Total acceptance and non-division

Question 1:

One of the things being asked about is: WHAT DOES TANTRA MEAN BY PURIFICATION OF THE MIND, PURITY OF THE MIND, AS A BASIC CONDITION TO FURTHER PROGRESS? Whatsoever is ordinarily meant by purity is not what is meant by tantra. Ordinarily, we divide everything into bad and good. The division may be for any reason. It may be hygienically, morally or in any other way, but we divide life into two - good and bad. And ordinarily, whenever we say purity we mean goodness - the "bad" qualities should not be allowed and the "good" qualities should be there. But for tantra this division of good and bad is meaningless. Tantra does not look at life through any dichotomy, any duality, any division. Then "What is meant by purity in tantra?" is a very relevant question.

If you ask a saint, he will say that anger is bad, sex is bad, greed is bad. If you ask Gurdjieff, he will say that negativity is bad, that whatsoever emotion is negative is bad and to be positive is good. If you ask Jains, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians or Mohammedans, they may differ in their definition of good and bad - but they have definitions. They call certain things bad and certain things good. So to define purity is not difficult for them. Whatsoever they take as good is pure, whatsoever they take as bad is impure.

But for tantra it is a deep problem. Tantra makes no superficial division between good and bad.

Then what is purity? Tantra says that to divide is impure and to live in non-division is purity. So for tantra purity means innocence - undifferentiated innocence.

A child is there; you call him pure. He gets angry, he has greed, so why do you call him pure? What is pure in childhood? Innocence! There is no division in the mind of a child. The child is unaware of any division into what is good and what is bad. That unawareness is the innocence. Even if he gets angry, he has no mind to be angry, it is a pure and simple act. It happens, and when anger goes, it goes. Nothing is left behind. The child is again the same, as if the anger has never been there. The purity is not touched; the purity is the same. So a child is pure because there is no mind.

The more mind grows, the more the child will become impure. Then anger will be there as a considered thing, not spontaneously. Then sometimes the child will suppress the anger - if the situation does not permit it. And when anger becomes suppressed, then sometimes it will be transferred onto another situation instead. When there is really no need to be angry he will get angry, because the suppressed anger will need some outlet. Then everything will become impure because the mind has come in.

A child can be a thief in our eyes, but a child himself is never a thief because the very concept that things belong to individuals doesn't exist in his mind. If he takes your watch, your money, or anything, it is not a theft for him because the very notion that things belong to someone is non-existent. His theft is pure while even your non-theft is not pure - the mind is there.

Tantra says that when someone becomes again like a child, he is pure. Of course, he is not a child - only like a child. The difference is there and the similarity is there. The similarity is the innocence regained. Again someone is like a child. A child is standing naked - no one feels the nakedness because a child is still unaware of the body. His nakedness has a quality different from your nakedness. You are aware of the body.

The sage must regain this innocence. Mahavir stands again naked. That nakedness again has the same quality of innocence. He has forgotten his body; he is no longer the body. But one difference is also there, and the difference is great: the child is simply ignorant, hence the innocence. But the sage is wise, that is the reason for his innocence.

The child will one day become aware of his body and will feel the nakedness. He will try to hide, he will become guilty, and he will feel shame. He will come to be aware. So his innocence is an innocence of ignorance. Knowledge will destroy it.

That is the meaning of the biblical story of Adam and Eve being expelled from the garden of Eden.

They were naked like children. They were not aware of the body; they were not aware of anger, greed, lust, sex or anything. They were unaware. They were like children, innocent.

But God had forbidden them to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The tree of knowledge was forbidden but they ate, because anything forbidden becomes inviting. Anything forbidden becomes attractive! They were living in a big garden with an infinite number of trees, but the tree of knowledge became the most important and significant because it was forbidden. Really, this forbidden-ness became the attraction, the invitation. They were as if magnetized, hypnotized by the tree. They couldn't escape it, they had to eat.

But this story is beautiful because the tree is named the tree of knowledge. The moment they ate the fruit of knowledge they became non-innocent. They became aware; they came to realize that they were naked. Immediately, Eve tried to hide her body. With awareness of the body they became aware of everything - anger, lust, greed, everything. They became adult, so they were expelled from the garden.

So in the Bible knowledge is sin. They were thrown out of the garden, they were punished, because of knowledge. Unless they become again like children - innocent, not-knowing - they cannot enter the garden. They can enter the kingdom of God again only if they fulfill this condition of becoming innocent again.

The whole thing is just the story of humanity. Every child is expelled from the garden, not only Adam and Eve. Every child lives his childhood in innocence without knowing anything. He is pure, but the purity is of ignorance. It cannot continue. Unless it becomes a purity of wisdom, you cannot rely on it. It will have to go, sooner or later you will have to eat the fruit of knowledge.

