Meditation: an unburdening of repressions

The first question:

Question 1:

Many things have to be understood. One: all your faces are false; you do not have any real face.

That is why the question arises over which is false and which is real. If you have the real, you know.

Then the question never arises. All the faces are unreal, false, so you do not have any comparisons to make. You do not know the real - that is the difficulty. You have not seen the real, and the real is not seen naturally; much effort is needed to find it.

In Zen they say that the real is the original face - the face you had before your birth and the face you will have after your death. That means that all the faces in life, so-called life, are false. How to find out what is the real face? You will have to go back to before your birth. That is the only way to find the real face, because the moment you are born you have started being false. You have started being false because it pays to be false.

The child is born, and he has started to be a politician. The moment he is related to the world, to the parents, to the family, he is in politics. Now he has to take care about his faces. He will smile as a bribery. He will try to find out in what ways he should behave so that he is accepted more, loved more, appreciated more. And sooner or later the child will find out what is condemmed by the parents, by the family, and he will start repressing it. Then the false has entered.

So all the faces you have are false. Do not try to find out the real one among your present faces.

They are all false, similarly false. They are useful - that is why they have been adopted - utilitarian, but not true. And the deepest deception is that whenever you become aware that your faces are false, you will create another face which you will think is the real.

For example, a person who lives an ordinary life, in an ordinary world, with a business, a family, comes to realize the whole of his falseness, the whole inauthenticity of his life, so he renounces it.

He becomes a sannyasin and leaves the world, and he may be thinking that now the face is real. It is again a false face. It has been adopted as a reaction to other faces, and with a reaction you can never get to the real. By reacting to a false face you will create another false face. So what is to be done?

The real is not something which has to be achieved. The false is your achievement. The real is not something to be achieved, it is not something to be cultivated. It is something to be discovered! It is already there. You need not try to attain it, because any effort will only lead to some other false face. For a false face effort is needed; it has to be cultivated. For the real face you have not to do anything, it is already there. If you simply leave your clinging to the false faces, the false will drop and that which is real will remain. When you have nothing to drop, and only that which cannot be dropped is there, you will come to realize what is real.

Meditation is the way to drop the false faces. That is why there is so much insistence on being thoughtless - because without thought you cannot create a false face. In a thoughtless state of awareness, you will be real - because it is basically thought which creates false faces and masks.

When there is no thought there can be no face. You will be faceless, or with the real face - and both mean the same.

So be aware of your thought process. Do not fight with it, do not repress it. Simply have awareness:

the thoughts are there just like clouds in the sky, and you are looking at them without any prejudice, either for or against. If you are against, you will be fighting - and that very fight will create a new thought process. If you are for them, you will forget yourself and you will float in the current of the thought process. You will not be there as a conscious witness. If you are for, you will be in the process. If you are against, you will create another process in reaction.

So do not be for and do not be against. Allow the thoughts to move, let them go wherever they are going, be in a deep let-go, and simply witness. Whatsoever is passing, witness. Do not judge; do not say, "This is good, this is bad." If the thought of a divine being comes, do not say, "Beautiful!" The moment you say this you are identified with it, and you are cooperating with the thought process.

You are helping it, you are giving energy to it, you are feeding it. And if you are feeding it, it can never drop.

Or if there is a thought, a sexual thought, do not say, "This is bad; this is sin." Because when you say, "This is sin," you have created another series of thoughts. Sex is a thought, sin is a thought, God is a thought. Be neither for nor against. Simply look with unprejudiced eyes, just watching indifferently.

This will take time. Because your mind is so occupied with notions, it is very difficult. The moment we see something we have judged it. We do not wait; there is not even a single moment's gap. You see a flower, and you have already said, "It is beautiful." In the very seeing the interpretation comes in.

You will have to be constantly aware to drop this mechanical habit of judging. You see a face and you have already judged - ugly, good, bad, or anything else. This judgement has become so deep-rooted that we cannot see anything simply. The mind enters immediately. It becomes an interpretation; it is not a simple vision. Do not interpret. Simply SEE.

Sit down in a relaxed posture or lie down. Close your eyes and allow your thoughts to move. If you say, "Bad!" if you condemn, then you start repressing them. Then you are not allowing them to move independently. That is why there is so much need for dreams, because whatsoever you are repressing during the day you will have to release in the night. That which is repressed goes on forcing its expression, it needs expression. So whatsoever you repress you dream. Dreams are cathartic.

