... time to ejaculate? But it is not within his capacity.... When death is happening to him, when life is leaving him, it is natural that his sexual energy also leaves. It was part of the whole phenomenon. There is no point in it remaining in his body. The question is significant. It does not mean that you are going to die. It simply means your sexual energy is coming to its highest peak; hence you are...

... possibility that if by some scientific means a man's sexual energy is absorbed in his own body, the body will go on renewing, rejuvenating itself for a long time. But ordinarily these so-called celibates are not celibate. The energy is released in some way or other. Even at the age of seventy, Mahatma Gandhi was having nocturnal emissions. And he died with the idea that he had failed in being totally...

... celibate, that's why he was dying before the time he had decided. The idea has a great potentiality in it. But as far as man is concerned, he cannot do anything directly; it is something that biologists have to do - to change the sexual energy that accumulates, to revitalize the body rather than being released from the body. Perhaps a scientific celibacy may help man's life to be longer. But remember, I...

... that her sexual energy is negative. The positive energy is the active force; the negative energy is the absorbing force. Perhaps because of this negative, absorbing energy, she has a healthier body, is more resistant to disease, and lives longer. And if biology could manage to get her free from her monthly periods, she could live even longer and healthier. She could really become the stronger sex. So...

... orgasm is so quick that he cannot create the vaginal orgasm in that small period of time - a few seconds. But if clitoral orgasm is created just as foreplay, it is creating a situation for the vaginal orgasm to happen. It has already started: the clitoral orgasm has triggered the process in the body. But men pay no attention to the clitoral orgasm, because their orgasm can happen easily only with...

.... It is the ultimate peak of your life. If you have lived your life unconsciously, in misery, in suffering, then before death comes, you are bound to go into a coma. So you don't experience the orgasm, or the awareness that death is not happening to you, to your being, but is happening only to the body, to the vehicle that you have been using up to now. If the question is from a man, the same is to...

... discipline to not make love. I teach discipline to make love rightly, so that your love is not just a biological thing, never reaching your psychological world. And it has the potential to reach even your spiritual world. At the highest peak it will reach your spiritual world. Why - at that point - is one certainly reminded of death? Because you forget your body, you forget your mind; you remain just a...

... pure consciousness, merged with your partner. It is very, very similar to death. As you die - if you are dying consciously - you will forget the body, you will forget the mind... just consciousness, and then suddenly the consciousness merges into the whole. That merging with the whole is a thousandfold more beautiful than is possible through any orgasm. But both these things are certainly deeply...

... nuclear destruction. I said that you are not only a body; your body will be destroyed but your being will be transplanted to another planet. There are fifty thousand planets in the whole span of the universe where life exists. This tiny earth is nothing. But you never heard this; you have made the question out of your own mind. As far as the second part of your question is concerned: when you were not...

... body again, because the body is a prison, a very strange prison -- it moves with you. Wherever you go you take your prison with you. Our whole religious development is how to get rid of this prison and how to be in a state of splendor, universality, how to become one with existence. That is the real aim of life. So what I had said was, I am going to work for those who are really concerned with their...

... interested in this planet earth. I am interested only in those few individuals who want to achieve to universal consciousness. Where the body disappears you are simply a consciousness, a pure consciousness, satchitanand, you are truth, you are consciousness, you are bliss. I said to you that for ninety thousand years this country has been persistently searching for only one goal. It is Christianity that...

... least ninety thousand years old, perhaps more. And for these ninety thousand years our only search has been how to get out of this prison. What are you in your body? -- just go to a medical college to see the bones that you are hiding under the skin. The skin is only a cover, under the skin there are only bones. Even a doctor, a friend of mine, was afraid to keep the whole inner structure of bones in...

... but many jails. First your body is a jail, then your ideology is a jail, your politics is a jail, your church is a jail. Chains upon chains; it does not matter that a few more chains are added. In my twelve days in American jails, one day in an English jail, one day in a Greek jail, I loved it. I loved it for the simple reason that it was not affecting me at all. I was as blissful as ever; that gave...

... be disturbed? Just because chains are on my hands, chains are on my legs, chains are on my waist -- why should I be disturbed? My body is a jail, on that jail you have put a few more ornaments. I am perfectly happy." My bliss was absolutely confirmed, because an American jail is the most refined way of torturing people. I said, "You have freed me from the idea that if I fall into hell...

