Chapter title: None

‌Chapter title: None‌

8 December 1980 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 8012085 ShortTitle: GREENR08 Audio:

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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.]

Veet Leo. Veet means going beyond, surpassing, transcending. Leo means lion.

In India we have a beautiful story, a parable, that god has taken many incarnations and all those incarnations represent particular phases of human evolution. The idea of evolution is very ancient in the East, it is only in the West that the idea seems to be original -- just three hundred years old. But in the East we have a tradition of the idea which is at least ten thousand years old.

The Indian mythology of the incarnations of god is very significant. The first incarnation of god is a fish

-- and that's exactly what science says about how life started, as a fish. And then slowly other animals come in exactly in the middle Indian mythology has the incarnation of god called Narsima: half man, half lion.

That seems to be the exact middle point where man started separating from the animals. The lion slowly disappeared and man came into his own.

The lion is respected in all cultures, in all' societies, because we have always worshipped violence, destruction, cruelty. Of course we cover it up behind a

beautiful veil of courage, but the real courage is creative, not destructive, and the real courage is non-violent, not violent. The real courage is to transcend all that is animal in oneself, the real courage is to become a Buddha, just pure humanness. But the past is dominated by the soldiers, the generals. Alexander to Great, Tamerlane, Nadir Shah. Genghis Khan. Our whole history is ugly.

Even if we mention Christ and Buddha and Zarathustra and Lao Tzu, we mention them in the footnotes they don't make our main current of history. They are just a few astray people, exceptions; they need not be counted.

In fact the whole of history should be rewritten. Alexander has not contributed anything to the worlds he was a disaster, just as Adolf Hitler was, Mussolini was, Stalin was. These people should be erased from history, their memory should not be continued. History should be written with a view to giving the idea of the evolution of consciousness. It should consist of Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu. Confucius, Ma Tzu, Buddha, Mahavir. Patanjali, Nagarjuna, Nanak, Kabir, Jesus. Plotinus, Heraclitus, Pythagoras -- people who have really contributed, who are the very salt of the earth. And that's what I mean by transcending the lion in you. It is in everybody. because we are carrying the whole animal past with us -- it is in our unconscious.

The whole purpose of sannyas is to help you to go beyond it, so the past is dropped and you are reborn, born anew, only then can you have a vision of god, only then will you be sensitive enough to feel the presence of the divine. It is not a question of argumentation, it is a question of sensitivity.

Antar Kim. Antar means inner, originating from the very source of your being, coming out of the centre and spreading towards the circumference. And Kim means dignity of character.

Character has beauty when it originates in your own being, when it is imposed by others on you it is ugly. A character imposed by others serves others, it does not serve you. It serves the established society, it serves the vested interests, it serves the church, the state, the people who are in power politically, religiously, in every possible way. They try to give a certain structure and pattern to every person so that he becomes servile, a servant. Of course they give beautiful labels to this servitude. They create conscience in you, they tell you what is right and what is wrong. And in fact nobody has the right to say to anybody what is right and what is wrong, for the simple reason that right and wrong are not qualities of

certain acts.

One thing can be right in one situation and can be wrong in another situation -- the same thing. If by a small lie you can save a man's life then how will you decide what is right and what is wrong? You can tell 1/08/07

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just a small lie, that 'I was not there, I and you were there,' but that can save a human life which may have infinite potential, infinite possibilities, which may blossom. The man may become a Buddha -- who knows?

Tomorrow is unpredictable, so is it right to say a lie or wrong? In this situation it is perfectly right to tell a lie, in other situations it would not be right to tell lies.

Who is going to decide? -- because ultimately. You have to encounter the situations. You cannot go on carrying the Bible and the Koran and the Vedas and consulting them. And how can they help you?

Mohammed may never have passed through such a situation, Buddha may never have come across such a situation -- how can they help you? Life goes on changing every moment. So the only determining factor can be inner, it cannot be outer.

