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The Essence is at Ease...

From:

Osho

Date:

Fri, 17 June 1978 00:00:00 GMT

Book Title:

The Language of Existence

Chapter #:

Location:

am in Buddha Hall

Archive Code:

N.A.

Short Title:

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HE ALWAYS WALKS BY HIMSELF; SAUNTERS BY HIMSELF:

FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH.

WALKING IS ZEN, SITTING IS ZEN; TALKING OR SILENT, MOVING UNMOVING, - THE ESSENCE IS AT EASE.

ENTERING THE DEEP MOUNTAINS I LIVE IN QUIET SOLITUDE.

THE HILLS ARE HIGH, THE VALLEYS DEEP WHEN ONE LIVES BENEATH AN OLD PINE TREE.

THERE ARE THREE ORDINARY STATES OE CONSCIOUSNESS. One is waking, jagrut, the second is SWABHA, DREAMING, and the third is SUSHUPTI, dreamless deep sleep.

Man ordinarily lives in these three states, sometimes waking, sometimes dreaming, sometimes fast asleep; this is the wheel man moves in. And because of these three states of mind many things have arisen into human consciousness and in human culture, civilization.

The first kind of consciousness, waking, creates its own culture, its own civilization; the West represents it. The second kind of culture is created by the second kind of consciousness, dreaming; the East represents it. That's why you find it very difficult to communicate; the Western mind finds it almost impossible to communicate with the Eastern mind. It is not only a question of language - language you may understand - the question is of the orientation.

The waking consciousness is objective: it thinks of the object, of the reality there outside; it is a kind of concentration. The Western mind has evolved powers of concentration hence the birth of science; out of the powers of concentration, science is born. The East could not give birth to science, and the reason is that the East has not paid much attention to the first kind of consciousness.

The East thinks in terms of dreams. The East thinks in terms of the inner. The East thinks in terms of the subjective. The East thinks with closed eyes; the West thinks with open eyes. The West concentrates; the Eastern mind meditates, that's why in the East you will find visionaries, poets - people who have experienced great revelations inside. But they cannot prove it; the experiences remain individual, private. The Western emphasis is on the objective, the public: when you are wakeful, whatsoever you see others can also see. You are seeing me here, everybody can see me - one who has eyes can see - there is no need for any proof. The sun rises, and you know: the proof exists in the very experience. And everybody is experiencing it - there can be a collective consensus about it. But when I say I have seen the sun rise in the evening it is no more a collective experience; it is no more objective, it becomes subjective.

In the East you will find people who have experienced kundalini rising in them, great light exploding as if thousands and thousands of suns have suddenly risen on the horizon; you will find people who have seen lotuses blooming inside - and to the Western mind it looks all nonsense. The Western mind has developed technology, science - objectivity. It lives in the first, the waking, state; the visionary is rejected. In the West the visionary is a marginal phenomenon, he exists on the outskirts of civilization. He is at most tolerated; he is harmless, he can be tolerated. But he has no roots in the culture at large, he is not the main current. In the East the scientist lives in the same way - on the margin; he is not the main current. He can be tolerated, he can be used, but the respect goes to the visionary, to the dreamer, to the poet who dreams great dreams.

These are the two ordinary states; the third state happens to both, but you cannot catch hold of it, the mind dissolves. In SUSHUPTI, in dreamless sleep, you disappear as an ego, and you disappear so utterly that you cannot even remember in the morning what happened. You can remember your dreams, you cannot remember your dreamless sleep, at most it can be remembered as gaps. You can say 'I slept so deeply that there were not even dreams.' But that is guess-work; there is no direct experience of SUSHUPTI.

No culture has evolved out of SUSHUPTI because there is no possibility to catch hold of it directly.

But that is the deepest ordinary state of mind. It is out of SUSHUPTI, dreamless sleep, that you get

rejuvenated every day. You go to the source, you move to the source, you are again in contact with the primal consciousness, you are again in contact with your ground. You are no more human, you are no more Hindu, no more Christian, you are no more a man or a woman, black or white, you are no more Eastern, Western; all disappears - all distinctions. You are, but there is no identity, that's why out of dreamless sleep great peace is felt.

If you move into deeper meditation, you will come to the third state where one can become aware of dreamless sleep too. And many have stopped there; because it is so blissful, many religions have stopped there, they don't go beyond it.

There is a fourth state also, and unless you reach to the fourth, go on remembering that the third is very alluring, the third is very beautiful, very blissful, but still you have not arrived home. The fourth is the home; the Eastern mystics have called it TURIYA, turiya means the fourth.

Waking is objective, outer; it is a kind of concentration. Dreaming is between the outer and the inner, a link between waking and deep sleep, and deep sleep is the inner. Then what is the fourth, the turiya? It is both and neither. It is both inner and outer, and because it is both, that's why it is neither.

It transcends both, it is non-dual, it is total. Now nothing is outer, nothing is inner. Objects disappear and, simultaneously, the subject tOo; there is no experience and no experiencer. This fourth state is called SAMADHI, SATORI. And the beauty of the fourth is that you can live in the world and yet be not of it.

Zen believes in the fourth. Those who believe in the third have to leave the world, they have to go to the Himalayan caves. Only there is it possible that they can fall into continuous deep dreamless sleep. It is falling into a beautiful coma. Its spiritual worth is nothing, although there is no misery, no anxiety, because the mind is put aside. But it is a state of coma, it is escapist. And the man has not known yet what the truth is. He has chosen one thing: escaping.

