Leaving the mind far behind

My Friends,

I have been telling my people for almost thirty years, on and off, that psychoanalysis is dead, as dead as Sigmund Freud. But no psychoanalyst ever answered. The reality is that psychoanalysis has never been alive, but it was a great method of exploitation of the sick people.

Nobody has ever been cured by psychoanalysis. There are people who have been under psychoanalysis for ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, but there is not a single human being who has gained any insight through psychoanalysis, or any wholeness, any depth, any peak.

People terminate psychoanalysis not because they have succeeded, but because their bank account is finished. Psychoanalysts are the most highly paid people in the world - for nothing. It was going to happen sooner or later, because nobody can be cheated forever.

My standpoint was that unless psychoanalysis has a soul... It is digging into dreams - which is an absolutely futile, meaningless effort, because dreams are just on the surface of the mind. You close your eyes and they start floating. Analyzing these dreams, you can never come to a conclusion; they go on and on. Psychoanalysis is just concerned with the dreams and the mind. It does not believe that there is something beyond the mind that is going to be its suicide, because your real source of life is beyond the mind.

Mind is just a computer. You can program it, you can reprogram it, deprogram it, you can do anything with it; it is a mechanism. It is not your being. And unless somebody reaches to his being, he is wandering and wasting his life, he is simply vegetating. He has no depth, no peak experiences.

From my university days I have been fighting, first, with my professors of psychology and psychoanalysis. Then, when I became a teacher in the university, I was fighting with my colleagues who were in the same department. But man's blindness, deafness, dumbness, seems to be infinite....

The materialist believes only in the body. The psychoanalyst believes in the mind as a by-product of the body: when the body dies the mind disappears also. So what are you doing? - torturing people unnecessarily. Neither the mind is going to be your eternal friend, nor the body. Just use them, but don't forget there is a witness within you.

Hence, I have been fighting for meditation. I have been telling people that unless psychoanalysis is based in meditation, unless it helps people to discover the no-mind, the beyond, it is an absolutely futile exercise of exploiting people. But no psychoanalyst agreed with me.

Just today I have received a confirmation from one of the most well-known psychoanalysts of America: Dr. Brian Weiss, Yale Medical School graduate, nationally recognized expert in psycho- pharmacology, brain chemistry, substance abuse, and Alzheimer's Disease, and Chief of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Hospital, San Francisco.

He has been for years thinking to tell the world that psychoanalysis is dead, but could not gather the courage to go against the whole profession. But finally he decided to declare what has been his experience - his lifelong experience. In his book, MANY LIVES, MANY MASTERS, Weiss wrote that psychoanalysis is in its death throes, that it is no longer practical, and the reason is that it has no spirituality in it.

Perhaps now psychoanalysts will pay attention.

I am not a psychoanalyst, but I am a postgraduate in psychoanalysis, in religion, in philosophy. I have never practiced psychoanalysis because I have never believed that Sigmund Freud had revealed a new path to man's intrinsic spirituality.

I have heard: a man sold his donkey to another farmer, his neighbor, and he said in praise of the donkey that he was very wise, very intelligent, very hard-working. The neighbor who had purchased it tried hard, but it wouldn't move at all. He said, "Strange..."

He called the man from whom he had purchased it. The man took a big staff and hit the donkey exactly on his forehead. The donkey moved.

The man who had purchased it asked, "You were telling me to be kind and be compassionate to this animal, it is a rare species - and you are hitting it so brutally."

He said, "It is not hitting, it is just getting his attention!"

Perhaps Dr. Brian Weiss will have the attention - but I want to remind him that his approach is negantive. He has found that psychoanalysis is missing something, but he does not know what.

Just the word 'spirituality' doesn't mean anything. He has not yet found the positive element of meditation, of going inwards and remaining just a witness. Psychoanalysis may be dying, perhaps is dead; just the people who have invested their whole life in it and are exploiting millions of dollars out of it, are hiding the fact of its death.

