Wake up and you are it

Question 1:

A man asleep can dream himself anywhere in the universe. From that point, to be awake will look thousands of lives away. But it is a dream; as far as the real sleep is concerned, awakening is just close by.

Any moment you can wake up.

Any situation can make you awake.

And the master's work is to create devices in which you can become awake. Sometimes very small things -- just throwing cold water in your eyes will make you awake. Asleep you were so far away, but when you wake up then you will see that it was a dream that created the distance. Dreaming is the distance. Of course, for dreaming, sleep is necessary, but the moment you are awake sleep disappears, and with it the whole world of dreams too.

The truth is that awakening is the nearest reality to you, just by the side of you. It is not far away; hence it cannot be made a goal. All goals are dreaming, all achievements are dreaming. Awakening cannot be a goal because the man who is asleep cannot even think of what awakening can be. He cannot make, in his sleep, a goal of enlightenment -- it is impossible. Or whatever he makes will be totally different from the reality of enlightenment.

Enlightenment is part of your waking consciousness.

In the East we have four layers of consciousness. First, that one we know is called so- called wakefulness. It is not really wakeful, because just underneath it dreams are floating. Close your eyes and you will have a daydream. Close your eyes and you will immediately see -- imagination takes over, and you start going away from this moment, from here. In reality you are going nowhere, but in your mind you can go anywhere.

So the first state is the so-called waking state; the second state is called sleep. We are aware of these.

The third is called the dreaming state, because sleep can be without dreaming; then it has a different quality. It is very peaceful, very silent, dark and deep... very rejuvenating.

So sleep is the second stage, below the so-called waking stage, and then comes the third stage, dreaming. Most of the time in your sleep you are dreaming. If you sleep eight hours, then six hours you are dreaming. Just here and there, like small islands, you are asleep; otherwise it is continuous dreaming.

You don't remember it, that's why people think this seems too much -- six hours of dreaming and only two hours of sleep. You remember only the last dreams when you are waking up, because only with your waking up your memory starts functioning; so it catches only the tail end of your dream world. You don't remember all the dreams, but only the dreams that happen just before you are waking up -- the morning dreams.

It was always understood in the East that these six hours of dreaming are as essential as those two hours of silent sleep. But in the West, within the last ten years for the first time new researches have proved the Eastern insight totally right. In fact, the new findings say that dreaming is even more essential than sleep, because in dreaming you are throwing out the rubbish of your mind.

The whole day the mind is collecting all kinds of words, all kinds of desires, ambitions -- too much dust! It has to be thrown out. In the day you don't have any time to throw it out; you are gathering more and more. So in the night when you are asleep the mind has a chance to clean itself up. Dreaming is a kind of spring cleaning. But it is an everyday business: again you will collect, again you will dream, again you will collect...

These are the states known to us. The fourth is not named in the East but is simply called the fourth, turiya. It is a number, it is not a word. No name is given to it so that you cannot interpret it, so that your mind cannot play with it and deceive you. What can the mind do, just listening to the number four? The mind simply feels paralyzed. Give any name with meaning, then the mind has a way -- meaning is its way. But the number four has no meaning.

The fourth state is the real awakening. The fourth state has to be understood in reference to the other three states. It has something similar to the first, the so-called waking state.

The so-called waking state is very thin, almost negligible, but it has some quality... The fourth consists only of that quality; it is pure awakening. You are fully awake.

It also has some similarity to the second stage -- the sleep. Sleep has silence, depth, peacefulness, relaxation, but in a very small measure -- just as much as is needed for day- to-day affairs. But the fourth has its totality: total relaxation, total silence, abysmal depth.

It has also some quality of the dream. The dream takes you far away from yourself. You may go to the moon in the dream, you may go to some star in the dream, although you remain here, in your bed. In reality you don't go anywhere, but in imagination -- as long as you are dreaming -- it looks absolutely real. You cannot think in a dream that it is a dream. If you can think in a dream that it is a dream, the dream will be broken -- you are awake, and you cannot catch hold of the dream again.

One Sufi story about Mulla Nasruddin is that one night he dreams that an angel is giving him some money, "Because you are so virtuous, so wise, God has sent some reward for you." But as the mind is, he gives him ten rupees, and Mulla says, "This is not a reward -- don't insult me." And slowly slowly he brings the angel up to ninety-nine rupees. But Mulla is stubborn; he says, "I will take a hundred or I will not take anything. What a miserly approach it is -- and from God! You represent God and you cannot make it a hundred?."

