Chapter title: None

‌Chapter title: None‌

16 January 1981 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

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Archive code: 8101165 ShortTitle: POND16 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[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up.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.]

The moon represents the cool, the silent phase of light. The sun represents the hot, the turmoil, the conflict. The sun is excitement and the moon is silence. Born of moonlight means coming out of deep silence.

Bliss is a child of silence, of coolness, of unexcitement, of tranquillity. Bliss is not something that one has to seek anywhere. All that is needed to find it, is to become absolutely calm and quiet. When there is no turmoil within you, when the sun phase has ceased to function, the moon comes to light of its own accord.

The moon is always there, even in the day. Just because of the sunlight and the excitement, you cannot see it. Once the sun sets, the moon starts appearing. When the sun is completely gone below the horizon, the moon is there in all its

beauty.

Exactly the same is the case with bliss, it is already there at the very center of our being; we just have to become silent, then out of that silent state of consciousness bliss arises, just like a moon arising. And the beauty of it is tremendous. There is ecstasy but no excitement.

There is great joy but it is not hot -- it is cool. It is not a distraction.

It makes you even more centered, more grounded.

It brings, for the first time, immense contentment, fulfillment. One feels one has arrived.

The state of blissfulness is as free as the eagle. It can rise beyond the clouds. It knows no limitation. The whole sky belongs to it.

Bliss is not only free; in fact, it is freedom itself. It is a bird on the wing all the dimensions are open to it. Love and beauty and sensitivity and creativity -- everything suddenly becomes possible for the blissful person. There is no wall any more that prevents. All walls become bridges.

Secondly, bliss is also wild because it is spontaneous. It is not part of the cultivated, civilised mind; it is part of our intrinsic nature, which is still beyond all cultivation. fortunately, it is good that it cannot be cultivated, otherwise we would have made it phony. It is beyond our reach. We cannot do anything with it.

It remains as it is, it remains true to its nature.

The eagle of the wood represents both; it represents the freedom of a bird -- it is not a bird in the cage but a bird in the wood -- and it also represents the wildness, the naturalness, the spontaneity of the woods.

Bliss is both: open, free -- to the whole existence -- and natural, spontaneous. Misery is our effort. Misery is created by us. It is our invention and we are doing

great work to create it.

Day in, day out, year in, year out -- we are doing so much work to keep ourselves miserable that the moment you understand the fact that misery is your own creation, it simply disappears because you stop creating it. It is just like bicycling: you go on peddling the moment you stop peddling the bicycle has to stop. Maybe it will go a few feet or if it is downhill, maybe a few furlongs, just because of the past momentum, but sooner or later it will stop.

That's actually the case with misery. Misery is a bicycle; you have to peddle it continuously, you cannot stop peddling it otherwise you will fall. Bicycle means two wheels only, so it is against gravitation. You have to go on peddling for gravitation to remain ineffective. By the time gravitation can make it fall you have moved. It is just escaping from gravitation; that's why you need peddling. If you stop in one place, just a little time is needed for gravitation to work and you will fall.

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Bliss is not unnatural. It needs no peddling. It simply is there. Once you stop creating misery you find it.

It is wild. It is of the woods, of the mountains. It is nature!

So all that one has to do is to understand 'What am I doing with myself?' The very understanding brings a transformation. You stop creating misery and instantly bliss starts showering on you. And then one laughs at how long one has been miserable, and for no reason at all. Nobody else was responsible for it. It is just our ignorance of what we are doing that creates hell. Ignorance is hell, unawareness is hell. Awareness is paradise.

Religions in the past have been very serious. That seriousness is a disease. It is like a cancer of the soul; hence in religious people's lives all songs disappeared, all joy disappeared, all fun disappeared. They became dull and dead. They

became a heavy weight on humanity. They crushed humanity under their weight. They thought they were becoming holy; they were simply becoming phony. They thought they were becoming simple, humble; they were simply becoming very subtle egoists. Holier-than-thou was their whole philosophy. They condemned the whole of humanity. They created sadness for themselves and greed for others.

It has been an ugly past.

