The only hope

Maneesha, the anecdote touches a very fundamental problem. To understand it, you have to understand the implications of it. We all think we are aware; that is one of our unawarenesses.

We are only functionally aware.

We have learned to do things, to go to bed, to get up early in the morning, to go to the job. Everything has been learned. Even a robot can do the whole process. You are not needed. And that's exactly what has happened to humanity. It is a robot humanity. You have learned everything that is necessary and given it to your robot mind who goes on doing things on your behalf. And giving the charge to the mind you have gone to sleep.

The whole effort of the buddhas is to bring out your consciousness and to make you clearly aware of the distinction between functioning consciousness and a pure consciousness which has no function, just a mirror. The mirror has no function, it has utility, but even while you are looking in the mirror, the mirror does not do anything. The reflection is spontaneous. Even if you don't want the reflection, still it will reflect - and the mirror is not in need of you to stand before it.

The way Zen expresses it is this: The full moon shines in the lake. Neither the full moon desires to be reflected - but it is reflected - nor does the lake want to reflect it, but it does reflect it. Both are not at all doing any active work in this reflection. Both are just being themselves and the reflection comes on its own accord. You do your things and only in doing your things can you separate the functioning consciousness and the pure consciousness.

When you walk, do you know you are walking? When you are silent, are you aware that you are silent? When you are eating, is there any awareness standing by the side, watching your function of eating? That awareness is the great enlightenment. It has no function, it has no utility, it is not a means to some end. It is enough unto itself. It is such a contentment, such deep satisfaction with oneself and the cosmos, such a strong let-go, that you don't have to do anything. Just being is more than you can have conceived - the joy of just being, the blissfulness of just being.

I pass every day Mukta's pond, and those two swans are just twenty-four hours a day enjoying, doing nothing. And they look so dignified, so utterly contented... not even a shadow around them of any desire or any ambition, or of any position, of any success. All those are stupid things. They are enjoying every moment, just sitting in the pond.

A consciousness is just like what Basho calls, "Sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself." What he is saying is, "As far as I am concerned, I am not doing anything, neither am I desiring anything. The spring comes on its own accord, uninvited. The grass starts growing without any effort on my part. I am just a watcher, sitting silently, doing nothing."

This non-doing awareness, which has no function in the world but is simply a blissfulness, an ecstasy, a drunkenness utterly centered in the present moment... That is the whole idea of the buddhas: to make you aware that something is hiding inside you. But because it is of no use, you don't care about it.

The world consists of utility, and your consciousness is of no utility. You cannot earn by it, you cannot sell it, you cannot do anything by it. It is not a doing energy. It is simply being - a being energy that stands just like an Everest, silently, for centuries.

In this anecdote Isan is trying to make his disciple, Kyozan, aware of this non-doing effortless isness of your existence. And this is the greatest beauty and the greatest truth. There is no other beyond it.

ISAN SAID TO KYOZAN: "MOST OF THE PEOPLE UPON THIS GREAT EARTH, WITH THEIR LIMITLESS CONSCIOUSNESS OF CAUSE AND EFFECT, LACK THE AWARENESS OF THAT ORIGINAL NATURE WHICH THEY SHOULD RELY UPON."

People are conscious, but very superficially, of ordinary things. They are functional beings and they do a thousand things, so you cannot say they are absolutely unconscious. At the most they can be called superficially conscious.

According to the psychologists and their measurements, only one tenth of your consciousness is being used. Nine tenths - nine times more consciousness - simply remains, and you are not even aware of it. And that is your eternal treasure. That is your original face. That is your innocence.

Everything in you will die, except only that consciousness which simply witnesses - as Basho is doing. Sitting silently, certainly he is a witness; doing nothing, he is a witness; the spring comes, he is a witness; the grass starts growing by itself, he is a witness - but other than as a witness he is not involved. This witnessing is our ultimate ground of existence. This is our eternity.

Isan said to Kyozan, "Can you tell whether they have this original witnessing, this original consciousness? Functional consciousness I can see, everybody can see."

KYOZAN REPLIED: "I HAVE EXPERIENCED THIS DIFFICULTY."

