Layer Upon Layer

MAN'S being is very simple, but his personality is not. The personality is very complex. The personality is like an onion - there are many layers of conditioning, corruption, poisoning. Hidden behind many layers - what Sufis call filters - is man's simple being. But that simple being is behind so many filters that you cannot see it. And hidden behind these many filters, you cannot see the world either - because whatsoever reaches you is corrupted by the filters before it reaches you.

Nothing ever reaches you as it is; you go on missing it. There are many interpreters in between.

You see something. First your eyes and your senses falsify. Then your ideology, your religion, your society, your church - they falsify. Then your emotions - they falsify. And so on and so forth. By the time it reaches to you it has almost nothing of the original, or so little that it makes no difference.

You see something only if your filters allow it, and the filters don't allow much.

Scientists agree with the Sufis. Scientists say we see only two per cent of reality. Only two per cent!

Ninety-eight per cent is missed. When you are listening to me you will hear only two per cent of what has been told, of what has been said. Ninety-eight per cent will be lost. and when the ninety-eight per cent is lost, that two per cent is out of context. It is as if you have taken two pages from a novel, at random - one from here, one from there - and then you start reconstructing the whole novel from these two pages. Ninety-eight pages are missing. You have no inkling what they were; you don't even know that they were. You have only two pages and you reconstruct the whole novel again.

This reconstruction is your invention. It is not discovery of truth, it is your imagination.

And there is an inner neCessity to fill the gaps. Whenever you see that two things are unrelated, the mind has an inner urgency to relate them. Otherwise it feels very uneasy. So you invent a link, you fix those loose things with a link, you bridge them. And you go on inventing a world that is not there.

So before we can enter into this small but immensely valuable dialogue between the Master and the disciple, you will have to understand these layers, these filters.

Gurdjieff used to call these filters 'buffers'. They protect you against reality. They protect your lies, they protect your dreams, they protect your projections. They don't allow you to come into contact with reality because the very contact is going to be shattering, shocking. Man lives through lies.

Frederick Nietzsche is reported to have said, 'Please don't take the lies away from humanity, otherwise man will not be able to live. Man lives through lies. Don't take the fictions away, don't destroy the myths. Don't tell the truth because man cannot live by truth.' And he is right about ninety-nine point nine per cent of people. But what kind of life can there be through lies? It will be a big lie itself. And what kind of happiness is possible through lies? There is no possibility; hence humanity is in misery. With truth is bliss; with lies there is only misery and nothing else.

But we go on protecting those lies. Those lies are comfortable, but they keep you protected against bliss, against truth, against God.

Sufis say that man is exactly like an onion. And religion is the art of how to peel the onion and come to it's innermost core. And what is the innermost core of an onion? Have you ever peeled an onion?

You go on peeling one layer. another layer, and another, and so on and so forth. Then a point comes when the last layer is taken off and only emptiness is left in your hand. That is FANA. If you go on peeling your being, the last layer will be of being - BAKA - and beyond that will be emptiness - FANA.

So you can think in this way: at the very innermost core there is emptiness, pure sky, nothingness, FANA. The first layer around FANA is that of BAKA, individuality - what religions call the self, ATMAN, the soul. But the soul is already a step away from your being. The self is already distant from your being. Buddha has the right word for it. He calls it ANATTA, no-self. Your innermost being is a non-being. Nothing is there, or only nothing is. The first layer, the first fence that surrounds it, is BAKA, individuality.

This is your true and simple being: non-being surrounded by being, defined by being.

The real core is empty but the emptiness has to be defined by something - otherwise there will be no division between you and anything else. So a thin. a very thin, layer of being divides you. But that being is also a circumference not the centre. At the centre is FANA, dissolution, disappearance.

Even at the point of BAKA, individuality, you don't meet God, you are still there. Very little is left of you, but there is still just a thin line - even that has to disappear in FANA. Then you enter God.

Start from the other end. Start peeling the onion.

The first layer is made of corrupted physical senses. Never for a single moment think that your physical senses are as they should be - they are not. They have been trained. You see things it your society allows you to see them. You hear things if your society allows you to hear them. You touch things if your society allows you to touch them.

Man has lost many of his senses - for example, smell. Man has almost lost smell. Just see a dog and his capacity to smell - how sensitive is his nose! Man seems to be very poor. What has happened to man's nose? Why can't he smell so deeply as a dog or as a horse? The horse can smell for miles. The dog has an immense memory of smells. Man has no memory. Something is blocking the nose.

Those who have been working deep into these layers say that it is because of the repression of sex that smell is lost. Physically man is as sensitive as any other animal, but psychologically his nose has been corrupted. Smell is one of the most sexual doors into your body. It is through smell that animals start feeling whether a male is in tune with the female or not. The smell is a subtle hint. When the female is ready to make love to the male she releases a certain kind of smell. Only through that smell does the male understand that he is acceptable. If that smell is not released by the feminine sexual organism, the male moves away; he is not accepted.

Man has destroyed smell because it will be difficult to create a so-called cultured society if your sense of smell remains natural. You are moving on the road and a woman starts smelling and gives you a signal of acceptance. She is somebody else's wife; her husband is with her. The signal is there that you are acceptable. What will you do? It will be awkward, embarrassing.

