SHAKTI, SEE ALL SPACE AS IF ALREADY ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN HEAD, IN THE BRILLIANCE.

WAKING, SLEEPING, DREAMING, KNOW YOU AS LIGHT.

AS I LOOK IN YOUR EYES I never see you there -- as if you are absent. You exist absently, and this is the core of all suffering. You can be alive without being at all present, and if you are not present your existence will become a boredom. And this is what has happened. So when I look in your eyes I don't find you there. You have yet to come, you have yet to be. The situation is there, and the possibility is there -- you can be there any moment -- but yet you are not.

To become aware of this absence is to begin the journey towards meditation, towards transcendent. If you are aware that somehow you are missing... you exist but you don't know why, you don't know how, you don't know even who exists within you. This unawareness creates all suffering, because, unknowingly, whatsoever you do will bring suffering. It is not what you do that is basic; it is whether you do it with your presence or with your absence that is significant.

Whatsoever you do, if you can do it with your total presence, your life will become ecstatic; it will be a bliss. If you do something without your presence there, absently, your life will be a suffering -- bound to be. Hell means your absence.

So there are two types of seekers: one type of seeker is always in search of what to do. That seeker is on a wrong path, because the question is not of doing at all. The question is of being -- what to be, how to be. So never think in terms of action and doing, because whatsoever you do, if you are absent it will be meaningless.

Whether you move in the world or you live in a monastery; whether you function in the crowd or you move to an isolated spot in the Himalayas will make no difference. You will be absent here and you will be absent there, and whatsoever you do -- in the crowd or in the isolation -- will bring suffering. If you are not there, then whatsoever you do is wrong.

The second type, and the right type of seeker, is not in search of what to do, he is in search of how to be. The first thing is how to be.

One man came to Gautam Buddha. He was filled with much compassion, with much sympathy, and he asked Gautam Buddha, `What can I do to help the world?'

Buddha is reported to have laughed and said to the man, `You cannot do anything because you are not. How can you do anything when you are not? So don't think of the world. Don't think of how to serve the world, how to help others.' Buddha said, `First be -- and if you are, then whatsoever you do becomes a service, it becomes a prayer, it becomes compassion. Your presence is the turning point. Your being is the revolution.'

So these are the two paths: the path of action and the path of meditation. They are diametrically opposite. The path of action is basically concerned with you as a doer. It will try to change your actions; it will try to change your character, your morals, your relationships, but never you. The path of meditation is diametrically opposite. It is not concerned with your actions; it is directly and immediately concerned with you. What you do is irrelevant. What you are is relevant. And that is basic and primary, because all action springs from you.

Remember, your actions can be changed and modified, can even be replaced by diametrically opposite actions, but they are not going to change you. Any outward change will not bring the inner revolution, because the outward is superficial and the innermost core remains untouched; by what you do it remains untouched. But the vice versa brings the revolution: if the innermost core is different, the surface automatically changes. So think a basic question; only then can we enter these techniques of meditation.

Don't be concerned with what you are doing. That may be a trick, that maya be a device to escape from the real problem. For example, you are violent. You can make every effort to be non-violent, thinking that by being non-violent you will become religious; by becoming non-violent you will come closer to the divine. You are cruel, and you may make every effort to be compassionate.

You can do it, and nothing will change and you will remain the same. Your cruelty will become a part of your compassion -- and that is more dangerous. Your violence will become a part of your non-violence -- that is more subtle. You will be violently non-v iolent. Your non-violence will have all the madness of violence, and through your compassion you will be cruel.

You can even kill through your compassion; people have killed. There are so many religious wars -- they are fought in the mood of compassion. You can kill very compassionately, very non-violently; lovingly you can kill and murder, because you are killing for the sake of the person you are killing. You are killing him for himself, for his own sake, to help him.

You can change your actions, and this effort to change the actions may be just a device to escape the basic change. The basic change is this -- first you must be. You must become more alert, more conscious of your being, only then a presence comes to you.

You never feel yourself, and even sometimes when you feel, you feel through others -- through excitement, through stimulation, through reaction. Someone else is needed, and via someone else you can feel yourself. This is absurd. Alone, without excitement, with no one there to become a mirror, you fall in sleep, you get bored. You never feel yourself. There is no presence. You live absently.

