The cause of your misery

The first question:

It looks paradoxical, it is not - because you can understand only when you have transcended. While you are in a certain state of mind, you cannot understand that state of mind; you are so involved in it, you are so much identified with it. For understanding space is needed, a distance is needed, and there is no distance. When you transcend a state of mind, only then you become able to understand it because then there is distance. You are standing aloof, separate. You can look now, unidentified. There is perspective now.

While you are in love you cannot understand love. You may feel it, but you cannot understand it. You are so much in it. For understanding, aloofness, detached aloofness is needed. For understanding you need to be an observer. While you are in love the observer is lost. You have become a doer; you are a lover. You cannot be a witness to it. Only when you transcend love, when you are enlightened and gone beyond love, you will be able to understand it.

A child cannot understand what childhood is. When childhood is lost, you can look back and understand. Youth cannot understand what youth is. Only when you have become old and are capable of looking back, aloof, distant, then you will be able to understand it. Whatsoever is understood, is understood only by transcendence. Transcendence is the base of all understanding. That's why it happens every day - you can give advice, good advice, to somebody else who is in trouble; in the same trouble, if you are, you cannot give that good advice to yourself.

Somebody else is in trouble, you have space to look, observe; you can witness. You can give a good advice. When you are in the same trouble, you will not be so capable. You can be if even then you can be detached. You can be if even then you can look at the problem as if you are not in the problem, outside, standing on a hill and looking down.

Any problem can be solved if even for a single moment you are out of it and can look at it as a witness. Witnessing solves everything. But while you are deep in any state it is difficult to be a witness. You are so much identified. While in anger you become anger. No one is left behind who can see, observe, watch, decide. No one is left behind. While in sex you have moved completely. There is no center now, uninvolved.

In Upanishads it is said that a person who is watching himself is like a tree upon which two birds are sitting - one bird just jumping, enjoying, eating, singing, and another bird just sitting on the top of the tree looking at the other bird.

If you can have a witnessing self on the top which goes on looking at the drama below where you are the actor, where you participate, dance and jump and sing and talk and think and get involved; if somebody deep in you can go on looking at this drama; if you can be in such a state where you are also playing as an actor on the stage and simultaneously sitting in the audience looking at it; if you can be the actor and the audience both - then witnessing has come in. This witnessing will make you capable of knowing, of understanding, of wisdom.

So it looks paradoxical. If you go to Buddha he can move into deep details of your problems, not because he is in the problem, only because he is not in the problem. He can penetrate you. He can put himself in your situation and still remain a witness.

So those who are in the world cannot understand the world. Those who have gone beyond it, only they understand it. So whatsoever you want to understand, go beyond it. This appears paradoxical. Whatsoever you want to know, go beyond it - only then knowledge will happen. Moving as an insider in anything you may collect much information, but you will not become a wise man.

You can practice it moment to moment. You can do both: be the actor and be the audience both. When you are angry you can shift the mind. This is a deep art, but if you try, you will be able. You can shift.

For a single moment you can be angry. Then get detached, look at the anger, at your own face in the mirror. Look what you are doing; look what is happening around you; look what you have done to the others, how they are reacting. Look for a moment, then again be angry, move into the anger. Then, again, become an observer. This can be done, but then very deep practice is needed.

You try it. While eating, for one moment become the eater. Enjoy, become the food, become the eating - forget that there is anyone who can look at it. When you have moved enough, then for a single moment move away. Go on eating, but start looking at it - the food, the eater, and you standing above looking at it.

Soon you will become efficient, and you can shift the gears of the mind from the actor to the audience, from the participant to the onlooker. And then this will be revealed to you, that through participation nothing is known; only through observation things become revealed and known. That's why those who have left the world, they have become the guides. Those who have gone beyond, they have become the Masters.

Freud used to say to his disciples... It is very difficult because Freud's disciples, the psychoanalysts, they are not men who have transcended. They live in the world. They are just experts. But even Freud has suggested to them that while listening to a patient, to someone who is ill, mentally ill, "You remain detached. Don't get emotionally involved. If you get involved, then your advice is futile. Just remain a spectator."

Even it looks very cruel. Somebody is crying, weeping, and you can also feel because you are a human being. But Freud said, "If you are working as a psychiatrist, as a psychoanalyst, you remain uninvolved. You look at the person as if he is just a problem. Don't look at him as if he is a human being. If you look at him as a human being, you are immediately involved; you have become a participant, then you cannot advise. Then whatsoever you say will be prejudiced. Then you are not outside it."

