AS A HEN MOTHERS HER CHICKS, MOTHER PARTICULAR KNOWINGS, PARTICULAR DOINGS, IN REALITY.

SINCE, IN TRUTH, BONDAGE AND FREEDOM ARE RELATIVE, THESE WORDS ARE ONLY FOR THOSE TERRIFIED WITH THE UNIVERSE. THIS UNIVERSE IS A REFLECTION OF MINDS. AS YOU SEE MANY SUNS IN WATER FROM ONE SUN, SO SEE BONDAGE AND LIBERATION.

Hui-neng had asked a person, "What is the problem? What are the roots so that man can be solved and man can make some efforts to know who he is?"

Why shouldn't he know without any effort? Why should there be any problem at all? You are, you know you are -- so why can't you know who you are? Where do you miss? You are conscious. You are conscious that you are conscious. A life is there; you are alive. Why are you not aware who you are? What becomes the barrier? What prevents you from this basic self-knowledge? If you can understand the barrier, the barrier can be dissolved very easily.

So the real question is not how to know oneself. The real question is to know how you are not knowing yourself, how you are missing such an obvious reality, such a basic truth which is so near to you, how you go on not seeing. You must have created a device; otherwise it is difficult to escape from oneself. You must have created walls; you must, in some sense, be deceiving yourself.

So what is that trick of escaping from oneself, of not knowing oneself? If you don't understand that trick, whatsoever you do will not be of any help -- because the trick remains, and you go on asking how to know oneself, how to know the truth, how to know the reality, and consequently you go on helping the barrier. You go on creating it also, so whatsoever you do will be of no use.

Really, nothing positive is needed to know oneself, only something negative. In a way, you have only to destroy the barrier that you yourself have constructed, and the moment that barrier is not there you will know. Knowing happens when the barrier is not; you cannot make any positive effort for it. You have just to be aware of how you are missing it.

So a few things have to be understood as to how you are missing it. One: you live in your dreams, and then dreams become barriers. Reality is not a dream. It is there, you are surrounded by it everywhere. Inside and outside, it is there -- you cannot miss it -- but you are dreaming. Then you move in a different dimension which is not a reality. Then you go on moving in a dreamworld. Then dreams become like clouds around you, and they create the barrier. Unless mind ceases dreaming, the truth cannot be known. And when you see through dreams the reality is distorted, and your eyes are filled with dreams, and your ears are filled with dreams, and your hands are filled with dreams.

So whatsoever you touch is touched through the dreams, and whatsoever you see is seen through dreams, and whatsoever you hear is heard through the dreams, and you distort everything. Whatsoever reaches you, reaches through dreams, and they change everything, they color everything. Because of the dreaming mind you are missing the reality outside and the reality inside. You can go on finding ways and means how to come to reality, but you will be trying that too through your dreaming mind. So you can dream religious dreams -- you can dream dreams about reality, about truth, about God, about Christ and Buddha -- but that too will be dreaming. Dreaming must cease, and dreaming cannot be used to know reality.

What do I mean when I say "dreaming"? You are hearing right now, but a dream is there, and that dream is constantly interpreting what is being said. You are not hearing me; you are hearing yourself, because simultaneously you are interpreting -- are you not? You are thinking about what is being said. What is the need to think? Just hear, don't think, because if you think you cannot hear, and if you go on thinking and hearing, then whatsoever you hear is your own noise. Then it is not what is being said. Stop thinking; let the passage of hearing be clear of thoughts. Then that which is said will be heard.

When looking at the flower, stop dreaming. Don't allow your eyes to be filled with thoughts and dreams about the past and future, with what you know about flowers. Don't even say that "This flower is beautiful," because then you are missing the reality. These words will become a barrier. You say, "This flower is beautiful," and words have come in: the reality is interpreted through the words. Don't allow words to gather around you. Look directly, hear directly and touch directly.

When you touch someone, just touch; don't say that the skin is beautiful, smooth. Then you are missing, you have moved in dream. Whatsoever the skin is, it is here now. Touch it and allow the skin itself to be revealed to you. You look at a beautiful face. Look at it, and allow the face to enter itself. Don't interpret it, don't say anything. Don't bring your past mind in.

The first thing: dreams are created by your past mind. It is the past mind continuously moving around you. Don't allow the past to come in and then don't allow the future. The moment you see a beautiful face, a beautiful body, immediately desire arises. You want to possess. You see a beautiful flower and you want to pluck it. Then you have moved. The flower is there, but you have moved into desire, into the future. Now you are not here. So either you are in the past which is not, or you are in the future which has not come yet, and you are missing that which is there right now.