He shouted so loudly, "Either a hundred or nothing!" that it woke him up. He looked all around -- there was nobody, just he was sleeping in his bed. He said, "My God, I lost ninety-nine rupees unnecessarily, just being stubborn for one rupee more." He closed his eyes, tried hard, "Please come back, wherever you are. Ninety-nine is okay; even ninety- eight will do... ninety-seven is also all right -- anything will do. You just come back!

Where are you?"

He came back to one rupee, "I will take only one rupee... anything from God is great. I was foolish to call God a miser; in fact, I was greedy. Forgive me, and give me just one rupee." But the angel was not there.

You cannot catch hold of the same dream again; once you are awakened there is no way to catch hold of the same dream.

A dream takes you away from yourself; that's its basic quality. Perhaps that's why it cleanses you and helps you to have a certain relaxation: you forget your worries. For a few moments at least you can be in paradise, you can be in a situation you always wanted to be in.

The fourth stage also has something similar, but just similar. It also takes you away from yourself -- but forever. You cannot come back to yourself. In the dream you cannot come back to the same dream; in the fourth stage you cannot come back to the same self. It takes you really so far away that you can be the whole universe. That's what the Eastern mystics have said: aham brahmasmi -- I have become the whole.

But you have to lose the self.

You cannot come back to it.

This fourth stage has been given different names. This is the most mathematical name, the fourth. It was given by Patanjali, who was a very scientific and mathematical mystic.

His treatise has remained for thousands of years the only source of yoga. Nothing has been added, because nothing is needed. It is very rare that one person creates a complete system, so complete and so perfect that it is impossible to change anything in it.

In the West it used to be thought that Aristotle was such a person -- he created logic, the whole system of logic alone, and for two thousand years it has remained the same. But in this century things have changed, because new discoveries in physics have made it absolutely necessary to find something better than Aristotle. The new findings in physics have created a problem, because if you follow Aristotle's logic then you cannot accept those findings. Those findings are against Aristotle's logic, but you cannot deny reality.

Reality is reality! You can change the logic -- which is man-made -- but you cannot change the behavior of electrons. It is not in your power, it is existential. So a non- Aristotelian logic has grown up.

The second case was geometry. Euclid has reigned for hundreds of years as a perfect master as far as geometry is concerned, but in this century that too has got into trouble.

Non-Euclidian geometries have evolved. They had to be evolved because of the new discoveries of physics.

For example, you have heard that the closest distance between two points makes a straight line, but the discovery of the physicists is that there is no straight line at all. A straight line is impossible, for the simple reason that you are sitting on a global earth.

You can draw a straight line here on the floor, but it is not a straight line because it is part of a circle. If you go on drawing it from both ends, one day they will meet somewhere and you will see that it has become a circle. So the small piece that you were thinking was a straight line was not a straight line; just it was just such a small part of a circle that you could not see the curve. The curve was invisible -- it was so small, but it was there.

Where are you going to draw a straight line? -- because all stars, all planets, everything is global, is round. So wherever you draw a line, howsoever small it is, it looks absolutely straight -- even with scientific instruments you can see that it is straight -- but go on making it bigger and bigger, and it will become a part of a circle. So it was an arc, not a straight line. In the same way everything from Euclid has been cancelled.

Patanjali remains the only person yet, and perhaps may remain the only person, who has created a whole science alone, and has remained for five thousand years without any challenge from any corner. He calls it the turiya, the fourth. He is so scientific a man that one simply feels amazed.

Five thousand years ago, he had the courage, the insight, the awareness, to say that God is only a hypothesis. It can help you to become awakened but it is not a reality, it is only a device. There is no God to be achieved; it is only a hypothesis.

A few people can be helped by hypotheses -- they can use it -- but remember, it is not a reality. And once you have become awakened, it disappears, the same way as when you wake up your dreams disappear. They were so real that sometimes it happens that even after you have awakened there is some effect left of the reality of the dream: your heart is beating faster, you are perspiring, trembling, still afraid. Now you know perfectly it was a dream, but you are still crying, your tears are there. The dream was non-existential, but it has affected you because for that period you had taken it to be real.