But even Dr. Brian Weiss... although he has come to a right conclusion, his conclusion is still negative. He does not mention about meditation, he does not mention about witnessing, he does not mention anything about no-mind - which are the doors of spirituality.

His words, that psychoanalysis is missing spirituality, are bound to be misunderstood. That's why I am saying these words. People will think spirituality means to join the Catholic church, become a Hindu, become a Buddhist, and you have become spiritual.

It is not so cheap.

To become spiritual you have to go into your own depth, leaving mind far behind. Let it dream, let it think, you simply watch. And just watching is the greatest alchemy for transforming your being.

The more you become rooted in watching and witnessing... the thoughts disappear, the dreams disappear, the mind is miles away and you are left alone in utter silence, in peace. All the tensions, anxieties, angst, are completely transformed into bliss, into ecstasy, into blessings.

My emphasis here is on therapies which DON'T go on for years and years: just a few days of therapy to prepare the ground for meditation. We are running here almost one hundred therapy groups, for every possible human being. But therapy is not the end; therapy is a preparation, clearing the ground for meditation. This is the only place in the whole world where therapy is being used as clearing the ground for a tremendous transformation from mind to no-mind.

Meditation is the only thing that can be called spiritual, because it is rooted in your very spirit. It is the only thing that is not going to die. Your body will be dying, your mind will be dying; only your witness has an eternity.

And without having eternity... how can you be joyous when death is coming every day closer?

Stop calling your birthdays birth days! These are the days when death has come one year closer.

Those are the days of death!

You have been dying since the very moment you were born! Every moment death is taking its territory. It may take seventy years, or ninety years - it does not matter; death is following you like a shadow. Wherever you go, whichever direction you choose, you will end up in a grave, remember!

The only thing that will not end up in a grave is the experience of your mirrorlike witnessing being, your very life source. And just the experience of your own life source heals you immediately; nothing else needs to be added.

Dr. Brian Weiss writes his book, entitled MANY LIVES, MANY MASTERS. I would like to remind him that he has not found any master yet - many lives perhaps, but not a single master!

To find a master is to find someone who has already reached to the highest peak of being, who can show you the path. Of course, you will have to walk it yourself, but just indicating the path is a tremendous compassion.

The days of therapy plus meditation are going to come. As psychoanalysis dies, there will be a vacuum. That vacuum can be filled only by therapies which are not an end in themselves, but just a preparation, a device to indicate to you your innermost being.

The days of meditation are going to come.

I would like Dr. Brian Weiss to know perfectly well that he has come to a right conclusion, but the conclusion is half. The death of psychoanalysis will leave a vacuum which will create tremendous anxiety in people, because psychoanalysis - although a futile exercise - keeps people hoping:

"Perhaps one year of analysis more, and I will come back perfectly sane and healthy and joyous."

Psychoanalysis is exploiting the hope.

By the way, I have to remind you that all the religions have been doing the same: exploiting the hope that tomorrow will be good, just be patient today. The next life is going to be good, just be patient in this life. Nobody knows about tomorrow. And we have known many tomorrows turning into todays; they don't fulfill the hope and the promise. Then the hope is shifted to another life.

All these religions have done the same.

Psychoanalysis is a modern cult; Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, are ancient cults. None of them is a religion.

A religion gives you freedom.

A religion gives you yourself.

To me, therapy plus meditation is equal to religion.

I would invite Dr. Brian Weiss to see this great experiment. Perhaps, because he is now absolutely disappointed with psychoanalysis, he may be able to see some possibility in therapy and meditation.

And this is not only an invitation to Dr. Brian Weiss, this is an invitation to all psychoanalysts, because you are going to lose your profession soon. Before you are drowned, we are preparing here a Noah's Ark.

Today begins a new series of talks. The title of the new series is: ZEN: THE MYSTERY AND THE POETRY OF THE BEYOND.

Before I discuss the sutras brought by Maneesha, on behalf of all of you, a few words about the title of the new series, Zen: The Mystery and the Poetry of the Beyond.

