Sunyawad - the philosophy of emptiness

These techniques are concerned with emptiness - they are the most delicate, the most subtle. Even to conceive of emptiness seems impossible. Buddha used all these four techniques for his disciples and BHIKKHUS, and because of these four techniques he was totally misunderstood. Buddhism got completely uprooted from Indian soil just because of these four techniques.

Buddha said that there is no God. If there is God, you cannot be totally empty. You may not be there but the God will be there, the Divine will be there. And your mind can deceive you, because your Divine may be just your mind playing tricks. Buddha said that there is no soul, because if there is any soul, ATMA, you can hide your ego behind it. Your ego will be difficult to leave if you feel that there is some self within you. Then you cannot be totally empty because you will be there.

Just to prepare the ground for these techniques of emptiness, Buddha denied everything. He was not an atheist but he appeared to be an atheist because he said that there is no God, he said there is no soul, he said there is nothing substantial in existence - existence is empty. But this was just to prepare the ground for these techniques. Once you enter emptiness you have entered all - you may call it the Divine, you may call it God, or ATMA, soul, whatsoever you like - but you can enter the truth only when you are totally empty. Nothing should be left of you.

Hindus thought that Buddha was destroying religion, that he was teaching irreligion. And people who heard him, even they couldn't follow, because whenever you go somewhere, you go to seek something - you never go to seek emptiness. So those who went to hear him were seeking something - nirvana, moksha, the other world, heaven, truth - but they were seeking something.

They had come to gratify their ultimate desire: to find the truth. That is the last desire. And unless you are completely desireless, you cannot know the truth; the very condition of knowing is to be totally desireless.

So one thing is certain, you cannot desire truth. If you desire it, the very desire will become the barrier. There were masters before Buddha who were teaching, "Don't desire, be desireless." But they were talking about God, about the kingdom of God, heaven, paradise, moksha, the ultimate freedom and liberation - and they were saying, "Be desireless." Buddha felt that you cannot be desireless if there is something to be attained. You may pretend that you are desireless, but this pretension, desirelessness, is also from some desire to be fulfilled. It is false. The masters say that you cannot attain to ultimate bliss with desire, and you want to attain ultimate bliss - so you start being desireless, you try to be desireless, so that you can attain the ultimate bliss. But the desire is there.You are trying to be desireless just because of the desire. So Buddha said that there is no God to be attained. Even if you desire, there is no one to be attained... so be desireless. There is no moksha somewhere, there is no goal. Life is meaningless and goal-less.

His emphasis is beautiful and wonderful - no one has tried that way. He destroyed all the goals just to help you to be desireless. If the goals are there, how can you be desireless? And if you are not desireless, you will not attain to the goal - this is the paradox. He destroyed all the goals - not that those goals are not there, they are there and they can be attained - but if you want to attain them, if you desire to attain them, it becomes impossible. The very basic condition is you must be desireless - then the ultimate happens to you. So Buddha says there is nothing to be desired, desires are futile. Drop all desires and when there is no desire you will be empty.

Just imagine, if there is no desire within you, what will you be? You are nothing but a bundle of desires. If all desires go, you simply disappear. Not that you will not exist - you will exist, but as an emptiness. You will be there, just like a vacant room: no one is there, just a SUNYA, a nothingness.

Buddha has called this nothingness ANATMA, ANATTA, no-soulness. You will not feel any center, that "I am"; there will be just "am-ness", no "I" to it, because "I" is nothing but accumulated desires, condensed desires, crystallized desires - many, many desires have become your "I".

It is just as in physics. Physicists say that if you analyze matter, then matter is nothing but atoms; there is nothing to join the atoms, each atom is surrounded by vacant space. If you have a rock in your hand, there is no rock, just atoms of energy, and between two atoms, infinite space. Even a rock is spacious, porous. They say that soon we will be able to pull that space out from anything.

H.G. Wells has written a story.

In the twenty-first century, a passenger starts calling for coolies in a big station. Other passengers who are traveling in the same compartment with this passenger cannot understand, because he has no luggage, just a packet of cigarettes and a small matchbox. That is all his luggage. And he goes on calling for coolies. A big group gathers and a passenger asked, "Why? Why are you calling?

You don't have anything. You can carry this matchbox and this packet of cigarettes yourself. What are you going to do with these two dozen coolies?" The passenger laughs and he says, "Try, try that matchbox. That matchbox is not ordinary. One railway engine is condensed into it."

It is possible soon. Space can be pulled out and then it can be again forced in, and the engine will take its shape again. Then big things can be carried without much problem. The weight will remain the same but the shape, the form, will become smaller and smaller. A matchbox can contain a railway engine, but the weight will remain the same, because space has no weight. You can pull out the space but you cannot pull out the weight. The weight will remain the same because weight is contained by the atoms, not by the space. They say that the whole earth can be condensed into the form, the shape, of one apple, but the weight will remain the same. And if you pull apart all these atoms; if you take one atom out, and then another, and then another; if you take all the atoms out, nothing will be left behind - so matter is just an appearance.