This absent existence is the non-religious mind. To become filled with your own presence, with the light of your own being, is to become religious. So remember this as a basic point: that my concern is not with your actions. What you do is irrelevant. What you are -- absent, present, aware, unaware -- that's my concern. And these techniques we will enter are techniques to make you more present, to bring you here and now.

Either someone else is needed for you to feel yourself, or the past is needed -- through the past, through past memories, you can feel your identity. Or the future is needed -- you can project in your dreams. You can project your ideals, future lives, moksha. Either you need past memories to feel that you are, or you need a future projection, or someone else, but you alone are never enough. This is the disease, and unless you alone become enough, nothing will be enough for you. And once you alone have become enough unto yourself, you have become victorious, the struggle is over. Now there will be no suffering any more. A point of no return has come.

Beyond this point there is beatitude, eternal bliss. Before this point you are bound to suffer, but the whole suffering, strangely, is your own doing. It is a miracle that you create your own suffering. No one else is creating it. If someone else is creating it then it is difficult to go beyond it. If the world is creating it then what can you do? But because you can do, it means no one else is creating your suffering -- it is your own nightmare. And these are the basic elements of it.

The first thing: you go on thinking that you are, you believe that you are. This is simply a belief. You have never encountered yourself, you have never come face to face with yourself; you have never met yourself, there has been no meeting. You simply believe that you are. Throw this belief totally. Know well that you are yet to be, that you are not, because with this false belief you will never be able to transform. On this false belief your whole life will become false.

Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, `Don't ask me what to do. You cannot do anything, because to do something first you will be needed. And you are not there, so who will do it? You can think about doing, but you cannot do anything.'

These techniques are to help you, to bring you back; to help you to create a situation in which you can meet yourself. Much will have to be destroyed -- all that is wrong, all that is false. Before the real arises the false will have to leave; it must cease. And these are the false notions -- that you are. These are the false notions -- that you are a soul, atma, you are Brahma. Not that you are not, but these notions are false.

Gurdjieff had to insist that there is no soul in you. Against all the traditions he insisted, `Man has no soul. Soul is simply a possibility -- it can be, it may not be. It has to be achieved. You are simply a seed.'

And this emphasis is good. The possibility is there, the potentiality is there, but it is not yet actual. And we go on reading the Gita and the Upanishads and the Bible, and we go on feeling that we are the soul -- the seed thinking that it is the tree. The tree is hidden there, but it is yet to be uncovered. And it is good to remember that you may remain a seed, and you may die a seed -- because the tree cannot come, the tree cannot sprout by itself. You have to do something consciously about it, because only through consciousness it grows.

There are two types of growth. One is unconscious, natural growth: if the situation is there, the thing will grow. But the soul, the atma, the innermost being, the divine within you, is a different type of growth altogether. It is only through consciousness that it grows. It is not natural, it is supernatural.

Left to nature itself it will not grow; just left to evolution it will never evolve. You have to do something consciously, you have to make a conscious effort about it, because only through consciousness it grows. Once the consciousness is focused there, the growth happens. These techniques are to make you more conscious.

Now we will enter the techniques.

The first technique:

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IN SUMMER WHEN YOU SEE THE ENTIRE SKY ENDLESSLY CLEAR, ENTER SUCH CLARITY.

Mind is confusion; there is no clarity. And mind is always crowded, always cloudy; never the open sky, cloudless, empty. Mind cannot be that. You cannot make your mind clear; it is not the nature of the mind to be so. Mind will remain unclear. If you can leave the mind behind, if you can suddenly transcend the mind and come out of it, clarity will happen to you. You can be clear, but not the mind. There is not such a thing as a clear mind; never has been and never will be. Mind means the unclarity, the confusion.

Try to understand the structure of the mind, and then this technique will be clear to you. What is mind? A continuous process of thought, a continuous procession of thoughts -- associated, non-associated, relevant, irrelevant -- many multi-dimensional impressions gathered from everywhere. The whole life is a gathering, a gathering of the dust. And this goes on and on.

A child is born. A child is clear because the mind is not there. The moment mind appears, the unclarity, the confusion enters. A child is clear, a clarity, but he will have to gather knowledge, information, culture, religion, conditionings -- necessary, useful. He will have to gather many things from everywhere, from many sources -- opposite, contradictory sources. From thousands and thousands of sources he will gather. Then the mind will become a market-place, a crowd, and because of so many sources, confusion is bound to be there. And whatsoever you gather, nothing is certain, because knowledge is always a growing affair.

