Chapter title: Falling above the mind

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‌Chapter title: Falling above the mind‌

29 April 1986 pm in

Archive code:

8604295

ShortTitle:

PSYCHO35

Audio:

Yes Video:

Yes Length:

87

mins Question 1

BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS MADNESS?

There are two possibilities:

Madness literally means going out of the mind; hence the two possibilities. You can go out of the mind either below the mind or above the mind.

Ordinarily, people go below the mind because it needs no effort, you don't have to do anything. Any shock can shatter the stability of your mind: somebody you loved died, your business has gone bankrupt -- the shock is so much that you cannot keep your normality. You fall below the mind, your behavior becomes irrational.

But you go beyond the misery -- if you had remained in the normal mind the shock would have created immense misery. It is a natural way to avoid the shock. It simply pulls you down; now you don't know what has happened. Your business has gone bankrupt, your wife has died or your child has died -- it doesn't matter, in fact you don't even remember.

You have entered into a new phase, you have become a new person. But it is going to be irrational, abnormal, unpredictable. This is ordinarily called madness, insanity, all over the world.

Only in the East have we found that there is another kind of madness, too, that comes from deep meditation: going beyond the mind. Both are outside the mind; hence there is some similarity. So sometimes you will find that the madman once in a while behaves almost as a wise man. He has insights -- he has no control over them, they are just flashes, but sometimes he can see things which you cannot see.

In the East, where mind has been the sole center of all research down the centuries, we have discovered that you can go above the mind. Sufism accepts that state and calls it the state of a masta -- a divine madman. He is mad, but he is superhumanly mad. His behavior is irrational as far as our logic is concerned. But perhaps there is a higher logic, according to which his behavior is not irrational.

In India such a man is called paramhansa. Ramakrishna, in the last century, was one of the men who was called paramhansa. The behavior of a paramhansa is utterly mad, but intensely beautiful, and has a depth which even the greatest genius of the mind does not have.

It happened that in Ramakrishna's time... He lived just outside Calcutta, on the bank of the Ganges in a small temple. Now many temples have arisen, and in Calcutta... At that time Calcutta was the capital of India, not New Delhi, so the cream of intellectuals, creative people, was in Calcutta. And anyway, Bengalis

are the most intelligent people in India, mostly intellectual.

Keshav Chandra Sen was a great genius as far as intellect is concerned, and he was a co-founder of a religion, brahmasamaj -- the society of the divine. He was known all over India. Ramakrishna was not known, except to a few people in Calcutta on the riverbank where he lived. He was uneducated, and people thought he was mad -- the people of the mind -- because his behavior was not explainable by mental concepts.

But slowly, slowly his influence was increasing, particularly in Calcutta -- which was very close; people could come to see him.

And Keshav Chandra Sen was worried that a villager, uneducated... And even professors of the universities were becoming devotees; they would touch his feet. And whatever he was saying was so ordinary. The man had nothing exceptional. One day finally he decided to go and argue with this man and finish this whole thing.

He went. Hundreds of people who knew Keshav Chandra and a few who knew Ramakrishna, they all gathered to see what would transpire. Ramakrishna's followers were very much afraid, knowing that Keshav Chandra could defeat anybody if it was a question of rationality. He had proved his mettle hundreds of times, all over India. He had defeated great scholars without much effort. Now, how was poor Ramakrishna going to stand up before him?

Everybody among the followers was nervous, but Ramakrishna was not. He was again and again asking, "Keshava has not come yet?" He would not use even his whole name: Keshav Chandra Sen. He would say simply, "Keshava has not come yet?"

Finally Keshav Chandra arrived with his great following. Ramakrishna hugged him.

Keshav Chandra was not prepared for that. He had come to fight, and he made it clear to Ramakrishna, "These things won't help. I have come to discuss each and every point of your philosophy. Don't try to create a friendship. I have come as an enemy: either you defeat me and I will be your follower, or be ready to become my follower."

Ramakrishna said, "That we will be doing soon -- hugging has nothing to do

with it! I have always loved you. Whenever I have heard about you and your ideas, that you say there is no God... and I know there is God, but still I enjoy and love you. In fact your great intelligence is proof that existence is intelligent; otherwise from where does intelligence come? You are a proof to me that God is

-- but that we will discuss later on.

What is the hurry? And there is no need for any enmity. The discussion can be in deep friendship.

"And you know, I am a poor man. I don't know any logic. I have never discussed with anybody. It is going to be a very easy job for you, so you need not be so tense! I have prepared some sweet for you; first take the sweet. I have prepared it with much love. And then you can start your so-called discussion."

Keshav Chandra was finding it a little difficult. The man was strange; he offered him a sweet, he hugged him. He had already destroyed the animosity, the aggressiveness -- in a very subtle way, without saying a word. And strangest of all, he says that my presence --

that is, Keshav Chandra's presence -- is enough proof of God, there is no need of other proof. Without God how is such intelligence possible? The world would be dead. The world is intelligent, and God is nothing but the intelligence of existence.

After taking his sweet, Ramakrishna said, "Now you start your game!" And Keshav Chandra was arguing against whatever he had found in Ramakrishna's small books -- his followers collected his sayings and stories, anecdotes from his life. And Ramakrishna would enjoy it, and would say to his followers, "Look how beautifully he has criticized it!" And many times he would stand up and hug him and say, "You are a genius! Your criticism is perfect."

Keshav Chandra said, "I have not come here to get your approval; I have come to argue."

Ramakrishna said, "I don't see there is any question of argument. You are the proof. I don't need to give any other proof; I can take you to the whole world as a proof that God exists -- Keshav Chandra is the proof!"

Keshav Chandra had never come across such a man, and what he was saying had immense significance; it was penetrating Keshav Chandra's heart. And the

presence of the man, and the way he behaved, his lovingness... Something happened to Keshav Chandra that his followers could not believe.

By the end of the discussion, Ramakrishna said, "You tell me who is defeated and who is victorious, and I will follow it. If you are victorious, I will become your follower. But I don't know the ways of discussion and I don't know the judgment. You judge; you are efficient enough to make the judgment. You can say to me, `You are defeated,' and I am defeated."

And Keshav Chandra's followers were shocked to see that Keshav Chandra fell at the feet of Ramakrishna. They could not believe their eyes! When they had gone, everybody was asking, "Keshav Chandra, what happened to you?"

