... awareness is: being aware that "I am not the body, I am not the mind. I am not even the heart, I am simply pure awareness, a SAKSHI." As this awareness deepens, becomes crystallized, the mind has more and more a shadow existence. Its impact on you loses all force. And when the awareness is a hundred percent settled, mind simply evaporates. Western psychology has still to figure out why it is not...

.... He became so afraid, knowing perfectly well that he is in a room which is soundproof, no noise can enter it. But his ears, his body, everything was accustomed to vibrations all around. You are sitting here, you are listening to a few noises: the birds in the trees, I am speaking to you ... and there are many sounds which you are not listening to but your body feels the vibes. All the radio waves...

... are passing through you. You can catch any radio station with just a small transistor set. Do you think that transistor set creates those waves? Those waves are passing; the transistor set is simply capable of catching them. They are touching your body. You are surrounded by millions of radio waves which you are not hearing, but you are accustomed to them. That has been your whole life"s...

... experience in the beginning. It creates fear - inside your silence you know that the identity you had of yourself is absolutely false. Your name is false, your form is false, your body is just a separate thing from you, and you don't find anything solid inside to cling to. In fact, you find you are the silence ... a kind of nothingness, nobodiness. Gautam Buddha has the right words for this experience. One...

.... Aging is continuously a certain burden on your body. The earth goes on pulling you and you are fighting the pull. Your energy is disturbed and destroyed in this continuous fight. But when you are out of the gravitational field of the earth you simply remain as you were. You will not find your contemporaries; you will not find all those fashions that were current when you left. You will find that sixty...

... years have passed. But the feeling of going beyond gravitation can happen even in meditation - it happens. And that has misled many people. With your closed eyes, when you are absolutely silent you are out of gravitation. But just your silence is out of gravitation, not your body. But in that moment you are identified with your silence, so you feel as if you are moving upwards; that is called by yoga...

... "levitation." And without opening your eyes you will feel not only that it is a feeling, but that your body is actually moving upwards. But that is only a fallacy. Your silence is beyond gravitation - that is a true experience. But because you are identified still with the body, you feel as if your body is moving. If you open your eyes you will find yourself sitting in the same posture on...

... the ground. Just now there is a case in the Supreme Court of America against Maharishi Mahesh Yogi by seven disciples, asking him for ninety million dollars for deceiving them - because he promised that they would be able to levitate with their body and that did not happen. Whenever they opened their eyes they were sitting on the ground, although when their eyes were closed they felt that it was...

... have not meditated. Shefali need not be afraid: she has been deeply in meditation and she has loved intensely. She's the old woman I was talking about just a few days ago, who has become like a child, whose child is born, who is no more a camel and no more a lion, who has become the child. She has forgotten her body; the body does not matter. Only the body ages. The body lives in time, the innermost...

... core is always beyond time; it is never born and never dies. The body is born and the body dies. The mind is constantly being born and constantly going into death, but there is a witness inside you who goes on watching the whole play. That witnessing is your real being. It simply watches. It watches birth, it watches love, it watches meditation, it watches death. The only quality there is one of...

... highest kind of meditative energy. If one knows how to die, death is transformed. YOU ARE NOT DESTROYED! YOU destroy death when you know how to die - smiling, a laughter in your being, welcoming. Death is not there; it is only God, your Beloved coming to you. It is a misunderstanding when you call it death. Death, as such, exists not: one only simply changes the body and the journey continues. Death, at...

... possess; it will be taken away. Meditation you don't possess. It is not a thing to be possessed by you, it is a quality of your being. It is you! Love you don't possess; it is not a possession, it is being. The interior wealth will go with you, the exterior wealth will be taken away. Because the exterior belongs to the body, the body will fall, and the whole exterior world will fall with it and will...

... death. If you go joyously you will have the experience of death. To miss the experience of death is to miss God, because in death love and meditation bloom automatically. Death takes your body away - suddenly ninety percent of your life evaporates. Death takes your mind away, then the remaining ten percent is also gone. Only the witness is left - this is what meditation is. Death takes all your...

