Find the Ever-Present Flower
The first question:
PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW A SEED CAN FLOWER WITHOUT THE BIT IN BETWEEN.
THE SEED CAN FLOWER without the gap, without the time gap in between, because the seed is already flowering. You are already that which you can become. If it was not so, then the seed cannot flower right now.
Then time would be needed. Then Zen is not possible. Then only Patanjali is the way. If you are to become something, a time process will be a must. But this is the point to understand: all those who have known, they have also known that becoming is a dream. You are already the being; you are perfect as you are.
Imperfection appears because you are fast asleep. The flower is already flowering; only your eyes are closed. If the seed has to reach to the flower, then much time will be needed, and this is no ordinary flower: God has to flower in you. Then even eternity will not be enough, then it is almost impossible. If you have to flower, then it is almost impossible. It is not going to happen; it cannot happen. eternity will be needed.
No, that is not the thing. It can happen right now, this very moment Not even a single moment has to be lost. The question is not of seed becoming a flower. The question is of opening the eyes. You can open your eyes right now, and then you find the flower has always been flowering. It was never otherwise; it could not have been otherwise.
God is always there within you; just a look, and it is manifested. Not that it was hidden in a seed; you were not looking at it. So only this much is needed - that you look at it. Whatsoever you are, look at it, become aware of it. Don't move like a sleepwalker.
That's why it is related that many Zen Masters, when they became awakened, they roared with laughter. Their disciples couldn't understand, their fellow travelers couldn't understand, what happened. Why they are roaring madly? Why this laughter? They were laughing because of the whole absurdity. They were seeking that which was already achieved; they were running after something which was already there within them; they were seeking something somewhere else which was hidden in the seeker himself.
The seeker is the sought; the traveler is the goal. You are not to reach somewhere else. You are to reach only to yourself. This can happen in a single moment; even a fraction of a moment is enough. If the seed has to become a flower, then eternity is not enough because it is a flower of God. If you are already the God, then just a look back, just a look within, then it can happen.
Then why Patanjali? Patanjali is needed because of you. You take such a long time to get out of your sleep, you take such a long time to get out of your dreams, you are so much involved in the dreams, you have so much invested in your dreams, that is why time is needed. Time is not needed because the seed has to become a flower; time is needed because you cannot open your eyes. With closed eyes you have become so much accustomed, it has become a deep habit. Not only that: you have completely forgotten that you are living with closed eyes. You have completely forgotten it You think that, "What nonsense you are talking. My eyes are already open." And your eyes are closed.
If I say, "Get out of your dreams," you say, "I am already awake," and this too is a dream. You can dream that you are awake; you can dream that your eyes are open. Then much time will be needed - not that the flower was not already flowering - but it was so difficult for you to awake. There are many investments. Those investments have to be understood. The ego is the basic involvement. If you open your eyes, you disappear. Opening the eyes looks like death. It is. So you talk about it, you listen about it, you think about it, but you never open the eyes because if you really open the eyes you also know that you will disappear. Then who will be you? A nobody A nothingness This nothingness is there if you open the eyes; so it is better to believe that the eyes are already open, and you remain somebody.
The ego is the first involvement. The ego can exist only while you are asleep, just like dreams can exist only while you are asleep. The ego can exist only while you are asleep - metaphysically asleep, existentially asleep. Open the eyes First you disappear; then God appears: this is the problem. And you are afraid that you may disappear, but that is the door, so you listen about it, you think about it, but you go on postponing - tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow.
That's why Patanjali is needed. Patanjali says no need to open the eyes immediately; there are many steps. You can come out of your sleep in steps, in degrees. Certain things you do today, certain tomorrow, then day after tomorrow, and it is going to take a long time. Patanjali appeals because he gives you time to sleep. He says no need to come out of your sleep right now; just a turning over will do. Then have a little more sleep; then do something else. Then by and by, in degrees...
He is a great persuader. He persuades you out of your sleep. Zen shocks you out of your sleep. That's why a Zen Master can hit you on your head; never a Patanjali. A Zen Master can throw you out of the window; never a Patanjali. Because a Zen Master uses shock treatment - you can be shocked out of a sleep, so why go on trying and persuading you? Why waste time?