... unprotected. God seems to be more concerned to protect the black man than the white. The white man's body is weaker, the black man's body is stronger. It was a surprise to me, whenever I entered a jail in America there were black people behind bars who had seen me on the television, because in every jail there are televisions. And they were showing me the two fingers of victory. They were talking in their...

... Length: 0 mins Question 1: OSHO, WOULD YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR FATHER'S DEATH YESTERDAY? Vivek, IT WAS NOT A DEATH AT ALL. Or it was the total death. And both mean the same thing. I was hoping that he would die in this way. He died a death that everybody should be ambitious for: he died in samadhi, he died utterly detached from the body and the mind. I went to see him only three times during this...

... whole month he was in the hospital. Whenever I felt that he was just on the verge, I went to see him. The first two times I was a little afraid that if he died he would have to be born again; a little attachment to the body was there. His meditation was deepening every day, but a few chains with the body were still intact, were not broken. Yesterday I went to see him: I was immensely happy that now he...

... could die a right death. He was no more concerned with the body. Yesterday, early in the morning at three o'clock, he attained his first glimpse of the eternal -- and immediately he became aware that now he was going to die. This was the first time he had called me to come; the other two times I had gone on my own. Yesterday he called me to come because he was certain that he was going to die. He...

... farther and farther away from your body-mind composite. And when meditation reaches its ultimate peak, you can see everything. Yesterday morning he was absolutely aware of death, that it had come. And he called me. This was the first time he had called me, and the moment I saw him I saw that he was no more in the body. All the pains of the body had disappeared. That's why the doctors were puzzled: the...

... body was functioning in an absolutely normal way. This was the last thing the doctors could have imagined, that he could die. He could have died any day before. He was in deep pain, there were many complexities in the body: his heart was not functioning well, his pulse was missing; there were blood clots in the brain, in the leg, in the hand. Yesterday he was absolutely normal. They checked, and they...

... would be saved or not. A suggestion had even come from a surgeon to cut the leg off completely, because if blood clots started happening in other places it would be impossible to save him. But I was against cutting off the leg, because one has to die one day -- why distort the body and why create more pain? And just living in itself has no meaning, just lengthening the life has no meaning. I said no...

... indication that now death was possible. If meditation happens before death, everything becomes normal. One dies in perfect health, because one is not really dying but entering into a higher plane. The body becomes a stepping-stone. He was meditating for years. He was a rare man -- it is very rare to find a father like him. A father becoming a disciple of his own son: it is rare. Jesus' father did not dare...

... consciousness. Yesterday it happened; it happened in right time. If he had left his body just one day before he would have been back in the body again soon -- a little clinging was there. But yesterday the slate was completely clean. He attained to no-mind, he died like a Buddha. What more can one have than Buddhahood? My effort here is to help you all to live like Buddhas and die like Buddhas. The death of a...

..., then the whole story takes a totally different turn. It is tremendous love. It is not an attachment to the Master's body, it is great understanding. Once you have seen a Master...and Rajjab lived very very close to Dadu. The day he became an initiate he was very small, just seven years old. He had come with his parents to participate in a religious festival; he was not even aware of Dadu. Dadu was...

... that before you leave the body this happens. Become Rajjab, become Sundero! Don't think about them -- these people are not to be contemplated upon. These people are to be lived! It is only by living that one can understand such tremendous phenomena. The third question Question 3: OSHO, IF YOU WERE IN A DESERT INSTEAD OF BEING HERE, WOULD YOU FEEL THE SAME? Anand Dasi, I AM IN THE DESERT! Where do you...

... love affairs are ugly, because you are both in discord. Your love affair is superficial. Because you like the blonde hair of a girl, or the shape of the nose, or the color of the eyes, or the curves of the body...and you fall in love. Now curves of the body, color of the eyes, the blonde hair, are not going to last long. Sooner or later you will be fed up with them -- the same curve, the same eyes...

... sink in and can reach your center. It takes time, and it takes a right moment. My father's disappearance from the body may have been the right moment for you, Kanchha. Yes, he was a simple man, just like anybody else. So was Buddha and so was Mahavira and so was Jesus -- simple people, innocent people. He was not in any way extraordinary; that was his extraordinariness. I have known him from my very...

