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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 thirty one | ||
from sound to inner silence 28 january 1973 pm in woodlands bombay | ||
SILENTLY INTONE A WORD ENDING
IN "AH." THEN IN THE "HH," EFFORTLESSLY, THE SPONTANEITY. STOPPING EARS BY
PRESSING AND THE RECTUM BY CONTRACTING, ENTER THE SOUND. . ENTER THE SOUND
OF YOUR NAME AND, THROUGH THIS SOUND, ALL SOUNDS. Tantra is not
concerned with the ultimate. It is concerned with the immediate, the here and now. Tantra
says, the ultimate is hidden in the immediate, so you need not worry about the ultimate.
By worrying about the ultimate you will miss the immediate, and the ultimate is hidden in
the immediate. So by thinking about the ultimate you will miss both. If the immediate
should be missed, because of it you will miss the ultimate also. So philosophy is just
smoke. The approach of tantra is scientific, but the OBJECT is different from that of
so-called science. Science tries to
understand the object, the objective world, the reality that is before your eyes. Tantra
is the science of the reality that is behind your eyes, the subjectivity, but the approach
is scientific. Tantra doesn't believe in thinking, it believes in experimenting, in
experiencing. And unless you can experience, everything is just a wastage of energy. I am reminded of
one incident. Mulla Nasruddin was crossing a street. Just in front of a church he was
knocked down by a hit-and-run driver. He was an old man, and a crowd gathered. Someone was
saying that "That man cannot survive." The priest of the church ran out. He came
near and he found out that the old man was just going to die, so he prepared to administer
the last rites. He came near and asked the dying Mulla, "Do you believe in God the
Father? Do you believe in God the Son? Do you believe in God the Holy Ghost?" Mulla
opened his eyes and said, "My God! I am dying and he is asking me puzzles!" All philosophy is
like this: it is asking puzzles while you are dying. Every moment you are dying, every
moment everyone is on his deathbed - because death can occur at any moment. But philosophy
goes on asking and answering puzzles. Tantra says, it is good for children to philosophize
but those who are wise will not waste their time in philosophy. They should try to know -
not to think, because through thinking there is no knowledge. Through thinking you go on
webbing words, creating patterns of words. It leads nowhere, you remain the same -- no
transformation, no new insights. The old man just goes on gathering dust. Knowing is a
different phenomenon. It does not mean "thinking about," it means going deep
into the existence itself in order to know, moving into the existence. Remember this, that
tantra is not a philosophy. It is science - a subjective science. The approach is
scientific and non-philosophic. It is very down to earth, concerned with the immediate.
The immediate is to be used as a door to the ultimate, the ultimate happens if you enter
the immediate. It is there, and there is no other way to reach to it. Philosophy is not a
way in the eyes of tantra. It is a false way! It only appears that this is a way. It is a
door which is not; it simply appears to be a door. It is a false door. The moment you try
to enter it you come to know that you cannot enter, it is just a painted door, there is no
door in reality. Philosophy is a painted door. If you sit by its side and go on thinking
and thinking, it is good. If you try to enter it, it is a wall. So every philosophy
is good for philosophizing. For experiencing, every philosophy is impotent. That is why
there is so much insistence on technique in tantra - SO MUCH insistence on technique,
because a science can do nothing but give technology, whether of the outside world or of
the inside. The very word `tantra' means technique. The very word `tantra' MEANS
technique! That is why, in this small and yet one of the greatest and deepest books, only
techniques are given, no philosophy, just one hundred and twelve techniques to reach the
ultimate through the immediate. The ninth technique
concerning sound: SILENTLY INTONE A WORD ENDING
IN "AH." THEN IN THE "HH," EFFORTLESSLY, THE SPONTANEITY. SILENTLY INTONE A WORD ENDING IN "AH " Any word that ends
in "AH" -- intone it silently. Emphasis should be given to the ending
"AH." Why? Because the moment this sound "AH" is intoned, your breath
goes out. You may not have observed it, but now you can observe: whenever your breath goes
out you are more silent, and whenever your breath comes in you are more tense - because
the outgoing breath is death and the incoming breath is life. Tension is part of life, not
of death. Relaxation is part of death; death means total relaxation. Life cannot be
totally relaxed; it is impossible. Life means tension,
effort. Only death is relaxed. So whenever a person becomes absolutely relaxed, he is both
- alive outwardly and dead within. You can see in the face of a buddha both life and death
simultaneously. That is why there is so much silence and calm, they are part of death.
Life is not relaxation. You relax in the night when you are asleep. That is why the old
traditions say that death and sleep are similar. Sleep is a temporary death and death is
permanent sleep. That is why night relaxes you, it is the outgoing breath. The morning is
the incoming breath. The day makes you
tense and the night relaxes you. Light makes you tense, darkness relaxes you. That is why
you cannot sleep when there is light, it is difficult to relax because light is similar to
life: it is anti-death. Darkness is similar to death: it is pro-death. So darkness has
deep relaxation in it, and those who are afraid of darkness cannot relax... impossible,
because every relaxation is dark. And darkness surrounds your life on both the sides.
Before you are born you are in darkness; when life ceases you are again in darkness.
