Techniques to witness the flux-like film of life

The original mind is like a mirror: it is pure, and it remains pure, but dust can gather upon it. The purity is not lost, the dust cannot destroy the purity - but the purity can be covered up. This is the condition of the ordinary mind - covered with dust. Hidden behind the dust, the original mind remains pure. It cannot become impure; that is impossible. And if it was possible for it to become impure, then there would be no way to regain the purity again. In itself it remains pure, just covered by dust.

Our mind is the original mind plus dust, the buddha-mind plus dust, the divine mind plus dust. Once you know how to uncover it, how to reclaim it from the dust, you have known all that is worth knowing and you have attained all that is worth attaining. All these techniques are concerned with how to free your mind from the day-to-day dust that is bound to gather upon it. Dust is but natural. Just like with a traveler passing from many, many roads, dust is gathered - and for many, many lives you have been a traveler. You have traveled long distances, and much dust has gathered.

Many points have to be understood before we enter the techniques. One, the East is basically different from the West in its attitude towards inner transformation. Christianity thinks that something has happened to man's being itself - the sin. The East thinks that nothing has happened to the being itself; nothing can happen. The being remains in its absolute purity; there has been no sin. So man is not condemned in the East, he is not something degraded. On the contrary, he remains the divine that he is, that he has always been, and it is natural that dust will gather. Dust is bound to gather.

So there is no sin, just a false identification.

We become identified with the mind, with the dust. Our experience, our knowledge, our memories, all are dust. Whatsoever you have known, whatsoever you have experienced, whatsoever has been your past, is all dust. Regaining the original mind means regaining the purity - without experiences, without knowledge, without memories, without the past.

The whole past is dust, but we are identified with the past and not with the consciousness that is always present. Think of it in this way: whatsoever you know is always of the past, and you are here and now in the present. All your knowledge is dust. "Knowing" is your purity, knowledge is dust. The capacity to know, the energy to know, knowing, is your original nature. Through that knowing you gather knowledge. That knowledge is dust-like. Here and now, this very moment, you are absolutely pure, but you are not identified with this purity, you are identified with the past, the accumulated past.

So all meditative techniques are basically methods to remove yourself from the past and to allow you to plunge into the here and now.

Buddha was searching for how to regain this purity of consciousness, how to be free from the past, because unless you are free from the past you will remain in bondage, you will be a slave. The past is heavy on you, and because of the past the present is never known. The past is known; the present is a very minute atomic moment. You go on missing it because of the past, and because of the past you go on projecting into the future. The past is projected into the future, and both are false. The past is no more, the future is yet to be. Both are not, and that which is, is hidden between these two which are not.

Buddha was in search; he went from one teacher to another. He searched, and he went to many teachers, all of the known teachers. He consulted them, he allowed them to work upon him, he cooperated. He disciplined himself in many ways, but he was not fulfilled, and the difficulty was this:

the teachers were interested in the future, in some liberated state somewhere beyond death, after the life is over. They were interested in some God, some nirvana, some moksha -some liberated state - somewhere in the future, and Buddha was interested in the here and now, so there was really no meeting. He said to every teacher, "I am interested in the here and now, in how to be total, complete and pure here and now." And they would say, "Apply this method, do this, and if you do it rightly, someday in the future, in some future life, in some future state, you will attain."

Sooner or later he left every teacher, and then he tried by himself alone. What did he do? He did a very simple thing. Once you know it, it is very simple and obvious, but when you don't know it, it is so arduous and so difficult, it seems impossible. He did only one thing: he remained with the present moment. He forgot his past and he forgot his future. He said, "I will be here and now. I will simply exist." If you can exist even for a single moment, you have known the taste - the taste of your pure consciousness. And once it is tasted you can never forget it. Then the taste, the flavor, remains with you, and that flavor becomes a transformation.

Many are the ways how to uncover yourself from your past, how to throw the dust and have a look into the mirror of your own mind. All these techniques are different ways, but with every technique a deep understanding is needed: remember that. These techniques are not mechanical because they are to uncover consciousness. They are not mechanical things. You can use these techniques mechanically, and if you use them as mechanical techniques you may gain a certain stillness of mind, but that won't be the original purity. You may gain a certain silence, but that silence will he cultivated. That too belongs to the dust part of the mind, not to the original layer. Don't use them mechanically. A deep understanding is needed, and with understanding they can be helpful to uncover your being.

The first technique:

"IN MOODS OF EXTREME DESIRE, BE UNDISTURBED."

"IN MOODS OF EXTREME DESIRE, BE UNDISTURBED": When desire grips you, you are disturbed. Of course, that is natural. Desire grips you, then your mind starts wavering and many ripples go on, on the surface. The desire pulls you somewhere into the future; the past pushes you somewhere in the future. You are disturbed, you are not at ease. Desire is, therefore, a "dis-ease."

This sutra says, "IN MOODS OF EXTREME DESIRE, BE UNDISTURBED." But how to be undisturbed? Desire means disturbance, so how to be undisturbed - and in extreme moments of desire? You will have to do certain experiments; only then will you understand what it means.

