For these eight days we have been doing something very strange. I say strange, because the human mind goes on asking for things of the world but never, never for something concerned with the inner being. We go on desiring objects, but never desiring our own self. That's why I say we have been doing something very strange here: not asking for things, not asking for riches, not asking for any object of the world, but asking for the inner being. Not asking anything concerning any utility, concerning any utilitarian object, but asking and desiring something of pure being, which is not a utility at all. Not going out, but coming in. That's why I call it strange.
And it has been still more strange because for these eight days we were not only asking, we were doing something - and doing madly.
This phenomenon has become rare. It was not rare in the past. A buddha was moving, and thousands and thousands of seekers were around him doing very strange things, going on a very strange journey. A Jesus was there, a Mahavira was there, a Zarathustra was there, a Lao Tzu was there... and many many people were deeply involved in knowing "Who am I?" Now, this question has become absurd - if you ask, "Who am I?" your neighbors will feel that you have gone mad.
Everyone knows who he is, there is no need to ask. But really, no one knows who he is, and there is a very deep need to ask it.
But just asking will not do. You have to penetrate in; you have to break many barriers, and you have to put aside many hindrances. You have to transform your energy to make it capable of moving into a new dimension - the dimension of the inner.
So we have been doing something strange here, and very madly. And it was good to see so many people so deeply involved with themselves. Ordinarily we are involved with others - sometimes even madly; but no one is involved with himself. That is the last thing to be searched for, that is the last thing to be asked, that is the last thing to be enquired. But here, for these eight days, we were searching after our own selves.
Whatsoever you have learned here, it is only a beginning. You have to continue it consistently, persistently. No interval, no gap should be allowed. Mind is very cunning: if you give it a gap, all that you have learned will be washed away. Unless a certain point is reached where energy transforms, everything can go back.
It is just like heating water. Up to a certain point it becomes hot water, but it can fall back unless it evaporates. Unless it evaporates, it can fall back and become cold again. We also have such points inside. Unless the energy passes through those points, those chakras, it will fall down again. So you have to be aware: if you have begun something, then go on doing it. Go on digging in, go on continuously. Unless you feel that now something has changed and you have come to a point of no return, the energy cannot fall back, how can you know that your meditation has come to a point of evaporation?
There are certain signs which make you aware. One is, the more your meditation goes deep, the less and less you will feel the burden of the mind. The more and more meditation goes deep, the less and less you will be a mind. Thoughts will become rare, and ultimately they cease. That doesn't mean you become unthinking; it only means that your consciousness becomes clear, transparent, without thoughts moving continuously as clouds. Whenever you need to think you can think; but now thought becomes an instrument to you, not an obsession as it is presently.
Thoughts are an obsession without meditation.
They go on in their own right; you cannot stop them. You cannot say to them, "Now you are not needed." They move, and you have to be in them; you are not the master. The more meditation goes deep, the more you will become master of your own thoughts. You will say, "Stop!" and the mind stops. You will say, "Move!" and the mind begins to move. Once this capacity comes to you, you will not fall down again. Unless this is achieved, if you discontinue meditation, soon every result will be washed away.
Secondly, as meditation goes deep you will feel less and less desires, more and more contentment with whatsoever you have. There will be less and less desire for that which you don't have, and more and more contentment with whatsoever you have.
As meditation goes deeper, a very contented consciousness evolves.
Ultimately there is no desire, only contentment.
They are contraries, contradictories:
More desires, then less contentment.
Less desires, then more contentment.
No desires, then absolute contentment.
When you feel this deep down - there is no desire - every movement of the mind has ceased.
Desire is the movement of the mind.
When thoughts cease, desires cease; when desires cease, thought ceases - because both are movements. And a non-moving mind - quite at ease in itself, relaxed, centered in itself - is the point from where your energy transforms into a different dimension. Unless THIS mind is achieved, you remain in the world in bondage.
When you pass this point, transcend this point, you enter into another - the KAIVALYA UPANISHAD was concerned with that other world, the world of the beyond.
This sutra says that you can know the divine hidden deep in the cave of the heart. You CAN know - two are the ways to know. One is, if you go on becoming more and more aware, more and more a witness and less and less a doer, then you can know that reality hidden in the heart. This path is known as SAMKHYA - the path of knowledge, the path of knowing, or the path of awareness.
Make awareness a continuous process.
Whatsoever you are doing, do it with an alert mind.
Do not do it sleepily.
We are doing everything as if asleep. You are listening to me; you can listen in two ways. You can listen as if you are asleep; then you will hear the words but not the meaning. Then your ears will go on working, buzzing, but your consciousness will be absent. Or you can listen alertly - with full awareness, with an intensity of awareness, with consciousness, with a focused mind. If you listen with a focused mind, alert, conscious, aware of what is going on, then not only the words, but the meaning can also be heard.
Words don't carry meaning; they become meaningful only when you are alert. Your alertness gives them meaning. Words carry only sounds. If you are not alert, then your ears will hear, but your consciousness will remain untouched.
By being alert, I mean that whatsoever is going on is going on with full consciousness - you KNOW that this is going on. Buddha walks - he walks differently; the quality is different. Outwardly, you may see that he is walking the same as anyone else; but he walks differently, because each step is an alert step. He knows it. When he is raising his leg, he knows it. When he raises his hand, he knows it. When he moves his head, he knows it. There is no movement of the body, and no movement of the mind without being conscious of it.