I remember, someone related an anecdote to me. He was a great searcher, and he told me this about his professor who taught him for five years in a medical college. The professor was a great scholar of his subject. The last thing he did was to gather his students and tell them, `One thing more I have to teach you. Whatsoever I have taught you is only fifty percent correct, and the remaining fifty percent is absolutely wrong. But the trouble, is, I don't know which fifty percent is correct and which fifty percent is incorrect -- I don't know.'

The whole edifice of knowledge is such. Nothing is certain, no one knows, everyone is groping. Through groping we create systems, and there are thousands and thousands of systems. Hindus say something, Christians say something else, Mohammedans still something else -- all contradictory, all contradicting each other; no agreement, no certainty -- and all these sources are the sources for your mind. You collect: your mind becomes a junk-yard; confusion is bound to be there. Only a person who doesn't know much can be certain. The more you know, the more uncertain you will become.

People, primitive people, were more certain and apparently appeared to be more clear. There was no clarity -- simply unawareness of facts which could contradict them. If the modern mind is more confused, the reason is that the modern knows more. If you know more you will be more confused, because now you have more knowledge, and the more you know, the more uncertain you become. Only idiots can be certain, only idiots can be dogmatic, only idiots will never hesitate. The more you know, the more the earth is taken away from your feet, the more hesitant you become. What I mean to say is, the more the mind grows, the more you will know the nature of the mind is confusion.

When I say only idiots can be certain, I don't mean that a Buddha is an idiot -- because he is not uncertain. Remember the difference. He is not certain, he is not uncertain -- he is simply clear. With the mind, uncertainty; with the idiotic mind, certainty. With no mind both disappear -- certainty and uncertainty.

Buddha is a clarity, a space, open space. He is not certain -- there is nothing to be certain. He is not uncertain, because there is nothing to be uncertain. Only one who is seeking certainty can be uncertain. Mind is always uncertain and always seeking certainty; always confused and always seeking clarity. A Buddha is one who has dropped the mind; and with the mind all confusion, all certainty, all uncertainty, everything is dropped.

Look at it in this way: your consciousness is just like the sky and your mind is just like the clouds. The sky remains untouched by the clouds. They come and go; no scar is left behind. The sky remains virgin: no record, no footprints, nothing of the clouds, no memory. They come and they go; the sky remains undisturbed. This is the case within you also: the consciousness remains undisturbed. Thoughts come and go, minds evolve and disappear. And don't think that you have one mind; you have many minds, it is a crowd. Your minds go on changing.

You are a communist, so you have a certain type of mind. You can leave it and you can become anti-communist. Then you have a different mind; not only different, quite the opposite. You can go on changing your minds just like your dress. And you go on changing. You may not be aware of it -- these clouds come and go. Clarity can be achieved if you become aware of the sky; if your focus changes. You are focused on the clouds if you are unfocused on the sky. Unfocus on the clouds and focus on the sky.

This technique says:

IN SUMMER WHEN YOU SEE

THE ENTIRE SKY

ENDLESSLY CLEAR,

ENTER SUCH CLARITY.

Meditate on the sky; a summer sky with no clouds, endlessly empty and clear, nothing moving in it, in its total virginity. Contemplate on it, meditate on it, and enter this clarity. Become this clarity, this space-like clarity.

If you meditate on open unclouded sky, suddenly you will feel that the mind is disappearing, the mind is dropping away. There will be gaps. Suddenly you will become aware that it is as if the clear sky has entered in you also. There will be intervals. For a time being, thoughts will cease -- as if the traffic has ceased and there is no one moving.

In the beginning it will be only for moments, but even those moments are transforming. By and by the mind will slow down, bigger gaps will appear. For minutes together there will be no thought, no cloud. And when there IS no thought, no cloud, the outer sky and the inner become one, because only the thought is the barrier, only the thought creates the wall; only because of the thought the outer is outer and the inner is inner. When the thought is not there, the outer and the inner lose their boundaries, they become one. Really, boundaries never existed there. They appeared only because of the thought, the barrier.