I don't consider Zen a philosophy or a theology but closer to poetry, to music, to painting, to dancing, to singing. It is not renunciation of life, it is rejoicing in life with your whole heart. And as you become deeply involved in creative lifestyles, the beyond opens its doors. I will simply call it 'beyond', because all other words that have been used have become contaminated by the old religions, but 'the beyond' is still pure; and because it is a poetry, a creative act, which in its peak transforms you and brings you to the doors of the mystery.

This whole existence is a mystery; only for blind people there is no mystery. If you have eyes, then everything is mysterious, and there is no solution for it. The deeper you go into it, the more mysterious it becomes. And there is no bottom to the depth, it is abyssmal. You can go on and on and on; the mystery becomes more mysterious, more colorful, more fragrant, but you don't come to the end where you can find an explanation for the mystery.

Unless a man settles with existence as mystery, he will not be able to live his life as ecstasy.

The sutras:

OUR

BANSHO GYOSHU STUDIED MEDITATION FIRST WITH MASTER SHOMOKU. HE TOLD BANSHO, "STUDYING THIS PATH IS LIKE REFINING GOLD. WHEN IT IS IMPURE, THE PURE GOLD DOES NOT SHOW."

Have you ever thought how gold is purified? Only through fire. When the gold passes through fire, all that was not gold is burnt, and it comes out as pure gold, utterly refined.

Meditation is a fire, a very cool fire. You will not be burnt, but all that is false will disappear. And when you will come out of those flames, you will not be able even to recognize yourself, because now you will be having your original face, not the mask that the society has given to you. Now your personality will be gone - that was the contaminating factor - your individuality will come as sharp as a sword.

Shomoku also said to Bansho, "AS I LOOK BETWEEN YOUR EYEBROWS, THERE IS VERY MUCH SOMETHING THERE."

It is one of the most important findings of the mystics that just between your eyebrows there opens a door; in India it has been called the third eye. These two eyes look outside. Just between the eyebrows, exactly in the middle there is an eye, a perceptivity, a sensitivity. When it opens, your inner world becomes absolutely clear to you. You know that you are not the body, not the mind.

For the first time you recognize your being as a witness. This takes you to the beyond, and to the mysterious, and to the miraculous.

Onwards, life is a sheer joy, a sheer dance, a great music. You are overflowing, radiating pure gold.

You have found the treasure of treasures. This has been the search of the whole East, of the whole Eastern genius.

Shomoku says to Bansho, "AS I LOOK BETWEEN YOUR EYEBROWS, THERE IS VERY MUCH SOMETHING THERE. IF YOU DON'T PIERCE THROUGH COLD BONES, ONCE, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO CAST THIS THING OFF. HEREAFTER, SEE FOR YOURSELF - IT IS NOT A MATTER OF MY SPEAKING MUCH."

In such a small passage, Shomoku has said everything that is necessary for a seeker.

THEN BANSHO WAS GIVEN THE SAYING OF CHOSHA'S TO CONTEMPLATE ON: "TURN YOURSELF BACK INTO MOUNTAINS, RIVERS AND EARTH."

It is a very strange statement of Chosha's.

"TURN YOURSELF BACK INTO MOUNTAINS, RIVERS AND EARTH." What does it mean?

It means, remember you are carrying five elements in your body: the earth, the air, the fire, the sky, the water. These are the five elements that make your body. Chosha is saying, "Return these elements back to their sources, and then see whether something is left behind."

Yes, something is left behind. That something is your consciousness. It is not a by-product of your body, it is a totally different phenomenon than the material world. Once you have tasted something of consciousness, awareness, alertness, you will not be afraid of death; you know it can happen only to the dead body, it cannot happen to your living sources of consciousness. They are in the body, but they don't belong to the body.

Chosha's statement was given to Bansho to meditate on:

"TURN YOURSELF BACK INTO MOUNTAINS, RIVERS AND EARTH."

FOR SIX MONTHS BANSHO MET WITH NO SUCCESS AND SHOMOKU MADE THE COMMENT, "I ONLY HOPE YOU WILL UNDERSTAND LATER."

