No-Mind is the Door

There are two ways to approach reality: the way of the intellect and the way of intelligence.

The way of the intellect is to theorise about it, is to think about it, is to speculate about it. And all speculation is meaningless because how can you speculate about that which you don't know? How can you even think about that which you don't know?

The unknown cannot be thought - there is no way to think about the unknown. All that you go on thinking is the known that goes on repeating in your mind. Yes, you can create new combinations of old thoughts, but just by making new combinations, you are not going to discover the real. You will be deceiving.

Intellect is the greatest deceiver in the world. Through intellect man has deceived himself down the ages. Through intellect you EXPLAIN AWAY the reality, you don't explain it. Through intellect you create such a dust around yourself, that you cannot see the reality at all, and you are cut off from the existential. You are lost in your scriptures - no man has ever been lost anywhere else. It is in the jungle of the scriptures where men get lost.

Tantra is the way of intelligence, not of intellect. It does not answer any questions, it does not explain anything at all; it is non-explanatory. It is not a questioning, it is a quest. It is not inquiry ABOUT the truth, it is an inquiry INTO the truth. It penetrates reality. It tries to destroy all the clouds that surround you so that you can see the reality as it is.

Tantra is to go beyond thinking. That's why love has been so much praised by the TANTRIKAS.

That's why the love orgasm has become a symbol for the ultimate reality. The reason is that it is only in the love orgasm that you lose your mind for a few moments. That is the only state of no-mind which is available to the ordinary man. That is the only possibility for you to have a glimpse of reality.

Hence, sexual orgasm has become tremendously important on the path of Tantra. Not that it gives you ultimate reality. but at least it gives you a chance to peek beyond the mind. It gives you a small window very momentary, it does not stay long but still that is the only possibility for you to have some contact with reality. Otherwise you are always surrounded by your thoughts, and the thoughts explain nothing. All explanations are simply nonsense.

Now I would like to tell you a joke. You know, I don't tell many of them...

The joke has to do with this fella standing on the corner - a coloured fella. And he's standing on the corner and he looks up and he says 'Lord!' He is on a personal basis. He says 'Lord! Why did you make me so dark?'

And the Lord thinks, and the Lord broods, and the Lord tries to philosophise - some answer is needed and the Lord says 'My boy...' And he was wrong from the get-go, you know he knows better.

He says 'My boy, the reason I made you so dark is that when you're running through the jungle, the sun would not give you sunstroke.'

He says 'Yeah. Yeah, I go for that.' He says 'Lord! Why did you make my hair so coarse?'

He said 'Well, the reason I did that, my boy, is so that when you're running through the jungle in quest of the wild beast and the water buffalo and the lion, your hair would not get caught in the brambles.'

He said 'Yeah, yeah.' He said 'Lord! Why did you make my legs so long?'

He said 'The reason I made your legs long, my son, is that when you're loping through the jungle in quest of the wild beast and the rhinoceros and the bull and the elephant, you would run very fast and swiftly. Do you have any further questions?'

He said 'Yeah, Lord! What the hell am I doing here in Poona?'

No explanations help - no explanation ever explains anything. Now the Lord God must have been at a loss.

Man's reality is a mystery. There is no answer that can answer it, because it is not a question in the first place. It is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved. And remember the distinction between a problem and a mystery: a mystery is existential, a problem is intellectual. The mystery is not created by the mind, so the mind cannot solve it either. The problem is created by the mind in the first place so the mind can solve it. The problem is created by the mind so the mind can solve it - there is no problem in it. But the mystery of life - this existential mystery that surrounds you, these trees, these stars, these birds, people, YOU yourself - how can you solve them through the mind?

The mind is a very, very recent arrival. Existence has lived without the mind, long, long. The mind is just an addition; it has just happened. Scientists say that if we divide human history into twenty-four hours, into one day, then mind came just two seconds ago... just two seconds ago! If this is going to be the measurement twenty-four hours, the whole history - then mind entered only two seconds ago. How can it solve? What can it solve? It has not known the beginning, it has not known the end; it has come just now in the middle. It has no perspective.

If one really wants to know what this unknown is, one has to drop out of the mind, one has to disappear into existence. That is the Tantra way.

Tantra is not a philosophy. Tantra is absolutely existential. And remember, when I say that Tantra is existential, I don't mean the existentialism of Sartre, Camus, Marcel, and others. That existentialism is again a philosophy, a philosophy of existence, but not the Tantra way. And the difference is vast.

The existential philosophers in the West have only stumbled upon the negative: anguish, ANGST, depression, sadness, anxiety, hopelessness, meaninglessness, purposelessness - all the negatives. Tantra has stumbled upon all that is beautiful, joyful, blissful. Tantra says: Existence is an orgasm, an eternal orgasm going on and on and on. It is forever and forever an orgasm, an ecstasy.

They must be moving in different directions. Sartre goes on THINKING ABOUT existence. Tantra says: Thinking is not the door; it leads nowhere, it is a blind alley. It brings you only to a cul-de-sac.

Philosophy is great if you are just fooling around. Then philosophy is great: you can make mountains out of molehills and you can enjoy the trip.

Just the other day I was reading a very, very philosophical piece. Meditate over it.

A most peculiar thing occurred to me. And I am going to tell it to you on the chance that it may have occurred to you too at one time or another, and, on hearing me, you will handle the situation better when it occurs again.

Yesterday I was in a restaurant and I ordered some lunch. I was with a small group of people around this table having a little lunch. It wasn't... You know, six, seven people around this table... I don't know, eight people... nine... about forty people having lunch. A small group of people.

