Meditation not Prayer has Great Future

Question 1

Firstly, the body and the soul in their very depth are not separate; the difference between them is very superficial. When the whole truth of it is known, we no longer see the body and the soul as two separate entities; we really see them as one and the same. In fact, the body is that part of the soul which can be grasped by the senses, and the soul is that part of the body which is beyond the grasp of the senses. So the soul is the invisible end of the body, and the body is the visible end of the soul.

But this is known only when one comes to the ultimate experiencing of truth.

It is ironical that in general we all believe that the body and soul are one and the same thing. But this general belief is illusory, because we really don't know what the soul is. Rather we take the body for the soul. But even this illusory and popular belief stems from the same basic truth - behind it lies the same knowledge of this unity; in some invisible recess of our being we do know that the body and soul are one.

This knowledge of oneness has, however, given rise to two kinds of errors. On the one hand there are the spiritualists, who say that there is only the soul and no body; and on the other, there are the materialists like Charvak and Epicurus, who declare that there is only the body and that there is no soul. These two mistaken concepts, contradicting each other, arise from the same profound realization that the body and soul are not separate.

And like the materialists, every common person - who we say is ignorant - thinks that he is only a body.

But as the inward journey will begin, the belief that the body and soul are the same will be shattered, and one will come to know that they are separate. Because as soon as one knows that there is a soul, he also knows that the body is separate and the soul is also separate.

But this happens in the intermediate stage of the journey. When you will go deeper and still deeper, when you will attain to the ultimate experiencing, you will know that they are not separate. They are really one and the same; they are the different forms of the same reality.

It is like I am one person with two hands - a right hand and a left hand. If somebody observes my two hands from without and says that they are one and the same, he is wrong, because they are two hands clearly separate from each other. Coming closer to me he will know that my left hand is quite separate from the right one. Maybe, my left hand is in pain and the right one is not in pain.

Maybe the right hand is cut down and the left one is okay. So the two are obviously not one and the same. But if someone will enter into my interiority he will find that I am one person and both hands are mine. When the left hand is broken it is I who am hurt; and when the right one is broken, it is again I who suffer. And in the same way when the left hand is raised up, it is I who am raising it up, and when the right one is raised up, it is again I who am raising it.

So in the ultimate experience the body and soul are not separate; they are two sides, like my two hands, of the same truth. I bring this simile so that you understand the thing well.

Then the journey can begin from any of the two points - either from the body or from the soul. If some one begins it with the body and goes deeper and deeper into it, he will ultimately reach to the soul. It is like someone holds my right hand and moves up; he will reach to my left hand sooner or later. Similarly someone can directly begin with the soul and reach to the body in the end.

It is, however, very difficult to begin with the soul. It is difficult because the soul is altogether unknown to us. Since we mostly exist at the physical plane, our journey can only begin with the body. There are, however, techniques which start directly with the soul; but generally they are useful for only a very few persons. One in a million can use the techniques that begin with the soul. The vast majority will have to start with the body. One's journey can begin only where one is.

And for the journey beginning with the body the kundalini comprises the preparatory work. Kundalini is the basic seat of the deepest experiences of the body.

In fact, the body is not only what we know it to be, or the physiologists know; it is much more. For instance, a fan is on. If we take the fan down and dismantle it part by part to investigate it, we will not come across electricity anywhere. And maybe, on the basis of this investigation a very intelligent person says that there is no such thing as electricity in the mechanism of a fan. He will never find it in any part of the fan itself. Yet the fact is that when it was moving, it was being moved by electricity.

And the fan will stop moving the moment the electric current stops reaching it. The physiologists study the body by dissecting it and they don't find the kundalini anywhere. They will never find it. Yet the whole body is run with the electrical energy that is kundalini, like a fan is run with electricity. This electrical energy of the kundalini cannot be known through analysis done from without, because in the process of analysis the energy disintegrates and disappears. It can be known only through inner experiencing of it.

There are two ways to know the body. You can know it from without as the physiologist does by dissecting it - this is one way; and the other way is to know it from within it. One who goes deep inside it and lives there knows it from within.

One who begins to know his body from within... And remember, we know our bodies only from without. Even our own bodies are known to us only from the outside. If I know my left hand, I know it through my eyes which have actually seen them. So my knowledge about my left hand is really the physiologist's knowledge. But if I close my eyes and feel my left hand, this inner feeling of it will be my own. So if someone goes to know his body from within, he will soon reach the kunda, the reservoir, which is the source of all our bodily energy. The energy that lies asleep at this kunda, this pool, is called the kundalini. And then he will know for himself that everything emanates from there and pervades the whole body. It is like a single lamp burns and lights a whole room. If you will explore the source of the light pervading the entire room, you will come to the lamp and find that all light rays are emanating from this one flame. Then you will know that although the rays have reached distant corners of the room, yet the lamp remains their source.

Here we are concerned with searching that particular point from where life energy emanates and pervades our whole body. Life energy has to have a center; no energy can be without a source.

Though the sun is a hundred million miles away from us, yet we have its rays with us; we can say that there must be a center, a source from where they emanate and pervade the earth. In fact, no energy can ever be without a center; if there is energy it has to have a center. How can there be a circle, a circumference, without a center? Where there is a circumference there is certainly a center too.

That your body is a bundle of energy is self-evident; it needs no proof. It is a pile of energy that rises up and sits down, moves and halts and goes into sleep. And it is not that its energy always functions uniformly; sometimes it is active and vigorous and at other times it is in a lethargic, low and dull state. When you are angry you hurl a big rock at someone which you can hardly move in your normal state. When you are in great fear you run at a speed which would be envied by a runner in an Olympic race. So your energy is not always in the same state; it fluctuates according to conditions in and around you.

It is therefore evident that you have a kind of reservoir, a fountain, from which energy goes into action or does not go. It goes into action whenever necessary; otherwise it lies dormant at the source. From this source you draw energy in both your normal and abnormal conditions - in your day to day needs and also in your emergencies. Yet this reservoir is never empty, it is always full; you cannot exhaust it. It is inexhaustible.