Patanjali brings you by and by, by and by. He brings you out and you are not even aware what he is doing. He is just like a mother. He does just the opposite, but just like the mother. A mother persuades a child into sleep. She may sing a lullaby, let the child feel she is there, no need to be afraid. Repeating the same line again and again, the child feels seduced into sleep. He falls into sleep holding the hand of the mother. No need to be worried. The mother is there and she is singing, and singing is beautiful. And the mother is not saying that, "Go into sleep," because that will disturb. She is simply persuading indirectly. And then by and by she will take her hand out, and she will cover the blanket and move from the room, and the child is fast asleep.
Just the same Patanjali does in the reverse order. By and by he brings you out of your sleep. That's why time is needed; otherwise the flower is already flowering. Look It is already there. Open the eyes and it is there; open the door and he is standing there waiting for you. He has been always standing there.
It depends on you. If you like a shock treatment, then Zen is the path. If you like a very gradual process, then yoga is the path. Choose! In choosing also you are very deceptive. You say to me, "How I can choose?" That too is a trick. Everything is plain. If you need time, choose Patanjali. If you are afraid of shocks, choose Patanjali. But choose! Otherwise non-choosing will become the postponement. Then you say, "It is difficult to choose, and unless I choose how I can move?"
A shock treatment is immediate. It brings you down to the earth immediately. My own methods are shock treatment. They are not gradual. With me you can hope to attain in this life; with Patanjali many lives will be needed. With me you can hope to attain right now also, but you have many things to do before you attain.
You know ego will disappear, you know sex will disappear. There is no possibility of sex, once you attain; it becomes absurd, silly. So you think, "A little more. What is wrong in waiting? Let me enjoy a little more." Anger will not be possible, violence will not be possible, jealousy will not be there; possessiveness, manipulating, they all will disappear.
You suddenly feel, "If all these disappear, then what I will be?" - because you are nothing but a combination, of all these, a bundle of all these and if all these disappear, then only nothingness is left. That nothingness ll scares you. It looks like an abyss. You would like to close your eyes and dream a little more, just as in the I morning you are awake but you would like to turn the 31 side just for five minutes and have a little dream more it was so beautiful.
One night Mulla Nasrudin woke up his wife and ' told her, "Bring my specs immediately. I was having such a beautiful dream, and more is promised."
And desires go on promising you - more is always promised - and they say, "Do this and that, and why be in a hurry when enlightenment is always possible? You can attain any time; there is no hurry. You can postpone it. It is a question of eternity, a concern of eternity; why not enjoy this moment?
You are not enjoying but the mind says, "Why not enjoy this moment?" And you have never enjoyed; because a man without inner understanding cannot enjoy anything. He simply suffers; everything becomes a suffering to him. Love - a thing like love - he suffers even that. The most beautiful phenomenon possible to a man asleep is love, but he suffers even through that. Nothing better is possible when you are asleep. Love is the greatest possibility, but even you suffer from that. Because it is not a question of love or something else - sleep is suffering, so whatsoever happens you will suffer. Sleep turns every dream into a nightmare. It starts beautifully, but something somewhere goes always wrong. In the end you reach to hell.
Every desire leads to hell. They say every road leads to Rome - I don't know, but of one thing I am certain: every desire leads to hell. In the beginning desire gives you much hope, dreams: that is the trick. That's how you are trapped. If the desire from the very beginning says, "Be alert: I am leading you to hell," you won't follow it. The desire promises you the heaven, and promises you - "Just a few steps and you will reach it; just come with me" - allures you, hypnotizes you and promises you many things, and you, being in suffering, think, "What is wrong in trying? Let us try a little this desire also."
That too will lead you to the hell because desire as such is a path to hell. Hence, Buddha says, "Unless you become desireless, you cannot be blissful." Desire is suffering, desire is a dream, and desire exists only when you are asleep. When you are awake and alert, desires cannot befool you. Then you see through; then everything is so clear that you cannot be befooled. How money can befool you and say that you will be very, very happy when there is money? Then look to rich people: they are in hell also - maybe a rich hell, but it makes no difference. A richer hell is going to be worse than a poor hell. Now they have attained money, and they are simply in a state of constant nervousness.
Mulla Nasrudin accumulated much wealth, and then he entered a hospital, because he couldn't sleep and he was nervous and constantly trembling and afraid - afraid of nothing in particular. A poor man is afraid of something in particular; a rich man is simply afraid. If you are afraid about something in particular, something can be done. But he is simply afraid. he does not know why, because he has everything; there is no need to be afraid, but he is simply afraid and trembling.
