The occult mysteries of initiation

Question 1:

Man exists as if in sleep. Man is asleep. Whatsoever is known as waking is also a sleep.

Initiation means to be intimate contact with one who is awakened. Unless you are in intimate contact with one who is awakened, it is impossible to come out of your sleep, because the mind is capable even to dream that it is out of sleep. The mind can dream that now there is no more sleep, and in any dream you cannot know that it is a dream. You can only know that it was a dream when you are out of it.

You can never know a dream in the present. You always become aware of it when it has gone, when it has passed. No one can ever say, "This is a dream." No present tense can be used for a dream. You always say that this was a dream, because in a dream, the dream itself appears to be real. If a dream is not appearing as real, it will be broken. Only if there is an appearance of reality can dream be created.

When I say man is asleep, this is to be understood. We are dreaming continuously twenty-four hours a day. In the night we are closed to the outward world, dreaming inside. In the day our senses are opened toward the outside world, but the dream continues inside. Close your eyes for a moment, and you can be again in a dream. It is a continuity inside. You are aware of the outside world, but the awareness is not without the dreaming mind. It is over, and imposed on, the dreaming mind, but inside the dream continues. That is why we are not seeing what is real, even when we are so-called awake.

We impose our dreams on reality. We never see what is, we always see our projections.

If I look at you and there is a dream in me, you will become an object of projection. I will project my dream on you, and whatsoever I understand about you will be mixed with my dream, with my projection. When I love you, you appear to me one way. When I do not love you, you appear to me completely different. You are not the same. I have used you just as a screen and projected my dreaming mind on you. When I love you then the dream is different, so you appear different. When I do not love you, you are the same, the screen is the same, but the projection is different. Now I am using you as a screen for another dream of mine. Again the dream can change. Again I can love you, then you will again appear different to me. We are never seeing what is. We are always seeing our own dream projected on what is.

So the dreaming mind creates a world around it which is not real. That is what is meant by maya, illusion. By illusion it is not meant that the world is not, the noise outside on the street is not. It is but as it is. We can never know it unless the dreaming mind stops inside.

For someone the noise may be music, for someone else just disturbance. In some moment you may not be aware of the noise, in another you will become aware. In some moments you will tolerate it, in some moments it will become unbearable, intolerable. The noise is the same, the street is the same, the traffic is the same, but your dreaming mind changes.

With your dreaming mind the whole thing around you takes on new colors. When we say the world is illusion, maya, it does not mean that the world is not; it is. But as we see it, that seeing is illusion. It is nowhere to be found. So when someone is awakened it is not that this world just disappears, but the world that was known by him before his awakening disappears completely. An altogether new world, an objective world, comes in its place. All the colors that were given by you, all the shapes, all the meanings and interpretations that were given by you according to your dreaming mind, are no more.

As far as this world of maya, this world of illusion, this world of projection is concerned, we never live in one world. Each man lives in his own world. And there are as many worlds as there are dreaming persons. I am not the same to each one of you. Each one projects onto me something. I am one as far as I am concerned. But if I myself am dreaming, then even for me, I am different each moment. For each moment my interpretation will differ. If I am awakened then I am the same. Buddha says somewhere that the test of the enlightened one is that he is the same always, just like the sea water.

Anywhere, everywhere, it is salty.

If I am awakened, then for me I am the same -- not only in this life, but I have been the same in all lives that have gone. I have been the same for eternity. The real me has remained the same. It is unchangeable, only the projection changes. The screen remains the same, the film changes, the picture changes. But the screen is never seen. You see the picture on it projected. When there is no projection then you see the screen, otherwise the screen is never seen. And the screen remains the same. The picture changes, and you see a change in me. If I am awakened, I will be the same for me, but you will look at me in so many ways, because you will come to me with your dreaming mind which will project.

To someone I may look like a friend and to someone I may look like an enemy. He will project himself. We create a world around ourselves, and everyone lives in his own world. That is why there is a collision; worlds collide, your world and mine. So when two persons begin to live in one room, there are two worlds living there, and the collision is inevitable. There are not only two persons living in the room, the room has enough place for two persons -- but the room has not enough space for two worlds. Whenever there are two persons in a room, there are two worlds.

The whole conflict of human society, of human relationship, is between worlds, not between persons. If, really, I am a person without a world created by my dreams and you are also a person without a world created by your dreams, we can live in a room for eternity without any collision, because this room is enough for two persons. But for two worlds even the whole planet is not enough. There exist so many worlds, as every individual is a world. And he lives inside his world and is closed. This is a sleep. You have around yourself a filmy enclosure of projections, ideas, notions, conceptions, interpretations. You are a projector going on and on projecting things which are nowhere, only inside you, and the whole world becomes a screen. You can never be aware by yourself that you are in deep sleep.

There is a sufi saint Hijra... an angel appears in his dream. He says to him that he should save as much water as possible because tomorrow morning all the water of this world is going to be poisoned by the devil, and everyone who will drink this water will become mad. So the fakir saves as much water, the whole night, as possible. And really the phenomenon happens. Everyone become mad that next morning. No one knows the whole city has become mad. Only the fakir is not mad, but the whole city talks as if the fakir has gone mad. He knows it is everyone else who is mad, but no one believes him.

He goes on drinking his water and remains alone, but he cannot continue. The whole city is living in an altogether different world. No one listens to him, and now there is a rumor that he will be caught and sent to prison.

They have come one morning to get hold of him. Either he should be treated as ill or should go to prison. He cannot be allowed freedom. He has become absolutely mad.

Whatsoever he says is not understandable, he talks in a different language. The fakir is at a loss to understand. He tries to help them to remember their past, but they have forgotten everything. They do not know anything of the past, anything about before that maddening morning. They cannot understand, the fakir has become incomprehensible. They are around his house, they have caught hold of him.

And the fakir says, "Give me one moment more. I shall treat myself." He runs to the common well, drinks the water, and he becomes all right. Now the whole city is happy.

