With the Grace of the Sages

The first stage for the seeker is to create a milieu around himself of the feeling that the ocean is real and waves are just superficial surface phenomena. To live in that oceanic feeling is the first stage.

This becomes the soil. Unless this milieu is there, there is no possibility of any growth into the higher realms of being. So remember this: you must be aware more and more of the center, less and less of the surface; more and more aware of the depth, and less and less aware of the circumference.

The focus must change from the periphery to the innermost core.

If you continue being involved with the surface you cannot penetrate to the ultimate being, because the ultimate being, Brahman - or you may call it the truth or God or whatsoever you like - the ultimate being is the center of existence. And we exist on the periphery.

This is natural in a way, because whenever you come in contact with something, you come in contact with the periphery, the outermost. This is natural. But don't remain there - move ahead, move further. Leave the periphery behind and go deep. With everything - with a rock, with a man, with a tree, with whatsoever - always remember that the surface is the outermost body, and this is not the whole. The whole illusion consists of thinking of the surface as the whole.

The surface belongs to the whole, there is nothing wrong in it; but when you get this impression, this identity that the surface is the whole, then there is no possibility of inner growth because then you have to stay with the surface - the surface has become the whole. Don't allow the surface to become the whole. This is not something which is going against the surface; this is simply going with the truth, with the reality.

The surface will be there. When you have conceived the whole, the surface will be there, but in its right place. Nothing is to be eliminated, only a greater perspective is needed. And when your perspective has become total, everything will be there. This world will be there; whatsoever you have will be there, but in a new harmony, in a new gestalt.

This is something to be understood very deeply, because it happens to persons who are on a religious search that either they get identified with the surface, or they become against it. Then they start thinking that this world is to be negated, the world of the waves has to be denied. Either they think that waves are the ocean, or they move to the opposite pole: they start saying that the waves are illusory, that they are not, that they have to be denied. Both standpoints are wrong. From one wrong polarity, if you jump to the other, the other is bound to be wrong. The truth is somewhere in between, in the middle.

Don't jump from the waves to the ocean, but rather from the waves and the ocean to just in the middle from where you can see both - the ocean and the waves also. Then your life becomes a synthesis, and when your life is a synthesis the music of the divine is created.

The Upanishads are not against the world. They are for Brahman, but they are not against the world.

Their Brahman includes everything, the Brahman is inclusive. This is the first state.

NOW FOLLOW THE TRAITS OF SEEKERS OF THE SECOND STAGE, CALLED THE STAGE OF THOUGHT.

The first stage is the stage of feeling, feeling that Brahman surrounds you, everywhere is Brahman.

And remember, the seeker has to start from the feeling, from the heart, because only the heart can be the base. The heart is the base of your body, and the heart is going to be the base of your divine body also.

If you go to the physiologist he will say, "Yes, there is a heart, but that heart is only physiological, just a pumping system; nothing more is there - no love, no feeling," because he dissects the body and he comes only to know the body and the bodily. But everybody, even that physiologist, when in love will put his hand on his heart. If he is frustrated in his love, then he will feel a deep ache in his heart. He cannot explain it. As a physiologist he will say, "This is illusory," but as a man he also feels the same. And remember, a physiologist is just a specialization, a fragment; man is the whole.

So don't listen to the physiologist, listen to his totality. When he is in love he feels his heart is filled, something has poured into it, he has become heart-full. We don't have such a thing, not even such a word - heartful. We say that a man is healthy, healthful; we say a a man is mannerly, mannerful - but we never say a man is heartful, or loveful. These words must be created, because these are existential facts. When you are in love, you are heartful, loveful, overflooded, and of that overflooded feeling the heart is the center.

When you are in love, close your eyes and feel where your feeling has its center. It can never be in the head; it is impossible. It can never be anywhere else - it will be just in the heart. The heart is the base of your body, and it is going to be the base of your higher body also. That's why the Upanishads say that the first stage is of feeling. Thought is not denied, thought has to take its own place - but that is the second stage.

When feeling is there, then thought cannot go wrong. If feeling is not there, thought is bound to go wrong. If you follow thought without feeling, you will become destructive. That's what happened with Hitler, with Mussolini, with Tojo; that's what is happening every day with Mao, with all the dictators - the thought is leading them. The heart has been silenced, or as if cut off from their being; there is only thought, and then thought can be destructive.

