The Master of Masters

Patanjali is talking about the phenomenon of God. God is not the creator. For Patanjali, God is the ultimate flowering of individual consciousness.

Everybody is on the way to become a god. Not only you, but the stones, the rocks, every unit of existence is on the way to become a god. Some have become already; some are becoming; some will become.

God is not the creator, but the culmination, the peak, the ultimate of existence. He is not in the beginning: he is in the end. And, of course, in a sense, he is in the beginning also, because in the end only that can flower which has always been from the very beginning as a seed. God is the potentiality, the hidden possibility: this has to be remembered. So Patanjali has not a single God, he has infinite gods. The whole existence is full of gods.

Once you understand Patanjali's conception of God, then God is not to be really worshipped. You have to become one; that is the only worship. If you go on worshipping God, that won't help. In fact, that is foolish. The worship, real worship, should consist in becoming yourself a god. The whole effort should be to bring your potentiality to the point where it explodes into an actuality - where the seed is broken and that which was hidden from eternity becomes manifested. You are God unmanifested, and the effort is how to bring the unmanifested to the manifested level - how to bring it to the plane of manifestation.

He is talking about his conception of God. When somebody becomes a flower, when somebody becomes a lotus of being, many things happen to him and many things start happening through him into existence. He becomes a great power, an infinite power, and through him, in many ways, others are helped to become gods in their own right.

There are three types of Masters. One is not exactly a Master; rather a teacher. A teacher is one who teaches, who helps people to know about things, without himself realizing them. Sometimes teachers can attract thousands of people. The only thing needed is they should be good teachers. They may not have known themselves, but they can talk, they can argue, they can preach, and many people can get attracted through their talks, their preaching, their sermons. And talking continuously about God, they may be befooling themselves. By and by they may start feeling that they know.

When you talk about a thing, the greatest danger is that you may start believing that you know. In the beginning when you start to talk, to teach - and teaching has some appeal because it is very ego-fulfilling - when somebody listens to you attentively, deep down it fulfills your ego that you know and he doesn't know. You are the knower and he is ignorant.

It happened: a priest, a great priest, was called into a madhouse to say a few words to the inmates of that house. The priest was not expecting much, but he was surprised. One madman listened to him so attentively, that he had never seen any man listen to him so attentively. He was just bending forward; each word he was taking into his heart. The man was not even blinking. He was so attentive - as if hypnotized.

When the priest has finished his sermon, he saw that the same man reached to the superintendent and said something to him. He was curious. As soon as possible, he asked the superintendent, "What that man was saying to you? Was he saying something about my sermon?" The superintendent said, "Yes." Asked the priest, "Would you mind to tell me what he said?" The superintendent was a little bit reluctant, but then he said, "Yes. The man said, 'See? I am in and he is out?"

A teacher is exactly in the same place, in the same boat, as you are. He is also an inmate. He has nothing more than you - just a little more information. Information means nothing. You can accumulate; ordinary, average intelligence is needed to accumulate information. One need not be a genius, one need not be very talented. Just average intelligence is enough. You can accumulate information. You can go on accumulating; you can become a teacher.

A teacher is one who knows without knowing. He attracts people, if he is a good talker, a good writer, if he has a personality, if he has a certain charisma about him, magnetic eyes, a forceful body. And by and by he becomes more and more skillful. But the people around him cannot be disciples, they will remain students. Even if he pretends that he is a Master, he cannot make you a disciple. At the most he can make you a student. A student is one who is in search of more information and a teacher is one who has accumulated more information. This is the first type of master - who is not a Master at all.

Then there is a second type of Master - who has known himself. Whatsoever he says, he can say like Heraclitus: "I have searched." Or like Buddha he can say, "I have found.V Heraclitus is more polite. He was talking to people who could not have understood if he had said like Buddha, "l have found." Buddha says, "I am the most perfect enlightened man that has ever happened." It looks egoistic, but it is not and he was talking to his disciples who could have understood that there was no ego at all.