He said, "I don't know. One thing is certain, that that man has experienced something about which I have been only talking. I can talk efficiently, but he has it; he radiates it. I have that much intelligence at least to see the aura of the man, to feel the radiance of his love, to see his simplicity, sincerity; to see his trust, that he says to me that, `You decide, and if I am defeated...' And he has not argued at all. How can you defeat a person who has not argued at all? On the contrary, he was appreciating my criticism and he was telling his disciples,

`Listen, this is the way a thing should be criticized.'

"And as I was sitting by his side, slowly, slowly something melted in me -- the antagonism, the aggressiveness. And this is the first time this has happened with anybody. People think he is mad, but if he is mad, then I would like also to be mad. He is far superior to our so-called sanity."

It was very difficult to take Ramakrishna from one place to another place, because anywhere on the road, in the middle of the road... And Calcutta is a very overpopulated city, with more than ten million people in one city. And the traffic is the worst in the world. It is bound to be because thousands of people are walking; there are all kinds of vehicles -- cars, trams, buses. He would start dancing in the middle of the road because something reminded him of God. And anything could remind him of God... a beautiful child, and he would start dancing and singing. His followers would feel very embarrassed

-- they had to protect him from all sides -- that in this traffic... And the police were bound to come, and that man was creating a traffic jam.

But outside India he would have been in a mad asylum because in the West

madness is madness; there are no two categories. In India he became almost a divine being, a god, because people realized, slowly, slowly, that he looks irrational but there is something divine in his irrationality.

He had been doing things from his very childhood. His family was worried -- what is going to happen to this child? People suggested -- as it is customary in India and in other countries too -- that it will be good to marry him so he will forget all about God and all about meditation and will become engaged in worldly affairs. But they thought that he would refuse -- and that would have been the ordinary expectation. But he was a madman; he does not follow your expectations.

When his father asked, fearing that he is going to say no, Ramakrishna said with great joy, "Yes! But where is the girl?"

They said, "This boy is mad! This is not the right way. He is so ready... immediately!

And he is asking, `Where is the girl? To whom am I going to be married? Do it soon!'"

Just in a nearby village, another village, he was taken on a particular day to see the girl.

And in India this is the way: the girl will come with some sweets to put on your plate, and that's the only moment you can see her -- just for a moment -- and decide.

When he was going to see his future wife, his mother had given him three rupees, just in case he needs them. When the girl came with the sweets, he looked at the girl, took out his three rupees and put them at her feet, touched her feet and said, "Mother, you are the right girl. I am going to marry you."

His father said, "You idiot, you don't understand that nobody calls his wife mother.

But everybody knew that he was a little eccentric -- first putting those three rupees at the feet of the girl... everybody was shocked. And then touching her feet and telling the girl then and there, "Mother, you are really beautiful. I am going to marry you -- it is settled."

But just by a very strange coincidence, the whole family of the girl wanted to deny this marriage because they said, "This boy is mad, and if he is starting this way what will happen in their married life nobody knows." But the girl insisted that if she will marry anybody, she will marry this man.

He was a beautiful man. So the family had to decide for the marriage. The marriage happened; they lived together their whole life. Ramakrishna continued to call her mother.

There was never any husband-wife relationship between them. On the contrary... In Bengal they worship the mother goddess, Kali. So in those days when they worship the mother goddess all over Bengal -- and in other places also, wherever Bengalis are in India... they are the only people in India left who still conceive of God as a mother.

In those days, every year he would put Sharda, his wife, naked on a throne and worship her -- just as naked as the statue of the mother goddess is in the temples. He would not go to the temple; he would say, "When I have a living mother with me, why should I go and worship a stone statue?"

Anybody will say this is madness, sheer madness. But in so many ways his madness cannot be categorized with that of other mad people. His madness is beyond mind, not below mind. Each of his statements is of tremendous importance, simple but full of meaning. Just like a villager, he tells small stories. But those stories are so beautiful that you can get out of them much more meaning than out of a whole scripture. And his life...

if you watch carefully, you will find that he is not an ordinary man; he is superhuman.

One day Ramakrishna and his followers are passing the Ganges in a boat and suddenly in the middle he starts crying, "Don't beat me! I have not done anything wrong. Why are you beating me?" And tears started flowing.

And his people said, "Nobody is beating you -- what are you doing?" Even his own followers once in a while suspected that he was insane, because they were only followers.

Nobody was beating him, and he was crying. And they could see from his face that he was being whipped very badly.

And he said, "You don't believe me? Just look at my back." They removed his clothes and they could not believe it: there were so many lines, blood oozing; he had been whipped badly. They could not believe... what to make of it? This man is mad and he is making his followers mad.

But when they reached the other shore, they found a man who had been beaten, and there was a crowd. And they looked at his back and they were surprised: the marks of the beating were exactly the same on both Ramakrishna's and this man's back. Such oneness of feeling, that when somebody else is being beaten -- innocently, he has not done anything -- Ramakrishna becomes part of that person, they become one.

This is not madness, this is a tremendous experience, a man of Himalayan heights... And although he was not a preacher, not a scholar, in everything that he says you can find the insight of the greatest men who have walked on the earth. Of course his way is that of a villager.…

One man came to Ramakrishna and said, "I am going to Varanasi to take a dip in the Ganges to get rid of my sins" -- that's Hindus' belief.

Ramakrishna said, "Very good idea, you can go. But do you know that on the bank of the Ganges there are big, huge trees?"

The man said, "Yes, I know."

He said, "When you take a dip in the Ganges your sins will leave you, but they will sit on the trees. And how long can you remain under the water? You will have to come out, you will have to come home. And when you are dressed and ready to go home, those sins jump back on you. So it is futile, but it is up to you."

He will not say that this is stupid -- that the Ganges cannot take your sins away. But he says it in his own way, without hurting the man's feelings. And he has said it in a beautiful way: "You can go. The Ganges will do its work, it will purify you -- but how long you will remain in the Ganges? Sooner or later you will have to come out. And what do you think? Those trees are standing there, they are the resting places for the sins.

"And sometimes it happens that even other people' sins jump upon you. Seeing a better man, they change. So I will not suggest it. Find some other way. This is

dangerous -- so many people are taking a bath in the Ganges, and all their sins are on the trees; they get mixed up. And then it is up to them to choose. It is better to have your own sins. At least you are acquainted with them. You may come back with some new sins, more dangerous.

"But I will not prevent you; I never prevent anybody. You can go and try, but I have told you the whole story. Nobody talks about the trees because the priests who are sitting on the banks of the Ganges, their whole business will flop if people come to know about the trees and the real secret. And sins, nobody can see, they are invisible; so they sit on the trees and wait."

