... Title: N.A. Audio Available: N.A. Video Available: N.A. Length: N.A. MASTER LU-TSU SAID: NOTHING IS POSSIBLE WITHOUT CONTEMPLATION. PERCEIVING BRINGS ONE TO THE GOAL. WHAT HAS TO BE REVERSED BY REFLECTION IS THE SELF-CONSCIOUS HEART, WHICH HAS TO DIRECT ITSELF TOWARDS THAT POINT WHERE THE FORMATIVE SPIRIT IS NOT YET MANIFEST. WITHIN OUR SIX-FOOT BODY WE MUST STRIVE FOR THE FORM WHICH EXISTED BEFORE...

... unself, what Buddha calls ANATTA, no-self, is part of eternity, never born and never going to die. It abides forever. WITHIN OUR SIX-FOOT BODY WE MUST STRIVE FOR THE FORM WHICH EXISTED BEFORE THE LAYING DOWN OF HEAVEN AND EARTH. And within your six-foot body you have that original quality still alive, vibrating, that original quality that was there before heaven and earth were made. Zen people call it...

... formless, the unmanifest. Call it God if you will. This is the point, this is the space, from which all has arisen. This is the very seed of the whole existence. It is omnipotent, it is omnipresent, it is eternal. Now you will not know any death. Now you will not know any identity with any kind of body, young, old, beautiful, ugly. Now you will not know any kind of disease - not that diseases will not...

... happen to the body, but they will not happen to you anymore because you are no more identified. Raman Maharshi died of cancer. The body was in great agony but he was smiling. The doctors were puzzled, they could not believe it. It was not believable. The body was in such agony and he was in such great ecstasy. How was it possible? And they asked again and again, 'How is it possible?' And he would say...

... again and again, 'There is nothing strange about it. I am not the body. So whatsoever is happening in the body, it is just as if you were witnessing my body. I am also witnessing my body. You are not feeling any pain so why should I? You are a witness, I am a witness. The body is just an object - an object in the middle of both of us. You are seeing from the outside that it is in agony, I am seeing...

... forgotten the light. They have completely forgotten about the guest. They only go on preparing the house, they have become so engrossed in preparing the house that they have forgotten the purpose for which they are preparing the house, for whom. The hatha yogi continuously prepares his body, purifies his body, does yoga postures, breathing exercises, and goes on doing it AD NAUSEAM. He has completely...

... view could be a great matter in Jung's view. A mystic is someone who is standing in a kind of headstand. He has entered an opposite viewpoint to yours. All your conceptions and conventions he has inverted for himself. You value the material, and for him the material has no value at all. For you the body is all, for him the body is nothing. For you all the treasures are hidden in money; for him it is...

... earth and the sky, he is saying something about you. Within you too there is earth and there is sky. Your body is your earth, your soul is your sky - what we have called antarakash, the inner sky - and between the two a great transaction of giving and taking is going on. But often it so happens that your soul gives much to your body, your inner sky gives much to the earth within you, but your body is...

... unable to give back. What your inner earth has to return gets lost somewhere in the desert of the world. That river does not reach the ocean; instead, it dries up somewhere in the desert. The give and take transaction within you has got disrupted somewhere. The circle of what scientists call ecology has broken down, and hence you are miserable. If your body and soul get balanced in the give and take...

... towards the body and away from the sky. Thus you take a lot from the sky but are unable to return anything. And this is your samsara: the world that you go on taking from the sky but do not return. Thus accumulation of material things increases but the soul is lost. You sell your soul for things and think perhaps they will make you blissful. So you may grow in importance, your empire may expand, you may...

... accidentally, it is earth's expression of thanks for what it has received. The breath that has come in is now going out. The same rhythm has to happen within you; your body too should be returning. This is the difference between the worldly man and the sannyasin, the indulger and the renunciate. The indulger does not return anything back, the sannyasin does. The worldly man only collects; giving disappears...

