... whole process of reaching to your essential core. You have to go on discarding, eliminating. You have to say that "The body is not myself, I am not the body, because I can see the body, I can feel the body." You have been a child and you knew your body was a child's body. Then you became young and you know that your body became young. Then you became old and you know your body became old...

.... Sometimes you have been ill and sometimes you have been healthy, and you know an inner feel of health, well-being, illness. You are the knower and the knower can never be the known; that is the arithmetic of via negativa. The observer cannot be the observed. So "I am not the body" - that has to be the first experience when you enter inside. The first hang-up is with the body, so you have to...

... disconnect yourself with the body. That is your first identity that "I am the body." When you are hungry you say, "I am hungry," but really the case is different. You are only observing that the body is hungry, your stomach is feeling empty; that is your experience. You are not hungry. And when you eat and you are satiated, that too is your experience. You are the watcher; the food does...

... not enter consciousness, neither the consciousness becomes ever hungry or satiated, neither it becomes thirsty or quenched. It is only an observer. Buddha has said, "Watch and disconnect yourself from the body. You are not the body." And the same has to be done with the mind. Then watch again - are you the thoughts? How can you be the thoughts? Thoughts come and go - and you abide...

... left. You have cut the very root of the ego. Then you cannot even say, "I am," you can only say, "There is a certain amness. but there is no I." "I" consists of body, mind, heart. These are the three components of the body, of the ego. Once these three are dropped, eliminated, the ego disappears. Then there is only pure awareness. The body is a form, the mind too is a...

... form, and the heart too is a form. And the ego is the hold-all, the bundle of all the forms. When everything has been taken out, the ego becomes empty and flops. Hence this Diamond Sutra says: "... IF ONE SEES THAT FORMS ARE NOT FORMS..." "The body is not my body, the mind is not my mind. I am neither in the body nor in the mind; these are only forms." And forms are not true...

..., exactly as it is said. THE MASTER WAS PASSING BY AND HEARD IT. HE THEN SAID TO THE MONK, "YOU RECITE WRONGLY. IT GOES LIKE THIS..." He changed exactly to the opposite. 'IF ONE SEES THAT FORMS ARE FORMS...' that the body is the body, the mind is the mind, the heart is the heart... then one sees the Buddha. THE MONK EXCLAIMED, "WHAT YOU HAVE SAID IS JUST THE OPPOSITE TO THE WORDS OF THE...

... temples and all your statues and all your scriptures are just inventions, imaginations, dreams. Meditate over this story: "HOW CAN A BLIND MAN READ THE SUTRA?" Find out your eyes. And there is no other medicine except meditation which can help to open your eyes. The words "medicine" and "meditation" come from the same root; they both mean the same. Medicine cures the body...

... beautifully - not only fine but divine. Anything forced on your body will create a split. No need to do anything like that. Go on doing the way you feel like doing; your yoga is also perfectly good. Your awareness is going well, your energy is going well. Iyengar can be a disturbance in this moment, because he has no insight as far as energy is concerned. He is a good teacher of body postures, but that is...

... an outer form of yoga - not its internal spirit, not its interiority, but only the external. It is good for the beginner - a well-trained body is helpful - but now it will be a hindrance. Now you need a more fluid body, more flowing, no rigidity. So just meditate, do a few groups, and continue your work as you are doing. Now my feeling is for you not to go to any teacher in yoga. It is very rare to...

... find a yoga teacher and a spiritual man together. For centuries it has not been happening, because the people who become interested in yoga get lost in the physiology of it. They never reach the point where they should start meditating. They become too obsessed with the physical well-being that yoga brings, but that is just body. It gives good health, a good body, a good body feeling, but that is...

... devise. There is no need to always follow the old pattern. See the person, listen to his rhythm, his body, his energy, and find something for him that will suit him. Because all those yoga postures and the whole system is just an outer form; it is not meant to be followed exactly, literally. One has to understand it and then one has to listen to one's own body. And your feeling is perfectly right - it...

... Available: N.A. Length: N.A. HE WHO GOES NAKED, WITH MATTED HAIR, MUD-BESPATTERED, WHO FASTS AND SLEEPS ON THE GROUND AND SMEARS HIS BODY WITH ASHES AND SITS IN ENDLESS MEDITATION - SO LONG AS HE IS NOT FREE FROM DOUBTS, HE WILL NOT FIND FREEDOM. BUT HE WHO LIVES PURELY AND SELF-ASSURED IN QUIETNESS AND VIRTUE, WHO IS WITHOUT HARM OR HURT OR BLAME, EVEN IF HE WEARS FINE CLOTHES, SO LONG AS HE ALSO HAS...

... us, and how can the mother be unfriendly? This is a totally different meaning to trust. It is neither belief nor faith. Remember these two words because they are again and again translated wrongly. The sutras: HE WHO GOES NAKED, WITH MATTED HAIR, MUD-BESPATTERED, WHO FASTS AND SLEEPS ON THE GROUND AND SMEARS HIS BODY WITH ASHES AND SITS IN ENDLESS MEDITATION - SO LONG AS HE IS NOT FREE FROM DOUBTS...

..., HE WILL NOT FIND FREEDOM. These people - the people who go naked, with matted hair, mud-bespattered, the people who go on long fasts, the people who sleep on uneven ground, or even on thorns, the people who smear their body with ashes - these people have been thought of down the ages as if they are saints. They are simply masochists, they enjoy torturing themselves. They are very violent people...

