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Question 1A MEDITATOR WHO IS
VULNERABLE, PASSIVE, OPEN AND RECEPTIVE, FEELS THAT WITH THESE CHARACTERISTICS HE SUFFERS
DUE TO THE INFLUENCE OF THE NON-MEDITATIVE, NEGATIVE AND TENSE VIBRATIONS AROUND HIM.
PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW HE CAN PRESERVE HIS VULNERABLE PSYCHE FROM THE HARMFUL VIBRATIONS.
If you are really vulnerable,
nothing is negative for you -- because the negative is your interpretation. Nothing is
harmful to you -- because the harmful is your interpretation. If you are really open, then
nothing can harm you, nothing can be felt as harmful. You feel something is negative and
something is harmful because you resist, because you are against it, because there is no
acceptance of it. This has to be deeply understood.
The enemy exists there because you
are protecting yourself against him. The enemy is there because you are not open. If you
are open, then the whole existence is friendly; it cannot be otherwise. Really, you will
not even feel it as friendly -- it is simply friendly. There is no feeling even that it is
friendly, because that feeling can exist only with the contrary feeling of enmity.
Let me put it in this way: if you
are vulnerable, it means you are ready to live in insecurity. Deep down it means you are
ready even to die. You will not resist, you will not oppose, you will not stand in the
way. If death comes, there will be no resistance. You will simply allow it to happen. You
accept existence in its totality. Then how can you feel it as death?
If you deny, then you can feel it as
the enemy. If you don't deny, how can you feel it as the enemy? The enemy is created by
your denial. The death cannot harm you, because the harm is your interpretation. Now no
one can harm you; it has become impossible.
This is the secret of Taoist
teaching. Lao Tzu's basic teaching is this: if you accept, the whole existence is with
you. It cannot be otherwise. If you deny, you create the enemy. The more you deny, the
more you defend, the more you protect, the more enemies are created. The enemies are your
creation. They are not there outside; they exist in your interpretation.
Once you can understand this, then
this question can never arise. You cannot say, `I am meditative, I am vulnerable, open. So
now how am I to defend myself against negative vibrations around me?' Nothing can be
negative now. What does the negative mean? The negative means that which you want to deny,
that which you don't want to accept, that which you think is harmful. Then you are not
open, then you are not in a meditative state.
This question arises only
intellectually, this is not a felt question. You have not tasted meditation, you have not
known it. You are simply thinking, and that thinking is just a supposition. You suppose,
`If I meditate and become open, then I will be in insecurity. The negative vibrations will
enter in me and they will be harmful. Then how am I to defend myself? This is a supposed
question. Don't bring supposed questions to me. They are futile, irrelevant.
Meditate, become open, and then you
will never bring this question to me, because in the very opening, the negative will have
disappeared. Then nothing is negative. And if you think that something is negative, you
cannot become open. The very fear of the negative will create the closure. You will be
closed; you cannot open. The very fear that something can harm you... how can you become
vulnerable? That's why I emphasize the fact that unless the fear of death disappears from
you, you cannot become vulnerable, you cannot be open. You will remain closed in your own
mind, in your own imprisonment.
But you can go on supposing things,
and whatsoever you suppose will be wrong, because the mind cannot know anything about
meditation, it cannot penetrate that realm. When it ceases completely, meditation happens.
So you cannot suppose anything, you cannot think about it. Either you know it, or you
don't know it -- you cannot think about it.
Be open -- and in the very opening
of yourself, all that is negative in existence disappears. Even death is not negative
then. Nothing is negative. Your fear creates the negativity. Deep down you are afraid;
because of that fear you create safety measures. Against those safety measures the enemy
exists.
Look at this fact -- that you create
the enemy. Existence is not inimical to you. How can it be? You belong to it, you are just
a part of it, an organic part. How can existence be inimical to you? You are existence.
You are not separate; there is no gap between you and the existence.
Whenever you feel that the negative,
the death, the enemy, the hate, is there, and if you are open, unguarded, existence will
destroy you, you feel that you have to defend yourself. And not only defend -- because the
best way to defend is to be aggressive, to offend. You cannot be simply defensive. When
you feel that you have to defend yourself, you become offensive, because to offend, to be
aggressive, is the best way to defend yourself.
