An open and shut case

Nature, the whole of it, is a continuous ceremony - a marriage, a feast. Guests go on changing, but the feast continues; the feast never stops for a single moment. Singers change, but the song remains.

Except for man, nature is always in ecstasy. Man is a special case. If you look just at the present situation of man you will feel depressed, as if something has gone wrong. But if you can understand the future possibility of man then you will be happy, thankful. Nothing has gone wrong; only, with man, nature is trying to reach a higher ceremony.

Man has been sent on a journey. He looks to be without a home - because he has to attain a home in his being. He looks uprooted - because he has to find a richer soil for his roots. Man is nothing but a reaching of nature towards a higher harmony, a higher ceremony, a greater ecstasy.

But that is so if you look at the whole journey, and you can see the destiny. If you can't see the destiny, then man simply looks like a child gone astray. Then man looks like a disease. That's why for Sartre, or Camus, or Jaspers, man looks meaningless, a tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing.

The whole of human consciousness seems to be ill, ill at ease. But buddhas see deeper. They don't see just this moment. Hidden in this moment is the whole destiny of man. Man is the greatest experiment nature has yet made; but it is not yet a complete experiment, that is the trouble.

Man has lost the home that trees have, and he has not yet reached the end of his journey. Man has lost the moorings that birds have, and the stars and the sea have. He seems to be homeless, a stranger, an outsider. That is right! But a greater home, a better ecstasy, and a higher plenitude of being is waiting. You have to complete the journey.

Religion is nothing but the effort to make the journey complete. Nature has thrown you into a vast world, full of millions of possibilities, and you don't know who you are, where you are going. Nature has PUSHED you, and religion is to complete the journey, religion is to fill the gap; otherwise you will feel meaningless. You will feel depressed, you will live in anguish.

If you don't know the destiny, if you can't look into the seed - if you can look into the seed you can see the tree, the flowering, the possibility, the potentiality - but if you just look at the seed from the outside, it is nothing. No colors, just a dead thing, not even alive. Looks like a pebble.

What is the difference between a pebble and a seed? The pebble is just a pebble, with no future in it.

The seed also looks like a pebble, but with a vast future in it, with life waiting to be released, flowers waiting to flower, fragrance waiting to be spread to the winds. A vast possibility, a potentiality.

If you think man now is the end product, then you will feel, like the existentialists, that man is meaningless, a tale told by an idiot. But if you can look into the potentiality, then suddenly, man is not diseased; rather, on the contrary, nature is trying to reach a higher point, a growth, the greatest yet attained - evolution working in man.

So this has to be understood: why nature is so harmonious, and man is in such a disharmony.

Listen to the birds, constantly singing, humming, constantly enjoying; there seems to be no worry, no anxiety. Not that problems are not there, not that death doesn't exist for them - it exists, but it doesn't disturb their song. Birds, trees, oceans, rocks - they are unconscious, their ceremony is an unconscious ceremony... as if a man is singing while he is asleep, a man smiling while he is asleep.

You can see the smile, but the man himself is not aware of what is happening - as if in a dream, drunk.

Nature IS blissful, but absolutely unaware of it. And without awareness, what is bliss? It is meaningless. It has no significance, because the bird who is singing is not at all aware of what is happening. The song is just happening. There is nobody to listen to it, nobody to taste it, nobody to smell it, nobody to enjoy it. The song is just happening, part of an unconscious nature. Howsoever beautiful, it lacks something, something very essential.

It is YOU who listens to the sound of the bird. It is YOU who feels: How beautiful! The bird is completely unaware: the song is neither beautiful nor ugly - as if the song doesn't exist. If you are unaware, how can the song exist? It doesn't exist for you. It may exist for others, those who are aware.

Trees have flowers. Look at this GULMOHAR tree - complete, with flowers, more flowers than leaves... red, like a bride. But not aware, not knowing what is happening! Nature is asleep, unconscious. Man has become a little conscious; hence the anxiety. A part of you has become conscious, a very small fragment of your being has become conscious, and the remaining whole remains unconscious. A division has happened, a conflict has arisen. You are no more one - you have become two. A split has happened, a gap between you and yourself, a duality. You are no more one. Something of you is different from the remaining whole. This creates anxiety. You cannot be as happy as the bird, and you cannot be as blissful as the sky. No, you cannot be, because you are aware. Awareness creates anxiety.

