THE OTHER NIGHT YOU SAID THAT PHILOSOPHIES ARE ANTI-MEDITATION. BUT ON THE OTHER HAND YOU AGREE THAT THE EASTERN PHILOSOPHIES SUCH AS TANTRA, YOGA AND VEDANT, ARE THE WRITINGS OF ENLIGHTENED SAGES. WHY DO THE ENLIGHTENED SAGES LEAVE BEHIND THEM A STRONG STRUCTURE OF PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEMPLATION, IF PHILOSOPHIES ARE ANTI-MEDITATION?

Philosophy is not darshan. Darshan is the eastern term. Darshan means perception, philosophy means thinking. Herman Hesse has coined a new word to translate darshan into western languages. He calls it `philosia' -- `sia' from `to see'.

Philosophy means to think, and darshan means to see. Both are basically different; not only different, but diametrically opposite. Because when you are thinking you cannot see. You are so filled with thoughts that perception is blurred, perception is clouded. When thinking ceases, you become capable of seeing. Then your eyes are opened, they become unclouded. Perception happens only when thinking ceases.

For Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and the whole western tradition, thinking is the base. For Kanad, Kapil, Patanjali, Buddha, and the whole eastern tradition, seeing is the base. So Buddha is not a philosopher, not at all; neither is Patanjali, nor Kapil or Kanad. They are not philosophers. They have seen the truth; they have not thought about it.

Remember well that you only think when you cannot see. If you can see, there is no reason to think. Thinking is always in ignorance. Thinking is not knowledge, because when you know, there is no need to think. When you don't know, you will the gap by thinking. Thinking is groping in the dark. So eastern philosophies are not philosophies. To use the word philosophy for eastern darshan is absolutely wrong. Darshan means to see, to attain the eye, to realize, to know -- immediately, directly, without the mediation of thinking and thought.

Thinking can never lead to the unknown. How can it lead? It is impossible. The very process of thinking has to be understood. When you think, what do you really do? You go on repeating old thoughts, memories. If I ask you a question -- does God exist? -- you can think about it. What will you do? All that you have heard, all that you have read, all that you have accumulated about God, you will repeat. Even if you come to a new conclusion, the newness of it will only be apparent, not real. It will be simply a combination of old thoughts. You can combine many old thoughts and create a new structure, but that structure will be apparently new, not new at all.

Thinking can never come to any original truth. Thinking is never original; it cannot be. It is always of the past, of the old, of the known. Thinking cannot touch the unknown; it is repetitively moving in the circle of the known. You don't know truth, you don't know God. What can you do? You can think about it. You will move in circles, around and around. You can never come to any experience of it.

So the eastern emphasis is not on thinking, but on seeing. You cannot think about God, but you can see. You cannot come to any conclusion about God, but you can realize. It can become an experience. You cannot get to it through information, through knowledge, through scriptures, through theories and philosophies; no, you cannot get to it. You can get into it only if you throw all knowledge. All that you have heard and read and collected, all the dust that your mind has collected, the whole past, must be put aside. Then your eyes are fresh, then your consciousness is unclouded, and then you can see it.

It is here and now -- you are clouded. You have not to go somewhere else to find the divine or the truth -- it is here. It is right there where you are. And it has always been so -- only you are clouded, your eyes are closed. So the question is not to think more; the question is how to come to a non-thinking consciousness. That's why I say that meditation and philosophy are anti each other. Philosophy thinks, meditation comes to a no-thinking consciousness. And eastern philosophies are not really philosophies. In the West, philosophies exist; in the East, only religious realizations.

Of course, when a Buddha happens, or a Kanad or a Patanjali happens, when someone comes to realize the absolute, he makes statements about it. Those statements are different from the Aristotelan statements, from western philosophical conclusions. The difference is this: a Kanad, a Buddha, first comes to realize -- the realization is the first thing -- and then he makes statements about it. Experience is primary, and then he expresses it. Aristotle, Hegel and Kant, they think, and then through thinking and logical argument and dialectics, they reach particular conclusions. These conclusions are reached through thinking, through mind, not through any practice of meditation. Then they make assertions, then they make statements. The source is different.