This man, in India, became paramhansa. Paramhansa means literally "the greatest swan"... because in Indian mythology it is thought that the swan eats only pearls; that is his food. And the swan is the only bird in existence that if you put before him milk mixed with water he will drink the milk and leave the water behind. He has the capacity to discriminate between water and milk.

Paramhansa means "the greatest swan" who has become capable of discriminating between darkness and light, between right and wrong. It is not an effort on his part; it has become simply his nature. But his behavior may look mad.

This is my feeling, that there are many madmen in India who are really mad, who have not gone beyond mind -- I have seen a few -- but they are worshipped as paramhansas.

Their irrational acts are interpreted by great scholars in such a way that they start having meaning. I have watched these people and they are really mad, they are not paramhansas.

Perhaps the case may be similar in the West; there may be a few paramhansas who are living in mad asylums, because you don't have any other category. Once a man starts behaving in a bizarre, berserk manner, he is mad. So on both sides there is confusion. But I think, still, the Eastern confusion is better. There is no harm in worshipping a madman; you are not doing any harm. But to put a paramhansa into a madhouse and force him through medicines and injections and treatment to come back into the mind is real harm.

Western psychology has still no category for the second one, which it needs. But that category will arise only when it accepts supermind. Before Sigmund Freud

it had not even accepted the unconscious mind -- only the conscious mind. For thousands of years in the West there was no idea of the unconscious mind.

With Sigmund Freud, the unconscious mind became established. With Jung, the collective unconscious mind became established. Now somebody is needed to establish the cosmic unconscious mind. A tremendous field is available for any genius to establish it. Because in the Eastern psychology all these three are accepted, have been accepted for thousands of years.

And this is below the conscious mind. Above the conscious mind are also three: the superconscious, the collective superconscious, and the cosmic superconscious. On those, no work has been even started. The second category of madmen that I am talking about is somewhere in these three categories; certainly in the superconscious but perhaps if it grows deeper, it may become collective superconscious. And in a man like Ramakrishna it is cosmic superconscious.

When he was dying he had a cancer of the throat, and it became impossible for him to eat anything or drink anything. And his followers were telling him again and again, "You just close your eyes and tell the existence -- it will listen to you." He would close his eyes, but would forget all about it. After a while, when he would open his eyes... the disciples were waiting; they would say, "What happened?"

He said, "Nothing, because when I close my eyes everything becomes silent. What are you expecting to happen?"

They said, "We had asked you to ask existence.…" Finally they forced his wife, Sharda:

"Perhaps only you can persuade him."

Unwillingly, reluctantly, she asked him. With tears in her eyes she said, "I don't want to tell you to do anything because that is interfering, and my whole life I have never said a single word to interfere. You are far above; my hands cannot reach. But because these people are so deeply in anguish, I have agreed to say to you, just once: Close your eyes and ask existence, `What are you doing to me? Remove this cancer from my throat.'"

He said, "Because you have never asked anything -- every wife is asking

everything, any day, every day; for your whole life you have never asked anything -- and this is maybe my last day, or last days, I will fulfill it."

He closed his eyes, opened his eyes and said, "Sharda, I asked. And I heard a voice saying to me, `Ramakrishna, can't you drink with other people's throats? Can't you eat with other people's throats? Do you necessarily need your own? Are you still attached to your own body?'

"And I said, `No' -- I had to say the truth. So the voice said, `From now onwards, you eat with everybody's throat, drink with everybody's throat.'"

This is the stage of cosmic consciousness. This man may look mad, may behave in some ways which do not fit with our mind... and psychology has to find a place for this man, separate from the madman we know.

So there is a possibility of becoming mad below the mind, and with that too you can be on three levels. You can be mad, just unconscious; you can be mad collectively unconscious. And each step down you will become more and more mad. You can be mad at the level of the cosmic unconscious mind; that is the worst that can happen to a man.

He will live just like a stone, a rock. He has lost all touch... he is so far away, miles away from consciousness.

Psychology has tried to pull these people back to the mind -- not very successfully, but still, if the person has only fallen one step, it can pull him back. From the second step it becomes more difficult; and from the third step I don't think psychology has yet been able to find any way to pull the person back.

It is very difficult to pull the person down from superconsciousness, but it is possible.

And psychology is doing it -- at least in the West -- with a few people who may not be mad in the ordinary sense.

For example, Vincent Van Gogh was kept for one year in a madhouse; and I don't think he was mad, he was painting things the way we don't know things are. During that one year in the madhouse he had painted his best paintings. And that is proof that he was perhaps in a higher state than the ordinary mind.

Perhaps he had reached the superconscious. In that one year he painted one painting in which the stars are spirals. And everybody laughed, "This is absolutely mad! Who has seen stars as spirals?" And just recently, a few days ago, physics has come to the same conclusion, that stars are spirals. It is because of the distance that we cannot see it. A hundred years after Van Gogh...

Perhaps that man, when we thought that he was mad, was on a higher level of consciousness and was capable of seeing one century ahead of science, with no instruments, with nothing; just with his pure consciousness -- a visualization that stars are spirals.

There are other paintings in which he has painted strange things. Perhaps by and by we may come to know that they are not strange, they are exactly as he has painted them. In his whole life... After this one year he didn't live long, but he painted one painting in which trees are going higher than the stars. The stars are just on the way, and trees have passed them and are going higher. Even the painter's friends laughed, that "You are now making a fool of yourself! Trees going above the stars?"

Van Gogh said, "I don't know, but whenever I sit by the side of a tree I feel the ambition of the tree: it is the ambition of the earth to go beyond the stars. I don't know whether those trees are lying to me or I am deceived, but this happens every time I sit by the side of a tree. And I suddenly feel the tree is saying to me, Ì am the aspiration of the earth to go beyond the stars.'"

Perhaps man going to the moon, man going to Mars, man going to the stars, is also part of the same ambition, that the earth wants to go as far as possible, to enquire, to investigate.

Now, Van Gogh looks mad, but what he is saying is not absolutely senseless; it has a certain credibility about it. If in man there is a desire to reach to the stars, then in the trees also there must be a desire to reach beyond the stars, because we are all part of one life.

Trees are a different expression, we are a different expression, but the life is the same.

You ask me, "What is madness?" Madness can be defined as either falling below the mind or falling above the mind. Falling below the mind is sickness; falling above the mind is health, wholeness.

Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,

FOR THE PAST SEVEN YEARS I HAVE HEARD YOU SPEAKING ABOUT

TRUTH. BUT THIS IS STILL AN EMPTY WORD FOR ME. OFTEN YOU SAY

THAT ONE KNOWS TRUTH WHEN ONE IS SILENT INSIDE. I KNOW THIS

DELICIOUS FEELING THAT TAKES ME OVER WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES AND

BECOME QUIET INSIDE, BUT WHAT IS TRUTH TO DO WITH THAT?

That is the truth.

Truth is not an object that you will find somewhere when you are silent. Truth is your subjectivity.

Just try to understand. You are there, and the whole world is there. Whatever you see is an object, but who is seeing it is the subject.

In silence all objects disappear -- and the word òbject, has to be remembered; it is the same word as òbjection.' Òbject' means that which prevents you.

So all preventions, all objects, all objections, disappear; you have the whole infinity, and just silence. It is full of consciousness, it is full of presence, of your being. But you will not find anything as the truth -- that will become an object. And truth is never an object.

Truth is subjectivity.

To discover your subjectivity -- unhindered, unobjected to by anything, in its total infinity and eternalness -- is the truth.

"The truth" is only a way of speaking; there is not something labeled "Truth," that one day you will find and open the box and see the contents and say, "Great!

I have found the truth." There is no such box.

Your existence is the truth, and when you are silent you are in truth. And if the silence is absolute then you are the ultimate truth. But don't think of the truth as an object -- it is not an object.

It is not there, it is here. Question 3

BELOVED OSHO,

SINCE BEING WITH YOU SO MUCH GROWTH AND MATURITY HAS

HAPPENED IN ME -- I HAVE CHANGED IN EVERY ASPECT. AT THE SAME

TIME, WHEN I LOOK INTO MYSELF, I FEEL THE SAME AS I DID WHEN I WAS

A LITTLE CHILD.

IS THIS MY WITNESS, OR SOMETHING ELSE?

It is your witness.

Just remember one thing, that the feeling of being a child can be experienced in two ways. You can be a witness and the experience of childhood can be an object. Then one more step is needed: You have to become the purity, the innocence of the child... not separate -- you are it.

It will come. This is how it comes: first it comes as an object; you are still separate and watching it. This is beautiful and a great experience -- that all rubbish is thrown out and you are feeling a very pure, innocent state -- but you are still separate from it. Just go on witnessing it, and soon even the childhood will disappear, and there will be only the witness, the subjectivity. There will be only the mirror without mirroring anything. Then you have arrived home.

You can mirror beautiful things, and it is good, but when the mirror is absolutely empty...

One of the Buddhist scriptures has the name "The Empty Mirror." That exactly describes the ultimate state of consciousness, when you simply are and there is nothing -- not even childhood, not even silence, not even peace, not even blissfulness... nothing that you can observe it.

This ocean of nothingness surrounding you is nirvana. There is nothing more to explore.

There is nothing more to find.

But as it is going it is good: you are changing, and even to feel one's childhood is a great experience. But greater experiences are ahead. Don't stop, just continue till only you are left, alone, without a second.

Beyond Psychology Chapter #36

Chapter title: Wake up and you are it 30 April 1986 am in

Archive code: 8604300

ShortTitle: PSYCHO36

Audio: Yes Video: Yes

Length:

106

mins Question 1

BELOVED OSHO,

WHEN YOU SPEAK ABOUT THE MANY STATES ON THE WAY TO

ENLIGHTENMENT I AM NOT EVEN ABLE TO SEE WHERE I AM ON THE WAY.

I ALWAYS THINK I MUST BE THOUSANDS OF LIFETIMES AWAY FROM THE

HIGHEST STATE. ON THE OTHER HAND, YOU ARE SAYING THAT IT CAN

HAPPEN NOW AND HERE, FOR ALL OF US. I CANNOT IMAGINE THAT A QUICK CHANGE CAN BE POSSIBLE -- FROM A STATE OF UNAWARENESS

LIKE MY OWN, TO A STATE OF TOTAL CONSCIOUSNESS. IN MY REALITY I OFTEN SEE MYSELF AS AN IDIOT, VERY STUPID. I DO HAVE A TASTE OF

UNDERSTANDING, ESPECIALLY THROUGH YOUR SO-CALLED

CONTRADICTIONS, BUT THIS UNDERSTANDING CREATES IN ME EVEN

MORE ABSURDITIES. FOR EXAMPLE: "THE HIGHEST FREEDOM IS IN THE

HIGHEST SLAVERY."

I AM TOTALLY CONFUSED -- AND AT THE SAME TIME, I AM NOT. EVEN

WHEN I SAY THAT I DON'T BELIEVE IN THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENING

HERE AND NOW, I DON'T BELIEVE IN MY BELIEVING, BECAUSE IT MIGHT

BE JUST THE TRICKY MIND WHICH HAS CARRIED THE MEMORY OF YOUR

SAYING THAT ENLIGHTENMENT IS THE ONLY THING THAT CANNOT BE

DESIRED.

SO I AM HERE, JUST ENJOYING, GRATEFUL FOR YOUR BEING AND YOUR

WORDS. TO BE ONE OF SO MANY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD TO BE ALLOWED

TO SIT BY THE FEET OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN IN THE WORLD GIVES

THE INSIGHT THAT EXISTENCE TAKES SO MUCH CARE OF ME THAT I CANNOT REALLY BE AN IDIOT; AT LEAST I MUST BE A BLESSED FOOL.

PLEASE HELP ME TO KNOW A LITTLE BIT WHO I AM.

A man asleep can dream himself anywhere in the universe. From that point, to be awake will look thousands of lives away. But it is a dream; as far as the real sleep is concerned, awakening is just close by.

Any moment you can wake up. Any situation can make you awake.

And the master's work is to create devices in which you can become awake. Sometimes very small things -- just throwing cold water in your eyes will make you awake. Asleep you were so far away, but when you wake up then you will

see that it was a dream that created the distance. Dreaming is the distance. Of course, for dreaming, sleep is necessary, but the moment you are awake sleep disappears, and with it the whole world of dreams too.

The truth is that awakening is the nearest reality to you, just by the side of you. It is not far away; hence it cannot be made a goal. All goals are dreaming, all achievements are dreaming. Awakening cannot be a goal because the man who is asleep cannot even think of what awakening can be. He cannot make, in his sleep, a goal of enlightenment -- it is impossible. Or whatever he makes will be totally different from the reality of enlightenment.