Now modern sleep research says that you can be deprived of sleep and not much harm will result, but you cannot be deprived of your dreams. The old idea that sleep is very necessary has been found to be false. Instead of sleep, dreams are very necessary, and sleep is necessary only because you cannot dream without sleep.

Researchers have developed techniques with which it can now be judged from the outside whether you are dreaming or whether you are simply asleep. If you are simply asleep, they will disturb the sleep - the whole night long. When you are dreaming they will allow it, when you are not dreaming they will disturb the sleep, and no bad result comes out of it.

But if they should disturb you when you are dreaming and allow you to sleep when you are not dreaming, within three days you will begin to feel dizzy, and within seven days you will feel a deep uneasiness. Your body and mind both will feel ill. Within three weeks you will feel a certain type of insanity. What happens? It is because dreams are cathartic. If you go on repressing during the day and if the repressions are not allowed to be expressed, they will accumulate in you, and that accumulation of repression is insanity.

In meditation you are not to repress any thought. But it is difficult because your whole mind consists of judgments, theories, 'isms,' doctrines, beliefs. So one who is very deeply obsessed with any idea, a philosophy or a religion, cannot really enter into meditation. It is difficult because his obsession will become the barrier. So if you are a Christian or a Hindu or a Jain, it will be difficult for you to enter meditation because your philosophy gives you judgements. - This is good and that is not good, this has to be repressed, this is not to be allowed.

All philosophies are repressive and all religions, all ideologies, are repressive, because they give you interpretations. They do not allow you to see life as it is. They force interpretations on it.

One who wants to go deep into meditation has to be aware of this nonsense of ideology. Just be a simple man without any philosophy, with no attitude toward life. Just be a seeker - one who is in an inquiry, in a deep inquiry to know what life is. Do not force any ideology over and above it. Then it will be very easy to move into meditation.

Because of this, the greatest meditator the world has ever known, Gautam Buddha, insisted that no ideology is needed, no philosophy is needed, no concepts about life are needed. Whether God is or is not is meaningless, irrelevant. Whether MOKSHA, liberation, exists or not is meaningless.

Whether your soul is immortal or not is meaningless.

Buddha was so much anti-philosophy not because HE was anti-philosophy, but because anti- philosophy can become the basic ground for a meditator to jump into the unknown. Philosophy means knowing something about the unknown without knowing it. It is just preconceptions, hypotheses, man-constructed ideologies.

This is to be remembered as a very foundational fact: do not judge, let the mind flow easily. As the river flows, let the mind flow easily; just sit on the bank watching. And this watching should be pure - without any interpretations. Sooner or later, when the water has flown, when the repressed ideas have moved, you will find gaps coming. A thought will go, and another thought will not be coming, and there will be a gap - an interval. In that interval, nothingness happens. In that interval you will have the first glimpse of your real face, of the original face.

When there is no thought there is no society. When there is no thought there is no other. When there is no other, no society, you need not have any face. Thoughtlessness is facelessness. In that interval, when one thought has gone and another has not appeared, in that interval, for the first time you will know in reality what is your face - the face you had when you were not born and the face you will have when you die.

All the faces in life are false. And once you know the real face, once you feel this inner nature which Buddhists call BUDDHA SWABHAVA - the nature of the inner buddha - when you come to feel this inner nature even once, even with a single glimpse, you will be a different person, because now you will constantly know what is false and what is real. Then you will have the criterion. Then you can compare, and there will be no need to ask what is real and what is unreal. The question comes only because you do not know what is real, and whatsoever you know is all unreal.

Only through meditation will you be able to learn what is a false image and what is a real, authentic face. Of course, the mind is automatic, and whatsoever you have done has become mechanical. It is hard to break this mechanicalness.

The first thing to be understood: mechanicalness is a necessity of life - and your body has an inner mechanism. Colin Wilson has called it the inner robot, you have a robot within you. Once trained, once you are trained in anything, that training is passed to the robot. You can call it memory, you can call it mind, - anything - but the word robot is good because it is absolutely mechanical, automatic.

It functions in its own way.

You are learning to drive. While you are learning, you will have to be aware, alert. A danger is there.

You do not know how to drive and anything can happen, so you will have to be alert. That is why learning is so painful, one has to be alert constantly. When you have learned driving, the driving has been given to the robot part of your mind. Now you can go on smoking, singing, listening to the radio or talking to a friend, or even loving your girlfriend. You can go on doing anything and the robot part of your being will drive.

You will not be needed; you are relieved of the burden. The robot will do everything. You will not even have to remember where to turn; you need not. The robot will know where to turn, where to stop, where not to stop, what to do and what not to do. You are not needed; you are relieved of the job. The robot does everything.

