A light unto yourself

LIFE CAN BE LIVED IN TWO WAYS. One is that of the soldier, and the other, that of the sannyasin. Either you can fight with life or you can relax with life.

Either you can try to conquer life or you can live in a deep let-go. The path of the soldier is the wrong path, because it is impossible to conquer life - the part cannot conquer the whole. Frustration and failure is absolutely certain. You can play around the idea, but it is not going to succeed; it is doomed to failure. The soldier tries to conquer the life, and in the end finds he has been crushed by life, defeated by life, destroyed by life.

Life destroys nobody, but if you fight with it you will be destroyed by your own violence. Life is not against you. How can it be? Life is your mother. It is life that has brought you here. You are born out of it. You are a ray of its light, a wave of its ocean. You are intrinsic and organic to it, you are not separate. But if you start fighting your own source of energy, you will be destroyed. Your very concept of fight will poison you. And of course, the more you feel that you are losing the battle, the harder you will fight. The harder you fight, the more frustrated you become.

The soldier's way is the ordinary way. Almost ninety-nine point nine percent of people follow it - hence there is so much misery, hence there is so much hell. It is created by you, by your wrong approach to life. Once you understand it, you start getting in tune with the whole, you start getting into a dance with the whole. You lose fighting, you start cooperating.

The moment you decide to cooperate, you have become a sannyasin.

The religious person is one who has no idea of separation from the whole... who never thinks, never dreams that he is separate... who has no private goal of his own... who simply moves with life in total trust. If you cannot trust life, who are you going to trust? If you cannot allow life to flow through you, you will be missing - you will be missing this tremendous opportunity to be alive. Then you will get worried, then you will be caught in your own mind. And then misery is the natural outcome.

To understand that conflict is not the way to be happy, is the greatest understanding. To understand that cooperation is the way to be blissful... and your dark night of the soul is over and the morning has come, and the sun is rising on the horizon. You will be transformed.

This very understanding is a transforming force - that cooperation is the key, not conflict. Trust is the key, not doubt. Violence is not the way... love. This is the basic framework.

Now the sutra:

A MONK ASKED THE BUDDHA: WHAT IS MOST POWERFUL AND WHAT IS MOST ILLUMINATING?

We are all asking only these two questions. First, what is most powerful? Because we are all on a power trip. We want to be powerful because we feel we are impotent, we feel we are weaklings, we feel we are limited. A thousand and one limitations surround you. Everywhere you come against a wall and you feel powerless. Each moment of life brings you the feeling of helplessness.

So, the question is very pertinent, a very human question. What is the most powerful thing in the world? The monk must have been a seeker of power. Now, you have to understand it. The very effort, the very desire to be powerful, is one of the obstacles to attaining power. People who try to become powerful never become powerful. They are destroyed by their own search. Because the effort to become powerful means you are in conflict. You want fight - that's why you want to be powerful.

Otherwise, why do you need power in the first place? You must have some aggression, some violence, some grudge. You want to prove and perform. You want to prove to others that you are powerful and they are not. Deep down somewhere, like a shadow in the unconscious, an Adolf Hitler is seeking its way towards your conscious mind - or a Nadir Shah, or a Napoleon, or an Alexander. Everybody is carrying an Alexander within himself.

This desire for power has created many things in the world. Science has come as a desire for power, and it has created power. But that power is destroying humanity. It has come to such a state that people like Albert Einstein feel that they have done a crime against humanity. In the last days of his life, somebody asked Albert Einstein, 'If you were born again, what would you like to become?'

He said, 'Never a physicist again, never a scientist. Rather, I would like to become a plumber.'

He was a very sensitive man, very understanding. And only in the end could he understand that he has released so much energy, and he has made humanity aware of such a destructive force - atomic energy - that if humanity destroys itself, he is bound to be one of the most responsible persons.

The very framework of science is to conquer nature. That is the very terminology of science - conquest of nature. We have to overpower nature and we have to destroy all mysteries of nature, and we have to find all the keys of power, wherever it is. But the very idea takes you away from nature, makes you antagonistic to it and becomes destructive. The ecology of the earth has been destroyed by this power seeking. In the outside, in the inside - both - the natural rhythm of life is disturbed.

I have heard:

A very unusual idea occured one day to Frederick of Prussia. He was in the country when he saw some sparrows eating some grains of wheat. He started to think and reached the conclusion that these small birds consumed a million pecks of wheat a year in his kingdom. This cannot be allowed. They have to be either conquered or destroyed.

Since it was difficult to exterminate them, he promised a price for each dead sparrow. All Prussians became hunters and soon there were no more sparrows in the country. What a great victory.

Frederick of Prussia was very happy. He celebrated the event as a great conquest over nature. The king was very happy until the following year when he was told that caterpillars and locusts had eaten the crops because without sparrows the whole rhythm of life was destroyed. Sparrows go on eating caterpillars and locusts. There being no sparrows, the whole crop was destroyed by caterpillars.

