This honey is yours

EVERYTHING CHANGES... and Heraclitus is right: you cannot step in the same river twice.

The river is changing, so are you changing too. It is all movement. It is all flux. Everything is impermanent, momentary. Only for a moment it is there, and then gone... and you will never find it again. There is no way to find it again. Once gone it is gone for ever.

And nothing changes - that too is true. Nothing ever changes. All is always the same. Parmeneides is also right; he says: There is nothing new under the sun. How can there be? The sun is old, so is everything. If you ask Parmeneides, he will say you can step in any river you want - but you will be stepping in the same river always. Whether it is the Ganges or the Thames does not make any difference. THE WATER IS THE SAME! It is all H20. And whether you step in the river today or tomorrow, or after millions of years, it will be the same river.

And how can you be different? You were a child; you remember it. Then you were a young man; you remember that too. Then you became old; that too you remember. Who is this one who goes on remembering? There must be a non-changing element in you - unchanging, permanent, absolutely permanent. Childhood comes and goes; so comes youth and is gone, so old age - but something remains eternally the same.

Now, let me say to you: Heraclitus and Parmeneides, both are right - in fact, they both are right together. If Heraclitus is right, it is only half the truth; if Parmeneides is right, that too is only half the truth. And half the truth is not the true thing. They are stating half-truths. The wheel moves and the hub does not move. Parmeneides talks about the hub, Heraclitus talks about the wheel - but the wheel cannot exist without the hub! And what use is a hub without the wheel? So those two contradictory looking half-truths are not contradictory but complementary. Heraclitus and Parmeneides are not enemies but friends. The other can stand only if the complementary truth is there - otherwise not.

Meditate on the silent centre of a cyclone....

But the moment you state something, it can at the most be only half the truth. No statement can cover the whole truth. If any statement wants to cover the whole truth, then the statement will have to be of necessity self-contradictory, then it will have to be of necessity illogical. Then the statement will look crazy.

Mahavir did that - he is the craziest man because he tried to state the whole truth and nothing but the whole truth. He drives you crazy, because each statement is immediately followed by its contradiction. He developed a sevenfold pattern of statements. One is followed by its contradiction, that is followed by its contradiction... so on and so forth. He goes on contradicting seven times, and only when he has said seven times, seven different things contradictory to each other, then he says now the truth is told perfectly - but then you don't know what he has said.

If you ask him: "God is?" he will say, "Yes," and he will say, "No," and he will say, "Both," and he will say, "Both not," and so on and so forth he goes.... Finally you don't come to any conclusion; you cannot conclude. He does not give you any chance to conclude. He leaves you hanging in the air.

This is one possibility if you are insistent on saying the truth.

The other possibility is that of Buddha - he keeps silent, knowing that whatsoever you say will be only half. And half is dangerous. He does not say anything about ultimate truths. He will not say the world is a flux, and he will not say that the world is permanent. He will not say that you are, and he will not say that you are not. The moment you ask anything about the absolute truth, he prohibits.

He says, "Please don't ask, because by your question you will put me into trouble. Either I have to be contradictory, which is going crazy; or I have to utter a half-truth, which is not truth and dangerous; or I have to keep quiet." These are the three possibilities: Buddha has chosen to keep silent.

This is the first thing to be understood about today's sutras, then with this context it will be easy to understand what Saraha is saying.

The first sutra:

AS A CLOUD THAT RISES FROM THE SEA ABSORBING RAIN, THE EARTH EMBRACES, SO, LIKE THE SKY, THE SEA REMAINS WITHOUT INCREASING OR DECREASING.

HE IS SAYING to the king: Look at the sky. There are two Phenomena - the sky and the cloud. The cloud comes and goes. The sky never comes and never goes. The cloud is there sometimes, and sometimes it is not there - it is a time phenomenon, it is momentary. The sky is always there - it is a timeless phenomenon, it is eternity. The clouds cannot corrupt it, not even the black clouds can corrupt it. There is no possibility of corrupting it. Its purity is absolute, its purity is untouchable. Its purity is always virgin - you cannot violate it. Clouds can come and go, and they have been coming and going, but the sky is as pure as ever, not even a trace is left behind.

So there are two things in existence: something is like the sky and something is like the cloud. Your actions are like the cloud - they come and go. You? - you are like the sky: you never come and you never go. Your birth, your death, are like the clouds - they happen. You? - you never happen; you are always there.

Things happen in you: you never happen.

Things happen just like clouds happen in the sky. You are a silent watcher of the whole play of clouds. Sometimes they are white and beautiful and sometimes they are dark and dismal and very ugly; sometimes they are full of rain and sometimes they are just empty. Sometimes they do great benefit to the earth, sometimes great harm. Sometimes they bring floods and destruction, and sometimes they bring life, more greenery, more crops. BUT the sky remains all the time the same good or bad, divine or devilish, the clouds don't corrupt it.

Actions are clouds, doings are clouds: the being is like the sky.

Saraha is saying: Look at my sky! Don't look at my actions. It needs a shift of awareness - nothing else, just a shift of awareness. It needs a change of gestalt. You are looking at the cloud, you are focussed on the cloud, you have forgotten the sky. Then suddenly you remember the sky. You unfocus on the cloud, you focus on the sky then the cloud is irrelevant, then you are in a totally different dimension.

Just the shift of focussing... and the world is different. When you watch a person's behavior, you are focussing on the cloud. When you watch the innermost purity of his being, you are watching his sky.

