You are responsible

Question 1:

LIGHT itself is colourless. All colours belong to light, but light is not a colour. Light is just the absence of colors. Light is white; white is not a color. When light is divided, analyzed or passed through a prism, then it is divided into seven colors.

Mind also works as a prism - an inner prism. The outer light, if passed through a prism, is divided into seven colors; the inner light, if passed through mind, is divided into seven colors. So the experience of colors in the inward journey means that you are still in mind. The experience of light is beyond mind, but the experience of colors is within mind. So if you are still seeing colors, then you are still within mind. The mind has not been transcended.

So the first thing to remember is that the experience of colors is within mind, because mind works as a prism through which the inner light is divided. So first one begins to experience colors; then colors dissolve and only light remains.

Light is white; white is not a color. When all the colors are one, white is created. When all the colors are one, then you feel white. When all the colors are there undivided, then you experience white.

When no color is there, then you experience black. Black and white are both not colors. When no color is present, then there is black. When all colors are present, undivided, then there is white. All the colors are just divided light.

If you are feeling colors inside, then one thing: you are within mind. So the experience of colors is mental; it is not spiritual. The experience of light is spiritual, but not of colors - because when mind is no more you cannot experience colors. Then only light is experienced.

Secondly, there is no fixed sequence of colors. There cannot be because each mind differs. But the experience of light is exactly the same. Buddha experiencing light or Jesus experiencing light the experience is the same. It cannot be otherwise because that which creates differences is no more.

Mind creates differences.

We are here - we are different because of our minds. If mind is no more, then the factor which divides, which differentiates, is not there. So the experience of light is similar, but the experiences of colors are different and the sequence differs. That's why, in each religion, a different sequence has been given. Some believe that this color comes first and that comes in the end; others believe quite differently. That difference is really the difference of minds. For example, a person who is fearful, deeply rooted in fear, will experience yellow as the first color. The first color coming in will be yellow, because yellow is the color of death - not only symbolically, but actually also.

If you take three bottles - one red, one yellow, one just white, plain white - and just put into these three bottles the same water, the yellow bottle will deteriorate first. Then the others will deteriorate.

The red bottle of water will deteriorate in the end, last. Yellow is a death color. That's why Buddha chose yellow as the robe for his bhikkus - because Buddha says that to die from this existence absolutely is Nirvana. So yellow was chosen as a death color.

Hindus have chosen ochre, a shade of red, as the color for their sannyasins, because red or ochre is the color of life - just the opposite of yellow. It helps you to be more alive, more radiant. It creates more energy - not only symbolically, but actually, physically, chemically. So a person who is very energetic, alive, deeply rooted in the love of life, will experience red as the first color, because his mind is more open to red. A fear-oriented person is more open to yellow, so the sequence will differ.

A very silent person, one who is very still, will experience blue as the first. So it will depend.

There is no fixed sequence because there is no fixed sequence of your mind. Each mind differs in orientation in tendencies, in structure, in character. Each mind differs! Because of this difference the sequence will be different. But one thing is certain: each color has a fixed meaning. The sequence is not fixed, it cannot be, but the meaning of the color is fixed.

For example, yellow is a death color. So whenever it happens first, it means you are fear-oriented - that your mind's first opening is for fear. So wherever you move, the first thing you will notice will be fear, or the first reaction of your mind in any new situation will be fear. Whenever something strange is there, the first response will be fear-filled. If red is the first color in your inner journey, then you are more rooted in the love of life, and your reactions will be different. You will feel more alive, and your reactions will be more life affirmative.

A person whose first experience is yellow will always interpret everything in terms of death, and a person whose first experience is red will always interpret his experiences in terms of life. Even if someone is just dying, he will begin to think that he must be reborn somewhere else. Even in death he will interpret rebirth. But for the person whose first experience is yellow, even if someone is born he will begin to think that he is going to die some day. These will be the attitudes. So a red-oriented person can be happy even. in death, but a yellow-oriented person cannot be happy even in birth.

He will be negative. Fear is a negative emotion. Everywhere he will find something to be sad and negative about.

For example, I said that a very silent person will feel blue, but this means a silent person who is inactive at the same time. A silent person who is active at the same time will feel green as the first experience. Mohammed chose green as the color for his fakirs. Islam has green as the symbolic color. That is the color of their flag. Green is both - silent, still, but also active. Blue is just silent and inactive. So a person like Lao Tzu will first begin to feel blue; a person like Mohammed will begin to feel green first. So the symbolic system of colors is a fixed thing, but the sequence is not fixed.

Another thing has to be noted, and that is that seven colors are pure colors. But you can mix two, you can mix three, and a new color comes out. So it may be that you never experience pure color in the beginning. You may experience three colors, their combination, or two colors or four colors.

Then again it depends on your mind. If you have a very confused mind, then your confusion will be shown in the colors.

