LAST NIGHT YOU SAID THAT WHEN THERE ARE NO THOUGHTS IN THE MIND, THE MIND BECOMES AN EMPTY SPACE AND THE DOORS TO ALL THE MYSTERIES ARE OPENED. I FEEL THIS INNER SPACE DEEPLY AND CLEARLY BUT THERE IS NOTHING SPECIAL THAT I FEEL AS MYSTERY.

WILL YOU EXPLAIN WHAT YOU MEAN BY THE MYSTERY AND HOW IT IS FELT?

The inner emptiness itself is the mystery. You cannot feel it and you cannot know it. You become it. You are IT. When the inner space is there, then you are not. You cannot observe it. If you observe it, then the inner space has not yet appeared. Who will observe it? If you can observe it you are separate from it, so it is not inner, it is outer. It is `out' to you. The inner has not yet become empty, it is filled. The ego is there -- in a very subtle form; as an observer or onlooker, it is there. The inner is not empty yet, because when the inner is empty, you are not.

So the first thing to remember is that you will not be a witness to the mystery, you will be the mystery. You will not be able to observe it because you cannot be separate, there cannot be any duality.

One thing... when the inner is really empty, you are not, because you are the thing by which the inner is filled. Because of you it is not empty; because of you the space is covered, occupied. When you dissolve, when you simply disappear, only then the inner emptiness is there. So you will not be a witness to the mystery. Until you are not, the mystery will not be revealed; when you are not, the mystery will be revealed. So if you say that you feel inner emptiness it means you are not the emptiness; emptiness is something that is happening to you, around you, but you are not empty. So really this emptiness is just a `thought' of emptiness -- that is why you can say that now your inner space has become empty. This is a thought: this emptiness is not real, this emptiness is just part of the mind. The observer is there so the object must be there. You can make emptiness an object, a thought.

It is reported that Bokuju became empty like this. He must have come across this type of emptiness. He came to his master and he said, "Now there is nothing, I have become empty." The master said, "Go out and throw this nothingness also. This nothingness is still something, why are you carrying it? If you have really become nothing you will not be able to report it. Who will carry it? Who will feel in it a certain achievement?" The master said to Bokuju, "You have done well, you have become empty, now go and throw out this emptiness also."

You can be filled with emptiness -- that is the problem. And if you are filled with emptiness you are not empty.

The second thing... what do I mean by mystery? Whatsoever you understand, I don't mean, because you think that a mystery will be something very amazing, staggering, shocking, that you will be thrown off the ground. That is not the point. Mystery is the simple pure existence with nothing amazing about it, nothing staggering. You will not be pushed aside, not thrown, not shocked, not puzzled. Mystery is nothing mysterious really. This very ordinary existence -- accept it as it is without creating any problem. When you don't create a problem this existence is the mystery; when you create the problem you are destroying the mystery. Now you are in search of a solution, some answer. The same mind goes on. If you hear me talking about the mystery then you think about something very special. There is nothing special in existence. Only for the ego does the word `special' exist.

It is reported that when Lin Chi achieved enlightenment he laughed. His disciples asked, "Why are you laughing?" He said, "I am laughing for this. I was endeavoring for thousands and thousands of lives for this -- it is so ordinary."

This is the mystery -- nothing special.

It is said of Do-zen, another Zen master, that when he achieved enlightenment disciples asked him, "What was the first thing that you wanted to do after it?" Do-zen is reported to have said, "I wanted a cup of tea."

It was so ordinary. But for the ego these things are not appealing. If I say that enlightenment is so ordinary that you would like to have a cup of tea after it, then you will feel that the whole thing is nonsense -- why endeavor? Then the ego comes in. The ego wants something special, something rare, something that does not usually happen, that has happened only to you, which has not happened to just anyone. The ego wants something special, extraordinary.

Reality is not extraordinary; it is happening everywhere. And if it has not happened to you than that is special! Because it is there, always present. Not for a single moment is it absent. Enlightenment is happening every moment, it is the very core of existence -- but you are deaf and blind. It is nothing special.

To be a Buddha, to be enlightened, is the most ordinary phenomenon. When I say `ordinary' I mean: it must be so. If it looks very extraordinary it is because of you, because you create so many hurdles -- and you love them. First you create the obstacle, and then you try to cross it. And then you feel very elated. In the first place, there is no obstacle. But your ego will not feel good -- you must create a long route to come to the point that was the nearest, the most intimate one. And you had never missed it!

