10

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‌CHAPTER 10

10 April 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A new sannyasin says he has been on many paths and doesn’t know if he should follow the path of will or surrender – if it would help to clarify this.]

You have not followed anything up to now. It was just a game that you were in. First pass through a few group therapies then I will decide what path you can follow. It is not a question of deciding what will suit your innermost core a priori; it takes a little time to judge it.

Right now you are a confusion, but that’s how everybody is. And whatsoever you have been doing up to now means nothing. But it was needed in the sense that it has brought you to me. After one, two months, I will be able to tell you. First let me go deeper into you and let me feel you; let a few things start happening to you.

Man is a mystery – it is not mathematics – and to work on human reality is always to work with something absolutely unknown and unknowable. So one has to proceed very slowly; otherwise anything can go wrong. And once something goes wrong and you build your house on it, your whole life will be a wastage.

So it is better to wait. That’s why I insist so much on the groups, because they will bring up all that is hidden in you. They are not spiritual paths – they are just the medical tests before you go for the operation. But those tests are needed, mm? Only then can your body be cut and things removed. And much has to be removed.

In the name of religion, much stupidity goes on. But it is good to go into those things too because that’s how one stumbles into something one day which can transform your life. Before one knocks on the right door one has to knock on a thousand doors. So just wait – I will not say right now, mm?

After one or two months remind me again. Then it will be more clear, you will have a more clear shape and form and then things can be decided.

Once a path is chosen rightly things start moving so fast, so easily. Sadhana is difficult only if you follow something which doesn’t suit your innermost nature; that creates the difficulty. If something suits your innermost nature it is the easiest thing in the world to know God. It should be the easiest thing because He is our nature: we come from Him, we live in Him and we will dissolve into Him. He is not far away. We are not to go on a long search. He is very close by... He is hidden in us!

First do the camp, then these three groups, and then I will decide. The day will come soon. And you will also start feeling, very dearly, what your path is.

[The sannyasin says: I’ve been using the mantra ‘sohan’ with my breath. Should I drop that?]

How are you feeling with it ? And be truthful, be honest: if nothing is happening, drop it; if something is happening, continue.

[The sannyasin answers: I have many mixed feelings, because it takes me deeper but when I come out I feel that I’m sort of disassociated from life in some sense.]

Then stop it, it is not the thing for you, mm? Because anything that is right will take you deeper into life, not dissociate you from life. It will integrate you with life – it will make you more alive, more loving, more ecstatic about small things of life.

Anything that goes against life is wrong. Drop it, mm ? Good... good.

Deva means divine, Garjan means roar – divine roar... a lion’s roar, mm? God will happen to you not in a silent way. It will be an explosion, a lion’s roar. God will not come to you like a whisper. So you have to be ready for it, because if those to whom God happens like a roar are not ready, they can go mad. So you have to be prepared for it. You cannot just play around with the idea of God. That will be too risky.

Many people can play around with the idea – they can meditate, they can pray, mm? they can do yoga and things, because God is going to come very gradually. They can even work without a Master. But not you! The Master is an absolute necessity for you because when the thing happens you will be uprooted from the earth. It will come like lightning, it will shatter you utterly. It will be a death and then a resurrection. It is going to be a cross.

It is for people like you that Jesus has said ‘Carry your cross on your own shoulders.’ It is not true for everybody; to a few people God is like a flower. To a few people God is like a sword.

It means song of consciousness. Unconscious life is without a song. It is dull, it is boring, it is a drag. The more conscious you become, the more your step has the quality of a dance in it, your heart has the quality of song in it and your being starts releasing its fragrance. It all happens as a by-product of becoming more and more conscious. One need not work on these things directly; in fact to work is to work in vain. They come as shadows of consciousness.

A conscious being is full of songs. He is a song. All his gestures are gestures of a song. All his movements are his dance. His life itself is art. He need not paint, he need not sing, he need not compose music, but still his life has the quality of art. Whatsoever he touches turns into gold. His touch is creative.

Become more and more conscious, more and more alert. As I see you, you are very very unconscious, almost fast asleep. If allowed you will snore immediately! But that’s how everybody is living more or less. This sleep has to be broken. You will have to make an effort to come out of it. And once you have come out of it, for the first time you will know the taste of existence. Otherwise whatsoever we know is only dreams and nothing else. And dreams cannot fulfil, dreams cannot nourish. They are a sheer wastage. Through dreams one simply goes down the drain. All dreams lead to death and nowhere else. But a mind asleep cannot do anything else – it can only dream. It cannot live in reality, it can only live in desires.

Meditate as intensely as possible. Meditate as totally as you can manage. Put all your effort into it, don’t be lukewarm. And it is going to happen – I will see that it happens!

Prem means love, Sikha means flame – a flame of love. And the orange colour stands for that. It is a metaphor to represent the flame of love.

Love to me is fundamental religion. All else is ritual – good if it leads to love, wrong if it becomes an end unto itself. But the criterion is love, everything has to be judged by love. Whatsoever you do, go on seeing whether it is creating more love in your life. If it is creating more love in your life then you are on the right track. If it is destroying your qualities of love then you are certainly on the wrong track. Immediately change the path; even in the middle, stop the work.

