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27 June 1980 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 8006275 ShortTitle: IMPRIS27 Audio:

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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.]

Meditation needs tremendous perseverance. It is not like a seasonal flower, it is more like a cedar of Lebanon; it needs time to grow roots. That is one of the reasons why the contemporary man is missing the inner treasure: he is always in a hurry. Never before was man in such a hurry. Speed was never such an addiction. People were moving slowly, living slowly; there was a kind of unhurriedness in their life. As technology has progressed, it has given more and more speed to man, and everything is moving faster and faster. We are becoming more and more intoxicated with speed; it is a drug. It does not allow us to grow anything that takes time, patience, perseverance. It does not allow us anything that needs the art of waiting...

Hence we are running outwards. It is possible with scientific technology to rush towards the moon, towards the stars one day; but to go in no scientific technology can be of any help. There nature has to take its own course. And one has to learn not to be so concerned with the result, with the goal. One should start enjoying the journey itself. One should start enjoying the trees by the side of the road, the birds singing, the sun rising, he clouds floating in the sky. One should move slowly, at one's natural pace. And one should not even be in competition with others because everybody has their own natural pace and everybody has a unique individuality.

So one should listen to one's own heart. And it is not difficult to judges if you are in a hurry you are tense. That tension is enough to indicate, it is an indicator that you are doing something against your nature, you are straining too much. Slow down. Move in a relaxed way, as if there is the whole infinity available. In fact it is so, the whole infinity is available. We are not born with our birth and we don't die with our death 1/08/07

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either. We are eternal.

One can go into deep meditation only with this understanding. One should forget completely whether anything is happening or not. One should start enjoying just sitting silently, for no reason at all, with no motive at all -- just for the sheer joy of sitting silently, just breathing, being, listening to the birds or watching your breath. Slowly slowly a new fragrance starts arising in your being. That fragrance is meditation, that poise, that calmness, that stillness. It comes from the beyond as a gift. And whenever someone is ready it always happens, inevitably.

Nature is never unfair to anybody. Whosoever deserves and whatsoever he deserves, he gets it. If people are miserable they deserve it, that's what they deserve. Nobody is at fault, nobody else; nobody else is responsible. They have earned it. They may have forgotten how they have earned it, they may not be conscious how they have got into the mess, but that's what they have been doing. It is the outcome of their own work.

If somebody is blissful that simply means he deserves it. Nature always gives that for which you have become worthy, for which you are ready and prepared and receptive to.

Perseverance, constant effort with no hurry -- that is one of the fundamentals of meditation. The word

'con' comes from constantia, constancy; it is a beautiful word. It can become the very foundation of your inner growth. Just be relaxed, at ease with life, with

yourself, with others, and drop this whole nonsense of rushing.

There is a Korean Zen story... An old monk gets out of a boat with his young disciple. They are carrying many ancient scriptures with them. The village they want to reach is on a hilltop and the sun is almost setting so they ask the ferryman, 'Will we be able to reach it before the sun sets? -- because we have heard that as the sun sets the doors of the village will be closed. It is surrounded by a wall and we will not be able to enter then. We will have to wait till morning, and it is dangerous to wait outside the gates; it is wild territory, wild animals are there. Will we be able to reach there?

The ferryman said, 'If you go slowly you may manage. If you go fast I cannot say that you will be able to manage it.'

They thought the ferryman was just mad: What was he saying? 'If you go slowly you may manage to reach, but if you go fast I cannot guarantee it. I cannot say even that -- that you will be able to manage it.

The greater possibility is that you will not be able to reach before sunset.' There was no point in waiting time with such a madman. They rushed! And what the ferryman said did happen. The old man was really very old and they were carrying a big load of scriptures; the track was hilly and he slipped on a rock, fell into a ditch and had many fractures. All the scriptures were spread all over the place. The young man was collecting the scriptures, and the old man was not even in a state to walk.

Meanwhile the ferryman came. He had been putting his boat in the right place for the night. He had chained his boat and then he had come along slowly. He looked at the scene and he said 'I told you -- you didn't listen. Now I will have to carry you. But I am also old. Now even if we go slowly it is not possible to reach the gates before sunset. But you didn't listen. You thought I was a madman! You think you are meditators -- you are fools! I am a meditator. For my whole life I have been meditating, carrying people in the boat from this side to that, from that side to this. What am I doing? -- just meditating, silently, rowing the boat. I have nothing else to do so I go on watching my breath.

'One thing I have learned that if you go slowly you always reach. I had thought that you being Buddhist monks would understand it. I am not a monk, but I think you have never meditated in your life; you are just formal monks.'