If you watch the innermost purity, then you will never see anybody evil, then the whole existence is holy. If you see the actions, then you cannot see anybody holy. Even the holiest person is prone to commit many faults as far as actions are concerned. If you watch the actions you can find wrong actions in Jesus, in Buddha, in Mahavir, in Krishna, in Ram then even the greatest saint will look like a sinner.

There are many books written about Jesus. He is the object of thousands of studies; many are written in favour of him which prove that he is the only begotten son of God. Of course, they can prove it. Then many are written to prove that he is just a neurotic and nothing else - and they can also prove it. And they are talking about the same person. What is happening? How do they manage? They manage well. One party goes on choosing the white clouds; another party goes on choosing the black clouds - and both are there, because no action can be just white or just black.

To be, it has to be both.

Whatsoever you do will bring some good into the world and will bring some bad into the world - WHATSOEVER you do. Just the very choice that you did something - many things will be good and many things will be wrong after that. You think of any action: you go and you give some money to a beggar - you are doing good; but the beggar goes and purchases some poison and commits suicide. Now, your intention was good but the total result is bad. You help a man - he is ill - you serve him; you take him to the hospital. And then he is healthy, well, and he commits murder. Now, without your help there would have been one murder less in the world. Your intention was good, but the total result is bad.

So whether to judge by the intention or to judge by the result? And who knows about your intention?

Intention is internal... maybe deep down you were hoping that when he got healthy he would commit a murder.

AND sometimes it happens: your intention is bad and the result is good. You throw a rock at a person, and he was suffering from migraine for many years, and the rock hit his head and since then the migraine has disappeared - now what to do? What to say about your act? - moral, immoral?

You wanted to kill the man: you could only kill the migraine. That's how acupuncture was born. Such a great science! so beneficial! one of the greatest boons to humanity... but it was born in this way.

A man was suffering from headaches for many years, and somebody, his enemy, wanted to kill him.

Hiding behind a tree, the enemy shot an arrow. The arrow hit the man's leg; he fell down but his headache disappeared. The people who were looking after him, the doctor of the town, were very much puzzled as to how it happened. They started studying. By chance, by coincidence, the man had hit one acupuncture point just on the leg; some point was touched on the leg by the arrow, was hit by the arrow, and the inner electric flow of the man's body energy changed. And because the inner flow of the electricity changed, his headache disappeared.

That's why when you go to the acupuncturist and you say, "I have a headache," he may not touch your head at all. He may start pressing your feet or your hand, or he may needle your hand or your back. And you will be surprised: "What are you doing? because my HEAD is wrong, not my back!"

But he knows better. The whole body is an interconnected electric phenomenon; there are seven hundred points, and he knows from where to push the energy to change the flow. Everything is interconnected... but this is how acupuncture was born.

Now, the man who shot the arrow at his enemy, was he a great saint? or was he a sinner? Difficult to say, very difficult to say.

If you watch the actions, then it is up to you. You can choose the good ones, you can choose the bad ones. And in the total reality, each act brings something good and something bad. In fact - this is my understanding, meditate on it - whatsoever you do, the goodness of it and the badness of it is always in the same proportion. Let me repeat: it is always in the same proportion! because good and bad are two aspects of the same coin. You may do good, but something bad is bound to happen because where will the other aspect go? You may do bad, but good is bound to happen because where will the other aspect go? The coin exists with both aspects together, and a single aspect cannot exist alone.

So sinners are sometimes beneficial and saints are sometimes very harmful. Saints and sinners are both in the same boat! Once you understand this then a change is possible; then you don't look at the actions. If the proportion is the same whether you do good or bad, then what is the point of judging a man by his actions? Then change the whole emphasis. Then move to another gestalt - the sky.

That's what Saraha is saying to the king. He is saying: Right you are! People have told you and they are not wrong. I run like a mad dog. Yes, if you just watch the action you will be misguided, you will not be able to understand me. WATCH my inner sky. Watch my inner priority, watch my inner core - that's the only way to see the truth. Yes, I live with this woman - and, ordinarily, living with a woman means what it means. Now, Saraha says, WATCH! This is NO ordinary living! There is no man-woman relationship at all. It has nothing to do with sexuality. We live together as two spaces.

We live together as two freedoms. We live together as two empty boats. But you have to look into the sky not into the clouds.

AS A CLOUD THAT RISES FROM THE SEA ABSORBING RAIN, THE EARTH EMBRACES, SO, LIKE THE SKY, THE SEA REMAINS WITHOUT INCREASING OR DECREASING.

And another thing he reminds him of: Watch the sea. Millions of clouds rise out of the sea, so much water evaporates, but the sea does not decrease because of that. And then the clouds will rain on the earth, and rivulets will become great rivers, and many rivers will be flooded, and the water will rush back towards the ocean, towards the sea... all the rivers of the earth will pour down their water into the sea, but that does not make the sea increase - the sea remains the same. Whether something is taken out of it or something is.poured into it makes no difference - its perfection is such that you cannot take anything out of it and you cannot add anything to it.

He is saying: Look! the inner being is so perfect that your actions may be those of a sinner, but nothing is taken away. And your actions may be those of a saint, but nothing is added unto you. You remain the same.

It is a tremendously revolutionary saying. It is a great statement. He says: Nothing can be added to man and nothing can be deleted from man - his inner perfection is such. You cannot make man more beautiful and you cannot make man ugly. You cannot make him more rich. you cannot make him poor. He is like the sea.