The fakir is okay now. Now he is not mad. Really, he has gone mad now! But now he is part and parcel of the common world. If everyone is asleep, you will never be aware even that you are asleep. If everyone is mad, and you are mad, you will never be aware of it.

By initiation is meant that you have surrendered to someone who is awakened. You say, "I do not understand it. I cannot understand, and I am part of the world which is mad and asleep. I am dreaming all the time. My reasoning is phony, because whenever I act, I act from the irrational part of my mind. I always act unconsciously, then later on I rationalize it. I fall in love with someone, and then I begin to rationalize why I love -- where is the reason? The phenomenon happens this way. First I begin to like something, and then I find reasons why I like it. The liking comes first, then follows rationalization. And the liking is irrational."

This feeling can come even from a sleeping person, because a sleep is not always deep. It wavers, becoming very deep, then coming up and becoming very shallow. Sleep is never on one plane. There are fluctuations in sleep, even in ordinary sleep there are fluctuations. In the whole night you are not on the same plane. Sometimes you go very deep, so deep that you cannot remember anything about it later on. If you have slept very deeply, then in the morning you say, "I have not dreamed anything." You have dreamed, but the sleep was so deep that you cannot remember. Now there are implements which can show that you have dreamed. You deny because no memory is there. You were so deep, the distance was so much from your conscious memory, that the mind could not get anything from the dream. Sometimes sleep is very shallow, just on the border. Then you can remember your dream. Ordinarily we always remember only morning dreams, just before we are coming out of the sleep, because the sleep is very shallow and the gap is very little.

Ordinary sleep is a fluctuation between so many levels, so many planes. Sometimes you are just wavering between waking and sleep. You can hear something from the outside when you are wavering, when the fluctuations are just on the border. You have gone to sleep. You hear something, someone is talking about something, something is understood, something is lost, and you can hear. But then you are fast asleep, in a deep sleep. Then someone is talking and you cannot hear. There is no question of interpretation, there is no question of meaning, you cannot hear.

Just like in this ordinary sleep, the same happens in the metaphysical sleep I am talking about. Sometimes you are just on the border line, very near to the buddha. Then you can understand something of what the buddha is talking about, what he is saying. You can understand something, but, of course, it will never be exactly as it is said. But at least you have something, you have a glimpse of the truth.

So a person who is on his border of metaphysical sleep will like to be initiated. He can hear something, he can understand something, he sees something. Everything is as if it is in a mist, but still he feels something. So he can approach a person who is awakened and surrender himself. This much can be done by a sleepy person. This much can be done so that he can surrender. This surrendering means he understands that something quite different from his sleep is happening. Somewhere he feels it. He cannot know it correctly, but he feels it.

Whenever a buddha passes, those who are on the borderline of sleep feel that something has happened to this man. He behaves differently, he speaks differently, he lives differently, he walks differently. Something has happened to this man. Those who are on the borderline can feel it, but they are asleep. And this borderline is not permanent. Again they may go in a deep sleep, but even a word can pull them out. So before they fall down into deeper unconsciousness they can surrender to the awakened one.

This is initiation from the side of the initiated. He says, "I cannot do anything myself. I am helpless. And I know that if I do not surrender in this moment, I may go again into deep sleep. Then it will be impossible to surrender." So there are moments which cannot be lost. And one who loses those moments may not be able to get them again for centuries, for lifetimes, because it is not in one's hands to come to the borderline.

Sometimes it happens for so many reasons beyond your control. You cannot control your sleep. Sometimes it happens that a buddha is passing. You can surrender, but only if you are on the border.

There is a very meaningful story in Buddha's life....

When he himself became awakened, for seven days continuously he was silent. He did not feel like speaking. This is a very beautiful story. The gods became uneasy, because if Buddha remains silent what will become of those on the borderline? He cannot do anything for those who are in a deep sleep, even a Buddha cannot do anything for them.

And he cannot do anything for those who are already awakened, they do not need any help from him. But there are a few who are just on the edge, and just a small push will awaken them. His very presence may be enough to awaken them.

So the gods came to Buddha, prayed to him, and asked him to speak. Buddha said to them that there are persons who cannot be helped. They are so asleep, it is useless to speak with them. Those who can listen to me, they are already awake. So there is no need to talk with them either. So why do you ask me to talk? It is meaningless. Let me remain silent. And the gods said, "But there is still a category that is left. Those who are not so awake that they can understand that they are just on the border. They may not even listen to all you say, but even a word may pull them out. You must speak."

It is only after thousands and thousands of years that a person becomes a buddha. He must speak, he must not remain silent. The opportunity must not be lost. Buddha became convinced. Yes, there is a third category. That third category is the category of the initiates, the mid-category.

From the one who is being initiated it is surrender, and nothing else will do. Initiation means to be surrendered. The Buddhist term for initiation and the one who is being initiated is shrotapann, one who has come in the current. Then you will have your aims, your goal to reach somewhere.

So there are persons who come to the enlightened one, but they will begin to argue. They will want reasons, they will ask proof, they will like to be convinced. This way is struggle -- they fight with the enlightened one. This does not harm the enlightened one, but this harms you because the moment is being lost. You were in the mid-category, that is why you have come. But now you are losing the moment; it may be that you will go again in deep sleep. Surrendering means one who begins to flow with the stream, who gives himself to the stream.

Now the stream flows; he follows it. He is just in a let-go, a total let-go. So for the initiated, initiation is a let-go, a complete trust, a complete surrender. It can never be partial. If you surrender partially, you are not surrendering; you are deceiving yourself.

There can be no partial surrender, because in a partial surrender you are withholding something. And that withholding may push you again into deep sleep. That non- surrendering part will prove fatal; any moment you may be again in deep sleep. Surrender is always total. That is why faith was required and will always be required in initiation.

Faith is required as a total condition, as a total requirement. And the moment you surrender totally, things begin to change. Now you cannot go back to your dreamland.

