The first question
Question 1:
Bruno,
MAN IS NOT ONLY THE OUTER, and he is not only the inner either - he is both. And more: he is inner, he is outer, and he is transcendental too. Man is a three dimensional being. Those three dimensions are represented by Christianity as the Trinity, and by Hinduism as TRIMURTI - three faces of God. And the man who lives only in one dimension lives a partial life. He will never know the beauty of the whole and the joy of the whole.
To live a partial life is to live in sickness, because the parts that are not allowed go on fighting with you. They want to express themselves. The denied being will take revenge on you. it will sabotage your life. It will not allow you to live peacefully; you will be in a constant civil war.
If you deny the body, the body will be angry with you. If you deny the soul, the soul will be angry with you. And d house divided against itself cannot be whole, cannot be at peace, cannot be at ease.
That's why you see millions of people in such great misery. The misery is caused because they live a fragmentary life. They accept only a part of their being and the major parts are rejected. It is like a tree rejecting its roots because they are invisible - the tree will start dying, the roots will be angry. Or it is like the tree denying its flowers, foliage, branches, and accepting only the roots, then it will have no meaning.
Man has lived in a partial way, hence the question.
The total man will be rooted in the body like a tree rooted in the soil, and he will be growing into the sky like the branches of a tree - he will be moving into the inner sky.
And he will have something more too, something transcendental to this duality, a third dimension.
The first dimension is very visible, it is material. It can be measured: it is the world of mathematics, the world of science. The second, the inner, is not so visible - it is vague, cloudy, mysterious. It is a twilight zone, neither day nor night, just in the middle between both. It exists on the boundaries of the material and the ultimate, of this and that. That is the world of poetry, art.
And the third is absolutely invisible. Nobody has ever seen it, nobody can ever see it, because it is the very being of the seer itself. You cannot reduce it to an object: it is your very subjectivity. It is always the witness and never the witnessed. It is always the observer and never the observed. That is the world of the mystic: the transcendental.
And a whole man will be a scientist, a poet and a mystic. Pythagoras was a whole man, a holy man.
When I say this, that the whole man will be all the three together, please don't take me literally. One need not be literally a scientist and yet one can be whole - but his approach will be scientific. He may not be an Albert Einstein, or a Newton, or an Edison. Buddha is not an Albert Einstein, but still his scientific approach is there: he is utterly scientific in his approach. He will not allow any superstition. He will not allow any illogical approaches. He will be very logical - although he will lead you beyond logic! but he will lead you very logically, step by step, with a method.
Buddha is as much a scientist as Albert Einstein; you can look into his words. He says, "Don't believe what I say unless you have experienced it. Unless it has become your own understanding, don't believe in me." This can be said only by an utterly scientific mind.
He says, "Don't believe anything because it is written in the scriptures. The scriptures may be wrong - who knows? Unless you have become a witness to it there is no guarantee of its truth." It may be in the Vedas, in the Upanishads - there is no need to believe or disbelieve. Experiment, experience! Become a lab - your own lab. And unless you have concluded, all beliefs are just prejudices, superstitious, illogical, unfounded.
And truth believed is a lie. Truth experienced is a totally different phenomenon. Truth believed is a lie.
This is the approach of a scientific mind.
Buddha is not a poet either in the ordinary sense - he never composed poetry. But he is a poet! The way he walks is poetry, the way he looks at life is poetry. The way he showers his compassion is poetry. He may not be a poet in the ordinary, literal sense, but he is sheer poetry. His very existence is poetic. The tremendous grace that surrounds him, the infinite beauty that he lives, and the splendour that he has brought to the earth - the earth has never been the same again. It was something else before Buddha, it is totally something else after Buddha.
What difference has Buddha made to the world? He walked on the earth, and he belonged to the beyond. He was embodied just like you and me, but he had come from the ultimate source. He lived here and now, but AS the ultimate source. His fragrance is still there in the winds. Those who are alert will still feel his presence. That preSence is eternal.
So is Jesus, so is Pythagoras... they are all mystics, poets, scientists. The real man is bound to be a total man. And that's my teaching too: I would not like you to be partial, I would not like you to be lopsided. I would not like you to live only in the body, or only in the soul. People have tried that! And because of those efforts, man has not become what he has the birthright to become. Man has not bloomed, has not flowered. He cannot.
Unless all the three dimensions are together, something will be missing. And that missing part will go on haunting you, will go on creating misery for you.
The missing part will not allow you to be really contented. The missing part will not allow you to be grateful to God. The missing part will not allow you to release the fragrance in tremendous gratefulness, thankfulness - to be prayerful. It will not allow you prayer. Only a fulfilled man can pray. Only a contented man can pray: contentment is prayer. Prayer is the perfume of absolute contentment.
Live in the body as Epicurus lived in the body. Live in the soul as all the mystics have always tried to live in the soul, but don't deny Epicurus. My vision of the whole man implies Epicurus too, as much as Jesus, as much as Zarathustra. And the poet is just between the two, the meeting-point of the mystic and the scientist in you. It is there that the poet exists - on the boundaries, on the frontiers. Let your poet also have its say.
Dance, sing, create music. Live a life which is rooted in scientific outlook, and has the grace and the beauty of poetry, and the depth of mysticism.
Bruno, Pythagoras is a whole man. It should be so with everybody else too.
You ask me: AS WELL AS BEING SOMEONE LIKE YOU, PYTHAGORAS WAS ALSO A GREAT MATHEMATICIAN. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
I am not a mathematician, but whatsoever I am saying to you is utterly mathematical. I am not a logician, but what I am saying to you is absolutely logical. Although my logic will help you to go beyond logic - that's what I mean when I say 'absolutely logical'.
Because the illogical is AS much part of existence as the logical. If somebody is really logical he will accept the illogical too, because it is there and it cannot be rejected.