Heraclitus was talking to people who were not disciples - just ordinary people. They will not have understood. Politely he says, "I have searched," and leaves the other part - that, "I have found" for your imagination. Buddha never says, "I have searched." He says, "I have found! And this enlightenment has never happened before. It is utterly absolute."

One who has found is a Master. He will accept disciples. Students are prohibited; students cannot go there by themselves. Even if they drift and reach somehow, they will leave as soon as possible because he will not be helping you to gather more knowledge. He will try to transform you. He will give you being, not knowledge. He will give you more being, not more knowledge. He will make you centered, and the center is somewhere near the navel, not in the head.

Whosoever lives in the head is eccentric. The word is beautiful: the English word eccentric means off center. Really, he is mad whosoever lives in the head - head is the periphery. You can live in your feet or you can live in your head: the distance from the center is the same. The center is somewhere near the navel

A teacher helps you to be more and more head-rooted; a Master will uproot you from the head and re-plant you. Exactly it is a re-planting, so much pain is there - bound to be - suffering, anguish, because when you re-plant, the plant has to be uprooted from the soil. It has always been. And then, again, it has to be planted in a new soil. It will take time The old leaves will drop. The whole plant will pass through anguish, uncertainty, not knowing whether he is going to survive or not. It is a rebirth With a teacher there is no rebirth; with a Master there is a rebirth.

Socrates is right: he says, "I am a midwife." Yes, a Master is a midwife He helps you to be reborn. But that means you will have to die: only then you can be reborn. So a Master is not only a midwife - Socrates says only the half thing. A Master is a murderer also - a murderer plus a midwife. First he will kill you as you are, and only the new can come out of you then. Out of your death, the resurrection.

A teacher never changes you. Whatsoever you are, whomsoever you are, he simply gives you more information. He adds in you; he retains the continuity. He may modify you, he may refine you. You may become more cultured, more polished. But you will remain the same: the base will be the same.

With a Master, a discontinuity happens. Your past becomes as if it was never yours - as if it belonged to somebody else, as if you dreamed it. It was not real; it was a nightmare. The continuity breaks. There is a gap. The old drops and the new comes, and between these two there is a gap. That gap is the problem; that gap has to be passed. In that gap many simply become scared and go back, run fast and cling to their old past.

A Master helps you to cross this gap, but for a teacher there is nothing like that; there is no problem. A teacher helps you to learn more; a Master - the first job is to help you to unlearn: that is the difference.

Somebody asked Raman Maharshi that, "I have come from very far to learn from you. Teach me" Raman laughed and said, "If you have come to learn, then go somewhere else because here we do the unlearning. Here we don't teach. You already know too much; that is your problem. More learning and there will be more problems. We teach how to unlearn, how to unwind."

A Master attracts disciples, a teacher - students. What is a disciple? Everything has to be understood minutely; then only you will be able to understand Patanjali. Who is a disciple? What is the difference between a student and a disciple? A student is in search of knowledge, a disciple in search of transformation, mutation. He is fed up with himself. He has come to a point to realize that, "As I am, I am worthless - dust, nothing else. As I am it is of no value."

He has come to attain a new birth, a new being. He is ready to pass through the cross, through the pangs of death and rebirth; hence, the word disciple. The word disciple comes from discipline. He is ready to pass through any discipline. Whatsoever the Master says, he is ready to follow. He has followed his own mind up to now, for many lives, and he has reached nowhere. He has listened to his own mind, and he got more and more into trouble. Now a point has come where he realizes that, "Enough of this"

He comes and surrenders to the Master. This is the discipline, the first step. He says, "Now I will listen to you. I have listened enough of my own; to my mind I have been a follower, a disciple, and it leads nowhere. I have realized this. Now you are my Master." That means, "Now you are my mind. Whatsoever you say, I will listen. Wherever you lead, I will go. I will not question you because that question will come from my mind."

