A tiger is also a guest

Question 1:

First, it certainly needs courage to be with me. But once you are with me, all the fears created by the mind start disappearing and a new courage, a new sincerity, takes their place. Slowly, slowly I become your world. Then to leave me needs immense courage.

The first courage was from darkness towards light; the second courage is from light to darkness.

The first courage was the courage to love, to live, to be. The second courage is to commit suicide; the second is certainly more difficult and more idiotic. Just by being courageous one does not become intelligent. Idiots are very courageous in many situations: where an intelligent man will stop, they will go on ahead. To see the danger needs intelligence.

You are now in that situation. You have completely forgotten the first courage. And it is natural, because when you come from darkness to light who wants to remember those dark nights and those nightmares? Slowly, slowly one forgets them all. And because my insistence is to be in the present, the past is forgotten.

Now if you think to go away from me, that will be really not only just courageous, but idiotic too.

Always go higher - from darkness to light, from light to more light. Then courage and intelligence are together. But whenever you start slipping backwards, intelligence drops the company of courage.

Then only the stupid ones will be able to fall back into darkness.

So you are right, it is more difficult. It should be more difficult. In fact, if you are intelligent it should be absolutely impossible to go backwards. Time does not allow it. Life does not allow it.

Existence has no way to go back. The whole existence aspires to go forward towards more affluence, more richness, more clarity, more understanding, more love. All these combined together I give the name "godliness."

Question 2:

Those who believe only in the mind - for example, psychoanalysts, who are replacing the priests in the West and who are creating a substitute religion as bogus as the one they are replacing - for them, there is nothing higher than mind. There are steps lower than mind; hence everything has to pass through your conscious mind to be released, so your unconscious becomes unburdened. But it is a very long process, because your unconscious carries the whole rubbish of this life, which is immense.

Every second of your life, awake or asleep, you are collecting rubbish. The amount is so much that your remaining life will not be able to free you from it. Moreover, while you are freeing yourself from the old rubbish, every day you are collecting new rubbish. And this is not all.

Deeper than this is your collective unconscious which has not even been touched. And to throw out all its contents by bringing them to the conscious mind and releasing them will take many lives.

And below that is the cosmic unconscious. Perhaps you will take an eternity to be totally psychoanalyzed so that all three unconscious layers under your consciousness are completely emptied and you don't have any burden, any tension. And the moment they are empty they start becoming conscious. It is the garbage that is creating the darkness.

Psychoanalysis is not going to succeed. The situation is such that its failure is absolute - categorically certain.

It is amazing that in the East for ten thousand years they have been working on the mind as nobody else has worked - psychoanalysis is not even one century old - still they never came to something parallel to psychoanalysis. They worked in a totally different way. They never bothered about the unconscious layers, because to give attention to the unconscious layers is to get into a thick forest which is unending. You will not find your way back out.

The East has tried just the opposite: go upwards, forget about your basements. You have three stories above your consciousness. Use your consciousness to enter into superconsciousness. Use your superconsciousness to enter into the collective superconsciousness and use that to enter into the cosmic consciousness. And the magic is that the moment you have entered into all these three consciousnesses you have so much light. In the words of Kabir it is "as if thousands of suns have arisen suddenly." Their light is so much that all the contents of your unconscious will be burned, all the darkness of your unconscious layers will be dispelled.

If you want to go the long way then dig into the unconscious. The way is long, and the goal is never achieved. No one has ever achieved it; there is no precedent. But for the second, if you go into the more conscious areas of your being, which is very simple ... that's what I have been teaching to you.

Meditation will take you into your more conscious areas. And the moment your whole consciousness is available, its very presence will simply dispel all the darkness that you have accumulated in thousands of lives. In a single moment of lightning all that is collected there will be burned and the unconscious darkness will disappear.

I teach you meditation, not psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is just a way of befooling yourself, deceiving yourself, just making sure that you are doing something - paying for your psychoanalysis, going through your dreams, being analyzed by an expert; but you have taken a route which has no end. It goes on and on and on. That's why psychoanalysis has not been able to produce a single enlightened human being. Meditation has produced thousands of enlightened human beings.

