YOU SAY THAT RELIGION IS TOTAL FREEDOM OR MOKSHA, AND YOU ALSO STRESS THE IMPORTANCE OF SURRENDER IN RELIGION. BUT ARE NOT FREEDOM AND SURRENDER CONTRADICTORY IN TERMS?

They appear contradictory but they are not. And they appear so because of the language; existentially they are not. Try to understand two things. First: you cannot be free remaining as you are, because as you are is your bondage. Your ego i s the bondage. You can be free only when this ego point disappears -- this ego point is the bondage.

When there is no ego, you become one with existence, and only that oneness can be freedom. While you exist separate, this separation is false. Really, you are not separate; you cannot be. You are part of existence -- and not a mechanical part, but an organic part. You cannot exist for a single moment separated from existence. You breathe it every moment; it breathes you every moment. You live in a cosmic whole.

Your ego gives you a false feeling of separate existence. Because of that false feeling, you start fighting existence. When you fight you are in bondage. When you fight you are bound to be defeated, because the part cannot win against the whole. And because of this fight with the whole, you feel in bondage; everywhere limited. Wherever you move, a wall comes. That wall is nowhere in existence -- it moves with your ego, it is part of your separate feeling. Then you struggle against existence. In that struggle you will be defeated constantly; in that defeat you feel bondage, limitation.

By surrender it is meant that you surrender the ego, you surrender the separating wall, you become one. That is reality, so whatsoever you are surrendering is just a dream, a concept, a false notion. You are not surrendering reality; you are just surrendering a false attitude. The moment you surrender this false attitude you become one with existence. Then there is no conflict.

And if there is no conflict you have no limitation; nowhere there comes a bondage, a boundary. You are not separate. You cannot be defeated, because there is no one to be defeated. You cannot die, because there is no one to die. You cannot be in misery, because there is no one to be in misery. The moment you surrender the ego, the whole nonsense is surrendered -- misery, bondage, dukkha, hell -- everything is surrendered. You become one with existence. This oneness is freedom.

Separation is bondage. Oneness is freedom Not that you become free, remember this -- you are no more. So it is not that you become free -- you are no more. Really, when you are not, freedom is. How to express it is a problem. When you are not, freedom is. Buddha is reported to have said, `You are not going to be in bliss. When you are not, the bliss is. You are not going to be liberated. You are going to be liberated from yourself.'

So freedom is not freedom of the ego. Freedom is freedom from the ego. And if you can understand this -- that freedom is freedom from the ego -- then surrender and freedom become one, then they mean one. But if you take the ego as the standpoint from which to think, then the ego will say, `Why surrender? -- because if you surrender, then you cannot be free. Then you become a slave. When you surrender, you become a slave.'

But really, you are not surrendering to someone. This is the second point to be understood: you are not surrendering to someone; you are simply surrendering. There is no one who will take your surrender. If there is someone and you surrender to him, then it is a sort of slavery. Really, there is not even a god to whom you are surrendering. And when we talk about a god, that is just to find you something to help you to surrender.

In Patanjali's 1Yoga Sutras', God is talked about just to help you to surrender. There is no God. Patanjali says there is no God, but it will be difficult for you to surrender to one ; it will be difficult for you to simply surrender. To help surrender, God is talked about. So God is just a method. This is rare, very scientific -- God is just a method to help you surrender. There is no one who is going to take your surrender. If there is someone and you surrender, then it is a slavery, a bondage. This is a very subtle and deep point: there is no God as a person; God is just a way, a method, a technique.

Patanjali relates many techniques. One of them is ISHWARA PRANIDHAN -- the idea of God. There are many methods to reach the surrender; one method is the idea of God. That will help your mind to surrender, because if I say, `Surrender,' you will ask, `To whom?' If I say, `Simply surrender,' it will be difficult for you to conceive. Try to understand in a different way. If I say to you, `Simply love,' you will ask, `Whom? What do you mean by "simply love"? If there is no one to be loved, how to love?' If I say, `Pray,' then you will ask, `To whom? Worship to whom?' Your mind cannot conceive non-duality. It will ask, it will raise a question, `To whom?'

Just to help your mind, so that the mind's question is satisfied, Patanjali says that God is just a way, a technique. Worship, love, surrender -- to whom? Patanjali says, `To God.' Because if you surrender, then you will come to know that there is no God -- or you yourself are that to which you have surrendered. But this will happen when you have surrendered. God is just a trick.

