Hurry Slowly

From the most ancient days, man has asked again and again why there is suffering in life. If God is the father, then why is there so much suffering? If God is love and God is compassion, then why does existence suffer? And there has not been a satisfactory answer to it. But if you understand Jesus you will understand the answer. Man suffers because there is no other way to mature, to grow. Man suffers because only through suffering can he become more aware. And awareness is the key.

Observe your own life: whenever you are comfortable, at ease, happy, awareness is lost. Then you live in a sort of sleep, then you live as if hypnotized, you live as if in a sleepwalk; you move and do things - but somnambulistically. That's why, whenever there is no suffering, religion disappears from your life. Then you never go to the temple, it carries no sense for you; then you don't pray to God, because why? There seems to be no reason.

Whenever there is suffering you move towards the temple, your eyes move towards God, your heart moves towards prayer. There is something hidden in suffering which makes you more aware who you are, why you are, where you are going. In a moment of suffering your awareness is intense.

Nothing can be meaningless in this world. It is a cosmos, it is not a chaos. You may not be able to understand - that's another thing - because you know only fragments, you don't know the whole.

Your experience of life is just as if you have only one tattered page of a novel: you read it but it makes no sense because it is just a small fragment, you don't know the whole story. Once you know the whole story, then this page will become comprehensible, then this page becomes coherent, meaningful.

What is meaning? Meaning means to know the fragment in relation to the whole; meaning is a relationship of the fragment to the whole. A madman talking on the street is meaningless. Why?

- because you cannot relate his talk to anything, his talk is a fragment. But he is not talking to anybody, there is no need, there is nobody there to talk to. His talk is fragmentary, it is not part of a bigger whole, that is why it is incoherent. The same words may be used by another man - exactly the same words - but he is talking to somebody, then it is meaningful. Why? The words are the same, the sentences the same, the gestures the same, and one man you say is mad and the other man is not mad. Why? - because there is somebody to listen; the fragment is not fragmentary, it has become part of a bigger whole, it carries meaning.

Cut a piece out of a Picasso painting: it is meaningless, it is just a fragment and a fragment is dead.

Put it back into the painting and suddenly the meaning appears; it has become coherent because now it has become part of the whole. Only when you are part of the whole are you meaningful. And if the modern man continuously seems to feel that he has become meaningless, it is because God has been denied - or forgotten. Without God, man can never be meaningful, because God means the whole and man is just a fragment. You are just a line of poetry - alone, you are just gibberish.

With the whole poem significance appears, because significance lies in relationship to the whole.

Remember this.

I am reminded of a dream of Bertrand Russell. He was an atheist, he never believed in God, he could never see any wider meaning that could comprehend the whole. He relates one dream: one night, he heard somebody knocking on the door in his sleep. So in the dream he went to open the door, and he saw old God standing there. He couldn't believe his eyes because he never believed - even in his dream he could remember that, "I don't believe in God." But the old man looked so forgotten by everybody, abandoned by everybody; his clothes were tattered, dirt had gathered on his face and body; he looked so out-of-date - almost like a faded painting in which you cannot see clearly what is happening - Russell felt much pity for him. Just to cheer him up he said, "Come in!"

He slapped his back like a friend and said, "Cheer up!" And then suddenly he awoke and the dream disappeared.

This is the state of the modern man, the modern mind: God is out-of-date. You are either against him or, at the most, you pity him. Through pity you may try to cheer him up, but he is no longer a meaningful thing for you - just an out-of-date painting, faded, useless, junk from the past. Either he is dead or deadly sick, on his deathbed. But if the whole is dead, how can the fragment be meaningful? If the whole is out-of-date, how can the part be new, fresh and young? If the whole tree is dead, then any leaf of the tree, if it thinks it is alive, is simply stupid. It may take a little more time for the leaf to die, but if the tree is dead the leaf has to die - it is already dying.

If God is dead, then man cannot live. And he is deadly sick, because without the whole the fragment has no meaning. But whenever you are happy - glimpses of happiness, not in fact happiness - whenever you are just comfortable, at ease, when nothing disturbs you, then you think you are the whole. And this is fallacious. When you are in suffering, suddenly you become aware that you are not the whole. When you suffer, you suddenly become aware that you are not as you should be, something is wrong - the shoe pinches. Something is wrong - and some transformation is needed.

Hence, the suffering.

Suffering gives you awareness: suffering gives you the feeling that you have to mutate, you have to become new, you have to be reborn. As you are, you are in suffering, so something has to be done.

JESUS SAID: BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO HAS SUFFERED; HE HAS FOUND LIFE.