For a Buddha, his statements are only as a vehicle to communicate. He never says that through his communication you will achieve the truth. If you can understand Buddha, that doesn't mean you have achieved the truth; that simply means you have gathered knowledge. You will have to pass through meditations, deep ecstasies, deep pools of the mind, only then will you come to the truth.

So truth is reached through a certain existential experience. It is existential, it is not mental. You must change to know it and to be it. If you remain the same and go on collecting information, you will become a great scholar, a philosopher, but you will not be enlightened. You will remain the same man; there will have been no mutation.

That's why I said that philosophy is one dimension Meditation is quite the contrary, the very opposite, the polar-opposite dimension. So don't think about life; rather, live it in depth. And don't think about ultimate problems; rather, enter this very moment in the ultimate. And the ultimate is not in the future. It is always there, timelessly there.

Someone else has also asked a similar question. He has asked:

Question 2

CAN PROBLEMS BE SOLVED THROUGH THINKING?

Yes, certain problems can be solved through thinking -- only those problems which are created by thinking can be solved by it. But no real problem can be solved by it, no lived problem can be solved by it. It is not created by it; it is there in life itself. Thinking will not be of much help. Only in one way can thinking help you, and that is that through thinking and thinking and thinking, you will stumble upon the truth that thinking is futile. And the moment you realize that thinking is futile for existential problems, it has helped you in a way. It is through thinking that you have come to this realization.

But problems which are created by thinking can be solved by thinking itself. For example, a mathematical problem: it can be solved by thinking, because the whole mathematics is created by thinking. For example, if there is no man on earth, will there be mathematics? There will be no mathematics. With the disappearance of human mind, mathematics will disappear. There is no mathematics in life and existence. In the garden, trees are there, but when you count ONE, TWO, THREE, three trees are not there, because the THREE is a mental thing. The trees are there, but the figures are not there. The figure three is in your mind. If you are not there, the trees will be there, but not three trees, only trees. The THREE is a quality given by the mind, it is a projected quality.

Mind creates mathematics, so any problem of mathematics will be solved by mind, it will be solved by thinking. Remember, you cannot solve a mathematical problem through non-thinking. No meditation will be of help, because meditation will dissolve the mind, and with the mind the whole mathematics will dissolve. So there are problems which are created by the mind; they can be solved. But there are problems which are not created by the mind, but are existential. Those problems cannot be solved by the mind. You will have to move deep in existence itself.

For example, love. It is an existential problem. You cannot solve it by thinking; rather, you will get more puzzled. The more you think, the less you will be in touch with the source of the problem. Meditation will be of help. It will give you insight, it will lead you to the unconscious roots of the problem. If you think about it, you will remain on the surface.

So remember, life problems cannot be solved by thinking. On the contrary, really, because of too much thinking you are missing all solutions, and more problems are created. For example, death. Death is not a problem created by thinking; you cannot solve it by thinking. Whatsoever you think, how can you solve it? You can console, and you can think that consolation is a solution -- it is not. You can deceive yourself; that's possible through thinking. You can create explanations, and through explanations you can think that you have solved it. You can escape the problem through thinking, but you cannot solve it. And see the distinction clearly.

For example, death is there. Your beloved dies, or your friend, or your daughter -- the death is there. Now what can you do? You can think about it. You can think and you can say that the soul is immortal -- because you have read it. In the Upanishads it is said that the soul is immortal, only the body dies. You don't know it at all, because if you really know, there is no problem -- or is there a problem? If you really know that the soul is immortal, then death has not occurred; there is no problem at all. But the problem is there: death has occurred, and you are disturbed and deep in sorrow. Now you want to escape this sorrow. Now somehow you want to forget this sorrow.

You can take the explanation that the soul is immortal -- now this is a trick. Not that the soul is not immortal -- I am not saying that -- but for you this is a trick. You are trying to deceive yourself. You are in sorrow, and now you want to escape this sorrow, so this explanation will be helpful. Now you can console yourself that the soul is immortal, no one dies, only the body -- just as if one changes the clothes, or one changes the abode -- so from one house to another the soul has gone. You can go on thinking, but you don't know anything about it. You have heard, you have collected information; but through these explanations you will be at ease. You can forget the death.

Really this is no solution to the problem. Nothing has been solved. The next day someone else will die and the same problem will be there. Again someone will die and the same problem will be there. And deep down you know that you will have to die. You cannot escape death -- and the fear is there. But you can go on postponing, and you can go on escaping through explanations. This won't do.