Darkness is infinite, and this light and this life is just a moment in it, just a wave
arising and then falling back. If you can remember the darkness that surrounds both the
ends, you will be relaxed here and now. Life, death - they
both are two sides of existence. The incoming breath is life, the outgoing breath is
death. So it is not that you die someday, you are dying with every breath. That is why the
Hindus have been counting life in breaths, they do not count life in years. Tantra, yoga,
all the old Indian systems, they count life in breaths: how many breaths you are going to
live. So they say if you breathe very fast, with too much breathing in a short time, you
will die very soon. If you breathe very slowly and your breaths are less in an interval,
you will live very long. And this is so. If you go and
observe animals, those animals whose breathing is very slow live long. Take the elephant:
the elephant lives long; the breath is very slow. Then there is the dog: the dog dies
soon; the breath is very fast. Whenever you find an animal in which the breath is fast,
any animal, the animal will not have a long life. A long life is always with slow breath. Tantra and yoga and other Indian systems count your life in breaths. Really, with every breath you are born and with every breath you are dying. This mantra, this technique, uses the outgoing breath as the method, the medium, the vehicle, to go deep into silence. It is a death method. INTONE SILENTLY A
WORD ENDING IN "AH." The breath has gone -- that is why a word ending in
"AH." This AH is
meaningful because when you say AH it completely empties you. The whole breath has moved
out; nothing remains within. You are totally empty - empty and dead. For a single moment,
for a very small interval, life has moved out of you. You are dead - empty. This
emptiness, if realized, if you can become aware of it, will change you completely. You
will be a different man. Then you will know
well that this life is not your life and this death is also not your death. Then you will
know something which is beyond the incoming and outgoing breath - the witnessing soul. And
this witnessing can happen easily when you are empty of breath, because life has subsided
and with it all tensions have subsided. So try it, it is a very beautiful method. But the
ordinary process, the ordinary habit, is to emphasize the incoming breath, never the
outgoing breath. We always take the
breath in. We ALWAYS take it in, but we never throw it out. We take it in and THE BODY
throws it out. Observe your breathing and you will know. We take it in. We never exhale,
we only inhale. The exhaling is done by the body because we are afraid of death, that is
the reason. If it was in our power we would not exhale at all, we would inhale and then
control it within. No one emphasizes exhaling -- inhaling is emphasized. Because we HAVE
to do exhaling after inhaling, that is why we go on "suffering" it. We tolerate
it because we cannot inhale without exhaling. So exhaling is
accepted as a necessary evil, but basically we are not interested in exhaling. And this is
not only about breath, this is our whole attitude toward life. We cling to everything that
comes to us; we will not leave it. This is the miserliness of the mind. And remember, there
are many implications in it. If you are suffering from constipation, this will be the
basic cause: you always inhale and never exhale. The mind which never exhales but just
inhales will suffer from constipation. The constipation is the other end of the same
thing. He cannot exhale anything, he goes on accumulating, he is afraid. The fear is
there. He can only accumulate, but anything that is accumulated becomes poisonous. If you only inhale
and do not exhale, your very breath becomes poison to you; you will die because of it. You
can turn a life-giving force into poison if you behave in a miserly way, because the
exhaling is absolutely necessary. It throws all the poisons out of you. So really, death is
a purifying process and life is a poisoning process. This will look paradoxical. Life is a
poisoning process because to live you have to use many things - and the moment you have
used them they turn into poison, they are converted into poisons. You take a breath in,
you use oxygen, and then what remains becomes poison. It was life only because it was
oxygen, but you have used it. So life goes on changing everything into a poison. Now there is a
great movement in the West - ecology. Man has been using everything and turning it into
poison, and the very Earth is just on the verge of dying. Any day it can die because we
have turned everything into poison. Death is a purifying process. When your whole body has
become poisonous, death will relieve you of the body. It will renew you, it will give you
a new birth; a new body will be given to you. Through death all the accumulated poisons
are dissolved back into nature. You are given a new mechanism. And this happens
with every breath. The outgoing breath is similar to death -- it takes poisons out. And
when it is going out, everything ebbs within. If you can throw the whole breath out,
completely out so that no breath remains within, you touch a point of silence that can
never be touched while the breath is in. It is just like the
ebb and tide: with every breath a tide of life comes to you; with every exhalation,
everything ebbs - the tide has gone. You are just a vacant, empty shore. This is the use
of this technique. SILENTLY INTONE A WORD ENDING IN "AH." Emphasize the exhaling
breath. And you can use it for many changes in the mind. If you are suffering from
constipation, forget intaking. Just exhale and do not inhale. Let the body do the work of
inhaling; you just do the work of exhaling. You force the breath out and do not inhale.