... suspense to see what would happen now. A great crowd had gathered, the whole village had gathered, and they all started waiting for the miracle. Buddha said, "Gautami, you do one thing. Leave your son's dead body here - I will certainly revive him - but first you go look for a house in the village where nobody has ever died, and you bring me some mustard seeds from that house." What will a...

... away. A revolution had taken place in her personality. She went to Buddha, lifted up her son's body and carried it to the graveyard. After cremating the body she returned to Buddha and said, "Please initiate me. I am a sannyasin." Buddha said, "Don't you have something to ask of me? What about the mustard seeds? What about the son?" She said, "Let nothing more be said of this...

... the Gita, and that brings consolation. At the time of death only the body will die, we shall remain. And then there are lives after lives, it is a long journey; there is no hurry as there is infinite time available. In the West the fear is much greater because Christianity has the theory of only one birth. So the West is trying in many ways to conceal the fact of death. The man dies, the woman dies...

..., and big businesses are prospering there in the area of death too. They make up the face of the dead person, they make it look beautiful again, they dress the corpse in lovely clothes. By the time the corpse is put in its coffin, the body looks more beautiful than it had ever looked even when the person was alive. If it is a woman, the lips are painted with lipstick, the eyes decorated with eye...

... thing like pregnancy and the woman cannot hide it. Her walk changes, the radiance on her face and in her eyes changes. Her whole style changes. When God enters your womb, when you hear the unstruck sound, how can you possibly hide it? In the same way that if someone had drunk the sun the light would radiate all over, flames of fire will arise, every cell of your body will be lighted similarly when you...

... HAS SUCH A PRAGYA IS CALLED JIVANAMUKTA, THE ONE LIBERATED WHILE LIVING. ONE WHO HAS NO I-NESS FOR HIS BODY AND THE SENSES, AND NO MY-NESS FOR THE OTHER THINGS, IS A JIVANAMUKTA, THE ONE LIBERATED WHILE LIVING. WHEN NO DESIRE ARISES FOR OBJECTS WORTHY OF BEING ENJOYED, THEN KNOW THIS AS THE LIMIT OF NONATTACHMENT. WHEN NO I-NESS ARISES, KNOW THIS AS THE LIMIT OF KNOWING. Ordinarily vairagya, meaning...

... somewhere else. Now this being somewhere else can be of many types. One person thinks that his body is his soul; then this person is also somewhere else. Tomorrow he will start becoming old; then he will be in pain, he will feel miserable because his body is waning away, becoming wrinkled, ugly, sick and aged. Such a person will feel himself dead before his actual death because the young body in which he...

... born, your body has a certain in-built span of years - seventy years, eighty years. Now if this happening of liberation takes place at the age of forty years, the body is bound to complete those remaining forty years. You may have died at the age of forty, but the body will die only after completing eighty years. You as an ego are no more at the age of forty years, but the body will last for forty...

... more years. That is its own in-built plan; it has its own arrangements of its atoms. At the time of birth the body arrived with its own capacity to last for eighty years, and it will last for that long. So Buddha and Mahavira died at the age of forty years, but their bodies continued for forty more years. All the running within stopped, but the body continued to work. It is just like your wristwatch...

... was wound up to run seven days and then you went to some jungle, got lost, fell down and died; but your wristwatch will continue to work for seven more days. Your watch was wound for seven days and your death makes no difference to it; it goes on running for seven days - tick, tick, tick.... Your body is a machine. You may attain to the ultimate awakening today, you may have died today, but your...

... body will go on ticking. This state of the inner consciousness becoming as if it is not, and the ticking of the body continuing, is called jivanamukta, liberated while living. WHEN PURIFIED BY ITS ONENESS WITH BRAHMA AND DROWNED IN THIS ONE SINGLE RAPTURE, THE ACTIVITIES OF MIND ARE CHOICELESS AND REMAIN ONLY AS THE CONSCIOUSNESS; THEN IT IS CALLED PRAGYA, THE WISDOM. When the intellect does not...