You are in anger, anger grips you, you are temporarily mad, possessed, you are no more in your senses. Suddenly remember to be undisturbed - as if you are undressing. Inside, become naked, naked from the anger, undressed. Anger will be there, but now you have a point within you which is not disturbed.

You will know that anger is there on the periphery. Like fever, it is there. The periphery is wavering; the periphery is disturbed. But you can look at it. If you can look at it, you will be undisturbed.

Become a witness to it, and you will be undisturbed. This undisturbed point is your original mind.

The original mind cannot be disturbed; it is never disturbed - but you have never looked at it. When anger is there, you become identified with the anger. You forget that anger is something other than you. You become one with it, and you start acting through it, you start doing something through it.

Two things can be done. In anger you will be violent to someone, to the object of your anger. Then you have moved to the other. Anger is just in between you and the other. Here I am, then there is anger, and there you are - the object of my anger. From anger I can travel in two dimensions: either I can travel to you; then you become my center of consciousness, the object of my anger. Then my mind becomes focused on you, the one who has insulted me. This is one way how you can travel from anger. There is another way: you can travel to yourself. You don't move to the person whom you feel has caused the anger. You move to the person who feels to be angry; you move to the subject and not to the object.

Ordinarily, we go on moving to the object. If you move to the object, the dust part of your mind is disturbed, and you will feel, "'l' am disturbed." If you move within to the center of your own being, you will be able to witness the dust part; you will be able to see that the dust part of the mind is disturbed, but "I am not disturbed." And you can experiment upon this with any desire, any disturbance.

A sexual desire comes to your mind; your whole body is taken by it. You can move to the sexual object, the object of your desire. The object may be there, it may not be there. You can move to the object in imagination also. But then you will get more and more disturbed. The further you go away from your center, the more you will be disturbed. Really, the distance and disturbance are always in proportion. The more distant you are from your center, the more you are disturbed; the nearer you are to the center, the less you are disturbed. If you are just at the center, there is no disturbance.

In a cyclone, there is a center which is undisturbed - in the cyclone of anger, the cyclone of sex, the cyclone of any desire. Just in the center there is no cyclone, and a cyclone cannot exist without a silent center. The anger also cannot exist without something within you which is beyond anger.

Remember this: nothing can exist without its opposite. The opposite is needed there. Without it, there is no possibility of it existing. If there were no center within you which remains unmoved, no movement would be possible there. If there were no center within you which remains undisturbed, no disturbance could happen to you. Analyze this and observe this. If there were no center of absolute undisturbance in you, how could you feel that you are disturbed? You need a comparison.

You need two points to compare.

Suppose a person is ill: he feels illness because somewhere within him, a point, a center of absolute health exists. That is why he can compare. You say that your head is aching. How is it that you know about this ache, this headache? If you were the headache, you could not know it. You must be someone else, something else - the observer, the witness, who can say, "My head is aching."

This ache can be felt only by something which is not the ache. If you are ill, you are feverish, you can feel it because you are not the fever. The fever cannot feel that there is fever; someone is needed who is beyond it. A polarity is needed. When you are in anger, and if you feel you are in anger, it means that a point exists within you which is still undisturbed and which can be a witness. You may not look at that point, that is another thing. You may not see yourself at that point, that is another thing. But it is there always in its pristine purity; it is there.

This sutra says, "IN MOODS OF EXTREME DESIRE, BE UNDISTURBED." What can you do? This technique is not for suppression. This technique is not saying that when there is anger suppress it and remain undisturbed - no! If you suppress, you will create more disturbance. If the anger is there and an effort to suppress is there, it will double the disturbance. When anger is there, close your doors, meditate on the anger, allow the anger to be. You remain undisturbed, and don't suppress it.

It is easy to suppress; it is easy to express. We do both. We express if the situation allows, and if it is convenient and not dangerous for you. If you can harm the other and the other cannot harm you, you will express the anger. If it is dangerous, if the other can harm you more, if your boss or whoever you are angry at is more strong, you will suppress it.

Expression and suppression are easy, witnessing is difficult. Witnessing is neither; it is not suppressing, it is not expressing. It is not expressing because you are not expressing it to the object of anger. It is not being suppressed either. You are allowing it to be expressed - expressed in a vacuum. You are meditating on it.

Stand before a mirror and express your anger - and be a witness to it. You are alone, so you can meditate on it. Do whatsoever you want to do, but in a vacuum. If you want to beat someone, beat the empty sky. If you want to be angry, be angry; if you want to scream, scream. But do it alone, and remember yourself as a point which is seeing all this, this drama. Then it becomes a psychodrama, and you can laugh at it and it will be a deep catharsis for you. Afterwards you will feel relieved of it - and not only relieved of it, you will have gained something through it. You will have matured; a growth will have come to you. And now you will know that even while you were in anger there was a center within you which was undisturbed. Now try to uncover this center more and more, and it is easy to uncover it in desire.

