Towards the Truth

The ultimate truth is not far away, it is not distant. It is near you, close, closer than you are to yourself, but still you go on missing it, and you have been missing it for millions of lives. This continuous missing has become a habit. Unless this habit is broken, the closest remains the most distant; unless this habit is transcended, God, truth, or whatsoever we may call it, remains just a myth, a theory, a doctrine, a belief, but not an experience.

And unless the divine is your experience, the belief is futile. It is not going to help you; on the contrary it may hinder you, because just by believing in it you deceive yourself that somehow you have known it. The belief becomes the deception. It doesn't become an opening, it closes you.

It makes you knowl-edgeable without knowing it; it gives you a feeling of knowledge without any intimate experience of it.

Remember, untruth is not such a great hindrance as the belief in the truth. If you believe you stop seeking; if you believe you have already taken it for granted. It cannot be so. You will have to pass through a mutation; really you will have to die and be born again. Unless the seed that you are dies, the new life cannot sprout out of it. Belief becomes a barrier; it gives you a false assurance that you have known - but that is all you have got. Belief is just borrowed. A Buddha says something, a Jesus says something, or a Mohammed, and then we go on following it, believing in it. This can create such a situation within you that the distant will appear close and the closest will continue to appear distant - it creates an illusory mind.

I have heard one Sufi story. Once it happened that a fish in the ocean heard somebody talking about the ocean, and the fish heard for the first time that there exists something like the ocean. She started to search, she started to ask and inquire, but nobody knew where the ocean was. She asked many fish, great and small, known and unknown, famous and not so famous, but nobody was capable of answering where the ocean is. They all said they have heard about it; they all said, "Sometime in the past our ancestors knew it - it is written in the scriptures." And the ocean was all around! They were in the ocean; they were talking, living in the ocean.

Sometimes it happens that the closest, the nearest, is so obvious that you can forget it. The nearest is so near that you cannot look at it, because even to look at something a certain distance is needed, space is needed. And there is no space between you and the divine; there is no space between the fish and the ocean - no gap. The fish is part of the ocean, just like a wave; or the ocean is just the infinite spread of the being of the fish. They are not two; they exist together, their being is joined together. Their bodies may appear different but their inner spirit is one, it is unitary.

The same is the situation with us. We go on asking about God - whether God exists or not - and we argue much for and against. Some believe, some disbelieve; some say it is just a myth and some say it is the only truth, but they all depend on scriptures, nobody has an immediate experience.

When I say immediate experience I mean experience that has grown into you, or into which you have grown... intimate, so intimate that you cannot feel where you end and that experience begins.

God cannot be an object of any search; he remains the very subjectivity. You are not going to find him somewhere because he is everywhere, and if you start looking for him somewhere you will not find him anywhere. All that is, is divine. God just means the whole existence, the totality, the ocean that surrounds you, the ocean of life.

The first thing to remember before we enter into this intimate search and inquiry, into this intimate experience that people have always called God, or Buddha has called nirvana, or Jesus has called the kingdom of God - names differ, but the experience indicated is the same - the first thing to remember is: it is not far away, it is where you are. Right now you are sitting in him, breathing in him, breathing him, through him.

This has to be continuously remembered, constantly remembered; don't forget it for a single moment, because the moment you forget it the whole search becomes wrong. Then you start looking somewhere. Maintain it; remember it continuously at least for these eight or nine days - that it is exactly where you are. The very center of your being is its center also.

If this is remembered the whole search will become qualitatively different. Then you are not in search of something outside, but something inner. Then you are not in search of something which is going to happen in the future, it can happen right now; it is already happening. And then the whole thing becomes very relaxed. If the truth is somewhere in the future then you are bound to be tense, then you are bound to be worried, a deep anxiety is bound to be there. Who knows whether it will happen in the future or not? The future is uncertain; you may miss it - you have been missing so long.

But if the divine is here and now, the very existence, the very breath, the very you, then there is no uncertainty, then there is no worry, no anxiety.

Even if you go on missing, you cannot miss him. You may have missed him for so many many lives, but really you have never missed him because he has always been hidden there, waiting for you to turn within. You have been looking outside, you have been focused on the objective world, and that which you are seeking is hidden within, it is your subjectivity.

God is not an object; God doesn't exist as an object. Whatsoever theologicians say, they are absolutely wrong - God doesn't exist as an object. You cannot worship, because he is hidden in the worshipper. You cannot pray, because he is hidden there from where the prayer arises. You cannot seek him without, because he is your withinness.

The first thing to remember is this, because if it is remembered then the whole effort becomes qualitatively different. Then you are not going somewhere, then there is no hurry, then there is no impatience. Rather, on the contrary, the more patience that happens to you, the easier becomes the search; the more you are not seeking him, the closer he is to you. When you are not seeking at all, when you are just being, not going anywhere, after anything, you have reached, the thing has happened.

This search is going to be qualitatively different. This search is, in a way, a no-search; this seeking is, in a way, a no-seeking. The more you seek, the more you will miss. If he was far away then it would have been alright. He is here, he is now. This very moment God is happening to you, because you cannot be without him. He is the ocean, you are the fish.

So don't be in a hurry and don't be impatient. There is no goal; the very effort is the goal. We will not be meditating to gain something, to achieve something; the very meditation is the goal. Meditation is not a means, it is the end. So don't force yourself; rather, relax. Don't run after something, some ultimate, some God, some x, y, z; rather stand still. The moment you are in a total standstill you have reached. Then there is no more. And this can be done any moment. If you understand, this can happen this very moment. God is life, God is existence, God is the case.

But there are problems; theologicians have created them. The first problem they have created, and because of which this remembering becomes impossible - to remember that you are already divine becomes impossible - is a very deep condemnatory attitude. You go on condemning yourself: you are the sinner. They have created guilt in you. So how can a sinner be, right this very moment, the divine? He will have to get rid of the sin; he will have to suffer for his sins, and time will be needed.

He will have to pass through purifications, and only when he has become holy, a saint, will he have a glimpse of the divine.

Particularly in the West, Christianity has given everybody a deep guilt complex. Everybody is guilty - not only about your own sins that you have committed, but also about the sin that Adam committed in the very beginning. You are guilty for it. You carry a burden, a long burden of guilt, so how can you think, imagine, conceive, that right this very moment God is happening to you? The Devil can happen, can be imagined, but not God. You can think of yourself as the Devil but never as the divine.

