To be One Again

ONCE THE EMPRESS WU asked the Master Fa Tsang if he could possibly give her a practical and simple demonstration of the principle of cosmic interrelatedness, of the relationship of the One and many, of God and his creatures, and of the creatures one to another.

Fa Tsang went to work and appointed one of the palace rooms so that eight large mirrors stood at the eight points of the compass. Then he placed two more mirrors, one on the ceiling and one on the floor. A candle was suspended from the ceiling in the centre of the room.

When the Empress entered, Fa Tsang lit the candle. The Empress cried, 'How marvelous! How beautiful!'

Fa Tsang pointed at the reflection of the flame in each one of the ten mirrors and said, 'See Your Majesty, this demonstrates the relationship of the One and the many, of God to each one of his creatures.'

The Empress said, 'Yes, indeed, Master. And what is the relationship of each creature to the others?'

Fa Tsang answered, 'Just watch, Your Majesty, how each mirror not only reflects the one flame in the centre, each mirror also reflects the reflections of the flame in all the other mirrors, until an infinite number of flames fills them all. All these reflections are mutually identical; in a sense they are interchangeable, in another sense each one exists individually. This shows the true relationship of each being to its neighbour, to all that is. Of course, I must point out, Your Majesty,' Fa Tsang went on, 'that this is only a rough, approximate, and static parable of the real state of affairs in the universe. For the universe is limitless and in it all is in perpetual multi-dimensional motion.' Then the Master covered one of the infinite number of reflections of the flame and showed how each apparently insignificant interference affects the whole organism of our world.

Kegon expresses this relationship by the formula:

Then Fa Tsang, in order to conclude his command performance, held up a small crystal ball and said, 'Now watch, Your Majesty, how all these large mirrors and all the myriad forms they reflect are mirrored in this little sphere. See, how in the ultimate reality the infinitely small contains the infinitely large, and the infinitely large the infinitely small, without obstruction! Oh, if only I could demonstrate to you the unimpeded mutual interpenetration of time and eternity, of past, present and future. But alas, this is a dynamic process that must be grasped on a different level...'

Man is not an island; nothing is. All is interrelated, all is interdependent. Independence - the very word - is false, so is dependence. The reality is interdependence.

Everything is so deeply connected with everything else that nothing can exist apart. If you can understand a small rose flower in its totality, root and all, you will have understood the whole cosmos, because the whole cosmos is involved in that small rose flower. In the smallest leaf of grass all is contained.

But remember, as Fa Tsang said to the Empress: All illustrations, all descriptions are static, and existence is a dynamic flux. It is a river. Each thing goes on moving into each other thing. It is impossible to draw lines where one thing ends and another begins; there are no demarcating lines - there cannot be. So all distinctions are only for practical purposes, they have no existential value.

This is the first thing to be understood. This is very fundamental to the Taoist alchemy. Once this is understood, then the whole alchemy of Taoism becomes comprehensible. Then the lower can be transformed into the higher, because the lower contains the higher already. The baser metal can be transformed into gold because nothing is separate - the baser contains the gold already. As above, so below; as below, so above.

The very idea that all is interconnected makes transformation possible. If things are not interconnected then there is no possibility of any transformation. If the world consists of the philosopher Liebnitz's monads - windowless, separate, atomic individuals, not connecting with each other at all because they are windowless - then there is no possibility of any transformation.

Transformation is conceivable only because you are me, I am you; we interpenetrate. Can you think of yourself as separate even for a single moment? You cannot even imagine yourself as separate.

The flower cannot be separated from the tree; the moment it is separated it dies. The tree cannot be separated from the earth. The earth cannot be separated from the sun. The sun cannot be separated from other stars, and so on and so forth. You separate the leaf, and the leaf dies. You separate the flower, the flower dies. You separate the tree from the earth, the tree dies. You separate the earth from the sun, and the earth dies.

Death means separation. Life means no separation. Hence the ego is bound to die because that is your idea of separation. To think of one's self in terms of ego is the only cause of death - because the ego is already dead. You can go on flogging the dead horse, but for how long? It is going to die; it is already dead, that's why it is going to die. That which is alive in you cannot die; life is eternal.

But life is not yours, you cannot possess it. Life belongs to all. Life has a vastness, infinity. Death is tiny, death is individual; life is universal. So when you live, you are part of the universe, and when you die you die only because you think you are separate.

The more you feel part of the whole, the more life you will have.

Jesus says, 'Come to me and I will give you life abundant.' What is the secret of life abundant?

The secret is: die as the ego, disappear as a separate entity, and the whole universe and all that it contains is yours. Stop possessing, and all is yours. Possess, and you are tiny and limited, and you are going to die. The secret of becoming more alive consists of a single phenomenon of dropping the idea of separation. And whenever it happens, you feel life becoming aflame in you.

Even if it happens in small measures... If you fall in love with somebody, life is aflame in you. And it is not that much has happened, just two persons are feeling one. Learn the lesson from love. Just two persons feeling one, and what joy, and what ecstasy! Think. If you fall in love with the whole then how much ecstasy and how much joy is going to happen! That is life abundant, life infinite.

