... Osho This Very Body the Buddha: The Last Alleluia Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev  Osho This Very Body the Buddha   Next > The Last Alleluia From: Osho Date: Fri, 12 December 1977 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: This Very Body the Buddha Chapter #: 2 Location: am in Buddha Hall Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video...

... worth knowing; then there is nothing left. If you have known love you have known God, you have known Buddhahood. You have known the essential body, the truth body. Love exists in these three bodies. The physical love you know, it is sex - the infatuation of the body. It has no depth, it is as deep as the physical body. That's what you call love, that's what you call falling in love. Yes, it is a fall...

.... Then there is a second kind of love, the love of the bliss body. You don't know about it It is not a fall. It is a stillness, it is a rest. You don't fall - rather, you become rooted, grounded. You lose all wavering, you lose all waves, you become a silent pool. That's what should be meant by love. And there is a third kind of love that comes from the essential body. That love should be called prayer...

... these three loves. Learn the ways of the first, the ways of the body. And then go beyond, because there is much more. Don't remain confined to it. It is a passage to reach to the second body, the bliss body. And yes, sometimes when you are deeply in physical love, then too some bliss spills over you from the second body. Making love to a woman or a man, when suddenly you feel ecstatic it is not coming...

... from the woman, remember, it is not coming from the man, remember. The woman has nothing to give to you, neither has the man anything to give to you. All that is possible between a man and woman is a kind of absorbent into each other. They forget themselves for a moment. The self consciousness disappears, the ego disappears, that's all. In that disappearance something from the second body, which is...

... within you, starts flowing, because the ego is no more hindering it. Because you are so absorbed by the woman or by the man, in the woman, in the man, that you have forgotten yourself, that you are in a kind of a drunk state. You are not a self in that moment, not an ego - something spills from the second body. That's why you feel blissful, that's what is known as sexual orgasm. It has nothing to do...

... learned how to reach to orgasm through your own bliss body, you are freed from the other I your dependence is no more there. And when you are no more dependent on the woman or on the man, your love becomes non-possessive. Only then, your love is no more political. You don't reduce the woman to a thing; freedom remains intact. In sex, freedom cannot remain intact. The more you go into sex, the more you...

... own core, Possessiveness disappears. Then you love and you don't demand, then you love and there are no conditions in it. And when you have become rooted in the second, and the falling and stumbling in love has stopped, you are coming closer to my meaning of love. Once you have become established, rooted, and you have started enjoying your own bliss body, then one day you suddenly see something else...

..., far more a blessing than bliss itself, is reaching to you. Rays of something, which are more blissful than bliss itself, are reaching to you. And they are coming from your innermost, your very inner shrine. Then you start searching for those, and you start rising. The fall disappears and the tree starts growing towards the sky. And when you reach to the source of your being - the essential body, the...

... Buddha body, the truth body - love is fulfilled. My word 'love' has the ultimate meaning of that experience. But it is natural, Vidya, that you will understand in your own way. Just keep a little space for me too, just a little space. Ninety-nine percent you understand your way, I accept that: just leave one percent space for me. And soon you will see that that one percent has defeated your ninety nine...

... turmoil of life and to live another day. Just like that, you will die in this body and you will rest into the earth and you will rest into the sky and you will rest for a time-being. And when you will be ready to be born again - another day, another resurrection, another body, you will be back again. This will go on and on till you finish the job that has been given to you, till you fulfill your destiny...

.... Till you come to realize that the physical body is not you. That not even the bliss body is you. That you are a Buddha. The day you recognize that - not verbally, not intellectually, not that 'I think' but totally, wholly, the recognition is absolute, there is no doubt about it, no uncertainty about it, it is not a logical conclusion but an experience, an existential experience, you are a witness to...

... it - then you disappear. Then you will not be coming back on this earth in a bodily form. Then you will be born into God, without body. Then you will become God. Then you will float into the eternity. Then you will be a lotus flower, invisible to ordinary eyes. Then you will be a pure fragrance for ever and for ever. But till that is attained, each death is a new birth. And remember, I am here to...

... will not be a trust in my rose, because that is of no use. Seeing that a man just like you - as fragile as you, made of body, bones and blood just like you, as vulnerable to death as you - a man just like you has bloomed, will give you a trust into yourself. Then why can it not happen to you? That's my work, to bring you close. Sannyas is nothing but an invitation to come a little closer - a little...

...This Very Body the Buddha...

... approach is bound to affect, it is bound to influence your very gestalt, your very style, your functioning. If you see in the East poverty, malnourishment, starvation, sickness, the reason is clear: all the three religions which have dominated the East are against life. Why should one bother too much about the body? The body is the enemy - you don't feed the enemy, you don't nourish the enemy, you don't...

... the body, you don't take care of the environment of the body, you don't give it right nourishment, you suffer... and that suffering proves that your religions are right, that life is suffering. Then you become even more and more disinterested with all that body contains, life contains, implies. Naturally that creates more suffering, and your mahatmas are proved even more correct. This is a vicious...

... ugly, existence itself is a bondage - as if it is a punishment, not a reward, not a grace of God, but you have been thrown into it for some crime that you must have committed somewhere in the past - than naturally these things are bound to happen. People will become malnourished: why go on taking care about the body? The body is the cause of your bondage. Why be hygienic? - for what? In fact, the...

... many people; you will be surprised how many people can make love to one woman. All kinds of things are being done - all the opening of her body are being used. Now what kind of people made these statues? And it must have taken years of work. They must have been fantasizing these things. They were rebels, certainly, going against the puritanistic society. But their rebellion is not meditative. Their...