So the first thing to remember: words should not be allowed to exist between you and reality. With less words there are less barriers; with no words there are no barriers. And then you face reality directly; immediately you are face to face. Words destroy everything because they change the very meaning.

I was reading someone's biography. She was describing one day after just coming out of her bed. The woman writes that "One day, in the morning, I opened my eyes." Then immediately, she says, "But it is not right to say that I opened my eyes. `I' didn't do anything. The eyes opened by themselves." She changes the sentence and she writes, "No, it is not good to say that I opened my eyes. I did not do anything. There was no effort on my part; it was not an action at all." Then she writes, "The eyes opened by themselves." But then she feels this is too absurd because the eyes belong to her, so how can they open themselves? So what to do?

Language never says what is. If you say, "I opened my eyes," it is a lie. If you say, "The eyes opened by themselves," it is a lie again, because eyes are just fragments. They cannot open themselves. The whole organism is involved. And whatsoever we say is like that. If you go to aboriginal societies in India -- and there are many aboriginal tribes -- they have a different language structure. Their language structure is more basic and more real, but they cannot create much poetry. Their language structure cannot be helpful for dreaming.

If it is raining, we say, "It is raining." They ask, "What do you mean by `it'? What do you mean by `it'?" They have simply the word rain. What do you mean by "it"? What is raining? They just say "rain." Rain is the reality, but we go on adding things -- and the more words are added, the more we are lost, far away, thrown far away from reality.

Buddha used to say, "When you say, `A man is walking,' what do you mean? Where is the man? Only the walking is. What do you mean by `the man'?" When we say, "A man is walking," it appears that there is something like a man and something like walking -- two things added together. Buddha says there is walking.

When you say, "The river is flowing," what do you mean? There is just flowing, and that flowing is the river. The walking is the man, the seeing is the man, standing and sitting is the man. If you eliminate all these -- walking, sitting, standing, thinking, dreaming -- will there be a man left behind? There will be no man behind. But language creates a different world, and by constantly moving into words we go on moving away.

So the first thing to remember is how not to allow words unnecessarily. When there is a need, you can use them, but when there is no need remain empty, remain non-verbal, MOUNA, remain silent. There is no need to be constantly verbalizing things.

Secondly, don't project. Don't verbalize, don't project. Look at what is there. Don't add things and then look. You see a face. When you say, "It is beautiful," you are putting something into it, or if you say, "It is ugly," you are again putting something into it. A face is a face. Beauty and ugliness are your interpretations. They are not there, because the same face may be beautiful to someone and ugly to someone else, and to a third it may be neither. He may be indifferent; he may not even look at it -- at the same face. The face is simply a face. Don't put things into it; don't project. Your projections are your dreams, and if you project then you miss. And this is happening every day.

You see that a face is beautiful; then desire is created. The desire is not for that face or that body; it is for your own interpretation, your own projection. The person that is there, the real person, has been used as a screen, and you have projected yourself. And then disillusion is bound to be there because the real face cannot be forced into unreality by your projection. Sooner or later the projection will have to be dropped, and the real face will come out, and then you will feel that you have been cheated. You will say, "What has happened to this face? This face was so beautiful and this person was so beautiful, and now everything has gone ugly." Again you are interpreting. The person remains whatsoever he is, but your interpretations and projections go on, and you are never allowing energy to assert itself. You go on suppressing it. You are suppressing inwardly and outwardly also. You never allow the reality to assert itself.

I am reminded that one day a neighbor asked Mulla Nasruddin whether he could have his horse for a few hours. The Mulla said, "I would gladly give my horse to you, but my wife has gone with the horse and they will be out for the whole day." Just at this moment the neigh of the horse was heard from the stable, so the man looked at Mulla Nasruddin. Nasruddin said, "Okay, whom do you believe -- me or the horse? And the horse is a notorious liar to boot. Whom do you believe?"

We create an untrue world around us because of our projections, but if the reality asserts and the horse neighs from the stable, we ask, "Whom do you believe?" We always believe ourselves, not the reality that goes on asserting. It is asserting every moment, but we go on forcing our illusions. That is why every man feels disillusioned in the end. It is not because of reality. Every man and woman feels disillusioned in the end, as if the whole life has been a waste. But now you cannot do anything, you cannot undo it. Time is no more with you. Time has flown and death is near and you are disillusioned, and now the opportunity is lost.