Now they understood; now they could see the man clearly. Now for the first time they looked at his eyes, his face, his aura, his presence, his beauty. They bowed down and touched his feet and they said. 'You are a master!'

Go slowly. Those who go slowly always reach. It looks like a paradox, but life is paradoxical. Those who hurry never reach. As far as the inner journey is concerned this is the law, this is tao.

Meditation is a gift from god. It does not mean that you have not to do anything at all. You have to do much to become receptive, to become available to god, to become capable, worthy. But that's all that man can do -- the real thing always comes as a gift. Hence there have been two kinds of misunderstanding and they are both very ancient.

One misunderstanding is that because meditation is a gift you need not do anything at all. Whenever it is going to happen, it is going to happens you cannot do anything, so why bother?

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That is a fallacy, that logic is fallacious. Meditation will never happen.

The other misunderstanding is that because you have to do much preparation, it is not a gift, it is the outcome of your work. So if you are not getting it that means: go on straining more and more. That's another extreme. So people become almost mads they strive too much to reach a meditative state. And their very striving at a certain point becomes the barrier.

My understanding is that your effort is needed up to a certain point and then the effort has to be dropped. You have to make the effort and you have to drop the effort -- both are essential. And you have to be alert enough to know where to stop.

Whenever your effort starts creating tension and anxiety in you, relax, drop it.

You have done enough; now wait. But don't start waiting from the very beginning. First prepare the soil, remove the rocks, the weeds, then sow the seeds of the flowers, then water the ground, and then wait! But if you start waiting from the very beginning without removing the weeds and without removing the rocks and without sowing the seeds, nothing is going to happen. And if you go on digging every day and looking at the seeds to see whether something is happening or not, then too nothing will happen.

You have to work and then you have to wait. And there has to be a balance between work and waiting, a very subtle balance. It is not impossible to judge it. Every indication is being given by your inner being.

It is just as when you have a headache you know, although you cannot explain to anybody else how you know it. How can you prove that you have a headache? But you know it. All that is needed is a little awareness. Yes, sometimes it may happen that you have a headache but you are so engaged in something that you lose all awareness of the headache.

For example, your house catches fire... You may forget the headache because your consciousness becomes wholly directed towards the fire. Now you are not in a state to bother about a small thing like a headache. It is as if a curtain is pulled over it and the headache disappears for the moment. But it is there.

In George Bernard Shaw's life there is an anecdote. He phoned his old doctor -- the doctor was as old as Bernard Shaw, Bernard Shaw was ninety and the doctor was also ninety -- he was his private physician.

Bernard Shaw said 'I am feeling as if it is a heart attack. Come immediately! It seems I am sinking and dying.'

In the middle of the night the old doctor came, almost running. He had to go up the staircase; and he was very old so he was breathing hard and panting. When he reached the room, before asking George Bernard Shaw anything, he fell into a chair just to have a little rest. Bernard Shaw became very much afraid. He was lying on his bed; he stood up, brought water for the doctor and a fan and started fanning him -- he was perspiring. The doctor had one of his hands on his heart. Bernard Shaw was afraid: 'It seems that he has a heart attack. He is an old man and he had to come in the middle of the night, his sleep was disturbed and he had to come up a long flight of stairs.' He forgot all about his own heart attack and

the sinking heart and everything. After fifteen minutes, when the doctor was okay, the doctor asked for the fee and started leaving!

Bernard Shaw said, 'This is something! I have been serving you for fifteen minutes continuously, bringing water and ice and this and that, and fanning you. You ask me for the fee -- and you have not done a single thing.'

The doctor said, 'But I have been doing something -- where is your heart attack? I made you get up of the bed, you were running here and there, bringing things and fanning me -- you are perfectly okay! That was just my medicine for you. Give me the fee!' He took the fee. And Bernard Shaw recalls in his memoirs

'That was something. He really played a great joke on me! I used to think that only I had a sense of humour, but he had much more.'

If you have a headache and the house is suddenly on fire, your consciousness will move towards the fire.

But otherwise every indication of your headache is given.

And exactly the same happens when you are meditating. First work, put your whole energy into it, with intensity, totality, passion, and then the indication will come that now is the time to relax and wait -- you have sown the seeds. They will sprout in their own times now let the spring come. And the spring always comes.

Meditation is a gift, but the gift is available only to those who are ready for it.

Meditation brings perfection. In fact the only way perfection comes to one is through meditation.