It is difficult, very difficult, so Freudians have been doing it through many ways. The Freudian psychoanalyst will not face the patient directly, because when you face a person it is difficult to remain uninvolved. If you look in the eyes of a person, you enter him. So the Freudian psychoanalyst sits behind a curtain, and the patient lies on a couch.

That too is very significant, because Freud came to understand that if a person is Lying down and you are sitting or standing, not looking at him, there is less possibility to get involved. Why? A person Lying down becomes a problem, as if on the surgeon's table. You can dissect him. And ordinarily, this never happens. If you go to meet a person, he will not talk to you Lying down and you sitting, unless he is a patient, unless he is in the hospital.

So Freud insists that his patient should lie down on the couch. So the psychoanalyst goes on feeling that the person is a patient, ill. He has to be helped. He is rot really a person but a problem, and you need not get involved with him. And he should not face the person, he should not face the patient - just hiding behind a curtain, he will listen to him. Freud says don't touch the patient, because if you touch, if you take the patient's hand in your hand, there is possibility you may get involved.

These precautions had to be taken because psychoanalysts are not enlightened persons. But if you go to a Buddha, there is no need for you to lie down, there is no need to hide you behind a curtain. There is no need for Buddha to remain conscious that he is not to get involved; he cannot get involved. Whatsoever the case, he remains uninvolved.

He can feel compassion for you, but he cannot be sympathetic, remember this. And try to understand the distinction between sympathy and compassion. Compassion is from a higher source. Buddha can remain compassionate towards you. He understands you - that you are in a difficulty - but he is not sympathetic with you because he knows it is because of your foolishness that you are in difficulty, it is your stupidity that you are in difficulty.

He has compassion; he will try in every way to help you to come out of your stupidity. But your stupidity is not something with which he is going to sympathize. So in a way he will be very warm and in a way he will be very cold. He will be warm as far as his compassion is concerned and he will be absolutely cold as far as sympathy is concerned.

And, ordinarily, if you go to Buddha you will feel he iS cold - because you don't know what compassion is and you don't know the warmth of compassion. You have known only the warmth of sympathy, and he is not sympathetic. He looks cruel, cold. If you cry and weep, he is not going to cry and weep with you. And if he cries, then there is no possibility that help can come from him to you. He is in the same position. He cannot cry, but you will feel hurt that, "I am crying and weeping, and he remains just like a statue, as if he has got no heart." He cannot sympathize with you. Sympathy is from the same mind towards the same mind. Compassion is from a higher source.

He can look at you. You are transparent to him, totally naked; and he knows why you are suffering. You are the cause, and he will try to explain the cause to you. And if you can listen to him, the very act of listening will have helped you much.

It looks paradoxical; it is not. Buddha has also lived like you. If not in this life, then in some previous lives. He has moved through the same struggles. He has been stupid like you, he has suffered like you, he has struggled like you. For many, many lives he was on the same path. He knows all the agony, all the struggle, the conflict, the misery. He is aware, more aware than you, because now all the past lives are before his eyes - not only his, but yours also. He has lived all the problems that any human mind can live, so he knows. And he has transcended them, so now he knows what are the causes and he also knows how they can be transcended.

And he will help in every way to make you understand that you are the cause of your miseries. This is very hard. This is the most difficult thing to understand that "I am the cause of my miseries." This hits deep; one feels hurt. Whenever someone says someone else is the cause, you feel okay. And that person looks sympathetic. If he says, "You are a sufferer, a victim, and others are exploiting you, others are doing damage, others are violent," you feel good. But this goodness is not going to last. It is a momentary consolation, and dangerous, at a very great cost, because he is helping your cause of misery.

So those who look sympathetic towards you are your enemies really, because their sympathy helps your cause to be strengthened. The very source of misery is strengthened. You feel that you are okay and the whole world is wrong - misery comes from somewhere else.

If you go to a Buddha, to an enlightened person, he is bound to be hard, because he will force you to the fact that you are the cause. And once you start feeling that you are the cause of your hell, the transformation has already started. The moment you feel this, half work is already done. You are already on the path; you have already moved. A great change has come over you.

Half the miseries will suddenly disappear once you understand that you are the cause, because then you cannot cooperate with them. Then you will not be so ignorant to help to strengthen the cause which creates miseries. Your cooperation will break. Miseries will still continue for a while just because of old habits.

Once Mulla Nasrudin was forced to come to the court because he has been found again drunk on the street. The magistrate said, "Nasrudin, I remember seeing you so many times for this same offence. Have you got any explanation for your habitual drunkenness?" Nasrudin said, "Of course, your Honor. I have an explanation for my habitual drunkenness. This is my explanation: habitual thirst."