Your wife is walking with you and there is no smell from her body, and suddenly a man passes by and she gives the signal. And those are very unconscious signals; you cannot control them suddenly.

Then you will become aware that she is interested in the other man, that she is welcoming the other man. That will create trouble. So down the centuries man has destroyed smell completely.

It is not just accidental that in cultured countries much time is wasted in removing all kinds of smell from the body. The body odour has to be completely destroyed by deodorants, deodorant soaps. It has to be covered by layers of perfume, strong perfume. These are all disguises; these are ways to avoid a reality that is still there.

When you make love, both male and female release a certain kind of smell. That smell has to be destroyed because if the man is making love to the woman and the woman is not really into it she will not release the smell. The man will be offended, hurt. He will immediately feel that the woman is not having any orgasm. And the male ego will feel very offended. The smell has to be destroyed completely, so that the man never knows that the woman was simply pretending that she was having an orgasm, just making empty gestures, befooling him, buttressing his ego. And he feels satisfied because the woman looks satisfied. But once the smell is destroyed, there is no way to detect whether she is really satisfied or not.

Smell is very sexual, that's why we have destroyed the nose, utterly destroyed the nose. Even in language you can see the difference. To see means one thing; to hear, one thing - but to smell means just the opposite. To see means a capacity to see, but to smell does not mean the capacity to smell. It means that you are smelly. Even in language the repression has entered. And the same has happened with other senses.

You don't see people eye to eye; or, if you do see them, it is only for a few seconds. You don't see people really; you go on avoiding. If you see, it is thought to be offensive. Just remember, do you really see people? Or do you go on avoiding their eyes? - because if you don't avoid them then you may be able to see a few things which the person is not willing to show. It is not good manners to see something that he is not willing to show, so it is better to avoid. We listen t,, the words, we don't see the face - because many times the words and the face are contradictory. A man is saying one thing and he is showing another. Gradually we have completely lost the sense of seeing the face, the eyes, the gestures. We only listen to the words. Just watch this and you will be surprised how people go on saying one thing and showing another. And nobody detects it because you have been trained not to look directly into the face. Or, even if you look, the look is not that of awareness, not that of attention. It is empty; it is almost as if you are not looking.

We hear sounds by choice. We don't hear all kinds of sounds. We choose. Whatsoever is useful we hear. And to different societies and different countries, different things are valuable. A man who lives in a primitive world, in a forest, in a jungle, has a different kind of receptivity for sounds. He has to be continuously alert and aware of the animals. His life is in danger. You need not be alert. You live in a cultured world where animals don't exist any more and there is no fear. Your survival is not at stake. Your ears don't function perfectly because there is no need.

Have you seen a hare or a deer? How attentive they are, how sensitive. Just a small sound - a dead leaf stirred by the wind - and the deer is alert. You would not have noticed it at all. And great music surrounds life, subtle music surrounds life, but we are absolutely unaware of it. There is great rhythm - but to feel it you will need more alert ears, more alert eyes, a more alert touch.

So the first layer is of corrupted physical senses. We see only what we want to see. Our whole body mechanism is poisoned. Our body has been made rigid. We live in a kind of frozenness; we are cold, closed, unavailable. We are so afraid of life that we have killed all kinds of possibilities through which life can make a contact with us.

People don't touch each other, they don't hold hands, they don't hug each other. And when you hold somebody's hand, you feel embarrassed, he feels embarrassed. Even if you hug somebody, it feels as if something wrong is happening. And you are in a hurry to get away from the other's body, because the other's body can open you. The warmth of the other's body can open you. Even children are not allowed to hug their parents. There is great fear.

And all fear is basically, deep down, rooted in the fear of sex. There is a taboo against sex. A mother cannot hug her son because the son may get sexually aroused - that is the fear. A father cannot hug his daughter. He is afraid he may get physically aroused. Warmth has its own ways of working.

Nothing is wrong in being physically aroused or sexually aroused. It is simply a sign that one is alive.

that one is immensely alive. But the fear, the sex taboo, says keep away, keep a distance.

Sudha's father was dying; he was very old. He was my sannyasin. And Sudha was very much puzzled because before he died his hands would go again and again to his genital organs. His hands had to be pulled away. And she was puzzled and worried, naturally. What was happening to her father? Was there some sexual repression? Why did his hands go to the sexual organs, to the genitals, again and again? And he was almost unconscious.

It happens to many people when they are dying. One of the reasons is repression, but only one. They are losing the social consciousness; they are losing the conditioning. This first layer of corrupted senses is disappearing; death is moving in. And they are becoming small children again. Small children play with their genital organs; they have not yet been corrupted. They enjoy their bodies, they love their bodies. They are playful about it, it is fun.

Now the man is no longer old; he is becoming younger again. Death is taking the layer away - that is one thing. Another thing is that when a man dies, for a single moment all his senses become totally alive as they would have been if they had not been corrupted. It is like a flame before a lamp goes out - the flame burns brightly, with intensity, for a single second. Exactly the same happens when life is going out. For a single moment the last effort is made to live, and one burns bright with total sensitivity.

Another reason: when a man is dying the circle is complete - naturally death is very close to birth.

Death is very close to life; it is the very crescendo of life. Life comes out of sex energy and life is moving back into sex energy.