Each child will have to eat the fruit of knowledge. It was easy in the garden of Eden - just the tree was there. As a substitute for the tree we have schools, colleges and universities. Each child will have to pass, will have to become non-innocent, will have to lose his innocence. The very world needs knowledge, the very existence needs knowledge. You cannot exist in it without knowledge.

And the moment knowledge comes, division enters. You begin to divide between what is good and what is bad.

So for tantra the division into good and bad is impurity. Before it you are pure, after it you are pure; in it you are impure. But knowledge is a necessary evil, you cannot escape it. One has to go through it; that is part of life. But one need not remain in it always, one can transcend it. Transcendence makes you again pure and innocent. If divisions lost their meaning, if the knowledge which differentiates between good and evil were no more, you would again look at the world from an innocent attitude.

Jesus says, "Unless you become like children, you cannot enter into my kingdom of God." Unless you become like children... this is the purity of tantra.

Lao Tsu says, "One inch of division, and heaven and hell are set apart." No-division is the mind of the sage - no division at all! A sage doesn't know what is good or what is bad. He is like children but unlike them also, because he has known this division. He has passed through this division and transcended it; he has gone beyond it. He has known darkness and light, but now he has gone beyond it. Now he sees darkness as part of light and light as part of darkness, now there is no division. Light and darkness have both become one - degrees of one phenomenon. Now he sees everything as degrees of one; howsoever polar opposite they are, they are not two. Life and death, love and hate, good and bad, everything is part of one phenomenon, one energy. The difference is only of degrees, and they can never be divided. It cannot be demarked, that "From this point there is division." There is no division.

What is good? What is bad? From where can you define them and demark them as separate? They are always one. They are only different degrees of the same thing. Once this is known and felt, your mind becomes again pure. This is the purity meant by tantra. So I will define tantric purity as innocence, not as goodness.

But innocence can be ignorant - then it is of no use. It has to be lost, you have to be thrown out of it; otherwise you cannot mature. Giving up knowledge and transcendence of knowledge are both part of maturing, part of being really adult. So go through it, but do not remain there. Move! Go on moving! A day comes when you are beyond it.

That is why tantric purity is difficult to understand and can be misunderstood. It is delicate! So to recognize a tantric sage is virtually impossible. Ordinary saints and sages can be recognized because they follow you - your standards, your definitions, your morality. A tantric sage is even difficult to recognize because he transcends all divisions. So really, in the whole history of human growth we know nothing about tantric sages. Nothing is mentioned or recorded about them because it is so difficult to recognize them.

Confucius went to Lao Tsu. Lao Tsu's mind is that of a tantrically awakened sage. He never knew about the word 'tantra'; the word is meaningless for him. He never knew anything about tantra, but whatsoever he has said IS tantra. Confucius is representative of our mind, he is the arch- representative. He continually thinks in terms of good and bad, of what should be done and what should not be done. He is a legalist - the greatest legalist ever born. He went to see Lao Tsu, and he asked Lao Tsu, "What is good? What ought one to do? What is bad? Define it clearly."

Lao Tsu said, "Definitions create a mess, because defining means dividing: this is this, and that is that." You divide and say A is A and B is B... you have divided. You say A cannot be B; then you have created a division, a dichotomy, and the existence is one. A is always becoming B, A is always moving into B. Life is always becoming death, life is always moving into death, so how can you define? Childhood is moving into youth and youth is moving into old age; health is moving into disease and disease is moving into health. So where can you demark them as separate?

Life is one movement, and the moment you define you create a mess, because definitions will be dead and life is an alive movement. So definitions are always false. Lao Tsu said, "Defining creates non-truth, so do not define. Do not say what is good and what is bad."

So Confucius said, "What are you saying? Then how can people be led and guided? Then how can they be taught? How can they be made moral and good?"

Lao Tsu said, "When someone tries to make someone else good, that is a sin in my eyes. Who are you to lead? Who are you to guide? And the more guides there are, the more confusion. Leave everyone to himself. Who are you?"

This type of attitude seems dangerous. It is! Society cannot be founded on such attitudes. Confucius goes on asking, and the whole point is that Lao Tsu says, "Nature is enough, no morality is needed.

Nature is spontaneous. Nature is enough, no imposed laws and disciplines are needed. Innocence is enough; no morality is needed. Nature is spontaneous, nature is enough. No imposed laws and disciplines are needed. Innocence is enough. Knowledge is not needed."

Confucius came back very much disturbed. He could not sleep for nights. And his disciples asked, "Tell us something about the meeting. What happened?" Confucius answered, "He is not a man, he is a danger, a dragon. He is not a man. Never go to that place where he is. Whenever you hear about Lao Tsu, just escape from that place. He will disturb your mind completely."

