... body suffers; the hunger is there. He suppresses the hunger because he is on some religious fast, a religious ritual. To satisfy the ego he makes the body hungry - so that the ego can feel that he is religious, something special, not an ordinary man, a saint, a sage, not an ordinary sinner. To feed the ego you make the body hungry. You starve the body. Ego is a dream - the body is the reality. The...

... whole day you have been fasting; in the night you cannot sleep because the body goes on asking for food. It is a need, it is a necessity. You feel restless, you turn from one side to another, you cannot go to sleep. Food is a need, but rest also is a need. So the mind creates a dream: You are an honored guest in a great feast given by the king; you are eating delicious food, you go on eating.... Of...

... course the body doesn't get nourishment, but there is a false notion that you have eaten well; now you can go to sleep. In the morning you will be hungry, more than ever, but at least the dream helped you to rest and relax. One need, the need for food, could not be fulfilled, but another need, the need for rest, could be fulfilled through the dream. If you are tense you will need dreams, because they...

... prayer, a gratefulness. I tell you, not by fasting will you become religious, but when hunger is satisfied. In that moment of satisfaction a gratefulness, a gratitude arises, a prayer. You feel fulfilled. You can thank God. Never by fasting do you become religious. How can you become religious by destroying your body and being violent towards it? That is the way of the murderer, the torturer, the...

... sadist, the masochist, the somehow perverted. When you have eaten well, eaten rightly and the food suits you, in that moment a prayer arises, not only from your mind but from your body also. Satiety is a prayer. You were thirsty and you have drunk to the full. Now suddenly nothing is needed. You are absolutely perfect in that moment. You are a god, a fulfilled god. No thirst... what else is lacking? If...

... to understand it. Every seven years, physiologists say, the body and mind go through a crisis and a change. Every seven years all the cells of the body change, are completely renewed. In fact, if you live seventy years, the average limit, your body dies ten times. Each seventh year everything changes. It is just like changing seasons. In seventy years the circle is complete. The line that moves...

... part of the temple is called the womb. It is very symbolically called so, very consideredly; that is the womb one has to enter. In the last phase - nine months - one enters into oneself, one's own body becomes the womb. One moves to the innermost shrine where the flame has always been burning, where the light has always been, where the temple is, where the god has always been living. This is the...

... something was wrong, he had to be taken to the psychoanalyst. Then it was okay; but when he is twenty and running after butterflies then you should suspect something has gone wrong, he has not grown up. The body has grown, the mind is lagging behind. It must be somewhere in his childhood - he was not allowed to live it completely. If he lives the childhood completely he will become a young man: beautiful...

... already old as far as sex is concerned! Near the age of seventeen you were at the peak - so potent, so powerful, that the orgasm, the sexual orgasm, would have spread to your very cells. Your whole body would have taken a bath of eternal bliss. And when I say sex can become SAMADHI, I don't say it for people who are seventy, remember. I am saying it for people who are seventeen. About From Sex to...

... to rub against a woman's body you never miss it. What ugliness! - rubbing against a body. Something has remained unfulfilled in you. And when an old man looks with lustful eyes, there is nothing like that; it is the most ugly thing in the world when an old man looks with lust in his eyes. His eyes should be innocent now, he must be finished by now. Not that sex is something ugly; remember, I am not...

... now they say there is no average - they have come across a man who in his sixtieth year can make love five times a day. This man seems to be a freak. Something is wrong with his hormones and his body. ... And at the age of sixty! He is not natural, because as I see it - and this I am saying out of my own experience in many lives, I can remember them - by the forty-ninth year a natural man is not...

... interested in women; the interest goes. As it comes, it goes! Everything that comes has to go. Everything that arises has to fall. Every wave that arises has to disappear. There must be a time when it goes. At fourteen it comes; at forty-nine or nearabout it goes. But a man making love five times a day at the age of sixty - something is wrong, something is very very wrong. His body is not functioning...

... rightly. It is the other end of impotence, the other extreme. When a boy of fourteen does not feel any sex, a young man of eighteen has no desire, something is wrong - he has to be treated. When a man of sixty needs to make love five times a day, something is wrong. His body has gone berserk. It is not functioning rightly, naturally. If you live in the moment totally, then there is no need to worry for...

... situation you should remain non-angry. If a man tries to be non-angry in that way, what will he do? He will repress his anger. And sometimes that anger will arise in situations where it will look almost mad, out of all proportion. He will be capable of murdering some-body or committing suicide or doing something really harmful - because when so much anger is released it is very poisonous, very destructive...