Death is an existential problem. You cannot solve it through thinking. You can create only fake solutions. What to do then? Then there is another dimension -- the dimension of meditation; not of thinking, not of mentation. You just encounter the situation.

Death has occurred. Your beloved is dead. Don't move in thinking. Don't bring the Upanishads and the Gita and the Bible. Don't ask the Christs and Buddhas. Leave them alone. Death is there: face, encounter. Be with this situation totally. Don't think about it. What can you think? You can only repeat old rubbish. The death is such a new phenomenon, it is so unknown, that your knowledge is not going to help in any way. So put aside your mind. Be in a deep meditation with death.

Don't do anything, because what can you do which can be of any help? You don't know. So be in ignorance. Don't bring false knowledge, borrowed knowledge. Death is there; you be with it. Face death with total presence. Don't move in thinking, because then you are escaping from the situation, you are becoming absent from here. Don't think. Be present with the death.

Sadness will be there, sorrow will be there, a heavy burden will be on you -- let it be there. It is part -- part of life, and part of maturity, and part of the ultimate realization. Remain with it, totally present. This will be meditation, and you will come to a deep understanding of death. Then death itself becomes eternal life.

But don't bring the mind and knowledge. Remain with death; then death will reveal itself to you, then you will know what death is. You will move into the inner mansions of it. Then death will take you to the very center of life -- because death is the very center of life. It is not against life; it is the very process of life. But mind brings the contradiction that life and death are opposites. Then you go on thinking, and because the root is false, the opposition is false, you can never come to any conclusion which can be true and real.

Whenever there is a lived problem, be with the problem without your mind -- that's what I mean by meditation -- and just being there with the problem will solve it. And if you have really been there, death will not occur to you again, because then you know what death is.

We never do this -- never with love, never with death, never with anything that is authentically real. We always move in thoughts, and thoughts are the falsifiers. They are borrowed, not your own. They cannot liberate you. Only the truth which is your own can become your liberation. And you can only come to your own truth through a very silent presence. With any problem, that fails. Thinking will not solve the real problems, but thinking can solve unreal problems created by thinking itself -- because those problems follow the rules of logic. Life doesn't follow the rules of logic. Life has its own hidden laws, and you cannot force logic on them.

One point more about this: wherever you bring the mind, the mind dissects, analyzes. Reality is one, and mind always divides. And when you have dived a reality, you have falsified it. Now you can struggle for your whole life -- nothing will be achieved, because basically the reality was one and the mind divided into two, and now you are working with the division.

For example, as I was saying, life and death are one, but for the mind they are two and death is the enemy of life. It is not, because life cannot exist without death. If life cannot exist without death, how can death be the enemy? It is the basic situation. It makes life possible. Life grows in it; it is the soul. Without it life is impossible. But mind, thinking, divides it and puts it as a polar opposite. Then you can go on thinking about. Whatsoever you think will be false, because in the beginning you have committed a sin -- the sin of division.

When you meditate, divisions disappear. When you meditate, there cannot be divisions, because how can you divide in silence?

We are here. Everyone is thinking in his own mind something or other; then we are different, everyone is different, because your thought is yours, and my thought is mine. In my mind I have my own dreams and you have your own. There are many individuals here, but if we all are meditating -- neither you are thinking nor I am thinking, the thinking has ceased -- then there will not be so many individuals. Really, there will not be individuals at all. If we are all meditating then limitations have disappeared.

When I am meditating and you are meditating, there are not two persons, there cannot be, because two silences become one. They cannot be two, because how can you demark one silence from another silence? You cannot demark. You can demark one thought from another, one mind from another, but two silences are simply one -- just like two zeros. Two zeros are not two; two zeros are one. You can put a thousand zeros, but they are one.

Meditation is creating a zero within -- all limitations, all divisions disappear. And that gives you the real eye, the third eye, darshan. Now you have the real eyes to see. For these real eyes reality is clear, open, revealed. And with the reality revealed, there are no problems.

Question 3

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GAZING AT AN OPEN CLEAR SKY, GAZING AT AN ENLIGHTENED MASTER'S PHOTO, AND GAZING AT THE DARKNESS?