The fear creates the enemy, and then
the enemy creates defence, and then defence creates offence. You become violent. You are
constantly on guard. You are against everybody. This point has to be understood: that if
you are in fear, you are against everybody. Degrees may differ, but then your enemy and
your friend are both your enemy. The friend is a little less, that's all. Then your
husband or your wife is also your enemy. You have made an arrangement, that's all. You
have become adjusted. Or it may be that you both have a common and a greater enemy, and
against that common and greater enemy you both have become joined, you both have become
one party, but the enmity is there.
If you are closed, the whole
existence is inimical to you. Not that it is so. It appears to you that it is inimical.
When you are open, the whole existence has become your friend. Now, when you are closed,
even the friend is the enemy. It cannot be otherwise. Deep down you are afraid of your
friend also.
Somewhere, Henry Thoreau or someone
else has written that he prayed to God, `I will take care of my enemies, but you take care
of me from my friends. I will fight with my enemies, but protect me from my friends.'
Just on the surface is friendship;
deep down is enmity. Your friendship may be just a facade to hide the enemy. If you are
closed you can create only the enemy, because when you are open only then is the friend
revealed. When you are open totally to someone, the friendship has happened. It cannot
happen in any other way.
How can you love when you are
closed? You live in your prison, I live in my prison, and whenever we meet, only the
prison walls touch each other and we are hiding behind. We move in our capsules: the
capsules touch each other, the bodies touch each other, but deep down we remain isolated.
Even while making love, when your
bodies have entered into each other, you have not entered. Only bodies are meeting; you
remain still in your capsule, in your cell. You are just deceiving yourselves that there
is communion. Even in sex, which is the deepest relationship, communion is not. It cannot
happen because you are closed. Love has become an impossibility. And this is the reason --
you are afraid.
So don't ask such questions; don't
bring false questions. If you have known openness, you cannot feel that something can be
harmful to you. Now nothing is harmful. That's why I say even death is a blessing. Your
approach has become different. Now wherever you look, you look with an open heart -- that
open heartedness changes the quality of everything. And you cannot feel that something is
going to be harmful; you cannot ask how to defend -- there is no need. The need arises
because you are closed.
But you can go on supposing
questions. People come to me and they say, `Okay, if we have realized God, then what?'
They start with the question -- if? There are no `ifs'. In existence you cannot raise such
questions. They are absurd, stupid, because you don't know what you are saying. `If I have
realized God, then what?'
That `then what?' never arises,
because with the realization, you are no more, only the God is. And with the realization,
there is no future, only the present is. And with the realization, there is no worry,
because you have become one with existence. So the question `then what?' never arises.
This question arises because of the mind which is in constant worry, constant struggle,
constantly thinking for the future.
Question 2
WHEN I BECOME MORE AND MORE AWARE,
MY ATTENTION DEVELOPS AND THERE REMAINS A FEELING THAT I EXIST, I AM PRESENT, I AM AWARE.
PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW THIS FEELING CAN BE DISSOLVED INTO AN EGOLESS STATE OF JUST AWARENESS.
This is again a supposed question.
WHEN I BECOME MORE AND MORE AWARE, MY ATTENTION DEVELOPS AND THERE REMAINS A FEELING THAT
I EXIST, I AM PRESENT, I AM AWARE. This never happens, because as awareness grows, I
decreases. In full awareness, you are, but there is no sense that I AM. In words, at the
most, this can be said -- that you feel a subtle AMNESS, but there is no I.
You feel existence, and you feel it
in abundance, a fulfilled moment, but the I is not there. You cannot feel I EXIST; you
cannot feel I AM PRESENT; you cannot feel I AM AWARE. That I is part of unawareness,
inattention; part of your sleeping state. It cannot exist. It cannot exist when you are
really alert and aware and conscious.
This is how supposed questions can
arise. You can go on thinking about them, and nothing will be solved. If this happens --
that you feel I AM; I AM AWARE -- then you only have to note one thing, and that is that
you are not alert, you are not aware. Then these feelings -- I AM AWARE, I AM CONSCIOUS, I
EXIST -- these are thoughts, you are thinking them. They are not realized moments. You can
think I AM AWARE; you can go on repeating I AM AWARE -- that will not do. Awareness is not
this repetition. And when you are aware, there is no need to repeat I AM AWARE. You are
simply aware; the I is no more.