So it is possible. You can see the devotees crying before their god, emotionally very much affected, dancing, singing, worshipping, and feeling the truth of it, but it is just a hypothesis. There is nothing, no God, but these people are taking the hypothesis as a reality. One day when they will be awake, they will laugh at themselves, that it was only a hypothesis.

But there are other masters who have given different names according to their own philosophical background. A few have called it enlightenment: becoming full of light -- all darkness disappears, all unconsciousness disappears -- becoming fully conscious.

There are others who have called it liberation, freedom -- freedom from yourself, remember. All other freedoms are political, social. They are freedom from somebody, from some government, from some country, from some political party; but it is always freedom FROM...

Religious freedom is freedom not from somebody else, but from yourself.

You are no more.

Because you are no more, a few masters in the East have called it anatta -- no-selfness.

Buddha called it nirvana -- which is very close to anatta, no-selfness, or selflessness -- just a zero, a profound nothingness surrounding you . But it is not emptiness, it is fullness:

fullness of being, of ultimate joy, fullness of being blessed, fullness of gracefulness. All that you have known before is no more there; hence is it empty of all that. But something new, absolutely new you had not even dreamt about, is discovered.

Some have called it universal existence, but what name you give does not matter. I think the fourth still remains the best, because it does not lead you into mind trips; otherwise you are going to think about it, "What is emptiness? What is nothingness?" And nothingness can create a fear, emptiness can create a fear, anatta, no-selfness, can create a fear. The fourth is absolutely right.

Three stages you know; the fourth is just a little deeper. It is not far away. The idea of being lives away from it is a dream. In reality it is just by the side... wake up and you are it.

Question 2:

The ordinary, unconscious human being has no individuality; he has only a personality.

Personality is that which is given by others to you -- by the parents, by the teachers, by the priest, by the society -- whatever they have said about you. And you have been desiring to be respectable, to be respected, so you have been doing things which are appreciated, and the society goes on rewarding you, respecting you more and more. This is their method of creating a personality.

But personality is very thin, skin-deep. It is not your nature. The child is born without a personality, but he is born with a potential individuality. The potential individuality simply means his uniqueness from anybody else -- he is different.

So first, remember that individuality is not personality. When you drop personality, you discover your individuality -- and only the individual can become enlightened. The false cannot become the ultimate realization of truth. Only the true can meet with the true, only the same can meet the same. Your individuality is existential; hence when your individuality blossoms you become one with the whole. Here is the question: if you become one with the whole, then how can you remain individual?

The problem is simply a non-understanding. The experience of becoming the whole is of consciousness, and the expression of it is through the body, through the mind. The experience is beyond the body/mind structure. When one becomes absolutely silent, goes into samadhi, reaches the fourth stage, he is not body, he is not mind. They are all silent - - he is far above them. He is pure consciousness.

This pure consciousness is universal, just as this light in all these bulbs is one, but it can be expressed differently. The bulb can be blue, the bulb can be green, the bulb can be red; the shape of the bulb can be different. The body/mind are still there, and if the man of experience wants to express his experience, then he has to use the body/mind; there is no other way. And his body/mind are unique -- only he has that structure, nobody else has that structure.

So he has experienced the universal, he has become the universal, but to the world, to the others, he is a unique individual. His expression is going to be different from other realized people. It is not that he wants to be different; he has a different mechanism, and he can only come through that mechanism to you.

There have been enlightened painters. They have never spoken because word was not their art, but they have painted. And their paintings are totally different from ordinary paintings, even of the great masters. Even the greatest master painters are unconscious people; what they paint reflects their unconsciousness.

But if a realized man paints, then his painting has a totally different beauty. It is not only a painting, it is a message too. It has a meaning to be discovered. The meaning has been given in code, because the man was capable only of painting, so his painting is a code.

You have to discover the code, and then the painting will reveal immense meanings. The deeper you go into those meanings, the more and more you will find. The other paintings are just flat; they may be made by masters, but they are flat. The paintings made by a realized man are multidimensional, they are not flat. They want to say something to you.

If the man is a poet, like Kabir, then he sings, and his poetry is his expression.

