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CHAPTER 7
Meditation is the art of creating inner beauty
7 January 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Jaya means inner victory, conquering oneself, and ananda means bliss – bliss that comes out of conquering oneself. And that is the only bliss there is. You can conquer the whole world and you will remain miserable; of course your misery will become a thousand-fold – the misery of an alexander is bound to be tremendous... but you never become happy. That is not the way of happiness at all.
You can have all the things and still you will be at a loss. One can pile up money, power, prestige. And the more you have, the more you become aware of the futility of it all and the more you feel an inner emptiness.
Only the rich man comes to know what inner poverty is, because he can compare; he can compare notes. He has a background and he can see his own inner poverty against it. He is rich as far as the outside is concerned, but the inside is simply starving.
Hence the paradox: the richer a man becomes, the poorer he feels. The more knowledgeable a man becomes the more ignorant he feels. The more you have, the more you become aware of how much you are missing.
The only bliss possible is that which comes through the inward journey – and that is called jaya. One has to come to one’s own self, to one’s own treasures. They are infinite... immeasurable. Once known, you are never a beggar again. You may not have anything of the world – still you remain an emperor. Your emperorhood has an inner luminousness.
You are emperor – not because you have a kingdom, but because you are an emperor. Your emperorhood doesn’t depend on a kingdom. It is independent of all kingdoms. Then one is truly a
king, because nobody can rob one, nobody can take anything away from one... not even death. One has something which is eternal, which cannot be robbed, cannot be taken away. And only when you have something which cannot be taken away from you does fear disappear – never before it. And in those moments you start feeling the deathless.
So let this be a key – that you have to look more and more inwards. Temptations are there, desires are there – natural. And I’m not saying to become an escapist. I’m not saying to escape from the world. I’m simply saying to be in the world but to give more and more energy and time to the inner search. Do whatsoever is needed on the outside, but don’t become too much occupied with it. Things are needed: food is needed, a shelter is needed – absolutely okay, so one should work for them. They are necessities, they are needed to be happy, but they are not enough. They are basic requirements.
A hungry person cannot sing. Food is needed, but food in itself cannot become a song. Just because you have eaten and your belly is full, there is no guarantee that a song is going to be born. You may fall asleep at the most – and you will have nightmares.
Outer things are needed, but they are not enough. Fulfill them, but don’t expect too much out of them. They are needs, and the inner life is something more than needs – it is a luxury. The inner life is always aristocratic. Yes, it is aristocracy.
So outside just fulfill your needs – and they are the minimum; they are not much. And once they are fulfilled, don’t waste your time. In fact they are to be fulfilled so that you can have time to go in. One should work in the world so that one can work in one’s inner world. One should earn a little money so that outer things no more trouble one, no more distract one. One can close one’s eyes and go into meditation. If money serves meditation, money is good and one should use it. But if money becomes your meditation, you are going to be neurotic.
[To the mother of a sannyasin, who is taking sannyas:]
So you finally decided! This decision will have tremendous impact... a radical change will happen through it. Because this is no ordinary decision. The greater the decision, the greater the conflict before it, the more meaningful it is. The more one wavers and thinks of the pros and cons and then decides, the more deeply that decision goes. In fact all that wavering is part of a great sincere heart.
An insincere person can take sannyas very easily. He is insincere. He is not worried about it. He knows that if he wants to drop it, he can drop it. But a sincere person thinks, broods, contemplates – and that’s good, because when a sincere person decides, that means it is a life-changing decision... it means something.
You thought about it and you wavered. It was good, and I was watching. The wavering was good. It is better to waver before rather than afterwards. Once one has come to a clear-cut decision, that closes the past and opens a new door. And sannyas is an opening.
You have lived in one way and you have lived successfully. Sannyas does not mean that the way you have lived was not successful. Sannyas simply means that there are successes which don’t prove to be successes. One may be perfectly successful, and yet... and yet.…
There are two types of persons who enter into sannyas. One type enters because he has failed. Another type enters because he has succeeded and has found that there is nothing in it. Only the second type becomes the real sannyasin. The first type never becomes a real sannyasin because he has not really tasted the grapes. It is a rationalisation – that they are sour – because he could never reach them. So deep down in the unconscious the hankering remains: maybe, had you reached... maybe there was something!
The old sannyas in the east belonged to the first type of people. They became escapists... they became afraid of the world. The fear of the world is not the fear of the world. The fear of the world is really fear of your own inner, unfulfilled desires. You are afraid that if you are in the world you are going to get tempted. You know that the seeds are there and that whenever the right wind is blowing they will start flowering, and you will not be able to control them. That fear takes people out of the world.
My sannyas is for the second type of people. It is a totally new concept... it has nothing to do with the old sannyas. The old sannyas was for the escapists, failures... mediocres.