Try awareness. Right now be alert.
Where is the I? You are -- rather, you are more intensely -- but where is the I, the ego?
In the very intensity of consciousness, the ego is no more. Later on, when you lose
awareness and thinking starts, you can feel I AM, but in the moment of awareness there is
no I. Right now experience it. Silently you are here, you can feel your presence, but
where is the I? The I never arises. It arises only when retrospectively you think. When
you lose awareness the I arises immediately.
Even if for a single moment you can
experience simple awareness, you are, and the I is not there. When you lose awareness,
when the moment has slipped, gone, and you are thinking, the I comes back immediately. It
is part of the thought process. The very concept of I is a thought, it belongs to
thinking. I AM is a thought.
When you are alert and there is no
thought, how can you feel that I AM? The AMNESS is there -- but that too is not a thought,
it is not thinking. It is there existentially, it is a fact. But you can turn the fact
into thinking immediately, and you can think about this gap that existed where there was
no I. And the moment you think, the I has come back. With thinking, the ego enters --
thinking is the ego. With no-thinking, the ego is not.
So whenever you want to ask a
question, first make it existential. Before giving me the question, test whether
whatsoever you are asking is relevant or not. Such questions look relevant, just verbally,
but they are like this: I say that the light has been put on, and then I ask, `The light
has been put on and still the darkness remains, so what is to be done with darkness?' The
only thing is that the light is still off, it has not been put on, otherwise how can the
darkness remain? And if the darkness is there, then the light is not there. And if the
light is there, then the darkness is not there. They cannot be both together.
Awareness and the ego cannot be
together. If awareness has come on, if it is there, the ego has disappeared. This is
simultaneous; there is not even a single second's gap. The light is on and the darkness
has disappeared. It is not that it disappears by and by, in steps, gradually. You cannot
see it going outside; you cannot say that now the darkness is going out.
The light is there, and the darkness
is immediately not there. There is not a single moment's gap, because if there is a gap
then you can see darkness moving out. And if there is a single moment's gap, then there is
no reason why there can't be a gap of one hour. There is no gap. The act is simultaneous.
Really, the coming of the light and the going out of the darkness are two aspects of one
phenomenon.
The same happens with awareness:
when you are aware, the ego is not. But the ego can go on playing tricks, and the ego can
say, `I am aware.' The ego can say, `I am aware,' and can n you. Then the question will
arise. And the ego wants to accumulate everything, even awareness. The ego not only wants
wealth, power, and prestige; it wants meditation also, it wants samadhi also, it wants
enlightenment also.
The ego wants everything. That which
is possible must be possessed. The ego wants to possess everything -- even meditation,
samadhi, nirvana. So the ego can say, `Now I have achieved meditation,' and then the
question will arise. The meditation has been achieved, the awareness has come, but the ego
remains, the misery remains. The whole burden of the past remains. Nothing changes.
The ego is a very subtle braggart.
Be aware of it. It can deceive you. And it can use words, it can verbalize things. It can
verbalize anything, even nirvana.
I have heard that once it happened that
two butterflies were winging their way through the canyons of New York. Just passing near
the Empire State Building, the male butterfly said to the female, `You know, if I wanted
to, just with one blow I could cause this Empire State Building to collapse.'
One wise man happened to be there
who heard this remark, so he called that male butterfly and asked, `What were you saying?
You know very well that you cannot cause that Empire State Building to collapse with a
single blow. You know it well, there is no need to tell you, so why did you say such a
thing?'
The male butterfly said, `Excuse me,
sir. I am very sorry. I was just trying to influence my girl friend.'
The wise man said, `Don't do it,'
and dismissed the butterfly.
The male butterfly went back to his
girl friend. Of course, the girl friend asked, `What was the wise guy saying to you?'
So the male braggart said, `He
begged me and said, "Don't do it!" He was so afraid, trembling, nervous. He had
heard that I was going to cause this Empire State Building to collapse, so he said,
"Don't do it~"'
The same is happening continuously.