And that is right, because the whole of tantra is concerned with how to transcend the mind. It is bound to destroy the mind. Mind lives with definitions, laws and disciplines; mind is an order. But remember, tantra is not disorder, and that is a very subtle point to be understood.

Confucius could not understand Lao Tsu. When Confucius left, Lao Tsu was laughing and laughing and so his disciples asked, "Why are you laughing so much? What has happened?"

Lao Tsu is reported to have said, "The mind is such a barrier to understanding. Even the mind of a Confucius is a barrier. He could not understand me at all, and whatsoever he will say about me will be a misunderstanding. He thinks he is going to create order in the world. You CANNOT create order in the world. Order is inherent in it; it is always there. When you try to create order you create disorder." Lao Tsu said, "He will think that I am creating disorder, and really, he is the one who is creating disorder. I am against all imposed orders because I believe in a spontaneous discipline which comes and grows automatically. You need not impose it."

Tantra looks at things in this way. For tantra, innocence is spontaneity, SAHAJATA - to be oneself without any imposition, to be simply oneself, growing like a tree. Not the tree of your garden, but the tree of your forest, growing spontaneously; not guided, because every guidance is a misguidance.

For tantra, every guidance is a misguidance. Not guided, not guarded, not directed, not motivated, but simply growing.

The inner law is enough; no other law is needed. And if you need some other law, it only shows that you do not know the inner law, you have lost contact with it. So the real thing is not something imposed. The real thing is again regaining the balance, again moving to the center, again returning to the home so that you gain the real inner law.

But for morality, for religions - so-called religions - order is to be imposed, goodness is to be imposed from above, from without. Religions, moral teachings, priests, popes, they all take you as inherently bad - remember this. They do not believe in the goodness of man; they do not believe in any inner goodness. They believe that you are evil, that unless you are taught to be good you cannot be good; unless goodness is forced from without, there is no possibility of it coming from within.

So for priests, for religious people, for moralists, you are naturally bad. Goodness is going to be a discipline imposed from without. You are a chaos and order has to be brought in by them; they will bring the order. And they have made the whole world a mess, a confusion, a madhouse, because they have been ordering for centuries and centuries, disciplining for centuries and centuries. They have taught so much that the taught ones have gone mad.

Tantra believes in your inner goodness: remember this difference. Tantra says that everyone is born good, that goodness is your nature. It is the case! You are already good! You need a natural growth, you do not need any imposition; that is why nothing is taken as bad. If anger is there, if sex is there, if greed is there, tantra says they are also good. The only thing lacking is that you are not centered in yourself; that is why you cannot use them.

Anger is not bad. Really, the problem is that you are not inside, that is why anger creates havoc.

If you are present there inside, anger becomes a healthy energy, anger becomes health. Anger is transformed into energy, it becomes good. Whatsoever is there is good. Tantra believes in the inherent goodness of everything. Everything is holy, nothing is unholy and nothing is evil. For tantra there is no devil, only divine existence.

Religions cannot exist without the devil. They need a God and they need a devil also. So do not be misguided if you see only a God in their temples. Just behind that God, the devil is hiding, because no religion can exist without the devil.

Something has to be condemned, something has to be fought, something has to be destroyed. The total is not accepted, only part. This is very basic. You are not accepted totally by any religion, only partially. They say, "We accept your love, but not your hate. Destroy hate." And this is a very deep problem, because when you destroy hate completely love is also destroyed - because they are not two. They say, "We accept your silence, but we do not accept your anger." Destroy anger and your aliveness is destroyed. Then you will be silent, but not an alive man - only a dead one. That silence is not life, it is just death.

Religions always divide you into two: the evil and the divine. They accept the divine and are against the evil - the evil has to be destroyed. So if someone really follows them, he will come to conclude that the moment you destroy the devil, God is destroyed. But no one really follows them - no one can follow them because the very teaching is absurd. So what is everyone doing? Everyone is just deceiving. That is why there is so much hypocrisy. That hypocrisy has been created by religion. You cannot do whatsoever they are teaching you to do, so you become a hypocrite. If you follow them you will die; if you do not follow them you feel guilty that you are irreligious. So what to do?

The cunning mind makes a compromise. It goes on paying lip service to them, saying, "I am following you," but it goes on doing whatsoever it wants to do. You continue your anger, you continue your sex, you continue your greed, but you go on saying that greed is bad, anger is bad, sex is bad - that it is a sin. This is hypocrisy. The whole world has become hypocritical, no man is honest. Unless these dividing religions disappear, no man can be honest. This will look contradictory because all the religions are teaching to be honest, but they are the foundation stones of all dishonesty. They make you dishonest; because they teach you to do impossible things, which you cannot do, you become hypocrites.

