CHAPTER 30
30 June 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
[true religion – Satdharma.]
The religion one is born into is never true; it cannot be true, because one has never chosen it. To be true a religion has to be consciously chosen, otherwise it remains just a conditioning. One is born into Hinduism; he is a Hindu. Another is born into Christianity and he is a Christian, but this is only upbringing. You have not searched, you have not even taken the trouble to enquire. How can this religion be true?
I am not saying that Christianity is not true and I am not saying that Buddhism is not true. What I am saying is: if the religion is only because you were born there, accidentally, into a certain family, then it is untrue for you. It will never have any ecstatic relationship with you. It will remain superficial, ritualistic, formal, a kind of social act. One has to do; it is a certain duty to be fulfilled. It makes life convenient – it is a kind of lubrication. If you live amongst Christians, to be formally a Christian helps in many ways. If you are not formally a Christian, they create a thousand and one problems for you; hence I call it a kind of lubrication. It helps life move smoothly but it is not religion.
Religion has to be consciously, deliberately, chosen. It is a risk. It is not a convenience; it is a conversion.
The people who went with Jesus had chosen it; they were playing with fire. They were born Jews; that would have been convenient, to remain in it, to remain in the fold with the herd, with the crowd. Otherwise the crowd takes revenge – it can’t allow anybody to slip out of its grip so easily. It is a political arrangement: the crowd has power only because of numbers. The more numbers the crowd has, the more powerful it is. So the crowd cannot allow any member to slip out of it easily; it won’t give a chance. One has to fight to be free, one has to risk many conveniences to be free, but
freedom is worth it. It is higher than life itself. Even if life has to be sacrificed for freedom, it is still worth it. Freedom cannot be sacrificed for anything else; it is the suprememost value.
So those who went with Jesus were real Christians, but now people are born Christians. A born Christian is a false Christian, a born Hindu is a false Hindu. Religion is an individual enquiry into life, and you never know where the enquiry will lead you. You never know what is going to fit and suit you. You never know what door will be your door as the entry into the divine. One has to knock on many doors and one has to go on groping. Only by constant groping, intense groping, with a great longing in the heart to find truth, does one become religious.
It is the intensity of individual enquiry that makes a person truly religious. Then whatsoever one chooses has a transforming force in it – whether Jesus, Buddha, Krishna or me, it doesn’t matter. Whomsoever you choose with consciousness, with loveAnd the relationship has to be individual,
person to person; then only does something start growing in the innermost being. Otherwise a person remains a Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan, and dies and never comes to know what religion is.
Religion is a quantum leap from the herd to being an individual. That is the first step: to assert your individuality and not be a part of a herd just because of the accident of birth. Yes, if you choose it consciously, then it is perfectly okay.
That is the meaning of satdharma. One cannot be born into a religion; religion has to be born into one – one has to allow it to enter one.
Deva means divine, samhitta means integration – divine integration. Man ordinarily is a crowd; no man ordinarily is one, but many. And that’s why there is so much noise within – many voices, many faces – and a constant quarrel. One part wants to do one thing; another part is simply against it, it wants to do something else. It is a miracle how we go on managing our selves together. Otherwise we are constantly falling apart; there is no centre.
The master is missing, there are only servants, and each servant is trying to claim masterhood. For a moment each servant sits on the throne, proclaims himself the master, and in that moment you think ‘This is the master.’ When there is anger, anger becomes the master, but soon it will be gone. It is a constantly changing scene. After anger comes regret. Then it is the master and you are feeling sorry. Sometimes it is love, sometimes it is hate, and the scenes change so fast, but still one never becomes aware that one cannot be so many things.
We become identified with anything that comes in front of us. When the cloud of anger is there we think we are anger; when the cloud of love is there we think we are love. When compassion is there we think we are compassion; when sadness is there we think we are sadness. We are none of these: we are the watcher. Anger will come and go and the watcher abides. Sadness comes and passes by and the witness remains. To remember that witness more and more will make you integrated, because that is the only centre which is everlasting, eternal; and only on the eternal rock of witnessing can a real life be built. Otherwise we are making our houses on sand, quicksilver. We cannot even complete it – it always falls in the middle.