This surrendering shatters the whole projection. This surrender shatters the whole projecting mind, because this projecting mind is tethered to an ego. It cannot live without the ego. The ego is the main center of it. I call someone my friend. Why? I call someone my enemy. Why? The enemy is one who has hurt my ego, and the friend is one who has fed it, who has nourished it. That is why we say, "A friend in need is a friend indeed."

Why need? What is the need? The need comes when your ego is starving, then the friend is known. Our whole dreaming world, our dreaming mind, is based on the pedestal of ego. If you surrender, you have surrendered the very base. You have given up completely. Now you cannot continue wavering, because the dream is given up.

So from the side of the initiate, it is a total surrender. For the initiated one it is not very difficult to understand what initiation is. It is very simple. It is just a person who is asleep asking for help to be awakened, and he surrenders to someone who is awake. This is very simple. The thing is not very complex.

But for the one who initiates you, the thing is very complex, very difficult. Ordinarily we think that surrendering is very difficult. You are helpless, you cannot do anything. You may not surrender, but when you know more you will come to the point of surrendering.

One day it is bound to come because you cannot do anything else. You cannot continue with a non-surrendering attitude, because this will create miseries, agony and hell for you. You cannot continue. There is bound to come one moment when out of your frustration, out of your own nightmare, you will surrender. This is not the difficult part of the initiation. This is a very simple thing. But for the one who initiates you, it is a very complex affair; there are many things involved. Many things are ESOteric, not EXOteric.

It is good that we should understand from the exoteric, the outer things, and then proceed to the esoteric, the inner things.

The first thing corresponding to surrender is responsibility. The one who is asleep surrenders, the one who is awake takes the responsibility. When you go to a Buddha, to a Jesus or to a Mohammed, and surrender yourself, he takes the whole responsibility. What you are surrendering is that which is with you. You cannot surrender anything more -- you are nothing more than sleep and dream. You surrender this. Your sleep, your dreaming, your whole nonsense of the past... you surrender.

Surrendering is always of the past, responsibility is always for the future. You have no future, you are only a dreamy past. A long number of memories, of dreams, of many lives, is surrendered. That too you surrender very arduously. It is so difficult to surrender even this, just a dusty past. Nothing more is with you. You have been asleep and dreamy.

You have a record of so many dreams -- good or bad, beautiful or ugly, but dreams all the same. You surrender before being lost: that too with great hardship, that too is very difficult, a struggle; that too you try to withhold, to resist. Something must be saved.

What have you got? Nothing but a long series of dreams, a long sleep.

So from the initiated it is a surrendering of the past. From the one who initiates you, it is a responsibility for the future. He becomes responsible, and only he can be responsible.

You can never be responsible. How can one who is asleep be responsible? Responsibility is never a part of sleep. If you commit a murder in your sleep, if you are a somnambulist walking in your sleep and you commit a murder, no court will make you responsible, because there is no responsibility.

A person who is in deep sleep, how is he responsible? You never feel responsible for your dreams. You may commit anything in your dreams, but you never feel any responsibility. You may murder, but you say that it was just a dream. Responsibility comes with awakening. This is really a fundamental law of life. One who is asleep is not responsible even for himself, and one who is awakened is responsible even for others.

A person who is enlightened, who is awakened, feels he is even responsible for the whole mess that you have created. A buddha feels compassion. A buddha feels guilty for your crimes, for your sins; he feels involved, he feels responsible. He knows that you do not know; he is fully aware. For example, the third world war is going to come. The one who is awakened knows full well that it is coming. It is coming nearer daily. Soon it will be over us. You are asleep and deep in it. He is not in a sleep, he is not in a dream. He is fully conscious like radar; he knows the future that is coming. He feels guilty, he must do something. For example, you are in a plane, flying in the sky. You are asleep, dreamy, but the pilot is aware. If anything is going to happen, if the engine begins to make a noise, a very slight noise; if no one knows about it but something has gone wrong, only he will be responsible. No one else is responsible. He is fully awake, and the only one.

A buddha will feel responsible for all our crimes and sins. The whole story of Jesus is based on this responsibility. The whole of Christianity, the whole concept, begins from this responsibility. Jesus feels responsible for all the sins of man from Adam to us. Jesus feels responsible, so he takes the cross on his shoulders in order that our sins may be pardoned, forgiven. He is in no way responsible. If Adam has done something and the whole human mind has done something, why should he be responsible? Dogmatic Christians have discussed this for centuries. Jesus has not committed any sins; still, I say he feels responsible because he is awakened. By the very phenomenon of awakening he has become responsible for all that the sleepy ones have done. His burden is added, his cross is heavy. His crucifixion is symbolic; it is for us that he dies so that we may live.

That is why the crucifixion of Jesus has become a historic event.

He is a person who has felt responsible for the whole human race, and dies for it so that man may be transformed. But even with his death we are not transformed. His message was heard in our dream, and we interpret it in our own ways. Then his life becomes a part of our dreaming world. We create churches and dogmas, we create sects. Then there are Catholic and Protestant sects and so many others. The whole nonsense returns in so many new ways, and the world remains the same.

We begin to worship him. That is, we begin to dream about him, that he is the son of God. We are not initiated, we are not transformed. Rather, on the contrary, we transform his reality into our dream. We create a church for him, we create an idol of him, we worship him -- and continue our sleep. Really, we use him as a tranquilizer. It becomes a Sunday affair. For one hour in the week we go to him, and then we continue on our own track. He helps us to sleep well; our conscience becomes easy, we feel religious. We go to the church to pray, worship, and are back home the same. We become more easy. Now there is no burden to be religious, to be transformed. We are religious already, because we have been to church where we have worshipped and prayed. We are religious already, and the whole thing goes on the same way.

