The spirit returns and touches heaven

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL MORNING. It must have been a morning like this. The breeze was cool and full of the sweet smell of the wet earth. The birds were singing and the sun was rising on the horizon.

The dewdrops were shining on the grass leaves like pearls.

It is always beautiful; all that is needed is eyes to see it. The birds are there, singing every morning, but who is there to listen? And the trees are blooming, but who is there to appreciate? The aesthetic heart is absent, only the calculating mind is functioning. Hence you live in an ugly world.

I am relating to you an ancient story.

Gautam Buddha's sannyasins were meditating under the mango trees...

Morning is the best time to meditate. After the whole night's rest you are very close to the center of your being. It is easier to move into the center consciously early in the morning than at any other time - because for the whole night you have been there at the center, you have just left it. The world of a thousand and one things has not yet arisen. You are just on the way, moving towards things, moving into the outside world, but the inner center is very close, around the comer. Just a turning of the head, and you will be able to see that which is: truth, God, enlightenment. You will be able to see that into which you had gone when dreams had stopped and sleep was profound, but then you were unconscious.

Deep sleep rejuvenates because, although unconsciously, you enter into the core of your being - but you still enter. All the tiredness of the outside world is taken away, and all the wounds are healed, and all the dust disappears. You have taken a bath, you have dived deep into your own being.

That's why Patanjali says: Deep, dreamless sleep is almost like SAMADHI - but almost, not exactly SAMADHI. What is the difference? It is very small - or very great - but this much difference is there:

in sleep you are unconscious, in SAMADHI you are conscious; but the space is the same.

So in the morning when you have just awakened and you are very close to the center... Soon the periphery will take you, will possess you; you will have to go into the world of occupations. Before you go into that external journey, have a look, so that consciously you can see who you are. This is what meditation is all about. Hence, down the ages, the morning, early morning, when the earth is awakening and the trees are awakening and the birds are awakening and the sun is awakening, when the whole atmosphere is full of awakening, you can use this situation. You can ride on this tide of awakening and you can enter into your own being, awake, alert, aware. And your whole life will be transformed. And your whole day will be transformed because then you will have a different orientation.

Then you can go into the marketplace and still you will remain in contact with your inner core. And that is the greatest secret, the Secret of the Golden Flower.

... Buddha's sannyasins were meditating under the mango trees that morning...

As you have gathered around me, thousands had gathered around Buddha. There was nothing else to learn other than to meditate.

Buddhas don't teach, they only share. They don't give you a doctrine, they certainly give you a discipline. They don't give you beliefs, they certainly give you a taste of trust. And just a drop of the taste of trust and life is transmuted. And to connect with an awakened being, the only way is to become a little bit awakened on your own part too, because the like can meet the like. To be with a Buddha is to be a little bit more alert than life generally requires you to be. Life wants you to be automatic, robot-like. When you go to a Master, he requires that you drop your automatism, that you de-automatize yourself, that you become a little more alert, that you don't go on looking at things but also remember your being.

... Buddha's disciples were meditating - such a beautiful morning is not to be missed...

And when birds are praising the morning sun, you have also to praise God. And when trees are swaying in the wind, you have also to participate in this eternal dance, you have also to celebrate.

Another day is born - forget the past, die to the past, be born anew.

... Buddha had a disciple named Subhuti. Buddha was a very fortunate Master: he had TREMENDOUSLY potential disciples. A few of them were really rare beings. Subhuti is one of those rare beings who was just on the verge of Buddhahood. Just one step more and he would be a Buddha. He was coming home, every moment coming home, closer and closer to the center where ego disappears and God is born, where you die and the whole is born, when the part disappears into the whole, when the cosmos takes place and then you are no more a separate entity, trembling, afraid of death. Then you are part of this eternal play of existence. He was just on the verge. He was one of the MOST silent of Buddha's disciples. He was so silent that the scriptures say that he had almost become absent. He would come and nobody would take note of him. He would pass and nobody would become aware that he had passed. He was a very silent breeze...

Ordinarily you want to be noticed. If you are not noticed, you feel hurt. You want attention. WHO wants attention? Attention is the requirement of the ego, the ego feeds on it. So if attention is not given to you - if you come and nobody notices you, you pass and nobody says, "Good morning.

How are you?" as if you had not passed - you will feel wounded. You will start thinking, "So, I am thought to be a nobody, and I will show these people who I am."

The ego always hankers for attention.

... Subhuti was so silent. his desire for attention had disappeared. And the moment desire for attention disappears, all politics disappears from your being. Then you are religious. Then you are perfectly at home with your nobodiness. Then you live a totally different life. Then you live so silently that you don't make any fuss, that you don't make any ripples, that you come and you go as if you had never come and you had never gone. He was, and yet he was not...

In fact, the moment you REALLY are, you drop all ideas of your ego. People carry the idea of the ego because they are not. Try to understand this paradox. Those who are not, they brag about themselves. They HAVE to brag, they have to prove to the world, they are constantly performing.

They know if they don't perform they are nobodies. They have to perform, they have to shout, they have to make noise, they have to force others to take note of them. Adolf Hitlers and Genghis Khans and Tamburlaines and all the stupid lot of politicians down the ages - all that they have been doing is to make more and more people take note of them. These are the people who are not.

The people who are are so contented with their being; who cares whether anybody takes note or not? They are so much to themselves, enough unto themselves.