Even if you become alert, the habitual pattern will force you for a while to move in the same direction. But it cannot persist for long; the energy is no more there. It can continue as a dead pattern, but by and by it will wither away. It needs every day to be fed, it needs every day to be strengthened. Your cooperation is needed continuously.

Once you become alert that you are the cause of your miseries, the cooperation has dropped. So whatsoever I say to you is just to make you alert of a single fact - that wherever you are, whatsoever you are, you are the cause. And don't get pessimistic about it, this is very hopeful. If somebody else is the cause, then nothing can be done.

Because of this, Mahavira denies God. Mahavira says there is no God because if there is God, then nothing can be done. Then he is the cause of everything, then what can I do? Then I become helpless. He has created the world; he has created me. If he is the creator then only he can destroy. And if I am miserable, then he is responsible and I cannot do anything.

So Mahavira says if there is God, then man is helpless. So he says, "I don't believe in God." And the reason is not philosophical; the reason is very psychological. The reason is so that you cannot make anybody responsible for you. Whether God exists or not, that is not the question.

Mahavira says, "I want you to understand that you are the cause of whatsoever you are." And this is very hopeful. If you are the cause, you can change it. If you can create the hell, you can create the heaven. You are the master.

So don't feel hopeless. The more you make others responsible for your life, the more you are a slave. If you say, "My wife is making me angry," then you are a slave. If you say your husband is creating trouble for you, then you are a slave. Even if your husband is creating trouble, you have chosen that husband. And you wanted this trouble, this type of trouble - it is your choice. If your wife is making hell, you have chosen this wife.

Somebody asked Mulla Nasrudin, "How you came to know your wife? Who introduced you?" He said, "It just happened. I cannot blame anybody."

Nobody can blame anybody. And it is not just happening, it is a choice. A particular type of man chooses a particular type of woman. It is not accident. And he chooses for particular reasons. If this woman dies, he will again choose the same type of woman. If he divorces this woman, again he will marry the same type of woman.

You can go on changing wives, but unless the husband changes there can be no real change - only names change - because this man has a choice. He likes a particular face, he likes a particular nose, he likes particular eyes, he likes particular behavior.

And that's a complex thing. If you like a particular nose - because a nose is not just a nose. It carries anger, it carries ego, it carries silence, it carries peace, it carries many things - if you like a particular nose, you may be liking a person who can force you to be angry. An egotist person has a different type of nose. It may look beautiful. It looks beautiful only because you are in search of somebody who can create a hell around you. And sooner or later things will follow. You may not be able to connect, you may not be able to link. Life is complex, and you are so much involved in it that you cannot connect. You will be able only to see when you transcend.

It is just like as you flying in an aircraft over and above Bombay. The whole Bombay appears, the whole pattern. If you live in Bombay and move in the streets, you cannot look at the whole pattern. The whole Bombay cannot be seen by those who live in Bombay. It can be seen only by those who fly above. Then the whole pattern appears. Then things fall into a pattern. Transcendence means going beyond human problems. Then you can enter and see.

I have looked through many, many persons. Whatsoever they do, they are not aware what they are doing. They become aware only when results come. They go on dropping the seed in the soil; they are not aware. But only when they will have to crop they will become aware. And they cannot connect that they are the source and they are the reapers.

Once you understand that you are the cause, you have moved on the path. Now many things become possible. Now you can do something about the problem that is your life. You can change it. Just by changing yourself, you can change.

One woman came to me - belongs to a very rich family, a very good family, cultured, refined, educated. She asked me, "If I start meditating, will it in any way disturb my relationship with my husband?" And she herself said, before I answered her, "I know it is not going to disturb because if I become better more silent and more loving - how it can disturb my relationship?"

But I told her that, "You are wrong. The relationship is going to be disturbed. Whether you become good or bad, that is irrelevant. You change, one partner changes - the relationship is to be disturbed. And this is the miracle; that if you become bad, the relationship will not be disturbed so much. If you become good and better, the relationship is just going to be shattered, because when one partner falls down and becomes bad, the other feels better comparatively. It is not a hurt to the ego. Rather, it is ego-satisfying."

So a wife feels good if the husband starts drinking because now she becomes a moral preacher. Now she dominates him more. Now, whenever he enters in the house he enters like a criminal. And just because he drinks, everything that he is doing becomes wrong. That much is enough because the wife can bring that argument again and again from anywhere. So everything is condemned.