Just watch people: they have not been able to complete anything in their lives, all is incomplete. They will never be able to complete anything. They will die with many incomplete ideas, desires,
longings empty, frustrated, defeated. In great despair they will die because their lives have been of no value, of no meaning. Meaning comes through centering, through integration. And the only thing that has been discovered down the ages by the buddhas, by those who have become awakened, is your witnessing. Watch, and don’t get identified with anything.
Let this become your key – next time when anger comes, just watch it. Don’t say ‘I am angry’; say rather ‘Anger is there; I am watching it.’ And see the difference! The difference is vast. Suddenly you are out of the grip of anger if you can say ‘I am just a watcher; I am not anger.’ When sadness comes, just sit by the side and look at it and say ‘I am the watcher; I am not sadness’ and see the difference. Immediately you have cut the very root of sadness. It is no more nourished; it will die of starvation, because we feed these emotions by being identified with them.
If religion can be reduced to one thing it is non-identification. Identification is to be in the world, worldly; to be non-identified is to be in god, other-worldly. And that is the meaning of samhitta. It is one of the most important words...
Deva means divine, samagro means totality – divine totality. Live each moment totally. Whatsoever you are doing, get into it as utterly as possible. Even if it is trivial, by being total in it, the trivial itself is transformed into great splendour. If you have gone for a walk, be totally in the walk. Just be the walk, and you will see that the walk has become a kind of inner dance. Taking a shower can become prayer, or just cleaning the floor can be a meditation. All that is needed is to bring the quality of totality into the act.
That is the secret of all alchemy – that’s how baser metals are transformed into gold. [A sannyasin says she has trepidations about returning to and living in the West.]
My whole work consists of creating more and more of the feminine quality. So when it starts growing in you, the old mind says ‘Now you are vulnerable, weak – how are you going to face that ugly world?’ Here you were protected, here you lived with like-minded people. All freedom was there. Everybody was ready to accept you – whosoever you are, whatsoever you are, with all your flaws and faults and limitations; there was no imposition on you.
You relaxed, you started growing; you became softer and softer. Now, I can understand the fear, but don’t be worried – you are not weak; you have simply become more feminine.
Start feeling this as your strength; it is strength. And soon you will see that it goes on growing: on the one hand you become more and more soft, on the other hand more and more strong. But this strength is subtle, not gross; this strength is divine, not that of the beast. This strength is that of a buddha. It grows slowly, slowly.
Have you not looked at the statue of Buddha – how feminine he looks? Don’t be worried... and I am coming with you!
[A sannyasin asks: I’d like you to say something to me about meditation, relaxation and concentration. When I meditate I seem to concentrate, and so I just would like a little guidance on that.]
Concentration is not meditation. They are totally different things, in fact, diametrically opposite. In concentration you narrow your consciousness to one point; in meditation you open up your consciousness to all directions.
For example, when I say ‘Listen to the sounds – this train passing... the dog barks on the road... a horn... a bird starts calling, a child cries, and a thousand and one things are happening – when I say ’Listen’ you have to be just open to all, with no choice.
Concentration is a choice; meditation is a choiceless awareness. If I say to you ‘Concentrate’ then I will say ‘Just concentrate on the sound of this train and don’t allow any other sound to interfere. Narrow down your mind completely so that everything else is excluded, and you are only focussed on one sound.’ Then it is concentration. But concentration is a kind of tension; it is unnatural, and it will tire you, it will exhaust you. You will be distracted again and again. And when you are distracted, you will feel miserable because you are failing, you are not up to the mark, you have not been able to concentrate. But you are trying to do something unnatural, that’s why you are failing. You will feel guilty, inferior, and these are the dangers of it.
And even if you succeed – one can succeed if one is stubborn enough – in creating an unnatural state, then too you will not be getting anywhere really. If you succeed in concentration your mind will become more powerful. You will be able to do mathematics in a better way, your memory will become better; your calculation, your logic will become more sophisticated. But these are not the spiritual things. You will become more skillful in the mind, more efficient; but the real thing is how to go beyond the mind. You will be polishing the mind more and more, and polishing is not going beyond it.