What went wrong?

He was too much in a hurry, he became too tense about the matter, too serious about the matter, and realizing your being is not a serious matter at all. It comes to you in utter relaxation, a non-tense state of being, in a playfulness.

Never make your meditation a serious affair, otherwise you are going to miss it. Be playful about it.

I am the first person who is saying that.

All the religions have been telling you to be serious. That's why they have killed millions of people, destroyed their spirituality, made them tense, anxiety-ridden, sick unto death. And in the effort to find their innermost being, people have been doing all kinds of unnecessary ascetic practices, which are nothing but masochistic torture.

I teach you playfulness.

It is your being.

Even if you want to lose it, you cannot lose it.

What is the hurry?

And what is the seriousness?

Just be playful, lightweight.

Bansho missed because of his great effort to find the innermost core of his being. Effort is a barrier.

Effortlessness...

Just sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.

That grass you should not misunderstand. Basho is saying: You just sit silently, unworried, effortlessly, doing nothing. When the time is ripe means when your tensions have all gone... the spring comes, and your being grows by itself. You don't have to do anything; it simply explodes into a tremendous revolution. All that was junk in you is burnt, and all that was truth in you, the pure twenty-four-karat gold, comes shining with a great splendor.

But it happens only in a relaxed state, in a let-go. This is one of the most difficult problems.

People who are seekers are in a hurry. They want it to happen just now. It can happen just now, but you are preventing it by desiring it to happen just now.

Forget all about when it happens. Whenever the right time comes, existence will take care. Enjoy the meditation; don't bother about any conclusion, about any enlightenment. These things are not within your hands, you cannot do anything about them!

The spring comes by itself... and suddenly you find your old personality has melted away, and something absolutely new and fresh is born within you, and it is growing on its own. You are just a watcher - watcher of the death of the old, and watcher of the birth of the new.

But there is no need to be serious. Any seriousness, any effort, any anxiety about being spiritual is the greatest barrier. Just be playful.

I have found myself without any seriousness. Hence, when I say this, I say it on my own authority.

FOR SIX MONTHS BANSHO MET WITH NO SUCCESS AND SHOMOKU MADE THE COMMENT, "I ONLY HOPE YOU WILL UNDERSTAND LATER."

FINALLY, AFTER A LONG TIME, BANSHO did SUDDENLY HAVE AN INSIGHT.

The anecdote does not say a few things; they have to be understood.

What must have happened that suddenly one day Bansho did have an insight?

Effort has a limitation: you get tired - that is the beauty of effort - otherwise you will never be enlightened. Any kind of effort, any anxiety has a limitation. A moment comes, you say, "Fuck it all!"

That very moment is your enlightenment!

Basho wrote:

THE EVENING HAZE.

THINKING OF PAST THINGS - HOW FAR OFF THEY ARE.

THE EVENING HAZE. THINKING OF PAST THINGS - HOW FAR OFF THEY ARE.

What does Basho mean by this haiku? He is one of the most insightful of Zen masters....

He is saying that what seems to be very important to you today, what is creating so much seriousness in you, so much anxiety in you, won't have any relevance after a few years. It will be far away, miles away, as though perhaps you have seen it in a dream. All the anxiety that it was giving you is lost.

Understanding this, just look backwards: at every point in the past you will find yourself ridden with anxiety, anguish, misery, failure. But now all that has become just writing on the sands. A breeze comes and the whole writing disappears, or a tidal wave comes and takes the whole writing away, leaves behind a fresh sand without any signature.

Basho's intention is that looking at the past you should understand that what is present will become past tomorrow. Don't be so serious. Tomorrow it will not matter at all. And the same is true about your future: never be serious, because everything is going to become past, just like a dream you had seen somewhere. Perhaps you may not even recognize that you were so much troubled.

Basho's statement is that your whole life is just a prolonged dream. Don't take it seriously. Be playful, enjoy it while it lasts. There is no need to renounce it, because those who renounce it take it seriously.