When you are happy you know it is not going to stay. You are aware that this happiness is just going to pass like everything else. This too will pass. A sadness settles. Even while you are in your happiest mood you cannot be absolutely happy. The awareness that this will pass makes you sad. Even in the happiest moment, misery enters - it has to be so, because now you are two, and whatsoever you do and whatsoever you are, you will always be dual, divided. The happiest moment will always carry the saddest possibility in it, and you will be aware of it. Alive, young, full of life and zest - but death is there, following you like a shadow.

The bird will go on singing, and die, and will not be aware even for a single moment that death is coming. But if you are not aware of death, how can you be aware of life? Awareness of life is at a cost; the cost has to be paid. That cost is the fear of death. If you are aware of life, you are bound to be aware of death. And how can you be at ease? Alive, something is dying, continuously. Alive, you are moving towards the grave. How can you celebrate and dance? How can one go dancing towards the grave?

With awareness humanity enters into the world. But with awareness enters anxiety and anguish.

And this will be so unless you again become one. Duality is the anxiety. Hence Sufis, Vedantists, Zen people, all the mystics of all the ages, insist only on one thing, and that is: transcend duality, become ADVAITA, become nondual. Become one again.

You WERE one, because you have been a tree, and you have been a river, and you have been a rock in the Himalayas, and you have been a million types of birds and animals, and you have lived all kinds of lives - vegetable lives, mineral lives, animal lives. You have passed through existence many many times, in many many forms. You have been one, but unconsciously one. Now, the duality has arisen. You have to be one again, this time CONSCIOUSLY one.

Many times you will think: To become consciously one seems almost impossible. Rarely does a buddha happen. To a buddha, again the song comes, then again he is singing like a bird, he is flowering like a tree, he is open like the sky, he is rich like the earth, he is wild, like the wild ocean. Again he is one, but now this unity is a higher unity - the highest. He is consciously one.

Oneness has been attained through consciousness. He is again nature, but in a totally different way. The quality of his being has changed. He is again back to nature, but he is no more the same.

Consciousness has been attained.

But this happens rarely, so your mind will say: That seems to be impossible. It seems more possible to fall back into unconsciousness; hence the appeal of drugs, alcohol. Always, governments have been against drugs. Always, religions have been against drugs. Always, moralities have been against drugs. But still, for man they have a deep appeal. No law has been able to prohibit them from man.

What is the appeal? The appeal is this: alcohol and other drugs - now there are many in the market: marijuana, LSD, psilocybin... and many more will be coming - the appeal of drugs is that they give you the feeling of oneness without the effort of becoming a buddha. You fall back into nature. Through chemicals you force yourself back into unity with nature, where birds are singing and trees are flowering. You force yourself back.

This is a violence on the whole system of your being, and this is destroying the effort of nature to reach a higher harmony through you. This is against nature. For a few moments you can attain a forced oneness with nature, through drugs. But it cannot be a permanent achievement. It cannot become an integral part of your inner being. It can never become an integral part because to go back is not possible. You can only force yourself back.

It is like.... You cannot become a child again. You cannot step back. You cannot enter the womb of the mother again. There is no way back. Time doesn't move that way. It moves forward, it never moves backward. So you cannot go backward. The only way, the only going, is to go forward; there is no other going.

So drugs are a deception. They give you a feeling which is imaginary, hallucinatory, they give you a feeling that you are back, part of nature. People come to me; they say, "I have been on a drug trip, and it was beautiful, and so many things happened." Nothing happened! - because after it you are again the same, even worse. It only releases dreams in you, but you become so unconscious that you take the dreams to be real. You are not aware, so you cannot see whether this is a dream or a reality.

Under drugs you can think yourself a bird singing in the trees, flying in the sky, but you remain all the time on the earth. You have not moved a single inch. And when the trip is over and you open your eyes, you are where you were. But in the meanwhile a dream was created, a vivid dream, a very real-looking dream, not even a suspicion that this was just a hallucination of the mind. You have done something with the cells of the mind, and they have started revolving, and they have created something - sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes hell, sometimes heaven. It depends on your mood, the physical condition of your body, the situation around, the whole milieu.

So sometimes you can visit hell, and sometimes you can visit heaven through chemicals, but you are not going anywhere, you remain where you are. But man is in such anguish that if even for moments he can escape from duality it feels like freedom.