Buddha has analyzed the human mind in a simpler way: he is one of the greatest scientists possible.

He says your ego is nothing but desires, atomic desires. There are millions of desires; they make you. If you go on pulling out desires one by one, a moment will come when there is no desire left, you have disappeared... just space, just vacant space remains. And this, Buddha says, is nirvana.

This is the cessation of your being completely; you are no more. And Buddha says this is silence:

unless you are completely gone, silence cannot descend on you. Buddha says you cannot be silent because you are the problem; you cannot be peaceful because you are the disease; and you can never be blissful because you are the only barrier. The bliss can come at any moment but you are the barrier. When you are not, bliss will be there; when you are not, peace will be there; when you are not, silence will be there, when you are not, ecstasy will be there. When your inner being is totally empty, this emptiness itself is bliss. That's why Buddha's teachings are called SUNYAWAD, the philosophy of emptiness, or the philosophy of zero.

These four techniques are to attain this state of being, or you can call it this state of no-being - there is no difference. You can give it a positive term, as Hindus and Jains have called it, soul, or you can give it a more appropriate but negative term, as Buddha has called it, ANATTA, no-selfness or no-soulness. It depends on you. But whatsoever you call it, there is no one to be named and called, there is just infinite space. That's why I say that these are the ultimate techniques, the most delicate, the most difficult - but the most wonderful. And if you can work with any of these four techniques, you will gain the unattainable.

The first technique:

SUPPOSE YOUR PASSIVE FORM TO BE AN EMPTY ROOM WITH WALLS OF SKIN - EMPTY.

SUPPOSE YOUR PASSIVE FORM TO BE AN EMPTY ROOM WITH WALLS OF SKIN... but inside, everything empty. This is one of the most beautiful techniques. Just sit in a meditative posture, relaxed, alone, your backbone straight and the whole body relaxed - as if the whole body is hanging on the backbone. Then close your eyes. For a few moments go on feeling relaxed, more relaxed, becoming calmer and calmer and calmer. Do this for a few moments, just to be in tune. And then suddenly start feeling your body is just walls of skin and there is nothing inside, there is no one inside, the house is vacant. Sometimes you will feel thoughts passing, clouds of thoughts moving, but don't think that they belong to you. You are not. Just think that they are roaming in a vacant sky - they don't belong to anyone, they don't have any roots.

Really this is the case: thoughts are just like clouds moving in the sky. They don't have any roots and they don't belong to the sky, they simply roam in the sky. They come and they go and the sky remains untouched, uninfluenced. Feel that your body is just walls of skin and there is no one inside.

Thoughts will still continue - because of old habit, old momentum, old cooperation, thoughts will go on coming. But just think that they are rootless clouds moving in space - they don't belong to you, they don't belong to anybody else. There is no one to whom they can belong - you are empty. It will be difficult, but because of the old habits, nothing else. Your mind would like to catch some thought, be identified with it, move with it, enjoy it, indulge in it. Resist! Just say there is no one to indulge, there is no one to fight, there is no one to do anything with this thought. Within a few days, a few weeks, thoughts will slow down, they will become less and less. The clouds will start disappearing, or, even if they come, there will be great gaps of cloudless sky when there will be no thought. One thought will pass. Then another will not come for a period. Then another will come and then there will again be an interval. In those intervals you will know for the first time what emptiness is. And the very glimpse of it will fill you with such deep bliss you cannot imagine.

Really it is difficult to say anything about it, because whatsoever is said in language will refer to you, and you will not be there. If I say that you will be filled with happiness it will be nonsense. You will not be there, so how can I say you will be filled with happiness? Happiness will be there. Just within the four walls of your skin, happiness will be there, vibrating - but you will not be there. A deep silence will descend on you, because if you are not, no one can create a disturbance. You always go on thinking that somebody else is disturbing you; the traffic noise on the road, children playing around you, the wife working in the kitchen... somebody is disturbing you. Nobody is disturbing you; you are the cause of the disturbance. Because you are there, anything can disturb you. If you are not there, then disturbances will come and pass through the emptiness without touching it. You are there - very touchy, a wound; anything immediately hurts you.

I have heard about a scientific story. It happened after the third world war that all were dead; now there was no one on the earth, only trees and hills were there. One big tree thought to create a great noise, as it used to create in the past. It fell down from a big rock, it did everything that was possible, but there was no noise. Because for noise your ears are needed, for sound your ears are needed. If you re not there, sound cannot be created. It is impossible. I am speaking here. I am making sound because you are here. If no one is here, I may go on speaking, but sound cannot be created. But I can create it myself because I myself can hear it. If no one is there to hear, sound cannot be crated, because sound is a reaction of your ears.

If no one is there on the earth, the sun will rise but it cannot create light. It seems absurd. We cannot conceive of it because we always think that the sun will rise and there will be light. Your eyes are needed. Without your eyes, the sun cannot create light. It may go on rising but it will be futile because the rays will pass in emptiness. There will be no one who can react and who can say that this is light. Light is a phenomenon of your eyes. You react. Sound is a phenomenon of your ears. You react. What do you think... a rose is there in the garden, but if no one passes, will there be perfume? A rose alone cannot create perfume. Impossible. You and your nose are needed - someone to react and interpret that this is perfume, this is rose-perfume. However hard a rose tries, without a nose it will not be a rose at all.