Then it was necessary to bring in sparrows from abroad. And the king said, 'I certainly have made a mistake. God knows what he is doing.'

The great scientific minds of this century are coming, by and by, slowly, reluctantly, to recognize that a great mistake has been done.

The very desire to be powerful is against nature, because the very desire to be powerful is antagonistic. Why do you need to be powerful? You must be thinking in terms of destroying somebody. Power is needed to destroy. Power is needed to dominate. Power is needed to conquer.

The monk must have asked, 'What is the most powerful thing in the world?' In fact the actual word must have been siddhi. The monk must have asked, 'What is siddhi, what is power?'

Science tries to penetrate nature to get more power, and there are many systems which penetrate your innermost being - but again the goal is to get more power.

Whether you become powerful in a scientific way, or you become powerful in a psychic way, it makes no difference. Now the West is becoming interested in psychic sciences, but the urge is the same - to be more powerful.

So first try to understand why man seeks power in the first place. The very desire is that of a soldier. You want power because without power you cannot be a great ego. For ego, power functions as food, nourishment. You seek power because only with power will you be able to say 'I am'. The more money you have, the more power you have, the more you can feel at ease with your 'I am'.

The more you can destroy people, the more you can feel that nobody can destroy you.

Now psychologists say that people are interested in murdering, killing, in war, because when they kill others they feel very powerful. They feel power against death. They think they can create death - they can kill others. Now, they feel in a deep way that they have become immortal. Even death is under their control. It is foolish, but the idea arises. People who love killing are people who are afraid of death.

Adolf Hitler was very much afraid of death - so much so that he never allowed anybody to stay with him in his room in the night. Not even a girlfriend was ever allowed, he was so afraid of death. Who knows? - the girlfriend may turn out to be a spy, may be an agent in the hands of the enemy. He never trusted even love.

He was one of the most lonely men who has ever existed on earth... and so afraid, continuously trembling. But he continued killing people - that was just to balance the fear. The more he killed, the more he felt that he had power. The more he felt that he had power, the more he felt that death could not destroy him. He started feeling as if he was immortal.

Have you watched? - in wartime people look very radiant. In wartime people look very fresh. Ordinarily they look very bored. When war starts, you can see - their step has changed, their eyes have now a glimmer, a radiancy... their face looks more alive, as if the dust of the boredom is gone. Something sensational is happening.

It should not be so, but whenever there is war people feel a power over death - they can kill. Immediately, in the shadow of their unconscious they feel, 'Even death is within our boundary. We can bring it or we can stop it.' People love destruction just as a measure of providing security against death.

The search for power is the search not to surrender, not to feel helpless, not to be in a state where you are not in control. And the religious man is doing just the opposite. He is seeking a state where he is not in control but the whole is in control - call it god, call it the supreme, or whatsoever you like to call it.

The religious person is one who wants to be in such a deep harmony that there is no question of conflict. He is seeking love. He is seeking a love affair with the universe. He never asks about power. He asks how to lose separation, how to merge. He asks, 'How to be in such a total surrender that I don't move in any way against the whole or separate from the whole, so that I can move with the river of life. And wherever the river of life goes, I can go with it'.

WHAT IS MOST POWERFUL? ASKED THE MONK.

THE BUDDHA SAID:

MEEKNESS IS MOST POWERFUL.

Jesus says, 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' The statement looks absurd, because the meek? - they have never been powerful enough to inherit the earth. And we cannot conceive that they will ever be able to inherit the earth. But Jesus is saying something very true: Blessed are the meek.

And when he says they shall inherit the earth, he is saying this same message that Buddha is saying. MEEKNESS IS MOST POWERFUL - that is his meaning when he says they shall inherit the earth.

Meekness is powerful, but the power has a totally different connotation now.

Meekness is powerful because now there is nobody against you. Meekness is powerful because you are no more separate from the whole - and the whole is powerful. Meekness is powerful because you are no more fighting, and there is no way of your being defeated. Meekness is powerful, because with the whole you have already conquered. All victory is with the whole. Meekness is powerful because you are riding on the wave of the whole. Now there is no possibility of your ever being defeated.

It looks paradoxical, because the meek person is one who does not want to conquer. The meek person is one who is ready to be defeated. Lao Tzu says, 'Nobody can defeat me because I have accepted defeat already. Now how can you defeat a defeated person? Lao Tzu says, 'Nobody can defeat me because I am standing as the last person in the world. You cannot push me any further back - there is no "further back". I am the last person.' Jesus also says, 'Those who are last in this world will be first in my kingdom of god.'

Those who are the last will be the first? It does not seem possible in this world. In this world, aggressive people, violent people, tend to power, tend to be victorious. You will find the most mad people in the most powerful places, because to reach to that point one has almost to be crazy for power, the competition is such. The competition is so violent that how can a meek person reach to a state of power? No... but that is not the meaning.

When Buddha says, MEEKNESS IS MOST POWERFUL, he is saying you cannot defeat a meek person because he has no desire to conquer. You cannot force a meek person to be a failure because he never wanted to succeed. You cannot enforce a meek person to be poor, because he has no desire for riches. Poverty is his richness. Not to be anybody in particular is his way of life. To be a nobody is his very style.

