The secrets of spiritual explosion

Question 1:

First, one has to understand what is meant by spiritual explosion. Many things are implied. One, the explosion is something for which you cannot do anything directly.

Your efforts are meaningless, it is not something that you can manage. Explosion happens to you. You cannot do anything positive to make explosion happen, because if the explosion is done by you, it will not be an explosion at all. You will remain, and you will continue. Even after the explosion you will be there. If you have attained it, then you will not explode in it. So positively no effort is possible toward explosion; this is the first thing, the first basic implication in explosion.

Explosion means a discontinuity with the past. The old has gone completely, and the new has come. There is no continuity between the two. This new is not connected with the old. There is no causal link, it is not caused by the old. If it is caused by the old, then there is no explosion. Then there is continuity, the old has continued in a new form. Then you may have gained something, you may have added something to yourself. But you are the same, the central being remains the same. Only on the periphery has something been added and accumulated. Your ego becomes more strengthened, stronger than before; you will be richer. So there is no explosion in continuity.

Explosion means the old has died completely and the new has come into being. There is no causal link between the two. There is a gap -- an unbridgeable gap, an abyss. Then you can call it explosion. This is very difficult to understand. In our lives everything is easy to understand, everything is causal. Our whole logical thinking is based on causality; everything is connected, everything is related and is in continuity with something else.

Nothing is new, everything is just a modification of the old -- so it can be understood.

This is because the mind is the continuity. The mind is filled with accumulated knowledge, with memory. The mind can always understand the old, but the new is incomprehensible to it. The new cannot be understood by the mind. And if your mind tries to understand the new, it will transform it into terms of the past. It will give shape to it, meaning to it, and will categorize it. If things are connected with the old, then the mind is at ease because it can understand.

Explosion is something which cannot be understood by the mind. Really, in explosion, the mind explodes and is thrown out completely. So the second thing to be understood is this: you will not be able to understand explosion. All that you understand will not be explosion. You will change something into something old which is known. You may think that what I am talking about is like any other explosion, but spiritual explosion is not similar to any other phenomenon.

If a bomb explodes, everything is destroyed. The old order is gone, and there is chaos.

But this chaos is caused by the old; it is a continuity. Nothing new has come into being.

This whole chaos, this whole disorder, is just a continuity with the old order. It is the old in a disordered way. No material explosion can even be symbolic or used metaphorically for spiritual explosion. The word comes from a material happening and has a connotation which is quite misleading. Spiritual explosion does not mean that the old is disordered, that the old has become chaotic. Spiritual explosion means something new is created, something new has come into being.

Material explosion is destructive. Spiritual explosion is creative. But if we try to understand it by analogy, then we will not be able to know it. Something new, something quite new, comes into being. You cannot give it meaning because you are the old. You cannot create it. You have just to be vacant. You can only help it negatively by your absence, by your not being. If you are absent, then the explosion will take place. Your cooperation is needed only in a negative way. But to do something positively is easy, to do something negatively is very arduous.

To cooperate is easy, not to cooperate is easy; but to cooperate negatively is very difficult. To cooperate negatively means not to create hindrances. And we all go on creating hindrances for the new to come into being. We always emphasize the old, we always stick with the old, are identified with the old. The old is really the "we", the "I".

When I say the "I", it is the total past. So how can "I" help the new? How can "I" help the future, "I" being the past? Whenever you say "I", it is the whole past in a single word. All that is dead now, all that must be buried now, stands behind this "I". So this "I" becomes the hindrance, the only obstacle, the only obstruction, for the new to come in.

So you cannot do anything with the "I" positively, but negatively you can do something.

Understand that you are the old, and let this understanding go deep, penetrate you to your innermost depth. Become completely aware that you cannot help the new to come into being. Unless the new comes in, there is no spirituality. Unless the new explodes, you will not be reborn, you will not be in the dimension of the divine.

It is not that "I" am to be freed; rather, there will be freedom from the I, freedom from myself. It is not that I am to do something; rather, I must not do anything so that this phenomenon can happen. But we continue to do something or other. This comes out of "me"; it prolongs, it continues "me." It projects "me" into the future, and there can be no explosion.