He was entered into the hospital, and for the breakfast few things were brought, and in those few things was a bowl of quivering gelatin. He said, "No. I cannot eat this." The doctor asked, "Why you are so adamant about it?" He said, "I cannot eat anything more nervous than me!"
But a rich man is nervous. What is his nervousness, the fear? Why he is so scared? Because every desire fulfilled, and still the frustration remains. Now he cannot even dream, because all dreams he has passed through; they lead nowhere. He cannot dream and he cannot gather courage to open the eyes also, because there are involvements. He has promised many things in his sleep.
When Buddha disappeared one night from his palace, he wanted to tell his wife that, "I am going." He wanted to touch the child who was just a day before born, because he would not be back again. He went to the very door of the room. He looked at the wife. She was so fast asleep, must have been dreaming; her face was beautiful, smiling, child in her arms. Then he waited for few seconds on the door; then he turned. He wanted to say, but then he became afraid. If he said something, then the wife is bound to cry and weep and create a scene.
And he is afraid of himself also, because if she weeps and cries, then he may become aware of his own promises, that "I will love you forever and ever, and I will be with you forever and ever." And what about this child who is only one day born? And she will, of course, bring the child before me, and she will say, "Look what you have done to me. Then why you gave birth to this child? And now who will be his father? And am I alone responsible for him? And you are escaping like a coward." A,ll these thoughts came to him, because in sleep everybody promises. Everybody goes on giving promises not knowing how he can fulfill them, but in sleep it happens because nobody is conscious what is happening.
Suddenly he became aware that these things will be brought and then the family will gather - and the father and everybody else - and he is the only son of the father, and the father is looking at him, and in his sleep he has promised him also. Then he simply escaped: he simply escaped like a thief.
After twelve years, when he came back, the wife asked him the first thing that had come to his mind that night when he was leaving. The wife asked, "Why didn't you tell me? The first thing I would like to ask - for these twelve years I was waiting for you - why didn't you tell me? What type of love is this? You simply left me. You are a coward."
And Buddha listened silently. And the wife was silent and he said, "These all thoughts had come to me. I had come just to the door, I had even opened the door. I looked at you; in sleep I had promised many things. But if I am going to be awake, if I am getting out of the sleep, then I cannot keep the promises given in sleep. And if I try to keep the promises, then I cannot awake.
"So you are right. You may think I am a coward; you may think that I escaped from the palace like a thief, not like a warrior, not like a man of courage. But I tell you, exactly opposite is the case, because when I was escaping, to me at that moment, that was the moment of greatest bravery because my whole being was saying, 'This is not good. Don't be a coward.' And if I had stopped, if I had listened to my sleepy being, then there was no possibility for me to awake.
"And now I come to you; now I can fulfill something, because only a man who is enlightened can fulfill. A man who is ignorant, how he can fulfill anything? Now I come to you. That moment if I had stopped I couldn't give you anything, but now I bring a great treasure with me, and now I can give it to you. Don't weep, don't cry; open the eyes and look at me. I am not the same man who had left that night. A totally different being has come to your door. I am not your husband. You may be my wife, because that is your attitude. Look at me - I am totally a different person. Now I bring treasures for you. I can make you also aware and enlightened."
The wife listened. The same problem always came to everybody. She started thinking about the child. If she becomes a sannyasin and moves with this beggar - her ex-husband, now he is a beggar - if she moves... and what will happen to the child? She has not said anything, but Buddha said, "I know what you are thinking, because I have passed that period where promises given in the sleepy state all crowd together and say, 'What are you doing? - your child...' You are thinking that, 'Let the child become a little more aged, let him be married, then he can take over the palace and the kingdom,' and then you will follow. But remember, there is no future, no tomorrow. Either you follow me right now or you don't follow me."
But the wife... And a feminine mind is more asleep than a male mind. There are reasons for it, because a woman is a greater dreamer, she lives more in hopes and dreams. She has to be a greater sleeper, otherwise it will be difficult for nature to use her as the mother. A woman must be in deep hypnotic state, only then she can carry a child nine months in the womb and suffer, and then give birth and suffer, and then bring up this child and suffer, and then one day this child simply leaves her and goes to another woman... and suffer.
It is such a long suffering, a woman is bound to be a greater sleeper than man. Otherwise, how can you suffer so much? And she always hopes. Then she hopes with another child, then with another child, and her whole life is wasted.