What can you take away from him? He has nothing. He cannot be cheated, he cannot be robbed. In fact, he cannot be destroyed because he has already surrendered that which can be destroyed. He has no self, no ego of his own.

It happened when Alexander was going back from India, he wanted to take a sannyasin with him. When he was coming to conquer India, his teacher, the great philosopher Aristotle, had told him, 'When you are coming back, bring a gift to me. I would like to see a sannyasin from India.' That is something very original to the East. That contribution belongs to the East. The West has given great warriors, the East has given great sannyasins. Aristotle was intrigued with the very idea of sannyas, what it is.

Alexander, going back, remembered. He enquired. The people of that village where he was staying told him, 'Yes, there is a sannyasin, but we don't think you will be able to take him back.' He laughed at the foolishness of the villagers, because who can prevent Alexander? He said, 'If I want to take the Himalayas, even they will follow me. So you don't be worried, just tell me where he is.' They told him.

He was a naked fakir, a naked man standing just by the side of the river outside the village... a beautiful person. Dandamis was his name - that's how Alexander's historians have remembered him. Two soldiers were sent. They told the sannyasin, 'Alexander the Great wants you to follow him. You will be a royal guest. Whatsoever you need will be provided, every comfort will be made possible. Accept the invitation.'

The naked man started laughing. He said, 'I have dropped all wandering. I don't go anywhere any more. I have come home.'

They said, 'Don't be stupid. The great Alexander can force you to go. If you don't go as a guest, you will go as a prisoner. The choice is yours. Anyway you will have to go.'

He started laughing again. He said, 'I have dropped the very thing that can be imprisoned. Nobody can make me a prisoner. I am freedom.'

Alexander himself came. He took his sword out and he told the sannyasin, 'If you don't come with me, this sword is here and I will cut your head.'

The sannyasin said, 'You can do it. In fact I have done it already. I have cut my head myself. And if you cut my head, you will see it falling down on the ground and I will also see it falling on the ground, because I have become a witness.'

It is said that Alexander could not gather courage to kill this man. He was so happy, he was so fearless, he was so blissful.

When Buddha says, MEEKNESS IS MOST POWERFUL, he means one who does not exist as an ego is meek. One who does not exist as an ego cannot be conquered, cannot be defeated, cannot be destroyed. He has gone beyond.

By going beyond the ego, you go beyond death. By going beyond the ego, you go beyond defeat. By going beyond the ego, you go beyond powerlessness. This is a totally different concept of power - the power of a sannyasin.

This power is no more out of conflict. This power is not created out of friction.

You say electricity is created out of friction. You can create electricity out of friction, you can create fire out of friction. If you rub both your hands, they will become hot. There is a power that comes out of friction - by conflict. And there is a power that comes by cooperation - not by friction but by harmony. That's what Buddha says - 'One who is in accord with the way is great.' One who is in accord with the way is powerful. But to be in accord with the way, one has to be meek.

Blessed are the meek. Certainly they shall inherit the earth. History will never know about them, because history has nothing to do with them. History knows only friction, history knows only mischief. History knows only mischief- mongers. History knows only mad people - because history records only when something goes wrong. When everything goes absolutely in tune, it is out of time and out of history also.

History does not report much about Jesus - in fact, nothing. If the Bible was not in existence, there would have been no record about Jesus. And I would like to tell you that many people like Jesus have existed, but we don't have any record about them. History never took any note. They were so meek, they were so silent, they were so in tune, so deep in harmony, that not even a ripple was created around them. They came and they left, and they have not left even a footprint.

History has not been recording Buddhas. That's why when you hear about a Buddha or a Mahavira or a Zarathustra, they look like mythological figures, not historic. It appears that they never existed, or they only existed in the dreams of man, or they existed only in the poetries of a few imaginative, romantic people.

They look like wish-fulfillments. They look like how man would like man to be...

but not realities. They were real. They were so real that no trace has been left behind them.

Unless you create some mischief, you will not be leaving your signature on history. That's why history records only politics, because politics is the mechanism of mischief. The politician is in conflict. The religious person lives in harmony. He lives like trees. Who records about trees? He lives like rivers. Who records about rivers? He moves like clouds. Who bothers about clouds?

The meek person is one who is in harmony. And Buddha says he is the most powerful. But this concept of power is totally different. To understand it, a few things will be good to remember.

In Japan they have a beautiful science - aikido. The word 'aikido' comes from a word 'ki'. 'Ki' means power. The same word in Chinese is 'chi'. From 'chi' comes t'ai chi - that too means power. Just equivalent to ki and chi is the indian word 'prana'. It is a totally different concept of power.

In aikido they teach that when somebody attacks you, don't be in conflict with him - even when somebody attacks you. Cooperate with him. This looks impossible, but one can learn the art. And when you have learned the art, you will be tremendously surprised that it happens - you can cooperate even with your enemy. When somebody attacks you, aikido says go with him.