To be logical means to accept the illogical too, then logic becomes a stepping-stone to the illogical. Then logic becomes a stepping-stone to love.... And when everything in you has been used and nothing is neglected, you become an orchestra, then you are harmony of tremendous grace. That harmony is the goal of religion.
The second question
Question 2:
Sarlo,
REMEMBER ONE THING ALWAYS: that time changes everything - language, the ways of language... time changes everything! If Pythagoras comes back, you will not be able to relate to him. He will be speaking a language that is no more in use, and you will be speaking a language that he will not be able to understand either - there will be a gap of twenty-five centuries. Twenty-five centuries is a long time. In fact, between two generations the gap arises; between your father and you there is a gap, and such a gap that people feel it is unbridgeable.
Children feel it almost impossible to relate to their own parents. The gap is not much, maybe twenty years. Twenty years' gap or twenty-five years' gap and children feel it is impossible to communicate. And the parents feel it is impossible to communicate. In twenty-five years the world has changed so much - what to say about twenty-five centuries?
That's why you will need somebody who belongs to you to convey to you what the meaning of Pythagoras is. Why am I talking on Pythagoras? So that the gap of twenty- five centuries can be bridged, so that Pythagoras can again become a living force amongst you. If you try to understand Pythagoras directly you will not be able to understand him at all. He speaks a totally different language that has disappeared from the world. It is the language of Patanjali, it is the language of Mahavira. But Patanjali and Mahavira were pre-Freudians. They used words in a totally different way; they had never heard about Freud. Pythagoras is using language in the same way. You will have to be a little patient.
When he says not to be angry, he does not mean repression in the sense you understand the word repression. When he says don't be angry, he is not telling you to repress anger:
he is telling you to transcend anger. And they are tremendously different - not only different but diametrically opposite.
If you try not to be angry, you will repress anger. If you try to transcend anger, you will not repress anger: on the contrary, you will have to understand anger, you will have to watch anger. In watching is transcendence.
If you repress anger, the anger goes into your unconscious; you become more and more poisoned. It is not good, it is not healthy; it is going to drive you neurotic sooner or later.
And one day or other the accumulated anger will explode, and that will be far more dangerous because then it will be absolutely uncontrollable by you. Then it is better to be finished with it every day in small doses. Those doses are homeopathic: once in a while you feel angry, be angry. That is far healthier than accumulating anger for a few years then one day exploding. Then it will be too much; you will not be able even to be conscious of what you are doing. It will be absolutely mad. You may do something tremendously harmful to yourself or to somebody else; you may murder or you may commit suicide.
Pythagoras is not saying to repress it - no enlightened person can ever say to repress it.
He is saying to transcend it, go beyond it. Transcendence is a totally different process. In transcendence you don't repress anger and you don't express it either. You know only two ways to deal with anger: expression, repression. And the real way to deal with it is neither. It is not expression, because if you express anger you create anger in the other; then it becomes a chain... then the other expresses it, then again you are provoked. .. then where is it going to end? And the more you express, the more it becomes a habit, a mechanical habit. And the more you express it, the more you are practising it! It will be difficult for you to get out of it.
Out of this fear, repression arose: don't express, because it brings great misery to you, to others - and to no point. It makes you ugly, it creates ugly situations in life, and then you have to pay for all that. And, slowly slowly, it becomes such a habit that it becomes your second nature.
Out of the fear of expression, repression arose. But if you repress, you are accumulating the poison. It is bound to explode.
The third approach, the approach of all the enlightened people of the world, is neither to express nor repress, but WATCH. When anger arises, sit silently, let the anger surround you in your inner world, let the cloud surround you, be a silent watcher. SEE... this IS anger.
Buddha has said to his disciples: When anger arises, listen to it, listen to its message. And remember again and again, going on telling yourself: Anger, anger.... Keep alert, don't fall asleep. Keep alert that anger is surrounding you. You are not it! You are the watcher of it. And that is where the key is.
Slowly slowly, watching, you become so separate from it that it cannot affect you. And you become so detached from it and so aloof and so cool and so far away, and the distance is such that it doesn't seem to matter at all. In fact, you will start laughing at all the ridiculous things that you have been doing in the past - because of this anger. It is not you. It is there, outside you. It is surrounding you. But the moment you are disidentified from it, you will not pour your energy into it.
Remember, we pour our energy into anger, then only does it become vital. It has no energy of its own; it depends on our cooperation. In watching, the cooperation is broken; you are no more supporting it. It will be there, for a few moments, a few minutes, and then it will be gone. Finding no roots in you, finding you unavailable, seeing that you are far away, a watcher on the hills, it will dissipate, it will disappear. And that disappearance is beautiful. That disappearance is a great experience.
Seeing the anger disappear, great serenity arises: the silence that follows the storm. You will be surprised that each time anger arises and if you can watch, you will fall into such tranquillity as you have not known before. You will fall into such deep meditation...
when the anger disappears you will see yourself so fresh, so young, so innocent, as you have never known yourself. Then you will be thankful even to anger; you will not be angry at it - because it has given you a new beautiful space to live in, a new utterly fresh experience to go through. You have used it, you have made a stepping-stone out of it.
This is the creative use of the negative emotions. That's what Pythagoras means.
Remember, language goes on changing.
Little Red Riding Hood was walking through the woods on her way to visit her grandmother, when suddenly a wolf jumped out from behind a tree.
"Ah-ha!" the wolf said. "Now I have got you, and I am going to eat you!"
"Eat! Eat! Eat!" Little Red Riding Hood said angrily. "Damn it! Doesn't anybody make love any more?"
Language goes on changing... metaphors change, symbols change. The same words that used to mean one thing mean something totally different.
A man and a single woman were attending a large convention. They found themselves, through an accidental oversight of the hotel, assigned to the same room. Since both were mature individuals and knew how difficult it would be to get the matter straightened out in such crowded conditions, it seemed the wiser course to accept the situation.