It is said that even to surrender to a god who is nowhere seen, who is invisible, is difficult, so scriptures say, `Surrender to the guru, to the master.' The master is visible and a person, so then the question becomes relevant -- if you surrender to a master then it is a slavery, because a person is there and you are surrendering to him. But then too you will have to understand again a very subtle point -- even more subtle than the notion o God. A master is a master only when he is not. If he is, then he is not a master. A master becomes a master only when he is not. He has achieved non-being; there is no one.

If someone is sitting here in this chair, then there is no master; then it is going to become a slavery. But if there is no one sitting in this chair, a non-being, one who is not centered anywhere, one who has surrendered -- not to anyone, but simply surrendered and achieved non-being, has become a non-person -- who is simply there, not concentrated in an ego, diffused, not concentrated anywhere, then he can become a master. So when you are surrendering to a master, again you are surrendering to nobody.

This is a deep question for you. When you are surrendering, if you can understand that this is simply surrendering, not a surrender -- surrendering, not a surrender.... A surrender is to someone. A surrendering is something on your part. So the basic thing is surrendering -- the act, not the object. The object should not be important, but the one who is surrendering is important. The object is just an excuse -- just an excuse.

If you can understand, then there is no need to surrender to anyone -- you can simply surrender. Then there is no need to love someone -- you can simply love. You are significant, not the object. If the object is significant, you will create a bondage out of it. So even a god who is not, will become a bondage; even a master who is not, will become a bondage. But that bondage is created by you; it is a misunderstanding. Otherwise surrendering is freedom They are not contradictory.

Question 2

WHILE `THIS IS THIS' ALSO INCLUDES `THIS IS THAT,' AND `THAT IS BRAHMA,' HOW IS IT THAT THE SUTRA EMPHASIZES ONLY `THIS IS THIS'?

For a very particular reason -- because tantra, deep down, is interested only in the here and now. THIS IS THIS means that which is here and now. THAT goes a little further away.

Secondly, for tantra there is no division between this and that. Tantra is non-dualistic. This is the world, and that is Brahma. This is the mundane, the material, and that is consciousness, the spiritual. For tantra there is no distinction like this. THIS is all -- THAT is included in it. This very world is divine.

And tantra makes no distinction and no categorization of higher and lower: THIS means the lower, and THAT means the higher; THIS means that which you can see and touch and know, and THAT means the invisible that you cannot see and cannot touch, you can only infer. For tantra there is no distinction of higher and lower, of visible and invisible, of matter and mind, of life and death, of world and Brahma -- no distinction.

Tantra says THIS IS THIS, and THAT is included in it. But the emphasis on THIS is beautiful. It says here and now, whatsoever is, this is all. And everything is in it; nothing is excluded. The near, the intimate, the ordinary, is all.

It is a very well known saying of Zen mysticism that if you can become just ordinary, you have become extraordinary. Only the person who is at ease with his ordinariness is extraordinary. Because everyone hankers to be extraordinary, so the desire to be extraordinary is very ordinary. Everyone -- you cannot find a person who is not trying to be extraordinary in some way, so the desire, the lust to be extraordinary, is a part, a basic part of the ordinary mind. Zen masters say, `So to be ordinary is the most extraordinary thing in the world. To be just ordinary. It is rare. Very rarely it happens that someone is simply ordinary.

One Japanese emperor was in search of a master, so he went from one teacher to another, but no one could satisfy him, because one old man had said that the real master would be most ordinary. He went on searching, but he couldn't find an ordinary man. He came back to the old man who was just on his dying bed, and he said, `You have put me to great trouble. The way you defined the master -- that he will be simple, ordinary -- has become a problem for me. I have been searching all over the country, and no one satisfies me. So give me some clue how to find the master.'

The dying man said, `You have been searching in wrong places. You have been searching in wrong places! You have been going to persons who are in some way extraordinary, and then you try to find the ordinary. Move in the ordinary world. And really you are still trying to find the extraordinary. Now you define him as ordinary, but you are still searching for the extra-ordinary. Now the definition has changed. Now you define him as the most ordinary, but the rare, the exceptional. You are still in this search. Don't do that, and the moment you are ready and not searching in this way, the master will come to you.

The next morning while he was sitting, he tried to understand what the old man had said, and he felt that he was right. The desire left him. A beggar appeared -- and he was the master. And he had known that beggar his whole life. He was always coming, that beggar was coming daily to the palace, so the emperor asked the beggar, `How did it happen that I couldn't recognize you before?'