The technique of gazing is not concerned really with the object; it is concerned with gazing itself. Because when you stare without blinking your eyes, you become focused, and the nature of the mind is to be constantly moving. If you are really gazing, not moving at all, the mind is bound to be in a difficulty.

The nature of the mind is to move from one object to another, to move constantly. If you are gazing at darkness or at light or at something else, if you are really gazing, the movement of the mind stops. Because if the mind goes on moving, your gaze will not be there; you will go on missing the object. When the mind has moved somewhere else, you will forget, you will not be able to remember what you were looking at. The object will be there physically, but for you it will have disappeared because your are not there; you have moved in thought.

Gazing means, TRATAK means, not allowing your consciousness to move. And when you are not allowing the mind to move, in the beginning it struggles, struggles hard, but if you go on practising gazing, by and by the mind loses struggling. For moments it stops. And when mind stops there is no mind, because mind can exist only in movement, thinking can exist only in movement. When there is no movement, thinking disappears, you cannot think, because thinking means movement -- moving from one thought to another. It is a process.

If you gaze continuously at one thing, fully aware and alert... because you can gaze through dead eyes. Then you can go on thinking -- only eyes, dead eyes, not looking at... just with dead men's eyes you can look, but your mind will be moving. That will not be of any help. Gazing means not only your eyes, but your total mind focused through the eyes.

So whatsoever the object.... It depends: if you like light, it is okay. If you can like darkness, good. Whatsoever the object, deeply it is irrelevant. The question is to stop the mind completely in your gaze, to focus it, so the inner movement, the fidgeting, stops; the inner wavering stops. You are simply looking at, not doing anything. That deep looking will change you completely. It will become a meditation.

And it is good; you can try it. But remember that your eyes and your consciousness should meet in the focusing. You must be really looking through the eyes; you must not be absent there. Your presence is needed -- totally present. Then you cannot think, then thinking is impossible. There is only one danger: you may become unconscious, you may fall asleep. Even with open eyes it is possible that you may fall asleep. Then your gaze will become stony.

In the beginning the first trouble will be that you will be looking at, but you will not be present. This is the first barrier. Your mind will move. Your eyes will be fixed, your mind will be moving -- there will be no meeting of the eyes and the mind. This will be the first difficulty. If you win over it, the second difficulty will be that gazing with no movement, you will fall asleep. You will move into auto-hypnosis, you will be hypnotized by yourself. That's natural, because our mind knows only two states: either the constant movement or sleep. The mind knows only two states naturally: constant movement, thinking, or falling into sleep. And meditation is a third state.

The third state of meditation means your mind is as silent as a deep sleep, and as alert and aware as in thinking -- both these must be present. You must be alert, completely alert, and as silent as if deep in sleep. So Patanjali's Yoga Sutras say that meditation is a sort of deep sleep, with only one difference -- that you are alert. Patanjali equates sushupti and samadhi: deep sleep and ultimate meditation. The difference is only that in deep sleep you are not aware, and in meditation you are aware, but the quality of both is deep silence -- unrippled, unwavering silence, unmoving silence.

In the beginning it may happen that through staring you may fall asleep. So if you have become capable of bringing your mind to your focus and the mind is not moving, then remain alert, don't fall asleep. Because if sleep comes, you have fallen in the abyss, the ditch. Just between these two ditches -- constant thinking and sleep -- is the narrow bridge of being in meditation.

Question 4

YOU HAVE SAID THAT SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS WITH THE OBJECTIVE, AND RELIGION WITH THE SUBJECTIVE. BUT NOW THERE IS A NEW GROWING SCIENCE, PSYCHOLOGY, OR MORE ACCURATELY, DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY, WHICH IS BOTH SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE. SO SCIENCE AND RELIGION MEET IN DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY.

They cannot meet. Depth psychology, or the study of psychic phenomena, is again objective. And the method of depth psychology is the method of objective science.

Try to see the distinction. For example, you can study meditation in a scientific way. You can observe someone who is meditating, but then this has become objective for you. You meditate and I observe. I can bring all the scientific instruments to observe what is happening to you, what is happening there in you, but the study remains objective. I am outside. I am not meditating. You are meditating; you are an object to me.