Each chose a bed and a dresser and proceeded to ignore the other with a kind of tactful politeness.
But on the second night it turned out that the woman didn't know how cold it was going to get. She was freezing. Hesitantly she called out, "Would you be so good as to get me one of the blankets from the chest?"
The man, who had been nearly asleep, thought that over and said, "Listen, if you are going to be this friendly and as long as we are in the same room, how about acting as though we were man and wife?"
The girl thought that over, giggled and said, "Well, I think - perhaps I might be willing."
The man said, "Good! In that case, as my wife, get your own darned blanket and leave me alone."
After twenty-five centuries, you will not be able to understand directly what Pythagoras has said. You will need somebody who is contemporary to you in time, and who is also contemporary to Pythagoras in eternity - only then will those metaphors take new colour, will those metaphors have new meanings.
That has been the basic reason why, in the East particularly, down the ages, enlightened people have been commenting on other enlightened people who have preceded them.
Shankara commented on Krishna, on the Upanishads, on the Brahma Sutras. Ramanuja commented on the ancient enlightened people, Vallabha did the same. It has always been so in the East, because much dust gathers as time passes. Now, the Upanishads were written in a totally different world. That man has disappeared, that mind has disappeared, that world no more exists.
If some Upanishadic seer comes to see you, he will be utterly puzzled; if you visit some ancient monastery - Nalanda, Takshashila, or some ancient mystery school like Pythagoras' - you will not be able to understand what is happening, because we understand through language. Unless you can understand through silence... silence is eternal, it never changes, because it is not part of the human world. If you become deeply silent, then you will be able to understand Pythagoras. In that silence, he will commune with you, you can commune with him. Otherwise, you will feel difficulties.
I can understand your problem, Sarlo. You say:
BEFORE TAKING SANNYAS, I WOULD HAVE FOUND IT VERY EASY TO RELATE TO PYTHAGORAS.
Because you have been brought up by a repressive society - Christian, Hindu, Jaina, it doesn't matter. You have been brought up by a repressive society; that's why you are saying before taking sannyas, before meeting me, you would have understood Pythagoras. But I tell you that would have been misunderstanding, not understanding.
You would have thought that he was teaching repression the way your parents have been teaching you. You would have thought that he was the same kind of person as the priest in the church - Rome or Canterbury or Mecca. They are ALL repressive.
Priests have always been repressive. It is only the enlightened person who can give you freedom, because he does not need slaves. Priests need slaves; they cannot give you freedom. They have to make you greater and greater prisoners. And this is a psychological device: repress natural instincts and you will remain a prisoner, and you will be so ill always that you will need somebody to lean upon. And you will remain so ignorant that you will need guidance, that you will need leaders.
You say: BEFORE TAKING SANNYAS, I WOULD HAVE FOUND IT VERY EASY TO RELATE TO PYTHAGORAS.
That would not have been real communion; that would have been false. NOW you can relate! because now you are again with another Pythagoras. But now you feel difficulties.
You say:
NOW I WOULD STILL LIKE TO, BUT SOME THINGS SEEM SO MORALISTIC AND REPRESSIVE, LIKE HIS ADVICE NOT TO BE ANGRY. WHERE AM I MISSING?
You are missing because you have completely forgotten that twenty-five centuries' gap is a big gap. You need for Pythagoras to be reborn. That's what I am doing by commenting on him. This is giving him a new meaning, a new body of words - words that you can understand, words that make sense to you, words that can relate to you.
A backwoods inn boasted a modest sign on the porch: "Rooms to let. Food. Country atmosphere." The inn was hardly a sophisticated hotel, but one night a shiny black Cadillac pulled up in front of it. The owners of the car had gotten lost and wanted to spend the night there.
The man and his wife were big-city people in fancy clothes, and they emerged from the Cadillac as if they owned the world. Contemptuous of country life, but desperate for a night's lodging, the couple did not even pretend to like the idea of staying at the inn. They were above it all.
After registering at the desk, the couple entered the dining room of the inn. Ignoring the simple menu, the man plunked down a dollar and said, "For this, I want food, drink, and entertainment."
In a few minutes, the innkeeper returned with two slices of watermelon. "You asked for food, drink, and entertainment?" he said. "Here it is. Eat the pulp, drink the juice, and play with the seeds."
The third question
Question 3:
Prem Shahido,
NOT INSIGHTS, BUT A SINGLE INSIGHT allows you to drop the past. In fact, to say 'allows you to drop the past' is not right. The single insight, and the past drops of its own accord. Not that you drop it.
What is that single insight? The single insight is this: that the past is no more... only the present is. To live simply means to be in the present; there is no other way to live, no other way to be. Past is no more, and the future is not yet; both are non-existential. And to cling to something that is non-existential is stupid.
The past is only memory, and the future is only imagination. And that which is is missed between these two monsters, the past and the future. They go on exploiting you; they are parasites, they are ghosts - they don't exist. But you can go on giving them energies; then they can go on existing. At least, they appear to exist when you are not aware of the present.
You will be surprised to know that in the ancient Greek language the word 'God' simply meant the present. 'G' stands for that, 'O' stands for which, and 'D' stands for is - that which is. That is the meaning of the ancient word 'God'.
God is not a person but THAT WHICH IS. Herenow, this moment, God is present. God cannot be found in the past. And God cannot be found in the future. God always is. You cannot use with God words like 'was', 'will be' - you cannot say 'God was' - that will be utter nonsense. You cannot say 'God will be', that will be again utter nonsense. You can only use 'is'. In fact to say 'God is' is to repeat; it is a tautology. God means isness! You cannot say 'God is'. God is another name for is - that which is.
A single insight of being in tune with the present. And that's what meditation is all about:
to be in tune with that which is, to be utterly free from thoughts. Because whether it is past or future it is only through thoughts that past and future exist. Call it memory, call it imagination, but they are all thoughts, forms of thought.