... Ganges, all your sins are washed away." Now the Ganges is the most dirty river in India, the dirtiest maybe in the whole world, because it is the only river where dead bodies are thrown. It is thought to be a great privilege that if somebody's body is thrown into the Ganges, if somebody dies in the Ganges... If he cannot die in the Ganges, then at least throw the body - his benefit will be great...

... sex center has no question of being dirty at all. But these people have been calling the whole body dirty. And when they call the body dirty, they create a certain logic to show that they are true. The body consists of bones, of blood, of pus - the body is dirty. But one strange thing: all the scriptures of the world say that the woman's body is dirty, as if man's body is made of gold. Instead of...

... bones, diamonds and emeralds; instead of blood, perhaps nectar... Nobody condemns man's body because the scriptures were written by men. And the man's body is also part of the woman's body, because it has come from the woman's womb. It is the same body. But the woman's body is dirty... These male chauvinist pigs have been riding on humanity's chest for so long, you have completely forgotten that you...

... are being used as a donkey. And they have been there so long that you think as if they are part of you. They have to be thrown, completely thrown away. There is nothing dirty in blood, there is nothing dirty in bones, there is nothing dirty in the body. The body is one of the most beautiful phenomena of nature; one should be grateful to God rather than calling it dirty. It is one of the most amazing...

... miracles. For seventy to a hundred years it keeps alive, it keeps rejuvenating itself, it perpetuates itself. Its every mechanism is a miracle. People go to see the pyramids in Egypt, then Taj Mahal in India... In fact, their body contains far greater miracles than those ugly pyramids. You cannot even conceive how your body is working. You are not aware of it - how it transforms your bread into blood...

.... You have heard about alchemists, that they were trying to transform baser metals into gold; your body is doing far better - it is transforming all kinds of crap that you go on throwing inside you into blood, into bone. Not only into blood and bone: it makes out of that crap your brain. Out of your icecream, Coca-Cola, it goes on making your brain, a brain which can create a Rutherford an Albert...

... people go on calling the body ugly, dirty. Their idea of purity has nothing to do with purity. You can look around the world. They have different ideas of purity. It depends on their religion, on their climate, and other things. The Indian cannot conceive any westerner as clean because he is always thinking of toilet paper. The moment he sees a western person he becomes concerned; his dirtiness is so...

... are interconnected. When the mind is sexually aroused, the pattern of breathing immediately undergoes a change. So if in a state of sexual arousal you don't allow your breathing pattern to change, sexuality will disappear instantly. The desire for sex will cease; it cannot last any longer. For anything to happen, everything in the body mechanism needs to be in a particular state of alignment with...

.... At every step you know clearly what is happening. So there is no danger whatsoever. And if the pattern of breathing is changed very suddenly and briskly, then your whole inner state undergoes a complete change. We can never know, in our habitual way of breathing, that we are separate from the body. The habit which has become ingrained in us has bridged the two; it works as a bridge between the body...

... being aware and your going mad. But since you are aware, how can you go really mad? Yet what is happening to you is the same that happens to a madman. It is in such a situation that a feeling of utter strangeness overwhelms you, and you separate yourself from the body. Not that you do it, the separation happens on its own. You suddenly find that all connections, all communications between you and the...

... body have snapped, that all bridges have broken, and all adjustments have collapsed. You find that everything relevant has become irrelevant; the day to day relevance of things is lost altogether. Things are happening on their own. Your hands are moving without your wanting to move them. Your eyes are shedding tears without you wanting to cry. You want to stop the laughter, but it continues in spite...

.... And it is the habitual breathing, it is the conditioned breathing that in its turn, bridges you with the body. The breathing that I teach is absolutely non-methodical; it is without any rules; it is absurd. It is not a matter of exhaling, inhaling and withholding breath in a methodical manner. It is a way of creating a feeling of strangeness in you - to put you so out of gear, to put you in such...

... sweep. A day should come when you suddenly find that you have no roots, no identities, no associations whatsoever; that you have no parents, no brothers and sisters, that you don't have even a body to you. I want you to be in that absurd state where one appears to be crazy. Remember that if you land in this state unaware and without your efforts, you will really go mad. But if you reach it through...

... saying that many nuts and bolts of your physical and mental structure will get loosened; actually they have to be loosened. At the moment this structure - with its conditionings, set patterns and habits - is so tight that because of it, separation of the soul from the body is not possible. Only when it is completely loosened will you know that there is something more within you, which was joined to the...

... body and has not been separated. But since this loosening happens through breathing, it is through a special kind of breathing that it becomes tight again; you don't have to do anything to tighten it. It is not necessary to do something to readjust it; it is readjusted by itself. Of course, if breathing results in a kind of insanity within you which gets out of your control - if it becomes an...

... obsession and continues for the rest of the day - then it will be a bad thing indeed. But if someone does it just for an hour and then leaves it, then everything falls back in place on its own. Afterward only the memory of the experience will remain with you. You will remember how you became separate from the body, and how you were again joined to it in an orderly manner. But now you know, even after...

... being rejoined with the body, that you are separate. You know that you are separate, in spite of being united again with the body after the meditation had ended. Therefore, this way of breathing is indispensable; we cannot do without it. So the dervish is right in saying that interfering with breathing is dangerous. It has its dangers, indeed. But if we are seeking life abundant, we must be prepared...

...; he will be immune from this disease, because then he will be his own master, master of his body mind. The dervish, with whom Gurdjieff had a discussion on breathing, is a traveler of a different path. He never practiced breathing, and he experienced the situation of strangeness through some different way. And this is the trouble - the trouble is, that the knower of one way loses no time in calling...