The dead past, which accumulates like dust, goes on accumulating on my mirror-like consciousness, and the mirror-like consciousness is lost and only the dust is there. We become identified with the dust. Can you imagine yourself without your past? If your total past is destroyed, where will you live? What will you do then? Who will you be? If everything from the past is taken away, by and by you will feel you are disintegrating and disappearing.

When there is no past, who are you? Where are you? With what then will you be identified? If there is no past, still you exist, but not the same way. Really, you will be diametrically opposite to that which you were. If the whole past is taken away, you will be just a consciousness. Then you cannot be an ego.

The ego is the accumulated events, the past. If it is taken away from you, then you will be just like a mirror, mirroring everything with a new identity. If you become aware that you are the hindrance, then you do not have to do anything. This very awareness will destroy the old identity. And when the old identity is completely destroyed, when there is a gap between your real being and your memories, when there is a space between your ego and you, then within that space the explosion comes in. Within that space is the explosion.

This explosion cannot be comprehended intellectually in any way whatsoever. The more you will try to understand it, the less you will understand it. So do not be tense about it, just be relaxed. And do not try to understand me, but rather feel inside yourself what I am saying. If I say you are the past, then do not just hear my words and think whether they are right or wrong. Just go in and feel whatever is being said. Think in terms of fact. They are facts.

Go inside, and see whether you are the past, whether what I am saying is really a fact.

Have you anything more than the past? Are you the dead past or is there something living in you which is not part and parcel of the past? What is that? You cannot confine it to yourself, because the "I" is the confinement. As the past is limited, you can confine it.

The past can be confined, it has happened, it is finite. But when you become aware of something in you which is not of the past, but is the here and now, then even if the whole past is destroyed, it will still be.

If there is something in you which will not be destroyed by the destruction of the past, but will continue to be, it is just a mirror-like consciousness -- pure consciousness. Then "you" are not in it, but you are just a mirror which mirrors everything. Then you will feel the gap between your ego and you, you will feel the space. And if you can remain in this understanding and in this awareness, then it becomes a meditation. If you can just remain in this understanding and awareness, in this space between your real being -- your consciousness -- and your past, then the accumulated being, the ego, becomes just an outer layer.

It becomes just a boundary line, and in the center is pure consciousness. Remain in it. It will be very uneasy; it will be very inconvenient and arduous, because we have never remained so. We always run to the periphery, we always become identified with the periphery. We live on the periphery and never in the center. The periphery is the ego, because all events happen on the periphery, on the circumference.

The circumference is the point from which you are in touch with others. If I love you, the happening of love is on the periphery, because only my periphery can be in touch with and in contact with your periphery. Everything in this world happens on the periphery, on the boundary line. So we always remain on the boundary line. That is the field of activity, but the being is always in the center. So if you can remain in this gap, in this space, and if you can be yourself -- not on the periphery but in the center -- if you can become aware of the periphery as the dead past, as a surface, as a body, the "you" is lost. I am not talking about this physical body. Really, the ego is the body.

So if there is this space, not intellectually comprehended, not logically understood but existentially felt, it will become inconvenient. You will become uneasy, as if you are dying, because you have always remained on the periphery; that has been your life. So if you go back to the center, it will be just like dying, because at present the periphery has become the life. You do not know any other life. You will feel just like sinking, dying, as if suffocated, and the mind will say, "Go back to the periphery. The life is there."

But on the periphery there is no life -- only action. There is only doing, not being. That is why when you have not to do anything, that not doing becomes so difficult that you cannot remain with it, you begin to do something. You may read a newspaper, you may put on the radio, you may do anything. Or if there is nothing to do, then you may go to sleep. But remaining in non-doing is the most arduous thing. Not for a single moment are you in non-doing. And the being is only revealed to those who can remain in the non- doing, who remain in the center.

That is what is meant by negative cooperation -- your cooperation is needed in a negative way. You are not to do something; you are to remain in non-doing. And then the explosion takes place.