But all our senses are corrupted. We have not been allowed to be natural - -hence man has lost dignity, innocence, grace, elegance. This is the first layer. And because of all these repressions the body has become non-orgasmic. There is no joy - it has happened both to man and woman, in almost the same way, but man has gone deeper into corruption than woman - because man is perfectionistic, neurotically perfectionistic. Once he gets an idea, he tries to go to the very extreme of it. Women are more practical, less perfectionistic, less neurotic, more earthly, more balanced, less intellectual, more intuitive. They have not gone to the very end. It is good that women have not become as neurotic as men - that's why they still retain some dignity, some grace, some roundness of being, some poetry. But both have been corrupted by the society, both have become hard. Men more, women a little less, but the difference is only of degrees.

Because of this layer, everything that enters you has to pass this filter first, and this filter destroys, interprets, manipulates, gives new colours of its own, projects, invents - and the reality becomes very garbed. When this layer disappears.... That is the whole effort of yoga: to make your body alive, sensitive, young again, to give your senses their maximum functioning. Then one functions with no taboos around; then lucidity, grace, beauty flow. Warmth arises again, openness - and growth happens. One is constantly new, young, and one is always on an adventure. The body becomes orgasmic. Joy surrounds you.

Through joy the first corruption disappears. Hence my insistence to be joyous, to be celebrating, to enjoy life, to accept the body - not only to accept it, but to feel grateful that God has given you such a beautiful body, such a sensitive body, with so many doors to relate to reality: eyes and ears and nose and touch. Open all these windows and let life's breeze flow in, let life's sun shine in. Learn to be more sensitive. Use every oppor-tunity to be sensitive so that that first filter is dropped.

If you are sitting on the grass, don't go on pulling it up and destroying it. I had to stop sitting on the lawn - I used to give darshan on the lawn - because people would go on destroying the grass, they would go on pulling on the grass. I had to stop it. People are so violent, so unconsciously violent, they don't know what they are doing. And they were told again and again, but within minutes they would forget. They were so restless they didn't know what they were doing. The grass was available to their restlessness so they would start pulling it up and destroying it.

When you are sitting on the grass, close your eyes, become the grass - be grassy. Feel that you are grass, feel the greenness of the grass, feel the wetness of the grass. Feel the subtle smell that goes on being released by the grass. Feel the dewdrops on the grass - that they are on you. Feel the sunrays playing on the grass. For a moment be lost into it and you will have a new sense of your body. And do it in all kinds of situations: in a river, in a swimming pool, lying on the beach in the sunrays, looking at the moon in the night, lying down with closed eyes on the sand and feeling the sand. Millions of opportunities are there to make your body alive again. And only you can do it.

Society has done its work of corruption, you will have to undo it.

And once you start hearing, seeing, touching, smelling, then you smell the reality.

The second layer is of conditioning: social, political, religious, ideological - belief systems. Belief systems make you non-communicative. If you are a Hindu and I am a Mohammedan, immediately there is no communication. If you are a man and I am a man, there is communication, but if you are a communist and I am a fascist - communication stops. All belief systems are destructive to communication, and the whole life is nothing but communicating - communicating with trees, communicating with rivers, communicating with sun and moon, communicating with people and animals. It is communication; life is communication.

Dialogue disappears when you are burdened with belief systems. How can you really be in a dialogue! You are already too full of your ideas and you think they are absolutely true. When you are listening to the other, you are just being polite, otherwise you don't listen. You know what is right, you are simply waiting until this man finishes and then you jump upon him. Yes, there can be a debate and a discussion and argumentation, but there can be no dialogue. Between two beliefs there is no possibility of dialogue. Beliefs destroy friendship, beliefs destroy humanity, beliefs destroy communion.

So if you want to see and hear and listen, then you will have to drop all belief systems. You can't be a Hindu, you can't be a Mohammedan, you can't be a Christian. You can't afford these kinds of nonsense; you have to be sensible enough to be without beliefs.

Caged in one's own system you are unavailable, and the other is unavailable to you. People are moving like windowless houses. Yes, you come close, sometimes you clash with each other - but you never meet. Yes, sometimes you touch, but you never meet. You talk, but you never communicate. Everybody is imprisoned in his own conditionings; everybody is carrying his own prison around him. This has to be dropped.

Beliefs create a kind of smugness, and beliefs stop exploration because one becomes afraid. Maybe you come across something which is against your belief - then what? It will disturb your whole system, so it is better not to explore. Remain confined to a dull, dead, defined world; never go beyond it. It gives you an 'as if' kind of knowledge - as if one knows. You don't know anything - you don't know anything about God, but you have a certain belief about God. You don't know anything about truth but you have a theory about truth. This 'as if' is very dangerous. This is a kind of hypnotised state of the mind.

Males and females, all have been conditioned - although in different ways. Man has been conditioned to be aggressive, to be competitive, to be manipulative, to be egoistic. Man has been prepared for a different kind of work: to be the exploiter, to be the oppressor, and to be the master.

Women have been given belief systems to be the slaves. They have been taught how to submit.

They have been given a very, very small world, the household. Their whole life has been taken away from them. But once the belief system settles in, the woman accepts it and remains confined to it.

And the man accepts his belief system and remains confined to it.