In one of the Buddhist sutras, Vaipulya sutra, there is a statement that there are two very costly jewels in the ocean - the one prevents it from becoming less when water is drawn from it, and the other from becoming too large when water flows in it.

Two great jewels are there in the ocean, and those two great jewels prevent it from increasing and decreasing: it never becomes less and it never becomes more - it just remains the same. It is so vast, it does not matter how many clouds arise out of it and how much water evaporates. It is so vast, it does not matter how many rivers fall into it and bring great amounts of water. It just remains the same.

So is the inner core of man. So is the inner core of existence. Increase and decrease is on the periphery, not at the centre. You can become a man of great knowledge, or you can remain ignorant - that is only on the periphery. No knowledge can make you more knowing than you already are.

Nothing can be added to you. Your purity is infinite; there is no way to improve upon it.

This is the Tantra vision. This is the very core of the Tantra attitude - that man is as he is. There is no hankering for improvement; not that man has to become good; not that man has to change this and that. Man has to accept all - and remember his sky!, and remember his sea. And, by and by. an understanding arises when you know what a cloud is and what the sky is, what a river is and what the sea is.

Once you are in tune with your sea, all anxiety disappears, all guilt disappears. You become innocent like a child.

The king had known Saraha: He used to be a great man of knowledge and now he is behaving like an ignorant man. He has stopped reciting his Vedas, he no more does his rituals that his religion prescribes - he no more even meditates. He does nothing that is ordinarily thought to be religious. What is he doing here living on a cremation ground? dancing like a madman, singing like a madman? and doing many untraditional things? Where has his knowledge gone?

And Saraha says: You can take all my knowledge away. It does not make any difference because I am not lessened by it. Or you can bring all the scriptures of the world and pour them into me - that doesn't make any difference because I don't become more because of that.

He was a very respectable man; the whole kingdom had respected him. Now suddenly he has become one of the most unrespectable men. And Saraha is saying: You can give me all the honors that are possible, and nothing is added unto me. And you can take all the honors, and you can insult me, and you can do whatsoever you want to destroy my respect - nothing is happening. ALL the same, I remain the same. I am THAT which never increases and never decreases. Now I know that I am not the cloud - I am the sky.

So I am not much worried whether people think the cloud is black or white, because I am not the cloud. And I am not the small river, the tiny river, or a tiny pool of water - I am not a cup of tea.

Storms come in the cup of tea very easily; it is so tiny. Just take one spoonful out of it and something is lost; pour one more spoonful and it is too much and there is a flood.

He says: I am the vast sea. Now take whatsoever you want to take, or give whatsoever you want to give - either way it does not matter.

Just look at the beauty of it! The moment nothing matters, you have come home. If something still matters, you are far away from the home. If you are still watching, and being cunning and clever about your actions - you have to do this and you have not to do this - and there are still shoulds and should-nots, then you are far away from home. You still think of yourself in terms of the momentary and not in terms of the eternal. You have not yet tasted God.

Like the sky and like the sea... is you.

The second sutra:

SO FROM SPONTANEITY THAT'S UNIQUE, REPLETE WITH THE BUDDHA'S PERFECTIONS, ARE ALL SENTIENT BEINGS BORN, AND IN IT COME TO REST. BUT IT IS NEITHER CONCRETE NOR ABSTRACT.

SO FROM SPONTANEITY THAT'S UNIQUE...

FIRST, IN TANTRA, spontaneity is the greatest value - to be just natural, to allow nature to happen.

Not to obstruct it, not to hinder it; not to distract it, not to take it in some other direction where it was not going on its own. To surrender to nature, to flow with it. Not pushing the river, but going with it - ALL the way, wherever it leads. This trust is Tantra. Spontaneity is its mantra, its greatest foundation.

Spontaneity means: you don't interfere, you are in a let-go. Whatsoever happens, you watch, you are a witness to it. You know it is happening, but you don't jump into it, and you don't try to change its course. Spontaneity means you don't have any direction. Spontaneity means you don't have any goal to attain; if you have some goal to attain you cannot be spontaneous. How can you be spontaneous if suddenly your nature is going one way and your goal is not? How can you be spontaneous? You will drag yourself towards the goal.

That's what millions of people are doing - dragging themselves towards some imaginary goal. And because they are dragging themselves towards some imaginary goal, they are missing the natural destiny - which is the only goal! And that's why there is so much frustration, and so much misery and so much hell - because whatsoever you do will never satisfy your nature.

That's why people are dull and dead. They live, and yet they live not. They are moving like prisoners, chained. Their movement is not that of freedom, their movement is not that of dance - it cannot be because they are fighting, they are continuously in a fight with themselves. There is a conflict, each moment: you want to eat this, and your religion does not prescribe it; you want to move with this woman, but that will not be respectable. You want to live this way, but the society prohibits it. You want to be in one way, you feel that that is how you can flower, but everybody else is against it.

So do you listen to your being? or do you listen to everybody else's advice? If you listen to everybody's advice, your life will be an empty life of nothing but frustration. You will finish without ever being alive; you will die without ever knowing what life is.

But the society has created such conditioning in you that it is not only outside - it is sitting inside you.

That's what conscience is all about. Whatsoever you want to do, your conscience says, "Don't do it!" The conscience is your parental voice; the priest and the politician speak through it. It is a great trick. They have made a conscience in you - from the very childhood when you were not aware at all of what was being done to you, they have put a conscience in you.