It is interesting to know that we never make full use of this great store of our energy. Those who have explored this field say that even the most extraordinary people, who are known as geniuses, do not use more than fifteen percent of their energy. Even great men of history - who made history - don't cross this limit of fifteen percent. And so far as the ordinary man is concerned, he goes through his life just with two to two and a half percent of it; ninety-eight percent of his energy remains unused.

So potentially, from the point of the seed energy, there is no difference between an extraordinary per son and an ordinary one. The difference is one of energy's use and disuse. The energy that a person of genius has put into use is the same as a very ordinary person possesses without using it. The ordinary man is one who never summoned his energy into action; he never provoked it, confronted it with a challenge. He is satisfied with what little he has on the surface, which he thinks to be his maximum. He makes do with his minimum and leaves the vast potential untapped. And that is why in moments of crisis even the most ordinary person displays extraordinary strength and ability. So only in moments of crisis do we come to know what our inner potentiality is.

There is a center in each one of us where this whole energy dwells - hidden and asleep. One should say that it lies there in seed form - enclosed and latent; but it can become manifest. And it is called kunda, the pool, or the reservoir.

The word "KUNDA" is very significant; it has many meanings. One meaning is that it is a still and tranquil pool without a single ripple. If even a single ripple is there it will mean that the energy has become active. kunda means that its content, its energy, is without any movement; it is perfectly passive, calm and resting. And another meaning is that though it is passive and asleep, it can any moment become alert, active, and moving. It is not a dry and dead pool; it is full to the brim. And any moment it can become active, dynamic; although right now it is in a passive, sleeping state.

That may be why we don't know what it is that lies asleep inside us. We can know only that much as becomes awake and active, only the active part of the energy will enter your consciousness, and its passive part will lie asleep in your unconscious. That is why even the greatest of men, unless they attain to greatness, remain unaware of this energy. Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna and Jesus, none of them were aware of their potential until they had actualized it, until they had attained to the height of their greatness.

That is why when the event of awakening takes place effortlessly, the awakened ones come to believe that it is a gift of grace from the unknown. They wonder how and whence this gift came to them. And so they feel that it comes from whosoever is nearest to them. If the Master is the nearest person, they will say it is a gift from the Master. And if the nearest object is an idol of God, and not the Master, then they will give all credit to the idol itself. Whatsoever will precede the event - a Buddha, or God in heaven - will be taken for the source. But the fact is that it always comes from their own inner source. But because of their past unawareness they ascribe it to some outside agency like the Master or God, that happens to be nearest to the event.

I happened to read a story only the other day. Two farmers boarded a railway train for the first time.

They were residents of a mountainous village and they were born on the same day. So when their birth day arrived, the people of their village thought of giving them some birthday gift. And as the railway train had been newly introduced in their part of the country, there could not be a better gift than a train trip for them. So the farmers received two train tickets from their village, and started on their first travel by railway.

Since it was an altogether new experience for them, they were excited and curious about everything that came their way. A vendor of soft drinks happened to pass by and they decided to buy a bottle of soft drink and have a taste of it. They decided to share the soft drink between them and if they found it to be delicious, they would buy themselves another one.

Having bought the drink, one of them started first to drink his share. As he was half way through the drink the train entered a tunnel. About this time his friend became anxious for his share of the drink and he asked the other not to grab the whole thing. His friend said, "For God's sake, don't touch it; it is poisonous! I have been struck blind by it!"

As the train entered the tunnel, it suddenly became dark all around and the farmer thought that the drink had turned him blind. So the nearest event - the drink - was taken for the cause of the blindness. It is just natural. What precedes an event is taken to be its causal factor.

Similarly, we don't know the real source of our energy. And unless it is awakened, there is no way to know it. And we are not aware if it can be available to us, and in what measure it can be available.

The awakened part of this sleeping energy, the kunda, is called the kundalini. The kunda itself is un conscious, it is asleep; but the kundalini is conscious and awake. Only that part of the energy which wakes up and comes out of the kunda is known as kundalini. Kundalini is not the whole of it; it is only a wave arising out of the pool.

So this journey is a two-fold exploration. The kundalini, the awakened energy, brings you the news that there is a very great source hidden within you which has immense possibilities. A single ray of light from the sun opens the possibility of an infinite number of rays coming in its wake. So one way lies through awakening the kundalini which will make you fully aware of the power of your body. And through the awakening of this energy you will arrive at those centers, those doors of your body, from where passage to the invisible end of the body, which we call the soul, becomes easy.

It is necessary to understand this thing clearly and fully, because whatsoever we do, it is really our energy that does it through some opening or center. For instance, our ears are such an opening, through which we hear. If your ears get diseased, you will not be able to hear anything, because the energy will be blocked on reaching the ears, and it will turn back to its source. And by and by the energy will cease moving to the ears, because it only moves where it has a chance of being active.

So the energy will no longer move to the ears.

The contrary can happen, too. If a person goes deaf and he wills strongly to hear from his fingers, it is possible that his fingers will begin to hear. There are people present on this earth who hear through bodily organs other than their ears. And there are people who see through organs other than their eyes. What is it really that you call your eyes?

It is nothing but a part of your skin, with this difference - that since time immemorial man has been using this particular part of his skin for the purpose of seeing. It must have been only accidental that the first man had used that part of his body for this purpose; he could as well have used any other part for that matter. Other creatures really used other parts and consequently their eyes appeared in different parts of their bodies. There are animals and birds and insects who have grown double sets of eyes - one set of real eyes and the other of false ones. While they see with their real eyes, they use the false ones to deceive their enemy. In case an enemy injures their eyes, their real eyes are saved. A very ordinary fly in your house has ,a thousand eyes; its one eye is really a collection of a thousand eyes. That is why the fly's capacity to see is enormous and amazing. Some fishes see with their tails, because they are afraid of their enemies hitting them from behind.

If we make a study of the eyes of all the living beings of the world, we will learn that it is not necessary that they should only be where they are. Similarly, there is no particular meaning in having our ears the way they are. They can be really anywhere. The location of man's eyes and ears is the result of his repeating for infinite number of times the acts of seeing and hearing from the same spots. And consequently their memories have been most deeply engraved and fixated in our consciousness.

So they get repeated mechanically and easily.