... flame of knowledge. The one in whom such a wisdom is always a flame is a jivanamukta, the liberated while living. ONE WHO HAS NO I-NESS FOR HIS BODY AND THE SENSES, AND NO MY-NESS FOR THE OTHER THINGS, IS A JIVANAMUKTA, THE ONE LIBERATED WHILE LIVING. These feelings will certainly drop. 'Mine', 'I' - these have dropped long ago. It is at the dropping of the ego that enlightenment has happened. To such...

... ACTIONS YOU RECEIVE THIS BODY, AND BY HIS GRACE THE DOOR TO SALVATION OPENS. NANAK SAYS, KNOW THEN HIS TRUTH, BECAUSE HE ALONE IS EVERYTHING. HE CANNOT BE INSTALLED IN ANY TEMPLE, NOR FASHIONED BY ANY SKILL. THE FAULTLESS ONE EXISTS UNTO HIMSELF. THOSE WHO SERVE HIM ATTAIN THE GLORY. NANAK SAYS, SING HIS PRAISES, LORD OF ALL ATTRIBUTES. SING AND HEAR ONLY OF HIM; ENGRAVE HIM IN YOUR HEART. SO BANISH...

... hour, and sandhya refers to middle, neither here nor there - neither belonging to this world nor to that. At the moment of sandhya kal you are nearest to God; therefore the Hindus have made use of this time for prayer. Amrit vela, nectar time, is sweeter - the moment you are nearest to ambrosia. It all happens in this temporal body: with one mechanism of the body you sleep, with another you awake...

.... All dreams pertain to the body. All waking and sleeping happens to the body. Behind this body is hidden a you, who never sleeps, never awakens. How can he who never sleeps, awaken? There is a you who never dreams, because that requires sleep, and that never sleeps. Behind the various states of this body hides the ambrosia, the nectar that is never born, never dies. If you succeed in locating the...

... sandhya kal, you will come to know of the bodiless within the body; you will know the master hidden behind the slave. You are both. If you look at the body alone, you are the slave; if you look at the master within, you become the master. So, says Nanak, there is only one thing worth doing and that is to meditate on the glory of satnam, the true name, in amrit vela. You will gain nothing by going to...

... beginning or end, which always is, true and eternal. It is in this flame that the doors of existence open and the hidden truth is revealed. Nanak says: Through your actions this body is achieved. In that intense moment you will know that the body is a result of actions, of karma; and it is His benevolent, all-compassionate eyes that open the door of salvation. The body is the fruit of your actions. A few...

...: "Thou art the doer. What can I perform?" No sooner do you begin to feel your worthlessness, expressed as, "What can I do?" than your ego begins to fall away, drop by drop. The day you feel this in totality - that you are unqualified, incapable, nothing happens because of you, you are helpless - the doors of liberation open for you. THROUGH YOUR ACTIONS YOU RECEIVE THIS BODY, AND BY...

... is He who is life. LET ME NEVER FORGET HIM. May this remembrance remain every moment. By grasping this secret, you will gradually see beyond the beads of the mala and be able to grasp the thread that goes through them all. That thread is God and you are the beads. The stream of life that flows through you, is God; He is the thread on which turns the bead of your body, and this thread is the same in...

... pertains to the body only and not myself." Mahavira has said, "As long as sleep remains, know you have had no experience of the Atman." There is another kind of awakening when there is no need within for sleep, for there is no ego within that makes sleep necessary. When there is no ego within, there is no tension within. When there is no tension, there is no need for sleep. The body tires...

..., so it sleeps but the consciousness keeps awake. The consciousness within keeps a watch: it sees sleep descending on the body, spreading over it; it sees sleep departing from the body and the body getting out of sleep. Someone within is constantly awake and watching. You must never have thought of this. Have you ever seen sleep coming to you or departing? If you have, you are a religious man. If you...