I have always wondered about so-called great philosophers, for example Adi Shankara, who has been thought by the Indians to be the greatest mind in the whole history of man. But that "greatest mind," Adi Shankara, looks so stupid on just a small scrutiny.

He talked about the world being illusory: it is just purely a dream, there is nothing outside, you are projecting it. Still, he could not touch an untouchable.

One morning he was getting ready for his prayer, taking a bath in the Ganges in Varanasi. It was still dark and he was coming back up the steps, and a man touched him and told him, "I am a sudra, an untouchable." Shankara was furious, he forgot all about peace, and "love your enemies."

I have always thought, Why unnecessarily...? First love yourself, then love your friends - because these friends will turn someday into your enemies. Continue loving. Nobody becomes an enemy before becoming a friend, so just go on loving friends and ex-friends, wives and ex-wives. But it is all a dream, your projection.

Shankara, freaking out, denies his own philosophy. The sudra was a strange fellow. He said, "Before you become enraged..."

Shankara said, "I will have to take another bath! It is a cold winter morning, and knowing perfectly well that you are a sudra, why did you touch me? There is no crowd" - and Varanasi has vast ghats with steps. "Only two men... there was no need to touch me."

The old man said, "There was: to make you aware that next time you say the world is illusory, remember me. It is not. You are freaking out at your own projections. You are going to take a bath in a dream river. Just think about your philosophy."

But Shankara is thought to be the greatest philosopher, at least in the Indian heritage. But his philosophy seems to be just mind-oriented. It has no actual experience of awakening. Otherwise, nobody is touchable and nobody is untouchable; just as you are made of bones and flesh, everybody is made of the same stuff. Everybody is made of the same elements.

And for a man like Adi Shankara - who says that everything outside is just a dream - behaving in such a way exposes him, that all his philosophy is just talk. He is articulate enough to talk about things, but it is not his life.

And unless something is your life, your very life, it makes no difference.

Another instance is still more idiotic.

Shankara traveled all over India, challenging other philosophers. One can ask, "Why are you challenging your own projections?" In this dreamlike world, if somebody thinks he is a philosopher, what is the harm? There is nobody, just a phantom, the Holy Ghost. But he went around the country with this philosophy that the world is maya, illusion, hallucination, a mirage.

He reached to Mandla, a small city in central India. It is named after a great thinker, Mandan Mishra.

He was very famous in those parts, and he was the last one to be defeated. Shankara wanted a victory over all the philosophers of this country.

Strange... his philosophy says everything is illusory - and his victory over illusory phantoms is real?

He went there. Before entering the city there was a well, and women were drawing water from the well. He asked them, "Which way do I have to go to find Mandan Mishra's house?"

The women started giggling. They said, "We have heard much about you. You think everything is illusory; to whom are you asking the question? What do you mean by Mandan Mishra's house?

"But if you want to meet another mirage, another illusion, a very learned illusion, you will not find any difficulty. You simply go into the town, and you will find Mandan Mishra's house without any difficulty, because just on the fence of his garden there are hanging many parrots, repeating, reciting the Vedas. They are all great pundits."

Shankara went, and he could not believe it: parrots were reciting Rigveda with such accuracy. He said, "My God! If parrots are doing this, I am getting into a lion's den." But he had to; the desire, the longing, which he was denying in his philosophy, was too heavy on him. He wanted to be victorious over all the philosophers.

It is the same desire as Alexander the Great had, in a different direction. He wanted to be the conqueror of the world, and Shankara wanted to be the conqueror of all the thinkers and philosophers. What is the difference? The desire, the longing is the same. The ego needs the same nourishment.

He entered into the house, a little nervous. And Mandan Mishra had thousands of disciples - he was very old. He received Shankara with great love, welcomed him, knowing perfectly well that he has come to challenge him.

Shankara said, "Do you understand my purpose in coming so far to meet you? You are the last person I have to conquer. I want to challenge you for a long discussion."

Mandan Mishra said, "It is perfectly okay. But do you have a judge who will decide who is the winner?"

