24

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‌CHAPTER 24

8 January 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A sannyasin says: I just don’t have any control over what happens anymore. I don’t even know who I am anymore.]

No need to know! That need is the trouble. There is no need to know. One should just move wherever life takes one. Trust life! This is mind interfering and trying to control; to manage and to manipulate. This is ego need.

You have come to understand a very basic thing. Now, don’t forget it. Everything happens, and nobody has any power. The whole power-trip is an illusion. Nobody has any power. Everything is happening on its own. At the most you can cooperate or fight. If you fight, then too it will happen, but you will miss the bliss of it. If you cooperate, then too it will happen – but not because of your cooperation; it was going to happen anyway. You will feel blissful, ecstatic. So cooperate with life, don’t create any conflict, and then everything falls in line; everything settles by itself.

So it is just that this idea is wrong, mm? – that you need to have some power. The second idea is also part of it – that you need to know. Knowledge is always a search for power. Knowledge is nothing but an enquiry to become more powerful. That’s why science has become so important, because we start feeling powerful, and feeling that we have conquered nature. Nothing has been conquered, nothing can ever be conquered. Science only discovers where nature is moving, and then starts cooperating with it – then things start happening. It is not powerful.

For example, oxygen and hydrogen combined together create water. It has always been so, whether we know it or not. When nobody knew about it, then too it was happening. Science discovered that this is how water is made, so now if you follow the rule, you can make water. The water is making itself! You simply cooperate. It is not a conquering, but a deep cooperation.

And the same is true for religion. Science discovers how to cooperate with nature, and religion discovers how to cooperate with God – the ultimate nature. But in both ways, the more you know, the more you understand that knowledge is not needed.

Drop that trip, and just enjoy whatsoever you are and whatsoever is happening.

[The sannyasin says: When I’m in the ashram, everyone seems to be very quiet and floating. I feel like jumping about, shouting and joking, but then I feel bad when it happens. I want to try to change it.]

No, no, don’t try to change it. Let it happen, and don’t feel bad! Silence is good, but jumping and laughing and joking is good too. They enrich each other. If you cannot laugh and joke, your silence will be poorer for it. If you cannot be silent, then your laughter will just be superficial. So nothing is wrong in it. Don’t create any problems. Move easily from laughing to silence, from silence to laughing. Whatsoever happens, allow it. When you feel like jumping, jump! And when you feel like just sitting, and not doing anything – then just sit. Good!

[Another sannyasin says: I don’t know why I can’t improve. Maybe I know, but it’s not very nice. Such a lack of confidence towards myself. I don’t know... there is always a part of me that is against the other, always I’m so fed up.]

Not really...

Otherwise there would be no problem!..

Because you are not yet fed up. If you are really fed up, then nothing is needed; just being fed up is enough. If you are really fed up you drop it; there is nothing else to it! Even the effort to drop shows that you still want to cling. One goes on talking about change, but one doesn’t really want to change.

[The sannyasin says: I was quite a wise person – many years ago. I don’t remember when I became like this. I mean, what sort of choice did I make to become such a masochistic being?]

By and by, slowly, one chooses. It is not a jump, but something very slow, so you never really understand what you are choosing. By and by, one goes on choosing, and choosing wrongly, and then it accumulates one day. You see, one day, that you have chosen a wrong path, and now you have travelled on it for so long it has become almost habitual.

But one can go back; there is no problem in it. The only problem is that you have to be really fed up, and I don’t think that is the case. You are still enjoying it!

[She continues: I’ve learned how to find gratification in it through a cowardly attitude. But I wasn’t always a coward. When I remember back.]

Your remembrance cannot be relied on, mm? That again may be a trick, because whatsoever you remember is always a choice; you never remember the whole. You remember only beautiful things about yourself, and you drop the ugly things. That’s why everybody thinks that in childhood he was almost divine. You remember only happy moments, and those too, you go on magnifying.

That helps you, and gives you a little consolation that this situation is not your real nature, mm? You were beautiful and good and wise – this is just like an accident, and it will pass. Another way you console yourself is by saying that in the future you will become wise, you will become enlightened; you will become this and that. These are the tricks of the mind – either to look at the past or the future, to avoid the present. But the present has to be dealt with. It has to be transformed.

So drop this thinking about the past, and drop thinking about the future. Just see the whole mess that you have created!

Nobody else is responsible either. That too is a trick. You go on thinking that your mother is responsible, that some man who goes on haunting you and influencing you from far-away Europe and who puts things in your mind, is responsible. These are tricks. Nobody can do that, nobody has that power. You are absolutely on your own.

These are ways to avoid responsibility – thinking the whole world is responsible except you. Suddenly you start feeling helpless – because you are not responsible, so what can you do?

You are responsible, and everything can be done. Nobody has destroyed you. You have made a wrong choice, a misjudgement, that’s all. Nothing like a sin; it has just been a misjudgement. Nobody knows beforehand where one is moving. It is just like a puzzle, a riddle.…

[She answers: But I always knew I was making a mistake, a wrong choice, but I thought it would make me more extraordinary.]

Mm mm, so if one wants to be extraordinary one becomes mad, because only mad people are extraordinary. Sane people are just ordinary.

If you are fed up, just become ordinary. Relax, and become just an ordinary human being. It is beautiful to be ordinary. It is very ugly to be extraordinary, it is a sort of disease, an illness, and you can never relax in it.