If something very sudden happens, some accident or something that the robot cannot tackle because it is not trained in it, only then will you be needed. Suddenly there will be a jerk in your body.

The robot will be replaced and you will come in its place. You can feel that jerk. When suddenly you feel that an accident is going to happen, there is a jerk inside. The robot moves away; it gives place to you. Now YOU are driving. But when the accident is avoided, again the robot will take over. You will relax and the robot will drive.

And this is necessary for life because there are so many things to do - so many things! And if there is no robot to do them, you will not be capable of doing them at all. So a robot is needed, it is a necessity.

I am not against the robot. Go and give unto the robot whatsoever you learn, but remain the master.

Do not allow the robot to become the master. This is the problem: the robot will try to be the master, because the robot is more efficient than you. Sooner or later the robot will say to you, "Be completely retired. You are not needed. I can do things more efficiently."

Remain the master. What can be done in order for you to remain the master of the robot? Only one thing is possible, and that is: sometimes, without any danger, take the reins into your hands. Tell the robot to relax, come into the seat, and drive the car - without any danger, because in danger it is again automatic, the jerk, the replacement of the robot by you is automatic.

You are driving: suddenly, without any necessity, tell the robot to relax. You come into the seat and drive the car. You are walking: suddenly remember and tell the body that "Now I will walk consciously. The robot is not allowed. I am the master and I will move the body consciously." You are hearing me: it is the robot part which is hearing me. Suddenly give a jerk to it; do not allow the mind to come in. Hear me directly, consciously.

What do I mean when I say hear consciously? When you are hearing unconsciously, you are just focused on me and you have forgotten yourself completely. I exist, the speaker exists, but the listener is unconscious. You are not aware of yourself as the listener. When I say take the reins in your hands, I mean be aware of the two points: the speaker and the listener. And if you are aware of the two points, the speaker and the listener, you have become the third - the witness.

This witnessing will help you to remain the master. And if you are the master, your robot cannot disturb your life. It IS disturbing your life. Your total life has become a mess because of this robot. It helps, it is efficient, but it goes on taking everything from you - even those things which should not be given to it.

You have fallen in love: it is beautiful in the beginning because it has not been given to the robot yet.

You are learning. You are alive, aware, alert, and love has a beauty. But sooner or later the robot will take it over. You will become a husband or a wife, and you will have given the charge to the robot.

Then you will say to your wife, "I love you," but YOU will not be saying it. The robot will be saying it, the gramophone record. Then it is a recorded thing. You just play it again and again, and your wife will understand it - because whenever your robot says, "I love you," it means nothing. And when your wife says, "I love you," you too will know it is nothing, because a sentence given by a gramophone record only creates noise. It makes no sense; there is no sense in it.

Then you will want to do everything, yet YOU are not doing it. Then love becomes a burden and one even wants to escape from love. All your feelings, all your relationships are now directed by the robot. That is why sometimes you insist on not doing a certain thing, but the robot insists that you do it because the robot is trained to do it. And you are always a failure and the robot always succeeds.

You say, "I am not going to be angry again," but your saying it is meaningless because the robot is trained. And the training has been long, so just a sentence in the mind that "I am not going to be angry again," will not have any effect. This robot has been long trained. So next time when someone insults you, your decision not to be angry will be of no help. The robot will take charge immediately and the robot will do whatsoever it is trained to do. And then in the end, when the robot has done it, you will repent.

But the difficulty, the deep difficulty is this, that even this repentance is done by the robot, because you have always done that - after the anger you have repented. The robot has learned that trick also; it will repent, and again you will do the same thing.

That is why many times you feel that you have done something, said something, behaved in a certain way, in spite of yourself. What does this expression, 'in spite of yourself,' mean? It means that there is another self within you which can act, which can do something in spite of you. Who is that self?

The robot!

What to do? Do not take vows that "I will not be angry again." They are self-defeating; they will not lead you anywhere. Rather, on the contrary, whatsoever you are doing, do it consciously.

Take charge from the robot - with any ordinary thing. When eating, eat consciously. Do not do it mechanically, as you have done every day. When smoking, smoke consciously. Do not allow your hand to move to the packet unconsciously, do not bring the cigarette out unconsciously. Be conscious, alert - and there is a difference.

I can raise my hand mechanically, just without any awareness; I can raise my hand with full awareness flowing in my hand. Try it! You will feel the difference. When you are aware, your hand will be raised very slowly, very silently, and you will feel that the hand is filled with the awareness.