Even if one of the many sense organs that we have is lost, we will miss that part of the world which i8 made available to us through it. If we lose our eyes, the world of light will be lost to us; we will cease to experience light as such. Then we will not know light even if we have the best of ears and hands and other sense organs with us.

So when the kundalini begins to wake up and rise, it knocks at such new doors of your body that are not at all ordinary. Through these extraordinary senses - after they are stimulated by the energy of the kundalini - you begin to know things which you cannot know through your ordinary senses.

Correctly speaking, the kundalini begins to hit and awaken your internal sense organs. Even now it is through the energy of the kundalini that your ordinary eyes and ears and other sense organs function. But these are external organs which need a very small amount of kundalini energy to get going. A small increase in this amount, and you will have extra energy at your disposal to activate other centers as well.

For instance, if we pour some water on the floor here, it will form a tiny channel, leaving a single track behind it for more water to follow and flow. But if the amount of water poured is increased in a big way, it will break into many new channels, because the old channel cannot take all of it alone.

In a deeper physical sense, the awakening of the kundalini means that you have so much energy with you that your old channels are not able to contain it, and so it irresistibly seeks new avenues and new doors. As a result, many new and subtle senses within you will become awake and active.

These extrasensory centers will make you telepathic and clairvoyant; you will begin to see and hear things which are beyond the reach of your ordinary eyes and ears. You will experience certain things your normal senses have nothing to do with. Altogether new sense organs will become active within you. And the most profound result of the intensification of the new senses will be that you will begin to know the invisible world which lies hidden in your body, which is the most subtle and imperceptible part of your body, and which we call the atman or the soul. So with the awakening of the kundalini the possibilities of your growth will be much enhanced.

But the work has to begin with the body.

There is another way which I have left out so far. I have so far explained to you what has been done generally to awaken the kundalini; but the kundalini is not the whole of the kunda or the pool.

There is an other way which I may have to talk to you about separately. Very few persons in the world have taken 'this way. It is not one of awakening the kundalini, with which we are familiar, but of getting immersed in the kunda itself. It is not like awakening a small part of the energy and using it for growth; it is a matter of merging our entire consciousness in the kunda or the pool of primeval energy. In that event no new senses will be awakened; in that case no extrasensory experiences will be availed, and even the experience of the soul will be missed completely. In that event, one will directly encounter and experience God, the supreme.

Through awakening the kundalini, the first experience that comes your way is of the soul. With it, you realize that your soul is separate from those of other people. People who have attained by awakening the kundalini usually believe in the existence of multiple souls. They say that there are as many souls as there are living beings on the earth, that every person has separate souls. But people who have immersed themselves directly in the kunda say that there is no soul, only God is; there is nothing but God. They say there is only one, not many. Because by drowning yourself in the kunda, you not only merge with your individual kunda, but also with the kunda of all, of the collective, the universal kunda. kunda is one. It is not my kunda and your kunda and his kunda as separate entities; it is one and the same.

That is why the energy of the kunda is immense and infinite. No matter how much energy you draw from it, you cannot reduce its content even by an iota; it ever remains full and whole. You may draw any amount of energy for your use, it makes no difference in its content; it is always full and inexhaustible. But what we draw from it we tend to call our own. It is like drawing water from the ocean and storing it in our separate small vessels. And we think that the contents of our vessels are different from one another. But if someone merges himself with the whole sea, he will say that the sea is one, that the water in the different vessels is part of the same sea, and it is going to return to its source again. You cannot keep it separate from the sea for long. Soon the water of the vessel will evaporate in the heat of the sun, then turn into clouds, and return to the sea in the form of rains.

Really it has not been separated from its source; it cannot be.

Seekers who work through awakening the kundalini have extrasensory experiences, which are really extraordinary and unique psychic experiences. They are really psychedelic. And these people come to realize the soul which is only a part of God, or the supreme. Thus they are trying to realize the whole through its part. It is like different people are touching a vast and immense ocean from its different and distant shores. I may be touching the same ocean from one shore; you, too, may be touching from a different shore millions of miles away from my shore. But how can I believe that you have reached the same sea as I have? I am touching its one shore which I think to be mine - a separate ocean - and you are touching another shore which you think to be yours - a separate ocean. It is like I treat the Indian Ocean as mine, you treat the Atlantic as yours, and a third person treats the Pacific as his.

But in fact all the oceans are united and one. It is really a vast global ocean. But it is difficult to know it as such if we approach it fragmentarily; then we will not know the one vast ocean. Rather, we will divide and demarcate it according to our limited visions of it. Not only the ocean, we will divide the shores, too.

So the experience of the soul is like touching the ocean from a particular corner of it. And this can come about by awakening only a little bit of the vast energy. Therefore it becomes necessary for a seeker who has attained on this path to be prepared to lose the soul, too, to transcend it and go beyond. Otherwise the journey will be impeded, because it is yet incomplete. Realization of the soul is not the whole of it; he will have to lose the soul as well, and take a plunge into the kunda. But then it becomes easy; it is easier.

Many times a long route proves to be the easier one, and a shortcut turns out to be the most difficult.

And there are reasons for it, and good reasons at that. A long route is always the easier one. Now, if I have to come close to myself I will have to do so through the medium of another person. If I want to see my own image it will be necessary to take the help of a mirror. It seems to be an unnecessarily long and tortuous way, for my image to enter a mirror first and then return to me in the form of its reflection, so I can see my own face. "Why make such a long detour?" one may ask. But there is no way other than this.

Although my face is the nearest to me, yet for the same reason it is most difficult to see it directly.

So while the way of awakening a part of the kundalini energy certainly makes for a long route, it is almost inevitable. It is how the whole world of inner senses opens up and we attain to the self, or the soul. And from there a quantum leap becomes a must. It is really the long detour that makes the quantum leap smooth and easy. Because it is after that the bliss of selfrealization - which comes through knowing one self - begins to invite and provoke one to strive for the highest of bliss.

Certainly there is bliss in knowing and realizing oneself, but the bliss of losing oneself is of the highest. It is the supreme bliss. After you have known yourself, only one kind of hurt remains: it is the hurt of the self, the hurt of knowing that you are. With the attainment of self knowledge all pains will disappear, but one pain will still pursue you; and it is the pain of being. Now you will ask of yourself: "Why this, my being?" You now know that being also is unnecessary and painful. And then you will take a jump from being to non being. One day you will say: "Now that I have known the being I would like to know the non being too. Now that I have known the light, I would love to know darkness too."