All religions have been against drugs. The reason is this: if you become an addict then the whole possibility of your higher dimension, of your higher unity, of achieving buddhahood, of becoming a christ, is lost. They are not against drugs, in fact. They are not concerned with drugs, they are concerned with your higher unity. If you start falling backwards in your mind, and if you become attuned with the lower unity of nature, then who will evolve? Then you have frustrated the very effort of nature through you. It was going to achieve God - and you are satisfied with a drug.

It is a poor substitute, very very poor - but the appeal indicates something; it indicates that man can be at home in only two ways. Either he falls back into nature through chemicals, through sex, or through other means, or he rises above himself, and reaches a point where his whole consciousness has become conscious; nothing remains unconscious in him. The dark continent of unconsciousness is there no more. All corners of his being are lighted up. This is the meaning of becoming a buddha. A buddha means he who has no unconscious. A buddha means he whose whole being is transformed into light, awareness. Again - the celebration, the marriage, the feast, but on a totally different plane.

Jesus used to tell a parable - and his parables are multidimensional - the parable of the prodigal son. One man had two sons - the two brothers wanted to separate from each other. The father divided the property in two, and the elder son remained with the father; the younger left with all the riches that he had now got. The younger left, gambled, indulged, destroyed the whole property, became a beggar, went completely astray.

Then one day while he was begging, suddenly a thought arose: If I go to my father, he will forgive me. I know him - he has the heart of a father. Even though I have destroyed half of his property, his life's labor - I have not been good to him and I have not served him - still I know he loves me, and if I go back he will accept me.

He came back. The news reached the father that the son was coming back, so he arranged a great feast. The fattest lamb was killed, the oldest wine was brought up from the cellar. He asked friends to come and celebrate the coming of the son: "My son is coming back home!"

The elder son was in the gardens, working in the field. When he was coming back a few people met him on the road and they said, "Look - look at the injustice! You have been serving your father for all these years. You have been an absolutely obedient son, you never went against any of his wishes.

But he never celebrated for you, a feast was never given, and now comes your younger brother, who has gone astray, gambled, indulged, indulged in sins, became a beggar. He was disobedient, a rebel.

Now he comes and your father is giving a feast. This is injustice!"

Of course, the elder brother also felt very angry, in a rage. He came running home and he asked his father, "What is this? What is going on? and for what? and for whom? This is injustice! I have been an obedient servant to you, and you never, never celebrated for ME. And now comes your younger son, who has destroyed everything, your whole life's labor, and you are arranging a feast! I cannot believe my eyes! Don't you love me? It seems you only love your younger son."

The father said, "That is not the point. You misunderstand me. He has gone astray, and now he is coming back. You have never gone astray, you have always been with me: there was no point in celebrating."

This parable is meaningful here, in the context of what I have said to you. Man is the prodigal son.

Trees have always remained with the father, the birds always remain with the father. The rocks and the skies always remain with the father. They have never left home, they never went astray.

Man is the prodigal son. He went astray, he indulged, he destroyed much. But whenever a man comes back, there is a feast, because when somebody goes astray, becomes rebellious, he attains much experience. Whenever someone goes rebellious he is enriched. Whenever someone goes off singing, he knows life more than those saints who have never left home. He is enriched. Going astray is a way of knowing. Going wrong is a way of becoming more aware. Man is the prodigal son.

Whenever a prodigal son comes back, a Buddha, a Jesus, a Mahavira, the whole existence - the father - celebrates. The fattest lamb is to be killed then, and the oldest wine brought up from the cellar. There is going to be much dancing, singing, drinking. The whole existence celebrates a buddha: the son has come back. And the son has not come back the same, but enriched - enriched with a higher consciousness, enriched with a higher unity. He has attained to something which nature was seeking through him.

But if you remain in the rebellion, if you remain on the road constantly going astray and astray and astray and never come back home, then there is going to be no celebration for you. Going astray is good, then so is coming back. One has to leave home to come back to it. In fact unless you leave it you will never be able to know what it is. You have to go astray in the wider world, only then when you come back will you realize what a home is. A buddha is nothing but a man come home.

You are buddhas still astray, still wandering here and there. Still you have not gathered the courage to come back to the father and ask his forgiveness. You don't trust. You don't trust the father that he will accept you. You don't accept yourself; how can you think that the father is going to accept you?

You condemn yourself; how can you think that the whole is going to take you into its bosom, into its very heart?

Trust. Come back home. You have traveled enough, suffered enough - it was necessary, but don't prolong it too much. The problem is: if one remains in suffering too long one becomes attuned to it, it becomes a habit. One starts enjoying it, one starts clinging to it.