With my lunch, I ordered a glass of milk. Now I like milk. You know how I feel about BUTTERMILK.

But milk I like. Milk I adore. I like FRESH, COLD milk. If it's warm... yuck! If I can taste it, I don't like it.

Anyway, the milk came. And I was just about to drink it when I noticed that floating at the top of the milk was the littlest, teeniest, black speck. And I am here to tell you that nothing in this world mattered but that little black speck! It became the most important thing in my life for the next few minutes. First of all, I wasn't gonna let that damn thing down in me, I'll tell you! You know, who knows these days what it was? It could have been a solid chunk of Strontium 90, you know. Or maybe a large typhoid colony. Anyway, I didn't want to swallow it.

Now, I've seen black specks before - I'm a sophisticated man - I've lived. And I'm sure you've seen them too. You can see them any place. However, I think you spot them mostly in sugar bowls. Once in a while you catch one lurking about in a bowl of farina. Oatmeal is LOADED with black specks. I think oatmeal is mostly black specks, if you want the truth. But that's neither here nor there.

Now the thing that bothered me about this black speck was that I didn't know where it came from, that's what bothered me. I knew where the MILK came from. And that bothered me too, you know.

But at least I knew where it came from. So I decided to get the black speck out of the milk.

Do you know how hard that is to do? Those black specks are smart as hell! They can smell a spoon a mile off! The minute you pick up the spoon they start running around the glass, don't they? You pick them up and they jump out. You pick them up and they jump out. And you've got to be very careful or they get wise and they dive for the bottom! And you have to sit there like a fool waiting for it to float back up again.

Now there's one thing you can do... If you just take the tip of your finger and you touch the speck, very gently, it'll stick to your finger along with a large blob of milk - and you'll have it out. But you know, when you're with a group of people, you don t want to put your finger in your milk. You know?

Some wise guy is bound to say 'Say! How come you're putting your finger in your milk?'

What are you going to say? 'I'm trying to get a black speck out.' You know? You have no answer.

Now there's another thing you can do. You can drink the milk very carefully, keeping your eye on the speck all the time! The minute it starts to move towards you, you quit! You fool the little devil! But that's only possible if the speck is on the far side of the glass. In this case it was close to me waiting.

So what do you do? You twist the glass...

And the damned thing stays right there!

Well, I'm going to tell you what I did, so that when it happens to you, you can handle the situation in a similar fashion.

I got up and walked around to the other side of the table... and I drank it over there!

He never even knew it!

Philosophy is creating mountains out of molehills. You can go on and on - there is no end to it. For at least five thousand years man has been philosophising about each and every thing: about the beginning, about the end, about the middle about each and every thing. And not a single question has been solved. Not a single, not the smallest, question has been solved or dissolved. Philosophy has proved to be the most futile of efforts. But still man continues, knowing perfectly well that it never delivers anything. Why? It goes on promising, but never delivers anything. Then why does man continue with this effort?

It is cheap. It does not require any involvement, it is not a commitment. You can sit in your chair and go on thinking. It is a dream. It does not require that you should change in order to see reality.

That's where courage is needed; adventurous courage is needed. To know the truth, you are moving into the greatest adventure there is.. You may be lost, who knows'? You may never come back, who knows? Or you may come back utterly changed, and who knows whether it will be for the good or not?

The journey is unknown, the journey is so unknown that you cannot even plan it. You have to take a jump into it. Blindfolded, you have to take a jump into it, in the dark night, with no map, without knowing where you are going, without knowing what you are going for. Only a few daredevils enter into this existential quest.

So, Tantra has only appealed to a very few people, but those were the salt of the earth; Saraha is one of them.

Now the sutras.

These are the last four sutras of Saraha's Royal Song.

ONCE IN THE REALM THAT'S FULL OF JOY THE SEEING MIND BECOMES ENRICHED AND THEREBY FOR THIS AND THAT MOST USEFUL; EVEN WHEN IT RUNS AFTER OBJECTS IT IS NOT ALIENATED FROM ITSELF.

The king must have told Saraha what people were saying about him. They were saying about him that he was indulging in the senses, he was indulging in pleasures. He was no longer a sannyasin his renunciation was false; he had fallen.

He had asked permission of the king to become a Buddhist monk, and he HAD become a Buddhist monk. He had lived the controlled and disciplined life of a Buddhist monk. And then came this revolutionary woman, this arrowsmith woman, and she transformed his whole being, his whole life and his whole style. She destroyed his character. She allowed him freedom - freedom to be, freedom to be from moment to moment, with no past, with no future.

Naturally the ordinary, common people started thinking that he had fallen from grace; he had betrayed. And he had been a great Brahmin and was a great scholar. They had hoped for much from him that he would bring some knowledge to the country, and now he had become like a mad dog.

A thousand and one stories must have been spread around the country about him, and the king must have told him what people thought about Saraha. The king was hurt: he had loved the man, he had respected the man, but the king was also of the same world. His ways of thinking were similar to those of the people. He had no insight into reality or into himself.

Saraha says to the king: Once, even once, if you know what joy is, you will forget all these stories.

Once, even once, if you have any taste of what life is, you will forget all this nonsense of character, virtue, respectability.

You can continue to live in a respectable way if you have not yet contacted life. Life is a radical phenomenon. It is a chaos - a very creative chaos, but it is a chaos all the same.

Saraha says ONCE IN THE REALM THAT'S FULL OF JOY THE SEEING MIND BECOMES ENRICHED...