Separate yourself... There are a few people who live so egoistically that they cannot love; they are the most miserable people in the world. My definition of hell is; to live in separation is hell. To live in non-separation is heaven. To disappear completely, utterly into the whole, is MOKSHA, NIRVANA.

It is ultimate freedom.

The second thing to be understood: that life is polar. That is also very fundamental to the Taoist approach. But the polarity is not that of opposition. The polarity means that the opposites are complementary to each other, they support each other. Life cannot exist without death, hence death is not the enemy. How can death be the enemy of life if life cannot exist without it? It has to be the friend. It prepares the ground for life: it helps life, it provokes life, it challenges life.

Just think. If your body were going to live for eternity, you would not live at all, you would have an infinity to postpone everything. 'Why love today if there is tomorrow? And if tomorrow is infinite, then why bother? Why dance today? We will see tomorrow.' Just imagine. If your bodily life were going to be eternal, your postponement would become eternal.

You cannot postpone because you are not certain whether there is going to be any tomorrow or not.

Nobody knows whether the next breath will come in or not, hence only foolish people postpone. The wise man lives, and the wise man lives herenow. He cannot afford postponement because he knows 'Only this moment is mine, only this very moment is mine. The next moment may be, may not be.

How can I postpone? How can I say "tomorrow"?'

The foolish man postpones until tomorrow, the wise man lives now. The wise man knows no other time than now and no other space than here, and the foolish man goes into things which could have been postponed for eternity - he lives them right now. If he is angry, he lives it right now. If he is loving, he says, 'We will see tomorrow.' All that is stupid he goes on living, and all that is luminous he goes on postponing. The wise man also postpones, but he only postpones stupid things.

Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, 'When my grandfather died I was only nine years old. He called me close to his death-bed and whispered in my ear.' He had tremendous love for this small boy. He must have seen the potential of the boy. He whispered in the ears of the boy, 'I have nothing to give to you except a simple piece of advice, and I don't know whether you will be able to understand it right now or not. But remember it! Some day you may become capable enough, mature enough to understand it. Just remember it. And it is simple advice. If you want to do anything wrong, postpone it for twenty-four hours. And if you want to do something right, never postpone it even for a single moment. If you want to be angry, violent, aggressive, postpone it for twenty-four hours. If you want to be loving, sharing, do not postpone it even for a single moment. Just live it right now, immediately!'

And Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, 'That simple advice transformed my whole life.' How can you be angry if you can postpone it for twenty-four hours? It is impossible. To be so calm and quiet as to postpone it for twenty-four hours is enough guarantee that you are not going to be angry. And who can be angry if he can postpone it for twenty-four hours? Twenty-four hours of contemplation, and the whole absurdity will be plain to you: the whole thing will look ridiculous.

And Gurdjieff was really transformed by this simple message. Sometimes very simple messages can transform you, but you have to live them.

Life exists because there is death. Death gives intensity to life. Death challenges life, it provokes you to live, and to live to the maximum, at the optimum, because - who knows - there may be no tomorrow. Death is always provoking you, goading you to live, and to live totally. Then death is not against life but a friend.

So is the case with all the polarities: the negative and the positive, love and hate, beauty and ugliness, day and night, summer and winter. And so is the case with man and woman. Man cannot be without the woman, and the woman cannot be without the man. They are part of one dialectical process. Between these two poles there is both attraction and repulsion, because attraction and repulsion cannot be separated. Hence you feel attracted towards the woman or towards the man and repulsed at the same time. A part of you wants to be with the woman, a part of you wants to be alone.

You are always hesitating. If you are with the woman or with the man, you start longing for the freedom to be on your own, to be alone. Suddenly you become very interested in being alone and free, and you don't know where this desire to be free is coming from. The woman or the man, the other, is provoking it. The moment you have left the other, this desire, this longing, this great longing to be alone will disappear. And then you are surprised, really surprised. When you are alone you simply feel lonely. You don't feel that joy that you had contemplated, you don't see any freedom; you simply see loneliness surrounding you. And your whole existence becomes cold, frozen, dark.

Again the desire arises to be with the other. Now you hanker for love, for togetherness.

This is the problem between man and woman. They are attracted and repulsed together, simultaneously. They want to come to be together and they want to be separate and alone, on their own. Hence the constant conflict between man and woman.

Marriage is a love-hate affair, an attraction-repulsion affair. If the marriage lasts long, it can only last if there are mini-divorces happening every day - only then can it last long. If the man and the woman have decided not to fight, then it is a plastic marriage. They will be together, they will manage to be together, but they will never be together in reality; they will never know those moments of unity. They are only pretending. They are being polite, but not true, not authentic.

Marriage is a kind of intimate enmity. It is an intimate enmity, it is a friendly fight, it is a war. Yes, between two wars there are peaceful moments too, and they are beautiful because of the two wars.

Couples go on fighting - that's how they keep alive the flame of love. Once they fight, they go away from each other. When they are far away from each other, in their psychologies, they start hankering for the other, they start missing the other. Then they start seeking and groping for the other. Then they come close, and very close, because they have tasted something of loneliness. Now they want to be very close. Once they have tasted of closeness they want to be separate again.