That is why tantra is not against desire. It says be in desire, but remember the center which is undisturbed. So tantra says that even sex can be used. Move in sex, but remain undisturbed. Be a witness. Go on being a deep observer. Whatsoever is happening, is happening on the periphery; you are just an onlooker, a spectator.

This technique can be very useful, and much benefit can happen to you through it. But it will be difficult because when you become disturbed, you forget everything. You may forget that you have to meditate. Then try it in this way: don't wait for the moment when anger happens to you. Don't wait for the moment! Just close your room, and think of some past experience of anger when you went mad. Remember it, and re-enact it. That will be easy for you. Re-enact it again, do it again, relive it. Do not just remember it, relive it. Remember that someone had insulted you and what was said and how you reacted to him. React again, replay it.

You may not know that mind is just a tape-recording device. And now scientists say, now it is a scientific fact, that if your memory centers are touched with electrodes, they start replaying. For example, you were once angry: the incident is recorded, in the same sequence as it happened, just as if on a tape-recording in your brain. If it is touched by an electrode, it mill start replaying. You will have the same feeling again. Your eyes will go red, your body will start trembling and will become feverish, the whole thing will be re-enacted. The moment the electrode is put away, it stops. If you give it energy again, it starts from the very beginning again.

Now they say that mind is a recording machine, and you can re-enact anything. But don't just remember: relive. Start feeling the experience again, and the mind will get the idea. The incident will come to you; you will relive it. In reliving it, remain undisturbed. Start from the past. This is easy because now it is a play, the actual situation is not there. And if you become capable of doing this, then you will be able to do it when the situation for anger is really there, when a real situation is there. And this can be done with every desire, and it is to be done with every desire.

This re-enacting something from the past will do much. Everyone has scars in his mind; unhealed wounds are there. If you re-enact them, you will be unburdened. If you can go to your past and do something which has remained incomplete, you will be unburdened from your past. Your mind will become fresher; the dust will be thrown away. Remember in your past something which you feel has remained suspended. You wanted to kill someone, you wanted to love someone, you wanted this and that, and that has remained incomplete.

That incomplete thing goes on hovering on the mind like a cloud. It influences everything that you are and that you are doing. That cloud has to be dispersed. Move back on the time track and bring back desires which have remained incomplete, and relive the wounds which are still green. They will be healed. You will become more whole, and through this you will have the knack of how to remain undisturbed in a situation which is disturbed.

"IN MOODS OF EXTREME DESIRE, BE UNDISTURBED." Gurdjieff used this technique very much.

He created situations, but to create situations a school is needed. You cannot do that alone. Gurdjieff had a small school in Fontainebleau, and he was a taskmaster. He knew how to create situations.

You would enter the room, and a group would be sitting there. You would enter the room where a group was sitting, and something would be done so that you would get angry. And it would be done so naturally that you could never imagine that some situation was being created for you. But it was a device. Someone would insult you by saying something, and you would get disturbed. Then everyone would help the disturbance and you would become mad. And when you were right at the point where you could explode, Gurdjieff would shout, "Remember! Remain undisturbed!"

A situation can be created, but only in a school where many persons are working on themselves.

And when Gurdjieff would shout, "Remember! Remain undisturbed," now you would know that this was a created situation. The disturbance cannot disappear so suddenly, so immediately, because it has physical roots. Your glands had thrown poison in the blood; your body had become affected.

Anger cannot disappear so immediately. Even now that you had come to know that you had been deceived, that no one was insulting you and no one meant anything by it, it would be difficult to do anything. The anger is there, your body is filled with it - but suddenly your temperature cools down.

Only on the body, on the periphery, does the anger remain. At the center you suddenly cool down, and you know that a point exists within you which is undisturbed. You start laughing. Your eyes are red with anger; your face is violent, animal-like, but you start laughing. You know two things now - a point which is undisturbed and a periphery which is disturbed.

You can help. Your family can become a school; you can help each other. Friends can become a school and they can help each other. You can decide with your family... the whole family can decide that now a situation has to be created for the father or for the mother, and then the whole family works to create the situation. When the father or mother goes completely mad, then everyone starts laughing and says, "Remain completely undisturbed." You can help each other, and the experience is simply wonderful. Once you know a cool center within you in a hot situation, you cannot forget it, and then in any hot situation you can remember it, reclaim it, regain it.

In the West now one technique, a therapeutic technique, is used; it is called psychodrama. It helps, and it is also based on techniques like this. In psychodrama you just enact, you just play a game.

In the beginning it is a game, but sooner or later you become possessed. And when you become possessed your mind starts functioning, because your mind and your body function automatically.

They function automatically!

So if you see an actor acting in a psychodrama who, in a situation of anger, really becomes angry, you may think that he is simply acting, but it is not so. He might have really become angry; it may not be acting at all now. He is possessed by the desire, by the disturbance, by the feeling, by the mood, and if he is really possessed, only then does his acting look real.

