As we live, as we are, it is a deep hypnosis. Whatsoever we feel, whatsoever we think, is based on hypnotic projections. In some face I see beauty; that beauty doesn't belong to the face, because someone else may not feel it as beautiful at all. It belongs to my projection. When I say some face is beautiful, I am projecting something from me; and the face is just a screen, because someone else may see the face as ugly.
You can project whatsoever you have in your mind, onto anything. That's why philosophers have been trying to define what beauty is, but they have never been able. It cannot be defined; not because it is something indefinable, but because it is an individual projection. It is not something objective which can be defined. It is not objective at all; it is just a subjective feeling. So not only may someone think something is ugly while you are thinking it is beautiful, it may happen that in the morning you thought it was beautiful, and in the evening you yourself begin to feel it is ugly. And the thing remains the same - the object remains the same, the screen remains the same. You go on projecting, then the screen changes, and the object begins to look like something else.
This phenomenon of projection is basic to our minds. We live not in the objective world, but in a projected world. Once you being to understand this, the whole phenomenon changes. So there is not only one world, but there are as many worlds as there are minds. Everyone is living in his own individual world - multi-worlds, multi-universes. You have your own world that belongs to you; it is not something which can be participated in by anyone else. Participation is impossible when there is projection. When there is hypnosis, participation is impossible; we cannot share it. I feel someone is good, you feel he is not, and there is no sharing. I feel someone is a saint; he may be, he may not be, but it is my projection.
For example, Krishna is the perfect AVATAR for Hindus, but for Jains he is not - he is not even an avatar. For Hindus he is the peak: all that is beautiful, all that is good, all that is true is personified in him. But for Jains, he is not: they have put him into the seventh hell, because he was the man responsible for the great Indian war, MAHABHARATA. Jains judge everything by the criterion of violence or nonviolence. Krishna was responsible for this whole violence. Arjuna was going to be a saint; he was just escaping from the war, and this man Krishna persuaded him to fight. So the responsibility for the violence goes directly to Krishna - he becomes responsible. Jains have put Krishna into the seventh, the lowest hell.
It doesn't matter what Krishna is. He is "X," the unknown; but what he appears is a projection.
Anyone can project anything; it depends on you, your attitude, your mind, your way of thinking - then you can project. And we are projecting every moment - that's why reality is not known. You can really know reality only when your projecting mechanism stops completely. Then the objective world appears, then things begin to look as they are: as they are, not as you feel them. Your feeling says something about you, not about the thing itself. This auto-hypnotic process, this projection mechanism in the mind is the problem. And unless this whole mechanism stops, you cannot enter meditation, because meditation means only one thing: a non-projective mind, a non-projecting mind, a non-hypnotic mind - a mind which is not hypnotized by itself - a mind which is absolutely devoid of the hypnotic process.
We can hypnotize ourselves. And the whole culture, civilization, society, education - everything; politics, the so-called religions - they all use this weakness. They all use it. For example, business uses it. What is advertising? It is simply going on repeating a particular thing so that it becomes hypnotic. Someone goes on saying that this cigarette is the ultimate in cigarettes - goes on repeating. You go on listening, you go on reading. By every possible media, by every possible method, this thought is being put into your mind: "This cigarette is the ultimate in cigarettes."
Then every other means is used - a naked woman is placed in the poster just by the cigarettes, a cigarette in her hand. Now your sex attraction, sex appeal is being exploited. Now the cigarette is being associated with sex, it will become more hypnotic. Continual repetition will put the idea as a seed in you. When you go to the market, to the shop, and you say, "I need a particular cigarette," you think you are choosing it; you are not - you have just been forced to choose it. Your hypnotic mechanism has been used and exploited, but you will think that you are choosing it, that you are the chooser - you are not. Whatsoever you are choosing, ninety-nine out of one hundred times you are not the chooser - you cannot be. Unless the whole mechanism stops, you cannot choose. You are being forced, manipulated to choose something.