... soft bed for themselves, soft earth, and then they will go to sleep. Even animals seem to be far more intelligent, far more natural, than your so-called saints. A person who throws dust on his body is simply being foolish, or maybe he is just an egoist, because this kind of behavior is worshipped in this country. Now, the same type of people raise questions against me: Why am I against saints? I am...

... for centuries that you don't ask: What are you doing? And you are angry at me because I am raising questions for the first time - questions which disturb you. But Buddha also was doing the same, and you were angry at him too. He says: HE WHO GOES NAKED, WITH MATTED HAIR, MUD-BESPATTERED, WHO FASTS AND SLEEPS ON THE GROUND AND SMEARS HIS BODY WITH ASHES AND SITS IN ENDLESS MEDITATION - SO LONG AS HE...

... IS NOT FREE FROM DOUBTS, HE WILL NOT FIND FREEDOM. You can go on doing these things for years, your whole life - you will not arrive anywhere. All these things are just empty rituals you are following because you have been told that this is what holiness is. You are so unintelligent that you cannot even see that: What kind of holiness is this? How can this be holy? How can smearing your body with...

... dust or ashes be holy? It is simply torturing yourself, because the body breathes.... Do you know that it is not only your nose that keeps you alive, but that there are millions of small doors in the body from where you breathe? You cannot even see them with bare eyes. Just try: paint a person's whole body, leaving his nose, paint it completely so all the holes and the pores of the body are closed...

.... He will die within three hours. He can breathe from the nose - that won't keep him alive more than three hours. If all the pores are closed... and that's what is being done by smearing ashes on your body. You are closing the pores of the body. This is a way of torturing yourself, this is starving you of oxygen. And the less oxygen you get, the more stupid you become, because oxygen is one of the...

... sleepy. By smearing your body with ashes you are trying to reduce the amount of oxygen reaching to your brain cells, you are starving the brain. You will become dull, stupid. And that's why you will rarely see any sharpness, any awareness. They live like robots. Of course, they follow a certain law that is written in the scriptures and delivered to them by the same kind of stupid people. They follow a...

... you starve your body you are also starving your brain, because the brain is the subtlest part of the body. Now it is scientifically proved that if a few vitamins are missing from the body you will lose intelligence. Sooner or later every child has to be provided with certain vitamins, certain chemicals, and his intelligence can be raised very high. In Soviet Russia they are already doing it. If you...

... starve your body, then naturally your brain is starved. You don't allow the brain the right food, you don't allow the brain the right amount of oxygen... and do you think you will be able to become a great meditator, a buddha? Whom are you trying to befool? But you are following a certain law, a certain ritual, with no understanding about it. Sir Reginald Farthington was on trial before the High Court...

... bird!" It goes from one foolishness to another foolishness. If you starve your body of the right food, of the right amount of oxygen, problems will arise. And you will go to the same people who are creating problems for you, and they have ready-made prescriptions. One man came to me, a young man; he was under the spell of Swami Shivananda of Rishikesh. Shivananda told him, "Live only on...

... sexuality. He is becoming more and more mature and sexual, because the whole biology depends on sex. And after a time the child has to move to solid food. It is only man who continues to drink milk. It is okay in coffee or in tea, but just to live on milk - it is going to be dangerous. The young man became more sexual, and weaker. The body became weaker and the mind became more and more obsessed with sex...

... is not right. Yes, for an old man it is perfectly okay; as you become older, less and less sleep is needed, because the body is going to die, it no longer needs to recover. Otherwise, a young man's body recovers itself every day. For recovery, for regaining lost strength, for recreating the cells that have died yesterday, you need a long sleep - seven or eight hours, not less than that. Five is not...

..., nobody doubts God's existence - there is no question of doubt. Nobody believes in the first place - why should they doubt? In India too, if you are born in a Jaina family you never doubt the existence of God. Why? - because in the Jaina tradition there is no God, no belief. But a Jaina doubts about the existence of the soul, because he is told that there is a soul, invisible - the body will die but the...

... in my body, just somehow hanging around the body. I am no longer the body. If you love me you will know that I am something totally different from the body; it is a nonphysical phenomenon. And, Naomi, you can be in contact wherever you are. The moment you close your eyes you will find me inside you. The master becomes part of the disciple. Slowly slowly, the master is no longer outside, he is more...

... SPIRIT HAS CONTINUOUSLY AND UNINTERRUPTEDLY A SENSE OF GREAT JOY AS IF INTOXICATED OR FRESHLY BATHED, IT IS A SIGN THAT THE LIGHT-PRINCIPLE IS HARMONIOUS IN THE WHOLE BODY; THEN THE GOLDEN FLOWER BEGINS TO BUD. WHEN, FURTHERMORE, ALL OPENINGS ARE QUIET, AND THE SILVER MOON STANDS IN THE MIDDLE OF HEAVEN, AND ONE HAS THE FEELING THAT THIS GREAT EARTH IS A WORLD OF LIGHT AND BRIGHTNESS, THAT IS A SIGN...

... THAT THE BODY OF THE HEART OPENS ITSELF TO CLARITY. IT IS A SIGN THAT THE GOLDEN FLOWER IS OPENING. FURTHERMORE, THE WHOLE BODY FEELS STRONG AND FIRM SO THAT IT FEARS NEITHER STORM NOR FROST. THINGS BY WHICH OTHER MEN ARE DISPLEASED, WHEN I MEET THEM, CANNOT BECLOUD THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE SEED OF THE SPIRIT. YELLOW GOLD FILLS THE HOUSE, THE STEPS ARE OF WHITE JADE. ROTTEN AND STINKING THINGS ON EARTH...