It is a simple fact: when the room is dark don't fight with darkness, just try to bring in some light - just a candle and the darkness will go. It was never existent. If you start fighting and wrestling with darkness, you may have multiple fractures, and you cannot hope ever to be victorious over it.

The most simple and most intelligent way is to find a way towards your superconsciousness, and it will give you the key to open higher doors. And when you have come to the very top of consciousness, you need not worry; it will do everything that you want it to do, always. It will simply transform your dark being into pure light.

Question 3:

It is not a question of perseverance, not a question of it taking a little longer. It is also not a problem that you are not tense. The problem is that the very idea of self-hypnosis creates a subtle tension of which you are not aware.

Just think of the idea that you are trying to hypnotize yourself. Who is trying? - because you are trying to hypnotize yourself, your very trying is the barrier. And naturally without trying, it will not happen, so you are in a dilemma: if you don't try, nothing happens; if you try, your very trying keeps you alert, and that alertness will not allow hypnosis to happen. Hypnosis needs no effort on your part.

So self-hypnosis has a different process. The process is: first be hypnotized by somebody else whom you can trust. If you don't trust then you will hold yourself against being hypnotized. Second, the person you choose to hypnotize you should not be a friend, a lover, with whom you are very intimate, because then you won't take him seriously. You will giggle and laugh, and that will destroy the whole thing. You should choose a person you respect, you trust. You feel a certain integrity in the person... then let him hypnotize you.

Relaxation is happening, so there is no difficulty. On your part you relax. Just a small part cannot relax, because you are trying to hypnotize yourself. That part also will become relaxed because somebody else is doing it. Or if you are afraid of people hypnotizing you... Centuries of condemnation of hypnosis have made people afraid that if you are hypnotized by someone you will be under his power and that then he can manage to make you do anything, and you will have to do it. In that case then you can use a tape recorder.

Nobody disrespects a tape recorder. Nobody distrusts a tape recorder, nobody is intimate with a tape recorder, nobody loves a tape recorder. So all the conditions that are needed, the tape recorder fulfills. And it is your tape recorder. Close the door and put in the tape recorder all the suggestions that you have been making to yourself. Then relax and let the tape recorder do the hypnotizing.

So either a tape recorder or a person, whichever you feel better with. I would suggest a person, because a person will take care. The tape recorder is poor: whatever you have suggested, it will repeat. It cannot do anything else. It is a pundit, a rabbi. Choose anybody from here - Kaveesha will be helpful to you.

So let the other person hypnotize you and while you are in deep hypnosis, the other person simply gives you one suggestion - that if you count from one to seven slowly... Any time you want to be hypnotized, you simply relax and count from one to seven, and you will be hypnotized. So there is no effort on your part to hypnotize; you don't have to do anything, you simply have to count - and that too comes from your unconscious, not your conscious. The conscious is completely relaxed.

This suggestion has to be given in at least three to seven sessions. Have a ten minute session every day for seven days, but only one suggestion again and again in those ten minutes - that whenever you want to hypnotize yourself, just count from one to seven very slowly, but not suddenly.

First relax, focus your eyes on something. A light bulb is good. Don't blink your eyes, and when you feel you are relaxed, and your eyes are droopy, tending to fall asleep, start counting from one to seven very slowly, in a very sleepy way, not very loudly, whispering to yourself. And by the number seven you will be deep in hypnosis, and this hypnosis will last for ten minutes.

These suggestions have to be given in three to seven sessions. Don't try it after one session is finished. Don't try it, because if you fail that failing leaves a suggestion in you that you are not going to succeed. So for seven days don't try - just let the other person do it. Try on the eighth day. The eighth day the other person can simply sit by your side, just to give you the feeling that you will be taken care of, and then slowly the other person is removed. You become perfectly capable of hypnotizing yourself.

