Transcending the Transcendental

The East has respected the Master tremendously. The West is absolutely unaware of the phenomenon of the Masters. It knows the teachers, it is perfectly aware about the teachers, but not about the Masters. Even people write about jesus as a great teacher - western scholars write about Buddha as a great teacher - not knowing the difference. The difference is immense; the difference is so immense that it is unbridgeable. The Master is a totally different world.

The teacher is part of the ordinary, day-to-day existence. He knows more than you know: the difference is of quantity, not of quality. You can know more by just a little more effort. The teacher is just a little ahead of you as far as learning, knowledge, information, is concerned, but his being is the same as yours.

The Master may not know more than you, he may not know even that much as you know, but he IS more - he has more being. The difference is of quality: he exists on a different plane. He has entered a totally different dimension of which you are completely oblivious. He knows only one thing, that is his own inner being. And that knowing cannot be called knowledge for the simple reason because knowledge needs three things: the knower, the known and between the two exists the knowledge. The relationship between knower and the known: that is knowledge. But when you know yourself; the knower is the known, the knower is the knowledge; there is no distinction at all.

There is no subject and no object. There is unity, not division.

The Master is one who has become united in the fundamental sense of ultimate consciousness.

He is simply conscious. This consciousness gives him a totally different world view; with this consciousness everything else changes. He sees things in a new light, his eyes are unclouded.

He has clarity, he is transparent, he is a pure mirror, crystal clear - not even a thought moves in his consciousness. Hence there is no more any veil, no more any obstruction.

The teacher is so full of thoughts that he is just the opposite end of the Master. Never call Buddha a teacher or Jesus a teacher or Lao Tzu a teacher - they are Masters. Moreover, they don't teach at all - why call them teachers? They don't impart any new knowledge to the world. Albert Einstein can be called a great teacher, Newton can be called a great teacher. Darwin can be called a great teacher, Marx, Freud - these people can be called great teachers: they have taught many things.

What Lao Tzu has taught? What Buddha has taught? What Zarathustra has taught? Nothing at all!

But they have imparted a new vision, a new style of life. They have touched people's heart, and they have transformed those hearts. They don't give you information, they give you transformation. What they say is not important, what they are is important. What they say is only a device; their silence is important.

If you want to understand Buddha, Lao Tzu, Ko Hsuan, Kabir, Nanak, you will have to learn how to read between the lines. You will have to learn how to understand silence and the music of silence.

You will have to be silent. It is a totally different kind of learning - in fact, it is un learning. Whatsoever you know you will have to drop. You will have to drop all your beliefs, ideologies, philosophies. All that has been given to you by your teachers from the kg to the university level, you will have to get rid of it, you will have to transcend it. You will have to transcend all your teachers, only then you will be able to understand a Master. A Master is against all teachers.

The East has not respected teachers; its total respect goes to the Masters. The teachers are utilitarian; they are experts. If something goes wrong in your bathroom you call the plumber. He knows more than you as far as plumbing is concerned, but that is no reason to pay him great respect and call him "venerable". Something goes wrong with your body, you call the doctor. He is another kind of plumber: he fixes your body. If you want to learn mathematics you go to a teacher.

You go to a Master only when you are tired of all this utilitarian existence. When you have come to see that there is something more, when you have felt a deep urge, a great longing, to know that which is non-utilitarian, which has intrinsic value, which can neither be sold nor purchased, which has no price but immense value, when you have come to feel the existence of the mysterious, of the miraculous, then only you are capable of contacting a Master.

In fact, the ancient Egyptian scriptures say: When the disciple is ready the Master appears himself.

And when the disciple is ready? When he is tired of the utilitarian world. In the world everything has a utility; but God has no utility, truth has no utility, love has no utility, bliss has no utility, beauty has no utility. What is the utility of a rose Flower? An atom bomb has utility, a sword has utility. What is the utility of a beautiful sunset? There is no utility in it. Only when you start feeling the longing for the non-utilitarian you are capable of being with a Master; otherwise you will go on moving from one teacher to another teacher.

To be with a Master needs tremendous preparation. And the greatest thing required is the longing for the unknown, the longing for that which is not of this world. The longing seems to be almost mad to those who are concerned with money, power, prestige. They will think you have gone crazy if you become interested in meditation, if you become interested in silence. if you become interested in a Master. But the East has paid tremendous respect to the Masters.

