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CHAPTER 22
When the dance is total, the ego is nullified
22 January 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Deva means divine, godly, and shalabha means a moth. And in indian mythology and in indian poetry too, the moth is a metaphor. Just as the moth is attracted towards light, knowing well that coming closer to the flame is going to be his death.Still, it is impossible to resist – the moth goes
into the flame and dies. That has become a very significant metaphor in the east.
Man is attracted towards god like a moth is attracted towards light, knowing well that it is going to be his death. But only through that death is resurrection. The ego dies, but something eternally beautiful is born out of it.
It is a sacrifice worth making. It is a bargain, but obviously great courage is needed because you will never be able to see the resurrection. You will be gone before it happens. Hence, trust is needed. There is no way to be logically convinced about it. It has to be taken on faith – because you will not be there, you will be gone. Only when it happens – then.
There is a discontinuity – you are no more – and then something happens for which you are seeking and searching. That longing is fulfilled but the one who was longing is no more. The thirst is quenched but the one who was thirsty is no more.
God happens, but we disappear – in that very happening! In fact that is the condition for that happening – that we should disappear.
The moth is really a beautiful metaphor. Man is attracted towards the divine flame. No man, who is worth the name, exists who is not seeking the divine in some way or other. It is impossible to be
without being a seeker. You may be seeking in the wrong direction – that’s possible – but the search is there.
A human being as such is the search. It is not something accidental. It is not something that you can choose or drop, choose or not choose – that is not the question at all. It is not within your power to not choose. It is intrinsic... it is built-in.
So, many times religion has been destroyed – again and again it revives. It is not accidental – it cannot be destroyed. It is very essential. It is as essential as life itself – maybe even more essential than life, because there have been people who sacrificed their life for it. There must be a greater value in it than that which life itself carries.
So everybody is seeking. Somebody is seeking in the world – he will not find, but because of that we cannot say that he is not seeking. He may be seeking in the illusory – he may be frustrated, but his search was true. The direction wrong, the methodology wrong, the goal misplaced – but his search was true. Somebody is seeking in a relationship and somebody is seeking in prestige and power. They are all seeking one thing – how to become a god... how to be a god.
They may not say so, they may not be even aware of it... they may not have ever thought about it so articulately, but deep down somewhere in their unconscious a shadow is lurking... a longing, a dream.
Humanity is born with that dream – and unless that dream is fulfilled, man remains a wanderer... goes on knocking on many doors and being refused... goes on searching in many directions and again and again is frustrated. But the search continues! From one life to another, the search continues.
If one is ready to die, the search can be fulfilled any moment.
People want to seek the truth but they are not ready to sacrifice themselves – they are not ready to pay for it. They want it for nothing – that’s not possible.…
Your name will remind you always that you have to become a moth. God is the flame. You have to take the risk of dying in god – disappearing, utterly disappearing. And there is no way to be convinced about the outcome; there is no guarantee.
If you can see that guarantee in my eyes, it’s okay – otherwise there is no guarantee. That is the meaning of trust – getting into a deeper, more intimate relationship with a master, about whom you feel from the very bottom of your heart, ‘Yes, he has arrived!’
There is no way to bring that conversion – no intellectual discussion is going to help. Intellectual conversion is not a conversion at all – only the conversion of the heart.
If you can feel it in me and trust me, the journey will become very very smooth. And remember – belief is not faith. Just as knowledge is not wisdom, exactly like that, belief is not faith. Belief is bogus. A man is a Christian by belief, a man is a Hindu by belief, but the first disciples of Jesus were not with him because of belief, but because of faith.
While I’m here those who are with me can only be with me because of faith. When I’m gone people will be with me because of belief. Faith exists only when a master is alive. When you can feel his pulsation, then faith is born. Faith is an alive communication. The impact of the existential is faith.
Believing out of fear, out of conditioning, out of the accident of birth, is not faith. And belief is not religious either. It is a very false substitute, a false coin. You can carry it and you can believe that you have it, but whenever there will be real need you will find that it is pseudo and that you cannot purchase anything with it – not god, not prayer, not meditation, not love. Nothing can be purchased out of it. In the first place the coin is false.
And there is no way of cheating in the inner world – only real coins work. So remember this.… [The sannyasin says: I’d like to stop making myself up. All my energy is going into that... ]
You just wait, mm? It will disappear. Nothing has to be done about it. There are a few things about which nothing should be done, because if you do anything you make them persist. This is one of such things. Whatsoever you do, just the contrary will be the result.So leave it alone.