The disturbance on the street is not there really, it is within your ego. Your ego reacts and says that this is a disturbance. It is your interpretation. Sometimes in a different mood you may enjoy it. Then it will not be a disturbance. You may enjoy it in a different mood. And then you will say, "This is beautiful. What music!" But in a sad moment even music will become a disturbance. But if you are not there, just space, emptiness, there can be neither disturbance nor music. Things will just pass through you, unnoticed. Because unstruck, there is no wound to react, there is no one to respond; not even an ego will be created. This is what Buddha calls nirvana.

And this technique can help you.

SUPPOSE YOUR PASSIVE FORM TO BE AN EMPTY ROOM WITH WALLS OF SKIN - EMPTY.

Sit in a passive state, inactive, not doing anything.... Because whenever you do something the doer comes in. Really there is no doer. Only because of the doing you imagine that there is one. Buddha is difficult only because of this. Only because of linguistic forms have problems arisen. We say a man is walking. If you analyze this sentence, it means that there is someone who is walking. But Buddha says there is only a process of walking, there is no one who is walking. You are laughing. Because of language it appears that there is someone who is laughing. Buddha says there is laughter but no one inside who is laughing. When you laugh, remember this, and find out who laughs. You will never find anyone - there is simply laughter. There is no one behind it doing it. When you are sad, there is no one who is sad, there is simply sadness. Look at this. Simply sadness. It is a process:

simply laughter, simply happiness, simply unhappiness. There is no one behind it.

Only because of language do we go on thinking in terms of two. If there is movement, we say there must be someone who has moved - the mover. We cannot conceive of movement alone. But have you ever see the mover? Have you ever seen the one who laugh? Buddha says there is life, the process of life, but no one inside who is alive. And then there is death, but no one dying. For Buddha you are not a duality - the language creates a duality. I am speaking, there is no one who is speaking. It is a process. It belongs to no one.

But for us this is difficult because our mind is deeply rooted in dualism. Whenever we think of some activity, we conceive of some actor inside, some doer. That's why a passive, inactive form is good in meditation because then you can fall into emptiness more easily. Buddha says, "Don't meditate. Be in meditation." The difference is vast. I will repeat. Buddha says, "Don't meditate.

Be in meditation." Because if you meditate, the doer has come in - you will go on thinking that you are meditating. Then meditation has become an act. Buddha says, "Be in meditation." That means be totally passive, don't do anything, and don't think that there is any doer. That's why sometimes, when the doer is lost in the doing, you feel a sudden upsurge of happiness. It comes because you have become one. With a dancer a moment comes when dance takes over the dancer disappears - then happens a sudden blessing, a sudden beatitude, a sudden ecstasy. He is filled with unknown bliss. What has happened? Only the doing remained and the doer was no more.

At the war-front, soldiers sometimes attain to very deep bliss. It is difficult to conceive of because they are so near death - at any moment they can die. In the beginning it makes them afraid; they tremble in fear. But you cannot continue trembling and fearing every day, continuously. One becomes accustomed, one accepts death - then the fear disappears. And when death is so near and with any wrong movement you may be dead immediately, the doer is forgotten, and only duty remains, only doing remains. And one has to be so deeply in the doing that one cannot go on remembering that "I am". That "I am" will create trouble. You will miss. You will not be totally in the activity. And life is at stake so you cannot afford duality. Action becomes total. When action is total, you suddenly feel you are happy as you have never been before. Warriors have known very deep springs of joy that ordinary life cannot give to you. That may be the reason why war is so appealing. And that may be the reason why KSHATRIYAS, warriors, have attained to moksha more than brahmins; because brahmins are always thinking and thinking - much mental activity. Twenty- four Jain TEERTHANKARAS, Ram, Krishna, Buddha, were all KSHATRIYAS, warriors. They have attained to the highest peak.

No businessman has ever been heard to attain to that peak. He lives in such security that he can afford to be dual. Whatsoever he is doing, it is never total. Profit cannot be a total activity. You can enjoy it, but it is never a life-and-death problem. You can play with it, but nothing is at stake. It is a game. A business is playing a game, the game of money. The game is not very dangerous so businessmen almost always remain mediocre.. Even a gambler may attain to higher peaks of bliss than a businessman, because a gambler moves into danger. He stakes everything that he has got - in that moment of total stake the doer is lost.

That may be the reason why gambling is so appealing, war is so appealing. As far as I understand, behind whatsoever is appealing, there must be some ecstasy lurking somewhere, some hint of the unknown somewhere, some glimpse of the deep mystery of life hidden somewhere there. Otherwise nothing can be appealing.

