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The first question: "IN WHICH WAY DOES THE MODERNIZED
ORIGINAL MIND BECOME IDENTIFIED WITH THE DUST OF THE PAST KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE?"
Mind is pure, and
no impurity can enter it. That is impossible. The mind is just the buddha-nature -- the
ultimate. And when I say "mind," I don't mean your mind, I simply mean the mind
where no I and you exist. You are the impurity. Just behind you is the original mind. You
are the dust. So first try to analyze what you are, and then you will be able to
understand how the original mind becomes identified with the past, with memories, with
dust.
What are you? Right
now, if I ask you what you are, you can answer in two ways. One will be a verbal answer,
and in that verbal answer you will relate your past. You will say, "My name is this.
I belong to this family or that, to this religion or that, to this country or that. I am
educated or uneducated, rich or poor." These are all past experiences, they are not
you. You have been through them, you have passed through them, they have been the passage,
but your past goes on accumulating.
This will be the
verbal answer, but this is not the real answer. This is your mind arguing, the false ego.
Right now, if you leave all of your past -- if you forget your father, your parents, your
family, your religion, your country, all which is accidental -- if you forget all that is
accidental and just remain with yourself here and now, then who are you? No name will come
to your consciousness, no form -- just a simple awareness that you are. You won't be able
to say who you are. You will simply say, "I am." The moment you answer the
"who," you move into the past.
You are a simple
consciousness, a pure mind, an innocent mirror. Right now, this very moment, you are. Who
are you? Just a simple awareness that "I am." Even the "I" is not
needed. The deeper you move, the more you will feel just "am-ness," existence.
This existence is the pure mind, but this existence has no form; this is formless --
NIRAKAR. This existence has no name; it is nameless -- ANAM.
It will be
difficult for you to be introduced by this which you really are. In the society, relating
with others, you will need some name, some form. Your past supplies you name and form.
That name and form are useful. Without them it will be difficult to survive. They are
needed, but they are not you; they are just labels. Because of this utilitarian need, the
original mind becomes identified with name and form.
A child is born. He
is a simple consciousness, but you have to call him, you have to give him a name. In the
beginning, the child will use his own name. He will not say, "I am feeling
hungry"; he will say, "Ram is feeling hungry." "Ram "is his name.
He will say, "Ram is feeling very angry." Only later on will he learn that this
cannot be used in this way; he cannot call himself "Ram". Ram is the name that
he is to be called by others. Then he will learn the use of "I."
First he will
become identified with "Ram," the name that others call him; then he will become
identified with "I." This is utilitarian. You need it. Without it survival will
be difficult. Because of this utilitarian necessity, one becomes identified. You can go
beyond this identification, and the moment you start going beyond and reclaiming your
original consciousness, you have started meditation, and you can start meditation only
when you become frustrated with your name and form and the world that belongs to it.
Religion starts
when you become frustrated, totally frustrated, with the world of name and form and when
the whole thing looks meaningless. It is! Ultimately it IS meaningless. This feeling of
meaninglessness of the world that is created around name and form makes you uneasy. That
uneasiness is the beginning of a religious search. You become uneasy because with this
label you cannot become totally identified. The label remains a label; you remain what you
are. This label covers you a little, but it cannot become your totality. And sooner or
later you become fed up with this label. You want to know who you really are. And the
moment you ask sincerely, "Who am I?" you are on a different journey; you are
transcending.
This identification
is natural. There is another reason why it is so easy to become identified. This is a
room. If I say to you, "Look at the room," where will you look? You will look at
the walls. The walls are not the room: the room is just "roominess"; it is not
the walls, the walls are just the boundaries of the space that we call "room."
But if I tell you to look at the room, you will look at the walls because the
"roominess" cannot be looked at.
You are just inner
space; your name and form are the walls. They give you a boundary, they give you a
definition, they give you a definite place. You can be identified with that definiteness;
otherwise you are just a zero, SHUNYA -- a nothingness. That nothingness is there, that
inner space is there.
Look at it in this
way. You breathe in, you breathe out. If you breathe in and breathe out silently and there
is no thinking in the mind, if you are simply sitting under a tree breathing in and
breathing out, what will you feel? You will feel that there is outer space, there is inner
space. The breath comes into the inner space, the breath moves out to the outer space, but
where are you? There are simply two spaces. Your throat is just a door, a swinging door.
When the breath comes in, the breath forces the door and moves in. When the breath goes
out, it again forces the door and goes out. Your throat is just a swinging door, and there
are two spaces -- the outer and the inner. And if this door is broken, then there are not
even two spaces -- just one space.
You will become
afraid if you feel a nothingness within. You want to be something definable, definite.