... be a means to bring about separation of the body and soul, but the dance has to be one that is not learned and practiced and prepared. If you dance in a practiced way, it won't do. As I said, that breathing in the way of pranayam cannot bring about the separation of the body and soul - because pranayam is methodological - similarly, if someone repeats a prepared dance, he will soon identify himself...

... with the body. But if I tell one of you here who does not know dancing that he should dance, and he suddenly begins dancing and prancing, he can make it. This is such a strange thing that you cannot identify yourself with it, you cannot know that you are dancing. So these are the two methods that the Sufis use: night vigil and dancing. Some other methods have also been utilized. For example, the...

... Sufis use wool for their garments. They wear woolen clothes in the typical hot climate of deserts - that is how they go against the body. Someone who fasts is also going against the body. Someone is sitting with one foot placed on a sharp nail, and another person sleeps on a bed of thorns. All these are devices to create that strange psychological situation where separation can happen. It is, however...

... to your brain and you can go mad. So the Jain monk will tell you that yogasanas have nothing substantial about them, they are worthless. But for the path that uses them, these yogic asanas have immense value. Done with the right kind of diet, they can work wonders. It is necessary that the body is in a smooth and supple state, as if it is well lubricated - hence the importance of soft and greasy...

... food - because each one of its bones and sinews and nerves will have to go through great manipulation and transformation. The body will break if it is not sufficiently soft and supple. It has to be exceedingly flexible and supple. Now these yogic asanas are nothing but strange bodily positions or postures which we normally do not adopt. And we have no idea how all our bodily positions are intimately...

.... Every anxiety has some necessary physical associations with it; it is necessary that the muscles of your hand should be in a particular position in relation to your nerves. His anxiety can be activated only when his body takes its required position. All the yogic asanas and mudras follow the patterns of our mind's different states. And they are the results of countless experiments and experiences. As...

... corresponds with it. For instance, Buddha sits in a particular way; and if you can sit that way it will be easier for you to attain to the state of mind which Buddha has, because every state of mind is bound with a corresponding position of the body. If you can walk as Buddha walks, if you can sit as Buddha sits, if you can breathe as Buddha breathes, it will be easier for you to achieve his state of mind...

... the body. Another Zen Master picks up his staff and hits the seeker on the head. This is also strange. The seeker has gone to him for peace of mind, and the Master hits him with his staff. This suddenly creates a moment of strangeness for the seeker. But it will not be so in India. If you hit someone here, he will hit you back; he will be ready for a fight. It will only happen in Japan, because this...

... of your witnessing self and your body. Your body is the bottle and your consciousness is the goose. And nobody ever wonders how the consciousness entered the body and how the consciousness can come out of it. The consciousness is universal, vast, infinite in all dimensions. And the body is so small, just like a small bottle. How is this being managed by existence? It is a miracle that the physical...

... hindered by the body; it can come out, it can go in. The body is not a barrier; the body is a barrier only to material things. But the non-material exists in a different dimension. It can enter the body without stirring anything in the body, without even touching the body. Nowhere in your life does your consciousness ever touch your body, whatever you do. Your consciousness simply remains a witness, far...

.... Neither the body contains the spiritual element in you, nor the spiritual element contains the body. The spiritual element is just a mirror. It can at the most reflect the body, the mind; but it is always beyond, it is always out. That's what Nansen means, "THE GOOSE IS OUT!". He shouted, "Governor!" and the governor said, "Yes, sir!" The governor is not asleep, he is...

... perfectly awake. In this awareness you are not the body and you are not in the body. You are beyond, you are out. The goose is out. Different masters have worked on this small anecdote about the goose. But Nansen seems to be the best. Maneesha has brought the sutra: BELOVED OSHO, ONCE, NANSEN DECIDED TO VISIT A VILLAGE, BUT WAS VERY SURPRISED TO FIND THAT PREPARATIONS HAD BEEN MADE TO WELCOME HIM. NANSEN...

... volume. "KISS MY ASS!" shouts back the cardinal. "Oh!" says the Pope with surprise. "So now you want to be friends!" Nivedano... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano... (Drumbeat) Be silent. Close your eyes, feel your body to be completely frozen. And now look inwards with absolute urgency as if this moment is the last moment of your life. Go deeper - the center is not far away...

... - just one single step. Deeper and deeper because at the center you are the buddha. At the center your lotus blossoms, you feel for the first time blessed, blessed just to be, for no reason at all. The greatest experience of life is to experience your buddhahood, and buddhahood simply means witnessing. Watch your body, watch your mind and remember you are neither. You are just a pure witness, a mirror...

... in which everything reflects. Clouds come and go, months come and go. Eternity is your nature, only you remain; everything moves from death to birth, from birth to death - just a circle of movement, but within the circle the center is absolutely immobile. To make it more clear, Nivedano... (Drumbeat) Relax. Just watch the body, the mind and be only a witness. You are not supposed to do anything...

... Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. Question 1: ARE THERE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF HEDONISM? I SUSPECT 'EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY' MEANS DIFFERENT THINGS TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE. Yes, Anurag. There are two levels of hedonism, and they are almost polar opposites to each other. Because of that, much misunderstanding has prevailed down the ages. The lower hedonism is of the body, and the higher hedonism...

...-physical dimension that is continuously penetrating you. Then you will know only the visible, and the invisible will remain unknown to you. And the invisible is far bigger, far more essential. The visible is just a covering, the visible is just a shell around the invisible. It is there to protect the invisible. The body is the shrine of the soul. If you live only in the body, and you only take care of...