The Western mind moves deeper and deeper into the world, into activity, and the Eastern mind moves out of activity, more and more out of the world.

Now, here both kinds of people have gathered. When the Western mind comes to me he always asks how to relate with people - that is his basic question - how to be more loving, caring, how to grow deeper into relationship. No Indian, no Easterner, ever asks this - that is not his question at all, his question is how to get out of relationship, how to forget all this misery - birth and death, and reincarnation, and the whole wheel - how to stop it, how to jump out of it. You can watch it, it is very apparent. The Western mind is clear-cut, logical, rational, mathematical, alert. The Eastern mind is dreaming and, according to Western standards, lousy, sloppy, messy, because in a dream you cannot be very clearcut, otherwise the dream will disappear. To the Eastern mind the Western mind is worldly, calculating, cunning, clever.

The third kind has happened both in the East and the West very rarely. In the West monasteries have existed, and people have renounced the world and moved - in the East too. One who becomes interested in dreamless sleep... And it is greatly satisfying - no doubt about it, there is great pleasure in it, it is very tranquil, undisturbed, but it is a kind of death, not life. And there is fear that it can be disturbed - any small thing can disturb it - a small thought can move, and all is lost. A small dream is enough to destroy it.

Zen people have worked for the fourth. The fourth means: live in the world like a lotus leaf in water, be awake and yet remain centred. So all that is needed to be done, be in the cyclone and yet remain in the centre of it, unaffected by it. Naturally, the Zen man creates the most alive, living, streaming, pulsating life. The Zen man creates action in inaction, or inaction through action. Polarities meet and merge, and wherever polarities meet and merge there is God.

The fourth is the primal state, the very basic and fundamental state out of which these three have arisen. These three are branches, the fourth is the root.

The sutras of today you will be able to understand only if you understand this approach, the approach through the fourth, through totality. One has not to escape, one has to go into the deepest world but is not to be lost there. One has to remain conscious, one has to remain alert, and one has to go deep into the world. The meeting of the extremes will bring you the richest crop of life.

It happened...

Vivekananda once told his Master, Ramakrishna, that his highest spiritual aspiration was to remain immersed for days on end in NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI, the disappearance of all forms into absolute Godhead. He sincerely longed for what he then considered to be the ultimate spiritual experience.

But Ramakrishna, who had once spent six months in unbroken NIRVIKALPA, his body kept alive only by force feeding, relied 'You are a fool. There is a realization higher than NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI.'

Vivekananda was at that time dedicated to the third dimension of contemplation, and Ramakrishna was attempting to turn him toward the fourth dimension, or TURIYA.

NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI IS a state of deep sleep. All has disappeared; it is absent, it is negative.

The cup is empty, utterly empty; ready to be filled, but not yet filled. The empty cup is not the goal - cannot be the goal; emptying is only the method so that one day the cup can be filled with the presence of God. But God exists as the world - there is no other God. God has appeared as the world; God is not somewhere else. The world is God manifest. One has to empty oneself to prepare, but one has to remain in close contact with the world otherwise one becomes disconnected.

This is my approach to sannyas too. That's why I don't say leave the world, I say live in the world, accept the challenge of it because behind it, behind the screen of it, is God himself. If you accept the challenge and if you live the challenge totally, you will find that all that is needed is here. It has to be discovered. Become more and more alert and conscious.

So don't get too much into the objects - don't become a Westerner, and don't get too much into the dreams - don't become an Easterner. Don't get too obsessed with kundalini and experiences like that because those are all mind things. Remain alert while moving with people, while moving in the world, remain alert while moving in dreams. And there are beautiful dreams too, spiritual dreams too - remain alert, don't get distracted by them. And when you are able to be alert in the objective world and then alert in the dreaming world, slowly slowly you will become alert in the dreamless deep sleep too. And then you are at the gate of the fourth. And when you enter the fourth, you are back into the world; the circle is complete. But now you are the centre of the cyclone.

HE ALWAYS WALKS BY HIMSELF, SAUNTERS BY HIMSELF.

The first sutra of Yoka. He is talking about the man who has attained the fourth - how he lives, l10W he walks, how he talks, how he listens. There is no greater subject than that. Try to understand how he walks.

HE ALWAYS WALKS BY HIMSELF, SAUNTERS BY HIMSELF.

That does not mean that he moves into loneliness, no, but wherever he is, he is alone. In the crowd, but he is alone. You will find him standing in the crowd but not part of it; there and yet not there.

That has to be understood.

The man of Zen walks by himself. He is so utterly centred, rooted, in himself that nothing can distract him. You are distracted by each and every thing that passes by. You are walking and you see a beautiful house; you are distracted. And dreams start arising: you would like to possess this house. You come across a beautiful woman, and you lose your centre; you have moved into fantasy.

Anything can distract you. Somebody insults you, and anger arises; you are distracted. Somebody says something beautiful about you, and your ego is puffed up; you have lost your centre. This is getting distracted.

The man of Zen remains by himself You can insult him, BUT YOU CANNOT INSULT HIM. On your part, from your side, you can insult him, but he will not take it; he will laugh and will say good-bye to you. Remember Zusia - just the other day I was talking about him - he has been beaten and he laughs, and he sings a song and goes into the mountains utterly happy - happy that he has made the birds free and happy that he was not distracted by the beating.