Now they have evolved in the West a color test in psychology. and it has been proving very meaningful. Just giving you many colors and allowing you to choose the first preference, then the second, then the third, then the fourth, decides much, shows much. If you are sincere and honest, then it shows much about your mind, because you cannot choose without any inner cause. If you choose yellow first, the logic of it is that then red will be the last. It has its own logic. If death is your first choice, then life is going to be your last, you will put red as the last. And one who chooses red first will automatically choose yellow as the last. The sequence will also show the structure of the mind.

But once, twice, thrice - the cards are given to you again and again - and the strange thing is that the first time you choose yellow, your first preference, then the second time you are given the same cards but you don't choose yellow as your first preference. The third time you choose something else, and the whole sequence changes. So the cards are given seven times. If a person goes on choosing yellow as the first color continuously for seven times, then it shows a very fixed mind - very much fixed - a fixation. This man is constantly rooted in fear. He must be living in many phobias, because everything will take the shape of fear. But if he is given the cards another seven times and now he changes - once blue and once green and once something else - then there is a double sequence. One sequence in one series and another sequence in the second series - that also shows much. In the second series, if he never repeats one color as his first preference, that shows he is very fluctuating and nothing can be decisively said about him. He will be unpredictable. And the sequence also changes because the mind is changing constantly.

Recently, because of LSD, marijuana and other drugs, many things have come up from the unconscious mind. When Aldous Huxley told about his experiences with LSD, he talked as if he had entered heaven. Everything was beautiful, utopian, colorful, poetic. Nothing was bad in it.

There was nothing like a nightmare - nothing of fear or death. Everything was alive, abundantly alive, rich. But when Zaehner took it, he entered hell. With the same LSD he entered hell, and it was a long nightmare - horrorfilled, Both misinterpreted their experiences. Aldous Huxley thought that this was a quality of LSD and that because of LSD this heaven experience had come up. Zaehner interpreted quite diametrically opposite from Huxley and he said, "It is just a nightmare, a deep horror. One must not go into it - it can create madness." But the interpretation is on the same lines: he also thought that it was LSD which had created this experience.

The reality is different. It was LSD working only as a catalytic agent. LSD cannot create heaven, cannot create hell. LSD can only open you, and whatsoever is in you is projected. So if Zaehner's experience is absolutely colorless it is because of Zaehner's mind, and if Huxley's experience is colorful it is because of Huxley's mind. LSD can only give you a glimpse into your own mind. It can open your own deeper layers. So if you have a suppressed unconscious inside, then you may enter hell; or if you have nothing suppressed, if you have a relaxed unconscious, a natural one, then you may enter heaven - but that will depend on what type of mind you have. The same happens when one goes deep into an inner journey: whatsoever you encounter is your own mind. Remember this - whatsoever you encounter, it is your own mind.

The color sequence is also your own mind's sequence, but one has to go beyond colors. Whatsoever the sequence, one has to go beyond colors. So one must continuously remember that colors are mental. They cannot exist without mind - the mind working as a prism. When you go beyond mind, there is light - colorless, absolutely white. And when this whiteness begins to be there, only then have you gone beyond mind.

Jains have chosen white as the color for their monks and for their nuns, and the choice is meaningful.

As Buddhists have chosen yellow and Hindus ochre, Jains have chosen white, because they say only when white begins does spirituality really begin. Mohammed has chosen green because he says if silence is dead, then it is meaningless. Silence must be active, it must participate in the world, so a saint must also be a soldier. He has chosen green. All colors are meaningful.

There is a Sufi sect which uses black - black clothes for their fakirs. Black is also very, very meaningful. It shows absence of color, everything absent. It is just the contrary of white. Sufis say that unless we become totally absent, the God cannot be present to us. So one must be like black - absolutely absent, a nonentity, a nonbeing, just a nothingness. They have chosen black.

Colors are meaningful. So with whatsoever you choose you show much. Even your clothes indicate much. Nothing is just accidental. If you have chosen a particular color for your clothes, it is not accidental. You may not be aware why you have chosen it, but science is aware - and it shows much. Your clothes show much because they belong to your mind, and your mind chooses. You cannot choose without your mind having certain leanings, certain tendencies.

So the sequence will be different, but all sequences and all colors belong to your mind. Don't be bothered much about them. Whatsoever color is felt, just go on passing it; don't stick to it. Sticking to it is the natural tendency. If some beautiful color is there, one becomes stuck to it - don't. Move!

Remember that colors belong to mind. And if some color is fearful, one goes back so that it is not felt. That too is not good, because if you go back no transformation is possible. Pass through it!

Don't go back. It is your mind: pass through it! Even if a color is fearful, even if ugly, even if chaotic or beautiful or harmonious, whatsoever, go through it.

You must reach a point where colors are not, but only light remains. That entry into light is spiritual.