A disciple is one who has learned one thing through life - that your mind is the troublemaker, your mind is the root cause of your miseries. Your mind always says, "Somebody else is the cause of my miseries, not me." A disciple is one who has learned that this is trick, this is a trap of the mind. It always says, "Somebody else is responsible; I am not responsible." This is how it saves itself, protects, remains secure. A disciple is one who has understood that this is wrong - this is a trick of the mind.

Once you feel this whole absurdity of the mind... It leads you into desire: desire leads you into frustration. It leads you into success: every success becomes a failure. It attracts you towards beauty, and every beauty proves ugly. It leads you on and on; it never fulfills any promise. It gives you promises... No, not even a single promise is fulfilled. It gives you doubt: doubt becomes a worm in the heart - poisonous. It does not allow you to trust, and without trust there is no growth. When you understand this whole thing, then only you can become a disciple.

When you come to the Master, symbolically you put your head into his feet. This is dropping your head: this is putting your head into his feet. Now you say, "now I will remain headless. Now, whatsoever you say will be my life." This is the surrender. A Master has disciples who are ready to die and be reborn.

Then there is third - a Master of Masters. A teacher of students first; a Master of disciples second; and then the third, a Master of Masters. Patanjali says when a Master becomes a god - and to become a god means one who transcends time; for whom time does not exist, ceases to exist; for him there is no time; one who has come to understand the timelessness, the eternity; who has not only changed and become good, who has not only changed and become aware, who has gone beyond time - he has become a Master of Masters. Now he is a god

What will he be doing then, a Master of Masters? This stage comes only when a Master leaves the body - never before it. Because in the body you can be aware, in the body you can realize that there is no time. But body has a biological clock. It feels hunger, and after a time gap again hunger - satiety and hunger, sleep, disease, health. In the night the body has to go to sleep; in the morning it has to wake. Body has a biological clock. So the third Master happens only when a Master leaves the body - when he is not to come back to the body again.

Buddha has two terms. First he calls it nirvana, enlightenment, when Buddha became enlightened but remained in the body. That is enlightenment, nirvana. Then after forty years he left the body; he calls it the absolute nirvana - mahaparinirvana Now he becomes a Master of Masters, and he has remained a Master of Masters.

Every Master, when he leaves the body permanently, when he is not to come back again, he becomes a Master of Masters. Mohammed, Jesus, Mahavira, Buddha, Patanjali, they have remained Master of Masters, and they have continuously been guiding - Masters not disciples.

Whenever somebody becomes a Master on the path of Patanjali, immediately there is a contact with Patanjali whose soul floats into the infinite, the individual consciousness, which he calls God. Whenever a person following Patanjali's path becomes a Master, enlightened, immediately there is a communication with the original Master who is now a god.

Whenever somebody following Buddha becomes enlightened, immediately a relationship comes into existence. Suddenly he is joined with Buddha - Buddha who is no more in the body, Buddha who is no more in time and no more in space, but still is - Buddha who has become one with totality, but still is.

This is very paradoxical and very difficult to understand because we cannot understand anything which is beyond time. Our whole understanding is within time; our whole understanding is within space. When somebody says Buddha exists beyond time and space, it makes no sense to us.

When you say Buddha exists beyond space, it means he does not exist anywhere in particular. And how somebody can exist without existing anywhere in particular? He exists, simply exists You cannot indicate where; you cannot say where he is. In that sense he is nowhere and in that sense he is everywhere. For the mind which lives in a space, it's very difficult to understand something beyond space. But whosoever follows the methods of Buddha and becomes a Master, immediately has a contact. Buddha still goes on guiding people who follow his path; Jesus still goes on guiding people who follow his path.

In Tibet there is a place on Kailash where, every year on the day Buddha left the world, the full moon night of Vaishakh, five hundred Masters gather together. Because this place, when five hundred Masters gather together every year, they have a realization of Buddha descending - again becoming visible.