Once a Sufi mystic was being beaten by an emperor and he started laughing. He exploded into mad laughter. Even the emperor was puzzled, and he said 'Why are you laughing ?' He said 'Because I am the wrong man! You think you are beating somebody else, that's why I am laughing at the ridiculousness of it.'

HE ALWAYS WALKS BY HIMSELF...

There is no way to push him here and there, you cannot manipulate him; he remains there, utterly himself, so centred is he, so rooted is he, in his being. When one has known the fourth, TURIYA, then there is no distraction, then one can live anywhere.

Once it happened in the days of Buddha that a beautiful prostitute fell in deep love with a Buddhist monk who had gone to beg. The woman had seen many beautiful people - she was one of the most famous prostitutes of those days - even kings used to queue at her door, and she fell in love with a monk, with a BIKKHU, a beggar.

Sannyasins have a beauty that only sannyasins can have: that beauty when one walks by himself, that grace - the grace of the centred one - the dignity, the elegance. Just visualize the monk walking.

And Buddhist monks, their whole teaching consists of one thing: Be alert, be watchful. Not even a single breath has to pass your nostrils without your being aware of it.

So, absolutely watchful, meditative, he must have passed by the woman. She had seen many beautiful people, but never a man who walked by himself like this - and in the market-place and in the whole noise, so silently as if the market did not exist. She immediately fell in love with the man.

She touched his feet and asked him to come to her home and stay for this rainy season, for four months. Buddhist monks stop moving for four months in the rainy season. The rains were just about to come, and the clouds were gathering, and it was time for them to stay and find shelter for four months.

So she invited him: 'You come to my home. Be my guest for four months.' The monk said 'I will have to ask the Master. Tomorrow I will come and reply. If he allows it, I will come.'

There were also other monks begging in the town - they saw the whole thing; they became very jealous. When the young man came back to Buddha, he stood in the assembly and made the request 'A woman, a prostitute' - Amrapalli was her name - 'has asked me to stay with her for the coming rainy season. I will do whatsoever you say.' Many heard it - they all stood up and said 'This is wrong. Even to have al lowed that woman to touch your feet was wrong, because Buddha has said "Don't touch a woman, don't allow a woman to touch you." You have broken the rule, and now this is something, that you are asking to stay with the woman for four months!'

Buddha said 'I have told you not to touch a woman, not to be touched by a woman because you are not centred. For this man that rule is no more applicable. I can see that he can walk alone by himself - I have been watching him - he is no more part of the crowd. You are still part of the crowd. When you go to the market, you go to the market; he simply passes by there as if he had never gone.' And to the BIKKHU Buddha said 'Yes, you are allowed.'

Now, this was too much; never had it been done before, there was no precedent. All were angry, and for four months thousands of gossips went around exaggerating what was happening there.

Everybody was interested, and many rumours were coming that the monk was no more a monk, that he had fallen.

After four months the monk came back followed by Amrapalli. Buddha looked at the monk, looked at Amrapalli, and said 'Woman have you something to say to me?' She said 'I have come to be initiated by you. I tried to distract your disciple. I failed; this is my first defeat. I have always succeeded with men. This is the first man whom I could not distract - not even an inch. A great desire has arisen in me too - how I can attain this centring. And the more he has been with me these days, the more I have seen how far away he is from the world. He lived with me, I danced before him, I sang before him, I played on musical instruments before him - I tried to allure him in every way - but he always remained silent. He always remained himself Not for a single moment have I seen any cloud in his mind or any desire in his eyes. I tried to convert him, but he has converted me - and not saying; a single word. He has not brought me here, I have come on my own. I have known for the first time what dignity is; I would like to learn the art.'

She became a disciple of Buddha. She became a nun.

HE ALWAYS WALKS BY HIMSELF...

Remember, it does not mean that he remains lonely, it only means that he remains alone. If you want to be lonely you have to move away from the world, but if you want to be alone there is no need

to go anywhere, you can be alone here. Aloneness needs awareness. Loneliness is an outer thing - you simply have to move away from people. But moving away from people you remain the same - your mind has not changed; and your mind is the problem, not the people. Sitting in a Himalayan cave you will think of the people, of your wife, of your children, of all those friends you have left behind, because the mind cannot be left here, it will go with you - it is you.

Don't try to change the circumstances of your life, try to change the psychology. Try to change your attitudes towards life, don't try to change the outer situation. Use the outer situation and change the inner state. The false religion consists of changing the situation: 'If a woman creates desire in you, escape from the woman.' This is changing the situation; this is not much of a change - you are befooling yourself and befooling the world. The real religion consists of changing the state of the mind: 'If a woman attracts you, then look into your desires, then watch those desires. Somewhere there you have not known anything better than sex. Somewhere there you have not known anything higher than sex. Somewhere there you have not known anything ecstatic. Because you have not known anything higher, you are attracted towards the lower. Search for the higher. Once you have known higher reaches of your energy, sex starts withering of its own accord.' That is real religion.

HE ALWAYS WALKS BY HIMSELF; SAUNTERS BY HIMSELF.

