17

< Previous | Contents | Next >

‌CHAPTER 17

5 October 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine and vineet means humbleness. Humbleness is going to be your work. And when I say humbleness, I don’t mean what the word ordinarily means. Ordinarily it means a person who tries to subdue his ego, who tries to control his egoistic mind, who tries never to assert himself – a non-assertive person. That is the ordinary meaning of the word humbleness. But to me that is a sort of repression. You can repress the ego, but by repressing it you never go beyond it. By repressing it you evolve a new sort of ego which is more poisonous because it seems pious.

When a new ego arises that says, ‘I am humble,’ the ‘I’ remains there. Now it has taken the cloak of humbleness, now it is hiding behind humbleness. Now the wolf is hiding behind the sheep – but the wolf is the wolf; just the skin of the sheep cannot make any difference. So I am not saying to become a humble egoist or egoistically humble.

To me, humbleness means the understanding that the ego is non-existential; that in fact it is not. There is no need to suppress it because in suppressing, you have already accepted its existence. And once you accept the existence of the ego there is no way to get rid of it because you have taken the first wrong step. Now whatsoever you do after that step is going to be wrong. You have al ready moved in a wrong direction.

The right direction is to see that the ego does not exist. that it is a shadow. You cannot fight with it. It is an absence. Because we don’t know who we are. the ego exists. It is like darkness – because the light is not there, hence darkness. Once the light is there, darkness simply disappears. In fact to say it disappears is not right, because it was never there in the first place. When the light comes you simply know that the darkness has never existed. It was just absence.

So the ego is just absence of self-knowledge.

It will look very paradoxical, but let me say it to you, because right now you are vulnerable, and this will become a seed in your heart. This is going to be a new beginning in your life. When the self is not, the ego is. When you are not, the ego is. When you are, the ego is no more there. So an egoless person is not a nonentity. The egoless person is really an authentic person, an individual. The egoless person is not non-assertive. When it is needed, he can be as assertive as anybody else – but only when it is needed.

When it is not needed he does not go exhibiting. But when it is needed, when it comes to that, a non- egoistic person can be absolutely assertive because he has no fear of the ego taking possession of him. In his humbleness, he can be assertive. That’s why Jesus is so assertive.

Christians have been continually worried about it – that on the one hand Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies.’ He says, ‘Please your enemies.’ He teaches humbleness, humility, but he himself is very assertive – he drove the money-changers out of the temple.

He was very aggressive, almost violent. He chased them out – and they were many and he was alone. He must have been madly in anger. he must have been in a rage – but still he was humble. Even this anger came out of his humbleness. Even this rebelliousness is part of his humbleness. He is not there. It is not Jesus. son of Mary. who is chasing the money-changers out of the temple. It is God Himself. It is the boss Himself.

There is a sufi story of Jalalluddin Rumi. A lover comes to his beloved’s house. He knocks on the door and the beloved asks, ‘Who is there? Who is knocking on the door?’ The lover says, ‘I am here. Can’t you recognise me?’

There is silence and finally the beloved says, ‘This house is too small. It cannot hold you and me together. It will be very difficult. Go, and whenever you are ready, come back again.’

Disturbed, very much confused, the lover goes into the wilderness and meditates on what has happened. Why has he been rejected? Then by and by it dawns in his consciousness what has happened. Then he comes back. He knocks again on the same door and the same question’s asked, ‘.Who is there? Who is knocking on the door?’

He says, ‘No one is here. Only you are.’ Suddenly and immediately the doors open.

This is the parable... a very significant parable. Let this be my gospel for you. The moment you drop the 1, the moment you can say, ‘Only you are – I am not,’ the doors open; suddenly they are open. In fact they have always been open. Because of the ‘I’ you were incapable of seeing. Because of the 1, the eyes were not capable of seeing. The I was functioning as a dark curtain. You were blinded by your own 1. Once you say, ‘I am not,’ the curtain disappears. The doors have always been open.

There is another parable about a sufi mystic, Rabiya-el-Adavia. She heard another mystic, Hassan, crying and weeping at the front door of a mosque, and saying, IGod, when will you open your doors? I have been knocking and knocking. Years have been passing and I have become old. When will you open your door?’ And Jesus has said, ‘Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you.’

Rabiya was standing behind, and she started laughing a mad laughter. Hassan looked back and he said, ‘Why are you laughing, Rabiya? Have I done something wrong? Is my prayer somewhere erroneous?’

She said, ‘Yes, certainly, absolutely – because the doors are always open. What nonsense are you talking about! Look – the doors are always open. They have never been locked, never been closed. And you are saying, “God, open the doors!” Whom are you trying to kid? Just look!’

It is said that Hassan looked and the doors were open and he entered. The doors are always open.