Hitler thought that it would be good and a compassionate act if all weaklings were destroyed: no weak person should exist on the earth. It was logical, because these weaklings create problems.

These weaklings give birth to more weaklings, they destroy the whole purity of humanity. This is logical - but just logical. If you ask Buddha, he will say that the weakling has to be supported: the strong should serve the weak, and that is his strength; otherwise for what is his strength needed?

The stronger the person, the more he will serve the weak - but this comes from the heart. Then service itself becomes the strongest thing in your personality.

But if you think from the mind only, then weaklings have to be destroyed because they are the deterioration; through them humanity will deteriorate, will fall down. The ill have to be destroyed because through them illness will spread more. The mad have to be killed because through them madness will be spread all over the world. This is logical; nothing is wrong in it as a mathematical argument - and that's what Hitler tried to follow. He killed millions of beings.

You cannot argue with him logically; he is exactly right that the weak should be destroyed. But then what is strength? If all the weaklings are destroyed, where will be the strong? And if this logic is continued to its climax, then only one person can exist on the earth - the strongest - because all others will be weaklings in comparison to him. So if you go on destroying the weak, then only one person can exist, not even two. This is the conclusion of the logic. And then what is that one person going to do? And what is the meaning of his life? For whom is he going to exist?

Life has the deepest secret, and that is this: that when you exist for someone you exist for the first time. And if your existence becomes a service to many it becomes richer. When you exist only for yourself you exist uselessly; there is no significance, no meaning. The moment you start existing for someone, your existence becomes meaningful, significant, for the first time. That is the meaning of service. But that service can be based only on the heart; it cannot be based on thought.

But that doesn't mean that the Upanishads deny thinking. They don't deny; they say thought has much to do, but it must follow feeling. The mind must follow heart, only then can it be good. Then it cannot go wrong because the heart will always guide in the right direction. The heart becomes the compass - and the heart has the center of love, and love cannot lead you wrongly.

It happened once, a man came to Saint Augustine and he said, "What should I do? And tell me in short, because I am an illiterate person and I cannot understand great theological things. So just in short, simply, so that I can understand and remember it, just tell me the essence of religion."

Saint Augustine is reported to have said, "Love, and then all else will follow. And don't bother about anything else."

If you love you cannot do wrong. The more you love the more it becomes impossible to do wrong - love cannot go wrong. But your love goes wrong. That simply means that your love is not love.

Your love even creates hell, misery; you even become destructive to your lover. Move into any family and you will feel the destruction that love has brought: wife and husband continuously fighting, quarreling, trying to dominate each other, trying to possess each other - really trying to destroy the other.

The wife wants the husband just to be a thing, not a person. The husband wants the wife just to be a thing to be possessed; a beautiful thing of course, but a thing, not a person - because a person needs freedom to be, only a thing can be made totally a slave. A person can never be made a slave, and the more you make a slave of him the less he is a person. And this is happening through love!

And Augustine says, Buddha says, Jesus says, "Love, and everything will be right. Love, and you will be on the right path." Your love is not love.

The more I try to understand people who are in love, the more I see that their love is just a form of hate. They disguise it, they think it is love, but their thinking cannot be believed, because the results show something else. And a tree is known by its fruits, not by the declaration. The tree may declare, there may be a big sign on the tree, a signboard saying "This is an apple tree," but it is to be known by the fruits. If apples never come the signboard is not worth anything, it is lying. If love gives one the direction towards divineness, then your love cannot be called love because it leads into misery.

Oscar Wilde has written in his memoirs, "This has been my problem my whole life: I cannot live without a woman, and I cannot live with a woman. If I live with a woman it creates hell; if I don't live with a woman that creates hunger and starvation and I feel I should have a woman." You cannot live with a woman, and you cannot live without a woman. What is the problem? The problem is that love has to be learned. Love is a creative art; one is not born with the capacity to love, no one is born with the capacity to love. Love is a growth, an achievement, and the finest achievement possible.

It is just like music: no one is born playing an instrument, you have to learn it. And the more complex the instrument, the longer it will take. Someone asked Godowsky, "Now you have become a great master of music, a maestro, do you still practice?"

He said, "Yes, if I don't practice for a single day, I notice things are going wrong. If I don't practice for two days, then experts in my audience notice something is going wrong. And if I don't practice for three days, everybody becomes aware that something is going wrong." Eight hours per day he was practicing when he was a world famous maestro.

