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Chapter title: None
2 November 1979 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Archive code: 7911025 ShortTitle: SCRIPT02 Audio:
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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been copy typed. It is for reference purposes only.]
(To Lesley and her two-year-old son, Gudiya, who is sound asleep) This is the perfect posture for a sannyasin!
Anand means bliss. Svarupa means self-nature.
Bliss is not an achievment. It is not something that is going to happen in the future. One cannot desire it, one cannot be ambitious for it -- it is already the case, it is our very being. We just have to look in, we just have to turn in and it is discovered. It is a discovery not an achievment.
This is the whole foundation of meditation. Meditation means that all that is worth achieving need not be achieved because it is already inside you, and all that can be achieved is not worth achieving. Money can be achieved, prestige can be achieved, but they are not worth achieving because all will be left behind; death will come and snatch you away.
So that which can be achieved is not worth achieving, and that which is worth achieving need not be achieved at all because it is already there -- you are made of it. Love, bliss, God -- these are our intrinsic ingredients. They are given; nothing is to be done about them. But the misery is, the irony is that man goes on
seeking and searching for bliss too because he knows only one way -- the outside. He can move only in one direction. He has no reverse gear -- or maybe he has forgotten about it.
When Ford made his first car it had no reverse gear; that was a later addition. Only by experience did he come to feel that it is very difficult to go back: you have to go around for miles! You could have gone back within a minute but it took hours. Then the reverse gear was added.
Man has it already -- you can go immediately. But we have forgotten about it. We have not used it for so many lives that unless we start using it we will not become aware of it. The function of the Master is to find the reverse gear.
And this is his name: Swamy Anand Gudiya. Anand means bliss. Gudiya means white boy.
White is significant. It is the color of bliss. White contains all the colors, the whole spectrum . White is not a single color, it is all colors together. It is such a synthesis of all colors that in the synthesis they all disappear and a totally new phenomenon appears, white. One cannot imagine it; it is a miracle that all the colors together create something which looks colorless, it is the total negative state. White is presence of all 1/08/07
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colors but in such a synthesis that no single color can show -- it is an orchestra.
Bliss is an orchestra. It is not a solo flute player, it is the whole orchestra. It is multidimensional, it is not one-dimensional.
(Maitri's brother, John and his wife Annie).
Maitry, you can come and help them ... come and sit between them. Be a support for their new journey.
Bliss is the juice of life. Bliss has already been given to you. It is your very
center; without it you cannot exist at all. It is an undercurrent; we exist because of it.
Existence is impossible, you cannot exist even for a single moment, if bliss disappears as an undercurrent. To be aware of it is to become a Buddha. The only difference between an ordinary man and a Buddha or a Christ is that of awareness. Both are blissful; one knows, one knows not. When you know, great gratefulness arises, gratitude arises. When you don't know you go on complaining ; you go on unnecessarily carrying a grudge, as if life is a burden. Life is a dance, not a burden! But we carry it like a burden, and when we carry it like a burden it becomes a burden, at least for our minds.
Underneath the current of bliss continues. It is just like breathing or blood circulating in the body. If the circulation stops for a single moment you will be dead -- but you never become aware of the circulation. In fact for thousands of years doctors used to think that blood was simply contained inside the body. Just three hundred years ago they became aware that it circulates, that it is not just there like a liquid in a bottle but that it is continuously moving. Your body will die if the breathing stops.
Just as breathing, blood circulation, food, nourishment are necessary for the existence of the body, so bliss is necessary for the existence of the soul. But a little digging inside is needed so that we can uncover the undercurrent. Once you have known your blissfulness, the source of it, your whole vision changes, your whole perspective is new. Then you look at existence with new eyes. Then whatsoever you have found inside yourself you will find everywhere because whatsoever we are, we find in existence. Existence is simply a mirror: it reflects our real face with a mask, the mask is reflected.
Existence only echoes our beings. Once you have known that bliss is your nature then the whole nature of the universe becomes blissful. That is what is meant by realization, liberation.
Sannyas is not prayer with sadness, seriousness. It is not prayer as a ritual, as a formality. It is prayer as playfulness. It is prayer as cheerfulness. The birds in the morning singing -- that is prayer. They are not Christians, they are not Hindus, they are not Mohammedans; they don't know anything about the church and the temple and the mosque, and they have never heard that there are scriptures -- but their singing is prayer.
