Fulfillment through becoming centered

Question 1:

There are many questions. The first: IS SELF-ACTUALIZATION A BASIC NEED OF MAN? First, try to understand what is meant by self-actualization. A. H. Maslow has used this term "self- actualization." Man is born as potentiality. He is not really actual - just potential. Man is born as a possibility, not as an actuality. He may become something; he may attain actualization of his potentiality or he may not attain. The opportunity may be used or it may not be used. And nature is not forcing you to become actual. You are free. You can choose to become actual; you can choose not to do anything about it. Man is born as a seed. Thus, no man is born fulfilled - just with the possibility of fulfillment.

If that is the case - and that is the case - then self-actualization becomes a basic need. Because unless you are fulfilled, unless you become what you can be or what you are meant to be, unless your destiny is fulfilled, unless you actually attain, unless your seed becomes a fulfilled tree, you will feel that you are missing something. And everyone is feeling, that he is missing something. That feeling of missing is really because of this, that you are not yet actual.

It is not really that you are missing riches or position, prestige or power. Even if you get whatsoever you demand - riches, power, prestige, anything - you will feel this constant sense of something missing within you, because this something missing is not related with anything outward. It is related with your inner growth. Unless you become fulfilled, unless you come to a realization, a flowering, unless you come to an inner satisfaction in which you feel, "Now this is what I was meant to be," this sense of something missing will be felt. And you cannot destroy this feeling of something missing by anything else.

So self-actualization means a person has become what he was to become. He was born as a seed and now he has flowered. He has come to the complete growth, an inner growth, to the inner end.

The moment you feel that all your potentialities have become actual, you will feel the peak of life, of love, of existence itself.

Abraham Maslow, who has used this term "self-actualization," has also coined another term: "peak experience." When one attains to oneself, he reaches a peak - a peak of bliss. Then there is no hankering after anything. He is totally content with himself. Now nothing is lacking; there is no desire, no demand, no movement. Whatsoever he is, he is totally content with himself. Self-actualization becomes a peak experience, and only a self-actualized person can attain peak experiences. Then whatsoever he touches, whatsoever he is doing or not doing - even just existing - is a peak experience for him; just to be is blissful. Then bliss is not concerned with anything outside, it is just a by-product of the inner growth.

A buddha is a self-actualized person. That is why we picture Buddha, Mahavir and others - why we have made sculptures, pictures, depictions of them - sitting on a fully blossomed lotus. That fully blossomed lotus is the peak of flowering inside. Inside they have flowered and have become fully blossomed. That inner flowering gives a radiance, a constant showering of bliss from them.

All those who come even within their shadows, all those who come near them feel a silent milieu around them.

There is an interesting story about Mahavir. It is a myth, but myths are beautiful and they say much which cannot be said otherwise. It is reported that when Mahavir would move, all around him, in an area of about twenty-four miles, all the flowers would bloom. Even if it was not the season for the flowers, they would bloom. This is simply a poetic expression, but even if one was not self- actualized, if one were to come in contact with Mahavir his flowering would become infectious, and one would feel an inner flowering in oneself also. Even if it was not the right season for a person, even if he was not ready, he would reflect, he would feel an echo. If Mahavir was near someone, that person would feel an echo within himself, and he would have a glimpse of what he could be.

Self-actualization is the basic need. And when I say basic, I mean that if all your needs are fulfilled, all except self-realization, self-actualization, you will feel unfulfilled. In fact, if self-actualization happens and nothing else is fulfilled, still you will feel a deep, total fulfillment. That is why Buddha was a beggar, but yet an emperor.

Buddha came to Kashi when he became enlightened. The king of Kashi came to see him and he asked, "I do not see that you have anything, you are just a beggar, yet I feel myself a beggar in comparison to you. You do not have anything, but the way you walk, the way you look, the way you laugh makes it seem as if the whole world is your kingdom. And you have nothing visible - nothing! So where is the secret of your power? You look like an emperor." Really, no emperor has ever looked like that - as if the whole world belongs to him. "You are the king, but where is your power, the source?"

So Buddha said, "It is in me. My power, my source of power, whatsoever you feel around me is really within me. I do not have anything except myself, but it is enough. I am fulfilled; now I do not desire anything. I have become desireless."

