Dissolving into the universal: a silent song of am-ness

Question 1:

Every growth, growth as such, is dialectical. It needs thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; synthesis again in its turn becomes thesis, and creates antithesis and synthesis - which again, in its turn, becomes thesis.

That's the way the whole existence works. That's why you find duality everywhere. The duality is thesis and antithesis. One can remain caught between the two, divided, split; there will be no growth. One can make a bridge between the two, and create a new phenomenon: that is synthesis.

One can remain at the synthesis; then growth stops there, unless this synthesis again functions as a thesis to produce antithesis, and so on.

For example, you have love and hate. Love is the thesis, hate is the antithesis; and most people die caught in the struggle, conflict, between the two. They are never able to see that there is a subtle connection between love and hate; that they are not two energies but one energy having two polarities. They are just like the negative and positive in electricity - but it is electricity all the same.

Hate is also a kind of love standing upside down. It happens that you can forget your friend, but you cannot forget your enemy. The enemy haunts you more than the friend. You think more of destroying the enemy than helping the friend. The reason is that love is a thesis - simple. Hate is an antithesis - it has become more complicated. It has become negation, and negativity has an attraction - for many reasons.

One is afraid of negativity because you cannot hate someone without creating a wound within yourself. Nobody pretends hate. It is always authentic, because why should one pretend hate?

- it hurts.

People pretend love; they may not be really in love, but the very idea that they are in love is soothing.

So love can remain superficial; but hate always goes deep - it cannot remain superficial. That's why one becomes more concerned about the enemy than about friends.

The man who is working for enlightenment has to find a bridge between the dualities, because without finding the bridge he cannot transcend them, he cannot go above them. And the bridge is there - it has only to be discovered. One has to see how love becomes hate, how hate becomes love - that they are capable of transforming into each other. Naturally, they cannot be different energies; just different situations, states, of the same energy.

As you become aware that love and hate are the same energy, then you are not to be concerned with love and hate, because those are only two poles; you have to be more concerned with the energy of which they are the poles: what is that energy?

Watching it, you start a new force within yourself which is synthesis. You come to a point when you know love and hate are one. This is a great synthesis - the dualism is finished. But with the finishing of dualism your life comes to a static point. You have grown above love and hate, and there will be a kind of compassion - that will be the synthesis. You don't hate, you don't love, but you have a certain compassion for both friends and enemies. But compassion again becomes a simple thing.

That's why the synthesis always turns into a thesis - another beginning. And compassion must have some duality which you can become aware of only when you have achieved compassion.

What is the antithesis of compassion? It is indifference, upekchha. That's the word Buddha has used. It carries more meaning than "indifference." It is a kind of no interest, neither this way nor that way... as if the person does not exist at all for you. Compassion will bring you to indifference.

And all these stages you can find in the growth of different people at the point where they got stuck.

For example, the Jaina monks are stuck with indifference. That becomes renunciation, not being bothered with the world.

The Hindu has also become stuck with that, thinking that the world is only a dream; it doesn't matter, you need not be concerned about it. They have grown a little; but at the point of indifference they will start shrinking, they are stuck again. They have to find something between compassion and indifference - the bridge.

There is a bridge, there is always a bridge in every duality, unless you come to a point which has no duality.

That point is the point of enlightenment.

It has no antithesis, so you cannot even call it thesis; and it is not a synthesis. It has dropped all three - the whole triangle. It is something beyond the triangle of evolution. And the beauty is, because it is not part of a triangle, you are not stuck. And from that point growth changes its nature completely:

it is no longer dialectical.

Before enlightenment, growth is dialectical: always divided, always finding something which joins it and then again another division and another division. But a point comes - for example between compassion and indifference, the synthesis is equilibrium. The Buddhist word for it is samata.

You are equally balanced, you are neither indifferent nor compassionate, neither leaning to this side nor to that side. Samata can become a point from where the change, the radical change happens in the process of evolution.

Below samata everything is dialectical. You cannot love without hating; they will both go together.

One will be conscious, the other will be unconscious; but they are one thing. That's why you can turn them easily: a small incident, and love becomes hate.

The person you were going to die for, you can kill him! Lovers have killed the same person for whom they would have sacrificed themselves. It is the same energy, but it has turned completely upside down.

Samata, equilibrium, has been immensely praised by Gautam Buddha. It simply means absence of any preference - neither this nor that. You are simply so much in the middle, so absolutely in the middle, that you are almost out of the duality - samata - because you have withdrawn your energy from both sides, you are not throwing your energy on any duality.

The whole energy becomes concentrated. In that concentration of your total energy is the possibility of explosion. The small point exactly in the middle cannot contain that much energy, which was spread all over a line divided into many sections, over the whole spectrum. It is almost like an atomic explosion. But it is the atomic explosion in consciousness.