But the question is of experiencing it.

Saraha says: I cannot explain what has happened to me, but I can say this much - even once, if you taste it, you will be transformed. The taste transforms. I am not going to convince you in any argumentative way. I have no philosophy, says Saraha, I have a certain experience. I can share that experience with you. But the sharing cannot be just from my side - you will have to move from your dogmatic standpoint. You will have to come me into the unknown. I can take you to that window from which existence is clear, transparent. But you will have to hold my hand and come to that window.

That's what a Master is meant to do: he holds the hand of the disciple and takes him to that opening from which he has looked into God. In a metaphorical way, he lends his eyes to you. Once you have tasted, then there is no problem; then that very taste will go on pulling you. Then the pull is so tremendous that you cannot remain where you have been staying and vegetating.

ONCE IN THE REALM THAT'S FULL OF JOY THE SEEING MIND BECOMES ENRICHED...

But a seeing mind is needed to taste that joy - a mind which is not burdened with blinkers too much, a mind which is open.

Now this is the problem with people who are too attached to philosophies, religions, scriptures, theories, dogmas: the problem is that they have too many blinkers - layer upon layer. Their eyes are lost behind curtains and curtains and curtains. Those curtains have to be peeled away, just as you peel an onion. All those curtains have to be removed, then you have a seeing mind. Right now, whatsoever you have is a non-seeing mind. It only pretends that it sees; it only says, believes that it sees.

Your eyes see not, you ears hear not, and your hands touch not - because you have lost that sensitivity, that flow which can make your eyes seeing eyes, which can make your ears hearing ears. That's why Jesus has to say again and again to his disciples: If you can see, see it! If you have eyes, see it! If you have ears, listen to it, hear it! He was talking to people who were not blind and who were not deaf. They had as much of a capacity to see as you have and a capacity to hear as you have; they were normal people.

But why did he insist again and again 'If you have eyes...'? Was he always talking to blind people like you? But what did he mean when he said 'If you have eyes...'? Why this if'?

It is a great 'if', because people appear to have eyes and yet they don't have. And that appearance is very dangerous, because they go on believing that they have eyes.

Have you ever looked at anything without your thoughts coming in, interfering, distracting, interpreting? Have you ever seen a rose flower without language coming in, without your mind immediately saying 'It is a rose flower, it is a beautiful flower'... this and that? The moment you say it is a rose flower you are not seeing THIS flower. Then all the rose flowers that you have seen and heard about are standing in a queue, and this REAL rose flower is at the farthest end. The moment you say it is a ROSE flower, you are pulling a curtain over your eyes.

Language is the greatest curtain. Can't you see this flower just as it is without calling it a rose, without even calling it a flower? What is the need? Can't you just look into this reality without any idea, without any cloud moving around you? Can't you be, for a moment, without language? If you are without language for a moment, you will have the seeing mind.

Start trying it sometimes. Sitting by the side of a tree, just look at the tree and don't think what tree it is. And don't think that it is a tree, and don't think that it is beautiful or ugly. Don't bring your mind in at all. Just watch,.whatever it is - X, Y, Z. Let it be whatsoever it is. Don't judge.

Jesus says 'Judge ye not.' Language is a judgement. With the judgement come all the prejudices.

With the judgement comes your whole past; and whenever past comes in, you are removed from the present.

I was reading...

There was a man who owned a garage, and he had a cat. One day he was filling a customer's car with petrol, when he spilt some in the cat's milk. The cat drank it all up and began to run round the place at sixty miles an hour. Then suddenly it stopped dead.

The customer said 'Has the cat died?'

'No' said the garage owner 'I think it's run out of petrol.'

A garage owner has his language, his past, his prejudice. He understands things in a certain way.

He says 'No, I think it has run out of petrol.'

And this is happening constantly.

It happened... It happened while Sarvesh, our ventriloquist sannyasin, was here and he was giving a show in the Radha Auditorium. He was telling all sorts of jokes about different religions and races and everything. Then he said 'Well, now, let's tell a joke about Germans.'

So a German sannyasin - not Haridas, mind you - stood up and said 'I will not have you telling jokes about Germans! We are not as thick as you think, you know.'

'Be calm, sir' said Sarvesh. 'Please be calm and sit down. It is nothing personal.'

'I'm not talking to you' said the German. 'I'm talking to the little fella on your knee!'

Your mind is your mind. It is always there - thick or thin, good or bad. It is always there - intelligent or unintelligent, it is always there. Knowledgeable or ignorant, it is always there. Educated, uneducated, it is always there. German, Indian, American, it is always there. And the reality is not German, and the reality is not American, and the reality is not Indian. So when you come with German eyes, with Indian eyes, with American eyes, with Hindu eyes, with Mohammedan eyes, with Christian eyes, you miss reality.

Start.

This will give you a great preparation for the jump into Tantra. START. Whenever you are sitting, moving, walking, talking, try again and again to remain with the real - the uninterpreted, unjudged real. And slowly, slowly, doors open. Slowly, slowly, a few moments start coming to you which are not moments of the mind - non-linguistic visions of reality, non-mental visions of reality; and those will prepare you.

Says Saraha ONCE IN THE REALM THAT'S FULL OF JOY THE SEEING MIND BECOMES ENRICHED...

So the first thing is: the seeing mind. And the second thing is: don't avoid joys; approach them with open heart, with receptivity, with a welcoming being; absorb them. Wherever joy is, God is. That is the Tantra message in short: Wherever joy is, God is.