Hence character can be of two types: one, which is just a fixed, ready-made thing given to you -- that is ugly, it can't have any dignity -- and a totally different kind of character which you have to create moment to moment, you cannot carry it with you ready-made. You have to be alert, watchful, responsible; you have to be alive to the situation. And you are not to bother what others have said to you; you have to look into the situation as one looks into a mirror and then let the moment decide. Of course, be totally present to the situation and out of that presence a character arises. That has dignity. certainly it has dignity, a tremendous beauty of its own, but it will not be a fixed entity, it will be a process, it will be a growth, a continuous movement. And you will have to contradict yourself many times, because life goes on changing.

A really alive person cannot be consistent, only a dead person can be consistent because the dead person has a certain routine that he follows. He runs like a railway train, the rails are fixed, the train cannot go into the jungle and have its own choice as to where to go and where not to go, it runs on the fixed rails.

A character like that is mechanical and no machine can have dignity. Dignity belongs to a soul.

A character has to be like a river, not running on fixed routines. Each moment has to be decisive, each turn has to be taken according to the situation. The past cannot determine it, the future cannot decide it, only the present is to be decisive. The real man of character lives in the present. If he has to go against his whole past he will, but he will not go against the present just to be consistent with the past. The past is dead; to be consistent with the past is simply stupid.

My sannyasins have to learn a totally new kind of character. It will look like characterlessness to others because it will not be a fixed thing, it will be fluid, liquid. And the people who think of character as a certain entity, fixed forever... Moses gave the Ten Commandments, now you have simply to follow them.

A real character cannot have that kind of quality. One has to follow one's own consciousness. It is risky, it is dangerous, because you cannot throw the responsibility on anybody else's shoulders; you are totally responsible for it. Each act is your act -- not Moses', not Jesus'. not Buddha's. To be a sannyasin means to accept the total responsibility of your whole life, of each of your acts and gestures. But that is the dignity of man, the dignity of being a human being. It is a priority.

Animals have fixed characters. You cannot find anything unexpected about animals. Everything is fixed, they are predictable. Man is unpredictable -- that is his beauty because that is his freedom. He creates himself by choosing what to be, how to be, what not to be, how not to be, each moment.It is a continuous creativity.

To be a sannyasin simply means to take this courageous leap in your life. Move from conscience to consciousness, move from the outer to the inner.

Veet Torben. Veet means go beyond, transcend. Torben comes from Scandinavian mythology; it means Thor's bear. Thor is a Scandinavian mythological god, the god of thunder, rain and farming. His symbol is a bear,

and Torben means Thor's bear! No ordinary bear, of course, but a bear after all is a bear! (laughter) You have to go beyond it! (more laughter) And this Thor is also not a very beautiful god -- the god of thunder and rain and farming. He is very old fashioned. too childish and primitive! And in fact we don't need any more thunder; peace is needed. But in the ancient days every country was dominated by such gods.

They were just projections, they don't exist, they have never existed. But people always thought in terms of gods, if it was raining it meant somebody must be behind it.

In India we have a god, Indra -- that is Thor, the god of rains and thunder. And when it is lightning, that means Indra is very angry, he wants to punish. So priests used to worship, pray, make great yagnas, fire-worship -- wasting millions of rupees to pacify the god of lightning because he was very angry and he would not be pacified unless you made many sacrifices. Animals were sacrificed, even man was sacrificed...

just to pacify a foolish god. He exists nowhere, he has never existed.

For example, I am calling him foolish; if he existed he would do something immediately (much 1/08/07

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laughter)... and nothing happens. I have tried many times -- no lightning, no thunder -- nothing! But the old mind of man was to create many gods for everything, everything had to be dominated by a god. Without a god how could it happen?

My sannyasins have to go beyond all these mythologies. They are still lingering in our unconscious; we have to get rid of them, we have to throw them out -- it is all junk. And unless you throw all this old furniture out one thing is certain you yourself cannot enter, there is no space.