Passivity.... Any posture that you take in meditation should be passive. In India we have evolved the most passive ASANA, the most passive posture, that is SIDDHASANA. And the beauty of it is that in this SIDDHASANA posture, as Buddha sits, the body is in the deepest of passive states. Even while lying down you are not so passive; even while sleeping, your posture is not so passive, it is active. Why is a SIDDHASANA so passive? For many reasons. In this posture the body is locked, closed. The body has an electric circle: when the circle is closed and locked, the electricity moves round and round inside the body, it does not leak out. Now it is a proved scientific phenomenon that in certain postures your body leaks energy. When the body is leaking energy, it has to create energy continuously. It is active. The body dynamo has to work continuously because you are leaking.

When energy is leaking from the outside body, the inside body has to be active to replace it. So the most passive state will be when no energy is leaking.

Now in Western countries, particularly in England, they treat patients just by making a circle of their body electricity. In may hospitals these techniques are being used and they are very helpful. A person lies on the floor on a net of wires. The net of wires is just to make a circle of his body electricity. Just half an hour is enough, and he will feel so relaxed, so filled with energy, so strong, that he cannot believe that when he came he was so weak.

In all the old cultures, people used to sleep in a particular direction in the night just so that energy didn't leak out - because the earth has a magnetic force. To use that magnetic force you have to lie in a particular direction - then the force in the earth will magnetize you the whole night. If you are lying opposite to it the force is fighting with you and your energy will be destroyed. Many people in the morning feel very depressed, very weakened. This should not be so, because sleep is meant to rejuvenate you, to give you more energy. But there are many people who are energetic when they go to bed but in the morning they are just dead. There can be many reasons for it but this may be one: they are lying in the wrong direction. If they are lying against the earth magnet they will feel dissipated.

So now scientists say that the body has an electric circuit which can be locked, and they have studied many yogis sitting in SIDDHASANA. In that state the body is leaking the minimum energy; energy is preserved. When energy is preserved the inner batteries need not work, there is no need for any activity. So the body is passive. In this passivity, you can become more empty than if you are active.

In this SIDDHASANA posture your backbone is straight and the whole body is also straight. Now many studies have been done. When your body is straight, totally straight, you are least influenced by the gravitation of the earth. That's why if you sit in a posture which is inconvenient, which you call inconvenient, the inconvenience is caused because your body is affected by more gravitation. If you are sitting straight then gravitation is least effective, because it can pull only your backbone, nothing else. That's why it is difficult to sleep while standing. It is almost impossible to sleep while standing in a SHIRSHASANA, on your head. For sleep you have to lie down. Why? Because then the earth has the maximum pull on you - and the maximum pull makes you unconscious. For sleep you have to lie down on the ground, so the earth's gravitation touches the whole of your body and pulls every cell of it. Then you become unconscious. Animals are more unconscious than man because they cannot stand erect. Evolutionists say that man could evolve because he could stand erect, on two feet. The gravitation pull is less. Because of that he could become a little more aware.

In siddhasana, the gravitational pull is at its minimum. The body is inactive and passive, closed inside, it has become a world unto itself. Nothing is moving out, nothing is coming in .Eyes are closed, hands are locked, feet are locked - energy moves in a circle. And whenever energy moves in a circle, it creates an inner rhythm, an inner music. The more you hear that music, the more you feel relaxed.

SUPPOSE YOUR PASSIVE FORM TO BE AN EMPTY ROOM - just like an empty room - WITH WALLS OF SKIN - EMPTY. Go on dropping into that emptiness. A moment will come sometime when you feel everything has disappeared; that there is no one, nobody, the house is vacant, the lord of the house has disappeared, evaporated. In that gap, in that interval, when you are not present inside, the Divine will be present. When you are not, God is. When you are not, bliss is. So try to disappear. Try to disappear from within.

The second technique:

GRACIOUS ONE, PLAY. THE UNIVERSE IS AN EMPTY SHELL WHEREIN YOUR MIND FROLICS INFINITELY.

GRACIOUS ONE, PLAY. THE UNIVERSE IS AN EMPTY SHELL WHEREIN YOUR MIND FROLICS INFINITELY. This second technique is based on the dimension of play. That has to be understood. If you are inactive, it is good to fall into deep emptiness, into the inner abyss. But you cannot be empty the whole day and you cannot be passive the whole day. You will have to do something. Activity is a basic requirement, otherwise you cannot be alive. Life means activity. So you can be inactive for a few hours, but for twenty-four hours you will have to be active. And meditation should be something which becomes your style of life, it should not be a fragment. Otherwise you will gain it and lose it.

If you are inactive one hour then for twenty-three hours you will be active. The active forces will be more, and they will destroy whatsoever you attain in your inactivity. The active forces will destroy it.

And the next day you will again do the same: for twenty-three hours you will accumulate the doer and in one hour you will have to drop it. It will be difficult. So your mind must change its attitude about work and activity. Hence the second technique.

Work should be considered as play, not as work. Work should be considered as play, just a game.

You should not be serious about it; you should be just like children playing. It is meaningless, nothing is to be achieved; just the very activity is enjoyed. You can feel the distinction if you play sometimes.