Ordinarily when somebody attacks you, you become stiff, you become hard. You are in conflict. Aikido says even take attack in a very loving way. Receive it. It is a gift from the enemy. He is bringing great energy to you. Receive it, absorb it, don't conflict.

In the beginning it looks impossible. How? Because for centuries we have been taught about one idea of power, and that is that of conflict, friction. We know only one power and that is of fight. We know only one power, and that is of no, saying no.

You can watch it even in small children. The moment the child starts becoming a little independent, he starts saying no. The mother says, 'Don't go out.' He says, 'No, I will go.' The mother says, 'Keep quiet.' He says, 'No. I want to sing and dance.' Why does he say no? He is learning ways of power. 'No' gives power.

Aikido says, 'say yes'. When the enemy attacks you, accept it as a gift. Receive it, become porous. Don't become stiff. Become as liquid as possible. Receive this gift, absorb it, and the energy from the enemy will be lost and you will become the possessor of it. There will be a jump of energy from the enemy to you.

A master of aikido, without fighting, conquers. He conquers by non-fighting. He is tremendously meek, humble. The enemy is destroyed by his own attitude. He is creating enough poison for himself; there is no need for you to help him. He is suicidal. He is committing suicide by attacking. There is no need for you to fight with him.

You just try it sometimes. You have watched it - the same phenomenon happening in many ways. You see a drunkard walking on the road, and then he falls in the gutter. But he is not hurt. By the morning you will see him again going to the office, perfectly healthy and okay. The whole night he was in the gutter. He fell, but he has not broken his ribs or his bones, he has no fracture.

You fall - and you will immediately have a fracture. What is happening when a drunkard falls? He falls so totally, he goes with it. He is drunk, he cannot resist.

It is said about Chuang Tzu.... He came across an accident. A bullock cart had gone upside down, had fallen in a ditch. The driver was hurt very much, the owner was hurt; he had fractures. But a drunkard was also travelling in the bullock cart with the owner. He was not hurt at all. He was not even aware of what had happened, he was snoring. He had fallen on the ground. The others were crying and weeping and he was fast asleep. Chuang Tzu said, 'Seeing this, I understood what Lao Tzu means when he says "let go".'

Children are doing this every day. You watch children. The whole day they fall here and there, but they are not hurt. You do the same. It will be impossible for you - you will have to be hospitalized. Within a day, twenty-four hours, you will be hospitalized. The children fall in accord. When they fall they are not resisting, they are not going against the fall, they are not trying to protect themselves. They don't go stiff. In fact, they fall in a very relaxed way.

Aikido, t'ai chi, or what Jesus calls meekness, what Buddha calls meekness, depend on the same principle - the principle of harmony.

You try it in your life; you just try in small experiments. Somebody slaps your face. Try to absorb it, receive it. Feel happy that he has released energy on your face - and see how it feels. You will have a totally different feeling. And that has happened many times unawares. A friend comes and slaps you on your back.

You don't know who it is - then you look. He is a friend and you are feeling happy. It was a friendly slap. You look back and he is an enemy, and you feel hurt.

The quality of the slap immediately changes with your attitude. If it is a friend you accept it. It is beautiful, it is a loving thing. If he is the enemy, then it is not loving, it is full of hate. The slap is the same, the energy is the same, the same impact of energy, but your attitude changes.

You can watch it many times. Just now it is raining. You will be going back home. You can take it in an aikido way, or you can take it in the ordinary way.

The ordinary way is that you will see that your clothes will become wet, or you may get cold, or this may happen, or that may happen. And you will be against the rains. You will be running towards home in a bad mood, antagonistic.

This has happened many times. You try aikido. You relax, you enjoy the falling drops of water on your face. It is tremendously beautiful. It is so soothing, so cleansing, so refreshing. What is wrong in your clothes getting wet? Why be so worried about it? They can be dried. But why miss this opportunity? The heaven is meeting with the earth. Why miss this opportunity? Why not dance it?

Don't rush and don't run. Slow down, enjoy. Close your eyes and feel the drops falling on your eyelids, moving on your face. Feel the touch of it. Accept it... a gift from heaven. And suddenly you will see - it is beautiful, and you have never looked at it that way.

Try it in ordinary life experiences. Conflict you have always been in. Now try accord. And suddenly you will see - the whole meaning changes. Then you are no more in antagonism with nature. Suddenly the sun arises, the clouds have disappeared, and a great light falls on your face. Take it easily, take it as a love gift from the sun. Close your eyes, absorb it. Drink the light. Feel happy, blessed.

And you will see - it is a totally different energy.

Otherwise you start perspiring. You may perspire still, because heat is heat, but deep down the meaning has changed. Now you perspire, but you feel good.

Nothing is wrong in perspiring. It cleanses you, it takes toxins outside, it releases poison from the body. It is a purifying fire. Just the attitude....

MEEKNESS IS MOST POWERFUL.