And love is the greatest music, and you have to play it upon the most complex instrument - the lover or the beloved. You think you are born with the capacity, so you destroy the instrument. You fall in love with a woman, but you don't know that that woman is the most complex instrument in the world.

You are going to destroy, and when the woman is destroyed she becomes chaotic, she becomes chaos - anger and hatred are bound to be there.

Love has to be learned as an art, the greatest art, the art of life. That's why we go on talking about love, but love is the most scarce thing on this earth. It happens only once; millions of people are in love and it happens only once - one in a million becomes capable of love. There are reasons. When a child is born, the child has only self-love. And this is natural: he does not know anybody else, he knows only himself. The child is the most selfish being, the most selfish, self-centered being. He exists for himself, and he imagines that the whole world exists to serve him. And because he is so helpless everybody has to serve him, so he is justified. Whenever he cries the mother runs to give him food, milk, help, warmth, love, and he becomes dictatorial.

Every child becomes dictatorial and he knows that everybody follows. Whatsoever his desire it has to be fulfilled immediately, otherwise he goes mad. He is so helpless, and nothing can be done - we have to serve him. His ego becomes strengthened. The mother, the father, the family, everybody around him helps him, serves him, and he feels that he is the center of the world. And almost always it happens that you never grow out of this childhood nonsense. You remain the center, and you think everybody has to serve you.

How can you love? - because love means the other has become the center. Love is a very great jump: you are not the center, the other has become the center. You have become the shadow. Now the other has the meaning, and just to serve him or her is happiness. But this never happens. The husband is juvenile, the wife is juvenile, and they remain with their childhood concept that I am the center and the other has to serve me. This creates chaos, this creates misery and hell. Love has to be learned; it is a growth. When you can throw your ego, only then can you love.

The Upanishads are not against thought, but they have a preference list - love must be first. And we have done quite the opposite. There is not a single school, college or university where love is taught. Only thought is taught everywhere: schools, colleges, universities - they all exist to train you how to think. Nobody trains you how to feel, how to be more loving. And it is simple: if nobody teaches you mathematics, you are not going to learn it; if nobody teaches you language, you are not going to learn it; and nobody teaches you love, so you have not learned it. But you believe that you are a lover, and in search of the right person who can love you.

I have heard about one man: he was in search of a perfect wife, the ideal woman. Obviously he could never find her. He searched and searched and then became old. Then somebody asked, "For what are you waiting? Now get married! You are just on the verge of death."

The man said, "But I cannot - unless to an ideal woman, a perfect woman."

So the friend asked, "But you have been searching. Could you not find a single woman upon this whole earth?"

He said, "Yes, once I did - but that woman was in search of a perfect husband."

You think you are perfect; you are waiting just for the other perfect person and then everything will be good. This is not going to help; this is impossible. You have learned to think, and that has become the base. That's why your whole personality is upside down.

The second stage is of thought, the first of feeling. What is this stage of thought?

HE LIVES IN THE CARE OF LEARNED MEN WHO EXPLAIN BEST WHAT LISTENING, REMEMBERING, RIGHT CONDUCT, CONTEMPLATION AND MEDITATION ARE.

Not only logic.... Our schools teach only logic. In many ways they make you argumentative, that's all. The Upanishads say, the first thing: HE LIVES IN THE CARE OF LEARNED MEN.

In the days of the Upanishads teaching was a very intimate phenomenon, a very personal phenomenon; it was really just like a love affair. So students would move all over the country in search of a master with whom they could feel closeness, intimacy, from whom they could feel care - somebody who cared, who loved, in whose presence they could flower. Sometimes thousands of miles would be traveled to find a master with whom to live. That was the first requirement. Teaching was not so important; the teacher was more important.

Nowadays, particularly in America, they say the student is more important than the teacher. They say "student-oriented education," and they have made their point and the students have heard about it - that they are the center and the teacher is just a servant, there to serve. This is absolute nonsense, because a disciple cannot be the center. He has come to learn, and learning means he has to be receptive, trusting, in deep faith. So if there is so much student unrest all over the world, it is the natural consequence, the logical consequence, of the whole nonsense that has been spread in this century that education should be "student-oriented." Then the teacher becomes just a servant.