Your body cannot know whether you are playing or whether you are doing it for real. You may have observed yourself at some time in your life that you were just playing at being angry, and you didn't know when the anger became real, or you were just playing and you were not feeling sexual. You were playing with your wife or with your girlfriend, or with your husband, and then suddenly it became real. The body takes it, and the body can be deceived. The body cannot know whether it is real or unreal, particularly with sex. If you imagine it your body thinks it is real.

Sex is one of the most imaginary centers in the body, so just by imagining, you can have a sexual orgasm. You can deceive the body. In dream, you can have a sexual release; even in dream, the body is deceived. You are not making love to anyone; just in dream, in fantasy, in imagination, you are making love. But the body can release sexual energy, and even a deep orgasm can be felt.

What is happening? How is the body deceived? The body cannot know what is real and what is unreal. Once you start doing something, the body thinks it is real and it starts behaving in a real way.

Psychodrama is a technique based on such methods. You are not angry, you are simply acting angry - and then you get into it. But psychodrama is beautiful because you know that you are simply acting, and then on the periphery anger becomes real, and just behind it you are hidden and looking at it. Now you know that you are not disturbed, but the anger is there, the disturbance is there. The disturbance is there, and yet the disturbance is not.

This feeling of two forces working simultaneously gives you a transcendence, and then in real anger also you can feel it. Once you know how to feel it, you can feel it in real situations also. Use this technique; this will change your total life. Once you know how to remain undisturbed, the world is not misery for you. Then nothing can create any confusion in you, really,.nothing can hurt you. Now there is no suffering for you, and once you know it you can do another thing.

Gurdjieff used to do it. He was able to change his face at any moment. He would be laughing, he would be smiling, he would be looking happy with you, and suddenly he would become angry without any cause. And it is reported about him that he became so proficient at this art that if two persons were sitting near him, one on each side, he could be angry with half of his face and he could be smiling with the other half of his face. Then one person would report, "What a beautiful man Gurdjieff is," and the other would say, "What an ugly man! " He would look at one person from one side smiling, and he would look at the other side angrily.

Once you can detach your center from the periphery, you can do it. Once the center is detached completely, if you can remain undisturbed in anger, in desire, you can play with desires, with anger, with disturbances.

This technique is to create a feeling of two extremes within you. They are there, two polar opposites are there. Once you become aware of this polarity, you become for the first time a master of yourself.

Otherwise others are your masters; you are just a slave. Your wife knows, your son knows, your father knows, your friends know, that you can be pushed and pulled. You can be disturbed, you can be made happy and unhappy. If someone else can make you happy and unhappy, you are not a master, you are just a slave. The other has a hold. Just by a single gesture he can make you unhappy; just by a small smile be can make you happy.

So you are just at the mercy of someone else; the other can do anything to you. And if this is the situation, then all your reactions are simply reactions, not actions. You simply react. If someone insults you and you become angry, your anger is not an action, it is a reaction. If someone appreciates you and you start smiling and feeling good, great, this is a reaction, not an action.

Buddha was passing by a village, and some persons gathered there. They were against him, and they insulted him. Buddha listened, and then he said, "I am to reach to the other village in time, so can I go now? If you have said whatsoever you have come to say, if it is finished, then I can move.

Or, if you have to say something more to me, while returning I will wait here. You can come and tell me."

Those persons were just surprised. They couldn't understand. They had been insulting him, using bad words, abusing him, so they said, "But we are not saying something to you, we are abusing and insulting you.

" Buddha said, "You can do that, but if you want any reaction from me you have come late. Ten years before, if you had come with such words, I would have reacted. But now I have learned how to act, I am a master of myself now; you cannot force me to do anything. So you will have to go back. You cannot disturb me; nothing can disturb me now because I have known my own center."

This knowledge of the center or this grounding in the center makes you a master. Otherwise you are a slave, and a slave of so many - not only of one master, but of many. Everything is a master, and you are a slave to the whole universe. Obviously, you will be in trouble. With so many masters pulling you in so many directions and dimensions, you are never together; you are not in a unity, and pulled in so many dimensions, you are in anguish. Only a master of oneself can transcend anguish.

The second technique:

"THIS SO-CALLED UNIVERSE APPEARS AS A JUGGLING, A PICTURE SHOW. TO BE HAPPY LOOK UPON IT SO."

This whole world is just like a drama, so don't be too serious about it. Seriousness will force you into trouble, you will get into trouble. Don't be serious about it. Nothing is serious; this whole world is just a drama.

If you can look to the whole world as a drama you will regain your original consciousness. The dust gathers because you are so serious. That seriousness creates problems, and we are so serious that even while seeing a drama we gather dust. Go to a picture house and look at the spectators.

Don't look at the screen, forget the picture; don't look at the screen; just look at the spectators in the hall. Someone will be weeping and tears will be rolling down, someone will be laughing, someone will become sexually excited. Just look at people. What are they doing? What is happening to them? And there is nothing on the screen, just pictures - pictures of light and shadow. The screen is vacant.