Because a man seems to be perfectly aware, he is doing things... how to know whether he is originally conscious or not? In the very depth of his heart, is he aware?

"I HAVE EXPERIENCED THIS DIFFICULTY."

JUST AT THAT MOMENT A MONK PASSED BY AND KYOZAN CALLED OUT TO HIM, "JARI!"

AND THE MONK TURNED HIS HEAD. Now this is functional.

KYOZAN COMMENTED TO ISAN: "THIS IS A CASE OF WIDE CAUSE AND EFFECT CONSCIOUSNESS WITHOUT AWARENESS OF THE FUNDAMENTAL UPON WHICH ONE SHOULD RELY."

Now this man who is being called turns his head. Obviously he is a little bit conscious, but is he aware that he is turning his head? Turning the head is a function; it needs very little consciousness.

But is he also aware that he is turning the head? If he is also aware of turning the head, then he will have the original consciousness, the witness. If he is only conscious enough to turn the head, that can be done by a robot, by a machine - but no machine can ever become a buddha.

You have to understand. It was not available to Buddha or to Isan, but to us things have become more clear. The computer can do better work than you, far more efficiently, without getting tired. But it can do only that which it has been taught to do. If something new comes, the computer will be at a loss to respond because it knows only ready-made answers. You can put whole libraries in it, and it is capable to absorb in its memory all the libraries, and whatever those libraries contain will become the content of the computer's memory. If you ask a question that is part of the contents of the memory of the computer, immediately the right answer will come. But if you ask something that the computer has not been fed before, the computer will remain utterly silent. It cannot respond on its own because it has no original consciousness.

So your superficial consciousness is not of much more value than a robot mechanism. If your name is called, you will turn and look - but are you also aware that your name is called and you are turning and looking? Only that deeper awareness can transform your life; otherwise you will remain a computer. What is your whole education for? - to make you a better computer, to feed you more information.

Whatever you do and whatever you say, ask the question: Is it you or has your mother told you to do it this way, or your father, or your teacher, or your priest? Is it you, or is it somebody else who is manipulating you? And you will be surprised that you have never acted even for once spontaneously, you have always relied upon the memory. The memory comes from others. It may come from your experiences, but the response should not come from memory, it should come from your alertness.

One day, a man asked Buddha some philosophical question and Buddha answered him. The man contemplated on it. The next day he again came to Buddha and he said, "My problem is not solved."

Buddha said, "Repeat your question." And Buddha answered in a totally different way.

The man was puzzled. He said, "Yesterday you have said something, now you are saying something else."

Buddha said, "Yesterday was yesterday, and today is today. And don't trust me: tomorrow is going to be tomorrow. I respond moment to moment. It is not a question of memory and time; it is a question of my being totally available to you right now. I don't remember your question, neither do I remember my answer. Yesterday is finished.

"And it is such a beautiful day today, why bother about yesterdays and tomorrows? Let us face each other now, this very moment. You ask the question, my mirror is ready to reflect. But I cannot promise you that I will remain consistent tomorrow also, because who knows? - things change, everything is in a flux. What is right this moment may not be right tomorrow."

This is functioning from the original consciousness. The original man is never consistent, cannot be; only a dead man can be consistent.

It came as a surprise to me: for almost ten years we have been fighting the Indian government on the question of whether our school is a teaching school, an educational system. The government had no answer; they have taken away our tax-exempt status. But what finally the supreme authorities of taxation came to conclude was that while I am alive, tax-exempt status cannot be given, because I can change tomorrow. I agree with them. Tax-exempt status can only be given to dead people, because they cannot change howsoever they toss and turn in their graves. Everything has become dead. Then it is acceptable, respectable. But a man who is alive and spontaneous is dangerous to the status quo.

As I entered America the first question they asked me was, "Are you an anarchist?" They had a big file already on me.

I said, "You look like an intelligent person. I can say I am not an anarchist and tomorrow I can become one, because my today cannot make a confinement, a slavery for my whole life. So what is the point of asking such questions? Consistency at least is not my way. If it is convenient to you, you can write that I am not an anarchist, nor a communist - but as far as I am concerned, I am both and a little more."