Shankara had nobody with him, but he had heard much about Mandan Mishra's wife, Bharti. He had heard that she was as great a thinker as Mandan Mishra, so he said, "There is no problem. Your wife, Bharti, can preside and be the sole judge."

The discussion lasted for six months, and finally Bharti gave the judgment that Shankara had been the winner. And this was the tradition of those days: the one who is defeated becomes the disciple of the one who is the winner. So Mandan Mishra said, "If Bharti says that you are the winner, then I am ready to be your disciple."

But Bharti said, "Wait." In India it is a tradition that a man and a woman are only half and half of one whole - only together are they complete. Bharti said, "Wait. You have won only half of Mandan Mishra; half is still to be defeated. Then we will both become your disciples."

Shankara was amazed. The woman was really courageous: first to declare her husband defeated, and second to prevent Shankara from being victorious until she was defeated. And she was certainly a very clever woman.

Shankara was only thirty-three years of age, and a so-called celibate. I say "so-called" because nobody can be a celibate, it is against nature - unless you are impotent.

Bharti was very clever. She started the discussion, and she asked Mandan Mishra to preside and be the judge. Shankara agreed, but he was not aware what that woman had in her mind. She started talking about sex. Shankara had no notion... at least he pretended that he knew nothing about sex.

Bharti said, "I can give you a few months. You can go and learn about sex and come back again."

Shankara went to his disciples, who were residing in the mountains near Mandla, and he left his body in the care of his disciples.

A king had just died, and Shankara entered the dead king's body to know everything about sex, because the king had many queens. Unless you experience it, it won't be valid before that clever woman, Bharti.

My question is: Why could he not go in his own body? He believed in the body too much. He talked about that the body is just illusory; if it is illusory, then what difference does it make that you enter into a dead man's body and have love affairs with many women to understand the whole science of sex? Why had you not the courage to go in your own body? Why did you make the difference between two illusions, mine and yours?

But as far as I understand, this seems to be just to protect his celibacy. The whole story has been created by the disciples, and supported by him, because it took six months for him - too long really.

Even six days are too much! Anybody who has been married knows: just six days - and Sunday is a holiday! Six months? - it seems he got too much interested!

But this whole story seems to be bogus. And how to protect a dead body, Shankara's body, for six months? There is no indication of any science that Shankara or his disciples knew. In six days the body will start stinking; in six months there will be no Shankara, just a pile of bones, and rotten...

everything rotten ... and cockroaches... and rats, and all kinds of illusory things!

All these so-called great philosophers and thinkers are just clever, articulate, logical, but don't have an authentic experience of life.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked:

Maneesha, it is my destiny to hit hard every untruth, every lie, every consolation, whatever the consequences, because, as far as I am concerned, I have arrived home. They can harm my body, but remember, it is not so easy, for the simple reason... I will remind you.

Ed Meese, attorney general of America, when they deported me illegally, unconstitutionally, without any evidence against me - he admitted in a press conference that "There is no evidence at all, but we could not tolerate the man in our country. He was attracting young Christians."

They go on sending missionaries all over the world to attract people to Christianity, and if I was attracting the intelligent... What was the problem? - the fundamentalist mind.

He said, "We could not jail him; there was no evidence. And we could not kill him, because killing him will make him a martyr, killing him will make him a founder of a religion."

That fear is a great protection. Don't be worried.

Nobody is going to take the risk they took in the case of Jesus. What was the result? Now Christianity is the biggest religion in the world as far as numbers are concerned - half of the world belongs to the Christians.

The Jews cannot forgive themselves that such a good boy, Jesus - if they had not killed him, he would have founded such a great firm, a Jewish firm. They did not do that again.

In the case of Marx, who was a Jew and propagated communism, the Jews did not crucify him or harass him. They did not do the same with Sigmund Freud; he was a Jew. These three Jews have created the biggest Jewish firms in the world.

Jews cannot forgive themselves: "That poor boy was creating such a beautiful exploitation, and you killed him." Now, everybody has to think twice to kill a man like me!