Religion is nothing but an effort to help you come back home. Nature has thrown you into the wider world. It has been the greatest experiment ever. A part of nature has been uprooted, has been made homeless. This is a great opportunity to learn, a great opportunity to grow, a great opportunity to become aware, and come back home. Become more and more aware, and you are coming back home. When you are perfectly aware, suddenly you are in, at home.

You know the Christian parable that Adam was thrown out of the garden of Eden. But my feeling is:

Where can he be thrown out TO? - because the whole IS the garden of Eden. There is no outside to it. Existence has no outside. Existence is only INSIDE, because the whole is implied in it, so where can the outside be? No, Adam has not been thrown out of the garden of Eden, only, his eyes are closed. He has always lived inside the garden, but he cannot see it because he is not aware.

Once you start seeing, suddenly you find you are in the garden - you have always been in the garden. In fact, you have never left home, it was only a dream. But it was needed to become aware.

It was a hallucination, but it was needed. It was a nightmare, but it was needed. There was a need to be anxious, in anxiety, in anguish.

I would like to add one beatitude to Jesus' other beatitudes: Blessed are those who are in anguish, because they will attain to perfect consciousness.

Through anguish is the way. It passes through many hells, because without suffering nobody can become aware. That's why birds are not aware - they are not in suffering. Trees are not aware, they are not in suffering. Only man suffers; man is a special case. You should be proud of it. Man is an extraordinary phenomenon, man is not ordinary nature. Man is something new happening in nature, but it is so new that not even man is aware of what is happening to him. You have been thrown astray so that you have to seek and find where your home is. You have to make an effort to come back.

Now, this small anecdote:

SALIH OF QAZWIN TAUGHT HIS DISCIPLES: WHOEVER KNOCKS AT THE DOOR CONTINUALLY, IT WILL BE OPENED TO HIM.

RABIYA, HEARING HIM ONE DAY, SAID: HOW LONG WILL YOU SAY, IT WILL BE OPENED? THE DOOR HAS NEVER BEEN SHUT.

It is something rare in the history of Sufis, this small anecdote. It is rare because both are enlightened: Salih, a master in his own right, and Rabiya, a rare woman, very rare, because very few women have become enlightened. Rabiya is one of them. Both are enlightened masters. Neither can be wrong, both have to be true, but they contradict each other.

Listen again. Salih taught his disciples: WHOEVER KNOCKS AT THE DOOR CONTINUALLY, IT WILL BE OPENED TO HIM. He says, "Go on knocking at the door. And be continuous - don't rest!"

The door has to be knocked at continually. Just like Jesus says: Knock and it shall be opened unto you; ask and it shall be given, Salih used to say continuously: Knock and go on knocking! Don't rest.

Don't go on holiday, because nobody knows when the doors will open - you go on knocking! And nobody knows how much knocking is needed - so go on knocking. At a certain point, at a certain degree, the door opens.

Salih can't be wrong. But RABIYA, HEARING HIM ONE DAY, SAID: HOW LONG WILL YOU SAY, IT WILL BE OPENED? Your whole life you have been saying: It will be opened, it will be opened.

Go on knocking. And I say unto you, Rabiya said: THE DOOR HAS NEVER BEEN SHUT. What foolishness to say: Knock! The door is already open - enter!

The problem is that both have to be right. Had Salih been a man of scholarship, knowledgeable, there would be no problem. The anecdote would be simple. He didn't know, he is not aware of what he is saying. He must have read in the scriptures, must have come across the saying of Jesus:

Knock, and the door shall be opened to you. If he was a knowledgeable man, a pundit, there would be no problem: of course, Rabiya has to be right. But the problem is, Salih himself is a buddha! This man Salih is as enlightened as Rabiya - he cannot be wrong. And of course there is no possibility of Rabiya being wrong. Rabiya has to be right, and Salih has to be right. That is the puzzle.

Sufis have been thinking about this, how to solve it. It is always easy if one person has not attained; you can decide - he is wrong. The same type of problem has existed in the whole history of man.

Mahavira contradicts Buddha, Buddha contradicts Mahavira, and the problem is, both have to be right. And people who cannot go so deep decide that only one can be right. A few have decided that Mahavira is right - they have become Jainas. A few have decided that only Buddha can be right, Mahavira has to be wrong - they have become Buddhists. And I tell you, those two persons, those two guys, Mahavira and Buddha, they are both right; otherwise is not possible.