And his walk is a sauntering - that has also to be remembered. It is not work, it is play. Whatsoever he is doing he does it very sincerely, he does it with totality, he does it with all his being, with all his capacity. He becomes available fully to the work, but it is not work, it is play. He is non-serious; sincere, certainly, but never serious. His walk is not goal-oriented, it is a sauntering. He lives the life because he finds himself here. He lives because life has been given, he dies because life has been taken away. But all his action is unmotivated - there is no motivation in it - he is not going anywhere in particular.

First, he remains alone in the crowd, he remains by himself And, second, all that he is doing he is doing in a playful mood. He is non-purposive, non-serious; work is not his world but play. He does not leave the work, he changes the quality of it.

I am talking to you; this is not work, this is play. There is no motivation behind it - not even the motivation to convince you. If you are convinced, that is your business. I am not trying to convince you, I am not trying to convert you - I am not a missionary, I have no mission to fulfil - I am just singing my song, my SHODOKA. You have decided to listen; if something happens in you, that is your decision to allow it to happen in you or not to allow it to happen in you, but on my part there is no motivation.

A cuckoo starts calling; and you are thrilled, and you are changed, and you are convinced of the beauty of the song, but that is absolutely yours - the cuckoo was not after you. A tree has bloomed; if your nostrils are filled with its fragrance that is for you to accept or reject. The sun has risen; it is for you to open your eyes and see the sunlit world or not to open your eyes. But the sun is not motivated - it has knocked on your door without any motivation. If you don't listen it will not be offended, if you listen it will not be gratified either.

That is sauntering, and once you know the beauty of sauntering, then all goal-oriented actions disappear because they bring miseries. Those goals are your goals, and they are always against the goal of the whole. They clash with the cosmic, and, naturally, you are defeated; you cannot defeat the cosmos. Then there is frustration. If your goals are not fulfilled, there is frustration and you will be in misery. If your goals are fulfilled your ego is puffed up, that will create misery. Either you succeed or fail - only two are the possibilities - but in both ways you will be miserable.

Forget all goals. Live in the moment. Enjoy the moment to the fullest possibility of it; squeeze it as much as you can - the whole juice of it; but that's all - there is no future in it. When a person starts living moment to moment he has learnt how to live. Never sacrifice the present for the future: that is the meaning of sauntering by oneself The Zen man is like a child collecting pebbles on the sea-shore just enjoying the sunshine and the brisk salty air and the roar of the waves and the vastness - just the joy of running here and there, and collecting sea-shells and coloured stones for no purpose at all. They are of no use - they cannot be sold in the market-place as commodities. Just watch a child playing on the sea-shore making sand-castles - nobody is going to live in them, the whole activity is just play. The joy is in making the castle, and then the same child will destroy the castle. And see the child when he destroys the castle - how he jumps, shrieks in joy, shouts in joy. He has made it, he has destroyed it.

Learn from children how to live, learn from children how to transform the quality of your work. Once it becomes play, you are a religious man.

But look at the unfortunate state of the world. The religious person becomes very very motivated.

The so-called religious person cannot play at all; he becomes very serious.

It happened once that a great political leader came to attend one of my camps in Mahabaleshwar.

He was known in India as the father of the Indian parliament because he remained an MP for fifty years. The first day he watched. By the evening he came to me and he said 'Everything is okay, but a few things offend me - I have seen four of your sannyasins playing cards. How can a sannyasin play cards? What kind of sannyas is this?'

He was really offended, and I can understand his discomfort, his uneasiness. Sannyasins are not expected to be playful; they have to be serious, they have to be long-faces. They are not expected to laugh, they are certainly not expected to play cards. And when I said 'But what is wrong in it? If they are enjoying playing cards, it is perfectly right, it is meditative', he immediately left the camp. He became so angry; he could not conceive of card-playing as meditation. And all meditation is nothing but card-playing. Meditation means playfulness, meditation is not a serious phenomenon. But he had come seriously - he was getting very old, he was seventy-five and death was coming near, and he wanted to have some security beyond death. He had lived a very very successful life here, now he wanted to succeed in the other life; he could not afford to be playful. Time is short, and time is money; time is fleeting fast. He had come there to learn some way how to have a successful life in the other world. He could not understand that the other world is not a separate world; the other world is intrinsic in this world. It becomes available to non-serious minds.

Non-seriousness is the door to the other world. It is here; if you are serious you miss it, if you are non-serious it suddenly opens its doors. All the mysteries are available to the non-serious, that's

why Jesus goes on repeating again and again 'Unless you are like small children you will not enter into my kingdom of God.'

What does he mean? What is the beauty of small children? They are playful; they don't know what work is. Work is yet unknown to them; they have not fallen yet, they have not committed the original sin yet. The original sin IS seriousness. The moment you can regain, recover, reclaim, your childhood, you have become a religious person.

HE ALWAYS WALKS BY HIMSELF, SAUNTERS BY HIMSELF.

FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO GO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH.

Yoka says FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD...

What road is he talking about? The road to oneself, the road from dream to reality, the road from sleep to awakening, the road from work to play, the road from seriousness to non-seriousneSs. It is only metaphorically called a road; in fact, it is not a road.

Just the other day I was saying to you that you can sleep in Poona and dream about Philadelphia, and I know there are a few people who sleep in Philadelphia and dream of Poona too. This is how the mind of man functions: it is always somewhere else. But your reality is here, your mind is somewhere else.