And when the hand is filled with the awareness, your mind will be thoughtless, because your whole awareness will have moved to the hand. Now no energy is left to think.

When you raise your hand automatically, mechanically, you go on thinking and your hand goes on moving. Who is moving that hand? Your robot. Move it yourself! Do it in the day at any time, any moment, while doing anything. Take charge from the robot. Soon you will be able to have a mastery over the robot. But do not try it with difficult situations - that is suicidal. We always try with difficult situations, but because of the difficulty you never win. Start with simple situations, where even if you are not so efficient no harm is going to result.

We always try with difficult situations. For example, one man thinks, "I am not going to be angry."

Anger is a very difficult situation and the robot will not leave it to you. And it is better that the robot should do it because he knows more than you. You decide about sex - not to do something or to do something - but you cannot follow it through. The robot will take over. The situation is very complex, and more efficient handling is needed than you can give it right now.

Unless you become so perfectly aware that you can tackle any complex situation without the help of the robot, the robot will not allow you to do it. And this is a very necessary defense mechanism. If it were otherwise, you would make a great mess of your life - if you were to go on taking things away from the robot in difficult situations.

Try! Start with simple things such as walking. Try with this; there is no harm. You can say to the robot that "There is not going to be any harm. I am just walking, taking a walk, and I am not going anywhere - just walking. So there is no need of you; I can be non-efficient."

And then be aware and walk slowly. Be filled with awareness throughout your whole body. When one foot moves, move with it. When one foot leaves the ground, leave the ground with it. When the other foot touches the ground, touch the ground with it. Be perfectly aware. Do not do anything else with the mind; just turn the whole mind into awareness.

It will be difficult because the robot will interfere continuously. Every moment the robot will try and will say, "What are you doing? I can do it better than you." And he CAN do it better. So try it with non-serious things, with non-complex things, simple things.

Buddha has told his disciples to walk, eat and sleep with awareness. If you can do these simple things, then you will also know how to enter into difficult things with awareness. Then you can try.

But we always try with difficult things; then we are defeated. Then the defeated feeling gives you a deep pessimism about yourself. You start thinking that you cannot do anything. That is very helpful for the robot. The robot will always help you to do something when you are in difficulty because then you are defeated. Then the robot can say to you, "Leave it to me. I can always do it better than you can do it."

Start with simple things. Zen Buddhists, Zen monks, have been so many times reported to have been doing this. When Bosho was asked, "What is your meditation? What is your SADHANA, spiritual practice?" he said, "When I feel hungry I eat and when I feel sleepy I go to sleep. This is all."

The man who was asking said, "But this we all do. What is special about it?" Bosho repeated it again. He said, "When I am hungry 'I' eat and when I feel sleepy 'I' sleep." And that is the difference.

When you feel hungry your robot eats, when you feel sleepy your robot sleeps. Bosho said "I", and that is the difference.

If you become more aware in your day-to-day work, in your ordinary life, the awareness will grow.

And with that awareness you will not be just a mechanical thing. For the first time you become a person - now you are not one. And a person has a face and a mechanical thing has many masks - no face.

If you are a person - alive, alert, aware - you can have an authentic existence. If you are just a mechanical device, you cannot have any authentic existence. Each moment will change you; each situation will change you. You will be just a floating thing with no inner core, with no inner being.

Awareness gives you the inner presence. Without it you feel that you are, but you are not.

Someone asked Buddha, "I want to serve humanity. Tell me how I can serve." Buddha looked at the man very deeply, penetratingly, with deep compassion, and then he said, "But where are YOU?

WHO will serve humanity? You are not yet. First be, and when you are, you need not ask me. When you are, you will do something which just happens to you which is worth doing."

Gurdjieff noted that everyone comes with the notion that he is, that he already is. Someone came to Gurdjieff and asked, "I am very insane inside. My mind goes on in conflicts, in contradictions, so tell me what I can do to dissolve this mind, to have mental peace, inner calm." Gurdjieff said, "Do not think about the mind, you cannot do anything about it. The first thing is to be present. First YOU have to be; then you can do something. YOU are not."

What is meant by this "You are not?" It means that you are a robot, a mechanical thing, working according to mechanical laws. Start being alert. Join awareness with anything you are doing - and start with simple things.

The second question:

Question 2:

First try to understand what initiation is, what is DEEKSHA. It is a deep communion, a deep transfer of energy from the master to the disciple. Energy always flows downwards. Every energy flows downwards, just like water flows downwards. The master - one who has attained, one who has known, one who has become - is the highest peak of energy possible, of purest energy... the Everest of energy. This energy can flow downwards to anyone who is receptive, humble, surrendered.