If the man is articulate in speaking the unspeakable, then he speaks; but his words will have a totally different impact. The same words are used by everybody, but they don't have that impact because they don't carry the same energy, they don't come from the same source. A man of experience brings his words full of his experience -- they are not dry, they are not the words of an orator or a speaker. He may not know the art of speaking but no orator can do what he can do with words. He can transform people just by their hearing him. Just by being in the presence of him, just by letting his words rain over you, you will feel a transformation happening: a new being is born in you, you are reborn.

So when I say that even enlightened people have individuality, I mean that they remain unique -- for the simple reason that they have a unique body/mind structure, and anything that comes to you has to come through that structure.

Buddha speaks in one way, Mahavira speaks in another way. Chuang Tzu speaks in absurd stories -- he is a great story-teller -- but his stories, side by side, go on playing with your heart. The stories are so absurd that your mind cannot do anything. That's the reason why he has chosen the stories to be absurd, so that your mind cannot come in between. With his absurd stories he stops your mind, and then his presence is available to you and to your heart; you can drink the wine he has brought for you. And he has put your mind away by telling you an absurd story. The mind is puzzled and is not functioning.

Many people have wondered why Chuang Tzu writes such absurd stories, but nobody has been able to explain the fact for the simple reason that the people who have been thinking about why he is writing the stories have no idea that it is a device to make the mind stop functioning -- then you are available, fully available from your heart. He can contact you in that way.

But Buddha cannot tell an absurd story. He uses parables, but they are very meaningful.

He does not want to avoid the mind... these are the uniquenesses of the people. He wants the mind to be convinced and then, through that conviction of the mind, he wants to go to your heart. If the mind is convinced it gives way. And Buddha's parables, his discourses, are all logical; the mind has to give way sooner or later.

Different masters... For example, Jalaluddin Rumi did nothing but whirling. He became enlightened after thirty six hours of continuous whirling, without any stop -- non-stop whirling. In fact every child likes to whirl. Parents stop him; they say, "You will fall. You may have a fit or you may get hit by something -- don't do such a thing." But all children all over the world love whirling, because somehow while the child is whirling he finds his center. Without finding the center you cannot whirl. The body goes on whirling, but the whirling has to happen on a center; so slowly, slowly he becomes aware of the center.

After thirty-six hours of continuous whirling, Rumi became absolutely clear about his center. That was his experience of the ultimate, the fourth. Then his whole life he was not doing anything but teaching whirling to people. It will look absurd to a Buddhist, it will look absurd to any other religion -- because, what you can get out of whirling? It is a simple method, the simplest method, but it may suit you or it may not.

For example, for me it does not suit. I cannot sit on a swing, that is enough to create nausea in me. And what to say about sitting myself on a swing? -- I cannot see somebody else swinging! That is enough to give me a feeling of nausea. Now, Rumi is not for me.

And there may be many people to whom whirling will give nausea, vomiting. That means it is not for them.

We are individually different. And there is no contradiction. One can experience the universal, and yet when the question of expression arises, he has to be individual.

Question 3:

It is. Everything is a device, because the truth cannot be said. So only devices can be given. You have to be convinced about the devices, but they will have to be dropped at the last moment -- but that does not mean that you have to drop them now! Dropping them now will not help; now you have to use them to their utmost possibility. And then that moment will come by itself... when the device has reached to the peak, it disappears - - and you are in the experience of the fourth.

The whole problem arises because the truth cannot be said, so something has to be devised which will bring you to truth. And the device has to be such that it will not become an obstruction in itself. So the great master is one who gives you a device which is made in such a way that it is going to disappear automatically, autonomously, the moment you come close to truth.

There are many devices which are good but dangerous, because they can become obstacles. For example, I told you that Patanjali says God is a device. Nobody before him or after him has ever said that. There have been people who have said God is a truth, and there have been people who have said there is no God, but Patanjali's attitude is totally different from both. He is not a theist, he is not an atheist, he is simply a scientific mind.

He says God is a hypothesis. The fight about its existence or non-existence is baseless -- you don't fight about any other hypothesis. But it is a dangerous hypothesis. Even in the life of a man like Ramakrishna it became an obstacle.

So the device is not going to leave you automatically at the right moment. It is dangerous -- it will cling, it will obstruct your vision. It will take you to the final step, but it won't allow you to take it. A great attachment with the device itself will become the barrier.