And meekness means the attitude of no-friction, no-conflict... the attitude of harmony. 'I am not, god is' is what meekness is. 'I am not, the whole is' - that is the meaning of meekness.

Ordinarily we live through the ego and we suffer. And the ego goes on misinterpreting. Last night I was reading a beautiful anecdote:

Some years back a senator from the Interior Committee visited an Indian Reservation in Arizona, where he made a fine speech full of promises of better things, as politicians always do. 'We shall see,' he said, 'a new era of Indian opportunity.' To this the Indians gave a ringing cry of 'Hoya! Hoya!'

Encouraged, the senator continued, 'We promise better schools and technical training.' 'Hoya! Hoya!' exclaimed the audience with much enthusiasm. 'We pledge better hospitals and medical assistance,' said the senator. 'Hoya! Hoya!'

cried the Indians.

With a tear running down his cheek, the senator ended, 'We come to you as equals, as brothers, so trust us.' The air shook with one long mighty 'Hoya!'

Greatly pleased by his reception, the senator then began a tour of the reservation.

'I see you have fine breeds of beef cattle here,' he said. 'May I inspect them?'

'Certainly, come this way,' said the chief, 'but be careful not to step in the hoya.'

The ego is just hoya, a misunderstanding. It is non-existential - yet the dirtiest thing possible. The very idea that 'I am separate from existence', is dirty. The very idea that 'I have to fight with my own energy source', is foolish and absurd.

But sometimes, what happens? - you seem to conquer. That is a misinterpretation. When your ego sees that it is conquering, it is not the ego that is conquering. In fact, it is just a coincidence. Sometimes you are going to the left and the whole existence is also going to the left - you coincide. But you think you are succeeding, you think, 'I am gaining power.' Sooner or later you will be in trouble, because it cannot always be so. It can be always so only if you are meek.

A meek person becomes so sensitive that he is never against the whole. He is always sensitive to feel where the whole is going. He rides on the horse and goes with the horse. He does not try to give a direction to the horse. He trusts the horse.

It happened:

With a grinding of brakes, the officer pulled up his motorcar and shouted to a little boy playing in the field, 'I say, sonny, have you seen an airplane come down anywhere near here?'

'No, sir,' replied the boy, trying to hide his slingshot. 'I have only been shooting at that bottle on the fence.'

A small child can be forgiven. He is afraid that maybe because of his slingshot the airplane has fallen. He can be forgiven if he is hiding his slingshot. But this is what your so-called great personalities are doing. That's what all egoists are doing. They go on thinking that things are happening because of them.

It happened:

Drought struck the countryside, and the parson of the church prayed for rain.

Rain came in such torrents that a flood followed. A rescue party in a boat spied the parson sitting on the roof of his house watching the current swirl by. 'Your prayers were sure answered,' shouted one.

'Yes,' said the careful, stranded one. 'I figure it ain't bad for a little church like ours.'

Sometimes your prayers are fulfilled - not because of your prayers, just because by a coincidence the whole was also going in that way, in that direction. Your prayers coincided. Sometimes your efforts are fulfilled because they coincide.

Ego is coincidental. You go on collecting your ego just out of coincidences.

But this cannot happen always, that's why one feels miserable. One day you are succeeding, another day you are failing. And you cannot figure it out - what is happening? Such a great intellectual, such a great man of understanding, power, strength, logic, reason - failing? What is happening? You cannot believe it, because just now it was succeeding.

Ego is always in trouble because it cannot always be a coincidence. Sometimes you are with the whole, unknowingly; sometimes you are not with the whole.

When you are with the whole, you succeed. The whole succeeds always, you never.

The meek person is one who says, 'I am not, only the whole is.' He drops himself completely. He does not become a barrier. He allows the whole to have its way.

Buddha says this is real power.

MEEKNESS IS MOST POWERFUL FOR IT HARBOURS NO EVIL THOUGHTS AND MOREOVER IT IS RESTFUL AND FULL OF STRENGTH.

When you fight, you dissipate energy. When you fight, you lose energy. Buddha says, don't fight, preserve your energy, and you will be powerful.

A man who goes on preserving his energy becomes such a tremendous pool of energy that his very being is powerful. Just his presence is powerful, his presence is magical, miraculous. Coming close to him, you will start feeling that you are being changed and transformed. Coming close to him, you will feel your darkness disappearing. Coming close to him, you will feel a silence descending.

Just coming close to him, you will feel you are being lifted to another plane of being, to another altitude of being, to another dimension.

People come to me and they ask how to find the right master. The only way to find is just to be close, and be silent, be in harmony. And if in that harmony and silence you start feeling that you are soaring higher and higher, then this man is your master. Then this man is going to become your door for the ultimate. Then your energy fits with his energy. Then something between you and him falls in tune. Then something between you and him transpires, becomes a solid force.

You cannot decide by your intellect who is your master. You cannot decide by argumentation, and you cannot decide by your prejudice. You have heard many definitions - that the master should be like this or like that. Those definitions won't help, because a person may be fulfilling all the definitions and still he may not fit you; your and his energies may not be complementary. And unless your energies are complementary, compensatory, completing each other, making a circle, then you cannot go high with that man. Going high has to be felt.