This surrendered attitude - the receptive attitude, a deep humbleness - will be needed to receive.

Otherwise you yourself are a peak; you are not a valley. Then the energy cannot flow downwards to you.

You are a different sort of peak, the peak of ego - not of energy, not of being, not of bliss, not of consciousness. You are a density of ego, of "I-ness." You are a peak, and with this peak no initiation is possible. Ego is the barrier because ego closes you and you cannot surrender.

To be a disciple, to be initiated, one has to surrender himself totally. And there is no partial surrender.

Surrender means total. You cannot say, "I partially surrender" - it makes no sense. Then you are still there with your ego. Ego has to be surrendered, and when you surrender the ego you become receptive, open. You become like a valley, and then the peak can flow downwards to you. And I am not talking symbolically, it is so actually.

Have you ever been in love? Then you can feel that love actually flows between two bodies, it is an actual flow. Energy is being transmitted, transferred, received, given. But love is on the same level.

You both can remain peaks of ego, and still love can be.

But with a master you are not on the same level. And if you try to be on the same level, initiation becomes impossible. Love is possible, but initiation becomes impossible. Initiation is possible only when you are on a lower level - just humble, surrendered, open to receive - when the disciple is feminine, just womb-like, passive, able to receive. The master is the male factor in initiation.

This secret of initiation is now completely lost because the more we are educated, the more civilized, the more cultured, then the more egoistic we become. And now, to surrender has become very, very impossible. It has always been difficult, but now it is impossible.

Initiation is a transfer of inner energy, actual energy, and the master can enter in you and can transform you if you are ready and receptive. But then deep trust is needed - more trust than is needed in love - because you do not know what is going to happen. You are completely in the dark.

Only the master knows what is going to happen and what he is doing. He knows; you cannot know.

And there are things that cannot be said about what is going to happen because with the human mind there are many problems. One problem is this: that if something is said before it happens, it will change the happening. It cannot be said.

So there are many things which the master cannot say to you. He can do them to you, but he cannot say them to you. That doing is initiation. He actually moves in you - in your body, in your mind. He cleanses you, changes you. The only thing required is your total trust, because without it there is no opening and he cannot enter you: your doors are closed.

You are always defending yourself. Life is a struggle - a struggle for survival, to survive. This struggle gives you a closing. You are closed, afraid; you are afraid to be vulnerable. Someone may enter, someone may do something within you. So you shrink yourself, you remain closed - just hiding behind, constantly defending.

In initiation you have to lose this defense; this armor of defense has to be thrown away. You become vulnerable, and then the master can enter you.

For example, it is just like a deep love act. You can rape a woman, but you cannot rape a disciple.

You can rape a woman because it is a bodily rape, and the body can be raped and entered without any consent. Without the will of the woman you can rape. It is a forced thing. The body is material; things can be forced on it.

Something just like this happens in initiation. The master enters your spirit, not your body. Unless you are ready and receiving, the entrance is not possible. A disciple cannot be raped because it is not a bodily question. It is a question of spirit, and you cannot force entry into a spirit. No violence is possible with it.

So when the disciple is ready and open, just like a loving woman, inviting and receptive, ready, in a deep let-go, only then can the master enter and work. And centuries of work can be done in moments. You may not be able to do in many lives certain things which can be done in a moment.

But then you have to be vulnerable, totally trusting. You do not know what is going to happen and what he will do inside you.

A woman is afraid because the sexual act is a journey into the unknown for her. Unless she loves the man, unless she is ready to suffer, to carry the burden of a child, to carry the child for nine months and then make a life commitment to it, unless she is deeply in love, she will not allow the man to enter her body - because it is not simply her body, it is her whole life. When she is in deep love, then she is ready to suffer, to sacrifice. And to sacrifice and suffer in deep love is blissful.

But the problem with the disciple is deeper. It is not a question only of a physical birth, of a new child, it is HIS rebirth. He himself is going to be reborn. He will die in a certain sense and he will be born in a certain different sense. And this is possible if the master enters him, but the master cannot force it. No force is possible, the disciple can only invite it.

And that is the problem - a very great problem in spiritual discipleship, because the disciple goes on defending himself or herself, goes on creating more and more armor around him. He behaves with his master in the same way he would behave with anyone in the world; the same defense mechanisms go on working. And then time is wasted unnecessarily, energy is wasted, and the moment is delayed which can happen right now. But this is natural, and sometimes even with great masters disciples have missed the chance.

