A questionless silence

Question 1:

Deva Maturo, the question you have asked is certainly of great importance because meditation, as such, needs no technique at all. But techniques are needed to remove the obstacles in the way of meditation. So it has to be understood very clearly: meditation itself needs no techniques, it is a simple understanding, an alertness, an awareness. Neither alertness is a technique, nor awareness is a technique.

But on the way to being alert, there are so many obstacles. For centuries man has been gathering those obstacles - they need to be removed. Meditation itself cannot remove them, certain techniques are needed to remove them. So the work of the techniques is just to prepare the ground, is just to prepare the way, the passage. The techniques in themselves are not meditation. If you stop at the technique, you have missed the point.

J. Krishnamurti was insisting his whole life that there is no technique for meditation. And the total result was not that millions of people attained to meditation; the total result was that millions of people became convinced that no technique is needed for meditation. But they forgot all about what they were going to do with the obstructions, the hindrances. So they remained intellectually convinced that no technique is needed. I have met many followers of J. Krishnamurti, very intimate ones, and I have asked them, "No technique is needed - I agree absolutely. But has meditation happened to you or to anyone else who has been listening to J. Krishnamurti?"

Although what he is saying is essentially true, he is saying only the positive side of the experience.

There is a negative side also. And for that negative side all kinds of techniques are needed - are absolutely needed - because unless the ground is well prepared, and all the weeds and wild roots are taken away from the ground, you cannot grow roses and other beautiful flowers. Roses are in no way concerned with those roots, with the wild plants that you have removed. But the removal of those weeds was absolutely necessary for the ground to be in a right situation where roses can blossom.

You are asking, "Is it possible to meditate without any technique?" It is not only possible, it is the only possibility. No technique is needed at all - as far as meditation is concerned. But what are you going to do with your mind? Your mind will create a thousand and one difficulties. Those techniques are needed to remove the mind from the way, to create a space in which the mind becomes quiet, silent, almost absent. Then meditation happens on its own accord. It is not a question of technique.

You don't have to do anything.

Meditation is something natural, something that is already hidden inside you and is trying to find its way to reach to the open sky, to the sun, to the air. But mind is surrounding it from all sides; all doors are closed, all windows are closed. The techniques are needed to open the windows, to open the doors. And immediately the whole sky is available to you, with all its stars, with all its beauty, with all its sunsets, with all its sunrises.

Just a small window was preventing you... just a small piece of straw can go into your eye and it will prevent you from seeing the vast sky because you cannot open your eyes. It is absolutely illogical that just a small piece of straw or sand can prevent you from seeing the great stars, the infinite sky.

But in fact they can - they do.

Techniques are needed to remove those straws, those pieces of sand, from your eyes. And meditation is your nature, is your very potential. It is another name of alertness.

The young father, taking his baby for a walk in the pram in the park, seemed quite unperturbed by the wails emerging from the pram. "Easy now, Albert," he said quietly. "Keep calm, there's a good fellow."

Another howl rang out. "Now, now, Albert," murmured the father, "keep your temper."

A young mother, passing by, remarked, "I must congratulate you. You certainly know how to speak to babies." Then, patting the baby on the head, she cooed, "What is bothering you, Albert?"

"No, no," cried the father. "His name is Johnnie; I am Albert."

He was simply trying to keep himself alert: "Albert, don't lose your temper." He does not want to forget, otherwise he would like to throw this baby into the lake.

Meditation is simply awareness without any effort, an effortless alertness; it does not need any technique. But your mind is so full of thoughts, so full of dreams, so much of the past, so much of the future - it is not herenow, and awareness has to be herenow. The techniques are needed to help you to cut your roots from the past, to cut your dreams from the future, and to keep you in this moment as if only this moment exists. Then there is no need of any technique.

Hymie Goldberg was visiting his friend, Mr. Cohen, who was dying. "Do us a favor," said Hymie Goldberg, "when you go to heaven could you find a way of letting me know whether they play baseball up there?" Mr. Cohen said he would certainly try to contact his old friend if at all possible.

Only a few days after Mr. Cohen died, Hymie Goldberg had a phone call. "Hello, Hymie," said Mr.