Everything before that is mental.

Question 2:

Three things to be remembered: one, you must be consciously frustrated about the life outside - consciously frustrated! We are all frustrated but unconsciously. And whenever we are frustrated unconsciously, we only change objects of desire. But one object changed for another will not help you to go in. You remain outside. You change one thing for another, then for another. Because you are frustrated by object A, you substitute your desire by object B. Then you are frustrated by object B, so you go on to C. You go on changing objects because you are only unconsciously frustrated. If you become conscious, then you will not change objects - you will change direction.

I can change. I can love one woman, then another, then another. I can love one man, then another, then another. This is unconscious frustration. So I think that A is not good and B might be, so I choose B. Then B is not good and - who knows? - C may be, so I choose C. This is unconscious frustration. If you become conscious, then it is not a question of A, B or C. It is a question of the very relationship, of the very expectation, of the very desire. This desire to get happiness through someone else is the root. You go on changing persons, but this direction is never changed.

When I say become consciously frustrated, I mean know well that persons are irrelevant. Unless you change your direction in the search for happiness nothing is going to happen. So there are two ways: either change A for object B or change direction A for direction B. A is outward-going, B is inward-going - so change the direction. By changing the direction you begin to change yourself; by changing objects you remain the same.

I can go on changing objects for years and years, and lives and lives. I will remain the same. And with every object, since I am the same, the same is going to be the result, the same suffering is going to follow. When I say be consciously frustrated, I mean don't be frustrated by others - be frustrated by yourself, be frustrated about yourself. Then only does the direction change.

We are all frustrated by everyone else. The husband is frustrated by the wife, and the wife is frustrated by the husband; and the son is frustrated by the father, and the father is frustrated by the son. Everyone is frustrated by others. This is the outgoing mind. Be frustrated with yourself, and then the direction changes: you begin to be ingoing. And unless you are frustrated with yourself there is no possibility for transformation.

A Buddha is not really frustrated by the world. If he is frustrated by the world, he must try to change it for another world, he must try to get another world. He is really frustrated with himself, so he begins to change himself. The object of frustration becomes the object of transformation.

So the inward journey begins, the search for inner life begins. only when you begin to feel that outside is nothing but darkness. And unless you turn your eyes inwards, light is not to be found.

So the first thing: be consciously frustrated. But this much is not enough. It is necessary, but not enough, because you can be frustrated with yourself and can go on living in frustration. Then you will be just a living corpse. You will be just dead - a burden to yourself. This is necessary, but not enough.

The second thing to realize is that whatsoever you are it is because of you yourself. We say, "I am like this because of my destiny, because of the Divine Creator, because of the forces of nature, because of heredity, because of environment, because of society." Whatsoever I am, I am always because of something or someone else. It may be the God in heaven, or it may be the heredity in the books of biology, or it may be just the society of the communists, or it may be just the childhood trauma of Freudians - but something else. You are not responsible.

The society has gone on changing causes. Sometimes it is God: then you are at ease. Then whatsoever you are, you cannot help it. Then sometimes it is karma: it is past actions which have produced you as you are, and nothing can be done. Then communism says it is the society.

Communism says that it is not consciousness which determines the society; on the contrary. it is the society which determines consciousness. You are just a cog in the wheel. You have been determined. You have been manipulated. You are a by-product, so you are not responsible.

Then Freudians say that it is not economics as Marx says. Really, it is the childhood which determines you. So whatsoever you are, your seven years of childhood have made you that way.

Now you cannot be a child again, and those seven years cannot be changed. So whatsoever you are, you are. At the most, through psychoanalysis, you can come to an adjustment with yourself.

You can begin to feel: "Okay, now nothing can be done. and I am as I am." Again you begin to deteriorate.

You can be frustrated with yourself: this is a negative part. The positive, the second thing, is to remember that whatsoever you are, you are responsible. Society may have played a part, and even destiny may have played a part, and childhood also may have played a part, but ultimately you are responsible. This feeling is the base of all religion. So if Freudians win and Marxists win, religion will disappear - because the base of religion is the possibility that you can transform, the possibility that you can change yourself. And this possibility depends on the feeling of whether you are responsible for yourself or not.

If I am just determined by my cells, by heredity, then what can I do? I cannot change my bio-cells.

That is not possible. And if my bio-cells have a built-in program, they will go on unfolding. What can I do? And if God has determined everything, then what can I do? And it makes no difference whether it is God or biocells or heredity or childhood - it makes no difference! The basic thing is that if you are putting your responsibility on something else, X-Y-Z, you cannot go in.

So the second thing: remember, whatsoever you are - if you are sexual - you are responsible.

If you are angry, anger-filled, if you are afraid, if fear is your chief characteristic, then you are responsible. Everything else may have played a part, but only a part, and that part also can be played only because you cooperated. And if you destroy your cooperation this very moment, you will be different. So the second positive thing is to be constantly aware that whatsoever you are, you are responsible.