But how are they getting excited? They are weeping, crying, laughing. The picture is not just a picture; the film is not just a film. They have forgotten that it is just a story. They have taken it seriously. It has "become alive"! It is "real"! And this is happening everywhere, not only in a picture house. Look at the life that is all around you. What is it?

Many people have lived on this earth. Where you are sitting, at least ten dead bodies are buried in that place, and they too were serious like you. Now they are no more. Where have their lives gone?

Where have their problems gone? They were fighting - fighting for a single inch of earth, and the earth is there and they are no more.

And I am not saying that their problems were not problems. They were - as your problems are problems. They were "serious" - problems of life and death. But where are their problems? And if the whole humanity should disappear anyday, the earth will be there, the trees will grow, the rivers will flow and the sun will rise, and the earth will not feel any absence or wonder where humanity is.

Look at the expanse: look backwards, look forwards, look to all dimensions at what you are, what your life is. It looks like a long dream, and everything that you take so seriously this moment becomes useless the next moment. You may not even remember it.

Remember your first love, how serious it was. Life depended on it. Now you don't remember it at all, it is forgotten. And whatsoever you are thinking that your life depends on today will be forgotten. Life is a flux, nothing remains. It is like a moving film, everything changing into everything else. But in the moment you feel it is very serious, and you get disturbed. This technique says, "THIS SO-CALLED UNIVERSE APPEARS AS A JUGGLING, A PICTURE SHOW. TO BE HAPPY, LOOK UPON IT SO."

In India, we have called this world not a creation of God, but a play, a game, a LEELA. This concept of LEELA is beautiful, because creation seems serious. The Christian, the Jewish God is very serious. Even for a single disobedience, Adam was thrown out of the Garden of Eden - and not only was he thrown out, because of him, the whole humanity. He was our father, and we are suffering because of him. God seems to be so serious. He should not be disobeyed. And if he is disobeyed, he is going to take revenge, and the revenge has been so long.

The sin doesn't seem to be so serious. Really, Adam committed it because of God's own foolishness.

God the Father said to Adam, "Don't go near the tree, the Tree of Knowledge, and don't eat its fruit."

This prohibition becomes an invitation, and this is psychological. In that big garden, only that Tree of Knowledge became attractive. It was prohibited. Any psychologist can say, God committed an error. If the fruit of that tree was not to be eaten, it was good not to talk about it at all. There was no possibility of Adam reaching to that tree, and the whole humanity would have been in the garden.

But this saying, this order, "Don't eat," created the trouble; this "don't" created the whole trouble.

Because Adam disobeyed he was thrown out of heaven, and the revenge seems so long. And Christians say Jesus was crucified just to redeem us - to redeem us from that sin that Adam committed. So the whole Christian concept of history hangs on two persons - Adam and Jesus.

Adam committed the sin, and Jesus suffered to redeem us from it and allowed himself to be crucified.

He suffered so that Adam's sin may be forgiven. But it doesn't seem that God has forgiven yet. Jesus was crucified, but humanity goes on suffering in the same way.

The very concept of God as a father is ugly, serious. The Indian concept is not of a creator. God is just a player; he is not serious. This is just a game. Rules are there, but rules of a game. You need not be serious about them. Nothing is sin - only error, and you suffer because of error, not because God punishes you. You suffer because of the rules you don't follow. God is not punishing you. The whole concept of LEELA gives life a dramatic color; it becomes a long drama. And this technique is based on this concept: "THIS SO-CALLED UNIVERSE APPEARS AS A JUGGLING, A PICTURE SHOW. TO BE HAPPY, LOOK UPON IT SO."

If you are unhappy, you have taken it too seriously. And don't try to find any way how to be happy.

Just change your attitude. You cannot be happy with a serious mind. With a festive mind, you can be happy. Take this whole life as a myth, as a story. It is one, but once you take it this way you will not be unhappy. Unhappiness comes out of too much seriousness. Try for seven days; for seven days remember only one thing - that the whole world is just a drama - and you will not be the same again. Just for seven days! You are not going to lose much because you don't have anything to lose.

You can try it. For seven days take everything as a drama, just as a show. These seven days will give you many glimpses of your buddha nature, of your inner purity. And once you have the glimpse you cannot be the same again. You will be happy, and you cannot conceive of what type of happiness can happen to you because you have not known any happiness. You have known only degrees of unhappiness: sometimes you were more unhappy, sometimes less unhappy, and when you were less unhappy you called it happiness. You don't know what happiness is because you cannot know.

When you have a concept of the world in which you are taking it very seriously, you cannot know what happiness is. Happiness happens only when you are grounded in this attitude, that the world is just a play.

So try this, and do everything in a very festive way, celebrating, doing an "act" - not a real thing. If you are a husband, play, be a play husband; if you are a wife, be a play wife. Make it just a game.

And there are rules, of course; any game to be played needs rules. Marriage is a rule and divorce is a rule, but don't be serious about them. They are rules, and one rule begets another. Divorce is bad; because marriage is bad: one rule begets another! But don't take them seriously, and then look how the quality of your life immediately changes.