... stillness. One can sit like a Buddha, almost like a statue, absolutely still, and yet deep down there may be great turmoil, a thousand and one thoughts rushing. There may be great traffic in the mind. The body can be forced to sit silently for hours, and you can also learn tricks to still the mind. For example, if you chant any mantra for hours, any name of God, if you simply go on chanting "Allah...

... one. It is not destroying the body, because destroying the body is not going to help; you will be immediately born again somewhere in some other womb. It will only be renewing the body; it is not real suicide. Sannyas is real suicide, because it destroys the mind, it takes you beyond the mind. And if you are beyond the mind you will not be born again. Why be born again and again? Why go on in this...

... unless you grow, unless you grow and become a Buddha, you will be thrown back into life again and again. Millions of times it has happened before: it is time now you should become aware. Don't miss this opportunity. Being here with me, learn the real art of suicide. The real art consists not in destroying the body...the body is beautiful, the body has not done any wrong. It is the ugly mind. The body...

... is beautiful, the soul is beautiful, but between the body and the soul there is something which is neither body nor soul. This in-between phenomenon is the mind. It is mind that goes on dragging you back into the womb. When you die, if you commit suicide you will be thinking of life. Committing suicide means you are thinking of life. You are bored, fed up with life; you would like a totally...

... commit suicide are against life -- they are not. They are too lusty for life, they have great lust for life; and because life is not fulfilling their lust, in anger, in despair, they destroy themselves. Prashant, I will teach you the right way to commit suicide. Not the destruction of the body; the body is a beautiful gift from God. The mind is not a gift from God; the mind is a conditioning by the...

... society. The soul is a gift, the body is a gift, and sandwiched between the two, the society has played tricks with you: it has created your mind. It gives you ambition, it gives you jealousy, competition, violence, it gives you all kinds of ugly diseases. But this mind can be transcended, this mind can be put aside. This mind is not a must. I am sitting before you and I say it through my own experience...

... society, the brain is part of your body. The brain is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian; the mind is a Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian. The brain is simply a beautiful biocomputer. The more you drop the mind, the sharper your brain will be, the more intelligent. It is the mind that is creating your mediocrity. Sheela, you need not be puzzled by it: this is how it is going to happen. The more and...

...! -- it is life. Just as breathing is life for the body, love is the life of the soul -- one is simply love! And then only does one know that love is God. Jesus says: "God is love." I say to you: "Love is God." The words are the same, but the significance is very different. Jesus says: "God is love." Then love becomes only one of the qualities of God. He is wise also...

... floor and touched my feet -- -a traditional Hindu SASHTANG when your whole body touches the floor. I told him, "Wait, wait! I am not a Hindu! But he had already touched my feet. He was shaken; he said, "Then who are you?" I told him, "Can't you see my beard? I am a Mohammedan! " He said, "My God! And I have touched your feet! Why didn't you say so before?" I said...

... poet, Chandidas, has said: SABAR UPAR MANUS SATYA, TAHAR UPAR NAHIN - the truth of man is the highest truth, there is no higher truth than that. But the truth of man does not mean the body of man, the bones and the blood and the marrow, no. The truth of man means the flame which is not yet lit in you. Once it is lit you are transported into a totally different world. You have become part of the whole...

..., you are no longer separate. The way to reach to this actualization is: HE IS THE CHARIOTEER. He becomes a conscious master. His body is a chariot, he drives it where he wants to, not vice versa. The unconscious man is driven by his body. Just watch yourself: your body goes on driving you. Just a moment before you were not hungry, and you pass by the side of a restaurant, and the smell of food... and...

... suddenly you start feeling hungry. The body is deceiving you, because just a moment before you were not hungry at all, there was no hunger. This hunger is the body driving you towards food. You were not even thinking of food just a moment before, and the smells coming from the bakery - and suddenly a great desire, a great hunger, has arisen in you. It is the body driving you; you are not the charioteer...

..., this hunger is false, created by the senses, created by the body - and you are going to be driven by these senses your whole life? All over the world, seekers of truth have become aware of this phenomenon and they have reacted in two ways; one is right, the other is wrong. The wrong way is to start fighting with your senses and your body. By fighting you will never win. By fighting you will become...