... Shefali. And she asks, "IS IT POSSIBLE FOR A MAN WHO IS STILL NOT EGOLESS... TO ENCOUNTER DEATH CONSCIOUSLY AND TO WELCOME AND ENJOY IT THE SAME WAY? "YOU ARE EVERYWHERE. BUT AFTER WE WILL HAVE DIED, SHALL WE FIND OURSELVES IN SUCH A STATE THAT IT WILL BE POSSIBLE FOR US TO REMAIN ATTUNED TO YOU WHETHER YOU ARE IN THE BODY OR NOT?" Death makes no difference. Death is absolutely immaterial...

.... If you have loved me, if you have been in tune with me, you will remain in tune with me. Death will simply make it more intense because the barriers will be taken away. The body is a barrier, the mind is a barrier: when all the barriers disappear there will be great melting. And the disciple comes to know his first experience of God as melting into the Master; that is the privilege of a disciple...

... way. Then what is the guarantee that I will become again the same river, the same form, the same name, the same body? And who knows? And how should I trust that once I have surrendered to the winds they will allow me to become separate again?" That is the fear of love. You know, you are convinced that without love there is no joy, without love there is no life, without love you are hungry for...

... once you have decided the ego starts disappearing, the ego has committed suicide. In fact, sannyas and suicide are very similar. Suicide is a false sannyas, sannyas is a real suicide - because in suicide only the body dies and you will be born again. In sannyas the ego dies, and if you work it out totally, you may not be born again. Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...

... will be repressive, because it has nothing to do with you. It is in-built in your body, in your biology. You are born as sexual beings; nothing is wrong in it. That is the only way to be born. To be human is to be sexual. When you were conceived, your mother and your father were not praying, they were not listening to a priest's sermon. They were not in the church, they were making love. Even to...

... think that your mother and father were making love when you were conceived seems to be difficult. They were making love; their sexual energies were meeting and merging into each other. Then you were conceived; in a deep sexual act you were conceived. The first cell was a sex cell, and then out of that cell other cells have arisen. But each cell remains sexual, basically. Your whole body is sexual...

... to digest it as divine. It is divine; it is God's gift. Hindus say, ANAM BRAHMA: food is divine. So with deep respect you eat, and while eating you forget everything, because it is prayer. It is existential prayer. You are eating God, and God is going to give you nourishment. It is a gift to be accepted with deep love and gratitude. And you don't stuff the body, because stuffing the body is being...

... anti-body. It is the other pole. There are people who are obsessed with fasting, and there are people who are obsessed with stuffing themselves. Both are wrong because in both the ways the body loses balance. A real lover of the body eats only to the point where body feels perfectly quiet, balanced, tranquil; where body feels to be neither leaning to the left nor to the right, but just in the middle...

.... It is an art to understand the language of the body, to understand the language of your stomach, to understand what is needed, to give only that which is needed, and to give that in an artistic way, in an aesthetic way. Animals eat, man eats. Then what is the difference? Man makes a great aesthetic experience out of eating. What is the point of having a beautiful dining table? What is the point of...

... having candles burning there? What is the point of incense? What is the point of asking friends to come and participate? It is to make it an art, not just stuffing. But these are outward signs of the art; the inward signs are to understand the language of your body: to listen to it, to be sensitive to its needs. And then you eat, and then the whole day you will not remember food at all. Only when the...

... body is hungry again will the remembrance come. Then it is natural. With sex the same happens. If you have no anti-attitude about it, you take it as a natural, divine gift, with great gratitude. You enjoy it; with prayer you enjoy it. Tantra says that before you make love to a woman or to a man, first pray -- because it is going to be a divine meeting of energies. God will surround you. Wherever two...

... mother has given something to you, you father has given something to you. Fifty-fifty, they have contributed to you. Both are there. There is a possibility that both can meet inside you. Again your father and mother can love inside you. Then your reality will be born. Once they met when your body was born; now if they can meet inside you, your soul will be born. That's what transcendence of sex is: it...