Really, a self-actualized person will become desireless. Remember this. Ordinarily we say that if you become desireless, you will know yourself. The contrary is more true: if you know yourself, you will become desireless. And the emphasis of tantra is not on being desireless, but on becoming self-actualized. Then desirelessness follows.

Desire means you are not fulfilled within, you are missing something so you hanker after it. You go on, from one desire to another, in search of fulfillment. That search never ends because one desire creates another desire. Really, one desire creates ten desires. If you go in search of a desireless state of bliss through desires, you will never reach. But if you try something else - methods of self- actualization, methods of realizing your inner potentiality, of making them actual - then the more you will become actual the less and less desires will be felt, because really, they are felt only because you are empty inside. When you are not empty within, desiring ceases.

What to do about self-actualization? Two things have to be understood. One: self-actualization doesn't mean that if you become a great painter or a great musician or a great poet you will be self- actualized. Of course, a part of you will be actualized, and even that gives much contentment. If you have a potentiality of being a good musician, and if you fulfill it and you become a musician, a part of you will be fulfilled - but not the total. The remaining humanity within you will remain unfulfilled.

You will be lopsided. One part will have grown, and the remaining will have stayed just like a stone hanging around your neck.

Look at a poet. When he is in his poetic mood he looks like a buddha; he forgets himself completely.

The ordinary man in the poetic mood is as if he is no more there. So when a poet is in his mood, he has a peak - a partial peak. And sometimes poets have glimpses which are only possible with enlightened, buddha-like minds. A poet can speak like a buddha. For example, Khalil Gibran speaks like a buddha but he is not a buddha. He is a poet - a great poet.

So if you see Khalil Gibran through his poetry, he looks like Buddha, Christ or Krishna. But if you go and meet the man Khalil Gibran, he is just ordinary. He talks about love so beautifully - even a buddha may not talk so beautifully. But a buddha knows love with his total being. Khalil Gibran knows love in his poetic flight. When he is on his poetic flight, he has glimpses of love - beautiful glimpses. He expresses them with rare insight. But if you go and see the real Khalil Gibran, the man, you will feel a disparity. The poet and the man are far apart. The poet seems to be something which happens to this man sometimes, but this man is not the poet.

That is why poets feel that when they are creating poetry someone else is creating; they are not creating. They feel as if they have become instruments of some other energy, some other force.

They are no more. This feeling comes because, really, their totality is not actualized - only a part of it is, a fragment.

You have not touched the sky. Only one of your fingers has touched the sky, and you remain rooted on the earth. Sometimes you jump, and for a moment you are not on the earth; you have deceived gravity. But the next moment you are on the earth again. When a poet is feeling fulfilled, he will have glimpses - partial glimpses. When a musician is feeling fulfilled, he will have partial glimpses.

It is said of Beethoven that when he was on the stage he was a different man, altogether different.

Goethe has said that when Beethoven was on stage directing his group, his orchestra, he looked like a god. It could not be said that he was an ordinary man. He was not a man at all; he was superhuman. The way he looked, the way he raised his hands, was all superhuman. But when he came back from the stage he was just an ordinary man. The man on the stage seemed to be possessed by something else, as if Beethoven was no more there and some other force had entered into him. Back down from the stage he was again Beethoven, the man.

Because of this, poets, musicians, great artists, creative people are more tense - because they have two types of being. Ordinary man is not so tense because he always lives in one: he lives on the earth. But poets, musicians, great artists jump; they go beyond gravity. In certain moments they are not on this earth, they are not part of humanity. They become part of the buddha world - the land of the buddhas. Then again they are back here. They have two points of existence; their personalities are split.

So every creative artist, every great artist is in a certain way insane. The tension is so much! The rift, the gap between these two types of existences is so great - unbridgeably great. Sometimes he is just an ordinary man; sometimes he becomes buddha-like. Between these two points he is divided, but he has glimpses.

When I say self-actualization, I do not mean that you should become a great poet or you should become a great musician. I mean that you should become a total man. I do not say a great man because a great man is always partial. Greatness in anything is always partial. One moves and moves and moves in one direction, and in all other dimensions, all other directions, one remains the same - one becomes lopsided.