So don't seek something mysterious. Just be simple and innocent. And then the whole existence opens to you. You will not go mad, you can simply smile at the absurdity of the whole thing that was so near but you could not attain it. And there was no barrier. It was, in a sense, always within you. It was a miracle how you went on missing it.

If the emptiness is real, all that is there, the whole of it, the reality, will be opened to you. Not that it is closed right now, it is open. You are closed. Your mind is occupied. When your mind is empty, unoccupied, you will be open to it, and there will be a meeting. And then everything is beautiful in its total ordinariness. Hence it is said that one who has known becomes absolutely ordinary. He is one with the reality. To be hankering for the special is the way of the ego, and all the ways of the ego create gaps and distances between you and the real. Be empty and everything will have happened to you.

Not that you will have must to report: there is nothing to be reported. It is thought that Buddhas and Krishnas or those who have attained the ultimate, cannot describe it because it is so simple. Complex things can be described, remember. Simple things cannot be described. The more complex a thing is, the easier the description is, because in a complexity you can divide, contrast, compare. With a simple thing you cannot do anything.

For example, if I ask you, "What is yellow?" what will you say? Yellow is so simple, there is nothing complex about it. If I ask, "What is water?" you can say, "H20." It is complex: there is hydrogen, there is oxygen, so you can define it. But if I ask you, "What is yellow?" at the most you can say that yellow is yellow. But that is a tautology, it makes no sense. What will you do if I say, "What is yellow?" You may indicate a yellow flower, you may indicate a yellow sun rising, but you are not saying anything, you are indicating.

A simple thing can only be indicated; a complex thing can be defined, divided, analyzed. Buddhas are silent, not because they have encountered a very complex reality, they are silent because of a phenomenon so simple that it can only be indicated, not defined. So they can lead you towards it but they cannot say anything about it.

That mystery is not a complex thing, it is very simple, the simplest possible. But you can only meet with it when you have also become simple. If you are complex, you cannot meet it. There is no meeting ground. Only when you have become simple, totally simple, innocent, empty, the reality and you meet. Then there is a reflection of it in you. It echoes in you. It enters into you.

But don't wait for anything special. Nirvana is nothing special. When I say this, what is happening to your mind? When I say this nirvana is nothing special, what do you feel? How do you feel? You feel a little disappointed. In the mind the question must be arising -- then why struggle? Then why make any effort? Then why meditate? Then why these techniques?

Look at that mind, that mind is the problem. The mind wants something special. And because of that desire the mind goes on creating special things. In reality there is nothing special: either the whole of reality is special or nothing is special.

Because of this desire, the mind has created heavens, paradises. And it is not satisfied with one, it goes on creating many. Christians have one heaven, Hindus have seven -- because there are so many good people, there must be a hierarchy. The supreme good, where should they go? There is no end to it. In Buddha's days there was a sect who believed in seven hundred heavens. You have to place the egos: the highest ego must go to the highest heaven.

I was looking at a book of the Radha swamis. They say there are many divisions -- fourteen divisions. Only their guru has reached to the last. Buddha is somewhere in the seventh, Krishna somewhere in the fifth, Mohammed somewhere in the third. Only their guru has reached to the fourteenth. And everyone else is given a place, categorized. Only their guru is special. This is the desire to be special. And everyone is according to his desire.

I have heard an anecdote. In a Sunday school the priest was giving a religious lesson to the very small boys of the neighborhood. He talked much about what good people would achieve -- the crowns of glory and a heavenly reward. Those who are good would be crowned in heaven. Then at the end of his talk he said, "Who will get the biggest crown?" There was silence for a while, then a little boy, the hatmaker's son, stood up confidently and said, "The one who has the biggest head."

This is what we are all doing. Our definition of the biggest head may differ but we have a conception of something special in the end, and because of that `special' we go on moving. But remember, because of that `special' you are not moving anywhere at all, you are moving in desires. And a movement in desire is not a progress, it is circular.

If you can still meditate -- knowing well that nothing special is going to happen, that you will just come to a reconciliation with the ordinary reality, that you will be in harmony with this ordinary reality -- if with this mind you can meditate, then enlightenment is possible this very moment. But with this mind you won't feel like meditating -- you will say, "Leave everything if nothing special is going to happen."