Those words were uttered by the wise man with a very different meaning. He meant, `Don't
say such things,' but the ego exploited him. Your ego can exploit anything, it is deeply
cunning. And it is so experienced in cunning -- experiences of millennia -- that you
cannot even detect where the cunning enters.
People come to me and they say, `The
meditation has happened. Now what to do about my worries?' This is how the ego goes on
playing tricks -- and they are not even aware of what they are saying. `The meditation has
happened, the kundalini has arisen -- so what to do? The worries still continue.'
Your mind wants to believe things,
so without doing anything you go on believing, deceiving -- wish-fulfillments. But the
reality doesn't change by your wish-fulfillments: the worries continue. You can deceive
yourself, you cannot deceive the worries. They will not just disappear because you say,
`The meditation has happened and the kundalini has arisen, and now I have entered the
fifth body.' Those worries will not even hear what you are saying. But if meditation
really happens, where are the worries? How can they exist in a meditative mind?
So remember this: that when you are
aware, you are, but you are not the ego. Then you are unlimited, then you are infinite
expanse, but with no center. There is no focused feeling of I; just unfocused existence,
beginning nowhere, ending nowhere -- just infinite sky. And when this I disappears,
automatically the YOU disappears, because the YOU can exist only in reference to the I. I
am here; that's why you are there. If this I disappears from me, you are no more there.
You cannot be. How can you exist?
I don't mean that you will not be
there bodily, that you will not be there physically. You will be there as you are, but for
me, you cannot be you. The you is meaningful in reference to my I; my I creates YOU. One
part disappears; the other disappears for me. Then simple existence is there; all the
barriers have dissolved. With the ego disappearing, the whole existence becomes one. The
ego is the divider -- and the ego exists because you are inattentive. The fire of
awareness will destroy it.
Try it more and more. Suddenly
become alert. Walking on the street, immediately stop, take a deep breath, become alert
for a moment. And when I say alert, I mean simply alert of whatsoever is happening -- the
traffic noise, people passing and talking, everything that is all around. Simply become
alert. You are not there in that moment: existence is and the beauty of it.
Then the traffic noise doesn't
appear to be noise, it doesn't look like a disturbance, because there is no one to resist
it and fight it. It simply comes to you and passes; it is heard and heard no more. It
comes and passes. There is no barrier against which it can strike. It cannot make a wound
in you, because all wounds are made in the ego. It will pass. There will be no barrier to
it on which it can strike; there will be no fight, no disturbance.
Remember this: the noise on the
street is not the disturbance. When the noise of the street struggles against you, when
you have a fixed notion that it is a disturbance, it becomes disturbance. When you accept
it, it comes and passes. And you are simply bathed by it; you come out of it more fresh.
And nothing tires you then. The only tiring thing, that which goes on dissipating your
energy, is this resistance which we call the ego.
But we never look at it in this way.
The ego has become our life, the very gist of it. Really, there is no ego. If I say to
someone.... Many times it happens. If I say to someone to dissolve this ego, immediately
he stares at me as if with the question, the nude question, that `If ego is dissolved,
then where is life? Then I am no more'.
I have heard that one very great
politician, a big leader of a country, was asked, `You must be getting tired. The whole
day, wherever you move, there is a crowd of autograph seekers.'
That politician, that leader said,
`It almost kills me -- but this is only half of the truth.' He must have been a very rare,
honest man. He said, `It almost kills me -- but almost. If there was no one seeking my
autograph, it would kill me completely. This continuous crowd almost kills me, but the
other thing would be more dangerous. It would kill me completely if there was no one to
ask for my autograph.'
So howsoever tiring the ego,
howsoever wearing, you still feel it is life, and if the ego is not there, you feel life
will disappear from your mind. You cannot conceive how life can exist without you, without
there always being a reference point of I. It is logical in a way, because we have never
lived without it. We have lived through it, we have lived around it; we know only one type
of life, which is based on ego. We don't know any other life.
And because we have lived through
it, we have not been really able to live. We are simply struggling to live, and the life
never happens to us, it just by-passes us. It is always just in the reach, in the hope --
just tomorrow, the next moment, and we will be living. But it never comes, it is never
achieved. It always remains a hope and a dream -- but we go on moving. And because it is
not coming, we move fast. That too is logical: if life is not happening to us, the mind
can think only one thing -- that we are not moving fast enough. So make hurry, be in a
speed.