Men have been taught not to cry; tears are not manly so men don't cry. Now what kind of foolishness is this? Crying and weeping sometimes has such a therapeutic effect - it is needed, it is a must, it unburdens. Man goes on burdening himself because he cannot cry and cannot weep; it is-unmanly.

And women have been taught to cry and weep. It is perfectly womanly, so they go on crying and weeping even where it is not needed - it is just a belief system. They use it as a strategy to manipulate. The woman knows that through argument she will not be able to win over the husband, but she can cry - that works. So that becomes her argument.

Man is corrupted in one way: he cannot cry. And the woman is corrupted in another way: she starts crying and uses crying as a strategy to dominate. Crying becomes political - and when your tears are political they lose beauty, they are ugly.

This second conditioning is one of the most difficult things to get rid of, it is very complex. You have a certain political ideology, a certain religious ideology and thousands of other things jumbled together in your mind. They have become so much a part of you that you don't think they are separate from you. When you say 'I am a Hindu,' you don't say that 'I have a belief called Hinduism,' no. You say 'I am a Hindu.' You are identified with Hinduism. If Hinduism is in danger you think you are in danger.

If somebody burns a temple you think you are in danger. Or, if somebody burns the Koran, you think you are in danger because you are a Mohammedan.

These belief systems have to be dropped. Then under-standing arises; then readiness to explore, then innocence arises. Then you are surrounded by a sense of mystery, awe, wonder. Then life is no longer a known thing, it is an adventure. It is so mysterious that you can go on exploring; there is no end to it. And you never create any belief, you remain in a state of not-knowing. On that state Sufis insist very much, and so do Zen Masters - in fact, all great Masters of the world insist on that state. If they agree on any one thing, it is the state of not knowing.

Remain constantly in the state of not-knowing. If you happen to know something, don't make a belief out of it. Go on dropping it, go on throwing it. Don't let it surround you, otherwise sooner or later it will become a hard crust and you will not be available again to life. Remain always childlike - then communication becomes possible, then dialogue becomes possible. When two people who are in a state of not-knowing talk, there is meeting - they commune. There is nothing to hinder. You will be able to understand me only if you are in a state of not-knowing, because I am in that state continuously.

With me, communion is possible if you drop your belief systems, otherwise they will hinder the path.

The third filter, the third layer, is pseudo reasoning, rationalisation, explanations, excuses. All are borrowed. Not a single one is your own authentic experience, but they give a kind of satisfaction.

You think you are a very rational being. You cannot become rational by accumulating borrowed arguments and proofs. The real reason arises only when you are intelligent. And remember, there is a difference between an intellectual and the man whom I call intelligent. The intellectual is hidden behind the pseudo reasoning. His reasoning may be very logical but it can never be reasonable. His reason is just pseudo, it appears like reason.

Listen, I have heard....

The man was drowning. 'Help, I can't swim! I can't swim!' he cried.

'I can't either,' said the old man sitting on the river bank chewing tobacco. 'But I'm not hollerin' about it!'

Now this is perfectly rational, 'Why are you hollerin' about it? You can't swim, neither can I. So keep quiet.'

But you are sitting on the bank and he is in the river; the situation is different, the context is different.

When Buddha says something, you can repeat the same thing but the context is different. When Mohammed says something, you can repeat exactly the same thing. but it will not mean the same thing - because the context is different. And the context matters, not what you say. It is not what you say but who you are that matters.

I have heard....

Donnegan sat in the confessional. 'Father,' he moaned, 'I have done something so bad, you are going to throw me out of the church.'

'What did you do, my son?' asked the priest.

'Yesterday,' said Donnegan, 'I saw my wife sashaying in front of me and it got me so excited I grabbed her, ripped off her clothes, threw her down on the floor, and we had sex right then and there.'

'That is a little unusual,' said the priest, 'but no reason for excommunication.'

'Are you sure you're not going to throw me out of the church?'

'Of course not.'

'Well,' said Donnegan, 'they threw us out of the super-market!'

It all depends on the context - who you are, where you are. It depends from what point of view, from what experience, you utter. I use the same words that you use, but they don't mean the same, they can't mean the same. When I utter them I utter them, when you utter them you utter them. The words are the same but because they come from different spaces they carry a different meaning, a different connotation, different flavours, a different music.

The pseudo reasoning is just apparent reasoning, it is not knowing. It is more for the sake of finding excuses; it is more for the sake of argumentation. In this kind of deceiving, the male mind is very expert. This is the male mind's expertise. He has learned the art very deeply. This filter is very, very strong in the male mind.

Real reasoning arises only when pseudo reasoning has been dropped. What is real reason?

Karl Jaspers has defined it perfectly. He says: Reason is openness, reason is clarity, reason is the will to unity. Reason uses logic, its methods and categories of understanding, just to transcend them. Reason is the ultimate flowering of wisdom.

But not pseudo reasoning. Beware of the pseudo. The pseudo always creates a filter and the real always becomes a door. The real is always a bridge and the pseudo is always a block.

This third, pseudo reasoning layer is one of the greatest disturbances in your being.