Ko Hsuan starts each sutra with these beautiful words:

THE VENERABLE MASTER SAID...

He does not mention the name of the Master. In fact, names are of no use as far as a Master is concerned because a single Master represents all the Masters of the past, of the present, and of the future, too, because the taste of a Master is the same. Whether you come close to a Buddha or to a Mahavira or to a Moses or to Mohammed, it makes no difference. You will have the same taste, the same ecstasy, the same perfume. The same joy will pervade you; the same dance will start happening in your heart.

Buddha has said again and again that you can taste the sea from anywhere: you will always find it salty. So are the Masters - names are irrelevant.

Ko Hsuan does not mention the name of the Master - names are utilitarian. A Master represents the ultimate, the nameless. He is the spokesman of the nameless experience - let him also be nameless. That is his message.

THE VENERABLE MASTER SAID...

Remember few things before we enter into the sutra. Why the East respects the Master and not the teacher? Why the Master and not the scholar? Why the Master and not the pundit? Because the East has known that the pundit is only a parrot: he repeats what others have known; he has not experienced it himself. And because he has not experienced it himself it has no validity. He may be able to argue well, he may be able to convince you, he may be able to masquerade many proofs for what he is saying, but still what he is saying is borrowed; it has no roots in his own being. He is only talking to you from his memory, not from his consciousness.

And truth is not in the scriptures. Truth is your very center of being, it is your essential core. You can become very clever with words - it is not difficult either - but those words are impotent, those words are empty, those words really don't have any meaning. Meaning comes through experience.

When Jesus says something it has meaning. You can repeat the same words; it cannot have the same meaning because your experience is not of that level, of that plane. You will put your own meaning into it, you will pour your own experience into it. You will use Jesus' words as containers, but the content will be yours. The bottle will be Jesus', but the wine will be yours.

And what have you got? You know nothing of importance. All that you know is simply rubbish - maybe useful in the world, maybe even necessarily needed in the world for a livelihood, but you don't know what life is. You know how to earn money and you know only how to waste life.

There was an old professor of Darjeeling Who traveled from London to Ealing.

It said on the door, "Please don't spit on the floor,"

So he carefully spat on the ceiling.

"That philosopher really suffers for his beliefs," said Mulla Nasruddin one day to me.

"Why, what does he believe?" I asked him.

"That he can wear a size 8 shoe on a size 11 foot!"

All your beliefs are like that. You are wearing clothes which were perfectly good for a Buddha but are not good for you. You are wearing shoes which were perfectly good for Lao Tzu but are not good for you. You are living in houses made by others for a totally different purpose, which is not your purpose. Your whole life is a long, long misery for the simple reason that if you have a size 11 foot and you are wearing size 8 shoes, whatsoever you believe, your belief is not going to help; it will create misery for you.

Look at people's lives - no joy, no song, no celebration. And these are Christians: they believe in Christ. And these are Hindus: they believe in Krishna. And these are Buddhists: they believe in Buddha. Something very fundamental has gone wrong. They may say they believe in Buddha, but only the words can be of Buddha. Who is going to put the meaning in those words? You will put your own meaning - and unless your experience changes, your meaning is going to remain very ordinary.

A man and his son are driving in a taxi with a great scholar in Paris near Place de la Madeleine.

They pass through a street full of prostitutes standing on the sidewalk. The taxi is almost stopped by the traffic.

"Daddy, Daddy, what are all these women doing standing there?"

"Well... hmm... these women must he waiting for their husbands. You see, it is six o'clock and offices are closing."

"Don't listen to your father! These are whores!" says the scholar who is a great believer of straight- forwardness with children.

"Daddy, what are whores?"

"Well,... hmm... you see... it means they have more than one husband."

"You mean like movie actresses?"

"Yes, but more - lots, hundreds, thousands of husbands!"

"Gee! But all these thousands husbands... then they must have lots of children too!"

"It is quite rare, but it happens, of course."

"And these children, Daddy, what do they become?"

"They become... scholars!"