So don't be worried about it. It is a fundamental phenomenon. You cannot escape it. The only way to escape is to have a pretend marriage, which is not a true marriage. 'Remain polite to each other.'

It is a kind of contract, that 'I need you and you need me,' that 'I will scratch your back and you scratch my back' - that's all - 'because I need you and you need me. You are my security, I will be your security.' It is a legal contract but not marriage.

This is the second fundamental to be understood before you can enter into the sutras.

And the third and the most important thing: the third fundamental is that no man is only man and no woman is only woman. Man is both, woman is both; both are both. Man contains a woman within him, and so is the case with a woman: the woman contains a man within her. So it is not only a question of the outside man or outside woman, it is also an inner phenomenon, because the outer and the inner correspond. Just as I said 'as below, so above', I can say 'as outer, so inner'.

Your inner reality is also the same as your outer reality: they correspond, they balance. Now more complexity arises because each man has a woman within him, and he has to come to terms with her. It is not just a question of having a woman outside that you love; otherwise things would have been less complicated.

Whenever two persons are in love, there are really four persons - in each bed there are four persons.

Complexity you can understand. Whenever two persons make love, there are four persons making love. It is always group sex, because the man has a woman inside him, and the woman has a man inside her. And it is bound to be so because each is born out of the marriage of a man and a woman.

Something of the father will be in you - fifty percent; something of the mother will be in you - fifty percent. To each person the father contributes and the mother contributes. You may be biologically a man - that simply shows that physically you have the mechanism of the man - but deep in your psyche you are neither man nor woman, you are both. That's why I say if we have to use one word for both man and woman...

Up to now we have been using 'man' - that means it contains both. It is only because man has been very dominant in the past. But in the future the pendulum may swing to the other pole, and that will be far more true, because the word 'man' does not contain woman, the word 'woman' contains man.

It will be better to use 'woman' as a general word for both.

And so is the case with 'he' and 'she'. 'She' contains 'he', but 'he' does not contain 'she'. It will be better to use 'she' for both, 'woman' for both. It.will be better to use 'she' for God than 'he'. But both contain each other. Because of this there is a possibility of homosexuality - because of this fundamental duality inside. You may be a man on the outside, and you may become attuned to your inner woman inside. There is no problem in it. Your spirit remains free. Inside it can either become identified with the inner man or it can become identified with the inner woman.

If you are physically a man and you become identified with the woman inside, homosexuality will be the consequence. It can happen in many ways, it can happen for many reasons. So homosexuality is possible because of this inner duality.

And now science is even capable of changing your physical sex. That too is possible, because the Taoist finding has been found to be scientifically true, too. Now just by changing the hormones and your chemistry a little bit, the man can become a woman and the woman can become a man - even physiologically. That simply shows that you are both. Even the difference in the body is only of emphasis.

And sometimes it happens of its own accord too. It has been found that a woman becomes a man or a man becomes a woman. The difference must not have been much - may have been very very slight: fifty-one percent man, forty-nine percent woman; the balance is just a little more on the side of being a man. It can change in the course of life - new hormones, new food, new climate, new atmosphere, new emotions, illnesses, or anything, can change the balance and the man can become a woman or the woman can become a man. And now science knows that it can be done very easily.

There is every possibility that in future people will change their sex more often, because if you can live both the polarities in one life, then why not? If you can enjoy both visions, then why not? You will have more freedom. You have lived as a man for thirty-five years, and enough is enough. And you would like to see how it is from the other side, because there is no other way to know how it is from the other side than to be on that side.

My own observation of thousands of people has been this: that if a person is a man in this life, in the next life he is born as a woman, and vice versa. And the reason is simple: he becomes tired of being a man, or becomes tired of being a woman, and starts hankering deep down for the other pole. And, naturally, in the next life, because of this great desire to be the other, he is born as the other.

These are the three fundamentals. First: everything is interdependent. Second: life is polar and the polarities are not opposites but complementaries. And third: that each is double inside, no one is single.

In India we have the concept of ARDHANARISHWAR. That corresponds to the Taoist approach.

Shiva has been sculpted, painted as both - half man, half woman. Half of his body is that of a man and half of his body is that of a woman. When for the first time those statues were discovered by the West, the West laughed - it looked so absurd. What is the point of it? Now they have understood what the point of it is. It is one of the most fundamental things of life.

So are you, just like Shiva, half-half.

These sutras are concerned with this inner polarity, and unless you transcend this inner polarity you will not attain to the One, you will remain two. Meditation is a way to transcend this polarity within you. Meditation takes you away from all dualisms.

In ordinary life you remain dual. And in the space of twenty-four hours you change many times from one pole to the other. Watch. You may be a man, but sometimes you are very feminine, very vulnerable. You may be a woman, but sometimes in the daytime you are very masculine. When the woman is masculine she becomes very very aggressive - more aggressive than any man can ever be, because her aggressiveness is very fresh, unused, just like unused land is very fertile. And so is the case with man. If a man is tender, he is very tender - more than the woman, because that is unused soil, that part of his being has not been used; it is fresh, very alive. So this strange phenomenon is observed again and again if you become a little watchful.