People come to me and they say, "I have been meditating for three months and nothing has happened yet." A desire... and that desire is the barrier. It can happen in a single moment if desire is not there.

So don't desire the mysterious. Really, don't desire anything. Just be at ease, at home with reality as it is. Be ordinary -- to be ordinary is wonderful. Because then there is no tension, no anguish. To be ordinary is very mysterious because it is so simple. To me, meditation is a play, a game; it is not a work. But to you it goes on being work; you think in terms of work.

It will be good to understand the distinction between work and play. Work is end-oriented, not enough in itself. It must lead somewhere, to some happiness, to some goal, to some end. It is a bridge, a means. In itself it is meaningless. The meaning is hidden in the goal.

Play is totally different. There is no goal to it, or, it itself is the goal. Happiness is not beyond it, outside it; to be in it is to be happy. It will not give you any happiness outside of it, there is no meaning beyond it -- all that is there is intrinsic, internal. You play, not because of any reason, but because you enjoy it right now. It is purposeless.

That's why only children can play really; the more you grow, the less capable you become of playing. Because of more and more purpose, more and more you ask why, why should I play? More and more you become end-oriented: something must be achieved through it, in itself it has no meaning. Intrinsic value loses meaning for you. Only children can play because they don't think of the future. They can be here timelessly.

Work is time; play is timeless. Meditation must be like play, not end-oriented. You must not meditate to achieve something because then the whole point is lost. You cannot meditate at all if you are meditating for something. You can meditate only if you are playing with it, enjoying it, if nothing is to be achieved out of it, if it is beautiful in itself. Meditation for meditation's sake... then it becomes timeless. And then the ego cannot arise.

Without desire, you cannot project yourself into the future, without desire you cannot start expectations, and without desire you will never be disappointed. Without desire, time really disappears: you move from one moment of eternity to another moment of eternity. There is no sequence... and then you will never ask why nothing special is happening.

For myself, I have not come to know the mystery yet. The very play is the mystery; being timeless, desireless, is the mystery. And to be ordinary is the `goal', if you allow me to use the word. To be ordinary is the goal. If you can be ordinary you are liberated, then there is no SANSAR for you, no world for you.

This whole world is a struggle to be extraordinary. Some try it in politics, some try it in economics, some try it in religion. But the lust remains the same.

The second question:

NOT ONLY IN MEDITATION BUT IN ROUTINE LIFE ALSO, I CONSTANTLY FEEL A ONENESS WITH THE EXISTENCE, EGOLESSNESS, TIMELESSNESS. YET I FEEL MYSELF ORDINARY. AND I DO NOT FIND IN ME THE TOTAL TRANSFORMATION ABOUT WHICH YOU TALK VERY OFTEN.

This is good. This is the goal. You should not create a problem out of it. You should relax and be ordinary.

But why do you feel it? Why do you feel that you remain ordinary? Somewhere there must be the desire to be extraordinary, to be not ordinary. Only in contrast to that can you feel ordinary, and then a certain sadness will follow. But why not be ordinary? What do I mean when I say, "Be ordinary?" I mean that whatsoever the case is -- be.

One young man came to me just a few days ago, and he said, "I am an egoist and whenever I listen to you, I feel that I am wrong. So how to be egoless?" I told him, "You be simply egoistic, and accept the fact that you are so and don't struggle. Don't try to be egoless. You are an egoist, so feel it and be it."

He felt very disappointed because really he was searching for a new way for the ego. He was searching for egolessness. And I said, "Be whatsoever you are," so that that desire would be cut and the ego couldn't move. And I told him, "For three months don't come to me and don't fight the ego -- accept it, it is there. It is part of you, it is how you are. Don't fight with it, and don't think in terms of the contrary, how to be egoless, because that is the way of the ego. Accept it. Acceptance is the death."

But the young man said, "But every religion says be egoless, and I want to be egoless." Who is this`I' that wants to be egoless? The ways of the ego are very subtle. When I was talking to him I felt he was not listening to me. If I gave him some technique to do to be egoless, he would be ready and accepting, receptive, because then the ego could start work. But I was saying, "Don't talk about egolessness, just be whatsoever you are. And for three months don't struggle, then come to me."

He tried. After three months he came again and he said to me, "It has been very hard to accept, but because you told me, I tried. Now give me some technique, give me some key to go beyond this ego." The whole effort was false, because if you accept then there is no desire to go beyond.