... THAT COME IN CONTACT WITH ONE BREATH OF THE TRUE ENERGY WILL IMMEDIATELY LIVE AGAIN. RED BLOOD BECOMES MILK. THE FRAGILE BODY OF THE FLESH IS SHEER GOLD AND DIAMONDS. THAT IS A SIGN THAT THE GOLDEN FLOWER IS CRYSTALLIZED. THE BRILLIANCY OF THE LIGHT GRADUALLY CRYSTALLIZES. HENCE A GREAT TERRACE ARISES AND UPON IT, IN THE COURSE OF TIME, THE BUDDHA APPEARS. WHEN THE GOLDEN BEING APPEARS WHO SHOULD IT...

... where, what is our source and the cause of our journey into life, into body, in the world, and what we have attained up to now. And if a tidal wave comes - and it is going to come, it always comes; its name is death - all will be gone: children, family, name, fame, money, power, prestige. All will be gone in a single moment and you will be left alone, utterly alone. All that you had done will be...

... be alert, to be conscious, to be full of light within so that all unconsciousness disappears, so that all sleep disappears, so the darkness of sleep is no more inside you and you are fully awake. It happened: A great astrologer saw Buddha. He could not believe his eyes - that body, that golden aura around the body, those beautiful eyes, as silent as any lake can be, and as deep and as pure as any...

.... IF, WHEN THERE IS QUIET, THE SPIRIT HAS CONTINUOUSLY AND UNINTERRUPTEDLY A SENSE OF GREAT JOY AS IF INTOXICATED OR FRESHLY BATHED, IT IS A SIGN THAT THE LIGHT-PRINCIPLE IS HARMONIOUS IN THE WHOLE BODY; THEN THE GOLDEN FLOWER BEGINS TO BUD. "When there is quiet" - a great confirmatory sign - then "the spirit has continuously and uninterruptedly a sense of great joy". For no...

... dewdrops, fresh as new leaves in the spring, fresh as lotus leaves in the pond; as if you have just taken a bath - when you remain continuously in that freshness that remains and remains and nothing disturbs it, know well you are coming closer to home. IT IS A SIGN THAT THE LIGHT-PRINCIPLE IS HARMONIOUS IN THE WHOLE BODY. Now your whole body is functioning as a harmonious unity, your whole body is in...

... accord. You are no more split, you are no more fragmentary. This is individuation: you are one whole, all parts functioning and humming together, all parts functioning in an orchestra of being. Nothing is out of tune - the body, the mind, the soul, the lowest and the highest, from sex to SAMADHI - all IS functioning in a tremendous harmony and an incredible unity. ... THEN THE GOLDEN FLOWER BEGINS TO...

... BUD. WHEN,,FURTHERMORE, ALL OPENINGS ARE QUIET, AND THE SILVER MOON STANDS IN THE MIDDLE OF HEAVEN, AND ONE HAS THE FEELING THAT THIS GREAT EARTH IS A WORLD OF LIGHT AND BRIGHTNESS, THAT IS A SIGN THAT THE BODY OF THE HEART OPENS ITSELF TO CLARITY. IT IS A SIGN THAT THE GOLDEN FLOWER IS OPENING. Then, furthermore, when all openings, all senses are quiet, not only the mind... Mind is your inner sense...

... womb. It is a full moon night. All is cool and silent and passive. Nothing stirs. The joy is infinite! ... AND ONE HAS THE FEELING THAT THIS GREAT EARTH IS A WORLD OF LIGHT AND BRIGHTNESS... And it is not only that you feel it within. When it is within, you immediately start feeling it without too - that this whole earth is a world of light and brightness. ... THAT IS A SIGN THAT THE BODY OF THE...

... FLOWER IS OPENING. First, it was just beginning to bud; now it is opening. One more step has been taken. FURTHERMORE, THE WHOLE BODY FEELS STRONG AND FIRM SO THAT IT FEARS NEITHER STORM NOR FROST. As your silence and joy deepen, you start feeling that there is no death for you. In death only the persona dies, the personality; the essence never dies. When you know something abiding in you, something...

.... It is symbolic: blood is violence, milk is love. When a person reaches to this state, all violence disappears. He's all love, love and nothing else. THE FRAGILE BODY OF THE FLESH IS SHEER GOLD AND DIAMONDS. And those who can see, those who have eyes to see, will be able to see in the body of the Buddha not fragile flesh, but sheer gold and diamonds. That's why disciples are not believed by others...

.... Others think the disciples have become hypnotized because they start seeing things which nobody else can see, which are available only to the close disciples. They start seeing, in the ordinary physical body, something else - another body, the body of gold and diamonds, the body of eternity. This body of flesh is the body of time. Hidden behind it is the body of eternity... but for that one needs eyes...

... to see... and only love and surrender can give you the eyes to see. THAT IS A SIGN THAT THE GOLDEN FLOWER IS CRYSTALLIZED. But when one is moving in this inner journey and one can see one's own body as gold and diamonds, then one can be certain that the Golden Flower is crystallized. First it was just budding, then it was opening, now it is crystallized. THE BRILLIANCY OF THE LIGHT GRADUALLY...

