The psychology of the buddhas

The first question:

TO BEGIN with, one is already here, and sooner or later he will turn many of you into Buddhas. If one is there, many become immediately possible because the one can work as a catalytic agent. Not that he will do something, but just because he is there things start moving on their own. That's the meaning of a catalytic agent. Sooner or later, many of you will turn into Buddhas, because everyone is basically a Buddha. How long can you delay in recognizing it? How long can you postpone it? Difficult -- you will try your best to postpone, to delay, to create millions of difficulties, but how long can you do this?

I am here to push you somehow into the abyss, where you die and the Buddha is born. The problem is always in finding the one. Once the one is there the basic fulfillment, the basic requirement is fulfilled. Then many become immediately possible. And if many are there, then thousands become possible. The first works like a spark, and a small spark is enough to burn the whole earth. This is how it has happened in the past. Once Gautam became a Buddha, thousands by and by had to become. Because it is not a question of becoming; you are already that.

Somebody has to remind you, that's all.

Just the other day I was reading one of Ramakrishna's parables. I love it. I read it again and again whenever I come across it. It is the whole story of the Master being a catalytic agent.

The story is: A tigress died while giving birth to a cub, and the cub was brought up by goats. Of course, the tiger believed himself to be a goat also. It was simple, natural; brought up by the goats, living with the goats, he believed that he was a goat. He remained a vegetarian, eating and chewing grass. He had no conception. Not even in his dreams could he dream that he was a tiger, and he was a tiger.

Then one day it happened that an old tiger came across this herd of goats and that old tiger could not believe his eyes. A young tiger was walking amidst the goats! Neither were the goats afraid of the tiger nor were they aware that the tiger was walking amongst them; the tiger was also walking like a goat. The old

tiger somehow got hold of the young tiger, because it was difficult to catch hold of him. He escaped -- he tried, he cried, he screamed. He was afraid, he was shivering with fear. All the goats escaped and he was also trying to escape with them, but the old tiger got hold of him and pulled him towards the lake. He would not go. He resisted just the way that you are doing with me. He tried his best not to go. He was scared to death, crying and weeping, but the old tiger wouldn't allow him. The old tiger still pulled him and took him to the lake.

The lake was silent like a mirror. He forced the young tiger to look into the water. He saw, with tearful eyes -- the vision was not clear but the vision was there -- that he looked just like the old tiger. Tears disappeared and a new sense of being arose; the goat started disappearing from the mind. He was no more a goat, but he could not believe his own enlightenment. Still the body was shivering a little, he was afraid. He was thinking, 'Maybe I am imagining. How can a goat turn so suddenly into a tiger? It is not possible, it has never happened.

It never happens that way.' He couldn't believe his own eyes, but now the first spark, the first ray of light had entered into his being. He was no more the same really. He could never be the same again.

The old tiger took him to his cave. Now he was not so resistant, not so reluctant, not so afraid. By and by he was getting bold, gathering courage. He started walking like a tiger as he went to the cave. The old tiger gave him some meat to eat. It is difficult for a vegetarian, almost impossible, nauseating, but the old tiger wouldn't listen. He forced him to eat. When the nose of the young tiger came near the meat, something happened: from the smell, something deep in his being which had been fast asleep was awakened. He was pulled, attracted towards the meat, and he started eating. Once he tasted the meat, a roar burst through his being. The goat disappeared in that roar, and the tiger was there in his beauty and splendor.

This is the whole process, and an old tiger is needed. That is the trouble: the old tiger is here, and howsoever you try to dodge, this way and that, it is not possible. You are reluctant, you are difficult to bring to the lake, but I will bring you. You have been eating grass your whole life. You have completely forgotten the smell of meat, but I will force you to eat it. Once the taste is there, the roar will burst. In that explosion the goat will disappear and a Buddha will be born.

So you need not worry about where I am going to get so many Buddhas to study, I will produce them.

The second question:

No, not yet. There are many problems. For the third psychology to be established the first two need to be completed. If you make a three storey house, the first two have to be completed, and only then can the third be raised. In the past, the psychology for the pathological man never existed, the first sort of psychology never existed. Nobody bothered to enter into the realm of mental disease, particularly not in the East. Nobody bothered because the disease could be got rid of without getting into it. There was no need to analyze it, there was no need to travel into the pathological mind, there was no need to do anything about it.

Certain techniques existed and still those techniques exist. You could simply cut it off.