... weaker, you will be dissipating energy. By fighting you will become repressive - and that which is repressed will take revenge sooner or later. Whenever it will find any opportunity to take possession of you, it is bound to take possession of you - and with a vengeance! You can fast for three days, you can force your body to fast, but if it is repression, the fourth day the body will take revenge - you...

... will eat too much, for a few days you will eat too much. In fact, if you had lost any weight in those three days, you will gain more weight within a week. The body has taken the revenge, the body has taught you a lesson. Fighting is not the way - not the way of the buddhas. Fighting is stupid; it is your own body, you need not fight with it, you have just to be more watchful of it. If some...

... watchfulness starts crystallizing in you, you will be surprised that the body starts following you. It no longer commands you, it no longer orders you: it becomes obedient to you. When the master has arrived, the servants immediately fall in line. But the master is asleep, that's why the servants are pretending to be the masters. HE IS THE CHARIOTEER. HE HAS TAMED HIS HORSES.... They have not to be killed or...

... contained in the brain. That's why at the right time, looking at the clock, suddenly the hunger. And the smell of the bakery does not go into the stomach, remember, it goes into the brain. It triggers a certain center in your brain, it pushes a button in the brain, and suddenly you are hungry. Now, destroying your body is not going to help, starving your body is not going to help. Even committing suicide...

... you will receive much -- not because I am giving you more especially; but if you hate me you will not receive at all -- not because I am not giving you, but because you are closed. But I remain myself. I am not identified with my body, I am not identified with my mind. I have come home. If you are identified with your body and somebody hurts your body, you will be angry; he is hurting YOU. If you...

... are identified with your mind and somebody insults you, you will be angry, because he is hurting your mind. Once you are identified with your being nobody can hurt, because nobody has yet invented any way to hurt being. The body can be hurt, can be killed. The mind can be hurt...but the being cannot be touched. There is no way to hurt it, there is no way to create pain. It's VERY nature is...

... blissfulness. You can hurt my body; simple. If I am identified with the body I will be angry because I will think you have hurt me. If you insult me then the hurt goes into the mind. If I am identified with the mind, again you are my enemy. But I am neither identified with the body nor with the mind. I am the witness. So whatsoever you do never reaches to my witnessing center. It goes on witnessing it; it...

... is the BASIC problem. If you are identified with the body, then you are going to remain in constant trouble. Because body is continuously changing, your identity will never be at a point where you can settle and relax. One day the body is young, another day it is old. One day it is healthy, another day it is ill. One day you are so radiant with youth, another day just a dilapidated structure, a...

... ruin. Continuously, body is in a flux. That's why people who are identified with the body will remain constantly puzzled, confused, not knowing who they are. You are identifying with something which is not reliable. One day it is born, another day it dies. It is continuously dying and continuously changing. How can you rest with it? If you are identified with the mind then there will be even more...

... trouble. Because the body at least has a certain structure: it changes, but changes very slowly. You never feel the change. It changes very silently, and it takes years really, to feel a certain change happening. A child does not become a young man overnight, and a young man does not become an old man overnight. It takes years, and very slow is the change; and such minute, minor changes happen that one...

..., ANANDA. SOMETIMES I FEEL I AM THAT, OR RATHER THIS, THE ESSENTIAL MAN, AND SOMETIMES I FEEL ECSTATIC IN BEING A DEVOTEE -- SINGING, PRAYING, DANCING, TALKING OF HIM, PLAYING LEELA WITH THE DIVINE. CAN I BE BOTH? WHAT IS MY REAL NATURE? WHICH WOULD YOU SUGGEST FOR MY GROWTH? IN FIFTEEN MONTHS OF SANNYAS WITH YOU, THE FEAR OF DEATH IS GONE, BODY HAS BECOME THE TEMPLE DIVINE, MIND HAS BECOME AN INSTRUMENT...

... WORK ON BODY, HEART AND MIND. IS THERE NO POSSIBILITY OF FOLLOWING THIS PATH? BE alert of your own cunningness. You cannot surrender here, and you think you will be able to surrender to Gurdjieff? The problem is not with me or Gurdjieff, the problem is that with me you cannot surrender. And Gurdjieff was a hard taskmaster, one of the most dangerous Masters ever. after Bodhidharma. The problem is with...

... the same question of Gurdjieff...that it is difficult for me to surrender to you, and it is very difficult to work on body, mind and soul together -- because even to work on one thing separately is difficult. To work on three things together is, of course, going to be more complex, more arduous. So then you can say, "Can't I follow the path of the Bauls?" This is how you have been...