So this is the paradox: the man who is not tries, pretends that he is much, somebody special, and the man who is pretends not, brags not, becomes a very silent existence.

... He existed as an absence...

And only in absence does real presence arise; the person disappears but presence arises.

... He had melted slowly and disappeared as a person...

And when that happens, when that miracle happens, the very absence becomes a radiant presence.

... Subhuti was also sitting under a tree, not even meditating. Others were meditating, he was simply sitting there doing nothing. That is the HIGHEST form of meditation...

To DO meditation is to be just a beginner. The beginner has to DO the meditation. But one who has understood meditation cannot even think in terms of doing, because the moment you do something you are stirred. The moment you do something you are tense. The moment you do something the ego enters again from the back door - because with the doing comes the doer. Meditation is a state of non-doing. Certainly in the beginning one has to do, but slowly slowly as meditation deepens, understanding arises, doing disappears. Then meditation is being, not doing.

Doing is part of the world of having. Doing is another aspect of having. You have to do if you want to have; if you want to have you will have to do. And millions of people remain in the world of doing and having.

Beyond these two there is another world: the world of being - where you don't have anything and you are not a doer either. All is utterly silent, all is absolutely passive, not even a ripple.

... So he was not doing meditation, remember. He was just sitting and doing nothing. And then suddenly, flowers began to fall around him. And those were not ordinary flowers, not of this world, not earthly. They were not falling from the trees, they were falling from the sky, from nowhere, out of the blue. He had never seen such beauty and such freshness and such fragrance. Those were the flowers of the beyond, Golden Flowers. He was naturally in awe and wonder. And then he heard the gods whispering to him, "We are praising you for your discourse on emptiness...." Now he was really puzzled. "Discourse on emptiness? But I have not spoken of emptiness," said Subhuti.

"You have not spoken of emptiness, we have not heard emptiness," responded the gods. "This is true emptiness."

And blossoms showered upon Subhuti like rain.

This is one of the most beautiful stories I have ever come across. A great meaning is hidden there:

if you are silent, if you are utterly silent, existence starts showering on you. Blessings shower on you like rain. If you are silent, if you are in the state of meditation, just being and doing nothing, the whole existence converges upon you with all its grace, with all its beauty and benediction.

This is the state Jesus calls the state of beatitude. For the first time you become aware of the splendor of existence. Each moment is an eternity then, and even to breathe is such a joy, such a celebration. Misery disappears the moment you disappear; misery is the shadow of the ego. And blessing is a natural phenomenon: it happens on its own the moment you are empty. The whole existence rushes in, explodes.

Ludwig Wittgenstein has said, "The mystical is not the 'how' of the world, but that it exists."

Just that it exists is the mystery. There is no need to go anywhere else: the mystery is not hidden, the mystery is all over the place. Just that it exists is the mystery of it! You need not dig deep to find the mystery. Mystery is everywhere, on the surface as much as in the depth. All that is needed is a heart that feels. All that is needed is a being that is available, open. All that is needed is alertness, alertness without any effort and tension. All that is needed is a state of meditation, and then favors from existence start showering like rain.

The sutras:

Master Lu-tsu said: NOW THERE ARE THREE CONFIRMATORY EXPERIENCES WHICH CAN BE TESTED. THE FIRST IS THAT, WHEN ONE HAS ENTERED THE STATE OF MEDITATION, THE GODS ARE IN THE VALLEY. MEN ARE HEARD TALKING AS THOUGH AT A DISTANCE OF SEVERAL HUNDRED PACES, EACH ONE QUITE CLEAR. BUT THE SOUNDS ARE ALL LIKE AN ECHO IN A VALLEY: ONE CAN ALWAYS HEAR THEM, BUT NEVER ONESELF. THIS IS CALLED:

'THE PRESENCE OF THE GODS IN THE VALLEY.'

Lu-tsu is talking about three confirmatory signs. The first he calls 'the gods are in the valley'. Those who are moving - and you all are moving towards meditation - are going to come across these strange but tremendously beautiful spaces. The first sign that meditation has started becoming a crystallized phenomenon in you is 'the presence of the gods in the valley'.

What does this metaphor mean? It means the moment meditation starts happening in you, the whole existence becomes a valley and you are at the top of a hill. You start rising upwards. The whole world becomes a valley, far away, deep down there, and you are sitting on a sunlit hilltop.

Meditation takes you upwards - not physically, but spiritually. And the phenomenon is very clear when it happens; these will be the signs.

When you are moving inwards in the meditation, suddenly you will see a great distance arising between you and the noises around you. You may be sitting in a marketplace and suddenly you will see a gap is arising between you and the noises. Just a moment before those noises were almost identified with you, you were in them; now you are getting away from them. You are there physically, as you had been before; there is no need to go to the mountains - this is the way to find the real mountains of the within, this is the way to find the Himalayas within. You start moving into deep silence, and suddenly all the noises that were so close to you - and such a turmoil was there - start going far away, receding backwards. Everything is as it was before on the outside, nothing has been changed; you are sitting in the same place where you had started meditating. But as meditation deepens this will be felt: you will feel distance arising from outside things.

MEN ARE HEARD TALKING AS THOUGH AT A DISTANCE OF SEVERAL HUNDRED PACES...