MEEKNESS IS POWERFUL FOR IT HARBOURS NO EVIL THOUGHTS.

When you have evil thoughts - evil thoughts mean thoughts of violence, of destruction, thoughts of aggression, egoistic thoughts, ego-oriented thoughts - then you dissipate energy. Then these thoughts take too much energy out of you.

They are never going to be fulfilled. You are sowing stones; they are not going to sprout. Your whole energy will be wasted.

... AND MOREOVER IT IS RESTFUL AND FULL OF STRENGTH.

Rest should be the criterion of power. A man of power is absolutely at rest, he has no restlessness in him. Because restlessness is nothing but dissipation of energy. When you are feeling restless, you are dissipating energy.

Hence in the East, the meditator became the symbol of power. When a person meditates, he loses all restlessness. His thinking stops, his body movements stop; he becomes like a marble statue... totally still, unmoving. In that moment he is a pool of energy. He is tremendously powerful.

If you see somebody meditating, sit by his side, and you will be benefited. Sitting by the side of someone who is in a meditative mood, you will move into meditation also. His energy will pull you out of your mess. Meditation is nothing but absolute rest.

How you bring that absolute rest depends on many things. There are a thousand and one methods to create that rest. My own methods are such that first I would like you to become as restless as possible, so nothing is hanging inside you; restlessness has been thrown out - then move into rest. And there will be no disturbance, it will be easier.

In Buddha's time, such dynamic methods were not needed. People were more simple, more authentic. They lived a more real life. Now people are living a very repressed life, very unreal life. When they don't want to smile, they smile. When they want to be angry, they show compassion. People are false, the whole life pattern is false. The whole culture is like a great falsity. People are just acting, not living. So, much hangover, many incomplete experiences go on being collected, piled up, inside their mind.

So just sitting directly in silence won't help. The moment you will sit silently, you will see all sorts of things moving inside you. You will feel it almost impossible to be silent. First throw those things out so you come to a natural state of rest.

But, real meditation starts only when you are in rest.

All the dynamic meditations are preparatory to real meditation. They are just basic requirements to be fulfilled so that the meditation can happen. Don't treat them as meditations; they are just introductory, just a preface. The real meditation starts only when all activity has ceased - activity of the body and activity of the mind.

IT IS RESTFUL AND FULL OF STRENGTH.

Remember, this definition of power is different from the ordinary definition of power. The ordinary definition of power depends on comparison. You are more powerful than your neighbour, you are more powerful than this man or that woman. You are powerful in comparison with somebody else. The power that Buddha is talking about is non-comparative; it has nothing to do with anybody.

Power is your own state. When you are full of energy, you are powerful. When you are leaking energy, you are powerless. Evil thoughts are like holes through which energy leaks. Restlessness is like leaking, continuous leaking.

You create energy every day, a tremendous amount of it, but you waste - sometimes in anger, sometimes in sexuality, sometimes in greed, sometimes in competition, sometimes for no reason at all... just because you have it, what to do with it?

There is a famous sufi story about Jesus. Jesus comes to a town and he sees a man drunk, shouting, lying down on the street. He comes close to him, shakes the man and says, 'What are you doing? Why are you wasting your life in such a way?'

The man opens his eyes and says, 'My Lord, I was ill. You cured me. Now what else can I do? Now I am healthy. I was always ill and confined to my bed. You cured me. Now what am I supposed to do? Now I have energy and I don't know what to do with it.'

Jesus feels as if he has committed a crime by helping this man. He is throwing the responsibility on him. He becomes very sad. He goes into the marketplace of the town, but he is sad. There he sees a young man following a prostitute with lustful eyes, almost oblivious of the whole world.

Jesus prevents that young man and says, 'What are you doing? The eyes are not given for this. The eyes have been given to see God. What are you doing? Why are you wasting?'

The man looks at Jesus, touches his feet, and says, 'My Lord, I was blind. You cured me. Now what to do with these eyes? I don't know anything else.'

Jesus becomes very sad, he leaves the town. He comes out of the town and there he finds a man trying to commit suicide by hanging from a tree. His preparation is complete; he is just going when Jesus comes. He says, 'Wait! What are you doing? Such a precious gift of God - life! And you are going to destroy it! Are you mad?'

The man looks at Jesus and says, 'My Lord, I had died. You resurrected me. Why did you resurrect me. Now I am in trouble. I don't want this life at all! What to do with it?'

You have energy and you don't know what to do with it. So one goes on wasting.

There are people who say they are 'killing time'. Killing time means killing life.

Killing time means killing opportunity to grow, to mature, to come home.

The power that Buddha is talking about is the power when you don't do anything with your energy and you simply delight in its presence... a sheer delight in being full of energy... the sheer delight of a young, green tree... the sheer delight of a cloud, a white cloud wandering in the sky... the sheer delight of a lotus flower... the sheer delight of the sun coming out of the clouds... the sheer delight of being so full of energy... vibrant, alive, throbbing. When you don't put your energy to any purpose whatsoever, then energy itself starts moving in a vertical line.