Tantra accepts you in your totality, in your wholeness, because tantra says, either accept wholly or reject wholly; there is no in between. A man is a whole, an organic whole. You cannot divide it. You cannot say, "We will not accept this," because that which you reject is organically joined to that which you accept.

It is like this.... My body is there. Someone comes and says, "We accept your blood circulation, but we do not accept the noise of your heart. This continuous beating of your heart we do not accept.

We accept your blood circulation. It is okay, it is silent." But my blood circulation is through my heart, and the beating is basically related with blood circulation; it happens because of it. So what am I to do? My heart and my blood circulation are an organic unity. They are not two things, they are one.

So either accept me totally or reject me totally, but do not try to divide me because then you will create a dishonesty, a deep dishonesty. If you go on condemning my heartbeat, then I will also start condemning my heartbeat. But the blood won't be able to circulate and I cannot be alive without it.

So what to do? Go on as you are, and go on all the time saying something else which you are not, which you cannot be.

It is not difficult to see how heart and blood circulation are related, but it is difficult to see how love and hate are related. They are one. When you love someone, what are you doing? It is one movement, like breath going out. When you love someone, what are you doing? You are going out to meet him, it is a breath going out. When you hate someone, it is a breath coming back in.

When you love, you are attracted to someone. When you hate, you are repelled. Attraction and repulsion are two waves of one movement. Attraction and repulsion are not two things; you cannot divide them. You cannot say, "You can breathe in but you cannot breathe out, or you can breathe out but you cannot breathe in. You are allowed only one thing. Either go on breathing out or go on breathing in, do not do both." How can you breathe in if you are not allowed to breathe out? And if you are not allowed to hate, you cannot love.

Tantra says, "We accept the whole man because man is an organic unity." Man is a deep unity; you cannot discard anything. And this is as it should be - because if man is not an organic unity, then in this universe nothing can be an organic unity. Man is the peak of organic wholeness. The stone lying on the street is a unity. The tree is a unity. The flower and the bird are unities. Everything is a unity, so why not man? And man is the peak - a great unity, a very complex organic whole. Really, you cannot deny anything.

Tantra says, "We accept you as you are. That does not mean there is no need to change; that does not mean that now you have to stop growing. Rather, on the contrary, it means that we accept the basis of growth." Now you can grow, but this growth is not going to be a choice. This growth is going to be a choiceless growth.

Look! For example, when a buddha becomes enlightened we can ask, "Where has his anger gone - where?" He had anger, he had sex, so where has his sex gone? Where is it that his anger has gone? Where is his greed?" We cannot recognize any anger in him now. When he is enlightened we cannot recognize any anger in him.

Can you recognize the mud in the lotus? The lotus comes from the mud. If you have never seen a lotus growing from the mud and a lotus flower is brought to you, can you conceive that this beautiful lotus flower has come up from the ordinary mud of a pond? This beautiful lotus coming from ugly mud! Can you recognize the mud anywhere in it? It is there, but transformed. Its fragrance is coming from that same ugly mud. The rosiness of the petals is coming from the same ugly mud. If you hide this lotus flower in mud, within days it will disappear again into its mother. Then again you won't be able to recognize where that lotus has gone. Where? Where is the fragrance? Where are those beautiful petals?

You cannot recognize yourself in Buddha, but you are there - of course, on a greater and higher plane, transformed. The sex is there, the anger is there, the hate is there. Everything which belongs to man is there. Buddha is a man, but he has come to his ultimate growth. He has become a lotus flower; you cannot recognize the mud, but that doesn't mean that the mud is not there. It is there, but not as mud. It is a higher unity. That is why in Buddha you can feel neither hate nor love. That is still more difficult to understand because Buddha appears totally loving - never hating, always silent - never angry. But his silence is different from your silence. It cannot be the same.

What is your silence? Somewhere Einstein has said that our peace is nothing but a preparation for war. Between two wars we have a gap of peace, but that peace is not really peace. It is only the gap between two wars, so it becomes a cold war. Thus, we have two types of war - hot and cold.

After the second world war, Russia and America began a cold war. They are not at peace - just in preparation for another war. They are getting ready. Each war disturbs, destroys. You have to get ready again, so you need a gap, an interval. But if wars really disappear from the world completely, then this type of peace which means cold war will also disappear, because it always happens between two wars. If war disappears completely, this cold war which we call peace cannot continue.

What is your silence? Just a preparation between two angers. When you seem at ease what is it? Are you really relaxed, really at ease, or are you just preparing for another outburst, for another explosion? Anger is a wastage of energy, so you also need time. When you get angry you cannot get angry again immediately. When you move into the sex act, you cannot move again immediately.