And joy has three planes. The first is what we call 'pleasure'; pleasure is of the body. The second is happiness; happiness is of the mind. The third is bliss; bliss is of the spirit, spiritual. But they all share one reality, and that reality is joy. Joy, converted into the language of the body, becomes pleasure. Joy, received through the body, become pleasure. Joy, received through mind, becomes happiness. Joy, received neither through mind nor through body, received without body, without mind, becomes bliss. These are the three layers of joy.

Joy is the only reality. Joy is God! Joy is the stuff which the existence is made of.

Saraha says: Be available to joy, WHEREVER it comes from. Never deny it. Don't condemn it.

When it is of the body, so what'? Then God is knocking at your body. When you are eating and you feel a certain joy, you enjoy your food, it is God; you are swallowing him.

When you hold the hand of a woman or a man or a friend, or anybody, with tremendous love and there is a thrill in your body energy, there is a dance, a deep dance in your body energy; when you are stirred - like electricity something vibrates, something renovates, rejuvenates you, something which makes you more alive than you have ever been before - it is joy; it is God coming through the body. When listening to music you feel tremendously happy, it is joy through the mind. Looking at a flower without touching it and without bringing your mind into it, a moment comes when there is bliss - subtle, silent, profound, benediction. But all are different manifestations of joy.

'Joy' is one of the most beautiful words in the English language. It covers the whole range of all kinds of happiness.

Tantra says that the first thing is to be available to joy. You will be surprised by this insistence. Are we not available to joy? Yes, it is sad to say, but it is so - you are not, nobody is. We are more receptive to suffering; we are more ready to suffer than we are ready to be joyful; we are more available to misery than to joy. There is something in it.

Joy takes away your ego, and misery gives you your ego in a very strong way. Misery creates ego, and joy takes it away. Any moment of joy... and you are lost in it. The joy moment is not an ego moment; the misery moment is a very condensed ego moment. When you are miserable, you ARE; when you are joyful, you are NOT. So let me repeat: Because we are egoists we are more available to suffering, misery, sadness, unhappiness. We create a joyless life around ourselves. We convert all opportunities of joy into sadness, because that is the only way for the ego to exist. The ego can exist only in hell. In heaven, the ego cannot exist.

You have been told, down the centuries, that if you become egoless you will enter into heaven. I say to you: If you become egoless heaven enters in you. Heaven is not a geographical thing somewhere, it is not that you go there. When you are egoless, you are heaven. When you are egoful, you are hell. It is not that hell is there somewhere at the bottom of existence and heaven is somewhere at the peak of existence - these are just metaphors. Heaven and hell are states of being.

When you are, you are in hell. When you are not, you are in heaven. And that's why if you are too attached to your ego and you want to feel yourself - that you are separate, different, unique, this and that then you will remain miserable. Now, the paradox: the ego creates misery, and the ego wants to be joyful. The ego seeks, is very greedy about joy; it wants to have all the joys possible - and the ego creates misery. Now you are trapped. The more misery the ego creates, the more interested the ego becomes in joy. But it cannot create joy: joy is not its function. This insight is a Tantra insight.

And one moment of joy... even ONCE, says Saraha, is enough to change you, sir. He says to the king: One moment, once will be enough argument and proof of what type of life I am living, what type of being I am in.

ONCE IN THE REALM THAT'S FULL OF JOY THE SEEING MIND BECOMES ENRICHED...

And mind is never enriched by philosophising. By theories it is not enriched, by knowledge it is not enriched, only by experience. A rich mind means one which has experienced something of the real, something of the truth.

There is only one richness - that is of truth; and there is only one poverty - and that is of lies. If you don't know the truth you live in lies, illusions, projections, dreams.

AND THEREBY FOR THIS AND THAT MOST USEFUL; EVEN WHEN IT RUNS AFTER OBJECTS IT IS NOT ALIENATED FROM ITSELF.

Why do people ordinarily run towards objects? Somebody wants a car, and somebody wants a house, and somebody wants power - why are people running after objects? What is the base, fundamental reason for their hankering and hectic activities? You will be surprised.

Tantra says: They want to run away from themselves. They are not running towards objects, they simply want to run from themselves. Objects are excuses - they help you to turn your back upon yourself. You are afraid of yourself. There is great fear about yourself.

It happens here every day. Whenever a person comes closer to meditation he becomes scared.

Why? Because when you look into yourself, you will not find anybody there. Pure nothingness, abyss - abysmal nothingness. You start trembling, you are standing on a precipice... just a wrong step and you are finished. One starts running from oneself. People are running - not for things, people are running from themselves.. They are not running FOR something, they are running FROM something. And that something is their own being.

So whenever you are occupied you feel good. Whenever you are unoccupied you feel very restless, very restless. Nothing to do? - you start falling upon yourself. If something is there to be done, if you are engaged, you can forget that abyss which goes on calling from your inside. That abyss is what God is.

To come to terms with that abyss, to become friendly with that abyss, is the first step towards reality.

AND THEREBY FOR THIS AND THAT MOST USEFUL; EVEN WHEN IT RUNS...

Saraha says: Ordinary people are running after things because they want to avoid themselves. But a man who has come to know what truth is, even if THAT man is going towards objects don't be deceived, because he will also enjoy. In fact, he is the only person who will enjoy.

You are running after things because you want to avoid yourself. He has nowhere anything to avoid.

He is not escaping from anywhere. He can enjoy things, in fact, only he can enjoy things.

How can you enjoy things? - because you are constantly afraid of your own being...