... CRYSTALLIZES. HENCE A GREAT TERRACE ARISES, AND UPON IT, IN THE COURSE OF TIME, THE BUDDHA APPEARS. Now you can be certain that the Buddha is not far away, the dawn is close by, the night is over. On the terrace of this vision of gold and diamonds, of the eternal body... as this brilliance crystallizes a terrace arises... in the course of time, the Buddha appears. One cannot do anything beyond this point...

.... Once you dissect a flower, once the wholeness of the flower is gone, beauty is also gone. Beauty belongs to the whole, it is the grace that comes to the whole. It is more than the sum. Then only parts are there. You can dissect a man; the moment you dissect, life disappears. Then you know only a dead body, a corpse. You can find out how much aluminium is there and how much iron and how much water...

... MAN THAT BREATHES LIVES ON THE AIR, AND THE OTHER, UNSEEN, RESTS ABOVE REACH. BETWEEN THE TWO MOVES ANOTHER MAN AS A SECRET LINK. WORSHIP KNOWINGLY. The man that breathes, and the man that lives beyond... between these two there is a third man, the link: body, psyche, and soul. Or, you can use the Christian Trinity -- God, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Body is THE MAN THAT BREATHES. By breathing, the...

... body is alive. The breath goes into your body; it gives PRANA, vitality, to your body. Without breath the body would disappear, because without breath the body would be disconnected from the atmosphere. The atmosphere is continuously pouring its own being into your being. Exhaling, inhaling -- atmosphere is continuously keeping you alive, flowing, streaming. "The body," Bauls say, "is...

... the first man." Then there is a beyond which needs no breathing, which is eternally there, which needs nothing. That is the God of the Bauls. They call the essential man ADHAR MANUSH. And between the two is the psyche, the mind, or call it heart. Bauls call it heart; the Holy Ghost. It exists as a link. The whole work has to be done in the psyche. On one pole of it exists the body, on the other...

... pole, God. The whole work of discipline, of SADHANA, has to be done in the psyche. That is what meditation is all about. THE MAN THAT BREATHES LIVES ON THE AIR, AND THE OTHER, UNSEEN, RESTS ABOVE REACH. BETWEEN THE TWO MOVES ANOTHER MAN AS A SECRET LINK. WORSHIP KNOWINGLY. The Bauls say that just worship won't do, but WORSHIP KNOWINGLY. The body has to worship the psyche, and the psyche has to...

... worship the unseen. This is what they mean by 'worship knowingly'. Let your body follow your psyche, your heart, let your body follow your feelings, and let your feelings follow the unknown, the unseen. Then you are a worshipper. Then worship is not an ordinary ritual that you do in the temple; then worship is something that you do in your own being. That is your real temple. IT IS A SPORT AMONGST THE...

... THREE OF THEM. MY SEARCHING HEART, WHOM DO YOU SEEK? And the Bauls say it is a LEELA, a sport. These three are running, chasing each other: the body, the psyche, and the soul. MY SEARCHING HEART, WHOM DO YOU SEEK? This word LEELA, sport, has to be understood. It is uniquely Eastern. In the West never has a concept like that ever arisen. In the West the concept of God is that of a worker, not of a...

... world. I keep silent when they call Him the word of life, and the water and the fire and the earth and the air, while no one is sure. Could I ever wish to know anyone else? I do not yet know my own little room.... THE Bauls say if you can know your own little room, you will know all -- because He is there. He is in the body as the breathing man. He is in the psyche as your intelligence, awareness...

..., meditation. And He is beyond you. Move slowly: let the body follow feeling, let the feeling follow the unknown. Don't move through knowledge, move through feeling, and then you will be in tune with God. He does not dwell in the complex of stars, nor in limitless space. He is not found in the ethical scriptures or in the texts of the Vedas. He lives beyond the existence of all. The man is here, in his form...

... without form to adorn the hamlet of my limbs and the sky above in the glow of his feelings, the platform of spontaneous matter. Even matter, the body, is spontaneous. That is his platform. The man is here! If you fail to recognize your own heart, can you ever come to know the great unknown? The farthest away will be nearest to you and the unknown within your knowing. Fill up your home with the world...

... ordinary death the body disappears, ego remains, and that carries you into new lives. That is the whole thread of rebirth. Once that thread is broken and the root is cut, you disappear from the world of matter, from the world of the visible into the world of the invisible, the beyond, the other shore. BETWEEN THE DOORS OF BIRTH AND DEATH, STANDS YET ANOTHER DOOR, WHOLLY INEXPLICABLE. HE WHO IS ABLE TO BE...

.... He will attain the great unattainable. Stare at the face of the invisible one bearing the nectar of love. How can I capture the man who is not to be caught? He lives on the other bank of the river, and the skin of my eyes screens my sight. The body screens your sight. If you become too identified with the body, it becomes a barrier, Reverse the process: let the body follow the heart, not the heart...

... the body. If the heart has to follow the body, body becomes a barrier. Then you cannot reach the other shore. If the body follows the heart, the body becomes the boat. Where is the home of the moon? And what makes the cycle of the days wander, encircling the moving nights? The lunar eclipse in the night of the full moon is known to all. But no one enquires about the blackened moon on the darkest...

... witnessing power, and the witness has a totally separate reality: it is not part of the brain. It is the master, and the brain is only a servant. Those who have meditated long enough slowly start becoming aware, even in their sleep. The body sleeps, but there is an awareness underneath the sleeping body. It can be a disturbance in sleep, too - if the awareness is too much, then sleep becomes difficult...