It is difficult. To feel frustrated is very easy. Even to feel frustrated with oneself is not very difficult, but to feel that "whatsoever I am, I am responsible" is very difficult - very difficult, because then there is no excuse. This is one thing. And, secondly, if whatsoever I am, I am responsible for it, then if I am not changing. I am responsible even for that. If I am not transforming, then no one else but I am guilty. That's why we create many theories - to escape from one's own responsibility.

Responsibility is the basis of all religious transformation. You may have heard someone say that to believe in God is the base of religion. It is not! One can be religious without any god, and one can be very irreligious with all the gods. Someone else says it is rebirth, reincarnation, that is the base.

It is not, because you can believe in reincarnation and your life's duration becomes longer, but how, by just a longer duration, can you become religious? Time is not the factor to make you religious.

You may be eternal: how does it help you to be religious?

No, the real thing, the base of all religiousness, is the feeling of responsibility - you are responsible for yourself. Then suddenly something opens in you. If you are responsible, then you can change.

With this you can enter inwards. So feel frustrated with yourself.

Nietzsche has said somewhere, very beautifully, that that day will be the doomsday when no one feels frustrated with oneself, because then there is no possibility for further evolution. But I must add hurriedly that even if everyone feels frustrated, but no one feels responsible for it, that will be an even greater doomsday.

Frustration is negative. Feel responsible positively, and you gain much power. The moment you know that if you are bad it is because of you, then you can be good. Then it is in your hands. You gain power, you become powerful. You release much energy, and only this releasing of energy can be used for the inner journey, just as when an atom is split, much energy is released. That is what is meant by atomic energy. Just like that, if in your mind this thing goes deep that "I am responsible for whatsoever I am, and whatsoever I like to be I can be," this concept will release much energy. And only with that energy can you go to the inner light.

And, thirdly, remain continuously in discontent unless the light is achieved - continuously in discontent! Again, that is one of the most basic qualities of a religious mind. Ordinarily we think that a religious man is a contented man. That is nonsense. He looks contented because he has the discontent of another dimension. He looks contented. He can live in a poor house, he can live in ordinary clothes, he can live naked, he can live under a tree. He can look contented, not because he is contented with these things, but because, really, his discontent has gone towards other things, and now he cannot be bothered with these things.

He is so discontented with the inner revolution, so discontented hoping for inner light, that he cannot bother about these things. These things have just become peripheral. Really, they don't mean anything to him. It is not that he is contented - they don't mean anything, they are irrelevant! They are somewhere on the periphery; he is not concerned. But he lives in a deep discontent, in a fiery discontent, and only that discontent can lead you inwards.

Remember, it is discontent which leads you outside. If you are discontented with your house, then you can make a bigger one. If you are discontented with your financial position, you can change it. In the outward journey, it is discontent which leads you on and on. The same is the factor in the inward journey also. Be discontented! Unless you achieve light, unless you transcend mind, be discontent, remain discontented - this is the third point.

These three points: frustration with oneself, not with others; responsibility on oneself, not on others; and a new discontent for something which is inner - these will help. Even in a single moment it is possible to reach the ultimate goal. But then you must be absolutely discontented. Then lukewarm discontents will not do. Then you must be uncompromising. Then nothing should deter you, nothing should come in your way. Whatsoever happens outside, you must be unconcerned about it, because you have no energy to move that way. All the energy is moving inwards. These three things can help you.

These are just helps. The central thing is meditation. Meditate, and with these helps the inner light can be achieved. It is there, it is not far off - only you have no discontent, only you have no longing for it, or your longing is just dissipated outside. Accumulate it, collect it, and turn the direction. The arrow must not move from you towards the world. The arrow must move from you towards yourself, to the center. So meditation has to be done! These three are just helps. Without meditation these three will not do anything, but meditation can do even without them. They are just helps.

But when I say meditation can do even without them, don't misunderstand me, don't think that they are not needed. For ninety-nine percent of people those helps are a must, because unless these three things are there you are not going to meditate at all. Only for one percent these three are not needed - not because they are inessential, but because meditation is such a whole-hearted effort in itself that nothing is needed as a side help.

I remember a Sufi mystic, Hassan. He went to his teacher and he asked the teacher, "Tell me, what am I to do?" The teacher began to explain to him; he was going to deliver a long lecture. This Hassan was just new to him, he didn't know him. He simply said, "Meditation.." This was just the beginning word. He was going to tell many things, but first he simply said, "Meditation..." Hassan closed his eyes. The teacher looked at him and said, "Are you feeling sleepy?" but he had gone.

