Darshan 2 April 1976

[A sannyasin says she is afraid of leaving for the West.]

Don't be afraid of such things.

It is always difficult to leave the ones you love, but it becomes difficult because when we are with them we don't love them. If you really love them, feel for them, care for them - and you will be there for three, four months - you can leave them without any fear. And they will not feel hurt. This is one of the things to be understood.

The fear arises because we don't know how to love; otherwise four months is a long enough time.

Even a single moment of love can become an eternity. Just a loving look... just a deep intimate touch. Then there is no fear. One has loved and one can depart very easily.

The problem arises because when we are together we don't know how to love, what to do. And then comes the moment of departure. You feel that you couldn't love while you were together and now you are leaving. The same problem arises when a loved one dies. You cry and weep and feel very much depressed. The basic depression is not because death has occurred. The basic depression is this - that you could not love while the person was alive, and now there is no opportunity; the person is gone. There is no way to show your love, to say goodbye even. And there were millions of opportunities and you went on missing them. Now one regrets the whole wastage.

While the opportunity was there, you missed it. When now there is no opportunity, sadness is bound to descend on you. One feels tremendously frustrated... against a wall, and there is no door. You cannot even say, 'I am sorry that I didn't love you'; now there will be no response.

There were millions of opportunities when you could have been in love, but you were angry; when you could have cared but you didn't; when you could have been deeply intimate, but you remained far away, haughty, egoistic, fighting. When love could have bloomed, you missed.

This is my observation, that if two persons have loved each other really, and one dies, the other can say goodbye in total contentment. There is no regret; one feels fulfilled. That is what is meant when it is said that love is not destroyed by death; even death cannot destroy it. If it is there, even death cannot destroy it, and if love is not there, then even life cannot help it.

Life is ended by death... love transcends.

So this fear is always there, mm? But rather than wasting energy in fear, use that energy in loving.

And always remember that whenever you are with a person this may be the last time. Don't waste it on trivia; don't create small troubles and conflicts that don't matter. When death is coming, nothing else matters. Somebody does something, says something, and you get angry. Just think of death...

just think of this man dying or you dying, and of what significance what he has said will be. And he may not have meant it that way at all; it may just be your interpretation. Out of a hundred cases, ninety-nine percent are one's own interpretation.

And remember, whenever you are with a person he is not the old person at all, because everything goes on changing. You cannot step twice in the same river, and you cannot meet the same person twice. You will go and you will see your mother and father, brothers, sisters, friends, but they must have changed. Nothing remains the same. You have changed, you are not going the same, and you will not find them the same. And if these two things are remembered, love flowers between these two.

Always meet a person as if this is the first time that you are meeting. And always meet a person as if this is the last time you will be meeting - and this is how it is. Then this small moment of meeting can become a tremendous fulfillment.

.... And I am coming with you. Come back soon.

[A sannyasin says: I have been spending some time hoping a relationship would happen, but then I think I gave that up... and I'm very happy now.]

Just be happy. A relationship is not as important as your being happy. And if you are happy, who bothers about a relationship?

A relationship is not creative; it is a multiplier. It never creates anything in the first place. It is like a mirror: if there is something to be reflected, the mirror reflects. If there is nothing to reflect, the mirror cannot create anything; it is passive. So always remember to be happy, enjoying, and if something comes by the way.... And it is going to come because a happy person cannot live alone.

That's why I go on gathering so many people from far-away lands ( chuckling). It is impossible to live alone. A happy person has to share. But he has to wait a little because a happy person attracts only another happy person.

If you are unhappy, you will attract many people because they are also unhappy and something fits.

There is a messiah, a therapist, in everybody. So when you are in misery somebody comes and sympathises. He feels very good, high. Somebody is in misery and he is the one to help; he feels very egoistic.

So that's how people become interested in each other. Somebody is in pain, somebody is in suffering; that person will attract many sympathisers, lovers, friends. They will be of many sorts.