Enlightenment is part of your waking consciousness.

In the East we have four layers of consciousness. First, that one we know is called so-called wakefulness. It is not really wakeful, because just underneath it dreams are floating. Close your eyes and you will have a daydream. Close your eyes and you will immediately see -- imagination takes over, and you start going away from this moment, from here. In reality you are going nowhere, but in your mind you can go anywhere.

So the first state is the so-called waking state; the second state is called sleep. We are aware of these.

The third is called the dreaming state, because sleep can be without dreaming; then it has a different quality. It is very peaceful, very silent, dark and deep... very rejuvenating.

So sleep is the second stage, below the so-called waking stage, and then comes the third stage, dreaming. Most of the time in your sleep you are dreaming. If you sleep eight hours, then six hours you are dreaming. Just here and there, like small islands, you are asleep; otherwise it is continuous dreaming.

You don't remember it, that's why people think this seems too much -- six hours of dreaming and only two hours of sleep. You remember only the last dreams when you are waking up, because only with your waking up your memory starts functioning; so it catches only the tail end of your dream world. You don't remember all the dreams, but only the dreams that happen just before you are waking up -- the morning dreams.

It was always understood in the East that these six hours of dreaming are as

essential as those two hours of silent sleep. But in the West, within the last ten years for the first time new researches have proved the Eastern insight totally right. In fact, the new findings say that dreaming is even more essential than sleep, because in dreaming you are throwing out the rubbish of your mind.

The whole day the mind is collecting all kinds of words, all kinds of desires, ambitions --

too much dust! It has to be thrown out. In the day you don't have any time to throw it out; you are gathering more and more. So in the night when you are asleep the mind has a chance to clean itself up. Dreaming is a kind of spring cleaning. But it is an everyday business: again you will collect, again you will dream, again you will collect...

These are the states known to us. The fourth is not named in the East but is simply called the fourth, turiya. It is a number, it is not a word. No name is given to it so that you cannot interpret it, so that your mind cannot play with it and deceive you. What can the mind do, just listening to the number four? The mind simply feels paralyzed. Give any name with meaning, then the mind has a way -- meaning is its way. But the number four has no meaning.

The fourth state is the real awakening. The fourth state has to be understood in reference to the other three states. It has something similar to the first, the so- called waking state.

The so-called waking state is very thin, almost negligible, but it has some quality... The fourth consists only of that quality; it is pure awakening. You are fully awake.

It also has some similarity to the second stage -- the sleep. Sleep has silence, depth, peacefulness, relaxation, but in a very small measure -- just as much as is needed for day-to-day affairs. But the fourth has its totality: total relaxation, total silence, abysmal depth.

It has also some quality of the dream. The dream takes you far away from yourself. You may go to the moon in the dream, you may go to some star in the dream, although you remain here, in your bed. In reality you don't go anywhere, but in imagination -- as long as you are dreaming -- it looks absolutely real. You cannot think in a dream that it is a dream. If you can think in a dream that it is a dream, the dream will be broken -- you are awake, and you cannot catch hold of

the dream again.

One Sufi story about Mulla Nasruddin is that one night he dreams that an angel is giving him some money, "Because you are so virtuous, so wise, God has sent some reward for you." But as the mind is, he gives him ten rupees, and Mulla says, "This is not a reward --

don't insult me." And slowly slowly he brings the angel up to ninety-nine rupees. But Mulla is stubborn; he says, "I will take a hundred or I will not take anything. What a miserly approach it is -- and from God! You represent God and you cannot make it a hundred?."

He shouted so loudly, "Either a hundred or nothing!" that it woke him up. He looked all around -- there was nobody, just he was sleeping in his bed. He said, "My God, I lost ninety-nine rupees unnecessarily, just being stubborn for one rupee more." He closed his eyes, tried hard, "Please come back, wherever you are. Ninety-nine is okay; even ninety-eight will do... ninety-seven is also all right

-- anything will do. You just come back! Where are you?"

He came back to one rupee, "I will take only one rupee... anything from God is great. I was foolish to call God a miser; in fact, I was greedy. Forgive me, and give me just one rupee." But the angel was not there.

You cannot catch hold of the same dream again; once you are awakened there is no way to catch hold of the same dream.

A dream takes you away from yourself; that's its basic quality. Perhaps that's why it cleanses you and helps you to have a certain relaxation: you forget your worries. For a few moments at least you can be in paradise, you can be in a situation you always wanted to be in.

The fourth stage also has something similar, but just similar. It also takes you away from yourself -- but forever. You cannot come back to yourself. In the dream you cannot come back to the same dream; in the fourth stage you cannot come back to the same self. It takes you really so far away that you can be the whole universe. That's what the Eastern mystics have said: aham brahmasmi -- I have become the whole.

But you have to lose the self. You cannot come back to it.

This fourth stage has been given different names. This is the most mathematical name, the fourth. It was given by Patanjali, who was a very scientific and mathematical mystic.

His treatise has remained for thousands of years the only source of yoga. Nothing has been added, because nothing is needed. It is very rare that one person creates a complete system, so complete and so perfect that it is impossible to change anything in it.

In the West it used to be thought that Aristotle was such a person -- he created logic, the whole system of logic alone, and for two thousand years it has remained the same. But in this century things have changed, because new discoveries in physics have made it absolutely necessary to find something better than Aristotle. The new findings in physics have created a problem, because if you follow Aristotle's logic then you cannot accept those findings. Those findings are against Aristotle's logic, but you cannot deny reality.

Reality is reality! You can change the logic -- which is man-made -- but you cannot change the behavior of electrons. It is not in your power, it is existential. So a non-Aristotelian logic has grown up.

The second case was geometry. Euclid has reigned for hundreds of years as a perfect master as far as geometry is concerned, but in this century that too has got into trouble.

Non-Euclidian geometries have evolved. They had to be evolved because of the new discoveries of physics.

For example, you have heard that the closest distance between two points makes a straight line, but the discovery of the physicists is that there is no straight line at all. A straight line is impossible, for the simple reason that you are sitting on a global earth.

You can draw a straight line here on the floor, but it is not a straight line because it is part of a circle. If you go on drawing it from both ends, one day they will meet somewhere and you will see that it has become a circle. So the small piece

that you were thinking was a straight line was not a straight line; just it was just such a small part of a circle that you could not see the curve. The curve was invisible -- it was so small, but it was there.