It is like sleep – if you are not falling asleep then simply forget about it... don’t try! because whatsoever you do is going to disturb your sleep more. Just forget about it! It is none of your business to worry about it. You just rest in the bed, enjoy rest, but don’t think about sleep at all. Any moment when you are not thinking about it, it enters from the back door. It always comes from the back door – you cannot force it from the front door.
Now, if you are doing something continuously – like making yourself up, and playing a game – if you try to do something, even that will be another game. It will look on the surface as if it is against the first game; it will be simply a continuity of the same game – under a new guise!
Simply don’t do anything about it. If you don’t do anything, you don’t feed it. If you do something, you feed it – it is an ego game. If you do anything, every act on your part will feed the ego.
... So don’t do! Simply dance – and not dancing because you have to destroy this game. It has nothing to do with your gameyour game is irrelevant. Let it be there – if it continues, let it continue.
We are not worried about it, not bothered about it. Simply dance, meditate, relax, meet with people. Now you are part of my family. Leave it to me – I will destroy it. You will not be able to do anything about it. If you do anything, one day you will find that it is again there – the same game in a new name.
This is one of the most basic things to understand – that you cannot do anything about the ego directly. It disappears. If you are too engaged in something deeply, it disappearsbut not if you are
doing something for its disappearance – then you are not engaged totally.
For example if you dance totally and you enjoy the dancing, in those moments you will become aware that there is no ego... that you are not putting yourself higher than othersthat there is no
question of comparison.that you are not interested in that game at all – it simply does not exist.
When the dance is total, the ego is nullified – it is like zero.
And then you will understand how the ego can be dropped. Get into each moment as totally as possible and you will not accumulate the ego.
A man who lives totally each moment has no problem with the ego – it does not arise. The ego arises out of your partial involvement. Total involvement – it is gone! Nothing is left behind.
So simply meditate as totally as possible... dance, sing and meet with people. And this is none of your business – I will see to it!
[The tathata group is present. One member said he was confused because: I’m just not... I’m just not sure what I’m doing here.]
Except me, nobody is sure! And nobody can be sure, because you are not even sure of who you are, so how can you be sure of what you are doing here? And it is not a question that is only relevant here. Wherever you are and whatsoever you are doing, the same question will be relevant there too. You may not ask the same question if you have become too much conditioned in a certain situation, but the question is there too.
In fact, what is one doing here on this earth? Why does one get up every morning and why does one go to the office and do things and earn money – for what?
People don’t ask it, because to ask it is very inconvenient and one becomes very nervous about even asking it. So people don’t ask it – they avoid it... they keep themselves engaged. But when you change a situation – for example, you have come hereNow this whole situation is new and
things that you are doing are so new that the question arises. In the old situation the question was not arising but the question was therewas as relevant as it is here.
So this is part of this whole game that we are playing here – to make you aware that whatsoever you are doing is meaningless unless you come to know who you are. Whatsoever you are doing is meaningless, is absurd, cannot have any significance. Maybe it is an occupation and you keep yourself engaged in it to avoid yourself, but otherwise the question is irrelevant: what are you doing?
If you become aware of this question you will feel a little confused. In fact this confusion is better than the clarity that was there before. That was not clarity – because a clear mind can never be confused. The confusion was there in your unconscious – now it has bubbled up, surfaced. The new situation has forced it to come up. And it is good – to be confused is good because it will bring awareness.
To ask such confusing questions is good. It needs courage even to recognise the fact of what we are doing here. It needs courage, because if you go on asking it too pertinently, you will feel that you will go mad, because no answer seems to come. And no answer will satisfy you.
If you go on asking this question deeply, persistently, you will come to a point beyond which there is no answer. The question is with you like an arrow in the heart – penetrating, painful, agonising. You cannot go back and there is no way ahead – a cul-de-sac or a precipice.
If a person asks any question persistently, he will come to a point where no answer is possible. That’s why philosophers go mad many times.
It happened to friedrich nietszche, because he persistently asked questions which people avoid and then he came to a point where no answer seemed to be valid. The question was there like a fire burning his whole being, and there was no answer! It burned his whole consciousness – he became mad! People avoid – these questions are maddening.
But in the east it has never happened, because once we ask the question, ‘What am I doing here?’ and you don’t find any answer to it, we change the question. We come to a basic question, ‘Who am I?’