To be in a state of thoughtless awareness... and like lightning, a single blow of the sword, the past disappears for ever and the future too. And in that moment is liberation.
Shahido, it is a single insight! It is satori, it is samadhi. Many insights are not needed for it - it is a single blow of the sword. And you can have it right now - unless you decide otherwise. This very moment, God is everywhere, all over the place. Only God is. Feel this silence. Let that silence go deeper into your heart. Let it permeate you. Let it throb in your heartbeats. Let it become your breathing, your very being.... And where is the past?
It has disappeared of its own accord.
It has not to be dropped. It disappears just like darkness when you bring light in. Not slowly slowly, not part by part, not gradually. When you light a candle in the dark room, it is not that by and by, slowly slowly, the darkness goes out - reluctant, not willing to go. No. It is simply not found!
The candle is lit and there is no darkness. The candle of meditation, of being herenow.
The candle of God meaning that which is... and all past is gone. And it will never arise again, because once you have learnt the beauty, the benediction of the present, it is so tremendous - who cares for all the dust that has been gathering on the mirror of the mind?
You go on thinking of the past because you don't know how to relate with the present.
You go on thinking of the past because one has to do something, one has to keep oneself occupied. Children think of the future, and the old people think of the past; because children have no past so they cannot think of the past; they have to think about the future.
And the old people have no future any more: there is death just standing like a China Wall. They know, now there is no more future; the tomorrow may never come. Afraid, they look backwards.
And that happens to individuals, that happens to countries, to societies, to nations too. For example, a young country like America thinks of the future; its golden age is yet to come.
A country like India, very ancient, old, thinks of the past; its golden age has passed. In the days of Rama it has been; it is already a gone thing. It is simply an indication that the country is very very old and cannot conceive any future. In the future is death.
But to be a child is to miss; and to be old is to miss. The meditator is exactly in the middle: he has something of eternal youth in him.
You will be surprised to know that in the East we have never depicted any enlightened person old; we have always depicted them young. You have not seen any picture of Buddha as old, or Mahavira, or Rama, or Krishna - they have been painted, depicted, sculpted, always as young. To indicate something: that the meditator is neither a child who thinks of the future, nor an old man who thinks of the past. He is exactly in the middle, so young, so fresh, that he knows nothing of past and future - he knows only of this moment.
It is not that Krishna never became old; he became old. He was eighty years old when he died. It is not that Buddha never became old; he was eighty-two years old when he died, very old, ill, the body in a very bad shape. Mahavira became very old. But still we have not carried the stories of their old age, because those stories are not true about their beings - they are true only about their outer periphery, not about their centers. And the center is the real thing; the periphery is just a shadow. The center is substantial.
Shahido, a single insight is needed: that only the present is - nothing else is, nothing else has ever been, nothing else will ever be. Only the present is.
But this has to be your insight. My insight won't help. I can share my insight with you - that's what I am doing - but it has to become your insight. And once it happens, and only once, that you have contacted the present, you are a totally different person. It is a rebirth, a resurrection.
The fourth question
Question 4:
IN FACT, MORE ENERGY IS NEEDED TO BE MISERABLE than to be blissful.
Because blissfulness is a state of nature. No energy is needed to be blissful! It is natural.
Energy is needed to be miserable, because it is unnatural. The more natural you are, the less energy is needed; the more unnatural you want to be, the more energy will be needed.
If you are standing on your feet, it needs less energy; try to stand on your head, it needs more energy. Wherever you see more energy is needed, know well that you are trying to do something unnatural. Meditation needs no energy! because meditation is passive, inaction, silence. You are not doing anything - why should you need any energy?
Anger needs energy, thinking needs energy, violence needs energy - because you are doing something against nature, you are fighting against nature. It is like you are trying to swim upstream. If you are going with the river, then no energy is needed. You can go and try in the river: if you go with the river, what energy? for what? The river takes you....
But if you are trying to go upstream, then great energy will be needed - because you will be fighting with the stream.
Mulla Nasruddin was sitting in front of his house. It was raining and somebody came running and he said, "What are you doing here? Your wife has fallen in the river!"
Mulla rushed to the river. A great crowd had gathered, but nobody was daring enough to jump into the river - it was so dangerous, it was such a big flood. Mulla immediately jumped - and started swimming upstream.
The crowd laughed and people said, "Mulla, what are you doing? Why are you trying to swim upstream?"
He said, "You keep quiet! - I know my wife. If she has fallen in the stream, she must have gone upstream, she cannot go downstream. She can never do anything naturally. I know my wife."
But when you go upstream, you will have to fight. Why do people look so tired? They are all fighting. Your religion teaches you to fight. Your whole upbringing is based on conflict, because it is only through fight that ego can be created. When you relax, ego disappears. To relax means to become egoless. If you go with the river, you cannot create the ego. The ego is an unnatural phenomenon; it needs great energy to create it. And it needs great energy to go ON creating it; it needs great energy to maintain it then. It is a very expensive phenomenon to have an ego. Your whole life is wasted in it.
So the first thing. Asker, I would like to tell you: awareness does not need energy. You will be surprised: unawareness needs energy. Meditation does not need energy: thinking needs energy. Relaxation needs NO energy! Tension needs energy; anguish, anxiety needs energy.
So, let it be clear from the very beginning: the enlightened person lives with no conflict - he need not have any energy. And because he is not in fight and because he is not dissipating his energy, a miracle happens: God's energy starts flowing through him.
When you are not fighting with the river, the river takes you on her shoulders. When you are not fighting with life, God takes you on his shoulders.
Don't push the river - the river is not your enemy - and great energy will be released in you.
The second thing you say: HOW CAN AN ORDINARY UNENLIGHTENED BEING....?