So Buddha said, "I know what you are thinking, and I know you are a greater dreamer than me. But now I have come to cut all the roots of your sleep. Bring the child. Where is my son? Bring him." The feminine mind played a trick again. She brought Rahul, the child who was twelve years of age now, and she said, "This is your father. Look at him - he has become a beggar - and ask him what is your heritage, what he can give to you. This is your father; he is a coward! He escaped like a thief not even telling me, and he left a one-day-old child. Ask him your heritage!"
Buddha laughed, and he told Ananda, "Bring my begging bowl." And he gave the begging bowl to Rahul, and he said, "This is my heritage. I make you a beggar. You are initiated. You become a sannyasin." And he said to his wife, "I cut the very root. Now there is no need to dream. You also awake because this was the root. Rahul is already a sannyasin; you also awake. Yashodhara, you also awake, and become a sannyasin."
The moment always comes when you are in the transit period from where sleep turns into awakening. The whole past will hold you back, and past is powerful. Future is powerless for a sleepy man. For a man who is not sleepy, future is powerful; for a man who is fast asleep, past is powerful, because a man who is fast asleep knows only dreams that he had dreamed in the past. He is not aware of any future. Even if he thinks about future, it is nothing but past reflected again; it is just past projected again. Only a man who is aware becomes aware of the future. Then past is nothing.
Keep it in the mind. You may not be able to understand right now, but some day you may understand. For a sleepy man, cause is more powerful than the effect; seed is more powerful than the flower. For a man who is awake, effect is more powerful than the cause, flower is more powerful than the seed. The logic of sleep is: the cause produces the effect, seed produces the flower. The logic of awakening is just the reverse: it is flower who produces the seed; it is effect who produces the cause; it is future who produces the past, not the past that produces the future. But for a sleepy mind, the past, the dead, the gone, is more powerful. It is not...
The yet-to-be is more powerful: the yet-to-be-born is more powerful because life is there. Past has no life. How it can be powerful? Past is already graveyard. Life has already moved from there: that's why it is past. Life has left it, but graveyards are very powerful for you. The yet-to-be, the yet-to-be-born, the fresh, that which is going to happen, for a man of awakening that becomes more powerful. The past cannot hold him back.
The past holds you back. You always think about past commitments; you always linger around the graveyard. You go again and again to visit the graveyard and pay your respects to the dead. Always pay respects to the yet-to-be-born, because life is there.
PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW A SEED CAN FLOWER WITHOUT THE BIT IN BETWEEN.
Yes, it can flower because it is already flowering. It creates the seed, not the seed the flower. It is flower that is going to be, has created the whole seed. But for you to remember is: only an opening is needed. Open the doors; the sun is there waiting for you. Life is not, in fact, a progress in reality. It appears like progress in sleep.
The being is already there - everything as it is already, perfect, absolute, ecstatic - nothing can be added, there is no way to improve upon it. Then what is needed? Only one thing, that you become conscious and see it. This can happen in two ways. Either you can be shocked out of your sleep: that is Zen. Or, you can be brought, persuaded, out of your sleep: that is yoga. Choose! Just don't hang in between.
The second question:
IS SURRENDER TO ISHWARA - GOD - AND SURRENDER TO THE GURU THE SAME?
Surrender doesn't depend on the object. It is a quality that you bring in your being. To whom you surrender is irrelevant. Any object will do. You can surrender to a tree; you can surrender to a river; you can surrender to anything - to your wife, to your husband, to your child. The problem is not there in the object, any object will do. The problem is to surrender.
The happening happens because of surrendering, not because to whom you have surrendered. And this is the most beautiful thing to understand: whomsoever you surrender, that object becomes the God. There is no question of surrendering to God. Where will you find God to surrender? You will never find. Surrender! And to whomsoever you surrender, the God is there. The child becomes the God, the husband becomes the God, the wife becomes the God, the guru becomes the God, even a stone can become God.
Even through stones people have attained, because it is not a question at all to what you surrender. You surrender, and that brings the whole thing, that opens the door. Surrendering, the effort to surrender, brings an opening to you. And if you are open to a stone you become open to the whole existence, because it is only a question of opening. How can you be open to a stone and not open to the tree? Once you know the opening, once you enjoy the euphoria that it brings, the ecstasy that happens just by opening to a stone, then you cannot find such a foolish man who will close immediately to the remaining existence. When even opening to a stone gives such ecstatic experience, then why not open to all?