... different; it is millions of times more beautiful than any dream. Don't waste time in dreaming. Walk on earth, be in the body, come back to your senses. The last question: It is from Divya. Question 7: BELOVED MASTER, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE ABOUT LOVE OR MEDITATION; THEY ARE ONE TO ME. I SEEK TRUTH AND YOU ARE THE MEANS. MY DEVOTION AND MY PRAYERS ARE AN EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE. LOVE IS NOT THE...

... the present moment has no space in it. Thought creates the past and the future to live in. The bigger the past, the more easily thought can move; the bigger the future, again, the more easily thought can move. The present is not capable of giving that space for thought to move. The present moment is a moment of no-mind. Whenever you are in the present you don't function as a mind. Your body is in...

... the present but your mind is never. Your body IS ALWAYS in the present - that's why the body is so beautiful and mind is so ugly. And, down the ages, you have been taught to be with the mind and against the body. That has been the greatest calamity humanity has suffered up to now. If a new humanity is to be, we will have to put things right - you have to be with the body and not with the mind. Use...

... the mind, but never get identified with it. The mind is a good slave, but a very bad master. The body is wiser. When you are hungry, you are hungry herenow; you cannot be hungry in the future and you cannot be hungry in the past. When you are feeling thirsty, your throat is feeling it right now - it is immediate, it has a presence. But your mind is running in all directions... so your body and mind...

... never meet. That's how you have become split, that's how schizophrenia has entered into the very being of man. Get out of the mind and get into the body. The more you are in your body, the more natural you will be. The more you are in the body, the closer to God you will be. Mind is just a device. Good! Helpful! Can be used in a thousand and one ways! But it is from there that the problem arises...

... emptiness, such inner meaninglessness, such inner poverty. The reason is: significance comes from the body - the body is the body of God. Mind is man- created: body is still in God, it still exists in God, it still breathes God. You ask: WHAT IS HERENOW? Now, if any mind answer is given to you, that won't be the right answer - because anything that the mind can say as a definition of herenow will be wrong...

... moving. Time remains there - we go on moving, we change. The ocean of time is there - the fish goes on moving. The movement is in our minds. Mind is movement. Truth is unmoving; it is always the same. Just see: when you were born... have you changed since then? Yes, on one level you have changed, certainly - your body has grown, you are young or old, and so many things you have lived through, and...

...! And, naturally, they are angry too, because how can you forgive your murderer? You cannot. The idea of security brings death in life. Afraid you may catch cold, you don't go into the rains. Afraid you may harm your body, you don't go to the playground. Afraid that you may fall from the tree, you don't climb. Afraid that death may happen, you don't go to the mountains. Afraid, afraid, afraid... you...

... both the creativity, the celebration, the joy of desires, AND the silence and the peace and the calmness of desirelessness. The fourth question: Question 4: BELOVED MASTER, I KNOW WE ARE NOT THE BODY, OR THE 'CLOUD' AS YOU CALLED IT... BUT WHEN I OPEN MY EYES I CAN'T HELP NOTICING THAT YOUR TOES ERE TURNING BLUE FROM THE COLD! WHY WON'T YOU WEAR A WRAP OR A SHAWL, OR WHY WON'T YOU LET US PUT A QUILT...

.... Christianity has taught - not Christ, Christianity - has taught to fight with oneself, to condemn oneself, to deny oneself. Christianity has created a great division between the lower and the higher. There is nothing lower and nothing higher in you, but Christianity talks about the lower self and the higher self, or body and the soul. But somehow Christianity divides you and creates a fight. This fight is...

... example, you can kill sex easily if you starve the body, because sex and food are deeply related. Food is needed for your survival, for the survival of the individual, and sex is needed for the survival of the race, of the species. They are both food in a way. Without food the individual cannot survive and without sex the race cannot survive. But the primary is individual. If the individual cannot...

... survive, then there is no question of the race. So if you starve your body, if you give so little food to your body that the energy created by it is exhausted in day-to-day routine work - your walking, sitting, sleeping - no extra energy accumulates, then sex will disappear because sex can be there only when the individual is gathering extra energy, more than he needs for his survival. Then the body can...