Once it happened that one of the great scientists, T.H. Huxley, was going to deliver a talk somewhere
in London. He came to the station, to the suburban station, but the train was late, so he
jumped into a cab and told the driver, `Hurry! Go at top speed!'
They were racing fast, when suddenly
he realized that he had not given the address. But then he also remembered that he had
himself forgotten the address. So he asked the driver, `Cabby, do you know where I am
supposed to be going?'
He said, `No, sir. But I am going as
fast as possible.'
This is happening. You are going as
fast as possible. Where are you moving? Why are you moving? What is the destination? --
the hope that someday life will happen to you. And why is it not happening right now? You
are alive -- why is it not happening right now? Why is the nirvana always in the future,
always in the tomorrow? Why is it not today? And the tomorrow never comes -- or whenever
it comes it will always be the today and you will miss again. But we have lived only in
this way. We know only one dimension of living -- this so-called living we are already
living -- just dead, not alive at all, just pulling together anyhow, just waiting.
With the ego it will always remain a
waiting -- and a hopeless waiting. You can do it fast, you can make haste, but you will
never reach anywhere: just by hurrying you will dissipate energy and you will die. And you
have done that so many times. You have always been in a hurry, and in that hurry
dissipating energy, and then only death comes and nothing else. You are hurrying for life,
and only death comes and nothing else. But the mind, because it is accustomed to only one
dimension, because it has known only one way -- which is not even a way, but just appears
to be a way -- will say that if there is no ego, where is life?
But I say to you, if there is ego,
there is no possibility of life, only promises. The ego is a perfect promise-maker. It
goes on promising you. And you are so unaware -- no promise is ever fulfilled, but again
you believe. When the new promises are given, you again believe.
Look back! The ego promised many
things, and nothing has been achieved through it. All the promises have fallen down. But
you never look back, you never compare. When you were a child there were promises for
youth: life will be there when you are young. Everyone was saying it, and you also were
hoping that when you become young, all that was to happen would happen. Now those days
have passed, the promise remains unfulfilled, but you have forgotten. You have forgotten
the promise, you have forgotten that is has not been fulfilled. It is so painful to look
at it that you never look at it.
Now you hope for the old age -- that
in old age the sannyas will flower, the meditation will happen to you. Then the worries
will be over: your children will have gone to the college, and everything will have become
established. Then there will be no responsibility on you. Then you will be able to seek
the divine. Then, in the old age, the miracle is going to happen. And you will die
unfulfilled.
It is not going to happen, because
it never happens in the hope, it never happens with the hope. It never happens with the
promise of the ego. It can happen right now. It can only happen right now. But then a very
intense awareness is needed, so that you can throw all the promises, and all the hopes,
and all the future programs, and all the dreams, and look directly here and now at what
you are.
In that returning to yourself --
your consciousness not moving somewhere ahead but returning to yourself -- you become a
circle of consciousness. This moment becomes eternal. You are alert and aware. In that
alertness, in that awareness, there is no I; simple existence, simple being. And
simplicity comes out of that awareness.
Simplicity is not a loin-cloth,
simplicity is not living in poverty, simplicity is not becoming a beggar. Those are very
complex and very cunning things, very calculated. Simplicity is born when you have
achieved a simple existence where no I exists. Out of that, simplicity arises; you become
humble. Not that you practise it, because a practised simplicity can never be simplicity.
A practised humbleness is just a hidden ego.
It happens: if you can be aware, it
starts flowing through you. You become humble; not against the ego, because a humbleness
against the ego is again a different sort of ego -- a more subtle ego and more dangerous,
more poisonous. It is humbleness as the absence of ego; not as the opposite of the ego,
just the absence. The ego has disappeared. You have come to yourself and known that there
is no ego: simplicity arises, humbleness arises -- they simply flow. You have not done
anything for them; they are by-products -- by-products of intense awareness.
So this type of question is foolish.
If you feel that you are aware and still the I remains, know well that you are not aware.
