20

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‌CHAPTER 20

4 January 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A woman says she has been doing yoga in the West.]

Good, very good. So you are ready, now meditate. Yoga in itself is not enough. It is a good preparation, but preparation for something else.

It prepares your body/mind, but if you go on preparing and preparing and never doing the thing for which yoga was preparing you, then it can become an obsession. It has happened to many people in India – they are always preparing as if to go on a journey, but never go. The journey goes on being postponed and the preparation continues. Yoga is perfectly good, very essential and necessary, but it is not enough. It gives you the jumping board, but you have to jump further. Mm?

How long can you be here in India? Be here. If you are really interested in inner growth, be here for a few months. I can see that much is possible – you are ready to move. But you seem a little afraid, mm? What is the fear? Just close your eyes so I can feel the energy.

[She says she doesn’t understand sannyas, but thinks she wants to take it.]

(Chuckling) Mm mm, you will understand it by taking it. There are two types of people: the first try to understand sannyas, then they take it. Another type take it first and understand later – and this is the better! Mm? So should I give it to you, and then understand?

[She takes sannyas]

Marga means path, and prem means love – path of love. Love is the path.

Become more and more loving – that’s your real yoga. If you become more and more loving then yoga is not only of the body – it goes on transcending the body. Otherwise, sometimes yoga can become just a technique. Make it love!

[A sannyasin says: I don’t really want to change at all. I’ve been looking inside, and what I’m really up to is adjusting the environment, and manipulating most of the time, keeping myself really well defended.]

Mm, it’s good that you have become aware of it. You were not aware of it before and this is a good insight. Now things will start being different.

Once you understand that you are trying to manipulate, then the base disappears. Manipulation is so useless and futile a thing. If you succeed, nothing is gained; if you fail, there is much frustration. So whatever the result, whether you succeed or fail, the ultimate result is frustration.

You can go on manipulating only if you are not aware; it is an unconscious process. In some other thing’s name – love, helping people, creating order – you can go on manipulating, and the process can continue, but it needs something to hide behind, a good name. Once you start feeling the truth of it then you will see that you are phoney. To understand that one is phoney is a great insight, and if you remain with it... I will not say to you to drop it, to become authentic, no – remain with the phoniness and you will find that it is disappearing, evaporating.

Once you understand that something is untrue, you cannot live with it; it has to go. So don’t do anything about it, because whatsoever you do will be phoney, will again be a subtle manipulation. Just go on understanding that this is phoney and accept it. Be phoney consciously, and the next insight will be that when you try to be phoney, when you consciously make an effort to manipulate people, one day suddenly you will see that you are incapable of manipulating.

I am happy... this is a good insight, a very essential insight. You have got the point, you have diagnosed your own illness. In the inner world the diagnosis is the treatment, there is no other therapy needed for it.

Now try only one thing: not to forget it. I’m not saying to drop it – go on manipulating, but now watch and don’t do anything to change it; remain with it. It will be difficult to remain with it – even for three days it will be difficult, arduous – but it has to be done. One has to pass through it. Good.

[A sannyasin said that he found his mind making judgements all the time – about other people, and concerning insignificant and petty things.]

Just one thing to do: whenever you feel any judgement coming in the mind, change the breathing pattern, and immediately you will see a change and that the judgement has disappeared.

Whenever you want to change a pattern of the mind that has become a long-standing habit, breathing is the best thing. All habits of the mind are associated with the pattern of breathing. Change the pattern of breathing and the mind changes immediately, instantly. Try it.

Whenever you see that a judgement is coming and you are getting into an old habit, immediately exhale – as if you are throwing the judgement out with the exhalation. Exhale deeply, pulling the stomach in, and as you throw out the air, feel, visualise, that the whole judgement is being thrown out.

Then take in fresh air deeply, two or three times, and just see what happens. You will feel a complete freshness; the old habit will not have been able to take possession.

So start by exhalation, not inhalation. When you want to take something in, start inhaling; if you want to throw something out, start by exhalation and just see how immediately the mind is affected.

And don’t be worried about it, because the very worry gives it emphasis and feeds it. Simply do this and immediately you will see that the mind has moved somewhere else; a new breeze has come. You are not in the old groove so you will not repeat the old habit. And this is true for all habits. For example, if you smoke, if the urge comes to smoke and you don’t want to, immediately exhale deeply and throw the urge out. Have a fresh breath in and you will see immediately that the urge has gone. This can become a very very important tool for inner change. Just try it!

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