Preachers go on convincing people about Christianity, about Hinduism, about Mohammedanism - they are doing the same. They are the businessmen of the market of religion. They go on convincing people, "This will do, this will do, this will do - all else is worthless." They go on repeating the idea. That's why every religious sect is very much interested in keeping children, because they are the most innocent, and their projective mechanism is very powerful, alive. So whatsoever you put in them, they will have to run their whole life accordingly. So every religion - the so-called religions - is very much interested that children must be taught religiously. Before they are seven they must be converted; otherwise, conversion will become impossible. Once they become aware, then conversion will be impossible. Before seven, seeds must by put in them. Then those seeds will work; they will become their base.
So a Christian child, even if he goes against Christianity later on, will be in a subtle way still Christian.
Even his going against, will be in a Christian way. Even his rebellion, his reaction, will have a continuity with all that against which he has rebelled. Now he is in the grip, and it is difficult to come out of it. If you rebel, if you react, again the mechanism will work. That's why it is so difficult just to drop Christianity or Hinduism or Mohammedanism. You can go against it, but you cannot drop it, because in going against you are still in it - related, concerned. But if you can drop it without going against, without any reaction, then you are out of it. But that is possible only if you become aware of your own auto-hypnotic processes; otherwise, you can hypnotize yourself to the opposite extreme - that is easy. And people go on moving from one extreme to another.
This happens not only with individuals, this happens with societies also, - this happens with nations also. For example, this is happening now. The East has hypnotized itself that materialism is useless, ONLY spiritualism is meaningful. This has been the Eastern hypnosis. Now they are bored so they are absolutely, absolutely going to the other extreme. Now the East is becoming every moment more and more materialistic, but their mind continues to talk in terms of spiritualism. And if you go deep down, Eastern people are the most materialistic in the world. They are moving to the other extreme.
The West tries to hypnotize itself to the other extreme: materialism became so significant that spiritualism is just a Sunday affair, mm? Not significant, not meaningful - just a social thing; not deep, not individual, not concerned with the inner being, but just a social phenomenon, just symbolic. Too much materialism in the West now creates a reaction, and the West is moving towards spiritualism - to the other extreme. Sooner or later, East will become West, and West will become East. It is going on; the process is there.
So whenever someone from the West comes in search of spirituality to the East, even the Eastern religions feel a bit of inconvenience, discomfort, unease. The Eastern intelligentsia cannot conceive why you are coming here. Here there is nothing; you have everything. Why are you coming here?
The Eastern intelligentsia is going to the West for technology, for science, for everything that the material world can give; they are going Westward. And you cannot conceive, in the West, why these Eastern people are coming to the West. To learn? What can they learn here? In the West intelligent people, intelligent boys and girls are dropping out of universities, just because nothing can be gained there. They are dropping out of universities, they are dropping out of their society - they are creating an alternate society. And people from the East going there? It becomes inconceivable to them. But nothing is inconceivable. This is how opposites work; this is now hypnosis changes itself from one opposite to another. But the OTHER is as dangerous.
The real thing is: how to go beyond hypnosis. From one hypnosis to another it is easy, it is nature, the way of things - how they work. But how to go beyond, how to go beyond this hypnotic process?
How to dissolve this whole mechanism?
This sutra says that all our happiness and all our miseries are part of our hypnosis. They are. A person who has no hypnosis in him is beyond both. He is neither happy nor unhappy; he simply is. And that "is-ness" is bliss; it is not happiness, it is bliss. Never, never think of bliss in terms of happiness; it is not. Happiness is related to unhappiness, not to bliss.
If you desire happiness you will create unhappiness.
If you desire bliss, then let happiness and unhappiness both dissolve.
But how can they dissolve unless your mind is dehypnotized? Meditation means dehypnotization.
The process looks just the same.
Many people come to me and they say, "Whatsoever is being done here, is it not hypnosis?" It is DEhypnosis. The process is the same, but the dimension is reversed. You can hypnotize yourself - that is going further from yourself towards the object. You can dehypnotize yourself - that is going back from the object towards oneself. When you are centered in some object, you are hypnotized.