So this name will be a constant reminder to you that the I has to be dropped. But remember, again I would say, don’t repress it. Just understand that it is not. Just try to look into where it is, and you will never find it – and that not finding it will become a revelation. Out of that revelation arises a humbleness which is not against the ego, which is simply absence of the ego, which is not against the ego, which has no contact with the ego so the ego cannot corrupt it, which is absolutely discontinuous with the ego so the ego cannot cast a shadow on it. It is absence of the ego, and the presence of the self.

Drop the land you become really for the first time, an individual. This word individual is beautiful – it means indivisible, you cannot be divided. Right now with the I, you are a divided house because you don’t have one I, you have many I’s. People have a very erroneous notion that they have one I – people have many I’s.

Gurdjieff used to say that a man is like a house whose master is asleep or who has gone far away and has not returned for many years. The servants to whose care the house has been left, who have been appointed to take care of the house, have, by and by completely forgotten about the master. Every servant thinks himself the master. You go in the morning and you see some servant on the steps. You ask, ‘To whom does this house belong?’ He says, ‘To me.’ You go in the afternoon and you come across another servant in the garden and you ask, ‘To whom does this house belong?’ He says, ‘To me.’ In the evening you go and you see the nightguard and he says, ‘It belongs to me.’

In twenty-four hours if you watch you will see many I’s passing, coming and going, many servants claiming. Some servant sitting on the throne for a few minutes, some for a few hours, some for a few days, but nobody is the master and the master is fast asleep. That master is the self.

So try to see that the ego is a non-existential barrier, an imaginary barrier which makes us feel that we are separate from existence. Once that barrier is dropped, understood, the separation disappears. Then you are no more separated within yourself, and you are no more separated from without. Then within and without become one... in and out become one. And that’s what the goal of all religion is.

Deva means divine and nirangana means alone, pure aloneness... so pure inside that there is nothing else than one’s own being – uncoloured by anything, uncorrupted by anything; exactly what you mean by virgin. It has many meanings – purity, aloneness, uncoloured by anything. It is just as when a mirror is simply a mirror not even reflecting anything. Then it is nirangana; then it is pure. When some shadow comes on it, it is corrupted. It is no more its own self; something foreign has entered it.

And now do the camp and put your whole energy into it. You have come to be a Christian now in a real way!

[A sannyasin says: I don’t know what to do with myself.]

There is nothing to be done. Just enjoy. Celebrate yourself... just celebrate. Or is it difficult to celebrate?

[She answers: I make it difficult all the time.]

If you enjoy it, there is nothing wrong in it – you can make it difficult. But if you are not enjoying it, get out of the racket. It’s for you to decide. If you enjoy, good.

There are only two ways to be. One is cerebration – hung in the head. Another is celebration – dancing with totality. So if you cerebrate too much, think too much, you will become incapable of celebrating. If you start celebrating, the energy will be flowing in celebrating and cerebration will stop by and by. Come out of the mind. It is hell ! And don’t try to be a heavy person.

There is a very significant saying of Mohammed that paradise is almost completely occupied by fools. It is a very strange saying but very meaningful. Wise people go to hell! So be a fool and enjoy – that’s what you have to do with yourself.

[The Vipassana group is present tonight. The assistant leader says: It was lovely. There was one girl who came up to me and said one day, ‘I feel that enlightenment is not such a serious thing.’]

Mm, very good! It is not. It is almost a joke (laughter). Serious people miss it. The non-serious simply enter.

[A group member says: I found that if I didn’t control my breathing at all, it tended to go completely chaotic. I didn’t know whether to indulge that or not.]

Now for ten days, allow it. The group is finished today, so on your own.In a group it will be difficult.

If you go chaotic, the whole group will be disturbed, and it is not a chaotic group.

So you can do two things. You can join a chaotic group and then allow the breathing absolute freedom. It is going to be of tremendous help. Once it settles on its own you will feel so calm and quiet. The whole disturbance shows that much is repressed. Breathing also has been repressed too much, so v,/henever you sat silently the breathing was chaotic.

Or you can do Vipassana on your own, and allow it. It may come to a very great climax, but don’t be worried. When it subsides you will feel very new, as if twice-born, because breathing is very meaningful.

The breathing is simply saying that you have repressed so much and it has to come out; only then you can sit silently. But there is nothing to be worried about.

[A group member says: I’m just very grateful. Things happened despite me. I felt sometimes to prevent it but still things happened. During the ten days things kept pouring into me.]

They will go on pouring, so there is no need to resist. Just drop your resistance and more, much more will happen, because much energy is wasted in resisting. Why should they happen in spite of you? Go with them and help them!

[She answersw: Oh, I think I’m too small. I can’t bear it... it’s too much.]

No, nobody is small. Everybody is immense, huge. It is just that we don’t know who we are, and we have been identified with small things – the body, the mind, the ego. We have created very tiny houses for ourselves when the whole sky is ours! Even the sky is not the li mit.

But I can see that much has happened. You are blessed. Just meditate and be here. Allow me to enter your innermost chamber and drop all resistance. I am ready to pour myself – just don’t create any barriers, mm? Good.

< Previous | Contents | Next >