... As if suddenly the world has gone away from you or you have gone away from the world. But each thought is quite clear. Whatsoever is being said outside is quite clear, in fact, more clear than it was before.

This is the magic of meditation. You are not becoming unconscious, because in unconsciousness also you will see that noises are disappearing. For example, if you have been given chloroform you will feel this same phenomenon happening: noises start going away, away, away... and they are gone - but you have fallen unconscious. You cannot hear anything clearly.

Just the same happens in meditation, but with a difference - the noises start going away from you, but every noise becomes distinctly clear, more clear than it was before, because now a witnessing is arising.

First you were also a noise in all the noises; you were lost in it. Now you are a witness, an observer, and because you are so silent you can see everything distinctly, clearly. Although noises are far away, they are more clear than ever before. Each single note is heard.

If in meditation you are listening to music this will happen: first you will see the music is going far away; and the second thing, simultaneously will also be felt: each note is becoming so clear and so distinct as it had never been before. Before, those notes were mixed with each other, overlapping into each other. Now they are all clearcut individuals, atomic. Each single note is separate.

MEN ARE HEARD TALKING AS THOUGH AT A DISTANCE OF SEVERAL HUNDRED PACES, EACH ONE QUITE CLEAR, BUT THE SOUNDS ARE ALL LIKE AN ECHO IN A VALLEY.

And the third thing will be felt: that they are not heard directly but as if indirectly, as if they are echoes of the real sounds, not the sounds themselves. They become more insubstantial, their substance is lost. They become less material, their matter disappears; they are no more heavy, they are light.

You can see their weightlessness - they are like echoes. The whole existence becomes an echo.

That is why Hindu mystics call the world MAYA, illusion. Illusion does not mean unreal; it simply means shadow-like, echo-like. It does not mean non-existential, it simply means dream-like.

Shadow-like, dream-like, echo-like - that will be the feeling. You cannot feel that these things are real. The whole existence becomes a dream, very clear, distinct, because you are alert; and very dream-like because you are alert. First you were lost in the dream: you were not alert, and you were thinking that this is reality. You were identified with your mind. Now you are no more identified with the mind, a separate entity has arisen in you: the watchfulness, SAKSHI.

ONE CAN ALWAYS HEAR THEM, BUT NEVER ONESELF.

And the fourth thing in it will be felt: you can hear the whole existence around you - people talking, walking, children laughing, somebody crying, a bird call, a car passes by, an aeroplane, the train.

You will be able to hear everything. Just one thing: you will not be able to hear yourself, you have completely disappeared. You are an emptiness, you are becoming a Subhuti. You are just not there at all. You cannot feel yourself as an entity. All the noises are there, just your inner noises have disappeared. Ordinarily there are more noises inside you than on the outside. The real turmoil is within you, the real madness is there. And when the outer madness and inner madness both meet together, hell is created.

The outer madness is going to continue, because you have not produced it and you cannot destroy it, but you can destroy your inner madness very easily. It is within your capacity. Once the inner is not there the outer madness becomes insubstantial. It loses all reality, it becomes illusory. You cannot find your old voice; there is no thought arising in you, so no sound. This is called 'the gods are in the valley'.

You have become empty, and everything has gone deep down in the valley; only echoes are heard.

And when echoes are heard, certainly you are not affected.

Just the other day a madman tried to rape Anuradha. He was caught before he could do any harm. I asked Anuradha to come to me just to see whether she's affected by it or not. And I was tremendously happy that she is not affected at all, not at all, not even a trace. That's the beauty of growing meditation: even if you are murdered you will remain unaffected.

Now, the effort to rape her was murderous. And let Morarji Desai know that this is the true image of his India; an Indian tried it. And this is not a single case, it has been happening almost regularly. It has become so dangerous for my sannyasins to move outside. This ugly India is not my India. This ugly India belongs to Moraji Desai and Charan Singh and Advani and company. I simply disown this ugly India.

But there is another India: the India of the Buddhas, the eternal India. I am part of it, you are part of it. In fact, anywhere, wherever meditation is happening, that person becomes part of that eternal India. That eternal India is not geographical, it is a spiritual space. And to become part of that eternal India is to become a sannyasin.

And I was happy, tremendously happy, seeing Anuradha: she had remained absolutely unaffected, not a ripple of fear, nothing - as if nothing had happened, as if the attempt was made in a dream.

This is how one grows slowly slowly into meditation. All becomes insubstantial. One can see everything.

She fought back. She was courageous and brave, she did whatsoever was needed to be done, she didn't yield - but the inner consciousness remained unaffected.

THIS IS CALLED THE PRESENCE OF THE GODS IN THE VALLEY. AT TIMES THE FOLLOWING CAN BE EXPERIENCED: AS SOON AS ONE IS QUIET THE LIGHT OF THE EYES BEGINS TO BLAZE UP, SO THAT EVERYTHING BEFORE ONE BECOMES QUITE BRIGHT AS IF ONE WERE IN A CLOUD. IF ONE OPENS ONE'S EYES AND SEEKS THE BODY, IT IS NOT TO BE FOUND ANY MORE. THIS IS CALLED: 'IN THE EMPTY CHAMBER IT GROWS LIGHT'. INSIDE AND OUTSIDE, EVERYTHING IS EQUALLY LIGHT. THAT IS A VERY FAVORABLE SIGN.