Then I can try to understand what is happening to you. Even through instruments much can be known about you, but that will remain objective and scientific. So really, whatsoever I am studying is not the real thing that is happening to you, but the effects that your body is recording.

You cannot penetrate a Buddha, what is happening to him, because really nothing is happening there. The deepest center of an enlightened man is nothingness. Nothing is happening there. And if nothing is happening, how can you study it? You can study something. You can study the Alpha waves; what is happening to the mind, to the body, to the chemistry, you can understand. But really deep down, when someone becomes enlightened, there is not anything happening. All happening has ceased.

This is what is meant -- the world has ceased. Now there is no sansar, no happening. He is as if he is not. That's why Buddha says, `Now I have become a no-atman, no-self. There is no one inside me. I am just an emptiness. The flame has disappeared, and the house is vacant.' Nothing is happening. What can you record about it? At the most you can record that nothing is happening. If something happens it can be recorded objectively.

The method of science remains objective, and science is very much afraid of the subjective, for many reasons. Science and the scientific mind cannot believe in the subjective, because firstly, it is private and individual and no one can enter in it. It cannot become public and collective, and unless something is public and collective, nothing can be said about it. The person who is saying may be deceived, or may be deceiving others. He may be a liar. Or, he may be just in an illusion, not a liar. He may be thinking and believing that this has happened to him, and this may be just a delusion, a self-deception.

So for science the truth must be objective. Others must be able to participate in it, so we can judge whether it is happening or not. Secondly, it must be that it can be repeated; it must be repeatable. If we heat water it evaporates at a certain degree -- it must be repeatable. So we repeat and repeat and again and again it evaporates at a certain degree. If it evaporates only once at a hundred degrees and never gain, or sometimes at ninety and sometimes at eighty, it cannot become a scientific fact. It must be repeatable, and the same conclusion should be achieved through many repeated experiments.

But the subjective realization is not repeatable -- it is not even predictable. And you cannot invite it; it happens. You cannot force it. You may achieve a deep meditation, you may have a very elated peak experience, but if someone says, `Repeat it here,' you may not be able to repeat it. On the contrary, because someone says, and you make an effort to repeat it, this very effort may become the barrier. Even the presence of observers may be distracting. You may not be able to repeat it.

Science needs objective, repeatable experiments. And psychology, if it wants to be a science, must follow scientific rules. Religion is subjective. It is not concerned with proving any fact; rather, it is concerned with coming to an individual experiencing of it. And the deepest must remain individual, and the ultimate must remain private; it cannot become collective. Because unless everyone has come to the status of an enlightened one, it cannot become collective. You have to grow to achieve it.

So science and religion really cannot meet, because their approaches are different. Religion is absolutely private -- the concern of the individual with himself. Because of this, those countries which in the past have been more religious than others have remained individualistic. For example, India. India is individualistic. Sometimes it appears even selfish. Everyone is concerned with himself, his own growth, his own enlightenment; not concerned with others, indifferent to others, indifferent to society, social conditions, poverty, slavery. Everyone is concerned with himself, with growing to the ultimate peak. It also looks selfish.

Western countries are more socialistic, less individualistic. That's why the very concept of communism was impossible with the Indian mind. We have given a Buddha and a Patanjali, but we couldn't give a Marx. It had to come from the West where the society, the collective whole, is more important than the individual; where science is more important than religion; where that which happens objectively is more important than that which happens in your absolute privacy. That which happens in the privacy is dream-like for the West.

Look at this: that which happens publicly we have called maya, illusion. Shankara says the whole world is illusion; only that which happens deep down within you, the ultimate, the Brahma that happens there is real, and everything is unreal. Quite the opposite is the western scientific attitude: that which happens within you is illusory; that which happens outside is the real. The reality is there outside, and the dream-world is there inside.

These are the two attitudes -- so different, the approach so diametrically opposite, that there can be no meeting. There is no need also. Their dimensions are different, their spheres are different. They never trespass on each other; there is no conflict at all. And there need be no conflict. Science works with the objective world, and religion works with the individual, subjective world. They never cross each other. There cannot be any conflict.

And to me, when you are working with the outside world, work with a scientific attitude. When you are working with yourself, work with a religious attitude. And don't create any conflict; there is no need. Don't bring science for the inner world, and don't bring religion for the outer world.