Why does everyone feel disillusioned? Not only those who are unsuccessful in life, but those who are successful in life, they also feel the same. It is okay if unsuccessfuls feel disillusioned, but even those who succeed feel this way. Napoleons and Hitlers and Alexanders, they also feel disillusioned. The whole life has been a waste. Why? Is the cause really in reality, or is the cause in the dreams which you were projecting? And then you could not project them and the reality asserted itself, and ultimately reality wins and you are defeated. You can win only if you are not projecting.

So remember the second thing: look directly at things as they are. Don't project, don't interpret, don't force your mind upon things. Allow the reality to assert itself, whatsoever it is. This is always good, and howsoever beautiful your dreams they are bad, because you are bound on a journey of disillusion. And the sooner you are disillusioned, the better, but once one illusion is gone, immediately you start creating another to replace it.

Allow a gap. Between two illusions, allow a gap. Allow an interval so the reality can be seen. This is very arduous -- to look at the reality as it is. It may not be according to your desires. There is no need for it to be according to your desires. But then you have to live with reality, to live in it -- and you ARE in it! It is better to come to terms with reality than to go on deceiving yourself, and you are not aware how you go on projecting. Someone says something, and you understand something else. And you base things on your understanding, and then you make a house of cards out of it, you create a palace of cards. It was never said! Something else was meant!

Always see what is there. Don't be in a haste. It is better not to understand something than to misunderstand. It is better to remain ignorant consciously than to think that you know. Look into your relationships -- at the husband, the wife, the friend, the teacher, the master, the servant -- look! Everyone is thinking in his own ways, interpreting the other, and there is no meeting, no communication. Then they are fighting, in constant conflict. The conflict is not between two persons, the conflict is between false images. Be alert so that you don't have any false image of anyone else. Remain with the real, howsoever hard, howsoever arduous and difficult, even if sometimes it seems impossible. But once you know the beauty of remaining with the real, you will never be a victim of dreaming.

And thirdly, why do you dream? It is a substitute. Dreaming is a substitute. If you cannot get whatsoever you desire in reality, then you start dreaming. For example, if you have fasted the whole day, in the night. You will dream: you will dream about food, of being invited by a great emperor, or some such thing. You will be eating and eating and eating in your dreaming. The whole day you were fasting, and now in the night you are eating. If you are sexually suppressive, then your dreams will become sexual. Through your dreams it can be known what you are suppressing in the day. Your daytime fast will be shown by your dream. Dreams are substitutes, and psychologists say that it will be difficult for man as he is to live without dreams. And they are right in a way. As man is it will be difficult to live without dreams, but if you want a transformation, then you have to live without dreams. Why are dreams created? Because of desires. Unfulfilled desires become dreams.

Study your desiring; be aware and observe it. The more you observe it, the more it will disappear. And then you will not create webs in the mind, and you will not move in a private world of your own. Dreams cannot be shared; even two intimate friends cannot share their dreams. You cannot invite anyone into your dreams. Why? You and your lover cannot both be in the same dream. Your dream is yours; another's dream is another's. They are private. Reality is not so private, only madness is private. Reality is universal, you can share it; you cannot share dreams. They are your private madness -- fictions. So what is to be done?

One can, in the day, live so totally that nothing is left suspended. If you are eating, eat totally. Enjoy it so totally that you don't need any dream in the night. If you are loving someone, love so totally that no love enters into your dreams. Whatsoever you do in the day, do it so totally that nothing is suspended on the mind, nothing is incomplete which has to be completed in dreams. Try this, and within a few months you will have a different quality of sleep. Dreams will go on becoming less and less, and deep sleep will deepen. And when in the night dreams are less, in the day projections will be less because, really, your sleep continues and your dream continues. With closed eyes in the night and with opened eyes in the day, they continue. Inside a current goes on.

Any moment, close your eyes and wait, and you will see that the film has come back; the dream is running. It is always there, just waiting for you. It is just like the stars in the day. They have not disappeared, but only because of the sunlight you cannot see them. They are there waiting, and when the sun will set they will start appearing.

Your dreams are just that way -- moving within you even while you are awake. They are just waiting. Close your eyes, and they start functioning. When dreams are less in the night, in the day you will have a different quality of waking. If your night changes, your day changes; if your sleep changes, your waking changes. You will be more alert. With less dreams running within, you will be less asleep. You will look more directly.