There is no one who is definite inside; the outer space is infinite and the inner space is
also infinite. That is why Buddha insisted that there is no soul, no ATMAN. You are just a
vacant space -- infinite.
It is difficult to
feel oneself as this infinite space unless you make an arduous effort. One becomes
identified with the boundaries. It is easier to feel oneself that way -- with the
boundaries. Your name is just a boundary, your body is just a boundary, your thoughts are
just a boundary. For outer utility, for your own convenience also, you become identified.
Then, once you become identified, accumulation goes on and on and on, and with
accumulation you feel a fulfillment of the ego. You are identified with your riches, then
you go on accumulating. You have a feeling you are growing greater, bigger. You have a big
house, then a bigger house, then a still bigger house, so you feel that you are getting
bigger and bigger, and that is how greed is born.
Greed is nothing
but an expansion, an effort to expand the ego. But howsoever great you become in your ego,
you can never become infinite, and you ARE infinite within. If you can look into the
nothingness you are infinite within. That is why ego is never satisfied. Ultimately it is
frustrating. It cannot become infinite; it will remain finite.
This is how one
always has a spiritual discontent. You are infinite. Nothing less will be helpful for you
and nothing less will ever satisfy you. But every boundary is going to be finite. It is
needed, it is necessary in a way, useful, but it is not true, it is not the truth. This
inner mirror, this inner mind, is pure consciousness -- just consciousness.
Just look at the
light. You say the room is filled with light, but how do you see the light? You have never
seen light itself, you cannot see it; you always see something lighted. Light falls on the
walls, light falls on the books, light falls on other persons. It is reflected on those
objects. Because you can see objects, you say light is there. When you cannot see objects,
you say there is darkness. You have never seen light pure in itself. It is always seen
reflected on some object.
Consciousness is
even purer than light. It is the purest possibility in existence. If you become totally
silent, all boundaries disappear and you will not be able to say who you are. You simply
are, because there is no object you can feel yourself to be in contrast with. You cannot
say that you are a subject, soul, or even a consciousness. Because of this purity of
consciousness, you always know yourself through something else; you cannot know yourself
directly. So when you create boundaries, you feel that you know yourself. With a name you
feel you know yourself; with your riches you feel you know yourself. Something around you
becomes the boundary and the pure consciousness is reflected back.
When Buddha
attained enlightenment he said, "I am no more." When you attain to that state
you will also say, "I am no more," because without a boundary how can you be?
When Shankara attained, he said, "I am all." Both mean the same. If you are the
"all," you are no more. All or nothing -- only two possibilities are there, but
in both the possibilities you are not. If you are all, the BRAHMAN, then you are not. If
you are not, totally a nothingness, then too you are not. Because of this, it is a
necessary part of life to become identified. And it is good, because unless you become
identified you cannot become unidentified. Unless you become identified, you cannot become
unidentified! At least once, one has to become identified.
It is like this: if
you are born healthy and have never been ill, you will never be aware of your health. You
cannot be, because awareness of health needs a background of disease and illness. You will
have to fall ill to know that you were healthy or what health is. The other pole will be
needed. Eastern esoteric science says this is why the world is, so that you can experience
that you are divine. The world gives a contrast.
Go into a school,
and you will see that the teacher is writing on a blackboard with white chalk. He can
write on a white board too, but then it will be meaningless because it will be invisible,
it won't be seen. Only on a blackboard can one write with white chalk so that it is seen.
The blackboard is a necessity for the white writing to become visible.
The world is just a
blackboard, and you become visible because of it. This is an inherent polarity, and it is
good. That is why in the East we have never said that the world is bad; we take it just as
a school, a training. It is good because only in contrast will you be able to know your
purity. When you come into the world you become identified. With identification you enter;
the world starts. So you will have to fall ill to know your inner health.
This has been a
basic question all over the world: Why is this world there? Why is it at all? Many answers
have been given, but those answers are just superfluous. Only this attitude seems to be
very deep and meaningful -- that the world is just a background; without it you cannot
become aware of your inner consciousness.
I will tell you one story. One man -- very
rich, the richest in his country -- became disturbed, became frustrated. He felt that life
was meaningless. He had everything that could be purchased, but all that could be
purchased proved meaningless. Only something that could not be purchased could have real
meaning. He had everything he could purchase -- he could have purchased the whole world --
but what to do now? He was frustrated and deep discontent was within. So he gathered all
his valuables, ornaments, gold, jewels, everything, into a big bag, and he started on a
journey just to find a man who could give him something valuable, a glimpse of happiness.
Then be would present his whole life's earnings to him. He went from one teacher to
another, traveled and traveled, but no one was able to give him even a glimpse. And he was
ready to give everything -- his whole kingdom.
