The search for the rhythm of the opposites

One of the greatest poets, Walt Whitman, is reported to have said, "I contradict myself because I am big, I contradict myself because I contain all the opposites, because I am all." The same thing can be said about Shiva, about Tantra.

Tantra is the search for the rhythm of opposites, of contradictions. Contradictory, opposite standpoints become one in Tantra. This has to be deeply understood, only then will you be able to understand why there are so many contradictory, different techniques. Life is a rhythm between opposites: male and female, positive and negative, day and night, birth and death. Between these opposites moves the river of life. The opposites are the banks - they appear to be contradictory, but they are co-operative. The appearance is false. Life cannot exist without this rhythm between the opposites. And life contains all. Tantra is neither for this nor for that - Tantra is for all. Tantra has no standpoint of its own really. All standpoints that are possible are contained in it. It is big. It can contradict itself because it contains all. It is not partial, it is the whole. Hence it is holy.

All partial standpoints are bound to be profane; they cannot be holy if they don't contain the opposite.

They may be logical and rational, but they cannot be alive. Wherever life exists, it exists through its opposite. It cannot exist alone, the opposite is a must.

In Greek mythology, two gods are at polar opposites: Apollo and Dionysius. Apollo is the god of order, discipline, virtue, morality, culture, and Dionysius is the god of disorder, chaos, freedom, nature. Both are polar opposites. Almost all religions are more or less based on the Apollonian standpoint. They believe in reason, they believe in order, they believe in virtue, they believe in discipline, control... really they believe in the ego.

But Tantra is basically different: it contains both. It contains the Dionysian standpoint also. It believes in nature, it believes in chaos, it believes in laughing and dancing and singing; it is not just serious, it is both. It is BOTH serious and non-serious. Nietzsche writes in one of his letters, "I can believe only in a dancing god." He couldn't find any dancing god. Had he known something about Shiva then the story of his life would have been totally different. Shiva is the dancing god. Nietzsche knew only about the Christian god. That is the only standpoint - very serious. Sometimes the seriousness of the Christian god looks absurd, childish, because the opposite is denied completely.

You cannot conceive of a Christian god dancing. Impossible! Dancing looks too earthly. And you cannot conceive of a Christian god laughing - or can you? It is impossible. The Christian god cannot laugh. Laughter will look too worldly. The Christian god is the very spirit of seriousness and Nietzsche couldn't believe in it.

And I think that no one can believe in such a god because it is half, it is not the whole. Only persons like Billy Graham can believe in it. Somewhere Billy Graham says very seriously that when you are reading sexy magazines you must remember that God is looking at you. This looks foolish. You are reading a sexy magazine and God is reading you reading the sexy magazines! This very attitude is stupid. It is stupid because it doesn't contain the opposite. You will become stupid and dead if the opposite is denied. But if you can move to the opposite easily with no contradiction, if you can be serious and you can be laughing, if you can sit like a Buddha and you can dance like a Krishna and there is no inherent opposition between these two - you can move from being a Buddha towards being a Krishna easily and smoothly - if you can do this, you will be alive. And if you can do this you will be a Tantric, because Tantra is the basic search for the rhythm which exists between the opposites, for the river which flows between the opposites.

So Tantra goes on working on all and every technique possible. Tantra is not for someone, it is for all. Every type of mind can move through Tantra. Every type of mind cannot be Christian, every type of mind cannot be Hindu, every type of mind cannot be Buddhist. A particular type of mind will be attracted by Buddha, a particular type by Jesus, a particular type by Mohammed. Shiva contains all. Shiva can have an appeal for every type possible. The total, the whole has been included, it is not a partial standpoint. That is why Tantra has no sect. You cannot create a sect around the whole you can create a sect only around a fragment. You can live the whole, but you cannot create a sect. A sect can be created only when you are for something and against something else. If both the opposites are contained, how can you create a sectarian mind? Tantra is the essential religion, it is not a sect. Hence so many techniques.

People keep on coming to me and asking, "There are so many techniques and one technique contradicts the other?' Yes, it contradicts the other because it is not meant for a particular mind.