The body will inhale by itself; you need not worry about it, you are not going to die. The
body will take breath in, you just throw it out and let the body take it in. Your
constipation will go. If you are
suffering from heart disease, just exhale, do not inhale. Then you will not suffer from
heart disease. If while just going upwards on a staircase, or anywhere, you feel tired -
very much tired, suffocated, breathless - simply do this: just exhale, do not inhale. Then
you can climb up any amount of steps and you will not be tired. What happens? When you go
with an emphasis on exhaling, you are ready to let go, you are ready to die. You are not
afraid of death; that makes you open. Otherwise you are closed -- fear closes you. When you exhale,
the whole system changes and accepts death. There is no fear, you are ready to die. And
one who is ready to die can live. Really, only one who is ready to die can live. He alone
becomes capable of life - because he is not afraid. One who accepts
death, welcomes it, receives it as a guest, lives with it, goes deep into life. Exhale, do
not inhale, and that will change your total mind. Because of simple techniques tantra
never appeals, because we think, "My mind is such a complex thing." It is not
complex - just foolish. And fools are very complex. A wise man is simple. Nothing is
complex in your mind, it is a very simple mechanism. If you understand, you can change it
very easily. If you have not
seen anybody dying, if you have been protected from seeing death as Buddha was protected,
you cannot understand anything about it. Buddha's father was afraid because some
astrologer said that "This boy is going to be a great sannyasin. He will renounce the
world." The father asked, "What is to be done to protect him from doing such a
thing?" So those astrologers thought and thought, and then they concluded and they
said, "Do not allow him to see death, because if he is not aware of death he will
never think of renouncing life." This is beautiful -
very meaningful. That means all religion, all philosophy, all tantra and yoga, is
basically death-oriented. If you are aware of death, only then does religion become
meaningful. That is why no animal except man is religious, because no animal is aware of
death. They die, but they are not aware. They cannot conceive or imagine that there is
going to be death. When one dog dies,
other dogs never imagine that death is going to happen to them also. Always someone else
dies, so how can a dog imagine that "I am going to die"? He has never seen
himself dying. Someone else, some other dog dies, so how can he connect that "I am
going to die"? No animal is aware of death; that is why no animal renounces. No
animal can become a sannyasin. Only a very high quality of consciousness can lead you to
renounce - when you become aware of death. And if even by being a man you are not aware of
death, you belong to the animal kingdom; you are not yet a man. You become a man only when
you encounter death. Otherwise there is no difference between you and the animal. Everything is
similar; only death makes the difference. With death encountered, you are no more animal,
something has happened to you which never happens to an animal. Now you will be a
different consciousness. So Buddha's father
protected him from seeing any type of death - not only man's death, but the death of
animals and even of flowers. So the gardeners were instructed not to allow the child to
see a dead flower, a pale flower dying on the branch, a pale leaf, a dry leaf. No, nowhere
should he come to realize that something dies -- he may infer from it that "I am
going to die." And you do not infer it even seeing your wife dying, your mother, your
father, your child. You weep for them, but you never conceive that this is a sign that
"I am going to die." But the astrologers
said, "The boy is very, very sensitive, so protect him from any type of death."
And the father was over-conscientious He would not allow even an old man or an old woman
to be seen, because oldness is just death heard from a distance; death is there from a
distance, just coming. So Buddha's father would not allow any old man or old woman to be
seen by the child. If Buddha suddenly became aware that just by stopping the breath a man
could die, it would be very difficult for him. "Just because no breath is coming in,
how can a man die?" he would wonder. "Life is such a big, complex process." If you have not
seen anyone dying, even you cannot conceive that just by stopping the breath a man will
die. Just by stopping the breath? Such a simple thing! And how can such a complex life
die? It is the same with
these methods. They look simple, but they touch the basic reality. When the breath is
going out, when you are completely emptied of life, you touch death: you are just near it,
and everything becomes calm and silent within you. Use it as a mantra.
Whenever you feel tired, whenever you feel tense, use any word which ends in
"AH." "Allah" will do - any word that brings your total breath out so
that you exhale completely and you are emptied of breath. The moment you are emptied of
breath you are emptied of life also. And all your problems belong to life: no problem
belongs to death. Your anxiety, your anguish, your anger, your sadness, they all belong to
life. Death is
non-problematic. Death never gives any problem to anyone. And even if you think that
"I am afraid of death and death creates a problem," it is not death that creates
the problem but your clinging to life. Only life creates problems; death dissolves all
problems. So when the breath has moved completely out, "AH," you are emptied of
life. Look within at that moment when the breath is completely out. Before taking another
breath in, go deep down in that interval and become aware of the inside calm, the silence.
In that moment you are a buddha. If you can catch
that moment, you have known a taste of what Buddha might have known. And once known, you
can detach this taste from the incoming-outgoing breath. Then the breath can go on coming
in, going out, and you can remain in that quality of consciousness that you have come to
know. It is always there; one has just to discover it. And it is easier to discover when
life is emptied out. SILENTLY INTONE A WORD ENDING IN "AH." THEN IN THE "HH," EFFORTLESSLY, THE SPONTANEITY. And when the breath
goes out, "HH," everything is emptied. EFFORTLESSLY: in this moment, there is no
need to make any effort. The SPONTANEITY: just be aware, be spontaneous, be sensitive, and
realize this moment of death. In this moment you
are just near the door, just near the door!- very, very near to the ultimate. The
immediate has moved out, the superfluous has moved out. In this moment you are not the
wave: you are the ocean - just near, just near! If you can become aware you will forget
that you are a wave. Again the wave will come, but now you can never be identified with
it, you will remain the ocean. Once you have known that you are the ocean, you can never
again be the wave. Life is waves...
death is the ocean. That is why Buddha so much insists about his NIRVANA that it is
death-like. He never says you will attain life immortal, he says you will simply die
totally. Jesus says, "Come to me and I will give you life, and life abundant."