Cohen. "It is your old friend here."

"Cohen? Is it really you?" asked Hymie.

"Sure," answered his friend. "I have some good news and some bad news. First, there sure is baseball in heaven. And the bad news is that you are pitching next Sunday."

Life is a complicated affair. There is good news, and there is bad news. The good news is that there is no need of any technique; but the bad news is, without any technique you are not going to get it.

Question 2:

Dhyan Prita, you have not asked any question. That does not mean you don't have any questions; that can only mean you have so many questions that you cannot figure out which one to ask.

Because not to have questions is to have found the answer. There are millions of possible questions, but there is only one answer. There are not many answers, there are not answers for each question.

Only one golden key opens all the doors.

You feel jealous when other sannyasins are asking questions. That is a clear-cut indication that you have many questions boiling within you but you don't have the courage to expose yourself. You don't want to let people know that you are not knowledgeable. You are a hypocrite; you are trying to show that you know all the answers - you don't have to ask any question to anybody.

If you had certainly finished with all the questions, there would not be any jealousy. Your jealousy is very indicative. But you also cannot resist, that's why you have asked without asking a question.

You cannot resist the temptation of getting my attention, and everybody else's attention. That is an ego-desire.

Now you are in a dilemma: if you ask a question, you show your ignorance. That you don't want.

You can wait till someone asks the question - and somebody is bound to ask. You just need enough patience. But you also want to draw my attention, and everybody else's attention, towards you. Now there is no other way unless you ask a question.

You have found a very clever way. You have simply described the situation - and without asking a question. So you have saved your knowledge and you have fulfilled your desire of getting attention.

But this is not going to help you. Your ego has to be destroyed, not to be nourished. You have to look at yourself, you must be carrying a mess around with you: questions that you cannot ask, and a tremendous desire for your ego to be nourished and fulfilled. I feel immense compassion for you.

You are sick.

And this is a kind of sickness that has been chosen by you. If you want to drop it, you can drop it right now. And all the clouds that are around your consciousness will disappear. From tomorrow, be simple and innocent like a child. Ask any question, howsoever stupid and silly it appears to be. And ask, not for getting attention; ask in search of the answer, of the ultimate answer.

Auntie Mabel's husband was laid out in the funeral parlor. Suddenly, she decided she did not like the brown suit her husband had on. "I see another man wearing a blue suit in the next parlor," Auntie Mabel said to the funeral director. "Blue was my hubby's favorite color, and I would like him laid out in a blue suit."

The funeral director told Auntie Mabel to return in an hour, and the change would be made. She returned after the hour, and found her husband now lying in a blue suit. And the other man in the next parlor was wearing a brown one. "However did you manage to change the suits?" Auntie Mabel asked the funeral director.

"I did not change suits," he replied. "I found it was easier just to switch heads."

That's all you need - just to switch your head. Change with anybody. Changing the gown may not help - just change the head, switch the head. You are feeling jealous of others; just find a person of whom you are really feeling jealous. Then switch the heads. And remember, Dhyan Prita, that it is a very difficult and complex situation.

I have always told an ancient Sufi story to my people. A Sufi mystic had prayed for almost fifty years - and Mohammedans pray five times a day. And each of his prayers consisted only of one desire:

"Lord, why are you so unkind to me? Because I see everybody is happier than me. Only I am miserable. And I don't ask much, I simply want... can't you change my destiny with somebody else? Anybody will do. I don't even ask for a certain person, because I know in this whole place, everybody is in a better position than I am. They smile, they laugh, they giggle, they enjoy, they dance, they sing... and all I do is pray five times a day - and the same prayer for fifty years. And you are completely deaf; it is time you should hear me."

And that night he went to sleep and saw in a dream... a strange dream he had never seen; a dream in which he heard a voice from the skies, telling the whole town where he lived, "Take out all your miseries, all your sufferings. Put them in a bag, and bring the bag to the mosque in the center of the town."

