... behaves that way. That's why you cannot ask for consistency from a Buddha. You cannot. Thought can be consistent, a thinker is bound to be consistent - but an enlightened person cannot be consistent, because each moment the situation changes. And each moment things come out of his emptiness. He cannot force. He cannot think. He does not really remember what he said yesterday. Every question creates a...

.... But remember, my answers are not to the questions, but to the questioners. I respond. I look at the man, I see through the man, the man becomes transparent - and this is my response. The question is irrelevant; the questioner is relevant." You cannot ask for consistency from an enlightened person. Only unenlightened, ignorant persons can be consistent, because they don't have to look. They just...

... answers, but his consistency is not in the answers - his consistency is in his effort to help. He wanted to help the first man. He wanted to help the second man. He wanted to help the third man. For all three, compassion was there, love was there. He wanted to help them - that is his consistency. But it is a deep current. His words are different, his answers are different, but his compassion is the same...

... can preserve it in the circumstances, then only will the theory have become an experience. Then you know that nothing disturbs. Then you know it is you ultimately who are disturbed or not disturbed. But make it an experience - just as a theory it is useless. The fourth question: Question 4: IT IS ONE THING TO REALIZE COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS ON EARTH, AND TRANSCEND BODY. BUT HOW DO REALIZED ONES KNOW...

... FOR SURE THAT THIS CONSCIOUSNESS IS ETERNAL AND WILL REMAIN AFTER THE DEATH OF THE BODY? The first thing is they don't bother about it. They are not worried about whether it will remain or not. It is you who are worried. They don't think of the next moment. The next life is just irrelevant; even the next day, the next moment, is not a point of concern. It is you who always ask about something in the...

... happen to you when your body dies?" And Buddha insisted again and again, "Anand, why are you so concerned about the future? Why don't you look at me, at what is happening now?" But again, after a few days, he will ask, "What happens to an enlightened one when his body dies?" He is afraid about himself. He is afraid. He knows that when the body dies there is no possibility of...

... body. But Buddha says, "I am here and now. What will happen in the future is not a concern at all." So the first thing is that a realized one is not bothered. That is one of the signs of a realized one - he is not bothered by the future. And the second thing - you asked, how does he know for sure? Knowledge is always sure. Certainty is inherent, intrinsic, to knowledge. You have a headache...

... he is not this body; he knows that inside he is just a vast space. And space cannot die. Things can die, space cannot die. Just think about this room. We can destroy this building, this "Woodlands", but we cannot destroy the roominess in this room. Can you destroy it? The walls can be destroyed, but we are sitting here in this roominess, space. The walls can be destroyed, but how can you...

... destroy this room - not the walls, the space here? The whole of "Woodlands" may disappear - it will disappear one day - but this space will remain. Your body will disappear and because you don't know the inner space, you are afraid. You want to know it for sure. But an enlightened man knows that he is the space - not the body, not the walls, but the inner space. The walls will drop, they have...

..., another flame takes over. And a successor is created, and they go on living. But if your light is not there, if your lamp is without a flame, you cannot help anyone. The first basic thing is that you must attain your inner flame. Then others can share. Then you can kindle others' light also. Then it becomes a succession. Then you may disappear from the body but your flame goes on passing from hand to...

.... It is hidden, and it is hidden in very, very small things. The persona is just like clothes. Your body is here, hidden in clothes; in the same way your spirituality is here, hidden in certain clothes. These clothes are your personality. You can be naked just here and now, and in the same way you can be naked in your spirituality also. But you do not know what the clothes are. You do not know how...

.... You have to dig a little bit to remove the earth. And when I say remove the earth, it is not only symbolically that I am saying it. Literally your body is part of the earth, and you have become identified with the body. Remove this earth a little bit, create a hole in it, and you will come to know the treasure. That is why this question will occur to many. Really, to everyone this question will...

... effects. So do not think that the Himalayas are bigger because they have such a big body. The Himalayas are just impotent before an atomic explosion. One small atom can wipe out the whole Himalayas. Size in gross material is not necessarily power. On the contrary, the smaller the unit, the more penetrating. The smaller the unit, the more intensely it is filled with power. These small techniques are...