Whenever you feel yourself to be ordinary you try to be extraordinary in some way. But everyone is ordinary: to be ordinary is to be real. It may be that to you someone looks extraordinary because you compare him with yourself, but a genius in himself is as ordinary as anybody, and he feels himself ordinary. A rose flower is ordinary, a lotus flower is ordinary, but if the rose starts comparing and starts thinking about how to be a lotus flower then problems arise. And if the lotus starts thinking about the beautiful perfume that comes from the rose flower, then the rose flower becomes extraordinary.

When you compare, in comparison extraordinariness happens -- otherwise everything is ordinary. In itself everything is as it is. Don't compare and don't hanker after it. If you hanker then meditation will disappoint you, because meditation will bring you to a point where you feel your total ordinariness. Be receptive to it, welcome it. It is good. It shows that meditation is progressing, deepening. But somewhere the desire for the extraordinary is still there and that is creating the barrier.

If that desire disappears, you will not feel yourself as ordinary. You will simply be. How can you feel that you are ordinary? You will simply be, and to be, to be so simple that you don't feel whether you are ordinary or extraordinary, is to attain.

It is good, don't be disappointed by it. If you are disappointed then remember that you are carrying a desire, and that desire is creating poison. Why is there this madness? Why does it come and happen to everyone? This whole world is mad because of this: everyone is trying to be something special, somebody.

Life happens to you only when you are nobody. When you are so empty that there is no one, then the whole of life flows through you without any barrier, without any obstacle, without any hindrance. Then the flow is total and complete.

When you are somebody, you become a rock, you disturb the flow -- life cannot move through you. There is a struggle, a resistance, and of course you create much noise. And you may think that because you are creating so much noise that you are something extraordinary.

Be an empty vessel, passage, with no resistance, so that life can flow through it, flow through it easily. Then no noise will be created. You may not be able to feel that you are, because you only feel that you are when you fight. The more you fight, the more you feel.

Life flows so smoothly through you that you may even completely forget that you exist. There is no barrier, no resistance, no rejection, no negation. And you are so welcoming that you even forget that you are.

It was heard about one Zen master that he would call his own name many times during the day. In the morning he would call, "Bokuju?" and then he would say, "Yes sir, I am here." Bokuju was his name. And his disciples would ask why he did this. He would say, "I go on forgetting. I have become so smooth that I have to remind myself -- `Bokuju?' And then I say, `Yes sir, I am here.'"

Life can become such a smooth flow, such a silent river, that no noise is created. But if you are bent upon being something, somebody, extraordinary, special, then life cannot flow through you. Then there is a constant struggle between life and you, between your small ego and the cosmos.

This is creating madness. The whole earth has become a mad planet. And this madness cannot be helped by treatments, therapies, because it is so basic a style of life that it is not a pathology. This is how we are living. Our whole style of life is mad. So you cannot be helped through therapies unless the whole life-style changes.

There are only two life-styles: ego-oriented and egoless-oriented. You must be somebody... this is one way of life. Then madness is the outcome. Really, the madman is the most extraordinary man. He has achieved extraordinariness because now he is completely uprooted from reality, he is not concerned with the reality at all. Now he lives isolated in himself, he has created his own world. Now the dream is the real and the real has become just a dream. Everything is upside down.

You cannot convince a madman that he is wrong, because he is very logical. Madmen are very rational and logical.

One madman used to come out of his house every day in the morning and chant some mantras and make some gestures. So, whosoever was passing would ask, naturally, what he was doing. And the madman would say, "I am protecting this neighborhood from ghosts." So the person who was asking would say, "But there are no ghosts in this neighborhood." And the man would say, "See, because of my chanting mantras, there are no ghosts."

He is rational, you cannot convince him -- ghosts are not there because of his chanting. But he lives now in his own subjective dream-world and you cannot pull him out.

If you think yourself somebody -- nobody can be somebody that is not in the nature of things -- but if you think yourself somebody, then a part of you has gone mad. That somebodiness is your madness. And the more this cancer of somebodiness grows, the more you will be cut off from reality.

A Buddha is a nobody. All his doors are open. The wind comes and blows, the rains come and blow, the sun-rays enter and pass, the life flows, but he is not there. This is what I mean when I say meditation has happened to you. And this is very ordinary, natural, real.