So don't leave anything suspended, that is one thing. And whatsoever you are doing, remain with the act. Don't move anywhere else. If you are taking a shower, be there. Forget the whole world. Now this shower is the whole universe. Everything has ceased; the world has disappeared. There is only you and the shower. Remain there. Move with each act so totally that you are neither lagging behind nor jumping ahead; you are with the act. Then dreams will disappear, and with less dreaming you will be more able to penetrate the reality.

Now the technique. The technique is concerned with this.

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"AS A HEN MOTHERS HER CHICKS, MOTHER PARTICULAR KNOWINGS, PARTICULAR DOINGS, IN REALITY."

The key term is "IN REALITY." You are also mothering many things, but in dreams -- not in reality. You are also doing many things, but in dream -- not in reality. Don't mother dreams, don't help dreaming to grow more in you; don't give your energy to dreaming. Withdraw yourself from all dreams. It will be difficult because you have invested so much in your dreaming. If you suddenly withdraw yourself totally from dreaming, you will feel as if you are sinking and dying, because you have always lived in a postponed dream. You have never been here and now, you are always somewhere else. You have been hoping.

Have you heard the Greek parable of Pandora's box? To revenge a certain deed on the part of a man, Pandora was sent a box, and the box had all the diseases that are now rampant in humanity. They were not there before, and when the box was opened the diseases were released. Pandora, being afraid after seeing the diseases, closed the box. Only one disease remained there and that was hope; otherwise man would have dissipated, all these diseases would have killed him -- but because of hope he continued.

Why are you living? Have you ever asked? There is nothing to live for here and now. There is just hope. You are carrying a Pandora's box. Why are you living right now? Why do you get up every morning? Why do you start the whole day again -- again and again? Why this repetition? What is the reason? You cannot find any reason right now for why you are living, and if you find something it will be something in the future -- a hope that something is going to happen: someday "something" is going to happen. You don't know when that day will come; you even don't know what it is that is going to happen -- but someday "something is going to happen," and so you go on prolonging yourself, you go on carrying yourself.

Man lives just in hope, and this is not life because hope means dream. Unless you live here and now, you are not alive. You are a dead weight, and that tomorrow which will fulfill all your hopes is never to come. When death will come, then only will you realize that now there is no tomorrow, and now you cannot postpone. Then you will feel disillusioned, cheated -- but no one has cheated you; you are the master of the whole mess.

Try to live in the moment, in the present, and don't cherish hopes, whatsoever their nature. They may be worldly, they may be other-worldly; it makes no difference. They may be religious -- somewhere in future, in the other world, in heaven, in the NIRVANA, after death -- but it makes no difference. Don't hope. Even if you feel a subtle hopelessness here, remain here. Don't move from the moment here and now. Don't move! Suffer it, but don't allow the hope to enter in.

Through hope dreaming enters. Be hopeless. If life is hopeless, be hopeless. Accept it, but don't cling to any future event. Then suddenly there will be a change. Once you remain in the present moment, dreams stop -- because then they cannot arise. The source has been withdrawn. You cooperate with them, you mother them; that is why they arise. Don't cooperate with them, don't mother them.

This sutra says "... MOTHER PARTICULAR KNOWINGS." Why particular knowings? You also mother, but you mother particular theories, not knowings; particular scriptures, not knowings; particular hypotheses, systems, philosophies, world views -- but never particular knowings. This sutra says throw them away. Scriptures, theories, they are of no use. Have your own experience which is real, your own knowings, and mother them. Howsoever trivial, a real knowing is something. You can base your life upon it. Whatsoever they are, always think of real, particular knowings that YOU have known.

Have you known anything? You know many things, but everything is borrowed. Someone has said them, someone has given them to you. Teachers, parents, society, they have conditioned your mind. You "know" about God, you "know" about love, you "know" about meditation. You don't know anything really! You have not tasted anything, this all is borrowed. Someone else has tasted, the taste is not your own. Someone else has seen, but you have your eyes and you have not used them. Someone else has experienced -- a Buddha has experienced, a Jesus has experienced -- and you just go on borrowing their knowings. They are false! For you, they are of no use. They are more dangerous than ignorance, because ignorance is yours and the knowledge is borrowed.

It is better to be ignorant; at least the ignorance is yours. It is authentic, it is real, sincere and honest! Don't go on with borrowed knowledge. Otherwise you will forget that you are ignorant, and you will remain ignorant.