Now, the second sign is called: 'In the empty chamber it grows light'.

Unless you become empty, you will remain dark, you will remain darkness. 'In the empty chamber it grows light': when you are utterly empty, when there is nobody inside you, then light happens. The presence of the ego creates darkness. Darkness and ego are synonymous. No-ego and light are synonymous.

So ALL methods of meditations, whatsoever their orientation, finally verge in this empty chamber of your inner being. Just a silent space is left, and in that space you find great light arising, without any source. It is not like the light that you see when the sun rises, because the light that comes from the sun cannot be eternal; in the night it will disappear again. It is not like the light that needs fuel, because when the fuel is finished the light will disappear.

This light has a very mysterious quality: it has no source, no cause. It is not caused, hence once it appears it remains, it never disappears. In fact, it is already there; you are just not empty enough to see it.

And when this light starts growing in you these will be the experiences, 'as soon as one is quiet'.

The moment you sit silently and you become quiet, still, unmoving within and without, 'the light of the eyes begins to blaze up'.

Suddenly you will see your light is pouring through your eyes. This is an experience that science has not yet become aware of. Science thinks that light gets into the eyes, but never otherwise. Light comes from the outside, gets into the eyes, enters you: this is only half the story. The other half is known only by the mystics and the meditators. This is only one part: the light entering you. There is another part: the light pouring out of your eyes. And when the light starts pouring out of your eyes, 'the light of the eyes begins to blaze up, so that everything before one becomes quite bright'.

Then this whole existence brightens up. Then you see that trees are more green than ever, and their greenness has a quality of luminosity in it. Then you see the roses are rosier than ever. The same roses, the same trees, but something from you is pouring into them, revealing them more clearly than ever. Then small things have such beauty: just colored stones are more beautiful to a Buddha than the Kohinoor diamond to Queen Elizabeth. To Queen Elizabeth, even the Kohinoor - the greatest diamond in the world - is not so beautiful as an ordinary stone is to a Buddha. Why? - because Buddha's eyes can pour light, and in that light ordinary stones become Kohinoors. Ordinary people become Buddhas. To a Buddha, everything is full of Buddhahood. Hence he has said, "The day I became enlightened, the whole existence became enlightened. The trees and the mountains and the rivers and the rocks - all became enlightened." The whole existence was raised to a higher plenitude.

It depends on you how much you can put into existence; only that much will you get. If you don't put anything into it you won't get anything out of it. First you have to put into it to get out of it. That's why creative people know more beauty, more love, more joy than uncreative people - because creative people put something into existence. Existence responds... and responds generously.

Your eyes are empty: they don't give anything, they only take. They are hoarders, they don't share.

So whenever you will come across eyes which can share, you will see a tremendously different quality, a tremendous beauty, silence, power, potential. If you can see those eyes which can pour their light into you, your whole heart will be stirred.

But even to see that light you will have to be a little more alert than you are. The sun may be rising and it may be morning, but you may be fast asleep. But then no sun is rising for you, and there is no morning; you may be lost in a dark night, in a nightmare. You have to be a little more wakeful, but this happens.

In the modern consciousness an experience of this kind has come through psychedelics, a little bit.

It is forced, it is violent. It is not natural, you are raping your chemistry. But the experience has happened, and many people have come to meditation through drugs because the drug has made them aware of something they were never aware of.

When you have taken some drug, the world looks more beautiful. Ordinary things look extraordinary.

What is happening? The drug is forcing some inner light from your eyes to fall onto things - but it is a forced phenomenon, and dangerous. And after each drug-trip you will fall into a deeper darkness than before. And in the person who has been taking drugs long, you will find his eyes UTTERLY empty because he has been pouring light out of his eyes and he does not know how to create it. He does not know how to make his inner light circulate so that more light is created; he simply pours.

So a man who takes drugs, by and by, loses the vitality of his eyes, the youth of his eyes. His eyes become dull, dark, black holes.

Just the opposite happens through meditation: the more quiet you become, the more light is created - and it is not a forced phenomenon. You have so much that it starts overflowing from your eyes. It simply starts overflowing. Because you have too much it has to be shared, like when the cloud is full of rain it has to rain. You are full of light and more light is coming in, streaming in every moment, and there is no end to it - now you can share. You can share with the trees and with the rocks and with people. You can give to the existence. This is a very favorable sign.

But don't be deceived by drugs. Drugs give you only false experiences, forced experiences, and any forced experience is destructive to your inner ecology, your inner harmony and finally you will be a loser, not a gainer.

AT TIMES THE FOLLOWING CAN BE EXPERIENCED: AS SOON AS ONE IS QUIET, THE LIGHT OF THE EYES BEGINS TO BLAZE UP.

You will see it! Your eyes are becoming aflame. And with the eyes becoming aflame the whole existence is taking a new color, a new depth, a new dimension, as if things are no more three- dimensional but four-dimensional. A new dimension is added: the dimension of luminosity.

... THE LIGHT OF THE EYES BEGINS TO BLAZE UP, SO THAT EVERYTHING BEFORE ONE BECOMES QUITE BRIGHT, AS IF ONE WERE IN A CLOUD...

... as if the sun is shining on the cloud and the whole cloud is afire, and you are in the cloud and the cloud is just fire reflecting the sun. One starts living in this cloud of light. One sleeps in it, one walks in it, one sits in it; this cloud continues. This cloud has been seen as the aura. Those who have eyes to see will see around the head of the saints, around their bodies, a light. A subtle aura surrounds them.