... passage, only then will you begin, by and by, to be aware of the breath itself. And when you become aware of the breath, then you will be capable of being aware of the gap, the interval. It is not so easy as it looks. For tantra, for all seeking, there are layers of awareness. If I embrace you, first you will become aware of my touch upon your body; not of my love, my love is not so gross. And...

... ordinarily we never become aware of love. We are aware only of the body in movement. We know loving movements, we know non-loving movements - but we have never known love itself. If I kiss you, you become aware of the touch, not of my love; that love is a very subtle thing. And unless you become aware of my love the kiss is just dead, it means nothing. If you can become aware of my love, then only can you...

... starts forcing its own way upon you. Your experiences are being added to the mind. Constantly, your past is conditioning your every present moment. If I say something to you, you are not going to think about it in a fresh way, in an open way. Your old mind, your past will come in between, will begin to talk and chatter for or against. Remember, your mind is not yours, your body is not yours; it comes...

... from your parents. Your mind is also not yours; it also comes from your parents. Who are you? Either one is identified with the body or with the mind. You think you are young, you think you are old, you think you are a Hindu, you think you are a Jain, you are a Parsee. You are not! You were born as a pure consciousness. These are all imprisonments. These techniques which look so simple to you will...

... past and future are part of the mind, the memory and the imagination. Then you are here and now in the present. Now there is not going to be any future. There will be now and now and now - eternal now. Then you are freed completely; you transcend all tradition, all history, body, mind, everything. One becomes free of the fearful. Such freedom? Then where will YOU be? In such freedom, can you exist...

... out, you will find that your body is a combination. Something has come from your mother, something has come from your father, and all else has come from food. This is your body. In this body you are NOT, there is no self. Contemplate on the mind: something has come from here, something from there. Mind has nothing that is original. It is just accumulation. Find out if there is any self in the mind...

.... If you move deep, you will find that your identity is just like an onion. You peel off one layer and another layer comes up; you peel off another layer and still another layer comes up. You go on peeling layers off, and ultimately you come to a nothingness. With all the layers thrown off, there is nothing inside. Body and mind are like onions. When you have peeled off both body and mind, then you...

..., you remain there. Just look into the fire, at the burning body. When everything is becoming smoke, you just look at it deeply. Do not think, just meditate on it for three months, six months, nine months. "When it becomes a certainty to you that death cannot be escaped, when it becomes absolutely certain that death is the way of life, that death is implied in life, that death is going to be...

... THOSE ALIVE ARE NOT AFRAID TO DIE. THERE WILD FLOWERS COME UP THROUGH THE LEAFY FLOOR, AMD THE FRAGRANCE OF 'I AM HE' FLOATS ON THE WIND. THERE THE BEE OF THE HEART STAYS DEEP INSIDE THE FLOWER, AND CARES FOR NO OTHER THING. DON'T GO OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE TO SEE FLOWERS. MY FRIEND, DON'T BOTHER WITH THAT EXCURSION. INSIDE YOUR BODY THERE ARE FLOWERS. ONE FLOWER HAS A THOUSAND PETALS. THAT WILL DO FOR A...

... PLACE TO SIT. SITTING THERE YOU WILL HAVE A GLIMPSE OF BEAUTY INSIDE THE BODY AND OUT OF IT, BEFORE GARDENS AND AFTER GARDENS. MAN IS AWAKE AND YET NOT AWAKE. His wakefulness is very thin, his wakefulness is almost of no use. He is not asleep, that is true, but he is not awake either -- he is in limbo, in the middle. He has awakened from the world of animals, but he is fast asleep to the world of gods...

... and to insult the dying man, he also threw a roseflower -- for two reasons. Must have been a very diplomatic mind: so people knew that he was also throwing something, that he was not in favour of Mansoor, and Mansoor would know that he had not thrown a stone or mud -- he had thrown a roseflower. But the story is tremendously beautiful... When he was being hit by stones and his whole body was oozing...

... blood, he was laughing, he was in a state of celebration, because he was being sacrificed in the name of God. It was a moment to celebrate! But when he was hit by the roseflower, he wept -- the story says Mansoor wept. Somebody standing nearby asked him, "What is the matter with you? Stones are being thrown at you; all over the body you have been wounded, blood is flowing from everywhere, and you...

... OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE TO SEE FLOWERS. MY FRIEND, DON'T BOTHER WITH THAT EXCURSION. INSIDE YOUR BODY THERE ARE FLOWERS. HE IS INDICATING TOWARDS THE SEVEN CENTERS -- the seven chakras. Those seven chakras are called seven flowers. We become aware only of the first, and that too in a very dim and dismal way -- a sound heard from far away, or just an echo. We become aware of the first center only, the sex...

... center, and that too only once in a while. All your sexual experiences don't bring you to the awareness of the flower. Only when you have a deep orgasm, only when you have a total orgasm, when your whole body pulsates with joy, when each fiber of your body dances with joy, when each cell of your body goes mad, wild with joy -- then only do you become aware of the first flower. Even that is very rare...

... being. You may be in the human body, but you are a God. The Western mind finds it very difficult; they cannot understand why we call Buddha a God, why we call Mahavira a God, why we call Krishna a God. They don't even call Jesus a God; they only call him 'the son of God'. Their idea of God is: one who created the world. But in the East we have gone far deeper than that. Nobody has ever created the...

... state AVATARA. The word AVATARA means descendence: when a person is open towards the sky, the sky descends in him, he becomes an AVATARA. DON'T GO OUTSIDE, says Kabir, YOUR HOUSE... has all that you are searching and seeking outside. DON'T GO OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE TO SEE FLOWERS. MY FRIEND, DON'T BOTHER WITH THAT EXCURSION. INSIDE YOUR BODY THERE ARE FLOWERS. ONE FLOWER HAS A THOUSAND PETALS. Six are...

... inner sky -- which is far more beautiful. SITTING THERE YOU WILL HAVE A GLIMPSE OF BEAUTY INSIDE THE BODY AND OUT OF IT, BEFORE GARDENS AND AFTER GARDENS. Once you have seen the inner beauty, then you will be able to see the outer also as beautiful. Once you have seen God within, you will be able to see him without too. The original is very beautiful: BAGO NA JA RE NA JA, TERI KAYA MEN GULJAR. Don't...

... go to the gardens! The garden is within you. Don't go, don't go, don't go to the gardens. BAGO NA JA RE NA JA, TERI KAYA MEN GULJAR. Within your own body is the garden of gardens. SAHAS-KANVAL PAR BAITH KE TU DEKHE RUP APAR. Find out where this one-thousand-petalled lotus is within you, and then sit upon it, and then see the beauty of the formless, then see the beauty of the invisible, then see the...

... to make the potential actual. Be what your seed is carrying within you. Become it! Be it! This small body is not small: it contains a universe. And this body is not just a body: it is the temple of God. Love it, respect it, explore it. And don't get stuck at the first center. You have to move from sex to samadhi. Unless your sexual energies are transformed into samadhi you are not fulfilling your...

...: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. QUIETEN YOUR MIND. REFLECT. WATCH. NOTHING BINDS YOU. YOU ARE FREE. YOU ARE STRONG. YOU HAVE COME TO THE END. FREE FROM PASSION AND DESIRE, YOU HAVE STRIPPED THE THORNS FROM THE STEM. THIS IS YOUR LAST BODY. YOU ARE WISE. YOU ARE FREE FROM DESIRE AND YOU UNDERSTAND WORDS AND THE STITCHING TOGETHER OF WORDS. AND YOU WANT NOTHING. "...

... monk entered in the town and the non-Jainas objected that a naked man walking inside the town.... "This is bad for our children and our wives and our daughters." I am not against nudity, but I am also not in favor of Jaina monks moving naked. My reason is totally different; my reason is that they look so ugly. Unless you have a beautiful body you don't have the right to be naked. I can...

... accept Mahavira moving naked. It is said that he had one of the most beautiful bodies - and it seems so because all his statues are so beautiful. He must have had a very beautiful body, very proportionate. If he moved naked, that can be understood. To cover his beautiful body with clothes will not be right. But Jaina monks deliberately destroy their bodies. They are masochistic people: they cripple...

... their bodies in many ways. They make them as ugly as they can, because the uglier your body is, the more respected you are. So they become caricatures. They are cartoons, not real people. It is better to cover them in beautiful clothes. It depends what your criteria are, what your values are. But in reality, nothing is good and nothing is bad; things are simply what they are. If you witness then there...