... he is on the cross and Krishna is playing on his flute, but you will find that both are food. Jesus says so many times to his disciples, "Eat me; make me your food. Drink my blood and eat my body." He is food; that's what he is saying. The questioner asked, "It is said that unless one is in contact with one who is awakened, it is impossible to come out of one's ignorance and deep...

.... WHEN THE MIND IS PROPERLY ADJUSTED AND QUIETLY APPLIED, THE WAY IS ATTAINABLE; BUT WHEN YOU ARE TOO FERVENTLY BENT ON IT, YOUR BODY GROWS TIRED; AND WHEN YOUR BODY IS TIRED, YOUR SPIRIT BECOMES WEARY; WHEN YOUR SPIRIT IS WEARY, YOUR DISCIPLINE WILL RELAX; AND WITH THE RELAXATION OF DISCIPLINE THERE FOLLOWS MANY AN EVIL. THEREFORE, BE CALM AND PURE, AND THE WAY WILL BE GAINED. MAN'S whole misery...

... cut and he starts breathing on his own, suddenly his whole being becomes a quest to know who he is. It is natural. Now he starts becoming aware of his boundaries - his body, his needs. Sometimes he is happy, sometimes unhappy, sometimes he is fulfilled, sometimes not fulfilled; sometimes he is hungry and crying and there is no sign of mother anywhere; sometimes he is on the mother's breast, again...

... breathe out - continuously there is a bridge with the existence. You eat, existence enters into you; you defecate, it becomes manure - the apple on the tree will become part of your body tomorrow, and some part of your body will go and become manure, will become food for the tree... a continuous give and take. Not for a single moment does it stop. When it stops, you are dead. What is death? - separation...

... personality, and the knowledge that we come to know from within gives us individuality. Personality is false, individuality is real. Personality is borrowed; reality, individuality, your authenticity, can never be borrowed. Nobody can say who you are. Your body can be seen by others. They can say whether your body is beautiful or not, and that too depends - because no criterion for beauty exists. That...

... magazine. The farmer had advertised that he wanted to meet a woman near about thirty years of age. He himself was forty-one. Object: marriage. But one condition had to be fulfilled: the woman had to have a tractor, and she had to send a picture of the tractor! It depends on your need, on your ideas, on your philosophy, religion, conditioning, culture. Somebody can say something about your body; that too...

... great music, would like to see dance, would like to enter into the realms of beauty, would like to go into deeper tune with reality. Who will bother about a mathematician, a technologist, an engineer? Sooner or later this is going to change. It depends on the needs of the society. People can say something about your body, something about your mind, but that too is not of any value. Who can say...

... are mistaken, there you err. You have given birth to my body, but not to me; and you don't know me at all. Even as I am standing in front of you, you are not seeing me. You are so full of your idea that you are the father and I am your son. That idea is functioning like a barrier. Just look at me! The son that has left your house has not come back. That person is gone, that person is dead! I am a...

... indulgent and they were never ascetic, but this Srona became a great ascetic. When everybody would be sitting under the trees, he would stand in the hot sun. He had a beautiful body, he was a beautiful young man. He became dark, black, and within a few months it was impossible to recognize him. When people from his capital would come they would be surprised; he had changed so much. He had become lean and...

... thin, his eyes had lost luster, his face had lost all grace; he had started becoming ugly. And he was always ill, because the body has a limit of tolerance to certain things. But he was not worried; in fact, he was enjoying it. And all the monks started feeling that he was some great soul. Everybody started feeling that he was superior to them. Now a new ego was arising in Srona. This sutra is about...

..., THE WAY IS ATTAINABLE. BUT WHEN YOU ARE TOO FERVENTLY BENT ON IT, YOUR BODY GROWS TRIED; AND WHEN YOUR BODY IS TIRED, YOUR SPIRIT BECOMES WEARY; WHEN YOUR SPIRIT IS WEARY, YOUR DISCIPLINE WILL RELAX; AND WITH THE RELAXATION OF DISCIPLINE THERE FOLLOWS MANY AN EVIL. THEREFORE, BE CALM AND PURE, AND THE WAY WILL BE GAINED. In every life situation, you have to remember it. This sutra is of tremendous...