So don't be worried, Maneesha. I have invisible protection in their fear. And I can create fear in them only if I say the truth with a lion's roar! The more they are afraid of me, the less is the possibility of doing any harm to me.

And of course I can understand you and your problem. You have to live this dilemma. Those who followed Socrates, they had to live it; it purified them. For those who lived with Jesus, it was a tremendous transfiguration.

If anything happens to me, much will happen to you simultaneously.

You can go on taking me for granted and postponing the urgent, immediate penetration into your being. But if something is done to me, perhaps that will bring the urgency, because now you cannot take me for granted.

In fact, a very famous case can be considered....

Gautam Buddha had given initiation to his own cousin-brother, Ananda. Ananda was older than Gautam Buddha; before taking initiation he told Gautam Buddha, "Right now, I am your older brother; I can dictate anything to you and you will have to follow it" - just the old obedience. "But I have come to be initiated by you. After initiation, I will be just a disciple amongst thousands of other disciples.

So before initiation I want you to remember three conditions.

"First, I will always remain with you, you cannot send me away from you on any mission. I will take care of your body, of your food, of your medicine. Secondly, if I ask any question, you cannot say, 'Wait for the right time.' You cannot postpone it, you have to answer immediately. Thirdly, if I want somebody to meet you - even in the middle of the night - you cannot say no."

Buddha said, "There is no difficulty. I will remember your conditions."

And Ananda remained for forty-two years his disciple, continuously following him like a shadow, serving him, helping him in every possible way - but he did not become enlightened. Others who had come later on went on becoming enlightened. He was very much puzzled.

He asked Buddha, "What is going wrong? People who have come very late have become enlightened masters, and I have been with you for all these forty-two years, and I don't know even the abc of enlightenment."

Buddha said, "You will become enlightened the day I die, not before it."

Ananda was very much puzzled. He said, "Why?"

Buddha said, "Simple psychology. You trust that I am your brother, I will not leave you unenlightened, so you have not been doing what I have been saying. You have been just believing that 'My brother will not leave me unenlightened.' What can I do? I can only indicate, I cannot become enlightened on your behalf."

And exactly what Buddha said happened. The day he died, Ananda did not move from the place where he was sitting by the side of Buddha. His body was taken to the funeral pyre; Ananda did not move. He closed his eyes. For the first time, a tremendous urgency had arisen. If he misses this moment, then one never knows how many lives it will take to find another master of the caliber of Gautam Buddha. And Buddha had said, "After I die you will become enlightened."

"I will not move from this place. I will not open my eyes, I will not eat, I will not drink. I will do what he has been saying and I have been postponing." He became enlightened by the evening. In the morning Buddha died; by the evening Ananda became enlightened. The urgency had arisen.

So if something happens to me, it will be an urgency for you. If nothing happens to me, I am your urgency.

It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.

Paddy finds an old tandem, a two-man bicycle, on the scrap heap, and fixes it up. Then he and Seamus decide to go out for a ride on it to the top of Heart Attack Hill.

After two hours of furious pedaling up the steep hill, they finally arrive at the top.

"Jeezus Christ!" gasps Paddy, on the front. "I did not think we would ever make it."

"Me either," pants Seamus, at the back, "and we would have slid all the way backwards if I had not kept the brakes on!"

Little Eggbert has a nasty habit of cursing and swearing, and his parents cannot seem to do anything with him. One day, Father Fungus comes for tea.

Little Eggbert comes up to the priest and says, "More fucking tea, Father?"

Father Fungus is shocked, so he suggests that his parents send Eggbert to see Doctor Feelgood, the psychiatrist.

"Tell me, Eggbert," says the shrink, "what would you like most in the world?"

"Wow! I would like a god-dammed rabbit!" cries Eggbert.

"Okay," says Feelgood, "your mom and dad will get you a rabbit if you promise not to swear again.

Is it a deal?"

"Sure, Mr. Shrink, sir!" exclaims Eggbert. "I will do it!"