The teacher had to wait for hours. When he came back, the teacher said, "What were you doing here? I just began to explain, and you closed your eyes. For what have you come to me?" Hassan said, "But you said the key word to me. You said 'meditation'. It is more than enough. What more is needed now? I went in, and I am thankful that you gave me the key." But this one percent type is rare. To find a Hassan is rare. It is rare: just a word can click something.

He was just on the verge - just a push: "meditation", he hears a word and takes the jump.

Even this may not have been necessary. Many times it has happened that a bird flies in the sky, and someone achieves Enlightenment. Not even the word "meditation" is uttered. Just a bird flies in the sky against the sun, and someone achieves meditation. A dry leaf falls down from the tree, and someone sees it and achieves - and achieves! These people are just on the verge. Anything absolutely irrelevant-looking can do it. How does it make sense?

Lao Tzu achieved his Enlightenment. He was just sitting under a tree and a dry leaf fell down. He looked at the fallen leaf, and he began to dance. And if anyone would ask him he would say, "How can I teach you? It is very difficult. Sit under a tree, let a dry leaf fall down, look at it, and it happens - and one begins to dance!" And he was really not joking. This had happened to him.

But such a simple, innocent mind is rare. He was meditating and meditating, upon life, upon death - and then a sudden dry leaf drops down, and everything opens. Life disappears, death becomes the reality. And in the dropping of the leaf he sees his own death, and everything is finished. But this is rare. For ninety-nine percent of people helps are musts, so don't misunderstand me.

Question 3:

It is difficult. First thing: three are the basic types - intellectual (cognitive), emotional (emotive), and, thirdly, active. These are the three basic types.

"Intellectual" means one whose authentic urge is to know. He can stake his life for knowing.

Someone working on poison can take poison just to know what happens. We cannot conceive of it. He looks stupid - because he will die! And what is the meaning of knowing a thing if you are going to die? What will you do by this knowledge? But then the intellectual type puts knowing above living, above life. To know is life for him, not to know is death for him. To know is his love, not to know is just to be useless.

A Socrates, a Buddha, a Nietzsche, they are in search of knowing what being is, what we are - to them this is basic. Socrates says an uncomprehended life is not worth living. If you don't know what life is, then it is meaningless. For us it may not look at all meaningful, the statement may not look meaningful at all, because we go on living and we don't feel the need to know what life is. This is the type who lives to know. Knowledge is his love. This type developed philosophy. Philosophy means love of knowledge, to know.

The second type is emotive. To feel! Knowledge is meaningless unless one feels it. Something becomes meaningful to them only when one feels it - one must feel it! Feeling is through a deeper center - the heart. Knowing is through the first center - intellect. One must feel! Poets belong to this category: painters, dancers, musicians. Knowing is not enough. It is just dry, it is without heart, heartless. Feeling! So an intellectual type can dissect a flower in order to know what it is, but a poet cannot dissect it. He can love it, and how can love dissect? He can feel it, and he knows that only through feeling is the real knowing.

So it may be that a scientist knows more about a flower, but still, a poet cannot be convinced that he knows more. A poet knows that he knows more, and he knows deeply. A scientist is only acquainted - the poet knows from heart to heart, he has a talk with the flower heart to heart. He has not dissected it. He doesn't know what the chemistry of it is. He doesn't know! He may not even know the name, to what species this flower belongs, but he says, "I know the very spirit." Hui-Hai, a Zen painter, was ordered by the Chinese Emperor to paint some flowers for his palace.

Hui-Hai said, "Then I will have to live with flowers." But the Emperor said, "There is no need. In my garden every flower is there. You go and paint!" Hui Hai said, "Unless I feel the flowers, how can I paint? I must know the spirit. And by eyes how can the spirit be known, and by hands how can the spirit be touched? So I will have to live in intimacy with them.

"Sometimes with closed eyes, just sitting by their side, just feeling the breeze that communicates, just feeling the scent that comes, I can be just in a silent communion with them. Sometimes the flower is just a bud, sometimes the flower flowers. Sometimes the flower is young and the mood is different, and sometimes the flower becomes old and death lingers. And sometimes the flower is happy and celebrating, and sometimes the flower is sad. So how can I just go and paint? I will have to live with the flowers. And the flower that was born, one day will die! I must know the whole biography. I must live with it from its birth to death, and I must feel it in its so many multi-multi moods.

"I must know how it feels in the night when darkness is there, and how it feels in the morning when the sun has come up, and how, when a bird flies and a bird sings, how the flower feels then. How, when storm winds come, and how when everything is silent... I must know it in its multiplicity of being - intimately - as a friend, as a participant, as a witness, as a lover. I must be related to it! Only then can I paint it, and then too I cannot promise, because the flower may prove such a vastness that I may not be capable of painting it. So I cannot promise, I can only try." Six months passed, and the Emperor became impatient. Then he said, "Where is that Hui-hai? Is he still trying to commune?" The gardener said, "We cannot disturb him. He has become so intimate with the trees that sometimes we pass just nearby and we cannot feel that a man is there! - he has become just a tree. He goes on contemplating." Six months had passed. The Emperor came and he said, "What are you doing? When will you paint?" Hui-Hai said, "Don't disturb me. If I am to paint, I must forget about painting completely. So don't let me remember again! Don't disturb me! How can I live intimately if there is some purpose? How is intimacy possible if I am just here as a painter and just trying to be intimate because I have to paint?