Woman is generally loving; man is not generally loving. Woman is only sometimes quarrelsome, but when she is, then she really is. Man is only sometimes loving, but when he is he really is. Those are the unused parts of their being. When they are used they have a freshness.

This inner polarity keeps you in a kind of anguish, conflict; without it you cannot exist. The One remains invisible - that's why God is invisible. To become visible the One has to become two. You have to write with white chalk on a blackboard, only then can those words be seen.

To exist, one needs contrast. That is why in the daytime you cannot see stars, in the nighttime you can see - the darkness of the night becomes the background. The stars are there as much as in the night - they don't go anywhere, they can't go anywhere; they are where they are. They don't start coming in the night, they don't start hiding somewhere in the day. They are where they are, but in the day the contrast is missing. You cannot see them, they are invisible.

God is invisible. If he wants to become man and woman, he will have to become two, he will have to become matter and spirit, he will have to become body and soul, he will have to become this and that. Only the two are visible. The world consists of the 'two'. The world is dual. And the moment you can manage to make this duality disappear in oneness, you will become invisible. It has great significance, but it is a metaphor. It does not mean that you cannot see Lao Tzu or you cannot see me. You are seeing me already, but still you are not seeing me. That part has become invisible.

The polarity has disappeared inside, the duality is no more there. Only the dual can be seen, the non-dual becomes unseen.

God has to become two, only then the game, the play, is possible. Ancient Indian scriptures say he felt very lonely. 'He' means God. He felt very lonely. He longed for the other, that's why he became two. He became man and woman, cow and bull, and so on and so forth. The whole existence is sexual. By 'sexual' I mean dual. The whole existence is sexual. Sooner or later science is going to discover that there are planets which are male and there are planets which are female. It has to be so. Ancient astrology says so, and I perfectly agree with it - everything is dual. That's why the sun is represented as being male and the moon as being female. It is not poetry, it is fact. Science may not yet have discovered it, but it has to be so. If everything is dual, then there cannot be any exceptions.

Your attraction for the woman or for the man keeps you in manifestation. Now you will be able to understand why the great mystics down the ages have been teaching you how to go beyond sex - because unless you go beyond sex, you will not go into God. Unless you go beyond sex, you will never go beyond the two, you will remain tethered to the duality of the world. The 'world' means God manifest, and 'God' means the world disappearing into unmanifestation again. That too is a duality:

manifestation, non-manifestation.

In Christian theology things are not so deep, they are very superficial. In Christian theology you have only creation. What about de-creation? How can there be creation without de-creation? In the Eastern theology they are both together: SRUSHTI means creation; PRALAYA means de-creation.

There is a moment when God becomes manifest, and then there is a moment when God becomes unmanifest again - all disappears into nothingness, zero follows, just like you, as I told you in the beginning.

You are with your beloved, you become tired, you want to meditate, you want to go to the Himalayas.

God also becomes tired of the world - naturally so. Then he wants to go into retirement. Then he disappears into oneness. Dissolution follows. All disappears. But again, how long can you sit in a Himalayan cave? Even God becomes tired of it. He starts seeking and searching and creating the other again.

And exactly so it happens in each individual soul. You live life, then you become tired, then you want to go beyond life. You have lived your body, and you are tired. Now you want to go beyond the body. And then you can understand my insistence, why I say don't be afraid of the world and don't escape from the world, because the world is the very place where renunciation happens. It is one of the poles. That's why I don't say escape from the woman or the man. If you escape you may remain interested. Don't escape. Live it through and through. Indulge in the world, and the very indulgence will become renunciation. Out of that very indulgence you will start feeling that now it is time to disappear into absolute aloneness. And if you are really tired, only then can you go into that absolute aloneness.

People are bound to misunderstand me.

In India I am one of the most misunderstood men. They think I am teaching people indulgence. I am teaching renunciation. They think I am teaching a worldly kind of sannyas. They don't understand.

I am teaching REAL sannyas, because real sannyas arises only out of worldly experience. Real sannyas is not possible in a cave in the Himalayas. It will be unreal, imposed, and deep down you will remain worldly and you will continue to hanker and dream of the world.

Live in the world. Really live in it so you get tired, wearied, finished with it - so much so that one day suddenly it loses all meaning for you, and the renunciation has happened.

To me, the real renunciation happens in the market-place and ONLY in the market-place.

Now the sutras.

IN THE BODY IS THE ANIMA. THE ANIMA IS FEMININE (YIN), IT IS THE SUBSTANCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

In each being there is anima. 'Anima' means the feminine principle, the passive principle, the inactive principle, the woman, yin... IT IS THE SUBSTANCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. It is not consciousness itself but the substance. Without it consciousness cannot exist. It is the very matter, it is the house in which consciousness lives. Without it consciousness cannot live. The woman... and remember by 'woman' I don't mean just woman, I mean the woman principle. And you have to remember that continuously, otherwise you will start feeling that these Taoist people seem to be against woman.

They are not. They are not saying anything against or for, they are simply describing. And they are not saying anything for man or for woman, they are talking about the principles of womanhood and manhood.