In these hundred and twelve techniques, all the types, all the possible types of humanity have been included. Please don't be concerned with all the techniques, otherwise you will get confused. You simply find that which suits you, that which appeals to you. Towards it you will feel a deep affinity, an attraction; you will fall in love with it. Then forget all the remaining one hundred and eleven techniques Forget them. You just stick to the one that works for you. In these one hundred and twelve techniques, only one technique is for you. If you try many techniques you will get confused, because to try so many techniques you will need a very big mind which can absorb contradiction.

That is not possible right now. One day it may become possible. You can become so complete, so total, that you can move easily with many techniques. Then there will be no problem. But then there will also be no need! Right now is the need. Find your technique.

I can be helpful to you in finding which technique will be suitable for you. And if you feel that other techniques are contradictory to the technique that suits you, don't think about them. They are contradictory. But they are not for you. At least they are not for you now. One day it may become possible that when you don't have the ego within, you can move to the opposite without any problem.

The ego creates the problem. It is stuck somewhere, it clings to something, it is not liquid, it cannot flow. And Shiva is flowing in all directions.

So remember, don't start thinking about these techniques: that this technique is against that. Shiva is not trying to create a system, he is not a system-maker. Shiva is giving all the techniques without any systematizing. They cannot be systematized, because a system means that the contradictory, the opposite, must be denied. And here the opposite is included. It is both Apollo and Dionysius; it is both serious and laughing; it is both immanent and transcendent; it is both earthly and unearthly - because it is all.

Now we should enter the techniques:

The first technique:

IMAGINE SPIRIT SIMULTANEOUSLY WITHIN AND AROUND YOU UNTIL THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE SPIRITUALIZES.

First you must understand what imagination is. It is condemned very much nowadays. The moment you hear the word "imagine' you will say this is useless, we want something real, not imaginary. But imagination is a reality, it is a capacity, it is a potentiality within you. You can imagine. That shows that your being is capable of imagination. This capacity is a reality. Through this imagination you can destroy or you can create yourself. That depends on you. Imagination is very powerful. It is potential power.

What is imagination? It is getting into an attitude so deeply that the very attitude becomes reality.

For example, you may have heard about a technique which is used in Tibet. They call it heat yoga.

The night is cold, snow is falling, and the Tibetan lama will be standing naked under the open sky.

The temperature is below zero. You would simply start dying, you would freeze. But the lama is practicing a particular technique. That technique is that he is imagining that his body is a burning fire and he is imagining that he is perspiring - the heat is so much that he is perspiring.. And he actually starts perspiring although the temperature is below zero and even the blood should freeze.

He starts perspiring. What is happening? This perspiration is real, his body is really hot - but this reality is created through imagination.

You just try some simple technique so that you can feel how reality can be created through imagination. Unless you feel it, you cannot work with this technique. Just count your pulse. Sit in a closed room and count your pulse. And then for five minutes just imagine that you are running.

Imagine that you are running, it is hot, you are taking deep breaths, you are perspiring, and your pulse rate is going high. After imagining this for five minutes again count your pulse. You will see the difference: your pulse rate will be high. You have worked it just by imagination, you were not really running.

In old Tibet, Buddhist monks used to do exercise only through imagination. And those techniques can be of much use for modern man, because it is difficult to run in the street, difficult to have a long walk, difficult to find a lonely street. You can just lie down on the floor in your room and imagine that for one hour continuously you are taking a long fast walk. Just in imagination go on walking. And now even medical experts say that the effect would be the same as if it were a real walk. Once you get in tune with your imagination, the body starts functioning. You are already doing many things without knowing that it is your imagination working. Many times you create many illnesses just through imagination; you imagine that now this disease is there, infectious, it is all over the place.

You have become receptive, now there is every possibility that you will fall ill - and that illness is real. But it has been created through imagination. Imagination is a force, an energy, and the mind moves through it. And when the mind moves through it, the body follows.

It happened once in a university hostel in the United States that four students were trying an experiment in hypnosis. Hypnosis is nothing but imagination power. When you hypnotize a person, he is really falling into deep imagination, and whatsoever you suggest will start happening. So they suggested many things to a boy that they had hypnotized. Four boys tried hypnosis on one. They tried many things and whatsoever they said, the boy immediately followed. When they said, "Jump,"

the boy started jumping. When they said, "Weep," the boy started weeping. When they said, "Tears are flowing from your eyes," tears started flowing. Then just as a joke they said, "Now lie down. You are dead!" And the boy lay down and he was dead.