The beggar said, `Because you were searching for the extra-ordinary. I was here, but you were searching THERE. You missed me continuously.'

Tantra says THIS not THAT, particularly in this technique. There are techniques in which THAT is discussed, but THIS is most tantric -- this, here and now, the most intimate. Your wife, your husband, THIS, your friend, the beggar, may be the master. But you are not looking at THIS; you are looking at THAT, there, somewhere in the clouds. You cannot even conceive that near you can be that quality of being. You cannot conceive; because you think you already know the near, so you search for it far away. You already feel that you know THIS, so now the only thing to be found is THAT.

This is not true. You don't know THIS, you don't know the near. The near is as unknown as the far away. Have a look around you. You are not acquainted with anybody. You don't have any knowledge of anybody. Do you know the tree you pass every day? Do you know your friend with whom you have lived your whole life? Or do you know yourself, who is the nearest? Do you know your body, the breath that comes and goes continuously? Do you know it? Nothing is known. Even THIS is not known, so why hanker after THAT?

This technique says, if THIS is known, THAT will be known automatically, because THAT is implied in THIS. The far away is hidden in the near, in the intimate. But the human mind hankers for the far away. This is an escape. It is an escape to think of the far away, because then you can go on thinking forever, and you can go on postponing the living, because life is THIS. If you think about it and if you contemplate about it, you will have to change yourself.

I am reminded of one anecdote. Once it happened, a Zen master was appointed as a preacher in a temple. No one knew that he was a Zen master. The congregation gathered and the first sermon was delivered. Everyone was thrilled; it was just beautiful. No one had heard such a thing before. The next day an even greater crowd came to the temple, but the master repeated the same sermon. So they got bored -- `What type of man is he?'

Then on the third day they came again, not in so great a number, but the master repeated the same sermon again. So many left just in the middle; only very few were left, and those few were there only to ask. `Have you got only one sermon? And are you going to deliver it every day?' One spokesman blurted out and asked the priest, `What type of preaching is this? Thrice we have heard you, and you go on repeating exactly the same thing, in exactly the same words. Don't you have any other lectures, any other sermons?'

The priest said,`I have quite a few, but you have not done anything about the first one. Unless you do something about the first one, I am not going to deliver the second. It is unnecessary.'

The crowd stopped coming. No one would come near the temple, because the moment anyone would come, the Zen priest would start the first sermon. It is said that people stopped passing that way, that temple -- `That priest is there, and if you happen to be there he will give you the same sermon again.'

He must have been a very deep knower of the human mind. The human mind wants to think but never wants to do anything -- action is dangerous. Thinking is good, because you go on being the same. If you think about the far away, the distant, there is no need to change yourself. The Brahma, the absolute, cannot change you, but the neighbor, the friend, the wife, the husband -- if you look at them, you will have to change yourself. And it is a trick not to look at them.

You look at the THAT to forget the THIS -- and THIS is the life, and THAT is simply a dream. You can think about God, because that thinking is impotent; it is not going to do anything. You will continue thinking about God and you will remain the same. This is a trick to remain the same. If you think about your wife, if you think about your child, if you penetrate deep in the intimate near, you cannot remain the same -- action will come out of it.

Tantra says, `Don't go far away. He is here, this very moment, just near you. Be open, and look at the THIS, and the THAT will take care of itself.'

Question 3

YOU HAVE SAID THAT TANTRA TEACHES MAN TO TRANSCEND BOTH HIS CRAVING FOR HIS ANIMALISTIC PAST, AND ALSO HIS CRAVING FOR THE DIVINE. DOES IT MEAN THAT DIVINITY IS PART OF THE WORLD, AND THAT TOO HAS TO BE TRANSCENDED? AND WHAT IS IT THAT GOES BEYOND BOTH?

You will have to understand many things. First: the nature of desire. Divinity is not what you call it. The god that you talk about is not the god of reality; it is the god of your desire. So it is not a question of whether the divine is part of the world. That is not the question. The real question is, can you desire the divine without making him part of the world?

Look at it in this way. It has been said again and again that unless you leave desiring, you cannot attain to him, the ultimate. You cannot attain to the divine if you don't leave desiring. Leave desiring and you can attain to him. You have heard it many times, but I wonder whether you understand it or not. More or less, you will be misunderstanding it. Hearing this, you start desiring the divine -- and that is to miss the whole point.