The East has never paid any respect to the scholars. They are intellectual laborers, they are not real intelligentsia - the West has always misunderstood them for real intelligentsia. They are intellectuals, but they are not intelligent people. Sometimes you will find the so-called intellectuals more stupid than the farmers and the gardeners and the fishermen, for the simple reason because the farmers and the gardeners and the fishermen and the carpenters, they live close to nature, to life, to existence. They have a far truer experience, far closer, intimate contact with reality than your so-called professors, pundits and scholars. They live surrounded with words - big words, bombastic words - but they live in prisons of words. You can be very easily deceived by them because they talk in the same way as the Masters. They are pseudo, they are pretenders. Beware of it and beware of their stupidity.

An Englishman is walking up a mountain when he sees a famous professor of philosophy passing in a car, driving backwards up the hill.

"Hey, professor!" the surprised Englishman calls out. "What are you doing?"

"Well," the professor answers, "I have to deliver a package up the mountain and I was told it was impossible to turn around up there."

After this both continued their trip up the hill. Fifteen minutes later the Englishman sees the car coming down the hill backwards again.

"Hey, professor, stop!" he says, "What is the matter?"

"Oh!" the professor replies smiling. "I was wrong - I could turn anyway!"

The Master is one who lives the truth. Not that he knows about it, not that he has heard about it, not that he philosophizes about it, but he lives it, he knows it - he has become truth itself. His being is his teaching; everything else is just a device to bring awakening to the sleeping ones. If he uses words it is not to convey the truth, he uses words like alarm clocks to wake you. The teacher uses the words to convey truth. And truth can never be conveyed by words. The Master also uses the words, but never to convey the truth. He knows perfectly well truth cannot be conveyed; it is untransferable. It cannot be communicated by any means, but YOU can be awakened to it.

The real thing is not to tell you the truth; the real thing is to make you aware. The moment you are aware you know the truth because truth is already within you. It is not something that comes from the outside; it is something that is asleep within you and has to be awakened.

The Master uses words and because he uses words, scholars go on repeating the same words for centuries, thinking that they are important words, very important words. They must be containing truth because Buddha used them, Ko Hsuan used them, Bodhidharma used them, Rinzai used them, Bahauddin used them. Such great Masters have used them - those words must contain something of immense value. They contain nothing. They were used for a totally different purpose.

The purpose was to awaken the sleeping ones.

Brigitte Bardot was given a parrot as a gift and she put it in her bedroom. Every night she would bring a new lover to her bed and from his cage the parrot would encourage all her love-making with words like, "Go on! Go on! You are coming!"

After a few days Brigitte Bardot got rather annoyed with him and when one morning, while she was walking around naked, the parrot shouted, "Come here, beloved, I want to make love to you!" she got infuriated and beat the parrot up.

While smoothing his feathers the parrot sadly said, "But you did not treat the other cocks like this!"

The pundit is a parrot. He thinks Buddha influenced millions of people by these words, Krishna transformed thousands of people by these words, Bhagavad Gita, and Mohammed has inspired thousands of souls for centuries by Koran and the words that it contains - these words must be of great potential. So he goes on repeating those words. But those words contain nothing. He is simply imitating a device not knowing the exact purpose of it.

A corporal is instructing his platoon. He calls a newly-arrived soldier and asks him, "You, Gino! What is the flag for you?"

"The flag," answers the soldier, "is a piece of cloth of different colors."

"What! What are you saying? You idiot! The flag is everything. The flag is your mother, remember, your mother!"

Then he turns to the next soldier and asks, "Tell me what is a flag?"

"Gino's mother," replies the soldier.

Beware of the scholars; they are the most stupid people around. But they talk beautifully, and if you are not alert you can be very easily deceived by them. They recite Koran, they recite Bhagavad Gita, they quote the Vedas, the Upanishads, they comment and they interpret, and in a very logical way, in a convincing way - it will appeal to your mind. But, in fact, Buddha never wanted to appeal to your mind, neither Krishna wanted to appeal to your mind. They wanted to help you to go beyond the mind. They were not to convince your mind, because if you are convinced about a certain idea you will remain IN the mind. They were trying to unhinge you from the mind.