For example, in Japan whenever there is a madman, some body gone neurotic, they take him to the Zen monastery, they take him to the religious people of the town. This has been one of the oldest ways: take him to the religious man. And what is done in the monastery? -- nothing. In fact, nothing is done. When a madman is brought to the monastery, they don't bother to analyze, diagnose.

They don't bother to think about what type of disease this is. There is no need because the disease can be dropped. They put the madman into an isolated room far away from the monastery, just in the corner, at the back. His needs are fulfilled: food is given and whatsoever he needs, but nobody taLks about him, nobody pays any attention to his madness. The East knows that the more you pay attention to it, the more you feed the madness. The whole monastery remains indifferent, as if nobody has come in.

Indifference is one of the techniques, because a madman really needs much attention. It may be that he became mad just to get attention. That's why psychoanalysis cannot be of much help, because the psychoanalyst gives so much attention to the mad, the neurotic, the psychotic, that he starts thriving on that attention: for years together somebody is paying attention to you.

You must have observed that neurotic people always force others to be attentive towards them. They will do anything if they can get the attention. In a Zen monastery they don't give any attention, they remain indifferent. Nobody bothers and nobody thinks that he is mad, because if the whole group thinks that he is mad that thinking creates vibrations that help the madman to remain mad.

For three weeks, four weeks, the mad man is allowed to be with himself. Needs are fulfilled but no attention is given, no special attention; indifference is maintained. Nobody thinks that he is mad. And within three or four weeks, the madman, remaining with himself, by and by gets better. The madness subsides.

Even now they do the same in Zen monasteries. Western psychologists have become aware of the fact. Many have gone to Japan to study what is happening, and they have been simply wonder-struck. They work for years and nothing happens; and in a Zen monastery, without doing anything, the madman left to

himself, and things start happening. Madmen need isolation. They need re6t, they need indifference, they need inattention, and the waves that were rising in their minds, the tensions, simply dissolve and disappear. After the fourth week the man is ready to leave the monastery. He thanks the people there, the abbot and others, and leaves. He is completely okay.

In the East because of this, because of these techniques, the first sort of psychology was never developed. And unless the first sort of psychology is there, the second sort is impossible. The pathological mind has to be understood in its details. It is one thing to help a madman to come out, it is another thing to create a psychology of madness. A scientific approach is needed, a detailed analysis is needed. In the West they have done that; the first type of psychology is there. Freud, Jung, Adler and others have created the psychology for the pathological man. They may not be very helpful to people who are in trouble, but they have fulfilled another requirement. That requirement is scientific: they have created the first sort of psychology. Immediately, the second becomes possible. The second is the psychology for the healthy man.

Fragments of the second always existed in the East, but always fragments, never a compact whole. Why fragments? -- because religious people were interested in how to make an ordinary healthy man move towards the transcendental. They search a little, not in details, not to the very end, because they were not interested in creating a psychology. They were interested only in finding some foothold, some jumping-board in the healthy mind from where a jump into meditation, a jump into the ultimate could be taken. Their interest was different. They didn't bother about the whole terrain.

When a person simply wants to take a jump into the river, he does not search the whole bank. He finds a space, a small rock, and from there he jumps. There is no need to search the whole territory. Fragments of the second psychology existed in the East. In Patanjali they are there; in Buddha, in Mahavir and in others -- just a few fragments, a part of the territory. The whole approach was not scientific, the approach was religious. More was not needed. Why should they have bothered about it? Just by clearing a small ground, from there they could take off into the infinite. Why try to clear the whole forest? -- and it is a vast forest.

The human mind is a vast phenomenon. The pathological mind in itself is a vast phenomenon. The healthy mind is even bigger than the pathological mind, because the pathological mind is just a part of the healthy mind, not the whole.

Nobody ever goes completely mad; nobody can. Just a part goes berserk, just a part becomes ill, but nobody goes completely mad. It is just like in physiology: no one's body can go absolutely ill. Have you seen anyone's body absolutely ill?

That would mean that all the illnesses possible to humanity have happened to one man's body. That is impossible, nobody goes that far. Somebody has a headache, somebody has a stomachache, somebody has fever, this and that -- a part. And the body is a vast phenomenon, a universe.

The same is true about the mind: the mind is a universe. The whole mind never goes mad and that's why mad people can be brought back. If the whole mind went mad, you could not bring it back, there would be no possibility. If the whole mind goes mad, to where would you bring it back? Just a part, a part goes astray. You can bring it back, fit it into the whole again.