Then he reached a
village and asked for Mulla Nasruddin, who was a fakir living there. A village man told
him, "Mulla Nasruddin is just sitting outside the town, meditating under a tree. You
go there, and if he cannot give you a glimpse of happiness then forget it. Then you can go
to all the corners of the world, but you will never get it. If this man cannot give you a
glimpse, then there is no possibility."
So the man was very
excited. He came to Nasruddin who was sitting under a tree. The sun was setting. The man
said, "I have come for this purpose. My whole life's earnings are here in this bag,
and I will give them to you if you can give me a glimpse of happiness.
" Mulla
Nasruddin listened. The evening was descending; it was becoming dark. Without answering
him, Mulla Nasruddin snatched the bag from the rich man and ran away. Of course, the rich
man followed him crying, weeping and screaming. The village streets were known to Mulla
Nasruddin; they were not known to the rich man as he was a stranger, so he couldn't find
him. From all over the village people from the whole village started following them.
Nasruddin was just running round and round. The man was mad. He was crying, "I have
been robbed of all my life's riches. I am a poor man! I have become a beggar!" He was
weeping -- weeping like anything.
Then Nasruddin
reached the same tree, and he just put the bag before the tree and went behind the tree to
hide there. The man came there, he fell on the bag, and started weeping in happiness.
Nasrudin looked from behind the tree and said, "Are you happy, man? Have you had a
little glimpse?
" The man
said, "I am as happy as anyone can be on this earth."
What happened? To
have a peak, a valley is needed. To feel happiness, unhappiness is needed. To know the
divine, the world is needed. The world is just a valley. The man was the same, the bag was
the same. Nothing new had happened, but now he said that he was happy -- as happy as
anyone can be on this earth -- and just a few minutes before he was miserable. Nothing had
changed. The man was the same, the bag was the same, the tree was the same. Nothing had
changed, but the man was now happy, dancing. The contrast had happened. Consciousness
becomes identified because through identification the world is and through the world you
can regain yourself.
When Buddha
attained he was asked, "What have you achieved?" He said, "Nothing. On the
contrary, I have lost much. I have not attained anything because now I know that
whatsoever I have attained was always there; it was my nature. It was never taken away
from me, so I have not achieved anything. I have achieved that which was already there,
which was already achieved. I have lost only my ignorance."
Identification is
ignorance. It is part of this great play -- this cosmic LEELA, this cosmic play -- that
you will have to lose yourself to find yourself again. This losing yourself is just a way,
and the only way, to regain yourself. If you have lost too much already, you can regain.
If you have not yet lost yourself enough, you will have to lose more. And nothing can be
done before that; no help is possible before that. Unless you are lost completely in the
valley, in the darkness, in the SANSARA, in the world, nothing can be done. Lose so that
you can gain. This looks paradoxical, but this is how the world is, how the very process
is.
The second
question:
IF ONE BEGINS TO FEEL THAT LIFE IS A
PSYCHODRAMA, THEN ONE ALSO FEELS DETACHED AND LONELY. THUS, THE INTENSITY, SINCERITY AND
DEPTH OF LIVING IS LOST. PLEASE SUGGEST WHAT TO DO IN THIS SITUATION. WHAT THEN IS THE
RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD LIFE?"
"If one begins
to feel that life is a psychodrama, then one also feels detached and lonely...." Then
feel it! Why create a problem? If you feel detached and lonely, then feel it! But we go on
creating problems. Whatsoever happens, we will create a problem out of it. Feel lonely and
detached -- And if you can be at ease with your loneliness, it will disappear. If you
start doing something with it to transcend it, it will never disappear; it will remain
there. Now a modern trend in psychology and psychoanalysis says that anything can
disappear if you remain with it without creating any problems, and this has been one of
the oldest teachings of tantra.
For the last ten or
twelve years, in Japan, a small psychotherapeutic technique has been in use. Western
psychoanalysts and psychiatrists have been studying it. It is a Zen therapy, and it is
wonderful. If someone goes neurotic or psychotic, that man or woman is simply put into a
lonely room and he or she is told, "Remain with yourself, whatsoever you are.
Neurotic? Okay! Then be neurotic and live with it." And the doctors do not interfere.
Food is provided, needs will he fulfilled, attention will be given, but there is no
interference. The patient has to live with himself, and within ten days he starts
changing. Western psychoanalysis works for years, and basically nothing changes.
What happens to
this Zen patient? There is no interference from outside. There is just acceptance of the
fact that "Okay, you are neurotic. Nothing can be done." Zen says that one tree
is small and another tree is very big, so okay: one is small, another is big, and nothing
can be done. Once you accept a thing, you are already transcending it.