This creation of a guilt complex was needed not for you, but for religions. Their business can continue only if they create guilt in you. The whole business of religion depends on the guilt feelings that they can create in the masses. Churches, temples, religions exist on your guilt. God has not created them, your guilt has created them. When you feel guilty you need a priest to confess to; when you feel guilty you need someone to lead you, to purify you. When you feel guilty you have lost your center - now somebody can lead you.

You can become a follower only when you have lost your center. If you are right in your center, no question of following arises. You can become part of a crowd only when you are not yourself. So you belong to Christianity, or Hinduism, or Mohammedanism - these "belongings" are simply guilt feelings. You cannot be alone. You are so guilty you cannot rely on yourself, you cannot depend on yourself, you cannot be independent. Somebody, some great organization, some cult, creed, is needed, so under its blanket you can hide, and you can forget your guilt. And then you need some savior, you need someone who can suffer for your sins. This is just absurd.

Christians say Jesus suffered for the sin of the whole humanity. The whole logic is absurd. Adam committed the sin, you are guilty for it! Then Jesus suffers for you, and your guilt is forgiven, your sin is forgiven. So the whole deal is between Adam and Jesus - you are just puppets. Sometimes Adam leads you so you move into sin, sometimes Jesus leads you so you move into the kingdom of God, but you yourself are nothing. But to exploit, religions had to create the guilt feeling. Because of that guilt feeling that you are not accepted as you are, you cannot conceive of yourself as already in the divine, being divine.

With me this guilt feeling has to be dropped. You are not a sinner and you are not guilty. Whatsoever you are the existence accepts you. Whatsoever you are playing, whatsoever game, it is so because the divine wills it so. As you are, you are accepted.

This is the second thing to remember: don't condemn yourself, otherwise nothing can be done.

Don't reject yourself, don't be an enemy to yourself. Be loving, be friendly, and accept whatsoever you are. I am not saying that there is nothing wrong in you. I am not saying that you don't need any transformation. You need it, there are many wrongs, but those wrongs are not sins; they are illnesses, diseases.

Someone has a fever: he is not a sinner, he needs our compassion, our help to come out of it. If we just condemn then he will also condemn his fever and then the whole thing goes wrong, because once you condemn your fever you start suppressing it. Then the man cannot say to others, "I am feeling fever, I am feverish," because the moment he says it everybody will think he is a sinner. So he goes on saying, "I am healthy. Who says that I have a fever? If the thermometer shows it the thermometer must be wrong. I am okay." He cannot accept his fever and then nothing can be done.

He goes on hiding and suppressing. That is what you have been doing.

There are many wrongs, but remember, those wrongs are just illnesses, not sins; errors, mistakes, but not sins. You are not guilty. You may be ignorant; you may not be knowing as much as is needed to live a pure and innocent life, but that means you are ignorant, innocent - not guilty. Try to understand the distinction very well, because on it depends much.

In this camp, to me you are divine. You may be erroneous, the god within you may be ill, the god within you may be ignorant, the god within you may be committing many mistakes - but the god is not committing any sin. What is the difference? When you commit a mistake you don't condemn yourself, you try to understand why you committed it. The mistake is condemned but not you. When you call it a sin, you are condemned - you are wrong, not an act.

Your acts may be wrong, but you are not. You are totally accepted as you are. Your being is the highest flower that has happened to this earth. You are the salt of this earth. Howsoever erroneous, you are the very glory of existence.

Remember this: I accept you and I want you to accept yourself.

Not that there is going to be no transformation, but that only through this acceptance transformation becomes possible. Once you accept your being there is no suppression, once you accept your being the whole being comes into consciousness. There is no need to hide and to push some parts, fragments, into the darkness, into the unconscious.

The unconscious is a by-product of Christianity. There is nothing like the unconscious. If you accept yourself, your whole mind will be conscious. If you deny, reject, condemn, then the condemned parts will move into darkness. Not that they will not act now, they will act more, but their action will be now hidden, perverted, disguised. It will not be apparent, it will take a hidden course. You cannot face it directly but it goes on working. The unconscious is created by guilt.

Once you accept that there is no unconscious, the barrier has gone, the boundary disappeared, and the conscious and unconscious become one - as they are really, as they should be. And when your conscious and unconscious are one you can meditate, never before it. Once your inner divisions disappear, once you become one inside, a deep silence descends upon you, a great blissful moment is reached - just by the disappearance of the boundaries, divisions, fragments.

When you become one you become healthy; when you become one you feel a silent wellbeing.

Moment to moment you feel grateful to existence, a gratitude happens to you, and this gratitude I call prayer. It is not a prayer to some god. This gratitude is an inner attitude towards existence which has given you life, love, light; towards this existence which has blessed you in millions and millions of ways, and which goes on showering upon you more and more blessings - but a unity is needed within.

So this is the second point to remember: don't feel guilty, don't feel yourself a sinner, don't feel that you are wrong. If you were wrong you would not have been. You are there because God wants to preserve you. You are there because God loves you. You are there, that's why the whole existence supports you. You are there because you are worth the trouble. Accept yourself, have a loving attitude towards yourself.

Jesus says somewhere: Love your enemies as yourself. But no one loves himself, so how can you love your enemies as yourself? You simply hate yourself. If you love yourself, to me you have become religious. And a person who loves himself, only he can love others; a person who hates himself deep down cannot love anybody.

If you cannot love yourself how can you love anybody? If you cannot accept yourself how can you accept anybody? So your so-called saints who go on condemning themselves, they go on condemning the whole world - they are condemning everybody. The moment they condemn themselves they condemn the whole world. You are the nearest; if existence in you is condemned, then how can you accept existence that is far away from you, existing in others? No guilt, no condemnation. Wrongs are there, but those wrongs are not in your being but in your doing; in your acts, not in you. And your acts are wrong because you are not aware - not that you are a sinner.

Those wrongs exist because you are not alert. The god is asleep in you, fast asleep; sometimes you can even hear the snoring - fast asleep.

My effort in this camp is going to be to make that god a little alert, to disturb the inner sleep, to help him awake. It is not condemnatory. And once you start being alert, you have started being different.