This sutra says "... MOTHER PARTICULAR KNOWINGS." Always try to know something in a way that is fresh, direct, immediate. Don't believe in anyone. Your belief will lead you astray. Trust yourself -- and if you cannot trust yourself, how can you trust anybody else?

Sariputta came to Buddha, and he said, "I have come to believe in you. I have come! Help me to build faith in you."

Buddha is reported to have said, "If you don't believe in yourself, how can you believe in me? So forget me. First have trust in yourself, believe in yourself. Only then can you have trust in someone else."

So remember this: you cannot trust anybody if you cannot even trust yourself. The first trust is always within. Only then can it flow; only then can it overflow, it can reach to others. But how can you trust if you don't know anything? How can you trust in yourself if you don't have any experience? Try to trust in yourself. Don't think that this experience of looking through others' eyes is only with the absolute. It is with ordinary experiences also. But let them be your own. They will help you to grow, they will make you mature, they will make you ripened.

This is really strange: you look with others' eyes, you live with others' lives. You call a rose beautiful. Really, is it your feeling or just a teaching that is spread around you that a rose is beautiful? Is this your knowing? Have you known it? You say that moonlight is good, beautiful. Is it your knowing, or is it just that poets have been singing about it and you are repeating it? If you are like a parrot, you cannot live your life authentically. Whenever you assert anything and whenever you say anything, first check within whether it is your knowledge and your experience.

Throw out all that is not yours -- it is of no use -- and cherish and mother all that is yours, because only through that will you grow. "MOTHER PARTICULAR KNOWINGS, PARTICULAR DOINGS, IN REALITY." Always remember "in reality." Do something. Have you done anything ever, or have you been just following others, just following orders? "Love your wife": have you really loved her? Or are you just doing a duty because it has been said, because it has been taught, "Love your wife -- or love your mother, love your father, love your brother," so you are loving and you are following! Have YOU really loved any time when you were there? Was it ever the case that no teaching was working and no other was being followed? Were you ever authentically in love? You can deceive yourself; you can say, "Yes!" But find out before you say anything. If you have loved, you would be transformed; the particular act of love would have changed you. But it has not changed you because your love is false. And the whole life has become false. You go on doing things that are not your own. Do your own thing and mother it.

Buddha is good, but you cannot follow him. Jesus is good, beautiful, but you cannot follow him. And if you will follow, you will become ugly. You will be a carbon copy. You will be false, and you will not be accepted by the existence. Nothing false is accepted. Love a Buddha, love a Jesus, but don't be their carbon copies. Don't imitate. Always allow your own self to move in its own way. You will become Buddha-like one day, but the path will be basically your own. One day you will become a Jesus, but you will have traveled along a different route, you will have experienced different things. One thing is certain: whatsoever may be the route and whatsoever may be the experience, it must be authentic, real, and your own. Then you will reach one day. Through falsity you cannot reach the truth; falsity will lead to more falsity.

Do something, remembering well that it is you who are doing it without following anybody. Then even a very small act, just a smile, may become a source of SATORI, a source of SAMADHI, cosmic consciousness. You come back to your home and smile at your children. That smile is false; you are pretending. You are smiling because a smile is expected. It is a painted smile. Nothing else is smiling in you but the lips. They are manipulated; the smile is mechanical. And you can become so habituated in this that you may completely forget how to smile. You may laugh, but the laughter may not be coming from your center.

Always remember, no matter what you are doing, observe whether your center is involved in it or not, because if it is not involved it is better not to do a thing. Don't do it! No one is forcing you to do anything. Don't do it! Preserve your energy for the moment when something real happens to you; then do it. Don't smile, preserve the energy. The smile will come, and then it will change you completely. Then it will be total. Then every cell of your body will smile. Then it will be an explosion -- nothing painted.

And children know, you cannot deceive them. The moment you can deceive them, they are no more children. They know when your smile is false, they can detect it; anyone who is real will detect it. Your tears are false, your smile is false. These are small acts, but you are made up of small acts. So don't think to do something big -- that then you will do this. If you are false in small things you will always be false.

It is easy to be false in big things. If you are false in small things, it is very easy to be false in big things, because big things because big things are always on exhibition. They are for others to see, so you can very easily be false. You can be a saint if saintliness is respected. Then you are on exhibition -- just an exhibition piece. You can be a saint because it is respected and ego-fulfilling, but everything will be false. Just think, if a society changes its attitudes as they have been changed in Soviet Russia or in China, immediately, saints disappear -- because there is no respect for them.