... necessary. Ego alone becomes extinct. There is only one thing that is mortal in this world and that is the ego. This is a little difficult to understand. In this world neither is matter ever destroyed nor the Spirit, only ego is destroyed. The body is never destroyed. This body of mine was, even when I was not. Every particle of this body was present. There is nothing new in it. When I die, not a single...

... atom of my body will die with me. The body is eternal for nothing within it dies. Scientists say that we cannot destroy a single atom - nothing can be destroyed. Everything within the body is eternal: the water will merge into water, the fire will be lost in the fire, the space will become one with space; everything is eternal. Only the shape is lost; but nothing within the shape is lost. My spirit...

... also does not die - then what dies? Death happens. Only the connection between the body and the soul breaks. And in between this connection there is the ego, which I create through the meeting of the body and the soul and which I create every day - this ego breaks. Once I come to know that I am not the ego, then there is nothing within me that can die. As long as I know myself to be the ego, I have...

... readily believe! you tell a woman her eyes are like the fish - she will believe you. No one's eyes are like the fish! You say her lips are like a rose-bud, or her body is fragrant with the scent of roses. All these things are not true but everyone is ready to believe. Poets sing about it and people listen and accept their words. Ancient hackneyed stories are told and retold a thousand times over and yet...

... DISCOVERED I HAD CANCER. MY ANGUISH WAS THAT I WOULD GET LOST IN AN UNCONSCIOUS DEATH AND NOT FIND THE WAY BACK TO YOU. I AM BOUNDLESSLY GRATEFUL THAT YOUR PRESENCE AND GRACE HAVE HELPED IN HEALING ME. THE OTHER DAY, I HAD FOOD POISONING - AND AGAIN, THE ANGUISH. IT WAS EASY TO BE IDENTIFIED WITH THE BODY IN PHYSICAL PAIN. I HEAR THAT DOCTORS GIVE MORPHINE TO DYING PATIENTS TO RELIEVE THE DISCOMFORT...

... first means the perspiration, the body odor, mixed with the smell of deodorants, all kinds of powders, all kinds of perfumes.... But from the outside, what can you judge? Even if two persons are hugging each other.... You can note immediately that hugging is love - but hugging is not love. I know it perfectly. I had to stop going to Punjab because of hugging... the Sikhs are a fire test. If you can...

... death comes closer, I mean as your life starts slipping out of your body, getting ready to enter into another womb - nature has an inbuilt program. The person becomes unconscious, because it is the greatest surgery that is happening. His whole being has to be taken from his body, in which it has lived, identified, for seventy or eighty years. It is a natural phenomenon that before death, everybody...

... became a clue. It means that such a great surgery is going to happen that the man may not be able to withstand it consciously. It is better to let him go deep into sleep, and in that sleep the transfer of the soul is easier. That is why you don't remember your past life, because that gap of unconsciousness functions as a barrier. So it has two functions. It helps you to be moved from one body to...

... another body. It has another function also: that gap of unconsciousness is so deep - the deepest possible - that it becomes a block to the memories of your past life. Because those memories are risky.... You are not able to make a beautiful life of what you have right now, and if your mind starts getting bombarded by your past lives and experiences, you are sure to go mad. You will not be able to figure...

... in coma, people who have anesthesia, people who are unconscious because of some accident - "What happens to these people?" Nothing special, it is the same business. They move into another body. The people who are left behind think they are dead. They have simply moved into a new form, into a new sensitivity, into a new intelligence. This life is a university. Here, we have to learn only...

... effort is going to transform you in such a way that all problems, all sicknesses, simply evaporate. And a man is not alive unless he is psychologically completely healthy. The body is going to be sick sometimes, because it has to become old, it has to die too. The burden of the body is big, but you are not going to be sick because consciousness cannot be sick, and consciousness cannot be old, and...

... the need? You are so healthy. At this age," - he was eighty-three; tomorrow was his birthday - "why do you want a physical, a thorough examination?" He said, "Doctor, I am going to marry an eighteen-year-old girl tonight. I want you to check my whole body thoroughly, because everybody is against it. My sons are against it, my neighbors are against it, my daughters-in-law are...