In the west it has never happened. They go on asking the same question. When there is no answer it is better to ask a more fundamental question. Maybe there is the real answer ‘Who am I?’... not ‘What am I doing?’ Because doing is secondary – being is primary. In the first place you are, then you do something. You cannot do if you are not – although you may not do even if you are. So doing is non-essential – being is very essential. Maybe the answer to ‘Who am I?’ is in being.
Rather than asking, ‘What am I doing here?’ ask, ‘Who am I?’ And all these groups are to corner you into that place, into that space, where this question becomes the most significant thing in your life
– so significant that unless you have answered it, everything seems to be futile. Yes, I understand
– the confusion comes, but confusion is good and healthy, because only through this confusion will there be a transformation.
And in the East.If Friedrich Nietzsche had been in the East he would have become a buddha –
he would not have gone mad. The same questions have been asked in the east, but once we find that this is a secondary question.Maybe the answer is not coming because in the first place the
question is secondary. You have to ask a more fundamental question.
For example if you cut leaves off a tree and the tree does not disappear, that simply means that the leaves are not the roots. So better find out the roots and cut the roots – only then does the tree disappear. You are cutting leaves – it is not going to disappear. On the contrary, it may become more dense; more leaves will be coming out. You cut one leaf, three leaves will come out. You have to cut the root.
So this question – of what you are doing here – will haunt you. And not only here – now you can go anywhere in the world and this question will remain with you: ‘What are you doing?’ This is not a confusion that you can drop easily. Once it has arisen, it cannot be dropped easily. You have to go beyond it, only then is it dropped. You cannot go back – there is no way.
And this confusion will bring a maturity to you. It will be hard – inconvenience will be there, it will be uncomfortable – but these are the prices we pay. And once we have paid and we become worthy of receiving the answer, it is tremendously fulfilling.
So don’t be worried, mm? This is part of my work here – to confuse you and then to help you to find a clarity on a higher planea real clarity!
People look as if they are living a very unconfused life – just false pretension! They are living below confusion, that’s right, but not above confusion.
With this confusion, a new sprout of life is trying to explode in your being – accept it!
[Another group member says that he had previously done the encounter group and still had a left- over feeling of fear for that leader – because he seemed like a magician.]
So you have to repeat encounter once more, mm? Something is still incomplete. And this time fall into the trap of the magician completely!
You resisted a little, that’s why.…
Repeat it any time you feel like it, but repetition will be very good. It has to be completed – the fear has to go, otherwise something is hanging, and it needs to be completed. Otherwise it will go on knocking inside and that is not good. If the group is complete you will feel tremendous love for the leader – that’s how it should be. If fear remains, that means the group is not complete.
Fear is the same energy that becomes love when something is complete. It is the same energy... fear and love are the same energy. That’s why when you love a person, you are not afraid of him. That’s why when you fear a person, you cannot love him.
Christian, Jews, have been telling the world, ‘Fear god,’ and they go on saying, ‘Love god’ – this is absurd! A religious person is known as a’god-fearing person’ – which is foolish, because if you fear god you cannot love. Then you have not even come to an understanding with god.
Fear means you are hiding something, resisting something, fighting. Fear means you are afraid that you will be caught. Fear means you are guilty. Fear means you are not yet able to be naked, totally naked before him. And if you cannot be totally naked before god, where are you going to be totally naked?
Whenever there is fear it simply means that a process has remained incomplete. Christianity and Judaism are incomplete religions because they still think in terms of fear. Sufis or Hindus are far ahead. They think not in terms of fear but of love.
Love certainly is a higher value – fear is no value at all. Fear is an anti-value. If you fear a person you can hate him, but how can you love? And once you try to find out the reason why you are afraid, you will find that something has remained incomplete. You resisted – you were afraid that he might become so powerful over you that you might not be able to get out of his power; that’s why the fear has remained.
This time you simply go headlong. Tell him, ‘Magician, do whatsoever you want to do – I am totally available.’ You will love him and you will come out of it. Mm? Good!
[Another group member said: I had some experience during the group and here in the lecture when my body became very big. When I closed my eyes I had the feeling that my body expanded a lot, became very big.]
Very good! Then you try it deliberately every night. Just sit in your bed for five minutes, ten minutes. Just sit in your bed and visualise with closed eyes... feel that your body is becoming bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. Mm? make it as big as possible – so big that it almost starts touching the walls of the room.
You will start feeling that now you cannot move your hands – it is difficult... your head is touching the roof. First for two, three days just feel this; then start spreading out of the room. Fill the whole house, and you will feel that the room is inside you... two, three days. Then spread outside the house – fill the whole of Poona, and feel the whole of Poona inside you. And then fill the whole sky, and feel the sun and the moon and the stars moving inside you.