In the West now the second type of psychology is passing through the birth pains with Abraham Maslow, Eric Fromm, Janov and others. It is a wholistic approach: not thinking in terms of disease but thinking in terms of health; not basically concentrating on pathology but basically concentrating on healthy humanity. The second psychology is being born, but still it is not complete.

That's why I say that it is just in the birth pains, it is coming into the world.

Sooner or later it will start growing fast. Only then is the third type of psychology possible. That is why I say that it never existed.

Buddhas have existed, millions of them, but no psychology of the Buddhas, because nobody ever tried to search the awaken ed mind especially to create a scientific discipline out of it. Buddhas have existed, but nobody has tried to understand the phenomenon of Buddhahood in scientific ways.

Gurdjieff was the first man in the whole history of humanity who tried. Gurdjieff was rare in this sense, because he was a pioneer into the third possibility. As it always happens with pioneers, it was difficult, very difficult to penetrate something which had remained always unknown, but he tried. He has brought a few fragments out of darkness, but it became more and more difficult because his greatest disciple, P.D. Ouspensky, betrayed him. There was a difficulty: Gurdjieff himself was a mystic not versed in the world of science; he was not a scientific mind. He was a mystic, he was a Buddha. The whole effort depended on P.D.

Ouspensky because he was a scientific man: one of the greatest mathematicians ever born and one of the most profound thinkers this century has known. The whole thing depended on Ouspensky. Gurdjieff was to sow the seeds and Ouspensky was to work it out, define it, philosophize it, make scientific theories out of it. It was to be a constant cooperation between the Master and the disciple.

Gurdjieff could sow, but he could not put it in scientific terms and he could not put it in such a way that it could become a discipline. He knew what it was but the language was lacking.

With Ouspensky the language was there, absolutely perfect. I don't see another comparison -- Ouspensky would write so perfectly that even an Albert Einstein would feel jealous. He had really a very trained, logical mind. You must read one of his books, the TERTIUM ORGANUM. It is a rare phenomenon. Ouspensky says in the book, just in the beginning, 'There are only three books in the world: one is Aristotle's ORGANON, the first organ of thought; the second is Bacon's NOVUM ORGANUM, the second principle of thought; and the third is TERTIUM ORGANUM.' 'Tertium Organum' means the third canon of thought.

Ouspensky says -- and when he says this he is not proud or egoistic or anything, 'Even before the two existed, the third was in existence.' He says in TERTIUM

ORGANUM, 'I am bringing the very base of all knowledge.' And it is not egoistic; the book is really rare.

The whole effort of Gurdjieff depended on a deep cooperation between Ouspensky and himself. He was to lead and Ouspensky was to formalize it, to formulate it, to give it a structure. The soul was to come from Gurdjieff and the body was to be supplied by Ouspensky, and Ouspensky betrayed him in the middle. He simply left Gurdjieff. That was always a possibility because he was such an intellectual and Gurdjieff was absolutely anti intellectual. It was almost an impossibility that they would continue their cooperation.

Gurdjieff demanded absolute surrender -- as Masters have al ways demanded; and that was difficult for Ouspensky -- as it is always difficult for every disciple.

And it is more difficult when a disciple is very intellectual. By and by, Ouspensky started thinking that he knew all. That is the deception that intelligentsia creates easily. He was such an intellectual man that he formulated everything and he started feeling that he knew. Then, by and by, the rift started.

Gurdjieff was always demanding absurd things. For example, Ouspensky was thousands of miles away and Gurdjieff sent him a telegram:'Come immediately, leave everything.' Ouspensky was in financial, family trouble, and many things, and it was almost impossible for him to leave immediately, but he left. He sold everything, he dropped the family and he immediately ran. When he arrived, the first thing Gurdjieff said was, 'Now you can go back.' This was the thing that started the rift. Ouspensky left and never came back -- but he missed. That was just a test for the total surrender.

When you are totally surrendered, you don't ask, 'Why?' The Master says, 'Come,' you come; the Master says, 'Go,' you go. Had Ouspensky gone that day as simply as he had come, something deep inside him which was frustrating his whole growth would have dropped. But it was too absurd for a man like Ouspensky that Gurdjieff ask suddenly, and that he come. He must have come with many expectations because he was thinking that he had sacrificed so much: the family, the problems, the finances, the service -- he had dropped everything.

He must have been thinking that he was a martyr. He had come and without even greeting him, the first thing that Gurdjieff said, looking at him, was, 'Now you can go back.' It was too much; he dropped out.