Go to your home this night, and behave with your wife or husband or your children as if you are doing a part in a drama, and see the beauty of it. If you are playing a part you will try to be efficient, but you will not get disturbed. There is no need. You will do the part and go to sleep. But remember, it is a part, and for seven days continuously follow this attitude. Then happiness can happen to you, and once you know what happiness is you need not move into unhappiness, because it is your choice.

You are unhappy because you have chosen a wrong attitude towards life. You can be happy if you choose a right attitude. Buddha pays so much attention to "right attitude." He makes it a base, a foundation - "right attitude." What is right attitude? What is the criterion? To me this is the criterion:

the attitude that makes you happy is the right attitude, and there is no objective criterion. The attitude that makes you unhappy and miserable is the wrong attitude. The criterion is subjective; your happiness is the criterion.

The third technique:

"OH BELOVED, PUT ATTENTION NEITHER ON PLEASURE NOR ON PAIN, BUT BETWEEN THESE."

Everything is polar, and mind moves from one polarity to another, never staying in between. Have you known any moment when you were neither happy nor unhappy? Have you known any moment when you were neither healthy nor sick? Have you known any moment when you were neither this nor that, when you were just in between, just in the middle, right in the middle? Mind moves from one pole to another immediately. If you are happy, sooner or later you will move to unhappiness, and you will move immediately: the happiness will disappear and you will be unhappy.

If you are feeling good, sooner or later you will feel bad, and there is no point where you stay in between. You move immediately from this to that. Just like the pendulum of an old clock, you move from left to right, from right to left, and the pendulum goes on moving. There is a secret law: when the pendulum is going to the left, it appears to be going to the left, but it is gathering momentum to go right. When it is going to the left, it is gathering energy, momentum, to go right; when it is going right, it is gathering momentum to go left. So what appears is not the whole. When you are becoming happy, you are gathering momentum to be unhappy. So whenever I see you laughing, the moment is not far away when you will be weeping.

In Indian villages, the mothers know this, so when a child starts laughing too much they say, "Stop him; otherwise he will weep." It is bound to be so. If a child is so much happy, the next step can be nothing but unhappiness. Thus, they stop him. Otherwise he will be unhappy. But the same applies to the reverse, and that is not known. When a child is weeping and you try to stop him, you are not only stopping his weeping; you are stopping his next step. He cannot be happy now. When a child is weeping, allow him. Help him to weep more so that when weeping is finished he has gathered momentum. Now he can move to the right, he can be happy.

Now psychoanalysts say that when a child is weeping and screaming, don't stop him, don't try to persuade him, don't distract him. Don't try to focus his mind somewhere else; don't bribe him to stop. Don't do anything. Just remain silent near him, and allow him to weep and cry and scream so that he can move easily to happiness. Otherwise, neither will he be able to weep nor will he be able to be happy. That is how we all have become. We cannot do anything. The smile is half-hearted, the tear is also half-hearted; everything is confusion.

But this is the natural law of mind. It moves from one pole to another. This technique is to change this natural law: "OH BELOVED, PUT ATTENTION NEITHER ON PLEASURE NOR ON PAIN, BUT BETWEEN THESE." Any of the polarities can be chosen, and try to be just in between. What can you do to be in between? How will you be in between? One thing: when pain is there, what can you do? When pain is there, you want to escape from it. You don't want it; you try to go away from it.

Your effort is to go to the opposite - to be happy, to be joyful.

When there is happiness, what do you do? Your effort is to cling to it so that the other pole may not enter - to CLING to it! When happiness is there you cling; when pain is there you escape. This is the natural attitude. If you want to change this natural law and transcend it, when pain is there don't try to escape. Remain with it. You will disturb the whole natural mechanism. You have a headache:

remain with it. Close your eyes, meditate on the headache; remain with it. Don't do anything. Just be a witness; don't try to escape.

When happiness is there and you are feeling especially blissful in any particular moment, don't cling to it. Close your eyes and remain a witness to it all. Clinging or escaping are natural for the dust- covered mind. If you remain a witness, sooner or later you will fall in between because the natural law is to move to the polarity, to the polar opposite. If you remain a witness, you are in between.

Buddha has called his whole philosophy MAJJHIM NIKAYA - the middle way, because of this technique. He says remain in the middle always; no matter what the polarity, remain always in the middle. By witnessing one remains in the middle. The moment you lose your witnessing you either become attached or repulsed. If you are repulsed you will go to the other extreme; if you are attached you will try to remain at this extreme, but you will never be in between. Just be a witness.

Don't be attracted, don't be repulsed. The headache is there; accept it. It is there as a fact. As a tree is there, as the house is there, as the night is there, the headache is there. Accept it and close your eyes. Don't try to escape from it.

You are happy; accept the fact. Don't cling to it, and don't try not to become unhappy; don't try anything. If unhappiness comes, allow it. If happiness comes, allow it. Just remain a watcher on the hill, just seeing things. The morning comes, and then evening comes, and then the sun rises, and then the sun sets and there are stars and darkness, and again the sun rises - and you are just a watcher on the hill. You cannot do anything. You simply see. The morning has come; you note the fact, and you know that now the evening will come because the evening follows the morning.