He said, "A little more?"

I said, "Of course - because Bakunin is dead, Kropotkin is dead, Marx is dead. If they were alive they would have changed many things in their philosophy. And I have to do the work of completion; that is the 'little more.'"

Life is always an open river. You never know where it will take the turn. You cannot take a promise from the river that it will not turn at such a point. Nature never promises you anything. A promise certainly means a confinement, it means a bondage. It means you are accepting that from this moment you will not live. When you say, "I am a Christian," you are dead. You cannot go beyond Christianity or against Christianity. Even if you see clearly that something is wrong, you have to keep your mouth shut. You are a Christian.

The moment you belong to an organization, to a religion, to a political party, you have to give up your freedom of thinking, you have to become blind; you cannot see because things may be different from your dead ideology which was decided hundreds of years before.

You should watch.... Just now you are listening to me. Are you aware that you are listening?

Separate the function of listening, and be a witness also that your mechanism of listening is functioning and you are just a witness watching it. This separation is of ultimate urgency, because we have to separate all the garbage that has gathered around the witness, so the witness becomes absolutely free, in the present, having no ideology, having no prejudice, having nothing - just an empty mirror. Then its capacity to reflect the truth is immense. Then its capacity to reflect the beauty is immense.

KYOZAN COMMENTED TO ISAN: "THIS IS A CASE OF WIDE CAUSE AND EFFECT CONSCIOUSNESS WITHOUT AWARENESS OF THE FUNDAMENTAL UPON WHICH ONE SHOULD RELY."

This man has turned his head, but he is not aware what he has done and why he has done it.

I have told you the story many times about Gautam Buddha. One day, walking on the road from one town to another, he was talking to Ananda. A fly sat on his forehead, and just as you do automatically, he remained engaged in talking to Ananda and shooed the fly. Then he suddenly stopped, and he again raised his hand, with great grace, and moved the hand. Ananda was absolutely puzzled. He said, "The fly is gone. What are you doing?"

He said, "I did that act mechanically. I continued to talk to you and I left the functioning mind, the automatic mind to do the work of shooing the fly. But I was not aware. I did it, but without any original awareness. Now I am doing it as I should have done it."

Another time he was passing through a village, and thousands of people were against him, as it is bound to be. Only little people are respectable; great people are greatly condemned. The enemies had gathered and they started abusing him in as ugly language as possible. He listened, standing silently, just like Basho. Those people felt a little embarrassed that he was not answering anything.

Buddha said, "You just complete your thing, because I have to go to the other town. And for you to contemplate a thing... In the previous town people love me and they had brought sweets and flowers and many presents. I cannot carry them - it is not possible for me to carry things - so I told those people to go back and distribute all these sweets and flowers to the people of the village from me.

"Now I ask you - you have come with abuse, ugly words, nasty expressions. I don't accept them. You have come too late. You should have come ten years ago and there would have been bloodshed.

These hands are of a warrior. Ten years ago, if a single word that you have said to me had been uttered, all these heads would be rolling on the ground. But fortunately you have come a little late.

Now I don't function as an automatic machine. I can see you are ignorant people, I can see your unconsciousness - and unless I take your abuse, you cannot give it to me.

"You will have to take all this garbage that you have brought back home. What will you do with it?

- distribute it on my behalf to the whole village. And if something is left to say, when I am returning again by the same road, I will make it a point to stay here one day. You can blame me, you can tell as many lies, complaints as you want, but remember, unless I take them, your work is absolutely futile. You are talking to the skies. Not even a scratch has happened to me by your talk. I simply enjoyed it. Thank you." And he moved on.

Ananda, his disciple - because he was also a warrior, and a cousin-brother of Gautam Buddha - said, "I was forgetting completely your whole idea of compassion and kindness and love. I was getting ready to cut off their heads. I was just looking for my sword - but I could not do anything in your presence. I had forgotten completely."