One, they may be sadists who are interested in others being miserable. A great majority of sadists exists in the world! Or they may be just on their ego-trips. Any unhappy person helps them to feel happy, comparatively, relatively, so they always like unhappy people around them. That is the only way they know.

Thirdly, sympathy is not love, and if somebody is sympathetic towards you, beware! It is not love.

And the sympathy can remain only if you remain in misery. Once you become happy, the sympathy will disappear, because sympathy cannot go up-hill. It is just like water going down-hill. It goes towards people who are more unhappy than you; it never rises, cannot rise. It has no pumping system in it. It cannot move towards a higher person than you.

So never ask for sympathy, because that is corrupting to you and to the other also. And if you become settled with sympathy and you start thinking that this is love, you have settled with something like a false coin. It just gives one the feeling of love; it is not love.

True love is not sympathetic. True love is empathetic. It is empathy, not sympathy. Sympathy means 'You are miserable, and I would like to help you. I remain outside. I give you my hand. I am not affected by you. In fact deep down I enjoy it. I relish it that one person is giving me the opportunity to feel so high'. This is violent.

Empathy is totally different. Empathy means !I feel just as you are feeling. If you are miserable, I feel your misery. It touches me... it affects me. Not as an outsider but as if I am part of your being'.

Love is empathy... it is not sympathy at all.

So remember this and resist the temptation to ask for sympathy. That temptation is there, because when one feels that love is not happening, one starts settling for less. One starts moving around in sadness and asking for sympathy in subtle ways. Never ask that. That is the greatest degradation that can happen to a human being. Never do that. Be happy.

It will take a little time for the love to happen, because lovers are sadists, themselves miserable and trying to prove that they are messiahs, helpers, solving other people's miseries. But if you are happy, you will attract somebody who is not in all these neurotic trips; who is simply happy and would like to share with you.

And this is the beauty of it: if you are happy and a relationship happens, you feel good, you share, but you are not dependent on it. You don't become a slave, you don't become addicted to it, because you can be happy without it.

A good relationship is a sharing; there is no dependence. Both partners remain totally free and independent. Nobody possesses - there is no need. It is a free gift... I have so much, so I give it to you. There is no need - I can be alone and perfectly happy.

When two persons are in love and both can be alone and happy, then tremendously beautiful love happens, because they are not hindering each other in any way in their growth. They remain completely free.

Have you read Kahlil Gibran's 'The Prophet'?

A woman asks that Almustafa say something to them about marriage. Almustafa says: '... And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.'

Love, but remain independent; love remains separate. Never lose your inner space. Always retain your being - like pillars of a temple supporting the same roof of love, the same temple of love, but still independent, far apart. Never come too close to a person. Intimacy is not closeness. Intimacy is a totally different dimension. It has nothing to do with physical closeness.

Too close, and you start hindering the growth of the other. One starts possessing the other, is afraid of losing the other, is addicted. Now the need is more important than anything else. When love becomes a need, a necessity, then love becomes ugly. When love is simply a luxury, then it is beautiful. When I say luxury, I mean you can be without it; there is necessity for it. You can enjoy it but it is just a luxury.

[To another sannyasin, too happy to speak, Osho says:]

Go higher and higher and higher. There is no limit to it, so never be satisfied. Whatsoever you have, always be happy with it, but always remember that more is possible. That is the point where being and becoming meet. And growth needs both the wings of being and becoming.

There are people who become too satisfied with their being. They lose growth. They become complacent... they lose tone. They simply become placid... no movement, no dynamism. They don't know what 'divine discontent' is. So remember this.

Then there are people who are too much engaged in becoming. They lose all consciousness of being. They become ambitious. They are always discontent. They don't know what divine content is.

Real growth is possible when you are divinely contented and divinely discontented together. You are happy, whatsoever you have got, you are grateful, whatsoever you have got, but you know much more is possible, and you go on praying for it. You are happy... you go on being thankful for it.

Whatsoever has happened, has happened without your earning it. It is a gift, a grace, so one is never complaining. One is not saying, 'I don't have what I need.' And more is always available.