But if a husband or a wife becomes meditative, then there will be even deeper problems because the other's ego will be hurt - one is becoming superior, and the other will try in every way not to allow this to happen. He will create all troubles possible. And even if it happens, he will try not to believe in it, that it has happened. He will prove that this has not happened yet. He will go on saying that, "You are meditating for years and nothing has happened. What is the use of it? Useless. You still get angry, you still do this and that, you remain the same." The other will try to force that nothing is happening. This is a consolation.

And if really something has happened, if the wife or the husband has really changed, then this relationship cannot continue. It is impossible unless the other is also ready to change. And to get ready to change oneself is very difficult because it hurts the ego. It means whatsoever you are, you are wrong. Only then a need for change is there.

So nobody ever feels that he has to change: "The whole world has to change, not I. I am the right, absolute right, and the world is wrong because it doesn't suit to me." All the effort of all the Buddhas is very simple: it is to make you aware that wherever you are, whatsoever you are, you are the cause.

The second question:

It is absolutely unnecessary - not only unnecessary, it creates all types of hindrances on the path of yoga. The warrior-like attitude is the greatest hindrance possible because there is no one to fight with. Inside, you are alone. If you start fighting, you are splitting yourself.

And this is the greatest disease: to be divided, to become schizophrenic. And the whole struggle is useless because it is not going to lead anywhere. No one can win. On both the sides you are. So at the most you can play; you can play a game of hide and seek. Sometimes part A wins, sometimes part B wins; again part A, again part B. In this way you can move. Sometimes that which you call good wins. But fighting with the bad, winning over the bad, the good part has become exhausted and the bad part has gathered energy. So sooner or later the bad part will come up, and this can go on infinitely.

But why this warrior-like attitude happens? Why with most people fighting starts? The moment they think of transformation, they start fighting. Why? Because you know only one method of winning, and that is fight.

In the world outside, in the outside world, there is one way to be victorious and that is fight - fight and destroy the other. This is the only way in the outside world to be victorious. And you have lived in this outside world for millions and millions of years and you have been fighting - sometimes getting defeated if you don't fight well, sometimes getting victorious if you fight well. So it has become a built-in program that "Fight strongly." There is only one way to be victorious and that is a hard fight.

When you move within, you carry the same program because you are acquainted only with this. And in the world within, just the reverse is the case: fight and you will be defeated-because there is no one to fight with. In the inner world, let-go is the way to be victorious, surrender is the way to be victorious, allowing the inner nature to flow, not fighting, is the way to be victorious. Letting the river flow, not pushing it, is the way as far as the inner world is concerned. This is just the reverse. But you are acquainted only with the outside world, so this is bound to be so in the beginning. Whoever moves within, he will carry the same weapons, the same attitudes, the same fighting, the same defense.

Machiavelli is for the outside world; Lao Tzu, Patanjali and Buddha are for the inside world. And they teach different things. Machiavelli says attack is the best defense: "Don't wait. Don't wait for the other to attack, because then you are already on the losing. Already you have lost, because the other has started. He has already gained, so it is always better to start. Don't wait to defend; always be the aggressor. Before somebody else attacks you, you attack him and fight with as much cunningness as possible, with as much dishonesty as possible. Be dishonest, be cunning and be aggressive. Deceive, because that is the only way." These are the means that Machiavelli suggests. And Machiavelli is an honest man; that's why he suggests exactly whatsoever Is needed.

But if you ask Lao Tzu, Patanjali or Buddha, they are talking of a different type of victory - the inner victory. There, cunningness won't do, deceiving won't do, fighting won't do, aggression won't do, because whom you are going to deceive? Whom you are going to defeat? You alone are there. In the outside world you are never alone. The others are there; they are the enemies. In the inside world you alone are there. There is no other. There is no enemy, no friend. This is a totally new situation for you. You will carry the old weapons, but those old weapons will become the cause of your defeat. When you change the world from without to within, leave all that you have learned from without. That is not going to help.

Somebody asked Ramana Maharshi that, "What I should learn to become silent, to know myself?" Ramana Maharshi is reported to have said that, "For reaching to the inner self you need not learn anything. You need unlearning, learning won't help. It helps to move without. Unlearning will help."

Whatsoever you have learned, unlearn it, forget it, drop it. Move inside innocently, childlike - not cunningness and cleverness, but childlike trust and innocence; not thinking in terms that someone is going to attack you. There is no one, so don't feel insecure and don't make any arrangements for defense. Remain vulnerable, receptive, open. That's what shraddha, trust, means.