This you continue for ten, twelve days, mm? By and by, slowly, fill the whole sky. The day you have filled the whole sky, start the reverse process. For two days again, become small. In the reverse process, sit and then start imagining you are becoming very small. Just move the other way. Your body is not as big as it appears – it has become one foot high. You are just like a tiny toy – and you will feel it. If you can imagine the hugeness, you can imagine the smallness. Then even smaller – so small that you can hold yourself in your hand. Then even smaller... then even smaller. And within twelve days bring it to such a point that you cannot find yourself. You have become so atomically small that it is impossible to find where you are.
Make yourself as huge as the whole space and then make yourself as small as an invisible atom – twelve days one, then twelve days the other.
Report to me on the twenty-fifth day, mm? You will feel so beautiful, so happy and so centred that you cannot imagine it.
This is one of the meditations. It has happened naturally – that means it will fit you very very easily. So start for ten minutes every night and then go to sleep, mm? Good!
[Another group member says: I feel like the whole of my life somebody told me something to do and I did it, and I didn’t want to. And now I came here – you told me also to do groups. I want to do them, and somehow I also]
I understand, mm? And I will make you free soon. I can make you free right now – but that won’t help. I know it happens – because from the very childhood, if somebody has told you do something, and always told you to do, you become a little resistant. One wants to rebel against it. One wants to assert one’s freedom. You come to me in search of freedom, and then suddenly I say,‘Do this, do that.’ You start feeling again the same thing. But these things are told to you to do so that you can be allowed real freedom – otherwise there is no question: you can stop doing, you need not do, but that won’t help. You will remain the same.
The purpose is different. Your parents were telling you to do something because they wanted you to be obedient. They wanted you never to go against their pattern, never to go against their style of life. They wanted you just to be replicas, ditto copies – their extension, their projection. They wanted to live through you. One day or other they will have to leave the world, but you will live as their representative. Mm? they were seeking a sort of immortality through you.
That’s why children are loved – not for their sake, but because the parents are seeking a sort of immortality through them. They will be gone, but a part of them will live, and they would like to condition the part to be absolutely like them – that was their purpose.
Here, there is nothing like that. I am not telling you to do certain things because I want to condition you. In fact, the only way to uncondition you now is that you should be put through a few processes
so that your conditioned mind is destroyed and your freedom can assert itself. Your parents, your society, have made a wall around you. Here I am trying to destroy that wall. But work has to be done, otherwise the wall will not be destroyed.
Once the wall is destroyed you will be completely free under the sky – then there is no need. And you will feel it soon. If you can do a few groups, you will start feeling that smaller and bigger chunks of the wall are being removed by and by... more air is coming in, more sunlight, and you can have a few glimpses of the faraway stars in the sky. You can breathe in a different way and you can be in a different way. A new life will start happening... and then you will understand what I am doing here. But it is up to you!
I have no investment in you. If you want not to do, perfectly good. Don’t do any groups, don’t do any meditations, or whatsoever you want to do, do. But that is up to you! This much I should tell you as a caution – that you have great walls around you. They have to be broken – and work is needed. It will not take long if you really work hard. If you resist – don’t work hard – it will take long.
So if you really want to be free, work hard so that within a few months you completely shatter the whole wall and come out of it, mm?
So what do you say? Would you like to do something or not to do anything? [She answers: Yes, I booked for tao and the primal scream.]
Very good, then later on we will see. Do these two first, mm?
But do really hard work, and forget your parents – because they are still disturbing. They have told you to do something, and you carry that hangover here; then they are still interfering. Forget about them! Here nobody is your parent.
This is a community of a certain type of people who want to be free of all conditionings. Alone it is difficult – together it becomes easier. Alone one becomes very afraid. Hence, I have created this device of sannyas – so that you can feel a belonging, and you are not alone. So many orange people and you know that you are not alone. Otherwise, the night is very dark, and the path is very alone – you may get scared. And if you get scared, you will again shelter in the old – there is no other way.
So I am creating an alternative society which can give you freedom, allow you freedom – because all people around here are searching for freedom. They are not in any way putting their trips on anybody – they are in search of their freedom.
And remember – if you want to be free, you have to give freedom to others; otherwise you can never be free. If you make a slave of somebody, in the very process you become a slave to him. So nobody is interested here in making anybody a slave – everybody is interested in becoming free. Hence they have to help you to become free too, because your freedom will be their freedom.
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