One of the most
original psychiatrists of England, R. D. Laing, has now proposed that if we can leave a
madman to himself, just paying loving attention to him, fulfilling his needs and not
interfering with him, he will get over his madness within three or four weeks. His
proposal is that no madness can last for more than ten days if it is not interfered with.
If you interfere, then you prolong the process.
What happens when
you are not interfering in anything? You feel lonely, so feel lonely: it is how you are.
But when you feel lonely you start doing something, and then you are divided. Then one
part of you feels lonely and another part tries to change it. This is absurd. It is just
pulling yourself up by your legs or the strings of your shoes -- pulling yourself up to
the sky. Absurd! You are lonely, so what can you do? There is no one else to do anything.
You are alone, so be lonely. This is your fate; this is how you are. What will happen if
you accept it? If you accept it, your fragmentariness will disappear, you will become one,
you will be whole -- not divided.
If you are
depressed, so be depressed; don't do anything. And what can you do? Whatsoever you do will
be done out of depression, so it will create more confusion. You can pray to God, but you
will pray so depressingly that you will even make God depressed through your prayers.
Don't do that violence. Your prayer is going to be a depressed prayer.
You can meditate,
but what will you do? The depression will be there. Because you are depressed, whatsoever
you do the depression will follow. More confusion will be created, more frustration,
because you cannot succeed. And when you cannot succeed you will feel more depressed, and
this can go on ad infinitum. It is better to remain with the first depression than to
create a second circle and then a third circle. Remain with the first; the original is
beautiful. The second will be false, and the third will be a far-off echo. Don't create
these. The first is beautiful. You are depressed, so this is how existence is happening to
you at this moment.
You are depressed,
so remain with it. Wait and watch. You cannot be depressed for long because in this world
nothing is permanent. This world is a flux. This world cannot change its basic law for you
so that you remain depressed forever. Nothing is here forever; everything is moving and
changing. Existence is a river; it cannot stop for you, just for you, so that you remain
depressed forever. It is moving, it has already moved. If you look at your depression, you
will feel that even your depression is not the same the next moment; it is different, it
is changing. Just watch, remain with it and don't do anything. This is how transformation
happens through non-doing. This is what is meant by "effortless effort."
Feel depression,
taste it deeply, live it. It is your fate. Then suddenly you will feel it has disappeared
because the man who can accept even depression cannot be depressed. A man, a mind, who can
accept even depression cannot remain depressed! Depression needs a non-accepting mind.
"This is not good, that is not good; this should not be, that should not be; this
must not be like this. "Everything is denied, rejected -- not accepted.
"No" is basic. Even happiness will be rejected by such a mind. Such a mind will
find something to reject in happiness also.
One man came to me
just the other day and he said, "Meditation is going deep and I am feeling very
happy, but I am suspicious. This happiness must be illusory because I have never felt any
happiness before. I must be in a delusion; so much doubt has come to me. Now, please
clarify my doubt." Even if happiness happens to a mind who has been always rejecting,
he will feel a doubt about it. He will feel that something has gone wrong. He is happy, so
he will feel something has gone wrong. Just by meditating for a few days this is not
possible.
A non-accepting
mind will "non-accept" anything, but if you can accept your loneliness, your
depression, your sadness, you are transcending already. Acceptance is transcendence. You
have taken the very ground away, and then the depression cannot stand there.
Try this:
Whatsoever your state of mind, accept it and wait for when the state changes itself. You
are not changing it; you can feel the beauty that comes when states change by themselves.
You can know that it is just like the sun rising in the morning and then setting in the
evening. Then again it will rise and again it will set, and it will go on. You need not do
anything about it. If you can feel your states of mind changing by themselves, you can
remain indifferent, you can remain away, miles away, as if the mind is going somewhere
else. The sun is rising, setting; the depression is coming, the happiness is coming,
going: but you are not in it. It goes and comes by itself; the states come and move.
"IF ONE BEGINS
TO FEEL THAT LIFE IS A PSYCHODRAMA, THEN ONE ALSO FEELS DEPRESSED AND LONELY." So
feel it! "THUS, THE INTENSITY, SINCERITY AND DEPTH OF LIVING IS LOST."
Let it be lost,
because the sincerity and depth that can be lost was not real. It was pseudo, false, and
it is better that the false thing is lost. How can a real depth be lost? The very
definition of a "real depth" is that it cannot be lost, no matter what you do.
If you can disturb a buddha, then he is not a buddha. Whatsoever you do, he remains
undisturbed. That unconditional undisturbance is the buddha-nature. The real cannot be
lost. The real is always unconditional.
If I love you and I
say, "Don't be angry; otherwise my love will be lost," then the sooner such a
love is lost, the better. If the love is real, whatsoever you do makes no difference; the
love will remain. And only then does it have any worth.