Buddha says, "Come to me to realize your death. I will give you death totally."
And both mean the same thing, but Buddha's terminology is more basic. But you will become
afraid of it. That is why Buddha had no appeal in India; he was uprooted completely. And
we go on saying that this land is a religious land, but the most religious person couldn't
get roots here. What type of
religious land is this? We have not produced another Buddha; he is incomparable. And
whenever the world thinks India to be religious, the world remembers Buddha - no one else.
Because of Buddha, India is thought to be religious. What type of religious land is this?
Buddha has no roots here; he was totally uprooted. He used the language of death - that is
the cause, and brahmins were using the language of life. They say THE BRAHMAN and he says
NIRVANA: `Brahman' means life -- life, infinite life; and `Nirvana' means just cessation,
death - total death. Buddha says,
"Your ordinary death is not total; you will be born again. It is NOT total! You will
be born again! I will give you a total death, and you will never be born again." A
total death means now no birth is possible. So this so-called death, Buddha says, is not
death. It is just a rest period, you will become alive again. It is just a breath gone
out. You will take the breath in again, you will be reborn. Buddha says, "I will give
you the way so that the breath will go out and will never come in again - total death,
nirvana, cessation." We become afraid
because we cling to life. But this is the paradox: the more you cling to life, the more
you will die, and the more you are ready to die, then the more you become deathless. If
you are ready to die, then there is no possibility of death. No one can give you death if
you accept it, because through that acceptance you become aware of something within you
which is deathless. This incoming
breath and outgoing breath are the life and death of the body, not of "me." But
"I" do not know anything other than the body; "I" am identified with
the body. Then it will be difficult to be aware when the breath comes in, easy to be aware
when the breath goes out. When the breath is going out, for that moment you have become
old, dying, emptied completely of the breath; you are dead for a moment. IN THE
"HH," EFFORTLESSLY, THE SPONTANEITY. Try it! Any moment you can try it. Just
riding in a bus or traveling in a train or moving to the office, whenever you have time
intone a sound like "Allah" - any sound ending with "AH." This
"Allah" helped so much in Islam - not because of any Allah there in the sky, but
because of this "AH." This word is beautiful. And then the more one goes on
using this word "Allah, Allah..." it becomes reduced. Then what remains is
"Lah, Lah..." Then it is reduced further; then it remains as "Ah,
Ah..." It is good, but you can use any word that ends in "AH" - or just
"AH" will do. Have you observed
that whenever you are tense you will sigh -- "AH" -- and you will feel relaxed.
Or whenever you are in joy, overjoyed, you say "AH," and the whole breath is
thrown out and you feel within a tranquility that you have never felt. Try this: when you
are feeling very good, take the breath in and then see what you feel. You cannot feel that
well-being that comes with "AH." It is coming because of the breath. So languages
differ, but these two things never differ. All over the world, whenever someone feels
tired he will say "AH." Really, he is calling for death to come and relax him.
Whenever one feels overjoyed, blissful, he says "AH." He is so overfilled with
joy that he is not afraid of death now. He can relieve himself completely, relax
completely. And what will
happen if you go on trying it, trying it? You will become fully aware of something within
you - the spontaneousness of your being; of SAHAJ of being spontaneous. That you are
already, but you are too much engaged with life, too much occupied with life. You cannot
become aware of the being which is behind. When you are not
occupied with life, with the incoming breath, the being behind is revealed; there is a
glimpse. But the glimpse will become, by and by, a realization. And once it is known you
cannot forget it - and this is not something which you are creating. That is why it is
spontaneous: it is not something you are creating. It is there, you have simply forgotten.
It is a remembrance! It is a rediscovery! Try to see
children, very small children, taking their breaths. They take them in a different way.
Look at a child sleeping. His belly comes up and down, not the chest. If you are sleeping
and you are being observed, your chest comes up and down; your breath never goes down to
the belly. The breath can go down to the belly only if you exhale and do not inhale. If
you inhale and do not exhale, the breath cannot go down to the belly. The reason why
breath goes to the belly is that when one exhales, the whole breath is thrown out and then
the BODY takes it in. And the body takes only that amount which is needed -- never more,
never less. The body has its
own wisdom, and it is more wise than you. Do not disturb it. You can take more -- then it
will be disturbed. You can take less -- then it will be disturbed. The body has its own
wisdom, it only takes that amount which is needed. When more is needed, it creates the
situation. When less is needed, it creates the situation. It never goes to the extreme, it
is always balanced. But if YOU inhale it is never balanced, because you do not know what
you are doing, you do not know what is the need of the body. And the need changes every
moment. Allow the body! You
just exhale, you just throw it out, and then the body will take breath in - and it will
take it deeply and slowly, and the breath will go down to the belly. It will hit the navel
point exactly and your belly will go up and down. If you inhale then really, you never
exhale totally. Then the breath is in and you go on inhaling, so the breath which is
already in will not allow your breath to go down to the very bottom. Then just shallow
breathing happens. You go on taking breath in, and the poisonous breath is there, filling
you up. They say that you
have six thousand sacs in your lungs and only two thousand are touched by your breath. The
four thousand are always filled with poisonous gases which need to be exhaled, and that
two-thirds portion of your chest creates much anxiety, much anguish and misery in the
mind, in the body. A child exhales, he never inhales. Inhaling is done by the body itself. When the child is
born, the first thing he is going to do is cry. With that cry his throat opens, with that
cry comes the first "AH." The oxygen and air that had been given by the mother
is exhaled. This is his first effort with breathing. That is why if a child is not crying,
then the doctor will become uneasy, because he has not shown the sign of life. He still
feels dependent on the mother. He must cry! That cry shows that now he is becoming an
individual; the mother is not needed, he will take his own breath. And the first thing is
that he is going to cry in order to exhale that which was given by the mother, and then
his body will start functioning, inhaling. A child is always
exhaling, and when the child starts inhaling, when the emphasis moves to inhaling, be
aware. He has already become old; he has learned things from you. He has become tense.