If you bring religion to the outer world, you will create chaos. In India we have created it -- it is a mess. If you bring a scientific attitude for the inner, you will create madness -- the West has created it. Now the West is completely neurotic. And both have made the same mistake. Don't confuse the two, and don't try to bring the outer to the inner, or the inner to the outer. Let the subjective be subjective and let the objective be the objective. While you move outwards be scientific and objective, and while you move inwards be religious and subjective.

There is no need to create any conflict. There is none. The conflict arises only because we want to impose one attitude on both realms. We want either to be scientific totally, or to be religious totally -- that's wrong. With the objective, the subjective approach will be false, dangerous, harmful, and vice versa.

Question 5

YOU HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT SO MANY METHODS AND TECHNIQUES. THE YEARNING TO SUCCEED IN THEM IS VERY GREAT. HOW CAN WE OVERCOME OUR GREAT IMPATIENCE?

Two things to be remembered. One: spirituality cannot be an outcome of desire, because desire is the root cause of all our anxiety and anguish. And you cannot direct your desires to the spiritual realm. But it happens, it is natural, because we know only one movement -- that is desire. We desire the things of the world. Someone desires riches, someone desires fame, someone desires prestige and power, or something else. We desire things of the world, and through this desiring we are frustrated.

And we are bound to be frustrated -- it is irrelevant whether a desire is fulfilled or not. If it is not fulfilled, obviously we will be frustrated. If it is fulfilled, then too we will be frustrated, because whenever a desire is fulfilled, the desire is fulfilled, but the hope, the promise, is not fulfilled. You can get as much wealth as you desire, but the wealth was not desired really; something else was desired through it -- that is never fulfilled.

You can achieve wealth, but the hope that was lingering around -- the dream of happiness, of bliss, of some ecstatic life -- that is not fulfilled. If wealth is not achieved you will feel frustrated. If wealth is achieved then too you will feel frustrated, because the promise is not fulfilled, the dream is not fulfilled. Everything is there. The means are there, and the end has escaped. The end is always elusive.

Through desire one comes to deep frustration. When this frustration happens you start looking for something absolutely other than this world -- religious yearning is born, a religious longing, but again you start desiring. You become impatient; you want to achieve this and that. The mind has not changed. The object of desire is different: it was wealth, now it is meditation. It was power and prestige, now it is silence and peace. Before it was something, now it is something else. But the mind, the mechanism, the very working of your being, is the same. You were desiring A, now you are desiring B -- but the desiring is there.

And desiring is the problem, not what you desire; that is not the problem. What you desire is not the problem -- that you desire is the problem. Now you are again desiring and you will be frustrated again. If you achieve, you will be frustrated. If you don't achieve, you will be frustrated. The same will happen to you, because you have not been able to see the point, you have missed the point.

You cannot desire meditation, because meditation happens only when there is no desire. You cannot desire liberation, nirvana, because it happens only in a desireless state. It cannot be made an object of desire. So to me, and to all those who know, desiring is the world; not that you desire worldly things. Desiring, the very phenomenon of desiring, is the world.

And when you desire, impatience is bound to be there, because the mind doesn't want to wait, the mind doesn't want to postpone. It is impatient. Impatience is the shadow of desire. The more intense the desire, the more impatience will be there. And impatience will create disturbance. So how will you achieve meditation? Desire will create movement of the mind, and then desiring will create impatience, and impatience will bring you to more disturbances.

So it happens, and I observe it daily, that a person who was living a very worldly life was not ordinarily so disturbed. When he starts to meditate, or to seek the religious dimension, he becomes more disturbed, more than ever. The reason is that now he has an even keener desire, more impatience. And with the worldly things, things were so real and objective that he could wait for them. They were always in his reach. Now in the spiritual realm things are so elusive, so far away, they never seem to be in reach. Life seems to be very short, and now the object of desires seems to be infinite -- there is more impatience and then more disturbance. And with a disturbed mind, how can you meditate?

So this is the puzzle. Try to understand it. If you are really frustrated and you have come to feel that all that is outside is futile -- money or sex or power or prestige just futile -- if you have come to this realization, then a deeper realization is also needed. If these things are futile, then desiring is even more futile: you desire and desire and nothing happens -- and your desiring creates the misery.