The difficulty in self-hypnosis is because the self is involved; it has to hypnotize itself. It is like pulling yourself up by holding onto your legs and trying to reach to the sky. You won't reach, you will fall flat on the ground. You may hop, but hopping is not the question; you wanted to fly.

Self-hypnosis has an intrinsic difficulty; hetero-hypnosis is always simple, very simple. But when you succeed for the first time in self-hypnosis, you will feel great joy. You have been able to to do something which is contradictory. To avoid the contradiction, the other person is needed.

Question 4:

The system of tantra is one of the most important things that has ever happened in the history of man. Everything else is secondary because tantra is an effort to transform living energy into its ultimate form, of enlightenment. But because the living energy is sexual, tantra became condemned - condemned by the sex-repressive society, the sex-repressive religions. It became so condemned that tantrikas have suffered more than any other system of thinkers, philosophers, seekers.

One Indian king, Vikramaditya, killed ten thousand couples. It was a special sect of tantrikas, really daring people. A man and a woman lived in one robe, naked. Inside they were naked - just covered by one robe. They used to wear a blue robe, signifying that "because of the stupid society we have to wear something; otherwise the sky is our only robe" - hence the blue color. Because of the blue color they were called neela tantrikas. Neela means blue.

The couples moved around the country teaching, but what they were teaching was too outrageous for the mediocre mind to understand. Vikramaditya ordered that not a single neela couple should be left alive. Ten thousand couples - that means twenty thousand people - were simply massacred.

They were massacred all over India, wherever they were. Not a single one was left alive.

Other sects of tantrikas had to hide in the forests to do their meditation of transforming energy.

The society at large was absolutely against these people. Their scriptures were burned. The most valuable scriptures in the world have been burned. Only a few rare unburned copies have survived somehow. Naturally they started calling their teaching a "whispered teaching."

Jesus says to his followers, "Go and shout from every housetop to the people that the son of God is here. Spread the message." Why are the tantrikas saying that their teaching is the whispered teaching? They have suffered much; Jesus knows nothing about that. Thousands of their masters have been killed, but the teaching itself was so powerful and so practical, so scientific, that it went on attracting intelligent people. But they had to decide that their teaching had to be just a whispering:

"Don't say it aloud; otherwise you will be killed." And what is the point? It was a very different situation.

When you kill a man like Socrates, his death becomes a condemnation of the whole society for centuries. As long as humanity will live, the Greeks will not be able to erase the condemnation which is written on their faces - that they poisoned their best, their highest, flowering.

But in India the situation was very different. There was not one Socrates, there were many. Each school had its own Socrates, one or many. The siddhas have eighty-four masters. Even to remember their names is difficult. I have tried many times to remember their names, but eighty-four names is difficult. At the most I can remember a few who were very prominent, and who have left some scriptures: Siddhapad, Konapad... and I have spoken on the sutras of Saripad - that is Sarapa, called lovingly Sarahapa.

Jainas have twenty-four tirthankaras, all masters of the same caliber and quality as Socrates. Hindus have their own masters, and Hindus have many sects. India was full of enlightened people, because the whole genius of India moved in one direction and that was to enlightenment. Everything else suffered, but enlightenment became the only challenge for anybody who was a genius.

The tantrikas were killed, burned alive, but nobody has taken note of it for the simple reason that there were so many people. Socrates was alone. Never again could the Greeks manage to produce another Socrates. Jesus was alone. Neither the Jews nor the Christians have been able to produce another Jesus.

The situation in India was totally different. Naturally the tantrikas decided to whisper their teaching.

"Don't shout. You will be killed, and it will not serve any purpose as far as spreading the teaching is concerned."

And they were right. In that situation in India that was the best they could do to keep their teaching alive - whispering from master to teacher. They stopped even writing because that was dangerous.

So just talking to the disciple in secrecy, in private, the master gave him the message: "Our whole philosophy is a whispered philosophy, so never go to the masses. Don't try to change them. It is enough that you have changed. It is more than enough if you can change a few other people.