When I say become a total man, I do not mean become a great man. I mean create a balance, be centered, be fulfilled as a man - not as a musician, not as a poet, not as an artist, but fulfilled as a man. What does it mean to be fulfilled as a man? A great poet is a great poet because of great poetry. A great musician is great because of great music. A great man is a great man because of certain things he has done - he may be a great hero. A great man in any direction is partial.

Greatness is partial, fragmentary. That is why great men have to face more anguish than ordinary men.

What is a total man? What is meant by being a whole man, a total man? It means, firstly, be centered; do not exist without a center. This moment you are something, the next moment something else. People come to me and I generally ask them, "Where do you feel your center - in the heart, in the mind, in the navel, where? In the sex center? Where? Where do you feel your center?"

Generally they say, "Sometimes I feel it in the head, sometimes in the heart, sometimes I do not feel it at all." So I tell them to close their eyes before me and feel it just now. In the majority of cases this happens: they say, "Just now, for a moment, I feel that I am centered in the head." But the next moment they are not there. They say, "I am in the heart." And the next moment the center has slipped, it is somewhere else, at the sex center or somewhere else.

Really, you are not centered; you are only momentarily centered. Each moment has its own center, so you go on shifting. When mind is functioning you feel that the head is the center. When you are in love, you feel it is the heart. When you are not doing anything particularly, you are confused - you cannot find out where the center is, because you can find this out only when you are working, doing something. Then a particular part of the body becomes the center. But YOU are not centered. If you are not doing anything, you cannot find where your center of being is.

A total man is centered. Whatsoever he is doing, he remains in the center. If his mind is functioning, he is thinking, thinking goes on in the head but he remains centered in the navel. The center is never missed. He uses the head, but he never moves to the head. He uses the heart, but he never moves to the heart. All these things become instruments, and he remains centered.

Secondly, he is balanced. Of course, when one is centered one is balanced. His life is a deep balance. He is never one-sided, he is never at any extreme - he remains in the middle. Buddha has called this the middle path. He remains always in the middle.

A man who is not centered will always move to the extreme. When he eats he will eat much, he will overeat, or he can fast, but right eating is impossible for him. Fasting is easy, overeating is okay.

He can be in the world, committed, involved, or he can renounce the world - but he can never be balanced. He can never remain in the middle, because if you are not centered you do not know what middle means.

A person who is centered is always in the middle in everything, never at any extreme. Buddha says his eating is right eating; it is neither overeating, nor fasting. His labor is right labor - never too much, never too little. Whatsoever he is, he is always balanced.

First thing: a self-actualized person will be centered.

Second thing: he will be balanced.

Thirdly: if these two things happen - centering, balance - many things will follow. He will always be at ease. Whatsoever the situation, the at-easeness will not be lost. I say whatsoever the situation - unconditionally, the at-easeness will not be lost, because one who is at the center is always at ease.

Even if death comes, he will be at ease. He will receive death as one receives any other guest. If misery comes, he will receive it. Whatsoever happens, it cannot dislodge him from his center. That at-easeness is also a by-product of being centered.

For such a man, nothing is trivial, nothing is great; everything becomes sacred, beautiful, holy - everything! Whatsoever he is doing, whatsoever, it is of ultimate concern - as if of ultimate concern.

Nothing is trivial. He will not say, "This is trivial, this is great." Really, nothing is great, nor is anything small and trivial. The touch of the man is significant. A self-actualized person, a balanced, centered person, changes everything. The very touch makes it great.

If you observe a buddha, you will see that he walks and he loves walking. If you go to Bodhgaya where Buddha attained enlightenment, to the bank of the Niranjana - to the place where he was sitting under the Bodhi tree - you will see that the place of his steps has been marked. He would meditate for one hour, then he would walk around. In Buddhist terminology this is called CHAKRAMAN. He would sit under the Bodhi tree, then he would walk. But he would walk with a serene attitude, as if in meditation.

Someone asked Buddha, "Why do you do this? Sometimes you sit with closed eyes and meditate, then you walk." Buddha said, "Sitting in order to be silent is easy, so I walk. But I carry the same silence within. I sit, but inside I am the same - silent. I walk, but inside I am the same - silent."

The inner quality is the same... When he meets an emperor and when he meets a beggar, a buddha is the same, he has the same inner quality. When meeting a beggar he is not different, when meeting an emperor he is not different; he is the same. The beggar is not a nobody and the emperor is not a somebody. And really, while meeting a buddha, emperors have felt like beggars and beggars have felt like emperors. The touch, the man, the quality remains the same.

