Spiritual Insights ( part 4)

Spiritual Insights

                      (A Collection of Spiritual Teachings)

                                                 Part 4

1. The religious man is again one-dimensional, just as the scientist is. Albert Einstein is one-dimensional, so is Gautama the Buddha. And because the East has become one-dimensionally religious it has suffered much. And now the West is suffering much, and the cause is one-dimensionality. The West is bankrupt as far as the inner world is concerned and the East is bankrupt as far as the outer world is concerned.

The East is not accidentally poor and starving. It has chosen to be that way. It has denied science; it has even denied the world of objective reality. It says the world is illusory. If the world is illusory, how can you create a science? The very first requirement is missing. You cannot create a science out of maya, illusion. How can you create a science out of something which is not, which does not even exist? If you deny the world, you have denied the dimension of science altogether.

That is the reason why the East is poor and starving. And unless the Eastern genius understands this, we can go on importing science from the West but it will not get roots into our beings. If our approach remains the same as it has been for five thousand years, science will only be something foreign. That's how it is.

2. What does Buddha mean by "desire"? Desire means your whole mind. Desire means not to be here now. Desire means moving somewhere in the future which is not yet. Desire means a thousand and one ways of escaping from the present. Desire is equivalent to mind. In Buddha's terminology, desire is mind.

And desire is time too. When I say desire is time too, I don't mean the clock time, I mean the psychological time. How do you create future in your mind? -- by desiring. You want to do something tomorrow, you have created the tomorrow; otherwise the tomorrow is nowhere yet, it has not come. But you want to do something tomorrow, and because you want to do something tomorrow you have created a psychological tomorrow.

3. The man who lives in the future lives a counterfeit life. He does not really live, he only pretends to live. He hopes to live, he desires to live, but he never lives. And the tomorrow never comes, it is always today. And whatsoever comes is always now and here, and he does not know how to live now-here; he knows only how to escape from now-here. The way to escape is called "desire," tanha -- that is Buddha's word for what is an escape from the present, from the real into the unreal.

The man who desires is an escapist.

Now, this is very strange, that mediators are thought to be escapists. That is utter nonsense. Only the meditator is not an escapist -- everybody else is. Meditation means getting out of desire, getting out of thoughts, getting out of mind. Meditation means relaxing in the moment, in the present. Meditation is the only thing in the world which is not escapist, although it is thought to be the most escapist thing. People who condemn meditation always condemn it with the argument that it is escape, escaping from life. They are simply talking nonsense; they don't understand what they are saying.

Meditation is not escaping from life: it is escaping into life. Mind is escaping from life, desire is escaping from life.

4. Buddha is not for prayer, he is for meditation, because prayer is again somehow a kind of desiring. When you pray, you desire. Prayer is always for the future; prayer means you are asking for something. You may not be asking for money, you may be asking for God himself, but it is the same. Ask, and you have moved away. Meditation is a state of no asking, no questioning, and no thinking. Prayer is still part of thinking -- a beautiful thinking, but thinking is thinking; a beautiful prison, but a prison is still a prison.

Meditation is a state of no-mind. Prayer is a state of religious mind, but mind is there. And when it has the beautiful garment of religiousness around it, it becomes even more dangerous.

5. What is meditation? It does not mean meditating upon something; the English word is misleading. In English there is no word adequate enough to translate Buddha's word sammasati. It has been translated as meditation, as right mindfulness, as awareness, as consciousness, alertness, watchfulness, witnessing -- but there is not really a single word which has the quality of sammasati.

Sammasati means: consciousness is, but without any content. There is no thought, no desire, nothing is stirred in you. You are not contemplating about God or about great things...nature and its beauty, the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, and their immensely significant statements. You are not contemplating! You are not concentrating on any special object either. You are not chanting a mantra, because those are all things of the mind, those are all contents of the mind. You are not doing anything! The mind is utterly empty, and you are simply there in that emptiness. A kind of presence, a pure presence, with nowhere to go -- utterly relaxed into oneself, at rest, at home. That is the meaning of Buddha's meditation.

And nobody else has ever reached such a beautiful expression about meditation as Buddha. Many people have attained, but nobody has been so expressive, so capable of conveying the message, as the Buddha.