What nonsense! No business is possible here - and don't come again. When the right time comes I will come myself, but I cannot promise. The right time may come or it may not come." And for three years the Emperor waited. Then Hui-Hai came. He came into his royal court, and the Emperor said, "Now don't paint it because you have become just like a flower. I see in you all the flowers I have seen! In your eyes, in your gestures, in your moving, in your walking, you have become just a flower." Hui-Hai said, "I have come just to say that I cannot paint, because the man who was thinking to paint is no more." This is a different way, that of the emotive type who knows by feeling. For the intellectual type, even to feel he has to know first. He knows first, and only then can he feel. His feeling is also through knowing. Then there is a third type: active - a creative type. He cannot remain with knowing or feeling. He has to create. He can know only through creation. Unless he creates something, he cannot know it. Only through being a creator does he become a knower.

This third type lives in action. Now what do I mean by "action"? Many dimensions are possible, but this third type is always action-oriented. He will not ask what life means, what life is, He will ask, "What is life to do? What it for? What to create?" If he can create, then he is at ease. His creations may differ: he may be a creator of human beings, he may be a creator of a society, he may be a creator of a painting - but creativity is there. For example, this Hui-Hai: he was not an active type, so he dissolved himself into feeling totally. Had he been an active type, he would have painted. Only through painting would he have been fulfilled. So these are three types.

Many things have to be understood: one, I said that Buddha and Nietzsche both belong to the first type - but Buddha belongs rightly and Nietzsche belongs wrongly. If an intellectual type really develops, then he will become a Buddha; but if he goes on a wrong path, if he goes berserk and misses the point, he will become a Nietzsche, he will go mad. Through knowing he will not be a Realized soul; through knowing he will become mad! Through knowing he will not come to a deep trust. Through knowing he will go on creating doubts, doubts, doubts, and ultimately, webbed in his own doubts, he will just be insane. Buddha and Nietzsche both belong to the same type, but they are two extremes. Nietzsche can become a Buddha, Buddha can become a Nietzsche. If a Buddha goes wrong, he will be mad. If a Nietzsche goes right, he will be a Realized soul.

In the feeling type I will name Meera and De Sade. Meera belongs to the right kind. If feeling goes right, it develops into a love of the Divine - but if it goes wrong, then it becomes sexual peversity. De Sade belongs to the same type, but his feeling goes on wrongly, and then he becomes just a peverted man, just abnormally insane. If the feeling type goes wrong, he becomes sexually perverted. If the intellectual type goes wrong, he becomes sceptically mad.

And, thirdly, action: Hitler and Gandhi both belong to the third type. If it goes right, then a Gandhi is there. If it goes wrong, then a Hitler. Both belong to action. They cannot live without doing something. But doing can be just insane, and a Hitler is insane. He was doing, but the doing became destructive. If the active type goes right, then he is creative; if wrong, then he becomes destructive.

These are three basic pure types. But no one is a pure type: that is the difficulty. These are just types! No one is a pure type; everyone is just mixed. And all the three are in everyone. So, really, it is not a question of to which type you belong; the real question is which type is predominant. Just to explain it to you I divided. No one is a pure type, no one can be - because all the three are in you. If all three are in a balance, then you have a harmony; if all the three are unbalanced, then you go berserk, insane. That is the difficulty in deciding. So decide which is predominant - that is your type.

How to decide which is predominant? How to know to what type I belong or what type is more significant to me, primary to me? All the three will be there, but one will be secondary. So there are two criteria to be remembered: one, if you are a knowing type, then all your experiences basically will begin with knowing, never with anything else. For example, if a knowing type falls in love with someone, he cannot fall at first sight. He cannot! Impossible! First he must know, be acquainted, and it will be a long procedure. Decision can come only through a long knowing process. That's why this type of person will always miss many opportunities - because a moment's decision is needed, and this type cannot decide in the moment.

That's why this type is ordinarily never active. He cannot be, because by the time he can conclude, the moment has passed. When he is thinking, the moment is passing. When he comes to a conclusion, the conclusion is meaningless. When the moment was there to conclude, he could not.

So active he cannot be. And this is one of the calamities in the world - that those who can think cannot be active, and those who can be active cannot think. This is one of the basic calamities, but it is so.