Now even science is agreeing with it, particularly in Russia. Kirlian photography has come to very significant conclusions. One of them is: that everything is surrounded by a subtle aura - we just need eyes to see - and in different states the aura changes. Now these are scientific conclusions.

When you are ill you have a different aura - dull, sad, lusterless. If you are going to die within six months your aura disappears. Then your body has no light around it. And if you are happy, joyous, fulfilled, contented, then the aura grows more and more big, becomes more and more bright.

Of course Kirlian experiments have not been done on any Buddha yet. And it is very difficult to find a Bud&a in Soviet Russia, particularly now. It is unfortunate, because the whole country has fallen into a trap of utter nonsense. The whole country has fallen into the trap of materialism. Never before has any country been ruled by materialists. Materialism has always persisted, but never has a country been ruled by materialists. Never has a country been conditioned to be materialistic like Soviet Russia. Children are taught there is no God, no soul, that man is just a body. There is no question of prayer, no question of meditation, no question of becoming silent.

If Kirlian photographers come across a man like Jesus or Buddha or Subhuti, then they will know the miracle. Then they will come across the purest light, the coolest light - which is light, which is life, which is love.

IF ONE OPENS ONE'S EYES AND SEEKS THE BODY...

In this moment, when you are full of light inside and your eyes are afire and the whole existence is aflame with new life, if you open your eyes and try to find your body, you will not find it. In these moments matter disappears. In fact, modern physics says that there is no matter at all; it is an illusion. There is nothing solid in your body. Deep down, modern physics says, your body is constituted of electrons. Electrons mean light-atoms, atoms of light. So when this inner fire burns bright, is REALLY there, and you open your eyes, you will not find your physical body. Not that it is not there; it is there, but you will not see it as you had seen it before. It will be just a cloud of light.

You will see the aura; the gestalt has changed. Now you will see something which you had never seen before, and ali that you had seen before has disappeared; it depends on your vision. Because you don't have a vision to see the spirit, you can only see the body, the physical. To see matter, nothing is needed - no intelligence, no meditativeness, no prayer. To see matter is very gross. To see spirit is very subtle.

Once you are capable of seeing the spirit, you will be able to see that matter has disappeared.

You cannot see both together. Again let me repeat: that's why Hindu mystics have called the world illusory, because they have come to a point when they have seen that matter does not exist. And all that exists is God, all that exists is consciousness.

Matter is just a mistake. You have not seen rightly; that's how matter arises. It IS consciousness.

For example, when I see you I see you as consciousness, not as matter. When I touch you I don't touch your body, I touch you in your innermost core, I touch your energy. When I look into your eyes I'm not looking into your physical eyes, I'm trying to contact your spiritual eye. It is there. To you, it is not there yet. For me, it is already there. And if you listen to me, and if you try to understand what is being shared with you, soon it will become a reality for you too.

Either God is or the world is; both are never found together. Those who see the world never see God, and those who have seen God, for them the world has disappeared. The 'world' was just a misunderstanding. It is just like you can commit a mistake while counting or doing arithmetic: two plus two, and you can put five; then the whole thing will go wrong. When you go back and you find the mistake and yOu correct it and two plus two becomes four again, the whole thing changes.

Exactly like this, matter is a mistake of vision.

It is just like Hindu mystics say: it is a rope seen in darkness, and you have thought it is a snake.

And because you thought it is a snake you start running. And your heart is pounding, and you are out of breath, and you are trembling, and it is a cool night but you are perspiring. You may even have a heart attack, and for no reason at all! And in the morning, when it is found to have been just a rope, it will look very ridiculous.

Once I was staying in a house with a friend. There were so many mice in the house, and rats. It happened that night that a rat must have entered into the bed of my friend when we were asleep.

The rat was just going to bite, just going to bite his foot, and he was awakened. He jumped out of the bed, screamed; the rat must have escaped. Nothing was harmed - he was just going to bite - but he became very much afraid. He was afraid that maybe it was a snake. And I said, "You are a fool! There is no snake, nothing" - and we looked around - "and we know that there are so many rats in your house. It must have been a rat." So he was satisfied; we went to sleep. Everything was perfectly good.

We went to the river, we swam in the river, we came back. After lunch a snake was found in the house, and immediately my friend became unconscious - the very idea! And I tried hard, but now he was already unconscious, so what to do?

For one and a half hours he remained unconscious, in a kind of coma. Doctors were called, they checked. They said, "There is no poison, nothing. Even the rat has not done any harm, and there is no question of any snake." But still injections were given to bring him back. Just the idea... but the idea can create a reality.

When you see a rope and you start running, your running is a reality, and your heart pounding is a reality. And you may have a heart attack, you may even die - this is a reality! But the snake was not there; that was just an idea.

The mystics say the world is just an idea. You are unnecessarily afraid, unnecessarily running away, unnecessarily worried - it is just an idea, a mistake. There is no world, there is only God.

The whole consists only of consciousness.

IF ONE OPENS ONE'S EYES AND SEEKS THE BODY, IT IS NOT TO BE FOUND ANY MORE.