To meditate on the sky is beautiful. Just lie down so you forget the earth; just lie down on your back on any lonely beach, on any ground, and just look at the sky. But a clear sky will be helpful -- unclouded, endless. And just looking, staring at the sky, feel the clarity of it -- the uncloudedness, the boundless expanse -- and then enter that clarity, become one with it. Feel as if you have become the sky, the space.

In the beginning, if you only meditate on the open sky, not doing anything else, intervals will start appearing, because whatsoever you see enters you. Whatsoever you see stirs you within; whatsoever you see is pictured, reflected.

You see a building. You cannot simply see it; something immediately starts happening within you. You see a man, a woman; you see a car -- you see anything. It is not just outside, something has started within, the reflection, and you have started reacting to it. So everything you see moulds you, makes you, modifies you, creates you. The without is constantly related with the within.

To look into the open sky is good. Just the expanse is beautiful, with no boundaries there. Your own boundaries will disappear, because the no-boundary sky will reflect within you. And if you can stare without blinking your eyes it will be good. If you stare without blinking your eyes... because if you blink your eyes your thought-process will continue. Stare without blinking the eyes. Stare in the emptiness, move into that emptiness, feel that you have become one with it, and any moment the sky will enter within you.

First you enter into the sky and then the sky enters you. And there is a meeting: the inner sky meeting the outer sky. In that meeting is realization. In that meeting there is no mind, because the meeting can happen only when the mind is not there. In that meeting you are for the first time not your mind. There is no confusion. Confusion cannot exist without the mind. There is no misery, because misery also cannot exist without the mind.

Have you observed this fact anytime or not -- that misery cannot exist without your mind? You cannot be miserable without your mind. The very source is not there. Who will supply you with this misery? Who will make you miserable? And the same is true from the opposite direction also: you cannot be miserable without your mind and you cannot be blissful with your mind. The mind can never be the source of bliss.

So if the inner and outer sky meet and mind disappears, even for a moment, you will be filled with a new life. The quality of that life is absolutely different. It is life eternal, uncontaminated by death, uncontaminated by any fear. In that meeting you will be here and now, in the present -- because past belongs to thoughts, future belongs to thoughts. Past and future are part of your mind. Present is existence -- it is not part of your mind.

This moment doesn't belong to your mind. The moment that has gone belongs; the moment that has to come belongs to your mind. This moment never belongs to you. Rather, you belong to this moment. You exist here, right now here. Your mind exists somewhere else, always somewhere else.

Unload yourself.

I was reading one Sufi mystic. He was travelling on a lonely path, the way was deserted, and he saw a farmer with his bullock-cart. The cart was stuck in mud. The road was rough. The farmer was carrying a big load of apples in his bullock-cart, but somewhere on the rough road the tailboard of the wagon became unfastened and the apples were scattered. But he was not aware of it; the farmer was not aware of it.

When the cart got stuck in the mud, first he tried to bring it out somehow, but all efforts were in vain, so he thought, `Now I must unload my cart, then maybe I can pull it out.' He looked back. Hardly a dozen apples were left -- the load was already unloaded. You can feel his misery. The Sufi reports in his memoirs that that exasperated farmer made a remark. He said, `Stuck, by heck! Stuck! -- and not a damn thing to unload!' The only possibility was that if he could unload the cart it could come out; but now -- nothing to unload!

Fortunately you are not stuck in such a way. You can unload -- your cart is too much loaded. You can unload the mind, and the moment the mind is not there, you fly; you become capable of flying.

This technique -- to look into the clarity of the sky and to become one with it -- is one of the most practised. Many traditions have used this. And particularly for the modern mind it will be very useful, because on earth nothing is left. On earth nothing is left to meditate on -- only the sky. If you look all around, everything is man-made, everything is limited, with a boundary, a limitation. Only the sky is still, fortunately, open to meditate on.

Try this technique, it will be helpful, but remember three things. One: don't blink -- stare. Even if your eyes start to feel pain and tears come down, don't be worried. Even those tears will be a part of unloading; they will be helpful. Those tears will make your eyes more innocent and fresh -- bathed. You just go on staring.

The second point: don't think about the sky, remember. You can start thinking about the sky. You can remember many poems, beautiful poems about the sky -- then you will miss the point. You are not to think `about' it -- you are to enter it, you are to be one with it -- because if you start thinking about it, again a barrier is created. You are missing the sky again, and you are again enclosed in your own mind. Don't think about the sky. Be the sky. Just stare and move into the sky, and allow the sky to move in you. If you move into the sky, the sky will move into you immediately.