And always remember, the knowing type consists of very few. The percentage is very small - two or three percent at the most. For them everything will begin by knowing. Only then will feeling follow and only then action. This will be the sequence with this type - knowing, feeling, action. He may miss, but he cannot do otherwise. He will think first.

The second thing to remember is that this knowing type will begin with knowing, will never conclude before knowing, and will not take any prejudice unless pro and con have been known. This type becomes a scientist. This type can become an absolutely impartial philosopher, scientist, observer.

So whatsoever your reaction, action, always find out where it begins. The beginning point will decide the predominance. One who belongs to emotion will begin to feel first, and then he will gather all the reasons. Reasoning will be secondary. He will begin to feel first. He sees you, and he decides in his heart that you are good or you are bad. This decision is a feeling decision. He doesn't know about you, but at first sight he will decide. He will feel whether you are good or you are bad, and then he will go on accumulating reasons for whatsoever he has decided beforehand.

The feeling type decides first. Then reasoning follows, then he rationalizes. So see in yourself whether you decide first, upon just seeing a person, whether you become convinced that he is good, bad, loving, non-loving, and then you create reasons, then you try to convince yourself about your own feeling: "Yes, I was right, he is good, and these are the reasons. I have known. I have found out. I have talked with others. Now I can say he is good." But "he is good" was a conclusion first.

So with a feeling type the syllogism of logic is just the reverse: the conclusion comes first, then the process. With the reasoning type, the conclusion is never first. First the process, then he concludes in the end. So go on finding out about yourself. What is your way of deciding things? With the active type, action is first. He decides in the moment to act, then he begins to feel, then in the end he creates reasons.

I told you that Gandhi is an active type. He decides first. That's why he will say, "This is not my decision. God decided in me." Really, action comes to him so immediately, with no process, that how can he say, "I have decided"? A thinking type will always say, "I have decided." A feeling type will always say, "I feel like that." But an active type - a Mohammed, a Gandhi - they will always say, "Neither have I felt, nor have I thought. This decision has come to me." From where? From nowhere!

If he doesn't believe in God, then he will say, "From nowhere! This decision has bubbled up in me. I don't know from where." If he believes in God, then God becomes the decision-maker. Then He says everything, and Gandhi goes on doing. So Gandhi can say only, "I erred, but the decision was not mine." He can say, "I may not have followed rightly, I may not have understood the message rightly, I may not have gone as far as I should, but the decision was Divine. I had just to fall in. I had just to surrender and follow." For Mohammed, for Gandhi, that is the way.

I said that Hitler is a wrong type, but he also talks in these terms. He also says, "This is not Adolph Hitler who is speaking. This is the very spirit of history. This is the whole Aryan mind! This is a race mind speaking through me." And, really, many have felt this in him. Those who have heard Hitler, they have felt that when he was speaking he was not Adolph Hitler at all. It was as if he was just a vehicle of a greater force. The active man always looks like that. Because he acts so immediately, you cannot say that he decides, he thinks, he feels - no! He acts! And the action is so spontaneous that how can you conceive from where the action comes? So either it comes from God or it comes from the Devil, but it comes from somewhere else. And then Hitler and Gandhi will both go on reasoning about it; but they will decide first.

For example, Gandhi decided about a long fast. At midnight he awoke, then he decided. Then in the morning he told his friends, "Now I am going for a long fast." Everyone just couldn't understand what he was saying. They said to him, "We were here - you never informed us, you never talked about it. In the evening we were talking about many things, and you never even mentioned anything about it." But Gandhi said, "It was not on my part, the decision was not on my part. Just in the night, sleep was not there - suddenly I found myself awakened and there was a Divine message that I must go on a long fast." But for what? Then Gandhi finds out all the reasons. Those reasons are added later.

These are the three types. If action comes to you first and then feeling and then thinking, then you can determine your predominant factor. And to determine that predominant factor is very helpful, because then you can proceed straight; otherwise your progress will always be zigzag. When you don't know what type you are, you go on unnecessarily in dimensions, directions. where you should not go. When you know your type, you know what is to be done with yourself, how to do it, from where to begin. The first point: remember what comes first and what second. And the second will look very strange.

For example, the active type can do the opposite very easily; that is, he can relax very easily. The active type can relax very easily! Gandhi's relaxation was miraculous. He could relax anywhere. So it seems very paradoxical. An active type must be so tense that he cannot relax. But this is not the case. Only an active type can relax very easily. A thinking type cannot relax so easily, a feeling type finds it even more difficult to relax, but an active can relax very easily.

So the second criterion is that whatsoever the type to which you belong, you can move to the opposite very easily. So remember, if you can move to the opposite, that is your predominant type.

If you can relax very easily, you belong to the active type. If you can go into non-thinking, no-thought, very easily, then you belong to the thinking type. If you can go into no-feeling very easily, you belong to the feeling type.