Saraha says: If you see a TANTRIKA enjoying a woman or enjoying a good meal or drinking wine, don't judge him because he looks just like any other ordinary man; he is not. The difference is very deep. The difference is very essential. On the surface they both look alike. How can you differentiate whether a man who is running after a woman is ordinary or a TANTRIKA? It is very difficult from the outside, because from the outside they look almost the same.

Take a few examples:

Two dancers are dancing. One dancer is dancing only to perform, to feel the ego - that he is a great dancer. It is a performance. He is looking into people's eyes what they are thinking. He is waiting for their applause, he is hoping they are going to applaud him. They will help his ego strengthen a little more.

And there is another dancer on the same stage, dancing because he enjoys it. He is not performing.

He not even bothering about whether people are applauding or not, whether people are there or not. He is absorbed, utterly absorbed in his dance. Will it be possible for you to make a distinction from the outside? It will be very difficult. More is the possibility that you will not be able to make any distinction. It is possible you may even think that the performer is a great dancer, because he is speaking the same language of the ego which you understand. The non-performer may look a little crazy. The non-performer will be so spontaneous that unless YOU know the language of spontaneity, you cannot understand him.

To understand anything, you have, at least, to know the language. A TANTRIKA sitting by the side of a woman, holding her hand, and an ordinary man holding the hand of a woman - how will you make a distinction between the two? The ordinary man is trying to escape from himself; he wants to get lost into this woman so that he can forget himself. He himself is not in love with himself, that's why he is loving this woman - so that his reality can be forgotten. He is using this woman like an alcoholic beverage: this woman makes him drunk and he forgets about himself. It helps, it gives him a certain relaxation. He is, for a few moments at least, not in his usual anxieties.

And the TANTRIKA, holding the hand of the woman in tremendous joy... Not that he wants to escape - there is nowhere to escape, and there is no one to escape. He is holding the hand of this woman just to share something of tremendous value with her.

You cannot share everything with everybody; there are a few things which you can share only in love. There are a few things which you can share only in trust.

People ask me why I don't talk to the masses. I don't talk to them because I have something to share and that can be shared only in deep trust, that can be shared only in deep love. I can only talk with people who are in love with me, otherwise it is meaningless - they will not understand, they will misunderstand. There is no way to make it understood.

It can be communicated only when you are ready to respond. When your hearts are ready, open, I can play on your hearts and a great music can be born. But if you come closed, untrusting, doubting, then I cannot create that music. It is impossible, because you won't allow me to enter into your innermost core of being and play on your heart. If you won't allow me, then the music will not be created.

And then you want to know whether the music exists... The only way to make you aware that it exists is to create it in you. You say 'Yes, I will trust if I can experience the music.' The problem is that you cannot experience the music UNLESS you trust. It has to be created, only then can you know that it is. But before it can be known, trust is a basic requirement.

The TANTRIKA is holding the hand of a woman, he can hold anybody's hand, but he will not be able to convey the energy that has happened to him; he can convey it very easily to somebody who loves. And it can be conveyed only in certain moments.

There are certain moments when two people come so close that the energy can jump from one.to the other. You know those moments - if you have loved anybody, you will know - they are not there twenty-four hours a day. Even if you love a woman. your wife, your child, your husband, then too, you know that for twenty-four hours a day those moments are not there; they happen rarely. Sometimes they happen. Sometimes, something... and you fall together. Sometimes you feel that the other has moved very, very close: your peripheries are overlapping. That is the moment when something can be conveyed.

Now, Saraha says, if you look from the outside, sir, you will see us TANTRIKAS just as ordinary people hankering for things - the ordinary joys of life. We are not.

And, he says ONCE IN THE REALM THAT'S FULL OF JOY THE SEEING MIND BECOMES ENRICHED AND THEREBY FOR THIS AND THAT MOST USEFUL...

THIS is SAMSARA; and THAT is NIRVANA.

Saraha says: This enriched mind - enriched by joy - becomes useful for BOTH this and that, for SAMSARA and NIRVANA, for the outer and the inner, for the bodily and the spiritual, for the visible and the invisible. It becomes capable and useful for both this and that. This a great statement.

Ordinarily, so-called spiritual people think that either your mind can be useful in the world OR in God. Their thinking is that of 'either-or'.

Tantra says: This thinking is dividing life into lower and higher, into material and spiritual, into SAMSARA and NIRVANA. This division is wrong because life is indivisible.

And really, if you are intelligent, you will not only be able to enjoy God, you will be able to enjoy very ordinary things too. You will be able to enjoy a rock as much as you will be able to enjoy God.

See into this great, profound statement. When the mind is really intelligent and enriched by joy, you will be able to enjoy bliss, you will be able to enjoy happiness, you will be able to enjoy pleasure too, because it all belongs to God - the lowest as much as the highest.

AND THEREBY FOR THIS AND THAT MOST USEFUL; EVEN WHEN IT RUNS AFTER OBJECTS IT IS NOT ALIENATED FROM ITSELF.

And Saraha says: Even if you find me running, that running after objects is your interpretation. I am not running, because there is nowhere to run and nobody to run.

This state where one has attained to his inner clarity is such that one can enjoy everything: from food to God, from sex to SAMADHI - there is no division. There should not be, there need not be.

Tantra gives you both worlds. Tantra is not an 'either-or' standpoint, it is 'this and that both'; it is very comprehensive. All religions look poor in that way, because they take away the world and they force an unnecessary choice on you. They say: Either choose the world or God. They put God in opposition to the world. Tantra is the only total religion the ONLY total religion. No religion has been born on the earth which has such a total vision.