In India in the days of the Upanishads the teacher was the center, and the real thing was not what he was teaching; the real thing was what he was. Just his presence was a deep phenomenon; it helped the person to grow. He cared, he loved, and teaching was secondary, teaching followed.

That was also not very important. The important thing was to be near a person who was grown- up, who was really an adult. So the way, the method that was followed was really one of the most intricate systems ever developed in the world.

The system was this: that for twenty-five years everybody was to remain celibate, a brahmachari - for twenty-five years, for the first stage of life. Every boy, every girl, was expected to remain celibate for twenty-five years. Not that they were against sex - no, really they were the persons who knew the beauty of sex, and they created a phenomenon where sex could be lived to its utmost, where sex was transformed into samadhi - but they knew the way. Twenty-five years of celibacy would create the energy; you would accumulate energy, enough energy so that sex would become a very deep and penetrating phenomenon.

Now in the West sex has become superficial. It is not more than sneezing - just something to be thrown out of the body, just a type of relief. And it is so: if you don't have enough energy gathered then sex will become superficial, just like sneezing - a relief, not a transforming phenomenon, not an alchemy.

When you had so much energy, when you had waited twenty-five years and your every cell was filled with energy, then they allowed you to move into marriage and love. Then this experience of love was going to be very very deep, intense. The intensity depends on energy. This is the law:

intensity depends on energy. If there is no energy there will be no intensity; the more energy, the more intense the phenomenon. And if you had waited for twenty-five years, you would have become a tremendous energy, and even in one sexual experience you could attain to the very highest that is possible through bioenergy.

Then they allowed the man to move into family life. For twenty-five years he was to live an ordinary life: to feel every desire, every thirst, every hunger; to fulfill every desire - at least to try for twenty- five years, with intense force. When the person was fifty, then his children would be coming back from the gurukul, from the house of the master. His children would be coming back, and they would then be about twenty-five.

And this was the rule: when a person had reached fifty, about fifty, and his children were back and were going into marriage, he should again become celibate - because it was thought absurd that a father should be making love in the house when the son was making love. This was thought absurd, this seemed childish, because then the father had not grown beyond it. And how could a son respect a father when he felt that the father was just the same as him? If the son was playing with sex and the father also was playing with sex, how could he think that he had grown up? The moment the son was married the father was ready to move beyond sex. So this stage of twenty-five years was called vanaprastha - looking towards the forest. He had not yet gone to the forest, but was now ready to leave, packing.

When the son had reached fifty and was ready to pack to go to the forest, the father would be seventy-five and he would have renounced life. Now he was an old, wise man; he had lived life.

And this man would become the teacher. At the age of seventy-five he would move to the forest, he would create a small school around him, he would become the teacher. And this was the thought:

that only an old man can be the teacher, because how can one who has not lived life be a teacher?

How can one who has not known all - the good and the bad both; one who has not moved through all the ways that life gives you, the right and the wrong both - how can he be a teacher? Only one who has been through desires, who has known the intensity of desires and the foolishness also, who has been into sex and who has gone beyond sex - only such a man can be a teacher, only such a man can teach life.

It was inconceivable that a young man could become a teacher. It was inconceivable. How can he become a teacher? He has not been through life, he is not yet seasoned. One must be with old, wise men, in their care, just near them; such men who can explain what right listening is, right remembering is, right conduct is, right contemplation is, right meditation is. And you cannot explain these things just by reading and studying; only a lived experience can make you capable of teaching.

What is right listening? Shravan, right listening, is the base... because when a disciple comes to a master or a student to a teacher, the first thing is to be taught how to listen. Nowdays nobody is teaching how to listen. You go to any school, even in the kindergarten, and they have started lecturing, but no one has ever taught how to listen. Unless you know how to listen, how can you be taught? Sometimes the training for how to listen takes years. Your mind has to be completely silent, only then can you listen. So a master will try to quiet your inner talk, the inner chattering, the constant chattering which is there.

If you are chattering inside, you cannot listen. I am talking here. If you are talking within yourself, how can you listen? Then your mind is just like a radio, and the arrow by which you tune into a station is wavering, or you have caught two stations simultaneously and so everything is a confusion. I am talking here and you are talking within yourself, so there are two stations simultaneously. Everything is in confusion. You cannot learn and you cannot understand - you can only misunderstand. How to listen was the first thing - in ordinary teaching and in spiritual teaching also. How to listen? The first rule is: the inner talk must cease.