6. Mind is confusion. Thoughts and thoughts -- thousands of thoughts clamoring, clashing, fighting with each other, fighting for your attention. Thousands of thoughts pulling you into thousands of directions. It is a miracle how you go on keeping yourself together. Somehow you manage this togetherness -- it is only somehow, it is only a facade. Deep behind it there is a clamoring crowd, a civil war, a continuous civil war. Thoughts fighting with each other, thoughts wanting you to fulfill them. It is a great confusion, what you call your mind.

But if you are aware that the mind is confusion, and you don't get identified with the mind, you will never fall. You will become fall proof! The mind will become impotent. And because you will be watching continuously, your energies will slowly be withdrawn, away from the mind; it will not be nourished any more.

7. You will have to relax from the circumference. The first step in relaxing is the body. Remember as many times as possible to look in the body, whether you are carrying some tension in the body somewhere -- at the neck, in the head, in the legs. Relax it consciously. Just go to that part of the body, and persuade that part, say to it lovingly "Relax!"

And you will be surprised that if you approach any part of your body, it listens, it follows you -- it is your body! With closed eyes, go inside the body from the toe to the head searching for any place where there is a tension. And then talk to that part as you talk to a friend; let there be a dialogue between you and your body. Tell it to relax, and tell it, "There is nothing to fear. Don't be afraid. I am here to take care -- you can relax." Slowly slowly, you will learn the knack of it. Then the body becomes relaxed.

Then take another step, a little deeper; tell the mind to relax. And if the body listens, mind also listens, but you cannot start with the mind -- you have to start from the beginning. You cannot start from the middle. Many people start with the mind and they fail; they fail because they start from a wrong place. Everything should be done in the right order.

If you become capable of relaxing the body voluntarily, then you will be able to help your mind relax voluntarily. Mind is a more complex phenomenon. Once you have become confident that the body listens to you, you will have a new trust in yourself. Now even the mind can listen to you. It will take a little longer with the mind, but it happens.

When the mind is relaxed, then start relaxing your heart, the world of your feelings, emotions -- which is even more complex, more subtle. But now you will be moving with trust, with great trust in yourself. Now you will know it is possible. If it is possible with the body and possible with the mind, it is possible with the heart too. And then only, when you have gone through these three steps, can you take the fourth. Now you can go to the innermost core of your being, which is beyond body, mind, heart: the very center of your existence. And you will be able to relax it too.

And that relaxation certainly brings the greatest joy possible, the ultimate in ecstasy, acceptance. You will be full of bliss and rejoicing. Your life will have the quality of dance to it.

8. The whole of existence is dancing, except man. The whole of existence is in a very relaxed movement; movement there is, certainly, but it is utterly relaxed. Trees are growing and birds are chirping and rivers are flowing, stars are moving: everything is going in a very relaxed way. No hurry, no haste, no worry, and no waste. Except man. Man has fallen a victim of his mind.

Man can rise above gods and fall below animals. Man has a great spectrum. From the lowest to the highest, man is a ladder.

And once the mind dies, you are born as a no-mind. That birth is enlightenment. That birth brings you for the first time to the land of peace, the lotus paradise. It brings you to the world of bliss, benediction. Otherwise you remain in hell. Right now you are in hell. But if you resolve, if you decide, if you choose consciousness, right now you can take a jump, a leap from hell into heaven.

9. Your so-called religions have made you very tense, because they have created guilt in you. My effort here is to help you get rid of all guilt and all fear. I would like to tell you: there is no hell and no heaven. So don't be afraid of hell and don't be greedy for heaven.

All that exists is this moment. You can make this moment a hell or a heaven -- that certainly is possible -- but there is no heaven or hell somewhere else. Hell is when you are all tense, and heaven is when you are all relaxed. Total relaxation is paradise.