The fourth layer is emotionality, sentimentalism. It is pseudo feeling, much ado about nothing, much fuss. The female mind is very expert at this. It is kind of empty; it is just on the surface. It is impotent sympathy; it does not do a thing. If somebody is ill, you sit by their side and you cry. Your crying is not going to help. I he house 1S on tire and you cry. That is not going to help either. This pseudo kind of feeling has to be detected, otherwise you will never know what real feeling is. The real feeling is involvement, commitment. It is empathy not only sympathy. It is action.

Whenever you really feel something in your heart, it immediately transforms you, it becomes action.

That is the criterion - your feeling becomes action. If your feeling just remains a feeling and never becomes an action, then know well it is pseudo. Then you are deceiving yourself or somebody else.

Many times people come to me and they say, 'Osho, we feel much love for you. We understand what you say, but.... ' That 'but' destroys all that they have said before. They say, 'We feel that what you are saying is right, that what you are doing is right, but we cannot become sannyasins.' If you feel that what I am saying is right, if you feel that what I am saying is truth, then how can you avoid becoming sannyasins? It is impossible. Then your feeling would become action, then your feeling would become commitment - otherwise what is the point?

One can never go against one's heart. If you are still going against your own heart then you must have a pseudo heart - a pretender. Just as the third is the field for male expertise, the fourth is the field for female expertise.

The fifth layer is corrupted, poisoned instincts, repression, disfiguration.

Gurdjieff used to say that all your centres are overlapping each other, are misplaced, are interfering with each other, are trespassing, and you don't know what is what. Each centre in its own functioning is beautiful, but when it starts interfering into somebody else's functioning, then there is great difficulty; then the whole system goes neurotic.

For example, if your sex centre functions as a sex centre, it is perfectly good. But people have been repressing it so much that in many people the sex centre does not exist in their genitals, it has moved into their head. This is what overlapping is. Now they make love through their head - hence the great importance of pornography, visualisation. Even while making love to your woman you may be thinking of some beautiful actress - that you are making love to her. Then suddenly you become interested in making love to your woman. In fact, your own woman is non-existential. It is a kind of masturbation. You are not making love to her, you are making love to somebody else who is not there. You go on fantasising in the head.

Religious repression has disturbed all your centres. It is very difficult even to see that your centres are separate. And, func-tioning in its own field, each centre is perfectly right. When it interferes with another field, then problems arise. Then there is a confusion of your totality. Then you don't know what is what.

Sex can be transformed when it is confined to its own centre, it cannot be transformed from the head. It has created a pseudo centre in the head.

I have heard....

From time to time, saints are allowed to visit the earth in disguise. Saint Theresa had long wanted to pay a visit to Hollywood, but Gabriel, who was in charge of the roster, thought that even a saint would not be able to come through unscathed after visiting the movie capital.

Eventually, however, Saint Theresa persuaded him that no harm would come to her, and she set off on the first available earth-bound cloud.

The weeks stretched into months without any word from earth, so one day a very worried Gabriel put through a telephone call to Los Angeles.

The connection was made, the phone rang, and finally a voice said, 'Terry here - who is this?

Gabby-darling! How absolutely marvellous to hear from you.... '

Now Saint Theresa is no longer Saint Theresa - she is Terry. And Gabriel is no longer Gabriel - he is Gabby-darling. Hollywood has corrupted Saint Theresa.

Your so-called saints are only avoiding the world; they are repressed beings. If opportunities are made available to them, they will fall far lower than you. They are just somehow holding themselves back because of the fear of hell and the greed for heaven. But whatsoever you have repressed because of fear or greed remains there. It not only remains there, it becomes unnatural, perverted, moves into deeper realms of your consciousness and unconsciousness. And then it becomes very difficult to uproot it.

Gurdjieff was a Sufi. His whole teaching comes from Sufi Masters. He introduced methods into the Western world of how to demark each centre, and how to allow the centre to function in its own field.

The head should function as far as reason is concerned, that's all.

Have you watched? Sometimes people come to me and they say, 'I think I love you.' I think I love you! Love has nothing to do with thinking. How can you think that you love me? But they don't know how to function from the heart directly, even the heart has to go via the head. They cannot simply say, 'I love you.'

Just the other night a beautiful Italian woman took sannyas. I gave her the name 'Prem Nishanga'.

She was a woman of the heart, something rare. She was so happy she almost started dancing.

There was no need to say anything, her whole body said it. She went into such ecstasy that you can go on saying in a thousand ways, shouting with joy, and it will not be as deep as just by going into ecstasy. I don't know what she was saying because she was saying it in Italian, but her face, her eyes, her hands, her whole body was saying it. There was no need to understand her language; the language was irrelevant. When you say from the heart, no language is needed. When you say from the head, only language can say; there is no other way to say it.

Watch and observe. Let the head function as reason, let the heart function as feeling, let the sex centre function as sex. Let everything function in its own way. Don't allow mechanisms to mix into each other, otherwise you will have corrupted instincts.

When instinct is natural, untabooed, spontaneous, without any inhibition, there is a clarity in your body, a harmony in your body. There is a humming sound in your organism.

The fifth layer is also male expertise.

The sixth layer is corrupted intuition.

There is a phenomenon called intuition of which we have become almost unaware. We don't know that anything like intuition exists - because intuition is the sixth layer. Those five layers are so thick that one never comes to feel the sixth.