It just happens to you. And when it has happened, you will always be in the center. It does not mean that you will not be able to do anything. You will be able to do, but the quality of the action will be altogether different. Now a different kind of love will be possible from the center, a different kind of activity will be possible from the center. Now love will not be an act, but a state of mind. It will not be that sometimes you love and sometimes you do not love. Now it will become your very existence. You will be loving, and every action and every relationship will have a different quality, a different meaning, a different depth. Through this explosion you will be totally unidentified with the mind, with the ego, with the body, with the periphery -- totally unidentified.

Destruction of the identification is the explosion. You will not be continuous now, because any continuity is on the periphery. This is not something continuous with the periphery, it is a jump. If you go on running on the periphery, then it is a continuity. If you go round and round on the periphery you may run for a lifetime, but each step is bound with the previous one, and each step leads you to the next. It is a linked process.

But jumping from the periphery to the center is not continuous with the old. It is discontinuous -- not a further step and not caused by your previous step. It is completely new and uncaused.

This becomes difficult to understand, because in this world of happenings and events nothing is uncaused. But modern physics has come nearer to this point; modern physics has come to a parallel situation. The behavior of the electron is discontinuous. So the whole physical science, because of this behavior of electrons, has taken a new dimension.

Before this century, physics was the system most based on scientific method. Everything was caused, everything was a continuity, and everything was certain, because only with a causal link is there a certainty. When things can happen uncaused, then there is no certainty, then there are really no laws that can be applied.

The whole science is wavering today because they cannot decide the behavior of the electron. It behaves without causes. Sometimes it disappears from one point and then appears on another without any continuity in between. From point A, the electron disappears; on point B, it appears. And there is no continuity of existence between A and B. It has not been continuous, it has not traveled. This becomes mysterious, but I take it as an analogy.

There are two types of thinking: one is logical thinking and the other is analogical thinking. Logical thinking proceeds in sequence: "This is so, therefore, that will happen."

The cause is determined, so the effect will follow. The logical process is a definite, certain process. Given particular premises, particular results will follow automatically.

There is no freedom, in logical thinking, there is no freedom. Everything is caused by the past, so it is dominated by the past. If I will give you a particular amount of poison, you will die; you are not free. A particular amount of poison will cause death. Death must follow; it is a certainty, a continuity, a causal link.

Analogical thinking is quite different -- altogether different. Analogical thinking is in a way poetic. You jump from one thing to another simply through analogy, not through logical sequences. For example, I may love someone and may write a poem in which I say, "My beloved is just like the moon." There is no connection. There is no causal link between the face of my beloved and the moon. There is no relationship at all, only analogy. I have jumped from one point to another without traveling in between in any sequence. It is just like the behavior of the electron.

Poets have always been behaving like that, they jump from one point to another simply through analogy. There may be no obvious resemblance even, but if it appears to the poet that it somehow resembles, something has a resonance, that is enough. Something is re- echoed. Then there is a jump, an analogical jump.

The whole literature of mysticism is analogical. Mystics can only give you analogy, that is why there are so many parables. They were all analogical; Jesus was talking in analogy, Buddha also, and everyone. They are not giving any logical reasons and arguments. Really, Jesus has never argued any point. There is no argument, but just analogy.

If you are sympathetic, only then can you understand analogical thinking. If you are not sympathetic, then you cannot understand, because analogy depends not on reasoning but on your sympathetic attitudes and on whether you can continue the same process inside yourself.

So for analogy, I take the behavior of the electron; just like this is the spiritual explosion.

The old just drops on the periphery. There is no link between the periphery and the center, there is no travel. You do not travel from the periphery to the center. If you travel, then there will be a link from the periphery, then the first step toward the center will be taken on the periphery, and it must be connected with the previous one. Then there is a causal link.

You are on the periphery, and suddenly you find yourself at the center. There is no travel in between. That is explosion. We will take another analogy, because physics may not be known to you. For example, you sleep in Bombay and dream that you are in London. In the morning when the dream is over and the sleep is over, will you have to travel back from London to Bombay? Again, you dream that you are in London while sleeping in Bombay. Someone comes and wakes you up, and you were in London. Will you awaken in London or in Bombay? You will awaken in Bombay. But how did you come back?