This is an old promise, and Buddha still fulfills it. Five hundred Masters have to be there - not even a single less, because then it will not be possible. These five hundred Masters help as a weight, as an anchor, for Buddha to come down. Even a single Master less, and the phenomenon doesn't happen: because sometimes it was so - there were not five hundred Masters. Then that year there was no contact - no visible contact. Invisible contact remains, but no visible contact.

But Tibet has many Masters, and it was not a difficulty. Tibet is the most enlightened country; it has remained so up to now. It will not be so in the future, thanks to Mao. He has destroyed the whole subtle pattern that Tibet has created. The whole country was a monastery. In other countries monasteries exist; Tibet existed in the monastery.

And it was a rule that from every family one person has to take sannyas, become a lama, and this rule was made so that every year at least five hundred Masters are always available. When five hundred Masters gather together on Kailash just in the midnight - twelve o'clock - Buddha is again visible. He descends into time and space.

He has been guiding: every Master goes on guiding. Once you are near a Master, not near a teacher, you can trust. Even if you don't attain to enlightenment in this life, there will be a subtle guidance continuously for you - even if you don't realize that you are being guided.

Many Gurdjieff people have come to me. They have to come because Gurdjieff has been throwing them towards me. There is nobody else Gurdjieff can throw them or push them. And this is unfortunate, but this is so - that now there exists no Master in Gurdjieff's system, so he cannot make contact. Many Gurdjieff people will be coming sooner or later, and they are not aware because they cannot understand what is happening. They think this is just accidental.

If a Master exists on a certain path in time and space, then the original Master can go on sending instructions. And that's how religions have remained always alive. Once the chain is broken, the religion becomes dead. For example, Jaina religion has become dead because not a single Master is there with whom Mahavira can go on sending new instructions. Because with every age things change; mind changes, techniques have to be changed, methods have to be devised, new things have to be added, old things have to be deleted. Much work, every age needs.

If a Master exists on a certain path, then the original Master who is now a god can continue. But if the Master is not there on the earth, then the chain is broken and then the religion becomes dead. And it happens many times.

For example, Jesus never intended to create a new religion; he never thought about it. He was a Jew, and he was receiving direct instructions from old Jewish Masters who had become gods. But Jews won't listen to the new instructions. They will say, "This is not written in the scriptures. What are you talking about?" In the scriptures this is written, that if somebody hits you by a brick you throw a rock at him: eye for eye, life for life. And Jesus started saying that love your enemy - and if he hits on your one cheek give him the other.

It is not written in the Jewish scriptures, but this was the new instruction because the age has changed. This was a new method to work it out, and Jesus was receiving directly from gods - gods in Patanjali's sense: the old prophets. But that was not written in the scriptures. Jews killed him not knowing what they were doing. That's what Jesus said in the last moment, when he was on the cross he said, "God, forgive these people, because they don't know what they are doing. They are committing suicide. They are killing themselves, because they are breaking the link from their own Masters."

And that happened. The murder of Jesus became the greatest calamity for the Jews, and since two thousand years they have suffered because they have no contact. They live with the scriptures; they are the most scripture-oriented people on the earth. The Talmud, the Torah - they live with the scriptures and whenever an effort is made from the higher sources beyond time and space, they don't listen.

This has happened many times. That's how new religions are born. Unnecessary - there is no need! But the old people won't listen. They will say, "Where it is written?n It is not written. It is a new instruction, a new scripture. And if you don't listen to the new scripture, the new instruction will become a new religion. And see always the new religion seems to be more powerful than the old. Because it has latest instructions, can help man more.

Jews remained the same. Christianity spread to half the earth; now half of the world is Christian. Jainas have remained in India, a very small tiny minority because they won't listen. And they don't have any living Master. They have many sadhus, monks - many, because they can afford - they are a rich community - but not a single living Master. No instructions can be given through the higher sources. This was one of the greatest revelations of Theosophy in India - in this age, all over the world - that Masters continuously go on instructing. Patanjali says this is the third category of Masters: Master of Masters. This is what he means by a god.