Both...

Tantra says: There is no question of choice; it is all yours. You can be in the market-place, and you can enjoy the marketplace; and yet you can be beyond it, and you can enjoy the beyond too.

It does not force you to choose. All choice is destructive. And because of these religions of the 'either-or' standpoint, the world has remained worldly.

Who bothers about God? God is so far away, is not so real. And then one thinks 'Later on... One can postpone God, but life is running by - enjoy it first.'

These religions which have forced choice on man have forced man to remain wordly. Out of a million, one will become religious. An unnecessarily. hard choice: he has to renounce the world, he has to move out of his family, away from friends: he has to go against all his love. You force him unnecessarily And then another problem arises. These people who are ready to choose God against the world are more or less perverted people who have failed in life somehow; who have, somehow, not been intelligent enough to understand life; who are somehow stupid, who are somehow sadistic, masochistic; people who are somehow neurotic, egoistic. They can escape from the world. They can start torturing themselves. That's what - up to now - asceticism has been: Torture yourself. Be violent with yourself. Kill yourself. Slowly, slowly poison your being. These people are not healthy people.

So out of a million, one person becomes interested in choosing God. And out of hundreds of so- called religious people, ninety-nine seem to be neurotic. So out of a hundred million, one person becomes a Buddha or a Christ or a Krishna. This is sheer wastage.

Just think of a garden where ten million trees are growing, and only one tree flowers. Will you call that gardener a gardener? In fact, you will come to the natural conclusion about it that it is not because of the gardener that the tree has flowered, it must be in spite of him. Ten million trees he has planted, and only one tree has flowered and has become fruitful. It cannot be because of the gardener. It must be because it somehow escaped the gardener; the gardener could not destroy it. Somehow the gardener has neglected it, somehow the gardener has forgotten about it. Maybe...

ten million trees... and he has forgotten about it. So, it has been missed and has flowered.

Each tree is potentially fruitful, potentially capable of blooming; and each man is capable of becoming a God.

Tantra creates a totally new religion. It says that there is no need to choose. Wherever you are - exactly there - God can be experienced. It is not against the world. it is for God. And its God is so vast that the world can be included.

And to me it seems very, very relevant that the creation should be included in the creator. It should not be against. What type of logic is this which says that the creation is against the creator? If it is God who has created you, if it is God who has created your body. your sexuality, your sensuality, then it cannot be against God.

George Gurdjieff used to say that all the religions are against God. And he was right. Except for Tantra, he was right: all the religions are against God. If you are against God's creation, you are indicating that you are against God. If you are against the painting, are you not saying that you are against the painter? If you are against the poetry are you not saying, in an indirect way, that you are against the poet?

If God is the creator, then the creation is his, and must have his signature everywhere. Yes, it is there, and Tantra says that God's signature is everywhere. You just need seeing eyes, a seeing mind and a little receptivity for joy - and it will start happening.

THE BUDS OF JOY AND PLEASURE AND THE LEAVES OF GLORY GROW.

IF NOTHING FLOWS OUT ANYWHERE THE BLISS UNSPEAKABLE WILL FRUIT.

The key... the secret. These are the last sutras of Saraha. He is giving the ultimate touch to whatsoever he has said up to now. He is giving the final statement.

He says: Pleasures are of the body; pleasures are outgoing. Pleasure needs the other, pleasure hankers for the object; pleasure is an extroverted journey. Good! There is nothing wrong in it. And then, joy is an introverted journey. Joy is more interested in oneself; joy is more subjective. For pleasure, the other is needed; for joy, you are enough.

Pleasure is bodily, joy is psychological. But they both remain buds unless the third, the ultimate in joy happens - bliss. That bliss is the one-thousand-petalled lotus: the highest peak of your consciousness. When that opens, then all buds bloom.

Now this has to be understood. An ordinary person can have only a very limited joy through the body, but a TANTRIKA will have tremendous joy through his body. It will not just be a bud, it will be a flowering. An ordinary person can have a certain joy in music, in meditation, in dance, but a TANTRIKA will have infinite joy. When you have known the last, the last starts being reflected in everything you do. If you have known God, then wherever you walk, you are walking on holy ground.

Then whatsoever you see, you are seeing God. Then whomsoever you meet, you are meeting God.

Always remember: your highest experience is reflected in your lowest experiences. Without the highest experience the lower is very mundane. That's the problem. That's why people cannot understand TANTRIKAS when they say that even in sex SAMADHI is possible. They cannot understand. And it is understandable why they cannot understand. They don't know SAMADHI.

They know very ordinary, ugly sex. They know only frustration through it.They only know lust through it.

The English word 'love' is very meaningful. It comes from a Sanskrit root LOBHA: LOBHA means greed, lust. The ordinary love is nothing but lust and greed. How can the ordinary man understand that in love the ultimate can be reflected? But when you have known the ultimate, the highest, then the lowest is linked with it. Then anything stirs it, then anything becomes a message from it.

It is like this. You come across a handkerchief on the road. It is an ordinary handkerchief, not worth more than one rupee. But one day you fall in love with a woman, and you come across a handkerchief on the street - the same handkerchief, worth one rupee - but now it belongs to the woman you love. Now its worth is tremendous, now it is not just one rupee. If somebody were going to offer you one thousand rupees, you would not be willing to give this handkerchief - this belongs to the woman that you love. Now this ordinary handkerchief has something which was not there before: it reminds you of your beloved.