When you are centered in yourself, you are dehypnotized. When you are yourself, you are beyond hypnosis.
When you are not yourself, centered, but obsessed with something, then you are hypnotized. Look at a man who is hypnotized by a woman, or a woman who is hypnotized by a man. Look at the eyes, at the face, at the body: they are not in their senses - they cannot be. That's why traditional wisdom says that love is blind, because it is hypnotic. It is a sort of madness.
It is a sort of madness which comes from yourself, and then you project. And then something becomes so important and meaningful that you can even give your life for it - anything! It is not that love happens only between persons; love happens between persons and things also. A person who is in love with wealth is as much hypnotized - he is as mad. A person who is in love with power - he is as mad. He is as mad, he can give his life for it. At any cost he must have the loved object, whatsoever it is. He is centered in the object - this is what I mean by hypnosis - he is centered in the object, not in himself. He can lose himself, but not the object.
Mulla Nasruddin was robbed once. He was alone on a lonely road. He was caught and the robber said, "There are two alternatives: either you give whatsoever you have or your life. You can choose.
So Mulla said, "You can take my life, but as far as my wealth is concerned that is what I am saving for my old age."
And he is right. This is how a hypnotic mind works; he is right. "What will I do with my life if there is no wealth? So you can take my life; it has cost me nothing. As far as my wealth is concerned, I have devoted my whole life to it. It has cost me much; and moreover, I am saving it for my old age."
Any love object, any love object becomes obsessive. You are not in your senses - that is, you are not conscious. You become unconscious, you begin to move in a deep sleep. That's how we are.
Dehypnosis, or meditation means: how to bring your consciousness - which has become projected on to the object - back home. Although the process looks like hypnosis... it is, but dehypnosis; the process is the same. If you have gone far away from your home, you have traveled a path, you have used your legs. Now if you want to come back, you will have to use the same legs, and you will have to travel the same road, only in the reverse order. That will be the only difference. We have gone deep into the world. If we want to come back, the process is going to be the same, only in reverse order.
So hypnosis has to be used in the reverse order, and every meditation is hypnosis in the reverse order - every meditation. The only question is whether you are coming back or going away. If you are coming back, then it is meditation; if you are going away, then it is hypnosis. If something brings you to yourself it is meditation; if something takes you away from yourself, then it is hypnosis - the process is the same.
This sutra says that man lives in a deep hypnosis. Then he suffers unnecessarily, because unless you are centered in yourself you can never be in bliss. That centering is bliss. Unless you are centered in yourself, you will never be independent; you will be a slave. Centered in something else, you will be a slave, you will be in bondage. Centered in something else, you will be dependent; of course, you are bound to be dependent on something else. Your happiness, your unhappiness will be dependent on someone else - if you love me, if I love you. Then my happiness will depend on you - how you behave, how you are; only then will I be happy. If you behave differently, if you are different, then I will be unhappy. Then I am not the master of my own happiness or unhappiness; you are the master.
Then you can manipulate - and everyone is manipulating everyone else; this whole world is just a manipulation. The husband is manipulating the wife, the wife is manipulating the husband; the father is manipulating the child, and the child is manipulating the father; the disciples are manipulating the teacher, and the teacher is manipulating the disciples - everyone. And then everyone is unhappy, because dependence is unhappiness. How can you feel happy when you are dependent for it on someone else? He is the master, and he will be the deciding factor - not you. And a master needs sometimes to check, again and again, whether he still remains the master or not.
So if you are happy because of me, sometimes I will have to make you unhappy, just to check whether I am still the master or not. So lovers go on checking each other, examining each other - whether the mastery remains or it has gone. That checking creates unhappiness, and the more unhappiness is created the more longing there is for happiness. The more longing for happiness, the more dependence, and then more unhappiness results. It becomes a vicious circle, and it goes on and on with no end in view. There is no end really.
In hypnosis you can go on eternally; it is an infinite process - because once you have left your center, you can go anywhere. And there is no end. The end comes only if you come back to your center - then you reach somewhere. A point can be reached only when you come to yourself. This centering is meditation.