Ramakrishna was a devotee of the mother goddess Kali, and not an ordinary devotee, not formal; he really loved her. Sometimes from the morning till the evening he would go on dancing and singing in the temple. And sometimes he would lock the temple for days together and not even go into it. It was reported... because the temple belonged to a very rich woman, Rani Rasmani; he was a paid servant, he was the priest. People said that it is not right that for a few days the temple does not even open. Other devotees come and have to go back because Ramakrishna is not in the mood to open the doors. And sometimes Ramakrishna is so much in the mood that the devotees get tired... When you go into a temple you wait for prasad -- the food that is offered to God has to be distributed to all the worshippers who are there. It is thought -- prasad means grace -- that it is God's grace and his gift. So people wait for it; but how long can they wait? This man goes on dancing, singing, from morning till evening... worshippers have come and gone, because the prasad can be distributed only when the priest has stopped worshipping.

And all priests are paid, so they are always in a hurry. In fact one priest will go to many temples, so he can get salaries from all those temples; so he is in such a hurry that he does as short a worship as is possible or acceptable, and immediately distributes the prasad and runs to another temple. There are so many temples in India that a priest can manage five, six temples, very easily. But Ramakrishna was not such a priest; he was really a lover. To him the goddess was not just a statue, and the worship was not just a ritual; it was a reality, not a dream.

The owner of the temple, Rasmani, called him and asked him, "What is the matter? I have been hearing different kinds of complaints about you. One is that sometimes you worship the whole day. In what scripture is this written?"

Ramakrishna said, "I don't know any scripture, and I had made it clear even before you employed me that I am uneducated. I don't know any scripture, I know only devotional songs -- so I sing. And to me it is not a question of worshipping for a certain time. Time disappears -- I don't have any idea. Once I am in it, I don't know when the morning has become evening. So if you don't want me, I can leave. But I am going to be this way."

Rasmani said, "This is not the only complaint -- because this can be allowed. The whole day worshipping... there is no harm. But sometimes you don't open the doors of the temple."

He said, "That's true. Sometimes I get angry at the goddess. I love her, but she does not listen to me, and once in a while -- after all, I am a human being -- I get cross, so I say, `Okay, remain closed for two, three days. That will bring you to your senses.' No food, no worship! But if you have any trouble with this, I can leave."

Rasmani could not tell him to leave -- the man was so beautiful and so authentic, and what he was saying had a beauty of its own. Even not opening the doors was part of a love affair, just the quarrel of lovers. She said, "Even that can be allowed, because I want you to be here. But one thing is very bad: I hear that before offering the food to the goddess you taste every sweet yourself."

He said, "That's true, because my mother used to make these sweets" -- and Bengalis make the best sweets in India -- "she would make them and then she would taste them. If they were really good then she would will give some to me, give some to my father; otherwise not -- she would make them again. My wife prepares the sweets. She prevents me, `This is not right. First they have to be offered to the goddess and then they can be distributed.' But I cannot offer anything which is tasteless or is not made well; I have to taste them first. If you don't want it, I am ready to go, but I will continue in the same way."

The man was very simple, and what he was saying was a beautiful thing: he cannot offer to the goddess something that may not be the best. Only the best should be offered, but how to find out? -- one has to taste it.

He worshipped in Dakshineswar, near Calcutta, his whole life. Towards the end of his life, just a few years before he died, he told the goddess one morning, "Now the doctors are saying that I have cancer of the throat. It is not growing but it can start growing any moment, and before I die I want to experience the truth. I am ready and I will do everything: I will dance today before you, sing before you." In every temple of mother Kali there always hangs a big sword, because in the past that sword was used -- and it is still used in the main temple of Calcutta -- to cut off the heads of animals as sacrifice.

Ramakrishna was not doing that, but the sword had become part of the temple. He said, "If by the evening I don't have the experience, I will take the sword and kill myself -- the responsibility will be yours."

A few worshippers were there. They rushed out and told everybody, "That madman is going to do something... Now this is too much. All that he was doing before was okay, but now he is going to kill himself!"

A great crowd assembled in the temple, and Ramakrishna danced madly, sang madly, the whole day. And as the sun was setting he pulled out the sword and said to the goddess, "So I am going to cut off my head as a sacrifice to you. Either the experience -- or my head will be at your feet." And as he was going to cut himself with the sword, the sword fell from his hands and he fell down on the floor. He remained there for six hours; to the outside world he was unconscious, but in his own experience he was in samadhi, in a beautiful state, utterly silent and blissful. And after six hours when he was woken up, he awoke with tears and he said, "Why have you woken me up? You should have left me in the same state."