It happened, there was one famous Zen monk, Nansen. He lived in a deep forest away from the capital of Japan, Tokyo. One day a professor of the university of Tokyo, a professor of philosophy, came to visit Nansen. He came into the hut and said, "Tell me something about spirituality. Tell me something about the inner self."

Nansen said, "You look tired after traveling so long, there is perspiration on your head, so rest a little, relax a little, and I will prepare tea for you."

So the old Nansen prepared tea, and the professor rested. But the rest was just superficial; inside he couldn't rest. How can a professor rest? Impossible! He goes on talking inside.

I had one professor... I was the only student in his subject. Sometimes if I was late I would see that he had already started, he was already lecturing. And he had told me, "If you want to go out, you can go, but don't disturb me" - and I was the only student! So I used to go out, roam about, and then come back, and he was still lecturing. I was irrelevant.

A professor, and a professor of philosophy at that - insult added to injury.... He rested only bodily, the inner talk continued. But you cannot escape a person like Nansen; he looks inside. So he brought tea, put a cup in the hand of the professor, poured tea, continued pouring, and the tea started flowing into the saucer also. Then the professor became afraid because he was continuing; soon it would start going onto the floor. So he said, "Now stop! Are you mad? Now my cup cannot have any more tea, not a single drop."

Nansen started laughing and he said, "You are so careful about the tea and the cup, and you know well that when the cup is full not a single drop more can be held in it. And you ask me about spirituality, meditation. You are so full inside, not a single drop can enter. So first go out, empty your cup, and then come back. Unless you are empty I am not going to waste my energy pouring into you."

The first thing for right learning, right listening, is to be empty; that was taught. Now education is doing completely the reverse. The first thing is how to fill your mind, and the more your mind is filled the more you are appreciated. Your mind must be clean, pure; inner talk must cease. Only then you can be attentive.

Then right remembering. Remember that only remembering is not enough; you need the opposite capacity of forgetting also. If you go on remembering everything you will go mad. And that is what has happened - you cannot forget. Forgetting is as much needed as remembering. The useless must be thrown out of the mind and forgotten, and only the essential should be remembered.

Right remembering means continuously throwing rubbish out; choosing only the essential, the true, the real, and throwing all that is rubbish. Much rubbish is there. The newspapers are filled with it, the books are filled with it, and everybody goes on pouring his rubbish into you. The first thing for right remembering is: throw the rubbish out, don't fill the mind with rubbish - unnecessary, nonessential.

Shankara has said that if you cannot make the distinction between what is essential and what is nonessential, your mind will become just a wastepaper basket; useless things will be there - and they are. Right remembering means also right forgetting. Be alert, because every single moment millions of facts are being thrown into your mind. Your mind is taking much information from everywhere. That's why you cannot sleep: there is so much excitement in the mind, so many things going on. You cannot remember, because you remember so much that the whole capacity, the whole energy, is lost.

When Alexander came to India he was surprised; he could not believe the capacity of Hindu brahmins for memorizing things. He couldn't believe it, it was almost impossible. It happened that wise men in Greece had told him, "When you come back from India, bring the Vedas, the four scriptures, the supreme-most Indian scriptures. Bring them with you." Only at the last moment when he was returning he remembered, so in a village of Punjab he inquired, "Who has got the Vedas?"

They said, "A brahmin family - but it is impossible, they will not give them to you."

Alexander said, "Don't you worry about that. I will force them, I will kill them - they will have to give."

The brahmins' house was surrounded by the military, and Alexander went to the head of the family, the old man, and said, "I want the four scriptures, the four Vedas, and I will burn the whole house if you say no. You and your four Vedas all will be burned."

The old man said, "There is no need. I will give them to you, but in the morning. And let your military be there, don't be suspicious. I will give them in the morning."

Alexander said, "Why not now?"

He said, "Before giving them I will have to go through a ritual of departure. My family had them for thousands of years, they have become part of our heart, so the whole night we will pray, go through a particular ritual, and in the morning we will present them."

Alexander believed the old man. The military was there and there was no possibility that he could escape. But in the morning when he came a fire was burning and the old man was sitting there reading from the last page of the four books. Alexander waited. The old man read the last page and threw it in the fire. Alexander said, "What are you doing?"

He said, "The four Vedas have gone into the fire, but these are my four sons. They have listened the whole night and they remember. You take them."