Did you travel any distance? If you travel the distance, then you will not wake up, because the distance can only be traveled in dreams. If you travel the distance, if you take a plane, then the plane will be a part of the dream. If you simply wake up, then the dream will be discontinued in London; you will wake up in Bombay, and there will be no travel in between. So the waking is something new. It is not a continuity with the dream.

So the periphery is the dream -- the dream of the doing, the dream of the ego. That is why in India mystics have said, "This is illusion." They have said, "This is just a dream; the whole world is just a dream." And when Shankara and others have said that this whole world is a dream, this is an analogy and must not be misunderstood. It has been misunderstood. You can point out what nonsense they are telling. Is this world a dream?

It is so real! The Indian mystic philosopher Shankara also knew this. Really, this is real.

But he is talking in analogy.

"The world is a dream." When it is said, it is not meant that the world is actually a dream.

It only means that if you are awakened in it, the previous awareness will be discontinued.

You will not find any connection between dream and waking. You will not find any connection whatsoever, any relation whatsoever. You will be just bewildered how you were in London and how you came back.

But no one is bewildered really. When one is out of the dream, one is never bewildered.

Are you ever bewildered? You just say, "Oh! It was a dream," and the chapter is closed.

You never think about it. The same thing happens whenever the explosion is there. You know, "Oh! The dreaming entity has dissolved. It was a dream, and now I am in the center." You never ask, "How? How was I on the periphery, and how did I come back to the center again? Hod did I travel?"

People would ask Buddha: "How did you become enlightened?" The question is absurd.

It is just like asking someone how he came out of a dream. What is the method? What is the technique? How can you practice coming out of a dream? The dream is just broken, but the dream has its own ways of being broken. Sometimes a dream becomes a nightmare, it becomes unbearable. Then the very unbearableness of it, the anguish of it, causes it to be broken.

So if life on the periphery has become a nightmare, if living as we live has become hellish, then all of this will put you out of the dream. But when you are out of it, you will know it is not caused, it is not a continuity. That is why we call it an explosion.

Something new happens in it -- something totally new. It cannot be understood in terms of the old.

So what can you do even negatively? You can do at least three things negatively. One, be aware -- even if you can be aware for only a single moment. Be aware that you have become identified with a past which is not your being. The being is in the present, here and now, and you are identified with something which is not here and now. Be aware of this. Let this awareness come to you suddenly, anywhere. You are walking on the street -- stop for a moment, be suddenly aware. Anywhere, in any situation, stop for a moment and be suddenly aware where you are -- on the periphery or in the center? Are you identified with the memory or are you not identified with the memory? In the beginning this can come only for a moment, or not even a moment. There will be just a glimpse for part of a moment. You will feel it, and it will be gone. But that glimpse will deepen, and there will be a new movement from the periphery to the center -- a movement just like the electron -- a jump, a leap from one point to another. The situation will deepen.

Remain aware as much as you can, and use any and every situation. For example, the breath has gone out, and the breath has not come in. There is a gap -- a very minute, a very small gap between the two. Neither are you taking the breath nor is the breath going out. Become aware of that gap. Remain in it for a single moment; you will feel the center, and you will be far away from the periphery. You will be out of the dream.

You are going to sleep, be aware that sleep is coming in, is descending on you; you are sinking in it. Then there is a moment when you are neither awake nor asleep. The mind is changing its dimension. For a single moment there is neither sleep nor are you awake. Be aware of it and remain in the gap, and you will be thrown to the center. You will be off the periphery.

In the morning you are returning from a state of sleep. Feel the moment when you have not yet become awake, but sleep has gone. There is always a moment. Whenever the mind changes from one state to another, there is a gap. Everywhere there is a gap, because without the gap change is impossible; and in that gap you are never on the periphery. That gap is discontinuous with the periphery. You must understand exactly what I am saying. No gap is on the periphery; every gap is at the center.

The only continuity is on the periphery -- one event happening, another event happening.