So whenever you go against the conscience, you feel guilt Guilt means you have done something which others don't want you to do. So whenever you are natural you are guilty, and whenever you are not guilty you are unnatural: this is the dilemma, this is the dichotomy, this is the problem.

If you listen to your own naturalness, you feel guilty; then there is misery. You start feeling you have done something wrong. You start hiding; you start defending yourself; you start continuously pretending that you have not done it, and you are afraid - somebody is bound to catch you sooner or later. You will be caught... and anxiety, and guilt, and fear. And you lose all love with life.

Whenever you do something against others, you feel guilty. And whenever you do something that others say, you never feel happy doing it - because it has never been your own thing to do. Between these two is man caught.

I was just reading one anecdote:

"What's this double jeopardy that the Constitution is supposed to guarantee one against?" asked Roland of his lawyer friend Milt.

Said the other, "It is like this, Rollie, if you are out driving your car and both your wife and her mother are sitting in the back seat telling you how to drive, well that's double jeopardy. And you have a constitutional right to turn around and say, "Now, who in hell's driving this car, dear, you or your mother?"' You may be at the wheel, but you are not driving the car. There are many people sitting on the back seat - your parents, your parents' parents, your priest, your politician, the leader, the mahatma, the saint, they are all sitting on the back seat. And they all are trying to advise you: "Do this! Don't do that! Go this way! Don't go that way!" They are driving you mad, and you have been taught to follow them. If you don't follow them, that too creates such fear in you that something is wrong - how can you be right when so many people are advising? And they are always advising for your own good!

How can you be right alone when the whole world is saying "Do this!" Of course, they are in the majority and they must be right.

But remember: it is not a question of being right or wrong - the question basically is of being spontaneous or not. Spontaneity is right! Otherwise you will become an imitator, and imitators are never fulfilled beings.

You wanted to be a painter, but your parents said, "No! because painting is not going to give you enough money, and painting is not going to give you any respect in society. You will become a hobo, and you will be a beggar. So don't bother about painting. Become a magistrate!" So you have become a magistrate. Now you don't feel any happiness. It is a plastic thing, this being a magistrate.

And deep down you still want to paint.

While sitting in the court you are still painting deep down. Maybe you are listening to the criminal, but you are thinking about his face, what a beautiful face he has and what a beautiful portrait would have been possible. You are looking at his eyes and the blueness of his eyes, and you are thinking of colors... and you are a magistrate! So you are constantly at unease, a tension follows you. And, by and by, you will also start feeling you are a respectable man and this and that. You are just an imitation, you are artificial I have heard:

One woman gave up smoking when her pet parrot developed a persistent cough. She was worried, naturally; she thought it must have been the smoke that she went on smoking continuously in the house and that it didn't suit the parrot. So she took the parrot to a vet. The vet gave the bird a thorough check-up and found that it didn't have pneumonia or psittacosis. The final diagnosis was that it had been imitating the cough of its cigarette-smoking owner.

It was not smoke: it was just imitating. The woman was coughing, and the parrot had learnt coughing.

Watch... your life may be just like a parrot. If it is like a parrot, then you are missing something tremendously valuable - you are missing your life. Whatsoever you gain will not prove of much value, because there is nothing more valuable than your life.

So Tantra makes spontaneity the first virtue, the most fundamental virtue.

SO FROM SPONTANEITY THAT'S UNIQUE...

NOW, ONE MORE THING TANTRA SAYS, and that has to be understood very very minutely. The spontaneity can be of two types: it can be only of impulsiveness, but then it is not very unique; if it is of awareness, then it has that quality of being unique - the Buddha quality.

Many times, listening to me, you think you are becoming spontaneous while you are simply becoming impulsive. What is the difference between being impulsive and being spontaneous? You have two things in you: the body and the mind. The mind is controlled by the society and the body is controlled by your biology. The mind is controlled by your society because the society can put thoughts into your mind; and your body is controlled by millions of years of biological growth.

The body is unconscious, so is mind unconscious. You are a watcher beyond both. So if you stop listening to the mind and to the society, there is every possibility you will start listening to the biology.

So sometimes you feel like murdering somebody, and you say, "I am going to be spontaneous - Osho has said'Be spontaneous!' so I have to do it. I have to be spontaneous." You have misunderstood.

That is not going to make your life beautiful, blissful. You will be continuously in conflict again - now with outside people.

By'spontaneity' Tantra means a spontaneity full of awareness. So the first thing in order to be spontaneous is to be fully aware. The moment you are aware, you are neither in the trap of the mind nor in the trap of the body. Then real spontaneity flows from your very soul - from the sky, from the sea, your spontaneity flows. Otherwise, you can change your masters: from the body you can change to the mind, or from the mind you can change to the body.

The body is fast asleep; following the body will be following a blind man. And the spontaneity will just take you into a ditch. It is not going to help you. Impulsiveness is not spontaneity. Yes, impulse HAS a certain spontaneity, more spontaneity than the mind, but it has not that quality which Tantra would like you to imbibe.

That's why Saraha says: SO FROM SPONTANEITY THAT'S UNIQUE... He adds the word'unique'.'Unique' means not of impulsion but of awareness, of consciousness.

We live unconsciously. Whether we live in the mind or in the body does not make much difference - we live unconsciously.

"Why did you tear out the back part of that new book?" asked the long-suffering wife of an absent- minded doctor.