How can you do it? How will you do it -- this moving into the sky? Just go on staring further away and further away. Go on staring -- as if you are trying to find the boundary. Move deep. Move as much as you can. That very movement will break the barrier. And this method should be practised for at least forty minutes; less than that will not do, will not be of much help.

When you really feel that you have become one, then you can close the eyes. When the sky has entered in you, you can close the eyes. You will be able to see it within also. Then there is no need. So only after forty minutes, when you feel that the oneness has happened and there is a communion and you have become part of it and the mind is no more, close the eyes and remain in the sky within.

The clarity will help the third point: ENTER SUCH CLARITY. The clarity will help -- the uncontaminated, unclouded sky. Just be aware of the clarity that is all around you. Don't think about it; just be aware of the clarity, the purity, the innocence. These words are not to be repeated. You have to feel them rather than think. And once you stare into the sky the feeling will come, because it is not on your part to imagine these things -- they are there. If you stare they will start happening to you.

The sky is pure, the purest thing in existence. Nothing makes it impure. Worlds come and go, earths are there and then disappear, and the sky remains pure. The purity is there. You need not project it; you are simply to feel it -- to be vulnerable to it so you can feel it -- and the clarity is there. Allow the sky to happen to you. You cannot force it; you can only allow it to happen.

All meditations are really allowing something to happen. Never think in terms of aggression, never think in terms of forcing something. You cannot force anything. Really, because you have been trying to force, you have created all misery. Nothing can be forced, but you can allow things to happen. Be feminine. Allow things to happen. Be passive. The sky is absolutely passive: not doing anything at all, just remaining there. Just be passive and remain under the sky -- vulnerable, open, feminine, with no aggression on your part -- and then the sky will penetrate you.

IN SUMMER WHEN YOU SEE

THE ENTIRE SKY

ENDLESSLY CLEAR,

ENTER SUCH CLARITY.

But if it is not summer what will you do? If the sky is clouded, not clear, then close your eyes and just enter the inner sky. Just close your eyes, and if you see some thoughts, just see them as if they are floating clouds in the sky. Be aware of the background, the sky, and be indifferent to thoughts.

We are too much concerned with thoughts and never aware of the gaps. One thought passes, and before another enters there is a gap -- in that gap the sky is there. Then, whenever there is no thought, what is there? The emptiness is there. So if the sky is clouded -- it is not summer-time and the sky is not clear -- close your eyes, focus your mind on the background, the inner sky in which thoughts come and go. Don't pay much attention to thoughts; pay attention to the space in which they move.

For example, we are sitting in this room. I can look at this room in two ways. Either I can look at you, so that I am indifferent to the space you are in, the roominess, the room you are in -- I look at you, I focus my mind on you who are here, and not on the room in which you are -- or, I can change my focus: I can look into the room, and I become indifferent to you. You are there, but my emphasis, my focus, is on the room. Then the total perspective changes.

Just do this in the inner world. Look at the space. Thoughts are moving in it: be indifferent to them, don't pay any attention to them. They are there; note it down that they are there, moving. The traffic is moving in the street. Look at the street and be indifferent to the traffic. Don't look to see who is passing; just know that something is passing and be aware of the space in which it is passing. Then the summer sky happens within.

There is no need to wait for the summer, because our minds are such that they can find any excuse. They will say, `Summer is not here, and even if it is summer, the sky is not clear.'

The second technique:

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LISTEN TO OSHO SPEAK ON THIS MEDITATION

SHAKTI, SEE ALL SPACE AS IF ALREADY ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN HEAD: IN THE BRILLIANCE.

SEE ALL SPACE AS IF ALREADY ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN HEAD IN THE BRILLIANCE. Close your eyes for this technique. When you do it, close your eyes and feel as if the whole space is absorbed in your own head. It will be difficult in the beginning. It is one of the advanced techniques, so it will be good to proceed towards it in steps. Do one thing. If you want to do this technique, start in steps.