Getting initiated into my vision of sannyas, into my vision of religion, is a change of gestalt, a total change of perspective. Instead of seriousness I teach laughter, humour, cheerfulness, Instead of sadness I teach songs, dances, love.

Religion needs to become more earthly. It has to be a tree rooted in the earth and rising high into heaven. The flowers will come into the sky but the roots will o deep into the earth. And there has to be a balance between the two; the higher the tree goes the deeper the roots have to go.

The really religious person is very earthly; he has to be, otherwise he won't have any roots. Hence I teach rootedness in the earth. I teach the earth, because I know that only if our roots grow into the earth will we be able to rise beyond the clouds. The flowers will come but they will come only by getting deeper and deeper roots.

So to me the mundane and the sacred are not different they are two sides of the same coin. Hence singing and dancing and love and creativity and cheerfulness and laughter are not against the sacred. They are part, an intrinsic part of it, and not a small part -- exactly the half of it, and the first half. And if the first half is there the second half follows automatically -- They cannot be separated -- but in the past the second half became more important; not only more important, it became empty of the first half. That's how religion died. That's how god died on the earth; god became a tree without roots.

God can live again but the only way for god to live again is to have roots into the earth -- and that's what I mean by cheerfulness, song, celebration.

Bliss is a light -- light of the inner world. Without bliss the inner world remains dark. As you start becoming blissful the night starts disappearing, the dawn has arrived. The only way to become enlightened is to be blissful, totally blissful. No prayer is needed, no religious ritual is needed. One has just to be blissful in one's

ordinary life and the beyond suddenly opens one day. There is no need to be aggressive about it.

One has just to be receptive.

And one has to learn only one thing: whatsoever you are doing, do it blissfully. Make it a point so that bliss remains an undercurrent in all your activities. If that much is remembered then your life will be transformed. No power can prevent it, no hindrance then is big enough to prevent your transformation.

Just walking, remember to be blissful. Sitting, eating, cooking, taking a bath, just remain blissful -- a subtle cheerfulness inside, a giggling in the heart. And sometimes you can giggle loudly too (laughter)...

there is no problem! At the most people will think you a little crazy. But there is no problem my people are cuckoos! (laughter)

And then if it just becomes a twenty-four-hour undercurrent... and it does become that; if you can remember while you are awake, one day you will find that even in your sleep it continues. In the morning you can find it still there and you can remember that it has been there the whole night. When the circle is complete, that very moment great night is born within oneself. And that light becomes the door to the divine, to the eternal.

The ordinary understanding about bliss is that it is great excitement. That is totally wrong. Pleasure has excitement in it, bliss has no excitement at all. It is utterly peaceful. That's the difference between pleasure 1/08/07

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and bliss. Pleasure is an excitement because it is momentary bliss cannot be an excitement because it is eternal. How can you remain excited forever?

Even the momentary pleasure tires, exhausts. It tastes sweet, one wants it, but at the same time one feels

-- and the more alert you are, the sooner you feel -- that it is exhausting, tiring, it is a kind of exertion.

Because excitement means tension. Your heart is beating faster, your blood is circulating faster, your mind is rushing faster, everything is speedy -- how long can you be in that speed? Soon you will feel utterly tired, deadly tired.

That's why all so-called love affairs fail; after the honeymoon is over both are so tired of each other that really everything is over with the honeymoon. But now they cannot say it. They have promised so many things to each other -- it looks so inhuman and insulting and humiliating to swallow again whatsoever you have thrown out. so one has to go on pretending, but now it is tiring.

You can see husbands and wives moving together both look utterly tired, as if they are just coming out of hell. If you see a man with a woman being joyful and cheerful, one thing is certain that the woman is not his wife! (laughter) It is really impossible, even for actors it is impossible to be cheerful with their own lives or husbands. And if you are so cheerful with your own wife, even your wife will become suspicious 'Why?

What is the matter with you? There must be some other woman -- your cheerfulness is enough proof!'

You have to be sad, serious, sombre. The deader you are, the more your marriage goes smoothly. The more alive you are, the more it is on the rocks. Even these momentary pleasures which are excitement are tiring. Hence bliss cannot be an excitement; it is a state of total peacefulness. It has all that one longs for, except excitement.

