Kaivalya Upanishad, Chapter 26

With the natural, the spontaneous, the spiritual voice, everything is total. Acts become total, and the moment any act is total there is no continuity. You do it, and it drops - just like dead leaves dropping from a tree. The tree is not going to remember them. They were complete in a sense, they were perfect in a sense; and the moment has come for them to drop.

Just like this, actions go on dropping and the mind remains unburdened and fresh. This is the criterion: observe inside yourself and until you come to a point where division of the mind is transcended, don't stop; go on inwards. Ultimately the basic rock is attained. That basic rock is one part of the techniques shown here.

The second part is the word "AUM." The sutra says that by making the mind the lower ARONY, or churning stick, and AUM the upper churning stick, and by repeated churning, a wise man burns up all the causes of his bondage. In ancient India, for creating fire, churning sticks were used; they were called ARONIES. Two sticks rubbed together can create fire, so particular wood was used to make these sticks. Just by rubbing them, fire was created. So this sutra says: conscience is one churning stick, AUM is another, and by these two - constant churning by these two - an inner fire is created. That fire burns all the causes of bondage, and man becomes freedom - not free, but freedom.

This AUM has to be understood. This AUM is not a word, it is just a sound - just a sound, like the sound we are using in the morning meditation, "hoo." AUM is just a sound like hoo. I am using hoo rather than AUM for a specific reason: AUM can be used only when society is in a very innocent state. If the society is very innocent, unsophisticated - not very tense, relaxed - then AUM can be used as a churning stick, because if you say AUM, it never goes below the heart. Create the sound AUM, and it never goes below the heart. For those who are very innocent, this much is enough. But in our age, which has become specifically sexual, tense, anxious, pathological, psychotic, AUM will not help. That's why I am using hoo; hoo goes deep down to the very sex center.

Hoo is part of a Sufi mantra: Allah hoo - the last part. Sufis use it as AUM. They begin by repeating, "Allah, Allah, Allah." Constantly repeating, "Allah, Allah" becomes "Allah hoo." If you repeat it constantly then Allah will begin to look like Allah hoo. Then Allah is dropped by and by, and simply hoo is retained; and that hoo works very deeply. Why do Sufis use hoo? Because the Arabic race is one of the most sexual - one of the most sexual races on earth, Sufis had to devise a different sound to work with their race; they used hoo.

As I see it now, the whole world has become Arabic. Now AUM will not do; hoo will do - but both mean nothing. Neither does AUM mean anything nor does hoo mean anything, they are just sounds used as an inner hammering. If a person is heart-oriented, then AUM will do the work of an arony, a churning stick. Find your conscience - the authentic, real, basic, your own - then use AUM. But if the personality is not heart-oriented but sex-oriented, then AUM will not help; then hoo will help.

So it depends: Where is your energy? If it is in your heart - that means if you are more love-oriented rather than sex-oriented - if you are love-oriented then the energy of your body, of your mind, of your spirit, is in the heart center, and then AUM will do; AUM is mild. But if it is not in the heart, then hoo will be better. One thing more: if the energy is in the heart, hoo will also do. But if it is in the sex center, AUM will not do. Hoo passes the heart center, goes deeper. AUM goes up to the heart center; it cannot go deeper.

But in those days when this sutra was written, they never felt the need of hoo; people were innocent, more authentic to their being, less conditioned, nearer to nature, less nurtured, less cultured, less civilized - more authentic to their own being. Then both were simple; to find the authentic conscience was not a difficult affair, it was easy; then to use AUM was not difficult. With a natural conscience, this sound AUM hitting it continually, hammering it, creates an inner fire. And that inner fire burns everything that has become the cause of our bondage. It burns the whole past; not only the past, it burns the whole future. Then you are in an eternity, without any past and without any future. Then you are just in the present.

Then you begin to live moment to moment, free - totally free, with no bondage, with no commitment with the past, with no longing, with no investment with the future. Moving moment to moment, totally free, spontaneous; this freedom is the longing of all religions. This freedom is the flowering of the religious phenomenon.

Why can this constant hammering of AUM or hoo, or any sound, create an inner fire? For two reasons: one, words are electric forces, sounds are electrical - every sound is electrical.

In Tibet there is one famous yoga exercise known as heat-yoga. A Tibetan Buddhist monk has to pass an examination before he becomes a perfect ordained monk; he has to pass through the examination of heat-yoga. Heat-yoga means that the monk, the BHIKKHU, stands in a cold night, surrounded everywhere by snow, naked. And he has to create an inner heat, so that his body begins to perspire. If he cannot pass this examination then he cannot be ordained as a Buddhist lama. So every lama, to be a lama, has to pass through this examination. And it happens; it happens!

An absolutely cold night, when even blood begins to freeze, and this bhikku who is being examined...

and they are examined, many in one night; sometimes even one thousand are examined in one night.

They begin to perspire - not only perspire, they begin to burn. If you touch them, they are burning.

What are they doing inside? With no outside heat, fire, nothing... what are they doing? And standing naked! They are using a particular sound which, hitting inside, creates body electricity.

You may have heard - it is neither a fiction, nor is it just a superstition - that sometimes yogis have burned themselves through their inner heat. Just ten years ago, a Sikh yogi burned himself in Uttar Pradesh, in front of hundreds of observers. Just sitting in a temple, meditating inside, then flames were seen, and the whole body was burning. It was examined medically and it was proved that no fuel was used - nothing from outside was found to be used. The fire came from somewhere inside, and the whole body became just ashes.

A particular sound can create fire inside; a particular sound can create coolness, because sound means electricity. If you hit a particular sound continuously, it creates heat - AUM creates heat; hoo creates even more heat. That fire created by AUM in the conscience, in the ANTAHKARAN, burns everything that was you, and a new man is born - a new birth, a freedom is born.

THE NIGHT MEDITATION Just because of the full moon we will be doing KIRTAN. So come near; the nearer you are the better.