When Buddha was alive, every day in the morning he would say to his disciples, "If you have to ask anything, ask." The day he was dying, that morning it was the same. He called his disciples and said, "Now if you want to ask anything, you can ask. And remember, that this is the last morning. Before this day ends, I will be no more." He was the same. That was his daily question in the morning. He was the same! The day was the last, but he was the same. Just as on any other day, he said, "Okay, if you have to ask anything, you can ask - but this is the last day."

There was no change of tone, but the disciples began to weep. They forgot to ask anything. Buddha said, "Why are you weeping? If you would have wept on another day it would have been okay, but this is the last day. By the evening I will be no more, so do not waste time in weeping. Another day it would have been okay; you could have wasted time. Do not waste your time in weeping. Why are you weeping? Ask if you have anything to ask." He was the same in life and death.

So thirdly, the self-actualized man is at ease. Life and death are the same; bliss and misery are the same. Nothing disturbs him, nothing dislocates him from his home, from his centeredness. To such a man you cannot add anything. You cannot take anything out of him, you cannot add anything to him - he is fulfilled. His every breath is a fulfilled breath, silent, blissful. He has attained. He has attained to existence, to being; he has flowered as a total man.

This is not a partial flowering. Buddha is not a great poet. Of course, whatsoever he says is poetry.

He is not a poet at all, but even when he moves, walks, it is poetry. He is not a painter, but whenever he speaks, whatsoever he says becomes a painting. He is not a musician, but his whole being is music par excellence. The man as a totality has attained. So now, whatsoever he is doing or not doing... when he is sitting in silence, not doing anything, even in silence his presence works, creates; it becomes creative.

Tantra is concerned not with any partial growth, it is concerned with you as a total being. So three things are basic: you must be centered, rooted, and balanced; that is, always in the middle - of course, without any effort. If there is effort you are not balanced. And you must be at ease - at ease in the universe, at home in the existence, and then many things follow. This is a basic need, because unless this need is fulfilled you are a man only in name. You are a man as a possibility, you are not actually a man. You can be, you have the potentiality, but the potentiality has to be made actual.

The second question:

Question 2:

'Contemplation' means directed thinking. We all think; that is not contemplation. That thinking is undirected, vague, leading nowhere. Really, our thinking is not contemplation, but what Freudians call association. One thought leads to another without any direction from you. The thought itself leads to another because of association.

You see a dog crossing the street. The moment you see the dog, your mind starts thinking about dogs. The dog has led you to this thought, and then the mind has many associations. When you were a child, you were afraid of a particular dog. That dog comes to the mind and then the childhood comes to the mind. Then dogs are forgotten; then just by association you begin to daydream about your childhood. Then the childhood goes on being connected with other things, and you move in circles.

Whenever you are at ease, try to go backwards from your thinking to where the thoughts came from. Go back, retrace the steps. Then you will see that another thought was there, and that led to this. And they are not logically connected, because how is a dog on the street connected with your childhood?

There is no logical connection - only association in your mind. If I was crossing the street, the same dog would not lead me to my childhood, it would lead to something else. In a third person it would lead to still something else. Everyone has associated chains in the mind. With any one person some happening, some accident will lead to the chain. Then the mind begins to function like a computer.

Then one thing leads to another, another leads to another, and you go on, and the whole day you are doing that.

Write down on a sheet of paper whatsoever comes to your mind, honestly. You will be just amazed what is happening in your mind. There is no relation between two thoughts, and you go on doing this type of thinking. You call this thinking? This is just association of one thought with another, and they lead themselves... you are led.

Thinking becomes contemplation when it moves not through association, but is directed. You are working on a particular problem - then you bracket out all associations. You move on that problem only, you direct your mind. The mind will try to escape to any bypath, to any side route, to some association. You cut off all the side routes; on only one road you direct your mind.

A scientist working on a problem is in contemplation. A logician working on a problem, a mathematician working on a problem is in contemplation. A poet contemplates a flower. Then the whole world is bracketed out, and only that flower and the poet remains, and he moves with the flower. Many things from side routes will attract, but he does not allow his mind to move anywhere.