.... This reminds me of a few other things which enlightenment disturbs in the ordinary mechanism of body and brain, because it is not an inbuilt process. It is not necessary that one should become enlightened just the way one becomes a youth, one becomes old - these are inbuilt processes. Enlightenment has to be earned. The opportunity is there, the potential is there - but you can miss it, or you can...

... get it. Because it is not an inbuilt process, the body and brain have no way to adjust themselves with the phenomenon. And for centuries there has been continuous concern... Ramakrishna died with a cancer of the throat, Raman Maharshi died with a cancer. Krishnamurti suffered almost forty years with the most intense migraine possible. Buddha was often sick, so much so that one of his disciples - an...

... are enlightened; their bodies should be more healthy. And that seems to be very logical, but existence does not listen to logic. Existentially, to be enlightened is to go beyond the capacities of body and brain. You are bringing something into your body and brain for which they have not been made, for which they are not ready. So this new phenomenon... and the new phenomenon is so powerful that it...

... tries for a moment and forgets; sleep takes over. Just the opposite is the case when enlightenment happens: there is so much awareness that it is impossible for sleep to enter your body. At the most your body can relax - it can relax more than ever, it can rest more than ever - but sleep has disappeared. It is recorded that Buddha never changed his posture in sleep; he would sleep in the same posture...

... that enlightenment will bring better health is absolutely wrong. It will bring a wholeness of your consciousness, which is tremendously fulfilling. But just as the bird in the egg one day has to leave the egg behind... and it has been its protection, its life. Without it, it could not have survived. But the bird doesn't look backwards. It opens its wings and finds that the whole sky is his. The body...

... is also a certain kind of egg, in which the ultimate potential of enlightenment can happen - and unless it happens you will continue to have new bodies - but the moment it happens, the body becomes useless. Most of the people who become enlightened die instantly. They simply cannot breathe anymore. There is no reason why they should breathe. The experience is so big that the heart stops. They have...

... shocks. They have never had such a big shock, but smaller shocks have prepared them to accept even this enormous phenomenon. They still continue to breathe; their heart still continues to beat. But still the body suffers in many ways because something has happened that the body cannot understand. The body has its own wisdom, it has a certain kind of understanding. It functions well within its limits...

.... But enlightenment is not within its limits, it is too far away. It is stretching the body's capacities too much. So anything that is weak in the body is going to break - and because this is going to be the last body, it will never be needed again. It has fulfilled its function. It has done the miracle. So if you think of the ratio... out of ten enlightened persons at least nine die immediately. And...

... will say, "What nonsense it is. You work hard to attain enlightenment and what do you get as a reward? - that you are finished! You are not even going to see yourself enlightened. So what is the point? It is a strange game." Perhaps that's why it was never mentioned. No scripture mentions that enlightenment disturbs the body and the brain. But I want to say everything exactly as it is...

..., because my understanding is that those who are not interested are not going to be interested, and those who are interested are not going to be prevented by any truth. And in fact it will be good for them to know it ahead of time. Enlightenment certainly disturbs much psychosomatic health, because it is something for which the body is not ready or prepared. Nature has not built in anything in the body so...

... with my own eyes that the person was changing. His muscles were changing, his body was changing; his fighting was becoming very refined." Each year there used to be a fair of all these tribes where champions would be declared in different arts; wrestling would be one of them. And all those wrestlers were trained through hypnosis, which was the easiest way. The same can be done for any teaching...

... Auditorium Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. OUR BELOVED MASTER, DOGEN CONTINUES: WHEN WE LOOK BACK AT THE SHORE FROM OUR BOAT, WE MISTAKENLY FEEL AS IF THE SHORE WERE MOVING. BUT WHEN WE LOOK AT OUR BOAT WITH CARE, WE FIND THAT IT IS OUR BOAT THAT IS ACTUALLY MOVING. SIMILARLY, WHEN WE SEE ALL THINGS WITH THE DELUDED IDEA THAT OUR BODY AND MIND...

... ARE SEPARATE FROM EACH OTHER, WE MISTAKENLY THINK INNATE MIND AND NATURE ARE ETERNAL. BUT WHEN WE REALIZE THAT OUR BODY AND MIND ARE INSEPARABLE, WE SEE CLEARLY THAT ALL THINGS ARE NOT SUBSTANTIAL. FIREWOOD, WHEN BURNED, BECOMES ASH; THE ASH NEVER AGAIN REVERTS TO BEING FIREWOOD. STILL, WE SHOULD NOT REGARD FIREWOOD AS A BEFORE, AND ASH AS AN AFTER. WE MUST REALIZE THAT FIREWOOD IS IN THE POSITION...

... experience of all your past lives suddenly flashes you to the idea that you are eternal, that very moment you are disidentified with the body-mind structure. And this disidentification is the real death. Now you will not take another form, you will enter into the formless. It is called the great death. But to have a great death you need to have a great life. Ordinary living is so lukewarm that ordinary...

... become very still and very silent. Not only in their minds, but even in their body cells the silence of no- movement will penetrate. It will be so enormous, so overwhelming, that when they return - you will be surprised - all their friends, their old colleagues, will have grown ten years older and they will not have aged at all. Those ten years they have missed. They have not moved a single inch...

..., either in their body or in their mind, because movement has stopped being their experience. Einstein was absolutely certain - and I agree with him. It seems absurd that a traveler will come back and find that his own generation is finished and a new generation has taken over, because he has been long away, traveling in the sky. But when there is no movement around you, slowly, slowly that non-movement...