Nobody is an ordinary being - enlightened or unenlightened, but nobody is an ordinary being. Nothing can be ordinary, because everything is full of God - how can God be ordinary? God can be asleep, I can understand, but cannot be ordinary. The difference between you and a Buddha is not of ordinariness and extraordinariness, but only of a very simple thing: you are fast asleep snoring, he is awake. HE IS extraordinary, you are extraordinary; or, if you love the word 'ordinary', then he is ordinary and you are ordinary.
Either the whole existence is extraordinary or it is ordinary - you can choose any word you like. I am not interested in the word 'extraordinary'. But remember, the whole existence has a single taste to it; don't divide it into ordinary and extraordinary. Why do we go on dividing? That is again the way of the ego. Great things we want to do, so we have to divide into what is great and what is not great.
Just the other night, I was reading a memoir of David Manners. He writes:
On one occasion, a friend brought up to my desert hut a 'holy man', an old Zen monk:
Zenzaki San. The friend put him into a chair in my room and left him there while I was seriously engaged in the little bathroom from which all sounds could be heard in the other room. I had never felt such a deep shame and embarrassment. Such a greeting for a 'holy man'! Finally, I had the nerve to come out and present myself, but the old monk jumped to his feet, whisked off his coat and said, "Now, I go," and made a beeline for the bathroom. I had to laugh and that laugh took all my shame. I began to admire this old monk before I had said a word to him.
In fact, the Master must have done it knowingly - just to take the shame away.
Nothing is unholy... even the sounds that are coming from the bathroom are not unholy.
Everything is divine, holy. In fact, even your sleep is divine and holy, your unawareness is divine and holy. These are two ways of being - unaware or aware - but the being is always the sacred, the holy. Whatsoever name you want to give it you can give, but remember the taste of life, the whole life, is one.
YOU SPOKE CONVINCINGLY ABOUT AWARENESS BEING THE ONLY VIRTUE AND UNAWARENESS THE ONLY SIN. HOW CAN AN ORDINARY UNENLIGHTENED BEING FIND ENOUGH ENERGY TO STAY IN AWARENESS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE?
You have missed the point. It is not a question of making efforts to be aware. If you make efforts to be aware, you will create tensions inside yourself - all efforts bring tensions. If you TRY to be aware, you are fighting with yourself; there is no need to fight. Awareness is not a by-product of effort: awareness is a fragrance of let-go: awareness is a flowering of surrender, of relaxation.
Just sit silently in a relaxed state, doing nothing... and awareness will start happening.
Not that you have to pull it up from somewhere, not that you have to bring it from somewhere. It will shower on you from nowhere. It will well up from within your own sources. You just be silent, sitting.
But I understand, Asker, your problem. It is very difficult to sit silently; thoughts GO on coming. So let them come! Don't fight with thoughts and you will not need any energy.
Just let them come - what can you do? Clouds come and clouds go; let the thoughts come and let them go whenever they want to go. Don't be on guard, and don't be in a certain attitude that thoughts should come or. should not come - don't be judgemental.
Let them come, and let them go whenever they want. You be utterly empty. Thoughts will pass, they will come and go, and slowly slowly you will see that you remain unaffected by their coming and going. And when you are unaffected by their coming and going, they start disappearing, they evaporate... NOT BY YOUR EFFORT! but by your cool, calm emptiness, your relaxed state.
And don't say that relaxation will need great energy. How can relaxation need great energy? Relaxation simply means you are not doing anything.
SITTING SILENTLY, DOING NOTHING, THE SPRING COMES AND THE GRASS GROWS BY ITSELF.....
Let this mantra sink into your heart. This is the very essence of meditation!... Sitting silently... doing nothing... the spring comes... and the grass grows by itself.... Everything happens! You are not to be a doer.
Don't make awareness your goal, otherwise you have missed my point. I have simply defined. I have said: awareness is virtue, unawareness is sin. Now what has happened in Asker's mind - he started thinking, "If awareness is virtue, then how to attain it? And if unawareness is sin, then how to drop it?" Then the question of energy arises - when you ask how, you have already asked for more energy. And then the problem arises, "I don't have enough energy to fight with unawareness. And I don't have enough energy to grow into awareness."
And then the question: "I am an ordinary unenlightened person - what can I do? These things can be done by Buddhas...." But do you know? - Buddha was just as ordinary as you are and as unenlightened as you are. He was not always a Buddha.
One day it happened, and it is worth relating AGAIN, that it happened the day he was sitting, utterly relaxed under the tree, not doing a thing. For six years he had been making great efforts to become enlightened, and he was failing again and again. And those six years were nothing but utter frustration, and he had done everything that was possible to do: fasting, yoga postures, breathing... all the kinds of methodologies that were available in India. He had done all! He had almost destroyed himself by long fasts.
He was so tired and so frustrated that evening, that fateful full-moon night, that he came to a decision: "It is all futile. The world is futile, I have seen it" - he HAD seen enough of it. He was a son of a king. "I renounced the world, it was meaningless. And now I renounce all this nonsense of being an ascetic. I renounce this search for truth too; that too is nonsense. There is nothing to gain, this way or that, here or there. There is nothing to gain! It is ALL futile, meaningless."
It must have been a tremendous frustration to have dropped the search for truth.
That night he must have breathed deeply, relaxedly. All is finished - nowhere to go, nothing to be done. And it happened. It happened that night.
Early in the morning when he opened his eyes, the last star was disappearing from the sky, and as the star disappeared, something, the last trace of ego, disappeared in him too.
That disappearing star triggered something in him - a synchronicity - and the last trace, the shadow of the ego, disappeared. There was no longer any doer left. And, immensely, the whole existence showered on him.
The story says flowers showered from the sky. Gods danced around him. Celestial musicians played music. It was a great celebration for the whole existence. And Buddha was sitting there for seven days silently, not moving.
Do you think energy was needed for it? How can energy be needed for it? It was not a doing at all. It was a non-doing. And when the time came, when the spring came, the grass, of its own accord, grew. You need not pull the grass from the earth.