When you work it is different: you are serious, burdened, responsible, worried, anxious, because the result, the end-result, is the motive. The work itself is not worth enjoying. The real thing is just in the future, in the result. In play there is no result, really. The very process is blissful. And you are not worried, it is not a serious thing. Even if you look serious, it is just pretending. In play you enjoy the very process; in work the process is not being enjoyed - the goal, the end, is important. The process has to be tolerated anyhow. It has to be done because the end has to be achieved. If you could achieve the end without this, you would drop activity and jump to the end.

But in play you would not do that. If you could achieve the end without playing, then the end would be futile. It has meaning only through the process. For example, two football teams are on the playing-ground. Just by throwing a coin they can decide who will win and who will be defeated. Why go through so much effort, unnecessarily exerting yourself? The thing can be decided very easily just by tossing a coin. The end will be there. One team can win, another can be defeated. Why work for it? But then there will be no meaning, no significance. The end is not meaningful, the very process is the meaning. Even if no one wins and no one is defeated the game was worth it. The activity in itself is enjoyed.

This dimension of play has to be applied to your whole life: whatsoever you are doing, be there in that activity so totally that the end is irrelevant. It may come, it has to come, but it is not on your mind. You are playing, you are enjoying.

That's what Krishna means when he tells Arjuna to leave the future in the hands of the Divine. The result of your activity is in the hands of the Divine, you simply do. This simply doing becomes a play. That's what Arjuna finds difficult to understand, because he says that if it is just play, then why kill, why fight? He understands what work is but he cannot understand what play is. And Krishna's whole life is just a play. You cannot find such a non-serious man anywhere. His whole life is just a play, a game, a drama. He is enjoying everything but he is not serious about it. He is enjoying it intensely but he is not worried about the result. What happens is irrelevant.

It is difficult for Arjuna to understand Krishna because he calculates, he thinks in terms of the end- result. He says in the beginning of the Gita, "This whole thing seems to be absurd. On both sides my friends and my relatives are standing to fight. Whosoever wins, it will be a loss, because my family, my relatives, my friends, will be destroyed. Even if I win, it will not be worth anything because to whom am I going to show my victory? Victories are meaningful because friends, relatives, family will enjoy them. But there will be no one, the victory will be just over dead bodies. Who will appreciate it? Who will say, 'Arjuna, you have done a great deed'? So whether I am victorious or I am defeated, it seems absurd. The whole thing is nonsense." He wants to renounce. He is deadly serious. And anyone who calculates will be that deadly serious.

The setting of the Gita is unique: war is the most serious affair. You cannot be playful about it, because lives are involved, millions of lives are involved - you cannot be playful. And Krishna insists that even there you have to be playful. You don't think about what will happen in the end, you just be here and now. You just be a warrior playing. Don't get worried about the result because the result is in the hands of the Divine. And it is not even the point if the result is in the hands of the Divine or not. The point is that it should not be in your hands. You should not carry it. If you carry it then your life cannot become meditative.

This second technique says, GRACIOUS ONE, PLAY. Let your whole life be just a play. THE UNIVERSE IS AN EMPTY SHELL WHEREIN YOUR MIND FROLICS INFINITELY. Your mind goes on playing infinitely: the whole thing is just like a dream in an empty room. While meditating, one has to look at the mind just frolicking, just like children playing, jumping out of overflowing energy, that's all. Thoughts jumping, frolicking, just a play - don't be serious about them. Even if a bad thought is there, don't feel guilty. Or, if there is a very great thought, a very good thought - that you want to serve humanity and transform the whole world; and you want to bring heaven onto earth - don't get too much ego through it, don't feel that you have become great. This is just a frolicking mind. Sometimes it goes down, sometimes it comes up - it is just overflowing energy, taking many shapes and forms. Mind is just an overflowing spring, nothing else.

Be playful, Shiva says, Gracious one, play. The attitude of the player means he is enjoying the activity, it is good in itself. No profit motive is involved; he is not calculative. Just look at a businessman. Whatsoever he is doing, he is calculating about the profit, what he is going to attain out of it. A customer comes. The customer is not a person, he is just a means. What can be profited out of him? How can he be exploited? Deep down he is calculating what is to be said, what is to be done. Everything is calculated just to manipulate, just to exploit. He is not concerned with this person, he is not concerned with the deal, he is not concerned with anything - he is concerned only with the future, the profit.

Look at the East:in the villages still, a businessman is not just a profit-maker, and the customer has not come just to purchase something. They enjoy it. I remember my old grandfather. He was a cloth merchant and I and my whole family was puzzled because he enjoyed it so much. For hours together it was a game with the customers. If something was worth ten rupees, he would ask fifty rupees for it, and he knew this was absurd. And his customers knew it too, they knew that it must be near about ten rupees, and they will start from two rupees. Then a long haggling would follow - hours together. My father any my uncles would get angry. "What is going on? Why don't you simply say what the price is?" But he had his own customers. When they came, they would ask, "Where is Dada, where is grandfather? Because with him it is a game, a play. Whether we lose one rupee or two, whether it is more or less, that is not the point!"