... punished in hell. And they have painted hell in such colours that every body will become afraid, everybody will start trembling. Then one starts holding on to oneself, repressing oneself'. The Confucian said he could cure him. Now, firstly, the man was not ill so to say that he could be cured is stupid. But the same stupidity continues, even now. There are many people in Western countries who are not mad...

... MEDICINE AND THE NEEDLE. I SHALL TRY REFORMING HIS MIND, CHANGING HIS THOUGHTS. THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE THAT HE WILL RECOVER.' He said that he would recondition, reform, his mind. How do you recondition a mind? You start torturing the body. When the body is tortured, the consciousness that was flying beyond has to come down to look after the body, natur-ally. You exist in the body, the body is your...

... vehicle. If your body is harmed you naturally cannot fly very high, you have to come back to protect the body. That's the way to recon-dition. And that's what he did. THEN THE CONFUCIAN TRIED STRIPPING HUA TZU... If it was winter and he stripped Hua Tzu naked, naturally, when he started shivering, the mind would suddenly come back: 'You are shivering, Hua Tzu. Find your clothes.' And he would start...

... looking for his clothes. ... AND HE LOOKED FOR HIS CLOTHES, TRIED STARVING HIM, AND HE LOOKED FOR FOOD, TRIED SHUTTING HIM UP IN THE DARK, AND HE LOOKED FOR LIGHT. His consciousness was flowing higher than the mind. If you torture the body, the consciousness has to come back to the body. Have you observed it? If a small thorn enters your foot your consciousness will go there. A small thorn, but the...

... gathers around your teeth. That pain has to be tackled first. If you have a headache then everything else is forgotten. Somebody may be playing beautiful music but if you have a headache you cannot hear. Somebody may be dancing but you cannot look at it. There may be beauty all around but how can you look at the beauty? You are not free. Your headache is pulling you down into the body. This is what the...

... ROOM FOR SEVEN DAYS.' THEY AGREED.... The art is not much of a secret. The art is simply to threaten the man with death - either to beat him or to jump on his chest with a spear. So the man is threatened with death. In that moment he has to come back to his body. And when one comes to one's body the mind starts functioning again because mind is part of the body. Mind is a subtle mechanism of the body...

.... This man, Hua Tzu, had lost his contact with his mind but the mind was there - the mind is always there. Even when a person goes beyond mind the mind remains there, dormant, sleepy, in the body. If you are pulled back into the body, the mind is stirred again and starts functioning. THEY AGREED, AND NO ONE KNEW WHAT METHODS THE CONFUCIAN USED, BUT THE SICKNESS OF MANY YEARS WAS COMPLETELY DISPELLED IN...

... seems he has forgotten all, to him it seems he has remembered all. WHEN HUA TZU WOKE UP HE WAS VERY ANGRY. The same used to happen to Ramakrishna. People would try to bring him back. Naturally the disciples would become very much afraid - would he come back or not? And they would massage his feet with ghee and camphor and they would massage his head and his whole body and they would try to bring him...

... back somehow. Sometimes the disciples would even do something which looks ugly and cruel. They would suffocate him by closing his nose - because when the body is suffocated and a great need for air arises, the consciousness has to come back. Or sometimes they would burn very bitter things around him and the smoke would get into his nose and he would suffer terribly. And he would start moving, moaning...

.... Conventionality is the quality of the priest, not of the Master. The Master is always revolutionary. And this is a beautiful experiment. Listen attentively. When he arrived he was asked to wash dishes and prepare vegetables for 'some very important people' who were coming to dinner. Gurdjieff said he needed Peters to give him an 'English lesson' consisting of words for all those parts and functions of the body...

... spoke at the beginning of this century. He said, 'The addition to the body brought by technology calls for a corresponding addition to the soul.' The modern man looks more soul-less than in any other age, and the reason is: science and technology have added much to the body. The body has become stronger, lives longer. The brain has become stronger, has become more knowledgeable. Compared to the body...

... and the brain - and the brain is part of the body - the soul has remained very very poor. It is almost neglected, ignored. Nobody cares about it. Who thinks about one's own essence? Going to the church or to the temple is not going to help. You will have to go within yourself. You will have to put off your shoes. You will have to go into your naked essence. Only then will you be able to reconnect...

... known. Maybe you have forgotten consciously, but deep down in the very cells of your body, in the very fibres of your being, those days are still pulsating. Those days are still carried by your existence. They may not be conscious in your mind, but they are there. Just as when in the night you fall into deep sleep, you don't know where you go and what happens to you, but in the morning you feel the...

... relaxation, the freshness, the joy. Life has again happened to you. All the dust that you had gathered has disappeared. You are again fresh, you are rejuvenated. Your body carries the feeling. Your body is calm and quiet and remembers something. The remembrance is not in the brain; you don't know what happened exactly - where you had gone. Only a Buddha knows where he goes in his deep sleep, because even...