If you leave desiring, the divine will happen to you. Then you start desiring the divine, so your divine will be part of the world. That which can be desired is the world. This is how I define it: that which can be desired is the world. So the divine cannot be desired, and if you desire it, it has become part of the world.

When desiring stops, the divine happens. When you are not desiring anything, the divine is there -- then the whole world is divine. You will not find the divine somewhere in contradiction, in opposition to the world -- contrary to the world. When you are not desiring, everything is divine; when you are desiring, everything is the world. Your desiring creates the world: whatsoever you desire becomes the world. This is not the world that you see -- the trees, and the sky, and the sea, and the rivers, and the earth, and the stars. This is not the world -- that which you desire is the world.

A flower is there in the garden. The moment you pass the tree, and you look at the flower, and the smell of the flower comes to you, look within. If you are not desiring that flower, if there is not even a slight urge to possess it, not even a slight ripple of desire to have it, that flower becomes divine. You will have the divine face through it. But if the desire is there to possess it, or a jealousy arises about the owner of the tree, you have created a world; the divine has disappeared. It is your desire that changes the quality of existence; your desire makes it the world. When you are non-desiring, the whole world becomes divine.

Now I will read this question again. YOU HAVE SAID THAT TANTRA TEACHES MAN TO TRANSCEND BOTH HIS CRAVING FOR HIS ANIMALISTIC PAST, AND ALSO HIS CRAVING FOR THE DIVINE.

Tantra teaches only to transcend craving. It is irrelevant what you crave -- that you crave is the point. You can go on changing the objects. You crave money, you crave power, you crave prestige -- you crave for the world. Then you change. You get fed up with it, you are bored. Or, you have attained whatsoever you craved, and now you are not fulfilled; you feel frustrated. You start a new craving.

Now you crave the divine. You crave moksha, nirvana, liberation -- now you crave for the god. The object has changed; you have not changed -- your craving remains the same. It was running after prestige and power and money. Now it is running after divine power. It is running after the ultimate, moksha, the absolute freedom, but the craving is there.

Ordinarily, religious people go on changing their objects of desire. Desire remains the same, unchanged. And it is not the objects which create the problem; it is the desire, the craving, which creates the problem. Tantra says it is futile to go on changing objects. It is wasting time and life and energy. Changing objects won't help -- drop craving. Don't crave. Don't crave for freedom, because craving is bondage. Don't crave for the divine, because craving is the world. Don't crave for the inner, because craving is the outer. So it is not a question of transcending this craving or that -- simply drop craving. Don't crave, don't desire. Just be yourself.

When you don't desire, what happens? When you don't crave, what happens? You are non-moving; all movement ceases. You are not in a hurry to reach anywhere. You are not serious. There is no hope and there is no frustration. You don't expect anything; nothing can frustrate you. There is no desire; you cannot be a failure. Of course, there is not going to be any success either.

When you are not craving, not desiring, what happen? You are simply left alone, moving nowhere. There is no goal, because craving creates the goal. There is no future, because craving creates the future. There is no time, because craving needs time to move. Time stops. Future drops. And when there is no craving, mind drops, because mind is nothing but craving, and because of that craving you have to plan and think and dream and project.

When there is no craving, everything drops. You are simply in your purity. You exist without moving anywhere; inside, all ripples disappear. The ocean remains, but the waves are not there. This is what divineness is for tantra.

So look at it in this way: craving is the barrier. Don't think of the object, otherwise you will be deceived by yourself. You will change one object for another, and then time will be wasted. Again you will get frustrated, and then you will again change the object. You can go on changing objects infinitely, unless you realize that it is not the object which creates the problem, it is your craving. But craving is subtle and the object is gross. The object can be seen, and craving can be seen only when you go deep down and meditate upon it; otherwise, craving is not seen.

You can marry a woman or a man with great dreams and hope, and the greater the dreams, the greater the hope, the greater will be the frustration. An ordinary arranged marriage cannot be such a failure as a love-marriage is bound to be, because with an ordinary arranged marriage there is not much hope, there is not much dreaming. It is business-like; there is no romance, no poetry. There is no peak to it; you are travelling on plain ground. So arranged marriages never fail. They cannot fail, because there is no point. How can you fail in an arranged marriage? You were never on a height, so you cannot fall. Love-marriages fail. Only love-marriages can fail, because with a great poetry, with a great dreaming force, they come up. They touch heights, on the waves you rise high, and then you will have to fall down.