First: while going to sleep, when just ready to sleep, lie down on your bed, close your eyes and feel where your feet are. If you are six feet tall, or five feet tall, just feel where your feet are, the demarcation. Then just imagine one thing: you have become six inches longer. Your height has lengthened, it has become six inches more. Just with closed eyes feel this. In imagination, feel that your height has become six inches more.

Then the second step: feel your head, where it is, just inside, and then feel that your head has also become six inches longer. When you can feel this, everything will be easy. Then you make it more. You feel that you have become twelve feet all; or, that you have filled the whole room. Now in your imagination you are touching the walls -- you have filled the whole room. Then, by steps, feel that the whole house has come within you. And once you know the feel, it is very easy. If you can grow six inches taller, everything is easy then. If you can feel that you are not five foot, but you are five foot six, then nothing is difficult; this technique will be easy.

For three days go on feeling that; then for three days more, feel that you have filled the whole room. It is just a training of imagination. Then for three days the whole house is within you; then for three days you have become the sky. Then this technique will be very easy.

SHAKTI,

SEE ALL SPACE AS IF

ALREADY ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN HEAD

IN THE BRILLIANCE.

Then you can close your eyes and feel that the whole sky, the whole space, is absorbed by your head. The moment you can feel this, the mind disappears, because the mind needs a very narrow space. With such vastness the mind cannot exist; it simply disappears. In such vastness mind is impossible. Mind can only be narrow, limited. In such infinite space there is no place for the mind to exist.

This technique is good. Suddenly the mind explodes and the space is there. Within a three month period you can feel this. Your whole life will be different. But grow towards it in steps, because sometimes through this technique people become crazy, they lose balance. It is so tremendous, the impact is so tremendous -- suddenly if you become aware that your head has absorbed the whole space, and then you see stars and moons moving within you, the whole universe, you may become dizzy. In many traditions this technique is used very cautiously.

One of the Indian mystics of this century, Ramteerth, used this technique, and many suspect, many of those who know suspect that because of this technique he committed suicide. For him it was not a suicide, because for him -- one who has known that the whole space has come within him -- suicide is impossible, it cannot happen. No one is there to commit suicide. But for others, for those who were watching from outside, it was a suicide.

He started feeling that the whole universe was moving within him, within his head. His disciples thought that he was talking poetry. Then they started feeling that he had gone mad, because he started claiming that he was the universe and everything was within him. And then one day he just jumped from a mountain cliff into a river. Before jumping he wrote a beautiful poem saying, `I have become the universe. Now I feel this body as a burden, unnecessary, so I give it back. Now no boundary is needed. I have become the unbounded Brahma.'

Someone with a psychiatric training will think that he has gone mad, it is just neurosis, but one who knows deeper dimensions of human consciousness will say he has become a mukta, an enlightened one. But to the ordinary mind it is a suicide.

With such techniques there is danger. That's why I say grow towards them gradually, because you don't know -- anything is possible. Sometimes you are not aware of your own potentiality, sometimes you don't know how ready you are, and something can happen. So do it in steps.

First try your imagination with small things: just that the body has become bigger or has become smaller. You can go both the ways. You are five feet six: feel you have become four feet, three feet, two feet, one foot; you have become just a seed. This is just a training; just a training so that you can feel whatsoever you want to feel. Your inner mind is absolutely free to feel; nothing can hinder it from feeling anything. It is your feeling. You can grow and you can be small. Suddenly you become aware that it is you.

And if you can work well through this, you can come out of your body very easily. If you can grow and become small through imagination, you are capable of coming out of your body. You simply imagine that you are standing outside of your body and you will stand -- but not immediately.

First work with small steps, and then when you feel that you are at ease and you don't become scared, then feel that you have filled the whole room -- actually you will feel the touch of the walls. And then feel that the whole house has come within you -- you will feel it within you. And then go on. Then, by and by, let the sky be felt in the head. And once you feel the sky in your head, absorbed there, the mind simply disappears. It has no business to do there.

For this technique it is good to be with someone: to be with a teacher, or to be with a friend. Don't do it alone. Someone must be there to take care of you, to watch you. This is a school method. Where many people are working in a school, it is very easy, less harmful, less dangerous -- because sometimes when the sky explodes within, for many days you may not become aware of your body. You may not come out, you may be so absorbed in the feeling, because time disappears; you cannot feel how much time has elapsed. The body disappears, you cannot feel the body. You become the sky. Someone must take care of your body; very loving care will be needed.