The mystic thought inside himself, "Perhaps my prayers have, after all, been heard." He was immensely happy. He collected all his miseries - they were not many because he had not much time to create many. Prayer five times a day, and the same prayer.... You need some time to create misery, suffering. You have to go out in the world, find people who can help you to be more miserable, pay for it - because nothing is without payment, everything costs here. And he was a mystic, so he always remained in the mosque, either reading the holy scriptures or praying to God.

Naturally, he had not much misery. So just a small bag... and he rushed towards the mosque, and on the way he found people dragging such big bags. He said, "My God!" And he looked at their faces - these were the people he was feeling jealous of, these were the people who were always giggling and laughing, playing cards and going to the movies, gambling, going to the races. And he used to think that these are very happy people.

"What have I done? Now I am going to get into more trouble." He looked at his bag, it was so small.

And these people had such big bags that they could not hold them in their hands, they had to drag them on the road. And because he had a small bag he was faster, he met many people; and the more he saw, the more he became afraid. He saw a few people dragging two bags in both their hands. He said, "My God! What have I done? Now what is going to happen?"

And when all the people had entered into the mosque, another voice from the sky was heard. "Now, put your bags by the side of the wall. Then the lights will go off and an order will be given that you can choose any bag you want. In the darkness it will be easier, so you can choose any. Everybody is free to choose."

And the voice said to the mystic, "Don't be worried, it is not only you who has been praying for fifty years. You are the most nagging one, that is true, but all these people have also been praying, 'Why have you given so much misery to me when others are enjoying life?'"...

Because everybody sees himself in totality, everybody sees himself in his inner being. And everybody sees others in their partial expressions - and only from the outside. So nobody sees their wounds, and nobody knows their anxieties and their anguishes; people know only their false smiles.

The mystic was very much afraid. He had to put down the bag according to the order, but he sat by the side of the bag because, in the dark, if somebody else... and everybody must be watching his bag, it is so small that anybody would like to choose it. So it is better to keep your eyes on your bag and as the lights go off, before the order, just pick up your bag and keep a hold on it, because in the darkness people may try to snatch it away, seeing that their bags...

But he was surprised that not only he was sitting by the side of his bag, everybody else was sitting by the side of their own bags, small or big, one or two. He inquired of a few neighbors, "What is the matter? Why you are clinging to your two big bags?"

They said, "We are sorry that we prayed to God, but that does not mean that we are going to exchange our well-known miseries for somebody's absolutely unknown miseries. Who knows what kind of miseries that fellow has? And these miseries have lived with us for decades, we have become accustomed - a certain kind of friendship has also grown. In fact, without them we may feel something is missing in life. And at this point, at this age, we are not so foolish to change for new miseries, new anxieties, and to begin life from ABC. Somehow we have come to a settlement."

The darkness came, the order came, but nobody moved; not a single person. The light came, and everybody heard a great laughter from the sky. And He said, "Now, do you understand why your prayers were not heard? They were heard; but just knowing your stupidity, I did not take any action according to your prayers. You are so unconscious, so unaware of yourselves, that you don't know what you are asking for."

Prayer is meaningless if it is not out of alertness. And a man of alertness need not have any prayer - alertness is enough unto itself. So be alert of your questions, of your ego, of your jealousy. And don't think that everybody else is enjoying life - that only you have fallen into a miserable ditch. The ditch is of your own digging - stop digging it and come out of it. You have made a home in the ditch.

It is cozy, it gives you a little shelter, a little shed. Come out of the dark holes you are hiding in.

Expose yourself to light. Your questions are nothing but your exposures. And a wound exposed to light and to sun starts healing.

My answers are more medicinal than philosophical. I am answering your thousands of questions, not to make you more knowledgeable, but to heal your wounds and to make you more innocent. If my answer can destroy your question, both the things will be the outcome. It will heal your wound, it will make you more innocent.

You are afraid of being known as ignorant. If you cannot drop that fear, your being here with me is meaningless. My whole effort is to help you see that you are not ignorant - you are innocent. People have condemned your innocence as ignorance. I want you to drop that condemnation of others, and to look to your innocence.

You are still a child, the child never dies. Even in old age, the child still remains within you. You can discover it any moment; and the moment you discover it, you have found meditation, you have found wisdom - not knowledge. Knowledge is answers of questions. Wisdom is a questionless silence, a certain clarity, a certain transparency, a mirrorlike reflectiveness - but not knowledge. It is utter purity.