One feels thankful. With the past one is completely satisfied. With the present one feels absolutely thankful and grateful... but one is not dead.

In this contentment and thankfulness, there is a prayer that much more is possible. Tomorrow is coming... the future is coming. One remains excited. This contentment does not make one dull, rather it makes one more alive, because one becomes more aware of many more possibilities. One remains throbbing. The centre remains contented, and the circumference remains throbbing and waiting for the guest to knock at the door, because more is possible.

This I call the meeting of being and becoming. At the same time, in the same moment, one is tremendously contented, and one is also tremendously discontented. This is the dynamism of life, the dialectics.

In the East, people became too much concerned with being. They lost becoming. The East became almost a dead world... nowhere to go, nothing to do, as if the past became all, future disappeared.

The West has become too concerned with becoming. The past is meaningless... even the present is meaningless. Present is also just a passage for the future. Herenow doesn't exist. It has to be used as a means for some other end in the future. And when you reach the future, that will also become the present. Then again you hurry up.

Everybody is going. Nobody knows where they are going, for what they are going. Everybody has to become somebody. So the East became dead, and the West is becoming mad. Being alone makes one dead... becoming alone makes one mad. And there is a subtle balance between the two.

When you are neither dead nor mad, you are alive, tremendously happy, tremendously contented, and yet waiting for the unknown... always waiting, hopeful. Much is going to happen - so much has already happened. And every time something has happened, it has opened another door. These two things have to be remembered, mm?

And this I call the meeting of East and West - the meeting of being and becoming.

[Another sannyasin says: Things are going well, but at the same time I'm coming across a deep fear.

During the lecture a few days ago I could just feel an emptiness inside.... ]

Emptiness... mm mm. You are interpreting it wrongly. This happens many times because the experience is below the mind. It is not exactly of the mind, because whenever you feel emptiness, the mind is not there. If the mind is there you cannot feel empty. For moments the mind disappears.

Listening to me, just looking at me, many moments will come when you are really deeply looking towards me, and there will be glimpses when the mind will disappear. And suddenly a yawning emptiness....

Now that emptiness in itself has nothing like fear in it, nothing. In fact once you start diving deep into it, you will see that it is tremendously beautiful. But this happens only as a moment, a glimpse, a breakthrough. Just a door opens and closes and again the mind is back. And immediately the mind starts interpreting and becomes afraid .

Mind becomes afraid because the mind looks at this death, this emptiness, as its own death. And it is in a way. It is not your death, but it is your mind's death. The mind is always uneasy with something it cannot tackle, it cannot manage. Now something happens and the mind disappears, and when the mind comes back, that thing is gone. The mind feels very impotent. It wants to understand and it cannot, because it cannot encounter it; it is impossible. So the mind becomes afraid - not you.

And the mind makes you afraid about fear.

So from tomorrow, do one thing: don't listen to the mind; rather, when those moments of emptiness come, enjoy them and see. If you enjoy them they will be longer; the interval will be bigger. When those moments come, close your eyes and relish them... take a deep interest in them. Something which is not of the mind is happening - and this is what meditation is all about.

I go on speaking every day just to create a situation of . meditation for you. Listening to me, by and by just listening to my sound, the mind will disappear. This is just an indirect way to help you to get out of the mind.

So when this happens again, enjoy it so it will be there longer. You will create a base by your enjoying it; you will help it to remain there a little longer, to linger a little longer. Your welcome will help the guest to be with you a little longer.

And when the mind comes back and starts interpreting, simply say to the mind, 'Don't be stupid - this is none of your business. You were not there, so you don't know, so please keep quiet'. Start talking to your mind as if it is a separate person. It is. It is a mechanism. Give it a name, talk to it, so a separation grows. By and by you will start functioning completely separately.

It is just as if you are driving a car. Everything goes well... the engine is humming, the road is beautiful, the scenery is lovely. If the driver of the car is really in tune with his car, he feels one with it. Your hand and your wheel are not separate. An identity comes. Just a slight movement of your hand and the car moves with you. Just a slight pressure of your feet and the car accelerates its speed. Everything goes with you.