Can you see the totally different purpose? The purpose of a Master is to push you beyond the boundaries of the mind, and the purpose of the scholar is to convince you intellectually about the rightness, about the validity of a certain ideology, philosophy. He makes your mind more strengthened, he gives you more mind. The Master takes away your mind, the Master destroys your mind. The teacher nourishes your mind. So many times the teacher will look more appealing to you, more convincing to you.

You can miss the Master very easily because he will seem a dangerous person to be around. A teacher seems to be very fulfilling; he enhances your ego. It is not accidental that the West has respected the teacher because the West has believed for thousands of years that the ego has to be strengthened, that a strong ego is needed; without a strong ego a man has no personality. It is true:

without a strong ego a man has no personality; but ego is false, so is personality.

The word "personality" comes from a Greek word PERSONA; PERSONA means a mask. In ancient days Greek actors used masks. Those PERSONAS, masks, we are all carrying. A strong ego certainly gives you a strong personality in the original sense of the word, but the personality is not individuality and the ego is not your soul - just the contrary.

The Master destroys your personality so that your individuality can be discovered. He dismantles your personality, he takes away all your masks, so that you can know your original face. His work is difficult and only very courageous people can be with him because it is surgical. Your mask has become almost part of your existence; to take it away now needs surgery. It is not easy to take it away, it is painful. Only a Master is needed to take it away. Slowly slowly, chunk by chunk, he goes on taking away your mask. Finally, when the mask has completely disappeared, you discover your reality, your original face.

The teacher gives you to think much; the Master only gives you a meditativeness. The teacher gives you much to dream about, to desire about; the Master hammers on all your dreams and destroys them. The Master is against your sleep; the teacher is a sedative, a tranquilizer. The Master is not a solace, is not a consolation, is not a tranquilizer. The Master hurts, wounds, but he transforms.

A man finds himself in purgatory. The angel-in-charge welcomes him in.

"Not your turn today," says the angel. "You still have more time to pass on earth. Come with me."

The angel takes him to a huge room full of small bottles full of oil. "These show how much life you have left," says the angel. His bottle is almost empty.

"Can I see my wife's and children's bottles?" he asks.

"Sure," says the angel, pointing to the three bottles next to his. The man cannot believe his eyes. For the children, the quantity seems normal, but his wife seems to have an extraordinary large quantity in her bottle.

Left alone and thinking, as the angel is working with newcomers, he delicately sticks his finger in his wife's bottle, takes a little oil and puts it in his own one. He keeps on doing this until the two bottles are more or less even. He wants to go on, but is suddenly awakened by a big slap and his wife's voice saying, "You dirty old man, always wandering fingers, even when I sleep!"

Man is deep asleep, dreaming, desiring, of hell, of heaven, of thousand-and-one things. The function of the Master is to hit you so hard that you cannot avoid waking up.

Ko Hsuan says:

THE VENERABLE MASTER SAID:

WHEN HE HAS CLEARLY THOUGHT ABOUT THESE THREE HE PERCEIVES ONLY A VOID, BUT WHEN HE CONTEMPLATES THE VOID, HE REALIZES THAT THE VOID IS ALSO VOID AND HAS BECOME NOTHINGNESS.

This is a very significant sutra, but first few words have to be put right. The translation is done by a scholar and that too by a western scholar. He says:

WHEN HE HAS CLEARLY THOUGHT...

Now the original cannot mean that he has "clearly thought", because clarity and thought cannot exist together. That's impossible; their coexistence is impossible. If there is clarity there is no thought; if there is thinking there is no clarity. It is like saying, "The sky was full of clouds and very clear. The sky was full of clouds and it was very sunny." It is impossible. Either it is sunny and the sky is clear, then there are no clouds... If there are clouds, and many clouds, then the sun will be hiding behind the clouds and there can be no clear sky. You cannot see the sky because of the clouds.

Clarity is a byproduct of meditativeness, not of thought. But this is what is going to happen when scholars do these things. In their own way they are doing a great service, without knowing real differences. And one cannot expect that they will be able to know - they have not experienced clarity. They have thought about it, but to think about clarity is one thing; to know clarity is a totally different thing.

I know clarity, but in clarity there is no thought at all. And I have known thoughts: when there are thoughts there is no clarity. Hence, read this sentence in a little different way:

WHEN HE HAS CLEARLY meditated THESE THREE things HE PERCEIVES ONLY A VOID...