The atom is not material, but a living entity. A living explosion of your energies becomes almost like a lotus flower. The shape of the explosion seen by the enlightened person is very similar to the shape of the lotus flower. It is because of this that the lotus flower has become symbolic of enlightenment.

From this point things are totally different. There is growth - growth never stops - but we cannot call it growth because that may create confusion. Before, it was dualistic; now it is non-dualistic. Before, there was constant conflict; now there is no conflict - it simply goes on growing.

Hence there is absolute silence and great blissfulness, because for the first time you are free of the torture of being caught in two opposing polarities. There is no tension, everything is relaxed, everything is at ease. Rather than calling it growth, it is a let-go.

Now the flow of your life becomes a relaxed phenomenon. There is no end to evolution.

Enlightenment is the end of dualistic growth, but the beginning of a non-dual evolution... a peaceful, silent movement of energy which goes on becoming bigger and bigger and goes on losing its separateness from universal energy. It always remains individual, even though it is spread all over the universe.

That feeling cannot be expressed by "I" because "I" is just another way of saying "ego." Before enlightenment there was ego; ego can exist only in conflict. This state can be spoken of only as "am"-ness, without any "I." It is a very strange feeling: you are not, and yet you are. You are not your old self; you are no longer a self, but you have not lost the feeling of am-ness.

So the question of what happens to individuals when they dissolve into the universal.... They still remain individuals, but with no assertion of "I" in them... just a silent song of am-ness or isness.

It is as if we put hundreds of candles in this room; all their light will become one. You cannot differentiate in the light - which part belongs to which candle - it has become a universal phenomenon. But still, each candle has its own flame, it has a certain individuality. The individuality has not disappeared, but it is very quiet and very silent and very nonassertive. It is almost as if it is nothing, but it is still there.

And that is one of the greatest mysteries: to feel yourself at one with the whole existence and yet know your inner flame... part of the whole, and yet not just a part - you are also a whole.

The UPANISHADS have a statement: "From the perfect comes the perfect. Yet the perfect left behind still remains as perfect as before" - nothing is taken away from it. The perfect dissolves into the perfect, but it is not that two perfections become a bigger perfection; it is the same perfection.

The emphasis is that it is not a question of quantity, it is a question only of quality.

For example, one hundred candles burning in this room will not make the light heavier; it will be lighter. The change will be qualitative but it will not be quantitative. Each candle will be spread all over the room, and there is going to be no conflict in one hundred candles spreading all over the same space because these are not material bodies.

Just as light... consciousness is even more a quality. Light perhaps has some quantity in it. I think the scientists say that when there is sunlight over five square miles, the light has a little weight, but very small. I don't know what will be the equivalent of five tolas....

SIXTY GRAMS.

Sixty grams. But on five square miles, if we can collect that light, concentrate that light, it moves the weighing scale to sixty grams. So although it seems just non-quantitative, it has a little quantity in it.

But consciousness has no quantity - five miles or five thousand miles or five million miles, it makes no difference. Awareness has no weight. So infinite awarenesses can exist in the same space without coming into any conflict. And the universe is infinite, so the growth never stops.

But we should remember that it is not the old growth; it is absolutely a new phenomenon. It is as if the first growth was something similar to sexual reproduction: two energies, male and female, negative and positive, thesis and antitheses, creating the birth of a child - the synthesis.

But the second part, after enlightenment, is nonsexual. Your consciousness just goes on expanding; it does not give birth to any child.

That's why I have always condemned Jesus' idea of the only begotten son of God. If God is the ultimate consciousness or equivalent to it, there is no possibility of any birth of a child. And if you accept the birth of a child then the Christian trinity is not right; there has to be a woman as an antithesis to the man.

They have avoided the woman just to discredit her, just not to put her on such a high pedestal as to be part of God; otherwise she becomes divine. But they have forgotten that the child is possible only through duality.

If God is alone, or the ultimate consciousness is alone - which is a far better and more evolved terminology.... Jainism uses, for the ultimate state of consciousness, kaivalya. It means aloneness.

The word "God" is very primitive and childish - but pure aloneness... and it goes on growing. Its bliss, its joy, its ecstasy goes on growing, knows no limit.

But before it can happen you have to pass through a process of dialectics, because where we are, we are under the law of dialectics. To get free from dialectics is one of the major projects of spiritual evolution.

But it is very easily possible if one works through meditation, because that is the only way to find out the golden mean, the middle point which is transcendence. Buddha even called his whole way "the middle way," because it is always to find exactly the middle point.