Make effort to be aware. And this is the criterion: when you are aware, the I is not; when
you are aware, the I is not; when you are aware, the I is not found there. This is the
only criterion.
Question 3
ONE DAY YOU EXPLAINED ABOUT THE
IMBALANCE OF OBJECT-CENTERED WESTERN CULTURE AND SUBJECT-CENTERED EASTERN CULTURE, AND YOU
ALSO MENTIONED THAT NOWHERE IN ANY CULTURE IS THE TOTAL HUMAN BEING ACCEPTED. DO YOU
VISUALIZE SUCH A COMING CULTURE WHICH WILL BE ABLE TO ACCEPT AND DEVELOP THE HUMAN BEING
IN HIS TOTALITY -- OBJECTIVE AS WELL AS SUBJECTIVE?
This one-sided development has
occurred as a natural fallacy, as a very natural fallacy. Try to understand the natural
fallacy, because many things depend on it.
Whenever something is said, the
opposite of it is denied. Whenever something is said, something is simultaneously denied.
If I say `God is within;, `God is without' is denied. I have not mentioned it at all. But
if I say `God is without', then `God is within' is denied. If I say, `To be silent you
have to move inwards,' it is implied that if you move outwards, you will never be silent.
So whatsoever is said in language always negates something.
This means that language can never
cover the whole of life. Or, if you try to cover the whole of life, language becomes
illogical, irrational. If I say, `God is within and God is without,' it becomes
meaningless. If I say, `Everything is God,' it becomes meaningless. If I say, `Whether you
go out or whether you go in, silence can be achieved,' no meaning is carried then because
I am saying both -- both the opposites simultaneously. I am putting them together; they
negate each other -- and then nothing is said.
It has been tried. It has been tried
many times that the whole of life be covered by linguistic expression. It has never been
successful, and it cannot be. You can do it, but then your assertions become mystic; they
don't carry any meaning. Logic has some requirements to be fulfilled -- and language is
logic.
If you ask me, `Are you here?' and I
say, `Yes, in a sense I am here, and in a sense I am not here,' or I say, `Both yes and
no,' then if you love me you will call me a mystic; if you don't love me, you will call me
a madman -- because how can both be? Either I am here -- then I must say yes; or I am not
here -- then I must say no. But if I say yes and no both together, I am taking a jump out
of the logical structure of the language.
Language is always a choice. Because
of this, all the cultures, all the societies, all the civilizations become one-sided. And
no culture can exist without language. Really, language creates the culture. Man is the
only language animal; no other animal creates any culture or society or civilization. Only
man creates culture and civilization and society. And with language, choice enters; and
with choice, imbalance. No animal is imbalanced, remember. Only man is imbalanced. All
animals exist in deep balance: trees and rocks and everything. Everything is balanced;
only man is imbalanced. What is the problem? -- that man lives through language. Language
creates choice.
If I say to someone that he is both
beautiful and ugly, the sentence carries no meaning. Ugly and beautiful both? -- what do
you mean? If I say, `You are beautiful,' it is meaningful. If I say, `You are ugly,' it is
meaningful. But if I say, `You are both. You are wise and foolish both,' it cannot carry
any meaning. But reality is so. Really, no one is simply ugly and no one is simply
beautiful. Wherever beauty exists, ugliness exists; wherever ugliness exists, beauty
exists. They are part of one whole. And wherever wisdom exists, foolishness exists. You
cannot find a wise man who is not also a fool, and you cannot find a fool who is not also
a wise man.
It may be difficult for you to
conceive, because whenever you say, `This man is a fool,' you stop searching, you are
closed, you have closed the door. You say, `This man is a fool.' Now you are not going to
search for his wisdom. And even if his wisdom is revealed to you, you will not listen to
it. You will say, `This man is a fool. How can he be a wise man? It is impossible;
something wrong has happened. He must have done it in a foolish way. This is something
accidental. He cannot be wise.' If you decide that this man is wise and then something
foolish comes out of him, you cannot believe it, or you will have come explanations and
you will rationalize it -- that this must be wise.
Life is both together, but language
divides. Language is a choice. Because of this, every culture creates its own
choice-pattern. In the east they developed technology, they developed scientific research;
they developed all that is now developed in the west. Five thousand years ago they
developed everything, and then they felt the meaninglessness of it -- as it is now felt in
the west. They felt that it was useless.