... don't go to a living Master, because to go to a living Master means jumping into the fire. You will disappear -- but only through that disappearance God appears. To be really religious is to commit suicide. And I mean it -- when I say suicide, I meant it -- suicide. When a person kills himself, that is not suicide; just the body changes -- he will be born again. That is just a change of the body...

..., the master says, "Go and meditate upon your original face." And what is the original face? The face that you had before you were born and the face that you will have again when you are dead: find out that original face. It is not a face at all. Have you ever thought about it? The shape of your face is given by the body. It can be changed by plastic surgery. And you will not be changed by...

... the change of the face: your nose can be longer, shorter, your eyes can be different, eyebrows can be different -- much can be done now. And you will remain the same. So the face is not your being, it is just the shape of your body. It is not YOUR face. Have you got any face? Sometimes with closed eyes go deep into it... and you will be surprised to see you don't have any face. God has no face at...

... all -- and you are gods and goddesses. That's why one is never contented. One can never be contented with this face, howsoever beautiful. This face is not going to satisfy you unless you come to the original face, the facelessness of your being: purity with no shape, the formless, the attributeless. The form is of matter. The form is not of consciousness; consciousness is formless. Your body is a...

... meeting-place of the form and the formless, of matter and consciousness. Your body is a container. The contained is you, and that contained has no face. So always, any face is funny. The very idea of having a face is funny because all faces are false. Face as such is false. This hunger to be more than we are reminds me of a four-year-old who met an old friend of the family who had not seen the little...

..., enormous... and the other knows only the face, the body form. You are reduced to a small thing -- and whatsoever his praise, it never comes to satisfy you. It cannot. And, every child makes funny faces. Have you watched? Leave him in the bathroom and watch from the keyhole, and he will make funny faces. In fact he is enjoying having a face, trying to manipulate it in many ways, playing with it. And he...

... yourself with the body, that the body is not all, that you are far beyond it, that you can play with the body like a mask. It is a mask. In fact there are many old meditations which make use of making funny faces. You can make it a meditation -- in Tibet, it is one of the oldest traditions. Keep a big mirror: stand naked, make faces, do funny things -- and watch. Just doing it and watching for fifteen...

..., twenty minutes, you will be surprised. You wills tart feeling you are separate from this. If you are not separate, then how can you do all these things? Then the body is just something in your hand -- you can play with it, this way and that. That's why I always say mimicry, mime, is a spiritual art. And soon we are going to open a small school of mime. If you can learn how to make faces, if you can act...

... with your body in many ways, you will be suddenly freed from the body; your identity will be broken. This is my experience. Many people come to me and ask, "Why do so many actors come to you?" My experience is this, that acting is one of the most spiritual professions in e world. Because an actor moves into so many actings -- sometimes he is this, sometimes that -- so many identities that...

.... And it will give you a great release; and you wills tart looking at yourself not as the body, not as the face, but as the consciousness. It will be helpful. Question 6: BELOVED MASTER, HAVE I BECOME ENLIGHTENED? AND IF NOT YET, THEN WHEN? Enlightenment is not an object to be desired, it is not a goal to be achieved. And you will become enlightened only when you have forgotten all about it...

..., Ramakrishna, that his highest spiritual aspiration was to remain immersed for days on end in NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI, the disappearance of all forms into absolute Godhead. He sincerely longed for what he then considered to be the ultimate spiritual experience. But Ramakrishna, who had once spent six months in unbroken NIRVIKALPA, his body kept alive only by force feeding, relied 'You are a fool. There is a...

... are a few people who sleep in Philadelphia and dream of Poona too. This is how the mind of man functions: it is always somewhere else. But your reality is here, your mind is somewhere else. What road is Yoka talking about? Coming back to your reality, WHERE YOU ARE. Listen to your body and that will give you the clue. The mind always dreams, the body cannot dream - the body is simply here, the body...