Then we have to go deeper. The matter cannot be settled so easily and on the surface. When Salih says, WHOEVER KNOCKS AT THE DOOR CONTINUALLY, IT WILL BE OPENED TO HIM, he is not saying anything about the door, whether it is shut or open. He is not saying anything about the door, he is saying something to the seeker: Knock continuously. The question is not about the door; the door is not referred to at all, the door is not the context. The gestalt is different, the emphasis is different. The emphasis is on the seeker.

Salih is concerned with the disciple. He says, "Go on knocking. Make every effort, knock continually."

When he is saying to the disciple, "Make an effort, knock continually," it is not a question of the door opening to him; by knocking continually the DISCIPLE will open. The door is not the point of reference. Salih is not concerned with that. He is saying, "You go on knocking!" - because if you continually knock, YOU will open; otherwise you will remain closed. Salih also knows the door has never been shut. It is open, but YOU are shut.

And had the door been shut, even, Salih would have opened it for you. It would be easy! Salih would have opened the door and stood in the doorway, and allowed everybody who wanted to enter. The question is not of the door, the question is of your being. Your eyes are closed, your consciousness is closed, your being is closed, and unless you knock continually you are not going to open the door.

And the door is not something outside; YOU are the door, and you are the one who has to enter it.

Of course, Salih is right. But his statement is not about the door, his statement is about the disciple, the seeker, one who is on the path.

This is how Patanjali talks. Patanjali is like Salih, thinking continuously of the disciple, of the seeker, thinking continuously of those who are closed, blind. They don't understand the language of the final attainment. Salih has more compassion, and he knows that the door is open, it has never been shut.

You have always been in the garden of Eden; Adam has never been expelled. He may be hypnotized, and a suggestion may have been given to him that he is expelled, so that he thinks that he is expelled; but he has never been expelled. Where can he be expelled to? The whole is the garden of Eden. Wherever he is, he is in the garden.

You cannot be out of God, wherever you are. You may be a thief, a murderer, a robber, it makes no difference, you are in God. When you rob, God robs through you. When you rob, God is robbed by you. When you murder, God is murdered. And when you murder, God is murdering. You cannot be outside. You may think so, that may be your idea, but that idea closes your eyes, not the door.

Each individual has to open his own heart. That's why Salih says, "Go on knocking continually; no holiday allowed, no rest. Don't be lazy, because if you work for a few days and then you stop, the whole work is undone; again you have to start from ABC. If you stop again, then again the same will be repeated." It is just like heating water: you heat the water up to fifty degrees, or eighty degrees, and then you take it off the fire, or you put the fire off and again the water cools down; it comes down to room temperature. Next day, again you heat it; again you put the fire off.... Unless the water reaches to a hundred-degree temperature it is not going to evaporate.

So go on knocking. A hundred-degree knocking is needed. Only then, suddenly, the door opens.

Not that the door opens, suddenly YOU open. Your eyes open; suddenly you are closed no more.

Your consciousness has become total. Unconsciousness has dissolved in it. No corner of your being is dark; everything is lighted up.

Salih is right, and Salih is more helpful. He thinks of those who have not yet reached. He has more compassion. He is not bothered about the right statement about truth. If even lies can help the travelers, he will use lies.

Buddha has defined truth as that which works. If a lie works, it is true. And if a truth cannot work, of what use is it? Throw it into the garbage can, it is of no use. Buddha's definition is really wonderful.

He was the first pragmatist in the world. Now scientists agree with Buddha. But science took twenty- five centuries to learn the secret. Now, science doesn't talk about truth; it says everything is just a hypothesis. And what is a hypothesis? - something that works. We don't know whether it is true or not, but it works. Next day, if we can find a better theory which works better than the old, that becomes the truth. Science goes on changing every day.

Truth cannot change, but you can always find a better working hypothesis. If it is more workable, it is more true. Nobody knows what truth is. All that we can decide is, if something works it is true, and if something doesn't work it is not true. The criterion can only be the working.

Salih must be agreeing with Buddha. He is not bothered about the door, whether it is such or not such. He is bothered about those who are seeking, on the path, groping in the dark. He is talking to THEM. He says, "Knock, knock continually."