This happened in nineteen fifty-two. After that they made a law against hypnosis in the United States. No one should try hypnosis unless some research work is involved; unless some medical institute, or some psychological department of some university authorizes you. Only then can you experiment. Otherwise it is dangerous - the boy simply believed, imagined, that he was dead, and he was dead.

If death can occur through imagination, why not life, why not more life?

This technique is based on the power of imagination. IMAGINE SPIRIT SIMULTANEOUSLY WITHIN AND AROUND YOU UNTIL THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE SPIRITUALIZES.

Just sit in a lonely place where no one will disturb you - a lonely secluded room will do. Or if you can get somewhere outside it will be better, because when you are near nature you are more imaginative.

When there are only man-made things around you, you are less imaginative. Nature is dreaming, and it gives you a dreaming force. Alone you become more imaginative: that's why you are afraid when you are alone. It is not that ghosts are going to trouble you, but alone your imagination can work. And your imagination can create ghosts or anything you want it to. When you move alone, your imagination is more potential; when someone else is there, your reason is in control Because without reason you cannot be related to the others; to others goes on working. When there is no one there, the mind goes on working. When there is no one there, the mind relaxes and you regress to a deeper imaginative layer of the being. When you are alone, imagination starts functioning.

Many experiments have been done with sensory deprivation. If a person can be deprived of all sensory stimuli - if you are closed in a soundproof room with no light entering it, no possibility of being related to any other human being, no pictures on the walls, nothing in the room to which you can relate - after one, two or three hours you will start relating to yourself. You will become imaginative. You will start talking to yourself. You will question and you will answer. A monologue will start in which you will be divided. Then suddenly you will start feeling many things which you cannot understand. You will start hearing sounds, but the room is soundproof, no sound can come in. Now you are imagining. You may start smelling perfumes, but no perfume is there. Now you are imagining. After thirty-six hours of sensory deprivation, you cannot make any difference between what is real and what is imaginary - impossible. After thirty-six hours of sensory deprivation, imagination becomes reality and reality becomes illusory.

That is why seekers in the old days would move to the mountains, to the lonely places, where they could lose the distinction between the real and the unreal. Once the distinction is lost, your imagination is in full force. Now you can use it and you can be creative through it.

For this technique sit in a lonely place: if the surrounding is natural, it is good, it not, then a room can also do. Then close your eyes and imagine a spiritual force is felt within and without. Within you a river of consciousness is flowing and it is going all over the room, overflowing. Within and without, around you, everywhere, spirit is present, energy is present. And don't only imagine it only in the mind, start feeling within the body - your body will start vibrating. When you feel that the body has started vibrating, it shows that the imagination has started functioning. Feel that the whole universe by and by is spiritualized - everything, the walls of the room, the trees around you, everything has become no-material, it has become spiritual. Matter is no more.

That is the reality also. Physicists say that matter is illusory and energy is real, and wherever you see solid things, that solidity is just an appearance, it is not there. As physics enters deeper into the world of matter, matter disappears. Only energy, immaterial energy, remains indefinable.

Through imagination you are reaching to a point where, by your conscious effort, you are destroying the structures of the intellect, the patterns of the intellect. You feel that there is no matter, only energy, only spirit, within and without. Soon you will feel that within and without have disappeared.

When your body becomes spiritual and you feel it is energy, then there is no distinction between the within and the without. The boundaries are lost. Now there is only a flow, an ocean, vibrating. This is the real also - you are reaching to the real through imagination.

What is imagination doing? Imagination is only destroying the old concepts, matter, old patterns of the mind which go on looking at things in a certain way. Imagination is destroying them. And then the reality will be revealed.

IMAGINE SPIRIT SIMULTANEOUSLY WITHIN AND AROUND YOU UNTIL THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE SPIRITUALIZES - until you feel that all distinctions have disappeared, all boundaries have dissolved and the universe has become just an ocean of energy. That is the fact, also. But the deeper you proceed in the technique, the more scared you will become. You will feel as if you are going mad. Because your sanity consists of distinctions, your sanity consists of this so- called reality and when the reality starts disappearing, you will feel that simultaneously your sanity is disappearing. Saints and insane persons move in a world which is beyond our so-called reality.