... think of the survival for the race. If you are in danger, then the body simply forgets about sex. Hence, so much attraction for fasting, because if you fast, sex disappears - but this is not desirelessness. This is just becoming more and more dead, less and less alive. Zen monks in India, they have been fasting continuously just for this end, because if you fast continuously and you are constantly on...

... being. There is no sex. But this is not what Patanjali means. This is not a desireless state. It is simply an impotent state; energy is not there. Give food to the body... You may have starved the body for thirty or forty years - give right food to the body and sex reappears immediately. You are not changed. The sex is just hidden there waiting for energy to flow. Whenever energy flows, it will become...

.... On the thirtieth day, the whole group was sexless. There was no sex in their mind, in their body. Then food was given to them again. The very first day they became again the same. The next day they were interested, and the third day all that starving for thirty days had disappeared. Now not only they were interested, they were obsessively interested - as if this gap had helped. For a few weeks they...

... were obsessively sexual, only thinking of girls and nothing else. When the food was in the body, girls became important again. But this has been done in many countries all over the world. Many religions have followed this fasting. And then people start thinking that they have gone beyond sex. You can go beyond sex, but fasting is not the way. That's a trick. And this can be done in every way. If you...

.... One is: your desire changes; the energy remains, or energy is removed, desire remains. Energy can be removed very easily. You can simply be operated, castrated, and then sex disappears. Some hormones can be removed from your body. And that's what fasting is doing - some hormones disappear; then you can become sexless. But this is not the goal of Patanjali. Patanjali says that energy should remain...

... in it because you are not dependent on it. Sit under a tree some day - just in the morning when the sun has not arisen, because with the sun arising your body is disturbed, and it is difficult to be at peace within. That is why the East has always been meditating before the sunrise. they have called it brahmamuhurt - The moments of the divine. And they are right, because with the sun, energies rise...

... and they start flowing in the old pattern that you have created. Just in the morning, the sun has not yet come on the horizon, everything is silent and the nature is fast asleep - the trees are asleep, the birds are asleep, the whole world is asleep; your body also inside is asleep - you have come to sit under a tree. Everything is silent. Just try to be here in this moment. Don't do anything; don't...

... absolutely wrong! If you ask Patanjali or me, this is absolutely wrong. Jesus cannot suffer. It is impossible for Jesus to suffer. And if he suffers, then there is no difference between you and him. Pain is there, but he cannot suffer. This may look mysterious, but this is not; this is simple. Pain is there. As far as we can see from the outside he is being crucified, insulted; his body is destroyed. Pain...

... when you have an ill body, try it when you have some pain - just flow with it. And once, if you can allow, you will have come to one of the most deepest secrets of life-that pain disappears if you flow with it. And if you can flow totally, pain becomes happiness. But this is not something logical to be understood. You can comprehend it intellectually, but that won't do. Try it existentially. There...

... you or the existence needs you. You are needed. Once you know your innermost nature, what Patanjali calls the purusha - the purusha means the inner dweller... The body is just a house. The inner dweller, the inner-dwelling consciousness, is purusha. Once you know this inner-dwelling consciousness, nothing is needed. You are enough, more than enough. You are perfect as you are. You are absolutely...

... STRAIGHT MEANS SITTING CROSS-LEGGED AS THE BUDDHAS DO. CONTEMPLATING REALITY MEANS SITTING MEDITATION. FORMING THE SYMBOL OF ABSORPTION IN THE COSMOS, BODY AND MIND UNMOVING, EYES HALF- OPEN, WATCHING OVER THE TIP OF THE NOSE, YOU SHOULD SEE ALL COMPOUNDED THINGS AS LIKE DREAMS, ILLUSIONS, BUBBLES, SHADOWS. DON'T GET CAUGHT UP IN THOUGHT ABOUT THEM. WHEN THE EYES ARE OPEN AND YOU CAN SEE FOR A DISTANCE...

..., YOUR MIND CAN BE DISTRACTED BY THE PROFUSION OF OBJECTS; YET IF YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES, YOU FALL INTO A STATE OF DARKNESS AND OBLIVION, AND YOUR MIND IS NOT CLEAR. WHEN YOUR EYES ARE HALF-OPEN, YOUR THOUGHTS DON'T RACE; MIND AND BODY ARE ONE THUSNESS. WHEN YOU EXAMINE CLEARLY, THE AFFLICTIONS OF BIRTH AND DEATH CANNOT BE APPROACHED. THIS IS CALLED FULFILLING BUDDHAHOOD RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE, THE MEANING...