So with a master, or with a group, this technique is less harmful and less dangerous. And with a group that knows what is possible -- what can happen and what should be done... because if in such a state of mind you are suddenly awakened, you may go mad, because time will be needed for your mind to come back. If suddenly brought back to the body, your nervous system cannot bear it. It is not made for that. It has to be trained. So don't do it alone. You can do it in a group, with a few friends, in a lonely place. And do it in steps, not suddenly.

The third technique:

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LISTEN TO OSHO SPEAK ON THIS MEDITATION

WAKING, SLEEPING, DREAMING, KNOW YOU AS LIGHT.

WAKING, SLEEPING, DREAMING, KNOW YOU AS LIGHT. First start with waking. Yoga and Tantra divide the life of man's mind into three divisions -- the life of the mind, remember. They divide mind into three divisions: waking, sleeping, dreaming. These are not the divisions of your consciousness, these are the divisions of your mind, and the consciousness is the fourth.

They have not given any name to it in the east; they call it simply the fourth, turiya. These three have names. These are the clouds, they can be named -- a waking cloud, a sleeping cloud, a dreaming cloud. They are all clouds, and the space in which they move -- the sky -- in unnamed, left simply as the fourth.

Western psychology has only recently become aware of the dreaming dimension. Really, only with Freud, dreaming became important. But with Hindus, this is one of the most ancient concepts: that you cannot really know a man unless you know what he is doing in his dreams. Because whatsoever he is doing in his waking hours is more or less bound to be acting, false, because in the waking state of his mind he is forced to do many things.

He is not free. The society is there, rules are there, moralities are there. He is constantly struggling with his own desires: suppressing them, modifying them, moulding them in the mould the society allows. And the society never allows you to be your total being; it chooses. That is what a culture means -- culture means a choice.

Every culture is a conditioning: a choice of certain things and a denial of certain things. Your total being is not accepted anywhere; it is not -- nowhere. Certain aspects are accepted here, certain aspects are accepted there, in this country or that, but nowhere is the total human being accepted. So the waking consciousness is bound to be false, pseudo, artificial, forced. You are not real there -- just actors; not spontaneous -- manipulated. ONly in dreams are you free; only in dreams are you authentically yourself.

You can do whatsoever you like in your dreams. No one is concerned; you are alone. No one can penetrate, no one can look into your dreams. And no one is bothered: what you do in your dreams is your business, no one is concerned. They are absolutely private. Because they are absolutely private and related to no one, you can be free. So unless your dreams are known, your real face cannot be known. Hindus have been aware of it: dreams must be penetrated. But they are still clouds -- private of course, freer, but still clouds, and one has to go beyond them also.

These are the three states: waking and sleeping and dreaming. Dreaming became very primary with Freud. Now sleeping has been touched. Now many sleep labs are working in the west to know what sleep is, because it seems to be very strange that we don't know what sleep is. What really happens to you in sleep is not yet known scientifically.

And if we cannot know what sleep is, it will be difficult to know what man is, because for one third of his life he will be sleeping. One third of your life! If you are going to live for sixty years, for twenty years you will be sleeping. It is such a major part. What are you doing while you are asleep? Something mysterious is going on, and it is so essential that life is not possible without it. Something deep is happening, but you are not aware.

Waking, you are a different person; dreaming, you are again a different person. In deep sleep, you are again a different person. You can't remember even your name while deep asleep. You don't know whether you are a Mohammedan or a Christian or a Hindu. Out of your deep sleep you can't answer who you are; rich or poor -- no identity, no image.

In the waking layer you exist with the society. In the dreaming layer you exist with your own desires. In deep sleep you exist with nature, deep in the womb of nature. And yoga and Tantra say that only beyond these three you exist in Brahma, in the cosmic whole. So these three must be crossed, passed, transcended.

There is one difference. The western psychology is now interested in studying these states. Eastern seekers were interested in these states, but not in studying them. They were interested only in how to transcend them. This technique is a transcendental technique.

WAKING,

SLEEPING,

DREAMING,

KNOW YOU AS LIGHT.

Very difficult. You have to start with waking. How can you remember in dreams? Can you create a dream consciously? Can you manipulate a dream? Can you have your own dreams of your own wishes? You cannot. How impotent man is! You cannot even create a dream of your own. They too happen to you; you are helpless. But there are certain techniques through which dreams can be created, and those techniques are very helpful in transcending, because if you can create, then you can transcend. But one has to start with waking.