Mind moves in one line, directed. This is contemplation.

Science is based on contemplation. Any logical thinking is contemplation: thought is directed, thinking guided. Ordinary thinking is absurd. Contemplation is logical, rational.

Then there is 'concentration'. Concentration is staying at one point. It is not thinking; it is not contemplation. It is really being at one point, not allowing the mind to move at all. In ordinary thinking mind moves as a madman. In contemplation the madman is led, directed; he cannot escape anywhere. In concentration the mind is not allowed to move. In ordinary thinking, it is allowed to move anywhere; in contemplation, it is allowed to move only somewhere; in concentration, it is not allowed to move, it is only allowed to be at one point. The whole energy, the whole movement stops, sticks to one point.

Yoga is concerned with concentration, ordinary mind with undirected thinking, the scientific mind with directed thinking. The yogic mind has its thinking focused, fixed at one point; no movement is allowed.

And then there is 'meditation'. In ordinary thinking, mind is allowed to move anywhere; in contemplation, it is allowed only in one direction, all other directions are cut off. In concentration, it is not allowed to move even in one direction; it is allowed only to concentrate on one point. And in meditation, mind is not allowed at all. Meditation is no-mind.

These are four stages: ordinary thinking, contemplation, concentration, meditation.

Meditation means no-mind - not even concentration is allowed. Mind itself is not allowed to be! That is why meditation cannot be grasped by mind. Up to concentration mind has a reach, an approach.

Mind can understand concentration, but mind cannot understand meditation. Really, mind is not allowed at all. In concentration, mind is allowed to be at one point. In meditation, even that point is taken away. In ordinary thinking, all directions are open. In contemplation, only one direction is open. In concentration, only one point is open - no direction. In meditation, even that point is not open: mind is not allowed to be.

Ordinary thinking is the ordinary state of mind, and meditation is the highest possibility. The lowest one is ordinary thinking, association, and the highest, the peak, is meditation - no-mind.

And with the second question, it is also asked: CONTEMPLATION AND CONCENTRATION ARE MENTAL PROCESSES. HOW CAN MENTAL PROCESSES HELP IN ACHIEVING A STATE OF NO-MIND?

The question is significant. Mind asks, how can mind itself go beyond mind? How can any mental process help to achieve something which is not of the mind? It looks contradictory. How can your mind try, make an effort to create a state which is not of mind?

Try to understand. When mind is, what is there? A process of thinking. When there is no-mind, what is there? No process of thinking. If you go on decreasing your process of thinking, if you go on dissolving your thinking, by and by, slowly, you are reaching no-mind. Mind means thinking; no mind means non-thinking. And mind can help. Mind can help in committing suicide. You can commit suicide; you never ask how a man who is alive can help himself to be dead. You can help yourself to be dead - everyone is trying to help. You can help yourself to be dead, and you are alive. Mind can help to be no-mind. How can mind help?

If the process of thinking becomes more and more dense, then you are proceeding from mind to more mind. If the process of thinking becomes less dense, is decreased, is slowed down, you are helping yourself toward no-mind. It depends on you. And mind can be a help, because really, mind is what you are doing with your consciousness this very moment. If you leave your consciousness alone, without doing anything with it, it becomes meditation.

So there are two possibilities: either slowly, gradually you decrease your mind, by and by. If one percent is decreased, then you have ninety-nine percent mind and one percent no-mind within you.

It is as if you have removed some furniture from your room - then some space is created there.

Then you remove more furniture, and more space is created there. When you have removed all the furniture, the whole room becomes space.

Really, space is not created by removing the furniture, the space was already there. It is only that the space was occupied by the furniture. When you remove the furniture, no space comes in from outside; the space was there, occupied by furniture. You have removed the furniture, and the space is recovered, reclaimed. Deep down mind is space occupied, filled by thoughts. If you remove some thoughts, space is created - or discovered, or reclaimed. If you go on removing your thoughts, by and by you go on regaining your space. This space is meditation.

Slowly it can be done - suddenly also. There is no need to go on for lives together removing the furniture, because there are problems. When you start to remove the furniture, one percent space is created and ninety-nine percent space is occupied. That ninety-nine percent occupied space will not feel good about the unoccupied space; it will try to fill it. So one goes on slowly decreasing thoughts and then again creating new thoughts.