I remember one of my friends, a Buddhist BHIKKHU who went to Soviet Russia in Stalin's days. He told me that whenever somebody would shake hands with him, suddenly the man would shrink and would say, "You have the hands of a bourgeois." He had very beautiful hands. As a BHIKKHU he had never done anything; he was a beggar, a royal beggar, so there had been no labor. His hands were very smooth, beautiful, feminine. In India, whenever someone touched his hands he would say, "So beautiful!" In Russia, whenever someone would touch his hands, he would shrink away, and the condemnation would come into his eyes and he would say, "So you have bourgeois hands, the hands of an exploiter." He came back and told me, "I felt so condemned there that I longed to be a laborer."

Saints disappeared from Russia because now there is no respect. All that saintliness which was there was only on exhibition; it was a showpiece, painted. Only real saints can exist now in Russia. For unreal ones there is no possibility because you will have to struggle there to be a saint, and the whole society will be against you. In India, the easiest way to survive and exist is to be a saint. Everyone respects you. You can be false, and falsity pays.

Remember this: from the very morning, when you open your eyes, try to be real and authentic. Don't do anything which is false. Only for seven days, go on remembering. Don't do anything which is false. Whatsoever is lost, let it be lost. Whatsoever you lose, lose it. But remain real, and within seven days a new life will be felt within you. The dead layers will be broken and a new living current will come to you. You will feel alive again for the first time -- a resurrection.

"MOTHER DOINGS... MOTHER KNOWINGS.... IN REALITY" -- not in dream. Do whatsoever you like to do, but think -- really, are you doing it, or is your mother doing it through you or your father doing it through you? Because dead men, dead parents, societies, old generations gone long ago are still functioning within you. They have created such conditionings that you go on fulfilling THEM -- and they were fulfilling their dead fathers and mothers, and you are fulfilling your dead fathers and mothers, and no one is fulfilled. How can you fulfill someone who is dead? But the dead are living through you.

Always observe when you do something, whether your father is doing it through you or you are doing it. When you get angry, is it your anger or is it the way your father used to be angry? You are just imitating. I have seen patterns going on, being repeated. If you marry, your marriage is going to be just approximately the same as your father's and your mother's. You will act like your father, your wife will act like her mother, and you will create the same mess again. When you get angry, observe: are you there or someone else? When you love, remember, are you there or someone else? When you speak something, remember, are you speaking or your teacher? When you make a gesture, remember, is it yours or is someone else present in your hand? It will be difficult, but this is SADHANA. This is what spiritual effort means.

And leave all falsities. You may feel a certain dullness for a time being, because all your falsities will drop and the real will take time to come and assert itself. There will be a period of a gap. Allow that period, and don't be afraid and don't become scared. Sooner or later your false selves will drop, masks will drop, and your real face will come into being. Only through that real face can you encounter God. That is why this sutra says, "AS A HEN MOTHERS HER CHICKS, MOTHER PARTICULAR KNOWINGS, PARTICULARS DOINGS, IN REALITY."

The second sutra:

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"SINCE, IN TRUTH, BONDAGE AND FREEDOM ARE RELATED, THESE WORDS ARE ONLY FOR THOSE TERRIFIED WITH THE UNIVERSE. THIS UNIVERSE IS A REFLECTION OF MINDS. AS YOU SEE MANY SUNS IN THE WATER FROM ONE SUN, SO SEE BONDAGE AND LIBERATION."

This is a very deep technique, one of the deepest, and only very rare minds have tried it. Zen is based on this technique. This technique is saying a very difficult thing -- difficult to comprehend, not difficult to experience. But first comprehension is needed.

This sutra says that the world and NIRVANA are not two things, they are one; that heaven and hell are not two things, they are one; and that bondage and liberation are not two things, they are one. It is difficult because we can only conceive of something easily if it is in terms of polar opposites.

We say that this world is bondage, so how to get out of this world and be liberated? Then liberation is something which is opposite, which is not bondage. But this sutra says that both are the same -- liberation and bondage -- and unless you are freed from both you are not freed. Bondage binds, and liberation also. Bondage is a slavery, and liberation is also.

Try to understand this. Look at a person who is trying to go beyond bondage. What is he doing? He leaves his home, he leaves his family, he leaves the riches, he leaves the things of the world, he leaves society just to get out of bondage, out of the fetters of the world. Then he creates new fetters for himself. Those fetters are negative.