And when the evening comes you note the fact, and you know that now the morning will be coming because the morning follows the evening.

When pain is there, you are just a watcher. You know that pain has come, and sooner or later it will go, and the polar opposite will come. And when happiness has come, you know that it is not going to remain always. Unhappiness will be just hidden somewhere, it will be coming. You remain a watcher. If you can watch without attraction and without repulsion you will fall in the middle, and once the pendulum stops in the middle you can look for the first time at what the world is.

While you are moving, you cannot know what the world is; your movement confuses everything.

Once you are not moving, you can look at the world. For the first time you know what reality is. A non-moving mind knows what reality is; a moving mind cannot know what reality is. Your mind is just like a camera: you go on moving and taking shots, but whatsoever comes is just a confusion because the camera must not move. If the camera is moving, the pictures are going to be just a confusion.

Your consciousness is moving from one pendulum to another, and whatsoever you know of reality is just a confusion, a nightmare. You don't know what is what; everything is confused, missed. If you remain in the middle and the pendulum has stopped, if your consciousness is focused now, centered, then you know what reality is. Only a mind that is unmoving can know what the truth is. "OH BELOVED, PUT ATTENTION NEITHER ON PLEASURE NOR ON PAIN, BUT BETWEEN THESE."

The fourth technique:

"OBJECTS AND DESIRES EXIST IN ME AS IN OTHERS. SO ACCEPTING, LET THEM BE TRANSFORMED."

This technique can be very helpful. When you are angry, you always justify your anger, but when someone else gets angry you always criticize. Your madness is natural, but others' madness is just "perversion." Whatsoever you do is good - or even if it was not good, it was "necessary to do." You always find some rationalization for it.

The same is done by others, but then the same rationalization is not given. If you are angry, you say it was necessary to help the other. If you were not angry, the other would have been destroyed., he would have got a wrong habit, so it was good to give him punishment. It was just for his "good". But when someone gets angry at you, the same rationalization is not applicable. Then he is "mad," he is "evil."

We have double standards - one standard for one oneself and another standard for everyone else.

This double-standard mind is going to be in deep misery always. This mind is not just, and unless your mind is just you cannot have a glimpse of the truth. Only a just mind can leave this double standard.

Jesus says, "Don't do to others what you would not like done to you." This means a similar standard is needed. This technique is based on the idea of a single standard: "OBJECTS AND DESIRES EXIST IN ME AS IN OTHERS...." You are not exceptional, although everyone thinks he is exceptional. If you think you are exceptional, know well this is how every ordinary mind thinks. To know that one is ordinary is the most extraordinary thing in this world.

Someone asked Suzuki about his teacher: "What was exceptional in your teacher, Suzuki?" Suzuki was a Zen master, so he said, "The only thing I will never forget is this, that I have never seen a man who thought himself so ordinary. He was just ordinary, and that is the most extraordinary thing, because every ordinary mind thinks he is exceptional, extraordinary."

But no one is extraordinary, and if you know this you become extraordinary. Everyone is just like everyone else. The same desires that hover around you hover around everyone else. But you call your sex love; others' love you call sex. Whatsoever you do, you protect it. You say it is good. That is why you are doing it, and the same thing done by others is "not the same." And this happens not only to persons; it happens to races, nations. This is why the whole world has become a mess, because of this.

If India goes on strengthening its army it is "for defense," and if China goes on strengthening its army it is "for attack." Every government in the world calls its military organization "defense." Then who attacks? If everyone is defending, who is the aggressor? If you move into history, you cannot find anyone who is an aggressor. Of course, the defeated ones prove to be aggressors. The defeated ones always prove to be aggressors because they cannot write history. The victorious ones write history.

If Hitler could have won, then the history would have been different. Then he would have been the savior of the world, not the aggressor. Then Churchill and Roosevelt and the other allies would have been the aggressors, and it would have been good if they were destroyed. But because Hitler couldn't win he was the aggressor, and Churchill and Roosevelt and Stalin and the other allies saved humanity. Not only with persons, but with everything we do - as nations, as races - the same logic moves. We are something different and the other is different.

No one is different! A religious mind knows that everyone is the same, so if you give rationalizations for yourself, please give the same rationalizations to others also. If you criticize others, then apply that same criticism to yourself. Don't create two standards. One standard will transform your being totally because with one standard you become just and for the first time you can look straight into reality, as it is. "OBJECTS AND DESIRES EXIST IN ME AS IN OTHERS. SO ACCEPTING, LET THEM BE TRANSFORMED": ACCEPT THEM AND THEY WILL BE TRANSFORMED."

What are we doing? We accept that they exist in others. Whatsoever is wrong exists in others; whatsoever is right exists in you. Then how can you be transformed? You are already transformed.