THIS IS CALLED: 'IN THE EMPTY CHAMBER IT GROWS LIGHT'. INSIDE AND OUTSIDE, EVERYTHING IS EQUALLY LIGHT. THAT IS A VERY FAVORABLE SIGN.

These have to be understood because these are going to happen to you too, and the understanding will help. Otherwise one day you open your eyes and you don't find your body there, you may go crazy. You will certainly feel something has gone wrong: either you are dead or mad. And what has happened to the body? But if you understand these sutras, they will remind you in the right moment.

That's why I am talking on so many scriptures: to make you aware of all that is possible, so when it happens you are not taken aback. You know, you can understand, you have maps already. You can figure out where you are and you can rest in that understanding.

OR WHEN ONE SITS IN MEDITATION, THE FLESHLY BODY BECOMES QUITE SHINING LIKE SILK OR JADE. IT SEEMS DIFFICULT TO REMAIN SITTING; ONE FEELS AS IS DRAWN UPWARD. THIS IS CALLED: 'THE SPIRIT RETURNS AND TOUCHES HEAVEN'. IN TIME, ONE CAN EXPERIENCE IT IN SUCH A WAY THAT ONE REALLY FLOATS UPWARD.

The third sign: 'The spirit returns and touches heaven'.

This happens very soon; it starts happening in the very early stages. Sitting silently, suddenly you feel you are a little higher than the ground, maybe six inches higher. With great surprise you open your eyes and you find you are sitting on the ground, so you must have been dreaming, you think.

No, you have not been dreaming, your physical body remained on the earth. But you have another body, the body of light hidden inside it - call it the astral body, the subtle body, the vital body, any name you want - that body starts rising higher. And from the inside you can feel only that body, because that is your inside. When you open your eyes your material body is sitting on the ground perfectly, in the same way as it was sitting before. Don't think that you have been hallucinating, not at all. It is a real fact: you had floated a little - but in your second body not in your first body.

THE FLESHLY BODY BECOMES QUITE SHINING LIKE SILK OR JADE.

And simultaneously, whenever you will feel that you have risen above the ground - as if gravitation affects you no more, as if a different law has started working on you.... I call that law 'the law of grace'. One law is the law of gravitation: it pulls you down. I call the other law the law of grace; it pulls you up. And certainly, sooner or later, science has to discover it, because every law has to be complemented by its opposite. No law can exist in aloneness. Gravitation must have its complementary, just as day has night and summer has winter and man has woman and love has hate and life has death and the negative has the positive. So, exactly in the same way, there MUST be a law which has to compensate, complement from the other extreme. That law I call the law of grace; it pulls you upwards.

This experience of your fleshly body becoming quite shining like silk or jade, happens simultaneously whenever you start feeling that it is DIFFICULT TO REMAIN SITTING; ONE FEELS AS IF DRAWN UPWARD. THIS IS CALLED: 'THE SPIRIT RETURNS AND TOUCHES HEAVEN'.

Now the upward journey is starting. And remember, the upward and inward are synonymous; outward and downward are synonymous. The more in you go, the more up you go. The deeper you reach upwards, the deeper you reach inwards. They are the same, one dimension, two aspects of the same dimension.

IN TIME, ONE CAN EXPERIENCE IT IN SUCH A WAY THAT ONE REALLY FLOATS UPWARD.

And that too happens: when this inner body starts rising so high and has tremendous power, then even the physical body can start floating with it. It is possible, but there is no need to make it happen.

That is foolish. If it happens one day of its own accord, enjoy it and don't take much note of it. These confirmatory signs have to be understood, not bragged about. Don't talk to anybody about them, otherwise the ego will come back and will start exploiting these experiences. And once the ego comes, experiences will disappear. Never talk about them. If they happen just understand them, take note of them, and forget all about them.

AND NOW, IT IS ALREADY POSSIBLE TO HAVE ALL THREE OF THESE EXPERIENCES. BUT NOT EVERYTHING CAN BE EXPRESSED.

These three experiences ARE possible, and even if you have experienced them, you will not be able to express them. And whatsoever is said here is only just symbolic, because the real experience cannot be said. All that is said becomes a lie. Say it, and you have falsified the truth. Truth cannot be said, but still we have to say something. Hence these metaphors have been developed: 'gods in the valley', 'in the empty chamber it grows light', 'the spirit returns upwards', or 'the spirit returns and touches heaven'. These are just symbols, metaphors to indicate something, but the experience is vast!

DIFFERENT THINGS APPEAR TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DISPOSITION.

And this too has to be remembered: they all may not happen to you, or may happen in a different order, or may happen in different ways. And there are a thousand and one things too which are possible because people are so different. To somebody these experiences may not happen the way they have been described. For example, to somebody it may not happen that he is rising upward; it may happen that he is becoming bigger, becoming bigger and bigger; the whole room is full of him. And then he goes on becoming bigger and bigger; now the house is inside him. And it is very puzzling. One wants to open one's eyes and see what is happening - "Am I going mad?" And a moment is possible when one sees that "The whole existence is inside me. I am not outside it. It is not outside me, it is inside me. And the stars are moving within me."

Or to somebody it may happen that he becomes smaller and smaller, becomes a molecule, almost invisible, then an atom, and then disappears. That is possible. Patanjali has catalogued all the experiences that are possible. People have different dispositions, different talents, different potentials, so to everybody they are going to happen in a different way. These are just to indicate that things like this happen - don't think that you are going mad or something is going bizarre.