In the beginning one surrenders to something, and then one is surrendered to all. That is the meaning that if you surrender to a Master, in the experience of surrendering, you have learned a clue; now you can surrender to all. The Master becomes just a passage to be passed through. He becomes a door, and through that door you can look at the whole sky. Remember, you cannot find God to surrender, but many people think that way; they are very tricky people. They think, "When God is there, we will surrender." Now this is impossible because God is there only if you surrender. Surrender makes anything God. Surrender gives you the eyes, and everything that is brought to these eyes becomes divine. Divinity, divineness, is a quality given by surrendering.
In India, Christians, Jews and Mohammedans laugh about Hindus, because they may be worshipping a tree or they may be worshipping a stone - not even carved, not even a statue. They can find a stone by the side of the road, and they can make a god out of it immediately. No artist is needed because surrender is the art. No carving, not a valuable stone is needed, not even marble. Any ordinary stone, discarded - it cannot be sold in the market and that's why it is Lying there by the side of the road - and Hindus can make immediately a god out of it. If you can surrender, it becomes, divine. The eyes of surrender cannot find anything else than the divine.
Others have laughed; they couldn't understand. They think that these people are stone worshippers, idol worshippers. They are not! Hindus have been misunderstood. They are not idol worshippers. They have found a key, and that key is that you can make anything divine if you surrender. And if you don't surrender then you can go on searching for God for millions of lives. You will never meet him, because you don't have the quality which meets, which can meet, which can find. So the question is of a subjective surrender, not of the object to whom to surrender.
But, of course, there are problems. You cannot so suddenly surrender to a stone because your mind goes on saying, "This is just a stone. What are you doing?" And if the mind goes on saying, "This is a stone; what are you doing?" - then you cannot surrender, because surrender needs your totality.
Hence, the significance of a Master. A Master means somebody who is standing on the boundary - boundary of the human and the divine. One who has been a human being like you, but is no more like you - something else has happened - who is a plus, a human being plus. So if you look to his past, he is just like you - but if you look to his present and the future, then you look to the plus. Then he is the divine.
It is difficult to surrender to a stone, to a river - very, very difficult - even to surrender to a Master is so difficult. Then surrendering to a stone is bound to be very difficult, because whenever you see a Master, then again your mind said that this is a human being like you, so why surrender to him? And your mind cannot see the present; the mind can see only the past - that this man is born like you, eats, sleeps like you, so why surrender to him? He is just like you.
He is, and yet he is not. He is both Jesus and Christ - Jesus the man, the son of man, and Christ, the plus point. If you watch only the visible, then he is the stone; you cannot surrender. If you love, if you become intimate, if you allow his presence to go deep in you, if you can find a rapport - that is the word; rapport with his being - then suddenly you become aware of the plus. He is more than human. In some unknown way, he has something that you have not got. In some invisible way, he has penetrated beyond the boundary of the human. But this you can feel only if there is a rapport.
That is what Patanjali says, shraddha - trust; trust creates rapport. Rapport is an inner harmony of the two invisibles; love is a rapport. With somebody you simply fit as if you both were born for each other. You call it love. In a moment, even at the first sight, somebody simply fits with you, as if you were created together and were separated; now you have met again.
In the old mythologies all over the world, it is said that man and woman were created together. In Indian mythology they have a very beautiful myth. The myth is that a wife and husband were created in the very beginning as twins, brother and sister. Together they were born - wife and husband as twins, fitting together in one womb. There was a rapport from the very beginning. From the first moment there was a rapport. They were together in the womb holding each other, and that is rapport. Then, due to some misfortune, that phenomenon disappeared from the earth.
But the myth says that still there is a relationship. A man and a woman... The man may be born here and the woman may be born somewhere in Africa, in America, but there is a rapport, and unless they find each other there will be difficulty. And it is very difficult to find each other. The world is so vast, and you don't know where to seek and where to find. If it happens, it happens by accident.
Now scientists also believe that sooner or later we will be able to judge the rapport by scientific instruments, and before somebody goes for marriage, the couple has to go to a lab so that they can find whether their bio-energy fits or not. If it is not fitting, then they are in an illusion. This marriage cannot... They may be thinking that they will be very happy, but they cannot be because the inner bio-energy does not fit.