So Eggbert gets his rabbit, and for two weeks all is peaceful around the house. Then one day, Sunday morning, Father Fungus comes for tea.

"I hear you have a pet rabbit now, Eggbert," says the priest. "Can I see it?"

"Sure," says Eggbert, and runs out in the garden to get his pet. But just as he brings it into the room, the rabbit starts to give birth to an enormous bunch of baby rabbits.

Eggbert watches in horror for a moment, then puts the mother rabbit on the ground, looks at the priest and cries, "Holy Shit! The fucking thing is falling apart!"

Milton Trueheart is driving along in his Rolls Royce when he sees his old school friend, Etta Apple.

He pulls over, lowers the electric window and says, "Hi, Etta! How are you?"

"Wow!" says Etta, "is that you, Milton? And in a Rolls Royce? How did you make so much money?"

"I am a fortune teller," replies Milton. "I can see the future."

"I would love to learn how to do that," says Etta.

"So jump in the car," says Milton, "and I will tell you all about it."

Etta gets into the car and they drive off to Milton's house.

"Okay," says Milton, when they arrive. "So you want to learn about fortune telling? Then take off your blouse."

"Take off my blouse?" says Etta. "Are you crazy?"

"Look," says Milton, "do you want to know? Then trust me."

So Etta takes off her blouse.

"Good," says Milton, "now take off your skirt."

"Take off my skirt?" cries Etta. "What is going on here?"

"Do you want to learn how to see the future?" asks Milton. "Then trust me."

So Etta takes off her skirt.

"Now," says Milton, "take off your panties and lie on the couch."

"What?" screams Etta. "Why should I take off my panties? What are you going to do? Fuck me?"

"Good," says Milton, "you are learning already!"

Nivedano...

(drumbeat) (gibberish) Nivedano...

(drumbeat) Be silent.

Close your eyes.

Feel your body to be completely frozen.

This is the right moment to look inwards with total consciousness, with total life energy, and with an urgency as if this is your last moment on the planet earth.

Deeper and deeper...

As you move deeper towards your center, you will start feeling a tremendous calm, a strange silence, a great peace. When you reach to the very center... a great joy, for no reason at all... a great explosion, in which you become just luminous... and a great ecstasy takes possession of you.

This center of your life, your being, is your connection with the cosmos. From this door you can enter into the cosmos and become one with existence. But even to be at the center... you will find great splendor and mystery.

This has been called the buddha, the awakened one. This moment you are all buddhas. You may forget, but that does not matter. You will remember again. Sooner or later your remembrance will become a constant heartbeat. That day will be the greatest day in your life, the day of enlightenment.

Remember one thing only: the buddha hidden at the center of your being has only one quality, the quality of a witness.

Witness the body - that it is not you.

Witness the mind - that it is not you.

What is left when the mind and body no more belong to you? - only a silent witnessing, a peaceful mirrorlike reflection.

This is your eternal being.

To make it clear, Nivedano...

(drumbeat) Relax, but remember your witness. As your witnessing deepens, your separation with existence will start disappearing. Soon Gautam the Buddha Auditorium will become a lake of consciousness without any ripples.

The evening was beautiful on its own, but ten thousand beings turning into buddhas make it one of the most splendid, the most majestic, the most mysterious evenings of all.

Collect whatever you are experiencing - the silence, the peace, the love, the compassion, the blissfulness - and persuade the buddha to come along with you. He has to become your everyday life, your actions, your words, your silences, your music, your dance. Unless a buddha can dance, and you disappear in that dance, the enlightenment has not happened yet.

It is within your reach. Just collect... and persuade the buddha.

Inch by inch, we are every day bringing the center and the circumference of your life closer. Any moment the spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.

Nivedano...

(drumbeat) Come back. But come back as buddhas, awakened, silent, graceful.

Sit for a few moments just to recollect the golden path you have traveled back and forth.

Remember, whatever you have experienced at the center has to become part of your daily life. Don't think that meditation has to be set apart from your life, no; that kind of meditation is not the right kind. The right meditation is that which becomes your very life.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.