And in between, in the gap, is always the center. You always go back to the center, and for another moment you always come back on the periphery. But this happening is so rapid, it is so timeless in a way, that ordinarily you cannot become aware of it. But if you become aware, attentive, watchful and careful, then by and by you will have glimpses.

You love someone, and the love has gone and the hatred has not yet set in. There is a moment. The love happens on the periphery, the hatred happens on the periphery, but the gap in between them always happens at the center. So when you love, you are on the periphery; when you hate, you are on the periphery. But when you change from love to hate or hate to love, you are not on the periphery. The gap is always at the center. You are thrown back. You cannot change on the periphery because on the periphery you are only doing. The being is at the center. You must come back to change, but this coming and going is so rapid, is so timelessly rapid, that ordinarily you cannot become alert about it.

Be alert in any change. You have been ill, now the illness has gone, and the health has not yet come in. Be aware -- you will be at the center. No change is possible on the periphery itself. That is why everyone needs sleep, because in sleep a great change happens. If you cannot sleep deeply you will not be able to live, because life needs certain changes every day. Every day, much is to be changed in the body, in the mind, in the emotions. There is much change every day. So nature has a way of making you unconscious, because consciously you will not remain in the center for long. You are thrown unconscious so that you are not on the periphery, you are not running to the periphery. You are asleep, you are unconscious. So you are at the center, and you have settled in the being.

But even when you are awake there are changes. As an analogy, you change a gear in your car. For a very short time you put the car in neutral. It is always through the neutral position that you change the gear. Neutral means no gear. If you shift from the first gear to the second, you cannot shift it directly. It must be put in neutral first, then it can be changed. The more expert you become, the less time it takes. Really, an expert driver becomes unaware that every time a gear is changed it passes through neutral. It is changed so swiftly that he need not be aware of it. Only one who is learning is aware, no one is aware otherwise. And neutral is always the difficulty in learning. Whenever you change from one action to another, you come back to the neutral state, to the center. So be aware.

Someone has insulted you, now you will change, you cannot remain the same. You will have to change on the periphery. The same face has become irrelevant, you will have to change the total face. Now be aware of what is happening inside. You will have to go to the center, again come back to the periphery, and then you can change your face. So when someone insults you, meditate inside. Go in. He has given a point of change.

Tantra has used intoxicants to make the seeker aware of the changing state of consciousness. They will go on giving you some intoxicant, and the teacher will say, "Be aware of the gap." Up to that moment you were aware, and now you are losing awareness. So be aware of the moment when you change from consciousness to unconsciousness. One is always changing, and if one becomes aware of these changing moments, one becomes aware of the center.

A Zen master will throw you out of the window and will cry from behind, "Be aware!"

You have been thrown, you are in between, you are just passing the window, and you are about to hit the ground. He cries, "Be aware!" You have fallen on the ground, your face must change. Now the situation is quite different. You have come to ask some metaphysical question, and he has done something completely con-metaphysical. He has thrown you out of the window; you were asking whether God is or not.

It is absolutely irrelevant to throw one through the window. But he says, "Be aware!" in the exact moment when you will be changing faces, changing a state. When you are just passing through the window, it is not only your body that is passing through a change, your state of consciousness will be passing through a change also. And a teacher knows exactly when it changes. That exact moment he will cry, "Be aware!" And if you can listen to him for that moment, you will be at the center -- thrown out of the periphery.

So whenever there is any changing situation, be careful to look inside. There is no traveling. There is only a jump from the periphery to the center and from the center to the periphery. And the behavior is just like the electron, or just like dreams. Deepen this awareness. This is all that you can do. This is negative because awareness is not a doing, awareness is not an act.

Whenever you are in a changing state, be aware, and there will be no action. Action will be withheld whenever you are aware. If you become aware, then there will be no breath even. If I put a dagger at your throat, even the breath stops. You become so aware that everything stops. You are thrown to the center. Awareness is not action. The addiction with action is only to escape awareness, and we all have become addicted -- one must do something. This addiction is helping the continuity.

Use any opportunity to be alert -- any opportunity. And there are thousands and thousands of opportunities every day. Be alert, and you will feel the jump from the periphery to the center. This being at the center can become easy for you. You are outside the house; it has become hot. Just come in. Whenever you feel like coming in, you can come in. Whenever you are feeling like going out, you can go out. There is no difficulty.