WHOEVER KNOCKS AT THE DOOR CONTINUALLY, IT WILL BE OPENED TO HIM. And remember, it will be opened to HIM, not for all. If it is a question of the door being opened or closed, then one man can open it, and then it is open for all. Once opened it is opened, then all can enter into it. But it is not a question of the door at all. Everybody has to open it for himself, and nobody can open it for somebody else.

Buddhas only show the way. YOU have to travel, yOU have to work it out. They can only give you indications. They can only give you indications of the maps of higher consciousness, workable hypotheses. You have to work them out, because deep down it is not a question of doing something, it is a question of being different from you as you are. A different quality of being is needed. That is the door! Salih is absolutely right.

This is the distinction between Patanjali and Tilopa. Salih is like Patanjali; Rabiya is like Tilopa.

RABIYA, HEARING HIM ONE DAY, SAID: HOW LONG WILL YOU SAY, IT WILL BE OPENED? THE DOOR HAS NEVER BEEN SHUT.

This is the statement of one who has attained. It is meaningful only to those who have attained. It is truer than Salih; that's why Salih did not contradict it, he simply listened. And nothing is said about what he said, how he reacted. He would not react because he knows Rabiya is right, but uselessly right... uselessly right. Absolutely right, but of no use.

You cannot eat the absolute truth. You cannot drink the absolute truth. The absolute truth is like the water of the ocean - beautiful, but if you are there thirsty, of no use. For a thirsty man, sitting by the shore of the ocean, with tremendous waves coming, there is an infinity of ocean, but it is useless.

Absolute truth is like the water of the ocean. When you are thirsty, you need a small spring, you need a small well, to drink. An ocean won't help, it is too salty. It will kill you.

Rabiya is absolutely true: the door has never been shut. Who will shut it? Nature is not against you, God is not your enemy. Who will shut the door? The door has always remained open.

Move back to the story of the prodigal son. The father's heart was never shut. Nothing was needed to open it, not even a knock was needed to open it. Just the message - or not even the message, just the rumor - that the son was coming back, and the father started preparing a feast for him. Just the rumor, not even a knock, not even a message from the son saying, "I am coming"; just the rumor that the son is coming back, and the father started creating a feast for him, a reception, a welcome.

This is the meaning of God as father. The heart of existence is always open for you. It is waiting, throbbing for you, just waiting for the rumor that you are coming back; you have been away long, long, far away.

Who will shut the door? Rabiya is absolutely right, but this is the standpoint of the SIDDHAS, of those who have attained. Tilopa will talk in this way. Krishnamurti goes on talking in this way, but whatsoever he says is just like the water of the ocean - too salty to drink. It won't help anybody's thirst. A final statement of truth, of course, absolutely right, but absolutely useless.

Rabiya is saying something which can be understood only by the buddhas. But they don't need it! Salih, of course, understood it; that's why he remained silent, he wouldn't say anything. Of course Rabiya is right, but he won't say anything. And Salih continued to teach - even after this encounter with Rabiya he was heard again and again every day to say the same thing: WHOEVER KNOCKS AT THE DOOR CONTINUALLY, IT WILL BE OPENED TO HIM. He didn't say a single word to Rabiya because there was nothing to be said; she was right. But that didn't change his own mind. He continued.

Once a messenger came to me saying that Krishnamurti would like to meet me. I said, "That is beautiful. And whenever the possibility arises I will come and see him and meet him." But it is going to be useless, because I am Salih and he is Rabiya. I am talking to the disciples, and he is talking to the sky. I am talking to actual people who are thirsty, and he is talking in a vacuum. Whatsoever he says is true but useless. And whatsoever I say may not be so true, but it is useful.

Salih continued. He didn't say even a single word to Rabiya because what to say? - she is right!

The door has never been shut. But this truth is meaningful only when you have attained. When you have entered the door, then you come to know that the door has never been shut. But those who have not attained - if you say to them that the door has never been shut, you misguide them. You don't help them; rather, you hinder them, because if they hear that the door has never been shut, you don't know how they are going to interpret it. They are going to interpret it in this way: then there is no need to knock on it continuously, no need to knock when the door is not shut. And if they don't knock, the door is going to remain shut for them, because they will not open to it. You need a constant knocking.

It is just like Shankara used to say again and again; he used to use a metaphor: On a dark night a traveler is going along. Suddenly he sees a snake moving. He becomes afraid, he runs, backwards.

But there is no snake - just a rope lying on the street, and the rope has moved because a wind came and moved it.