By the dropping out of Ouspensky, the whole effort to create a psychology of the third dimension stopped. Gurdjieff tried and tried; he tried to find somebody else. With many people he worked, but he could not find one of the calibre of Ouspensky. Ouspensky's growth stopped, and Gurdjieff's work for the third psychology stopped. Together they were wonderful; separate, both became crippled. Ouspensky remained intellectual, Gurdjieff remained a mystic. That was the trouble. That was why it could not happen.

I am again trying to work in the third dimension, and I have not taken the risk that Gurdjieff took. I am not depending on anybody; I am Gurdjieff plus Ouspensky. It is hard work to live in two different dimensions, it is very hard.

But anyway, it is good because nobody can betray me and stop my work, nobody. I am continuously moving in the world of no-mind, and in the world of words and books and analysis. Gurdjieff had a division of labor: Ouspensky was working in the library and he was working in himself. I have to do both -- so that the same thing is not repeated again. I have been working continuously on both levels and there is every possibility that the effort can succeed. I am studying you and you are growing, by and by.

To become a Buddha itself is one thing. The thing happens so suddenly: one moment before you were not a Buddha, and one moment afterwards you are a Buddha. It happens so suddenly when it happens in yourself that there is no space in which to study it. With you I can study very slowly. The more you dodge and resist, the better I can study you: what is happening, how it happens.

I have to study many people, only then can it happen. A psychology cannot depend on one man because individuals are so different, so unique. I may have become a Buddha, but I am a unique person. You may become a Buddha, but you are a unique person. There are at least seven types of people that exist in the world so at least seven Buddha have to be studied very, very deeply, one belonging to each type. Only then will the psychology be possible.

Ouspensky talks about seven types of men. All those seven types and their growth have to be understood: what types of obstacles they create, what type of escapes they try, and how their escapes and their resistances can be broken. With each type it is going to be different. Unless all seven types are known, studied deeply, step by step, layer by layer from the very be ginning, from A to z, the psychology cannot be formulated. It never existed before but it can exist in the future.

The third question:

This moment comes to every seeker: when the negative is no more but the positive has not come, when the misery has gone but the bliss has not happened, when the night is no more but the sun has not risen. This is a good indication that you are growing. And then, immediately, one starts feeling relaxed, floating, and everything as it happens is so beautiful. The mind says, 'Why bother? Why meditate at all?' If you listen to the mind, soon the night will be back, the misery will enter. Don't listen to the mind. You continue meditating but with a different

attitude now: meditate as if you are floating in it. Don't make too much effort in it. That's all that is needed. Meditate effortlessly, but meditate. Don't be lazy. In laziness again the old will come back because the bliss has not yet happened.

Once bliss happens -- when you feel absolutely contented, when you come to a point where you even forget about contentment, it is so absolute -- only then can meditation be dropped. It drops automatically.

At two points the idea of dropping comes: the first point is this, what the questioner has asked: when darkness disappears, misery is no more, and you feel so good. This is just an absence of misery. If a mind which has remained in misery is non miser able, it almost looks like happiness, it almost looks like blissful ness. Don't be deceived by the appearance. Much still has to be done -- but now, do it in a different way, that's all. Now do meditations very relaxedly; don't strain, float -- but continue doing because much more has to happen yet.

The journey is not ended. You may have come to a point where you can relax under a tree and the shade is cool, but don't forget that this can only be an overnight stay. In the morning you have to walk again. Until you completely disappear, the journey has to be continued. But now change the quality; float.

Effortlessly move into meditation.

So you know the difference? Somebody swims in the river, there is effort; but then he simply floats, lies down on his back, remains in the river but with no more swimming. Floating, the river takes him with the current and he floats towards the sea. In the beginning one has to swim in a meditation because there are many resistances created by the mind; you have to fight them.

In the second step you have to float with the river. In the third step you have to become the river -- then there is no question. Then you can drop, but there is no question of dropping; it drops automatically. Meditation, when complete, drops automatically. You need not worry about it. When it is complete it will drop just like a ripe fruit drops to the earth.

But don't be lazy. Mind can play games with you and it can destroy whatsoever you have attained. A little you attain with much effort, and the mind can deceive you and can say that now there is no need. You are feeling so happy -- feel happy -- but you are feeling so happy because of the meditations. If you drop meditations, immediately the happiness that you are feeling will disappear and then you will be again in misery.

The fourth question:

To me, Freud still remains true. Not only Freud, but Buddha, Mahavir and Patanjali all say that birth is painful, that it is a trauma But it is difficult to come to a final conclusion. A child is born and nobody knows how the child feels: whether the child feels blissful in the womb or not; or, while being born, passing through the birth canal and coming into the wider world, whether he feels pain when he screams, whether there is pain or not. Who will decide?