When this movement from the periphery to the center has become just like this, then you will have explosion.

I use the word `then'; I use the word `slowly'; I say `gradually'; I say `by and by'; these words are all irrelevant. But because I cannot do anything else, I have to use these words.

They are irrelevant as far as explosion is concerned. It is never gradual, it is never slowly, it is never by and by. It is sudden. But you will not be able to understand it. So for your understanding, or if you like, your misunderstanding, these words are used.

The whole pattern of language is made for the periphery. Nothing else can be done.

Language is created by those minds that are on the periphery. It is needed by those minds that are on the periphery. It is a necessity of the periphery and not of the center. The center is absolutely silent, no language is needed there. So we have to interpret the center in the language of the periphery, then this is bound to happen.

So do not misunderstand me when I say gradually. I never mean gradually. The explosion will never come by and by. So these words are only for your confidence, so that you may hope, so that it may become conceivable for you, so that something on the periphery may be understood. It is just like talking about the world of waking consciousness to a person who is in a dream.

One has to use dream language which is absurd. Any language is absurd. Any expression is absurd in a way, but nothing can be done. One feels completely helpless, and the helplessness is so great.

One knows something. For example, I know what is meant by explosion, I know what is meant by being at the center. But I cannot tell you. You ask me; I tell you something, and I know all the time that I cannot tell you. And I know what is meant by explosion, what is meant by being at the center. The moment I begin to speak, I begin to use the language of the periphery. The moment periphery language is used, everything becomes distorted. So understand these implications.

You ask about chain explosions. Whenever there is an explosion, many things begin to happen. Because the phenomenon is so great, whenever an individual goes through it, wherever he is, he cannot help but become infectious. He may not want it, but this begins to happen. His being at the center will push anyone near him to the center also. And because of this, so many times people will begin to feel repulsed by him.

For example, Gurdjieff was felt to be repulsive by many people. They just wanted to run away from him because by being near him they would be pushed unknowingly. Many women seekers ran away from Gurdjieff because they felt as if they were hit in the sex center, just by being near him. They felt he was doing something. He was not doing anything, but because out only working center is the sex center, the first hit is always felt there. If male seekers will come to Gurdjieff they will not feel it so much. But women seekers will feel it. This is because the physical body of a male has positive bio- electricity, and the physical body of a female has negative bio-electricity, so the opposite sexes attract each other. The enlightened male radiates a tremendous energy for female seekers. And both things will happen: women seekers will be attracted toward a person like Gurdjieff and at the same time be repulsed also. The inner hit will be felt in so many ways, and each one will feel it in his own way.

In the West, it was felt very deeply for so many reasons. One is that the preliminaries were lacking. In India the seeker must touch the feet of the guru. It seems unnecessary, it looks formal, but there are secrets. If you just bow down to a teacher, you just touch his feet, your sex center will not be hit by his presence, because the moment you surrender, his energy will be felt in the whole body. A surrendered body becomes a whole. You may not have felt it, but when I tell you, now you will feel it and know it.

So the Indian way of touching the feet is lying down completely on the earth. All the parts of the body should touch the earth. We call it sashtang. It means all the parts of the body touch the earth when you are just lying on the earth. Many scientific things begin to happen. Your body becomes one and the impact vibrates on the whole body and not just on one center. It does not penetrates a particular center, but the whole body. You are horizontal, and the impact goes through you from the head toward the legs. If you are vertical, standing, the same impact passes through you, but it cannot go through your whole body; it cannot pass through your legs. The only sensitive part in you is the sex center, so it passes through the sex center. If you are standing with a teacher who is in the center, his impact, his vibrations, will pass through your center. It may become repulsive or it may become attractive. In either case, there will be difficulties. If you are lying down, then the flow passes through you, touches you, flows in you from one end to the other end. And it has a soothing effect.