Intuition is a totally different kind of phenomenon from reason. Reason argues; reason uses a process to reach a conclusion. Intuition jumps - it is a quantum leap. It knows no process. It simply reaches to the conclusion without any process.

There have been many mathematicians who could do any kind of mathematical problem without going into its process. Their functioning was intuitive. You just say the problem and before you have even said it, the conclusion will come. There has not been a time-gap at all. You were saying it, and the moment you finished, or even before you finished, the conclusion has come. Mathematicians have always been puzzled by these freak phenomena. These people - how do they do it? If a mathematician were going to do this problem it might take three hours or two hours or one hour.

Even a computer will take at least a few minutes to do it, but these people don't take a single moment. You say it, and instantly....

So in mathematics, intuition is now a recognised fact. When reason fails, only intuition can work.

And all the great scientists have become aware of it: that all their great discoveries are made not by reason but by intuition.

Madame Curie was working for three years upon a certain problem and was trying to solve it from many directions. Every direction failed. One night, utterly exhausted, she went to sleep, and she decided.... The incident is almost like Buddha. That night she decided, 'Now it is enough. I have wasted three years. It seems to be a futile search. I have to drop it.' That night she dropped it, and went to sleep.

In the night she got up in her sleep, she went to her table and wrote the answer. Then she went back, and fell into sleep. In the morning she could not even remember, but the answer was there on the table. And there was nobody in the room, and even if there had been somebody, the answer would not have been possible. She had been working for three years - one of the greatest minds of this age. But there was nobody and the answer was there. Then she looked more minutely: it was her handwriting! Then suddenly the dream surfaced. She remembered it as if she had seen a dream in the night in which she was sitting at the table and writing something. Then by and by everything surfaced. She had come to the conclusion from some other door which was not reason.

It was intuition.

Buddha struggled for six years to attain samadhi, but could not. One day he dropped the whole idea of attaining. He rested under a tree and by the morning it had happened. When he opened his eyes he was in samadhi.

But first the reason had to be exhausted. Intuition functions only when reason is exhausted. Intuition has no process; it simply jumps from the problem to the conclusion. It is a shortcut. It is a flash.

We have corrupted intuition. Man's intuition is almost absolutely corrupted. Woman's intuition is not corrupted as much - that's why women have something called a 'hunch'. A hunch is just a fragment of intuition. It cannot be proved. You are going to take a flight and your woman simply says that she is not going and she will not allow you to go either. She feels as if something is going to happen.

Now this is nonsense. You have much work to do, everything is planned, and you have to go - but your woman won't allow it. And the next day you read in the newspapers that the aeroplane was hijacked, or it crashed and all the passengers died.

Now the woman cannot say how she knows. There is no way. It is just a hunch, just a feeling in the guts. But that too is very corrupted, that's why it is just a flash. When all the five other layers have disappeared and you have dropped fixed ideas - because you have been taught that reason is the only door to reach to any conclusion - when you have dropped this fixation, this reason fixation, intuition starts flowering. Then it is not just like a flash, it is a constantly available source. You can close your eyes and you can go into it and always you can get the right direction from it.

That's what Fischer-Hoffman people think of as the guide. If the process really goes in.... It is very difficult, because those five layers have to be crossed first. And I don't think many people are capable of it, even those who are in Fisher-Hoffman therapy. But the idea is perfectly right - if those five layers are broken then something arises in you which can be called the guide. You can always go into your intuition energy and you will always find the right advice. In the East that is what they have called the inner guru, your inner Master. Once your intuition has started functioning, you need not go and ask any outer guru for any advice.

Intuition is to be in tune with oneself, totally in tune with oneself. And out of that tuning, solutions arise from nowhere.

And the seventh and the last layer of falsity is the pseudo self, the ego; the notions of being unique, special, exceptional; the notions of doing one's own thing... and you don't know who you are, you don't know what your thing is.

Notions of the ego go on corrupting you. Then you cannot listen to the truth. And this becomes a problem every day.

Just the other day I was talking about Hannah. Rather than understanding what I said, rather than understanding, rather than feeling my compassion - because why else should I say it? - she immediately went to the office and cancelled the darshan appointment which she had. She became very angry. Now I was talking about her ego, but rather than seeing it, she acted out of it again. She missed the point again.

And the other day I was also talking about Prageet. He was better than Hannah. He asked for an appointment, he took it more rightly. Of course he was very much shaken; it was hard to digest, hard to swallow. But he tried his best to see the point of it. He made every effort that he could.

Or, for example, I go on hammering on Chinmaya, again and again. I never hammer anybody else as much as I hammer Chinmaya, but he takes it absolutely rightly, in the exact way as it should be taken. And each hammering has become a growth in him; each hammering has helped him - he is moving.

Hannah got stopped there. She may lose contact with me.

This is the last layer: a very subtle pseudo sense of self.

When these seven are broken, you come to the state of BAKA, real individuality, And when you have real individuality then there is a possibility of having a real non being. From real individuality, BAKA, YOU can have the jump into FANA. Then you can offer yourself to God. This is the whole process.

Now this beautiful dialogue between a Master and his disciple. Now you will be able to understand.

THE SUFI MASTER, AJNABI, SAID, 'WRITE TO MULLA FIROZ AND TELL HIM THAT I HAVE NO TIME TO ENGAGE HIM IN CORRESPONDENCE, AND THEREFORE HAVE NOTHING TO SAY TO HIS LETTER.'