The feeling as if you are one with it arises. That's why it is very difficult to sell a car if you love it; one becomes emotional. I have seen people crying when they have sold their car... tears coming to their eyes. What has happened with the mechanism? They have started to love it. They became part of it and the car became part of them.

With a car you are sometimes in it, sometimes out of it, sometimes driving, sometimes not driving, so your separate identity remains. But with the mind it is totally different. You have been driving it since your birth, and till your death you are going to be inside the car as far as your mind is concerned. So you have never known yourself separate from it - that's how it has become too much of an association. Now these are moments when you are getting out of the car... the mind becomes afraid.

So tomorrow when it happens, just enjoy it. Remember that the mind is separate from you. You are the consciousness. Mind is just a storing system, a computer, a bio-computer. It knows only that which has been fed into it; it knows nothing else. And it cannot know emptiness, because emptiness cannot be fed into it. Something can be fed; nothing cannot be fed into it. Nothing will be just a gap.

Nothing will be nothing.

Just for one month try this - then tell me. It will disappear. There is no need to worry.

[Another sannyasin says: I can't be involved in these superstructures of activity and fee!ing which I create. How can I succumb to this nothingness? I keep fighting it.]

Don't fight it... don't fight it - because if you fight it you will be missing something tremendously valuable. Nothingness is the greatest thing there is. Everything comes out of nothingness and goes back into it.

In the East we have defined nothingness as God. All comes out of nothingness. So whenever something great is going to happen to you, some transformation, first you will have to pass through nothingness. Nothingness is very creative.

But it is difficult, arduous, mm? because the whole pattern of the mind becomes afraid and it starts fighting. Don't fight - there is no need. Just accept it, and once you accept, the problem will disappear. And you will be able to relate to people, you will be able to act, do things, feel, but on a higher altitude than ever. This nothingness will give you a new vision.

If you fight with it, you will again fall back to the old pattern. These groups are to destructure you.

Everybody is potentially infinite - the structure makes one limited. I don't mean that you can live without a structure. You have a structure but it moves. It has no fixity about it, it isn't rigid. People who live through emptiness, they also have to live through structures because to live means to have a structure.

But just look. You have a cement concrete house... you can also have a tent. Both are houses in a way, but the tent belongs to the vagabond, who is fluid. Today he is here, tomorrow he is gone somewhere else, and he can take his tent with him, within minutes. But you cannot take a concrete structure with you that way. Sometimes the vagabond will fix his tent by the side of the river...

sometimes on a hillock... sometimes in a desert. The tent does not resist. It has no prejudices, no likings and dislikings. Wherever you nail it, it is ready. Within minutes it is ready for you to sleep in.

But you are not in a bondage.

So you can have two types of structures in you. You can have a cement concrete structure. That is what is meant by a square person. He has a cement concrete structure - orthodox, conventional, traditional. He lives in a stone cave. You cannot take it anywhere. You will have to live in it - and there. In fact the cave does not serve you - you you have to serve the cave, and you are not free to go anywhere; you are confined to the cave. But an owner of a tent is in a totally different dimension.

He is not confined by the tent; he can take it anywhere.

In the eastern languages, particularly in the mid-eastern languages - arabic, urdu, hindustani - we have a word for a vagabond... very beautiful. The word is 'khanabdast'. It means 'one whose house is on his shoulders'. It is very beautiful - one whose house is on his shoulders. The house moves with him... he is totally free.

So first the structure, the old structure, the square structure, has to be de-structured. Then a new structure has to be built - more flexible, more suitable for you - which gives you freedom, which allows you to do your thing. And you are not to adjust to the structure; the structure adjusts to you.

This is the whole revolution. This is what I am doing here - taking away the fixed structures. It is a painful process, difficult, but if you are courageous it can be done.

That's what has happened in these two groups, mm? You are feeling loose, unhooked.

[She answers: I don't know what to do now.]