You will need time, so you will need a period of BRAHMACHARYA - celibacy - for at least two or three days. It will depend on your age. This celibacy is not really celibacy, you are only preparing again.

Between two sex acts there can be no brahmacharya. You go on calling the period between two meals a fast. That is why in the morning you have 'breakfast', but where is the fast? You were just preparing. You cannot go on thrusting food into yourself continuously, you have to have a gap, but that gap is not a fast. Really, it is only a preparation for another meal, not a fast.

So when we are silent, it is always between two angers. When we are at ease, it is always between two peaks of tension. When we are celibate, it is only between two sex acts. When we are loving, it is always between two hatreds - remember this.

So when Buddha is silent, do not think this is your silence. When your anger has disappeared, your silence has disappeared also. They both exist together; they cannot be separated. So when Buddha is a brahmachari - a celibate - do not think this is your celibacy. When sex has disappeared, brahmacharya has also disappeared. They both were part of one thing, so they both have disappeared. With a Buddha a very different being is there such as you cannot conceive. You can only conceive of the dichotomy you know. You cannot conceive of what type of man this is, of what has happened to him.

The whole energy has come to a different level, a different plane of existence. The mud has become a lotus, but it is still there. The mud has not been discarded from the lotus; it has been transformed.

So all of the energies within you are accepted by tantra. Tantra is not for discarding anything whatsoever, but for transformation. And tantra says that the first step is to accept. The first step is very difficult - to accept. You may be getting angry many times every day, but to accept your anger is very difficult. To be angry is very easy; to accept your anger is very difficult. Why? You do not feel so much difficulty in being angry, so why do you feel so much difficulty in accepting it?

Getting angry seems not so bad as accepting it. Everyone thinks he is a good man and anger is just momentary, it comes and goes. It doesn't destroy your self-image. You go on remaining good. You say that "It just happened." It is not destructive to your ego.

So those who are cunning will repent immediately. They will get angry and they will repent, they will ask for forgiveness. These are the cunning ones. Why do I call them cunning? Because their anger gives a trembling to their self-image. They begin to feel uneasy. They begin to feel, "I get angry? I am so bad that I get angry?" So the image of a good man trembles. He has to try and make it established again. Immediately he says, "This was bad. I will never do it again. Forgive me." By asking for forgiveness his self-image is established again. He is okay - back to his previous state when there was no anger. He has canceled his anger by asking for forgiveness. He has called himself bad just to remain good.

That is why you can go on for lives together being angry, being sexual, being possessive, being this and that, but never accepting. This is a trick of the mind. Whatsoever you do is just on the periphery.

In the center, you remain good. If you accept that "I have anger," in the center you become bad.

Then it is not just a question of getting angry, then it is not momentary. Rather, then anger is part of your constitution. Then it is not that someone irritates you into anger. Even if you are alone, the anger is there. When you are not getting angry the anger is still there, because anger is your energy, part of you.

It is not that sometimes it flares up and then goes off - no! It cannot flare up if it is not always present.

You can turn off this light, you can turn on this light; but the current must remain continuously there.

If the current is not there, you cannot turn it on and off. The current, the anger current, is always there; the sex current is always there, the greed current is always there. You can turn it on, you can turn it off. In situations you change, but inwardly you remain the same.

Accepting means anger is not an act. Rather, YOU are anger. Sex is not just an act; YOU are sex. Greed is not just an act; YOU are greed. Accepting this means throwing away the self-image.

And we all have built beautiful self-images. Everyone has built a beautiful self-image - absolutely beautiful. And whatsoever you are doing never touches it, you go on protecting it. The image is protected, so you feel good. That is why you can become angry, you can become sexual, and you are not disturbed. But if you accept and say, "I am sex, I am anger, I am greed," then your self-image falls down immediately.

Tantra says this is the first step, and the most difficult: to accept whatsoever you are. Sometimes we try to accept, but whenever we accept we again do so in a very calculated way. Our cunningness is deep and subtle, and mind has very subtle ways to deceive. Sometimes you accept and say, "Yes, I am angry." But if you accept this, you accept only when you think of how to transcend anger. Then you accept and say, "Okay, I am angry. Now tell me how to go beyond it." You accept sex only to be non-sexual. Whenever you are trying to be something else you are able to accept, because your self-image is again maintained by the future.

You are violent and you are striving to be nonviolent, so you accept and say, "Okay, I am violent.

Today I am violent, but tomorrow I will be nonviolent, however." How will you become nonviolent?