Looks absurd and paradoxical! He says: BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO HAS SUFFERED.... We always call that man blessed who has never suffered. But have you seen any man who has never suffered? If you ever see such a man, you will find him absolutely juvenile, childish, without any growth, without any depth, without any awareness - he will be an idiot. And you can never say that he is blessed.

Only one who has never tried to live, who has been avoiding life, can remain without suffering. That's why, in very very rich families, only idiots are born, because they are protected so much. And when you protect somebody so much it is not protection against death, it is protection against life. But this is the problem: if you want to protect somebody against death you have to protect him against life, because life leads to death. So don't live if you are afraid to die - this is simple logic - don't be alive if you are afraid to die; then cut all the dimensions where life exists. Then you can simply vegetate.

Jesus cannot call a vegetative life blessed, nobody can say that a vegetative life is blessed. That is the greatest misfortune that can happen to a man because he will never grow in awareness and maturity; and he will not have higher layers of consciousness because those higher layers come into existence only when they are challenged. Suffering is a challenge; when you suffer you are challenged, when there is a problem you are challenged. When you encounter the problem, only then do you grow. More insecurity, more growth; more security, less growth. If everything is secure around you, you are already in your grave, you are no longer alive. Life exists in danger, life always exists in the possibility of going astray. But one who goes astray can come back, one who fails can succeed.

Napoleon was defeated. He wrote in his diary a beautiful sentence - sometimes madmen also observe beautifully - he said, "Only a fight is lost, only a battle is lost, not the war." But if you want to win the war you will have to lose many battles. If you are afraid to lose a battle you will never enter into the war, then there is no possibility.

Whenever you fail in something it is not the ultimate failure, you can transcend it. Next time you need not do it again, next time you need not commit the same error and the same mistake, next time there is no need to move in the suffering. A man who is wise suffers as much as a man who is not wise, but in a different way each time. A wise man commits as many mistakes - even more than a stupid man - but he never commits the same mistake twice. That's the only difference: the quantity may be more, but the quality is different. An idiot may not commit many mistakes, he may not commit mistakes at all, because he is never going to do anything. You only commit a mistake when you do something.

You can go astray if you seek and search, if you walk on the path. If you are simply sitting at home, how can you go astray? If you don't do anything you will never commit a mistake, you will be a mistakeless man, but you will never move; by and by you will simply rot, vegetate and die. Never be afraid of making mistakes, simply remember that there is no need to make the same mistake twice.

Why do you make the same mistake twice? - because the first time you made it you didn't learn anything from it. That's why you have to make mistakes again and again and again. And people go on making the same mistakes, repeating them their whole lives; they move in a circle. That's why Hindus have called this world sansar.

Sansar means the wheel: you simply repeat the same mistakes again and again and again.

Situations may differ, but the mistake remains the same, of the same quality. What does it show?

It shows that you are not alert, otherwise why commit the same mistake again? Commit another because then you will learn. Nobody learns without mistakes. Whenever you commit a mistake you have to suffer. Nobody learns without suffering. Hindus have said that you have to be born again and again because you have not yet grown.

Only a grown-up person goes beyond this world. Those who have not grown, they have to fall back in the pit, they have to learn. And every learning is the hard way, there is no shortcut. That hard way is suffering. Don't protect yourself against suffering; rather, on the contrary, move into suffering as fully aware as possible. Take the challenge, encounter it! You will grow through it. Try to transcend it, go beyond it. Don't be afraid - once you become afraid you are already dying. That's why Jesus says: BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO HAS SUFFERED; HE HAS FOUND LIFE. And one who suffers becomes more alert, and alertness is the key to the temple of life. The more alert you are, the more aware.

What is the difference between you and the trees? The trees are beautiful, but they are not higher than you because they remain unconscious. A stone, a rock is even below the level of the trees, more unconscious. A stone also suffers, but it is not aware. A tree also suffers, but not consciously - and if you also suffer without consciousness, then what is the difference? Then you are just a moving tree.

Deep down, the basic thing that makes you human has not yet happened. Consciousness makes you human. And this is the beauty of it: that whenever you are conscious, suffering disappears.

Suffering brings in consciousness, but if you move more and more in consciousness, suffering disappears. This law has to be understood: if your head is hurting, it brings consciousness, you become aware of your head; otherwise nobody is aware of their head. You become aware of the body only when something is wrong.

In Sanskrit, they have a beautiful word for suffering. They call it vedana, and vedana has two meanings: one, suffering; the other, knowledge. Vedana comes from the same root as veda. Veda means the source of knowledge. Those who coined this word vedana came to know a fact, that suffering is knowledge. Hence they used the same root word for both.