Ananda remained unenlightened until Buddha's death. He became enlightened after Gautam Buddha's death, the next day. And Gautam Buddha had said, "You will remain unenlightened while I am alive. Your attachment to me is a barrier. Your love towards me is a barrier. You cannot forget that you are my cousin-brother. That prevents you from becoming a disciple, so your disciplehood is just hypocrisy. And I know you are helpless, you cannot do anything. You try to do everything, but trying to do is one thing, and its arising spontaneously is another."

And the strange thing is that it actually happened the day Buddha died. The next day, Ananda did not move from the place where he was sitting the whole day without food, without water. Everybody wanted to help him. It was such a shock, because he had been for forty-two years continuously in service, day and night, never bothering about himself, but Buddha should have all the comforts possible. Perhaps the shock was too much. He had closed his eyes and was just sitting like a stone statue. But nobody dared to disturb him either. It was too delicate a matter. Only by the evening of the next day he opened his eyes and he said, "After all he was right. Now you can cut off my head, but you will not scratch my consciousness."

So the functioning consciousness is one thing; everybody has it. You have to find out the deeper original witness which can witness your body, your mind, your thoughts, your actions, and still remain far away from any attachment or judgment. This discovery is the greatest discovery in the history of consciousness. No discovery of science or of any other subject, mathematics, or logic, or philosophy - no discovery can be bigger, greater, with more splendor, with more ultimate categorical character than the discovery of the witness. The witness makes you a buddha.

ISAN OBSERVED: "IT IS A DROP OF LION'S MILK WHICH WILL CURDLE SIX GALLONS OF DONKEY'S MILK."

He is saying that the original consciousness, even a small drop of it, is so valuable that it will fill oceans. Even a single moment of original consciousness, a simple and single encounter with yourself, and you will never be the same again. You will be a totally new man - the new man I talk about every day, just to remind you that the new man is ready to be born within you. It just needs a little more witnessing.

Witnessing is nourishment to the pregnant buddha in you. And as your nourishment goes deeper and deeper every day, one day you will suddenly see: you don't have to go to the center; the buddha has come to meet you on the circumference. Suddenly one day you may wake up as a buddha, and with that awakening the whole world changes its color. Things take a different beauty, a different sacredness, a different grace. Sounds become sweeter and more musical. Small wild flowers become as valuable as any lotuses or roses.

To be a buddha is not only a revolution within you, it is a revolution in your very conception of the world, of relationships, of love, of friendship. The revolution is total. It changes all your perceptivity, all your conceptuality. It changes all your old mechanical habits. It makes you for the first time not a robot.

ONCE, ISAN COMMENTED TO KYOZAN: "THE WHOLE DAY WE ARGUED ABOUT ZEN AND WHAT DID WE GET OUT OF IT ALL?" - AT WHICH KYOZAN DREW A LINE IN THE AIR.

ISAN OBSERVED: "IF IT WERE NOT I, SOMEONE WOULD BE DECEIVED."

Kyozan has answered with great clarity. The whole day discussing about Zen is just like making a line in the air. Discussions can't lead you, they don't have the potential to lead. Words lead to other words and it is a vicious circle. You can go on with argumentation, but it will not lead you to the center of your being, so it is as futile as a signature in the sky. While you are making the signature, the signature is already erased.

Isan said, "You are perfectly right - because I can see, I have the eyes to see the invisible. But anybody else would have been deceived. He would have thought that something has been attained, something is attained by discussion; just he is not able to understand what this line is. Even this gesture of making the line is a disturbance. You should have been absolutely silent, because nothing is attained, not even a line in the sky. If anybody was in my place, there is a possibility he may have been deceived - that if you go on discussing, slowly slowly you will attain to Zen, you will attain to buddhahood.

"As far as I am concerned," Isan said, "it is perfectly right, because I can see a line in the sky means nothing - but anybody else could have been deceived."

This is all the process of preparing a successor. Kyozan is going to be the successor of Isan. Isan is giving him all the possibilities that he will have to encounter. Just to be enlightened is not enough.

A mere enlightenment will give you all the joys of the world, but you will become absolutely dumb.

You will not say anything, you will not find any way to express.

Before enlightenment the master has to prepare the people who are going to succeed him, to make them more articulate, to make them more able to transform the wordless into words, the absolutely silent into songs, the absolutely unmoving into a dance. Only then will he be able to convey something and may be of help to the blind humanity.