Asker, no energy is needed. You ARE perfectly capable of becoming aware as you are, but you will have to learn the ways of relaxation and let-go, not the ways of conflict, fight, struggle.
The fifth question
Question 5:
Abhiyana,
YES, THE CHOOSING IN ITSELF is the fundamental misery. All other miseries arise out of it. The moment you choose, you are no more whole; something has been rejected, something has been chosen. You have taken a side; you are for something, against something. You are no more whole.
You say, "I choose meditation, and I am not going to be angry any more." Misery is bound to happen. Meditation WILL NOT happen! Only misery will happen. In the name of meditation now you will be miserable - and one can find beautiful names for one's misery.
Choosing itself is misery. To be choiceless is to be blissful. See it! See to it! See AS deeply as possible into it, that choosing itself is misery. Even if you choose bliss, misery will be created. Don't choose at all... and then see what happens.
But it is very difficult not to choose. We have always been choosing; our whole life has been that of a chooser. We have believed that unless WE choose, who is going to choose for us? Unless WE decide, who is going to decide for us? Unless WE fight, who is going to fight for us? We have believed in a very stupid notion: that existence is against us, that we have to fight. that we have to be constantly on guard against existence.
Existence is not against you. You are just a ripple in this ocean - you are not separate from existence. How can the existence be against you? You are PART of it! It is existence who has given birth to you - how can the mother be against the child?
This is what I call the religious consciousness. To understand this point is to become religious. Then you need not be a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian - but you will be religious. In fact, if you are a Hindu or a Christian or a Mohammedan, you cannot be religious; you have not understood at all the depth of the religious consciousness.
What is religious consciousness? Existence is our home; we belong to it, it belongs to us.
So there is no need to be worried, and there is no need to fight for private ends and private goals. One can relax with it - in the sun, in the wind, in the rain. One can relax with it. The sun is part of us as we are part of the sun; and the trees are part of us as we are part of trees. Just see that the whole existence is an interdependence, a tremendously complicated network, but everything is joined with everything else. Nothing is separate.
Then what is the point of choosing? Then live whatsoever you are in your totality.
And the problem arises because inside you will find polar opposites, and the logical mind says, "How can you be both?" Somebody else has asked me: "Whenever I am in love, meditation is disturbed. Whenever I meditate, I start losing my interest in love. So what to do? What to choose?"
The idea of choice arises because there are polarities. Yes, it is true: if you go into love you will tend to forget about meditation; and if you go into meditation, you will lose interest in love. But still there is no need to choose! When you feel like moving into love, move into love - don't choose! And when you feel like moving into meditation, move into meditation - don't choose! There is no need to choose.
And the desire for both never arises together. That is something tremendously significant to be understood: the desire for both NEVER arises together. It is impossible - because love means the desire to be with somebody else; love means to be focussed on the other.
And meditation means to forget the other and be focussed on oneself. Now both desires cannot arise together.
When you want to be with somebody else, that means you are tired of yourself. And when you want to be with yourself, that means you are tired of the other. It is a beautiful rhythm! Being with the other creates a deep desire in you to be alone. You can ask the lovers - all the lovers feel that desire arising sometimes tremendously. But they are afraid to be alone, because they think it is going against love, and what will the woman say, or what will the man say? The other may feel offended. They pretend, even though they want to be alone, left alone; they want their own space, but they pretend and they go on being together. That pretension is false, it is destructive of love. And it makes your relationship phony.
When you feel like being alone, with all respect, with ali love, tell the other, "A great desire to be alone is arising in me, and I have to go into it - there is no question of choice. Please don't feel offended. It says nothing about you; it is simply my own inner rhythm."
And this will help the other also to be authentic and true with you. And, slowly slowly, if you really love a person, the rhythms start falling into a togetherness - that is the miracle, the magic of love. If love has really happened between two persons, this outcome is absolute, this consequence is going to happen. They will start finding at the same times the desire arising to be together and the desire arising to be separate. They will become a rhythm: sometimes coming together and being together and dissolved into each other, forgetting all about themselves; and then sometimes arising out of each other, moving, withdrawing, separate, into their own spaces, becoming their own selves - becoming meditators.
Between meditation and love, there is no choice. But both have to be lived. And whatsoever is arising in you, whatsoever is the deepest longing in the moment, move with the longing.
Abhiyana, you say: WHY DO I ALWAYS CREATE MISERY AROUND MYSELF?
THERE MUST BE SOME PAY-OFF IN IT YOU must be getting something out of it; otherwise, why should one create misery? But sometimes misery can give you tremendous benefits. You may not be aware of the benefits, you may be unconscious of the benefits, so you go on thinking, "Why do I go on creating misery?" And you are not aware that your misery is giving you something which you want.
For example, whenever you are miserable, people are sympathetic towards you. If you are miserable, your wife comes and puts her hand on your head, massages your body, is very very loving, does not nag you, does not create any trouble for you, does not ask for more diamonds or a new car. When you are in a misery there are many benefits. Maybe it is just because you are afraid your wife is going to ask for a new car - the new year has come and the new models are in the market. Now, to be miserable is simply economical.
Now you come home with a stomach-ache and with a head-ache and you come with a long face, and the woman cannot gather courage to talk about a new car. Mm? You are in such misery.
You have to look around. Children in the morning immediately start feeling stomach- aches, when the bus arrives and they have to go to school. And you KNOW it! You know why Johnny is having a stomach-ache. But the same is the case with you. It is not much different; it is the same - maybe a little more sophisticated, more cunning, more rationalized, but it is the same.
When people start failing in their lives, they CREATE heart attacks, blood pressure, and all kinds of things. They are rationalizations - what can you do? Have you watched it?
Heart attacks and blood pressure almost always come nearabout the age of forty-two.