... cannot deceive, only mind deceives. Listen to the body, get into your senses, get into your body. And that is one of the greatest harms the so-called religions have done to humanity: they have helped people to become more and more mental, they have helped people to become more and more minds. And when a man lives in the mind he is mental. They have taught people to be against their bodies. And bodies...

.... One just has to come back where one's body is. Listen to your body, the body is the secret of finding the road. FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH. There are two kinds of people in the world: one, who are very much interested in birth, in life, in the world, and very afraid of death. Now, that's a very stupid type of mind; if you cling to birth...

... one's body is. Listen to your body, the body is the secret of finding the road. FROM THE TIME I RECOGNIZED THE ROAD, I REALIZED I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH. There are two kinds of people in the world: one, who are very much interested in birth, in life, in the world, and very afraid of death. Now, that's a very stupid type of mind; if you cling to birth, how can you avoid death? - birth...

..., then it is meditation - no; these are just devices for the beginners. Just the other day Vidya wrote me a beautiful letter. She said she tried meditation one day and had a great migraine and half her body became paralysed; that cured her of meditation. I liked it. I would like all of you to be cured of meditation; that has to happen to everybody. One has not only to be cured of diseases, one has to...

... doors or three doors, and get caught up in a certain fragmentary ego. The first, I said, is the bodily self. The child starts learning slowly, slowly: it takes nearabout fifteen months for the child to learn that he is separate, that there is something inside him and something outside. He learns that he has a body separate from other bodies. But a few people remain clinging to that very, very...

... fragmentary ego for their whole lives. These are the people who are known as materialists, communists, Marxists. The people who believe that the body is all - that there is nothing more than the body inside you, that the body is your whole existence, that there is no consciousness separate from the body, above the body, that consciousness is just a chemical phenomenon happening in the body, that you are not...

... separate from the body and when the body dies you die, and all disappears... dust unto dust... there is no divinity in you - they reduce man to matter. These are the people who remain clinging to the first door; their mental age seems to be only fifteen months. The very, very rudimentary and primitive ego remains materialist. These people remain hung up with two things: sex and food. But remember, when I...

... spiritualists who think that they are going into paradise, heaven, moksha, but that they will be there. When you think about heaven, you certainly think of yourself that as you are here, you will be there too. Maybe the body will not be there, but your inner continuity will remain. That is absurd! That liberation, that ultimate liberation happens only when the self is dissolved and all identity is dissolved...

.... They go on searching: from where does the soul enter into the body, from where does the soul go out of the body, what form does the soul have, planchettes and mediums, things like that - all rubbish and nonsense. The self has no form. It is pure nothingness, it is vast sky without any clouds in it. It is a thoughtless silence, unconfined, uncontained by anything. That idea of a permanent soul, the...

... idea of a self, continues to play games in your minds. Even if the body dies, you want to be certain that, "I will live." Many people used to come to Buddha... because this country has been dominated by this second kind of ego: people believe in the permanent soul, eternal soul, atman - they would come to Buddha again and again and say, "When I die, will something remain or not?"...

... - something is missing... you are not the right person. You become depressed. You rub the third eye hard, and it doesn't open. Beware of all this nonsense. These two eyes are beautiful. And if you have only one eye, that is perfect. ... Because Jesus says, "When two eyes become one, then the whole body is full of light." But I'm not saying that you should try to make one eye out of two. You just...

... is chanted with the attitude, "I have already read this - I have already heard it," then nothing is possible. But for those who have said, "Om!" with all their courage and daring, all problems are over. All the miseries of people who have realized the truth are ended. All the afflictions of their body, mind and soul disappear. Such people go beyond affliction. You think, "...

... and, whenever you remember, to inhale as deeply as you can. Hyperoxygenate! The energy you liberate for your work will be in direct proportion to your intake of breath. A great deal of energy lies hidden in your body. It must be aroused and activated towards meditation; it must be channelled into meditation. So the first meditation sutra I give you is to activate that energy. The nearest and the...

... to go into meditation if you take in as much oxygen as possible. The more oxygen you have in your blood, in your heart, the easier you will find your meditation. The more you expel carbon dioxide, the easier it will be for you. The impurities decrease as you increase the amount of oxygen in your body. It is interesting to know that the mind finds it difficult to function if the basis of bodily...