They both move, but the insane persons fall and saints go beyond. The difference is very small but it is very great also. If without any effort on your part you lose your mind and the distinctions, the real and the unreal, you will become insane. But if you destroy the concepts with conscious effort, you will become "un-sane," not insane. That "un-sanity" is the dimension of religion. It is beyond sanity.

But conscious effort is needed. You should not be a victim, you should remain a master. When it is your effort which is destroying the patterns of the mind, you look into the unpatterned reality.

The unpatterned reality is the only reality; the patterned reality is just imposed. That's why now anthropologists say that every society, every culture, looks at the same reality but finds a different reality there, because their patterns, their concepts are different. There are many cultures in the world, primitive cultures. They look at the same world in a very different way; their interpretation is totally different. The reality is the same for us and for them, but the pattern looked through is different. For example, Buddhists say that there is no substance in the world, the world is a process.

There is nothing substantial. Everything is in movement - or even that may not be the right thing to say. Movement is the only thing. When we say that everything is in movement, again there is the old fallacy - it is as if there is something which is moving. Buddha says there is nothing which is moving - only movement is there. That is all that there is. So in a Buddhist country like Thailand or Burma, they don't have any corresponding word for "is" in their languages. When the Bible was translated into Thai for the first time, it became a problem to translate it because in the Bible it is said that "God is." You cannot say that "God is" in Burmese or in Thai; you cannot say it. Whatsoever they say will mean, "God is becoming." Everything is moving, nothing is. When a Burmese looks at the world, he looks at movement. When we look, when particularly the Greek-oriented Western mind looks, there is no process, only substance. There are dead things, not movements. Even when you look at a river, you see the river as "is." The river is not there - the river just means a movement, something which is constantly becoming. And a point never comes where you say it has become, it is a process without end. When we look at a tree, we see the tree "is". The Burmese language has nothing to say. They can only say that the tree is becoming, the tree is flowing, the tree is growing, the tree is in process. If the child is brought up with this pattern in the mind - then everything is a process - the world, the reality, will be totally different. For you it is different and the reality is one and the same. But what mind do you bring to it to interpret it? Then it changes.

Remember one basic thing: unless the pattern of your mind is thrown away, unless you are "de- patterned", unless your conditioning is thrown away and you are deconditioned, you will not know what reality is - you will know only interpretations. Those interpretations are the workings of your own mind. Unpatterned reality is the only reality. And this technique is to help you to unpattern, to decondition, to dissolve from the mind the words which have gathered there. You cannot look because of them. Whatsoever looks real to you let it be dissolved.

Imagine energy, not substance, nothing static, but process, movement, rhythm, dance, and go on imagining until the entire universe spiritualizes. If you persist, within three months of intensively working for just one hour every day, you can move to this feeling. Within three months you can have a different feeling of the whole existence around you. Matter is no longer there, only immaterial, oceanic existence, just waves, vibrations. When this happens then you know what God is. That ocean of energy is God. God is not a person. God is not somewhere sitting on a throne in heaven.

The whole creative energy of existence is God. But we have a pattern of thinking. We say God is the creator. God is not the creator. Rather, God is the creative force, the very creation itself.

It has been forced again and again on our minds that somewhere in the past, God created the world - and then and there creation finished. Christians have a story that within six days God created the world and on the seventh day he rested. That's why the seventh day, Sunday, is a holiday. God took a holiday on that day. In six days he created the world, forever and ever - and since then there has been no creation. Since the sixth day there has been no creation. This is a very dead concept.

Tantra says God is the very creativity. Creation is not a historical event that happened somewhere in the past - it is happening every moment, God is creating every moment. But again language creates a problem and we say, "God is creating." It feels that God is someone who goes on creating.

No, the very creativity that goes on moving and moving every moment, that very creativity is God.

So you are in creation every moment. This is a very alive concept. It is not that God has created something somewhere and since then there has been no dialogue between man and God, there has been really no connection, no relationship - he created and the thing was finished. Tantra says that every moment you are being created, eery moment you are in deep relationship with the divine, with the source of creativity. This is a very alive concept.