Corresponding to surrender is responsibility. Responsibility means answerability. It means Jesus feels answerable for you. He feels that if there is any God, he will be responsible. He will be asked and he will have to answer why this or that has happened to humanity. Responsibility means this. He feels it as a natural happening with him. And if you come to him and surrender to him, then he becomes particularly responsible for you.

Krishna could say to Arjuna, "Leave everything. Come to me, surrender at my feet."

Jesus could say, "I am the truth. I am the door, I am the gate. Come to me, pass through me. I will be the witness on the last day of your judgment. I will answer for you." This is all analogical. Every day is the day of judgment, and every moment is the moment of judgment. There is not going to be any last day. This is just what could be understood by the people to whom Jesus was speaking. "I will be responsible for you, and I will answer for you when the divine asks, and I will be there as a witness. You surrender to me; I will be your witness," Jesus said.

This is a great responsibility. No one who is asleep can take it, because even to carry your own responsibility becomes difficult in sleep. You cannot carry others' responsibility.

You can carry others' responsibility only when your responsibility is no more, when you are unburdened completely -- really, when you are no more! This declaration of being no more is being made in so many ways.

When Jesus said, "I am the son of the father who is in heaven," what he meant really is that he is not a son of the person who is known as his father, he is not the son of Mary who is known as his mother. Why? Sometimes it seems very cruel. One day he was standing in a crowd and someone said, "Your mother, Mary, has come. She is calling you outside this crowd, she is waiting for you." And Jesus said, "I have no mother! Who is my mother? Who is my father? No one is my mother, no one is my father." It appears cruel. The mother is standing outside the crowd. She is waiting, and Jesus says to tell her, "No one is my mother, no one is my father." Why? He is just denying the pattern of your dreaming. "This is my father, mother, wife, brother..." This is the pattern of the dreaming mind, the dreaming world, the world of projection. Jesus just denies it. And the moment you deny the mother, you have denied the whole world, because with her everything begins -- the whole world. That is the beginning, the root of coming into this dreamy world, the root of relationship, the root of sansara.

If you deny your mother, you have denied everything. It appears cruel to those who are fast asleep, but it is just a fact. The emphasis that "I am the son of the one who is in heaven," is just to say, "I am not an individual. I am not Jesus, the son of Mary. I am part and parcel of the divine force, the cosmic force."

One who feels like that, like part of the cosmic, can initiate you. Otherwise, no one can initiate you. No particular individual can initiate anyone. And it happens so many times, it is happening every day -- those who are themselves asleep will initiate those who are also asleep; the blind leading the blind. Both fall into the ditch. No one who is asleep can initiate anyone. But the ego wants to initiate; this egoistic attitude has proved very dangerous.

The whole initiation, the whole mystery of it, the whole beauty of it, became ugly because of those who were not entitled to initiate. Only one who has no ego inside, who has no sleep inside, who has no dream inside, can initiate. Otherwise, initiation is the greatest sin, because then you are deceiving not only others but yourself also -- because initiation is a great responsibility, the ultimate responsibility. Now you are becoming responsible for another. To become responsible for someone is not just a play, this is taking the impossible in your hands. You are becoming responsible for someone else who is at folly.

So this responsibility can be taken only when there is total surrender; otherwise it cannot be taken. One who is withholding himself, his responsibility cannot be taken, because he will continue himself; he will not listen to you. He will interpret you in his own ways.

There is a Sufi story....

A rich man died. He was not only rich, he was wise also, which happens very rarely. His son was only ten or twelve years of age, so he made a will in which he wrote to the eldest of the village, the panchayat. He proclaimed in that will, "From my property, whatsoever you like most, you take, then you give it to my child."

The will was as clear as the sunrise. The five elders divided the whole property. All that was of any worth, they divided among themselves. Nothing was left except a bit which was useless. No one was ready to take that, so it was given to the child. But the old dying man had given a letter to the boy also, which he was to open when he came of age. So when he was of age he opened the letter in which his father had written, "The elders, may, of course, interpret the will in their own way. When you are of age, give it this interpretation. This is my interpretation, this is what I mean to say: Take all that you like most, and then, all that you like most, give it to my child. " The son produced the letter before the elders. They never conceived of any such meaning, so they had divided everything amongst themselves. They returned the whole thing, because now the meaning was clear, and the boy was ready. And the father had also written: "It is good that they should interpret in their own way until the time for you to take it comes, because if I give it to you directly, before you are of age, it will be destroyed by these elders. Let them protect it as their own property until you are ready to take it over." And they had protected it as if it were their own.

So whenever there is a partial surrender, you will interpret any message, any commandment, any order to you, in the way which appeals to you most. In your sleep, you will make it meaningful through your sleepy mind. So unless one surrenders totally, the responsibility cannot be taken. And when one surrenders totally, the total responsibility comes to the teacher, to the awakened one. Then it is total.

In the old days, initiation was not easy; it was the most difficult thing. The very phenomenon was such that it had to be difficult. One had to wait for years to be initiated.

Even for a whole life one may wait, because unless one is ready he will not be initiated.

This waiting stage was really a testing ground. Are you patient? Can you wait? Only in waiting is your maturity revealed. A child cannot wait even for a single moment. If he wants a toy, he wants it just now; he cannot wait. So the more impatient the mind, the less mature. So before initiation in the old days, one had to wait for so many years. This waiting was a testing ground, and this waiting was also a discipline.

For example, Sufis will only initiate when you have waited for a particular period. You wait without questioning just for the moment when the teacher himself will answer. One had to do many things. For example, a Sufi may be a shoemaker. If you are to be initiated, you will have to help him for years in shoemaking. And not even this can be questioned. What will happen by the shoemaking? How are you going to be a self- realized one? How are you going to be the divine? This shoemaking, what is the relevance? Even if this relevance is asked about, you will be thrown out, because that is not your business.

It is the teacher's business to know what is relevant. How can you know? You do not know the divine, so you cannot know how shoemaking is related to the divine; you cannot know. For five years one is just waiting and helping the teacher in shoemaking.