So old countries, those who have knowledge, experience, they have come to settle for arranged marriages. They don't talk about love-marriages. In India they never talk about love-marriages. They have also tried in the past, and then they felt that a love-marriage is going to be a failure. Because you expect too much, you will be frustrated, and the proportion of frustration will be the same. Whatsoever you desire and dream gives you expectations -- they cannot be fulfilled.

You marry a woman; if it is a love-marriage, you expect much. Then you get frustrated. The moment you get frustrated, immediately you start thinking about another woman. So if you say to your wife, `I am not interested in any other woman,' and she feels you have become indifferent to her, you cannot convince her -- it is impossible, it is unnatural. The moment you become indifferent to your wife, the wife knows instinctively that you have become interested in someone else.

This is how mind functions. You become aware of the woman that you have married, and you feel the frustration is coming because of her -- `This was not a right choice.' This is ordinary logic. `This was not a right choice. This woman is not for me. I have chosen a wrong partner, so the conflict has arisen.' Now you will try to find another partner.

You can go on that way ad infinitum. You may marry all the women on the earth, and still you will be thinking in the same way -- that `This woman is not right for me'. And the subtle craving which is creating all trouble is not seen. It is subtle. The woman is seen; the craving is not seen. It is not the woman or the man who is frustrating you; it is your craving, your desire, which is frustrating you.

If you can come to understand this, you have become wise. If you go on changing objects, you are ignorant. If you can come to feel yourself and the craving which is creating the whole thing, you have become wise. Then you don't go on changing one object for another; you simply drop the very effort to possess, to desire, to crave.

The moment this craving is not there, the whole world becomes divine. It has always been so, only your eyes were not open to see. Your eyes were filled with craving. Eyes filled with craving, the divine appears as the world. Open eyes, unfilled, unclouded by craving, the world appears as the divine.

The world and the divine are not two things, not two existences, but two ways of looking at the same thing, two approaches to the same thing, two outlooks, two types of perception. One perception clouded with craving, another perception unclouded with craving. If you can look unclouded, and your eyes are not filled with tears of frustration and dreams of hope, there is nothing like the world; only the divine exists -- existence is divine. This is what tantra means. And when tantra says transcend both, tantra is not concerned with either this or that -- tantra is concerned only with transcendence, so there is no craving.

AND WHAT IS IT THAT GOES BEYOND BOTH? That cannot be said, because the moment anything is said about it, it comes within the two. Whatsoever can be said about God will be false, just because it is said.

Language is dualistic. There is no non-dual language; cannot be. Language is meaningful only because of dualism. I say `light'; immediately in your mind bubbles up the word `darkness' or `black'. I say `day', and immediately in your mind comes `night'. I say `love', and just behind it is hidden `hate'. If I say light and there is no darkness, how will you define it?j

We can only define words because of their opposite terms. I say light, and if you ask me what light is, I say that which is not darkness. If someone asks you what mind is, you say that which is not body. If someone asks what body is, you have to say that which is not mind. All terms are circular, so, basically meaningless, because neither you know anything about the mind, nor do you know anything about the body. When I ask about the mind, you define it with the body, and the body is undefined. When I ask you about the body, you define it with the mind, which is itself undefined.

This is good as a game. Language is good as a game -- language is a game. But we never feel that the whole thing is absurd, circular; and nothing is defined, so how can you define anything? When I ask about the mind, you bring in the body -- and the body is undefined. With an indefined term, you define mind. And then when I ask, `What do you mean by body?' you have to define it with the mind. This is absurd -- but there is no other way.

Language exists through the opposite, so language is dualistic. It cannot be otherwise. So nothing can be said about the non-dual experience. Whatsoever is said will be wrong. It can be indicated, symbols can be used for it, but silence is the best. That which can be said about it is silence. Everything else can be defined, talked about -- not the ultimate. You can know it, taste it, you can be it, but nothing can be said about it. Only negatively we can say something, but only negatively. We cannot say what that is; we can only say what that is not.

The whole mystic tradition is simply using negative terms for it. If you ask what that ultimate is, they will say, `That ultimate is not this, not that. It is neither life nor death. It is neither light nor darkness. It is neither near nor far. It is neither I nor you.' They will say in this way, but this makes no sense.

Drop craving and you come to know it face to face. And the experience is so deep and individual, non-verbal, non-linguistic, that even when you come to know it, you cannot say anything about it. You will become silent. Or, at the most, you can say this that I am saying. You can say, `Nothing can be said about it.'