What I see is that you may be fed up with the misery this trip to be extraordinary is bringing you, but you don’t want to change the goal. You would like all the benefits that an extraordinary person has, but you would like all the blessings that only an ordinary person can have. These two cannot go together. With extraordinariness, with ego, there are miseries. If you choose to be extraordinary, then accept those miseries. Madness will follow you like a shadow, and sooner or later it will crush you completely. Only the shadow will remain, you will disappear...

[She says: That’s what’s happening.]

... or, if you understand, drop this whole nonsense of being extraordinary. Become ordinary, and enjoy ordinary things. Let ordinariness be your religion. Eating, sleeping, sunshine, flowers, people, the marketplace – just be ordinary and enjoy these things. Then you will see that the shadow disappears.

But this is for you to decide. So for three days just think about it. You can be extraordinary... [She answers: I haven’t the qualities to be.]

No question of qualities. Those people who have qualities don’t bother to be extraordinary. They are fully joyful in being ordinary. Only those people who don’t have qualities try to become extraordinary. The very idea shows that something is lacking. So drop the idea!

To be happy, no qualities are needed. You need not be a great painter or a great poet to be happy. An ordinary man with nothing special about him can be happy. Happiness has something else, some other base. Just being is to be happy.

[She answers: I always tell you about myself with the possibility of being wrong, but you can see what is really the problem.]

Nothing is the problem! You are still not seeing the point of how you are creating your misery. You have to see it. You can go on fooling around and avoiding it, but see it! If you are really fed up with it, this very moment it disappears. There is no need for any postponement.

Drop it! There is no method to it. You simply understand and just laugh, because the nonsense is finished, the nightmare over

[Another sannyasin says: Over the past weeks my breathing has started to seize up; it just stops. I find that I become afraid, because it feels as if I am suffocating. It feels good – as if something is coming up that I should get into – but I’d just like reassurance that it’s normal.]

Nothing is wrong, it is beautiful. Once you start enjoying it, you will see the beauty of it. It is a deep calmness. When the breath stops, everything stops; time and thinking too. But if you become afraid then everything starts again. So when the breath stops, remain silent and watch the gap that has come to you; the interval where no breath moves. In that interval, you will Lave the first glimpse of what meditation is.

But ordinarily everybody becomes scared and frightened, because we associate breath with life, and no breath with death. Because of that association, suddenly the fear of death arises; a fear that you are going to die.

You are going to die. In a greater life your small ripple is going to dissolve into the ocean, but that is not death – that is real life.

There are two types of life. One life, that is very superficial, depends on breath: it is the life of the body and the mind. Then there is another type which doesn’t depend on breath. It is deeper than breath and can exist without it. That life is spiritual – call it divine or whatsoever you like.

So it is natural to be afraid in the beginning, but by and by allow it. Enjoy the gap and the silence that falls aU over existence when the breath stops. Nothing moves, because all movement is the movement of your mind. When your mind is not moving, nothing moves. In that no movement, a door opens. But if you become afraid you will miss, mm? Then you become so concerned about breath that you miss the door that is opening inside. So next time it happens, feel blissful and thankful. Feel grateful that a great opportunity has been given to you, and don’t be worried about breath.

Just look inside – a door is opening. When you have a glimpse of it, the whole gestalt changes. Your emphasis is not on the breath, it is on the door. You simply move from the door into another world.

[The sannyasin says: Should I try to be brave and just?... ]

No, never try to be brave, mm? Because that is part of cowardice, and you will miss the whole thing. Just relax and accept it. If you try to be brave you start a fight, and then you will again cling to the same point.

Just relax into it. If it feels like death, say, ‘Okay, I accept it. I am ready to die.’ That much will do. Being brave is going to the opposite extreme and it won’t help.

You are somewhere in between, where there is neither cowardice nor bravery.

[The sannyasin continues: There’s one other thing. I’ve found that I can concentrate with my eyes on objects. I staffed in the morning lecture, just looking at you and phew!... I’m enjoying now looking at the moon and the flowers, but my body starts...(he started swaying to demonstrate)]

Mm, it is good, it will move...

Let it move. Let your enjoyment be like a dance, mm? It is a subtle dance coming to you, so when you see a flower and the body moves, move. Let it be graceful and enjoy it. This is how your whole body is trying to enjoy the beauty of the flower. When you look and your body starts moving, it means that it is allowing the moon’s rays to enter you and create a new dance that you have not known before.

It is just as when the ocean comes in tide when the moon rises. Your body starts moving, and a subtle movement which has been asleep, becomes awake. Don’t try to force it, allow it. Then you will be enjoying the flowers, not only with the mind and intellect, but with your total being, your body included. Unless you enjoy it totally it is just a mind thing and nothing much.

[The sannyasin adds: If I do it for three hours a day, looking at these things, is it going to give me some unnatural sort of energy that is going to flaw me? Can I do it for just as long as I want? – because I feel as though I’m settled afterwards.

I was tremendously greedy, but over the past week that has eased off. At the same time I feel like, maybe I’m draining myself by pushing it.]

No, no, don’t push. Don’t push too far, because greed can take over and it will become a tiring thing. If you overdo it, the whole beauty will disappear; it will stop. So never overdo – and that means, never do on your own.’You’ means the mind, the greed.

So when it happens allow it. It will never be too much because the body takes care of itself. If you listen to the body it never goes to any extreme. The body is always true to reality.

When you have eaten and the stomach is full, the appetite no longer there? the body says,‘Stop!’ The mind says,‘Just a little more ice-cream will be alright.’

If you listen to the body, everything settles. The body should be listened to, it should be the teacher. But things are happening, good!

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