There are two ways to decide: one is objective observation. That's what Freud has done, what Laing, Janov, and others are doing. You can observe what is happening, but observation remains outside. You don't really know what is happening. Both these interpretations are possible: you can say that the child is blissful inside the womb because there is no worry, nothing for the child to do, everything is supplied, the child simply rests; or, because the child is confined, imprisoned, all that affects the mother affects the child. If the mother is ill, the child is ill. If the mother falls and breaks her bones, the child is hurt. He will carry that wound for his whole life. If the mother has a headache it is bound to affect the child because the child is joined, he is not separate. If the mother is miserable, in anguish, the child must be affected. The child's very soft, delicate nervous system will be constantly hammered by the feelings, moods, and happenings in the mother. How can the child be happy and blissful inside? If the mother makes love while the child is inside the womb, the child suffers because when the mother makes love, she needs more oxygen for herself and the oxygen supply for the child is cut. There is a power shortage and the child feels suffocated.

Because of this, one scientist has been trying to prove -- a Jewish scientist of course, because Jews believe in not making love while the woman is pregnant; he has made much out of this finding -- that for nine months when the mother is pregnant, love should not be made to her because the child will suffer. There is a certain ground in this, because the oxygen of the mother will be needed by her own body. That's why, while making love, a man and a woman start breathing fast and deep. More oxygen is needed by the body and the mother goes into a fever. The body temperature rises high and the child feels suffocated. These are the findings from the outside.

If one has to decide between Freud and Laing, the decision can never be complete because both are outsiders. But I have an insider's view, and that's why I say that Freud is right and Laing is not right. A Buddha has an insider's view.

When a man like Buddha is born, he is born perfectly aware. When a man like Buddha is in the womb, he is aware.

How this happens has to be understood. When a man dies in perfect awareness, his next birth will be perfectly aware. If you can die in this life fully aware, not becoming unconscious when you die; you remain perfectly conscious, you see every phase of death, you hear every step and you remain perfectly aware that the body is dying; the mind is disappearing and you remain perfectly aware; then suddenly you see that you are not in the body and consciousness has left the

body. You can see the dead body lying there and you are floating around the body.

If you can be aware while you are dying, this is one part of birth, one aspect. If in this one aspect you are aware, you will be aware when you take conception. You will float around a couple making love and you will be perfectly aware. You will enter into the womb perfectly aware. The child is conceived and in that small seed, the first seed, you will be perfectly aware of what is happening. For nine months in the mother's womb you will be aware. Not only will you be aware, but when a child like a Buddha is in the womb of the mother, the quality of the mother changes. She becomes more aware; a light burns within. How can the house remain unlighted? The mother immediately feels a change of consciousness.

To become the mother of a Buddha is a rare opportunity. The very phenomenon transforms the mother. Just the opposite is true of the ordinary child: he is confined by the mother's body, mind, consciousness -- it is an imprisonment.

When a Buddha is born, when the mother of a Buddha is pregnant, just the opposite happens: the mother is part of the greater consciousness of Buddha.

Buddha surrounds her like an aura. She dreams about Buddha.

In India we have recorded the dreams of these mothers: of Buddha's mother, Mahavir's mother, and other TEERTHANKARAS' mothers' dreams. We have really never bothered about any other dreams; we have only analyzed the dreams of the mothers of Buddhas. That is the only dream analysis that we have done. That is going to become a part of the third type of psychology.

When a Buddha is to be born, the mother moves through particular dreams because thousands of times the same dreams are repeated again and again. That means that the Buddha consciousness inside the mother creates certain phenomena in her mind and she starts dreaming in a particular dimension. For example, Buddhists say that when a Buddha is inside the mother, the mother dreams of a white elephant. That is a symbol, a symbol of something very rare -- because a white elephant is one of the rarest things in India, almost impossible to find. A rare being is there and the white elephant symbol is just an indication.

And a series of dreams follow.

When Buddha says that birth is a suffering, it is an insider's view. Mahavir says that birth is a suffering, it is pain, it is a trauma. Mahavir and Buddha both say that to be born and to die, these are the two greatest sufferings. That carries more meaning than any Laings or any Freuds can ever carry. But Freud's view coincides with this, and this is my own experience also.

The nine months in the mother's womb are the most comfortable. Of course, a few episodes happen but they are exceptions. Otherwise, those nine months are without any news, because news is always bad news. Almost nothing happens.