Just one listening! Alexander could not believe it. He called other brahmins to check. How could they remember such big books? And they had heard them only once! They repeated verbatim from the first word to the last. Alexander told his wise men, "We don't know anything about what right remembering is. These Hindus have done miracles. How can they remember?"

The secret is that if you are capable of forgetting nonsense, you have so much energy to remember that anything can be remembered - the energy is the same. For example, if you have one hundred percent energy, ninety-nine percent is involved in nonsense. In the old days, a brahmin had one hundred percent of energy available; then he could remember the Vedas. Whatsoever you remember is always more than the four Vedas, so the capacity is there but you have devoted it to nonsense. Right remembering was taught: how to forget the useless, how to choose the essential, and only remember the essential.

Right conduct: how to behave rightly, a right discipline of behavior - because everything helps you grow. When you behave wrongly you are not doing something wrong to others, you are doing wrong to yourself. When you behave wrongly your energy moves into wrong directions. Outwardly, right conduct may seem like something imposed; it is not.

For example, Gurdjieff used to say - in his institute in Paris he had written it on the walls in big letters - one motto: "A person is good who respects his father and mother." In the West particularly this seems absurd. And just this is the definition of a good man, "A person is good who respects his father and mother"?

What was he saying? Remember that life is such that you are bound to hate your father and mother; every boy, every girl, has to hate. This is how it happens naturally, because the father has to say no to many things, the father has to discipline you, the father has even sometimes to be angry with you.

He cannot allow you absolute freedom because that would be destructive to you. He has to force discipline, and the ego of the child is hurt; he starts hating.

Every man hates his father unless right conduct is taught from the very beginning; every girl hates her mother unless a right conduct is taught from the very beginning. And if you cannot respect your father, you cannot respect anybody - then the whole possibility of respect is lost. The father is the first point from where respect grows.

If you can respect your father, you will respect many people. If you hate your father, then all father figures will be hated. If you hate your father, you will hate your teacher, because he is also a father figure. If you hate your father, you will hate anybody who is powerful. You cannot love God, because he is the father figure for the whole cosmos.

In the West, first the respect for the father disappeared, and then God was dead. It is not accidental that every religion says, "God, my father, the father of all." It is not accidental, it is meaningful - but it has to grow from your own father. If you respect your father then all father-figures will be respected, and ultimately you can respect the divine.

If you hate your mother then hatred will become the very base of your life, because the first love has to be learned through the mother. You cannot love a wife if you have hated your mother, because the wife is a woman, and one who hates his mother hates women. And the mother will follow you like a dangerous shadow - every time you look at a woman, the mother will be present there. Really, every woman is a mother, essentially a mother. You cannot love a woman if you hate your mother.

Really, you cannot love at all.

Gurdjieff was right; this is the definition of a good man - that he respects his father and mother.

This is impossible. Remember, this is not easy. It is one of the most impossible things to respect the father and mother; to respect one's parents is one of the impossible things in this world. False respect is not meant, just hypocrisy is not meant, but a real respect. That was taught; that was called right conduct.

Respect and love were taught, many other things were taught. Right conduct means to be always happy, blissful in your behavior, to be refined, gentle, to not hurt anybody in any way - because this then becomes the pattern. Right conduct helps you grow, and it helps you avoid unnecessary problems, unnecessary crises. You create many problems unnecessarily, and in those problems and in solving them you waste energy, time - you waste everything. A small problem can become destructive to your whole life. Right conduct means moving in this world in such a way that there is no conflict with others, no conflict arises; moving in this world in such a way that you don't create unnecessary enemies - the very way you behave creates friendship. This is good for you.

RIGHT CONTEMPLATION AND RIGHT MEDITATION....

This will look a little paradoxical, because we think meditation is always right, contemplation is always right. That is not the case; you can contemplate on wrong things. For example, when you are angry you contemplate; really, when you are angry you contemplate more. You become obsessed with one thing and you go on thinking around and around it, near it. Try to think about God; contemplate for one single moment and you have moved away to something else. But think about sex and the contemplation is easy; you can contemplate.

There are people who go on doing that. If you give them a picture or a statue of God they will say, "What will this do? This is just a picture." But give them a pornographic magazine, give them a picture of a nude woman, and they will hide it under the pillow, and when there is no one around they will contemplate. Pornography is contemplation; the mind starts moving around and around a center.