WITH THESE THINGS IT IS JUST AS IT IS WHEN ONE DRINKS WATER. ONE CAN TELL FOR ONESELF WHETHER THE WATER IS WARM OR COLD.

It is an experience. When you drink water, only you know whether it is cold or warm. And if you are thirsty, only you know whether it is quenching your thirst or creating more. Nobody else sitting outside watching you can know what is happening inside - if the thirst is quenched or made more, if the water is cool or warm - nobody can see from the outside. Even if they can see you drinking water, they cannot experience your experience. People can see you meditating, but they cannot see what is happening inside.

Many people come here and they ask me for permission to watch people meditating. And I say, "How will you watch?" Nobody has ever been able to watch. You can see people sitting or dancing or singing, but that is not the real thing. Meditation is happening inside them. Nobody can see except them. So if you really want to see, you will have to participate. You will have to become a meditator; that is the only way. You cannot borrow, nobody can inform you. So those who come here as spectators just waste their time. These are things which can be known only through participation.

IN THE SAME WAY A MAN MUST CONVINCE HIMSELF ABOUT THESE EXPERIENCES, THEN ONLY ARE THEY REAL.

And don't start believing because Lu-tsu is saying so. Just try to understand him, keep it stored in your memory. There is no need to believe in these things, no need to disbelieve either. Just let them be in your memory so whenever the time is ripe and something starts happening you will be able to understand. These are just giving you maps so you are not lost - because even in the inward journey there are many points from where one can be lost. One can misunderstand, one can become afraid, frightened. One can escape from the inside into the outside world.

And these experiences are NOT frightening, but your interpretation can make them frightening.

Just think: one day you open your eyes and you don't see your body. Your interpretation can be frightening: "This is certainly a sign of madness." You will stop meditating, you will become afraid of meditation, because who knows now what will happen next time, and where you are moving, where you are going. You will become suspicious of the whole experience. You will think you are becoming neurotic.

Every day people come to me with their experiences. When they relate their experiences, I can see their fear, their faces, their eyes - they are afraid. When I say that these are good signs, immediately the climate changes. They start laughing, they are happy. If they can hear me saying that "This is beautiful", that "I am happy with you" that "You are growing well", IMMEDIATELY there is a great change. From sadness they jump to great joy. Nothing has changed, their experience is the same; I have just given them a different interpretation. They were frightened because they knew not.

These things have not to be believed or disbelieved, but just kept stored in the memory so if the time arises you will be able to interpret rightly - and right interpretations are of GREAT significance.

Otherwise the inner journey becomes very difficult. There are many points from where one wants to return and go back into the world and be normal.

One starts feeling something abnormal is happening, and 'abnormal' is a condemnatory word. And if you talk to other people who have never meditated they will say, "You go to the psychoanalyst or the psychiatrist. Better that you be checked. What nonsense are you talking? - that you become bigger! Have you lost all reason? You say that you go upward and gravitation disappears? Or you become smaller and smaller and you disappear? You are hallucinating, you have become a victim of illusions. You go to the psychiatrist - he will put you right, he will fix you."

And if you go to the psychoanalyst or the psychiatrist, they ARE going to fix you: they will hammer on your head with their so-called knowledge. They don't know a thing about meditation, meditation has not entered in their consciousness yet. They don't know anything about the experiences that happen on the Way, but they know much about mad people. And there is one thing to be taken note of: that there are many experiences which are similar, which happen to a meditator and also happen to a madman; which are so similar that the psychiatrist is BOUND to think that you are going nuts, that something has to be fixed in you. And he will treat you as a madman - he will give you drugs or injections or electro-shocks to bring you back to your normal mind. He may destroy your whole possibility for meditation.

This is now a great danger in the West: people learning meditation go back to the West, and if something happens which is not within their comprehension, and they talk to the priest - and the Christian priest knows nothing about meditation - he will send them to the psychiatrist. If they talk to the psychiatrist, he knows only about madmen, he knows nothing about Buddhas. And a few of their experiences are similar; he is bound to interpret that you have fallen below normality, you have to be pulled back. And whatsoever he will do will be destructive, will be harmful to your body, to your mind. The harm carl be so much that never again will you be able to go into meditation - he can create SUCH barriers.

So if something happens sometimes, always go to people who meditate. That's why I am insisting so much to open centers all over the world so sannyasins can meditate, and if something happens they can meet sannyasins, they can go and share their experiences. At least there will be somebody sympathetic. At least there will be somebody who will not condemn you, who will respect your experience, who will accept your experience, who will give you hope and inspiration, who will say, "Good. you go ahead. Much more is going to happen." A Master is needed only because of this - somebody whom you can trust and who's simply saying "It is good, and you can go ahead", and you CAN go ahead. The journey is hazardous.

Master Lu-tsu said: WHEN THERE IS A GRADUAL SUCCESS IN PRODUCING THE CIRCULATION OF THE LIGHT, A MAN MUST NOT GIVE UP HIS ORDINARY OCCUPATION IN DOING IT.

That's my insistence too: that a sannyasin should not renounce the world. Your meditation SHOULD grow in the world. It should be part of the day-to-day existence. You should not become an escapist.

Why?