10. Start relaxing. Start from the circumference -- that's where we are, and we can start only from where we are. Relax the circumference of your being -- relax your body, relax your behavior, relax your acts. Walk in a relaxed way, eat in a relaxed way, talk, listen in a relaxed way. Slow down every process. Don't be in a hurry and don't be in haste. Move as if all eternity is available to you -- in fact, it is available to you. We are here from the beginning and we are going to be here to the very end, if there is a beginning and there is an end. In fact, there is no beginning and no end. We have always been here and we will be here always. Forms go on changing, but not the substance; garments go on changing, but not the soul.

11.Tension means hurry, fear, doubt. Tension means a constant effort to protect, to be secure, to be safe. Tension means preparing for the tomorrow now, or for the afterlife -- afraid tomorrow you will not be able to face the reality, so be prepared. Tension means the past that you have not lived really but only somehow bypassed; it hangs, it is a hangover, it surrounds you.

Remember one very fundamental thing about life: any experience that has not been lived will hang around you, will persist: "Finish me! Live me! Complete me!" There is an intrinsic quality in every experience that it tends and wants to be finished, completed. Once completed, it evaporates; incomplete, it persists, it tortures you, it haunts you, it attracts your attention. It says, "What are you going to do about me? I am still incomplete -- fulfill me!"

Your whole past hangs around you with nothing completed -- because nothing has been lived really, everything somehow bypassed, partially lived, only so-so, in a lukewarm way. There has been no intensity, no passion. You have been moving like a somnambulist, a sleepwalker. So that past hangs, and the future creates fear. And between the past and the future is crushed your present, the only reality.

You will have to relax from the circumference. The first step in relaxing is the body. Remember as many times as possible to look in the body, whether you are carrying some tension in the body somewhere -- at the neck, in the head, in the legs. Relax it consciously. Just go to that part of the body, and persuade that part, say to it lovingly "Relax!"

And you will be surprised that if you approach any part of your body, it listens, it follows you -- it is your body! With closed eyes, go inside the body from the toe to the head searching for any place where there is a tension. And then talk to that part as you talk to a friend; let there be a dialogue between you and your body. Tell it to relax, and tell it, "There is nothing to fear. Don't be afraid. I am here to take care -- you can relax." Slowly slowly, you will learn the knack of it. Then the body becomes relaxed.

Then take another step, a little deeper; tell the mind to relax. And if the body listens, mind also listens, but you cannot start with the mind -- you have to start from the beginning. You cannot start from the middle. Many people start with the mind and they fail; they fail because they start from a wrong place. Everything should be done in the right order.

If you become capable of relaxing the body voluntarily, then you will be able to help your mind relax voluntarily. Mind is a more complex phenomenon. Once you have become confident that the body listens to you, you will have a new trust in yourself. Now even the mind can listen to you. It will take a little longer with the mind, but it happens.

When the mind is relaxed, then start relaxing your heart, the world of your feelings, emotions -- which is even more complex, more subtle. But now you will be moving with trust, with great trust in yourself. Now you will know it is possible. If it is possible with the body and possible with the mind, it is possible with the heart too. And then only, when you have gone through these three steps, can you take the fourth. Now you can go to the innermost core of your being, which is beyond body, mind, heart: the very center of your existence. And you will be able to relax it too. And that relaxation certainly brings the greatest joy possible, the ultimate in ecstasy, acceptance. You will be full of bliss and rejoicing. Your life will have the quality of dance to it.

12.The whole of existence is dancing, except man. The whole of existence is in a very relaxed movement; movement there is, certainly, but it is utterly relaxed. Trees are growing and birds are chirping and rivers are flowing, stars are moving: everything is going in a very relaxed way. No hurry, no haste, no worry, and no waste. Except man. Man has fallen a victim of his mind.

Man can rise above gods and fall below animals. Man has a great spectrum. From the lowest to the highest, man is a ladder.

13.The body is very limited; it has a simple polarity: food and sex. It moves like a pendulum between these two, food and sex; it has nothing more to it. But if you are identified with the mind, then mind has many dimensions. You can be interested in philosophy, you can be interested in science, you can be interested in religion -- you can be interested in as many things as you can imagine. If you are identified with the heart, then your desires will be of a still higher nature, higher than the mind. You will become more aesthetic, more sensitive, and more alert, more loving. The mind is aggressive, the heart is receptive. The mind is male, the heart is female.The mind is logic, the heart is love.