Because of this fact, Buddha has divided his enlightened people in two categories. They both have the same height - there is no quality of lower or higher - they both belong to the same cosmic reality, the fundamental nature. But he has made two categories: one category he calls the arhatas - the arhatas are the ones who become enlightened and remain silent - and the second category he has called bodhisattvas. They also become enlightened, but their work is to convey something, some device, some hints about their experience to people.

Arhatas are called hinayana, a little boat in which one man can row and go to the other side. Of course he reaches the other shore. And bodhisattvas he has called the mahayana; it is a great ship in which thousands of people can move to the other shore. The other shore is the same, but the bodhisattva helps many. The arhata is not articulate; he is a simple, nice, utterly humble person, but will not utter a single word of what he has attained. It is too much for him to say anything. He is completely contented, why should he speak? And anyway, everybody has to find his own way, so why unnecessarily harass people? The arhata has his own standpoint.

Buddha used to argue with the arhatas and the bodhisattvas, because both kinds of people became enlightened in his own lifetime. It was a constant struggle. Arhatas have their point: you cannot deny it, that everybody has to find his own path, so it is not necessary to convey anything to them.

That may become a hindrance. All the scriptures have become hindrances.

No arhata has written any scripture. He does not move even a single finger to point to the moon, because the danger is that people may cling to his finger thinking that this is the moon. He keeps himself completely silent. Don't think that he is uncompassionate; just compassion also has many ways of expression.

He is expressing his compassion by not interfering in your life, and he is showing his trust that existence will bring you somehow - if not today, then tomorrow, if not tomorrow, then next life. But there is eternity available, so what is the hurry? "And if anybody is intelligent enough, he can see my small boat moving towards the other shore. That is enough of a hint. If he cannot understand that, he cannot understand anything else."

So Buddha finally allowed two categories of the same height, without any comparison of lower and higher. "Arhatas," he said, "you go on your way silently." And to bodhisattvas, who were ready to try, he said, "What is the harm? You have become enlightened, you cannot lose it - there is no way of losing it - so what is the harm in trying a little effort at provoking people and challenging people, creating a great urge and thirst in them? You may work on thousands and perhaps one may be ready, but even that is great compared to the ignorance of the whole earth. In the darkest night even a small candle glowing... its light and splendor is great, because it may give the indication to others to find candles; why live in darkness?"

Bodhisattvas moving in the masses are like torches, with a joy and with a dance and with a grace.

They will create an urge, a deeply repressed hunger and appetite for the ultimate.

Soseki wrote:

A FEW PUFFS OF WHITE CLOUD DRIFT AROUND THE MOUTH OF THE CAVE, WITHOUT HINDERING MY DHARMA FRIEND WHEN HE COMES TO KNOCK AT MY DOOR.

I'VE NEVER FOUND A WAY TO HIDE MY DOING NOTHING, DAY AFTER DAY.

WE JOIN HANDS AND WALK BACK AND FORTH BACK AND FORTH.

A tremendously mysterious statement, but very simple. Sometimes simplicity is more mysterious than complexity. A FEW PUFFS OF WHITE CLOUD...

Just visualize, because Zen poems are not for reading, but seeing. Just visualize a cave: A FEW PUFFS OF WHITE CLOUD DRIFT AROUND THE MOUTH OF THE CAVE, WITHOUT HINDERING MY DHARMA FRIEND.

Who is the dharma friend? We have been calling him the buddha. These white clouds cannot prevent my buddha WHEN HE COMES TO KNOCK AT MY DOOR. I HAVE NEVER FOUND A WAY TO HIDE MY DOING NOTHING DAY AFTER DAY.

He is saying that these clouds cannot prevent my being a buddha. The knock does not come from the outside; you have not heard the knock that comes from inside. The buddha wants to come to the circumference. Enough is enough. He has lived hidden in the center of your being for lives, for centuries, for millennia. A day comes that he also wants to see the sunrise and the sunset and the starry night and all the beautiful flowers of the world.