... STRIPPED THE THORNS FROM THE STEM. THIS IS YOUR LAST BODY. If you can fulfill the requirement of being silent, reflecting, witnessing, then you are strong, you are no longer weak. The man who lives in desires always feels weak because thousands of desires are pulling him in different directions. He is almost falling apart. Somehow he is keeping himself together, managing, dragging. He is tired, but he...

... THORNS FROM THE STEM. THIS IS YOUR LAST BODY. If you can be free from passion and desire.... Passion is a state of fever, it is a hot state. We know only two states: either we are very hot - that is passion - or we are very cold - that is anti-passion. If you love, you become very hot; if you hate, you become very cold. And exactly in the middle is the point where you should stop. That point is neither...

... nothing but that "Life has been a tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing. And now comes death, and all is finished." But to a meditator, death is not the end but the beginning of a new life. Buddha says: THIS IS YOUR LAST BODY. If you have quietened the mind, if you have become free from desire and passion: THIS IS YOUR LAST BODY. Now you will be born into a bodiless...

... existence. Now you will be part of the invisible life, the eternal life which knows no birth, no death. The body is a limitation, the body confines you. You are unlimited consciousness, but your body forces you into a small, dark hole. You live in a dark hole, in a dark cave. Of course, it is going to be miserable. You are vast and somehow you have been forced to live in a small space. Nobody has done it...

... to you; you yourself go on doing it. Each time you die, you die with desires. Those desires bring you back into new wombs. Those desires give you another body. If you can die without desires, then there is no longer any birth. When there is no birth there is no old age, no death. And when there is no birth there is no time. You go beyond time. You live in eternity, you become divine. That's what...

... understand anything. More is the possibility that you will misunderstand. From where will you get the right perspective to understand them? With all your passions and desires and all your confusion and clouded mind, how are you going to understand the Upanishads, the Koran? Impossible. They come from people who had gone beyond the body. Unless YOU go beyond the body you will not understand them. You can...

... Bombay, India Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. SARVA KARMA NIRAAKARANAM AAWAHANAM CESSATION OF THE CAUSE OF ALL ACTIONS IS AAWAHANAM - THE INVOCATION. RELIGION is not ritual. Really, when a religion dies it becomes ritual: the dead body of a religion becomes the ritual. But everywhere ritual is to be found. If you go to find religion, you...

... you feel anger inside, your body begins to take certain postures. If you begin to feel silence inside, your body will take certain other postures. When there is silence inside, the body will show it in many ways. The silence, the inner peace, the stillness, will be shown by the body in many ways. But this is always secondary. The inner is basic and the outer is secondary. It is a consequence, not a...

..., the primary. How can we know what has happened in Buddha's inner consciousness? But we can observe his body, his movements, his gestures. They are related to the inner; they show something - but they are related not as causes but as consequences. So you cannot go back. The vice versa will not be true. If the inner is there, the outer will follow. But the vice versa is not true: if the outer is there...

..., there is no necessity that the inner should follow - there is no necessity. For example, if I am angry, then my body will show anger, but I can show anger in my body without being angry at all. An actor is doing that. He is expressing anger through his eyes, through his hands; he is expressing love - without feeling anything inside. He is showing fear, his whole body is trembling and shaking, but...

... there is no fear inside. So the outer can be without the inner. We can impose it. There is no reason, there is no basis, no necessity, no inevitability, that the inner should follow the outer. The outer always follows the inner, but never the vice versa. Ritual is born because of this fallacy. We see a Buddha sitting in a silent posture - in siddhasan, the most relaxed posture for the body. This...

... posture is a consequence of an inner quietude. It is there because the consciousness has become so still that the body follows it, and the body spontaneously takes the most relaxed posture. But for us the body is the first thing to be noticed. We see the body first so we say that Buddha achieved Liberation in this posture. Really, quite the reverse is the case: because Buddha achieved Liberation, this...

... is there; no follower is there. They have all escaped because it is dangerous to be there. Even they can be crucified. Only this prostitute is standing there, and this prostitute helped to take Jesus' dead body down from the cross. So it seems pertinent to ask "Who is not a prostitute?" And was it good for Jesus to stay with this prostitute or not? - because only this poor woman remained...

... mystery of creating life, lies within the mother. There is no such key or mystery in the father's body. Therefore the father can at any time be proclaimed redundant. Even an injection can perform his part in the creation of the child. Besides, if I want to become the father of a child, 10,000 years hence, I can; but if a mother desires to be the mother of a child 10,000 years hence, she cannot be. This...