One simply floats in a wonderful ecstasy. But birth is a trauma, it is very painful.

it is just as if you pull a tree out of the earth -- how does the tree feel?

Now we have instruments to judge how a tree feels when up rooted. A child feels the same when he comes out of the mother. The mother is the earth and the child had roots in the mother up to then. Now he is uprooted, thrown out. The pain is very great. If you can trust me, I say that the pain is greater than death.

Death is number two, birth is number one. And it should be so because birth makes death possible. In fact, the suffering that starts with birth ends with death.

Birth is the beginning of suffering, death is the end. Birth has to be more painful - - it is! And after nine months of total rest, relaxation, not a worry, nothing to do, after those nine months it is such a sudden shock to be thrown out, that never again will there be such a shock to the nervous system, never again! Every other shock is minor.

If you become bankrupt you will be shocked, but it is nothing, nothing compared to the birth trauma. Your wife dies: you feel, you cry, you weep. But just time is needed; the wound is healed and you are chasing other women. Your child dies, you feel deeply hurt; something will always remain of the hurt in your being. But it is nothing compared to the birth trauma, when you are uprooted from the earth. You can be aware in this uprooting, and only then will what I am saying be meaningful.

This can be contradicted by outer findings. To me it is irrelevant because whatsoever I am saying, I am saying about my own birth. And if you really want to know, then prepare yourself to be more and more aware so that when you die this time, you die in full awareness. Then you will automatically be born with full awareness. If you die unconsciously, you are born unconsciously.

Whatsoever happens in death will happen in birth because death is nothing but death on this side -- on that side it is birth. It is the same door. If you enter the door consciously, you will get out of the door consciously. Death is this side of the door, birth is that side of the door.

The fifth question:

First, there is no absolute necessity for going into the past. If you really meditate, everything is automatically resolved. But if your meditation is not going well, then going into the past can be a great help. So it is not an absolute necessity to go into the past. If you are going well in meditation, forget about it. If you are not going well in meditation, only then does it become important. Then it can be a great help. Then it will solve the difficulties of meditation, but it is a secondary, a complementary phenomenon.

Prati-prasav, going into the past, is a complementary technique to meditation.

First try meditation; if it works, forget about the past. There is no need to go into the past. If you feel that meditation is not functioning, something comes again and again like a cul-de-sac, a deadlock happens, a block comes and you cannot move, that means that your past is very loaded -- you will need prati-prasav. You will need to go into the past while simultaneously working for meditation. If meditation works well, that means that your past is not very loaded, you don't have blocks in the past. Simply meditation will do. But if the blocks are there and meditation is not working, then, as a help, prati-prasav is wonderful -- going into the past helps tremendously.

It is up to you. First work hard on meditation, make every effort to know whether it can happen or not. If you feel that it is not possible, nothing is happening, only then look at prati-prasav. It is a good method, but secondary. It is not a very primary thing.

The second thing is that it is absolutely true that alone you cannot go, alone you cannot grow. Alone, it will take millions of lives to come to a certain conclusion, to come to a certain being, and that too is not certain. It is not possible for many reasons, because whatsoever you are is a closed system and the system is autonomous, self sufficient. It works on its own and it has very deep roots in the past. The system is very sufficient and efficient. To come out of the system is almost impossible unless somebody helps you. Some foreign element is needed to give you a break, to give you a shock, to jog you out. It is just as if you are asleep -- and you have been asleep for many, many lives. How can you make yourself awake? Even to start you will have to be at least a little awake, and even that little awakening is not there. You are completely asleep; you are in a coma.

Who will start working? How will you wake yourself? Somebody is needed, somebody who can shock you out of the coma, who can help you to come out.

Even an alarm clock will be helpful.

A group is needed. Because once you are awakening, the whole past will try to bring you back to the unconscious state because the mind follows the path of least resistance. You will fall asleep again and again. Either a perfect Master is needed who can help you to come out of it, or a group of seekers if the perfect Master is not available, so the people in the group can help each other.

Gurdjieff used to say, 'It is as if you are in a forest, afraid of wild animals, but you have a group. Ten people are there, so you can do one thing: while nine are

asleep, one remains awake.' If there is some danger from wild animals, thieves or robbers, he wakes the others. If he feels that he is falling asleep, he wakes others.

But one remains alert -- that becomes the protection. If a perfect Master is available, if a Buddha is available, then there is no need to work in a group because he is aware twenty four hours. If he is not there, then the second possibility is to work in a group. Sometimes somebody comes to a little awareness; he can help. By the time he starts falling asleep, somebody else has come to a little awareness. He helps, and the group helps.