So just leave it, and we will create a new structure, mm? This is just half the process, the negative part of it, mm? Then a liquid structure will come... that liquid structure is what sannyas is. You have a tent-like house. The house is on your shoulders, so wherever you go it is with you there.

So don't be afraid and don't fight nothingness, because nothingness is just a passage from the old structure to the new structure. It is as if you are changing houses and you are just on the middle

of the road. The old is gone and the new has not yet arrived. All the furniture is in the truck... and you are just standing on the road, and you are asking for the address of the new house. That is the situation when one feels very much afraid, at a loss; one cannot figure out what is happening, mm?

Don't be worried.

Do a few more groups, some positive groups, so you will feel a structure arising.

[Another sannyasin says: I feel my body's been changing a lot - just moving in different ways. And I've been follow-ing inside my body. I'm afraid that I'm going to fall back into my old ways, and that my mind is going to take my body back.]

Mm mm... don't be afraid. It's very good. Whenever a real change happens in the mind, the body is immediately affected. If it is a real change, you will always feel something deep down in the body also changing. And whenever something in the body is changing, there is no need to be afraid that the mind will take possession of you again; it is not easy. If only the mind changes and the body has not heard about it, then the mind can take possession very easily, because it remains on the surface. The body is where your roots are.

The body is where you are rooted in the earth, and mind is just like branches in the sky - lovely to look at, but everything depends on the roots which are deep in the darkness of the earth. They don't exhibit themselves; they don't show. If you just move around you will see the branches and flowers, but you will never become aware of the roots.

So if only the branches are changing and the roots have not been affected, that change is not going to last long. But if the roots are affected, then this change is going to last, and the process cannot be reversed easily. So don't be worried. Give more and more attention and feeling to the phenomenon which is happening to the body.

You are feeling inside the body - this is very beautiful. There are millions of people, almost the majority, who do not know any sense of the body. They have completely forgotten that they are in the body... they are just ghost-like.

[He replies: It s an entirely new sensation for me.]

Yes, it is a new sensation because humanity has been completely cut from the roots.

The body has been suppressed for millennia, and the mind has been given the idea that it is the master; that mind is all and the body is nothing but a servant... is in fact something condemnatory, is something like a sin.

One feels embarrassed that one has a body. That's why people are afraid of being naked, because once you are naked, you are more of a body than a mind. Clothes give you a feeling that the body doesn't exist - just the face, the head, the eyes. That is the whole mechanism of the mind located there. So when they are naked, people suddenly feel that they are bodies - and that doesn't feel good.

Remain inside the body because that is the reality. Feel more and more... allow the body to have all the sensitivity it can have. Regain it, reclaim it, and allow the body more changes so that you can

feel its being. For example, sometimes close your eyes and lie down on the earth... feel the earth with the body. Don't think about it, feel it.

Go into the river and lie down in the water, in the sand. Just lie in the sun. Feel more... be sensuous.

When you eat bread, first feel it with your hand... put it on your cheek and feel it... smell it. First let it be known by the body. Then taste it... close your eyes and let the taste spread all over. And don't be in a hurry; don't simply go on stuffing. Enjoy it... chew it well - because this bread is going to become your body. Don't miss this opportunity. This bread is your potential body. So receive it, welcome it, and you will have a totally different body within a few months.

If you eat with a different mind, a different attitude; drink water with a different attitude, and remember always to be more sensuous, sensitive, soon you will see that the body has been dead in many parts.

You become alive, as if you were a lion sleeping and now the lion is coming back... spreading its legs, stretching its body. You will find that same sensation of arising life. It is almost a resurrection.

So for a few days get more and more into it... and don't be afraid; it's very good.

[A sannyasin says: Everyone has such positive experiences... I feel like coming closer to you but I feel so far away...

Actually I think I like my negativity.]

So it is perfectly good, if you like it. You are a buddhist! (laughter) People have reached through negativity also... so you will reach via negativa, mm? Negativity is also a path. A few people go through the positive, a few people go through the negative; both are paths. So don't be worried - I will take you through the negative.