You postpone this self-image into the future. You do not think of yourself in the present. You always think in terms of the ideal - of nonviolence, love and compassion. Then you are in the future. This present is just to become a past, your real self is in the future, so you go on identifying yourself with ideals. Those ideals are also ways of not accepting the reality. You are violent - that is the case.

And the present is the only thing that is existential; the future is not. Your ideals are just dreams.

They are tricks to postpone the mind, to focus the mind somewhere else.

You are violent: this is the case, so accept it. And do not try to be nonviolent. A violent mind CANNOT become nonviolent. How is this possible? Look deep into it. You are violent, so how can you be nonviolent? Whatsoever you do will be done by the violent mind - whatsoever! Even while striving to be nonviolent, the effort will be done by the violent mind. You are violent, so by trying to be nonviolent you will be violent. In the very effort to be nonviolent, you will try every type of violence.

That is why you go to these strivers for nonviolence. They may not be violent with others, but they are with themselves. They are very violent with themselves - murdering themselves. And the more they get mad against themselves, the more they are celebrated. When they become completely mad, suicidal, then the society says, "These are the sages." But they have only transformed the object of violence, nothing else. They were violent with someone else, now they are violent with themselves - but the violence is there. And when you are violent with someone else the law can protect, the court can help, the society will condemn you. But when you are violent against yourself there is no law. No law can protect you against yourself.

When man is against himself there is no protection, nothing can be done. And no one cares because it is your business. No one else is involved in it: it is your business. So-called monks, so-called saints, they are violent against themselves. No one is interested. They say, "Okay! Go on doing it.

It is your business."

If your mind is one of greed, how can you be non-greedy? The greedy mind will remain greedy.

Whatsoever is done by it to go beyond greed is not going to help. Of course, we can create new greeds. Ask a greedy mind, "What are you doing just accumulating wealth? You will die and you cannot take your wealth with you." This is the logic of the so-called religious preachers - that you cannot take your wealth with you. But if someone could take it, then the whole logic would fail.

The greedy man feels the logic, of course. He asks, "How can I take wealth with me?" But he really wants to take it. That is why the priest becomes influential. He shows him that it is nonsense to accumulate things which cannot be taken beyond death. He says, "I will teach you how to accumulate things which can be taken. Virtue can be taken, PUNYA - good deeds - can be taken, goodness can be taken, but not wealth. So donate the wealth."

But this is an appeal to his greed. This is telling him, "Now we will give you better things which can be carried beyond death." The appeal obtains results. The greedy man feels, "You are right. Death is there and nothing can be done about it, so I must do something which can be carried beyond. I must create some kind of bank balance in the other world also. The world, this bank balance, cannot be with me forever." He goes on talking in these terms.

Go through the scriptures... they appeal to your greed. They say, "What are you doing wasting your time in momentary pleasures?" The emphasis is on 'momentary'. So find some eternal pleasures; then it is okay. They are not against pleasures, they are just against their being momentary. Look at the greed!

Sometimes it happens that you may find a non-greedy man who is enjoying momentary pleasures, but you cannot find among your saints a man who is not asking, demanding for eternal pleasures.

The greed in them is even more. You can find a non-greedy man among ordinary men, but you cannot find a non-greedy man among your so-called saints. They also want pleasures, but they are more greedy than you. You are satisfied with momentary pleasures and they are not. Their greed is bigger. Their greed can only be satisfied with eternal pleasures.

Infinite greed asks for infinite pleasures - remember this. A finite greed is satisfied with finite pleasure. They will ask you, "What are you doing loving a woman? She is nothing but bones and blood. Look deep into the woman you love. What is she?" They are not against the woman, they are against the bones, against the blood, against the body. But if a woman is of gold, then it is okay. They are asking for women of gold.

They are not in this world, so they create another world. They say, "In heaven there are golden damsels - APSARAS - who are beautiful and who never age." In the Hindu heaven apsaras, the heavenly girls, remain always at sixteen. They never grow older, they are always sixteen - never less, never more. So what are you doing wasting your time on these ordinary women? Think of heaven. They are not against pleasure. Really, they are against momentary pleasure.

If, through some whim, God gives this world eternal pleasure, your whole edifice of religion will fall down immediately; the whole appeal will be lost. If somehow bank balances can be carried beyond death, no one will be interested in creating bank balances in the other world. So death is a great help to the priests.

A greedy man is always attracted by another greed. If you tell him and convince him that his greed is the cause of his misery, and that if he leaves greed he will attain a blissful state, he may try - because now you are not really against his greed. You are giving his greed new pastures. He can move into new dimensions of greed.