It is exactly like that. When you have known SAMADHI, then even sexual orgasm reminds you of SAMADHI. Then everything reminds you of SAMADHI. Then the whole existence becomes so full and crowded with God.

THE BUDS OF JOY AND PLEASURE AND THE LEAVES OF GLORY GROW.

The buds are of joy and pleasure, and the leaves are of glory. But ordinarily you will just see leaves unless the highest has happened. When the highest happens, then you see that even the ordinary leaves of your life are not ordinary leaves: it is THROUGH THEM that the ultimate flowering has happened. And now you know that the same sap flows to the ultimate flower, to THE BUDS OF JOY AND PLEASURE; and to the leaves too the same sap flows. They all help together toward the one-thousand-petalled lotus.

LEAVES OF GLORY means leaves of grace, gratitude. You start feeling the glory of existence; your life is glorious. It is no longer ordinary; it is luminous with God.

IF NOTHING FLOWS OUT ANYWHERE...

And when does this one-thousand-petalled lotus open? It opens when nothing flows out.

Now look. First, pleasure is when your energy is flowing out - bodily pleasure. Joy is when your energy is flowing in - subjective, psychological joy. And when does bliss happen? - when your energy is not flowing anywhere, it is simply there. You are not going anywhere, you are simply there:

you are just a being. Now you don't have any goals, now you don't have any desires to fulfil. You don't have any future; you are just here-now. When the energy has become just a pool - not going anywhere, not flowing anywhere; no goal to be attained, nothing to be sought, you are just here, tremendously here, totally here; this NOW is all the time that is left for you, and this HERE is all the space - then suddenly this gathering of energy, which is not moving anywhere, not distracted by body or mind, becomes a great rush in you. And... the one-thousand-petalled lotus opens.

IF NOTHING FLOWS OUT ANYWHERE THE BLISS UNSPEAKABLE WILL FRUIT.

And then comes the fruit.

So, joy and pleasure are the buds, grace and gratitude and glory are the leaves, and this ultimate flowering of bliss is the fulfilment, the fruition. You have come home.

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE AND WHERE AND WHAT IN ITSELF IT WILL BECOME IS NOTHING...

And now you know that whatsoever has been done OR not done, was just a dream. Now you know that KARMA, action, means nothing. You were just drawing lines on water; they go on disappearing.

Nothing is left. NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS. ALL IS. Nothing happens.

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE AND WHERE AND WHAT IN ITSELF IT WILL BECOME IS NOTHING...

Saraha is saying: Look, sir. What I am doing and what I have done and what has happened is all meaningless now that I know it is just a dream.

YET THEREBY IT HAS BEEN USEFUL FOR THIS AND THAT.

But, he says, it is true - it has helped for THIS and THAT. Even while it was a dream, it was helpful - it brought me to this reality. I have stepped over that dream, but now I know it was a dream. Now I know it was false. I have not done anything, because nothing is ever done; it is all a dream, but it has helped - it has brought me to this ultimate fruition.

This SAMSARA and that NIRVANA have both been enriched by that dream. The dream was not just futile; it was helpful, utilitarian, but not true.

Let me tell you one anecdote.

There was a hunter walking through the jungle, and he met a snarling tiger coming towards him on the path. He reached for his gun. To his horror, he saw that he had no bullets! The tiger was coming nearer. It was going to attack.

'What can I do? I'm going to be eaten up' thought the hunter, terror freezing him on the spot. Just as the tiger was about to spring, the hunter had a strange feeling. 'I do believe all this is only a dream' he said to himself. 'If I try hard enough, I'm sure I'll wake up.' So he pinched himself hard, and shook himself and blinked. In a moment the tiger was gone, the tiger disappeared; the hunter was safe in his own bed. What a relief! He still trembled with fright, but now he laughed too. How real that tiger had seemed! Thank goodness it was only a dream.

When he felt calm again, the hunter got up and made himself a cup of tea. He still felt tired, so he sat outside his hut in a deck-chair and smoked his pipe for a while. He really felt quite sleepy. So he tipped his hat over his face, and closed his eyes. 'I could sleep all day' he said.

After a time, he heard growling. 'Bless me' said the hunter 'I must have dropped off to sleep again.

There's that tiger coming back. Go away, you silly tiger, I'm tired of dreaming about you!'

The tiger growled again, and came nearer.

'I'm not afraid of you. You're only a dream' said the hunter. Then he got up from his chair, walked up to the tiger, and punched it hard on the nose.

'What a funny man' thought the tiger. 'Men usually run away from me.' And, of course, seeing this strange man, the tiger escaped.

When the tiger was just escaping through the door, the man became alert to it that he was fully awake and the tiger was not a dream; it was a reality.

But what happened? The dream helped him even to tackle the real tiger. Naturally the tiger must have become very puzzled. 'This has never happened! What type of man is this that he gets up and hits me in the face just like that?'

All is dream, but dreams can help to understand reality, even to overcome reality.

Says Saraha WHAT HAS BEEN DONE AND WHERE AND WHAT IN ITSELF IT WILL BECOME IS NOTHING:

YET THEREBY IT HAS BEEN USEFUL FOR THIS AND THAT WHETHER PASSIONATE OR NOT THE PATTERN IS NOTHINGNESS.

Says Saraha: Whether you are living a life of passion or a life of no passion, those who know, know well that deep down neither passion nor non-passion makes any difference. Deep down it is pure nothingness. It is just like a movie projected on an empty screen.