However vast the light, it has its limits; but darkness is limitless. Being is no doubt greatly significant, yet it is limited; non being is infinitely infinite.

People failed to understand Buddha for this very reason. When someone asked him, "Shall I survive there in moksha or freedom?" he said, "No, you will not survive; it is you who have really to be freed from yourself." Then he further queried, "Granted that in moksha everything else will go - desires, sufferings and sins will go; but what about my being? Will I not live in my pristine form?" To this Buddha said, "How can you live? After desires, pains and sins will have disappeared, one pain will still remain - the pain of being. Then your very being will begin to hurt you."

It is interesting to know that after the cessation of desires, your very being begins to irk you, hurt you. So long as you have desires, being does not seem to be at all irksome, because you keep your being occupied with something or the other. If you are after money, your being is occupied with making money. And if you want prestige and fame, your being is occupied with earning name and fame for you. But what will you do with your being when your desire for money will have left you, when you will cease to hanker after position and prestige, when even the desire for sex will be gone, and you will be left with nothing to do, when doing itself will cease? It is then that your being will begin to pinch you directly. Then being will disturb you and you will come to feel that you don't need it. It is for this situation that Buddha says, "No, there will be nothing left. After the extinction of the lamp, where does the flame go?"

Till the time of his death people continued to ask Buddha, "What happens to a tathagata after his death? What will happen after you will be dead?" And Buddha always said, "What is there to happen after I am no more? Nothing will be left over; like the lamp is extinguished, everything will be extinguished. You never ask what happens to the flame after the lamp is extinguished. When the flame is gone, it is gone."

So the attainment of the soul is just a stage in the preparation for losing the soul. We gain it only to lose it ultimately. But it is easier, too. Because if you directly ask a person whose desires are still alive to sink himself in the kunda, to lose himself completely, he cannot do so; he will say it is just impossible. He will say that since he has many important things to do, he cannot afford to lose himself.

Why are we so afraid of losing ourselves? We are afraid because there is always so much to be done that if we lose ourselves, everything will remain undone, incomplete. For instance, I have built myself a house which is incomplete, and I think I will be ready to lose myself after completing this house. And by the time this house will be completed, some other incomplete projects and works will show themselves. Desire to do is really the desire to complete something, and that is what goads us on. Therefore as long as one's desires are there, it is not possible to lose one's soul, although losing one's soul straight away makes for the shortest of paths. How can he, whose desires are intact lose his soul? Of course, if his desires disappear, he can be ready to lose the soul, too; because now he will have no use for the soul.

For instance, if you ask someone whose miseries are still alive to part with his bliss, he will say you are simply crazy. But if his miseries leave him and he is left with bliss alone, then he can prepare himself to part with bliss as well. With desires gone, what will he do with bliss? And the great event happens only when one is ready to give up bliss, too. Anybody can be ready to give up sorrow; but a time does come in our lives when we get prepared to part willingly with bliss itself. And that is what leads to one's dissolution in and unity with the supreme being.

This can happen directly too; one can enter the kunda in one sweep. It is, however, very difficult to prepare oneself for it all at once; gradual preparation is therefore the easier way.

When desiring disappears, when mind ceases, when doing comes to an end, when all your props with which you live fall away, then in the end only you remain without any basis, without any support.

It is then that you say to yourself, "It is now no use salvaging this self; now I can let go of it too." Then you drown yourself in the kunda and merge with it. This merger with the kunda is called nirvana, or freedom.

If someone wants the plunge directly into the kunda, the kundalini does not come in his way. That is why some of the spiritual paths did not talk about the kundalini; because it was not necessary.

Those who taught direct merger with the kunda did not think it necessary to talk about the technique of kundalini awakening. But my own experience says that the direct paths could not work. They may have worked with one or two rare individuals, but that does not matter much. One flower does not make a spring. Therefore, one has to go through the longer route.

Many a time one has to knock at the doors of many other houses in order to reach one's own house.

Just to arrive at your own house, you may have to pass through many other people's first. In order to know your own face you may have to know many other faces first. And before you come to love yourself you have to love any number of other persons. It seems so simple to love oneself. What difficulty is there in loving yourself? Who obstructs you in loving yourself? It is only right that you should come straight home. But it does not actually happen that way. In fact, it is very difficult to find one's own house before one has visited any number of houses belonging to others. And until one has begged for others' love and given his own to them, one does not come to know that the real question is of loving oneself.

About kundalini I said that it is a preparation of the body; it is really a preparation to enter the bodiless, to enter the spirit, the soul. And you cannot enter the soul with the amount of energy that is currently available to you, because it is just enough to take you through the day to day chores of life. In fact it is not sufficient for this either; it is so meager that at the end of every day you feel nearly exhausted. The available energy is not sufficient even for our day to day needs; its supply is so poor. So with this meager energy you cannot reach the soul; the question simply does not arise.

It was for this reason that the concept of sannyas came into being. It came into being with a view to conserving our energy by freeing ourselves from householders' activities, because we had very limited amount of energy in our hands. This energy had to be channelized in some other direction; it had to be used for some higher purpose. So the seekers were exhorted to close their shops and escape from the marketplace, from the world.

To me, this attitude is mistaken. The little energy that we spend in our day to day life is not worth saving, because we will have to spend as much energy in saving it. Even to save energy, one is required to spend energy. Many a time, you don't spend as much energy in expressing anger as you do in suppressing it. Sometimes you have to spend more energy in avoiding a fight than you would have spent in fighting itself. So I don't consider it a right way; it is the way of the miser.

Is this sannyas? It is the way of the miserly people - to save a little from what we have, which is itself too meager. This miserly approach is of no use. Instead of saving a little energy from here and a little from there, we should awaken more of the sleeping energy - which is plenty, which is infinite.

Why save energy? Just awaken it more and more. If you have to spend more energy, draw it from the reservoir itself, which is limitless. You have so much that you cannot spend it all even if you wish to; so why bother about saving it?