So if just by
looking at the world as a psychodrama, as a drama, your intensity, your depth of living is
lost, then it is not worth preserving. It was false. Why is it lost? Because it was really
an act in a drama, and you were thinking that it was real so you felt it was deeper. Now
you know it was just a drama. If it was just a drama and the sincerity is lost, the
sincerity was false. You were thinking it was real, and it was not real. Just by looking
at life as a drama, it disappeared.
It is just as if a
rope was there lying in a dark room and you felt that it was a snake, but there was no
snake. Now you come with a lamp, and with the lamp the snake is lost and only the rope
remains. If with the lamp the snake is lost, then it was never there.
If you look at life
as a drama, that which is false will be lost and that which is real will, for the first
time, appear in you. Wait! Let the false be lost, and wait! There will be a gap, an
interval, before the false disappears and the real comes. There will be a gap. When false
shadows will have disappeared completely and your eyes will not be filled by them, and
your eyes will have become detached from the false shadows, you will be able to look at
the real that was always there. But one has to wait.
"PLEASE
SUGGEST WHAT TO DO IN THIS SITUATION."
Nothing! Please don't do anything. You have created a mess because of too much of your
doing. You are such a good doer, you have confused everything around you -- not only for
yourself, but for others also. Be a non-doer; that will be compassion towards yourself. Be
compassionate. Don't do anything, because with a false mind, a confused mind, everything
becomes more confused. With a confused mind, it is better to wait and not to do anything
so that the confusion disappears. It will disappear; nothing is permanent in this world.
You need only a deep patience. Don't be in a hurry.
I will tell you one story. Buddha was
traveling through a forest. The day was hot -- it was just midday -- he felt thirsty, so
he said to his disciple Ananda, "Go back. We crossed a little stream. You go back and
bring, fetch, some water for me."
Ananda went back,
but the stream was very small and some carts were passing through it. The water was
disturbed and had become dirty. All the dirt that had settled in it had come up, and the
water was not drinkable now. So Ananda thought, "I shall have to go back." He
came back and he said to Buddha, "That water has become absolutely dirty and it is
not drinkable. Allow me to go ahead. I know there is a river just a few miles away from
here. I will go and fetch water from there."
Buddha said,
"No! You go back to the same stream." As Buddha had said this Ananda had to
follow it, but he followed it with half a heart as he knew that the water would not be
brought. And time was being unnecessarily wasted and he was feeling thirsty, but when
Buddha said it he had to go.
Again he came back
and he said, "Why did you insist? That water is not drinkable."
Buddha said,
"You go again." And as Buddha said it, Ananda had to follow.
The third time he
reached the stream, the water was as clear as it had ever been. The dust had flowed away,
the dead leaves had gone, and the water was pure again. Then Ananda laughed. He brought
the water and he came dancing. He fell at Buddha's feet and he said, "Your ways of
teaching are miraculous. You have taught me a great lesson -- that just patience is needed
and nothing is permanent."
And this is
Buddha's basic teaching: nothing is permanent, everything is fleeting -- so why be so
worried? Go back to the same stream. By now everything should have changed. Nothing
remains the same. Just be patient: go again and again and again. Just a few moments, and
the leaves will have gone and the dirt will have settled again and the water will be pure
again.
Ananda also asked
Buddha, when he was going back for the second time, "You insist that I go, but can I
do something to make that water pure?"
Buddha said,
"Please don't do anything; otherwise you will make it more impure. And don't enter
the stream. Just be outside, wait on the bank. Your entering the stream will create a
mess. The stream flows by itself, so allow it to flow."
Nothing is
permanent; life is a flux. Heraclitus has said that you cannot step twice in the same
river. It is impossible to step twice in the same river because the river has flowed on;
everything has changed. And not only has the river flowed on, you have also flowed on. You
are also different; you are also a river flowing.
See this
impermanency of everything. Don't be in a hurry; don't try to do anything. Just wait! Wait
in a total non-doing. And if you can wait, the transformation will be there. This very
waiting is a transformation.
The third question:
"THE PRACTICE OF WITNESSING MAKES ME
QUIET, STILL, AND SILENT, BUT THEN THE FRIENDS AROUND ME SAY THAT I HAVE BECOME SERIOUS.
THERE SEEMS TO BE SOME SUBSTANCE IN WHAT THEY SAY. PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW ONE CAN GROW
SIMULTANEOUSLY IN STILLNESS AND PLAYFULNESS."
If you have really
become silent, you will not pay attention to what others are saying. If others' opinions
are still important, you are not silent. Really, you are waiting for them to say something
or for them to approve and appreciate that you have become silent. Your silence needs
their approval? You need them to certify it? Then you are not confident that you have
become silent.