"Excuse me, dear," said the famous surgeon, "the part you speak of was labelled APPENDIX and I took it out without thinking."

His whole life taking the appendix out of everybody's body must have become an unconscious habit.

Seeing APPENDIX he automatically took it out.

That's how we are existing and working. It is an unconscious life. An unconscious spontaneity is not much of a spontaneity.

A drunk staggered from a tavern and started walking with one foot in the street and one on the sidewalk. After a block or two, a policeman spotted him. "Hey," said the cop, "you're drunk!"

The drunk sighed with relief. "Gosh!" he said. "Is that what's wrong? I thought I was lame."

When you are under the influence of the body, you are under the influence of chemistry. Again...

you are out of one trap but you are again in another trap. From one ditch you are out; you have fallen in another ditch.

When you REALLY want to be out of all ditches and in freedom, you will have to become a witness of body and mind both. When you are witnessing, and you are spontaneous out of your witnessing, then there is unique spontaneity.

SO FROM SPONTANEITY THAT'S UNIQUE, REPLETE WITH THE BUDDHA'S PERFECTIONS...

And Saraha says: The real spontaneity is replete with Buddha's perfections. What are Buddha's perfections? Two: PRAGYAN and KARUNA - wisdom and compassion. These are Buddha's two perfections. If these two are there, reflecting in your spontaneity, then it is unique.

Wisdom does not mean knowledge. Wisdom means awareness, meditativeness, silence, watchfulness, attentiveness. And out of that attentiveness, out of that silence, flows compassion for beings.

The whole world is suffering. The day you start enjoying your bliss you will start feeling for others too. They can also enjoy; they are just standing at the door of the shrine and are not entering in, and are rushing outwards. They have the treasure, the same treasure that you have attained; they are carrying it, but they are not using it because they are not aware of it.

When one person becomes Enlightened, his whole being becomes full of compassion - towards ALL beings. The whole existence is filled by his compassion. Rivers of compassion start flowing from him and start reaching to everybody else - to men, to women, to animals, to birds, to trees, to rivers, to mountains, to stars. The whole existence starts sharing his compassion.

These two are the qualities of Buddha, that he understands and that he feels and cares.

When your spontaneity is REALLY of awareness, you cannot do anything against compassion: you cannot murder. People come to me and they ask, "Osho, you say to be spontaneous, but sometimes I want to murder my wife - then what?" You cannot murder. How can you murder?! Yes, not even your wife - you cannot murder.

When your spontaneity is alert, when it is luminous, how can you even THINK of murder? You will know that there is no possibility; nobody is ever murdered. The being is the sky: you can only disperse the cloud, but you cannot murder. So what is the point? And how can you murder if you are so alert and so spontaneous? Compassion will flow side by side, in the same proportion. As you become aware, in the same proportion there is compassion.

Buddha has said: If there is compassion without awareness, it is dangerous. That's what is in the people we call do-gooders. They have compassion, but no awareness. They go on doing good, and that good has not even happened to their own beings. They go on helping others, and they themselves need much help. They themselves are ill, and they go on helping other people. It is not possible. PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF FIRST!

Buddha says: If you have compassion without awareness, your compassion will be harmful. Do- gooders are the most mischievous people in the world. They don't know what they are doing, but they are always doing something or other to help people.

Once a man came to me... he has devoted his whole life, forty, fifty years - he is seventy. When he was twenty, he came under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi and become a do-gooder. Gandhi created the greatest lot of do-gooders in India; India is still suffering from those do-gooders. And it seems difficult to get rid of them. This man, under Mahatma Gandhi's influence, went to a primitive tribe in Bastar and started teaching the primitive people - forty years' effort, fifty years' effort. He opened many schools, high schools, and now he was opening a college.

He came to me. He wanted my support for the college. I said, "Just tell me one thing: fifty years you have been with them - can you say certainly that education has been good, that they are better than they were when they were uneducated? Can you be certain that your fifty years' work has made them more beautiful human beings?"

He was a little puzzled. He started perspiring; he said, "I never thought THAT way, but maybe you have something. No, they are not better. In fact, with education, they have become cunning, they have become just as other people are. When I reached them fifty years ago, they were tremendously beautiful people. Yes, uneducated - but they had a dignity. Fifty years ago there was not a single murder. And if sometimes it used to happen, then the murderer would go to the court and report.

There was no stealing; and if sometimes somebody did steal, he would come to the chief of the tribe and confess that'I have stolen because I was hungry - but punish me.' There were no locks fifty years ago in those villages. They had always lived in a very silent peaceful way."

So I asked him, "If your education has not helped them, then think again. You started doing good to others without knowing what you were doing. You just thought education has to be good.

"D. H. Lawrence has said that if man has to be saved, then for one hundred years all universities should be closed - completely closed! For one hundred years nobody should be given any education. For one hundred years, all schools, colleges, universities, gone - a gap of one hundred years. And that is the only way to save man, because education has made people very cunning - cunning to exploit more, cunning to use others more as means, cunning to be immoral.

"If you don't know what you are doing, you can think that you are doing good, but good cannot happen."

Buddha says: Compassion is good when it follows awareness, otherwise it is not good. Compassion without awareness is dangerous, and awareness without compassion is selfish. So Buddha says: A perfect Buddha will have both - awareness and compassion. If you become aware and you forget about others and you say, "Why should I bother? Now I am happy," you close your eyes, you don't help others, you don't help others to become aware - then you are selfish, then a deep ego still exists.

