Darshan 22 September 1978
Deva means divine, samai means ecstasy - divine ecstasy. The word "ecstasy" is very significant. In its root form it means "to stand out" - ex-statis. The moment you can stand out of your mind you are in ecstasy. Ordinarily we are too involved in the mind. We have become the mind, this is our agony, so we have completely forgotten who we are. The host has become too lost and absorbed in the guest. The host has to stand outside the guest. The host has to become an onlooker, a spectator, an observer. One has to learn to watch one's own mind, body, and all that happens surrounding one's being. One has to become a witness of it all - just a seer. That brings ecstasy, that brings infinite joy.
The whole art of knowing God or of knowing oneself is the art of standing outside one's mind, of watching the thoughts passing by, the fantasies, the desires, imagination, memories, projections.
The traffic continues, day in, day out. In the day we call it thinking, in the night we call it dreaming - it is the same process. In the day we use words, in the night we use pictures, but the traffic continues.
Only for a few hours in the night does the traffic stop. Those are the moments of dreamless sleep.
But when the traffic stops you are unconscious, and when you are conscious you go on remaining engaged in the traffic; when the traffic stops you fall unconscious. But you never know yourself, who you are, neither when the traffic is there nor when the traffic has stopped.
Meditation creates a third kind of state. These are the two states: one is, you are awake but involved in the traffic; the other is, the traffic is no more there and you are no more involved in it but you are fast asleep. The third state that meditation creates is: the traffic is there, you are not involved in it and you are alert, not asleep. This is the whole secret, the secret of secrets: one has to start watching one's thoughts.... Sitting silently just watch, don't judge.
The moment you judge, you jump into the traffic. You start choosing - this is good, that is bad, this is beautiful and that is ugly; I don't want anything of that and I want the whole of this - you have
forgotten that you are a watcher, not a chooser. The chooser cannot be a watcher. The watcher has to be completely unconcerned; there is no need to judge and there is no need to choose. This is meditation: just watching, without judgment, without like, without dislike... not functioning as a judge but just as an observer, neutral, unconcerned, indifferent. Slowly slowly you will be surprised - slowly slowly the gap between you and the traffic arises. The traffic becomes more and more distant, and the more distant it is, the more you start feeling yourself. You are out of the crowd.
That is the meaning of the word "ecstasy," to stand out. The crowd is far away, you are alone. You are yourself. There is nobody else, no interference, no shadow moving in you, nothing disturbing; and the traffic goes on becoming more and more distant.
A moment comes when you can only hear the noise from the very faraway place, as if you have moved onto another planet. And then the last moment comes when the traffic simply disappears, evaporates. You are left alone in your absolute beauty, benediction, bliss. You are left alone in your utter nakedness.
This is the original face Zen people talk about... this is God!
To be left absolutely alone and alert and aware and awake is to become a Buddha.
Deva means god, pramano means proof - God's proof. Philosophy cannot prove God, logic cannot prove God - not that it has not been tried. For at least five thousand years man has been trying to prove God logically, but it has been an utter failure. God cannot be proved logically and cannot be disproved either. God can only be proved by your existential experience. You can become the proof of God, nothing else; not your mind but your total being.
Yes, there have been proofs of God - they are not logical, syllogistic arguments but men - a Buddha, a Christ, a Ramakrishna, a Raman. These are the proofs. Even they cannot prove logically.
Existence is too big for logic to comprehend it. Logic is the function of the small mind inside you. It is not your totality, just a part, and the part cannot prove the whole. Only the whole can prove the whole. You can become the proof of God. Each man has to become a proof of God... by his living, by his being, by his silence, by his love, by his peace, the way he is, the vibe that he creates, the presence that he brings to the world.
No person can be a proof of God, but the presence of a certain person can be a proof. God can be proved only through existential valuation. So those who search intellectually search in vain. It is a question of guts. You have to become involved in it totally, with all your blood, all your bones, all your head, all your heart and all that you are. Nothing has to be left behind. Either it is all or it is none.
Sannyas means this jump, this total jump... an effort to explore God existentially. There is no need to believe in God, and those who believe will never know; their very belief becomes a hindrance. They become complacent: they believe so they start thinking they already know. Their belief becomes a substitute for knowing. It deceives them. Millions in the world are deceived because they go to the church every Sunday or to the temple or to the mosque, or they do a certain prayer every night before they go to sleep. And they think they know because they believe.
It has been taught to people, "Believing is seeing"; it is utter nonsense. You cannot see by believing, and whatsoever you see by believing is just your projection, it is your imagination, it is your fiction.
It is a kind of hallucination. Yes, you can see it - if you insist and you go on insisting, your mind will give you a toy: it can give you a Christ, it can give you a Buddha. Hence Zen masters say, "If you meet the Buddha on the way, kill him!" They don't mean the real Buddha; they mean the Buddha that you can project. And only you will meet your Buddha. One day on the track of your mind you can see visions of Christ or Buddha or Mohammed or whatsoever you want. It is your game - you can play it, and believing can become seeing, but it is not true seeing because whatsoever you are seeing you have created. It is your own work, your own painting on the canvas of the mind.
My approach is just the reverse: seeing is believing. First seeing has to happen, and then comes a belief which is not ordinary belief; it is faith, it is trust. It is not that you believe in some authority - the authority of the Bible or the Koran, or the authority of Buddha or the authority of me or anybody else. If I say to you, "Believe because I have known," that will be false for you. There is no need to believe in anyone or in anything. Belief is absolutely unnecessary. All that is needed is existential experience.