Others' opinions
are meaningful only because you don't know anything. Opinion is never knowledge. You go on
gathering others' opinions because you don't know what you are, who you are, what is
happening to you. You have to ask others, "What is happening to me?" You have to
ask others? If you are really silent, quiet, still, then there are no friends and no
opinion is meaningful. Then you can laugh. Let them say whatsoever they say.
But you become
affected. Whatsoever they say goes deep in you; you become disturbed. Your silence is
false, forced, cultivated. It is not a spontaneous flowering within you. You may have
forced yourself to be silent, but you were boiling within. Then the silence is just on the
surface. If someone says you are not silent, or if someone says this is not good, or if
someone says this is false, then you are disturbed and the silence is gone. The silence is
gone, that is why you are asking me this. "THERE SEEMS TO BE SOME SUBSTANCE IN WHAT
THEY SAY." You have become serious. So what is wrong in being serious? If you are
born serious, to be serious, you will be serious. You cannot force playfulness; otherwise
your playfulness will be serious, and you will destroy the whole play. There are serious
players. They get so serious in their games and plays that it becomes even more
anxiety-creating.
I was reading the
memoirs of someone who was a great industrialist, much worried with day-to-day problems.
Someone suggested golf: "Play golf. That will be anxiety-reducing." He started
playing golf, but he was the same man. He became so excited about his golf that he
couldn't sleep, he was playing the whole night. The industry was a burden, and now golf
became a second burden -- and a stronger one. He played golf, but with a serious mind, the
same mind.
If you are serious,
you are serious. Nothing can he done about it. Be serious and remain serious. Then you
have already started being playful; then you are playful about your seriousness, not
serious about it. You take it as a play, so you say, "Okay, God has given me this
role, so I will be a serious man and I will play my seriousness." Then it will have
disappeared deep down. Do you understand me?
You can create
seriousness out of your playfulness or you can create playfulness out of your seriousness.
If you are a sad one, a serious one, tell everyone, "I am born serious and I am going
to remain so" -- and don't get serious about it. Be! Simply be, and then you can
laugh about it and it will disappear. And you will not even become aware of when it has
disappeared.
And don't pay
attention to what others say. This is a disease. They will drive you crazy -- the others.
Who are these others and why are you so much interested in them? They drive you crazy and
you drive them crazy because you are the other to them. Why pay so much importance to
others' opinions? Pay attention to your own experiences and remain true to your own
experiences. If you feel good in being serious, it is okay! If you feel you have become
quiet and silent and still through your practice of witnessing, why be interested and why
be disturbed by what others say?
But we are not
confident, so we must gather others' opinions. We must go on a signature campaign:
"You think I have become a buddha, so please sign." When everyone signs it and
you have gathered many signatures, at least the majority, you think you are a buddha. This
is not the way to be an enlightened one.
"AND PLEASE
EXPLAIN HOW ONE CAN GROW SIMULTANEOUSLY IN STILLNESS AND PLAYFULNESS."
One grows! There
has never been any case that is otherwise. One grows simultaneously in stillness and
playfulness, but if your stillness is false then the problem arises. All those who have
known silence have always been playful, non-serious. They could laugh, and they could
laugh not only at others, they could laugh at themselves.
Bodhidharma entered China fourteen hundred years ago, from India. He put one of his shoes on his head; one was on one of his feet and one
was on his head. The Emperor of China, Wu, had come to welcome him. He became disturbed.
There were many, many rumors, of course, that this man was strange, but he was an
enlightened one and the emperor wanted to welcome him to his Kingdom. He became disturbed.
His courtiers, they also became disturbed. What type of man was this? And he was laughing.
It was not good to
say anything before others, so when everyone had gone and Bodhidharma and the emperor
retired into Bodhidharma's room, the emperor asked, "Please tell me, why are you
making such a fool of yourself? Why are you carrying one shoe on your head?"
Bodhidharma laughed
and said, "Because I can laugh at myself, and it is good to show you my reality. I am
such a man, and I don't pay more importance to my head than I pay to my feet; both are the
same to me. Higher and lower have disappeared. And, moreover, I want to tell you that I
don't pay any significance to what others say about me. This is good. The first moment
that I entered, I wanted you to know what type of man I am."
This Bodhidharma
was a rare jewel; very few have existed who can be compared to him. What was he showing?
He is simply showing that on this path of spirituality you are to go alone as an
individual. Society becomes irrelevant.
Someone had come to
do an interview with George Gurdjieff. The man who came was a big journalist. Gurdjieff's
disciples were very much excited because now the story was going to be in a big newspaper,
and their master's photo and their master's news was going to be published. They cared
very much; they paid much attention to the journalist. They virtually forgot their master,
and they hung around the journalist. Then the interview began, but really, it never began.