... the less you eat. Why is this? There are some sound reasons for it. Our bodies have certain settled habits. Meditation is not one of them; it is new work for the body. The body has fixed associations. If the settled habits of the body are interrupted at any point, then our body and mind can form new habits easily. Suppose you are worried, and begin to scratch your head out of habit. Now if your...

... hands are tied down at that time so that you cannot scratch your head, then you cannot remain worried. This is very puzzling. You might ask, "What is the relation between worrying and scratching?" The answer is habit. The body holds its habits fast and functions through them. Eating is the most deep-rooted habit of the body; it is the deepest because no life is possible without it. Bear in...

... mind, it is stronger and more potent than sex. Among all the deep-rooted habits of life, the food habit is the most profound. It begins from the first day of life and continues till the last day. The very existence of life, the body itself, depends upon it. So, if you want to change the habits of your mind and body, then weaken their deepest habit at once. As soon as you do this, all the fixed...

... physical routines and arrangements of your body will be disturbed, and you will find it easier to enter new regions, and to go in new directions with your body in this disturbed condition; otherwise you will find it more difficult. So commit yourself as much as you can in this direction. You may choose to fast, or perhaps to eat once a day. Do as you choose; there is no need for rules. Quietly, and at...

... you are taking a shower, concentrate on the water pouring over your body. Walking along the road, concentrate on each step you take. Immerse yourself in concentration for twenty-four hours a day during these seven days. The meditation we shall do here is quite separate, but I am explaining to you the background of what you should do during the rest of the time. So practice this third point: great...

... nature. He found ways to cover his body according to the seasons. Naturally his body lost the natural growth of hairs. Now, to be naked... suddenly your body cannot create the mechanism to protect you. I know Mahavira or Diogenes are unique individuals, but I think they were a little uncertain of their uniqueness. They fulfilled that suspicion, that missing gap, by being naked, because you cannot avoid...

... -- they are eighty percent of the people in the country. Because he was using farmer's clothes -- the upper body is naked, only the lower body has a small piece of cloth to wrap around -- the poor people of this country became immensely respectful and started calling him Mahatma, the great soul. But I have been looking into his life as deeply as possible. I don't find any great soul; I have not found...

... living on loans from the rich countries like America, and that is a new kind of slavery, economic slavery. The days of political slavery are past, because it was unnecessary.... It is a similar case: the days of slaves are past, and the days of servants have come in because the slave was a great responsibility to the slaveowner. He had to take care of the slave's health, he had to take care of his body...

...; it is not a loss to the owner. He pays you, but he has no concern for your body, for your health, for your family. This was far better. The same has happened in the world of freedom. The British Empire disappeared, all other empires have disappeared, because political slavery became costly, very costly. It was the responsibility of the rulers to feed people, at least. The moment Britain saw that...

... you know yourself, then nobody can take away your individuality. Even if they kill you, they can only kill your body, not you. When Socrates was poisoned, the chief judge said to him, "I feel sorry that I had to agree with the majority. They all wanted to kill you. And you are such a strange fellow... I gave you three alternatives, but you did not accept." The chief judge had tremendous...

..., your academy. Those who want to learn will come there." Socrates said, "That will show my fear of death... and some day I am going to die, I am old enough. These people are too impatient; I will die by myself. So to escape from Athens just for a few years... my being does not support such an idea. I cannot act out of fear. I would rather accept death, because you can only kill my body but...

... not my spirit. And the body is going to die anyway, any moment!" The chief judge said, "The second alternative is if you promise not to talk about truth, to stop teaching, you can live in Athens." He said, "Then what will be the point of living? To me, truth is higher than life. Life comes and goes; truth remains. No, I cannot accept that." The chief judge said, "Then...

... arise. For centuries you all will be condemned because you poisoned me. And one thing I would like you to know is that your name will be remembered only because you gave the judgment for my death; otherwise, nobody will remember you." This is the man of individuality, who does not care for his life, for his body, who has no fear. He accepted death with joy. An individual is the only person who...