Awareness kills half the ego, and the other half is killed by compassion. Between these two, the ego is utterly destroyed. And when a man has become a no-self, he has become a Buddha.

Saraha says:

SO FROM SPONTANEITY THAT'S UNIQUE, REPLETE WITH THE BUDDHA'S PERFECTIONS, ARE ALL SENTIENT BEINGS BORN, AND IN IT COME TO REST. BUT IT IS NEITHER CONCRETE NOR ABSTRACT.

He says: From such unique spontaneity we are born. Out of such godliness we are born. And again we go back to this godliness to rest.

In the meantime, in the middle of these two, we become too much attached to the clouds. So ALL that is needed is not to be attached to the clouds. That is the whole of Tantra in one word: not to be attached to the clouds - because clouds are there only for the moment. We come out of that source, that innocent source, and we will go back to rest in that innocent source. In the middle of these two there will be many clouds - don't get attached to them. Just watch. Remember that you are not the clouds.

... ARE ALL SENTIENT BEINGS BORN, AND IN IT COME TO REST.

We are out of God. We are gods. And again we go to God. In the meantime we start dreaming a thousand and one dreams - of being this and that.

God is the most ordinary reality. God is your source. God is your goal. GOD IS RIGHT NOW HERE!

In your very presence God is - it is God's presence. When you look at me, it is God looking at me; it is nobody else. A shift, a change of the focus, from the cloud to the sky, and suddenly you will fall silent, and suddenly you will feel full of bliss, and suddenly you will feel benediction surrounding you.

BUT IT IS NEITHER CONCRETE NOR ABSTRACT.

It is neither mind nor body - this godliness. Mind is abstract, body is concrete; body is gross, mind is subtle. Body is matter, mind is thought. This inner godliness is neither. This inner godliness is a transcendence.

Tantra is transcendence.

So if you think you are a body, you are clouded; then you are identified with a cloud. If you think you are a mind, again you are clouded. If you think in any way that makes you identified with body or mind, then you are missing the mark.

If you become awake, and suddenly you see yourself only as a witness who sees the body, sees the mind, you have become a Saraha - the arrow is shot. In that change of consciousness - it is just a small change of gear - the arrow is shot, you have arrived. In fact, you had never left.

The third sutra:

THEY WALK OTHER PATHS AND SO FORSAKE TRUE BLISS, SEEKING THE DELIGHTS THAT STIMULANTS PRODUCE.

THE HONEY IN THEIR MOUTHS, AND TO THEM SO NEAR, WILL VANISH IF AT ONCE THEY DO NOT DRINK IT.

IF YOU ARE NOT BECOMING ONE WITH THE SKY with which you are really one, then you are walking other paths. There are millions of other paths - THE TRUE PATH IS ONE. And in fact the true path is not a path. The sky never goes anywhere - clouds go... sometimes west and sometimes east and south and this way and that, and they are great wanderers. They go, they find paths, they carry maps - but the sky is simply there. It has no path, it cannot go anywhere. It has nowhere to go. It is all in all.

So those who remember their sky-being, they are at home, at rest. Except for these few beings, few Buddhas, the others walk so many paths AND SO FORSAKE TRUE BLISS.

Try to understand this. It is a very profound statement.

The moment you are walking on any path, you are going astray from your true bliss - because your true bliss is your nature. It has not to be produced, it has not to be achieved, it has not to be attained.

We follow paths to reach somewhere - it is not a goal. It is already there! It is already the case. So the moment you start moving, you are moving away. ALL movement is movement away. ALL going is going astray. Non-going is arriving. Not going is the true path. Seek and you will miss: don't seek AND find.

THEY WALK OTHER PATHS AND SO FORSAKE TRUE BLISS, SEEKING THE DELIGHTS THAT STIMULANTS PRODUCE.

There are two types of bliss. One is: conditional - it happens only in certain conditions. You see your woman, you are happy. Or, you are a lover of money and you have found a bag full of hundred rupee notes by the side of the road - and there is happiness. Or, you are an egoist and a Nobel Prize is awarded to you - and you dance, there is happiness. These are conditional, you have to arrange for them. And they are momentary.

How long can you be happy with a conditional happiness? How long can the happiness remain?

It comes only like a glimpse, for a moment, and then it is gone. Yes, when you find a bag full of hundred rupee notes you are happy, but how long will you be happy? Not too long. In fact, for a moment there will be a surge of energy and you will feel happy and the next moment you will become afraid - are you going to be caught? Whose money is this? Has somebody seen? And the conscience will say, "This is not right. It is a sort of stealing. You should go to the court! You should go to the police - you should surrender the money to the police! What are you doing? You are a moral man..." and anxiety and guilt. But you have brought it home; now you are hiding it. Now you are afraid: maybe the wife will discover it; maybe somebody has really seen; somebody may have looked - who knows? Somebody may have reported to the police. Now the anxiety.

AND even if nobody has reported and nobody has seen, what are you going to do with this money?

Whatsoever you are going to do will again and again give you a moment of happiness. You purchase a car, and the car is in your porch, and for a moment you are happy. Then...? Then the car is old; next day it is the same car. After a few days you don't look at it at all.

A momentary happiness comes and goes. It is like the cloud. And it is like the river - a very tiny river - a small rain and it is flooded; rain stopped and the flood is gone to the sea; again the tiny river is tiny. It floods for one moment and then is empty the next. It is not like the sea which is never more, never less.