He will never talk of prayer or meditation. He will never talk of anything except shoemaking. You have waited for five years, but this is a meditation. It is no ordinary meditation, you will be cleansed through it.

This simple, unquestioned waiting, this relying, will make the ground ready for complete surrender. And sometimes it looks so easy from the outside. It is not so easy, it is very difficult. Your mind will resist, your mind will ask questions, your mind will raise problems. It will ask, "What am I doing? Am I doing something rightly or am I just wasting my time? Is this man really worth being with, with this shoemaking? Is it in any way related to the search?"

The mind will continue to ask. Inside you will be bubbling, and yet you cannot ask. You have to rely, you have to wait for the moment. If you can wait for even one year, the mind will become silent by itself. It cannot continue unless you feed it daily, unless you help it daily. Unless you become daily disturbed by it, it cannot continue. You have been just waiting, and the mind is just chattering, raising questions.

You have waited and waited and waited, then the question will become meaningless. The mind will just be exhausted. It will just lose interest, it will just go dead. And though you are waiting, a moment will come when there is no questioning. When there is no questioning, the teacher will answer.

Exactly the moment of no questioning within the disciple is the moment for the teacher to answer, because now you can hear. Your chattering has stopped; now you are silent, now you have become a passage. But ordinarily we feed the mind daily. We are disturbed. We will not even wait for an hour, to see whether it can continue for one hour. You will not even wait and see whether this mind can continue. It cannot continue, because with the mind nothing is permanent. It will go by itself.

A Tibetan teacher, Milarepa, had it as a rule that if some question came to him he would answer only after you waited for seven days. This is the price one has to pay for everything. If you asked this moment, he would throw you out: "Wait for seven days, stay with the question." And, really, you cannot stay with it for seven days. Seven days are too long.

Sometimes someone comes to me and asks me a question, and if I can dodge him and talk even for two minutes about something else, he forgets the question; he never comes again for his question. He can talk for one hour and will not raise that question again. It was just a whim, just a wave. It means nothing. So if you can wait for five years, you will not be the same.

Waiting will be a great difficulty. In the old days initiation was done after a long waiting.

Then surrender was easy, and responsibility too could be taken. Now the whole thing has become different, no one is ready to wait. The most acute disease of the modern mind is hurry. The new phenomenon of the modern mind is time consciousness, the basic change that has come in the mind is time consciousness. We have become so time conscious that not for a single moment can we wait. It is an impossibility.

That is why this whole age has become childish. There is no maturity anywhere, because maturity is always a by-product of waiting. And waiting is only possible with timeless consciousness, not with time consciousness. Because of this time consciousness, initiation has become impossible. You cannot be initiated. You run past Buddha and ask him, "Will you initiate me?" You meet Buddha on the street while you are running, and even this utterance of four or five words has not been from a standing position. You have been running.

Maturity has become impossible. But why this time consciousness which is a barrier -- the greatest barrier? Why was it not there before? Why is it now great?

Time consciousness deepens only when you become fearful of death. You may not be aware of it, but the more you become aware of death, the more you become time conscious. Not a single moment should be lost! Death is there. Every moment lost is lost forever, and death comes near; you are going to die. So use every moment! You cannot wait, because waiting only means waiting for death. Death is coming. No one can wait, no one knows what is going to happen tomorrow, the next moment. Death may come.

You become uneasy, you begin trembling, you begin to run. This whole running of the modern mind is because of the fear of death.

For the first time man is so fearful of death, because for the first time man has become absolutely unaware of the deathless. If you are aware of the deathless, then there is no hurry. You live in eternity, and there is always enough time, more than enough. Nothing is lost, because time is eternal. So if a moment is lost does not mean that less time will be left. The time remains the same because it is eternal. From a treasury which is immeasurable, you cannot lose anything. You may go on losing, it makes no difference; what remains is the same. You cannot take anything out of it. But we are short of time.

Time is short, and death is there.

We are only conscious of the body which is going to die. We are not conscious of the inner consciousness which is deathless. In ancient days there were people who were conscious of the deathless. Because of their consciousness, deathlessness, they created an atmosphere, a new sphere, in which there was no hurry. Things would move slowly if they moved at all. Then initiation was easy, then waiting was easy, then surrender was easy, then responsibilities were easy. They all have become difficult now. But still, there is no alternative, initiation is needed. The old initiation has become impossible, so a new initiation must replace it. The old must be replaced by a newer one. My whole effort is toward that.

If you are in a hurry, then I will give initiation in your running state of affairs, because otherwise there will be no initiation. So I cannot ask you to wait as a precondition. I must initiate you first and then prolong your waiting in so many ways. Through so many devices I will persuade you to wait, because without waiting there is no maturity. So when you will be ready there will be a second initiation, which would have been the first in the old days. It cannot now be the first.

Sometimes people are bewildered. Sometimes someone comes to me; he has not even heard me, he has not even known me, and I initiate him into sannyas. This is absurd, not understandable at all. But I know. And whatsoever I am doing, I am doing very considerately. This is just the beginning, this initiation, because only through this initiation will I be able to create devices for his waiting; otherwise he cannot wait. If I tell him, "Wait five years, and then I will give you initiation," he cannot wait. If I give it to him this very moment, then he can wait.

So let it be like this, it makes no difference. The same will be the process. Because you cannot wait, I change. I will allow you to wait afterwards, and then there will be a second initiation. This is the formal initiation, the second one will be informal. The second one will be like a happening. You will not ask me, I will not give you. It will happen. In the innermost being it will happen, and you will know it when it happens.

Now there is no other way possible for this world, for this moment. For this time conscious mind, there is no other way. First I will push you, then I will have to work on you. The working is also going to be quite different. It cannot be the same. For example, I will have to work much with your intellect, which was never before needed. It was always thought of as a barrier. I also know it is a barrier, I also am aware that nothing really can happen with the intellect. But I will have to work and labor with your intellect, because now if someone says that your intellect is not needed, this statement will be interpreted by your intellect. You will be just disconnected with the person, there will be no further intimacy. This will be a closing of the door. Today that cannot be said. Of course, it is a basic truth, but it cannot be uttered. It could be uttered in the old days.