When the journalist asked some questions to Gurdjieff, Gurdjieff said, "Wait a
minute."
Just by his side
was sitting a lady. Gurdjieff asked, "What day is today?" The lady said,
"Sunday." Gurdjieff said, "How is that possible? Just the day before it was
Saturday, so how can it be Sunday today? Just the other day you said it is Saturday, and
now it is Sunday. How, after Saturday, can Sunday come?"
The journalist
stood up. He said, "I am going. This man seems to be mad." All the disciples
just couldn't understand what had happened. When the journalist had left, Gurdjieff was
laughing. What others say is not relevant. Be authentic to what you feel, but be
authentic! If real silence happens to you, you will be able to laugh.
It is said about
Do-zen, one Zen master, that when he attained enlightenment many people asked, "What
did you do after that?" He said, "I ordered a cup of tea." What is there to
do next? Everything is finished. And Do-zen was serious about his playfulness, playful
about his seriousness. Really, what remains?
Don't pay much
attention to what others say and remember only one thing: don't force and cultivate
stillness. A cultivated stillness will be serious, ill, tense. But how can a real silence
come to you? Try to understand this. You are tense, you are unhappy, you are depressed,
angry, greedy, violent. A thousand diseases are there. Still, you can practice silence.
These diseases will be within you, and you can create a layer of silence. You can do
transcendental meditation; you can use a mantra. The mantra is not going to change your
violence, neither is it going to change your greed. It is not going to change anything
deep. The mantra can just give a tranquilizing effect. Just on the periphery, you will
feel more silent. This is just a tranquilizer, a sound tranquilizer, and tranquilizing is
possible through many ways -- many ways. When you repeat a mantra continuously, you become
sleepy. Any continuous repetition of a sound creates boredom and sleep. You feel relaxed,
but this relaxation is just on the surface. Within, you remain the same.
Go on practicing a
mantra every day, and you will feel a certain stillness -- but not really, because your
diseases have not changed, your personality structure remains the same. It is just
whitewashed. Stop the mantra, stop the practice, and all your diseases will come up again.
This is happening
everywhere. Seekers move from one teacher to another. They go on moving, practicing, and
when they stop their practice they find they are the same; nothing has happened. Nothing
will happen in this way. These are cultivated silences. You have to go on cultivating
them. Of course, if you go on cultivating them, they remain with you just like a habit,
but if you break the habit they disappear. A real silence comes not by just using some
superficial technique, but by being aware of all that you are -- not only being aware, but
remaining with the fact of what you are.
Remain with the
fact. This is very difficult because the mind wants change. How to change violence, how to
change depression, how to change unhappiness? The mind seeks change to create somehow a
better image in the future. Because of this, one goes on seeking this and that method.
Remain with the
fact, and don't try to change it. Do this for one year. Fix a date, and say that
"From this date, for one year, I will not think in terms of change. I will remain
with whatsoever I am; I will just be alert and aware." I am not saying that you are
not to do anything, but that alertness is the only effort. You have to be alert, not
thinking in terms of change; remaining whatsoever you are -- good, bad or whatsoever. One
year, with no attitude of change, just being alert, suddenly one day you will find you are
no more the same. Alertness will have changed everything.
In Zen, they call
it "zazen" -- just sitting and doing nothing. Whatsoever happens, happens; you
are just sitting. Zazen means just sitting, doing nothing. In Zen monasteries, monks will
sit for years, the whole day. You will think they are meditating. They are not! They are
just sitting silently. And by silence it is not that they are using some mantra to create
any silence; they are simply sitting. If a leg goes dead, they feel it. They are alert. If
the body feels tired, they are alert: the body feels tired. This is how the body has to
feel. If thoughts are moving, they know it. They are not trying to stop them; they are not
trying to push them away. They are not doing anything. Thoughts are just there like clouds
in the sky, but they know the clouds cannot destroy the sky: they come and go.
So thoughts are
moving in the sky of consciousness; they come and go. They don't force them, they don't
stop them, they don't do anything;. They are just alert that the thoughts are moving.
Sometimes depression comes, a cloud; everything becomes shadowy. Sometimes happiness
comes, a sunshine; everything starts dancing, as if flowers have opened all over the
consciousness. But they are not disturbed by either this or that, by cloudy weather or by
sunshine. They just wait and see that things are moving. They are just sitting on the bank
of a river, and everything goes on moving. They don't try to change anything.
If a bad thought
comes, they don't say, "This is bad," because the moment you say, "This is
bad," you have a greed to change it. The moment you say, "This is bad," you
have pushed it away; you have condemned it, and you would like to change it into something
good. They simply say this is this, that is that -- no condemnation, no evaluation, no
justification. Simply, watching, witnessing.