In the last sutra we talk-d about the three things: sexuality... In India it is called KAMMA; it is the source of all desires. Remember it: sexuality is not only the source of sex, it is the source of ALL desires. Hence you can change your desires, you can forget about sex completely, but if desires persist it is still sexuality. And you can watch it...

There are people who are obsessed with money. You can see one thing: they are no more interested in sex; their whole interest has moved into money. But now money has become their sex object.

When they touch money they touch as if they are touching their beloved. I have seen people touching hundred-rupee notes with such tenderness - unbelievable.

I used to know one person whose only joy was money, even somebody else's money. Just if you are interested in beautiful women it does not matter whose wife it is. If a beautiful woman passes by you become immediately interested; a great desire arises in you. Civilization prevents you; the police is there, the law is there, so you don't do anything, you don't act - that is one thing - but the thought starts fantasizing. The mind starts spinning, weaving dreams.

The same was true about this man. He was a relative of mine. Somebody else's money... if he will see that you have many notes in your pocket he will just take the money out, will count it, with such tenderness - and it is not his money either! He will give it back to you, but when he will give you can see the sadness arising in his eyes, you can see the unwillingness.

He was always asking for money, and he had enough money. He was always borrowing money from others.

I used to ask him, "You have money - why you go on borrowing?"

And slowly slowly he became very honest with me and he said, "I cannot use my own money in any way. It hurts to bring the money out of my own pocket - it hurts. I feel almost paralyzed! I can borrow it from somebody?"

And he never used to give back. He was well known all over the city, that once he takes money from you he will never give back - he cannot. Everybody used to feel pity for him. He had ten bungalows, but he himself used to live in a very small room, in one of his bungalows' servant quarters. He could have afforded a beautiful car, but he used to move on a bicycle so ancient and old that I have never seen anything older than that bicycle.

And I told him, "At least you can purchase a new bicycle!"

He said, "But this bicycle has served me for so long. Moreover, it is a gift from my father. Now my father is dead and this reminds me of my father always. And one thing is very good about this bicycle - nobody else can ride on it!"

It was really difficult to ride on it; only he was expert on riding on it. It had only the very absolutely essential things in it - no chain cover, no mudguards, no horn, nothing, no brakes - and it used to make noise at least from half a mile away. And he will put it anywhere. He said, "Nobody ever steals it. Who will steal it?" - the whole city knew whose bicycle it is - "You will be caught immediately.

And wherever you will move the whole neighborhood will know that whose bicycle it is."

He will go into the movie house, but he will not put the bicycle on the stand because there you have to pay ten paise or twenty paise or something. He will put it anywhere outside the movie house and he will always find his bicycle in its place, he never lost it. To the very last day of his life he was using his bicycle.

He lived a poor man's life, a very poor man's life - the life of a beggar. And he collected so much money... He had no son, no daughter.

It almost always happens that miserly people don't have children; there must be some psychological reason in it. In India the very miserly people have always to adopt children - rich people they are.

Poor people have many children, too many, in fact; they need birth control And the rich people, the very rich, the miserly people, don't have children. They are so miserly that something deep happens even to their chemistry. Their whole sexuality becomes obsessed with money.

Hence, remember, the first poison Ko Hsuan calls sexuality. It does not mean only sex, it means all desires.

A Scotsman arrives at the toll gate of a bridge, gives a penny to the attendant, and walks on.

"Hey, young man!" shouts the attendant. "The toll is two pennies!"

"I know, I know," replies the young man in a tired voice, "but I will only go half way and then I will jump!"

Coroner: "What were your husband's last words, Mrs. Boccafucci?"

Mrs. Boccafucci: "Emilio said, 'I don't see how they can make a profit on this chianti at a dollar a gallon.'"

Last words! Last words are always very important; they are the essence of your whole life. There are people who even at the very end of their life are thinking of money.

When God created Switzerland he asked a Swiss, "What do you want?"

Without hesitation the Swiss replied, "I want a lot of milk!"

And so it was.

After a few days god, curious, asked the Swiss, "Is your milk good?"

The best, my Lord," replied the Swiss. "Try some!"

God tasted it and found it really good. then he asked the Swiss, "Do you want something else?"