But unless you are aware that those people are friendly, loving, and will not betray you, don't say anything." And they started living in disguise.

Still there are tantrikas, but you cannot enquire, "I want to meet a tantra master." Nobody can help you. You will have to find him yourself, moving in the areas where they are suspected - in Bengal, in Bihar. Those are the two provinces that have been their stronghold. You have to move, meeting many people. Perhaps you may find some clue. Somebody may whisper to you, "I will take you to the master."

The same thing happened after al-Hillaj Mansoor was killed. Sufis went underground, particularly the Sufis of the same school as al-Hillaj. Now, if you want to find a Sufi master it is not easy. You have to look for him for months, not knowing if anybody exists as a Sufi master or not. But you go on going to restaurants, talking about the fact that you have come here to find a Sufi master. In shops, in markets - anywhere you meet somebody - you just go on throwing your arrows in the dark.

Somebody may say, "Are you really interested? I can take you to my master. You meet me at a certain place in the night." It may take two or three years to find such a man. And he takes you to the master in the night. They meet in secrecy.

And the master is sitting there. They use only white wool robes; that's why they are called Sufis: suf means wool. So the master is sitting there in a white woolen robe, and twenty or thirty disciples in the same kind of robes are sitting there, and you are introduced to the master.

He asks, "How long have you been enquiring about me? - because this is not the first man who has informed me about you. Many others have informed me. But patience is needed. I was waiting to see whether you have enough patience, and then I allowed this man today... I told him, ?He has been waiting for three years, moving here and there without any direction, asking about a Sufi master. You bring him to me!' "

The organized religions have killed the real religious people, and they have used organized religions to exploit the masses. They pretend to be the really religious people. The reality is, the real ones have been killed by these same people. These are criminals.

Now when Vikramaditya killed twenty thousand people... They had done no harm to anybody - what business is it of yours if they like to be naked under one gown? Everybody is naked under his gown.

And if they choose to live together in one gown... It was a tantra method: if a woman and a man simply remain in one gown, their energies continuously go on making a certain organic whole and that organic whole can be used for higher development.

And they were not harming anybody - it was just the same crime, that of corrupting the youth.

Seeing them in this position, the youth will start having the same kind of clothes and that will destroy the whole dignity of the society, the respectability of the society. I don't see how it can destroy the morality of the society. But you don't allow people to be themselves, so anybody who is trying to be an individual has to be destroyed. Hence the tantrikas started working silently, in a whispered way.

Question 5:

First, you are not aware that even animals don't eat from their own species. A lion will not eat another lion, nor will a snake bite another snake. Yes, animals eat animals from other species. Vegetables cannot ordinarily eat, but there are trees, rare trees in Africa, still existent, which eat animals, birds or even man. They use their big leaves and a beautiful perfume to attract the birds. Because of the perfume, the bird comes to the tree, thinking that this is an ordinary tree, and as he sits on the tree the leaves close and suck the blood of the bird.

A few trees are capable of catching animals through their branches and eating them, and a few trees have movement also. They move from one place to another place. They need a very soft earth in which they can manage to use their roots as legs. And they will move towards a man who is sleeping or an animal who is sleeping, and they will eat it.

Man has been eating everything possible. He is the great eater. Things which you cannot conceive anybody eating are eaten by somebody or other, some place or other. There are cannibals who eat man. In the beginning of this century there were three thousand cannibals in Africa, a tribe of cannibals; now there are only three hundred. Nobody passes by that way anymore. It became very difficult to find a man, so they started eating themselves... old men, children. And by and by, instead of three thousand becoming thirty thousand, they have reduced their population to three hundred.

They are disappearing.

But they are human beings just like us. And those who have tasted human flesh say that it is the most delicious thing in the world. You are really missing the most delicious thing in the world! But you are eating animals which are as alive as man.

There is an intrinsic animality in man, a violence which he brings with his birth. Even small babies will find some ants or a cockroach, and they will kill for no reason; killing is a joy. And the same...