Contemplation means mind moving around a center: not moving in a line, not going from one subject to another, but just sticking to one subject, and the whole energy moving in a circle. When mind moves in a circle around a subject, that subject becomes deep-rooted; whatsoever you contemplate, ultimately you become. Right contemplation means contemplation which will help you to grow beyond desire, which will help you to transcend desire. You contemplate, but wrongly.

This happens with meditation also. You have moments of meditation sometimes. If you are angry and you hit a person, in that moment of hitting all thought stops. You have just become anger; the whole energy is transformed into anger. You are one-pointed, deep in meditation, not a single thought in the mind, no cloud in the mind, the whole mind and energy and body moving in one direction - but that is wrong meditation. Mind has stopped thinking but has become anger - it should become love, it should become compassion.

In sex, meditation happens. A moment comes when you are reaching the climax, a moment comes just before ejaculation or orgasm when mind stops. You become pure energy, bioenergy, just a stream of energy, no-mind. No-mind is meditation. But if you become stuck just in sexual meditation you will not grow. Nothing is wrong in it, but you have to grow beyond it because this sexual meditation depends on the other and anything that depends on the other cannot make you ultimately free; you will remain dependent.

Right meditation means a moment where mind ceases, you have become one energy - but not moving towards the other, not moving in any direction, but simply remaining in yourself. That will become samadhi. Meditation moving towards the other becomes a sexual act; meditation moving nowhere, remaining inside, becomes samadhi. These things are for the second stage.

HAVING ACQUIRED KNOWLEDGE OF SUCH SCRIPTURES AS ARE WORTH LISTENING TO, HE EFFICIENTLY DISCRIMINATES BETWEEN WHAT IS DUTY AND WHAT IS NOT.

This is called vivek: discrimination between duty, what is duty, and what is not. In the second stage you have to be continuously alert of what to do and what not to do. If you are not alert you will be in a mess. What to do and what not to do? You have a certain amount of energy. You can waste it in things which are not worth doing, and you can create complexities through doing them.

You talk to someone and then a discussion arises, then the discussion becomes an angry fight - you are wasting energy. And this will create a pattern; the man will try to take revenge in some other circumstances. You have created a karma, a pattern; now it will follow you. But why move into a discussion unnecessarily? Why create an argument?

I have heard one Chinese Taoist parable. Three Taoists, followers of Lao Tzu, went into a forest to meditate. They decided that they were not going to chatter, discuss anything. One year passed in silence. Then suddenly one day a horseman passed before their cave, so one of the monks said, "What a beautiful white horse!" This was the only utterance in one year.

One year passed again, then the second monk said, "This is not good. You have started an argument. The horse was not white but black!"

Then one year passed again, and the third monk said, "If there is going to be bickering, I am leaving!"

One year had passed, but it had not passed from the mind of the second monk. He was continuously thinking that the horse was black, not white. Then he could not withhold it any more, so he said, "Enough. The horse was black. But I don't want any dispute about it."

Then the third monk must have continued thinking inside that they had disturbed the silence and they were creating a dispute. Then it became so much that he could not control it any more, so after one year he said, "Enough. I am leaving. This is too much. You are creating an argument! We have not come here to decide whether the horse was white or black!"

This is how mind functions. A small trigger and it goes on and on - it may go on for eternity if you don't become aware. Discriminate as to what is to be done, and then you will feel there is a very very small number of duties. You can do them very well. Discriminate as to what is not to be done, and ninety percent of your acts will drop. They are unnecessary, you could have avoided them. Why get entangled? Remain more and more aloof, and do only that which is absolutely necessary. And remember, do it only when it is going to help somebody, otherwise don't do it.

... AND HE DISCRIMINATES ALSO BETWEEN WHAT IS THE SYMBOL - PADA - AND WHAT IS THE THING SYMBOLIZED - PADARTH.

This is something to be understood very deeply. Krishnamurti goes on saying that the word god is not God - this is the meaning of this statement. What is a symbol, and what is symbolized? The word god is not God - you can mistake the very word for God - just like the word water is not water.

When you are thirsty, I can write in big letters on a paper water and give it to you. You cannot drink it. Even if I do it very scientifically and write H2O, it is useless. You will throw it away, you will say, "Keep your science to yourself. I need water, not H2O."

The word water and water are two different things, and one who is in search of truth must remember it constantly, because there is every possibility you may become obsessed with words and symbols and may lose contact with reality.