It is cool and silent, and a tremendous harmony prevails inside, no tension at all. In fact it is so peaceful that slowly slowly one tends to forget it. Only when a person becomes for the first time enlightened does he know, because now he can see the difference, that he has come from darkness into light. The change is so vast, so immense, so tremendous, the contrast is so big -- he knows it. But as he settles into his new dimension, by and by he starts forgetting all about enlightenment, all about bliss, because even to know it is a tension.

It becomes so natural, like breathing. You remember breathing only when something is wrong, otherwise you don't remember it. And with bliss there is never anything wrong. It is getting in tune with the ultimate; never does anything

go wrong. Hence it is so silent that one cannot even remember it.

One of the greatest masters of the world was Bodhidharma, who founded the school of zen. He went to China, travelled from India to China. The emperor of China, Wu, came to the boundary of his country to receive this great master. He had been waiting for him for years, because it took years 'Bodhidharma is coming, Bodhidharma is coming,' and he had to cross the whole Himalayan range.

It took years and that old emperor was waiting and waiting. And when Bodhidharma came he was really in a great rejoicing. The whole country rejoiced. He had come with his whole court; there was much festivity and much celebration.

But Bodhidharma shocked him very much. Wu asked him 'I have done so much for religion, I have made so many temples, so many monasteries. I feed thousands of sannyasins. What will be my merit in the other world?' Bodhidharma said 'Nothing, no merit at all. In fact you will fall into the seventh hell.'

It was such a shock. The Emperor said 'But everybody up to now has been saying that all that I am doing is of such great virtue that I will reach to the seventh heaven and you are saying to me 'You will fall into the seventh hell?" Is there not anything like virtue?'

Bodhidharma said 'There is no virtue, no sin.' The emperor became a little angry, but he was a polite man, cultured, polished, he didn't show his anger, but it was there. He asked Bodhidharma 'Can I ask you, sir, one thing -- who are you?' Bodhidharma said 'I don't know.'

Now this answer, 'I don't know,' is one of the greatest answers even given to the question 'Who are you?'

And only a man like Bodhidharma can say 'I don't know.' It is not ignorance. It is the ultimate wisdom. But he has known himself for so many years that he has forgotten who he is. All that has become so natural. He does not remember. He said 'I am telling you the truth I have no idea. It has been so long, so much water has gone down the Ganges since I became aware of who I am. Now everything has settled. There is only nothingness, silence, peace, and I don't know anything about myself or about you or about anything.'

Yes, ultimate innocence will look like ignorance. When bliss is absolute you tend to forget all about it.

If somebody asks me 'Are you blissful?' I can only say 'I don't know. It has been so long that I have forgotten what misery actually means. The contrast is missing, the background is no more there. It is as if you have written on a blackboard with white chalk and the blackboard has disappeared; now how can you 1/08/07

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read? Only those words written in white chalk are somewhere there; but the blackboard has disappeared, there is no contrast.'

That's the ultimate state when you don't even know that you are blissful. What to say about misery? -- in a way even bliss is no more there. But that's what we are searching and seeking and longing for. That's our deepest longing of the heart to come to such a state where no tension exists, no anxiety, no anguish, where nothing exists, or only nothing exists.

The state of blissfulness is also the state of meditativeness; they are synonymous. To be blissful is to be meditative, and vice versa. One can start from either end. either one can be meditative -- then bliss comes in

-- or one can be blissful and meditation comes in. To start from meditation is a little arduous, but to start from blissfulness is very simple. And when the simple is available, why go through the arduous?

So let bliss be the beginning. Just relax and be cheerful, for no reason at all. Don't ask why. If you ask why, you will always remain miserable, because misery has a why to it and bliss has no why to it. If you ask me why you are miserable, it can be answered; but if you ask why you are happy, blissful, it cannot be answered, because blissfulness is a natural phenomenon. It simply is the case, just like health.

If you go to the physician and ask 'Why am I healthy?' he will shrug his

shoulders. But if you ask 'Why am I unhealthy?' he can find out the cause. Healthy has no cause. disease has cause. Life has no cause.

Death has cause.