They enjoyed it. The very activity in itself was something worth pursuing. Two persons were communicating through it. Two persons were playing a game and both knew it was a game - because of course a fixed price was possible.

In the West now they have fixed prices because people are more calculating and more profit- motivated. They cannot conceive of wasting time. Why waste time? The thing can be settled within minutes. There is no need. You can just write the exact price. Why fight for hours together?

But then the game is lost and the whole thing becomes a routine. Even machines can do it. The businessman is not needed; the customer is not needed.

I have heard about a psychoanalyst who was such a busy man and who had so many patients that it was difficult to have personal contact with everyone. So he would feed his tape-recorder for a particular patient and the tape-recorder would say whatsoever that psychoanalyst wanted to say to the patient.

Once it happened that it was the appointed time of a patient who was a very rich man. The psychoanalyst was entering a hotel. Suddenly he saw the patient sitting there. So he asked, "What are you doing here? It was your time with me." The patient said, "I am so busy that I have fed my words to my own tape-recorder. Both the tape-recorders are talking to each other. Whatsoever you have to say to me, my tape-recorder has recorded, and whatsoever I have to say to you, your tape-recorder has recorded it from my tape-recorder. This same time, and we are both free."

If you are too calculating then persons disappear, and more and more mechanization comes in.

Even now in villages in India the haggling goes on. It is a game and worth enjoying. You are playing.

It is a match between two intelligences, and two persons come in deep contact. But it is not time- saving. Games can never be time-saving. And in games you don't worry about the time. You are carefree, and whatsoever is going on, you enjoy it right in that moment. Being playful is one of the deepest bases of all meditative processes. But we are businesslike; we are trained for it. So even when we meditate, we are looking for the end, for the result. And whatsoever happens, you will be unsatisfied.

People come to me and they say, "Yes, meditation is growing, progressing. I'm feeling more happy, a little more silent, at east, but nothing else is happening." What nothing else? I know that people like this are bound to come some day and say, "Yes, I am feeling nirvana, but nothing else is happening.

I am blissful, but nothing else is happening." What nothing else? He is looking for some profit and unless some very visible profit comes into his hands, something which he can deposit in a bank, he cannot be satisfied. Silence and happiness are so vague, you cannot possess them, you cannot show them to anyone.

Every day it happens that people come to me and they say that they are sad. They are expecting something which should not be expected even in businesses - and they are expecting in their meditations. The business mind comes into meditation with the whole training of business - what profit can be made out of it?

The businessman is not playful. And if you are not playful, you cannot be meditative. Be more and more playful. Waste time in play. Just playing with children will do. Even if there is no one, you can jump and dance alone in the room and be playful. Enjoy. But your mind will go on insisting, "What are you doing, wasting time? You can earn something out of this time. You can do something, and you are just jumping, singing, and dancing. What are you doing? Have you gone mad? Try it. Snatch whatsoever time you can get out of your business, and be playful. Whatsoever. You can paint, you can play on a sitar, anything you like - but be playful. Look for no profit out of it, see no future in it, just the present. And then, then you can be playful inside also. Then you can jump on your thoughts, play with them, throw them here and there, dance with them, but not be serious about them.

Many people are just unconscious as far as their mind is concerned. Whatsoever happens in their mind, they are unconscious about it; they are drifting in it without knowing where the mind leads them. If you can be aware of any track of the mind you will be puzzled at what is happening. Mind moves through associations. A dog barks on the street. The bark comes to your head - and now you have started. You may move to the very end of the world through this barking of the dog. You may remember some friend who had a dog. Then this dog is dropped and that friend has come into the mind and he had a beautiful wife and the wife was beautiful... and now you are moving. You can go to the very end of this world and you will never remember that just a dog played a trick on you; it just barked, and put you on the track, and you started to move.

You will feel very awkward at what scientists say about this. They say that this track is fixed in your mind. If the same dog in the same situation barks again, you will follow this track again: the friend, the dog, the wife - the beautiful wife - you will go the same way again.

Now they have tried many experiments with electrodes in the human brain. They touch a particular spot in the brain and then a particular memory is released. Suddenly you see that you are five years old, playing in a garden, running after a butterfly. Then the whole sequence is there: you feel pleasant, everything is nice, the air, the garden, the smell, everything comes alive. It is not simply memory, you relive it. Then the electrode is pulled out and the memory stops. If the electrode again touches the same spot, again the same memory comes again. It is just as if you are remembering something mechanical. And it always starts from a certain beginning and ends at a particular end; and then starts from the beginning... just as you record something on a tape-recorder. Your brain has millions of memories, millions of cells recording, and it is all mechanical.

These experiments on the human brain are very strange and very revealing. Memories can be revived again and again, again and again. One experimenter tried three hundred times and the memory was the same - it was recorded. The person on whom the experiment was done became aware and he felt that it was very, very weird because he was not the master, he could not do anything. When the electrode touched the place, the memory started and he had to see it. During three hundred times he by and by became a witness. He started seeing the memory but then he became aware that he was different and this memory was different. This experiment can be helpful, very helpful, for meditators, because when you know your mind is nothing but a mechanical recording around you, you are separate.