In this country, where they developed this inner science, it took centuries. And they know only by so many experiences, because man cannot be experimented upon like a pig. It took centuries to know these things -- through experiences and happenings only. They made it a basic condition that one should begin with trust, faith. If you are faithful then you become open. If you are doubting, then you are closed. If you are closed, then the same energy which would have helped you toward your explosion will go round and round. It cannot penetrate you, you are closed. It will not be possible to help you. If you are open and trusting, then it goes deep inside. Then the explosion becomes a chain explosion. And this can happen, this always happens. So a trusting attitude creates great chains of explosion.

Sometimes the chain explosion goes on continuously, even when the original teacher has died. For example, in the tradition of the Sikhs, the tenth guru is the last. Up to the tenth, gurus continued, one was followed by another. But with the tenth, the tradition was stopped and broken. What is the reason? Why did Govind Singh stop the chain? It was continuous from Nanak to Govind Singh. It was a living force, but with Govind Singh it was stopped. It could not be delivered and transferred, as no one was capable. No one was open to receive it completely, totally, and it cannot be given partially. Either you are totally open or not.

Partial trust is no trust. It is just deception. It is not that you believe ninety-nine percent, even ninety-nine point nine per cent will not do. And the one-tenth percent doubt will be enough to kill the whole thing, because the one-tenth percent doubt will make you closed.

If you trust openly, then there is a chain reaction; then you come completely into the touch. Then the touch is not just a touch, it becomes part and parcel of your being.

If you are open, it does not mean that you are taking anything from me. There is no "me" as such. It is not that you are taking something from someone else, it is only that you yourself are reflected in your own self. We just look separate because of the ego. If you are open, then the chain can continue for centuries. For example, Buddha's chain still continues. Of course, it is not so broad today; it has become a very narrow stream, but it continues.

When Bodhidharma went to China from India it was not to teach someone or to give the message of Buddha to the Chinese and to others. It was only to search for a man who can be given the explosion, who is so open that before Bodhidharma died he could transfer everything. So he was sitting in China for nine years, continuously facing a wall. If you would have gone to him, he would not even have looked at you. His back was toward all the visitors. So many people asked, "What is this? Why are you sitting like this?"

Bodhidharma would say, "I have been facing persons for many years, but I have never found in their faces anything else than a wall. No one is receptive; everyone is just like a wall. So it makes no difference now. When you come to me not as a wall, then I will face you, then I will look at you."

For nine years continuously no one came who was capable, whom Bodhidharma could face. Then come Hui Neng. He came, stood behind, then cut off his hand and gave it to Bodhidharma and said, "Now make an about turn, otherwise I will cut my head."

Bodhidharma just faced Hui Neng and said, "Now the man has come. For you I have traveled the whole of the Himalayas." And there was a transmission without scriptures.

There was no scripture with Bodhidharma, so they say the transmission was given without scripture. He just looked in the eyes of Hui Neng and there was transmission, just like from one point to another with no travel in between.

So this too must be understood. The chain of explosion is again a jump. When something from my consciousness goes to your consciousness, it is a leap. It was here, and then it is there, and it was never in between. There is no process. If you are receptive, if you are open, the flame that is here will be found there instantaneously. There will be no time gap. The chain can continue forever, but it never does. It is very difficult because even with a living teacher it is difficult to be open.

The mind tries in every way to be closed because to be open is to die. For the mind it is death. So it will try. It will argue, it will find many reasons to be closed. It will find very absurd things. In other moments, later on, you cannot conceive that these things could have made you doubt, that these meaningless things made you skeptical. These things which have no meaning at all create barriers. And if you are not open, then the chain, the transmission, is not possible.

All your meditation, and all my stress and emphasis on meditation, is just to make you open. Any moment you will be open, and there will be transmission.

Minor explosions happen daily. They are only the glimpses of the center. But that glimpse is not enough. It can help, but do not be satisfied with it. Ordinarily we become satisfied with this. There is a glimpse, and one becomes satisfied. One makes it a treasure, then one goes on remembering it. When the glimpse is changed from the center to the periphery, then it becomes a memory. Then you nourish it, then you remember it, then you feel elated by it. Then you always wonder when it will happen again. Then it has become a part of the periphery, of the memory. It is useless.