Whenever you are tense, you cannot take a deep breath. Why? Your stomach becomes rigid.
Whenever you are tense your stomach becomes rigid, it won't allow breath to go down. Then
you have to take shallow breaths. Try with
"AH." It has a beautiful feeling around it. Whenever you feel tired,
"AH" -- throw the breath. And make it a point to emphasize exhaling. You will be
a different man, and a different mind will evolve. With the emphasis on breathing in, you
have developed a miser mind and a miser body. With exhaling, that miserliness will
disappear and with it many problems. Possessiveness will disappear. So tantra will not
say leave possessiveness. Tantra says, change your system of breathing; you cannot possess
then. Observe your own breathing and your moods, and you will become aware. Whatsoever is
wrong is always associated with the emphasis that is given to the incoming breath and
whatsoever is good, virtuous, beautiful, true, is always associated with exhaling.
Whenever you are speaking a lie, you will hold your breath in. Whenever you speak truth,
you never hold the breath. You fear that "I am speaking a lie," so you hold the
breath. You are afraid something may go out with it - the out-moving breath. Your hidden
truth may be revealed, so you are afraid. Go on trying this
"AH" more and more. You will be more healthy in body, more healthy in mind, and
a different quality of calm, at-easeness, tranquillity will develop. The tenth sound
method: STOPPING EARS BY PRESSING AND
RECTUM BY CONTRACTING, ENTER THE SOUND. We are not aware of
the body even or how the body functions and what is its tao, what is its way. But if you
observe, then you can become very easily aware. If you stop your ears and pull your rectum
up, contract your rectum, everything will stop for you. It will be as if the whole world
has become non-moving - as if everything has become static, stopped. Not only movements,
you will feel as if time has stopped. What happens when
you pull the rectum up, contract it? What happens? When both the ears are closed
simultaneously, with closed ears you will hear a sound within. But if the rectum is not
pulled up, that sound is released by the rectum. That sound is very subtle. If the rectum
is pulled up, contracted, and the ears are closed, you will see within you a pillar of
sound - and that sound is of silence. It is a negative sound. When all sounds have ceased,
then you feel the sound of silence or the sound of soundlessness. But it will be released
from the rectum. So close the ears
and pull the rectum up. Then you are closed from both the sides, and your body becomes
closed and just filled with sound. This feeling of being filled with sound gives a deep
fulfillment. So we will have to understand many things around it, only then will it become
possible for you to have the feeling of what happens. We are not aware of
the body -- that is one of the basic problems for a seeker. And the society is against
becoming aware of the body because society is afraid of the body. So we train every child
not to be aware of the body, we make every child insensitive. We create a distance between
the child's mind and body, so he is not very much aware of the body, because body
awareness will create problems for the society. Many things are
implied. If the child is aware of the body, he will become aware of sex sooner or later.
And if he is too much aware of the body, he will feel too much sexual, sensuous. So we
have to kill the very root. He should be "made dull" about his body,
insensitive, so he never feels it. You do not feel your body. You feel it only when
something wrong happens, when something goes wrong. You have a headache
in the head, then you feel your head. Some thorn is there, then you feel your leg, your
feet. When your body aches, you feel that you have a body. You feel it only when something
goes wrong, and then too not right away. You are never aware of your diseases immediately.