... becomes a mother in the true sense of the word, her existence becomes fulfilled in her most inner-most depths. Nature has chosen woman as a source of creation. We shall have to understand the Female-Mystery that Lao Tzu speaks of, in the female body, in order to understand the Female-Mystery of Existence. Our difficulties are manifold because all the effort to understand Existence, has been done by the...

... very many things. Even in the matter of sex, woman is passive. Never in the history of the world has a woman been accused for an outrage. This is an impossibility for her. A man commits outrage. 99 times out of also 99 Woman's personality is receptive. Not only this but even her body has been so designed by nature that she can be nothing but receptive. It is the man who commits the aggression, which...

... is absolutely coincidental and which can be done away with. The man's body is aggressive but creation takes place only through the woman who is receptive only. Scientists say that birth always takes place in darkness. The seed sprouts only in the darkness of the soil. Take the seeds out in the light and the seed stops sprouting. The birth of a child takes place in the darkness of the mother's womb...

... ruffians, woman could not. You will be surprised tO know that to a 100 girls that are born, there are 116 boys born. Nature keeps the balance for the body of a male is weak. We always think that man is the stronger of the two but this is a mere notion. That is why 116 boys are born to every 101 girls that are born, 16 boys die before they reach the age of 14 and so the number becomes equal. Nature has to...

... produce 16 boys more; they are the extras needed to keep the balance. The average age of a woman is more than a man's by Date: Fri, 5 to 7 years. If a man lives for 70 years, the woman lives till 75. How much labour the woman's body undergoes! The labour involved in giving birth to one child is the same as the labour involved in producing one atom-bomb! And a woman can produce 20 children and still live...

... reach the man's, it silently sucks up his organ within herself. The man has no need to make any effort. If the woman's love is strong, her body sucks up his organ as air is sucked up into an empty space. This is a very astonishing fact. And if this does not come about the only reason is that the woman does not love this man therefore, her body does not perform the act of suction. Hence all actions of...

... awaiting for a great mystery to unfold itself. When a woman becomes pregnant, the husband is worried. This is natural, for there is no awaiting as far as the man is concerned; for him it is yet another economic problem. The mother, however, becomes tender. As the child develops within her, the depth in her eyes grows deeper. There is the unfoldment of new elements within her body. The beauty of a...

... natural. Biologists say that the nucleus of the egg from which a female is born contains similar chromosomes - xx whereas the nucleus of the egg from which a male is born are not similar, they are x, y. The elements that go into forming a female are alike, therefore the woman is graceful and shapely whereas man is not. The well-balanced chromosomes give the shapeliness of curves to a woman's body. There...

... is no such balance in the male body. Besides, the female body is made out of 48 chromosomes - the full number of chromosomes from both the male and female egg - whereas the male body is formed of 47 chromosomes. Biologists say it is the lack of this one chromosome that makes a man so restless and sends him running all his life. He runs from one place to another, from earth to the moon. It is the...

... feet! Why? Because that which creates, destroys also. Destruction is the other part of creation. Those were wonderful people who conceived this image. They were people with great imagination who could visualise great possibilities. They have erected the image of Mother standing on a dead body! In her hands she holds the head of a dead man, dripping blood. Round her neck she wears a necklace of skulls...

... titillating, the more manly. So when a Western film director chooses a hero for his films, he takes care to see that he has hair on his chest and his arms. When he chooses a heroine, she should be without any hair on her body. The man should appear a little savage, a little raw, then the sexual attraction is more. The Negro is feared today and the fear is less monetary and more psychological. As a man...

... IS PUT ON THE BODY, ALL THINGS ARE OF THEIR SUCHNESS." SOZAN SAID, "WHAT IS THE ACTIVITY BENEATH PAPER CLOTHES?" SHIE DOJA CAME NEAR HIM, DID AS HE WAS ASKED, AND DIED STANDING UP. SOZAN SAID, "YOU HAVE EXPOUNDED THE GOING, BUT HOW ABOUT THE COMING?" SHIE DOJA SUDDENLY OPENED HIS EYES AND ASKED, "HOW ABOUT WHEN A SPIRITUAL NATURE DOES NOT BORROW A PLACENTA?" SOZAN...