Ananda, one of the great disciples of Buddha and the nearest, couldn't attain liberation while Buddha was alive. Buddha was with Ananda for forty years, and Ananda couldn't attain. But many who came after Ananda attained, and then it became a problem. And Ananda was one of the nearest - the closest. He was sleeping in the same room with Buddha, he was moving with Buddha for forty years continuously. He was like a shadow to Buddha; as much as he knew about Buddha even Buddha might not have known.

But he couldn't attain; he remained the same. And a very ordinary thing was the only barrier: he was an elder cousin-brother of Buddha. This created the ego.

Buddha died... a great council met to write down whatsoever Buddha had said. It had to be written then. Soon those who lived with Buddha would be no more, so everything had to be recorded. But the council would not allow Ananda, and only he knew the greater experiences, the statements of Buddha, his life, his biography. This was all known to Ananda; no one knew so much.

But the council decided that Ananda could not be allowed because he was still unenlightened. He could not record Buddha's sayings because an ignorant man cannot be believed. He would not deceive, but with an ignorant man nothing is reliable. He may think that something happened, and he may relate it authentically as far as he knows, but he is a man who is not yet awakened.

Whatsoever he has seen and heard in sleep could not be believed, so only those would record who had become awakened - they decided.

Ananda was weeping just outside the door. The door was closed, and he remained just by the door for twenty-four hours, weeping, crying and screaming. But they would not allow him. For these twenty-four hours he was weeping, weeping, and then suddenly he became aware what had been the barrier - why he hadn't been able to attain while Buddha was alive, what had been the barrier.

Then he went back into his memories. A forty-year-long life with Buddha! He remembered the first day when he came to him for initiation. But he had one condition, and that was why he missed the whole initiation. He could not be initiated because be made a condition.

He came to Buddha and he said, "I have come to be a disciple of yours. Once I become your disciple, you will be the master and I will have to follow whatsoever you say, I will have to obey. But right now I am your elder brother, and I can order you and you will have to obey. You are not the master, I am not the disciple. Once I am initiated, you will be the master and I will be the disciple.

Then I will not be able to say anything, so before I become a disciple these are my three conditions.

Say yes to these three conditions; then initiate me."

The conditions were not very big, but a condition is a condition and then your surrender is not total.

They were very small conditions, very loving conditions. He said, "One, I will always be with you.

You cannot tell me to move anywhere else. While I am alive I will be your shadow; you cannot order me away. Give me the promise - because later on I will be just a disciple, and if you order me away I will have to follow. This will be a promise given to an elder brother - that I will be with you. You cannot tell me to move anywhere else. I will just be your shadow; I will sleep in the room where you sleep.

"Secondly, whenever I will say, 'Meet this man,' you will have to meet him. Whatsoever your reason for not meeting, you will have to agree. If I want that someone should be given your DARSHAN - spiritual presence - you will have to give it.

"And thirdly, if I say that someone has to be initiated, you cannot refuse. Grant me these three conditions. Promise me and then initiate me. I will not ask anything again because then I shall be just a disciple."

When he remembered this, while he was weeping, crying before the door of the council, after he went back into his memories, he suddenly became aware that the initiation was not there because he had not been receptive. Buddha had agreed. He said, "Okay!" and he followed the three conditions his whole life. But Ananda missed, the nearest one missed.

And the moment he realized this he became enlightened. That which couldn't happen with Buddha happened when he was no more: he surrendered.

If there is surrender, even an absent master can help you. If there is no surrender, even an alive master who is present cannot help you. So in initiation, in any initiation, surrender is needed.

Mantra initiation means that when you have surrendered, the master will enter you - your body, your mind, your spirit. He will move in you to find a sound for you, so that whenever you chant that sound you will be a different man in a different dimension.

A mantra cannot be given unless you have surrendered totally, because mantra giving means the master has entered you and felt the deep harmony, the inner music of your being. And then he gives a symbolic sound which is in harmony with your inner music. The moment you chant that sound you enter the world of your inner music, the inner harmony is entered.

That sound is just a key, and a key cannot be given unless the lock is known. So I cannot give you a key unless I know your lock, because a key is meaningful only when it can unlock. Any key will not do, and everyone is a particular lock - you need a particular key. That is why mantras are to be kept secret.

If you give your mantra to someone he may experiment with it, but that key will not suit that lock.