My sannyas is for a totally new kind of people: those who have succeeded and who have found that success is just insubstantial. Looks beautiful from far away – when you come to it, it is just empty. The deeper you go into it, the deeper you enter into emptiness. And when a person changes out of this experience, the change is going to be really vital.
And that’s why I say not to leave the world, not to run from the world, because there is no fear! You have known the world, you have recognised its truth, and you have found that it is not going to fulfill. Not that you have not tried, not that you have not been successful. You tried, you succeeded, and yet.Not that you failed, but the world failed – and that’s a totally different perspective.
I was watching your mind wavering; it was good. In fact [your son] was in a hurry, mm? but I am never in a hurry. There are a few flowers – seasonal – which come very fast, but they disappear soon too. There are big trees which take time – long.many years – and then they flower. You belong to
the second type. A very strong will is therea very alert mind and much capacity to create.
Now through sannyas this whole capacity will start moving into a new direction – the direction of selfcreation.
Up to now you have been doing something outside yourself. Now you will be doing something inside yourself. Continue whatsoever you are doing outside.
The inner is not against the outer – the inner is beyond the outer. It can play with the outer – there is no harm in it. In fact it is good. Just like day-night, mm? One goes on playing with the outer and then one goes on moving into the inner – it is a good change.
And this name I give to you: ma prem chitra.
Prem means love, and chitra means painting; a love painting. You have been painting things up to now – now I will start to paint you. Up to now you have been making beautiful things outside – now let that same energy move in. Now let an inner painting be born.
It happens almost alwaysYou can find a good painter – his paintings are good, but if you look into
him there is nothing. You can find a good poet – his poetry is beautiful, but if you put the poetry aside and look directly into the poet, there is nothing. In fact one is surprised at how in such a ordinary person such beautiful poetry could become possible.
In india there is a saying, that if you love the poetry of the poet never go to see him, otherwise you will be frustrated because you will find an ordinary man.sometimes more ordinary than the
ordinary.
Because a poet has only a few poetic moments. In those moments he is not of this world. In those moments he flies high... he is turned on. He is a totally different personality. When those moments are gone he is turned off. And naturally, to keep balance, he falls lower than the other, ordinary people. He has been flying high – he has to fall down and rest.
In his poetry he may talk about god and in his behaviour there may be just a devil and nothing else. In his poetry he may talk about beautiful, unknown dimensions, and in his ordinary life he may be just vulgar, obscene. And the same happens with musicians, painters.
So each artist one day has to understand this – that he has painted enough in the outside, now start painting inside! It is not enough to paint good pictures, because finally you will not be able to take any painting to god to show him. He will see you – not your paintings. He will see picasso – not his painting.
So paint yourself... create some inner beauty – that’s all that meditation is about. It is just the art of creating the inner beauty. And if, just with ordinary colours and on canvas, such beautiful things can be done, what to say about the inner canvas of consciousness? And what to say about the inner colours of love, compassion, prayer, reverence, wonder?
Such immense possibility is there. Once we start looking for it, we start finding it – it is there, it is waiting for us.
So this name I give you: prem chitra. It means a love painting, and with this name you start painting in the inner world.…
[A sannyasin who is leaving says: It’s not easy to leave here!.But it’s not hard either.]
Mm, that too is good. That too is good. That’s the really hard part of it. If it is hard to leave, it will become very easy to leave. You can always fight with something which is hard. The difficulty arises when you have to fight something very soft. It is easy to fight with a rock – it is very difficult to fight with water. The water wins finallythe watercourse way. My way is the way of tao.
It is very easy to go – hence it becomes difficult. If it is difficult, you can fight with it; there is no problem. Tao says that the most difficult thing is that which is so soft that you cannot fight with it. In fighting you lose energy. And all the arts that developed out of tao are the arts of how to be soft. So you are right – it is not hard either.
But whenever you go, just allow me to function through you. And it will become more and more possible. Once you allow it, mm? you will start enjoying it. It has a tremendous beauty of its own.
You have been a doer all your life – and that doer takes a toll. It creates a subtle tense state... very tense. If you have been a doer all along, you don’t even become alert about it – but it creates a subtle tension and that becomes a film around you. You are unaware, but it goes on obstructing many things.
Since you have taken the jump, let it be total. Allow me to function through you, and a great song will be born.
Your old habits will try to make it... to do something about it – to manage, to manipulate, to plan, to decorate, to change a little here and there – but by and by you will become aware that the song as it comes is complete, and there is no need to do anything... no touches are needed. Then spontaneity is born. One can do many things and without ever getting tired. One can do millions of things without ever feeling spent, because in fact one has never been doing them.
And I am just an excuse. When I say,‘Allow me,’ I am just an excuse. If you allow me, you allow god. If you allow me, in fact you allow yourself. These are just tricks. Rightly understood, if you allow me, you have allowed your own innermost core to have its say. When you manage, the circumference manages and the innermost core is not allowed freedom. It comes, but much distorted.
Much is going to happen. Just be a hollow bamboo and let me sing a song.
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