IN THE BODY IS THE ANIMA. THE ANIMA IS FEMININE... IT IS THE SUBSTANCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

That's why women remain too much attached to their bodies - because of the feminine principle.

Man is not so attached to his body, he is really careless about the body. If there is no woman around, the man becomes dirty, dusty. The room becomes unclean, as if he is not aware of all this. You can see whenever you enter a room whether the man lives alone or if there is a woman in the house. It is so simple. You can see whether the man is a bachelor or not just by seeing his room. The books have collected dust for months. He is not careful about the body, the material part of himself. But the woman is very careful, immensely careful, hence she stands so long before the mirror.

One day Mulla Nasrudin was catching flies. He caught a few, and he told his wife, 'I have found two female flies and two male flies.'

The woman said, 'This is surprising. How could you discover the sex of the flies?'

He said, 'Two were sitting on the mirror and two were reading the newspaper!'

It is very simple. The woman is immensely tethered to the body, to the substance, to the house. If man had been left alone, at the most there would have been tents but not houses. It is woman who has created the whole civilization, because without houses there would be no civilization, remember.

Without houses there would be no cities, and civilization grows in cities. The very word 'civilization' comes from 'citizens', the people who live in the cities. Woman has created the whole civilization.

Man would have remained a vagabond, a wanderer, a traveller, a hunter. He would have continued to rush from one place to another. You can see it in many ways. There are many manifestations of it.

The West is more male-oriented, hence you see so many Western tourists moving around the world.

You don't see so many Eastern tourists. The East is very feminine.

The woman remains attached to property: the house, the car, the land, her ornaments, her clothes.

This is because of the principle inside. She is the substance of consciousness. And remember, without a woman the spirit cannot soar high. Great poetry is born through man, but the cause is always the woman.

You don't come across great women poets. I have looked into the poetry that women write. They try hard, but nothing much happens. Madhuri writes great poetry, but it is not really poetry, Woman cannot write poetry; she can inspire poetry, that is true, and no great poetry arrives in the world without a woman somewhere in the background. She inspires: her presence, her love, her caring creates it. She need not write it, the man will write it. But she is the inspiration, the cause, a very subtle cause. No women are great painters; not that they don't paint - particularly in the modern age they do everything that man has always been doing...

There is a great competition. They think they have to do all the things that man has been doing. They think it is because of these things that man has become important. The logic is fallacious. They will only become imitation men, they will lose their own soul, and they will always remain second-hand.

In the world of men, to compete with men, they will remain secondary. They will never be primary.

That is not the way to compete. If you become like a man, you will never be as competent as a man - how can you be? his male principle is behind him. You will become ugly, you will become rough, you will lose all softness. That's why the Lib. movement has been one of the most disastrous things that has happened to women. And the reason is not that their ideology is wrong, its implementation is wrong.

Woman is equal to man, but she is not the SAME as man, and she should not be. She should follow her own nature, she should listen to her own soul. She has a different vibe, she has a different function to fulfil in the world, a different destiny. If she follows man and imitates, she is lost. And the more she is lost, the more she will become uprooted from her being. The more she becomes false, plastic, synthetic, the more desperate she will be. That's why the Lib. women are very angry, constantly in a rage. The rage is that they are feeling frustrated. They are not as they want to be, they cannot be - it is against nature; there is no need either.

IN THE BODY IS THE ANIMA. THE ANIMA IS FEMININE, the yin principle, IT IS THE SUBSTANCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

Meditate over the words 'substance of consciousness': the very foundation of consciousness. It is not consciousness itself but the house where consciousness lives.

BUT, BESIDES THIS, THERE IS THE ANIMUS IN WHICH THE SPIRIT SHELTERS.

Animus is the male principle, yang.

THE ANIMUS LIVES IN THE EYES: IT SEES, IT DREAMS.

The feminine principle lives in the body, it is very material. That's why women are always materialistic. Their considerations are very practical, they are very pragmatic.

Mulla Nasrudin was saying to me one day that he never quarrels with his wife.

I asked him, 'How do you manage it? It is almost impossible, or next to impossible.'

He said, 'We have managed it perfectly well for many years. On the first night we decided a single principle, and we have followed it. And the principle is: she decides about small things and I decide about big things.'

I asked, 'What do you mean by small things and big things?' He said, 'For example, what car to purchase, what house to live in, what school the children have to be sent to, what food has to be eaten, what clothes have to be purchased - all these small things she decides.'

And I said, 'What do you decide?'

He said, 'Whether God exists or not, whether there is a hell and heaven or not. All the great problems - that is for me. And the principle has worked out perfectly well. She never interferes in the great things, I never interfere in the small things. I am master of my own world, she is master of her own world. We never overlap.'

The feminine principle is rooted in matter, rooted in the body. But man dreams.

Man is a dreamer. The male principle is the principle of dreaming. No woman can understand why people are so interested in going to the moon. It looks so foolish. For what? What are you going to get there - some shopping? Better to go to MG Road than go to the moon. What will you be doing there? For what? And risking your life? No woman can understand why man wants to climb Everest.