Again, without hesitation, the Swiss replied, "Yes, my Lord. Four francs for the milk you drank!"

Even if you come across God, if you are obsessed with money you won't see God at all; you will do the thing that you have been doing your whole life. You will not change just by seeing God - nothing can change you unless you drop the poison yourself. And this happens only when a person becomes really meditative, when all thoughts disappear and he has a clarity to see, when he becomes a seer.

The first poison is sexuality. And when you are thinking in terms of sexuality, whatsoever form your sexuality has taken - it may have become money obsession, it may have become power obsession, it does not matter - when you are thinking in terms of sexuality, everything deep inside you becomes sexual. Your whole life functions as a transforming mechanism for everything, to create more and more sexuality. Whatsoever you see, you see your own sexuality projected - you can't see anything else. You lose all clarity. You become surrounded by your own inner poison; it goes on rising like smoke around you and you can see only through the smoke, and the smoke distorts everything that you see.

A black private and a white sergeant were getting ready to go on leave, when, at the last minute, orders came that the private's leave was canceled. The black man said to the white, "Sergeant, would you please tell my girlfriend what happened so she won't think I ran off with another lady?

She will believe you because you are my sergeant."

The sergeant agreed and took the address. When he arrived in town he looked up the house number and it turned out to be a whorehouse in the red light district of town. He went up to the house and knocked on the door.

A large, black madam opened the door. She looked at the sergeant and said, "I am awfully sorry, sergeant, but we do not serve white men here, only black men."

The sergeant answered, "You don't understand, madam! You see, I have got this black private..."

The madam smiled and said, "Well, ain't you the fancy one"

The second poison, anger, arises whenever your sexuality is prevented. Anything that comes as an obstruction to your desires creates anger. You cannot drop anger unless desires disappear.

Many people have asked me how to drop anger, and they6 don't understand that they are talking of dropping a symptom. anger is only a symptom. It simply says somewhere your desire has been obstructed: something is coming between you, your desire, and the object of your desire - hence the anger. anger means, "I will destroy the obstruction!" You cannot drop anger unless your sexuality disappears.

It is not accidental that husbands and wives continuously quarrel and are angry with each other, for the simple reason... the sexuality. They are each other's sexual object, and wherever there is sexuality there is anger. Anger is like smoke. Logicians say, "Wherever there is smoke there is fire." You can say, "Wherever there is anger there is sexuality". When anger disappears, that means sexuality has disappeared.

The disappearance of anger happens only, is possible only, when the root is no more there. You cannot drop your anger; you will have to go to the very roots. Trying to drop your anger will only create new kinds of anger: you will repress it from one side, it will come from another side.

It is because of this well known fact that for centuries no country has allowed its army people to have free sexuality, because if soldiers are allowed to have freedom about their sexuality, if their sex is not obstructed, then they lose destructiveness, then they lose anger, then they are no more angry.

Their sex has to be obstructed in many ways. They have to be deprived of their wives, they have to be kept away from their wives. Not only that: they have to he allowed to see all kinds of pornographic films, all kinds of pornographic magazines; they have to he allowed to come in contact with actresses. When two countries are at war, actresses go to meet and visit the soldiers to encourage them. And what is their encouragement? The encouragement is this: that when an actress comes, a Sophia Loren comes, all the soldiers become sexually aroused. of course, they cannot do anything about it; that aroused energy turns into anger, it becomes rage. Then they start destroying the enemy, then they are madly in destruction. If they are allowed to have their wives with them on the front, their girlfriends, then they will lose interest in war.

That is one of the reasons why Americans go on losing all wars: their soldiers are the least sexually repressed people; they are not going to win any war. Sexual repression is a must - it creates anger.

And when there is so much anger and there is no other outlet, then the only possible outlet is destroy the enemy.

And have you watched? Always it happens whenever an army conquers a country: the first victims are the women of that country; they are raped immediately. Cannot you see the relationship? Were the soldiers fighting for the women? Why immediately, the moment the soldiers enter a city as conquerors, they start raping around as if they were just waiting for the opportunity? There was no opportunity available; now it is available. The first thing is: rape the women. And the second thing is: rob people of their money. The first comes out of anger and the second comes out of greed, but the cause of both lies in the first. Repressed sex will create anger and greed.