In the morning you sit for meditation for some time; you slow down your process of thought. Then you go to the market, and again there is a rush of thoughts. The space is filled again. The next day you again do this, and you go on doing this - throwing it out, and inviting it in again.

You can also throw all the furniture out suddenly. It is your decision. It is difficult because you have become accustomed to the furniture. You may feel uncomfortable without the furniture; you will not know what to do with that space. You may become afraid even to move in that space. You have never moved in such freedom.

Mind is a conditioning. We have become accustomed to thoughts. Have you ever observed - or if you have not observed, then observe - that you go on repeating the same thoughts every day. You are like a gramophone record, and then too not a fresh, new one - old. You go on and on repeating the same things. Why? What is the use of it? Only one use, it is just a long habit; you feel you are doing something.

You are lying on your bed just waiting for sleep to come and the same things are repeated every day.

Why are you doing this? It helps in a way. Old habits, conditionings, help. A child needs a toy. If the toy is given to him, he will fall into sleep; then you can take away the toy. But if the toy is not there, the child cannot fall into sleep. It is a conditioning. The moment the toy is given to him, it triggers something in his mind. Now he is ready to fall into sleep.

The same is happening with you. The toys may differ. One person cannot fall into sleep unless he starts chanting, "Ram, Ram, Ram..." He cannot fall into sleep! This is a toy. If he chants, "Ram, Ram, Ram..." the toy is given to him; he can fall into sleep.

You feel difficulty in falling asleep in a new room. If you are accustomed to sleeping in particular clothes, then you will need those particular clothes every day. Psychologists say that if you sleep in a nightgown and it is not given to you, you will feel difficulty in falling asleep. Why? If you have never slept naked and you are told to sleep naked, you will not feel at ease. Why? There is no relationship between nakedness and sleep, but for you there is a relationship, an old habit. With old habits one feels at ease, comfortable.

Thinking patterns are also just habits. You feel comfortable - the same thoughts every day, the same routine. You feel everything is okay.

You have investments in your thoughts - that is the problem. Your furniture is not just rubbish to be thrown; you have invested many, many things in it. All the furniture can be thrown immediately: it can be done! There are sudden methods of which we will speak. Immediately, this very moment, you can be freed of your whole mental furniture. But then you will be suddenly vacant, empty, and you will not know who you are. Now you will not know what to do because for the first time your old patterns are no more. The shock may be too sudden. You may even die, or you may go mad.

That is why sudden methods are not used. Unless one is ready, sudden methods are not used.

One may go suddenly mad because one may miss all the moorings. The past drops immediately, and when past drops immediately you cannot conceive of the future, because the future was always conceived of in terms of the past.

Only the present remains, and you have never been in the present. Either you were in the past or in the future. So when you are just in the present for the first time, you will feel you have gone berserk, mad. That is why sudden methods are not used unless you are working in a school, unless you are working with a master in a group, unless you are totally devoted, unless you have dedicated your whole life for meditation.

So gradual methods are good. They take a long time, but by and by you become accustomed to space. You begin to feel the space and the beauty of it, and the bliss of it, and then your furniture is removed by and by.

So from ordinary thinking it is good to become contemplative - that is the gradual method.

From contemplation it is good to move to concentration - that is the gradual method. And from concentration it is good to take a jump into meditation. Then you are moving slowly, feeling the ground at every step. And when you are really rooted in one step, only then do you begin to go for the next one. It is not a jump, it is a gradual growth. So these four things - ordinary thinking, contemplation, concentration, meditation - are four steps.

The third question:

Question 3:

One basic thing to be understood: the heart and head centers are to be developed, not the navel center. The navel center is just to be discovered; it is not to be developed. The navel center is already there. You have to uncover, or discover it. It is there fully developed, you are not to develop it. The heart center and the head center are developments. They are not there to be discovered, they have to be developed. Society, culture, education, conditioning help to develop them.

But you are born with a navel center. Without the navel center you cannot be. You can be without the heart center, you can be without the head center. They are not necessities; it is good to have them, but you can be without them. It will be very inconvenient, but you can be without them. However, without the navel center you cannot be. It is not just a necessity, it is your life.