... the body and the physical sensations dominate you, you will never become aware of the non-physical dimension - the divine dimension. If you are utterly lost in the body - as you will be if you think 'Eat, drink and be merry' is the goal - then you will live at the very superficial level. It is as if you have been given the Bible and you go on looking at the cover, and you start worshipping the cover...

... and you never open the book, and you never go inside and you never see what is there. The cover can be beautiful - it can be leather bound, printed in gold, maybe diamonds are studded on top of it; it can be beautiful, it can be very precious - but still it is nothing compared to that which is inside the book. Your body is only a cover. It is beautiful, it is precious, but it is carrying something...

... far more precious in it. The man who thinks of 'Eat, drink and be merry' in the physical sense is a man who receives a letter and worships the envelope. and forgets the message. The message is important. What a message you are carrying inside you! What a destiny you are carrying inside you! The second level hedonism is not against the body, it is for the soul. It also lives in the moment, but when...

... missing the REAL life. Because the first hedonist lives in the body, there are people who are against the first hedonist and they think they are spiritual. They are not. That's a logical fallacy. Because the first goes on living in the body, there are people who Logically think 'We have to go against the body, then only can we enter into the second realm of our being, then only can we attain to...

... happiness, to heaven, to bliss. Because the first is missing - and the first is missing because he is too much obsessed with the body - the second, this so-called spiritualist, becomes obsessed AGAINST the body. This is not a real spiritualist. The real spiritualist is a hedonist. Let me repeat it: He is not against the body, he is for the soul. So now there are three kinds of people: the ordinary...

... hedonist who lives in the body, the REAL hedonist who lives in the soul. And naturally lives in the body too, and between these two is the spiritualist, the so-called spiritualist, the ascetic who fights with the body, who destroys the body, who is against the body, who tortures the body. And he thinks that in torturing the body he will attain to the soul; he cannot. The first goes on missing, but the...

... second - the false spiritualist - misses even more. So if you have a choice, then I will say it is better to be a physical hedonist than to be an anti-physical spiritualist, because at least you will be enjoying the body; the physical part of God will remain available to you. To the spiritualist, even that is not available. He is completely blind. But if you really want to enjoy life, then you have to...

... if you are to choose between Epicurus and Mahatma Gandhi, choose Epicurus. But if you have to choose between Epicurus and Buddha, Jesus, then choose Jesus or Buddha. Never become a so-called saint. He falls from grace. He misses the body, how can he attain to the soul? The body has to be used as a stepping-stone. The body has to become a staircase, it has to become a boat for the other shore. Use...

... the body. I am a hedonist. My whole teaching is: love the body, use the body, go into the body as deeply as you can, be sensitive to its feelings, be available to its wisdom, its joys, but don't be confined there. There is MUCH MORE in your life. That is just a beginning. Use the body as a jumping-board. And the secret is the same. So the secret can be used on the second, higher, level too. Be in...

... the present. Live moment to moment. Don't allow the past to interfere, and don't allow the future to cloud your vision. Let the present moment be crystal clear. Enter into it with the body, with the soul. Enter into it as a unity of body and soul. Enter into it not AS body or AS soul but as a unity. There are these two kinds of hedonism. The higher contains the lower. The lower cannot contain the...

..., in his projections. If you die, you may be dying as far as your body is concerned, but your mind continues. In fact, the Buddhist approach is that the idea of heaven and hell has arisen because during his whole life a man projects, thinks, about the after-life. And if he has been committing many crimes and sins, he becomes guilty; he feels that he is going to hell. He becomes very afraid. By the...

... time he's dying the fear arises: "Now there is no time left to put things right." Now he is going into hell, and he has an idea of hell, of what hell is. So when a person dies, when he is free from the body, the projections become very real. He starts dreaming. So when a Hindu dies, certainly he dreams after death. Immediately he dreams either of heaven or hell; it depends. If he was a good...

... man, virtuous, a worshipper, then of course he is very self-confident: when he dies, he knows that he is going to heaven. Immediately after death, the mind starts dreaming. The time between one death and another birth is used in dreaming. You live in a dreamworld - exactly as you live in the night. What happens when your body relaxes and you go to sleep? - you start dreaming. You forget your body in...

... your sleep. Sleep is a tiny death, a very mini-death. You forget your body, you don't remember your body at all, you become just your mind; as if the mind is no more burdened by the body and the reality of the body. The mind is freed. There is no pressure on the mind of bodily reality, of objective reality. Mind is freed. Suddenly, you start dreaming. Of course, your dream is YOUR dream; it has...

... nothing to do with any reality whatsoever. When you die this is exactly what happens, and it happens in a bigger proportion. Once you die all the pressure of bodily reality and objective reality disappears. The mind is free to dream. Even in sleep there is a burden, even in sleep you are connected with the body, but in death you are disconnected completely. Now the mind is completely free. Like a...

... a youth festival, and on the road he had come across a dead body. He had not seen a dead body up to that moment. He asked, "What has happened to this man?" The story is beautiful. The story is told in an eastern way, in a mythological way. The story says that the charioteer was prohibited by Buddha's father ever to talk about death, and ever to answer such questions - because the father...

... had been forewarned when the Buddha was born that if ever he came to know about death, he would renounce the world. So the charioteer was not going to say anything. But the story says that one god, looking at this, entered into the charioteer's body. Seeing that the moment had come when Buddha was ready to renounce, and only through that renunciation was he going to realize, the rare moment of...