So you may like the nose of the woman and the woman may like your eyes, but that is not the point. Liking the eyes won't help, liking the nose won't help, because after two days nobody looks at the nose and nobody looks at the eyes. Then the problem is of bio-energy. The inner energies meeting and mixing with each other; otherwise they will repel. It is just like if you transfuse blood; either your body accepts it or rejects it, because there are types of blood. If it is the same type, only then the body accepts it; otherwise it simply rejects.
The same happens in a marriage. If the bio-energy accepts, it accepts, and there is no conscious way to know about it. Love is very fallacious, because love is always focused on something. The voice of the woman is good, and you are allured. But that is not the point. It is a partial thing. The whole must fit. Your bio-energies should accept each other so totally that deep down you become a one person. This is rapport. It happens in love rarely because how to find? - it is still difficult. Just falling in love is not a sure criterion. Out of one thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine times it fails. Love has proved a failure.
Even a greater rapport happened with a Master. It is greater than love. It is shraddha - trust. Not only your bio-energy meets and fits, but your very soul fits together. That's why, whenever somebody becomes a disciple, the whole world thinks he is mad; because the whole world cannot see what is the point. Why are you going mad after this man? And you cannot explain it also, because it cannot be explained. You may be even not aware consciously what has happened, but with a man, suddenly, you are in trust. Suddenly something meets, becomes one. That is rapport.
It is difficult to have that rapport with a stone. Because it is even difficult to have that rapport with a living Master, how can you have it with a stone? But if it happens, immediately the Master becomes a God. For the disciple, the Master is always a God. He may not be a God for others; that is not the point. But for a disciple he is the God, and through him the doors of divineness open. Then you have the key - that this inner rapport is the key, this surrender. Then you can try it: surrender to a river...
You must have read Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha". He learns many things from the river. You cannot learn from a Buddha, just watching the river, so many moods of the river. He has become a ferryboat man just watching thousands of climates around it. Sometimes the river is happy and dancing, and sometimes very, very sad, as if not moving at all - sometimes very angry and roaring, against the whole existence, and sometimes so calm and peaceful like a Buddha. And Siddhartha simply a ferryman - passing the river, living near the river, watching the river, with nothing else to do. It becomes a deep meditation and a rapport, and through the river and the "riverness" of it he attains: he attains to the same glimpse as Heraclitus.
You can step in the same river and you cannot. The river is the same and not the same. It is a flow, and through the river and the rapport with it he comes to know the whole existence as a river - a "riverness".
It can happen with anything. The basic to remember is surrendering.
IS SURRENDER TO ISHWARA - GOD - AND SURRENDER TO A GURU THE SAME?
Yes! Surrender is always the same. It is just up to you to whom you can be able to surrender. Find the man, seek the river, and surrender. It is a risk - the greatest risk possible. That's why it is so difficult to surrender. It is a risk! You are moving in the unknown territory and you are giving so much power to a man or to something you surrender.
If you surrender to me you are giving total power to me. Then my yes is your yes, then my no is your no. Even in the day I say it is night, you say, "Yes, it is night." You are giving total power to somebody. The ego resists. The mind says, "This is not good. Keep the control yourself. Who knows where this man will lead you? Who knows, he may say, 'Jump from the hilltop,' and then you will be dead. Who knows, this man may manipulate you, control you, exploit you." The mind will bring all these things. It is a risk, and the mind is taking all the security measures.
The mind is saying, "Be watchful. Watch this man a little more." If you listen to the mind, surrender is not possible. Mind is right! It is a risk! But whenever you take, it is going to be a risk. Watching won't help much. You can watch forever, and may not be able to decide because the mind can never decide. Mind is confusion. It is never decisive. You have to bypass mind someday or other, and you have to tell the mind, "You wait. I go: I will take the jump and see what happens."
What you have got to lose really? I'm always wondering what you have got that you are so afraid to lose, what exactly that you are bringing when you surrender. You have nothing. You can gain out of it, but you cannot lose because you have nothing. You can always be profited out of it, but there is no possibility of any loss because you do not have anything to lose.
You must have heard Karl Marx's famous maxim, "Proletarians of the world unite because you have nothing to lose but your chains." That may be true, may not be true. But for a seeker this is exactly the thing. What you have got to lose except your chains, your ignorance, your misery? But people become very much attached to their misery also - to their very misery they cling as if it is a treasure. If you want to take their misery away, they create all sorts of barriers.