You will have to reduce the weight a little (she is plump) because it is very narrow (laughter)...

And everything is going so well... and you are looking so good, and (a chuckle) so close to me. And don't be worried... I like you very much!

[A sannyasin says: Today I am different and today is different from tomorrow... I don't know where I am.

There is no need to know where you are. You are the process .

[The sannyasin replies: Yes, but I'm afraid - I feel like the mind is leaving the body.]

Very good... allow it. Let it go, and when it is gone, then you will know for the first time who you are.

The mind is like a disease. It is a constant feverish state, a turmoil, a chaos. When it is gone you will feel so silent, and you will come in contact for the first time with your being. The mind is the barrier.

So don't cling to it. Feel happy and let it go. Say goodbye... and never see you again! (much laughter)

[A sannyasin says: I'm speechless at the moment, yet I feel so much is moving. I don't know if you can see ?]

It is good... let it move. One should be afraid of life becoming static. One should be happy and grateful that so much has happened. When nothing is happening then one should feel a little worried, mm? If so much is happening then it is perfectly beautiful - and if you accept it, more will be happening.

One has to learn the confidence, the trust in life, in change, in movement. Ordinarily the mind is very orthodox... it doesn't want to change. The mind is a Tory (laughter). It wants to cling to the old because that seems to be the more convenient. The mind would like to die if it is convenient, if it is more convenient than life. Mind chooses convenience. A comfortable death is better than an uncomfortable life. And because of the mind, whenever there is change you start feeling uncomfortable. It is the mind which says it is uncomfortable.

In fact one should be happy, because change is life. And if you can change moment to moment and you are always new and never old, you have defeated death. Then you have attained to eternal youth. This is what I call virginity... you have become virgin, and nothing can corrupt you. If you become addicted to the past, you are corrupted. So change, and always remain open for more change. Never close your doors and windows. Let all sorts of winds blow. Even if the house goes with them, let them blow.

You will get a bigger house... the very sky will become your roof. So never be afraid of change. This is what I call a radical being, a revolutionary being or a religious being. Mind wants to repeat the same old rotten.... It is like a gramophone record. It goes on repeating the same song again and again and again.

Always do something new, so something new becomes possible. Or always be something new, because when you are new you attract new things towards you. So perfectly good, mm? You should be grateful - and much more is going to happen, so get ready!

[A sannyasin says: I keep having this feeling that I am really ugly. I call it my 'warty witch syndrome'.

And I'm hypnotising my friends and people that I'm meeting here, that it's not much fun looking at me.]

But who told you that witches are not beautiful? (laughter) I have come across many witches who are very beautiful.

... beautiful witches! Ponder over it! And go on spreading this; this is a very good idea - telling people 'Don't look at me; it is not much fun'. They will look more! (laughter) That's how their minds work - you have found a clue.

The mind goes on creating unnecessary problems. But that is the whole function of the mind - to create baseless problems. And once it creates them, you are caught, and you try to solve them.

Don't try to solve them. Simply see the baselessness in it. The very irrelevance has to be seen, that's all. If you start doing something, then you have accepted the problem. Just see the irrelevance of it.

Every face is beautiful. Every face is differently beautiful. Every face is a separate face, and every face is unique. In fact there is no comparison and no possibility of any comparison. If you accept, you will become beautiful. Through acceptance, beauty happens. If you yourself deny and reject, then you will become crippled and ugly. Now there is a vicious circle.

First you reject; you don't accept - then you become ugly. Then others will start feeling the ugliness, and you will say 'Right, so that's true. I was thinking on the right lines'. So you reject more. This is how the mind goes on fulfilling itself. And all its prophecies are bound to be fulfilled once you miss the first step. The first step is that you are you.

There is no criterion of beauty. In fact for almost five thousand years philosophers have been trying to define beauty. And they have not been able to, because there is no criterion. One person is beautiful to someone and to another he is not. Even the most beautiful woman may be just horrible to someone. It is an absolutely personal choice.