Then what is the point of talking so much? Then why do I go on saying something to you if nothing can be said? Just to bring you to that point where nothing can be said. Just to push you to that abyss where you can take a jump out of language. Up to that point, language can be helpful. Up to the point when you take the jump, language can be helpful, but the moment you have taken the jump, it is silence, it is beyond language.

So I can push you to the very end of the world through language -- to the very end of the world -- but not a single inch into the divine through language. But this pushing you up to the very end will be helpful, because then you can see with your own eyes that there is this blissful abyss beyond. And then that beyond will call you by itself; then the beyond will attract you; then the beyond will become a magnet, a pull. It is impossible then for you to come back, to retreat. The abyss is so enchanting -- the abyss of silence -- that before you know, you will have taken a jump.

That's why I go on talking, knowing well that all that I am saying will not help you to know it. But it will help you to take a jump. It is methodological. It will look contradictory, paradoxical, if I say that all language that I am using, or that the mystics have ever used, is to bring you to the temple of silence; to force you into silence, to call you unto silence. It looks paradoxical. Then why use language? I can use silence also, but then you will not understand.

When I have to talk to madmen. I have to use a mad language. It is because of you I am using language. It is not that anything can be expressed by it; only your inner chattering can be destroyed by it. It is just as if you have a thorn in your foot -- another thorn can pull it out. The other one is also a thorn. Your mind is filled with words, with thorns. What I am trying to do is to pull those words out of you. What I am using are also words. You are filled with poison. What I am giving you is again a dose of poison, just an antidote. It is also a poison. But a thorn can pull out another thorn -- then they both can be thrown.

When I have talked to you to the point where you are ready to be silent, throw all that I have said to you; it is useless, it is even dangerous to carry it. When you have come to realize that language is useless, dangerous, that inner verbalization is the only barrier, and when you are ready to be silent, then remember well -- don't carry whatsoever I have said to you. Because the truth cannot be said, and all that can be said cannot be true. Be unburdened of it.

The last thing Zarathustra said to his disciples is very beautiful. He had taught them. He had given them glimpses. He had stirred their souls. He had challenged them to the ultimate adventure. The last thing he said to them was, `Now I am leaving you. Now beware of Zarathustra.'

So they asked, `What are you saying? Beware of Zarathustra? You are our teacher, our master, our only hope.'

And Zarathustra said, `All that I have said to you, now beware of it. Don't cling to me, otherwise I will become a bondage to you.'

When one thorn has pulled out your thorn, throw the other one also with it. When I have prepared you to move into silence, then beware of me. Then whatsoever I have said has to be thrown; it is rubbish, of no use. It has utility only up to the point before you are ready to take a jump into silence. Nothing can be said about that which transcends both. Only this much can be said -- and this is too much really. If you can understand, this is enough to indicate towards it.

I am saying this -- that if your mind becomes totally vacant of words, you will know it. When you are not burdened with thoughts, you will realize it, because it is already there. It is not something which is going to happen; it has already happened within you. You are just an expression of it. But you are so much engrossed, involved, with thoughts, with clouds, that you miss the key. You are too concentrated on the clouds; you have forgotten the sky. Allow the clouds to disperse, and the sky has always been there just waiting for you. The beyond is waiting for you. Just drop the duality and it is there.

Question 4

YOU HAVE SAID THAT ONE WHO IS IN FEAR CANNOT LOVE, NOR CAN HE REACH GODHOOD. BUT HOW IS ONE TO GET RID OF HIS FEAR ACCORDING TO TANTRA?

Why do you want to get rid of fear? Or have you become afraid of fear? If you have become afraid of fear, this is a new fear. This is how mind goes on creating the same pattern again and again. I say, `Don't desire and then you will reach the divine.' So you ask, `Really, if we don't desire, then will we reach the divine?' You have started desiring the divine.

I say to you, `If there is fear, love cannot be,' so you become afraid of fear. You ask, `How can one get rid of fear?' This is again a fear, and more dangerous than the first one, because the first one was natural; the second one is unnatural. And it is so subtle that you are not aware of what you are asking -- how to get rid of fear?

The question is not of getting rid of anything; the question is only of understanding. Understand fear, what it is, and don't try to get rid of it, because the moment you start trying to get rid of anything, you are not ready to understand it -- because the mind which thinks to get rid of is already closed. It is not open to understand, it is not sympathetic. It cannot contemplate quietly; it has already decided. Now the fear has become the evil, the sin, so get rid of it. Don't try to get rid of anything.