... PRIMAL SPIRIT AND THE TRUE NATURE OVERCOME TIME AND SPACE. And unless you overcome time and space you will not overcome death. Death exists in time, and death exists in space. Unless you overcome time and space you will not overcome mind and body. Try to understand. Body corresponds to space and mind corresponds to time. Mind is a time phenomenon and body is a space phenomenon. Body exists somewhere...

... of this whole universe. If one atom is understood you have understood all matter. If one man is understood, if you can decipher your own mystery, you have deciphered all the mysteries possible, past, present, future - all. And these two things have to be remembered: body is space, mind is time. When you meditate you disappear from the body, you don't know who you are: man, woman, ugly, beautiful...

..., black, white; you simply don't know who you are. When you go in, the body is left far behind. A moment comes when you cannot even locate your body, and you cannot even feel its presence. You are no more attached to the form; you have become formless. And the same happens with the mind: you don't know where your mind is, where that mind has gone. All that noise, that traffic noise that was constantly...

..., just ready to die and disappear from the body and the mind. He hesitates a little bit - everybody hesitates. When you come to the present, you will see eternity facing you - no past, no future, but eternity - a totally different dimension. Past, present, future are horizontal; eternity is vertical. Again, to me, the cross is the symbol of these two lines crossing. A cross is made of two lines: one...

... comes from the third eye it is immediately followed; the whole body follows it, the whole being follows it. It is the centre from which commandments are issued. But it is fast asleep. You live from the physical heart. You have not known your spiritual heart yet. THE LOWER HEART MOVES LIKE A STRONG, POWERFUL COMMANDER WHO DESPISES THE HEAVENLY RULER BECAUSE OF HIS WEAKNESS... But the physical heart...

... present. And that is the difference between a real religion and an unreal religion. The unreal religion says to you, 'Try to control yourself. Do this, don't do that. Control your senses. Discipline your body.' The real religion says, 'Just go into the third eye centre and let the spiritual heart function, and all will be controlled, and all will be disciplined. Let the master arrive, and everything...

... narrow way'. MAHAYANA means 'the great vehicle', 'the wide way'. And VAJRAYANA means 'the supreme vehicle', 'the ultimate way', 'the transcendental way'. HINAYANA is the beginning and VAJRAYANA is the climax, the crescendo. HINAYANA starts from where you are. HINAYANA tries to help you to change your mechanical habits; it is just like Hatha Yoga - very body-oriented, believes in great discipline...

... button and that centre will be stimulated inside you. There is a sex centre in the brain. In fact, you are more controlled by the sex centre in the brain than the actual sex centre of your body. That's why fantasy works so much. That's why pornography has so much appeal. The pornography cannot appeal to the sex centre itself; it stimulates the brain centre attached to the sex centre. Immediately the...

... nobody will ever know what is happening inside you. But you will almost follow the rat - then what is the point of doing anything else? You will kill yourself. Sex is such a great attraction that if there were not limitations on it.... First there is a limitation that body puts on it. A man cannot have too many orgasms in a day; if you are young, three, four; if you become older, then one; when you...

... become a little older still, then even that becomes difficult - once a week, once a month. And, by and by, your body puts so many limitations on it. Women are more free that way. The body has no limitation. That's why, all over the world, women have been completely repressed. She has not been allowed freedom; she has not been allowed even freedom to have orgasms in the past - because she can have...

.... The gain is not very substantial. You have been befooled, you have been tricked, by a natural hypnosis - you have been tricked by the body, you have been deceived. Hence comes a frustration. HINAYANA says: Watch this frustration more deeply. Watch the sexual act and the way your energy moves into the sexual act; become aware of it - and you will see there is nothing in it. And frustration. The more...

... you become aware, the less will be the enjoyment and the more will be the frustration. Then the shift has started taking place: your consciousness is moving away, AND naturally, AND spontaneously. You are not forcing it. The second step becomes available: enriching. Your OWN energy goes on feeding your being. You no more throw it into the other's body, you no more throw it out. It becomes a deep...

... sexual energy is no longer obsessed with the other's body, when you are completely free of the other's body, when your energy has a freedom to it, then MAHAYANA becomes possible - the second floor of Buddha's temple. MAHAYANA makes it possible for you to be loving. Ordinarily we think sex makes people loving - sex can never make people loving. In fact, it is sexuality that prevents love from growing...