Remember that. The negative always has a cause to it, but the really existential has no cause to it; it simply is there. So start being blissful without asking. Your mind will ask 'Why are you feeling so cheerful?'

Tell the mind 'Shut up! (laughter) I am just cheerful and why should I bother about these whys?'

One can be cheerful only if one can drop searching for the reasons, for the motives. Be cheerful for cheerfulness' sake, for no other reason, as if it is an end unto itself. Everything else is a means to something else, but blissfulness is not a means; it is an end. So use every opportunity as an excuse to be blissful.

In the beginning you need a few excuses. By and by you learn the art, then no excuse is needed. You can just sit in your room and enjoy! (laughter) And there is nothing to enjoy! People always think that enjoying means something has to be there to be enjoyed -- the television, the radio, a man, a woman, at least a bottle of beer -- something has to be there. When somebody is just sitting and enjoying they will think 'This is strange.' (laughter) And if somebody invites you, 'Come to my home and we will enjoy,' (laughter) and both sit and enjoy -- that's really my idea of enjoyment! invite people, friends to enjoy... They will come only once! (much laughter) Once they come and they see what enjoyment is, once they have understood, they will not come again. But then you can enjoy alone! (more laughter) There is no need for anybody. Or you can always invite new people; but enjoy for no reason at all. Try it, give it a try!

Pleasure is like a bud -- closed. Happiness is like a flower -- open. And bliss is like fragrance --

freedom.

There is not much difference between a bud and a flower. Yes, there is a difference -- the bud is closed and the flower is open -- but no qualitative difference, just a quantitative difference, a different arrangement of the petals, that's all. But with the fragrance there is a quantum leap. It is totally different from the flower.

The flower is visible, the Fragrance is not visible. You can hold the flower in your hand, you cannot catch hold of the fragrance. That's exactly the case with bliss you cannot possess it. You can experience it, you can dance with it, sing with it, but you cannot possess it.

Pleasure can be possessed, purchased. That's why ugly institutions like prostitution exist; pleasure can be purchased, it is very physical, gross.

Happiness is just in between. It is more difficult to purchase happiness but one can manage. If one is intelligent enough one can manage even happiness -- through art, through music, through poetry. But bliss is absolutely beyond our reach. It is bigger than us. Our reason, our intelligence, our powers all fall short.

We can only be on the receiving end. We are just a host -- if it comes, like a breeze it comes, then we can accept it as a guest, but we cannot force it to come, either directly or indirectly. But one thing has to be remembered: the moment you are really ready to be a host, the guest comes, the fragrance comes, the bliss comes.

It comes and then never goes. It comes forever! But it is not a property. It is not material. It is absolutely immaterial, invisible, like a fragrance.

First one has to become open like a flower and then one has to wait. Whenever the moment is ripe, the fragrance, the hidden splendour, will be released. That's what we are here for; the very meaning of life is to 1/08/07

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release the imprisoned splendour.

We are living a life divided, separated, from the whole. We have created a small wall around ourselves out of fear, to protect, but that very wall has become our imprisonment. The name of the wall is the ego and unless we demolish the wall, destroy the ego, we will remain separate from the whole -- and that is the basic cause of misery. Because to remain separate from the whole means to remain undernourished. It means to remain continuously afraid of death, of all kinds of

accidents. Once you are one with the whole all fear disappears because then there is no death. The whole is eternal.

And the part cannot have any meaning. Meaning always means in reference to the whole. For example, you can take a part from a machine. That part in itself is meaningless. Put it back into the machine and it has tremendous meaning. Its meaning is only in a certain context, in a certain unity, in a certain organic harmony. The egoistical person feels life as meaningless and he himself is the cause of it. Withdraw the ego and see; from all directions meaning rushes into your being. For the first time you feel life and its significance. And the significance is enormous, infinite, and then only one can dance, rejoice. Then only one knows that we are not orphans; we belong to the universe and the universe belongs to us.

That feeling is 'yoga' -- that feeling of belonging, that feeling that we are an intrinsic part of the whole, that we are needed by the whole, that we are not useless and accidental.

Once that feeling overwhelms you your whole life is transformed. It becomes a rejoicing.

The Old Pond ... Plop

Chapter #17

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