The meditator finally one day hears the knock from inside. You have heard only knocks from the outside, but you will hear one day, in the middle of the night, somebody knocking from inside. It is a very strange experience. Don't be afraid, it is your dharma friend. It is your very being that is saying, "Now you are ready, open the doors, allow me to come out. In your activities, in your gestures, in your words, in your silences - now let me take over."

So if sometimes you hear the knock, don't misunderstand. Anando hears the knock. She thinks somebody - particularly me - is knocking on her door. And I am closed in my room and the key is with Nirvano; I cannot get out from there. And Anando... I again and again try to convince her, so she started thinking, "Perhaps Maitreya, who has died, is knocking." Because he used to live by her side, he was her neighbor and great friend, exchanging newspapers. "Perhaps in the night, lying in the cold grave, once in a while he wants to know what is happening in the world. He may be knocking, that is possible."

But as far as I understand the main door is closed, everything is closed. The knock is coming from inside, but because you have never heard it coming from inside, the misunderstanding arises that it is coming from outside.

So Anando, remember next time the knock comes, it is not coming from outside or from any ghost, holy or unholy. All kinds of ghosts are here, but it is your own being that is knocking. Don't repress it, don't try to avoid it. Listen to it. What does it want? It wants to come out. Your being wants to come out in the world with all its glory.

Soseki is saying, "Nothing can prevent the friend when he knocks at my door."

Of course Soseki is worried, "What will he think? - because I HAVE NEVER FOUND A WAY TO HIDE MY DOING NOTHING, DAY AFTER DAY; I simply go on doing nothing." A small worry arises, "What will the buddha think about it? What kind of a lazy fellow, so lousy, doing nothing, day after day...?"

But finally WE JOIN HANDS AND WALK BACK AND FORTH, BACK AND FORTH, from the center to the circumference, from the circumference to the center. By and by you and the buddha become one, there are not two beings.

As you become more silent, more indefensible, more vulnerable, as you open yourself completely, those two hands are your own. Then begins a new dance, a dance whose beauty cannot be described. Then begins a drunkenness which is not of this world. You can only call it divine wine; that's what Sufis have called it.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked:

Maneesha, the first thing: you should not count twenty times, you should go on repeating, you should fall asleep repeating. Then it will not be the first or second thought; it will be absolutely the first thought when you will wake up, if you continue repeating 'witnessing' and also creating the space - not just the word 'witnessing', but the space that comes around the word that you experience in your meditation. With that space and the word, you simply go on. Don't count, don't be so miserly - twenty times...

It is good that Ma Tzu is not here in my place, otherwise from here he would have jumped right on Maneesha and made her a lifelong witness - dead or alive, it does not matter. You are doing rightly.

Don't call it hypnosis, because that word has been condemned by Christianity. It is a beautiful word and the whole process is beautiful, but still, because you have been brought up as a Christian it is very difficult to get rid of your upbringing.

So if you call it hypnosis, immediately the Christian mind will say you are doing something wrong.

Forget about hypnosis; it is meditation. You are simply trying to make the mind remember that as you will be waking up, the first thought should be of witnessing and the whole space of witnessing.

It is a beautiful process.

If you go on repeating the word and the space, overlapping the sleep, it enters into your sleep.

You fall asleep, but your deeper mind goes on repeating the word and the space. The whole night becomes a meditation. In the morning, obviously, it is going to be the first thought, because the whole night it has been there as an undercurrent.

But don't call it hypnosis, although there is nothing wrong in hypnosis; it is another name of meditation. But Christianity has done such damage to the world that a great phenomenon is being avoided which can reveal many mysteries in man, which can cure many mental diseases. But just because of Christianity - and other religions have also started imitating, because unfortunately Christian nations became great empires around the world. So even though the countries were not Christian, their education pattern, the whole climate that the Christian empire created has entered into Hindus, into Mohammedans, into Buddhists.

The disaster has not been only to Christians, the disaster has been worldwide - but to the Christians more so, and particularly for Maneesha. She has been trained in Christian schools to be a nurse, because nursing is a virtue, taking care of the sick is a great virtue; you will be rewarded very much in the other world.