... university on a bike, and the car went on sitting there. But he felt very happy that the car was there. He looked at the car as if he were looking at his woman, he touched the car as if he were touching a human body. I watched him: his eyes would suddenly become aglow when he looked at his car; something great happened around the car. It is absurd - not only absurd, it is insane. I CONSIDER THIS UNIVERSE...

... AS SMALL AS THE HOLILA FRUIT. I CONSIDER THE LAKE OF ANAVATAPTA AS A DROP OF OIL WITH WHICH ONE SMEARS THE FEET And Buddha says: If you become aware, the whole universe looks very tiny - because awareness is bigger than the whole universe. Man is very tiny if you look at his body, man is very foolish if you look at his mind, and man is tremendously vast if you look at his consciousness. Three...

... things meet in man. The vast, the infinite, meet in his consciousness, in his awareness. That's what you become aware of when you meditate: boundaries recede and disappear. The body does not contain you; in fact, you contain the body. Ordinarily you think, "I exist in the body." It is absolutely wrong. The body exists in you; you are vaster, you are bigger - not only bigger than the body, you...

... are bigger than this whole universe. It is awareness that holds all. But if you look at the body you are very tiny. And then, if you go on getting identified with your body, a great desire arises to be big. That's what politics is, that's what the desire and ambition for money is, that's what you try when you use beautiful clothes to exhibit yourself: you try to hide the body, your tinyness, your...

... said, "That's why I said sixty rupees. I am not counting you - you are nothing - only this towel. I don't take any risks; that's why I say sixty rupees." If you are identified with the body, of course, your value is not much - cannot be much. How much value do you think you can get out of your body if you go and sell it? If you ask the scientists they say, "Somewhere near around five...

... rupees." Not even sixty rupees... somewhere nearer to five rupees. There is a certain amount of aluminium and iron and phosphorus and things like that; if they are all collected and sold in the market, they will cost near about five rupees - and that's true because the cost of things has gone very high. And in the first place, nobody would be ready to purchase your body. Immediately, the moment...

... have anything else." And the mystic said, "That is the right price; sell it! This is exactly the right price. Now don't miss this opportunity." Those people started beating their heads. They said, "We have got a madman! We have lost fifty thousand rupees and now he says, 'This is the right price!"' But he was showing, he was indicating something: there is no price; the body...

... created by the mind cannot lead you beyond it. To go beyond it you will have to leave all that is created by the mind. Methods are also created by mind: Yoga, Tantra, Yantra, Mantra - all methods are mind- creations, imagination... beautiful imagination, sweet dreams, golden dreams, and of course, they are created by Buddhas. To bring you out of your body, mind is used. So there are a few techniques to...

... bring you out of the identification with the body. Then, to bring you to the very boundary of the mind, there are other methods which take you to the very brink of where mind ends. Then you have to jump out of the mind - of course, by jumping out of all methods. I CONSIDER THE VARIOUS METHODS OF SALVATION TAUGHT BY THE BUDDHAS AS A TREASURE CREATED BY THE IMAGINATION. I CONSIDER THE TRANSCENDENTAL...

... reality. Buddha says: That sameness is the absolute ground of reality. If you go in, you leave the form. First you leave the form of the body. Have you observed it? - people who are close to me and meditating, come again and again to that insight - and these sayings can be understood only if you have certain insights of your own. Otherwise, it is impossible to understand them. When you are meditating...

..., many times it happens that you forget your form, your body; you don't know who you are and how you look. You forget your face. In fact, in deep meditation, you completely become oblivious of your body. When you close your eyes, you are formless. Your mind also has form. You are a Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, Jain, Buddhist; then you have a form of the mind: you think in terms of being a Christian...

..., you have a certain identity, dogma defines you. But if you go still deeper, mind also disappears. Then you are no more a Christian. At the deepest core you are neither a body nor a mind. Then what are you? Buddha says: Nothingness, no-thing-ness: now you are not a thing, now you are universal. Now you are not confined in any idea, you are infinite. You are that which has always been there and will...

...: N.A. Question 1: YOU SAID THAT IF ONE WERE TALKING ABOUT THE BODY YOU WOULD SAY THAT THE BODY WAS DEATH-ORIENTED AND IF ONE WERE TALKING ABOUT THE SOUL YOU WOULD SAY, "YOU WERE NEVER BORN AT ALL." BUDDHA HAS SAID OF THE SOUL, "IT WAS JUST A BUBBLE WHICH IS NOW NO MORE. I MYSELF AM NOT THERE, SO WHERE WILL I GO?" THEN WHAT IS IT THAT IS IMMORTAL AND WHO IS UNBORN? There is a sea...

... existence meanwhile was a rainbow existence. Nothing ever changed in the air or the water; they remain as they are. But meanwhile, a form was born which died. If we look upon ourselves as bubbles, then we also are forms that take birth and die. What is within us was always, but we identify ourselves with the bubble. So if I am looking at you from the point of view of the body, I will say that you are...

... is of no consequence. No sooner is it born when it starts bursting. That is why I described the body as death-oriented. By body I mean that which manifests through birth with a name and form. By soul I mean that which remains even after that name and form are lost. When there was no such name and form, then also it was. By the soul I mean the sea and by the body I mean the wave. It is necessary to...

... the outside. The one who imagines stands outside, so he will not be able to die. This voice from within is the voice of the sea. It asks us, "Where is death?" Death is unknown; still we are afraid of death. This fear comes from the voice of the body, and there is a confusion between the two. The moment we identify ourselves with the voice of the body, our spirits begin to tremble over the...

... fact that the body is bound to die. No matter how much we may try to disprove this or seek the help of science or devise a system of medicine or surround ourselves with eminent physicians and medicines, the body does not for a single moment confirm that "I will live." The body does not have that feeling of deathlessness; it knows that daily it is dying. The body knows that it is a bubble...