And sometimes, when you force a wrong key into a lock you can destroy the lock, you can disturb the lock. You can so much disturb it that even when a right key is found it may not work. That is why mantras are to be kept absolutely secret. They are not told to anyone; that is a promise you make.

The master gives you a key, it is a key only for you. You cannot go on distributing it - for many that would be harmful.

You will be allowed to give keys only when your lock is totally opened. But then you will not give THIS key to anyone. Then you will have become capable of entering into the other. Then you will be able to feel the lock and devise a key for it.

The key is always devised by the master. If there is a heap of keys, one who doesn't know may think all keys are the same. There may be only very small differences, minute differences, and even the same word can be used differently. For example, Aum. This has three sounds - "A-U-M." If emphasis is given on the "U", the mid-sound, it is one key. If emphasis is given on the "A", it is a different key. If the emphasis is given on the "M", it is still a different key; it will open different locks.

That is why there is so much emphasis on the exact use of the mantra as it is given by the master.

So the master gives the mantra in your ear; he chants it exactly as it should be used. He chants it in your ear, and you have to become so alert that your whole consciousness comes to the ear. He chants it, and then it enters into you. You have to remember it now - the exact use of it.

That is why individuals must keep their mantras secret; they should not be made public. They are dangerous, and if you are initiated you know it. If a master has really given you a key, you know it.

You treasure it like anything; you cannot go on distributing it. It can be harmful for others and it can be harmful for you also - for many reasons.

Firstly, you are breaking a promise, and the moment the promise is broken your contact with the master is broken. You will not be in contact with him again. If the promise is kept, there is a constant contact.

Secondly, if you give the mantra to anyone and talk about it, it comes to the surface of the mind. The deeper roots are broken, it becomes a gossip.

Thirdly, if you can keep anything secret, the more you keep it secret, the deeper it goes. It is bound to go deeper.

It is said of Marpa that when he was given the secret mantra by his master, the promise was there that the mantra would be kept absolutely secret. "You are not to talk about it," he was told.

Then Marpa's master appeared in his dream and he said, "What is your mantra?" Even in the dream Marpa kept his promise, he refused to tell it. And it is said that because of the fear that someday in a dream the master may come or send someone, and he may be so asleep that he would break the secret and the promise would be broken, he stopped sleeping altogether. He would not sleep!

He had not been sleeping for seven or eight days, and his master asked Marpa, "Why are you not sleeping? I see you do not go to sleep at all, so what is the matter?" Marpa said, "You are playing tricks with me. You came in a dream and you were asking for the mantra. I cannot tell even you.

Once the promise is there, it will not come out of my mouth even in a dream. But then I became fearful. In sleep, who knows! Someday I may forget."

If you are so aware of keeping the promise that even in a dream you remember it, then it is going deep. It is going deep, it is entering inner realms. And the deeper it moves, the more it will be a key to you - because the lock is at the deepest layer. Try with anything. If you can keep it a secret, it will move deep. If you cannot keep it a secret, it will move out.

Why do you want to say something to someone? Why do you chatter? Really, anything that you chatter about you are relieved of. Once you tell it you are relieved of it; it has moved out.

The whole psychoanalysis is nothing but this. The psychoanalyst is just listening and the patient goes on talking. It helps the patient - because the more he talks about his problems, inner conflicts and associated ideas, the more he is relieved of them. The reverse happens when you can keep a secret. At no moment are you allowed to talk about it. It will enter deep, deep, and one day it will hit the exact lock.

One question more:

Question 3:

Your mind is in chaos. That chaos has to be brought out, acted out. Chaotic music can be helpful, so if you are meditating and chaotic music is played or chaotic dancing is there around you, it will help to bring out your chaos. You will flow in it, you will become unafraid of expression. And this chaotic music will hit your chaotic mind within and will bring it out. It helps.

Rock, jazz, or other music which is chaotic in a way also help something to come out, and that something is repressed sexuality. I am concerned with all your repressions. Modern music is more concerned just with your repressed sex, but there is a similarity. However, I am not concerned only with your repressed sex, I am concerned with all your repressions - sexual or not sexual.

Rock music, or other music like that, is so influential in the West because of Christianity. Christianity has been repressing sex for twenty centuries. They have forced sex to go so deep down inside that every man has become a pervert deep down. So the West has to relieve itself of the sin that Christianity has done with man, with his mind, through music, through dance, through chaotic painting, chaotic poetry - in every dimension.

In the West mind has to be completely freed somehow from the whole centuries-long past of repression. In every way they are doing it. All that is influential today is chaotic. But sex is not the only thing, there are many other things also. Sex is the basic thing, it is very important, but there are other things also. Your anger is repressed, your sadness is repressed, even your happiness is repressed.