Look at the fact that desiring creates misery. If you don't desire, there is no misery. So drop desiring. And don't create a new desire; simply drop desiring. Don't create a spiritual desire. Don't say, `Now I am going to seek God. Now I am going to find this and that. Now I am going to realize the truth.' Don't create a new desire. If you create, it shows you have not understood your misery.

Look at the misery that desire creates. Feel that desire is misery and drop it. No effort is needed to drop it. Remember, if you make an effort you will create another desire. That's why you need some other desire, because then you can leave it. If some other desire is there, you can hang onto it. You can cling to the new desire and you can leave the old one. To leave the old is easy if some new is to be gained, but then you are missing the whole point. Simply leave desire because it is misery, and don't create a new desire.

Then there will be no impatience. Then meditation is not be practised really; it will start happening to you, because a non-desiring mind is in meditation. Then you can play with these techniques. And I say play. Then you can play with these techniques; there is no practice. Practice is not a good word the very word is wrong. Then you can play with these techniques, and you can enjoy playing, because there is no desire to achieve something and there is no impatience to reach somewhere.

You can play, and through play, when meditation is a play, everything is possible. And everything is possible immediately, because you are not disturbed, you are not impatient, you are not in any hurry, you are not going somewhere, not reaching somewhere. You are here and now. If meditation happens, okay. If it doesn't happen, it is still okay. Nothing is wrong with you because there is no desire, no expectation, no future.

And remember, when meditation or no-meditation are similar to you, meditation has happened to you. You have reached. Now the goal has come, the ultimate has descended in you. This will look strange -- that I say don't make meditation a practice, rather make it a play, a fun. Enjoy it while doing it, not for any result.

But our minds are very serious, deadly serious. Even if we play, we make it a serious thing. We make it a work, a duty. Play just like small children. Play with meditation techniques, and then much more is possible through them. Don't be serious about them; take them as fun. But we make everything serious. Even if we are playing, we make it serious. And with religion we have always been very serious. Religion has never been fun, that's why the earth has remained irreligious. Religion must become a fun and a festivity,, a celebration -- a celebration of the moment, enjoying whatsoever you are doing; enjoying so much and so deeply that mind ceases.

If you really understand me, these 112 techniques will show you that everything can become a technique -- if you really understand. That's why there are 112. Everything can become a technique if you understand the quality of the mind which brings meditation. Then whatsoever you do can become a technique. Be playful, celebrate it, enjoy it. Move so deeply in it that time ceases.

But time cannot cease if desire is there. Really, desire is time. When you desire, future is needed, because desire cannot be fulfilled here and now. Desire can be fulfilled only in the future somewhere, so you will need future to move. And then time destroys you. You miss eternity. Eternity is here.

So take meditation as a fun, a festivity, a celebration of anything. You are just digging outside in the garden -- it can become a technique. Simply dig and enjoy and celebrate the very act. Become the act and forget the actor. The `I' is not there, only the action remains, and you are present to the action, blissfully present. Then ecstasy is there -- no impatience, no desire, and no motivation.

If you bring motivation, desire and impatience to meditation, you will destroy the whole thing. And then the more you do, the more frustrated you will feel. You will say, `I am doing so much and nothing is happening.' People come to me. They say, `I am doing this and I am doing that, and for so many months and for so many years, and nothing has happened.'

One seeker from Holland was here, and he was doing a particular technique three hundred times every day. So he told me, `For two years I have been doing this technique three hundred times every day. Not a single day has been missed. I have left everything, because I have to do this three hundred times every day -- and nothing has happened.' And he was just on the verge of a nervous breakdown, because of the technique.

So I said, `The first thing is to leave this. Do anything whatsoever, but don't do this. You will go mad.' He was deadly serious about it. It was a life-and-death problem for him. It had to be achieved.

And he said, `Who knows how many days are left? Time is short, and I must achieve it in this life. I don't want to be born again. Life is much a misery.'

He will be born again and again. The way he is doing, he will go more and more mad. But it is wrong -- the whole attitude is wrong. Take meditation as a play, a fun, enjoy it, and then the very quality changes. Then it is not something you are doing as a cause to gain some effect. No, you are enjoying it here and now. It is the cause and it is the effect, both. It is the beginning and it is the end.