.... With your sword you can prevent somebody from raping a woman. But the sword is absolutely neutral, neither good nor bad; every energy is neutral. Hypnosis is a tremendous source of energy. The word itself means deliberate sleep. You know ordinary sleep, you sleep every day; because it is ordinary sleep, it does not go deep enough. Its function is to help your body to recover its energy lost in the...

... day-to-day work, so tomorrow morning you can get up fresh, again able to work. The ordinary sleep only goes so deep that it can help your body to recover, rejuvenate. Deliberate sleep is the meaning of hypnosis. It is a simple thing, but it goes as deep as you are ready to go. It refreshes your body, it silences your mind, it cleanses your heart, it can reach to your very being. It all depends on...

... not be aware at all of what has happened, but your whole body has reacted sexually. you were a different person when the woman was not there; now again you are a different person. An all-male group is a different group, and all-female group is a different group. Let one male come in or one female, and the whole group, the whole energy pattern, changes suddenly. You may not be conscious of it, but...

.... Brahmacharya is energy. Not to be angry is energy. But this is not suppression. If you suppress anger, you have used energy again. Don't suppress - observe and follow. don't fight - just move backwards with the anger. This is the purest method of awareness. But certain other things can be used. For beginners certain devices are possible. So I will talk about three devices. One type of device is based on body...

... awareness. Forget anger, forget sex - they are difficult problems. And when you are in them, you become so mad that you cannot meditate. When you are angry you cannot meditate; you cannot even think about meditation. You are just mad. So forget it; it is difficult. Then use your own body as a device for awareness. Buddha has said that when you walk, walk consciously. When you breathe, breathe consciously...

... would not move. He would be as if a dead body, and he would wake up in the same posture in which he went to sleep. Ananda asked, "What are you doing? Were you asleep or not? You never move!" Buddha said, "A day will come, Ananda, when you will know. This shows that you are not practising anapanasati yoga rightly; it shows only this. Otherwise this question would not have arisen. You are...

... not practising anapanasati yoga - if you are continuously aware of your breath in the day, it is impossible not to be conscious of it in the night. And if the mind is concerned with awareness, dreams cannot penetrate. And if there are no dreams, mind is clear, transparent. Your body is asleep, but you are not. Your body is relaxing, you are aware - the flame is there inside. So, Ananda," Buddha...

... is reported to have said, "I am not asleep - only the body is sleep. I am aware! and not only in sleep. Ananda - when I die, you will see: I will be aware, only the body will die." Practise awareness with breathing; then you will be capable of penetrating. Or practise awareness with body movements. Buddha has a word for it: he calls it "mindfulness". He says, "Walk...

... suddenly?" The man said, "Why, I was not even aware that I was moving my toe or my leg! I was not aware! The moment you asked, I became aware." Buddha said, "What nonsense! Your leg is moving and you are not aware? So what are you doing with your body? Are you an alive man or dead? This is your leg, this is your toe, and it goes on moving and you are not even aware? Then of what are...

... imperfect in any way or incomplete. It was total. But Ananda, the most devoted follower, could not achieve Enlightenment, and the death of Buddha was nearing. One day Buddha said, "Now, today I am going to leave this body." So Ananda began to weep and said, "What will I do now? For forty years I have been following you in every single detail." Even Buddha could not say, "You have...

...." Then the poison comes. He takes the poison. Then he says, "My legs are feeling numb. It seems the poison has begun to work. Now the poison is coming up." He goes on relating. He is a keen intellect. Even in death he is experimenting./ He is a scientific thinker. He says, "Now the poison is coming up. Now half of my body is dead." He is a rare man. He is not ordinary. The...

... afraid? I will be dead completely, and no one will be there to suffer death, no one will be there to be afraid of anything. Socrates will be no more, so why be afraid? "Or, it may be that religious persons are right" - this is the "or"; this is logic - "they may be right! Then only the body will die and Socrates will live, so why be afraid? If only my body is going to die and I...