What road is Yoka talking about? Coming back to your reality, WHERE YOU ARE. Listen to your body and that will give you the clue. The mind always dreams, the body cannot dream - the body is simply here, the body cannot deceive, only mind deceives. Listen to the body, get into your senses, get into your body.

And that is one of the greatest harms the so-called religions have done to humanity: they have helped people to become more and more mental, they have helped people to become more and more minds. And when a man lives in the mind he is mental. They have taught people to be against their bodies. And bodies are real. Bodies exist in God, breathe in God; they are already there, part of God, they pulsate in God. The mind is not part of God, it is your private journey although it cannot take you anywhere. It cannot - it is impotent, but it can dream, it can create beautiful dreams. It can allure you and you can start following those dream tracks so you go farther and farther away from your reality.

The road is only metaphorical. I said to you that if you are in Philadelphia and dreaming, and suddenly I call you 'Come back home' will you ask me where to go, which train to catch, or what

airline? Will you go to Krishna Mohammed to ask about Air-India? Anyway he works no more for Air-India, he works for Air Rajneesh, but that is metaphorical - no aeroplanes here, no airlines. One just has to awaken. One just has to come back where one's body is.

Listen to your body, the body is the secret of finding the road.

FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH.

There are two kinds of people in the world: one, who are very much interested in birth, in life, in the world, and very afraid of death. Now, that's a very stupid type of mind; if you cling to birth, how can you avoid death? - birth implies it. It is the necessity of birth that brings death. There can be no beginning without the end; if the beginning is there the end is bound to be there - the end is implied in the beginning; the alpha contains the omega. Now, people are too interested in birth and life and, naturally, very much afraid of death. The more obsessed they become with life, the more afraid they become of death. But life brings death, birth brings death, birth is a continuous movement towards death. You cannot avoid it so you live in a kind of trembling, in fear, in a kind of dread.

Soren Kierkegaard used to say that man lives in dread. Man need not live in dread, he chooses to live in dread. If you ding to birth, you will be afraid of death.

And there are people who are very obsessed with death too - the other type, the religious type.

They are not concerned with life, their whole concern is death: how to enter into the realms that are beyond death, heaven and paradise, and how to avoid hell, and all that. Their whole concern is death.

A man once came to me and he asked 'I would like to know something about after-life.' I asked him 'Have you known anything about life? If you don't know anything about life, how can you know anything about after-life?' He tried to explain - he thought I had not understood his question, he said 'I mean, what happens after death?' I said 'I would also like to say to you that my insistence is: first try to see what happens before death. You have not even looked into that which is happening already and you are concerned with what will happen after death?. Your concern is abstract, philosophical, metaphysical.' You can spin and weave theories, you can get caught into your ideas and thoughts or into somebody else's ideas and thoughts.

Yoka says FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH.

The moment I awoke to reality, the moment I saw the fourth state of consciousness, TURIYA, I suddenly saw there is no birth and there is no death. Life continues; it only changes forms. Forms

are born and forms die, but the essential life is to catch, or what airline? Will you go to Krishna Mohammed to ask about Air-India? Anyway he works no more for Air-India, he works for Air Rajneesh, but that is metaphorical - no aeroplanes here, no airlines. One just has to awaken.

One just has to come back where one's body is.

Listen to your body, the body is the secret of finding the road.

FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH.

Soren Kierkegaard used to say that man lives in dread. Man need not live in dread, he chooses to live in dread. If you cling to birth, you will be afraid of death.

And there are people who are very obsessed with death too - the other type, the religious type.

A man once came to me and he asked 'I would like to know something about after-life.' I asked him 'Have you known anything about life ? If you don't know anything about life, how can you know anything about after-life?' He tried to explain - he thought I had not understood his question, he said 'I mean, what happens after death?' I said 'I would also like to say to you that my insistence is: first try to see what happens before death. You have not even looked into that which is happening already and you are concerned with what will happen after death?. Your concern is abstract, philosophical, metaphysical.' You can spin and weave theories, you can get caught into your ideas and thoughts or into somebody else's ideas and thoughts.

Yoka says FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH.

The moment I awoke to reality, the moment I saw the fourth state of consciousness, TURIYA, I suddenly saw there is no birth and there is no death. Life continues; it only changes forms. Forms are born and forms die, but the essential life is eternal. And you are that essential life - only clothes change, garments change, houses change - but the essential core goes on and on.

Just the other day there was a question. Somebody asked 'Who are you? From where have you come? What is your purpose here? Are you the messiah?' I have not come from anywhere. I have always been here just as you have always been here, and we are always going to be here.

Raman Maharshi was dying, and a disciple asked 'Where are you going? Why are you leaving us?'

And he opened his eyes, and he laughed and said 'Where can I gO? There is nowhere to go! I will always be here.' He laughed, closed his eyes and died.

Where can I go? There is nowhere to go! I will be here. We are not coming from anywhere, we are not going anywhere, we have always been here - WE ARE THIS EXISTENCE. Yes, forms change, waves change, the ocean remains.

And you asked 'What is your purpose?' No purpose at all. What purpose can there be? Trees are green, and roses are red - what purpose can there be?

And you had asked 'Are you the messiah?' Now, that word has to be understood; it is a device.