I have been watching these barriers and these tricks with thousands of people. Even if you want to take their misery, they cling. They indicate a certain thing because they don't have anything else, this is the only treasure that they have. Don't take it away because it is always better to have something than nothing. That is their logic: it is always better to have something - at least this misery is there - than nothing, than to be completely empty, than to be nobody.
Even if you are miserable, you are somebody. Even if you have a hell within you, at least you have something. But watch this, observe this, and when you surrender remember you have nothing else to give. A Master is taking your misery, nothing else. He is not taking your life because you don't have. He is taking only your death. He is not taking anything valuable from you because you don't have it. He is taking only the rubbish, the junkyard that you have collected through many lives, and you are sitting on the heap of the junkyard and you think this is your kingdom.
He is not taking anything. If you are ready to give your misery to him, you will become capable to receive his bliss. This is the surrender, and then the Master becomes a god. Anything, anybody you surrender becomes divine. Surrender makes divineness, surrender creates divineness. Surrender is a creative force.
The third question:
IS A MASTER NEEDED AFTER SATORI?
Yes! Even more so, because satori is just a glimpse, and a glimpse is dangerous because now you enter the territory of the unknown. Before it, Master is not necessary. Before it you were moving in the known world. Only after satori he becomes absolutely necessary, because now somebody is needed to hold your hand and to lead you towards that which is not simply a glimpse, but becomes an absolute reality. After satori you have the taste, and the taste creates more desire. And the taste becomes so magnetic that you would like to rush into it madly. Now the Master is needed.
After satori, many more things are going to happen. satori is like seeing the peak of Gourishankar, Everest, from the plains. Some day, a clear morning, a sunny morning, and mist is not there, you can see from thousands of miles away the beautiful peak of Gourishankar rising high in the sky. This is satori. Now the actual traveling starts. Now the whole world looks useless.
This is a turning point. Now all that you knew becomes useless, all that you had becomes a burden. Now the world, the life that you had lived up to now, simply disappears like a dream because the greater has happened. And this is satori, a glimpse. Soon the mist will be there, and the peak will not be visible. The clouds will come and the peak will disappear. Now you will be in an absolute uncertain state of consciousness.
The first thing will be whether whatsoever you have seen was real or just a dream, because where it is now? It has disappeared. It was just a breakthrough, just a gap, and you are back - thrown to your own world.
Suspicions will arise: whatsoever you have seen, was it true? Was it really there or you dreamed about it or you imagined it? And there are possibilities. Many people imagine, so the suspicion is not wrong. Many times you will imagine, and you cannot make the distinction, what is real and what is unreal. Only a Master can say that, "Yes, don't be worried. It was real," or a Master can say, "drop, throw it! It was just imaginary."
Only one who has known the peak - not from the plains - only one who has attained to the peak, only one who has become the peak himself, only he can tell you because he has the criterion, he has the touchstone. He can say, "Throw it! Rubbish! It is just your imagination," because when seekers go on thinking about these things, the mind starts dreaming.
Many people come to me. Only one percent of them have the real thing; ninety-nine percent bring unreal things. But it is difficult for them to decide - impossible, not difficult - they cannot decide. You suddenly feel an upsurge of energy in your backbone, in the spine: how you will decide whether it is real or unreal? You have been thinking too much about it; you have been desiring also. Unconsciously you are sowing seeds that it should happen, the kundalini should rise. Then you have been reading Patanjali, then you have been talking about it, then you meet people who say their kundalini has risen. Your ego, and then everything mixed...
Suddenly one day, you feel the upsurge; it is nothing but a creation of the mind - just to satisfy you - that, "Don't be worried: don't be so much worried. Look! Your kundalini has arisen," and just mind imagining. Then who will decide? And how you will decide? - because you don't know the true. Only truth can become the criterion to decide whether this is true or untrue.
A Master is needed even more after first satori. There are three satoris. The first satori is just a glimpse. This is possible even sometimes through drugs; this is possible through many other things - sometimes accidents. Sometimes you were climbing a tree and you fell down, and it was such a shock that the mind stopped for a single moment, and the glimpse will be there, and you will feel so euphoric that you are taken out of your body, you have known something.
Within a second you are back, the mind starts functioning: it was simply a shock. Through electric shock it is possible, through insulin shock it is possible, through drugs it is possible. Even sometimes in illness it happens. You are so weak that the mind cannot function; suddenly you have a glimpse. Through sex it is possible. In the orgasm, when the whole body vibrates, it is possible.