You will be surprised to know that any religion that has been teaching to its followers some kind of repression has always helped its followers to become rich. In India, Jains have become very rich; they are the most repressive people. And something of significance has to he understood about their psychology. Their religion says: Repress sex; BRAHMACHARYA, celibacy is their goal. And second thing: Don't he violent; so anger is not allowed. Sex is not allowed, anger is not allowed.

Now where the energy is to go? Now only the third possibility is left - greed. So all the Jains have become the greediest persons in this country. They are a small community, very small community - in such a big, vast country they are nothing - but still they are very powerful because they have all the money. You will not come across a single Jain beggar; nothing like it exists. They are not poor people - they cannot be poor; their religion has made it absolutely certain for them that they will he rich. Sex has to he repressed and anger has to he repressed. Now only one outlet is left - greed.

Become greedy.

Do you know? The English word "love" comes from a Sanskrit root LOBHA. LOBHA means greed; it is greed for the other's body. So whenever a person looks sexually at somebody else you can see the greed in his eyes: he wants to possess the other's body. That's why every civilization allows only a certain time limit to see; more than that is thought to he offensive. Somehow a subtle agreement has happened, a deep contract: three seconds are allowed. If you watch at a woman tor three seconds, no offense will he taken; it will be thought just casual. But if you watch more, then she will become annoyed. If you go on looking at her, then she will be angry; then you are behaving in an uncivilized way. You are looking at her body with greed to possess, to exploit, to use as a means.

And. of course, nobody wants to be reduced into a means, into a thing, into a possession.

The English word "greed" also comes from a Sanskrit word, GRIDDHA; GRIDDHA means the vulture. The greedy person has a vulture-like quality, as if he wants to eat the other. And that kind of expression has come into many languages, particularly in French.

I have heard:

A ship wrecked, and a Frenchwoman swam to an island. She was absolutely naked; all her clothes had gone into the sea. But the beach was beautiful, and she was lying on the beach naked, taking a sunbath, thinking "What to do next?" - whether anybody lives on this island or not. There seemed to he no sign of anybody living...

And then suddenly she heard a noise; somebody was coming, a very big man, almost like a huge gorilla. A very small tribe lived there. The tribe was of cannibals, hence very small, because cannibals cannot grow - they start eating each other. And the cannibal was very happy seeing a new food - so delicious she was looking!

He came, looked at her and said, "I would like to eat you!"

And the Frenchwoman said, "Then what you are waiting for?"

The cannibal was puzzled. This was for the first time that somebody has said, "Why you are waiting?

For what? Start!" - because in French "to eat" means "I want to make love to you."

Language gives great indications. In fact, when you look at a woman with greedy eyes you want to eat her - or a woman looks at a man... Ordinarily they don't look because they have been taught for centuries not to look at the man; that has become their feminine grace. When somebody says to a woman, "I love you," she looks downward - just to he certain whether he really means it or is just talking nonsense! She does not believe in words, she believes in the body, she believes in the physiology - and the body never lies.

When one has come to deep meditation there is a clarity. In this clarity all the three poisons disappear without leaving a trace behind. And then he perceives only a void.

The first experience of meditation is that of a void, but remember it is a first experience, the first SATORI: one experiences void. But remember, the experience is still there; that's why it is still the beginning, not the end. You experience the void, but the void EXPERIENCED itself becomes something; it is not nothing.

That's why you will come across many Zen stories...

The disciple comes to the Master and says, "I have experienced nothing," and the Master hits him and says, "So back and meditate again! You missed!"

"But," he says, "I have experienced nothing! And that's what you were saying - that to experience nothing is what meditation is all about. And I have experienced it!"

But the Master still persists: "You go and meditate again - you missed." Because if nothingness becomes also an experience, then it is something. You can experience only some thing. You have experienced nothingness, but once experienced it becomes an object, and there is a division: the knower and the known. Hence it is the first SATORI.

Ko Hsuan's sutra is tremendously beautiful. He says:

... HE PERCEIVES ONLY A VOID, BUT WHEN BE CONTEMPLATES THE VOID...

but when he goes deeper into meditation ... HE REALIZES THAT THE VOID IS ALSO VOID AND HAS BECOME A NOTHINGNESS.