To go against love is to go against God. We don’t know God but love we do know. And that can become a great help in judging what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is bad. Love is virtue, so whatsoever leads to love, comes out of love, is virtuous. Going against love is hate, going against love is sin. And if a man can become a flame of love, then there is no hindrance: the flame is bound to reach to God.

[The new sannyasin describes her experiences in centering group: For the first two days I felt really stoned, for two days depressed, but then I got much better. I got frightened in this group.]

You must have got too stoned! Then the confusion arises. Because it always happens that if you are too stoned, sooner or later you will go into a depression. They compensate each other. But ordinarily it happens vice versa: the confusion is in the beginning and in the end people get really stoned. Somehow you reacted differently.

Sat means truth, prem means love – love for truth. And become watchful.We live in lies. We

talk about the truth but we live in lies. In fact talking about the truth is just a camouflage to hide the lies of life. And we have become so accustomed to it, so skilful in it that we are not even aware of those lies. We go on playing those games absolutely unconsciously. It is not even deliberate, it has become just a habit.

Start watching when you are lying... and stop it immediately! You will be surprised to discover that the whole day we are lying, sometimes for some motivation but more often without any motivation,

for no reason at all! It has just become our natural way of behaviour. Somebody comes and you smile. The smile is a lie – polite, formal, but still it is a lie. You say something to somebody – maybe it is just etiquette but it is still a lie all the same. Slowly, slowly, drop all those things, and you will see great transformations coming. Because the energy that is involved in the lies will be released and only that energy can become truth. Our whole energy is invested in lies so we have no more energy left for truth. People go on searching for truth and they go on pouring their energy into lies. That contradiction should no more be allowed. That is the meaning of initiation.

It will be hard in the beginning because those lies are paying, but soon, as you become more alert and truth starts flowering, great joy arises. And then you know for the first time that it was simply an illusion that lies can help one’s life. They were destroying it, they were poisoning the whole source of life. Only truth can be lived joyously; lies create worries, anguish. And one lie has to be protected by ten other lies and so on, so forth.

Truth remains unprotected, it needs no protection. It needs no logic, no argumentation. Its very presence is enough. Its presence is liberating. To know truth is to know God but to know truth one has to be truthful.

While you are here, try this. My feeling is that you will be able to do it, that’s why I am giving you the name. And that will open a new dimension, a new door. Let this day become a day of a threshold. You are standing on a threshold: let it become a breakthrough. Move into something new that you have never tasted before. It is available – if you miss, it is your responsibility.

[A sannyasin, leaving for the West, says that he feels more feminine, childlike: I just find that sometimes with people who have very strong personalities... I feel very uneasy and self-conscious.]

I understand, that’s natural. I can seeSomething beautiful is happening, something very delicate

is happening. Avoid such people. At this moment they can be harmful. Move more and more into your energy and only move with people with whom you don’t feel uneasy. Play with children – that will be perfectly okay – or with friends or with music or just meditate, or be with trees, animals. Dogs and cats will do, they never exploit anybody. But man is an exploiter and if the human mind finds somebody vulnerable it cannot miss the opportunity to exploit. That’s why you feel uneasy. You have become a soft like a flower.

Soon you will be able to remain soft and yet strong – it wi!l take a little time. Once you get accustomed to your new quality, then nobody will be able to dominate you or possess you or make you uneasy. But it will take a little time.…

So whenever you can, come. But you will need to come because you are on the verge of something.…

Mm, allow it. It has been going well. But the world will be difficult. You now have something to lose. You are fortunate because it is very rare that people have something to lose, so be very conscious and alert and protect your being. Don’t unnecessarily move with people with whom you feel uneasy. That feeling is perfectly good – your being is telling you: avoid these people. Make friends with children,

[A sannyasin, who participated in the centering group, says that she came here full of many fears about everything, and after the group she feels transformed after thirty-six years of no energy, and has so much energy she can do anything.]

You can! You have so much energy! You have been saving thirty-six years for me. Now you can use it. And you have such a reservoir of energy... and you can do everything, no problem.

All those fears are just baseless. Death has never happened in the world; how can it happen to you? Death is the greatest myth: nobody has ever died and nobody can die. Even if you try, you cannot. There is no way to die. Suicide is just an exercise in deceiving oneself But nobody ever dies. And even when illness, disease happens, it never happens to you really. You are always the watcher, you are always the witness; you are always far away and transcendental to it. You are never inside it; otherwise who is it who is knowing about the headache? The body is paralysed but one is outside it; otherwise who will know about it? No disease, no illness, no death – that is the truth of life. We are unnecessarily worried and unnecessarily afraid.

But those fears will disappear, they have already started going away from you. Just be here and people will become afraid of you – just wait! Do a few groups and things will be perfectly okay. With every group more and more energy will be coming. Thirty-six years is a long time!...

Much more is going to happen!

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