It is as if you are imprisoned: alone it would be difficult for you to get out because heavy guarding is there. But if all the prisoners unite and make a united effort to get out, the guards may not prove enough. But if you know somebody who is out, side, outside of the prison and can be of some help, then there is also no need for the group effort. Somebody from the outside can create situations: he can throw a ladder, he can bribe the guard, he can drug the guard; he can do something from the outside because he is free. He can find ways to create a situation so that you can come out. A perfect Master is like a man who is outside the prison. He has much freedom to do something. Many possibilities are there and all are open to him because he is free. If you don't have a contact with a Master who is free, out of the prison, then the only possibility for the prisoners is to create a group.

That's why in the West many types of groups are working: Arica, Gurdjieff groups, and others. Group consciousness is becoming more and more important in the West. It is good. It is better than Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, it is better than Bal Yogeshwar -- because these are not Masters. It is better to work in a group, because the man who says that he is outside is not outside; he is also inside. The man who says that he has got contacts on the outside has no contacts outside. He is just deceiving you. In the West there is only one man from the East, and he is Krishnamurti. If you can be with Krishnamurti it can be helpful, but it is difficult to be with him. He has been trying to help people in such an indirect way that even the people who are helped will not ever be able to know that he has been helping. This has created trouble. Otherwise, all so-called Masters in the West are just salesmen, nothing of worth.

If you can find a Master, that is the best, because even in a group you will all be prisoners, fast asleep. You may try, but it will take a long time. Or, it may not succeed at all, because you will all be of the same calibre, the same plane of consciousness. For example, Arica people are people of the same consciousness working together, groping in the dark. Something may happen, something may not happen. One thing is certain, and that is that nothing is certain. There is just a probability.

Gurdjieff is not there and all the Gurdjieff groups are more dominated by Ouspensky's books than by Gurdjieff. In fact, all the groups are Ouspensky groups, not exactly Gurdjieff groups. Much is not possible. You can talk about theories, you can explain to each other, but if you belong to the same plane of

consciousness, much talking, much discussion, much know ledge will happen, but not knowing, not awakening. When Gurdjieff was there it was totally different -- a Master was there. He could have brought you out of your imprisonment.

The first thing is to seek a Master who can help you. If it is impossible to find a Master, then make a group and a group effort. Alone is the last possibility. These are the three ways: alone you work, with a group you work, or with a Master you work. The best is with a Master, the second best is with a group, the third is alone. Even people who have attained to the ultimate alone have been working through many lives with Masters and groups. So don't be deceived by the appearance.

Even Krishnamurti goes on saying that alone you can attain. But why does he insist on this, that alone you can attain? This is because his method is an indirect method. He will not allow you to know that he is helping, and he will not say to you, 'Surrender to me.' There is so much ego in the West, and he has been working the whole time in the West. The ego is so much that he cannot say, 'Surrender to me,' as Krishna said to Arjuna -- 'Leave everything and come and surrender to me.' Arjuna was of a different world, the East, which knew how to surrender, which knew the ugliness of the ego and the beauty of surrender.

Krishna could say this without any ego on his part. The assertion seems to be very egoistic:'Come and surrender to me.' But Krishna could say it naturally, and Arjuna never raised the question, 'Why do you say this? Why should I surrender to you? Who are you?' In the East, surrender was accepted as a known path.

Everybody knew, was raised in the very knowledge that finally, one has to surrender to a Master. It was simple, it fitted.

Krishnamurti worked in the West. He himself was raised by Masters. In a very, very esoteric way, he was helped by the Masters. Masters who were in the body and Masters who were not in the body all helped him, they helped him to flower.

But then he worked in the West and he became aware, as anybody will become, that the West is not ready to surrender. So he cannot say like Krishna, 'Come and surrender to me.' For the Western ego, the best way is that you can attain on your own. This is a device: no need to surrender to a Master. This is the base to attract you: no need to surrender, no need to drop your ego, you be yourself. This is a device and people got trapped in that device. They thought that there was no need to surrender, that they could be themselves, that there was no need to learn from the other, only one's own effort is needed. Continuously, for years they have been going to Krishnamurti. For what? -- to learn? If you can be alone then why go to Krishnamurti? Once you have heard that he says, 'Alone you can attain,' you should be finished with him. But you have not been finished with him. In fact, unknowingly you have become a follower. Without your knowledge you have been trapped. Deep down, the surrender has happened. He is saving your surface ego to kill you deep down. His way is indirect.