So tantra says that a greedy mind cannot become non-greedy, a violent mind cannot become nonviolent. But this seems very hopeless. If this is the case, then nothing can be done. Then what does tantra stand for? If a greedy mind cannot become non-greedy, and a violent mind nonviolent, and a sex-obsessed mind transformed beyond sex, if nothing can be done then what does tantra stand for? Tantra is not saying that nothing can be done. Something can be done, but the dimension is completely different.

A greedy mind has to understand that it is greedy and accept it - not try to be non-greedy. The greedy mind has to go deep within itself to realize the depth of its greed. Not moving away from it, but remaining with it; not moving in ideals - in contradictory ideals, in opposite ideals - but remaining in the present, moving into the greed, knowing the greed, understanding the greed, and not trying to escape from it in any way. If you can remain with your greed, many things will happen. If you can remain with your greed, with your sex, with your anger, your ego will dissolve. This will be the first thing - and what a great miracle it is!

Many people come to me and they go on asking how to be egoless. You cannot be egoless unless you look at the foundations of your ego to find it. You are greedy and you think you are non-greedy - this is the ego. If you are greedy and you know and accept totally that you are greedy, then where can you allow your ego to stand? If you are angry and you say that you are angry - you do not say it to others, but you feel it deep down, you feel the helplessness - then where can your anger stand?

If you are sexual, accept it. Whatsoever is there, accept it.

The non-acceptance of nature creates the ego, the non-acceptance of your suchness - your TATHATA, that which you are. If you accept it, the ego will not be there. If you do not accept it, if you reject it, if you create ideals against it, there will be ego. Ideals are the stuff the ego is made of.

Accept yourself. But then you will look like an animal. You will not look like a man because your concept of man is in your ideals. That is why we go on teaching others not to be like animals, and everyone is an animal. What can you do? You ARE an animal. Accept your animality. And the moment you accept your animality, you have done the first thing to go beyond animals - because no animal knows that it is an animal, only man can know. That is going beyond. You cannot go beyond by denying.

Accept! When everything is accepted, suddenly you will feel that you have transcended. Who is accepting? Who accepts the whole? That which accepts has gone beyond. If you reject, you remain on the same plane. If you accept, you go beyond. Acceptance is transcendence. And if you accept yourself totally, suddenly you are thrown to your center. Then you cannot move anywhere.

You cannot move from your suchness, from your nature, so you are thrown to your center.

All these tantric techniques which we are discussing and trying to understand are different ways of throwing you to your center, of throwing you from the periphery. And you are trying to escape from the center in many ways. Ideals are good escapes. Idealists are the most subtle of egoists.

Many things happen.... You are violent and you create an ideal of nonviolence. Then you need not go into yourself, into your violence; there is no need. Then this is the only need - to go on thinking about nonviolence, reading about nonviolence, and trying to practice nonviolence. You say to yourself, "Do not touch violence," and you are violent. So you can escape from yourself, you can go to the periphery, but then you will never come to the center. That is one thing.

Secondly, when you create the ideal of nonviolence, you can condemn others. Now it becomes very easy. You have the ideal to judge everyone with, and you can say to anyone, "You are violent."

India has created many ideals; that is why India continuously goes on condemning the whole world.

The whole mind of India is condemnatory. It goes on condemning the whole world: everyone else is violent, only India is nonviolent. No one seems to be nonviolent here, but the ideal is good for condemning others. It never changes you, but you can condemn others because you have the ideal, the criterion. And whenever you are violent you can rationalize it - your violence is an altogether different thing.

These past twenty-five years we have been violent many times, but we have never condemned our violence. We have always defended and rationalized it in beautiful terms. If we are violent in Bengal, in Bangladesh, then we say that it is to help the people there to obtain freedom. If we are violent in Kashmir, it is to help Kashmiris. But you know, all those who are warmongering say the same. If America is violent in Vietnam, it is for "those poor people." No one is violent for himself; no one ever has been. We are always violent to help someone. Even if I kill you it is for your own good, it is to help you. And even if you are killed, even if I kill you, just look at my compassion. Even for your own good I can kill you. So go on condemning the whole world.

When India attacked Goa, when India went to war with China, Bertrand Russell criticized Nehru, saying, "Where is your nonviolence now? You are all Gandhians. Where is your nonviolence now?"

Nehru replied by banning Bertrand Russell's book in India. The book Russell wrote was banned.

This is our nonviolent mind.

This was a good discussion. The book should have been distributed free, because he argued beautifully. He said, "You are a violent people. Your nonviolence was just political. Your Gandhi was not a sage, he was just a diplomatic mind. And you all talk about nonviolence, but when the moment comes you become violent. When others are fighting, you stand on your high altar and you condemn the whole world as violent."

With individuals, with societies, with cultures, with nations, this happens. If you have ideals, you need not transform yourself. You can always hope to be transformed in the future by the ideals themselves, and you can condemn others very easily.