While waking -- moving, eating, working -- remember yourself as light. As if in your heart a flame is burning, and your body is nothing but the aura around the flame. Imagine it. In your heart a flame is burning, and your body is nothing but a light aura around the flame; your body is just a light around the flame. Allow it to go deep within your mind and your consciousness. Imbibe it.

It will take time, but if you go on thinking about it, feeling it, imagining it, within a certain period you will be able to remember it the whole day. While awake, moving on the street, you are a flame moving. No one else will be aware of it in the beginning, but if you continue it, after three months others will also become aware. And only when others become aware can you then be at ease. Don't say to anyone. Simply imagine a flame, and your body as just the aura around it. Not a physical body, but an electric body. Go on doing it.

If you persist, within three months, or somewhere near about then, others will become aware that something has happened to you. They will feel a subtle light around you. When you come near them, they will feel a different warmth. If you touch them, they will feel a fiery touch. They will become aware that something strange is happening to you. Don't say to anyone. When others become aware, then you can feel at ease, and then you can enter the second step, not before it.

The second step is to take it into dreaming. Now you can take it into dreaming. It has become a reality. Now it is not an imagination. Through imagination you have uncovered a reality. It is real. Everything consists of light. You are light -- unaware of the fact -- because every particle of matter is light.

The scientists say it consists of electrons. It is the same thing. Light is the source of all. You are also condensed light: through imagination you are simply uncovering a reality. Imbibe it -- and when you have become so filled with it, you can carry it into dreams, not before.

Then, while falling asleep, go on thinking of the flame, go on seeing it, feeling you are the light. Remembering it... remembering... remembering... you fall down asleep. And the remembrance continues. In the beginning you will start having some dreams in which you will feel you have a flame within, you are light. By and by, in the dreams also you will move with the same feeling. And once this feeling enters the dreams, dreams will start disappearing. Dreams will start disappearing: there will be less and less dreams and more and more deep sleep.

When in all your dreaming this reality is revealed -- that you are light, a flame, a burning flame -- all dreams will disappear. Only when dreams disappear can you carry this feeling into sleep, never before. Now you are at the door. When dreams have disappeared and you remember yourself as a flame, you are at the door of sleep. Now you can enter with the feeling. And once you enter sleep with the feeling that you are a flame, you will be aware in it -- the sleep will now happen only to your body, not to you.

This technique is to help you go beyond these three states. If you can be aware that you are a flame, a light, that sleep is not happening to you, you are conscious. You are carrying a conscious effort. Now you are crystallized around that flame. The body is asleep, you are not.

This is what Krishna says in Gita: that yogis never sleep. While others are asleep, they are awake. Not that their bodies never sleep. Their bodies sleep -- but only bodies. Bodies need rest, consciousness needs no rest; because bodies are mechanisms, consciousness is not a mechanism. Bodies need fuel, they need rest. That's why they are born, they are young, then they become old, and then they die. Consciousness is never born, never becomes old, never dies. It needs no fuel, it needs no rest. It is pure energy, perpetual eternal energy.

If you can carry this image of flame and light through the doors of sleep, you will never sleep again, only the body will rest. And while the body is sleeping, you will know it. Once this happens, you have become the fourth. Now the waking and the dreaming and the sleeping are parts of the mind. They are parts, and you have become the fourth -- one who goes through all of them and is none of them.

Really, this is so simple. If you are in the waking state, and then you move into dreams, you cannot be either. If you are the waking state, then how can you dream? And if you are the dreaming state, how can you fall into sleep where there is no dream? You must be a traveller, and these states must be stations, so you can move from here and there and come back again. Again in the morning you will move into the waking state.

These are states, and the one who moves within these states is you. But that you is the fourth -- and that fourth is what you call the soul. That fourth is what you call divine, that fourth is what you call the immortal element, the life eternal.

WAKING

SLEEPING,

DREAMING,

KNOW YOU AS LIGHT.

This is a very beautiful technique. But try it first in the waking. And remember, when others become aware, then only have you succeeded in it. They will become aware. Then you can enter into dream, and then into sleep, and then you can awaken to that which you are -- the fourth.