The Jews have missed the whole point, and so have the Christians. It is a device, it is a device to create waiting, nothing else. It is one of the ancientmost devices. Judaism used it, but somehow the language was forgotten - as it always happens. Try to understand the device, then a new vision will open up to you. The messiah is nothing but an excuse to wait. 'The messiah is coming!'... it is always urgent. 'The messiah is coming! Any day he will be here.' You have to be ready, you have to learn how to wait, and you have to Learn how to be patient.

Remember all that I have been saying to you about waiting: waiting is prayer. If you can wait, and if you are not in a hurry... If you don't demand and you simply wait - not even waiting for something in particular, just waiting - something is going to happen. It is just on the brink, always on the brink.

That state of waking and waiting will help you remain open, alert, watchful, looking.

Remember the day when a guest is to come, and the postman comes and you rush to the door - you are so alert. Every day the postman comes, he knocks and nobody listens. When you are waiting for the guest, just the breeze blowing through the pines, and you rush to the door - 'Maybe he has come. Maybe this is the sound of his footsteps.' Anything provokes the vision.

Judaism has contributed a few things tO the world; this is one of the most beautiful things: that the messiah is coming. But remember always, because it is a device, the Jews cannot believe it when a messiah declares 'I have come'. They cannot believe him because the man is trying to destroy their whole device. So, when Jesus came and said 'I have come', they had to crucify him, they had to save their device, they had to deny Jesus. The messiah has always to come, but can't be allowed.

See the point. If the messiah comes then all is finished, then how will you Wait?

Messiahs have been coming but they cannot be accepted. 'They are not the messiah we are waiting for. He has always to remain coming, only then we can remain waiting.'

Then the Christians took the device: the second coming of Christ. Do you think they will believe me if I declare 'I am the second Christ. I have come.'? 'No' they will say; 'how can you be the second Christ?' They will find a thousand and one faults; just as the Jews found faults with Jesus they will find faults with me. The reason is that the second coming is the same device in another name; it cannot be allowed. Messiahs will come, but they will not be accepted as THE messiah; he has to remain always there in the future so that you keep alert. And if the device catches hold of your heart it is of immense value - more value than any messiah, because the device can create thousands and thousands and thousands of enlightened people.

I have heard...

Tn the Hassidic tradition, simultaneously with the mystical appreciation of the messiah-nature transmitted through the Master, there continues to exist the expectation of the powerful, kingly messiah. When he appears, the entire planet will be transformed in a flash of illumination, not just inwardly, as is already occurring, but outwardly and openly. No matter how many centuries pass according to human reckoning this universal revelation remains always an imminent future. The Hassid lives with this future event so intimately that it pervades the present.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel, like all Hassidic Masters, lived wholly in his expectation of the messiah's coming. Mornings he would go to the window, look outside, and sadly remark 'He has not yet come, for the world is still the same' - every morning. The whole night he would wait and pray, and in his sleep he would dream and wait and watch. And early in the morning he would rush to the window and open the window and see outside, and say 'He has not come yet, for the world is still the same.'

Jesus came but the world was still the same, that's why the Jews refused him. Jesus transformed a few people's lives, but that is not the point; when the messiah comes, 'the entire planet will be transformed in a flash of illumination'. The world has remained the same. Jesus has come and gone, and the world is not saved, so he was not the messiah.

Who was the messiah? Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavir, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu? - nobody, because the world remains the same. Yes, they transformed a few people's lives, but that is not the point, The messiah is an impossible ideal. It has to be impossible; if it is made possible, then anybody will declare 'I am the messiah', and it is finished. And there have been messiahs - Buddha was, Jesus was. There have been messiahs, but THE messiah, the ultimate - he never comes.

He is always imminent, just coming; you have to wait for him. That waiting transforms you: it is a meditation device.

So I cannot declare that I am the messiah. And I am. But I cannot declare it because I would not like to destroy that beautiful device; that has immense value - it is worth preserving. But I am not coming from anywhere, neither are you coming from anywhere. And I am not going anywhere, neither are you going anywhere. We have always been here, we will always be here.

And this is just a game that we have decided to play: I am the Master and you are the disciple - just a game, a play. You have to follow the rules of the disciple and I have to follow the rules of the Master, but it is a game of cards, playing cards. Be non-serious. Be playful.

And not only am I the messiah, you are too, because the messiah is nothing but the awakening in you. It is a quality in you, and that quality redeems; nothing else, nobody else can redeem you from

the outside. That quality, that awareness, that TURIYA, the fourth, when it takes possession of you, it redeems. It is the salvation.

WALKING IS ZEN, SITTING IS ZEN; TALKING OR SILENT, MOVING, UNMOVING, - THE ESSENCE IS AT EASE.

And when you have understood the fourth, when you have gone into the fourth, then walking is Zen, then you need not practise any kind of meditation. Then all that you do is meditation; then walking is meditation, then sitting is meditation. Meditation is a quality of being that you bring to the act. It is not a particular act, it is not that you do this then it is meditation - that you sit in a certain posture, SIDDHASANA, and you keep your spine erect, and you keep your eyes closed or you look at the tip of your nose or you watch your breath, then it is meditation - no; these are just devices for the beginners.

Just the other day Vidya wrote me a beautiful letter. She said she tried meditation one day and had a great migraine and half her body became paralysed; that cured her of meditation. I liked it. I would like all of you to be cured of meditation; that has to happen to everybody. One has not only to be cured of diseases, one has to be cured of medicines too; otherwise, sometimes medicines become more dangerous than the diseases themselves - one can become obsessed with the medicine.