Mulla Firoz must have been a very learned man of those days. 'Mulla' means a pundit, a scholar, a learned man. He must have been offended and annoyed by Ajnabi's assertions. Masters are there to shock. And when there is a man of knowing, the greatest shock is to those who think they know and don't know. The knowledgeable man immediately feels offended, because the man of knowing has his own source of knowing. He talks from there. And the man of knowledge looks into the scripture. He has no source to check upon, he has no authentic experience of his own. He lives in pseudo reason, pseudo ego, argumentation, verbal knowledge, belief systems and all that.

THE SUFI MASTER, AJNABI, SAID, 'WRITE TO MULLA FIROZ AND TELL HIM THAT I HAVE NO TIME TO ENGAGE HIM IN CORRESPONDENCE, AND THEREFORE HAVE NOTHING TO SAY TO HIS LETTER.'

THE DISCIPLE, AMINI, SAID, 'IS IT YOUR INTENTION TO ANNOY HIM WITH THIS LETTER?'

That is the intention always of all the Masters: to annoy you, because only if you are annoyed can you be changed. If you are annoyed then there is a possibility, then you start moving.

AJNABI SAID, 'HE HAS BEEN ANNOYED BY SOME OF MY WRITINGS. THIS ANNOYANCE HAS CAUSED HIM TO WRITE TO ME. MY PURPOSE IN WRITING THE PASSAGE WHICH ANGERS HIM WAS TO ANGER SUCH AS HE.'

That was his purpose and it was fulfilled. He wanted to anger people such as Mulla - the knowledgeable people.

AMINI SAID, 'AND THIS LETTER WILL ANGER HIM FURTHER?'

AJNABI SAID, 'YES. WHEN HE WAS ENRAGED AT WHAT I WROTE, HE DID NOT OBSERVE HIS OWN ANGER, WHICH WAS MY INTENTION. HE THOUGHT THAT HE WAS OBSERVING ME, WHEREAS HE WAS ONLY FEELING ANGRY. NOW I WRITE AGAIN, TO AROUSE ANGER, SO THAT HE WILL SEE THAT HE IS ANGRY. THE OBJECTIVE IS FOR THE MAN TO REALISE THAT MY WORK IS A MIRROR IN WHICH HE SEES HIMSELF.'

This you have to keep in your mind constantly, because this Is happening here every day. If I say something, never be bothered about me. don't think why I have said this, rather, on the contrary, just look inside yourself at what it has done to you. I said something about Hannah. Now there are two possibilities. She can think, 'This man is wrong, he is offending me, he is insulting me, humiliating me, degrading me' - something like that. Then she has missed the point. But if she starts watching and observing, 'Why am I angered? Why is there this annoyance in me? Why am I disturbed?' then she is on the right track. Then she will come closer to me than she ever was before.

Always remember this. What I say, how I say it, why I say it - there is no way for you to decide.

There is no way for you even to understand. All that you can do in your situation right now is see what happens to you. If I slap your face, don't be worried why I slapped you - whether I am an angry man or an aggressive man or violent - don't be worried about that. Just close your eyes, and go into meditation and see why you are feeling offended. Why? Watch your mind. That is going to help.

That's why I don't want mediocre people here who have just come out of curiosity to listen to me. This is not a school; nothing is being taught here. This is just an alchemical-lab; something is happening here. It is a process of transformation. If you remember this you will be benefitted immensely.

'YES, WHEN HE WAS ENRAGED AT WHAT I WROTE, HE DID NOT OBSERVE HIS OWN ANGER, WHICH WAS MY INTENTION. HE THOUGHT THAT HE WAS OBSERVING ME, WHEREAS HE WAS ONLY FEELING ANGRY. NOW I WRITE AGAIN, TO AROUSE HIS ANGER...'

The Master is saying, 'Out of compassion I will give him another opportunity.'

... SO THAT HE WILL SEE THAT HE IS ANGRY. THE OBJECTIVE IS FOR THE MAN TO REALISE THAT MY WORK IS A MIRROR IN WHICH HE SEES HIMSELF.'

That's what a Master is: a mirror in which you see yourself. If sometimes you see that your face is ugly, don't try to destroy the mirror - change your face. By destroying the mirror you will not become beautiful; by escaping from the mirror you will not become beautiful.

Yesterday, the whole day, continuously, Prageet thought about escaping: 'How to escape from here?'

But again and again he remembered that he had not to escape, he had to face it. Again and again he remembered and cooled down, and again and again the idea was there pulling him to escape from here. That is natural, it is understandable. But if you can remember for even a few single moments and you can remain with me and can go on facing the mirror, sooner or later you will have to change.

There are only two possibilities: either escape from the mirror - then you will never see your face and you can believe that you are beautiful - or go on facing the mirror, go on seeing your ugliness.

And all kinds of methods and processes are being made available to you so that you can change your face.

Just a few days before there was a man who took sannyas. He said he was a beautician. I told him, 'I am also a beautician. I do the same work. I change people's faces - not the faces that you can see from the outside but the faces, the original faces, that are hidden deep behind all kinds of facades, all kinds of layers.'