Why near the age of forty-two? Suddenly a healthy person becomes a victim of a heart attack.
Forty-two is the age when life comes to a certain conclusion - whether you have failed or succeeded. Because beyond forty-two there is not much hope: if you have made money, you have made it; by the time forty-two arrives, you have made it - because the greatest days of energy and power are gone. Thirty-five is the peak. You can give seven more years; in fact, already for seven years you have been going downhill. But you have done everything that you could do. And now the age has come, forty-two, and suddenly you see that you have failed.
Now you need some rationalization... immediately a heart attack comes. That's a great boon, a blessing from God. Now you can fall into the bed and you can say, "What can I do? The heart attack disturbed everything. When everything was going to be okay, when I was just going to succeed, make a name or money, this heart attack has come." Now the heart attack is a beautiful camouflage; now nobody can say that you are at fault, that you didn't work hard, that you are not intelligent enough. Nobody can say anything like that to you. Now people will feel sympathy for you; they will all be good towards you and they will say, "What can you do? It is fate."
Misery is chosen again and again because it gives something to you, and you have to see what it is giving to you - only then can you drop it. Otherwise you cannot drop it. Unless you are ready to drop the benefits, you cannot drop it.
The warden of the Elite Detention Home was giving a reporter a tour of his new model prison.
"Son," said the warden, "this is the latest in prisons. If this is successful, all prisons will model themselves after this one."
"I notice you have beautiful tennis courts and swimming pools," commented the reporter.
"And wall-to-wall carpeting in each cell" added the warden. "But we don't call them cells any more - just units."
"Those are nice colour television sets in each unit."
"That isn't all. We have a tremendous auditorium and every week the greatest entertainers perform."
"I certainly like the mess hall with the scenic murals on the walls."
"You mean the dining salon. The prisoners order a la carte and the chef's food is exquisite."
"The most fascinating thing I noticed," remarked the re-porter, "is that there are no bars, fences, and almost no guards."
"That is because no one wants to escape," smiled the warden.
"How do I get into this resort?" inquired the reporter.
If prisons are made so beautifully, then who would like to get out of them? And if you are not getting out of your prison, look again... there must be something - wall-to-wall carpets, colour television, air-conditioning, beautiful paintings, no bars, nobody guarding.
Giving you an absolute sense of freedom! Then why should you try to escape out of it?
The reporter is right, he says, "How do I get into this resort?"
The question is not how to get out of it; the question is how to get into it. Look again into your misery; don't condemn it from the very beginning. If you condemn it from the very beginning, you will not be able to watch, you will not be able to observe. In fact, don't even call it misery, because our words have connotations.
When you call it misery, you have already condemned it; and when you condemn something, you are closed to it, you don't look at it. Don't call it misery either. Call it XYZ - it makes much difference. Call it X, whatsoever the situation is, be a little mathematical - call it X, and then go into it and see what it is, what its benefits are, what the main causes are that you go on creating it, why you cling to it. And you will be surprised: what you have been calling misery has many things in it which you love.
And unless you have seen this and those things that you would like to have, you will not be able to change anything. Then there are two possibilities.
One possibility is: you stop thinking of getting out of this misery - that ,Ss one possibility, because the benefits are so much that you accept it. And accepting misery is a transformation. The second possibility is: seeing that your misery is created by you yourself, by your own unconscious desires, and those unconscious desires are stupid, seeing the WHOLE stupidity of it, you no longer support it. It disappears of its own accord. These are the two possibilities: either your support disappears and the misery is evaporated; or you simply accept it because you like all the things that it brings to you, you welcome it - and in that very welcome, again misery disappears!
These are the two aspects of the same coin. But understanding is needed, TOTAL understanding of your misery, and you are GOING to be transformed. Either you will drop everything out of that understanding, or you will accept everything. These are the two ways, the negative and the positive, for the transformation to happen.
Barney visited his cousin Delbert in Taxonia, a small town in the midwest.
"I hate this town," Delbert confessed. "I hate it with a passion."
"For what reason?" asked Barney.
"The taxes. We pay more taxes than any other town," complained Delbert. "And I hate taxes."
"Taxes are necessary to run the government," argued Barney.
"There are too many taxes here. Have you noticed mostly one storey buildings in this town? That is because there is a tax on all storeys above one floor."
"That's not so terrible." answered Barney.
"Furthermore, have you seen many houses with front lawns?"
"Very few, I admit."
"That is because there is a tax on lawns."
"What's that patch of green lawn down the block?"
"That is the town cemetery where they put the people who are taxed to death."
"If you hate this town so much, why don't you leave?"
"I don't want to pay the moving and transportation tax."
Just look into your misery: either you will find it worth keeping - then accept it, then accept it with totality - or you will not find it at all worth keeping - in that very finding it drops.
The last question
Question 6:
Saguna,
THERE is A POLITICAL STRATEGY IN IT The women like to be attractive because that gives power; the more attractive they are, the more powerful they are over men. And who does not want to be powerful? Their whole lives people are struggling to be powerful.
Why do you desire money? - it will bring power. Why do you want to become the prime minister or the president of a country? - it will bring power. Why do you want respectability, prestige? - it brings power. Why do you want to become a saint? - it brings power.
People are searching for power in different ways. You have not left women any other sources to be powerful - only one outlet: their bodies. That's why they are continuously interested in being more and more attractive. Have you not watched it, that the modern woman does not care so much about being attractive? Why? Because she is entering into other kinds of power politics.
The modern woman is getting out of the old bondage. She will fight the man in the universities for the degrees; she will compete in the marketplace; she will compete in politics. She need not be worried too much about looking very attractive.
Man has never bothered much to look attractive. Why? That has been left completely to women. For women that was the only source to attain some power. And for men there were so many other sources that to look attractive looked a little bit effeminate, sissy.
That is for women.