He saw the rope moving, just a slight tremor in the rope, and he thought: "It is a snake!" He projects the snake, becomes afraid, as afraid as if the snake is real, and escapes from the place. But he has to go on, he has to pass that snake.

So he asks somebody. The man says, "There is no snake, because snakes are not found in this part of the country. You need not be afraid. Maybe it is just a rope."

But the traveler won't listen. He says, "I have seen it myself, and not only have I seen it, it moved, and it seems to be a very long and dark, dangerous snake!"

Then another man who is listening to the whole dialogue comes with a lamp and he says, "Come, follow me." This man also knows that in this part of the country snakes are not found. He also knows that it is more possible that it is going to be a rope, because sometimes he has also encountered ropes on the street and thought that they were snakes, and always it was found later on that there was no snake - snakes are not found in that part. But you can't tell this man, "There is no snake, don't be afraid. You go ahead, don't bother about it." That will not be of much help. He brings a lamp.

Knowing well that there is no snake, still he brings a lamp. The man follows behind the lamp. They reach the place. There is no need to say anything: with the lamp the man can see it is just a rope.

He laughs, thanks the man who has brought the lamp, and goes ahead.

Salih is the man who will bring a lamp, knowing well that there is no snake, just a rope. Rabiya will just make the statement, "There is no snake to be found in this part of the country. Don't be foolish; go ahead." She is absolutely true, but useless. This statement is not going to help this man. This statement can be understood only by those people who know that part of the country, who live there - but for them it is not needed.

If I was listening to Rabiya it would be useless to say to me that the door is not shut, because I also know it. The question is not of me, the question is of those who don't know. If it is said to them it is going to become a hindrance.

This has been my observation: Krishnamurti has not helped people, he has created many hindrances. And he has been talking about truth and nothing else. He has hindered many people because he says, "It is YOU who attain the truth." It is absolutely true, nobody can help you - that too is true. But this assertion has not helped anybody, it has hindered. Many people listening to him have become very egoistic. They think: "Nobody can help us. No master is needed. No reverence, no trust - we alone are enough." And they have not reached anywhere. They have not become humble through it, they have become egoists.

Krishnamurti says no meditation is needed. Absolutely true, a hundred percent true. But people who have listened to him have not achieved that state which he means by "no meditation." And they are as miserable as anybody else. They come to me and they say, "We understand that no meditation is needed, but still nothing has happened to us." Then I tell them, "Then do meditation. You have tried no meditation, now you try meditation."

But they say, "This is not right, because Krishnamurti says no meditation is needed." Now he has created a barrier for meditations, and by his saying that no meditation is needed, these people have become addicted to the idea of no meditation.

I also know that no meditation is needed, but that state comes only after you have meditated for a long, long time. When you have been knocking continually, one day suddenly you become aware that the door is open: "It is not shut, why am I knocking?" But this realization comes through knocking for years and years, and even for lives. The knocking doesn't open the door, the knocking breaks your sleep. The knocking itself creates a situation in which you become alert, jostled out of your sleep, shocked out of your sleep.

When I say meditate, I know that through meditation nobody reaches, but through meditation you reach to the point where no meditation becomes possible. Unless you meditate, how will "no meditation" become possible? One has to go through meditations, and as strongly and as totally as possible. Nothing should be left out. You should bring your total energy to it. You should knock your head against the wall. Not that the wall will break and the door will open - the door is always open, but knocking your head against it, suddenly you will come out of your sleep. The dreams will break, not the door. The door has always been open.

I will tell you one anecdote. It happened: A man came to Nagarjuna, the great Buddhist mystic, and the greatest alchemist that India has ever produced. The man said, "I would like to meditate, but I cannot. I try to concentrate on the name of God, but my mind goes on slipping here and there. I completely forget the name of God, and other things come into the mind. My mind is a crowd, and I cannot manage it in any way. Help me."

Nagarjuna looked at the man and said, "Forget about God. Tell me one thing: do you love somebody?"

The man felt a little awkward, embarrassed. He said, "You have asked and I cannot be untrue to you. But don't laugh at me, I am a foolish man. I don't love anybody; I love only my buffalo. But I really love her, she is a beautiful being."

Nagarjuna said, "That will do, because it makes no difference whether you love God or the buffalo.

Even a buffalo is a god - a goddess. So that will do. You just go into that cave, and sit inside the cave, and you just continuously think only one thing - that you have become your buffalo."