So Buddha has said... and he was one of those most deeply gone into the path of knowing, one who has touched the ultimate on the path of knowing, the path of awareness. He has said that no other means, methods, techniques are needed if you can practice only awareness. But then, it is hard - because we are so asleep that to talk about awareness is to talk about just the polar opposite to us.
We are just asleep. Not only asleep but unconscious; not only unconscious but as if in a coma.
You have been angry without knowing when the anger has come. You have been violent without knowing when the violence has come. I have heard many people say, "I can't say why I became so angry. I became angry in spite of myself." How is it possible that in spite of yourself, you became angry? It means you were not conscious.
Buddha has said, "If there is anger, close your eyes. Feel the anger arising. Feel the anger clouding you; feel the anger coming up; go on seeing it. Do not do anything with it - go on seeing it. Then, by and by it will evaporate; then see it evaporating. First see it coming, arising, spreading - then see it going away, dying, evaporating." Once you have seen the anger in all its stages, you will never be angry again, because your anger needs your identification. You must be identified with it, you must be not conscious of it.
So Buddha has said that if you are doing something unconsciously, it is sin. If you are doing it consciously it is virtue. There is only one difference between virtue and sin: consciousness or unconsciousness makes the difference. This is one path to enter into the innermost reality of the heart, or into the beyond, or into the PARABRAHMA.
There is another. That other one is not directly concerned with awareness; that other path is known as yoga, the path of means, methods, techniques. The other is not directly concerned with awareness; it is directly concerned with some methods which create awareness. You are not required to be aware directly, immediately; you are required to do something which creates the situation in which you become aware.
For example, we have been doing in the morning, and in the night, two yogic methods. If you do fast breathing, BHASTRIKA, so chaotically, then the energy inside is hit, and the energy comes up. In that awakening of energy you cannot fall asleep, you cannot be unconscious; so much energy makes you aware. Then in the second step, allowing yourself to go completely mad - and understand it:
when you yourself allow yourself to go completely mad, you can never be mad; because madness can never be allowed, it happens. So if you can allow yourself to go completely mad, it shows that you are a very sane person. A madman cannot allow it. A madman is just mad; madness happens to him, it is not his will; it is against his will.
But if you can will madness, and allow madness, you will be saner for two reasons. One, that you are capable of allowing madness means you are above it, you are master of it. And secondly, if you allow it, then many many suppressed complexes will be released through it; it will be a catharsis.
When so many suppressed complexes are released, when so much suppressed energy is released, it is an explosion. In that explosion you can never be unconscious. It is such a big explosion, as if your house is on fire - how can you be unconscious? You will become suddenly conscious. Your whole mind has gone mad; your house is on fire. You become suddenly aware, it is an emergency.
You cannot fall asleep. Awareness will happen in this situation.
And in the third stage, when we are hitting the kundalini with "hoo".... Kundalini is the reservoir or all our energies. If this reservoir is hit, the energy begins to spread in ripples all over the body. It goes on spreading. Every fiber, every cell of the body becomes more alive, vitalized; more energy is given to it. Every cell becomes more aware and the whole body feels a sudden rush of awareness.
In that rush of awareness you cannot be unconscious.
These three steps are yogic steps to create a situation in which consciousness becomes an automatic result. And then in the fourth you just wait - fully aware, conscious, waiting. What is going to happen? In this awareness happens that which is known as brahman. In this awareness happens that which is hidden in the cave of the heart. Samkhya and yoga are two ways. I have made both into one. Three steps of the morning meditation are of yoga, and the fourth is samkhya.
In the night meditation the beginning - gazing constantly, hammering your energy with "hoo!"and jumping belongs to yoga. And the last part belongs to samkhya.
In the afternoon meditation, the kirtan belongs to yoga - BHAKTI YOGA. It belongs to yoga, it is a means. It again creates energy in you, it again creates a situation - it creates a situation in which awareness can happen. Then in the second stage we are waiting, and in the third, whatsoever has been felt, we are expressing.
To me, religious life is not only experience, but also creativity. You must know the divine and you must express it also, because then, when it is expressed, it can create the same thirst in others.
When expressed it can hit other's sleep also; it can make them aware of a different dimension also.
When someone is dancing madly in a blissful state, in ecstasy after meditation, he is creating vibrations around him. They may penetrate into anyone. They can become infectious; they do become infectious. This ecstasy can go to others also; this ecstasy can be felt. Others' hearts will be touched by it. And if you can create ripples around you, vibrations, you have served the world, and there is no other way to serve it - you have served the divine, and there is no other way to serve it.
This last sutra says: Here ends the KAIVALYA UPANISHAD.
The UPANISHAD ends, of course, but your journey only begins. When you go back, remember whatsoever you have done here and felt, and make a continuity of it. If you have taken sannyas, if you have renounced deeply the nonsensical world, the absurd world, and have taken a step towards the real, towards the truth, then continuously you will have to remember this renunciation. This remembering will help to change everything around you and inside. Just remembering that now you are a sannyasin will make a lot of difference. You cannot react in the same old ways, because you are not the old man.
That's why I have given you new names, just to make you feel and remember that the old identity is dead - a now one has come into existence. And now you have to create your mind, your body, your soul around this new center.
Sannyas must now become your self.
Do, live, be, but now from this new center.
And soon, if you continue in your effort, in your awareness, you will come to a point where the transformation, the mutation happens - where you are lost forever and only the divine remains.