Question 3:

Anand Avinesh, I have never said that there is no dark side of things. In existence, everything is balanced - the dark side and the light side. They both are there.

The only thing that you can do is, either to choose the thorns in a rosebush and condemn the whole world, and condemn yourself, and think that it is nothing but hell... so many thorns, and if there is only one roseflower amidst so many thorns, what is the point? What is the significance of one roseflower? Because you insist on counting the thorns, you may also harm yourself. And certainly you will not be able to experience the beauty of the rose.

What I have been saying to you is that if thorns exist in the rosebush, the thorns and the roseflowers are not enemies. The thorns are almost like bodyguards to the beautiful roseflower, they protect the roseflower. They both get their life juice from the same roots - the same plant provides nourishment to the thorns that provides nourishment to the flower. For the rosebush there is no difference; the roseflower is not higher in any sense than the rose thorns. They are all needed, they fulfill a certain necessity.

If you want to enjoy life, if you want to see the meaning of life, if you want to understand its greatness, its blissfulness, then you will first have to look at the rose - to see its beauty, its fragrance - and then to see the thorns, that they are not enemies of the rose. They are part of the same rosebush, and they play a certain protective part. They are friends to the beautiful flower.

In existence nothing is unnecessary. The day is good, so is the night. Just think of a long day without any night - you will be utterly tired and exhausted. Life will become absolutely dry - a desert. Just miss a few nights' sleep, and you will see what great despair and anguish it creates. The day is beautiful in its own way.

I'm not saying choose the day and ignore the night. I'm saying: see the harmony of the opposites, see the complementariness of the contradictories. See the beautiful unity between yes and no, between life and death. Try to understand that existence consists of polar opposites. If you choose one side, your life will remain only half; and a half-life is a miserable life.

Hence all the great mystics of the world have been teaching one thing, without any exception, and that is choiceless awareness. Don't choose the day or the night. Remain choiceless and alert, so that you can see the great harmony between the opposites. They look opposite to you; they are not opposite in reality.

You are saying, "In looking for the brighter side of things for the last ten years, I have not succeeded much. My eyes go to the darker side first." No harm. Let them go to the darker side first, perhaps they need a little rest. For ten years you have been trying to force them to the lighter side; naturally they want a little rest.

Have a little mercy on your eyes, let them rest - because for rest they need darkness. Light is a disturbance. And nothing is wrong; if your eyes like first to see the dark, it is perfectly good. From where did you get the idea that I am telling you to first see the lighter side? What difference will it make? First you will see the lighter side, then you will see the darker side. Right now, first you see the darker side, and then you see the lighter side - it is almost the same.

A bishop in a small Midwestern town bought two parrots, and taught them to say the rosary. He even had two tiny sets of rosary beads made for them. After months of exhaustive training, the parrots were able to recite the rosary and use the beads at the same time.

The bishop was so pleased that he decided to teach another parrot the rosary. He went to the pet store and bought a female parrot, which he brought home and put into the cage with the other two.

As he did this, one parrot turned to the other and said, "Throw away your beads, George, our prayers have been answered."

That's just what I say: look at the tremendous humor... in darkness, in light, in night, in day. Don't become sad and miserable. Remain weightless, unburdened, non-serious.

But you have misunderstood me, Avinesh. I am not one of what you know in America as the 'positive thinkers'. I am not a positive thinker. Because those positive thinkers simply deny the existence of the negative: "It does not exist, it is only your mind." You are miserable and they say it does not exist, it is just in your mind. It helps nobody, but America produces so much literature on positive philosophy... it has a good market. And all kinds of stupid things are preached in the name of positive philosophy. One of the best books, very well written, is Napoleon Hill's THINK AND GROW RICH. You have not to do anything at all - just sit and think.