So it depends where you are stuck: at the body, at the mind, at the heart. These are the three most important places from which one can function. But there is also the fourth in you; in the East it is called TURIYA. Turiya simply means the fourth, the transcendental.

If you are aware of your transcendentalness, then all desires disappear. Then one simply IS with no desire at all, with nothing to be asked, to be fulfilled. There is no future and no past. Then one lives just in the moment, utterly contented, fulfilled. In the fourth, your one-thousand-petaled lotus opens up; you become divine.

14. Inquire, look for the exact place where you are. As far as I am concerned, all desire is a sheer wastage, all wanting is wrong. But if you are identified with the body I cannot say that to you because that will be too far away from you. If you are identified with the body I will say: move a little towards higher desires, the desires of the mind, and then a little higher, the desires of the heart, and then ultimately to the state of desirelessness. No desire can ever be fulfilled. This is the difference between the scientific approach and the religious approach. Science tries to fulfill your desires and of course science has succeeded in doing many things, but man remains in the same misery. Religion tries to wake you up to that great understanding from where you can see that all desires are intrinsically unfulfillable.

One has to go beyond all desires; only then is there contentment. Contentment is not at

the end of a desire, contentment is not by fulfilling the desire, because the desire cannot be fulfilled. By the time you come to the fulfillment of your desire, you will find a thousand and one other desires have arisen. Each desire branches out into many new

desires. And again and again it will happen, and your whole life will be wasted.

Those who have known, those who have seen -- the buddhas, the awakened ones -- have

all agreed on one point. It is not a philosophical thing, it is factual, the fact of the inner world: that contentment is when all desires have been dropped. It is with the absence of the desires that contentment arises within you -- in the absence. In fact, the very absence of desires IS contentment, IS fulfillment, fruition, flowering.

15. Move from lower desires to higher desires, from gross desires to more subtle

Desires, then to the subtlest, because from the subtlest the jump into no-desire, into

desirelessness, is easy. Desirelessness is NIRVANA.

Nirvana has two meanings. It is one of the most beautiful words; any language can be

proud of this word. It has two meanings, but those two meanings are like two sides of the same coin. One meaning is cessation of the ego, and the other meaning is cessation of all desires. It happens simultaneously. The ego and the desires are intrinsically together, they are inseparably together. The moment ego dies, desires disappear, or vice versa: the moment desires are transcended, ego is transcended. And to be desireless, to be egoless,is to know the ultimate bliss, is to know the eternal ecstasy. And that's what sannyas is all about: the quest for the eternal ecstasy that begins but never ends.

16. To accept the challenge of the unknown in spite of all fears, is courage. The fears are there, but if you go on accepting the challenge again and again, slowly slowly those fears disappear. The experience of the joy that the unknown brings, the great ecstasy that starts happening with the unknown, makes you strong enough, gives you a certain integrity,makes your intelligence sharp. For the first time you start feeling that life is not just a boredom but an adventure. Then slowly slowly fears disappear; then you are always seeking and searching for some adventure.

But basically courage is risking the known for the unknown, the familiar for the

unfamiliar, the comfortable for the uncomfortable arduous pilgrimage to some unknown

destination. One never knows whether one will be able to make it or not. It is gambling,

but only the gamblers know what life is.

17. All desires are insane!

The only sanity is to be desireless.

The only sanity is to be herenow.

This moment is more than enough.

18. While you are listening to a joke, if you can logically conclude what is going to happen,and if it actually happens the way you concluded, then there will be no laughter because there will be no build up of tension in the first place; and secondly, there will be no sudden change. These two things are needed: a building up of tension so you become more and more narrowed, more and more tense, and then suddenly an unexpected turn --the punch line. It triggers a new process; the whole logic falls flat. All jokes are illogical,and because they are illogical they bring great laughter to you.