The man said, "This will do, I can do it. In fact, I am wondering how you came to know it, because sometimes I think... I love my buffalo so much that sometimes I think how it will be if I become a buffalo in my next life."

Nagarjuna said, "You go, and don't come out of it until I come and ask you to come out."

One day passed. The second day passed. The third day passed. On the fourth day, in the morning, Nagarjuna reached the cave and he said to the man, "Now please come out." The man tried, tried but he would not come out. Nagarjuna said, "What is the matter?"

The man said, "You see? the door is so small... and don't you see my horns? I cannot get out of it!" Three days, continuously thinking that he is a buffalo, a buffalo, a buffalo.... He autohypnotized himself: he WAS a buffalo! Whatsoever you think, you become. Thinking creates your identity.

The man started weeping. He said, "Now it seems that I will never in my life be able to get out of this cave. And for three days I have been hungry and thirsty, and now I cannot get out. You help me, please!" And tears started rolling down his face.

Nagarjuna said, "It is difficult, I can see it is so difficult. Now you have to go back and again become a man. Now think that you are a man and not a buffalo."

The man had to think for at least three hours that he was a man and not a buffalo - in three hours the buffalo disappeared, the delusion disappeared. He opened his eyes. He came out laughing, and he said to Nagarjuna, "Whatsoever I needed, I have attained."

Nagarjuna said, "Now you know. You can meditate. But through meditation one starts getting new identities. You are a worldly man; you meditate, then you become a spiritual man: a new identity. But to be spiritual is as wrong as to be worldly. The real thing only happens when there is NO identity.

Now this is a new illusion. But it helps. From the world you move to the spiritual. From being a householder you become a sannyasin. From being a materialist you become spiritual. You create a new illusion. To throw the old out, the new is needed."

But, passing through the old to the new, there is a gap between the two in which you will be nobody, and once that nobodiness is realized, you can follow it. Then no meditation is needed. No methods are needed, no techniques are needed.

I am as much against techniques as Krishnamurti, even more, but I am not talking to myself here.

Krishnamurti is in a monologue; it is not a dialogue. He is talking to himself, he is not talking to you, you are just an excuse. He is in a monologue.

I am talking to YOU, otherwise what is the point of talking? And when I am talking to you, I look to your need. And the question is not: What is truth? The question is: If I say something to you, what are you going to do about it? If I say the door is not shut, you will stop knocking. That is the logical conclusion. If I say no methods are needed, you will drop methods, but then you will remain the same as you are.

A man who has compassion has to think how others are going to react to his statements. The statement is not the point - how you react to the statement is the point: what energy it creates in you, where it leads you. If that leads you towards truth, towards the door which is always open, then I will also say: Knock, and knock continually.

One day you will realize that Rabiya was right, Salih was not right. But still, you will feel grateful to Salih and not to Rabiya, because without Salih you would have never been able to realize that Rabiya was right. This is the complexity. Rabiya cannot be a master, Salih can be a master; Krishnamurti cannot be a master, Patanjali can be a master - because being a master means that an enlightened person is relating himself to the ignorant ones. And when ignorance and enlightenment meet, there is bound to be a happening. In that happening the ignorant person will contribute something, and something will be contributed by the enlightened person. Something will be wrong, something will be right. And the whole art of the master is how to bring you out, by and by, slowly, step by step, layer by layer, towards himself.

He has to compromise with you. To help you to come towards him, he has to come towards you.

In that coming, he will say things which are not absolutely true, cannot be. He will have to devise things which are in a way arbitrary. They are like boats. You use them, and when you have used them, when you have crossed the river, you leave them in the river and you go on. They are like ladders. You pass over them, and then they are useless. They are means, not ends.

Salih is saying something as a means. Rabiya is talking about the end. Both are true. Rabiya will be found, in the end, absolutely true. But Salih is true in the beginning, and the beginning IS the end, because if there is no beginning there can be no end. Remember this: you have to take care of the beginning. The end will take care of itself. Rabiya, Krishnamurti, Tilopa - if you forget them, nothing is lost. They are the ends. But if you forget Patanjali, Buddha, Bodhidharma, Salih, then everything is lost, because they are the beginning.

You take care of the beginning and the end will take care of itself. The end follows the beginning.

Go on knocking at the door. Continually knock at the door. And I know that the door has never been shut, it is open. But still you have to knock - only then will it open for you, because through knocking, you will be open to it.

Enough for today.