Now a person is afraid that if he loves his wife he cannot love God; because he thinks that the little energy that he has will all be spent in loving his wife. So he decides to save it by running away from his wife. But in order to save energy he will have to fight with himself, which will again cost him energy. Besides, can you reach to God with the little energy with which you love your wife? It is so scant that it cannot really take you even to your wife, let alone God. It can never take you to God.

I mean to say that it is sheer madness on your part - to think of building a bridge between you and the infinity with this paltry amount of energy which fails to bridge you even with your lover. You are aware of its utter inadequacy even in your petty relationships. Time and again it fails you, even in your effort to reach the hearts of your lovers.

So it is not a question of saving energy; it is a question of awakening the great energy that is lying asleep within you. And this energy is incalculably infinite, it is simply inexhaustible. And once it begins to awaken, the more it awakens the more is the possibility of its further awakening; it goes on opening. Once started, this stream of energy is so vast and endless that you can never exhaust it. In other words, there is never a moment in your life when you can say that now there is nothing more to be awakened.

The possibility of awakening is infinite; you can draw any amount of energy from this limitless reservoir. And the more you draw from it the stronger you become to awaken more and more of this great energy. And when you have abundance of this inner energy at your disposal, only then can you use it in the quest of the unknown. And then only can you venture to tread on the paths that are unknown and uncharted. Do you understand what I am saying?

There is a kind of affluence in the outside world, too. A person has amassed abundant wealth and now he thinks of making a trip to the moon. Going to the moon is meaningless; there is nothing to be gained. But there is nothing wrong about it; because there is nothing to lose as well. He has so much that he can easily afford it.

As long as you don't have wealth in abundance - you have only enough for your day to day use or even less - you will keep a strict eye on your expenses; you will think twice before spending even a penny. And therefore you will never step out of the known world. To go into the unknown you need abundant energy, a plethora of energy. And the kundalini will fill you with that abundance. Then you have so much that a question arises as to how to spend it and where.

And remember, when you have abundant energy, you suddenly find that all the old channels of energy are completely choked up; for they are now incapable of taking so much, they are not meant for it. It is like an ocean has fallen into a small river, wiping the river out of existence all at once. The river will never know where it has disappeared and how. The old channels of your anger, your sex and the rest of it will suddenly choke and disappear. The day the flood of energy will rise, it will crush and destroy all its old wharves and banks. You will suddenly find that something altogether new and different has come into being. And you will wonder what happened to all your petty savings and your miserly and stingy living. Your puny efforts - like practicing celibacy and suppressing anger and doing this and that - will disappear into thin air, because the old canals and rivers have disappeared and a whole ocean has appeared on the scene from nowhere.

And when you have no other way to spend this immense energy, you suddenly find that this energy has set out on an altogether different journey. Because the journey has ceaselessly to go on and on; it can never come to a stop. The energy will keep moving; it cannot stop. This pilgrimage is everlasting.

It is just a matter of awakening the energy for once. Then your old ways of life become meaningless, and many unknown and unfamiliar doors, lying closed for ages, begin to give way to this onrushing energy. And it is there that you begin to have extrasensory experiences. And as soon as the extrasensory doors open you begin to be aware of the bodiless part of the body, which may be called the soul or the spirit.

So kundalini is body's preparation to enter the bodiless, the soul. It was in this sense that I had said so at Nargol.

Question 2

Actually, the merging in the KUNDA is neither descent nor ascent; it is nothing of the kind. It is not a matter of rise and fall; it is just a matter of disappear ing, of ceasing to be. When a drop of water falls into the ocean, it does not ascend or descend, it just disappears into the ocean. Of course, when a drop dries up in the heat of the sun, it certainly ascends to the heavens in the form of vapors. And when in contact with the cool air, the vapor turns into a cloud; it descends to the earth in the form of rains. But its journey to the sea is neither ascent nor descent; it is simply merging, disappearing, dying in the ocean.

So the question of ascent and descent arises in a very different sense. It is in the sense that many times the energy that we raise has to be returned to the kunda, the pool. We raise the energy and at the same time we return it to the source, again and again. And it is necessary to do so for many reasons. One big reason is that often enough the amount of energy awakened is much more than what we can stand, and so it has to be sent back to its source; otherwise it may prove to be dangerous.

Some energy, if it is more than what we can take... Our capacities to bear a thing are limited; even our capacity to bear happiness is limited. So also our capacities to bear pain and power are limited. And if the shock of onrushing happiness or pain or power is more than we can take, then our psychosomatic organism can suffer a breakdown. And this will be quite harmful. That is why many a time energies that are too much have to be returned to their source. But it depends on techniques.

It is not necessary in the case of the technique that I am talking about. There are techniques which awaken the energy instantly and suddenly; they are called the techniques of sudden enlightenment.

And there is always some danger inherent in the practice of such techniques, because the onrush of energy may be too much for you to bear; you may not be prepared for it. Its voltage may be so high that your light can be turned off, or your fuse can be blown, or your fan can be burned, or your car can be set on fire. But the technique that I give you here is free from this danger; it first creates potential in you and then awakens your energy.

Try to understand it in this way. If a big dam bursts, it will cause a good deal of damage. But the waters of the same dam can be channeled in a regulated manner and according to the needs of the users.

A unique event took place in the life of Krishna murti. In his adolescence he was made to go through the entire discipline of the kundalini by some special people belonging to theosophy. A number of experiments were made on him, but he has now no clear memory of them. He is not aware of what he had to go through. He became aware only when the ocean of enlightenment had already entered the canal that he was. That is why he has no knowledge of the preparatory phase of his spiritual life.

And so he does not accept that any preparation is needed for enlightenment. But the fact is that he was prepared for this in a big way, which had never happened on this earth before him. Actually any number of people have done preparatory work, but they did it with themselves. Here for the first time other people did this job for Krishnamurti. They really worked on him.

Question 3

Absolutely, others can do it, because in the deepest sense others are not others. Those who appear to us to be others are not that. So others made these preparations, and they did so for a great cause, for actualizing a great event. But the event could not be actualized; the experiment just misfired.