Without meditation something always remains missing. We may have wealth, power, prestige and all that the world can offer, but deep down there is always some emptiness, some meaninglessness. One goes on 1/08/07

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feeling that life must be something more than this -- and life certainly is more.

That gap inside, that yawning gap inside can be filled only through meditation; nothing else can fill it.

People try to fill it with every kind of thing but it cannot be filled by anything from the outside. It is basically inner, hence nothing from the outside can fill it. Something has to grow inside, only then can it be fulfilled. And when that inner gap is full, overflowing, one experiences perfection for the first time. And by perfection I mean one starts feeling nothing is missing, one starts feeling meaning, significance. For the first time life becomes not just an accident but a significant event of immense value.

Blessed are those who have known meditation. Only those few people are the blessed people; others are simply groping in darkness. Meditation gives you an inner light, and then wherever you are there is light and whatsoever you do, you do in full light and clarity. Hence there is never any guilt, no repentance, no looking back. Whatsoever one does, one feels that's the only thing that can be done. It is always right.

And when each of your actions has such totality it does not leave any trace on you. It is only incomplete action that goes on leaving a trace upon your consciousness. it is the incomplete action that goes on hankering around you for completion. it is the incomplete past that we are burdened with.

The meditative man lives each moment so totally, so fully, that once he has lived it, it is finished; he is out of it. And he is always fresh because he carries no past. He has no karma, no bondage with the past; he is absolutely free. and because each action comes out of his freedom and freshness, it has a tremendous beauty and grace; it has perfection in it.

Meditation is only a means -- the end is awakening. The end is to become absolutely aware. Ordinarily we live out of unconsciousness; we live like a robot, we function more like a machine than like a man. And that's the whole problem: how to release the man from the machine. That's what sannyas is all about: how to free the man from the machine.

The machine is heavy and it surrounds you from everywhere. You are imprisoned in it. Man is an imprisoned splendour and the misery is nothing but the realisation of what he can be and what he is: 'I can be as blissful as Buddha,

Christ, Krishna -- full of songs and celebration -- but I am just full of misery. It is for the simple reason that we have not even tried, we have not made any effort to transform our potential into the actual. We go on living at the minimum. We can live at the maximum, we can reach the ultimate heights of consciousness; hence the great anguish, because somewhere deep down we feel what we can be; what is possible.

Nothing is impossible as far as inner growth is concerned. napoleon's statement that nothing is impossible may not be true about the outside world, but it is absolutely true about the inner: nothing is impossible in the inner world. We just have to start moving in the right direction by the right means.

meditation is the beginning of the right step, in the right direction. Meditation simply means an effort to watch your mind, how the mind functions, with no interference, neither for nor against, no condemnation, no appreciation, with absolute neutrality, pure watchfulness, just like a mirror. The mirror does not bother whether you are beautiful or ugly; whosoever you are, the mirror simply reflects.

When your consciousness starts reflecting your mind with all its ugliness and all its beauties, with all its pleasures and with all its pains; with no choice... when your mind is reflected in your consciousness in a choiceless way, you have started meditation.

Choiceless awareness is meditation. And then you have to go on doing the same, slowly slowly deepening the process. And one day, the ultimate flowering happens: the inner lotus opens up. That's the state of the awakened one, the state of a Buddha, Christ, Lao Tzu.

Unless we achieve it there is no possibility of rest. something inside will go on goading us. And it is good that something inside goes on goading us. If it stops goading us we will remain unfulfilled, immature, ungrown-up.

There is an inner guide who goes on goading, who says 'This is not enough -- something has to be done.'

That goading has brought you here. Now don't miss this opportunity of being here. It is a great opportunity for growing, a rare challenge. If one accepts it one can become a beautiful peak of joy, of bliss, of celebration. But everything has to begin in meditation. And if you begin in meditation whatsoever is needed will go

on happening to you naturally, without any effort.

Meditation creates almost a magnetic force in you. It attracts whatsoever is right and whatsoever is needed. It attracts the right nourishment, the right people, the right guidance.

One of the ancient Egyptian scriptures says: When the disciple is ready the master appears. It simply means if you are meditating the master is bound to appear; if you are meditating then all that is needed will 1/08/07

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be provided for. Nature takes care of it.

We are not orphans, we are part of this universe. And the universe is not indifferent to us, it takes every care, we just have to move in the right direction and immediately the whole existence starts supporting us. It hinders you when you start going wrong. That too is because it loves you. But when you start going right it supports you, it removes all hindrances.

Remember, god is a friend of all seekers.

The Imprisoned Splendor

Chapter #27

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