Now I will have to do much with your intellect. And only when I have worked with your intellect so much, in a way it has never before been worked with, more than your capacity, only then will you be ready for the statement, "Throw the intellect" -- not before. If you become convinced -- and intellect becomes convinced very easily because it is a very superficial part -- that whatsoever is said is rational only, then I can begin with the irrational. There is the real beginning.

But to come to your heart I will have to go round and round through your intellectual by- passes. The labyrinth of intellect has to be traveled unnecessarily, but for this age that has become necessary. Now, even the irrational will have to be found by a rational effort.

This period of waiting will be a training for the intellect toward the beyond, and simultaneously I will force you and push you toward meditation. In the old days meditation was very secret, very esoteric. It would be given to you only when you were totally ready, because it is the most secret key of the most secret treasure. It could only be given when you were completely ready, otherwise it could not be given.

But if I wait for your readiness, it is not going to be given to you at all. So I will give you a key -- of course, a false one. You can toy with it, and with that you can wait. More than that key, the waiting will help. Even with a false key, you will be more at ease. But the key is made in such a way that if you go on using it, it will become an authentic one. The key is made in such a way that if you go on using it....

It cannot unlock the door this very moment. They key is false, it has corners which it should not have. But if you go on trying with it, those corners will fall down, will wither.

It will become a real key, and daily it will move more. I think you understand me. I am not going to replace it with another key. The same key will become authentic by much using. The unnecessary corners of it will have withered. But I cannot wait for you to be ready to be given a ready key which can open the door this very moment. The door is ready, the key is ready, but you are not ready.

So there are two ways. The old way is that you should wait. I will say, "Wait five years.

This is the key, that is the door, but wait for five years. Do not ask again where is the key, do not touch the door even in curiosity, do not go near the lock. Wait! Even if I see that you are looking at the lock, I will turn you out. Just wait. Never look to the lock, never have avarice. This is the key. I will give it to you when you are ready." This was the old way. People waited for years. Even for lives people have waited.

There is a story....

One disciple waited for three lives. The teacher was experimenting with him to see how much he could wait. He said, "I am going to know how much you can wait."

The disciple said, "Okay, I will also see how much you can wait." It is going to be a waiting for both; never think that it is going to be a waiting for you alone. If you are waiting, I am also waiting. And I am in more of a hurry than you because I may not be again." So the disciple said, "Let us see who can wait more."

It became difficult for the teacher. He had to come for three lives again, and the disciple waited. Each time he would come and sit, and each time the same story was repeated.

In the end the teacher lost patience, and he said, "Take this key. You have won; I am defeated."

The disciple said, "Why are you in such a hurry? I can wait still more."

He said, "You can wait, but I have to come to this earth unnecessarily for this waiting, and it looks as if you can continue forever. So take this key."

But the disciple said, "The key has come to me because such long waiting has itself become a key. I do not need it now."

The teacher said, "This was also one reason why I was in such a hurry -- because if you wait still more there will be no need for the key to be given! This very waiting will become a key."

This was the old way. Wait first, then the key will be given. Now that is not possible, so I have to change the whole thing. I give you the key, then you can play with it. You cannot wait unoccupied, but you can wait occupied. Now you have the key, you have the lock, the door, you have rumors about the treasury; you have everything. I go on rumoring about the treasury. You have the key. You can wait, you can play with the lock and key.

And by this very playing and waiting the false key will turn into an authentic one.

The responsibility of the teacher corresponds to your surrender. There are many other things the teacher does which are not in any correspondence with the disciple. Only in one thing is the teacher in correspondence with the disciple, that is the bridge. Surrender from the disciple, responsibility from the teacher -- that is the bridge. There are many things which are only with the teacher. Really, the disciple has not to do much. The teacher has to do much. And that is right also, that is how it should be. The disciple always thinks that he is doing much, but it is the teacher who has to do much.

So he can just indicate something. He has to work with you on many layers simultaneously. He has to work with your body, which you cannot understand, because you are completely unaware of your body, you do not know anything about your body.

You only know your body when you feel hungry, when you feel pain, disease; that is all.

That is the only contact with your body. You do not know what a great phenomenon your body is.

The teacher has to do much with your body, because unless your body transforms, the innermost cannot be tackled. And he has to do it in such a way that you should not become aware that he is doing something with your body, because if you become aware, the very consciousness will create disturbance in your body. And the teacher will not be able to do it, because this is a secret phenomenon of the body; it works when you are not conscious of it. If you become conscious, it will not work.

You can make an experiment. Tomorrow, be conscious when you are eating, and then be conscious that the stomach is working to change the food into living nourishment. Be conscious for twenty-four hours and you will feel sick, your stomach will be disturbed.

You will not be able to be nourished by the food, it will become poison. You will have to throw it away completely, the whole system will be disturbed. That is why you need sleep. In sleep, the body can function better. You are not conscious.

If someone is ill, the doctor will see first whether his sleep is good. Otherwise no medicine will do, no help can be given. He cannot be helped, because his body cannot work -- he is too conscious. Unnecessarily, we continue so many diseases because of this consciousness. Once your stomach is disturbed, you become conscious about it. Then the stomach is all right, but the consciousness continues; then this consciousness will disturb.

And this will become a vicious circle -- your consciousness is disturbed by your stomach, and your stomach is disturbed by your consciousness. Now you cannot be out of it. You will go on in it, and this will become a lifelong thing.

One day your sleep is disturbed. Another day you are all right, but now you have become conscious. Now you are thinking it may be that today also sleep is not going to come.

Today you have become conscious. Sleep will not come, you are too conscious. Now the next morning you will be even more conscious.

