Darshan 25 September 1979
Bodhi Patricia. We are all somnambulists unless bodhi happens, unless enlightenment happens. We are only awake for the name's sake. Deep down there is sleep, an undercurrent of sleep continues, because an undercurrent of dreaming continues. You can catch hold of it any moment - close your eyes and see what is going on: there are dreams and dreams floating, a long procession of desires, thoughts, memories. The whole past and the future, all is there. How can you be awake to the world? You are too involved with the mind. The mind is there just like a wall between you and the reality. You see reality through the mind, and the mind allows only two percent of reality to enter.
Now this is a scientific fact; it has been known to the mystics for centuries, but now scientists agree that the mind functions as a barrier, not as a bridge.
It allows only that which fits with it, and it simply keeps everything else out. And even that which is allowed by the mind, is colored by the mind before it reaches you. It is corrupted, contaminated, given a particular shape and form which is not its true form and shape.
Bodhi means coming out of the sleep called mind. Patricia means of noble birth, an aristocrat.
As I see it, only Buddhas are real aristocrats, because they are twice born. The first birth can never be noble. Whether you are born in a very rich, ancient family or in a very poor, unknown, anonymous family, you are born alike. The ordinary birth cannot make anyone noble. One has to wait for the second birth.
Jesus says: Unless a man is born again he will not enter into my kingdom of God. He does not mean that you have to die first and then be born again; he means herenow, without dying, without leaving this body, you can be born anew, you can have a new being. That new being is noble, and that
new being comes only through bodhi, through awakening, through awareness, through meditation, through enlightenment.
Hence I say that only Buddhas are real aristocrats. Jesus is an aristocrat, Buddha is an aristocrat, Lao Tzu is an aristocrat, although Lao Tzu was born poor and Jesus too was born poor. In the ordinary sense only Buddha was an aristocrat, because he was born as a prince, but Jesus was a son of a carpenter and nobody knows about Lao Tzu's parents; they must have been absolutely anonymous. At least Jesus' father's name is known - he must have been a good carpenter at least!
But Lao Tzu's father, not even his name is known or where Lao Tzu was born, to whom he was born.
He must have been absolutely anonymous, poor. But I call them aristocrats, of noble birth because of the second birth.
Sannyas is a preparation for the second birth, for the real aristocracy.
Nityam... Just as the mind is a state of sleep, a dream, so the phenomenon of time is of the same illusory nature. Man lives in time but is not part of time: man is part of eternity. Time is only a dream, eternity is truth. It is just as every night you fall into dreaming and you live in something which is unreal, but while you are in it, it looks real. Only when you wake up in the morning do you become aware that it was all unreal: your suffering was unreal, your joy was unreal. If you were a queen in the dream it was unreal or if you were a beggar it was unreal: all was unreal. And the moment you know that your joy and your suffering, all were unreal, then there is no distinction between joy and suffering - if both are unreal.
The same is the experience of those who have really become awakened, those who have become Buddhas, those who have become awakened from the continuous occupation of the mind, who have gone beyond the mind. The moment they go beyond the mind, the whole phenomenon of the mind becomes unreal.
The mind lives in time - in the past, in the future. Time does not consist of three tenses as it is ordinarily thought because the present is not part of time; only past and future are time. The present is the penetration from the above; the present is part of eternity. Hence, to be in the present is to go beyond time and beyond mind, and to be in the present is to be awake. To be awake is to know that whatsoever has been happening in the mind - all the joys and all the suffering - are all dreams.
Hence the mystics call the world maya, illusion, a dream phenomenon. It is exactly so.
But while you are in it, you cannot accept that this is unreal - only when you are awake. Then there is no need to convince you; you yourself know that it was unreal.
To be a sannyasin means that you are trying to wake up. Sannyas is nothing but a methodology to help you to wake up. To be in time is to be asleep: to be awake is to be in eternity.
Anand Frauke... Bliss is possible only when one is egoless. It is ego that pretends to be big, important. It always carries that idea that 'I am more special than others.' Even if it becomes religious, it carries the old aura of holier-than-thou. But then you miss the whole point. Bliss will not happen to such a person who thinks himself big. The bigger the ego, the less is the possibility of God penetrating you. The smaller the ego, the more spacious you are, God can enter; and if there is no ego at all, then you are available to God. In your utter emptiness, the totality of God can descend. That's the experience of enlightenment: when your emptiness meets the fullness of God, when because of your emptiness you become full of God.
Anand Christoph: Carrying Christ in your heart... And to carry Christ in your heart means carrying the essence of all the Buddhas, carrying the perfume of their being, remembering them and remembering that you are also to become one, that you have the same potential.
Innes... Meek, pure, sacred - they're all possible explanations of Ines. But meekness is not something of a means but the end itself, hence the use of present tense: if you are meek you are already in the kingdom of God. Being meek means being in the kingdom of God. Then there is no question of future - not that you shall be; you are immediately.
This significance he has not given to any other quality and I totally agree with him, because to be meek means to be egoless. And the moment there is no ego you can't avoid being in paradise; even if you try you cannot get out of paradise. You cannot escape from God; no effort can ever succeed if the ego is gone. The going, the disappearing of the ego suddenly wakes you up and you find yourself surrounded by God from all sides - engulfed, encompassed.
The second meaning is pure; the person who is meek is bound to be pure. Purity is not something cultivated by the ego. It is something which springs up in you when the weight of the ego is removed.
It is like a fountain: it is already there, ready to burst forth, but a rock is preventing it. You remove the rock and the fountain starts flowing. Purity is your inner essence: the ego is preventing it from flowing into life.
And the third meaning is sacred. If one is meek and if one is pure, then one is divine, one is godly, one is sacred. Then one's whole life is a sacred phenomenon. It is no more mundane. He may be doing the same ordinary things, but because he has changed whatsoever he touches becomes sacred. Wherever he moves becomes a temple; wherever he sits it is holy land. His presence makes everything sacred. He becomes alight; and he is not only enlightened, he starts enlightening things and people.
It is a beautiful name, and with these three qualities there bliss is just a byproduct.
Pragyano... Wisdom happens through meditation, and bliss also happens through meditation. Both the flowers bloom on the same branch.
Buddha has said that if somebody is wise and not blissful, then be aware: his wisdom is false. It is knowledge, it is not wisdom. And if somebody is blissful and not wise, beware: his blissfulness is just an illusion. It is not true, because if it is true, it is bound to be followed by wisdom.
Remember these two things, which in the ultimate sense are not two but one.
Devaprem... Because we're all born with the ability to love, nobody has any excuse not to realize God... If one can avoid ego trips, love starts growing of itS own accord, and soon you are uplifted by love. Soon you are no more part of the mundane world; you enter into a new dimension, the dimension of the divine.
Love more, love totally, love unconditionally. Love without asking anything in return and a thousand and one blessings will be yours.
Divyam... God is not a search of the mind, it is an adventure of the heart... philosophy is of no help.
Only religion can lead you, can guide you, to God. The difference between philosophy and religion is the difference between the head and the heart; it is the difference between logic and love.
Never think about God in terms of logic. No argument can prove him or disprove him. It is a feeling in the heart; it is the opening of the heart like a flower. It is beyond the comprehension of the mind, it is supramental. It is something so far away from the mind and so above it that the mind cannot conceive what it is all about.
So this is the first thing for a sannyasin to remember - that God is a love affair. And one has to be utterly blind to jump into it - blind in the sense that the mind is no more functioning. The heart has its own eyes. The mind looks outward, the heart looks inward. The mind opens to the world, the heart opens to your inner core, and God resides in the innermost sanctum of your being. Everyone is a temple of God.