Man as he is is a repressed being. He is not allowed to do anything, he has just to follow rules. He is not a free agent but just a kept slave, and the whole society is a big prison. The walls are very subtle: they are glass walls, transparent. You cannot see them, but they are, and everywhere. Your morality, your culture, your religion, they are all walls. They are transparent, you cannot see them, but whenever you want to cross them you are thrown back.

This state of mind is neurotic. The whole society is ill. That is why I so much insist on chaotic meditation. Relieve yourself, act out whatsoever society has forced on you, whatsoever situations have forced on you. Act them out, relieve yourself of them, go through a catharsis. The music helps.

Once you can throw out everything that has been repressed in you, you will become natural again, you will be a child again. And with that child many possibilities open. With you everything is closed.

When you become again a child, then only can your energies be transformed. Then you are pure, innocent, and with that innocence and purity transformation is possible.

Perverted energies cannot be transformed. Natural, spontaneous energy is needed. That is why I insist so much on acting out things: so that you can throw the society out. The society has entered you very deeply. It has not left YOU anywhere; it has entered from everywhere. You are a citadel, and the society has entered from everywhere. Its police, its priests, they have done much to make you a slave. You are not free, and man can attain to bliss only when he becomes a total freedom.

For you to be made a total freedom the whole society has to be thrown out of you, but that doesn't mean that you are going to become anti-social. Once you throw the society out, once you become aware of your pure freedom inside, you can live with the society; there is no need to be anti. But then the society cannot enter into you. You can move in it, you can act in it, but then the whole thing becomes just a psychodrama - you are acting. Now the society cannot kill you, cannot make a slave of you; you are acting knowingly.

Those who become anti-social simply show that they are still bound to the same society. All the anti-social movements in the West are reactionary, not revolutionary. You are reacting to the same society, you are related to the same society in a reverse manner. You are standing on your head, that is all. You are doing SHIRSHASANA - the headstand posture - but you are the same person.

Whatsoever the society is insisting upon, you are doing quite the contrary - but you are still following the society. This will not help.

If you are anti you will never be beyond the society, you will always be part of it. If the society dies, you will die. Think of what in the West they now call the establishment - the society that is established - and the alternate societies of hippies, yippies, or others. They exist as a part of this establishment. If the establishment is dissolved, they will be nowhere. They cannot exist by themselves; they are just a reaction.

You cannot create a society of hippies by itself. Hippies can exist only as an alternate society WITH an establishment - just as a reaction. They cannot exist independently. So howsoever much they may think they are independent, they are not independent. The establishment is their source, their life. Once the establishment is not there, they will be at a loss where to move and what to do.

Whatsoever they are doing is dictated by the establishment. They go against it, but the directions, the instructions are given by the establishment.

If the establishment says short hair, you can be long-haired. But if there is no establishment, then what to do? If the establishment says cleanliness, you can be dirty. But if there is no establishment and no fuss about cleanliness, you are nowhere. If the establishment says this, you can do that - quite the reverse - but you follow the establishment.

So anti-socials are not revolutionaries. They are reactionaries, a part and a product of the same society - those who have moved against it in bitterness.

A meditator, a sannyasin, is not anti-society, he is beyond society. He is not against the establishment, neither is he for it - but he takes it non-seriously. He knows it is just a play; he moves in it like an actor. And if you can move in the society like an actor on the stage, it never touches you; you remain beyond it. So do not be for it, do not be against it.

But how can you do it? You can do it only when you have thrown the society out of you. If it is there, then there are two paths open to you: follow it or go against it. But you are bound to it; you are in bondage. First one has to clean oneself of society, then for the first time you become an individual.

Right now you are not, you are just a social unit.

When the society is thrown out, when its entire presence is thrown out, you are again back to your childhood: you have become innocent. And this innocence is deeper than that which any child can have, because you know the fall as well and now you have risen. It is a resurrection. You have experienced, you have known the whole nonsense. Now you are again pure. This purity becomes the temple for the divine.

Once you can throw the society out of you, without any bitterness, without going against it or being involved in any reaction... if you can simply throw society out of you, the divine can enter into you.

With society in, the divine will remain out; with society out, the divine can enter - because the divine means existence. Society is a human, local phenomenon. Existence is greater, infinite. It is not concerned with man, morals, traditions, it is concerned with the very roots of being.

One has to be beyond society, not against it, remember. And this chaotic method helps you. It is a catharsis.