So with your body the teacher has to work many things which he cannot tell you about.

Even a touch will be doing something. Even a hand on your head will be doing something. In the old world, with ancient people, it was very easy. They were not so body conscious. With time consciousness there is a corresponding corollary of body consciousness. I say it is death consciousness. Really, the more you are death conscious, the more you will be body conscious.

Today everyone has become so body conscious that you cannot touch him without his becoming self-conscious. The moment he becomes self-conscious, the touch, the inner meaning of it, the inner working of is, has stopped. We have become so touchy, everyone is constantly aware that no one should touch. You are standing in a crowd: everyone is touching, but somewhere inside you are trying all the time not to be touched. Things have become difficult in this way, unnecessarily difficult.

In so many ways, I have to create devices in which your body can be changed. In my meditation method, I have added a cathartic part only to change your body center. No old meditation has this part added, because that part can be done only by the teacher. His touching, just a single touch on any center, could have so much catharsis. But now that is very difficult.

For example, the Zen teacher will have a staff in his hand. He will beat with his staff. No Westerner could understand what is the meaning of it -- not even these who are sympathetic. And then, a Zen teacher will not tell what is meant by it. It is not just a beating, it is hammering on a particular center. It is not a beating at all. But it has to be hidden. He is beating on your backbone, on a particular part. And if he says to you, "I am touching on this center to help your body to work in a particular way," you will become self-conscious. He will not say that. He will say, "I feel that you are sleepy, so I beat you." Whenever you will feel sleepy, he will come and beat you, and this beating is a hidden trick to camouflage the whole affair. You will think, "He is beating me." You will not become aware of the center he has hammered. Now that too cannot be used.

Asanas are used to change your inner current. Mudras were used, but they all have to be practised a long time. No one can practise so long now. And they have to be practised in a very isolated atmosphere, not in the marketplace, because when you practise particular asanas and mudras, the particular centers become so sensitive that you must remain isolated. Otherwise you will get many unnecessary disturbing influences inside -- because your centers are open.

So the teacher has much to do with your body in so many methods. It is always up to him to devise new methods, because old methods become useless. This is because the more you know, the more you become self-conscious. So new methods are to be used, and only the enlightened ones can use new methods. All those who are initiating and are not enlightened themselves, will have to rely on old methods, because they cannot devise the new. they do not even know what is meant by the old. They know only the outer gestures.

So they will continue to use hatha yoga, pranayam; they will continue. With every new enlightened person, this world gets new devices. Otherwise it cannot get new devices, and each new age needs new devices because the mind has changed.

So the teacher has to do much with your body; that is the beginning. And the difficult part of it is that you must no be aware of it. That is why it is meaningful to live with a teacher, to live in an ashram, to sleep with a teacher -- because then your body is more vulnerable for his work, without your knowing. Teachers have even used intoxicants to make you unconscious, to work with your body. Anesthetics are not only used by surgeons.

Teachers have also used them in their own way. When you are completely unaware, then they can work. And the work which cannot be done in a year ordinarily can be done in a moment, because then the exact point can be touched, turned, changed. The whole current can be made different.

Then things become even more difficult, because the energy that is to be used lies in the sex center. It becomes even more difficult. That too is a part of the whole complex. I am talking about time consciousness, death consciousness, sex consciousness, these are all parts. The more you become death conscious, the more you feel sexual -- because sex is the antidote. Sex is the beginning of life, and death is the end. If you are more conscious of death, you will become more conscious of sex. Only a society which is not conscious of death will be unconscious of sex. It does not mean that it will not be sexual, but it will be unconscious of it. It will be just a natural thing.

You can go to a primitive society and touch the breast of a woman and ask her what it is.

She will just reply in an automatic way; no reference to any morality, no reference to any body consciousness, no reference to sex. She will say that this is to give the milk to the child.

The energy lies in the sex center. And we have become so conscious of the sex center, we guard it so continuously and we have become so tense, it goes on being more and more difficult to help. I have created many new devices, and I have to talk about very different things from so many dimensions. For example, I have talked so much about moving from sex to superconsciousness only to relax you. If you can become relaxed at your sex center, if there is no tension, then the energy can be released upwards.

The first thing for the initiator is to help your body change. It has to be changed, because a new phenomenon is going to happen to your body. It has to be prepared for the new explosion which is going to come, which is going to descend, for the new energy which will soon be your guest. So you have to be made a host. The whole arrangement has to be changed.

This arrangement, as we exist ordinarily, will not do. This is a biological arrangement.

This structure of the body, this pattern of the body, is biological. It is used only as a sex vehicle. The whole process is just to continue it. Nothing more is expected from your body as far as nature is concerned, so it is arranged in that way. Now you want not only to continue the race, you want to change the whole biological process and to create a new dimension that is absolutely non-biological, spiritual. The whole structure of the body will have to be changed.

So the teacher has to work more with your body, then much with your emotions, and now even much with your intellect. This is the conscious, exoteric part. The teacher is going to do something to the outer parts in initiation. But there is the inner part, the esoteric. That is being worked on by telepathic messages, through your dreams, through visions, through secret communications. Your intellect can be pacified directly. It can be talked to and pacified directly, but not your emotions, here one has to work indirectly. One has to create milieus through which your emotions are changed, transformed.

But that too is outer. Your emotions, your intellect, your body, these are the outer self of your body. You reside within, your being is deeper inside. That being is also to be transformed. That is being done through telepathic, through esoteric, secret paths. Your dreams can be used, they are used. It happens ordinarily that you may not be aware of your dreams, but your teacher is. And he is more interested in your dreams than your waking state. Your so-called waking consciousness is false. It is not real, you are not expressed in it; you only act. Your dreams are more real.

Freud just used analysis of dreams because of some alchemical tradition which became known to him. Something from some esoteric circle leaked. He used it and created a whole science. Of course, he could not know your dreams directly; he had to make you confess, show your dream, remember your dream, talk about your dream. Then he could analyze it. But in initiation the teacher knows your dreams. He can go into your dreams, he can be a witness to your dreams. And then he knows more secret things about you then you yourself are aware.