Doubt is needed outside because the other is there. He may be thinking to deceive you, so you have to doubt and be skeptical. Inside, no doubt, no skepticism is needed. Nobody is there to deceive you. You can remain there just as you are.

That's why everybody carries this warrior-like attitude, but it is not needed. It is a hindrance, the greatest hindrance. Drop it outside. You can make it a point to remember that whatsoever is needed outside will become a hindrance inside. Whatsoever, I say unconditionally. And just the reverse has to be tried.

If doubt helps outside in scientific research, then faith will help inside in religious inquiry. If aggressiveness helps outside in the world of power, prestige, others, then non-aggressiveness will help inside. If cunning, calculating mind helps outside, then innocent, non-calculating, childlike mind will help inside.

Remember this: whatsoever helps outside, just the reverse will do inside. So read Machiavelli's PRINCE. That is the way for outside victory. And just make a reverse of Machiavelli's PRINCE, and you can reach inside. Just make Machiavelli stand upside down, and he becomes Lao Tzu - just in shirshasan, in the headstand. Machiavelli standing on his head becomes Patanjali.

So read his PRINCE; it is beautiful - the clearest statement for the outside victory. And then read Lao Tzu's TAO TEH CHING or Patanjali's YOGA SUTRAS or Buddha's DHAMMAPADA or Jesus' SERMON ON THE MOUNT. They are just the contradictory, just the reverse, just the opposite.

Jesus says, "Blessed are those who are meek because they will inherit the earth" - meek, innocent, weak, not strong in any sense. "Blessed are the poor because they will enter the kingdom of my God." And Jesus makes it clear, "poor in spirit". They have nothing to claim. They cannot say, "I have got this." They don't possess anything - knowledge, wealth, power, prestige. They don't possess anything, they are poor. They cannot claim that, "This is mine."

We go on claiming, "This is mine, that is mine. The more I can claim, the more I feel, 'I am.' " In the outside world, the greater the territory of your mind, the more you are. In the inner world, lesser the territory of mind, the greater you are. And when the territory disappears completely and you have become a zero, then - then you are the greatest. Then you are the victorious. Then the victory has happened.

Warrior-like attitudes - struggle fight, over-concern with strict rules, regulations, calculations, planning - this mind is carried inside because you have learned it and you don't know anything else. Hence, the necessity of a Master. Otherwise you will go on trying your ways which are absolutely absurd there.

Hence, the necessity of initiation. Initiation means somebody who can show you the path where you have never traveled, somebody who can give you a glimpse through him of a world, of a dimension, that is absolutely unknown to you. You are almost blind to it. You cannot see it because eyes can see only whatsoever they have learned to see.

If you come here and if you are a tailor, then you don't look at faces, you look at dresses. Faces don't mean much; just looking at the dress you know what type of man is there. You know a language.

If you are a shoemaker, you need not even look at the dress; shoes will do. And a shoemaker can just go on looking on the street, and he knows who is passing, whether he is a great leader - just looking at the shoe - whether he is an artist, a Bohemian, a hippie, a rich man, whether he is cultured, educated, uneducated, a villager - who he is just by looking at the shoe because shoe gives all indications. He knows the language. Whether a man is winning in life, the shoe has a different shine. If he is defeated in life, the shoe is defeated. Then the shoe is sad, not cared for. And the shoemaker knows it. He need not look at your face. The shoe will tell everything that he wants to know.

Everything we learn and then we become fixed in it. Then that's what we see. You have learned something, and you have wasted many lives in learning it. And it is now deep-rooted, imprinted. It has become part of your brain cells. So when you move within there is simply darkness, nothing, you cannot see anything. The whole world that you know has disappeared.

It is just like you know one language and suddenly you are transported to a land where no one understands your language and you cannot understand anybody's language. And people are talking and chattering, and you feel simply that they are mad. It looks they are talking gibberish, and it looks very noisy because you cannot understand. And they seem to be talking too loudly. If you can understand it, then the whole thing changes; you become part of it. Then it is not gibberish; it becomes meaningful.

When you enter within you know the language of the without. There is darkness within. Your eyes cannot see, your ears cannot hear, your hands cannot feel. Somebody is needed somebody to initiate you, to take your hand in his hand and to move you onto this unknown path until you become acquainted, until you start feeling, until you become aware of some light, some meaning, some significance around you.