Perfectly aware, you have reached; perfectly aware, you are in nirvana, in the kingdom of God.

The third thing to remember: in this camp we will be doing many things, many techniques, many methods, but hidden behind every technique and method is the basic thing and that is, search for awareness, search for more consciousness. So whatsoever you are doing here, remain alert, remain conscious, remain a witness. Doing meditation remain conscious, remain a witness. Doing meditation, dancing, doing kirtan and singing, remain alert, don't become unconscious.

Whatsoever is happening, a center within you goes on looking at it, a center remains a watcher.

Your body may be going mad, your body may be jumping, shrieking, screaming, your mind may have become a whirlpool - but a watcher remains. Go on constantly remembering that you are watching, because that watcher is the thing. That watcher has to be brought more and more into force. So while your body is doing many things, your mind is doing many things, one thing deeply hidden within you goes on looking at it all. Don't lose contact with that.

I am going to create a situation in these days in which your body will become very active, your mind will go through many catharses, much activity will be there, but simultaneously, side by side, remain alert, passively looking at all that is happening as if you are not only the actor but the audience also. Doing, watching - this watching must be continued moment to moment, not only while you are meditating. You are walking, you are eating, taking a bath, talking with someone, going to sleep - go on watching everything that is happening.

For these eight days devote all your energies to moving towards being a witness. Eating, let the body eat - you watch also. Walking, let the legs move - you watch also. Hearing me, listening to me, let the ears listen, let the mind absorb - you watch also. You remain a witness. Continuously hammering for the witness will help your god to be awake, and once your god is awake you yourself are a Jesus, a Buddha, a Krishna - then you don't lack anything. Right now also you don't lack anything, except that the god in Krishna or Christ is awake and in you fast asleep.

There is nothing wrong in sleep also, but in sleep many errors are committed. You move in sleep, then you commit many mistakes. If you love committing mistakes then there is no problem, but remember that when you commit mistakes you suffer also. That suffering doesn't come from Adam's sin - it comes from you. If you commit a mistake you suffer, pain results. All suffering is a by-product of ignorance. So if you enjoy your suffering then it is okay, then don't make any effort for any change.

Sleep is good and you enjoy your suffering. But if you don't enjoy your suffering then something has to be done. Prayers won't help, only conscious effort will help you.

A few instructions and then I will move to the sutra.

When you go to sleep tonight and every night following, before going to sleep put off the light, sit on your bed, close your eyes and exhale deeply through the mouth with the sound O - Ooooo. Go on exhaling with the sound O, as deeply as possible. Your stomach goes in, the air moves out, and you go on creating the sound O. Remember, I am not saying aum, I am saying simply O. It will become aum automatically. You need not make it, then it is false. You simply create the sound O. When it becomes more harmonious and you are enjoying it, suddenly you will become aware it has become aum. But don't force it to become aum, then it is false. When it becomes spontaneously aum then it is something vibrating from within. And this sound aum is the deepest sound, the most harmonious, the most basic.

When it happens and you enjoy and you flow in its music, your whole body and your brain relax.

With the sound aum you will go on relaxing and your sleep will have a different quality, altogether different. And your sleep has to be changed, only then can you become more alert and aware. So we will start by changing the sleep.

In the night put the light off, sit on the bed, exhale deeply through the mouth with the sound O. When you have exhaled completely and you feel that now no more exhalation is possible, the whole breath has gone out, stop for a single moment. Don't inhale, don't exhale - just stop. In that stop you are the divine. In that stop you are not doing anything, not even breathing. In that stop you are in the ocean.

Just remain in the stop for a single moment and be a witness - just look at what is happening. Be aware where you are: witness the whole situation that is there in that single stopped moment. Time is no more there, because time moves with breaths; breathing is the process of time. Because you breathe you feel the time moving. When you don't breathe you are just like a dead man. Time has stopped, there is no process anywhere, everything has stopped... as if the whole existence has stopped with you. In that stopping you can become aware of the deepest source of your being and energy. So for a single moment stop. Then inhale through the nose, but don't make any effort to inhale.

Remember, make all the effort to exhale, but don't make any effort to inhale; just let the body inhale.

You simply relax your hold and let the body take the inhalation. You don't do anything. That too is beautiful and works wonders. You have exhaled, stopped for a moment, then you allow the body to inhale. You don't make any effort to inhale, you simply watch the body taking the inhalation.

And when you watch the body taking the inhalation you will feel a deep silence surrounding you, because then you know your effort is not needed for life. Life breathes itself. It moves by itself of its own cause. It is a river, you unnecessarily go on pushing it. You will see that the body is taking the inhalation. Your effort is not needed, your ego is not needed - you are not needed. You simply become a watcher, you simply see the body taking the inhalation. Deep silence will be felt. When the body has taken a full inhalation, stop for a single moment again. Again watch.

These two moments are totally different. When you have exhaled completely and stopped, that stopping is just like death. When you have inhaled totally and then stopped, that stopping is the climax of life. Remember, inhalation is equivalent to life, exhalation equivalent to death. That's why the first thing a child does when born is to inhale, and the last thing the same child will do when old, dying, will be to exhale. On this earth, the first thing you did while entering life was inhalation, and the last thing you will do will be exhalation. No one can die inhaling. When you die you have to exhale, you die with exhalation. And no one can be born with exhalation, you have to start by inhalation.

Those who know, and those who have watched their inner life process deeply, they say - and you will come to feel it yourself - that with every inhalation you are born again and with every exhalation you die. So death is not something in the end, and birth is not something in the beginning; every moment there is birth and death, every moment you die and are born again. And if you die beautifully you are born again more beautifully, if you die totally you are born totally.

So exhale as totally as possible; that will give you a death moment. That's beautiful, because a death moment is the most silent, the most peaceful - that is nirvana. Then let the body inhale to the full, and then stop. That moment is a life moment: the climax of energy, power, bioenergy at its peak. Feel it, and feel both. That's why I say stop twice: when you have exhaled, then; and when you have inhaled, then - so you can feel both life and death, so you can watch both life and death.

Once you know this is life, this is death, you have transcended both. The witness is neither death nor life. The witness is never born and never dies; only the body, the mechanism. You become the third. These two moments are very significant. This very night you have to do this meditation, for twenty minutes you go on doing this and then fall down and go to sleep.