Through this technique you will have glimpse of the creative force, within and without. And once you can feel the creative force and the touch, the impact of it, you will become totally different, you will never be the same again. God has entered you.You have become an abode.

The second technique:

WITH YOUR ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE VERY START OF DESIRE, OF KNOWING, KNOW.

The basic thing about this technique is ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS. If you can bring your entire consciousness to anything, it will become a transforming force. The transformation happens whenever you are entire in it - in anything. But that is difficult, because wherever we are, we are only there in part, never in entirety.

You are here listening to me. This very listening can become a transformation. If you are entirely here, this very moment here and now, if listening is your entirety, that listening will become a meditation: you will enter a different realm of ecstasy, a separate reality. But you are not entire.

That is the problem with the human mind, it is always partial. A part is listening. Other parts may be somewhere else, or may be asleep, or may be thinking about what is being said, or arguing inside. That creates a division and division is a dissipation of energy. So when doing anything bring your entire being to it. When you are not holding anything back, not even a minor part is separate, when you have taken a jump, total, whole, your whole being has come into it, then any act becomes meditative.

It is reported that one day Rinzai was working in his garden - Rinzai was a Zen master - and somebody approached. The man had come to ask some philosophical questions. He was a philosophical seeker. He didn't know that the man who was working in the garden was Rinzai himself. He thought he must be a gardener, a servant, so he asked, "Where is Rinzai?" Rinzai said,"Rinzai is always here." Of course, the man thought that this gardener seemed to be mad because he said that Rinzai was always here. So he thought it would not be good to ask anything of this man again and he started moving off to ask someone else. Rinzai said, "Don't go anywhere, because you will not find him anywhere. He is always here." But he escaped from this madman.

Then he inquired from others and they said, "The first man you met is Rinzai." So he came back and said, "Forgive me, I am sorry, I thought you were mad. I have come to inquire about something. I want to now what truth is. What should I do to know it?" Rinzai said, "Do whatsoever you want to do, but do it entirely."

The point is not what you do, that is irrelevant. The point is that you do it entirely.

"For example," Rinzai said, "when I am digging this hole in the earth, my entirely is there in the act of digging. There is no Rinzai left behind. The whole has gone into the digging. Really there is no digger left, only the digging. If the digger is left, then you are divided."

You are listening to me. If the listener is left, then you are not entire. If there is only listening and there is no listener left behind you are entire, here and now. Then this very moment becomes a meditation. In this sutra Shiva says, WITH YOUR ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE VERY START OF DESIRE, OF KNOWING, KNOW. If a desire arises within you, Tantra doesn't say to fight it. That is futile. No one can fight a desire. It is foolish also, because whenever you start fighting with something within you, you are fighting with yourself, you will become schizophrenic, your personality will be split. And all these so-called religions have helped humanity to by and by become schizophrenic. Everybody is split, everybody is divided and fighting with himself because so-called religions have told you, "This is bad. Don't do this." If the desire comes, what to do? You go on fighting with the desire. Tantra says don't fight the desire. But that doesn't mean that you become a victim of it. That doesn't mean that you indulge in it. Tantra gives you a very subtle technique. When desire arises, be alert just at the beginning with your entirety. Look at it with your entirety. Become the look. Don't leave the looker behind. Bring your total consciousness to this arising desire. This is a very subtle method, but wonderful. Miraculous are its effects.

Three things have to be understood. Firstly, when desire has already arisen you cannot do anything.

Then it will take its full course, it will complete its circle, and you cannot do anything. Just in the beginning something can be done - the seed should be burned then and there. Once the seed has sprouted and the tree has started growing, it is difficult, almost impossible, to do something.