..., but we know that we are not bubbles. The moment one identifies oneself with the bubble, all the tensions of one's life begin. No sooner does that within us which is immortal identify itself with the wave when it comes into difficulties. This identification is ignorance; breaking away from this identification is knowledge. Nothing changes; everything remains the same as before. The body remains where...

... it was; the soul also remains where it was. Only the illusion disappears. Then we know that when the body will die we have not to be afraid, because there is no need to be afraid. The body is bound to die. It is useful to be afraid when there is a possibility of being saved. But in a situation from which there is no possibility of being saved, it is useless to become afraid. When a soldier marches...

.... In this situation, fear of death is meaningless. Death is so imminent that there is no question of survival. On the battlefield, there is some possibility of survival because some die while others survive, and so some fear remains. But on the field of death even that remote possibility is not there. At the moment of death the illusion that "I am the body" suddenly disappears. The fear of...

... death disappears because there is no escape. Then the fact of the body dying becomes a certainty, a destiny. That is the fate of the body; there is no way of saving it. The moment one realizes that death is the nature of the body, it suddenly becomes apparent that what is beyond the body was never born and so there is no question of its death. Thus, for the soul also, fear vanishes, because there is...

... no reason to be afraid for that which cannot die. The fear arises due to the body and soul becoming identified with each other. It arises because the inner voice says, "I will not die," and the outer voice says, "You will certainly die!" These voices become confused. We are not aware that these two different melodies intermingle, and we listen to them as if they were the...

... knowledge has nothing to do with it. The difference, therefore, is this: that you will not believe that the stick is bent, but it only appears to be bent. The matter is divided into two different levels. On the level of knowing, the stick is straight. On the level of seeing, it is bent. There is no illusion on either of these levels. On the level of living there is the body which is the outer and on the...

... continue to appear blue. However, though I will know full well that the soul - the being - is immortal, the knowledge that the body is death-oriented also continues. In spite of my knowing that the existence of the sea is eternal, the play of the waves continues. But now I know that it has appeared so due to the spectacles. The spectacles are the eyes of the senses, and what you see through them is not...

... necessarily real. That is why the statements of people like Buddha, Mahavira or Jesus are made from two different planes - one of the soul and the other of the body. Our difficulty is that as we are confusing both the planes within ourselves, then naturally we also confuse their statements. Sometimes Buddha speaks as if he were the body. He says, "Ananda, I am thirsty. Please bring me water." The...

... soul is never thirsty. It is the body that feels thirsty. Now Ananda may think that the body is not there at all, that it is only a name and form, just a bubble, "so how can it become thirsty?" Once you have known that there is no body, then from where does thirst come? Then the next day, when Buddha says, "I am not born at all so I will never die," it creates difficulties for the...

... listener. The listener's difficulty is that he thinks that with knowledge the existence will change. Actually, by knowing the existence does not change; only one's gestalt changes. When Buddha says that he is thirsty, he only says that his body is thirsty - that this body, which is a bubble of name and form, is thirsty, and if it is not given water it will soon burst. But the listener's difficulty is...

... where he is, or we will call Jesus mad because we do not understand what he was saying. Jesus was saying, "I am the sea, not the wave," but we have not seen anything else but the wave. Sea is only a word for us. That which is the authentic existence is just a word for us, but what is only an appearance we take to be truth. The soul is not known to us, but the body is daily seen by us. What...

... is daily seen becomes truth for us. That is why I have said that the body is death-oriented and is itself a death. The soul is immortal, not death-oriented. But upon its deathlessness there is the dance of death of the body. We have no difficulty in understanding the sea and the wave because we have not seen any enmity between them. But immortality and death are difficult to understand because we...

... certain limits. Otherwise, the beams of highly intense light that constantly pass by us would make us instantly blind if we were to see them. As long as we did not know what the x-ray was we did not know that the rays of the x-ray could pass through a human body. We did not know that a picture of our inside bones could be taken from outside. If not today, then tomorrow we may be able to find a ray which...

.... But for the one who is taking birth after seven hundred years it is not very long, because when one is not in the body there is no difference between one moment and seven hundred years. Time measurement begins only with the body. Outside the body, it makes no difference whether you have been for seven hundred years or seven thousand years. Only upon acquiring a body does the difference begin. It is...

... a particular person was known to me during my lifetime seven hundred years ago. In between for me there was a gap, but he may have taken birth ten times. However, there are memories of his past ten births. From his memories only can I calculate how long I must have remained without a body. Otherwise it is difficult to calculate and determine this, because our time scale and methods of measurement...

... do not belong to the time that prevails beyond body or in the bodiless state. Our measurements of time are in the world of bodily existence. It is something like this, that for a moment I go to sleep and see a dream. In the dream I see that years have passed, and after some moments you awaken me and say that I had been dozing. I ask you how much time has been passed in dozing, and you reply, "...

... for three days. This was her first remembrance about me. This is true. Seven hundred years ago, in my previous life, there was a spiritual practice of twenty- one days, to be done before death. I was to give up my body after a total fast of twenty-one days. There were reasons for this, but I could not complete those twenty-one days. Three days remained. Those three days I had to complete in this...

... whether one more birth will be of some use. Then it is worthwhile taking birth; otherwise the matter is over and it is no use making any more effort. So that killing was valuable and useful. As I have told you, time measurement while in the body is different from the calculation of time in other states of consciousness. At the time of birth, time is moving very slowly. At the time of death, time is...