... stops everything moving within you: the mind, the body - everything. Even he was shocked when he proposed the theory. It will still take a few years for us to be absolutely certain of what he was saying, because even to reach to the nearest star takes four years; and the return journey means eight years - and this is the nearest star. We don't have yet any vehicle to move - without continuous fuel...

... exactly who is there. But that is a limitation of the body. For a man of consciousness, for a man who is a buddha, there is no limitation. No gravitation prevents him, no heat can burn him. He can travel around in different forms, taking birth on different planets. The idea of reincarnation is a very great challenge. It is not a question of arguing; it is a question of experiencing in yourself that...

... which cannot be burned, that which remembers having been in other bodies. And if it can move from one body to another body, there is no difficulty for it to move from one planet to another planet. And ultimately it has to move from all forms and disperse itself into the universal being. That is nirvana. Nirvana is one of the most beautiful words; I don't think there is any other word in any language...

... which has so much significance and meaning. Ordinarily it simply means blowing out the flame. You have a candle, and the flame is dancing, and you blow it out. Can you answer where the flame has gone? It must have gone somewhere. Nirvana means: your life is just like a flame - when it becomes difficult to live in one body, one form, it simply moves into another form. The other form is determined by...

... BOAT, WE MISTAKENLY FEEL AS IF THE SHORE WERE MOVING. BUT WHEN WE LOOK AT OUR BOAT WITH CARE, WE FIND THAT IT IS OUR BOAT THAT IS ACTUALLY MOVING. SIMILARLY, WHEN WE SEE ALL THINGS WITH THE DELUDED IDEA THAT OUR BODY AND MIND ARE SEPARATE FROM EACH OTHER, WE MISTAKENLY THINK INNATE MIND AND NATURE ARE ETERNAL. BUT WHEN WE REALIZE THAT OUR BODY AND MIND ARE INSEPARABLE, WE SEE CLEARLY THAT ALL THINGS...

... ARE NOT SUBSTANTIAL. The body has a substantiality. When someone dies all the elements of the body dissolve into their sources: water into water and air into air and earth into earth. Only one invisible bird, weightless .... There have been experiments where a man was weighed while he was alive, and weighed again after he has died. The weight does not differ; he is the same weight both times. To the...

... objective mind, it means that nothing has moved out, because if there is a soul which moves out of the body, then certainly it would have weight. Experiments have even been done putting the dying man in a glass case, so that they can see if something moves out .... It will have to break the glass somewhere. But the glass remains intact as the man dies. These things have supported the atheists, who say...

... being materialistic. Half of the world is communist, which does not believe that there is anything in the body; it is just a combination of materials. The remaining half of the world, which thinks it is spiritual, only thinks; it never experiments. The experiment is not to be done in a scientific lab. It has to be done within yourself. That's what we are doing here - to find something immaterial...

..., you slowly, slowly become more light, the gravitation is less on your being. That is the scientist's explanation. And you can see the effect on the seas, because they are holding the place of the moon ... where the moon used to be once. That's why on the full moon there are great tides. In the human body there is eighty percent water, ocean water with the same chemicals. Just as tides arise in the...

...; "Well, you see," says Donald, "I have this problem. Every time I do one of these monsters, my eyes water!" Now, Nivedano, do a real good job because skinhead Niskriya is back .... Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Be silent ... Close your eyes ... No movement of the body. Let your whole consciousness gather inwards. Deeper and deeper ... You are entering...

..., you are not your head, you are not even your heart, you are this beyondness, this silence. Even if for a single moment you can experience it your whole life will have a transformation. To make it more clear, Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Relax..let go ... die. Die to the world, die to the body, die to the mind, so that only the eternal remains in you. This formless eternal brings you a new birth. You have...

... give our minds to appears real, but the moment you withdraw your mind, that thing becomes unreal." The widower complained to Nan-in that he had not come to listen to clever arguments and knowing words. "You don't know the trouble I am in," he said. "The moment I arrive home she is there waiting for me at the door, and my whole body trembles with fear. I was never as terrified of...

... ghost. The world is not, yet it seems to be. It is not, yet it seems to be. It is not and it is. But all its isness is poured into it by you. First you fill it with isness, and then you get caught up and bound by what you have created. You have the power to convert dreams into reality. You get lost in it, you simply forget that you are. Your body experiences hunger, and you think you are hungry. This...

... is illusion. The body may be hungry, but you are never hungry. You cannot be hungry. It is true you are very close to your body, there is virtually no gap between you and your body but still you are separate. The illusion of identification begins because you are standing too close to your body. The old scriptures say that if you keep a piece of glass close to a sapphire, the glass also flashes blue...

.... Of course it has not turned blue; it simply falls within the shadow of the sapphire's blueness. So it is with you and your body. You stand very close to it, but you are not it. But being so close, whatever happens to your body, the shadow of that happening falls on you. You say that you are hungry, but this is an illusion, and in this illusion the world of maya begins. It is the body that hungers...

..., and you say it is you. It is the body that suffers, and you say it is you. When the body grows old, again you say that you have grown old. And when this body is on the verge of death, you say that you are on the verge of death. The mistake has begun. If only if you could see that the body is hungry and you are seeing this and knowing this; if only you could see that the body is sick, that it is old...