The wind passing through the pine trees is prayer; although it knows nothing of prayer it is prayerful.
The prayer is all over the space. The stars are prayerful, the trees are prayerful, the oceans are prayerful.
Except for man the whole existence is always in a state of prayer; only man needs to move towards it consciously -- for a certain reason: man is the only conscious animal. Hence man has a choice: he can fall out of the natural flow of existence or he can become part of it. No other animal has that freedom. The birds in the morning are not singing out of their own choice, they are simply singing instinctively. The trees are prayerful and the mountains are prayerful, but that prayer is just a natural phenomenon.
Man's dignity is that he can choose to be prayerful -- but that can also become his fall because he can also choose not to be prayerful. Man is always at the crossroads: each step and there is a choice, each step and you can go wrong or right. When sadness and cheerfulness confront you, always choose cheerfulness.
When seriousness and playfulness confront you, always choose playfulness. And remember: we become whatsoever we choose. It is simply a question of choice.
A Sufi mystic was dying. His disciples gathered and they said "One thing we always wanted to ask but we could never gather enough courage to ask ... If we don't ask now we will never be able to ask because you will be leaving the body. So now whatsoever you think of us ... you can think of us as fools, but we have to ask the question. How did you manage your whole life? -- because we have never seen you serious, sad, unhappy; you have always been blissful. How did you manage? -- because it is impossible to be so blissful day in, day out."
The old man laughed and he said "Early in my life I discovered that it is a question of choice. So this has become my daily routine: every morning -- this morning too -- the first thing in the morning, before I open my eyes, I think 'Now a new day is going to be there -- what do you want, old man? Do you want to be 1/08/07
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happy or unhappy?' And I always choose happiness."
If you know that it is a question of choice you are bound to choose happiness always. People think that we are victims; that is wrong, we are not victims. It is not that situations go on dragging us into unhappiness and sometimes into happiness, that we are just at the mercy of blind forces -- no, not at all, a thousand times no. Every moment we are choosing. Maybe our choie is unconscious, we may not ve consciously choosing, but choice is there.
From this moment start becoming aware of it and you will be surprised: sometimes in the middle of your sadness suddenly the clouds disperse and it is sunny, because suddenly you see the point -- that you have chosen to be sad and there is no need to be sad! Life is such a beautiful gift that one should not waste a single moment in sadness, in anger, in jealousy, in possessinveness. One should dance one's way to God.
One should laugh one's way to God!
So I am giving a totally new concept to sannyas. The old sannyas was sad and serious; Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, Buddhist -- all old approaches of sannyas were of renunciation. My approach is that of rejoicing. Rejoice and rejoice and rejoice again and again!
The moment you decide to be blissful misery starts escaping from you, but the decision has to be total. It is worth getting involved in being blissful. There can't be anything more valuable.
So drop all sadness, all seriousness. And don't ask how to drop them. That is a strategy of the mind to go on keeping them, it is a way of postponement. "How" is a way of post-ponement. Simply drop misery. Don't linger on, don't post-pone it. Say goodbye and don't look back. And you will be surprised that it is so simple. It is so natural to be blissful. It is unnatural to be miserable. It is really a very difficult job to be miserable, but people are so skillful, so intelligent at being miserable. They have become great artists of misery. If there is nothing to be miserable about they will invent something.
I have heard that a psychiatrist advised his patient to go to the mountains for three or four weeks for a rest. The third day he received a telegram from the
patient: "I am feeling wonderful -- why? " People cannot accept bliss easily; misery is okay.
Remember that it is only a question of your decision; in a single blow one can cut the Gordian knot, and one can be free on a single quantum leap.
Sannyas is not practicing bliss, it is simply renouncing misery. Bliss takes a lion's heart.
It is said that when Bodhidarma became enlightened he roared like a lion. The people of the nearby village became so afraid because they thought that a lion had come. They were just thinking of escaping to some other place when somebody informed them: "Don't be worried, this is that old monk -- something has happened to him. He is roaring!" Then they all slowly slowly went into the forest, gathered around him and asked "What is happening? Have you gone crazy or something?" He said "I was crazy before: I used to think that I was just a sheep -- and I am a lion!"