BEING BEYOND THE LIMITS OF TIME, HE IS THE MASTER OF MASTERS.

What is time and how one goes beyond time? Try to understand. Time is desire, because for desire time is needed. Time is a creation of desire. If you have no time, how can you desire? There is no space for desire to move. Desire needs future. That's why people who live with millions of desires are always afraid of death. Why are they afraid of death? Because death cuts time immediately. There is no time any more, and you have millions of desires, and here comes death.

Death means now no more future; death means now no more time. The clock may go on ticking, but you will not be ticking. And desire needs time to fulfill - future. You cannot be desirous in the present; there exists no desire in the present. Can you desire anything in the present? How you will desire it? Because immediately if you desire the future has entered. The tomorrow has come in or the next moment. How can you desire in this moment here now?

Desire is impossible without time - time is also impossible without desire - they are a phenomenon together, two aspects of the same coin. When one becomes desireless, one becomes timeless. Future stops, past stops. Only the present is there. When desire stops it is like as if a clock goes on ticking and the hands have been taken off. Just imagine a clock goes on ticking, and no hands, so you cannot say what is the time.

A man without desire is a clock ticking without hands. That is the state of a Buddha. In body, he lives, the clock goes on ticking, because the body has its own biological process to continue. It will be hungry, it will ask for food. It will be thirsty and ask for a drink. It will feel sleepy and will go to sleep. And the body will need, so it is ticking. But the innermost being has no time: the clock is without hands.

But because of the body you are anchored in the world - in that world of time. Your body has a weight, and because of that weight the gravitation still functions on you. When the body is left, when a Buddha leaves body, then the ticking itself stops. Then he is pure consciousness: no body, no hunger, no satiety; no body, no thirst; no body, then no need.

Remember this - desire and need - these two words. Desire is of the mind; need is of the body. Desire and need, then you are a clock with hands. Only need, no desire, then you are a clock without hands, and when need also drops, you have gone beyond time. This is eternity; beyond time is eternity.

For example: if I don't look at the watch - and I have to look continuously the whole day - if I don't look at the watch, I don't know what is the time. Even if I have seen it five minutes before, again I have to look because I don't know exactly, because now - no time inside - only the body is ticking.

Consciousness has no time. Time is created when consciousness desires something: immediately time is created. In existence there is no time. If man is not there on the earth, time will disappear immediately. Trees tick, rocks tick. The sun will rise and the moon will set and everything will continue as it is, but there will be no time because time comes not with the present, it comes with the memory of past and the imagination of future.

A Buddha has no past. He is finished with it; he doesn't carry it. A Buddha has no future. He is finished with that also because he has no desire. But needs are there because the body is there. Few more karmas have to be fulfilled; few more days the body will go on ticking, just the old momentum will continue. You have to wind a clock. Even if you stop winding, it will continue to tick for few hours or few days. The old momentum will continue.

BEING BEYOND THE LIMITS OF TIME, HE IS THE MASTER OF MASTERS.

When need and desire both disappear, time disappears. And remember to make a distinction between desire and need; otherwise you can be in a very deep mess. Never try to drop needs. Nobody can drop, unless the body drops. And don't get confused what is what. Always remember what is need and what is desire.

Need comes from the body and desire comes from the mind. Need is animal; desire is human. Of course, when you feel hungry you need food. Stop when the need stops; your stomach immediately says, "Enough" But the mind says, "A little more. It is so tasty." This is desire. Your body says, "I am thirsty," but the body never says for Coca Cola. The body says, "Thirsty" - you drink. You cannot drink water more than is needed, but Coca Cola you can drink more. It is a mind phenomenon.