What are you going to get there? It looks so ridiculous. And all women deep inside know that all men are childish. 'Let them play, let them go and do their things.' She knows perfectly well that they are interested in foolish things: the football match, cricket - all nonsense, it makes no sense. You throw the ball on that side and they throw the ball to your side, and this goes on and on. What is the point of it?

The woman is practical, down-to-earth. She is earthly. The male principle is like the sky, and the female principle is like the earth. Man dreams, plans, desires, longs for unknown things. Man is an adventurer, ready to risk his life for any dream that takes possession of him.

The man lives in the eyes and the woman lives in the ears, hence the desire in women to gossip.

Such immense joy in gossiping... Just look at two women gossiping - they look as if they are in such ecstasy.

I have heard...

Once there was a competition in China, a competition to decide who was the greatest liar in the country. And many people came and told many lies, but the man who won the prize was the man who said, 'I saw two women in a park sitting silently on one bench for half an hour.'

He won the first prize. It is impossible!

Because of the woman, the fall, the original sin happened. The snake must have tried on Adam first. But Adam is not the ears, he is the eyes; he must have seen the tricky snake, and he must have said, 'Keep to yourself. Don't bother me. I have my own dreams.' But the snake persuaded Eve. He must have gossiped with her. This was gossip: 'What are you doing? And here is the Tree of Knowledge. God has deceived you. If you eat the fruit of this tree you will become as immortal as God. If you eat the fruit of this tree you will know all that God knows. You will be omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent.'

The woman naturally became curious - such a practical thing. The snake persuaded her. The snake was the first salesman. Salesmen don't go to men. They only knock on the door when the man has gone to the office. The woman has to be persuaded. Only the woman has ears.

The ears are the passive part of your being, the receptive part. Something can enter through the ears. The eyes are the aggressive part. You cannot be aggressive with the ears, remember. But with the eyes you can be aggressive. You can look in such a way at a person as if your eyes were daggers. You can offend people with your eyes or you can love people with your eyes. You can reach people with your eyes or you can become unreachable. Somebody can look into your eyes so vacantly that he becomes unreachable. Somebody can look into you so absently that he is unreachable. Or somebody can look with such desire, such passion, such longing, such caring, that his eyes almost start caressing your body. The eyes are the aggressive parts. They can project, they can reach.

In India, the person who stares at women offensively is called LUCHCHA. And you will be surprised:

the word LUCHCHA comes from LOCHAN. LOCHAN means eyes. He is raping with his eyes; his eyes can almost become his genital organs. Eyes are dangerous.

Ears are very innocent. They only take in. They are feminine.

THE ANIMUS LIVES IN THE EYES: IT SEES, IT DREAMS. BUT WHOEVER IS IN A DARK AND WITHDRAWN MOOD, AND CHAINED TO HIS BODILY FORM, IS FETTERED BY THE ANIMA.

But whenever you are in a withdrawn mood, in a mood of passivity, then you are chained to the body, and you are chained by the anima. It does not matter whether you are man or woman. If a woman is using her eyes and is trying to see rather than trying to listen, she becomes animus. If a man is trying to listen, he becomes anima. A disciple becomes anima - has to become, because a disciple needs to become all ears and nothing else.

The Master is all eyes, and the disciple is all ears. The Master has to see and has to see the deepest in you. He has to penetrate your very core. And the disciple has to listen, to be attentive, to be available, to allow the Master to reach the very innermost core of his being.

The disciple becomes feminine. That's why women are the best disciples in the world. Man finds a little difficulty in becoming a disciple. Even if he becomes, he becomes a disciple reluctantly. He resists, he fights, he doubts, he creates many many ways to somehow escape. If he cannot, then helplessly he relaxes - but helplessly. The woman jumps joyously. The greatest disciples have been women, and the proportion has always remained the same. If there are five disciples one will be a man, four will be women; that has been the proportion. It was so with Mahavir, it was so with Buddha, it is so with me. It has always been so.

Man thinks women are starry-eyed, hypnotically available, suggestible. These are a man's condemnations. He thinks that he himself cannot be hypnotized. Women are very very ready to be hypnotized, he thinks.

In a way he is right and in a way he is wrong too. If the woman comes to the snake, she will be converted by the snake. If the woman comes to a Buddha she will be converted by a Buddha. Yes, she is suggestible. It all depends to whom she comes. If a man listens to the snake, he will not be converted; he will be saved from the snake. But if he comes to listen to Buddha, he will not be converted there, either. Now he has missed his salvation.

THEREFORE THE CONCENTRATION OF THE ANIMUS IS BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE CIRCULATION OF THE LIGHT, AND IN THIS WAY THE SPIRIT IS MAINTAINED, THE ANIMA SUBJUGATED.

The light has to circulate in the eyes. The eyes are the most lighted part of your being. Taoists say your eyes are parallel to the sun. If you don't have eyes you cannot see light, and only the similar can see the similar. Your eyes are condensed light, that's why you can see light through the eyes.

Your ears are condensed sound, that's why you can hear through the ears.

The anima in everybody, whether man or woman, has to be subjugated. Why? - because it is the form, it is the body, it is matter. The spirit has to be the master, the spirit has to rise above the body.