Where are you going to draw a straight line? -- because all stars, all planets, everything is global, is round. So wherever you draw a line, howsoever small it is, it looks absolutely straight -- even with scientific instruments you can see that it is straight -- but go on making it bigger and bigger, and it will become a part of a circle. So it was an arc, not a straight line. In the same way everything from Euclid has been cancelled.

Patanjali remains the only person yet, and perhaps may remain the only person, who has created a whole science alone, and has remained for five thousand years without any challenge from any corner. He calls it the turiya, the fourth. He is so scientific a man that one simply feels amazed.

Five thousand years ago, he had the courage, the insight, the awareness, to say that God is only a hypothesis. It can help you to become awakened but it is not a reality, it is only a device. There is no God to be achieved; it is only a hypothesis.

A few people can be helped by hypotheses -- they can use it -- but remember, it is not a reality. And once you have become awakened, it disappears, the same way as when you wake up your dreams disappear. They were so real that sometimes it happens that even after you have awakened there is some effect left of the reality of the dream: your heart is beating faster, you are perspiring, trembling, still afraid. Now you know perfectly it was a dream, but you are still crying, your tears are there. The dream was non-existential, but it has affected you because for that period you had taken it to be real.

So it is possible. You can see the devotees crying before their god, emotionally very much affected, dancing, singing, worshipping, and feeling the truth of it, but it is just a hypothesis. There is nothing, no God, but these people are taking the hypothesis as a reality. One day when they will be awake, they will laugh at themselves, that it was only a hypothesis.

But there are other masters who have given different names according to their own philosophical background. A few have called it enlightenment: becoming full of light --

all darkness disappears, all unconsciousness disappears -- becoming fully conscious.

There are others who have called it liberation, freedom -- freedom from yourself, remember. All other freedoms are political, social. They are freedom from somebody, from some government, from some country, from some political party; but it is always freedom FROM...

Religious freedom is freedom not from somebody else, but from yourself. You are no more.

Because you are no more, a few masters in the East have called it anatta -- no- selfness.

Buddha called it nirvana -- which is very close to anatta, no-selfness, or selflessness --

just a zero, a profound nothingness surrounding you. But it is not emptiness, it is fullness: fullness of being, of ultimate joy, fullness of being blessed, fullness of gracefulness. All that you have known before is no more there; hence is it empty of all that. But something new, absolutely new you had not even dreamt about, is discovered.

Some have called it universal existence, but what name you give does not matter. I think the fourth still remains the best, because it does not lead you into mind trips; otherwise you are going to think about it, "What is emptiness? What is nothingness?" And nothingness can create a fear, emptiness can create a fear, anatta, no-selfness, can create a fear. The fourth is absolutely right.

Three stages you know; the fourth is just a little deeper. It is not far away. The idea of being lives away from it is a dream. In reality it is just by the side... wake up and you are it.

Question 2 BELOVED OSHO,

I HEARD YOU SAYING THAT ENLIGHTENMENT IS THE TRANSCENDENCE OF

MIND -- CONSCIOUS, UNCONSCIOUS, SUB-CONSCIOUS -- AND THAT ONE

DISSOLVES INTO THE OCEAN OF LIFE, INTO THE UNIVERSE, INTO

NOTHINGNESS. I ALSO HEAR YOU TALKING ABOUT THE INDIVIDUALITY

OF HUMAN BEINGS. HOW CAN THE INDIVIDUALITY OF AN ENLIGHTENED

PERSON MANIFEST ITSELF IF HE IS DISSOLVED IN THE WHOLE?

The ordinary, unconscious human being has no individuality; he has only a personality.

Personality is that which is given by others to you -- by the parents, by the teachers, by the priest, by the society -- whatever they have said about you. And you have been desiring to be respectable, to be respected, so you have been doing things which are appreciated, and the society goes on rewarding you, respecting you more and more. This is their method of creating a personality.

But personality is very thin, skin-deep. It is not your nature. The child is born without a personality, but he is born with a potential individuality. The potential individuality simply means his uniqueness from anybody else -- he is different.

So first, remember that individuality is not personality. When you drop personality, you discover your individuality -- and only the individual can become enlightened. The false cannot become the ultimate realization of truth. Only the true can meet with the true, only the same can meet the same. Your individuality is existential; hence when your individuality blossoms you become one with the whole. Here is the question: if you become one with the whole, then how can you remain individual?

The problem is simply a non-understanding. The experience of becoming the whole is of consciousness, and the expression of it is through the body, through the mind. The experience is beyond the body/mind structure. When one becomes absolutely silent, goes into samadhi, reaches the fourth stage, he is not body, he is not mind. They are all silent -

- he is far above them. He is pure consciousness.

This pure consciousness is universal, just as this light in all these bulbs is one, but it can be expressed differently. The bulb can be blue, the bulb can be green, the bulb can be red; the shape of the bulb can be different. The body/mind are still there, and if the man of experience wants to express his experience, then he has to use the body/mind; there is no other way. And his body/mind are unique -- only he has that structure, nobody else has that structure.

So he has experienced the universal, he has become the universal, but to the world, to the others, he is a unique individual. His expression is going to be different from other realized people. It is not that he wants to be different; he has a different mechanism, and he can only come through that mechanism to you.

There have been enlightened painters. They have never spoken because word was not their art, but they have painted. And their paintings are totally different from ordinary paintings, even of the great masters. Even the greatest master painters are unconscious people; what they paint reflects their unconsciousness.

But if a realized man paints, then his painting has a totally different beauty. It is not only a painting, it is a message too. It has a meaning to be discovered. The meaning has been given in code, because the man was capable only of painting, so his painting is a code.

You have to discover the code, and then the painting will reveal immense meanings. The deeper you go into those meanings, the more and more you will find. The other paintings are just flat; they may be made by masters, but they are flat. The paintings made by a realized man are multidimensional, they are not flat. They want to say something to you.

If the man is a poet, like Kabir, then he sings, and his poetry is his expression.

If the man is articulate in speaking the unspeakable, then he speaks; but his words will have a totally different impact. The same words are used by everybody, but they don't have that impact because they don't carry the same energy, they don't come from the same source. A man of experience brings his words full of his experience -- they are not dry, they are not the words of an orator or a speaker. He may not know the art of speaking but no orator can do what he can do with words. He can transform people just by their hearing him. Just by being in the presence of him, just by letting his words rain over you, you

will feel a transformation happening: a new being is born in you, you are reborn.

So when I say that even enlightened people have individuality, I mean that they remain unique -- for the simple reason that they have a unique body/mind structure, and anything that comes to you has to come through that structure.