The event the theosophists were preparing for was to be the advent, the entry of a great soul, for which Krishnamurti was chosen as the vehicle. Krishnamurti was to be just utilized as a vehicle, and he was prepared for this purpose. For this purpose spiritual channels were dug and energy was awakened through the medium of Krishnamurti. But this was only the preliminary part of the work.

So far as Krishnamurti was concerned, he was not the goal of the project, he was only used as a means. It was a question of making a space in him for some other soul to come and reside. But it could not succeed; it failed.

The project failed because when the waters arrived, Krishnamurti declined to be the means; he refused to play the medium for somebody else. It was feared that he would do so. Such a fear has always been there, and that is why such experiments were never made in the past. This fear is real; because when a person comes to a state when he can be an end unto himself, why should he agree to be a means for somebody else? Krishnamurti declined in the last hour.

It is like this: I give you the key to my house so that you can prepare it for a guest who is expected here tomorrow. But after I hand you the key and leave the house, you become the master. You can very well refuse to take the guest in the house on the plea that you are its master, the key is with you. This key was made by someone else, and someone else had constructed this house too. And although you have the key you have no knowledge how the key was made or how the house was constructed. But since you own the key and you know how to open the house, the matter ends up there.

Such a thing has happened. Some people can be prepared, and some others come prepared from their previous lives. But this is not an ordinary matter. Ordinarily, everybody has to prepare himself for himself. And it is only proper that preparations should come first and the happening of enlightenment after ward. More water should flow into the canal only as its capacity to take it grows.

Care should be taken that the energy is awakened only in proportion to your capacity to take it, never more than that. There were techniques which led to the release of excessive energy. That is how many people went mad and insane. And it is because of such practices that people became very much afraid of religion.

So we can have two ways of awakening the energy and there is not much difficulty about it.

I am going to tell you from a recent experience of America - from their management of electric supply - how at times our plans go awry. Such a situation can arise even in the internal sphere of our life. They have in America 80 organized the distribution of their electricity that if there is surplus electricity in a particular town - if on a particular night the town uses less than its allotted quota - the surplus electricity is automatically transmitted to another town where it is needed. It means that even a small amount of electric energy is not allowed to remain unused in any place; it is immediately transferred to another place which uses it.

For instance, a factory that was working till last evening has closed down today on account of labor trouble, and it is not going to utilize the energy al lotted to it. And there is another town where a factory may be lying idle for lack of energy. So they have organized it in a manner that electricity within a zone is constantly relayed from one place to another, so there is no surplus in one place and scarcity in another.

But it so happened a few years ago - and it happened on account of this system of automatic transmission of energy - that for ten to twelve hours America was plunged in darkness, and a kind of chaos prevailed all over. As it happened, there was a power failure in a certain town and as a result a vacuum was created there. Now the entire excess energy in the network of that zone automatically rushed back to that area - with such force that all the fuses in that town were blown and consequently the whole interconnected system of that zone was disrupted and disorganized.

The whole organization of electric supply collapsed, and suddenly for twelve hours America returned to a state where it existed some two thousand years ago. There was total blackout all over, and all social life came to a standstill.

It was then that they realized for the first time that all their attempts at efficiency and streamlining can boomerang on them and prove to be a disaster. This thing would never have happened if each town had its own separate system of electric supply. This thing can never happen in India, that the electricity of the whole country goes off all at once. It can only happen in the USA, where even electric supply is wholly organized and centralized and where the circuit is fully flowing all the time.

So there is always a danger.

There is a system like the electric circuit within man as well. And if the electric current that is inside you flows toward you in greater quantity than you can take, it can be dangerous. And there are techniques with which you can increase the flow of your inner electricity. For instance, you are sitting with fifty other people in this hall. With the help of some techniques you can, if you like, cause the energy of all the fifty people to flow toward you - one person. In that event all the fifty persons, being drained of their energy, will become unconscious, whereas you will become a pillar of energy, you will be bursting with energy. But this may prove to be dangerous for you too. It is possible that the energy thus released may be too much for you to bear. And the contrary can also happen.

Through the same route, your current of energy can be directed to flow to others, draining you of your whole energy. All such experiments have been carried out in the past.

So there are methods with which one can return the surplus energy to the source in case too much of it flows to higher centers at a time, in case there is a surfeit of energy. But this is not necessary in the case of the techniques that I am giving you here. This is wholly unnecessary, because energy will be released in this case only in proportion to your capacity to take it. We will create the space first and then release energy to fill the space. So you will never be in need of returning any surplus energy. Such a situation is not going to arise. Of course, some day you yourself will return to the source; but it is a different matter. Having known everything you will take a jump and merge with the kunda. But that is quite a different thing.

These terms, ascent and descent, have been used with other meanings as well. The meaning in which Shree Aurobindo uses them is very different.

We can think of the divine energy in two ways: either we think of it as something residing above us, at the top, in the heavens, or as something down below, at the bottom, in the abysmal depths.

We think in terms of the zenith or the nadir. But so far as the cosmic order is concerned, the terms above and below, the top and the bottom, are meaningless; they have no relevance whatsoever.

They are just our thinking concepts; they only represent our ways of thinking. We take the ceiling of this hall to be above us, but it is not so. If we bore the earth right at this place with a drilling machine and go on boring, it will someday end up in America. And if someone were to observe from there he will find this ceiling to be below us - under our heads, not above them. We will appear to him as a bunch of people doing shirsasana - to be standing on our heads. But the ceiling remains the same.

It depends on how and whence we see it.

The same way our concepts of east and west are false. What is east and what is west? If you keep going east you will reach the west. And if you keep walking westward you will come to the east.

Why call it the west if walking in this direction you come to the east? It is meaningless. Every such concept is relative, and so it is unreal. It is just a utilitarian hypothesis, an imaginary concept; it is useful and yet false. Can you say where east is and where it begins? Does it begin in Calcutta, Rangoon or Tokyo? Where does west begin and end? They really begin nowhere and end nowhere.

They are only utilitarian concepts, with which we divide the earth for our convenience.

The same way above and below, the top and bottom, are utilitarian concepts. While east and west are horizontal concepts, above and below are vertical concepts. They are just concepts nonetheless.

Actually there is nothing like above and below; because the universe has no roof and no floor. It is so vast and limitless. So all talk of above and below, up and down, is meaningless.