And then you cannot miss meditation. You cannot miss it, it will happen to you, because now you are ready to take it in. You are open. No one has said that meditation should be taken as a fun, but I say it. Make it a play. Just like small children, play with it.

Question 6

THE OTHER DAY YOU SAID THAT DARKNESS IS MORE FUNDAMENTAL TO EXISTENCE, WHILE MOST RELIGIONS HOLD THE CONTRARY VIEW. WILL YOU KINDLY SHED SOME MORE LIGHT ON THIS QUESTION, PARTICULARLY IN VIEW OF WHAT MODERN SCIENCE HAS TO SAY ABOUT IT? DOES IT NOT SAY THAT THE LAST DIVISIBLE COMPONENTS OF MATTER ARE JUST ELECTRIC ENERGY?

Again the same division -- light and darkness. They are two if you look at them through the mind. They are one if you meditate upon them. Whether you meditate on light or on darkness, it makes no difference. If you meditate, the other is dissolved into it. Then light is nothing but less darkness and darkness is nothing but less light; the difference is of degree. They are not two things opposed to each other; rather, two degrees of one phenomenon. And that one phenomenon is neither light nor darkness. That one of which these two are degrees is neither light nor darkness; or, it is both. You can enter into it from light, you can enter into it from darkness.

Many religions have used light because it is more comfortable, easier. Darkness is difficult, more uncomfortable, and if you try to enter through darkness, you have chosen a more arduous path. That's why many religions have chosen light. But you can choose either; it depends on you. If you are adventurous, courageous, choose darkness. If you are afraid, and don't want to go on an arduous path, choose light. Because both belong to one phenomenon which appears at one point as light, at another point as darkness.

For example, this room is filled with light. But it is not filled with the same light for everyone, or is it? If my eyes are weak then the light is not as light as it is for you. I see it as a little darker. Imagine if someone from Mars or from some other planet comes, who has very penetrating eyes. Then where you see light, he will see much light, more light then you see. And where you see darkness, he will see light. There are animals and birds who see in the night where you cannot see. For them it is light, for you it is darkness.

So what is light? And what is darkness? -- one phenomenon. And how much you can penetrate into it, and how much it can penetrate into you... it depends on that penetration whether you call it light or darkness. These polar opposites just appear to be opposites. They are not, they are relative degrees of one phenomenon. So scientists say that the last divisible components of matter are just electric energy. But they don't say they are light; they say electric energy. Darkness is also electric energy, and light is also electric energy. Electric energy is not synonymous with light. If you give it the name electric energy, then light is one expression and darkness is another.

But there is no need to move into scientific discussion about it. It is useless. Rather, think about your own mind, what you like. If you feel at ease with light, enter through light. That is your door. If you feel at ease with darkness, enter through darkness. And both will lead to the same.

Many methods in these 112 are concerned with light; a few are concerned with darkness. And Shiva is trying to explain all the methods possible. He is not talking to particular types; he is talking to all types. But there are a few persons who will like to enter through darkness. For example, a feminine mind, more passive, more receptive, will like to enter through darkness; it will be more acceptable. A male mind will like the light more.

You may not have observed the fact that many poets of the past and the present, many philosophers, and many others who have a deep insight into the human mind, have always compared the female with darkness, and the male with light. Light is aggressive, a male element; darkness is receptive, a female element. Darkness is like a womb.

So it depends: if you like darkness, good, enter through it. If you like light, enter through it. Sometimes even the opposite becomes appealing. You can try that also. There is no danger in trying anything, because every path leads to the same goal.

But don't go on thinking about what to choose. Don't waste time; rather, try. Because you can go on thinking forever about what will be suitable, what to do and what not to do, and why so many religions have insisted on light, and so few on darkness. Don't get worried about these things; they don't help. Rather, you think about your own type, about what will be suitable for you, in what you will feel more comfortable, and then start it.

And then forget all others, because all of these 112 methods are not for you. Even if you choose one method, for you it is enough. You need not go through 112 methods; one method will do. So just be receptive and aware so that you can catch the method that is for you. You need not get worried about every other method; that is unnecessary. Choose one, play with it, and if you feel good and something is happening, then move into it and forget all the other 111. If you feel you have chosen wrongly, then throw it, choose another, and play with it. If you try this with four or five or six methods, you will fall upon the right one. But don't be serious -- just play.