If you put it to work, to some action, it moves in a horizontal line. Then you can make a big house, you can have more money, you can have more prestige, this and that. When you put energy to work, it moves in the horizontal line. When you don't put energy to work, you simply delight in its presence, you are happy that it is there, then it moves in a vertical line. I am not saying stop all work. I am saying find a few moments for vertical movement also. Horizontal movement is okay, but not enough. It is necessary for life - but man cannot live by bread alone.

You can get bread through horizontal work, but love, meditation, god, nirvana - they exist on the vertical line. So sometimes just sit, do nothing. Sitting silently, doing nothing, and something goes on growing within you. You become a reservoir, and you start throbbing with an unknown delight. When you are full of energy, you are in contact with the whole. And when you are in contact with the whole, you are full of energy.

AS IT IS FREE FROM EVILS IT IS SURE TO BE HONOURED BY ALL.

The monk had asked:

WHAT IS MOST POWERFUL AND WHAT IS MOST ILLUMINATING? THE MOST ILLUMINATING IS A MIND, says Buddha, WHICH IS THOROUGHLY CLEANSED OF DIRT, AND WHICH, REMAINING PURE, RETAINS NO BLEMISHES. FROM THE TIME WHEN THERE WAS YET NO HEAVEN AND EARTH TILL THE PRESENT DAY, THERE IS NOTHING IN THE TEN QUARTERS WHICH IS NOT SEEN OR KNOWN OR HEARD BY SUCH A MIND. FOR IT HAS GAINED ALL KNOWLEDGE, AND FOR THAT REASON IT IS CALLED ILLUMINATING.

THE MOST ILLUMINATING IS A MIND WHICH IS THOROUGHLY CLEANSED OF DIRT.

Thoughts are like dirt, clinging to the mirror of the mind. Thoughts, desires, imaginations, memories - all are forms of dirt. Because of them, the purity of the mind is lost. Because of them, the capacity to reflect, the mirror-like quality of the mind is lost. A continuous cleaning is needed.

So, meditation is not something that you do once and forget about, because each moment of life you go on gathering dust. It is just like a traveller who is travelling. Each day he goes on gathering dust on his clothes, on his body. Every day he has to take a bath to cleanse his body. Again the next day he will be gathering.

Meditation is like a daily bath. It is not something that once you have done it, you are finished. It should become like a natural thing, matter of fact. As you eat, as you go to sleep, as you take a bath, meditation should become a natural part of your life. At least twice a day you should cleanse your mind.

The best times are the morning, when you are getting ready for the day, the workaday world.... Cleanse your mind so you have clarity, so you have transparency, so you don't commit errors, mistakes, so you don't have any evil thoughts, so you don't have any egoistic thoughts... you go in a purer way to the world. You don't go with corrupting seeds. And the next best time is before you go to sleep, again meditate. The whole day the dust collects. Clean the mind again... fall asleep.

If you really start cleaning it, you will see tremendous changes happening. If you clean it rightly before you go to sleep, dreams will disappear. Because dreams are nothing but the dust gathered the whole day - it goes on moving inside you, goes on creating fantasies, illusions.

If your meditation is going right, your dreams will by and by disappear. Your night will become a peaceful sleep with no dreams. And if the night is without dreams, in the morning you will be able to come up very fresh, very young, virgin. Then meditate again, because even if there have been no dreams, with the very passage of time, dust collects.

Even if you have not been travelling on dusty roads, just sitting in your house, dust collects. Even if your windows are closed, and doors are closed, in the morning you will find your room has gathered a little dust. Dust collects. The very passage of time is dust-collecting.

In the morning, again meditate. And if you meditate rightly and you become a silent pool of energy, you will move in the world in a totally different way - non-conflicting, non-aggressive, in harmony. Even if somebody hates you, you will transform that energy into love.

Then you will move in the world deeply skillfully... with the attitude of aikido.

Whatsoever is happening, you will take it, receive it, in a deep love and gratitude. Even if somebody insults you, you will accept it in deep love. And then the insult will be no more an insult. And then you will be nourished by it.

By the insult he has thrown a certain amount of energy. He is losing it, you can gain it. You can simply receive it, welcome it.

And if this becomes your natural way of life - the way of the sannyasin, not the way of the soldier - every moment you will feel things are growing into a new light and your mind is becoming more and more illuminating.

THE MOST ILLUMINATING IS A MIND WHICH IS THOROUGHLY CLEANSED OF DIRT AND WHICH, REMAINING PURE, RETAINS NO BLEMISHES. FROM THE TIME WHEN THERE WAS YET NO HEAVEN AND EARTH TILL THE PRESENT DAY THERE IS NOTHING IN THE TEN QUARTERS WHICH IS NOT SEEN, OR KNOWN, OR HEARD BY SUCH A MIND.