And this is strange because ordinarily we think, "A feeling type - how can he go into non-feeling? A thinking type, how can he go into non-thinking? An active type, how can he go into nonaction?" But it only appears paradoxical - it is not. It is one of the basic laws that opposites belong together, two extremes belong together, just like the pendulum of a big clock - just like the pendulum it goes to the extreme left, then to the extreme right. And when it has reached to the peak at the right, it begins to move towards the left. When it is going right, it is accumulating momentum for going left. When it is going left, when it looks as if it is going left, it is getting ready to go right. So the opposite is easy.

Remember, if you can relax easily, you belong to the active type. If you can meditate easily, you belong to the thinking type. That's why a Buddha can go into meditation so easily. That's why a Gandhi can relax so easily - even in a car accident.

There is a car accident, and it is time for Gandhi to relax for his afternoon nap. But the car cannot reach the place where he is going, so those in the car have to wait. It is a deadly accident; everyone has become so fearful and afraid. But just by the side of the road he goes to sleep. He cannot wait!

This is the time for his afternoon sleep, so he sleeps. When another car comes to find him, he is in deep sleep.

The active type can move so easily to relaxation. A Nehru cannot conceive how this miracle happens - it becomes miraculous for him. He is not the active type; he cannot relax. Gandhi could relax many times in a day. He was sleeping many times. Whenever he would find time, he would sleep. Sleep was so easy.

A Buddha can go into non-thinking, a Socrates can go into non-thinking, very easily. Ordinarily, it looks difficult. A person who can think so much, how can he just dissolve thinking? How can he just go into no-thought? Buddha's whole message is of no-thought, and he was a thinking type. He has thought so much, really, that he is still new.

Twenty-five centuries have passed, but Buddha still belongs to the contemporary mind. No one belongs to the contemporary mind so much. Even a present-day thinker cannot say that Buddha is old. He has thought much - centuries ahead - and he still has appeal. So whosoever thinks anywhere, Buddha has an appeal for him because he is the purest type. But his message is: Go into non-thinking. Those who have thought deeply, they have always said, "Go into non-thinking." Why is it so easy for them? They can just move.

And the feeling type can go into non-feeling. For example, Meera, she is a feeling type; Chaitanya, he is a feeling type. Their feeling is so much that they cannot remain loving just towards a few persons or a few things. They must love the whole world. This is their type. They cannot be satisfied with limited love, love must be unlimited, it must spread to the infinite.

One day Chaitanya went to a teacher. He had become Enlightened in his own right. His name was known all over Bengal, and then one day he went to a teacher, a teacher of Vedanta; he put his head at his feet. The teacher became afraid, scared, because he respected Chaitanya so much. And he said, "Why have you come to me? What do you want? You have Realized yourself. I cannot teach you anything." Chaitanya said, "Now I want to move into vairagya - non-attachment. I have lived the life of feeling, now I want to move into no-feeling. So help me." A feeling type can move, and Chaitanya moved. Ramakrishna was the feeling type. In the end he moved to Vedanta. The whole life he was a worshipper, a devotee, of the Mother, and then in the end he became a disciple of a Vedanta teacher, Totapuri, and was initiated into a non-feeling world.

And many people said to Totapuri, "How can you initiate this man, Ramakrishna? He is a feeling type! For him love is the only thing. He can pray, he can worship, he can dance, he can go into ecstasy. He cannot move to non-attachment, he cannot move to the realm beyond feelings." Totapuri said, "That's why he can move, and I will initiate him. You cannot move; he will move." So the second criterion to decide: if you can move to the opposite, you belong. See what the beginning is, and then the movement towards the opposite: these are two things. And search within constantly. Only for twenty-one days, continuously note these two things: first how you react - what the beginning is, the seed, the start - and then to what opposite you can move easily. To nonthinking? To non-feeling? To non-action? And within twenty-one days you can come to an understanding of your type - the predominant one, of course.

The other two will be there like shadows - mm? - because pure types never exist. They cannot.

All the three are parts; only one is more significant than the others. And once you know what type you are, your path becomes very easy and smooth. Then you don't waste your energy. Then you don't dissipate your energy unnecessarily on paths which don't belong to you. So, really, to find out one's type is a basic requirement for spiritual search. Otherwise you can go on doing many things, and you create only confusion, you create only a disintegration. This is what Krishna means in the Gita by swabhav - the type, that which is your nature. So he says it is better to die unsuccessful in one's own type than to succeed in another's type. It is better to be a failure - even to be a failure - according to one's own type than to be a success according to someone else's type, because that success will become a burden, just a weight, a dead weight. And even to fail according to your own nature is good, because even that failure will enrich you. You will be matured through it, you will know much through it, you will become much through it. So even failure is good if it is according to one's own type.

Find out to which type you belong or which type is predominant. Then according to that type begin to work. The work will be easy and the goal nearer.