And one criterion has to be remembered - because that is the way one comes to know and to see - that criterion is integration. Whatsoever integrates you will bring you closer to God. Whatsoever disintegrates you will take you farther away from God. So if one can remember a simple criterion - of seeing whether whatsoever one is doing is going to integrate one or disintegrate one.... If you love, it integrates; if you hate, it disintegrates. If you are angry, it brings disintegration to you; if you are compassionate, it brings integration to you. So go on judging by integration.
If there are too many thoughts in the mind they disintegrate you; you become fragmentary, you start falling apart, in pieces. If there is no thought in the mind and there is absolute silence, you are integrated, you are one. Hence thoughts take you away from God, meditation brings you close, closer. Each step in meditation and you are coming closer home. Hate takes you farther away, love brings you back to the source... and so on, so forth. One can go on judging.
Each moment of life has to be judged by this criterion, and slowly slowly you will see that if you start moving towards integration you start feeling God, you start creating God in your life. And it is not an hallucination, because it is no more a vision; it is not an experience at all. You are it - it is not separate from you. You suddenly become infused with the spirit of God. And the day one is integrated, one becomes the proof of God.
So just go on judging by the criterion of integration. Do only things which integrate you and slowly slowly drop things which disintegrate you. If you are in the past or in the future you will be disintegrated. If you are in the present you will be integrated, so be in the present.
Enjoy things - for example, music, nature, beauty - because they all integrate. Seeing a beautiful sunset, all past, all future disappears. You are in the here, in the now. The setting sun is there, you are there, and a moment comes when you are the sun. There is no distinction between the seer and the seen, the observer and the observed. In that moment, suddenly everything falls into one whole - you become a togetherness. Hence all beauty nourishes. Just seeing a beautiful person you feel nourished. Just seeing a beautiful flower you feel nourished. Something starts happening in you. Just listening to classical music, beautiful music, music that has some depth in it, you start disappearing as a mind, you become a silence. Or just listening to this rain... and suddenly there is silence.
Anything that makes you one, that makes you whole, that makes you healthy, nourished, integrated, is religious, because it brings you closer and closer to God. And many times glimpses will come.
Suddenly you are transported into another world where God is the only reality. You will fall back many times but each time you will be a totally different person, again and again; you will never be the old. From each insight you will be transformed, little by little, bit by bit, and one day one is ready to be a proof of God.
My effort here is to create as many proofs of God as possible. God needs proofs today. Science has condemned God, philosophy has condemned God, logic has failed God. The so-called organized religions are no more in the service of God; they are serving Satan, they are serving power politics.
They are not serving people, they are not helping people to come closer to God.
My effort here is not to give you a convincing philosophy, but to make you a convincing proof. So the very presence of a sannyasin immediately makes others feel something new, something beautiful, so that each sannyasin becomes a blessing in the world. It is possible! One can become a curse, one can become a blessing. And when you are a curse you are not only a curse to others - you are a curse to yourself too, because whatsoever we do to others, we have to do it to ourselves in the first place. Whenever you are a blessing to the world you are a blessing to yourself because that is the only way to be a blessing to the world. One has first to become a blessing to yourself too, because whatsoever we do to others, we have to do it to ourselves in the first place. Whenever you are a blessing to the world you are a blessing to the world. One has first to become a blessing unto oneself, because we can give only that which we have.
My message is: become a God, a proof of God, and help others to move towards the truth of God...
not to a dogma, not to a belief, not to a certain system of thought but a totally different way of living.
Let God become your life. God is thirsty to become your life and the life of as many people as possible. It is not only that man is searching for God; God is also searching for man. Once the search is in the right direction the meeting happens. And the meeting is the purpose of us all being here.
The earth is an experiment - an experiment in going away from God and coming back, because to know this unity with God a certain experience of going away is needed. It is like you take a fish out of the ocean and throw it on the shore, on the hot sands; then only does the fish know what a blessing it was to be in the ocean. Then a great desire arises, a great longing. And if the fish can fall into the ocean again, now she will know the gift. This earth is an experiment so that we can go away from God and can come back again.
The ancient society used to prepare a man for both the processes - first to go away, and then, in the middle of life, how to start coming back. The modern society teaches only one: how to go away; there is no turning back. The modern society is a linear move ment: it moves in one single line.
The ancient society was a circular movement - it used to come back to the first place from where we started. The alpha has to become the omega, then life is complete and fulfilled. And when life is a circle it is a proof of God, because it is perfection and it is fulfillment and the fish is back in the ocean.
[The new sannyasin says he would like to do some groups, but he had a heart attack just two years ago. Sometimes just walking or running he feels some pressure on his heart.]
Your weight also can be a pressure on you. Mm mm.
So one group will be immensely helpful; that is Hypnotherapy. It is not in any way... it cannot be in any way harmful, it can only be helpful. It will be immensely relaxing and helpful. And the second group you book for is Leela. But if you feel that something is difficult for you, don't do it; just sit silently. There are not many things in it which can be difficult, but if you feel anything is, just sit silently; otherwise there will be no problem in it either. These two you do first and then I will give you a few more.
[A sannyasin says every time he comes here he starts to forget himself for long periods of time.
Then when he goes to the west the reverse process occurs. When he returns here it takes a long time to return to that space.]
Then this time finish things there and come permanently. That can happen because these are polarities. And it is the best thing to forget oneself completely. It is an unnecessary burden to carry oneself; it is a disease. But I can understand, because in the West you will have to, otherwise you will not be able to function at all. Here you can remain drunk.
So do one thing... otherwise you will be continuously pulled into opposite directions. You will not be able to manage it; you will have to decide finally. So this time settle things there. Even if it takes a little longer time, finish this time and then be here forever!