In the morning when you feel the sleep has left you, don't open your eyes immediately. The mind has the tendency to open the eyes immediately. You miss a great opportunity... because when sleep leaves you and life energies are wakening inside, you can watch them, and that watching will be very helpful for going into deeper meditation.

The mind is fresh, the body is fresh after the whole night's rest; everything is fresh, unburdened.

There is no dust, no tiredness - you can look deeply, penetratingly. Your eyes are fresher; everything is vital. Don't miss that moment. When you feel sleep has left, don't open the eyes immediately.

Remain with closed eyes and feel the energy which is changing now from sleep to waking. And that's what I am going to teach you: how to change all your energies from sleep to waking. So just watch.

You may be lethargic in that moment, you would like to turn over and go to sleep again, so do one thing: for three minutes with closed eyes stretch your body like a cat. But with closed eyes; don't open the eyes and don't look at the body from without. Look at the body from within. Stretch, move, and let the body energy flow, and feel it. When it is fresh it is good to feel it; the feeling will remain with you the whole day.

Do this for two or three minutes - if you enjoy it, five minutes. And then for two or three minutes laugh loudly like a madman, but with closed eyes, don't open the eyes. With closed eyes laugh loudly. The energies are there, flowing; the body is awake and alert and vital. The sleep has gone.

You are filled, flooded with new energy.

The first thing to be done is laughter, because that sets the trend for the whole day. If you do it, you will feel within two or three days that your mood remains the whole day the mood of laughing, enjoying. Don't be afraid of what others will say, because they may be just waiting for you - so laugh and help them to laugh.

Remember, the first thing in the day sets the trend, and the last thing in the night also sets the trend.

So begin your sleep with a deep relaxation so the whole night becomes samadhi, the whole night becomes a deep meditation - relaxed. Six, seven, eight hours - it is a long time. If you live for sixty years, twenty years you will be in your bed. Twenty years is a long time, and if you can change the quality of sleep you need not go to a forest to meditate; twenty years - enough! No need to go anywhere, no need to do anything. If you can change your sleep there is no need to go like Mahavira in the forest for twelve years, or like Buddha for six years. Twenty years is a long time, and you are not doing anything in that sleep so meditation is easy, because meditation is more like nondoing than like doing. It is a deep relaxation.

Relax when you go to sleep and laugh when you come out of sleep. That laughter should be the first prayer. Remember that if you can laugh, sooner or later you will come to believe in God. A person who laughs cannot remain an atheist for long, and a person who is sad, whatsoever he may say, cannot be really a believer in God, because sadness shows that he rejects, sadness shows that he is against, sadness shows that he denies, condemns. Laughter shows a deep acceptance, laughter shows a celebration, laughter shows that life is good.

First thing in the morning stretch your body like a cat so you can feel energy, move like a cat, and then laugh, and only then get out of the bed. Then the whole day is going to be different. Then we will be doing three meditations in the day.

In the morning a meditation of four steps, the last really not a step but a jump. The first step:

ten minutes of fast chaotic breathing. This breathing is used just like a hammer to hammer your energies, particularly energies which are hidden in the sex center. And you exist right now as a sex center, because your whole energy moves into that center. Your contact with the world is through that center, you are related to the world through that center. And unless energy erupts upwards, flows upwards to other centers which are there, nonfunctioning, you cannot change, you cannot be transformed.

The higher the energy moves, through higher centers you are related to the world. When from the highest center you relate to the world, you have become divine and the whole world is divine; from the lowest center, sex, you are an animal and the whole world is also animal. Darwins and Huxleys and others who have worked hard to prove that man has evolved out of animals are right, their research is right, but they have not studied a buddha; they have studied the ordinary human being.

The ordinary human being is related with the animal kingdom. He remains an animal, just a little more sophisticated. Mark Twain writes somewhere that the cauliflower is a cabbage with a college education. That's the only difference between animal and man - a little more sophisticated animal with a college education, with a culture. But he remains an animal, and because he is educated he becomes more dangerous.

The higher your energy moves, the more new realms of existence will be revealed to you. And if the Upanishads... if Vedantins, Buddha and Jesus and people like them have declared that everyone is divine, they could say so only because they were related to the universe from their highest center.

Your energy has to be moved from the sex center to the sahasrar, that which is hidden in your head.

This chaotic breathing, the first step, is just to be used as a hammer. It works, it is not a theory; you can do it and you can know it, and you will know it.

The second step for ten minutes will be of catharsis. You have to bring out, act out, whatsoever you have been suppressing up to now. Whatsoever you have suppressed has to be thrown out, because only then can you become flowerlike, weightless, and only then can you fly, only then can you rise upwards. All the burden has to be dropped down.

I have heard one story about Hotei, a Zen master. One day he was passing through a village. On his shoulders he always carried a very big bag full of many toys, chocolates and sweets for children.

Somebody asked him, "Hotei, we have heard that you are just playing a role, acting. We have heard that you are a Zen master, so why do you go on wasting your time just giving toys to children? And if you are really a Zen master then show us what Zen is." Zen means the real spirit of religion.

Hotei dropped his bag, immediately he dropped his bag. They couldn't follow, so they said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "This is all. If you drop the burden, this is all."

They asked, "Okay, then what is the next step?"

So he put his bag again on his shoulders and started walking. "This is the next step. But now I am not carrying. I know now that the burden is not me. Now the whole burden has become just toys for children and they will enjoy it."

The second step is to drop the bag that you are carrying, and carry it again only when you are not carrying it. Then you can carry the whole world; then there is no problem - you are not identified with it. The second step is to drop the bag. So be Hotei, and drop whatsoever you have been carrying so long. And it is just ugly, whatsoever you are carrying. Sadness, ugliness, hatred, suffering, anger, jealousy - things like this you are carrying. And if you have become a big wound it is no surprise, it is what you are carrying. So in the second step you have to throw down whatsoever there is in it.

You will look mad, because madness is there. You have been suppressing it up to now. Your sanity is false, it is just on the surface, not even skin-deep. You can be made insane immediately. Someone hits you and the sanity is gone, someone insults you and the sanity is gone. It is not even skin-deep, it is just there boiling. You are carrying yourself somehow. You are a miracle. How do you go on with so many madnesses within? How do you manage it? In the second step don't manage, just throw it out. Become mad, go mad.