... SAID, "THIS IS NOT YET WONDERFUL." SHIE DOJA ASKED, "WHAT IS WONDERFUL THEN?" SOZAN SAID, "NOT-BORROWING BORROWING." SHIE DOJA THEREUPON SAID, "BE HAPPY, BE WELL!" AND DIED, SITTING. SOZAN MADE A VERSE: THE ENLIGHTENED MIND IS A PERFECT AND FORMLESS BODY. DO NOT BELIEVE, UNREASONABLY, THAT IT IS FAR OFF OR NEAR! THOUGHTS OF DIFFERENCE BECLOUD THE ORIGINAL FORM...

... A LEATHER GARMENT IS PUT ON THE BODY, ALL THINGS ARE OF THEIR SUCHNESS." SOZAN SAID, "WHAT IS THE ACTIVITY BEHIND PAPER CLOTHES?" He has not understood the answer that Doja has given. The moment you move behind your bodies which are nothing but paper clothes, what you find is pure suchness - tathata, thisness: a tremendously beautiful space but no entity as an ego, a space without...

... boundaries, full of joy, full of peace, full of benediction. But it is not a thing, you cannot hold it in your hand. It is not an object, it is your very subjectivity. It is your very innermost consciousness. SHIE DOJA CAME NEAR HIM, DID AS HE WAS ASKED, - he was asked by Sozan, "WHAT IS THE ACTIVITY BENEATH PAPER CLOTHES?" He stood before Sozan AND DIED STANDING UP, left the body, which remained...

... simply a hollow bamboo without any music. SOZAN SAID, "YOU HAVE EXPOUNDED THE GOING," - certainly these people were strange people, worthy of the respect and dignity of all the centuries. Doja has died to show that which is hidden inside. He left the body, but Sozan is not a lesser master than Doja. SOZAN SAID, "YOU HAVE EXPOUNDED..." Look, a dead body is standing before you and he...

... BORROW A PLACENTA?" These people are the very salt of the earth. Doja opened his eyes, came back into the body and said, "HOW ABOUT WHEN A SPIRITUAL NATURE DOES NOT BORROW A PLACENTA?" - when a spiritual being does not enter into another womb to borrow a placenta? SOZAN SAID, "THIS IS NOT YET WONDERFUL." SHIE DOJA ASKED, "WHAT IS WONDERFUL THEN?" SOZAN SAID, "NOT...

... are beyond the sides. For the moment you can play the game. SOZAN on the death of Doja, MADE A VERSE. Such beautiful people! Somebody is dying and you make a verse. THE ENLIGHTENED MIND IS A PERFECT AND FORMLESS BODY. DO NOT BELIEVE, UNREASONABLY, THAT IT IS FAR OFF OR NEAR! THOUGHTS OF DIFFERENCE BECLOUD THE ORIGINAL FORM. A MIND AT VARIANCE WITH ITSELF CANNOT BE IN HARMONY WITH THE WAY. WHEN...

... negative mood when it finished.] A reaction can be delayed, sometimes by days or even weeks, because we have a very complex being. There is the body which functions on its own. It doesn't care about your mind; it is not very aware of it, and cannot be. It goes on its own autonomous system. It works on its own, and it has to, because if it listens to the mind then everything will be disturbed. You eat...

... - then the body goes on digesting. Whether you sleep, walk, talk; whether you are happy or unhappy, the body goes on digesting. It has to work: blood has to circulate, breathing has to come and go, a thousand and one chemical things continue. Then there is your mind. It has its own autonomous world, it moves in its own circles. Even when you are meditating it goes on doing things. Then there is your...

... heart, the emotive centre. So these are the three basic centres - the heart, the emotive centre, the mind, the thinking centre, and your body, the centre for all motion, all activity. When you work on your body and something happens there, it may take days for the mind to take note of it, because its first tendency is not to take note. It may be just a passing thing, so why worry... but if it insists...

..., if it goes on knocking on the head, the mind starts taking note of it. If something happens in the mind, the body will not take note of it - it may be just a mood, it may not be anything essential - but if the mind goes on deepening and deepening it, then one day the body takes note of it; then suddenly there is a bridge and the recognition arises. The same is with the heart - and when all three...