But this utilitarian concept of above and below has invaded our religious thinking too. So some people experience God as something coming from above; and then it is a case of energy descending on them. Some people experience God as something rising from below, from the roots; in that case energy ascends to them. But actually this division has no meaning. Where we place God - above or below - is a matter of aptitude and expediency. But if we have to make a choice in this makeshift arrangement, I would prefer the concept of ascent to that of descent.

The concept of the ascent of energy will be more useful for you than the concept of descent, and there are reasons for it. Because if you take to the concept of ascent, you will have to raise the energy, you will have to work for it. And in case you choose the other concept, descent of energy, you will be left with nothing but prayer, you will do nothing but pray. If it is a matter of descending energy, you can only fold your hands and pray.

Therefore, two kinds of religions evolved throughout the world - one based on meditation and another based on prayer. Religions committed to prayer are those that experience God to be above, in the skies. He is above the ethers and we cannot do a thing to bring him down to us. If we want to find him, we will have to rise higher and higher. And if we strive to do so, we can ourselves become God. But we cannot go up; we have to remain where we are. And so all we can do is to call out to him in prayer: "O God, descend on us, please! Come down to us."

On the other hand, there are religions which believe that we have to raise something up from our within, that there is something asleep at our roots, and it can be raised up only if we do something in this direction. Those religions turned away from prayer and took to meditation. They became religions of meditation. So the concept of above and below has made all the difference between prayer and meditation. Religions of prayer believe God to be high up and religions of meditation think that he resides at the roots, from where he has to be raised up.

And remember that by and by, religions of prayer have been losing ground and dying out. There is no future for them; they have no future whatsoever. And religions of meditation are daily growing in potentiality, and they have an enormous future before them.

I would like you to understand that our journey's road goes upward from below, from here.

This concept has some other meanings too. The concept, however, is relative. Therefore, it does not matter to me if you believe God to be above in the skies. I will have no difficulty about it. But I know that you will certainly face difficulties in working it out. I said a little while ago that if we keep going eastward we shall ultimately come to the west; but this does not mean that we should go eastward if we have to go to the west; we should only go westward. Though the east west concept is meaningless, yet we start going westward if we have to go to the west. This is also true; that if we keep going eastward we will ultimately come to the west. But then the journey would be unnecessarily much too long. Do you understand what I mean to say?

It will make a lot of difference for the devotee and the meditator. The devotee's God is up in the sky, and so he will pray and wait with folded hands. And the meditator's God is hidden below in his roots and so he will gird up his loins and strive to awaken him.

There are other interpretations which we should bear in mind. When we believe God to be below, in the roots, his presence is felt everywhere, even in what we call our baser instincts and emotions.

Then nothing in our minds remains base and lowly, because if God himself lives in the region below, he is present even in what we call the most lowly region of our life. And he can be awakened even there. If sex is in that region, God will be there too, and he can be awakened and attained from that end also. In other words, there can be no place where he cannot be found. He will be found even in the lowest of hells, if it is there.

But if we believe that God is somewhere up in the skies, the chorus of condemnation starts immediately; then whatever is below stands condemned, be cause God is not there. And then unknowingly the feeling of one's own inferiority grips the believer. And its consequences - the psychological consequences of self condemnation and guilt - are simply disastrous.

And if you want to stand on firm and strong feet, it is necessary that the energy should come from below, for that will lend strength to your legs. If the energy came from above, it will only touch your head. But the question is that the energy, to be effective, should reach the very roots.

And the energy coming from above will always appear to you to be alien and foreign. That is the reason that those who attain through prayer never believe that God and we are one. Mohammedans have always been strongly opposed to anyone saying that he is God. They think that God and man cannot be one and the same, because God is up in the heavens and man is here on the earth, at the bottom. Therefore they beheaded Mansoor and killed Sarmad. For them there is no greater blasphemy than this, that anyone should say that he is God. Because while God is of the highest, man is as good as worms creeping on the ground. How can the lowly man identify himself with the highest?

The reason for this belief is that when we think God to be high up and ourselves to be lowly creatures, we are bound to be two separate entities. For this very reason the Sufis were never acceptable to Islam - the religion of the Mohammedans - because Sufis claim that they and God are one.

We can be one with God only if God comes from below, because we are below. Only if God comes from the earth and not from the skies can he and we unite into one being.

As soon as we install God on a throne in the heavens, our earthly life stands condemned; it be comes a sin. And then to be born into this world is looked upon as a result of our sin. And when we place God at the roots, life on this earth becomes a bliss, a benediction. Then it ceases to be the fruit of our sins and turns into a gift of God and his compassion. And then the presence of his light will be felt even in the darkest of objects. And then, God will be present in the innermost being of even the worst of men, even the most devilish man.

Therefore I would prefer that you believe God to be an ascending force; although really there is no difference between the two concepts of ascending and descending forces. There is no difference whatsoever for one who knows. He will say that both ideas are just useless. But if we do not know and want to go on a spiritual journey, it is better that we choose a path that makes our journey easier.

So I would like the seeker to understand that energy will rise from the bottom and go on an upward journey.

Therefore, people who opted for the upward journey accepted fire as the symbol of God, because fire is always rising upward. The fire in the lamp, its flame, is constantly going up and up. That is why in the deepest recesses of our mind we accepted fire as God's symbol - for the simple reason that irrespective of what you do, fire always goes upward, and as it goes upward it is soon lost in the void. The flame of fire is visible for a while and then it loses itself in the ether. Similarly the seeker will rise upward, will be visible for a while and then he will lose himself in the unseen.

Therefore I lay stress on the ascent of energy and not on its descent.

Question 4

"To tire out" does not mean that there will be any lack of energy. When I say you have to tire your self out, what do I mean by the term "yourself"? Here "yourself" means your sense organs through which your energy flows in regular process everyday. By "yourself" I mean your organism; I mean you as you are right now. I am not talking about what you really can be; I am, at the moment, concerned with what you are.

So when you tire yourself out, two things hap pen together. As you tire yourself out, all your senses practice tires out your body-mind, your sense organs, on the other it goes on hammering your kundalini. So from one end you get tired and from another your sleeping energy begins to wake up.