... am a violent man, if not to your body, then to my own body. And in being violent with you, there was a possibility that you may have retaliated - you may have stopped me being violent to you. But to be violent with your own body is the easiest thing in the world. What can your body do? It cannot retaliate, it cannot prevent you. It has no defense against you. So the person who is violent to others...

..., at least is violent to someone who has the right to defend himself and can be violent in return. But the person who is violent with himself is really cunning, very cunning. He has found the most innocent victim in the world, defenseless. You can do anything you want to your own body. There have been monks who have been beating their body every morning, till the blood starts oozing all over the body...

... it. These religions give enough evidence that the people who founded the religions and the people who followed the religions were sado-masochists. I came across a man who was standing for many years. Now, you cannot stand very long; he was standing for many years. All his body had shrunk. His whole weight had gone into the legs; the legs had become elephant legs. Now even if he wanted to sit, it...

... you search you will find; the body is a complex phenomenon. Just a slight headache, and that's enough to go on a fast; you are just feeling tired, that's enough to take an enema. Anything... and you know what to do because you go on reading. Books are available with simple treatments, and there are not many of them, so every patient becomes a doctor in naturopathy. Just any small book you can read...

... are assuming something which is absolutely your imagination. If somebody hits me, according to Jesus I have to give him my other cheek. But his tastes may be different. He may have enjoyed the first hit, he may enjoy the second even more; he may be a sadist. Then you are encouraging a sadist to torture people; you are encouraging violence. Even to allow your own body to be tortured by somebody is to...

... at me he said, "It cannot be coincidence that you have come at the right time. I was waiting, because I wanted to thank you before I leave the body. These years have been difficult in dropping knowledge, information, and finding that which is hidden behind names. But you have put me on the right track, and now I can say all names are false, and all knowledge may be useful but is not...

... existential, is not true. I am dying with absolute peace, the silence which you have been talking about again and again." I had to delay because it seemed that he was going to die within a few minutes, or maybe a few hours at the most. Within five or six hours he died, but he died with such peace, with such joy. His face was so blissful, although his whole body was suffering from many diseases. But he...

... had already got disentangled from the body; he had found himself. You are asking me, Maneesha, "What is in a name?" Nothing, it is just a utilitarian labeling; otherwise, it would be difficult to find where Maneesha is. If I ask somebody, "Where is..., that isness, that reality?" It will be difficult. It is absolutely useful to have a name. The problem arises when you become the...

... name and forget yourself. If you remember that you are not the name, if you remember that you are not the form, the body, if you remember only that you are a pure consciousness, then there is no harm. Use the body, it is a beautiful mechanism; use the name, it has its own purpose; otherwise the post offices will be in difficulty, all the letters are coming to nameless persons. You will be in...

..., "On a fast you are eating your own flesh. Where does your weight disappear to every day? On a fast you lose at least two pounds per day in the first seven days, then one pound per day. Where is this flesh disappearing? You are eating it. Your body needs it, otherwise you cannot live. It is your energy. The body needs a certain energy to move, to breathe, to walk, to talk. From where is that...

... muscles, just pure flesh, very edible - because they are going to be mothers. To be a mother means to feed a child. For nine months in your womb the child is supplied by the mother's flesh. So the mother is supporting herself and the child, and she needs some emergency reservoir. And even when a woman is not becoming a mother, the tendency of her body is to collect more flesh. Man is more of a skeleton...

... milk. This is violence, because that milk was for the cow's own calves, not for Hindu saints. And more difficulty arises if you understand the chemistry. That cow's milk has a different chemistry from the woman's milk. Cow's milk has a different chemistry. Because it is going to be in the body of a bull it is more sexual. And to drink cow's milk and then try to be celibate... You can see Hindu...

... mahatmas, they look like bulls and pretend to be celibate. None of them is celibate, because celibacy by itself is impossible. It is as impossible as somebody saying, "I never urinate." He may not be urinating in public urinals, in public places; he may have his private ways, but in some way... if he is drinking water, then it has to come out of the body - unless he is Morarji Desai, who...