... Length: 99 mins Question 1: I HAVE TOO MUCH SEXUAL ENERGY BURNING WITHIN MY BODY. WHEN I DANCE, SOMETIMES I FEEL I AM GOING TO KILL THE WHOLE WORLD AND AT SOME STAGES SO MUCH ANGER AND VIOLENCE BUBBLES WITHIN MY BODY THAT I CAN'T CHANNELISE THE ENERGY INTO MEDITATION TECHNIQUES AND IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. I DON'T FEEL TO GO INTO THE SEX ACT BUT VIOLENT ENERGY IS STILL BURNING LIKE VOLCANIC FIRE. I CAN'T...

... and your hand will become sexual; you eat something and eating will become sexual. So people who deny sex start eating more. You can watch it in life. Freely flowing, sexually flowing people will not be very fat, they will not eat too much. Love is so satisfying, love is so fulfilling, they will not go on stuffing their body with food. When they can't love, or when they can't allow themselves to...

... uncompleted experience which is hanging in the middle -- that is the first requirement so energy moves there. The body has a certain economy: wherever energy is needed first, energy moves there first. There is a hierarchy of needs. A person who has been denying sex will have a hierarchy -- sex will be first on the list. And whenever energy is available it will start moving to the most unfulfilled desire. So...

.... Politicians, priests, have worked very hard to create a guilty conscience in everybody. Now that guilty conscience is creating trouble. Drop it. Life is yours. It belongs to nobody else. No politician, no priest has anything to do with it. Don't allow anybody to meddle with your life. It is totally yours. And your body is giving you the right indication; the body is very wise. The mind is a very late...

... arrival. The body has lived millions of years, it knows what is needed. It is the mind that interferes. Mind is very immature, body is very mature. Listen to the body. And when I say listen to the body, I don't mean remain confined to the body. If you listen to the body, the body will not have anything to say to you -- things will be settled. And when the body is at ease, relaxed, and there is no...

... tension, and the body is not fighting for something, is not trying to attract your attention because you are not fulfilling a need, when the body is calm and quiet, you can float high, you can fly high, you can become a white cloud. But only when body needs are truly looked after. The body is not your enemy, it is your friend. The body is your earth, the body has all your roots. You have to find a...

... bridge between you and your body. If you don't find that bridge, you will be constantly in conflict with your body -- and a person who is fighting with himself is always miserable. The first thing is to come to a peace-pact with your body and never break it. Once you have come to a peace-pact with your body, the body will become very, very friendly. You look after the body, the body will look after you...

... -- it becomes a vehicle of tremendous value, it becomes the very temple. One day your body itself is revealed to you as the very shrine of God. The second question: Question 2: FOR THE LAST TEN DAYS I HAVE FELT TREMENDOUSLY HAPPY -- AS I NEVER DID BEFORE. JUST BEING MYSELF AND ACCEPTING ME AS I AM FEELS GREAT. SOMETIMES THIS INCREDIBLY GOOD FEELING IS DISTURBED BY TWO THOUGHTS. FIRST, WILL THIS STAY...

... the hardest work. But it is not effort, it is awareness; it is not effort, it is intense alertness. The last question: Question 5: FOR ENLIGHTENMENT DOES ONE NEED A HUMAN BODY? CAN'T A DOG OR A TREE WHICH IS FLOWERING GET ENLIGHTENED? Dang, dang, doko dang, doko dang. Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...

... difficult, it will be heart-rending. You may start crying like a child, you may start rolling on the ground in deep pain, your body may go through contortions. You may suddenly become aware that the pain is not only in the heart, it is all over the body -- that it is aching all over, that it is painful all over, that your whole body is nothing but pain. If you can experience it -- this is of tremendous...

... PROTECTION OF EMPTINESS IS TO SEE THE MANIFESTATIONS OF BEWILDERMENT AS THE FOUR KAYAS. Atisha talks about the four bodies. These four bodies are significant to be understood. The first is called dharmakaya: the body of the ultimate law. And what is the ultimate law? Emptiness is the ultimate law: all is empty. If you really want to grow, you will have to let this insight soak into you: all is empty. Life...

... spat on you. If you really want to protect your understanding, this is the first body to grow around yourself, the body of emptiness, the milieu of emptiness. All is empty. Buddha used to send his disciples to the funeral pyres to meditate there. The newcomers had to be there for three months in the beginning. Where bodies are burned, they would just sit there and watch, day in and day out. People...

... burned. So why bother, why make so much fuss? It is only a few days' dream. And those few days are not much in the eternity of time, they are just momentary." Let this body of emptiness grow around you; you will be protected by it. The second body is nirmankaya: the first arising of compassion. When all is empty, when everybody is on the funeral pyre, then compassion arises. It is not to be...

... cultivated, remember; it arises out of the first body. If you cultivate it you still believe in the ego. If you cultivate it you still believe in character, if you cultivate it you still believe in virtue. And if there is no self, what is virtue? If there is no self, what is character? If there is no self, then what is good? First settle into nobodiness and then the second body arises of its own accord...

.... Nirmankaya means the body of creation. It is strange -- the first body is the body of emptiness, and the second body is the body of creation. But this is the insight of all the great buddhas, that if you become a nobody, a great creation arises out of you. The whole starts flowing through you; you become a vehicle, a passage, a medium, a voice, for the whole. And with the second body arising, the first...

... experience will be of great compassion. Of course in the beginning it will be partial, conditional, caused by the suffering of others. You see an old man dying on the road and compassion arises, you see somebody starving and compassion arises -- it has a cause outside. If nobody is dying and nobody is starving, there will be no compassion. In the second body, compassion comes and goes; it arises in certain...