I have seen one saint who cannot touch money. He is respected -- he is bound to be respected by those who are mad after money. He has moved to the other pole. If you put money in his hand, he will throw it as if there were some poison or as if you have put some scorpion in his hand. He will throw it and he will become scared. A subtle trembling comes to his body. What is happening? He has been fighting with money. He must have been a greedy man -- too much greed. Only then can he move to this extreme. He may have been too much obsessed with money. He is still obsessed, but now in the reverse direction. However, the obsession is still there.

I have seen one sannyasin who cannot look at any female face. He becomes afraid. He will always look down, he will never look up if some woman is there. What is the problem? He must have been too much sexual, obsessed with sex. He is still obsessed, but then he was running after this woman or that and now he is running from women -- from this one and that. But he is still obsessed with women. Whether he is running after or running from, his obsession remains. He thinks that now he is liberated from women, but this is a new bondage. You cannot become liberated by reaction. The thing you go against will bind you negatively; you cannot escape it. If someone is against the world and for liberation, he cannot be liberated; he will remain in the world. The attitude of being against is a bondage.

This sutra is very deep, it says "SINCE IN TRUTH, BONDAGE AND FREEDOM ARE RELATED..." They are not opposite, they are relative. What is freedom? You say, "Not bondage." And what is bondage? You say, "Not freedom." You can define them by each other. They are just like hot and cold, not opposite. What is hot and what is cold? They are just degrees of the same phenomenon -- degrees of temperature -- but the phenomenon is the same, and they are relative. If there is in one bucket cold water and in another there is hot water and you put in both your hands -- one hand in the hot and one in the cold -- what will you feel? A difference of degrees.

And if at first you cool down both your hands on ice and then you put both your hands into the hot and the cold water, what will happen? Now again you will feel a difference. Your cold hand will now feel more hot in the hot water than it felt before. And if your other hand has become cold, much colder than the cold water, then that water will now look hot; you will not feel it as cool. It is relative. There are only degrees of difference, but the phenomenon is the same.

Tantra says that bondage and liberation, SANSARA and MOKSHA, are not two things, but a relative phenomenon -- of the same thing. So tantra is unique. Tantra says that you have to be liberated not only from bondage; you have to be liberated from MOKSHA also. Unless you are liberated from both, you are not Liberated.

So the first thing: don't try to go against anything because you will move to something which belongs to it. It looks opposite, but it is not. Don't move from sex to BRAHMACHARYA. If you are trying to move from sex to BRAHMACHARYA, your BRAHMACHARYA will be nothing but sexuality. Don't move from greed to no-greed because that no-greed will again be a subtle greed. That is why if a tradition teaches to be non- greedy, it gives you some profit motive in it.

I was staying with a saint, and he told his followers, "If you leave greed you will get much in the other world. If you leave greed, you will gain much in the other world!" Those who are greedy, greedy for the other world, will be influenced by this. They may be motivated, and they will be ready to leave many things to gain. But the motive to gain remains; otherwise how can a greedy man move toward non-greed? Some motive must be there which fulfills his greed deeply.

So don't create opposite poles. All opposites are related; they are degrees of the same phenomenon. If you become aware of this, you will say that both poles are the same. If you can feel this, that both poles are the same, and if this feeling deepens, you will be liberated from both. Then you are neither for SANSARA nor for MOKSHA. Really, then you are not asking for anything; you have stopped asking. In that stopping, you are liberated. In that feeling that everything is the same, the future will have dropped. Where can you move now? Sex and BRAHMACHARYA both are the same, so where is one to move? And if greed and non-greed are the same and violence and nonviolence are the same, where has one to move?

There is nowhere to move. Then movement ceases; there is no future. You cannot desire anything because all desires will be the same; the difference will be just of degrees. What can you desire? Sometimes I ask people -- when they come to me, I ask them -- "What do you really desire?" Their desire is based in them as they are. If they are greedy, they desire nongreed; if they are sexual, obsessed with sex, they desire BRAHMACHARYA, how to be beyond sex, because they are miserable in their sex.

But this desire for BRAHMACHARYA is based, rooted, in their sexuality. They ask, "How to get out of this world?" The world is too much on them, they are too much burdened and they are clinging too much, because the world cannot burden you unless you cling to it. The burden is in your head -- not because of the burden, but because of you, you are carrying it. And they are carrying the whole world; then they get burdened. And in this experience of misery there arises a new desire for the opposite, so then they start hankering for the opposite.