The spirit has to make the body follow it, not vice versa. So whether one is a man or a woman doesn't matter. The anima inside has to be made a follower of the animus because only the animus can search and seek, and if the woman is coming behind, the animus can go perfectly deeply into reality. If the poet knows that the woman is behind him, supporting him, his poetry can soar very high. If the man knows that the woman is always with him, he has great strength; he can go on any adventure. The moment he feels that the woman is not with him, his energy is out. Now he has only dreams; but they are impotent - they have no more energy, they cannot be realized.

The realizing factor is the woman. The dreaming factor is the man.

In the search for God, or truth, the man has to lead and the woman has to follow. Inside you the animus has to become the master, and the anima has to become the disciple - and, remember again, irrespective of whether you are man or woman.

THE METHOD USED BY THE ANCIENTS FOR ESCAPING FROM THE WORLD CONSISTED IN MELTING OUT COMPLETELY THE SLAG OF DARKNESS IN ORDER TO RETURN TO THE PURELY CREATIVE.

Woman is stagnant. Man is dynamic. That's why you see women looking so restful and men looking so restless. Even when you were a child, just a small child, a baby, the difference was there. The boy baby is very restless, is trying to grab this, grab that, trying to reach somewhere; he is a nuisance.

And the girl baby is never a nuisance; she sits silently hugging her doll. She is also a doll. A tremendous restfulness... The principle of rest is woman and the principle of restlessness is man, hence the roundness and the beauty of woman and the constant feverish state of man.

But to grow you will need the restless principle in you, because growth means change. The woman is basically orthodox, the man is basically unconventional. The woman always supports the status quo, and the man is already ready to go for any stupid revolution. Anything changing, and he is for it. Whether it is changing for good or bad, that is not such an important thing - 'Change is good.'

The woman is always for the old, the established - whether it is good or bad is not the question - 'Because it has always been so, so it has to be so.'

Growth needs the principle of stasis in you to melt. The woman in you is frozen; it has to be melted so you can become a river. But the river also needs the support of the banks - which are static, remember. If the river has no banks it will never reach the ocean. And if the river is frozen it will never reach the ocean. So the river has to melt, become water, and still has to take the support of the banks, which are static. The perfect man is one who has used his dynamism as the river and who has used his stasis as the banks. This is the perfect balance. Then you have used your animus to grow, and you have used your anima to make your growth an established fact, not just a momentary phenomenon.

THIS IS NOTHING MORE THAN A REDUCTION OF THE ANIMA AND A COMPLETION OF THE ANIMUS.

But ordinarily, men, women - everybody has become static. Even men are so orthodox. Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Jainas - even men are so orthodox. They have fallen victim to their anima, their animus has been subjugated. It has to be released.

That's my whole effort here: to release your animus from the grip of the anima. Once the animus is released from the grip of your anima, then we can use the anima too; but not before. Hence my insistence on dynamic methods of meditation. Only once in a while do I suggest that people go to Zazen, Vipassana - only when I see that their animus is flowing. Now they can use their anima.

Vipassana, Zazen are anima methods, feminine methods. Sufi dancing, Dynamic Meditation, Nataraj, they are animus methods. First you have to become a river, only then can your banks be used as supports.

AND THE CIRCULATION OF THE LIGHT IS THE MAGICAL MEANS OF REDUCING THE DARK, AND GAINING MASTERY OVER THE ANIMA. IF THIS METHOD IS FOLLOWED, PLENTY OF SEED-WATER WILL BE PRESENT OF ITSELF; THE SPIRIT-FIRE WILL BE IGNITED, AND THE THOUGHT-EARTH WILL SOLIDIFY AND CRYSTALLIZE. AND THUS THE HOLY FRUIT MATURES.

The holy fruit is neither male nor female. The holy fruit matures only in wholeness. When your anima and animus are supporting each other like the two wings of a bird, then eros is released, logos is released, intuition is released. Then you start flying into the sky and yet you remain rooted in the earth.

For a tree to go high in the sky it will need deep roots in the earth. The earth is anima, the sky is animus. And the higher the tree goes into the sky, the deeper it has to go into the earth - in the same proportion.

THE ONE NATURE, WHEN IT DESCENDS INTO THE HOUSE OF THE CREATIVE, DIVIDES INTO ANIMUS AND ANIMA.

God is one, but when he becomes creative, he divides himself into two: animus and anima. Without it there is no possibility of manifestation. Without it there will be no dialectics. God divides himself into thesis and antithesis, because only through thesis and antithesis - the challenge, the conflict, the struggle. And through the struggle, the friction, energy is created.

It is just like when you strike two stones and fire comes up. It is just like when you clap two hands and sound is created. Zen Masters say, 'Find the sound of one hand clapping.' What do they mean?

They mean go beyond the two so you can find the One. But that One is the unmanifest God. That One is the very source from which we have come. And we can reach the source only when our two-ness has disappeared.

Now this two-ness has to be used in such a way that the thesis and antithesis become synthesis.

That is the whole art of life, and that's what I am teaching you. My sannyasin has to be a synthesis of man and woman, of day and night, of world and renunciation, of matter and spirit, of earth and sky.