... to me? When you were talking about Hassids I was so flowering, so floating with it - each talk - and I would go happy and dancing and joyous. And now you are talking about Buddha, since then I am very depressed. I love my man and he is a very beautiful man, and the Buddha says: Nothing is there in the body - it is just a bag full of filth. I don't want to hear things like that." I know nobody...

.... HINAYANA IS BASED IN THE BODY, the material part of your being. When you are in your body, you can enjoy life only in drops. In fact, in the East, semen is called BINDU - BINDU means a drop. You can enjoy sex only drop by drop. And you are so vast that this enjoyment drop by drop is MORE frustrating than fulfilling. I have heard: The oversized elephants were picketing the zoo. A lion happened to be...

.... That's what Freud says, that ALL pathology is somehow connected with sex. Too much sex obsession becomes neurotic. If you live in the body, you are bound to become neurotic. You have to go a little deeper and higher than the body. The second layer Buddhists call the heart; you can call it mind but the heart is a better word. The heart includes the mind; it is bigger, more satisfying, more space is...

... young people into sannyas. He had to make it absolutely certain that their energy moves from body to heart, from heart to soul. And every care has to be taken. The first sutra: THE BUDDHA SAID: "O MONKS, YOU SHOULD NOT SEE WOMEN. (IF YOU SHOULD HAVE TO SEE THEM), REFRAIN FROM TALKING TO THEM. (IF YOU SHOULD HAVE TO TALK), YOU SHOULD REFLECT IN A RIGHT SPIRIT: 'I AM NOW A HOMELESS MENDICANT. IN...

... chain on your body - millions of chains. And things become more complicated because you have decorated the chains and you think they are ornamental. In fact, you have made them golden and they seem valuable. You don't THINK they are chains. The prison you have decorated so long and so beautifully that you have forgotten that it is a prison, you think it is your home. A day is bound to come in...

...' bodies - because as far as others are concerned you can explore only the body; you cannot get deeper than that. These people have turned away from that. Now they are trying to explore their heart, they are trying to explore their transcendental witnessing self. "O MONKS, YOU SHOULD NOT SEE WOMEN." DON'T SEE WOMEN! You will be surprised: Buddha used to say to his monks that even in dream this...

... women. You close your eyes. You avoid" - because the eye is the first contact with the other. When you see a woman or when you see a man, you touch the other's body with your eyes. The eye has its own touch. That's why you are not expected to stare at somebody. If you stare, that shows you are uncivilized, unmannerly. There is a certain time-limit: three seconds you can look; that is allowed. But...

... body with the eye. The eyes can function like knives. And the eyes can be lustful, then the other feels you have reduced her or him to an object of lust - and who are you to reduce somebody? This is offensive. In Hindi we have a very beautiful word for such a person, we call him LUCHCHA. LUCHCHA means one who goes on looking at you - exactly this; literally LUCHCHA means one who goes on staring...

... if you have not talked there is no bridge; you are as distant as stars. You can sit by the side, even your bodies touching, but if you have not talked there exists no bridge, your personalities remain far away. You can see in a commuter train so many people crowding the compartment, everybody touching everybody's body, but nobody talking. They are far away from each other. Once you talk, distance...

... fingers. The fingers are the most significant parts as far as energy is concerned. Energy cannot move from anything that is round -- for example, energy cannot move out of your head. In the whole body, energy can either move through the toes of the feet or through the fingers of the hand. Energy needs finger-like, pointed instruments to move out. The disciple touches the master's feet -- that is one of...

... human energy is also a special kind of electricity. It is bioelectricity; its specialty is that the electricity you see outside is material, and the electricity that moves in your body is spiritual. It is alive, it is a living energy; hence they have given it a name: bioelectricity, living electricity. It is your third eye... and the morning is the most potential time for it to be receptive. You...

... feeling attracted. So this goes on like a rhythm: coming closer, going away; coming closer, going away. There is a longing to be one -- but on the level of biology, on the level of the body, becoming one is not possible. Even while making love you are not one; the separation on the physical level is inevitable. You are saying "Lately, I have begun to realize how even my lover is a stranger to me...

... the level of body, you can come close but you cannot become one. Only on the level of the heart, can you become one -- but only momentarily, not permanently. At the level of being, you are one. There is no need to become one; it has only to be discovered. Amiyo, you are saying, "Still there is an intense longing to overcome the separation between us." If you go on trying on the physical...

... level, you will go on failing. The longing simply shows that love needs to go beyond the body, that love wants something higher than the body, something greater than the body, something deeper than the body. Even the heart-to-heart meeting -- although sweet, although immensely joyful -- is still insufficient, because it happens only for a moment and then again strangers are strangers. Unless you...