There is another kind of bliss that Saraha calls the true bliss. It is unconditional. You are not to manage certain conditions. It is THERE! You have just to look into yourself and it is there. You don't need a woman, you don't need a man; you don't need a big house, you don't need a big car; you don't need to have much prestige and power and pull - nothing. If you close your eyes and just go inwards, it is there....

Only this bliss can be always and always. Only this bliss can be eternally yours.

Seeking, you will find momentary things. Without seeking, you will find this eternal one.

THEY WALK OTHER PATHS AND SO FORSAKE TRUE BLISS, SEEKING THE DELIGHTS THAT STIMULANTS PRODUCE.

THE HONEY IN THEIR MOUTHS, AND TO THEM SO NEAR, WILL VANISH IF AT ONCE THEY DO NOT DRINK IT.

The honey is in your mouth - and you are going to seek it in the Himalayas, in some mountains?

You have heard stories: There is much honey available in the Himalayas - and you are going to seek it. And the honey is in your mouth!

In India the mystics have always talked about the musk deer. There is a certain kind of deer which has musk in his navel. When the musk starts increasing - it happens only when the deer is really in sexual heat.... The musk is a natural trick, a biological trick: when the musk starts releasing its fragrance, the female deer become attracted to the deer; they come through the musk, through the smell.

Smell is one of the most sexual senses - that's why man has killed his nose. It is a dangerous sense.

You don't smell really. In fact, the word itself has become very much condemned. If somebody has good, beautiful eyes, you say he sees well; if somebody has perfect ears for music, you say he hears well but you don't say he smells well. Why? In fact, to say that he smells means something just the opposite - it means that he stinks, not that he has the capacity to smell. The capacity is lost.

Man does not smell. And we try to hide our sexual smells by perfuming, by cleansing, by this and that we hide! We are afraid of the smell, because smell is the closest sense to sex. Animals fall in love through the smell. The animals smell each other, and when they feel that their smell suits, only then do they make love; then there is a harmony in their being.

This deer-musk is born in the deer only when he is in sexual heat and he needs a female. The female will come to find him. But he is in trouble, because he starts smelling the musk and he cannot understand that it is coming from his own navel, from his own body. So he runs mad, tries to find out from where this smell is coming, naturally so. How can he think? - even man cannot think from where bliss comes, from where beauty comes, from where joy comes. The deer can be forgiven - poor deer. He goes on rushing here and there in search of the musk, and the more he rushes, the more the fragrance is spread all over the forest; wherever he goes, there is the smell. It is said that sometimes he becomes almost mad, not knowing that the musk is within him.

And so is the case with man: man goes mad seeking and searching - sometimes in money, sometimes in respect, this and that, but the musk is within you, the honey is in your mouth. And look at what Saraha is saying:

THE HONEY IN THEIR MOUTHS, AND TO THEM SO NEAR, WILL VANISH IF AT ONCE THEY DO NOT DRINK IT.

And then he says: At once drink it! Don't lose a single moment! otherwise it will vanish. Now or never! At once - time has not to be lost. This can be done IMMEDIATELY, because there is no need for any preparation. It is your innermost core, this honey is yours - this musk is hidden in your navel.

You have brought it from your birth, and you have been searching and seeking in the world.

The fourth sutra:

BEASTS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WORLD TO BE A SORRY PLACE. NOT SO THE WISE WHO THE HEAVENLY NECTAR DRINK WHILE BEASTS HUNGER FOR THE SENSUAL.

THE WORD'BEAST' is a translation of a Hindi or Sanskrit word PASHU. That word has a significance of its own. Literally, PASHU means the animal, the beast, but it is a metaphor. It comes from the word PASH - PASH means bondage. PASHU means one who is in bondage.

The beast is one who is in bondage - the bondage of the body, instincts, unconsciousness; the bondage of the society, mind, thought. The beast is one who is in bondage.

BEASTS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WORLD...

How can they understand? Their eyes are not free to see; their minds are not free to see; their bodies are not free to feel. They don't hear, they don't see, they don't smell, they don't touch - they are in bondage. All senses are crippled, chained.

BEASTS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WORLD...

How can they understand the world? The world can be understood only in freedom. When no scripture is a bondage on you, and no philosophy is a chain in your hands, and when no theology is a prison for you, when you are out of ALL bondages, then you can understand. Understanding happens only in freedom. Understanding happens only in an uncluttered mind.

BEASTS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WORLD TO BE A SORRY PLACE.

And they cannot understand that the world is a sorry place. The so-called world created by the mind and by the body is a mirage. It APPEARS so, it appears very beautiful, but it only appears - it is not really so. It is a rainbow - so beautiful, so colorful; you come closer and it disappears. If you want to grasp the rainbow, your hand will be empty, there will be nothing. It is a mirage. But because of unconsciousness we cannot see it.

Only with awareness does the vision arise; then we can see where it is only a mirage and where it is truth. Any happiness that happens by any outer coincidence is a mirage, and you will suffer through it. It is a deception, it is a hallucination.

You feel that you are very happy with a woman or with a man? - you are going to suffer. Sooner or later you will find that all happiness has disappeared. Sooner or later you will find maybe you were just imagining it - it has never been there. Maybe it was just a dream. You were fantasizing it. When the reality of the woman and the man is revealed, you find two ugly beasts trying to dominate each other.

I have heard:

The best man was doing his utmost to make the groom brace up. "Where is your nerve, old man?"

he asked. "You are shaking like a leaf!"