If you suffer, immediately you become aware. The stomach comes into existence only with a stomachache. Before, it may have been there but it was not in your consciousness. That's why medical science, particularly Ayurveda, defines health as bodilessness: if you don't know the body you are healthy; if you know the body something is wrong, because knowing exists only when something goes wrong. If you are a driver, a slight noise in the engine and you become aware; otherwise everything was humming, everything was monotonous, everything was okay. A small noise somewhere in the engine, in the other parts of the car, and you become aware that something has gone wrong. Only when something goes wrong do you become aware.

And if you become really aware, you don't become involved in the wrong; rather, on the contrary, you grow in your awareness more and more. Then a second phenomenon happens: in your awareness you come to know that the disease is there, the discomfort is there, the suffering is there - but that is not in you, that is just around you, on the circumference. In the center there is awareness, on the circumference there is suffering, as if suffering belongs to somebody else: you are not identified.

Then a headache is there, but it is not painful to you; it is painful to the body and you are simply aware. The body becomes the object and you become the subject - there is a gap.

In awareness all bridges are broken, the gap is immediately present there. You can see: the body suffers, but the identification is broken. Suffering brings in awareness, awareness breaks the identification - and that is the key to life.

BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO HAS SUFFERED; HE HAS FOUND LIFE.

Jesus on the cross is just a symbol of the final suffering, the absolute suffering, of the peak of suffering. When Jesus was on the cross, at the last moment he wavered a little. The suffering was too much. It was no ordinary suffering, not ordinary bodily pain, it was anguish - not only physical, but deep psychological anguish. And the anguish was this: that suddenly he started feeling, "Am I abandoned by God? Why should this happen to me? I have not done anything wrong. Why should I be crucified? Why this pain? Why this crucifixion? Why this anguish to ME?" And he asked God, "Why?" He questioned.

It must have been a very deep moment of anguish, when all the foundations are shaken and even your faith is shaken. The pain was so much - the humiliation of the whole thing. The same people for whom he had lived, for whom he had worked, whom he had served, to whom he had been a healer - they were murdering him, and for no reason at all. He asked God, "Why? Why is this happening to me?" Then suddenly he realized why, because he became very much aware; at the moment of crucifixion he came to the perfect awareness.

I always say that before that moment he was Jesus, after that moment he became Christ. At that moment the total transformation happened. Before it he was coming nearer, nearer, nearer, coming closer and closer and closer, but the last jump happened in that moment: Jesus disappeared and there was Christ - suddenly a transmutation.

What happened? He said, "Why this suffering to me? Have you forsaken me? Am I abandoned?"

And immediately after this anguish he said, "No! Thy will should be done." He accepted it. The 'why' was a rejection, because questioning means doubt. Immediately he understood and he said, "I accept, and I understand. Thy will should be done, not mine, because my will is going to be wrong."

Then he relaxed, then there was a letgo, the final surrender. At the moment of death, he accepted death also. In that acceptance, he became life eternal - the key was found. That's why he says:

BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO HAS SUFFERED; HE HAS FOUND LIFE.

Whenever you suffer, next time don't complain, don't create an anguish out of it. Rather, watch it, feel it, see it, look at it from all possible angles. Make it a meditation and see what happens: the energy that was moving into the disease, the energy that was creating suffering, is transformed, the quality changes. The same energy becomes your awareness, because there are not two energies in you, the energy is one. You can make it sex, you can transform it and make it into love; you can transform it still higher and make it into prayer, and you can transform it still higher and make it into awareness - the energy is the same.

When you suffer you are dissipating energy; in your anguish you are dissipating energy, the energy is leaking out. Whenever there is suffering, shake yourself. Close your eyes and look at the suffering.

Whatsoever it is - mental, physical, existential - whatsoever it is look at it, make it a meditation.

Look at it as if it is an object.

When you look at your suffering as an object you are separate, you are no longer identified with it, the bridge is broken. And then the energy which was going to move into suffering will not move, because the bridge is no longer there. The bridge is identification: you feel you are the body, then the energy moves into the body. Wherever you feel any identification, your energy moves there.

You may not have known this, but you can try a simple experiment: if you love a woman, just sit by her side and feel identified, as if you are the woman, the beloved; and let the woman feel that she is you, the lover. Just wait and feel identified. Suddenly you will both have a shock of energy. You will both feel that some energy has moved from the other to you. Lovers have felt as if an energy jumps just like an electric shock and reaches the other. Whenever you are identified with something there is a bridge, and the energy can move through that bridge.

When a mother is feeding her child, she is not only giving milk as was always thought. Now biologists have stumbled upon a deeper fact, and they say she is feeding energy - milk is just the physical part. And they have done many experiments: a child is raised, food is given - as perfect as possible, whatsoever medical science has found. Everything is given, but the child is not loved, not cuddled; the mother does not touch him. The milk is given through mechanical devices, injections are given, vitamins are given - everything is perfect. But the child stops growing, he starts shrinking, as if life starts moving away from him. What is happening? ... Because whatsoever the mother was giving is being given.