This has not been always so. There was a time in the past when women were AS free as men. Then men used to be interested in being attractive as much as women were. Look at Krishna, his picture - with beautiful silk robes, with a flute, with all kinds of ornaments, earrings, with a beautiful crown made of peacock feathers. Look at him! He looks SO beautiful.
Those were the days when men and women were absolutely free to do whatsoever they wanted to do. Then came a long, long, dark age when women were repressed. It happened because of the priests and your so-called saints. Your saints have always been afraid of women, because the woman seems to be so powerful - the woman seems to be so powerful that she can destroy the saint's sainthood within minutes.
It is said that a mother tries for twenty-five years to make her son wise, and then comes a woman, and within two minutes she makes a fool of him. That's why mothers can never forgive daughters-in-law. Never! It took twenty-five years for the poor old woman to give some intelligence to this man, and within two minutes all is gone! How can she forgive this woman?
It is because of your saints that women were condemned - they were afraid of women.
The women have to be repressed. And because women were repressed, all sources of competing in life, flowing in life, were taken away. Then there was only one thing left:
their bodies.
You ask me, Saguna: WHY DO WOMEN LIKE TO BE ATTRACTIVE TO MEN?
That's why - that is their only power. And who does not want to be powerful? Unless you understand that power only brings misery, power is destructive, violent; unless through understanding your desire for power disappears - who does not like to be powerful?
And you ask:... BUT WHEN THEY WANT TO BE ATTRACTIVE TO MEN, WHY DO THEY ALSO RESENT THEIR SEXUAL DESIRES?
For the same reason. The woman remains powerful only when she goes on hanging in front of yoU like a carrot - never available and always available, so close and so far away. Then only is she powerful. If she immediately falls into your lap, then the power is gone. And once you have exploited her sexuality, once you have used her, she is finished, she has no more power over you. So she attracts you and yet keeps aloof. She attracts you, she provokes you, she seduces you, and when you come close to her, she simply says NO.!
Now that is simple logic. If she says yes, you reduce her to a mechanism; you use her.
And nobody wants to be used. It is the other side of the same power politics. Power means the capacity to use the other, and when somebody uses you your power is gone, you are reduced to powerlessness.
So no woman wants to be used. And you have been doing that down the ages. Love has become an ugly thing. It should be the greatest glory, but it is not - because man has been using woman and the woman resents it, resists it, naturally. She does not want to be reduced to a commodity.
That's why you will see husbands just wagging their tails around their wives and their wives in such an attitude that they are above all this nonsense - holier-than-thou. The wives go on pretending that they are not interested in sex, ugly sex. They are as much interested as you are interested, but the problem is: they cannot show their interest, otherwise you immediately reduce them to powerlessness, you start using them.
So they are interested in everything else, in being very attractive to you and then denying you. That is the joy of power. Pulling you - and you are pulled almost as if pulled by strings - and then saying no to you. reducing you to absolute powerlessness. And you are wagging your tail like a dog - then the woman enjoys.
This is an ugly state. This should not be so. This is an ugly state because love has been reduced to power politics. This has to be changed. We have to create a new humanity, and a new world, in which love will not be a question of power at all. At least take love out of power politics; leave money, leave politics there - leave everything there, but take love out of it.
Love is something immensely valuable; don't make it a thing of the marketplace. But that's what has happened.
The recruit had just arrived at a Foreign Legion post in the desert. He asked his corporal what the men did for recreation.
The corporal smiled wisely and said, "You will see."
The young man was puzzled. "Well, you've got more than a hundred men on this base and I don't see a single woman."
"You will see," the corporal repeated.
That afternoon, three hundred camels were herded into the corral. At a signal, the men seemed to go wild. They leaped into the corral and began to make love to the camels.
The recruit saw the corporal hurrying past him and grabbed his arm. "I see what you mean, but I don't understand," he said. "There must be three hundred of those camels and only about a hundred of us. Why is everybody rushing? Can't a man take his time?"
"What?" exclaimed the corporal, startled. "And get stuck with an ugly one?"
Nobody wants to get stuck with an ugly one - even though it is a camel. So who wants to get stuck with an ugly woman? The woman tries in every way to be beautiful - at least to LOOK beautiful. And once you are trapped into her allurements, she starts escaping from you, because that is the whole game. If you start escaping from her, she will come close to you, she will start following you. The moment you start following her, she will start escaping. This is the game! This is not love: this is inhuman. But this is what is happening and has been happening down the ages.
Beware of it!
At least in my commune this has to disappear. Each person has tremendous dignity, and no person can ever be reduced to a commodity, to a thing. Respect men, respect women - - they are all divine.
And forget the old idea that it is man who makes love to the woman - that is so stupid. It makes it feel as if man is the doer and the woman is just there as something to be done to.
Even in the language it is man who makes love, it is man who is the acting partner; it is the woman who is just there, a passive receptivity. This is not true. Both are making love to each other, both are doers, both are participants - the woman in her OWN way.
Receptivity is her WAY of participating, but it is participation as much as the man's.
And don't think that only you are doing something to the woman: she is also doing something to you. You are both doing something tremendously valuable to each other.
You are offering yourselves to each other; you are sharing your energies with each other.
You are BOTH offering yourselves in the temple of love, in the temple of the god of love. It is the god of love who has possessed both of you. It is a very sacred moment. You are walking on holy ground. And then there will be a totally different quality to people's behaviour.
It is good to be beautiful. It is ugly to appear to be beautiful. It is good to be attractive, but it is ugly to manage to be attractive. That management is cunningness. And people are naturally beautiful! That is no need for any make-up. All make-up is ugly. It makes you more and more ugly. The beauty is in simplicity, in innocence, in being natural, in being spontaneous. And when you are beautiful, don't use that beauty as power politics - that is profaning it, that is sacrilegious.
Beauty is a gift of God. Share, but don't use it in any way for domination, for possessing the other. And your love will become a prayer, and your beauty will become an offering to God.