They were running after money, so now they run after meditation. They were running after something in this world; now they are running after something in that world. But the running remains, and the running is the problem. The object is irrelevant. Desire is the problem. What you desire is meaningless. You desire, that is the problem, and you go on changing objects. Today you desire A, tomorrow you desire B, and you think you are changing. Then the day after tomorrow you desire C, and you think you are transformed. BUT you are the same. You desired A, you desired B, you desired C, and A-B-C are not you. You desire -- that is you, and that remains the same. You desire bondage, then you get frustrated, fed up; then you desire liberation. You desire, and desire is the bondage.

So you cannot desire liberation. Desire is bondage, so you cannot desire liberation. When desire ceases, liberation is. That is why this sutra says, "IN TRUTH, BONDAGE AND FREEDOM ARE RELATIVE." So don't become obsessed with the opposite.

"These words are only for those terrified with the universe." These words of bondage and freedom are for those who are terrified with the universe.

"THIS UNIVERSE IS THE REFLECTION OF MINDS." Whatsoever you see in this universe is a reflection. If it looks like bondage, it means it is your reflection. If it looks like liberation, again it is your reflection.

"AS YOU SEE MANY SUNS IN WATER FROM ONE SUN, SO SEE BONDAGE AND LIBERATION." The sun rises, and there are many ponds -- dirty and pure, big and small, beautiful and ugly -- and one sun reflects in many ponds. One who goes on counting the reflections will think that there are many, many suns. One who looks not into the reflections but to the reality will see one. The world, as you look at it, reflects you. If you are sexual, the whole world seems sexual. If you are a thief, the whole world seems to be in the same profession.

Once Mulla Nasruddin and his wife were fishing, and the place was restricted; only license holders could fish there. Suddenly a policeman appeared, so Mulla's wife said, "Mulla, you have the license so you run away. Meanwhile, I will escape."

So Mulla started running. He ran and ran and ran, and the policeman followed. Of course, Mulla left the wife there, and the policeman followed him. Mulla ran and ran until he felt that now his heart would explode. But by that time the policeman caught hold of him. The policeman was also perspiring, and he said, "Where is your license?" So Mulla produced his papers. The policeman looked at them and they were okay. So he said, "Why are you running, Nasruddin? Why did you run away?"

Nasruddin said, "I am going to a doctor, and he says after every meal to run for half a mile."

The policeman said, "Okay, but you saw me running after you, chasing you, yelling, so why didn't you stop?"

Nasruddin said, "I thought that maybe you go to the same doctor."

It is logical; it is what is happening. Whatsoever you see all around you is more a reflection of you than of any real thing there. You look at yourself mirrored everywhere. The moment you change, the reflection changes. The moment you become totally silent, the whole world becomes silent. The world is not a bondage: bondage is a reflection. And the world is not liberation; liberation is again a reflection.

A Buddha finds the whole world in NIRVANA. A Krishna finds the whole world celebrating in ecstasy, in bliss; there is no misery. But tantra says that whatsoever you see is a reflection unless all seeing disappears and only the mirror is seen with nothing reflected in it. That is the truth.

If something is seen, it is just a reflection. Truth is one; many can only be reflections. Once this is understood -- not theoretically, but existentially, through experience -- you are liberated, liberated from both bondage and liberation.

Naropa, when he became enlightened, was asked by someone, "Have you achieved liberation now?"

Naropa said, "Yes and no both. Yes, I am not in bondage, and no because that liberation was also a reflection of bondage. I thought about it because of bondage."

Look at it in this way: you are ill then you long for health. That longing for health is part of your illness. If you are really healthy, you will not long for health. How will you? If you are really healthy, where is the longing? What is the need? If you are really healthy, you never feel that you are healthy. Only ill, diseased persons feel that they are healthy. What is the need? How can you feel that you are healthy? If you are born healthy and you have never been ill, will you be able to feel your health? Health is there, but it cannot be felt. It can be felt only through contrast, through the opposite. Only through the opposite are things felt. If you are ill, you can feel health -- and if you are feeling health, remember, you are still ill.

So Naropa says, "Yes and no both. `Yes' because there is no bondage now, but with the bondage liberation has also disappeared; that is why `No'. It was part of it. Now I am beyond both -- neither in bondage nor in liberation."