... be coming back if somebody comes to call me; I have other things to do." In the East, when the older sister says something, when an older person says something, one has to follow. The old master, laughing, put his body on the bed and said to his disciples, "Okay, I close my eyes. Take me to the funeral pyre." They said, "Now we are even suspicious about whether you will be dead...

... pure, absolutely silent reality arises in your vision. Daikaku is saying, THE NO-MIND HAS NO ATTACHMENT TO APPEARANCES; DETACHMENT FROM APPEARANCES IS THE CHARACTER OF REALITY. AMONG THE FOUR MODES OF CONDUCT - WALKING, STANDING, SITTING, AND LYING - SITTING IS CONSIDERED TO BE STABLE AND TRANQUIL. That is true, scientifically true. These are the four positions possible for the body to create a right...

... background for the mind to become silent. If you are asleep, you are horizontal. In a horizontal state meditation is very difficult. If too much blood is rushing into your head, it will keep you awake. That's why pillows are used all over the world: to keep the head a little above the body, so the blood flow is less. With less blood flow, you can sleep. Standing, you are going too much against gravitation...

.... And you cannot go on standing for a long time, you will get tired. From where does the tiredness come? It comes from the gravitation which is pulling you down. If you are standing up, you are going against the gravitation. Those who have experimented with all the postures of the body have found that the lotus posture, the way you have seen the Buddha sitting, is the most suitable. Because the spine...

... is erect, gravitation is the least. When the spine is erect and you are sitting, the pull of gravitation is the least. Your body can have a tremendous rest. For the Westerner it is difficult because for centuries, because of the cold, people have not been sitting on the ground. Their bones, their body structure, make it difficult. For a Westerner to learn to sit in the lotus posture takes at least...

... six months to do it perfectly. Now that is too much. In six months the Western mind wants to go around the whole world. Six months just to learn to sit silently - are you mad or something? And what will you do by sitting in a lotus posture?... unnecessary torture! But it is not. Sitting in that posture it is easier for the body to be at rest and yet not asleep. The body is at rest and then you can...

... crossed legs will prevent you from falling. And you have to keep your spine erect - then there is less pull of gravitation and the body is at rest. You can remain in that posture for hours once you have learned it. In the East, at the time of Buddha, it was an ordinary posture. Everybody was sitting that way; it was nothing special to be learned. In hot countries chairs were used only by kings...

.... Everybody - even the richest people - were sitting cross-legged, and if you sit that way from your very childhood, your body takes to that posture very easily. It is so restful that you cannot conceive, until you sit that way, how much the body feels rested - far more rested than in sleep. And this cross-legged posture is for a certain purpose. CONTEMPLATING REALITY MEANS SITTING MEDITATION. FORMING THE...

... SYMBOL OF ABSORPTION IN THE COSMOS, BODY AND MIND UNMOVING, EYES HALF-OPEN... It has been a very controversial point amongst meditators in the East. Some prefer to have the eyes closed, because even if the eyes are half-open, the world - half of the world - is visible; you cannot turn in completely. So a few have preferred closed eyes. But that has one difficulty - the moment you close your eyes, you...

... ARE HALF-OPEN, YOUR THOUGHTS DON'T RACE; MIND AND BODY ARE ONE THUSNESS. WHEN YOU EXAMINE CLEARLY, THE AFFLICTIONS OF BIRTH AND DEATH CANNOT BE APPROACHED. THIS IS CALLED FULFILLING BUDDHAHOOD RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE, THE MEANING OF GREAT CAPACITY AND GREAT FUNCTION. What he is saying is basically right, but he is mixed up with the old traditional ways of meditation. Once in a while those old methods...

...... (Drumbeat) Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be completely frozen. Gather all your life force and go deeper into yourself, making your life-energy just like an arrow. Deeper and deeper.... The deeper you go, the closer you are to your buddhahood. At the deepest, you are no more, just the buddha is. This is the ultimate experience of the meditator. In this moment, the dewdrop slips into the...