... situations and disappears in certain other situations. Out of the second, the third crystallizes. The third body is called sambhogkaya: the body of bliss. In the third body, compassion is unconditional. It does not arise and does not disappear; it remains, it abides. It is not a question of whether somebody is suffering or not; in the third body, one simply is compassion. In the second body, compassion is...

... a relationship; when there is a need it happens. In the third body, compassion becomes your very state of being: need or no need, it is there. It is like a light burning in the night; it goes on radiating whether somebody is in the room or not. Whether somebody needs light or not, is not the point; the light goes on radiating. In the third body, the body of bliss, compassion is a natural...

... phenomenon. Just as you go on breathing, even while you are asleep you go on breathing, a buddha is compassionate even while asleep. A buddha is simply compassionate. Compassion is not something that arises like a wave and disappears. Now compassion is oceanic. And the fourth body is called swabhavakaya: the body of the ultimate nature, of spontaneity, of your innermost being as it is. In the fourth body...

..., all distinctions disappear, dualities are transcended. Good/bad, self/no-self, mind/no-mind, samsara/nirvana, God/devil -- all dualities are transcended. One simply is, with no distinctions, with no categories, with no divisions. This is the existential body; this is the real thing to be attained. Each seeker after truth passes through these four bodies. AN EXCELLENT MEANS IS TO HAVE THE FOUR...

... suddenly you stop, a gap happens. This sudden stoppage of all activity divides you into two: your body and you. Your body and you were in movement. Suddenly you stop. The body has the tendency to move. It was in movement, so there is momentum; you were dancing, and there is momentum. The body is not ready for this sudden stop. Suddenly you feel that the body has the impulse to do something, but you have...

... stopped. A gap comes into existence. You feel your body as something distant, far away, with the impulse to move, with momentum for activity. And because you have stopped and you are not cooperating with the body and its activity and its impulse, its momentum, you become separate from it. But you can deceive yourself. A slight cooperation and the gap will not happen. For example, you feel uncomfortable...

... inconvenient, you were afraid you might fall down, you might break a bone. But whatsoever happens, now it is not your concern. If you have any concern, you will deceive yourself. This suddenly becoming dead creates a gap. The stopping is at the body and the stopper is the center; the circumference and the center are separate. In that sudden stopping you can feel yourself for the first time; you can feel the...

... forgotten yourself completely. The one who has died has become the center, and around that center this activity is happening - your weeping, your crying, your sadness, your tears. If I suddenly say to you, "Stop!" and you stop yourself completely, you will be totally taken away from your body and the realm of activity. Whenever you are in activity, you are in it, deeply absorbed in it. Sudden...

... phenomenon happening within you. You are thrown to the center and suddenly everything stops - not only the body. When the body stops totally, your mind stops also. When you say, "Stop!" do not breathe then. Let everything stop... no breathing, no body movement. For a single moment remain in this stop, and you will feel you have penetrated suddenly, at rocket speed, to the center. And even a...

... take your meal at one o'clock, at one o'clock you will feel the hunger. But the hunger is false; it is just a mechanical habit, just a dead habit. Your body is not hungry. If you do not eat you will feel something is missing, but if you can remain for one hour without eating you will forget it, the hunger will have subsided. A real hunger will grow more; it is bound to grow. If your hunger was real...

... body is a sex cell; you consist of sex cells. Unless your biology can be washed off completely, the desire will be there. It will come - it is already there. When a child is born the desire is already there, because the child is a by-product of a sexual meeting. He comes through sex; his whole body is built with sex cells. The desire is there, only a time is needed before his body becomes mature...

... technique. First, remain with the fact - aware, attentive of what is happening. When you feel a sexual desire, what is happening in you? See how you become feverish, how your body begins to tremble, how you feel a sudden madness creeping in, how you feel as if you are possessed by something else. Feel it, consider it. Do not exercise any judgement, just move into this fact - the fact of sexual desire. Do...

... the body. Every fiber of your body will be trembling. The passion will have become a flame. Now, quit it. Don't fight with it, simply say, "I quit it." What will happen? The moment you can simply say, "I quit," a separation happens. Your body - your passionate body, your body filled with sex desire - and you become two. Suddenly, in a moment, they are two poles apart. The body is...

... until you feel - not think, until you feel - that the whole body is tired, that "A single step more has become impossible, and if I move I will fall down." When you feel that you are falling down and now you cannot move, that the body has become heavy and tired and completely exhausted, THEN, DROPPING TO THE GROUND, IN THIS DROPPING BE WHOLE. Then drop! Remember, be so exhausted that...

..., as if the whole body is one and it has dropped. And you are not dropping it, because if you are dropping it then you have two parts: you who is dropping it and the body which has been dropped. Then you are not whole. Then you are fragmentary, divided. Drop it as a whole; drop yourself totally. And remember, drop! Do not arrange it. Fall down dead. IN THIS DROPPING BE WHOLE. If you can drop in this...

... way, you will feel for the first time your whole being, your wholeness. You will feel for the first time your center - not divided, but one, unitary. How can it happen? The body has three layers of energy. One is for day-to-day affairs, which is very easily exhausted. It is just for routine work. The second is for emergency affairs; it is a deeper layer. When you are in an emergency, only then is it...

... feel that this is impossible, that they cannot continue and they will be dead tired, and the next day it will be impossible to move any limb of the body. But no one gets tired. Three sessions every day, doing such exertions, and no one is tired. Why? Because they are in contact with the second layer of energy. But if you are doing it alone - go to a hill and do it alone - you will become tired. When...