Coca Cola is the only universal thing in this age - even in Soviet Russia. Nothing has entered, but Coca Cola has entered. Even the iron curtain doesn't make any difference because human mind is human mind.

Always watch where need stops and desire starts. Make it a continuous awareness. If you can make the distinction, you have attained something - a clue to existence. Need is beautiful, desire is ugly. But there are people who go on desiring, and they go on cutting their needs. They are foolish, stupid You cannot find more idiots in the world, because they are doing just the opposite.

There are people who will fast for days and desire for heaven. Fasting is cutting the need and desiring heaven is helping desire to be more there. They have a bigger time than yours, because they have to think of heaven - they have a vast time, heaven included in it. Your time stops at death. To you they will say, "You are a materialist." They are spiritualists because their time goes on and on. It covers heavens - not only one, seven - and even moksha, the final liberation, is within their time limit. They have a vast time, and you are materialists because your time stops at death.

Remember, it is easy to drop needs, because body is so silent you can torture it. And body is so adaptive that if you torture it too long it becomes adjusted to your torture. And it is dumb It cannot say anything If you fast, for two, three days it will say that "I am hungry, I am hungry" But your mind is thinking of heaven, and without being hungry you cannot enter. It is written in the scriptures: "Fast - so you don't listen to the body. It is also written in the scriptures that "Don't listen to the body - the body is the enemy."

And body is a dumb animal: you can go on torturing. For few days it will say, if you start a long fast, at the most the first week... Fifth, sixth day, the body stops because nobody is listening, so body starts making adjustments of its own. It has a reservoir for ninety days. Every healthy body has a reservoir of fat for ninety days for some emergency situation - not for fasting.

Sometime you are lost in a forest and you cannot get food. Sometime there is a famine and you cannot get food. For ninety days the body has a reservoir. It will feed itself; it eats itself. And it has a two-gear system. Ordinarily it asks for food. If you supply food, then the reservoir remains intact. If you don't supply, two, three days it goes on asking. If you still don't supply, it simply changes the gear. The gear is changed; then it starts eating itself.

That's why in fasting you lose one kilo weight every day. Where is this weight going? This weight is disappearing because you are eating your own fat, your own flesh. You have become a man-eater, a cannibal. Fasting is cannibalism. Within ninety days you will be a skeleton, every reservoir finished. Then you have to die.

It is easy to be violent to the body: it is so dumb. But to the mind it is difficult because mind is so vocal, it won't listen. And the real thing is to make the mind listen and cut the desires. Don't ask for heaven and paradise.

I was just reading a book on new religions in Japan. And as you know Japanese are so technically skilled people; they have created two paradises in Japan. Just to give you a glimpse, on a hill station they have made a small paradise - how it is up there... You just go and have a glimpse. A beautiful place they have made and absolutely clean they keep it - flowers and flowers and trees and shades and beautiful small bungalows, and they give you a glimpse of paradise so that you start desiring.

There is no paradise Paradise is a creation of the mind. And there is no hell That too is a creation of the mind. Hell is nothing but missing the paradise; that's all. And first you create, and then you miss because it is not there. And these people, these priests, the poisoners, they always help you to desire. First they create the desire; then follows the hell; then they come to save you.

Once I was passing through a very primitive road, and suddenly - and it was summer - I came on a path of road so muddy that I couldn't believe how this road has become so muddy. There has been no rain. But a patch almost of half a mile, but I thought it cannot be very deep so - I was driving the car - I went into it; then I was stuck. It was not only muddy, it has many holes. Then I waited if somebody comes to help, some truck.

A farmer came with a truck. When I asked him to help me, he said he will take twenty rupees. So I said, "Okay You will take twenty rupees, but get me out of it." When I was out, I told the farmer that "At this price you must be doing the job day and night." He said, "No, not in the night, because I have to tote the water from the river for this road. Who do you think creates this mud here? And then I have to have a little sleep also because just early in the morning the business starts."