Once you have the first initiation, things will start happening. But the first initiation is a difficult thing because this is quite an about-turn, a total about-turn. Suddenly your world of meaning disappears. You are in a strange world. You don't understand anything - where to move, what to do and what to make out of this chaos. A Master only means someone who knows. And this chaos, inside chaos, is not chaos for him, it has become an order, a cosmos, and he can lead you into it.

Initiation means looking through the inner world through someone else's eyes. Without trust it is impossible because you won't allow your hand to be taken, you won't allow anybody to lead you into the unknown. And he cannot give you any guarantee. No guarantee will be of any use. Whatsoever he says, you have to take it on trust.

In the old days, when Patanjali was writing his sutras, trust was very easy, because in the outside world also, particularly in the East and especially in India, they had created an outside pattern of initiation. For example, trades, professions, belonged to families through heredity. A father will initiate the child into the profession, and a child naturally believes in his father. The father will take the child to the farm if he is a peasant and a farmer, and he will initiate him into his farming. Whatsoever trade, whatsoever business he is doing, he will initiate the child.

In the outside world also, initiation was there in the East. Everything was to be initiated - someone who knows will take you. This helped very much because you were acquainted with initiation, someone leading you. So, when the time came for inner initiation, you could trust.

And trust, shraddha, faith, was easier in a world which was non-technological. A technological world needs cunning, calculation, mathematics, cleverness - not innocence. In a technological world, if you are innocent you will look foolish; if you are cunning you will look clever, intelligent. Our universities are doing nothing but this: they make you clever, cunning, calculating. The more calculating, the more cunning, the more successful you will be in the world.

Quite the reverse was the case in the East in the past. If you were cunning it was impossible for you to succeed even in the outside world. Only innocence was accepted. Technique was not valued too much, but inner quality was valued too much.

If a person is cunning and he makes a better shoe nobody will go to him in the East in the past. They will go to the person who is innocent. He may not be making such better shoes, but they will go to the person who is innocent because a shoe is not just something, it carries the quality of the person who has made it. So if there was a cunning and clever technician, nobody will go to him. He will suffer; he will be a failure. But if he was a man of qualities, character, innocence, then people will go to him. Even for worse things, people will value his things more.

Kabir was a weaver and he remained a weaver. When even he attained enlightenment, he continued weaving. And he was so ecstatic, that his weaving could not be very good. He was singing and dancing and weaving! There were many mistakes and many errors, but his things were valued, super-valued.

Many people will just wait when Kabir brings something - that was not just a thing, a commodity, it was from Kabir! The very thing in itself has an intrinsic quality, it has come from Kabir's hands. Kabir has touched it. And Kabir was dancing around it while he was weaving it. And continuously he was remembering the divine, so the thing - the cloth or the dress or anything - has become sacred, holy. The quantity was not the question, the quality! The technical side was secondary; the human side was the primary.

So even in the outside world in the East, they had managed a pattern so that when you turn inwards, you will not be totally unacquainted with that world; something you will know, some guidelines, some lights in your hand. You will not be moving into total darkness.

And this trust in outside relationships was everywhere. A husband couldn't believe that his wife can be unfaithful. It was almost impossible. And if the husband dies, the wife will die with him because the life was such a shared phenomenon. Now it is meaningless to live without someone with whom life has become such a shared thing.

It became ugly later on, but in the beginning it was one of the most beautiful things that has ever happened on earth. You loved someone and he has disappeared - you would like to disappear with him. To be without him will be worse than death. Death is better and worth choosing - such was trust in outside things also. The relationship of wife and husband is an outside thing. The whole society was moving around trust, faith, authentic sharing, then it was helpful. When once time came to move within, all these things will help him to be initiated easily - to trust someone, to surrender.

Fight, struggle, aggressiveness are hindrances. Don't carry them. When you move inwards, leave them on the door. If you carry them, you will miss the inner temple; you will never reach it. With those things you cannot move inwards.

The third question:

Vairagya is enough, desirelessness is enough. Then no discipline is needed. But where is that desirelessness? It is not there. To help it discipline is needed. Discipline is needed only because that desirelessness is not in its wholeness within you.

If desirelessness is there, then there is no question of practicing anything: no discipline is needed. You will not come to listen to me; you will not go to read Patanjali's sutras. If desirelessness is complete, Patanjali is useless. Why waste your time with Patanjali's sutras? I am useless, why come to me?

You are in search of a discipline. You are moving in search of some discipline which can transform you. You are a disciple, and "disciple" means a person who is in search of a discipline. And don't deceive yourself. Even if you go to Krishnamurti, you are in search of a discipline - because one who is not in need will not go. Even if Krishnamurti says that no one needs to be a disciple and no discipline is needed, why you are there? And these words will become your discipline, and you will create a pattern, and you will start following that pattern.