Whatsoever you do will create more anguish, dissipation of energy, frustration, weakness. When the desire arises, just at the beginning, just at the first glimpse, the first flicker that a desire is arising, bring your total consciousness, the entirety of your being to look at it. Don't do anything. Nothing else is needed. With the entire being the look is so fiery that the seed is burned, with no struggle, with no conflict, with no antagonism. Just a deep look with the entire being and the arriving desire disappears completely. And when a desire disappears without a fight, it leaves you so powerful, with such immense energy, with such tremendous awareness, you cannot imagine it. If you fight, you will be defeated. Even if you are not defeated and you defeat the desire, that too will amount to the same thing. No energy will be left. You will feel frustrated whether you win or get defeated. In both cases you will be weak in the end, because the desire was fighting with your energy and you were fighting with the same energy. The energy was coming from the same source, you were taking from the same source - so the source will be weakened whatsoever the result. But if the desire disappears just in the beginning, without any conflict - remember, this is basic - without any fight, with just a look, not even an antagonistic look, not even with a mind to destroy, with no enmity, just a total look, in the intensity of that total look the seed is burnt. And when the desire, arising desire, disappears, just like smoke in the sky, you are left with tremendous energy - that very energy is bliss. That will give you a beauty of its own, a grace.

The so-called saints who are fighting their desires are always ugly. When I say ugly, I mean they are always mean, fighting. Their whole personality becomes graceless. And they are always weak, always lacking energy, because all their energy is used up in the inner fight. A Buddha is totally different. And the grace that has come to Buddha's personality is the grace of desires disappearing without any struggle or fight, without any inner violence.

WITH YOUR ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE VERY START OF DESIRE, OF KNOWING, KNOW. In that very moment simply know, look, see. Don't do anything. Nothing else is needed. All that is needed is that your total being should be there present. Your total presence is needed. This is one of the secrets of achieving the ultimate enlightenment without any violence. And remember, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God with violence. No, those doors shall never open for you, howsoever much you knock. Knock and go on knocking. You may break your head but those doors will never open. But for those who deep inside are non-violent and not fighting with anything, those doors are always open, they were never closed. Jesus said, "Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you." I say to you that there is no need even to knock. Look, the doors are open. They have always been open. They were never closed. Just take a deep look, entire, total, whole.

The third technique:

O SHAKTI, EACH PARTICULAR PERCEPTION IS LIMITED, DISAPPEARING IN OMNIPOTENCE.

Whatsoever we see is limited, whatsoever we feel is limited, all perceptions are limited. But if you can become aware, then every limited thing is disappearing into the unlimited. Look at the sky. You will see a limited part of it, not because the sky is limited by because your eyes are limited, your focus is limited. But if you can become aware that this limitation is because of the focus, because of the eye, it is not the sky that is limited, then you will see the boundaries melting into the unlimited.

Otherwise existence is unlimited, otherwise everything is melting into something else. Everything is losing its boundary, every moment waves are disappearing into the ocean - and there is no end to anything and there is no beginning. Everything is everything else also.

Limitation is forced by us. It is because of us, because we cannot see the infinite, that we divide it. We have done it in everything. You make a fence around your house and you say, "This land belongs to me and beyond the fence is somebody else's land." But deep down your land and your neighbor's land are one. The fence is just because of you. The land is not divided, the neighbors and you are divided - because of your mind.

Nations are divided because of your mind. Somewhere India ends and Pakistan starts, but just a few years back India was where Pakistan now is. At that time India used to continue up to the limits of Pakistan, the present day limits. But now Pakistan is divided, there is a barrier. But the land remains the same.

I have heard a story that happened when India and Pakistan were divided. There was a madhouse, a mad asylum, just on the boundary of India and Pakistan. The politicians were not very worried about where the madhouse went, to Pakistan or to India, but the superintendent was very worried.

So he asked where the madhouse was going to be, whether it was going to be in India or in Pakistan.

Somebody from Delhi informed him that he should ask the inmates, the madmen, and take a vote as to where they wanted to go.

The superintendent was the only man who was not insane and he tried to explain. He gathered all the madmen together and told them, "Now it is up to you, wherever you want you can go. If you want to go to India, you can go to India. If you want to go to Pakistan, you can go to Pakistan." But the madmen said, "We want to remain here. We don't want to go anywhere." He tried and tried to explain. He said, "You will remain here. Don't worry about it. You will remain here, but where do you want to go?" Those madmen said, "People say we are mad, but you look more mad. You say you will remain here, and we will remain here, so why worry about going anywhere?" The superintendent was at a loss as to how to explain the whole thing.

There was only one way. He erected a wall, and divided the madhouse into two equal parts. One part became India, another part became Pakistan. And it is reported that sometimes madmen from the Pakistan madhouse came over the wall, and the madmen from India they also jumped over the wall, and they're still much confused about what is happening. "We are in the same place, and you have gone to Pakistan, and we have gone to India, and no one has gone anywhere!"