Just a few days afterwards there was a master passing by who heard about Ramakrishna, that he had a six-hour samadhi. The master came. Ramakrishna was a very humble man; he touched the feet of the master and said, "Help me, because I attained that experience but it was only for six hours -- then I was back to my old stage."

The master said, "You don't understand, it was not a real experience. You forced that experience upon yourself by your stubborness because you were going to kill yourself.

After dancing the whole day and singing, your mind simply stopped, seeing the situation -- `The man is going to kill himself!' It had nothing to do with Kali or anybody; it was simply the stopping of the mind. And that experience was only an experience of when mind is not chattering, and you feel immense silence and beauty and joy. If you really want the ultimate experience, the fourth, then you will have to do one thing which is very hard, and that is to cut all attachment with the mother goddess.

That is your problem. You have passed all other barriers, but now this last barrier is the most difficult because you have staked everything on her. So do as I say: you sit in meditation, close your eyes, and when you see the mother Kali arising near your third eye -- which is going to happen..."

He said, "Yes, it happens. Whenever I close my eyes she is there."

So he said, "That's good. That is the moment... this time you are not to cut your head; take the sword and cut the mother goddess in two pieces."

Ramakrishna said, "My God, that is very difficult! I cannot hurt her -- and you are telling me to kill her!"

But the man said, "Unless you do it, you will never attain. You try it and see."

He would close his eyes, tears would flow from his eyes, and there was great joy on his face, and radiance. He would open his eyes, and the master would ask, and he would say, "Yes, I saw her, but I forgot all about killing her -- she is so beautiful, and the attachment is so long... as long as I can remember." He was very small when he became the priest.

Two or three times he tried.

The master said, "This is the last time. If you cannot do it, then I will do it. I have brought this piece of glass. When I see that tears have started flowing from your eyes I will know that you are seeing the mother goddess. I will cut your forehead with the sharp piece of glass to remind you that this is the time: you do the same, cut her in two pieces. It is just your idea -- there is nobody else. It is just a hypothesis."

The master had to cut his forehead, and the mark remained for his whole life. Blood started flowing over his face, but deep inside he managed to gather courage and cut the mother goddess in two pieces. And as she fell in two pieces, it was as if a door had opened and the whole universe was his.

It took six days for him to come back. The first words that he uttered when he came back are immensely important. He said, "The last barrier has fallen."

Any device can become a barrier too. It may help you to get rid of other things, but finally you have to get rid of it -- and that may be a difficult thing. It was so difficult for Ramakrishna. And that was the last day... never again did he go into the temple.

Afterwards he lived three, four years; he simply forgot all about Kali.

But there are devices which will not create such a trouble, and there are devices which will fall automatically. The moment when you are reaching to the climax of your being they will simply fall down.

I call a master a great master, the perfect master, who creates devices which are going to fall on their own accord when the moment has come for the person to experience the ultimate. Other devices are created by smaller people. Perhaps they don't know that these devices can become attachments themselves.

So everything I say is a device. My speaking to you is a device so that you can just be here -- your mind is engaged, listening to me, and something invisible can go on transpiring between me and your hearts. That's the real thing.

The words will help the mind to remain engaged. They are like just toys. When you don't want children to disturb you -- you are studying -- you give them toys and they start playing with the toys, so you can do your work or study or do anything you want to do, and the children won't come to you to bother you and ask you questions and this and that.

The mind is just like a child.

The words are just toys for the mind -- not truths, but simply toys. But while the mind is engaged something can happen from my depth to your depth. You may not understand it, but it will start bringing changes in you, transformations in your being.

Sometimes simply sitting silently with me... but then there is always the problem that your mind will disturb you. I have tried sitting in silence with you, and I have seen that the problem is, I can reach your heart less; your mind is disturbing you too much.

Speaking seems to be a better device: your mind remains engaged, and once in a while if I give a gap between two words, the mind does not disturb. The mind simply looks and waits: "What is going to happen? What is going to be said?"

And meanwhile the real work is happening.

The real work is from my heart to your heart.