So the more people get sick, the better, particularly for Christians. The more people are orphans, the better for Mother Teresa, for Pope the Polack to convert them to Christianity. The more poverty spreads in the world, the better for Christianity, because only the poor will be converted.

No rich Buddhist can even consider in his dreams to be converted to Christianity. Christianity is such an ordinary religion, so childish and so stupid that no cultured Hindu, or Mohammedan, or Christian - yes, I include the intelligent Christian also - is persuaded by the Christian theology. He simply formally maintains that he is a Christian.

I was in Greece. Amrito is here; I asked her what percentage the Greek Orthodox Church has in the country. She told me that nearabout ninety percent of the people are Greek Orthodox Christians, but only four percent of Christians ever attend church.

What about those other eighty-five percent? Just formal Christians. Any intelligent person cannot belong to a third-rate religion like Christianity. And it depends on the poor, on the orphans - and just to create more poor and more orphans, it is against birth control.

It is a strange phenomenon, seeing the world situation, that the population will kill itself; man will be killing man, eating man. A moment is going to come by the end of this century when the whole humanity will become cannibals due to the courtesy of Christianity.

Maneesha carries the deep unconscious upbringing of a Christian.

So don't use the word hypnosis. Otherwise it is a beautiful word, as beautiful as meditation. It is synonymous, but it is better to avoid it. You meditate and you don't count, because if you are counting, who is meditating? If you are counting, who is witnessing? Don't count, because in counting your witness will be lost. The space of witnessing will be lost.

And what is the hurry? - the sleep will come on its own accord. You simply go on enjoying the space of witnessing, and let the sleep merge with it. You will hear a faraway echo for a few moments and then you will forget all about witnessing. But it will continue as an undercurrent. You can turn your six or eight hours of sleep into a tremendously fruitful meditation.

And the sign that it has been successful is that the first thought as you open your eyes - or even before you open your eyes, just as you become aware that sleep is finished - the first thing that you will encounter will be the last thing that you left before you went into sleep. That means there is a connection; it remained continuously flowing underneath, from when you were awake in the evening to when you wake up again in the morning.

You are doing a beautiful meditation. Just two things you have to drop: don't count, and don't call it hypnosis.

Now it is Sardar Gurudayal Singh's time. Put the light on him! Right! Just look at his turban. He comes with such a great joy. Once he brought a turban for me too. He wanted me to come to the auditorium with the turban.

I said, "This will be too much! The government is already suspecting that I am creating chaos in Punjab. I don't go out of my room, and government detective agencies are continually inquiring what my position is about the Punjab problem. If I come with this multidimensional turban, it will create great difficulty unnecessarily."

But he comes like a bridegroom to celebrate. I have to find jokes for him. I don't know... he is very ancient, any day he can pop off. But we will keep him stuffed with the turban in his place - that is a promise - because without him I would not like to tell any jokes!

Nancy Reagan is having a confidential chat with her best friend, Hester Mindbender, next to the White House swimming pool.

"Life is terrible," sobs Nancy into her Pineapple Kool-Aid. "Ever since Ronald became four hundred per cent impotent, there is no happiness in my life!"

"Now wait a minute," says Hester. "One hundred percent impotent is bad enough - but four hundred per cent impotent? He must be really rotten!"

"You don't understand," whines Nancy. "He's been one hundred per cent impotent ever since John Wayne's horse kicked him in the balls, in the cowboy movie, The Big Muddy. But last week,"

continues Nancy, "he fell out of his wheelchair, and broke both his hands and bit his tongue!"

The bells of the Vatican in Rome ring out a slow and dull message: "Pope the Polack is dying."

In Saint Peter's Square, the faithful Catholics gather to pray for their Polack pontiff, and Cardinal Catsass starts to perform a special ceremony.

"Listen," says Catsass to the crowd, "I want some of you sheep to donate a part of your life to God's faithful Polack - I mean, pope. Pray before God that he will take a piece of your life and give it to our own Pope the Polack."

Mrs. Chlorex steps forward, raises her arms and cries out, "I will give a week of my life for our Polack pope!"