Do you know that the words 'meditation' and 'medicine' come from the same root? Meditation is a kind of medicine - its use is only for the time being - once you have learned the quality, then you need not do any particular meditation, then the meditation has to spread all over your life. Only when you are meditative twenty-four hours a day then can you attain, then you have attained. Even sleeping is meditation.

WALKING IS ZEN, SITTING IS ZEN...

Then what will be the quality? Watchfully, alert, joyously, unmotivated, centred, loving, flowing, one walks. And the walking is sauntering. Loving, alert, watchful, one sits, unmotivated - not sitting for anything in particular, just enjoying how beautiful just sitting doing nothing is, how relaxing, how restful. After a long walk, you sit under a tree, and the breeze comes and cools you.

Each moment one has to be at ease with oneself - not trying to improve, not cultivating anything, not practising anything.

WALKING IS ZEN, SITTING IS ZEN; TALKING OR SILENT, MOVING, UNMOVING, - THE ESSENCE IS AT EASE.

THE ESSENCE IS AT EASE: that is the key word. THE ESSENCE IS AT EASE: that is the key statement. Do whatsoever you are doing, but at the deepest core remain at ease, cool, calm,

centred. Then you can be in a crowd and you will not be the crowd, then you can be in the market- place and the market-place will not enter in you. Then you can be anywhere and you will remain unpolluted; your purity will remain intact, your innocence undisturbed. THE ESSENCE IS AT EASE:

THAT IS the quality one has to bring into each act; no act has to be excluded from it. If you are afraid of any act and you exclude it that will remain a barrier, and that will remain a pitfall for you, and any day you will fall into it.

Let this quality penetrate all that you do: eating, sleeping, making love, walking, talking, being silent.

Let this quality permeate your existence, pervade your existence. Let this quality surround you always and always; even falling asleep feel surrounded by it. And soon you will see that meditation is not your act, is not activity; it is a certain nuance, a certain musical quality in your being, a certain harmony, a melody, that you bring to every act - whatsoever you are doing.

That's why Zen people say: Carrying water from the well, chopping wood, and one is at home - there is no problem. One can do any kind of work and still the meditation persists; it becomes your very life.

Chuang Tzu says: The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you've gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit; once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning, once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words, so I can have a word with him ?

Meditation is a trap; once the quality is caught hold of, THE ESSENCE IS AT EASE... the trap can be forgotten.

ENTERING THE DEEP MOUNTAINS I LIVE IN QUIET SOLITUDE.

THE HILLS ARE HIGH, THE VALLEYS DEEP WHEN ONE LIVES BENEATH AN OLD PINE TREE.

THE ESSENCE IS AT EASE... then you have entered the deep mountains. You need not go to the Himalayas, the Himalayas come to you. There are already Himalayas inside you. Nothing is missing there; the Himalayas are there - the high peaks, the Pacific is there - the depth. All heights and all depths are there - infinite heights and infinite depths are there. And the primaeval silence reigns there, undisturbed. There in your innermost core you are a virgin, and you cannot lose it - there is no way to lose it; your innocence is absolute there - not even a particle of dust has entered there.

The mirror is absolute transparency when you can walk in Zen, when you can sit in Zen.

When WALKING IS ZEN and SITTING IS ZEN, TALKING OR SILENT, MOVING or UNMOVING - it makes no difference, it is all the same - and THE ESSENCE IS AT EASE, you are entering a new world, a new territory: the inner sky.

ENTERING THE DEEP MOUNTAINS I LIVE IN QUIET SOLITUDE.

Again remember, solitude does not mean solitariness, just as aloneness never means loneliness.

Loneliness simply says the other is being missed, aloneness says one is enjoying oneself.

Loneliness is in reference to the other that you are missing, aloneness is the presence of yourself.

HE ALWAYS WALKS BY HIMSELF, SAUNTERS BY HIMSELF.

This is aloneness, and so is solitude. Solitude is aloneness. You can be in solitude anywhere, but you cannot be solitary anywhere. Solitariness means there is nobody, you are alone; you have to move, you have to move away from people. Solitariness is against the world, solitude is not against the world. Solitude is something great, solitariness is something very ordinary, mundane.

ENTERING THE DEEP MOUNTAINS I LIVE IN QUIET SOLITUDE.

THE HILLS ARE HIGH, THE VALLEYS DEEP WHEN ONE LIVES BENEATH AN OLD PINE TREE.

Chuang Tzu says: Everything has its THAT, everything has its THIS. THAT comes out of THIS, and THIS depends on THAT - which is to say that THIS and THAT give birth to each other. But where there is birth, there must also be death. The sage's THIS IS also THAT, his THAT IS also THIS. A state in which this and that no longer find their opposites is called 'the hinge of the Way'.

Where THIS and THAT become one, where this world and that world become one, where matter and mind become one, that is called 'the hinge of the Way'.

Yoka says FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD...

This is the road he is talking about. The moment you recognize that all is one; death and life, THIS and THAT - all is one, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH.

Then I knew I never had any beginning and I will never have any end. Then I knew this whole belongs to me and I belong to this whole. And there is no need to make any distinctions, there is no need to make any categories that 'this is lower and that is higher, this is sacred and that is profane'.