Buddha speaks in one way, Mahavira speaks in another way. Chuang Tzu speaks in absurd stories -- he is a great story-teller -- but his stories, side by side, go on playing with your heart. The stories are so absurd that your mind cannot do anything. That's the reason why he has chosen the stories to be absurd, so that your mind cannot come in between. With his absurd stories he stops your mind, and then his presence is available to you and to your heart; you can drink the wine he has brought for you. And he has put your mind away by telling you an absurd story. The mind is puzzled and is not functioning.

Many people have wondered why Chuang Tzu writes such absurd stories, but nobody has been able to explain the fact for the simple reason that the people who have been thinking about why he is writing the stories have no idea that it is a device to make the mind stop functioning -- then you are available, fully available from your heart. He can contact you in that way.

But Buddha cannot tell an absurd story. He uses parables, but they are very meaningful.

He does not want to avoid the mind... these are the uniquenesses of the people. He wants the mind to be convinced and then, through that conviction of the mind, he wants to go to your heart. If the mind is convinced it gives way. And Buddha's parables, his discourses, are all logical; the mind has to give way sooner or later.

Different masters... For example, Jalaluddin Rumi did nothing but whirling. He became enlightened after thirty six hours of continuous whirling, without any stop -- non-stop whirling. In fact every child likes to whirl. Parents stop him; they say, "You will fall. You may have a fit or you may get hit by something -- don't do such a thing." But all children all over the world love whirling, because somehow while the child is whirling he finds his center. Without finding the center you cannot whirl. The body goes on whirling, but the whirling has to happen on a center; so slowly, slowly he becomes aware of the center.

After thirty-six hours of continuous whirling, Rumi became absolutely clear

about his center. That was his experience of the ultimate, the fourth. Then his whole life he was not doing anything but teaching whirling to people. It will look absurd to a Buddhist, it will look absurd to any other religion -- because, what you can get out of whirling? It is a simple method, the simplest method, but it may suit you or it may not.

For example, for me it does not suit. I cannot sit on a swing, that is enough to create nausea in me. And what to say about sitting myself on a swing? -- I cannot see somebody else swinging! That is enough to give me a feeling of nausea. Now, Rumi is not for me.

And there may be many people to whom whirling will give nausea, vomiting. That means it is not for them.

We are individually different. And there is no contradiction. One can experience the universal, and yet when the question of expression arises, he has to be individual.

Question 3 BELOVED OSHO,

THE OTHER MORNING I HEARD YOU SAYING THAT THE SO-CALLED SELF IS

JUST AN IDEA OF THE MIND, BECAUSE IT SEEMS HARD FOR THE MIND TO

ACCEPT THAT OUR BEING IS JUST PURE NOTHINGNESS, SURPRISINGLY

CONTAINING THE WHOLE. THEN WHO AND WHAT IS THE WITNESS YOU

TALK ABOUT SO MUCH? IS IT A MASTERLY DEVICE WHICH HAS TO BE

DROPPED AT SOME POINT?

It is. Everything is a device, because the truth cannot be said. So only devices

can be given. You have to be convinced about the devices, but they will have to be dropped at the last moment -- but that does not mean that you have to drop them now! Dropping them now will not help; now you have to use them to their utmost possibility. And then that moment will come by itself... when the device has reached to the peak, it disappears -

- and you are in the experience of the fourth.

The whole problem arises because the truth cannot be said, so something has to be devised which will bring you to truth. And the device has to be such that it will not become an obstruction in itself. So the great master is one who gives you a device which is made in such a way that it is going to disappear automatically, autonomously, the moment you come close to truth.

There are many devices which are good but dangerous, because they can become obstacles. For example, I told you that Patanjali says God is a device. Nobody before him or after him has ever said that. There have been people who have said God is a truth, and there have been people who have said there is no God, but Patanjali's attitude is totally different from both. He is not a theist, he is not an atheist, he is simply a scientific mind.

He says God is a hypothesis. The fight about its existence or non-existence is baseless --

you don't fight about any other hypothesis. But it is a dangerous hypothesis. Even in the life of a man like Ramakrishna it became an obstacle.

So the device is not going to leave you automatically at the right moment. It is dangerous

-- it will cling, it will obstruct your vision. It will take you to the final step, but it won't allow you to take it. A great attachment with the device itself will become the barrier.

Ramakrishna was a devotee of the mother goddess Kali, and not an ordinary devotee, not formal; he really loved her. Sometimes from the morning till the evening he would go on dancing and singing in the temple. And sometimes he would lock the temple for days together and not even go into it. It was reported... because the temple belonged to a very rich woman, Rani Rasmani; he was a paid servant, he was the priest. People said that it is not right that for a few days the

temple does not even open. Other devotees come and have to go back because Ramakrishna is not in the mood to open the doors. And sometimes Ramakrishna is so much in the mood that the devotees get tired... When you go into a temple you wait for prasad -- the food that is offered to God has to be distributed to all the worshippers who are there. It is thought -- prasad means grace -- that it is God's grace and his gift. So people wait for it; but how long can they wait? This man goes on dancing, singing, from morning till evening... worshippers have come and gone, because the prasad can be distributed only when the priest has stopped worshipping.

And all priests are paid, so they are always in a hurry. In fact one priest will go to many temples, so he can get salaries from all those temples; so he is in such a hurry that he does as short a worship as is possible or acceptable, and immediately distributes the prasad and runs to another temple. There are so many temples in India that a priest can manage five, six temples, very easily. But Ramakrishna was not such a priest; he was really a lover. To him the goddess was not just a statue, and the worship was not just a ritual; it was a reality, not a dream.

The owner of the temple, Rasmani, called him and asked him, "What is the matter? I have been hearing different kinds of complaints about you. One is that sometimes you worship the whole day. In what scripture is this written?"

Ramakrishna said, "I don't know any scripture, and I had made it clear even before you employed me that I am uneducated. I don't know any scripture, I know only devotional songs -- so I sing. And to me it is not a question of worshipping for a certain time. Time disappears -- I don't have any idea. Once I am in it, I don't know when the morning has become evening. So if you don't want me, I can leave. But I am going to be this way."

Rasmani said, "This is not the only complaint -- because this can be allowed. The whole day worshipping... there is no harm. But sometimes you don't open the doors of the temple."

He said, "That's true. Sometimes I get angry at the goddess. I love her, but she does not listen to me, and once in a while -- after all, I am a human being -- I get cross, so I say, Òkay, remain closed for two, three days. That will bring you to your senses.' No food, no worship! But if you have any trouble with this, I can leave."