It happened in Germany that during the war many small orphan babies were put into a hospital.

Within weeks they were all almost dying. Half of them died - and every care was taken; scientifically they were absolutely right, they were doing whatsoever was needed. But why were these children dying? Then one psychoanalyst observed that they needed some cuddling, somebody to hug them, somebody to make them feel significant. Food is not food enough. Jesus says, "Man cannot live by bread alone." Some inner food, some invisible food is needed. So the psychoanalyst made a rule that whosoever came into the room - a nurse, a doctor, a servant - had to give at least five minutes in the room to hug and play with the children. And suddenly they were not dying, they started growing. And since then many experiments have been done.

When a mother hugs a child, energy is flowing. That energy is invisible - we have called it love, warmth. Something is jumping from the mother to the child, and not only from the mother to the child, from the child to the mother also. That's why a woman is never so beautiful as when she becomes a mother. Before, something is lacking, she is not complete, the circle is broken. Whenever a woman becomes a mother, the circle is complete. A grace comes to her as if from some unknown source.

So not only is she feeding the child, the child is also feeding the mother. They are happily 'into' each other.

And there is no other relationship which is so close. Even lovers are not so close, because the child comes from the mother, from her very blood, her flesh and bones; the child is just an extension of her being. Never again will this happen, because nobody can be so close. A lover can be near your heart, but the child has lived inside the heart. The mother's heart has been beating, and that was the heartbeat of the child, he had no other heart; the mother's blood circulated in him, he had no independence, he was just part of her. For nine months he remained as part of the mother, organically joined, one. The mother's life was his life, the mother's death would have been his death.

Even afterwards it goes on: a transfer of energy, a communication of energy exists.

Whenever there is suffering, become aware; then the bridge is broken, then there is no transfer of energy to suffering. And by and by suffering shrinks, because the suffering is your child. You have given birth to it, you are the cause; and then you feed it, you water it, and then it grows and then you suffer more. Then you complain, then you are miserable, then your whole attention becomes identified with the suffering.

I have heard, once it happened: Two old women met in a market. One asked the other how she was feeling, because she was always feeling ill. There are women who always feel ill. Something has gone wrong; it is not illness, it is something deeper, a neurosis, because they cannot feel at ease if they are not ill; illness has become part of their ego. She asked, "How are your feeling?"

The woman who was always ill or talking about illness, started. She said, "Very bad - never has it been so bad. The arthritis is acting up, I have a severe headache, and the stomachache is terrible, and my legs hurt..." and on and on she went.

The other said, "Then go and see a doctor."

The first woman said, "Yes, yes, I will go when I feel a little better."

But this is happening: you will go to the doctor when you feel a little better. But nobody goes - when one feels a little better there is no need. Go to the doctor when you are suffering, pray when there is suffering, meditate when there is suffering. Don't say, "I will meditate when I feel a little better." That won't help - you won't meditate and you will have missed a blissful moment, a moment of suffering.

Meditate, become alert and aware. Don't miss the opportunity, it is a blessing.

Use all your suffering for meditation, and soon you will come to know that the suffering disappears because the energy starts moving inwards. It is not moving to the periphery, to the suffering, you are not feeding your suffering. It looks illogical, but this is the whole conclusion of all the mystics of the world: that you feed your suffering and you enjoy it in a subtle way, you don't want to be well - there must be some investment in it.

Buddhas, Jesuses, Zarathustras have been talking in vain, you don't listen to them. They say there is a possibility of ultimate bliss. You listen to them and say, "Okay, I will see sometime, when I feel better." But whenever you are happy what is the need? That is why Buddha goes on insisting: Your whole life is suffering, dukkha - don't wait! There is going to be no happiness in the life that you are living. Be awake, watch. It is anguish itself that you call 'life'. People think that he must have been a pessimist. He was not, he was just emphasizing. And you have become so much attached to your suffering that you don't know it.

What is the investment? From the very beginning, from the very childhood, one thing almost always goes wrong, and that is that whenever a child is ill he is paid more attention. This creates a wrong association: the mother loves him more, the father takes care of him more; the whole family puts him in the center, he becomes the most important person. Nobody bothers about a child otherwise - if he is well and okay, it's as if he is not. When he is ill he becomes dictatorial, he dictates his terms. Once this trick is learned - that whenever you are ill you become in some way special - then everybody has to pay attention, because if they are not paying attention you can make them feel guilty. And nobody can say anything to you, because nobody can say that you are responsible for your illness.