..., parallel lines as far as lovers are concerned... in geometry they may start meeting, but in love there is no hope; they cannot meet. Your longing is the seed And it is good that they cannot meet because if lovers could satisfy their longing of becoming one at the level of physical body, they would never look upwards. They would never try to find that there was much more hidden in the physical body -- the...

... remain there unless you discover the right door to go beyond the body and to enter the temple. An old couple of ninety-three and ninety-five go to their lawyer and say that they want a divorce. "A divorce!" exclaims the lawyer. "At your age? But surely you need each other more than ever now, and anyway, you have been married so long, what is the point?" "Well," says the...

... hands. IN ITS FINENESS IT FITS INTO SPACELESSNESS. This is going really to the very peak, the ultimate peak. Meditation begins with finding a space where there is no thought, where there is no body, no form, no mind. This is the beginning. But space is still there. At the ultimate point space also disappears. Then what remains? That is the indescribable. As for space, language is capable... beyond...

... absence of all causes of disturbance. When the lake becomes silent, a mirror, it simply means that the winds have gone home, the cause of the disturbance is no more there. What is the cause of your disturbance? The one cause is identification: my body, my mind, my religion, my country, my race... There are thousands of examples but always there is identification. Drop all identifications because they...

... or idiots. You are the extraordinary people in your egos. The first, most fundamental cause is identification. So UNidentification becomes the process. Go on unidentifying - with your body, with your mind, with your feelings. Go on eliminating all identifications. Then what is left? Just a pure space - that is the last thing to be dropped. It is simply a process of merger into the ocean, into the...

... whole. You cannot remain separate. Being separate from the whole is the cause of all our misery. Being one with the whole, there is no possibility of any misery, you are no more. To be miserable, first you have to be. WHEN ERRONEOUS IMAGINATIONS CEASE, THE ACQUIESCENT NO-MIND REALIZES ITSELF. WHEN THE WOODEN MAN BEGINS TO SING... When you dance, if you are not identified with the body, what is the...

... body? Just a skeleton. Tozan is saying: WHEN THE WOODEN MAN BEGINS TO SING, THE STONE WOMAN GETS UP TO DANCE; IT'S NOT WITHIN REACH OF FEELING OR DISCRIMINATION - HOW COULD IT ADMIT OF CONSIDERATION IN THOUGHT? If you are not identified with the body or the mind, if you are just a watcher, then if a song arises in you, it is arising and flowing through your dead body. A corpse is singing, and if you...

... religion, that there is only one way of transformation and it is not discipline and fasting and standing on your head and doing all kinds of contortions of your body. There is only one way to go through a metamorphosis from the mortal to the immortal, from the prison of your identifications into the freedom of the skies. The key is watchfulness. A haiku: WHEN THE STONE MAN NODS HIS HEAD, THE WOODEN...

... Blossom. "Okay, okay!" says Blossom. "I'll tell you the truth, too. That business about twelve yellow canaries standing side by side on my husband's prick is not true. The twelfth bird can only stand on one leg!" Nivedano... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano... (Drumbeat) Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be frozen. Gather your whole consciousness inside. Concentrate it...

... more and more deeply in the center. Deeper and deeper... there is no question here. It is your own space you are entering, your own sky. This is your buddha-nature, beyond the body, beyond the mind. Just a watching, just a witnessing is the buddha. To make it clear... Nivedano... (Drumbeat) Relax. See the body lying there, see the mind lying there, but you are neither. You are standing aloof...

... question of either/or; they are both together. Two points on one line -- maybe on the extreme ends, but the line is one. So whenever a religious person exists, he cannot be consistent in the same way as a scientist is. He has a deeper consistency. It is not apparent on the surface; it is deep in his being. I am not a philosopher, and I am not trying to prove any theory to you, and I am not here talking...

... must be a consistency, this contradiction must be meeting somewhere. It must be held together by something which Roes beyond the contradiction. I am a unity. If you watch me, if you love me, you will be able to see the unity. Once you see my unity, then whatsoever I say comes out of that unity. It has to be consistent. Whether rationally you can understand or not, that is not the point. The heart has...

... needs weapons not worship. The society may not pay you, you may remain poor, but I tell you that poverty, that risk, is worth taking because inner riches will be overflowing towards you. You may die poor as far as your outside is concerned, but you will die an emperor as far as your inner being is concerned -- and ultimately only that is of any value. Question 5 MY BODY IS EXTRAORDINARILY ILL -- ROGI...