This mind can be touched. Now scientists say that sooner or later we will cut all the centers which give you anguish, anxiety, because again and again the same thing is touched and the whole thing has to be relived.

I have been trying many experiments with many disciples. Do the same thing and they move in the same vicious circle, again and again, again and again - unless they become a witness that this is a mechanical thing. You are aware that if you say the same thing to your wife each week, the same thing, she will react. After seven days, when she has forgotten, say the same thing: she will react.

Then record - the reaction is going to be the same. You know, your wife knows, a pattern becomes fixed - and it goes on. Even a dog can start your pattern just by barking. Something is touched, an electrode has entered. You have started on a journey.

If you are playful in life then you can be playful inside with the mind also. Then be as if you are watching something on a TV screen: you are not involved, you are just a spectator, an onlooker.

Look, and enjoy it. Don't say good, don't say bad, don't condemn, don't appreciate, because these are serious things. If a naked woman comes onto your screen, don't say that this is bad, that some devil is playing a trick on you. No devil is there to play a trick upon you. Look at it as if it is just on the screen, a film screen. And be playful about it: say to the lady, "Wait". Don't try to push her out because the more you push her out, the more she will come in - ladies are difficult. And don't follow her. If you follow then you will be in trouble. Don't follow, don't fight - this is the rule. Just look and be playful. Just say a "hello" or "good morning". Just look and don't be disturbed at all. Let the lady wait. She will go by herself, as she came: she moves on her own. She is not related to you, she is just something in the memory. Struck by some situation she came there, just a picture. Be playful with it. If you can be playful with your mind it will drop very soon, because mind can be there only if you are serious. Seriousness is the link, the bridge.

GRACIOUS ONE, PLAY. THE UNIVERSE IS AN EMPTY SHELL WHEREIN YOUR MIND FROLICS INFINITELY.

The third technique:

SWEET-HEARTED ONE, MEDITATE ON KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING, EXISTING AND NOT- EXISTING. THEN LEAVE BOTH ASIDE THAT YOU MAY BE.

... MEDITATE ON KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING, EXISTING AND NOT-EXISTING. Meditate on the positive aspect of life and then on the negative - then put both aside because you are neither.

THEN LEAVE BOTH ASIDE THAT YOU MAY BE.

Look at it this way. Meditate on a birth: a child is born, you are born. Then you grow, you become young - meditate on this whole growth. Then you become old, then you die. From the very beginning, imagine the very moment when your father and mother conceived you, and into the womb of the mother you came. Just the first cell. From there look to the very end, where your body is burning on a funeral pyre and all your relative are standing around you. Then put both aside - the one who was born and the one who has died. Just put both aside and then look within. There you are - that which is never born and which is never going to die.

... knowing and not-knowing, existing and not-existing. Then leave both aside that you may be. You can do it with any positive-negative polarity. You are sitting here. I look at you. I know you. When I close my eyes, you are no longer there, I don't know you. Then put aside both the knowledge that I have known and the knowledge that I don't know - you will be empty. Because when you put both knowledge and no-knowledge aside, you will be empty.

There are two types of people: some are filled with knowledge and some are filled with ignorance.

There are people who say, "We know." Their ego is bound up with their knowledge. And there are people who say, "We are ignorant." They are filled with their ignorance. They say, "We are ignorant.

We don't know." One is identified with knowledge, the other is identified with ignorance, but both possess something, both cherish something. Push both aside, knowing and not-knowing, so that you are neither - neither ignorant nor knowing. Put aside both positive and negative. Then who are you? Suddenly the who will be revealed to you. You will become aware of the beyond, that which transcends. Putting aside both positive and negative, you will be empty. You will be no one, neither wise nor ignorant. Put both hate and love aside, put both friendship and enmity aside... when both the polarities are put aside you are empty.

But this is a trick of the mind: it can put one aside but never the two together. It can put one aside - you can put ignorance aside, then you cling to knowledge. You can put pain aside, but then you cling to pleasure. You can put enemies aside, but then you cling to friends. And there are a few people who do just the verse: they will be put friends aside and cling to the enemies, they will put love aside and cling to hate, they will put wealth aside and cling to poverty, and they put knowledge, scriptures, aside and cling to ignorance. These people are great renouncers. Whatsoever you cling to they put it aside and cling to the opposite - but they cling all the same Clinging is the problem, because if you cling you cannot be empty. Don't cling - this is the message of this technique. Just don't cling to anything positive or negative because with non-clinging you will find yourself. You are there but because of the clinging, you are hidden. With non-clinging you will be exposed, you will be uncovered. You will explode.

The fourth technique:

ENTER SPACE, SUPPORTLESS, ETERNAL, STILL.

Enter space, supportless, eternal, still. Three qualities of space have been given in this technique.