Remember, when you become mad consciously you remain a witness. Madness is beautiful if you are conscious - you enjoy it. The more you throw it out the less burdened you are, and you feel that your energy is purified. You feel that now you can fly in the sky. Now there are no boundaries to you, you have become weightless. Now the whole gravitation of the earth cannot pull you down to the earth, you have become greater. You can transcend this pull now; this pull works because you carry so much burden. The second step is to go mad consciously. Those who are intelligent will go mad consciously, those who are stupid will go on holding. So don't be stupid; be a man of understanding and try it.

The third step is a Sufi mantra, hoo; not w-h-o, just h-o-o - hoo without meaning. This is just a sound with no meaning at all; it has a significance but no meaning. It is just a technique. This sound hoo goes deepest in you, hits your deepest center, releases energy. Your whole body becomes aflame with a new energy that you have not known because you have never hit it.

You are so afraid of yourself that you never hit your sources of energy, because you don't know what you will do if much energy comes to you, and you are also afraid you may do something wrong if energy comes to you. So people remain consciously weak. If you are afraid of sex you will be afraid of energy, because if energy comes it will start moving in the sex center. Then what to do? So these so-called saints go on starving their bodies just to remain weak; their whole saintliness is nothing but a sort of weakness, a sort of impotence. And an impotent person can never be holy - because you don't have energy to be holy. If you don't have energy to be unholy, how can you have energy to be holy? The same energy moves from unholiness to holiness.

The third is just a technique, a sound which hits your hidden sources of energy which you are scared to hit. Your whole body will become aflame with new life, new energy, new heat, new electricity, and when your whole body has become vital, every cell of it, only then the jump can be taken, never before it.

Religion is not for weak people. Of course, if you go looking in temples, mosques and churches you will find weak persons there, kneeling down, praying - just weak. They are there because they are weak and they are in search of some help: somebody to protect them, somebody to give them security, safety.

But I say to you, religion is not for the weak, it is only for the strong, because it is such a jump. It is a total jump from the known to the unknown. The weak cannot take it. They can travel step by step, but they can never take a jump.

And remember, if you travel step by step, gradually, you are never transformed; you are at the most modified. You remain the same. A little refined, modified, a little change here and there, but you remain the same. A little better looking, but all ugliness hidden inside, just colored. Only those who are strong enough, who are erupting with energy, exploding with energy, can take the jump.

And this is the greatest jump and the greatest challenge - from the known into the unknown.

Whatsoever you are you know, and where I am trying to indicate is the unknown. In all these days the abyss will be just near you. Any moment you can jump, but you will have to create energy.

This third step is to create energy, to make a volcano - and then I will leave it to you. When I see that now you are boiling, exploding, I will say, "Stop." And when I say stop, don't go on doing things.

Whatsoever you were doing, stop immediately, go dead, because if you go on doing you will lose energy and the jump will not be possible. When I say stop, stop exactly at that moment. When you hear me say stop after the third step, you stop as you are. Even if the posture is uncomfortable don't change it, don't make it comfortable, because here we are not in search of comfort. And don't deceive, because you are not deceiving anybody except yourself.

When I say stop, it is meaningful that I am saying it at that particular moment. It is when I feel that now you have worked up, you have created the energy; now the right peak has been reached.

When I say stop, stop immediately. Become a statue, a stone, a rock - no movement. Don't allow the energy to be expressed in any way, so the energy becomes integrated within and it comes with such a force that you can take the jump. The jump will happen by itself; you just create the energy.

When I say stop, you stop.

The fourth step is a jump. You remain silent, just like a rock. In that moment of silence and stoppage, energy will be there - so much you cannot hold it; it will have to explode. And it will move from the sex center upwards. As it moves upwards you will feel a transformation, a change. You are not the same; moment to moment something else is coming into being. When this energy touches the head center, the last center, sahasrar... Hindus have said it is as if a lotus of one thousand petals has opened suddenly. You are filled with benediction, bliss, beatitude. This for the morning.

In the afternoon from four to five we will be doing kirtan - singing and dancing. Twenty minutes dancing, singing; twenty minutes silence, waiting; then twenty minutes expressing your joy, your happiness - celebration. For the first twenty minutes you have to do it so much, so deeply, so totally, that your whole bodymind is exhausted. It has to be exhausted. So don't save yourself, don't try not to get tired. That is the whole point: you have to be tired, so tired that the body and the mind, the old pattern, simply drops through tiredness, exhausted. So get exhausted. Go mad fast!

For twenty minutes you have to exhaust all your energies so the pattern cannot hold, and then you drop into relaxation. For those twenty minutes, if you are really exhausted you will feel some unknown source has become open to you, as if some unknown ocean is dropping into you. You will be filled with new life, and then celebration becomes possible. Then celebrate it, then dance and go mad, but remain constantly alert and watch whatsoever is happening.

In the morning, evening and night we will be doing group meditations; these are group meditations.

One meditation is for you to do individually. From four to five we will do kirtan - singing and dancing.

From three to four you move alone. Don't go with anybody, just move alone. Go under a tree, near a rock, or anywhere. If you cannot find any place then just sit outside your room, but be under the sky, don't do it in the room. This is to be done individually, and everyone has to do it; don't try to escape it.

Move to a tree, sit, look at the sky. Don't look at anything in particular, just look vacantly with empty eyes so that the whole sky can be in contact. When you look at something you are narrowed. Then you are focused, then your eyes can take in only one thing; they are exclusive. Just look vacantly so the whole sky becomes available to your eyes. Looking at the sky, for twenty minutes start talking gibberish, just nonsense. Because the sky cannot understand your language, don't use your language, it is useless - the sky cannot understand it. Gibberish....

You may not be aware from where this word gibberish comes. It comes from a Sufi saint whose name was Jabbar, and he used to talk nonsense. He would talk in such a way that nobody would be able to understand what he was saying. So because it started with Jabbar, people started calling it gibberish. The English word gibberish comes from the Sufi mystic Jabbar.

So become Jabbar: talk gibberish, nonsense, sounds, gestures, to the sky, not to anybody else.