Try to understand what fear is. And if you have fear, then accept it. It is there. Don't try to hide it. Don't try to create the opposite. If you have fear, then you have fear. Accept it as part of your being. If you can accept it, it has disappeared already. Through acceptance, fear disappears; through denial, fear increases.

You come to a point where you know that you are afraid, and you come to understand, `Because of this fear, love cannot happen to me. So, okay, what can I do? The fear is there, so only one thing will happen -- I will not pretend love. Or, I will say to my beloved or my lover that it is because of fear that I am clinging to you. Deep down I am afraid. I will become frank about it; I will not deceive anyone, nor myself. I will not pretend that this is love. I will say this is simply fear. Because of fear, I cling to you. Because of fear, I go to the temple, or to the church, and pray. Because of fear, I remember God. But then I know that this is not prayer, this is not love, this is only fear. I am fear, so whatsoever I do, it is there. I will accept this truth.'

A miracle happens when you accept a truth. The very acceptance changes you. When you know that there is fear in your being and you cannot do anything about it, what can you do? All that you can do is pretend, and pretensions can go to the very extreme, to the other extreme.

A very fearful man can become a very brave man. He can create an armour around him. He can become a dare-devil, just to show that he is not afraid; just to show others that he is not afraid. And if he can go into danger, he can deceive himself that he is not afraid. But even the bravest man is afraid. His whole bravery is just around him; deep down he trembles. Not to be aware of it, he takes a jump into danger. He becomes engaged with the danger so that he is not aware of the fear, but the fear is there.

You can create the opposite, but this is not going to change anything. You can pretend that you are not afraid -- that makes no change again. The only transformation that can happen is that you become simply aware that `I am fear. My whole being is trembling, and whatsoever I do is because of the fear.' You have become true to yourself.

Then you are not afraid of fear. It is there, a part of you; nothing can be done about it. You have accepted it. Now you don't pretend, now you don't deceive anyone, nor yourself. The truth is there, and you are not afraid of it. The fear starts disappearing, because a person who is not afraid to accept his fear has become fearless -- that is the deepest fearlessness that is possible. He has not created the opposite, so there is no duality in him. He has accepted the fact. He has become humble before it. He doesn't know what to do -- no one knows -- and nothing can be done, but he has stopped pretending; he has stopped using masks, faces. He has become authentic in his fear.

This authenticity, and this fearlessness to accept the truth, changes you. And when you don't pretend, don't create a false love, don't create a deception around you, don't become a pseudo-person, you have become authentic. In this authenticity, love arises; fear disappears, love arises. This is the inner alchemy of how love arises.

Now you can love. Now you can have compassion, sympathy. Now you don't depend on anyone, because there is no need. You have accepted the truth. There is no need to depend on anyone; there is no need to possess and be possessed. There is no hankering for the other. You accept yourself -- through this acceptance, love arises. It fills your being. You are not afraid of fear, you are not trying to get rid of it. Simply it disappears when accepted.

Accept your authentic being and you will be transformed. Remember: acceptability, total acceptability, is the most secret key of tantra. Don't reject anything. Through rejection you will be crippled. Accept everything -- whatsoever it is. Don't condemn it, and don't try to get rid of it.

There are many things implied in it. If you try to get rid of it, you will have to cut your being into departments, fragments, parts. You will be crippled. When you throw one thing, something else is also thrown with it -- the other part of it -- and you become crippled. Then you are not total. And you cannot be happy unless you are total and whole. To be whole is to be holy. To be in fragments is to be ill and diseased.

So I will say, try to understand fear. Existence has given it to you. It must have some deep meaning, and it must have some hidden treasure, so don't throw it. Nothing is given without any meaning. Nothing exists within you which cannot be used in a higher symphony, in a higher synthesis.

All that exists in you, whether you understand it or not, can become a step. Don't think of it as a hindrance; allow it to become a step. You can take it that it is hindering the path -- it is not hindering. If you can ride above it, if you can use it, stand on it, a new view of the path will be revealed to you on a higher level. You will be able to look deep into the possibility, into the future, into the potentiality.

Fear is there for certain purposes. Try to understand this. One: if there is no fear, you will become too egoistic, and there will be no going back. If there is no fear, as you are, you will never try to merge into existence, into the cosmos. Really, if there is no fear you will not be able to survive at all. So it is doing something for you. Whatsoever you are, it is playing a role in it.