When your mind is pure, uncontaminated, unpolluted, when not even a thought flickers in your mind, and there is no smoke around your mind - your mind is like a clear sky without clouds - Buddha says you will be able to see everything that is. You will be able to know everything that is. Your sensitivity will be infinite. And whatsoever has existed from the very beginning of time will become available to you. Your knowing will become perfect.

FOR IT HAS GAINED ALL KNOWLEDGE AND FOR THAT REASON IT IS CALLED ILLUMINATING.

And this illumination, this luminosity, does not come from anything outside you.

It explodes from your innermost core. You are like a lamp which is covered by many curtains, dark curtains, and no light comes out of it. Then by and by you remove one curtain, then another curtain, then another curtain. And slowly rays start coming - not clear, but a glow. More curtains are removed - the glow becomes more penetrating, more clear. More curtains are removed... one day when all curtains are dropped, you suddenly see that you are a lamp unto yourself.

When Buddha was dying, this was his last message to the world. Ananda, his chief disciple, was crying and weeping. And Buddha said, 'Stop! What are you doing? Why are you crying and weeping?'

Ananda said, 'You are leaving us. I was with you for forty years. I walked with you, I slept with you, I ate with you, I listened to you - I was just like a shadow to you, and yet.... You were available and I could not become enlightened. Now I am crying that you are going, you are leaving.

'Without you it seems impossible for me to become enlightened. With you I could not become. I have missed such a great opportunity. Without you... now there is no hope. That's why I am crying. I am not crying because you are dying, because I know you cannot die. I am crying because now for me there is no hope.

Now, with your death, starts my dark night of the soul. For aeons of time, millions of years, I will be stumbling in the darkness. Hence I am crying - not for you, for myself.'

Buddha smiled and said, 'Don't be worried about that, because your light is in your own being. I am not taking your light away. I was not your light. Otherwise you could have become enlightened - if it was in my power to make you enlightened. It is your innermost capacity to become, so be courageous, Ananda, and be a light unto yourself... appa deepo bhava... be a light unto yourself.'

Buddha died and after only twenty-four hours, Ananda became enlightened.

What happened? This is one of the mysteries. For forty years he lived with Buddha, and just twenty-four hours after Buddha died, he became enlightened.

The very death worked like a great shock. And the last message penetrated very deep.

When Buddha was alive, Ananda was listening so-so - as you listen to me. You listen and yet you don't listen. You say, 'Okay. If I miss today, tomorrow I will be listening again, so what is the hurry? If this morning is missed, nothing is missed; other mornings will be following.'

So he had listened half-asleep, half-awake. Maybe he was tired, maybe the night was not good and he had not slept. Maybe the journey was too long and too exhausting. And Buddha was saying the same thing again and again and again, so how long to listen? One starts feeling that one already knows. One starts feeling, 'Yes, I have heard this before, so what is the point? Why not take a little sleep? A little nap will be good.'

But when Buddha was dying, Ananda must have been alert, utterly alert. He was really trembling - the very idea of millions of years again stumbling in darkness.

And Buddha says, 'Don't be worried, your light is within you.' That struck home.

Maybe that was the first time he heard. Those forty years he must have been missing. That may have been the first time he was not deaf. He had clarity. The very situation was such that he was trembling to his roots, he was shaking to his very foundations. Buddha was leaving... and when you have lived with a man like Buddha for forty years, it is difficult. The very idea to be without him is difficult. It is impossible to believe.

Ananda must have thought of committing suicide. It is not reported in the buddhist scriptures, but I say he must have thought about committing suicide.

That idea must have happened to him; it is so human. Living forty years with Buddha, and then Buddha is dying and nothing has happened to him. He has remained desertlike, not even an oasis. He has missed the opportunity.

His eyes must have become clear. This death must have penetrated him like a sword. Sharp must have been this moment. And Buddha said, 'Be a light unto yourself,' and he died. He died immediately. This was his last utterance on this earth: Be a light unto yourself.

This struck home, this penetrated Ananda's heart, and within twenty-four hours he became enlightened.

That source of luminosity is within you. It is not outside you. If you seek it outside, you seek in vain. Close your eyes and go within yourself. It is there...

waiting since eternity. It is your innermost nature. You are luminosity, your being is luminous. This luminosity is not borrowed, it is your innermost core. It is you.

You are light - a light unto yourself.

FROM THE TIME WHEN THERE WAS YET NO HEAVEN AND EARTH TILL THE PRESENT DAY, THERE IS NOTHING IN THE TEN QUARTERS WHICH IS NOT SEEN OR KNOWN OR HEARD BY SUCH A MIND. FOR IT HAS GAINED ALL KNOWLEDGE AND FOR THAT REASON IT IS CALLED ILLUMINATING.

Meekness is power and meditation is illumination. Both are two aspects of the same coin. On one side it is meekness, egolessness; on another side it is purity of mind, illumination. They both go together.

You will have to work on both these things simultaneously, together. Become more and more egoless, and become more and more meditative. And the greatest power will be yours, and the greatest knowing will be yours, and the greatest light will be yours.