The third question

YOU ARE OFTEN SAYING THAT THIS IS GOOD OR BAD, OR THIS IS RIGHT OR WRONG. IS THIS A LANGUAGE JUST FOR US AS WE ARE NOT ABLE TO REALIZE THE ONENESS OF EVERYTHING, OR IS THERE SUCH A THING AS GOOD AND BAD?

No, it is simply a language. For me there is nothing good and nothing bad. But this will be too dangerous for you. Truth can be dangerous. Really, only truth can be dangerous -- lies are never so dangerous because they are not potential. They have no force in them.

Truth can be very shattering. It is the truth that there is no good, no bad, that nothing is right, nothing is wrong. Everything is as it is, all condemnation, division, is futile -- but this will be dangerous for you. This will be too much for you, you will misunderstand it. You cannot understand it; when there is nothing good, nothing bad, you cannot understand it, and you will have your own interpretation of it.

If I say there is nothing good, nothing bad, you will think that now whatsoever you have been thinking of up to now as bad, there is no need to think of it as such. So it will become a licence for you and you will start double thinking. You will think that for yourself there is nothing good, nothing bad, but for others you will not allow the same. If you can allow the same for others also, then you have understood; then it is not a licence, it is a freedom. But the mind must be one; there should not be double standards.

Why do I say that there is nothing good and nothing bad? Because goodness and badness are interpretations, they are not reality.

If there is a flower outside in the garden, you can call it beautiful and somebody else can call it ugly. The flower is neither. The flower exists there as it is in its authenticity. And it is not bothered about your interpretations. But to you it is either beautiful or not. That beauty and ugliness is interpretation, not reality. It is your mind which says that it is beautiful or ugly. The flower will not be affected by it, but you will be. If you say that it is beautiful, your behavior will be of one kind; if you say that it is ugly, your behavior will be different. You will be affected by your interpretation.

And I am talking to you, so I have to constantly remember that whatsoever I say, your behavior will be affected. Unless you come to a point where the whole emphasis has changed from doing to being, when you are not interested in doing and you are only interested in being, you cannot understand what I mean when I say that there is nothing good or bad. Things are as they are.

But it is only possible to understand this when you are deeply centered in the being. And if you are centered in the being, then whatsoever you do will be good. Then there is no danger. But right now you are not centered in the being, you are centered on the periphery. You are continuously choosing what to do and what not to do.

Really, you have not asked the question, "What to be?" You have always been asking what to do and what not to do and whether it will be good or not. You never ask the question, "What to be?" And unless being becomes more important than doing, there is good and there is bad -- for you. Then something has to be done and something has not to be done.

How do I make this difference and why? If there is really no good and no bad then how and why is this difference made?

To me, this is again a difference I make for you: I call something good if it leads to your being, where everything will become good, and I call something bad if it leads you away from the being. If you go on being away from yourself, everything will become bad.

To help you to come to yourself, to your home, I call something good and bad, or, something right and wrong. It is better to use the words `right' and `wrong' than the words `good' and `bad' because I am more concerned with techniques of how to bring yourself to your being. So, a technique can be right if it brings you to your being; a technique can be wrong if it doesn't bring you to your being or if it becomes a hindrance, or moves you into by-paths, or moves you on ways which will become cul-de-sacs and will not lead you anywhere.

But if you ask me, ultimately there is nothing good, nothing bad, nothing right, nothing wrong. And if you can understand this right now, then start living in a way where nothing is wrong and nothing is right -- and this is for you as far as you are concerned with others, and for others as far as they are concerned with you.

Jesus says, "Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you." This is the basic principle of `one standard' and this is the whole of the teaching of all those who want to help you to come to yourself -- there is one standard where nothing is good and nothing is bad, not only for you but for everyone.

It is easy to say that to steal is not bad if you are stealing, but if someone else is stealing something from you then it becomes difficult to say that stealing is not bad.

I have heard about a thief. For the fourth time he was caught and the judge asked him, "You get caught again and again, what is the matter? If you are not so efficient, why go on doing it?" The man said, "It is not a question of efficiency. I am alone and the work is too much." So the judge said, "Then why don't you have a companion, a partner?" The thief said, "Morals have become so low that you cannot depend on any partner."

Even a thief thinks in terms of morality, for others -- "Morals have gone so low that you cannot depend on a partner. So I have to do all the work myself and the work is too much."

This is the deepest teaching of all the knowers: there is nothing to choose. Everything is accepted. If you can accept it in its totality, you are transformed. But if you are cunning and want to deceive yourself, then this total acceptability will be dangerous.