Desirelessness is not there, so you are in suffering. And nobody likes to suffer, and everybody wants to transcend suffering. How to transcend it? This is what discipline will help you to do. Discipline only means: to make you ready for the jump, for the jump of desirelessness. Discipline means a training.

You are not yet ready. You have a very gross mechanism. Your body, your mind, they are gross. They cannot receive the subtle. You are not tuned. To receive the subtle you will have to be tuned. Your grossness has to disappear. Remember this - to receive the subtle you will have to become subtle. As you are, the divine may be around you, but you cannot be in touch with it.

It is just like a radio Lying down here in this room but not functioning. Some wires are wrongly connected or some wires are broken or some knob is missing. The radio is here, the radio waves are continuously passing, but the radio is not tuned. And it cannot become receptive.

You are just like a radio, not in the state where it can function. Many things are missing, many things are wrongly joined. A "discipline" means to make your radio functioning, receptive, tuned. The divine waves are all around you. Once you are tuned they become manifest. And they can become manifest only through you, and unless they become manifest through you, you cannot know them. They may have become manifest through me, they may have become manifest through Krishnamurti or anybody else, but that cannot become your transformation.

You cannot know really what is happening in a Krishnamurti, in a Gurdjieff - what is happening inside, what type of tuning is happening, how their mechanism has become so subtle that it receives the subtlest message of the universe, the existence starts manifesting itself through it.

Discipline means to change your mechanism, to tune it, to make it a fit instrument to be expressive, receptive. Sometimes without discipline also, this can accidentally happen. The radio can fall from the table. Just by falling, just by accident, some wires may get connected or disconnected. Just by falling, the radio may get connected to a station. Then it will start expressing something, but it will be a chaos.

It has happened many times. Sometimes through accident people have come to know the divine and feel the divine. But then they go mad because they are not disciplined to receive such a great phenomenon. They are not ready. They are so small, and such a great ocean falls in them. This has happened. In the Sufi system they call such persons madmen of the God - masts, they call.

Many people, sometimes without discipline - through some accident, through some Master, through the grace of some Master or just through the presence of some Master - get tuned. Their whole mechanism is not ready, but a part starts functioning. Then they are out of order. Then you will feel they are mad, because they will start saying things which look irrelevant. And they can also feel that they are irrelevant, but they cannot do anything. Something has begun in them; they cannot stop it.

They feel a certain happiness. That's why they are called masts, the happy ones. But they are not Buddhalike, they are not enlightened. And it is said that for masts, for these happy ones who have gone mad, a very great Master is needed because now they cannot do anything with themselves. They are just in confusion - happily in it, but they are a mess. They cannot do anything on their own.

In old days, great Sufi Masters will move all around the earth. Whenever they will hear that somewhere a mast is, a madman is, they will go and they will just help that man to get tuned.

In this century only Meher Baba has done that work - a great work of its own type, a rare work. Continuously, for many years, he was traveling all over India, and the places he was visiting were madhouses, because in madhouses many masts are living. But you cannot make any distinction, who is mad and who is mast; they both are mad. Who is really mad and who is mad just because of a divine accident - because of some tuning that has happened through some accident! You cannot make any distinction.

Many masts are there. Meher Baba traveled and he will live in madhouses, and he will help and serve the masts, the mad ones. And many of them came out of their madness and started their journey toward enlightenment.

In the West many people are in madhouses, mad asylums, many who don't need any psychiatric help because psychiatrists can only make them again normal.

They need the help of someone who is enlightened, not a psychiatrist, because they are not ill. Or, if they are ill, they are ill by a divine disease. Your health is nothing before that illness. That illness is better - worth losing all your "health". Discipline is needed.

In India this phenomenon has not been so great as it has been in Mohammedan countries. That's why Sufis have special methods to help these mast people, the mad people of the God.

But Patanjali has created such a subtle system that there is no need of any accident. The discipline is so scientific that if you pass through this discipline you will reach to Buddhahood without getting mad on the path. It is a complete system.

Sufism is still not a complete system. Many things are lacking in it, and they are lacking because of the stubborn attitude of Mohammedans. They won't allow it to evolve to its peak and climax. And the Sufi system has to follow the pattern of Islam religion. Because of that structure of Mohammedan religion, the Sufi system couldn't go beyond it.