As he goes deeper, the second satori opens up. Going deeper, he disappears as an experiencer.

First the object disappeared, the void was there; but because of the old habit the void became the object. Now the experiencer has also gone. Now there is only nothingness - nobody to experience, nothing to be experienced. This is the second SATORI.

THE VOID HAVING VANISHED INTO NOTHINGNESS, HE REALIZES THAT THIS NOTHINGNESS OF NOTHING IS ALSO NOTHING...

This is the last possibility of still getting hooked into an experience. You can start rejoicing, that "I have experienced nothing;" then you remain hooked with the first SATORI. You can start rejoicing, that "I have experienced that there is no experience and no experiencer. I have experienced that both are void." It is better than the first, deeper than the first, but somehow the experiencer has still saved itself in a subtle way. It has moved a little deeper - now it says, "I have experienced that there is no experience and no experiencer." You will be hooked in the second satori.

The third SATORI happens when:

... HE REALIZES THAT THE NOTHINGNESS OF NOTHING IS ALSO NOTHING, AND WHEN THE NETHERMOST NOTHINGNESS IS REACHED...

And this is the ultimate nothingness; then he does not claim at all. Now if you ask him, "What have you experienced?" he will smile. He cannot say, "I have experienced nothingness." This is SAMADHI - the third SATORI, the ultimate flowering. Now there is nothing left, neither as an object nor as a subject nor as a transcendental subject which transcends both. Nothing is left. Buddha has called it ANATTA, no-self - a state of total nothingness, absolute nothingness. Hence, what can he said about it?

Whenever anybody asked Buddha about his ultimate experience he will say, "Don't ask absurd questions, ask practical questions. Ask how to reach it, don't ask what has happened. It cannot he conveyed."

Lao Tzu says: Truth said becomes a falsehood Truth unsaid remains true: uttered, becomes false.

The Upanishads say: Those who say that "We know," know not.

Socrates in his last stage of life said. "I know only one thing, that I know nothing." But Ko Hsuan will say even that is not right: that is second satori,. because he is still saying, "I know only one thing. that I know nothing." Still the statement is there, still the knower is there. According to Ko Hsuan, at least, the statement is wrong. Socrates attained the ultimate SAMADHI, but Socrates is a Greek, he is not a Chinese - he speaks the way Greeks could have understood. He cannot speak in paradoxes, he speaks logically. Hence he says, I know only one thing, that I know nothing."

Ko Hsuan will not even say that; Buddha will not say even that: Lao Tzu will not even say that.

WHEN this NETHERMOST NOTHINGNESS IS REACHED, THERE IS MOST TRULY TO BE FOUND A DEEP AND UNCHANGING STILLNESS.

Now for the first time a deep, unchanging stillness prevails. Eternity has opened its doors to you.

Now there is no more falling hack. You have gone beyond the beyond. You have transcended even the transcendental.

IN THIS PROFOUND STILLNESS HOW CAN DESIRES BE BEGOTTEN? WHEN DESIRES ARE NO LONGER BEGOTTEN, THEN THERE IS ESSENTIAL AND UNCHANGING STILLNESS.

TRUTH IS ESSENTIALLY UNCHANGING.

ALL THINGS IN HEAVEN AND EARTH ARE IN ESSENCE UNCHANGING.

So whatsoever changes is only the appearance, what in India the mystics have called MAYA. It is only appearance.

Forms change; the essential truth remains the same. Waves change; the ocean remains the same forever. Once you have seen this you are no more in any misery because you are no more in any desire, no more in any dreams. Once you have experienced this you have become part of the organic whole. You have disappeared; you have become the very ocean. You are no more a wave, you are no more a dewdrop, you are oceanic.

To experience this oceanic vastness is the experience of Tao. And the secret is in meditation. And one has to pass through three stages: first satori, the experience of the void; second SATORI, the experience that the void is void; and the third SATORI... now nothing can be said anymore. Now all is silent and still, absolutely silent and still.

The Master is one who has reached to this third, one who has transcended the transcendental, one who has gone beyond the beyond Then he has the being of the whole. To be in tune with him is to be in tune with God, with Tao, with truth. To be in tune with him is to be in tune with bliss, with beauty, with benediction.