You are talking to the sky. There is a Christian sect who call this type of meditation glossolalia - talking in tongues. And as far as I know, in the whole of Christianity only that sect knows something. Whatsoever comes in the mind, say it: sometimes just sounds, sometimes animal sounds, sometimes screaming, howling, yelling, whatsoever. And don't try to create any sense, because that will be nonsense - creating sense with the sky. You are not talking to any human being; you are talking to the vast sky which cannot understand any language and which can understand anything.

Language will not be helpful. Why? - because if you go on with the pattern of language you never transcend your mind. When you talk with the sky without meaningful communication the mind simply drops; it has no use, it cannot continue. The mind will try to say to you, "What nonsense are you doing? Are you mad?" Don't listen to it. Just tell it, "You wait, and let me do whatsoever I am doing."

Enjoy it.

For twenty minutes go completely Jabbar-like, gibberish, and then for twenty minutes silently relax.

Go on looking at the sky if you feel like it, or if you don't feel like it, close your eyes and look to the inner sky. After these twenty minutes of nonsense you will feel so silent, so skylike, such a vast space within you, that you cannot imagine what can happen out of it.

But go alone, because if someone is there your mind will start playing tricks. If someone is there you would like to create some sense of whatsoever you are doing, because everybody is such an exhibitionist. Or you may create some nonsense just to impress others that you are creating nonsense. That is not the point. You have to be authentic about it. It is not for somebody else, it is for the sky.

And you cannot deceive the sky. The sky has known millions and millions and millions like you. You also for millions and millions of lives the sky has known. We all come out of it and we all go back into it. Be in contact with space. If you can be in contact with space a space is created within you, and when these two spaces meet there is ecstasy. This is to be done individually, then kirtan in the group.

In the night we will have a third meditation, a group meditation. You have to stare at me - it is a tratak. I will be standing here; you have to stare at me without blinking. The eyes will get tired, tears will start rolling down - let them. Go on staring at me so that I can meet you, you can meet me. Just by talking meeting cannot take place. I talk only to persuade you into something else which cannot be given through talk. So talk is just a seduction for something else, for something else which cannot be communicated through words.

That's why this meditation is the last in the night. The whole day I prepare you. I prepare you to go more and more mad, so by the time night comes you are already insane and you can do something which the mind would not have allowed you to do - stare at me with nonblinking eyes.

Why nonblinking eyes? When you blink, mind changes. You may not be aware that your blinking depends on the mind. When you are really interested in something blinking stops. That's why your eyes get tired in a film.

Watching a film, the film is not destructive to the eyes, but your eyes stop blinking. You are so interested you forget blinking. You go on staring, that's why your eyes get tired. And staring at a film is dangerous because you are staring at something which belongs to the lowest of the centers. So if you go to see a movie, if at all you go, continuously blink. Be less concerned with seeing and more concerned with blinking, so you are not hypnotized and the film cannot provoke your lowest center.

All films are hitting at the sex center, that's their appeal.

In this third method in the night, you have to stare at me. I want to hit at your sahasrar, the peak, the last, the highest center. Unblinking will be needed as it is needed for the lowest center. Unblinking you look at me: the mind stops. Then a flow starts; then you and I are not two, a bridge is there. I can move in you, you can move in me - a deep communion is possible.

You will be standing while doing this, and you have to go on jumping with your hands raised so that you forget the feeling of the body and you become energy - jumping, moving, dynamic. As you are, your body has become static. With static energy communication is not possible; only with a moving energy, a jumping energy, is contact possible. When energy is static it becomes like ice - dead, frozen. When energy is moving the ice melts, it becomes a river, flowing. And if you go on moving, a moment comes when your energy is not even like water; it becomes like vapor - invisible, rising upwards.

Remember, ice is static, cannot move; water is moving, dynamic, but can only move downwards; vapor is invisible, moving, but can only move upwards. These are the three states of your energy also. Every energy can have three states: the solid, the liquid, the vaporous.

You have to go on jumping with raised hands so you become a movement. Everybody will be jumping, and soon static energies will mingle with each other, they will become a dance. And you will be constantly, simultaneously, using the mantra hoo, so you are hitting your energy deep. Your energy starts moving upwards; your body has become flexible, liquid, vaporous, jumping, a dance; and constantly your eyes are static towards me, staring towards me, fixed towards me, and I can work on your highest center.

The whole situation is created: your energy moving, hoo constantly hitting at the source - the lowest source of energy - forcing it to move upwards, you jumping, your eyes staring, mind in a stop, and me constantly working on your sahasrar.

I will be moving my hands just to give you hints. When I move my hands like this you have to go completely mad and become dynamic; just a dance, the dancer is lost. And sometimes, as I move my hands upwards, you have to bring more and more energy to movement. You don't know how much energy you have got; you are holding it. Don't be a miser, allow it. Let it flow, let your totality come into it.

Then there will be some moments when I will put my palms downwards. When I put my palms downwards that shows that now you are in such a vaporous state that a contact can be made. Now I can come to you, now I can touch your sahasrar. So when I put my palms downwards you have to bring all energy, whatsoever there is, to become the dance, the jump, the hoo. Bring your total energy in that moment, because in that moment a contact is possible, a shaktipat is possible.

And you will feel... if you really move with me you will feel the lotus in the head flowering. You will feel the silence that comes through it, the bliss that comes through it. You will feel the perfume that happens within through its flowering. Once this flower starts flowering you can never be the same again. Now you are on the path, now nothing can stop you. Now you can move alone, no master is needed.

A master is needed only up to that point when your budlike sahasrar opens. Once the master has helped you to open it, once the petals have started opening, you can be alone. Now no one is needed, now you have gone beyond all possibilities of falling. You can rise and only rise now, there is no possibility of any fall. You have come to the point which is called by Buddha the point of no return. Only up to that point is a master needed.

These will be the meditations that we will follow. I thought it would be good if I told you about everything so there would be no need again to talk about them.

Now the first sutra. It is an invocation.

AUM, MAY MY SPEECH BE ROOTED IN MY MIND, AND MY MIND ROOTED IN MY SPEECH. O SELF-ILLUMINED BRAHMAN, BE MANIFEST UNTO ME. SPEECH AND MIND FORM THE BASIS OF MY KNOWLEDGE, SO PLEASE DO NOT UNDO MY PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE. DAY AND NIGHT I SPEND IN THIS PURSUIT. I SHALL SPEAK THE LAW; I SHALL SPEAK THE TRUTH.