You become aware only when a period has passed and when the disease goes on knocking at
your consciousness that, "I am here." Only then do you become aware. So no one
really goes to the doctor in time. Everyone reaches there late, when the disease has
entered deep and has done much wrong. If a child has
grown up with sensitivity he will become aware of the disease even before the disease
happens. And now, in Russia particularly, they are working on the theory that a disease
can be known even six months before its happening if someone is very deeply sensitive
about his body, because subtle changes start long in advance. They prepare the body for
the disease. The impact is felt even six months before. But never mind
disease, we never become aware even of death! If you are going to die tomorrow, you are
not aware even today. A thing like death which may happen the next moment, and you are not
aware this moment. You are totally dead to your body, insensitive. This whole society, the
whole culture up to now, creates this dullness, this deadness, because it has been against
the body. You are not allowed to feel it. Only in accidents can you be pardoned, forgiven
for being aware of it; otherwise "do not be aware of the body." This creates many
problems, particularly for tantra, because tantra believes in deep sensitivity and
knowledge of the body. You go on moving and your body goes on doing many things and you
are unaware. Now much work is being done on body language. The body has its own language,
and psychiatrists and psychologists and psychoanalysts in particular are being trained for
body language, because they say you cannot believe the modern man. Whatsoever he says
cannot be believed. Rather, one must observe his body, that will give a more true clue. A man enters a
psychiatrist's office. The old psychiatry, Freudian psychoanalysis, will talk and talk
with the man to bring out whatsoever is hidden in his mind. Modern psychiatry will observe
his body because that gives clues. If a man is an egoist, if ego is his problem, he stands
in a different way than a humble man. His neck has a different angle than a humble man,
his spine is not flexible but dead, fixed. He looks wooden, not alive. If you touch his
body it has a wooden feeling, not the warmth of a living body. He is like a soldier just
moving to the front. Look at the soldier
moving to the front. He has a wooden shape, a wooden feeling, and that is needed by a
soldier because he is going to die or to kill. He must not be much aware of the body, so
his whole training is to create a wooden body. Soldiers marching look like toys, like dead
toys marching. If you are humble
you have a different body; you sit differently you stand differently. If you feel
inferior, you stand differently; if you feel superior you stand differently. If you are
always in fear, you stand in such a way as if you are protecting yourself from some
unknown force. That is always there. If you are not afraid, you are just like a child
playing with his mother; there is no fear. Wherever you go you are unafraid, at home with
the universe around you. The man who is afraid is armored. And when I say armored it is
not only symbolically, physiologically he is armored. Wilhelm Reich was
working very much on body structure, and he came to see some deep associations between
mind and body. If a man is afraid, his stomach is not flexible. You touch his stomach and
it is like a stone. If he becomes fearless, his stomach relaxes immediately. Or if you
relax the stomach, then the fear disappears. Massage the stomach to relax, and you will
feel more fearless, less afraid. A person who is
loving has a different quality of body and warmth -- he is warm bodily. A person who is
not loving is cold, physiologically he is cold. Cold and other things have moved into your
body and they have become barriers, they do not allow you to know about your body. But the
body goes on working in its own way and you go on working in your own way -- a rift is
created. That rift has to be broken. I have seen that if
someone is suppressive, if you have suppressed your anger, then your fingers, your hands,
have the sensation of a suppressed anger. And a person who knows how to feel it can feel
just by touching your hand that you have suppressed anger. And why in the hand? Because
anger has to be released by the hands. If you have suppressed anger then in your teeth, in
your gums, it is suppressed - and it can be felt by touching. It gives a vibration that
"I am suppressed here." If you have
suppressed sex, then in your erotic zones it is there. If a person has suppressed sex,
then if you touch his erotic zones you can feel it. With any erotic zone touched, sex is
there if it has been suppressed. The zone will become afraid and will withdraw from your
touch, it will not be open. Because the person inside is withdrawing, the part of the body
will withdraw. It will not allow you to bring about an opening. Now they say that
fifty percent of women are frigid, and the reason is because we teach girls to be more
suppressive than boys. So they have suppressed, and when a girl suppresses her sexual
feelings up to the age of twenty, it has become a long habit - twenty years of
suppression. Then when she will love, she will talk about love, but her body will not be
open; the body will be closed. And then an opposite, a diametrically opposite phenomenon
happens: two currents oppose each other. She wants to love but her body is repressive, the
body withdraws; it is not ready to come closer. If you see a woman
sitting with a man, if the woman loves the man she will be inclining toward him, the body
will be inclining. If they are sitting on a sofa, both of their bodies will be inclining
toward each other. They are not aware, but you can see it. If the woman is afraid of the
man, her body will be inclining to the opposite direction. If a woman loves a man she will
never cross her legs when sitting near him. If she is afraid of the man she will cross her
legs. She is not aware; this is not done consciously. It is body armor. The body protects
itself and works in its own ways. Tantra became aware
of this phenomenon; the first awareness of such deep body feeling, sensitivity, was with
tantra. And tantra says that if you can use your body consciously, the body becomes the
vehicle to move to the spirit. Tantra says, it is foolish, absolutely idiotic, to be
against the body. Use it! It is a vehicle! And use its energy in such a way that you can
go beyond it. Now, STOPPING EARS
BY PRESSING AND RECTUM BY CONTRACTING, ENTER THE SOUND. Many times you have been
contracting the rectum and sometimes the rectum is released even without your
consciousness. If you suddenly become afraid, the rectum is released. You may defecate in
fear, you may urinate in fear. Then you cannot control it. If a sudden fear grips you,
your bladder will relax, your rectum will relax. What happens? In fear, what happens? Fear
is a mental thing, so why do you urinate in fear? Why is the control lost? There must be
some deep connecting root. Fear happens in the
head, in the mind. When you are unafraid this never happens. The child really has no
mental control over his body. No animal controls his urine, bladder or anything. Whenever
the bladder is full it is released. No animal controls it, but man has to control it of
necessity. So we force a child to control when he should go to the bathroom and when not.