The moment you have found the middle point between love and hate, you are beyond both: you have entered into a new area, unexplored. But don't stop until you find something which has no duality to it. Go on and on, searching after each duality for the one point which has no polarity to it; because that is the point between the two growths - prior to enlightenment and after enlightenment.

So in one way enlightenment is an end, a goal.

In another way it is a beginning, a tremendous beginning.

Question 2:

The experience of orgasm itself is always nonsexual. Even though you have achieved it through sex, it itself has no sexuality in it.

You can reach to orgasm through sex. It is a merger of the negative and the positive polarities - such a deep merger that the man is no longer man, the woman is no longer woman. They are not two; there is only one energy surrounding them both. They have melted into that energy.

It may be for a moment - that does not matter - but the experience itself has nothing to do with sex.

The first orgasm is bound to be attained through sex. And my own understanding is that meditation has grown out of the experience of orgasm, because the original founders - particularly Shiva who, in his VIGYAN BHAIRVA TANTRA, has written, just like a scientific formula, about one hundred and twelve meditations; each meditation just in one line or two lines.... The man is tremendously aphoristic. Those one hundred and twelve sutras are just like seeds. He has condensed everything about the method in them.

He is also known as a great lover. Perhaps he was the first man to discover meditation. And it can be very scientifically assumed that whoever experienced orgasm, if he had a little intelligence, would have seen that although it has come through sex, it itself is a nonsexual experience.

That gives the insight that there may be possibilities of reaching it through nonsexual means, because it is not sexual itself, so sexuality is not necessarily the only way.

It does not need much intelligence if you experience it and see clearly that it does not have any impact of sexuality. Perhaps sexuality created the background, the groundwork in which it happened.

But the experience of orgasm itself does not remind you of sex; it is purely spiritual.

Whoever experienced this must have concluded then that there can be other ways to reach it - because sex is not necessarily a part of it. There is no color, nor any impression of sex left in it. Then he must have watched how it happens. And then things are very clear: the moment the orgasm happens, time stops, you forget about time. Your mind stops, you do not think anymore.

There is tremendous calmness, and a great awareness.

You are not asleep. You have not fallen into any hypnotic sleep. Everything is crystal-clear. The mind is no more functioning the way it functions continuously: the thought process has stopped.

The sense of time is not there; it seems timeless. Afterwards you will think it lasted only a few seconds, but that is afterwards; in the experience itself, it seems it is eternity. And you are fully aware, as aware as you have ever been: wide-awake.

Any observer going through the experience will naturally think, "If these things can be managed without sex - awareness, thoughtlessness, timelessness - you will reach to the orgasmic state, bypassing sexuality."

And this is my understanding: this is how man must have first discovered meditation; otherwise meditation is not something biological or natural, so that in the course of time you have to discover it. But biology has given you an experience; if you try to understand it, you are bound to search for other methods to make it possible. You know it has happened - that there was no thought, no time, and only pure awareness - so it is possible.

You are not groping in the dark, you are not just guessing: you know it is possible. You have known it through the biological route. Then if these three things can be maintained without sex, the orgasm happens.

And the difference is that the sexual orgasm is very momentary. Although while it is there, it looks almost eternal, that feeling is just because of its depth. But through meditation you can have it as long as you want, because meditation is not dependent on anybody else - the woman or the man or a certain state of two minds, a certain rhythm of two energies. The sexual orgasm depends on many things, and particularly on the other person being there.

Meditation is independent of any other person; only you are to create the situation. And naturally the conclusion will be to start with awareness, because you don't know how else to stop thoughts. It is not in your hands to stop thoughts or to stop time. Only one thing remains, and that is awareness - that you can be more aware or less aware.

You know it. If this house is suddenly on fire, you will be more aware. You know that your awareness goes up and down. At certain moments you are more aware; at certain moments, less aware. So it is possible to create the situation of being more aware.

That's why awareness became the basis of meditation. And with awareness came the surprise that as you become aware, thoughts disappear. When you are fully aware, there are no thoughts, and suddenly time has stopped. Time can be there inside only with the movement of thoughts.

In fact time can be measured only with some movement. For example, with a watch, how are you measuring time? By the movement of the hands; otherwise, there is no way.

If everything is unmoving, you will not be able to think that anything like time exists. But you know that a car has passed, then a train is passing - there has been a gap. In the gap... it means time.

Then you hear the sound of an airplane.... This is movement - you are finding movement around you.

Inside there is only one movement, and that is of thoughts.

When thoughts stop, suddenly time disappears, because time can be measured only through some kind of movement. That's why, if in the night you had many dreams, in the morning you will find that it was a long, long night, because so much movement happened. But if you had no dream at all, you will feel as if you have just fallen asleep, and now you are awake. The night has passed so quickly.