If the child is doing something wrong you can say, "You are responsible." But if he is ill you cannot say anything, because illness is not in any way concerned with him - what can he do? But you don't know the facts: ninety percent of illnesses are self-created, generated by yourself to attract attention, affection, significance. And a child learns the trick very easily, because the basic problem for the child is that he is helpless. The basic problem he feels continuously is that he is powerless and everybody is powerful. But when he is ill he becomes powerful and everybody is powerless. He comes to understand it.

A child is very sensitive about knowing things. He comes to know that, "Even father is nothing, mother is nothing - nobody is anything before me when I am ill." Then illness becomes something very meaningful, an investment. Whenever he feels neglected in life, whenever he feels, "I am helpless," he will get into illness, he will create it. And this is the problem, a deep problem, because what can you do? When a child is ill everybody has to pay attention.

But now psychologists suggest that whenever a child is ill, take care of him, but don't pay much attention to him. He should be taken care of medically, but not psychologically. Don't create any association in his mind that illness pays, otherwise his whole life, whenever he feels something is wrong, he will be ill. Then the wife cannot say anything, then nobody can blame him because he is ill. And everybody has to pity him and give affection.

Ninety percent of suffering exists because you have associated something which looks good to you with suffering. Drop this association. Nobody else can do it for you. Drop that association completely, cut that association completely. Suffering is simply wasting your energy. Don't get involved in it, don't think that it pays. There is only one way in which suffering can pay, and that is with awareness. Become aware.

Remember how to drop that association: one, never talk about your suffering. Suffer it, but don't talk about it. Why do you talk about it? Why do people go on talking and boring others about their suffering? Who is interested? But just not to offend you, if you start talking about illnesses and anguish, others have to tolerate it - but they start escaping, they start wanting somehow to get rid of you. Nobody wants to hear, because everybody has too much suffering of his own. Who bothers about your suffering? Don't talk about it, because talking creates associations.

Don't complain, because then you are asking for affection, pity, compassion, love. Don't ask, don't sell your suffering - bring back your investment. Suffer privately, don't make it public - then it becomes a tapascharya, it becomes an austerity, one of the best. But look at your saints: if they do tapascharya, austerities, they make it very public. And I am saying make your suffering private, then it becomes tapa, austerity. They make it public, they announce that they are going on a long fast - everybody must know.

These are children gone mad, these are childish people. They have invested more than you: they depend on their suffering, their prestige depends on their suffering - how long they can fast, how long they can attract the attention of the whole country or of the whole of the world. They are very tricky, they are using suffering to exploit others. But this is what everybody is doing, only they are doing it to its climax. Don't do it, don't try to be a martyr, it is futile. Don't be an exhibitionist.

Suffer privately, suffer so privately that nobody ever becomes aware that you are suffering. And then meditate on it: don't throw it out, accumulate it within and then close your eyes and meditate on it.

Then the bridge will be broken.

This is what Jesus means when he says: BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO HAS SUFFERED - this is the technique for suffering: use suffering as a method - HE HAS FOUND LIFE.

Suffering belongs to the realm of death, awareness belongs to the realm of life. Break the bridge and you will know that something in you, around you, is going to die - it belongs to death; and something in you, your awareness, is not going to die, it is deathless, it belongs to life. That's why suffering can give you the key to life.

JESUS SAID: LOOK UPON THE LIVING ONE AS LONG AS YOU LIVE, LEST YOU DIE AND SEEK TO SEE HIM AND BE UNABLE TO SEE.

These are techniques: LOOK UPON THE LIVING ONE.... In you there is one who is a living one and one who is already dead. In you two worlds meet, the world of matter and the world of spirit - you exist on the boundary. In you two realms meet, the realm of death and the realm of life - you exist in between. If you pay too much attention to that which belongs to death you will always remain afraid, suffering, fearful. If you pay attention to your center, which belongs to life, to eternal life, to immortality, fear will disappear.

Jesus says: LOOK UPON THE LIVING ONE AS LONG AS YOU LIVE.... Don't miss, because at the moment of death it will be very, very difficult to look upon the living one.

If for your whole life you have been attentive to the realm of death - the realm of things, the realm of matter and the world - if you have been attentive only to the realm of death, it will be difficult, almost impossible, to look at the realm of life when you are dead or when you are dying. How can you suddenly turn your back, how can you suddenly turn your head? It will be impossible, you will be paralyzed. Your whole life you have been looking outward, your neck will be paralyzed, you cannot turn back. It needs a continuous movement towards the world of the deathless while you live.

LOOK UPON THE LIVING ONE AS LONG AS YOU LIVE....

Whenever you have a moment of silence, close your eyes and look within so that your neck remains flexible; otherwise, at the moment of death you will be paralyzed. You would like to see the eternal life, but you will not be able to because you cannot turn back.

... LEST YOU DIE AND SEEK TO SEE HIM AND BE UNABLE TO SEE.