"I know I am," said the groom, "but this is a nerve-wracking time for me. I've got some excuse for being frightened, haven't I? I've never been married before."

"Of course you haven't," said the best man. "If you had you would be much more scared than you are!"

As you look into life, as you watch life, as you learn more about it, by and by you will feel disillusioned.

There is nothing... just mirages calling you. Many times you have been befooled. Many times you rushed, you travelled long, to find just nothing.

If you are alert, your experience will make you free of the world. And by'the world' I don't mean, and neither does Saraha mean, the world of the trees and the stars and the rivers and the mountains by'the world' he means the world that you project through your mind, through your desire. That world is maya, that world is illusory, that is created by desire, that is created by thought. When thought and desire disappear and there is just awareness, alertness, when there is consciousness without any content, when there is no thought-cloud, just consciousness, the sky, then you see the real world.

That real world is what religions call God, or Buddha calls Nirvana.

BEASTS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WORLD TO BE A SORRY PLACE. NOT SO THE WISE WHO THE HEAVENLY NECTAR DRINK WHILE BEASTS HUNGER FOR THE SENSUAL.

But when you are defeated in your hope, when you are defeated in your dream, you think maybe THIS dream was wrong, and you start dreaming another dream. When you are not fulfilled in your desire, you think you didn't make as much effort as was needed. Again you are deceived.

A woman sitting on a streetcar noticed that the man next to her kept shaking his head from side to side, like a metronome. The woman's curiosity got the best of her and she asked why he was doing it.

"So I can tell the time," replied the fellow.

"Well, what time is it?" asked the woman.

"Four-thirty," he said, still shaking his head.

"You're wrong - it's a quarter until five."

"Oh! Then I must be slow!" the man answered as he speeded up.

That's how it goes on: if you don't achieve something, you think maybe you have not been making as much effort as was needed, or your speed was slow, your competitive spirit was not enough to compete with others. You were not aggressive enough. You were not violent enough; that you were lethargic and lazy; that next time you have to pull yourself up; that you have to pull yourself together - next time you have to prove your mettle.

It has nothing to do with your mettle. You have failed because success is not possible. You have not failed for reason of your effort, speed, aggression - no. You have not failed because you were defective. You have failed because failure is the only possibility in the world - nobody succeeds.

Nobody can succeed! Success is not possible. Desires cannot be fulfilled. And projections never allow you to see the reality, and you remain in bondage.

You also experience the same failure again and again as I have experienced. You also experience the same failure again and again as Buddha or Saraha has experienced. Then what is the difference? You experience the failure, but you don't learn anything from it. That is the only difference. The moment you start learning from it, you will be a Buddha.

One experience, another experience, another experience, but you don't put all the experiences together - you don't conclude! You say, "This woman proved horrible, okay - but there are millions of women. I will find another." This woman proves a failure again, you again start hoping, dreaming you will find another: "It does not mean that all women have failed if one woman has failed. It does not mean that one man has failed so all men have failed." You go on hoping, you go on hoping - the hope goes on winning over your experience, and you never learn.

One relationship becomes a bondage; you feel that something has gone wrong - next time you will make all the efforts not to make it a bondage. But you are not going to succeed - because success is not in the very nature of things here. Failure is the only possibility: success is impossible.

The day you recognize that failure is the only possibility, that ALL rainbows are false, and all happinesses that glitter and shine from far away and attract you like magnets, are just empty dreams, desires, you are deluding yourself - the day you recognize the fact, a turning, a conversion, a new being is born.

With a banging of doors and an angry swish of skirts, the hefty female entered the registrar's office.

"Did you or did you not issue this license for me to marry John Henry?" she snapped, slamming a document on the table.

The registrar inspected it closely through his glasses. "Yes, madam," he said cautiously, "I believe I did. Why?"

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" she screamed. "He's escaped!"

All relationships are just beautiful on the surface; deep down they are a sort of bondage. I am not saying don't relate to people; I am saying relate, but never think that any relationship is going to give you happiness. Relate! Of course, you will have to relate - you are in the world. You have to relate to people, but no relationship is going to give you happiness - because it never comes from the outside. It always glows from the inside, it always flows from the inside.

And Saraha says: The man who believes that it comes from the outside is a beast - he is a PASHU - he is in bondage. And the man who recognizes the fact that it never comes from the outside, whenever it comes it comes from the inside, is free. He is a man; he is really a man, he is no more a beast. With that freedom man is born.

BEASTS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WORLD TO BE A SORRY PLACE. NOT SO THE WISE WHO THE HEAVENLY NECTAR DRINK...

What is this heavenly nectar? It is symbolic of the honey that you have already in your mouth - and you have not tasted it. You don't have any time to taste it. The whole world is too much, and you are rushing from one place to another. You don't have any time to taste the honey that is already there.

That is the heavenly nectar - if you taste it, you are in heaven. If you taste it, then there is no death - that's why it is called'heavenly nectar': you become an immortal. You are an immortal. You have not seen it, but you ARE an immortal. There is no death: you are deathless. The SKY is deathless:

only clouds are born and die. Rivers are born and die: the sea is deathless. So are you.

SARAHA says these sutras to the king. Saraha is not trying to convince him logically. In fact, he is simply making his being available to him. And he is giving him a new gestalt - to look at Saraha.

Tantra is a new gestalt to look at life. And I have never come across anything more profound than Tantra.