There are muffled cheers in the congregation. Then Father Fumble steps forward. "I offer two days of my life for Pope the Polack!" he cries.

The crowd sighs its approval.

Just then, Moishe Finkelstein and a bunch of Jewish tourists enter and immediately Moishe starts waving his arms around and shouts, "I offer twenty years of my...!"

"What?" interrupts his friend, Hymie. "Are you crazy? So much? - and you are a Jew!"

Moishe looks at Hymie and continues, "... of my mother-in-law's life."

Every Friday, Nellie Nutzo escapes from the Sunnyvale Insane Asylum, and streaks naked throughout the forest surrounding the institution.

And every Friday, Loony Larry, Mad Melvin, and Crazy Karl watch her take off her clothes and disappear through the fence.

And every Friday, Attendant Eggski, the asylum guard, sends the three loonies to bring back the naked Nellie.

This time the three loonies are gone for a long time, so Attendant Eggski decides to go look for them.

He enters the forest and immediately naked Nellie Nutzo streaks by him with a wide grin on her face.

Then Eggski sees Loony Larry and Crazy Karl come chasing right behind her in hot pursuit.

A couple of minutes later, Mad Melvin comes huffing and puffing along, carrying a bucket full of sand in each hand.

"Hey, wait a minute, Melvin!" cries Eggski. "What are you doing, running with those buckets of sand?

How the hell are you going to catch Nellie that way?"

"Well," gasps Mad Melvin, out of breath. "It is my turn to carry the sand, because I caught her last week!"

You will get it in the right time!

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be completely frozen.

Now look inwards with your total consciousness, with an urgency as if this is the last moment of your life on earth. Only with this urgency can you reach in a quantum leap from the circumference to the center.

Deeper and deeper... as you start reaching towards the center, the whole climate of Buddha Auditorium changes. A great serenity, a silence starts descending with great flowers of joy and peace.

Just remember one thing: at the center you are nothing but the witness - the witness of the body, the witness of the mind, and the witness of all the splendor that you will experience at the center. At the center you are all buddhas. Buddha Auditorium is a gathering place for buddhas.

This moment you are joined with your eternity. This moment you are no more. The Buddha Auditorium has become a lake of pure consciousness without any ripples.

Rejoice in your blessedness, because the whole world has forgotten the beauty of the source of life, the blissfulness of the original face, the tremendous blissfulness and benediction of disappearing in the ocean just like a dewdrop slipping from the lotus leaf into the ocean and becoming the ocean.

To make it absolutely clear, Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Relax. But go on remembering that you are a witness. The body is not you, the mind is not you.

You are nothing but a pure witness. That is the only thing in you which is immortal; everything else is just mud.

The evening was beautiful on its own accord, but you have contributed tremendous beauty and grace by being at the source of being. You have made it a memorable moment.

You are witnessing the firecrackers all around... they are in the memory of a great meditator, Mahavira. He attained to enlightenment on the night when there is no moon. That night is coming soon. And the festival of lights in India is in the memory of Mahavira. He attained to enlightenment.

Enlightenment is nothing but a festival of lights.

You are carrying within you the buddha with all its glory and splendor. Your whole life work is to bring the buddha from the hidden center to the circumference of your activities, to your songs, to your dances, to your ordinary activities and functions. Hand in hand, bring the buddha back, and soon you will find you are melting slowly and the buddha is taking your place.

The great day of festival is when you are no more and only the buddha is. Collect this beautiful space and the flowers that are showering on you, because soon Nivedano will be calling you back.

Be prepared.

Persuade the buddha to come with you. He has never failed anyone. He is always ready to come - just a little graceful invitation, a prayerful approach.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Come back, but come as buddhas, with great silence, peace, serenity, grace.

Sit down in your places just for a few moments to remember what it has been going to the center - what it was like, the taste of it, and what golden path you have followed back and forth, because you have to follow that path. It will become smaller and smaller every day, and one day suddenly, out of nowhere, the center and the circumference have become one.

You are the circumference; the buddha is the center. The day they meet together, the new man is born. And the new man will be the glory of the world. The new man will be the splendor of the world.

The new man will create a new world spontaneously. The new man is the only hope.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.