MAY BRAHMAN PROTECT ME; MAY HE PROTECT THE SPEAKER, PROTECT THE SPEAKER.

AUM, SHANTI, SHANTI, SHANTI.

We are not alone, and no one is an island. Existence is one. So when you are seeking you need the help of the whole. Just the attitude of asking for the help becomes the help; just the attitude to invoke, to call the whole, the center of the whole existence to help you, becomes the help. There is no one to give you help, there is no person.

Whenever the Upanishads invoke, they are not invoking any personal god - there is none. Then to whom is their invocation addressed? It is not addressed to anyone; really it is not addressed at all.

Then why call it an invocation? Then why start with it? There is something totally different.

Upanishadic rishis feel and know that every ego exists in conflict, struggle. You exist as your ego because you go on fighting. The more you fight, the more you are; the more you are in conflict and struggle, the more the ego is strengthened. This effort to know the ultimate cannot be ego-based. It can only be an egoless effort.

This invocation is just for the seeker, for the rishi himself. It is an effort to drop the struggle, the conflict, the violent resistance which we are having every moment with existence. This invocation is just to say, "I will not swim in the river; now I will flow, float. I will not fight with the river of existence, I will just allow the river to take me wherever it leads." This is a surrender, and this surrender is very very significant.

Unless you surrender there is no possibility - because you are the disease. The very concept that "I am" is the problem. Every 'I' is false, because I cannot exist without existence. If I cannot exist without existence, what is the meaning of calling myself 'I'?

The Upanishads say, "If God is there, only he can call himself 'I', nobody else." But he has never called himself, he has not asserted anything. There is no one to whom to assert. There is no thou, so how can he say 'I'? He is only. This invocation is just to say, "I am not struggling against you, I'm ready to flow with you. I will become the river."

Aum. That's why no name - Allah, Ram, Yahweh - no name has been used, just aum. The Upanishads say that aum is the very structure of this existence. When you are totally silent and the mind has dissolved and the thoughts disappeared, when the ego has ceased, then you hear the sound of aum - it is a soundless sound. No one is creating it, it is there. It is the very existential sound; it is how existence happens to be - just a humming sound of existence. Existence is there, alive - that aliveness creates a sound; or, to that aliveness a sound happens. That sound is not created by anybody; it is uncreated, anahat.

If you have heard about Zen masters... they go on telling their disciples to go and meditate, meditate on the sound of one hand clapping. We can create a sound by clapping two hands. Zen masters say to their disciples, "Go and find out that sound which comes out of only one hand: the clapping of one hand, not with anything else."

We know this is absurd. A sound can come only with conflict, with two things clashing. Two hands can create sound, not one hand. Zen masters also know that, but still they have been giving this meditation for centuries. From Buddha up to now, Zen masters go on giving it. They know, their disciples know, that this is absurd. Then what is the significance? One has to watch, meditate, and move towards a sound which is already there, which is not created. That is the meaning of the sound of one hand.

I have heard a story. A small boy, just ten or twelve years of age, lived in a Zen monastery. Every day he would see many seekers coming to the master to ask for help, methods, techniques, guidance.

He also became attracted, so one day he also came in the morning in the same way a seeker comes to a Zen master. With deep reverence he bowed down seven times. The master started laughing:

"What has happened to this boy?"

And then he sat in the way seekers should sit before a Zen master. Then he waited, as seekers should wait, for the master to ask, "Why have you come?"

The master asked, "Toyo" - Toyo was the name of the boy - "why have you come?"

So Toyo bowed down and said, "Master, I have come in search of truth. What shall I do? How should I practice?"

The master knew that this boy was simply imitating, because everybody he heard came and asked the same questions, so just jokingly the master said, "Toyo, you go and meditate. Two hands clapping can create a sound. What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

Toyo bowed down seven times again, went back to his room, started meditating. He heard a geisha girl singing, so he said, "Right, this is the thing." He came immediately, bowed down.

The master was laughing. He said, "Did you meditate, Toyo?"

He said, "Yes sir, and I have found it: it is like a geisha girl singing."

The master said, "No, this is wrong. Go again, meditate."

So he went again, meditated for three days. Then he heard the sound of water dripping, so he said, "Right now, this is the thing - I have got it." He came again, the master asked... he said, "The sound of the water dripping."

The master said, "Toyo, that too is not it. You go and meditate."

So he meditated for three months. Then he heard locusts in the trees, so he said, "Yes, I have got it." He came again.

The master said, "No, this too is not right."

And so on and on. One year passed. Then for one year continuously he was not seen. The master became anxious: "What happened to the boy? He has not come." So he went to find him. He was sitting under a tree, silent, his body vibrating to some unknown sound; his body dancing, a very gentle dance, as if just moving with the breeze.

The master didn't like to disturb the boy, so he sat there waiting. Hours and hours passed. When the sun was setting and it was evening, the master said, "Toyo?"

The boy opened his eyes and he said, "This is it."

The master said, "Yes, you have got it!"

This aum is that sound. When all sounds disappear from the mind, then you hear a sound. The Upanishads have made that sound the symbol of the whole, because whenever the whole happens to the part, it happens in that music of aum, in that harmony of aum.

AUM, MAY MY SPEECH BE ROOTED IN MY MIND, AND MY MIND ROOTED IN MY SPEECH.

The master is saying, "O ultimate, the whole, the total, aum, help me so that my speech is rooted in my mind." A master should not speak of anything that is not deeply rooted in his mind, in his experience; that which he has not known he should not speak of. He should only speak of that which he has known, for which he can stand the witness, for which he can say, "I am the witness" - only that.

MAY MY SPEECH BE ROOTED IN MY MIND - in my experience. Mind is your experience, the way you have experienced the world, the existence. The master says: MAY MY SPEECH BE ROOTED IN MY MIND, AND MY MIND ROOTED IN MY SPEECH. And whatsoever I say, I should not only say it, I must flow through it. Not only should my words relate, through my words I must move; my consciousness must use words as vehicles.