There are so many hunters who are hunting deer and lions and tigers, and they call it "game." But it is strange: when a lion eats a hunter then they don't call it a game. This is absolutely illogical.

In a game, there are always two parties. If you kill a lion it is "game," and if the lion kills you, it is "tragedy." Strange! And the lion kills you with bare hands, and you kill the lion from far away, with guns, arrows, and all kinds of devices. You are a coward.

I used to stay in the palace of the maharaja of Bhavnagar and his whole palace was full of lions' heads, deers' heads, tigers' heads on all the walls. And it was a big palace... thousands of animals.

And he used to be very proud to introduce people... telling who killed which animal - this one was killed by his father, this one by his grandfather, this one he has killed himself, this has been killed by his brother, by his son. In the same way, he also introduced those things to me the first time I stayed with him.

I said, "In your family has there ever been any human being born or not?"

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "All that you have been doing is killing animals. What is the purpose? You have enough food; you don't need to kill them."

He said, "It is a game."

I said, "But the game has some rules. Both parties should be provided with the same instruments.

Both parties should be confronting each other in full light. You are hiding behind a tree, with a machine gun, and you kill an innocent deer, and you think you are playing a game? And what part has the deer to play in the game? Has he consented to play the game? And this is very unfair: why are you sitting on top of a tree?

"You are simply a coward, even with your machine gun. And this is not a game, this is simply your intrinsic violence which is finding some way to destroy. And if you have any sense of humanity, remove all this nonsense from this palace! This shows your real face. These are not the heads of the animals, these are your heads."

He could not understand. He said, "Nobody says these things to me. The prime minister stays here, the president stays here, and they all appreciate it: ?Your family is a great family, everybody is a hunter.' "

I said, "I cannot lie to you. This is what I see."

You are asking why the man of Zen stops eating meat. It does not need a man of Zen, it does not need enlightenment, it needs only a little sensitivity, a respect for life. Just as you want to live, everybody else wants to live, and this world is not your monopoly.

Just as you are here as a guest, a tiger is also a guest. It simply means that if you kill the tiger you are insensate. I am not concerned with the tiger, because the tiger is going to die one day - so whether it is Monday or Tuesday doesn't matter, there are only seven days in the week. I am concerned with you, because killing each human or animal or anything that is living, goes on making your heart a stone. And if your heart becomes a stone, a rock, then your spiritual growth becomes impossible. A rock will not allow you to reach to your own being. It will prevent you - and you have created it, it was not there.

To me the basic question is that anything that stops your evolution in consciousness is evil - it is a sin - and anything that helps you to move towards more consciousness is a virtue. That's the only definition that I can give to you. And then you can apply it easily. Be more aesthetic, be more sensitive, be more respectful of life - because you are part of it. Whoever you are killing, you are killing yourself. Your destructiveness is suicidal.

Naturally, when a man becomes enlightened it becomes impossible for him to eat meat. In the East that has been a basic criterion. That's why Buddhists, Jainas, brahmins will not accept Jesus or Mohammed as enlightened - for the simple reason that they go on eating living beings. They are insensate. Their hearts are not full of love or full of compassion. They are not sensitive enough, which is an absolute necessity for a man who is enlightened. He can only be a vegetarian; he cannot be nonvegetarian.

It is not a question of religion, it is simply a question of intelligence. So don't postpone it - that when you become enlightened or a man of Zen you will stop eating meat. There is no need to postpone that long. You have just to be a little sensitive. You will not become enlightened by not eating meat, but it will help. It will make you softer, it will make you more loving, it will make you more compassionate. It will make you more a part of the living atmosphere that surrounds you. We are a part of it. And what you can do now, why postpone it?

The man who has become enlightened certainly will have a tremendous change in his life. But even without becoming enlightened you can have great changes in life, out of sheer understanding. And those changes will help you to become enlightened. It works both ways: you become enlightened and there will be changes in your life; you change your unconscious patterns of life and it will help you to become enlightened.