Those madmen are bound to be at a loss, they will never be able to understand, because in Delhi and Karachi there are bigger madmen.

We go on dividing. Life, existence, is not divided. All demarcations are man-made. They are useful, if you don't go mad about them, and if you know that they are just artificial, man-made, utilitarian, not real, not true, that they are just myths, that they help but they don't go any deeper.

O SHAKTI, EACH PARTICULAR PERCEPTION IS LIMITED, DISAPPEARING IN OMNIPOTENCE.

So, whenever you see anything limited, always remember that beyond the limit it is disappearing, the limitation is disappearing. Always look beyond and beyond.

This you can make a meditation. Just sit under a tree and look, and whatsoever comes into your view, just go beyond, look beyond, and don't stop anywhere. Just find where this tree is melting.

This tree, this small tree just in your garden, has the whole of existence in it. It is melting every moment. If the sun does not rise tomorrow this tree will die, because this tree's life is bound together with the life of the sun. The distance between them is very long - for the sun-rays to reach earth takes time, ten minutes' time. Ten minutes' time is very long, because light travels at a very fast speed, tremendous. Light travels one hundred and eighty-six lahk miles in one second and it takes ten minutes for light to reach this tree from the sun. The distance is tremendous, vast. But if the sun is no longer there, the tree will immediately disappear. They exist together. The tree is melting every moment into the sun and the sun is melting into the tree. Every moment the sun is entering into the tree, making it alive.... The other things is as yet unknown to science, but religion says another thing is also happening - because in life nothing can exist without response. If the sun is giving life to the tee, the tree must be giving life back to the sun, because in life there is always a response.

And energy equalizes. The tree must be giving life to the sun. They are one. Then the tree has disappeared, the limitation has disappeared.

Wherever you look, look for the beyond and don't stop anywhere. Go on and on and on, until you lose your mind, until you lose all your limited patterns. Suddenly you will be illumined. The whole existence is one. That oneness is the goal. And suddenly mind is tired of pattern, limitation, boundary - and as you insist on going beyond, as you go on pulling it beyond and beyond, the mind slips, suddenly it drops, and you look at existence as a vast oneness, everything melting into each other, everything changing into the other.

O SHAKTI, EACH PARTICULAR PERCEPTION IS LIMITED, DISAPPEARING IN OMNIPOTENCE.

You can make a meditation out of it. Sit for one hour and work it out. Don't create any limitation anywhere. Whatsoever the limitation just try to find the beyond, and move and go on moving. Soon the mind becomes tired because mind cannot cope with the unlimited. Only with the limited can it be related. With the unlimited, it cannot be related: it gets bored, it gets tired, it says, "Enough, now stop!" But don't stop, go on moving. A moment will come when mind is left behind and only consciousness is moving. In that moment you will have the illumination of oneness, of non-duality.

That is the goal. That is the highest peak of consciousness. And that is the greatest ecstasy possible to human mind, and the deepest bliss.

The fourth technique:

IN TRUTH FORMS ARE INSEPARATE. INSEPARATE ARE OMNIPRESENT BEING AND YOUR OWN FORM. REALIZE EACH AS MADE OF THIS CONSCIOUSNESS.

In truth forms are inseparate. They appear separate, but every form is joined together with other forms. Our reality is a co-existence. It is really an inter-reality, an inter-subjectivity. For example, think of yourself alone on this earth. What will you be? The whole of humanity has disappeared, you are left alone after a third world war, alone in the world, alone on this big earth. Who will you be?

The first thing is that it is impossible to conceive of yourself alone. It is impossible, I say, to conceive of yourself alone. You will try and try and you will see that someone is just standing there - your wife, your children, your friends - because you cannot exist alone, even in imagination. You exist with others. They give you existence. They contribute. You contribute to them and they contribute to you.

Who will you be? Will you be a good man or a bad man? Nothing can be said, because goodness and badness exist in relation. Will you be beautiful or ugly? Nothing can be said. Will you be man or woman? Nothing can be said, because whatsoever you are, you are related to someone else.