These are the priests. First they create mud: they tote water from the faraway river. And then you are bogged, and then they help you. There is no paradise and no hell, no heaven, no hell. You are being exploited, and you will be exploited unless you stop desiring.

A man who doesn't desire cannot be exploited. Then no priest can exploit, then no church can exploit him. It is because you desire, then you create the possibility of being exploited. Cut your desires as much as you can because they are unnatural. Never cut your needs because they are natural: fulfill your needs.

And look at the whole thing. Needs are not very many: they are not many at all. And they are so simple. What do you need? Food, water, a shelter, somebody to love you and somebody so that you can love him. What else you need? Love, food, shelter - simple needs. And all these needs, religions are against. Against love, they say practice celibacy. Against food, they say practice fasting. Against shelter, they say become monks, move, become wanderers - homeless. They are against needs. That's why they create a hell. And you are more and more in suffering, and more and more in their hands. Then you ask help, and the whole thing is a created thing.

Never go against needs, and always remember to cut desires. Desires are useless. What is a desire? It is not a desire of shelter. Desire is always for a better shelter. Desire is comparative, need is simple. You need a shelter, desire needs a palace. Need is very, very simple. You need a woman to love, a man to love. Desire? Desire needs a Cleopatra. Desire is simply for the impossible; need is for the possible. And if the possible is fulfilled, you are at ease. Even a Buddha needs that.

Desires are foolish. Cut desires and become aware. Then you will be beyond time. Desires create time; if you cut desires you will be beyond time. Bodily needs will remain til the body is there, but if desires disappear, then this is your last or, at the most last but one life. Soon you will also disappear. One who has attained desirelessness will sooner or later become beyond needs only because then the body is not needed. Body is a vehicle of the mind; if the mind is not there, body cannot be needed any more.

And this God, the perfect flowering, is known as aum. Aum is the symbol of the universal sound. In you you hear thoughts, words, but never the sound of your being. When there is no desire, no need, when the body has dropped, when the mind disappears, what will happen? Then the real sound of the universe itself is heard. That is aum.

And all over the world people have realized this aum. Mohammedans, Christians, Jews, they call it amen. It is aum Zoroastrians, Parsis, call it ahura mazada. That a and m - ahura is from a and mazada is from m - it is aum. They have made it a deity.

That sound is universal. When you stop, you hear it. Right now you are talking so much, chattering within yourself, you cannot hear it. It is a silent sound. It is so silent that unless you have completely stopped you will not be able to hear it. Hindus have called their gods a symbolic name - aum. Patanjali says, He is known as Aum. And if you want to find a Master, a Master of Masters, you will have to get more and more attuned to the sound of aum, oriented that he will not even leave a single word, and he will not use a single word more...

Wherever he says repeat aum, he always adds meditate. The difference has to be understood.

If you repeat and don't meditate, it will be Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation - TM. If you repeat and don't meditate, then it is a hypnotic device. Then you fall into sleep. It is good because falling into sleep is beautiful. It is healthy: you will come out of it more calm. You will feel more well-being, more energy, more zest. But it is not meditation.

It is like a tranquilizer and a pep pill together. It gives you a good sleep, and then you feel in the morning very good. More energy is available, but it is not meditation, and it can become dangerous also if you use it for a long time. You can become addicted to it, and the more you use it, the more you will realize that there comes a point where you are stuck. Now, if you don't do it, you feel that you are missing something. If you do it, nothing happens.

This point has to be remembered: whenever meditating you feel that if you don't do it you miss it and if you do it nothing happens, then you are stuck. Then something is needed immediately to be done. It has become an addiction just like smoking cigarettes. If you don't smoke, you feel something is missing. You feel continuously that something has to be done; you feel restless. And if you smoke, nothing is gained. That is the definition of addiction. If something is gained, it is okay; but nothing is gained - it has become a habit. If you don't do, you feel miserable. If you do, no bliss comes out of it.