You think that you are already good and everyone else is bad; the world needs a transformation, not you. That is why there are always leaders, movements, prophets. They go on crying from the rooftops to change the world, to create a revolution, and we have been making revolutions and revolutions and nothing changes.

Man remains the same and the earth remains in the same misery. Only faces and labels change, but misery continues. It is not a question of how to change the world. The world is not wrong; you are wrong. The question is how to change yourself: "How to change myself?" is the religious quest.

"How to change everyone else?" is political. But the politician thinks he is okay; really, he is the model of how the whole world should be. He is the model, he is the ideal, and it is up to him to change the whole.

Whatsoever the religious man sees in everyone else he sees in himself also. If there is violence, he immediately wonders whether the violence exists in him or not. If there is greed, if he sees greed somewhere, his first reflection is over whether the same greed is in him or not. And the more he searches the more he finds that he is the source of all evil. Then it is not a question of how to change the world; it is a question of how to change oneself. And the change starts the moment you accept one standard. Then you are already changing.

Don't condemn others. I don't mean condemn yourself - no! Just don't condemn others. And if you are not condemning others, you will have a deep compassion for them, because the same problems are there. If someone commits a sin, a sin in the eyes of the society, you start condemning him, never thinking that you also have the seed to commit that sin within you. If someone commits a murder you condemn him, but have you not always been thinking to kill someone, to murder? Is not the potential seed there always? The man who has committed murder was not a murderer a moment before, but the seed was there. And the seed is with you also. A moment later, who knows? You may be a murderer. So don't condemn him. Rather, accept. Then you will feel a deep compassion for him because whatsoever he has done any man is capable of doing; you are capable of doing it.

A non-condemning mind will have compassion; a non-condemning mind will have a deep acceptance. He knows that this is how humanity is and that "this is how I am." Then the whole world will become just a reflection of your own self. It will become a mirror. Then every face becomes a mirror for you; you look at yourself in every face.

"OBJECTS AND DESIRES EXIST IN ME AS IN OTHERS. SO ACCEPTING, LET THEM BE TRANSFORMED." Acceptance becomes transformation. This is difficult to understand because we always reject, and then too we cannot transform anything. You have greed, but you reject it.

No one wants to think of himself as greedy. You are sexual, but you reject it. No one wants to feel oneself as sexual. You are angry, you have anger, but you reject it. You create a facade, and you try to justify it. You never feel that you are angry or that you are anger.

But rejection never transforms anything. It simply suppresses, and that which is suppressed becomes more powerful. It moves to your roots, to your unconscious deep down within you, and it begins functioning from there. And from that darkness of the unconscious it becomes more powerful.

You cannot accept it now because you are not even conscious of it. Acceptance brings everything up. There is no need to suppress.

You know you are greedy, you know you have anger, you know you are sexual, and you accept them as natural facts without any condemnation. There is no need to suppress them. They come to the surface of the mind, and from the surface of the mind they can be thrown very easily. From the deep center they cannot be thrown. And when they are on the surface you are always aware of them, but when they are in the unconscious you become unaware. And a disease of which you are aware can be cured; a disease of which you are unaware cannot be cured.

Bring everything up to the surface. Accept your humanity, your animality. Whatsoever is there, accept it without any condemnation. It is there, and be aware of it. Greed is there; don't try to make it non-greed. You cannot. And if you try to make it non-greed, you will simply suppress it. Your non- greed will simply be another form of greed and nothing else. Don't try to change it into the other; you cannot change it. If you want to try to change greed, what will you do? And a greedy mind can be attracted only towards the ideal of non-greed if some further greed is possible through it.

If someone says that "If you leave all your riches you will be allowed in my Kingdom of God," then you can even renounce. A further greed becomes possible. This is a bargain. Greed has not to become non-greed; greed is to be transcended. You cannot change it.

How can a violent mind become non-violent? If you force yourself to be non-violent, this will be a violence to yourself. You cannot change one into another, you can simply be aware and accepting.

Accept greed as it is. By acceptance is not meant that there is no need to transform it. By acceptance is meant only that you accept the fact, the natural fact, as it is. Then move in life knowing well that greed is there. Do whatsoever you are doing, remembering well that greed is there. This awareness will transform you. It transforms because knowingly you cannot be greedy, knowingly you cannot be angry.

For anger, for greed, for violence, unawareness is a basic requirement, just as you cannot knowingly take poison, just as knowingly you cannot put your hand into a flame. Unknowingly you can put it.

If you don't know what a flame is, what fire is, you can put your hand in it. But if you know that fire burns, you cannot put your hand in it.

The more your "knowingness" grows, the more greed becomes a fire and anger becomes poison.

They simply become impossible. Without any suppression, they disappear. And when greed disappears without any ideal of non-greed, it has a beauty of its own. When violence disappears without making you non-violent, it has a beauty of its own.

Otherwise a non-violent man is deeply violent. That violence is there hidden, and you can have a glimpse of it from his non-violence also. He will force his non-violence upon himself and upon others in a very violent way. That violence has become subtle.

This sutra says that acceptance is transformation, because through acceptance awareness becomes possible.