So slowly go on pulling out whatsoever you can and throw it out, just create

spaciousness. That's what sannyas is creating inner space, absolute space. In absolute spaciousness you will start feeling something mysterious which surrounds you, which is everywhere -- inside, outside, within, without. That mysterious presence is god. God is not a person but just a feeling of something mysterious, something incomprehensible to the mind.

Now thunder and rain and farming -- these things can be taken care of by science. There is no need for Thor; he can be freed. And the poor bear also has been with him for too long;he can also be freed from the god. They must be getting tired of each other, that's why I say go beyond them.

One has to go beyond the whole past. The whole past of humanity, of the so- called religions, is in many ways superstitious, stupid. It was okay in those old days because the human mind was so primitive that it could not understand better than that. But now man has come of age, we are now no more childish. Religion is lagging behind, far behind; science is in the twentieth century and religion is still pre-historical, near about three thousand years old. This gap of three thousand years between science and religion has to be bridged. If we cannot bridge it man will remain schizophrenic, divided. His religion will say one thing, his science will say another thing, and there will be no meeting point, no synthesis.

My whole approach is that of synthesis. Science and religion have to come so close that they can become almost one, two aspects of one truth science, the outer aspect, religion, the inner.

Pritamo. Pritamo means the beloved.

God should not be thought of as truth because the very word 'truth' is a little dry, juiceless, desert-like.

God should be thought of as the beloved.

Truth has a deep background of logic. The word 'beloved' changes the whole thing from logic to love.

And love, not logic, is the door to the divine. And the moment you start searching for the beloved, it is easy to find him, because love is a natural phenomenon.

The search for truth is arbitrary, in fact I have never come across a single person who is really interested in truth, who could sacrifice his life for truth. It is perfectly good to sit in your easy chair and think about truth and great philosophical things, but I don't see that that is really a longing. Maybe in very few exceptions, in people like Socrates, it is a longing, but they are so exceptional that they only prove the rule.

Love is a universal longing, everybody's heart is thirsty for love. So my emphasis is on love unless I find a man who is really interested in truth, because to seek god as truth one will have to take a totally different route. To seek god as the beloved you will pass through absolutely different routes, methods, devices, so to be clear is very decisive.

If you think of the ultimate as beloved your heart starts responding immediately. Suddenly a note is struck, suddenly a bell starts ringing in the heart -- and that is the beginning of prayer.

Kalyani means one who always thinks of the well-being of others. But it is possible only if you are blissful. A miserable person cannot really think of the well-being of others; it is intrinsically impossible.

He can force himself to serve others but that service will only be a means to some other end -- to reach heaven. to achieve heavenly pleasures; there must be some hidden goal. The miserable person is bound to have a secret goal. Even when he is serving others, is being compassionate, it is calculated, businesslike there is a certain arithmetic behind it. But the blissful person is simply a blessing to others -- that is exactly the meaning of Kalyani: to be a blessing.

But how can you be a blessing if you are not blissful yourself? You can give only that which you have already got. It is a sharing. The miserable person can only give his misery, the blissful person can only give his blissfulness.

My sannyasins have to be celebrants, always in the mood of festivity. dancing, singing, rejoicing. Out of this rejoicing arises compassion and love for others. And when you are overflowing with joy what can you do except share it?

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Karuno means compassionate one.

Gautam the Buddha gave one criterion to judge whether you have succeeded in your meditation or not, and the criterion is compassion. If you have really realised yourself, if you have found the source of your life, if you have become centred, silent, blissful, then one thing is inevitable, all these things will happen inside you so only you will know or your master will know or the people who are your fellow travellers, who are reaching the same state of consciousness, will know, but the world at large cannot know anything about it. It will know only your compassion, your love.

Your unconditional love, non-possessive love, love for love's sake -- that's what compassion is all about.