A beautiful scene is projected, and you are thrilled with its beauty. And a horror scene is projected, and you start trembling. But Saraha says: The day you understand, there remain nothing but shadows on an empty screen. The sinner is a projection, so is the saint. The good is a projection, so is the bad. On the empty screen of reality all is projected by the mind.

So Saraha says: Sir, don't be puzzled too much by what people say. I KNOW it is just an empty screen. Whether Saraha is a very great man of character or a characterless bum, whether Saraha is respected by people or is condemned and reviled does not matter - it is an empty screen. People are projecting their ideas. I have come to know this nothingness.

And this experience of nothingness, and the experience of the one-thousand-petalled lotus are two aspects of the same phenomenon. On the one hand you attain to ultimate bliss, on the other hand you know that everything is just an empty dream. There is nothing to leave and nowhere to go; nobody to leave and nobody to go anywhere. It is not only that things are empty, you are also empty.

It is all emptiness - inside, outside - just exactly like a dream. What happens in a dream? You create: it is fantasy.

The last sutra:

IF I AM LIKE A PIG THAT COVETS WORLDLY MIRE YOU MUST TELL ME WHAT FAULT LIES IN A STAINLESS MIND.

BY WHAT DOES NOT AFFECT ONE HOW CAN ONE NOW BE FETTERED?

Says Saraha: If I am like a pig, it is okay. If people say that Saraha has become a pig, a mad dog, that's perfectly okay. It does not make any difference whether they say that Saraha has become a great saint or they say that he has become A PIG THAT COVETS WORLDLY MIRE.

YOU MUST TELL ME WHAT FAULT LIES IN A STAINLESS MIND.

What I do makes no difference. Inside I know nothing, inside I know only nothingness. My purity is uncontaminated by what I do. Doing does not affect my being at all.

So, you tell me, sir ... WHAT FAULT LIES IN A STAINLESS MIND.

BY WHAT DOES NOT AFFECT ONE HOW CAN ONE NOW BE FETTERED?

And these things don't affect me this way or that. Neither am I detached, nor am I attached. I let things happen - whatsoever happens. I have no longer any plan, arid I have no longer any style to impose upon life. I live spontaneously. Whatsoever happens happens, and I have no judgement.

And I don't say 'It should have been this way.' I have no 'shoulds', I have no 'should nots'.

Just meditate over this state: no 'shoulds', no 'should nots', no plan, no frustration, no repentance - because nothing ever goes wrong. How can anything go wrong when you don't have any idea of right?

This is ultimate freedom, ultimate liberation.

How can anything go wrong? The wrong can happen only if you have a certain notion of the right. If you don't have any notion, you don't have any ideology, you don't have any ideals...

Saraha says BY WHAT DOES NOT AFFECT ONE HOW CAN ONE NOW BE FETTERED?

And the last sentence of the sutra is of great beauty.

When you really come home and you see WHAT IS, you will not feel that you have become liberated.

On the contrary, you will feel 'How ridiculous that I ever thought that I was not liberated.' The difference is great.

If, when you come home, when you come to know what is, you start feeling very, very enhanced and you are in a very great euphoria, and you say 'Now I have become liberated', that means you are not yet liberated. That means you still think the bondage was real, that means you are still in a dream. Now in another dream: One dream was of bondage, this other dream is of liberation - but another dream again.

Saraha says: When you really become liberated - liberated from all right and from all wrong, liberated from all good and all bad - then you are not only liberated from bondage, you are liberated from liberation itself. Then suddenly you start laughing. 'How ridiculous! The bondage cannot happen in the first place, the bondage had never happened! It was just a belief. I had believed in it, and I had created it through my belief. It was a dream; now the dream is over.'

That's why the last sentence ends on a question mark. Have you ever seen any scripture ending on a question mark? This is the only one. I have not come across any other.

Scriptures begin with a question mark and end with an answer. That's how a logical treatise should go. The introduction can be a question not the epilogue. But this beautiful song of Saraha ends on a question mark.

IF I AM LIKE A PIG THAT COVETS WORLDLY MIRE YOU MUST TELL ME WHAT FAULT LIES IN A STAINLESS MIND.

BY WHAT DOES NOT AFFECT ONE HOW CAN ONE NOW BE FETTERED?

He does not declare that he is enlightened. He does not declare that he is liberated. He does not declare that he has come home. He simply says: I laugh at the very idea that I had gone anywhere.

I had never gone anywhere. I have, always and always, been at my home. I have always been here and now. Only I was dreaming, so the dreams created the illusion that I had gone somewhere. Now the dream has disappeared, and I am where I have always been.

That's why he says HOW CAN ONE NOW BE FETTERED?

Nobody is there to be fettered; nothing is there to fetter. The bondage has disappeared, so has disappeared the man who was in bondage. When the world disappears, the ego disappears - together; they are part of the same game. Inside is ego, outside is the world. They cannot live apart:

they are always together. When one disappears, the other disappears simultaneously. Now the ego is not there, and the world is not there.

Saraha is propounding Buddha's greatest insight. Buddha says: There is no substance and there is no self. Substance is not there; all is empty. And the self is not inside you, there also it is all empty. To come to see this emptiness... awareness floating in emptiness - pure awareness, unbounded awareness... This awareness is emptiness itself, or this emptiness is awareness itself.

This emptiness is luminous with awareness, full of awareness.

Tantra is a great insight into things as they really are. But remember, finally, it is not a philosophy, it is an insight. And if you want to go into it, you will have to go, not through the mind, but without the mind.

No-mind is the door to Tantra. Non-thinking is the way to Tantra. Experiencing is the key to Tantra.