.... MY MIND IS SCIENTIFICALLY INDULGENT -- BHOGI. MY HEART IS APPROXIMATELY YOGI. NEARING TO CHILD'S TOTALITY OF ACTION, NONPOLITICALNESS, INNOCENT AND TRUTHLOVING, ARE THERE ANY CHANCES OF ENLIGHTENMENT FOR ME IN THIS LIFE? GUIDE ME AND EXPEDITE MY CASE FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD. PREPARED FOR THE WORST, I HOPE FOR THE BEST. The body is helpful if it is healthy, but it is not an absolute condition...

... -- helpful, but not absolutely necessary. If you can drop the identity with the body, if you start feeling that you are not the body, then it doesn't matter whether the body is ill or healthy. If you start going beyond it, transcending it, becoming a witness to it, then even in an ill body the enlightenment is possible. I am not saying that you should all go and become ill. If you are ill then don't feel...

... desperate, then don't feel hopeless. A healthy body is helpful. It is easier to go beyond a healthy body than beyond an ill body because the ill body needs attention. It is difficult to forget an ill body. It constantly reminds you of its misery and pain and illness. It constantly calls you back to it. It needs care; it needs no attention. It is difficult to forget it -- and if you cannot forget it it is...

... was the name of the physician who constantly had to attend to Buddha. Shankara died when he was thirty-three; That shows the body was not in very good condition; otherwise he would have lived a little longer. Thirty-three is not the time to die. So don't be worried; don't make it a hindrance. Secondly, you say, "My mind is scientifically indulgent -- bhogi." If it is really scientifically...

... heart knows no division; all divisions are of the mind. The body is ill, there is no problem. A little more effort, that's all. The mind is in indulgence, there is also not much problem. Sooner or later you will understand and come out of it. But the real problem comes with the third; approximately won't do. So look again, deep in your heart. As deep as you can, watch. Allow the heart to say and...

... existence is lost. Whenever the hidden harmony is broken, suffering arises. The suffering that is all around is only symbolic of the broken harmony. Even physiological suffering is symbolic. It means that the harmony in the body is broken. In the same way, mental suffering means that the harmony in the mind is broken. Wherever harmony is broken, there is suffering. Suffering means broken harmony and bliss...

... body is whole, it is healthy. When the body is divided, it is diseased. The word 'disease' also must be noted. It means dis-eased: two parts not at ease. So on the physiological level, help in regaining your body harmony is easily available because physiology is your outermost part. But the psyche, the mind. If the harmony of the mind is broken, there is not pain but anguish. Then suffering is deeper...

.... If old age is to come someday, in a way it has already come. Youth is useless because it is just a hiding place for old age." While they were driving back, a dead body was being carried by. Siddharth asked, "What has happened?" The chariot driver said, "The second stage. After old age, this happens." Siddharth said, "Then I am dead! Life makes no sense at all. It is...

... physical pain has gone, only then is your consciousness freed from the physiological level and it moves to the mental. The same thing happens again when there is no mental agony and the mental realm becomes harmonious. Then you become aware of spiritual suffering, spiritual agony. If the body is suffering - as it is suffering in the East you will not feel mental agony. You have no energy to feel it...

.... You're exhausted by the day to day struggle to survive. The day to day struggle for the body to somehow survive exhausts you so much that on the mental level you are simply tired, not in anguish. So whenever a society becomes materially prosperous mental agony deepens, but when a society is poor, mental agony is not there. But this is not a good sign. In the East, people think that it is a good sign...

...: we are in less mental agony than people in the West. But it is not a good sign at all. It simply shows that we are more poor, more hungry, more starved. We are so engaged with fulfilling the needs of the body that we cannot pay any attention to the mind. As far as the mind is concerned, we only feel tiredness, that's all. So this is the difference: in the East, pain is predominant - physical pain...

... disturbed in a more fundamental way. The body, is okay, the mind is okay, - now, you yourself are meaningless. You've taken care of everything - there is no pain, no anguish - but then what? When there is pain you struggle: to take care of your house, to take care of your body. There is something to do, to be engaged in and occupied with. But once your material needs are taken care of, the mind begins to...

... the part that can suffer is lost - the ego is lost, the mind is lost. You can look at it in another way. The body becomes unhealthy if it is in tension, if it is disharmonious within itself or in relation to the atmosphere. The mind becomes anguished if it is in conflict with itself or with other minds. Your being feels a sense of meaninglessness because of your body and your mind. You become...

... alienated from the cosmic spirit because of your body and your mind. Within these two boundaries, you become alien - a stranger, uprooted from the cosmic existence. You feel suffering. When these two barriers are not there, you have become one with the existence. Then there is no question for you of life having any meaning. You are not, only the cosmic is. Now you cannot die because you are not. The...