So, I say many things to you just because of you. And just in-between I also go on communicating that which I would really like to say to you. But it can be given only very indirectly. You are so dangerous, so suicidal, that you can commit something which will be harmful to you.

I am talking about a higher truth -- not only a higher truth, but an ultimate truth. Naropa, in his song, says that only an inch difference sets heaven and hell apart. An inch difference between what is good and what is bad sets heaven and hell apart.

And you will have to live in anguish because you have created the division. Bring all the dualities nearer, closer, and let them merge. Let the good and bad merge into each other, the darkness and the light merge into each other, life and death merge into each other. Then there is ADVAIT, then there is oneness. That oneness brings freedom, transformation.

The fourth question:

IT IS OUR IMAGINATION, THROUGH AUTO-SUGGESTIONS, THAT HAS ESTABLISHED US IN THE WORLD OF THE FINITE, IN THE WORLD OF NAMES AND FORMS, IN THE WORLD OF PAINS AND PLEASURES. CAN THE SAME INSTRUMENT BE USED TO REACH THE INFINITE, THE ABSOLUTE, THE BLISSFUL? THE SAME INSTRUMENT IN THE REVERSE ORDER?

You have come to this house, soon you will be going back, and the same path will be used again -- but in the reverse order. While you were coming here your face was towards me and when you go back, your back will be towards me. But the path will be the same. No other path is needed to go back home. Only the direction changes.

The way which you have traveled to come into darkness will be the way, is the way, the only way. You will have to travel back that way. The way that has brought you into misery and anguish will be the way which will lead you towards bliss and ecstasy. There is no other way, there is no need. And remember, don't follow any other way otherwise you will never reach home.

You have to be alert to follow the same path again. The only change is in the direction -- it is a total about-turn. Hypnosis, auto-suggestion, they create this world; de-hypnosis, de-auto-suggestion will lead you back to the real. There is no finite world, the world is infinite. It is your super-imposition, your hypnosis, that makes it look finite. Withdraw your hypnosis and the world is infinite -- it has always been so.

All techniques of meditation are similar to hypnosis. This creates a problem. It creates a problem when people go on asking about the difference between hypnosis and meditation. There is no difference. The path is the same but the direction is different.

In hypnosis you are falling more and more asleep, losing awareness; in meditation you are coming out of sleep, gaining awareness. It is the same path. In hypnosis you are conditioning yourself, in meditation you are unconditioning yourself -- but the process is the same. Meditation is hypnosis in reverse. So whatsoever you have done with yourself you have to undo it. That's all.

Try to do a very simple experiment which will be revealing: you can hypnotize yourself. Close your room and make it completely dark, then put a small candle just in front of your eyes. Then without blinking your eyes, stare at the flame, and just go on thinking that you are falling asleep, you are falling asleep. A deep sleep is descending upon you -- just let this thought be floating there, within. Go on staring at the candle and let this thought be there as a cloud hovering over you. You are falling asleep, you are falling asleep. When you do it, you have to say, "I am falling asleep. Sleep is descending. My limbs are relaxing."

You will immediately feel a subtle change, and within three minutes you will feel that the body has become heavy. Any moment you can fall. The lids of the eyes are heavy and now it is very difficult to go on staring at the flame. The eyes want to close. Everything has become numb.

Now you can feel that this is what hypnosis is: being more sleepy, falling into unawareness, becoming more unconscious. Feel the feel of it, what is happening, how your mind has become cloudy. The clarity has gone, aliveness has gone, you are becoming dead. Your body feels more weighty. This will give you the sensation of how your consciousness can become unconsciousness.

Try this for seven days so that you can feel completely what it is, and how you descend into the well. With more and more darkness, more sleep, more unconsciousness, at the last moment suddenly you will not be there and the flame will have disappeared. You are fast asleep. You can feel the grave.

Then after one week try the other experiment. Have the same room, the same flame, the same way of staring, but a different thought in the mind, "I will become more alert, I am becoming more and more alert, more alive, more alert. The body is becoming more and more weightless." Let this thought be there and go on staring at the flame -- you will feel a sudden surge of life awareness and consciousness.

Within seven days you can come to a point where you will feel so alert that you will feel as if the body is not. On one pole the whole spectrum is deep sleep where you forget yourself completely; on the other pole there is deep awareness where everything is forgotten, you remember only yourself.

