completely the
anger, the violence, the hate that is hidden and suppressed may come out. Then you have to
force it down continuously. Deep down you have to fight it continuously. And in fighting
it you cannot be natural and spontaneous. Then you just pose that you are loving. You
pretend, and everyone knows: your wife knows that you are pretending, and you know that
your wife is pretending. Everyone is pretending. Then the whole life becomes false.
Two things have to
be done in order to go beyond mind. First, go into meditation, and then touch the level of
no-mind within you. Then you will have a love that will not have any polar opposite. But
then in that love there will be no excitement, no passion. That love will be silent -- a
deep peace with not even a ripple on it.
A Buddha, a Jesus,
they also love. But in that love there is no excitement, no fever. The fever comes from
the polar opposite; the excitement comes from the polar opposite. Two polar opposites
create tension. But Buddha's love, Jesus' love, is a silent phenomenon, so only those who
have reached to the state of no-mind can understand their love.
Jesus was passing,
and it was hot, at noon. He was tired, so he just rested under a tree. He didn't know to
whom the tree belonged. It belonged to Mary Magdalene. Mary was a prostitute.
She looked from her
window and saw this very beautiful man -- one of the most beautiful ever born. She felt
attracted, and not only attracted, she felt passion. She came out and she asked Jesus,
"Come into my house. Why are you resting here? You are welcome." Jesus saw in
her eyes passion, love -- so-called love. Jesus said, "Next time, when I am again
tired while passing here, I will come to your house. But just now the need is fulfilled. I
am ready to move again, so thank you."
Mary felt insulted.
This was rare... really, she had never invited anyone before. People would come from far
away just to have a look at her. Even kings would come to her, and here was this beggar
refusing her. Jesus was just a beggar, a vagabond -- just a hippie, and he refused her. So
Mary said to Jesus, "Can't you feel my love? This is a love invitation. So come! Do
not reject me. Don't you have any love in your heart?"
Jesus said to her
in reply, "I also love you -- and really, all those who come pretending that they
love you, they do not love you." He said, "Only I can love you."
And he was right.
But that love has a different quality. That love does not have the polar opposite, the
contrast. Thus the tension is missing, the excitement is missing. He is not excited about
love, not feverish. And love is not a relationship for him, it is a state of being.
Go beyond mind;
reach to a level of no-mind. Then love flowers, but that love has no opposite to it.
Beyond mind there is no opposite to anything. Beyond mind everything is one. Within mind,
everything is divided into two. But if you are within mind, it is better to be authentic
than to be false.
So be authentic
when you feel angry toward your lover or your beloved. Be authentic while you are in
anger, and then with no repression, when the moment of love will come, when the mind will
move to the other extreme, you will have a spontaneous flow. So with mind, take fighting
as part of it. It is the very dynamism of the mind to work in polar opposites. So be
authentic in your anger, be authentic in your fight; then you will be authentic in your
love also.
So for lovers, I
would like to say: be authentic. And if you are really authentic, a unique phenomenon will
happen. You will become weary of the whole nonsense of moving in polar opposites. But be
authentic; otherwise you will never become weary.
A repressed mind
never becomes really aware that he is gripped in polar opposites. He is never really
angry, he is never really in love, so he has no real experience of the mind. Thus, I
suggest to be authentic. Do not be false. BE REAL! And authenticity has its own beauty.
Your lover, your beloved will understand when you are really angry -- authentically angry.
Only a fake anger or a false non-anger cannot be forgiven. Only a false face cannot be
forgiven. Be authentic, and then you will be authentic in love also. That authentic love
will compensate, and through this authentic living you will become wearied. You will come
to wonder what you are doing -- why you are just a pendulum moving from one pole to
another. You will be bored, and then only can you decide to move beyond mind and beyond
polarity.
Be an authentic man
or be an authentic woman. Do not allow any falsity; do not pretend. Be real and suffer
reality. Suffering is good. Suffering is really a training, a discipline. Suffer it!
Suffer anger and suffer love and suffer hate. Remember only one thing: never be false. If
you do not feel love, then say that you do not feel love. Do not pretend; do not try to
show that you are loving. If you are angry, then say that you are angry and be angry.
There will be much
suffering, but suffer it. Through that suffering a new consciousness is born. You become
aware of the whole nonsense of hate and love. You hate the person and you also love the
same person, and you go on moving in a circle. That circle will become crystal clear for
you, and it becomes crystal clear only through suffering.
Do not escape
suffering. You need a REAL suffering. It is like a fire: it will burn you. All that is
false will burn and all that is real will be there. This is what existentialists call
authenticity. Be authentic, and then you cannot be anymore in the mind. Be non-authentic,
and you will be for lives and lives in the mind.
You will get bored
of the duality. But how can one get bored of the duality unless one is really in the
duality, not pretending? Then you will know that the so-called love of the mind is nothing
but a disease.
Have you observed
that a lover cannot sleep? He is not at ease -- he is feverish. If you examine him, he
will show many symptoms of many diseases. This love, the so-called love of mind and body,
is really a disease, but one remains occupied -- that is the function of it. Otherwise you
will feel unoccupied, as if you are not doing anything in this world. Your whole life will
seem vacant, so love is good to fill it.
Mind itself is the
disease, so whatsoever belongs to the mind is going to be a disease. Only beyond mind,
where you are not divided in duality, where you are one, only there does a different love
flower. Jesus calls it love. Buddha calls it compassion. This is just to make a
distinction. It makes no difference what you call it.
There is a possibility of a love which has no opposite to it,
but that love can come only when you go beyond this love. And to go beyond, I suggest that
you be authentic. To be authentic -- in hate, in love, in anger. In everything, be
authentic, real, not pretending, because only a reality can be transcended. You cannot
transcend unreal things. |