Edgar Cayce could go into an auto-hypnotic coma in which you tell him something about your dream. There are your missing links. He could go into the dream in his unconscious state. He could see the whole picture of your dream. Then he would tell you that these are the missing links, this is your full dream. And you will be surprised that no one remembers his full dream in the morning -- it is impossible.

The moment the conscious mind takes charge it distorts the whole thing, because the message is from the unconscious. It is against the conscious, it distorts, it interprets. It causes something to be missing, something to be added, and the whole thing becomes just nonsense. You say this is just a dream -- meaningless. No dream is meaningless; dreams have a deeper meaning than your waking moments.

So the teacher has to work with your dreams. And unless he works with your dreams, he cannot work for your awakening, because the dream-creating source inside you is the whole thing. It has to be destroyed, it has to be uprooted from your consciousness. The complete mechanism of dreaming has to be broken, completely uprooted. When it is uprooted completely, first you will feel that you have lost dreaming, then you will feel that you have lost sleep. You will sleep, but something will remain aware. The body will be refreshed in the morning, but you will know that you have remained conscious. If dreaming is lost, sleep will be lost.

You may be surprised that the dreaming is a constant help to sleep. You cannot sleep without dreaming. Dreaming helps to continue your sleep. For example, you are feeling hungry in sleep, then the sleep will be broken. The body will break it, "Go and take something!" You are feeling thirsty; the body will say, "Go and drink something." But the dream structure will help completely; it will say, "Okay." The dream structure will create a dream. You are drinking water in the dream, then there is no need to break the sleep.

You have taken something which was needed. The dream has substituted, and now you can continue sleeping.

Your alarm clock is ringing, it is five o'clock and you have to rise. The dream structure will create a dream. You are in a temple, and a bell is ringing. The alarm ringing outside has been transferred and made a part of the dream. Now the bell is ringing in the temple, now there is no need to rise, you can continue sleeping.

The dream is a help for continuing sleep; otherwise you cannot sleep. The sleep will be broken so many times, because there are so many happenings outside that the body cannot tolerate. Even a single mosquito will disturb your sleep, but the dream can help there also. It may create a dream, and the music of the mosquito will become a music in the dream. Then you continue to sleep and dream.

So the whole structure of dreaming consciousness has to be uprooted, and the teacher has to work for it. And when he destroys the whole mechanism of dreaming, then only the inner doors are open and he can communicate directly. Now there is no need of language, no need of words. He can communicate directly. And when there is direct communication without words, only the truth can be revealed to you, otherwise not. So the most esoteric part is with your dreaming consciousness -- to change it.

Something may leak out, and there has been such a phenomenon so many times. There are even sciences based on a single leak, a single point that has come from the esoteric world. You can create a science on it. It is going to be faulty, always imperfect. Freud's analysis can never be perfect because he does not know the whole thing. He has come upon, he has stumbled somewhere, on a single point. He has worked it out completely, but the point itself is a part. The whole is not known.

When dreaming consciousness has been washed away, then the real esoteric work begins.

The teacher can take your hand in his hand and lead you anywhere -- to any reality, to any depth of this universe. But that cannot be talked about, that cannot be discussed.

Teachers have lead their pupils to heaven, hell, to every nook and corner of the universe, to every planet, to higher realms. But that can only happen when your dreaming consciousness is gone completely. You cannot project anything, you have just to become a screen. Then this world will be different for you because then you will be different.

This world will remain the same, but you will not be projecting anything.

And there still are many things for which, if you are interested, you will have to go in.

You cannot be informed about these things. They can be made known to you. I can help you, I can work with you, I can push you into an inner dimension. But I cannot inform you. Even all I am informing you of is more than ever allowed. But I can inform you about many things which were never allowed because I always drop some key points.

You cannot work them up.

Something is always missing -- not to me, but to you. It is always missing unless the phenomenon happens to you. Then everything will be complete, it will be linked. So I talk about many links. There are always some missing links which will be fulfilled only by your efforts. I talk about these unlinked links so that you may be persuaded to work hard. The more you work hard, the more missing links I will talk about. But the chief link will never be talked about. It can only be experienced. But I am ready to help you to experience it, and the nature of things is such that it can only be experienced.

Do your part, and remember that you are capable of doing your part. Whenever you are able to surrender, the teacher will come. The teacher is there. Teachers have always been in existence. The world has never lacked teachers, it has always lacked disciples. But no teacher can begin anything unless someone surrenders. So whenever you have a moment to surrender, do not lose it. Even if you do not find anyone to whom to surrender, then just surrender to existence. But whenever there is a moment to surrender, do not lose it, because then you are on the borderline where you are in between sleep and waking. Just surrender!

If you can find someone, that is good. If you cannot find anyone, just surrender to the universe. And the teacher will appear, he will come. He rushes whenever there is surrender. You become vacant, you become empty; spiritually, you become empty. Then the spiritual force rushes toward you and fills you. So always remember that whenever you feel like surrendering, do not lose the moment. It may not come again or it may come after centuries and lives have been unnecessarily wasted. Whenever the moment comes, just surrender.

But the mind has a trick. If you are angry, you will be angry that very moment. But if you feel like surrendering. you will think about it, you will plan about it, you will wait. And with the mind, it is always only in a moment when it is on the boundary. So just surrender to the divine, to anything, even to a tree, because the real thing is not to whom you surrender -- the real thing is surrendering. Surrender to a tree, and the tree will become a teacher to you. Many things will be revealed to you from the tree which no scripture can reveal to you.

Surrender to a stone, and the stone will become a god. And the stone will reveal things which no god can reveal to you. The real thing is surrendering. Whenever there is surrendering, one always appears who becomes responsible for you. This is what is meant by initiation.