.... Once the mind is not, the mind is annihilated, there is no suffering at all, no dukkha at all. Body pain is possible even for an enlightened one - even for a Buddha, body pain is possible - but psychic anguish is not possible and dukkha is not possible. Suffering exists in all three of these dimensions. To me, the ultimate suffering is because of the ego and the ultimate bliss comes through...

...: who will pour life into it? Life has to be instilled in it by the devotee. Without that, it is just a stone. Worship only begins after life has been given to the idol. What is worship? Once you are able to invoke life into the idol, you are worshiping a real, alive deity. Try to understand this deeply: as soon as something becomes alive, the form and the formless become one... because the body is...

... three months in the burning place, your 'I' will become surrendered and it will easier to teach you. Daily, for three months, you will see dead bodies being burnt: at least on one day during these three months you will begin to think that this world is not just existing for you. When you were not here, the world existed. This person, whose body you are watching being burnt, also thought just moments...

... devotional schools to chose it as a method. The first effect of dancing is that while dancing you experience that you are not the body. Because of the fast movements of dancing you feel that you and your body are separate. In reality there is an adjustment between your body and your consciousness. It is a well-arranged adjustment: in your day to day work, that adjustment remains intact. Gurdjieff used to...

... certain place in relation to other pebbles, and it became identified with that position, its ego will be destroyed. The stone will feel, "I am no more," that it was only an arrangement, and that arrangement is no more. So the Sufis, Meera and Chaitanya, have make profound use of dancing. The Dervish dancing is very deep: in it, the dancer's body spins so fast and with such totality that every...

... cell and fiber of his body vibrates. This breaks the relationship between the body and the consciousness, and suddenly the dancer realizes that he is separate from his body. So using dance for worship is very valuable. There are two Christian sects, one of which is known as the Quakers and the other as the Shakers. The Quakers, even today, are quite influential. The names of the sects are very...

... significant. During their worship, the Shakers shake the body so vigorously that every nerve and fiber of the body becomes a trembling. Standing in front of his idol, when his body vibrates so strongly, the Shaker perspires heavily. At that point he will experience that his consciousness is separate from his body. Then that consciousness moves into worship. The Quakers' name is meaningful - their bodies...

... quake very strongly when they worship. In an earthquake, the land vibrates so much that everything comes crashing down; the Quakers also quake so much that the body's connection with the consciousness is broken. This type of movement, dance and devotional songs, have all been used to create a gap between body and consciousness. In this connection let us understand a little about the science of sound...

... thoughts becomes less and less. The sound of "Mu... mu" continues to reverberate; a sort of storm is created within; it becomes like a sword and cuts off all thinking. After seven days he doesn't need to create the sound: it becomes automatic and spreads all over his body. Whatsoever he may be doing - sitting or walking... anything - within him the silent repetition of "Mu... mu"...

..., his face and his behavior change. His teacher goes on goading him to continue. Once he begins to roar, his eating, drinking and sleeping drop. In the fourth week he becomes as if mad - a state where he has no awareness of anything except the sound, "Mu... mu." If you ask his name, he will reply, "Mu." He loses all awareness of his body, only the awareness of "Mu..."...

... of life and death, as if you are totally staking everything on it. Every hair, every cell, every fiber of the body participates; every nerve, every bone, every piece of flesh and muscle become involved... every drop of blood has to call aloud. When your whole existence becomes that sound, there will be results. The devotee has to repeat only one word, or a line of a song, for years together, for a...

... and muscles, through the whole mechanism of the body. For example, if in my mind the thought has arisen to love you and to take your hand in mine, immediately that thought begins to travel - passing from the brain and the mechanism of the body until it reaches to my fingertips. Rudolf says that when a thought it born it has the power of one hundred units; by the time it reaches the fingertips, only...

... one unit remains. Ninety-nine units of power are used up in the transmission, in translating that thought into action. All thoughts become lifeless by the time they reach the outer surface of the body. That's why more happiness is actually experienced at the thought of taking your beloved's hand than the experience of it. At the moment of the experience you feel the experience was not as satisfying...

... to one unit. Sometimes the potentiality is zero or is even negative. If the body is sick, the energy lost as the thought travels through consumes all the power and turns it negative. So if you are sick, you may have expected to feel happy when you held your beloved's hand, but instead, by the time the thought has traveled to your hand, taking her hand makes you unhappy. The experience becomes...

... negative. Rudolf says that if this is true, then man will never become happy. Is there no way that one's thought can directly jump into another's mind? Religion says there is. Rudolf has also confirmed this through hundreds of experiments - that my thought can take a direct jump into another's mind, without using the medium of my physical body. To do so, I stop my thought at the third eye center by...

