The ending of desire is freedom. Freedom is not something that you can achieve from without.
You are not imprisoned by someone else, by others, by the world; you are imprisoned by your own desiring mind. Desiring is the slavery. The more we desire, the more we become slaves - by why?
Why is desire a slavery? Because the moment one desires, one has become dependent. If the desire is fulfilled, only then you can be happy; if the desire is frustrated, you will become a victim of suffering. And no desire is ever fulfilled. Desire as such, leads into frustration. That's why, the more one desires, the more suffering one creates around himself - not only suffering, but dependence also.
If I desire someone, something, now my attention, my being, everything depends on that. If I get - it is okay; if I cannot get... now I am always secondary; the primary thing has become the object of my desire. This primariness of the object of desire creates dependence, and we are all dependent.
And there are so many masters, so many desires.
We live in a flux of desires. Every desire creates dependence - this is way is meant by spiritual slavery. And the Eastern mind, particularly, has been searching for freedom through religion - not heaven, not happiness, not bliss, but freedom.
The search of religion is for freedom, and freedom means freedom from desire. If I am in a state of mind where no desire arises, where I can say, "I am desireless," then slavery becomes impossible.
Then for the first time I am in myself - rooted, centered in myself; I am not moving. Desire is movement. Then for the first time I am here and now, in the present; because desire is the future.
Then for the first time I become existential, because desire is postponement. You desire - and you can desire only if you desire the future. Desire needs time, desire needs space to move; some day there will be the fulfillment, but it can never be here and now.
So you cannot desire in the present. Really future is CREATED by desire; it is not part of time.
Future is not time; times is always the present.
We go on dividing time into three categories: past, future, present. That division is false, existentially false.
Future is desire and past is memory.
Time is always present.
There is no future time and there is no past time.
Time is always now.
Past means memories, and future means desires. You need future to move, and when you move into the future you miss the present. And missing the present is missing everything.
Missing the present you miss existence.
Missing the present you miss your being.
Take it from another direction: desire is becoming; it is to become something. A wants to become B; the poor man wants to become a rich man; the ugly face wants to become a beautiful face; the stupid mind want to be intelligent. Desire is from A to B, from here to there. It is goal-oriented.
Somewhere in the future, there will be fulfillment - but now there can be only discontent; now there can be only frustration. Now there can be only suffering, but you can deceive yourself: You can forget this suffering by moving into desire, by moving away from it. By moving into the future, you can forget the present. So desire is really a drug. Desire is alcoholic, desire is like an intoxicant.
It makes you postpone, it helps you; it creates the situation in which you can forget the situation - THAT WHICH IS - and can concentrate somewhere on some heaven, on some fulfillment in the future, in the future life.
Desire moves in the form of becoming, and your existence is in the form of being. You ARE. Desire means something that will be. That which is already here and now in me is my being; and that which I will be somewhere in the future is my becoming. There is a tension between being and becoming, and then anguish is created, anxiety.
Basically, psychologically, anxiety is just the tension between being and becoming - between that which is and that which is desired. That which is desired is not, and that which is - you can never desire it. You cannot desire it, it is here and now. You can move into it immediately.
Desire creates becoming; becoming becomes your slavery. You go on missing yourself, you go on missing your being. And that being is SATCHIDANDA; that being is existence, consciousness, bliss.
Be desireless, and you will attain everything that can be attained. But how to be desireless? How to go beyond desire? It creates a vicious circle: when we ask how to go beyond desire, we are creating a new desire - to go beyond. You cannot create a desire against desire; that's not possible, because the second desire will be as much a desire as the first. So what to do?
Understand desire, analyze desire, penetrate desire, and see how suffering is created, how slavery is created, how you create your own hells out of your own desires. Dig deep into desiring. Don't ask how to go beyond; rather, ask how to go more into the desire, to know and to understand. If you can understand that your suffering is created by your desire, that very understanding will become your transcendence. Because no one asks for suffering, but everyone desires, and suffering comes through desire. No one wants to be dependent, in slavery, but everyone desires, and slavery comes through desire.
If you go deep into desire, then you will become aware of the whole of the desiring mind, what it is. It is suffering, it is dependence, it is hell. But don't believe me, because by believing me - or by believing the UPANISHAD - you will be escaping your own effort to understand. Believers are always deceivers; they go on deceiving themselves. But they don't want to understand desire, so they say, "If you say that desire is suffering, we will believe it. But belief will not be of any help.
You can believe it, but you will go on desiring. Belief will not destroy your desiring. You will have to understand; and no one else can understand for you.
It is like death: I cannot die for you; you will have to die to know it. Understanding is like love: I cannot love for you; you will have to love, you yourself will have to love - servants cannot do it for you. Howsoever rich you are, you cannot engage servants for your love.
Love, death, understanding, freedom - These are the three deepest possibilities of the human being.
They cannot be transferred to anyone.
So don't BELIEVE that desire is suffering; try to know, try to understand your own desires. And if you understand your own desire, you will see that suffering follows as a shadow. And if you want that suffering to go, then desire must go.
But I say desire must go, I don't mean that you have to force it to go. I mean you have to understand it. The moment you understand your desire and the hell that is hidden in it, you have transcended it, you have gone beyond it.