When they felt that it was useless,
they turned to the opposite extreme. They said, `Now turn within. Whatsoever is without is
illusory, it leads nowhere. Turn within.' Then science stopped growing, then technology
stopped. Not only stopped: when they turned within, they started condemning all that was
without. `Just live the life which is in! Leave all that is without!' They became against
the world, life-negative, denying all that is material... only the spiritual, the pure
spiritual.
Life is both. Really, to say life is
both is not right. Life is one. That which we call material is just one expression of the
spiritual, and that which we call spiritual is nothing but one expression of the material.
Life is one. The within and without are not two opposite things, just two poles of one
existence.
But whenever a society reaches to
the extreme of one choice -- because one choice is bound to be extremist -- immediately
you will miss the other, and that which you miss, you feel more. That which you have, you
can forget, but that which you miss, you feel more. So the east, at the peak of scientific
and technological development, felt the absurdity of it: it is useless, you cannot attain
silence through it, you cannot attain bliss through it, so throw it away, renounce it,
move inward, move to the inner world. And then this inner movement automatically became a
denial of the outer.
In the west that is happening now.
Now the west has attained to a technological height; now the meaninglessness is felt. Now
India has gone to the depths of poverty. It was bound to happen, because the eastern mind
started moving inwards. When you move inwards at the cost of all that is without, you are
going to be poor, and you are going to be in bondage, and you are going to be in disease
and suffering. That is bound to be so.
Now India is not interested in
meditation, India is not interested in the inner world, India is not interested in the
nirvana. India is interested in the modern technology. The Indian student is interested in
engineering, in medical science. The Indian genius is going to the west to learn the
know-how, the atomic energy. And the western genius is interested in coming to the east to
know what meditation is, to know how to move in the inner space.
And they have achieved. For the
first time in the history of man they have known how to move in the outer space. They have
reached the moon. Now that they have reached the moon the thing has become absurd. Now
they are asking, `What will come out of it? Even if we have gone to the moon, what has
happened? -- man remains in the same misery.' The moon is not going to help, because you
can transfer man to the moon, but he remains the same man. So movement in the outer space
seems to be of no use, a wastage of energy. How to move in the inner space?
Now they turn to the east, and the
east is turning to the west -- again the choice. If the west turns to the east completely,
within two or three centuries the west will become poor. Look at the hippies -- they are
already doing that. And if the new western generation turns absolutely hippie, then who is
going to work for the technology, and who is going to work for the industry, and who is
going to work for the civilization that the west has achieved? It takes centuries and
centuries to achieve something; you can lose it within a generation.
If the generation denies and says,
`We are not going to the universities,' what can you do? The old generation -- how long
can it prolong it? Twenty years and everything can disappear, just through the denial of
the new generation -- `I am not going to the university~' And they are leaving, they are
becoming dropouts. They say, `What is the use of big cars, of big houses, of a big
technology, when there is no love? When there is no peace of mind, what is the use of all
this wealth? What is the use of this high standard of living when there is no life? So
leave this!'
Within two centuries the west can go
to the very depths of poverty. It has happened in the east. In the days of the Mahabharat,
almost the same technology was developed in the east. Then it was found to be of no use.
And if the Indian mind turns to technology, within two generations religion will disappear
-- it has already disappeared -- and just the word `meditation' will look out of date. If
you talk about the inner, people will think you are not in your senses: `What do you mean
by the inner? There is no inner.'
This happens because of the language
-- because language is a choice, and the mind moves to the extreme. And when it moves to
one extreme, the other is lost. And with the other, many qualities disappear, and when
they disappear you feel the hunger for them. Then you again move to the other extreme.
Then something else is lost.
So no total culture has been born
yet, and it cannot be born unless man learns to remain silent, unless silence becomes the
very core of human mind. Not language but silence -- because in silence you are whole, in
language you are always part. Unless humanity starts living through silence -- not through
language, not through mind, but through the totality of the being -- no total culture is
possible. Only total human beings can constitute a total culture.