You have heard about Basho. Even Basho looks like nothing compared to Napoleon Hill. Poor Basho is saying: "Sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself." He is talking about grass, and it certainly grows by itself whether Basho is sitting silently or not. When the spring comes, the grass grows. It does not inquire where Basho is sitting. But Napoleon Hill is teaching, "Think and grow rich." Just sit, and think. Visualize that a Cadillac car is standing in your garage - and you don't have a garage at all! And one day you will find that from your thinking, the universe has brought a Cadillac car to your garage. And the garage is not there at all - perhaps first the universe brings the garage, then it brings the Cadillac car....

In America, when people write books they promote, they go to the bookstalls, they stand there, and if you purchase their recently published book they give you their signature. The day Napoleon Hill's book was published Henry Ford entered the shop. He was looking for some good literature, and the owner said to him, "I would like to introduce you to a very well-known author and philosopher. His best book is published just today, and he would like to present a copy to you." Napoleon Hill was brought from inside the shop; he presented his book. Henry Ford looked at the title, THINK AND GROW RICH. Then he looked at Napoleon Hill from top to bottom, from bottom to top, and asked him, "Have you come in your own car or on a public bus?"

Napoleon Hill could not understand what kind of question this was. But it was from Henry Ford, the richest man of those days, so he could not simply ignore it; he had to answer it. He said, "I have come on a public bus."

Henry Ford returned the book and told him, "The day you have your own private car, come to me.

That day I will accept your book. THINK AND GROW RICH - and you are still riding in a public bus! And you have some nerve to present the book to me, who has worked hard, day and night, to produce money; who was born poor, and who has reached to the very top in the whole world."

Money does not shower from the sky just by your thinking. But this kind of philosophy is very prevalent in America; this is the only kind of philosophy they have produced. I am not a positive thinker. I am not saying to you, "Look only to the positive side of things." And I am not saying that the negative side does not exist. I am saying that existence consists of the positive and the negative, in equal quantities - and the negative is as beautiful as the positive. The positive has its own utility, and the negative has its own utility. So there is no problem... if you are accustomed to look first at the dark side, look first at the dark side. Then look at the light side.

But don't make an absurd effort... that's what you have been doing for ten years, Avinesh. You are trying to look only at the positive side, only at the light side. You have become obsessed with it. And because of this obsession, your eyes go directly to the dark side. This is the simple phenomenon of any kind of repression - obsession. The ultimate result is just the opposite of what you want.

The people who are suppressing their sex... their eyes are continuously searching for sex. Perhaps they are searching to condemn it, but they are searching for sex. Reasons may be any - that is not reason, that is only rationalization - but they are obsessed.

I have heard about a group of positive thinkers who used to meet every Sunday in the church. One man had not been coming for a few weeks. The president of the club saw this member's son on the road one day, called him and asked him, "Boy, what is the problem? Where is your father? He has not been to the club meetings for a few weeks."

The young man said, "He is sick."

The president laughed. He said, "He will never understand. This is our whole philosophy. He's not sick - sickness is only his thought, a negative thought. Just go back home and tell him, 'Your president sends the message that sickness is only in your head. You are not sick; and it does not look right for a senior member of the positive thinkers' club.'"

But still he did not turn up, for two weeks, three weeks. The old man again went in the direction where he had found the boy. He found the boy again and he asked, "What is the matter? Did you not give your father my message?"

He said, "I have given him your message."

"Then why is he not coming to the club meetings?"

And the young man said, "Now he thinks he is dead. And we have been saying to him for two days, 'Dad, you are not dead. You are only thinking it - you are a member of the positive thinkers' club.

Death does not exist.' He does not listen."

You cannot deny death, you cannot deny the night, you cannot deny the dark side of things. You cannot deny anything in life; you have to be more comprehensive, you have to be more synthetic, you have to allow everything its place, and you have to be respectful of darkness, of light. You have to be respectful of thorns and of roses. I teach you the wholeness of life, I don't teach you any fragmentary idea.

So it is perfectly good if your eyes go to the dark first; let them enjoy the dark. They will move to the light also - there is no need to be worried about it. Don't think that something is wrong with you.

And I can understand. For ten years... it must have become a very tiring thing for you. Drop this whole philosophy that you have taken upon yourself, unnecessarily. Accept the wholeness of life; because to me the acceptance of the whole is the only holy experience in the world.

Question 4:

Maneesha, no. Three times no!

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.