Then there are many mid-stages. The stage we are in is just in the middle -- half asleep, half awake. So whatsoever you do, you are doing it half asleep, half awake. Both the processes are the same, they are the same process.

Thought in an intense state becomes reality; thought condensed becomes a thing. One thought kept continuously in the consciousness transforms you, becomes a seed. So if you are struggling to be more and more alert, you are deconditioning yourself, moving in the other direction. Gurdjieff calls it self-remembering -- he says, "Continuously remember yourself." Buddha says, "Don't forget yourself whatsoever you are doing; continuously go on hammering that you are doing it." And he is so particular that he says to his monks, "While you are walking and your left foot comes up, remember that your left foot is coming up: now the foot is going down, now the right one is coming up, now the right is going down. Remember that the breath is coming in, that the breath is going out. Remember continuously, whatsoever is happening and use every happening as a situation to remember. Don't do anything in an unconscious state, a sleepy state." And Buddha says that this is enough. If you can work like this for twenty-four hours, sooner or later you will have de-hypnotized yourself. You will have become aware, alert.

Hypnosis and meditation are the same process in diametrically opposite directions. You can use hypnosis to awaken you; you can use hypnosis to fall deep into sleep. And if you become master of the art of hypnosis, you have got the key to open all the doors of life.

If you are not the master of the key of hypnosis, then you are a victim of many, many forces. This is worth understanding: if you don't know what hypnosis is then you are a victim. Everybody is trying hypnosis on you -- I say everybody! They may not be doing it knowingly, but everybody is trying. There are different ways, methods. The whole world is filled with hypnotic tricks: the same advertisement in the newspaper, on the television and on the radio. It goes on hammering, it becomes a hypnotic thing.

In the mind you go on repeating, "Lux is the best soap." You go on repeating it. Wherever you move it is written on the walls; in films you see it, on the T.V. screen it is there, on the radio it is there, in magazines, in newspapers, in anything: "Lux Toilet Soap." It goes on and on. You become hypnotized by it. Then you go to the shop and the man behind the counter asks you, "What soap do you need?" You say, "Lux Toilet Soap." You are asleep. You are not saying it consciously, it has been hammered in and now it is built in.

Crores of rupees are spent on advertising just to hypnotize you. Those advertisements have to be repeated continuously. Repetition is the way. Then there is imprint, and you become unconscious about it; then suddenly it comes out of your mouth, "Lux Toilet Soap." And you think that you are choosing. You are not the chooser.

The whole education system is hypnotic. That's why for the teacher a higher place is needed. It must be measured scientifically because there is a particular point -- the way I am sitting here is at a wrong point, this is not right. Your eyes should be in a tension looking at me, in much tension, not relaxed -- then you are easily hypnotized.

Hitler used every proportion. He had an expert committee to measure how much distance from the audience and how much height was needed so that the eyes are correctly at a tension where they become easily hypnotized and sleepy. And then all the lights would be put off -- in Hitler's lecture hall the only lights would be on Hitler. Nobody could see anywhere else, and so you were forced to look only at him. In a particular situation a particular tension was created. In this tension he would go on saying something for a while. The things that he wanted to put into you would be said later on, when the whole audience had become sleepy. Then the words would simply move into the unconscious and start functioning.

Now they have invented subliminal advertisements in films. As you watch a film, between two scenes, just for a fraction of a second, the advertisement will be flashed. You will not be able to read it, you will not even know what has happened. Simply watching the film, suddenly for a few seconds the advertisement will be there -- but you will not be continuously aware of it.

Only two persons in a hundred can feel that something has happened. Only those who have very keen eyes can feel that something was in-between. Ninety-eight per cent will not feel it, but the unconscious has read it. It has entered you.

There was one experiment about it in an American film. They flashed a particular brand of cold drink on the screen, something new. Only two per cent of the people became aware that there was an advertisement, ninety-eight per cent were fully unaware, but in the interval many people went out and asked for the drink. They were not aware that there had been an advertisement because it had been so fast.

Hypnosis is all around. Education uses it, politics uses it, the market uses it -- everyone is using it. And if you are not aware then you are a victim. Become aware. If you become aware, you can use it; not to hypnotize others, but to de-hypnotize yourself. And if you can become completely de-hypnotized, you are free, you are liberated.

And there is no conflict between meditation and hypnosis. The conflict is in the directions -- the process is the same.