... your being so a centre arises. An integrated feeling arises which is of the heart and the body and the mind, to which all contribute, and which is something which doesn't belong to anyone; it belongs to all. It surrounds your whole being like a glow. It takes time... but it has been good. Whatsoever you are feeling, nourish it, cherish it, and help it to continue in you. [Another group participant...

...; just hit-and-run, just touching the surface and escaping before anything becomes a commitment. Then you can only have sex, and that too, impoverished. It is just superficial. Only boundaries meet, but that is not love at all... maybe a body release, a catharsis, but not more than that. The fear is that now you want to go deeper; it is not that the girl may be lost. You are afraid and hesitant. We can...

..., perceptions. They have nothing in common. Between Hinduism and Jainism there is nothing in common; between Hinduism and Buddhism there is nothing in common. There is only one common thing that none of these religions can deny: yoga. Buddha says, "There is no body, there is no soul," but he cannot say, "There is no yoga." Mahavira says, "There is no body, but there is a soul,"...

...; but he cannot say, "There is no yoga." Hinduism says, "There is body, there is soul - and there is yoga." Yoga remains constant. Even Christianity cannot deny it; even Mohammedanism cannot deny it. In fact, even someone who is totally atheistically oriented cannot deny yoga because yoga doesn't make it a precondition to believe in God. Yoga has no preconditions; yoga is...

... there. If the eyes were open, they would have to remain open; if the mouth was open - you were just about to say something - the mouth would have to remain as it was. No movement! This method begins with the body. If there is no movement in the body, suddenly there is no movement in the mind. The two are associated: you cannot move your body without some inner movement of the mind, and you cannot stop...

... your body totally without stopping the inner movement of the mind. Body and mind are not two things; they are one energy. The energy is more dense in the body than it is in the mind; the density differs, the frequency of the wavelength differs, but it is the same wave, the same flow of energy. Seekers were practicing this Stop Exercise continually for one month. One day Gurdjieff was in his tent and...

... matter. But there has not been a single philosopher, sage, or religious mystic in the past who has declared this unity; they were all in favor of dividing man, calling one side real and the other side unreal. This has created an atmosphere of schizophrenia all over the earth. You cannot live just as a body. That's what Jesus means when he says, "Man cannot live by bread alone" - but this is...

... misery, anguish, and a tremendous darkness; a night that has lasted for thousands of years, that seems to have no end. If you listen to the body, you condemn yourself; if you don't listen to the body, you suffer - you are hungry, you are poor, you are thirsty. If you listen to consciousness only, your growth will be lopsided: your consciousness will grow but your body will shrink, and the balance will...

... be lost. And in the balance is your health, in the balance is your wholeness, in the balance is your joy, your song, your dance. The West has chosen to listen to the body, and has become completely deaf as far as the reality of consciousness is concerned. The ultimate result is great science, great technology, an affluent society, a richness of things mundane, worldly. And amidst all this abundance...

..., a poor man without a soul, completely lost - not knowing who he is, not knowing why he is, feeling almost an accident or a freak of nature. Unless consciousness grows with the richness of the material world, the body - matter - becomes too heavy and the soul becomes too weak. You are too much burdened by your own inventions, your own discoveries. Rather than creating a beautiful life for you, they...

... create a life which is felt by all the intelligentsia of the West as not worth living. The East has chosen consciousness and has condemned matter and everything material, the body included, as maya, as illusory, as a mirage in a desert which only appears but has no reality in itself. The East has created a Gautam Buddha, a Mahavira, a Patanjali, a Kabir, a Farid, a Raidas - a long line of people with...

... being - the flowers of ecstasy, the fragrance of godliness, the wings of ultimate freedom. Zorba the Buddha is the new man, is the rebel. His rebellion consists of destroying the schizophrenia of man, destroying the dividedness - destroying spirituality as against materialism, and destroying materialism as against spirituality. It is a manifesto that body and soul are together: that existence is full...

... Siddhartha. Buddha was not his name - the name given by his parents was Gautam Siddharth. Siddharth was his name, Gautama was his family name. He is called Buddha because he became awakened; otherwise he was also a Zorba. Anybody who is not awakened is a Zorba. Zorba is a fictitious character, a man who believed in the pleasures of the body, in the pleasures of the senses. He enjoyed life to the fullest...