When you are in anxiety, in misery, in pain, time passes slowly because of your pain. You would like the pain to pass quickly, but with your expectation that the pain is not going, time is passing very slowly.

But when you are meeting a friend after years, you find hours have passed, and it seems just minutes since you met. When you are joyful, when you are miserable, it makes a difference in the speed of time immediately. But when you are neither - just silent - time has no way to move.

So as one becomes aware, first one finds thoughts becoming less, and finally stopping. Then he finds time is not there - and he has found the key to the basic meditation. Then all other meditations are differentiations of the same method, different combinations of the same method.

Different combinations, but essentially they are awareness or witnessing.

And it seems there is no other way to find it except through sexual orgasm, because that is the only experience in life given by nature that comes close to meditation. And the misery is that millions of people have no experience of orgasm, and all the religions have been preventing them from having that experience.

This is so ridiculous, because if they don't have any orgasmic experience, meditation remains just a fiction; or maybe some giants can do it. "But we are human beings - it is not possible for us to be more aware. How can one be more aware? We are aware as much as we can be. How to stop thoughts?"

And the responsibility for keeping humanity away from meditation goes to all the religions because they are against sex. They have prevented people - not from sex but from orgasm, because they have poisoned people's sex with guilt. They could not prevent sex, but they did not allow people to be playful about it, they did not allow people to be respectful about it, they did not allow people to go deeper into it.

On the contrary, because sex is sin, it makes people feel guilty. The man is in a hurry to finish as quickly as possible, because you should not continue any sin too long. Knowing that you are doing something wrong, you want to do it quickly and be finished with it.

And if the man is in a hurry he cannot attain to orgasm, only to ejaculation; which proves all the religious teachers right - that you are wasting your energy. Because the man feels he gains nothing, it is a waste, he feels tired. The next day he may have a headache, feels dull, is not so sharp.

Perhaps the religious people are right - he is already punished.

So it is a very strange thing. They have created the idea of guilt, and the idea of guilt on its own has given proofs that you really are doing something wrong.

The woman has remained unmoving while making love, because she has been told that to enjoy herself while making love - or to move, or to be playful - is only for prostitutes, not for ladies. Ladies simply lie down almost dead, thinking, "Let him do what he wants to do and let him be finished soon"

- because they don't gain anything out of it.

The man at least finds a certain release of the energy with which he was becoming burdened, but the woman does not get even that release. So naturally women are more against sex than men.

And every woman thinks in her mind that all men are nothing but animals: their only desire is sex.

This is the by-product of all the religious teachings. In this way... they have not been able to prevent sex; otherwise humanity would have disappeared. And orgasm is not necessary for reproduction, so biology has no problem: it can continue its work without orgasm.

Orgasm was not something necessary for reproduction, it was something to open a window for the higher evolution of consciousness.

But the idiots who have been religious leaders and priests prevented that window. They have been teaching continuously: "Meditate!" And when people fail, when they cannot attain to meditation, then the priests say, "You are sinners - how can you attain? First be celibate, fast, do penance."

And all these things will prevent people from having orgasm - which is the only natural way to have a first glimpse of meditation.

So you can understand my difficulty. If I say to people, "You have been prevented by your religious people from becoming religious," they cannot understand what I am saying. But what I am saying is absolutely scientific.

There must be something in man's nature that opens a window towards higher evolution; otherwise how can you convince the man that there are things like higher experiences? And how did the first man come to know? Why did he meditate in the first place, and how did he find the way to meditate?

Somebody, somewhere in the past, must have found some similarity with his nature, and must have seen that, although he passes through sex, he reaches to a point where sex has nothing to do with it: sex simply opens a door into a new reality. And that door can be opened without sex far more easily, without dependence.

It is one of the great misfortunes that has befallen humanity, that sex became taboo, prohibited, rejected, condemned. They did not succeed in preventing it, but they certainly succeeded in poisoning man's spiritual growth.

So it is not only the orgasm that you experience in meditation which is nonsexual, even the orgasm that you experience through sex is nonsexual.

Orgasm itself is a nonsexual experience.

The natural way, the easier way, the primary way is through sex - and it is perfectly good; it is in accordance with nature's intentions. And then you know that such an experience is possible for you.

Then you can play with the experience, and you can find many ways to reach it.

All those ways have become meditations. And that does not prohibit you from using the sexual way, because it is sex that has given you the first experience of orgasm, has given you the first insight into meditation, has taken you far away from biology and nature.

So one should be grateful to one's sexuality.

There should be no question of guilt.

If religions had taught people to be grateful to sex, we would have produced a totally different kind of man - not this miserable and suffering creature that you see all around the world.

We could have produced really joyful, blissful people; people who would have forgotten how to be miserable, how to suffer, who would have forgotten completely the anguish in which they are living now.