We tell him he has to control; we give timings. So the mind takes over the control of a
function which is non-voluntary. That is why it is so difficult to train the child for the
toilet. And now psychologists say that if we stop toilet training, humanity will very much
improve. Toilet training is
the first repression of the child and its natural spontaneity, but it seems difficult to
listen to these psychologists. We cannot listen to them because then the children will
create many problems. We have to train them of necessity. Only a very, very rich, affluent
society will be able not to bother. Poor societies have to manage. We cannot afford it. If
the child urinates anywhere, we cannot afford it. If he urinates on the sofa we cannot
afford it, so we have to train. This training is mental. The body really has no built-in
program for it. The body has NO built-in program for it! Man is an animal as
far as body is concerned, and the body knows no culture, no society. That is why when you
are in deep fear, the control mechanism that you have imposed on the body is relaxed. You
are not in control; you are thrown off control. You can control only in normal conditions.
In emergencies you cannot control because for emergencies you have never been trained. You
have only been trained for the normal, day-to-day, routine world. In an emergency the
control is lost, your body starts functioning in its own animal way. But one relationship
can be understood, that with a fearless man this will never happen. So this has become a
sign of a coward. If in fear you
urinate or defecate, this shows you are a coward. A fearless man will not behave in this
way, because a fearless man is taking deep breaths. His body and his breathing system are
related; there is no gap. With a man who is a coward there is a gap, and because of that
gap he is always overburdened with urine and defecation. So whenever an emergency comes,
that overburdenedness has to be thrown: he has to be unburdened. And it has a reason in
nature. A coward who is unburdened can escape more easily with his stomach relaxed, can
run more easily. A burdened stomach will become a hindrance, so it is helpful for a coward
to be relaxed. Why am I talking
about this? I am just saying this, that you have to be aware of your mental processes and
your stomach processes; they are deeply related. Psychologists say that fifty to ninety
percent of your dreams are because of your stomach processes. If you have taken a very
heavy meal you are bound to see nightmares. They are not related with the mind, it is just
that the heavy stomach creates them. Many dreams can be
created by outside tricks. If you are sleeping, your hands can be crossed on your chest
and immediately you will start dreaming some nightmare. A pillow can be put on your chest
and you will dream that some demon is sitting on your chest just going to kill you. And
this has been one of the problems. Why is there such a burden from the small weight of a
pillow? If you are awake, there is no weight; you do not feel anything heavy. But why is
it that a small pillow placed on you in the night when you are sleeping is felt as being
so heavy that it is as if you have been burdened with a big stone or a rock? Why is so
much weight felt? The reason is this:
when you are aware, when you are awake, your mind and body are not correlated; the gap is
there. You cannot feel the body and its sensitivity. While asleep, the control, the
culture, the conditioning, dissolves; you have again become a child and your body has
become sensitive. Because of that sensitivity, a small pillow is felt as a rock. It is
magnified because of sensitivity -- the sensitivity magnifies it. So body-mind processes
are deeply related, and if you know what happens you can use this. Rectum closed,
pulled upwards, contracted, creates a situation in the body in which sound can be felt if
present. You will feel a pillar of sound in silence within the closed space in your body.
Close the ears and pull up the rectum, and then just remain with what is happening inside
you. Just remain in that vacant state which is created by these two things. Your life
energy is moving within and it has no way to go out. Sound goes out either from your ears
or from your rectum. Those are the two doors from where the sound can move out. If is not
moving out, you can feel it more easily. And what will
happen when you feel this inner sound? With the very phenomenon of hearing the inner
sound, your thoughts dissolve. Just try it anytime during the day: just pull up the rectum
and put your fingers in the ears. Press the ears and pull up the rectum. You will feel
that your mind has stopped. It will not be functioning; thoughts will have stopped. That
constant flow of thoughts is not there. It is good! And if one goes on doing it whenever
there is time, in the day if you can do it for five or six times, within three or four
months you will become an expert in it. And then such a well-being flows out of it! And the inner
sound, once heard, remains with you. Then you can hear it the whole day. The market is
noisy, the road is noisy, the traffic is noisy, but if even in that noise you have heard
the inner sound, you will feel the still small voice that goes on inside. And then nothing
will disturb you. If you can feel your inner sound, then nothing from the outside can
disturb you. You remain silent; whatsoever happens around you makes no difference. The last sound
technique: ENTER THE SOUND OF YOUR NAME
AND, THROUGH THIS SOUND, ALL SOUNDS. Your own name can
be used as a mantra very easily, and it is very helpful because your name has gone very
deep into your unconscious. Nothing else has gone so deep. If we are all are sitting here,
and we all fall asleep and someone comes and calls "Ram," no one will listen
except the person whose name is Ram. He will listen to it; he will be disturbed in his
sleep. No one else will listen to the sound "Ram," but why does this man listen?