... in your mind. That small sun becomes focused and highly potent. The thought is not allowed to spread to the rest of the body, which would allow loss of energy; the energy has to accumulate at one point, where it remains focused like a strong ray of light. Just when you feel that it cannot become more focused, more concentrated - that is the moment for the thought to jump. At exactly that moment you...

... TRANSIENT AND UNSTABLE AS A DROPLET ON THE LOTUS LEAF. UNDERSTAND IT WELL THAT THE WORLD IS SUFFERING FROM THE DISEASE OF EGO AND IS WOUNDED BY SORROWS. THE FAMILY TAKES INTEREST IN YOU ONLY AS LONG AS YOU ARE CAPABLE OF EARNING MONEY. AS OLD AGE COMES AND THE BODY BECOMES DECREPIT, NO ONE IN THE HOUSE EVEN BOTHERS ABOUT YOU. ONLY AS LONG AS THERE IS LIFE IN THE BODY, DO THE PEOPLE IN THE FAMILY CARE FOR...

... YOU. THE LIFE GONE OUT, THE BODY FALLEN LIFELESS, EVEN ONE'S OWN WIFE IS AFRAID OF THAT BODY. A CHILD IS OBSESSED IN PLAYING GAMES, A YOUNG MAN IS OBSESSED IN YOUNG WOMEN, THE OLD ARE OBSESSED WITH WORRIES. MAN NEVER TURNS TOWARDS THE DIVINE. The first and the basic sutra to be understood is that truth is attained in emptiness and is lost in words. Truth is attained in silence and is lost in speech...

... even before the birth of your father and mother? This question is regarding the soul. What you have received from your mother and father is the body; your face was also received from them. But what is your basic face, the original face? What is your nature? And Zen monks say that the reply to this question cannot be given in words, its reply should be a living expression. As soon as this question was...

... women. The breasts are the part of a woman's body which hypnotizes man's mind the most. Women keep trying to hide the breasts and men keep trying to uncover them. Women know what attracts men and men also know what interests them in a woman's body. As civilization develops this problem also goes on increasing. The fact is that the uncivilized tribes have no attraction to the breasts because their...

... a woman's body? Certainly there is something. Your body is built by a meeting of the bodies of a man and a woman - half is given to your body by the man and half by the woman. Every person is half woman and half man - it is a mixture of both. Your whole existence is half man, half woman; it is incomplete. The womanly half in you goes on yearning for the man and the manly half in you goes on...

... interdependent. That is why Shankara says: DO NOT BE INFATUATED BY THE BEAUTY, THE BREASTS, THE NAVEL AND THE WAISTLINE OF A WOMAN. Shankara is speaking to men, because in those days, especially in this country, religion was monopolized by men. But the same thing has to be told to women also, that there is nothing special in the body of man which should obsess or hypnotize her. These words of Shankara and...

... other words of this type by other saints have created a misunderstanding. It seems that there is nothing in the body of a woman but there is something special in the body of a man. Actually, there is nothing in any body. Men look at a woman's body contemptuously saying, "It is nothing but bone and flesh and fat." But what about man's body? Is it made of gold, silver or diamonds? As long as...

... you do not see the bones, flesh and fat in your own body you cannot see them in a woman's body. Because of the misunderstanding of these words, it has become a tradition to condemn women. Men think that women are the cause of their bondage. But who has put women in bondage? Men think that women are the main obstacle in their attainment of liberation. But the question is: if woman is the obstacle in...

... will be spent in the effort of holding on to it. Today this body is; by tomorrow it will perish. Many such bodies have existed and perished. The world is transient, unstable and ever-changing. Don't make your home here, this is only a night's shelter. One stops here for the night and has to go away in the morning. If you have made a home here you will be unhappy - that is why you are unhappy. People...

... love you as long as you have the energy to earn money. When you become old and the body becomes weak, nobody bothers about you. Therefore, OH IDIOT! ALWAYS SING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE. If you have to have a family, make it with the divine. If you have to marry, then marry the divine. The marriages of this world are nothing but divorces. All the relationships in this world are shallow. There is no...

...." The very reason for which they were getting married was gone. This is your sort of relationship. You do not mean what you say. You are deceiving most of the time and sometimes you deceive yourself also. You not only deceive others, you also deceive yourself. Man is very cunning; he deceives even himself. The family members go on inquiring about your welfare as long as there is life in the body...

.... When the body becomes lifeless your own wife is scared of that body. Therefore, OH IDIOT! ALWAYS SING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE. It is better to be in the company of the one who can be with you always. The company of those whom you meet for a short time while traveling together or while crossing a river in a boat does not count much. That company is momentary: for some time travelers are together, they...