..., that it is on the verge of death and all this you are seeing and knowing as a witness.... You are the witness to all these happenings. The whole drama is enacted in the body, as though the body were a vast stage, and all the characters projections of the mind within that body. And you - you view it all from a distance; you are the audience! There is in you a doer-ness, by which the world is created...

..., and there is in you a witnessing too, through which Brahman is seen. Asleep you cannot remember this; even awake during the day you keep forgetting. The moment your body is hurt, you forget that it is the body, not you, who has been hurt, and that you have simply known the happening. This is the essence of all sadhana, that the moment the doer takes up the space, wake up! Don't allow him to fill the...

... space. Leave all the actions - the desires, the hungers and thirsts - to the body; let the body do the deeds, and you only keep the capacity to know with you, just the awareness, just the art of seeing. This is why in India have called philosophy, darshan - seeing. You just protect your ability to see. The moment you are able to see, you will find that all your dreams have disappeared - the ghosts...

..., nothing has to be arranged for it. You hear me speaking - hearing is happening in your body and mind. Now watch this hearing happening! Stand behind the hearing and watch it happening. Even if you get a glimpse of it, you will find that your unhappiness disappears this very moment, that all disharmony evaporates, that all tension vanishes. So whenever the chance arises to become the doer or the witness...

... essential nature. For this reason it is not so very difficult to attain to the witness - it can be reawakened. Whenever you are doing anything - eating a meal, walking along the road, taking a bath - let your emphasis be on watching not on the doing. Taking a shower, watch the body showering; eating, watch the body eating: and soon you will find that the witnessing bird in you has started fluttering its...

... human training. Don't ever think that you are standing on your two feet just on your own; it has been taught to you. The human body is structured to walk on all fours. No child walks on two feet after his birth, he walks on four; to walk on the two feet is a learning. If you ask scientists, physiologists, they say a very strange thing. They say that the human body can never be healthy like that of...

... animals, because the human body was meant to walk on four legs, and he has messed up everything; he is walking on two legs, so the whole system is disturbed. It is like a car which was not designed for it going up a mountain; gravitational laws are disturbed - because when you walk on the ground on all fours you are balanced, your weight is equally distributed on four, and your body is parallel to the...

... not divided in reality. In reality you are a harmonious whole. But in your mind the conditioning is that you are not one whole, one piece: you have to fight against your body. If you want to be a spiritual being, the body has to be conquered, defeated, destroyed, tortured in every possible way. This has been the accepted ideology all over the world. In different cultures, different religions, the...

...; both your hands become wounded. The West finally chose to go with the zorba. There was no other way to remain sane -- one part had to be completely destroyed, ignored, forgotten. The West denied the inner reality of man, his consciousness: man is only body -- there is no soul -- and eat, drink and be merry is the only religion. This was simply a way to find some peace of mind, to get out of the...

... conflict, to come to a decision and a conclusion -- because this is accepting that you are one: just matter, just body. The East has chosen the other way, but the basic problem is the same: the East has chosen that you are the soul and the body is an illusion. Matter does not exist, the world is made of the same stuff as dreams are made of, so don't be bothered about it. Renounce it, forget all about it...

... -- it is not worth taking note of. On the surface it seems that East and West are doing different things, but essentially they are not doing different things. Essentially they are trying to find a rational way to be one. Because to be two means a constant dis-ease, a conflict -- it is better to drop the idea of the other. The East says that the body is illusory, it is only an appearance, a shadow, it...

... has no reality. The West says that consciousness is a byproduct -- it does not exist in itself, it is an appearance. When the body dies nothing remains, the body is all, and the consciousness that you feel is just the combination of all the elements of the body. For example, if you take all the parts of your car separately, or all the parts of your watch separately, do you think something like a...

... consciousness that the Eastern mystics, saints and sages have been talking about, and calling the body illusory? To us the body seems to be real, and consciousness is just a word. But because all the saints in the East were insisting that this word `consciousness' is your reality, the East has tried to find out what this reality is before deciding in favor of the body. The natural tendency will be to decide...

... in favor of the body, because the body is there, already appearing real -- consciousness you have to search for, you have to go into an inner pilgrimage. The East, because of people like Gautam Buddha and Mahavira, could not deny that these people were sincere. Their sincerity was so clear, their presence was so impressive, their words were so authoritative... it was impossible to deny. No argument...

... consciousness, you cannot deny it. We had people so fragrant... we could not see their roses, but the fragrance was so much that the East tried to look inside, and found that the soul is far more real. The body is just an appearance. And just by the way, it will be significant to remind you that modern science has come to the conclusion that matter is illusory, that matter does not exist, it only appears...

..." not knowing at all that within a hundred years the whole of science would agree that perhaps God may be alive, but matter is dead. The East has moved inwards and found that the body, matter, is relatively non- substantial. The ultimate reality belongs to consciousness. In the West, development happened in a different way. And there are reasons why it happened in that way. The East is ancient...

... closed the door for Western genius to move inwards. Anybody who had any intelligence became aware that it is simply inviting your death; it is better to use your talents and genius in such a way that the society cannot condemn it. So the whole genius of Western humanity became a servant for creating more comforts for the body, more technology, more machines, more knowledge about matter -- and everybody...

... is no point in living, everything has gone wrong." They believe that they are the real East. Nobody is East and nobody is West. But the attitudes can be understood, and they are very prominent. And my whole approach is to bring a bridge into each individual, so that you are one whole. Don't be against your body; it is your home. Don't be against your consciousness, because without...