So there is no criterion... and the criterion changes like fashions in clothes. For example in India, if a woman has not very big breasts and big buttocks, she is not beautiful. Now in the West, buttocks are almost disappearing; breasts are also getting smaller and smaller. A different concept of beauty is arising.

And whatsoever the concept, the body fulfills it. This is something to be understood. When in a country the concept is that big breasts are beautiful, women produce big breasts. Just look tomorrow at indian women. Look at their buttocks - they have big buttocks, because for centuries it has been the idea that a beautiful woman has to have big buttocks. If you read indian novels, ancient stories, always big buttocks are described, but in no western novel are buttocks described. In fact the woman is not described from the back at all.

Ordinarily people say that novels, poetry, literature, reflect society. But it works the opposite way also. Novels, poetry, literature, create society also. Once you have a certain idea that gets into people's minds, it works.

There is no criterion of who is beautiful and who is not. It is a personal liking, in fact a whim. But if you don't accept yourself, in the first place you are creating a situation in which nobody can accept you. Because if you don't accept, you won't allow anybody to accept you.

You will create all sorts of disturbances, troubles for him, because he is going against your idea. If somebody falls in love with you, you will destroy that love, because you will say 'How can you fall in love with an ugly witch?' Or you will think this man has a very funny idea of beauty. If you don't love yourself, then nobody can love you. So first, everybody has to fall in love with himself.

Jesus says 'Love God. Love your neighbour like yourself'. That is the basic thing. If you love yourself then you can love your neighbour and then you can love your God. But the basic commandment is:

Love yourself.

If you love yourself, if you are happy with yourself, you will attract many people. A woman who loves herself must be beautiful, has to be beautiful. She creates beauty out of her love for herself. She becomes a grace, a dignity.

So just drop this rubbish, mm? Try. Good.

[A sannyasin says: I have been practising staring at myself in the mirror which I like immensely. But could you tell me about the blackouts I get sometimes when I'm doing it?]

Mind has a mechanism so that it cannot stay focussed for a long time. If you try to focus it, first it will try to move. If you don't allow it to, then there will be a blackout. The mind is simply saying that it cannot take any stimuli in now. So if you focus on anything, there are bound to be intervals of blackouts when everything will disappear.

But this is very good, because in those moments when the mind is so tired that it cannot function in the normal way, it simply stops. In those stopped moments, you are un-mindful, no-mindful, and those moments can become great insights. When the mind is not functioning and you are, you touch your being. So all these methods are just to use the mind mechanism. The mind cannot be continuously in one focussed concentration. It tends to change... it wants novelty.

If you go on staring at your face for a long time, the mind is bored. It says 'Either you change the stimulus, or I am going to drop. I am not going to take it any more'. And you insist, so the mind simply drops. But that's very beautiful. Enjoy that moment... it is very beautiful.

[The (Tathata) group was very beautiful, but now I feel like a lot of people. I feel I am not just one person, you know, and it's very confusing.]

It is a good insight - that you feel that you are many people. Everybody is many! Everybody needs to be one but is not. Everybody thinks that one is one, but one is not; that is illusory. That is just lack of insight. You have not looked into yourself, so you go on believing that you are one; otherwise you are a crowd. And you don't have one mind. You have a poly-psychic phenomenon, many minds.

Not only different, but contradictory, and diametrically opposite too.

At first, to know this will be very confusing, because to feel that one is many, one feels that one is almost on the verge of going mad! How is one going to manage? - so many people inside and all running in every direction possible; nobody listening to anybody else... just like a marketplace.

And there seems to be no director, no single voice. One feels confused. But it is good that you understand it - that there is no one person in you. Now this is the beginning of creating the one.

Once you understand that 'I am many', the one has already been born. Who is understanding this - that 'I am many'? This understanding cannot be one member of this crowd. This understanding is standing far back, looking at the crowd. First you become. aware of the crowd and then by and by you will become aware of this one who has become aware. Then you become aware of this awareness. And then you attain to one.

In the gap there will be a little confusion. Don't be worried about that, mm? And don't lose this understanding and insight. Good.