Minor explosions can even be fatal if you nourish them as memory. Throw them, forget them. Do not ask for their repetition. Only then the major will be possible. Only then the total explosion will be possible.

So there are minor explosions, but I never pay any attention to them. And you should not pay any attention to them either, because then they only become a part of the memory.

They cannot destroy the memory; on the contrary, they can strengthen it. So a small experience, a petty experience, cannot do. Throw it. Unless the total is achieved, do not be contented.

Before the ultimate explosion, do not be satisfied. Remain discontented. Never remember anything that has happened. No experience should be accumulated and nourished. As it happens, throw it, forget it, go ahead. Unless there is a total explosion... nothing short of that will do, so do not pay any attention.

Things have happened, things are happening, but I never talk about minor explosions. If someone comes to me and says that there is this minor explosion, I will just try to throw it. It should not be remembered, it will be a barrier. Continue to the center, until you reach to the point from where there is no coming back. When that point comes it is never a part of memory. You remember only the things which are lost. That which is always with you, you need not remember.

Really, you become aware only when the experience is lost. If you say, "I love you very much," be aware that there is every possibility that the love is ending. It may have gone already. It is only an ego of the past. That is why you emphasize, "I love you very much."

"Very much" is an effort to fill the gap, and there is a gap. The love has gone. When love exists, you feel it and live it, silence is enough. When it is gone, you chatter about it. Now silence is not enough. On the contrary, in silence the dead love will be exposed. In silence, you cannot hide it. Now you begin to chatter about it. Ordinarily, we are not speaking to tell things. On the contrary, we are speaking to hide things. In silence, you cannot hide it with words.

Whenever you become aware of any minor explosion, do not nourish the memory, and do not long for its repetition. It has gone, it has become a part of the dead past. Throw it. Let the dead be buried, and go ahead. And when the real explosion, the major explosion, the ultimate explosion, happens, you will not remember it. You will not need to remember it, it will be with you. It will be your center. It will be your being, you cannot forget it.

There is no meaning to remembering or forgetting. And unless the major happens, the minor has no meaning.

And you also asked whether the people who are around me are going through explosion.

Yes, they are going toward it. If they are not going toward it, they cannot remain with me for long, they cannot continue. So whenever incapable ones come to me, either they will go by themselves or I will create situations in which they will go. With them nothing can be done. But those who remain with me, continue with me. I allow them to do so only if they are going toward the explosion, if their understanding is deepening, if they are becoming more alert and aware. Of course, the path is arduous and there are many pitfalls. One goes one step and then falls two steps back; it happens daily. The path is not straight; it is criss-cross. And it is not on a plane; it is just like on a hilly track. So many times you come to the same point, only on a slightly higher level.

I allow only those to be near me in whom I see possibilities, potentialities, otherwise I create situations in which they leave by themselves. It is very easy to create a situation for someone to leave. It is very difficult to create a situation for someone to stay.

Everyone is ready to leave, because to come to the center is really the only arduous adventure. And with me, they will be always in a struggle. With me, they cannot exist on the periphery. Their minds will try every method to be on the periphery, but they can only stay with me if they are proceeding toward the center.

When you are with me, you continue to be on the periphery, and I continue to be on the center. The whole process is the same as the inner struggle in each one of you. Your being remains at the center, and your ego remains on the periphery. There is struggle and tension. And when you come to me, you become the periphery, I become the center, and the same struggle begins. But being with me helps in many ways. If you can continue to be with me for some time, you will be able to remain with your being, with your center, more easily. This phenomenon is the same as it is within each individual; there is no difference.

When I talk to you, I talk to you as your center. When you are with me it is as if you are with your center. And when one day you will explode to the center, then you will know.

Before that you cannot know, before that you will have to just trust me.

When you come to your center, then you will know that you have not lived with me before, you have only lived in your center's reflection. But that comes only later on when you pass through it. But this will happen. Everyone is potentially capable. If he hinders himself, that is another thing. Otherwise, if you do not hinder yourself, if you are not an enemy to yourself, you are as capable as any buddha, and the thing will happen.