And he is there within you, but you become fixed, you become obsessed. Obsession with the outside has to be broken. No need to escape to the forest, that will not help, but in twenty-four hours you have enough moments to look within. Don't miss them! Whenever you find time, just close your eyes, even for a single moment, and look within towards the living one. It is there, just a little practice is needed to see and become attuned to the inner darkness. It is dark right now because you are attuned to the outer light.

When you become attuned to the inner light you will see it is a diffused light, not dark; a very silent, very consoling, soothing light, but not an intense light - it is a twilight. It is just like when the sun has not come up, and the night is almost gone. That is what Hindus have called brahmamuhurta.

Why do they call it Brahmamuhurta, the moment of God? They call it that because of this inner thing:

when you are turning in, the outer light has gone and the inner darkness has not yet left, because one has to become attuned, only then will it leave. There is a twilight, sandhyakal, a moment when there is no light and no darkness. This they call Brahmamuhurta, the moment of the divine. Become attuned, look, wait, watch. Soon your eyes will become accustomed and you will be able to see.

There is no intense light, just diffused light, because it is not generated by a sun. It is just your natural light, not generated by anything else. It is your own light, your own inner aura - it is there.

Whenever you can find time, don't waste it. And then you will find moments enough: just going to sleep, look in; the day is past, the world of death is no more, you are going to retire - look within. In the morning, when you first become aware that sleep has left, there is no need to jump out of bed and into the world. Wait a little, close your eyes, look within: it is silent. The whole night's rest helps, you are not so tense, it will be easier to move within.

That's why all the religions insist on prayer when you go to sleep, and prayer when you come back from the world of sleep. These moments are very good. In the evening you are tired of the world, you are fed up with the world, you are ready to look to something else. In the morning you have rested and the rest helps, you can look towards the inner. This is what Jesus says:

LOOK UPON THE LIVING ONE AS LONG AS YOU LIVE, LEST YOU DIE AND SEEK TO SEE HIM AND BE UNABLE TO SEE.

And he will be there, but you will be unable to see him just because of a wrong practice your whole life.

THEY SAW A SAMARITAN CARRYING A LAMB ON HIS WAY TO JUDEA. HE SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES: WHY DOES THIS MAN CARRY THE LAMB WITH HIM?

THEY SAID TO HIM: IN ORDER THAT HE MAY KILL IT AND EAT IT.

HE SAID TO THEM: AS LONG AS IT IS ALIVE HE WILL NOT EAT IT, BUT ONLY IF HE HAS KILLED IT AND IT HAS BECOME A CORPSE.

THEY SAID: OTHERWISE HE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DO IT.

HE SAID TO THEM: YOU YOURSELVES, SEEK A PLACE FOR YOURSELVES IN REPOSE LEST YOU BECOME A CORPSE AND BE EATEN.

Your body is going to become food for worms, for birds. Your body is food, it is nothing else, it cannot be anything else - your body comes out of food. That's why if you don't eat, your body will start disappearing. If you go on a fast, two pounds of the body will disappear every day. Where is that body going? Every day you have to fill it with food - it is a byproduct of food. So when you die, what will happen to your body? The world will use it as food: the worms of the earth will eat you, or the birds of the sky will eat you. It just gives you a fear, you become apprehensive that, "I will be eaten."

Because of this, all the world over, people have created ways in order not to be eaten. But they are foolish!

Hindus burn the dead body just to avoid one thing, that you should not be eaten. Mohammedans put the dead body inside a casket and put it into a grave just to protect it. Christians do the same. Only Zoroastrians have not done that: they leave the body to become food. They are the most natural about it, and the most scientific too, because you should not destroy food. You have been eating birds, animals, fruits, your whole life, and now you have accumulated a two-hundred-pound body and you destroy it, burn it. This is not good, you are not grateful to the world. You should return it back to the world of food - it is food!

And why do you think that burning is better, throwing it into a fire is better than letting it be eaten by a worm or by a bird or by an animal. Why?... because there too fire is burning - in the stomach of the bird, in the stomach of the lion - and that fire will dissolve your body. But that is natural fire, and at least it will fulfill some hunger somewhere.

Only Parsees have remained natural about it, but even they have become wavering now because everybody says, "That is wrong - leaving your father, your mother.... What type of people are you?

You are very cruel!" But throwing a corpse in fire is not cruel? Or burying it deep down in the earth is not cruel? They are more ecological, they are completing the circle. Hindus and Mohammedans and Christians are less ecological, they are breaking the circle and this is not good.

Jesus says, "If you don't realize the inner one, the living one, the conscious one, then you are just going to be eaten, that's all." Your whole life has been futile: eating your whole life, working to eat, and then being eaten - this is the whole story. "A tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing." The whole life a struggle to eat, and then being eaten. What is the meaning of it?