The mind has to be transcended, and the only possibility of transcending is: just relax and let things be as they are. A very very passive awareness – that is the meaning of meditation. A passive awareness sitting silently, watching... and that too has not to become a tension. If sometimes you forget watching, perfectly good! When you remember, you watch again; when you forget, you forget. This is relaxation, this is accepting life as it comes. Then great joy arises out of it. You are never tired and you are never distracted because nothing can distract you.
Distraction is possible only when you are trying to concentrate. When you are in meditation there is no distraction. Somebody shouts; you listen to that too. Somebody sings a song; you listen to that too – whatsoever happens. You have no fixed idea of how things should be; you allow things to be as they are. Who are you to fix that things should be like this? Being in that state of silence, of passive awarenessLying on your bed or sitting on your chair, or just on a morning walk – anywhere you
can do it. Try that!
[A sannyasin says that she keeps repeating her patterns in relationships: When I feel my needs are not getting met, I start to blame him and I feel really bitter and I feel that it’s destructive but I just keep doing it.]
It is being done by millions of people and that’s why they are all miserable. We have a very wrong a priori idea that the other is there to fulfill our needs; that is the basic problem. The other is not there to fulfill your needs. If he does, feel grateful; if he does not, there is no question of complaint. Why should he?
His life is his, your life is yours. He is not born in the world just to fulfill your needs. He has to live his life. If by chance he is fulfilling your needs, feel grateful; that is a miracle. It need not have happened but it is happening – feel grateful. But when it doesn’t happen, there is nothing to cry about. It has to be understood that there is no need for it to happen. But we go on doing just the opposite: when somebody fulfills your needs you never feel grateful; you take it for granted. And when he does not fulfill your need you are angry, you are violent, you are destructive.
But these are the patterns of remaining in hell. If you choose to remain there, then that is your life! If you want to remain in hell, remain in hell. Otherwise it is a simple phenomenon It is not a question of repeating a certain pattern; it is seeing the foundation. The pattern is not so important. The pattern is based on a certain understanding, really, a misunderstanding.
Somehow we have gathered this idea; and there is a reason why it has happened to everybody. A child is born; the mother takes every care of the child, all needs are fulfilled. And the child thinks that he has some authority. Naturally, all his needs are fulfilled, so he takes it for granted that the whole existence exists just to fulfill his needs. For years it continues: the mother is always fulfilling the needs; the father is always there, and everybody takes care of the child. They have to take care because the child is so helpless, otherwise the child will die! But the child is learning a trick – a very dangerous trick which will keep him always miserable. He is learning a strategy: slowly slowly the idea is settling in his heart that he is so special that everybody has to take care of him. If they take care of him, that’s perfectly okay. There is no need even to say thank you; it’s how things should be. And if they don’t take care, then the child creates a tantrum. He cries and shouts and breaks things and forces them to follow his desires.
But your parents are your parents and the whole world is not your parent. When you move in the world and you fall in love with a man, he is not your father, you are not his mother. You have to see that he is a stranger, you are a stranger. It is a really only by the grace of god that you have met. Make each other’s life as happy as possible, but there is no possibility of creating an expectation.
Expectations kill – they kill all joy and all love. Don’t expect anything! How can you expect from a stranger? Just because you have lived with him for a few days, can you expect anything of him? The stranger is a stranger; whether you live with him for a few minutes, a few hours, a few days or a few years, it makes no difference. It is only a question of time. How can time make it different? – a stranger is a stranger.
And if he does something for you, feel grateful; if he does not, that’s perfectly right. Don’t start fighting! Otherwise, sooner or later he will escape, unless he himself is a kind of masochist. If he wants to be tortured by you, then it is perfectly good, he will remain with you; otherwise he will not. A healthy person will escape.
My own observation is this, that so many people go on clinging to each other because they are unhappy. It is some kind of neurosis; it is not out of health. If the world becomes a little healthier, more psychologically sane, people will not cling. People will relate, but there will be no relationship. And to relate is beautiful; to create a relationship is ugly, because with relationships come all kinds of expectations. When you relate, there is no question.