HIS MIND DOES NOT SUFFER FROM AN EXCESS OF CONCEIT, PRIDE, GREED AND ATTACHMENT, ALTHOUGH EXTERNALLY THEY ARE APPARENT TO SOME EXTENT.

The second stage is not the end. There is bound to be some greed, some pride, some attachment, some anger, but one has to be aware and start dropping them from inside. Outside it may not be possible to drop them immediately, because sometimes they are needed also.

In ordinary life, if you cannot become angry you will lose many things. Sometimes just a show of anger will be helpful, but drop it from inside! It has to be dropped from outside also - but later on, when you don't bother, when nothing makes any difference, when even if you lose something it makes no difference. But remaining in the world, trying for growth, be aware and alert. Don't suffer from these things. These are sufferings.

If you have very deep-rooted pride, conceit, jealousy, you will suffer. No one else is going to suffer for it. You continue it in the mind, you suffer for it. Somebody is laughing and you think he is laughing at you - then you suffer. You are conceited, and you are always in search of something to hurt you.

You are like a wound, waiting for somebody to touch you and then you will be hurt.

Whenever you feel hurt, remember that you have a wound. Don't throw the responsibility on the other. Just remember that you have a wound and that man has unknowingly touched your wound.

Try to heal this wound and then nobody can hurt you, there is no possibility; nobody can laugh at you. That doesn't mean that nobody will laugh at you - they may laugh, the whole world may laugh, but you can also join in, you can also laugh with them.

HE GIVES UP HIS EXTERNAL IMPURITIES AS A SNAKE CASTS OFF ITS SLOUGH. SUCH A SEEKER ACQUIRES THE ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE OF ALL THESE THINGS WITH THE GRACE OF THE SCRIPTURES, THE GURU, AND THE SAGES.

Continuously you have to throw your old skin just like a snake. Every moment it becomes old, and every moment you have to come out of it; then only can you remain alive. Otherwise it always happens that you are almost dead before you die - many years before you die.

It happened once, Mulla Nasruddin came to a police station. He reported that his wife was missing, so they asked him to give some details about his wife - how she looked, how old she was. He said, "One of her eyes is missing. She cannot hear, both the ears are missing. She is crippled, she cannot walk rightly, one leg is missing." And then he said, "Before I missed her almost ninety percent was missing already!"

Before you die you will have died many years before. Everybody dies a post-humous death. You can prevent this happening only if you die every moment, if you leave the past completely, jump out of it. Dust gathers, memories gather, every moment you become old. Cast off this old skin just like a snake. Come out of it. Be fresh, young again, and live in the moment. Only then will you be able to know what eternal life is. A dead man cannot know it; only a man who is alive to his full capacity can know it.

SUCH A SEEKER ACQUIRES THE ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE OF ALL THESE THINGS WITH THE GRACE OF THE SCRIPTURES, THE GURU, AND THE SAGES.

Whatsoever you do will need much visible and invisible help. Sometimes you may not be even aware, but many currents of help are around you, helping you; many sources are just pouring down upon you. You will become aware only in the end when you have achieved. Then you will see that you have to thank the whole universe.

Just think: if Buddha was not there, if he had not happened, if Jesus was not there, if he had not happened, if the Upanishads were never written, if Lao Tzu had not accepted to write down the Tao Te Ching, if there was no Bible, no Koran, no Vedas, where would you have been? You would have been just in the trees, you would have been monkeys. The whole universe has been helping you to grow - known, unknown sources.

You may not be aware, but invisible vibrations are in the atmosphere. Once Buddha is there, the human consciousness can never be the same again. We may forget him completely, we may not even know his name - because many buddhas have been there and we don't know their names, they were never recorded - but they are there, invisible sources helping you. And when you grow to your totality, then you will become aware that thousands and thousands of hands have been helping you.

That's why Hindus depict their God with a thousand hands. And you are such a problem that two hands cannot do - thousands even are not of much help. With the grace of the scriptures, with the grace of the master, the guru, with the grace of all the sages, you will achieve. At the second stage this has to become a deep seed within you - the gratitude to all and everything. Even those who have wronged you have also helped you.

Gratitude at the second stage will help you much. And if you become aware, fully alert about this gratitude, then more help will become available. The more you feel the grace and feel thankful, the more grace becomes available to you.

Enough for today.