19. All perfectionists are neurotic. The very effort to become perfect is obsessive -- it creates neurosis, it creates a sort of madness. Then you will never be sane. The only sanity there is, is to accept yourself as you are. Don't condemn, and don't judge. Don't make standards to judge and don't make criteria to judge. Suddenly you see that you have started moving, that the river is flowing. And the river reaches to the ocean of its own accord; nobody needs to force it. The more you try to change yourself, the more you will be in a vicious circle. And then guilt is created; and when you feel guilty, you feel condemned, and when you feel condemned, in that condemnation life becomes a hell. The hell does not exist somewhere; it exists in a wrong attitude. Then you live in hell, and then your whole being is surrounded by a nightmare.

20. Drop that nightmare. Start living and flowing -- a deep let-go, acceptance. And wherever you move, don't be worried, because God is everywhere. Wherever you reach, don't be worried: he is everywhere. You cannot miss him. How can you miss him? That is impossible. You can go on forgetting him, but you cannot miss him -- he is in you, he is everywhere; only he is. But when you create the idea of guilt, for whatsoever reason, then you create a gap; then you are surrounded by your own darkness. Drop that word guilt, and always remember that words are very potential and powerful.

21. I am cutting the root of the disease itself. I am not here to sell any medicine to you, but just to tell you how to cut the very root of the disease. So remember, each stage is right, each stage is necessary. Pass through each, and don't try to jump ahead.

22. And to be in trust is to be in ecstasy; to be in trust is to be in God; to be in trust is to be fulfilled.

23. I say experiment with meditation. From another angle try to understand it. Doubt means thinking. The more you doubt, the more you can think. All great thinkers are skeptical -- have to be. Skepticism creates thinking. When you say no, then thinking arises; if you say yes, finished -- there is no need to think. When you say no, then you have to think. Thinking is negative. Doubt is a basic necessity for thinking. People, who cannot doubt, cannot think; they cannot become great thinkers. So, more doubt means more thinking, more thinking means more doubt. Meditation is a way to come out of thinking. Once the clouds of thoughts are not there, and the process of thinking ceases, even for a single moment, you have a glimpse of your being.

24. One of the greatest thinkers in the West, Descartes, has said, "I think, therefore I am." COGITO ERGO SUM. And Descartes is the father of modern Western philosophy.'I think, therefore I am.'Just the opposite has been the experience in the East. Buddha, Nagarjuna, Sankara, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, they will laugh, they will laugh tremendously when they hear Descartes' dictum,'I think, therefore I am'; because they say, "I don't think, therefore I am."

Because when thinking ceases, only then does one know who one is. In a non-thinking state of consciousness one realizes one's being, not by thinking, but by non-thinking. Meditation is non-thinking; it is an effort to create a state of no-mind. Doubt is mind. In fact, to say 'doubting mind' is wrong; it is repetitive -- mind is doubt; doubt is mind. When doubt ceases, mind ceases; or when mind ceases, doubt ceases. And then self-evident truth arises within, a pinnacle of light, eternity, timelessness; and then there is trust.

25. The whole world is full of pseudo-religious people: churches, temples, gurudwaras, mosques, full of religious people. And can't you see the world is absolutely irreligious? With so many religious people, and the world is so irreligious, how is this miracle happening? Everybody is religious, and the total is irreligiousness. The religion is false. People have cultivated trust. Trust has become a belief, not an experience. They have been taught to believe; they have not been taught to know -- that's where humanity has missed. Never believe. If you cannot trust, it is better to doubt, because through doubt, some day or other, the possibility will arise; because you cannot live with doubt eternally. Doubt is disease; it is an illness. In doubt you can never feel fulfilled; in doubt you will always tremble, in doubt you will always remain in anguish and divided and indecisive. In doubt you will remain in a nightmare; so one day or other you will start seeking how to go beyond it. So I say it is good to be an atheist rather than a theist, a pseudo-theist.

26. Conditioned to believe: believe in God, believe in soul, believe in this and believe in that. Now that belief has entered into your bones and your blood, but it remains a belief: you have not known. And unless you know, you cannot be liberated. Knowledge liberates; only knowing liberates. All beliefs are borrowed; others have given them to you. They are not your flowerings. And how can a borrowed thing lead you towards the real, the absolutely real? Drop all that you have taken from others. It is better to be a beggar than to be rich; rich not by your own earning, but rich through stolen goods, rich through borrowed things, rich through tradition, rich through heritage. No, it is better to be a beggar, but to be on one's own. That poverty has a richness in it because it is true, and your richness of belief is very poor. Those beliefs can never go very deep; they remain skin-deep at the most. Scratch a little, and the disbelief comes out.