Will you be wise or foolish? By and by you will see that every form has disappeared. And with these other forms, all forms within you have also disappeared. You are neither foolish nor wise, neither good nor bad, neither ugly nor beautiful, neither man nor woman. Then what will you be? If you goon eliminating all forms, soon you will realize that only nothing remains. We see forms as separate, but they are not. Every form is linked with others. Forms exist in a pattern.

This sutra says, IN TRUTH FORMS ARE INSEPARATE. INSEPARATE ARE OMNIPRESENT BEING AND YOUR OWN FORM. Even your form and the form of the whole existence is inseparate.

You are one with it. You cannot be without it. And the other thing is also true but difficult to conceive:

the universe cannot be without you. The universe cannot be without you just as you cannot e without the universe. You have been existing in many, many forms always and you will exist always in many, many forms. But you will be there. You are an intrinsic part of this universe. You are not alien, you are not a stranger to it, you are not an outsider. You are an insider, an intrinsic part. And the universe cannot afford to lose you because if it loses you, it will lose itself. Forms are not separate, they are inseparate. They are one. Only the appearance gives demarcations and boundaries. This can become a realization if you ponder over it, penetrate into it; it becomes a realization, not a doctrine, not a thought, but a realization that, "Yes, I am one with the universe and the universe is one with me."

This is what Jesus was saying to the Jews. But they felt offended because Jesus said, "I and my father in heaven are one." Jews felt offended. What was he claiming? Was he claiming that he and God are one? This was blasphemy. He must be punished. But he was simply teaching a technique, nothing else. He was simply teaching a technique that forms are not separate, that you and the whole are one - "I and my father in heaven are one." But this was not a claim, this was just a suggested technique. And when Jesus said, "I and my father are one," he didn't mean that you and the father and the Divine are separate. When he said 'I', every 'I' is represented. Whenever 'I' exists, that 'I' and the Divine is one. But it can be misunderstood, and both Jews and Christians misunderstood. Even Christians misunderstood, because they say he was the only begotten son of God, the only begotten son, so that no one else can claim that he also is a son of God.

I was reading a very funny book. The title is THREE CHRISTS. In a madhouse, there were three men, and all the three claimed that they were Christ. This is an actual fact not a story. So one psychoanalyst studied all three. Then the thought came to his mind that it would be very funny to introduce them to each other to see what would happen - how they would introduce themselves and what their reaction would be. So he brought all three together and left them in a room to introduce themselves. The first one said, "I am the only begotten son, Jesus Christ." The other laughed and in his mind he thought he must be mad! He said, "How can you be? I am Jesus Christ. You are also part of that whole. A fragment of that consciousness is in you also. But Jesus Christ, the only son of God - that I am."

The third thought that both were foolish, that both had gone insane. He said, "What are you talking about? Look at me. The son of God is here."

Then the psychoanalyst asked them separately, "What is your reaction?" They all said, "Both the others are mad. The other two have gone crazy."

And this is not only the case with madmen. (f you ask Christians what they think about Krishna, because he claims that he is God, they will say that there is only one, one penetration of the beyond, and that is Jesus Christ. At only one time in history did God penetrate into the world, and that was with Jesus Christ. Krishna is good, a great man but not Divine, not God himself.

If you ask Hindus, they will laugh at Jesus. The same madness goes on, and the reality is that everyone is the only begotten son of God - everyone. The otherwise is not possible. You come from the same source, whether you are Jesus or Krishna or A, B, C, anybody or anybody, you come from the same source. And every 'I', every consciousness, is immediately related to the Divine. Jesus was giving only a technique. He was misunderstood.

This technique is the same. In truth forms are inseparate. Inseparate are omnipresent being and your own form. Realize each as made of this consciousness. Not only realize that you are made of this consciousness, realize that everything around you is made of this consciousness. Because it is very easy to realize that you are made of this consciousness, it can give you a very egoistic feeling, it can be a deep fulfillment to the ego. But realize that the other is also, then it become a humbleness.

When everything is Divine you cannot have any egoistic mind. When everything is Divine, you are humbled. Then there is no question of your being somebody, or something above, then the whole of existence is Divine, and wherever you look, you look at the Divine. The looker and the looked-at are both Divine because forms are not separate. Underneath all forms is hidden one formlessness.