Tantra says to remain with yourself. Whatsoever you are, accept it. Do not condemn yourself, do not condemn others. Condemnation is futile, energies are not changed by it.

The first step is to accept. Remain with the fact - this is very scientific - remain with the fact of anger, greed and sex. And know the fact in its total facticity. Do not just touch it from above, from the surface. Know the fact in its totality, in its total facticity. Move into it to the roots. And remember, whenever you can move to the roots of anything you transcend it. If you can know your sex to the very roots, you become the master of it. If you can know your anger to the very roots, you become the master of it. Then anger becomes just instrumental - you can use it.

I remember many things about Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff taught his disciples to be rightly angry. We have heard about Buddha's words: right meditation, right thinking and right contemplation. We have heard about Mahavir's teaching of right vision and right knowledge. Gurdjieff taught right anger and right greed, and the teaching was influenced by the old tantra tradition. Gurdjieff was condemned very much in the West, because in the West he was a living symbol of tantra.

He would teach right anger; he would teach you how to be angry totally. If you were angry he would tell you, "Go on. Do not suppress it, let it come out in its totality. Move into it. Become anger. Do not withhold, do not stand aside. Take a deep jump into it. Let your whole body become a flare, a fire."

You have never moved this deeply and you have never seen anyone do so, because everyone is more or less cultured. No one is original; everyone is more or less imitating. No one is original! If you can move into anger totally, you will become just a fire, a burning. The fire will be so deep, the flames will be so deep, that the past and future both will cease immediately. You will become just a present flame. And when your every cell is burning, when every part of the body has become fiery and you have become just anger - not angry - then Gurdjieff will say, "Now be aware. Do not suppress. Now be aware. Now suddenly be aware of what you have become, of what anger is."

In this moment of total present-ness one can become suddenly aware, and you can start laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing, at the foolishness, at the stupidity of the whole thing. But this is not suppression; this is laughter. You can laugh at yourself because you have transcended yourself.

Never again will anger be capable of mastering you.

You have known anger in its totality, and still you could laugh and still you could go beyond it. You could see from beyond your anger. Once you have seen its totality, you know what anger is. And now you also know that even if the whole energy transforms into anger, still you can be an observer, a witness. So there is no fear. Remember this: that which is not known always creates fear. That which is dark always creates fear. You are afraid of your own anger.

So people go on saying that we suppress anger because it is not good to be angry, it may hurt others. But that is not the real cause. The real cause is that they are afraid of their anger. If they really get angry, they do not know what may happen. They are afraid of themselves. They have never known anger. It is a very fearful thing, hidden inside, so they are afraid of it. That is why they fall in line with the society, with the culture, with the education, and they say, "We must not be angry.

Anger is bad. It hurts others."

You are afraid of your anger, you are afraid of your sex. You have never been in sex totally. You have never been in sex so totally that you could have forgotten yourself. You were always there; your mind was always there. And if the mind is there in the sex act, then the act is just pseudo, bogus.

The mind must dissolve; you must become just body. There must not be any thinking. If thinking is there, you are divided. Then the sex act is nothing but releasing overflowing energy. It is a release, nothing else. But you are afraid to be totally in sex. That is why you fall in line, why you toe the line with the society and say that sex is bad. You are afraid!

Why are you afraid? Because if you move into sex totally, you do not know what you can do, you do not know what can happen, you do not know what animal force may come up, you do not know what your unconscious may throw you into. You do not know! Then you will not be the master; you will not be in control. Your self-image may be destroyed. Thus you control the sex act. And the way to control it is to remain in the mind. Let the sex act be there, but local.

Try to understand this 'local' and 'general'. Tantra says a sex act is local when only your sex center is involved. It is local; it is a local release. The sex center keeps on accumulating energy. When it is overflowing you have to release it; otherwise it will create tensions, it will create heaviness. You release it, but it is a local release. Your whole body, your whole self is not involved. Non-local, total involvement means that every fiber of the body, every cell of the body, whatsoever you are, is in it. Your whole being has become sexual. Not only your sex center, your whole being has become sexual.

But then you are afraid because then anything is possible. And you do not know what can happen because you have never known the totality. You may do certain things of which you cannot conceive.

Your unconscious will explode. You will become not one animal, but many animals, because you have passed through many lives, through many animal bodies. You may start howling, you may start screaming, you may start roaring like a lion. You do not know.

Anything is possible - that creates fear. You need to be in control so that you never lose yourself in anything. That is why you never know anything. And unless you know, you cannot transcend.

Accept, move deep, go to the very roots. This is tantra. Tantra stands for deep experiences. Anything experienced can be transcended; anything suppressed can never be transcended.

This much for today.