Ordinarily we use words without moving with them, even such beautiful words as love. We go on saying to people, "I love you," not meaning it at all. You may not even be aware of what you are saying. If you were aware, you would be very guarded. How can you say such a sacred word, love, so easily? You go on saying, "I love my car, I love my dog, I love my wife." You can love anything - even chocolate, ice cream. Your love is not rooted anywhere, you are not moving in it. How can a man love ice cream? And if you can love ice cream, then whenever you say, "I love," it is not reliable.

Then don't say "I love" to any person, because no person would like to become like ice cream or chocolate.

But we go on using words not to express something, but on the contrary, to hide something. Just watch: when you say to someone, "I love you," you may be just hiding hate. It was so bubbling you were afraid the other may come to know it; immediately you have to hide it. You say, "I love you."

This must be some type of screen, some form of hiding, suppression.

The master says:

AUM, MAY MY SPEECH BE ROOTED IN MY MIND, AND MY MIND ROOTED IN MY SPEECH.

Whatsoever I say, I must move in it, otherwise I should not say it. And whatsoever is said must be my experience, I should not say it on anybody else's authority. The Vedas say, The Bible says, the Koran says - they may be saying, but that's useless unless I know. They cannot be authorities; only my own experience can be the authority. If I know, they can be witnesses to my knowledge. Then I can say, "The Koran also says this." But the Koran is not right because it is the Koran; it is right because it is my experience, and the Koran supports it. I remain, my own experience remains, the center.

O SELF-ILLUMINED BRAHMAN, BE MANIFEST UNTO ME.

Very paradoxical....

O SELF-ILLUMINED BRAHMAN, BE MANIFEST UNTO ME.

Brahman is self-illumined, he doesn't need any other source of illumination. We are here; if the light is put off we cannot see each other. We are not self-illumined, the light is needed. If light is not there we are in darkness. But Brahman, the total, is self-illumined - no other light is needed.

The rishi says:

O SELF-ILLUMINED BRAHMAN, BE MANIFEST UNTO ME.

And then he says, "You are self-illumined; no light is needed to know you. You are self-evident; no proof is needed to prove you. Still, I am ignorant, my eyes are closed, I am finite. Because of my finiteness, because of my eyes, I cannot see you who are self-illumined. Be manifest unto me." This must be the attitude - a humble, receptive attitude.

SPEECH AND MIND FORM THE BASIS OF MY KNOWLEDGE, SO PLEASE DO NOT UNDO MY PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE. DAY AND NIGHT I SPEND IN THIS PURSUIT.

The rishi says, "Mind, thinking, are my means and methods, so don't undo my pursuit of knowledge.

I don't have anything else; I have only the mind." And the rishi knows that the mind cannot be the right source of knowing the Brahman, but that is the only source you have. You can know the ultimate only when the mind is no more. But right now you have just the mind and nothing else.

So the rishi says, "Help me. I have nothing else, only this mind. And I know well that this mind cannot lead to you, but that's all I have got. So help me, and don't undo my efforts. Just because through mind you cannot be known, don't undo my efforts. My mind will lead me to a point where it itself becomes the no-mind. But wait and don't undo my efforts."

It is just like a child who says, "I have got legs to walk, but they are weak, unaccustomed - I have never walked before. I have only got these small, weak, unadjusted, yet-to-be-adjusted legs, and I have to walk with them. Don't undo my efforts. A moment will come when this weakness will disappear, so be patient with me."

That's what the rishi is saying to the universe: "Be patient with me. I may commit many errors, mistakes. I may move on a wrong path, but be patient with me."

I SHALL SPEAK THE LAW; I SHALL SPEAK THE TRUTH. MAY BRAHMAN PROTECT ME; MAY HE PROTECT THE SPEAKER. AUM, SHANTI, SHANTI, SHANTI.

Before the rishi starts his discourse, the Upanishad we will be discussing in these days, he says, "I shall only speak the law. I will not speak any creed, any theory. I will not talk about any doctrine. I will talk only about the law, that which is."

There are temptations to create theories, there are temptations to create systems. And it always happens that whenever a man finds a fragment of truth, immediately around that fragment he creates a system. The whole system is speculation.

This Upanishadic seer says, "I shall only speak the law, whatsoever it is, and I will not add anything to it. I shall only speak the truth. Whatsoever the consequence, whatsoever the result, wheresoever it leads, I will only speak the truth. But I am weak, so protect me, O Brahman."

MAY HE PROTECT THE SPEAKER... MAY HE PROTECT THE SPEAKER Twice he repeats - the fear is there. Whenever one starts speaking, the fear is there that mind may tempt, mind may add something, distort the truth or create something which is untrue, or substitute something which is not there.

When one English poet, Coleridge, died, he left thousands of poems incomplete. Just before he died somebody asked him, "Why have you not completed them?" A few poems were missing only one line, so they said, "Why don't you complete them? - they will become masterpieces. Just because of one line.... Why can't you add one line to them?"

Coleridge is reported to have said, "I cannot do that. I have taken a vow that I will not add anything.

These lines have descended to me, I have not done anything. In a moment of ecstasy they have been revealed to me; I have noted them down. I am simply a vehicle, not the creator; a medium, an adjunct - so I have noted down. The last line has not come yet and I am waiting, I cannot do anything. If it comes it comes, if it doesn't come, nothing can be done. I am helpless."

This is the attitude of the right seeker - he will not add anything, because a fragment of truth will become a lie if you add something to complete it. And the whole truth is not known, and cannot be known. Only fragments are known. The whole cannot be known. The whole is so vast; only glimpses are known. So the mind is tempted to create a system; the system becomes false. Hegel, Kant, Plato, Aristotle - they all had a few fragments of truth, but they destroyed them because they created vast edifices around them. And the fragrance is lost, you cannot find where it is.

These Upanishadic seers are different, their attitude absolutely different. They have not systematized whatsoever they have asserted. The Upanishads are unsystematized fragments, just fragments - no system, no logic, no reason. Whatsoever is revealed, they have noted it down. So the master says:

I SHALL SPEAK ONLY THE LAW; I SHALL SPEAK ONLY THE TRUTH. MAY BRAHMAN PROTECT ME... THE SPEAKER... MAY BRAHMAN PROTECT THE SPEAKER.

AUM, SHANTI, SHANTI, SHANTI.

Enough for today.