So there are techniques for how to develop the heart center - how to grow in love, how to grow in sensitivity, how to become a more sensitive mind. There are methods and techniques for how to become more rational, more logical. Reason can be developed, emotion can be developed, but existence cannot be developed. It is already there; it has to be discovered.

Many things are implied in this. One: it may not be possible for you to have a mind, a reasoning faculty, like Einstein. But you can become a buddha. Einstein is a mind center functioning at its perfection. Or someone else... a lover. A Majnu is functioning at his heart center in its perfection.

You may not be able to become a Majnu, but you can become a buddha because buddhahood is not to be developed in you: it is already there. It is concerned with the basic center, the original center - the navel. It is already there. You are already a buddha, only unaware.

You are not already an Einstein. You will have to try, and then too there is no guarantee that you will become one. There is no guarantee because really, it seems impossible. Why does it seem impossible? Because to develop the head of Einstein needs the same growth, the same milieu, the same training as was given to him. It cannot be repeated because it is unrepeatable. First you will have to find the same parents, because the training begins in the womb. It is difficult to find the same parents - impossible. How can you find the same parents, the same date of birth, the same home, the same associates, the same friends? You will have to repeat the life of Einstein exactly - ditto! If even one point is missing, you will be a different man.

So that is impossible. Any individual is born only once in this world because the same situation cannot be repeated. The same situation is such a big phenomenon. It means there must be the same world in the same moment! It is not possible - it is impossible. And you are already here, so whatsoever you do, your past will be in it. You cannot become an Einstein. Individuality cannot be repeated.

Buddha is not an individual, Buddha is a phenomenon. No individual factors are meaningful; just your being is enough to be a buddha. The center is already there, functioning; you have to discover it. So the techniques for the heart are techniques for developing something, and the techniques concerning the navel center are concerned with uncovering. You have to uncover. You are already a buddha, you only have to know the fact.

So there are two types of persons - buddhas who know that they are buddhas, and buddhas who do not know that they are buddhas. But all are buddhas. As far as existence is concerned, everyone is the same. Only in existence is there communism; in everything else communism is absurd. No one is equal, inequality is basic in everything else. So it may look like a paradox if I say that only religion leads to communism, but I mean THIS communism: this deep equality of existence, of being. In this you are equal to Buddha, to Christ, to Krishna, but in no other way are two individuals equal.

Inequality is basic as far as outer life is concerned; equality is basic as far as inner life is concerned.

So these one hundred and twelve methods are not really for developing the navel center; they are for uncovering it. That is why instantly sometimes one becomes a buddha, because there is no question of creating something. If you can look at yourself, if you can go deep down into yourself, all that you need is already there. It is already the case, so the only question is how to be thrown to that point where you are already a buddha. Meditation doesn't help you to be a buddha, it only helps you to become aware of your buddhahood.

One question more:

Question 4:

Every enlightened one is navel centered, but the expression of each enlightened one may flow through other centers. Understand the distinction clearly. Every enlightened one is navel centered; there is no other possibility. But the expression is a different thing.

Ramakrishna expresses himself from the heart. He uses his heart as the vehicle of his message.

Whatsoever he has found at the navel he expresses through his heart. He sings, he dances - that is his way of expressing his bliss. The bliss is found at the navel, nowhere else. He is centered at the navel, but how to say to others that he is centered at the navel? He uses his heart for the expression.

Krishnamurti uses his head for that expression; that is why their expressions are contradictory. If you believe in Ramakrishna you cannot believe in Krishnamurti. If you believe in Krishnamurti you cannot believe in Ramakrishna, because belief is always centered in the expression, not in the experience. Ramakrishna looks childish to a man who thinks with reason: "What is this nonsense - dancing, singing? What is he doing? Buddha never danced, and this Ramakrishna is dancing. He looks childish."

To reason the heart always looks childish, but to the heart reason looks useless, superficial.

Whatsoever Krishnamurti says is the same. The experience is the same as it was for Ramakrishna or Chaitanya or Meera. But if the person is head centered, his explanation, expression is rational. If Ramakrishna sees Krishnamurti he will say, "Come on, let us dance. Why waste your time? Through dance it can be expressed more easily, and it goes deeper." Krishnamurti will say, "Dance? One gets hypnotized through dance. Do not dance. Analyze! Reason! Reason it out, analyze, be aware."