One simply goes on showering love, giving to everybody -- to the worthy, to the unworthy, to the needful, to the not-so-needful. It is as when a flower opens, it releases fragrance to the winds -- unaddressed, or to whomsoever it may concern. If somebody happens to pass by he will rejoice in it; if nobody passes by it is none of the business of the flower. It is happy, it is dancing in the wind; it has done its work.

Be blissful, so blissful that your bliss starts overflowing and becomes love for the whole existence. Less than that cannot fulfil one, less than that and the journey is not yet complete.

Bhadren means graceful.

Grace is a by-product of meditation, the shadow of meditation. It follows meditation -- there is no need to cultivate it. Just become silent, peaceful, calm and collected, cool, relaxed, and you will suddenly be surprised that a shadow is following you. That shadow is grace -- it is a gift from God. It is given only to those who have achieved meditation. It is a certificate, it is a sanction. That's exactly the meaning of the English word 'saint', but Christians have used it in a very wrong way. They think a person is a saint if he is sanctioned, certified by the church, the pope, the Vatican. That is a strange idea.

A Saint is sanctioned by God, not by any pope, not by any church or a council of bishops. They themselves are not saints, what can they know about saints? And it has happened many times in the history of the church that they changed their decision. They made somebody a saint and then afterwards, even after a few centuries, they re-opened the case, found some faults and the man was no longer a saint! Not only that, they have been so stupid that now the man has been dead for two hundred or three hundred years and nothing can be done -- he lived as a saint and for three hundred years he was worshipped as a saint and he has to be punished. So to insult him his bones are dragged out of the grave to be spat upon and to be dragged into the marketplace so everybody can insult him -- because revenge has to be taken. Sanction has been taken back, he is no longer a saint.

And this Vatican has been so foolish that sometimes it has happened that they made the man a saint again! Some other pope re-opened the case, found out that those flaws were not right, that somebody was playing a trick and that somebody was against the man, and the man was sanctioned again, and his bones were brought back again in a ceremonial procession because he really was a saint; again his bones were worshipped and put into the grave.

The church has no idea of what a saint is. Only the whole can sanctify, but that sanction does not come as a written certificate, that "As far as I know this man is a saint," or "Hereby it is certified...". It comes as a grace. When you are settled and silent you are surrounded by grace. Anybody who has eyes can see it and anybody who has ears can hear the music of it.

And it is possible for you. In fact I was going to give you the name of a Ma; it is Mukta who has saved you, otherwise I was going to change your sex!

And once I have done it I never undo it! I never change my decisions -- she prevented me just in time saying "Wait, let him meditate a little... then he will automatically become feminine -- don't be worried. It is too early!"

Grace will come... and grace is a feminine quality. Nietzsche is right when he says that Buddha and Christ are feminine. Of course he is condemning them, but I take it not as condemnation but as the greatest compliments paid to Buddha and Christ. And any compliment from a man like Friedrich Nietzsche is of immense importance.

Sangati means communion.

Communication can happen anywhere because it is head-to-head. Something closer to communion, not exactly communion, happens between lovers because it is not head-to-head but heart-to-heart. But that too is only closer to communion. It is not exactly communion, just approximately. Real communion happens only between a master and a disciple, from being-to-being. These are the three possibilities: first, 1/08/07

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head-to-head; second, heart-to-heart; third, being-to-being.

The head-to-head communication is argumentative, it is quarrelsome. The heart- to-heart communion is sympathetic, loving, but it is only approximately a communion. The real communion, being-to-being, is just a sharing of the energy, a pure sharing, with no words. It is silent. Two beings just merge into each other.

And when the master's being and the disciple's being are bridged, a miracle happens. That miracle is called the transmission of truth beyond the scriptures.

I am giving you one of the most significant names, Sangati. It carries the whole secret of sannyas.

Is the Grass Really Greener...?

Chapter #9

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