It has gone down deep; it is not conscious now, it has become unconscious. Your name has gone
very deep within you, but there is a very beautiful phenomenon about your name: you never
call it, others call it. Others use it; you never use it. I have heard that
in the first world war, for the first time in America rationing was created. Thomas Edison
was a very great scientist, but he was very poor so he had to stand in the queue for his
ration card. And he was such a great man that no one ever used his name before him. There
was no need to use his name for himself, and no one else would use his name because he was
so much respected. Everyone would call him Professor, so he had forgotten what was his
name. He was standing in
the queue, and when his name was called, when it was asked who Thomas Alva Edison was, he
just stared blankly. Again the name was called, then someone who was a neighbor to Edison
said to him, "Why are you standing? Your name is being called. It is your name,
Professor." Then he became aware and he said, "But how can I recognize it? No
one calls me Edison. It has been so long... they just call me Professor." You never use your
own name. Only others use it -- you have heard it used by others. But it has gone deep,
very deep. It has penetrated like an arrow into your unconscious. If you yourself use it,
then it becomes a mantra. And for two reasons it helps: one, when you use your own name,
if your name is "Ram" and you use "Ram, Ram, Ram...", suddenly you
feel as if you are using someone else's name - as if it is not yours. Or if you feel that
this IS yours, you feel that there is a separate entity within you which is using it. It
may belong to the body, it may belong to the mind, but he who is calling "Ram,
Ram..." becomes a witness. You have always
called others' names. When you call your own name it looks as if it belongs to someone
else, not to you, and it is a very revealing phenomenon. You can become a witness to your
own name, and with the name your whole life is involved. Separated from the name, you are
separated from your whole life. And this name has penetrated deep within you because
everyone has called you this from your very birth, you have always heard this. So use this
sound, and with this sound you can go to the very depths to which the name has gone. In the old days we
gave everyone a name of God - everyone. Someone was Ram, someone was Narayan, someone was
Krishna, someone was Vishnu, or something like that. They say all the Mohammedan names are
the names of God - ALL the Mohammedan names! And all over the world that was the practice,
to give a name which is really a name of God. This was for good
reasons. One reason was this technique -- because if your name can be used as a mantra it
will serve you a double purpose. It will be YOUR name - and you have heard it so much, so
many times, and all your life it has penetrated deep. Then also, it is the name of God. So
go on repeating it inside, and suddenly you will become aware that "This name is
different from me." Then by and by this name will have a sanctity of its own. You
will remember any day that "Narayan" or "Ram," this is God's name.
Your name has turned into a mantra. Use it! This is
very good! You can try many things with your name. If you want to be awakened at five
o'clock in the morning, no alarm is so exact as your own name. Just repeat thrice inside,
"Ram, you have to be awake by five o'clock sharp." Repeat it three times, and
then just fall asleep. You will be awakened at five o'clock because "Ram," YOUR
name, is very deep in the unconscious. Call your name and
tell yourself that "At five o'clock in the morning, let me be awakened." Someone
WILL awaken you. And if you continue this practice, one day you will suddenly realize that
at five o'clock someone calls you and says, "Ram, be awake." That is your
unconscious calling you. This technique
says, ENTER THE SOUND OF YOUR NAME AND, THROUGH THIS SOUND, ALL SOUNDS. Your name becomes
just a door for all names. But enter the sound. First, when you repeat "Ram, Ram,
Ram..." it is just a word. But it means something when you go on repeating "Ram,
Ram, Ram..." You must have heard
the story of Valmiki. He was given this mantra "Ram," but he was an ignorant man
- uneducated, simple, innocent, childlike. He started repeating "Ram, Ram,
Ram..." but he was repeating so much that he forgot completely and reversed the whole
thing. Instead he was chanting "Mara, Mara..." He was chanting "Ram, Ram,
Ram..." so fast that it became "Mara, Mara, Mara..." And he achieved the
goal through "Mara, Mara, mara..." If you go on
repeating the name fast inside, soon it will not be a word: it will become a sound, just
meaningless. And then there is no difference between Ram and Mara - no difference! Whether
you call Ram or Mara, it makes no sense, they are not words. It is just the sound, just
the sound that matters. Enter the sound of your name. Forget the meaning of it, just enter
the sound. Meaning is with the mind, sound is with the body. Meaning is in the head, sound
spreads all over the body. So forget the meaning. Just repeat it as a meaningless sound,
and through this sound you will enter all sounds. This sound will become the door to all
sounds. And "all sounds" means all that exists. This is one of the
basic tenets of Indian inner search, that the basic unit of the existence is sound and not
electricity. Modern science says that the basic unit of the existence is electricity, not
sound, but they also say that sound is a form of electricity. Indians, however, have
always been saying that electricity is nothing but a form of sound. You may have heard
that through a particular RAGA, a particular sound, fire can be created. It can be created
- because this is the Indian idea, that sound is the basis of all electricity. So if you
hit sound in a particular frequency, electricity will be created. On long bridges, if
a military, is passing, they are not allowed to march because many times it has happened
that because of their march the bridge falls. It is because of sound, not because of their
weight. They will be passing anyhow, but if they pass marching, then the particular sound
of their feet breaks the bridge. In old Hebrew
history, the city of Jericho was very protected by great walls and it was impossible to
break those walls by guns. But through a particular sound the walls were broken, and that
sound was the secret of the breaking of those walls. If that sound is created before
walls, the walls will give way. You have heard the
story of Ali Baba: a particular sound and the rock moves. These are allegories. Whether
they are right or not, one thing is certain: if you can create a particular sound so
continuously that meaning is lost, mind is lost, the rock at your heart will be removed. |
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