But if you try to hide it, destroy it, create the opposite of it, you will be divided and you will become fragmentary, disintegrated. Accept it and use it. And the moment you know that you have accepted it, it disappears. Just try to think: if you accept your fear, where is it?

One man came to me and he said, `I am very much afraid of death.' He had cancer, and death was very near; any day it could happen. And he could not postpone it. He knew it was going to happen. Within months it would be there, or even within weeks.

He was really physically, literally, trembling, and he said, `Just give me one thing: how can I get rid of this fear of death? Give me some mantra, or something which can protect me and give me courage to face death. I don't want to die trembling in fear.' The man said, `I have been to many saints. Many things they have given. They were very kind. Someone has given me a mantra, someone has given me some sacred ashes, someone has given me his picture, someone has given something else, but nothing helps. Everything is in vain. Now I have come to you as the last resort. Now I will not go to anyone any more. Give me something.'

So I told him, `Still you are not aware. Why are you asking for something? -- just to get rid of fear? Nothing will help. I cannot give you anything, otherwise, as others have proved failures, I will also prove a failure. And they gave you something because they don't know what they are doing. I can say only one thing to you. Accept it. Tremble if trembling is there -- what to do? Death is there, and you feel a trembling, so tremble. Don't reject it, don't suppress it. Don't try to be brave. There is no need. Death is there. It is natural. Be afraid totally.'

He said, `What are you saying? You have not given me anything. Rather, on the contrary, you say to accept.'

I said, `Yes, you accept. You just go and die peacefully with total acceptance.'

After three or four days he came again, and said, `It works. I couldn't sleep for so many days, but for these four days I slept deeply, because it is right, you are right.' He said to me, `You are right. Fear is there, death is there, nothing can be done. All the mantras are just hocus-pocus; nothing can be done.'

No doctor can help, no saint can help. Death is there, a fact, and you are trembling. It is just natural. A storm comes and the whole tree trembles. It never goes to any saint to ask how not to tremble when a storm is passing by. It never goes for a mantra to change it, to protect it. It trembles. It is natural; it is so.

And the man said, `But a miracle has happened. Now I am not so afraid.' If you accept, fear starts disappearing. If you reject, resist, fight, you give energy to fear. That man died peacefully, unafraid, fearless, because he could accept fear. Accept fear and it disappears.

Question 5

BY THE USE OF TECHNIQUES SIMILAR TO THE SECOND TECHNIQUE YOU DISCUSSED YESTERDAY, I HEAR SOME SOUNDS LIKE THE FLOWING OF A RIVER OR A STREAM. MAY I KNOW WHAT THAT SOUND IS? IF I HAVE UNDERSTOOD RIGHTLY, THERE SHOULD BE NO THOUGHTS OR SOUND, AND THERE SHOULD BE COMPLETE SILENCE. THEN WHAT IS THIS SOUND?

In the beginning, before silence happens to you, sound will happen. So this is a good sign. Words, language, verbalization, disappear; the second layer is of sound. But don't fight with it; enjoy it. It will become musical, beautiful, You will be filled by its music, and you will become more alive through it.

When mind disappears, a natural inner sound appears. Allow it to happen. Meditate on it. Don't fight with it; just be a witness to it -- it will deepen. And if you don't fight with it, and don't create any struggle, it will disappear by itself, and when it disappears, you will fall into silence. Words -- sound -- silence. Words are human, sounds are natural, silence is cosmic.

So this is a good sign. This is what is called nada, the inner sound. Hear it, enjoy it, be a witness to it. It will disappear. And don't be disturbed and feel that it should not be there. If you say it should not be there, or if you hurry to get rid of it in any way, you will come to the first layer again -- to the words. Remember this. If you fight with this second layer of sound, you have started thinking about it and words have entered. If you say anything about this sound, you have lost the second deeper layer, and you are thrown back again to the first. You have come to the mind.

Don't say anything, don't think about it. Don't even say that this is sound. Just listen to it. Don't create any word around it. Don't give it any name or form. Let is be as it is. Allow it to flow, and you be a witness. The stream flows, and you are sitting on the bank, just a witness -- not even knowing the name of the stream, not knowing where it is going, not knowing from where it is coming.

Just sit near by the sound, and sooner or later it will disappear, and when it disappears there will be silence. This is a good sign -- you have touched a second layer -- but if you try to think about it, you will lose it; you will be thrown back to the first. If you don't think about it and can enjoy in witnessing, you will go deeper to the third layer.