Sometimes they
forget witnessing. Then too they are not disturbed. They know that "Of course it is
so," that "I forgot to witness; now I remember and I will witness again."
They don't create any problem. They live what is. Years come and go, and they go on
sitting and seeing what is.
Then one day
everything disappears. Just like a dream, everything disappears and you are awakened. This
awakening is not a practiced thing; this awakening is not cultivated. This awakening is
your nature, your basic nature. It has erupted because you could wait patiently and watch,
and you didn't create any problems. Remember this as a very basic thing: don't create
problems. don't create problems!
One lady was here
just two or three days ago. She said, "My mind is sexual, so what can I do?"
Someone else came and said, "I feel very inferior; an inferiority complex is there.
What can I do?" So I told that man, "You feel inferior, so feel inferior; know
that you feel like that. What to do? There is nothing to do. One feels sexual, so feel
sexual. Know that you are sexual." But the moment I say such things to someone, he
feels shocked. He had come for a technique to change himself.
No one accepts
himself; you are such enemies to yourself. You have never had any love for yourself; you
have never been at ease with yourself. And this is surprising: you expect everyone to love
you, and you yourself cannot even love yourself. You are so against yourself, you would
like to shatter yourself in every way and create another. If you were allowed you would
create another man. And you would not be satisfied with that either because you would
still remain behind it.
Love yourself,
accept yourself, and don't create unnecessary problems. And all problems are unnecessary;
there are no necessary problems. I have not come across any. Remain with your
"facticity," and transformation will happen. But it is not a result, you cannot
force it to happen. It is a consequence, not a result. If you accept yourself and remain
alert, it comes. You cannot force it, you cannot say that "I will force it to
come." And if you force, a false thing will happen to you, and then that false thing
can be disturbed by anyone -by anyone --
The last question:
"YOU SAID THAT ACCEPTANCE TRANSFORMS
BUT WHY IS IT THAT WHEN I ACCEPT MY SENSES AND DESIRES I FEEL THAT I HAVE BECOME
ANIMAL-LIKE INSTEAD OF TRANSFORMED?"
This is your
transformation; this is your reality. And what is wrong in being an animal? I have not
seen a single man who can be compared to any animal. Suzuki used to say, "I love a
frog, even a frog, more than a man. Look at a frog sitting near a pond: how meditatively a
frog sits! Look at him, how meditative he is -- not disturbed by the whole world going on,
just sitting and sitting and meditating, one with existence." Suzuki said, "When
I was unenlightened I was a man, and when I became enlightened I became just like a
cat."
Look at a cat: she
knows the secret of how to relax and she has not read any books about relaxation. How to
relax? Look at a cat. No man can be a better teacher than a cat. The cat is relaxed and
alert. If you relax, you go to sleep. The cat is alert even in her sleep, and the body is
so flexible, so relaxed in every moment.
What is wrong in
being an animal? Man, through his ego, has created comparisons. He says, "We are not
animals." But no animal would like to be a human being. They are at ease, at home in
existence. They are not worried, they are not tense. Of course, they don't create any
religion because they don't need to. They don't have any psychoanalysts -- not because
they are undeveloped, but because they don't need any.
What is wrong with
animals? Why this condemnation? This condemnation is part of the human ego. Man thinks in
terms of being the superior one, the highest in the hierarchy. No animal has consented to
this hierarchy. Darwin said that man has evolved out of monkeys, but if you ask monkeys I
am afraid they will not say that man is an evolution; they will say he is a degradation.
Man thinks himself as the center. There is no need for this. This is only egoistic
nonsense.
If you feel like
being an animal, nothing is wrong in it. Be one, and be one totally -- and be one with
full alertness. That alertness will first uncover your animal because that is your
reality. Your humanity is just false, skin-deep. Someone insults you, and the animal comes
out -- not the human being. Someone condemns you, and the animal comes out -- not the
human being. It is there, and your humanity is just skin-deep. If you accept everything,
this skin-deep humanity will disappear. This is a false thing, and you can become aware of
your real animal. And it is good to become aware of reality. If you go on being alert,
within this animal you will find the divine. And it is always better to be a real animal
than to be an unreal man. Reality is the point.
So I am not against
animals, I am only against falsities. Don't be a false human being. Be a real animal, and
with that reality you will have become authentic, substantial. Now go on being alert, and
by and by you will come to a deeper layer which is more real than the animal -- and that
is the divine.
The divine is not
only in you, remember; it is in all animals. It is not only that it is in animals: it is
in all the trees, it is in the rocks. The divine is the basic center in everything. You
can lose it only by being false, and you can gain it again by being real. |
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