These are different centers being used for expression, but the experience is the same. One can paint the experience - Zen masters have painted their experience. When they became enlightened, they would paint it. They would not say anything, they would just paint it. The RISHIS, sages, of the Upanishads have created beautiful poetry. When they became enlightened they would create poetry. Chaitanya used to dance; Ramakrishna used to sing. Buddha and Mahavir used the head, reason, to explain, to say whatsoever they had experienced. They created great systems of thought to express their experience.

But the experience is neither rational nor emotional: it is beyond both. There have been few persons, very few, who could express through both the centers. You can find many Krishnamurtis, you can find many Ramakrishnas, but only sometimes does it happen that a person can express through both the centers. Then the person becomes confusing. Then you are never at ease with that man because you cannot conceive of any relationship between the two; they appear contradictory.

If I say something, when I say it I must say it through reason. So I attract many people who are rationalistic, head-oriented. Then one day they see that I allow singing and dancing and they become uncomfortable: "What is this? There is no relationship..." But to me there is no contradiction. Dancing is also a way of speaking - and sometimes a deeper way. Reason is also a way of speaking - and sometimes a very clear way. So both are ways of expression.

If you see Buddha dancing, you will be in difficulty. If you see Mahavir playing on a flute, standing naked, then you will not be able to sleep. What happened to Mahavir? Has he gone mad? With Krishna the flute is okay, but with Mahavir it is absolutely unbelievable. A flute in the hand of Mahavir?

Inconceivable! You cannot even imagine it. But the reason is not that there is any contradiction between Mahavir and Krishna, Buddha and Chaitanya; it is due to difference of expression. Buddha will attract a particular type of mind - the head-oriented mind - and Chaitanya and Ramakrishna will attract quite the opposite - the heart-oriented mind.

But difficulties arise. A person like me creates difficulties: I attract both, and then no one is at ease.

Whenever I am talking, then the head-oriented person is at ease, but whenever I allow the other type of expression the head-oriented one becomes uneasy. And the same happens to the other - when some emotional method is used the heart-oriented one feels at ease, but when I discuss, when I reason out something, then he is absent, he is not here. He says, "This is not for me."

One lady came just a day before, and she said, "I was at Mount Abu, but then there was a difficulty.

The first day when I heard you it was beautiful, it appealed to me; I was just thrilled. But then I saw KIRTAN - devotional chanting and dancing - so I decided to leave immediately; that was not for me.

I went to the bus station, but then there was a problem. I wanted to hear you talk, so I came back. I didn't want to miss what you were saying." She must have been in difficulty. She said to me, "It was so contradictory."

It appeared so because these centers are contradictory, but this contradiction is in YOU. Your head is not at ease with your heart; they are in conflict. Because of your inner conflict, Ramakrishna and Krishnamurti appear to be in conflict. Create a bridge between your head and your heart, and then you will know that these are mediums.

Ramakrishna was absolutely uneducated - no development of reason. He was pure heart. Only one center was developed, the heart. Krishnamurti is pure reason. He was in the hands of some of the most vigorous rationalists - Annie Besant, Leadbeater and the Theosophists. They were the great system-makers of this century. Really, theosophy is one of the greatest systems ever created, absolutely rational. He was brought up by rationalists; he is pure reason. Even if he talks about heart and love, the very expression is rational.

Ramakrishna is different. Even if he talks about reason, he is absurd. Totapuri came to him, and Ramakrishna began to learn VEDANTA from him. So Totapuri said, "Leave all this devotional nonsense. Leave this Kali, the mother, absolutely. Unless you leave all this I am not going to teach you, because VEDANTA is not devotion, it is knowledge." So Ramakrishna said, "Okay, but allow me one moment so that I can go and ask the mother if I may leave everything, this whole nonsense.

Allow me one moment to ask the mother."

This is a heart-oriented man. Even to leave the mother he will have to ask her. "And," he said, "she is so loving, she will allow me, so you do not bother." Totapuri could not understand what he had said. Ramakrishna said, "She is so loving, she has never said no to me at any time. If I say, 'Mother, I am to leave you because now I am learning VEDANTA and I cannot do this devotional nonsense, so allow me please,' she will allow. She will give me total freedom to drop it."

Create a bridge between your head and heart, and then you will see that all those who have ever become enlightened speak the same thing, only their languages may differ.