... point, all life becomes sacred, divine. There is no other God than this existence itself. To make it clear, Nivedano... (Drumbeat) Relax. The body is there, the mind is there, you are a watcher. This watching is the most miraculous thing. This watching takes you to the transcendental, to the beyond, to skies beyond skies, to infinity. The joy of it, the blissfulness of it, is inexpressible, but it...

... RISING AND THE FALLING. WHAT HAPPINESS! HOW SWEET TO BE FREE! IT IS THE BEGINNING OF LIFE, OF MASTERY AND PATIENCE, OF GOOD FRIENDS ALONG THE WAY, OF A PURE AND ACTIVE LIFE. SO LIVE IN LOVE. DO YOUR WORK. MAKE AN END OF YOUR SORROWS. FOR SEE HOW THE JASMINE RELEASES AND LETS FALL ITS WITHERED FLOWERS. LET FALL WILLFULNESS AND HATRED. ARE YOU QUIET? QUIETEN YOUR BODY. QUIETEN YOUR MIND. YOU WANT NOTHING...

... coin. He is the first man who talks of bodymind as one unity. He talks for the first time about man as a psychosomatic phenomenon. He does not talk about body and mind, he talks about bodymind. They are not two, hence no 'and' is needed to join them. They are already one - bodymind - not even a hyphen is needed; bodymind is one phenomenon. And each body process has its counterpart in your psychology...

... breathing can stop and still he is. Breathing is not life; life is a far bigger phenomenon. Breathing is only a connection with the body. The connection can be cut; that does not mean that life has ended. Life is still there; life does not end just by the disappearance of breathing. Buddha says: Watch your breathing; let it be normal, as it is. Sitting silently, watch your breath. The sitting posture will...

... also be helpful; the Buddha posture, the lotus posture, is very helpful. When your spine is erect and you are sitting in a lotus posture, your legs crossed, your spine is aligned with the gravitational forces, and the body is at its best relaxed state. Let the spine be erect and the body be loose, hanging on the spine - not tense. The body should be loose, relaxed, the spine erect, so gravitation has...

... the least pull on you. Have you watched it? If you want to go to sleep you have to lie down, for the simple reason that when you are lying down flat on the ground you are in touch with the gravitational forces at the maximum, because all over the body the gravitational pull works, it pulls you. You immediately start falling asleep. It is difficult to fall asleep standing. The most difficult posture...

... to fall asleep in is the lotus posture. The body is so relaxed there is no need to fall asleep, and the gravitational forces are at the minimum; hence they cannot pull you downwards; they can't make you heavy and dull and lethargic. You are bright, you are full of life. You are more intelligent in the lotus posture than you can ever be in any other posture. The body affects your mind. Scientists...

... same capacity as man. For example, the elephant has a mind of almost the same capacity as man, but has not been able to develop it and I don't think it is ever going to happen. In circuses they try hard to teach the elephant to sit in a chair or to stand even for a few seconds on two feet, but the body is so heavy the elephant cannot manage to be on two feet. Hence the brain remains clouded; the...

... gravitational pull keeps it unconscious. Hence this lotus posture is something valuable. It is not just a body phenomenon; it affects the mind, it changes the mind. Sit in a lotus posture - the whole point is that your spine should be erect and should make a ninety-degree angle with the earth. That is the point where you are capable of being the most intelligent, the most alert, the least sleepy. And then...

... bridge between your soul and your body. If you can watch your breath rising and falling, slowly slowly you will be able to see the body as separate from yourself and also the breath as separate from yourself, because the watcher cannot be the watched, the observer cannot be the observed. Suddenly one day you will realize that you are the witness of it all. And the witness is certainly transcendental to...

... always quarreling, they are quarrelsome, hence the hatred. Drop the ego and see the beauty of egolessness. Then there is no hatred, no anger. You become so silent, your energy becomes so calm and quiet, that suddenly you start seeing the world in a different light, in a different perspective. Then this ordinary world is no longer ordinary - it becomes sacred. ARE YOU QUIET? QUIETEN YOUR BODY. QUIETEN...

... YOUR MIND. Buddha says: First start with the body and then move to the mind. Quieten your body by watching your breath, quieten your mind by watching your thoughts. YOU WANT NOTHING. YOUR WORDS ARE STILL. YOU ARE STILL. Then you will come to see that there is no desire. How can desire exist in a silent mind? Desire is a state of turmoil, desire is a state of unconsciousness, desire is mad. When you...