Jesus says, "Before you are dead, before you are eaten, realize that which is not food in you, which is not created by food in you." Then you will have to understand one more thing.

All the religions have tried fasting. Why? - because when you fast awareness grows intense, because it is not part of food. Really, food destroys awareness, and when you don't eat you become more aware because food gives a sort of sleep, it is an intoxicant. So if you eat too much you immediately feel sleepy, it is alcoholic; whenever you eat you have to go to sleep. If you ever fast, you will find it is difficult to sleep that night. Do you think it is because of hunger? No, it is because without food, more awareness happens.

And if you go on a long fast, after the third, fourth or fifth day, hunger disappears, because the body insists for three, four, five days - the body has not got a very long memory - it insists on the old habit for a few days, and then if you don't listen the body makes its arrangement in a different way.

The body has a double arrangement, it is needed as a security measure. Every day you have to eat to give the body its daily quota. If you don't give it food for five to seven days, then the body has an emergency measure: the accumulated flesh in the body, the accumulated fat - it accumulates....

Every ordinary, healthy person accumulates enough fat for at least three months; that is a reservoir.

When the body thinks that you are not going to give food, the body starts eating its own reservoir.

When the body starts eating its own reservoir, then the consciousness is not involved in it at all. You need not go and earn and work, and get tired and then give the body food. And when you give it food, to absorb the food, to digest it, your whole energy is needed. That's why, immediately you eat food, your head feels sleepy: because the energy that was working as consciousness is required in the stomach to work as a digestive force; it immediately moves.

So people who eat too much cannot meditate well, impossible! They can sleep well, but they cannot be aware, they cannot be very conscious. They are food and nothing more - and they will be eaten; their whole life is a food-circle. All the religions became aware that if you fast, awareness increases, because the energy is released when there is nothing to digest. Nothing to be taken in and thrown out, all work stops. The work at the factory of the body is not there, the factory is locked. Then the whole energy that you have got becomes awareness. That's why it is difficult to sleep when you are on a fast.

And if you have been on a fast for at least twenty, thirty days, forty days, you will have a new type of sleep: your body will sleep and you will remain alert. That's what Krishna said to Arjuna: "When everybody is asleep, a yogi remains awake." That's what Buddha said: "Even while I am asleep, I am not asleep - only the body sleeps." That's why, when Mahavira slept, he never moved in his sleep - not even a single movement. He never changed sides because he remained alert. And he said, "Changing sides won't be good; some insect may have crawled underneath" - because he used to sleep on the floor or under a tree - "and if I move in the dark and change my side, there may be some violence - unknowingly, but still. ... And if I can avoid it...." So he remained perfectly in one posture the whole night, he remained exactly as he was when he went to sleep, not even moving his hand. This can be done only if you are perfectly aware in sleep; otherwise you will not know when you have moved.

If you become aware, then you become aware of a different dimension within you. The visible belongs to death, the invisible belongs to the deathless.

Jesus says:

YOU YOURSELVES, SEEK A PLACE FOR YOURSELVES IN REPOSE - seek a state of silence, repose, tranquility, balance, where you can become aware of the living one - LEST YOU BECOME A CORPSE AND BE EATEN.

JESUS SAID: TWO WILL REST ON A BED: THE ONE WILL DIE, THE ONE WILL LIVE.

Exactly the same words are in the Upanishads. They say that there are two birds on a tree, one sitting on a lower branch, another sitting on a higher branch. The bird on the lower branch thinks, gets worried, desires, demands, accumulates, fights, competes; it remains in anguish, tension, jumps from this branch to that, always moving, never in repose. The other bird, who is sitting on a higher branch, is in repose. He is so silent, as if he is not. He has no desires, no dreams happen to him. He has no needs to fulfill, as if everything is fulfilled, as if he has attained, nowhere to go. He simply sits, enjoying himself, and he watches the bird who is on the lower branch.

These are the two dimensions in you. You are the tree. And the lower is always disturbed. The lower is your body and the bodily needs and the bodily desires, and if you forget yourself completely into it then you become one with it. On the higher branch, at the top of the tree, sits the other bird who is a witness, who simply looks down at this foolish bird jumping, moving in anguish, anxiety, anger, sex. Everything happens to it; this other bird is simply a witness, he simply looks on and on, he is just a spectator. You are the tree.

Jesus says the same thing with a different symbol:

TWO WILL REST ON A BED - YOU ARE THE BED - TWO WILL REST ON A BED: THE ONE WILL DIE, THE ONE WILL LIVE. YOU ARE THE BED, TWO ARE THERE: ... THE ONE WILL DIE, THE ONE WILL LIVE.