Patanjali follows no religion, he follows only truth. He will not make any compromise with Hinduism or Mohammedanism or any ism. He follows the scientific truth. Sufis had to make compromise, and they had to. Because there were some Sufis who tried not to make any compromise; for example, Bayazid of Bistham, or Al-Hillaj Mansoor they didn't make any compromise; then they were killed, they were murdered.

So Sufis went into hiding. They made their science completely secret, and they will allow only fragments to be known, only those fragments which fit with Islam and its pattern. All other fragments were hidden. So the whole system is not known; it is not working. So many people, through fragments, get mad.

Patanjali's system is complete, and discipline is needed. Before you move into this unknown world of the within, a deep discipline is needed so no accident is possible. If you move without discipline, then many things are possible.

Vairagya is enough, but that "enough" vairagya is not there in your heart. If it is there, then there is no question. Then close Patanjali's book and bum it. It is absolutely unnecessary. But that "enough vairagya is not there. It is better to move on a disciplined path, step by step, so you don't become a victim of any accident. Accidents... the possibility is there.

Many systems are working in the world, but there is no system so perfect as Patanjali's because no country has worked for so long. And Patanjali is not the originator of this system, he is only the systematiZer. Before Patanjali, for thousands of years, the system was developed. Many people worked. Patanjali has given just the essence of thousands of years work.

But he has made it in such a way that you can move safely. Just because you are moving inwards, don't think that you are moving in a safe world. It can be unsafe. It is dangerous also; you can be lost in it. And if you are lost in it, you will be mad. That's why teachers like Krishnamurti who insist that no teacher is needed are dangerous, because people who are uninitiated may take their standpoint and may start working on their own.

Remember, even if your wristwatch goes wrong, you have the tendency and the curiosity - because it comes from the monkeys - to open it and do something. It is difficult to resist it. You cannot believe that you don't know anything about it. You may be the owner. Just by being the owner of the watch doesn't mean you know anything. Don't open it! It is better to take it to a right person who knows about these things. And a watch is a simple mechanism; the mind is such a complex mechanism. Never open it on your own because whatsoever you do will be wrong.

Sometimes it happens that your watch has gone wrong - you just shake it and it starts. But that is not a science. Sometimes it happens that something you do, and just by luck, accident, you feel something happening. But you have not become a Master. And if it has happened once don't try it again, because if you next shake your watch it may stop. This is not a science.

Don't move by accidents. Discipline is only a safeguard. Don't move by accidents! Move with a Master who knows what he is doing, and he knows if something goes wrong he can bring it to the right path, who is aware of your past and who is also aware of your future, and who can join together your past and future.

Hence, so much emphasis on Masters in Indian teachings. And they knew, and they meant it, because there is no mechanism so complex as human mind, no computer so complex as human mind.

Man has not been able yet to evolve anything comparable to the mind - and I think it is not ever going to be evolved, because who will evolve it? If human mind can evolve something, it is going always to be lower and lesser than the mind that creates. At least one thing is certain that whatsoever human mind creates, that created thing cannot create human mind. So the human mind remains the superior-most, the supreme-most complex mechanism.

Don't do anything just because of curiosity or just because others are doing it. Get initiated, and move with someone who knows the path well. Otherwise madness can be the result. And it has happened before; it is happening to many people right now.

Patanjali doesn't believe in accidents. He believes in a scientific order. So he has given one-by-one step. These two he makes his base: vairagya, desirelessness and abhyasa, constant, conscious inner practice. Abhyasa is the means and vairagya is the goal. Desirelessness is the goal, and constant, conscious inner practice is the means.

But the goal starts from the very beginning and the ends are hidden in the beginning. The tree is hidden in the seed, so the beginning implies the end. That's why he says desirelessness is needed in the beginning also. The beginning has the end in it and the end will also have the beginning in it.

So when even a Master has become complete, total, he continues practicing. This will look absurd to you. You have to practice because you are in the beginning and the goal has not been achieved, but when the goal is achieved even then the practice continues. It becomes now spontaneous, but it continues. It never stops. It cannot, because the end and the beginning are not two things. If the tree is in the seed, then in the tree again will come seeds.

Someone asked Buddha - one of his disciples, Purnakashyap - he asked that, 'We see, bhante, you till follow a certain discipline."

Buddha, still following a certain discipline. He moves in a certain way, he sits in a certain way, he remains alert, he eats certain things, he behaves, everything seems to be disciplined.

So Purnakashyap says that, "You have become enlightened, but we feel that you have still a certain discipline." Buddha says, "It has become so engrained that now I am not following it, it is following me. It has become a shadow. I need not think about it. It is there, always there. It has become a shadow."