If you have entered the road - the road that brings you from dreams to reality, from divisions to the non-dual, from many to one - then you will see all the beauty that you have been searching for outside is inside you, and all the heights that you have been trying to soar to outside are within you.

Man trying to reach to the planets, man trying to reach to the moon and to Mars and then to the stars, is on a false journey. The urge is not for the outer moon, there is an inner moon too - the urge is for it. The outer moon you can reach and nothing is going to happen through it. Man has already reached the moon - what has happened? Man has reached Everest, the highest peak in the world - what has happened? It seems these are substitutes, the real height is something else, the real journey is somewhere else.

An ancient parable...

Once upon a time there was a country that encompassed all the countries of the world. And in that country there was a town that incorporated all the towns of that country; and in that town there was a street in which were gathered all the streets of the town; and on that street there was a house which sheltered all the houses of the street; and in that house there was a room and in that room there was a man, and that man personified all men of all countries, and that man laughed and laughed.

No-one had ever laughed like that before.

Why was he laughing? He was laughing because he had understood that he is all. He was laughing because he had understood the stupidity of searching. There was no need to search; all was given from the very beginning.

This is a persistent Zen note: that everybody is a Buddha from the very beginning, you just have to come out of your dreams and see the reality of your being.

This man was laughing - this man of the parable. This is the clear laughter of enlightenment that perceives all countries, towns, streets, and beings as original mind. When many disappear and one is realized, one has seen, one has come home. And coming home is all that matters. And then one laughs. All the enlightened people have laughed - laughed at the whole absurdity of it all, laughed at the whole effort of so many many lives for something that was already inside them, and they were looking out and they were running and running, and chasing, and driving themselves crazy.

I have heard...

A Zen Master writes about his first SATORI experience...

At midnight I abruptly awakened. At first my mind was foggy, then suddenly that question Flashed into my consciousness...

What question? - the question which must have been given by the Master: the koan, the puzzle.

... that question flashed into my consciousness. I came to realize clearly that Mind is no other than mountains, rivers, and the great wide earth, the sun, and the moon, and the stars.

Maybe he was meditating on the sound of one hand, because ONLY ONE IS, SO all sound is the sound of one hand. It is not a dialogue, the existence is a monologue. It is one because there is only one: God is talking to God. That's why I said I have chosen to be the Master and you have chosen to be the disciples; this is a game. God is the Master and God is the disciple. It is a monologue: he talks, he listens; he dances, he appreciates; he is the actor and he is the audience.

I came to realize, the Zen Master remembers... I came to realize clearly that Mind is no other than mountains, rivers, and the great wide earth, the sun, and the moon, and the stars. The jewel of original mind, the treasure of divine nature, is discovered at home in the realm of primal awareness which appears as rivers, mountains, stars, and persons. The transcendent humour of this discovery is overwhelming, continues the Zen Master. Instantaneously, like surging waves, a tremendous delight welled up in me, a veritable hurricane of delight, as I laughed loudly and wildly 'Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! There's no reasoning here, no reasoning at all! Ha, ha, ha!' the empty sky split into two, then opened its enormous mouth and began to laugh uproariously 'Ha, ha, ha!'

You are chasing your own tail. You can go on chasing it forever and you will not be able to catch it.

Stop, and it is yours. Stopping is the road, not moving is the road, not going anywhere is the road.

Stop. Stop all dreaming, stop all desiring, stop all asking. And if even for a single moment you can do it, you will see the transcendental laughter arising in you. You will laugh at yourself. You will laugh at the whole ridiculousness of the search. And once it has been seen and the laughter has welled up in you, then WALKING IS ZEN, SITTING IS ZEN; TALKING OR SILENT, MOVING, UNMOVING, - THE ESSENCE IS AT EASE.

Because there is nowhere to go, nothing to seek, nothing to search for, no goal, no seriousness, THE ESSENCE IS AT EASE. And in that essence ENTERING THE DEEP MOUNTAINS I LIVE IN QUIET SOLITUDE.

One enters into one's own Himalayas of being and lives there in utter solitude.

THE HILLS ARE HIGH, THE VALLEYS DEEP WHEN ONE LIVES BENEATH AN OLD PINE TREE.

The old pine tree is a metaphor. The Zen people use that; sometimes they say 'the old man', sometimes they say 'the original man', sometimes they say 'the original face'. Yoka is being more poetic, he says 'sitting BENEATH AN OLD PINE tree.' The primaeval consciousness is the old pine tree; it has always been here - it is the very nature of existence. When you sit under the old pine tree of awareness, all is silent and all is joy, and all is utter bliss.

Do not search, find.

Do not seek, stop. And in that stopping is the secret - the secret of all secrets. Stop, and a single moment of stopping... and time disappears. See, this moment there is no time; you have stopped, and all is silent. And all is one. That is the meaning of the word 'alone'; aloneness means all-one- ness. Stop, and see. And just a small experience of the essence is at ease', and your whole life is transformed.

The alchemy of stopping is what Zen is all about. If I can impart to you this stopping, if looking into my eyes, if feeling my vibe, sometimes you can stop and drop all searching, God will come rushing to you. You need not go to search for him, he is waiting for you to stop; he simply rushes into you from all the sides. Man never reaches God. Whenever it happens, it happens the other way: man stops searching and God comes to him. That has always been so, and its going to be always so.

Search not. Seek not, because all seeking is dreaming and all searching is desiring. And when there is no desire, one has arrived.