THE ANCIENTS SAID, 'WHEN OCCUPATIONS COME TO US, WE MUST ACCEPT THEM; WHEN THINGS COME TO US, WE MUST UNDERSTAND THEM FROM THE GROUND UP. IF THE OCCUPATIONS ARE PROPERLY HANDLED BY CORRECT THOUGHTS, THE LIGHT IS NOT SCATTERED BY OUTSIDE THINGS, BUT CIRCULATES ACCORDING TO ITS OWN LAW. EVEN THE STILL INVISIBLE CIRCULATION OF THE LIGHT GETS STARTED THIS WAY; HOW MUCH MORE, THEN, IS IT THE CASE WITH THE TRUE CIRCULATION OF THE LIGHT WHICH HAS ALREADY MANIFESTED ITSELF CLEARLY.

First, whatsoever situation you are in is a God-given situation; don't reject it. It is an opportunity, an occasion to grow. If you escape from the opportunity, you will not grow. The people who go to the Himalayan caves and start living there and become very much attached to the caves remain ungrownup. They remain childish. They have not become seasoned. If you bring them to the world they will be shattered, they will not be able to bear it.

Just a few days ago one sannyasin came after three months of living in the Himalayas, and she said, "But now it is difficult to be here. I want to go back." Now this is not gaining in maturity. Now the Himalayas will become her obsession, and whatsoever she is thinking is her meditation, her silence, is not hers; it is just a by-product of the Himalayan silence. I told her, "You be here for three weeks, and then you tell me what happens to your silence and your meditation. If it disappears, then it has nothing to do with you. And then it is better not to go to the Himalayas. Grow in meditation here! If you can be meditative here in the marketplace, and then you go to the Himalayas, your meditation will be enhanced a thousandfold. It is good as a holiday, but don't cling there; always come back to the world."

Yes, it is good once in a while to move into the mountains, it is beautiful, but to become addicted, to start thinking of renouncing the world is utterly wrong - because it is in the storms of the world that integrity arises. It is in the challenges of the world that you crystallize.

Lu-tsu says, "Accept the situation you are in. It must be the right situation for you; that's why you are in it." Existence cares for you. It is given to you not without any reason. It is not accidental; NOTHING IS accidental. Whatsoever is your need is given to you. If it were your need to be in the Himalayas, you would have been in the Himalayas. And when the need arises, you will find that either you go to the Himalayas or the Himalayas come to you. It happens... when the disciple is ready, the Master arrives. And when your inner silence is ready, God arrives. And whatsoever is needed on the path is always supplied. Existence cares, mothers.

So don't be worried. Rather, use the opportunity. This challenging world, this constant turmoil on the outside, has to be used. You have to be a witness to it. Watch it. Learn how not to be affected by it. Learn to remain unaffected, untouched by it, like a lotus leaf in water. And then you will be grateful, because it is only by being watchful of all the turmoil that one day suddenly, 'the gods are in the valley'. You see the marketplace disappearing far away, becoming an echo. This is REAL growth.

And if you can rightly be meditative in the ordinary occupations of life, there is nothing which cannot happen to you. The light will start circulating; you just be watchful.

Meditate in the morning and then keep close to your center. Go into the world but keep close to your center, go on remembering yourself. Remain conscious of what you are doing.

WHEN IN ORDINARY LIFE ONE HAS THE ABILITY ALWAYS TO REACT TO THINGS BY REFLEXES ONLY, WITHOUT ANY ADMIXTURE OF A THOUGHT OF OTHERS OR OF ONESELF, THAT IS A CIRCULATION OF THE LIGHT ARISING OUT OF CIRCUMSTANCES. THIS IS THE FIRST SECRET.

And when things arise, act, but don't get identified in the act. Remain a spectator. Do whatsoever is needful just like a reflex. Do whatsoever is needful, but don't become a doer, don't get involved in it.

Do it, and be finished with it - like a reflex.

IF EARLY IN THE MORNING, ONE CAN RID ONESELF OF ALL ENTANGLEMENTS AND MEDITATE FROM ONE TO TWO DOUBLE HOURS, AND THEN CAN ORIENTATE ONESELF TOWARDS ALL ACTIVITIES AND OUTSIDE THINGS IN A PURELY OBJECTIVE REFLEX WAY, AND IF THIS CAN BE CONTINUED WITHOUT ANY INTERRUPTION, THEN AFTER TWO OR THREE MONTHS ALL THE PERFECTED ONES COME FROM HEAVEN AND APPROVE SUCH BEHAVIOR.

Behave in an objective way. Take note of the situation, and whatsoever is needful, do it. But don't become attached to the doing, don't become worried about it, don't think of the result. Just do the needful and remain alert and aloof and distant and faraway in your center, rooted there. But every early morning, orient yourself towards the inner center so you can remember it your whole day.

Two times are the best. The first best time is the early morning: orient yourself to the center so you can live on the circumference but yet with full remembrance of the center. And the second time is before you go to bed: orient yourself again to the center, so in your deep sleep also - even while you are dreaming, while you are unconscious - you can remain more and more, closer and closer to the center. These two times are the best. And if you can meditate these two times, you need not go anywhere else. You need not go to any monastery, to any cave, you need not renounce the world, and one day suddenly you will see blossoms showering on you and gods whispering in your ear.

The whole existence celebrates the moment when one soul arrives home. What happened to Subhuti can happen to you. Aspire to it. It is your birthright, it can be claimed.