Supportless: there can be no support in space. Eternal: it can never end. Still: it will be soundless, it will be silent. Enter this space, it is within you.

But the mind always asks for support. People come to me and if I say to them, "Just sit silently, with closed eyes, and don't do anything," they say, "Give me some AVALAMBAN, some support. Give me some mantra as a support, because I cannot sit." Just sitting is difficult. If I give them a mantra, it is okay. They can go on repeating the mantra. Then it is easy. With support you are never empty, that's why it is easy. Something must go on, you must be doing something. Doing, the doer remains:

doing, you are filled. You may be filled with Aumkar, Aum, Ram, Jesus, Ave Maria, anything - you may be filled with anything, but you are filled. Then you are okay Mind resists emptiness. It wants always to be filled by something else, because if it is filled it can be. If it is not filled it will disappear.

In emptiness you will attain no no-mind. That's why mind asks for support.

If you want to enter inner space, don't ask for support. Drop all supports, mantras, gods, scriptures, whatsoever gives you a support. If you feel you are supported, drop it, and just move inside - supportless. It will be fearful; you will feel scared. You are moving to where you can be lost completely. You may not be able to come back because all supports will be lost. Your contact with the bank is lost and where this river will lead you, no one knows. Your support is lost. You may fall into an infinite abyss. Hence, fear grips you, and you ask for some support. Even if it is a false support, you enjoy it. Even a false support is helpful. Because for the mind it makes no difference whether a support is real or false - it must be a support, that's the point. You are not alone, something is there and supporting you.

It happened once that a man came to me. He was living in a house where he felt there were spirits and ghosts. And he was very worried. Through worries, he started seeing more illusions. Through worries, he became ill, weak. His wife said, "If you live any longer in this house, I am leaving." His children were sent to some relative's house.

The man came to me and he said, "It has become very difficult now. I see them clearly. They walk in the night. The whole house is filled with spirits.You help me." So I gave him one of my pictures and said, "Take it. Now I will tackle those spirits. You simply sleep silently, you need not worry. Really, I will tackle them, I will see to them. Now it is my business. And don't interfere. Now you need not be concerned." The man came the next day. He said, "I slept, it was so beautiful! You have done a miracle!"

And I had not done anything but give a support. Through support the mind was filled. It was no longer vacant; someone was there.

In ordinary life you are leaning on many false supports, but they help. And unless you become strong enough, you will need them. That's why I say that this is the ultimate technique - no support.

Buddha was dying and Anand asked him, "Now you are leaving us, what shall we do? How shall we attain? How shall we proceed now? When the master is gone, we will be wandering in darkness for many, many lives. No one is there to lead us, to guide us, the light is going out." So Buddha said, "It will be good for you. When I am no more, you become your own light. Move alone, don't ask for any support, because support is the last barrier."

And it happened. Anand had not become enlightened. For forty years he was with Buddha, he was the closest disciple, he was just like a shadow to Buddha, moving with him, living with him; he had had the longest contact with him. For forty years Buddha's compassion was falling over him, raining over him - for forty years. But nothing happened, Anand remained as ignorant as ever. And the day after Buddha died, Anand became enlightened - the next day, the very next day. The very support had been the barrier. When there was no more Buddha, Anand could not find any support. It is difficult. If you live with a Buddha, and the Buddha goes, then no one can be a support to you. Now no one will be worth clinging to. One who has been clinging to a Buddha cannot cling to anybody else in this world. This whole world will be vacant. Once you have known a Buddha and his love and compassion, then no love, no compassion can compare. Once you have tasted that, nothing else is worth tasting. So Anand was alone for the first time in forty years, totally alone. There was no way to find a support. He had known the highest support; now lower supports would not do. The next day he became enlightened. He must have moved into the inner space, supportless, eternal, still.

So remember, don't try to find any support. Be supportless. If you are trying to do this technique, then be supportless. That is what Krishnamurti is teaching, "Be supportless. Don't cling to a master.

Don't cling to a scripture. Don't cling to anything."

That is what every master has been doing. A master's whole effort is first to attract you towards him, so that you start clinging to him. When you start clinging to him, when you become close and intimate with him, then he knows that the clinging must be cut. And you cannot cling to anyone else now - that is finished. You cannot move to anyone else - that is impossible. Then he cuts the clinging and suddenly you are left supportless. It will be miserable in the beginning. You will cry and you will weep and you will scream and the whole being will feel that you are lost. Into the very deepest depth of misery you will fall. But from there one arises alone, supportless.

ENTER SPACE, SUPPORTLESS, ETERNAL, STILL. That space has no beginning, no end. And that space is absolutely soundless. There is nothing - not even a sound vibrating, not even a ripple.

Everything is still.

That point is just within you. Any moment you can enter it. If you have the courage to be supportless, this very moment you can enter it. The door is open. The invitation is for all, all and everyone. But courage is needed; courage to be alone, courage to be empty, courage to dissolve and melt, courage to die. And if you can die within to your inner space, you will attain to the life which never dies, you will attain to AMRIT, to immortality.