But nobody attains alone. Nobody has ever attained alone because many, many lives one has to work. I have worked with Masters, I have worked with groups, I have worked alone, but I tell you that the ultimate phenomenon is a cumulative effect. Working alone, working with a group, working with Masters; it is a cumulative effect. Don't insist on going alone, because that very insistence will become a barrier. Seek groups. And if you can find a Master, you are fortunate.

Don't miss that opportunity.

The sixth question:

They are both the same: when you relive, you unlearn. Reliving is a process of unlearning. Whatsoever you relive disappears from you. It has been unlearned, it leaves no marks, the slate is clean. You can call it a process of unlearning, it is the same.

The seventh question:

Because you believe in dreams, you believe that they are true! Karmas exist because of your belief. For example, in the night you had a nightmare: somebody was sitting on your body with a dagger in his hand and you were feeling that you were being killed, and you tried and tried to escape from the situation but it was difficult. Then just out of fear you woke up. You know now that it was a dream, but the body still continues trembling a little, perspiring. You are still afraid and you know that this was just a dream. But your breathing is not easy and natural yet. It will take a few minutes. What has happened? In the nightmare you believed that it was real. When you believe it is real, it affects you as reality.

Karmas are dream-like. You murdered somebody in your past life; that is a dream, because in the East the whole life is taken as a dream -- good, bad, all. But you believe that it was real, so you will suffer. If you can come to understand right now that all that has happened was a dream, all that is happening is a dream, and all that is going to happen is a dream; only your consciousness is real, everything else that happens is a dream; the seeing is dream, only the seer is real; then suddenly all karmas are washed. Then there is no need to go into the process of prati-prasav. They are simply washed. Suddenly, you are out of them.This is the method of vedanta where Shankaracharya insists that the whole

life is a dream. The insistence is not because he is a philosopher -- he is not.

When he says that the world is maya, it is not a philosophy, it is not metaphysics.

It is a method. It is an understanding. If you believe in some. thing it affects you as real; your belief makes it real. If you believe that it is not real, it cannot affect you. It may even be real, but then too, it cannot affect you.

For example, you are sitting in a dark room and suddenly you see something in the room. You feel it is a snake... fear, panic. You put the light on but there is nothing, just a piece of newspaper that moved in the breeze. And you felt a snake was moving. What happened? You believed it was real, and your belief made it real -- as real as any real snake -- and you were affected by it. Just take the opposite case: a real snake is there the next night and you are sitting in the dark.

You see some thing moving and you think it must be the same piece of paper again, and you are not afraid, you are not affected. You go on sitting as if it is nothing. Reality doesn't affect you. Reality is not the question. Belief makes it real; belief affects you. The more you become aware, the more life will look like a dream. Then, nothing affects you. That's why Krishna says to Arjuna in the Gita, 'You don't be bothered, you kill. This is all a dream.' Arjuna was afraid because he thought that these people standing in front were enemies, that they were real.

To kill them would be a sin, and to kill millions of them -- how much sin would be on him! And how was he going to balance it with goodness? It would be impossible. He said to Krishna, 'I would like to escape to the jungles. This fight is not for me. This war seems to be too much of a sin.' Krishna went on insisting, 'You don't bother. Nobody dies because the soul is eternal. Only the body dies, but the body is already dead, so don't be too disturbed. It is all like a dream, and even if you don't kill those people, they will die. In fact, their moment of death has come and you are just to help. You are not killing them; through you, the whole i5 killing them. You take it as a dream. You don't think about it as real.'

This is the whole attitude of Vedanta. Vedanta is a method in which, by and by, you become aware of the dream like quality of life. Once you become attuned to this feeling, that all is dream, all karmas are finished. Whatsoever you did makes no sense. If in the night you were a thief or a murderer, in the night you were a monk, a saint, in the morning will it make any difference? Was the dream that you were a murderer sin, and the dream that you were a saint virtuous? Will it make any difference? Dreams are all dreams. Saint or sinner, both are dreams. In the morning both have disappeared, evaporated. You cannot make any distinction between a good dream and a bad dream, because to be good or to be bad a thing needs to be real. There is no need if you can look at life, watch it, understand it, and see that it is a great dream going on and on. Only the seer is the real, and all that is seen is the dream. Suddenly, you become aware and the whole world disappears. Not that these trees will disappear, not that you will disappear or I will disappear, but the world that you used to know disappears. A totally different reality is revealed. That reality is Brahman.