Repeat and meditate - repeat aum, aum, aum - and stand aloof from this repetition. Aum, aum, aum; the sound is all around you and you are alert, aware, watching, witnessing. That is meditating. Create the sound within you and still remain a watcher on the hill. In the valley, the sound is moving - aum, aum, aum - and you are standing above and watching, witnessing. If you don't watch, you will fall into sleep. It will be a hypnotic sleep. And Transcendental Meditation in the West is appealing people because they have lost the capacity to sleep well.

In India nobody bothers about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi because people are so fast asleep, snoring. They don't need it. But when a country becomes rich and people are not doing physical labor, the sleep is disturbed. Then either you take tranquilizer or TM. And TM is, of course, better because it is not so chemical. But it is still a very, very deep hypnotic device.

And hypnosis can be used in certain cases, but should not be made a habit, because ultimately it will give you a sleepy being. You will move as if in hypnosis; you will look like a zombie. You will not be aware and alert. And the sound of aum is such a lullaby, because it is a universal sound. If you repeat it, you can completely become alcoholic through it, intoxicated. And then comes the danger, because the real thing is not to become intoxicated. The real thing is to become more and more aware. There are two possibilities you can drop out of your worries.

Psychoanalysts divide mind into three layers: first they call conscious, second they call the subconscious, third they call unconscious. Fourth they don't know yet - Patanjali calls superconscious. If you become more alert, you move above the conscious and reach the superconscious. That is the stage of a god - super-conscious, super-aware.

But if you repeat a mantra without meditating, you fall into the subconscious. If you fall into the subconscious, it will give you good sleep, a well-being, health. But if you continue, you will fall into the unconscious, then you have become a zombie, and this is very, very bad - it is not good.

A mantra can be used as a hypnosis. If you are being operated in a hospital it is okay. Rather than taking chloroform, it is good to be hypnotized; it is less evil. If you don't feel sleepy, it is better to do TM than take a tranquilizer. It is less dangerous, less harmful. But it is not meditation.

So Patanjali continuously insists,

Repeat and create all around you the sound of aum, but don't be lost in it. It is such sweet sound, you will be lost. Remain alert - remain more and more alert The more sound goes deeper, you become more and more alert; so the sound relaxes your nervous system, but not you. The sound relaxes your body, but not you. The sound sends your whole body and the physical system into sleep, but not you.

Then double process has started: the sound drops your body to a restful state and the awareness helps you to rise to the superconscious. Body moves to the unconscious, becomes a zombie, fast asleep, and you become a superconscious being. Then your body reaches to the bottom and you reach to the peak. Your body becomes the valley and you become the peak. And this is the point to be realized.

Repeat and meditate.

The new consciousness is the fourth - the super-consciousness. But remember, only repetition is not good. Repetition is just to help to meditate. Repetition creates the object, the most subtle object is the sound of aum. And if you can be aware of the most subtle, your awareness also becomes subtle.

When you watch a gross thing, your awareness is gross. When you watch a sexual body, your awareness becomes sexual. When you watch something - an object for greed - your awareness becomes greed. Whatsoever you watch, you become. The observer becomes the observed: remember this.

Krishnamurti insists again and again the observer becomes the observed. Whatsoever you observe, you become. So if you observe the sound of aum, which is the deepest sound, the deepest music, the sound without sound, the sound which is uncreated - anahat, the sound which is just the nature of existence, if you become aware of it, you become that - you become a universal sound. The both, subject and object, meet and merge and become one. That is the superconscious where object and subject have dissolved, where the knower and the known are no more. Only one remains; the object and subject are bridged. This oneness is yoga.

The word yoga comes from the root yuj. It means meeting, combining together. It happens when subject and object are yoked together. The English word yoke also comes from yuj, the same root from where yoga comes. When subject and object are yoked together, sewed together so that they are no more separate, bridged, the gap disappears. You attain to a super-consciousness.

That's what Patanjali calls,