Both processes are simultaneous. On one side you get fatigued and on the other your energy is awakened. At the same time, you are not in a position to use your energy any further. Your eyes are so tired that they cannot see; your mind is so tired that it cannot think, even if it wants to. Your legs refuse to move, they are so utterly weary.

In this situation, if you want to move you will have to move without your feet, and if you want to see you will have to see without your eyes, because they are just exhausted. So when your organism is overworked it refuses to do a thing. But at the same time some energy has been awakened and it wants to do something urgently. Now this energy will immediately knock at those of your doors that are not tired, and are ever ready to take it and work with it. These openings were always ready but were denied all opportunity to do a thing. You were so strong that you could use up all your energy.

Now you are tired, and new and fresh energy is up for action. But your old organs like eyes and ears will refuse to take it. So when your ears and eyes refuse to see, what will the new energy do?

In this situation you will begin to see from some very different dimension, which will be a new part of your being. Your psychic center of sight will begin to operate, and you will see things that you had never seen before. And you will see from a space you had never used in the past. That space had never been given an opportunity to function; now there is an opportunity for it, for the first time.

It is for this reason that I lay stress on tiring you out. On the one hand your body has to be tired, your mind has to be tired, all that you are has to be tired, so that what you really are and you are not aware of can become active. When fresh energy is aroused, it demands work, and your being will have to provide it with work. Actually this energy will find work by itself. So in the event of your ears being tired, the newly awakened energy will hear that which is called "NAD" or the inner sound. In the event of your eyes being tired, the new energy will see light, inner light. To hear the inner sound and to see the inner light, your physical ears and eyes are not needed. It will smell such perfumes as are beyond the reach of your ordinary noses. Thus, very subtle senses, what you call supersenses, will become alive and active.

Each of our sense organs is connected with a corresponding supersense organ. There is an ear which hears on the outside and there is another ear which hears within you. But the inner ear was never given a chance to function. Now that your outer ear is overworked and it refuses to work anymore, and the new energy has gathered near your reluctant ears, what will it do? It will activate your other ear, the inner ear, which has never been used in the past. So you will hear and see such things that if you speak to your friends about them they will say, "You have gone out of your mind. It is impossible. You are deluded; you are just dreaming."

But you will hear the sound more clearly than you ever heard the music of your veena, your lute.

The inner lute will be heard so clear and loud that you can never think that it could be unreal, false.

You will say that if this is false, the outer veena is utterly false.

So that new doors to your existence open, it is necessary as a beginning to tire out your senses.

Once those doors are opened, there is no problem. Then you can compare, and say that if you have to see, it is far better to see within, which is so much blissful. The outer is insignificant in comparison with the inner. But right now you have no way to compare, you have no choice whatsoever. If you want to see there is only the outer scene to be seen. Once your inner eyes begin to see, you have a clear choice; you can choose between the inner and the outer. And then you will always choose the inner whenever you will feel like seeing. And you will not miss it; the outer will become meaningless.

There is a story in the life of Rabiya. Of an evening the sun is going down and she is sitting inside her hut. A fakir known as Hassan has come to visit her. It is the time of sundown and the evening is simply enchanting. So Hassan calls out to her, "Rabiya, what are you doing inside the hut? The evening is so beautiful, and the sundown is as splendid as I have never seen before. Such a glorious evening may not be seen again. Please come out of your hut and watch it."

In answer, Rabiya says, "O fool, how long will you continue to watch the outer sun? I ask you to turn in, because here I am watching him who created the sun. And I am witnessing such suns here as are yet uncreated and will be created in an unseen future. So it is better that you come in."

But Hassan could not get what Rabiya wanted to tell him. This woman is really rare. Rabiya is one of the very few women of significance in all the history of mankind. But Hassan fails to understand her; he insists again and again that Rabiya should come out of her hut and watch the sunset which she is missing. And Rabiya warns him over and over not to get lost in the glamor of the outer sunset and thus miss the real beauty of the inner.

This conversation between Rabiya and Hassan is happening at two different planes simultaneously.

Two different kinds of sense organs are participating in it. If you are not aware of the inner senses, then the outer world is everything for you.

And it was in this sense that I said that it is good if the outer senses are tired out.

Question 5

Not in the least. It is meant to awaken the energy - the energy that lies asleep inside each one of you. And the whole work is meant to awaken it. It is true that the sense organs get tired; but the sense organs don't comprise the energy, they are merely the doors through which the energy passes. And you are not the door; you are something else. You merely pass through these doors.

And it is the doors that get tired and ask you not to pass through them, because they are overworked and exhausted. Your eyes are refusing to be used. And the other senses say the same thing.

So initially this process of tiring out the senses is very helpful.

Question 6

It will be so only in the beginning. But by and by you will feel fresh and exhilarated. This freshness and exhilaration is such as you have never known before. But in the beginning you will, for sure, feel tired. It is so because you have identified yourself with these senses. You think them to be yourself.

So when the senses are tired, you say that you are tired. This identification with the senses has to go.

For instance, you are riding a horse and the horse gets tired. Now if you are identified with the horse you will say that you are tired, you are dead tired. We take on the fatigue of all those with whom we are identified. If you identify yourself with the horse, you will be tired when the horse is tired. The day you will know that you are not the horse, a freshness will visit you in a very different way. And then you will know that it is the senses that get tired and not you.

On the contrary, when the senses are tired and refuse to work, a lot of energy which would otherwise have been frittered away uselessly, is saved and conserved in a pool of energy within you. Then you will know what is called conservation of energy, and it will increasingly turn into your priceless treasure. And since this energy does not go out, it permeates every fiber, every pore of your being.

This energy is you, and when you will understand it you will know the difference.

So by and by, after meditation, you will experience immense freshness. It is wrong to say that you will feel freshness, rather you will become freshness itself. It is not that you will feel fresh, you will be the freshness. But this will happen only when your identity will change. Right now you are riding the horse, and all your life you have identified yourself with the horse. It will take time to know that you are not the horse but the rider. And it will be easier for you to understand if the horse is so tired that it drops down. Then you will have to walk, and walk on your own feet. And when you walk, you will know that you are separate from the horse.

But riding for long on horseback you have forgotten that you can walk. So it is good that the horse is tired out.