Rasmani could not tell him to leave -- the man was so beautiful and so authentic, and what he was saying had a beauty of its own. Even not opening the doors was part of a love affair, just the quarrel of lovers. She said, "Even that can be allowed, because I want you to be here. But one thing is very bad: I hear that before offering the food to the goddess you taste every sweet yourself."

He said, "That's true, because my mother used to make these sweets" -- and Bengalis make the best sweets in India -- "she would make them and then she would taste them. If they were really good then she would will give some to me, give some to my father; otherwise not -- she would make them again. My wife prepares the sweets. She prevents me, `This is not right. First they have to be offered to the goddess and then they can be distributed.' But I cannot offer anything which is tasteless or is not made well; I have to taste them first. If you don't want it, I am ready to go, but I will continue in the same way."

The man was very simple, and what he was saying was a beautiful thing: he cannot offer to the goddess something that may not be the best. Only the best should be offered, but how to find out? -- one has to taste it.

He worshipped in Dakshineswar, near Calcutta, his whole life. Towards the end of his life, just a few years before he died, he told the goddess one morning, "Now the doctors are saying that I have cancer of the throat. It is not growing but it can start growing any moment, and before I die I want to experience the truth. I am ready and I will do everything: I will dance today before you, sing before you." In every temple of mother Kali there always hangs a big sword, because in the past that sword was used -- and it is still used in the main temple of Calcutta

-- to cut off the heads of animals as sacrifice.

Ramakrishna was not doing that, but the sword had become part of the temple. He said,

"If by the evening I don't have the experience, I will take the sword and kill myself -- the responsibility will be yours."

A few worshippers were there. They rushed out and told everybody, "That madman is going to do something... Now this is too much. All that he was doing before was okay, but now he is going to kill himself!"

A great crowd assembled in the temple, and Ramakrishna danced madly, sang madly, the whole day. And as the sun was setting he pulled out the sword and

said to the goddess,

"So I am going to cut off my head as a sacrifice to you. Either the experience -- or my head will be at your feet." And as he was going to cut himself with the sword, the sword fell from his hands and he fell down on the floor. He remained there for six hours; to the outside world he was unconscious, but in his own experience he was in samadhi, in a beautiful state, utterly silent and blissful. And after six hours when he was woken up, he awoke with tears and he said, "Why have you woken me up? You should have left me in the same state."

Just a few days afterwards there was a master passing by who heard about Ramakrishna, that he had a six-hour samadhi. The master came. Ramakrishna was a very humble man; he touched the feet of the master and said, "Help me, because I attained that experience but it was only for six hours -- then I was back to my old stage."

The master said, "You don't understand, it was not a real experience. You forced that experience upon yourself by your stubborness because you were going to kill yourself.

After dancing the whole day and singing, your mind simply stopped, seeing the situation

-- `The man is going to kill himself!' It had nothing to do with Kali or anybody; it was simply the stopping of the mind. And that experience was only an experience of when mind is not chattering, and you feel immense silence and beauty and joy. If you really want the ultimate experience, the fourth, then you will have to do one thing which is very hard, and that is to cut all attachment with the mother goddess.

That is your problem. You have passed all other barriers, but now this last barrier is the most difficult because you have staked everything on her. So do as I say: you sit in meditation, close your eyes, and when you see the mother Kali arising near your third eye

-- which is going to happen..."

He said, "Yes, it happens. Whenever I close my eyes she is there."

So he said, "That's good. That is the moment... this time you are not to cut your

head; take the sword and cut the mother goddess in two pieces."

Ramakrishna said, "My God, that is very difficult! I cannot hurt her -- and you are telling me to kill her!"

But the man said, "Unless you do it, you will never attain. You try it and see."

He would close his eyes, tears would flow from his eyes, and there was great joy on his face, and radiance. He would open his eyes, and the master would ask, and he would say,

"Yes, I saw her, but I forgot all about killing her -- she is so beautiful, and the attachment is so long... as long as I can remember." He was very small when he became the priest.

Two or three times he tried.

The master said, "This is the last time. If you cannot do it, then I will do it. I have brought this piece of glass. When I see that tears have started flowing from your eyes I will know that you are seeing the mother goddess. I will cut your forehead with the sharp piece of glass to remind you that this is the time: you do the same, cut her in two pieces. It is just your idea -- there is nobody else. It is just a hypothesis."

The master had to cut his forehead, and the mark remained for his whole life. Blood started flowing over his face, but deep inside he managed to gather courage and cut the mother goddess in two pieces. And as she fell in two pieces, it was as if a door had opened and the whole universe was his.

It took six days for him to come back. The first words that he uttered when he came back are immensely important. He said, "The last barrier has fallen."

Any device can become a barrier too. It may help you to get rid of other things, but finally you have to get rid of it -- and that may be a difficult thing. It was so difficult for Ramakrishna. And that was the last day... never again did he go into the temple.

Afterwards he lived three, four years; he simply forgot all about Kali.

But there are devices which will not create such a trouble, and there are devices

which will fall automatically. The moment when you are reaching to the climax of your being they will simply fall down.

I call a master a great master, the perfect master, who creates devices which are going to fall on their own accord when the moment has come for the person to experience the ultimate. Other devices are created by smaller people. Perhaps they don't know that these devices can become attachments themselves.

So everything I say is a device. My speaking to you is a device so that you can just be here -- your mind is engaged, listening to me, and something invisible can go on transpiring between me and your hearts. That's the real thing.

The words will help the mind to remain engaged. They are like just toys. When you don't want children to disturb you -- you are studying -- you give them toys and they start playing with the toys, so you can do your work or study or do anything you want to do, and the children won't come to you to bother you and ask you questions and this and that.

The mind is just like a child.

The words are just toys for the mind -- not truths, but simply toys. But while the mind is engaged something can happen from my depth to your depth. You may not understand it, but it will start bringing changes in you, transformations in your being.

Sometimes simply sitting silently with me... but then there is always the problem that your mind will disturb you. I have tried sitting in silence with you, and I have seen that the problem is, I can reach your heart less; your mind is disturbing you too much.

Speaking seems to be a better device: your mind remains engaged, and once in a while if I give a gap between two words, the mind does not disturb. The mind simply looks and waits: "What is going to happen? What is going to be said?"

And meanwhile the real work is happening. The real work is from my heart to your heart. Beyond Psychology

Chapter #37

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