You meet a stranger in the train and you start talking – that is relating. You can even make love to the stranger, but that is relating. You don’t even know his name, you don’t know where he is going,
who he is. In the middle of the night he will get out of the train at some station. You may not meet him again, ever, but those moments were beautiful and that memory will persist because there was no expectation, nothing. It was just out of nowhere that two persons had come close and then went on their own ways, creating no bondage for each other. In fact, even if you live with a man for years together, this should remain the case. Keep alert and let each moment be new.
You have to change – not the pattern; you have to change the foundation. The pattern you have been trying to change many times, and it is not changing because the foundation remains the same. If you think the foundation is right, then it will not change. You have to dig deep and throw the old foundation completely out of your being. And then there will be no pattern, no repetition.
Love is a gift: if it happens, feel grateful; if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. Nothing can be done about it.
[A sannyasin says: I feel a lot of fear about committing myself... I don’t know whether I’m ready to what feels like play with fire. It’s to do with living here with you.]
No, if you don’t feel ready to, don’t! Why create unnecessary problems? There is no need to commit yourself, and if you feel that this is not the place or this is not the time for you to be here, don’t get into it. Remain free!
My feeling is that it will be good for you if you go away from here once, mm? You are not yet ripe enough to be here. Going will help – it will make you ripe. You need a little more wandering around. Unless it becomes absolutely clear to you that there is nowhere else to be and it becomes absolute, then only can you get into my world. Otherwise you can remain here and yet you will remain distant.
More and more this place is going to become only for those who are ready to commit themselves absolutely. So... and nothing is wrong in it, because one has to be true to oneself. If this is the situation in the mind, don’t feel guilty – it is perfectly good. You can go away for a few months, and if you feel better there, be there. Because I am all for your happiness, wherever you are happy, that is the place to be. If one day it becomes absolutely clear to you that this is the only place where you can be happy, then come.
Right now there is no need to become committed, because that will be half-hearted and that problem will continue in the mind. Ideas will come that you could have gone there, you could have been there and you could have done this, and what are you getting into and why? And with these problems you will never be in tune with me.
Let the right moment come for it. It will come soon. So whenever you want to go, you can go for a few months, mm? And a few trips to the West are very good – they bring people closer to me, mm? You go. Good!
[A sannyasin says that she had a vision of monsters and spirits and it was very scary. It’s so scary that she doesn’t know what to do. And when she remembers, light comes. But when she forgets, people keep telling her to surround herself with white light... ]
No need to surround yourself with any light. White light is as good as darkness; all is good. And these monsters are not bad either – they are also divine forms. The devil is a form of the divine. Do you know that the word ‘devil’ comes from the same root as ‘divine’? They both mean the same!
Nothing is wrong, all is good. That should be the most fundamental attitude: all is good. When darkness comes, enjoy darkness; when light comes, dance with the light. When it is day, it is day; when it is night, it is night. In summer it is hot, in winter it is cold. Both are good, all is good. And one should not try to change anything. The effort to change anything means that you are against god. To relax into things as they are is trusting god.
If he sends a monster to [you], that means [you] need a monster. This is trust, this is faith. If he sends darkness, that means [you] need darkness. It must be an essential need for you. Do not create any false light around yourself – that will be just imagination and of no value. When light is needed, he will send light too.
First the seed needs the darkness of the soil. It goes deep into the soil and disappears. In the depths of the soil there will be no sun, no moon, no stars, no light at all, no air. But that’s a must. The seed will sprout there, then slowly slowly it will rise up in search of the light. Then it will rise towards the sun. And that’s always so: every seed starts with darkness – the child in the darkness of the womb... Darkness is very nourishing. So don’t bother about what others say. What do they know?
Just accept whatsoever is happening, and accept with totality. Even if sometimes you feel a dislike, a subtle rejection, then too it has to be accepted. Slowly slowly the rejection will go, dislike will go, because slowly slowly you will understand that it was needed. That’s what Jesus says at the last moment. Just a moment before, he was angry with god and he shouted at god ‘Have you forsaken me? Why is this happening to me? Have you forgotten me?’ There was complaint, and in complaint faith is gone, trust is lost.