The first glimpse is not necessarily through religious effort. That's why LSD, mescaline, marijuana, have become so much important and appealing. The first glimpse is possible, and you can be caught because of the first glimpse in a drug. It can become a permanent trip; then it is very dangerous because glimpses won't help. They can help, but there is not necessarily help coming from them. They can help only around a Master, because then he will say, "Now don't be after the glimpse. You have got the glimpse, now start traveling to reach the peak." Because it is not only to reach the peak; finally one has to become the peak.
These are the three stages: first is glimpse - this is possible through many ways, not necessarily religious. Even an atheist can have the glimpse, a person who is not interested in religion can have the glimpse. Drugs, chemicals can give you the glimpse. Even after an operation, when you are coming out of chloroform, you can have the glimpse. While the chloroform is given to you and you are going deeper and deeper, you can have the glimpse.
Many people have attained to first satori; that is not very, very significant. It can be used as a step for the second satori. Second satori is to reach the peak. That never happens accidentally. That happens only through methods, techniques, schools, because it is a long effort to reach the second satori.
And then there is the third satori, what Patanjali calls samadhi: that third is to become the peak. Because from the second also you can come down. You reach to the peak; it may be unbearable.
Bliss is also sometimes unbearable - not only pain, bliss also - it is too much; one comes back to the plains.
To live on a high peak is difficult - very difficult! - and one would like to come back. Unless you become the peak itself, unless the experiencer becomes the experience, it can be lost. And up to the third - samadhi - a Master is needed. Only when the final samadhi, the ultimate, has happened, a Master is not needed.
The last question:
WHILE LISTENING TO YOU, MANY TIMES CERTAIN WORDS GO VERY DEEP, AND THERE IS A SUDDEN CLARITY AND UNDERSTANDING. THIS SEEMS TO HAPPEN ONLY WHEN I AM ATTENDING TO THE WORDS SPOKEN BY YOU. BUT, THE PEACE THAT DESCENDS WHILE LISTENING TO YOU WITHOUT ANY PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO YOUR WORDS IS EQUALLY BLISSFUL, BUT THEN THE WORDS AND THEIR MEANING GET LOST. PLEASE GIVE A GUIDE TO THE ART OF LISTENING TO YOU, AS IT IS ONE OF YOUR BEST MEDITATIONS.
Don't be much bothered by words and the meaning. If you pay much attention to the words and the meaning, it becomes an intellectual thing. Of course, sometimes you will attain to clarity. Suddenly the clouds disappear and the sun is there, but these will be only momentary things and this clarity will not help much; next moment it is gone. Intellectual clarity is not of much use.
If you listen to the words and their meaning you may understand many things, but you will not understand me and you will not understand yourself also. Those many things are not worth. You don't bother about words and meanings; you listen to me as if I am not a speaker but a singer, as if I am not talking to you in words, but talking to you in sounds, as if I am a poet!
No need to try the meaning, what I mean. Just listening to me without paying any attention to words and meanings, a different quality of clarity will come to you. You will feel blissful: that's the real clarity. You will feel happy; you will feel peaceful and silent and calm. That is the real meaning.
Because I am here not to explain certain things to you, but to create a certain quality within your being. I am talking not to explain: my talking is a creative phenomenon. I am not trying to explain to you something - that you can do through books and there are millions of other ways to understand these things - I am here to transform you.
Listen to me - simply, innocently, without creating any worry about words and their meanings. Drop that clarity; that is not of much use. When you simply listen to me, transparent, the intellect no more there - heart to heart, depth to depth, being to being - then the speaker disappears and the listener also. Then I am not here and you are also not here. A rapport exists; the listener and the speaker have become one. In that oneness, you will be transformed. To attain to that oneness is the meditation. Make it a meditation, not a contemplation, not a reflection. Then something greater than words is communicated - something beyond meanings. The real meaning, the ultimate meaning, is transferred - something that is not in the scriptures and cannot be.
You can read Patanjali yourself. A little effort and you will understand him. I am not talking here so that you become capable of understanding Patanjali; no, that is not the point at all. Patanjali is just an excuse, a peg. I am hanging something that is beyond scriptures on him.
If you listen to my words, you will understand Patanjali, there will be a clarity. But if you listen to my sound, if you listen not to the words but to me, then the real meaning will be revealed to you, and that meaning has nothing to do with Patanjali. That meaning is a transmission beyond scriptures.