THE ANIMUS IS IN THE HEAVENLY HEART, in the third eye. IT IS OF THE NATURE OF LIGHT; IT IS THE POWER OF LIGHTNESS AND PURITY. IT IS THAT WHICH WE HAVE RECEIVED FROM THE GREAT EMPTINESS, the great sky, THAT WHICH IS IDENTICAL IN FORM WITH THE PRIMORDIAL BEGINNING. THE ANIMA PARTAKES OF THE NATURE OF THE DARK.

Hence the mystery of the woman. No man has ever been able to unravel the mystery. Only if one has gone beyond both, only if one has become a Buddha can one know the mystery of both man and woman. Otherwise no man has ever been able to plumb the depths of a woman; the woman remains mysterious, dark, a dark night. You cannot see clearly - you can at most grope. You can never be logically clear about the woman. She never follows logic, her path is very zig-zag. She jumps to conclusions directly without ever going through the process. The man goes step by step through the process; he is methodical.

The woman is a poet in the sense that she is intuitive. She may not create poetry - she is a poet without creating any poetry. Her life is her poetry. And it is as dark as poetry: mysterious, vague, ambiguous. Nothing is clear, nothing can ever be clear: the woman cannot be demystified. She remains always a question mark.

Man is clear like light. Hence man looks shallow, woman looks deep. Hence man seems to be completely on the surface. You can know about him; if you know about him you can predict him.

But you can never predict a woman; she remains unpredictable, hence the darkness. These are metaphors.

IT IS THE ENERGY OF THE HEAVY AND TURBID...

And the woman, the principle of the feminine, keeps you tethered to the earth; it is gravitation.

... IT IS BOUND TO THE BODILY FLESHLY HEART. THE ANIMUS LOVES LIFE. THE ANIMA SEEKS DEATH.

The woman is more like death. Don't feel offended, this is just a description. If the words 'anima' and 'animus', 'man' and 'woman' create some trouble in you, you can replace them with x and Y.

But that is what THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER IS doing. These are just metaphors. To make them anthropomorphic helps them to be understood more clearly.

Man is interested in life, woman is interested in security. Man is interested in love, woman is interested in safety. Man is interested in adventure, woman is interested in comfort, convenience.

Woman is death. By 'death' there is no condemnation meant or supposed, just that the quality of death is security. You are secure only when you are dead. You are secure only when you are not, then nothing can happen to you anymore.

But man wants to seek and search, to risk. That's why the husband goes on looking for other women, and the woman goes on watching the husband. She cannot conceive why he is still interested in other women - 'I am here!' But the male principle is always interested in something new, in the sensational, the new thrill. And sometimes it happens that his own wife may be a beauty, and he may start fooling around with an ugly woman. Nobody can see the point of it - what is happening.

'You have such a beautiful woman, and what are you doing?'

But you don't understand the male principle. The male principle is basically polygamous, and the feminine is monogamous. She wants to settle. She is more interested in marriage than in love. She is interested in love only to get married. And man gets married only because he is interested in love.

There is an ancient saying that the world would be immensely joyful if every man remained unmarried and every woman was married. But how can it be done? It is impossible.

THE ANIMUS LOVES LIFE. THE ANIMA SEEKS DEATH. ALL SENSUOUS DESIRES AND IMPULSES OF ANGER ARE EFFECTS OF THE ANIMA. BUT THE PUPIL UNDERSTANDS HOW TO DISTIL THE DARK ANIMA COMPLETELY SO THAT IT TRANSFORMS ITSELF INTO PURE LIGHT.

But the alchemy consists in understanding these two principles in each of you, man or woman; and in transforming the anima, the dark part in you, into the light part; in helping the dark part to move, in helping the dark part help the light part and not to fight with it.

If your anima can help your animus that is real marriage, the inner marriage. Then you start becoming integrated, then your light is no more shallow, it has the depth of darkness. And your darkness is no more dark, it has the light of lightness. Then anima and animus melt into each other.

And when they melt utterly, the world has disappeared, you are again one. And to be one is to know God. To remain two is to remain in the world. And the secret, the experiment, has to happen within you, it has nothing to do with the outside world.

Inside you these two principles are constantly in fight. Call them life/death, darkness/light, man/woman, x/z - whatsoever you will - but these two principles are there, continuously in fight.

And that is your anguish, your misery, your hell. Let them become friends. Let your energy circulate in them, not against each other, let them come closer to each other. Let there be an inner orgasm, an inner intercourse between the woman and the man. That's what in Tantra is called YUGA-NADDHA, the meeting of the man and woman within you. That is real Tantra. The meeting of the man and woman on the outside is just an introduction.

Sudha leads the Tantra Group. That is just an introduction. The real Tantra has yet to begin. She is just preparing you. The real Tantra Group will soon start when I see that now you are ready to go in and meet THERE with your inner woman and inner man. When I see your outer interest is no longer so strong as to keep you out, is no longer so binding on you - the chain is broken - then the real Tantra Group will start. I am waiting for the new commune to happen, because the new Tantra Group will need a totally different kind of climate, a totally different kind of atmosphere. This is the greatest experiment that a man can go through. And this experiment releases in you cosmic ecstasy, total orgasm.