You believe in God. Then your business fails, and suddenly, the disbelief is there. You say, "I don't believe, I cannot believe in God." You believe in God, and your beloved dies, and the disbelief comes up. You believe in God, and just by the death of your beloved the belief is destroyed? It is not worth much. Trust can never be destroyed -- once it is there, nothing can destroy it; nothing, absolutely nothing can destroy it.

So remember, there is a great difference between trust and belief. Trust is personal; belief is social. Trust you have to grow in; belief you can remain in, whatsoever you are, and belief can be imposed on you. Drop beliefs. The fear will be there; because if you drop belief, doubt arises. Each belief is forcing doubt somewhere, repressing doubt. Don't be worried about it; let the doubt come. Everybody has to pass through a dark night before he reaches the sunrise. Everybody has to pass through doubt. Long is the journey, dark is the night. But when after the long journey and the dark night the morning arises, then you know it was all worthwhile. Trust cannot be cultivated. And never try to cultivate it -- that is what has been done by the whole of humanity. Cultivated trust becomes belief. Discover it within yourself, don't cultivate it. Go deeper into your being, to the very source of your being, and discover it.

27. It happened that when Alexander came to India he met a sannyasin, a great sage. The sage's name was Dandamis; that is how Greek historians have pronounced it. Alexander asked him, "Do you believe in God?" The sage remained silent. Alexander said, "I cannot see, so how can I believe? How do you believe without seeing him?" The naked sage laughed. He took Alexander by his hand towards the marketplace. Alexander followed -- maybe he was taking him somewhere where he could show him God. A small boy was flying a kite, and the kite had gone so far away that it was impossible to see it. The sage stopped there, and asked that boy, "Where is the kite? Because we cannot see it, and without seeing how can we believe? Where is the kite? How do you still believe that the kite exists?" The boy said, "I can feel the pull of it." And the sage said to Alexander, "I can also feel the pull of it."

28. Trust is nothing but the feel of the pull. You don't see -- one has never seen God; only the pull is felt. But that is enough, that is more than enough. But then you have to be in a certain state where the pull can be felt. It cannot be learned from scriptures; it is not a doctrine. Nobody can explain it: you have to feel the pull.

The old sage laughed. Alexander also realized that it had been a revelation. But the sage said, "Wait; no need to believe in me. You take the thread in your hand and feel the pull, because who knows? This boy may be deceiving. Never believe. Feel the pull." If Alexander had gone away just listening to the boy, it would have been a belief But he felt the pull: the kite was there on the other end, the pull was here on this end. He could feel the force. He thanked the old sage.

29. If you are frustrated in the first and don't become hopeless, you then enter the second. If you are frustrated in the first, get so much caught in the frustration, and become hopeless, you never enter the second. Then you remain a body; you never come to know that you are also a mind. In the second, if you are frustrated, as you will be -- it has to be so, because the second is not the goal, not the end -- if you are frustrated and you become hopeless, then you are caught in the second. But if you are frustrated and don't become hopeless, and your search and enquiry goes higher and higher, and you try to see why this love failed... the first love failed because it was only bodily -- it could not satisfy the mind; the second failed because it was only of the mind -- it could not satisfy the soul: and when the third type of love arises, then you will be near me.

30. Learn more and more to be in a state of non-chattering -- the inner talk has to stop. Then your mind is not hindering; then you are available; then your deepest shrine of being is available to me. But by and by, you will learn. In the beginning, it happens so. You have always been talking, and if you are very articulate in talking, then of course you feel crippled. If you are very articulate and you can talk beautifully, artistically, if you can play perfectly with language and then suddenly you come to me and your throat does not allow you to speak... and something goes wrong and the mechanism doesn't function: you feel that you are crippled. But you are not crippled -- the impact of my presence has simply given a shock to the mechanism of your mind. And it is good. Don't try to bring it back. Let it go. Be quiet, still, silent and waiting. Be feminine.