THE ENDING OF DESIRE IS FREEDOM.
AND THIS IS WHAT IS CALLED JIVAN MUKTI, OR FREEDOM IN LIFE ITSELF.
And remember this: Don't wait for death to come and make you free. Death will not help you. Unless you become free in life, death is not going to help. But there are many who go on postponing....
Someone was asking me, "Why do you give sannyas to young people? Sannyas is for old men."
Sannyas is NOT for old men, I don't mean that if you are old, don't take sannyas. It is late, but never too late. Why do we think that religion is not for young people? - because we think religion is something related with death, something to do with old age when one becomes impotent, when one becomes powerless. When one cannot move in desire, then it is good to be desireless, then it is good to renounce. When you cannot do anything, renounce the world.
But remember well: When the world has renounced you, you cannot renounce it, mm? That's a deception. While you are young, full of desire, that is the right moment to understand desire.
Because when desire is young, when desire is powerful, you can understand it in a very clear perspective. When desire has become dull, muddled, muddied, dead, you cannot understand.
When desire is fresh, understand it - this is the moment. And a fresh desire understood, releases much energy; and that energy become freedom. When desire is already dead, you are not free from it. When desire is alive, that is the right moment, because desire is filled with energy, If you understand it and desire disappears, the energy will remain there. Desire will disappear, but the energy? - the energy will be left behind. That energy can become a medium to go beyond.
Without energy, no inner movement is possible. Desire is wasting your energy in downward movement. When desire disappears through understanding, energy remains, and energy goes on accumulating. You become a reservoir; and when you are a reservoir of energy, you can move now, inwards. It would be better to say you need not move really; the energy itself begins to move - because energy IS movement. Energy needs movement; if it is not moving downward, it will move upward; energy WILL move! Energy cannot be static.
Energy means dynamism; energy is dynamic. Energy needs movement. If there is no desire, then energy cannot move downward - desire is the downward movement. Then energy cannot move outward - desire is the outward movement for something which is there in the future, for something which is outside, for something which you don't have, so energy moves outward.
When there is no desire and you have energy, the energy itself begins to move inward and upward, and you are carried by that energy to newer realms, to a transformed being. Do it in life. Do it while you are young.
DO NOT BE SLOTHFUL AND WAVERING IN YOUR FAITH IN THE SUPREME, BECAUSE THIS IS DEATH - SO SAY THE KNOWERS OF THE DIVINE.
A very beautiful definition of death.... Death is not what you call it. A man is dying - we call it death; it is not. Really, while you are living, if you are living without the divine around you and within you, that life is death. We are all dead in a way, because a life which is not deeply rooted in the divine, will be rooted in the body. The body is death; the body is matter already dead, and we are rooted in the body.
Be rooted in the divine source which is deathless.
Be rooted in the divine which is life eternal.
Only then you never die.
Rooted in the body you will die again and again. Every moment you are dying; our so-called life is nothing but a long death. From the moment of birth we go on dying, and dying, and dying, and then we reach death. That death is just a culmination of a long process. The sutra says:
DO NOT BE SLOTHFUL AND WAVERING IN YOUR FAITH IN THE SUPREME, BECAUSE THIS IS DEATH - SO SAY THE KNOWERS OF THE DIVINE.
But how to be rooted, and how to attain the faith?
Remember: Faith is not belief. This one moment more, this one point more to be understood: Faith is not belief. Belief is always borrowed, someone else gives it to you. Faith is inner search, you yourself attain it. Belief can be given by the tradition; faith cannot be given. Belief can be given by the scriptures; faith cannot be given. Belief can be given by the parents, culture, society, education; faith cannot be given. Faith you have to discover; it is a deep, hidden treasure - deeply hidden in yourself. You have to uncover it.
How to uncover it? How to attain to faith in the divine, and how to be rooted in the eternal source of life?
There is only one way, and that is take a jump from body consciousness to divine consciousness. In meditation we are doing that, trying to do that - to take a jump from body consciousness to divine consciousness.
Just now, we will be doing a deep meditation. Remain for a few moments more, sitting.
This is a jump - a jump from the body. This process.... I must tell you what this process means.
You are staring at me. If your stare is total, you will become related to me immediately through your stare. The eyes are the least material part of the body; the energy that moves through the eyes is your consciousness, your attention. For thirty minutes, if you are staring at me, your energy is moving towards me through the eyes. If the energy moves in a total, in a whole process - not fragmentary, not partial - you will forget your body completely.
And then you will be jumping constantly. That jumping is to help your energy to jump inside; the jumping is not just a body exercise. The body is jumping, and you are staring at me. Your jumping body, your jumping exercise will help the energy to jump inside. Sparks will come through your eyes towards me. While you are jumping, you are constantly using the sound, "hoo! hoo!" That too is a hammering inside. When you say, "hoo," your energy moves upwards. When you say, "hoo," the sound goes deep to the sex center and hammers it; and the sex energy hammered, begins to move upward. And you are jumping, and you are staring at me - this whole pattern helps you towards a jump from the body to the divine consciousness.
Now get ready....