The human being is partial and
fragmented. Every human being is just a fragment of that which he can be, that which he
should be. He is just a fragment of his potentiality. These fragmentary human beings
create fragmentary societies. Fragmentary societies have always been there. But now it
seems possible that we may become aware of this whole nonsense of turning to extremes. And
if this awareness becomes intense, and we don't move to the opposite, but rather we start
to look at the whole....
For example, myself. I am not
against the material, I am not against the spiritual. I am not for the spiritual, and I am
not for the material. I am for both. There is no choice for me between the material and
the spiritual, the inner and the outer. I am for both, because if you accept both, only
then you become total and whole. But this is difficult to understand, to grasp, because of
the heritage.
Whenever you see a spiritual man,
you start looking to see whether he is poor or not. He must be poor, he must be living in
a hut, he must be starving. Why? Why should he be poor and why should he be starving? --
because the inner has to be chosen against the outer; that has become a part of the
heritage. If you see a man living in luxury, you cannot believe that he is spiritual. How
can he be spiritual?
What is wrong in luxury? And how is
spirituality against luxury? Really, spiritually is the ultimate luxury. Really, only a
spiritual man can be in luxury. He knows how to relax, and he knows how to enjoy, and he
knows how to carry bliss wherever he moves. But the heritage has gone into the very cells
of your brain. If you see a spiritual man walking in poverty, you feel that he must be
authentic. How is poverty related to spirituality? And why? We have been choosing
extremes. This is difficult to understand because of a long tradition -- and you are not
even aware.
Someone was
just here, and he told me that in Wardha where Vinoba lives, it is very hot now the whole
day -- and he will not use a fan, he will not use a cooler, he will not use an
air-conditioner. Impossible! How can a spiritual man use an air-conditioner? He cannot
even use a fan. The man who had come from there was very much impressed. He said, `See,
what a great spiritual man! He is not even using a fan.'
Then I asked, `What is he doing?'
He said, `The whole day, from ten to
five, for seven hours, he goes on putting cold cloths on his head and on his stomach.'
Seven of Vinoba's hours wasted every
day! -- and what is the cost of a fan or a cooler or an air-conditioner? And Vinoba's
seven wasted hours every day...? But if there was a fan, this man would have felt that
Vinoba is not spiritual. And somehow Vinoba is also agreeing with this type of attitude --
that Vinoba's seven hours every day are not important.
Life is very short, and a genius
like Vinoba is wasting seven hours unnecessarily. But he himself also feels that
technology is somehow anti-spiritual. The outside and the inside -- he has chosen the
inside. But if you are choosing the inside, even putting on the wet cloth is outside. It
is doing the same thing, only in a very primitive way. What are you doing? You are
creating a sort of cooling. And you are wasting seven hours for it! This is at a very
great cost. But we will say, `No, this is austerity, this is spirituality, and this man is
great.' This has gone to the very cells of our brains.
I accept life in its totality. The
outer and the inner both are there, and they both belong to me. And they must be balanced.
You need not choose one at the cost of the other. And if you choose, you are falling a
victim -- victim of an extreme -- and you will suffer for it.
Create a balance. The outer and the
inner are not opposed. They are movements of the same energy, two banks of the same river,
and the river cannot flow with only one bank. You can forget the other, but the other will
be there. And the river can exist only if the other is there. You can forget it
completely: then hypocrisy is born, because unnecessarily you have to go on hiding the
other. There is no need. The river cannot flow.
Life flows between the inner and the
outer, and both are essential. Life cannot exist with one. And the two are not really two.
The two banks of the river only appear two; if you go deep in the river they are joined --
the same ground is appearing as two banks. The outer and the inner are the same ground,
the same phenomenon.
If this insight goes deep, and human
beings... and I am interested in human beings, not in cultures, not in societies, not in
civilizations. If human beings become total and balanced, it is possible that some day
humanity can become a balanced society. And only then will man be at ease. And only then
will it be possible to grow without any unnecessary difficulty.
Now, rarely it happens that someone
grows -- rarely. Almost all the seeds are wasted. In millions, one seed grows and comes to
flower. This seems sheer wastage. But if society is balanced -- nothing is denied, nothing
is chosen, but the whole is accepted in a deep harmony -- then many will grow. Really,
quite the reverse will be the case: it will happen rarely that someone will not grow. |
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