Buddha himself has said that when one becomes enlightened one roars like a lion. One becomes a rebel, and to rebel against misery is the greatest rebellion.
Misery is very comfortable, remember, cozy. It is so familiar and you have lived with it so long that it is very difficult to (de)part, to divorce it. Thousands of husbands would like to divorce and thousand of wives would like to divorce but they symply carry on. They just cannot gather enough courage; they go on remaining miserable. And this is not only about marriage, this is their very style of life in everything.
Even when they can come out of the darkness into the light they will not. They are afraid of getting into anything new because who knows? -- the new may be more miserable. Who knows? At least the old is known, familiar; you have become accustomed to it, you have become adjusted to it -- why bother with the new? but the courageous person is always ready to go with the new that one grows. It is not a question of whether you have chosen rightly or wrongly.
Remember, always choose the new against the old and you will still be growing. In being with the old, although it may be right, one remains stuck. In being with the new, even if it is wrong, one grows. What to say about when you can choose
the new and the right? Then you grow in leaps and bounds. Then your life becomes a great adventure, a great ecstasy.
Let sannyas be the first step in that direction -- always choosing the new against the old, always choosing the unknown against the known, always moveing into new pastures even at the risk of losing your 1/08/07
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life. Because only those who are ready to risk their life are able to attain to abundant life, to eternal life.
A meditator's eye is needed to see bliss.
These two eyes which you have won't help much; a third eye is needed. These two eyes go outwards.
They don't know how to look in; they are not meant for that.
The meditator starts growing a third eye. Just between these two eyes, exactly in the middle, there is a subtle center which starts functioning as an eye: it starts looking in.
To look outside two sides are needed because the outside consists of duality; to look in only one eye is needed because the inside consists of the non-dual.
From the very beginning your meditation has to be on the third eye. With closed eyes look in and try to remember that just exactly in the middle of both eyes -- the spot I just touched -- there is a hiddeen center; it is the sixth chakra of the yoga psichology. Once it starts functioning and moving you become capable of seeing within. Sitting silently, look at the third eye center; as you pour your energy towards it, it will start moving. In the beginning you may feel a little strange because something mew is happening which has never happened in your body; but soon it settles, and once it settles great calmness descends.
It is possible for you. Just a little effort and the wheel will start moving, just a
little effort and much will be the benefit. The benefit is going to be so much that the little effort is nothing compared to it. So let that be your concentration point: with closed eyes look at the third eye. Looking at it you start feeling great light spreading inside you -- and with the light comes delight!
Man can have many kinds of happinesses. There are at least three very clear-cut planes of happiness.
One is animal happiness: good food -- enjoing good food -- bodily pleasures, sex. They are all animal happinesses, the lowest kind. Nothing is wrong with it -- I have no condemnation for the animal, I have all respect for the animal -- but it is the lowest strata of happiness. It has not to be denied, because it becomes the foundation of the temple.
The second happiness is human: the joy that you derive from music, art, beauty, from singing, from dancing, or from just being with a friend, having a relaxed conversation. These are human joys: higher than the animal, that has to be remembered. The animal becomes the soil in which much can grow that will go beyond the soil, it starts reaching to the sky; it becomes a bridge between the earth and the sky. And so are human pleasures and human happiness a bridge between the animal and the divine.
And the third kind of happiness is divine. Divine happiness has no object -- neither food nor woman nor man, neither paintings nor music nor poetry ... no object. It is your pure subjectivity. You are simply silent, enjoying your very being. Just to be is such an unbearable bliss. It is a miracle that we are alive; there was no necessity. You may not have been, but you are. Somebody else may have been in your place, but that somebody else is not there: you are. It is such a miracle that one is! But we don't enjoy it, we take it for granted and that's why we go on missing it.
Stop taking life for granted. Every moment is a gift from God. And just in being with oneself, sitting silently, doing nothing, just enjoying nothing in particular, for no reason, for no motive, a subtle joy arises from one's deepest recesses and overfloods one. That is divine happiness. That is the goal of all religion, of all meditation; that is the goal of sannyas.
God is another name for that bliss.
Scriptures in Silence and Sermons in Stones
Chapter #3
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