... consciousness your house may be very decorated but it won't have any master, it will be empty. Together they create a beauty, a fuller life. Symbolically, I have chosen Zorba for the body and Buddha for the soul. Your question is that when I was in Greece I was talking more about Zorba, and here in India the atmosphere seems to be closer to Buddha. Your observation is true. In Greece I was talking about Zorba...

... you live the buddha?" Enjoy your body, enjoy your physical existence. There is no sin in it. Hidden behind it is your spiritual growing, is your spiritual blissfulness. When you are tired of physical pleasures, only then will you ask, "Is there something more?" And this question cannot be only intellectual, it has to be existential: "Is there something more?" And when the...

... TEACHING OF A MORTAL, NOT A BUDDHA. THE TRUE WAY IS SUBLIME. IT CAN'T BE EXPRESSED IN LANGUAGE. OF WHAT USE ARE SCRIPTURES? BUT SOMEONE WHO SEES HIS OWN NATURE FINDS THE WAY, EVEN IF HE CAN'T READ A WORD .... EVERYTHING THE BUDDHA SAYS IS AN EXPRESSION OF HIS MIND. BUT SINCE HIS BODY AND EXPRESSIONS ARE BASICALLY EMPTY, YOU CAN'T FIND A BUDDHA IN WORDS. ...THE WAY IS BASICALLY PERFECT. IT DOESN'T REQUIRE...

.... YOUR REAL BODY IS PURE AND IMPERVIOUS. BUT BECAUSE OF DELUSIONS, YOU'RE UNAWARE OF IT. AND BECAUSE OF THIS, YOU SUFFER KARMA IN VAIN. WHEREVER YOU FIND DELIGHT, YOU FIND BONDAGE. BUT ONCE YOU AWAKEN TO YOUR ORIGINAL BODY AND MIND, YOU'RE NO LONGER BOUND BY ATTACHMENTS. The understanding of Bodhidharma and his insight into the secrets of human consciousness is so profound that it certainly can be said...

.... And this man has been questioned by newspapers, by journalists from all over the world, because he is a rare man; three times certified dead and three times he has defied all medical knowledge, all medical science. And they asked, "What have you been doing? What happens?" He said, "Nothing -- because I am not my body. I know it; and I am not my breathing, I know it; and I am not my...

... heart, I know it -- I am beyond all these. I simply slip into the beyond. The heart stops, the pulse stops, the breathing stops, and you are all befooled. Then I slip back again into the body, the blood starts running again, the pulse starts working again and the heart starts beating again." He is a simple man, a farmer. He is not a yogi; he has never practiced anything. But just when he was a...

... very young child, not more than seven or eight years old, he came in contact with a Sufi mystic who told him that death is an illusion. And he was so innocent that he accepted it. The Sufi mystic said to him, "There is a very simple way to slip out of your body. Just watch it from inside; watch the body and suddenly there will come more and more distance between you and your body. Soon the body...

... will be miles away. Watch the mind and the same will happen with the mind. "You simply remain a watcher and you will be able to slip out of the body, out of the mind, out of this whole personality. And it is within your control to come back. Because you have slipped out, you know the way you slipped out. So you know the way to come back in. And the way is that by watching, you slipped out -- now...

... stop watching. Become identified with the body. Say, 'I am the body, I am the mind, I am the breathing, I am the heart beating.' Immediately the distance will disappear. You will come closer and soon you will slip back into the body." Identifying yourself with the body, you become the body. Then you are a mortal. Then there is fear of death. Non-identifying with the body, you are just a watcher...

... saying. IF YOU SEEK DIRECT UNDERSTANDING, DON'T HOLD ONTO ANY APPEARANCE WHATSOEVER, AND YOU WILL SUCCEED. I HAVE NO OTHER ADVICE. His advice is very simple, but it never fails. He is advising not to get identified with any appearance: the body is an appearance, the mind is an appearance, the world is an appearance. The only thing that is absolutely real is your consciousness. Everything else goes on...

... the scriptures is: ...A MORTAL, NOT A BUDDHA. THE TRUE WAY IS SUBLIME. IT CAN'T BE EXPRESSED IN LANGUAGE. OF WHAT USE ARE SCRIPTURES? BUT SOMEONE WHO SEES HIS OWN NATURE, FINDS THE WAY, EVEN IF HE CAN'T READ A WORD .... EVERYTHING THE BUDDHA SAYS IS AN EXPRESSION OF HIS no-MIND. BUT SINCE HIS BODY AND EXPRESSIONS ARE BASICALLY EMPTY, YOU CAN'T FIND A BUDDHA IN WORDS. ...THE WAY IS BASICALLY PERFECT...

... consciousness -- not the body, not the mind, not the heart, not your money, not your prestige, not your power, not your house, but just pure consciousness -- then you can pass through the barrier of death unscratched. Then death cannot make even a dent in you. Death has power over you only if you are attached. You are not afraid of death. The basic psychology is you are afraid of death because it will take...

... front of such a man, death is defeated. Death is defeated only by those who are ready to die any moment, without any reluctance. They become the immortals, they become the buddhas. A MOMENT'S HESITATION WHEN DEATH COMES AND YOU WILL BE UNDER THE SPELL OF DEVILS. YOUR REAL BODY, your real being IS PURE AND IMPERVIOUS. BUT BECAUSE OF DELUSIONS, YOU ARE UNAWARE OF IT. AND BECAUSE OF THIS, YOU SUFFER IN...