Now the whole question is to whom the attention should be paid. Towards whom should you move, towards whom should your whole energy flow? Who should become your goal?

Ordinarily, that one who is going to die is your goal. That's why you are always in anxiety, because you are building a house on sands. It is going to fall - even before it is built it will fall and become a ruin. You are always trembling because you are making your signature on water - before you have completed it, it is gone. Your anxiety is because you are concerned with the realm of death and you have not looked towards life. And on each bed two are sleeping - the other is just a witness.

Pay more attention to it, turn towards it more and more - that's what conversion means. Conversion doesn't mean a Hindu becoming a Christian, or a Christian becoming a Hindu. This is foolishness, you simply change labels. Nothing is changed because the inner man remains the same, the old pattern. Conversion means the movement of attention from the death realm to the life realm. It is an about-turn: looking at the witness, becoming one with the witness, losing yourself into the witness, into awareness, and then you know that which is going to die will die. It makes no trouble, no problem, and you know you are not going to die so there is no fear.

JESUS SAID: TWO WILL REST ON A BED: THE ONE WILL DIE, THE ONE WILL LIVE.

And it is up to you. If you want to remain in trouble, never pay attention to the inner one; if you want to remain always in anguish then remain on the periphery, don't look within. But if you want repose, a peaceful eternity, truth, the doors of heaven open for you, then look within. It is difficult - it is difficult because it is very subtle. Where the invisible and the visible meet, where matter and spirit meet, it is very subtle. You can see matter, you cannot see spirit, it cannot be seen. You can see where the visible ends, you cannot see the invisible, it cannot be seen.

Then what is to be done? Just remain at the boundary of the visible, and don't look at the visible, look in the opposite direction. Gradually the invisible can be felt. It is a feeling, it is not an understanding; you cannot see it, you can only feel it. It is just like a breeze: it comes, you feel it, but you cannot see it. It is just like the sky: it is there, but you cannot say where, you cannot pinpoint it, you cannot touch it. It is always there, you are in it but you cannot touch it.

Remain at the boundary of the visible looking in the opposite direction. This is what all meditation is about. Whenever you can find a peaceful moment close your eyes, leave the body behind and the bodily affairs and the world of death; the market, the office, the wife, the children - leave them all.

The first time you will not feel anything inside.

Hume has said, "Many people have talked about going in and looking there. Whenever I look, I find nothing - just thoughts, desires, dreams, floating here and there - just a chaos." You will also feel the same. And if you conclude that there is nothing worthwhile in going again and again to see this chaos, then you will miss.

In the beginning you will see this, because your eyes can only see this - they need a tuning. Just remain there looking at the floating dreams. They float like clouds in the sky, but between two clouds, sometimes you will see the blueness; between two dreams, two thoughts, sometimes there will be a glimpse of the sky behind. Just don't be in a hurry. That's why they say that if you hurry you will miss.

There is one Zen saying which says, "Hurry slowly." That's right! Hurry, that's right, because you are going to die - in that sense hurry. But inside, if you are in too much of a hurry you will miss, because you will conclude too soon, before your eyes have become attuned. Don't conclude too soon.

Hurry slowly. Just wait! Go there and sit and wait. By and by, a new world of the invisible becomes clear, comes to you. You become attuned to it, then you can hear the harmony, the melody; the silence starts its own music. It is always there, but it is so silent that very trained ears are needed.

It is not like a noise, it is like silence. The sound within is like silence, the form within is like the formless. There is no time and no space within, and all that you know is either in space or in time.

Things are in space, events are in time, and now physicists say these two things are not two; even time is just a fourth dimension of space.

You know only time and space, the world of things and events. You don't know the world of the witnessing self. It is beyond both, it is not confined to any space and it is not confined to any time. There is duration without time, there is space but without any height, length, breadth - it is a totally different world. You will need to become attuned to it, so don't be impatient - impatience is the greatest barrier. I have come to feel that when people start working towards the inner one, impatience is the greatest barrier. Infinite patience is needed. It can happen the next moment, but infinite patience is needed.

If you are impatient it may not happen for lives, because the very impatience will not allow you the repose that Jesus talks about, the tranquility. Even if you are expecting, that will be a disturbance. If you are thinking something is going to happen, something extraordinary, then nothing will happen.

If you are waiting, expecting that some enlightenment is going to happen, you will miss it. Don't expect. All expectations belong to the world of death, the dimension of time and space.

No goal belongs to the inner. There is no way to it except by waiting, infinite patience. Jesus has said, "Watch and be patient." And one day, suddenly you are illumined. One day, when the right tuning happens, when you are ready, suddenly you are illumined. All darkness disappears, you are filled with life, eternal life, which never dies.

Enough for today.