AMINI SAID, 'THE PEOPLE OF THE ORDINARY WORLD ALWAYS REGARD THOSE WHO CAUSE ANGER AS ILL-INTENTIONED.'

That's what Hannah thought. That's what for a few moments even Prageet thought. That's what Chinmaya used to think in the beginning. But now he has crossed that point. I have been hammering him so much - how long can you go on thinking? One day or other one has to become aware that something is wrong somewhere inside oneself, and that it has to be dropped.

AJNABI SAID, 'THE CHILD MAY REGARD THE ADULT WHO TRIES TO REMOVE A THORN FROM HIS HAND AS ILL-INTENTIONED. IS THAT A JUSTIFICATION FOR TRYING TO PREVENT THE CHILD FROM GROWING UP?'

AMINI SAID, 'AND IF THE CHILD HARBOURS A GRUDGE AGAINST THE ADULT WHO REMOVES THE THORN?'

AJNABI SAID, 'THE CHILD DOES NOT REALLY HARBOUR THAT GRUDGE, BECAUSE SOMETHING IN HIM KNOWS THE TRUTH.'

This is of immense value, this statement. Yes, something in you always knows the truth. Something in Hannah knows the truth. It is impossible not to know the truth. Maybe it is not very clear, it is hazy - but something in you always knows the truth... that it is because of compassion, because of love, that you have been hammered upon. Otherwise there is no need.

AMINI ASKED HIM, 'BUT WHAT HAPPENS IF HE NEVER GETS TO KNOW HIMSELF, AND YET CONTINUES TO IMAGINE THAT OTHERS ARE MOTIVATED BY PERSONAL FEELINGS?'

AJNABI SAID, 'IF HE NEVER GETS TO KNOW HIMSELF, IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE AS TO WHAT HE THINKS OF OTHER PEOPLE, BECAUSE HE CAN NEVER HAVE ANY APPRECIATION OF WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE REALLY LIKE.'

AMINI ASKED, 'IS IT NOT POSSIBLE, INSTEAD OF AROUSING ANGER A SECOND TIME, TO EXPLAIN THAT THE ORIGINAL WRITING WAS COMPOSED FOR THIS PURPOSE, AND TO INVITE MULLA TO REVIEW HIS PREVIOUS FEELINGS?'

A very reasonable standpoint of the disciple, but remember that sometimes reasonable things are not very useful. They don't work. You will agree with the disciple, with what he is saying. This seems to be very, very reasonable - 'What is the point of angering him, annoying him twice? Will it not be better to explain to him why in the first place you said things to annoy him? Would it not be better to explain?'

AJNABI SAID, 'IT IS POSSIBLE TO DO THIS, BUT IT WILL HAVE NO EFFECT.'

A Master is not interested in being polite, in following the rules of etiquette, manners, etcetera. A master is interested only in creating an effect, in creating an action, in creating a response. Yes, he could explain to the Mulla what had hap-pened. That may satisfy him, that may cool him down. His anger may disappear, he may no longer feel annoyed - but that is not the point. That is not going to create the effect that the Master wants. The Master wants the Mulla to see that he is only a man of knowledge, not yet a man of knowing; that he was not wise. Explanation will make the Mulla more knowledgeable. He will have one more explanation. That is not going to shatter his ego.

'IT IS POSSIBLE TO DO THIS, BUT IT WILL HAVE NO EFFECT. RATHER IT WILL HAVE AN ADVERSE EFFECT. IF YOU TELL THE MAN YOUR REASON HE WILL IMAGINE THAT YOU ARE EXCUSING YOURSELF, AND THIS WILL AROUSE IN HIM SENTIMENTS WHICH ARE HARMFUL ONLY TO HIM. THUS, BY EXPLAINING YOU ARE ACTUALLY ACTING TO HIS DETRIMENT.'

AMINI SAID, 'ARE THERE NO EXCEPTIONS TO THIS RULE - THAT MAN MUST LEARN THROUGH REALISING HIS OWN STATE, AND THAT HIS STATE CANNOT BE EXPLAINED TO HIM?'

AJNABI SAID, 'THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS. BUT IF THERE WERE ENOUGH EXCEPTIONS TO MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO THE WORLD, WE WOULD NOT BY NOW HAVE ANY MULLA FIROZES LEFT.'

There are not many. There are some exceptions but there are not many - that's why they are exceptions. They are few and far between. They can be counted out; they need not be reckoned.

A Master has to function in such a way that the rule is fulfilled, not the exception - because ninety- nine point nine per cent of people follow the rule. Sometimes there is a rare person but that rare person need not have any help from anybody; he will come to his realisation sooner or later. It may be only a question of time. That exceptional intelligence need not be worried about. The Master has to function in such a way that the common mind, the normal mind, the usual mind, the non-exceptional mind, starts moving and changing.

This small discussion between the Master and the disciple is of immense significance for you. That's why I have chosen it. Remember those seven layers of the onion. Unless you drop them you cannot see things as they are, you cannot see that which is. And from your very childhood you have been corrupted. Your whole life up to now has been a life of poisoning, and only you can drop it. I can show you the way but I cannot take it away from you. If I start taking it away you will snatch it and escape, you will think that you are being robbed. I can only show you the way. You have to follow it.

Meditate over this small dialogue. It is especially for you.