... BODY SHOULD BE RESPECTED. SO IF WE CAN REALLY GET THE BUDDHIST FUNCTION EVEN IN A DAY, SUCH A SINGLE DAY CAN BE SAID TO BE MORE VALUABLE THAN COUNTLESS IDLE LIVES. THEREFORE, BEFORE WE HAVE REALIZED THE WAY, WE MUST NOT IDLE AWAY EVEN A SINGLE DAY. SUCH A SINGLE DAY IS TOO PRECIOUS A TREASURE TO BE COMPARED WITH A FINE JEWEL. ANCIENT WISE PERSONS HELD IT DEARER THAN THEIR BODY AND LIFE. WE MUST THINK...

..., "Respect yourself. Respect your body." These are the beautiful things that Zen has brought into the history of mankind, particularly in the history of consciousness. DOGEN WROTE: PRACTICE IS IDENTICAL WITH EXPRESSION, AND VICE VERSA. He is talking about an authentic man; what in Zen language is called the original man. His practice is identical with his expression. There are not two persons...

... explanations. This is the Zen attitude. EACH DAY'S LIFE SHOULD BE ESTEEMED; Do you ever esteem your life? ... THE BODY SHOULD BE RESPECTED. Do you respect your body? It serves you for seventy years without any salary, without going on a strike, without taking a morcha - a protest march - against you. But you have not even thought that some respect is due, that your body needs to be valued. SO IF WE CAN...

..., whenever you can find just a moment, sipping the tea ... you would love to look in, to see whether those waters of life are still flowing. One becomes accustomed, slowly slowly, to the eternity of oneself. But whether you know it or not, it is there. SUCH A SINGLE DAY IS TOO PRECIOUS A TREASURE TO BE COMPARED WITH A FINE JEWEL. ANCIENT WISE PERSONS HELD IT DEARER THAN THEIR BODY AND LIFE. WE MUST THINK...

... water are reflecting the full moon with as much depth as the greatest ocean. So it does not matter which body you have; whether man or woman, bird or animal; whether you are poor or rich. In a silent space, just watching the moon and you are filled with tremendous beauty. That beauty arises in your innermost world. The moon simply triggers it. Question 1: Maneesha has asked: OUR BELOVED MASTER, OFTEN...

..., but remembering that his granny is half-blind, he gives her the bottom half of the picture. She looks at it with delight and says, "Just like your grandfather, God rest his soul. A nice bushy beard, and his necktie always hanging to one side." Now ... Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Be silent, close your eyes, feel as if your body is frozen, and gather all your...

... unknown. Drop it. Just rush towards it without any fear - it is your own being. You are not going to meet anybody else on the way ... there is no question of fear. This moment, this evening, is blessed by ten thousand buddhas who have returned home. Nivedano ... (Drumbeat) Relax ... let go ... die to the body, to the mind, so only a throbbing consciousness is left behind. That is you. That is me. That...

... reason that every pore of your skin breathes. There are millions of small breathing pores into your body; you are not only breathing by your nose. If your nose is allowed to breathe and your whole body is covered with a thick paint so that all your skin pores are closed, you will die within three hours. You will be allowed to breathe from the nose, still you will die within three hours, because your...

... whole body needs breathing; each cell of your body breathes. And when it is too hot... And Mahavira lived in one of the hottest parts of this country, Bihar, and he lived naked, and he traveled on foot. He must have been perspiring more than anybody else. Perspiration has a natural function to do: when it is too hot your body perspires to keep your body temperature within a certain limit. You perspire...

..., your body relieves some water from the skin pores, that water evaporates, taking your body heat. Hence, the body can maintain a constant temperature. If you don't perspire, your body will become so hot that you will burst forth, or you will be burned from your inside. But all these stupid ideas are propounded for the simple reason to show that Mahavira is special, that Jesus is special. Something...